Only One End Of The Leash Can Have Control

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces Off Leash and Unfiltered and asks listeners to subscribe.

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 being here today. Um, beautiful, beautiful day outside. It finally feels like spring. It actually feels like summer. It's amazing. Have the top down on the Jeep.

The dogs love it. Um, especially now that it's nice and clean, 'cause I spent two and a half hours yesterday cleaning out the dog hair <laugh>. Um, it's appalling. You know, when I started this job, I never, ever, when I, I say when I started this job, when I kind of started getting into to dog training and, and dog sitting and all of that, I never thought I, like, I never, never crossed my mind, like, how insanely disgusting it makes your car.

Like I never really thought of having dogs in your car as like being dirty or like, I'm just not that kind of person. Like we've always had dogs, there's always been dog hair. It's no big deal. Let me tell you what, this is a big deal. <laugh> Um, I guess just the sheer number of dogs, you know, being in there all the time. It is on a whole other level. So there's a car detailing place underneath us and I, I may need to sign up <laugh> for their monthly plan, um, and they'll probably hate me <laugh>, but like the dog hair has become a real problem.

But anyways, it's spic and span right now. It feels good. The dogs are loving the, the top being open. Um, and I'm loving this weather and it's making me happy. So let's talk about something that doesn't make me happy. <laugh> No, I'm just kidding.

Um, but let's talk about like the thing, like the thing that really determines is, you know, are things gonna go well or are they not gonna go well with your dog? And it, you know, it comes so naturally to me, at least at this point, obviously in my career. It didn't always, not by a long shot. So if I think back to the before I was into dog training, you know, when I was younger and we had dogs, like we didn't even use crates. Like none of this stuff came naturally to me. Um, but sometimes I have a difficult time just kind of articulating and putting into words what I'm seeing.

Um, so I'm gonna try to do that today, <laugh>. So that's the ride I'm taking you on today. The thing I see, the thing we see, the thing Joyce and I see, um, that really dictates like, is, is this person going to be successful and, and find some success with their dog or are they going to struggle? Because there really is, at the core of that, I mean, there's lots of things, right? But there's really one core thing that if it's missing, basically if it's missing, it eliminates the possibility of success. Like, you cannot be successful if you don't have this.

03:00 — Kati identifies control as the central factor determining whether a handler succeeds with their…

So let's talk about what this magical thing is.

And even now I struggle with what is the right term to use because ultimately at the end of the day, the word is control, I think. So one of you—take a dog and take a handler, okay? One of you is controlling the situation. And by the situation, I just mean any given moment in time. And that's just how it is. That's not an opinion. There's nothing debatable there. One of you is in control and one of you is not. Okay? So whether you have a really small dog, a really big dog, a really easy dog, a really tough dog.

It doesn't really particularly matter, but one of you is controlling things, period.

That's all there is to that. And what we see is folks giving up control to the dog for various reasons. So the biggest reason is they don't know how to control things, right? That's <laugh> obvious, that's a given. They don't know how. And so we usually run either trying to hold the dog back from whatever, or we're trying to bark commands at the dog and we're talking to the dog sometimes almost like they're a person, right? But none of that stuff is very effective and so it doesn't work. And so in that situation, even though that person might be trying, the dog is still controlling that situation.

And so I think the beauty of our programs is that's really the biggest thing we do, guys. The biggest thing we do is we set you up with tools and skills so that you know how to control the situation, right?

But then we can't make you do it when you go home, right? But whether you're doing a program or you're just DIYing things at home on your own, you have to be able to control the situation. And that's why we can walk into situations with dogs that are absolutely out of their frigging minds on like day one. We don't worry about it, right? And I'm not saying everybody should be able to do that. That's not what I'm saying, right? But it's because we're confident that we know how to control that situation. Doesn't mean the dog's gonna be perfect, right?

Doesn't mean they're not gonna lose their mind and be a nutcase, but we're gonna be in control of that situation. It's gonna be fine, right? Most of the time. Um, there's no question there. And once the dog gets some training under their belt, we're gonna get something much, much better. But we're gonna control that situation no matter what. And once they know the things they need to know, and they've had the training, we've done the teaching, most of it, right? They know the basics. Um, we are going to enforce that. And we, we are very good at that.

07:00 — Kati distinguishes dogs' natural behaviors from trained behaviors, using digging, jumping, and leash pulling…

We know how to do that. So that situation will be more controlled the next time we're in it.

It's difficult to explain to folks, um, that your dog basically exists in, in two states, right? Either their natural state or their trained state because the training isn't natural. Like you are teaching your dog to do things and not to do things in a way that's pretty unnatural, right? It's natural to dig holes in the garden. You're teaching your dog not to do that. It's natural to jump up on people. You're telling your dog not to do that. It's natural to pull on the leash to wanna run ahead of you. Like, like this stuff's all normal and natural and you want your dog to do something not natural.

Well, that's not gonna happen unless you are doing something to make that happen, right? There's no training in the world that's going to guarantee your dog will do all of these unnatural things without feedback from you. So yes, I have heard of <laugh> some dogs going through some training programs and coming out that way. And I think honestly that's what people are afraid of, right? The robot dog, they don't want that. And I get it, but I'll tell you what, if you're not gonna have a robot dog, which we don't do <laugh>, we don't do that here, um, then you need to be prepared to give the feedback to control things, right?

Because your dog isn't a robot. That means you need to control things. There's no set it and forget it. There's no program and walk away.

So the longer your dog, like if you send your dog to a formal training program, the longer they're there, the easier it will be for them, right? The more naturally all that stuff will come to them and you'll probably have to give them far less feedback. But if you're doing a basic two-week program, guys, that's not very much time. Your dog barely has time to learn this stuff. So when they go home, you have to give them feedback and not just in the moment where things are really bad, right? The reason you get there and things are really bad is because they were missing feedback all day, probably.

Um, let me give some examples. So a lot of dogs are hyper-excitable. They're leash pullers. We set all of our clients' dogs up on a prong collar and we teach the dog, we condition them to the prong collar. We teach them how to respond to it. And we show every client, and we spend quite a bit of time on this, we show every client how to handle their leash, okay? And generally speaking, the instruction is a nice short leash, but it should be loose. And if for any reason your dog puts tension on this leash, your dog starts to run ahead of you.

Your dog starts to get excited. It is up to you to say through your leash, to do the leash work necessary to say, "Hey, no, we're not doing that right now. This is what we're doing. Stay with me."

Okay? That takes us a few minutes to cover. And we show people how to use their leash for leash pressure and guidance. And we show them how to use their leash for leash pops, um, to get their dog's attention, to break through distractions, to disagree with behaviors, all of those things. And that leash work that we're showing our clients, the leash pressure, the leash pops, all those things, those are things that only take a moment to do. Which means when you have your dog on a leash and they start to fixate or stare or bark or lunge or pull or just leave position or any of these things, there's a brief moment that you have to give the feedback.

11:00 — Kati contrasts immediate feedback restoring attention with missed feedback allowing dragging, jumping, or dangerous…

And depending on what you do, you could have two extremely different outcomes. You could have a dog that snaps right back to attention, stays with you and things are fantastic. Or if you have a really intense excitable guy, you might have a dog that drags you across the street, jumps on somebody, gets into an altercation with another dog, runs out into the road, whatever it is, right? And it's, it boils down to what did we do in that brief moment? Did we give the dog the feedback? And if we did, we have no problem, right?

And if we didn't, things go south. And again, dog's in control of the situation and we're kind of at their mercy at that point.

And most people do pretty well in the lesson when we're showing them that. But then if you watch them walk out to their car, they'll let out five feet of leash, the dog's out ahead of them sniffing, pulling, zigzagging, okay? So you get two black-and-white examples in a very short period of time. One where the dog is calm, focused, under control next to their leg, walking nicely because the feedback is coming in. There is somebody in that situation in control. There is somebody saying, "I have the leash and this is the expectation." And I communicate that, they communicate that to the dog through the leash physically, not verbally, guys.

Although you can have a verbal command and that's fine, but you can't enforce it verbally. Okay? That's a good point. You cannot enforce anything verbally. You can give instruction verbally, but you cannot enforce things verbally. They need to be enforced physically.

So even if that same person who's got a calm, focused, respectful dog walking nicely next to them when, when they're in here, then they go outside and for whatever reason it's like, well, we're just gonna go back to our natural state, right? So they let the leash out, dog's out ahead of them, sniffing, excited, pulling, zigzagging, whatever it is they're doing. Um, it's not a different dog. It's not that it's a different environment. It's not even that it's a different handler, technically, it's because the handler has now chosen to relinquish control to the dog. Okay? So now there is no person in control.

So the dog takes control because we told them to. The handler in that situation said, "Okay, you're in control." And so they do natural dog stuff, like why wouldn't they? Of course they're going to. Um, and that's normal, right? So the feedback has to be coming in.

And I think part of the reason that that doesn't happen is people need to get used to doing it. So sometimes it's just new and it's, it's unnatural to the person, right? To do that. We've never done that before. It's unnatural for us to take control, to give meaningful feedback to communicate through our leash. 'Cause most people aren't using their leash like that. They're just hanging onto it and the dog's doing their thing and, and we're just hanging on for like dear life. Um, so it's new to the person. Like that's obviously one good reason.

But I think another really, really valuable thing, um, to think about is do we in our heads hold this idea that like there's training and not training? Because there just isn't, guys, it's all the time. If your dog is on a leash, it is your job to control their behavior. It's your job to give them the information. It's your job to communicate through your leash to give them the feedback. I don't care if you're just walking to the car, if you're going out to potty, if you're going for a long walk, none of those things matter.

16:00 — Kati says release cues permit sniffing or potty breaks without permitting pulling, jumping, barking,…

Your dog is on a leash. You should be in control at the other end of the leash and you either are or you are not. And there is never a time where you shouldn't be. Never.

Even if you say "break" or whatever your release word is to your dog or your cue to tell them it's okay to go sniff and go potty, guess what? You are still in control at the other end. There's still rules. Even if you're not in a heel, there's always rules. You still can't pull me. You still can't jump on people, you still can't bark, you still can't lunge, you still can't get reactive. Those things are all still true. So I think that brings up another interesting point, which is that again, this is all physical communication, right?

It's not about the command, we're talking about behavior. So yes, you can use commands, we use the heel command, we like dogs to walk in a heel and we expect that pretty much all the time that they're on a short leash, right? Unless we're letting them potty. Um, but it's not about the command, it's about who is in control at the moment.

And there's no good reason ever for, for you to put your dog in control. But that's what people do. It just eludes us how important it is for us to be physically communicating with our dogs. And I think that really is it, it's just so unnatural for folks to do that. And hopefully somebody out there right now is listening to this and having a little bit of an aha moment <laugh>, right? And so instead of just giving your dog lots of leash and struggling with them and not understanding how to get things under control and maybe barking orders at them and it's not really working, hopefully someone out there in that situation is hearing this and going, "Oh, I have to tell 'em through my leash," right?

Or if you have an e-collar, maybe you tell 'em through your e-collar, it's fine too. Maybe it's both, doesn't matter.

But the feedback has to be coming in. So in any moment where your dog gets too excitable, um, gets outta position, starts pulling, any of the things they do where you're going "uh-oh" and losing them, I want you to stop in that moment and think, what's the feedback coming in? Is there any? Because what we see is there isn't, there's no feedback coming in. And so we're just getting the natural spiraling <laugh> that dogs do because they're dogs, right? Not because they're bad, not any of that stuff, but because there, there's, there's no information coming in and there has to be, there has to be meaningful physical information coming in that says, "Hey, do this, don't do that."

19:00 — Kati says longer leashes can work after heel training if handlers still respond immediately…

And guys, it really is that simple.

It's going to be pretty hard to give your dog any meaningful information on a leash if your leash is five feet long. We never walk with dogs like that. So sure, once we have taught a heel and we can enforce it, especially if we can enforce it with our e-collar, we could let out five feet leash and it's not gonna matter, right? But the feedback still comes in the second. If they break that position, that feedback comes in, right? It just might not be through the leash, it might be through the e-collar. But we never, never, never take a dog out on a leash and just assume we're not gonna give them feedback.

Never, never. Not even just walking from the door to the car.

There will be feedback if it's needed. And most dogs will need it until they've been doing this for a while. So if you are very, very, um, laid back and not really the type to take the bull by the horns, steer the bus, your dog will know that, right? And they'll just do their own thing. And again, none of this is to be mean or to be militant. It's not. It's just, you guys, the conversations, they're just not there. So every, everyone talking about relationships and marriage is talking about communication. Communication, communication is no different with your dog.

The communication, guys, has to be there, and the communication is physical. Doesn't mean you never say anything verbally, but if you have no physical means of communicating and enforcing things, then there's zero mystery of why anything falls apart ever.

It's so crucial and it, like I said, it's so unnatural for folks and we see it all the time. So do this, right? If we wanna take all this stuff I'm blabbing about and frame it up as positively as possible as something that can actually help you, instead of just like me sounding like I'm bitching about the problem, <laugh> because I'm not, I'm trying to help people here, guys. Um, it's just painful because it, it seems like sometimes it feels like we almost fail at like getting this point across. Um, what I would say, if you find that things get away from you, sometimes your dog still kind of acts up sometimes.

23:00 — Kati frames the leash as a communication tool and argues that prong collars make…

I want to make sure that you are thinking of your leash 100% of the time as a communication tool and a way for you to give your dog guidance, feedback, corrections, to get them to settle. All of those things. I wanna make sure that you are never putting your dog on the leash just, just as a way to make sure they don't get away. 'Cause that's not what it's for.

And I wanna make sure you're always putting that leash on your prong collar because your dog can't hear you if you put it on their flat collar, okay? So your leash communication basically goes away when you don't use a prong collar. Not for all dogs, but like 99% of them <laugh>, okay? Your dog can't get the memo because you've removed the medium that helps you deliver it. They can't hear you, guys. So you're essentially, again, relinquishing control to the dog. You say, oh, we're just going to the car, we're just going out to potty. Okay?

But then the first moment your dog pulls you, strains on the leash, gets excited, whatever the thing is that happens, you have no choice but to tell them it's okay, because there's no way to tell them otherwise.

Again, unless you're using an e-collar for that, then that might actually work, right? But not having that leash communication to me just seems super silly. If you have to hook your leash onto a collar anyway, why not just use the one that works that you can actually talk to your dog with? You can't take a single moment for granted. Like, you can't, you can't differentiate one moment to another moment, to another moment, to another instance, to another instance. They're all the same. Your dog needs you to be prepared to give them feedback. In all of the moments.

26:00 — Walks, potty trips, car trips, and vet visits all require consistent leash feedback, according…

There is no, right now we're training, right now we're going for a walk, right now we're just going to the car, right now we're just going potty, right now we're just walking into the vet's office. All of those are the same. There's only on leash and off leash. And when your dog's on a leash, you need to be delivering the feedback through that leash and you either do or you don't.

So that's the thing, that's what I, that's what I recommend. Think about: Are there times where I have my dog on a leash and in my head I'm thinking none of that matters right now? In my head I'm thinking we're just going to the car. In my head I'm thinking the leash is just to keep 'em from running away, just to keep 'em with me, because that mentality will get in your way. 'Cause every time you do that, even if it is just for a minute, you are relinquishing control to the dog. And they are the ones in control of those moments.

And everybody talks about consistency, but then here we are like setting ourselves up to be unable to be consistent, right? So you're tying your own hands, you don't wanna do that, but whether it's through your leash, which is mostly what we've talked about today, or through your e-collar. The point is, guys, there is no moment too big or too small. All moments are potentially going to be teaching moments. And if you're not prepared to give the feedback, right? And you might have a dog who's super, super excitable and needs feedback like a lot, a lot, a lot.

Or you might have a dog that's pretty mellow, pretty laid back, or just did really well with their training and has good impulse control now and is, is pretty much doing a good job. Um, and stays pretty calm. But it doesn't matter which one of those folks you are. Either way, yes, one's gonna work harder than the other, but either way, both of you need to be 100% prepared at any given moment to give your dog the feedback they need.

Good choice, bad choice. Calm down. Don't worry about that guy over there. Stay next to me. And the more excitable or crazy <laugh> your dog is, the more critical it is, right? It's important for everybody, but it's more critical for those folks because those moments are gonna accumulate so much faster and they're gonna spiral out of control faster. Dog's probably more excitable, more intense, and so it's gonna be more of a problem. So, so, so important, guys, when you are with your dog anytime, whether it's on a leash or not, or in the house or out of the house.

So I wanna add this in because we've talked so much about the leash that it sounds like we're talking just about when your dog's on leash, but I'm not. It's a really good example because we see that one so, so, so much. It's like, well, the lesson's over, now we're going back to the car and the dog is just doing whatever. And it's like you can't go through life that way and have a well-trained dog or a calm dog or respectful dog. It's not, it won't work.

30:00 — Kati says training skills must become daily habits rather than practices reserved for formal…

So the things that we teach your dog and the things that we teach you, those are not just lessons. Those are things you implement in real life all the time. There's never a moment where that stuff goes away, right? Because if it does, your dog will know that, okay, this is a training lesson, now we're done. This is a training lesson, now we're done. It's like, no, you have to just apply it all the time. You have to make it life. And like I said, whether your dog's, whether we're talking about the leash, that's where we see like the most clear examples, or off leash in the house, outta the house, in the car, doesn't matter.

Any moment where your dog kind of makes a choice, that's not the right choice, that isn't, you know, it's a behavior you've been trying to change. Um, whatever.

If that feedback just doesn't come in, then you, my friend, are taking the backseat and your dog just does what comes naturally. And then they do that more and they do that more and they do that more. And then you struggle forever, right? And what it all just boils down to is like physical feedback coming in and it either is or it isn't. So evaluate that, right? So a lot of times we just don't know how to do it or we're just not doing it quite right. Maybe we're not sure about our intensity, about our timing, like those things happen.

But what we see so, so, so often is that it's just not coming in at all. And so there's a huge disconnect there.

And like I said, kind of circling back, like we could take a crazy out-of-control dog into a challenging situation, usually on day one. And we're not super worried about it because we know we are going to control that situation, right? So you do whatever it takes <laugh>, you do whatever it takes, but you, you maintain control. You have a short leash, you have the right equipment, and you are the one making the decisions and giving the instruction and enforcing it and leading by example. You're the one and you keep going, right? <laugh>, even if it's difficult, you, you keep going.

Um, and so you have to have kind of an assertive nature, I think, for that to come naturally. And if you don't have that, um, and you tend to be a softer person, um, more laid back or more of a follower or any of those things, um, it can be very unnatural. And your dog sometimes, not all dogs, but some dogs will just run you over, right? It's like, oh my God, you're not even there. Um, some dogs will try to do that either way because they're just so, um, amped up and, and intense.

But you have to step up and take control and just be prepared to give that feedback when it's needed, whether it's fairly constant because you have a challenging dog or it's just every once in a while because you have a pretty easy dog who just has their moments here and there, and without that you struggle. So that feedback, guys, it has to be coming in and I'm talking physically through your leash, through your e-collar, um, but by some means other than just barking at your dog. You are not helpless to control the situation, I promise.

34:00 — Kati closes by inviting listeners to submit topic suggestions through email or fan mail.

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.