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If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
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Raised by Wolf's with canine DNA in his blood, having trained more than 24,000 pets helping you and your fur babies thrive. Live in studio. It's Pet Talk today with Will Bangura answering your pet behavior and training questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert, Will Manura.
Speaker 2:Good Saturday morning, everybody. I'm Will Bangura. And I'm Jordan Marcello. And you are listening to Pit Talk today here on the Pit Talk today, Facebook Live. We're here each and every Saturday morning from nine to 10:00 AM Pacific time. That's also Mountain Time. That's 12 noon till 1:00 PM Eastern Time. I believe that's going to be 11 to 12 noon central time if I've got all those time zones correct. I don't know. Do us a favor, if you're watching right now, hit that like button smash, that like button. Show us some love. Also share this, hit that share button. Share this to your Facebook page so that more people can benefit from what we do here at Pet Talk today. Um, if you're brand new to Pet Talk today, let me talk a little bit about how this works. Um, we're here to help you deal with all of your pet training and behavior issues. If you've got a dog, if you've got a cat, if you've got a different kind of pet and you've got problems with your pet, what we would like you to do is go ahead and type your training and behavior questions in the comments section. And also please let us know where you're watching from and what kind of pets that you have, and we'll do our best to be able to help you with any training and behavior issues you might have. It could be something very simple. It could be a nuisance behavior like jumping or barking or stealing items or going to the bathroom in the house. Nobody likes that at all. Then it might be more of a serious issue. It could be a problem with aggression, fears, phobias, extreme anxiety, maybe some really bad separation anxiety. Maybe you've got multiple dogs in the house that are fighting, or you go for a walk and, and your dog goes after other dogs, or you can't have people to the house. You're, you're a prisoner in your own home because anybody that comes in the house, your dog wants to eat them. I don't know what the problem is, but we've been doing this for decades and we're certified professional dog trainers, uh, behavior specialist, and we're here to help you deal with those problems. So again, if you've got a question, go ahead and type it into the comments section. Let us know where you're watching from, what kind of pets you have, and we will help you with those, uh, with those questions. Also, today, I want to talk about some very important topics. You know, every week, um, we're talking about marker training. Every week we're talking about, we use the term mark and reward. Yeah. Mark and reward. Well, not everybody's a listener for every week. And so some people don't know. What do we mean when we say absolutely Mark? What do we mean? We say, Mark, they understand the reward part, but what do, what do we mean when we say Mark? Exactly. And so we're gonna talk about today in the show, um, the power of using markers and training, what they are, why we use markers, and how that can benefit you and your dog. Uh, the other thing I'd like to talk about is counter conditioning and desensitization.
Speaker 3:Another thing we talk about
Speaker 2:A lot, we talk about counter conditioning and desensitization. I I'm sure every single show that we have at least once, because if you've got a dog that is afraid, if you've got a dog with anxiety, if you've got a dog that has phobias, if you've got a dog that's aggressive or reactive in order to be able to help that dog, you are gonna have to understand counter conditioning desensitization, and you're gonna have to know exactly how to employ those behavior modification techniques to be able to help decrease that anxiety, decrease the fear, uh, decrease the phobias, decrease the reactivity, decrease the aggression. So we're gonna talk about counter conditioning and desensitization. Sometimes, uh, we might say CC and ds. Yeah, right. Counter conditioning and desensitization.
Speaker 3:DN cc.
Speaker 2:There you go. We might use those terms, but, um, I wanted to make sure that we had a show that we could refer people to. Yeah. When we can't give out the full details, Right. When we're answering a question and we say, Hey, you need to mark and reward this, um, you need to do counter conditioning and desensitization, and we give them this, you know, ten second or two minute answer. Right. Um, how to do it. I want a specific podcast so I can say season three, episode 79, whatever it might be. I think that's probably what this will be your episode 80. I don't remember. Yeah. But I wanna be able to have that for folks, but I also wanted to be able to, um, if we do have questions in the comments section, um, answer those, um, as well.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, good morning, Mr. Marcella. Haven't seen you for a while.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. No, I, uh, I was outta town and then, uh, and then I wasn't feeling too well. Uh, you know, so it's, it's, it has been a little while, but I'm glad, I'm glad to be back. I'm up and ready to go, and I'm, I'm really happy to be here, so.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. Sos good. Yeah. Um, where do we wanna start? Do we have questions in the queue?
Speaker 3:Oh, you know, we do, we do have
Speaker 2:A couple questions. All right. We've got time to take a couple questions, so let's go ahead and do that first.
Speaker 3:So, June from northeast Ohio has a five year old husky who jumps on her and NIS for attention. She follows it up with one word saying dominance trait. I'm assuming she's asking, how do we fix
Speaker 2:This? Yeah. What does her husky
Speaker 3:Do? Uh, jumps up on her and is nipping for attention
Speaker 2:Jumps and nipping for attention. So June, um, your dog's not trying to dominate you. Yeah, that's for sure. Okay. You
Speaker 3:Said it, you said it in the question, It's for attention.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Your dog wants attention and that's not dominance. Okay. Um, when a two year old child wants your attention, would we say that the child's trying to dominate you? No. No. A two year old child's being a two year old child. Exactly. Right. And maybe the child is obnoxious. Yeah. Because it doesn't have manners. Nobody taught this child, It didn't come into the world with a manual.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And it's no different for our dogs. Okay. Yeah. Your dog's unruly. What does unruly mean?
Speaker 3:It means that your dog doesn't have rules. It means that your dog hasn't been taught what to do.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It,
Speaker 3:It, it, like, for example, people like to say, and we we're, we're gonna get into answering this question, but people like to say that my dog knows better when I come into the, when I come into the house. Yeah. My dogs, the look on their face tells me that they know what they did. I hear that so often, and I even fall, I, I even fall into that category sometimes where I come home and Harley did something or got into something and I'm like, Oh, you know what you did? No. If she knew Yeah. She
Speaker 2:Wouldn't have done it. Yeah. If, if the dog truly knew that that is a rule, If it's something that we don't want and we've taken the time to actually teach them Okay, they're not gonna do it. Yeah. All right. There, there's only two reasons why a dog's gonna do something that we don't want them to do.
Speaker 3:Something reinforces it
Speaker 2:If there's a reinforcer. Yeah. And I gotta tell you, if your dog likes to destroy stuff or any unwanted behavior your dog engages in, there's a reinforcer. Absolutely. Um, we could have a whole show on reinforcers. Yeah. Um, but there's something there that's motivating your dog to want to do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And, uh, you've gotta be able to deal with that motivation Yeah. And understand what that reinforcer is. You've gotta get rid of that reinforcer. Yeah. But you know, when we're talking about jumping Yeah. Okay. There's a couple different things, jumping and nipping. Okay. Um, with your, your husky jumping. Okay. Um, one of the things is teaching your dog an alternative behavior that gets your dog what it wants, which is the attention. See, right now your dog's jumping and you're giving it all kinds of attention. You might be thinking you're correcting it. Maybe you're saying the word no, whatever you're doing, But you might stop your dog temporarily and interruption, but it's not a correction. Or correction is something that your dog finds unpleasant. So for example, negative punishment is a correction. You turning your back on your dog and walking away from your dog. When your dog's jumping and nipping. Yeah. That's punishment. That's negative punishment. You're taking away what your dog wants, which is exactly, which is you and your attention. So you start teaching your dog when you're consistent, then, hey, when you jump something unpleasants gonna happen, or what you want, You're not going to get Exactly. You're taking away the reinforcer. Exactly. Um, even if you're like, No, no, no. And, and here's the thing that's a reinforcer.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Remember when your dog is jumping up and nipping pushing them off, saying their name, and like, Hey, stop it. Right. No.
Speaker 2:You ever see dogs, You ever see dogs playing together like that? Pushing each other off? They're, they're, You wanna wrestle
Speaker 3:Attention. Exactly. So when your dog does this, when your dog is jumping on you and nipping, turn your back, walk away. Right? This is not something where you're gonna sit there and push your dog off. Now, in addition to that, start teaching your dog every single time that they walk up to you to sit every single time. This is not just when you come through the front door. This is every time you're sitting on the couch and your dog walks up to you, make'em sit, and then pet'em. You're about to go out back and your dog looks at you and wants to go outside. Make'em sit. All right? No matter what it is, if your dog wants to interact with you, make them sit. Okay.
Speaker 2:And if and if they jump or nip, turn around. Walk away. Exactly. All right. And when they do sit, reward them with food.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Actually, mark and reward. Exactly. Which, and we'll talk about markers. Okay. You wanna mark and reward. So you wanna positively reinforce the behavior that you want the dog to do. So whenever your dog's doing something you don't want, you gotta ask yourself, What behavior do I want the dog to do? What would be an alternative behavior that I would like?
Speaker 3:And here's the thing, When, when you start turning and walking away, you may experience something that's known as an extinction burst. The
Speaker 2:Dog gets frustrated,
Speaker 3:Okay? They're getting frustrated. Maybe as you turn your back, your dog is jumping on your
Speaker 2:Back, maybe more, moving harder,
Speaker 3:Harder, you know, barking at you, just like trying to figure out what's going on. Why isn't this working? Now you have a couple of options here. Option one, continue to ignore it and just keep walking away. But I understand sometimes it hurts. Your dog is jumping up and scratching us, and they're nipping at us. And if it gets really intense, now we're gonna switch it up just a little bit. And depending on the angle that you look at this, this could be negative punishment or positive punishment. Um, you're gonna take your dog and you're gonna put him in his kennel. Just put him up, lock'em away for two minutes. All right? Immediately it has to be, so, it has to be, as the behavior occurs, I don't want your dog to be jumping, jumping, jumping. Then they stop jumping, and then you grab'em and put'em in the kennel. No, while they are jumping, you grab that leash. Or if your dog doesn't have a problem with you grabbing their collar, grab the collar, get them to the kennel immediately. Two minutes. If they are barking and whining at the end of that two minute time period, do not let them out. You wait until they are relaxed, calm and quiet. All right? Does that make sense? I hope that, that, uh, I hope that
Speaker 2:That answers your question. Question. And, and, and, you know, I can't emphasize enough. You have to ask yourself when there's a behavior you don't like. Yeah. What can I teach the dog to do? What alternative behavior can I teach the dog to do that has value for the dog that gets reinforced? Make it worth the dog's while, you know, when you're teaching a sit because your dog can't have four paws on the floor and being sit and committed to sitting and jumping on you at the same time, you better make it worth the dogs while you better do lots of repetition of sit and reward. Sit and reward, sit and reward. Sit and reward. Sit and reward. So that when you say sit, the dog knows, Hey, I'm gonna get a reward. Yeah. And markers help us to do that. We're gonna talk about markers and marker training and the power of markers. But then the other thing is you've got the other alternative, and that's the other side of the coin as we were talking about. Negative punishment, taking away something the dog wants. One is your attention. Dog jumps, turn away from the dog. Get away from the dog. But you've gotta be consistent. And that is the biggest thing. If you're not consistent and your dog gets to jump or nip and there's nothing being done, there's no alternative behavior being taught, there's no negative punishment, You're not taking away something the dog likes, there's not a consequence. Things are not gonna get better. So consistency and understanding that, um, there's always reinforcers.
Speaker 3:So I, uh, what I like to do, um, and then there's, there's another question in here that I would love to address, but what I like to do is, when I think of all the things I don't want my dog doing, I literally, on a piece of paper, I make a tea chart. Okay? Just like this. I'm not certain if you guys can see what's on here or not, but I make a T chart on one side it says Good on the other side it says bad. You can write desired or undesired. Right? Positive, negative. Now, on one side of the paper, I write down all of the bad things that my dog is doing that I want him or her to stop. Then directly next to that, on the other side of the t I think, what would I want my dog to do instead? Or what is the opposite behavior that would be better than this? What is something that my dog could do that would keep them from doing this bad behavior? And then every time that you're gonna be in a situation where the bad behavior can occur, ask for the good behavior before the bad behavior can happen. And then reward your dog. And if you notice that your dog is doing the good behavior, reward your dog for that mark and reward. It makes it, it's really, it really is that simple. Make a tee chart, good, bad, write down the bad things your dog is doing, because it's really easy to look at the negatives and then think, What would I like my dog to do instead? Now, um, Laura from Minnesota, this is a, this is a question, This is, this is a little bit deeper of a question. We're gonna answer it to the best of our ability. They're trying to wean their female pit bull off of fluoxetine. It has worked extremely well. Um, but with the meds in the training, she has been at a good place for over a year. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, how long should we wait before decreasing her meds each time? Now, I wanna start off by saying we are not veterinarians. Um, we cannot offer medical advice. We can however, share our experience and what we know and what we've seen. Um, so whenever it comes to weaning your medication, the first thing I wanna say is do not wean your dog off of the medication until you get the go ahead from your veterinarian. That's the very first thing I'm gonna say. And then I'm gonna hand it over to
Speaker 2:Will. Well, I mean, one of the things you said that's so important, we are not veterinarians. We can't give out medical advice. What I can share with you is what I tell clients. Yeah. And that is, if your dog's been on behavior medication and you have done the training, and you've done the behavior modification along with the medication, once you get the dog to the best place it can be at behaviorally, we need the dog to stay there for at least a year consistently with that good behavior. Before, I would recommend that anybody begin to wean their dog off of the medication. Um, you have to talk to your veterinarian about weaning and how to wean your dog off the medication. I'm not gonna talk about, um, how quickly or how slowly to wean off the medication. That's a medical thing that you need to talk to the vet about. What I will tell you is that a lot of the dogs that when we wean'em off the medication, they start having problems again. We need to put them right back on the medication. There are some dogs, we wean'em off the medication and they do just fine. Yep. You don't know. You don't know unless you try it. Exactly.
Speaker 3:My dog, my dog, Harley, she was on, she was on Fluoxetine as well for about, about a year, actually, it was almost a year. She was on Fluoxetine. And after I weaned her off, she was doing fantastic for about six, seven months. And now her anxiety and everything's coming back and she's becoming reactive and surprised. Surprise. It's actually worse this time. Yeah. Um, it's worse than it was before. I've never seen her react the way that she recently did towards another dog.
Speaker 2:Well, and, and that's just it if you got, And two, if you've got a rescue, you don't know what you're getting. And they come with all kinds of issues. But, um, yeah, my whole thing is, you know, and it's just my opinion, it's not a medical, not medical advice, but my opinion is if your dog's been doing well for a year, um, you've had a year of good behavior on medication. If you're interested in trying to wean your dog off, then uh, go ahead and, uh, talk to your vet about it and, um, you know, see what happens. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Perfect. So that's all of our questions right now. Good.
Speaker 2:Um, so I want It's perfect time to jump in this. Yeah, let's do that. So I want to talk about, um, the power of using markers and training. Ah, you know, what are markers, why we use them? Um, and and how do you do that? So, you know, this is pretty simple. It's easy, it's simple, it's powerful. Um, a marker system is nothing more than a communication system for clarity and for precision in training. Okay. Um, the quality of our training is going to be based on the quality of our communication. Absolutely. I mean, think about it folks. If we had to have a conversation and I just am brand new to the United States, I come from China, uh, uh, Mandarin Chinese is, is my native language. I know just a little bit of English. Um, and we're trying to have this conversation. Well, there's gonna be a lot of misunderstanding. There's gonna be a lot of misuses, there's gonna be a lot of mistakes. Absolutely. Um, it's gonna take a very long time. We're not gonna have that great of success. However, the quality of our communication, how clear it is and how precise it is, is going to allow us to be able to be efficient, which means that we're gonna get things done. Um, we wanna be as efficient as possible in training the way a dog's brain works, the way their mind works, the way they think everything's extremely black and white. Absolutely. Cause that's
Speaker 3:Exactly what I was about
Speaker 2:To say. Black and white cause and effect association and dogs make sense out of the world by chaining. One second at a time. Yeah. One second. In space and time connected to the next second in space and time connected to the next second in space and time, they make these connections. Okay. A lot of people are using food and training. Yeah. And whether you agree with using food or training or not, what I need to tell you is that, um, good luck getting a dog or any animal to work really hard without motivating them, without giving them some kind of a paycheck. And usually the easiest motivator and one that's primary a pri where you don't have to teach'em, Hey, this is good. Most dogs like food. If you get Yeah. A good high value food reward. Absolutely. Okay. Most of'em like it. You don't have to teach'em, Hey, food is good. They eat it once. They're like, Oh, that was yummy. Give me some more of that. So consider food a paycheck. Yeah. And if you really want to have good training, if you want a dog that's motivated, wants to learn, wants to do something, you need to be very consistent with reinforcing the behaviors you want by giving a food reward. Now, can you do love, praise, and affection? Well, sure. Yeah. But in the beginning, when your dog is learning, that's probably not going to motivate the dog as much as food. So your training is going to be much slower. So if you don't wanna use food, that's fine. My question to you is, do you want this to take a long time or would you like this to go quickly? Right. Would you like this to be very successful or would you like this to be problematic? Use the food. Don't be, don't be stupid. Yeah. I'm sorry for saying stupid, but there's a lot of people that, you know, I don't wanna use food. Yeah. I don't wanna bribe my dog. Guess what? It's not a bribe when you use it, it's it the
Speaker 3:Right way. I see it so often. I walk into my client's houses and that's exactly what they're doing. They're bribing the dog. You're trying to get your dog to go do something. You go, you're like, Fifi here, and then Fifi doesn't come. And then you pull out the food and you say it again. Now I've bribed my dog. Versus what I'm asking you to do is I'm asking you to just
Speaker 2:Say
Speaker 3:Fifi here. And then when Fifi gets to you, we then give the food we rewarded for listening and doing what I ask.
Speaker 2:So when you reward with food, the reinforcer, you literally have zero to a half a second to get the food in the dog's mouth from the time the dog does
Speaker 3:The behavior. Yeah.
Speaker 2:In order for them to connect the dots cognitively. So what does that mean if I say set and the dog's rear end hits the ground, I've got zero to a half a second to get the food in the dog's mouth.
Speaker 3:But how do we for
Speaker 2:The
Speaker 3:Dog make the time
Speaker 2:Longer? Well, let's not even talk about longer yet. Let, let's talk about some other nuances. Okay. It can be very difficult to get the food in the dog's mouth between zero to a half a second. Now, if you've got the food in your hand and you're asking for the behavior, the communication system is completely dysregulated. Because where's the reward? Is it before I do the behavior? Is it as I'm doing the behavior if you're reaching the food towards me? Or is it when I actually get the food? Yeah. Okay. So it can be very confusing. Yeah. So remember I said everything needs to be very black and white. Cause and effect association food should always be in a treat pouch. Absolutely not in a baggy, not in your pocket. Okay. I've been doing this a long time. Again, do you want this to be easy or do you want it to be difficult? If you want it to be easy, get a treat pouch. Yeah. Get your high value food rewards. What's a high value food reward? It's not a little crunchy milk bone. Okay. It's something like cut up chicken, cut up beef, little tiny pieces of hot dog, high value stuff, Special, special things. Not something your dog gets on a regular. This should be something that is so special. The only time your dog gets it is when you're training. Absolutely. Okay. You want this to be powerful. Now, if we've got food in our hand, when we ask for a behavior that's bribing. Yeah. If we have food in our hand before the dog does the behavior, the dog's gonna have a difficult time understanding that food is related to the behavior. There's a specific sequence that needs to happen when we train animals. Yeah. One, there needs to be a cue that signals to the dog. We want them to do a behavior. Yeah. Then the behavior needs to happen. Then we need to communicate to the dog that behavior is correct. You're gonna get a food reward.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Okay. That sequence is critical. Critical. A cue ask for a behavior. The dog engages in the behavior. We mark that behavior that it's correct. And you get a food reward. Food has never been seen yet by the dog. It's, remember it's in that treat pouch. Okay. But remember I said we got zero to a half a second to get the food in the dog's mouth. So imagine the dog's 20, 30 feet away from me. I give the cue or command sit, the dog sits. Now, after the dog sits, I open up my treat pouch, I reach in that treat pouch, I pull out a treat, I go to the dog and I give the dog the treat. That took longer than zero to a half
Speaker 3:A second. Not for me. I'm the
Speaker 2:Flash. Well, for some of us we're quick. Other of us we're slow and steady. Okay. And so when we are using food, when we're using rewards a lot, like I said, a lot of people use food rewards and training. Yeah.
Speaker 3:There
Speaker 2:Are a lot of trainers using food rewards and training. And you know what? Their timing is off. And you know, the dog likes the food. So the overall experience is better. But as far as the dog connecting the dots, Hey, I got the food because of me doing this specific behavior. Right. Most of the time, whether it be a lay person using food in training or a pro quote unquote professional using food in training, um, it's being used poorly. It's being used wrong. Um, you're wasting your food, you're wasting your time and it's not efficient. And the dog's not understanding it. Oh, it loves
Speaker 3:The food. Yeah. If you have a dog that you have to go sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, and they finally sit. But once their butt is on the ground, it stays there and they don't get up. It's a timing problem. Because when you don't have proper timing and your dog is not getting rewarded for the act of putting their butt on the ground, instead they're getting the treat after their butt has been there for 5, 10, 15 seconds. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, we are actually reinforcing the duration of the behavior, not the action of committing to it.
Speaker 2:So when we're using markers and training, it's a communication system that lets the dog know that when it does a particular behavior, we can communicate to the dog. Yes. That's the behavior I want. And you are gonna get a food reward. Now remember I said we got that problem zero to a half a second to get the food in the dog's mouth. Yeah. So markers buy us time, it signals to the dog at the exact moment the dog does the behavior that that behavior's correct. It's getting a food reward. Now, gonna get a little technical for just a second. You don't need to remember anything, but food is a primary reinforcer. We don't need to condition a dog. That food is good. Okay? Now a marker is what we call a secondary reinforcer. Initially the marker is neutral. Okay? We use the word nice absolutely as a marker. And we teach the dog that nice equals food reward. But initially the word nice has no value. It has no meaning. It's neutral, it's a neutral stimulus. We're gonna take that word nice, that neutral stimulus, and we're gonna pair it over and over with the primary reinforcer, which is food. When we do that over and over, nice becomes a secondary reinforcer or a bridge that allows us to connect the marker to the food. Absolutely connect the conditioned reinforcer. So the marker is a conditioned reinforcer. We condition the dog. That nice means it's gonna get food. Now, for example, let me just say this. Yeah. Once we have that conditioned, once the dog understands, and once there's a communication in place that the dog knows and the light bulb comes on, Hey, when I hear the word nice, I'm getting food. So imagine the, the scenario again, the dog's 20 feet away from me. I give the cue or command of sit, the dog sits. As soon as the rear end hits the ground, I say nice in the dog's mind. It knows nice means I'm getting food. So as soon as that rear end hits the ground and I say Nice, the dog's like jackpot. Yeah, I know I've won. I know what's coming. I know it's right. So there's not a timing issue. Once conditioned, it allows us to be late with the food because the dog knows the food is coming. Now what everybody needs to know, Is it magical? Do I just say the word nice and the automatically understand? No, absolutely not. That word. And you could say pudding. You could say red, blue banana. You could say Poughkeepsie. Okay. You just have to be consistent. Absolutely. We like to use the word nice. We teach the dog that. When you hear the word nice, it means you're getting a food reward. How do people condition share with our listeners? Yeah. How do you condition a reward marker. And that's what we're talking about. If you use the word nice or whatever the word you use right now we're talking about how do you condition a reward marker that lets the dog know, Hey, when I do a certain behavior, that's what you wanted as the one giving the cure command and the dogs getting paid for it. The dog's getting a full That's right. How do we condition that reward market?
Speaker 3:Really, really simple. The first thing you're going to do is you're going to collect very high value food reward. Again, that's not little milk bones, that's not something like that. That's not, you know, begging strips. No, this is real. Chicken beef, little pieces of Turkey cheese, you know, high value stuff that your dog just
Speaker 2:Loves.
Speaker 3:You're gonna collect up, you know, 30, 40, 50 pieces of it. Small pieces. Two or three should fit on the head of a nickel. Then we've got our treats in our treat pouch, and I'm just gonna go Nice. Then reach into my pouch, grab a piece of food, put it in my dog's mouth.
Speaker 2:Now that sequence is important. Yeah. You just said, What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say Nice, then I'm gonna reach in my treat pouch, pull out the treat and give it to the dog. Okay. When you say nice, do nothing with your hands, nothing. Do not be reaching for the treat pouch. Do not have food in your hands. Everything is a very black and white cause and effect sequence that they're connected. We're chaining things together. Exactly. You say nice, then you reach in the treat pouch, you pull out the food and you give it to the dog. Okay. Don't do it any other way. Don't reach for the treat pouch. Don't have food in your hand. Make sure you say the marker word first. Nice. Then reach in, get the food. Give it to the dog. Absolutely. I just like to reiterate that because it's a little No, it's very important. It's a little tiny nuance that can make all the difference in the world. Absolutely. Because if you are go, if you've got food in your hand, if you're reaching for that treat pouch before you say nice, or as you say, nice, nice is not your marker. Yeah. What happens right before the action to get the food is what the marker is. Right. So it's gotta be very clear. Nothing happens. Nice. Now I reach and I get the food and give it to the dog. Exactly. So the dog understands that word. Nice means, hey, they're gonna get me food.
Speaker 3:Precisely. So now again, food and pouch. I say Nice. Then I reach into my pouch, pull out a piece of food, give it to my dog, and then as soon as my dog swallows that food, I'm talking, he swallowed it. Nice. Reach into my pouch, give my dog a piece of food. He swallows it nice. Reach into my pouch, give my dog a piece of food. And I'm going to do this 30 times in a row.
Speaker 2:And, and it's boring. Yep. And, and, and I'm gonna say this, it should be boring. There should be absolutely no other excitement. There should be no other conversation. There should be no other movements. It's a very robotic, very black and white condition exercise. You're doing nothing. You go nice. Reach in the pouch, give food, dog eats it, swallows you. Go, go. Nice, treat, reward. Nice
Speaker 3:Over and over. Treat 30 times in a row, twice a
Speaker 2:Day. Nice. Treat nice. Treat nice. Treat nice. Treat. Pick a tonality of voice, Pick a volume, stay with it. Don't vary. Don't go one time. Nice. So good dog. Nice. Good baby. Stop all that other language. Don't have a conversation with your dog. This is very black and white conditioning. You might sound boring. It is boring. Not for the dog, because they love this. They're figuring out nice equals treat nice equals treat nice equals treat nice equals treat over and over, like you
Speaker 3:Said. Exactly
Speaker 2:30 times in a row. High value food rewards. Say nice reach in the treat pouch. Pull out the treat, give it to the dog.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And you're going to do that two times a day for about three to four days on the morning of the fourth day.
Speaker 2:Does it have to be the morning?
Speaker 3:No, it doesn't necessarily have to be the morning. I just like to say on the morning, threw that out. Yeah. I just like to say on the,
Speaker 2:You might be working third shift or
Speaker 3:Something. Yeah. Right, right. Well, when you get off work, you better
Speaker 2:Do this thing. I wanna go to sleep.
Speaker 3:No<laugh>. Oh, well, no. Anyways. So on at the beginning of the day, whenever that is, on the fourth day when your dog is just relaxing, being a dog, not sleeping, not already paying attention to you because you just did training, but just being a dog, you're gonna go nice and see what they do. Now my dog, Harley, she has a fantastically conditioned marker. I mean, it is wonderful. It doesn't matter what she's doing. She could be dead asleep. And you say Nice. And she just jumps straight up, ears perked. And she's looking around like, Where's my food? Where's my food? Because I spent so much time just going, nice food, nice food, nice food over and over and over. In fact, I took it one step further than what I'm asking you guys to do for a week straight. And yes, I genuinely did this for a week. I took the two cups of food that my dog eats at each meal or not at each meal. She gets one cup per meal, two cups of food that she eats a day. And I put it into her food bowl. And then I sat her food bowl on my lap. And then I just went nice. One piece of kibble, nice, one piece of kibble, nice. One piece of kibble all the way through two cups of food. Okay? And at the time, I had her on the small little like active bites. So it really was a, a lot of kibble. And I did that for a week, for a week straight. I gave her all of her food. Every single piece of food that entered her mouth. The word nice was said first as a result. When I say nice, she knows what that means. So when she does something good and I say nice, she immediately, she's like, Oh yeah, I did good. And that's what we want. We want your dog to, when they hear that word to react, if you say the word and your dog doesn't react, their ears don't perk up. They don't look minimum. They should look over at you and be like, Hey, where's my food? Right? Minimum. They don't necessarily have to come running over. In fact, I wouldn't necessarily want them to come running over to you. Um, but if there's no reaction, practice it 30 times in a row, twice a day for a couple more days, like two or three more days, then test it again. If it's still not working, come back because that's about a week. That's about a week. Come back to next week's show on Saturday morning and be like, Hey, Will, hey Jordan, um, either my dog is deaf or I'm not doing this right.
Speaker 2:Your dog. And you know, Jordan talked about using the kibble and doing that for a week or two. Um, I want you guys to use high value food rewards. Absolutely. To do it for three or four days. You don't have to do what Jordan did. We want this to be quick and easy for you. Okay? 30 high value food rewards, cut up chicken or beef, put'em in a treat pouch. You say nice reach in that pouch. Give a food reward. Say nice reach in that treat pouch. Give a food reward 30 times in a row. Do that twice a day with a break in between a good break, you know, maybe hours in between. Do that for three or four days. Day four, test it. All of a sudden throw out the word nice. Your dog should be coming to you quickly, excited, wanting to have this high value food ward. Once you've got that, now you've got a marker that you can use and implement in training. So now you've got a very precise way to communicate to the dog. What you did is exactly what I want you to do. And you're getting a high value food
Speaker 3:Work. Remember, this is a marker for me to tell my dog, You just did good. I want you to do this. This equals food in your mouth. This is not a way for you to call your dog. This is not a way mm-hmm.<affirmative> for you to get your dog's attention. Right. This is nothing more Yeah. Than your ability to bridge the gap because your dog lives life one second at a time. So when your dog does something good and you don't have time to get the food into their mouth, you say you're marker.
Speaker 2:All, all good trainers, all highly skilled professional trainers use markers. Okay? Now some people use clickers. I wanna talk about that for a really quick second. Yeah. I love clickers. Um, a clicker can be used as a marker and often is used as a marker. And rather than using the word nice, they click the clicker, makes that crazy sound, and they give a food reward. They click the clicker, they reach in the treat pouch, they give a food reward, they click the clicker, they reach in their treat pouch, they give a food reward, so on and so forth. Just like saying nice and giving food nice. And giving food. So the clicker then becomes the marker. Okay? Some people use a whistle. They blow a whistle, give food, blow a whistle, give food, blow a whistle, give food. So there's a lot of markers that you can use if
Speaker 3:You
Speaker 2:Have a death. Dog, dog, dog, right? Yep. We do the thumbs up as the marker or
Speaker 3:A vibrating collar
Speaker 2:Or Yep. A vibrating collar. That sense of tactile sensation. The vibration might mean, Hey, I'm getting a food reward. Exactly. Okay. Now, as Jordan said, it is, the marker is there to mark a behavior. It is not to get your dog's attention, it is not to get the dog to come to you. I watch people all the time start clicking a clicker click, like click to get the dog to come to you. Yeah. Or they say the marker to get the dog's attention. Or they say Nice. If they've conditioned that as a marker to get the dog to come to them,
Speaker 3:Or they say it and they don't give
Speaker 2:Food, that's the biggest problem. Yeah. First of all, only use it to market behavior. Don't use it as a command to get your dog to look at you. Don't use it as a command or a way to get the dog to run to you. Listen, if you want your dog to come to you, you need to teach a come command. The Exactly. You need to give the cure command of come as your dog comes, you need to be clicking the clicker or giving the marker saying, Nice. And then you give the food reward to your dog. Exactly. There's a specific sequence. Yeah. Now every you said it Jordan. Some people will say, Nice, they'll use their marker or they'll click the clicker and they don't feed. Yeah. Okay. Every
Speaker 3:Single time.
Speaker 2:Listen, do not the mark. Exactly. It's a contract. It's a promise to pay. Yes.
Speaker 3:You, you are asking your dog to listen. When you tell them to do something, that is their end of the deal. Your end of the deal is when I say nice or I click or I say banana, whatever the marker word is, I'm going to give food. If you constantly think about it, you conditioned this marker by going, nice piece of food, nice piece of food, nice piece of food your dog learned nice equals piece of food. But if you continually go nice, no piece of food. Nice. No piece of food. Right? Nice. No piece of food. Oh look nice. No piece of food. Your dog eventually learns nice equals nothing. Right? And you will destroy that hard work, especially if you're crazy like me. And you decide one piece of kibble at a time in addition to the high value food. All right? In addition to that high value, 30 times in a row, I was also doing the kibble. Especially if you decide to spend 30 minutes giving your dog one piece of kibble at a time for a week straight. My point is, you will destroy that marker faster than you built
Speaker 2:It. Markers are a communication system to produce clarity and precision with your dog. The learning increases and it speeds up the process. And again, it's about the quality of your communication. Absolutely. All right. Um, now in the beginning, once you've got a marker established, once you've conditioned the dog that nice equals treat and they know it, now you've got some great power. Yeah. Capturing is a wonderful way, Oh my gosh. Beautiful. To reinforce behaviors and to begin to, uh, teach the dog what it is that certain words mean when we attach them to behaviors. Like the words sit, there's, we want it to mean, hey, butt on the ground.
Speaker 3:Exactly. There's also power behind proprioception, which is your dog's ability to tell its own body positioning as well as self-discovery when your dog does something. So I'm going to explain what capturing is when I versus just queuing, right? If I tell my dog sit or I lure my dog with a piece of food or leash manipulation, something like that, I am forcing the dog. I'm using force to get the dog into a certain position. Versus I'm sitting at the table just talking to Will. And my puppy walks into the room and I'm just kind of watching him outta the corner of my eye and I notice, Oh, it looks like he's about to put his butt on the ground. As his butt goes on the ground, I can go sit. And then when his butt touches the ground, nice. And he goes, Whoa, where did that come from? And I quickly give him a piece of food. He has no idea why I just gave him that piece of food. He has no idea whatsoever. But then it happens again. I'm still sitting here talking to Will, because guess what? When I said Nice, he got excited and stood up cuz he doesn't know how to sit yet. He doesn't know the value of keeping his butt on the ground. And I'm just gonna come back and I'm gonna sit down and go back to my conversation. And then a few moments later, he's like, Okay, well they're not paying attention to me anymore. Let me put my butt back on the ground. As his butt goes onto the ground, I go sit. And then when his butt touches the ground, nice. And he's like, Whoa, what was that for? And I give them a piece of food and then I do it again and again and again. And then suddenly the dog goes, Wait a second. Let me try something. And he walks up to you and he puts his butt on the ground because he has now figured out this is what I did every time. And every time I did this, I got food. Black and white. Cause and effect. That's how your dogs think. They're binary
Speaker 2:Now and they're masters at figuring out patterns.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Your dog's patterns. That is how they learn. That's why it's 30 times in a row. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> because repetition, building that muscle memory. So my dog now walks up to me and offers me the sit. And guess what? I didn't even spend one minute training. I just sat here and I was having a conversation and I captured behavior. You can do the same thing with a down, You can do the same thing with not jumping when somebody comes through the front
Speaker 2:Door, you know, I get a lot of people that complain about their dogs grabbing things, having things in their mouth Yeah. That they shouldn't have. And I hear it all the time. My dog won't drop
Speaker 3:It. Ah,
Speaker 2:My dog won't drop it. Let me tell you something. You take two weeks, two weeks of having toys out with your dog. And every time your dog picks up something, a toy or maybe something it shouldn't have, every time your dog has something in its mouth, at some point it opens its mouth and it releases the object. If it's a ball, a bone, a shoe, whatever. All right? They drop things on their own all the time. The
Speaker 3:Only exception is the dog that is obsessively suckling on items. And if you have that dog, that's an entirely different scenario.
Speaker 2:But your dog's got something in its mouth like it's ball. And it lets, its lets it go every time it releases something. You can capture that behavior. Absolutely. You happen to see it happening. It just happens in your normal day to day life. The dog had a ball in its mouth, It let it go. As soon as it lets it, the ball go nice. You can say nice dog's like, Oh wow, that had value. And you give it a reward. Okay? Then you can begin to label the behavior so that eventually you can ask for it. So the dog opens its mouth to let go of the particular item. In this case, we'll just say the ball, you say drop nice, give the food reward. You're not asking for a drop, You're capturing the dog letting something go on its own. You're labeling that behavior drop, and then you're marking with nice. And then you're giving the food reward. You're capturing this over and over, You know, I don't know how many times you need to capture it before you can ask for it. Maybe it's, I have idea it's 20, maybe it's 50, maybe it's a hundred, I don't know. But at some point, because we're making associations and connections, we're creating value with the food, the dog's understanding what the word drop means because the association is something leaves its mouth. The dog hears the word drop that has value because there's a marker of nice. The dog gets a food reward. It won't be long before we can say drop and the dog drops the item. And of course, what are we gonna do? We're gonna mark with Nice. Yeah. We're gonna give a food.
Speaker 3:Now I want to add some clarity here because, uh, what you just said might be, might be a little misconstrued. So it's important that as you move into the portion of this training, uh, scenario where you are marking, or I mean labeling with the word drop, then marking and rewarding. It's important that you pay a lot of attention to your dog and you start to pick up on your dog's patterns. Dogs are creatures of habits. I guarantee you, if you watch your dog enough, you can be like, Oh, he's about to drop that. You're gonna be able to tell that he, he or she does the exact same thing every single time right before they drop a toy, whether it's suddenly they lay down, they put their head down on their legs, they go and chew it, just three quick little times, and then they pause and you know, oh, he's about to spit it out that way. Right? As the behavior of spitting it out occurs, you can say drop because we don't want your dog to spit it out. Then you say drop, then you mark, then you reward. Because then we're kind of out of, we're out of order there. We need to label the behavior as it's occurring. So as the toy is coming out of your mouth, out of the dog's mouth, as your dog has already committed to the decision of spitting out that item, that's when we say drop that way, as soon as it's out of their mouth, because again, second by second, they chain one second to the next. As it comes out their mouth. I go, Nice. And they're like, Oh, snap. What was that for? Weird. And then again, as they're spitting it out, drop nice and I give the dog the treat. And when that happens enough, eventually. I know Will said he doesn't know a number. I don't know a number either, but I'll tell you when I personally start asking for it, when you notice that your dog has something in your mouth, In their mouth and they spit it out, and then they look at you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And they're
Speaker 3:Like,
Speaker 2:So we call that an operant dog. Yeah. Or an active learner. And you know, you had talked about earlier the dog, um, capturing sits Yeah. And marking the sits with nice. And the dog gets food. And at some point the light bulb comes on in the dog's mind. The dog's like, Hey man, I think every time my butt hits the ground, they say Nice. And I get food. Let me test the, let me test this. Let me go up to Jordan, put my butt on the ground and see what happens. That's an active learner. That's an operant dog. Absolutely. Definitely. I guarantee when you see that, almost invariably you can ask for it. Absolutely. Almost invariably you can ask for it. Um, but yeah. Markers are powerful. Remember, a marker is very simple. All right. It is a secondary reinforcer that has been conditioned to a primary reinforcer. Food is primary reinforcer. It is a cue. It lets the dog know that it's gonna get a reward. It lets the dog know it's gonna get a high value food reward if we conditioned a high value food reward with our marker word. Okay. And it gives you the ability to have perfect timing and training. Don't worry, once you've got that marker conditioned, don't worry about the food. Stop worrying about the food. Your job is to say your marker word as quickly as possible. Absolutely. When your dog does the behavior, it's not about getting the food to the dog.
Speaker 3:No. That's how we built the marker.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So that we didn't have to worry about getting the dog to the food quickly. And, and I guarantee it. We wa we see this all the time, It's really hard. We have to keep telling, um, pet parents don't worry about the
Speaker 3:Food. Absolutely. They're like,
Speaker 2:Get your hand, get your hand out of the tree pouch. They've got their hand in the tree pouch before they give the command. Yep. They're reaching towards the treat pouch before they give the marker. Yep. All wrong. Or
Speaker 3:They, or even worse, the worst of them all, they've got the food already in their hand and it's like, I'm just trying to get the food to the dog quicker. And I'm like, no worry about the marker in the beginning during marker conditioning. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's when the food is out. Yeah. But after that, once you've got your marker condition. Exactly. Food should never be present.
Speaker 3:Now it's about
Speaker 2:Give the cure command. Yeah. Once the dog does the behavior food's still not present. Folks, you say your marker word once the behavior occurs, and then I'm gonna challenge you to go 1001 then reach in the pouch. Wait.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Wait a second. Between saying nice, if that's your marker word. And reaching in that treat pouch to get the food because you need to break the habit of having food in your hand. When you give a command, you need to break the habit of reaching towards that treat pouch. Okay. Before you mark with nice, you need to break the habit Okay. Of reaching towards that pouch. When you're giving the command. Absolutely. There's a very clear sequence. Give the command. The dog does the behavior. Wait 1001, you reach in, Sorry, lemme say that again. Give the command dog does the behavior. You mark the behavior immediately with your marker word. Count 1001, then reach in the treat pouch. Get the treat, give it to the doc. Follow that sequence. Do not deviate from that sequence. Absolutely. If you do that, you'll be in good shape. But you know, people are saying, I don't wanna use food. Well, guess what? Get a treat pouch, use a marker. Do it the right way and you'll be able to get rid of that food quickly. But I guarantee if you don't have a treat pouch, if you don't have a marker and you've got food in your hand or you're reaching for that treat pouch before you gave the marker. If you're reaching for food before you give the command, if you've got the sequence wrong, you're gonna need food. Present a lot to get the dog to do the behavior. Because when food is present before or during you giving the command, if food is present before or during, you give the commander as the dog's doing the behavior, it is a bribe. Absolutely. And you tell us all the time, I don't wanna bribe my dog with food. Fine. We don't want you to do that
Speaker 3:Either. Yeah. Do
Speaker 2:It the right way. Get a treat pouch condition a marker 30 times in a row. Nice. Give the dog the treat. Nice. Give the dog the treat. Nice condition that nice equals treat. Do that twice a day. That's
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:30 times in a row. Three to four days in a row. Day four. Test it. Say, nice. Your dog should come running to you looking for food. Yeah. Where is that food? In the treat pouch?
Speaker 3:Not
Speaker 2:In your hand. Not in your hand. Hmm. And it's so important that we follow those guidelines. Yes. Um, I, so we were gonna talk about counter conditioning. It's, we gonna do, I think
Speaker 3:It's great that we have one episode on markers and then one on counter
Speaker 2:Conditioning. Well, and, and I didn't know it was gonna take that long, but it takes the time that it takes. Exactly. Um, and so we'll have another show specifically on counter conditioning and desensitization. Absolutely. Um, this one's on marker training, the power of markers. Um, I don't know, do we have any questions?
Speaker 3:Actually we
Speaker 2:Do. We've got, we've got a couple. Is it related to marker training?
Speaker 3:Um, one of them is related to counter conditioning. And then the other one would be, um, we could relate the other one to markers in a way it's le pulling five,
Speaker 2:Five minutes. Okay.
Speaker 3:Leash pulling and fears.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the leash pulling. Listen, come the, the person with the question on fears. Come back next Saturday. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, oh, he'll be back. That's Russ one of our our
Speaker 2:Hey Russ, how are you? Glad to see that you're here, Russ. We love you Russ. Um, yeah, come back next week we're gonna do the show on counter conditioning and desensitization. So part two that we didn't get to today. We'll do the whole show on counter conditioning. Exactly. But what's the question on the, on the leash
Speaker 3:Pulling? Yeah. Okay. So Lisa from Ohio. Oh wow. One
Speaker 2:From Ohio. I wonder where in Ohio. Yeah, they're from Cincinnati. I always think Skyline Chili. Yeah, Chili with noodles. Never had chili with
Speaker 3:Noodles. I've never had chili
Speaker 2:With you. If you go to Cincinnati, they got this thing called uh, Skyline Chili. Okay. And they put noodles in the chili.
Speaker 3:That's interesting.
Speaker 2:It's very interesting Anyway. Huh?
Speaker 3:Just
Speaker 2:A little Ohio trivia,
Speaker 3:Huh? Okay. I mean, hey Cleveland.
Speaker 2:Not now. You go north to Cleveland and, and you're at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yeah, right. Love Cleveland. Love Ohio. Love the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So four minutes to answer this
Speaker 3:Question. So Lisa has a six month old sharp hay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He pulls on the leash when we walk, the older he gets, the more power he has. How do I get his attention and get him to stop pulling?
Speaker 2:Hmm. Well
Speaker 3:That's a great question. The first thing you're gonna need to do, Lisa, is you have to practice this behavior inside of the home with no distractions, no nothing. So get your dog on leash. Then you're going to start by having your dog in a sit next to you and you're just going to step backwards and make a turn. As you're turning, you're going to tug on that leash and your dog is going to follow you as your dog starts following you. Good boy, good girl. Nice when they catch up to your leg and then reward them. And you do that a few times. Get the dog the idea of, Okay, I should follow mom cuz I'm gonna get rewarded. Then I'm going to add in the next step where I'm going to step backwards and I'm tugging on the dog's leash. And then as my dog follows me, I'm going to say, Sit as he's catching up to my leg. Nice reward. Do that again. Over and over and over and over. And your dog starts getting into the habit and over Exactly of understanding. I turn, I step next to mom, I sit, I get rewarded. Now we start adding in our cue. That's what I'm gonna start going heal. As I turn, as I make my turn, I'm gonna go heal, heal, heal. And mind you, I'm tugging on that leash right when my dog gets next to me. Sit, reward. And you start adding in the number of steps that you take before you tell your dog to sit. Start out at one step, then maybe two, then get to five, you know, 10. You want to work all the way up to about 12 steps. When you get to around 12 steps of your dog being able to walk next to you, you're ready to go out front. And that's without distractions. So now this same exact behavior that you've been working inside, you're gonna work outside on the on the sidewalk without any distractions. Get your dog turning with you, following you. If at any point that head passes the leg, turn around and make your dog sit and then start over. And you're gonna do this over and over and over and over. And then you start adding in small distractions at a distance that is not really distracting your dog. And you get your dog comfortable there and you make those distractions more and more intense. Get them closer and closer, louder and louder and hears a great part during all of this because you said can't get his attention. Well, every time your dog looks up at you, nice. And give him a treat. Every single time dog looks up nice. Give him a treat. And now we have a dog that is walking on leash next to us and wants to stare at us. And that is how you're going to work on that leash pulling problem.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So, you know, use markers. Folks, if you really want success with your dog, I mean try this, try this. Create the marker. Condition the marker. You know, go through the process of teaching them that nice equals treat. Decide that you're gonna start capturing one or two behaviors. Yeah. Every time your dog does a particular behavior as your dog does it, mark with nice. Give the food reward after you've got it conditioned, do this consistently. Watch and wait for your dog to now all of a sudden get excited, run up to you and offer the behavior on its own trying to manipulate the system to get you to pay out the high value food reward that is jackpot. When you get that, you've got a dog that is so motivated, willing to work, wanting to work happy, understands the communication system, you can then have incredible success with that. Well, that music means we are just about out of time. It's been a great show. Sorry we did not get to counter conditioning a desensitization today, but I'm glad that we were able to expand on the topic. Such an important topic. Marker training. Need you to get out there, create markers for your dogs. Get out there, train your dogs. Have a great weekend everybody. We are outta.