Replacing Unwanted Behaviors

Happy Training Tip Tuesday! We thought we would combine our training tips with an update on miss MJ in action. When training a dog like MJ, who previously learned some undesirable behaviors, it is important to replace her behaviors with positive new ones! This is a multi-step process that takes a lot of time, a lot of patience and a lot of treats!

Replacement behaviors require consistency. A tip to help your pup know exactly what to do is to use hand signals. Dogs are great at reading body language! Hand signals that request a desired behavior are a great way to build communication, understanding and trust with your dog. Our trainers use three primary hand signals for MJ to better understand "sit," "down" and "wait."

Sit. A common hand signal for sit is a palm facing towards the ceiling, parallel with the ground. As you can see, our trainer is also holding a treat. MJ knows how to sit for treats and now by incorporating the hand signal, MJ will associate the two. Eventually, you want your dog to respond solely to your hand signals or verbal commands without using treats! 

Down. A common signal for down is a palm facing the floor, parallel with the ground.  Just like sit, MJ has mastered "down" very well! In this instance, she might be saying something like, "O.K. I will go down, as long as I can stick my tongue out while doing it!" She is a silly girl, which is one of the many things we love about her!

Wait. This is a useful command that can keep your dog from bolting through the door, running into the street or picking up that piece of dinner you just dropped from the table. A common hand signal for wait is much like a crossing guard's "stop."

MJ’s initial response when she is excited is to jump and mouth either her leash or the person closest to her. Our goal is to replace this less than desirable response with a polite sit. We do this through tons of repetition of rewarding sit and ignoring jumping.

Often this process gets harder before it gets better because MJ has gotten what she wants with this behavior for a long time so she is really committed to it! When this happens, our trainers have stuck to their responses to this behavior as well; they will accept nothing but a sit! 

The more MJ is rewarded for sitting and isn’t rewarded for jumping the more she will sit. When she is offering sit in an exciting situation you have successfully created a replacement behavior!

Thank you for continuing to follow MJ's journey here at Morris Animal Inn. She is working hard every day to be the best dog she can be! We can't wait to see what beautiful things MJ's second chance at life has in store for her! Thank you again to FOWA for giving us this wonderful opportunity. Stay tuned for more updates!