Your Dog Will Only Be As Reliable As YOU Train Them To Be

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces Diamond Canine Dog Training and its focus on off-leash obedience and…

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. Uh, we specialize in eco training for off-leash obedience and behavior modifications. So helping people stop all those pesky behaviors like jumping and digging and barking, as well as more serious stuff, uh, reactivity, resource guarding, separation anxiety, all that stuff. And we do puppy training too. So that's who we are and what we do. And this podcast is our way of sharing everything we experience, everything we learn, everything we know to be true with you guys.

Speaker 1: Um, yeah, so this is what we're doing and talking about with our hands-on clients every day. Um, then we figure it would probably be of interest, um, to other people as well. So hopefully you find some of this information helpful. Um, or at the very least, maybe entertaining. Um, so here's something I run into all the time.

Speaker 1: I run into, you know, we, we have a pretty quick turnaround program here. So our basic, basic board and train program is two weeks long. Two weeks is not that long. <laugh>, okay? So I can only generate so many like, theoretical scenarios and I can only replicate so many scenarios in so much excitement and so many distractions and all that stuff in two weeks. Like there's, there's only so much we can do. Um, and I can only teach the dog so much in two weeks. Uh, and I've had people wanna do programs even shorter than that.

Speaker 1: But of course all of our programs are eco programs and I basically tell them they're nuts. Okay? Because your dog deserves at least two weeks to learn the language of the e-collar. It's a skill that needs to be built. <laugh>, there are a lot of connections in the brain that need to be made.

Speaker 1: Um, two weeks is not a long time. But so to that point, and I mean, what we teach dogs in two weeks is amazing and people are blown away. Um, but what their dog can do and also how easy it is to communicate with their dog with the e-collar, uh, which I think is really, really cool. And it's what a it, one of the things I love the most about what we do is gifting people that line of communication that they didn't have before. It's huge. It's a game changer. Uh, and it's improved so many lives, but people will, you know, and it goes both ways.

Speaker 1: It's like people will leave that go home session with their dog and go home to spread their wings. And I mean, sometimes you have people that are very, very cautious. Um, you know, and they, even if they do have a dog that did well, responded well, uh, and is doing everything properly, even back home with them, they still are hesitant to trust the dog, to give the dog, um, freedom, like off leash, that sort of thing.

04:00 — Owners should grant off-leash freedom only when they feel confident and the dog has…

Speaker 1: And there's no pressure. Like there's no, you know, mandate that you have to do that or anything. You should feel comfortable when you do that, but sometimes people are extra, extra hesitant. Um, but it goes the other way too. And that's kind of what I wanna talk about is people trust their dogs before they are ready to be trusted. Okay? So you're overdr your headlights <laugh>, okay? Um, one really common example of this, um, with dogs that go home from a board and train is the just the, the basic place command, right? So we, we teach dogs place, it's like the staple of our programs.

Speaker 1: I love it. And dogs do a ton of place when they're here, um, because they live with me. And so I can't have them running around all over the place. And it's a great way for me to be able to do the things I need to do at home.

Speaker 1: My own personal tasks like making supper and cleaning up and um, things with my daughter and, and all that stuff. I can just put the dogs on place and let them get their duration time in, in the evenings. Um, so we do a lot of that. Um, but people will go home and put their dog on place and they'll just leave them there and they'll leave the room and they'll be somewhere else in the house or maybe God forbid, outside. And it's not that you can't do that, but we tell everyone when they go home, you can't do that until you teach your dog that.

Speaker 1: It's the same rules, boundaries and consequences with you as it was with me, right? So it's a classic example of overdr the headlights and trusting the dog when they weren't ready for it. Um, and it's not difficult, it doesn't take a lot of time, but you have to go to the trouble of like testing the dog to make sure that they're transferring these rules and boundaries to home. 'cause it's not always magic, right? Because they have a history there and they go, oh, these people, they don't draw lines and boundaries. It's not gonna be the same rule.

Speaker 1: Those rules are out the window. That place is gone. Those people are gone. This is different here,

Speaker 1: <laugh>, right? And so they put the dog on place, they go upstairs to put laundry away or something and the dog just gets off the cot. Um, and so that's a rather, you know, innocuous example, assuming that the dog doesn't do anything terrible when they're off place. Um, but you can dream up some other scenarios where that could be a problem, right? So what should be done there is, you know, you put the dog on place, you leave the room, but you're watching. So you can provide that accountability and that consequence for sneaking off when you think no one's around.

Speaker 1: And even then you can't just assume it's one and done, right? So you have to keep setting the scenario up until you know you're done, until you know the dog is trustworthy. And if you genuinely leave them there with no supervision before that, then you're really inviting trouble because not only is your dog gonna sneak off, right, but you're now teaching them that they can, and you have to then undo that which is harder, <laugh>, right? So classic example of there needs to be real accountability. And it's not like I didn't do that here. It's not like we didn't do that here.

07:00 — Leaving a dog unsupervised too early teaches it that sneaking away is acceptable.

Speaker 1: Um, but when dogs go home with their owners, they don't know if it's the same. You have to show them it's the same, right? So if you want your dog to be reliable in that situation, then you need to set up that situation, test your dog, give your dog the necessary feedback, and, uh, make sure everything is all polished up the way it should be. One example that, uh, I had was great client, two dogs, wonderful dogs, um, and her dogs were doing well. And I think that's the case a lot of the time is like the dogs are doing well, but you, it's really difficult to really explain to people that obedience, it's either negotiable or it's not.

Speaker 1: It's either something you wanna nag for or it's not right? If you really want something to be truly cleaned up, truly trustworthy, truly reliable and non-negotiable, you have to make it that way. Nobody on the face of this earth can do that for you. You have to do it. You have to provide a level of accountability that makes that happen. And most people don't do that because they suck at it. <laugh>, okay? They suck at it. So I know I talk all the time about punishment all the time about corrections, all the time about accountability, but it is far and away the biggest thing people struggle with it is the thing they need the most.

Speaker 1: It is the thing they understand the least.

Speaker 1: Okay? So like in that example I just gave you about breaking place, okay? Day one, day two, day three, we're teaching a dog place. We don't do that. We don't do, we're not gonna walk outta the room and light the dog up like the 4th of July for making a mistake. That's not how we do it. That is not how we teach the dog the expectation. Believe it or not. It's not how we teach the command. It's not how we teach the expectation to stay there. However, we will do the reps, we'll do the positive reinforcement, we'll do the guidance, we'll do the gentle feedback, we'll do it over and over and over again.

10:00 — Kati explains that place is taught through clear expectations, not immediate high-intensity corrections.

Speaker 1: And then at some point somebody has to say, you're gonna regret getting off that co. You have to, this is it. There is no other way to do it. There just isn't. Not if you want it to be truly reliable. And so if you're one of those people that's very squeamish about that, and it's difficult for you, and I get it, by the way, it's not the fun part. But what's worse is staying stuck in that loop of correction, correction, correction, correction, correction. Because you don't dare to give them a correction that actually matters.

Speaker 1: It blows my mind. People will struggle with something for days and weeks and months and years, forever even. They'll just struggle with it when it could be fixed with one correction. Not always right, but generally speaking, it really is that simple. So if I have a dog that just sneaks off place whenever they want to or whenever I'm not looking, what's gonna change that? The only thing that's going to change that is accountability. And it has to be accountability that makes the dog say that's not worth it. But the beauty of it is you do that and then you get to move on.

Speaker 1: You don't have to do it anymore, most likely, right? Maybe you have to do it again. Maybe you were still a little too low. Maybe. Maybe the dog's not sure that that's really gonna stick, that that's really the way it is now. Maybe, maybe the dog's not sure that same rule and accountability applies in a different room. Maybe, maybe you have to do it again, but you're not gonna have to do it every day forever.

Speaker 2: Because

Speaker 1: Again, if you do, then your dog is telling you that's not accountability for me. And the dog does decide that, not you. But anyway, my point behind all of this was some situations are genuinely dangerous, especially when we're talking about off leash. You can't put your dogs in situations in, you know, you can't give them those tall orders without the training. So like I said, we can't replicate every scenario here in two weeks. Like it's not gonna happen. I don't take dogs to the beach. I don't take dogs places generally where I have to worry too much about other off leash dogs.

Speaker 1: We go to the park that's nice and open, I can see them coming. We go places where there's leash laws. I don't go to the beach. My customers take their dogs to the beach. And that's great. And a lot of them, most of them, they do fantastic.

Speaker 2: They,

Speaker 1: But again, your dogs will only be as reliable as you make them. So we can teach them the skills and we can teach you the skills, but then you absolutely, positively have to hold your dog accountable and provide consequences that stick in those situations that you want your dog to be able to do. So only you know, what are the things you want your dog to be able to do, the environments you want your dog to be able to handle. And you have to take everything you learn and go and do it in those environments, right?

Speaker 1: So the example I was going to give you was a fantastic customer with a couple of dogs, lovely labs. Uh, I believe they went to the beach and had their dogs in a down, and normally their dogs did great holding a down, right? So this is where the confusion comes in. Their dogs listened very well. They were very responsive. They had held it down many times, but they go to the beach, they put them in a down while they're picking up, uh, poop, I believe. And someone else comes by with a crazy aggressive dog on a leash.

15:00 — A dog that holds a down at home may break it at the beach…

Speaker 1: And their dog's broke. Their dog's broke and started to run up to this other dog. Would, that could have been a disaster. Luckily it wasn't. Um, but so the mistake that was made there was they never put the finishing touches on holding it down in such a difficult environment. The dogs had the, the basic skills. They know how to hold it down. They've done work at the beach, right? But this particular scenario happened to pass a threshold they just hadn't been exposed to yet during their training. Or maybe they had, but we never provided the accountability, right?

Speaker 1: Maybe the dogs had broken it down at the beach before and we corrected them, but we corrected them at a level that was, eh, no biggie, right? So they're of course they're gonna do it again. So, and I don't know, I don't know which one it was. Prob maybe it was both <laugh>, you know, I don't know. Um, but the bottom line is like if you want your dog to be able and willing <laugh> right, to execute something, you're not gonna get away with not providing accountability, your dog is going to rat you out 1000% of the time.

Speaker 1: Okay? I can do things all day long with my dog in the living room out in the front yard. If I then take him into the middle of Home Depot and do that same thing, he's going to fuck up. Of course he is because we haven't done it before, right? But the additional pieces, we could go to Home Depot every day for six months and he could still be fucking up

Speaker 2: If

Speaker 1: I don't say you can't do that. It's that simple. Like, and I'm not angry, like I'm not mad at the dog for making the mistake, but if I don't provide a consequence where he goes, holy crap, I won't do that again, then he'll do it again. 'cause that's just normal. That's just normal. So number one, you have to have practiced that scenario or something very similar, right? That hits all the same buttons and you have to have provided the accountability. And accountability doesn't look like I turn on a little pressure and I put you back, or even you go back on your own.

Speaker 1: That's not accountability, right? That's training. There's nothing wrong with doing that. But you're not done after that. You're not done until you've provided a punishment. And I would definitely argue that if we're talking about situations that carry risk punishment is super critical. So you're putting your dog at risk if you don't provide that. If you never punish non-compliance in a situation where your dog could get hurt, that's on your shoulders. If they get hurt, okay? Your dog darts through the door and gets hit by a Chevy because you never punished blowing through the door.

Speaker 1: That's your fault. Like, you could have given that dog one or two hefty corrections and they would never fly through that door and they'd still be here. And I know people that that's happened to. So rather we're talking about, you know, things just looking good and looking fancy. You're being convenient, um, or keeping our dogs safe. They're all the same. The way you make them reliable is all the same, right? Whether it's blowing through the fence gate out into a busy road, or it's just staying on place when I'm upstairs, the way we make those reliable is the same, it's the same.

Speaker 1: Um, so again, when we're talking about obedience behaviors, we don't start there. We don't start there. It's lots and lots of teaching, lots of reward. If the dog is into anything, um, usually food, lots of guidance, lots of leash help, lots and lots of low, low eco work. But then ultimately at some point we treat breaking that command. Here's the probably the most important line of this whole episode. We treat breaking that command just like any other unwanted bad behavior. So that is the only time during obedience that we do that

21:00 — Breaking a known command is treated like unwanted behavior, with punishment added only after…

Speaker 1: Is when the dog is very, very well rehearsed and we're ready to just polish it up and be done with it, right? Reps, guidance reps, guidance reps guidance. And then ultimately it's okay, you've done this a million times, you know exactly what to do. We're gonna put the final touches on it. And that is adding punishment for breaking the command, right? Because ultimately we use punishment to stop behaviors. And the behavior we're stopping here is breaking the command, right? But with obedience, you, you can't start there, you end there, right? Because punishing your dog will not teach them the place command.

Speaker 1: They have to already know the place. Command <laugh>, then you can punish breaking it. But I just, I see people over and over again asking me, um, or telling me that their dog will still make these silly mistakes for things that they should know well, um, that they can't get their dog to stay on place. That, you know, their dog won't hold it down in, in a certain environment or their dog still doesn't wanna come back when they see the neighbor's dog or, and it all boils down to accountability and training. Like have we practiced it?

Speaker 1: Put your dog back on a long line if you're struggling with anything and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, and then provide real accountability. And then if it looks great, then the line can come off

Speaker 2: <affirmative>.

Speaker 1: But you have to train for what you want. And everyone's lives look different and everyone's wants and needs and lifestyles are different. Everyone's dogs are different, right? So we lay a foundation here, we teach your dog the commands, we teach them how to respond to the eco, we show you how to use the eco. But then ultimately you need to be able to take that a step further and go, okay, I'm gonna take all those skills and we're gonna go to this cafe and we're gonna rehearse. And ultimately, if my dog is breaking commands that I know he knows well, I'm gonna provide accountability to that to make it reliable because I need to be able to trust my dog to be good, to lay down, to not be tripping people, to not be attacking other dogs, not going, trying to say hi to everybody, whatever the case may be, right?

Speaker 1: But only they can do that. 'cause like I don't know where your favorite cafe is. And even if I did, I can't drive all <laugh> over the place going, well we gotta go here, we gotta go here, we gotta go here. It's like

Speaker 2: You

Speaker 1: Have to say, alright, I want my dog to do this. I'm gonna go make sure he can do this. If he can't, we're gonna fix it. Boom. Done. And once they have all the fundamentals, they have that foundation lead, that's easy, right? You just take those tools and skills and you just apply them wherever it is you wanna apply them. But you are the only one that can do that. Your dog will only be as reliable as you train them to be. So don't trust your dog to do the right thing in a situation that you haven't proofed yet, even if that's just stuff inside of your house.

Speaker 1: Another good example is I had a client with a dog that would <laugh>, it was awful. He would sometimes go into the trash can, like in the bathroom and grab tissue, or sometimes he'd even grab it like out of the toilet if there was tissue paper in the toilet, which of course they hated <laugh>, like who wouldn't? Um, and he did great for a while, but then he went back to doing that. Um, and so the answer there is structure so that you can proof it. What I mean by that is

Speaker 1: We were giving the dog freedom. He hadn't earned, he wasn't ready for it yet. He wasn't trustworthy with the freedom,

Speaker 1: Right? And so the answer to that is structure. Where he's in his kennel, he's on his play, Scott, he's in a down, he's where we tell him to be doing what we tell him to be doing unless and until we release him to be free. And we are watching so that when he makes that mistake, we can punish that mistake. And that is a thing we would just correct, right? It's like you don't get into the trash can, you certainly don't get into the toilet. Those are things we just punish. We don't need to teach him to do anything fancy.

Speaker 1: There's no repetition needed. There's no guidance needed. It's just don't get into the toilet simple, right? But if you insist on giving the dog freedom before they've earned it, the problem is you can't catch them, right? 'cause they're just gonna do it while you're not paying attention. And that's it. That'll be your cycle forever. That'll be it forever. You'll never fix it, right? Because your dog isn't ready for that freedom yet. You, you don't trust your dog in a situation, even if that situation is just roaming inside your house. You don't trust your dog in a situation that you haven't set up and fixed.

Speaker 1: So you know, you're confident your dog does the right thing.

Speaker 1: So if your dog has a behavior, and I know this applies to a lot of people, um, if your dog has a behavior that they engage in when they're free in the house, then you cannot give your dog freedom until you've knocked that behavior out. Which means you keep setting the dog up and you see them make the right choices over and over and over again, then maybe you're good now, right? But if you're just gonna throw caution to the wind and let your dog roam around, then just expect they're gonna go do that until you have successfully punished that behavior.

29:00 — Structure prevents dogs from rehearsing unwanted behavior when owners cannot watch them continuously.

Speaker 1: Then once you see that your dog makes the right choice every time because you're watching when they're free, right? Nobody can watch their dog all day. That's the problem. That's why the structure is so important in this particular case, right? You can't watch your dog all day, but you can watch your dog for 10 minutes. Maybe you can watch your dog for a half an hour or even an hour, right? So you just don't give them the freedom until you can monitor them. Because you can't catch them doing something if you're not monitoring them. And you can't punish a behavior that you don't catch them doing.

Speaker 1: So you have to get out of this mindset

Speaker 3: Of

Speaker 1: Putting your dog in a situation he's clearly not ready for if you wanna fix it anyway, right? Otherwise, you continue to rehearse the stuff you don't want and you're shooting yourself in the foot and you're going backwards. 'cause your dog learns every time, oh, they're not paying attention, I can go do it. They're not paying attention. I can go do it. Right? And that makes it even more likely to continue even after a correction, even after you try to punish the behavior, they're more likely to try it again because it worked so many times before.

Speaker 1: That's why the more effective and efficient you are, the more structure you use, the more controlled you are about how much freedom, what situation can I trust my dog in? The better your results are gonna be because you don't create this inconsistent variable pattern of get away with it, get caught, get away with it, get caught, get away with it, get caught. That is the worst thing you can do, <laugh>. So remember that guys, your dog is only as reliable as you make them. Uh, so just stop putting them in situations that they're not ready for, right?

Speaker 1: You have to look at situations as training situations, and I mean, that's always the case, but really they're training situations until you've quote unquote proofed it. Meaning

Speaker 1: You've let your dog make the mistakes, you've given them the feedback they've gotten, the meaningful consequence, they've shown that they make different choices consistently now. And then you can feel comfortable and confident trusting them in that situation to do the right thing. Um, but that's it. That's all there is to it. You gotta do that. Um, but that's it guys. That's it for today. I thank you for joining me, and I look forward to the next one.

Speaker 3: <silence>.