What Happens After You Say No Matters
Immediately after correcting Barley, I give him something else to do instead. I may yell at him to stop him from chasing a cat, but then I pull out my treats, his zen mat, and ask him to lie down and stay. If I don’t have treats or toys with me (which is rare), I’ll just ask Barley to touch my hand with his nose to redirect his attention. This generally works.
The key is that after I correct Barley in life, I make an effort to go back and set up a training session so that he knows what to do next time. If I have to yell “NO!” at him to stop him from running away to roll in the mud, next time I’ll practice relaxation and loose leash walking near a tempting wallowing hole.
If you’re interested in learning more about training techniques mentioned in this article, be sure to book a call with me – I’ll help you implement these techniques in your home to create a better-behaved dog!
This is not to say that I spend all day telling Barley “No!” In fact, I do my best to avoid correcting him. I control the environment so that he’s less tempted to misbehave. That’s step one, the bare basics.
Aside from controlling your dog’s environment and training your dog for good behavior in tricky situations, your next step is to try the SMART x 50 training technique.
Put the lead on and ask for a “sit”, a “heel” or a “look-at-me” to discourage inappropriate behaviours
But what about the word “no”? It’s not a thing, it’s not a place, it’s not an activity and it’s not a cue for any specific behaviour. So what does “no” mean to a dog?
A recall or an emergency stop cue will make more sense to your dog than “No…..don’t jump on that lady”. And rewarding your dog for loose lead walking is far more effective than shouting “no” to the tugging tank at the other end of the lead.
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For example if you spot your dog sneaking up on a plate of cookies, rather than yell “no”, you could ask for a “sit”, a recall or even just eye contact. Praise and reward your dog for doing the right thing – and then move the cookies out of temptations way.
Your dog needs a balance of negative and positive consequences to understand the behaviour you want. As a dog trainer, I like to think of it as a framework we set up so they can negotiate. Nature is always in balance. Nowhere is the natural world does ‘positive only’ exist. This is just how things work. Mammals learn principally by copying and much of the behaviour needed to survive and thrive is taught. This feedback is unquestionably not all positive in the dog’s natural environment, so why should it be with us? Have you ever seen a dog growl at another dog over a bone? Or snap when it wants to be left alone? Either dog takes no offence and it is understood immediately. There are no treats being handed out and no “hope I didn’t offend you earlier”. This is because it was never done to offend nor does it come from ego. It is just business to the dog and a very effective and efficient use of energy. It is very confusing to the dog when humans avoid any confrontation or challenge when they crave clarity and security.
Yes, we should use positive reinforcement whenever possible and appropriate, of course, but certainly not exclusively. (Can you say no without causing fear, pain or intimidation? Of course! It is the way it is done. You say no to your kids don’t you? Are they traumatised because you set boundaries? Of course not. We say “no” because we love them!) Would you allow your children to be aggressive to other kids or to ignore rules on the basis that if they get told “no” they might become scared or aggressive? Boundaries and consequences are a healthy and normal part of life and learning to fit successfully into society. Saying no to a dog is necessary in a lot of situations as a way of providing valuable feedback to the dog (whether it is their best interests to repeat the behaviour). Not doing so can sometimes be confusing and counterproductive.
In our view, as a loving guardian. saying “no” to your dog or puppy for unwanted behaviour when necessary is both healthy and beneficial to both you and your dog. Next time someone in the pet industry offers you any advice please remember to make sure it sits right with you and trust your own inner guidance and intuition. If it doesn’t feel right it is not for you. There is a lot of questionable advice being circulated around in this industry at the moment.
The reason so many dogs are displaying ADHD symptoms is that they have not been challenged for being in an over-exited or over-simulated state. These dogs are wired and find it hard to stay calm. They find it hard to switch brain states and are stuck in an active state that needs constant stimulation and attention. It is our responsibility as loving guardians to help our dog to stay in a predominantly calm or passive state of mind and not get stuck in this active state. If we observe a group of dogs, we will see this is what nature does. When a weaker energy dogs gets over-exited or anxious the stronger energy will challenge it to bring it back to balance. The being that oscillates at a higher frequency is always calm and wants the pack to stay at the same frequency.
We are hearing from many of our clients that that they were told in puppy classes that they are not allowed to say “no” to their dogs. By the time we get to these poor clients their dogs are out of control and often display ADHD symptoms. These owners are offered no way to stop unwanted behaviour other than to ignore it.
Many are even told that their dog may need to be medicated. The advice they were given is clearly not working for them but they have nothing else. They are not allowed to say no to their dog. We believe that this advice is both disempowering and ridiculous. It may be philosophically nice but It shows a lack of understanding of dog behaviour, communication and interaction.
How, When and Why I say “NO” to my dogs.
In some corners of the dog training world, this is still a pretty radical idea. Dogs are supposed to “obey” commands, and if they don’t, it’s a sign of “disrespect.”
Perhaps the most obvious example is what service dog trainers call intelligent disobedience. These dogs, whose reliability is life-or-death, actually need to be able to make independent judgments about what’s safe for themselves and their handlers. For instance, if the blind handler of a guide dog cues the dog to step off the curb, but there’s a car coming, the dog should refuse.
One could argue, though, that all disobedience is intelligent: the dog has assessed the situation based on the facts available and decided it’s not safe or simply not worthwhile to do a certain behavior. We humans do this all day every day, and it’s kind of insane that we expect dogs not to. The ability to use your behavior to get things you want and feel safe is critical to mental health for all species. When we are unable to do so, we become frustrated, aggressive, apathetic, or depressed. And most captive animals, including pets, start with a big deficit of control right out of the gate.
Dogs have lots of polite ways to signal that they would prefer not to engage with something or someone—that they don’t find an interaction worthwhile or safe. But humans, who frequently don’t recognize these subtle ways of saying no, tend to inadvertently punish them, often by just plowing ahead with the interaction or procedure. So dogs can quickly learn that the only truly effective way to say no—be it to a nail trim or to the approach of another dog—is to snarl, snap, lunge, or bite.
While the main goal of training is frequently to get a dog to say yes, it can also be extremely helpful to teach him how to say no in an acceptable way. Letting someone say no actually often seems to increase his or her willingness to say yes. It helps build trust, which for animals we might define as Susan Friedman does (in this article for parrot owners) as “a level of sureness that interacting with people produces safe outcomes.”
Many excellent trainers have been doing some form of this for ages, especially in the zoo and aquarium world, where training is used to teach animals to participate in their own care with as little stress as possible. These trainers make it very worthwhile for the animals to work with them, but the animals are also allowed to leave the session whenever they choose. And when they do, it’s viewed as valuable information for the trainer.
My colleague Laura Monaco Torelli of Animal Behavior Training Concepts has spent the last seven years developing a program to bring this approach, which she first learned at the Shedd Aquarium, over to dog training. You can see some of her most recent videos using a chin rest as a way for dogs to opt in to various husbandry procedures at the Ready, Set for Groomer and Vet Facebook page. Though the dogs in her videos don’t opt out often, due to her carefully graduated steps, she regularly “resets” them during sessions to see if they choose to come back.
Similarly, British trainer Chirag Patel has developed what he calls the Bucket Game, in which a dog learns to keep his eyes on a bucket of treats, and then to do so during husbandry procedures. The dog is empowered to stop the procedure at any time by turning away from the bucket, while continuing to stare at it constitutes consent. A San Diego-based trainer, Dearing English, has put together a detailed webinar on her use of the Bucket Game.
One of my favorite bloggers, Eileen Anderson, has popularized a “consent test” for petting—which not all dogs enjoy in all forms from all people.
And last month at ClickerExpo, my favorite presentation was a joint talk by Swedish trainers Eva Bertilsson and Emelie Johnson Vegh and horse trainer Peggy Hogan. They discussed systematic ways to teach dogs, horses, birds, and kids to make requests (such as to go outside or for the water bowl to be refilled), express preferences (such as which perch to step onto), and “push a start button” on a procedure (such as eye cleaning or medication). Here’s a video that shows Peggy working with a miniature horse who has learned that he can control the pace and progress of eye care by either pressing his face into her hand or turning his head.
Working for Animal Behavior Training Concepts, I recently collaborated with Rover-Time dog walker Matt to help a mutual client, Calvin, who was uncomfortable having his leash clipped to his harness and expressed his discomfort by growling and snapping at Matt. (Note that in any such situation, contributing medical factors should be ruled out or addressed before starting training.)
We observed behaviors Calvin was already doing, and essentially, we just made the outcomes for each very predictable for him. Freezing or backing away would always produce an immediate removal of the leash (and the hand holding it), while looking at the leash clip and then at the handler would give the handler permission to proceed. Here are the steps we worked through—first me, then Matt:
Preparation: Handler sits in a chair to avoid looming over Calvin, and a path is clear for Calvin to walk away if he wants. The handler has some of Calvin’s food in one hand and the leash clip in the other. (Normally I would use higher value treats, but Calvin has major dietary restrictions.)
With repetition, the presentation of the leash was becoming a cue to look at the clip, then look forward. The food reinforced this behavior, and also created positive associations with the presence of the leash.
Once Calvin was reliably responding this way, we began gradually presenting the leash closer to the harness, until Calvin was giving us “permission” to bring the leash within a few inches of his harness.
Finally we added clipping: if Calvin looked at the clip and then forward at the handler, the handler would then clip the leash to the harness.
At this stage, it would have been ideal for the food to come just after the leash was clipped to the harness, instead of before and during, so we could be extra sure about construing the head-forward behavior as permission to clip.
But Matt was going to have to take over after just one training session, and so I opted for a slightly cruder plan that kept Calvin’s mouth busy and created strong associations between the entire leashing process and the food.
Calvin’s owner, Catherine, also took the brave step of agreeing that if Calvin did opt out of a session, or had a lot of trouble saying “yes,” he simply would not be walked that day. Forcing the issue and leashing him anyway would break the trust Matt was building and sacrifice long-term goals for short-term gains.
It’s been almost exactly a month since we trained this procedure, and happily, Matt reports Calvin has not growled or snapped at him since.