Fun loving Aurora is potty trained which means she get to stay out with D'light and Catty while we are at work. When we come home Aurora is crazy excited to see us and as you can hear she lets us know! While this is cute, we are working on reducing her over the top excited barking.
Here's silly Aurora when I came home from work. Watch her to see all the cues she displays of being over excited.
AND listen to my reaction... you can see what NOT to do! Me saying "Hey, shhhh" doesn't stop the behavior, in fact it reinforces the behavior. Aurora doesn't know what "hey, shhhh" means and she doesn't know what all those other words I'm saying mean. But, what she does know is that by doing what she's doing, I keep moving towards her. Which is what she wants. So her method of excited barking and wanting to see me up close and personal works well!
And the below video is what we working towards.
Keep in mind both videos are in a span of 20 minutes.
You ask how the transformation happened?
Again it always, always, always goes back to what the human reinforces.
Walking in the door and up the stairs towards Aurora when she's doing the behavior I don't want reinforces the behavior (as you see in the first video).
So, instead of practicing that behavior, what I did was: open the door, Aurora starts with the barking and excitement so, I turned around and walked back out the door not saying a word. We did this 4 times and the second video was the fifth time of coming back in the door.
Aurora is smart and quickly figured out that her barking and getting too excited sent me back out the door. If she was calm then up the stairs I came to see her.
Keep in mind both videos are in a span of 20 minutes.
You ask how the transformation happened?
Again it always, always, always goes back to what the human reinforces.
Walking in the door and up the stairs towards Aurora when she's doing the behavior I don't want reinforces the behavior (as you see in the first video).
So, instead of practicing that behavior, what I did was: open the door, Aurora starts with the barking and excitement so, I turned around and walked back out the door not saying a word. We did this 4 times and the second video was the fifth time of coming back in the door.
Aurora is smart and quickly figured out that her barking and getting too excited sent me back out the door. If she was calm then up the stairs I came to see her.
We get to practice this at least 2 times a day and like all training this takes times and diligence on our end. Aurora is smart/eager to please and she's quickly catching onto what behavior we are asking for and encouraging. As usual it's the human who is a little behind in reinforcing the behavior we want...
So remember to: Reinforce the behaviors you want and ignore the behavior you don't want.
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