Before You Can Have a No, You Need a Yes

All right, folks.

I’ve recently been inundated with behavior questions.

Reactivity. Dogs losing their minds at windows and fence lines. Dogs with bite histories. Dogs whose owners feel like they’ve tried everything and are looking for the thing that is finally going to fix this problem.

And very often, when I start talking to those owners, I tell them:

Go load your clicker.

Or your verbal marker. I don’t care whether your marker is click-click, yes, or something else entirely.

And inevitably somebody thinks:

That’s it? My dog is trying to eat the UPS man and you want me to load a clicker?

Yes.

Not because a loaded marker is magically going to cure your dog’s reactivity.

It isn’t.

But because we have to go back to the beginning.

A very important female mentor of mine once told me:

If you’re going to skip steps in dog training, you certainly don’t skip them at the beginning.

And that has stuck with me.

Your Dog Needs a Language

Think about how many dogs live their lives.

They wander around doing whatever feels good to them.

They bark at the window.

They chase squirrels.

They fence-fight.

They dig holes.

They steal things.

They generally pursue whatever happens to be rewarding at that particular moment.

And every once in a while, the human explodes:

GET OFF!

STOP THAT!

NO!

Imagine living in a house full of aliens who don’t speak your language.

Nobody has clearly explained the rules.

You wander around doing things that seem perfectly reasonable to you, and every once in a while one of the aliens starts screaming because apparently you’ve violated some intergalactic household ordinance nobody bothered to explain.

You’d probably develop some anxiety, too.

What the heck am I actually allowed to do around here?

Guys, it’s high time we start telling dogs what they’re allowed to do.

Not just what pisses us off.

And that starts with developing a powerful yes.

No, the Clicker Isn’t Going to Fix Everything

I’m not under the delusion that loading a clicker and reinforcing desirable behavior is going to magically resolve every behavioral problem.

It won’t.

I use positive and negative reinforcement. I also implement positive and negative punishment.

But here’s the critical part:

I cannot ethically layer negative reinforcement or positive punishment over a behavior the dog does not understand.

So we start in positive reinforcement.

“But I’m Impatient.”

I hear this all the time:

“I need this fixed NOW.”

I understand.

Living with serious behavioral problems is exhausting.

But there is no ethical way to fundamentally change behavior overnight.

I will stand firmly on that hill.

Behavior modification takes time because language takes time.

We don’t pop children out and immediately expect them to speak our native language.

We teach them.

During that process, they get frustrated. We get frustrated. Communication occasionally goes completely off the rails.

Your dog isn’t terribly different in that regard.

Except your dog can’t look at you and say:

“I have absolutely no freaking idea what you want from me.”

So sometimes he barks.

Sometimes he lunges.

Sometimes he avoids.

Sometimes he simply does whatever has historically worked for him.

And sometimes we unintentionally add anxiety because we’re inconsistent in our application of pressure and reward, leaving the dog wondering:

“What the heck are the rules I’m supposed to abide by?”

Your Problem May Be Complicated. The Starting Point Isn’t.

When you come to me with these problems, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to send you right back to the basics.

And often, people are skeptical of that approach.

They’re skeptical that something as simple as going back and loading a marker is going to have any demonstrable impact on what they’re experiencing.

Their problem feels complicated.

The dog is reactive.

The dog has a bite history.

They’ve been dealing with the same maladaptive behaviors for years.

Surely something this complicated requires a complicated solution.

But here’s the thing, folks:

Dogs are not particularly complicated creatures.

If somebody tells you that fixing your dog requires an 80-step training program and starts drawing crazy-ass diagrams that look like they’re trying to explain nuclear fission, remember:

If you can’t understand the training system, your dog certainly won’t.

Your problem may be complicated.

The solution may take considerable time.

But the starting point is always the same.

Go load the damn marker.

Build a Powerful YES

I don’t care whether your dog is two months old or ten years old.

If you don’t have a conditioned marker, that is exactly where we’re starting.

Click-click → reward.

Again.

Click-click → reward.

We’re going to build that association until the marker is dynamite.

I want you to hit that marker and see the dog come flying toward you with wild abandon.

And if he’s 13 years old?

Fine.

He can limp toward you with wild abandon.

The enthusiasm is what matters.

Now we have our first piece of language:

YES.

Now, How Are We Going to Use It?

We’re going to start marking behaviors we like and ignoring behaviors we don’t.

Dog goes to a position marker on his own?

Click-click. Reward.

Dog offers a sit or a down?

Click-click. Reward.

Dog offers some calm behavior indoors that you like?

Click-click. Reward.

Your reactive dog disengages instead of escalating?

Click-click. Reward.

What matters is that we’re marking and reinforcing the things we like.

We’re telling the dog:

This is advantageous.

This is the behavior I want.

This is how you make good things happen.

And suddenly, instead of spending your entire relationship waiting to catch the dog screwing up, you’re deliberately building a dog that actively searches for behaviors that offer an opportunity to engage with you.

Then, as those behaviors begin occurring more frequently, we’re going to start naming, marking, and rewarding them.

Dog goes to the position marker:

“Place.” Click-click. Reward.

Dog offers a sit:

“Sit.” Click-click. Reward.

We’re attaching language to behaviors the dog is already enthusiastically offering.

And we’re going to continue until those behaviors are under stimulus control:

I say. You do.

Now the dog has language.

Now We Can Start Layering in Pressure

Once we have language, we can begin layering low levels of negative reinforcement over known behaviors.

Pressure is applied.

The dog begins to perform the known behavior.

Pressure stops.

And reinforcement follows.

Now pressure isn’t random.

It isn’t confusing.

It exists within a communication system the dog already understands.

And once we’ve properly conditioned pressure, we can eventually begin thoughtfully applying low levels of pressure around some of those maladaptive behaviors.

The dog is barking at the window.

Low-level pressure.

The moment the dog begins to disengage and turn back toward us:

Pressure stops.

Then:

Mark. Reward.

Now we’ve communicated both sides of the equation.

Not that.

And:

YES. This instead.

Over time, with consistency, those maladaptive behaviors can begin to lose value while the alternative behaviors we’ve built become increasingly advantageous.

Then We Take It Into the Real World

Now we can start generalizing all of this through things like free shaping and getting the dog to engage with its environment in a productive manner.

We’re teaching the dog that the world isn’t simply something to react to.

There are opportunities out there.

There are behaviors to offer.

There are ways to interact with the environment that lead back to engagement and reinforcement with the handler.

We’re teaching the dog how to find its advantage productively.

And that’s where all of these pieces begin coming together.

You Can’t Start at the End

What’s key here, folks, is this:

You cannot start at the end.

It doesn’t work that way.

You can’t skip chapters.

I can’t I Dream of Jeannie language onto your dog.

We have to build it.

First, we establish a powerful YES.

Then we develop hope and enthusiasm in behaviors.

We attach language to those behaviors.

We proof them.

And eventually, we can build a meaningful “do better” or “no.”

Now we have a communication system that allows us to communicate with the dog across scenarios clearly, consistently, and ethically.

So when you come to me with a complicated behavioral problem and I tell you:

“Go load your clicker.”

I’m not dismissing the problem.

I’m telling you where we’re going to start solving it.

Trust me.

I’ve done this for a while.

Dog training isn’t particularly hard.

But being patient and trusting the process?

That’s difficult.

If you haven’t done so already, go watch our video on loading your clicker, and let’s get started today.