Commands Will Not Fix Your Problems!

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces Diamond K9 Dog Training in Biddeford, Maine, and its obedience and…

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered. Trigger warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the truth in dog training.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Off Leash Unfiltered. I'm Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond K9 Dog Training in Biddeford, Maine. We do puppy training, e-collar training, so off-leash obedience, behavior modification is probably our specialty. Um, everything ranging from simple behavioral issues like jumping and barking to severe reactivity, aggression issues, separation anxiety, all that good stuff. So that's what we do. That's who we are. And uh, we do this podcast just to sort of educate the public on a variety of stuff, big and small. And also just so I can get things off my chest, <laugh> that are bothering me.

So, um, today I was thinking about something because I, I had something happen yesterday and this happens a lot. So, and if you listen to the podcast at all in the past, you know that, um, that's often the source of my <laugh>, my topic selection comes from real-world experience.

So the things that my clients are thinking and saying and doing and experiencing, I figured the general public is probably experiencing those things as well. So, um, but this thing in particular, I think this is a really important episode. This is an important thing to talk about because it is so common and it is such a big mistake. Um, and it seems so innocuous and it seems so logical, but it's not. And I'm gonna tell you what it is <laugh>. So I can sum this up in one statement, which I'm going to do, but then I'm going to have to elaborate because most of the time people don't really understand what it means.

Here it is, you ready?

Commands will not fix your problems. I'm gonna say it a different way. Commands will not make bad or unwanted behaviors go away. That's it. That's what we're gonna talk about <laugh>, because there is a huge difference between obedience training and behavior modification. There's definitely some overlap, but they are not the same. And this topic in general sometimes really hits a nerve with me, guys, because we run a really good program here. I mean, people are blown away by what we can do with their dogs, um, you know, in just a such a short period of time, two or three weeks.

03:00 — Peppe explains why owners need to maintain training practices after their dogs return home.

Um, but <laugh>, but when the dog goes home, it is important that all the stuff we did continues to be handled in much the same manner. And that's not to say that people are gonna do everything exactly the way we would, that they're gonna be perfect. They're not dog trainers. I know that. That's okay. But we do spend a lot of time with them when their dog goes home to teach them the key things, the important things, especially with their specific dog and their specific living situation and their specific problems. Teach them the important things that they need to do, how they should respond to their dog's behaviors, to keep them moving in the right direction and keep them from regressing.

And sometimes usually people do amazing and it makes my day and it's why I do this job. And I love hearing all the success stories and there are so many of them. Very, very high success rate here, which is fantastic. Um, but you know, even the people that are mostly successful, occasionally they will have a small piece where things are still not really where they should be. Okay? And some, some dogs and some people, it's like they're doing their best and it's just never gonna get better, right? Sometimes the dog, it's out of our control because of their genetic components or, uh, lifestyle components or whatever the case may be.

Sometimes the human has something drastically wrong with them and it is just out of our control and it's what it is. But a lot of times that's not really the case. And people continue to kind of, um, struggle with little things and just, you know, make love to these problems for months and years. And they don't need to. They don't need to. And so what I'm really trying to get at here is using commands instead of the protocols that I teach people to use.

That's usually behind why they're struggling.

So here's an example, 'cause this was yesterday, <laugh>. I had a dog here for a board-and-train several months ago. He came from Massachusetts, I believe, so out of state. Um, you know, so I think they have family here in Maine. So, uh, they occasionally come up here, but they live far away. So we did their board-and-train, they have a goldendoodle. And this dog, it was a fine dog, but like many goldendoodles, uh, complete clown, didn't take anything seriously, easily overexcited, loved getting a rise out of people. Loved just being a little booger, <laugh>, you know, like playing keep-away, jumping all over people, just anything, anything to get you to chase them around, to get you <laugh>, to get, you know, anything, to get a little bit of a rise out of you, um, and just get in your face and get in your space or steal your stuff or, you know, that sort of thing.

07:00 — Peppe describes a client's dog succeeding with boundaries during training but continuing to jump…

That kind of guy <laugh>. So, but you know, once we laid down solid rules for him and solid boundaries with real expectations and real accountability, and we held him accountable for his obedience and we disagreed with jumping and, and all those things, he did fantastic. Super smart guy, learned everything really quickly, um, fell right into line. He was a star when he left here, okay? Now reports are from them that he's, he's doing well. Um, and they're very pleased with his progress. Um, but <laugh>, you saw that coming, right? But there are two things, um, that are happening, but I want to go after the one that really pertains to this topic, which is they're complaining that he still jumps on people.

Well, he wasn't jumping on people here. And the problem isn't that board-and-train doesn't work. That's not the problem, <laugh>, okay? And the problem isn't that the dog can't learn or doesn't learn. That is also not the problem, okay? The problem isn't that I don't know how to train a dog and that our training is ineffective. That is also not the problem.

So what is the problem? Well, the problem is twofold, but again, I'm gonna focus on the one that pertains to this topic, which is they're not following the proper protocol. Okay? So the dog learned right away, he went home, he kind of pulled up his old file 'cause he is in his old environment with his old people. That's very natural, very normal thing for dogs to do. And instead of handling it the way that I instruct, they handled it their old way, <laugh>. So what do you think they're getting? They're getting the old behavior. Of course they are.

So instead of saying no and then providing a high correction for jumping, they're just using a command to, to get him to stop jumping, probably off or something of that nature. Of course, that's not going to work. Can you explain to me in what universe that would work and why it would work? If it worked, they would've never come to see me in the first place.

So you shouldn't need a command to instruct your dog to stop doing something bad, okay? There's only one correct approach to this. You're not going to change my mind. <laugh>, if you want your dog to stop doing something, not just in the moment, but in the future, like you want your dog to choose to not do a behavior in the future, then you need to give them a good reason to choose to not do that behavior in the future. We do that with a proper correction. We mark the behavior with the word no when the dog commits the crime, and then we follow up after the no with a tangible, intolerable consequence, which means usually for us, turn up your e-collar and tap the button.

There are other ways you can do it, but I can tell you what you can't do is you can't just yell no with no consequence. You can't yell off or down or say your dog's name or any of that business. So those commands are completely fucking useless, <laugh>. They're just not going to help you. Even if they should work sometimes, like what good is that?

11:00 — Peppe distinguishes preventing jumping from getting a dog down after its paws are already…

First of all, it's only sometimes, and second of all, your dog's already done the jumping, right? So isn't the idea to stop the jumping in the first place, right? I don't really give a sweet shit if your dog will get down when you tell him to. I don't want him getting up on me and getting his muddy paws all over me in the first place. So I send people home with very explicit instructions. They almost always, always get to see it hands on because of course when people come to their go-home session, their dog jumps on them because that's what they're used to doing.

And they get to see right there, hands on, exactly what to do, exactly what the process is. We don't hold anything back. We're very transparent about it. It's really important that people have this information if they're going to be successful when they go home. But then inevitably, sometimes you get people that go home and they just don't do it. They just cannot break outta their old habits. So important, guys, if you really wanna see change, you have to change what you are doing. Even if you think you're doing everything right, if you're not getting what you want, then there is no other way to slice it.

You're not doing it right.

You gotta change something about what you're doing. So, but I mean, we were very effective here with this dog, and he did fantastic. So it's sad to me to hear that piddly things like this that are so easy to stop, um, are continuing, you know, months, <laugh>, months after the board-and-train. Um, but you know, it is what it is. And I'm, I'm always here to support people, but I can only do so much. So, uh, but you know, that piece I thought was a good piece to talk about because those commands, they're not gonna work for them, and I know that.

So the other piece with this same dog, and this is also a, a very common scenario, so that using a command to stop the jumping, super common scenario, uh, but that same dog, they're also using commands to try to control his arousal and excitement. <laugh>, which again, is not the protocol, is not what they were taught in the go-home session. So of course it's not working. There's no surprise here. To me, there's no mystery here. Um, but again, super, super, super common. So your dog gets excited. And what do you do? Do you say your dog's name?

Do you give him a command? Because I can tell you right now, I used to be one of these people, right? Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit. <laugh>

Ri, sit, sit, sit, sit. Come here, Ri, lay down. Sit, right? Just yelling your dog's name, yelling commands. Guess what? Not going to work. Not helpful. So you're trying to sidestep the issue. When you do that, you're trying to sweep it under the rug and it's not going to work in most cases, okay? So your dog is doing, whether you realize it or not, they're doing an unwanted behavior. So even though there isn't something real tangible, like jumping up on someone, it is an unwanted behavior because they're flying into a psychotic mental state. That's not okay.

That is a choice, by the way.

Okay? So your dog flies into this overexcited mental state, they go completely bananas. And instead of you saying no, providing a punishment and disagreeing with that, so your dog can just be normal, you allow them to stay in that state and you just start barking commands at them. So you're not dealing with the issue. The issue is your dog is crazy. Sit doesn't fix that. Down doesn't fix that. Your dog's name doesn't fix that. Most likely they're not even gonna be able to do that stuff because they're too excited. You have to deal with that.

15:00 — The dog's owners use heel during greetings with familiar people, but Peppe argues heel…

So they're doing this, these people with this dog that I was just discussing with you, they're saying they, they're really struggling with his overarousal mostly when he sees people that he loves. It's not so bad anymore around strangers, but when he sees people he has a relationship with, he just flies into the state of excitement. And so she's been using heel. And I don't have a problem with heel. I love heel. I think it's good to leverage heel even in these situations. However, heel doesn't fix it.

Heel does not stop overarousal. Accountability for heel might, right? Because there's corrections involved in that. But here's the thing, forget heel, forget sit, forget down, forget place. Tell your dog flying into that state of overexcitement is not okay. You gotta deal with the core issue and then guess what? All the other problems go away. But as long as we try to circumvent that step because we, we're not comfortable with it, we don't want to correct the dog for their state of mind, the longer we drag it out, right? So you can invest thousands of dollars in training and time and be away from your dog if it's a board-and-train and make all these sacrifices.

And then when your dog goes home, if you still insist on sidestepping the accountability piece and nagging your dog with commands instead of directly disagreeing with things that need to be corrected, you will drag out the behavioral issues and continue to struggle with them. And it's just sad to me because it doesn't need to be that way. These are very simple things to fix. So I'm not oversimplifying this. These are things we fix right away in the first couple of days. You, you're not allowed to get that excited until you're invited to. There's a time, there's a place, it's not now.

You can't just choose to fly into that overexcitement. And there was never a time when that dog was here where I used place or sit or down or heel or anything, or to try to control his excitement. If he got that excited, I told him no, I corrected him, the arousal came down. And then if I wanted him to do something, I could ask him to.

But that's the thing, in most cases it doesn't even matter. Like I don't care what the dog is doing, I just don't want him, want 'em to be nuts. And there's no doubt that's their, their case, right? They don't care if their dog's in a heel. It sounds like they're not even outside, they're in the house. What do they care if their dog's in a heel? They don't. They're using it to try to fix a behavioral issue and it will never work. So don't use commands to try to fix your dog's behavioral issues. If you have a dog that is, God forbid, aggressive, um, anxious, well, anxious isn't a good—anxious probably isn't a good, um, good example because you can certainly leverage obedience a lot for anxiety.

18:00 — Peppe says obedience can support anxiety management but argues aggression, overexcitement, jumping, and counter…

However, there does need to be accountability for it still. So just teaching your dog how to sit or go to place or whatever will not help them be less anxious unless you hold them accountable for it.

So they have to do it. So there's still corrections involved, but if you have a dog that's, you know, aggressive or overexcited, over, gets overstimulated, overaroused, likes to jump on people, counter surfs, there's not a command in the world that's gonna fix that for you guys. There just isn't. You get to deal with those things directly and if you're interested in hearing more about how to do that, then stay tuned and hit subscribe on the podcast because we talk about this stuff a lot. I'm very open about the process. Um, I'm really passionate about teaching people how to do that properly and effectively and efficiently without causing any harm.

Um, so they can just move on and to better, more fun things and have a better relationship with their dog. Uh, lots of videos on social media as well. We're on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, so you know, tune in and watch some of our stuff and in the meantime, take care of some of those behavioral issues. Stop giving your dog commands when they're doing something naughty. Alright guys, I look forward to next time.