The Root Cause of Your Dog’s Behavior: Important or Not?

00:00 — Kati opens by questioning whether investigating a dog’s backstory is necessary for changing dangerous…

Speaker 1: How many times have you heard that you need to investigate the root cause of what's going on with your dog? If you are to stop their behaviors that are distressing, annoying, or just downright dangerous, you need to gather your little investigator's data collection kit. Grab a magnifying glass, maybe a detective hat, and get on the case. <laugh>. You gotta figure out how your dog feels and what's going on if you are to have any hope of stopping that stuff. Uh, thanks for joining us today. We're gonna dig into that a little bit, and we're gonna talk about whether or not that's part of our process and whether or not there's any truth to it.

Speaker 2: Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered Trigger Warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the Truth in Dog Training.

Speaker 1: All I am Kati peppy. Thanks for joining us today for another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. Uh, again, Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond Canine in Biddeford, Maine, and we specialize in eco training, both for nice off leash reliable behavior, off-leash obedience, as well as stopping unwanted behaviors. So behavior modification, things like jumping, barking, leash, pulling, counter surfing, and more serious stuff like serious leash, aggression, uh, resource guarding, separation issues, um, and really, really love doing state of mind work, especially with nervous, fearful and anxious dogs. Uh, so life changing stuff. And we do puppy training too.

Speaker 1: So, and this podcast is brought to you as our way of just sharing everything that we see and say and talk about and learn with you guys. Um, so this is the stuff that we're doing with the dogs. We have day in and day out and talking about with our, our hands on customers every day. But today is kind of an interesting one because <laugh>, you know, I was on the internet, which is always a mistake, right? And I see all kinds of crap, of course, but I get so fired up you guys so fast when I see things, um, <laugh>, when I see things from the purely positive crowd usually.

Speaker 1: So

Speaker 1: I was looking at an article and I don't know why, right? Just because it's there. And so I'll kind of, well, the truth is, the reason I look at them is because it gives me food for thought, right? So it gives me things to think about. And if I am to be honest, um,

Speaker 1: You, I'm always learning, right? I'm always learning. So there is always a chance, albeit a small one, <laugh>, there's always a chance that I'm gonna learn something or something's going to inspire me to go learn something. Um, and so I'm, I'm always taking in the information around me, and then I can kind of run it through my little processor in my, in between my ears, and I can assess each piece of information as being something I know to be true. Something I know to be not true from experience, right? Not because of some paper I read somewhere, uh, but I just know from hands-on experience or something I'm not sure about, which might warrant further investigation.

Speaker 1: Um, but I can also see people that have a different philosophy than mine. I can see what they say and I can determine pretty quickly whether or not, um, there's potentially any truth to it. Which by the way, there never is <laugh> there. If I'm reading a purely positive article, there just never is. Um, so let me give you an example. Let me give you an example. This person's talking about, and she's got a book she wants you to buy, by the way. I'll, I'll give you the name of the book in a minute. I don't know what it is off the top of my head, but,

04:00 — Kati challenges advice claiming owners must understand behavioral causes before implementing solutions.

Speaker 1: Um, they're talking about separation anxiety, right? So how do I teach my dog not to continuously bark and destroy my furnishings when I leave them home alone? And they, they insist it's very important to address the cause so you're not just masking the symptom, okay? Which is interesting because dogs aren't human. Um, so I guess you gotta put him through doggie therapy. Uh, ask him some questions, see what he has to say about it. So now I'm in the wrong spot here. Sorry, bear with me. I am jumping around on the internet right now. Okay?

Speaker 1: So separation anxiety is one of the biggest problems, blah, blah, blah. To overcome separation anxiety, we need to understand the causes to implement the cures. They've teamed up with a highly skilled dog psychologist. This should be good stuff. So they don't tell you how to do it. They want you to buy the book, but this positive method of dog training has proven to be more successful than harsh training, whatever that means.

Speaker 1: So let me ask you a question. Whether you're using a reward or a punishment, what determines whether or not it's harsh? Because if I implement a consequence and it achieves the desired result, and it causes no long-term harm at all to the dog, what about that is harsh? So I brought my daughter to the doctor and they poked her with a needle. Is that harsh? No, that's ridiculous. Um, so they use these trigger words to scare you away from doing things that are actually effective. But I don't wanna get away from what this episode is actually supposed to be focused on, which is, as I say in this article, you need to identify the cause.

Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's funny because they're dogs, not people. So there is no cause. The cause is that neurologically they have a proclivity toward a behavior, right? So the brain, the the nervous system is triggered by an environmental.

Speaker 1: It's not that the dog is going through some deep cognitive thought process about what happened or what's going to happen. That's not happening, guys. Dogs don't have all that business going on in their head. They just don't. I'm sorry. Like, yes, they can make associations like something can predict something, can predict something, but that's it. That's it, right? Your, your dog, they, yes, they have nerves. I don't know if emotions is really the right word, but definitely they have moods, feelings, right? Whatever you wanna call it. But it's not attached to a solid thought process like a person has, right?

08:00 — Dogs learn neurological associations and predictors rather than processing behavior through human-like internal narratives.

Speaker 1: Like you can kind of have an internal feeling or sensation, but generally as a person that's attached to a dialogue and dogs just don't have that, right? So if you are one of those people that has a dog with separation anxiety, yes, when you leave, it triggers this thing in the dog where they now are dealing with this overwhelming sense of something unpleasant.

Speaker 1: But they're not thinking, oh, I've been abandoned. Oh, my owner's not gonna come back. Oh, I wonder where she went. Like, that's just not happening. They don't have all that going on upstairs. So how are you supposed to address the root cause? You're on a wild goose chase with people that tell you to do that. Okay? And here's the thing. I've been doing this now for a long time. I've had a lot of dogs with separation anxiety, and I have never fixed a single one of them with reward. Never. I mean, maybe if we're talking about very, very mild, like displeasure from a dog, right?

Speaker 1: Like that's not really true separation anxieties. It's just like a little bit of uneasiness, right? And then if you just give 'em time, what's gonna happen is they're just gonna settle down and go to sleep. So someone could theoretically say like, I just give her some treats, and then she settles down. It's like, yeah, 'cause she would've settled down either way. Like it's not real separation anxiety. Dogs that are really going crazy, um, just a, like a level 10 barking, howling, trying to break out of the kennel, sometimes urinating, defecating. Um, you're not gonna fix that with a reward.

Speaker 1: You're not gonna fix it with patients. You're not gonna fix it with repetition. You're going to fix it with punishment.

Speaker 1: And know we don't have to take the dog to therapy and sit down and investigate why they feel that way, what happened in their past, and whether or not their mom hugged them enough. Because it just isn't that dogs don't have that. And I'm not saying that previous experiences affect present and future behavior. They can, right? But then it's because the dog made an association. And the thing about making an association is it's really, really easy to undo <laugh>, right? Because dogs aren't stupid. They're not, for lack of a better word, they're not mentally retarded, right?

Speaker 1: They can make a new association. And I'm not using that term in a derogatory way. I'm, I'm using it in a literal way. Like mentally they have the capacity to make a new association. So even if they have an old association, people act like that's the end of the world.

Speaker 1: Dogs just done forever now, right? I can never put my dog in a crate now because they had this terrible experience in a crate in the past. And so that's it. No, just make a new association. It's not that hard. And guess what? That new association, you probably won't be able to make that until you involve the use of punishment, because you have to stop, right? Not to be mean, not because we're quote unquote harsh, which that word's really getting under my skin lately because of this infantile worldview that corrections or punishments are harsh. No, they're just a natural part of the learning process, right?

Speaker 1: Yes. We use reward to increase behaviors. Yes, we use punishment to decrease them. They are both necessary. They are necessary at, in different amounts, at different intensities, depending on the dog and the goal. And so we don't have a preset, um, this is the correction that we use or this is the intensity that we use, or this is the frequency that we use. No, we look at the situation we're in and what we're trying to do, and the dog that we have, and we do whatever it takes.

12:00 — Correction intensity and frequency should depend on the dog, situation, and training goal.

Speaker 1: That's not harsh. That's not harsh. That's just getting the job done and doing zero harm, right? So, but people are so, so consumed and obsessed with the process versus being obsessed with the results, especially the long-term results, right? So we're talking about leaving a dog in a state of constant misery and stress when they're alone because we, we don't wanna do what it takes. We would rather shove cookies in their face and let them run around the house eating walls until they kill themselves, which they could. We would rather do that than to just put 'em in the kennel, correct 'em on an e-collar, and watch them lay down and take a nap and watch them learn over time to do that on their own and figure out that it's perfectly fine in there and that they're perfectly safe and they can just chill out and relax.

Speaker 1: And they don't need to be tent and they don't need to be uptight, and they don't need to be irrationally concerned with being alone, right? We have the power to do that, but we don't want to 'cause it doesn't feel good to us. And it's harsh, even though it gets the dog out of that constant state of chronic stress, which is not healthy.

Speaker 1: So I won't tolerate that word from anybody. Um, you have to use your brain, right? So we're emotional creatures and that's great. I love humans and your emotions survey purpose, right? And they are to keep you safe, to keep your loved ones safe, but emotions can't rule you because they are often wrong or inappropriate for the situation, right? So if you don't learn to balance that, if you don't learn to keep that in check with the rational part of your brain,

Speaker 1: Then you start to lose control of your reality and it's shaped for you. And I'm getting off track again, <laugh>, because that's what I do, because I'm so passionate about this and it just gets me so fired up. Um, when I read these things, um, it's like, yeah, positive only guys because anything else is harsh. And it's been proven that you don't need to be harsh. Okay? Well, where has it been proven where it has not, it has not been, yeah, it's true. You don't need to be harsh, but it has not been proven that you do not need to use punishment that has been proven the opposite over and over and over and over and over again.

Speaker 1: If we're looking at reality, which is all I'm willing to look at is reality, okay? And again, so the point in the episode, do we need to address the root cause? No. Or you could say yes, right? Maybe you say to me, addressing the root cause means putting the dog in the situation and saying that is an inappropriate response to what's happening right now. That is an antisocial, dysfunctional, unhealthy response to what's happening right now. So I'm going to correct that behavior. I mean, that's addressing the root cause as good as anything else.

16:00 — Addressing a dysfunctional response can count as addressing the root cause without investigating the…

Speaker 1: So when you become too concerned about how your dog feels or why they feel that way, you just can't change their reality because those aren't things, those aren't tangible things that you can do. They're just not right. Who knows why it doesn't matter. The point is you have the power to fix it. The why is not important. And the fact is, yes, dogs can have experiences that may make them form a negative association with something where wasn't intended, right? But they can learn a new association and they can learn it quickly. And it's not that difficult.

Speaker 1: It's not that difficult. And most of the time it's also just not the case, right? So almost every time, almost every time I talk to somebody, like a potential client who's on a phone consultation or something, they'll tell me about the behaviors their dog is exhibiting. And if it's any kind of aggression

Speaker 3: Or

Speaker 1: Any kind of obvious fear or any kind of obvious anxiety, I would say nine outta 10 people say they think their dog was abused. And out of those 10 people, probably none of them were. Maybe one was maybe,

Speaker 1: Right? So generally speaking, most humans, most people are not sociopaths. They're not abusive, substance, addicted, narcissistic, like those people are out there, but there's way more normal people <laugh>, okay? Most people are not gonna hurt an animal just for the sake of hurting an animal. Now, if you're one of those people that just hates humankind and you hate people, you're probably not gonna see it that way. You're probably not gonna believe that, that's fine. But I'll tell you right now, like, we're just not for you. We're just not for you. You gotta embrace the fact that dogs are born genetically to be who they are and to have their proclivities.

Speaker 1: And most dogs that are nervous or fearful or anxious or any of that stuff, that's just who they are. It's in their physical makeup. It is how their brain is wired. And only a skilled person who knows how to use a full range of consequences can help chip away at that and wire something new.

Speaker 1: And how much progress you make, it depends again on the dog. It also depends on the owner, right? Because we can't make people follow our recipe. But just thinking about the dog, they all have different abilities. For instance, think about if you tried to teach your dog to use a fishing pole, right? Good luck. So no, you can't teach a dog to do anything because they have to be physically equipped to it. And so those examples are really easy for you to see that like obviously a dog can't do that. It's like, yeah, but when we're talking about physical ability, right?

20:00 — Genetic differences affect what dogs can handle, just as individual human brains differ in…

Speaker 1: You're thinking about like opposable thumbs and <laugh> and all this stuff. Um, but it's the same thing in the brain. Not all brains are capable of everything. They're all different. And so it's not as easy to tell with that stuff, right? When we're talking about behavior, it's not as easy to tell if the dog has the neurological ability to do it. You have to just do it and see where, where you can get. So no. Anyway, it is not part of our process to investigate the root cause. So I could have one, let's say I have two dogs.

Speaker 1: Let's say I have two extremely aggressive dogs. And one I know was kicked downstairs as a puppy and one I know was raised by a loving family, um, since the time he was eight weeks old and came from a good breeder.

Speaker 1: They're both gonna do the same rehab program. It's going to look the same. The solutions do not change guys. It's the same behavior. We're gonna approach it the same way. The only thing that will change is based on the dog's other personality traits. Like one dog might be very sensitive and the other dog might not be, right? So if I'm, let's say I'm correcting a dog, uh, for growling and lunging at a human right, I might be correcting one dog at a hundred and I might be correcting the other dog at a 35, right? So when I say they're the same, I don't mean cookie cutter 'cause that wouldn't yield good results either.

Speaker 1: Every dog is different, but we're taking the same exact approach with both dogs, which is this unwanted behavior has to be shut down with a tangible negative consequence. And once we do that, then we can move on to neutral rehearsal and reward for better choices potentially, right? And that process, the further along you get in the process, both dogs are probably gonna look a lot different. And the interactions with each dog is gonna be a lot different because they're different dog and they're gonna respond differently. They're gonna need different things. But the approach, the mindset, the philosophy is the same because it's rooted in reality.

Speaker 1: And reality just doesn't change for your feelings.

Speaker 1: It just doesn't, right? So if I have a dog that's unsure of something, georgie's a fine example of that right? Now I've got Georgie sweet dog, uh, pretty mellow most of the time. Um, but she's kind of, everything is is off-putting to her. Everything is like,

Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't really wanna say scary. Like she's not a fearful dog, but she's definitely like kinda easily distressed, you know? Like she just doesn't wanna really engage with the world because no doubt in my mind, genetically that's just who Georgie is. She kind of walks around like, and if something is new in the environment or she thinks you're gonna ask her to do something, like, you'll kind of see the head, head go down. Like she doesn't really wanna have to engage and like go do work or just go out in the world. It's just not her thing.

Speaker 1: She doesn't wanna do it. It makes her uncomfortable, right? And there's no reason for that other than just, it's just a physiological response in the brain. That's how she's wired. And the dog stands the best chance at the happiest life. If we can just counteract that and rewire something new. And she may come to love things that right now she finds uncomfortable, right? So that's extreme. She might not, she might just learn to tolerate them, but even that's a much better life. Much better life, right? But generally speaking, if you hire someone of a purely positive ideology to help you with something like this, what they're going to do is they're going to pretend to be some kind of dog psychic.

24:00 — Georgie’s generalized unease requires building new patterns so uncomfortable situations become more manageable.

Speaker 1: And they're gonna ask you to dream up all kinds of scenarios of things that could have happened in your dog's past that could have scared them terribly and could have created PTSD and could have made them worry or hate this or that. And it's just a bunch of bullshit.

Speaker 1: Dogs need us to be better than that. They need help. That is not help. That is, this is probably one of my <laugh>, my angrier ranting podcasts I've done in a while. Um, but that is not helping anybody pretending. And that's what it is, pretending to be obsessed with the root cause. Do you know what that is? Let me spell it out for you. What that really is. That is a way for someone to continue taking your money and pretending to be working on the issue and getting away with getting zero fucking results. That's what that is.

Speaker 1: It's a game. Now you, you go to somebody that actually knows how to get result, it will be somebody that uses a mix of consequences. Now, I've mentioned Gary Wilkes on this podcast before. He's fantastic. If you don't follow him on social media, you should. Um, but he said something, he says this regularly and <laugh>, I I've since kind of adopted it, um, because it is an interesting point, but he doesn't like the term balanced trainer because balance is kind of a hog washboard. And I tend to agree. So I understand what people mean when they say it though, right?

Speaker 1: So someone says, I'm looking for a balanced trainer. That that's a good thing, right? I I don't want to, um, offend <laugh> people that use this term at all. Um, this is a good thing, right? That means someone's looking for somebody who uses something besides just positive reinforcement. And we love that. Um, but the fact is there's nothing balanced about it. It's not about balance. It's just about being effective. So what that looks like with every dog is going to be very, very different,

Speaker 1: Right? So the level of reward, the intensity of reward needed, the level of correction, the frequency of correction, the intensity of correction, these are all things that are gonna look different based on the individual dog and based on the individual situation that we're in in the moment. So it's not as though we approach every situation and we're like, here's a correction at a certain intensity, and then here's a reward of exactly the same intensity. It's like that would actually be balanced, right? And that, that wouldn't be effective. But it is balanced in the sense that we do whatever it takes to get the most balanced behavior in the end.

28:00 — Effective training is not an equal split between rewards and corrections; tools vary with…

Speaker 1: So I would apply the word balance maybe more to the result than the process. And again, people too, too hung up on the process, right? So when we're super emotional, we tend to get hung up on the process. And if we're rational, we focus more on the results, the outcome, well, which one is going to serve your dog better?

Speaker 1: Which one is going to serve your dog better? Because I'll tell you right now, these people that talk about harsh trainers or punishment based trainers, compulsion trainers, right? They're trying to make it sound like that's how we teach dogs. Everything is we just punish them and it's just a bunch of crap. It's not true. Like it's a straw man argument. That trainer probably doesn't exist. So I'm not gonna say never say never, right? There's probably some wacko out there somewhere, um, who's trying to do that. But first of all, that would be wildly ineffective. Wildly, you can't really teach things te you can't teach a dog to do a behavior by just punishing them that that won't work.

Speaker 3: That

Speaker 1: Won't work. Teach teaching a skill is actually requires skill, right? So this whole thing about labeling trainers as harsh or compulsion based or punishment based, it's just bullshit. It's just not true. It's not real. That's not what we're doing guys. That's not what we're doing. We're using at least good trainers and I put myself in that bucket, <laugh>, okay? We're using whatever is the most effective thing to achieve what we're trying to achieve in the moment. So if I'm trying to teach a dog something new, then I'm looking for whatever it is that motivates them to build that behavior.

Speaker 1: It might just be kibble, it might be affection. If it's a really sweet dog that's not super food motivated, it might be cheese if they're just not into food or treats, but they really love cheese might be bacon, whatever. We wanna motivate the dog, okay? We do that, believe it or not. But then, yes, after plenty of rehearsal, the dog knows the command very well. We do start to expect that we do introduce accountability. And yes, ideally, ultimately we do end that process with punishment for non-compliance. And that's where everyone wants to put on the break, right?

Speaker 1: Because everybody lives in a world, not everybody, but a lot of folks wanna live in a world where all that matters is the process, right? And the end result is you taught your dog something, but you can't fucking get it when you need to because it's optional. You left it optional.

Speaker 1: And that just won't work, right? And so back to the separation anxiety where we're not actually building a behavior, we're trying to stop a behavior, which by the way is easier if your dog barks and howls and tries to break out and shits themselves in their kennel. And you leave them that way because you don't wanna correct them for that behavior because you don't wanna punish that behavior. 'cause you don't wanna be harsh. How is that not harsh? I mean, that would be like the forest service, seeing a deer get hit by a car and leaving them writhing on the side of the road because shooting them would be harsh, okay?

Speaker 1: Or seeing a dog limp around with a broken leg and the vet going, well, we can't fix it. Because that would require number one, an injection. And number two, cutting them open. And that's harsh. Those are such harsh methods. We'll just give him a couple milk bones, call me in the morning if he's not better. Maybe we'll investigate the root cause a little, bring 'em a pup cup. So you gotta get real about your dog's behavior. Just being their wiring

32:00 — Kati compares leaving a panicked dog distressed in a crate with using correction to…

Speaker 1: And root cause makes no difference, right? But by varying your consequences appropriately, you can change the outcome a hundred percent. And you don't need to know anything about the dog's history at all. You just start showing them something new. And guess what? They'll learn it because they're smart. Show them something new, show them a new pattern, new expectations, a new way of going through the world. And that dog will learn it and adapt. 99.5% of the time I made that number up. But that is going to be ballpark, accurate <laugh>, right? So it's like maybe one in every couple hundred dogs we see.

Speaker 1: Something's like not right. I've had a few very, not many, I can probably count 'em on one hand over the course of my career, met a few where they really show very little improvement. And most of 'em still show some improvement, but it's just not enough. It's just not. And it is just so rare. It's so rare, guys. Um, again, there's always a genetic component. And when you work with as many dogs as we do, you're gonna see dogs from time to time that they just don't have it. They just don't have the ability

Speaker 1: To do it. I got a call the other day from somebody with a Malis, um, who's very territorial and does not respond great to the training that she's tried to do. Um, she did send him somewhere else for an eco board and train the dog did not successfully graduate. Um, because when you try to introduce the accountability aspect, the dog just says, well, why don't we fight about it?

Speaker 1: Right? Which is more probably a little more common in the Malis than in other breeds. But it, you know, it can happen in any dog. But they tend because of their lines of breeding toward work and, and the bite stuff that they do, the sports, the, you know, police dogs, military dogs, um, whenever you're breeding for all these traits that they breed for with their drive, um, and their tendency to use their teeth and all of this and that, um, you do tend to see that crop up, that sort of stuff crop up. Um, because you do want confident dogs.

Speaker 1: You do want forward dogs. And so there's gonna be dogs sometimes that are like this. Um, and they're really just not meant for a family home. And so that's what I told her, you know, based on everything she told me, this is a dog. And I'm not saying that he has brain damage, right? But neurologically with my experience and the other dogs like this that I have seen in the past, most likely trying to get this dog to successfully graduate from a program, um, hold him accountable and make behavior reliable and make him safe. It's almost like asking him not to breathe,

36:00 — Owners should stop dwelling on past imagery and focus on making the dog safer…

Speaker 1: Right? With most dogs and most behaviors, that's not the case. That's not the case. But this level of drive, this level of intensity, this level of, um, snottiness forwardness confidence, right? This is a dog that says, if anyone tries to tell me what to do, I'll just kill him. <laugh>, I'll just kill him. Right? That's a different beast. Um, but anyway, getting off topic again. Uh, I think I, I answered that question, <laugh>, did I answer that question? It's a root cause not important. You can completely let it go. In fact, I encourage you to let it go because it's, it's really easy to speculate.

Speaker 1: And you know what? You might be right if you think someone did something bad to your dog or your dog just had a bad experience in some way. Maybe they did, maybe they did. But you need to let it go. It just doesn't matter because if you hang onto it, it's going to get in your way. It is absolutely going to alter how you think and how you feel. And it's going to hinder your ability to do what needs to be done to just get the long-term results that will serve your dog the best,

Speaker 1: Right? So let's just say I hear a lot of stories about dogs that were shipped in crates and they were in there for so long and they had poop all over them or whatever the case may be. And it's like, okay, first of all, probably, probably nothing. Like there's probably not even an association there for your dog. Like they probably don't see a crate and immediately think of, of that experience. That's how we think, right? But that's probably not what's going on with the dog. But let's just say play devil's advocate. Let's just say they do.

Speaker 1: If you have that image in your mind of your dog and their sad puppy eyes being in the crate, being alone, being scared, poop all over them for days, whatever the case may be, no food, I don't know. You are not going to be as able to do what needs to be done, which is just put your dog in the goddamn kennel and if they act up, correct them. And yeah, it sounds quote unquote harsh, right? But I am, that solution that I just gave you is so much more compassionate. Like let's say your dog is living in that little personal hell, your plan is to, and I'm not saying you are like you personally, right?

Speaker 1: But anybody who is in this scenario who does this, right? Their plan is to just let the dog stay in that state, let their dog stay in that little personal hell

Speaker 1: Because it would just be too harsh to deliver a split second correction, right? Yeah, maybe more than once, maybe a few times. I don't know, maybe really high, I don't know. Depends on the dog, right? I don't know. But you take a person who, number one has a strong moral compass, wants the best for their dog long term, has the ability to think rationally and say, well this is what's gonna serve my dog the best in the long run. So I'm going to do it, put the dog in, correct the nonsense right? Now, I'm not gonna get into the ins and outs of separation anxiety right now.

Speaker 1: Um, yes, it's with some dogs, with most dogs, it's gonna be more complicated than just putting them in and giving them a single correction. It's gonna take a little longer than that, take a little more time, more watching, blah, blah, blah. We're not gonna get into that. But the point is the philosophy of it, right? You're either gonna do it and you're gonna put it to bed and you're gonna show your dog something new. You're gonna make a new association that's gonna serve them better and result in them being more stable for the rest of their life, or you're not.

40:00 — Kati argues that creating a stabilizing new association is responsible compassion, not unnecessary harshness.

Speaker 1: You're just gonna allow them to stay that way, right? In which case deal with the consequences,

Speaker 1: Right? But don't call me harsh because I fix the problem. That's not harsh. That's true compassion, that's putting results in the dog's long term health and wellbeing ahead of my own personal desire to just feel nice. Okay? And so, no, when dogs come in for training, um, regardless of what the problems are, root cause just doesn't matter. We usually get what that person thinks is the root cause story. And I don't mind hearing that sometimes it's interesting, but it just doesn't matter. It does not play a role or a part at all in how we, how we broach the behavior because it's not a therapy session.

Speaker 1: It is rewiring the brain, physiologically rewiring the brain. So simply making associations with behaviors, right? So you can start that and you can start building something new right away. You don't have to investigate anything. You really don't. You really don't. And so we talked a lot about separation anxiety 'cause that was what that specific article was talking about, but it goes for anything guys. Okay? Dogs at resource guard, which is an innate, primal behavior for your dog, okay? Most dogs have this in there somewhere, even if you don't see it,

Speaker 1: Okay? Some dogs are more geared oriented toward doing this behavior than others. Of course they're all different, right? But a lot of dogs will resource guard. And I swear to God, three quarters of the time, someone will say, you know, we think when they were young that they couldn't get enough food, or they were the runt or they had to fight for their no, no, this is just your dog being a goddamn dog. Like you don't have to make it more than that, right? And I'm not trying to pick on people here. I'm just really, really passionate about teaching people to get out of their own way.

Speaker 1: There doesn't have to be a story because I think at the heart of it, we want our dogs to be quote unquote good dogs, right? And so that means we have to make an excuse for this terrible behavior. Well, let me set you free of that. Your dog isn't a bad dog just because they do a bad behavior. They're just doing natural dog things, guys, right? So we can all have our own definitions of what a good dog is and what a bad dog is. Um, but at the end of the day, dogs have lots of natural behaviors that we find absolutely repulsive, annoying, and some that are just very dangerous, right?

Speaker 1: But they're all just dogs and they're all just doing what comes naturally unless we intervene with some unnatural processes, <laugh>, right? Um, and teach them something different.

Speaker 1: And I feel like if you get a dog, you got, you need to be prepared to do that. Um, and to use a variation of consequences and to do whatever you need to do to be effective. And if you're not prepared to do that, then maybe don't get a dog, get a goldfish <laugh>. But I get the story, like there's always, almost always a story attached to it. And I think people do get offended when I first say to them, that's probably not the case where you should set that aside or you should not call your dog a rescue.

Speaker 1: Your dog probably wasn't abused, right? Because they're like, who the fuck are you? How do you know? And it's like, I don't, that's the truth, okay? So take it with a grain of salt. But the fact is, I want you to be successful and I can't have you, every time we go into the training or we go into the scenario that's challenging for your dog, I can't have you with this vision in your head of your dog being kicked down the stairs. That <laugh> that is not going to help. So I just want people to let it go, let it go.

Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sing terrible singer <laugh>, you know the song

45:00 — The episode concludes that owners should stop chasing explanations and begin creating new associations…

Speaker 1: And it will serve you and your dog much better. But so now hopefully that remove a big piece of the potential confusion for a lot of folks. Like no matter what you're dealing with, if it's over arousal, if it's anxiety, if it's fear, if it's aggression, you can let go of trying to figure out why. Let it go, guys. It does not matter. 'cause regardless of what your dog's previous associations are, if there are any, you can just make new ones. You can start today and make new ones. It doesn't matter what happened before, right?

Speaker 1: What happens is what your dog learns from here forward. That's it. What happened in the past isn't gonna negate that, I promise sets up for today, guys. My, my throat is getting sore from ranting and raving about all this, um, hogwash, <laugh>. So, uh, I hope you enjoyed today's episode and I look forward to the next one.