Why Common Dog Training Advice Doesn’t Work (And What to Do Instead)

Have you ever heard the following advice from trainers on social media, or even trainers that you’ve personally hired, and still haven’t made any progress?

“Ignore your dog’s behavior.”

“Redirect their attention with something more valuable.”

Or maybe your dog has an outburst and you’ve fallen into the trap of petting them to try and calm them down.

This all sounds really nice - except these kinds of responses are actually working against you. Instead of making your dog’s behaviors go away, you’re inadvertently making them stronger.

How?

Let’s start with ignoring the behavior. The problem with that is, lots of behaviors are inherently fun for dogs, which means they get plenty of rewards from doing them without any input from you. Has turning your back on a jumping dog made him stop, or has he just then jumped on you from behind? Jumping is fun for dogs no matter which side of you they see. Same with behaviors like barking, and eating poop, and counter surfing. As you may have noticed from personal experience, ignoring these behaviors does not magically make them go away.

Next - redirecting their attention. Think about this for a second: your dog growls at you because you come too close to their toy, so you throw a treat in the other direction and retrieve the toy. What’s your dog going to do next time you try to take a toy from him? He’ll probably growl again, because growling over toys = something even better arriving afterwards!

And finally - petting a dog to calm them down. I see people doing this all the time. Their dog has an outburst and is barking nonstop at something, and they pet them and tell them “it’s OK.” This makes sense to us from a human perspective; our dogs are worked up about something, and we’re trying to calm them down. But when it comes to dogs, “you get what you pet.” Meaning, if you pet (reward) your dog when she’s barking at something, she’ll think - awesome! I’m on the right track. I’ll make sure to do this again next time.

So if that advice is all BS, how DO you stop behaviors like jumping, barking, counter surfing, and resource guarding? With corrections. Yep, add something momentarily uncomfortable to your dog’s life to make them think twice about wanting to do those things again. Corrections should be delivered neutrally, swiftly, and should be meaningful enough to make your dog stop.

Unfortunately, there’s a huge movement right now (positive reinforcement-only training) that tells you “corrections” and “consequences” are dirty words. This movement is so pervasive that a majority of dog owners never learn how to stop their dog’s most basic unwanted behaviors. Instead they continue to struggle for YEARS, probably the dog’s whole life, and just get used to the constant hum of stress that dealing with the behaviors day in and day out adds into their lives (hi, this was me and my family for all fifteen years of my first dog’s life!). But if you’re reading this, you don’t have to struggle. If what you’ve been trying hasn’t been working, seek out information online about how to deliver effective corrections, or reach out to a local balanced trainer. Or, if you’re in the San Diego area, reach out to us - we’d love to help you out!