08/15/2026
There are really only three categories of things your dog does: you like it, you don’t like it, or you genuinely don’t care. That sounds almost insultingly simple, but we humans do have a remarkable talent for taking a fairly straightforward animal and turning every behavior into a graduate-level ethics seminar.
If you like a behavior, great. Sometimes the behavior itself is rewarding to your dog. They’re excited to do it, they’re wagging their tail, and they genuinely enjoy the behavior. Other times, the behavior isn’t naturally rewarding, so you make it worth their while. Food, play, praise, access to something they want, whatever matters to that dog. Do enough good repetitions and eventually some of that reinforcement starts bleeding back into the behavior itself. The dog starts enjoying the whole process because that behavior has such a long history of good things attached to it. That’s the whole game. Make the stuff you want valuable enough that your dog starts thinking it was their idea.
Then there are the things you don’t like, and this is where people accidentally train the exact behavior they later complain about. Your dog does something obnoxious, but it’s also freaking hilarious, so you laugh. You smile. You talk to them. Your whole body says, “That was delightful,” while your mouth is apparently trying to file a formal complaint. Meanwhile, your dog is going, “Excellent. Strong performance. I’ll do it again immediately.” Or maybe nobody is reinforcing it at all. Maybe the behavior is just intrinsically rewarding. Chasing the cat is fun. Barking out the window is fun. Launching yourself at visitors like a furry, poorly guided missile is fun. If a behavior you hate is rewarding all by itself, sometimes you have to devalue it a little. Interrupt it, correct it, remove access to what they wanted, whatever is appropriate for that dog and that behavior.
And finally, there are the things you’re ambivalent about. You truly don’t care whether the dog does it or not. That’s completely fine, but I think people need to be a little more honest with themselves about what actually belongs in this category. A good test is: Would you still be okay with your dog doing that behavior 10 times in a row? Because a lot of things people “don’t mind” once become things they suddenly develop passionate political opinions about when the dog decides it is now a full-time occupation. One paw on you might be cute. Ten paws in a row while you’re trying to drink coffee is less of a personality quirk and more of a hostage situation. One little demand bark might not bother you. Ten in a row while you’re trying to have a conversation and suddenly everyone in the room is learning new vocabulary.
A lot of those middle-ground behaviors can also be handled pretty simply. If your dog is doing something you don’t particularly care about, but you’d rather they do something else, redirect them into a behavior you actually like. It does not always need to become a federal case. Sometimes the answer is simply, “Not that. Do this instead.” You can also tell the dog no and leave the rest open: not that behavior, but anything else is fair game. Dogs are generally much less confused by clear information than we seem to think they are.
Dogs are incredibly trainable animals. You do not have to spend years quietly resenting some annoying thing your dog does every single day while also accidentally reinforcing it, allowing it, laughing at it, and then acting personally betrayed when they do it again. Look at the behavior and decide: Do I like this? Do I dislike this? Or do I genuinely not care? Then make your response match the answer.
