Working Your Dog “Over Threshold” Is Necessary

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces the episode and asks listeners to subscribe.

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

Hey everybody, this is your host, Kati Peppe. Before we jump in, I just wanted to take a quick second and remind you to hit the subscribe button because that helps us so, so, so much. We appreciate every subscribe and follow, and we have so much valuable information we wanna share with you. So we don't want you to miss an episode. Without further ado, let's jump in. Hey everybody, hope you're doing well today. I am doing fantastic, and we have a great episode for you today where we're talking about the thresholds. I'm sure everybody has heard that word.

I think it kind of became trendy there for a while. Um, but certainly if you have listened to any YouTube personalities, you know, trainers, um, purely positive guys, they're always talking about keeping your dog under threshold. So I wanna talk about that today. Um, <laugh> mainly because it's ridiculous <laugh>.

So, um, yeah, no sense in holding back. So you've already know what I think about that. Uh, here's the thing, you know, when we talk about thresholds, it is absolutely valuable to know what your dog's quote unquote threshold is because that's when they're gonna start to make different decisions, right? It's when you're gonna see things mentally start to kick up, and then physically you get whatever, you know, the thing is you've been getting from your dog that you're trying to fix. So knowing their threshold is very valuable. Um, working to change that threshold is very valuable, but this whole idea of like keeping your dog under threshold when you're trying to train them, it's a stupid idea.

Um, <laugh>, so pardon my bluntness, you should be used to it by now because we don't live in a Skinner box, right? We don't live in a sterile environment.

We can't always control the environment even when we want to. And if I am to be frank, like even if we could, right? Even if we could, like let's say I have this training center, it's not a sterile environment by any stretch, right? But it's mostly controlled. It's got four walls, it's got two doors I can lock. Like I could stay in here and work with no distractions, you know? But the thing is, what good is that? What, how does that teach my dog to tolerate distractions? To hold a down around a distraction to come back when called, when there's a distraction to, um, not be afraid of cars, to not be reactive to dogs?

And the answer is, it just doesn't, right? So it seems like common sense, but clearly it's not. Um, because this whole idea of keeping your dog under threshold, it seems to be, um, widely accepted, right? People buy it hook, line and sinker, and it's just not gonna get you where you wanna go.

I mean, the whole, the phrase keep your dog under threshold really translate to avoid the hard thing. Well, how do you train to tolerate the hard thing if you're avoiding it during the training? <laugh>, it doesn't make a ton of sense, right? It's like anything that you're trying to learn, you have to do the thing to actually learn it, right? It seems like that should kind of go without saying. Um, so keeping your dog under threshold, it just isn't real. It, it's just not reality. We are working to change what that threshold is. Say we have a very excitable dog, right?

04:00 — Real-world training must change the threshold rather than permanently avoid triggering situations.

And he gets really, really excited when people get near him, when people talk to him, when people come over, this sort of thing when we're working to change that threshold and really eliminate it, right? Because we want the dog to just be able to control themselves all the time.

Sometimes we jump right in and we just say, we gotta get rid of this threshold. You have to tolerate it no matter what. And sometimes we might be taking a more gradual approach. So how do you know which one to do? And the truth is, the dog will tell you. The dog will tell you. So let me explain a little bit about that. So there has to be some kind of a catalyst for the dog to start making a different decision. This also seems kind of like common sense, right? Because it's like if you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, you're gonna keep getting the same results.

Your dog is going to keep making the same choice. That's pretty normal, right? So there needs to be a catalyst for your dog to make a different decision. Generally speaking, the catalyst that's needed and almost always missing is a correction, right?

It's accountability for the thing they're supposed to be doing or the thing they're not supposed to be doing. But let's just say back to the excitable example, you want your dog to hold a sit or hold it down, right? And there's people approaching. The thing that usually we're doing is we're just shoving treats in the dog's face. We're repeating the command over and over again. We're doing the stay, stay, stay, ah, ah, ah, right? And we've got our hand up, um, that sort of thing. And we're distracting him with the food. And this is all just garbage, right?

'cause nobody wants to have to do that stuff. And even if you get, I'm not even gonna say what you want 'cause it's not what you want. Even if you get your dog to hold the position, you're exhausted by the end of it because you had to work so hard and it's probably never going to change, right?

Because the dog isn't really making a choice in that situation. You are draining yourself, managing the dog, distracting the dog, begging the dog, pleading with the dog. And so even if they hold the position, that is not a win. That's not a win. The point in the training is to make life easier and better. <laugh>, right? So there needs to be a catalyst. And I have other episodes on letting your dog make choices. And this is a great example of that. You need to let your dog make the choice to break the command so that you can provide a correction for that right?

07:00 — Kati recommends letting dogs break commands so trainers can correct and redirect them.

Now once your dog breaks a command, and you don't need to get mad or upset, right? It's just training. That's the training. You mark it with a no, you provide a correction. You help your dog get reset if they need help getting reset, and you rinse and repeat, okay?

So now you've actually done something different. You've actually let your dog make a choice. You've provided them with feedback that that was the wrong choice. And then you're gonna start the process over again. So you can see if they make a different choice. And when they do, you get to say good, right? Don't have a party until you break them and allow them to get up, right? 'cause you're just gonna make it really hard for them and they're gonna make a mistake. And, and that's working against yourself. Um, but just a nice neutral good. So they know they did the right thing.

Um, and now you're cooking with gas, right? And so then you can rehearse that over and over again and cement it. Um, and that's how we change that threshold, right? So in the excitable dog example, it's like you might have people walking by you, you might have people walking right up to you. And with a lot of dogs, you can just jump right into that and you can go from zero to a hundred in terms of how difficult you make it. And that dog can make a different choice. Now, with some dogs, if they're really, really intensely excited, it might be a little harder for them.

It might be less likely that they can just make a different decision right off the bat. Now, these dogs are actually pretty, pretty rare, right? But they're out there, they might need more rehearsal, doing sort of middle of the road stuff. And what I mean by that is instead of throwing them in the fire, right? And having like kids come right up to them and like talk to them, which is like the most exciting thing we can think of, it's like maybe you do gradually increase the challenge, right? Maybe you start with people walking at a distance, people walking by, people walking up to you, then people making eye contact and talking.

Nothing wrong with that, right? And you might have to have that conversation with the dog over and over and over again. And as they're making their mistakes and breaking their command, you don't necessarily have to light them up like a Christmas tree guys now at some point, yeah.

Like you have to draw a line in the sand and say, okay, we've done this a million times, I know you know what to do. I know you can do it. You've had the rehearsal, and if you wanna really clean it up and make it reliable, then yes, you will have to deliver a proper punishment for breaking that command, right? But you don't have to start there. In fact, you shouldn't start there, right? We're usually starting with levels on our eco that are just enough to motivate the dog to make a different choice or to motivate the dog to go back into position, right?

10:00 — Training begins with motivating e-collar levels rather than immediately applying strong punishment.

We let them know wrong decision, and we're providing stimulation just high enough to be like annoying or you know, a little uncomfortable. But it's not crazy uncomfortable, right? It's just enough to send the message. You've gotta go back into your position that you were supposed to be holding.

Um, and we might have that conversation many times while we're chipping away, right? So it, it doesn't have to be done in one lesson or God forbid, in one repetition with some dogs, you're chipping away, you're chipping away. Um, and really whenever we do a board and train, we're using this chipping away method, right? But most dogs can make a different decision pretty much right off the bat. Um, and so that's fine. But if you have a dog that's wired a little bit differently and it's a lot harder for them, you might be chipping away a little bit longer and that's okay.

That's okay. But most of the time what we see is people are just afraid of it. They're afraid of screwing up, they're afraid of hurting their dog, they're afraid of the eco, they're afraid of all this stuff. And so they just never experiment with more intense consequences.

And so they never get better results, <laugh>, right? So again, at some point, and you know, I don't know because like I'm not working with your dog, right? These are things that have to come from you. You have to be able to evaluate it, you have to get comfortable with it, you have to experiment with it. But at some point, if, you know, you've put in the reps in the rehearsal and you know your timing has been good, and you know how to mark things with a no when they happen, and then follow that, no, with your accountability, um, if you're doing all that and you've put in the time in the reps, it's like nothing's changing or getting better or it's just not as cleaned up as you want it to be, then you have to get comfortable with trying something else.

You have to get comfortable with increasing that accountability, right?

And my philosophy, once the dog knows it and, and they've put in the time and you've put in the time and they've had the reps and they've had the experience, I'm no longer looking for the level. That's just enough. I'm looking for the level that basically fixes it forever, right? And that doesn't mean your dog will be perfect. That's not how behavior works. But it means more or less they're gonna be very reliable. Because I don't want to have to nag my dog, especially for something that we've already been over a thousand times. I don't want to, I shouldn't have to.

13:00 — Nagging teaches dogs to keep pushing back instead of responding to established expectations.

And by nagging my dog, I'm teaching them to keep pushing back, right? So you're almost strengthening your dog's stubbornness, so to speak, right? If you're looking for the level, that's just enough. When they, your dogs, again, they've had the training, they've had the rehearsal, they've had the practice, they know what to do, and you know, they can do it. If you're still just using the level that's just enough to motivate them, um, you are basically teaching them and strengthening their pushback response, you're strengthening that res that tendency to keep testing, right? Because it's just enough.

And so when your dog's excitement boils over just a little bit, they're gonna test.

Um, and so we don't wanna stay there. Yes, that's what we use, um, basically for the middle phase of training, right? We start out with just lots of guidance, lots of food. We move to mild accountability combined with guidance. And then ultimately in the end, we need to land, uh, with punishment for non-compliance. And if you don't, then you just stay stuck in that middle phase where you're always providing a little accountability, but you're also providing guidance and you're kind of nagging. Nagging, right? You're always pushing the button, you're always having to help your dog.

Um, and again, really what good is that? Right? That's fine during the training process, but that isn't where you should land. Those aren't results, right? So then sometimes the other case where we're often chipping away, rather than just throwing the dog into the most difficult situations is very fearful dogs.

Um, so fearful dogs tend to be the most difficult dogs to overcome those reflexive impulses, right? Usually to flee. Um, so you get dogs that are just afraid of everything. You get dogs that are afraid of noises and, and sights and sounds and traffic and bikes and people and whatever it is, A lot of dogs are extremely jumpy and it's just so instantly reflexive. It can be difficult to overcome, right? But some dogs are jumpy, some dogs are flighty, some dogs. It's like every noise, every sound, every sudden visual appearance is just like life or death need to flee.

And those dogs can be some of the most difficult dogs to work with and help them overcome, um, the things that trigger them.

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And so we absolutely end up spending a lot of time with those dogs chipping away at this impulse. They have to flee, right? But we're talking about deep nervous system stuff and trying to rewire them not to immediately, um, cave to those impulses.

And so as we're chipping away with these dogs, we'll gradually increase the challenge, right? We'll start easier and then we'll gradually make it more difficult. But the fact, this is the thing everybody thinks if your dog is afraid, if you have a fearful dog, a nervous dog, an anxious dog, right? You can't use a correction. It's like, no, the process really doesn't change, right? The dog doesn't learn differently. You still have to provide a catalyst for your dog to make a different choice. And love and patience isn't gonna do it, guys. It's just not verbal encouragement isn't gonna do it.

17:00 — Fearful dogs follow the same training process, with difficulty adjusted gradually according to their…

Physical reassurance isn't gonna do it. In fact, it will often make things worse.

What's going to work to convince your dog to try something different is accountability for the thing you ask them to do, right? So you're not correcting them for being afraid. You're, you're correcting them for breaking a command that you know, they know and they're well rehearsed at. And again, I'm gonna repeat, you don't have to light them up like a Christmas tree, but during the training process, right? We do again, look for the level that's motivating. And if you, the truth is, and I'm just being honest here, if you have a dog that's extremely fearful, that level is probably going to be higher than most people are comfortable with because the fear and the urge to flee is so intense, right?

And you have to come in above that level of fear and instinct, flee. And if you don't, then you just get ignored, right? I don't decide that the dog decides that, right? So I'm just don't shoot the messenger, <laugh>. I'm just delivering the facts. So here's an example. We had a, a really fearful dog, um, where at first pretty much every time we took her out to work, she was uncomfortable and she'd have her tail tucked and she didn't wanna do it. And she was most comfortable just hiding out in her kennel, curled up in a ball in her dark little hidey hole.

And so we would take her out and we would say we were healing.

Well, it was easy to find distractions for her because all we had to do was walk by her kennel, right? And she wanted to go bolt into the kennel. She's like, maybe I can just run in here and I won't have to do this stuff and I won't have to face the world. And so we had to get her to choose to stay in a heel even when we walked by her kennel. So how did we do that? Well, at first I didn't walk right up to the kennel like we were going in, right? Because that would be the hardest possible scenario.

20:00 — Handlers began by passing fifteen feet from the kennel before gradually moving closer.

I did a circle around the room and we would pass by her kennel, but we were about 15 feet away, right? And so every time we did a circle, I would get a little closer and a little closer, but every time she broke her heel position to try to veer off into her kennel, there would of course be eco stem, right?

Because we use ecos in our training. Um, can you do this stuff without an eco? Yes. Um, it's a lot less precise. And especially in the case I'm describing, I think it would be a lot less efficient and effective, um, especially for the average person, right? If you're not super skilled at this and you haven't done it hundreds of times, thousands of times, um, highly, highly recommend ecos for this work. Um, high quality ecos. So we use many educators from eco technologies. They make lots of great models, but we're us usually using a mini, um, and they work great for this kind of work.

Fanta, there's not a better tool for this kind of work, right? So every time we pass by the kennel and she breaks her position to veer off into the kennel, I'm holding down stem until she comes back. And if I can't get her to come back with stem, then I'm also adding some leash guidance to help her come back to heal position. And I'm gauging her response to the stem. So if I don't feel like she even noticed it, then the next time I'm gonna turn it up a little higher. Okay?

If I felt like she was panicked by it, I might turn it down. Of course it'd be hard to tell because she's panicked anyway. <laugh>, right? That's just kind of her base stake. Um, but so every time we stem during this phase of training, right, we're watching the dog's reaction, not, we're not evaluating did we get what we want? That's not the point we're evaluating. Did the dog care about the level of stim we were using? That's the important thing, right? Because we need to know that we're providing some level of accountability. Again, they don't have to hit the ceiling.

We're not trying to light them up like a Christmas tree, not during this phase of training, right? We're just trying to get the message across and then if they need help, we'll give 'em help, right? But when you're dealing with a really fearful dog, that fear is so intense sometimes that in order to find a level of stem that can compete with that, it's much higher.

Because here's the thing that our human brains have a hard time wrapping around, is the dog finds just the normal real world, just the natural stuff happening around them to be far more aversive than Collar stem, right? It is absolutely just so painful for them to exist around their triggers that most e-collar stem just gets ignored. It's, it's just, it's not valuable input. Doesn't matter, right? Because they're scared of that chair over there. They're scared of that door over there. They're scared of that bike over there. Um, they're scared of the light, they're scared of the sound of the heat kicking on.

And that stuff is much more scary than e-collar stent.

So we walk by the kennel and I'm looking for the level that she cares about or seems to start responding to, right? I can see the brain going, oh, we have to do something different, right? So this dog at this point had been through enough training that they had an understanding of how the eco was tied to their behavior, right? This wasn't brandy new, this wasn't day one. So they know when they feel it turn on that they have to do something to shut it off. And so it didn't take very many laps and leash guidance for this dog to go, oh, if I wanna shut that off, I come back over here to the left leg, back into the heel position.

And so after a handful of laps, if she started to veer off, I could turn on that stem and she would come right back into heel position without me having to guide her, right? But I had to find the level that was meaningful enough that she chose to prioritize it over fleeing to the safety of her kennel from, you know, the big scary world. And it was much higher than it would be with the average dog, right? The average dog we have that wants to just go into the kennel and take a nap instead of working.

I don't wanna pick a number 'cause I don't know that there's like an average number, right? But it might be in the teens, it might be in the low twenties. Um, it might be in the single digits for a lot of dogs, but this dog, I think it was closer to 40, right? That was just her level that day for the thing we were doing. And it wasn't like I pushed the button and she freaked out and panicked, right? This was the level that was just enough for her to say, okay, I'll stay in a heel rather than run into my kennel.

And then we keep doing the laps so we can solidify, hey, we walk by the kennel and you wanna go in there, but you don't even try. We walk by the kennel and you wanna go in there but you don't even try, right? So we're cementing you prioritize your command, you prioritize your handler, the thing I asked you to do over the thing that would make you more comfortable right now mentally, right? Which is to flee. Um, so that's an example of building up the threshold, right? But what we don't do is we don't go, oh, this is the threshold where she starts to make a different choice.

So we're just not gonna go there, right? Because what happens if you do that? It seems obvious you're just going to stay stuck, right? If, if we stayed 20 feet away from the kennel, excuse me, because she was able to tolerate that and not try to run in, okay, great. How do we get to 15 feet from the kennel? How do we get to five feet from the kennel? What is going to make that dog make a different choice?

'cause there has to be something, right? And the answer isn't just distracting the dog with food, especially a fearful dog like I'm describing, because they don't want it. They usually won't take food. Um, but even if they did, again, it's just, it's bribery and begging and distracting. It's not, the dog isn't learning to make a different choice in under normal circumstances in a normal environment with you doing normal stuff, which is just walking, right? If I have to dangle a chicken leg in front of my dog or a piece of bacon every time, how do they ever learn to do it themselves?

And like I said, it wouldn't even work in this case anyway. But it's funny because good training is really quite simple, right? Humans tend to overcomplicate it. Yes, there's some nuance, but I find most people are actually doing too much, do less. You're overthinking it, you're over executing it. It's like figure out what the thing is you want your dog to do and go do it <laugh>, right? And provide them with feedback at both ends of the spectrum, right? There's good and there's no and no is followed by accountability and that's it, right? And other than those two words, zip it, keep your mouth shut, right?

And just rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat and start to cement the thing it is that you want. And if your dog is extremely excitable or extremely fearful or extremely anything I suppose, then sure take it slowly and gradually increase the challenge, right? But how slow you take it really does depend on the dog. Here's the thing guys, 99% of dogs, they don't need you to do a super slow chipping away. And when I say super slow, I'm talking about like weeks and months of, you know, taking it really, really slowly, very gradually increasing that challenge very gradually increasing that accountability.

Um, yes, they're out there and some dogs, some dogs are so intense and so bad they can't make a different choice. And you might never get there. But those dogs are incredibly rare.

Um, as far as fearful dogs go, I think I've had one my entire career. I've had one dog where his flight response was so intense and strong and impulsive and just so hardwired we couldn't really overcome it. But that's one dog, right? In like eight years. Um, so that's how uncommon that is. Um, but fearfulness is one of the harder things. And you might be chipping away for a while and that's okay, that's okay. But most people are leaving the accountability out of the equation completely and you'll just stay stuck, right? The threshold will never change.

Your dog will never get better. 'cause there's no catalyst for them to make a different choice. The brain is gonna keep going the same route every time, right? Because every time the brain says flee and the dog survives, the brain goes, oh, that worked. Save our lives better do it again.

Right? More, more people are dealing with just arousal than fearfulness, but it's kind of the same deal, right? Every time your dog gets super excitable and things pan out okay, even if they don't get the affection, even if they don't get the social interaction they were looking for, even if they don't get that stuff, if nothing happens that's sort of unpleasant to get attached to that behavior, then there's just not any reason for the brain to stop going down that road, right? You have to give the brain a reason to go. Maybe we take a different neural pathway this time, <laugh>, right?

So you're actually changing your dog's brain chemistry, but that won't happen if you keep doing the same old stuff, right? If you keep putting them in situations where you're avoiding the trigger, right? You're making it super easy, you're staying away. It's like, okay, great, but that's not the real world, right? If you just keep shoving food in your dog's face, um, or using your leash to manage them, it's like, okay, but how are, how are things going to change? How is your dog gonna make a different decision? 'cause ultimately that's what training is. Guys. Training isn't just doing a thing with your dog.

Training is teaching your dog to make a different choice.

And that requires you to be a creative and critical thinking handler who says, okay, how do I create the pattern I want? How do I create the association I want? How do I trigger the brain to do something different? And if you're not comfortable experimenting with that, then you stay stuck. And don't get me wrong, I mean, if you do something a couple of times and you don't get the desired result, or you don't get closer to the desired result, then don't keep doing it, right? But again, I don't know, I'm not there. It's like you have to just understand how to create patterns and how to create associations and um, yeah, chip away, build up over time.

Like that's fine, that's fine. But most dogs, their handlers are just taking it a little too easy on them. <laugh>. So that's just the truth.

And that's why we can get dogs in here that have spent months or years even going through other training programs and they still can't tolerate quote unquote challenging situations because no one's done anything really to change it, right? They just keep doing the same things, um, and rewarding what they want. Which, you know, what great reward what you want, but you gotta have the conversation with the dog about what you don't want and you gotta put 'em in those situations, which a lot of trainers will tell you not to do, right? Stay under threshold, okay, but how does my dog, how does that threshold ever move if we stay under threshold, right?

34:00 — Kati concludes that dogs must experience unwanted situations to learn different choices, then invites…

And what if I'm out working and someone just appears like that's life, that's the real world. That's the training, that's what we're training for. It's like you have to work above threshold or you get nowhere. So do that. <laugh>. Take your dog out. Work in the real world. Um, nothing wrong with chipping away over time, but you have to provide that catalyst for your dog to make a different choice. And I bet you see different results. Hey guys, thanks for joining us today. I really hope you enjoyed the show. If there's a specific topic you'd like to hear discussed, you can send that to me directly via email or fan mail.

Just jump down into the show notes. That information will be there for you. I really look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for supporting the show and I look forward to next time.