Thinking About Behavior

By Marilyn Marks
Owner of The Good Dog Spot! Day care, night care and training in Bloomfield.

The other day I was procrastinating in the morning when I realized I had a new audio book that I was eager to listen to on my 30 minute ride to work.  All of a sudden I didn’t see the newspaper as all that exciting.  Brushing my hair and teeth seemed much more important.
While I was brushing my teeth, I kept at it, almost compulsively going on.  That’s not like me.  Then I realized that I was honoring my husband’s request to conserve water and had turned the faucet off while brushing.  It seems that the sound of the water prompts me to swish the brush under it.  Without the water sound, no stopping behavior.
When I got in the car I took off down the street fumbling with my new ipod and its attachments.  I’m still fumbling when I realize I’m getting more than really frustrated, as if there is this alarm going off in my head.  Then I realize it’s the seat belt monitor, telling me I am being negligent.   My behavior goes unchanged however, as I am really focused on getting the book to play.  On and on goes the warning, as well as the war in my head between my safety and the sounds I want from my ipod.  Never mind!  I put on my seat belt just to end the awful eep, eep, eep!  Now I can think!
Why am I telling you my morning adventure in a pet column?  Because all of the above are examples of how behavior develops, is supported or changed – all goals of dog training. 
In the first example, my motivation to get to work didn’t move me to (proper) action, but my motivation to listen to the book did.  We are always, whether aware of it or not, acting on motivation or what we think we will get out of something.  It’s easy to see that our dogs are too.  "What’s in it for me," says the dog, "when you call me to come and I see a bicyclist to chase?  Don’t you know how rarely the elements align to provide me with a moving target while you don’t have the other end of the leash?"  "You want me to stop jumping?  But what else is there to do when I’m just so happy to see [fill in blank] at the door?!?"  Dog training is about showing the dog options and making them more motivating than what the dog inherently thinks.  P.S.  This is true whether the motivation is the carrot or the stick (but I prefer the carrot). 
In the second example, my behavior is abnormal only because one little thing is different from the "normal "picture."  Without my usual prompt (which I was unaware I was dependent on) I couldn’t "behave."  Prompts are things that cue us to do things.  Words like "sit" and "stay" are prompts for dogs, but they also are cued by things in the total "picture."  If they are used to sitting facing you, a dog may not "know" how to sit at your left side (and vice versa) because you look different from that angle.  For the dog, "view of owner" is part of the prompt.  Similarly, if you work on "don’t jump" but you don’t include the sound of a doorbell or the sight of a door opening in your training, you may not like your results.
In the last example, my behavior changes because of a punishment.  In this particular case the desired behavior was "put on seat belt now."  When I put on the belt, the annoyance stopped and the car was happy.  Another result was that my desired behavior: "thinking and working with ipod," was "allowed" after I’d changed my seat belt behavior.  Thus, I was able to not only turn off the punishment but gain a reward – a double reward.  How entirely motivating!  But I wonder if I will remember to make my seat belt top priority next time.
Examples of learning and behavior change are all around us and they do not only apply to our dogs.  The more I learn about do training, the more I learn we’re all the same.