Welcome to Pawprint Academy, your blueprint to
raising better dogs. My name is Ryan, and I am
your host, alongside my co -host, Brianna. Hi.
And together, we're bringing you real -world
training insights built on leadership, structure,
and proven methods. But this show is a lot more
than just teaching your dog to sit or stay. It's
about building trust, creating calmness, and
becoming the kind of leader that your dog truly
needs. We do that with our three -pillar method
of trust, obey, and perform. Thanks for being
here on this journey with us. Let's get started.
Hey there, welcome to episode four, affection
versus leadership. How too much love creates
chaos. Good evening, everybody. This is Ryan.
I am joined today. We've got a full house in
here. We've got Brianna on the mic. Hello. Hello.
Now we have Brianna on the mic. Here I am. And
we've got Melody. Hi. And we've also got Nick.
How's it going? So tonight, Nick is our guest
and our guest co -host tonight. He brings years
and years of military working dog experience
from a couple of different, I guess, like individual...
Nick, you got to jump on the mic before I butcher
this. So no worries. A lot of like individual
areas within the military, right? But I would
love for you to kind of explain your background
before I end up going down three different rabbit
holes at once and get stuck in all of them. No,
no worries. Absolutely. So long story short,
my background started back in 2017 as a working
dog handler. I'm in the Marine Corps and I've
been Like I said, a military working dog handler
since 2017. And then I have been, I'm a former
special operations multipurpose canine handler
as well. Throughout my tenure, I've been working
with, you know, specialized search dogs, which
are, you know, single purpose dogs that they
only work for explosive detection. I've also
worked with patrol dogs, bomb dogs, excuse me,
I'm sorry. drug dogs and then uh tracking dogs
as well uh tracking actually is one of my one
of my favorite things that i've had to do because
that's a that's a pretty it's a pretty cool uh
pretty cool skill set pretty cool to see the
dogs you know actually like get into that like
you know genetics and like they're just natural
like desire to go and find something so Awesome.
So I'm going to try to kind of drive this forward,
but really encompass it like I want you to jump
in because there's a lot of these things. So
we obviously focus on pet dogs and a lot of the
leadership and things that we try to cover in
the in Pawprint Academy is really geared towards
those pet dogs. But I think what's really cool
about having you on is going to be. how interrelated
leadership is and these intangible skills that
we try to teach dogs. It's not just sit down,
stay calm, but those things that build the temperament
of the dog, the confidence of the dog and build
the relationship where you, you have a dog that
wants to listen to you. And I feel like we're
more important to have a dog that wants to listen
to you than when like, it's like mission critical
and like people, you know, lives are on the line.
It's a lot different than like, my dog will not
come in from going to the bathroom and I cannot
get them to come back in through the store. Cause
to those dogs even like sit and down. I mean,
like, is there a reason? I don't know. Um, well,
I mean, yeah, I think, I think they're definitely
all interconnected. And I mean, as we, uh, as
we dive into this, uh, I think there's going
to be a lot of, uh, correlations between both
the pet side and the working dog side. So, uh,
looking forward to that. So I am for, for sure
are going to have a couple of questions along
the way. And so I'll try to kind of address those
to you or to the trainers as we go. I have a
kind of a, a good outline for the, uh, the episode,
but, uh, as you see, uh, these interrelated things
that like pop up, I would love for you to just
jump in and, and, uh, and own that space. Sounds
good. Cause you definitely have like the experience
to do that. Um, also, so Melody's back. Um, so
this is Melody's first appearance on the official
podcast for paw print Academy, but, uh, she is
a regular, um, around here. She has just been
crazy busy with a whole bunch of different pet
sitting and, and dog training, different places
and things like that. So that's a market, right?
I mean, you could run an entire business. Yeah.
Really? Apparently. Wow. Cause I think kids go
back to school and then everyone's like, let's
get in our last vacations now. I don't know what
it is, but September. Yeah. Nice. So Melody works
for the company, but she does her, she kind of
does her own like. in -home and in -house pet
sitting for dogs that either their owners don't
want them, maybe the dog's reactive, maybe the
dog has special needs, maybe the dog has special
medication or whatever, or their owners don't
want them to go to a traditional kennel space
or something like that, right? Yeah, yeah. So
she's never here. I'm never here, but I'll be
here more in October. Cool. So we'll get you
on some more of those episodes. But all right.
So that kind of catches us up to where we are.
So the core idea for tonight, talking about affection
versus leadership. And it's a concept that we
have touched on before, but definitely not to
the degree we're going to talk about it tonight.
So our core idea. for this evening is that love
alone does not raise a balanced dog and you can
this is gonna right you fight me on this but
you can over love your dog and not build the
relationship that you think you're building right
so at no point am i sitting here and telling
you that Well, you can over love your dog and
then just the love is going to make your dog
explode or something bad is going to happen because
of it. No, it's more of the lost opportunity
that you could be using that love and affection
to build your relationship in a way that like
makes sense to your dog and builds clarity. And
a lot of times when we use affection, how humans
interact and how humans like to receive affection.
dogs don't always respond to that in the same
way, right? And so dogs aren't always going to
get the same message out of that. And so without
leadership, affection often ends up fueling this
like byproduct, which turns into anxiety, let
alone like entitlement. And then that kind of
segues into just like chaos in the home. And
that comes from this lack of these, this foundation.
So tonight we're going to talk about how we can
still love our dogs and we can still throw affection
at them and we can still, we can still flood
them with affection. But if we just do a couple
of things first and build off of that, then the
affection amplifies our relationship with those
dogs rather than detracts from it. All right.
So, Major point number one on my outline. I am
going to try to keep myself reined in because
I want to go down all these different rabbit
holes. But affection without boundaries creates
confusion. Now, with boundaries, boundaries we've
talked about before and boundaries will always
be those left and right limits that keep the
dog knowing that and being confident that they
can perform the way that. is appropriate and
in a way that you want them to right without
boundaries the dog is just you know just whiffing
the the the baseball bat and and whiffing at
the ball and maybe they hit a home run sometimes
maybe they get a single and maybe they just strike
out and we want to try to build something that
the dog can be confident in right from the get
-go um and so with that right dogs need clarity
more than they need constant praise or petting
i would assume so um before we really go down
the trainer route with this right nick i want
to ask you i well so first of all on the working
dog side like do you guys even use affection
is there even is there affection that comes into
play absolutely in this because i'm pretty sure
that most people have in their heads that like
oh military working dog no no you don't like
those are not those are those are like uh x over
the the cuddle no yeah it's a absolutely true
on that uh you know thought process uh however
it is very uh yeah it is quite contrary um you
know in specific my dog uh he had When I first
got him, he had such a severe outing issue that,
and he didn't really care for food. We even tried,
you know, withholding food for a little bit of
time before we did. And we tried to use that
as rewarding or as a reward for him. And, you
know, he didn't really care for that. It wasn't
really, you know, getting that target behavior
that, you know, it wasn't reinforcing the target
behavior at the time. So what I found was that
for the first few months that I had my dog, he
actually was. solely on a physical praise um
and that kind of goes into like you know your
primary and secondary reinforcements primary
you know being food water shelter sex um and
then your secondary reinforcements you know that's
where like the toys food and praise comes in
or like in physical praise comes into play and
um on the working dog side of things like it's
it's a constant flow of you know hey like where's
this where's the hierarchy of rewards here and
which which reward honestly just fits the fits
the behavior and then fits the target like as,
as much as possible. Because, you know, like
when, you know, when we're doing a shoot house,
I want my dog to be calm and level headed. So
if I'm trying to give my dog a Kong, you know,
I give my dog a Kong and the next thing, you
know, he drops it and now it's flying all over
the place. He's on a hip lead and getting dragged.
I'm getting dragged all over the place. Um, you
know, food. Yeah. I can keep food on me, but
you know, it's just imagining like breaking down
a door and shooting in a house and then like
throwing a Kong for your dog. They're so annoying.
yeah they are that's a it's definitely something
for sure um but yeah so a lot of times i uh you
know me specifically everyone has you know as
everyone knows there's a thousand different ways
to do this uh me in specific though i do enjoy
you know using physical praise for a more level
-headed um you know uh reinforcement because
it does and it calm breeds calm and so because
food's a stimulant right okay that's where i
was going with that It's like say it louder for
those in the back. Food is a stimulant. Right.
And so we on the on the less serious side, when
we're teaching a dog to walk next to you, we
are we oftentimes try to do that completely food
less. Right. Yeah. Just using reinforcing words
and using real low. uh, energy amounts of praise
in order to keep the dog kind of focused on what's
going on versus like amping them up. So, um,
but right. Just picturing that whole thing in
my head. I'm like, right. You are, I'm sure amping
this dog up to the max already. The dog's through
the roof. Last thing you need is a Kong coming
out and just all right. So I thought I immediately
went back to golden retrievers that we had in,
in pairs. And, The boy, like he was so overstimulated
all the time. Like we couldn't even use food
in half his situations because he was just, it
was chaos. Right. And we couldn't, we couldn't
use affection either. Right. You couldn't use
anything because he was just living life and
loved everything. Full golden. And so, right.
All the time. And then his sister, on the other
hand, it's like, you try to give her food, you
try to give her something, but you know what?
Ball. Every time. You pull out a ball. Ball was
her entire life. Yeah. No. Uh, so, so dogs need
clarity. And how would you say in, right. To
kind of keep the, to like reign this in, in your
environment and kind of the environment that
you just talked about, like, how do you, how
do you even keep clarity in a, in a situation,
in a situation like that? I know we're going
to go a little bit off of the, the affection
versus leadership, but I feel like in that moment,
It's you're looking for mostly leadership and
a lot of clarity. Yeah. So, I mean, it honestly,
everything is, you know, each and every one of
us know here, it's, it comes down to the foundational
skill sets and the, uh, the amount of time you
put into the training itself, because, uh, you
know, before you're able to introduce all these
different, you know, distractions and different
variables, having that solid foundation. And
as you were talking about earlier, just having
that differentiation of like, Hey, praise versus
play versus, uh, just simply. just just having
a left and right lateral limits on where to go
and how to how to comprehend things because like
dogs don't speak english they don't speak spanish
they don't speak any other language they go off
of physical and kind of verbal cues that you
know that we give to them so uh just having solid
foundations really like going straight down to
that yeah and so when we when we talk about foundation
in you know, family dog training, we're always
talking about like leading from the front and,
and showing the dog clear communication, like
standing still while you use a verbal cue and
then moving to reinforce it versus moving and
talking and rewarding and touching the dog all
at the same time. So yeah, that a hundred percent
that, that, that is how we, I mean, we. build
clarity kind of the same way, but probably to
a significantly lesser degree. It's all, it's
all through. I was actually just having this
conversation earlier with someone else about,
about pets is dogs are all dogs just, you know,
to, to each, to each their own. And, you know,
it's, it's kind of the same as people, you know,
everyone has different ceilings, so to say, don't
get me wrong. Everyone, everyone and every dog
is capable of, you know, achieving amazing things,
but each and every dog, you know, there's, there's
so many dogs that try to get into the military
every year. And, uh, most dogs don't have the,
they just don't have the genetics to, you know,
make it. And it's to no, no fault of their own.
There's, I bet there's a few pets out there that
could probably do it as well. Um, but it's, it
really comes down to genetics on that aspect
too. Right. Cause they test them so early that
like the immediate signs, if they have it, they're
like, nope. Yeah. We can't have it. There's,
there's, there's tests out there that, you know,
you could literally look at the dog, give it
10 seconds and you could tell if that dog has
it or not. Yeah. To a small extent, not, not
the fullest, but yeah. All right. So, um, how
about timing? Right. We're, we'll go kind of
back to the affection side, but, um, as I'm kind
of like picturing all this, the timing of your
reward and, uh, as you were working with your
dog right the timing of that affection is like
supremely important right timing is everything
so right and so you're using it as a as a reinforcer
for whatever it is that you're trying to do uh
in my point um i think that we often use affection
because we're using it like for a normal dog
owner sitting at home with their dog we use affection
in the same way that like a human would like
affection right and so petting and cuddling and
all of those things that's like the affection
that we're talking about and when we give that
sometimes we get off on the timing and so we
inadvertently reinforce the wrong message to
the dog and so that's what we're like kind of
going to go talk about here um because i think
that rewarding even using affection And, and
you used it very successfully with your dog is
what you were talking about. But if you would
have used it at the wrong time, it wouldn't have
been useful. Oh, absolutely not. So on the pet
dog side, we often do it when like for a reactive
dog, when the dog gets scared. Yeah. Dog gets
scared of something and we scoop them up and
oh, there, there, there. It's okay. It's okay.
It's okay. And we have just created a reinforcing
event to what it was. that they were just scared
of or worried about or upset about. Right. Gabe's
like the prime example at a dog group like two
weeks ago. Somebody, he got scared because all
the dogs started barking at the ice cream truck
and he doesn't bark. So he was just terrified
that everybody else was barking. And then for
the rest of the class, he was so weird and thrown
off. And he was like shaking and couldn't get
out of his own head because the dog's barking.
He hates other dogs barking. And he kept trying
to cuddle up next to me and like touch my legs.
And it's because he didn't really want to look
at me or pay attention to me. But he wanted to
know that I was like there. And I kept nudging
him away. And not that he was so far away from
me, but I was like, you're not going to lean
on me. And I remember somebody, I think it might
have been Lila, was like, why do you keep doing
that? And I was like, because he's trying to
find security in me, and I want him to feel confident.
There's nothing going on. We're in a dog club.
He's been here every time. An ice cream truck
came by, threw all the dogs off. They barked.
It's nothing to be scared of. And if in that
moment, like I would coddle him and be like,
it's okay. Or start petting him, showing him
affection. I'm teaching him that. It's a change
in body language. Right. Whatever he's trembling
from, it's okay to do that when it's completely
not. Yeah, exactly. I think, I think, uh, I wasn't
at this, at this, uh, you know, uh, group session.
But I definitely think, you know, in situations
like that, because, you know, dealing with explosive
breaching, a lot of times we could have some
dogs that do get a little fearful from that.
So it's weird. Yeah. It's one of the things that
we do try to, you know. It sounds loud. It's
a bomb going off. No big deal. But one of the
things that we do, though, is we do try to offer
replacement behaviors in place of that. If they're
shying away from it, you know, trying to just
introduce something fun into the environment
that's going to make that dog. less reactive
over that, you know, that negative stimulus,
you know, just counter conditioning, whatever
that, you know. negative thing is uh whatever
whatever you know in this case it's the it's
the dog's barking or the ice cream truck i don't
know why you'd be scared of an ice cream truck
all right he doesn't know what the song means
yeah i know he's never gotten anything from there
dog needs a pup cup yeah it was louder than the
music in his head funny enough i've offered him
pup cups it's like the one thing he won't eat
he's like i'm not touching it it's it's weird
but yeah no it's uh it's one of those things
like we do that we have to do that a lot in our
line of work so yeah so another thing was last
Last weekend, we went to, like, a food truck
rodeo at a big park, and he hates, like, food
trucks because they have the big generators on
the back, and there were, like, a ton of people
there. A lot of noises. There's music and, yeah,
just lots going on. And never three years ago
would I have ever taken him to, like, an event.
But I had three dogs to choose from, and I was
like, I'm going to bring Gabe. And brought him,
and he found French fries on the ground, and
French fries are his lifelong love. He loves
french fries. And so what did I do? I just started
sprinkling food all over the ground while we
were waiting in line. And by the time we were
out of line, he was like, yeah, this is okay.
This isn't so bad. And I'm like, yeah, that's
what he needed was to just dive into food and
search for it on the ground because he loves
to sniff. And that was so good for him in that
moment. I think he got the most out of it out
of all three dogs I could have picked. Absolutely.
That was like a replacement behavior then. So
that was like a replacement behavior. Right.
It's like sniff the ground. Don't pay attention
to what's going on around you. So then it becomes
a positive connotation. Right. Whether it's a
distraction that they like or a replacement behavior.
So one of the things I look at when I do like
behavioral dogs is like box feeding and you dump
a bunch of stuff in a box that they really want
to eat and it cuts off all the visuals of the
outside world. And so you have a dog that's not
so stressed by all the visuals that it can see.
It's just, they call it a dopamine box because
they just get. bursts of dopamine in this box
it's like they're eating they're eating they're
eating they can't see anything that's going on
around them so they tend to be less nervous and
then you can build stimulus into that and start
adding things that are a little scary but they're
still getting those dopamine from from the food
that they're eating and the treats they're getting
in that box right and then in all these scenarios
they're getting that like desensitization basically
gradually so then it's to the point where you
You don't even need to feel like, oh, should
I coddle my dog? Right. And so, yeah, it's like
I could have. Right. I could have in that moment
in the food truck like rodeo thing been like,
I'm just going to like pet him and like tell
him it's OK and be like, you're such a good boy.
You're a great job. But I did little to no talking
to him. I didn't need to say anything other than
stay right here next to me. And at one point
a kid came up and was like, can I pet him? And
I was like, no, he's really nervous right now.
And they still like tried to pet him. And the
parents were like, don't, he might bite you.
And I was like, that's the last thing he would
do, but, but maybe so back up. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
He'll bite you. You don't got to run away and
watch out. Right. You literally never touch anything
with his mouth. Um, but it's like in those moments,
you don't have to give your dog a command. You're
just working through some of those things. And
even if your dog is not fearful in those moments,
If your dog is reactive and you do the same thing
and you cuddle them and tell them it's okay and
tell them they're a good boy and all of these
words that we like to use, you're counteracting
all of that in a negative way. Because you're
giving them that affection and then... honestly
you're just making it worse you're reinforcing
how they feel yeah you're telling them that it's
okay to feel that way gave me this attention
when i was like this so i'm just gonna it's like
almost over the top like a kid scraping his knee
type of thing that we talked about before on
here yeah but if you if it's just a minor you
know just kind of keep going brush it off but
if you're like oh baby then right then they over
exaggerate like fake crying yeah it doesn't even
really hurt because they're like i like what
the attention i'm getting right because if it's
like if your kid screams in a grocery store who's
buying them the lollipop that they asked for
raise your hand zero right nobody because if
you do you're reinforcing the fact that that
kid cried hard enough in a store to gain what
they wanted which if it's affection then it's
affection if it's a lollipop to a kid it's a
lollipop but whatever they did right before that
behavior is what got them that reward right and
that i love that you brought it all full circle
right back to the affection it took a long time
it took a little bit but we got there um we went
from reactivity back to um so but that's really
really important is it like what happened right
before you offered that affection in this case
we're talking about affection but it works with
reactivity this conversation works with everything
because Dogs are very, very binary in their thinking,
right? It's black and white, yes or no, ones
and zeros. It's just they, like, I did this,
then you did that. So those two must be related.
Right. If I paw at you, you pet me. Right. Yep.
That's a good one. So the idea that humans, we
think, well, I'm doing this because. And then
we justify it. Dogs don't do that. Dogs are like,
well, what happened right before I got here?
Right? And go ahead. I used to have a trainer
back a few years ago. He used to tell me that
dogs, they don't reason like how humans do. We
all have the ability to be like, oh, well, this
is hot because that's a fire. But a dog, they
just associate everything. They don't, they just,
oh, that thing burned me last time. I don't want
to touch that. Like, they're not going to be
like, oh, that's a fire. It's hot. Like, no,
that's not how their brains work. So it's all
dogs just work through association of, you know,
past experiences and past events. And that's
how we, that is how we train them, right? That's
the gold standard. That's what we use to train
dogs. The fact that they are such associated
like creatures. So we can take a dog and associate
them to a word that means you did good and a
word that means no, try again. And then that's
how you get a dog to sit. That's how you get
a dog to down. That's how you get a dog to stay.
All of these things. So we use that all the time.
But the other side of it is you can also use
it inadvertently and negatively impact your dog.
Yeah. And so that's what we're talking about
with this because too much free affection makes
leadership feel optional. Right. And as soon
as leadership is optional in the house and them
following you is optional because maybe it's
not required. Now you're playing catch up. Yeah.
All right. And so to the trainers, right? Because
you don't really have clients, right? But I'll
let you jump in on this one too. What's an example
of a client who accidentally rewarded problem
behavior with affection and then ended up having
to like undo that later? It's always, I don't
even have a specific client, but I feel like
in general, it's always. I mean, you don't have
to call clients out. No, no. Well, I wouldn't
know anyways, but a lot of the times. It's demand
barking. So a lot of clients don't understand
that it's demand barking. They're like the client
or the dog is communicating with me, right? They
want something. And so their life goal then at
that point is to figure out what their dog wants.
And so they will let them outside. And then the
dog doesn't even go to the bathroom and it comes
back in. And they're like, well, maybe they're
hungry or thirsty or maybe they want a toy or
maybe they want this or that. Right. So they...
then strive to meet that goal of well the dog's
barking so it obviously wants something and that
may be true but the dog might just want your
attention nine times out of ten the dog just
wants your attention it doesn't need to go to
the bathroom it doesn't need water it doesn't
need food but when you give that dog the attention
that it's seeking through barking you're meeting
them right back where they wanted you to meet
them and it's hey I'm barking I want something,
I want something, I want something. Oh, you gave
it to me, cool. Now I'm gonna do it every time.
And then the dog builds in this pattern that
we don't even realize, just like with threshold
manners, I am number one on threshold manners
of when we open the door and the dog just runs
out, we have no problem until it's like the front
door or we move and it's on a busy street or
we're in an apartment and they can't run out
the front door. And those are the patterns that
we build that we don't realize until it's, Just
a little too late. And then it's like, oh, I
have a problem. All right. So mine is really
quick. It's the dog that jumps on you. Every
single time. The reason why a dog jumps on you
and still jumps on you is because at some point
in that dog's life, probably towards the beginning,
someone was petting that dog. when they jumped
up on them. Because it was short. Because it
was short and it was cute and it was little and
it wasn't really a problem. But now they're 80
pounds and now it's kind of a problem. Now it's
a problem. Now they're knocking down kids. Now
they're plowing, yeah, plowing into things. No
brakes. You got one, Melody? No. Because then
I'm going to ask Nick. So not so much on the
affection. I mean, it can be affection. But I'd
be curious on the military side, is there an
example of a time where you worked with a dog
that like... started doing something no no you're
still up uh but where you um an example of a
dog that maybe you inadvertently reinforced and
then you ended up with a behavior that you were
like what where did this come from oh that's
a solid question so but i want you to think about
it while melody answers so uh well my answer
is quick because it was going to be the jumping
one and you probably know um a scenario i was
thinking of but a lot of times people might want
they'll accept affection and a behavior within
context, but they don't want it in another. That's
a good point. Right. That's a really good point.
So within that situation was like, and the person
knew she immediately knew she was like, yeah,
I'm reinforcing the behavior that I'm asking
y 'all to. um, help me correct. Yeah. So in that
situation, because it was okay here, but we don't
want her to jump on other people. Yeah. Or whenever
she wants. So, you know, sometimes we will come
up with a tailored plan and you've done that
with Nala with the, you know, jumping, you know,
yeah, on his arm. So sometimes we'll do a tailored
thing, what she's talking about, or just, just
real quick so we can explain it. So I have a
process to allow my Belgian Malinois to jump
up and get affection from me, right? And so she
is not allowed to, one, demand it. So she doesn't
come up to me and just jump on me. But I can
put her in a strict heel, a foose, right, is
the command that we use for her. And she stricks
heels on the left side. And then I give her eye
contact. And then I get focused and then I put
my arm out in front of me and then I say, okay.
And then she jumps up onto my arm with her two
paws and then I can wrap my arm around her and
like hug her and stuff. But it's all done from
the side, not from the front. It's all done by
me asking for it, me demanding that behavior
basically from her. And so it's not something
that she can initiate. And so this is where that
clarity comes in for the dog so that they're
not confused. Like, why am I allowed to do this
similar jumping action with you, but not someone
else? So that's perfect how you kind of, you
know, you made it in the details and you controlling
and initiating everything so that it is clear.
And it's always the same process. It's always
on the left side, always with eye contact, always
with engagement. Then I offer the opportunity
to do that, right? Yeah, super important. Nick,
what you got? Yeah, that was a good question.
I had to really think hard about that one, to
be honest with you. Tune them off real quick.
I don't want to single anyone's dog out in the
past. No names. I think one of the most common
ones that we have is with just about every one
of our male dogs is marking. And that comes,
like, where it becomes problematic for us is,
you know, when we're doing detection lanes. More
so than not, you know, it is more problematic,
you know, when you have more male dogs running
after. But taking, like, for the trainingism,
like, yes, that is where, you know, you tell
your dog to take a break or you just take him
on a walk or, you know, whatever the case may
be. And, you know, that dog, he's not actually
relieving himself. He's just going and marking.
Well, when I tell my dog to go and search, you
know, whatever command that may be, when he goes
out, you know sometimes he'll have to relieve
himself and when he does relieve himself you
know a lot of times the the handler will allow
the dog to relieve yourself like relieve himself
because at the end of the day like if i'm patrolling
i'm if i need to use the bathroom i want to use
the bathroom too um if given the opportunity
uh but so all like a lot of times like we'll
we'll give the dog the opportunity to do that
and next thing you know it's like oh is he gonna
pee and then you're like oh he just marked and
then you're like ah and then and then as we talked
about timing earlier because we didn't know he
was gonna you know we didn't know he's in a mark
we thought maybe he's gonna relieve himself we
didn't correct that behavior now timing is off
right and so since the timing is off you're like
ah like if i correct him now he's like as he's
already walking away it's like oh he's walking
away i'm gonna correct him for walking away like
that's that's improper timing you know you don't
want to get that wrong wrong timing right so
that's where we always talk about like punishment
versus a correction right correction happens
at in the moment right and punishment is afterwards
we just don't recommend anybody punish your dog
and punishing i think uh you know punishing it's
always a i don't want to say it's a gray area
because it's yeah right but we're also working
at majorly different levels exactly yeah no no
absolutely yes but um you know it's uh with that
though with the whole marking yeah it's one of
those like ah and then next thing you know you
know, the dog did it two more times, but you
know, you start to become more aware of it. Oh,
he's about to do it again. And you give him like
a quick little leash pull. Hey buddy, come on
over here. You know, you're correcting that behavior.
Um, so. Right. We, we do have clients with pet
dogs. Sometimes I have males and they're like,
you know, on our walk, they stop four or five,
six, seven, eight, nine, 10 times. And it's like,
cool. You get, you get three for me, three max.
And then we're walking. And if you stop, I'm
still walking. So you know what, you're, you're
still coming with me. So you don't even have
time to mark anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so next
question. How do you explain to owners that dogs
don't see cuddles the same way that people do?
Anyone want to jump on that one? So I always
look at it as like, I always compare it to kids.
So if you look at a kid that only gets affection
and no structure, most of the time you have a
kid that is unruly. And does whatever they want
until they get a consequence. When you have a
kid that you build in structure with, the kid
knows what to expect. And you see less of those
unruly behaviors because they know what's going
to come next. So for me, that's how I kind of
always initiate the conversation in a comparable
way. because if you just compare it in a dog
way right it's like everybody just wants to cuddle
their dog like that's why they bought the dog
most of the time it's because it was cute and
it was soft and it was fluffy and it looked at
them with these sparkly eyes and and kids don't
always do that because they're tearing up your
stuff but the minute your dog tears up your stuff
you're probably going to kind of look at it the
same way and if you don't give that dog the structure
that it needs You can show it as much affection
as you want, but it's still going to do whatever
it wants to. Yeah, good point. Yeah, I think,
and we're not saying, like, don't cuddle your
dog. It's just more of, this is probably leading
into some other things, but a huge piece of this
affection, I believe, is just literally the word
calm. Yeah. So when your dog is calm, give it
affection. Cuddle it. I mean, we already kind
of touched on, you know, if we're tailoring things
with the dog jumping in context. But generally,
I would say, you know, like cuddling is fine
as long as it's within. Four on the floor. Yeah.
Yeah. Four on the floor. When the dog's calm.
Yeah. Because otherwise, if you're petting it
and giving it lots of affection when it's hyped
up, then. expect it to expect that yeah every
time you know every time yeah so you come in
the door and you don't want it jumping on you
then then don't pet it you know or cuddle it
immediately afterwards right doing that some
people don't just get that you just have to ignore
your dog for a little bit like just a few minutes
when you get in that front door and then you
can cuddle them all they want once they relax
i come out in the morning and i will walk one
by one to all four of our dogs and give them
cuddles if they held their place. But it's like,
that's what I expect is for you to hold your
place. I don't get to come out of the bedroom
and you'd be like, oh my goodness. I want you
to relax on your place and then I will come one
by one. But if you break from your place while
I'm petting another dog, you have to go back
and you still don't get your pets yet. Yeah.
You're the last one in line now. Absolutely.
I think one of the big things to touch on for
this too is, you know, it applies to both pets
and for working dogs and any dog owner around
is the key term of anthropomorphism. Excuse me
if I'm saying it wrong. I love the way, no, you
said it exactly right. I've tried to say this
word before. I don't think I've caught it on
the podcast, but I'm going to try to avoid. Great
job, though. Keep going. That word is a mouthful.
I mess it up every time. But for those of you
listening that don't know exactly what anthropomorphism
is, it is the ideals that animals have, humanistic,
you know. features and thoughts. So, you know,
Oh, my dog feels sad because of this. Oh, I didn't
give my dog enough love. So my dog is upset.
That's not how dogs think. Uh, you know, I'm
sorry if I'm being a little too blunt for you.
Um, but end of the day, your dog doesn't care
if you're, if you're cuddling him or not. Um,
written in realistically, uh, you know, as, as
I kind of touched on earlier is, you know, that
affection, uh, you know, you talked about it
in one of your, one of your podcasts earlier
is about that whole, it's, it's not always about
pack mentality, but simply, Simply you being
around your dog is just enough for that dog to
already feel love, feel accepted. And that's
really where like the big, you know, misconception
of, you know, you know, physical love versus
just the simple, oh, this person allows me like
this, this being is allowing me to be with them
in their domicile. Yeah. And that in itself.
is, is, is miles like large for, for the, for
animals. Um, so I think something like that is
definitely big for, you know, the owners out
there who do think that they need to give their
dog all the attention in the world. Um, and then
the second part that I kind of wanted to touch
on too, was with all that, uh, the free love
and, you know, not having, uh, established leadership
might be showing my age when I say like the decade
here, but the way I like to think of this one
is, you know, if you look at, you know, children
that grew up in the 1970s and before. you have
your mom who would stay at home. Typically she
would stay at home and she was never seen as
a disciplinarian. And a lot of times, you know,
you had a lot of those like, you know, you know,
eight to like 13 year old boys from, and this
is just stereotypes here that I'm speaking about
that I think I understand is. these boys would
just essentially run all over the mom and the
mom would always say, wait till your father gets
home. Father gets home and then next thing you
know, those boys are acting right because they
know what the father can do. Granted, completely
different story from back then versus what's
allowed and acceptable today. But it's a good
metaphor in order to kind of conceptualize the...
leadership so to say and i'm not saying you know
if if you are a mom from you know 1970s or earlier
i'm not by no means am i knocking you i'm just
using it i'm a 90s baby though and i for sure
heard that line exactly i for sure did and i
was always straight laced when my dad came home
i was like no no i'm not messing with him so
to tie it in with with this next point and i'm
going to try to keep this uh we we really strive
to get into that like one hour like time block
but we are we're covering a lot of really good
information that I want. So it's not a problem.
We, if we go over a little bit, but I'm going
to tie this into our second point though, because
our second point is leadership first followed
by affection second. So this is the solution,
right? So we talked about the problem. We've
kind of framed out the problem, but what do you
do about it? And, and the dog owners that are
listening and they're like, Oh, cool. So Now
I'm just messing it up because I'm hugging my
dog. That is not what we're saying. But just
put it second to you stepping up into that leadership
role for the dog and everything else falls into
place. And so what I mean is leadership builds
trust and that makes affection more meaningful.
When you lead the house, the dog respects leadership.
Dogs value leadership and respect. Far more than
they do affection. And that comes from their
animalistic tendencies and their, you know, evolution
as a breed, right? Regardless of their genetics
are going to play this role. Their 98 or 99 %
of their genome comes from wolves, right? And
that doesn't mean they are a wolf, but it does
mean that there is a direct descendant -like
line here. And the concept that... every dog
is built for and is able to lead themselves around
the world is incorrect they will not and they
are invariably are going to make decisions that
you're either not going to expect or you certainly
wouldn't make for them right you wouldn't make
the same decision so you have to start with leadership
that foundational leadership in the home of you
asking for what you want you telling a dog hey,
I would like you to come here or I would, hey,
jump up here on the couch and come get this affection,
right, is totally different than just swooping
down on the dog right after they did something
and you now reinforcing that with all of this
love and affection. Have them do something. Have
them come to you. Reward that recall. That's
allowed. That's even useful. When, oh, he just
doesn't know or he's a little scared or he's
a little worried or he's this or he's that. And
then we coddle the dog. That doesn't send the
same message to the dog. So affection given after
calm behavior reinforces balance. And a balanced
dog is. Always what you want. You don't want
a dog that's just spastic energy, high out the
door, like they're at a 10 out of 10 all the
time. I talk about how I tell clients all the
time that a dog that is at a 10 out of 10 doesn't
listen no matter what training they have. They
can't. They cannot physically listen at a 10
out of 10. And the concept is that if you watch
competition dogs, and you can speak to it from
the military dogs, Nick, but The goal is to train
this dog to be at like a 9 .8. Right? Right.
Just right on the fine line of, oh, it's almost
at a 10. They're fully engaged. Oh, they're so
excited. They're whatever. They're like ready
to bite, ready to react. But they're not at a
10. Because if they're at a 10. It doesn't matter
what training they have. They're in an animalistic
state where they are just subconsciously reactive.
We like to call our dogs manageable monsters.
There you go. Because, you know, they do, you
know, for our dogs specifically when they're
doing bite work, you know, they are so far into
it. But having that just ounce of level -headedness
to be able to hear me say out here, you know,
that just having that little tiny little bit
of... thought process in that dog's head. Um,
you can't always have that. You know, you don't
always want that 10 out of 10. Right. Right.
And so we focus on building that emotional regulation
into the dog so that they can interact and play
and be excited and all of those things that we
want, but at like a nine or an eight, right?
Because we can, that way we have a little bit
of headroom on that, right? We can go up just
a little bit. Um, A great example to relate like
your bite work to the pet dog is a dog who's
like got the zoomies, right? And they are at
a 10 and they are zooming around the house and
they're so excited and this is the best day of
their life and it's so much fun. And right as
that's happening, right as they're in the middle
of that zoom, nine times out of 10, most owners
will be like, yeah, they don't listen at that
moment, right? Right, how could they? They haven't
been taught. So we can teach the dog that calmness.
We can reinforce the calmness. We can use the
affection in this case, relating it back. We
use the affection to, to reinforce calmness.
The dog will always be able to go back up, but
teaching the dog to come down is really, really
important. And so we want to use affection like
to align with our goals for the dog. You can
cuddle your dog. But do it when the dog is calm.
Do it when the dog is paying attention. Do it
when the dog gives you engagement. All of those
things. So now you're using affection as a tool
in the house. And you're cuddling your dog. You
can do both. All right. Did you have something
to add on it? So love paired with leadership.
strengthens the relationship but it has to be
paired with leadership not just by itself we
don't just give the dog love and affection by
itself with no boundaries and no leadership that
by itself creates anxiety because the dog doesn't
know what you're reinforcing Right. And it's
just going to start picking out things. Maybe
this was acceptable. Maybe this was acceptable.
Why am I getting all of these pets right now?
Why am I getting all of this? And they could
have been just thinking in their head how bad
they wanted to go murder that squirrel outside.
Right. You don't know what you're reinforcing.
So give them an activity. Ask them for a behavior
and then reinforce it with your affection. Right.
Gabe is the most anxious dog that we have. And
he. We'll get affection mostly when he's on his
place, but that's like the primary place that
we give him affection where we will come over
and we will give him some pets. Cause any other
time he is like, what is that? Oh, what is that?
Ah, what is that? And I was grinding his nails
earlier today, which I very rarely do, but I
have been working on with him and I grinded his
nails earlier and he got the most affection,
but at the right times. And I was super careful
with that to not give him affection after I stopped
grinding his nails or in the middle of changing
his nails. Like I was giving him affection at
the right moments when he had withheld and been
like, okay, I can do this. And then was like,
yes, that's a perfect way to do that because
he's like not pulling away from me and he's not
frantically trying to escape. So I think those
are the things that a lot of people feel guilty
for. But if you have a severely anxious dog,
giving them affection is so not dangerous, but
it can be so impactful on that dog and worsen
it way more than it already is. Absolutely. I
think my rescue dog at home, she is. My rescues
are hard. Yeah. And she, long story short, she
was found in a dumpster when she was a puppy.
ASPCA saved her and all that good stuff. And,
you know, same story how you were talking about
earlier. She was cute, so we brought her home.
Yeah. Next thing you know, she's not cute anymore.
The hardest dogs. Oh, my goodness. They will
test you. The amount of anxiety this dog has.
And how I talked about earlier, timing is everything.
You know, you try to calm the dog down with some
pets. And, you know, just very easy, soothing,
you know, reinforcements. And next thing you
know, like, you're reinforcing some fear that
she already, like, was just, you didn't even
know she had. And you're just like, oh, my goodness.
We find new things all the time. It's like he
pulled out a GoPro one time and just, like, walked
by him. And Gabe was just like, what is that?
And I was like. Right, like who trains for like
specifically a GoPro to be pulled out, right?
It's like we've worked on so many things with
Gabe and like trying our best to expose him to
everything, but my man will find one thing to
niche down on and he is like, that's actually
really scary, I can't do it. I think that kind
of just like plays into a little bit what we
were talking about earlier where like everyone
kind of has their cap and I think as trainers
and as dog owners, We all need to have like realistic
expectations on what our dog is truly capable
of. Yeah. Truly capable of. Yep. So that is,
that's definitely one of those, you know, boundaries
that are, you know, they have to be made at some
point and understood by everyone involved. Right.
He's definitely the one that's taught me that
because it's like, he's still fearful of a lot
of things. And it's like, I've owned him for
a while now and I'm a dog trainer, right? It's
like, well, he should be like a hundred percent.
He is one of those dogs that he will never be
a hundred percent. He will always find something
to be fearful of, whether he was genetically
born like that or whether something happened
to him from before I had him that I don't know
what it was, and it was so terrible it's just
carried over into everything. But he's one of
those dogs that he'll never be 100%, but he has
come so far that I don't think I could be more
proud of that dog if I tried. He grabbed a ball
the other day, for goodness sakes, and he has
never touched one. And he's almost six. I love
that. All right. So I'm going to take a quick
break here and open it up for questions. So one
of the things that I realized that we're as we
go on this podcast journey, we're getting better
at certain things. And and I need to continue
to get better at other things. One thing we didn't
cover at the beginning is how this podcast is
structured differently. And I didn't explain
that we have live clients on the line that are
listening because this is a like a group pack
leadership call that we do on a weekly basis
for our clients. and they have been patiently
kind of waiting in the background, but we're
at like the 50 -minute mark, and I really want
to give anybody who has a question an opportunity
to ask, whether it's to the trainers or to Nick
with his background on the military side. You
guys are free to ask whatever comes to mind.
And I still don't have the Jeopardy music, but...
hi it's Lila hey Lila hi I have a question for
Nick and I'm here for you what's up I was just
wondering you were talking about how you have
to give your like um explosive dogs a replacement
behavior if they get afraid I was just wondering
what that looked like in that sort of situation
yeah so a lot of times uh you know when we're
training you know uh you know when we're using
you know, things like flashbangs, right? They're
small explosives that we carry around and you
throw it into a room and it makes a very large
light and a very loud sound. Sometimes, you know,
dogs, they're not going to be expecting it. They
get scared of it. So in a situation like that,
what we do is we'll replicate the precursors
to that loud sound. So when you throw a flashbang,
there's a metallic ping. And then you could hear
it bouncing around before it, you know, makes
that explosion. So a lot of times what we will
do is we will just take a flashbang that's already
been used and we'll put everything back together
so we could replicate that exact sound. So this
way, that dog, you know, he'll hear that precursor
and then he's going to look to me. And this is
where we come in as, you know, when we're doing
these dry runs with them, we'll throw that flashbang
and we'll, you know, we'll tell the dog, hey,
sit, hey, down, hey, you know, do whatever I
want you to do. And then when he does that, you
make it like, hey, good job, buddy. You give
him a toy in that situation when you're doing
your practice runs. But then when you're doing
the real thing, that's where that physical praise
comes in because you're doing the real thing
at this point. I have my hand that's right next
to his head. Sometimes I'll try to give him a
little, like I'll cover his ears a little bit.
And then I'll give him, once that explosion goes
off, if he gets a little startled, I'll just
give him a little pet. Hey, it's all right. And
put him back in that position. of you know the
sit or the down whichever one i wanted to be
in and then we move from there it's um so you
give the dog a job exactly yes right so like
brianna's that i've had a few people already
call out brianna's favorite thing to talk about
on the podcast is her threshold work Right. My
favorite thing through the door. It's not my
favorite at all. Right. My favorite thing to
harp on is how important it is for dogs to have
a job. Right. Because when you don't give the
dog a job, why are you upset that they're choosing
their own line of work? Exactly. Dogs love to
follow. And if you're that leader that, you know,
that dog needs, things will fall in line the
way you want because you are the leader. Does
that answer your question? it does thank you
awesome thank you and nice i heard you uh ryan
it started coming in my head give the dog a job
right when he was saying that give the sit and
the down yes i love that i love that yes that's
my favorite thing to do now i it that is one
of the lessons that uh has been the most influential
on me with my dog training journey and uh like
if you don't give the dog a job how can you expect
them to How can you say they're doing the wrong
thing? Yeah. Does anybody else have any questions
here? And then we're going to drive on to our
third point and then we'll wrap it up tonight.
The silence is deafening. It's okay. We can move
on. All right. We're going to move on to point
number three. Affection as a reward, not a default.
So when affection is tied to a good behavior,
it becomes like this powerful training tool.
But if it's not actually tied to a behavior,
it can create something that's unknown. You don't
know what it's going to create, right? So petting
and praise should mark desirable states. And
we can use that to kind of reinforce our calmness.
We can use that to reinforce good behavior. We
can use it to do a lot of things. But it can
also, just like anything, a great amount of a
power or a good tool can be used improperly and
it can create a problem for us. So all that we
are advocating for here is not that you don't
ever pet your dog. It's just that you use the
affection and just tie it to a good behavior.
So dogs learn that. So that dogs learn that affection
is earned rather than it just shows up randomly.
So this is the same concept as when we use food
or play. We use a tug or toy or a ball. And it
makes sense to us in all these other aspects.
It's like, well, of course, I don't want to give
the dog food after they just pooped on the floor.
But then we do that same thing. just renaming
those two activities, right? We pet the dog that
just jumped up on us. That is the same equivalent
to giving the dog a treat right after it got
done pooping on the floor. So don't do that.
The default affection often teaches entitlement
too. And this is a complicated topic that probably
needs its own. podcast but when you work with
entitled dogs there there is an army of angry
people that i'm sure will shake their fists at
me uh listening to this podcast at some point
someday i mean as soon as we get over the hump
of maybe like 20 listeners um when default affection
uh Teaching entitlement. What does that mean?
My dog can't be entitled. No, the dog doesn't
think like that. They just respond to this or
to that. That is not what my experience tells
me. And I would love, Nick, you are a subject
matter expert with well over a decade of experience
on the highest level, like the highest trained
dogs that... the military has and like in the
special operations community, what is your take
on entitled dogs? My dog is a perfect example
of it. Um, as, uh, so my, he's now retired. Um,
he is entitled to the sense of he now gets pets
now that he is, I don't want to say just free
pets whenever, but in his retirement, he has
learned. From a variety of people that if he
just goes up to them and nudges them, he's getting
all the pets he wants. And that, that to me is
one of the most, to me, this is just my own personal
opinion. Uh, I, I hate that. I absolutely hate
it. Nala does it. I hate it too. And, and you
know, my dog, he's by no means a weak dog. Like
he is like 60 pounds of pure muscle. So he is,
he comes in and when he, you know, moves your
hand saying, Hey, pet me. Right. He does it with
meaning it. Like he's like, you're going to pet
me. And that, that right there is that's entitlement.
It's demand behavior. Right. And so, uh, I, what
I want to ask because. someone listening to this
for the first time is going to be like oh you
don't like it when your dog comes and asks for
pets why what is the reason right because as
a dog trainer we look at this as like so that's
just the the surface level issue but what it
creates is this like second and third level issue
so why don't you like that behavior because it's
demand behavior okay it's the same what is that
segue to or like what does it create it segues
to a whole bunch of problems it segues to the
dog was like, well, I did this and I got that.
So if I do this, I'm going to get this. And then
I can talk them into like metaphorically doing
things how I want. And that doesn't fly with
me. So how I would explain it is it's like sleeping
in the bed or it's like doing a lot of different
things that owners like to do for their dogs,
right? And by itself, Those things are usually
okay. But at the moment where you're coming and
hiring a professional dog trainer and potentially
paying a lot of money to fix these other issues
in the house, but then we look and we're like,
but the dog just comes up to you, literally like
moves your hand away from what you're doing or
jumps on your laptop when it's on your lap. right
this was a recent one like the dog jumps up onto
your lap right pushes the buttons like basically
pause hit the screen and moves your laptop out
of your lap so that you'll pet them well at what
point do you do you not think that that is related
to the dog pulling on the leash in order to go
off and smell this mailbox when they walked by
it It's the same thing. It is the same thing.
And if you wouldn't accept it from your child
when you're trying to talk on the phone with
your boss or trying to talk with your friend
and your child's not stopping interrupting, then
why would you accept that from your dog? Creating
that attention seeking and then just going off
on another tangent, some dogs that I've experienced,
they are on some level of having separation anxiety.
or insecure attachments so that's a whole nother
thing so then you're just feeding into that right
um so that's a whole nother just going back to
like you're in control it has to be when you
say and when the dog's calmer so not not when
it you know demanding is not just demand barking
like you've said it's right you know nudging
you licking i hate the licking i'm just gonna
say and um so they they may go and just like
lick your leg constantly um try to find your
hand and lick it and So I would make it a point
to ignore them and then give them, you know,
maybe a replacement behavior and then give them
attention when they're calm. But you do have
to be really careful with the balance of that
because some of the dogs that are more so maybe
have like an insecure attachment, you might have
to just only like say something and or pet them,
but not both type of thing. because they'll get
riled up really easily and then they start demanding
it you know so you just have to be careful with
the dogs that seek the attention more than food
yeah basically right because nala will do it
but she's just like hey pet me i really love
you like that's her whole thing gabe will do
it just the same and but his is insecure he's
like hey i'm kind of uncomfortable can you just
like pet me and it's like no i'm i'm not gonna
pet either of them In hindsight, I'm going to
tell both of them, no, Nala, because you're not
in charge of me. Get out of here. And two, because
she will try to bully her way through any situation.
She's like, I'm a pro. She's a very assertive
dog. She's like, just do it. And Gabe, on the
other hand, is just uncomfortable with everything.
And he's like, just please, I don't know, save
me from whatever is going on. And I'm like, no,
I'm not going to comfort you. Go lay back on
your place, like I said. All right, so the gold
standard question, and then jump in here before
I go down that one. To kind of just add into
that, too, it's just really establishing that,
you know, as black and white as this may sound,
is the dog is subservient to you. And, you know,
take it as you will. But, I mean, really having
those boundaries and well -defined lines of,
hey, I am in charge and you are not. That's a,
that's really where it comes down to for, you
know, for dog owners out there. Right. So we,
I think we talked about this on the first episode
was that like you, you're, you're not in a democracy
with your dog. Right. And because your dog doesn't
have voting rights and it can't because you're
telling it to do all of these things, all these
other times, and you're expecting it to listen.
But then when we get into bed and we're cuddling,
we're now equals. Right, that doesn't make sense
to the dog. And if it makes sense to you, I promise
you it's not thought about the same way by your
dog. Right, the dog does not think you're its
bestie. Like we're not besties here. It's like
somebody has to lead. And if it's not you, it's
the dog. Yeah. And a lot of times dogs just step
up into that role. I talk about this all the
time at private lessons is the dog is not trying
to subvert you. The dog is not trying to alpha
roll you or all of these other things that have
become like popular and conversation in the dog
training community recently. The dog is just
like, are you going to you going to do you going
to do something about that? No. OK, well, I'll
take care of it. And then they make a decision.
Right. And. Nine times out of 10, that decision
that they made is not what you wanted. Right.
And so going back to like the affection category,
affection for a dog can be a resource. And so
sometimes we see pet dogs that resource guard,
they're humans. And it's because they get all
of the structure, the love, the affection from
that human, because that's a human that's home
all the time. We got into COVID and we saw a
huge wave of people working from home. And with
that, we saw a huge wave of dogs with anxiety
and separation anxiety and resource guarding
of their humans and their spaces because that's
where they were all the time. And now we have
this thing where it's like, well, the dog is
resource guarding me. Well, you're the one that
works with it. You're the one that pets it. You're
the one that shows it everything that it needs.
Of course, that's what it's going to end up doing
because just like food and just like toys, affection
is just another resource for a dog. That. I can't
believe that I didn't put that point in the outline,
but I am so glad that you brought it up. You're
welcome. Great job. To go down this rabbit hole,
I think it's super, super important. So let's
define this. When we're talking about affection
as a resource, if that dog, just like if you
leave the dog's food out and they can go and
get the food whenever they want, if they're able
to come up to you and demand, and assert themselves
and produce that resource i .e the affection
they're able to get that resource when they want
you become a resource that they can potentially
become guarding of right and so it's not always
and so then right and so then suddenly you get
a dog that's like exhibiting some aggressive
behavior in and around the house and you can't
figure it out right but If you start to really
dial those in, you start to figure out, oh, well,
when I go and give, maybe the affection is to
the wife or to the husband or either one, but
then the husband and wife go and embrace and
suddenly the dog is like having a fit. Right.
Because they're getting this contact affection
that the dog sees as, hey, that's mine. Yeah.
Right. That's a really, really good point. I
can't believe that I missed it. So good job.
I hate it all here. Right. Resource guarding.
It can create resource guarding. All right. So
now the golden question. How do you teach clients
to use affection strategically? And I would love
for, even though you don't have clients, I'd
love for you to weigh in on that because like
this is like, so what do we do? What would we
have people do? So we've said this before, which
is just a simple concept to remember, is first
this, then this. It's very simple, you know,
not giving the dog affection until it's done
what you've expected of it to do. And also not,
you know, not giving it affection when it's overstimulated,
overreactive, hyped up, whatever, when it's calmer.
So yeah, just basics, literally first this, then
this. Nice. Nick? Yeah, no, I mean, I think you
definitely hit it on the head there. But one
of the things that I think that could, you know,
help dog owners out there, because I mean, I
catch myself thinking about it all the time too,
is establish a routine for yourself. And when
you're able to give that dog, you know, some
kind of physical attention. So like for me, for
example, one of the things that I do when it
comes to, you know, physical. attention not physical
praise or anything like that just attention uh
to the dog is every once in a while at night
um when my wife and i are laying on the couch
uh she hates when the dogs are on the couch i
don't really care so for the most part dogs don't
go on the couch but my working dog he uh will
usually just be laying in his bed And when he's
nice, calm, and usually he's not nice and calm
in the house. He is, like, always looking for
something to do, always trying to find something
to destroy, always trying to find a kid's toy.
You're retired, man. Yeah, exactly. You've got
to chill. Give it a break. But when I see him
laying down as we're watching TV, you know, it's
like later in the evening, it's like, all right,
cool, we're all calming down. That's when I'll
invite him up on the couch. And he never goes
on the couch on his own. It's just a routine
that. I've established for A, myself, and then
B, for him. You know, just establishing a good
baseline foundation for rules, expectations,
and then it does allow, like, for when I do,
when he comes up on the couch with me, he understands
that he goes on his back and he just gets all
the pets he wants for a few minutes. And it is
not unconditional either. He gets a few pets,
and then when I'm done, hey, buddy, get off.
Go back in your bed. And it's, it's a very simple
understood task where it's black and white. And
that's, I mean, as you talked about earlier,
that's, that's what dogs need black and white.
Yeah. Yeah. So I do a lot of like, I like to
encourage like free shaping behaviors. So as
soon as like a dog will lay down on its own or
exhibit the calm behavior without me even like
telling it to, that's when I will like go over
and kind of like show some affection and be like,
good, you finally calmed down. Like that's what
I was looking for in order. to get this and so
sometimes i will work in a variance between demanding
or asking for the calm behavior for affection
versus looking for them to just start exhibiting
that on their own yeah and my take on it is create
a sequence create a sequence where you ask to
initiate that affection It could be simple. It
could be complicated. I detailed how I do it
with Nala. It could be whatever. Nick is talking
about where he, once things have calmed down,
then he invites him up. Just create something
that the dog needs to do every time to set the
conditions for you allowing or asking. For that
behavior, which the behavior is now cuddles.
The behavior is the affection, right? It's like,
hey, will you sit? Oh, good job. Can you come
over here in a heel? Oh, good job. Great job.
All right, let me give you some love. Or, hey,
don't just jump up onto the couch. Like, get
off. Down. Good. Sit. Good job. Climb. Like,
come up here to the couch. Like, let me love
on you. But that creates something that the dog
had to do. And that directly, that speaks a completely
different language to the dog. Instead of the
dog getting it because they wanted it, they did
something and they were rewarded for it. And
then they still got that affection. You still
built that relationship, but you showed leadership
at the very beginning. I think it's really, really
important. That's, that should be kind of the,
the, the way forward on that. Yeah. All right.
Last one. What, so once an hour, I, I kind of
already answered this one. What is an everyday
routine where affection can be used? So let's
talk about like what, where affection should
be limited until after calm behavior. And we
kind of alluded to that, right? But like, I think
threshold I think when you walk in the door is
probably the biggest one right if anyone else
has one they can jump in but I know Brianna's
all about oh go for it yeah I don't ever do anything
involving a crate that has anything to do with
more than like a calm behavior even if it's like
letting them out of the crate specifically because
a lot of people it's just like thresholds right
it's like when somebody lets a dog out of a crate
they're so excited but But why are you excited?
Because you're going to breed excitement into
that dog. And then it's just going to encourage
the dog that busting out of that crate is the
best thing that could have been a part of it.
And then you're rewarding them just busting out
of that door. Just like thresholds. Right. And
so my example was going to be I walk in the door
from a long day at work. If the dogs are already
out or maybe that's where they are, they just
kind of mill about during the day. And they're
going to be excited to see you. There's no turning
that off. You want your dogs to be excited to
see you. That's usually something that's good
that owners usually like. But how they swarm
you or come up and jump on you or try to demand
that behavior because they're like, oh my gosh,
I'm so excited that you're here. That is where
I would prohibit reinforcing that event with
affection until calmness has ensued. At the point
where calmness is ensued or, hey, go to your
place. Hey, relax. Hey, why don't you lay down?
Chill out. Relax. And then reward with that affection.
Right. So with the crate, it's like when we come
in the house, the doorbell goes off and the dogs
are automatically like, somebody's home. And
if we let the doorbell go off and every time
we just want to go let the dogs out immediately.
That's their new signal that they should get
stoked because somebody's there to let them out.
And it's the sound of the opening and closing
of the doorbell. Yeah. And instead, I encourage
you, yeah, just leave the dog there for a little
bit. Let them relax from that heightened state
of, oh, mom or dad is home. Somebody's home to
let me out. And just wait until they're relaxed
and then go let them out. So come home and do
something first. Yeah. And the only other time
I can really think that's a big one is maybe
just transitions from like playtime. You'll tell
them to break. Because that could so easily just
bleed into you come inside and then they're doing
zoomies inside the house or they're bringing
their toy inside the house. So just being careful
with those transitions like playtime when they're
already hyped up. Having a clear definitive cues
and routine where like we're done with this now
and now we're back on to. you know you listen
and we're not doing the affection now yep yeah
love that um all right so we're gonna finish
this up with our two projects so every podcast
i come up with two listener projects uh listener
project number one today is the calm petting
rule so only pet your dog When they're calm and
neutral, not when they're excited, not when they're
crazy. And if you reach down and you pet your
dog and then they go wild and crazy, maybe decide
if you're okay with moving forward with this
plan and just pull back your affection just temporarily.
Let everything calm down and then give it back.
But if you continue to reward as they ramp up,
they're at a five, you started petting them,
and then they're at a six and a seven and an
eight and a nine, you're not doing them any favors
by continuing that process. It might be fun to
watch them be super excited, but remember that
an excited dog is not necessarily a happy dog.
A happy dog is not an excited dog. That is a
different frame of mind for dogs. It doesn't
do us any good to ramp them all the way up to
10 because nothing good is going to come from
that. If they jump, they paw, they whine for
attention, just ignore them until they settle.
And then mark that calmness. We use yes to mark
that calmness and then provide the affection.
Project number two, earned affection. Just pick
a daily routine like feeding. going outside,
coming out of the kennel, whatever it is, and
require a sit or a down before offering your
affection. The exact same way that we would do
with food, a treat, a toy, any other condition
reinforcer, but use the affection. Pair calm
compliance with petting or praise to make the
affection the reward. All right, so that is going
to wrap up those two projects. The last little
piece of this is I'm going to open it up real
quick one more time for questions. If you guys
have a question over anything that we talked
about, any of the live listeners tonight, go
ahead and get your questions in now. Go ahead
and unmute and just talk right over me. I'm just
going to kind of fill the silence here. If the
question is related to Nick, just kind of direct
it right to Nick. Questions going once. Go ahead.
I think Cliff had a question. Cliff. How are
you? How are you doing? Good. Okay. I don't have
a question for Nick, but I do appreciate all
of his service in the military. Thank you. I
appreciate the support. Chinoa has gotten to
the point where. I'm working. My wife is disabled,
so she takes the dogs out in the living room
while I'm working from home. But if I leave the
door open, she knows I've gotten in the habit.
I don't think this was anything we ever really
addressed, but she's doing that where she jumps
on me and wants the attention. I'm trying to
work. Just every topic you brought up tonight.
And she just wants me to pet her or touch her
or something. And I'm like, I need two hands
to type on this keyboard. So what is the response
I should be giving to her just to put her in
place? So I know that Chenoa, because obviously
we've worked together on this, so I know that
Chenoa has a little place bed, right? Yes. I
would move that in with you, like into the same
room so that she can see you, but not necessarily
be on top of you. Okay. And then work through
that place. Right. And initially when you move
a place bed, this is an important dog training
concept is just because a dog learns that place
means like I'm supposed to lay in this place
when it's over here. Sometimes when you change
the events and you change the area, you may just
have to like go back a step or two in order to
reinforce. Hey, the same behavior is expected
over here as it was over there. So just be ready
for that. But I would move the place bed and
use that as an alternative. Like, hey, I am telling
you, no, you need to be on place. And then you
have to hold her accountable to that. It will
be annoying at first when we are like, well,
I've told the dog what to do and they're not
doing it. Well, now I have to get up. I have
to take a moment. I have to put her back over
there. But that's super, super important because
if you don't hold Chenoa accountable, and coming
from me training her, if you don't hold her accountable,
she will find all of those weak points. But she
does very, very, very good with place, and I
know that she does well with place. So I know
that we can work through that. Yeah, she will
play with me. Sometimes she fights me tooth and
nail, but it's like I told you the first time
we met, which I think you said you were going
to use in your training, that it's not the dog
that's hard to train, it's their humans. Sometimes.
She does good playing with me when I need her
to. Yeah, she has her moments. But the other
situation is we have had the flu bug run through
our house. And, of course, we have a very energetic.
eight month old bulldog and we both need to i
mean i don't think i woke up for more than an
hour on saturday and sunday oh my goodness and
it was just very hard to you know you still have
to obviously they still need you so sick or not
you've got to still provide so is there i mean
i i felt bad just kind of leaving her in the
kennel for longer than usual but obviously this
isn't gonna be a it shouldn't be a big issue
should it have been or just I don't think that
it's a, it's a big issue to intermittently leave
a dog in a kennel longer than you normally do.
And I know that you're not leaving her in there
for like 12 or 14 hours at a time either. So,
but I think that it is, I mean, if, did she have
an accident in the crate? No. Right. So, I mean,
she did, she did great. She does. Unless she
has been sick to her stomach, she has a very
sensitive stomach. I won't let her have anything
else except for her kibble and the few types
of treats that we allow her to have. She has
a very sensitive stomach, and she gets anything
else, and she will just, boom, it's a nightmare.
And I definitely didn't want that during being
sick. Yeah, yeah. No, I wouldn't do anything
different. Here's the thing. regularly and consistently
impacts the dog's learning process what you do
once in a while has a significantly less of an
effect and so at the end of the day You're not
doing those things to, you're not leaving them
in the kennel for a long time because you wanted
to, like you literally have a, a, a health issue,
right? Like, and, and she survived. She's, she's
still fed. She still has water. She's still doing
great. And she didn't even have an accident in
the kennel. I would not feel guilty about that
or, or feel like you're doing the wrong thing.
Yeah, and when I feel like I can't physically
like provide for the dogs, I will find ways to
mentally stimulate them. So like food puzzles
and giving them some decompression time with
like chewing and sniffing and doing scatter feeding
instead of feeding them in a bowl, right? Like
putting it on your carpet and like spreading
it all around to let them kind of work their
way through it. Doing different things like that
that can mentally stimulate the dog are always
going to be better than physical stimulation.
Okay. I did have one other question in regards
to the potty training. I know this first incident
was my own fault, but we get up at 6 .30 in the
morning, and I let her out, usually 6 .30 to
7, and she's outside parking. So I let her out.
I find that I need to go stand out there to watch
her, but this one morning I made a mistake. And
I just let her in, and I fed her. We gave her
a slow feeder now, so she's not just gobbling
it all down. And so she came back in, and I went
to work, and I was sitting there, and she was
kind of sitting by me. And all of a sudden, she
was gone. And Jen, of course, was sick, so I
was trying to let her rest. And then she came
in, and it was gone, and I just had this feeling
like something's going down. And she had peed
on the floor. My only saving grace is she usually
likes to pee on the carpet. She peed on the linoleum.
So I was very thankful for that. And then, you
know, I, of course, cleaned it up, put her outside.
Just, you know, I didn't raise my voice at her.
I just, you know, she knew she had done wrong.
And so then I brought her back in. And, you know,
we had a little time with her. And then she...
I went back to work and same thing. She was there
and all of a sudden she was gone. And she came
back in here and pooped. But she's like going
to the back door because that's where she knows
she needs to go out. But she's not letting me
know that she needs to go out there. I know you
guys had talked about, well, we need to give
her her time that she goes out. So these were
very unexpected things. But my only saving grace
is she did it on the linoleum instead of the
carpet. I gotcha. So we address that in three
ways. So one, we let dogs out on a kind of a
cyclical basis of a certain amount of time that
we are confident that a dog is able to hold it.
Number two, when we're not able to really like
focus on the dog, we usually have a dog in place
or in a crate. by that level of confinement can
be kind of variant. But that allows us to then
focus on what we're doing versus letting the
dog, especially an eight -month -old puppy, who
is going to inevitably make or get into trouble,
right? Make a decision that you don't want or
make a mistake. And then the third thing is that
just dogs in general will once in a while make
a mistake right or they'll do something wrong
and be like uh whoops right and like pee or poop
in their kennel and then they're like standing
it and they're like oh well that was that was
dumb i shouldn't have done that but that is also
how they learn right as long as you're not creating
a trend as long as we're not creating a a trend
or seeing a continuation of that behavior i don't
chalk up i don't put a lot of weight behind it
at the point where she's continuing to do this
well now you got to ask yourself is my structure
in place and am i adhering to it and holding
her accountable with that structure right and
i think that that's pro i feel like the the wrapping
back to the first question is that putting that
place, if I'd had her there on a place and not
allowed her to get off, then she would have,
you know, she would have notified me, Hey, I
really need to go outside. Right. So we have,
we have dogs that it's called it's there's a
syndrome, right? It's called like dirty dog syndrome
where a dog will just use the bathroom, like
in its space, which dogs don't typically do.
And one way around that and to fix that, after
like modifying other things is to put them in
a position where they don't have that option
so it's putting them into a down in their kennel
or on a place bed or something like that so that
then you you really know if there's a situation
involved of where you need to let them out to
the bathroom or whether they're just getting
up so that they can cause a ruckus and do things
right so that would be one of like my top solutions
is put her on a place bed and put her in a down
and if she breaks it down it's like you just
keep putting her back into the down and if you
you feel or know that she needs to go to the
bathroom and it's been a long enough time where
she's consumed an extra amount of food or water
then take her out on a leash let her go to the
bathroom but if she doesn't go it's not an option
of playing it's an option of going to the bathroom
and if you're not going to go we're going back
inside and we're going to lay back down on the
place but Right. Okay. And then, and also when
they're in place that they start whining, do
we just ignore that for the most part, unless
it's a contingent or just like you'd said earlier,
it's just a kid trying to get attention. Yeah.
Yeah. If she starts whining and that you're good,
if she starts whining, you have the opportunity
right now while things are fresh to just. Ignore
that and not react to it. If you do react to
it and you do give her that engagement, you're
going to reinforce the fact that she can whine
and at least get your attention, even if it's
negative. Right. That's what I always say is
negative attention is still attention to a dog.
Right. She's trying to do that, but trying to
get your attention and engagement. That's why
she's like trying to, you know, get your hand
or whatever far away from the laptop. Right.
And our whole routine between, of course, you
know, all the travel we did this summer and then
since we've been back from Tennessee, it's just
been illness. And our whole routine's been off.
She hasn't had her walks or anything. And then
she developed a sore on her neck from her collar,
I guess, got too tight and got punctured in there.
So we've had to loosen that up cause you don't,
you don't want that. And then, and then just,
I would, I would get her right back on that schedule.
The faster you get her back on that schedule.
I know you guys have been sick. The faster you
do that, the faster like things are going to
return back to normal. She definitely needs that
exercise cause she's, she's a puppy too. Well,
I appreciate all your guys' help. I'm still waiting
for those human classes where you can. The humans
come and stay for three weeks to learn what they're
supposed to do. All right. I gotcha. Thanks,
Cliff. Thanks for the question. Thank you. Anybody
else have a question for us tonight before we
wrap it up? All right. We're going to start moving
for the door here. I want to give a special shout
out and thanks to Nick for coming to the podcast
tonight and for taking your time. I really appreciate
it. Thank you for having me. It was a great time
being here. Thank you. Thank you for being so
gracious and, and hanging out with the pet dog
trainers for a little bit. I aspire to be one.
Melody, thanks for showing your face back in
the general neighborhood. It was great to be
back. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you
being here. So for wrapping it up tonight, I...
Really appreciate everybody tuning in. If you
get a chance, I would love to hear about how
we're doing and what we can do better. If you
got a comment or a concern, drop it in whatever
way you're listening to this later. I'd also
love, I think we have, we're up to like 25 podcast
listeners. I'd love to have a review at some
point. Let us know how we're doing. If we need
to change things, We'll do our best. It's a work
in progress, but we're here for it. Thanks for
tuning in to Pauper and Academy. Good night.
Good night. Good night. Good night. Recording
stopped.