Dog Training Podcast #121 : Pet Talk Today: Listener Questions, Managing Nuisance Behaviors, Dog Aggression, Begging, Barking, Reactivity to TV and More. Training With Will Bangura, M.S., CDBC, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP

Ever wondered why your dog behaves the way he does? Is canine aggression a mystery to you? Well, look no further. This riveting episode is a deep dive into all things dog behavior. I'm your host, certified dog behavior consultant, Will Bangura, and I'll be guiding you through this labyrinth of canine emotions, tackling topics from aggression to reactivity, and even unusual reactions to the TV! Together, we'll explore the triggers, understand the emotional underpinnings of aggressive behavior, and decode how our furry companions perceive threats. 

Are you tired of managing nuisance behaviors like begging, barking, or jumping? Don't worry, we've got you covered. This episode is a treasure trove of practical training tips and expert advice - from alternatives to jumping to the importance of positive reinforcement. I'll be sharing insights into consistency and resilience when dealing with dog health issues, emphasizing the need to understand that our pet's behaviors are not random, but a response to their environment, threats, or anxieties.

Our final segment is dedicated to you, our listeners. In this episode, we address some of your burning questions. For instance, we assist Rebecca, a listener grappling with her dog's leash reactivity. I'll be sharing valuable insights into canine socialization that could revolutionize your relationship with your pet. So, hit that play button, and let's embark on this enlightening journey to understand our dogs better. You're just one click away from becoming the pet parent your dog thinks you are!

Dog Training Podcast: Pet Talk Today Dog Training With Will Bangura, M.S., CDBC, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP

Chapters

• 0:00 Pet Talk Today
• 16:21 Dog Behavior and Training Questions
• 30:53 Teaching Dogs Not to Jump
• 39:13 Understanding Dog Behavior and Training Methods
• 50:16 Dog Training Tips for TV Reactivity
• 59:15 Wrap-Up and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone. It's Will Bangura. Thanks for listening to the Pet Talk Today podcast. Can you do me a huge favor? We're trying to meet our goals and we really need you to pause. Give us a five-star review so that we can rank higher. I hate asking for this, but we need them so that more people can hear Pet Talk Today and enjoy it like you do. Also, please make sure you hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. That way, you're notified every time there's a new Pet Talk Today podcast. We've got a great show today. I don't want to talk any more about it. Let's get right into it.

Speaker 2: 0:36

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 1: 1:10

Good Saturday morning pet lovers. Today is October 21st and you are listening to another episode of Pet Talk Today. I'm Will Bangura. I'm a certified dog behavior consultant, also a certified professional dog trainer. I've been training dogs for 35 years. I specialize in helping pet parents dealing with their dogs aggression, fears, phobias, reactivity. I also deal with every behavior imaginable, every nuisance behavior like barking, jumping, stealing things, getting on the counter, driving you crazy, destroying your house, potty training.

Speaker 1: 1:51

It doesn't matter what kind of pet you have. It doesn't matter what kind of dog, doesn't matter the breed, size, age. I can help you deal with all of your pet behavior and training questions. If you're brand new to Pet Talk Today, let me talk a little bit about how this works. In just a little bit I'm going to be taking your questions, answering your questions Now. There's two ways that you can have me help you to answer your dog training and behavior questions right now. One of them is to go ahead and type your question in the comments section and do me a favor. When you do that, please let me know where you're listening from, what kind of pets you have, in addition to the questions you have about your dog's training and behavior. The other way and the preferred way, because I can give you a lot more information is during the show. I'm going to be taking calls today, so don't be shy, don't be afraid to call me. Okay, in today's show, jot that number down, grab a pen, grab a piece of paper or have a really good memory. That number is 414-400-3647. Again 414-400-3647, or 414-400-dogs, again 414-400-dogs. And this is only during this live show today.

Speaker 1: 3:24

If you're listening to the audio podcast, do me a favor hit that pause button. Give us a five-star review. I know, please hit that pause button. Give us a five-star review. Whether you listen on Apple Podcasts, spotify, it doesn't matter where you're listening to. Also, please hit that subscribe button to the audio podcast.

Speaker 1: 3:43

There are lots of podcasts that I put up on the audio podcast for Pet Talk today that aren't here on Facebook. Matter of fact, I want you to check out a podcast that I did this week. It's on the Pet Talk Today audio podcast. Just do a Google search. Put in Pet Talk Today podcast. It'll come up. Look for episode 120, which I did this week. Episode 120 is all about canine socialization. What is canine socialization? Are we doing it right? Are you getting the correct information or are you accidentally being misled? You need to know. Socialization is critical. Check out episode 120 of the Pet Talk Today podcast. Also, I'm going to be talking about some of the top 10 mistakes that pet parents make today.

Speaker 1: 4:38

I've got some email questions that have come in throughout the week. I'm going to be going ahead and addressing some email questions. I think I'm going to go to those first, after I sip a coffee. By the way, it's October 21st. What does that mean? Three days until the NBA starts its regular season? I'm a huge, huge basketball fan. I live in Phoenix, so I'm a huge Phoenix Sons fan. Go Sons.

Speaker 1: 5:06

All right, let's talk about some of the questions that I have here that I got over email. This one is from Rebecca. Rebecca says I've got a dog that is very reactive on leash. It doesn't matter what kind of dog it could be a female, male, it could be big, small he wants to go after all of them. Rebecca, I guess my first question to you would be does this happen only on leash or does this also happen if your dog is off leash? Also, is it location specific? If you were to take your dog to a park that it never has been to and it saw some dogs. Would your dog react the same way? So those things are important to know. Those are little details that make a big difference when it comes to coming up with the solution.

Speaker 1: 6:08

But let me talk a little bit about reactivity or aggression on the leash. You know all aggression, all reactivity, and I'm not talking about dogs that get excited on leash. They want to go meet the dog and they're friendly. I'm talking about dogs that are reactive and aggressive on leash. When a dog is reactive and aggressive, that's the outward behavior. What motivates that outward behavior is the underlying emotional state. Now no animal becomes reactive or aggressive. No animal goes into fight or flight unless they perceive a threat. Now there doesn't have to be a real threat. Lots of dogs perceive threats that aren't real and that puts them into fight or flight to become reactive and aggressive. So first of all, rebecca, let's understand that most likely the culprit here is your dog has some anxiety, some fears, is nervous, uncomfortable around other dogs, and your dog wants distance and space.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Aggression and reactivity is a behavior that is used to protect themselves and when it comes to domesticated dogs, typically when our dogs act that way, what do we do? We usually pull them away, we get them the heck out of there. And if your dog is being reactive or aggressive towards another dog and that other dog is being walked by an individual, that individual typically will steer clear of you and your dog. So that behavior oftentimes, if not always, creates distance and space from the trigger. So your dog's behavior is very functional all behaviors functional or it would not exist. There's always a reinforcer for behaviors that continue. If a behavior is not reinforced at all, that behavior is going to extinguish itself.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Now, negative reinforcement doesn't necessarily mean good or bad. Negative means removing something, but it does mean a negative reinforcement that something unpleasant is removed and that anytime you hear reinforcement, think strength in a behavior, make it more likely for that behavior to occur again. Now, negative reinforcement the way it works if you're in your car and you don't buckle up, something annoying, something uncomfortable is going to happen. That ding, ding, ding, ding ding. As soon as you do the behavior, as soon as you buckle up, that annoyance is removed, that something unpleasant is removed, the ding-ing stops. Negative reinforcement for a dog that's reactive or aggression. What strengthens that behavior is creating that distance and space after the dog acts out. The dog wanted distance and space. So what's being removed is the pressure, the stress is decreasing, the anxiety is decreasing, the fear is decreasing Because we're removing the dog from that uncomfortable situation.

Speaker 1: 9:26

Okay, now, when a dog goes into fight or flight and they're on leash, the flight option no longer exists and the dogs know that they're on leash, they know that they don't have the freedom to run away. They also know they don't necessarily have the freedom to go after and actually bite the other dog, because they're restrained and it also creates more frustration, and so that's why a lot of dogs are going to behave worse on leash than they do off leash. But the answer to the problem, rebecca, is counter conditioning and desensitization. Counter conditioning is just a fancy word, for we need to associate and pair something very positive with the trigger that's causing problems. So if your dog is reactive or aggressive towards other dogs on leash, we need to present those dogs and we need to pair that with a positive reinforcer.

Speaker 1: 10:29

That is absolutely your dog's favorite and in many cases it's going to be a high value food reward, like a little cut up piece of chicken, cut up hot dogs cheese, cut up, little pieces of beef Something your dog loves. Now, dogs that are super anxious, they are not going to take food, all right. And when you're too close to the trigger, your dog's going to react. When you're too close to the trigger, your dog's going to have stress and anxiety. When you're too close to the trigger, your dog's probably not going to take food. When you're too close to the trigger, your dog cannot learn and memory is not going to work well because that frontal cortex that's responsible for thinking, learning and executive functioning has shut down. When your dog goes into fight or flight they're in the old part of the brain, the amygdala, which is responsible for that. So they can't even access very well that thinking part of the brain. So you're not going to teach them anything and get that to be remembered and reliable or to get that to be successful if the dog is in that state.

Speaker 1: 11:42

So what do you do, rebecca? First thing we do is we avoid the triggers. No, that's not the answer, that's not the fix, but it's the first step to the fix. If we have a broken water pipe and we don't turn off the main water valve, we can't fix that water pipe. If we don't avoid the triggers, we cannot fix the problem with your dog, because your dog's gonna keep triggering. It's just gonna condition what we don't want that when I see other dogs I need to be reactive because I'm afraid of them for some, whatever reason.

Speaker 1: 12:16

And as the dog continues to experience that, that conditioned emotional response, that CER that causes the dog to be anxious and afraid and nervous, just gets stronger each and every time that's your dog experiences the trigger and they're reactive. So you need to do everything in your power to avoid those triggers so that it doesn't get more and more ingrained, more and more habituated. Not just the outward behavior, but the underlying conditioned emotional response. We've got to condition a different emotional response that's associated and paired with the trigger. In this case it's gonna be a strange dog.

Speaker 1: 12:59

The first thing we need to do is start at a very, very safe distance. We need to start at a distance where your dog can see another dog but it's far enough away that your dog is not reactive, is not aggressive, matter of fact. You need to start at a distance where your dog sees the other dog and emotionally your dog doesn't have a care in the world. Your dog will play with you, your dog will take food, your dog will stay focused on you. You can give cues for certain behaviors and your dog responds. But if your dog doesn't do any of that, you're too close too soon and the way you need to do the work is pair the trigger, then, at the same time, pair high value food rewards. Or if your dog's favorite or best reinforcer is a toy, some dogs love toys certain toys more than they love food. I've got a dog that loves playing tug more than food. So for the really tough behaviors that the dog struggles with because of distractions, I use the tug toy.

Speaker 1: 14:04

Listen, I want you to think about distractions as a competing motivator and your reinforcers, whether it be love, praise, affection, playing with a toy, high value food rewards. That needs to be more intense, more important to the dog, more valuable to the dog than any other distraction in the environment. How you motivate your dog and our motivators are our positive reinforcers, and those are like currency. They're like paychecks. We have to do something. They need to get a reward. You don't have to do it forever and I'm not talking about bribing your dog with a treat.

Speaker 1: 14:42

Now, to learn more about how to help reactive and aggressive dogs, unleash, or any dog that has fears, phobias, aggression, anxiety, reactivity you need to learn in depth information about counter conditioning and desensitization. You can find that on the Pet Talk Today audio podcast. Go to Apple podcast, go to Spotify anywhere where you listen to your podcast. Look for episode 98. Episode 98 is one of the most downloaded episodes on the Pet Talk Today podcast. There's an hour and 30, hour and 35 minutes of very detailed information about you help, how to help a dog that has fears, phobias, aggression, anxiety, reactivity, and definitely will help your dog, rebecca. So please check that out episode 98 of the Pet Talk Today podcast. Also, you can go to my website at dogbehavioristcom. It's right there somewhere. Where are you there? You are so dogbehavioristcom.

Speaker 1: 15:48

I've got over 75 articles great articles on various dog training and behavior topics. If you're not regularly visiting dogbehavioristcom, going to the menu and checking where articles are, you're missing out, because there's a lot of great articles there. There's even an article on counter conditioning and desensitization and that podcast I was talking about. I've actually embedded that in that article as well. We'll get back to some more email questions in a little bit.

Speaker 1: 16:21

Also, if you're just joining us, I'm Will Banguro. I'm a certified dog behavior consultant and professional trainer. If you've got a question about your dog's training or behavior. Let me tell you how this works. Go ahead and type your question down below in the comments. Also, let me know where you're listening from, what kind of pets you have. You can also call into the show and I can give you more specific advice. Don't be shy. The number to call if you wanna ask me a question right now is 414-400-3647. That's 414-400 dogs or 414-400-3647. Very good, let's see, we got Holly and Holly has a Jack Russell. We're gonna be looking at that question. I think Holly's got a question here. Linda Dunn, you're breaking up a little bit. Linda. Let me take a look at my. Yeah, I'm at 30 frames per second, linda, so it might be your internet connection. Anybody else? If I'm breaking up, let me know.

Speaker 1: 17:25

Christine says my miniature schnauzer had a stroke seven weeks ago. She's nine and still walks sideways. Her head and front legs go straight, but her back legs go to the right. Her vet says she may never recover. She trips up curbs and has a hard time jumping. I'm sorry, I just talk about jumping. Your question is jumping all over the place. When people are making comments here, I lose you. So let's see. We are in Lincoln, nebraska. Hey, I had a great friend. I had a girlfriend that lived in Lincoln, nebraska.

Speaker 1: 18:05

Someone says a chiropractor may help. What do you think I think you could. First of all, I'm not a veterinarian and I can't give out medical advice, and this is a question that you should be talking to your veterinary neurologist. Did you see a veterinary neurologist? If not, you should see a veterinary neurologist. Holly, my Jack Russell is 16 years old. He winds. Is his hip going out or does he need pills? Again, I'm not a medical veterinarian. I'm not a doctor. I can't tell you if his hip is going out. I can't tell you if he needs pills. That's something that you need to bring up with your veterinarian, okay, yeah, christine, I'm sorry to hear about that.

Speaker 1: 18:58

I've got two miniature schnauzers. I love them to death and it's scary when they do have a stroke and you see them trying to recover from that. The one thing I will say, if nothing changes, christine, dogs are unbelievably resilient. I've watched dogs that had to lose their leg and the leg got amputated and as soon as they're home, they're running around on three legs as if they never had a fourth leg. I've watched dogs go blind. Now, granted, most dogs go blind gradually, but I've watched dogs that are blind do just fine and navigate with their nose around the house. But yeah, christine, you need to talk to your vet about that or see a veterinary neurologist. I'm guessing you've either seen one or your vet has recommended it. That's what I would think they would do, but again, I'm not a veterinarian.

Speaker 1: 19:59

Let me go to another email question. All right, I've got a question from Jason, and Jason says I've got a four year old golden retriever and we just can't seem to stop the dog from begging. She's always at the table begging, full disclosure. We used to feed her table scraps. We know that's the wrong thing to do, but how do we fix this problem? We're not giving table scraps anymore.

Speaker 1: 20:31

Well, jason, there's a couple of things you not giving any more table scraps, and your dog was conditioned most likely that it got used to getting table scraps. And I don't know, jason, if you gave table scraps to the dog every day. I don't know how often it was, but the more often you did it, the more the dog gets conditioned to want it. Why not? I'd want it too if I were a dog, right? And so the context in which it happened was when you guys were eating at the table. So the dog's, yeah, obviously sitting there waiting. I don't know if your dog is barking, whining, pawing at you or just sitting there politely.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Okay, couple recommendations that I make. I don't know, jason, is your dog crate trained? Okay, because what I'm gonna do initially during my dinner time, if this is a problem, I'm gonna put the dog in its crate and I'm gonna feed the dog. The dog has to eat. Why not feed the dog when you're eating and why not do that in a crate? But again, your dog needs to.

Speaker 1: 21:35

Oh, christine, also you could check with integrated veterinarian, integrated health veterinarian. Okay, there are also veterinarians that practice. They're regular vets, they practice allopathic medicine, but they also do naturopathic work. So, finding maybe an integrated vet, that might be something. But yeah, your best vet is to see a veterinary neurologist. They are the experts, they're the ones that really deal with this and if you wanna get good answers, christine, do that. I'm glad I was able to help with that and again, I'm not a veterinarian, but they are the specialists. They deal with neurological issues and that's what's happening after getting that stroke.

Speaker 1: 22:22

All right, so back to Jason's question the dog's begging at the table. Well, first, you're doing the right thing. You stopped giving the dog food. But here's the problem, and maybe this is what you're experiencing there's a phenomenon called an extinction burst. Extinction is when the behavior no longer happens, and extinction happens when you stop reinforcing a behavior. All right. So technically, theoretically, if you never give your dog any more table scraps, it's just a matter of time. It's not a matter of if it's a matter of when your dog's gonna stop begging. However, that could take quite a while and during that time you may be frustrated. I get that. I get it.

Speaker 1: 23:08

An extinction burst is a burst of behavior that happens before behaviors extinguish. Let me give you an example. One of the behaviors that most of us have engaged in, and maybe multiple times, is putting money into a vending machine and pushing the button to get whatever item we want from the vending machine. Now, maybe this has never happened to you, but I've seen it happen to a lot of other people. It's happened to me. I go to push the button and what I wanted let's say it was a can of soda doesn't happen. I push the button, nothing happens, and I put my money in.

Speaker 1: 23:45

I'm worried, I lost my money. I push the button a second time, maybe a third, maybe a fourth, maybe real fast, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. A burst of behavior because our expectations are being met, because we've been conditioned. Hey, when I engage in a behavior of pushing a button on a vending machine, I get what I want. But in this case I don't. I don't just say, oh, oh, well, then walk away, I'm gonna push, push, push, push, push, push.

Speaker 1: 24:16

Same thing if you've got a remote control for your TV, right, you're used to pressing the button boom TV's. On. Next day, press the button, boom TV's on Next day. Press the button, boom, tv's on. Then, one day you press the button, the TV doesn't go on. Do you immediately say to yourself we need batteries in the remote? No, you push it a couple more times, that's an extinction burst. So, jason, your dog may get worse before it gets better, and that's because of the extinction burst. That can happen, all right, but, like I said, this can take a while. When you're just ignoring behaviors, it can take a while. It works, but you got no reinforcement at all. I mean, you completely ignore it. You can't tell the dog. No, that's reinforcement.

Speaker 1: 25:08

However, I think it's better to teach an alternative behavior, that if the dog was committed to that behavior, it would be incompatible with the behavior of begging at the table. So if the dog's in the crate eating, it can't beg at the table, right. Or let's say that I teach the dog a place command. I teach the dog to go to its bed and stay there. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna proactively work for a few weeks at minimum, teaching my dog to go to its bed and stay there. I'm gonna bait and distract the dog. I'm gonna do distractions to prove that the dog stays there. Once I've got that reliably now, rather than necessarily putting the dog in the crate, I could just ask the dog to go to its bed and stay there while I'm eating. The dog can't be in its bed, staying there and begging at the same time. That's called differential reinforcement. It's DRI. I stands for incompatible. So you're teaching a behavior through positive reinforcement. Think differential, think different. Okay. So rather than begging, we're gonna teach the dog with positive reinforcement to stay on its bed and if the dog's committed to doing that, it can't beg. That's gonna help that behavior extinguish more quickly than having the dog hanging out there begging and you just ignoring. Now if the situation happens where your dog is at the table and the dog is begging and if you've previously worked on having your dog go to its bed, its place and stay there, give the cue for your dog to go to that better place and if your dog doesn't do it, help your dog get there, use the leash, maybe move to the place the dog bed yourself with the dog. You may have to help with the leash a little bit, maybe lure with food In the beginning. It's not a problem to lure with food. You're trying to create the behavior, put it on cue or command and reward the dog so that behavior has value.

Speaker 1: 27:26

One thing that I kind of like there's a product called here and I'm not getting paid for this. I should get them to be a sponsor. There's a thing called a treat and train. Are you familiar with the treat and train? It's a little machine that has treats in it. You can even put your dog's kibble in there if you want. And you've got a remote control. And when you hit the remote control it's a little tiny handheld remote control. When you hit the remote control there's a tone that happens and then it spits out a treat or a piece of kibble or whatever you have in it. You teach your dog that that tone means you get a reward, okay. And the beautiful thing about it is you've got this remote. We can strengthen behaviors if the dog thinks that its specific behavior caused that machine to create that tone and spit out a food reward.

Speaker 1: 28:21

The beautiful thing that I like about the treat and train is I can reward and reinforce a dog at a distance, at a distance I don't have to be right there. So, for example, maybe I've got that treat and train set up by the dog bed while I'm at the table eating and I want the dog to stay there, and it's tough for the dog to stay because it wants to go to the table and beg for food. Well, intermittently, while I'm eating at the table, I could press that remote and that little treat and train machine that is by the dog's bed by the dog will spit out a treat every once in a while when I want it to, and I can continue to reinforce the good, calm behavior with the dog staying on its bed. Again, the product is called treat and train. I'm not affiliated with them. I don't get any money from them. I don't even get a pat on the back in Atta Boy. Okay, I love the treat and train.

Speaker 1: 29:18

I use it for all kinds of things. There are just numerous things. Many, many, many things you can do. You can use the Furbo camera as well. Yeah, I'm trying to remember if the Furbo camera spits out a treat. I've got one, I don't use it anymore. You'll have to let me know, kristen, if that Furbo camera spits out a treat, because I don't. Something tells me it does, but I could be wrong.

Speaker 1: 29:45

Holly Kane, good morning. I'm in Albuquerque, new Mexico. I love Albuquerque. I was in Albuquerque one time, I believe, and they had a balloon festival. It was just absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 1: 29:57

We got a question, it looks like, from Mary. Mary says hello. Well, my two-year-old labradoodle's 92 pounds. He jumps on people all the time. Oh, jumping, how frustrating is that? Jumping on people all the time in 92 pounds, that is tough. That is very tough.

Speaker 1: 30:14

Let me talk first about how jumping is created. Jumping up on people is not a normal innate behavior for a dog. We teach the dog that and we do that. When they're little. We pick them up. Picking them up is like them jumping up. We pick them up, we pick them up, we pick them up, we pick them up, we pet them, we pick them up, we pet them. Then, when they're little and small, they start jumping on us and we pet them because they're a little tiny thing and we don't care. Then all of a sudden they get bigger and now we care.

Speaker 1: 30:53

So what I wanna tell all of you is get down on the floor with the puppy. Stop picking up the puppy if you don't have to. All right, it's one thing to be able to teach the dog they need to be lifted and get up on a, say, veterinary table, versus picking them up and petting them, okay. So I don't want you to think that I'd never want the dog to be comfortable being picked up. They need to be all right. But let's talk about how do you? How do you affect jumping? How do you change and modify that behavior?

Speaker 1: 31:29

First, let me say don't punish the behavior. Okay. Where punishment starts, teaching ends. Where punishment starts, learning ends. So we need to take the time. The dog doesn't know it shouldn't jump. It's just saying no, doesn't teach the dog that it shouldn't jump. Okay, the dog wants to be engaging with people. Most likely it gets excited and happy. So coming home and being extremely calm is really important. When guests come in, being very calm is really important. Now, mary, I don't know if you just heard me answer the email question from Jason about his dog that's begging, and I talked to him about teaching his dog to go to his bed, go to his place and stay there, and also doing distraction training with that proofing taking weeks to do that so that the dog is reliable staying on its bed. That in and of itself, is one technique to stop jumping. Your dog can't jump and be staying on its bed at the same time teaching an alternative behavior.

Speaker 1: 32:37

One of the most common things we do, though, is teach the dog to sit, and how I do it. All right, I teach the dog to sit about four feet from the front door. That's usually where they start jumping on people, isn't it? When they walk in, so I had them sit about four feet from the door, and I reward the heck out of them, and we practice that over, and over and over sitting four feet from the door. Then we practice sitting four feet from the door and me going up to the door. I don't even open it, I just move from the dog to the door. The dog has to maintain the sit. I do that for a while. I'm positively reinforcing. I'm gonna do 10 repetitions of this at least once a day. Then my next step is gonna be I ask the dog to sit, I leave the dog, I go to the door and I wiggle the door handle. Now, whenever I'm leaving the dog, don't turn your back as you walk to the door. Make sure you're looking back at the dog, because your dog might break from the sit. You may have to give a new cue as the dog to sit again. Now next step I teach the dog to sit, I make my way to the door. I put my hand on the doorknob. I open up the door just a few inches. If the dog maintains the sit, I reward the dog. I'm gonna do that 10 times in a row every single day until that's extremely reliable. Then my next step I'm gonna do everything I just did, except I'm gonna open the door up more Now, at any point in time in this process if your dog is breaking from sit.

Speaker 1: 34:11

You've gone too far in the process too soon. You need to take a step back where you had success. Keep working there a little bit longer, maybe another week, maybe another two weeks. You can only work as fast as the dog's pace and that's important to realize. We get impatient and we try to rush the process. Then we get frustrated, we punish the dog. And how fair is that? How fair is it to punish an animal when they're just being a dog? They're not being dominant. Dogs aren't dominant for the most part. That is so rare that term is used, misappropriated so much. But dogs are unruly, which means that they're without rules. We need to teach them what the rules are. We need to be proactive, we need to be preventative.

Speaker 1: 35:00

So the next step after I have the dog sit, I go to the door, I grab the handle, I open up the door all the way. Once I'm having success with that now I'm gonna use a human helper to do the door thing. Okay, now we're gonna work on door knocking and doorbells and make sure that they're sitting. For doorbells and door knocking you may have to start off very quietly knocking the door and, little by little over time or for weeks, knock louder. We don't want the dog getting excited and breaking from the sit just because there's knocking. Then I'm gonna take recorded sounds of doorbells, play it very low, teach the dog to sit, maintain it. Then, little by little, I'm gonna bring up that volume. Then I'm gonna start using the actual doorbell. Okay, again, if your dog cannot do this, if your dog is breaking from the sit, you've gone too far, too soon, too quick. You need to back up a step, work there a little bit longer.

Speaker 1: 35:58

Once I've got all that, now I need a helper that knocks or rings the bell, opens the door two to three inches. I'm rewarding the dog if it maintains the sit. Little by little, that helper is going to open that door more and expose themselves, not expose themselves. Come on, they're gonna come into view, all right. Now, once we get to that point, then it's about starting over and having the person take a step into the home calmly, then two steps, then three steps, then calmly, then after that, if that's going well, now I'm gonna repeat the exact same process. The only difference is I want the person coming in slightly animated and I'm gonna reward my dog for maintaining the sit and being calm. Now I could use the better place. I don't have to use sit. Quite frankly, if your dog's lying down, they're less apt to break. When they're sitting, hey, they're halfway up. But that's up to you what you wanna do. Little by little. I'm having my helper come in over time, gradually, systematically, over weeks, having them come in with more animation until they can come in extremely animated and my dog is maintaining either the sit or they're staying at their bed.

Speaker 1: 37:24

Now you can't rush this process. There are no quick fixes. If you're not gonna use punishment and as far as I'm concerned, punishment's not fair and it's not necessary. It's not necessary when we use differential reinforcement. So, mary, those are some things that you can do. You can try some of that stuff as well.

Speaker 1: 37:50

Yeah, so Kristen says scatter feeding on the ground to redirect nose, incompatible with jumping. Yeah, that's something that you can do as well. It just depends. They're not in a stationary command, so they may go do the scatter feeding and, when they're done, start jumping on somebody. It's possible. You just have to see what works. You know, a lot of times it's trial and error. Each dog is different. There's not a one size fits all component.

Speaker 1: 38:22

Sis, good morning Will running errands with my sister and niece oh, she's from out of town showing them around, all right, and having them listen to Pet Talk today, awesome, fantastic. All right, I'm gonna go back to more of your questions. If you're just joining us, if you've got a question about your dog's training and behavior I'm Will Bangura, certified dog behavior consultant Go ahead and type your questions down below in the comment section. Let me know where you're listening from and also what kind of dogs you have. If you're listening to the Pet Talk today audio podcast, do me a favor, hit that pause button. Give us a five star review. That way we rank higher in the podcast. More people get to listen to us, more people get to benefit from the training and behavior solutions.

Speaker 1: 39:13

Not everybody can afford training and that's why I do this. This is my labor of love. This is how I give back to the community. Do me a favor, if you haven't done it already, hit that like button. Also, hit that share button too, so that more people can benefit from this as well. Let's see here. Let's see if I got any more questions in the feed right now.

Speaker 1: 39:35

V listening from Los Angeles. Glad that you're here. Mary says yes, the Furbu does give treats. The Furbu also has a camera and I believe you can talk to your pet through that as well. It's kind of a cool thing if you're gone. It's got an app that works on wifi. Also, the Furbu works on wifi.

Speaker 1: 39:57

I just spent a long time since I used the Furbu. I used it maybe three years ago when I got one of my schnauzers. I was doing a little bit of work with that. Also, if you have a question and you'd like to talk to me today on the show, you can give me a call. The number to call in is 414-400-3647. Again, 414-400-3647, 3647, sorry, or easier to remember, 414-400-dogs.

Speaker 1: 40:28

All right, do you know what the top 10 reported dog problem behaviors are? Number one aggression. Number two excessive barking. Number three separation anxiety. Number four destructive behavior. Number five house-soiling. Number six leash-pulling. Number seven jumping up what we were talking about. Number eight food-guarding. Number nine, fearfulness. And number 10, ignoring cues or commands. Those are the top reported dog problems.

Speaker 1: 41:03

All right, one of the things I got an email question and this comes up from time to time and it's about you as the pet parent, you as the pet guardian, your emotions and whether your emotions are affecting your dog, and where I hear this a lot is when people have a dog that's reactive or aggressive and the dog owner, the pet parent, gets anxious or fearful when the dog is being reactive and aggressive. Now they'll say, oh, I can't do that, I'll make it worse. And I'll hear trainers say that your emotions go right down the leash. Now there's a little bit of truth to that, but it's being misspoken. I'll say that, first of all, dogs learned by association. They don't have ESP. They can't read your mind. All right.

Speaker 1: 42:15

When your emotions change, your scent changes and the dogs absolutely can pick up scent change in you, all right. But they don't have the cognitive abilities to say, oh, wow, that scent means that they're afraid, I should be afraid. Or that scent of my owner shows that they're anxious? Oh, my God, I should be anxious. That's not what happens. What happens when you have emotions like fear and anxiety and you're worried about that affecting your dog. Let me tell you how it would affect your dog and how that happens. Conditioning needs to happen.

Speaker 1: 43:03

Your dog has to experience something unpleasant at the exact same time you're having those emotions. And if your dog begins to experience unpleasant things when you're anxious, when you're afraid, when you're nervous, when you're stressed, eventually that scent that you're putting off is associated and related to that something unpleasant. All right, so let's say you feel that way but you're not doing anything behaviorally. I'm talking about you, the pet parent. You feel like you're anxious, you feel like you're nervous, you feel like you're afraid, but you're not doing anything. You're not displaying that behaviorally. And whatever behaviors you are displaying, they've got to be uncomfortable to the dog. That's got to be consistent. That's got to happen over and over with that scent that you produce. And then, and only then, does your emotions really transfer over to the dog. And I can't tell you how many times that I hear this. And it's just not true. It's just not true. We don't have the science to support that. But don't get me wrong. Oftentimes you, the pet parent, you're displaying very subtle behaviors that can cue the dog that there's something wrong. Okay, listen, dogs have been hanging around us, we. They've been domesticated for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 years or more They've been with us. They are experts at reading human behavior, but they don't have ESP. So if your behavior is something unpleasant to the dog and you're feeling fearful or anxious or stressed, you're putting out a different scent that's related to these behaviors that the dog doesn't like or are unpleasant. And when that happens over and over and over again, yeah, your behavior or your mood, your emotions, affect the dog.

Speaker 1: 45:26

Holly says my Jack Russell is 16. I think I said this 16, wine, okay, wines. Is his hips going out? Now I don't know. I said that earlier, holly. I don't know if your dog's hips are going out. I really don't understand the question because it just seems like there's something missing from the question. So if you wanna reiterate that, I can help you a little bit more. Let's see here if there's any other questions here.

Speaker 1: 45:56

A lot of you are talking about the furbue Gail from Florida. Good morning, I'm glad you're here, all right. So Renee says he gets all crazy as if the pet on the television is a real threat. Well, in your dog's mind, if your dog has problems with other dogs and there's a dog on television, they're going to have a problem with that as well. You know, let's talk about that.

Speaker 1: 46:25

If you've got a dog that goes crazy when it sees other animals on TV, how do you deal with that? Well, one of the things I'm going to do is I'm going to place the dog in front of the TV, but as far from the TV as I can, and I'm going to turn the volume completely down to start with, so there's no sound. I'm going to see if the dog is distressed just by the visual cue of the dogs on TV. If the dog is, I'm going to start exposing the dog to the television at a distance. But I'm going to bring the brightness down, make it less intense for the dog. I'm going to bring the brightness down on the television to the point where the dog can still see the dog. But the dog really doesn't care. I will bring the volume down to that level too.

Speaker 1: 47:11

I start with no volume. Little by little I bring the brightness up. Little by little I bring the volume up while the dog is seeing and or hearing the animals on TV. I'm feeding the dog high value food rewards, constantly and continuously for about one to three seconds. Then I'm turning off the TV. I wait a few seconds. When the TV is off there's no animals or dogs on the television, no feeding. Then I turn it back on as soon as the dog starts to see the dogs or hears of the dogs. If the dogs call and relax, not showing any stress, I'm going to start feeding again high value food rewards, turning the association of something pleasant with what the dog didn't like.

Speaker 1: 47:56

You've got to do this gradually and systematically. You've got to make it less intense for the dog first and little by little bring up the intensity. The thing about stuff on TV we can control the volume, we can control the brightness. Little by little we can desensitize the dog and we can counter condition this instead of the conditioning your dog has where it's freaking out at the TV sees that as a threat. Your dog will begin to love seeing dogs on TV because that means that's when the great food comes.

Speaker 1: 48:28

That takes time. Research shows us we need about 72 sessions, if it's pretty severe, in order to turn that around. The sessions are short. They're five, 10 minutes long. You need to do them at least three to five times a week in order for that to be effective. Let me go back to some of my oh. Do you want to know what the top 10 mistakes are that pet parents make? Yeah, I'm doing a lot of top 10 lists today. Number one inconsistent training and reinforcement. It's so important. Consistency is so important.

Speaker 1: 49:11

I ask people sometimes when their dog is reactive. I ask them to avoid the triggers. Then we set up situations where we have the trigger at a distance and little by little we get closer and closer. We're feeding high value food rewards. But then they tell me well, I worked on it five times this week, so there are five sessions. I ask them how many times throughout the week was your dog reactive? Oh, probably three times a day. Do you really think the work is going to work? Not when you're doing it four or five times a week and your dog's being reactive three or four times a day. That's why it's so critical to avoid the triggers. But it doesn't matter what you're working on, let's say the jumping. If sometimes you let your dog jump and sometimes you work on having your dog not jump, your dog's going to be unbelievably confused. It's going to frustrate your dog and, in some cases, make the dog jump even more.

Speaker 1: 50:16

The number two biggest mistake that pet parents make is they skip socialization. Again, I did an entire podcast relatively short, so not a big deal 15 minutes, but 15 minutes packed with great information about canine socialization. You can get that by going to the audio podcast, the Pet Talk Today podcast. You can look for episode 120. It's the last one I did. Also, you can go to our podcast page. The URL for the podcast page is dogtrainingpodcastcom. Dogtrainingpodcastcom. You can see all of the podcasts there there's 120 of them.

Speaker 1: 51:02

Mickey says my dog loves other animals in person and is super friendly. I tried the brightness volume down but she still barks and jumps. She sits in front of the TV and watches it whenever it's on, but when I have her in the other room she hears the animals still barks. Mickey, I don't know if you mean when she starts to bark you turn the volume of the brightness down, or if you're proactive and actually scheduling sessions where you start at the very lowest brightness, very lowest volume, because I have done that over and over and I have never had a dog when I'm proactive. When they first did not see the dogs on TV, they did not hear the barking. Maybe they did yesterday, but now it's today, tv's been off. I get them on their place, put them as far back from the TV as possible, at the lowest brightness, at the lowest volume.

Speaker 1: 52:16

I'm going to play that If your dog is reactive. There's a couple of things. One, did you play it too long. I want you to think not just about brightness, not just about volume, but duration. The more duration, the more time they're seeing the dog, the more time they're hearing them bark, the more reactive they're going to be. Maybe I play it for a second on and off.

Speaker 1: 52:42

Feed the dog on feed off on feed off. On feed off on feed off On one, two, feed off on one, two. Feed off Little by little. Or it should be on feed one, two, three. Turn it off On feed one, two, three, turn it off. Then maybe the duration's too long and maybe you think it's the brightness is down enough, but for the dog it's not. Maybe you think the volume is down low enough, but maybe it's not. First of all, your dog can hear much better than you can, much better than you can. So it needs to be quieter than perhaps you think.

Speaker 1: 53:18

You were proactive. Wow, you know what, mickey. Do me a favor, do what you're doing. Then you're doing that with the dog rather than just having your dog look at it. See if you can get your dog doing obedience drills. Does your dog know how to sit? Does your dog know how to lay down? Does it know how to go to its place? Does it have tricks? Does it know to? Can it look at you on command? Can you tell it to touch? Get your dog, when that's at low volume and the brightness is low, start working with your dog real fast Sit, break down, break, come break, high five break, spin, break, turn, break. Break means the dog's done with the behavior. But I'm going to go from command to command to command, command, exercise to exercise.

Speaker 1: 54:11

So if you did that proactively and you think it's at the lowest volume, you think it's at the least brightness and you're at the distance from the TV and your dog's still doing that, rather than have the dog just looking and fixating, let's try doing a lot of fast obedience. Fast movement dissipates stress and your dog can't be reactive to the TV and responding to your verbal cues and doing those behaviors at the same time. So maybe we need to get the dog doing some other behaviors. Is your reinforcer strong enough? Is your reinforcer strong enough? Maybe you need to find something that has more value.

Speaker 1: 55:01

It's like she hears certain music from commercials and knows what they are because it starts barking at the TV before. I tried to correct it with your advice. Hope that makes sense. Well, yeah, she's conditioned. So you know she hears certain things on the TV that then are triggers. She says, okay, that's good advice, thank you. She loves her tricks. Absolutely, mickey. If she loves her tricks, do them really quick Trick, trick, trick, trick, trick. Reward every single one, have lots of fun, be more interesting than what's going on on the TV.

Speaker 1: 55:35

Little by little, bring up the volume. Little by little, bring up the brightness. Now you may have to do each one separately, brightness and volume. You might not be able to do both together, low and high, bringing them up. You may have to keep the volume off and work on brightness until you can go from very dark to very bright, and then you may have to turn the brightness all the way down and start working on the sounds of barking and then maybe you can then bring them both down and start working both of them, bringing them up. So we've just got to make some changes and we got to find out what's going to work for your dog.

Speaker 1: 56:13

You know, I said it earlier, there's not a one size fits all solution to every dog, so we have to make adjustments. Okay, and every trainer, every behavior consultant I always say when I was mentoring trainers, you got two buckets. You got your bucket of knowledge and you got your bucket of education. And let's say we've got a brand new trainer. They've got a lot of knowledge in that bucket, but they've got very little knowledge. On experience Okay, well, little by little, as you're training, that experience is going to start going up with your knowledge. And a lot of times it just when something's not working. We can't say, oh, it doesn't work, because there are a lot of little nuances. Oftentimes, when we're doing behavior modification, and it's just a matter of us Anytime the dog can't do what we want and we're trying to get the dog to do what we want, that is feedback. That's feedback to us saying, hey, we're doing something wrong, not intentionally maybe, but we just don't have it right. We've got to make little adjustments.

Speaker 1: 57:27

Okay, when I went from food to the toy with my schnauzer, who goes ballistic when he's outside, he hears any noise and he just starts barking and gets fixated. I never punished or corrected the dog for barking, because they're going to bark, they're going to be vocal. But what I did, over and over and over and over and over, I'd sit outside. I love hanging out outside all night long and when my dog went to bark, I'd let it bark three times. I'd call the dog to me, give it a high value food reward. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Maybe about two months Now. Most of the time, not a hundred percent of the time.

Speaker 1: 58:11

There's no such thing as practice makes perfect. Practice makes for permanence of behavior more permanent. The more you practice, the more permanent the behavior is going to be. Nobody's going to be perfect. I make a mistake every day, whether I want to or not. I just hope I get it out of the way early in the day and I can move on. So, with your dogs you've got to do a lot of repetition Because I kept calling my dog to me and rewarding my dog after about three or four barks.

Speaker 1: 58:43

98 percent of the time, maybe even 99 percent of the time, my dog goes and barks three or four times, comes running to me. Now where am I at today with that? Most of the time it's love, praise and affection, but every once in a while the dog's getting a high value food reward. I want to maintain that permanence. I can't completely withdraw the reinforcers. It's got to be worth the dog's while.

Speaker 1: 59:15

Let's see here what else we got Looking at your questions here. Thank you, by the way, for your questions. Well, you know it's 9.59 and we're about out of time. Thank you for your questions. You guys had great questions today. Don't forget to check out the audio podcast of Pet Talk today. Again, there's a lot of stuff up there that you don't see on Facebook. Just do a Google search for Pet Talk today and you'll get a ton of information. When you get there, please give us a five star review If you love what we do. Hit that like button, hit that share button. Have a fantastic weekend. Everybody Love you guys. I'm out of here. Just give it a go.