Impulse Control - A Critical Skill
What is it?
Dog impulse control is the ability of your dog to resist temptation and choose a better option. As you can imagine, this is really difficult for your dog! It’s difficult for you! Think about times when you had to resist a temptation and how hard it was for you to resist it and deal with the emotional effects of either being successful or not successful.
For example, let’s say you are on a diet. You go out with a bunch of friends and/or family to your favorite restaurant. How hard is it for you to order a healthy salad with vinegar and oil dressing only when everyone else is ordering hamburger and fries or pizza? What emotion do you feel if you successfully order the salad? Happy? Resentful? Angry? How do you feel if you order something unhealthy? Guilty? Angry? Blissful? In this example being on a diet is a process. You have to build skills that allow you to resist unhealthy habits while at the same time ensuring you are happy about your good decisions.
It is very similar for dogs. When dogs see something, they want, they naturally go for it. If they don’t get it, then dogs deal with emotions like frustration, excitement or anxiety. If dogs do get what they want immediately, they can experience emotions like euphoria, happiness, triumph. Basically they are rewarded for lack of impulse control and that can lead to a host of bad and rude behaviors.
What does Lack of Impulse Control Look like?
Dogs who have struggle with impulse control generally present some of the following behaviors:
Jump all over you when you are trying to put their food bowl down
Rush out of the crate and jump all over you when you open the crate door
Paw, whine, and/or bark for your attention
Pull on the leash when walking to move towards something they want like a squirrel or another dog or person
Drop their toys in your lap over and over again
Don’t listen to you (or pay attention to you)
This starts when they are puppies. When they are puppies, it is easy to allow these behaviors to go unchecked. When a puppy is excited and jumping all over for their food, it’s easy to rationalize that this is because they are a growing puppy and hungry. Or if they rush out of the crate to jump all over us, it is because they missed us and love us so much. But really these are behaviors that stem from a puppy not having impulse control. And although we might think it is cute when they are very small and young, if it goes unchecked extending into adulthood (which is likely), it will be no longer cute! Over time you will expect your dog to have good manners and not jump on people when they come in, or to calmly wait to be fed. Dogs that have lack of impulse control are viewed as rude, having bad manners, and unmanageable!
Why Teach Your Dog to Have Impulse Control?
Dogs who understand that they need to have patience and remain calm are generally more emotionally stable. They don’t get frustrated as easily, they don’t demand things from their owners, and they appear calm and well mannered. This is because dogs who learn that they need to work for things and remain calm understand that good things will follow. Dog’s who wait to be released to walk through a door and don’t pull on the leash will be walked more often. Dogs who calmly sit and look at you will be fed on time. Dogs who don’t jump for greetings will actually get more of the attention that they crave.
How to Teach a Dog to have Impulse Control?
Good news is it is never too late to teach a dog to have impulse control! It will take time and patience on the part of the owner and everyone who is interacting with your dog to be consistent, persistent, and follow through with rewarding your dog for controlling their impulses and correcting or managing your dog for not controlling their impulses.
There are a couple key strategies that must be implemented.
Teach your dog remaining calm is rewarding and will get them what they want.
Ask your dog to work for everything they want throughout the day and they will be rewarded. These rewards can be treats or life rewards. If they sit or lie down, or calmly pay attention to you, they will get rewards like going outside, or coming back in the house, or being fed their meals, or getting extra play time with you. These types of rewards are just as strong as food rewards and allows you to reward your dog every day for things they want.
Below are some simple strategies you can use to teach your dog to improve their impulse control.
Markers
It all starts with establishing your Markers, Cues, & Release Word. Dogs learn faster if they clearly understand the feedback words and sounds you use to indicate the following:
Positive Marker – Tells your dog he did something you like and a reward will follow
Negative Marker – Tells your dog he did something you don’t like and he won’t get what he wants.
Release Word – Tells your dog that he is all done working.
Attention
Attention or Eye Contact is a critical canine skill. If your dog is paying more attention to you, then he will be paying less attention to other distractions. As your dog learns that paying attention to you gets him what he wants, we will be better able to resist the temptation that distractions offer improving is overall impulse control. Dogs learn defer to you instead of acting on their impulses. You can never do too many Attention exercises with your dog!
Wait for Food Bowl
Asking your dog to Wait for their Food Bowl is a simple exercise that promotes calmness at meal times. It also positions you as the leader. Leaders control resources and establish rules. With this exercise, you are establishing that your dog must be calm and be in either a sit or down position to be fed. If they are too excited, the food goes away or at the very least it becomes unattainable until you lower the food bowl back into reach. Performing this exercise allows your dog to practice calmness every day and perhaps multiple times a day depending your daily feeding schedule. When your dog gets good at this, then make it harder by combining it with Attention!
Wait at the Door
Wait while you open any door (crate door, front door, car door) teaches your dog that they must remain calm before you will open the door and go through the door to great you, friends, or go outside. This is an excellent exercise to teach your dog good manners when people are coming in doors and to not door dash.
Leave It
Leave It command is another critical skill that basically means that your dog should ignore something. That something can be anything such as food items, toys, slippers, other dogs, squirrels, mailbox posts, leaves, etc. However, when teaching Leave It, you must start out slowly as this can be very difficult for your dog. By practicing the Leave it command, your dog learns that ignoring things can be very rewarding for them. For example if they ignore the dog across the street as you are walking, they get to continue their walk and get a tasty treat as a reinforcer.
Controlled Play and Relax Games
Learning to relax quickly is another critical skill. Dogs learn how to rev up and play hard very easily, but what they don’t know how to do is to quickly relax. Relaxing requires impulse control because they want to keep playing. So a great way to help your dog learn how to “Turn on” or play and then “Turn Off” and relax is a great skill.
Hide N Seek Game
Hide N Seek is a great game to reinforce impulse control and work on obedience commands like Stay, Wait, and Come
Flirt Pole Playing
Flirt pole (which is a stick with a bungie cord at one end that has a toy attached to it). In a large open space start playing with your dog and the flirt pole for 5 or 10 minutes, stop play and practice Leave It or Wait to give your dog the opportunity to rev up and then learn how to bring their energy down.
Sign your dog up for Attention and Impulse classes or Obedience classes. Practicing these types of activities with the distractions of other dogs and people in class is a great way to raise the bar for your dog to practice their impulse control!
[MJ1]Link to fun games