This is the puppy training podcast episode number 56, the ABCs of behavior. This podcast
Unknown Speaker :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.
Unknown Speaker :Hello, everybody. Thank you for listening. It is because of people like you that I get to do what I love and I thank you for it. Welcome if you're new to the podcast, I hope you are finding wonderful training tips here to help you and your dog if you're waiting for a puppy to arrive. Congratulations. I'm excited to help get you ready. had a really fun meeting with one of my client families this past week I met Sadie kk and their puppy Mooney. They were so fun to work with and I wanted to give them a shout out today, as I know they are listening. You guys keep up the good work with your puppy. And let me know how Mooney likes the game that I taught you Alright, I'm so excited about today's topic because it reminds me of doing puzzles. That's something that I love to do. When I have a spare minute, I love brain games problem solving and discovering new things. I'm an educator by trade. So I spent several years teaching mathematics to middle school and high school students. And I love Love, love thinking and teaching others how to think and process information. So now that I'm in the doc space, I enjoy the same thing. And today's topic is all about problem solving to a tee and it makes me happy. I know that's kind of weird. So today, I'm taking you back to school. And we're going to learn our ABCs the ABCs of behavior, and how this relates to dog training. So A stands for antecedent, B stands for behavior, and C stands for consequences. We all know what B is right? This is what I hear often and I get asked about as a trainer usually in the form of how do I get my dog to stop blink, stop barking stop jumping, stop taking Games, chewing etc. Now an antecedent, the a part of this is a really fancy way of saying what happened immediately before my dog did the behavior. This is an area we can spend time changing so that we can prevent behaviors from happening. Prevention means that the behavior does not occur. So if we can change the A, we can change the B or the behavior. Now consequence that C part is what immediately follows a behavior. This will determine whether or not our dog will choose to repeat a behavior. So because this comes after the behavior, whatever action we then take can change the behavior either for better or for worse. Now, consequences can be positive, they might be negative. But the important part to remember is that whatever comes after the behavior will drive that behavior in the future. Let's look at some examples so I can help you start training your dogs using the ABCs. Let's say I decide to go sit on the sofa while my puppy is playing nearby. My puppy decides to come over and jump on the sofa. I don't want My puppy up there with me. So I look at them say off and possibly even push them away. My puppy gets off, sits and looks at me for a second as I go back to what I was doing then jumps right back up on the sofa. Does this sound familiar to anyone? What just happened? What was the antecedent or antecedents? What was the behavior in this case? And how about the consequence, let's start to break it down. So the A of this behavior, maybe I sat on the sofa, I left playing with my puppy. If I was doing that before I moved away from my puppy, I changed my pace of activity. It could be a lot of possibilities going on. But those are all of the things that happened. Right before the jumping on the sofa happened I got up I sat on the sofa. And depending on what I was doing with my puppy, my puppy might have been getting my attention before. So the behavior where you are looking to change that be part of this as my puppy jumped on the sofa. The C part or consequence part consisted of me looking at them. So I gave them attention. I said off which is more attention, maybe even push them away, which was Even more attention. So the second my puppy did get off, they sat for a second, I went back to what I was doing, which is no attention. So if we look at it that way, attention, Attention, attention. And then when my puppy did something that I actually wanted, I didn't pay attention to them. Let's make a prediction. What do you think my puppy will do next time. So remember that dogs do what works for them. And in this case, my dog wants to sit on the sofa by me. So sitting calmly on the floor, didn't get them anything. In fact, I ignored them. Jumping on the sofa, though, got them my attention in three different ways. I looked at them, I talked to them, and I possibly even touch them. If I did, indeed push them away. My dog will most likely then jump on the sofa again. So how can I change this behavior? Let's look at the a part of this behavior, those antecedents so I can change the behavior using what happens before the behavior. I could get out of dog bed and practice the go to bed behavior before I even sit down on the sofa. So I can plan anticipate the my puppy might want to come over by me if I'm sitting on the sofa and I'll have something for my puppy to do. So I'll give my puppy a job like go to bed or a downstate, I can put my puppy in their crate or pen with a favorite toy. I love changing the a part of this because this sets my puppy up for success. And we bypass the unwanted behavior and head straight to the behavior I like, which is a huge win win in my book. Let's look at the same scenario and change it using consequences. So the C part what if we just worked with the C? So ignore the jumping behavior? What if my puppy comes over and jumps on the sofa and I don't look at or talk to them. I could cue my dog to do a behavior that I like better and pay attention to them when they do that. So I could still use that same concept of my puppy comes over, they jump. I don't look at them or talk to them instead, maybe I lower them into a down position or maybe I lower them onto their bed and then reward them for staying in that position. So essentially, I've changed The consequences and now I'm rewarding them for doing behavior that I like.
Unknown Speaker :The unwanted behavior was ignored. But immediately I taught my dog what they can do. I taught them what will earn them rewards, and then I paid them for doing that. Moving forward, they will repeat the wanted behaviors and you'll see the unwanted behaviors decrease. Now, we still had a jump in there and ideally, I want to get rid of that altogether. So in the future, I'm then anticipating what may happen and changing the antecedents so we can skip the jumping behavior completely. I'm setting my puppy up for success as much as possible, and using consequences only as necessary. Alright, need another example? Are you having fun yet? This is so fun, right? I love problem solving. How about the classic puppy biting? Who has that issue at their house? Anybody? Me Me? Me? My puppy is biting me and it hurts. Sound familiar? Let's do it. Alright, so the a part of this the antecedent what happens right before my puppy nips, that's what I'm asking myself what is causing this behavior to start? Maybe it's energy, perhaps my He wants attention or to play. Maybe they've been in their crate, and they just came out and have a lot of energy to get out. Maybe it's been a while since I've played with them, maybe they've been having some downtime or chewing a toy, and now they're ready to play. Now the behavior that we're going to talk about is the nipping or the biting. And the C part are the consequence. There's some different options we could give them. So if I look at them and say, No, basically, we're doing essentially what we did with the sofa example, I'm giving my puppy what he wants, I'm giving them interaction. I'm giving him attention. My prediction, the puppy biting will most likely continue or be repeated. So instead, I'm going to recognize when my puppy wants my attention, I'm going to understand his needs and his timing and schedule of the day. Maybe he needs some playtime, I'm going to engage with him, then the biting doesn't even start, I can pull out toys as soon as he comes out of his crate, I'm ready with a treat or a toy to direct him onto good behavior and keep his attention on things that I'm asking him to To do so that would be using the antecedents to set him up for success. Now, if my puppy does happen to bite my ankle, maybe I try to prevent it but it happens, life happens right? And my puppy comes from my ankle, I can change the consequence part of that by not giving any attention to the actual biting or nipping, I'm going to simply redirect to a new behavior, making sure that my puppy is then rewarded with my attention for the new actions. So maybe I offer a touch cue, I get their attention, I reward them for looking at me and then I move on to play or a game. Now oftentimes, we ask our puppy to stop biting. Then the second they do we go back to what we were doing. This is essentially teaching our puppy the nipping gets them our attention and stopping does not.
Unknown Speaker :What
Unknown Speaker :did you catch that? There it is, that is the key, right? Same thing in the sofa example. We're oftentimes inadvertently rewarding our dogs unwanted behavior, and ignoring the very behavior we want more of right I'll say that again. So sometimes we inadvertently reward our dogs unwanted behavior. So in this case, the biting. We said, No, we asked them to stop. We may be yelped. Maybe we moved or jerked our bodies around in a really exciting way. And then the second our puppy stopped biting us, we went back to what we were doing, which is ignoring them. So in this case, we are for sure doing this we're rewarding our dogs biting and we're ignoring the stopping of that behavior. We we gave them attention for biting and zero attention for stopping. So instead, be careful when you're changing these consequences around that we look for the good we want to notice when our puppy stops, so if we need to interrupt them. So first, we can ignore that actual biting but if we need to interrupt it, because it's happening and it hurts and we don't want it to continue, I can make a really quick sound, maybe a short quick blow or a tongue click or clap my hands or something. So that my puppy looks up from my They were doing has to be something that captures their attention. And then the second they give me attention, I can then get them to do other behaviors like a sit or a touch or a down or a stand, I'm immediately rewarding those good things, you can even initially reward that attention, which I highly recommend you do when they look at you, because that's what I want. I want that behavior. I don't like the biting of my ankles. So as with the jumping example, we want to take biting out of the equation as much as possible. So look back at the antecedent, and we want to try to prevent the biting from starting next time, if we can. So a lot of our time in puppy training is spent preventing behaviors from happening that we don't like. We are managing situations, we are setting our puppies up for success so that we can spend most of our time rewarding them. And there you have it. That's the ABCs of behavior and how it applies to puppy training. How fun was that? A little problem solving this week for you. Now go digest that. Try it out. take it for a spin and see what Dog Training problems you can solve using the ABCs this week. Happy trading Have a wonderful week.
Unknown Speaker :If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site Baxter & Bella calm to contact me