Impulse Control

Author: Denise Partlow

Instagram: @modernk9 Carolinas

We hear this term thrown around a lot but what does it really mean?

I like to describe it as the dog’s ability to make rational decisions in a particular moment-OR in short- the dog thinks before he acts.

It’s pretty normal for dogs to react without thinking, if they were living in the wild they shouldn’t stop and think they should act impulsively, it’s a source of survival.

But since dogs are not living out in the wild and they are living in our human world, we find these impulses to be quite annoying and so we must teach dogs how to think before they act. We give them alternate behaviors and responses to different stimuli or scenarios and this is typically what we refer to as impulse control.

But what does that look like in training?

Impulse control means your dog is able to stay under threshold in certain scenarios or stay focused on you when things get a little crazy.

Perhaps several children are running past a high prey drive dog. Impulse control would be the ability for the dog to stay in place as those children run on by. Or let’s say you drop a plate of food on the floor, impulse control would be the ability for your dog to back off when asked.

Impulse control comes through advanced obedience skills such as a sit stay, place stay and a down stay. Even “leave it” can be considered impulse control practice.

Incorporating this into your daily training will help your dog deal with the unexpected surprises that often occur in our human world.

Some important things to note:
-the amount of training needed to build your dog’s impulse control will be dependent on the individual dog
-age does play a factor. I typically do not like to expect high levels of impulse control for puppies younger than 6months.

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