Training the “NOT”
Teaching dogs to not engage in certain behaviors
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We talk a lot about how to train dogs to do things; how to sit, how to roll-over, how to go in a crate, or how to walk on leash. But eventually, there will come a time when we want our dog to NOT do something, especially nuisance behaviors like alarm barking or jumping on guests. This can pose challenges for new owners and seasoned dog handlers alike. So let’s talk through how to tackle some of these training struggles.
The Management Short Cut
First and foremost, we should recognize that there’s a life hack here; it’s called management. Let’s be honest, training is time intensive and laborious. For certain behaviors, we can cut this process entirely by managing the dog’s environment, ensuring they don’t have an opportunity to practice their nuisance behavior. Is your dog a serial shoe stealer when left alone? Pop that dog in a crate, close the closet door, or pick all your shoes up from the floor. If your dog doesn’t have access to the shoes, they can’t steal them. In this way, management can be a super simple fix that just avoids the problem entirely, saving you time, effort, and stress.
But what if management isn’t an option? What if you live with kids who, no matter how many times you tell them to pick up their shoes, always forget? The problem with management is that you have to be consistent with it. If you forget one time, you’ve allowed the dog to practice their nuisance behavior, and self-reward for doing it (since they obviously find the behavior rewarding, otherwise they wouldn’t do it in the first place). Now you start to create a bigger and bigger hole to dig yourself out of (checkout “Dogs are Like Piggy Banks” for more info here).
Or, what if your nuisance behavior is very tricky to manage, like alarm barking? In this case, we’d have to identify every possible trigger that may startle the dog and cause them to bark, then find some way to insulate the dog from those triggers. A noise machine might be a big help here, drowning out startling noises, but you’ll never get rid of every noise entirely.
Teach a Non-Compatible Behavior
In these cases, training becomes our main option, and the best route to go is to teach an entirely non-compatible behavior. If your dog is alarm barking, teach them to go grab a toy and engage in a game of tug with you instead. It’s hard for the dog to use their mouth to bark, when their mouth is involved in playing a more rewarding game with you.
Now I can see your wheels turning, and you’re already thinking about the”what if’s” and the “my dog can’t do that’s”. And I get it; but that’s why we call it training. You’re dog is at level 0 and you’re thinking about the end behavior which happens at level 10, or level 20, or level 100. We need to break these behaviors down into bite-sized pieces, something small enough that your dog will be successful, then slowly build those pieces back up.
Shaping a Non-Compatible Behavior
Let’s stick with the barking example for a moment. If I want to teach my dog to get a toy and tug with me, I’m actually teaching several component behaviors:
Get a toy
Retrieve to me
Tug with me
We can break each of these into small manageable chunks.
For behavior #1 (get a toy), I’d first teach my dog to interact with a toy, then gradually teach them to touch the toy with their nose, then their mouth, then slowly increase distance to the toy. This process is called shaping (breaking down into bite-sized chunks), and we’d apply it to each of the three behaviors. Once we have those in place, we can start combining them together into a behavior chain, so instead of:
1) get a toy OR 2) retrieve to me OR 3) tug with me
we get:
A) get a toy AND retrieve to me AND tug with me.
Once we have our behavior chain we can start pairing it with a cue like “Go Get your Toy”, and then when we have the cue in place, we’re ready to take this LIVE and use it when the dog starts alarm barking. The super cool thing is that the dog may start to anticipate your cue when they hear something like a door slam, and this may become an automatic behavior chain!
As you can see from the example above, it can take a lot of effort to train your behavior chain; each dog will master different parts of the chain faster or slower than others. And once your chain is complete, it will take some time to build enough reinforcement history for that behavior over the nuisance behavior (there’s that piggy bank issue again). If you get stuck, don’t give up! This is where a great trainer can be your biggest asset. I’ve over-simplified some aspects that in play here like arousal levels, stimulus control, behavioral history, etc. Each of these complicates your specific case, and it may take the help of a trainer to work through your sticking points.
And don’t forget, you get what you reinforce. So if a behavior bothers you (or will one day bother you), don’t reward it! Don’t say “sick ‘em FiFi” and giggle hilariously while videoing your pup when the mailman comes to the door. I guarantee this will get you alarm barking every time AN. Y. ONE. comes to the door from that day forward.