March 18, 2025 • 33 mins
Today on Ask The Expert, animal behaviourist Mark Vette joined the Afternoons team to answer questions from pet owners - and reveal how they can keep their animals under control.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed Be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Now this is going to be a good hour, as
it was last time he was on the show. Mark
Vitti is a world renowned animal behaviorist, dog trainer, and
educator who has been working with animals for over forty years.
He's a trained animal psychologist and created the Dogs In
online training program. He's about to launch Cats In and
joins us once again on the program. Mark, very good
(00:38):
afternoon to you.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah, okay, Matt and Tyler, how are you very good?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
How's the Cats In coming along? I know that that's
been a work in progress for some time.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Just finished it up last week. Hands in all done,
very happy. That's in the Gentle Cat Teachers. You had
a raisor cat that doesn't happen, So.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
There you go.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Okay, And when when's that out? If Tyler didn't say,
did you say Noptember? September?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
September is the date apparently, so stopping looking.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Forward to that else, stocking stuff for that one.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Absolutely fantastic, right, Mark. So, as we mentioned numerous times,
it was you were so popular last time that we
had to extend it out a bit. And already the
phone lines have lit up in the texts have come in,
so we'll get into it straight away. If that's okay with.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
You, excellent, It's all good. I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number
to call.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Yeah, have you got a problem with your dog or
cat or whatever pet and its behavior?
Speaker 6 (01:36):
Give us a ring.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty, Alan, welcome the show.
Speaker 7 (01:40):
Yeah, okay, Mark, Hey, we've got an answer. She's about
five at the moment. She's five. She just won't stop
running away. Like We literally have to lock every window,
every door if we go out, and if we don't,
she will find a way out. She squeezed through a window.
(02:01):
That's you know how. It's got the latchures on so
you can't push it out too far. She squeezed through that.
If we leave her out backyard, she will dig her
way out. We run her daily. We take her on
sniff walk to try and stimulate her. She's my wife
is working from home, so she's got company there. My
wife goes out, she will try and get out. We
(02:23):
just don't blem and know what to do, and we
we live in an area in South auklandre there's a
lot of straight dogs around, but we see them walking
around and they end up going home usually, but our
dog will go and not come back at all.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
So I does she suffer separation distress? Does she get
anxious and whine and howl and get distressed when when
you go?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Is that the problem?
Speaker 7 (02:49):
Not at all? Not at all, And she doesn't know
it from home either, So we and when we got
her as a pub she was what fourteen weeks, so
I mean not too young.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
No, no, it's nice, nice to get them in eight weeks.
But that's all right. So I mean there's no trouble
with her bond with you by the sound, so she's
obviously very attached. But yeah, I mean, basically, it'll come
down to environmental management with a situation. If it's not
separation distress, which is the common cause of that, you know,
when they try and escape when you head out, then
(03:24):
it's environmental management. And the good thing about environmental management
you can normally set it up so it's safe. But
you're right, if she's literally squeezing through and breaking through things,
it does make it difficult. There are things called a
sonic boundary, which can teach them to stay within a boundary.
And so that's kind of a tool that you can
(03:45):
use for those dogs that are just really challenging in
those situations, and that might be where you need to
go to keep her in and it certainly it works,
but it's he's got to decide whether that's the way
you want to go. It's called a sonic boundary, and
there's a number of different companies that make them.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
So have a go at that.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, chance that I appreciate that. We'll give there
to go. So you reckon. There's nothing mentally or anything
like that wrong with it.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
She's not suffering separation distress.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah, she's just an escape artist. I mean she's obviously
learned to get out. Once they get out and they
start getting out, they learn to become who denis, you know,
they start to really challenge the system once they get out,
and then you kind of jigg it up a little
bit and then they think, oh, I can try harder,
and they do when they get out, then they start
getting better at it, which is what's going on there.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So sonic boundary might be the story for you.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
All the best. Thanks very much for giving us a
buzz and having a chet to mark. So just on
those sonic boundaries, how does that work? I take it
it's the collar based system and they get away vibration
if they get too close to it.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Is that helps? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it gives you learn.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
They learn by setting up a boundary and as they approach,
the boundary gives a warning tone about a met her
out and then if they go close, it gives a
little static correction and very quickly they learn don't go
hear that. And then you can set the boundary up
right around your fence line and anywhere else you know
(05:14):
that you want. You can do acres of land if
you want to. But some people don't like using them,
but that they are an option for those dogs that
are going to get run over or cause trouble out
and about.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
Yeah, great, I've got I've got a question for you
jumping there. We've got four lines. But I'm going to
use this.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
The advantage I have and controlling the mic. When my
dog Colin when I leave the house right and has
that really sad look on his face because you're leaving
and he sits down, he locks, and it's sad. Is
that actual sadness or is it just got he's got
a sad face and b.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
How much anguish does he.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Go through in the time that we're away? Is it
Is it the whole time he's feeling that that way
he's looking at you when you leave, or or does
he get over it and just go and have a
sleep and run around and do his stuff.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Yeah, well, there's there's two aspects that I mean, basically,
dogs do we now know, feel emotions just like we do,
and that you know, they're not necessarily exactly you know,
we answer Morphis and say they're you know, they're the
same as ours. They're not necessarily exactly the same. But
of course dogs are highly social and get highly attached
to the owners.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
The more over.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Attached the dog gets, the more it's prone to separation
to stress. So the ones who suffer separation to stress,
owl and bark and destroy and toilet and do all
different things while you're away are the more serious cases.
Then you know that they're suffering real anxiety in those situations.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But I'll tell you what, there's.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
One really cool tool that helps both you and the
dog to resolve that issue. One of the makes is
called a pet Cube, and there's fur Cam. There's a
number of different ones. It's a little unit that distributes
a food reward automatically from just a single food reward
from the unit. You've got an app on your phone.
(07:01):
You can talk to the dog, you can watch the dog,
you can listen to the dog, and you can reward
it for doing appropriate bay. So what I do is
when I when I'm home, I set this little unit
up beside the bed somewhere or somewhere that suits you,
and then I call the dog over to it, and
then I click and yes, and I food reward it
(07:22):
for just sitting in front of the little unit and
tell them to lie down to do a couple of things.
What I'm doing is I'm engaging physically and with a reward,
and so I'm rewarding him for engaging with me without
being anxious. And when I'm there and then I slowly
start doing it, just a little bit out of the way.
I go out the backyard and do it. Then I
start driving away, and then I've got the system that
(07:44):
I can communicate, relate to them, check up on them,
make sure things are going well, and reward them for
doing appropriate.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
What's that what's that product called. What's it called?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
It's called pet cube? Is one of them? Ce pet cube?
Speaker 6 (07:56):
I might check that out.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
My son had this horrific idea that he that he
said to me once a couple of weeks ago when
we were walking our dog along the beach. He goes
because when we leave the house with them, we take
him to the beach. He must be at home thinking
that every time we leave the house we're going to
we're going to the beach without it, because he doesn't
know that we go to work, in school and all
the things we do.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, exactly, but you'll be surprised. He doesn't know where
you go and based on what you do. Oh that's true. Yeah,
you let your togs and your taell.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Then he knows smart creatures. We're joined by Mark Vidia,
world renowned and animal behaviorists, taking your calls and questions
on our one hundred and eighty ten eighty Catherine, how
are you?
Speaker 5 (08:38):
I'm good?
Speaker 8 (08:39):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
How are you good?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Mark is standing by you.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Go for it than so.
Speaker 8 (08:44):
Much shy Mark.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
Hey, We've got a gorgeous.
Speaker 8 (08:48):
Hue rescue puppy. He's about four and a half months
old now and obviously has had a harder start to
life than all all animals, and he's very, very attached,
very quickly. So I literally go to the litter box
and it's like Hunt left him for a year and
(09:11):
jumped and cried and he's, you know, quite genuinely upseats.
But I've literally been gone for thirty seconds. Is there
anything I can do to help.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Him with their Yeah, definitely, definitely. So you heard me.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Might have hit me just on the previous calls that
the previous one may have been separated distress, but it
didn't didn't sound like that was. But this is so,
and it's very natural for dogs, and particularly so with
rescue dogs because of course they come out of a
tough situation often and once they get that forever owner,
you know, got their paws wrapped around that forever owner there,
(09:47):
they ain't going to let go, and so there's a
bit of you know, extra attachment happens when the dogs
had a tough start. That's not unusual. Now by what
age was was he when you got him?
Speaker 8 (09:59):
We've had him for seven weeks.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Now, yeah, okay, yeah, so he was Yeah, so it's
just over to two and a half months when you
got him.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Something like that was he maybe three months?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Yeah, so look slightly late, you know, because the formative
period is three to sixteen weeks, you know, so that's
the time. By four months there's socialization. It closes down
a little bit, but clearly it is quite social. So
that's good. But separation distress is an over attachment issue.
And you can always jump on that. I've got a
discount fifty percent discount on dogsen dot com just dogs
(10:35):
End fifty.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Jump on and look at.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
The video that I call graduated departure for separation distress.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
And that's what you need to do.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
And you heard me just talk about that tool also
that I was just talking about the pet cube. That's
another tool that's really useful for separation distress. So you
can you can grab those quite easily, and that's the
one that delivers the food award. You can talk through
cam your phone to the dog, listen to it and
so on. But what the beauty of it is is
(11:05):
you can use that to do the graduated department you
graduated barts where you're teaching it to stay separated from
you for very short periods of time and you go
back and click and reward it and then you move
away for longer, come back and click and reward it
for staying calm. And so you're teaching it to stay
calm while you're there still, but you're just out in
the back or moving into another room. And so you
(11:25):
get that graduation where they get to learn to stay
non anxious while you're separated. And then you increase the
time you know, and so it's a systematic process of desensitization.
So it's an easy thing to do, but it does
take a an effort. And the sooner you do it,
and even you know you don't do if you do
it before you need to, that's even better. But here
we are, so now we need to do that, and
(11:47):
as I said, add in the pet cuban that really
speeds the process up.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, great question, Thank you very much, Catherine. Just on
the rescue versus a pure breed or a dog that
you buy, is it true Mark that you know a
lot of people say rescue puppies or animals tend to
have a bit more psychological problems. Is that true or
is that hyped up a little bit much?
Speaker 4 (12:09):
They certainly can have, but the beauty of getting a
puppy a rescue puppy. It's easy to get a rescue
puppy than a rescue adult to be bunted, because the
rescue adults often do come with a bit of baggage.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
At the same time.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
You know, I've trained, and remember our previous TV shows
were we rescued many, many different dogs and them they're
all doable. It's just takes a bit more effort. But
if you can get a rescue puppy, that's even better
because as long as it's not too late into their
socialization period. So if you get it ideally before three months,
(12:44):
or certainly buy three months, then you're pretty well going
to be fine. You just need to get stuck in
a bit more seriously in that first month. But I
like to do that two to four month period. If
I can get that period and get a pup on
that time, I can create what I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Have for life, a really great pup.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
That's the time when the eighty percent of the brain
wires up, and that's when you really want to be
doing your stuff and doing the right stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, very good.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
So this this pet cube thing where you'd be sitting
there firing off treats and talking to your pet when.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
You're out of the house, you can go to another.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Step if you want to go fully crazy, and you
get these robots, these pet robots that you can talk
out of it, and can drop food out of it,
and you can chase it around the house and be
a friend to your dog while you're while you're at work.
But I know how much your boss would like it.
I don't know how much your boss would like that
you're just running this remote control robot and entertaining your
(13:38):
dog the whole day when you're at work.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I'm all in.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
They're going to have to deal with that.
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Whether you it's it's more. It's a mere four hundred
and sixty nine ninety nine if you want.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
That, if you want to chase you, Yeah, chase your
cattle dog around the house with a little robot and
put that on the mortgage.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
Ye, fire some food in it.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
We're joined by Mark Vidia, world renowned animal behaviorist, and
here's the founder of dogs in. You can check it
out dogs in dot com. Mark, thank you again very
much for your time.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Good, Now, you shouldn't have mentioned the pet tube because
I've just been watching Matt. I think he's just input
it as credit card details in and he's all, it's
on its way.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
And then Tyler'll be looking over to me when we're
in deep of a serious conversation on the show, and
I'll be just talking to Colin and.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Find yeah, yeah, I one hundred and eighty ten eighty
is the number to call if you've got a question
for Mark Stuart. How are you good?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Afternoon?
Speaker 9 (14:33):
Good? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Now what's your question?
Speaker 9 (14:37):
I have a eleven year old rescue dog mcspreed, one
of the breeds being a hunter way and he gets
a little bit vocal when he gets excited, specifically going
to the beach, and when people arrive at home he
likes to obviously greet them and then run inside buck
his head off to let us know that someone's right. So,
(15:00):
really just trying to get see the boys under control
without to be honest, I'm not really keen on the
bark follows or anything like yeah look.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
At yeah there is yeah, there is this training and
at eleven years old, it takes a little bit of
extra work.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
He's underway.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Of course, they have a great voice, they like to
talk and so that and that's all normal. But it's
pretty easy to click and train them to a quiet command,
and you can always jump on the school and follow
the quiet video where I teach you a quiet command.
But basically this is the basics of it. So it's
pretty simple. Get yourself a clicker and a pouch, and
(15:39):
we set them up and normally I steted them up
on a clip station, which is a short, short lead,
and wear them on the lead, and I'm just so
I get them speaking, and oftentimes for a hunter way,
I'll teach them to speak and then to be quiet,
which means he learns to bark and be quiet, so
he learns what quiet means in relation to barking. So
(16:00):
there is a slight risk in some of them where
they get a bit too vocal when you're get them
to speak, and they love that, but at the end
of the day then you're just focusing on the quiet.
But we click and reward him for quiet for ten
seconds and then twenty seconds and then thirty seconds, and
we teach him to delay. That delay is barking for
that reward, and by the time you get to a
(16:20):
minute or two, you've got your quiet command on, and
then you're start working them into those situations where he's
doing it because obviously he's doing it in high arousal
situations beach and visitors coming. So start out of that context.
Always start in a simple context. Once you've got the
command on him, then start working on lead into that situation.
(16:41):
And as I said, the video shows you exactly how
to do it, and you're also using a check lead
just to stop him if he gets really vocal, and
then click and rewarding him. It's called contrast training, and
it teaches him to be quiet normally. Within a couple
of days you can get that sort.
Speaker 9 (16:57):
Of Yeah, I don't go. Definitely have a look at
the online here.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Yeah, if you jump on at the moment, you can
get dogs in fifty. You get a fifty per cent
diskin on that first month.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
The most hard.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
It's just on a monthly basis. So you just jump
on and just learn how to do it and then
jump off and you're all good.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
A horrific thing I witnessed was the neighbors of my
grandmother who had three Corl geese, and they barked a lot,
and then one day she got their voice boxes removed,
and then constantly you had these cargy's going.
Speaker 6 (17:32):
This is concept sound.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
It was. It was horrific gets your dog's de bag,
it's not.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
Is that something that people can still do? Mark? Is
that still a yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I'm trying to think whether we've we've stopped most of
those kind of operations. I must just check with debaking.
As far as I'm aware, it's it's not recommended. Certainly
it was a horror show.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
Yeah, those three corgis were a horror show.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Not pretty sound. Is it's worse on the back?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, exactly. We are joined by Mark Viddi, a world
renowned animal behaviorist. He's an author, he's a TV personality
and he knows his stuff. So he's taking your calls
on our eight hundred and eighty ten eighty.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
I was just talking before about the horror show of
the three corgies that lived next to my grandmother that
had their They were devocalized, they had their barking.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
Yeah, I guess the voice boxes removed from them.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
I'm so excited to see them because they said, love
those corgies.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
They'd run out of bark at me. One day it
turned up.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And was.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
I've just looked that surgical procedures that are restricted under S.
Seventeen of the Animal Welfare Act nineteen ninety nine and
can only be performed in the interests of the animals.
Include debarking a dog, decloring a cat, and docking the
tail of a horse. So you can't debark your dog
just because it's annoying you. It has to be for
the welfare of the animal.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
That is great news.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, definite.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
O one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number
to call. If you can't get through, keep trying. Aaron
Mark is standing by for your question.
Speaker 7 (19:05):
Yeah, how you go?
Speaker 10 (19:06):
And hey, full house. So I'll start from the beginning
and got a cat eleven and a half years old.
My son is eight years old, just turned eight. The
next household member was a pincer cross Foxy Jesse, she's
just turned three. Then we rehals a toy Caverdle just
(19:29):
over a year ago, who is about mid here, she'll
be turning four. Then a toy covert found a kissen
just before Christmas, so we've now got a kissing as well.
It's be the heck of a story. The old girl
cat she hated everyone that came into the house. She
(19:51):
now gets a little fairly well with everyone and has
actually become a bit more social. Jesse, the three year
old mini pinzer cross Foxy, she hasn't been fixed, so
she's the only one that hasn't been fixed. We were
originally going to try and find a breeding partner for her,
but we've sort of changed sort of plans and now
(20:12):
going to look towards fixing her. But she has grown
a bit of an attitude of being the boss and
the house.
Speaker 7 (20:21):
And can be quite.
Speaker 10 (20:22):
Aggressive towards the other girls, like not to a point
that I'm overly worried, but I don't want it to
keep manifesting, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Yeah, she's forwarded, you say, and three, Yeah, and she
is she coming to still she's still entire. Does she
get worse when she comes into heat?
Speaker 10 (20:46):
Yes, yes, she does get a little bit worse when
she comes into heat.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeh could could make a difference because the estern hormone
you know, that obviously peaks when they're going through stress.
When they go through heat, is also increases aggressiveness often
so often, and that's the the contributing factors, only one
of them. So de sexing her should you know, decrease
(21:12):
that that behavior that influence, so that that's one benefit.
The other thing I'd be doing is I'd be doing
some direct socialization work identify the ones she's having problems with,
and it's typically females versus females. Females fight females, Males
fight males in the dog worlders of generalization and male's
(21:35):
count out and females so like so that, but basically
you know that the females are going to fight if
they're going to fight. Now, what I'd normally work with
is teachers using a clicker training technique or a click
and reward them for contact immediately around each other. So
I really get them to like being around each other
(21:56):
by rewarding them for doing that, and so regularly.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
Sorry, generally speaking, they are they're actually really good friends
and will curl up with each other.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Contact, Lucy, So, what context is the aggression of going in?
Speaker 7 (22:14):
She over barks and over dominates the other girls in
the house as your cats and the dog, and she's
out in public, she's become a bit more aggressive towards
bigger dogs.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah, So on the if you jump, if you want
to jump on the school and look at what it
called the meet and Greek technique, which is a training
technique particularly for meeting other dogs. But it applies to
your dogs as well, particularly when you come home all
those high arousal situations, which is probably when this is happening.
Doesn't sound like she's flying and then trying to attack them,
So that's good news. But really we wanted just to
(22:51):
curtail that behavior. As I said, the the sexing may help.
And secondly i'd be doing that meet and greet technique.
And if you jump online, have a look at that
shows you how to do that with her and other dogs,
and her and your dogs.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
But that's the technique that'll change it. All the very
reck at that.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, all the very best there. And it sounds like
you've got quite the doctor. Do a little situation going on.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Eleven cat eleven, son ate, minipincer GC three, TOYKVITLE four
and now kitten you've got You've got a lot on there.
A bunch of texts coming through as well. His phone calls,
this is an interesting one for a little gross. How
do I stop my border collie eating his own leavings?
And is that bad for him?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:37):
So it's called coprophasia, and and it's a it's not
an uncommon baby, it's not a common baby. But of
course for dogs it's not as gross as it is
for humans. Dogs eat feces. In fact, they used to
eat our feces. That's how they co involved with us.
And because you know, we leave a whole lot of
(23:58):
stuff and our digestives, you know, and our and our feces.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That's quite good to eat if you've got a fisher
like them.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
But but anyway, the bottom line is it's not desirable behavior.
It can be induced by dietary deficiencies, but normally it's
something that develops when they're a pup and they're in
a feces strewn kind of environment and they learn to
eat the feces in that context. So normally what we
do is it might sound a bit, it gets a
(24:25):
placid gloves out. We bade up the feces with something
foul tasting but non toxic, and and we've start with
a taste of version.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Is there something fouler than dog feces out there?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
There is the dogs?
Speaker 4 (24:42):
So you know, caye ande peppers and you go through
you make sure you check that it's not a toxic substance.
Put it in a piece of meat, watch them spit
it out. If that works, then that's the one to
start with, and that's the first technique. We use as
other techniques, but that's that that's the common first one,
and we also look at balancing that dietary deficiencies that
could be part of the cause.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
Very cool, thanks for sure.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
It doesn't make for nice breath, does it when they
start doing that.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
You don't want to be licked by a dog that
does that. Joined by Mark Vitti, a world renowned animal behaviorist.
You know him well when he's taking your questions on
our eight hundred and eighty teen eighty. If you've got
a few issues with your pet, shall we say he
is the man that you should be chatting to.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
He's also very popular by the amount of texts in
the avalanche of phone calls we're getting coming through non stop.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
But if you can't get through, keep trying and if
you want to send a text question, you more than welcome.
Nine to nine to two, Pam. You've got a issue
with your golden retriever.
Speaker 11 (25:37):
Yes, it's a family one, and he keeps taking different
items like tee taels, clothes, keys, footwear, hides them and
they haven't been able to find them. They've got a
really large section, but there's hunters and hunters, and we
don't know where he's burying them. He goes to doggy
(25:57):
day care once a week and other than that, he's
a great dog. But he's just he's just getting a pain,
just can't find these things.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Well, he's a Golden retriever. Of course, I've got one
of those, so I know what it's like. And he
loves to have something in his mouth, doesn't he. And
he's a typical golden retriever. And of course, and that
means they wander off with them and certainly they can
end up in the wrong place.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
There's there's a.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Technique that I that I teach in the school called
discrimination training. And if you jump on and have a
look at that video, that teaches you how to teach
him to discriminate about what he's allowed to take and
what he's not allowed to take.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And discrimination training is the technique.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
It's a clicker training technique, and I use the long
line in the check lead, and so we're teaching him
how to discriminate and what to discriminate. So he has
all his things he's allowed and we make sure he's
got plenty of those and we teach him that he's
allowed those things, and then we teach him that he's
not allowed the other things. Jump on the video, have
a look and see how I do it, and teach
you how to do it. And as I said, the dogs,
(27:07):
how old is he now?
Speaker 11 (27:09):
Or probably six? I would say.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Six, yeah, so yeah, I mean he's still middle aid,
so still able to learn. And you know, opten to
get a dog. By the time they are nine or ten,
it gets pretty hard work trying to get them to.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Rewire the behaviors.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
But of course this is a natural behavior for a
golden retriever to retrieve and to take it around and
take it places. So the only way to teach him
to stop doing it is to teach him to discriminate
what he's allowed to touch and what he's not allowed.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So jump on it. Dogs in fifty.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
If you put that and you're going to discount for
the first month, you'll only need it for a month
and then'll get the things sorted and you'll have a
dog that doesn't steal all your good stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Good luck.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
I hope that helps.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
Pam Holly, you've got an anxious dog.
Speaker 12 (27:53):
Lick yes, a high mass and child and thanks for
taking my call.
Speaker 11 (27:59):
Mark.
Speaker 12 (28:00):
We've got a fucky Chiwava bearded collige cross. We've got
eight weeks old, and she's been reflect really well, socialized,
score pick up coffee shops, whited ten dog packwalks. We've
conditioned her to be home a line for short periods
and hunts and hunt the tree and don't make a
fuss when we come home. She just we just blamed
(28:20):
on and she's been really good here. And it seems
to be an allergy song that she's got where she's
licks her front feet. We wondered if it was Takeorea,
whether it was a chicken based allergy.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Right, she's not, she's not.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
She's not suffering separation, distressed by the sounds. It sounds
like you're doing you've done a good job of that.
So she's not licking the top of the poor where
she's got a kind of a lesion on the top
of the floor paw.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
She's licking between the toes.
Speaker 12 (28:52):
It's well up up the back of the foot to
the little toe. We would call it got on a horse.
I don't know what you call it on a dog.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yea, yeah, So she's so what what? What?
Speaker 4 (29:06):
What's going on? There by the sounds of it. It
sounds like a contact alogy. The most common cause of
a contact alogy is wandering Jew, believe.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
It or not.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
And most people underneath their plants are wandering Jew of
some kind and that's really causes quite a bad inflammation
and that analogy. And so that's probably what it is.
But the best thing is is check it out with
the vet.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
And there's verse tests they can do.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
They determine whether it's a food allergy or contact alogy
or some other kind of cause. But it's really more
of a medical issue that one. But yeah, that's the
I would suggest it's probably wandering Jew or something like
that that's causing her a contact alogy under a feet.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
I hope that works. Good luck, Gale.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
You've got a dog that's not answering your calls.
Speaker 13 (29:59):
No shot, take your space, can you hear me? Okay?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yep, got a loud and clear you go for a Gale?
Speaker 9 (30:04):
Hi Hi, Okay.
Speaker 13 (30:06):
We've got to six a half year old, very small, adorable,
many Shnaus with her. We just love and she's she's
always been very stubborn. I think many Schnauss are incredibly stubborn.
And it's my way off the highway. So she's been
quite hard to turn off her dogs. In my life,
I've never known such a bad recall. She's fine with
my daughter, who's actually sort of broken horses and stuff.
(30:27):
So Lou's a very stern voice. She's a union now.
But when I take her for a walk twice a day,
she's she's a let's a sniffer, sniff sniffer, And I
get that that's their social thing, but you just can't
walk with her because or off leash, because you'd be
two kays down the road and she's still sniffing somewhere else.
And it's just that's not fun so much now, you know,
(30:51):
Because then I'm wondering because when she was younger, she's
spent a lot of time on the farm, and that's
the fun. So she could run around heart bloods, you.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
Know, with my jack rustle Whnie snows across. Very familiar
to me.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Oh yeah, that's very much all those breeds, you know,
in any any breed that's got us and learns to
usually knows a lot. Of course, dog's got two million
times better smell than us, So it's not surprising that
they're reading the newspaper while they're on the walk and
that's exactly what they do do. So that really is
(31:27):
is normally I use clicker training for recall. It's the
most effective way and long line and there's actually a
want the video on recall on the school that you
can check out and just see how how I do it.
And it's and you want to be working on a
long line after a while. So she's dragging the long line.
And but you you need to have use contrast training,
(31:50):
which is the technique which I teach in there, and
and you need to prove it, which means you need
to once you've trained it in an easy situation, then
you need to systematically work it out and the more
difficult situations where there's dogs and people and lots of
things around.
Speaker 6 (32:06):
Luck with your sniffy miniche. Now the scales. It's my
life every morning.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Now, mar we've got about sixty seconds left, so hopefully
that's enough time. Quick text question, Guys, my six month
old labrador jumps all over me in the morning until
I feed him. It's chaos. Will he ever settle down?
Please help?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Clicker training is again the trick with labradors. If so
food oriented, get him on the clicker. Clicker means he
learns to exactly what you want him to do. And
the trick there is click and reward four feet on
the ground and he will earn that hours.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Brilliant.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
It's easy to do really, particularly with the lab because
he's so food oriented.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
We've run out of time, but man, we could have
done this for four hours and we'll still have calls
to get to, so we'll catch you again at about
a month's time. If you want to check out Mark
dog Zen dot com. And as you've mentioned throughout the hour,
you've got a bit of a deal line at the moment, Mark.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Yeah, and just jump on our Facebook age and meet
us there and you do blogs and talkbacks and Facebook
lives and all types of stuff, so you can communicate
with me there as well when you can't get me
on the great show.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Brilliant stuff. Thank you very much, Mark, we'll catch you
again very soon. That is Mark Vinnie world renowned Animal behaviors.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
For more from News Talk st B, listen live on
air or online and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed Be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Now this is going to be a good hour, as
it was last time he was on the show. Mark
Vitti is a world renowned animal behaviorist, dog trainer, and
educator who has been working with animals for over forty years.
He's a trained animal psychologist and created the Dogs In
online training program. He's about to launch Cats In and
joins us once again on the program. Mark, very good
(00:38):
afternoon to you.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah, okay, Matt and Tyler, how are you very good?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
How's the Cats In coming along? I know that that's
been a work in progress for some time.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Just finished it up last week. Hands in all done,
very happy. That's in the Gentle Cat Teachers. You had
a raisor cat that doesn't happen, So.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
There you go.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Okay, And when when's that out? If Tyler didn't say,
did you say Noptember? September?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
September is the date apparently, so stopping looking.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Forward to that else, stocking stuff for that one.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Absolutely fantastic, right, Mark. So, as we mentioned numerous times,
it was you were so popular last time that we
had to extend it out a bit. And already the
phone lines have lit up in the texts have come in,
so we'll get into it straight away. If that's okay with.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
You, excellent, It's all good. I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number
to call.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Yeah, have you got a problem with your dog or
cat or whatever pet and its behavior?
Speaker 6 (01:36):
Give us a ring.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty, Alan, welcome the show.
Speaker 7 (01:40):
Yeah, okay, Mark, Hey, we've got an answer. She's about
five at the moment. She's five. She just won't stop
running away. Like We literally have to lock every window,
every door if we go out, and if we don't,
she will find a way out. She squeezed through a window.
(02:01):
That's you know how. It's got the latchures on so
you can't push it out too far. She squeezed through that.
If we leave her out backyard, she will dig her
way out. We run her daily. We take her on
sniff walk to try and stimulate her. She's my wife
is working from home, so she's got company there. My
wife goes out, she will try and get out. We
(02:23):
just don't blem and know what to do, and we
we live in an area in South auklandre there's a
lot of straight dogs around, but we see them walking
around and they end up going home usually, but our
dog will go and not come back at all.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
So I does she suffer separation distress? Does she get
anxious and whine and howl and get distressed when when
you go?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Is that the problem?
Speaker 7 (02:49):
Not at all? Not at all, And she doesn't know
it from home either, So we and when we got
her as a pub she was what fourteen weeks, so
I mean not too young.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
No, no, it's nice, nice to get them in eight weeks.
But that's all right. So I mean there's no trouble
with her bond with you by the sound, so she's
obviously very attached. But yeah, I mean, basically, it'll come
down to environmental management with a situation. If it's not
separation distress, which is the common cause of that, you know,
when they try and escape when you head out, then
(03:24):
it's environmental management. And the good thing about environmental management
you can normally set it up so it's safe. But
you're right, if she's literally squeezing through and breaking through things,
it does make it difficult. There are things called a
sonic boundary, which can teach them to stay within a boundary.
And so that's kind of a tool that you can
(03:45):
use for those dogs that are just really challenging in
those situations, and that might be where you need to
go to keep her in and it certainly it works,
but it's he's got to decide whether that's the way
you want to go. It's called a sonic boundary, and
there's a number of different companies that make them.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
So have a go at that.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, chance that I appreciate that. We'll give there
to go. So you reckon. There's nothing mentally or anything
like that wrong with it.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
She's not suffering separation distress.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah, she's just an escape artist. I mean she's obviously
learned to get out. Once they get out and they
start getting out, they learn to become who denis, you know,
they start to really challenge the system once they get out,
and then you kind of jigg it up a little
bit and then they think, oh, I can try harder,
and they do when they get out, then they start
getting better at it, which is what's going on there.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So sonic boundary might be the story for you.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
All the best. Thanks very much for giving us a
buzz and having a chet to mark. So just on
those sonic boundaries, how does that work? I take it
it's the collar based system and they get away vibration
if they get too close to it.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Is that helps? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it gives you learn.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
They learn by setting up a boundary and as they approach,
the boundary gives a warning tone about a met her
out and then if they go close, it gives a
little static correction and very quickly they learn don't go
hear that. And then you can set the boundary up
right around your fence line and anywhere else you know
(05:14):
that you want. You can do acres of land if
you want to. But some people don't like using them,
but that they are an option for those dogs that
are going to get run over or cause trouble out
and about.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
Yeah, great, I've got I've got a question for you
jumping there. We've got four lines. But I'm going to
use this.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
The advantage I have and controlling the mic. When my
dog Colin when I leave the house right and has
that really sad look on his face because you're leaving
and he sits down, he locks, and it's sad. Is
that actual sadness or is it just got he's got
a sad face and b.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
How much anguish does he.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Go through in the time that we're away? Is it
Is it the whole time he's feeling that that way
he's looking at you when you leave, or or does
he get over it and just go and have a
sleep and run around and do his stuff.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Yeah, well, there's there's two aspects that I mean, basically,
dogs do we now know, feel emotions just like we do,
and that you know, they're not necessarily exactly you know,
we answer Morphis and say they're you know, they're the
same as ours. They're not necessarily exactly the same. But
of course dogs are highly social and get highly attached
to the owners.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
The more over.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Attached the dog gets, the more it's prone to separation
to stress. So the ones who suffer separation to stress,
owl and bark and destroy and toilet and do all
different things while you're away are the more serious cases.
Then you know that they're suffering real anxiety in those situations.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But I'll tell you what, there's.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
One really cool tool that helps both you and the
dog to resolve that issue. One of the makes is
called a pet Cube, and there's fur Cam. There's a
number of different ones. It's a little unit that distributes
a food reward automatically from just a single food reward
from the unit. You've got an app on your phone.
(07:01):
You can talk to the dog, you can watch the dog,
you can listen to the dog, and you can reward
it for doing appropriate bay. So what I do is
when I when I'm home, I set this little unit
up beside the bed somewhere or somewhere that suits you,
and then I call the dog over to it, and
then I click and yes, and I food reward it
(07:22):
for just sitting in front of the little unit and
tell them to lie down to do a couple of things.
What I'm doing is I'm engaging physically and with a reward,
and so I'm rewarding him for engaging with me without
being anxious. And when I'm there and then I slowly
start doing it, just a little bit out of the way.
I go out the backyard and do it. Then I
start driving away, and then I've got the system that
(07:44):
I can communicate, relate to them, check up on them,
make sure things are going well, and reward them for
doing appropriate.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
What's that what's that product called. What's it called?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
It's called pet cube? Is one of them? Ce pet cube?
Speaker 6 (07:56):
I might check that out.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
My son had this horrific idea that he that he
said to me once a couple of weeks ago when
we were walking our dog along the beach. He goes
because when we leave the house with them, we take
him to the beach. He must be at home thinking
that every time we leave the house we're going to
we're going to the beach without it, because he doesn't
know that we go to work, in school and all
the things we do.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, exactly, but you'll be surprised. He doesn't know where
you go and based on what you do. Oh that's true. Yeah,
you let your togs and your taell.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Then he knows smart creatures. We're joined by Mark Vidia,
world renowned and animal behaviorists, taking your calls and questions
on our one hundred and eighty ten eighty Catherine, how
are you?
Speaker 5 (08:38):
I'm good?
Speaker 8 (08:39):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
How are you good?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Mark is standing by you.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Go for it than so.
Speaker 8 (08:44):
Much shy Mark.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
Hey, We've got a gorgeous.
Speaker 8 (08:48):
Hue rescue puppy. He's about four and a half months
old now and obviously has had a harder start to
life than all all animals, and he's very, very attached,
very quickly. So I literally go to the litter box
and it's like Hunt left him for a year and
(09:11):
jumped and cried and he's, you know, quite genuinely upseats.
But I've literally been gone for thirty seconds. Is there
anything I can do to help.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Him with their Yeah, definitely, definitely. So you heard me.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Might have hit me just on the previous calls that
the previous one may have been separated distress, but it
didn't didn't sound like that was. But this is so,
and it's very natural for dogs, and particularly so with
rescue dogs because of course they come out of a
tough situation often and once they get that forever owner,
you know, got their paws wrapped around that forever owner there,
(09:47):
they ain't going to let go, and so there's a
bit of you know, extra attachment happens when the dogs
had a tough start. That's not unusual. Now by what
age was was he when you got him?
Speaker 8 (09:59):
We've had him for seven weeks.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Now, yeah, okay, yeah, so he was Yeah, so it's
just over to two and a half months when you
got him.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Something like that was he maybe three months?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Yeah, so look slightly late, you know, because the formative
period is three to sixteen weeks, you know, so that's
the time. By four months there's socialization. It closes down
a little bit, but clearly it is quite social. So
that's good. But separation distress is an over attachment issue.
And you can always jump on that. I've got a
discount fifty percent discount on dogsen dot com just dogs
(10:35):
End fifty.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Jump on and look at.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
The video that I call graduated departure for separation distress.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
And that's what you need to do.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
And you heard me just talk about that tool also
that I was just talking about the pet cube. That's
another tool that's really useful for separation distress. So you
can you can grab those quite easily, and that's the
one that delivers the food award. You can talk through
cam your phone to the dog, listen to it and
so on. But what the beauty of it is is
(11:05):
you can use that to do the graduated department you
graduated barts where you're teaching it to stay separated from
you for very short periods of time and you go
back and click and reward it and then you move
away for longer, come back and click and reward it
for staying calm. And so you're teaching it to stay
calm while you're there still, but you're just out in
the back or moving into another room. And so you
(11:25):
get that graduation where they get to learn to stay
non anxious while you're separated. And then you increase the
time you know, and so it's a systematic process of desensitization.
So it's an easy thing to do, but it does
take a an effort. And the sooner you do it,
and even you know you don't do if you do
it before you need to, that's even better. But here
we are, so now we need to do that, and
(11:47):
as I said, add in the pet cuban that really
speeds the process up.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, great question, Thank you very much, Catherine. Just on
the rescue versus a pure breed or a dog that
you buy, is it true Mark that you know a
lot of people say rescue puppies or animals tend to
have a bit more psychological problems. Is that true or
is that hyped up a little bit much?
Speaker 4 (12:09):
They certainly can have, but the beauty of getting a
puppy a rescue puppy. It's easy to get a rescue
puppy than a rescue adult to be bunted, because the
rescue adults often do come with a bit of baggage.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
At the same time.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
You know, I've trained, and remember our previous TV shows
were we rescued many, many different dogs and them they're
all doable. It's just takes a bit more effort. But
if you can get a rescue puppy, that's even better
because as long as it's not too late into their
socialization period. So if you get it ideally before three months,
(12:44):
or certainly buy three months, then you're pretty well going
to be fine. You just need to get stuck in
a bit more seriously in that first month. But I
like to do that two to four month period. If
I can get that period and get a pup on
that time, I can create what I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Have for life, a really great pup.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
That's the time when the eighty percent of the brain
wires up, and that's when you really want to be
doing your stuff and doing the right stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, very good.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
So this this pet cube thing where you'd be sitting
there firing off treats and talking to your pet when.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
You're out of the house, you can go to another.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Step if you want to go fully crazy, and you
get these robots, these pet robots that you can talk
out of it, and can drop food out of it,
and you can chase it around the house and be
a friend to your dog while you're while you're at work.
But I know how much your boss would like it.
I don't know how much your boss would like that
you're just running this remote control robot and entertaining your
(13:38):
dog the whole day when you're at work.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I'm all in.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
They're going to have to deal with that.
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Whether you it's it's more. It's a mere four hundred
and sixty nine ninety nine if you want.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
That, if you want to chase you, Yeah, chase your
cattle dog around the house with a little robot and
put that on the mortgage.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
Ye, fire some food in it.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
We're joined by Mark Vidia, world renowned animal behaviorist, and
here's the founder of dogs in. You can check it
out dogs in dot com. Mark, thank you again very
much for your time.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Good, Now, you shouldn't have mentioned the pet tube because
I've just been watching Matt. I think he's just input
it as credit card details in and he's all, it's
on its way.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
And then Tyler'll be looking over to me when we're
in deep of a serious conversation on the show, and
I'll be just talking to Colin and.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Find yeah, yeah, I one hundred and eighty ten eighty
is the number to call if you've got a question
for Mark Stuart. How are you good?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Afternoon?
Speaker 9 (14:33):
Good? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Now what's your question?
Speaker 9 (14:37):
I have a eleven year old rescue dog mcspreed, one
of the breeds being a hunter way and he gets
a little bit vocal when he gets excited, specifically going
to the beach, and when people arrive at home he
likes to obviously greet them and then run inside buck
his head off to let us know that someone's right. So,
(15:00):
really just trying to get see the boys under control
without to be honest, I'm not really keen on the
bark follows or anything like yeah look.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
At yeah there is yeah, there is this training and
at eleven years old, it takes a little bit of
extra work.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
He's underway.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Of course, they have a great voice, they like to
talk and so that and that's all normal. But it's
pretty easy to click and train them to a quiet command,
and you can always jump on the school and follow
the quiet video where I teach you a quiet command.
But basically this is the basics of it. So it's
pretty simple. Get yourself a clicker and a pouch, and
(15:39):
we set them up and normally I steted them up
on a clip station, which is a short, short lead,
and wear them on the lead, and I'm just so
I get them speaking, and oftentimes for a hunter way,
I'll teach them to speak and then to be quiet,
which means he learns to bark and be quiet, so
he learns what quiet means in relation to barking. So
(16:00):
there is a slight risk in some of them where
they get a bit too vocal when you're get them
to speak, and they love that, but at the end
of the day then you're just focusing on the quiet.
But we click and reward him for quiet for ten
seconds and then twenty seconds and then thirty seconds, and
we teach him to delay. That delay is barking for
that reward, and by the time you get to a
(16:20):
minute or two, you've got your quiet command on, and
then you're start working them into those situations where he's
doing it because obviously he's doing it in high arousal
situations beach and visitors coming. So start out of that context.
Always start in a simple context. Once you've got the
command on him, then start working on lead into that situation.
(16:41):
And as I said, the video shows you exactly how
to do it, and you're also using a check lead
just to stop him if he gets really vocal, and
then click and rewarding him. It's called contrast training, and
it teaches him to be quiet normally. Within a couple
of days you can get that sort.
Speaker 9 (16:57):
Of Yeah, I don't go. Definitely have a look at
the online here.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Yeah, if you jump on at the moment, you can
get dogs in fifty. You get a fifty per cent
diskin on that first month.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
The most hard.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
It's just on a monthly basis. So you just jump
on and just learn how to do it and then
jump off and you're all good.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
A horrific thing I witnessed was the neighbors of my
grandmother who had three Corl geese, and they barked a lot,
and then one day she got their voice boxes removed,
and then constantly you had these cargy's going.
Speaker 6 (17:32):
This is concept sound.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
It was. It was horrific gets your dog's de bag,
it's not.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
Is that something that people can still do? Mark? Is
that still a yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I'm trying to think whether we've we've stopped most of
those kind of operations. I must just check with debaking.
As far as I'm aware, it's it's not recommended. Certainly
it was a horror show.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
Yeah, those three corgis were a horror show.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Not pretty sound. Is it's worse on the back?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, exactly. We are joined by Mark Viddi, a world
renowned animal behaviorist. He's an author, he's a TV personality
and he knows his stuff. So he's taking your calls
on our eight hundred and eighty ten eighty.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
I was just talking before about the horror show of
the three corgies that lived next to my grandmother that
had their They were devocalized, they had their barking.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
Yeah, I guess the voice boxes removed from them.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
I'm so excited to see them because they said, love
those corgies.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
They'd run out of bark at me. One day it
turned up.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And was.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
I've just looked that surgical procedures that are restricted under S.
Seventeen of the Animal Welfare Act nineteen ninety nine and
can only be performed in the interests of the animals.
Include debarking a dog, decloring a cat, and docking the
tail of a horse. So you can't debark your dog
just because it's annoying you. It has to be for
the welfare of the animal.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
That is great news.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, definite.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
O one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number
to call. If you can't get through, keep trying. Aaron
Mark is standing by for your question.
Speaker 7 (19:05):
Yeah, how you go?
Speaker 10 (19:06):
And hey, full house. So I'll start from the beginning
and got a cat eleven and a half years old.
My son is eight years old, just turned eight. The
next household member was a pincer cross Foxy Jesse, she's
just turned three. Then we rehals a toy Caverdle just
(19:29):
over a year ago, who is about mid here, she'll
be turning four. Then a toy covert found a kissen
just before Christmas, so we've now got a kissing as well.
It's be the heck of a story. The old girl
cat she hated everyone that came into the house. She
(19:51):
now gets a little fairly well with everyone and has
actually become a bit more social. Jesse, the three year
old mini pinzer cross Foxy, she hasn't been fixed, so
she's the only one that hasn't been fixed. We were
originally going to try and find a breeding partner for her,
but we've sort of changed sort of plans and now
(20:12):
going to look towards fixing her. But she has grown
a bit of an attitude of being the boss and
the house.
Speaker 7 (20:21):
And can be quite.
Speaker 10 (20:22):
Aggressive towards the other girls, like not to a point
that I'm overly worried, but I don't want it to
keep manifesting, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Yeah, she's forwarded, you say, and three, Yeah, and she
is she coming to still she's still entire. Does she
get worse when she comes into heat?
Speaker 10 (20:46):
Yes, yes, she does get a little bit worse when
she comes into heat.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeh could could make a difference because the estern hormone
you know, that obviously peaks when they're going through stress.
When they go through heat, is also increases aggressiveness often
so often, and that's the the contributing factors, only one
of them. So de sexing her should you know, decrease
(21:12):
that that behavior that influence, so that that's one benefit.
The other thing I'd be doing is I'd be doing
some direct socialization work identify the ones she's having problems with,
and it's typically females versus females. Females fight females, Males
fight males in the dog worlders of generalization and male's
(21:35):
count out and females so like so that, but basically
you know that the females are going to fight if
they're going to fight. Now, what I'd normally work with
is teachers using a clicker training technique or a click
and reward them for contact immediately around each other. So
I really get them to like being around each other
(21:56):
by rewarding them for doing that, and so regularly.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
Sorry, generally speaking, they are they're actually really good friends
and will curl up with each other.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Contact, Lucy, So, what context is the aggression of going in?
Speaker 7 (22:14):
She over barks and over dominates the other girls in
the house as your cats and the dog, and she's
out in public, she's become a bit more aggressive towards
bigger dogs.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah, So on the if you jump, if you want
to jump on the school and look at what it
called the meet and Greek technique, which is a training
technique particularly for meeting other dogs. But it applies to
your dogs as well, particularly when you come home all
those high arousal situations, which is probably when this is happening.
Doesn't sound like she's flying and then trying to attack them,
So that's good news. But really we wanted just to
(22:51):
curtail that behavior. As I said, the the sexing may help.
And secondly i'd be doing that meet and greet technique.
And if you jump online, have a look at that
shows you how to do that with her and other dogs,
and her and your dogs.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
But that's the technique that'll change it. All the very
reck at that.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, all the very best there. And it sounds like
you've got quite the doctor. Do a little situation going on.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Eleven cat eleven, son ate, minipincer GC three, TOYKVITLE four
and now kitten you've got You've got a lot on there.
A bunch of texts coming through as well. His phone calls,
this is an interesting one for a little gross. How
do I stop my border collie eating his own leavings?
And is that bad for him?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:37):
So it's called coprophasia, and and it's a it's not
an uncommon baby, it's not a common baby. But of
course for dogs it's not as gross as it is
for humans. Dogs eat feces. In fact, they used to
eat our feces. That's how they co involved with us.
And because you know, we leave a whole lot of
(23:58):
stuff and our digestives, you know, and our and our feces.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That's quite good to eat if you've got a fisher
like them.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
But but anyway, the bottom line is it's not desirable behavior.
It can be induced by dietary deficiencies, but normally it's
something that develops when they're a pup and they're in
a feces strewn kind of environment and they learn to
eat the feces in that context. So normally what we
do is it might sound a bit, it gets a
(24:25):
placid gloves out. We bade up the feces with something
foul tasting but non toxic, and and we've start with
a taste of version.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Is there something fouler than dog feces out there?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
There is the dogs?
Speaker 4 (24:42):
So you know, caye ande peppers and you go through
you make sure you check that it's not a toxic substance.
Put it in a piece of meat, watch them spit
it out. If that works, then that's the one to
start with, and that's the first technique. We use as
other techniques, but that's that that's the common first one,
and we also look at balancing that dietary deficiencies that
could be part of the cause.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
Very cool, thanks for sure.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
It doesn't make for nice breath, does it when they
start doing that.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
You don't want to be licked by a dog that
does that. Joined by Mark Vitti, a world renowned animal behaviorist.
You know him well when he's taking your questions on
our eight hundred and eighty teen eighty. If you've got
a few issues with your pet, shall we say he
is the man that you should be chatting to.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
He's also very popular by the amount of texts in
the avalanche of phone calls we're getting coming through non stop.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
But if you can't get through, keep trying and if
you want to send a text question, you more than welcome.
Nine to nine to two, Pam. You've got a issue
with your golden retriever.
Speaker 11 (25:37):
Yes, it's a family one, and he keeps taking different
items like tee taels, clothes, keys, footwear, hides them and
they haven't been able to find them. They've got a
really large section, but there's hunters and hunters, and we
don't know where he's burying them. He goes to doggy
(25:57):
day care once a week and other than that, he's
a great dog. But he's just he's just getting a pain,
just can't find these things.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Well, he's a Golden retriever. Of course, I've got one
of those, so I know what it's like. And he
loves to have something in his mouth, doesn't he. And
he's a typical golden retriever. And of course, and that
means they wander off with them and certainly they can
end up in the wrong place.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
There's there's a.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Technique that I that I teach in the school called
discrimination training. And if you jump on and have a
look at that video, that teaches you how to teach
him to discriminate about what he's allowed to take and
what he's not allowed to take.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And discrimination training is the technique.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
It's a clicker training technique, and I use the long
line in the check lead, and so we're teaching him
how to discriminate and what to discriminate. So he has
all his things he's allowed and we make sure he's
got plenty of those and we teach him that he's
allowed those things, and then we teach him that he's
not allowed the other things. Jump on the video, have
a look and see how I do it, and teach
you how to do it. And as I said, the dogs,
(27:07):
how old is he now?
Speaker 11 (27:09):
Or probably six? I would say.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Six, yeah, so yeah, I mean he's still middle aid,
so still able to learn. And you know, opten to
get a dog. By the time they are nine or ten,
it gets pretty hard work trying to get them to.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Rewire the behaviors.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
But of course this is a natural behavior for a
golden retriever to retrieve and to take it around and
take it places. So the only way to teach him
to stop doing it is to teach him to discriminate
what he's allowed to touch and what he's not allowed.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So jump on it. Dogs in fifty.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
If you put that and you're going to discount for
the first month, you'll only need it for a month
and then'll get the things sorted and you'll have a
dog that doesn't steal all your good stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Good luck.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
I hope that helps.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
Pam Holly, you've got an anxious dog.
Speaker 12 (27:53):
Lick yes, a high mass and child and thanks for
taking my call.
Speaker 11 (27:59):
Mark.
Speaker 12 (28:00):
We've got a fucky Chiwava bearded collige cross. We've got
eight weeks old, and she's been reflect really well, socialized,
score pick up coffee shops, whited ten dog packwalks. We've
conditioned her to be home a line for short periods
and hunts and hunt the tree and don't make a
fuss when we come home. She just we just blamed
(28:20):
on and she's been really good here. And it seems
to be an allergy song that she's got where she's
licks her front feet. We wondered if it was Takeorea,
whether it was a chicken based allergy.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Right, she's not, she's not.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
She's not suffering separation, distressed by the sounds. It sounds
like you're doing you've done a good job of that.
So she's not licking the top of the poor where
she's got a kind of a lesion on the top
of the floor paw.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
She's licking between the toes.
Speaker 12 (28:52):
It's well up up the back of the foot to
the little toe. We would call it got on a horse.
I don't know what you call it on a dog.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yea, yeah, So she's so what what? What?
Speaker 4 (29:06):
What's going on? There by the sounds of it. It
sounds like a contact alogy. The most common cause of
a contact alogy is wandering Jew, believe.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
It or not.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
And most people underneath their plants are wandering Jew of
some kind and that's really causes quite a bad inflammation
and that analogy. And so that's probably what it is.
But the best thing is is check it out with
the vet.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
And there's verse tests they can do.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
They determine whether it's a food allergy or contact alogy
or some other kind of cause. But it's really more
of a medical issue that one. But yeah, that's the
I would suggest it's probably wandering Jew or something like
that that's causing her a contact alogy under a feet.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
I hope that works. Good luck, Gale.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
You've got a dog that's not answering your calls.
Speaker 13 (29:59):
No shot, take your space, can you hear me? Okay?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yep, got a loud and clear you go for a Gale?
Speaker 9 (30:04):
Hi Hi, Okay.
Speaker 13 (30:06):
We've got to six a half year old, very small, adorable,
many Shnaus with her. We just love and she's she's
always been very stubborn. I think many Schnauss are incredibly stubborn.
And it's my way off the highway. So she's been
quite hard to turn off her dogs. In my life,
I've never known such a bad recall. She's fine with
my daughter, who's actually sort of broken horses and stuff.
(30:27):
So Lou's a very stern voice. She's a union now.
But when I take her for a walk twice a day,
she's she's a let's a sniffer, sniff sniffer, And I
get that that's their social thing, but you just can't
walk with her because or off leash, because you'd be
two kays down the road and she's still sniffing somewhere else.
And it's just that's not fun so much now, you know,
(30:51):
Because then I'm wondering because when she was younger, she's
spent a lot of time on the farm, and that's
the fun. So she could run around heart bloods, you.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
Know, with my jack rustle Whnie snows across. Very familiar
to me.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Oh yeah, that's very much all those breeds, you know,
in any any breed that's got us and learns to
usually knows a lot. Of course, dog's got two million
times better smell than us, So it's not surprising that
they're reading the newspaper while they're on the walk and
that's exactly what they do do. So that really is
(31:27):
is normally I use clicker training for recall. It's the
most effective way and long line and there's actually a
want the video on recall on the school that you
can check out and just see how how I do it.
And it's and you want to be working on a
long line after a while. So she's dragging the long line.
And but you you need to have use contrast training,
(31:50):
which is the technique which I teach in there, and
and you need to prove it, which means you need
to once you've trained it in an easy situation, then
you need to systematically work it out and the more
difficult situations where there's dogs and people and lots of
things around.
Speaker 6 (32:06):
Luck with your sniffy miniche. Now the scales. It's my
life every morning.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Now, mar we've got about sixty seconds left, so hopefully
that's enough time. Quick text question, Guys, my six month
old labrador jumps all over me in the morning until
I feed him. It's chaos. Will he ever settle down?
Please help?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Clicker training is again the trick with labradors. If so
food oriented, get him on the clicker. Clicker means he
learns to exactly what you want him to do. And
the trick there is click and reward four feet on
the ground and he will earn that hours.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Brilliant.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
It's easy to do really, particularly with the lab because
he's so food oriented.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
We've run out of time, but man, we could have
done this for four hours and we'll still have calls
to get to, so we'll catch you again at about
a month's time. If you want to check out Mark
dog Zen dot com. And as you've mentioned throughout the hour,
you've got a bit of a deal line at the moment, Mark.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Yeah, and just jump on our Facebook age and meet
us there and you do blogs and talkbacks and Facebook
lives and all types of stuff, so you can communicate
with me there as well when you can't get me
on the great show.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Brilliant stuff. Thank you very much, Mark, we'll catch you
again very soon. That is Mark Vinnie world renowned Animal behaviors.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
For more from News Talk st B, listen live on
air or online and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
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