Behavioural Topics - Consistency and Calm

In her latest behavioural topic article, Lisa Hird discusses how consistency and calm are essential traits when dealing with dogs.

Discover more about her work and experience on her website: https://www.dogbehaviourclinic.co.uk/

Consistency and calm

Consistency and calm are key lie skills, especially for young dogs. One of the first things we teach puppies is how to be calm. We don’t use cues or “tell” them to be calm, we just reinforce calm behaviour while managing our own body language.

Many dogs I work with are stressed and over stimulated. This is often mistaken for hyperactivity and over-excitement. We see this a lot in young dogs that have not had any life skills training and have instead, been bombarded with cues to “behave”. Very often we tell dogs to “get down” when they jump up – this can be rewarding for the behaviour and add to the excitement as we become more frantic (or frustrated) about it.

Traditional obedience training used to say the first thing you should teach your puppy is Sit!  Thankfully things have moved on since then and we now teach life skills such as how good it feels to be calm. Sit can be a useful cue for dogs to know for things like vet visits when needing blood to be taken but, using cues like Sit will drain the small amount of self control a dog has. Asking a dog to Sit when he is worried or fearful will just make the situation worse.

Mental stimulation, enrichment and quality sleep are also key in helping dogs be calm. Dogs need around 14 hours of sleep per day (puppies need more) and quality sleep is essential. 

Physical exercise will not mentally tire a dog and too much exercise can often lead to dogs feeling physically stressed and overstimulated. We can provide mental stimulation very easily at mealtimes, using interactive feeding toys instead of a bowl.