Rehearsing Behaviours

Ever wonder why your dog was doing that annoying behaviour? It could be that they have done it dozens of times before and you didn't notice it before. Dog do what they do for a reason!

When I hear the word “rehearsal”, I most often think of the arts. I remember the hours I spent rehearsing for stage plays and at band practice when I was young. Whether it was running lines for a play or playing with band mates to get our timing right, rehearsal was meant to make doing something almost automatic. Practice a thing over and over and it becomes second nature. I used to think of a “rehearsal” as a deliberate practice session but as a dog trainer I now think of any repeated behaviour as a rehearsal.

Like the arts or sports, rehearsing a behaviour is just doing that behaviour over and over. Refining it until it produces the maximum benefit for the minimum of effort. A tennis player might practice hitting a ball a certain way to perfect her swing. And my dog might practice dodging past my legs to find the most efficient way to get outside. Both the tennis player and my dog are rehearsing to find the best way to get the most reward for the least effort.

The whole premise of dog training is based on rehearsing behaviours I want him to do with my dog until he knows them well and can perform them with ease and precision. The more times my dog successfully does a behaviour, the more automatic it becomes. Some behaviours even become a kind of default response to environmental events like sitting if he hears me open the cookie jar.

Invisible rehearsals

Training my dogs will take as much or as little time and effort as I choose to devote to it. But there is something that every dog owner should keep in mind. Every minute that you are not training your dog, your dog is still LEARNING something - but, if you are not paying attention, you might not know what they are learning. Our dogs are an important part of our lives but no one is going to spend 8 to 10 hours each day teaching their dog. Nor should they! Our dogs need time on their own just as much as we do.

The “down time” between my training with dog doesn’t mean they stop behaving. Behaviour happens all the time whether it is playing with a toy or going to the bowl for a drink of water. That “down time” away from formal training is often when a dog owner can fall into inattentional blindness with their dogs. I can be in a room with my dog no more than 4 or 5 feet away and not see him happily chewing on one of my shoes.

It’s easy to get distracted. We have jobs and chores and human relationships to attend to. In recent years, smartphones and tablets have become a regular part of our lives and our attention is drawn to these and other devices more than we’d like to admit. It is harder than ever to be aware of what my dog is doing for 10 or 12 hours each day. So it’s not uncommon for my dog to have “invisible rehearsals” of behaviours I don’t want right in front of me!

You get what you rehearse

Every time my dog has the opportunity to do a behaviour I don’t want them to do, they get to practice it. And as we already talked about, practising a behaviour will eventually become a habit if we don’t change the pattern. But before we can begin to address how to prevent these rehearsals, we need to understand one important point.

Every behaviour my dog does happens for a reason. Let me tell you up front that the reason is never to irritate or upset you. Dogs just don’t think that way. It may look like that is their goal but trust me, it’s not even in their thinking. Dogs behave because they want things - food, attention, to be left alone, to relieve their boredom, etc. So modifying my dog’s behaviour will require me to consider what my dog gets out of their efforts. Simply getting them to “stop it” might not be enough. If they still have something they need or want, they will just try a different behaviour.

There are two basic approaches to dealing with unwanted behaviours. At home, I either arrange things so my dog cannot DO that behaviour or I find an alternative behaviour and make that more rewarding than the behaviour I don’t like. It’s a motto in our house that if you don’t like something the dog is doing, either train it or manage it. Arranging things to prevent opportunities for the bad behaviour is management. Rewarding a more acceptable alternative is training.

Familiar comfort

Jean Donaldson, Trainer and founder of The Academy of Dog Trainers, writes in her book The Culture Clash that “Dogs do what works.” It’s a simple phrase that says so much. Our dogs are looking for ways to get what they want in life and, if we are not paying attention, we may not be happy with the choices they make. Just like humans, our dogs learn behaviours and patterns that work. The more these are rehearsed, the more comfortable they are for the dog. I think we all know that dogs love comfort and security!

When we encounter new situations or new problems, our first instinct is to try something familiar that has worked for us in the past. The same is true for our dogs. And this is where those “invisible rehearsals” can pop up and surprise us. Problem behaviours like barking every time someone walks past the window or pulling incessantly on the leash during walks are likely just behaviours that have happened dozens of times before while we weren’t really paying attention. The dog that jumps up in greeting each time someone enters the house has probably gotten lots of attention as owners focus on the dog to get them to stop.

In my experience, the best way to stop an unwanted behaviour is to prevent the dog from rehearsing that behaviour in the first place. Don’t let it become a pattern or a habit that the dog relies on to get what they want. For the dog barking out the window, remove their access to the window and they won’t bark. For the dog that pulls on leash, provide rewarding food treats close to you so the leash is slack but continue to let your dog get to the things they want to sniff without a struggle.

Structural solutions

For our household, the solution to dealing with unwanted behaviours is having a structure; a frame work of environment and activities for our dogs to practice only behaviours we find acceptable. Like any dog, ours are creative and will think up some new things we haven’t planned on. In those cases we just adjust our framework and move forward from there.

The main thing is that we need to pay attention to the details. We work hard to avoid that inattentional blindness that everyday life makes so easy. Perhaps most importantly, we provide structured down-time for our dogs so that we don’t have to focus on their behaviours. When they are young, we use crates, gates, and exercise pens to provide them with safe, pleasant environments to rest or chew on toys. As they get older, we provide them beds or access to furniture where they can lie quietly while we do other things.

Perhaps the most important part of our framework is that we provide activities that address our dogs’ needs. Walks, play sessions, allowing them loose time around the house while we are cooking or gardening are all part of daily routines. Dogs can and do get bored. Without activities to satisfy their basic needs as creatures, they can invent behaviours do deal with those needs that we may not like.

Here’s the thing about behaviour. If my dog continues to do that behaviour that I don’t want, I have to remember that “Dogs do what works.” There’s a reason that they keep doing it even if I can’t imagine what that might be. Chances are they have done it dozens of times successfully while I wasn’t paying attention and they got what they wanted.

Getting angry or asking why my dog is behaving badly is a waste of time. I need to “Train it or Manage it.” The main thing is that my dog will do the behaviours that he rehearses. My job is to make sure he doesn’t have the opportunity to rehearse the behaviours I don’t want to see and to make the behaviours I do want more rewarding than the alternatives. We always get the behaviours we allow our dogs to rehearse!

So, for both you and your dog, life is very much a rehearsal! Setting your dogs up to rehearse the right things will help those good behaviours become habits and even reflexes before you know it. Make sure you take the time to change the script so that you are rehearsing the good things.

Until next time, have fun with your dogs!

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