It is likely that in order to change your dog’s behavior, you may need to change your behavior at the same time. Behavior change for anyone will take time and best be accomplished with “baby steps”, small approximations of the behavior your want from yourself and from your dog.

Be kind and compassionate with yourself and your dog. Mistakes will be made. That’s just life.

The importance of consistency in dog training is often stressed no matter the method of training. Yes, training will go faster if the humans are more consistent, but let’s be realistic. We’re only human. We will become more consistent as we practice our new behaviors and see positive results. It’s a journey for both you and your dog.

How about an example?

If your typical response to your dog pulling on the leash during the walk is to walk a few more steps, then stop, then yell at your dog, then pull on the leash, this is your habit. It probably works some of the time or you wouldn’t still be doing it. If you want to try a new positive reinforcement approach, you will need to respond differently. Now when your dog pulls, you will stop, make a sound that your dog knows means a treat is coming (see recipe section), and turn to walk in the opposite direction. This will take some practice for you both! The dog will start to see that if he wants to keep moving in a particular direction, he shouldn’t pull, and as the pulling decreases (even slightly) you will be encouraged by the changes you have made. Progress!

Most dog training involves rewarding the “good” behaviors and “correcting” the “bad” behaviors. This means that both you and the dog need to worry about what is “good” and what is “bad” and react appropriately. This is actually complicated for both of you. Consider this example:

You’re walking your dog on a leash and meet a friend that both of you really like. You don’t want your dog to jump on your friend. So you need to be prepared to yank on the dog’s collar if he jumps and praise him for not jumping. Your dog want to greet your friend but would like to do it without getting yanked on the collar. So many things for everyone to think about. So many confusing signals could be sent. For example, your dog sees your friend and starts running toward them. You get scared that your dog will jump, so you yank them back. What the heck did they just get corrected for? They didn’t even jump on anyone yet. They just got excited and started running toward your friend.

So positive training simplifies the whole thing because you only have to worry about rewarding the behaviors you like. Ignore the ones you don’t like to the best of your ability. How does this work in the example above? You have treats with you on your walk so you can reward behaviors you like. You dog only has to worry about figuring out how to get snacks out of you. You and your dog see your friend. You’re both pretty excited. You give your dog a snack for noticing your friend. You keep providing snacks as your friend approaches. You ask your friend to stop at a distance just out of reach of your dog. You point to your friend and tell your dog to go see them. Your pup runs over toward your friend, you give them the signal that they did a great job and they run back to you for a snack. Is it possible that your dog is going to try to jump on your friend? Yep! No one is perfect. Ignore it. No snack earned.

This works. My dog is short and a jumper. I can now have a conversation with a neighbor and she sits between us periodically getting snacks. When we visit my dad, I drop her leash and tell her to go see “Dad”. She runs at him full speed (looks like she will take him down), gets about halfway, puts on the brakes and runs back to me for a snack.

1. Rewarding behavior that you like will not make the behavior that you do not like any worse!
2. Before your dog does something that really annoys you, they are doing exactly the right thing!

If you praise and even give a snack to your puppy (to be read as dog of any age) for peeing outside, I guarantee this is will not increase the number of accidents inside the house. You are rewarding the behavior that you want so this specific behavior (peeing outside) will increase in frequency!

Before your muddy dog jumps all over you, they are performing a very desirable behavior. They are running right toward you! Who doesn’t want to to encourage that behavior?? So what do you do in this moment as this muddy mongrel is running straight for you? You praise them like crazy for coming, toss a treat if you have one, and get down to their level if you can physically do it.