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#115 Enhancing Your Dog's Lifestyle: Insights On Training, Enrichment, And Positive Reinforcement: Dog Training with Will Bangura, M.S., CDBC, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP

• Will Bangura, M.S., CDBC, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP is a World Renowned Dog Behaviorist, Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, Certified Professional Dog Trainer, and a Fear Free Certified Professional with over 36 years of experience with the most difficult of • Season 5 • Episode 115

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Did you know that your dog actually loves to work for its food? And that canine enrichment not only helps prevent boredom and anxiety but also stimulates their mental and physical capabilities? Welcome to our latest episode of Pet Talk where we explore these fascinating facts and much more, all from the perspective of your pet's behavior and needs. We also debunk the myth of the 'dog daddy' and help you understand the concept of contra-free loading to improve your dog's learning capacity. Feel free to drop your questions and let's engage in meaningful pet talk.

Now, let's get real about training your pets! It isn't always as simple as it seems. Every reward, every timing counts. And yes, those treats and toys you have can make a huge difference if used correctly. On this episode, we unravel how to use a marker training system, how to keep your dog from scratching your daughter, and even how to get your dog to stay off that couch! We also shed light on creating a pattern of rewards and the importance of predictability in training.

In the world of pet care, positive reinforcement is king. This episode will guide you through teaching alternative behaviors to prevent your dogs from jumping on people. We'll also discuss why you should never treat dogs as mere entertainment and how to handle situations that may lead to aggression. As a bonus, you'll get insights about my product, Calm Dogs, which can help with behavioral problems. Remember, an informed pet owner makes a happy and well-behaved pet. So tune in, learn, and let's make our pets' lives better together!
 
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Speaker 1:

Raised by wolves with canine DNA and his blood. Having trained more than 24,000 vets, 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 Bangura.

Speaker 2:

Good Saturday pet lovers. I'm Will Bangura. It's September 16th. This is another episode of Pet Talk today. Hope you're having a fantastic week.

Speaker 2:

Throughout this hour we're going to be talking everything dog. Maybe you've got a problem with your dog's behavior, maybe you've got a problem with your dog's training? This is the opportunity for you to ask me all of your dog training and behavior questions. If you're brand new to Pet Talk today, let me talk a little bit about how this works. If you do have a question about your pet's behavior, if you do have a question about your pet's training, just go ahead and type it into the comments section below, and I'll be sure to answer your questions. Do me a favor, though. Let me know where you're watching from and what kind of pets you have. And, for fun, do you have any fun names for your pets? You know I've got goofy names for my pets. Everybody's got goofy names for their pets, right? Let me know what the goofy name of your pet is as well. But no, seriously, I really. If you've got a problem with your dog or a puppy, this is the opportunity to be able to ask me questions about anything that is going on.

Speaker 2:

I'm also going to be talking. I talked a little bit last week and I actually did about a 20-minute podcast, an audio podcast that I don't think I actually put that on Facebook. I think it's up at the Pet Talk today Audio Podcast. But I did a specific 20-minute podcast about the dog daddy and if you've been to my website at dogbehavioristcom you can check out. I did a opinion piece about dog daddy and about aversive training methods and the dangers that they have not only to the dogs being trained but to the pet parents that are trying to emulate the behavior. So I'm going to talk not a lot, but I'm going to talk a little bit about the dog daddy, a little bit more. And I want to talk a little bit about canine enrichment today. If you're not familiar with what canine enrichment is, canine enrichment is so important.

Speaker 2:

A lot of the reasons why dogs have behavior problems are because of boredom. Think about it In our lifestyle. What's the normal American lifestyle? You wake up in the morning, you put some food down your throat, you give your dog some food and then you're off to work, and then you might be back 10 hours later and you let the dog outside. Maybe you go for a walk, maybe you went for a walk in the morning and then you feed yourself and the dog. When you get home, maybe you play for a little bit and you go to bed and then you do that all over again. Well, we're talking about dog sleeping roughly 16 hours of the day yeah, 16 hours out of the day when you're not there in our typical American lifestyle. So they get bored very easy and they get anxious.

Speaker 2:

Because they're social animals, dogs don't do well all by themselves. It's amazing that they can even handle being by themselves, but that's because of tens of thousands of years of domestication. But what does a dog normally do? They're normally moving around all day long. They're normally running around, moving around. They're looking for water, they're looking for food, they're running from predators, they're hunting prey, they're using their nose like crazy. And we need to start doing things in their day to day life that somewhat simulates what a dog normally does. And one of the best ways you can do that are by stimulating your dog's nose, when you do nose work with your dog, when you do play nose games with your dog, and that can be something as simple as taking your dog's food that you feed and hiding little bits and pieces of it all over the house and having your dog have to use their nose to sniff around and find their food. That stimulates them mentally as well as physically, and that is something that they need. Now, maybe you can't do that every day, but even if you could do that a couple days a week where your dog has to go find its food.

Speaker 2:

And there's a term called contra-free loading. I don't know if anybody's familiar with contra-free loading, but contra-free loading that's just a big fancy word. That means that dogs would prefer to work for their food than to be given the food freely. And a lot of times when I'm having discussions with folks about training and perhaps they have a dog that isn't that food motivated. One of the ways that we bring about a little more motivation with the food and also add on to that and leverage contra-free loading having to work for your food, which dogs prefer to do is just that We'll take maybe their morning meal and let's say it's kibble. We'll put that in a treat pouch and maybe spend 15 minutes on a training session, going through various different training exercises and rewarding your dog's behavior positively, reinforcing the good behavior, but we're using your dog's food Well. Contra-free loading that's the fancy word for that Science.

Speaker 2:

All the studies have shown us that dogs prefer to work for their food, and so one of the best things that you can do to not only make your dog happier but to get more motivation out of your dog and to get your dog to want to work harder and learn better, by the way, would be to start, if you're training with your dog, to start using your dog's food as its reward and that's how your dog earns its meal is your dog has to train, and when your dog trains, it gets fed. And that does two things. Number one, it motivates your dog a whole lot more, but number two, it forces you to have to train, doesn't it Right? Because it's always. We've always got other things that we would much rather do. Oh, it's fun the first couple of weeks when we're training our dogs, right, but then, when we have to get into that pattern of consistency and repetition, well then we get bored pretty quick ourselves, right? Talking about boredom, and one thing about dog training really good training If you want a dog that's really well behaved.

Speaker 2:

I mean well behaved? What do I mean by that? Listen anybody can get their dog to listen, respond to cues and commands and obey. When it's 10 o'clock at night, everything's calm, everything's quiet. It's just you and the dog hanging out very calmly. That's not when you need the training to work for you. When you need it to really work, when it really matters, are when there's chaos, when there are a lot of distractions, when you and your dog are in environments that are highly stimulating and it's difficult for your dog to keep its focus, to keep its attention and therefore to also stay motivated to want to listen to you and to respond to your cues, to respond to your commands. So, the name of the game when it comes to training, you need to be making sure that your training's not over until you've proofed your dog with distractions.

Speaker 2:

And one of the things that well, I should say one of the mistakes a lot of people make and they get frustrated very early is you'll take your dog into a distracting environment that's way too distracting too soon to have success. Being able to keep your dog's focus, being able to keep your dog's attention in such a distracting environment, where first you need to be training and having a lot of repetition, a lot of consistency. So, therefore, conditioning on certain behaviors. In environments where there's no distraction whatsoever. You need to know that on any given day, when you give your dog a cue to behave a certain way, that 9 out of 10 times your dog is going to respond right away. When your dog will respond 9 out of 10 times appropriately, then you can go into a more distracting environment. But if your dog or your puppy is not able to respond 9 out of 10 times reliably, then you need to take your puppy, take your dog to a different environment that's less distracting, and do more repetition and make sure that your rewards are more valuable to your dog.

Speaker 2:

See one of the things about distractions and training. Think about it. We always talk about motivating the dog. A distraction is a competing motivator. It's competing for your dog's attention, competing for that motivation. Now, if the distractions in the environment that you're training are more interesting and more valuable to your dog, you're going to lose your dog's focus. You're going to lose your dog's attention. However, that's just then If you were to back up and rewind a little bit, go into an environment with less distractions and do more work with a super high value reward.

Speaker 2:

Now, most of the time, it's going to be food for most dogs. I mean most dogs like food, and even those people that tell me, hey, my dog's really not that food motivated, there's always something that we can find that makes the difference. It's just a matter of trying different things and oftentimes when we're looking at trying to find a high value food reward, it's going to be something that needs to be very highly palatable. It's going to need to be something that they really, really love and that they don't get a lot. Maybe little pieces of cooked chicken, little pieces of cooked beef, something yummy, yummy, yummy. Maybe little pieces of cheese or little pieces of cut up hot dog, something your dog absolutely loves and that is going to help motivate your dog the best we can. Now some dogs they're going to be more toy motivated. The only problem with toys you got to give your dog the toy and it's not that easy always especially if they're really crazy about the toy to get the toy back right away so that you can go into another repetition and reward your dog with the toy.

Speaker 2:

The second thing oh, there's work, we can work around that. But then the second thing is is that we talked about many times on Pet Talk today that we don't want to use food as a bribe, meaning that when we're asking the dog to do something, we don't want to be holding that carrot out in front of them, so to speak. Right, we don't want to have the food in our hand. We want that food in a treat pouch, not in our hand. We don't want to be even reaching or even close to that treat pouch while we're asking the dog to do something. And it's not until after the dog does the behavior that we even begin to reach for food.

Speaker 2:

But we should be using a marker training system. We should be using our markers. If you don't know what markers are in training, you need to learn. This is not the episode for markers, but you can find out about markers. It's all about precise communication and timing and it's all about helping the dog to be able to connect the dots cognitively. And that's why we use markers in training, because timing is everything. So if you'll go to the audio podcast of Pet Talk today, just do a Google search for Pet Talk Today podcast. Look for episode 80. Episode 80 is an hour long on marker training and you'll learn everything you need to know and then you'll be able to start using markers. And when you start using markers, your training is going to start going faster exponentially when you're using rewards with markers. Your training is going to go exponentially faster.

Speaker 2:

Now we're talking about the right way and the wrong way to use food right Not using it as a bribe. Well, think about if your training and your reward is a toy right. What if you've got that toy in your hand and your dog is you know? Let's say it's a tennis ball and your dog is absolutely toy crazy, which is a good thing, because we can use that motivation, we can use that energy. Your dog loves the toy. That's a fantastic reward. The problem is is that if it's in our hand and the dog sees that, the dog might be overstimulated and really want that toy so bad that it's going to be a toy and so we've had that it really can't focus on what you're asking for. It really can't focus on what it is that we want it to do, and now that toy that we want to use for motivation, now that becomes a distraction. And so the same thing, especially if it's a toy and the dog is really excited about it. You can't have the toy in your hand when you're giving the cue.

Speaker 2:

You can't have the toy in your hand, when you are asking the dog to do certain behaviors, because the dog's not going to be able to focus on it at all. The dog's going to be focusing on the toy rather than focus on you. Same thing if you've got food in your hand. So it's critical, absolutely critical. You know, we get a lot of people that say I don't want to use food, I don't want to have to bribe my dog and my dog won't listen to me unless I've got food out there. It's not. Food is not the problem. Food is a fantastic positive reinforcer for dogs, one of the best that there is. It's how you use the food. That is either going to be problematic or not, and that's why it's really important to understand these things, because people will say, oh, this doesn't work or that doesn't work, or I tried this. Well, how exactly did you try it? See, the problem is there's a lot of information out there, right? You got all kinds of dog trainers. They've got all kinds of different opinions and ideas. You've got millions of different things on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. What's the right way to do it? And so when somebody tells me, when I'm doing an interview, when I'm consulting with them and they say well, I tried this, it didn't work. Oh, okay, I understand. Can you tell me exactly what the steps were? What was the process and the procedure? Can you paint me a picture of what that looked like? And then, lo and behold, as they're painting that picture, well, there's a lot of little steps that are missing, and those little steps, those little nuances, can really make the difference between success and failure. And one of the big things when you're using food that makes a difference between success and failure is whether or not you're asking for behaviors with food in your hand versus having food in a treat pouch. You're asking for behaviors and you're never, ever, reaching for food until after your dog has executed the behavior. And then you've marked that behavior and only then do you reach for food in the pouch. See, there's no guarantee for the dog that you're going to reach in there and give food. Now there might be predictability. If you've created a pattern, then the dog has learned to predict that, meaning the dog has made associations, which is exactly what we want to do. Okay, learning by association, respondent conditioning or classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning we want that to happen, but we want the dog's focus to be on you, what you're asking for in the behavior, not that the dog's hyper focused on food or hyper focused on a toy, and that's why it's so important to have that in a treat pouch. Or, if you've got a toy, have it in a smock or behind you or something like that.

Speaker 2:

Now a lot of you will say to me hey, well, the dog just keeps focusing on the treat pouch. It's the same thing. The dog just focuses on my pocket where the ball is. I understand that. Again, let's talk about little subtleties and little nuances, the right way and the wrong way to do something To be effective.

Speaker 2:

You can't just put on a treat pouch only when you're training in the beginning. To be effective, you can't just grab a toy and stuff it in your pocket when you want to go into a training session, and only then. Because it's going to become very apparent to the dog Now we got to train, oh, I'm excited, I want the food, food, food. Where you get the ball, the dog's like, oh, we're going to train now. Oh, I'm so excited, and the dog's overstimulated. And the dog knows, hey, this is what's going to happen and the dog won't do it if that treat pouch isn't there, if the dog won't do it, if the ball or toys not in your pocket, I get that. You need to be walking around with a treat pouch on all kinds of times when you're not training. You need to be walking around with a toy with you when you're not training. You can't make such a black and white cause and effect association between a treat pouch and now you've got to listen. Or I've got a ball in my pocket and now you've got to listen, because if that's the only time they're there, the dog's not going to listen when its motivation is gone. It's how you use and apply motivation and there's these little subtleties so many of you.

Speaker 2:

If you were to grab your leash, your dog is going absolutely crazy. And one of the reasons your dog is going absolutely crazy is because, think about it, if your dog loves to go for a walk and most dogs love to go for walks and it's very exciting and that leash represents, hey, we're going to go for a walk, and so the fact that the leash only comes out at that moment. Now, when you bring the leash out, the dog is going absolutely ape, ape, what? Yes, you know the dog is going crazy. So I'll tell people that have a problem because, I mean, some dogs will just get so incredibly overstimulated you can't even get the leash on, you can barely get it on and be able to get out the door.

Speaker 2:

And I explained to them it's because of associative learning. They're making that black and white association. If you change that up, bring the leash out, set it on the floor, walk away. A little bit later, pick the leash up, attach it to your dog's collar, then unclip it and put it back on the ground. Then grab it, show it to your dog, put it away in the cupboard maybe where you have it, or in the drawer where you have it, or hang it up where you have it, and then keep on bringing it out, keep on doing different things with that leash with your dog other than going for a walk. It's going to take a little bit of time, but what's going to happen is that, conditioning that your dog has that black and white association, that, hey, anytime a leash comes out, that means definitely I'm going for a walk and I love that. So I'm going to get crazy excited. That's going to go away. That's going to begin to extinguish the more that leash comes out and isn't directly associated with just going for a walk. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

So we do the same thing with a treat pouch, because initially, yeah, how have you been using it the way most people do? The wrong way. You've only put it on you when you trained, and now that treat pouch has been representative of. If it's not there, there's no motivation to work. Listen, I don't want to get up first thing in the morning and put a treat pouch on me either. I don't want to get up first thing in the morning and start pulling leashes out and doing things like that. But I want my dog to listen. I want to be effective in my training and that's if I do it right, it goes quickly. If I I mean not super quick, I mean there are no quick fixes, but when you do it right, it's more effective, it's more efficient, so it goes quicker. Doing it the right way will allow you to get things done quicker, and the quicker you get things done.

Speaker 2:

Things like having to have a treat pouch on, you can put that away. Having to use food all the time, no, you can start using love, praise and affection. Once your dog learns these things, you can wean off of food, you can wean off of some tools, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do that. And make note of this, because next time you get a dog, or even if you've been working with your dog right now and you're struggling training with food, struggling, training with a toy, struggling when you bring that leash out, start bringing that leash out for all kinds of things other than going for a walk. So the meaning of the leash coming out doesn't directly mean immediately, hey, we're going for a walk. And then your dog, once it figures that out because you've taken it out for a lot of other reasons and it takes a little bit of time your dog will be calm when the leash comes out. Same thing when it comes to the treat pouch. Same thing when it comes to food. Same thing when it comes to training with toys. Try that, see if that doesn't help the situation.

Speaker 2:

But I want to go back to I don't know how I got off into that, but I want to go back to what I was talking about, which was canine enrichment, because dogs get so bored so easily in the American lifestyle where we're gone 10, 12 hours a day and they're sleeping most of the time, and there's a lot of anxiety related behavior problems because of boredom. And canine enrichment can make a big difference because you'll take your dog for a walk, but what are you doing to really stimulate its brain? And the more you stimulate the brain, yes, we want that physical exercise, but the more we stimulate the brain, the calmer the dog is going to be. And one of the best ways, as I was saying earlier, to stimulate a dog's brain is get them working with their nose, and one of the easiest things you can do is get them using their nose to find their food. And I talked about contra-free loading. I talked about how that's a big fancy word where we've done some research in science and we found out that dogs prefer to work for their food rather than being free fed.

Speaker 2:

And there's two things that you can do with that and I would do both. I would start if your dog's not being done. If your dog still is in training, it's not finished then use your dog's food for training. Have your dog earn its food. That's going to stimulate your dog a whole lot more mentally. It's going to force you to have to train your dog's going to enjoy it more. And then the other thing you can do in addition to that to stimulate your dog's mind is you can start hiding some of the food all over the house and let your dog use its nose to find that.

Speaker 2:

You can do a search for trainers that do nose games or nose work games. Get on the AKC website the American Kennel Club and learn about scent detection. That's a whole lot of fun, not just for the dog, but you're going to have a lot of fun with that as well. But you've got to do things for Canine Enrichment. You know they've got puzzle toys right when dogs have to go through these different steps in order to be able to get some food or a treat.

Speaker 2:

Imagine if your dog worked for its meal that way and there's nothing wrong with it. Now we've got to make sure that your dog is eating. We've got to make sure your dog gets enough food and it gets the right nutrition. But that can easily be done doing some of these things. And if you would begin to do that after you've done that for a few weeks, you're going to notice a huge difference in your dog's demeanor. Your dog is going to be calmer, calmer. You've got to try these different things. Get them using their nose? When you go for a walk with your dog, do you let them sniff? Or is it just hey, we got to go, go, go, we got to go go, go, go, go go.

Speaker 2:

They need to sniff. They understand the world through their nose. You not letting them sniff and I mean really have a good sniff walk. You not letting them sniff would be like me putting a blindfold on you. Yeah, it's no fun. They need that. Give that to them. Okay, all right, we need to talk a little bit here about the dog daddy, but I'm not going to spend too much time. What is a sep birthday? Will Can dogs have ESP? Can dogs have ESP? Well, we don't know if people can have ESP.

Speaker 2:

Science appears at this time to say that people do not. If you look at the good science, I mean you can find any study to tell you anything you want to, and you got to be careful about that because there are biased studies that are out there. You really got to understand how to review a study and understand whether or not it's good science or bad science. One of the thing is a study that's peer reviewed, not just one study make sure the sample size is relatively large and that the study's been duplicated, and they come up with the same conclusions with that. And then studies need to really be double blind, where not only does the study participant not know the control versus the variable, but neither does the testers.

Speaker 2:

So, for example, when I was doing my own in-house research on my dog calming supplement, calm dogs we used, I believe it. Well, it ended up being, I think, about 503 dogs and I think we tested calm dogs against three or four other supplements that were being recommended by veterinarians. And we did a double blind study there where we didn't know what the dog and the pet parent were giving their dog and they didn't know until it was all over. And then we knew because we didn't want to bias the study, and that's really important. The other thing when you're looking at research and studies, it'll tell you if there is a conflict of interest. I can't tell you, when I was developing calm dogs, how many studies that I looked at about different products and, lo and behold, they would say, oh yeah this works really really, really good.

Speaker 2:

A classic example, and I'm going to call them out Purina Calming Care. Purina Calming Care is a probiotic and Purina is owned by Nestle and they have claimed that their Purina Calming Care really helps a lot with anxiety. And it's a very expensive product and it's a probiotic which you can get a probiotic relatively cheap anywhere, instead of the outrageous price that they're charging for Purina Calming Care. Well, even Nestle, who did their own study there's only one study that says that this stuff works and, lo and behold, it was done by Nestle and even in Nestle's study they say that it only helps in GI related anxiety. Well, imagine that probiotics help with GI issues, but it didn't help in any other area of anxiety. But they don't say that on the packaging, they don't say that in their marketing materials. Okay, and if you actually look, it's interesting because if you look at, you dive a little bit deeper. There are two or three very specific probiotics that can have a mild to moderate effect on anxiety and the strain of probiotic that they're using in Purina Calming Care is not one of those three. But you know, because I'm going to be doing a GI, we're going to do a calm dogs GI supplement and it's going to be a probiotic but and a couple other things and some natural herbs in it.

Speaker 2:

But you've got to really check the science when you're looking at different things ESP. Do dogs have ESP? Well, what I want to tell you is that dogs can hear things we can't hear. Dogs can smell things that we can't smell. So they're experiencing sensations all around us that we don't experience, and I could see how a dog responding to normal sensory input would make us think, oh my God, they're responding to a ghost or something like that. Right, because we don't understand that they're smelling something that we can't smell. They're hearing something that we can't hear and a whole lot of other things that that we can't experience. So I mean it certainly could do that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm going to jump into questions here. Mary says my dog will do something she's not supposed to. Where are your questions? Sorry about that, mary. My dog will do something she's not supposed to and all I have to do is stand up and she'll stop. So she knows it's wrong, but still does it. How do I get her to stop doing it in the first place?

Speaker 2:

All right, so I'm going to reframe what you're saying, mary. Your dog does not know what it's doing is wrong? Okay, chances are, because if your dog knew what was wrong and was motivated to do something else or not to do it, your dog wouldn't be doing it. Okay, so let's just look at what the observable behavior is. Okay, your dog does a behavior. You stand up, the behavior stops.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so, chances are, you, standing up, is nothing more than an interrupter, just that an interrupter, an interrupter. You're only going to stop behavior in a couple of ways. One is through the use of punishment, and I don't advocate that because there are better ways to do it. Can punishment work? Yes, it can work, we don't deny that, but it comes with a lot of fallout oftentimes. Then you can ruin your relationship with your dog because you're the one that has to give out the punishment. Two, your timing has to be impeccable, and even then your dog could associate that punishment with something else. Again, they could associate it with you. But really it's not so much about that, it's if you could do it without using punishment, why wouldn't you and that's what I say to folks that want to use aversives If you could do it without using it, would you? And so I really believe that most likely you standing up as an interrupter. How is your dog going to stop doing that Punishment? I don't advocate that.

Speaker 2:

Number two extinction. What is extinction? Extinction means that there's absolutely no reinforcer. And when there's no reinforcer, eventually a behavior extinguishes. So imagine that you're in Las Vegas and you're behind that slot machine and you're pulling that handle and when there's no more reinforcement, when it stops dropping coins, when it stops paying out, eventually you're going to stop pulling that handle because there's no reinforcement, there's no reward. You won't stop immediately because there was a pattern and you're anticipating that there's going to be reinforcement and reward. So if you ignored that behavior completely, maybe maybe it would extinguish itself over time. But there could be other reinforcers that are environmental reinforcers that are not related to you.

Speaker 2:

A classic example of an environmental reinforcer, or just a natural occurrence that's a reinforcer, is when a delivery person comes, delivers a package and a dog goes ballistic. And you hate it, right, because the dog's going ballistic, it's slamming its body up against the door, up against the big picture window, and you think it's going to break through that window. Every single time the delivery person comes, the dog's doing that. You don't want the dog to do that. You don't think you're doing anything to reinforce the behavior. You're ignoring it, you're not even. You're not even scolding it because you don't want to give it negative attention. Why won't it stop? Why won't it stop? Because your dog didn't like that scary person that was delivering the package and, as a result of your dog not liking it, your dog tried to create distance and space, push them away by acting all big and scary and barking and lunging. And lo and behold, every time your dog does that, the scary thing goes away. Every time your dog does it, the scary thing goes away as far as your dog is concerned. Your dog thinks its behavior is what's causing the delivery person to go away. It's being reinforced, it's working. It's giving your dog what it wants, even though you and I know well the delivery person's not going to be hanging out at our place all day long. It's got other stops to make, but your dog doesn't know that. So there can be us reinforcing things inadvertently.

Speaker 2:

Why behaviors don't stop? There could be environmental reinforcers. Why behaviors don't stop? Those are two things right there.

Speaker 2:

If you want a behavior to stop, the first thing you need to understand what happens right before the behavior. We call that the antecedent. See, in behavior analysis we've got the A, b and C. A is the antecedent, that's what happens right before behavior. It's what triggers or stimulates the behavior. The A, the antecedent, plus B, B is the behavior, what your dog does. So we need the antecedent to stimulate or trigger the behavior. Then we get the behavior. And then, right after the behavior, there's C, there's a consequence, something as a result of that behavior. That consequence might be something the dog likes, it could be something the dog doesn't like.

Speaker 2:

Behaviors can come into flavors of consequences. In this case, the delivery guy comes. That's an antecedent, that's a trigger for the dogs barking and lunging and being very reactive. And then C the consequences. The scary thing goes away. The C is the reinforcer. There's always a re Behaviors do not. Behaviors do not continue unless there's a reinforcer or a neurological problem. I'll say it again Behaviors don't continue unless there's a reinforcer or a neurological problem. And nine times out of 10, there's not a neurological problem. So are you reinforcing the behavior? Is there a natural reinforcer in the environment? And what you're doing is merely probably interrupting the behavior, because now the dog just got distracted because you stood up and it could also be reinforcing the dog.

Speaker 2:

I don't know exactly what your dog wants, but what we really need to do he says thanks for sharing it. What we really need to do, mary, is we need to think about what you want your dog to do instead. What would be an alternative behavior that you would like your dog to do? That if your dog was doing it, it would be incompatible with the behavior that you don't want. So let's see.

Speaker 2:

Mary says I'll give you an example. She'll sit behind my daughter. Ah, it keeps jumping. She'll sit behind my daughter on the sofa. Somebody's typing and it keeps bones in this. It's scratching her head. I stand up and she moves over on the other side of the sofa. If I don't correct her, she'll continue the behavior. I can't let her continue to scratch my daughter's head.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and your dog? I think he said the dog's on the couch. Okay, rather than punish that behavior, how about we have your dog lay down on the floor and your dog's gotta maintain lying down, meaning the belly's gotta be on the ground, and then your daughter can interact and play with your dog? But if your dog stands up or sits up, then your daughter walks away, okay. So what we're doing is two things. Number one your dog can't be lying down, have its belly on the ground to be scratching your daughter at the same time. And you're gonna start that on the floor because we already got a problem that's happening on the couch and your dog is changing positions on the couch and, yeah, your dog can sit and scratch right, but it's gonna be much harder to lie down and scratch Because that behavior is happening on the couch. I wanna start this on the floor and not let the dog go on the couch. I'm not gonna go over how to keep your dog off the couch. Okay, I probably have an article on that on dogbehavioristcom. You can check that out there. But if you get, first of all, you gotta be proactive. You have to be proactive before you even think about using this for the problem with scratching your daughter.

Speaker 2:

Proactively working on a down and teaching the dog what that cue is and making sure your dog's highly motivated. Doing it in all kinds of different locations. Doing it starting off with very low level distractions and little by little, building up those distractions. Think about six weeks minimum working daily. 10 to 12 repetitions of down every day. Two minutes of distraction training three times a day. I'll say that again 10 to 12 repetitions of lying down every day. One to two minutes of distraction training twice a day.

Speaker 2:

If your dog keeps breaking from that down position, your distractions are too intense too soon. You need to turn them down so that the dog has more success in winning. Your dog should lose a few times, but not every time. You know. If your dog never makes the mistake, well, maybe the distractions are not challenging enough. But if your dog keeps breaking, there's two things happening. One, your dog's not ready for that level of distraction. Two, actually three things. Two, you haven't done enough repetition at the lower level distraction. And three, you've got to create greater value with your positive reinforcer. Maybe look for something a little more valuable. But you're going to start doing that on the floor Now, every time your dog is with your daughter and your dog's on the down position.

Speaker 2:

Based on that cue on the floor, if your dog gets up, you're going to have your daughter get up and walk away. Don't let your dog follow your daughter. Ask for down again when your dog goes down. Then your daughter can come back. All right. So I'm using your daughter because she's motivation. The dog wants to probably be with your daughter to motivate the dog to stay in the down, Because if your dog breaks from the down, I'm having your daughter go away.

Speaker 2:

We call that negative punishment. It just means that we're removing something that the dog likes, not the kind of punishment that you're hurting the dog. But we're also using your daughter as positive reinforcement, because once your dog goes back into the down, we're bringing your daughter back. So you're going to be positively reinforcing with food rewards. But you're also going to positively reinforce by having your daughter come back. Because, hey, a, b and C, right, what's the consequence of the behavior? Food reward and your daughter comes back. I get up from my down up you got to go back into the down and your daughter leaves Once. That's going well, now start doing that on the couch. Have the dog get on the couch, but have the dog maintain the down and reward that. Reward, reward, reward. And this is something that's going to take a little bit of time.

Speaker 2:

You got to be proactive. You've got to know that your dog really understands it. People tell me well, my dog knows it shouldn't be doing it, but it does it anyway. They don't know that they shouldn't be doing it. They don't know that it displeases you. For them there's function. There's some kind of reinforcer I don't know exactly what it is, but there's some kind of a reinforcer.

Speaker 2:

But again, that's taking positive reinforcement, learning how to use what we call differential reinforcement, which is teaching an alternative, different behavior that's incompatible with the behavior that you don't want. Therefore, you don't have to use any type of aversive method. You don't have to yell at the dog, you don't have to give a leash and collar correction, you don't have to correct with an electronic collar, you don't have to hang the dog like dog daddy. Yeah, but that's what you're going to do, mary. If you'll do that, you and again, you got to be consistent, though right. One of the things that, mary, you can't do you can't set your dog up for failure, and what I mean by that is you know the specific situations in which this behavior occurs. If you allow your dog to get into that specific situation each and every time, again and again, the behavior is going to continue.

Speaker 2:

So you have to first also avoid the trigger, get rid of that antecedent. What's the antecedent? Well, the dog's on the couch something your daughter's doing, I guess and then your dog starts scratching her, if I understand this correctly. Well, one of the easiest things to do is eliminate the dog being on the couch right now, not necessarily forever. You know, I'm not opposed to dogs being on the couch if they have good behavior. They have good behavior, I'm cool with it. But then it's just your decision, what you want. But, yeah, that's what I would probably do and, mary, maybe you can give me a little more insight, I think If you write more. The problem is my daughter is disabled, can't walk. Most times she's sleeping sitting up on the sofa. I don't care if the dog is on the sofa next to her. Well, I think right now the dog needs to be off the sofa would be my recommendation. Ok, yeah, your dog wants your daughter's attention.

Speaker 2:

Did you hear what I was talking a little bit earlier, mary, about dogs being incredibly bored and the need to do enrichment activities Dogs need? First of all, dogs need 20 minutes of aerobic exercise a day. Most walks don't qualify for that. The walks are great for sniffing. The walks are great for just general exercise, getting out there, being exposed to the environment, sniffing. They've got to use their nose. What are we doing for 20 minutes of aerobic exercise daily? Dogs are not long distance runners. They're not designed for long distance running. I always have a problem. People want to take their dogs for 20 mile runs. They're going to do a lot of damage to the dog's orthopedic health. Dogs are sprinters. 20 minutes of fast aerobic exercise every day. Luckily, my dogs love a ball. I can throw that ball all day long. They run, they run, they run.

Speaker 2:

Please don't use a laser pointer. It will make your dog absolutely crazy neurotic. I did an article on laser pointer obsession in dogs and how you treat that. You can see that at dogbehavioristcom. There's over 70 articles on dogbehavioristcom on various different topics. If you've not been to my website, check it out at dogbehavioristcom. But yeah, we'll look and see.

Speaker 2:

If you're just joining me, I'm Will Bangura. If you've got a question about your dog's behavior, if you've got a question about your dog's training, do me a favor. Type your question in the comments section below. Also, let me know where you're watching from and what kind of pets you have. And do me a favor. Right now, everybody Hit that like button. Please hit that like button, hit that share button so that everybody can benefit from that. Show me some love. I appreciate that big time.

Speaker 2:

I need to take a quick second to talk about calm dogs. Calm dogs is a all-natural calming aid for dogs. It's made up of 21 vitamins, minerals and amino acids and it's something that I actually developed. And the reason I developed it was because I was looking for something natural that would help dogs that had anxiety, fears and phobias. I wanted to find something natural that would help dogs with reactivity and aggression, dogs that had fear of fireworks and other sounds or had touch sensitivities, and I tried everything that literally was on the market and nothing worked, or it worked so minimally it just wasn't worth it. And all of my dog training clients had the same stories, story after story. Nothing worked.

Speaker 2:

I took five years to research and develop different vitamins, minerals, amino acids and herbs that scientifically were proven and remember I talked earlier about scientific studies and making sure that they're good. I researched everything that had statistical significance scientifically that it would help with these type of problems, and I put that all together into a product that I called calm dogs. And we've had fantastic success with calm dogs. 70% of dogs saw a reduction in their behavior problems after 30 minutes to an hour of taking it. 98% of dogs there was a reduction of problems after taking calm dogs twice daily for six weeks.

Speaker 2:

I'm so confident that calm dogs will help you and your dog. I offer you a 100% money back guarantee. Try calm dogs for six weeks. Give it to your dog twice a day. If it doesn't help your dog, let me know. I'll refund 100% of your money. You can get calm dogs only at calmdogscom or doganxietycom.

Speaker 2:

All right, enough of the plug there. Actually I should make another plug, right? Will you allow me to do that? One more plug my potty training book. Finally. I got that finished and that is up at Amazon and you can get that either in paperback or Kindle. Just type in when you get to Amazon House Training 101. House Training 101. And you can find my book on potty training. All right, how much time do we have? We got a few minutes. Let's see if we have other questions. Delaware well, mary, delaware, love Delaware. I've got a lot of people in the northeast that listen to the program. I've got a lot of folks in Vermont, a lot of people in Connecticut that listen to the program as well. So I want to just kind of keep going along the lines of differential reinforcement and it's so important I talk about it a lot that it's so easy to punish a dog, and how fair is it?

Speaker 2:

They come into this world they don't know what's expected of them. They're dogs and dogs are dogs. They're still animals. Yeah, they've been domesticated, but little by little they're still animals. They come into our world. They don't have a rule book, they don't know what to do and they start doing what dogs do not because they're dominant, not because they're bad dogs, and we start getting upset and say they're bad dogs, are doing something wrong.

Speaker 2:

Did we teach them? Did we teach them what we want them to do? When they did something we didn't like, did we teach them an alternative behavior, consistently, repetitiously, and reward them for that behavior to make it worthwhile them wanting to do that? Like you know, it's pretty natural for a dog to jump on somebody. Why? Because from the time they were a puppy, we picked them up. We picked them up and then when they're growing up, they jump and we start petting them. So we positively reinforce that Most jumping behavior is created. It's not a normal thing if you left the dog and puppy alone and you got down at their level and you pet them, you didn't pick them up and you didn't reinforce them if they did get up on you. You don't jump.

Speaker 2:

I watched a program on dogs near Russia. It's some culture that really is still nomadic and they raise dogs to help them with their work and to help with livestock and they had these puppies out on the show and there were like three or four really little kids running around like crazy and the puppies didn't run after the kids and they didn't jump on them. But you know what else was going on? The kids never interacted with the puppies because they were not quote unquote house dogs. That was not part of their culture. They were like livestock and I thought it was interesting that dogs weren't jumping.

Speaker 2:

And I've said for a long time, most jumping behavior is created and reinforced by humans, but nobody likes it. And then what happens is you come home or you have guests over and the dog jumps on somebody. Now you're embarrassed, now you're upset, you don't want it to happen and all of a sudden the dog's a bad dog and the dog gets punished. Is that fair? Did you teach the dog? Hey, we know you're just a dog, we know that you're social. We know that when people come over you get excited. We know that we screwed you up by teaching you to jump by picking you up for so long as a puppy and then petting you when you did jump up? Did you create that? Did you take the time to teach an alternative behavior? Did you teach your dog that, hey, rather than jumping, how about sit? Did you take the time to proactively have your dog sit as you and others came through that door and reward the dog over and over and over for maintaining a polite, calm sit when guests and family come in and out the door? Did you proactively do that?

Speaker 2:

You need to start thinking about the ethical implications and animal welfare of how we're treating our dogs when we're training them. Dogs aren't dominant. It's so unusual to find a truly dominant dog, but dogs can be very unruly and that means without rules and that means nobody taught them the rules that they need to learn. And it's our job to teach them behaviors that we like and reinforce those. It's our job to teach them alternative behaviors that would be incompatible with a behavior we don't like, for example, teaching the dog to sit politely when people come and go If the dog maintains that behavior. That is incompatible with jumping, rather than punishing the dog.

Speaker 2:

You know, I'll finish up here a little bit with the dog daddy. The dog daddy and I did a 20 minute podcast but it's not on Facebook. You got to go to my podcast, like Apple podcast or wherever you listen to regular podcasts. You got to go to the pet talk today podcast and I talked about the dog daddy and I really feel like he is a big problem setting back dog training, evidence based, science based dog training, setting it back decades. We had this problem when Caesar Milan first came out, when the dog whisper came out, because of the methods that he used and it looked like, wow, these things really work, they're great methods. And you just saw what you saw on TV and you didn't know anything about science, you didn't know anything about editing, you didn't know about behavior and it just all looked really good.

Speaker 2:

And on my podcast I said this is dangerous with dog daddy's doing and he's going to get bit. I said he's going to get bit. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when he's going to get bit. He's going to get bit bad. And I said, more importantly, the people that think that this is a great way to train they're going to try to emulate what the dog daddy has done, because people started emulating what Caesar Milan the dog whisper did and I said, when they start to emulate what dog daddy is doing, they are going to get hurt to regular people, regular pet parents, teenagers, children. They're going to do what dog daddy does. They are going to get seriously hurt. That was just a few days ago.

Speaker 2:

Today got on Facebook low and behold, brand new video by the dog daddy working with an aggressive Chihuahua who he hangs by the leash and the Chihuahua bites him and let me tell you, for a Chihuahua it was a pretty damn good bite. Now he thought it was funny. He laughed, he made a joke about it, showed the punctures, everybody on social media laughing. That's not the last time dog daddy's getting bit. He couldn't prevent himself from getting bit by a three pound dog.

Speaker 2:

What do you think is going to happen when a 50 pound dog goes after him? It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when, augusto, it's not something to laugh at. That you got bit. It's not going to be funny when you really get injured, bad. It's not funny when the people that you present this to as entertainment begin to try to do these things with their own dogs and they seriously, seriously get hurt. They seriously, seriously get bit. Well, folks, I am out of time right now. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Pet Talk Today. Hopefully you gained something out of this. Let your friends know. Please. Hit that like button, hit that share button. Have a great weekend, everybody. I'm outta here.

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Will Bangura M.S.,CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP

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