Trainers often talk a lot about teaching dogs impulse control and frustration tolerance. So what do we mean and why is it so important?
Impulse control is teaching your dog self control, teaching the concept that calm behaviours result in them getting access to rewards, and immediately acting on all their impulses doesn’t pay. Impulsive dogs are often considered to be poorly behaved by humans, so teaching them to control themselves can make them much nicer to live with. Teaching a good level of impulse control can also be safer for your dog e.g- not rushing through open doors, not eating everything they find ( automatic leave it), not jumping out of vehicles until cued to do so etc. It can also be safer for the handler too, teaching impulse control in the heel position can help to prevent lunging on the lead avoiding injury to handler and dog, teaching dogs not to jump up etc.
People will often train their dogs to wait, stay, leave it etc which is great and really important, and definitely helps with teaching dogs to be less impulsive. However a really important aspect of teaching dogs impulse control is teaching them the concept of controlling themselves without us constantly micro managing them. Lots of training that I do with my dogs is focussed on teaching them this concept, I don’t want to constantly follow them around shouting ‘leave it’ ‘wait’ ‘ etc, I have these cues as a back up and teach them too, but if they can make good choices and control themselves that is much more beneficial to us both and makes for a better behaved and easier to manage dog.
Poor frustration tolerance is also something that humans often perceive to be associated with poor behaviour.
Frustration can be due to various reasons, some dogs become frustrated when they have to wait around such as when their owner stops on a walk etc, some dogs are frustrated when they see something that they want but are unable to get to it. Frustration can be displayed in various ways, barking, whining, lunging, mouthing etc. Training with food without teaching your dog how manage themselves around food can lead to frustration too, and can often be the reason why people decide to not use treats when training their dogs as it can creat arousal and frustration when not used correctly. Teaching your dog to have a good level of frustration tolerance is about teaching them patience, and also teaching them that they can’t always get what they want, and teaching them to be ok with both of these things.
The good news is you can teach your dogs to have better impulse control, and a better tolerance to frustration through training.
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