Correcting Your Dog
by Los Angeles Dog Trainer Rebecca Setler
Correction is the part of dog training that is most likely to make dog owners uncomfortable. After all, we choose to have dogs so that they can be our friends, someone to snuggle up with, play with and love. Nobody gets a dog thinking that they want someone to correct and discipline. However, without proper correction, your dog can turn into someone you don't want as a friend.
If love and affection alone could make your dog a well-behaved member of the family, you probably wouldn't be online right now looking at dog training sites. Teaching structure and rules is a necessary part of turning your dog into the great companion you hoped he'd be when you got him. But it isn't always easy, since understanding how to train your dog using proper corrections isn't the part of dog ownership that comes naturally to most of us.
The Role of Correction in Balanced Dog Training
Picture this. You're in your house on one end of the hallway and your dog is on the other end. You call him to come to you and give him a treat when he gets there. You practice this several times a day and he does it perfectly every time. He sure loves those treats! Soon you can call him from anywhere in the house and he comes running. A dog training success story! Well, maybe not entirely...
Now picture this. You take "Mr. Perfect Come Command in the House" out to the park. You've got a pocket full of his favorite treats. He starts running toward two dogs playing at the other end of the park, so you call him to come. He looks back at you for a second, then takes off toward the playing dogs. How can that be? He's been so good in the house and he just loves those treats. The problem is that there's something he loves more- playing with other dogs. The dogs at the other end of the park are of a higher value to him than the treats in your pocket. So now what?
Now it's time to add correction to your dog training program. The reward-based training exercise you did at home was a great start, but, for your results to be reliable, your dog needs to realize that not only does something good happen when he does the right thing, something bad happens when he does the wrong thing. Every time. When used properly, correction can take your training to a level that can't be reached through reward-based training alone. Reward, repetition and correction will create reliability in your obedience training and safely allow your dog more freedom.
Correction is also an important part of resolving behavior problems, but it must be used fairly and only when the dog understands clearly what he needs to do to avoid it. In other words, instead of teaching "Don't do that!", effective training teaches "Don't do that, do this instead". Teaching an appropriate behavior to replace an inappropriate one (sitting instead of jumping, licking instead of play biting) is the missing link in many training programs.
The example that always comes to mind when I'm discussing this concept is a dog I meet several years ago who jumped on me like a maniac when I walked in his front door to do an evaluation. I said, "Whoa, we definitely need to fix THAT!" and the owner said, "Oh, no, that's not the dog you're here to see, he can't be trained." As it turns out, I was there to evaluate their new Golden Retriever puppy, not the 7 year old Golden Retriever who had almost knocked me out the front door. I offered to help them to fix his jumping while we were at it, but they told me that they had already done obedience classes and had two private trainers work with him over the years and nothing ever stopped him from jumping.
I asked what they had done to try to correct the behavior. "Well, we've tried kneeing him in the chest, pulling him down by his neck, stepping on his toes, using a spray bottle and a penny can, but nothing ever worked. We still correct him by kneeing him in the chest every time he jumps just so he'll get off of us, but he doesn't seem to care."
Now, as I was sitting there with this dog, it was clear that he was an absolute sweetie who seemed very willing to please, so this didn't quite add up. I asked them what alternate greeting behavior they had tried to teach him. They stared at me blankly. I explained that, in order to correct a behavior like jumping, the dog should be taught a more appropriate greeting behavior, like sitting, before correction is used.
All those years and all that training, and nobody had ever told this poor boy what he was supposed to do when he said hello to somebody. I explained to his owners that sometimes you get lucky and a behavior will stop with correction, even when no alternate behavior is taught. But, sometimes, as in this case, the lesson the dog learns is that the family greeting ritual is: my owner walks in, I jump up, my owner knees me in the chest and we all go have dinner. The dog just accepts the knee in the chest and keeps on truckin', never realizing that another behavior would get a more pleasant result.
Of course, this story has a happy ending. We spent just a few minutes working with the older dog each time I came to train the puppy, and he had soon learned that he had a choice -- jump up and get a knee in the chest or sit down and get a pat on the head. Not a tough choice once he knew what his options were!
The moral of the story is that correction is an important part of training, but that's not all there is to it. Effective training is consistent, fair, firm and fun, with a balance between teaching good behaviors and correcting bad behaviors.
