Is Everything That Feels Bad Actually Bad? A FB Fight And An Infantile Philosophy

00:00 — Kati Peppe opens the episode and reminds 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. Alright, so I don't normally get involved in these stupid Facebook arguments, the YouTube trainers, you know, the idiot forums, um, and groups like, I just, I just don't, right? And really who has time for it anyway?

Like, if you actually have dogs to train, you don't have time for it, you know? But I am on social media and I do obviously post a lot there, and I do see stuff occasionally come across my feed and yeah, just happened to have one, um, the other day that I couldn't help but stop and engage with a little bit because, um, this is a trainer that I follow and, you know, I like her.

I think she's a good trainer. I'm not gonna mention any names. Um, she's not even from here. She's from the uk and things are bad in the uk. Guys, you think things are bad here, they're really bad in the uk. Uh, they've just lost their minds completely over there. And I mean, we're on our way. But anyway, um, she, she posts a lot of interesting content. What she does is slightly different than what I do. Um, but yeah, I, I lost a lot of respect for her. And that's kinda the sad part of being an adult, is you find out all the people that you do admire and look up to <laugh>, they're not always what you think they were, right?

Um, but anyway,

She apparently was interviewed for the news. Some, uh, journalist interviewed her, and of course it was like a lengthy interview, but like three sentences of what she said actually made it into, uh, what was presented to the public. But neither here nor there. That's, you know, to be expected. I guess. Here's the thing, what this news, what this video was about, or this presentation on the news was about, was basically the war, right? Between purely positive trainers and quote unquote balanced trainers. And the purely positive crowd tends to frame up all of the other trainers as, um, just being punitive based trainers.

03:00 — She argues that positive-only trainers misrepresent balanced trainers as relying exclusively on pain and…

Like all we do is punishment. It's all we know. We rely on pain, we rely on fear, which is hogwash. It's a straw, man. It's not real. Um, nobody uses only those things to train a dog. However, I do use punishment in my training, and it is 100% necessary, and I will die on that hill.

It is the only way to stop behaviors. So here's, here's the thing. Instead of saying that when she was attacked, um, what she said was, no, no, no, we don't rely on punishment. We don't use pain or fear. We don't use any of that stuff. That's not what we mean. We use discipline. And I have a really big problem with that because it's just manipulation of the vocabulary to try to protect herself, which I, I get, I understand that she's under attack and that it's undeserved a hundred percent, um, but you're basically taking their side <laugh> and letting you're accepting the narratives that punishment is bad.

Like you yourself are saying that if instead of coming out and saying, we do use those things not for everything, but we do use them because they're necessary. If instead of saying that you say, no, no, no, we don't do that, then you're saying they're right. That punishment is bad, that everything that feels bad is bad, that your dog should never be uncomfortable, uh, because you can't have both ways.

And not only that, it'll make them more nervous, more defensive, or more hostile, right? Some dogs like to get a rise out of you. Number two, it's just not a consequence. It's a, it's a noise. It's not a consequence. And so if you yell to get things or to stop things with your dog, what tends to happen is you have to do that all the time forever. And I don't want to yell at my dogs all the time forever, nor do I wanna yell at my child all the time forever. So essentially saying that yelling is better than an actual consequence, that was really disappointing to me, <laugh>, because that's just really, it's a really strange viewpoint.

Um, and it's just not true <laugh>, it just isn't true. Um, but clearly saying that to placate the mob, uh, which I won't do. And so I did make a comment, um, and it actually was replying to somebody else's comment just saying, you know, I'm, I'm not gonna placate the mob, um, by pretending that everything that feels bad is always bad.

Um, surgery is bad, right? That, that would mean surgery is bad, the dentist is bad. It would mean if you stub your toe, you're ruined for life, right? Because it hurt. And just give me a break, right? So that was more or less what my comment was. And some of the replies to this comment, which I have now shut off the notifications because I just don't give a shit enough. I'm not, I don't have time to engage with these people and I don't care. Um, some of the replies to my comment were things like, that's different because people can understand a conscious choice of going through surgery and how it hurts and why it hurts your dog can't understand why it hurts, okay?

07:00 — Kati challenges the idea that dogs cannot tolerate painful procedures because they cannot understand…

This is a stupid viewpoint.

So let's break down why this is so idiotic, okay? Number one, I wasn't talking about people, dogs also sometimes have to go to a dentist or have surgery, right? Um, so there's that. And when they do, it's not a conscious decision and they don't understand it. So it should have been pretty obvious. I was talking about dogs, not people. Um, but it's true for both, right? And, and most of these principles apply to both. Most of the principles are not that different between the dogs and the humans. Um, but we won't get into that right now.

So I was talking about dogs, right? So if your dog tears a CCL swallows a foreign object, right? They have to have surgery. The surgery hurts, the recovery hurts. Some recoveries, the dog is, uh, confined and cannot fully move about for up to like eight weeks or more.

So is that bad, right? Because we're doing it for, for the benefit of the dog, right? Right. Now it sucks, but it will be better and it will be better for the rest of their life. Like, that's the idea, right? But they try to find reasons to separate behavioral and physical. And when you press them on it, their answers don't make sense. Which by the way, is the way most things work. When you're talking with someone that is just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these emotions, there's no rationale there. Um, that's what you'll get.

You'll just get them yelling about feelings. And sometimes they'll throw in the word science or studies here and there, but they're not real. There's nothing real there. There's no, they're not, they're not conveying anything about reality to you. It's just these ideas and emotions that they have in their head, uh, things that they've heard, things that they feel. Um, but there's nothing real, right?

And so you can call what I do anecdotal if you want to, but we've worked with hundreds and hundreds of dogs, maybe thousands at this point. I don't know. And I know what I see <laugh>. So, uh, I know what my results are and I show them, by the way. Okay? So there's that. But so your dog doesn't understand when they go to the dentist or they go to the vet and they have a procedure and the procedure's painful and the recovery's painful, they don't understand that well. So what, right? In those situations we say, oh, it doesn't matter.

So when your dog goes to the vet and they get their rabies and distemper vaccinations and they meet a stranger who sticks a needle in them, does your dog understand that? No. Does that make it bad? No. <laugh>, in fact, I would argue that that stuff is potentially worse than proper punishment because proper punishment is actually contingent on their behavior.

11:00 — She says punishment works when consequences are contingent on behavior and immediately understandable to…

And if you have any skills as a trainer at all, you know how to do that. You know how to tie the consequence to the dog's behavior. So the dog realizes right away that they control the consequence and whether or not it occurs, we don't have that with vaccinations. We don't have that with surgery. We don't have that with the dentist. We don't have that with any of that stuff. And I'm not saying any of that stuff is bad because it seems random to the dog. It's not. It's fine. Again, you stub your toe, you go on with your life, okay?

You fall off a ladder and break your leg, you're gonna be a lot more careful next time. But you go on with your life, right? You're not then necessarily afraid of ladders. You might be a little nervous to go go up a ladder, right? But if you do it, you'll get over it and you'll be careful and you just won't fall and break your leg next time.

That's how punishment works. That's how pain, fear, discomfort works. Now, I'm not saying that's all you use. There's nobody that does that. There's no one there. You find me someone, there's no one that does that. I talk about it a lot because no one else does. And it's missing and it's necessary. It is absolutely necessary for your dog to fear the consequence of a certain behavior if they are to not do that behavior again, just like it is with kids, just like it is with you and me. If there is no fear of any consequences ever, what do you get?

I mean, how long do you really have to think about that before you Oh, geez. Yeah, right? That, that wouldn't fucking work. <laugh>.

Like what kinda world would we be living in if no one had to fear any consequence for anything? I mean, give me a break. How infantile do you have to be to actually think, yeah, that's a good idea. We should all live that way, right? And to be clear, I'm not mad at the dog owners that think this. I'm mad at the people who promulgate these stupid philosophies, right? Because that's why dog owners think this, because it's what everyone says. It's what all the trainers say. It's what the internet says, right? And people have to start using their own screen.

But that's why I do this podcast is because even if I only reach like the four of you that are listening to this <laugh>, right? At least it's something, um, breaking out of this mold that they're trying to crem us all into, right? At least I'm leaving some breadcrumbs out there for people to follow, to say, Hey, you know what? That made a little bit of sense. I'm gonna look into this.

Good God. Um, and it is infantile to think that everything that's bad is feels bad, is bad. I mean, it's just dumb. And they'll come up with reasons why, you know, it's okay in this instance, but not this one, right? It's okay if the vet sticks my dog with a needle, but it's not okay if you shock 'em on a shot collar for a split second <laugh>. And but why, why is one okay? And one's not. Why, why, why? And they can't tell you. They'll just throw out some emotional reason. And that's not a reason.

It's childish.

And your science is supposed to describe and define and prove reality. And it's not the quote unquote, science is not right, because it's not science. It's just people cherry picking things and layering emotion over it to look and feel a certain way. They play on your emotions. They tug at your heartstrings to make you feel a certain way. And it's bullshit because that is the reason dogs stay stuck. And if you follow me at all, if you follow our social media, you may have seen my recent post about Scarlet and I think of her every time I talk about this, not just her, there's others too.

15:00 — She criticizes emotional arguments that shielding dogs from discomfort prevents them from remaining stuck…

But she's one of the, uh, ones I, I think about the most often because she comes to visit me, um, fairly frequently. Love the show. Well, I have great news. We are offering an inexpensive subscription to our new premium content.

This is content that isn't available to the general public. We make it just for our subscribers. We're gonna cover a variety of new topics in these episodes and I think it's gonna be a ton of fun. So you can jump right down into the show notes to get that website address and then skip over there and sign up for this premium content. Just wanted to take a second to let you guys know about that. Thank you so much for your support. And now on with the show. And also because her turnaround was so extreme, like she became a social loving dog.

Um, which is just funny 'cause I really wasn't expecting that. Um, but I think of her, I think of all the other ones too, that those under this philosophy, those dogs would be dead. There's no way, right? Or I don't know if you would even call this best case scenario.

They would live their life in like a four by six cell in a quote unquote rescue shelter somewhere, right? Because they can't find someone with no kids, no neighbors, no pets, no <laugh> to, to adopt the dog out to, and then the dog bites them anyway. Um, it's just nuts, right? Because we wanna humanize the dog and we wanna pull in all these emotions and we wanna pretend that if you ever make your dog uncomfortable, they're gonna be so traumatized. Um, and frankly, that's not even true for humans, right? But I say humanize it because when they start pulling in this need for your dog to quote unquote understand everything that's humanizing, your dog doesn't understand anything, right?

If that's your point, is that the dog needs to understand why it hurts. Does the dog need to understand why you love them? Why you pet them? Why you shower them with treats? Does your dog need to understand any of that? Do they need to understand why you go to the vet? Do they need to understand why they got a needle? Do they need to understand why they got surgery? Well, explain to me where the line is and why. And they can't because it's incorrect, because it's a bunch of balogna.

Dogs don't need to understand why things happen, which is good because they actually don't have the ability to understand that <laugh>, by the way, your dog does not have the ability to think about why your dog will poop in their own food dish and never think twice about that. Why is not a thing dogs can do? Dogs learn through association. They need to learn the association between their behavior and the outcome. They need to make a link between behavior consequence. And that's so easily done you guys. And e just to be clear, even if they don't do that, your dog is gonna be fine, right?

19:00 — She says dogs need to associate their behavior with its outcome, not understand why…

So your dog is never gonna make a link between their behavior and getting stuck with a needle at the vet because there's not one.

And guess what? That's fine. It's fine. It's not a big deal. Sometimes things just hurt and then it's over and we move on, right? But in training, if there's a certain behavior you desire to get rid of, yeah, obviously we want your dog to have a very strong link between their behavior and the consequence. That way the behavior will go away, right? And that's why if you don't know how to do that and you don't know how to create that good strong link that's very clear for the dog, then it doesn't work, right? The behavior won't go away or it won't go away long term.

But it's just nuts to me that we're all, this is being crammed. This infantile philosophy is being crammed down all of our throats. And then even the good trainers, the ones who know, are caving to it and saying, no, no, no, I just yell at my dogs. It's discipline. What? What do you mean who wants to you? You don't have to live that way. She knows that. Um, it's just insane. I haven't met a dog yet that was ruined by negative consequences. Guy guys. Not a single one. But I've met plenty that were ruined by too much positive reinforcement and a complete lack of negative consequences.

I've met plenty of them. That is the most dangerous combination in the world because all you can do is increase behaviors with positive reinforcement. You get more, you get more, you get more, you get more, you get more. And so it's like slamming on the gas and having no breaks.

And that's really dangerous. Especially if you have a dog that does display dangerous behaviors, right? You're gonna be outta control pretty quickly with no way to stop. You gotta stop behaviors as well. And I don't do that with yelling one 'cause it doesn't fucking work. Two, because I don't wanna live that way <laugh> three because that's a shitty relationship. I don't wanna be angry at my dog. I don't wanna send the message to my dog that we're fighting and I don't wanna yell. And if I did, they wouldn't listen anyway, right? <laugh>. I mean my dogs would if I, especially if I yelled.

No. Um, but you don't have to yell and yelling is not a correction. And corrections are not bad. They are necessary. And I think it's so important 'cause so many people think that that's only necessary if you have like a bad dog or a tough dog or a challenging dog, or there's something wrong with your dog.

No, I'm so tired of that narrative. All dogs, guys, I don't globalize often. I try to be very precise in my speech. All dogs, right? So if you have a dog that's just really good all the time and you don't really care about stopping anything that they do, then no, you don't need it, right? But all dogs have something from my perspective. Like if it was my dog, I am sure they would have behaviors I would want to change. I'm sure of it, right? And if you do want to stop something, that is how you do it.

23:00 — Kati maintains that changing unwanted behavior requires making the dog uncomfortable without harming it.

You will need to make your dog uncomfortable in some way or another, right? I'm not saying harm the dog, but there's just no two ways about it. True for all dogs.

And again, it's like not mad at the dog owners. I am extreme. It just burns my ass. <laugh>, every once in a while there'll be right. I know this is out there, it's all the time. I tend to just whatever, whatever. But every once in a while, one will slip through the cracks and just chat my ass <laugh>. And here we are, right? And this time I think it was just because this was a person that I admire, right? And I still do like, she's still good at a lot of the things she does. And again, what she does is a little bit different than what I do.

Like her specific focus, um, with dog behavior tends to be more on, uh, the dog, on dog, like social behavior of the dog, uh, with other dogs. But, um, that was just, it was just a sad display.

Uh, and I get it, I get being attacked. But it's like when that happens, you've got two choices, right? And you either say, well, it's too bad. Like this is just reality and it doesn't matter how you feel about it. Or you say, oh no, you're right. And I kind of felt like that was the road that she took. Um, but make no mistake about it, guys like things that are uncomfortable, things that feel bad, even things that hurt are just part of life. It's healthy, it's normal, it's totally abnormal for that to be completely absent in your life.

And to be honest, even if you try to completely shield your dog from that and they never feel an ounce of discomfort, you just can't do it, right? Because it's just not reality. Like they would have to live in a bubble and people do, they try to bubble perhaps their dogs and it's a huge mistake. 'cause your dog gets weaker, softer, more crumbly, more needy, more whatever it is they deal with, it gets worse.

Um, right? I've seen dogs hit the end of a tether and do a flip and body slam. I've seen dogs smash into each other. I've seen dogs, you know, tear open pads, stopping quickly on rocks and pavement. I've seen, and you know what? They're fine. Like they just move on after. Um, yeah. This whole idea that everything that feels bad is bad, it's just crap. And when you think about it, it makes zero sense. So you have to be able to explain with reality. You have to be able to explain why something is bad. You have to tell me what happens that is bad and how do you know that that happens?

And if you can't tell me that, then you are full of horse shit.

And they can't, they cannot tell you that. They can tell you all kinds of shit that happens, but none of it's real. They've never seen it happen. It's all made up. It's all imagined. And that's fine for the record, like you do, you and I'll do me, right? But the problem I have is they're out there with all their stupid little letters and certifications, which is a bad sign in dog training by the way. And that's why they think that this industry should be regulated is because with it not regulated, people like me can say stuff like this.

And that's a big problem when you're trying to sell snake oil.

When you're trying to convince everybody that everything that feels bad is always bad and should never be used. You don't want people like me, you don't want anyone out there who's saying, Hey, look, I've done this a million times and it's worked out great. That's really bad for them. And so the whole idea behind regulation is not so trainers will be better. That's not the idea. The idea is so all the trainers out there will be the same as them and promulgating the same philosophies and condemning folks like me. That's the idea behind regulating the industry because all that really means is we want all the trainers to have to take a test and sign a piece of paper that they agree and will push this same philosophy and agenda.

That they'll never use an eco, that they'll never use an aversive, that they'll never use punishment. That they'll never give a correction. That's what regulation is to these folks. That's what it means. And it's complete garbage.

Complete garbage. Um, yeah. So I don't know. I just don't know. But it felt good to get it off my chest. Thanks for listening, <laugh>. Um, I'm sure it won't be the last time. Hopefully though that was somewhat thought provoking. It got you thinking about, um, your own behavior, your kids' behavior, your dog's behavior, um, and things that don't feel good, things that are uncomfortable, things that do hurt. Things that when they were random, things that were not random but were tied specifically to your behavior or your kid's behavior or your dog's behavior. Um, it's fun to think about and I bet you have some aha moments when you do.

29:00 — Kati closes by asking listeners to reconsider their assumptions about discomfort, pain, and behavior.

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.