Instilling discipline

Poppy

Poppy

Member
How do you react when your puppy, in the course of its development, displays bad behavior? I think that at times, dog owners can get confused when choosing the best method of training. One thing I have been consistent with is to use time-outs whenever a puppy behaves badly. I move it to a quiet place with less distraction, for a few seconds.
 
When a dog is displaying a behavior that I personally don't like, I'll say something like, "No. Baaad." Then I'll stop them from doing whatever it is that I don't like. For instance, I'll take away the shoe that they're chewing on, walk them over to a closet where shoes are, point to the shoes and say, "No. Baaad," then it's back to business as usual.
That being said, I never think that a puppy is behaving badly, I just think that they are being puppies, however, the word "baaad" is something that rolls off of the tongue easily, and dogs learn pretty quickly what "baaad" means when they are in the midst of doing something, it means stop doing that. They usually will stop doing whatever behavior that they're doing at that moment.
 
I totally agree with you @MeriYa that dogs (and especially puppies) learn very fast. I remember a time when a certain puppy used to chew on things and I would use the same method you have mentioned. So there is this instance when I got into the house and he was chewing on a shoe but when he noticed that I was watching, he quickly stopped it and stared at me. I think another nice way to train is by rewarding good behavior.
 
What I always recommend is to always manage the environment because all behavior has environmental conditions, see ABA. Therefore with any new dog or puppy I always have a puppy proof area when they are free and being supervised. If they are not supervised they are in a puppy proof area where they cannot practice any behaviors we humans perceive as undesirable. ( This goes for any dog in training.)

Now when they are free we teach and redirect, for example if they are headed towards a shoe we cue leave it (assuming we instilled the leave it cue". Always a good idea to teach basic obedience and also teach some boundaries. Therefore we recommend to use the leave it cue and guide the dog to what is expected of them (redirect to toy/or have the dog choose the right behavior in a training session). We find that when we suppress behaviors the dogs never learn what is expected of them. For example when a shoe is on the floor and no human is around the dog is smart enough to know the punish-er is not present in the environment therefore will chew the toy.

Some great tips in our puppy section

Great topic...
 
The more I learn about dogs, the clearer it is that there is more to training a dog. Thank you for that link @Vinny, I will be paying more attention to ABA, in the coming days. There is more to the environment in which a puppy exists and it definitely has a bearing on its overall behavior.
 
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