What to do when positive reinforcement doesn't work?

Punishment isn’t a very clear process for dogs, with them easily misconstruing what they’ve done wrong. For example, having an accident on the living room carpet which results in yelling and putting them in their crate might seem like the logical thing to do. However, that dog may interpret those consequences as meaning it’s not acceptable to eliminate in that particular spot, so they will start hiding their accidents in random places around the home. The proper thing to do in this scenario is to immediately take them outside and demonstrate that is the appropriate location for them to eliminate. When they do eliminate outside, reward and praise them. Punishment can also be degrading to your dog, leaving them detached and unmotivated. Positive reinforcement is best demonstrated by relating it to a human-to-human relationship. If you make a mistake at work, physical aggressiveness or yelling by your boss leaves you feeling ashamed, degraded, and unmotivated. A more constructive conversation that addresses the root of the problem and a solution to avoid it from happening again leaves you feeling relieved, grateful, and motivated. Give us a call and we can talk you through some strategies or recommend a professional dog trainer.

In some cases one, or a combination, of these will help. In others things just continue to deteriorate with the reactive behavior getting worse. Why. The answer is that the undesired behavior is being strongly reinforced through the process of negative reinforcement. Without an awareness of the power of negative reinforcement in this situation it is unlikely that the behavior can be changed to a significant degree. However, you can harness the power of negative reinforcement and use it to your benefit instead. For many dogs, a handful of cookies is no match for the relief of being away from the trigger. Instead, you’ll need to find ways to harness the power of the negative reinforcement that is happening and use it to your benefit. The purposeful use of negative reinforcement in training can be tricky; both in a practical and an ethical way.

If this is the case, there are several factors to consider. First, notice the time between the occurrence of a particular behavior and the reward that follows. For a reward to be most effective, it should be delivered immediately following the behavior. The longer the delay between the behavior and the receipt of the reward, the less likely it will be effective. It is also important to make sure that receiving the reward is based on demonstrating a particular behavior. The reward should only be presented after the behavior occurs. Keep in mind that a reward can lose its effectiveness if it is overused. This is relatively common and can be avoided by having a selection of desirable rewards available and making sure that the rewards are still desirable to the individual. As is the case with all of us, preferences change over time, and certain items that were once highly desirable may become unwanted or may even cause a negative response. Lastly, staff, teachers, and parents should understand that their clients, students, and children all have different preferences. Items or activities that are highly desirable to some individuals may not be at all desirable to others. Therefore, expect differences in what is considered rewarding among different individuals, as well as over time.

If positive reinforcement didn't result in behavior change for your dog, then you weren't doing it properly. This could be for a number of reasons: your timing could be off, what you were adding wasn't actually reinforcing to your learner, your dog was stressed by the environment, you only tried 1-2 times and then deemed it a failure, and so on. Simply put, if positive reinforcement didn't result in behavior change for your dog, then you weren't doing it properly. But don't blame your failed attempts at positive reinforcement training on flaws in the technique itself. You could just as easily be saying that the law of gravity doesn't apply to people with brown hair. It doesn't make a lick of sense. Behavior science doesn't care if you're male or female, or big or small, the same principles apply.

Sometimes pet parents are just expecting way too much too soon from their young dogs, but often, it’s more than that. If you have a Gundog breed in the great outdoors, eating a treat is not going to be high on their list of priorities. Because treats are what we consider to be a “reward”, we assume that they should effectively reinforce behaviour, but….it just doesn’t work like that. We need to be much more creative with these dogs. Don’t get me wrong, I use a lot of food in my training and value it as an incredibly powerful tool for teaching dogs, but to make the best progress possible and experience the best relationship with our dogs, it’s important that we do not limit ourselves to only popping treats into their mouth. We can use toys, play, praise, affection, movement, favourite activities, the environment…whatever the dog loves, we need to learn how to include it in our training. Until we know what are reinforcers for our dogs and how we can use these in our training, how can we reinforce behaviour? Positive reinforcement is so much more than feeding a treat. We can make those treats come to life so that it's about more than just eating.