July 25, 2023 • 20 mins
Robb Lust, The Dog Professor from the Edgefield Animal Care Center, talks about what you, the owner, needs to mentally do, to prepare yourself for dog training. He digs into a recent scenerio that you may have encountered to teach you to be ready for your dog to accept a new way of doing things.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Jo. What I mean in studiotoday is the dog professor Rob Luss from
the edge Field the Animal Care Center, and Rob, I know that you've
been touring around the Buckeye State visitingvarious breweries and wineries and things like that
that are pet friendly, and we'regoing to be talking a little bit about
some of your experiences with this inthis episode and some coming episodes. But
(00:22):
one of the things that you wantedto talk about today from some of your
experiences of taking your dog out andenjoying other dogs in these situations is what
parents need to do mentally to preparethemselves to go through training, because there's
a lot yeah, I mean training. If you've ever heard anything we've talked
(00:43):
about over the last thirty years,you have to be as mentally prepared to
deal with training as your dog does. Your dog learns very little that they
have to prepare themselves for it.Through training, they have to prepare themselves
for a new routine, and ownersover and over and over again aren't necessarily
prepared in their mind for what they'regoing to have to do to be successful
(01:07):
with training. So a lot oftimes they come for training, the dog
goes through training, they go throughthe follow up lessons, but they never
really change themselves or prepare themselves towake up to the idea that, Okay,
there's one more button I have topush here to make this work.
And that button is me okay.And you know, it just comes to
(01:29):
lights a lot of times because wego out and we you know, we
go to I like going to breweries, distilleries, wineries, that type of
thing, and we like to takethe dog along. And you know,
our dog, Rosy, you know, she's she's our best dog for that
environment during the summer, one becauseshe's just so laid back about things.
(01:49):
And two it's good training for hertoo, because this is you know,
I'd like to I'd like to gether in the out of those environments,
socialize with people, socialize with otherdogs, so forth and so on.
So we are out in public alot seeing other people doing that same thing.
And I know we've talked about inan episode before that just because you
can doesn't mean you should or youknow, so we're kind of on this
(02:13):
kick now about finding out in thestate of Ohio, you know what places
are dog friendly, and just becausethey're dog friendly doesn't mean they're Rosy sized
dog friendly who is a big,big dog. So we we're dipping our
toe in that pool and kind offinding those things out. But what I
find a lot of times when Igo around to these places and it just
(02:36):
reminds me of the psychological aspect thatowners have to prepare themselves for if they
want to be successful in training theirdogs. And it's basically the psycho psychological
thing you have to be prepared forwhen you're training your kids as they're growing
up. It's that same idea becausedogs will take advantage of certain scenarios like
(02:59):
that. And the biggest thing isdealing with the public. You know,
time and time again, I alwaystalk to people, well, my dogs
not doesn't really do good in apublic environment. So we're getting them out
to get used to it. Andthe word get used to it, the
statement get used to it tells meall I need to know about that situation,
(03:20):
why it's not working. When peoplego into a situation and they're waiting
for their dog to adapt to itor adjust to it, or waiting for
their child to adapt to it oradjust to it, without providing any guidance
or leadership as to how they shouldact in that environment. Then they're setting
themselves up for a disaster. Yeahall the time. Okay, you know
(03:44):
I'm not there telling you how youshould do this or do that or whatever,
but what I am telling you inthe situation with a dog, in
a lot of situations where they're uncomfortablein situations, or uncomfortable with people,
or uncomfortable with other dogs. Toomany times the owner is sitting back hoping,
need to get better. And ifyou've been a client of mine in
(04:05):
thirty years, you know I've toldyou over and over again there's no hope
and dog drink. Yeah, there'seither you do it or you don't do
it. Because when you hope,you leave the door open and you actually
tell your dog that you're not confidentthis is going to be a successful situation,
and your dog response in kind.Okay, So it's like this last
(04:26):
weekend we you know, we had. When I go to when I go
to breweries, you know, it'seither a very relaxing situation for me or
it's very stressful for me because Isee a lot of people with dogs at
breweries that the dog should not beat the brewery. You've heard me say
this before. So I see thingsthat are coming, whether it be a
bad response to a person or abad response to another dog there, or
(04:47):
you know, we were we wereat a brewery Friday, and and the
couple sitting next to us at thetable, very calm dog just sitting there
looking at us what was going on? And and another dog walked by and
that dog was was fine, wasfine until the second that it was not
fine, and it lunged towards theother dog meanwhile just about dumping the woman
(05:10):
completely out of her chair. Okay, that dog had given no signals up
to that point about how it wasgoing to respond. And people need to
understand that. Okay, just becauseyour dog's good ninety nine percent of the
time and situations that you think they'regood at, doesn't mean that every situation's
good. So that introduction that meetinghas to always be on point, and
(05:32):
you have to be there as thelifeguard of the meeting, right, Okay,
you you you watch as it goesdown, but you prepare to correct
or control it as it goes down. And that's that was one of the
situations we had at the brewery wewere at on on Saturday. You know,
it was a young pup, youngpup was pretty calm, easy gone.
(05:55):
Folks were sitting at the table.It had two or three different different
toys with it and every thing.And I had gone over and I stopped
and asked him about the pup alittle bit, and and obviously and she
the owner, said she was therebecause she wasn't comfortable round other dogs,
okay. And the problem was isthat all the other dogs were about forty
(06:15):
fifty feet away underneath their tables,and the pupp itself had a picnic table
it was hiding under. It wason a harness, it was connected to
the leash. So basically we werealready in a situation where the pup is
starting to try to feel out howshould I act in this scenario? Okay,
So as we were leaving, Ibrought Rosie over and I'd already talked
(06:40):
to the woman about you know,I've trained dogs for a long time and
so forth and so on, andI said, we would you like to
do an introduction? And I couldtell by her body language that she already
had doubt as to how it wasgoing to go. Actually, she had
no doubt how it was going togo. She pretty much figured it was
going to go back Okay, Soa couple of things happen when you,
(07:00):
as the owner instantly start to giveoff the vibe in this situation, and
it's very natural for the owner todo that. Okay, we're in the
spot where I hope it's going togo good. I hope my dog doesn't
embarrass me in front of all theseother people here. Okay, So it
basically gives off the vibe. Youhave zero confidence as to what's going what's
(07:24):
going to happen, and the dog'slike, hey, look at this,
I'm gonna Mom's not really confident,her dad's not really confident. This big
black dog is coming over here.Maybe I need to handle this scenario.
And the pups like, I'd reallyrather not handle this scenario, but but
no one else is stepping up here, so I'm going to do it.
(07:45):
And this dog started growling and bitingand lungeon at Rosie, you know,
and it's a small dog and Rosie'sa big dog. And Rosie looked at
it like, what is your problem? Yeah, and she actually laid down
like you're not bothering me at all. So I asked to take the leash,
and each time the dog would wouldlaunch or show aggression towards Rosie.
(08:05):
It was a quick snap of theleash, okay, which we've talked about
over and over and over. Thedog at the moment the dog makes a
decision to act a certain way,you as their leader, have to be
there to show them what the repercussionsare of that decision, good or bad
on either side of that decision.And in this case, and in most
(08:26):
cases, and I'm not just talkingabout this woman here, but of the
owners. We have it every dayin the lobby at the hospital. Come
in and the first thing they dowhen they're not comfortable about how their dog's
going to react is they tighten upthe leash. They wrap up the leash,
They put a bunch of tension betweenthem and on the collar of the
(08:48):
leash. So instantly that flips thetrigger in the dog to be tense about
the situation, and it takes awaythe owner's ability to actually do anything about
it because now you can pick,you can pull on a tight leash.
All your want. All you're gonnado is pick the dog's front feet off
the ground, especially if it's aharness. You know, you could grab
(09:09):
the harness and carry him like asuitcase if you want. I mean,
it doesn't. It does not takeaway their focus and attention on whatever the
target is that they're focusing all theirenergy towards. And in this case,
the pup was focused on Rosie.Yeah, okay, But each time the
pup would lunge at Rosie, I'dsnap the leash, the leash was on
(09:31):
a harness, and I'd give ita quick little tug and a no.
Now I have the advantage here withthis pup because I'm not Mom, right
okay, And I know Mom hastold that pup no before, and I
know she's told her told him nomultiple times. But now suddenly this bald
guy with a red beard and abig black dog is telling this pup no,
and the pup's like, well,what's going on here? So it
(09:54):
stopped for a split second barking atRosie and wondered what it should be in
its next action. So that's themoment. That's right, there's the moment.
So the first thing we do incases like that is when the pup
stops and thinks, we give alittle verbal praise. Very good, okay,
because now I'm showing you this ishow you are to react in this
(10:15):
scenario, not just tell you knowwhen you're doing it wrong, but I
want you to know when all you'realso doing it right how it should act.
So the pup's like whatever and thenbarking and lunged at Rosy again.
Another quick note. Okay, sothe pup is learning after about three no's
that I'm not going away one.Okay too, that every time he chooses
(10:39):
or she chooses to lunge or barkor be aggressive, we're getting startled.
And the second I'm the pup stopsto think about it, and it's not
lunging and barking. It's getting somepraise. Okay. In fact, at
the one moment, the owner saidshould I give her some treats now?
And I said no, not yetbecause she's still not out of this scenario.
(11:01):
So the pup's first response after Igave her a no and snapped that
leash, what her first response wasis she walked over and leaned on her
mom's leg. Okay, now,this pup. If you want an analogy
in real life to how to describethis scenario, and it is true in
most of these scenarios. When you'reout and about and dogs, a dog's
(11:22):
a tough guy at the end ofthe leash. It's the guy with three
buddies yelling at a gut one guyacross the bar and then telling his buddies
to hold him back while he's yellingat this guy. Yeah, okay,
he has no intention of doing anythingabout it, but it's building him up
in that situation. Yeah okay,And that's what this pup was doing.
(11:46):
So the moment someone told that pupno, it went immediately to its area
of security, like and you seeit with dogs all the time. Well,
dad told me no, they runto mom, or mom told me
no, they run to dad orwhatever. So the pup looked up and
it's like, are you serious?And then it got charged its batteries back
up and went back at Rosy again. Why because I let it go over
(12:07):
to mom. So how we solvedthis situation. One is not just the
correction when the pup had the behaviorat that moment, but two take away
all of the pup's security. Okay, So if I let him kept running
over to Mom, he'd recharge hisbattery for the next charge, right,
(12:28):
Okay, So we pretty much reeledthat in and I had Mom step away
a little bit so. Now thepup's in a spot. Okay, his
security blankets over there, the thingthat gave him enough juice, okay,
gone two. He's learning every timethat behavior comes out, it's something we're
not going to accept anymore. Nowthere's a bigger dog at this table,
(12:50):
and it's not rosy, it's meokay. But in when I walked up
and asked her for that leash,there was zero hope in my brain that
it was going to work. Zerookay, because I knew it was going
to work, not because it wasn'tgoing to work, but because I knew
we're not going away till we getthis problem fixed. So that has to
(13:11):
be an owner's same type of attitudein that situation. And it's hard because
you know, I'm an owner too. The last thing I want to do
is get after my dog in situationsin public. Okay. The last thing
you want to do is get afteryour kids in public. But they're not
dumb. They learn that also,So you have to be consistent. Rules
(13:33):
are rules regardless of where you go. You know, you don't take a
toddler into myers and let them goand hope that nothing goes wrong. Okay,
you hold their hand. It's thesame way when you go out in
these environments. So before we weredone, the pup finally quit barking,
finally quit running. To mom,actually realize, look, I'm going to
have to change my behavior to dealwith this scenario right now. So the
(13:56):
best thing I can do, becausethere's a bigger dog at this tape,
that guy with the beard, I'mgonna try to get in good with him,
Okay, which all dogs will do, right, if you present yourself
as that leader, they'll do whateverthey can to get in good with you.
So she calmed down. She cameover, nuzzled around Rosy a little
bit, didn't really care about Rosieany bit at all. So were we
(14:18):
completely done with this scenario? Eventhough the owner was offering to buy me
a beer at that point, I'mlike, no, but you didn't know,
thank you. But if it hadbeen earlier in the day, yes,
But if at that point it wastime to go. But the point
was, we're not quite done yet, because usually these dogs, their last
ditch effort when they recharge that batteryagain is when that dog walks away.
(14:41):
Okay, it's the dog that barksat the mailman and then the mailman puts
the mail in the slot and goesaway, and the dogs like, yeah,
that's right, you're running because Iwas barking at you. No I'm
running. I'm going away. Butmost dogs will get that big hit of
courage when they didn't have it toface when that dog walks away. So
(15:03):
I said, well, we're gonnaget up and we're gonna walk away,
and so be prepared if she goesto lunch again, now you're going to
snap the leash. So what happenedwas instantly by me kind of stepping in
there. I took away the woman'sembarrassment. Yeah, okay, And that's
my job to do is to letyou know you're not the only one with
(15:24):
this problem. Okay, thousands andthousands of people have the same problem.
And if I had a dollar forevery person say, you know, I
know it's an issue, but Ijust don't know how to do it.
I don't know what I should door the direction I should take. And
I'm embarrassed to do it because peopleare watching. I said, here's my
card. Anybody's watching you hand inmy card. Yeah, I'll deal with
them. Okay. But the pointis is that once the person gets past
(15:48):
that and goes, look, I'vegot a problem here. I'm going to
step into this role and I reallydon't care what anybody else thinks. That
the key to life, really,I mean having a successful life. It's
knowing what you're willing to do,knowing that it's the right thing to do,
(16:10):
and really not caring any more aboutwhat anybody says. Your dog will
look at you and go, Okay, now it's me and you. It's
not me you and the rest ofthe world watching. It's it's me and
you. And when you have that, it takes very little time for your
dog to whip into shape. Whenthey know they don't have the security of
the crowd watching, or the securityof the person who feels bad or which
(16:33):
is usually the owner, because theyhave to get every him in front of
other people, they don't have thatanymore, they're very quick to go,
Okay, well, if that's notgoing to work, then I'm going to
go with what works. And whatworks is being polite, listening to my
mom or my dad and those scenarios, and guess what, I get to
go out and do this more often. You know, Rosie was very shy
when we first started doing this now. Heck, everywhere we go, somebody
(16:53):
wants to give her a treat orrub her ears or whatever. So she's
come out of that shell. Butif I waited for that to happen,
if I hope that it was goingto happen, we would have never got
to this point. When I go, she knows that I'm going to handle
this whole scenario, so you actuallyget to relax. You actually get to
get used to these things. Andthat's what every dog needs, especially young
(17:15):
puppies, regardless of if you're takingthem to the brewery, to the store,
to your parents' house or your family'shouse, or where soccer game,
whatever. When you go out ofyour property, you have to prepare yourself
mentally to take charge of whatever's goingto happen next. And if you hope
everything's gonna be okay, then youturn around and you go right back in
(17:36):
the house because it's not your dog'sproblem anymore. It's become your problem.
And the owner of the bar saidRob will be back for another show in
a half an hour. It seemedlike it because they're about five or six
people. They're really turning her.My wife's my hype man you know,
she's going, oh, he's beendoing this for thirty years, you know,
and so it's but I mean,those are those are environments where people
(18:00):
like to take their dogs and it'sjust a small twist here or there of
that person. But if you're goingto get into training, whether it be
or you go to public places likethat, or even go through training with
the trainer, you need to understandthat eighty percent to ninety percent of this
is going to be on you.So if you're not willing to make that
(18:21):
mental choice, okay, and there'sgoing to be times in the training,
just like in parenting, where yourdog's not going to be very happy with
you, and they're going to tryto make you feel bad about them not
being happy with you. Tough,Okay, there's no other way I can
say this. I've actually used thestatement buckup buttercup before, okay, because
(18:44):
that's how it is in their world. Okay. My kids weren't always happy
with me, but I'm pretty proudof where they are now, okay,
because I chose to be that leaderwith them. We chose to be those
leaders and some but that at thosemoments they needed that leadership is everything that
I teach my kids probably the rightthing. Though, is everything that I
(19:04):
teach the dog probably the right thing? Well pretty much? Yeah, Okay,
the dogs are not my kids.But you have to understand dog behavior.
And number one, to understand andbe that leader, you have to
act like a leader. So youmust mentally prepare yourself to be a different
person if you go through training thenyou were when you came in. You'll
(19:27):
go through the hard part, yourdog won't like it. Then your dog
will realize, Okay, it's notreally that bad, and then we'll go
back and you'll actually enjoy it.I've said it over and over again,
and it's true. You'll actually becloser and have a ten times better relationship
with your dog if they're looking atyou as that leader rather than the soft
(19:47):
cushion on the couch that gives themeverything they want when they need it absolutely
and if they want training. EdgeField Animal Care Center is here. How
do they hook up with you ifyou're in the central Ohio area Edgefield anim
Care Center We're in marrying On.How easiest way to find out all about
everything the Edgefield Animal Care Center does. We're a full service pet care facility,
veterinary hospital, boarding, training,daycare, grooming, all of that.
(20:14):
You can find out all our information. You can find out all our
past episodes of the Dog Professor podcast. And we're going to be doing some
big stuff here in the future withthe Dog Professor line of things, including
supplies, online lessons, all thiskind of crazy stuff. Find all that
stuff on our website at Edgefield Animalcaredot com. And we appreciate you listen
(20:36):
to this podcast. Make sure youhit follow wherever you found it, because
anytime we post a new one,you'll get a notification right on your phone
to check it out.
Jo. What I mean in studiotoday is the dog professor Rob Luss from
the edge Field the Animal Care Center, and Rob, I know that you've
been touring around the Buckeye State visitingvarious breweries and wineries and things like that
that are pet friendly, and we'regoing to be talking a little bit about
some of your experiences with this inthis episode and some coming episodes. But
(00:22):
one of the things that you wantedto talk about today from some of your
experiences of taking your dog out andenjoying other dogs in these situations is what
parents need to do mentally to preparethemselves to go through training, because there's
a lot yeah, I mean training. If you've ever heard anything we've talked
(00:43):
about over the last thirty years,you have to be as mentally prepared to
deal with training as your dog does. Your dog learns very little that they
have to prepare themselves for it.Through training, they have to prepare themselves
for a new routine, and ownersover and over and over again aren't necessarily
prepared in their mind for what they'regoing to have to do to be successful
(01:07):
with training. So a lot oftimes they come for training, the dog
goes through training, they go throughthe follow up lessons, but they never
really change themselves or prepare themselves towake up to the idea that, Okay,
there's one more button I have topush here to make this work.
And that button is me okay.And you know, it just comes to
(01:29):
lights a lot of times because wego out and we you know, we
go to I like going to breweries, distilleries, wineries, that type of
thing, and we like to takethe dog along. And you know,
our dog, Rosy, you know, she's she's our best dog for that
environment during the summer, one becauseshe's just so laid back about things.
(01:49):
And two it's good training for hertoo, because this is you know,
I'd like to I'd like to gether in the out of those environments,
socialize with people, socialize with otherdogs, so forth and so on.
So we are out in public alot seeing other people doing that same thing.
And I know we've talked about inan episode before that just because you
can doesn't mean you should or youknow, so we're kind of on this
(02:13):
kick now about finding out in thestate of Ohio, you know what places
are dog friendly, and just becausethey're dog friendly doesn't mean they're Rosy sized
dog friendly who is a big,big dog. So we we're dipping our
toe in that pool and kind offinding those things out. But what I
find a lot of times when Igo around to these places and it just
(02:36):
reminds me of the psychological aspect thatowners have to prepare themselves for if they
want to be successful in training theirdogs. And it's basically the psycho psychological
thing you have to be prepared forwhen you're training your kids as they're growing
up. It's that same idea becausedogs will take advantage of certain scenarios like
(02:59):
that. And the biggest thing isdealing with the public. You know,
time and time again, I alwaystalk to people, well, my dogs
not doesn't really do good in apublic environment. So we're getting them out
to get used to it. Andthe word get used to it, the
statement get used to it tells meall I need to know about that situation,
(03:20):
why it's not working. When peoplego into a situation and they're waiting
for their dog to adapt to itor adjust to it, or waiting for
their child to adapt to it oradjust to it, without providing any guidance
or leadership as to how they shouldact in that environment. Then they're setting
themselves up for a disaster. Yeahall the time. Okay, you know
(03:44):
I'm not there telling you how youshould do this or do that or whatever,
but what I am telling you inthe situation with a dog, in
a lot of situations where they're uncomfortablein situations, or uncomfortable with people,
or uncomfortable with other dogs. Toomany times the owner is sitting back hoping,
need to get better. And ifyou've been a client of mine in
(04:05):
thirty years, you know I've toldyou over and over again there's no hope
and dog drink. Yeah, there'seither you do it or you don't do
it. Because when you hope,you leave the door open and you actually
tell your dog that you're not confidentthis is going to be a successful situation,
and your dog response in kind.Okay, So it's like this last
(04:26):
weekend we you know, we had. When I go to when I go
to breweries, you know, it'seither a very relaxing situation for me or
it's very stressful for me because Isee a lot of people with dogs at
breweries that the dog should not beat the brewery. You've heard me say
this before. So I see thingsthat are coming, whether it be a
bad response to a person or abad response to another dog there, or
(04:47):
you know, we were we wereat a brewery Friday, and and the
couple sitting next to us at thetable, very calm dog just sitting there
looking at us what was going on? And and another dog walked by and
that dog was was fine, wasfine until the second that it was not
fine, and it lunged towards theother dog meanwhile just about dumping the woman
(05:10):
completely out of her chair. Okay, that dog had given no signals up
to that point about how it wasgoing to respond. And people need to
understand that. Okay, just becauseyour dog's good ninety nine percent of the
time and situations that you think they'regood at, doesn't mean that every situation's
good. So that introduction that meetinghas to always be on point, and
(05:32):
you have to be there as thelifeguard of the meeting, right, Okay,
you you you watch as it goesdown, but you prepare to correct
or control it as it goes down. And that's that was one of the
situations we had at the brewery wewere at on on Saturday. You know,
it was a young pup, youngpup was pretty calm, easy gone.
(05:55):
Folks were sitting at the table.It had two or three different different
toys with it and every thing.And I had gone over and I stopped
and asked him about the pup alittle bit, and and obviously and she
the owner, said she was therebecause she wasn't comfortable round other dogs,
okay. And the problem was isthat all the other dogs were about forty
(06:15):
fifty feet away underneath their tables,and the pupp itself had a picnic table
it was hiding under. It wason a harness, it was connected to
the leash. So basically we werealready in a situation where the pup is
starting to try to feel out howshould I act in this scenario? Okay,
So as we were leaving, Ibrought Rosie over and I'd already talked
(06:40):
to the woman about you know,I've trained dogs for a long time and
so forth and so on, andI said, we would you like to
do an introduction? And I couldtell by her body language that she already
had doubt as to how it wasgoing to go. Actually, she had
no doubt how it was going togo. She pretty much figured it was
going to go back Okay, Soa couple of things happen when you,
(07:00):
as the owner instantly start to giveoff the vibe in this situation, and
it's very natural for the owner todo that. Okay, we're in the
spot where I hope it's going togo good. I hope my dog doesn't
embarrass me in front of all theseother people here. Okay, So it
basically gives off the vibe. Youhave zero confidence as to what's going what's
(07:24):
going to happen, and the dog'slike, hey, look at this,
I'm gonna Mom's not really confident,her dad's not really confident. This big
black dog is coming over here.Maybe I need to handle this scenario.
And the pups like, I'd reallyrather not handle this scenario, but but
no one else is stepping up here, so I'm going to do it.
(07:45):
And this dog started growling and bitingand lungeon at Rosie, you know,
and it's a small dog and Rosie'sa big dog. And Rosie looked at
it like, what is your problem? Yeah, and she actually laid down
like you're not bothering me at all. So I asked to take the leash,
and each time the dog would wouldlaunch or show aggression towards Rosie.
(08:05):
It was a quick snap of theleash, okay, which we've talked about
over and over and over. Thedog at the moment the dog makes a
decision to act a certain way,you as their leader, have to be
there to show them what the repercussionsare of that decision, good or bad
on either side of that decision.And in this case, and in most
(08:26):
cases, and I'm not just talkingabout this woman here, but of the
owners. We have it every dayin the lobby at the hospital. Come
in and the first thing they dowhen they're not comfortable about how their dog's
going to react is they tighten upthe leash. They wrap up the leash,
They put a bunch of tension betweenthem and on the collar of the
(08:48):
leash. So instantly that flips thetrigger in the dog to be tense about
the situation, and it takes awaythe owner's ability to actually do anything about
it because now you can pick,you can pull on a tight leash.
All your want. All you're gonnado is pick the dog's front feet off
the ground, especially if it's aharness. You know, you could grab
(09:09):
the harness and carry him like asuitcase if you want. I mean,
it doesn't. It does not takeaway their focus and attention on whatever the
target is that they're focusing all theirenergy towards. And in this case,
the pup was focused on Rosie.Yeah, okay, But each time the
pup would lunge at Rosie, I'dsnap the leash, the leash was on
(09:31):
a harness, and I'd give ita quick little tug and a no.
Now I have the advantage here withthis pup because I'm not Mom, right
okay, And I know Mom hastold that pup no before, and I
know she's told her told him nomultiple times. But now suddenly this bald
guy with a red beard and abig black dog is telling this pup no,
and the pup's like, well,what's going on here? So it
(09:54):
stopped for a split second barking atRosie and wondered what it should be in
its next action. So that's themoment. That's right, there's the moment.
So the first thing we do incases like that is when the pup
stops and thinks, we give alittle verbal praise. Very good, okay,
because now I'm showing you this ishow you are to react in this
(10:15):
scenario, not just tell you knowwhen you're doing it wrong, but I
want you to know when all you'realso doing it right how it should act.
So the pup's like whatever and thenbarking and lunged at Rosy again.
Another quick note. Okay, sothe pup is learning after about three no's
that I'm not going away one.Okay too, that every time he chooses
(10:39):
or she chooses to lunge or barkor be aggressive, we're getting startled.
And the second I'm the pup stopsto think about it, and it's not
lunging and barking. It's getting somepraise. Okay. In fact, at
the one moment, the owner saidshould I give her some treats now?
And I said no, not yetbecause she's still not out of this scenario.
(11:01):
So the pup's first response after Igave her a no and snapped that
leash, what her first response wasis she walked over and leaned on her
mom's leg. Okay, now,this pup. If you want an analogy
in real life to how to describethis scenario, and it is true in
most of these scenarios. When you'reout and about and dogs, a dog's
(11:22):
a tough guy at the end ofthe leash. It's the guy with three
buddies yelling at a gut one guyacross the bar and then telling his buddies
to hold him back while he's yellingat this guy. Yeah, okay,
he has no intention of doing anythingabout it, but it's building him up
in that situation. Yeah okay,And that's what this pup was doing.
(11:46):
So the moment someone told that pupno, it went immediately to its area
of security, like and you seeit with dogs all the time. Well,
dad told me no, they runto mom, or mom told me
no, they run to dad orwhatever. So the pup looked up and
it's like, are you serious?And then it got charged its batteries back
up and went back at Rosy again. Why because I let it go over
(12:07):
to mom. So how we solvedthis situation. One is not just the
correction when the pup had the behaviorat that moment, but two take away
all of the pup's security. Okay, So if I let him kept running
over to Mom, he'd recharge hisbattery for the next charge, right,
(12:28):
Okay, So we pretty much reeledthat in and I had Mom step away
a little bit so. Now thepup's in a spot. Okay, his
security blankets over there, the thingthat gave him enough juice, okay,
gone two. He's learning every timethat behavior comes out, it's something we're
not going to accept anymore. Nowthere's a bigger dog at this table,
(12:50):
and it's not rosy, it's meokay. But in when I walked up
and asked her for that leash,there was zero hope in my brain that
it was going to work. Zerookay, because I knew it was going
to work, not because it wasn'tgoing to work, but because I knew
we're not going away till we getthis problem fixed. So that has to
(13:11):
be an owner's same type of attitudein that situation. And it's hard because
you know, I'm an owner too. The last thing I want to do
is get after my dog in situationsin public. Okay. The last thing
you want to do is get afteryour kids in public. But they're not
dumb. They learn that also,So you have to be consistent. Rules
(13:33):
are rules regardless of where you go. You know, you don't take a
toddler into myers and let them goand hope that nothing goes wrong. Okay,
you hold their hand. It's thesame way when you go out in
these environments. So before we weredone, the pup finally quit barking,
finally quit running. To mom,actually realize, look, I'm going to
have to change my behavior to dealwith this scenario right now. So the
(13:56):
best thing I can do, becausethere's a bigger dog at this tape,
that guy with the beard, I'mgonna try to get in good with him,
Okay, which all dogs will do, right, if you present yourself
as that leader, they'll do whateverthey can to get in good with you.
So she calmed down. She cameover, nuzzled around Rosy a little
bit, didn't really care about Rosieany bit at all. So were we
(14:18):
completely done with this scenario? Eventhough the owner was offering to buy me
a beer at that point, I'mlike, no, but you didn't know,
thank you. But if it hadbeen earlier in the day, yes,
But if at that point it wastime to go. But the point
was, we're not quite done yet, because usually these dogs, their last
ditch effort when they recharge that batteryagain is when that dog walks away.
(14:41):
Okay, it's the dog that barksat the mailman and then the mailman puts
the mail in the slot and goesaway, and the dogs like, yeah,
that's right, you're running because Iwas barking at you. No I'm
running. I'm going away. Butmost dogs will get that big hit of
courage when they didn't have it toface when that dog walks away. So
(15:03):
I said, well, we're gonnaget up and we're gonna walk away,
and so be prepared if she goesto lunch again, now you're going to
snap the leash. So what happenedwas instantly by me kind of stepping in
there. I took away the woman'sembarrassment. Yeah, okay, And that's
my job to do is to letyou know you're not the only one with
(15:24):
this problem. Okay, thousands andthousands of people have the same problem.
And if I had a dollar forevery person say, you know, I
know it's an issue, but Ijust don't know how to do it.
I don't know what I should door the direction I should take. And
I'm embarrassed to do it because peopleare watching. I said, here's my
card. Anybody's watching you hand inmy card. Yeah, I'll deal with
them. Okay. But the pointis is that once the person gets past
(15:48):
that and goes, look, I'vegot a problem here. I'm going to
step into this role and I reallydon't care what anybody else thinks. That
the key to life, really,I mean having a successful life. It's
knowing what you're willing to do,knowing that it's the right thing to do,
(16:10):
and really not caring any more aboutwhat anybody says. Your dog will
look at you and go, Okay, now it's me and you. It's
not me you and the rest ofthe world watching. It's it's me and
you. And when you have that, it takes very little time for your
dog to whip into shape. Whenthey know they don't have the security of
the crowd watching, or the securityof the person who feels bad or which
(16:33):
is usually the owner, because theyhave to get every him in front of
other people, they don't have thatanymore, they're very quick to go,
Okay, well, if that's notgoing to work, then I'm going to
go with what works. And whatworks is being polite, listening to my
mom or my dad and those scenarios, and guess what, I get to
go out and do this more often. You know, Rosie was very shy
when we first started doing this now. Heck, everywhere we go, somebody
(16:53):
wants to give her a treat orrub her ears or whatever. So she's
come out of that shell. Butif I waited for that to happen,
if I hope that it was goingto happen, we would have never got
to this point. When I go, she knows that I'm going to handle
this whole scenario, so you actuallyget to relax. You actually get to
get used to these things. Andthat's what every dog needs, especially young
(17:15):
puppies, regardless of if you're takingthem to the brewery, to the store,
to your parents' house or your family'shouse, or where soccer game,
whatever. When you go out ofyour property, you have to prepare yourself
mentally to take charge of whatever's goingto happen next. And if you hope
everything's gonna be okay, then youturn around and you go right back in
(17:36):
the house because it's not your dog'sproblem anymore. It's become your problem.
And the owner of the bar saidRob will be back for another show in
a half an hour. It seemedlike it because they're about five or six
people. They're really turning her.My wife's my hype man you know,
she's going, oh, he's beendoing this for thirty years, you know,
and so it's but I mean,those are those are environments where people
(18:00):
like to take their dogs and it'sjust a small twist here or there of
that person. But if you're goingto get into training, whether it be
or you go to public places likethat, or even go through training with
the trainer, you need to understandthat eighty percent to ninety percent of this
is going to be on you.So if you're not willing to make that
(18:21):
mental choice, okay, and there'sgoing to be times in the training,
just like in parenting, where yourdog's not going to be very happy with
you, and they're going to tryto make you feel bad about them not
being happy with you. Tough,Okay, there's no other way I can
say this. I've actually used thestatement buckup buttercup before, okay, because
(18:44):
that's how it is in their world. Okay. My kids weren't always happy
with me, but I'm pretty proudof where they are now, okay,
because I chose to be that leaderwith them. We chose to be those
leaders and some but that at thosemoments they needed that leadership is everything that
I teach my kids probably the rightthing. Though, is everything that I
(19:04):
teach the dog probably the right thing? Well pretty much? Yeah, Okay,
the dogs are not my kids.But you have to understand dog behavior.
And number one, to understand andbe that leader, you have to
act like a leader. So youmust mentally prepare yourself to be a different
person if you go through training thenyou were when you came in. You'll
(19:27):
go through the hard part, yourdog won't like it. Then your dog
will realize, Okay, it's notreally that bad, and then we'll go
back and you'll actually enjoy it.I've said it over and over again,
and it's true. You'll actually becloser and have a ten times better relationship
with your dog if they're looking atyou as that leader rather than the soft
(19:47):
cushion on the couch that gives themeverything they want when they need it absolutely
and if they want training. EdgeField Animal Care Center is here. How
do they hook up with you ifyou're in the central Ohio area Edgefield anim
Care Center We're in marrying On.How easiest way to find out all about
everything the Edgefield Animal Care Center does. We're a full service pet care facility,
veterinary hospital, boarding, training,daycare, grooming, all of that.
(20:14):
You can find out all our information. You can find out all our
past episodes of the Dog Professor podcast. And we're going to be doing some
big stuff here in the future withthe Dog Professor line of things, including
supplies, online lessons, all thiskind of crazy stuff. Find all that
stuff on our website at Edgefield Animalcaredot com. And we appreciate you listen
(20:36):
to this podcast. Make sure youhit follow wherever you found it, because
anytime we post a new one,you'll get a notification right on your phone
to check it out.
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