Your dog’s behavior is chiefly motivated by your attention. Relating to you is the highlight of her day, and she will do anything to get you to notice her, even if it’s acting up.
Attention Is Everything
You dog thrives on your attention; she doesn’t care whether it is negative or positive. In fact, negative attention is often per- ceived as confrontational play or, worse, instills fear. For example, it you yell loudly enough at anyone, they will look afraid. The same is true of your dog. You may be yelling at your dog, telling her that she’s bad and thinking that she understands that you’re mad at her. In reality, your d
og may be misinterpreting your frustration and not making the connection. Your dog may be reading your frustration as confrontational play, making her even more excited and unmanageable. Consider what I call the Attention Scale, a scale ranging from 1 to 10, with 1 representing sleep and 10 representing totally out-of-hand behavior. For our discussion we will further split the scale into 1 to 8, or the happy, civilized zone, and 8 to 10, the manic zone in which your dog literally can’t control herself. As puppies, all dogs have this range; however, as they mature, most learn how to contain their impulses. A lot of people focus on behaviors that fall in the 8-to-10 zone, manic impulsive activities, in an anxious attempt to gain quickcontrol. Yelling, pushing, kneeing, and grabbing, however, are all forms of attention, but instead of teaching the dog to be calm, these reactions excite her, and the behavior gets worse or happens more frequently. Remember, the behavior that gets the most attention is the behavior that your dog will repeat over and over. Your goal is to help your dog understand how to control her own impulses and to live in the 1-to-8 zone: civilized and polite.
Quote :Dog Training by Sarah Hodgson
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