Why Isn't Dog Training Working for My Dog?
You may not need more training. You may need a different understanding of what's driving the unwanted behavior — and how dog behavior actually works.
When a dog is reactive, anxious, aggressive, fearful, over-exhuberant, difficult to control, or simply not responding to training, it can leave owners wondering what to do next — or where to even begin. The answer isn't always more training. Unwanted behavior often makes far more sense once we understand what is actually causing it — and why the dog is responding the way it is.
The American Dog Epidemic challenges much of the conventional thinking about dog behavior and reveals what many well-meaning owners have never been told. By understanding how dogs actually experience and respond to the world around them, we can begin to address behavior at its source — rather than continually trying to correct the unwanted behaviors we see on the surface.
Why Is My Dog's Behavior So Difficult — and What Can I Do About It?
When your dog is barking, lunging, jumping, pulling, acting aggressively, overly excited, anxious, fearful, or simply out of control, it can be frustrating and confusing. You may have tried training and still be struggling, or you may have no idea where to begin. Either way, simply trying to stop the unwanted behavior may miss an important part of the problem: understanding why your dog is behaving this way in the first place.
Dogs don't behave the way they do for no reason. What looks like a training problem, a breed problem, or simply a problem with your particular dog may have much more behind it. Many of the things we've come to believe about why dogs behave badly — and what we should do about it — don't tell the whole story. Once you understand why your dog is behaving this way, you can stop focusing only on the behavior you don't want and begin addressing what is actually causing it.
What Causes Behavior Problems In Dogs?
Behavior problems in dogs rarely come down to one simple cause. While genetics and breed can influence behavior, a dog's experiences, environment, relationships, daily life, and what the dog has learned often play a much greater role in how that dog behaves.
Yet we're often told that difficult behavior is simply because of a dog's breed, personality, anxiety, stubborness, lack of training, or something that has happened in the dog's past. These explanations can make owners believe this is just the way their dog is — or that there is something inherently wrong with their dog — when they may be missing a much bigger part of the picture.
Why Does My Dog Keep Doing Things I Don't Want?
It's easy to think a dog keeps barking, pulling, jumping, reacting, or ignoring us because the dog is stubborn, dominant, badly behaved, or simply hasn't been trained enough. But dogs don't see their behavior the way we do. They repeat behaviors that make sense to them and that seem to work for them based on what they've learned and experienced — even when we don't see what they're getting out of it. What feels pointless, frustrating, or unrewarding to us may make perfect sense from the dog's point of view.
Sometimes we accidentally teach our dogs things without even realizing it. Dogs are constantly learning from what happens around them — not just when we're purposely training, rewarding, or correcting them. Something we think should discourage a behavior may actually encourage it instead.
This is also where some advice we've been given can lead us in the wrong direction. We're often told what a certain behavior means and what we should do to stop it, without first asking why a particular dog is doing it. When we start with the wrong explanation, even well-meaning advice can miss the real problem. We may keep trying different techniques while never changing what the dog has actually learned or how the dog sees the situation.
If everyone seems to have an answer about dogs, why are so many dogs — and their owners — still struggling?
And there certainly isn't a shortage of advice about dogs. Everyone seems to have an answer — friends, family, neighbors, trainers, social media, online forums, television, and countless websites. We're constantly being told what dogs need, why they behave the way they do, and what we should do about it.
But if we understand dogs as well as we think we do, why are so many people struggling with them? Why are so many dogs reactive, anxious, aggressive, overly excited, difficult to control, or unable to comfortably fit into everyday life? And why do so many owners keep searching for answers after following the advice they were given?
The problem isn't that people don't care or aren't trying. It may be that some of the things we've accepted as fact about dogs simply don't tell the whole story. When advice is repeated often enough, it can begin to sound like truth — even when what we see happening with dogs all around us suggests we should be asking more questions.
Instead of asking only, "How do I stop this behavior?" perhaps we should also be asking, "Why is my dog doing this in the first place?" Once we begin to see the situation from the dog's point of view, the behavior can start to make more sense — and so can what we need to do differently.
Why Is My Dog Reactive, Anxious, or Aggressive?
When a dog barks or lunges at other dogs, growls at people, becomes anxious when left alone, guards things, or reacts strongly to everyday situations, it's natural to want to know what is wrong. But the behavior we see is only part of the story.
Two dogs can do the exact same thing for very different reasons.
Labels like "reactive," "aggressive," or "anxious" can describe what a dog is doing, but they don't necessarily explain why the dog is doing it. And without understanding the why, it's easy to choose an approach that doesn't address the real problem — or sometimes makes it worse.
The better question is not simply, "How do I make my dog stop?" It's "What has my dog learned that makes this behavior make sense? Looking at the dog's experiences, everyday life, relationships, and what happens when the behavior occurs can reveal things that are easy to miss when we focus on stopping the behavior.
Understand Your Dog Differently.
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