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A solid Behavior Prevention Program should be put in place whenever any 'new' dog comes into the home, whether as a young puppy or as an adult rescue / shelter / purchased dog.  The Prevention Program should be implemented immediately, or, if the dog appears stressed, after a short period of adjustment so that the dog has a chance to decompress.  Implementing a Prevention Program right away is the best way to avoid the development of behavioral issues- once issues surface or develop, you are no longer solely in prevention mode.

Once the dog has successfully learned the lessons necessary for integration into the human social group (family), a Behavior Maintenance Program should be established and enforced to maintain the desired behaviors.  This is simply good common sense and prudent practice.  

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Both Behavior Prevention and Behavior Maintenance Programs consist of 2 separate but complimentary components:

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1) Management  and

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2) Training including Behavior Modification and Life Skills training.

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* Supplementary activities, such as general physical & mental exercise, along with proper and appropriate social interactions, can be included within either or both Programs.

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Management refers to strategies designed to prevent the possibility of unwanted behaviors from occurring in the first place, or to mitigate the effects of any existing or developing behavioral/emotional issues.  These strategies include:

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Spatial Management:

•  Various forms of physical containment or confinement;

•  Restraint  (usually by way of leash or tether); and

•  Conditioning or training (training can be used to assist in the spatial control of the dog), especially those methods that set limits on spatial freedom, such as PLACE training.

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Pharmacological Interventions: 

•  Prescription Drugs, including hormones 

•  Herbs, Supplements, Naturopathy/Homeopathy 

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Training here refers to teaching.  The central goal should be to impart to the dog various valuable and relevant life lessons and skills that will directly impact that dog's ability to live, thrive, and survive in human society.  For puppies (dogs under 4 1/2 months of age), the 50 by 5 Program is the best place to start for teaching young dogs to grow up to be well-behaved adults.  This Program covers the 50 essential behaviors and life skills that all companion dogs should know before they are 5 months old... thus  50 by 5.

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These life lessons should be taught in order to broadly address the dog's emotional system and inherent instinctual / genetic tendencies.  Unchecked, these underlying behavioral "drives" are what gets most dogs into trouble.  Training should be aimed at conditioning emotional self-control as well as inhibiting certain instinctual and impulsive drives.  Self-control is the goal, thus NO so-called "obedience" training or verbal cues should be introduced or used initially.   Such attempts to directly communicate to the dog are not advised, as they can actually make some behavior problems worse.

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The dog must also learn social rules and boundaries for both dog-dog and dog-human interactions, and these guidelines and expectations should be clearly communicated in an effective and non-verbal manner.  The dog should learn to defer to humans for any and all resources, by default.  Again, this should be taught initially without any verbal or gestural cues/commands.  And finally, the dog should be conditioned and exposed to various environments in such a way that create and establish positive emotional associations with these locations and the elements found within them.

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Notice that teaching a dog to SIT or lie DOWN or to shake its PAW is not on the list of training goals.  Well-trained is not equivalent to well-behaved!  None of the target teaching goals are achieved through the use of Obedience training-- in fact most behavior work is done without the use of Obedience commands/cues.  Obedience training alone is quite ineffective when used to either prevent or resolve many types of behavioral issues.  [Notice that I said prevent and resolve the issues, not merely control the dog's (physical) actions.  Also note that I also said Obedience training alone is often ineffective--  Obedience training may indeed be an important component of a behavior modification, rehabilitation, or similar training program in certain instances, but one should never rely solely on obedience training for either the prevention or resolution of behavior problems.]

 

There are many many potential and significant problems with the use of Obedience training / Obedience cues when they are applied to address behavior problems-- sometimes Obedience training alone will often have little effect on the problem behavior itself;  sometimes it will appear to work within a specific context or situation; and sometimes Obedience work will actually make the situation or the behavior problem worse.  And this is true regardless of the approach, techniques, or methodology that one chooses to utilize when teaching the obedience cues / commands.  

 

The idea of not using Obedience training to create a well-behaved dog may sound counter-intuitive at first, especially since the word 'Obedience' itself would imply or indicate control over the dog.  Indeed this idea may run counter to what you have heard, read, been taught, or currently believe... but it is nonetheless true.  To a dog, Obedience training is nothing more than learning a 'cue : action' association-- a discriminative stimulus of sorts.  That is, a (verbal) cue indicates the opportunity to possibly gain or maintain something the dog likes, or escape from or avoid something that the dog doesn't by performing a particular physical action or sequence of actions.  For instance, a dog may learn that a certain verbal cue means to put its rear-end on the floor, or its elbows on the ground, when it hears the sound SIT or DOWN, respectively.  These are merely physical actions-- performance measures that demonstrate the dog knows how to place its ass or elbows on the floor.  You can certainly elect to teach your dog such cues, and utilize whatever methods of enforcement you like, but this likely will not change the dog's emotional mind, or how it feels, about a particular environmental situation when you use those Obedience cues to control that dog's actions in that situation.  In addition, the dog may not 'behave' appropriately when not on cue or on command, or the dog may behave very differently when no one is around to tell the dog what to do (or what not to do) via Obedience commands.

 

I have yet to see or meet a dog that has been relinquished, returned, or euthanized because it would not SIT or DOWN on cue.  Rather, dogs lose their homes, and frequently their lives as well, because they cannot control their emotional and instinctual impulses.  Dogs destroy, they bite, and they kill.  Ensuring that a dog knows how to SIT or DOWN on cue for food in your kitchen or living room is just irrelevant-- it's not all about assess and elbows.  

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