Increasing your dog's vocabulary

Darlene Taylor - Edmonton Alberta
k9behave@interbaun.com

For at least a week you've been practicing your timing and your dog now gets an idea of what "yes" or click or snapping your fingers means. But he probably hasn't been an angel and you may have wanted to communicate other things to your dog. I'd like to say “recognize the good behaviour and ignore the bad” but this isn't always practical. Let's face it - sometimes you get angry with your dog. So now what?

Keep two ideas in mind. There are going to be situations where you want the dog to stop doing what he is doing. Or, where you are going to say, “that behaviour isn't what I'm looking for right at this moment - try something else - keep going or keep trying”.

For example; when a child is learning to read or play an instrument and they make a mistake you want them to keep trying so they sound out the correct word or play the right note. So, use the word "no", which rolls off the tongue fairly easily when you want the canine to freeze and wait for new instructions. But, use a different word such as "wrong" to communicate "keep trying" or "try something else."

Now comes the tough part. When the dog does something wrong requiring a "no", you need to follow it up. Just as you follow up good behaviour with a treat or praise, you may need to follow up the "no" with a 'time out' or directing to the correct behaviour. For example: the dog is about to pee on the carpet - you yell "no!" then pick up the dog or take the dog outside quickly and quietly and say "yes" and allow the dog to do the right thing. As soon as the dog pees (which may take a while since you just scared the piss out of him!) you then praise and anything else to let him know THAT was the right thing.

The dog is in the garbage, again, you say "no" and send him from the room. Once gone, you clean up the garbage.

Now I'm going to throw in something new here - the "set up".

Let's say the dog is a repeat offender for undesirable behaviour, such as getting into the garbage. You need to do a "set up". Put something tempting into the garbage and invite the dog into the room. Ignore him or stand quietly by - you may even have to hide around the corner and watch - sooner or later he will head for the garbage. Remember timing is important. Just AS he's about to stick his nose within an inch of the garbage can (remember that yellow traffic light?) you yell "no". He'll be startled and probably freeze in his tracks. Then, you walk over to him and tell him what a good dog he is. You won't have to do this too many times before the dog will decide that getting into garbage is NOT a good idea.

"Wrong" is used when the dog offers you behaviour, such as sitting, when you want him to lay down. For example, you want the dog to lay down and he brings you a toy.

Tip: Make sure you are saying "yes" twice as much as you say "no" If you are always telling the dog "no" you either are missing his good behaviour or give him too much freedom. If you say “no” all the time, he won't care what behaviour he offers because attention is attention and you don't like anything he does anyway, so why bother putting any effort into doing anything else?

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