Behaviors That Are Rewarded Will Continue

When a dog does a behavior and it leads to a pleasant outcome, the behavior will happen again. This is a big reason why dogs continue to do the “bad” behaviors. This is also the same system that allows us to get dogs to do the “good” behaviors.

First things first, if the “bad” behaviors stopped working, your dog would stop doing the “bad” behaviors. This is also true for the “good” behaviors. If we teach our dog how to do the behaviors we want and we stop rewarding, those behaviors will stop happening.

You’re going to reward your dog a lot early on. We can teach our dogs to do more behavior for less reward or even multiple behaviors per reward. What we cannot do is stop rewarding all together and expect the same results. In order for behavior to happen, there must be a motivator.