Reality vs. Perfection: When Managing Behavior Makes More Sense
If Maxi bugs you when you’re eating, use a tether, pen, or crate to keep him confined with a tasty bone during dinner. photo: AdobeStock
“It’s not the dog, it’s the owner.” Of course, that’s not always true, but it certainly is true much of the time. We know that humans can be fallible, inconsistent, and capricious so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we can be that way with our dogs as well.
Take training, for example. Most people are busy. We want to enjoy our dogs as companions, but we would much rather they were naturally well behaved, instead of having to go through the process of helping them learn all the rules of the home. If we take our dogs to training classes we often stop after the first series, figuring that sit, down, stay, come, and polite walking are all our dogs really need. But then we often forget to practice, and our dogs forget all their new tricks.
And even if we keep up with obedience exercises, this doesn’t always prevent or stop bad behavior, like jumping up on counter tops to steal food, barking wildly whenever a dog or person walks past the front window, capturing toys and then playing keep away, or guarding a bed from people or other dogs. That’s where effective management comes in.
A young dog - and even some old ones - can be opportunistic. If there’s an unguarded steak on the counter, it's obviously unwanted and he will just take it. To dogs, actions are not right or wrong; rather, actions either work or don’t work. And because grabbing the steak clearly works, it takes time to teach our dogs the difference between what’s allowed and not allowed. If there are no immediate consequences, he will most likely do it again when the opportunity presents itself. Delayed consequences have very little effect, except to make the human feel like they’ve done something.
Managing behavior can help prevent unwanted sneak attacks. photo: Trish King
That’s why it’s infinitely more effective to make sure our dogs don’t have the opportunity to err by managing their environment instead. Some examples:
If Maxi bugs you when you’re eating, use a tether, pen, or crate to keep him confined with a tasty bone during dinner. Voila! Good dog, and he’ll be learning patience at the same time.
If Mini barks and jumps on visitors, put her away until the guests have settled in, then bring her out on a leash to meet them comfortably.
If Sweetie Pie thinks toilet paper looks better spread all over the house, put the roll on the counter or get a cover for it (it won’t be forever).
If Honey Bear slips out of the yard whenever one of the kids leaves the gate open, install a spring to help keep it closed or install an upper lock.
One of the wonderful things about management is that the less a dog practices an unwanted behavior, the less he will be inclined to do it. As the old horse trainer's maxim says: make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.
Of course, we should all take the time to train our dogs with impeccable consistency. But life is busy and we’re only human. That’s why it sometimes makes more sense to manage the environment rather than expect perfection from our furry friends - especially when we aren’t perfect ourselves.