How’s That Workin’ For You? Why Balanced Dog Training Works
Kati discussing balanced dog training, and addresses a critical misconception in the dog training community. Specifically, the overreliance on positive reinforcement without incorporating necessary negative consequences.
Kati passionately critiques the prevalent dog training advice found online and on social media. She highlights how many popular trainers advocate solely for rewarding desired behaviors while neglecting to address unwanted actions effectively. She emphasizes that successful behavior modification requires a balanced approach. This includes both positive reinforcement and constructive consequences to motivate dogs to adopt and maintain desirable behaviors.
Through relatable analogies and real-life examples, such as handling dogs that jump on people or exhibit aggressive tendencies, Kati illustrates why simply redirecting or ignoring unwanted behaviors often falls short. She explains that without clear boundaries and consistent corrections, dogs may not fully understand which behaviors are unacceptable, leading to persistent issues despite ongoing training efforts.
Key topics covered in this episode include:
- The Limitations of Reward-Only Training: Understanding why rewards alone may not suffice in curbing undesirable behaviors.
- Incorporating Negative Consequences: How to effectively use meaningful and humane corrections to guide your dog’s actions.
- Debunking Common Myths: Challenging the notion that problematic behaviors indicate flaws in the dog or the owner.
- Comprehensive Behavior Modification Strategies: Combining positive and negative reinforcement to achieve lasting results.
- Genetics and Behavior: Recognizing the role of genetics in a dog’s behavior and learning capabilities.
Kati also shares insights on how to differentiate between various training methods. She stresses the importance of consistency and structure in shaping a well-behaved canine companion. She reassures listeners that with the right approach, most dogs can overcome challenging behaviors. There’s no inherent issue with the dog or the owner—only with incomplete training strategies.
Whether you’re struggling with a reactive dog, dealing with persistent bad habits, or seeking to enhance your training techniques, this episode provides invaluable guidance to help you achieve a harmonious and obedient relationship with your dog.
Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of effective dog training principles and learn how to implement a balanced approach that truly transforms your dog’s behavior.
You can purchase E-Collars through the Diamond K9 store. Visit E-Collar Technologies for more information about the collars themselves. Check out the course 10 Days to a Great Place for more information from Kati! You can also contact Kati Peppe.
Episode transcript
Read the full conversation below. Scroll through the transcript to follow along.
00:00 — Kati introduces the podcast and apologizes for poor audio caused by technical problems.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered Trigger Warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the Truth in Dog Training.
Speaker 2: So before we get started here, let me just take a moment and apologize for the audio quality, um, for this episode and at least one of our previous episodes. Maybe more, uh, we are having a technical issue, but I hope to have that resolved really soon. So hopefully bear with me. Um, and we'll get this, um, back on track. <laugh>. Sorry guys. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Off-Leash and Unfiltered. I am Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond Canine Dog Training here in Biddeford, Maine. We specialize in eco training for off-leash obedience and behavior modification.
Speaker 2: We also do puppy training. So that's what we do and this podcast is our way of just reaching more people, getting the information out there because it's so hard to find and the internet is full of lies. So, um, we're we're, we use this podcast to just talk about the same stuff that we're talking about with our hands on clients day in and day out.
Speaker 2: Um, if this is the stuff that they need, then probably this is the same stuff that a lot of other people need. And so this is just our way of, of getting that out there and sharing it with all of you. Um, so thanks for joining us today. Um, most people when they come to see us, most people when they come to see us, they need help with stopping behaviors that they don't like, stopping behaviors, that they want to go away. Uh, really, really common. Almost every dog, no matter how good they are, will have some stuff that you wish you could change.
Speaker 2: And so that's what we've, we find people need the most help with. Um, because not only is it super common for dogs to have behaviors that we don't like, but it's impossible to find the answers on the internet. You'll find answers, but they won't be right <laugh>.
Speaker 2: Okay? So you'll find lots of Google results that are wrong. You'll find lots of YouTube trainers that are wrong. Um, I mean, and I mean people that are popular with like massive social media following and their content is just crap. I mean, their answers are crap. Um, so most of them are going to tell you if your dog has a behavior that you don't like, that you should A, ignore it or B, redirect it or c teach the dog what you do want them to do. And let me tell you something, none of that will work.
03:00 — She criticizes popular trainers who recommend only ignoring or redirecting unwanted behaviors.
Speaker 2: It won't work none of it. And I'm super passionate about this and particularly charged up about it right now because even my own clients, like they'll go through a program and they'll achieve amazing results, but I'll still pick up on things that they say that indicate that they believe the only reason they had to do this stuff is because there's something wrong with their dog and there isn't.
Speaker 2: So it's really, really important to me that people understand that if you're one of those folks that has turned to the internet and popular social media trainers and Facebook groups and all this stuff, and you're being told to do the stuff I just described and you've been working on it and working on it and working on it and it's not working, I want you to hear me. If you hear nothing else I say, I want you to hear this. There's nothing wrong with your dog. There's nothing wrong with your dog. There's nothing wrong with you.
Speaker 2: That's normal. Normal <laugh>. Okay? And we're gonna talk about why. So if you want someone to be truly maximally motivated to behave a certain way, you need two things. Something they are working toward, something they would like to achieve and something they're working to avoid. So when you look at these search results or, or trainers who tell you just reward, reward, reward, reward, reward, you can see you only have half of the, the equation. You only have half of uh, the information, half of what you should be working with. You only have positive results, no negative results.
06:00 — Reward-only training provides positive outcomes but lacks consequences that discourage unwanted behavior.
Speaker 2: You only have rewards, things that the dog is working for and you don't have things that the dog should be working to avoid. This is a huge problem for a lot of reasons. Number one, let's just get this one out of the way. We're usually using food, right?
Speaker 2: And like a lot of dogs don't care about food. Like they could take it or leave it. So what do you do with those dogs? Nothing. They're gonna tell you to just keep that dog on a leash and manage it. And that's your problem. Keep, keep working on it. <laugh>, okay? Then you get a dog who's like, maybe they're motivated by food, but you get them out in the real world and around distractions and suddenly your food loses all kinds of value, right? Because the things they want in the environment are, they're very motivated for those things and comparatively with the food, especially if their stomach is full, the food goes down in value compared to this other stuff that they want, right?
Speaker 2: So the food goes out the window. So what do you do then? Well, I can tell you what their solution is and what it is is just keep your dog under threshold. So they'll tell you, well, you shouldn't be working with your dog over threshold. That's too much. Okay? Well guess what? The real world doesn't give a shit about my dog's threshold.
Speaker 2: Okay? So your dog is going to have to be able to contain themselves and listen to you above threshold. Because when you walk out that door and there's people and there's dogs and there's squirrels, they're not gonna go, oh look, it's so and so and their dog. We better stay 200 feet away lest we send the dog over their threshold. Nope, that's not how that works. So you're going to have to find a way to motivate your dog to listen and behave even when it's challenging, even when they're above threshold. How do you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, you can't, you can't do that. If you have a rewards only system, you can't do it because everything remains optional. Everything is still up to the dog. They can choose whichever one they like. And so they do. And then we get frustrated and discouraged because it's not working. And then they tell us, just keep working on it. You should be putting in more time. You should be further away from the stimuli, right? Your dog's overstimulated. You're over a threshold and just keep working on it. Well, you could work on it forever and it's not going to work.
Speaker 2: So, and again, that's normal. That's normal.
Speaker 2: So if you want a human analogy, I use this analogy a lot. Um, let's say I go to the doctor, my health check is bad. And let's say I'm a huge cake fan. I eat a lot of cake. Insert whatever pastry you want. And the doctor says Your cholesterol is high, your sugar's high, you're overweight, whatever. We don't want you to eat cake anymore. Like it's life or death. This, your blood work's not good. No more cake <laugh>, okay? They don't want me to eat cake anymore. And the solution to this is to teach me to eat broccoli.
Speaker 2: 'cause that's way better than cake <laugh>, right? Um, which is ridiculous 'cause I know how to eat broccoli. But let's just say I didn't, let's say I've never heard of broccoli. I don't know where to find it. I don't know how to prepare it. Okay? So they show me where to get it, how to prepare it, how to enjoy some broccoli. That's it, right? That's all we should need to do.
10:00 — Using broccoli and cake, she illustrates why knowing the desired behavior is insufficient without…
Speaker 2: No. Well, why not? Because that's what all these trainers say. That's what they all say. You can look at 'em. They got 50,000, a hundred thousand followers. They're just eating this shit up and it's lies people. Okay? So why isn't that gonna work? Well, it's not gonna work because I prefer cake to broccoli, okay? So when I want cake, I'm just gonna have cake, even though I know how to eat broccoli. Common sense right? Now, let's just say they're rewarding me for eating broccoli. Like maybe they pay me a little bit every time I eat broccoli.
Speaker 2: <laugh>, probably not, right? That'd be nice. Um, but let's just say, okay, great, I probably will eat more broccoli. That's true.
Speaker 2: However, if I'm craving a piece of cake, I'm probably gonna say, screw the broccoli, screw the $5. I want a piece cake. That's normal. That's how this stuff works. Now, because I'm a human, I actually have an understanding of the long-term consequences of my actions, right? So if someone tells me, Hey, if you keep eating cake, it's going to kill you. I might choose to eat broccoli instead of cake because I want to avoid the negative consequences of eating the cake, right? Or if somebody was gonna hop out of the bushes and like pinch me really hard <laugh>, like maybe then that would be enough.
Speaker 2: But regardless if I have a reason to avoid eating cake because there's a negative consequence attached to that behavior, now we're cooking with gas. Okay? So just teaching an alternative behavior doesn't do anything guys. It doesn't do anything. Sure it gives your dog a different behavior they can do, but there's just no fucking reason for them to do that, and that's normal. So until you have real rules, real boundaries, real consequences, it just doesn't change. Not because there's anything wrong with your dog, just those are just basic principles of behavior and they apply not only to your dog and not only to kids, because lots of people like to say, oh, it's just like kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure it is. But you know what, it's just like you and me. It's just like anybody. So you can actually think this stuff through and put yourself in scenarios and think about positive and negative consequences and why you make the decisions you do. And it all starts to make a ton of sense.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you can think of things that you don't do that you would like to do, and the reason you don't do them is because of the negative consequence attached to it. And vice versa. I'm sure you do things that you don't feel like doing, right? And you do them m because there's a negative consequence that you can't tolerate if you don't. So that's normal. Um, right? I go through four years of secondary education or eight years or 10 years, not necessarily because I love it, right? But in that case, there's something you want, there's something you're motivated for, but there's also probably something you're working to avoid, right?
Speaker 2: I don't wanna be lost, I don't want to be floating through life. I want to have direction, I want to be financially secure. Like there's things you're working toward and things you're working to avoid.
Speaker 2: I don't want my kids to grow up the way I grew up. I don't want whatever it is, right? If you have both, then you're much more likely to achieve your goals. And chances are, if you've achieved anything great in your life, you can look at it and you go, oh yeah, it did have both. It did have both. So that's just how the cookie crumbles, guys. Um, don't let it fool you. I know these people dominate the internet, um, but it's just not real. It's just not real. So a hundred percent teach your dog what you want them to do, but at the end of the day, you have to tell them what you don't want them to do.
Speaker 2: And most people wanna start with showing their dog what to do, what to do, what to do. I don't recommend that. It's like, take the behavior you don't like guys and just knock it out, okay?
Speaker 2: So when your dog does that behavior, mark it with a no immediately. And then after you say no, that's important. After you say no, provide a negative consequence that's meaningful to the dog, can be anything, as long as it's not harmful in any way, provide a consequence that's meaningful to the dog. And once you've eliminated that behavior shouldn't take long. By the way, most dogs, if you're, if you are delivering a proper punishment for that behavior, you won't need to do it more than a few times in most cases. And then you can cement the new behavior, right?
16:00 — Kati recommends marking unwanted behavior with “no” and immediately applying a humane, meaningful consequence.
Speaker 2: So if you want your dog to do something else, you can start patterning that and cementing that. But the truth is, most of the time we don't care what our dog is doing. We just don't want them to be a jerk. We don't want them barking at people. We don't want them jumping all over people. We don't want them chewing things, right? So almost everybody that doesn't want their dog to jump on people, does the sit, sit, sit, right? And the truth is, no one gives a shit if the dog is sitting. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: We just don't want them jumping all over people. So just tell your dog not to jump on people. And then if you want to pattern a sit after that, you can, but you probably won't because it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. So just as important as correcting the old behavior, the bad behavior is cementing the new behavior. You don't have to do anything special for that. It's just repetition, repetition, repetition, and be there to give the dog feedback if they need it, good, bad, give them help if there's something they need help with, right?
Speaker 2: But first you get that bad behavior knocked out. And once your dog is choosing not to do that, then you just practice that over and over and over again until it becomes natural and easy for the dog and it usually will. Now, there are some dogs that are gonna have some behaviors that are very, very challenging to inhibit or even impossible to inhibit, but that's pretty rare, guys. That's pretty rare. 99% of the time that's not gonna be your case. Some people are in that boat with their dog. But what I find is most people think they're in that boat with their dog and they're nowhere near, they're nowhere near.
Speaker 2: So yes, I've met a few dogs that, um, it was extremely challenging to inhibit the behavior we wanted to inhibit. It was extremely difficult to stop them from doing the things we didn't want them to do. But it's extremely rare, extremely rare. So genetics do play a role in all of this. Genetics determine what behaviors your dog is prone to. It also determines your dog's ability to learn, your dog's ability to inhibit behaviors and form inhibitions. Um, genetics matter. They play a role, but it's very, very rare that you have a dog that just won't respond to punishment.
19:00 — Genetics influence behavioral tendencies and learning challenges, but they do not mean the dog…
Speaker 2: And you know, the fact is, if you do it right, you don't have to do it very much and it goes away because things are just better. And isn't that what we all want, <laugh>? That's it guys. But let your one takeaway from today be that you have to give your dog both pieces of information, what you don't want and what you do want. And, uh, there's nothing wrong with you or your dog. <laugh>. Okay guys, thank you for joining me today and I look forward to the next one.