Changing a habit they already have

You cannot delete a behavior. You can only replace it. ‘Stop jumping’ is not a plan, because there is nothing for the dog to do instead. ‘Four feet on the floor gets attention’ is a plan. Every successful behavior change answers the question: what do I want them to do INSTEAD?

Management means preventing the behavior from happening at all while you train — a gate, a closed door, a leash indoors, food put away. It is not cheating and it is not avoiding the problem. Every repetition of an unwanted behavior makes it stronger, so a dog who practices counter surfing forty times while you train is being trained by the counter faster than by you.

Note: Almost everything a good trainer does is one of these four, or a combination.

1. Teach an incompatible behavior: Reinforce something the dog physically cannot do at the same time. A dog on a mat is not jumping on visitors. A dog holding a toy is not barking. This is the workhorse, and it is usually the fastest route.

2. Counter-conditioning: Change the emotion rather than the behavior. Thing appears → excellent food appears. Thing leaves → food stops. Over enough repetitions the thing that predicted fear starts predicting chicken. The ORDER is non-negotiable: the trigger must come first and predict the food, never the reverse.

3. Desensitization: Work at an intensity low enough that the dog stays under threshold — quieter, further away, slower — and raise it in increments they barely notice. Paired with counter-conditioning, this is the core of all fear and reactivity work.

4. Extinction: Stop reinforcing a behavior and it eventually fades. This works for attention-seeking and almost nothing else, because most unwanted behaviors are reinforced by the environment rather than by you — counter surfing is paid by the sandwich, not by your reaction.

This is where most people give up, so it is worth naming. When a behavior that used to work stops working, it gets LOUDER AND MORE INTENSE before it fades. A dog whose demand barking is suddenly ignored will bark longer, harder, and try new variations. That escalation is evidence the plan is working, not that it is failing — and caving during the burst teaches the dog that persistence pays, which makes the next round much harder.

Roughly in proportion to how long it has been practiced and how well it has paid. A three-week-old puppy habit changes in days. A five-year-old habit that works every single time takes months. Neither is a reflection on you or the dog.

It can suppress a behavior quickly, which is why it feels effective. But it teaches what NOT to do without teaching what to do instead, the suppression is often situation-specific — they stop while you are watching — and where the cause is fear it adds a new bad association to the thing already frightening them. The documented fallout is why we recommend rewards-based methods only.

Counter surfing. MANAGEMENT: nothing left on the counter for two weeks, so the behavior cannot pay. INCOMPATIBLE BEHAVIOR: heavily reinforce a mat at the kitchen edge, until lying there is the default when you cook. EXTINCTION is irrelevant here because you are not the reinforcer — food is. Then raise difficulty slowly: an empty plate on the counter, then a boring one, then a real one. One slip that pays sets you back weeks, which is why management runs the whole time.

Any bite that broke skin, anything directed at children, anything escalating despite consistent work, or anything that frightens you. That is a veterinary behaviorist or a qualified behavior consultant. Medication is sometimes what makes training possible at all, and reaching for it is not a failure.

Why video helps here: Timing and body language are the two things writing cannot convey. A page can tell you to mark the instant the dog looks away; a thirty-second clip shows you exactly how fast that is. These are free, rewards-based, and widely recommended by professionals.

Kikopup (Emily Larlham): youtube.com/@kikopup — the channel trainers name most often when asked, with 400+ free videos covering reactivity, fear, aggression, over-arousal and general manners. Her site dogmantics.com/free-videos sorts the same content by problem: puppy training, reactivity and barking, leash walking, behavior modification, shy dogs, and clicker basics. Start there if you want a specific problem rather than a browse.

Dr. Sophia Yin: drsophiayin.com — free body language posters and low-stress handling material. She died in 2014 and the resources remain the most widely used illustrations of canine stress signals in veterinary practice.

Dr. Ian Dunbar: dunbaracademy.com — founder of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, and much of his puppy and foundation material is free or low cost.

Dr. Karen Overall: Her Relaxation Protocol is free to download and widely used by veterinary behaviorists as a structured fifteen-day program for teaching a dog to settle. Search for it by name.

Fear Free Pets: fearfreepets.com — a free education library on low-stress handling and vet visits.

Veterinary Partner: veterinarypartner.vin.com — free client-facing articles written by veterinarians.

An honest caveat: Video is excellent for learning a technique and poor for diagnosing your own dog. A clip cannot see that your dog is already over threshold, or that the growl at 0:04 means stop. For anything involving fear, aggression or a bite, watch to understand the method and then work with a professional who can see your actual dog.

· American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (avsab.org) — Humane Dog Training Position Statement (2021)
· American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (dacvb.org)
· International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (iaabc.org)
· Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (ccpdt.org)
· Karen Pryor, 'Don’t Shoot the Dog' — the book that introduced most of these mechanisms to a general audience
· Pet Professional Guild (petprofessionalguild.com)

Every mechanism on this page costs nothing, and so does every video linked from it. The only purchase worth making is a treat pouch so the timing is possible.