Behavior Shaping and Reshaping – The Foundation of Service Dog Training

Dogs were not born to be service dogs. In fact, they were not born with the skills needed to live in today’s urban environment. This means we need to shape their behavior so they have the ‘stress coping skills’ and the ‘tolerance’ levels needed to thrive.

Too many times the only focus on service dog training is to get the dogs public access – at all cost.  But a stressed dog, or a dog that doesn’t know how to act, just obey, will eventually let you down.

Shaping Behaviors

When we start training puppies our first task is to teach them to ‘stop.’ Dogs are not born learning that it is okay to stop and relax. They want to play, hunt, run, and practice feral behaviors.

Have you ever seen a service dog in a restaurant that lay down and fell asleep under the table? This is not obedience. This is behavior. The dog’s behavior has been shaped so that, when it stops then it will fall asleep. Like all behaviors this is not an obedience skill that it taught. It is a behavior that was reinforced.

Think of the behaviors you want to reinforce:

• Calm and relaxed
• High tolerance level
• Active heeling
• Not reacting to stress or fear
• Waking up to alert
• Working long hours even when tired
• Not being afraid of ‘different’ or ‘scary’ things

How Do You Shape a Behavior?

When training a service dog it is important to remember that you are not training a trick or a task. You are training a lifestyle. The rules must be consistent – all day. When your dog is awake then it is learning.  If you are not reinforcing the behaviors, you want then your dog is learning ‘other’ behaviors.

When we are shaping a dog’s behavior we don’t worry about corrections. We want to reinforce the behaviors we want the dog to repeat. If we want a dog to be calm then every day, whenever we see the dog laying down and being calm, then we praise them. I don’t always give treats, but I always offer a kind word.

Walking on a loose leash

You are going to teach your service dog to either heel at your side and listen to everything you say. You will train it to be obedient. Or you will train it to be ‘responsible for it’s own behavior’. You want to train it to ‘active heeling.’ This means that it is the dog’s responsibility to stay in the heel position, not your responsibility to keep it there.

This may mean that you stop walking every time the dog is not in position. “But, I would never go for a walk!” I have heard this often, and you are right. You may not go for walks for a few weeks, but when you do go for a walk your dog will have learned that it must stay at your side or else you won’t move.

You can also reinforce using clickers and treats. This speeds up the process by pairing a primary reinforcer (food) with the behavior you want. This reinforcement method will shape the behavior of following you. After all, if a dog never learns to follow then it cannot learn to heel.

Patient and Consistent

You must be patient. Professional trainers are known for repeating the same behavior 20 and more times in a row. They will work long after their dog ‘gets it’. That is because they are not satisfied with teaching a trick or task that the dog will do when you have a treat. Instead, they want that trick or task to become a behavior.

Only when the trick and task become a behavior can you trust your dog. Only then will the dog be reliable.