Quick Tips for Common Behavior Concerns
Resources
Quick Tips for Common Behavior Concerns
Got some tricky behaviors popping up? This article breaks down common challenges into simple, easy-to-try strategies so you can address them with patience, consistency and plenty of positive reinforcement. For more troubleshooting tips, check out Five Steps to Solve Behavior Issues.
Challenge: Indoor Accidents
Undesired Behavior: Your dog pees on the carpet.
Quick solution: Keep your dog off the carpet unless you know they have emptied their bladder and they are supervised.
Tips: Use doors or baby gates to keep your dog in an acceptable bathroom area or use a crate to confine your dog. Reward your dog for going potty in the right place.
Training Resources: Housetraining 101, Puppies: Potty Training
Challenge: Chewing
Undesired Behavior: Your dog chews inappropriate items (remotes, wallets, shoes, socks, kid's toys, the mail, etc.).
Quick solution: Put loose objects out of your dog's reach, such as on a high shelf, in a cabinet or closet or in a room closed off by a door or baby gate.
Tips: Provide dog toys they enjoy and praise your dog for chewing on them.
Training Resources: Destructive Chewing, Enrichment Resources, Calm Behavior at Home
Challenge: Barking
Undesired Behavior: Your dog barks at people passing by the house.
Quick solution: Prevent your dog from seeing or hearing people outside.
Tips: Shut the curtains. Move the couch away from the window. Install window cling film on the lower half of your windows to lower visibility. Keep your dog in a designated quiet space or pen for short absences from the home. Use treats to redirect your dog away when they begin barking at people and reward calm behaviors.
Training Resources: Calm Behavior at Home
Challenge: Leash Pulling
Undesired Behavior: Your dog pulls on the leash.
Quick solution: Use a front-clip harness (sense-ation harness, freedom no-pull harness, easy walk harness).
Tips: Train your dog to walk on a loose leash by rewarding any leash slack or check-ins, stop walking when they pull, and continue walking when they look back or loosen leash slack.
Training Resources: Leash Handling, Loose Leash Walking, B&T Lecture: Success on Leash, Basic Training Classes
Challenge: "Attacking" Household Items
Undesired Behavior: Your dog "attacks" the lawn mower, water hose, vacuum cleaner or other household items.
Quick solution: Put your dog in another part of the home before using the item.
Tips: Desensitize your dog to the item and help them create a more positive association with it by pairing low-intensity exposure to the item with treats. This training must be done when your dog is calm, otherwise their fear of the item could intensify. Slowly (over many sessions) increase the intensity of the exposure, rewarding your dog when they remain calm.
Training Resources: Counter Conditioning, Impulse Control, Overstimulation, DSCC & Choice Playlist, Decreasing Fear of Loud Noises, Desensitization & Counter Conditioning, Calm Behavior at Home, Well-Socialized Pet Resources
Challenge: Digging
Undesired Behavior: Your dog digs up the yard or garden or lies in the flower beds.
Quick solution: Put a low but sturdy fence around landscaped areas. Keep your dog on leash or supervise your dog when they are in the yard.
Tips: If your dog loves to dig, provide a sandbox with occasional buried treats or toys. The sand will be cleaner than dirt, and your dog will be rewarded for satisfying their digging urge in an area of your choice. Or provide ball pits and foraging enrichment. Make sure your dog is cool enough (in summer) and warm enough (in winter), as digging can be a method of heat control. Teach "leave it" for times when your dog is digging where they shouldn't be, or getting into something unsafe.
Training Resources: Enrichment Resources, Enrichment: Brain Games for Mental Health, K9 Nose Work classes
Challenge: Furniture
Undesired Behavior: Your dog gets on the furniture.
Quick solution: Keep your dog out of that room when unsupervised. Turn the chair against a wall or upend it. Set up baby gates or exercise pens or place boxes or other objects on furniture to prevent your dog from accessing the furniture.
Tips: Consider putting a blanket or sheet over the furniture and allowing the dog to enjoy its comfort. The cover can be easily removed and cleaned. Or, offer them a dog bed, mat or crate as an alternative place for them to relax. You can make this a training exercise by teaching them to go to a mat on cue.
Training Resources: Stationing on a mat, The Calm Settle
Challenge: Escaping
Undesired Behavior: Your dog runs into the street.
Quick solution: Keep your dog on leash or within a well-fenced yard. This can save your dog's life!
Tips: Implement multiple barriers and safety measures — like baby gates, ex-pens, an extra safety leash attached to you in case one is dropped or breaks — to prevent your dog from escaping and running to the street. Teach and strengthen emergency recall.
Training Resources: Reactive Rover: Recall class, Escape Behavior in Dogs, Impulse Control, Overstimulation, DSCC & Choice Playlist
Challenge: Resource Guarding
Undesired Behavior: Multiple dogs in your home fight over mealtimes, toys, doorways, etc.
Quick solution: Feed them in completely separate areas (different rooms, in crates or on tie-downs) with a visual barrier between the dogs (door, wall, furniture, etc.). Supervise mealtimes. After mealtime, pick up food bowls, whether they are empty or not (some dogs may guard empty food bowls). Hold one dog back while letting the other dog through a doorway or other tight spaces. Provide an abundance of toys (enough for all dogs) and only allow supervised toy time.
Tips: Train each dog to "wait" at doorways, and release one at a time using their names. Learn how to predict and prevent fights by reading body language and identifying triggers. Keep dogs in separate rooms when they are home alone or unsupervised.
Training Resources: Behavior Challenges: Resource Guarding, Resource Guarding Resources, Reading Body Language Playlist, Safety: Dog Bite Prevention, Introducing Dogs at Home
More Behavior & Training Resources
San Diego Humane Society offers training classes and resources to address a variety of needs for companion animals.
Our training philosophy is based on the behavioral science concepts of positive reinforcement. Training your pet using these concepts will not only help them learn new behaviors more quickly, but it will also strengthen the bond you share.
Please visit our website for a current schedule of training classes or call 619-279-5961.
