Management—Good Or Bad?

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces Diamond K9 Dog Training in Biddeford, Maine, specializing in e-collar training…

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

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. I'm Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond K9 Dog Training in Biddeford, Maine, and we specialize in e-collar training, both for off-leash obedience as well as behavior modification. So helping people stop those ugly unwanted behaviors. Everything from simple stuff like jumping on people and barking to, um, tougher stuff like reactivity, aggression, separation anxiety and and that sort of thing. And we also do puppy training. In fact, we are inundated with puppies this month. It's been puppy crazy around here. So that's who we are and what we do.

Uh, and this podcast is here just as a way of, it's my way of sharing everything we're doing with our customers, with you. So getting that information out there, making it available because it's so hard to find. The internet's full of garbage. So, um, just wanna get the stuff out there for, for the people that want it and hopefully it's, um, at least somewhat entertaining <laugh>.

So that's who we are and what we do. And today I wanna dig in a little bit to, um, a topic that comes up. Actually, I don't, I I wanna say it comes up a lot, but in a sense I feel like it doesn't come up enough because I feel like we're talking about it, but we're talking about it indirectly. So like, we're telling people to do this stuff, but we're not really saying it in this way. Um, and I think this will lend some clarification to how to implement things at home. So we have training, right?

And we talk about training a lot. And then there's the concept of management and managing your dog and managing their behaviors. But here's the thing, there is a ton of overlap. So I guess the most beautiful way to articulate that is all dogs are going to require, um, or should have, I guess not everyone's gonna do it, but should have training and management. But what ratio is of training to management is going to be wildly different for every dog and every family.

So if you want to look at the dog I had that got me into dog training in the first place, she was extremely high in both of those categories. So we did very intense levels of training, training her to a very high level of reliability and accountability across the board. But she still needed to be managed a hundred percent of the time <laugh>. She had to be told where to be, what to be doing. I had to be watching, I had to use, um, crates at times, leashes at times, you know, gates at times. I had to control everything all the time.

Um, and so that's kind of the most extreme version of a dog that you could be dealing with. Um, and some of you're probably familiar with the story. Um, ultimately I ended up putting her down and that was, um, we were about three years in.

I'm not sure if it was quite that long. Um, but she was a really, really difficult dog. She taught me a ton. Um, I'm grateful for the experience that I had, um, with her, and I really believe that she probably had the best quality of life and longest life she possibly could have had. I think if she had been in just not anyone else's hands, but just about anyone else's hands, um, I don't think things would've panned out as well. I think it would've been a much shorter lifespan for her, and probably somebody would've gotten hurt.

So, um, it is what it is. Anyway, we're not here to rehash all of that, but that, that's an example of a rare dog where like she's really high, uh, she was really high on both scales, right? So most dogs aren't, aren't gonna be like that. Thank God <laugh>, right? Um, but you're, you're probably never gonna be completely free of either one of those, I think is the key takeaway there. And in addition to that, management is going to be part of your training plan. So there's overlap as well, right? Management is literally part of training.

05:00 — Management helps owners guide dogs through behaviors such as sitting while teaching commands.

So you can't actually teach a dog what you want without management piece.

You just can't, right? I can't teach a dog what sit means without managing them to give me a sit, right? It doesn't mean you're managing them forever, but it's part of your training plan. Um, if you have a dog that's nuts when people come over, while you're in the process of training them, there's going to be some level of management. A good example is, um, almost everyone I meet, almost all of our clients, right? They want their dog to be able to come back to them off a leash. Well, the number one mistake that people make when they try to do like e-collar training on their own, or even just any training, but especially e-collar training, is they try to do that training off a leash.

And like I understand that they wanna get there and they want <laugh>. They want things to happen off leash, and they want their dog to be reliable off leash and come back when called when they're off leash. But you can't achieve that by starting off leash. So you have to manage the situation while you're in the training process <laugh>. So, um, you gotta put a leash on your dog and you literally have to show them what to do. You have to show them how to respond to your recall. You have to show them how to respond to the e-collar.

And that's going to require management, not forever, but while you're in the training process.

So the reason I'm talking about this is because I feel like it's viewed as sort of an either-or situation, and it—that couldn't be further from the truth. You're, you're going to have both. You're certainly going to have both very heavily early in the training process. And then as you move through the training process, there's gonna be a gradual shift, right? Where your dog can be trusted more and they can make better decisions on their own, um, because they've had the repetition, the guidance, the feedback. And so you'll need less management, right? But it depends on the dog, it depends on the behavior that we want.

It depends on our lifestyle. It depends on all these factors, right? And so nobody knows exactly what's right for you and your dog.

If you feel like you are currently too dependent on management and you're not where you want your dog, your dog isn't where you want them to be, maybe there's something missing. Maybe you need to consult with a trainer about that or just go back and look at, at your process. There's a good chance that maybe the problem is that you actually weren't using enough management during your quote-unquote training process. So the dog never got properly trained, right? It's just that, like that recall example that I just gave you, you can't teach your dog how to do a recall without management.

So you need that, um, when you're trying to control the situation and control the outcome. If you don't control the outcome, there's no training happening, not, not the right training anyway. You could literally be training your dog to do the wrong thing, right? And let's just say you have a dog that you've already quote-unquote trained. You've already put in the work and done the reps and, like, you still, you just don't feel like you can trust your dog. Especially if we're talking about aggression-type issues, reactivity-type issues. You've got guests coming over, service people coming in your house.

09:00 — Kati recounts an incident involving her husband visiting a customer's home to emphasize kenneling…

Put your dog in the kennel, man. I'll tell you what, my husband wishes that his customer would've put their dog in the kennel. So if you're not familiar, um, my husband goes into homes and works pianos and keyboards and, um, he had an incident where he wasn't even in the house, and he's very dog savvy. He knows how to evaluate dogs and interact with dogs, um, very, very well.

He was outside of the gate. He hadn't even gone through their gate into their immediate yard yet. Um, but a dog flew out of the house through the open front door, up over the gate, and took off a piece of his face. And now these people knew that he was coming. So the dog should have been kenneled. The dog had a history. This isn't the first time, which I believe they denied. But anyway, we're not gonna get into that. Um, the point is, this is a dog that wasn't keen on visitors, and he should have been in his kennel.

Um, while we're on the topic, I doubt that the dog ever had any real valid training. Um, <laugh>, so certainly should have been managing the dog. Like, if you're not gonna train the dog, you have to manage the dog, right? So don't let that be you.

Um, don't feel bad if you have to put your dog in the kennel. It could save someone from getting hurt. It could save your dog's life, right? Because dogs that bite things don't bode well for them. Um, and even if your dog hasn't bit before, a lot of times that's because we just haven't really given them the opportunity because we've been responsible owners, right? So manage your dog if you have to, right? Do the training. Absolutely. Um, but if you still don't feel comfortable, if you still don't feel confident, if you can't trust your dog, if they haven't demonstrated that they can make better choices and that these situations are getting easier for them, then you ha—you have an obligation to manage your dog.

Use your kennels, guys. Use your kennels, gates, crates, leashes, gates, crates, leashes. That's our mantra. No, we don't wanna be reli—reliant on those things all the time, but sometimes you need to be, right? Or sometimes just want a break. It's like, you know what, I've got someone coming over and I don't wanna deal with it, and that's okay. I'm here, I'm here to tell you. That's okay. That's okay. So it's not my favorite thing in the world to put the dog in a kennel and let them lose their mind and not address that, right?

Hopefully we're not doing that. Um, but sometimes if you're on the verge of insanity, you might need to, you might need to just lock the dog away and say, you know what? I'm taking a couple hours, I'm having dinner with somebody, whatever the case may be, and the dog's not gonna like it, and I'm just gonna put them away, and I'm here to give you permission to do that. That's okay, <laugh>. That's okay.

Right? So training is better, but we're human. We have lives, we have obligations. And I think it's okay to admit that we can't always be actively training our dogs. We have work, we have work meetings, we have service people coming in and out of our houses. We've got kids and events and all this crap, right? Yeah, be proactive. Train your dog, put in the work, but when you can't manage your dog, just put him away, guys. Put him in the kennel. It's okay. And then when you can be fully mentally engaged, do the training, which, as we just discussed, might still involve an element of management.

13:00 — Kati contrasts owner-dependent private sessions with the structured management provided by board-and-train programs.

So that's what training is, guys, right? When we're training dogs here and they come in for a board-and-train, like I maintain, that is the magic of a board-and-train, okay? So when people do private sessions and you can absolutely accomplish most things through private sessions with no trouble, a hundred percent you can, but it's super, super reliant on the humans. <laugh>, that's the problem. So the magic of the board-and-train is the management, right? And by the end of it, and most of them aren't even that long. Most of them are like a couple weeks, right?

Sometimes three, once in a while, four.

But by the end of it, we're using very little management. We're still giving our dog feedback, right? But we don't have to physically manage them because now we're able to mentally manage them. And that's sort of your middle step, right? To having a dog that just can be autonomous and make good choices on their own. Um, but the magic of the board-and-train is the dog comes in, the dog lives in a kennel. I know that sounds like, oh my God, what do you mean dog? Like lives, they spend all their time in their hum.

What, are they in there 24 hours a day? No, but they're in there a lot because if I am not with that dog doing a specific thing and they're not yet at a point where they can be trusted to do a specific thing on their own, they're in the kennel. So they are being managed 24 hours a day.

I go, I get the dog out of the kennel. Before I even take them out, it's e-collar on, prong collar on, leash on, dog's invited out of the kennel. I show them what to do when they come out of the kennel. I show them what to do on our way to the door. I show them what to do when we go through the door. I let out the leash, I release them, I let them potty, then we go do something, we go do some training. The whole time we're training, I'm giving that dog feedback through the leash with leash pressure.

I'm moving them around. I'm disagreeing with things. If they're jumping on me, if they're barking, I'm getting their attention. If they start to float away mentally, right? I'm using my leash, say, hey, we're doing a thing.

I'm using spatial pressure, right? To claim my space if they're very pushy or just to move them around. If they start to come off their place, I walk into them, I push them back with my spatial pressure. I'm doing all of these things to manage them during their training. The training is happening, there's feedback happening, but I am in control of everything all the time. If you have a dog that just roams around the house and then when you ask them for something, there's no leash on, right? Then everything is just kind of a request.

Everything is just kind of a, if you want to, if you can, if you have time, if you feel like it. Um, and also if your dog doesn't know what you're asking for or doesn't know what they're supposed to be doing or what you'd like for them to be doing, there's no way to show them because you have relinquished all of your tools and all of your control.

18:00 — Kati argues that controlling interactions and giving clear feedback helps dogs learn faster.

You've got no leash, of course the dog is just doing whatever. What else would they be doing? So the more you are willing to step up and step in and take control and use your tools and use your crate and use your leash and control every interaction, the more you're willing to do that, the faster your results will be. Results way faster. The more feedback you give your dog about every little thing they do. Hey, that's good. Hey, that's not so good. Hey, I'd rather you didn't do that. Hey, never do that again. Right? So different infractions, different responses, um, different rewards, different, you know, just everything varies, right?

It shouldn't be gray. I say that all the time. You don't wanna give your dog a gray experience. You wanna be very much, that's okay, that's really good. That's really bad, right? It should be clear to your dog, everything they do. And that's how you're gonna start to wire your dog to go through the world differently. That's how you're gonna start to shape their behavior to look differently on their own. That feedback is critical.

But guess what? If you're not using your kennel, if you're not using your leash or this stuff, you're not even gonna notice half the shit they're doing. How are you supposed to give them feedback? So my dog's in the other room taking a dump on the floor, chewing the rug, I don't know, I'm out in the laundry room. Okay, great. Well, that's not dog training <laugh>, okay? So if you were using management, you'd know what they were doing. Now make no mistake about it, that doesn't mean rely on management forever, right? You start training your dog and then you start giving, okay, I'm gonna give you a few minutes where I'm, I'm gonna either take the leash off or maybe I'm just gonna drop the leash, I'm gonna do my thing, but I'm gonna be keeping an eye, right?

You can, you're a free agent, go do whatever.

But I'm watching that step is so important. And that's why when we send our dogs home from a board-and-train, they are sent home with the expectation that people will manage their dog a hundred percent of the time. At first they'll nail everything down. They'll get used to doing the commands with the dog. They'll get used to using the e-collar, right? Because they're just, just learning all this stuff now. Like the dog knows it, people don't, so they need time together to get into a groove. And then once things are looking pretty good, we say, okay, then start giving your dog a few minutes, right?

Because most people want their dog to be able to obviously be free. Like they don't wanna have to manage their dog all the time. And most dogs you don't have to. Some of them you do <laugh>, like we talked about earlier, but most of them you don't have to.

Um, but if you just give let your dog free all day, you're not gonna be able to give them the feedback that's necessary to change their behavior. So it's important you give your dog small periods of free time so that you can actually watch out the corner of your eye and you can notice the things that they go and do and you can address them and change them and it will stick, right? Because if you're just letting your dog free all day, they're gonna do things and you're not gonna notice, right? Or maybe you're gonna notice sometimes, but not others.

So it's inconsistent.

And then you're really shooting yourself in the foot. 'Cause then you're just setting yourself up for this forever pattern of I do this thing. Sometimes I get caught, sometimes I don't. So I just keep trying. It's like, no, use your management, use your crate, use your leash, do the training, and then start giving your dog just a few minutes and just watch 'em. Do your thing. Make it natural, but watch them so that when they do go steal the sock or the shoe, right? When they do go over to the window and start watching for the UPS guy, when they do do whatever that old stuff was, you actually notice it, right?

22:00 — Start with ten minutes of supervised freedom, address unwanted behaviors, then return to structured…

Because nobody can watch their dog all day. You have stuff to do, right? But you can watch your dog for 10 minutes, set 'em free for 10 minutes, address any behaviors they shouldn't be doing.

Then it's back to management, right? Structure, we talk about structure all the time. Then it's back to place, kennel, on a leash, whatever it is you're doing, because that's how you get there, right? And as you do these small periods of free time, your dog gets more feedback, you eliminate more behaviors, you shape them to behave differently, naturally and automatically. You can start giving them more free time and more free time. And before you know it, maybe they can be free all day and they don't need any feedback from you. And like I said, most dogs, we want you to use some level of structure, right?

Just to help keep their mind right, <laugh>, uh, and keep their skills sharp.

But once your dog knows the rules and they, it becomes natural for them to respect them, then you can actually start having a free dog that's just good. You don't have to manage them so much anymore. And that's what most of us want. But that requires management upfront. And that's the thing. No one wants to do that hard work now. They just wanna jump right into it. They wanna bring home like their little puppy and just let the puppy run around. But even an older dog, you know, you go to the shelter, you get a dog that's a year old, whatever, you just bring that dog in, let 'em run around.

I mean, of course it's gonna be chaos. Of course they're gonna make mistakes. Of course they're not gonna know the rules. Of course, they're gonna do whatever they want and we're not gonna like that 'cause they're dogs. And dogs do things we don't like and that's normal.

Um, but really it's like it know your dog. They have their whole life ahead of them. Use the management now. Do the training now, and then you can reduce the management, right? As your training increases, the management will reduce, you know. But like I stated earlier, there'll always be some level of management, most likely. No one's dog is perfect. Um, and we want our dogs to stay in the mindset that, you know, they listen to us and they engage with us and they take direction from us. You know? And if you're not asking them to do things, then they're gonna lose that.

They're gonna lose that. So there's always gonna be some element. Um, you know, and then we all have days where it's like, you know, especially if you don't have an easy dog where it's like, I just can't. I just can't today <laugh>, I just can't.

And that's okay. It's alright. Um, you know, but especially when you, you do have a dog with dangerous behaviors, it's like, it's just not worth it to see what happens. You know, that "let's see" attitude is not, not okay, not okay at all. Uh, that's it for today, guys. So, uh, management shouldn't be a dirty word. You're gonna have to use it sometimes. You should use it sometimes. And I, I swear that is the magic of the board-and-train, is we start out fully structured, fully managed, um, and we gradually move into, uh, mental management rather than physical management, right?

So I don't need that leash anymore. And then when the dog goes home, they work 'em into small periods of free time, uh, with feedback. And before you know it, you've got a great dog that you can trust and can be included and part of the family and, but you don't get there without the use of management. Uh, so, and like I said, there's some overlap 'cause management is gonna be part of your training. But then even once you're well into the training, your dog's learned a bunch of stuff, there's always gonna be some element of management, right?

27:00 — Even well-trained dogs may need leashes or other management when specific situations exceed their…

Even if you don't need a ton, I feel like any responsible dog owner is going to have some element of management, right? If you're, you're in the city, your dog's on a leash, there's leash laws.

Um, if you have a dog that's just a great dog, but they have this one thing that makes them lose their mind, then you gotta be responsible. And what you have to do in that situation might be a muzzle, might be a leash, might be a kennel. Um, so you have to accept your dog for who they are and be real with yourself about what your current state is with your training, your training results, what your dog can and can't do. And if it's a situation your dog isn't prepared to handle, they don't have the training or they just don't have the genetic capacity to do it, then you use management.

It's that simple. And that's okay. That's okay. That's it for today, guys. Thank you for joining me, and I look forward to next time.