An Introduction to the Roots of Canine Behavioral Problems

Behavioral problems in dogs have four main root causes, while some dogs' behavioral problem may be rooted in one cause, it is often that the behavioral problems we see with our dogs may be due to a combination of different causes. Identifying the cause is crucial in understanding exactly how to treat the problem. One cannot just look at the behavioral problem outside a context of the dog's history, feeding, how it has been corrected, leash walking and many other things. First of all we cannot expect a dog to be well adjusted if we ourselves are not meeting our dog's basic needs. Paul Owen in the "Dog Whisperer" identifies the nine basic needs and they are:
1) A healthy diet
2) Medical care
3) Exercise
4) Play
5) Stimulation
6) Socialization (with other dogs, animals and humans)
7) A job to do
8) Rest
9) Affection

Any lack of these basic needs will result in a set of behaviors. I won't refer to them as behavioral problems because they are not truly problems with the dog's behavior as much as it the dog attempting to fulfill these basic needs because it is unable to depend on us to fulfill them. Usually behaviors related to an absence of these basic needs tend to disappear once we fulfill them. For example, I have visited many clients who have puppies, their main complaint is usually the excessive play biting. Immediately I recommend that they give their puppy play time with other and dogs and exercising the puppy through walking or light jogging depending on the puppy's energy levels. Immediately following exercise and socialization all my clients reported a significant reduction or even a complete end to play biting.

True behavioral problems do not disappear when we fulfill a dog's basic needs, they are the result of long systematic, usually unconscious, interactions with the dog, and the remediation is also is inevitably a long systematic process albeit a conscious one. Based solely on how we interact with our dog results in what I consider the four root causes of behavioral problems. The first, damage to the dog-human bond, which has been sufficiently described in the previous post. The second is miscommunication, the third is species misunderstanding and the fourth is accidental reinforcement.

Miscommunication as a cause is usually easily treated. Once we are able to communicate to the dog exactly what it is we are trying to say, we immediately start seeing changes in that behavior. Miscommunication happens when what we are saying in human is the exact opposite of what we are saying in dog language. For example, we might be calling the dog and asking it to come. We look at the dog and instead of coming towards us, our dog will sit down or even lie down. So naturally we will go up to the dog closer and call it again and ask it to come. The dog still refuses to move. Well, for starters dogs respond much more effectively to visual signals than audio signals. So we can call the dog to come as often as we want, but if our body language is telling the dog to stay in its position it is more likely that the dog will stay rather than come. For dogs a face-to-face interaction usually causes most dogs to sit and not approach us no matter how many times we tell it come or how loudly we tell it to come. Understanding the visual cues that dogs respond to is usually essential when interacting with our dogs. Secondly, when we approach the dog because it refused to come we are in dog language telling the dog its okay not to come, we are telling it is doing a great job at listening to us to not come. So its not that your dog is disobedient, stubborn or deliberately trying to piss you off, in fact in the dog's mind it is doing exactly what you've asked it to do.

When the dog does not understand the difference between humans and dogs, the dog becomes extremely confused as to the nature of our relationship to it. Signs of dominance aggression start to appear. This is natural in a dog hierarchy and since you have confused your dog as to the nature of your species identity, it is only natural that as your dog starts coming of age it will attempt to take its position and try to ascend the hierarchy. In other words your dog will challenge your position. I cannot assert enough times to my clients that we are not pack leaders once we become pack leaders our dog will eventually challenge our position. We are the human caretakers and dog's understand the difference up until we confuse them. Our species distinction is maintained by never physically trying to overpower our dogs whether it is through games, like rough playing or tug of war, or when we attempt to physically force our dog to do things, like yanking them on the leash. Many trainers unfortunately do not understand this very well and the result is a dog that will constantly challenge its owners for a position in the hierarchy and this often can result in very serious and potentially dangerous consequences for both the dog and its owner. This cause can be easily treated through changes in our own behavior to remind the dog that we are humans and we are not dogs.

Finally, the final cause just like all the previous ones lies in how we interact with our dog. When our dog does a certain behavior it is up to us to either signal the dog that its okay to continue doing it, or to signal the dog that its not okay and that it should not do this behavior. Unfortunately for many people, they tend to accidentally teach their dogs behaviors that make everyone's lives much harder. For example, the first time your puppy grabs a pair of your socks our initial reaction is to approach the puppy, your puppy starts running and you start chasing, then you proceed to try and pull the sock from your puppy's mouth, what a game that is. So instead of telling your dog it is not okay to chew on socks, congratulations you've just taught it that sock chewing is one the funnest games on this planet. If you really wanted your puppy to understand that this behavior was unacceptable, had you just walked away from it, I can guarantee you that your puppy would have looked at you with a sock dangling from its mouth, probably followed you for a few steps then dropped the sock. Barking is another one of these annoying behaviors that we often accidentally teach the dog. Certain forms of aggression can also be accidentally taught to our dogs. Generally speaking these behavioral problems depending on how long the dog has had them for require a long and systematic program of retraining which can often last months.

Whatever a dog's behavioral problem maybe, it is usually because of something we as humans have done. A slight modification and a remediation program can work wonders.

Repairing the Dog-Human Bond

Most of us live with dogs whose relationship to humans tends to be ambivalent at the very best. Whether it is because of certain things we've done to the dog in the course of our relationship or its previous life before. Few of us are lucky enough to have dogs that were reared in our households in an environment that we could perfectly control, most of us will probably acquire dogs where very little is known about the dog's history and many of these dogs have experienced certain events that have damaged their relationship to humans. A broken bond between a dog and a human may be, depending on the dog and its history, broken between that individual dog and humans in general or this specific dog and a specific human. Symptoms of a broken bond vary in severity ranging from human-directed aggression to milder symptoms such as not coming when called or constantly escaping when left alone.

There are many thing that can happen to damage the human-dog bond. Depending on the individual dog certain events can be more or less damaging to the bond. Spanking a dog may, because of that individual dog's temperament, have no effect on the bond, while with another dog it may lead to the development of fear aggression towards humans. There are so many things that can happen that can affect the bond, that instead of going into different examples I will explain what the bond is. The dog-human bond that as I've already mentioned previously is rooted in the co-evolution of dogs and humans. The basis of this evolution was basically trust. Trust by both early humans and early dogs that their proximity would be mutually beneficial. Early ancestors of the dogs would be able gain food and at the same time benefit from the safety that they would get around early human settlements. Humans as well were able to feel the safety associated with the proximity of the canine ancestor.

We look back at these tens of thousands of years of canine-human evolutionary history when we want to repair the broken dog-human bond. Repairing the bond requires first and foremost that we do not do the behaviors with the dog that initially damaged this bond. These include hitting, using spray bottles, shouting, startling, rough play, choke collars and yanking on the leash. The idea is that dog must once again associate our proximity with pleasant feelings and sensations. This means paying very close attention the dogs body language and not taking for granted the small signals they give us to let us know how whether they are overwhelmed or stressed out by our voice, posture, game we are playing and even petting (Check out Turid Rugaas's "Calming Signals in Dog"). Naturally, once I tell many people this they immediately ask the question of how to correct their dogs when they are making mistakes during this period of repairing the bond. First of all, during the period of repairing the bond we try to avoid the dog making mistakes. We set the dog up to succeed. Lets say your dog chews your rugs, well during the period of repair we remove all the rugs to avoid having to correct the dog. Secondly, we change how we correct. The dog's brain is wired to think human-close equals I'm doing something good and I should repeat it. Human-far equals I'm doing something bad and should not repeat. When your dog is chewing on the rug, if you go up to it and maybe pull the rug out of its mouth, you are first telling the dog what its doing is good because human-close equals good. Second, you could also be creating a negative sensation in your dog so all of a sudden human-close does not give the dog a good sensation and becomes very confusing for the dog, and this where the bond starts to break down. While this method of correction is extremely effective it is not as effective with dogs whose trust in human beings has been damaged, but as you slowly repair your bond with your dog you will notice that your dog becomes more responsive to you moving far away from it and is less likely to repeat the undesired behavior. In such a way you are correcting your dog by going back to an evolutionary psyche that even though it is a correction it brings you and your dog closer.

There have been many times in my practice where I've wished that behavioral problems could be solved through waving a magic wand or reciting a secret incantation, unfortunately, fixing a bond that has been broken requires a slow, systematic, consistent, constant and repetitive changes in, not the dog's behavior, but the dog owner's behavior.

The Wanted Guest and Their Unwanted Effect on Your Dog

While most of us committed to training our dogs feel that we can more or less provide consistency needed for effective training, many of us get frustrated at the difficulty of controlling how others act around our dogs, especially when they visit our homes. You might be working really hard with your dog on having it greet your guests calmly and just as you start to see the results, a visitor comes over and as soon as he sets eyes on your dog he rushes towards your dog excitedly petting it profusely. You probably stand their awkwardly at the side watching your hard-work slowly disappear.
I've found that either before having guest come over a short phone-call explaining how to interact with my dog can save me a whole lot of frustration and resentment towards my dog and guests. One of the documents I give me my clients is a list ready to be taped to their front door, politely informing future guests of the rules and expectations on how to interact with my dog. Here is a copy, feel free to print and use.

Fine Tuning Reinforcement

If you regularly follow this blog and you've decided to opt for using positive reinforcement with your dog, you may not be getting the desired outcome. For instance, your dog maybe only sitting after the fifth time you ask it to sit or your dog may only perform a command if it can see or smell a treat. Other times your dog may only perform the command in your living room, but doesn't even recognize its own name when you are outside. These glitches don't mean that positive reinforcement isn't working and you need to switch to another type of training. It also doesn't mean that your dog is dense and hopeless. Some mild alterations to how you are reinforcing your dog may really make the difference between a dog that sits when told, whether you have a treat or not or a dog that comes when called whether its in the middle of chasing a cat or not. Below I will describe the most important things to keep in mind when training your dog using positive reinforcement.

1) Timing is of essence when training a dog. The dog must know exactly what its being rewarded for. Naturally in the beginning you will be using treats, but you also want to make sure you verbally reward the dog (good girl!!) before you even give the treat as soon it performs the behavior you want. This verbal reward marks that your dog did the right behavior and is usually called a secondary reinforcer. I usually recommend clicker training for older dogs, abused dogs and dogs that are overly excited. The clicker's precise timing as a secondary reinforcer is very useful when working with these dogs.

2) Do not repeat a command more than once. If you tell your dog to lie and it ignores you and you repeat the command again and then the dog lies and you reward it. This dog learns that it doesn't need to respond to the command the first time it hears it and in fact will often wait three or four times before it responds to your commands in general. When the dog ignores you, you need to ignore it, walk away or at least count till twenty before you repeat your commands

3) Never pet a dog on the top of its head when you want to reward it. In dog speak touching the top of the head is not considered a treat it is actually a sign of dominance. So when we want to reward a dog it needs to be pleasant experience and petting the top part of the head isn't. This can be very confusing for the dog. When you are a kid when you would visit an aunt and she would come shower you with kisses and pinch your cheeks although not similar in terms of dominance, it also is extremely unpleasant.

4) Never use a treat to lure your dog into performing a command. You will get a dog that only performs commands if you have a treat.

5) Start with continuous reinforcement and slowly phase out the treat with intermittent reinforcing. If you phase the treats to quickly you will also get a dog that only performs commands if you have a treat.

6)Always train the dog in a setting that is easy for the dog to succeed if it is distracting the dog is more likely to fail than it is to succeed which will make it harder to reinforce and thus harder to learn. Distractions can be gradually introduced as the dog masters different aspects of its training.

7) Avoid training your dog when its tired or for too long, again don't make it hard for your dog to succeed.

8) Never end a session when the dog is not responding. Give it an easy command to perform and end the session.

Happy Reinforcing !!!

Socialization Checklist

Most aggression problems in dogs are rooted in poor early socialization of puppies. To avoid many of these problems, one thing you can do is expose your dog to as many different situations as you can when between the ages of 8 weeks and 1 year. You must make sure that your puppy has positive experiences in as many of these situations as possible. Remember, make sure you have your puppy’s full attention before you expose it to these situations and make sure you have treats to reward it when it behaves appropriately. As your puppy advances in its training you can incorporate the commands it has learned in these situations.

MALE & FEMALE ADULT DOGS
MALE & FEMALE YOUNG DOGS
CATS (STRAY AND DOMESTICATED)
MEN
WOMEN
CHILDREN
LARGE CROWDS
BABIES
MEN IN GALABIYAS
WOMEN IN MILAYAS
CONSTRUCTION WORKERS
VACCUUM CLEANERS
VETS
MOTORCYCLES
BICYCLES
DONKEYS
HORSES
CARS
TRUCKS

The Basics: REINFORCEMENT

The basics of the method I use in dog training is referred to as positive reinforcement. Its a long word and tends to be quite confusing for most people, so to break it down positive reinforcement basically means GIVING reinforcement. So basically you are doing something to the dog that makes the dog want to do something again and again and again because its really liked what you did when it did what it did. So reinforcement is something that increases the likelihood that the dog (or organism in general) will do something again (because it liked the effect its actions had) and positive means you are giving something, not taking something. So if the dog is not doing a behavior I want it to repeat I will NOT GIVE it reinforcement, which is referred to as "negative punishment". When we stop giving the dog the reinforcement it will stop whatever it is doing to get the reward. So just to put that in the context of punishment, punishment is something that will decrease the likelihood that the dog will repeat the action. So say your dog pulls on the leash and so you put it on a choke collar. Every time the dog pulls it will be choked so you are GIVING punishment and that is called "positive punishment".

Now, I don't use positive punishment or negative reinforcement, my method is reward based. Which means that instead of decreasing the likelihood of behaviors I don't like from happening, I increase the likelihood of behaviors I would like the dog to repeat. There are a few reasons why I do not use punishment based methods. While animals have shown to learn faster using punishment based methods, research has shown that they also forget what they learned much faster than with reward based methods. Many dog trainers and behaviorists will use a mixture of both methods, but I would much rather use positive reinforcement and occasionally negative punishment. The reason is quite simple: I don't want to have to inflict pain or discomfort to my dog, as a person who teaches other people who to interact with the dogs, by teaching punishment methods I am opening a flood gate where the trusting relationship between owners and their dogs can be severely damaged. If it works without pain and unpleasantness then what is the justification that we give ourselves to inflict discomfort to another being? Positive reinforcement not only teaches the dog behaviors that will last a really long time, but every time it is used the bond between your dog and you will become stronger.

Prior to human domestication of the dog, humans and the ancestors of the dog co-evolved. So before we could domesticate the dog their ancestors were in close association with ancient human societies. The basis of this association was rooted in a very simple principle. Both these early ancestors of the dog and humans both got something out of being in each others proximity. There are many theories out there and I won't go into them now, but the take home message here was that our ancestors and those of the dog had a relationship that was based on trust. Trust that neither would be harmed through the proximity and in fact both would benefit. So trust is integral to our relationship with dogs and punishment can be quite confusing for a dog. You are the same person who is giving the dog good things and bad things. Regardless of the results you get, it is confusing for the dog to see you as both someone who gives good experiences and someone who gives bad experiences. The effects of this kind of confusion will vary depending on the temperament of each individual dog, but once again if it works just as well without punishment and discomfort, why don't we just use reinforcement?

So once again, reinforcement is anything that you do with your dog that increases the chance that he will repeat the behavior you want it too. Generally speaking, it can be a treat, a ball that you throw or petting the dog (but remember never on the top of the head). It doesn't matter whether you are teaching a dog a trick, obedience or trying to switch a behavior you don't like with a new behavior that you do like, the principles of reinforcement are the same. There are three types of reinforcement that I use depending on where the dog is in learning the behavior, how well do you want the dog to perform the behavior and the context of where and when you want the dog to perform the behavior. The three types of reinforcement are: 1)Continuous 2) Intermittent 3) Differential.

When teaching a dog a new behavior its best to start with continuous reinforcement. This basically means that you find the dog's most preferred reinforcer. Is it a certain type of treat? Is it a ball or Frisbee? or is it simply a scratch behind the ear? Whatever it is make sure you start with this. Every time your dog performs the behavior you give reinforce it. Every time over and over again. Many of clients have expressed that they don't like the feeling of having their dog perform something because all the dog wants is a treat, but the dog is not doing the behavior because it wants the treat, the dog KNOWS that its doing the correct thing because of the reward. Once you feel that your dog has mastered the behavior you are trying to teach it you can move onto differential reinforcement. This means that the depending on how well your dog executes the behavior you are teaching it is given a fitting reward. If your dog performs the behavior excellently then it gets an excellent reward, and if it performs it averagely then it gets an average reward. For example, say you are teaching your dog to come when called, if it comes slowly it gets a fitting reward, but if it comes dashing towards as you call it then you give it an A+ reward. Now once a dog masters a behavior there is no reason to reward it with the top reward. We don't give a high school student an A+ for doing a second graders homework no matter how well that homework is done. With differential reinforcement your dog becomes motivated to always outperform itself.

While continuous reinforcement is only during the beginning stages of training, intermittent conditioning is what makes your dog retain what it has learned and to do it whether it will get a reward or not. With intermittent conditioning you will intermittently reward a certain behavior. There needs to be no observable pattern to how and when you are rewarding the dog and you need to make sure to show no indication before you reward of whether or not you intend to the reward the dog. In other words, the dog cannot see whether you are or aren't about to give it a treat. Also as your dog masters the behavior you can gradually decrease the frequency of reinforcing the dog so the rewards become more and more spaced apart. Eventually you can only occasionally give your dog a treat for this behavior.

Happy Positive Reinforcing!!!

The Do's and Don'ts of a Happy Dog-Human Relationship

This list of Do's and Dont's contains some of the basic tenants to having a trust-filled and easy relationship with your dog. One where your dog is more enjoyable than stressful. It is a relationship that the dog completely trusts that you will always take care of it and that it will have positive experiences with you and at the same time it will also do as its asked. Once again, why create discomfort when you can get the same results with gentle, consistent training. The following weeks I will post about the logic behind some of these do's and dont's.


1) Always make sure you and your household use the same command consistently.

2) Always call your dog by its name when serving its food.

3) Always use commands associated with an action, remember “NO”, “STOP” are not associated with an action.

4) Vary between petting your dog, giving it treats and toys as rewards.

5) Remember ignoring your dog and distracting it when it misbehaves is the most effective form of stopping behavior.

6) If you have a puppy always ask yourself, is this behavior still going to be cute when the puppy is a full-grown dog? If its not, then DON’T DO IT.

7) Remember to use a command only once, if the dog does not respond then turn your face the other way and count to ten, then repeat the command.

8) Remember petting your dog on the top of the head is a sign of domination and is not considered a reward by the dog.

9) Remember never end a training session if the dog is not responding to your commands. Always wait and entice your dog, give a simple command and then finish the training.

10) Remember to train your dog in a setting or time that will be easy for him to stay focused.

11) Incorporate your dog’s training in your every day life.

12) Never take anything forcibly from your dogs mouth, use the command “DROP”.

13) Always ignore your dog 15 minutes before you leave home and NEVER greet it when you come home.