What is Bad Behavior?
In the home, he quickly learned to open cupboards and get at the garbage, or anything in the food pantry not sheathed in metal. Even when we installed state-of-the-art baby guards on all cupboards and drawers, he quickly learned how to defeat them and get to the goods. We had to permanently relocate any and all discarded “delectables” behind locked doors, until Lou became too old to pull off his slight-of-hand break-in move.
Domestication tends to butt heads with Mother Nature’s natural programming. When you ask your dog not to perform an instinctive behavior, you are in reality going up against millions of years of evolution. That’s what “domestication” is- a comprehensive attempt to alter behavior to suite the new environment, so that the benefits of that adjustment outweigh the disadvantages, for both parties. So, one major cause of misbehavior in a dog is caused not by the pet’s desire to annoy you, but by the owner’s inability to find a way for the dog to divert its natural instincts in an acceptable way, or to cleverly let the animal know what the new rules are concerning good and bad behavior in the home.
A good way to minimize bad behaviors in your dog is to try to think like her. If you were a dog, wouldn’t you find that little hamster a tremendous temptation, especially with it sitting atop the easily accessible desk, in an open-topped fish tank? Sure you would. Scratch one hamster. This “misbehavior” could have been avoided by you looking around the home through the eyes of a dog and seeing all the temptations. The hamster should have been in a dog-proof area, out of reach. End of problem before it starts.
A good rule of thumb is, if it’s there, the dog will find it. So, thinking like your pooch again, look around the home and see if you can spot items that she might want to investigate. Well, look at that, a cupcake left on the counter. Guess I’ll just jump on up there and eat it. Then you come out of the bathroom, find the food half-eaten and on the floor, and proceed to badger the dog. Bad move. The whole thing was your fault. You should punish yourself- no cupcakes for you! Next time, put the food where your pooch can’t get to it and the undesirable behavior won’t occur.
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