The Key To An AUTOMATICALLY Polite And Reliable Dog: No Nagging And No Managing

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces Off Leash and Unfiltered and her off-leash obedience and behavior-modification work.

Speaker 1: Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered Trigger Warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the Truth in Dog Training.

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. I'm Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond Canine Dog training in Biddeford, Maine. And we primarily do, uh, eco training for off-leash obedience and behavior modification, as well as state of mind work. If you have a dog that's, um, really anxious or aggressive or fearful and that sort of thing, uh, that's what we really specialize in. And, uh, we do puppy stuff as well. Puppy raising, puppy manners and obedience. That's who we are. It's what we do. And this podcast is my way of trying to reach more people and get information out there that's hard to get, hard to get your hands on.

Speaker 1: Um, this stuff. So the in info, the internet, of course, is full of information, um, but a lot of it is just crap. A lot of it's just crap. And there's a lot of opinions out there.

Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that my opinion is the only right opinion, but there are some things that are black and white. Um, and one of the primary things, um, that there is a lot of false information out there about is the use of punishment, which is now being equated to abuse. So we talk a lot about that, um, because frankly, this contributes to more human injuries, dog injuries, euthanasia than anything else. Um, and that is the opposition of punishment. And I truly believe that, and I'm very, very passionate about this topic. So we talk about it a lot.

Speaker 1: Um, but we talk about all things dog and dog behavior here and today. I kind of wanted to touch on something that's super, super common and what sparked this topic, <laugh> today, was I actually had a dog just go home. Um, he was just here for boarding.

Speaker 1: He, he did a board and train very recently. Just went home a couple weeks ago. Um, his name is Moose, big Bloodhound, um, super, super fantastic dog, just lovable, um, soft, soft dog. So we love having moose here. But anyway, he was going home and I, I just, I noticed a couple little things on their way out. You know, I don't like to nitpick on, on people or anything, and I wasn't doing that, but I always try to point out little things when I notice them that I know could have a big impact. Um, and we have a appointment soon anyway, so we'll be looking at all this stuff hands on.

Speaker 1: But, um, I'm gonna give you some examples of, of what this means. 'cause I think this is, um, this is something 99% of people could improve on. So it gives you the opportunity for growth, a lot of improvement.

Speaker 1: Even if your dog's pretty good, like I'll, I'm willing to bet you there are some standards here that should actually be a little bit higher. Um, and there are things that seem inconsequential to some people, but they're not. And I'm gonna talk about why. But first I'm gonna put Annie back in her down, she hears noise and she's starting to, I'm starting to lose her. <laugh>. No, not a girl. So this is her first long place duration here at the, uh, training center. And she's hearing a lot of people out in the hallway and doors opening and closing, and it's freaking her out a little bit.

Speaker 1: <laugh>, understandably so. Um, so here's, here's the deal. Your dog, if you want a nice, safe, polite, reliable dog, they should take their cues from you, okay? Or from their handler, rather, they should not take their cues from the environment.

04:00 — Dogs should take cues from their handlers rather than environmental triggers, even during ordinary…

Speaker 1: Now, this sounds obvious to people, but it's not usually what we're actually doing in reality, if you really look at it, and most people think of the big moments, right? So they think of when they go to walk out the front door, like everyone's got a little method for what they do with their dog at the front door. By the way, it's usually different from what I do. Um, and maybe we'll get into that, maybe we won't. But, you know, that's, that's a big one. That's an obvious one to most people. Or when they feed their dog, they have a little system for that.

Speaker 1: 'cause that's an obvious one to people. But what they don't realize is even, even in those moments, but a thousand other moments, their dog is actually acting on cues that are not from them, and they're letting it slide. Which, you know, maybe that's fine, but I like to hold dogs to a much higher standard than that. Not because I'm militant or pushy, but because I really, really, really wanna grow and shape a dog that's always looking to me for the answer, right? I don't want a fully autonomous dog that says, I see an open door, I see a bowl of food, I see another dog, I, I hear a noise, whatever it is, and they decide what to do.

Speaker 1: I want a dog that's just kind of hanging out and they don't make any real decisions about that stuff unless I tell them to, right? So of course they're going to do something, right? But especially if you have them in a command, I don't want them breaking that command, like them making the decision, oh, it's time to break the command and this is huge. Or, or if they're on a short leash too, that's another big one. Like that's not a command really, but it kind of is. The way that I teach it, it's not a verbal command, but when I put you on a short leash, I want you to be calm.

Speaker 1: I want you to be polite, I want you to be attentive. And I don't want you caring so much about the environment that you're totally tuned out to me, right? I want us to be kind of in sync when you're on the leash. And that's an expectation. So here's an example.

Speaker 1: You pour the food in the bowl. Does your dog just go to eat it? Right? Do you have to intervene and tell them to sit and all this stuff? Maybe that's fine, but how long have you been doing that? How long have you been doing that? So someone should tell the dog, when I pour food, do not eat it, right? So nevermind sit or wait or stay. Those are things you want the dog to do. Tell the dog what not to do. Do not approach and eat from the bowl because I haven't told you to.

07:00 — Dogs must not approach food bowls until released, rather than merely being told to…

Speaker 1: So can you see the difference?

Speaker 1: One is I'm going to feed my dog a command to do something and then once he does it, I will reward him with the food, which is okay, but you will likely have to do that forever. And it doesn't help to sharpen impulse control, really, right? Because they have to be told or managed. So in my house, if I put the food and I feed my dog raw meat, and he's crazy about it, like crazy, it elevates like a komodo dragon. His hair stands up, he's crazy to eat his food. If I take that raw meat and I, he, he flies into his kennel because he, he wants to eat.

Speaker 1: So, and that's where I feed him. So he's in there, I put the food down, I don't say anything, I just, I put the food down and guess what? He does not eat it. He doesn't eat it. He just looks at me and then I tell him it's okay to go ahead and eat it and he eats it. Okay? So that's one example. Another one is the front door. It's a big one where people like to use commands like sit or wait or stay. Um, but for the same exact reason I don't do that. We just go to the door, we open it, we see what the dog does, I give them feedback.

Speaker 1: The feedback is either good or it's no right? So the idea is to see where the dog takes their cue from. So if you just open the door, but you give your dog a cue, first you're cheating, you're cheating. Same thing with the food, right? If you hug the food to your chest and say, sit, sit, sit. That's cheating. You're not, there's no real growth there.

Speaker 1: It's not the worst. Like it's okay, but I like to take that a step further, right? So don't tip your dog off with little cues ahead of time. What you want. Just present the trigger, see what your dog does. Give them the feedback. Okay? So we open the door. If the dog crowds the door, even if they don't go through it, I mean certainly if they do go through it, there's a correction. But even if they just crowd the door, you know, and they kind of weasel in there and they stick their nose in there, that's negative feedback for me.

10:00 — Crowding an open door earns negative feedback, even when the dog has not crossed…

Speaker 1: That's a correction. That's a no tap. Tap on the remote collar. Gimme some space. Now if you don't have a remote collar, which you should, but if you don't <laugh>, go ahead, do a leash pop. Hopefully you have your dog on a prong collar so you can at least give them a leash pop that gets their attention and says, Hey, I disagree with you. Crowding the door like that, right? The other thing you could do is you know, especially if you don't have a prong collar, but even if you do, give them a leash pop and a little bump with the knee, just a little tap and move them back.

Speaker 1: Alright, I gotta get Annie, she's off place again. No

Speaker 2: Place, place. Good down. Good girl.

Speaker 1: Whew. All right, sorry about that <laugh>.

Speaker 1: So we open the door, we just pause and we let the dog make a decision. See, do they take that as a cue or not? Because we create patterns with our dog all day. And so you have to really think about what pattern are you creating. So do you want a dog that you have to tell them to sit every time you go to the door or every time you feed them? Or do you want a dog that just knows what to do, what not to do and they do it? Because you can have it either way, right?

Speaker 1: But if you're going to give commands ahead of the triggers, then the triggers never really get learned how they're supposed to respond to them. And that really is the magic here. It's like teach your dog how to respond to things that typically trigger action.

Speaker 1: Okay? So for instance, here's another one laying down in the car. I require dogs to lay down in the car because it's safer. They're less likely to like fall over and get hurt. Um, they're less likely to get aroused and get whiny or get excited and like jump in your lap or you know, even be nauseous and throw up. So dogs usually learn to stay laying down in the car when they're with me. Um, but there are triggers, right? So when we pull into a parking lot or we turn the car off or we unbuckle our seatbelt, these are all triggers, right?

Speaker 1: The dog gets up, sounds harmless, but those are cues they're taking from the environment instead of me. And that's why we proof all that stuff when they're in a training program and we teach the dog, when you experience this trigger, I don't want you to break your command, right?

13:00 — Car triggers such as shutting off the engine, unbuckling, and opening doors should not…

Speaker 1: When I shut the car off, you can't get up when I unbuckle my seatbelt, you can't get up when I open your door. You can't get up, okay? And once I teach them that, I don't have to say it anymore, I don't have to say it anymore, they just know and they do it. It's magic, right? So you have to have an appropriate and effective way to correct your dog and you have to know how to do that by saying no following it with a correction. And then if they need guidance, give them guidance, put them back and practice it again so they can do it well.

Speaker 1: And you can say good job.

Speaker 1: And then you can start rehearsing over and over and cementing the new behaviors that you want to solidify, right? But if I let my dog take all those cues from the environment to do something, it bleeds into everything else, right? So when you're walking and there's another dog, oh I see a dog, I'm gonna go say hi, right? So now you get a dog that's pulling you over to the other dog. This could even be generalized over to something like the doorbell, right? Dog has a doorbell. I go crazy at the doorbell, I run over to the door to see who it is.

Speaker 1: Like those might be things you don't want your dog doing, but they take their cue from the environment. They don't look to you for the answer. They've never been told that they have to.

Speaker 1: Uh, and here's a really good real life example that happened to one of my clients. Um, they had their dogs at the beach and uh, I have a lot of clients that take their dogs to the beach. We live in Maine, we have a lot of coastline, um, Bedford's on the coast and they're there and one of the dogs pooped and they had to stop and clean it up. So they put the dogs in a down and their dogs have a great down. Um, but you know, it either hadn't been proofed good enough by them at home in these environments.

Speaker 1: So maybe they were trusting the dog a little too soon or, you know, maybe is just a one-off. Because you can't duplicate every scenario that's gonna happen to you over the course of your dog's life. You just can't. So all you can do is proof the command to the best of your ability. Be sure that your dog knows that even in that environment there's a high consequence for non-compliance to make it reliable.

Speaker 1: And that's that, that's all you can do that. So they have their dog in a down, they're cleaning up, uh, the poop. And at that moment another person was walking by with her dog on a leash and my client's dog broke their down, broke their down and ran up to the other dog, which happened to be an aggressive dog. And so it was a close call and it could have been an injury. Now I don't wanna go off on a rant here, but as a side note, that's why we use punishment. That's a perfect example of why if your dog doesn't know that there's a real consequence for breaking that command, then they're bound to do it even if they're pretty good most of the time, right?

Speaker 1: Eventually it's tug of war with the environment. Something's gonna come along that's just totally worth it. 'cause there either hasn't been a consequence or there hasn't been a high enough consequence.

Speaker 1: So you have to think in your mind about what is the most attractive thing that my dog could see and I wanna make sure that I correct them in a manner that there's no contest, they're not gonna break. So think about that. And we don't start that way. We go through a whole long process and teach them their command. But it's like if you don't do that, then you don't know, right? And you can never know for sure, but you can make it pretty damn reliable, right? So, and we did that with the dogs here while they were in training, but we only have them for two weeks, okay?

Speaker 1: We can't replicate everything. And even if we could, they need to go home and learn that it's going to be the same from their handlers, their owners and their home and their environment, right? I can't do it for them. So let's say that, let's just say, and I didn't, but let's just say I had these dogs at the beach while they were in training and that we practiced a very similar scenario. The owners would still have to go home and do that kind of stuff with their dogs. 'cause if the dog doesn't know that, it will come from them.

Speaker 1: It's not gonna stick guys. It's not gonna stick. But anyway, the dog saw a trigger, right? And took a cue to get up and go over there. So it's a dog that's taking their cues still from the environment instead of their owner handler.

18:00 — Peppe explains that dogs need explicit practice responding to triggers so environmental cues no…

Speaker 1: Now you can certainly address that in that moment and you should. But if you're practicing this way of living with your dog all day, guess how much easier it is?

Speaker 1: So much easier, right? So if we're living, let's just say with this dog, right? But any dog all day and we're saying, Hey, when you see an open door, you don't go through it. When you see a bowl of food, you don't eat it. I'll let you know when it's time. Like I'll give it to you, you can trust me. But it's not until I say, right, if I have you in a down and I put your leash on, that doesn't mean get up. They don't know you have to teach them this, right? I clip your leash.

Speaker 1: You don't stand up and break your down. I mentioned that one. 'cause that's another really common trigger. That's a trigger that we proof in training. Practice that one a lot.

Speaker 1: Sounds, sights, smells. You gotta rehearse this stuff and teach them. When you see this, when you smell this, when you hear this, when you feel this, that's not a cue for you to get up to approach, to break command any of those things. Your cue will come from me. So sounds like a simple concept, but like I said, these are moments that are missed all day by most people. And so if we're living with that dog this way where it's like you don't go through a door until I tell you, you don't get up until I tell you, you know, then when you see the other dog, it's like, it's just obvious, right?

Speaker 1: You don't get up and approach the other dog unless I tell you to, right? So it's like you have no mixed messages, there's one way of living and it's just take your cues from me. Take your cues from me, not from the environment. Especially if you are already in a command, you don't break that command unless I tell you you're done.

Speaker 1: That's so important, guys. So important. That could have been a mess. Um, and luckily it wasn't. Although from what I understand, the uh, lady with the aggressive dog was um, a questionable character who followed them around for a while afterwards and they had to get the police involved. So not a good scene. So that's another, another reason to make sure your dog is um, proofed and safe. Um, 'cause you don't know what kind of crazy people are gonna be out there either. Alright guys, so that's it. Practice teaching your dog to take cues from the environment.

Speaker 1: And you know, I think one thing about this that's worth thinking about is these are the types of things. This is still largely obedience, but it's all day, right? It's like we're not gonna carve out 10 minutes to rehearse this and then let everything slide the rest of the day.

Speaker 1: It's like this is just how you live with your dog and it really shapes a different kind of relationship where you can build a lot more trust, a lot more reliability. And although it might feel hard at first, it's way easier than what most of you're doing because you have to tell your dog what to do at the door. You have to tell your dog what to do when you feed them. You have to, you know what I mean? If you do this and you tell your dog, no, don't do that. Don't take that cue from the environment.

Speaker 1: You don't have to keep, if you do it properly, you don't have to do it again. Like, you don't have to keep doing it. Once you tell them they know and that's it, right? That's not to say they'll be perfect forever, but more or less, that's it. There's no managing, there's no nagging. Things don't have to be a big process anymore because you've now finally told your dog what not to do. All right guys, that's it for today. Teach your dog to take cues from you, not from the environment. <laugh>, thanks for joining me today and I look forward to the next one.

Speaker 1: I.