Accidental Negative Conditioning of Your Dog

Today I am writing about Classical Conditioning and how sometimes we accidentally ‘condition’ or train our dog to do something that we don’t want it to do.  For instance, if your dog is barking and over reacting to another dog or person while on a walk, you might give the sit command, kneel next to your dog and pet it in the attempt to keep it calm. In that moment you are putting your dog in a ‘stalking’’ position, causing it to stalk the other dog or person.  Without wanting to, you have conditioned the dog to stalk when another dog or a person approaches.  Probably just the opposite of what you were hoping to do.

I often hear comments about dogs who stop to pee/mark every bush and sniff everything.  I ask the person what they do next and they almost always tell me they stop and wait for the dog to move again.  Who is conditioning who in that moment?  I think the dog has conditioned the walker.  

In my blog, 10,000 Productive Steps With Your Dog, I describe the need for two leashes that remedy this walking challenge.  In that blog I recommend separating the walk into work and leisure. During the leisure part your dog has a flexi leash on and has the space (15-24”) to pee/mark and sniff as you continue to walk.  Whatever you do, Do Not Stop Walking! At any given moment your dog is learning and you are teaching. Always keep in mind what you want to teach. The exception to this would be if your dog has to poop, please stop to clean up after your dog.

Reading the blog will help you understand the two parts to every walk and together, exercise the dog’s brain and body.  By engaging the dog’s mind during work time you are turning off the compulsive sniffing and peeing behavior. You are also training command heel with operant conditioning (using rewards). This helps the walk move right along and turns out to be a win win for both of you.  The other good bit of news is that a 1 mile walk that includes both walking modes really tires your dog out, so when you get home they are even more relaxed. All it takes is a bit of consistent training and conditioning.

So often when I share with clients what they are doing from a dog’s perspective it makes sense instantly and you can almost see light bulbs going off in their head.  Together we solve the mysteries of successfully communicating with their dog so they both enjoy things like going for walks together.  I hope this has been helpful in shining some light on what you may accidentally be training your dog to do with conditioning.

Cheers,
Julie