Assessing Behaviour for Dog Training

No two dogs are the same, so I will always take time in assessing behaviour properly before dog training can begin. The initial assessment will usually take between 45-60 minutes. Mostly it will involve us chatting, whilst watching your dog and the problem behaviours. The aim is to get to know your dog quickly so I can get an idea of what will suit him, and you, moving forward. The more information I can gather at this stage the better the training plan will be, so I don’t like to rush it.

What’s normal behaviour for your dog?

The first thing I’m interested in is what is normal for your dog! Every dog is so different, and what’s normal for him might be an indication of a problem for another. So, I’ll be watching carefully while I listen to your stories about your dog and what he likes to get up to! I’ll be noting things that make him happy or grumpy, and things scare him. I’ll also be interested in how he responds to visitors to his home, what he’s like on a walk, and any weird and wonderful habits he might have.

While I’m learning about what makes him tick, I’ll also be watching to see how he communicates and solves problems. If there are other animals in the family then it’ll be easy to spot. If not, there are other ways to figure this out. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel. Once we learn his “dialect”, we can easily use it as a part of his training, confident he is understanding us perfectly. For example, an anxious dog that has been brought up with a cat might take comfort from being in contact with your leg.

As I get to know him better, I’ll be talking to you about his routine and his usual mood and attitude. By the end of that first hour, I’ll have a reasonable sense of him and his general outlook! This gives me a vital baseline to compare unwanted behaviours with as we start working together.

Assessing specific behaviours?

As I get to know your dog’s normal behaviour, I’ll also be looking at the specific problem behaviours that you would like help with. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see it during the assessment. If we don’t, don’t worry, there is still lots we can discover.

Seeing the behaviour problem in full flow is really helpful, so we’ll aim for that, if it can be done safely. We’ll be talking about what makes the behaviour worse, and we’ll establish all the variations of potential triggers. For example, a dog might be very reactive to other dogs, but calm dogs plodding about on the other side of the park will likely provoke a much milder reaction when compared to hyper dogs that run at full speed into your space.

I’ll be paying close attention to the emotion that is triggered too. This will dictate the supporting training that I recommend. If the dog is in an anxious state during the problem behaviour, then confidence building exercises may help. Likewise, if the dog is over excitable, we’ll look at other opportunities to work on that too.

Sometimes, the dog is on top form when I come to visit and doesn’t want to show us the behaviour their family is struggling with. This is a big fear for many, but don’t worry, this happens more often than you might imagine! An unexpected absence of a behaviour can be just as revealing, so there is plenty to learn from that too! Hopefully, they’ll perform for us on the day though.

What makes the behaviour better?

We already know what it looks like at it’s worst. So, we’ll take a look at what it looks like at its mildest and add that to our list of triggers. If we can establish how to lessen the intensity it’ll make it much easier to keep your dog in the learning zone. This in turn will make your training efforts count for much more.

During the assessment we’ll be talking about any circumstances that have helped to lessen the intensity, or even prevented it in the past. Maybe you’ve previously tried other training plans or techniques. If that’s the case, we’ll look at what effect that had on your dog. Even temporary wins can give us vital clues as to how to proceed!

There might also be a person that your dog behaves really well for such as a family member, or the dog walker? Or, perhaps they specifically don’t do it when they are in a cafe, a friends house, or at their training class. If that’s the case, we’ll spend some time looking into that to see if we can establish why.

What else can we learn about the dogs behaviour?

Finally, we’ll be talking about how and when the behaviour might have started. Knowing what age the dog was when it started, and if it came on gradually or suddenly, can be very revealing.

Of course, it’s not always possible to know how things start. When dogs come with a hidden past, you won’t know what they’ve been through, or what triggered the behaviour. Dogs in rescue often have no history to speak of. Even when they do, it’s not always reliable, so you just work with what you are presented with. These dogs will occasionally reveal their secrets in time. Only the other day, a clients dog surprised everyone when he was triggered by a spray water bottle. She had only used it to spray cleaner on the floor, but the poor dog had obviously had a unpleasant experience in the past.

I’ll also be on the lookout for trauma. Trauma has a nasty habit of preventing training plans from working in the normal way, so we’ll need to fix that too.

On to the training plan…

Once the initial assessment is complete, I can start putting together a plan for behavioural training or rehabilitation. I’ll use all the clues the dog has given me to put together something the dog will understand and respond positively to. That’s not the end of the assessment though. Once the training has started, there will be plenty of opportunities to gain better insight as you gather more information inn the follow-up sessions.

I never stop learning about your dog!