Are You “Suppressing” Your Dog’s Behavior?

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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. All right, let's talk about suppression today. I just made a rather lengthy post <laugh> about this precise thing because I hear this word come up a lot in dog training and it sounds like a bad thing somehow.

01:00 — Kati explains why the term “suppression” sounds negative in dog training discussions.

And so I wanna talk about that and make sure, um, that we're clear on what suppression means and whether or not it's beneficial in dog training. So, what I hear all the time, mostly from the purely positive crowd, who doesn't believe in using anything aversive ever, what I hear from them and sometimes others as well, is that if you punish a behavior, if you correct a behavior, you are just suppressing it. Or if you don't do it right, or if you don't, you know, whatever it is, it's like they, they'll say the behavior is just suppressed.

But if you look up the definition of suppress, what does it mean? And it literally means to put a stop to, right? It is to stop a behavior that is suppression. Um, so yes, any time that we reduce or eliminate a behavior that is suppression, um, so when you think about it, if there's any behavior that you don't like, if your dog jumps on you and you find a way to stop him from doing that, you have suppressed that behavior. Um, so this applies into any behavior. And so we do it all the time. We suppress behaviors all the time.

Um, it's really our specialty <laugh>. So not that we don't do anything else, we do, um, but that's the thing that I feel like we're the most passionate about in that the people we meet really need the most help with, um, because they don't know how to do it.

And so when someone says a behavior is suppressed, I would ask them what the problem is with that. And chances are, if you ask them that, what they're gonna say is, oh, well it could regenerate. And it's like, yeah, any behavior can regenerate at any time. That's always true, right? So they're kind of implying that like there is something else you could do that would guarantee the behavior wasn't gonna come back. And that's very misleading because there isn't, there is nothing you can do with any behavior or any dog to guarantee a behavior isn't gonna come back.

04:00 — Whether suppressed behavior returns depends on numerous factors rather than suppression alone.

Um, and the likelihood that the behavior is going to come back depends on a million factors, guys. So let's dig into that one. Like what is the likelihood if you punish a behavior and you successfully quote, unquote suppress it, what is the likelihood that that behavior is then going to regenerate at some point? Here are the factors you need to consider. Number one, your dog's personality. So how capable are they of learning? How capable are they of inhibiting and modifying their behavior? How capable are they of modifying the precise behavior that you're trying to stop?

Um, so that's gonna look different for every dog. It's gonna be a different level of difficulty, right? So like I had a dog once who, you know, inhibiting, bolting through the door was very, very easy, but inhibiting guarding was not.

So it depends on what you're trying to inhibit and how difficult it is for the dog to actually make that modification. Um, and most things aren't a problem, right? But that's one factor that you have to consider. The next factor that you have to consider is your relationship with the dog. So have you built a relationship of accountability? Does your dog respect you? Do they know you draw boundaries? Do they know you really enforce them? Do they know that the rules are real or not? That's gonna make a difference too. 'cause if you have a dog who's running around with freedom all the time, fully autonomous, there's no rules or boundaries, they kind of do whatever they want, um, that dog is much less likely to feel like they have to be the best version of themselves.

And so you're a lot more likely to see, see things regenerate, right?

And their arousal is usually completely out of check, right? So it's, it's unchecked. It's all over the place. Those dogs, of course, they're more likely to regenerate the old behaviors that we thought we got rid of. Um, the other thing you have to consider is how good are you at the process of punishing or suppressing <laugh> a behavior? 'cause it is a skill and there is a right and wrong way to do it, and there's, you know, a good bad and a mediocre way to do it, right? So if you don't know how to do that, if you're timing of your marker is off, if your dog doesn't understand what the marker means, if you don't use a marker at all, <laugh>, right?

Um, you're more likely to not be successful or for it to take a lot longer to be successful. Um, your dog might not tie the behavior to the consequence, in which case you're likely to keep seeing the behavior.

07:00 — Repeated behavior may reflect ineffective punishment rather than genuine behavioral regeneration.

Um, that's not really regeneration as much as it is just a failure to actually punish the behavior in the first place. Um, but that's a possibility. Um, the other possibility in this one's really common is you just don't provide a correction that's meaningful enough. So you may provide a correction that's meaningful enough to stop the behavior for now or for a little while, right? But it doesn't take long for your dog to kind of gain the confidence, especially again, if they're running around with that arousal unchecked for them to just test that boundary again, right?

Because the consequence was there, but it just wasn't that bad, right? So we might as well give it another try. And I've compared this before to something like a vending machine stealing your money, right? <laugh>, if it's just 50 cents, it might not be such a big deal, and you might try it again, if not that day, maybe the next time you're at that location.

Um, but if it steals $10 right? Or $50 or something of that nature, um, you're probably not gonna put any more money in that vending machine. So the intensity of your correction can absolutely have an impact on how long lasting it is, right? If you insist on looking for the lowest possible level on your eco, that quote unquote works okay, but then your dog's a lot more likely in a day, in a week to go ahead and give it another try. Whereas if you make it really uncomfortable and really send the memo home and you're skillful about it and you know how to do it, um, your dog's a lot less likely to test that boundary.

So all this to say that anytime you eliminate a behavior, you're suppressing it. That's always true. And yes, the behavior can regenerate, but it also might not. And that's largely dependent on your dog's genetics, your relationship with them and your skill level. These things are all factors. And so obviously to have the best chance of success, there's nothing you can do about your dog's genetics. They are what they are. Two, have the absolute best chance of success of actually eliminating behaviors you need to a, be good at it and understand the process, right? Understand what timing looks like, how to use a marker, and how to deliver a proper consequence.

And you need to make sure that consequence is very meaningful. And so these are the things we teach people to do. And building a relationship with that dog of accountability. So having rules and boundaries in your everyday life, and not just that one little thing you wanna get rid of, right?

So everyone's like, oh, I don't mind this and I don't mind that. And it's like, okay, like I understand that you don't mind it, but if you don't find ways of integrating rules, boundaries, and structure discipline into your daily life with your dog, then it's going to be much, much more difficult for you to successfully long-term eliminate this thing that you don't like. You have to have some areas where there are rules and boundaries on a regular occurrence that your dog knows they are required to respect, right? And this keeps your dog being the best version of themselves.

And so then you're a lot less likely to see these old things crop back up.

So normally what we're saying is we're telling people, look, this is how you eliminate a behavior. And I just did an episode on this. We were talking about jumping, but it's pretty much the same for most behaviors, uh, where you mark it with a no when it's happening or about to happen, you follow up after that, no, with a very meaningful consequence. And so we're teaching people how to do that. And then the instruction is just occasionally set it up and do a little check-in, right? Because yeah, it might need to be cleaned up again at some point, right?

11:00 — Kati recommends marking behavior with “no” and immediately applying a meaningful consequence.

But if you do it and you do it well, it should stick right? In most cases it does.

Now, in the case of something like resource guarding, um, which, you know, I told you I just made a lengthy post about suppression, and it was because I saw a video, um, from this lady. Her videos are coming across my feet all the time. Um, and they're interesting. I I actually kind of like watching her stuff, but I obviously don't always agree with her. And this is one case where I, I don't think I agree with her. And it's not entirely that she's wrong, it's just that her opinion to me doesn't make a lot of sense.

Um, so here's, here's the deal.

There's a third party out there, another dog trainer somewhere, I don't even know where they had a golden retriever for training. This golden retriever was a severe resource, garter, not uncommon, very natural, innate behavior. It was a very intense behavior. Um, dog was a serious customer, okay? If you got near its food, it would bear its teeth, it would try to bite you. Um, it would hover over its food. It was, it was intense. They have video. And I love when trainers have video of what they're doing and what their results are. Um, so, you know, it's kind of a shame when someone takes, takes that and like, um, attaches this opinion to it.

That makes no sense. But I don't know. You be the judge. They trained this dog to a high level of reliability with its obedience. They did the same thing we do.

Okay? So the dog knew the new sit, knew down new heel, um, and was eco trained and was very reliable and was it looked great, really, really great. Um, and then also with food was taught respect around food. So it could tolerate people walking around just normal everyday stuff. People coming near them when they're eating. Um, and total respect with the food. If the person didn't give them permission to eat, they didn't eat. If the person asked for the dog to give the food up, they gave it up, right? But they didn't just reach in and grab the food just like we, it's the same exact thing we do.

Um, and they did it very, very well, very well. Um, and the dog looked great. So at the end of the, the beginning of the video, they show the dog ferociously guarding the food. And at the end of the video, they show a golden retriever sitting nicely, being very respectful around its food.

They can walk around it, they can take it away. Um, they can get the dog to disengage from it with commands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you know the drill, right? It's what we do. And, uh, I mean, the dog actually might have looked a little tense, but not bad at all. Especially considering it's a golden retriever. Golden retrievers tend to be very, very tense, high strong dogs. Um, and so any behavior they do have, it tends to be, um, a little more intense because they're, they're just tense dogs a lot of the time. 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 I have to say, you know, the person who was giving commentary on this other trainer's video, she pointed out that the dog looked really nervous, really uncomfortable, and really tense, and I just didn't see it. Yes, there was a little tension, but for a golden retriever, it looked pretty damn relaxed to me, especially considering how wound up, um, and how dramatically they guarded their food.

Before this looked like a dog to me that was very confident in what was happening, knew exactly what to expect, knew exactly what the rules were. I didn't see it.

And her, her commentary included the fact that, you know, if somebody came, she doesn't buy the fact that the guarding is gone. She said it's just suppressed. And if somebody were to come up and push the dog out of their food bowl, the dog would probably still bite them. That would be her bet. And it's like, okay, that would be my bet too, depending on who it is, I suppose, right? If it's a person they have a relationship with of accountability who taught them all this stuff, probably not actually. But if some rando or some kid came up and pushed the dog out of their bowl, would the dog bite them?

16:00 — Even excellent training may not prevent biting if someone unexpectedly pushes a dog from…

I think there's a high likelihood of that. So, but here's the thing. Good training in inhibiting behaviors doesn't mean that your dog is gonna be able to tolerate every single person in every single situation, in every single scenario.

That's ludicrous. So what was her point? Is what I'm asking is her point that there's something we could do with this dog to make them guaranteed safe in every situation? Should a kid be able to come up and take the dog's food away, push them out of their bowl? Is that our bar? Is that where we're setting the bar for dogs? And what if they can't? Does that mean the dogs all get euthanized? Because I have to tell you, that's a pretty tall order for a lot of dogs. My dog wouldn't put up with that.

Um, it's just insane. We've totally lost respect for the dog, for being an animal, a carnivore, a predator. Like they have teeth. They are designed, they are programmed to bite when necessary. Now when necessary is different from dog to dog, right? They all have different thresholds, different programming in there, but they all bite. Um, and to think that every single dog should just be a harmless little teddy bear who would never use their teeth, even if you push them out of their food bowl, I just don't understand how a, especially a, a dog trainer or what she calls herself, an expert could possibly have that opinion.

And so what happens to those dogs then? And the humans not take any responsibility for the situations that they're putting their dog in?

Here's what I think. Now, if your dog has any dangerous behaviors, this is, this is what you need to think about, right? Because it's never, is my dog 100% safe? 'cause I can guarantee you they're not even the sweetest little dogs. They're not a hundred percent safe. They all bite guys. They just have different thresholds, even the small sweet ones, right? If a kid gets up in their face and freaks them out or accidentally hurts them, or who knows, that dog could bite. They all bite. No dog is a hundred percent safe. The question for every single family in America with a dog isn't, is my dog 100% safe?

It's, is my dog safe enough? Are they safe enough to live in my home with my lifestyle and my family members? Right? Because that looks wildly different from household to household. You've got your dog with their genes and their personality, and you've got all the people in your house hold with their genes and their personalities. You've got your lifestyle, your schedules, um, your friends, your neighbors, your family and your dog has to be safe enough to live in that environment with you guys and for you to feel confident that nothing terrible is going to happen.

And the way you do that is you train the dog to be reliable, to listen to you, to have a relationship of respect and accountability, and you make that dog as safe as possible. You inhibit punish, correct? Suppress the bad behaviors.

20:00 — Kati advocates requiring good behavior while avoiding situations that unfairly test a dog’s dangerous…

You require the good behaviors. And here's the part that I think everyone's missing. And you don't put your dog in situations. You shouldn't put your dog in. So to me, she has no point because when is it, when is someone gonna come up and push my dog out of his food bowl? I'll tell you, when fucking never <laugh>. Like I'm very comfortable having a dog in my house who I don't think could tolerate being pushed out of his food bowl. That's just not gonna be a problem because I'm not gonna put 'em in that situation.

And I compared it to this, right? I have two male dogs. Neither one of them are neutered. They're both intact male dogs.

I don't worry about them getting other dogs pregnant. Not because they wouldn't, they absolutely would if given the opportunity. I know that because every time we have a female dog that might be coming into season or was recently in season, they drive me fucking nuts, <laugh>. Um, but it's not gonna happen, right? They have the equipment to do it, they have the programming to do it, and it's not going to happen because I take responsibility for that. I'm not going to allow that to happen. I'm not gonna put them in that situation. So that's like saying your dog can't keep his testicles unless you know that he'll never try to breed another female.

What?

So it doesn't make any sense. It's like, call it suppression. Suppression is fine. Um, you can point out the holes, right? And they're not even really holes. But you can point out the fact that it's not guaranteed. But I just think that's a moot point. It's a moot point. So if you go through the motions and you do all the training and you do the quote unquote suppression, right? You inhibit the behaviors that you don't like, you punish the behaviors that you don't like, and you still think, well, with our responsible management of the dog and the training, I'm still not comfortable with the margin of error here.

I'm still not comfortable with the level of risk, right? The stakes are too high. When I look at my lifestyle and my schedule and the way my household operates, um, when I look at the people that are in my house, the fact that I have kids, the fact that my kids aren't good at listening and following the rules, whatever it is, and you say, I'm not comfortable with this level of risk, okay? You know, get rid of the doc. That's a responsible decision.

But if everyone just said, well, my dog has to be 100% guaranteed to not do this behavior ever in any situation or scenario, well, that's never gonna happen. That's never gonna happen for any dog. There's never a guarantee. So I just wanted to make that distinction. Um, what is realistic and what seems to be expected, I guess. So we've got folks out there telling us that suppressing behaviors is bad, and then telling us if your dog's not a hundred percent reliable, then you still have a problem. And it's like, okay, but there is nothing you can do to make a dog 100%.

But you some dogs, yeah, you can get 'em pretty darn close, right? They can make different decisions and they can make different decisions quickly and it's pretty easy for them. And they cement something new fairly quickly and they do great and they never look back and you never see it again and great, right?

And other dogs are still gonna look uncomfortable in certain situations or, or they're gonna tip you off that like certain scenarios are, are too risky, but you just shouldn't be putting your dog in those situations most of the time, right? I'm never gonna have some kid go up to my dog and take his food. Um, we feed our dogs and their kennels anyway, right? And I'm not saying rely on management. I'm saying both, right? You train your dog to be as safe and as well behaved as possible, and you don't put them in stupid situation, right?

But you train them to be as safe as possible. So that reduces the risk of anything happening. It increases the level of respect and reliability and accountability. And then if someone makes a mistake somehow it's less likely to be a problem because you did all that training, right? But that doesn't mean that you should expect your dog to just be a stuffy because they're not <laugh>. They're absolutely not. And I just think that's unrealistic and unfair. And I think that kind of an opinion, that kind of, um, philosophy would just result in everyone having to get rid of their dogs.

26:00 — Her two-prong approach combines training dogs thoroughly with managing situations to inhibit dangerous behavior.

And that is a hundred percent how we approach, um, these kinds of things. Whether it's a, you know, just annoying nuisance behaviors or it's really dangerous behaviors. It's like, okay, two-prong approach. Like we train the dog to be as good as possible and we inhibit those behaviors directly. And we teach the owners how to maintain a relationship with the dog of accountability and, and be responsible with the way they handle their dog, right? Everyone that comes here with a resource garter, we punish guarding. We teach the out command. We teach tons of respect around food.

Um, we teach the dog. They have to tolerate normal everyday stuff, like people walking around and being near and we tell, tell people, feed your dog in their camp.

Both. We do both, right? What we don't tell people is your dog is a hundred percent guaranteed never to guard again. What we don't tell people is, oh, you're gonna have to get rid of your dog because they're not a hundred percent. Those are both wrong. Those would both be incorrect, right? We do have a responsibility as humans to not be stupid <laugh> when it comes to our dogs. Have some respect for the dog as an animal. Uh, make sure you catch our next episode where we're going to be talking about. We're gonna do a consultation files.

I haven't done one of those in a while. Um, it's gonna be a, a really good one about a large breed dog that actually, uh, went after the newborn baby. So really, really dangerous, serious stuff, but a lot of overlap with what we were talking about in this episode. It's gonna be an interesting one. Make sure you, um, get back here and check that one out. 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.