No, a Back Yard Will Not Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems
If I had a dime for every contact form that featured some variation of the phrase:
”I just don’t understand, he runs around the back yard for hours while I’m at work, then still comes inside and potties on the rug/chews the furniture/jumps on the kids/steals food off the counter/ whines/ etc…”
Then I wouldn’t need to be selling dog training services at all. I’d be rolling in stacks of cash, and you wouldn’t be reading this helpful blog post right now.
The fact of the matter is, despite all our wishes to the contrary, access to a back yard (even a fairly large one) does not solve most of the issues my clients seek help for. Here’s why:
1. Exercise does not stop bad behavior, in humans, or dogs. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Using physical exercise as a way to stop bad behavior is a futile strategy. How do I know this? Most of my clients have tried it, and they still end up hiring me. In order to stop bad behavior, you need contingent consequences for bad behavior in conjunction with training preferable behaviors. Your dog needs exercise, yes, but exercise fulfills physical activity requirements - NOT discipline requirements. Even if exercise DID solve behavior problems (it doesn’t), a back yard would still likely not be your golden ticket. Which brings me to my next point:
2. Your dog probably doesn’t exercise much in the back yard anyway. Most dogs get bored of their back yard very quickly; it becomes old news. They might go potty, do a few rounds of sniffing, then lay down on the patio and wait to be let inside again. That, or they get down to business digging holes, barking at pedestrians through the fence, and scratching up the back door to be let inside.
Some dogs even become dangerous when left unattended - they might fight with a pack member, ingest large quantities of mulch, rocks, or poop, or experiment with jumping over or digging under the fence. Remember, if you don’t give your dog a job to do, your dog will likely make up it’s own job description, and it will probably be something you don’t like. Most dogs are motivated to seek freedom and novel experiences (can’t blame them!), and for a dog stuck in it’s yard, it knows that all the freedom and novel experiences lie behind the fence. We often see very bad cases of fence aggression develop simply because the only new and interesting thing that happens in the dog’s life is the sight of another person or dog walking by. The dog develops an obsession around the sight of another dog, and before you know it you are dealing with rage at the fence line.
So not only will exercise NOT have the effect you desire (see #1) but your dog more than likely isn’t moving around very much in the back yard anyway. Your dog needs a reason to move around, and the same old smells, sights and sounds generally doesn’t give him a reason to get off his fanny.
3. Access to a back yard decreases the likelihood that you will walk, train, and engage with your badly behaved dog. As I’ve learned about dog behavior through the years, I’ve learned even more about human behavior, and we unintentionally create problems with our good intentions.
Working with so many different owners has given me a window into the real lives my clients lead, and taught me about the real motivators that we all face. Like dogs, humans are wired to seek pleasure, or at least avoid pain. Living with a badly behaved dog causes pain, and for many, the back yard becomes primarily a way to avoid that pain. The problem is, it also becomes a way to avoid your dog.
It’s an easy trap to fall into - the dog behaves badly, so we put it outside where we won’t have to deal with it, and we tell ourselves he’ll be better after he runs out his energy. Over time, you are essentially rewarded for routinely disengaging from your dog. Typically this (human) behavior continues until it stops being rewarding and starts adding pain. When the dog starts tearing up the fence, you have to pay for it’s repair. When your dog digs under the fence and escapes, you have to stress, worry, and go on a frantic search while desperately calling on Facebook or Nextdoor to help you (or worse, you don’t get your dog back, ever). When your dog starts digging holes, you have to spend a whole afternoon filling them back in, knowing that the digging will continue in new locations.
Here is the truth of the matter: Your dog needs daily engagement with you every single day. Your dog needs appropriate inclusion with your family, inside and outside the house. Your dog needs exercise, yes, but quality exercise that includes a mental component - I.E., training. If your dog’s behavior is so bad that you struggle to even exist with it inside the house, it needs more structure, more rules, but most importantly more feedback about what’s acceptable.
Access to a back yard may be nice for quick potty breaks, for the moments when your dog needs to pee but you’d rather not put pants on, but it shouldn’t represent the entirety of your dog’s experience of the outdoors, and it definitely shouldn’t be a crutch that you use to confine, disengage with, or avoid your dog.
Out of all the clients I’ve worked with so far, some of the most awesome and inspiring cases have been the ones who live without a backyard, even though they initially struggled with how to wrap their minds around owning a dog without one. Once they dove headfirst into off-leash training, they came to the ultimate realization that the world is their backyard and it is every dog’s dream to explore it.
So, if you’re reading this and don’t have a back yard - rejoice! (And get to work training!) Now, I want to hear from you: Do you have a backyard, and how do you use it?