Punishing The Growl

00:00 — Kati Peppe opens 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 guys, thanks for joining me today. Sorry, this episode, posting a few hours late, uh, just getting back from vacation and you know how that goes. <laugh>, we went to Kentucky, which everyone's like, why don't you go to Kentucky?

Like, that's weird. Um, but I mean, I'm just generally weird and so is my husband. So, I mean, I guess that's the short, that's the short answer. But really, like everyone on vacation, especially like April vacation with their, you know, uh, school-age kids, like they're all doing the same thing, right?

Everyone's getting on a plane and going to Disney World, and that is so lame, so boring, so mainstream. We don't do mainstream around here. So we went to Kentucky and we explored some caves, which was super cool, highly recommend. And we paddled the Green River and we pet some kangaroos. Yeah, I know, kangaroos. And it, it wasn't the experience I expected to be, and emus too. Um, I thought kangaroos were kind of like nasty, you know? And they're like these big strong animals that can have an attitude. And that was not our experience at all.

These kangaroos, they just laid around in the sun and you'd come over and pet them, and most of them wouldn't even lift their head. Like they didn't even notice you were there. It was, it was really neat. Um, but anyways, enough about my stupid vacation. Um, it was amazing though, but still glad to be back. And today we have an amazing topic that I don't know why I haven't really, I mean, I'm, I'm sure it's come up from time to time on the other episodes, but I haven't done an episode about this. And it's a really, really common misconception, a really common question, uh, people wanna know.

Well, I mean, if you look at the information out there, it all says the same thing. It all says you should never punish your dog for growling, right? Because growling is their way of communicating to you that they're uncomfortable. It's like, okay, so is biting <laugh>, what's the difference? And you know what, guys? There's not one. There's not one. So let's talk about, because it's not super black and white, right? A lot of things aren't. This is, this is not, you know, I could say most of the time we punish the growl. Am I gonna say all the time?

03:00 — Kati introduces why she generally favors punishing unwanted behaviors while acknowledging growling requires context.

No. Um, so let's just talk a little bit about why, why it's not black and white, and why that is the route that we usually take. So first of all, whenever we talk about an unwanted behavior, right? If you've been listening to me at all, like if you don't know that I am very pro, you need to punish unwanted behaviors, then you're obviously new here. <laugh>

Welcome. Um, that is how you inhibit unwanted behaviors. Not to be mean, not to be bossy, militant. It is just, it's none of that. Not because the dog is quote unquote bad dog. It's just science, guys. Like that is how you build an inhibition in the brain. That is how you rewire neurological connections. There has to be something tangible, intolerable that is connected, that is contingent upon that behavior to make that behavior decrease. Um, that's just how it works. And I know that not from some stupid paper I read or some Google article. We do this every single day.

It is probably the thing we help people with the most. 'Cause although we are fantastic too, at building behaviors and making them reliable, like the number one thing most people really need help with is this, because they can't get this information anywhere else. And punishment inhibits behaviors, period.

I mean, that's literally in behavioral science, the definition of punishment is anything that decreases or eliminates a behavior. Um, so that's not really up for debate and across the board, okay? What you'll hear us say is, doing that as early in the process as possible is almost always your best bet. So whether we're talking about a dog with severe leash reactivity, right? An aggressive dog, a dog that wants to go fight other dogs, attack other dogs, dogs with separation anxiety. Any, anything you can think of, the earlier you can catch it and insert that inhibition, that, um, consequence.

The earlier in the process you can do that, the more effective you're generally going to be.

06:00 — Kati argues against waiting for growling to escalate before intervening.

Okay? It's true for everything. So when you think about a dog that can become aggressive, that could use their teeth, if they're growling, why would we want to wait until that escalates to something worse to say, hey, don't do that. Okay? And the answer is, we, we wouldn't, we would not wanna wait. That's silly. Um, and sometimes even preceding a growl, there will be signs often, right? So stiffness, um, real big eyes that are often called like whale eyes, right? A lowering of the head, like if it's a guarding sort of, um, scenario, right? So there's a body language stuff that you'll sometimes don't growl at all.

But the question we get the most is like punishing the growl. And this was a topic, um, that was recommended to me by a customer, and it's a good one because it is really, really common. But we, we try to catch things early.

And so a dog that's exhibiting any kind of confrontational behavior, and it doesn't matter why they're growling, guys, okay? But we would wanna catch that early. So what? 'Cause you can't have it both ways, right? You're either telling your dog it's okay or it's not okay. And that's true for every single behavior, every moment of the day, okay? And most behaviors are probably gonna be fine, right? Dogs just being dogs, going through their day doing things. But there will be moments throughout the day where they do something we don't like, whether it's just going to a part of the house.

We don't like getting up on the couch. Or maybe it's growling, growling at somebody. We just had Esme here a few weeks ago, right? And she, she actually was just here for boarding, went home yesterday. She would growl if someone made eye contact with her while she was resting <laugh>. Oh, right.

I'm comfortable. Don't look at me <laugh>. Uh, no, that's not okay, right? But if we don't punish that behavior, then we're saying that's okay, right? So your dog is essentially kind of treating you like another dog, and not one they have a ton of respect for <laugh>. And you are going along with it and saying, yes, I'm another dog and I will respect your wishes and avert my eyes and not come near you. And now I'm not saying you should be able to go over and, you know, go crazy all over your dog, giving them hugs when they're trying to sleep.

09:00 — Kati says dogs should tolerate everyday activities, including people entering rooms or walking past…

A lot of dogs don't like to be bothered when they're sleeping, but if you can't look at your dog, if you can't walk in the room, if you can't walk by them, if you can't, your dog needs to be able to tolerate normal living conditions and normal everyday scenarios, right? And so where that threshold lies is really up to you, right? For instance, we never go grab things out of a dog's mouth. I don't do that. There are trainers that do that. I don't do that.

I know what my expectations are and I enforce them, but I'm never gonna go grab something out of their mouth. I shouldn't say never, right? Sometimes we'll have dogs and we're playing and they don't have a history of any kind of, um, guarding behaviors. And I'll grab the toy out of their mouth. Sometimes I do that. I admit it, right? But I'm not gonna give a dog a high-value bone and go grab it outta their mouth or a dog that guards toys and go grab it outta its mouth. I'm just not going to. I'm gonna teach them.

They have to give it up when I ask for it, and that's gonna be enforced with consequences, right? But even though I'm not gonna go grab it out of their mouth, I'm not gonna tolerate them growling at me over it just because I'm looking at it or I walk near them. No way.

No way. So you have to decide where that threshold is, right? And then you've got play growls too, which dogs growl when they play, right? And you can generally tell the difference. If you can't tell the difference, then you might wanna consider either punishing the growl to be safe or just not engaging in whatever that activity is. But generally speaking, if your relationship is in place with the dog, you're gonna know, right? You're, you're gonna know like your dog has respect for you or they don't. And of course, everybody wants to say their dog is afraid when they're growling.

Sometimes they are. Most of the time they're not <laugh>. Just my experience, most of the time they're not. And it doesn't matter, right? So if I have a dog who's really scared of strangers and we go out in public and they growl at somebody, I punish the growl.

I correct them for the growl. It doesn't matter that they're scared because they're never gonna stop being scared until they stop acting scared. So sometimes people have it twisted, they get it backwards, okay? You can't, we don't have the technology at this point for you to control your dog's brain in the sense that you can get in there where the emotions are and fix how they feel. There's just no magic wand for you to do that. There's no mechanism by which we can do that, except we can change the dog's behaviors. And then something magic happens: the way they feel in those situations starts to change, at least seemingly.

So, right? There's no way for us to ever really know for fact how our dog feels. But you can tell, um, at least the trained eye can tell. I think sometimes the untrained eye is a little bit off, 'cause they tend to apply human emotions to what they're seeing, and they tend to apply human cognitive thought processes, right? For instance, I had a dog that was left with me for boarding the other day, and right before the person walked out, the dog was shaking. And then the person got very concerned about why the dog was shaking.

Because they're probably thinking in their head that the dog is having some thought process about what's happening and where they're going, and if they're being abandoned or if they're leaving them with the mean lady, right? Being me. I'm the mean lady <laugh>, by the way. Dog's amazing, has a great time here. Um, she's not scared of me. Not at all. But that's just humans, right? We see shaking. It can only mean one thing. Dog's terrified and they're having all these awful thoughts in their head, but they're not dogs. Not even con, they're not capable of having those kinds of thoughts, right?

They can make associations, which broadly translates to predictions, right?

But they can't worry about the future, dogs. They just don't have that. It's not a thing. Um, but the breed in general tends to be, uh, more tense, uh, and anxious. And she certainly is one of those. And you know, when your dog gets highly aroused, highly stimulated, anxious in any way, adrenalized, you'll see that, you'll see a little bit of a shake. Doesn't mean anything, right? If you put a hunting dog in, in a cage and you put a rabbit in front of him, you might see some shaking. Doesn't mean he's afraid, guys. It's not what it means, okay?

And most of the time, and this isn't what this episode is about, but just as a side note, most of the time when you see shaking, like most of the time when you see a fearful dog, they're not shaking.

Most of the time. Dogs that are truly nervous and fearful, they're not shaking. They will cower, they will flee, they will tuck their tail, but shaking actually is not high on the list. Um, we see that more with the dogs that just get highly, highly stimulated. More adrenaline. See it a lot with pitties. Any dog can do it, right? Not just certain breeds, but anywho, catching behaviors early before they're at their worst is key in being effective and efficient at changing behavior and changing how your dog feels about a situation. Um, are there situations where I wouldn't punish a growl or where it might not be effective?

16:00 — Kati warns that correcting a threatening dog face-to-face could provoke an attack.

Yeah. So an example is if you are face to face with a dog who is threatening you, <laugh>, uh, who's, you know, a big confident dominant type dog, and they're threatening you and you try to punish that growl, right? They're threatening you with the growl, they may very well just eat that correction and come at you. That can happen. But, you know, 99% of the time when someone's asking me, should I punish the growl, that's not their situation.

That's usually not their situation. Usually it is the dog growls at strangers, the dog growls at other dogs, the dog growls if I come near them when they have a bone. And in that situation, it could happen as well, right? But, so there's a lot of factors you do have to take into consideration, right? You have to know your dog. What kind of dog are you dealing with? Um, the more confrontational the situation. Like if your dog is growling at you, then I would, the sorts of things that would play a role, I would say are what's the nature of your general relationship?

Is your dog generally kind of snotty and pushy, demands things from you, doesn't listen to you, threatens you whenever they want? Like if, if that's what's happening, I'm not saying you shouldn't punish the growl, but you have a lot of work to do.

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And now on with the show, right? And doing some of that other work is going to make a big difference, right? So just trying to punish your dog for growling at you in that situation, that might kind of blow up in your face, right?

But if you put in the time, the effort, and the work of being like, okay, we're gonna teach you all these commands. We're gonna teach you what the e-collar means in relation to those commands, we're gonna start holding you accountable for those commands. There's gonna be corrections if you don't walk in a heel when I tell you to, if you don't go to place when I tell you to, right? So now you're starting to develop a relationship with standards. You're starting to become somebody different to your dog, right? Because the situation in that case is like your dog sees you as like the bottom rung, right?

19:00 — Kati says owner-directed growling requires broader relationship work rather than focusing only on the…

You're like the doormat of the house. Suddenly you take a stand and correct your dog for growling at you.

Well, some dogs are gonna back right off and go, oh my God, I had no idea. Right? Every dog's different. And some dogs are gonna say, bitch, what? <laugh>, I kill you. Right? So I don't know your dog. I don't know your dog, but I think it's pretty safe to say no matter what, the best course of action, if you have a dog that growls at you in any situation as their owner, is to not just focus on that moment. Yes, we're gonna need to focus on that moment, but you've got a lot of other work to do.

And you shouldn't skip it. You can't skip it.

Use the structure we talk about. Put your dog in a kennel. Dog that growls at me does not need free roam of my house. Thank you very much. Nope. You can go in your kennel, I'll take you out to potty, I'll take you out to train. And then you're going back in your kennel, right? We'll go for a walk. You're going back in your kennel. But I'm gonna spend time building a different relationship with the dog when they come out of the kennel, right? We're gonna potty and then we're gonna work on stuff. We're gonna do 50 sits, we're gonna do 50 reps of place.

We're gonna go out and practice walking in a heel. I'm gonna teach them a heel.

So instead of spending the day rolling around on the floor, having a snuggle fest, making out with the dog, playing tug, and then getting growled at all night because they don't want me near their bone or their food, that life is over <laugh>. We're gonna build something new, right? I'm gonna change how my dog sees me because I'm gonna change how we interact and how we spend time together and how my dog's day is structured. They don't get to choose things anymore. I choose for them. And our relationship is gonna be one of, I am teaching you, I am guiding you, I am setting the boundaries, the rules, the guidelines, all this stuff, right?

22:00 — Kati cautions that dominance can vary by context and by the person interacting with…

Because it's very clear if you have a dog that threatens you as their owner, that relationship is not in place. And there are some dogs that are really, really hard. They're just very, very dominant by nature in most situations.

And I'm careful about using that word because the fact is, some dogs can be very dominant in one context and not in another, right? So be careful about saying, my dog is an alpha, my dog is dog. And it's like maybe in one situation or with one person and not with another, right? So again, it's not just like saying you have an aggressive dog, right? It's not, it's not black and white. It's not is or isn't. They all have it in there to some degree or other. Um, but some dogs tend more in that direction, obviously, right?

So we get some dogs that are very soft, very sensitive, very respectful, um, and we get some dogs that just, you can do everything right, and they're still just really hard because they just, they will just fight you to be <laugh>. They will just fight you to do their own thing. And uh, I had one of those dogs and I've talked about that before.

Um, so it makes a difference what kind of dog you have, right? But no matter what, your dog's growling at you confrontationally, um, you have a lot of relationship stuff to do. And so I would do that, and then yes, they growl at me. I will absolutely punish that growl, uh, in a safe manner, right? So again, if you have a genuinely dangerous dog, don't put yourself in a situation <laugh> where they're going to attack you. Um, but that's pretty rare. But there are ways to do it, right? So if we get dogs that are severe resource guarders, we will tether them to a pole, right?

And we, we'll stay far enough away that they can't reach us. Like if they came at us, they're gonna hit the end of their leash, right? So like in those kinds of extreme situations, you can take precautions, you could even use a muzzle, right? But some dogs, they'll still do the behavior, some dogs won't. Um, but, you know, there are ways to do things safely. Don't put yourself in a situation where you're potentially going to get hurt. But it does need to be addressed. But I'm just saying, addressing it in a vacuum without fixing the relationship, it might work, but it, it probably won't.

You're probably gonna see it crop up, um, more frequently in other places. You've got work to do.

So we would recommend doing all of that work and absolutely punishing the growl. Absolutely. Now, when it comes to a dog maybe letting out a little growl toward another dog in certain situations, I might let that slide again. It's gonna depend, right? So I don't know your situation, but you know, that is how dogs communicate with each other. And it is normal if a dog gets too close to another dog while they're eating or is, especially if they're staring while they're eating. 'Cause that means I want what you have and I'm gonna try to take it <laugh>, right?

25:00 — Kati distinguishes a subtle dog-to-dog resource growl from charging across a room to attack…

So if the dog with the resource lets out a subtle little growl to say, hey, it's mine. Don't even try to move in over here. That's not necessarily a big deal. But if you have a dog that goes from zero to a hundred, right? Another dog walks in the room and they just fly across the room and attack the other dog because they have a bone or they have a bowl of food, like that's a bit much, don't you think? So yes, you have to do something about that.

Um, but there's really never a context in which I say you shouldn't punish the growl or it's bad or terrible to punish the growl. It's just that depending on the situation, um, you probably have other work to do and you may need to take safety precautions, right? But again, those are much less common situations. Um, most of the time in most situations that people are describing, um, the dog just needs a no gonna need collar tap would be like, "Hey," they just need someone to disagree with that. Um, so they can start to do something different.

Another common one that I hear a lot is, you know, the dog will lay in their kennel and they'll growl when the cats walk by or things like that, you know, or one of the other dogs in the house walks by, they'll growl. No, I don't allow that. You can't just lay around growling at everybody for walking by. And even if it seems harmless, um, it's not because especially in situations where then the cat, the dog, you know, the mailman, whoever it is, right? They keep walking away after. And so now your dog goes, "Oh, I did that."

"I should keep doing that. I should do that more." And then the behavior becomes more frequent, more intense, and potentially could escalate into something else, right? Especially what if your dog wasn't in the crate when they did that?

Uh, so you gotta think about that stuff. It's like, what mindset are we encouraging? Where does our dog think they fall <laugh> in the hierarchy here, right? Is—are they royalty? And like this is their castle and these are all their things and their servants and they can just growl at anybody at any time, which translates to, they could just attack anybody at any time, you know? And nobody thinks their dog would do that. But remember, they all have it <laugh>. It's all—it's in there somewhere. Doesn't mean your dog will necessarily do it, but if they're growling, I would say they're a lot more likely to do it than a dog that's not.

28:00 — Kati rejects the claim that punishing growling causes biting without warning, while acknowledging some…

So this hogwash about if you punish the growl, you just suppress it and then they snap. That's a load of baloney. That's just not true.

Absolutely not true, okay? Because you can't get to point B without point A. I'm not saying a dog can't bite without growling. That's not what I'm saying. Could that happen? It could, right? There are dogs out there that don't growl, right? But we're talking about dogs that do, not dogs that don't, because we're talking about the growl. There are dogs that might just get stiff and then bite or something of that nature, something like that. Um, that does happen, right? But if, if you have a dog that has already proven that their natural sequence of events is to growl first, if you punish and inhibit the growl, that isn't then going to result in a bite without a growl.

It's just not. We never see that.

That's like saying if you have a dog with separation anxiety and you put them in a kennel and they whine and pace, and then they escalate to trying to bite the bars apart on the crate, that's like saying if you punish the whining and the pacing, they'll just go straight to biting the bars. They don't. Now, if you had a dog that already naturally just went right to biting the bars, yeah, I'm sure that's out there, right? But by you addressing things at the earliest possibility and saying that then behavior is gonna somehow make a leap and escalate.

That's just not how it works.

It's just not how it works. I mean, guys, if you take dogs that are aggressive, whether we're talking about toward other dogs or other people, right? Dogs that have a bite history, if the only way for me to stop biting was to put the dog in the situation and let them bite and correct it, we would never be able to fix dogs <laugh>. We would never be able to fix those issues, right? Because we, we can't just let dogs go around biting people to correct them. No, we correct them sooner than that for all the other stuff.

The staring, the stiffening, the loading, the growling, the earlier the better. It prevents escalation. And I have an episode on suppression. So if you've been hearing a lot of that garbage about how you're just suppressing the growl, go back and listen to the suppression episode. Uh, it's a really, really great episode, right? So suppression of behavior is not a bad thing. It doesn't mean it's bad. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It doesn't mean it's gonna come back. It doesn't mean your dog's gonna bottle it up and explode. Does not mean that. It means inhibition, right?

Suppression literally means—the definition of suppression is to forcibly stop.

Not bad. It's necessary when you correct a growl, right? In most cases, you are disagreeing with that behavior. You're providing a tangible consequence for that neurological connection for your dog's brain starting to go down that road where they choose that behavior, those types of behaviors, right? And so then if you do that and you see now your dog is in those situations and they make different choices where they're not growling, they're not staring and loading, that's good. That's not gonna result in your dog snapping. It just isn't, right? So one instance where I could see something like that playing out would be a dog that is really, really intense and really, really struggles with a certain trigger.

33:00 — Kati says closer triggers can bring back previous behaviors and recommends hands-on guidance for…

And even if you fix the growling or the loading or whatever it is, um, at a certain distance, as that trigger closes in and that distance gets smaller, your dog might have a harder and harder time not reverting back to that old behavior. And that's normal, right? And that just looks different for every dog. So there's no way for me to tell you on this podcast exactly what to do with every dog. They're all different. And if your dog's that challenging or experiencing stuff that's that complicated, like you should probably get some guidance, get some hands-on help, uh, with somebody who is experienced, who can give you a plan.

Like, this is what you should do in these situations.

Um, but just letting it go, that's not gonna be the answer. Not, not from a good trainer, <laugh>, right? Just put, put blindfold, put a blindfold on your dog. And some people say that. That's not gonna be the answer, right? Just don't go near your dog, just don't go in the room. Just don't give them bones like that. That's not the answer. None of those things are the answer. There will absolutely be correction for those behaviors. It's just how do we do it? When do we do it? And what other work do we have to do?

And that looks a little bit different for every dog. 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.