My Dog Loves Everyone (Or Do They?)

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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 everybody, thanks for joining me for another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. Hope you're having an incredible day. Whatever it is you are doing, things are going well on this end.

Um, only two trainees right now because we've been loaded with boarders this month. Um, but it's been all right. It's been kind of a nice change of pace because that means we've been full of dogs that are already trained, and it's resulted in, um, a little bit more yard time with the dogs, off-leash time with the dogs, which has been good for the training dogs too.

Um, it's been more like group stuff and off-leash stuff. So it's been nice. It's been a good change of pace. Um, the training dogs are doing wonderful. Um, fell a little behind with the posting <laugh> as always, um, over the weekend. Um, but gonna get that caught up so you guys can hop on over there and see what, what the training dogs have been up to. I actually just posted a video of Bella's walk, and it's funny because I have some footage of walking her when she first came in, and she was a real hard puller <laugh>.

It was pretty serious. So, um, and I, I haven't posted any of that footage from, from her original, like, walking behavior, but I, I will. I do have that. I do plan on posting it. Um, it's actually kind of funny, so stay tuned for that. Um, but anyway, we're off to the races here.

I almost, not almost, I kind of did, but I almost got caught up in a Facebook argument, <laugh>, because I see the articles about, um, like the dog attacks and the maulings. And when I see that stuff, it's hard not to comment on it. Um, 'cause I've always got something to say, <laugh>, you know, and I'm not interested in arguing with anybody. I'm not interested in convincing anybody of anything, but I've always got something to say. Um, and my hope is by posting a comment when I do post a comment that somebody somewhere will see it and maybe it will just, maybe it will just, um, turn a light bulb on for them where they'll go, oh, right, and the wheels will turn a little bit, the shades will be pulled up, <laugh>, and we'll let some light in and just shed a little light on the subject because some people are just way off in left field when it comes to dog behavior, and especially when we're talking about aggression or drive.

03:00 — Kati describes the recurring debate about pit bulls and bully breeds after seeing reports…

And there's just this ongoing infinite debate about pit bulls and bully breeds in general. Um, and you know, what kills me about all these things that we argue about? I had a consultation with a woman the other day and she's like, I just don't understand this debate about, you know, what kind of training is best and the philosophy and whether or not you should only use positive reinforcement. And she's like, I just don't get it. I don't get the debate. And I said, well, there just shouldn't be one, right? But like most things, even when there shouldn't be one, there is <laugh>.

Um, but you don't have to get sucked into that drama. You can use your own critical thinking skills. And the thing is, you have to take into account more than just what the people in your immediate vicinity are saying. It's not about what people are saying. You have to be able to objectively observe reality as it actually is. And I'm not saying you can't take in the information that's out there, but just, just hearing people give their opinions, that's not gonna get you anywhere.

You need to see and hear: this is what happened, this is what happens, this is how often it happens, right? So you can, you can take into account those facts, and you have to kind of filter out all of the pit bulls this and bully breeds that, and dogs this, right? And people, because that's what happens with every subject, not just with dogs. <laugh>, the political climate in this country right now, all this stuff is just a lot of emotional, you know, COVID times, a lot of emotional frantic shrieking, right? 'cause people have some real big feelings and they're not real good at communicating information <laugh>.

So you have to filter out the frantic shrieking and be able to, um, logically, rationally, these are the facts, right?

And then you can derive from that your own opinion, which I wish more people would do. Stay tuned for the next episode where we are going to talk more about this specific issue, but there's some overlap. Excuse me. There's some overlap between the two episodes. So today I do wanna talk about a little bit about aggression in dogs and a little bit about, um, maturation and how things change and what's normal and not normal, and the cultural, um, kind of the way we view dogs and all this stuff, which I think is really important and applies to like a hundred percent of our clients really.

But this is something that is coming up with a very large percentage of our clients.

And so definitely worth a listen today. Um, hopefully will open your eyes to some things that maybe you hadn't thought about before, especially if your dog has always just been quote unquote sweet and friendly. Um, because what happens is people, they don't see it coming, right? So it doesn't mean your dog is gonna turn into a monster, um, but things change. You can't expect what you're seeing right now to be what you're gonna get from your dog every day for the rest of their life. And I think that's an easy trap to fall into. And so I think people panic when they see something different from their dog and it's like, oh my God, who even is this dog?

Who are you? And where did my dog go? So by listening to this episode, even if you have never experienced any of these things, <laugh>, excuse me, I'm still dealing with lingering cold stuff.

Um, I'm over it. But, um, still not a hundred percent in the sinus area, <laugh>, um, by listening to this episode, my hope is that if and when your dog gives you something different than what they've been giving you, um, or if they're giving this to you already, either way that you'll know what it means, that you'll know what to do, that you won't panic, that you won't feel bad, that you won't feel discouraged, um, it'll give you a really clear idea of what's normal, what's healthy, what your responsibility is, and where you should go from here.

And then definitely, definitely pop in for our next episode where we're gonna dig more into basically that same topic, but a little bit more extreme, a little bit deeper. Um, so dogs, this episode is more geared toward your average dog. And the next episode is going to be more geared toward dogs with intense drive, uh, which could—not always does, right?—but could and sometimes does translate into real aggression and potentially doing harm. Um, because like I said, I, you know, and the argument on Facebook this time was in relation to a, a bully breed.

09:00 — A recent fatal dog attack prompts Kati to warn that owners often assume it…

I think it was an American Bully, one of the XL Bullies, uh, whatever you wanna call it, it just killed a child. And this happens so much more often than people realize. Nobody thinks it could happen to them. Nobody thinks it could be their kid. Nobody thinks it could be their dog. Um, and I think the, the horrifying thing that you come to terms with, that you get to see, that you realize firsthand when you're a dog trainer is dogs are dogs.

Dogs are dogs. And so we take, you know, we're obviously very good at, at reading dogs most of the time, and, uh, we take a lot of precautions and some people think we're ridiculous for that. Some people will even mock us, oh, you scared of my dog? No, I'm just not an idiot. Right? That's why I don't have scars and, and stitches <laugh> because, um, because we know what dogs are capable of. And so we don't take unreasonable risks. There's no reason to do that. But at any rate, guys, I'm done rambling about what the episodes are about.

Let's get into it. All right? So first of all, let's just get it on the table. What one of the biggest problems is in our culture today, and it's even worse over in the UK. Don't even get me started on them. Let's stick with right here, <laugh> in our own country. Um, number one, people think of dogs like teddy bears, like babies or inanimate objects or all of the above, your dog. And guys, you know what's funny? The most controversial post I ever made, I think this post got more attention than any post I have ever done before, was a post that simply said, your dog is not your baby.

Wow. Did that piss people off? Um, but your dog is not a baby. Your dog is a dog. Your dog is not a stuffed animal. Your dog is a dog. Your dog is not an inanimate object. Your dog is a dog. And we are not honoring the dog for being a dog, right? Everybody wants one and everybody wants it to serve them and their purposes, right? And they say they want their dog to be happy, but what that really means is they want to give themselves the warm fuzzies by treating their dog like a baby. Those are not the same thing.

Your dog's quote unquote happiness to the extent that a dog can be happy, right? Because I have a pretty deep definition of the word happy. Happy does not just mean indulging in whatever enjoyable thing you wanna do in the moment. And that's what most people mean when they're talking about their <laugh>. A lot of people, that's what they mean when they're talking about themselves, when they're talking about humans. But certainly it's what a lot of people mean when they're talking about their dog, right? And I did an episode on I Want My Dog to Be Happy.

Good episode. Go back, listen to that one. Um, if I can remember, I'll make myself a sticky note right now. I will link to it in the show notes. Great episode. Just writing that down, <laugh>.

Um, what they mean is they wanna give themselves the warm fuzzies. They, they want themselves to be happy by getting an animal that they can treat like a baby, that they can spoil, that they can love on, that they can let romp around with other dogs and make out with all the strangers. Um, and they can take it everywhere and they can let everyone dote on it and, and touch it. And they can get all this attention, um, and all these compliments on their dog and how sweet their dog. Like that's what people really want, right?

It's not actually most of the time about their dog being happy, it's about them being happy.

Harsh but true. And I'm not saying that doing any of those things is necessarily bad, right? But we have this idea in our head, when we get a dog, this is our vision. Our dog will just be perfect, right? There'll be, and everyone says the right thing, right? Oh, like, we understand it's gonna take some time and some training, and we gotta put in the work and you gotta teach 'em, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everyone says the stuff. But the truth is, well, first of all, let's just get to the root of the matter here, which we're gonna talk about in the next episode too, which is everybody thinks they're in control of that.

14:00 — Training matters, but Kati says it cannot change who a dog is.

You're not. Your training matters for sure. But here's the bigger piece, guys: who is your dog? Because there's no amount of training you can do that's gonna change who your dog is. So we'll say, very nearly a hundred percent of people bring a puppy home thinking, that's gonna be my dog, right? We're just gonna put in the work and that's gonna be our dog. That's what I thought. That's what I thought when I got my last Rottweiler long before I became a dog trainer. She's why I became a dog trainer. That's what I thought. Yep.

We're just gonna put in the work and everything's gonna be A-okay. But the fact is, your dog is who your dog is, and you don't know who your dog is when you bring them home.

'Cause there's no way to know that, guys, when your dog is eight weeks old or 12 weeks old, or even four months old, that puppy, that dog that you see in front of you at that age, that's not your dog. It's some of your dog. It's not your dog. You won't see or get to meet the whole dog for potentially another year or so. So between nine months and 18 months, right around that one-year mark, you are going to see you didn't see before. Things are going to change. That doesn't mean they're gonna change for the worse, but for a lot of dogs, that's when all the stuff we don't like really starts to surface.

That's when we start to see the reactive stuff. That's when we start to see the barking, the growling.

That's when we start to see the guarding. That's when we see dogs start to get a little big for their britches. And then inevitably, the next thing that happens is the person goes, oh, we didn't socialize 'em enough. Now, it has nothing to do with that. Your dog's just growing up. Or they might say, oh, it must be that awful training we did. It must be because we put a prong collar on him. No, your your dog is just growing up. It's not anything that you did. Hopefully that makes you feel better, not worse. Now, that's actually what the debate was about on Facebook the other day.

17:00 — Owners must take responsibility for their dog’s actions, even when they did not cause…

Is it the owner's fault when the dog begins exhibiting this kind of untoward behavior, when the dog bites somebody? Well, yeah, it, it has to be the owner's fault, right? Because if the owner doesn't take responsibility for their dog's actions and behavior, then who the hell will? So yes, you should be held responsible. Yes, it's the owner's fault. But I think the meat of the matter here is, is the owner responsible for creating the behavior? Now, before we get into that, I wanna circle back because we have to look at what is the pro, the normal progression here that we see.

So guys, it's totally normal for dogs not to love strangers. This is an unpopular, or I should say it would be an unpopular opinion, but it's not an opinion. This is a fact. I know it's a fact because I see it every single day, guys. Hundreds of dogs, thousands of dogs at this point. This isn't an opinion. Most dogs, not all, okay, relax, don't let your panties get all twisted up. Most dogs don't love strangers. They don't. Why is this so difficult for people? Why is this so hard to accept? Why is it such a hard pill to swallow?

Why is it so, so important to us that our dog really loves everybody? I hear that all the time. My dog loves everybody.

20:00 — A dog running up to someone does not necessarily mean it wants that person’s…

Probably not. Maybe, sure, there are some dogs out there that are super social butterflies that want to go say hi to everybody. But here's the thing, it's really easy to just fall into that trap and think that your dog loves everybody because they run up to them. That doesn't mean your dog loves them, doesn't mean that your dog wants them to touch them. It doesn't mean they want affection or attention from that person. Your dog running up to someone doesn't mean anything except that there's obviously some level of interest. But interest can be a lot of things.

Interest might just be, I just wanna see what this person smells like. Interest might just be, I need to assess what level of threat this person is. Interest might be, well, I'm the gatekeeper here. I need to come check you out and decide if you're okay. Interest might just be that they can smell your dogs, the person's dogs on them, or cats or whatever. Maybe the person has a sandwich in their purse. You know, it's like, just because your dog runs over there does not mean that they love the person or that they want attention.

Now they might tolerate attention, and I think that's where the vast majority of dogs fall, right? So it's a spectrum. And you get dogs at one end that want nothing to do with strangers, are maybe afraid of them or are at least unsettled by them and just wanna get away from them. And then you get the other end of the spectrum where the dogs really do wanna go say hi to everybody and they love getting touched and pet and fed by total strangers. And they wanna do that all the time. And then most dogs fall somewhere in the middle, right?

Where they will go up to people, they will sniff them, and if the person touches them, they're pretty indifferent about it. A lot of dogs, honestly, probably about 50% fall into that middle category.

And then the other 50% are gonna be divided. Is it equal? I don't know, guys. I don't know the exact percentage, right? The other 50% are gonna be divided between, like, super social and super antisocial. Like, don't want you near them <laugh>. Um, but so that's just normal, right? So it's easy for people to see that their dog runs up to people and that they tolerate being touched, and then they label them: my dog is super social, social butterfly, loves everybody, wants to say hi to everybody. Nope, not so much. Just because your dog tolerates it does not mean that they love it.

And I'm sorry if that ruins your idea of your dog and what you wanted and your image, right? Because that's what happens. People want that image for themselves. They want that label for themselves. Oh, well, her dog is just the best and so amazing and loves everybody and wouldn't hurt a fly. And if you take that away, problematic.

We see it a lot with quote-unquote rescue dogs as well, right? If you take away that rescue label, if we make someone admit that they didn't rescue their dog from the jaws of a crocodile, they just bought their dog from a shelter, who gave them some sob story, which may or may not be true and usually isn't. Well, if I'm not the mom of a rescue dog, then what am I now? Well, you're just a dog owner with a dog like everybody else. <laugh> Guys, they're dogs. They're animals. So here's what we see happen.

25:00 — Kati describes dogs who tolerate strangers during training but are later presented as loving…

Here's the progression. Dogs come in, they seem normal, right? Take that with a grain of salt. Normal. Uh, we don't see any red flags. We see a dog that isn't in love with strangers. We see a dog that tolerates stuff. Great. We train the dog. The dog goes home. Usually when dogs come in, um, for their, you know, big boy, big girl training, they're six months or older. And we get a lot of dogs around the six-month mark for that reason, 'cause that's where we will begin that, that training, that level of training, especially if dogs come for their puppy program when they're little, a lot of people return right around that six-month mark to finish up their training and get that off-leash reliability. Dog comes in.

They're, they seem pretty okay with things. They're pretty, we don't see any red flags, nothing crazy, um, seem pretty indifferent around strangers, which is pretty typical and normal. Um, but a lot of dogs don't like hard eye contact. A lot of dogs don't like, um, strangers trying to pet them on top of their head. They'll kind of, right? But you don't see anything major to the untrained eye. Again, not only do you not see it, but you may make it into what you want it to be, right? So you don't notice that your dog kind of pulls away a little bit when people go to pet him on the head, right?

Someone reaches out to pet your dog on the head and they just move to the side and they're sniffing the person's leg or something like that. To you, you see nothing. What you see is a dog that loves people, a dog that loves everybody, a dog that would never hurt a fly. What I see is a dog that has no interest in that person and really doesn't wanna be touched on the head.

And for the record, I'm right <laugh>, and that may be all it ever turns into. But what we see happen very, very often is this dog, which you perceive, right? Or the person perceives, not talking about you personally. <laugh> Person perceives as a dog that loves everyone and is super social, right? And it's like a gold star on their, on their vest, right? It's like their little scout badge. They have a great dog that loves everybody. And then what happens is the dog begins to mature, right? They, they go from six months old now to nine months old, to a year old, and some dogs, nothing really changes. For some dogs,

They start handling that little bit of discomfort in a different way. So now someone reaches out to touch them, the dog may really pull away, or the dog may growl, the dog might get hackles, the dog, dog might snap.

28:00 — When an older dog reacts differently, Kati says its owners may be seeing its…

Oh, well, now our whole reality just crumbles around us. And we wanna know why, why, what happened to our dog? Nothing. Your dog's growing up. You're just getting to know who your dog is, right? And you didn't, you know, you failed to see who your dog really was when they were younger, and it was there, maybe just not as dramatic, right? So to the untrained eye, we don't see it until it's really dramatic. And then we go, oh, <laugh>, which is why everybody discounts everything the trainer says when their dog is three months, four months, five months old.

Oh yeah, my dog doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Okay? I'm not saying your dog is mean. I'm saying your dog is a dog. And this is what I see. And in the future, this could trans—'cause there's no way to predict the future, but things could translate into this. And so these are the things I would do to keep things on track. And inevitably, nine outta 10 people, not my dog, my dog's amazing gold star

<laugh>,

Okay? But the fact is, like it or not, your dog is a dog, is a dog, not a teddy bear. And most dogs don't love strangers. They don't. And so we'll see this evolve in different ways, again, depending on the dog, depending on their genetics, depending on their personality, all these things that were predetermined before your dog was yours, before your dog was even born. And then it's up to you to provide the training, the rules, the boundaries, all these things, the experience for your dog to learn how to behave, right? But you can't make him love things he doesn't love.

I'm sorry, but if your dog isn't that into strangers and getting affection from strangers and doesn't love them, you can't make him or her love that. I'm not saying there's nothing you can do to improve it, to change it. And some dogs do, some dogs do evolve to love it with the right kind of experience. But usually your dog kind of is who they are. Who they are, right? And they don't, they don't love the things they don't love. And, and that's just how it is. It doesn't mean your dog can't be trained to be safe and trustworthy, make good choices.

But if it's me, why am I going to force my dog into a situation that I know he hates? And just hope that I'm never held liable for someone having holes in them? And the thought of that just makes people's heads explode, right? Especially if they have one of those quintessential social breeds, right? A lab, a golden retriever, right? Those dogs aren't supposed to bite. And if you even mention the idea that they could, people just shut you down and walk away. Not my dog. Gold star, honey, right? I have a good dog, not a mean bone in their body.

My dog loves everybody, but they don't <laugh>, they don't love everybody. Your dog's not a bad dog. So that's the problem. We view dogs as they're supposed to be teddy bears, they're supposed to be babies, they're supposed to be inanimate objects, whatever it is, because if they're not, then they're bad dogs. If they're not, then they're aggressive dogs, right? Everybody views dogs as either aggressive or not aggressive. That's a huge mistake, guys. That's not how it works. Everybody views dogs as either good or bad, right? And everybody wants their dog in the good category. And this is, by the way, why you can't trust people when it comes to their dogs.

33:00 — Owners may keep calling a dog friendly despite warning signs because they fear it…

Because as you can imagine, it's very important to people that their dog doesn't get put in the bad category. It's so important to people that their dog stays in the good category where they love everybody.

And so until their dog actually puts holes in somebody, people will say, my dog is friendly, he's friendly, he's never bit anybody. Well, so what? There's a first time for everything. And I always say, the only thing you know for sure is that you never know for sure what your dog is going to do. So my dog's never bit anybody. If he bit someone tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised. And that's why I don't put him in those situations. And my dog is uncomfortable around strangers. And I know that despite the fact that he will run straight up to them and press himself into their legs wagging his tail.

But I can look at that picture and I can go, this is real bad news, because he's stiff, he's tense, he's nervous, and he's got mixed feelings. Guys, your dog can have mixed feelings just like you do. Your dog can simultaneously want something and be nervous about it. And when your dog is in a tense, nervous state, that's when they're most likely to pull out a behavior you've never seen before.

And so, how many times do people put their dogs in those situations where they're a little tense and nervous, but they don't bite? They do that over and over and over again, right? And then the person starts to develop this track record in their head of, oh, my dog is friendly and doesn't bite when really the dog is getting more nervous every time, right? And after 5, 10, 20, whatever it is, times something happens, the threshold is crossed and the brain goes, oh, threat, fight. And then everyone's shocked it came outta nowhere. The dog snapped, something happened.

No, nothing happened. Your dog has probably been pretty uncomfortable in that situation for a long time. Like every time that you've put them in that situation, and eventually, no pun intended, it bit you in the ass. Person probably didn't get bit in the ass. Although that's common too. A lot of dogs, if they're made uncomfortable by, uh, a person and they're a bit frantic and they're not really sure what they're supposed to be doing or what their role is, or if they should be guarding things, a lot of dogs will wait until the person turns around and bite them, their ankles, their butt, their hand.

That's really common, <laugh>.

So if you have, if you're in the vicinity of an unsure dog, it might not be the best thing to turn around. Slowly back away. Like you're in the lion's enclosure, <laugh>. Um, but yeah, that's what we see happen, right? People will have a dog that, the thing is, they don't have a dog that's super friendly and loves everybody. They just think they do because it's important to them. It's like a status thing. So they have a dog they think is so friendly and a social butterfly, and then when they come back for their follow-up lesson or for boarding or whatever, we see them, you know, six months later, a year later after they do their training, and they have this horror story about how their dog snapped at somebody.

And they're so devastated by it.

I mean, the good news, guys, here, if that's you, is like, there's nothing wrong with your dog. There's nothing wrong with your dog, right? Now, if you have a dog that's trying to kill people, let's have a conversation about that, right? But you have a dog who, someone put their hand in their face and they snapped at them <laugh>. Well, you put your hand in my face, I'll snap at you too, okay? So I'm not saying you shouldn't address it. I'm not saying that at all. You have a responsibility to address it and to make your dog as safe as possible and advocate for your dog. Stop putting them in that fucking situation.

38:00 — Kati urges owners to stop allowing unwanted petting just to preserve a reputation for…

Stop it.

Stop feeling like you have to, stop feeling like you have to put your dog in that situation and let people touch your dog, get in their space, make them uncomfortable in order for you to keep your little gold star that says, I have a great dog that loves everybody. My dog loves everyone. My dog would never hurt a flea. My dog would never bite. Not my dog. My dog is so sweet, my dog loves everyone. You don't have to do that. There is no obligation for you to do that. You are not obligated to put your dog in those kinds of social situations.

Now, I highly, highly believe that you should train your dog to listen to you no matter what, to know that we don't growl at people no matter what. We don't put our teeth on people no matter what. We make good choices no matter what, to be as tolerant and safe and reliable as possible. But we don't do that by just putting our dog in a situation that makes them uncomfortable and hoping for the best over and over and over again until the dog finally says, fuck you.

So we have a lot of people that like to take their dog everywhere with them. And I think that's amazing. And I think you should absolutely be able to do that unless you have one of the very few dogs that are truly dangerous and you feel like you've already met the ceiling of what they're capable of, and there's still too much risk. But even those dogs can usually be, um, managed with proper training and a muzzle. If the conditions are too risky, put a muzzle on them. And then for the vast majority of dogs, you can train them to listen to you no matter what.

Just listen to me and I'm gonna advocate for you. We're not gonna have people coming up to you putting pressure on you, getting in your space, putting their hands in your face. We're not, we're not going to, we're just not gonna do that. And all you have to do is just listen to me. That's a great arrangement.

41:00 — Bringing a dog to work can create pressure to let coworkers interact with it.

And then with that arrangement, you can take your dog anywhere. We have a lot of folks that take their dog to work. Amazing. If you have a job where you can take your dog to work, here's the problem. Most places allow you to take your dog to work because all dogs are teddy bears. All dogs are social butterflies, or should be. All dogs should tolerate and love strangers. They should want to meet strangers. They should want to say hi. They should want to get attention and affection and be pet and loved on and given treats.

And, and they don't. Most dogs don't.

At best, as we discussed earlier, most dogs will tolerate it, right? But they don't love it. But the thing is, there's no problem, right? If you bring your dog into work and they just tolerate it like most dogs, then that's fine. They get the label of being super social and loving everybody. And even though that label is wrong, right? It never causes a problem because the dog tolerates it. Okay? But what if your dog doesn't tolerate it? Okay? What if your dog is like, no, I don't want you to touch. I don't know you like that.

I don't want you to touch me. You gonna hold that against your dog?

So people think that that means there's a problem, right? But there isn't. There's a problem. Yeah. But the problem is with your thinking, the problem is with the way you view dogs. So if you want a dog who absolutely loves the strangers coming up and sticking their hands in their face and talking to them and putting pressure on them, especially when they're confined on a leash or command of some kind, and that's not the dog you have, well then get a different dog. Like, really? That sounds ridiculous, but like, that's the option that you have.

Or honor your dog for who they are and advocate for them. And here's the thing, a lot of people, they want to work on this to change their dog's perception. And I'm not gonna say that that can't be done, but the reason that we really don't do that a ton is because number one, it's usually more effort than it's worth.

Number two, the dog is probably never really gonna love it. Like even if you teach them to get better and better and better with accepting that pressure on them, they're never gonna love it. Number three, you can't train the whole world. Okay? So how are you gonna do this? Because you have to have people basically that your dog doesn't know, right? But they have to be people you know, because you have to know that they'll follow instructions and you gotta be okay with it if they end up getting bit, even though, of course, your dog would never bite anybody <laugh>.

44:00 — Kati questions exposing uncomfortable dogs and strangers to risk solely to make the dogs…

Um, so are we gonna take strangers that the dog doesn't know and put them both in that position knowing the dog is uncomfortable, and be like, we're gonna make this better, right? So we're gonna risk your fingers and make my dog uncomfortable so that we can try to make this better. Because I have to have a dog that people can go up to and touch and love on and put pressure on. No. Like I, we just don't do that. We just don't do it. Guys, what we do do is we teach our dogs to listen to us, and then we advocate for them.

And this isn't a problem because when we have friends and we have family that spend regular time with us, a relationship organically will develop between the dog and the person. And it's just not an issue, right? The dog will see this person is around, this person's part of the circle. They're cool, and it's not gonna be a problem most of the time, right? But when some rando just walks in off the street, like, no, I don't expect my dog to love it. If this person walks up to them, stares them in the eye, puts pressure on them, and then does this, I always tell my clients doing this to a dog or this, go ahead and smell me. Guess what?

You don't need to put your fist or your fingers in the dog's face for them to smell you. Please stop doing that. <laugh>

Stop that. Um, right? If the dog wants to sniff you, they will come sniff you. By the way, the dog can smell you from over there. You don't have to do this. But I always tell my clients, doing this to a dog or this, putting your hand, extending your arm toward the dog, that is the same as doing this to a person. It's the same. That's the perception anyway. From the dog's point of view, it's a threat. If a dog doesn't know you, has no relationship with you, and is a little unsettled by strangers, extending your arm toward the dog is the same as doing this to a person.

It's a direct threat. And the dog will respond accordingly. So guys, normally when you see these things develop, it's not that you did something wrong. It's not that there's anything wrong with your dog, it's just your dog going through the maturation process and you're seeing how they really feel now. And it might've been there before, just it manifested in a different way, or it wasn't as dramatic, right? And as they move through maturation, things change. So we see that a lot with dog-on-dog action too. So you get a dog and people say, oh, she's great with other dogs.

She rolls over on her back, she tucks her tail. She's very submissive. It's like, okay, I don't think that's great, because your dog is telling you that they're uncomfortable. And that's how they're choosing to communicate that now, right? When they're four months old or whatever, come back in another eight or nine months, dog's a year old, they might be handling that discomfort in a very different way.

48:00 — A dog that rolls onto its back may later growl or snap, confusing owners…

And we see that happen a lot too. And that's extremely confusing to people because they go from thinking that they have this really sweet, submissive, soft dog. She's so submissive, rolls over on her back, um, and then all of a sudden the dog growls and snaps at another dog. And to people, their heads just explode. Because to most people, that's two different dogs, right? One's a good dog and one's a bad dog. No, they're the same dog. Just that discomfort is manifesting a little differently. Why? Well, number one, because things just change. And dogs just do stuff.

But number two, as your dog moves through maturation and different hormones kick in, different behaviors get triggered, things look different sometimes, right? And I use the example a lot of like a dog that barks when someone comes up the driveway. They're not doing that when they're eight weeks old, guys.

They're usually not doing it at two months, three months, four months. Come back when the dog's 7, 8, 9 months, and now they're losing their mind when someone comes up the driveway, when someone knocks on the door, right? And it's not because anybody came up the driveway and kicked your dog. That's not what triggered that behavior. It's not because anybody did anything wrong. It's not because anyone did anything mean. It's because your dog grew up, your dog grew up, and now things are manifesting, and you are seeing who your dog really is and what's really going on in there.

And your dog's not bad. Your dog is just doing dog things. And I think it's really important to remember, we need to honor our dogs for who they are. So I'm not saying just accept their behavior. Hmm. If you know me, that's not what I'm saying. You need to address their behavior. But by treating your dog like they're a stuffed animal or a baby, you are not honoring your dog. You honor your dog by understanding they're an animal, not with emotions, but with instincts. And that they're just doing what comes naturally. And that it's up to us to set clear boundaries with them and teach them to listen to us and build that relationship with them where they know, A, they have to listen to us, and B, they know exactly what we expect, and C, they know we will advocate for them.

And then you have the safest, happiest dog you can possibly have. 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.