Won’t My Dog Hate The Kennel If I Correct Him In There? What You Need To Know About Negative Associations.

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Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered. Trigger warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the truth in dog training.

Hey everybody, this is your host, Kati Peppe. Before we jump in, I just wanted to take a quick second and remind you to hit the subscribe button because that helps us so, so, so much. We appreciate every subscribe and follow, and we have so much valuable information we wanna share with you. So we don't want you to miss an episode. Without further ado, let's jump in. Hey everyone, thanks for joining me today for another episode of Off Leash Unfiltered. If you hear some grunting and groaning and sniffling and snorting in the background, that's just Joyce.

She has a cold. No, <laugh> kidding. She's not even here. She does have a cold. She is sick, but she's not here. Um, this is my pug Nib Lip. So he's joining me today in the office, and right now he's got a, um, dehydrated duck foot that he's enjoying. So you might be able to pick up on that. I thought I should let you know that it's not me <laugh> making those obscene noises.

I'll sometimes bring my dogs to work with me, not always both of them, but, um, if I have room in the car, I'll bring both of them. Uh, if, you know, I don't want them to have a a really long day at home with nobody around. So if I can bring them, I'll bring them with me. I'm so fortunate to have a job where I can do that. Um, and you know, I actually have quite a few clients that bring their dogs to work with them too. In fact, Atlas that was just here for board-and-train, that was part of the reason they wanted some solid training for him so that he could go to work with them.

We have Fire Blazer right now who her owner wants to be able to bring her to work with her. Um, so good stuff. A lot of people nowadays are able to bring their dog to work with them, which I think is awesome.

Um, I'm so happy to be able to help people to accomplish that, 'cause I know it's, it's huge in my life. So I'm sure it's huge in, in other people's lives too, when they can bring their dog with them. They don't have to worry if they have a long day or something, which is fantastic, but you obviously need a well-trained dog to be able to do that. So that's why we do. Esme comes to mind too. I know Esme's owner brings her to work with her, um, and she, uh, is like a, a clinical therapist or something along those lines.

And I could be wrong. Don't quote me on that, but it's something like that. And, uh, <laugh>, Esme would occasionally sneak over and tear the stuffing out of her office, <laugh> out of her chair, uh, which is not great. I'm sure that's not the only thing she did, but it was one of the, it was one of the things we talked about <laugh>, when she came to drop her off.

03:00 — Kati introduces owners' concerns about dogs forming negative associations when corrected.

And during her go-home lesson, um, she had some of those sneaky behaviors. So you can't bring your dog to work if they're gonna do stuff like that. But anyway, let's jump into it, guys. Um, negative associations. Oh my God, this is such a thing, right? Uh, obviously dogs can make negative associations. That's how we stop behaviors. That's how we eliminate behaviors. Um, and we are, not to toot our own horn, but we're really fucking good at it, <laugh>. And we know if you have behavior to stop, we know how to do it, <laugh> okay?

But here's the, probably the biggest concern or question that we get from people is, I, you know, will my dog form a negative association? Is like, well, yeah, with the behavior that they're doing, right? If you do it correctly, that's the goal. Uh, but people are worried that their dog will develop a negative association with them or with the room they're in, or with the kennel they're in, or, you know, you name it, right?

If they have a dog that's afraid of strangers and they growl and they correct that growl, they're like, is my dog now gonna associate that correction with the stranger? And to be honest, it wouldn't be the worst thing if they did. But this is a thing people are worried about. And in a sense, they should be, right? Because yeah, if you're super sloppy or you don't understand how things work, you can inadvertently create negative associations that you're not trying to create. Um, and for the record, that's not the end of the world. It doesn't usually cause havoc.

It doesn't destroy things, it doesn't ruin your dog, it doesn't ruin your relationship. Um, but it's not the best, right? And it does make things messier. It does make things harder. Um, so you should know how to cleanly create the associations that you wanna create. Uh, but let's talk about these fears, this question, and let's get into some specific examples. And let's talk about number one, what happens if you do make that mistake and that does happen? And number two, how can you prevent it from happening? Woo-hoo. So let's get into it.

So let's just start by saying, I, like I just said, we're very, very good at stopping behaviors, right? It's one of, I think that is the thing we help people with the most, because it is so hard to find the correct information on how to do that. Um, in order to properly apply a negative consequence, there should be a marker. Now, that marker is usually the word no. If you wanted to be fancy, you could also use the beep on your e-collar. Okay? The reason I don't like that as much is because then you actually do have to have the remote in your hand.

06:00 — A verbal marker offers an alternative when an owner does not have the e-collar…

'Cause you can't beep the e-collar without it. Uh, but if you're setting something up, that's not a problem, right? You have the remote in your hand, but if something catches you off guard, you're not always gonna have the remote in your hand.

But you can also have more than one marker, and that is okay, right? So you could have the word no and the beep on your e-collar, but I don't wanna get off into the weeds with markers, um, too much here. I, I do have other episodes talking about markers, how to use them and what that all means. Um, and I have videos on that too, on YouTube. So check that out. But the marker, usually the word no, needs to happen, guys, when the behavior is occurring or is about to occur. That's actually even better. So the earlier in the behavior sequence you can apply your marker, the better.

Now, once you've marked a behavior, again, probably with the word no, you have to follow up with that correction piece. And this is the piece that's scary <laugh>. So, um, not to me, to, you know, other people. So people that haven't done this a million times, right? They find it scary. Of course they do. It's normal.

People want to say no. And then when the dog stops doing the thing, they go, oh, good. Thank God. Right? Now, I don't have to correct him, but that's wrong. Yes, you do. And the reason for that is because your goal with this procedure, with this process, with the sequence, is not to stop the behavior. That's not the goal. It's not just to stop the behavior in the moment, right? To interrupt it. The goal really is to keep it from happening in the future, right? So you have to give your dog a reason, not just to stop now, but not to do it again.

And so if you just think, oh, I'm gonna take a shortcut, I'm gonna take the easy way out. And if my dog listens when I say no, I'm not gonna correct him. Okay? But then he's going to do it again because, and you only have to think about this, guys, for five seconds, okay? Why wouldn't he?

Do you think your dog is worried about you just saying no? No, no, it doesn't do anything. It's, it's just a noise, right? It doesn't mean anything unless you make it mean something. Something tangible has to happen. And the example I used the other day when I was talking about this was the doorbell. And I know I've, I've used that analogy on here once before, but, um, kind of looking at it a different way is, you know, someone rings your doorbell, you go to the door, right? But if you went to the door every time the doorbell rang, and suddenly there was nobody there, right?

And that kept happening, right? The second time, the third time, the fourth time, you might still go to the door, right? Be, and the only reason you would do that, for the record, is because you have all these years of it being, there's always someone there, there's always someone there. There's always someone there, right? Time after time after time, days, weeks, months, years, decades even. There's always someone there.

But eventually it will get to a point, if your doorbell rings and there's nobody there, you will start ignoring it. It probably won't be that day. Might be the next day or the next week or the next month, right? But if your doorbell starts ringing 2, 3, 4 times a day and there's no one there, and that goes on for months, you're not gonna keep going to the door. I hope <laugh>. And also you should probably get your doorbell looked at. 'cause clearly there's something wrong with it, right? But nevermind all of that, you guys, I'm not great at analogies.

10:00 — The doorbell analogy illustrates how “no” can lose meaning when it stops predicting a…

I thought this was a pretty good one. My point being, the doorbell starts to become eventually at some point meaningless because it no longer predicts that there's somebody there, meaning you will stop responding to it at some point.

Okay? So the same thing will happen with your no, right? Eventually it won't even work in the moment anymore. Your dog will stop listening because it's meaningless. But regardless whether they listen to it or not, you're not doing anything to prevent future occurrences. So you have to, after you say no, or use whatever marker it is you're using, you have to follow up with that corrective piece. There has to be a tangible, negative consequence that the dog finds intolerable, really uncomfortable, right? 'Cause we're talking about behaviors we're trying to eliminate. We're not talking about more finely nuanced stuff.

And there is some, uh, okay. So now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about the most common examples. Here's one of the biggest ones where I have this conversation come into play, is when we have dogs, um, especially dogs with separation anxiety, and they fuss in their kennel, right?

Or we have a dog with just some reactive, aggressive behaviors, and we're informing people they need to start using more structure in the home. For now, dog needs to get out of the bed for now, put them in the kennel overnight. Dog's not used to that. So they fuss, they whine, they pace, they claw at the, the wires, whatever. Um, you have to correct that behavior to get your dog to settle. And, and of course, oh, excuse, like falling all over myself here, nine outta 10 people are afraid to do that because the first thing they think is, isn't that gonna create a negative association with the kennel?

And I can't blame them for thinking that, because number one, on the surface, if you've given this, if you've given this approximately zero thought <laugh>, um, that would make sense to think. But also that's what every yahoo on the internet tells you.

It's what every dog psychiatrist with all the alphabet in front of their name and every, that's what they say, right? It's gonna create a negative association with the crate. Luckily, the people with the alphabet in front of their name, um, they don't actually know what they're talking about <laugh>. So if you see that, if you see someone with a bunch of letters, and this doesn't apply in every field, I'm talking about dog training, um, and dog, you know, behavior. Uh, those letters are bad. You should run <laugh>. I can say that pretty confidently about most of them.

13:00 — Kati argues that correcting kennel behavior does not necessarily create a negative association with…

Um, there's probably some, some good quote-unquote behaviorists out there, but I've never, I've never run into one, um, in my life. So anyway, anywho, no, it won't, it will not create a negative association with the crate unless you're doing it such that it does create a negative association with the crate. But guess what? Nobody does that. There's no-fucking-body on this earth that applies e-collar stim or any correction in a way that is going to teach the dog the crate is bad and causes misery.

You aren't going to do that. And most people are sufficiently bad at stopping behaviors and whatnot, and applying corrections and punishment that even if they wanted to create that association, they would, they would probably have a hard time. So, um, and that's not me picking on people or my clients or anything like that, but it is just the number one thing that people are like the worst at when it comes to dog training. People are pretty good actually at teaching their dogs things, even though they might not understand all the ins and outs and all the details.

Um, a lot of time people are actually pretty good at drawing boundaries in their house and enforcing them the best they can with what they have. But applying actual corrections and punishment and tying negative consequences to specific behaviors is something people in general are really, really bad at. It is not in our, it's just not in our repertoire to do. We are really shitty at it <laugh>. And it's not, it's not for lack of trying. It's just so foreign when you've been surrounded by all of this information that's completely opposite. That's everything's cookies and biscuits and well-timed treats and building up your dog's tolerance to being alone and in and out of the kennel with the door open and all these exercises and puzzles and lick mats and blah.

And it's all just bullshit.

So yeah, when someone, when you tell someone, oh yeah, you have to correct your dog for that, they're like, whoa, what do you mean? What, what is, what is that? How do I do it? Right? And people don't know. They don't, they have never heard anything like that. And I was talking about this with my husband the other day because it's so easy for me to forget how foreign this sounds to people. I was that person once that was like, whoa, wait, what <laugh>? Um, and now that just feels like such a distant memory, and I'm so immersed in it all day every day.

And it's just become so normal for me that I forget when people hear me say this, they go, is this woman fucking nuts? Like, who is she? What is she talking about <laugh>? So, um, and I am a little nuts, but that's a joke. I'm very sane. My advice is very sound advice, <laugh> advice. Uh, but no, you will not create a negative association with the crate. And here's why.

17:00 — Kati contrasts correcting kennel fussing with correcting crate entry, which she says would target…

In order to do that the most efficiently, you would want to, and nobody wants to, but I'm just saying theoretically, if this was your goal, right? If we were setting out to create a negative association with the crate, this is what we would do. The second the dog went to get into the crate, we would mark it and punish it. And/or we would apply corrections while the dog was in there that were random or constant. No correction that you give your dog should ever be random, guys. That's what your marker is for. If you know how to use a marker, corrections never come out of nowhere.

Never. They are always expected when they happen. So that alone eliminates the random nature, right? That alone eliminates the question marks and anxiety around, when is this lightning bolt gonna hit me? So markers are very important. They serve a very important function. And the corrections that you provide when your dog is in the kennel are directly a result of the dog's behavior. They are entirely contingent on the dog's behavior. So you are setting up your dog to have a pattern of, when I'm in the kennel and I am quiet, nothing happens. Everything is fine and normal.

But if I start whining, barking, spinning, clawing at the floor or the wires, suddenly I am corrected. If you don't think your dog can figure out that pattern, you obviously think your dog is really stupid, okay? Unless your dog has serious brain damage, they are going to be able to figure out this pattern, and they are going to be able to figure it out probably within five minutes. It doesn't take long. Now, yes, we get some dogs with severe separation anxiety that we continue to have to deliver corrections and experiment with different types of corrections at different intensities, um, and timing and thresholds of what we can let go.

20:00 — Kati acknowledges that some separation-anxiety cases are more severe and require a more nuanced…

That's more nuanced stuff, right? But even dogs with separation anxiety, this is usually quite simple to be honest. We have this conversation and we don't have to have it too many times, but some dogs are just, it's much more severe. Um, and their genetics are such that they're just wired on a whole other level, and it takes longer. But even they will get there, they'll get there. One of the worst separation cases I ever had, this dog kept me up for like a week, <laugh>. It was like ruining my life, <laugh>. Um, but he did it.

We did it.

He was doing amazing when he went home, and I didn't even have him that long, maybe two weeks, which is not long enough for a dog with separation anxiety. And I go outta my way now to make sure that doesn't happen <laugh>, because that is not enough time. But he was doing amazing when he went home. And then after he went home, he had some regression, which we fully expected because that's where everything took root, and he already had a history there. Um, but they knew what to do, and I was here to support them and answer their questions.

And he improved. And over time he improved. And over time he improved. And guess what? He is there now. Like they're, they're there. Like, they couldn't even take a shower. They couldn't even take a shower. If they put him in the kennel, he'd poop himself. He'd hurt himself trying to get outta the kennel. If they left him outta the kennel, he'd destroy the house. It was insane. But anyway, I keep going off into the weeds, <laugh>, there's nobody here to keep me on track. Your dog will discover that pattern. Now, if you are really

bad at being precise with your markers or with the timing of your stim, or God forbid both, it'll take you longer. It's gonna take you longer. But literally, guys, your dog, anytime you're providing a correction, they just need to see the pattern. This behavior leads to marker and correction. When I'm not doing that behavior, there's no correction. And so, sure, the first time you correct your dog, maybe they don't know what the hell it's for, right? But they do it a few more times and they get to see, oh, every time I do this, uh-huh. And guess what? Your dog picks up on those kinds of patterns so much faster than you, unless you are actively thinking about it and trying.

24:00 — Kati emphasizes consistency because dogs learn patterns, while inconsistent responses make those patterns unclear.

Most people are kind of oblivious to the patterns that are happening around them. Your dog is not. Your dog, they are the masters at establishing what the patterns are. And that's why consistency is so important, right? Because if you are inconsistent, you are literally teaching your dog that there isn't a pattern, right? Or that they haven't figured it out yet. So then you continue to struggle. But we get dogs in here that are real monkeys in the kennel, and we usually get them settled

in

a few minutes. Some of the worst ones, maybe an hour or two, like we're, we're going back and forth a little bit, right? And then what we usually see happen, it's not like it just stops all at once. They'll pipe up every now and then, right? They'll get restless, they'll get uneasy. They tend to be more anxious dogs, more fidgety, uh, more FOMO, all this stuff. And so they'll pipe up now and then, right? But the incidents are fewer and fewer and fewer and usually within a few days, like they enjoy just going into their kennel, laying down and take a nap.

And they're as good as gold, no problem, right? So no, they don't develop a negative association, guys. And we've done this with hundreds and hundreds, probably well over a thousand dogs at this point. And I have never, it's a strong word, I have never had a dog that ultimately in the end developed a negative association with their kennel. Never. So that's evidence enough.

Now you can take that same thing and you can apply it to everything else, right? Anything else? You have a dog that's unsure about strangers, they growl at stranger, you mark that with a no, and you correct them. Is that dog going to attribute that correction to the stranger? Well, first of all, even if they do, right? Again, you need time to show your dog the pattern. So they're gonna start to see, oh, it's, it's not right. You, if you go out into, let's say you take your dog to a, a store of some kind, a pet store, feed store, whatever, you take your dog in, they growl at somebody, you correct them, you keep walking.

Well, you keep walking by strangers and your dog gets to see nothing bad is happening, happening, right? So that really is the goal, is they need to spend time in the presence of the, those triggers with nothing bad happening.

And then they get to see, oh, it's only when I act like an asshole that that consequence comes, right? It's not the stranger, it's when I bark at the stranger. It's when I growl at stranger. And so the more time you spend around strangers, the more clear that pattern can become. Same thing with the kennel. The more time your dog spends in there, when things are fine, the more clear the pattern becomes. So over patterns start out hazy, right? So people, oh, my dog's confused, my dog doesn't know, my dog doesn't understand. It's like, so what?

Give it some time. All patterns start out unsure, right? Because you don't really know if it's a pattern until time goes on.

28:00 — Kati says consistent responses make initially unclear behavior-consequence patterns clearer over weeks and months.

All patterns start out blurry and hazy and uncertain. And if you are consistent, then over time the pattern gets more solidified and more clear, more solidified and more clear, more solidified and more clear. So by the time you are weeks and months out for years, right? The further out you get, the more the pattern becomes etched in stone. It's absolutely certain, right? But if there's a little confusion early on, who cares? It doesn't matter. Give it some time. Trust the process. Have faith in yourself to actually provide your dog with a pattern. Your dog is a genius, I assure you.

So, no, they don't, they don't make those kind of connections. Now, if you went and just walked by people and randomly shocked your dog, then yeah, right? But nobody is doing that <laugh>, right? No one's gonna do, you're not gonna do that. Why would you do that?

Right? The reason you're correcting your dog is because they have this behavior you wanna get rid of. And so you're only doing it when you see the behavior or, you know, they're about to do the behavior. You're not doing it randomly. So people that say the stuff like, you know, people that are supposed to be authorities on dog behavior that say, you know, your dog will form a negative association, blah, blah, blah. I mean, they're showing their ignorance. Like if they actually believe that, they don't know anything about how learning works. They're lying or they're ignorant, one of the two.

Um, so yeah, no, that, that will not happen. And I also, I just might wanna point out a little bit that if you have a dog that's threatening strangers, if they do think the correction's coming from the stranger, that's not a bad thing. 'Cause most of the time that gets dogs on better behavior. So when I have folks with dogs that are reactive to strangers, one of the protocols I'll tell them they can do, that's not a terrible idea in a safe way, of course. Depends, depends on what we're talking about as far as the dog and everything.

But is to have the person ask the dog to do things and use the e-collar to enforce it, right? Or maybe even just give them a correction. I tell people to have their kids say no to the dog, and then the parents can follow up with an e-collar correction. Like even if your kids are super young, like four years old, you don't have to give 'em the e-collar, of course, we're not gonna do that. But if your kid can just say no, and then you follow that up with a correction, the dog go now goes, oh, whoa, I guess the kids have these superpowers too.

I need to be a little more respectful around the kids. I shouldn't actually try to take their sandwich out of their hand. I shouldn't actually plow into them and knock them down out in the yard.

All these things, right? So again, it's like all the information out there. People have this idea in their head that corrections make your dog hate you. No, they don't. It's usually actually quite the opposite. Dogs tend to have more respect for somebody that provides consequences, and they tend to suck up when they happen, right? And that's just sort of their natural self-preservation, pack preservation sort of instinct. Call it whatever you want. I don't wanna pretend to know more than I do, right? I don't know what's going on up there, but I've seen this enough times to know that most dogs, maybe not all, but most of them, when someone provides a correction, the internal response is something like, I need to fall into line and preserve this relationship, right?

And you can attach a million reasons to it, whatever, but it's, it's seems to be sort of a primitive, instinctual sort of response, right?

A lot like a dog rolling over on their back in submission. Same sort of thing, right? So it doesn't mean they're gonna be scared of you, it doesn't mean they're gonna hate you, it doesn't mean any of that stuff. Usually it brings you closer together and your dog respects you more. You become a little more relevant, right? Um, that's a good thing. That's usually very good for the human-dog relationship. So no, your dog will not develop negative associations with things you don't intend to unless you're very, very sloppy, if you're not using any markers, if you have bad timing, um, if you're doing it randomly instead of like right after they do a behavior or during, or immediately before as it's about to happen, right?

33:00 — Kati warns that consequences unrelated to behavior can become associated with nearby people, objects,…

Because then your consequences are not tied to a behavior of the dog, which means the dog will then try to tie them to something, right?

They're gonna go, well, what is happening every time I get corrected? And it's gonna be like, oh, I'm always by this man, or I'm always by that chair, or, right? So it could get tied to things like that. If that's the only consistent pattern, then your dog's brain will pull that out. But it shouldn't be, right? It should be they have a behavior, right? The consequences contingent upon their behavior, and they should be able to figure that out super, super fast unless you're doing something really, really wrong. Um, and at the end of the day, guys, I just wanna say too, I, even if that did happen, let's say I somehow was just way off.

I'm just mentally not there and I'm doing everything wrong, and my dog decides, wow, well, actually this is a good example. We've had dogs have this happen, um, with like the underground fences, sometimes there's leaks, they're not done the right way or something.

And I had a dog that was getting shocked, um, not me, but a customer of mine had their dog was getting shocked for going up the stairs to the porch, which happened to be how the dog would go in and out from the house to the yard. He would have to go out on the porch and down the stairs. Well, he started to not wanna do that so much because every time you did, you get shocked, right? So there is a good example of like an inadvertent punishment. Um, and so now the dog associates the stairs with punishment because it should, because that's when it's happening, right?

It's not tied to any behavior except going up and down the stairs.

Okay? So let's say you accidentally did something like that with your e-collar, and now your dog goes, oh, I'm scared of that place, or that person, or that animal, whatever it is. Guess what? So just fix it, right? As long as you can figure out, um, that that's a thing that happened that you did, then you can fix it, right? So how, in that case, the dog with the stairs, like how would we fix that? Well, if you listen to the last episode about the dog that supposedly didn't wanna come out of the kennel, right?

And we've gotten, that wasn't the first message I've had like that, right? We have a lot of anxious dogs who the next day they're like, oh, I don't wanna come out of the kennel. I just, I don't even notice it hardly, right? It's just not even a thing.

And that's how you fix it. You show them it's fine, you don't talk to them, you don't have a conversation with them. You don't coddle them, you don't soothe them, you don't baby them. You don't avoid the thing they're afraid of. Leash on. We're gonna go down the stairs, right? Of course, after the fence was fixed, <laugh> not before, because that's gonna make things even worse and continue cementing that stairs are bad. Um, they just need to see something new. They need to experience a new pattern, right? So the pattern became stairs hurt. So I had to convince the dog they were fine.

You put a leash on and you go walk down the stairs and they don't hurt, and you walk up and they don't hurt, and you walk down and they don't hurt, and you walk up and they don't hurt, right? And then you take a little break and when you come back to it, the dog might revert back a little bit.

Like, I don't know about those stairs. Stairs, that's normal. That regression will happen after there's been, um, some time away. That's normal. But the regression will be less and less over time as the new pattern becomes stronger and stronger, right? But, so spend a few days or if it takes a few weeks to a few weeks, but in most cases, that's not gonna happen, right? And it's like we just go up and down and look. It's fine, right? So we go out there a few times a day and we just do that and gets right over it, right?

37:00 — Kati says an accidental negative association is not unfixable and can change when the…

So even if you did screw something up, and even if your dog did form an accidental negative association that you didn't want them to, so you just show them something new, change it, change the pattern. It's not unfixable, people. And there are some e-collar trainers out there that are very famous that I absolutely despise for this reason. Um, almost all of the content they put out is, oh, I'm

such a good e-collar trainer. I'm the only ethical one here. And all the other e-collar trainers are so bad and they're ruining these dogs and blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah. Um, you, if you have done any research in the e-collar world, you probably know who I'm talking about. Um, and I won't mention any names, but, um, yeah, super annoying. And that is why I find that so incredibly annoying is because even if he was right, and this does, that doesn't happen that often. I've had a couple of dogs like that, a couple, and they were usually, they were people that were e-collar training by themselves on their own. They didn't know how to do it. And, um, they had dogs that were a little bit more challenging that weren't really in the norm as far as how they responded.

And yeah, so they ended up creating the association that like the e-collar, um, was always really uncomfortable and was always random and not necessarily tied to a behavior. And we just fixed it.

It's, it's fixable. You just fix it, right? It's not the end of the world. And most of the time that doesn't happen. So I wanna be clear too, I've had lots of people come to me that were already using e-collars that got a lot done with it without a trainer, right? They were like, oh no. Like if he doesn't come when I call him, I hit this, he comes, like they did that themselves. Um, or, you know, he jumps up and gets something off the counter and I do this, like he doesn't do it again.

He knows, right? People just don't always know the, the details of how to make that stick long term. Um, and how to get a dog that just listens to them without having to use the e-collar and, and things of that nature. But no, it's extremely rare that we get dogs that have negative associations with things by accident, where the crate's been ruined because of an e-collar, or they, you know, ruined a relationship because of an e-collar.

40:00 — Kati closes by saying dogs confused about e-collars can learn clearer patterns through further…

It doesn't happen. It really doesn't. And in the, in the rare case that we've had a dog that was confused about the e-collar, well, we just got to work and we showed him the patterns, and guess what? He learned them. Your dog is not stupid. I assure you, <laugh>, I can assure you. So just remember, it's really about sequence, guys. That's the important piece, right? Behavior, and then marker, and then consequence. And if you, if you stick to that pattern, your dog is going to learn the pattern. Um, 'cause they're a genius, guaranteed. They'll figure it out.

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.