Problems On Paws provides dog behaviour and training, puppy training and puppy class services. Unsure if we can help?
18/02/2025
Many of my clients have probably heard me advise not to let their dogs practice the unwanted behaviours they have called me in to help with but why is that?
Why is management and prevention just as important as training the dog to do what we want?
Every time you let your dog partake in that unwanted behaviour, you are increasing the likelihood that they will choose that behaviour next time, due to the creation and strengthening of neural pathways within the brain. This means when presented with the same or similar situation the neural pathway is pretty much predetermined.
Let’s look at jumping up on guests as an example
Each time the doorbell rings, announcing a guest has arrived, the pre-practiced and strengthened neural pathway involved in the jumping up behaviour has begun to fire. Every time that two neurons fire together, their connection is strengthened, they wire together, increasing the likelihood that they will fire again together in future.
Are you seeing a vicious cycle forming?
So what can you do to break this cycle?
There are 3 key things when it comes to fixing problem behaviours in our dogs.
1. Preventing the dog from practicing the behaviour you don’t want through management
2. Teaching the dog an alternative behaviour for those situations, and
3. Practice, practice, practice
Back to our jumping up example
Before you even open the door, you should pop your dog on a lead. This will allow you to have more control over preventing your dog from jumping up on your guests and therefore avoiding strengthening those “jumping” neural pathways.
But prevention on its own isn’t going to provide a long-term solution to your problem.
We also need to teach your dog what to do instead of jumping when guests come over. This will start to build and strengthen those neural pathways that are involved in anything else but jumping.
What alternative behaviour can we teach? Anything that you deem is appropriate!
In the jumping up case, I usually recommend sticking to the “all four on the floor” rule– as long as all four of your dog’s paws are on the floor they can receive attention.
Then the third and final step is to practice that new behaviour in both set-up scenarios and organic ones. Every performance of that behaviour strengthens that neural pathway while weakening the “jumping” one.
It’s important that this alternative behaviour fulfills the same needs that jumping originally met- in this case attention from people!
This is so we can get a new strong neural pathway through repetition – because who doesn’t like practicing something they love, especially when they get a fantastic reward from it?
Take care and happy training!
