This episode is a fan request:
"Looking for a podcast - My co-owner needs help. I’ve worked with them on training behaviors, and they’ve done a masterful job at teaching puppy (who’s about 3 months old now…) that barking gets attention. They wait until they just can’t take it anymore but then cave in just as extinction burst really ramps up. Is there a podcast that will guide them through navigating this? To be fair, one of them works nights and NEEDS their sleep! I can understand how they got here. But just like parenting - pay now or pay later, and this one is gonna sting! They do have PC curriculum - I told them to start looking through it again."
This podcast unpacks:
- Straightforward advice for handling confinement and demand barking
- Why that straightforward advice often fails to help puppy owners
- How we can re-frame the emotional component of this issue for puppy owners and help them succeed.
Visit our website www.madcapradio.com for further reading.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
and this is a Puppy CulturePotluck podcast.
You bring the topics,
we bring the discussion.
This episode's podcast
(00:20):
is about helping puppy owners navigate
through puppies that bark in confinement.
And here's the question.
Looking for a podcast?
My co owner needs help.
They've done a masterful jobat teaching their puppy,
(00:41):
who's about three months old now.
That barking gets attention.
They waituntil they just can't take it anymore,
but then cave in just as the extinctionburst really ramps up.
Is there a podcast that will guide themthrough navigating this?
To be fair, one of them works nightsand needs their sleep.
(01:06):
I can understand how they got here,
but just like parenting, pay nowor pay later.
And this one's going to sting.
They do have the Puppy Culture curriculum.
I told them to startlooking through it again.
Okay, this is me again.
(01:26):
Well, you know, it's really interestingabout the barking because
before we did our puppy course,I did a survey of breeders, trainers
and puppy owners and asked themwhat their biggest stumbling
block was in the first weeksthat they had the puppy home.
And I fully expected it to be somethinglike puppy biting, destructiveness,
(01:48):
house training, but no, it cameback, crate and confinement issues.
I mean, by a landslide,75 to 85% of the answers
had something to do with crateor confinement issues
or demand barking.
So this is a really persistent
(02:10):
problem in the new puppy owner community.
Let's put a pin in that,because that in and of itself
is diagnostic.
I'm going to give direct advice first,but I'll plot spoil it
that what I'm going to tell youis not something new.
(02:30):
If you type in stop dog barking,you're going to get thousands of hits
with excellent step by step instructionson how to put that behavior on extinction.
And then you're goingto get another couple thousand hits on
how to use a shock or spray or otherno bark collar
(02:51):
after the puppy owner failsto be able to execute the above mentioned,
absolutely spot on protocolsthat those excellent trainers
have laid out for them for free
thousands of times on the internet.
So after I give my direct advice,
(03:13):
we're going to examine why,
despite the fact that there are literallythousands of resources
out there that explain this,puppy owners continue to struggle.
So when it comes to crate and confinementtraining and demand barking,
there are two conceptsthat the puppy owner has to understand.
(03:35):
The first concept is the differencebetween I want and I need.
And the second concept
is the fun house is closed aka
how to establish discriminative stimuli.
So at the top level you have to decidewhen this puppy's
(03:57):
barking in its enclosure.
Is it reasonableto leave the puppy in there?
Or does the puppy have a legitimate needthat you haven't fulfilled?
And then once you decide that no,the puppy does not have a legitimate need,
you need to set up conditionswhere the puppy understands
that this picture of beingput in the crate under these conditions
(04:22):
is an automatic cue to settle,and there are no other options.
Now, when you're doing this
analysis, context is everything,
and understanding all the different piecesthat you need to read to get the context
right in any given situation is goingto be beyond the scope of a podcast.
(04:44):
That's course level detail.
But let me just set this one up.
The breeder’s done crate and confinementtraining.
The puppy's been sleeping quietlyand very happily
in a crate at the breeders house.
There's an established routine,and the puppy has never had a problem.
(05:04):
So now, Mr.
and Mrs.
Puppy Owner, you get your puppy home,you follow the instructions
we given the course, and everything'sgoing swimmingly.
But then somewhere around the third day,
you put the puppy in his penand he thinks, you know what?
No, I think I'd rather play some more.
(05:28):
And he barks.
You hesitate, you go back in.
You shush the puppy.
The puppy thinks, heck yeah,I know how to get attention.
And so it begins.
Now you're at a crossroads.
As a puppy owner, you have to make surethat it is, in fact, fair
(05:50):
to have put the puppy in confinementat this time.
So the first step is to eliminateany possible
legitimate need that the puppy might have.
Is there any possibilitythe puppy's hungry or thirsty?
Has the puppy had adequate
social interaction and mental stimulation?
(06:15):
Has the puppy had sufficientphysical stimulation?
I'm just going to sidebar and sayI could talk for an hour about puppy
owners incorrect assessments of puppiesneed for mental and physical stimulation.
But that's another podcast.
Then you have to look at
is there any other possiblephysical reason the puppy's in distress?
(06:40):
Is the puppy in pain or sick?
So that's your punch list of antecedents.
You got to check all those boxes offbefore proceeding.
Not to beat a dead horse,but I'm going to say it again,
because I don't want any casual listenersto traumatize their puppies,
that all of this is assumingthat the breeder has
(07:02):
put in a good foundation of crateand confinement conditioning.
The puppy's been in his new homea few weeks, which is long enough
that he's acclimated to his new homeand really feels this is his home.
And his people are his family,and there is no possibility
of true emotional distress for this puppy.
(07:23):
That is not going to be true
for every puppy belongingto every listener of this podcast.
Okay, so
once all those boxes are ticked offand it's fair
to put the puppy in his pen or crateand expect him to be quiet.
Now we have to put this behavioron extinction.
(07:44):
And all that is, is
leave the puppy alone to barkuntil he gives up.
For certain I recommend beginning this
by giving the puppya stuffed food toy or a raw, meaty bone,
when you put him in his confinement areain hopes that he'll self-soothe
and find sleep overtaking himbefore he starts his attention barking.
(08:09):
But even if that does not happen,
the procedure is trulyjust ignore the barking
until it stops.
If everything goes normally,
what you'll notice is thatthe barking has a distinct cadence.
If you pay attention, there is a generaltone, pitch, and speed of the barking.
(08:35):
As you ignore the barking,
that musicality will at first startto get less shrill
and the barks will be more spaced apart
the longer you wait them out.
You will probably even get to a pointwhere you think, has it stopped? ...
and then it will start again.
(08:56):
This is good.
You're on the right track.
But then just when you're thinking,
oh yeah, we're almost there,
it's going to start up again
and it's going to start up againexplosively.
It's insane. It's shrill.
It's like the puppyisn't even taking a breath.
(09:18):
It's loud and you're sure your puppy's legis caught in the fence?
It's dramatic beyond belief.
It's a good ideato have a camera in the room
so you can lookand make sure that, in fact,
your puppy does not havehis leg caught in the fence.
Because trust me, you're going to besure there's something wrong.
(09:40):
This is the
extinction burst, and it's gnarly.
This is the darkest hour before dawn.
The behavior is about to go away.
You're almost there.
But this is where the average puppy owner
just cannot take it.
And then they run in and yell
(10:01):
at, comfort or let the puppy out.
And this has profoundly bad consequences.
Because if you want
to build a super durable behavior,
you go in and reinforceduring the extinction burst.
(10:24):
That is literally the rock
that dog training is built on.
You thin your reinforcement ratio,
which will cause a surge in behavior,the extinction burst,
and then you go in and reinforceduring that extinction burst
and you will get a dogthat persists in that behavior
(10:46):
and does it with enthusiasm.
And the more times you thinthe reinforcement ratio and reinforce
during the extinction burst, the stronger
and more durable the behavior becomes.
This is fantastic when you're teachingcompetition heeling, or scent detection.
(11:08):
Tragic
when you're teaching the puppy to bark,
because that iswhat the puppy owner is doing.
They're not just ineffectiveat stopping the puppy from barking.
They are actively training a loud
and persistent barking behavior.
(11:28):
And they are unbelievably fantasticat training this.
Frankly, they could not be better at itif there were professional
dog trainers and explicitlyset out to teach their puppies
to bark in confinement.
At the end of the day, it's simple.
(11:49):
Make sure it's appropriate for your puppy.
Set up the correct antecedents.
Do it at a time when you have the timeto let this play out.
Not on the late night
when you have to get up earlyfor an important meeting the next day.
Put the puppy in confinementwith a chew object
and steel yourselffor however long it takes.
(12:13):
That's your first successful session.
Then the next timeyour puppy goes into confinement,
he'll probably barkand there'll be another extinction burst.
But the entire cycle will be shorter
and it will be less dramatic.
By the third or fourth time
(12:35):
your puppy goes in it'll be a routine.
There might be a chirp or two,but that's it.
So again,if you've set up all the antecedents
and checked all the boxes off,this is how it's going to go.
And this is what everyone,all of those thousands
of fantastic dog trainers onthe internet are going to tell you.
(12:57):
And this is what you willprobably fail to do.
And either wind up with an everescalating attention monster,
or you will move directly onto an aversivespray bottle, shock collar,
citronella collarand just stop the barking.
But then also you'll set upa tone of suppression
(13:19):
and leave a great big stain
on your bondwith your puppy right out of the gate.
So what's going on here?
Well, what's so interesting to me
about this situation is that when it comesto this kind of attention
seeking barking, puppy ownersdon't have the heart to listen to it,
(13:43):
but they have the heart to silence it.
So yelling or using an aversive
is somehow okay, but ignoring
it is just not.
And what puppy owners can't understandis that even if they suppress that
behavior and stop the barking,
(14:07):
the puppy is still feeling the same thing.
The puppy is equally dissatisfiedwhether he's barking or not.
But the puppy ownerdoesn't feel like a bad guy
if the puppy's not barking.
So this is really about
the emotional state of the puppy owner,not the dog.
(14:30):
And that's what we have to address.
You know, dogs
and people are highly social animals,and we have a strong
evolutionary biasto be in dread of being ignored.
Being ignored is worse than negativeattention.
(14:54):
Not just for the puppy,but for the puppy owner.
So if the puppy owner is yelling,
spraying, shocking, it's something.
It's social interactive.
It's not being shunned.
And somehow that feels more rightto the puppy
owner than just ignoring.
(15:14):
I think this is at the heart of why
the perfect solution to the barkingproblem is just lying all over the place.
Freely accessible to all.
Yet sharing that informationdoes not seem to move the needle.
It's not about lack of information.
It's about lack of addressingthe deep social and emotional component
(15:36):
for the puppy owner.
So the question is,
how do we get the puppy owner to feelthat ignoring
is in fact interaction
and the puppiesnot being abandoned socially?
And that in putting the behavioron extinction,
they're not cutting the puppy offsocially, but creating a workable
(15:59):
and varied deep connection.
I can't say that I have
a scalable solutioncompletely figured out for this,
but I will tell you for surewhat does work?
As they say in the writing business
show them, don't tell thembecause your communications
(16:23):
with your puppy ownersreally are like novels.
You're building a storythat they can understand,
and it's more powerfulto show rather than tell.
I have personal experience with this.
I placed a puppy with a very dear friend
(16:44):
who lives three doors down from me,
so I had a unique chance
to sort of co-parent this puppy with her.
I got to witness on a firsthand basis,
the genesis of this dynamicbetween the puppy owner and the puppy.
(17:04):
And because the puppy was
coming to my house
and sometimes going with me to classand sometimes going with her,
I mean, I got to witnessthe puppy barking in his crate
when I took him to class,and I got to put that on extinction,
because I know for a fact that this puppydoesn't need to bark in a crate.
(17:25):
And my friendand co owner got to see this.
She witnessed her puppy not barkingin the crate when I ignored him.
So I can't really speak
for another person,but to me it seems that
it gave her a level of comfortthat I don't think she could have gotten
(17:46):
without witnessing it firsthand.
I mean, don't get me wrong,I believe she'll still tell you that she
feels terrible about the amount of timethat her puppy has to stay in confinement.
But I do think seeing it work outin the long run at the breeders house
(18:06):
gives the puppy owners perspectivethat they couldn't get any other way.
So when possible,
have thepuppy owner bring the puppy back to you.
Put the puppy back in the contextof where they first
learned crate and confinement training,and where you're confident
that they won't barkor they won't persist in barking.
(18:30):
And then your puppy owneris going to see how content and happy
the puppy is in that context,and it's going to help them believe,
because they have to believethat the puppy is capable of being happy
and content in confinement.
Failing,
being able to have the puppy owner
observe you interacting with their dog
(18:53):
and see how that works, it's really tough.
But I can share a few thoughts.
Part of the problem
is that there's a rock bottom crossroads
where the puppy ownerhas to accept that at certain ages
and stages,you're not going to make that puppy happy,
(19:16):
that there is going to be a certain amount
of disappointment on the puppies behalf.
At some stages in a dog's life,
there are no solutions where everyone wins
and it'sgoing to feel crappy to the puppy owner
because the puppies in jail.
(19:37):
And some people think
in that moment that they would justrather live with an attention monster
than to have to ever disappointthat puppy.
But consider this
it comes to a point where it's literally
like letting the inmates run the asylum.
(20:01):
The asylum will be torn to shreds.
You'll have an enormous vet bill for theobstruction from the stuff your puppy ate.
You'll be fired from your jobbecause of the barking dog
in the background on every zoom call.
And you'll dislike the attentionmonster extortionist puppy
(20:21):
that you have to entertainevery waking moment
and double dislike itbecause you will not have been able
to sleep at night through four months
because your puppylikes to get up at 4:00 am.
And yes, a percentage of people
will return those dogs to the breeder
(20:42):
or relinquish it to a shelter.
This is a very sneakily high
jeopardy issue,and it all comes down to that
puppy owner's ability to ride out
an extinction burst.
So while I said earlierthat at some stages in a dog's life,
(21:03):
there are no solutions where everyone wins
and in a very immediate sense,that is true
at that exact moment in time,the puppy does not feel he's winning.
But in the long run,
this is not true at all.
Everyone always wins when the puppy learns
(21:25):
that his confinementarea is an automatic cue to settle.
This is why we as humans
are able to keep dogs as pets.
We have a higher cognition and abilityto see the future
and have a picturethat the dog cannot see.
(21:46):
So in that moment when the puppiesin extinction
burst and barkinglike his leg is being sawed off,
instead of focusingon the immediate communication
that the puppy's giving youand how you don't want to be the bad guy,
and how you can't take being meanto your puppy.
(22:07):
Understand that there is so much
you know that your puppy does not,
and so much that you can foresee
so many fun adventuresand wonderful years with your puppy,
growing to a dog and sleeping at your feetwhile you work from home.
(22:27):
Christmases, birthdays, camping trips.
You can see all of thatand see that it depends right now
on this puppy learning that sometimes
this is what it is to be a dog.
Sometimes it's boring, sometimes
it's not what you want right now,
(22:50):
but it's a ticket to all those fun timesahead
of which that puppyhas no ability to comprehend.
But you, as the primate
with the thumbsand the large prefrontal cortex,
do have the ability to comprehend.
And it all starts with this pinpointin time
(23:13):
of you waiting out that extinction burst.
If you
liked this podcast, you'll love our puppyowner course,
With Open Arms and a Level Head -How to welcome a puppy into your life.
Available at puppyculture.com.
Breeders, do you want to get your puppyowner started off on the right foot?
(23:37):
Check out our bulkdiscounts on puppy courses, booklets
and bundles at puppyculture.com.
Well, that's it for this time.
Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
and this is a Puppy CulturePotluck podcast.
You bring the topics,
we bring the discussion.
This episode's podcast
(00:20):
is about helping puppy owners navigate
through puppies that bark in confinement.
And here's the question.
Looking for a podcast?
My co owner needs help.
They've done a masterful jobat teaching their puppy,
(00:41):
who's about three months old now.
That barking gets attention.
They waituntil they just can't take it anymore,
but then cave in just as the extinctionburst really ramps up.
Is there a podcast that will guide themthrough navigating this?
To be fair, one of them works nightsand needs their sleep.
(01:06):
I can understand how they got here,
but just like parenting, pay nowor pay later.
And this one's going to sting.
They do have the Puppy Culture curriculum.
I told them to startlooking through it again.
Okay, this is me again.
(01:26):
Well, you know, it's really interestingabout the barking because
before we did our puppy course,I did a survey of breeders, trainers
and puppy owners and asked themwhat their biggest stumbling
block was in the first weeksthat they had the puppy home.
And I fully expected it to be somethinglike puppy biting, destructiveness,
(01:48):
house training, but no, it cameback, crate and confinement issues.
I mean, by a landslide,75 to 85% of the answers
had something to do with crateor confinement issues
or demand barking.
So this is a really persistent
(02:10):
problem in the new puppy owner community.
Let's put a pin in that,because that in and of itself
is diagnostic.
I'm going to give direct advice first,but I'll plot spoil it
that what I'm going to tell youis not something new.
(02:30):
If you type in stop dog barking,you're going to get thousands of hits
with excellent step by step instructionson how to put that behavior on extinction.
And then you're goingto get another couple thousand hits on
how to use a shock or spray or otherno bark collar
(02:51):
after the puppy owner failsto be able to execute the above mentioned,
absolutely spot on protocolsthat those excellent trainers
have laid out for them for free
thousands of times on the internet.
So after I give my direct advice,
(03:13):
we're going to examine why,
despite the fact that there are literallythousands of resources
out there that explain this,puppy owners continue to struggle.
So when it comes to crate and confinementtraining and demand barking,
there are two conceptsthat the puppy owner has to understand.
(03:35):
The first concept is the differencebetween I want and I need.
And the second concept
is the fun house is closed aka
how to establish discriminative stimuli.
So at the top level you have to decidewhen this puppy's
(03:57):
barking in its enclosure.
Is it reasonableto leave the puppy in there?
Or does the puppy have a legitimate needthat you haven't fulfilled?
And then once you decide that no,the puppy does not have a legitimate need,
you need to set up conditionswhere the puppy understands
that this picture of beingput in the crate under these conditions
(04:22):
is an automatic cue to settle,and there are no other options.
Now, when you're doing this
analysis, context is everything,
and understanding all the different piecesthat you need to read to get the context
right in any given situation is goingto be beyond the scope of a podcast.
(04:44):
That's course level detail.
But let me just set this one up.
The breeder’s done crate and confinementtraining.
The puppy's been sleeping quietlyand very happily
in a crate at the breeders house.
There's an established routine,and the puppy has never had a problem.
(05:04):
So now, Mr.
and Mrs.
Puppy Owner, you get your puppy home,you follow the instructions
we given the course, and everything'sgoing swimmingly.
But then somewhere around the third day,
you put the puppy in his penand he thinks, you know what?
No, I think I'd rather play some more.
(05:28):
And he barks.
You hesitate, you go back in.
You shush the puppy.
The puppy thinks, heck yeah,I know how to get attention.
And so it begins.
Now you're at a crossroads.
As a puppy owner, you have to make surethat it is, in fact, fair
(05:50):
to have put the puppy in confinementat this time.
So the first step is to eliminateany possible
legitimate need that the puppy might have.
Is there any possibilitythe puppy's hungry or thirsty?
Has the puppy had adequate
social interaction and mental stimulation?
(06:15):
Has the puppy had sufficientphysical stimulation?
I'm just going to sidebar and sayI could talk for an hour about puppy
owners incorrect assessments of puppiesneed for mental and physical stimulation.
But that's another podcast.
Then you have to look at
is there any other possiblephysical reason the puppy's in distress?
(06:40):
Is the puppy in pain or sick?
So that's your punch list of antecedents.
You got to check all those boxes offbefore proceeding.
Not to beat a dead horse,but I'm going to say it again,
because I don't want any casual listenersto traumatize their puppies,
that all of this is assumingthat the breeder has
(07:02):
put in a good foundation of crateand confinement conditioning.
The puppy's been in his new homea few weeks, which is long enough
that he's acclimated to his new homeand really feels this is his home.
And his people are his family,and there is no possibility
of true emotional distress for this puppy.
(07:23):
That is not going to be true
for every puppy belongingto every listener of this podcast.
Okay, so
once all those boxes are ticked offand it's fair
to put the puppy in his pen or crateand expect him to be quiet.
Now we have to put this behavioron extinction.
(07:44):
And all that is, is
leave the puppy alone to barkuntil he gives up.
For certain I recommend beginning this
by giving the puppya stuffed food toy or a raw, meaty bone,
when you put him in his confinement areain hopes that he'll self-soothe
and find sleep overtaking himbefore he starts his attention barking.
(08:09):
But even if that does not happen,
the procedure is trulyjust ignore the barking
until it stops.
If everything goes normally,
what you'll notice is thatthe barking has a distinct cadence.
If you pay attention, there is a generaltone, pitch, and speed of the barking.
(08:35):
As you ignore the barking,
that musicality will at first startto get less shrill
and the barks will be more spaced apart
the longer you wait them out.
You will probably even get to a pointwhere you think, has it stopped? ...
and then it will start again.
(08:56):
This is good.
You're on the right track.
But then just when you're thinking,
oh yeah, we're almost there,
it's going to start up again
and it's going to start up againexplosively.
It's insane. It's shrill.
It's like the puppyisn't even taking a breath.
(09:18):
It's loud and you're sure your puppy's legis caught in the fence?
It's dramatic beyond belief.
It's a good ideato have a camera in the room
so you can lookand make sure that, in fact,
your puppy does not havehis leg caught in the fence.
Because trust me, you're going to besure there's something wrong.
(09:40):
This is the
extinction burst, and it's gnarly.
This is the darkest hour before dawn.
The behavior is about to go away.
You're almost there.
But this is where the average puppy owner
just cannot take it.
And then they run in and yell
(10:01):
at, comfort or let the puppy out.
And this has profoundly bad consequences.
Because if you want
to build a super durable behavior,
you go in and reinforceduring the extinction burst.
(10:24):
That is literally the rock
that dog training is built on.
You thin your reinforcement ratio,
which will cause a surge in behavior,the extinction burst,
and then you go in and reinforceduring that extinction burst
and you will get a dogthat persists in that behavior
(10:46):
and does it with enthusiasm.
And the more times you thinthe reinforcement ratio and reinforce
during the extinction burst, the stronger
and more durable the behavior becomes.
This is fantastic when you're teachingcompetition heeling, or scent detection.
(11:08):
Tragic
when you're teaching the puppy to bark,
because that iswhat the puppy owner is doing.
They're not just ineffectiveat stopping the puppy from barking.
They are actively training a loud
and persistent barking behavior.
(11:28):
And they are unbelievably fantasticat training this.
Frankly, they could not be better at itif there were professional
dog trainers and explicitlyset out to teach their puppies
to bark in confinement.
At the end of the day, it's simple.
(11:49):
Make sure it's appropriate for your puppy.
Set up the correct antecedents.
Do it at a time when you have the timeto let this play out.
Not on the late night
when you have to get up earlyfor an important meeting the next day.
Put the puppy in confinementwith a chew object
and steel yourselffor however long it takes.
(12:13):
That's your first successful session.
Then the next timeyour puppy goes into confinement,
he'll probably barkand there'll be another extinction burst.
But the entire cycle will be shorter
and it will be less dramatic.
By the third or fourth time
(12:35):
your puppy goes in it'll be a routine.
There might be a chirp or two,but that's it.
So again,if you've set up all the antecedents
and checked all the boxes off,this is how it's going to go.
And this is what everyone,all of those thousands
of fantastic dog trainers onthe internet are going to tell you.
(12:57):
And this is what you willprobably fail to do.
And either wind up with an everescalating attention monster,
or you will move directly onto an aversivespray bottle, shock collar,
citronella collarand just stop the barking.
But then also you'll set upa tone of suppression
(13:19):
and leave a great big stain
on your bondwith your puppy right out of the gate.
So what's going on here?
Well, what's so interesting to me
about this situation is that when it comesto this kind of attention
seeking barking, puppy ownersdon't have the heart to listen to it,
(13:43):
but they have the heart to silence it.
So yelling or using an aversive
is somehow okay, but ignoring
it is just not.
And what puppy owners can't understandis that even if they suppress that
behavior and stop the barking,
(14:07):
the puppy is still feeling the same thing.
The puppy is equally dissatisfiedwhether he's barking or not.
But the puppy ownerdoesn't feel like a bad guy
if the puppy's not barking.
So this is really about
the emotional state of the puppy owner,not the dog.
(14:30):
And that's what we have to address.
You know, dogs
and people are highly social animals,and we have a strong
evolutionary biasto be in dread of being ignored.
Being ignored is worse than negativeattention.
(14:54):
Not just for the puppy,but for the puppy owner.
So if the puppy owner is yelling,
spraying, shocking, it's something.
It's social interactive.
It's not being shunned.
And somehow that feels more rightto the puppy
owner than just ignoring.
(15:14):
I think this is at the heart of why
the perfect solution to the barkingproblem is just lying all over the place.
Freely accessible to all.
Yet sharing that informationdoes not seem to move the needle.
It's not about lack of information.
It's about lack of addressingthe deep social and emotional component
(15:36):
for the puppy owner.
So the question is,
how do we get the puppy owner to feelthat ignoring
is in fact interaction
and the puppiesnot being abandoned socially?
And that in putting the behavioron extinction,
they're not cutting the puppy offsocially, but creating a workable
(15:59):
and varied deep connection.
I can't say that I have
a scalable solutioncompletely figured out for this,
but I will tell you for surewhat does work?
As they say in the writing business
show them, don't tell thembecause your communications
(16:23):
with your puppy ownersreally are like novels.
You're building a storythat they can understand,
and it's more powerfulto show rather than tell.
I have personal experience with this.
I placed a puppy with a very dear friend
(16:44):
who lives three doors down from me,
so I had a unique chance
to sort of co-parent this puppy with her.
I got to witness on a firsthand basis,
the genesis of this dynamicbetween the puppy owner and the puppy.
(17:04):
And because the puppy was
coming to my house
and sometimes going with me to classand sometimes going with her,
I mean, I got to witnessthe puppy barking in his crate
when I took him to class,and I got to put that on extinction,
because I know for a fact that this puppydoesn't need to bark in a crate.
(17:25):
And my friendand co owner got to see this.
She witnessed her puppy not barkingin the crate when I ignored him.
So I can't really speak
for another person,but to me it seems that
it gave her a level of comfortthat I don't think she could have gotten
(17:46):
without witnessing it firsthand.
I mean, don't get me wrong,I believe she'll still tell you that she
feels terrible about the amount of timethat her puppy has to stay in confinement.
But I do think seeing it work outin the long run at the breeders house
(18:06):
gives the puppy owners perspectivethat they couldn't get any other way.
So when possible,
have thepuppy owner bring the puppy back to you.
Put the puppy back in the contextof where they first
learned crate and confinement training,and where you're confident
that they won't barkor they won't persist in barking.
(18:30):
And then your puppy owneris going to see how content and happy
the puppy is in that context,and it's going to help them believe,
because they have to believethat the puppy is capable of being happy
and content in confinement.
Failing,
being able to have the puppy owner
observe you interacting with their dog
(18:53):
and see how that works, it's really tough.
But I can share a few thoughts.
Part of the problem
is that there's a rock bottom crossroads
where the puppy ownerhas to accept that at certain ages
and stages,you're not going to make that puppy happy,
(19:16):
that there is going to be a certain amount
of disappointment on the puppies behalf.
At some stages in a dog's life,
there are no solutions where everyone wins
and it'sgoing to feel crappy to the puppy owner
because the puppies in jail.
(19:37):
And some people think
in that moment that they would justrather live with an attention monster
than to have to ever disappointthat puppy.
But consider this
it comes to a point where it's literally
like letting the inmates run the asylum.
(20:01):
The asylum will be torn to shreds.
You'll have an enormous vet bill for theobstruction from the stuff your puppy ate.
You'll be fired from your jobbecause of the barking dog
in the background on every zoom call.
And you'll dislike the attentionmonster extortionist puppy
(20:21):
that you have to entertainevery waking moment
and double dislike itbecause you will not have been able
to sleep at night through four months
because your puppylikes to get up at 4:00 am.
And yes, a percentage of people
will return those dogs to the breeder
(20:42):
or relinquish it to a shelter.
This is a very sneakily high
jeopardy issue,and it all comes down to that
puppy owner's ability to ride out
an extinction burst.
So while I said earlierthat at some stages in a dog's life,
(21:03):
there are no solutions where everyone wins
and in a very immediate sense,that is true
at that exact moment in time,the puppy does not feel he's winning.
But in the long run,
this is not true at all.
Everyone always wins when the puppy learns
(21:25):
that his confinementarea is an automatic cue to settle.
This is why we as humans
are able to keep dogs as pets.
We have a higher cognition and abilityto see the future
and have a picturethat the dog cannot see.
(21:46):
So in that moment when the puppiesin extinction
burst and barkinglike his leg is being sawed off,
instead of focusingon the immediate communication
that the puppy's giving youand how you don't want to be the bad guy,
and how you can't take being meanto your puppy.
(22:07):
Understand that there is so much
you know that your puppy does not,
and so much that you can foresee
so many fun adventuresand wonderful years with your puppy,
growing to a dog and sleeping at your feetwhile you work from home.
(22:27):
Christmases, birthdays, camping trips.
You can see all of thatand see that it depends right now
on this puppy learning that sometimes
this is what it is to be a dog.
Sometimes it's boring, sometimes
it's not what you want right now,
(22:50):
but it's a ticket to all those fun timesahead
of which that puppyhas no ability to comprehend.
But you, as the primate
with the thumbsand the large prefrontal cortex,
do have the ability to comprehend.
And it all starts with this pinpointin time
(23:13):
of you waiting out that extinction burst.
If you
liked this podcast, you'll love our puppyowner course,
With Open Arms and a Level Head -How to welcome a puppy into your life.
Available at puppyculture.com.
Breeders, do you want to get your puppyowner started off on the right foot?
(23:37):
Check out our bulkdiscounts on puppy courses, booklets
and bundles at puppyculture.com.
Well, that's it for this time.
Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
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