Can letting your dog follow you around all day actually contribute to separation anxiety? Let's explore this common concern and find the right balance between bonding and fostering independence in your canine companion. Join me, Will Bangura, as we debunk the myth that comforting a fearful dog reinforces its fear and discover why positive reinforcement is key to effective training. This episode is packed with insights on how to keep your dog mentally and physically engaged through enriching activities that promote their overall well-being.
Understanding dog behavior isn't just about managing separation anxiety and fear; it's also about addressing everyday challenges like a dog's excitement when guests arrive. Learn practical strategies to teach your dog alternative behaviors and manage their energy levels properly. We'll also dive deep into the principles of desensitization and counter conditioning, offering step-by-step guidance to help your dog overcome fears and anxieties. From controlling triggers to providing gentle comfort and distraction, these techniques will foster a happier, more balanced dog.
Creativity is crucial when it comes to keeping a bored dog entertained, especially for those working from home. We'll explore innovative enrichment activities such as scent work games and impulse control exercises tailored to keep your dog mentally stimulated. Additionally, I’ll share tips on ensuring your dog gets the right amount of aerobic exercise without risking overexertion, and discuss the pros and cons of dog parks and doggy daycare. Tune in for actionable advice to help you and your dog thrive together, and don't forget to check out my website for more in-depth articles on these topics.
If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
Go here for Free Dog Training Articles
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Raised by wolves with canine DNA in his blood.
Having trained more than 24,000pets, helping you and your fur
babies thrive, live in studiowith Will Bangura answering your
pet behavior and trainingquestions.
Ladies and gentlemen, pleasewelcome your host and favorite
pet behavior expert, willBangura.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Would you like to go on?
Y'all ready for this.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, good Saturday morning dog lovers.
I'm Will Bangura.
Thanks for joining me foranother episode of Dog Training
Today Live.
We're here each and everySaturday morning on Facebook
Live, 12 noon Eastern nineo'clock Pacific.
If you're brand new to DogTraining Today, let me talk a
(00:54):
little bit about what we do here.
But first do me a favor, showme some love.
Go ahead and click that likebutton and please share this to
your timeline.
Okay, but anyway, if you'rebrand new to dog training today,
this is an opportunity.
We're going to be here for anhour.
I'm a certified dog behaviorconsultant as well as a
certified professional dogtrainer.
(01:15):
I've been training dogsprofessionally for over 35 years
and for the next hour we'regoing to be talking everything
dog.
We're going to be talkingeverything behavior.
We're going to be talkingeverything behavior, and if
you've got questions, that'sright.
If you've got questions aboutyour dog's behavior, I want to
hear from you.
(01:36):
Do me a favor If you do have aquestion about your dog's
behavior, I'm here to answer it.
Just go ahead and type yourquestion down below in the
comment section and then alittle bit later, I'm going to
look at those questions and I'mgoing to do the best I can to
provide you with great solutionsthat are based in positive
(02:01):
reinforcement.
Positive reinforcement youmight be noticing that Jordan is
missing.
Today.
Jordan contacted me, let meknow he's not feeling well, so
hopefully he begins to feelbetter and hopefully we'll see
him next Saturday.
I want to go straight into somelistener questions, and one of
(02:25):
the first questions and I getthis a lot from folks this is
from Stacy and Stacy's actuallyin Hawaii, and she said should I
let my dog follow me around allday?
That it's going to make my dogdependent on me, cause my dog to
(02:50):
have separation anxiety.
So let me go into that becauseI get that a lot.
That is a loaded questionShould I let my dog follow me
around all day long?
Well, see how do I want toanswer this?
(03:12):
To begin with, well, there aresome benefits to letting your
dog follow you around, and oneof it is bonding and
companionship.
Right, allowing your dog tofollow you.
That can strengthen your bondbetween you, providing your pet
with a sense of security andcompanionship.
The other thing is, dogs learna lot by observing the pet
(03:35):
parents.
Following you around can helpthem understand routines and
behaviors, which can be usefulin training.
However, there are somedrawbacks and, as your boyfriend
was talking about, separationanxiety, allowing a dog to
follow you everywhere well, thatcan lead to or exacerbate
separation anxiety.
(03:56):
Your dog might become overlydependent on your presence and
anxious when you're not around.
The other thing that can happensome dogs might become
overstimulated or stressed outby constantly following you
around, especially if you're ina really busy household.
(04:17):
The other thing is lack ofindependence.
It's essential for dogs todevelop a sense of independence.
Constantly following you aroundcan hinder that and it can make
it difficult for them to bealone, even for short periods of
time.
So let's talk about bestpractices.
We really want balance and aroutine.
(04:37):
So we want to encourage balancewhere your dog spends time with
you and also has designatedperiods where they're alone or
engaged in independentactivities.
So that can include time in adesignated safe space,
especially when you're busy orwhen you're out.
As far as training is concerned,use positive reinforcement to
(04:59):
teach your dog to stay in thatspecific area or engage in
independent activities.
You can start with shortdurations, then gradually
increase the time that your dogis spending alone.
Now enrichment activities arecritical.
Provide plenty of mental,physical stimulation through
toys, through puzzles, regularexercise, training.
(05:21):
All of that can help to keepyour dog from getting separation
anxiety.
Now, if your dog does start toshow signs of separation anxiety
, well then you need to beginthe process of counter
conditioning and desensitization.
And we talk a lot about counterconditioning and
(05:42):
desensitization on the podcast,so I'm not going to get into all
of the details of that, butsometimes it can be pretty
challenging if you do have a dogthat has separation anxiety.
But for the most part, you canallow your dog to follow you
around.
Again, you just need to havemoderation.
(06:04):
You need to have some kind ofbalance with that so that your
dog can develop someindependence as well and so that
your dog doesn't become toodependent upon you.
Now I want to go into anotherquestion.
This is a question.
I get this over and over andover and it warrants us
(06:29):
discussing it a little bit.
Yeah, I got to have my coffeein the morning.
I don't do anything withoutcoffee, folks.
So the next question is fromRob.
Rob is from Wisconsin and Robsays will comforting my fearful
dog reinforce my dog's fear?
Well, the question of whetheror not to comfort a dog when it
(06:54):
becomes scared, and in this caseRob's talking about when he
walks his dog.
His dog gets scared and hewants to know hey, is it okay if
I comfort my dog?
All right, so that's a very,very common question and there's
been a lot of conflictingadvice on that particular issue.
(07:17):
However, recent evidence-basedresearch provides us with
understanding of how to handlethat situation and how to handle
that effectively.
Now, the first thing that I needto talk about is the fact that
the idea that comforting a dogwhen it's scared will reinforce
its fearful behavior is a myth.
(07:39):
I'm going to say that again theidea that comforting a dog when
it's scared will reinforce itsfearful behavior is a myth.
All right, fear is an emotionalresponse.
It's not a behavior that can bereinforced through comfort.
Ok, providing comfort to ascared dog does not increase the
(08:03):
likelihood of the fearreoccurring in the future, and
that's just a fact based onscience, based on studies, based
on research.
Look, you, either follow thescience and believe the science,
or we have all these myths thatgo around in dog training
(08:23):
Comforting your dog, rob that goaround in dog training?
All right, comforting your dog,rob when it's scared can provide
them with support, thereassurance that they need to
feel safe, and that is somethingthat can help to reduce their
anxiety and build theirconfidence over time.
So it's a good thing to betrying to comfort the dog.
(08:43):
When comforting your dog,though, it's important that you
remain calm and that you'reconfident in what you're doing,
because your dog can pick up onyour emotions.
So staying composed can help toreassure your own dog that
there's no real danger.
Now you want to use positivereinforcement to associate the
(09:04):
scary situation with positiveexperiences, for example,
offering your dog treats orpraise, or engaging in a fun
activity or play.
All of that can help to createa more positive association with
the fearful stimulus, with thefearful stimulus.
But you've got to understandthat when it comes to and again
(09:29):
we're talking about counterconditioning and desensitization
, when it comes to counterconditioning and desensitization
, we're exposing the dog to thetriggers or situations that are
scary for the dog, because wewant to change the underlying
change, the underlying emotionalstate of fear.
Now, the biggest mistake thateverybody makes and, a matter of
(09:54):
fact, I was just talking with aclient this week and she's got
a dog that's fearful, and she isdoing the right thing.
She's wanting to get the dogout, get the dog exposed,
wanting to pair positiveassociation and positive
(10:16):
reinforcement with those scarytriggers that are out there.
But the way that it works, youhave to start at a distance
where your dog doesn't have acare in the world.
You know, it's one thing ifyour dog, rob, is scared and
you're comforting your dog,which is a good thing, which is
(10:37):
a good thing.
But if you keep putting your dogin situations where your dog is
scared, if you keep exposingyour dog to those triggers in
such a way that it's elicitingthe fear, you're going to have a
really hard time getting overthat.
Even if you've got one of thesedogs and there are dogs out
(10:59):
there usually when they'rereally anxious they won't take
food.
But there are dogs that are outthere and, rob, maybe you've
got one of them that even whenthey're anxious they may take
food.
I mean, there's some crazy chowhounds out there, like Labrador
Retrievers.
Trust me, I had a lab.
I had a chocolate lab that hadsome issues, some fears and
anxieties a long time ago but,trust me, her appetite was
(11:26):
incredible.
She would take food anytime,anywhere, no matter what's going
on.
But when you're exposing yourdog, rob, to fearful stimuli,
when you're exposing your dog totriggers that are scary.
You want to get your dog farenough away from that trigger
(11:49):
where your dog doesn't have acare in the world, and then what
you want to do is you want tocreate very black and white
cause and effect associations,so working.
Let's say that your dog'safraid of a person or your dog's
afraid of strange dogs Workingwith a helper, having that
helper come into view withitself or another dog, but at a
(12:11):
distance again, where your dogdoesn't have a care in the world
.
When your dog notices thetrigger, when your dog notices
the strange person or your dognotices the strange dog, that's
when you want to start thepositive reinforcement.
That's when you want to startthe praise.
That's when you want to startthe love and affection.
That's when you want to startfeeding high value food rewards.
(12:34):
That's when you want to startplay and the way that I like to
teach it.
We do that for a few secondswhile that trigger is there and
we're controlling the situation.
You know I'm talking onspeakerphone.
All right, come into view.
Then here comes the triggerinto view.
Right, the dog sees it.
Feed, feed, feed, feed, feed,constantly and continuously for
(12:55):
about one to three seconds.
Then I'm telling that triggerhey, go out of view.
And then, as that trigger goesout of view, we stop feeding,
the positive reinforcement stops.
And I might do that for about10, 15 minutes.
15 minutes is a very longsession for counter conditioning
and desensitization.
All right, counter conditioningis just a fancy word that says,
(13:17):
hey, we're going to counter,we're going to do the opposite.
We're going to change thecurrent conditioning your dog
has.
We're going to do the opposite.
We're going to change thecurrent conditioning your dog
has.
Your dog is conditioned that ithas an underlying emotional
state that it views that triggeras scary.
So that emotional state is fear, anxiety, stress.
That's the conditioning thatyour dog has gotten over and
(13:38):
over and over.
And so what we don't want to do, rob, and again, this is the
mistake that a lot of peoplemake.
They've got really goodintentions.
Matter of fact, a lot of dogtrainers make this mistake, and
I know we have a lot of trainersthat listen to the show, so
it's important that you hearthis too.
If you have the dog so close tothe trigger that the dog is
(14:00):
displaying anxiety and stressdog is displaying anxiety and
stress you're either not goingto really produce any results or
your results are going to beminimal and you're going to hit
a wall very quickly.
The whole idea of gradual andsystematic desensitization is
about keeping your dog in anemotional state where your dog
(14:22):
doesn't have any stress, doesn'thave any anxiety and little by
little, getting closer andcloser.
Now counter conditioning isabout pairing that positive
reinforcer with the trigger.
But when we're doing thatremember I said that the trigger
is far enough away, the dogdoesn't have a care in the world
.
Well, if you think about it,when the trigger is at that
(14:45):
distance from the dog, the dog'semotional state should be
neutral.
If the trigger is closer, thedog's emotional state is one of
fear, anxiety and stress, allright.
But you get the dog far enoughaway where it doesn't have a
care in the world.
It's neutral, it doesn't viewit as positive.
Yet that's the role of counterconditioning.
(15:07):
That's us creatingopportunities on our own where
we're designing exposuresessions and bringing the
trigger into view in a verycontrolled way, where we can
control the distance and we knowthat there's not going to be
other scary things happening atthe same time.
(15:29):
That's another mistake that alot of people make with fearful
dogs.
You know, fearful dogsoftentimes have multiple fears
and there's a term in trainingand behavior mod called trigger
stacking.
Okay, and that's just what itsounds like trigger stacking,
where you've got multipletriggers, multiple things,
(15:50):
multiple different stimuli thatare causing anxiety, fear,
reactivity, aggression.
Right, because most aggression,most aggression, is based in
fear.
Very few animals go into fightor flight unless they perceive
something as threatening.
Doesn't mean there's a realthreat.
Okay, but you know, as far aspractical steps, as far as
(16:16):
practical steps comforting ascared dog, you want to assess
the situation right.
First.
Ensure that there's noimmediate danger, all right.
If the source of fear issomething benign, well, go ahead
and proceed with comfortingyour dog.
Right, use a soothing voice.
Speak to your dog in a calm,soothing voice.
(16:37):
Your tone can really help.
As far as conveying a sense ofsafety, a sense of reassurance
to your pet, okay, they knowthey can pick up when you're
anxious.
So you being calm, you beingrelaxed, is important.
Now start some physical comfortgentle petting, okay, or
(17:01):
holding your dog to providephysical comfort.
All right, now, always bemindful of what, always be
mindful of your dog's bodylanguage.
Ensure that you know anycontact that you're giving them
is actually comforting and notadding to their stress.
Ok, and then a lot of folks areinto the distract and redirect
(17:24):
method, right.
So, if possible, try todistract your dog with a
favorite toy or a treat,redirecting their focus.
That can really help them tomove past that fearful situation
.
And we talked about the gradualand systematic desensitization.
So when you're on a walk, rob,you may encounter a trigger, you
(17:46):
may encounter something thatcauses your dog to be fearful,
causes your dog to be anxious,and at that exact moment, yeah,
comforting them is a good thing,reassuring them is a good thing
, and it doesn't reinforce thebehavior, because it's an
emotion.
It's an emotion, all right.
(18:07):
Behaviors are what getsreinforced.
So, giving positive comfortduring a situation where you're
on a walk or you encountersomething that's scary, that is
perfectly fine.
That's what I want you to do.
But as we identify these scarythings, we have to say, hey,
(18:29):
wait, these are triggers, I needto work on these.
And what I'm going to tell youis that if you keep exposing
your dog to scary things, you'renot going to get too far.
So what nobody wants to hear inthe beginning, so what nobody
(18:53):
wants to hear in the beginningin the beginning, you need to go
slowly with your dog.
In the beginning you need to bewatching for triggers.
Get your dog out of there andreally in the beginning we
shouldn't be exposing our dog toany triggers.
I know you don't want to hearthat, but imagine if the problem
was a broken water pipe.
What do we have to do to beginbefore we can fix that water
pipe?
We got to turn off the mainwater valve, right?
(19:14):
Yeah, we've got to turn off themain water valve.
Imagine if the water's leakingall over the place.
We're not going to be verysuccessful trying to fix that
broken water pipe.
Well, turning off the main watervalve, that's us avoiding the
triggers, the scary things.
Now, not that that's the answer, but it's the first step to the
(19:34):
answer, so that your dogdoesn't keep getting that
emotional state more and moreconditioned by being exposed to
something scary.
That emotional state doesn'tget reinforced or conditioned
when you're giving the dogcomfort.
However, if your dog keeps ongetting exposed to triggers and
(19:57):
your dog keeps experiencingnegative emotions, things aren't
going to get much better.
So, avoiding the triggers butthen making sure that, hey,
three to five times a week, atleast three to five times a week
you're doing counterconditioning and desensitization
sessions.
Now to learn more more in-depthinformation on counter
(20:20):
conditioning and desensitization, which are the critical tools,
the big tools in behaviormodification that help dogs get
over fears, anxieties, phobias,reactivity, aggression.
To get more information, go tomy website it's either over here
or it's over here, but you cansee it there below my name.
(20:40):
Wherever it is, I never knowwhat side it is because
sometimes I get a mirroringeffect when I'm doing this.
But go to dogbehavioristcom.
That's one of my websites.
I've got a local website,phoenixdogtrainingcom, but I
also do behavior consultationsglobally with people all over
the country and in othercountries as well.
But I've got over 94 articlesand a lot of them are very
(21:05):
in-depth training guides oncounter conditioning,
desensitization, dogs with fearsand phobias, dogs that are
reactive, dogs that areaggressive.
So check out my articles thatare all free and let other
people know about the articleson the website at
dogbehavioristcom.
Hey, do me a favor If you'rejust joining us.
(21:26):
Thanks for being here.
I'm Will Bangura.
I'm a certified dog behaviorconsultant as well as a
certified professional dogtrainer.
I specialize in the areas ofdog aggression, reactivity,
fears, phobias, separation,anxiety.
If you've got a question aboutyour dog's training.
If you've got a question aboutyour dog's training.
If you've got a question aboutyour dog's behavior, do me a
(21:47):
favor, go ahead and type it inthe comment section below.
In a little bit I'm going to betaking any questions that we
might have live, but we're goingto be here for an hour.
I'm here every Saturday from 9Pacific until 10 Pacific, that's
12 noon Eastern time till 1 pmEastern time every Saturday.
(22:08):
If you are not listening to theDog Training Today audio
podcast, do you listen topodcasts other than Facebook
Live, because I'm here everySaturday but I'm doing other
podcasts throughout the week andyou can find my audio podcast
like on Apple Podcasts, spotify,stitcher, google Podcasts,
(22:31):
itunes, ask Alexa for thepodcast, but make sure that you
listen to that so you don't missanything at all at all.
The other thing that I want totalk about a little bit today is
(22:52):
something that, well, next week, actually, we're going to be
getting into talking aboutveterinarians.
We're going to be talking nextweek about the veterinary field
and we're going to be talkingabout veterinary behaviorist.
What is a veterinary behaviorist?
What does a veterinarybehaviorist do?
How does a veterinarybehaviorist help your dog?
(23:12):
What dogs are appropriate to beseen by veterinary behaviorists
?
And we're just going to talkabout the state of the industry
as it comes to veterinarybehaviorists, because there's
very few of them.
There's only 72 veterinarybehaviorists in North America,
or actually in the United States.
There's about 80 in NorthAmerica because there's some in
(23:33):
Canada, but in the United Stateswe've got 72 veterinary
behaviorists and we've got about190 between dogs and cats.
When you take the total numberof companion animal cats and the
total number of companionanimal dogs, it works out to be
about 180, 190 million, and wefigure that there's about 20%,
(24:01):
roughly about 20%, of dogs thatsuffer from severe emotional
distress, severe behaviorproblems where there's an
underlying emotional statethat's driving that behavior
fear, reactivity, aggression,phobias, those type of things.
Well, about 20 percent of dogshave that stuff pretty severe,
(24:23):
and separation and separationanxiety would add to that as
well, and those are thepopulation of dogs that can
really benefit from being seenby a veterinary behaviorist.
But because there's only 72 inthe United States and we've got
180, 190 million dogs and cats,when we take a look at roughly
(24:48):
that 20% the severe cases thatreally need a veterinary
behaviorist we're talking aboutover 2 million dogs and cats per
veterinary behaviorist, whichis just undoable.
So there's a crisis in theveterinary field, and it's not
just veterinary behavior as faras lack of veterinarians.
(25:09):
It's all specialties, and we'llbe talking about that more.
But before we get any further,we need to hear from our
sponsors, we need to pay thebills, and so do me a favor.
We're going to be back in 60seconds.
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Speaker 3 (26:33):
All right, very good.
Hey, do me a favor, make surethat you visit our sponsor, calm
Dogs.
You can go to doganxietycom orcalmdogscom.
Please support them.
Well, if you're just joining me, I'm Will Bangura.
Thanks for joining me here onFacebook Live.
I'm here each and everySaturday, 9 am Pacific until 10.
(26:55):
That's 12 noon Eastern time,and that goes until one as well.
I want to get into morequestions.
I've got another question here.
This was one that was emailedand this one is from Joanne and
Joanne says yeah, this is one weget all the time.
(27:16):
Joanne says I've got a dog thatis always jumping and goes
absolutely crazy anytime we haveguests over, and it's very
embarrassing.
What can I do?
Well, so there's a multi-prongedsituation here.
Your dog's overstimulated whenpeople are coming over, and a
(27:37):
lot of times one of thechallenges is maybe you don't
have people come over that often, right, and if we're not having
people come over that often, wedon't always have an
opportunity to be able to workon it.
So one of the first things weneed to do is realize that, hey,
one of the pillars of dogslearning, one of the pillars in
(27:59):
how they learn, is repetition.
Okay, and so when it comes to,you know, repetition that means
that how often?
Well, how often do you have todo it?
That's a great question, right?
So again, I tell people look,you've got to be working on
things at least three to fivetimes a week, and that means
(28:22):
proactively.
See, a lot of you are onlydealing with the problem
reactively and oftentimes, whenwe're reacting to a problem, we
are not prepared and it catchesus off guard and we might not be
doing things the correct way.
(28:42):
So we might not be a goodteacher in that moment.
And the pet, the dog, if we'renot a good teacher, they're not
going to learn well.
And so it's important to beproactive, and that means to set
things up, stage setups.
Now, the first thing that youknow I like to do is teach an
(29:04):
alternative behavior, becauseit's easy to punish, right, and
those of you that have beenlistening to the show for a
while, been listening to thepodcast, you know that we don't
use aversives.
There's not a need to useaversives.
You don't need to usepunishment, you don't need to
use correction collars, youdon't need a prong collar, you
don't need a shock collar, youdon't need to knee your dog if
(29:26):
your dog is jumping, you don'tneed to be yelling at your dog.
First of all, your dog's notbeing dominant, okay.
Your dog's just being a dog.
It's being unruly.
What does that mean?
It means that your dog iswithout rules, and it's our job
our job to teach them what therules are, and it's our job to
teach them that in a way that ispositive.
(29:48):
How do you like to learn?
How well do you learn if you'rebeing punished?
How well do you learn if you'rebeing rewarded?
Okay, so when?
Maybe your common sense andit's wrong, it's not common
sense, but maybe your commonsense says hey, I just need to
nip this in the bud, I'm justgoing to punish the dog, and a
lot of trainers will tell you todo that.
(30:09):
I believe those trainers havegood intentions, but they don't
know what they don't know.
I believe those trainers havegood intentions but they don't
know what they don't know.
And science, research,evidence-based training that's
out there.
We can train in any behaviorand we can train out any
behavior just using positivereinforcement.
But, joanne, as far as your dogjumping and as far as your dog
(30:32):
going crazy when you have guestsover, there's two different
things there.
One is getting your dog to becalm around people and the other
is to get your dog not to jump.
And the trigger might not justbe the people.
Your dog could start gettingexcited when it hears or sees a
car approach and come into thedriveway, or sees somebody
(30:53):
walking up to the door, when ithears the doorbell ring or when
somebody's knocking.
So it's at that moment, thatfirst moment, the first moment
that your dog starts gettingoverstimulated.
That's the first trigger thatwe need to work with and we need
to do the counter conditioningand the desensitization.
So if your dog starts gettingexcitable when cars come by or
(31:19):
people come by, you're going tohave to proactively stage setups
with cars going by or peoplegoing by, but control the
environment where you can createmore distance and maybe it's
moving your dog further awayfrom the big picture window,
further away from the door, butwhere your dog is not
overstimulated.
(31:40):
Your dog can see the triggerbut they're not overstimulated
and then you're going to bepairing with that trigger.
Have that trigger go away, stopthe positive reinforcement, do
(32:00):
that over and over and over 10to 15 minutes.
Again, I've got more detailedinformation at my website at
dogbehavioristcom, and you cancheck out all the articles there
, especially the ones on counterconditioning and
desensitization.
But I like Joanne to teach thedog to do an alternative
behavior.
So my dogs can't be jumping andsitting at the same time and I
(32:23):
love to teach sit as analternative to get attention
versus the dog jumping, whichthey just want attention when
they're jumping and we createthat.
We've said a lot of times onthe podcast that we create those
behaviors when they're jumpingand we create that.
We've said a lot of times onthe podcast that we create those
behaviors.
When they're puppies, we startpicking them up, picking them up
to our chest.
Well, that's kind of likejumping right, and then, as they
(32:43):
start jumping themselves, whenthey're little, we usually pet
them and we think it's cute.
But then when they get big,it's not so cute right.
Then when our 80, 90-year-oldmom or dad come to visit and
they're on blood thinners and wedon't want our dog jumping on
them and we don't want thembreaking a hip, then it's no
longer fun, is it?
So I do a lot of work withhaving helpers come to the door
(33:05):
making the dog sit.
Come to the door, make the dogsit.
Now I'm rewarding the dog everytime.
Now, if your dog can't maintainthe sit, then you've gone too
far, too fast in this process.
Maybe the only thing that yourdog can maintain that sit for is
just hearing a person approachor seeing that person approach
(33:26):
from a distance, right, but youhave to be able to keep the dog
in that sitting position andyou've got to proactively begin
to work on calm, what I callcalm distractions or low level
distractions.
Right, you might start bybouncing a ball, okay, and you
may start by just having peoplein the house creating a little
(33:49):
bit of commotion, okay.
If your dog breaks the command,if your dog comes out of sit,
just re command the dog into sit.
All right, if I'm treating itas an implied stage man, I don't
like to reward the dog when Ire command, but within about 10,
15 seconds of the dogmaintaining that sit again, I am
(34:11):
going to be rewarding that,because I'm now rewarding the
stay component of the sit, andthat's really what I want.
All right, because my dog can'tbe committed to staying in a sit
and having its butt down on theground and jumping at the same
time.
It's got to give up onebehavior for the other.
It can't do both.
(34:32):
All right.
So teaching your dog analternative behavior.
We call that differentialreinforcement.
You're using positivereinforcement.
See how that doesn't involvepunishment.
See how we don't have to kneethe dog or use correction
collars Teaching the dog analternative behavior.
That would be incompatible ifthey're committed to it.
They can't sit and jump at thesame time.
(34:58):
Now, when you start doing this,you're going to do this with
low-level distractions, butlittle by little you need to up
the ante on the distractions.
So maybe it's somebody comingto the door quietly to begin
with and maybe they're justknocking ever so lightly, or one
knock right, or we had themrattle the door handle.
Or maybe, as we're movingtowards that door to open the
door to let the guest in, all ofa sudden our dog gets out of
(35:21):
sit Right.
So, just working on theapproach to the door, gradually
and systematically, taking twosteps dog doesn't come out of
sit, go back.
Reward the dog Now.
Take three steps towards thedoor.
Your dog doesn't take the baitand stays in the sit, go back.
Reward the door.
Four steps, five steps go back.
Reward the dog Little by little.
(35:41):
Make your way to the door andthen also make your hand to the
doorknob.
If your dog maintains the sit,go back and reward Now.
Open the door just an inch.
If your dog maintains the sit,reward the dog Now again.
(36:02):
Anytime your dog breaks from sit, just go back.
Re-command sit right, start,get a little closer where you
had success and again try tobuild your way back to the door,
but do it a little bit slower.
Make sure that your dog makesure that you're helping your
dog learn what is success.
Your dog should be having a lotmore success than it should
have.
Mistakes, all right.
If your dog is having mistakesmore than 20% of the time, your
(36:25):
distractions are too much, toosoon.
Dial them back down a littlebit.
Dial those back down, okay, andeventually you're going to be
opening the door and in thebeginning when I do this, I
don't even have a stranger outby the door.
I'm getting my dog comfortablewith that door opening a lot
(36:45):
where it's really boring and thedog is maintaining the sit,
then I bring a very calm personto the door and I work with
teaching the dog to maintain thesit there.
Then I have that person startgetting a little more animated.
Now, this might take me acouple of weeks to do If I've
got a dog that is reallyexcitable, has a lot of drive.
(37:07):
It might take even a little bitlonger, but the difference
between punishment and positivereinforcement when you use
positive reinforcement, you'rereally modifying the behavior.
You're going to get a lot morepermanence and reliability, and
there's a lot of dogs that getanxious when somebody new comes
over, and that anxiety doesn'thave to necessarily be a bad
(37:29):
thing.
Right, many of us go onvacation and we have a little
bit of anxiety.
That's not necessarily a badthing, all right.
Many of us go on vacation andwe have a little bit of anxiety.
That's not necessarily a badthing, all right.
But when we're punishing a dog,that's just going to add more
anxiety to the dog, and a lot ofthese behaviors have their
basis, are rooted in anxiety,and so punishment, even if you
(37:53):
can suppress the outwardbehavior temporarily and that's
all you're doing you'resuppressing the outward behavior
it's going to be temporary.
Usually the behavior alwayscomes back until you actually do
real work, until you actuallydo real training.
And punishing a dog doesn't takeany skills, all right, you've
(38:14):
got to be a lot better trainer,you've got to be a lot better
skilled in order to use positivereinforcement and not default
to punishment because we're lazy, because think about it.
I mean, how much effort does ittake to yell at the dog?
How much effort does it take toshock the dog with the shock
(38:36):
collar, press the remote?
How much effort and skill doesit take to correct the dog with
a yank and crank correction witha prong collar or a choke
collar?
I don't advocate that you doany of that.
Okay, positive reinforcement.
Again, if you're working at thedog's pace, you're going to get
(38:56):
there.
Sometimes dogs will get therequickly.
I guarantee you, if you takeyour time, you're actually going
to get there faster than ifyou're trying to cut corners,
because now you got to go backand you got to fix things that
you messed up.
So, teaching your dog analternative behavior, joanne,
starting to work with low-leveldistractions, building those up
(39:18):
to moderate-level distractionsand then really building that up
to chaos where people can comein your dog's on a sit and
people are just very animated,making a lot of noise, a lot of
movement.
Now, if you want this to work alittle faster, if you want to
have a little more success,forego the sit, teach your dog
(39:41):
to go to its place, or teachyour dog to go to its spot or
bed, because all of those things, there's that physical boundary
, and that physical boundaryjust kind of helps the dog kind
of stay put a little bit.
And especially if you use aplace cot that's what I call it,
those, you know, those elevateddog cots.
They're just a few inches offthe ground.
They got kind of a meshmaterial that those couple
(40:04):
inches, believe it or not, havelike a psychological cliff
effect.
It really helps keep the dogthere.
So if you're working on a stayand that's the most important
part of the sit right If you'reworking on stay because you
don't want your dog jumping andthey can't be staying and
jumping at the same time you'regoing to have more success early
on teaching a dog to stay ontheir place, on their bed, on
(40:27):
their spot, where it's clearlymarked, and especially if it's
elevated, and the training ofstay will go faster, the
training of being able to keepyour dog there with heavy
distractions go faster.
Then I recommend, once you havethat, now start to generalize
that Take your dog off of itsbed, take your dog off a place,
take your dog off of the spotand start having your dog doing
(40:49):
sits and having your dog justlay down, not on place, not on
its bed, not on its spot, butanywhere and work the same
distractions and little bylittle, gradually,
systematically, you're going tobe able to get there.
All right, let me see.
(41:12):
You know what I need to do.
I need to actually get onto theFacebook page and need to take
a look at the actual videoBecause, see, when I go there
now, I can go into the commentssection and look and see, hey,
do we have any questions?
(41:33):
Comment section and look andsee, hey, do we have any
questions?
And we do have one.
So V has a question.
V says I work from home andthroughout the day, my
three-year-old Yorkie Terriermix dog seems so bored.
I walk him in the morning andprovide toys, but he doesn't
seem, doesn't seem to be enough.
Any suggestions?
Well, yeah, there's a lot ofthings, v, and we call that
(42:00):
enrichment, okay, and dogs canget bored.
First of all, as far asactivities and things that you
can do, one of the best thingsyou can do is let your dog sniff
, and a lot of people take theirdogs for walks and they don't
let their dog sniff.
Okay, 25% of the dog's brain,anatomically, is designed for
(42:24):
sniffing, for smelling.
Now let me compare that to ahuman, our brain, a human brain,
about 0.1% of our brain,anatomically, is there for
smelling, and so, think about it, when a dog is using their nose
, they're stimulating a quarterof their brain.
(42:47):
Most of us don't even use aquarter of our brain.
Okay, so, getting your dog outon walks, letting your dog sniff
, but I love people to teachnose games.
Now, in some see, here's thething.
Yeah, I love the puzzles andthat's one type of enrichment.
You know how you get the littlepuzzles and you put the treats
in it and the dog kind of sniffsand gets.
(43:09):
But those can be easy, right,and they just start feed, feed,
feed, feed, right.
But what I like to do isactually do scent work.
Okay, where I'm starting toteach them how to search and
find a particular scent for play, maybe a reward, maybe a food
reward, but it doesn't have tobe food, but something the dog
(43:31):
loves.
Now what you can do is you canget three plastic containers
that are identical okay, like amargarine container, where it's
got the plastic top as well.
Poke a couple holes in the topof each one of them and what I
do is I will go and I will getone or two cloves yeah, the
spice cloves and I'll put it inone of those containers.
And I'm going to set up threecontainers about a foot apart.
(43:54):
One of those containers hascloves in it.
I'm going to get my dog tosmell the three containers.
When my dog sniffs thecontainer with the cloves, I'm
going to ask for sit and I'mgoing to reward the dog.
Now I'm going to take the dogout of that room.
I'm going to bring the dog backin.
Have the dog smell thedifferent containers.
(44:16):
Two have nothing.
One has a couple cloves in it.
Again, when my dog sniffs thecontainer that has cloves, I ask
my dog to sit.
I reward the dog.
I do that over and over andover.
The dog begins to learn.
The dog begins to associatethat, hey, when I smell the
(44:37):
container that has cloves and Ioffer a sit, good things happen.
When I smell those othercontainers, nothing happens.
So that is going to get the dogto want to gravitate towards
finding the smell of the cloves.
Offering a sit so it can getrewarded.
Now again, that reward could beplay, offering a sit so it can
get rewarded.
Now again, that reward could beplay, and I prefer that it be
(44:57):
play.
In a situation like this if yourdog's willing to play, all
right, but some dogs they're notthat into playing, so maybe
it's getting a food reward.
All right, in the beginningyou're going to reward your dog
every time your dog hits on thatscent.
In the beginning it's reallyeasy.
You're bringing your dog tothose containers.
(45:19):
As your dog gets good at that,hide the containers a little bit
.
Don't make it difficult in thebeginning.
Make it pretty easy, eventhough you're hiding it.
While you're doing this, whileyou're practicing, while you're
teaching the dog to sniff andsit and get the reward, start
overlaying a cue or command, Ilike to say search.
(45:41):
Now I'm not asking for a searchin the beginning.
Remember, I'm setting out thethree containers.
One's got a clove, the othertwo have nothing.
I am saying search, search,search.
When the dog sniffs thecontainer with clothes, I ask
for sit.
When the dog sits, then I.
When the dog sniffs thecontainer with clothes, I ask
for sit.
When the dog sits, then Ireward the dog.
(46:02):
I do that over and, over andover.
Then I can start to hide orcreate more distance between
those containers and ask forsearch.
And now the dog gets the ideaand now the dog starts really
using its nose.
Now the dog starts really usingits nose and the dog gets the
idea and now the dog startsreally using its nose.
Now the dog starts really usingits nose and the dog um starts
to find things and use that 25of its brain and make it more
(46:30):
challenging little by little.
If your dog wins, if your dogcan't find it, it's too
challenging, okay.
But I love to do scent work,scent games, okay.
The other thing is allthroughout the day doing some
obedience training.
You know you've got lots ofopportunities and they can be
(46:50):
short sessions, five minuteshere, five minutes there, okay,
of opportunity and they can beshort sessions, five, five
minutes here, five minutes there, okay.
But getting your dog doing nosework, teaching your dog basic
obedience commands, I'll tellyou, working with heavy
distractions, they have toreally use their brain and they
(47:15):
have to start developing impulsecontrol.
And that's hard.
And when you do a lot ofdistraction training with your
obedience commands, I find thatit really tires the dogs out a
lot, okay, and so that's one ofthe things that that I like to
do is a lot of distractiontraining, a lot of scent work,
okay, and so that's one of thethings that that I like to do is
a lot of distraction, training,a lot of scent work.
(47:37):
Okay, when I do take the dogfor a walk, making sure they
have plenty of time to sniff,that it's not some kind of a
robotic walk where they just gotto be looking up at me or they
can never have their nose downon the ground.
That's critical.
Now, if the activities thatyou're doing with your dog are
very high energy activities, insome cases, maybe that then amps
(48:03):
your dog up and when your dog'sback home, your dog now is a
little bit unruly.
Every dog is a little bitdifferent, so you've got to base
it on what's your dog's energy,what's your dog's response if
you're doing high energy thingsGetting involved in dog sports,
(48:23):
doing agility, doing fly ball,you know, finding your local AKC
training groups, gettinggetting on the AKC website and
finding if there are groups inyour um town that do different
training and offer inexpensivetraining Um, it's a lot of fun,
(48:46):
a lot of fun, but those are someof the things that I would
recommend, um, that you do.
Let's see here yeah, you knowthree, your dog's starting to
get into its maturity, as far asyou know, fully grown.
As an quote unquote adult dogbut Yorkie, terrier, mix and
(49:07):
being bored yeah, you knowthey're little hunters.
They're little hunters.
So getting them chasing andusually they like to chase after
things like a ball and thingsof that nature Okay, but what a
lot of people don't realize, youknow they're like yeah, I take
my dog for this mile walk.
We go on a three, two mile walk.
(49:28):
Really, what dogs need isaerobic exercise.
Okay, aerobic exercise, 20minutes of running a day.
Now you've got to be careful.
If you've got a dog that has alot of weight, that could be a
lot of stress on the joints.
Maybe we're not running so fast.
Let's work on the weight.
(49:48):
If you've got an older dog thatmight be getting stiff or
starting to get arthritis, we'regoing to pare that down a
little bit.
But based on what you're tellingme and where a lot of people
need this is when their dogs areyounger and they've got a lot
of energy.
Now you also have to understandyou could have a Yorkie and a
(50:10):
Terrier.
That's very low energy and thenyou can have some that are
really jacked up.
That's very low energy and thenyou can have some that are
really jacked up.
It depends on genetics, dependson personality, all right, and
so if you've got a dog that hasa lot of energy, well, you're
(50:30):
going to have to do thingsthroughout the day.
Now there are some people withenrichment that like to, for
example and this is great for aterrier create their own little
box outside, you know, kind oflike a raised garden, but
there's nothing in it.
All right, you know, using twoby six planks and building like
(50:53):
a squared out area, putting dirtin there and actually allowing
your dog to dig, and you can putvery little things in there.
Treats, you know, like a halfan inch down and they'll start
sniffing it.
So now they're using their noseand they start digging.
So it's physical, All right,and that's something that a lot
(51:15):
of people do that you might wantto design for your dog.
You can get on my website atdogbehavioristcom, where I've
got over 94 articles.
Go to the menu, click onarticles, find my article on
enrichment.
Matter of fact, at the bottomof the article that I have on
enrichment, there is a embeddedYouTube video with some great
(51:38):
ideas, do-it-yourself enrichmentactivities that you can do as
well, so you can check those out.
Hopefully that helps answeryour question, because I know a
lot of people, because I know alot of people they've got dogs
at home and their dogs are bored.
(52:00):
Now, what a lot of people willdo and I want to caution you
against this because you've gota dog that's bored and maybe
being a little bit unruly, don'tjust go out and get another dog
for your dog.
Granted, that might be a greatidea, all right, it might be a
great idea, but the first thingyou need to do is get your dog
really well trained and makesure that if your dog's around
(52:23):
other dogs, that your dog'sstable, that it can handle being
around other dogs and that youcan bring another dog into the
home.
So playdates start working onplaydates.
Now.
I'm not a big fan of dog parks.
Why?
Because, listen, people don'tpay attention to their dogs.
Not everybody's dog isvaccinated.
All right, that's a great wayfor your dog to pick up an
(52:45):
illness.
Going to a dog park.
The idea is fantastic, verywell intentioned, but it's
usually not a matter of if it'sa matter of when your dog gets
into a fight with another dog atthe dog park.
Because what do a lot of peopledo?
They've got a dog that'sfearful, skittish, nervous and
boy that can turn on a dime intofear, aggression.
(53:08):
If the dog can't get away,right, fight or flight.
If I can't get away, if I can'tgo into flight, then I am left
with the only thing I can do isgo into fight.
I can't go into flight?
Then I am left with the onlything I can do is go into fight.
Now imagine somebody that says,hey, I've got a dog like that.
I need to do something to getmy dog over this.
I need to expose my dog,socialize my dog.
(53:28):
And they start bringing thatdog to the dog park.
And here comes a bunch of dogsrunning up to that dog because,
hey, we're just having a blast.
But that dog is scared and says, growling, right, maybe even
lunges and tries to nip.
Maybe it actually bites andharms your dog.
And then what happens?
Usually when there's a fight,then a bunch of other dogs, they
(53:51):
get involved and there's amelee.
So I'm not a fan of dog parksand there's a melee, so I'm not
a fan of dog parks.
I'm sorry.
Find people that you knowfriends, family that you know
they've got calm dogs, thattheir dogs are not aggressive,
(54:22):
they're not reactive and they'vegot decent manners and set up
playdates with your family'sdogs, friends' dogs.
Now, I'm not a fan of dog parks.
I'm not really I'm not so mucha fan of doggy daycare, but not
like dog parks.
All right, at least in a lot ofdoggy daycares they evaluate
the dogs before they bring theminto doggy daycare.
Now, there's one problem withthat, before they bring them
into doggy daycare.
Now there's one problem withthat Many dogs do not start
(54:48):
showing their true colors untilthey've been coming somewhere or
hanging out somewhere forseveral months.
We see this with shelter dogsall the time.
Okay, you bring your dog right.
Let's say you already have adog at home, you want to get a
second dog.
So you bring your dog to therescue organization or the
shelter, or they bring the dogto you and you do a meet and
greet to see if they're going toget along.
And it appears, hey, they'regetting along.
(55:09):
And maybe in the beginningthings are going great.
The first week, two weeks,three weeks, the first month,
the first six weeks.
Now, all of a sudden you getbetween six weeks getting into
that two month period aroundeight weeks, two months to three
months.
Now all of a sudden, aggressionstarts to show.
That's not uncommon.
(55:31):
The dogs are nervous.
When they're in a newenvironment they're kind of
suppressing some of thatbehavior.
And, trust me, dogs can have alot of anxiety and you don't
know, if you don't know caninebody language, well, they can
have a lot of anxiety and you'vegot no clue.
And so it's really importantthat you understand that when
(55:53):
you bring your dog to doggydaycare, there could be dogs
that show up and never start toget aggressive until they've
been there for a couple of weeksor a couple months.
So it's not a perfect science asfar as having somebody assess
dogs at a doggy daycare,thinking, oh, every dog that
(56:14):
comes into doggy daycare hasbeen assessed, so my dog's okay,
everybody's dog is going to beokay.
That's not necessarily the case, so you got to keep that in
mind.
But what I prefer friends,family, they've got dogs assess
their dogs.
And also, if you don't know howto introduce dogs because what
(56:39):
I like to do is, you know, startat a distance.
If everything seems good, ifthe body language is calm, if
they're not reactive, then Iwill bring them in.
Let them sniff for a second,take them apart, bring them in.
Let them sniff for a second ortwo, take them apart, because
many times they come in andsniff everything's good for a
(57:00):
second or two and then all of asudden, boom, it's on.
Okay.
So there's no rule that says youjust got to dump two dogs
together, have them on leash, goto a neutral area, start at a
distance, see how they're doingthere.
If they're very reactive, hey,get the heck out of there.
That's not a good idea.
But if everything's going goodat a distance, start coming in
(57:22):
Again as you're going in.
Make sure things keep goingwell.
If they start going bad, getout of there.
But come on in.
If everything's going well, alittle sniff, then take them
away.
Bring them back in a little bitlonger sniff, take them away.
Once you do that several timesand you've had a little bit of
duration to them andeverything's going well, then
(57:46):
you might have a situation wherethose dogs are just fine being
able to play together.
You can give that a shot.
You can try that.
Do me a favor everybody.
Hey, we're just about out oftime.
But if you love what we do here, if you're a regular listener
to the podcast especially,please just hit that pause
(58:07):
button.
Please hit that pause button Ifyou listen on Apple podcast or
Spotify or wherever you get yourpodcast and give us a five-star
review, your reviews, your loveis so appreciated.
That's the best way you can saythank you, because it allows
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to benefit from what we're doinghere at dog training today,
(58:30):
because we know not everybodycan afford dog training.
Dog training can be expensive,especially when we're dealing
with the more severe behaviors,like aggression, fears, phobias,
reactivity.
So please share this.
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(58:54):
that you hit the like buttonand make sure that you subscribe
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Also, click on that little bellwhich will alert you every time
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Okay, well, that means we areout of time.
That's right.
(59:15):
I want to thank everybody forbeing here.
Thank you for your questions,thank you for your support.
Thank you for listening.
We're going to be back hereagain next Saturday, right here
on Facebook.
Just go to the Dog TrainingToday podcast on Facebook.
We're here every Saturday Again, 9 am Pacific till 10.
That's 12 noon Eastern till 1.
(59:36):
Come with your questions.
Next week we're going to betalking about veterinary
behaviorists.
We're going to be talking aboutdifferent areas in veterinary
behavior and we're going to betaking your questions and more.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
I'm out of here.
Thank you.
Raised by wolves with canine DNA in his blood.
Having trained more than 24,000pets, helping you and your fur
babies thrive, live in studiowith Will Bangura answering your
pet behavior and trainingquestions.
Ladies and gentlemen, pleasewelcome your host and favorite
pet behavior expert, willBangura.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Would you like to go on?
Y'all ready for this.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, good Saturday morning dog lovers.
I'm Will Bangura.
Thanks for joining me foranother episode of Dog Training
Today Live.
We're here each and everySaturday morning on Facebook
Live, 12 noon Eastern nineo'clock Pacific.
If you're brand new to DogTraining Today, let me talk a
(00:54):
little bit about what we do here.
But first do me a favor, showme some love.
Go ahead and click that likebutton and please share this to
your timeline.
Okay, but anyway, if you'rebrand new to dog training today,
this is an opportunity.
We're going to be here for anhour.
I'm a certified dog behaviorconsultant as well as a
certified professional dogtrainer.
(01:15):
I've been training dogsprofessionally for over 35 years
and for the next hour we'regoing to be talking everything
dog.
We're going to be talkingeverything behavior.
We're going to be talkingeverything behavior, and if
you've got questions, that'sright.
If you've got questions aboutyour dog's behavior, I want to
hear from you.
(01:36):
Do me a favor If you do have aquestion about your dog's
behavior, I'm here to answer it.
Just go ahead and type yourquestion down below in the
comment section and then alittle bit later, I'm going to
look at those questions and I'mgoing to do the best I can to
provide you with great solutionsthat are based in positive
(02:01):
reinforcement.
Positive reinforcement youmight be noticing that Jordan is
missing.
Today.
Jordan contacted me, let meknow he's not feeling well, so
hopefully he begins to feelbetter and hopefully we'll see
him next Saturday.
I want to go straight into somelistener questions, and one of
(02:25):
the first questions and I getthis a lot from folks this is
from Stacy and Stacy's actuallyin Hawaii, and she said should I
let my dog follow me around allday?
That it's going to make my dogdependent on me, cause my dog to
(02:50):
have separation anxiety.
So let me go into that becauseI get that a lot.
That is a loaded questionShould I let my dog follow me
around all day long?
Well, see how do I want toanswer this?
(03:12):
To begin with, well, there aresome benefits to letting your
dog follow you around, and oneof it is bonding and
companionship.
Right, allowing your dog tofollow you.
That can strengthen your bondbetween you, providing your pet
with a sense of security andcompanionship.
The other thing is, dogs learna lot by observing the pet
(03:35):
parents.
Following you around can helpthem understand routines and
behaviors, which can be usefulin training.
However, there are somedrawbacks and, as your boyfriend
was talking about, separationanxiety, allowing a dog to
follow you everywhere well, thatcan lead to or exacerbate
separation anxiety.
(03:56):
Your dog might become overlydependent on your presence and
anxious when you're not around.
The other thing that can happensome dogs might become
overstimulated or stressed outby constantly following you
around, especially if you're ina really busy household.
(04:17):
The other thing is lack ofindependence.
It's essential for dogs todevelop a sense of independence.
Constantly following you aroundcan hinder that and it can make
it difficult for them to bealone, even for short periods of
time.
So let's talk about bestpractices.
We really want balance and aroutine.
(04:37):
So we want to encourage balancewhere your dog spends time with
you and also has designatedperiods where they're alone or
engaged in independentactivities.
So that can include time in adesignated safe space,
especially when you're busy orwhen you're out.
As far as training is concerned,use positive reinforcement to
(04:59):
teach your dog to stay in thatspecific area or engage in
independent activities.
You can start with shortdurations, then gradually
increase the time that your dogis spending alone.
Now enrichment activities arecritical.
Provide plenty of mental,physical stimulation through
toys, through puzzles, regularexercise, training.
(05:21):
All of that can help to keepyour dog from getting separation
anxiety.
Now, if your dog does start toshow signs of separation anxiety
, well then you need to beginthe process of counter
conditioning and desensitization.
And we talk a lot about counterconditioning and
(05:42):
desensitization on the podcast,so I'm not going to get into all
of the details of that, butsometimes it can be pretty
challenging if you do have a dogthat has separation anxiety.
But for the most part, you canallow your dog to follow you
around.
Again, you just need to havemoderation.
(06:04):
You need to have some kind ofbalance with that so that your
dog can develop someindependence as well and so that
your dog doesn't become toodependent upon you.
Now I want to go into anotherquestion.
This is a question.
I get this over and over andover and it warrants us
(06:29):
discussing it a little bit.
Yeah, I got to have my coffeein the morning.
I don't do anything withoutcoffee, folks.
So the next question is fromRob.
Rob is from Wisconsin and Robsays will comforting my fearful
dog reinforce my dog's fear?
Well, the question of whetheror not to comfort a dog when it
(06:54):
becomes scared, and in this caseRob's talking about when he
walks his dog.
His dog gets scared and hewants to know hey, is it okay if
I comfort my dog?
All right, so that's a very,very common question and there's
been a lot of conflictingadvice on that particular issue.
(07:17):
However, recent evidence-basedresearch provides us with
understanding of how to handlethat situation and how to handle
that effectively.
Now, the first thing that I needto talk about is the fact that
the idea that comforting a dogwhen it's scared will reinforce
its fearful behavior is a myth.
(07:39):
I'm going to say that again theidea that comforting a dog when
it's scared will reinforce itsfearful behavior is a myth.
All right, fear is an emotionalresponse.
It's not a behavior that can bereinforced through comfort.
Ok, providing comfort to ascared dog does not increase the
(08:03):
likelihood of the fearreoccurring in the future, and
that's just a fact based onscience, based on studies, based
on research.
Look, you, either follow thescience and believe the science,
or we have all these myths thatgo around in dog training
(08:23):
Comforting your dog, rob that goaround in dog training?
All right, comforting your dog,rob when it's scared can provide
them with support, thereassurance that they need to
feel safe, and that is somethingthat can help to reduce their
anxiety and build theirconfidence over time.
So it's a good thing to betrying to comfort the dog.
(08:43):
When comforting your dog,though, it's important that you
remain calm and that you'reconfident in what you're doing,
because your dog can pick up onyour emotions.
So staying composed can help toreassure your own dog that
there's no real danger.
Now you want to use positivereinforcement to associate the
(09:04):
scary situation with positiveexperiences, for example,
offering your dog treats orpraise, or engaging in a fun
activity or play.
All of that can help to createa more positive association with
the fearful stimulus, with thefearful stimulus.
But you've got to understandthat when it comes to and again
(09:29):
we're talking about counterconditioning and desensitization
, when it comes to counterconditioning and desensitization
, we're exposing the dog to thetriggers or situations that are
scary for the dog, because wewant to change the underlying
change, the underlying emotionalstate of fear.
Now, the biggest mistake thateverybody makes and, a matter of
(09:54):
fact, I was just talking with aclient this week and she's got
a dog that's fearful, and she isdoing the right thing.
She's wanting to get the dogout, get the dog exposed,
wanting to pair positiveassociation and positive
(10:16):
reinforcement with those scarytriggers that are out there.
But the way that it works, youhave to start at a distance
where your dog doesn't have acare in the world.
You know, it's one thing ifyour dog, rob, is scared and
you're comforting your dog,which is a good thing, which is
(10:37):
a good thing.
But if you keep putting your dogin situations where your dog is
scared, if you keep exposingyour dog to those triggers in
such a way that it's elicitingthe fear, you're going to have a
really hard time getting overthat.
Even if you've got one of thesedogs and there are dogs out
(10:59):
there usually when they'rereally anxious they won't take
food.
But there are dogs that are outthere and, rob, maybe you've
got one of them that even whenthey're anxious they may take
food.
I mean, there's some crazy chowhounds out there, like Labrador
Retrievers.
Trust me, I had a lab.
I had a chocolate lab that hadsome issues, some fears and
anxieties a long time ago but,trust me, her appetite was
(11:26):
incredible.
She would take food anytime,anywhere, no matter what's going
on.
But when you're exposing yourdog, rob, to fearful stimuli,
when you're exposing your dog totriggers that are scary.
You want to get your dog farenough away from that trigger
(11:49):
where your dog doesn't have acare in the world, and then what
you want to do is you want tocreate very black and white
cause and effect associations,so working.
Let's say that your dog'safraid of a person or your dog's
afraid of strange dogs Workingwith a helper, having that
helper come into view withitself or another dog, but at a
(12:11):
distance again, where your dogdoesn't have a care in the world
.
When your dog notices thetrigger, when your dog notices
the strange person or your dognotices the strange dog, that's
when you want to start thepositive reinforcement.
That's when you want to startthe praise.
That's when you want to startthe love and affection.
That's when you want to startfeeding high value food rewards.
(12:34):
That's when you want to startplay and the way that I like to
teach it.
We do that for a few secondswhile that trigger is there and
we're controlling the situation.
You know I'm talking onspeakerphone.
All right, come into view.
Then here comes the triggerinto view.
Right, the dog sees it.
Feed, feed, feed, feed, feed,constantly and continuously for
(12:55):
about one to three seconds.
Then I'm telling that triggerhey, go out of view.
And then, as that trigger goesout of view, we stop feeding,
the positive reinforcement stops.
And I might do that for about10, 15 minutes.
15 minutes is a very longsession for counter conditioning
and desensitization.
All right, counter conditioningis just a fancy word that says,
(13:17):
hey, we're going to counter,we're going to do the opposite.
We're going to change thecurrent conditioning your dog
has.
We're going to do the opposite.
We're going to change thecurrent conditioning your dog
has.
Your dog is conditioned that ithas an underlying emotional
state that it views that triggeras scary.
So that emotional state is fear, anxiety, stress.
That's the conditioning thatyour dog has gotten over and
(13:38):
over and over.
And so what we don't want to do, rob, and again, this is the
mistake that a lot of peoplemake.
They've got really goodintentions.
Matter of fact, a lot of dogtrainers make this mistake, and
I know we have a lot of trainersthat listen to the show, so
it's important that you hearthis too.
If you have the dog so close tothe trigger that the dog is
(14:00):
displaying anxiety and stressdog is displaying anxiety and
stress you're either not goingto really produce any results or
your results are going to beminimal and you're going to hit
a wall very quickly.
The whole idea of gradual andsystematic desensitization is
about keeping your dog in anemotional state where your dog
(14:22):
doesn't have any stress, doesn'thave any anxiety and little by
little, getting closer andcloser.
Now counter conditioning isabout pairing that positive
reinforcer with the trigger.
But when we're doing thatremember I said that the trigger
is far enough away, the dogdoesn't have a care in the world
.
Well, if you think about it,when the trigger is at that
(14:45):
distance from the dog, the dog'semotional state should be
neutral.
If the trigger is closer, thedog's emotional state is one of
fear, anxiety and stress, allright.
But you get the dog far enoughaway where it doesn't have a
care in the world.
It's neutral, it doesn't viewit as positive.
Yet that's the role of counterconditioning.
(15:07):
That's us creatingopportunities on our own where
we're designing exposuresessions and bringing the
trigger into view in a verycontrolled way, where we can
control the distance and we knowthat there's not going to be
other scary things happening atthe same time.
(15:29):
That's another mistake that alot of people make with fearful
dogs.
You know, fearful dogsoftentimes have multiple fears
and there's a term in trainingand behavior mod called trigger
stacking.
Okay, and that's just what itsounds like trigger stacking,
where you've got multipletriggers, multiple things,
(15:50):
multiple different stimuli thatare causing anxiety, fear,
reactivity, aggression.
Right, because most aggression,most aggression, is based in
fear.
Very few animals go into fightor flight unless they perceive
something as threatening.
Doesn't mean there's a realthreat.
Okay, but you know, as far aspractical steps, as far as
(16:16):
practical steps comforting ascared dog, you want to assess
the situation right.
First.
Ensure that there's noimmediate danger, all right.
If the source of fear issomething benign, well, go ahead
and proceed with comfortingyour dog.
Right, use a soothing voice.
Speak to your dog in a calm,soothing voice.
(16:37):
Your tone can really help.
As far as conveying a sense ofsafety, a sense of reassurance
to your pet, okay, they knowthey can pick up when you're
anxious.
So you being calm, you beingrelaxed, is important.
Now start some physical comfortgentle petting, okay, or
(17:01):
holding your dog to providephysical comfort.
All right, now, always bemindful of what, always be
mindful of your dog's bodylanguage.
Ensure that you know anycontact that you're giving them
is actually comforting and notadding to their stress.
Ok, and then a lot of folks areinto the distract and redirect
(17:24):
method, right.
So, if possible, try todistract your dog with a
favorite toy or a treat,redirecting their focus.
That can really help them tomove past that fearful situation
.
And we talked about the gradualand systematic desensitization.
So when you're on a walk, rob,you may encounter a trigger, you
(17:46):
may encounter something thatcauses your dog to be fearful,
causes your dog to be anxious,and at that exact moment, yeah,
comforting them is a good thing,reassuring them is a good thing
, and it doesn't reinforce thebehavior, because it's an
emotion.
It's an emotion, all right.
(18:07):
Behaviors are what getsreinforced.
So, giving positive comfortduring a situation where you're
on a walk or you encountersomething that's scary, that is
perfectly fine.
That's what I want you to do.
But as we identify these scarythings, we have to say, hey,
(18:29):
wait, these are triggers, I needto work on these.
And what I'm going to tell youis that if you keep exposing
your dog to scary things, you'renot going to get too far.
So what nobody wants to hear inthe beginning, so what nobody
(18:53):
wants to hear in the beginningin the beginning, you need to go
slowly with your dog.
In the beginning you need to bewatching for triggers.
Get your dog out of there andreally in the beginning we
shouldn't be exposing our dog toany triggers.
I know you don't want to hearthat, but imagine if the problem
was a broken water pipe.
What do we have to do to beginbefore we can fix that water
pipe?
We got to turn off the mainwater valve, right?
(19:14):
Yeah, we've got to turn off themain water valve.
Imagine if the water's leakingall over the place.
We're not going to be verysuccessful trying to fix that
broken water pipe.
Well, turning off the main watervalve, that's us avoiding the
triggers, the scary things.
Now, not that that's the answer, but it's the first step to the
(19:34):
answer, so that your dogdoesn't keep getting that
emotional state more and moreconditioned by being exposed to
something scary.
That emotional state doesn'tget reinforced or conditioned
when you're giving the dogcomfort.
However, if your dog keeps ongetting exposed to triggers and
(19:57):
your dog keeps experiencingnegative emotions, things aren't
going to get much better.
So, avoiding the triggers butthen making sure that, hey,
three to five times a week, atleast three to five times a week
you're doing counterconditioning and desensitization
sessions.
Now to learn more more in-depthinformation on counter
(20:20):
conditioning and desensitization, which are the critical tools,
the big tools in behaviormodification that help dogs get
over fears, anxieties, phobias,reactivity, aggression.
To get more information, go tomy website it's either over here
or it's over here, but you cansee it there below my name.
(20:40):
Wherever it is, I never knowwhat side it is because
sometimes I get a mirroringeffect when I'm doing this.
But go to dogbehavioristcom.
That's one of my websites.
I've got a local website,phoenixdogtrainingcom, but I
also do behavior consultationsglobally with people all over
the country and in othercountries as well.
But I've got over 94 articlesand a lot of them are very
(21:05):
in-depth training guides oncounter conditioning,
desensitization, dogs with fearsand phobias, dogs that are
reactive, dogs that areaggressive.
So check out my articles thatare all free and let other
people know about the articleson the website at
dogbehavioristcom.
Hey, do me a favor If you'rejust joining us.
(21:26):
Thanks for being here.
I'm Will Bangura.
I'm a certified dog behaviorconsultant as well as a
certified professional dogtrainer.
I specialize in the areas ofdog aggression, reactivity,
fears, phobias, separation,anxiety.
If you've got a question aboutyour dog's training.
If you've got a question aboutyour dog's training.
If you've got a question aboutyour dog's behavior, do me a
(21:47):
favor, go ahead and type it inthe comment section below.
In a little bit I'm going to betaking any questions that we
might have live, but we're goingto be here for an hour.
I'm here every Saturday from 9Pacific until 10 Pacific, that's
12 noon Eastern time till 1 pmEastern time every Saturday.
(22:08):
If you are not listening to theDog Training Today audio
podcast, do you listen topodcasts other than Facebook
Live, because I'm here everySaturday but I'm doing other
podcasts throughout the week andyou can find my audio podcast
like on Apple Podcasts, spotify,stitcher, google Podcasts,
(22:31):
itunes, ask Alexa for thepodcast, but make sure that you
listen to that so you don't missanything at all at all.
The other thing that I want totalk about a little bit today is
(22:52):
something that, well, next week, actually, we're going to be
getting into talking aboutveterinarians.
We're going to be talking nextweek about the veterinary field
and we're going to be talkingabout veterinary behaviorist.
What is a veterinary behaviorist?
What does a veterinarybehaviorist do?
How does a veterinarybehaviorist help your dog?
(23:12):
What dogs are appropriate to beseen by veterinary behaviorists
?
And we're just going to talkabout the state of the industry
as it comes to veterinarybehaviorists, because there's
very few of them.
There's only 72 veterinarybehaviorists in North America,
or actually in the United States.
There's about 80 in NorthAmerica because there's some in
(23:33):
Canada, but in the United Stateswe've got 72 veterinary
behaviorists and we've got about190 between dogs and cats.
When you take the total numberof companion animal cats and the
total number of companionanimal dogs, it works out to be
about 180, 190 million, and wefigure that there's about 20%,
(24:01):
roughly about 20%, of dogs thatsuffer from severe emotional
distress, severe behaviorproblems where there's an
underlying emotional statethat's driving that behavior
fear, reactivity, aggression,phobias, those type of things.
Well, about 20 percent of dogshave that stuff pretty severe,
(24:23):
and separation and separationanxiety would add to that as
well, and those are thepopulation of dogs that can
really benefit from being seenby a veterinary behaviorist.
But because there's only 72 inthe United States and we've got
180, 190 million dogs and cats,when we take a look at roughly
(24:48):
that 20% the severe cases thatreally need a veterinary
behaviorist we're talking aboutover 2 million dogs and cats per
veterinary behaviorist, whichis just undoable.
So there's a crisis in theveterinary field, and it's not
just veterinary behavior as faras lack of veterinarians.
(25:09):
It's all specialties, and we'llbe talking about that more.
But before we get any further,we need to hear from our
sponsors, we need to pay thebills, and so do me a favor.
We're going to be back in 60seconds.
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Speaker 3 (26:33):
All right, very good.
Hey, do me a favor, make surethat you visit our sponsor, calm
Dogs.
You can go to doganxietycom orcalmdogscom.
Please support them.
Well, if you're just joining me, I'm Will Bangura.
Thanks for joining me here onFacebook Live.
I'm here each and everySaturday, 9 am Pacific until 10.
(26:55):
That's 12 noon Eastern time,and that goes until one as well.
I want to get into morequestions.
I've got another question here.
This was one that was emailedand this one is from Joanne and
Joanne says yeah, this is one weget all the time.
(27:16):
Joanne says I've got a dog thatis always jumping and goes
absolutely crazy anytime we haveguests over, and it's very
embarrassing.
What can I do?
Well, so there's a multi-prongedsituation here.
Your dog's overstimulated whenpeople are coming over, and a
(27:37):
lot of times one of thechallenges is maybe you don't
have people come over that often, right, and if we're not having
people come over that often, wedon't always have an
opportunity to be able to workon it.
So one of the first things weneed to do is realize that, hey,
one of the pillars of dogslearning, one of the pillars in
(27:59):
how they learn, is repetition.
Okay, and so when it comes to,you know, repetition that means
that how often?
Well, how often do you have todo it?
That's a great question, right?
So again, I tell people look,you've got to be working on
things at least three to fivetimes a week, and that means
(28:22):
proactively.
See, a lot of you are onlydealing with the problem
reactively and oftentimes, whenwe're reacting to a problem, we
are not prepared and it catchesus off guard and we might not be
doing things the correct way.
(28:42):
So we might not be a goodteacher in that moment.
And the pet, the dog, if we'renot a good teacher, they're not
going to learn well.
And so it's important to beproactive, and that means to set
things up, stage setups.
Now, the first thing that youknow I like to do is teach an
(29:04):
alternative behavior, becauseit's easy to punish, right, and
those of you that have beenlistening to the show for a
while, been listening to thepodcast, you know that we don't
use aversives.
There's not a need to useaversives.
You don't need to usepunishment, you don't need to
use correction collars, youdon't need a prong collar, you
don't need a shock collar, youdon't need to knee your dog if
(29:26):
your dog is jumping, you don'tneed to be yelling at your dog.
First of all, your dog's notbeing dominant, okay.
Your dog's just being a dog.
It's being unruly.
What does that mean?
It means that your dog iswithout rules, and it's our job
our job to teach them what therules are, and it's our job to
teach them that in a way that ispositive.
(29:48):
How do you like to learn?
How well do you learn if you'rebeing punished?
How well do you learn if you'rebeing rewarded?
Okay, so when?
Maybe your common sense andit's wrong, it's not common
sense, but maybe your commonsense says hey, I just need to
nip this in the bud, I'm justgoing to punish the dog, and a
lot of trainers will tell you todo that.
(30:09):
I believe those trainers havegood intentions, but they don't
know what they don't know.
I believe those trainers havegood intentions but they don't
know what they don't know.
And science, research,evidence-based training that's
out there.
We can train in any behaviorand we can train out any
behavior just using positivereinforcement.
But, joanne, as far as your dogjumping and as far as your dog
(30:32):
going crazy when you have guestsover, there's two different
things there.
One is getting your dog to becalm around people and the other
is to get your dog not to jump.
And the trigger might not justbe the people.
Your dog could start gettingexcited when it hears or sees a
car approach and come into thedriveway, or sees somebody
(30:53):
walking up to the door, when ithears the doorbell ring or when
somebody's knocking.
So it's at that moment, thatfirst moment, the first moment
that your dog starts gettingoverstimulated.
That's the first trigger thatwe need to work with and we need
to do the counter conditioningand the desensitization.
So if your dog starts gettingexcitable when cars come by or
(31:19):
people come by, you're going tohave to proactively stage setups
with cars going by or peoplegoing by, but control the
environment where you can createmore distance and maybe it's
moving your dog further awayfrom the big picture window,
further away from the door, butwhere your dog is not
overstimulated.
(31:40):
Your dog can see the triggerbut they're not overstimulated
and then you're going to bepairing with that trigger.
Have that trigger go away, stopthe positive reinforcement, do
(32:00):
that over and over and over 10to 15 minutes.
Again, I've got more detailedinformation at my website at
dogbehavioristcom, and you cancheck out all the articles there
, especially the ones on counterconditioning and
desensitization.
But I like Joanne to teach thedog to do an alternative
behavior.
So my dogs can't be jumping andsitting at the same time and I
(32:23):
love to teach sit as analternative to get attention
versus the dog jumping, whichthey just want attention when
they're jumping and we createthat.
We've said a lot of times onthe podcast that we create those
behaviors when they're jumpingand we create that.
We've said a lot of times onthe podcast that we create those
behaviors.
When they're puppies, we startpicking them up, picking them up
to our chest.
Well, that's kind of likejumping right, and then, as they
(32:43):
start jumping themselves, whenthey're little, we usually pet
them and we think it's cute.
But then when they get big,it's not so cute right.
Then when our 80, 90-year-oldmom or dad come to visit and
they're on blood thinners and wedon't want our dog jumping on
them and we don't want thembreaking a hip, then it's no
longer fun, is it?
So I do a lot of work withhaving helpers come to the door
(33:05):
making the dog sit.
Come to the door, make the dogsit.
Now I'm rewarding the dog everytime.
Now, if your dog can't maintainthe sit, then you've gone too
far, too fast in this process.
Maybe the only thing that yourdog can maintain that sit for is
just hearing a person approachor seeing that person approach
(33:26):
from a distance, right, but youhave to be able to keep the dog
in that sitting position andyou've got to proactively begin
to work on calm, what I callcalm distractions or low level
distractions.
Right, you might start bybouncing a ball, okay, and you
may start by just having peoplein the house creating a little
(33:49):
bit of commotion, okay.
If your dog breaks the command,if your dog comes out of sit,
just re command the dog into sit.
All right, if I'm treating itas an implied stage man, I don't
like to reward the dog when Ire command, but within about 10,
15 seconds of the dogmaintaining that sit again, I am
(34:11):
going to be rewarding that,because I'm now rewarding the
stay component of the sit, andthat's really what I want.
All right, because my dog can'tbe committed to staying in a sit
and having its butt down on theground and jumping at the same
time.
It's got to give up onebehavior for the other.
It can't do both.
(34:32):
All right.
So teaching your dog analternative behavior.
We call that differentialreinforcement.
You're using positivereinforcement.
See how that doesn't involvepunishment.
See how we don't have to kneethe dog or use correction
collars Teaching the dog analternative behavior.
That would be incompatible ifthey're committed to it.
They can't sit and jump at thesame time.
(34:58):
Now, when you start doing this,you're going to do this with
low-level distractions, butlittle by little you need to up
the ante on the distractions.
So maybe it's somebody comingto the door quietly to begin
with and maybe they're justknocking ever so lightly, or one
knock right, or we had themrattle the door handle.
Or maybe, as we're movingtowards that door to open the
door to let the guest in, all ofa sudden our dog gets out of
(35:21):
sit Right.
So, just working on theapproach to the door, gradually
and systematically, taking twosteps dog doesn't come out of
sit, go back.
Reward the dog Now.
Take three steps towards thedoor.
Your dog doesn't take the baitand stays in the sit, go back.
Reward the door.
Four steps, five steps go back.
Reward the dog Little by little.
(35:41):
Make your way to the door andthen also make your hand to the
doorknob.
If your dog maintains the sit,go back and reward Now.
Open the door just an inch.
If your dog maintains the sit,reward the dog Now again.
(36:02):
Anytime your dog breaks from sit, just go back.
Re-command sit right, start,get a little closer where you
had success and again try tobuild your way back to the door,
but do it a little bit slower.
Make sure that your dog makesure that you're helping your
dog learn what is success.
Your dog should be having a lotmore success than it should
have.
Mistakes, all right.
If your dog is having mistakesmore than 20% of the time, your
(36:25):
distractions are too much, toosoon.
Dial them back down a littlebit.
Dial those back down, okay, andeventually you're going to be
opening the door and in thebeginning when I do this, I
don't even have a stranger outby the door.
I'm getting my dog comfortablewith that door opening a lot
(36:45):
where it's really boring and thedog is maintaining the sit,
then I bring a very calm personto the door and I work with
teaching the dog to maintain thesit there.
Then I have that person startgetting a little more animated.
Now, this might take me acouple of weeks to do If I've
got a dog that is reallyexcitable, has a lot of drive.
(37:07):
It might take even a little bitlonger, but the difference
between punishment and positivereinforcement when you use
positive reinforcement, you'rereally modifying the behavior.
You're going to get a lot morepermanence and reliability, and
there's a lot of dogs that getanxious when somebody new comes
over, and that anxiety doesn'thave to necessarily be a bad
(37:29):
thing.
Right, many of us go onvacation and we have a little
bit of anxiety.
That's not necessarily a badthing, all right.
Many of us go on vacation andwe have a little bit of anxiety.
That's not necessarily a badthing, all right.
But when we're punishing a dog,that's just going to add more
anxiety to the dog, and a lot ofthese behaviors have their
basis, are rooted in anxiety,and so punishment, even if you
(37:53):
can suppress the outwardbehavior temporarily and that's
all you're doing you'resuppressing the outward behavior
it's going to be temporary.
Usually the behavior alwayscomes back until you actually do
real work, until you actuallydo real training.
And punishing a dog doesn't takeany skills, all right, you've
(38:14):
got to be a lot better trainer,you've got to be a lot better
skilled in order to use positivereinforcement and not default
to punishment because we're lazy, because think about it.
I mean, how much effort does ittake to yell at the dog?
How much effort does it take toshock the dog with the shock
(38:36):
collar, press the remote?
How much effort and skill doesit take to correct the dog with
a yank and crank correction witha prong collar or a choke
collar?
I don't advocate that you doany of that.
Okay, positive reinforcement.
Again, if you're working at thedog's pace, you're going to get
(38:56):
there.
Sometimes dogs will get therequickly.
I guarantee you, if you takeyour time, you're actually going
to get there faster than ifyou're trying to cut corners,
because now you got to go backand you got to fix things that
you messed up.
So, teaching your dog analternative behavior, joanne,
starting to work with low-leveldistractions, building those up
(39:18):
to moderate-level distractionsand then really building that up
to chaos where people can comein your dog's on a sit and
people are just very animated,making a lot of noise, a lot of
movement.
Now, if you want this to work alittle faster, if you want to
have a little more success,forego the sit, teach your dog
(39:41):
to go to its place, or teachyour dog to go to its spot or
bed, because all of those things, there's that physical boundary
, and that physical boundaryjust kind of helps the dog kind
of stay put a little bit.
And especially if you use aplace cot that's what I call it,
those, you know, those elevateddog cots.
They're just a few inches offthe ground.
They got kind of a meshmaterial that those couple
(40:04):
inches, believe it or not, havelike a psychological cliff
effect.
It really helps keep the dogthere.
So if you're working on a stayand that's the most important
part of the sit right If you'reworking on stay because you
don't want your dog jumping andthey can't be staying and
jumping at the same time you'regoing to have more success early
on teaching a dog to stay ontheir place, on their bed, on
(40:27):
their spot, where it's clearlymarked, and especially if it's
elevated, and the training ofstay will go faster, the
training of being able to keepyour dog there with heavy
distractions go faster.
Then I recommend, once you havethat, now start to generalize
that Take your dog off of itsbed, take your dog off a place,
take your dog off of the spotand start having your dog doing
(40:49):
sits and having your dog justlay down, not on place, not on
its bed, not on its spot, butanywhere and work the same
distractions and little bylittle, gradually,
systematically, you're going tobe able to get there.
All right, let me see.
(41:12):
You know what I need to do.
I need to actually get onto theFacebook page and need to take
a look at the actual videoBecause, see, when I go there
now, I can go into the commentssection and look and see, hey,
do we have any questions?
(41:33):
Comment section and look andsee, hey, do we have any
questions?
And we do have one.
So V has a question.
V says I work from home andthroughout the day, my
three-year-old Yorkie Terriermix dog seems so bored.
I walk him in the morning andprovide toys, but he doesn't
seem, doesn't seem to be enough.
Any suggestions?
Well, yeah, there's a lot ofthings, v, and we call that
(42:00):
enrichment, okay, and dogs canget bored.
First of all, as far asactivities and things that you
can do, one of the best thingsyou can do is let your dog sniff
, and a lot of people take theirdogs for walks and they don't
let their dog sniff.
Okay, 25% of the dog's brain,anatomically, is designed for
(42:24):
sniffing, for smelling.
Now let me compare that to ahuman, our brain, a human brain,
about 0.1% of our brain,anatomically, is there for
smelling, and so, think about it, when a dog is using their nose
, they're stimulating a quarterof their brain.
(42:47):
Most of us don't even use aquarter of our brain.
Okay, so, getting your dog outon walks, letting your dog sniff
, but I love people to teachnose games.
Now, in some see, here's thething.
Yeah, I love the puzzles andthat's one type of enrichment.
You know how you get the littlepuzzles and you put the treats
in it and the dog kind of sniffsand gets.
(43:09):
But those can be easy, right,and they just start feed, feed,
feed, feed, right.
But what I like to do isactually do scent work.
Okay, where I'm starting toteach them how to search and
find a particular scent for play, maybe a reward, maybe a food
reward, but it doesn't have tobe food, but something the dog
(43:31):
loves.
Now what you can do is you canget three plastic containers
that are identical okay, like amargarine container, where it's
got the plastic top as well.
Poke a couple holes in the topof each one of them and what I
do is I will go and I will getone or two cloves yeah, the
spice cloves and I'll put it inone of those containers.
And I'm going to set up threecontainers about a foot apart.
(43:54):
One of those containers hascloves in it.
I'm going to get my dog tosmell the three containers.
When my dog sniffs thecontainer with the cloves, I'm
going to ask for sit and I'mgoing to reward the dog.
Now I'm going to take the dogout of that room.
I'm going to bring the dog backin.
Have the dog smell thedifferent containers.
(44:16):
Two have nothing.
One has a couple cloves in it.
Again, when my dog sniffs thecontainer that has cloves, I ask
my dog to sit.
I reward the dog.
I do that over and over andover.
The dog begins to learn.
The dog begins to associatethat, hey, when I smell the
(44:37):
container that has cloves and Ioffer a sit, good things happen.
When I smell those othercontainers, nothing happens.
So that is going to get the dogto want to gravitate towards
finding the smell of the cloves.
Offering a sit so it can getrewarded.
Now again, that reward could beplay, offering a sit so it can
get rewarded.
Now again, that reward could beplay, and I prefer that it be
(44:57):
play.
In a situation like this if yourdog's willing to play, all
right, but some dogs they're notthat into playing, so maybe
it's getting a food reward.
All right, in the beginningyou're going to reward your dog
every time your dog hits on thatscent.
In the beginning it's reallyeasy.
You're bringing your dog tothose containers.
(45:19):
As your dog gets good at that,hide the containers a little bit
.
Don't make it difficult in thebeginning.
Make it pretty easy, eventhough you're hiding it.
While you're doing this, whileyou're practicing, while you're
teaching the dog to sniff andsit and get the reward, start
overlaying a cue or command, Ilike to say search.
(45:41):
Now I'm not asking for a searchin the beginning.
Remember, I'm setting out thethree containers.
One's got a clove, the othertwo have nothing.
I am saying search, search,search.
When the dog sniffs thecontainer with clothes, I ask
for sit.
When the dog sits, then I.
When the dog sniffs thecontainer with clothes, I ask
for sit.
When the dog sits, then Ireward the dog.
(46:02):
I do that over and, over andover.
Then I can start to hide orcreate more distance between
those containers and ask forsearch.
And now the dog gets the ideaand now the dog starts really
using its nose.
Now the dog starts really usingits nose and the dog gets the
idea and now the dog startsreally using its nose.
Now the dog starts really usingits nose and the dog um starts
to find things and use that 25of its brain and make it more
(46:30):
challenging little by little.
If your dog wins, if your dogcan't find it, it's too
challenging, okay.
But I love to do scent work,scent games, okay.
The other thing is allthroughout the day doing some
obedience training.
You know you've got lots ofopportunities and they can be
(46:50):
short sessions, five minuteshere, five minutes there, okay,
of opportunity and they can beshort sessions, five, five
minutes here, five minutes there, okay.
But getting your dog doing nosework, teaching your dog basic
obedience commands, I'll tellyou, working with heavy
distractions, they have toreally use their brain and they
(47:15):
have to start developing impulsecontrol.
And that's hard.
And when you do a lot ofdistraction training with your
obedience commands, I find thatit really tires the dogs out a
lot, okay, and so that's one ofthe things that that I like to
do is a lot of distractiontraining, a lot of scent work,
okay, and so that's one of thethings that that I like to do is
a lot of distraction, training,a lot of scent work.
(47:37):
Okay, when I do take the dogfor a walk, making sure they
have plenty of time to sniff,that it's not some kind of a
robotic walk where they just gotto be looking up at me or they
can never have their nose downon the ground.
That's critical.
Now, if the activities thatyou're doing with your dog are
very high energy activities, insome cases, maybe that then amps
(48:03):
your dog up and when your dog'sback home, your dog now is a
little bit unruly.
Every dog is a little bitdifferent, so you've got to base
it on what's your dog's energy,what's your dog's response if
you're doing high energy thingsGetting involved in dog sports,
(48:23):
doing agility, doing fly ball,you know, finding your local AKC
training groups, gettinggetting on the AKC website and
finding if there are groups inyour um town that do different
training and offer inexpensivetraining Um, it's a lot of fun,
(48:46):
a lot of fun, but those are someof the things that I would
recommend, um, that you do.
Let's see here yeah, you knowthree, your dog's starting to
get into its maturity, as far asyou know, fully grown.
As an quote unquote adult dogbut Yorkie, terrier, mix and
(49:07):
being bored yeah, you knowthey're little hunters.
They're little hunters.
So getting them chasing andusually they like to chase after
things like a ball and thingsof that nature Okay, but what a
lot of people don't realize, youknow they're like yeah, I take
my dog for this mile walk.
We go on a three, two mile walk.
(49:28):
Really, what dogs need isaerobic exercise.
Okay, aerobic exercise, 20minutes of running a day.
Now you've got to be careful.
If you've got a dog that has alot of weight, that could be a
lot of stress on the joints.
Maybe we're not running so fast.
Let's work on the weight.
(49:48):
If you've got an older dog thatmight be getting stiff or
starting to get arthritis, we'regoing to pare that down a
little bit.
But based on what you're tellingme and where a lot of people
need this is when their dogs areyounger and they've got a lot
of energy.
Now you also have to understandyou could have a Yorkie and a
(50:10):
Terrier.
That's very low energy and thenyou can have some that are
really jacked up.
That's very low energy and thenyou can have some that are
really jacked up.
It depends on genetics, dependson personality, all right, and
so if you've got a dog that hasa lot of energy, well, you're
(50:30):
going to have to do thingsthroughout the day.
Now there are some people withenrichment that like to, for
example and this is great for aterrier create their own little
box outside, you know, kind oflike a raised garden, but
there's nothing in it.
All right, you know, using twoby six planks and building like
(50:53):
a squared out area, putting dirtin there and actually allowing
your dog to dig, and you can putvery little things in there.
Treats, you know, like a halfan inch down and they'll start
sniffing it.
So now they're using their noseand they start digging.
So it's physical, All right,and that's something that a lot
(51:15):
of people do that you might wantto design for your dog.
You can get on my website atdogbehavioristcom, where I've
got over 94 articles.
Go to the menu, click onarticles, find my article on
enrichment.
Matter of fact, at the bottomof the article that I have on
enrichment, there is a embeddedYouTube video with some great
(51:38):
ideas, do-it-yourself enrichmentactivities that you can do as
well, so you can check those out.
Hopefully that helps answeryour question, because I know a
lot of people, because I know alot of people they've got dogs
at home and their dogs are bored.
(52:00):
Now, what a lot of people willdo and I want to caution you
against this because you've gota dog that's bored and maybe
being a little bit unruly, don'tjust go out and get another dog
for your dog.
Granted, that might be a greatidea, all right, it might be a
great idea, but the first thingyou need to do is get your dog
really well trained and makesure that if your dog's around
(52:23):
other dogs, that your dog'sstable, that it can handle being
around other dogs and that youcan bring another dog into the
home.
So playdates start working onplaydates.
Now.
I'm not a big fan of dog parks.
Why?
Because, listen, people don'tpay attention to their dogs.
Not everybody's dog isvaccinated.
All right, that's a great wayfor your dog to pick up an
(52:45):
illness.
Going to a dog park.
The idea is fantastic, verywell intentioned, but it's
usually not a matter of if it'sa matter of when your dog gets
into a fight with another dog atthe dog park.
Because what do a lot of peopledo?
They've got a dog that'sfearful, skittish, nervous and
boy that can turn on a dime intofear, aggression.
(53:08):
If the dog can't get away,right, fight or flight.
If I can't get away, if I can'tgo into flight, then I am left
with the only thing I can do isgo into fight.
I can't go into flight?
Then I am left with the onlything I can do is go into fight.
Now imagine somebody that says,hey, I've got a dog like that.
I need to do something to getmy dog over this.
I need to expose my dog,socialize my dog.
(53:28):
And they start bringing thatdog to the dog park.
And here comes a bunch of dogsrunning up to that dog because,
hey, we're just having a blast.
But that dog is scared and says, growling, right, maybe even
lunges and tries to nip.
Maybe it actually bites andharms your dog.
And then what happens?
Usually when there's a fight,then a bunch of other dogs, they
(53:51):
get involved and there's amelee.
So I'm not a fan of dog parksand there's a melee, so I'm not
a fan of dog parks.
I'm sorry.
Find people that you knowfriends, family that you know
they've got calm dogs, thattheir dogs are not aggressive,
(54:22):
they're not reactive and they'vegot decent manners and set up
playdates with your family'sdogs, friends' dogs.
Now, I'm not a fan of dog parks.
I'm not really I'm not so mucha fan of doggy daycare, but not
like dog parks.
All right, at least in a lot ofdoggy daycares they evaluate
the dogs before they bring theminto doggy daycare.
Now, there's one problem withthat, before they bring them
into doggy daycare.
Now there's one problem withthat Many dogs do not start
(54:48):
showing their true colors untilthey've been coming somewhere or
hanging out somewhere forseveral months.
We see this with shelter dogsall the time.
Okay, you bring your dog right.
Let's say you already have adog at home, you want to get a
second dog.
So you bring your dog to therescue organization or the
shelter, or they bring the dogto you and you do a meet and
greet to see if they're going toget along.
And it appears, hey, they'regetting along.
(55:09):
And maybe in the beginningthings are going great.
The first week, two weeks,three weeks, the first month,
the first six weeks.
Now, all of a sudden you getbetween six weeks getting into
that two month period aroundeight weeks, two months to three
months.
Now all of a sudden, aggressionstarts to show.
That's not uncommon.
(55:31):
The dogs are nervous.
When they're in a newenvironment they're kind of
suppressing some of thatbehavior.
And, trust me, dogs can have alot of anxiety and you don't
know, if you don't know caninebody language, well, they can
have a lot of anxiety and you'vegot no clue.
And so it's really importantthat you understand that when
(55:53):
you bring your dog to doggydaycare, there could be dogs
that show up and never start toget aggressive until they've
been there for a couple of weeksor a couple months.
So it's not a perfect science asfar as having somebody assess
dogs at a doggy daycare,thinking, oh, every dog that
(56:14):
comes into doggy daycare hasbeen assessed, so my dog's okay,
everybody's dog is going to beokay.
That's not necessarily the case, so you got to keep that in
mind.
But what I prefer friends,family, they've got dogs assess
their dogs.
And also, if you don't know howto introduce dogs because what
(56:39):
I like to do is, you know, startat a distance.
If everything seems good, ifthe body language is calm, if
they're not reactive, then Iwill bring them in.
Let them sniff for a second,take them apart, bring them in.
Let them sniff for a second ortwo, take them apart, because
many times they come in andsniff everything's good for a
(57:00):
second or two and then all of asudden, boom, it's on.
Okay.
So there's no rule that says youjust got to dump two dogs
together, have them on leash, goto a neutral area, start at a
distance, see how they're doingthere.
If they're very reactive, hey,get the heck out of there.
That's not a good idea.
But if everything's going goodat a distance, start coming in
(57:22):
Again as you're going in.
Make sure things keep goingwell.
If they start going bad, getout of there.
But come on in.
If everything's going well, alittle sniff, then take them
away.
Bring them back in a little bitlonger sniff, take them away.
Once you do that several timesand you've had a little bit of
duration to them andeverything's going well, then
(57:46):
you might have a situation wherethose dogs are just fine being
able to play together.
You can give that a shot.
You can try that.
Do me a favor everybody.
Hey, we're just about out oftime.
But if you love what we do here, if you're a regular listener
to the podcast especially,please just hit that pause
(58:07):
button.
Please hit that pause button Ifyou listen on Apple podcast or
Spotify or wherever you get yourpodcast and give us a five-star
review, your reviews, your loveis so appreciated.
That's the best way you can saythank you, because it allows
our rankings to go higher andthat means that more people get
to benefit from what we're doinghere at dog training today,
(58:30):
because we know not everybodycan afford dog training.
Dog training can be expensive,especially when we're dealing
with the more severe behaviors,like aggression, fears, phobias,
reactivity.
So please share this.
If you're on Facebook, sharethis on your page.
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(58:54):
that you hit the like buttonand make sure that you subscribe
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Also, click on that little bellwhich will alert you every time
we upload a new show, everytime we upload a new podcast.
Okay, well, that means we areout of time.
That's right.
(59:15):
I want to thank everybody forbeing here.
Thank you for your questions,thank you for your support.
Thank you for listening.
We're going to be back hereagain next Saturday, right here
on Facebook.
Just go to the Dog TrainingToday podcast on Facebook.
We're here every Saturday Again, 9 am Pacific till 10.
That's 12 noon Eastern till 1.
(59:36):
Come with your questions.
Next week we're going to betalking about veterinary
behaviorists.
We're going to be talking aboutdifferent areas in veterinary
behavior and we're going to betaking your questions and more.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
I'm out of here.
Thank you.
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