What to Do When Your Dog Misbehaves

Misbehaving

So your dog urinated on the carpet. Or your dog excessively barks at strangers. Or maybe your dog constantly chases its own tail. How do you get a dog to change its behavior without being able to tell it exactly what you want changed? Every time you try to correct the behavior, it just seems to agitate that dog even more. W hat can you do to get the behavior to stop?

If you're asking these questions, there's a good chance that you're focusing on the wrong things. Instead of worrying about how your dog can stop displaying certain behaviors, be more concerned with how those behaviors can be replaced.

What does this mean?

Well, for example, if you're successful in getting your dog to chase its tail, but don't provide an alternate activity for the dog to pursue, the anxiety that caused the tail-chasing will eventually find a new way to express itself. This means that the dog might take on a new poor habit like chewing on clothes or shoes in order to relieve its boredom.

Defining an alternate activity is far more effective. A dog might not understand "stop peeing on that carpet!" but it does eventually take a hint when, after each successful trip to the bathroom outdoors, it gets rewarded with a treat. That's right: when you want to replace a new behavior, you have to present an incentive for this.

The trick here is that you can't force the dog into the new behavior. You can't "bribe" a dog into performing well. Look at it from a different, far more Pavlovian perspective: a dog needs to know that if it exhibits a behavior A, it will get reward B. That's how simple it is. You can't present the reward B without the behavior A or this pattern will get interrupted.

This means you should wait until the dog exhibits the kind of behavior you want. If your dog is calm and relaxed instead of chasing its own tail, then you can give him or her a treat. It's that simple. If the dog chases its tail, you'll want to ignore it and not give it any treatment or attention until it acts the way you'd prefer. Eventually, the dog will get the hint: behavior A produces reward B.

Also, to work out many of the anxieties that cause problems for dogs in the first place, make sure to exercise your pups vigorously. A brief walk is nice, but a more substantial walk or even jog can help your dog wear itself out, breeding both a healthier mind and body.

Photo Credits: fazen

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