Field note · Read your dog
Eye contact and the three Ts: what not to give a behaviour you do not want
Eye contact, and the three Ts, talk, touch, treat. When your dog does something you would rather it did not, the fastest fix is often to give none of them, and to answer the feeling underneath, not the action on top.
When your dog does something you do not like, the instinct is to do something back. Say no. Push it off. Ask for a sit. A lot of the time, that something is fuel. So here is the rule I give every owner first: for a behaviour you do not want, give none of four things, eye contact, and the three Ts, talk, touch and treat.
To an over-aroused dog, every one of those is an input that says this moment is real and worth staying in. Even a correction is attention. You think you are telling the dog off. The dog hears that the thing it just did got a reaction.
Answer the feeling, not the action
This is the part most people miss. A behaviour is a feeling wearing an action. Your dog jumps all over you at the door. The action is jumping. The feeling is excitement. If you ask for a sit, a well-trained dog will sit, and the second you look away it jumps again, because the feeling never went anywhere.
So do not chase the action. Answer the feeling, by giving your attention only when the dog shows the opposite of it. Walk in, put your things down, carry on as if the dog is not there. No eye contact, no talk, no touch, no treat. When the dog finally gives up and settles, then you go to it, down at its level, and say hello. It learns that calm is what earns you, not noise.
Do not make a big deal, and the dog will not either
The same rule explains fear. A dog barks at the blender, or panics at a thunderstorm, and the kind thing feels like reassurance: it is okay, it is okay. But to the dog, your fuss confirms that something is worth worrying about. Stay neutral instead. Turn the blender on, off, on, off, and carry on with your day. Let the noise become white noise. What you do not make a big deal of, the dog learns not to make a big deal of either.
This is not coldness
Withholding eye contact and the three Ts in the wrong moment is not ignoring your dog. It is choosing the moment you engage. You give eye contact, talk, touch and treats generously, to the calm dog, the settled dog, the dog making the choice you want more of. That is the whole method in miniature: you are not training the dog out of a behaviour, you are meeting the feeling underneath it and rewarding the state you want to see again.
Want to know which feeling is driving your dog right now? The free assessment gives you a read in two minutes. Or work it through with a Hachi Way trainer.