By CONNIE SWAIM
It's a Dog's Life 

Everyone loves the family dog – that is until he annoys us. We tend to love him the most when he is sleeping quietly at our feet or when we are ready to go for a walk and need a walking buddy.

We don’t like it when the dog jumps on us, chews our shoes, gets in the garbage, digs holes in the yard, chases the cat or knocks over the 5 year old. In short, we don’t generally like it when our dog is being a dog.

As a matter of fact, many of the things we want our dogs to do, such as peeing outside and considering the cat to be part of the family, are not normal dog behaviors. So, it is no wonder the human/dog relationship often has a few bumps in the road. To complicate matters even more, many of the things your dog does that bother you are behaviors you have been inadvertently reinforcing. Dogs will continue to do behaviors that are being reinforced.

For example if your dog jumps on you when you come in the door that can be an attention-seeking behavior. If you yell "no" at your dog, you just gave him attention. If you push him off of you, you gave him attention – and invited him to play.

From the dog’s perspective jumping up on you is being reinforced because you are talking to him and touching him. Your dog does not understand the concept of "no," at least not in the way people generally think of it. He just knows he got your attention.

Instead of yelling "no" at your dog, stop and ask yourself what you would like your dog to do instead. Once you know what you want your dog to do, you can train him to do it.

Another option is to ignore behaviors you don’t like. If the dog is not being constantly reinforced for the behavior by your attention, then the behavior will go away.

In our example of the jumping dog, you could decide you wished your dog would sit instead. That gives you a training goal. You are going to train your dog to sit when you ask him to. Or you could ignore the behavior.

If you stopped, folded your arms and turned your head away from your dog every time he jumped up on you, eventually he will stop the behavior because it is no longer being reinforced. By turning your head away from the dog you are actually communicating to him in a language he understands – body language.

If a dog turns his head away from another dog, he may be asking for space; you can use the same body language to communicate to your dog.

This is the part in the conversation when the family starts to say how stubborn the dog is. "He knows the command for sit, but he chooses not to do it all of the time," is a common refrain from dog owners. The problem is that dogs don’t generalize, so if the only time you taught your dog to sit was when it was very quiet and nothing else was going on, then he only learned to sit in that environment. You have to actually teach him to sit when someone is coming through the door, and he is very excited.

The entire family needs to all be on the same page. If one person is coming through the door and asking the dog to sit, another person is ignoring the dog, two of the kids are delighted when the dog jumps on them and they pet him and love on him and someone else in the family is yelling "no" and pushing the dog away, the dog is going to be very confused. He will have no idea what he is expected to do.

Consistency is important for dogs, which means everyone in the family has to work with the dog the same way. So the next time your dog annoys you, stop and ask yourself what’s going on. What did you want the dog to do instead?

Chances are good your dog is just as frustrated as you are.

Readers with questions about canine behavior or training should send them to cswaim@farmworldonline.com

Send a photo of your dog, as well. Selected questions will be answered in this column. Swaim is the author of Idiot’s Guides: Puppies (Alpha Publishing, 2014).