Teaching an incompatible behavior

With many of the problem behaviors people face with their dogs we tend to get focused on how to stop the problem behaviors. But we need to keep in mind that all behavior has purpose, so if you simply work trying to stop a behavior and don’t address the reason the dog found purpose in that behavior it will either just come back or a new problem behavior will pop up in it’s place.

So in behavior modification programs we look to how can we provide an outlet for this purpose in a way that works better for living with our dogs. When we look to do this one of the tactics we use as dog trainers is teaching what we call incompatible behaviors, meaning a behavior that we can reinforce that while the dog does this, they cannot do the problem behavior because the new one is hard to do while doing the other.

Examples:

• your dog excitement barks when people come to visit ~ teach them to hold a toy, because barking is harder to do while holding something in your mouth.

• your dog jumps on people ~ teaching them to sit to say hello

What are other examples you can think of? With the behaviors you are wanting to stop, can you think of an alternative behavior your dog could do instead?

In our reactivity training as we move past the LAT work we spend a lot of time working on creating many new incompatible behaviors: hand touches, quick turns, chin rests… all of these things are alternative behaviors you can use to help give your dog something to focus on doing rather than on reacting!

Your homework this week is to focus on seeing how you can swap in incompatible behaviors in places where you are struggling with your dog’s behaviors! Find something positive you can focus on and reinforce!