On the contrary, dogs do demand attention and don't care whether it is good or bad. The point is that they managed to demand it. They don't do it for the same reason as children but they do it.

Here is a quote by animal behaviourist John Fisher. It is regarding a dog that barks all the time his owner is on the phone and if he is locked out of the room, he barks louder and scratches at the door.

"Telling him off will not negate his usefulness as a guard dog, neither will it help to overcome your problem. No doubt, because you live alone with your dog, any guarding behaviour is rewarded. However, rewarding his behaviour when you are on the phone will encourage him - as will telling him off. In both scenarios you are giving the dog the attention that he is demanding and, like children, dogs don't care whether that attention is good or bad. The answer is to take away the reward that he gets from behaving in this unnacceptable manner."

Many of the behaviourists in the U.S use methods by John Fisher and I know that John Fisher has trained some of the most well known behaviourists in the U.S. He's one of the leading behaviourists in Europe.

I know somebody who has a patterdale terrier and she got into a habit of chewing the table so, naturally, they started telling her off for it. What did she do, she started to chew the table deliberately when they were watching and when they told her off, she'd just move around to the other side of the table and resume chewing but she's have her eyes on them the whole time...she was doing it purely to get their attention because she knew it worked everytime. When I advised them to find other ways to stop her chewing and to stop giving her the attention she was after, she stopped chewing the table and is fine now.