Welcome to Pawprint Academy, your blueprint to
raising better dogs. My name is Ryan, and I'll
be your host for this journey. I've got my trusty
co -host here, Brianna. Hello. And together,
we're bringing you real -world training insights
built on leadership, structure, and proven methods.
We record this podcast with live clients on the
line in one take with live, unscripted questions
and answers. At the end of the day, this podcast
is a lot more than just teaching your dog to
sit or stay. creating calmness, and becoming
the kind of leader your dog truly needs. We do
that with our three pillar method of trust, obey,
and perform. Together, we'll show you how these
three pillars shape every step of training. Thanks
for being here. Let's get started. Episode 26.
We are halfway there. Six months in. Oh, I was
like halfway to where? What's what's. Yeah. Episode
26. 26. The goal was to have what do one podcast
a week for a year. And well, we're not going
to hit that exactly because there has been a
couple of. Little hang -ups and snafus and sicknesses
and normal life events. Yeah. But we are cooking
with gas, moving right along. And we are at episode
26. Today we're talking about pulling towards
dogs or people, which is the gateway to reactivity.
Yeah. It's not textbook reactivity where everybody
goes, oh yeah, my dog's aggressive. But this
is the precursor that typically causes some of
those things. Or I guess that's probably the
wrong way to say it. Causes is probably not the
same as segues into. It's the precursor. It contributes.
It patterns this concept. But it doesn't cause
it, right? The cause could simply just be, oh,
I wanted to go see that thing. Yeah. So let's
talk about it. Tonight, we're going to talk about
how dogs that pull towards people or other dogs,
it's not just them being friendly. And that's
typically the part, I'm going to pause there,
it's typically the part that we see when we go
to like a local brewery. or a local place in
public and you see a dog that's off the chain
right just like pulling and pulling and pulling
and their owners like getting pulled behind him
and they're like don't worry he's friendly yep
right off the bat right off the bat so it's not
about the dog being friendly yeah because That
dog is exhibiting a behavior that later you're
not going to like. Right. It's like a kid running
straight through the restaurant, like way ahead
of you, not even like anywhere near you. And
you're like, ah, he's two, you know. Okay. Right.
But dogs typically don't grow out of behaviors.
They grow into them. They do. And wherever they
are right now, they're living, breathing things,
right? They're not going to just stay the same.
You're either getting, the patterns are getting
stronger, they're getting weaker. Patterns rarely
ever stay the same. Right. Things get better
or things get worse. Correct. So the dog is rehearsing
what we would call fixation and entitlement.
If a dog thinks that they can get to something
and they think that they should get to it. Regardless
of what you say or do, that is the precursor
to a potential big problem. Yeah, because they
can become just obsessed. Right, and who says
that it stops there? That's a pattern that can
be conditioned to then create a bigger issue.
And typically, this is the part where us sitting
behind the mics as dog trainers. It's easy for
us to go, ah, see, that's a problem. But that's
because we see the worst of it afterwards. Yeah.
Somebody told me that the other day. Because
that's when they call us. Right. They're like,
this is out of control. Yeah. I heard a dog bark
in public the other day and I was like, ooh.
And somebody was like, it's weird how you react
to like that. And I'm just like. Oh, there's
a dog barking. And I'm like, right. That dog's
got some sort of problem somewhere. You know,
it's not just like, it didn't just have a Tourette's
like episode. I remember you saying that though,
but you were also commenting on. how they weren't
barking before right exactly because they're
trying to tell you precipitated because of something
yeah like one person walked in and they decided
to bark at that one person and they had been
there for like a half hour like people in and
out like whatever right and they decided to bark
at that one person it's like yeah right right
they don't do nothing yeah they don't do things
for no reason right there's always a reason the
effort to put in You know, the effort of barking
at that person. So, yeah, it's saying something.
But most people don't see it that way. They're
just like, ah, that dog's saying hi. And this
is why we call this the first step towards reactivity
if left unchecked. Yeah. So we really have to
get on this. Dog training is very much like.
What the medical field really should be, which
is more prevention based. The unfortunate reality
is that most medicine these days is done reactively.
Yeah, I hate a doctor. Right. We don't really
focus on like nutrition and the things that could
prevent these things. So instead we throw. band
-aids at it right and then we're there when we
don't feel good right we throw medicines and
we're like i hate you guys they're like well
dog training is the same concept if we protect
our dogs um patterns and behaviors from progressing
you don't have to deal with them later down the
road right there's no problem unless there's
a problem right it's fine until it's not yeah
and i say that all the time people are like well
Is it okay if my dog jumps on the couch? And
I'm like, yeah, of course. It's fine until it's
not. And that's always the truth. Right. That's
always true. Can my dog sleep in the bed with
me? Yeah, it's fine until it's not. But I am
the one that gets the call when someone wakes
up in the middle of the night and the dog is
like standing on their chest growling at them.
Yeah. Or they roll over. And the dog bites them
in the middle of the night because you rolled
on top of the dog and the dog was like, no, you
get off of my space. Yeah. And suddenly it's
a problem. But it wasn't before. Yeah. But now
it is. Okay. We've beat around that one long
enough. So pulling is not social. It's the beginning
of obsession. And. pulling towards another dog
or person it's it can be driven by arousal it's
it's not really calm social behavior right it's
usually arousal it's usually dogs are stoked
right right and that's where the oh he's friendly
he's having a great time yeah he's he's this
he's or she's that whatever Those things come
from this concept where we put our emotions on
the dog. Yeah. And we go, ah, they're so excited.
But the reason the dog does it isn't simply excitement
of happiness. Excitement is also got other emotions
and urges and thought processes and patterns
built into it. Right, because we always say an
excited dog is not always a happy dog. It's just
like an over aroused dog. It's an overstimulated
dog. Yeah. So the dog's not really thinking in
that instance, right? They're just reacting.
And the reason why we call it reactivity is because
that's what the dog is doing. They're just reacting.
Right, they're not thinking. So if we see a dog
pull an owner across the... I'm trying not to
always use the brewery as an example, but through
the public place, right? The restaurant, wherever
you are that's dog friendly, that is a reactive
dog. They're reacting to something. Every successful
pull where the dog pulls hard and gets to somewhere,
is self -reinforcing. So the dog just learns
that that pressure, that intensity, the discomfort
on their neck from pulling and pulling and pulling,
it's all just par for the course. It's all just
something the dog has to deal with in order to
get what they want. And whatever they want, they're
willing to put up with that in order to get this.
And we accidentally allow this all the time.
Every time the dog pulls to get to something,
it doesn't matter if it's pulling 20 feet across
the restaurant or five feet outside your driveway.
Yeah. It is the same process for the dog. All
right. Over time, excitement. can turn into frustration
as well. And so it's not just about, oh, the
dog's just excited, they're excited. Well, the
more that they get to where they're going, the
more that they succeed at taking space that they
want, the more that pattern is driven to drive
the dog to want things and to chase that self
-rewarding behavior. So now you've conditioned
this cycle that the dog, I want this, I go and
I take it. I want that. I pull you and we go
and get it. Yeah. Well, now suddenly there is
a dog or a thing that you're like, no, that's
unacceptable. Even though I've let you pull me
on all these other things. Now that, no, no,
you can't have that. Leave it. leave it i hear
this all no leave it right but you didn't pattern
that in all these other situations you didn't
teach that in all these less exciting situations
right leave it only works if you've like ripped
it out in other successful situations it's like
recall and emergencies right if you haven't taught
it on the back end like your dog is not learning
right there yeah so over time It ends up turning
into frustration and it easily segues into frustration
when the dog doesn't get to go where they want.
Yep. Now you've got a frustrated dog and a dog
that's feeling the anxiety and the frustration
and the excitement and all of these things all
at the same time. Yeah. And then typically it's
not all the time. There's some very. passive
relaxed dogs at home that are very reactive to
other dogs that is totally possible but usually
the most reactive dogs that we're talking about
that people kind of like you picture in your
head if you talk about a reactive dog usually
they're not calm at home usually they don't lay
on place right usually they don't just do whatever
you ask or whatever you say they don't leave
it that articulates the issue yeah right that
that kind of frames the problem right i always
think of like imagine it's like your three -year
-old's birthday party and they're like on ice
cream and cake and they've had the party and
it's been hours and they've been jumping in the
little like play place and whatever and all their
friends are there and after three hours they're
in tears and they're crying and they're screaming
and nothing can like console them yeah right
because they're just they just hit this peak
where they can't even handle like the level of
emotion that they're at even if it is good it's
like overwhelmingly good and then they just crash
down to like the lowest right and that's how
it is for a dog too just to get that overstimulated
and that excited to be around like That space.
Right. So when the access to those things is
denied or the owner is like, no, you can't have
that. Yeah. That same behavior escalates very
quickly. And that's when we get the barking and
the lunging and the full blown blow ups and reactivity.
Yep. So. Before I jump into what we're going
to do about it. Let's talk about where the battle
really takes place here. Usually when we're on
the walk, loose leash walking, which is kind
of our goal, it's not just a skill. It's not
like, just go and show me some loose leash walking.
And if you do all of the little techniques exactly
right in the right sequence, suddenly your dog
just listens. That doesn't happen. And this is
the most frustrating thing for owners when we
do dog training. You can go, and this is... Without
me going down the science and playing the science
music with you, you can look up on YouTube and
you can see a whole bunch of the designer dog
trainers out there and go, Oh, see, they got
this dog to walk with them right next to them.
They fix the reactivity in one session. That's
not, it's not typical. Can it happen? Yes. Yeah.
But can the dog show you, okay, yeah, I don't
want any more of the smoke or whatever it is
that the trainer put on them in order to get
them to walk next to them. But now I'm going
to walk next to you until the next opportunity
I get to be back with my parents or back with
a different person, right? Right. I'm not doing
a good job of explaining this because I can see
on your face. But there is a mismatch between
what some people see in a video as cool. The
problem has been fixed. They just did the special
little techniques and we Caesar Milan'd him and
suddenly the dog behaves. But if you don't build
that relationship, the fix is temporary. Right.
Because you can walk by one dog successfully
one time. Right. And so where I'm going with
this is that all of this is relationship based.
The concept of loose leash walking is based on
the relationship between you and your dog. Yeah.
If you don't have one. Yeah. The dog's not going
to want to walk with you. Who in your life walks
with you who you don't have a relationship with?
Yeah. No one. Right. You don't even ask someone
to go for a walk with you. You don't ask strangers
to go for a walk with you. So it's crazy to think
that you can live in the same house with a dog
and not have a relationship with them. But I
see it all the time. Yeah. I see it all the time.
Where, yeah, the dog lives there, but they don't
respect you. They don't look to you for guidance.
They don't look to you for, hey, well, what are
you doing? They look to you for, where's the
food? When are you going to pet me? When are
you going to cuddle me? Are you going to keep
me safe? But that doesn't necessarily mean the
dog is like dependent on you. They can be like
physically dependent on you, but not like emotionally.
They don't really care where you are or what
you're doing. All right. The dog really dictates
the direction and the pace here. All right. When
your leadership gets compromised and you're no
longer leading this interaction, how do you expect
to get the dog to just do what you say? Well,
this is where the big debate over. aversive techniques
and corrective tools and collars and all of these
things ends up, if you have built a relationship,
then tools and collars and, and all of these
things can, can be used simply as accountability
processes rather than coercive techniques and
aversive stimulus for the dog. Yep. That being
said, This is where a lot of people go wrong
because they just go, I'm just going to rely
on this collar. I'm just going to rely on this
tool. I'm going to rely on this whatever. And
the dog's not going to cross me. See, you lost
it. Because now you don't have the relationship.
All right. Allowing a dog to pull towards distractions
typically just teaches them to prioritize the
environment over the handler. And this is where
your relationship breaks down. suddenly you've
lost value the environment has gained value yeah
and now what point does that the dog have to
right that's what i tell people with puppies
all the time i'm like the worst thing you can
do for your puppy is just to let everybody like
come over and pet your puppy because it just
teaches your dog to to check out from you and
check into everything else around you right it's
a repetition over and over and over If the good
things aren't coming from you, they're coming
from somewhere else. And when you have a puppy,
it's the number one time that you should be the
only thing of value to that dog. Right. You got
an entire life for people to pet your dog. So
many years of pets. When you only take them out
a few times and every time that you take them
out. Yeah. Because you're always going to think,
oh, I'm just going to go out some more. I'm going
to go out again. We'll get more chances. That's
just typically not what we see. Yeah. So when
you let everyone else bring the value, that's
where the relationship tends to break down. Yeah.
It's like if you have $20, every time someone
pets your puppy, you lose a dollar. 20 pets and
you're out of dollars and all the strangers have
your money. No more dollars. Yeah. And the puppy's
like, well, she doesn't have any money. So I'm
going over here. Okay. The neutrality is really
our goal with this. Okay. So when we talk about
neutrality, right, we're just looking for the
dog. We're not looking to make you so, to make
you so positive that the dog never looks at anything
else. That's that's not what we're going to probably
accomplish. It's like crate training. We're never
going to make the crate so pleasurable and so
great that the dog chooses it with the door open
over the couch laying right there if they're
allowed on both. Right. It's just that doesn't
make it doesn't make any sense. Right. Which
one would you go in? Yeah, definitely. For sure.
So the dog should be able to exist, though, around
people and dogs without needing to engage them.
I keep using this example, but it's it's just
so true. I have zero dogs that I've ever been
called for because they're reactive to trees.
And people are like, well, yeah, obviously. Right.
Obviously, because trees are scenery. Why are
they scenery, though? I mean, I don't know. Gabe
doesn't love a tree. He does. It blows in the
wind, and he doesn't like wind. That's fair.
Except for Gabe. The least of our problems is
trees. Right. He has other issues. Mental stability
issues. Yeah. But the concept is, and everyone
just shakes their head, well, duh, of course.
But why aren't dogs reactive to trees, most dogs?
Because no trees are trying to touch dogs. Right.
There's no value there. It's just scenery. They
never do anything. Yeah. They're just over there.
Mm -hmm. Right. So if you let your dog see a
lot of other dogs, see a lot of other people,
be around those things, and everything that you
do and engage the dog is completely the same,
There's no reason that those things bring more
value. Yeah. One great place like for puppies
is like big parks, right? Stump Sound here locally
is a great one. There's a really big one in Wilmington.
I think it's like Longleaf or maybe they changed
the name. I don't know. But that's a really,
really good one. And there's always people and
kids and adults and sports and dogs and like
lawn equipment and cars and all these things
going back and forth. You can pick places that
are at such a distance that it's just scenery
to a dog. And nobody really interrupts people
at parks to typically go, oh, let me pet your
dog. But in close proximities, like coffee shops
and things like that, it's just easier for people
to be like, oh, can I pet your dog? And if you
are at a park and somebody comes over to do that,
there's enough distance to where you can see
them coming to be like, oh, sorry, we're working
on just engaging with each other over here. Thanks
for asking. But it's a great place for puppy
exposure that a lot of people don't take the
step to go to, I think. Yeah. Because it's boring,
right? I mean, nobody wants to just like go to
a park and just like sit down with their dog,
you know? Right. But a dog is always going to
be a product of what you consistently pattern.
Yeah. Additionally, what is another way? that
you would explain to a client how less interaction
like creates a more stable dog? I think it's
like, so I can always relate something back to
like kids, but it's like a constantly engaged
person. It's like micromanagement. There we go.
That's a pretty good one that everybody could
like relate to. It's micromanagement. When it
comes down to it, if you have a micromanager
that's like, hey, did you do this? Hey, do you?
You have to be on this call at this time and
then send this email and do this. And it's just
such a steep level that you have no choice in
the matter. And it's just being thrown at you
every which way. It becomes so overstimulating
that you don't have the option to, you learn
to not relax in a state other than chaos. And
so you get so used to it that at some point you're
just you you live in that state and you live
in a heightened environment. And what people
don't realize is it comes down to like chemical
makeup of. hormones and different things like
that are you gonna play the science song yeah
here's our science one right so it comes down
to cortisol and dopamine and all the receptors
in the brain that speak to each other at a at
a level that it affects how your your mind works
and how you think and process and function on
a day -to -day level it's the same with humans
and dogs function the exact same way chemically
And if you disrupt that to a level where it's
like they only learn to live at level 100, it's
like even at a calm state, you don't get a dog
that goes to zero. You get a dog that goes to
like 40. And 40 is not relaxed. Right. They're
not at a baseline. It might look relaxed compared
to their normal. Right. But it's not. But that
doesn't mean that it's a healthy relaxed. Yeah.
You need a dog that knows how to go from 100
to zero. And if not, there's going to be some
level of balance, right? At some points, maybe
one day you only get to 80 and the next day they
get down to 20. So you're getting closer and
you might get closer day by day, but then there's
like something that happens and you're back at
100 because they were stuck in their kennel and
they didn't get the exercise they needed and
all these other things because it was raining
and whatever it may be. you have to think about
those balances and what you're trying to always
like level out in in your dog and I think that's
how we kind of like think of it especially with
our most like high drive dog it's like what can
we always try to do daily different because he
gets so pattern based because he's so driven
it's like cool how can we feed him different
this morning and you know, at dinnertime, how
can we feed him different compared to this morning
versus last night? It's like, let's not do it
double times in a row because he might catch
on to something. Who knows? It's just so disruptive
to like the structure that we tell people to
create. But you have to meet your dog at a level
where you can balance those things out. Nice.
I love that. That was a long science lesson.
That was a long science lesson. There weren't
really like statistics in there. No, but I like
it. You said dopamine. So that was a science
word. As soon as we start talking about those
things, we're off on a science lesson. I love
it. So now let's talk about prevention. We've
highlighted the problem. We've talked about a
little bit what the issue is and how we explain
it. Now let's talk about prevention. and how
we can use those things to avoid an issue before
it begins. Additionally, remind me at the end,
I have an explanation for some of this that it's
not a science lesson, but I think it'll help.
I'll try my best. I'm not very good at coming
back to things later. Okay. The mistake most
owners make is, We wait too long. Yeah. Wait
too long. Excuse me. Yeah, that's pretty common.
So we see the kind of the issue and we go, ah,
it's going to go away. Yeah. Ah, they probably
won't do that next time. Mm -hmm. And when you
see it, if you see something, say something.
That concept, same thing. Yeah. When you see
it, do something about it. Yeah. Because the
dog for sure saw it. Remember the concept of
their little scientists. Yeah. And they're always
running experiments. And so they definitely saw
it. Yeah. Oh, I did this. Oh, it worked. Oh,
that's cool. I'll do that again. Right. And then.
Yeah. And that's the same with the reactivity
train, right? If it's like you watch your dog
at the end of the leash, like their ears perk
up and their forehead wrinkles and stuff. It's
like. they're already on that path. Like you're
not going to divert them by like trying to scrape
out like a little path in the sand and be like,
no, no, no, no. Come back this way. You waited
too long. Like there, there was already the fork
and they already went right. And you're already
on the left one. When the snowball run goes down
the hill and it's getting bigger and bigger at
a certain point, you can't move that sucker.
It's just going, you should have done it before.
That's exactly, that is exactly, reactivity in
a nutshell yeah we have to break it and redirect
it right and it sucks right like nobody wants
to hear that it sucks it's not it's not a fun
train to be on i'm not even gonna like sugarcoat
it reactivity sucks it's hard and it takes a
long time to fix but it doesn't mean that it's
not fixable and it doesn't mean that there's
not progress either but you have to take like
the little grains of sand that you you gathered
and you have to make it into a little sand castle
and be like look at this is all the progress
we made because it's still there no matter no
matter what by the time the dog is pulling hard
they've they're already mentally gone too so
they're not even listening at this point nope
they're they've gone through their pattern they're
in their heads You are experiencing and seeing
classical conditioning in action and there's
no choice about it. They're just rolling through
their pattern. Yeah, it's like the bull with
the red flag. So early intervention is the key,
right? Early intervention matters. Reading the
dog's body language and interrupting that fixation
before things escalate. is the key to preventing
reactivity. And that is where the famous Cesar
Millan thing came from. It just is a redirect
and a breaking the pattern concept. That's not
something that we recommend or we sign off on.
It's just what. Right, it could literally be
any noise to be honest with you. Right, I just
love using it as an example because almost everybody
has at one point or another seen like an old
dog whisperer episode on TLC or something. Yeah,
all the time. All right, clear communication
is also critical. If you can't communicate with
your dog because you never taught them how to
communicate in any other situation, now you're
in a reactivity state. You're done. You don't
have any hope. Pulling towards another dog and
letting your dog get there is not a state that
you want to even be in if you haven't taught
your dog leash pressure or any sort of basic
obedience. And I know people might disregard
like a sit down, whatever. But those things matter
when you're trying to learn and teach communication
to your dog. Right. A well -timed no. followed
by fair leash guidance and then immediate praise
is the key to getting that disengagement at the
same time as building like the dog's trust and
their understanding in you okay so real quick
before i go forward here is the second science
lesson for the day all right What I was going
to highlight, and I wanted to wait until the
solutions. Is this what I was reminding you of?
Yes, this is what you were going to remind me
of. The concept is turn every distraction and
interaction your dog has with something else
into a numbers game. So if hearing the doorbell
is a 20 out of 100, And hearing the pots and
pans in the cabinet is a 5 out of 100. And then
hearing the car door is a 40 or a 50 out of 100.
Seeing a dog across the street is a 60 out of
100. A squirrel running across the road is now
an 80 or a 90 out of 100. This concept is important
because it allows you to think through what the
dog is going through and then train to a standard.
And where I'm going with this is it's impossible
to line up squirrels at that 80 or 90 out of
100 and run them across the road so you can practice
interrupting reactivity. But what you can do
is you can find other items that are the 20 and
the 30, 40, 50 out of 100. And you slowly work
up to the 80. And now you take those other items,
those other things that are of the lower value,
and you start asking for the dog to perform alternative.
or incompatible behaviors during those experiences.
So what that looks like is the pots and pans
rustling around triggers the dog. But it's maybe
5, 10, 20 points out of 100. We start with that.
We hear that. Dog gets all, ah, sit. Good. We
reward that. And we continue that and we pattern
that. Cool. Now we've got, we're up to a 20 out
of 100. Now we start working on that sit or those
other, those alternative or incompatible behaviors
in proximity to a 40 out of 100. Then in proximity
to a 50 out of 100. And then eventually we get
up to the point where we can work on the squirrel.
But we have to do those things. First, with the
least amount of distraction, the least amount
of anxiety built up, the least amount of frustration,
and the most amount of communication. And then
we work up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up until
we get to the point where we can really attack
that reactivity. But we have to focus on what
do we ask the dog to do. You can't start with,
don't react to that dog. Don't react to that
dog. Hold on. I'm going to walk past this dog
again. No, don't react to that dog. What are
you asking the dog to do instead? And have you
taught the dog to do that at 10, 20, 30, 40,
50 before we got there? Yep. If you have, you
probably won't have that problem anymore. Okay.
Body language. Last one I want to talk about
before. What specific body language would you
educate owners that they need to look for in
a dog that is fixating and or on its way to blowing
up and reacting? Tail positioning for sure. Super
high tail. And I know people look at wagging
as a good thing, but a lot of times when they
are... At that point, they are like flicking
their tail back and forth more than likely. Hackles,
obviously, either up on the like butt. I call
it like their butt tufts, like right above their
tail get raised or their mohawk, which is like
up on their like neck area. So there's two different
types. Either of those are like. Forward posturing,
so like pulling forward is like another reason
that dogs do that is because they're like posturing
forward. Their ears kind of go up and forward
as well. Forehead wrinkles of any kind. Yeah,
those are all the ones I can think of at the
top of my head. And then what timing are we looking
at for actually correcting and redirecting this
dog? Obviously, it's before. The explosion. Yeah.
I get like to the count of three with some like
strong eye contact of my dog, like targeting
on another dog before I'm like, basically I'm
recalling them back to me or getting their attention
back on me to kind of test where they're at.
It's a fine balance. Yeah. Between if you correct
or if you redirect your dog before they even
fixate. Yeah. Then you're not really deconditioning
or desensitizing that to anything. Yeah. But
if you wait too long. Right. And they're into
the reaction, their past fixation. And now you're
you're correcting an animal that's like only
using half of their senses. Right. So I'll give
them to like a one, two, three. And by then I'll
try the dog's name just to see if they can like
if I see their ears move to where they can like
hear me or anything. If there's any acknowledgement.
And if I get no acknowledgement at that point,
that tells me already that the dog is, like,
too far over. And I need to go ahead and, like,
ask for a redirection. Because at that point,
if your dog's so disengaged from you that they
can't, like, even, like, give you an ear flick
for their name, then they're, like, past the
red line. Would you recommend food? Or a toy?
I'm definitely not going to use a toy. A toy
is going to give you way too much drive in that
situation. You can use some food, but I wouldn't
go too far past the point of high value. I mean,
you can use some high value. It depends on the
dog and the level of drive that they have. Everything's
always going to depend on the dog. If it's a
high drive dog and they're super driven for food,
then I probably wouldn't at that point. So with
food, I say that there's always, there's two
major trains of thought with this. One, food
is a stimulant. And so it can ramp a dog's arousal
level up. If the dog's already pegged out, that
could be a problem. But on which scale is the
dog pegged out? Because the other side is that
we can use food very successfully for a scared
or anxious dog. Right. To measure whether they're
at or above or below threshold is what we call
it. Threshold just being the level at which they
are now like tuned out and their parasympathetic
nervous system is shut down. And they're now
in their sympathetic. pathways yeah which is
where their food drive dies off and so we offer
the dog food in certain situations like that
and if they're not taking food you know they're
way overstimulated they're overstimulated they're
over threshold Yeah. And if they are food driven,
you can always like use it. And if you're in
like a heightened state like that, where there
is a dog present and you're trying to like redirect,
then you can cut out food for that time until
the dog comes back down and then you can start
rewarding again. But it always is going to depend
on where your dog is, is really at in their drive.
Because we always look at, and I always tell
owners, there's three drives, right? There's
pray, pack, and play. And in an environment like
that, when you're out in public, you should always
be in pack drive with your dog. Because you don't
want to be in prey drive for sure. Worst drive
you could be in in public. And you don't want
to really be in play drive because you're going
to amp the dog up and it's not a place or a time
for any of that. And so when your dog is going
at another dog and pulling to another dog, that
tells you that they're either in prey drive or
play drive. But if they're at the end of a leash
pulling to something else, they're for sure not
in pack drive with you because they wouldn't
be pulling on you. They'd be with you being like,
hey, where are we going? What are we doing? Yeah.
All right. Anything else to add? No, I think
I've rambled enough there. All right. We're going
to knock out listener projects here for project
number one, the neutral walk drill. So take your
dog on a structured walk. Structured being we're
going somewhere. Not I'm walking and looking
around at the trees. Structured walk, right?
We're walking with a point to it. In a low to
moderate distraction area, your goal is neutrality.
No greetings, no interaction, no deviations.
We're just going. If your dog begins to fixate,
Change the direction, change them up early, redirect,
but do not wait for the pull. Mark the correct
position and good engagement. And you can just
use good or yes or whatever it is that your marker
words are. But keep it calm, not exciting. Then
track how often your dog checks in with you versus
scanning frequently. The environment. I guess
I'll come back to this in just a second. Project
number two, the early interruption test. During
your next walk, focus only on reading your dog.
And the moment you see those ears come forward,
the body kind of stiffen up, or the pace increase
towards a trigger, give the dog a calm but firm
no. If needed, you can apply light leash pressure
and then immediately release the pressure when
the dog complies. This harnesses the concept
of negative reinforcement. The second your dog
disengages, mark with good and then continue
moving. All right. Where I was going with this
is that last piece of project number one, track
how often your dog checks in with you versus
scanning the environment. We are building the
Pawprint Academy app. It is going to be released
in May, ideally the first week in May. It is
coming out soon. It is going to be extremely
useful for... tracking purposes this is an app
that is built around the science it is just scientific
principle after scientific principle put together
in a way that makes your life easier training
your dog the concept is that the app is built
around a journal and quick log system that allows
you to keep track of what you're doing whether
it's working whether things are getting better
or worse, and it gives you insights and statistics
that's all AI -driven that happens in real time
immediately after you put in a journal entry.
So every journal entry that you put in, AI that
has been trained in the top dog training methods
and the things that we use as we work with clients
every day, all of that has been... built in to
a AI model. That model sweeps your training logs,
your journals, your homework, your things that
you're doing with your dog. There are courses
built in. All of that gets correlated and analyzed
and you get daily updates on what you should
be doing with your dog, how things are going,
what you should do next, what's the 80 -20, the
20 % thing that you can do to get 80 % of the
results. It's all efficiency -based. And the
concept is that this makes your training smarter.
It's got training tools built in. It's got sound
desensitization built in. It's all science -backed.
And the concept is that it's all about tracking.
If you are on a walk and you're tracking how
often your dog checks in with you and you're
walking, most people live in a neighborhood or
something. Well, how many times was it? Well,
we've got trackers and timers that you can literally
just hold in your hand and tap every time that
your dog checks in with you on a walk. And at
the end of the walk, cool. Was it 10? Was it
20? Was it 50? How do you know if it's getting
better or not? Yeah. This is the concept that
I think is going to help people out. And it's
all based on dog behavior science. Super excited
to release that. If you're listening and you
are one of our private clients before, we are
releasing that right now. I've got clients in
it and they're working through some private client
sections and things like that. So if you have
gone through one of our programs at Top Dog Training,
then please reach out to me and let me know.
I can walk you through how you can download that
and start using it too. Work through a smarter
dog training. All right. With that, let me look
over my notes real quick. I don't have anything
else. Do you have anything else? No, that was
it. That is it. All right. Well then we will
close it out with a thank you for tuning in.
If you are listening to this on, uh, after the
fact, please whatever, um, whatever platform
you're listening to it. on give us a rating give
us uh give us some feedback send me an email
at ryan at top dog training nc .com let me know
how we're doing let me know if you've got some
suggestions or let me know if you want to be
one of the first testers for the app thanks have
a good night good night