Your dog will not be on auto-pilot after the board & train. There is no such thing as “train and forget”! There are lots of variables that impact a dog’s behavior: personality, attitude, relationships with the people in his home, relationships with other animals in his home, the home environment, other environments and experiences, maturity, big life changes, etc. As these variables change, so does your dog’s behavior. The key to making good behavior last (or to getting good behavior back) is knowing how to influence your dog.
First thing’s first: Your relationship
If your dog’s behavior is starting to deteriorate, the first thing to consider is your relationship with the dog. Are you spending quality one-on-one time engaging with your dog? I don’t mean snuggling or napping together, although those things aren’t necessarily bad. Here’s a few examples that could count as one-on-one engagement:
Playing with your dog
Structured walking
Field trips
Training or engagement exercises - could be as simple as practicing place to place recall around the house, or something more specific like practicing agility skills
Next: What does your dog’s day look like?
When your dog’s behavior starts to go down hill, structure is going to be part of the solution. “Structure” doesn’t mean your dog has to go all the way back to a super strict lifestyle, but you need to introduce a bit more than what you’re currently doing. Here are some examples of more structure:
Spending time in the crate even when you’re home and awake, or starting to use the crate again if you’ve stopped altogether
Daily long duration place command
Putting the leash on your dog, even in the house
Dusting off old rules and protocols, like threshold manners and/or waiting for permission to eat
Taking structured, leashed walks again, particularly if you’ve not been walking at all or if your dog has only been off leash
Finally: Assess what changed
All of the above can be guided by assessing what’s changed recently. For example, you may realize that your dog’s behavior started to deteriorate after you stopped using the crate. That would be a good sign that your dog needs the structure and down time that the crate provides. Or you may discover that it all started shortly after your significant other moved in. That doesn’t mean you have to kick your significant other out (well, unless you want to) but it can help you understand how you got to where you are. If bad behavior is the result of a major life change, you know your dog is dealing with some anxiety, and structure is the antidote to anxiety!
You won’t always be able to pinpoint what changed prior to your dog’s behavior changing, so if you can’t figure it out, don’t sweat it! Even when you can, that doesn’t change how you fix it, but it might help you avoid the same problems in the future.
