If My Dog Responds To ‘No’, Do I Still Need To Correct Them?

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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. Uh, little late getting this one to you as I have been lately. Um, I'm tired <laugh>, so to be completely honest, I'm just really freaking tired.

01:00 — Kati reports an influx of puppies after restructuring her training programs.

Um, but things are going well enough and, uh, yeah, we got lots going on, tons of puppies all of a sudden, which is so weird because of the way I restructured our, our programs and all of a sudden all the puppies just came flooding in.

So Tiki just went home. We have Phoebe right now who's super adorable, little Corgi, and we have a puppy coming in this morning in about an hour and a half. So as soon as I'm done recording this, Cora will be here. So yeah, having fun with the puppies right now, which, you know, puppies, it can go either way because sometimes they don't sleep through the night. Sometimes they have a lot of accidents, sometimes they're super fussy and have major FOMO and it can be really hard to settle a puppy. Uh, most of them we manage to get it done, you know, like eight or nine outta 10, but you know, like 10% of puppies or so, it's like you just can't get them to settle.

And it's so hard when that happens. Um, so yeah, it goes both ways. But they're super fun. They're super cute, right?

They learn wicked fast, they're usually food motivated, all those things. So, um, it's a double-edged sword with a puppy <laugh> most of the time. Um, but we love them. So today we're gonna talk about the things we find ourselves talking about over and over and over again. So these are the conversations that we just find ourselves having time and time when we are with our clients. And I gotta tell you, that's one of my favorite pieces of the job, guys, is when we're doing a private lesson, we're doing a go-home lesson and we're having those conversations with the owners.

That's probably what I really love the most. I mean, sure, I love getting like the updates from them and hearing how wonderful their dogs are doing and seeing the pictures and the videos. Um, and that's super, super gratifying. But as far as the work goes and the job, um, having the conversation with the people and like, especially when you see them have like the aha moment, right?

And you see the light bulb go off and they're like, oh, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Um, a lot of that. And, uh, we, we have just so many great conversations with people around their dogs and around behavior and around, um, all the training that we do. And those are some of my favorite pieces of the job. So it's easy for me to sit and think about all the stuff I've talked about this week with our, with our people. And I had someone pick a dog up from boarding the other day, um, and we were talking about jumping, and their dog is doing absolutely incredible.

But sometimes if you talk to people enough, you'll find out that there's actually still some small things here and there, um, that they don't actually have as good of a handle on as you might have thought.

04:00 — A client's dog performs well off leash, but greetings with people raise a jumping…

And so that was the case here where the dog's doing absolutely incredible, can go anywhere with them off leash. I mean, it's amazing, but people wanna pet their dog. And if you know me, you know, that's not something I do. People wanna pet my dog? Too bad. They don't need to pet my dog. Um, number one because of all of the liability. Number two, because I don't wanna pattern all that excitement when we see people. Number three, why <laugh>? It's not your dog. My dog isn't here for you. Like, I'm just trying to go somewhere with my dog.

No, I don't wanna stop and have everybody petting my dog. Like, to me—and I used to be in that camp—to me, it's just silly. It's like, no, just like if I go out with a baby, I don't want people stopping to touch my baby, right?

I go out with my new car. I don't want people touching my car. Like it, you, you can insert anything in that, in that blank space, okay? Um, it's like, it's just kind of weird, honestly. Now is how I feel about it. Uh, and I realize I don't have a lot of company <laugh> in that camp. Um, and I wasn't always in that camp, but now that I've been immersed in this for so long, to me it just seems like my dog is like a family member, right? And we're going out somewhere together and to have just total randos be like, hey, can I touch your dog?

No <laugh>, no, you can't touch my dog. Like, why? I don't know you, you don't know me. You don't need to touch my dog. Uh, but anyways, I'm getting off on a rant as I do, um, <laugh>. So anyway, they do it right and fine, they have a very social dog who enjoys the attention, who likes saying hi to people.

So, you know, if they wanna do that, they're not, more power to 'em. Um, but the problem is he will still get so excited when they say yes that he jumps on people sometimes. And so the question was like, or basically she told me her process was that she would ask her dog to lay down and hold a down. And there's a few problems with that. Number one, you're going to have to correct your dog for breaking that down, right? So if you just tell your dog to lay down and then he gets up, which I have to assume that he does, right?

Because if he's so excited, he is jumping on people, there's no way he's gonna hold his down. If you tell your dog to lay down and then he gets excited and gets up, well now you have to punish that behavior, right? You have to correct breaking that down. And most people aren't going to do that, right? And I could go off on another tangent about how bad people are at correcting their dogs for not listening. Um, but I'm gonna try not to do that <laugh> this time around. Um, in that situation at least most people aren't going to do that.

So you're shooting yourself in the foot.

So that's not great. Now, if you wanna have your dog hold a down, fine, but then you need to actually enforce it. Okay? The other, and probably the bigger problem with it is we're trying to avoid the conversation that actually needs to happen. So you hear me say this all the time, you cannot use commands to fix a problem or to fix an unwanted behavior or to avoid an unwanted behavior. You cannot do that, okay? If your dog jumps on people and you don't want them to, I gotta include that clause, 'cause some people want them to.

08:00 — Kati recommends addressing jumping directly rather than relying on sit or down commands during…

Um, then you need to have that conversation where your dog makes the choice to jump and you say no, and you provide a proper correction for the jumping.

Otherwise, if you are gonna rely on having your dog sit, having your dog lay down, it's like, okay, so your dog's never going to be able to stand up around people. Doesn't sound great to me. So you can't avoid that conversation. It has to happen, right? So one is a wanted behavior like sitting or laying down, and one is an unwanted behavior: don't jump. And they can both be true. You can use them both, right? But trying to avoid the no jumping conversation will only result in you having a dog that still jumps. So because you're choosing to leave that behavior intact in the brain, you're not doing anything to say, "Hey brain, that's a bad choice."

Do something else, right? Because the fact is, most people don't give a shit if their dog is sitting when they greet people. We don't care if the dog is laying down. Those things don't actually matter. What they really want is for the dog not to jump.

So do that. Forget about the other stuff. Humans tend to way overcomplicate it, and it's all in an effort to avoid a correction. And like I said, it, it's not even gonna matter, right? Because your dog's gonna break the sit, they're gonna break the down and you're still gonna have to correct them, right? So this is how people end up in a spiral, in a cycle. And we just go around and around and around and nothing ever changes. We're just on this racetrack. Sit, lay down, sit, lay down, sit, lay down. Uh, don't jump, get down, off, sit, lay down.

It's like, let's simplify this, folks. All you have to do is let your dog make a decision and then you tell 'em if it's the right or wrong decision, right? And you can do that with a "good," right? And he gets to greet the people, obviously gets affection, or "no," correction. Simple.

And if you do it right, it sticks, right? This isn't something you do every single time that someone comes into your house or your dog says hi to someone. This is something you might have to do a couple times, maybe three. If you have to do it more than that, you are doing something wrong, I promise. So no, commands won't fix your problems. They won't fix your unwanted behaviors. If your dog practices behaviors that you wanna eliminate, then you have to do that. You have to create that inhibition with a proper correction, right? There has to be a negative consequence that is contingent on that bad behavior.

And that's how you actually create real change, right? And I want you to remember too, when you do that, you're not just trying to fix it in the moment. You're not just telling your dog to get down off the person, right? You're not just trying to correct your dog high enough that they get down. You're trying to correct your dog high enough that they don't jump on the next person or the next person or the next person. So that's another way people like to stay on this racetrack. People like to stay on that racetrack and around and around and around just correcting at the lowest possible.

12:00 — Kati argues that repeated jumping indicates a correction stopped the immediate action without changing…

Whatever's just enough, right? Just high enough. Um, but it's not high enough. If your dog does it again, it's not high enough, right? So this isn't, this isn't me telling you that. It's the dog telling you that. The dog is saying, I'll get down. I'm gonna do it again in five minutes. I'll get down, I'm gonna do it again with the next guest, right? It's not me telling you that, it's them. So it's really, really important. And this is true always in dog training. If there's one takeaway you have, let it be this. Listen to the dog.

Now don't listen to me. Listen to the dog. The dog will tell you, okay? They'll tell you what they care about and what they don't.

But I think one of the most ironic pieces to it is that if you are one of those folks who really hates the corrective piece, who really is uncomfortable correcting their dog physically, who really is uncomfortable giving an e-collar correction, right? Those are the people that tend to go much lower on their e-collar, much lower with their intensity, with any correction. And for that reason, they're also the folks that end up having to do it every time, every time, every time, every time forever, right? So they end up torturing themselves because they just don't <laugh>, they just don't have, um, the gumption or whatever you wanna call it, to just get it done, right?

So it's like ripping the Band-Aid off.

Nobody likes it, guys. It's not like the funnest part of training, right? But you know, like Joyce and I, we, we take it all for granted 'cause we've done it so many times and we see the good that comes out of it and we see time and time again that it works. That there's no fallout, there's no backlash, there's no damage. Like we know that because we do this every day. And so it's easy for us. Someone that's never done it before, it's not so easy. And I totally get that. But you gotta take that leap of faith at some point and you have to actually say, okay, there are a couple things that I really need to eliminate and I'm gonna try this.

I'm gonna get it done.

And then you get to see on the other side, it's really nice 'cause you don't have to keep pushing that fucking button anymore. <laugh>, right? And I'm not saying you'll never need it again. Um, we really, really, really, I was having another conversation with a customer, a different customer about that exact thing too. Like your e-collar is your best friend, guys. Like it is your communication tool with your dog. It is your lifeline. It is your physical way of speaking with them, right? Whether it's a tap on the shoulder or a slap in the face.

'Cause it does it all, it can whisper, it can yell, it does it all. But like this is our lifeline with dogs. Both of my dogs wear theirs. And you know what? They don't need it. They'll listen without it. But it's on because I just use it to talk to my dogs all the time, right?

16:00 — Kati describes using the e-collar for attention, settling, unwanted behaviors, and lapses in established…

It's how I get their attention. It's how I help them settle. It is how I correct unwanted behaviors. If they come up with something new that I don't like, if they start getting a little pushy or a little loosey-goosey with one of the rules, 'cause they're not robots, they will, right? But it's not just for corrections. We do a bazillion things with this e-collar, right? I might say let's go in just a low tap tap when I say that. 'Cause I'm just pairing physical communication with my voice. It's how I talk to my dog.

Um, but oddly enough, if you are one of those people who has a hard time using the e-collar, especially correctively, um, you end up shooting yourself in the foot by always trying to take it easy on the dog and always trying to find the lowest level, right? That's how you get stuck in a place where you're constantly having to do it <laugh>, right? So the more meaningfully you use it, the less you need to use it. It's like magic. So, um, make some changes, right? If you know you're one of those folks that's stuck in the nag zone, that's telling your dog, um, not to do something over and over and over again, take a look at your process, right?

Because unless it's a timing issue, it's probably an intensity issue and you're probably just going too easy on your dog, which is classic human mistake.

And it makes you, makes you normal, makes you normal, but you have the power to change it. And I think there's a lot of overlap between that and this next, um, point that I'm going to make, um, one of the most common conversations that come up, especially in a go-home lesson is, well, why do I or do I have to correct my dog if they fix their mistake? And that's a great question. So for instance, and we're mostly talking about obedience here, but it can apply to unwanted behaviors too. So go back to the jumping topic, right?

If your dog is jumping on somebody and you say no, and your dog gets down, or you say off and the dog gets down, which I hate, by the way, and we'll talk about that next, why should I have to correct that dog?

Any ideas? <laugh> The answer might be more simple than you think, right? The answer, the reason you have to correct the dog is because they jumped on someone. So, I mean, again, this is a way we have of just staying on that racetrack for the rest of the dog's life. And around and around we go. It's like, keep it simple. Your dog does an unwanted behavior, you provide a meaningful correction. But no, humans don't like to do that. It makes us very uncomfortable. And so we are perpetually, this is the hardest part of my job, by the way, <laugh>, it's not the dogs.

We are perpetually—and I love people, I love my clients, so I'm not making fun of them. I'm laughing with you guys, okay?

Humans will perpetually look for the off-ramp, the loophole, the way out of, right, having to give that stupid correction <laugh>. And there just isn't, guys, there is no way out of it. Not if you wanna cultivate real change. So stop overcomplicating the process and keep it simple. Dog does an unwanted behavior, you mark it with a no, you provide a meaningful correction because if you just say no and the dog gets down, it's like, okay, so in the moment the dog got down, which is good, but what happens in five minutes when someone new walks through the the door?

What happens tomorrow when you come home from work? What happens that evening when Aunt Bessie comes over to visit and she's 85 years old and has a bad hip?

21:00 — Kati illustrates a repeating cycle: the dog jumps, hears “no,” gets down, and jumps…

I'll tell you what happens. The dog jumps and you say no, and they get down. The dog jumps and you say no. And they get down. The dog jumps and you say no. And they get down and around and around we go on our little racetrack for the next 12 years until your dog has bad hips and can't do it anymore. <laugh> So if you wanna wait until then, that is absolutely your prerogative. But I'm not coming to your house <laugh>, I'm not coming to your house. Uh, and it doesn't have to be that way.

Um, yeah, stop trying to take the off-ramp, right? Stop trying to avoid and skirt around. Um, just have the conversation, right? Rip the Band-Aid off, don't jump. So that's why though, right? So it doesn't matter that the dog gets down because it's not actually about that. That's only half of what we're trying to do.

Yes, we want the dog to get down, but we also want them to not jump in 10 minutes, not jump tonight, not jump tomorrow, not jump next week, right? And so you might tap this thing on an eight, you might not have to tap it at all and your dog will get down off the person, right? You just give a verbal and they'll get down, okay? But it's not gonna do anything for the next time. So I want you to remember it's not actually about what happens now. It's about changing behavior long term so that you can make both your life and your dog's life better and your guests, right?

Because I get the complaints, guys, your friends, your family members that go over there and your dog's jumping all over them. They don't like it <laugh>, some of them do. I understand. And some of them are real pain in the in the ass too, right? 'Cause they're encouraging your dog's shitty behavior. Um, but a lot of them don't.

My best customers that come to me and they say, no, I don't want my dog jumping on people. Like, you tell us what to do, we're gonna do it. And they execute it and their dog's great, doesn't jump anymore. And they'll tell me, they're like, we go over to so-and-so's house and their dogs are all over us and it's gross and I hate it. Um, so your guests, you know, they might not like that so much. And you know what? It's your house. You do what you want, right? But if you're struggling to stop jumping, like if you do wanna stop it, um, and you're having trouble and it's not just jumping, right?

Insert any unwanted behavior in that blank just, just about, right? Your dog gets on the counter, your dog eats the cat food, your dog barks out the window, whatever it is, it's all the same.

It's all the same. So I'll get a million questions. Well how do I stop this? How do I stop that? How do we stop this? It's all the same. It's all the same. The way you stop it is you just stop looking for the off-ramp. You stop going around the racetrack. You say, okay, we're gonna provide a real correction for this behavior. And then you create an inhibition in the brain, right? So you're disrupting these neural connections. And until you do that, nothing changes, right? It's groundhog day every day. It's like 51st dates. And, but it's not because your dog's brain damaged.

24:00 — Kati attributes persistent unwanted behavior to incomplete training rather than stubbornness, confusion, or lack…

And it's not because your dog is stubborn. It's not because your dog doesn't listen or doesn't know or is confused or isn't bright. It's not any of those things. It's just that we haven't done what it takes to change the behavior.

And that applies to obedience commands too, right? So we always talk about how obedience commands are actually more complicated because you're asking your dog to perform a behavior. So that requires more brain work, right? That's a lot harder than just saying, "Hey, don't do that anymore," right? I don't care what you do. Just don't do that anymore. That's actually much, much easier. <laugh> Ironically, that's the thing everybody struggles with, right? Is stopping behaviors just, but that's just because the information's not out there. Um, and all the information out there is that if you do anything to stop a behavior, you're evil and you're gonna damage your dog and your relationship, which is just, of course, horseshit.

Um, but that's actually the easier of the two things to do. Building behaviors is actually a little more complex. It's a little harder. It takes a little more skill.

Um, but so there's some overlap here because once your dog does know a command very well and has had the rehearsal, you should actually start treating non-compliance a lot like an unwanted behavior. So this is like the final stages of training though, right? This isn't where we start. It takes us a long time to get there. We have Fire Blazer with us right now who's been with us for four weeks. And she is, she hasn't been with us for four weeks, she's with us for four weeks and we're going into the fourth week. Um, and she's really just getting to that point where for some things we're starting to punish non-compliance, right?

So the correction is a little more meaningful, um, because we're really trying to seal the deal, right? We're trying to polish that up. We're trying to create those inhibitions. So now rather than saying, "Okay, we're trying to teach her how to do something," we've already done that.

We've done tons and tons and and tons of that. Now we're trying to teach her that it's not negotiable. So that's handled a little bit differently. Now we're trying to teach her, "Hey, if you get off your place cot before I tell you it's okay, I'm gonna treat that just like you jumped on somebody. I'm gonna treat that just like you got in the trash. I'm gonna treat that just like a bad behavior," right? Because I'm no longer going through all the motions of trying to teach her what to do, what to do, what to do.

If you stay stuck in teach the dog what to do, it never, it never reaches a point where it's truly reliable.

Okay? I'm not saying dog will be perfect, they're not a robot. We don't want them to be a robot. But at some point you have to say, "Okay, now I want to create an inhibition for breaking a very well-known command." So if your dog gets off place and even before you get there, like even if you're just in the messy middle, we call it, right? Where you're just introducing accountability. So your dog steps off place, you usually, you should mark that with a "no," right? And then you should use your e-collar. And it might not be real high because you're not there yet, right?

28:00 — A dog returning to place after “no” illustrates owners withholding a correction once the…

Your dog isn't an expert yet, but it's just middle of the road. It's just enough to motivate them.

Here's what happens. Dog steps off place. Person says, "No." Dog flies back on because they know what that means. And the person does not provide any physical communication, feedback, correction, motivation, whatever you want to call it. Wherever you are on the spectrum with the intensity, um, they don't use it. They don't do it at all, right? They just give the verbal. Dog gets back on and person goes, "Oh, okay, well that's it." But it's not it for the reason I described earlier. Because sure, your dog got back on the place cot or whatever the command is that you're doing, but you didn't provide any reason for them not to do it again in 10 seconds or 10 minutes or tonight or tomorrow, right?

And again, you're going to start looping on that track where the dog gets off. You say no, they get on, the dog gets off, you say no, they get on, the dog gets off. You say no, they get on. <laugh> I'm sorry, but I am too tired for that at some. Like at what point do you want your dog to just listen to you and just obey the rules?

So yeah, take the time and teach them the rules. But here's the thing. Leaving out the physical feedback, the physical communication, leaving out the motivating stimulation, introducing that accountability, right? Skipping that. That's not teaching them the rules, that's avoiding teaching them the rules. Again, the human's always scanning the horizon for that off-ramp. Oh, phew, dog got back on. I don't have to push the button. No. Yes, you do. <laugh> Yes, you do. Now if you're early in the process, you don't have to light your dog up like a firework, okay? But it has to come.

You have to deliver the mail, guys. Your dog's not going to get the memo. And it's not because your dog is stubborn. 'Cause that's what I hear, right? Over and over and over again. It's, my dog is so stubborn, she knows what's expected. She knows what it means. She knows what to do, okay? But you haven't actually told her.

And so until you do, right? In a way that they understand and in a way that matters. I don't wanna hear anything about your dog being stubborn because they're not <laugh>. They're not, they just, you haven't sent the memo yet. So yes, no, you cannot start here, right? We do tons and tons and tons of reps, lots of training. I know I say that all the time. Um, but it's true, we do. The dog has to have an understanding of what is supposed to happen and what the rules are and what the boundaries are. So we can do that with low levels and increasingly moderate levels, right?

And then at some point we go, okay, now there's just a real proper correction if you choose to ignore me. If you choose to break your command, it's gonna be a real proper correction. And that way, now we can get to a place where I save my sanity 'cause the dog listens to me, they're safer and they can do more with me because I don't have to constantly spend all of my energy trying to manage the dog, right? Or nagging them over and over and over again and talking at them, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, sit, sit, sit, blah, blah, blah, blah.

32:00 — Kati emphasizes that an e-collar's effectiveness depends on how owners use it, not merely…

I don't wanna live like that with my dog.

So if you're e-collar training with your dog, guys, your e-collar is your best friend. And how you use it matters. And you do have to use—it doesn't work if you don't <laugh>, if you don't use it. And most people, I find the human condition, like we just, our standards for our dog are just too low. And yeah, sometimes dogs are confused, right? But they're not gonna become any less confused if you just keep withholding the information or making exceptions. That is how you contribute to confusion. Here's another example we talked about the other day with a client.

They send the dog to place, dog goes in the kennel and they're like, well, guess he's confused. It's like, okay, but what are you doing to clarify that confusion for him? So just saying, well, okay, good enough. What does that, what is the end result there? We contribute to the confusion because we have just told the dog, yep, good, good choice. So if you're going to say one command and then your dog does a different command and you go, well, that's fine. You are teaching your dog that. That's what they should do, right? So the dog's not confused.

You are confused. <laugh>, right? We are contributing to confusion because we are choosing not to clarify it for the dog. That's not helpful. Now, if you don't care, you don't care, fine. Right?

But you can't say, well, I want my dog to do this, but he does that. Or I don't want my dog to be confused, but he seems confused. And then choose to withhold the information and not give it to the dog, right? And if you genuinely believe it's confusion, again, you don't have to light your dog up. Guys, the e-collars we use have a hundred levels. I can't feel it at all until a 12, which is very gentle. So here's what I would do if I genuinely thought my dog was confused: I say a command, the dog does a different command.

I say, no, very neutrally. I turn on my e-collar at something low to middle of the road. So it's like I'm shooting for a level that's annoying. It's not even uncomfortable, it's just a little irritating, right? In other words, they notice it, they probably would prefer to shut it off, but it's not a big deal, okay? And I might come in slightly lower or higher than that because there's no way for you to know exactly what level that's gonna be, right? But I'm not turning this thing up to a hundred. I'm not going crazy. I'm not making the dog hit the ceiling.

Dog's confused, okay, I'm gonna turn this on something lower. I say, no, I turn it on. Dog doesn't move, right? Because they're confused. And genuinely, if your dog is confused, they're probably not gonna do the right thing, right? If they do do the right thing when you turn this on, then that means they probably weren't confused <laugh>, right? So, um, yeah, that happens too. But so you're gonna turn this on. Your dog's still not gonna do the right thing because they're confused. You're going to take their leash and show them what to do and then shut off your e-collar.

36:00 — Kati describes praising correct responses and repeating practice to resolve confusion.

Good, good boy, good girl, whatever.

And you're gonna do it again and you're gonna do it again. Handful of reps, guess what? Dog's not confused anymore, but just going, oh, well, that's fine. I hate pushing the button. Okay? Then you get what you get because there's no magic, guys. You either give the dog the information or you don't. Either way, <laugh> either way, right? But it pays to remember that, right? It's like even if your dog is confused, well, withholding the information for them is not going to help that. You're not helping them that way. So don't forget, these are tools where all the control is in your hands.

You can be firm when you need to be firm, but you can also be gentle when you wanna be gentle. You can whisper, you can motivate, you can do anything you need to do with this tool.

So I would say, if you hate it, I can't help you. Like, that's a you problem. And I say that because that's something we hear from time to time and it's like, okay, these are e-collar programs. Like, everything is predicated upon teaching your dog e-collar communication in building this lifeline and this communication with your dog. That's amazing. Physical communication with no leash that you can take anywhere. If you hate it, you're not gonna do well, right? It's not gonna work out, right? You, you can't do e-collar training, an e-collar program, build e-collar communication without using the e-collar <laugh>.

It just, you can see how those, it's incon—like, it just doesn't work. It's not gonna work. Um, but yeah, don't withhold the information from your dog. That will, even if they are confused, that will not help. That won't clarify it. So your job—confusion is part of the process, guys.

Every dog at some point is confused. When you learn something new, there's going to be a period of confusion. Normal, because the way your dog learns is uncovering patterns a step, right? They wanna figure out the pattern. And so there's always confusion early on. But with time and consistency, right? The more time that goes on and the more opportunities they get to see, they go, oh, they get a bigger and they get to zoom out, right? They get a bigger and bigger picture of what the pattern is. But when you're zoomed way in, because you've only had a few opportunities, you don't necessarily know if you've seen the whole pattern yet, right?

39:00 — Kati explains that repeated place-command practice gives dogs more pieces of a recognizable pattern.

So if you've asked your dog to go to place eight times, they only have eight pieces to the pattern, right? And maybe in a week they have 500 and maybe in a month they have a thousand.

Okay? So the pattern over time becomes more and more clear because it's more and more complete, but only if it's consistent. So if you go, oh, well, good enough, or, oh, well, I'm gonna let that go 'cause he is confused. That's a blip in your pattern now, right? The pattern's not gonna make sense to the dog. So you're actually creating the confusion that you're complaining about. So you gotta give 'em the information, guys. And I promise if you do that, your dog will absolutely figure it out and figure it out quickly. They are the masters at figuring out the patterns.

Your dog is a genius. It's like what they were built to do. 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.