But What If You “Mess Up” Your Dog?!

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces Off Leash and Unfiltered and explains her focus on e-collar training…

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered Trigger Warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the Truth in Dog Training.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. I'm Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond Canine Dog Training here in southern Maine. We do primarily eco training for off-leash obedience and behavior modification and state of mind work. Um, and we also do puppy stuff and puppy training. And I actually have a couple puppies here right now, uh, for board and train, which is of course one of the funnest parts of the job. Um, but that's who we are. It's what we do. And, uh, this podcast is brought to you to kind of elaborate on subjects that I think could be of the most help, um, to the general public.

So these are things that I'm, I find myself talking about with clients day in and day out, and I'm here to share all of that with you. So let's dig in on today's agenda is a thing I see all the time, especially when I'm on social media and I kind of, you know, Facebook by default shows me, you know, in Instagram, other trainers pages and, and kind of, you know, their reels that they're sharing and that sort of thing.

And so I see frequently, um, fear mongering and I see trainers telling people they're going to mess up their dogs and they shouldn't be doing this, and they shouldn't be doing that. And I mean, we all know there are things we should and shouldn't be doing. Like that's not news. But, uh, you know, and I think everybody has a different opinion on that. So you ask five different dog trainers what you should do or what you shouldn't do, and you get five different answers. And so I'm not here to really debate that as much as I am.

Um, just the general fear mongering, particularly around ecos because here's what's unique about that. So you get a lot of different opinions on a lot of different things regarding training and what works best and what you should do and what you shouldn't do. But ecos are unique in the sense that you kind of get that same, you get that same dialogue no matter who you're talking to.

Like, it doesn't matter if it's a purely positive trainer. It doesn't matter if it's a wacko like Zach, George, it doesn't matter if it's, you know, the people that call themselves balanced trainers, which is how a lot of people would refer to me. I don't call myself that. I don't use any labels. I'm just, I'm an effective, efficient trainer <laugh>. So I don't need, um, to be placed into a category. I do what works. But anyway, not to get off on a tangent on that, but you even look at the folks, the trainers that are using ecos and they're participating in this too.

So I, and I just saw this a few minutes ago, which is literally when I decided, well, that's what I'm gonna talk about <laugh>. So I saw a page, um, from a trainer I really respect. They're not even here in the country.

They're over in the uk. Um, and they have a, a big following and they're battling their own battles over there because, uh, you know, ecos are getting banned and dogs are killing livestock animals. And, you know, there's a lot of, um, a lot of controversy over there right now. And, and dogs are definitely paying the price as well as obviously the livestock animals, um, and owners. So because, you know, your dog ends up shot and killed because you weren't allowed to use effective training. But anyways, that's another tangent for another day. Boy, I'm on a roll <laugh>.

Um, but I saw this trainer make a post about ecos and saying, if you're not gonna work with somebody hands on, then just don't bother. And I gotta tell you, I couldn't disagree more. I couldn't disagree more, or I think working with somebody is fantastic. If you can find a trainer in your area that has a good reputation that shows their work that you can see they get results and you can afford to work with that person, you should absolutely do it. But I don't think if you opt to do it yourself that you're going to mess up your dog, I don't think that you're going to mess up your training.

04:00 — She disagrees that owners should avoid e-collar training unless they receive hands-on instruction.

You could mess up your training. Here's the thing, it's not permanent, okay? I'm gonna say that again. It's not permanent guys. You can undo. Do you think trainers are perfect? We mess things up all the time. Okay? Maybe not all the time, but we certainly make mistakes. We certainly make mistakes. And even when we don't make mistakes, there are gonna be periods of confusion for the dog, because that's just part of the learning process. So people are petrified of confusing their dog. Guess what? Even if you go to the best trainer in the world, your dog is gonna be confused.

It's just part of the process you'll get there, okay? You don't go from point A to point B with no confusion.

If it is, that would just be called magic <laugh>, okay? So that is the learning is clarifying things. That is the training is clarifying things, takes time, takes repetition. Now, obviously, if you go into eco training with no idea what you're doing with no plan, right? You couldn't, if you couldn't take out a piece of, of paper and write down what your steps are that you're going to take that day and what your goal is or what you're trying to teach your dog and how they learn it, if you can't do that, then you're probably not ready, right?

But this information is out there. I put it out there. I know other trainers that put it out there. There are books, there are videos. People make way too big of a deal out of this eco thing. Uh, the only thing I make a big deal out of is you gotta do it on a leash, okay? Don't take your dog off a leash until you know you've arrived. You know, your dog understands it. You've seen them respond to it in different scenarios and scenarios where they wouldn't have in the past, okay? You don't take your leash off until you see that,

Okay? Aside from that, you really don't have a ton to worry about. And these people that talk about doing harm to your relationship and your dog being afraid of you or walking around terrified, it's like, yeah, maybe if you're a complete psychopath, right? And you turn the thing up to a hundred and you ring it like a doorbell for kicks. But I gotta tell you, if you're that kind of a person, your dog's already terrified of you before you put the eco on <laugh>, right? Because nobody does that, guys, nobody does that. People love their dogs for the most part, and they just want them trained so that they can enjoy them and they can trust them and they can be safer.

07:00 — She rejects claims that ordinary e-collar mistakes automatically damage the dog-owner relationship.

Oops, let's turn that off. Spam. Lots of spam calls lately. Um, but yeah, you're not, you're not gonna mess up your dog. Could you mess up your training? Could you have a hard time achieving one of your training goals? Yeah, you could. So what? So what? You're not dismantling a bomb. It's not like you cut the wrong wire and it's all over. Relax for God's sake. Watch a video or two,

Read a book. But I gotta tell you, there aren't a lot of books out there. There's a couple that come to mind right away. They're sort of the bigger voices in eco training,

And at least one out of those two I wouldn't recommend because he's so much on this train. I mean, he basically makes his whole living just talking about how bad other eco trainers are, how great he is, how fair he is, how much the dogs love him, how much he's needed, and how terrible everyone else is that uses ecos. So I'm not gonna mention any names, but um, if you follow these authors on social media, it all be very obvious <laugh>. So fearmongering just, it isn't helping people, it's not helpful. So I'm here to tell you to fricking relax, take a chill pill.

Yeah, that's from the nineties. I know I'm showing my age <laugh>, but really like, just relax guys. If you want to do eco training on your own, I can't tell you how many calls I give people that say I've got an e-collar, but I, I haven't even taken it outta the box. I didn't dare to get started with it. I didn't dare to do anything with it until I had a trainer. I didn't know what to do. It's okay. Like, I'm not making fun of those people. I think working with a trainer is the best plan.

Totally understandable. All I'm saying is if you can't or that's not what you wanna do, right? If you need to get your dog trained now and you can't work with a trainer now, don't be afraid of it. Don't be afraid of it. Keep the leash on your dog. Find a good trainer on social media, follow their stuff, read a book on it if you want to. But really what you need to do is just dig in a little bit to the found the information. Like how, how do dogs learn, right? They learn through patterns. So your job with the eco is just teaching your dog patterns.

Guys, it's not hard. It's not hard. Your dog's gonna have no idea what it is. At first, you're gonna have to show them what to do with your leash, with your words, if they know the commands, and that's okay. That's what we do. So when your dog comes in here for private lessons or board and train, we don't just push the button and expect the dog to do anything. Your dog has no clue what it means. No clue how it's tied to their behavior. I have to show them what to do. But that information's out there, like I said, a lot of it's free.

11:00 — She explains that trainers first teach dogs what e-collar stimulation means instead of simply…

There are a lot of good trainers out there now that have paid courses, you know, but the person I was referring to earlier, um, from the UK was basically saying, you know, if you buy an online course to teach this stuff to your dog, you're a fool. And I just couldn't, I just couldn't disagree more.

So again, I'm here to tell you to relax. You're not gonna screw up your dog. So if, if you wanna do eco training, get yourself a mini educator from Eco Technologies. Now, if you have a tiny dog, you might wanna get a micro educator, which is just a little smaller and a little gentler. It's not that different.

If you have a really powerhouse of a dog who's not sensitive at all, and you already know this, you might wanna get a boss from e-collar technologies, right? So those are kind of like their three main models. Um, but you know, 95% of dogs that come through here are on a mini educator, which is just the middle of the road, regular sized, e-collar, um, fantastic unit, has a half mile, um, of communication ability, um, is super consistent. Waterproof, excuse me, super consistent, waterproof. They give you a two year warranty. Um, and they have fantastic service.

So they're very helpful. If something goes wrong with your collar, um, and just dig in, dig in, guys, do the research. If you wanna do it yourself, you can do it. It's not that hard. So you're not a dog trainer necessarily, right? So we don't expect you to like be able to get the results as fast or maybe even as polished as we would, but that doesn't mean you can't, right? The sky is the limit. If you're willing to commit yourself and actually do the research and ask the questions and and find the information that's out there, sky's the limit.

But even if you don't end up with a super polished dog that does all the fancy stuff that we teach them to do, say when they come in a board and train, you can still have a dog that's much better. You can knock out their bad behaviors super fast, dare I say, nearly instantaneously. There's a way to do it and a wrong way to do it, and I'm willing to divulge that right now because it's quick. So to knock out bad behaviors, you have to say a marker word. When the behavior occurs, we usually use the word no.

14:00 — She describes using a marker word such as “no” when an unwanted behavior occurs.

So you would say no when the behavior occurs, and then you would follow up after that. No, which really important. Not before, not during, but after you say no, you follow up with a very uncomfortable correction that requires, in most cases, turning your e-collar up quite a bit and tapping the button, or even holding it down for a second or two depending on what we're dealing with, right? And once you do that a few times, your dog puts that pattern together, right? It's all about patterns. And they say, oh, I bark out the window. Mom says no, and then I get this uncomfortable correction that's happened two or three times now.

So you know what? I think I might not do that anymore. It's not hard. You're not going to screw it up.

When I say screw it up, I mean, you're not gonna permanently damage your dog in some way. People screw the training up all the time, and guess what? We fix it <laugh>, we just fix it. Usually what they're screwing up, to be honest, is that they are being too soft. So it's the same problem they had before the e-collar training anyway. Most of the time people are not turning the remote up, and so they're not correcting their dog high enough, which means it's still worth it to bark out the window or jump on the people or whatever they're doing.

Or sometimes people are just saying no. Right? And once the dog knows that no predicts a correction, they stop, right? So people say, no dog stops barking out the window. People never follow up with a consequence after that. Okay, well now you've just created a loophole for the dog is all you've done, right?

So when people mess things up, like that's the kind of stuff they're messing up, like they're not damaging their dog in any way. They're just not being very effective, right? So if you notice that you're one of those folks and you're trying to stop a behavior and you've learned, oh, well I can now I can interrupt it successfully with no problem, but the problem is Fido goes right back to the window and does it again an hour later, right? So that's a fail. That means you're obviously there, there's something lacking in your process because once you say your marker word, which is usually no, you can't just not follow that with the consequence, right?

So the whole idea behind a marker is it's a marker for the dog, it's a predictor. So your job is to teach them that it predicts a correction. If the correction doesn't come, then it's no longer a predictor of correction. It's just a free pass. But I don't wanna go off on that training tangent right now. Um, I will do one, I will do an episode talking just about stopping behaviors, and I've done one before, but I'll do another one. Um, and I'll also talk about teaching behaviors, which is actually a lot more time consuming.

It's a much bigger investment. If you just have a couple behaviors you wanna knock out, man,

You could do that today. In most cases. You could do that today. Yes, there are dogs that are different. Yes, there are behaviors that are different, but usually, you know, nine outta 10 dogs, nine outta 10 behaviors, you could knock it out today. You just quit being so afraid, <laugh>. Okay? That's it for today's episode, guys. I hope you enjoyed, I hope it gave you a little bit more confidence. Um, and you know what, I'm always happy to answer questions too. I might not get back to you immediately, um, if you're not a customer of mine.

But if you have a question, uh, shoot me an email, shoot me a message on, on Facebook or Instagram. So, um, when I can get around to it, I'll certainly give you an answer. I don't mind that at all. So you've got someone on your side, <laugh>, go ahead and, and start that eco training. Alright guys, thanks so much for listening today. I really look forward to the next one, and I hope you get something out of today's episode that'll give you the confidence to go ahead and get that eco training started. All right, I'll see you next time.