Questions & answers about dog behavior

Q:

My two and a half year old black Lab, Cubbie, is generally well-behaved and listens well to me. But he has a habit of lick-lick-licking me when greeting me -- I turn away and ignore him and he stops, but the next time he greets me, he licks again.How do I break him of this behavior?

A:

Whenever a dog is doing anything ask yourself, "What is the reward for this behavior? What does the dog get out of this and why does she always do it?"

Once you find the reinforcement you can take it away forcing the dog to give up and try something else.

Licking is a little obsessive compulsive and it's rewarding on several levels. It starts out as an appeasement behavior for a lower ranking dog. I think it's ironic to point out that today's dog owners are under such pressure to be the "alpha" "leader of the pack"...blah, blah, blah and when the dog shows us a deferent behavior that indicates that she accepts us as her leader, we want to stop that behavior.

Back to the ever-so-confused human....if the dog approaches us and we allow the dog to choose their own behavior, she'll pick licking if she's a licker. The reward, besides the endorphins that are released with any obsessive compulsive behavior, is that we are now engaging with the dog as we whine and push the dog's nose away and even better as we talk to the dog.

So the consequence of licking is that the dog satisfies lots of needs. That's the reward. But what if the consequence of licking was that it made us get up and walk away? What if when the dog approached we asked the dog for a different behavior? Teach your dog to lay down, roll over, sit up, fetch a ball, crawl, play dead and then pick a few tricks for the dog to do instead of licking. Puppy push ups are a sit, down, sit sequence that keeps the dog busy. Try them. Your dog may decide it's fine or they may choose to walk away after one set of push ups and chase dust bunnies instead.

 

Q:

My dog is always running to the sliding glass door and barking. I've tried yelling, "NO BARK". She stops, then she does it again the next time she sees something.

A:

Changing this behavior requires:

Management and Appropriate Alternative Behavior

The management is to keep the dog from repeating the same unwanted behavior while the dog is learning an appropriate alternative behavior. In the case of your sliding patio door, cover it temporarily so she can't just sit there looking for something to occupy her time because she almost always will find something to bark at.

In time I would expose portions of the window as she gets better at giving you her attention. This will allow her to have smaller views that may be easier for you to interrupt her from. Eventually, you should be able to remove the window coverings completely because she will have a reliable response to your Interruption cue ("Belle, Come!...Sit, down, etc...).

Along with the ability to Redirect her attention to you, you must also walk over to the window when she's barking, aknowledge that she's done her job, but that there's nothing out there that bothers you and her barking is no longer necessary. ("Okay, I see there's bird out there. No problem. I'll handle it, let's go.") Or something to that effect. Your confident leadership is what you're trying to convey. It works.

The goal is to be able to say to her from only a few feet away, "Belle, it's okay. That's enough. Come. Good Girl"

Because she's so obviously in need of productive things to do, the other part of Appropriate Alternative Behavior is to give her things to keep her busy. That's really the cause of your problem. If she was tired from lots of exercise and busy with other activities, she'd have less time to sit in front of the window "hunting" for things to bark at!

 

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