Ignoring the Dog

Sometimes people say that they have tried “ignoring the dog” as a way of getting rid of unwanted behaviour. This is a technique that can work very well if it is used appropriately, but it is often misunderstood.

If your dog is jumping all over you and you “ignore the dog” this behaviour is likely to persist and get worse. This is because while you do nothing, your dog is being rewarded by making contact with you.

What you should do is ignore the dog while making sure that he or she cannot obtain any reward, for example by making contact with you. So if your dog is jumping up at the door when you get home, don’t open the door until your dog stops jumping. In other words, if your dog wants attention, ignore your dog - and withhold attention - until your dog settles down.  Then let your dog in when he or she is calm enough to sit to be patted.

If your dog is barking in an attention-seeking way, you can ignore the dog, i.e. don’t pay any attention to your dog until he or she stops barking. On the other hand if your dog is barking through the fence at the dog next door, this behaviour tends to be rewarding in itself, so if you ignore the dog, the barking will get worse because your dog gets a buzz out of it. You are better off trying to distract your dog and rewarding him or her for not barking.

Dogs learn to do what works. So if your dog wants to come inside, he or she might try barking, jumping up and down or bashing on the door. If this works, your dog will soon learn to do it again, and to persist with keeping up the racket for longer.
The way to undo a bad habit that your dog has learnt from experience is to let the behaviour go into extinction.  This means undoing what your dog has learnt by ensuring that it is never rewarded. So if your dog is bashing on the door demanding to be let in, you can “ignore the dog”. However, you must be willing to go on ignoring your dog for however long it takes, however loud and frenetic the bashing becomes. “Ignoring” in this case means ignoring your dog completely, until the noise stops, Then you can let your dog inside. If you occasionally relent, your dog will learn to persist. If your dog persists for a long time, and after half an hour of noise you let him or her in, you have rewarded your dog for persisting.

People often tell me they have “tried ignoring the dog but it didn’t work”. This usually turns out to mean that they have ignored the dog but allowed him or her to be self-rewarding, or they have ignored the dog for a while and then given in, which just teaches the dog to persist.

© Kaye Hargreaves 2008, may be reproduced with acknowledgement; www.kayehargeaves.com