Finding Equilibrium With Your Dog

Ok, so you did the thing. You established boundaries, rules, and structure in the home. You’ve been consistent in training. Your dog's behavior has significantly increased, and all is well.🥳 Except for the fact that you kind of miss having your dog up on the couch with you. You miss having them sleep in the bed and snuggle. You are kind of tired of continually having them on their dog bed or in their crate. So what can you do? I tell my clients this all the time. My goal for my dogs is for them to live their lives seamlessly around mine. I want them to make good choices, understand certain behaviors have consequences, and in general, live a great life with them without always feeling like I need to watch over them. So I tell my clients that they are ultimately in charge of their dogs life. You’re the one who decides the behaviors you like or don’t like and change the dog's behavior accordingly. If you see excellent behavior from your dog consistently over some time, start to allow more freedom. Then monitor what happens. Did allowing your dog back up onto the couch start to affect your relationship? No? Ok, great! Now add in being allowed back up onto the bed. When you added that, did you see any problem behaviors pop up again? The great thing about your dog's behavior is that you can increase or decrease all variables. Once you have established a baseline, you’ll always know how to get back to it. However, it’s much harder to pinpoint when problem behaviors arise if you’ve implemented boundaries, rules, and structure in the first place.