Between now and the end of the course we will focus on Problem Solving Skills

• Reminder of where dog problems come from
• Which skills help with which problems
• Another dose of philosophy
• Training: Bring/drop
• Training: Food bowl
• Training: Recall

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This lesson wraps up this course by taking another look at problems and how we can prevent them. This course will get you started on the training, but of course you will need to continue putting time into training for at least the next year and use natural consequences and some treats to reinforce the training throughout your dog’s life.

REMINDER OF WHERE PROBLEMS COME FROM

In Lesson 3, I went over some of the various behaviors that dogs use to meet their needs, and how that can lead to problems. What we consider to be a problem is not a problem for the dog—as far as she’s concerned, it’s the best way she knows to get what she needs. Jumping up gets attention. Growling makes the scary thing go away. Running gets her where she wants to go more quickly, even though sometimes she has to drag her human down the sidewalk.

So with that in mind, I recommend teaching the dog specific ways to meet her needs that are acceptable to your family and society as a whole. Here’s what I wrote about that before:

Teach appropriate behavior by blocking the reinforcement for behavior you don’t want and reinforce behavior you do want with the consequences the dog is looking for, not just random reinforcers.

WHICH SKILLS HELP WITH WHICH PROBLEMS

So now that you know that you have to teach something, what should you teach? Teach a behavior that is as natural as possible that is incompatible with the behavior you don’t like (meaning your dog can’t do both at the same time). Pick something that other dogs already do on their own to get the same need met. So while you could theoretically teach your dog to bring you a written sign that says “let me out” when she wants to go outside, it makes a lot more sense to reinforce something like going to the door and doing some attention-getting behavior like barking or the fancier version, ringing a bell.

Here is a set of skills that can be really useful for preventing or eliminating many behaviors that humans consider to be problems:

PROBLEM	SKILL/EXERCISE
Teeth on people	Get Your Toy, Take treats gently
Chewing	Get Your Toy
Pulling on leash	Autowatch, Silky Leash, Touch, handler skills
Running Away	Autowatch, Stay, Touch, Emergency Recall, Bring it
Attention Barking/whining/biting	You get what you pay for (only reinforce behavior that you like)
Not sleeping at night	Crate training (place near or on bed), relaxation (and bring young puppies in the bed)
Resource guarding (people)	Bring/drop It, Looking Up on human approach while eating/chewing
Housesoiling	Mark for eliminating outside, crate training
Grooming trouble / harness trouble	Touch, empowered counterconditioning (More Please Signal), Head through, Paw Shake
Antisocial with dogs/people, afraid of new objects	Play skills, Active coping (use BAT), and all of the other things we talked about above. 🙂

ANOTHER DOSE OF PHILOSOPHY

Let’s circle back to the philosophy of empowerment that we’ve applied throughout this course. Whenever possible, the animal should have the opportunity to meet her own needs and see that her behavior has an effect. This is an essential aspect of humane care. By managing the environment so that the puppy will naturally try out behavior that we like or can at least tolerate, the puppy is empowered. When necessary, use positive reinforcement to train behavior that helps us promote safety and reduce stress for our puppies during vet care, grooming, and everyday life with humans. Using a trained More Please Signal and watching for other signs of communication empowers the dog and strengthens the relationship.

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