Clean Run - September 2017 - 18

Five Reasons why
ignoring your
dog's undesired
behavior
won't work
© marge rogers

By Eileen Anderson

Ignoring should work, right? One of the
first bits of learning theory we pick up as
dog trainers is that behavior is driven by
consequences.
*	 If something good happens after a
behavior, that behavior is likely to
be repeated.
*	 If something bad happens, the
behavior may diminish.
*	 And if nothing happens at all after
a behavior, there's often no point to
the behavior. It may well fade away.
Those are all true statements. So if a
dog greets us by jumping in the air and
pounding us with his front feet, or barks
demandingly as we prepare his meal,
how come he doesn't quit when we ignore the naughtiness?
When seeking to change behavior, we
start by identifying and describing the
behavior. Then we seek to identify the
consequence that is driving the behavior.
We identify antecedents: we note in what
situations and environments the behavior
is likely to occur. Finally, we create a plan
to change the consequences and/or the antecedents in order to change the behavior.
18

The five reasons I'm going to describe that can cause ignoring to fail as a strategy all correspond to failures in a behavior change plan. They may be because we failed to identify
the consequences that could be driving the behavior. They may be because we misidentified the emotional state of the dog (that's an error in identifying an antecedent). Or they
may fail because our plan was not complete or we just couldn't carry it out.
Here are five typical ways the "ignoring" plan can fail.

#1 Other Reinforcers
A very common reason for ignoring not to work is that paying attention to the dog is not
the reinforcer of the undesired behavior in the first place, or is not the only reinforcer.
The classic example of this is the behavior of jumping to greet. Surely part of the
reason a dog jumps on his owner or arriving visitors is to interact with them. It is so
tempting to assume that if we remove that interaction-if we look away, turn away, and
don't speak to him-he will quit that annoying jumping. Good luck with that, though.
It rarely works by itself. So all these dogs who continue to jump when ignored-what
are they getting out of it? One consequence is that they are getting closer to our faces.
We are vertical creatures and it takes a good jump to get up to where a lot of the action
is! A second common one is that for some dogs it just seems to feel good. It's fun for
them to use a human as a backstop or a launching pad. Jumping may also be driven by
anxiety or overarousal.
If we use ignoring for the dog who barks demandingly for his meal, we are even more
off-track. What is the ultimate reinforcer that results from meal preparation? Food!
Clever trainers pay close attention to what their dogs are doing for the period before
such a big reinforcer. Barking, twirling, head butting, hand nuzzling, getting underfoot
in the kitchen, and jumping can all be beautifully maintained by the presentation of a
meal's worth of food at the end of it all. You can get any of those behaviors without
paying any attention to the dog. Consequently, removing the attention does nothing to
decrease the behaviors.
Clean Run | September 17



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - September 2017

Contents
Clean Run - September 2017 - Cover1
Clean Run - September 2017 - Cover2
Clean Run - September 2017 - Contents
Clean Run - September 2017 - 4
Clean Run - September 2017 - 5
Clean Run - September 2017 - 6
Clean Run - September 2017 - 7
Clean Run - September 2017 - 8
Clean Run - September 2017 - 9
Clean Run - September 2017 - 10
Clean Run - September 2017 - 11
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