End the “Unless/Until” Dog: What a Trained Dog Really Is (and How to Get There)

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

Hey, this is your host, Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond Canine Dog Training in Biddeford, Maine. For those of you that are new here, we specialize in e-collar training. So we help dogs listen off leash and around distractions. Or if your dog's being an absolute total jerk, well, we can help with that too. We do it all and we do puppy training too. This podcast is just my way of sharing. Well, everything with you guys, the good, the bad, the ugly. And I will always be honest about how to fix the problems you might be dealing with with your dog.

So we're not your average super floofy dog training podcast. We are real and honest around here. What you can do is hit subscribe, hit subscribe so that you don't miss an episode, and so that you can help support the podcast. Every subscribe or follow helps us so, so, so much so I can keep putting out this content. We appreciate you and without further ado, let's jump in.

01:24 — A dog that listens unless people, dogs, or distractions appear is not finished training.

When we first meet people, even before we meet them, when we're doing our phone consultation, one of the most common things that we hear people say is, first of all, that their dog is smart, um, and that they learn and that they learn quickly and that they know the commands and they'll say that their dog listens or their dog does pretty well or their dog is good and then they always follow it with until or unless, right? So my dog is really good until they see a squirrel, my dog does well, unless there's other people around.

My dog listens unless she can see another dog. And that means you are not done. That means your dog isn't trained, right? So I like to be really clear about what defines a trained dog. And I think that's important because first of all, no dog is a robot and no dog is ever truly going to be perfect.

And we don't necessarily want them to be perfect, right? Nobody wants their dog to be a robot. We want our dogs to have personality. And with that is going to come. Challenges with that is going to come moments where maybe they do make a mistake or they at least kind of have a hard time, and that's okay. Um, our dogs are always going to be who they are. We can't change that. And like I said, we don't necessarily want to, but I think it's important for people to define what is a trained dog. Like when I say I wanna train my dog, what does that mean?

What really is my goal? And break that down to, you know, and be honest with yourself. What is it you really want to get out of training your dog? What does that look like? And you have to, I think people struggle to actually break it down and they struggle to put it, to really define it and spell it out because it makes them feel mean, <laugh>, it makes them feel bad, it makes them feel guilty.

Uh, they feel like they're setting the standard or the bar too high for their dog. So I think people are uncomfortable defining what a trained dog is. And the problem is, if you don't and you're not honest with yourself about what that is, then you will forever be too easy on your dog and set the bar too low and you will never get what you want. As a side note, this is true in your relationship too. <laugh>, moving on <laugh>. Um, but really, like if you're not willing to say, Hey, I want my dog to do everything I ask him to do, the first time I ask, if you're not willing to admit that to yourself, then you'll never have it.

You'll forever be repeating and repeating and frustrated and end up yelling. If you're not willing to say, I want my dog to come back when called 100% of the time, even if there's a squirrel, even if there's another dog and I want them to come directly to me, you know, do not pass.

04:34 — The recall benchmark is coming directly to you the first time, despite dogs, birds,…

Go. Do not collect $200. Don't go say hi to that dog. Come to me. Don't run off in another direction to go grab your ball first. Like, come to me. If that's what you want, then you have to at least be able to admit that that's what you want. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? But it's hard to meet goals that you don't even acknowledge you have, right? And then people basically, they do the training and things get a little better and like, that's good, but then they become complacent with that. And it's not, they're not actually done.

They're not actually there yet. They're not where they wanna be.

And I think most people, their goals are very, very attainable. Um, but they're just not, they might not even know what they are because maybe they haven't even actually really thought about that. They just know that they're not there. They know they don't have what they want. They know they're getting frustrated regularly. Um, but think about what that is. 'cause like I said, we hear over and over and over again unless until blah, blah, blah. And that tells me, of course you're not there. And they know they're not there, right? That's why they're calling. Um, that's why they're here.

Um, but I don't think that there's, I think there's often there's not a real clearly defined goal for people. And I think when we train to our standards, people are kind of surprised, uh, that we set the bar that high people. I think people think those are unreasonable goals for their dog.

And they're not. They're absolutely not. Most dogs are capable of doing these things, not a hundred percent, but very darn close. Most dogs, they can listen the first time you ask, they can hold a position until you release them. They can come back even when there's distractions, even when they're loose on the beach and there's seagulls and there's other dogs, they can, we just don't hold them to that standard. And people also, I think I've talked about this before, but you know, people tend to feel guilty just about the training in general. And they feel like, oh, training, you know, formal training is for bad dogs, accountability is for bad dogs.

It's just not true. It's for all dogs. It's for dogs. You love that. You wanna keep safe, right? It's for being a responsible dog owner and keeping everybody else safe and being courteous to everybody else.

Nevermind safety. Even if your dog is super friendly, like it's just not courteous to have your dog, ignoring your recall, running up to other people, running up to strange dogs. It isn't safe for your dog either. So there's no reason to feel guilty about this stuff. And I can say that until I'm blue in the face and people still will, even if they know logically that that's true, I think in their chest, they still just feel it. And again, it prevents them from setting the bar where they really should be setting the bar. And so, because people want to say, you know, they don't want their dog to be viewed as a bad dog.

It's like, it's really important to them sometimes to give the impression that their dog is smart and does well and listens, but at the same time, speaking outta the other side of their mouth saying, my dog needs training, my dog doesn't listen <laugh>, right? In these certain situations, it's like, okay, you're describing like every dog, that's normal, right? Your dog has a threshold. And when you're on the other side of that threshold, they don't listen. That's normal. Some dogs don't listen ever <laugh>. Um, but that's normal. And it means you're not, you're not there yet.

Your dog isn't trained, right? So saying, my dog comes back when called is a meaningless statement.

08:42 — Saying a dog listens without explaining distance or distractions does not demonstrate reliable training.

When do they come back? When called? Do they always come back when called? Or do they only come back when there's no distractions? Or do they only come back when the distraction is so far away, right? Or are there certain things where they just totally hang up the phone and they don't give you a second thought? Again, those things are all normal, but it's not a trained dog. I get that your dog knows how to sit. I get that your dog will do anything for a treat. It's not a trained dog, in my opinion. Basic commands sit down and come when called at a minimum.

Those three should happen the first time you ask regardless of distractions. And your dog should maintain those commands until they are told to do otherwise, right? So that's what we teach, right? And we also do the place command, but theoretically you don't really need that if you have a down command. 'cause you can just use down, right? And you can still, you can do down on a cot and that's fine. But if you can tell your dog to sit and you can tell your dog to lay down and they'll stay there and you can tell your dog to come back and they will, well, you've pretty much got it made in the shade, right?

And then we have leash walking as well. But that doesn't necessarily involve a command as much as it involves the person just knowing how to use their leash with a prone collar.

Anyway, if you fall into that bucket, that category of folks says, my dog will do this unless X, y, Z happens, then you're just not there. And that's okay. But in order to get there, you have to number one, acknowledge that the trainings only have done, your dog isn't trained. And number two, you need to learn how to get that behavior. And that's actually quite easy if your dog already knows the behavior, right? Like people when they say their dog is trained or their dog does well, they're telling me, my dog knows these behaviors. They know sit, they know, lay down, they know come back when called.

Right? They just don't do it when such and such happens. And in those cases, cleaning up the training is super easy. Most of the time

It's like, alright, if your dog has had that much rehearsal, your dog has already had tons of positive reinforcement, your dog already has lots of experience to lean on, they know what you want. When you say those words, like that's half the battle. If you've already got that out of the way, the only thing you are missing is the accountability, right? Just like everybody, when we meet them, people are missing the accountability. And so the dog knows it, but it just isn't worth it to do it in certain scenarios. So they just don't. So how do you change that?

How do you make it worth it for the dog to do it even when there's something else getting their attention? And so if you ask a purely positive nonsense trainer, they're just going to tell you to keep upping the reward or the bribe rather, until you overcome the distraction. And that just isn't realistic for so many reasons. Number one, I'm not going to carry limitless high value rewards in my pocket. And for some dogs that might look like raw meat <laugh>, okay? I'm not gonna carry that stuff around in my pocket and my pockets aren't bottomless.

There's a limit to what I can carry. Number two,

12:44 — Ever-increasing food rewards are impractical, unsafe in emergencies, and can create lifelong bribery dependence.

That means that every time there's a situation, I have to panic. I have to get my hands on a reward and I have to bribe. And ultimately I'm just hoping for the best. I don't know what's gonna happen. That's not safe. And also, people are under the impression that if they just do that enough that something is gonna like change in the dog's brain and they're not gonna have to bribe anymore. And guess what? That's not true. You'll have to do it probably forever.

The way you make it worth it for the dog to do the behavior, even though they don't want to, 'cause there's other stuff happening, is accountability. There's now a negative consequence, right? Again, this is once your dog knows the behavior very well, if you do this before that it won't work. Your dog has to know the behavior well, and then there's accountability, there's now a negative consequence if you don't do this behavior that I already know, you know very well, right? So once you do that, now you've introduced this whole other world, right? This whole negative consequence deal when your dog doesn't comply suddenly just like that, you become the priority over the environment, over the squirrel, over the seagulls, over the other dogs.

Suddenly when your dog is now in that position where on one side they've got you calling them on the other side, there's this dog they want to go say hi to. Now your dog goes, wait a minute. Normally I would just go say hi to this other dog, right? And I can come back to my owner later and that works out fine. But the last time I did that,

It was really uncomfortable.

I am not gonna do that this time. I'm gonna go back, right? So suddenly, and I mean if, if you have any normal functioning brain in your head, that scenario makes sense to you, love the podcast. Well, I have great news. We are now offering an inexpensive subscription where you can get access to our new premium content. This content isn't available to our general listeners, it's made just for you. It includes all kinds of behind the scenes stuff, all the obstacles and how we're overcoming them with our board and trained dogs. And the most difficult part of our job, how we deal with overcoming obstacles with our clients.

So all kinds of new cool, interesting stuff for you to get out of those episodes. You can jump down into the show notes and there will be a link to our support page where you can sign up and start listening right away. Thanks for your support, enjoy the rest of the show. You can put yourself in scenarios where you yourself would prefer to do one thing, but you choose to do another. Because if you don't do it, you know the consequences will be intolerable. We as humans, and not just kids as adults, this is normal behavior, guys.

16:04 — Use a long line to rehearse recalls and enforce compliance before allowing off-leash freedom.

If the consequences are intolerable, you're not gonna do it. This, it's the same way for your dog. And once you add that in, that's it. Right? Now there is a way to do it. And usually if we're talking about something like recall, which is the scenario I've been describing, people aren't implementing that process with the dog off leash. We're actually doing tons of rehearsal with a long line on, it might be 15, 20 feet, it might be longer than that, but we have the long line on there so that we can get the behavior we want just in case the dog doesn't do it, right?

You have to have recourse, you have to have a way to follow through until you're done. And with a lot of dogs, even if they do know the behavior well, you add in that accountability, they've never experienced it before.

So you can't just suddenly punish your dog for not coming back and assume that that's gonna work out for you. You can't just assume that the dog's just gonna come running back into your arms and everything's gonna be great. They might, that's really common with dogs that actually do know the command. Well, oftentimes the person will add a punishment. We've met lots of people, uh, we've talked to lots of people in our consultations who have added an eco on their own for things like recall. And, you know, quote unquote, they zap the dog. That's their language.

I don't usually use that language and the dog comes back a hundred percent of the time and that's great, but it doesn't always work that way. So we always instruct people to keep their dog on that long leash until they've been through that scenario enough times, um, and they've seen how their dog responds, make sure they're responding properly. But usually, guys, you can clean this up so fast, right? Your dog just needs to, here's the key. Your dog not just needs to experience that. There's a negative consequence for not complying with you. They need to experience, they need to believe,

Right? So if they only experience it sometimes, and sometimes it's meaningful, but sometimes it's not right, then you're, your, your consequences are so-so your pattern is so-so, and guess what your results are gonna be. So-so now if you can put aside all of your guilt and all of your feelings about feeling bad, now you have a real chance at creating a pattern that creates real change for your dog and just makes things so much easier for both of you, right? Because now you're going, if you're, if you have a very meaningful consequence for not listening, let's stick with recall.

Your dog ignores your recall the first time they ignore it, and there's a real consequence for that, right? And then maybe a few days later they try it again and there's a real consequence for that. Maybe a couple weeks later they try it again in a certain scenario and there's a real consequence for that. Okay? Well now guess what? Like, you've done a really good job at creating a consistent, meaningful pattern for your dog with lots of clarity. And now your dog starts to believe that if they don't listen to you,

It's uncomfortable. And guess what happens? Can anybody figure out what happens when you create this pattern for your dog? Dun, they listen to you. Yay. Winner winner. Like, it really does work that way guys. And it's like, yeah, there's a process to teaching your dog what we want them to do and what we don't want them to do, right? And there's a safe, effective way to do it and there's unsafe ineffective ways to do it. So if you don't know, then get some help. Get some assistance, get some guidance. At least do your research. But more than anything, if you at least have your dog on a long leash, they can't get away from you.

So you know things are safe, try it. Don't be so afraid of it that you don't, don't try the thing that's finally gonna fix your world for you, right? I'm always hesitant to tell people to experiment with things off leash because it's off leash. You have no recourse, you have no safety net, right? Especially if you're using an eco. It's like even if you're in a fenced in area, you still need that leash on because if you're not very skilled at what you're doing, there's a high likelihood

21:09 — Using an e-collar off leash without a line can teach the wrong behavior, so…

That you could teach your dog the things you're not trying to teach them. You might not teach your dog what to do with that e-collar because if your dog is running all over the place or trying to get away or avoid you, you can't, you don't have any recourse because there's no leash. So it's not just about safety, it's also about being able to give your dog that guidance. And you might need a leash for that, right? So put 'em on a 20 foot, a 30 foot, even a 50 foot leash, but just have it so that you can show them if you need to.

And again, get help if you need help. But it's like a lot of folks, you know, they tell us over and over again, my dog knows this, my dog knows that, but yet they don't do it. Why? It is simple. It is just because there's no reason. Do it when they don't feel like it. And that's normal. It's not 'cause your dog is stubborn, it's not 'cause your dog is a bad dog. It's not because you haven't been patient enough. There just isn't any accountability. Normal, totally normal.

Um, and so get some help with it. Or at least put your dog on a leash if you're gonna experiment with trying some accountability. People worry so much about messing up their dog, about their dog creating associations they didn't mean for them to create. And it's like, so what? Let, let's just say you do mess things up miserably and your dog creates some terrible association. Guess what? You a good trainer. You can undo that in no time. Your dog doesn't stop making associations after they've made one. That's stupid. Of course they don't, right? So I had a customer one time with a dog with an underground fence.

I, he, and I hear this one a lot. I hear things like, my dog won't leave the porch, my dog won't go out in the yard. Well, this particular dog, the underground fence was not installed properly. And this poor dog was getting shocked every time he went up his stairs to get back into the house or to go down the stairs from the house out into the yard. Um, and so naturally the dog didn't wanna go onto the stairs, right? But once we knew that it was easy to fix, right? You correct the fence. So the dog's not getting shocked anymore.

You put him on a leash, you lead him up and down and you show him, what you don't do is you don't coddle in ooh and on. It's okay. And soothe and pet and baby and stuff, tons of food in his face at, you know,

Unstrategic times. That's not gonna do any good. The dog needs new patterns. So you set a new pattern, and it might be the only way you can do that is put a leash on 'em and drag 'em, right? Maybe food is involved and that's fine. I'm not anti food. I'm just saying most people are shoving food in the dog's face and they're doing it all at the wrong times. And it can hurt you more than it can help you. So you have to know what you're doing with that too. But the the most important thing, the most, the biggest takeaway I want you to have from this is, okay, what you're telling me is you're worried about creating a pattern you didn't mean to create.

Well, if you do that and you can see that you did that, then go out of your way to create a new pattern. Use your brain, use your critical thinking skills, like your dog will learn the new thing just as readily as they learned the old one, you can write over that disc. It's not read only <laugh>. It's not like you can only write it once and then that's it. You can rewrite the story as many times as you need to.

So sometimes dogs do make associations we don't mean for them to make, and that's okay, we just make new ones, no big deal.

25:25 — House rules become real only when tangible consequences support them instead of relying on…

But ultimately, if you stay in fear or unsure about providing a negative consequence about having accountability for non-compliance, then trust me, your commands, your direction to your dog will absolutely remain optional forever. Because they are, they are optional. I understand that you have rules that your dog needs to listen and come back when called and all this stuff. But the problem is, until you introduce accountability, those rules, they only exist in your head. They're not real. What makes them real is tangible consequences. You need to back it up with something besides just your mouth. And yelling is not a consequence for most dogs, guys.

For some dogs it might be enough, but first of all, I don't wanna be that maniac who's out there screaming and yelling at my dog. I don't wanna have to do that. It takes too much energy. It's embarrassing it, it's toxic to a relationship. I don't want our relationship characterized by that. I would much rather give my dog an unemotional physical consequence with a moment of discomfort, usually with the e-collar and that's it. There's no anger, there's no frustration. I just make it a not real pleasant thing for the dog to not listen to me.

And then they listen and things are great. And by the way, in this process, I usually become the safe

Place. So if my dog feels a correction, the first thing both of them do is they run to me. It doesn't matter what the correction's for, they come to me, I'm the safe place. I mean, that's about as good as it gets really. But until you do that, everything stays optional. So your commands aren't really commands, they're just tricks. And the dog can choose whether they want to do them or not. And no matter what you have for a reward or a bribe, you're always in a tug of war with the environment. It's always gonna be the dog weighing this thing against that thing.

And so in that case, you're gonna lose sometimes, dude, with some dogs, you're gonna lose a lot. With some dogs you might only lose once in a while. But you're going to lose because you're unwilling to draw in the other half of the equation, which is not just things the dog wants, not just things the dog's willing to work for, but things that they want to avoid. And that my friend will complete the picture for your dog. And until then, like I said, everything remains optional. And you're going to continue to have conditional commands where it's like, my dog will do this.

My dog listens, my dog's smart, my dog does well unless they see this, until they do that, until this person's around. And that will be your life forever. And that is no good,

28:38 — Finish training by combining clear standards, accountability, and consequences that make compliance the easy…

No good. I believe your dog is smart. So clean it up, reach your goals, be honest with yourself about what you want and what you need to do to get there. And things can be different and they can be different fast for a lot of people, we hope you enjoyed today's episode. If there's a topic you'd like to hear discussed, you can send that to me directly at Kati at Diamond Canine dot com via email. So I will link to that email address in the show notes. Thanks for joining us today, guys. Thanks for supporting the podcast and I look forward to the next one.