Do You Use Enough Contrast When Training Your Dog?

00:00 — Kati Peppe welcomes listeners to Off Leash and Unfiltered and asks them to subscribe.

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

Hey everybody, this is your host, Kati Peppe. Before we jump in, I just wanted to take a quick second and remind you to hit the subscribe button because that helps us so, so, so much. We appreciate every subscribe and follow, and we have so much valuable information we wanna share with you. So we don't want you to miss an episode. Without further ado, let's jump in. Hey everyone, thanks for joining me today for another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. Um, hoping that my microphone battery lasts long enough for me to get through this episode.

<laugh>, um, we're kissing summer goodbye, which I think is super sad. My daughter, her first day back to school is today and yeah, it's kind of a bummer. Summer is so short in Maine, guys, and I love it so much and it's just like when it's over, it's just so sad.

But we're gonna keep it going as long as we can. We have a, a big barbecue at Vega Lake coming up. It might even be a good opportunity for me to bring a dog or two with me. Um, good training experience for them. But, um, yeah, that's where we are right now. Summer's over, fall's rolling in. Do all the pumpkin crap, <laugh>, pumpkin spice this and pumpkin spice that. I, and don't get me wrong, I love pumpkin. I just, I'm not a fan of summer being over. So that's it. I've got my, my complaining out, I think, for the episode.

Oh yeah, right? <laugh>, if you've listened to me long enough, you know that's not the case. There will, there will be more, right? But it will be probably oriented towards something dog related, <laugh>. But anyway, let's talk about contrast today and how important that is if you're actually trying to shape behavior with your dog.

Because you know, the, I always say the hard, one of the harder things, there are a lot of hard things, but one of the harder things with private lessons for us as trainers is helping people break out of like their monotone nature. And not everybody's like that, but it's really common. Um, helping people loosen up and communicate with the dog in other ways besides just words or besides just pushing an e-collar button. Um, because we do both of those things and both of those things are important. But the thing is, when you're trying to teach something to the dog, they don't know what to do with either of those things yet, right?

That's literally the training is you teaching them what to do with those things. Hey, when you hear this word, hey, when you feel the e-collar, um, this is what I want you to do.

And that is not something that comes naturally to a lot of people and it can be really difficult. So more or less, you have to give the dog guidance, right? And you have to use things like energy, body language, right? Your tone of voice, the way your body is moving, all these things. And if you don't, then you're just less efficient, right? It's gonna take your dog longer to figure out what to do. And also by the way, they're gonna be a lot less engaged. And so this episode isn't about, um, specifically not being monotone, but there's a ton of overlap with what we're about to talk about.

04:00 — Unchanging tone, movement, and energy can make praise difficult for dogs to distinguish from…

'Cause I find that's the piece, even when people are, um, trying to encourage the dog and let the dog know that they did the right thing, the person will be very low key, very monotone. Sometimes they won't move much, their energy doesn't change much. And so from the dog's perspective, everything is very gray. And when you're teaching something new, right? Even if it's something you feel like your dog should have already known, right? If they don't know, you can't be gray, right? You really, really wanna create more of a black and white experience or more of a rainbow experience, right?

Because you, you want it to be colorful. You want it to be a range of energies and responses and consequences that are occurring all the time.

Um, so obviously we wanna communicate to the dog what they're doing right. And we wanna communicate to the dog what they're not doing right. And the way we do that, by the way, looks very different at every stage of training. So right now what we're talking about is a dog that doesn't know the behavior yet, okay? So if you're thinking about bad behaviors, you're totally on the wrong page right now. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about building wanted behaviors, teaching your dog how to do place, hold a down, come back when called.

Right? So we're talking about things we want the dog to learn to do, and that is important because they are very different <laugh>, they have very different protocols. Um, but so when you're initially building a behavior, cementing a new behavior, teaching your dog that a behavior is attached to a word, all of these things, it's really, really important to be able to effectively communicate to the dog.

That's what we're looking for. That's not what we're looking for, right? And not so much because the dog necessarily cares what you're looking for, right? But just because naturally in the brain, if you reinforce a behavior and provide the dog with something enjoyable when they're doing the right thing, then the brain will naturally do that thing more and the dog will be more engaged and they'll learn faster and they'll make the associations quicker, right? So reinforcement is important. Positive reinforcement is obviously very, very helpful when we're trying to build a new behavior. And that's why we use it.

And we don't talk about this a ton because I feel like that's often the easier piece for folks. Um, I have never met a person who didn't try to feed their dog for teaching them a new thing, right? Now, there's an efficient and inefficient way to do that. We're not gonna get into the details on this episode about your sequence and, uh, what you should be using and when you should be using it and markers. That's not what this episode is about. But we do have an episode that covers all of that. Um, and I'll try to find that episode afterwards and put that a link to that in the show notes for you if you are interested in.

I think there's some videos attached to that one too, where you can actually see, um, the process, um, which is helpful.

But I've never met a person that wasn't trying to use positive reinforcement when building something new. Um, so we don't, we don't talk about that a ton, 'cause most people already know that and most people are already doing it. And most people, even if they're not doing it exactly the right way, right, even if technically there's a lot of room for more efficiency, uh, most people manage to get it done, right? You don't have to be an expert to feed your dog for sitting and teach them to sit. Um, most people get that done on their own.

08:00 — Kati uses positive reinforcement early in training, including praise and affection for dogs uninterested…

But anyway, so, so we don't discuss it a ton, but positive reinforcement absolutely plays a huge role early in the training process for us. Now, some dogs aren't into food. That doesn't mean we don't use positive reinforcement, just means we don't use food, food. Um, we can use praise and affection.

A lot of dogs love affection. A lot of dogs love attention. Um, they just love the energy when it's like positive and it's escalated. They like that sort of thing. They like the little party when they do something right. Um, and we do that. Some dogs don't care about that either. <laugh>, and yes, we get those dogs, they're not that uncommon. Um, and in those cases, there might not be anything positive you can really add that the dog cares about. Honestly, the first dog I ever had for board-and-train comes to mind. And it's a very unfortunate that, that that had to be my first dog <laugh>, um, was a Chow Chow and was not motivated by anything.

Did not care about anything. Which, by the way, is fine and we can work through that. But I would much rather have that dog now <laugh> than on the first day of my board-and-train career.

Um, so, but I don't know, it's, I'll have to do an episode on this because I had a lot of, I had a lot of extreme dogs in the beginning. A lot of difficult dogs. And you know, at the time you don't necessarily know that. You kind of think, well, it's probably me because I just don't have the experience under my belt yet. But looking back on it, and there are things I would do differently now than I did then, of course, but it wasn't me. It was absolutely the dog, the dogs. I had some really challenging dogs in the beginning.

So we'll have to do an episode just talking about some of those experiences. Um, but anyway, uh, some dogs aren't motivated by any of that stuff. And believe it or not, you can still train that dog. So you don't have to have positive reinforcement, right? It's just helpful.

Like it will improve the efficiency. It will make the associations faster. It will keep the dog more engaged, right? But only if they like the thing. If they don't, then it's not positive reinforcement. I can give food all day long to a dog that doesn't really care about it and it's not doing much, right? And if you have a dog that doesn't want it at all and spits it out, it's doing nothing. I can give affection to a dog that doesn't care about it and it's not doing anything. And if I give affection to a dog that really doesn't like it, I can actually punish things I'm trying to build, right?

11:00 — Affection can reduce engagement rather than reinforce behavior when a dog dislikes being touched.

Giving affection to a dog that doesn't like affection is not gonna help me build a behavior. In fact, it's probably going to reduce the behavior. It's probably gonna make the dog less interested and less engaged and, uh, more tuned out.

So, but we absolutely, if there's something that motivates the dog, we will use it. We don't usually use play specifically because it would really draw things out and make the reps really, really long. And we're trying to do usually numerous frequent quick reps when we're teaching something new. But that doesn't mean there aren't times. It certainly doesn't mean there aren't times, especially when we're talking about behavior stuff. If a dog makes a good choice that we might engage in play. Absolutely. But you know, if you're trying to teach a dog to lay down, to stop and play with them every time they put their elbows on the floor, you're gonna be there for a while.

Um, but so we do use tons of positive reinforcement. Um, and I want you to remember that what you use—food is obviously the easiest.

What you use, um, is really highly dependent on the dog and what motivates the dog. And so one side note I will add to this is that if you're using food, which most of the time that's what we're using, do not use big pieces of food. So almost every bag of quote-unquote training treats that you're gonna buy in the pet store are still too big. Tiny, tiny, tiny, guys, 'cause you're going to be doing hundreds of repetitions. So if you have a dog that's super food driven, just use their kibble. If, if they're eating kibble, if they're on kibble, um, but if they're not, use something super tiny.

So I'm a big fan of one-ingredient stuff. I like to use dried beef liver. Most dogs love it. Very few dogs have a sensitive tummy to that. Unless you're giving them a lot, you can absolutely give a dog too much.

Liver is very rich. But again, we're using pieces that are super tiny. Um, I'm a big fan of, um, dehydrated, you know, chicken or even raw chicken. But you know, your hands, you'll have to wash your hands if you're doing that. Um, unsalted peanuts we use with a lot of dogs. Um, just, you know, usually the peanuts are are split in half. So they're pretty small. And you could even cut those in half again if you wanted to go through the trouble or even just kind of a mixture of this stuff. But they're tiny, tiny, tiny pieces.

<laugh>, we don't use big pieces of food in training, at least not early in the process because we're doing so many reps. Um, and for puppies, like we're just using their kibble. If they're eating kibble, they get kibble for their training. Uh, we don't do meals like at all for puppies.

They earn it all for training throughout the day. Uh, and that's worked really well for us. But anyways, especially if your dog is tiny, guys, because they will get super full, super fast. And guess what happens? So you have to think about this like a dog's motivation changes all the time. It's gonna be different every day, every time you work with them. Um, and it can be different at the beginning of the lesson than at the end of the lesson. And so many things go into this. So if you wanna keep your dog engaged and motivated and learning, and you wanna be as efficient as possible, then these are the things you should do.

You should use the thing that motivates your dog. If your dog is motivated by food, use that because it's the easiest. But make sure you're using super small pieces of, um, a treat of some kind or their kibble.

15:00 — Schedule training when your dog is most motivated and engaged, accounting for daily changes…

Okay? Um, you should do the training when your dog is most motivated, when your dog will be the most engaged, right? And the reason I mention this, 'cause you don't have full control over that. So your dog might naturally have periods of time during the day where they're more energetic or more, um, apt to want your attention. Those are good times to train. If you're using food for training, training when your dog is hungry is obviously a good choice to train. So too many people make the mistake of, "I'm gonna feed my dog dinner, then we're gonna go out and do a training lesson."

Okay, well, you just threw away a huge opportunity for your dog to earn their meal.

You know? Or if, if you don't feed kibble and you can't really use your dog's meal for training, you can still feed them after the training, right? So that your dog is hungry during the training. And that makes your reward that you have to offer much, much more valuable. And when that happens, your dog is just going to be more interested in what you're doing. You're, and don't get me wrong, the dog's gonna do it either way, whether they're interested or not, right? But guys, these things help you build behaviors quicker, more effectively, more efficiently, cement it faster, make the associations faster, all these things, right?

We want your dog to be into the training, if that's possible. Um, that is going to help you immensely. So if you're using food, do do the training when your dog is hungry, <laugh>, that makes the most sense.

Um, be interesting to your dog. So again, if you're one of those folks that's very monotone, um, you don't use a lot of body language, you don't change your tone of voice a lot, you don't get excited or you don't, um, really exude it on the outside. Work on that <laugh>, like really work on that. Um, because especially if you have a dog that isn't super tuned into you, isn't super interested in the training, doesn't like doing work, isn't motivated by food. And there's a lot of those dogs out there, you guys, we see them all the time.

If you have one of those dogs, dogs, and you're one of those people, you are gonna struggle, boy, you're gonna be on that struggle bus. So like, seriously, work on being a little more loose, right? A little more loose, a little more expressive, be more honest with your dog, be more communicative with your dog. Um, <laugh> in the beginning, when your dog does the behavior you want, you want to do everything in your power to make that very clear, right?

18:00 — A click or verbal marker such as “yes” predicts food after the dog learns…

So we usually use a marker to predict that food is coming. Hopefully when you're doing this training, you've already taught your dog that that marker means the food is coming. So it might be a click or it might be a yes. Um, so you're gonna have that, right? But then you can follow, you're gonna obviously follow that with your reward, which is food, but you can also follow it with praise, with excitement, right? And for some dogs, if you have like a really pushy, excitable dog already, um, maybe you don't wanna use the excitement, right?

So there's nothing I say on this podcast, guys, is like, huh, well, almost nothing, not nothing, but almost nothing is 100%. Um, do this for all dogs or never do this for any dogs. It's like, it's gonna change depending on the dog, right? But unless your dog is a total nut job, like using some excitement during the training is usually a good idea.

Um, 'cause again, having enthusiasm and building like interest and, and buy-in, right? The dog just like wants to do it. They wanna participate. They, they're having a good time. Um, that's gonna help you do the training faster. So if you're a monotone person who's normally pretty subdued, absolutely work on that. And some examples are just instead of saying, "Good boy," you can be "Good boy." Right? Totally different energy. Um, and when I say it, I'm, I'm looking at the dog, my body is more bouncy. I'm giving them pets, right? If you just stand there and you're like, "Good boy," that is a totally different experience for your dog.

Your dog, your dog hardly notices that there was a communication there. And again, every dog is different. Some dogs might be like, "Oh my God, he's a good boy," right? And other dogs just, they're not even gonna notice it.

And I think the unfortunate thing for us is, um, we get a higher percentage of those dogs than maybe is like typical of the entire dog population because people struggle more with those dogs <laugh>, right? Um, but what the people don't realize when they come in is it's not just the dog. Yes, they have a dog that's tuned out. Yes, they have a dog that might not be super motivated by food. Um, yes, they might have a dog that doesn't like to do the work, or isn't that into the training, but in addition to that, they are contributing to the problem because they're, they're low-key, they're subdued, they don't change their tone of voice, they're very monotone.

Um, they don't use a lot of body language. They don't get bouncy and enthusiastic, they don't drive up the energy when their dog does something, right? Um, they're, they're not super affectionate.

So that's extra, extra challenging <laugh> for us. And we see, and we see that combination quite a bit in our private lessons. Um, and it's challenging enough that I think most of the time when that happens, they're people that should just do a board-and-train. So it's not that you can't change it, you absolutely can. You can work on it, you can change it, but it's hard. It's, it does not come naturally to people. But those are the things we wanna do when our dog does the right thing. Now, we talk all the time about what to do when our dog doesn't do the right thing, but we don't really talk about it a ton early in the training, right?

21:00 — Kati distinguishes teaching wanted behaviors early in training from her discussions of corrections, punishment,…

Most of the time you're hearing me talk about corrections, you're hearing me talk about punishment, you're hearing me talk about accountability, and we do all those things.

But when we're early in the training, that's not what we're doing at all with wanted behaviors. Again, I'm gonna clarify that, right? If we're talking about jumping on people, barking out the window, yeah, that's different. Those are unwanted behaviors. That's not what we're talking about right now. We're talking about building obedience behaviors like going to place, laying down, coming back when called, that sort of stuff. Early in the training, guys, dog's always on a leash, always, always, always, always, always on a leash, okay? Um, and we don't even start with the word. We start by just getting the dog to do the behavior.

And that might be with a food lure, um, like holding the food in our hand, but we don't give it to the dog right away. Um, right? We get them to follow our hand to do what we want them to do.

Then we give them the food. Um, that's a food lure. Or it might be physical manipulation, it might be leash guidance, right? So for instance, I can pull straight up on the leash and most dogs, we teach them very quickly to put their butt on the ground. So if I'm teaching the word sit, I can use my leash for that, right? Leash up, the dog sits, yay, here's your food. Um, and then once the dog is pretty good at doing the behavior, then we start to teach them, "Hey, when you hear this word, I want you to do the behavior."

So a lot of people don't realize that we don't start with the word right away. Um, but so in between saying the word and getting the dog to do the behavior, right? If it's taking them a while, if they don't know what to do, if they're not doing it, we're not holding the dog accountable at this point, guys. We're not correcting them for it.

You know what we do? We wait, we guide, we lure, we use leash pressure, we use physical manipulation, whatever we have to do to get the dog to do the thing. And then there's a marker and there's a reward, there's praise, there's affection, there's energy. So there's contrast. And the contrast increases even more as we move through the training, right? Because once the dog catches on and they clearly know the word and they know there's a reward for doing the behavior, and we've done dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of repetitions, we start to hold the dog a little more accountable.

So as most of you know, we're usually using e-collars, right? And one thing we didn't talk about, um, was kind of the negative reinforcement aspects. And I don't like using that word. I don't like using positive reinforcement either. I don't like using any of those words. Um, and I'm not gonna get into this right now, but it's all just kind of baloney. Um, and there's a bunch of overlap and it's messy and it actually doesn't make a lot of sense. And in my opinion, it just doesn't matter. I feel like people like to talk about it to sound smart, um, and they like to fight about it.

Um, and the whole thing's just stupid <laugh>.

But just as a quick side note here, I don't wanna get off on a tangent, but if you do have a dog that isn't motivated at all by anything positive, they don't like doing the work, they don't like engaging with you, they don't like praise, they don't like affection, they don't want food. Um, all we're using is the e-collar. All we're using is the quote-unquote negative reinforcement, right? So it turns on, it turns on fairly low, and it turns off when they do the behavior. And we just do that hundreds of times. Um, and then once the dog understands it, now we can turn it up, right?

25:00 — Kati describes increasing e-collar intensity for nonresponse after the dog understands what the sensation…

So if they don't do it, it gets turned up and then they do it. Simple. It's a very simple concept. Yes, it takes some skill. Yes, there's some nuance. Yes, we do things a little bit differently depending on the dog, but it's like, that's the basic framework, right?

You understand what this sensation is, um, on your neck coming from the collar, you understand how it's tied to your behavior. So now when you don't do the thing, the accountability comes. It's super simple. But again, we don't start with the accountability, right? It stays really low in the beginning. Tons and tons of reps, tons and tons of guidance till we know the dog understands it. Um, but that's it. So that's why dogs that aren't into anything, don't like anything, or even are afraid of everything are absolutely trainable. A hundred percent, okay? Uh, it doesn't mean there's not a ceiling.

If you have a dog that is, um, clearly the wiring's a little off and they're terrified of everything, their flight response can be intense enough, um, that they might never be completely trustworthy off leash and things of that nature. But it's really rare, guys. Like, it's so rare. I've had maybe one dog, maybe two, I don't—one for sure in my entire career like that. Like they're just, they're not common dogs. You might think you have one, you probably don't, right? If you think your dog is just too disinterested, too pushy, too stupid, <laugh> too scared, too nervous, any of those things, they're probably not.

It's very, very rare. Almost all dogs are trainable, okay? Anyway, <laugh> as we progress through the training process and the dog, okay? Now the dog does understand the word, they do understand what behavior they're supposed to do when we give them the word. Now is where things get a lot messier, they get a little harder, um, for the handler anyway. Um, and it's really important to have that contrast, right? Because now you know, the dog knows what you want. So now you want more of, of a right, wrong contrast. But there's still tons of guidance because your dog is still not an expert at this point.

Like, you know, they know you wanna see them trying, you wanna see 'em putting in effort. Um, but if they're just not, you've gotta have that really clear, like, hey, this is right and that's wrong. And that message has to get through to your dog.

Both of them are important. And I find that most people tend to be better at one or the other, and they're both important, guys. So when we're in the middle of recall training, right, but it's still fairly early, we know the dog knows it. Um, if the second they start moving toward us, praise, praise, praise, excitement, excitement, I'm Disneyland, right? We're not gonna do that forever. But while I'm trying to cement the behavior, yeah, I do, we use lots of energy. We still use a reward, right? If the dog ignores me because, oh, they can smell something out there, or they can see someone on the other side of the door, you know, at the training center when the door is open, something like that, then we make it very clear that's the wrong decision, right?

28:00 — For noncompliance, Kati describes repeating the command and increasing e-collar accountability rather than adding…

We repeat the command, we increase the accountability on the e-collar, and we don't have the party, we don't get excited, we don't bribe, we don't beg, we don't do any of that stuff.

I'm not gonna do jumping jacks to try to get you to come back to me. I hate that <laugh>. I'm not gonna bribe you. I'm not gonna do a bunch of gymnastics to try to get you to want to come back to me, okay? And we've, we've already established that the dog knows at this point what they're supposed to do, right? But if the dog makes the right choice, I will absolutely let them know. We will absolutely start to celebrate that immediately as soon as they commit to making the right choice. I'm not gonna stand there like lawn furniture until they get all the way to me.

I can do that down the road, but not while I'm actively trying to train a new thing, right? Or even if your dog is pretty good at recall, but you, you still struggle around heavy, like high distractions. Like maybe it's squirrels with your dog. The first time, the first few times you go out and you work around squirrels, make sure you're using that contrast even if your dog is an expert at home, inside, in your yard, or even somewhere else in a certain place, right? If you go somewhere that's new and exciting and, you know, like your dog's kryptonite is there, like the thing, the trigger that gets them, use your contrast, guys.

Be very clear about what's right and what's wrong, and don't wait until the whole repetition is over to do it. You gotta do it now in the moment, right? Yes, you're doing the right thing, yay. No, you're not doing the right thing. Accountability.

And during that whole process, because it is messy, the dog's on a long line, right? And I mean, that example was recall, but no matter what, no matter what you're doing, if it's holding a down, if it's walking in a heel, that leash is on. So you can give the guidance in addition to that contrast. But guys, that contrast is so important. Just waiting until the rep is over and then saying, "Good." No, that's for an advanced dog that's like very fluent and is done, right? Is there, um, and I'm even, usually I'm more expressive than that even with my dogs who, um, are trained, right?

But certainly during that process where you're trying to cement something new with your dog, like you don't wanna wait until they're done. They need that encouragement. Almost serves as your leash in a way, right? That encouragement is like the fuel until your dog can fuel themselves <laugh>, um, that's your guidance, right? You're less likely to have to grab that leash and yank your dog around and pull them and show them and spoon-feed them what to do. If you've got the energy, it'll do that for you.

32:00 — Kati describes owners maintaining identical tone and body language through mistakes, uncertainty, and successful…

And it's just so often in private lessons and even go-home lessons, sometimes it's like the dog will make a mistake and then the dog will be unsure after the mistake and then the dog will do it right, and the person sounds and looks exactly the same during the entire repetition. Um, but things aren't the same and we shouldn't seem the same. The consequences shouldn't be the same. The vibe we're giving off shouldn't be the same. So we do tell people to be pretty neutral in their "no" and their "good." Um, but that is mostly to avoid.

That's when the dog is holding position. And so we're trying to avoid creating more excitement than we should. When we're asking the dog to hold a position, we're asking the dog to do something hard while they're actively doing it. That's not when we really wanna have the party, right?

Unless we're talking about recall, 'cause the dog's running toward you, having a party is probably fine, right? But so an example is if I have a dog that has a really hard time heeling by reactive dogs like Drexler right now, and we go out and we come into contact with a reactive dog and we're heeling by and she's doing a good job. If I have a party right then, it's gonna throw her completely out of whack and she's probably gonna react to the other dog, right? So I'm gonna get her all aroused and then she's not gonna be able to do it.

So that's kind of the exception is while when, right, but coming to you when called, right? If they're actively running toward you, that's not hard. That's good. You want more energy, you want more enthusiasm, you want more speed, you want them coming to you, right? That's a good thing. But if you're walking by a reactive dog and you know that's a trigger, that's a hard thing. So you wanna save the party until the hard thing is behind you. But unless your dog is actively trying to avoid an impulse, right? I think that's the difference. If your dog is actively trying to avoid an impulse, like reacting to a dog, chasing a squirrel, then save the party until afterward.

Unless, again, we're talking about recall and the dog has already decided to run toward you, then you can have the party.

35:00 — Increasing excitement during heelwork near a trigger can disrupt the dog as the exercise…

But generally speaking, especially when it comes to that heel example, if you're walking toward a trigger and you're getting closer and closer, the difficulty is mounting and mounting and mounting. If you're like, like that's just gonna make your dog go right off the rails. But, um, recall is kind of a unique example because once the dog has committed to running toward you, a party can't make that go wrong, right? So more enthusiasm. Um, but when we're talking about just learning to hold the down position, even if there are distractions around and stuff, once they've completed it, and you've said "break," have the party.

Absolutely have the party. So what we see a lot is the dog will break their down, the person will say "no" and correct them, and then when they say the dog will get back into the down, right? And then when they break them, the dog will go, "Well, I don't know if I should," right? Because they're not experts yet. And so they're not sure. That's the moment. You need to use your energy to reassure your dog, "Yes, you're doing the right thing. It's okay to get up," right? Your dog starts to get up and then they lay back down.

If you see that, if you see that dog start to get up, yeah, good, right? Let 'em know and people don't, and the dog goes back down and then they don't get up and then they're not sure <laugh>.

So it's up to you to communicate. And one thing I've learned is people are not great communicators even with each other, nevermind with their dog. You can hear my pug over there gagging. Sorry, <laugh>. Um, my mics did die. So I'm just recording on my laptop, Mike, and hopefully it sounds okay. Hopefully it's not picking up the, um, p gagging in the, in the background <laugh>, but contrast, contrast, contrast, um, appropriately like, and, and then when the dog does make a mistake, a lot of folks aren't using enough accountability, right? The eco is too low.

Um, your dog isn't gonna get the picture right and they'll just do it over and over and over and over again and it doesn't improve. If it's not improving, guys, then your dog is telling you that it's probably too low, right? Unless you're just way off on like your timing and your, your sequence and like that sort of thing, it's probably just too low.

Um, the other possibility, if you have a super, super anxious dog, a really sensitive dog, they can get really nervous about things and get sticky. I call it sticky, where they wanna stick to you. Um, and it can get harder for them to do the commands. And so just turning it up in that case won't help, right? But that's also not super common. It does happen. We get those dogs. Um, so the answer isn't—my point is the answer isn't always more accountability, but we just see people stay very low, um, because they're nervous about it.

And if you, you stay low, again, you're being monotone, right? Your dog isn't hearing you, your dog isn't getting the memo, the brain isn't changing its decision because you just haven't given it a reason to.

And when you see your dog being uncertain, it's really, really important that you are clear about the right things and the wrong things. And that is gonna make your training so much better and so much more efficient. And don't forget, when we're talking about contrast, we're talking about first of all, things that really motivate the dog, both positive and negative: things they like, things they want to avoid, right? If you're just using a level on your e-collar that don't really notice it that much, they don't really care that much. Maybe it's a little annoying. Um, it's not gonna be real effective if you're using a reward.

Like if you're using food as a reward and your dog's not hungry, it's not gonna be that effective.

And what we find more than anything is that most dogs, uh, really are into their owners, um, like their owner's approval, like the praise. So that's a tool you have with most dogs, um, but not all. So really important that you're not married to something specific and that you just use what actually motivates the dog. And as you move into that messy middle phase, once your dog knows a command, they know the word, they know what they're supposed to be doing, really, really important that you use a mix, right? It's not gray, very clear energy, very clear right and wrong.

That doesn't mean you have to be mad either when the dog makes a mistake, right? It just means there's a message. Usually that message is physical because dogs understand that the best. And they find that actually less scary than yelling, right? So we just say no.

But the accountability goes up on the e-collar. And we also may use spatial pressure with our bodies, right? If you walk into a dog, that really sends them a message, right? If your dog is in a down and they break that down and I say no, and I turn on stim and I step into them, right? Like I stand up tall and I walk firmly toward the dog, like they're not even there. Like I'm gonna walk right into them. That really pushes them back and they normally go right back into their down, right? So that's a message with my energy, that's communication with my energy, with my body language.

41:00 — Kati describes combining withheld rewards, e-collar stimulation, body language, and spatial pressure to communicate…

We call that spatial pressure, right? But that's a clear message that you are doing the wrong thing. There are so many messages. Number one, there's no reward. Number two, there's stim on the e-collar. Number three, I'm sending a message with my energy and my body language, all that communication in that one moment to make it super clear: wrong decision.

Then when I break the dog and they start to get up, yeah, good job, right? Really, really clear food. Really, really clear. And that is how you facilitate fast associations. That's how you get really efficient with getting results. And by the way, just developing that line of communication with your dog, which is really nice. 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.