Your Dog Isn’t Stubborn, You Are

00:00 — Kati Peppe opens by asking why owners repeatedly tell their dogs the same thing.

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

Have you ever wondered why you have to tell your dog the same thing over and over and over again? <laugh> So like so many people out there, um, have told their dog, you know, not to do a behavior because they don't like it, or they have a behavior that they want their dog to do and they tell their dog, you know, that they're bad if they don't do the behavior or, or that sort of thing. You know, like yelling at the dog if they don't come back when called. Um, or an unwanted behavior like getting into the trash.

You know, either way, unwanted behavior or non-compliance of a learned behavior. Either one, people are certain that their dog knows they're upset with them, they're certain that their dog knows they're not supposed to, or they are supposed to do the behavior, and yet it's still difficult for them to get the dog to comply, <laugh>, and, you know, stop doing the thing they don't like or do the thing that they expect them to do.

And the reason is super, super simple, guys. So sometimes it might just be a lack of training, like maybe we haven't actually taught the dog to do the behavior the way that we think we have. But even if you do that, even if you do everything right and you teach the dog what the word means, how to do the behavior, that there's a reward for doing the behavior, and you do all kinds of repetition, even if you do that, all right? And the dog demonstrates an understanding, it's still optional. It's still optional. Getting mad at the dog or getting frustrated or yelling at the dog.

None of that, none of that is going to help. It might help in the moment. Okay? So this is where people get hung up. It might help in the moment, especially if you have a softer dog and like you, they know and you start to get a little mad, you start to lose your temper a little bit or, you know, you get frustrated or you yell, you raise your voice.

Some of those dogs are be like, oh, so-and-so means business. I better, I better listen. And so then you get the behavior that you want in the moment, but your dog's gonna do the same thing again later. And that's where so many people get hung up. Even my own clients, my own customers, I mean, it's not like we don't talk about it, but they're not dog trainers and it's easy to forget or to just not execute it properly. And so I, I run into this a lot down the road. Um, I'll hear from them because they're having trouble getting consistency out of their dog because they missed this piece somehow.

03:00 — The “nag zone” describes repeatedly intervening to get compliance without making lasting progress.

And I say somehow because I <laugh>, I am very careful to make sure that I do express this point, uh, when we are together. Um, and also in any literature that I send home, like my go-home packets with my board-and-trains.

So I do convey the information, but people aren't perfect. And so this is one of the big things that I see people run into is they get into this nag zone. That's what I call it, the nag zone. So lots of trainers refer to it as that. And it's where you do have a means to get what you want in the moment, but long term it's not doing you any good. You're having to do it every time you work with the dog or regularly, I should say, right? So you want things to start to stick and to become default for your dog, right?

Nobody wants to have to nag their dog. And I say that a lot with the e-collar because I primarily train adult dogs with e-collars. Nobody wants to have to push buttons to get things from their dog all the time.

Of course they don't. I get that. I say that, uh, right in my lesson plans with my clients and in my literature that I sent home with them. That exact phrase, nobody wants to have to push buttons forever. And this is how you avoid doing that if you don't wanna nag your dog. There's one real simple rule, guys, you ready? You have to provide meaningful, meaning basically intolerable, consequences for noncompliance. That's it. That's the formula. Now, the reason people fail at this so often, we are freaking terrible at this, okay? I'm sorry, but humans are just really, really freaking bad at this part of behavior modification.

We're bad at it with our kids too. A lot of people are. You've seen them and you know who I'm talking about. <laugh>

What happens is people think they're providing meaningful consequences, but they're not. And the reason they think that is because it works in the moment, right? So my dog jumps on somebody, I say no, and they get down. It worked, but it didn't because they're gonna do it again next time. Okay? My dog bolts out the front door, I get mad, they come back, it worked, but it didn't because they're going to do it again next time. And you are gonna get stuck in that cycle, okay? Until you do something different and you provide a meaningful consequence.

06:00 — Kati says a consequence’s effectiveness depends on future behavior, not the dog’s immediate response.

Now, meaningful consequences cannot be evaluated in the moment because you have to see what effect they have on future behavior before you can assess if it was effective. That's the whole point. What you are doing is not effective. That's why you have to do it all the time.

Okay? So when it comes to e-collar training, there are a ton of nuances to it. So we're often just looking for the level on the e-collar that motivates our dog to listen to us and prioritize us over the environment. And that might not be very uncomfortable at all. That might just be a tap on the shoulder or it might just be moderately annoying or it might be uncomfortable. It depends on the dog and it depends on what's happening. But the dog basically picks the level, whatever level gets them to go, oh yeah, I can do this thing you're asking, even though there's a dog over there, that's the level we're looking for, that's fine, okay?

But here's what happens. People go home, they work with their dogs, things are going great, but over time people are getting sick of having to push the button to pull their dog's attention back to them to do the behaviors and enforce the boundaries and all these things.

And I get that and I'm with them and I agree completely, but it's not gonna go away way unless you increase that level to something your dog really cares about. So at some point, once you've put in all the time and the rehearsal and the repetition, you've given your dog all the guidance. You know what I mean? I can see when dogs first go home, you're just using the level I said, like I said, that gets them to prioritize you. But six months down the road, you shouldn't be doing that all the time, okay? Especially if we're talking about behaviors that your dog knows really well that they, they have done a ton.

You've given them the information and the feedback a ton. You gotta enforce it, guys. You gotta say, hey, this is a real boundary, this is a real rule, this is a standard. This is a behavior I expect. That's a behavior I don't allow. And you need to dial up your remote and provide a consequence to your dog that will inhibit that behavior in the future. For instance, my dog knows recall very well, and by the way, I never have to correct him for not recalling. N-never, literally never. I can't even remember the last time I did.

It doesn't matter how far away he is or what the distraction is, he comes back every time I call him. There's a reason for that.

And it's not because I have food <laugh>, sorry. It was really funny. It's because after we put in the practice and I trained him, and I did, I took the time on a leash, taught him the behavior, taught him the words, taught him about the e-collar, we practiced in different places. Once we did that, I provided a really high consequence for not listening to me. And now I have a very safe, very reliable, trustworthy dog. And that's what I wanted, right? But what happens is people will tap just high enough, right? They'll start really low and the dog ignores 'em.

10:00 — Kati rejects calling most dogs stubborn, describing noncompliance as normal decision-making rather than a…

So they turn it up a little bit and the dog ignores 'em. They turn it up a little bit more and the dog comes back and they do that every time.

At some point, guys, you have to say, look, this is a rule. There is a punishment if you don't follow the rule. If you don't do that, don't expect much. So that's just normal. That's not, there's nothing wrong with the dog. They're not being stubborn. Please don't call your dog stubborn <laugh>. They're not. They're not stubborn. Yes, I have met some dogs that are sort of like abnormally opposed to doing anything they're ever asked to do. So maybe you could call those dogs stubborn, but for the most part, dogs are just doing what they feel like doing.

And they're not gonna change that unless you give them a really good reason. And just making you happy is not a very good reason. So I'm not saying anything bad about dogs here. This doesn't make your dog bad in any way. It doesn't make them abnormal, it doesn't make them difficult.

It's just normal behavior, not just for dogs, but for humans too, guys. And a lot of times people will say it's just like kids. No, it's not just like kids. It's just like you. And it's just like me. This goes for all of us. This is just normal. But dogs aren't humans and we can't ground them. We can't take away their phone. There is no way to provide a meaningful correction to your dog in most cases, aside from some kind of physical layer. Okay? So the e-collar is great for that. Bonker works as well, operates on a completely different mechanism.

It's not physical discomfort, it's fear, okay? But it's still physical in nature. Dogs don't speak English, they don't have human emotions. They don't understand good, bad, right, wrong, okay? You can't sit them down and talk to them about their behavior. Just attach a consequence to it.

Okay? So if you're nagging your dog, I want you to think about what is the consequence for doing the thing that you're nagging about? What consequence are you providing? And if you don't know how to do that properly, then absolutely take the time to find out how do I do that? How do I provide a consequence to my dog? Because a lot of people genuinely don't know 'cause that information isn't readily available. And an e-collar, as I've stated a million times, is an amazing way to do that. But you still have to know how to do it.

Sure, a lot of times people can just slap an e-collar on and correct behaviors, and that works really well, especially if we're talking about behaviors we don't like: getting into the trash, jumping on people. That's pretty simple. Basic stuff. Easy to stop with an e-collar, no real training required, but you should still know what the proper process is to do that. And that generally most of the time requires marking that behavior by saying no when it occurs, and then following your no with the consequence. Okay? And then when it comes to behaviors we want the dog to do, like coming when called, laying down when asked to, those sorts of things require more training and more time because we're expecting the dog to do something.

So they have to learn how to do that. That's different than learning not to do something, which is generally much easier, much, much easier.

But in the end, ultimately after you do the training, you teach your dog the behaviors, you put in the reps, it all boils down to the same thing. Consequences.

And so when I have a client who's like pretty clearly discouraged or annoyed that their dog won't listen without tapping the e-collar, I mean, I don't even have to ask what's been happening. I already know. I already know what's happening is we just haven't provided a high enough consequence. We just nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, and then we get sick of nagging. So we stop. And so then the dog just does whatever they want, <laugh>, right? I mean, how, how else could that possibly pan out? So, and this isn't me picking on my clients by any stretch, but what it is is me saying, you gotta, you gotta get outta your own head and stop thinking about things from your perspective and your point of view.

14:00 — Kati emphasizes that the dog determines what is meaningful, while behavior over time reveals…

What's meaningful is up to the dog. It's not up to you. And what's effective has nothing to do with what happens in the moment. It has everything to do with what happens over time. So when my dog does something and I provide a consequence for that, I don't know if it's effective until later. It doesn't matter what the dog does right then. I wanna see, do they go back to doing that same thing later or do they change their behavior? And that's, that's the key. Like you need to provide your dog with consequences that change their future behavior.

If the future behavior isn't changing, then you gotta go back to the drawing board and say, hey, what I did there was ineffective. It didn't work. All right? So get outta the nag zone with your dogs, guys. Uh, and again, like rewards, yeah, absolutely. Rewards are great. But if you don't have the flip side of that, you don't have the negative intolerable consequence, then just remember, and some dogs listen pretty okay without it, some of the really soft dogs, and that's great. I'm happy for you. A lot of dogs don't. But even those dogs, even the easy soft, you know, what we call cupcake dogs that might listen most of the time with just rewards, their behavior will never be truly reliable.

So you're basically waiting for the environment to throw something at you where the dog says, I'm not gonna listen this time, and I'm, I don't know about you, but I'm not okay with that. I wanna know that my dog knows both reward and punishment, because that makes them as reliable and as safe as possible. So even the easy dogs, you know, if you've trained them with just positive methods and they do pretty good most of the time, like I said, that's great and I'm happy for you. And there's nothing wrong with that. But they're not as reliable as they could be because they don't know that there could be negative consequences for not listening, which means that, and 'cause you gotta understand, dogs are living things that make their own decisions.

So at any time they might pull out a different decision than what they've been pulling out, right? So maybe they listen pretty good every day for two years and then all of a sudden, no, not today.

It happens. It happens all the time. That's normal. Behavior is somewhat unpredictable in that sense, right? Because life is complex and chaotic. But anyways, I don't wanna go off on this tangent, um, as I do about training, uh, without any, any correction. But my point here really is that sometimes people think they're providing correction and they're not. They're just nagging their dog. And that might be fine early on in the training when your dog isn't an expert at things and you're relying more on guidance. So you're giving them e-collar feedback, you're giving them guidance and help, and you're working them through things and you're teaching them the rules, like, great, that's fine.

But ultimately at some point you have to have a standard with a real boundary and a real consequence. And if you don't do that, things remain optional. And to some dogs, you're still not gonna see a lot of non-compliance because they're just generally good, happy-to-comply dogs.

But with some other dogs that are more independent, that sort of thing, you're gonna struggle a lot with those dogs. And so I do just wanna be really clear that the training piece is important here. So just like sometimes people think they're correcting their dogs and they're not, they also think they've taught their dog behaviors and they haven't. Okay? So if you're not sure, if you're not a dog trainer, if you haven't done a lot of research, if you haven't been at this for a while and feel confident that you know how to train a behavior, then that's something else that you need to address.

19:00 — Before corrections, Kati stresses that dogs must understand the behavior, verbal cues, and how…

And you should probably address that before you just start correcting your dog. I don't want people to think that you just slap a e-collar on your dog and punish them for not listening and it's going to work.

Because a lot of the time, that's not going to work for a lot of reasons, okay? The dog has to really understand the behavior. They have to understand the words that you're using. They have to understand how to do the behavior. And a lot of dogs really need to understand how to respond to the e-collar. So sometimes if you have a dog that is very, very well-versed in a behavior, you can just add an e-collar correction and that cleans it right up, okay? But a lot of times that's not how it works out for people.

So do your research. So get outta the nag zone, guys. Um, if you've taken the time to train your dog and teach them these things, provide a real consequence for non-compliance and see if things don't turn around for you, and I know they will. So that's it for this episode, guys. Don't forget to hit subscribe so that we can do this again real soon and I'll see you all next time. I.