Crack the Code to your dog’s weird behavior
In today’s world, you’ve probably seen a lot of short videos, reels and social posts featuring…DOGS. Talking dogs, zoomie dogs, snoring dogs, digging dogs, dogs with their own secret rooms, dogs that have over 1 Million followers, dogs of instagram, dogs of tik tok…and on and on.
That’s because dogs are CUTE! and…WEIRD! There, it’s been said. Dogs. Are. Weird.
However, some of their weird behavior is not the stuff we humans love on social media. In fact, a lot of their behavior is just weird because we don’t understand why they are doing it and we don’t understand how to stop it.
We want to help you crack the code to your dog’s weird behavior. Mostly, so that you can experience the CUTE WEIRDNESS that comes from your calm, confident and connected dog.
Association:
Dogs learn through association. From the day they are born, they start making associations to their environment and begin to determine their emotional response. They learn the critical things like “good”, “scary”, “protection needed”, “calm”, “safe” and many, many other emotions during the first critical weeks of their lives.
As they grow and mature, they learn to associate objects and human presence to necessary behaviors. Don’t try to over-complicate this! They are usually simple associations.
The sound of a certain bag crumpling = CHEESE TREATS!
Human hand in the pocket = MEAT TREATS!
That bowl coming towards the ground = FOOD TREAT!
That stringy leash coming off the hook by the front door = ADVENTURE WALK TREAT!
Human chanting “Sit. Sit. SIT!” = put my rear end on the floor so I get…PETTING TREATS!
And people will ask “do I have to use treats to train my dog?”
Your job in dog training is to help your dog make positive associations with as much as possible. This is called “proper socialization” and happens throughout your dog’s life. The main goal is to make sure that there is a strong association between your presence and your dog choosing to listen to you (BONDING) because you’ve made learning and training FUN, not boring commands while you dole out minuscule rewards.
Bit-by-bit:
Since dog’s learn through association, we need to help them learn in small increments, or Bit-by-Bit, so that they know they are making an association between the correct things - ONE cue to one action (SIT) or ONE cue to a complex series of actions (COME or HERE).
This means breaking things down into VERY small pieces and helping your dog learn the tasks one at a time. When we want to advance, we only want to change ONE thing at a time (eg location, surface, position, time of day, etc).
Bit-by-bit, or incremental learning, will lead to the quickest outcome because you are speaking your dog’s language.
Consistency:
Dog’s make an association, they learn bit-by-bit, and they do best with consistency. Consistency is hard for humans, at least consciously. Unconsciously, we do it all the time (unconscious habits). It’s easiest to see what we have done consistently by looking at our dog’s behavior around things we didn’t mean to teach:
Does getting the leash off the hook CONSISTENTLY mean “we’re going for a walk!”
Does calling your dog back to you CONSISTENTLY mean “play time is over, we’re going home”.
Does putting your hand in your pocket CONSISTENTLY mean “treats are about to come out!!”
These are things we didn’t usually mean to train our dog to know, but we’re so consistent in our actions and the result, your dog easily made the associations and chose whether or not your cue leads to a valuable action.
To learn more about this, you want to know (and read) that your dog IS listening to you most of the time, but do you know what you’re saying?
State and Context:
State and context put it all together to help you crack the code of your dog’s weird behavior. Their ASSOCIATIONS are so strong that they actually learn behaviors and actions based on the state and context of the cue. This means that saying “SIT” when you’re in the kitchen is actually a different cue that saying “SIT” when you are on a carpet in the living room, or when you give the cue outside. Dogs are strong contextual learners - to the point it’s actually annoying when we humans have learned to generalize a behavior. But dog’s never really get past the 5 year old human brain stage. You know when you ask a kid to use their indoor voice? That may mean something at home, but not in a restaurant. Or asking your child to go to sleep when it’s daylight outside (naps) may mean a temper tantrum but night time sleeping is A-OK!
If your dog is doing a weird behavior, try to break it down to when, where and why it’s happening. Is he only “reactive” on leash when approaching another big dog? Does she only stop listening when there is something more exciting happening? Does your dog have great recall in the house but not outside? These are all “state and context” things your can note to help you learn why your dog is acting weird!
Now, the question becomes…what do you do about it? Read on about the Casa Luna Canines formula for training dogs - or call a professional trainer in your area for help on real behavior problems.
Casa Luna Canines is your partner in dog training, human learning. Join us to learn how to be your dog’s best friend using 100% pain and fear free methods. Imagine what it will feel like when your dog chooses to behave well around you, no matter where you are!