How I know your dog isn’t trying to be a jerk

We all love our dogs, but many of us have dogs that just seem to love to mess with us. You’re trying to grab their collar so you can leave the dog park and they wait until your hand is an inch away before they dance away with a smile. Or you’re just trying to take them for a nice walk but they’ve got to grab the leash and thrash it. Maybe they wait for you to be gone or not looking before they do their very worst. There’s no WAY they’re not deliberately teasing you or going behind your back, right? Actually that’s wrong, and believe it or not, that’s great news. When you feel like you’re having your chain pulled, it’s really easy to feel upset and angry. When you understand that they’re not being bad on purpose, it helps you approach the unwelcome behavior without feelings of frustration.

Your dog doesn’t think misbehaving is funny

It’s really common to assign human traits to animals. Usually there’s not much harm in it, but in this case, it definitely harms people’s relationship with their dogs. Here are 5 unwanted behaviors that actually come from a totally innocent place.

1. Waiting until you’re not looking to “misbehave”

They don’t do it when you’re looking, so they know they’re not supposed to right? Therefore, when they wait for you to look away, they’re being bad right?! Wrong! To dogs, many things we see as “bad” are very neutral to them. Put their feet on the counter? Eat cat poop from the litter box? Chew on the TV remote? Why would a dog, by themselves, think that there is anything wrong with those things? Those are human things that humans care about for human reasons. Now they’ve learned that you react in a negative way when they do those things. This has effectively deterred them from doing it while you’re there. But then when they do it when you’re not there, nothing bad happens. So the dog thinks, “Got it! Not okay to do it in front of you. Okay to do it not in front of you.” You may try to communicate to your dog an hour later about how you’re upset they dug a hole in the yard, but dogs aren’t able to connect the two events. There’s no effective way to correct a dog’s behavior if the it’s more than a few seconds in the past. You might have to get creative to catch them at it when they don’t think you’re looking, but that’s what you’ve got to do. In the meantime, give your dog a pat on the head. They’re not trying to be sneaky!

2. Running away when you’re trying to grab them to leave

Alright, obviously you’re trying to leave the park. Your dog MUST realize that they’re going against what you’re trying to do, right? Wrong again. Just like we get a pass for not always understanding dog behavior, dogs get a pass here for not fully understanding human behavior. This is a game that your dog thinks you’re playing together. You may yell and feel frustrated, but I guarantee your dog would feel pretty bad if they understood how much they were upsetting you. The worst thing is that when you do finally get your hands on them, if you do anything at all to correct them for their shenanigans, they feel corrected for coming to you. This is such a tragedy of miscommunication and makes your dog all the less likely to come to you. To them, it makes a lot more sense to play the fun game instead.

Tip: Make your own much more fun game. When you go to the dog park, bring treats and do this 5 – 10 times: Call your dog to you. When they come, slip your hand under their collar and while your hand is there, they get a treat. Let them go and keep playing. Repeat several times each trip, they won’t know which is the last time that you’ll give them a treat and clip their leash on. This has so many benefits! It’s fun for your dog, it strengthens your dog’s recall (“come” command), you leave the park exactly when you want to, and it reinforces your human-leads/dog-follows relationship.

3. Checking if you have a treat before following a command

You say “Sit”, your dog looks at you, sniffs your empty hand, and walks off. Deliberate disobedience! Right?! Wrong again.

To understand your dog, you have to look at things from their perspective. You’re asking for something that makes absolutely no sense to them. Why put their butt on the ground? Why??

Pretend I tell you to press a red button and I have a hundred-dollar bill in my hand. You do it and I give it to you. Nice! I tell you to do it again and again and again. Stop cooking. Stop vacuuming. Stop whatever you’re doing and come push the button, but here’s the catch. I only give you $100 if you can see the bill in my hand. You’re not going to pause your show if you’re sure it won’t work. See where this is going? Pushing the red button (or putting your butt on the ground) in itself has zero purpose from your dog’s perspective outside of the reward. This is where randomly rewarding a behavior with unseen treats really strengthens it. If the $100 bill might come out of my pocket even if you couldn’t see it there, you’d get up off the couch to hit that button every time. You’d try to figure out how to push the button in a way that made me give you the money. Run to the button fast? Slam it hard? Hold it down? Your dog will be looking for ways to impress you, which is much more preferable than the “check and bounce”.

4. Grabbing the leash and yanking it while you’re walking

Just like your dog dashing off when you’re trying to leave the park, grabbing the leash is a game. This might even be a game you play happily together with a rope toy at home. Your dog hasn’t learned when this game is and is not appropriate (according to you) if you’re experiencing this behavior. You might yell and holler but if you do that a lot without consistent correction and redirection, your dog probably hasn’t determined what consequences it has for them. Sometimes it has no consequence so why should they pay attention to it or change what they’re doing, especially if you’re pulling back against them on the leash like how you usually play? It is, once again, a communication issue. Be consistent with your tone and corrections. We discourage playing tug-o-war altogether, even with toys, because it’s a battle of strength. You don’t necessarily want your dog to try to out-muscle you and you certainly don’t want them to think they can win at it. If they perceive themselves as stronger than you, they may think you, the weaker, require protection and leadership from them (protection and leadership are your job). If you want to keep playing the game with the rope toy you should at the very least train a “drop it” so you can let your dog know when it’s not time for that game.

5. Being destructive when you’re gone

Once again, your dog is waiting until after you leave to “misbehave”. Your dog probably has the same “Not okay to do it when you’re here, okay to do it when you’re not here” mentality in this case, but they’ve got a lot more going against them this time. Boredom from being alone without stimulation leads energetic dogs to be curious and destructive. Anxiety from being left alone is another potential factor. Some dogs will displace their anxious energy with destructive behaviors, some even self-destructive (like overgrooming, licking until they get sores). It’s frustrating to come home to damaged or soiled property, so even when you get home your energy is negative. All in all, a bad experience for your dog. Help your dog by making sure they’re getting adequate exercise and leaving them special toys they only get to have when you’re gone, and get on top of crate training which has huge benefits for everyone involved, especially those dogs who are anxious when you’re away. Creating a safe place for your dog to retreat to is such an underrated kindness you can do for them. If done incorrectly, a crate is a scary prison. Done correctly, the crate is a haven of comfort. If you haven’t had success with crate training in the past but think it could help you and your dog, don’t hesitate to hit us up!