[Episode 14]

Will My Dog Behave Better If I Keep Him Off The Couch?

Will your dog behave better if you keep him off the couch?  

A nice dog mom sent me a question and asked if keeping her dog off the couch will make him behave better. She had seen many dog trainers say this is important on social media. She also noticed that dogs that weren’t allowed on the couch were better behaved, according to other social media posts.

Does your dog’s behavior change if you keep him off the couch? 

No, keeping your dog off the couch won’t make him behave better. 

Letting your dog on the couch is a personal preference that doesn’t have anything to do with behavior.

It’s important to understand how dogs learn first, which is covered in detail in both of our online programs, The Dog Academy and Barkaholics. In short, dogs learn by reinforcement. If a behavior is reinforced (some say rewarded) then that behavior will continue. For example, if you pet your dog when he jumps on you, then he was reinforced for jumping. He learned that when he jumps, he gets our attention. You reinforced his behavior by petting him. 

Learning is also based on past experiences. What experiences has your dog had on the couch? Maybe your dog got onto the couch and it was comfortable and soft, warm and close to you. Your dog has a great time being on the couch. And so maybe that’s why he wants to get on the couch because it was comfortable and close to you, his best friend. 

The initial question was, will keeping my dog off the couch make him behave better? No, but let’s unpack that more.

Let’s say for example, that your dog is pulling on the leash. When you walk him or he’s lunging at dogs, How is being on the couch relevant to pulling on the leash? And if you’re wondering about that great, good job, give yourself a hand.

There’s no relevance between those two. There are two totally different things. Correlation doesn’t equal causation. In other words, just because there’s a correlation between not being on the couch and behaving better doesn’t mean that laying on the floor causes a dog to listen better. Correlation does not mean causation. You need to look at all of the variables, or what else is going on in the dog’s life. 

Someone that keeps their dog off the couch might be working on teaching them to walk without pulling as well. Again, two totally different things, right? One is not causal of another, keeping your dog off the couch does not keep him from pulling on the leash. It might keep him from jumping on your guest’s lap when they’re sitting on the couch, but it doesn’t keep him from counter surfing. It doesn’t prevent him from barking and it doesn’t keep him from pulling on the leash. Those have nothing to do with each other.

Some dog trainers claim that if your dog is higher than you, by being on the couch, then he will think he is the boss and behave poorly. That comes from the Pack Theory Dog Training Method. That method states that wolves are dominant and fight for dominance in a pack. The theory also claims that your dog came for a wolf and so their behavior is the same. L David Mech studied wild wolves in Canada for over 30 years. His research has shown that wolves aren’t dominant. That means that your dog isn’t being dominant either. 

Letting your dog on the couch is a personal preference.  It doesn’t have anything to do with behavior, so go ahead and let your dog get onto the couch if you want. 

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