Episode #192 Interrupting and Redirecting Behavior

Have you ever wondered how to stop your puppy from chewing on your favorite shoes or barking incessantly at the door without scaring or punishing them? Join us on the Puppy Training Podcast as Amy Jensen teaches you the essential techniques of interrupting and redirecting unwanted puppy behaviors using positive reinforcement. In today’s episode, Amy underscores the importance of nipping these behaviors in the bud before they become ingrained habits. From gentle cues to effective redirection, you'll learn how to guide your puppy towards positive actions, ensuring a harmonious and stress-free environment for both you and your dog. Amy also tackles a frequent concern among dog owners: will rewarding a puppy after interrupting and redirecting bad behavior simply encourage more of it? Listen in to find out the answer!

Chapters

• 0:00 Effective Dog Training
• 10:54 Puppy Training Q&A With Expert

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Puppy Training Podcast, episode 192, interrupting and Redirecting. This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning, as you train your own dog from home. And I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the Puppy Training Podcast and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Step of the way. This is the puppy training podcast, and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Hello everybody, welcome to the puppy training podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I hope you've had a great week.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Today we are talking about interrupting and redirecting and what that means in behavior. So I love to talk about the ABCs of dog training, and today we're going to discuss the question I get asked about. Well, if you reward your puppy after you interrupt and redirect, won't they just keep doing it so they get a reward? That is the question of the day. So training the dog, we all know, is a process, right? It's not something that happens overnight. It takes patience, consistency, hundreds of repetitions and a basic understanding of canine behavior, how a dog's brain works. Now, one of the essential aspects of this process is, in fact, interrupting and redirecting unwanted behavior. So if my dog engages in a behavior that I don't like, such as chewing on the furniture, jumping on people or barking. Those are pretty common ones. It is crucial for us to intervene effectively. Using positive reinforcement, alongside interruption and redirection, is, in my professional opinion, the most effective way to manage and change these behaviors.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Now let's start with why do we interrupt? Like what does that even mean? What does it look like? Why do we do it? Interrupting a dog's unwanted behavior is our first step toward modifying it or changing it. When our dog is engaged in an activity that we don't like, allowing our dog to continue to practice that behavior is reinforcing, which makes it more likely to occur in the future. So, for example, if my dog is chewing on a shoe, if I just continue to let that behavior continue, my dog is learning that chewing on shoes is acceptable, especially if it finds the activity pleasurable or stress relieving, which chewing a shoe can do for dogs. So interrupting that behavior stops this learning process in its track. So it's important that we don't just continue to let our dog practice this behavior that we are not liking.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Another example would be a dog barking out the window. Let's say they see a bird and they bark at the bird and the bird flies away. Now that bird flying off may be exactly what the dog wanted, hence barking at it was reinforced, and the dog is most likely to repeat that in the future If they in fact wanted that bird to fly away and the barking worked right. Dogs do what works for them, so we have to look at the overall behavior, what preceded it and what followed it, to determine whether the behavior is likely to reoccur. Now, when outside factors are rewarding the behavior, like the bird, interrupting and redirecting quickly is important to teach our dog what we want them to do instead. So I can interrupt the barking at the bird and then show my dog what I want them to do instead. Now making it worth their while using positive reinforcement is really important, and then setting them up for success in the future, such that they do not get to practice that unwanted behavior, will help create positive patterns of behavior.

Speaker 1: 3:16

We'll talk a little bit more about that in just a second. So the purpose of the interruption is not to punish our dog or not to scare the dog. In fact, we want to do the opposite. We just want to break the focus on the undesirable activity and redirect them to a positive activity and a happy, joyful occasion, right. This is a good thing that we want our dog to change direction towards. So this interruption creates a momentary pause in which the dog can be redirected to a more appropriate behavior. Now, for example, let's go back to the shoe. If my dog is chewing on a shoe, an interruption might just be a gentle clap or calling the dog's name. Asking for a simple behavior like a touch or a look at me can break the concentration on the shoe and provide an opportunity to now redirect the dog's attention to something appropriate like a chew toy.

Speaker 1: 4:00

If the dog is barking at the door because someone is there, do not add to your dog's chaos. If they are already feeling anxious or overly excited about this situation, we want to help them calm down by being calm ourselves. So have a plan in mind. Management is key while training is still in progress. So if you don't yet have training in place, that's okay. We can use management and then we'll work on training a behavior that we like. So maybe simply put your dog on a leash and help them walk away. Then we can work on a behavior like go to bed during training time that we'd like to see implemented in the future. But we need to give our dog time to work on that in a different setting, and then we'll apply it to this setting, where they already feel a little anxious or overly excited. We can do some different activities as well to just help lower their overall excitement or anxiety towards somebody they don't know being at the door.

Speaker 1: 4:48

Now why not let the dog practice the behavior? What's the problem with this? Allowing my dog to continue practicing the unwanted behaviors can lead to bad habits. Right, it's a pattern they learn through repetition, so every time they engage in a behavior it becomes more ingrained. If a dog is permitted to repeatedly jump on visitors, it will soon become a habit and the dog will expect to be able to do so whenever someone enters the home or whenever they see a person. Right, if the dog always gets to jump and greet people that way, then that's what they're going to want to do, because, again, it's working for them and dogs do what works for them.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Now, in addition, certain behaviors can escalate if not interrupted. So, for example, a dog that is barking uncontrollably at the door may become more anxious over time, making it even harder to manage the behavior later on. So preventing early on from the dog from practicing these behaviors not only stops them from becoming habits, but also reduces the likelihood of them escalating into more serious behavior issues. The longer a dog practices something, the harder it will be to undo that habit. Can we train an old dog new tricks? Absolutely. Just depends on how long that habit's been going and being practiced, or has been practiced, as to how long we might have to spend to undo it. So when you get a new dog or a new puppy whatever their age, but they're new to your location or your home we want to set them up for success and show them the kind of behavior that gets rewarded in our space from the get-go.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Now, interrupting a behavior is only part of the solution, right. The next step is to redirect our dog to an appropriate behavior and then reinforce our dog positively. Positive reinforcement involves rewarding the dog for showing desirable behaviors, which increases the likelihood that our dog will repeat those behaviors in the future. Right. For example, after interrupting my dog for chewing on a shoe, I can redirect my dog's attention to a chew toy. Once the dog begins to chew on the toy, I can immediately praise my dog or offer them an additional food reward. So I'm giving them a great activity to do as an alternative, and I'm showing them. I don't want you to do this chewing on the shoe, but hey, here's a great activity you can engage in and I offer you extra or additional food rewards for doing so. Right, so I'm teaching my dog that chewing on the toy is a rewarding activity, unlike chewing on shoes.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Now then, moving forward, we must get in front of this behavior. We're going to teach our dog a leave it cue and apply it to shoes. I might practice with a variety of shoes placed around my house, and when I see my dog looking at a shoe or approaching a shoe, I'll say leave it, and prevent the unwanted behavior from happening in the first place. This is how we prevent the pattern being formed of I chew on a shoe, amy pays me for walking away, right, we don't want that to be the cycle. That pattern might be necessary once, because I catch my dog already in the act of chewing a shoe, but hopefully, most of the time I'm staying in front of it. I see my dog looking at the shoe, I interrupt, redirect before the unwanted behavior happened. So remember, if my dog already has the shoe, yes, I must interrupt and redirect after the behavior, but it is far more valuable, moving forward, to interrupt and redirect using a leave it cue before my dog gets the shoe. By consistently using positive reinforcement, my dog will start to learn to associate appropriate behaviors with positive outcomes, which makes it more likely that they'll choose these behaviors on their own over time, which is what we want.

Speaker 1: 8:03

We don't want to have to tell our dog exactly what to do every second of the day. We want them to manage themselves. Now, this approach is effective because it focuses on teaching the dog what to do instead of merely telling it what not to do. Don't get stuck in that I don't want my dog to do X, y, z. Rather, in any given situation where you want to change behavior, think what do I want my dog to do in this circumstance? What do I want it to look like? Then you can teach your dog to do that. Again, we manage while we train. The two go together.

Speaker 1: 8:32

To prevent unwanted behaviors from becoming patterns, it is essential to be proactive, just like I mentioned. So this means again setting our dogs up for success by managing the environment, meaning I might use baby gates, I might use an exercise pen, maybe a leash, a tether, a crate. We have lots of management tools that we can use to help us, and we want to provide plenty of opportunities for positive behaviors. So if my dog likes to chew on furniture, I can prevent this by providing ample chew toys, keeping the furniture out of reach, gating that room off Right. Additionally, I can ensure that my dog is getting plenty of physical exercise and mental stimulation through games outside in the yard, running around, playing games inside my house or even food puzzle toys. So all of these things can reduce the likelihood of my dog engaging in undesirable behaviors because they're bored or they have excess energy.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Now, training sessions focused on reinforcing behaviors I like are also crucial. I like to teach basic things such as sit, stay, leave it, and that can give me tools that I will need in the future to interrupt and redirect behaviors before they escalate. So I'm in the kitchen prepping a meal. I want to think, while I'm prepping this meal, instead of waiting for my dog to do something I don't like, I can already have a plan in place. I would like my dog to do a down stay. Right, they can do a down stay while I unload the dishwasher. They can do a sit stay while I chop up this onion. They can do a go to bed in on a bathroom rug.

Speaker 1: 9:54

While I'm brushing my teeth, I start to think of how can I implement the training that we've worked so hard on so that everyday life becomes a little bit easier and my dog is learning behaviors that are suitable for living in a human household. Just remember, you guys, the interrupting and redirecting unwanted behavior in dogs is a really important part of being a responsible dog parent. So it's important to understand how this works right, the ABCs of dog training, and by breaking the cycle of unwanted behaviors, using positive reinforcement to teach appropriate alternatives, we can help our dogs develop good habits from the get-go, really, and we can reduce the behavior problems in the future. Now, this approach not only leads to a more happy household, but it also strengthens our bond between us and our dogs, which is what we want, and our dogs learn to trust us. They learn that we are happy to be around and fun to engage with, it's good to work with us, it's always positive, right, and they understand what is expected in a clear, consistent, positive way.

Speaker 1: 10:54

All right, you guys. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you have a great rest of your week and happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site, baxter and Bellacom, to contact me.