One of the most common words used in training is Reinforcement. Reinforcement is any reward given to a dog to encourage them to continue a behavior. It may be a treat, a game of tug, or a ball getting tossed.
Sometimes, reinforcement is unintentional, and results in encouraging an unwanted behavior. A dog jumps on their owner and gets attention. That attention (even if it’s getting pushed off) reinforces the behavior.
Pulling on the leash is also reinforcing, because the dog moves forward when they pull. This encourages them to do so, even if no treats or toys are involved.
Mindful Reinforcement
Knowing when a behavior is being reinforced is key to controlling your dog’s behavior. If a dog is consistently being rewarded for a behavior (counter surfing, sneaking onto a dog-free sofa, pulling on the leash) it may be harder to curb the behavior.
Likewise, if you never reinforce good behavior, your dog may see no reason to do it. If recall isn’t heavily, frequently reinforced, why bother coming when that squirrel over there is very reinforcing?
Negative vs. Positive
On this blog, we focus mainly on positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement are those happy things your dog likes. Since you will likely come across it on other blogs, it’s worthwhile to mention that negative reinforcement exists as well.
Negative reinforcement is still aimed at making your dog behave a certain way more often, but instead of using a reinforcement method that is happy, you use one they don’t like.
One method of negative reinforcement is to jerk the leash on a pulling dog to try and make the dog stop pulling. When the dog stops, the jerking stops. The reward in this case, is that the dog is no longer experiencing pain in their throat when they stop pulling.
Negative reinforcement in most cases with chihuahuas ends up with injury. A leash correction leads to a collapsing trachea, pushing on the butt can result in mobility issues. We do not recommend using negative reinforcement with these tiny little guys.
Similar Posts:
- Dog Vocabulary: Operant Conditioning
- Dog Vocabulary: Capturing
- How To Muzzle Train A Chihuahua
- Training Vocabulary: Extinction
- What is clicker training?
I love how you explained reinforcement as something that can help or accidentally encourage the wrong behavior; it’s a relatable reminder for careful training. It’s comforting to remember that with thoughtful rewards we can guide good habits.