The 3 reasons for behaviour

Dog behaviour is complex, but we can roughly understand all behaviour as achieving at least 1 of the following 3 goals/purposes. Remember that it is your dog's belief that matters, not wherever the behaviour actually achieve the effect:

1. Accesses something the dog wants

2. Avoids something the dog doesn't want

3. The behaviour itself is satisfying

If you want your dog to perform a new behaviour, you should identify which of these three goals will be satisfied. Will the behavour allow them to access or avoid something, or will the behaviour itself become reinforcing?

When you want your dog to stop performing a behaviour, you must first recognise which of these three goals the behaviour is currently serving (or is believed to serve by your dog). This determines how the behaviour can be stopped.

• If your dog performs the behaviour because they believe it allows them to access or avoid a particular thing, then teaching them an alternative (and acceptable) behaviour which better accesses/avoids will go along way. You can also work to show your dog that their association is incorrect, and the behaviour doesn't serve to access/avoid the thing (wherever it actually does or not).

• If the behaviour is in itself satisfying, then just providing an alternative behaviour is unlikley to be suffecient. Self satisfying behaviours often are linked to biological drives (such as hunting or pack behaviour). It is important to identify if the behaviour serves a critical function your dog will be unable to stop, and to recognise our limitations of scope in training the behaviour away. However, we can generally satisfy these behaviours in an acceptable way (instead of chasing rabits, your dog can participate in appropriate engaging play).

• To prevent these self-reinforcing behaviours, you must first provide a quality alternative, while preventing them from practicing the unwanted behaviour. Then once learned, the unwanted behaviour needs to be suppressed (typically by establishing a structure, and an effective understanding of corrections).

As many unwanted behaviours are self-reinforcing, learning how to supress them becomes a key skill for any dog guardian. Supression is an essential element of having dogs live with humans, and requires appropriate study of your dog's sitaution, quality fulfillment of the needs that unwanted behaviour was providing, and a trusting relationship between dog and guardian/handler.