We all have them. Habits are the things we do without really thinking about them. Most habits are born out of convenience, such as always putting your keys in the same place by the front door. Others are from reinforcement, such as biting your nails when you are nervous. Either way, our behaviors are often shaped by our habits. This same idea holds true for our dogs as well. They have habits, too, and very often, they are created by our habits and we don’t even realize it. Dogs are great observers of patterns. If we ask our dogs to sit every time, before we put their food bowl down, we have created a habit for them. Fairly quickly, your dog will offer that "sit" for their food bowl without you even asking. While this is an example of a conscious habit we are trying to form with our dogs, there are many more we may be unintentionally forming from our own habits. If every time you come home you greet your dog with a loving scratch behind her ears as she is jumping on you, that behavior is reinforced and becomes a habit. Very soon, your dog will jump on you when you get home, and likely others, every time she is greeted. It has become a habit with time.
Just as we can form habits, we can change them, in ourselves and our dogs. As many sources of research show (2020), the key to changing a habit is first to be aware of it. Then we must replace it. For our dogs, it can be as simple as just setting up conditions where our dog does the thing we want instead of what we don’t want. For example, if your dog jumps on you or others when greeted, ask for that “sit” instead. Every time. Just like with the sitting habit for the food bowl, your dog will develop a habit of sitting to greet you and others. The key to being effective with this is to make it a habit for yourself. This way, your dog learns her consistent behavior from your consistent behavior.
Changing Habits (2020) The Learning Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Retrieved from https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/changing-habits/
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