7 Counterintuitive Things You Can Do That Will Give Your Dog Training A Major Facelift

Welcome to off-leash and unfiltered.

Trigger warning, I'm Katie Peppie delivering the truth in dog training.

Hey everybody this is your host Katie Peppie. Before we jump in I just wanted to take a quick

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with you so we don't want you to miss an episode without further ado. Let's jump in.

Hey everybody thanks for being here with me today. Hopefully wherever you are you're having

amazing spring weather like we are here in Maine it's supposed to be about 75 degrees today

and I am so pumped of course it's supposed to be like 35 again tomorrow but that's okay.

We're gonna take it while we can get it. It's so amazing and we're getting outside with the dogs

and getting to do more stuff out there which is incredible. Love love love that and of course

it's staying late later. It's staying light later right now that we have the time change so

gives us just such an incredible advantage once we get that daylight back in the nice weather.

Love love love it so get out there with your dogs and enjoy it. I think we have a pretty good

episode for you today. It's gonna be a doozy. We have seven counterintuitive behaviors that you

can do that will give your dog training a major facelift. So these are things that we see

can make a huge difference and there it's things that are really unnatural right they don't

come naturally to people they're very counterintuitive but if you can most of these things I think

will apply to pretty much everybody and every dog with the exception of maybe the first one we're

gonna talk about if you don't have a fearful dog but even if you have a pretty confident dog

there will probably be some things some situations where they're uncomfortable or nervous

so this would definitely apply in those situations but so let's dig right in.

Seven counterintuitive behaviors you can do that if you know if you're not doing right now they're

gonna give you a huge boost in your effectiveness with your dog training. So number let's

we'll count down like we always do number seven then is stop soothing fear. So you know it's

funny because when I first got into dog training this was a concept I was already very familiar with

probably because I was a big fan of Caesar Milan. I don't know but I just assumed that this was

super common knowledge and I still run into this where we will have people with nervy dogs

and Joyce will tell them you know that this is the sort of thing you don't want to

sue you don't want to touch the dog you really don't want to talk to them or try to comfort them

like you would you know a human or a child and you know I'm thinking in my head that obviously

it's a great point but I assume the person already knows that and then they a lot of times they're

very surprised and they didn't have any idea that they shouldn't be doing that so I'm very grateful

to have a sidekick who shares this stuff and doesn't just make the assumption that it is common

knowledge because that's a mistake that I often make is I just think people know and they don't

so number seven is stop soothing fear if you have a dog that's extremely fearful this applies to

you more than anybody you guys the soothing the comforting it is your enemy and I get it I know

it's hard but really when you do that even though you don't realize it you're it's for you it's not

for the dog because it doesn't help the dog all that's happening when you do that is you're becoming

a softer weaker entity to your dog so in your dog's mind now you're both afraid right that's

sort of more or less again I'm oversimplifying it and kind of humanizing it to a degree

but you know what better way to explain it to a human than to humanize things

you don't want to do that right so really your best bet is to be as quiet

and calm and assertive now the word assertive we could dissect but I don't want to be here forever

on number seven when I say assertive it means more or less confident right you know what's happening

you know what you're doing you know where you're going and you're passing that clear information

onto your dog and you're not passing it on in an optional manner right it's like

I'm gonna take the parental the leadership role here and I'm gonna give you clear instruction like

this is where we are going this is what we are doing right so no soft leash handling no

hesitating just because the dog hesitates no stopping just because the dog stops no negotiations right

just very clear calm quiet confident guidance but no chatting at the dog no soothing no comforting

no coddling no baby no baby voice none of that that will not help you number six talking a lot

right so there's some overlap here so humans tend to be very chatty your dog doesn't understand

most of what you're saying and it makes them harder it makes them harder I'm really struggling

here today guys sorry I'm gonna edit all this out but back you know what I'm just gonna start over

no that's not gonna happen number six talking a lot we tend to be very chatty okay but it makes it

harder for your dog to extract the words or the sounds rather that really means something

the sounds they need to pay attention to the words that are things they need to hear and execute

so the chatty or you are and this is in every context right so we just talked about nervous dogs

certainly applies there but even with confident dogs it doesn't matter this is across the board right

if you're trying to teach your dog something new if you're trying to give your dog instruction

and you're just an endless string of babbling that makes it really really difficult for your dog to

know what to hear what to execute what's meaningful what's not meaningful because you're just the

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah constantly and so you might notice if you follow our social

media at all and you see some of my videos when I am talking to the camera right and kind of

letting the audience know what I'm doing why I'm doing it I will usually pause between that

and when I say something to the dog because I know I'm muddying the waters and so I'm trying

to create a little bit of pause a little bit of contrast so the dog can pull out and extract the

things that are important right and it's still hard right it would be better if I was just silent

and I was only saying the things that actually mattered to the dog but because I'm making a video

sometimes it's not possible and I need to talk so but that might be a thing that you've noticed

if you tend to be chatty challenge yourself start small okay do a lesson with your dog

where you're if you have a command if you have a behavior you're working on with your dog go work

on that for you know even three minutes right or set a certain number of reps do 10 reps

and challenge yourself not to say a single thing that's not important

and that includes oh good girl good girl yeah good jump don't say any that stuff

doesn't mean you can't reward the dog right but you should have a reward marker and it's funny

because people make a big deal out of praising the dog and I don't have a problem with it and I

think it is good and I think it does generate enthusiasm but it can also work against you

but my point was going to be you don't need it right your dog needs consequences which are usually

predicted by your markers and you need good timing with your markers if you didn't hear our marker

episode go back and listen to it it's one of our most recent episodes right before this one

and sorry I don't know the number off my head but very informative episode on the use of markers

as long as you have that you will have effective training right if you have a click or a yes

that's followed by food you don't need to have the oh good girl good boy you don't need it

okay and if you're relying on oh good girl Sasha you know good boy Rufus if like if you're

doing that if that's your only marker and you don't have an actual reward marker

it will be very sloppy because that is a very that's a very long marker and so it's actually hard

for your dog to decipher timing wise when they executed the right behavior right just saying one

word or having a click is much faster it's much more precise and it's much easier for your dog to

extract the moment that they did the right thing so talking a lot isn't great talking before you

give a command after you give a command just berries that command in the mud so we really want to

challenge you to be super quiet try doing a very short lesson with your dog where you give the

command and you only give it once then you get the behavior silently and you market the second you

get it and you feed and you release with the break word right whatever your release word is we

usually say break and that's it rinse and repeat so do that a few times to try to get yourself a

little bit more into the habit of not being so chatty right but especially in situations where

your dog is getting excited if you're chatting you're just getting them more excited right if

you're talking to them especially if you're doing a lot of the weight weight weight sit sit sit and

you're saying your dog's name and you all these things your dog's getting more excited more excited more

excited more excited so if you give yourself some practice being very calm very quiet very assertive

very instructional and just zipping it you might be able to implement that a little bit easier

in situations like that where it matters where your dog is getting all excited and it's all chaos

you can then be the calm quiet assertive person you need to be and set that example and send

that energy and get what you need from your dog without just kind of contributing to the chaos

because that's what we do right the dogs are all excited and then we're us sit sit sit sit wait wait

such such such a fluffy fluffy fluffy whatever your dog's name is right and now your dog's like oh

this is fun like we're both excited we're both worked up yeah we both have high energy and it's not

what you're going for so you can see how in all these various contexts fearful dog excited dog

that you're trying to teach commands to doesn't matter more talking equals it's a deletrious effect on

your results it's not great all right number five this is really encountered intuitive do not avoid

stressful situations with your dog and I don't mean stressful for you although there might be

some truth to that too I mean a lot of people feel like putting their dog in stressful situations

is bad I actually just posted a video on Instagram of a dog at the groomers who was completely

freaking out trying to tear the groomers to shreds and I look at the comments because it's

very informational for me to see when this hits people's eyes like what do they see what do they

think and it kind of gives me sort of a window into our culture and how everyday dog owners

would go about things if this was their dog right if they were in this situation and it's funny

to me because 90 percent of the comments revolved around how stressed the dog was and how

ashamed the owner should be for putting their dog in the situation which is absolutely crazy

to me because number one the dog with the dog at the groomers and dogs need to be groomed right

it doesn't necessarily mean they have to go to the groomers but they do have to be groomed

and chances are the dog was like this at home which is why they're not doing it at home

but avoiding the situation because it's stressful guess what the dog doesn't get better that way

so we're gonna talk about thresholds in a minute I did an episode on working your dog under

or over threshold it was episode number one 21 and the thing is your dog doesn't get better if

you don't right so this is the same if you just say oh that stress is my dog out so I'm not gonna

put my dog in that situation then guess what your dog doesn't get better now I'm not saying go

into these stressful situations and keep going into them the same way you always have like if

that's not working um if things go sideways and it's really difficult then maybe you do need to

change something about your process but just avoiding the stressful situation is not your answer

I promise you it is not your answer so we've had dogs come in here that are super afraid to walk

on tile floors and the way we fix it is we walk on tile floors are they stressed?

fuck yes they are at first it fades pretty quickly most of the time so every dog in every situation

of course is different and unique sometimes it takes a really long time sometimes it never resolves

100% but most of the time we see really big leaps really quickly and the key is we're gonna go

into the stressful situation and we're just gonna do it and we're gonna do it differently

than we've been doing because most of the time people don't have the skills they don't have the

tools and the dog is allowed to just rehearse panic and if if they're able to do that then that's

what they'll do so you have to have a way of preventing that right and it's like

sometimes the only answer is force this big old dirty f word in the dog training industry

right force like it's such a bad thing all it means is you're not giving the dog the option and

that is the key to getting over stuff so the floors like I just mentioned I forced them to walk

on floors they were scared of and guess what after a couple minutes it gets better and then when

we go back again and do it later yeah they're scared again but it resolves faster and faster they

relax faster and faster until it becomes just not a big deal anymore but I had to force them to

do it guys nail trimming which is partly you know what we were seeing in that video it was a groomer

I don't know if they were gonna do the nails if they were gonna trim the fur or both or whatever

but your dog hates it your dog's terrified of it your dog thinks they can be an asshole whatever

the situation is you're gonna have to force them to do it and guess what if you do it frequently

that is a key to this they're gonna get over it

so you have to take away a little bit of your dog's autonomy sometimes and say hey

this is the thing we're doing I'm drawing a line in the scene and we're gonna do it I know it

stresses you out I know to you you think this is life or death it's like I'm throwing you off a

cliff but guess what we're gonna do it anyway and you're gonna see that's not what's happening

that it's actually okay and you rinse and repeat frequently frequently frequently if you didn't

hear me I'll say one more time repeat frequently because that is important your dog will regress

regress regress that's the new one really having a hard time today you wouldn't realize you wouldn't

think I had a large coffee before this you know but I did and it just isn't it's not getting the

job done today your dog will regress in between instances if you go a long time right so

frequency is important to healing but you have to put your dog in stressful situations there is no

other way to get your dog less stressed okay and the thing is stress isn't bad episodic stress

isn't bad it's a normal healthy response right but if it's an overactive irrational unnecessary

response it can actually interfere with your daily life and if you allow that stress response

to continue because you don't want to stress your dog out you don't want to put them in that

situation what you do is you create prolonged stress you create um chronic stress right which

that's the problem episodic stress isn't a problem chronic stress is a problem so if you

fail to force your dog into those situations and to show them it's okay and to rinse and repeat

frequently and to get them over it and to rehearse something besides panic if you don't do that

then you contribute to creating a chronic stress which is the thing that's not great for your dog

right because they never get over it and it remains stressful and every time they run into it

it's stressful and every time they come near it it's stressful right so you're keeping that going

by refusing to jump in the fire and just get it done and that's not me picking on dog owners they

don't know how to do it so my point here is not to attack the dog owner my point is to attack

the philosophy that is being promulgated out there as compassionate when it's really not

this idea that you should not put your dog in stressful situations that is not a compassionate

idea that's not a compassionate philosophy or way to go through the world with your dog because

ironically that is what keeps them in a state of chronic stress love the show well I have great

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for this premium content just wanted to take a second to let you guys know about that thank you

so much for your support and now on with the show number four another counter intuitive thing

here is recognizing that your dog does not need to have positive interactions this is a big one

right this comes up a lot with socialization both with dogs and people

your dog does not need to go around having constant positive interactions with people or other

dogs so number one even if you think that's a good thing for your dog to have positive interactions

with others number one you have to define what what does that mean what is a positive interaction

you have to define that and the thing is you're defining it for yourself so just because you think

it's a positive interaction doesn't mean your dog does okay so if your dog doesn't like people

doesn't like other dogs just because they have an interaction and nothing terrible happens that

doesn't make it a positive interaction your dog might have hated it the entire time

so keep in mind positive is subjective and most of the time we're applying our own thoughts

feelings and ideas about what that is we're not actually considering the dogs the dog decides what's

positive and negative not you and just because nothing terrible happens doesn't mean that it gets

placed solidly in the positive category it probably doesn't okay the other thing about positive

interactions is what if it's not what if your philosophy is that my dog has to go have positive

interactions with strangers and positive interactions with strange dogs we don't know

what if it ends up not being that what if it ends up being a terrible experience right so that's

a risk you're taking when you enter into those interactions and that could happen at any moment even

if it's never happened before and it could be your dog that's that fault that triggers it it could

be the other dog it could be the stranger people do weird things sometimes your dog is really

uncomfortable like way more uncomfortable than you realize because you don't notice the signs and

they do snap okay what if it's not so this idea you have about accumulating and building up all

these positive experiences you have to understand that at any moment one of these experiences could go

totally off the rails so number one like we just talked about

you don't even know if it's actually a positive experience for your dog

and on top of that what if it ends up being a terrible experience for your dog you're bound to

have those here and there nothing crazy has to happen right it's normal natural dog behavior

to react to snap to grow to attack like all these things are natural dog behavior and they could

happen at any time so now you're shooting yourself in the foot and it's you're going backwards

right so that's another downside to this philosophy but lastly it just doesn't help

so you go around with this idea that if your dog can just have more positive interactions it's

going to like fix your problems it's going to make them feel better and it probably won't even if

you do manage to give your dog positive interactions it probably won't I'm gonna break this down a

little bit because I think it's worth parsing out kind of what I mean here think about it most

people when they get a puppy that puppy has already had eight million positive interactions

with their litter mates with their parents with other puppies potentially puppy class friends puppies

with their dogs strangers everyone wants to touch the puppy the owners that bred the puppy you when

you adopted the puppy puppy has had many positive interactions and all of those interactions

got you to where you are today right so when I meet somebody who has a dog that's highly reactive

aggressive toward humans and or dogs and they think that if their dog can just get some positive

interactions things will change and it's like your dog's already had a bazillion positive interactions

and it caught you here the human brain just does not work that way naturally we are very too

dimensional in the way we think about behavior and in our minds positive interactions couldn't

possibly lead to negative results but they do a lot of the time and I'll be the first one to tell you

everyone thinks an aggressive dog it's the result of something bad happening or being abused

or being attacked and most of the time it is the result of just genetics plus reward positive reinforcement

but chances are your dog had many positive interactions

leading up to wherever you are now and so if your dog is reactive or aggressive it isn't probably not

the result of not having enough positive interactions and as a side note those are the people I'm

trying to avoid that's why I don't like the dog park right that's a big part of why there are people

there with dogs that they know are uncomfortable with other dogs that they know have a history

of being very selective with dogs that they know their dog can snap at other dogs and they're going

to the dog park to try to get positive interactions well that's the person I'm trying to avoid

right they're walking up to people on the street with their dog on a leash doing on leash greetings

to get a positive interaction when they know that their dog might not like this other dog they have a

history of reacting poorly to other dogs okay not me man that's literally why I don't go into those

situations is because I know those people are out there and I don't want to be the one that it

goes sideways with and it will it's bound to right but so for those three reasons trying to get more

positive interactions is not your answer the answer is neutral learn to see or hear or whatever

and not care learn to listen to your owner that's what matters guys that is the key to everything

teach your dog to see and not care teach them to listen to you a hundred percent of the time and

guess what everything's peachy but people don't want to focus on those things they want to focus

on the feelings and trying to get my dog to like other dogs and see that other dogs are good and

see that people are good and it's a huge fucking mistake don't do that

because chances are it's not going to work anyway

what I just described works teach your dog to mind their business and listen to you what else do you

need that's all you need and yes if there are certain situations that you need your dog to be

able to tolerate you can work on that if you have friends and family with dogs and your dog needs

to tolerate having them around having them in tight spaces you can do that do it safely learn

how to do it and do it safely and yes your dog will get to see oh these dogs are around they're in

my space they're in my house you know what things are fine yes you can do that right but you

don't need to do it with every Tom Dick and Harry on the street the idiots at the dog park

no don't do that strangers people you don't know don't let them come up and touch your dog guys

don't do it especially if your dog has already told you they don't like it

because if you do you could end up with a lawsuit and not fix your problems to boot

so I don't mean to be dramatic about it I realize not every case is that extreme

but the point being here is your dog needs neutrality your dog needs to learn to see and not care

your dog needs to learn to listen to you what they don't need is lots of positive interactions

that's not usually what they need I'm not saying there's never a place for that kind of stuff

and that kind of counter conditioning but especially if you're not real skilled in it and you don't

know exactly what you're looking for you don't know exactly what you're trying to accomplish and

how to accomplish it just randomly walking up to people and dogs for positive interactions is a

huge mistake all right number three don't give your dog free passes extremely counterintuitive

right everybody wants to give their dog a free pass the benefit of the doubt but you really

muddle your training when you do that because your dog learns when you say something you don't

really mean it the first time you mean it the second time or maybe even the third fourth or fifth

time right there's never any consequences until you get to that third fourth fifth time and so

then your dog learns oh hey it's number four that's the one I have to listen to that's literally

what you're teaching your dog so everyone said when I correct a dog for not listening to me the

first time everybody's alarmed by that and they're like well shouldn't we give him a second chance

why do you want him to listen to you the second time or the first time

we go for the first time around here right it's not where we start of course we teach the dog what

we want first and how to do it and lots of food and all this stuff but eventually it's like do it

the first time I ask and then that becomes the rule and we stick with that and if you don't okay

but then you're literally teaching your dog I don't require you to do this behavior until high

of asked for it three times or four times or whatever it is right so your dog just learns

whatever you teach them but those free passes serve to create that or to create confusion right

everyone's worried about their dog being confused yet they are the ones that will create more

confusion by not enforcing the rules they supposedly created I'll give a command I don't make

you do it I don't follow through I don't provide a consequence I'll set a boundary I'll let you

violate it once or twice I'll give you warning sounds like right instead of telling you that was a

mistake there's a consequence so these free passes serve to keep our dogs confused more confused

for longer periods of time and they generally teach your dog not to respect the boundaries you've

said not to listen to the commands you gave because they don't need to right and that's just what

we're teaching them so because they're a bad dog that's what we're literally teaching them that's

what we're laying out for them as a as a sequence so free passes absolutely work against you and

the funny thing is let me demonstrate this a lot at our go home lessons people will give their dog

a command the dog doesn't listen they'll turn on their eat collar and suddenly the dog does the

command without any help without the person repeating the command or anything and what that proves is

your dog urging right because everyone thinks well maybe they didn't hear me right they're

distracted it's like okay but they have years and so most of the time and of course that could happen

sometimes right but most of the time the dog did hear you right people just assume their dog

didn't hear them because they're not looking at them it's not usually the case your dog does not

have to be looking at you staring at you paying deep attention to you to hear that you were talking

to them and gave them a command so no free passes guys number two is staying under threshold so we

just talked about this a minute ago if you haven't listened to the working under an overt threshold

episode go back and listen to it's a really good one episode number one 21 you guys just

ties into the stressful thing that we talked about earlier you can't just work your dog under

threshold if your dog has triggers and you don't take them out and work around those triggers then

that threshold just never moves and things never improve and they never get better

and you're never going to reach your goals that way so I'm not saying jump in the fire I'm not

saying thread the needle if your dog's highly reactive or anything like that but I'm saying if

there is something that triggers your dog in any way shape or form you have to start working around

that thing and you have to push your dog outside of their comfort zone right there's lots of ways

to do that but generally speaking the way we do it and this works in like every situation right even

with their respectful dog it's like we teach them how to do things and then we start expecting it we

use accountability and then we can take that and we can go out into the real world with it and we can

work around distractions we can work around triggers we can work around things that make them

uncomfortable and we can use what we taught them and those rules and that accountability

to get them to prioritize that stuff over the triggers and that really is key to being able to work

above threshold and if we're talking about excitement a lot of times people just haven't set boundaries

with their dog and excitement right so if your dog if there's a family member that comes through

the door and it just sends your dog right off a cliff with excitement it's like the way you work

on that is not to avoid it like that how's that going to make it any better the way you work on

that is you tell your dog hey this person's going to come through the door and be super you're

going to get super excited and I'm going to tell you know and I'm going to cap that excitement

I'm going to provide accountability I'm going to correct you for flying into an unacceptable level

of excitement yeah sure we're glad our dog is happy to see people when they come home or whatever

come to visit but there's a certain level that's acceptable right and your dog just flying into

craziness and then ignoring you because they're going to your dog's not going to listen to you in

that state of mind and that's why your dog choosing to go into that state of mind is not okay

right but so the way we would work on that is not to avoid it it's not to work up to it it's to put

him in that situation and have that tough conversation with the dog which of course is what nobody

wants to do but the thing is once you do that then you can probably move on to rehearsing the correct

behavior right your dog will behave better and you can actually say hey good don't go nuts don't

have a party because you're going to work them up right and you're in the beginning stages of

something new and it's like a little sapling and you need to care for it delicately you can

challenge it more in a little bit right but at first stay calm right so use your energy to help

your dog's energy but staying under threshold isn't the key it's going into those

situations that push your dog over their threshold and knowing what to do and I think that's the

problem people don't know what to do so follow our stuff we have lots of great podcast episodes

social media videos we have a blog now on my website where we talk about what to do we show you

what to do what do we do very very open about all of the stuff but staying under threshold it's not

the answer it's not the answer guys you'll never get there number one people focus on the process

more than the results huge mistake our society nowadays is very very process focused right

everything's about the process everything is about not stressing out the dog like we talked about

earlier staying under threshold being positive right guess what none of that stuff really matters

I mean yes there's a effective more effective less effective right but the thing that matters the most

is the results and if we would pay more attention to the results

then we would be able to refine our process to something more effective

so the reason why we go to all those other things we already talked about the reason why we

soothe fear the reason why we avoid stress the reason why we stay under threshold

the reason why we keep thinking we get to put our dogs in situations for positive interactions all

the stuff we've already talked about the reason we do all that is because we're focusing on process

and we're not focusing on results stop take a breath and look at the results

okay and then think well how is this process working for me how are going into all these

interactions with strangers and strange dogs how's that working for me regardless of whether or not

any of its cons super poorly has it fixed your problem no well then we probably need to change

our process how has soothing the fear petting the dog talking to the dog how has that worked for you

to make your dog more confident how has trying to make nail trimming less stressful how is that

worked for you trying to teach your dog new behaviors if you're a chatty person

and you're trying to give your dog constant instruction using words they don't understand how

is that working for you right so in trying to rely very heavily on reward and not use correction

and be very positive how's that worked for you right so you have to look at the results

and that is how we work with our dogs every day here at the training center the dog actually chooses

the process the dog actually chooses what's motivating right so we don't know what we're going to do

with the dog on an in-giving day we don't know what the session is going to look like we don't know

what the consequences are going to be guess what it's up to the dog we let the dog tell us hey

this is a reward that motivates me that reward is not a reward to me it doesn't matter that's a correction

that motivates me that's not a correction I care about we are learning the dog every minute that we

are working with them and they are shaping our behavior they are telling us this works this doesn't

and that's what we use but people get so into this groove in their head they get it so cemented

they get so just stuck in this routine in these ideas and philosophies that are this is good and

this is bad and this is good and this is bad and this will help and this won't and they just stay

stuck right there doing all that same stuff every day when the dog is telling us that isn't working

this doesn't matter to me that's not helping that's not making me more comfortable it's not

making me more confident it's not making me like dogs more but we keep doing it anyway because in

our head it should work so if that's you if you feel like you have ideas and emotions attached

to your processes and you're like this is the process that might be the only thing getting

in your way right now so definitely stop and re-evaluate like am I paying attention to what my

dog is is telling me it's like Dr. Phil would say how's that working for you right because if

you've been working on something for a while and you're not there yet guess what your process needs

to change and most people are going well I don't know how to change it I don't know where to go

from here it's like well you got to think outside the box a little it might not be intuitive right

might be counter-intuitive but the process guys isn't the thing that matters right as long as

we don't do anything to harm the dog that's obviously important and we are doing things

that are generating results that's all that matters the ideas we have in our head about what

should be true what should be reward for the dog what should be punishment for the dog what

should work and what shouldn't they don't matter right that's just ego that's just humanizing like

not it's just it's up to the dog right and so your job is to evaluate what your dog is telling

you both in real time in the moment and also over a period of time right you can look at your

dog today and you can see that this is the result of genetics I don't want to exclude genetics but

also combined with that everything you've done with them from day one forward

has gotten you where you are and so if there are things that you want to be different

clearly we need to change something about our process you can't change your dogs DNA

so there's something about your process that needs to change and I would say direct your focus

there and probably you can go back and look at the other six things we just talked about

and there's probably at least one where you could change your process and do the less intuitive

thing and it's going to change your result hopefully for the better but we do live in a very

process oriented community um society where it's like you know the vet is supposed to be fear free

I just told you about the grooming video where you know they shouldn't be putting their dog in that

stressful situation um you're only supposed to use rewards right you can never use corrections or

negative reinforcement or punishment because everything's supposed to be positive and unicorns

and cupcakes all the time um and unfortunately when we have this mindset with all of these

different things it absolutely ties our hands and we can't get anywhere um because we need to break

out of that mindset where we think our process is actually the thing that matters and it's not

the results matter at least if you want them hey guys thanks for joining us today I really hope

you enjoyed the show if there's a specific topic you'd like to hear discussed you can send that

to me directly via email or fan mail just jump down into the show notes that information will be

there for you I really look forward to hearing from you thanks for supporting the show and I look

forward to next time