Below you’ll find the most important questions to ask yourself when setting up training programs for your dog that rely on removing reinforcers for bad behaviors and instead reward alternate appropriate behaviors.
Timing -- Is the timing correct? Are you getting the treat to the dog right after he performs the behavior? Are you taking too long to fumble with the treat and the dog loses interest, or you reinforce another behavior?
Criteria -- Have you defined your criteria so that you can be consistent and clear? Remember, every interaction is a training session. Are you interacting correctly all the time, or just during times you designate as training session? Are others in the house reinforcing the same, or different criteria?
Rate of reinforcement -- Are you reinforcing frequently enough to keep your dog from being bored and allowing him to learn the behavior? Are you reinforcing the correct behavior or are you bribing your dog by showing the reward first or luring them with the reward?
Shaping Mistakes -- If the behavior in question require shaping, are you advancing to the next step before the prior step is down path? If you are unsure, collect data and don’t go to the next step until the dog performs the current step correctly 8 or 9 out of 10 times in a row. Are you making big leaps between steps? Are you staying on earlier steps too long so that the dog has trouble relearning that this isn’t the goal behavior?
Chaining Behaviors -- Have broken complex behaviors into their component parts and perfected them individually?
Natural History Considerations and Past Experiences -- Is the dog biologically prepared and anatomically able to perform the given behavior for the given reinforcement? Will past experiences make the goal easier or more difficult to train?
Motivation -- Are you using the appropriate reward for the specific environment or situation? Ask yourself, at this moment, what would the dog rather do?
Communication -- Are you giving some type of body cue that’s “telling” the dog to do something other than what you want him to do? Is the dog’s body language conveying an emotional state that indicates he is fearful in this situation or not motivated for the type of reinforcement you are using?
Source: “How to Behave So Your Dog Behaves” by Dr. Sophia Yin, DVM, MS
