Does your Dog Discriminate? You Betcha!

00:00 — Kati introduces why dogs may perform reliably with their owner but appear confused when…

Have you ever wondered why you can teach your dog a behavior and they do it so well? And then you go to show it to somebody and your dog acts completely brain dead, like they have totally amnesia and they have no idea what you're talking about. You just get a blank stare <laugh>. Or maybe you've taught your dog that certain behaviors are not acceptable, um, and you've provided a consequence for that, but then they do it again and you can't understand why and it drives you nuts. Well, you're not alone and we are gonna explain all of that to you today.

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered Trigger Warning. I'm Kati Peppe delivering the Truth in dog training.

So I just want to go ahead and apologize right now that the audio quality on this podcast is so poor, and I know it's not the first one. I forgot to plug in my microphone. Rookie mistake. Um, so I apologize. The next one will be better, I promise you. Um, but as a side note, um, it's very punishing 'cause <laugh>, I've recorded this podcast now three times, um, and I just realized that I didn't have my microphone plugged in and I am ready to stab myself in the eyeballs, really. So, uh, very, very punishing, which is good because that means I won't forget next time because that's how that works.

<laugh>. All right guys, I hope you enjoy the episode.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. I'm Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond Canine Dog Training here in Biddeford, Maine. We specialize in eco training, both for off-leash obedience and behavior modification. So helping people stop all of those unwanted behaviors like barking and jumping and more serious stuff like leash reactivity, resource guarding, separation issues, uh, even fearfulness and all that stuff. Uh, and we also do puppy training. So that's who we are and what we do. And this podcast is brought to you as our way of sharing everything we know, everything we see, say, and do everything we talk about with our customers, with you guys, so that the information is there for those that are looking for it.

A lot of this information is very, very hard to find, uh, because the internet is just full of garbage and lies <laugh>.

And so we're very, very passionate about being open and being honest and talking about the truth every day. Um, and unfortunately, uh, there is a culture right now that just has a really infantile sort of philosophy on life and infantile word worldview. And you know, it's thought that corrections are bad and punishment is bad. And the fact is those things are a hundred percent healthy and necessary, uh, for behavior to take shape in a functional manner. So if you're going to function properly in society, there does need to be negative consequences attached to behaviors, right?

03:00 — She argues that corrections and punishment are normal, healthy tools for preventing chaotic behavior.

The, I'm sure you can think of a bazillion things that if you did, there would be a negative consequence for that. And there might be things we wanna do that we don't do, and that's why we don't, it's because we wouldn't be able to tolerate the consequence that would then follow.

Um, so that is normal and healthy and without that you have chaos, right? Complete chaos. Uh, but anyway, let's dive in without further ado. So I wanna talk today a little bit about how your dog learns, because we can go over and I have lots of videos on how to teach behaviors, um, right? If you go to our Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, that sort of thing, all kinds of videos on how to build obedience behaviors. And we will talk about that super, super briefly. Obviously, this isn't the right place for me to teach you how to teach a behavior with your dog.

You're better suited to watch a video where I'm actually working with a dog. Makes, makes a little sense. Um, but if you understand how your dog makes associations, then you can be very successful taking that knowledge and applying it in any scenario, really.

Uh, so knowledge is power, so you need to understand how that's happening. But even more importantly, on the backside of that, you need to understand what needs to happen for those associations to stick. And I have a really funny story about my own dog that, and I love telling the story. I tell it to my customers. You know, it's funny 'cause most dog trainers, I think they want <laugh>. They want people to think that like their dog is like perfect and really well trained and super well behaved and my dog is well trained. Um, um, but you know, it's embarrassing to tell people that your dog ever does anything wrong.

But they're dogs, man. Like they're, they're dogs, right? They're not robots and we don't want them to be robots. I hear that all the time. Of course not nobody wants their dog to be a robot, but that means occasionally <laugh> or more frequently your dog is gonna do things that you don't like, right?

But it's a hilarious story. Um, and I really, um, it will really sum up what we're gonna talk about, really illustrate what we're gonna discuss <laugh> today. So anyways, let's just briefly talk about, I don't like to spend a lot of time on like the boring technical stuff, but let's just briefly talk about how your dog learns, right? So your dog learns through associations, basically they learn through patterns, right? So you have to think when you're thinking about how do I teach my dog pattern, how do I get them to make the association I want them to make?

06:00 — Kati explains that dogs learn through associations, using Pavlov’s bell-and-food conditioning as the central…

Think of things as predictors. So if you've ever heard of Pavlov and Pavlov's dogs where he basically conditioned to the dogs when they heard a bell ring to salivate, right? And he did that by attaching the bell, the sound of the bell to the act of getting food.

And so after enough conditioning, after enough repetition, you could remove the food. And when you ring the bell, the dogs would salivate. Whereas obviously before all of that conditioning, if you rang the bell, the dogs would not salivate because there was no association made. So it illustrates really well how to make an association. So when you think about that process, the first thing that happened was the bell rang and then food was introduced. Now that's really important, right? So, so far this sounds like, well, duh, but you, when you really think about it, if he rang the bell while he was introducing the food, right?

If the food appeared actually before the bell rang, that association probably wouldn't have been made. So the order of operations is actually really, really important. And that is the reason why when we are teaching a command, we don't say the word right away.

Like that's part of the reason we teach the dog the behavior first. And then we start saying the word. Okay? So let me back up. That sounds really confusing. When we're teaching a behavior, once we get to the point where we wanna teach the dog a word, okay? So say, I wanna teach my dog sit, I am gonna say the word sit, but I'm not doing anything. I'm not showing them food, I'm not moving, I'm not pulling on their leash, I'm not doing anything. I'm just saying the word said, right? Because that has to be the first.

If I'm trying to make an association with that word, then that word needs to stand alone without anything else really going on so that they actually hear it and then we can show them what that predicts. Okay? Again, think about predictions. So we say the word fit, then once we're completely done saying the word, it has landed on their ears and they heard it.

Now we can come into the second step with the predicted behavior and get them to sit right? Because just saying it isn't gonna get them to do it, they dunno what it means yet. It's like talking to someone that speaks a different language. You can say it as many times as you want to and as slowly as you want to, doesn't mean anything. So we say the word, we say it once, and then after that we're going to get the behavior of sitting, right? It might be holding food over their head, it might be pulling up gently on their leash.

It might be stepping into them with our body language. Um, but whatever we have to do to get them to do the behavior. So now we have the words sit predicts, but on the floor, right? And then we can get into markers too, where it's like the second the dog puts the butt on the floor, we say yes.

And then that predicts a food reward. And ideally, again, I don't want this to turn into a long technical discussion about obedience training. We have videos for that. But ideally, you've already conditioned the dog just like Pavlov and his bell that yes predicts food, yes, predicts food. I actually prefer to use a clicker instead of the word yes. But a lot of people just use the word yes and that's fine. So yes means food, right? So you teach sit then behavior as soon as you get the behavior. Yes. And then that predicts food, right? So it's all just a series of predictions, right?

10:00 — A conditioned “yes” or clicker predicts food, giving the dog a clear reward marker.

And so you can get your dog to make as many associations really as you want them to, to be effective. Okay? All that being said, that's like the basic, basic outline of your dog making associations, right? So timing is important, right? Once your dog makes an association, you can actually increase the amount of time in between the initial predictor and then the thing that it predicts. For instance, like we said, yes, predicts food, right? In the beginning, we're gonna do yes food, yes food. Um, but you can actually stretch that out. And so now you can say yes, can wait a few seconds, give food, say yes, wait a few more seconds, give food, right?

And so your dog can absolutely learn that yes, predicts food even if it's gonna be a while before it comes.

Um,

So making associations is actually what we're doing when we're teaching an obedience command. We're attaching a word to a behavior and we're attaching the execution of that behavior to a reward. Uh, which sounds really simple, but most people aren't really efficient with that process because they don't understand the importance of, uh, timing. So, and for instance, when we say sit, we shouldn't be already holding the food over the dog's head, right? It has to be one thing, predicts another, predicts another. You can't do them together. You won't get the same associations. Your training will take much, much longer.

Um, so you have to look at your sequence and make sure you're actually slowing yourself down and you're taking it one step at a time. So your dog can clearly hook A to B2C to D, really, really important. Um, but watch some videos so you can get a better idea about, you know, if you're trying to teach your dog some new behaviors so you can get an idea about, uh, exactly what it should look like.

So you can see hands on how that sequence operates and how the dogs are making those associations. Um, but even once your dog makes that association, you're not necessarily done, right? Because now we have a thing called generalization. And generalization basically means your dog has the ability to learn that things only mean things in certain contexts. And so if you're only doing, for instance, let's just take the sit, uh, scenario that we just talked about. If you're only doing that in your living room when you're alone, well it might not look the same when you're in your living room and your family is there.

It might not look the same when you go out in the front yard. It almost certainly won't <laugh>. It might not look the same when you go out to the park, um, or to a busy store again, it almost certainly won't, right? Number one, because yes, it's harder, but number two, none of that stuff has been part of the picture. So your dog is taking a picture of everything when they're learning patterns and their learning associations, they're taking a snapshot of everything's going on. And so if you change even just one thing in the environment, it can alter the behavior, it can alter the association.

14:00 — Dogs struggle in unfamiliar rooms, stores, or parks because those settings were absent from…

Uh, and so that's why we, it takes a little bit of time to do obedience training. That's actually why it's harder to build up a new behavior versus eliminate a behavior which is pretty simple. So number one, you're asking the dog to learn to do something which is harder than not doing something. But then you're teaching the dog that they to learn that that is the case in every scenario. When I say this word, I want this behavior. You have to go through the trouble. Excuse me. You have to go through the trouble of making sure your dog knows that association should be the same in every environment, whether it's light, whether it's dark, whether we're alone, whether there are people, whether there are other dogs, whether we're outside.

So you need to, to put in those reps to make sure your dog sees that same exact A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D in a variety of context. So they start to generalize it, generalize it so they know. Yep. It is always this word followed by that behavior. Um, and that takes wraps. Um, and then, you know, the generalization piece leads us into our discussion about discrimination.

So like I said, your dog is taking a snapshot of everything that's happening around them. So they learn the pattern in every context. Okay? So let's just say that you are the type to feel a little bit self-conscious about correcting your dog. Actually, before we talk about that, let's just back up a little bit and talk about, um, eliminating behaviors. Let's talk about punishment. 'cause we've been talking about reward and uh, building associations to build new behaviors, to build obedience behaviors. Let's talk a little bit about stopping behaviors. It's much, much simpler. It's usually much faster, which again blows people away because they feel like stopping behaviors is so difficult.

It's not, not usually, um, building behaviors is much, much more complicated. So we just talked about all the generalization that needs to take place, place. Um, and you know, there's a lot we didn't go into about getting your dog to do the behaviors because they don't know what you want.

Um, when it comes to eliminating behaviors, there's really not a lot of training that needs to happen. It's just an association, right? There's this behavior your dog does and you're just gonna attach that to something negative so that it becomes really uncomfortable to do that behavior and then they just don't do it anymore, right? So we're not asking them to do anything fancy and that's why it's so much easier. We're just making the behavior uncomfortable. Behavior goes away. Um, so both with, uh, reward consequences, right? You should have a marker. We talked about using the marker of yes.

And the timing of that needs to be really good. As soon as your dog does the behavior, you use that marker and then you follow that with your reward. Same thing with unwanted behaviors. Your dog is gonna do something you don't like. Let's say they run up to someone and they jump on them.

In that moment, you're going to use a marker. Your marker's probably gonna be, no, it can be anything you want, by the way, it doesn't matter. Um, but we use the word no. Most people use the word no. So dog jumps up, we say no and then we follow that no with a punishment, right? So usually that's going to be, um, a higher stimulation on an e-collar. But it could also be a good firm leash pop. If your dog has a leash on, it could be, uh, a bon for the rolled up towel, right? So rolled up cotton towel, you say no, and then you take the towel and you go and you bonk the dog right on the head.

Uh, it won't hurt them, it's the towel. Um, but you need to do it very firmly, right? And so, uh, different dogs respond differently to different things, right?

You should do whatever is the most effective for you and your dog. Uh, but ultimately at the end of the day, you can get creative with it. As long as we're not causing any harm to the dog. Um, and it's effective and it reaches the end goal of behavior eliminated, that's all that matters. Nothing else matters. Uh, some people use noisemakers spray bottles. I don't really like that stuff because my experience has been that um, you know, a lot of times you have to do it a few times, which is okay, but then the dog just starts to blow it off 'cause they don't care about it that much.

They go, oh, it's just a noise doesn't do anything.

19:00 — She warns against overlapping “no” and the correction because unclear timing prevents the dog…

And so that's not super effective. Um, long term it actually eliminating the behavior. But so the timing of your marker, right? No, as soon as the dog does the behavior or is about to do the behavior, and then you again follow that with a correction, you don't do them at the same time because your dog needs to clearly see a prediction. They need to clearly see, I heard no when I did this behavior and I know that no is attached to a punishment, which is then coming, right? So it has to be one and then two, they can't happen together.

Um, that's much less effective. Okay?

Now, discrimination <laugh>, this is where my funny story will come in. But because the dog is taking a snapshot of everything that's going on, they will learn when things don't apply. They will learn when you don't follow through, they will learn when that behavior isn't expected. They will learn when there is no correction for bad behaviors. So we just talked a little bit about the correction process. Let's say that you are the type to feel a little bit, um, self-conscious about correcting your dog or maybe just in front of certain people, right? So maybe it's your mother <laugh>, let's just say it's your mother, um, that just thinks it's so mean that you correct your dog for doing his monkey business.

And so when your mother comes over, you tend not to correct the dog. Well, guess what? Your dog's gonna figure that out real fast. And so you may very well have a dog that's well trained and well behaved and everything's going swimmingly. And then when your mother comes over, suddenly your dog turns into a real jerk. Um, and that is normal, right? Because your dog has experienced that things are different. So he saw that same snapshot with you and that there's accountability for certain behaviors. But then when your mother comes over, he's experienced that, that accountability isn't there anymore.

So your dog isn't trying to be a jerk. Your dog is just doing what they've learned. He's, they're literally doing what you have taught them to do.

Um, that is just reality, right? So people will tell me, like if we're having discussions about this stuff, they will tell me what they think they've done and what they think has happened and what they think their dog has learned or knows. But the dog will tell the truth, right? So if you tell me that your dog starts acting up and like getting into the garbage or something when your mother comes over, then I know that it's 'cause he is not getting corrected in that situation. So he has made that discrimination. Um, there's a very good trainer out there who, uh, Gary Wilkes, who if you don't follow him, you should follow him on social media, you will learn a ton.

22:00 — Kati uses Gary Wilkes’s door example to show that ignored boundary violations can undermine…

And he actually made a post one time about, um, a client he had where they taught the dog, uh, when the door was open that he cannot go through the door, right?

There will be a negative consequence for going through the door unless the doorstopper is faced in the other direction. And then it is okay to go through the door. So your dog can absolutely make those associations, um, if you're willing to put in the work, the time, the effort, and the consistency, right? So we don't often do things like that mostly because it is a lot of effort and it is a lot of consistency and people's lives are just busy and chaotic. And you know, if you're gonna have the door open and you're gonna have the door stop facing in the direction where the dog can't go through the door, then you need to address it.

If they do, and you need to correct that dog meaningfully if they do, otherwise, the whole thing's just gonna go down the drain <laugh>. So, um, but I thought that that one was a pretty cool one and a really good example of how your dog is taking a picture of everything that's going on.

And so if you change one thing and you're willing to put in enough reps to show them that pattern, that prediction, um, they'll learn it. They'll learn it. So pretty cool stuff. Um, but back to discrimination. So funny story about my own dog. He likes to eat the cat food. Um, and it's funny 'cause this is a story about my mother. Uh, so my mother is the type that will put the cat food when she comes over, she'll put the cat food, you know, up on the counter or you know, on the pellet stove or something, um, so that the dog can get it.

And I'm just, we don't do that at my house. The cat food belongs on the floor. I'm not gonna hide the cat food. I'm going to teach the dog to stay out of the cat food. So I've done that, okay?

If I'm home, my dog will not touch the cat food. It can sit on the floor and he can roam freely. He won't touch it. The next step was I taught my dog that when I leave, he still can't touch the cat food, right? So I hid outside in my mudroom, I set up some cameras, I have a little baby monitor, and uh, sure enough, I opened up a nice fresh can. I went and hid out in the mudroom. And the second he was about to get into that cat food, um, I gave him a very, very high correction on his eco.

And I made that cat bowl very, very hot. And I just wanna point out real quickly for a second here, that that's important. Okay? If you want something to stick when you are not around, you better make it special, okay? You better make it really, really meaningful.

Um, because here's the thing, if you don't, okay, if you come in just high enough, alright, great, fine, do whatever you want. But at some point your dog is gonna give that another go again. They're gonna give that another try and they're gonna find out they can still just eat it, right? And so it's not gonna work. What's gonna happen, even if it works for a little bit, it's not gonna stick. So if you want something to truly stick needs to be more meaningful, right? And I mean, that's true across the board, right? The more meaningful the consequences are, the more valuable they are, whether we're talking positive or negative, the more likely that thing is to stick, okay?

Um, so, but especially like if we're talking about something that we want to stick when we're not around, right? So when your dog gives it another go, you know, you're not gonna be there to see it.

Um, so it's really, really important to have a very meaningful consequence for those kinds of things. So like counter surfing, getting into the garbage, those are things we really set up to happen when we're not around. And we use really, really high consequences. Um, because also those are things that could be dangerous too. So, um, you know, could save your dog's life. But we want that to stick and we know there's a chance we might not be around when the dog does it. So we need to make it count. Alright? So I head out in the mudroom and I made the cap bowl really, really hot and uh, it worked, right?

26:00 — She says unattended behaviors require memorable consequences because the owner may not be present…

He ran away from the cap and now I can leave him roaming for eight hours in the house by himself when I'm not around. And he doesn't touch the cap food guys. Um, still to this day.

So, but by the way, and just as another side note, I didn't trust him after one time, right? I set it up a few more times just to see what he would do. Um, and it stuck. And I recommend, you know, even once you know, you can trust them still, just periodically set it up and check, right? Just periodically set it up and make sure that the behavior's not thinking about regenerating. Um, but I can leave him home alone all day. He doesn't touch the cat food and that's great. But if my mother is there, right?

'cause my mom will come over and she helps us out a lot and I really appreciate it, mom. But <laugh>, uh, you know, and she'll come over to spend time with, uh, my daughter, her granddaughter, and, and it's great. But when she's there, you know, if I leave, if I have to go to work and she's there, the dog just eats cat food <laugh>.

So it blows people away because I can leave him alone in the house for eight hours. Literally, he can roam around and walk by that cat food a hundred times and he doesn't even think about eating it. Um, but if my mom is there by herself, it's the first thing he'll do. He'll go over there and eat the cat food. Um, but there's really no mystery in that at all if you understand how associations and patterns work, right? So it's not the dog trying to be a jerk, he's just doing what we've taught him. So <laugh>, he's just learned that when my mom's, there's like, yeah, kick back.

It's a free for all because my mom's not gonna, she's not gonna do anything. She's not gonna correct him for that stuff. And so, I mean, we've now had a discussion about that, and I can't make her hold him accountable, but then he needs to be in his kennel and she's there because, uh, i, I just, that intolerable.

So, um, but that's just the pattern that he's been presented with. Nothing more, nothing less. So people tend to read into this stuff. They tend to be blown away that the dog is so smart or such a jerk, or it's like no, plain and simple. This is just the pattern that is the truth, right? So the dog, again, the dog always tells the truth. And the truth in my dog's case is he can't eat the cat food when I'm there. He can't eat the cat food when he is alone, but he can eat the cat food when she's there and I'm not.

And he just knows. So your dog will discover these patterns. They will make discriminations if there are certain times, uh, where there's no accountability, you can fully expect your dog to take advantage of that. Um, because that's just normal.

It's just normal. Your dog, again, is the master at discovering whatever the pattern is. And so for that reason, like if you are the type, and I'm not by the way, I, I will light my dog up like the 4th of July with my mother there. It doesn't matter, but it's when I'm gone and she's there and that's when he's learned that there's no accountability. And he'll be a total monkey too. He'll steal stuff out of the laundry. I mean, the first time she told me this, I'm like, are you sure you're talking about my dog <laugh>?

I like, I couldn't even believe it. Um, I mean, I could believe it because nothing surprises me. But, um, it's just, I I, it doesn't even occur to me that that stuff could happen because I just never see it. Never ever, ever.

But so if you are the type to feel like if you're struggling with feeling judged, with feeling criticized, if you are self-conscious about providing accountability for your dog for behaviors that you don't want to be part of their repertoire, it really pays to be aware of that. And yeah, I'd like to say, you know, work on that and do better. Um, but easier said than done. And some people, some people never will. So the other thing you can do is to at least be aware of that, right? So you don't put your dog in those situations and you don't give them the opportunity, um, to find out that pattern or to rehearse those behaviors, right?

So if I don't feel comfortable correcting my dog in front of people or in front of a certain person, uh, and I know they have behaviors that they're gonna do that I don't like, then I'm just not gonna put my dog in that situation, right? If I'm not comfortable shocking my dog in front of Aunt Lulu, then I guess I'm never gonna do anything with my dog and Aunt Lulu <laugh>.

Um, you know, and that's too bad to let people dictate that. But I think at the very least, um, if you're just not there yet and you're not comfortable with certain things for some reason in certain environments around certain folks, then just don't put your dog in that position. Don't put yourself in that position, um, where you're struggling with what to do, right? Because it's just miserable. Like you're trying to teach your dog certain things and or not to do certain things and to be well behaved and to be the dog you want. And you were so excited about it, right?

When you started out and you thought, oh, I'm gonna teach my dog all this stuff and he's gonna be so well behaved and it's gonna be so great and I'm gonna be able to take him anywhere. And then you're in this position where you're uncomfortable and you're stressed and you can see your dog starting to act up and you're having the social dynamic that you don't like and you're trying to control your dog's behavior with the leash.

32:30 — Kati concludes that dogs follow learned patterns rather than acting maliciously, so owners must…

Or like, you're trying not to say anything to offend anybody and who wants to do that? Like, I don't wanna do that, right? And I mean, granted, I'm the type to just tell people to go screw. But it's like, if you are not, or if you're with certain people, maybe you're not, um, then just don't, don't put yourself in that position because your dog will see that pattern and it will just serve to frustrate both of you more, um, over the long haul, right? Because you can't eradicate and eliminate a behavior that you're gonna allow the dog to do sometimes.

Like that behavior's gonna stay in their repertoire. Um, and they're just gonna know, they're gonna know that they can still do it. Um, and that's just not helpful. It's not helpful to you, it's not helpful to them. Um, it only serves to muddy the waters. And who wants that? No one wants that. But I thought that that story, um, would be good to share because people find it absolutely mind boggling. Um, but again, it's really not when you think about how dogs learn, he's just telling me these are the associations, these are the predictions. Um, and the dog will tell the truth every single time.

That's for thanks for joining me and I look forward to.