7 Counterintuitive Things You Can Do That Will Give Your Dog Training A Major Facelift

00:00

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, thanks for being here with me today. Hopefully, wherever you are, you're having amazing spring weather. Like we are here in Maine. It's supposed to be about 75 degrees today, and I am so pumped.

Of course, it's supposed to be like 35 again tomorrow, <laugh>, but that's okay. We're gonna take it while we can get it. It's so amazing and we're getting outside with the dogs and getting to do more stuff out there, which is incredible. Um, love, love, love that.

And of course, it's staying late, <laugh> staying late, lighter. It's staying light later right now that we have the time change. So, um, gives us just such an incredible advantage, um, once we get that daylight back in the nice weather. Love, love, love it. So get out there with your dogs and enjoy it. I think we have a pretty good episode for you today. It's gonna be a doozy. We have seven counterintuitive behaviors that you can do, um, that will give your your dog training a major facelift. So these are things that we see can make a huge difference.

And they're, it, it's things that are really unnatural, right? They don't come naturally to people, they're very counterintuitive. Um, but if you can, most of these things I think will apply to pretty much everybody and every dog, uh, with the exception of maybe the first one we're gonna talk about if you don't have a fearful dog.

02:00 — Kati begins her seven-part countdown with a recommendation to stop soothing fearful dogs.

But even if you have a pretty confident dog there, there will probably be some things, some situations where they're uncomfortable or nervous. Um, so this would definitely apply in those situations. Um, but, so let's dig right in, uh, seven counterintuitive behaviors you can do, uh, that if, you know, if you're not doing right now, they're gonna give you a huge boost in your effectiveness with your dog training. Um, so number, let's, we'll count down like we always do. Number seven then is stop soothing fear. So, you know, it's funny because when I first got into dog training, this was a concept I was already very familiar with, probably because I was a big fan of Cesar Millan.

Um, I don't know, but I just assumed that this was super common knowledge. And I still run into this where we will have people with nervy dogs, um, and Joyce will tell them, you know, that this is the sort of thing you don't wanna soothe.

You don't wanna touch the dog. You really don't wanna talk to them or try to comfort them like you would, you know, a human or a child. Um, and you know, I'm thinking in my head that obviously it's a great point, but I assume the person already knows that. And then they, a lot of times they're very surprised and they didn't have any idea that they shouldn't be doing that. So, <laugh>, I'm very grateful, uh, to have a sidekick who, um, shares this stuff and doesn't just make the assumption that it is common knowledge, because that's a mistake that I often make, is I just think people know and they don't.

So number seven is stop soothing fear. If you have a dog that's extremely fearful, this applies to you more than anybody. You guys, the soothing, the comforting, it is your enemy. And I get it.

I know it's hard. Um, but really when you do that, even though you don't realize it, you're, it's for you. It's not for the dog because it doesn't help the dog. All that's happening when you do that is you are becoming a softer, weaker entity to your dog. So in your dog's mind now, you're both afraid, right? That's sort of more or less, again, I'm oversimplifying it and kind of humanizing it to a degree. Um, but you know what better way to explain it to a human than to humanize things? You don't wanna do that <laugh>, right?

So really your best bet is to be as quiet and calm and assertive. Now, the word assertive, we could dissect, but I don't wanna be here forever on number seven. When I say assertive, it means more or less confidence, right? You know what's happening, you know what you're doing, you know where you're going and you're passing that clear information onto your dog.

05:00 — Kati describes leadership as giving clear direction without hesitating whenever the dog hesitates.

And you're not passing it on in an optional manner, right? It's like, I'm gonna take the parental, the leadership role here and I'm gonna give you clear instruction. Like this is where we are going, this is what we are doing, right? So no soft leash handling, no hesitating just because the dog hesitates, no stopping just because the dog stops, no negotiations, right? Just very clear, calm, quiet, confident guidance. Um, but no chatting at the dog. No soothing, no comforting, no coddling, no babying, no baby voice, none of that. That will not help you. Number six, talking a lot, right?

So there's some overlap here. So humans tend to be very chatty. Your dog doesn't understand most of what you're saying, and it makes them harder. It makes them harder. I'm really struggling here today, guys, right? I'm gonna edit all this out, <laugh>. In fact, you know what?

I'm just gonna start over. No, that's not gonna happen. Number six, <laugh> talking a lot. We tend to be very chatty, okay? But it makes it harder for your dog to extract the words, or the sounds rather, that really mean something. The sounds they need to pay attention to, the words that are things they need to hear and execute. So the chattier you are, and this is in every context, right? So we just talked about nervous dogs, certainly applies there, but even with confident dogs, it doesn't matter. This is across the board, right? If you're trying to teach your dog something new, if you're trying to give your dog instruction and you're just an endless string of babbling, that makes it really, really difficult for your dog to know what to hear, what to execute, what's meaningful, what's not meaningful, um, because you're just the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, constantly.

And so you might notice if you follow our social media at all, and you see some of my videos when I am talking to the camera, right? And kind of letting the audience know what I'm doing, what I am doing it, I will usually pause between that and when I say something to the dog, because I know I'm muddying the waters. And so I'm trying to create a little bit of pause, a little bit of contrast so the dog can pull out and extract the things that are important, right? And it's still hard, right? It would be better if I was just silent and I was only saying the things that actually mattered to the dog.

But because I'm making a video, sometimes that's not possible and I <laugh> I need to talk. So, but that might be a thing that you've noticed. If you tend to be chatty, challenge yourself.

08:00 — Practice three minutes or ten repetitions while saying only what matters to the training…

Start small, okay? Do a lesson with your dog where you're, if you have a command, if you have a behavior you're working on with your dog, go work on that for, you know, even three minutes, right? Or set a certain number of reps, do 10 reps and challenge yourself not to say a single thing that's not important. And that includes, oh, good girl, good girl. Yeah, good job. Don't say any of that stuff. Doesn't mean you can't reward the dog, right? But you should have a reward marker. And it's funny 'cause people make a big deal out of praising the dog and I don't have a problem with it.

And I think it is good, and I think it does generate enthusiasm. Um, but it can also work against you. But my point was going to be you don't need it, right? Your dog needs consequences, which are usually, uh, predicted by your markers, and you need good timing with your markers. If you didn't hear our marker episode, go back and listen to it. It's one of our most recent episodes, uh, right before this one. And sorry, I don't know the number off my head, but, um, very informative, uh, episode on the use of markers.

As long as you have that, you will have effective training, right? If you have a click or a yes that's followed by food, you don't need to have the oh, good girl, good boy. You don't need it. Okay? And if you're relying on, oh, good girl, Sasha, you know, good boy, Rufus, if, like, if you're doing that, if that's your only marker and you don't have an actual reward marker, it will be very sloppy because that is a very, that's a very long marker. And so it's actually hard for your dog to decipher, timing-wise, when they executed the right behavior, right?

Just saying one word or having a click is much faster. It's much more precise and it's much easier for your dog to extract the moment that they did the right thing. So talking a lot isn't great. Talking before you give a command, after you give a command, just buries that command in the mud.

So we really wanna challenge you to be super quiet. Try doing a very short lesson with your dog where you give the command and you only give it once, then you get the behavior silently and you mark it the second you get it and you feed and you release with the break word, right? Whatever your release word is, we usually say break. And that's it. Rinse and repeat. So do that a few times to try to get yourself a little bit more into the habit of not being so chatty, right? But especially in situations where your dog is getting excited, if you're chatting, you're just getting them more excited, right?

11:00 — Repeated commands and name-calling can increase excitement instead of helping the dog settle.

If you're talking to them, especially if you're doing a lot of the wait, wait, wait, sit, sit, sit. And you're saying your dog's name and you're, uh, uh-uh, all these things, your dog's getting more excited, more excited, more excited, more excited.

So if you give yourself some practice being very calm, very quiet, very assertive, very instructional and just zipping it, you might be able to implement that a little bit easier. In situations like that where it matters, where your dog's getting all excited and it's all chaos, you can then be the calm, quiet, assertive person you need to be and set that example and send that energy and get what you need from your dog without just kind of contributing to the chaos. 'Cause that's what we do, right? The dog's all excited and then we're, uh, uh, ah, say it.

Wait, wait, wait. Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, you know, Fluffy, Fluffy, Fluffy, whatever your dog's name is, right? And now your dog's like, oh, this is fun. Like, we're both excited, we're both worked up. Yeah, we both have high energy and it's not what you're going for <laugh>.

So you can see how in all these various contexts, fearful dog, excited dog, dog that you're trying to teach commands to, doesn't matter, more talking equals it, it, it's a deleterious effect on your results. It's not great. All right, number five, uh, this is really counterintuitive. Do not avoid stressful situations with your dog. And I don't mean stressful for you, although there might be some truth to that too. I mean, a lot of people feel like putting their dog in stressful situations is bad. I actually just posted a video on Instagram of a dog at the groomer's who was completely freaking out trying to tear the groomers to shreds.

And I look at the comments because it's very informational for me to see when this hits people's eyes. Like, what do they see, what do they think? And it kind of gives me, um, sort of a window into our culture and how everyday dog owners would go about things if this was their dog, right?

If they were in this situation. And it's funny to me 'cause 90% of the comments revolved around how stressed the dog was and how ashamed the owner should be for putting their dog in this situation, which is absolutely crazy to me because number one, the dog with the dog at the groomer's and the dogs need to be groomed, right? It doesn't necessarily mean they have to go to the groomer's, but they do have to be groomed. And chances are the dog was like this at home, which is why they're not doing it at home <laugh>.

Um, but avoiding the situation because it's stressful. Guess what? The dog doesn't get better that way. So we're gonna talk about thresholds in a minute. I did an episode on working your dog under or over threshold. It was episode number 1 21. And the thing is, your dog doesn't get better if you don't, right?

14:00 — If stressful situations keep going poorly, Kati recommends changing the approach rather than simply…

So this is the same if you just say, oh, that stresses my dog out, so I'm not gonna put my dog in that situation, then guess what? Your dog doesn't get better. Now I'm not saying go into these stressful situations and keep going into them the same way you always have. Like, if that's not working, um, if things go sideways and it's really difficult, then maybe you do need to change something about your process. But just avoiding the stressful situation is not your answer. I promise you it is not your answer. So we've had dogs come in here that are super afraid to walk on tile floors.

And the way we fix it is we walk on tile floors. Are they stressed? Fuck yes, they are. At first it fades pretty quickly most of the time. So every dog in every situation, of course, is different and unique. Sometimes it takes a really long time, sometimes it never resolves a hundred percent. But most of the time we see really big leaps really quickly. And the key is we're gonna go into the stressful situation and we're just gonna do it and we're gonna do it differently than we've been doing it. 'Cause most of the time, uh, people don't have the skills, they don't have the tools and the dog is allowed to just rehearse panic.

And if, if they're able to do that, then that's what they'll do. So you have to have a way of preventing that, right? And it's like sometimes the only answer is force, this big old dirty F-word in the dog training industry, right? Force. Like it's such a bad thing. All it means is you're not giving the dog the option. And that is the key to getting over stuff. So the floors, like I just mentioned, I forced them to walk on floors they were scared of. And guess what? After a couple minutes it gets better.

And then when we go back again and do it later, yeah, they're scared again. But it resolves faster and faster. They relax faster and faster until it becomes just not a big deal anymore. But I had to force them to do it. Guys, nail trimming, which is partly, you know, what we were seeing in that video, it was a groomer. I don't know if they were gonna do the nails, if they were gonna trim the fur or both or whatever, but your dog hates it. Your dog's terrified of it. Your dog thinks they can be an asshole.

Whatever the situation is, you're gonna have to force them to do it. And guess what? If you do it frequently, that is a key to this, they're gonna get over it.

So you have to take away a little bit of your dog's autonomy sometimes and say, hey, this is a thing we're doing. I'm drawing a line in the sand. We're gonna do it. I know it stresses you out. I know to you, you think this is life or death. It's like I'm throwing you off a cliff, but guess what? We're gonna do it anyway. And you're gonna see that's not what's happening. That it's actually okay. And you rinse and repeat frequently, frequently. If you didn't hear me, I'll say it one more time. Repeat frequently, <laugh>.

'Cause that is important. Your dog will regress, regress, regress. That's a new one. Really having a hard time today. You wouldn't realize, you wouldn't think I had a large coffee before this, you know, but I, I did. And it just isn't, it's not getting the job done today, <laugh>. Um, your dog will regress in between, um, instances if you go a long time, right?

18:00 — Kati emphasizes frequent exposure and distinguishes episodic stress from an overactive response that interferes…

So frequency is important to healing, but you have to put your dog in stressful situations. There is no other way to get your dog less stressed, okay? And the thing is, stress isn't bad. Episodic stress isn't bad, it's a normal healthy response, right? But if it's an overactive, irrational, unnecessary response, it can actually interfere with your daily life. And if you allow that stress response to continue because you don't wanna stress your dog out, you don't wanna put them in that situation, what you do is you create prolonged stress. You create, um, chronic stress, right?

Which, that's the problem. Episodic stress isn't a problem. Chronic stress is a problem. So if you fail to force your dog into those situations and to show them it's okay and to rinse and repeat frequently and to get them over it and to rehearse something besides panic, if you don't do that, then you contribute to creating chronic stress, which is the thing that's not great for your dog, right?

Because they never get over it and it remains stressful and every time they run into it, it's stressful and every time they come near it, it's stressful, right? And so you are keeping that going by refusing to jump in the fire and just get it done. And that's not me picking on dog owners. They don't know how to do it. So my point here is not to attack the dog owner. My point is to attack the philosophy that is being promulgated out there as compassionate when it's really not—this idea that you should not put your dog in stressful situations.

That is not a compassionate idea. That's not a compassionate philosophy or way to go through the world with your dog because, ironically, that is what keeps them in a state of chronic stress. 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.

21:00 — Kati challenges the idea that dogs need constant positive interactions with unfamiliar people or…

Number four, another counterintuitive thing here is recognizing that your dog does not need to have positive interactions. This is a big one, right? This comes up a lot with socialization, both with dogs and people. Your dog does not need to go around having constant positive interactions with people or other dogs. So number one, even if you think that's a good thing for your dog to have positive interactions with others, number one, you have to define what, what does that mean? What is a positive interaction? You have to define that. And the thing is, you're defining it for yourself.

So just because you think it's a positive interaction doesn't mean your dog does. Okay? So if your dog doesn't like people, doesn't like other dogs, just because they have an interaction and nothing terrible happens, that doesn't make it a positive interaction. Your dog might have hated it the entire time.

So keep in mind positive is subjective and most of the time we're applying our own thoughts, feelings, and ideas about what that is. We're not actually considering the dogs. The dog decides what's positive and negative, not you. And just because nothing terrible happens doesn't mean that it gets placed solidly in the positive category. It probably doesn't <laugh>, okay? The other thing about positive interactions is what if it's not? What if your philosophy is that my dog has to go have positive interactions with strangers and positive interactions with strange dogs? We don't know. What if it ends up not being that?

What if it ends up being a terrible experience, right? So that's a risk you're taking when you enter into those interactions. And that could happen at any moment, even if it's never happened before. And it could be your dog that's at fault, that triggers it. It could be the other dog, it could be the stranger. People do weird things. Sometimes your dog's really uncomfortable, like way more uncomfortable than you realize 'cause you don't notice the signs and they do snap.

Okay, what if it's not? So this idea you have about accumulating and building up all these positive experiences, you have to understand that at any moment one of these experiences could go totally off the rails. So number one, like we just talked about, you don't even know if it's actually a positive experience for your dog. And on top of that, what if it ends up being a terrible experience for your dog? You're bound to have those here and there. Nothing crazy has to happen, right? It's normal, natural dog behavior to react, to snap, to growl, to attack.

Like all these things are natural dog behavior and they could happen at any time.

So now you're shooting yourself in the foot and it's, you're going backwards, right? So that's another downside to this philosophy. But lastly, it just doesn't help <laugh>. So you go around with this idea that if your dog can just have more positive interactions, it's going to, like, fix your problems, it's going to make them feel better and it probably won't. Even if you do manage to give your dog positive interactions, it probably won't. I'm gonna break this down a little bit because I think it's worth, um, parsing out kind of what I mean here. Think about it.

Most people, when they get a puppy, that puppy has already had 8 million positive interactions with their littermates, with their parents, with other puppies, potentially puppy class friends, puppies, other dogs, um, strangers. Everyone wants to touch the puppy. The owners, um, that br the puppy. You, when you adopted the puppy, the puppy has had many positive interactions and all of those interactions got you to where you are today, right? So when I meet somebody who has a dog that's highly reactive, aggressive toward humans and/or dogs, and they think that if their dog can just get some positive interactions, things will change.

And it's like your dog's already had a a bazillion positive interactions, and it got you here.

The human brain just does not work that way naturally. We are very two-dimensional in the way we think about behavior, and in our minds, positive interactions couldn't possibly lead to negative results. But they do a lot of the time, <laugh>, and I'll be the first one to tell you, everyone thinks an aggressive dog, it's the result of something bad happening or being abused or being attacked. And most of the time it is the result of just genetics plus reward, positive reinforcement. But chances are your dog had many positive interactions leading up to wherever you are now.

27:00 — Kati avoids dog parks where owners seek positive interactions for dogs already uncomfortable around…

And so if your dog is reactive or aggressive, it isn't probably not the result of not having enough positive interactions. And as a side note, those are the people I'm trying to avoid. That's why I don't like the dog park, right? That's a big part of why there are people there with dogs that they know are uncomfortable with other dogs, that they know have a history of being very selective with dogs, that they know their dog can snap at other dogs, and they're going to the dog park to try to get positive interactions. Well, that's the person I'm trying to avoid, right?

They're walking up to people on the street with their dog on a leash, doing on-leash greetings to get a positive interaction when they know that their dog might not like this other dog. They have a history of reacting poorly to other dogs, okay? Not me, man, <laugh>.

That's literally why I don't go into those situations, um, is because I know those people are out there, and I don't want to be the one that it goes sideways with. And it will, it's bound to, right? Um, but so for those three reasons, trying to get more positive interactions is not your answer. The answer is neutral. Learn to see or hear or whatever and not care. Learn to listen to your owner. That's what matters, guys. That is the key to everything. Teach your dog to see and not care. Teach them to listen to you a hundred percent of the time.

And guess what?

Everything's peachy. But people don't wanna focus on those things. They wanna focus on the feelings and trying to get my dog to like other dogs and see that other dogs are good and see that people are good. And it's a huge fucking mistake. Don't do that because chances are it's not going to work anyway. <laugh> What I just described works. Teach your dog to mind their business and listen to you. What else do you need? That's all you need. And yes, if there are certain situations that you need your dog to be able to tolerate, you can work on that.

If you have friends and family with dogs and your dog needs to tolerate having them around, having them in tight spaces, you can do that. Do it safely. Learn how to do it and do it safely.

And yes, your dog will get to see, oh, these dogs are around, they're in my space, they're in my house. And you know what? Things are fine. Yes, you can do that, right? But you don't need to do it with every Tom, Dick and Harry on the street, the idiots at the dog park. No, don't do that. Strangers, people you don't know, don't let them come up and touch your dog. Guys, don't do it. Especially if your dog has already told you they don't like it. Because if you do, you could end up with a lawsuit and not fix your problems to boot.

31:00 — Kati prioritizes neutrality and listening to the owner over accumulating more social interactions.

So I don't mean to be dramatic about it. I realize not every case is that extreme. Um, but the point being here is your dog needs neutrality. Your dog needs to learn to see and not care. Your dog needs to learn to listen to you. What they don't need is lots of positive interactions. That's not usually what they need. I'm not saying there's never a place for that kind of stuff and that kind of counterconditioning, but especially if you're not real skilled in it and you don't know exactly what you're looking for and you don't know exactly what you're trying to accomplish and how to accomplish it, just randomly walking up to people and dogs for positive interactions is a huge mistake.

Alright? Number three, don't give your dog free passes. Extremely counterintuitive, right? Everybody wants to give their dog a free pass, the benefit of the doubt, but you really muddy your training when you do that because your dog learns when you say something, you don't really mean it the first time. You mean it the second time or maybe even the third, fourth or fifth time, right? And there's never any consequences until you get to that third, fourth, fifth time. And so then your dog learns, oh, hey, it's number four. That's the one I have to listen to.

That's literally what you're teaching your dog. So everyone said, when I correct a dog for not listening to me the first time, everybody's alarmed by that, and they're like, well, shouldn't we give him a second chance?

Why do you want 'em to listen to you the second time or the first time? We go for the first time around here, right? It's not where we start. Of course we teach the dog, dog what we want first and how to do it and lots of food and all this stuff. But eventually it's like, do it the first time I ask, and then that becomes the rule and we stick with that. And if you don't, okay, but then you are literally teaching your dog, I don't require you to do this behavior until I have asked for it three times or four times or whatever it is, right?

So your dog just learns whatever you teach them. And but those free passes serve to create that, um, or to create confusion, right? Everyone's worried about their dog being confused, yet they are the ones that will create more confusion by not enforcing the rules they supposedly created. I'll give a command. I don't make you do it, I don't follow through, I don't provide a consequence. I'll set a boundary, I'll let you violate it once or twice. I'll give you warning sounds like, right? Instead of telling you that was a mistake, there's a consequence.

So these free passes serve to keep our dogs confused, more confused for longer periods of time. And they generally teach your dog not to respect the boundaries you've set. Not to listen to the commands you gave because they don't need to, right? And that's just what we're teaching them. It's not 'cause they're a bad dog. That's what we're literally teaching them. That's what we're laying out for them as a, um, as a sequence. So free passes absolutely work against you. And the funny thing is, and we demonstrate this lot at our go-home lessons, people will give their dog a command.

The dog doesn't listen. Um, they'll turn on their e-collar and suddenly the dog does the command without any help, without the person repeating the command or anything. And what that proves is your dog heard you, right? Because everyone thinks, well, maybe they didn't hear me, right? They're distracted. It's like, okay, they have ears, <laugh>.

And so most of the time, and of course that could happen sometimes, right? But most of the time the dog did hear you, right? People just assume their dog didn't hear them 'cause they're not looking at them. It's not usually the case. It—your dog does not have to be looking at you, staring at you, paying deep attention to you to hear that you were talking to them and gave them a command. So no free passes, guys. Number two is staying under threshold. So we just talked about this a minute ago. If you haven't listened to the working under and over threshold episode, go back and listen to it.

35:00 — Kati references episode 121 and argues that working around triggers requires pushing beyond the…

It's a really good one. Episode number 1 21, you guys, this ties into the stressful thing that we talked about earlier. You can't just work your dog under threshold. If your dog has triggers and you don't take them out and work around those triggers, then that threshold just never moves and things never improve and they never get better.

And you're never gonna reach your goals that way. So I'm not saying jump in the fire, I'm not saying thread the needle if your dog's highly reactive or anything like that. But I'm saying if there is something that triggers your dog in any way, shape or form, you have to start working around that thing and you have to push your dog outside of their comfort zone, right? And there's lots of ways to do that. But generally speaking, the way we do it, and this works in like every situation, right? Even with nervous, fearful dogs, it's like we teach them how to do things and then we start expecting it.

We use accountability and then we can take that and we can go out into the real world with it. And we can work around distractions, we can work around triggers, we can work around things that make them uncomfortable and we can use what we taught them and those rules and that accountability to get them to prioritize that stuff over the triggers.

And that really is key to being able to work above threshold. And if we're talking about excitement, a lot of times people just haven't set boundaries with their dog and excitement, right? So if your dog, if there's a family member that comes through the dog door and it just sends your dog right off a cliff with excitement, it's like the, the way you work on that is not to avoid it like that. How is that gonna make it any better? The way you work on that is you tell your dog, hey, this person's gonna come through the door and be super, you're gonna get super excited and I'm going to tell you no and I'm gonna cap that excitement.

I'm gonna provide accountability. I'm gonna correct you for flying into an unacceptable level of excitement. Yeah, sure, we're glad our dog is happy to see people when they come home or whatever, come to visit.

Um, but there's a certain level that's acceptable, right? And your dog just flying into craziness and then ignoring you because they're going to, your dog's not gonna listen to you in that state of mind. And that's why your dog choosing to go into that state of mind is not okay, right? But so the way we would work on that is not to avoid it, it's not to work up to it, it's to put 'em in that situation and have that tough conversation with the dog, which of course is what nobody wants to do. Um, but the thing is, once you do that, then you can probably move on to rehearsing the correct behavior, right?

38:00 — Keep praise calm when rehearsing improved behavior so it does not create another burst…

Your dog will behave better and you can actually say, hey, good, don't go nuts. Don't have a party 'cause you're gonna work 'em up, right? And you're in the beginning stages of something new and it's like a little sapling and you need to care for it delicately, <laugh>, you can challenge it more in a little bit, right?

But at first, stay calm, right? So use your energy to help your dog's energy. Um, but staying under threshold isn't the key. It's going into those situations that push your dog over their threshold and knowing what to do. And I think that's the problem. People don't know what to do. So follow our stuff. We have lots of great podcast episodes, social media videos. We have a blog now on my website, um, where we talk about what to do. We show you what to do. What do we do? Very, very open about all of this stuff, but staying under threshold, it's not the answer.

It's not the answer, guys. You'll never get there. Number one, people focus on the process more than the results. Huge mistake. Our society nowadays is very, very process-focused, right? Everything's about the process. Everything is about not stressing out the dog like we talked about earlier. Staying under threshold, being positive, right? Guess what? None of that stuff really matters. I mean, yes, there's a effective, more effective, less effective, right? But the thing that matters the most is the results. And if we would pay more attention to the results, then we would be able to refine our process to something more effective.

So the reason why we go to all those other things, we already talked about the reason why we soothe fear. The reason why we avoid stress, the reason why we stay under threshold. The reason why we keep thinking we gotta put our dogs in situations for positive interactions. All this stuff we've already talked about. The reason we do all that is because we're focusing on process and we're not focusing on results. Stop, take a breath and look at the results, okay? And then think, well, how's this process working for me? How are going into all these interactions with strangers and strange dogs?

How's that working for me? Regardless of whether or not any of it's gone super poorly, has it fixed your problem? No. Well, then we probably need to change our process. How has soothing the fear, pet the dog, talking to the dog? How has that worked for you to make your dog more confident?

How has trying to make nail trimming less stressful? How has that worked for you trying to teach your dog new behaviors? If you're a chatty person, <laugh>, and you're trying to give your dog constant instruction using words they don't understand, how is that working for you? Right? So in trying to rely very heavily on reward and and not use correction and be very positive, how's that worked for you? Right? So you have to look at the results, and that is how we work with our dogs every day here at the training center. The dog actually chooses the process.

42:00 — Kati adjusts sessions according to which rewards and corrections motivate the individual dog.

The dog actually chooses what's motivating, right? So we don't know what we're gonna do with the dog on any, any given day. We don't know what the session's gonna look like. We don't know what the consequences are gonna be. Guess what? It's up to the dog. We let the dog tell us, hey, this is a reward that motivates me. That reward is not a reward to me. It doesn't matter. That's a correction that motivates me. That's not a correction I care about. We are learning the dog every minute that we are working with them, and they are shaping our behavior.

They are telling us this works. This doesn't, and that's what we use.

But people get so into this groove in their head, they get so cemented, they get so just stuck in this routine and these ideas and philosophies that are, this is good and this is bad and this is good and this is bad and this will help and this won't. And they just stay stuck right there doing all that same stuff every day. When the dog is telling us that isn't working, this doesn't matter to me, that's not helping, that's not making me more comfortable. It's not making me more confident. It's not making me like dogs more, but we keep doing it anyway because in our head it should work <laugh>.

So if that's you, if you feel like you have ideas and emotions attached to your processes and you're like, this is the process, that might be the only thing getting in your way right now. So definitely stop and reevaluate. Like, am I paying attention to what my dog is, is telling me? It's like Dr. Phil would say, how's that working for you <laugh>, right? Because if you've been working on something for a while and you're not there yet, guess what? Your process needs to change. And most people are going, well, I don't know how to change it.

I don't know where to go from here. And it's like, you gotta think outside the box a little. It might not be intuitive, right? It might be counterintuitive, but the process, guys, isn't the thing that matters, right? As long as we don't do anything to harm the dog, that's obviously important. And we are doing things that are generating results. That's all that matters.

The ideas we have in our head about what should be true, what should be reward for the dog, what should be punishment for the dog, what should work and what should't, they don't matter, right? That's just ego. That's just humanizing. Like not it, it's just, it's up to the dog, right? And so your job is to evaluate what your dog is telling you both in real time in the moment and also over a period of time, right? You can look at your dog today and you can see that this is the result of genetics. I don't wanna exclude genetics.

But also combined with that, everything you've done with them from day one forward has gotten you where you are. And so if there are things that you want to be different, clearly we need to change something about our process. You can't change your dog's DNA.

So there's something about your process that needs to change. And I would say direct your focus there and probably you can go back and look at the other six things we just talked about. And there's probably at least one where you could change your process and do the less intuitive thing and it's going to change your result hopefully for the better. Uh, but we do live in a very process-oriented community, um, society where it's like, you know, the vet is supposed to be fear-free. I just told you about the grooming video where, you know, they shouldn't be putting their dog in that stressful situation.

Um, you're only supposed to use rewards, right? You can never use corrections or negative reinforcement or punishment 'cause everything's supposed to be positive and unicorns and cupcakes all the time. Um, and unfortunately when we have this mindset with all of these different things, it absolutely ties our hands and we can't get anywhere.

47:00 — Kati closes by reiterating her results-first approach and inviting topic suggestions through email or…

Um, because we need to break outta that mindset where we think our process is actually the thing that matters. And it's not. The results matter. At least if you want them <laugh>. 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.