Extinction is why unwanted behaviors tend to get worse before they get better. Any behavior that exists has been reinforced, whether is was meant to be reinforced or not is beside the point!
Reinforcement is anything that continues a behavior, so if you never want to see a behavior again, you ultimately need to figure out how that behavior is being reinforced and stop the reinforcement.
If the behavior is a dog jumping up on people, usually it has been reinforced “by accident” when the person pushes, knees, or interacts with the dog in any way. Even making eye contact is enough to reinforce jumping.
If the people involved are all able to give consistent feedback to the dog through actively ignoring the behavior (turning away, crossing arms, looking at the ceiling) then the behavior will go extinct. The extinction process may be very fast or slow depending on the length the behavior has been going on for. If the dog has been reinforced for jumping for her entire life then when she suddenly stops getting reinforced for it she will probably go through a period of frustration known as an “Extinction Burst”. This is where the jumping behavior will get worse before it gets better. She will try harder to get the reinforcement by jumping higher, harder, or even grabbing clothing. If all of this fails to get reinforcement she will try something else. Like sitting, which will get her the reinforcement she desired.
What if the behavior is more anxiety based. If the dog is growling or has bitten someone? The stress behaviors shown before a dog bites is still being reinforced. Usually this is because the owners are experiencing a high amount of stress (adrenaline) themselves and are also exhibiting stress behaviors such as; staring at the dog when she interacts with someone. Or if the growling is being punished this can heighten a dog’s stress and lead to a bite without warning, since the dog has learned that it’s warnings get punished! Interestingly this same dog will be perfectly happy at a dog kennel. Away from her owners she doesn’t see their stress and because the bite only happened under certain stressful conditions, as soon as those conditions are gone the dog no longer feels anxiety.
The key to this kind of behavior is to condition the dog, keeping her under threshold, until she becomes relaxed around the previously stressful situation. This can certainly take time, but as the owners’ stress levels decrease they will more easily be able to see the beginnings of anxiety in their dog and through conditioning help the dog feel more relaxed and even enjoy the previously stressful situations.
