How to Ruin a Good Dog in One Step

Posted on May 08 in Small Dog Behavior, The Small Dog-Human Bond, Training A Small Dogby Jeff K.Print

Step 1. When the dog comes to you on command, whack him while saying “If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, don’t _____________________ (fill in the blank with your choice of undesirable dog behavior.)
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Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been angered by something your dog has done? If you are having trouble answering this question, let me give you some memory joggers. (These are all hypothetical)

1. Your dog peed on the
a. Oriental rug in your living room.
b. hardwood floor in your foyer.
c. down comforter on your bed.
d. carpet in your bedroom.
e. the recliner next to the fireplace.
f. a pair of expensive athletic shoes you left in the hallway.

2. Your dog pooped on any of the above items.

3. Your dog runs from you when you try to pick him up.

4. Your dog chews up any of the items listed in 1.

5. Your dog barks incessantly at
a. a squirrel he sees outside
b. a neighbor’s dog that lives over the fence.
c. your neighbor.

6. Your dog dashes out of an open door
a. at home.
b. at a friend’s house.
c. on your car.

We all get irritated by the things our dogs do that do not make sense to us. Sometimes our dogs do things that are so seemingly stupid/defiant/disrespectful, it gets us downright angry. We all have reached our breaking point at one time or another.

“Ooh, I’m going to open a can of whoop-ass on that dog! Rex! Come here! Now!”

Rex wanders over, thinking “What’s up boss? This can’t be good.”

WHACK! “If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, don’t jump up on Aunt Tillie!”

That’s it. Game over. Rex will never willingly or happily come to you again. He may still creep over to you, tail tucked, when you call him, because he really does want to please you, but he is forever going to be scared that his response will be punished. Or, he may simply think “To heck with this. I’m outta here.”

Am I telling you anything you did not already know? Probably not. Human nature still gets the best of us. Here is the thought process that leads to the problem I just described.

1. The dog does something to make you angry.
2. You believe the dog should know better, so now you are going to bring the dog back in line.
3. First, you are going to re-establish his respect for you by making him follow a command: “Rex, come!”
4. Next, you are going to make him regret his misbehavior. WHACK!
5. Finally, so there is no misunderstanding, you are going to explain it to him: “Rex, I told you to never blah, blah, blah.”

Now, let’s look at it from the dog’s point of view.

1. “Gotta pee. Hey, there’s a convenient place to relieve myself.”
2. “Ahh. That’s better.”
3. “Hey, is that a piece of cookie lying on floor in the corner. I’d better check that out.”
4. “My master just called me. I’d better see what he wants.”
5. “Ouch! What’d you hit me for? Why are you yelling at me? I came when you asked.”
6. “This guy’s crazy. I’m getting away from this loon before he hits me again.”

Of course your dog does not carry on a verbal conversation with himself. The words are used simply to illustrate why your dog associates a spanking with coming when called, not with the dirty deed he committed earlier.

I’m sure you have heard of clicker training. The reason dog trainers use clickers during training is to give a dog an immediate signal—the click of the clicker. That signal tells the dog he did something correct and a treat will be handed over in the next few seconds. The key to the clicker sound is it occurs within one second of a correct response from the dog or the dog will not make the association between response and reward. What does that tell you about a dog’s attention span?

When you call a dog over and then punish it for something wrong which it did even a few seconds earlier, the wrongdoing and punishment are disconnected. The punishment is more closely associated with coming on command. If it is your habit to call your dog over for punishment, all you are doing is ruining a desirable behavior.

There’s more. Punishment hardly ever works. I will cover the reasons why next time.

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