Train the Dog in Front of You - The Missing Piece to Improved Behavior [final episode]

This is the final Perfect Pup Episode (at least for the foreseeable future). Thank you SO much for all of your support over the years!

The world is full of conflicting information and methods for obtaining “success and happiness”.

And in terms of dog training and behavior “success”, the conflicts and arguments of how to get there will make your head spin.

The term and ideology to “train the dog in front of you” can be a grounding principle to help you make the best, most informed decisions for how to raise and train your dog!

In today’s episode, we’ll dive into what this phrase means, and how it can improve your outlook on your dog’s behavior to ultimately lead you to the strongest bond and connection with your dog as possible!

The term ‘train the dog in front of you’ can mean different things for different people (that’s kind of the point in and of itself).

In its broadest sense, this term/theory is meant to remind us as pup parents to drown out all the noise, competing opinions, and varying techniques out there and focus on what our specific dog needs at any given moment.

In other words, just because something works for one dog, doesn’t mean it will work for your dog.

Our dogs are unique individuals with varying strengths and weaknesses. Effectively raising a well-mannered pup is less about teaching specific behaviors, and more about adapting principles of learning to meet your dog’s needs.

When we learn about dog training techniques and tactics, it’s important to reframe them through the lens of what your specific dog needs at that moment in their behavioral journey!

No matter how many competing opinions or ideas you’ll hear from people, you ultimately have the make the best decision for your dog and your current situation.

As we strive to not just train, but LOVE the dog in front of us we can better meet their needs and help them live more enriched and healthy lives.

My hope is that you can focus on your dog’s individual needs on a daily basis and find training tactics, games, and methods that will help you unlock your dog’s best version!

If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for 30 Day Perfect Pup. It’s a 100% free online course that can help you better tune into your dog’s needs, make a training plan, and help improve your pup’s behavior and manners. Sign up for free here!

What’s a unique trait or strength your dog has that you’ve incorporated into their training? Tell me in the comments!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is the perfect pup podcast.Helping you build a better
relationship with your pup presented by pop forward.
Hello, pop parents, and welcome to today's episode of the
perfect pup podcast. My name is Devin, this is a
Bittersweet episode for me, it'sgoing to be the last episode at
least for the foreseeable futurefor the perfect podcast.
I'll talk more about that at theend, but when I knew that this

(00:23):
was going to be the last episodeI want I thought a lot about,
what would I want to be the final takeaway and in today's
day and age With so many competing opinions and Discord
and conversations around what techniques or what methods or
what tools and what to do and what not to do with our dogs and
what might hurt them and what might help them.
It can be really challenging, there's so much noise and you

(00:48):
can say that about everything. But I feel like specifically in
the dog world trying to be a popparent, it is so many competing,
there's so many competing opinions, there's a lot to know
and I want To dive into training, the dog in front of
you and what that means to me and I'm going to give you a few
questions that hopefully will help you remember this principle

(01:11):
and better be able to raise a well-mannered dog and help your
dog live a rich and happy life. So, let's get right into it.
So, when we talk about train, the dog in front of you, this
phrase and ideology has been around for quite a while, but it
was definitely popularized by Denise frenzy.
She wrote a book? Book with the title train, the
dog in front of you will includea link, you could check it out.

(01:34):
Basically, when I think about training, the dog in front of
you, to me, it comes down to Drowning out, the noise,
competing opinions, and various techniques and ideas and
training, and just instead focusing on.
What's your specific dog needs at a specific moment in time.

(01:54):
So let's look at three questionsthat you can ask yourself.
Not always but on a frequent basis or when you're presented
with a decision on how to approach your dog and approach
their training or behavior. Three questions you can ask to
help you realign yourself to focus on training the dog in
front of you. So the first question would be

(02:16):
in my focusing on training techniques and methods or
principles. There's other trainers who have
talked a lot about this, but in the dog world and in dog
training, there are Kind of two pieces.
There's the technique and there is the principle and I've always
strived on this podcast to talk about principles over techniques

(02:38):
and talk about more of ideas andhow you can think about your dog
versus a plus b equals c becauseour dogs are unique.
And so as you go about techniques or as you go about,
let's say a problem Behavior like jumping, it's important to
think about principles and it's important to ask yourself, am I

(02:59):
I focusing just on. How do I make my dog?
Not jump? Or am I looking at the
underlying facts? My look at my looking at.
Why, my dog is jumping. Am I looking at what things in
their environment are making their jumper or why they might
choose to jump in some situations and not others when
we get hung up on techniques? It often turns into much more of

(03:20):
like a writ presentation where we're thinking again A plus b
equals c. My dog has to do this to do
this, do this and well techniques matter.
In the finite details, it's important to think about the
principles. And what I mean by this as well,
is learning about how our dogs learn is in most instances, more

(03:42):
valuable than learning, how to teach a specific behavior.
And what do I mean by that is, you know, learning about what
desensitization actually is understanding operant
conditioning in the four quadrants of learning and what
positive reinforcement really means.
And what - punishment really means and the different pieces
and understanding how classical conditioning works and how our

(04:05):
dogs actually learn when we focus in on that, it can help us
kind of zoom out from the specific challenges or problems
and find principles and ideas onhow to more effectively teach
and train the dog in front of us.
And part of that two leads to question two, which is to ask
yourself. How is my dog currently reacting

(04:26):
and behaving during this Training.
Our dogs are constantly giving off cues and signals to us as to
how they're feeling, how they are comprehending, the world
around them. And how they are understanding,
what is being asked of them to pick one thing to focus in on as
a pup parent. If you had to, I would probably

(04:49):
argue to really learn about dog body language.
These signals and cues, they canbe easy to miss and if we miss
them Um, if we're not looking atand really trying to feel and
understand and empathize with what our dog is experiencing in
that moment, we might do training things that just don't

(05:10):
work best for our dog. The prime example, I have of
this is I have two dogs, their biological sisters, they've had
all but the same upbringing. But the way we have learned to
approach their training is very different, and while it can
vary, in each moment, my dog Scout is she Is more on the kind

(05:30):
of nervous and sometimes anxiousand unsure side of that spectrum
and because of that, we have changed our training to be.
You know, when something goes wrong it's less of hey we need a
correction or we need a Stern voice.
It's backing up and giving more explanation and giving more
opportunities and maybe breakingit down into more bite-sized

(05:54):
chunks. So that the nerves and the
shyness and the maybe feelings of Overwhelmed, don't happen as
much, whereas my dogs, any on the other hand, she responds
better to a little bit of sternness and a little bit of,
you know, quick Corrections. Even if it's just verbal, when
things are not doing, when she'snot doing, what is expected of
her. Or when, when we are training

(06:15):
something and she, maybe doesn'tgo quite as we had hoped for,
its really tuning into each dog and watching them individually
and saying, you know what? Yesterday, we worked on this
behavior and this technique we tried Dwell.
But today, it's not and, and being flexible and being willing
to change. So again, asking yourself what
am I dog? Currently feeling in this exact

(06:38):
moment and that leads to the third question, which is in my
trying to teach something in a way or through a technique that
I strongly believe in or think is, right?
Or am I trying to help my dog learn most effectively for them?
More often than not, our inability to teach our dogs

(07:00):
comes down to our own stubbornness and our own
inability to make changes or to try things that we haven't
previously tried as parents. It's on us to study and to learn
and more. So to adapt how we teach our
dogs, I look back on, you know, even my first few podcasts and

(07:24):
some of the things I said, I probably don't agree.
With now and I would probably change how I do it and I would
teach my dog differently than I may have taught them to three
years ago and you know what that's a good thing we as
parents again. We are overwhelmed and fed from
a fire hose of information with different dog techniques and

(07:46):
training techniques and reinforcement Styles and
whatever it may be. And well I do think that you
know, we should be critical consumers of information.
It's good to be flexible and is good to look at our dog
situation and say what may be worked in the past or what?
Maybe? Just because I believe the

(08:06):
person who taught it to me and they might have good intentions,
and it may have worked for theirdog.
It doesn't mean it's going to work for my dog, and that
flexibility. And that ability to, if I may
say humble ourselves. And to look at our dogs and say,
you know, what their situation is unique, just because I
believe what this Son told me about teaching or about how my

(08:28):
dog might overcome that behavior, doesn't mean it will,
or won't be right. And being willing to be flexible
with how we approach our dogs. There's a three questions that
you can ask yourself again, let me recap.
Number one, am I focusing on training techniques or
principles and opting for learning about how dogs learn in

(08:50):
the principles behind it? The second question is, how is
my dog currently reacting? Behaving during this specific
training and saying hey what worked yesterday might not work
today and on a similar vein thatthird question of am I trying to
teach in a way that I believe orthat I have strong feelings
about or am I looking for what'smost effective for my dog

(09:12):
specific situations, those threeprinciples can help us to kind
of reset her ourselves and focuson training the dog in front of
us. And I'm going to make kind of
one last Point here, I've gone on this small.
Aunt before, but every time we get on social media and see
these dogs that are seemingly behaving, perfect, or doing.

(09:34):
All these amazing things just know that number one, they're
not perfect and they certainly have problem behaviors that the
social media account chose not to show you.
And number two, know that anytime we compare our dogs to
other dogs were robbing ourselves of an opportunity to
understand our individual dogs. Strengths and weaknesses and

(09:58):
teach them accordingly. I hope that you learned
something from this episode. I also genuinely hope that you
have enjoyed this podcast. I I want to say from the bottom
of my heart. I'm so so grateful to have been
able to do this podcast and to be able to connect with parents
and to whether it's been throughcomments on the preferred blog

(10:22):
or people leaving reviews or sending me emails with
questions. It means so much to me your
support. In this podcast has been one of
my favorite parts of my job. If if not the if not mine My
most favorite part of my job on a day-to-day basis is doing this
podcast and it makes me extremely sad to not be doing it

(10:45):
anymore. I am hopeful that things will
change and we can bring the podcast back.
But as it stands at this time efforts and resources are being
allocated elsewhere. So I just want to say thank you
for making the perfect pup podcast.
What it is, if you want to continue to support me to
support the podcast, even thoughit will be an Anymore.

(11:09):
It'll still you know the old episodes will be there.
We just won't be released releasing new ones.
Please support pump for by preferred products sign up for
preferred Academy. Plus you can now get pup food
products at PetSmart we are expanding into more and more
stores. There are more ways to support
pugford but every time you make a purchase through pepfar and it

(11:30):
supports me and it supports thispodcast.
And again, I just want to say thank you.
I can't say it. In any simpler terms other than
making this podcast and hopefully helping at least one
of you raise a happy and well-mannered dog.
Has meant everything to me and I'm so so grateful for your

(11:52):
support.