Chapter 2: How Fido Learns - Premier MannersMinder Instruction Manual

Reward the Correct Behavior
Contrary to popular opinion, dogs aren't born
knowing English, Chinese or even French. They
have to be taught. Furthermore, while dogs are
experts at learning to read human body language,
they're no more adept at reading human minds
than humans are. When you put these two factors
together it becomes clear that half the time when
we think our dog knows what we want, he's just
feeling his way around.
We can easily fix this communication by simply
understanding that dogs repeat behaviors that are
reinforced or rewarded. Thus in order to change
behavior, all we have to do is identify what's
reinforcing the bad behavior, remove that
reinforcement and instead reward an alternate
appropriate behavior. For instance, dogs jump on
people because they want our attention, even when
that attention involves pushing them away or
shouting "no." To fix this behavior, we have to
withdraw all attention when Fido's jumping and
instead reward an alternate behavior such as
sitting politely. So when Fido sits, we should
immediately pet, praise or give him treats.
Clearly one key to success here is rewarding the
correct behavior as it occurs or immediately
afterward. This requires opening our eyes so that
we see the correct behavior, closing our mouths so
we don't babble all kinds of distracting dialogue,
and refraining from flailing our arms in extraneous
gestures. Dogs key in more to our visual cues and
actions than on our words. To avoid confusing Fido
with words, we'll focus on our actions. Once we've
taught Fido the behavior, we'll add the verbal cue.
Motivation
Like people, different dogs are motivated by
different things. Some dogs like to play with toys, others like praise and petting, and still
others will do anything for food. In this program, we'll take all of these motivators or

Chapter 2: How Fido Learns

Dogs repeat behaviors that are
rewarded or reinforced.
Formula for changing dog behavior:
1. Identify what's reinforcing the bad
behavior.
2. Remove the reinforcement.
3. Reward or reinforce an alternate
appropriate behavior.
Dogs key in to our visual cues and
actions more than on our words.
To avoid confusing Fido with words,
we'll focus on our actions first and
add words later on.
Some dogs are more motivated
by play and attention than food.
We'll consider all motivators
8
in this program.