Oh Behave!

It took me a LONG time, much diligent training and careful management to teach my Kelpie mix Vinnie not to chase my cat Ted, and to get a tug toy instead when he gets the cat-chasing urge. We enjoyed a lengthy stretch of peace at home; dog and cat could both chill out in the same room in close proximity to one another without problems.

Vin Settled With Ted Nearby

I was overjoyed. There’s almost nothing I like better than the company of both my critters at the same time. And the dog-cat harmony at home was no small achievement. Vinnie is a herding mix with high energy and an intense desire to herd moving critters.

But that was then.

Lately Vinnie starts whining in frustration and his eyes light up in that, “I’m dying to chase you now!” way whenever he sees Ted. Vinnie has also taken to following Ted so closely, he’s practically standing on top of him. Ted is not amused.

At first I was puzzled about the change in Vin’s behavior. Then I remembered that of late, our garden has been overrun with feral cats. There always seems to be at least one feral kitty lurking in the shadows. (I don’t leave food or garbage out there. A well-meaning neighbor has been feeding the ferals daily and ever since, the surrounding yards have become a feline playground.)

No wonder Vin’s interest in Ted has revived. Vinnie’s had plenty of recent opportunity to chase the feral cats outside. And chase them he does!

For Vinnie, chasing cats is a self-reinforcing behavior. Chasing cats is tons of fun for him. He’s rewarded powerfully whenever he does it; chasing and herding cats must feel incredible to him. Herding is after all, what he’s hard-wired to do.

Animals aren’t static entities or robots. They’re living organic creatures who respond and react to their environments. In other words,behavior changes. It can change for a host reasons such as an illness, a health problem, or as a result of natural development and maturing (transitions from puppyhood to adolescence to adulthood to the golden years).

Ted

Behavior can also change as a result of environmental factors. These run the gamut and include changes in diet, in amounts and types of exercise and mental stimulation, in life routines, a move to a new home, the addition of a new pet or family member, or the death of a loved one to name a few.

Vinnie’s in perfect health and the only recent change in his life has been the feral festival in our yard and the many opportunities he’s seized to chase those cats. Behavior that’s rewarded increases in intensity and frequency. The more Vinnie chases cats — a rewarding behavior to him — the more he wants to chase cats, and the more he wants to chase cats, the more he chases them. This explains his changed behavior and attitude towards Ted.

One of my instructors at the SF-SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers always said, “If you want the animal to change its behavior, change your behavior.” So true.

If I want to curb Vinnie’s desire to chase Ted, I need to change my behavior. Relying on my pre-feral cat training plan won’t suffice. I need to manage the environment to prevent Vin from chasing the outdoor kitties.

I can’t block them from my yard and it doesn’t seem fair to suspend Vin’s yard privileges. My management plan is to go outside and get any feral cats to skedaddle before Vinnie is allowed into the yard. I also need to ramp up the training – more recall and leave it practice away from Ted, lots of practice calling Vinnie to come inside from the back yard, and stupendous rewards for those behaviors.

If your dog’s behavior has changed suddenly and it’s not to your liking, try to figure out what may have caused the change. If it’s not due to maturing, rule out any physical problems with a vet exam.

If there are no health issues, consider whether there have been any changes in your dog’s life or routine. If he’s been getting less physical or mental exercise, increase it. If the environment has changed, depending on what’s changed and how intensely it’s affected your dog, he may just need some time to adjust.

If you’re concerned and/or your dog’s behavior doesn’t improve, it’s best not to let the undesirable behavior continue as it will most likely worsen.

Do your best to prevent your dog from doing the behavior and consult with a good positive reinforcement trainer. Deciphering behavior puzzles and crafting a plan to address them is what dog trainer geeks like me relish.

I should have known better.

Yesterday was Vinnie’s and my first public freestyle performance. We danced in a group routine at a dog festival in a park, with a large audience of dogs and their people, including my husband a.k.a, Vinnie’s “Papa.” (Very corny, I know. But c’mon, I have a hunch you’ve dished up some corny talk to your dog.)

Back to the festival. As soon as we arrived, a little voice in my head said, Uh oh. Vinnie was very excited. He wanted to play off-leash with other dogs, to inhale the scent of grilling meat wafting about and hunt for dropped tidbits. He saw kids playing soccer and wanted to nab their ball. And he was hell-bent on keeping his group – me, him and his Papa – together. Rounding us up is something my dear Kelpie mix has always done, and more intently in new environments.

I’d agreed at the last minute to dance in the routine, and Vin and I’d been practicing our parts diligently. But that was mostly indoor practice at home, a familiar relatively distraction-free location. I’d come to the park ready with a large bag of chicken, which had never failed to help Vin’s focus and for which he’d danced eagerly the day before in the same park. But that was without barbecues, human food galore, scores of other dogs in the vicinity, and Papa at the ringside.

When it was our turn in the ring Vinnie’s performance fell apart. Instead of heeling and spinning next to me across the stage, he took off towards the gate, his eyes darting around for any sign of my husband. I quickly got Vin’s attention and he did most of his routine after that only to lose it again during his solo finale. Instead of trotting towards me and taking a bow, he spotted my husband and ran to the side of the ring to greet him.

Like I said, I of all people should have known there’s just no short cutting the training process. One essential key to effective training is to train gradually, making tasks more challenging for your dog one step at a time. It’s like training for a marathon; you don’t vault from jogging a mile a day to being able to run a 26-mile race.

It’s not surprising that Vinnie didn’t perform well. I rushed his training and neglected to set him up for success in several ways.

For one thing, dogs don’t generalize easily. It you want them to apply learning acquired in one context to another, you have to help them get there. If you only train “sits” in the kitchen, it will take a bit more training for the dog to learn that “sit” means the same thing in the living room, a yard, at the beach and on the sidewalk. Even though Vinnie had nailed the routine again and again at home, he’d only had one practice at the park and another in someone’s back yard. That wasn’t nearly enough to bet on a solid performance on the day of the show amidst a sea of distractions.

The world is a mighty distracting place!

For another thing, dogs are notoriously distractible. To get behavior around distractions, increase distraction levels incrementally. A dog who responds reliably to, “Let’s heel,” in your hallway may look as if he’s never heard the words the first several times you try heeling at the beach. Other dogs, new people, food, new smells and sounds are just some things most dogs find pretty darn enticing. Poor Vin was faced with multiple high level distractions at the same time. That together with insufficient practice to generalize was enough to doom his performance.

On top of all tha, Vin was grappling with a strong competing motivator. Most dogs love food and are very motivated to do stuff, training included, to get it. But a treat that keeps a dog’s attention on training when there’s nothing else going on may very likely pale in comparison to a chance for a squirrel chase, to romp with other dogs, or in Vinnie’s case, to round up his humans. On show day, Vinnie was highly motivated to keep his group together. While he was motivated at times to score chicken by doing parts of his routine, at other times the desire to find his dad won out.

Thankfully, the performance was just for fun. We all laughed about it. No harm was done except for a little bruise on my ego. And I’ll make sure not to repeat the same mistakes as we prepare for our next performance. Next time, we’ll both be ready!