Prevention: What Every Good Dog Trainer Does First.
“If your dog digs in the trash can, the first step is putting the trash can in the pantry or switching to a locking lid trash can.”
What?!
As a budding professional dog trainer, I think I felt like Prevention (aka ‘management’) was a cop-out: why can’t you just teach the dog to stay out of the trash? Why do you have to put the can away?
I’ve grown as a trainer in the years since then, but instead of using Prevention less — I’m more mature and advanced now, right?? — I actually probably use it more. Rather than seeing it as an inferior solution compared to “TRAINING,” I see it as a mandatory part of a successful, positive-reinforcement dog training plan.
Instead of thinking that we choose between Prevention OR Training to solve behavior problems, I now see the choice as Prevention OR Prevention and Training.
Prevention is King! Here’s why.
Those Accidental Rewards
Reactive doggy Mia rides in a covered crate in the car so she cannot see things outside that would make her bark.
First, what is Prevention?
“Changes we make, ahead of time, to the environment or our behavior that make it nearly impossible for the dog to do the wrong behavior.”
As one trainer said, the humans are doing the heavy lifting to deal with a dog behavior problem.
To understand the importance of Prevention, we have to understand a couple of unexpected ways behavior can be rewarded: those accidental “cookies” your dog gets for doing the wrong thing.
The behavior itself. Sometimes, simply performing the behavior is the reward. Jumping is often like that (we call it self-reinforcing): no one has to give the dog a treat for jumping — the behavior itself is fun enough that the dog will continue to do it without extra incentives.
The attention we give the behavior. Sometimes, the behavior is fun AND then we make it even more fun by giving the dog attention when he does it. Consider chewing:
“It feels good to sink my teeth into the cabinets, but to make it even better, Mom actually gets up, talks to me and offers me a toy when I do it so…win-win! Chewing is how I make her play with me.”
Note that ‘negative’ attention, still counts as attention to a lot of dogs!
Do you see how once the dog has done the wrong behavior, we’re already behind? Our intervention must start before the dog does the wrong thing.
Prevention, alone, keeps your dog from getting accidentally rewarded for the wrong thing.
Practice Makes Permanent
Not only does Prevention keep your dog from being accidentally rewarded, Prevention also keeps undesirable behaviors from becoming bigger and bigger habits that are harder and harder to change.
Habits are developed through repetition. Pure and simple.
Just as a musician or a dancer or an athlete improves their performance with practice, your dog improves his performance with practice. This is why it’s crucial to ensure he’s practicing the correct behaviors!
Your dog cannot get better at a behavior he never practices.