Dog Training Today with Will Bangura for Pet Parents, Kids & Family, Pets and Animals, and Dog Training Professionals. This is a Education & How To Dog Training Podcast.
#154 Resource Gurding The Pet Parent, Respecting Boundaries, Preventing Aggression and Understanding Canine Behavior: Dog Training Today will Will Bangura, CAB-ICB, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP
Can respecting a dog's boundaries be the key to preventing aggression? Many pet owners overlook the warning signs that dogs give when they are stressed or uncomfortable, leading to unnecessary confrontations. We share personal stories and practical advice on how to advocate for your dog's space and educate those around you about recognizing stress signals in dogs. This episode underscores the importance of boundary respect and offers strategies for managing encounters with uninformed individuals or overly enthusiastic dogs.
Have you ever wondered why some dogs exhibit aggressive behavior when protecting their favorite person? Resource guarding is a complicated but common issue, rooted in a dog's fear of losing their most cherished resource: their human. Drawing from real-life examples, we discuss why dogs might act out and how to effectively mitigate these behaviors by understanding their perspective. By creating an environment where your dog feels secure and less threatened, you can reduce their anxiety and aggressive tendencies.
Do you know the difference between behavioral and obedience training? It's a common misconception that aggression is solely an obedience issue. Through insightful anecdotes, we highlight the emotional root of aggressive behavior and the importance of counter conditioning and desensitization. We also delve into the fascinating world of military working dog training, comparing traditional methods with more humane, positive reinforcement techniques. From managing triggers to mastering canine body language, this episode equips you with the tools needed to foster a respectful and harmonious relationship with your furry friend.
If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
Go here for Free Dog Training Articles
Can respecting a dog's boundaries be the key to preventing aggression? Many pet owners overlook the warning signs that dogs give when they are stressed or uncomfortable, leading to unnecessary confrontations. We share personal stories and practical advice on how to advocate for your dog's space and educate those around you about recognizing stress signals in dogs. This episode underscores the importance of boundary respect and offers strategies for managing encounters with uninformed individuals or overly enthusiastic dogs.
Have you ever wondered why some dogs exhibit aggressive behavior when protecting their favorite person? Resource guarding is a complicated but common issue, rooted in a dog's fear of losing their most cherished resource: their human. Drawing from real-life examples, we discuss why dogs might act out and how to effectively mitigate these behaviors by understanding their perspective. By creating an environment where your dog feels secure and less threatened, you can reduce their anxiety and aggressive tendencies.
Do you know the difference between behavioral and obedience training? It's a common misconception that aggression is solely an obedience issue. Through insightful anecdotes, we highlight the emotional root of aggressive behavior and the importance of counter conditioning and desensitization. We also delve into the fascinating world of military working dog training, comparing traditional methods with more humane, positive reinforcement techniques. From managing triggers to mastering canine body language, this episode equips you with the tools needed to foster a respectful and harmonious relationship with your furry friend.
If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
Go here for Free Dog Training Articles
Raised by wolves with canine DNA in his blood. Having trained more than 24,000 pets, helping you and your fur babies thrive, live in studio 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:Hey, good Saturday morning everybody. Do me a favor, hit that like button if you're watching, show us some love. I'm Will Bangura and I'm Jordan Marsteller, and we are here for a Facebook live show of dog training today and this is an opportunity, if you are watching, to be able to ask your questions. Jordan, can you tell folks a little bit about how they can post their question and then what we're going to be doing here?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, guys, we are actively monitoring our chat at all times. So, please, if you ever have any questions, put it down in that chat. We are watching it. We're here to answer your questions. That's what we're here doing, because we know that dog training can be really expensive, quite frankly, and we're here to help you free every single Saturday. Whatever your questions are, we are going to do our best to answer them. Additionally, I do believe that we have an email that you can also send your questions into, and I'll have.
Speaker 2:But I can't check the email right now.
Speaker 3:So what they'll need to do is put the questions yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll be doing our questions just here in the chat right now. We're going to work on getting an email set up for y'all. But, yeah, please jump on into our chat and show us what's going on with your dogs. We've got lots of stuff that we want to talk about today. We have a few people that have been sending in questions that we're going to be setting up for the next couple of weeks, and if you want to be that person, then you know, send in your questions, let us know what's going on with your dog.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. So you know, one of the things that I wanted to talk about is this. Of the things that I wanted to talk about is this yeah, yeah, definitely. We need to have a conversation about this. I completely agree. You know the culture here in the United States everybody wants to meet your dog Absolutely, and just because they may have a friendly dog, they figure that everybody's friendly. You know, it's okay. It's okay, my dog is friendly. No, no, it's not okay. You need to respect others and you need to give them some space, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3:I mean my dog, for example, and you need to give them some space dog. In fact, I don't think she's ever unprovoked lashed out at another animal before ever, and when another dog comes sprinting up to her she freaks out, it scares her. I watch the hair along her spine stand up. She takes on this tall defensive like I'm big posture and you can see like she's uncomfortable and she's the sweetest dog ever. But it's just like us. How would you feel if somebody just came running up and got in your face like hey, want to play, want to play, want to play? Oh, I'm sniffing your butt. Oh, want to play, want to play? You know our dogs also have boundaries and I don't understand why we, as Americans especially, we forget that. We forget that dogs are allowed to have their own boundaries.
Speaker 2:You know I can't tell you how many times I hear from pet parents that how do I get people to not want to come up to my dog? How do I get people, when I say it's not okay, when I say that you can't pet my dog, whether it be them saying, hey, my dog's in training right now, yeah, or whether they've got a dog that is mildly reactive and I say mildly because there's a lot of dogs that and when I say mildly I'm not talking about the behavior, I'm saying that the dog is not going to be a dog necessarily that bites, right, but it can get very fearful if another dog comes into its space. Yeah, like Harley Harley's a perfect example of that.
Speaker 2:They could air snap, right yeah. Now I'm going to tell you right now I've had people say listen, nobody allowed my dog the space. I said, hey, my dog doesn't like other dogs. That person didn't listen, like other dogs. That person didn't listen, let their dog get right up in the face of the other dog and the other dog let out a growl because it wanted them to back off and the other person's dog attacked them.
Speaker 1:You know they say oh no, I thought, my dog's friendly.
Speaker 2:Do you know, are you sure, have you ever been confronted in a situation where there's been a dog that growled at your dog?
Speaker 3:exactly. What do you think's gonna happen then? I mean, what are you gonna do if somebody gets in your face and starts threatening to attack you? Because that's what a growl means. Well, depending on the context of the growl, but for the most part, a growl means I'm about to bite you, for the most part, at its core. That's what a dog growling says. What are you going to do? And is my dog in the wrong for reacting that way? That's the question, and I personally don't believe my dog is. I don't think my dog reacting to that situation is wrong.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing Almost all aggression is provoked, and what I mean by that is if a dog has enough space. That is if a dog has enough space. It's rare to have a dog that has triggers like, say, it doesn't like people or it doesn't like other dogs.
Speaker 2:It is rare for a dog like that to be just running long distance because it sees a dog in the distance or a person in the distance for it to take off running and go after it. Most, most dogs, you know they, when they go into fight or flight, if they can go into flight, they're going to go into flight absolutely it.
Speaker 3:Dogs are not these beings that their sole desire is to attack and bite. We have spent what 50,000 years domesticating these animals. What these dogs really want from us is love, affection, and they want to be our best friend and, quite frankly, they want to be other animals' best friends too. But it's all about how you introduce that. You cannot go out here, people, and just allow your dog that you don't have control over to run around off leash.
Speaker 3:When I was working with Phoenix Dog Training, I had a client that I was working with. It was this very large mountain dog, very, very large mountain dog, and it was known for being aggressive to other dogs. And I don't mean aggressive in the I'm going to snap at you, I'm going to growl at you. No, I mean aggressive in the right circumstance, will murder another dog and and this was a dog, this is the real deal Aggression.
Speaker 3:And we had finally, after about five months of working together, gotten to the point that I was like it is now time for us to go on a walk. Granted, this dog had a leash or had a muzzle on, but we went out on a walk so that we could start actually taking this dog in public and really taking the real life triggers and controlling them. And this one of their neighbors was just in their front yard with their dog off leash. A little teeny, tiny little doodle, little doodle mix. And this doodle comes sprinting straight at this mountain dog. And let me tell you Will, if this dog didn't wasn't muzzled, I don't think that doodle would have walked away alive. I really don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's.
Speaker 3:that's the reality of the matter is you don't know what the other dog that you're allowing your dog to meet? What's going on in that dog's head?
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, now we've got a little bit of a delay, since we're using Riverside, you know what goes from our screen and then what goes to you guys on Facebook's a little bit delayed. But, jordan, I'm going to ask if you have the ability to take a look at the feed. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.
Speaker 2:Okay if we've got people with questions because I can't be on that screen, right now yeah, yeah of course, of course, one of the things that I want to talk about. I've been getting a ton of calls okay about resource guarding, but but a very specific kind of resource guarding and that is resource guarding the pet parent ah, you see, I love this topic.
Speaker 3:I love this one will, because so many people don't realize that they can be a resource also exactly don't realize that and anything.
Speaker 2:Now it this can be, let's say, when a person comes into their home, right, and a person that doesn't live there well, it could even be someone who lives here, we'll talk about that in a second but, yeah, a person that doesn't live there comes into the home and then, as they approach the pet parent, the dog starts to become aggressive. It might growl, it may lunge, bark, it may snap, it may bite, yeah. And then the other aspect is in intra. So, talking about the same home, I've gotten lots of calls about folks that have adopted a dog. They rescued a dog and the dog has instantly bonded with one of the pet parents, but not with the other, with the other. And all of a sudden, the next thing, you know, let's just say that the dog bonded more with the wife or the girlfriend, right, and now the husband or boyfriend tries to come near them and the dog is aggressive.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and then when let say the wife or girlfriend, they're gone, the dog's just great with the guy, Just fantastic. But let the wife or the girlfriend come back. And now, if that husband or boyfriend gets too close, what happens?
Speaker 3:It turns right back on, and let's talk about that. Let's talk about first where that comes from. Will, and you said it at the beginning 90% of all aggression is rooted in fear. So when we're looking at a resource guarding problem, the first thing that we need to consider is that we need to ask ourselves what is the dog fearful of in this situation? And it's fearful of losing the love that it got from this person. You know, when we're talking about a rescue, maybe this is a dog that didn't experience much affection and much niceness, much love from human beings during its lifetime. And now I get brought into this new home and there's this human being who I think is just amazing, because she gives me hugs and she gives me attention and she gives me treats and she gives me a nice bed and she gives me all these whoa. Who is this other guy?
Speaker 2:now the other guy is taking her time you said something interesting. You said it's afraid of losing the love. Yeah. And when the other partner in the relationship is giving love, feeding, giving treats, doing all the same thing, but the dog's choosing somebody else's primary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know it really comes down to. You have to look at what your dog's. Every dog is different, every dog is different, and when you have an animal that has experienced some kind of trauma, you know whether it be a dog that during a thunderstorm got out and ran away from home and left a loving home, and now it's in the big open world all by itself. It's scared, it's fearful, and so the moment that it receives that love and attention again, it's going to cling onto that because it does not want it to go anywhere. And yeah, maybe others are giving it love, but last time that it loved a whole family, it lost all of them, and so right now it is keeping safe what it knows is working for it and, yeah, it chooses a primary. But the thing is, when that other person is gone, it's fine with you. Normally, in a lot of cases that's going to be the case. It's going to be fine with you when that other person is gone.
Speaker 3:And that's because it no longer has a resource that it contextually needs to protect.
Speaker 2:And you could have multiple dogs also in the household. And let's say that you've got two dogs, okay, yeah, and one of your two dogs hops up on the couch with you, right? And whenever the other dog comes near that couch, it's on.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:They're fighting, they're going after each other. I get calls like that all the time. This has been, interestingly enough, the last six months or so. I would say that's the majority of my calls what is uh resource guarding couches? Uh, resource guarding one of the humans in the house? Yeah, okay, and in in um, I've had it where it's been isolated to, you know, the other human partner in the home coming up to the, not just the couch, I use the couch as an example.
Speaker 3:Right, right, right, because that is so just the resource guarding of where the person is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the couch seems to be the couch and the bed seem to be the two things that I tend to hear more of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And I think that this is because you know again, every dog is different. But when you provide this dog with one, we're in a situation where we're relaxing, I'm laying down, and any animal knows that when they're laying down, they're in a more vulnerable position. And when this other dog, this cat, this other person comes up to me in a vulnerable position and now my resource that I already want to protect, in a vulnerable position, I'm probably going to be much more likely to lash out. Now, when we have dogs that are experiencing these resource guarding issues, management is so extremely important. The very first step that anybody, anybody at home right now, experiencing a resource guarding problem with your animal, the first step is to get rid of the resource. Stop putting your dog into situations where they feel like they have to protect the resource. That's the very first step. We cannot fix the problem if we are creating a pattern of the resource guarding Plain and simple.
Speaker 3:That's going to be the first thing.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly, I guess in the meat and potatoes, will you? What do they do? What are, what are? What are these pet parents supposed to do when they have these dogs that are resource guarding?
Speaker 2:all right. The first thing I want to say that you should not do, and that is punish the dog. Yeah, and I'll use the word correct the dog. Now, there's a difference between a correction and modifying behavior. All right, yeah. Most of the Most of the time, 99% of the time somebody says the word correction, they're talking about punishment, they're talking about going no, or they're talking about using a shock collar or using a prong collar or a rolled up towel and bonking them.
Speaker 2:You know there's all these crazy can with pennies and throwing that at them, but the bottom line is a correction. The only way a correction works, the only way punishment works, is if you can create just enough fear or pain or intimidation that the dog suppresses its behavior. Right, but that's the key and this is why you don't want to punish. This is why you don't want to correct the behavior, because the behavior is only suppressed temporarily. We've talked about it many times on the show. I'm not going to go into a big tirade about the fact that, um, the outward behavior is a symptom of the dog's underlying anxiety and fear.
Speaker 3:like you said earlier, no dog uh goes into fight or flight unless they're afraid, unless they use something as threatening exactly right and I think now might be a good time Will for me to share my favorite analogy about the boiling pot of water. If you remember this analogy, I think.
Speaker 2:So let me just say this before you do it but people need to understand that if you punish and correct the outward behavior, you're actually adding more pressure. Jordan's going to give you an analogy. But in the long run it's going to come back, that aggressive behavior, it's going to be worse. And you've got to deal with what's the underlying motivating factor behind the behavior. That's anxiety, that's fear, that's stress. You deal with the anxiety, the fear, the stress. You deal with the dog's underlying emotional state where, hey, now they don't view that person or that dog as something scary that they have to go in and be reactive or be aggressive. That behavior goes away, absolutely. All right, you're on Go for it.
Speaker 3:So I like to compare my dog or dogs in general dogs with anxieties, dogs with fears, dogs with aggression, dogs with resource guarding problems to a pot of water. Imagine that you have a pot of water on the stove and the fire underneath of the pot is the anxiety stove and the fire underneath of the pot is the anxiety Okay. And as the water inside of the pot starts to boil, you put your hand over the pot and when you do that, you feel the steam and the heat rising up. That's the symptoms of the anxiety. Now I'm going to take an airtight lid. Take an airtight lid aka a correction and I'm going to put it on top of this pot of water.
Speaker 3:Now the good news is, when I put my hand over that lid, I'm not going to feel any steam, I'm not going to feel any hot air rising, there's not going to be any boiling water bubbling up and hitting my hand. And what I just did was I just covered the problem. I put a bandaid over it and now, because I didn't turn off the anxiety underneath the underlying problem, the fire is still turned on, the burner is still going, pressure is building inside of this pot and pressure is building and building and building and building. Now, mind you, I'm boiling water because I want to boil some spaghetti, so I walk over to the oven and I got to shake. I got to shake the pot a little bit to get the condensation to roll off the lid so I can see inside of it.
Speaker 3:Now this represents maybe you're petting your dog, you're feeding your dog, you accidentally touched your dog while they were sleeping something that normally would not be a problem for your dog but because there's so much pressure built up inside of them, what happens? The pot explodes and boiling water goes everywhere. It's all over your face, it's all over the wall, it's all over you. And what is this representing? This represents your dog attacking you, something that your dog would never do, but so much pressure built up that it exploded. And that is what happens when we correct, instead of just turning the burner off and getting rid of the underlying anxiety problem, the underlying fear problem, and that is what people need to do.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and the most common mistake that's made is correcting a dog that growls.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. How would you feel Will if I just walked up to you and punched you right in the face, didn't even give you a warning? You'd probably. What was that? For? That is what your dog is doing when they growl.
Speaker 2:They're giving you a warning. I'm not comfortable, yeah, I'm not comfortable. I need space Back off and you take away that warning sign by correcting or punishing that growl. You do that enough times and, yeah, that behavior is going to be suppressed and that dog's going to go straight into the bite.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the dog doesn't learn. Oh, it's not okay to bite, he learns. It's not okay to growl. Yeah, exactly Once you have a dog that thinks it's bad to growl. Now you have a dog that that's. How often do you hear? He didn't give me any warning, he didn't growl. He didn't do anything, he just bit. Yeah, how often do you yell at your dog for growling?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know you also, as we talked about, what happens when you suppress outward behavior the pressure underneath builds, yeah. And so not only do you take away the warning for a potential bite, yeah, but you made that potential bite probably more intense, yeah.
Speaker 3:You took away a way for them to blow off steam, because that's what it is when they're outwardly expressing anxiety. It's a way of them releasing what they're feeling inside. You know, like, like, have you ever just wanted at the end of a day, just wanted to scream into a pillow? You know? And how freeing that feels afterwards. You just released your anxiety. Same thing with our dogs when they're expressing how they feel, they're not bottling it up inside. As a result, when you make a dog bottle up their own emotions, it's going to be a more intense bite. So I guess the question here Will is what are we supposed to do then?
Speaker 2:Exactly Now. There's a couple things and it goes in stages and it goes in steps. First of all, what people need to understand there's no quick fix for this, right, there is no quick fix for this. If you think there's a quick fix, if you think and trainer will say listen, send your aggressive dog away to my board and train for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks and you're going to get a dog back, that's perfect. The calls I get where they've done that again, same thing. We're saying it, it comes back and it comes back worse because you're just suppressing that behavior. There's no quick fix. This is 99% of what I do with folks and it takes anywhere between four to six months to be in a really, really, really good place. That doesn't mean that you won't have some improvement before that, but it comes. The steps that you need to go through come in stages.
Speaker 2:Now. The first thing. The first step it's not the fix, but it is the first step to the fix, and that is you've got to avoid the trigger. Absolutely Nobody wants to hear that. What do you mean? Avoid the trigger? Does that mean that if we're talking about resource guarding and the dog is resource guarding, one of the partners in the home that the other person has to leave. They can't be in the house?
Speaker 3:no, no, not at all. It means. It means you have to now do some science and some observations. You need to figure out what is the specific situation that your dog is reacting in. Is it because you're both sitting on the couch at the same time? Is it because you have the dog on the couch while you're both sitting on the couch? You have to look at all of the instances of the aggression and figure out what all of them have in common. And now we know what's triggering our dog.
Speaker 2:So let me just go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe it's not all of its toys that the dog is resource guarding.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's specifically the little brown squirrel that has the fluffy tail, the rawhide or the antlers, you know Right, and so we remove those specific things.
Speaker 3:So if let's say, for example, your dog, let's give a very specific example Every time that I kiss my partner and my dog is on the couch with us, my dog tries to attack my partner. Okay, you know how we fix that. When we remove that trigger, first thing we're going to try is removing the dog off of the couch. See if the dog reacts differently when we remove the couch from the equation.
Speaker 2:Right Now, here's the thing that people don't get. A lot of dogs are used to getting up on the couch whenever they want to yeah, don't get. A lot of dogs are used to getting up on the couch whenever they want to. Yeah and not. That's not necessarily the easiest thing for somebody. You know, it sounds good in theory, right, but how do I keep the dog off of the couch? Now we can get into that and it could take a long time.
Speaker 2:But the bottom line is you have to avoid the trigger. If that means you've got to put your dog up, if that means you've got to create distance and space so that your dog is not triggering, is not reactive, that's the first step, because not doing that means that, first of all, could somebody could get hurt number one. But number two, the dog's stress level stays continuous and the dog keeps rehearsing that unwanted behavior over and over. It gets more and more conditioned, it gets more and more habituated. And and I use this analogy with my clients Imagine that I was not a behaviorist, imagine that I was a plumber. Imagine that it wasn't a problem with your dog. It's a problem. You call me up and you say, hey, will I got this water pipe that burst and there's water going all over the place. What do I do? What's the first thing I'm going to tell them to do? Turn off the water.
Speaker 2:Turn off the water, turn off the water and and that analogy means I'm going to tell you turn off the triggers. Yeah, all right, and imagine, imagine that we were trying to rehab, trying to fix this broken water pipe, and we didn't turn the water off.
Speaker 2:It would be very hard, it be extremely hard. We probably we may, we probably would not be able to have any success. We just have a bigger mess. Yeah, trying to do that, and that's what happens if you don't step one avoid the triggers temporarily. And you have to avoid the triggers unless you're doing the work of behavior modification and until the work is done and you've got to understand canine body language.
Speaker 2:If you don't understand canine body language, you truly don't know whether or not your dog is feeling scared, whether or not your dog is anxious, whether or not your dog is stressed. You know, imagine a ladder that has 10 rungs. Well, mr and Mrs Pet Parent, they're very familiar with rung 10, 9, and 8,. Okay, where the dog begins to maybe show its teeth 9, growling, okay, or, excuse me, 8 showing its teeth, 9 growling, and at me, eight showing its teeth, nine growling, and at 10 they're lunging and biting, okay, yeah, well, that's obvious, all right, but what they don't see, what a lot of people don't see, is what's on rung number one, rung number two yeah exactly see the dilated pupils.
Speaker 3:they don't see the tongue flicks they don't necessarily and like, even sometimes something as massive as pyloerection, like if we have hair standing up along the dog's spine. A lot of people know that. A lot of people know that that means.
Speaker 2:You wanted to use that word, didn't you?
Speaker 3:What's that now?
Speaker 2:You wanted to use that word I did.
Speaker 3:I did want to use that word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's okay. So that's how many? When you're walking the dog and it sees another dog or a person and it's scared, the hair goes up on its absolutely all the time. Erection is the technical term for that, and exactly now, and it's like it's understanding these things Will I remember?
Speaker 3:I will never forget the day that you and I sat down and watched that canine body language video that we had showed to so many of our clients and you were teaching me about body language and it blew my mind. I was suddenly like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that dogs they the way that Will and I are speaking to each other right now with such complex sentences and well thought out things, our dogs can do almost the same thing to each other, purely with what they do with their bodies and again it can be very, very subtle it can be very subtle I
Speaker 2:mean uh, whisker position and movement. Yeah, I mean, that to me is one of the most subtle things, that that you can see um a dog. You know, everybody thinks if the dog's tail is wagging that everything's okay.
Speaker 2:And that's not necessarily true. There's all kinds of things that happen with the tail and one of the canine body language signals that's important to see is that tail, when it wags, is it breaking further to the left or is it breaking further to the right? That means something different. If it is going one direction, the dog might be more happy. If it breaks to the other direction, the dog is starting to have anxiety. But you cannot begin to be successful modifying the behavior of a dog that has fear, anxiety, stress, reactivity or aggression if you do not understand all the little signs and they're very subtle, they're almost like micro gestures or covert signals. But if you don't understand that, you're going to only go so far trying to modify that behavior. You're not going to have success at all because if the dog continues to feel stress and anxiety, that behavior is not going away. It's not going away. So the first step you've got to avoid the triggers. Number two you need to get educated on canine body language so that you can prep yourself to be able to do behavior modification and the two pillars of behavior modification for any dog that has anxiety, stress, fear, phobias, reactivity, aggression. That's going to be counter conditioning and desensitization. Absolutely, and let me just say this right now If you need to understand about canine body language, if you need to understand about counter conditioning and desensitization, go to my website.
Speaker 2:I've got over 90 free articles and guides. And listen, some of the guides I've got on there are 20, 30, 40 pages long, with step-by-step instructions. Matter of fact, I recently did a new guide on counter conditioning and desensitization and it's very, very extensive. I've got a guide up there on canine body language. It's very extensive. So go to my website at dogbehavioristcom. Go to the menu, click on articles and you'll see the 90-plus articles that I have up there, guys, listen.
Speaker 3:In his old age he is sharing all of his knowledge in these guides. He really is. He's finally given up the secret sauce. Go to the website and check it out you know the stuff that I've got on that website.
Speaker 2:The majority of people out there trainers, behaviorists that have that information. They're not giving it to you free, they're charging you for it.
Speaker 1:You got to take my course, or get my e-book, get my e-book, get my ebook Now.
Speaker 2:I've got all of that there for free. And if you've got a friend, a family member that is struggling with their dog, tell them to go to my website at dogbehavioristcom and they can get all kinds, all kinds of free help there. That's a good segue to let me go ahead and begin the process of talking about our sponsor. So let me go ahead and do that.
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Speaker 2:It truly is something that makes a huge difference with a lot of dogs Not every dog. But the best part about Calm Dogs it comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee and yours truly, I'm the one that developed this, because the stuff that's out there, that's natural, doesn't work and you can't go by reviews, because there is up to this is crazy between 38% to 75% placebo effect with pet parents when they give something to their dog. Now, as a behaviorist, I don't have the luxury of buying into the placebo effect. I need to be able to measure results scientifically, and that's what we did with Calm Dogs scientifically, and that's what we did with calm dogs. It's not about the placebo effect, because we did a double blind studies, randomized controlled trials, and it's amazing.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are just absolutely amazed. Vets are amazed to see hey, what happened to your dog, amazed to see, hey, what happened to your dog? I've got a lot of people they talk in Oklahoma, boy, and there's a lot of folks in Oklahoma that are on this supplement and I'm hearing back that you know they've got a dog that's aggressive. They bring the dog to the vet. Every time the dog just blows up and I'm hearing people say, oh, my dog was so much better at the vet and the vet was like what happened? What did you do? And they can't believe it. So you know there is a genetic component sometimes to aggression and that means a lot of times we're talking about neurochemistry and having the neurotransmitters but off.
Speaker 3:Like doesn't that mean that my dog it can't be fixed?
Speaker 2:no, but let me tell you what can be done. You can manage things, just like folks that genetically are schizophrenic or genetically have clinical depression, um, delusions. Those things can be managed through medication, through behavior modification. Kids that have autism okay, it can be managed, it can get better.
Speaker 2:Listen, when we're talking about any type of fear, anxiety, reactivity, aggression. Listen, don't think in terms of a cure you need to think about. We're going to make it better and what does that mean? That means that we're hoping the frequency goes down to zero, that there are no more incidents. We would love that, but nobody can guarantee that. It's behavior. We also want to decrease the intensity or the severity of the behavior. So we've got frequency, we've got severity of the behavior, and those are two huge measures as to hey, are things getting better? Are we heading in the right direction? The third thing is how long does it take the dog after it triggers to get back to baseline, normal, right? We're hoping that. You know a dog that maybe, after a trigger's gone, they're still not acting normal for a few hours. Well, we're hoping that we can bring that way down, right.
Speaker 2:And then through you understanding more about your dog, you understanding more about canine body language and reading that your dog's uncomfortable, you can help your dog by creating space for that dog. But let's get back to the topic. When we're talking about resource guarding and when we're talking about specifically a dog, that is, resource guarding one of their pet parents. Yeah, we talked about the first step is avoid the trigger. Second step is you've got to understand canine body language because with counter conditioning and desensitization and counter conditioning, that's just a fancy word that means hey, I'm going to condition the dog, I'm going to pair something very positive with that trigger, something very positive with that trigger and over time, as the dog starts to less and less view the trigger as a threat and more and more view it as something positive, that dog gets desensitized. But when we begin to do counter conditioning, we've got to read the body language because we have to start and present that trigger at a distance where the dog doesn't have a care in the world.
Speaker 3:Right and now. And so I like to use the word intensity because you know, maybe we're talking about a noise and maybe it is about or maybe we're talking about, a movement. You know, maybe it is about how quickly the movement occurs, how loud the noise is. So, whatever it is, you need to be able to turn down the intensity to a point that your dog is giving nothing other, say calming signals. You may not know what I'm talking about, but that is why step two is so important. You have to learn the canine body language in order to be successful here.
Speaker 2:Step three, when we start doing counter conditioning.
Speaker 2:Let me give you the example of you know again, we've got a pet parent that if one of the other pet parents comes close to the other pet parent, the dog begins to be aggressive. It's resource guarding, whether it be in the bedroom, the bed, whether it be on the couch, whether it be some location in the house, and that's usually where it happens. Okay, and the first step is, again, we've got to when we start doing the work. We've got to avoid the triggers. You got to do whatever you got to do. Put the dog up at doing the work. We've got to avoid the triggers. You got to do whatever you got to do. Put the dog up, okay, um, if, if the dog's fine with the pet partner, as long as that pet partner doesn't, uh, go into the living room or and go into the couch, you make sure that that dog doesn't go there until you've done the work. Okay, now for some dogs, anytime one of the pet parents goes near the other pet parent, doesn't matter where in the house, you can't get far enough away unless you're in a whole nother bedroom. The dog is going to be reactive. And people say, well, how do I do that? I can't get far enough away. Yes, you can. You start the process outside. Yeah, outside. You start the process outside. Gradually, systematically, you start getting the dog closer and closer and closer to your partner. As your dog starts to feel comfortable and as you're able to read calming signals in the canine body language and as you're seeing an absence of stress signals in that dog and you're seeing a dog that doesn't have a care in the world, and when we're at the distance, when we're at the distance where the dog doesn't have a care in the world, now we need to create a very black and white cause and effect association that the trigger is what brings on really good things. And when we bring the trigger into view, we need to use the most valuable positive reinforcer that you possibly could use for your dog.
Speaker 2:Whether your dog is food motivated, you've got to find what your dog loves. I don't care if you have to give that dog cooked up steak or cooked up chicken. All right, you use what the dog loves the most. Maybe your dog is more into toys, you know. Maybe you've got a Belgian Malinois or some crazy dog, or you've got a lab that was bred from hunting lines Okay, Right, um, or you've got a border Collie. These dogs that have this insane prey drive typically are going to go nuts for toys, all right. And you just have to test your dog. You bring out their favorite toy, you bring out food. Which do they want? Which one do they go for? If they're going for the toy, well then you're probably going to make sure that basically in your behavior modification, when you set up a training session, you need to have that trigger out of view, or your dog out of view of the trigger, and all of a sudden the dog comes into view and sees the trigger, or the trigger comes into view of the dog and now the dog sees the trigger as well.
Speaker 2:Imagine if you were walking down a sidewalk. In houses where we live here in Arizona, most of them have brick walls around it. So when you go to make that turn around the corner on the sidewalk, you don't know what's down there because of the wall. That's there, okay. Now let's say that you turn that corner and boom, there's a trigger. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, as soon as the dog sees that trigger, if the dog is relaxed, if the dog is calm and we set this up in training sessions we find out what that distance is. It's called keeping the dog below threshold, where the dog doesn't have stress. If the dog's starting to get into threshold, that's where the anxiety and the stress starts to come. When the dog's over threshold, that's when we're getting that outward display of behavior, the aggression. But by then it's too late to do anything other than just get the dog out of there and keep everybody safe. But I want to just say this, as far as the process whether you've got the dog at a distance and the human all of a sudden comes into view they're out of view and they come into view and now the dog sees that human and you're at a distance where the dog is calm.
Speaker 2:At the exact moment that the dog sees the trigger, you've got to instantly start giving positive reinforcement.
Speaker 2:Giving positive reinforcement and I love this is when I truly love using a clicker versus a verbal marker, because it's so crystal clear that when they hear that click, if I've conditioned that clicker to food or a toy, they know immediately something good is happening.
Speaker 2:Now I don't have time to talk about marker training, conditioning a clicker. If you want to learn more about that, go to dogbehavioristcom, find the article on clicker training. But basically what's going to happen is, let's say, the dog goes around the corner. I've set this up, I've got somebody helping me, a human, a trigger, they're way down the way. Now, if it's a partner and you've got resource guarding in the house but you can create enough distance and space, ok, and let's say, the partner can take one step or two steps towards the other partner outside and the dog is below threshold. That is your starting point. Ok, the dog and one of the partners might be standing still and then the other partner comes around a corner at a distance the dog's okay with, and maybe it can take a step or two and the dog's still calm.
Speaker 2:Well, that approach viewing the target, viewing the trigger, view the approach that's, when you begin to start positively reinforcing with food, high value or toys, then we have the trigger go out of sight yeah and as soon as that trigger starts to go out of sight, that's when the positive reinforcement stops, that's when the play stops, that's when the play stops, that's when the toy goes away, that's when the food stops. And we're going to do that over and over repeatedly in a short training session. That's five, 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes long, but we're doing it over and over and over, creating that very black and white cause and effect association so that the dog gets conditioned that the trigger moving towards mom is a good thing. It brings positive, positive things happen. I get food when I love, I get a toy that I love, and when they back away or they go away, that stops.
Speaker 2:Now and it's like a game. Let me just say this it's like a game, and when the dog starts to enjoy that game and really look forward to the trigger because good things are going to happen, yeah, at that point you can start working a little bit closer, a little bit closer, and gradually, systematically, over time, over months in some cases, you can get closer and closer and closer. And if you have to start outside, the beautiful thing is you're teaching this game and half the battle is already taken care of. When you then start to move this inside when there's less space and distance. Yeah, okay, you were going to say something, jordan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now the thing here is so many people, when they have these counter conditioning sessions, they say but Will or but Jordan, right, it doesn't look like anything's happening. What do you say to those people?
Speaker 2:Well, I keep turning my mic off every time you talk. What do I say to those people? I say listen, a lot is happening, but what they're used to is they're used to the dog blowing up and then punishing or correcting the dog and thinking that they're doing something. What we're doing is listen.
Speaker 2:When the dog doesn't have a care in the world and you present the trigger, the dog's emotional state is neutral. Yeah, if the trigger is too close, it's not neutral. The dog is afraid, right. So we start at the distance where it's neutral, doesn't have a care in the world, doesn't have a care in the world and we keep pairing positive reinforcement with that trigger. And now, at that distance that was neutral. Now the dog has very positive feelings. The dog's underlying emotional state is one of happiness, excitement. Okay, and you're not going to get that if the dog's also in the state of anxiety. The dog must be in a neutral state, not have a care in the world, and that means getting to that distance. And then, once you've conditioned at that distance, you've gone from neutral to positive and the dog's really looking forward to this game and really looking forward to getting its positive reinforcement because of the trigger. Right Now you can start to move closer.
Speaker 2:But when you move closer you've got to check that body language. You've got to know that the dog doesn't have a care in the world. The dog is now in another neutral state, yeah, okay, and it takes time over and over. Now the other thing is you've got to make sure that the dog understands hey, it's the trigger that brings the good thing.
Speaker 2:So what I'll do sometimes, let's say that I present the trigger to the dog 12 times in a training session, all right, and every time the trigger comes, good things happen either the favorite toy or play or food. And then, when the trigger goes away, all that good stuff also goes away. One of the things that has to happen. If I'm presenting 12 times, all right, I need to at least two or three times have that dog say go around the corner and the trigger's not there, absolutely, and there's no feeding Because there is the off chance. There's the off chance that the dog may think the reason that good things happen, the reason it got fed, is because we turned the corner and maybe there's a fire hydrant right there where you stopped and the dog thinks hey, it's the fire hydrant, absolutely, or the wall and or it's the tree.
Speaker 2:And additionally, there's another thing that that doing this helps avoid the smell I was just going to say, because they think it's a smell and they.
Speaker 3:It also helps us avoid the fact that the dog may, not the dog might start learning oh gosh, every time that they open up the front door, there's, there's, there's this trigger there. Or every time I run around the corner, there's a trigger there. And now maybe your dog doesn't want to run around the corner anymore. Now the idea of going around the corner itself brings anxiety, and that's the other reason that every now and then, you got to throw a wrench in there and run around the corner and there's nothing. The dog's going to be like wait what? There's nothing, there's nothing here. Okay, cool. And so let me make sure that we run this back. So far, what we've done is we've gotten rid of the trigger. That's the first step. After I've gotten rid of the triggers, I'm now studying canine body language and making sure that I understand my dog's trigger, or my dog's cues and what they are showing me, what their signals are.
Speaker 2:Because that's feedback.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then step three I need to start the process of counter conditioning and desensitization. And now, when I'm doing this counter conditioning and desensitization, and now, when I'm doing this counter conditioning and desensitization, I need to make sure that I proof it by occasionally changing up the context, maybe not having the trigger present, and then making sure that I'm at a distance, that my dog is not being reactive.
Speaker 2:And if I'm doing it outside, if I have to start outside because I can't create enough distance and space inside, a lot of people forget about that. You know I can go out, do it outside. Listen, I've had people. You know context means a lot. Okay, you mentioned context. Yeah, there are some dogs that you take them out the front door immediately. They're reactive.
Speaker 2:but boy, you take them out the garage door and the dog's calm absolutely now, that's not every dog, but context makes a difference and so when you're practicing this outside or any location, don't always practice in the same location absolutely, because the dog, it may just you generalize or be very specific in its thinking. This is okay, but another location is not okay.
Speaker 3:And this is why this is the reason that a board and train is not always the solution. In fact, most times it's not the solution, and that's because, yeah, send me your dog, go on.
Speaker 2:Send your dog to me, Send me your partner and bring the couch with you. Exactly, you know what I mean. Exactly when one of the partners was on the couch and the other partner or other dog came near them. There was resource guarding. Hey, for training sessions I've had to have people say, okay, we got to move the couch.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Couch is coming out of here for the next 10, 15 minutes We'll bring the dog out and maybe the dog is okay if both partners are in the room, but it's not something. But the couch isn't there, right. And so you work on that approach because what has to happen right In the situation we're talking about the other dog or the other partner is moving. They've got an approach they're heading towards that couch, they're heading towards the other partner approach they're heading towards that couch, they're heading towards the other partner and we could take that couch out of there sometimes and we could have the same trigger. But you take that little piece away and now that other dog or that other person can approach the part, the other partner, and things might be okay, context is different and we start creating positive Right.
Speaker 3:Exactly Because it's new, it might be OK, context is different and now start creating positive Right, exactly Because it's new.
Speaker 2:It might be new, it might be neutral there, yeah, remember, and that's where we need to be. But if we start, you know, bringing, let's say again, we've got one of the human partners and the dog there in the living room, so to speak. We've got more to the couch for the training session, and then here comes the other partner and the other partner is walking in that room. That approach, as that partner is walking in the room, like you said, jordan, we're going to create a positive association. We're going to start positively reinforcing with food, with toys, with play, the fact that that partner is walking into that living room and then, when that partner walks out of the living room, all the good stuff stops. Okay, then at some point we're going to bring that couch back, but the partner is not going to be sitting on the couch and the partner is not going to be right by the couch with the dog, and then we bring in an approach. Now, how do we know if we're moving too fast or we're moving too slow?
Speaker 3:Ah, that's a great question. You know the moment that your dog gives you anything other than a calming signal. If you get a distance increasing signal, if you get a fear signal, if you get any stress signal, any of these things, you have gone too far, too fast At any given point. If you were not giving the food mind you, we should not be presenting the trigger without giving the food but if you weren't giving the high value reward, your dog shouldn't care. There should be absolutely oh, okay, I guess I'm not getting food. That's how your dog should feel about it. If your dog is suddenly, the moment food goes away, it's like oh, the trigger's there, oh the person's there. That is too much.
Speaker 2:You've been doing it wrong yeah exactly You've been doing it wrong. You've been doing counter conditioning too close too soon. Exactly You're not going to be able to fix that broken water pipe if the water's still gushing out. Exactly so we're still avoiding the trigger. And avoiding the trigger doesn't mean it's out of sight.
Speaker 3:And quite frankly even if the water's just dripping out. Even if it's just dripping out of that pipe, it's going to be hard to fix it because I can't get the surface dry enough to actually do the repair. My glue or whatever I'm using, it's never going to cure.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so same thing with our dogs.
Speaker 3:The water has to be turned all the way off. We have to completely remove it.
Speaker 2:Now, when we turn the water off, the pipe's still there.
Speaker 3:Exactly Right, and so the person might still be there.
Speaker 2:But the turning the water off is we're at the right distance, where the dog doesn't care, and each step of the way as you think. Okay, I've spent two weeks at a certain distance, pairing positive reinforcement with the trigger. My dog gets excited. Now when it sees the trigger at that distance, yeah, now I'm gonna choose to move a little bit closer and maybe arbitrarily I say, all right, I'm gonna go five feet closer. But if I see stress signals in my dog, I've gone too close too soon. I need to back up, get to it. Maybe I have to be at two feet closer and at two feet closer my dog doesn't care. But boy, I get five feet closer. My dog's starting to show some very mild stress signals and you always have to pay attention.
Speaker 3:You always have to pay attention to what your dog is telling you, because sometimes, when I'm ready to move forward, I'm going to move forward 10 feet, but sometimes I'm going to move forward 10 feet, but sometimes I'm going to move forward six inches. Your dog is going to decide how quickly we move ahead, not me. I have to focus on my dog.
Speaker 2:Triggers have characteristics or ingredients, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you're saying this.
Speaker 2:So a stationary trigger is different than a moving trigger Absolutely. A moving trigger that's moving slowly is very different than a moving trigger. A moving trigger that's moving slowly is very different than a moving trigger that's moving fast. A trigger that is not animated versus very animated A trigger that's not Hugging my partner versus kissing my partner.
Speaker 2:Not vocalizing versus vocalizing. What's the volume? Now, each one of those characteristics. If you really want to be successful, because your dog might not be triggered if the person is stationary, but if they move well, you got to work on movement then too, exactly, and then I have an example that I'd like to share.
Speaker 3:I had a dog where every single time that grandma would get out of the chair, stand up out of her chair, the dog would come running over and attack her legs every single time. It wasn't very malicious, but it was still. It hurt grandma. She didn't want it to happen anymore and you know what? Quite frankly, it was a tripping hazard. So we had to get rid of this. We had to get rid of this behavior. So the first thing that I did was I removed grandma from the picture and I had the dog on a place cot, all the way on the other side of the living room and I would pull the handle for the chair. Feed, feed, feed, feed, feed. Pull the handle for the chair, you know like making the seat, the legs go up and down, and as I'm doing that, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed got the dog to a point where the noise of the chair going up and down meant something positive. Then I brought grandma into the situation and I was the one doing the movement on the chair, not grandma. Grandma just sat there and I pulled the lever. That way it was going up and down with grandma on it.
Speaker 3:Then we moved the dog all the way back to the distance again and then I had grandma start reaching for the handle, not pull the handle, just reach for the handle, reach away, reach for the handle, reach away. And we did that. Reach away, reach for the handle, reach away. And we did that. Then we started adding in grandma actually standing up and sitting back down, and we had to counter, condition and desensitize every characteristic individually at and we started at that original distance for every single characteristic and now some characteristics. I could start a little bit closer, but I let the dog determine that. But no matter what, I always went as far as I could.
Speaker 2:In many cases. Let's say that you know you're able to get the dog closer and closer and closer to the trigger but that trigger hasn't been doing any movement, All right, and you may have the dog as close as a foot or two to a stationary trigger person that's not moving. Another dog that might not be moving and the dog's fine. But now you want to go into having that trigger move towards the dog and the dog's not OK. Usually All right, because again that adds more stress to the dog's not okay, usually all right, because again that adds more stress to the dog. So when you add a different component to that trigger or a different ingredient, the different characteristic because triggers have multiple characteristics you back the dog up. You back the dog up where you started and, like you said, jordan, um, that's going to go faster, you, you'll, you'll be able to, because the dog's like, ah, okay, the game. Yep. You back the dog up to where you started, where it was a far distance when they were stationary. Here we are and then, after you've backed up that distance, now that trigger that was stationary can take very slow, calm steps towards the dog.
Speaker 2:In some cases I've had to have the person face sideways to the dog and we had to start moving sideways because it makes a difference. We're moving at an angle towards the dog, okay, rather than straight on looking at the dog. And then movement turns into faster movement and then movement turns into more animated. You know, maybe their hands were down. Now they're moving their hands. They weren't talking, they weren't vocalizing. Right Now they start moving with a whisper and then they start talking at a low volume and then they start talking louder and louder volume and then they start talking louder and louder. So all of these characteristics and trust me, you don't know what all of them are, yeah, until you understand canine body language.
Speaker 3:And then, all of a sudden, you're like oh, so, really and truly, one of the most important things here will is I need to learn canine body language, otherwise I'm not going to be successful here.
Speaker 2:And you've got to keep the dog at a distance and the body language allows you to know what that distance should be. And you've got to know how to do counter conditioning and desensitization. If those of you need more information about this, again, go to my website, dogbehavioristcom. Go to the articles. I even have an article that says understanding thresholds, which is the distance and canine body language, to be successful with counter conditioning and desensitization. Everything that you need as far as educating the brain is on the website at dogbehavioristcom. Now I need to do a little disclaimer.
Speaker 2:Aggression is dangerous. Yeah, okay, I recommend, if you've got a dog that's aggressive, you hire a professional Absolutely To help you. You hire someone who's qualified. They're a certified behavior consultant, they're a behaviorist at a minimum. They're a certified professional dog trainer that has experience with this.
Speaker 2:And trust me, folks, if you're interviewing a professional and you should always interview don't just say, oh, I'm going to hire anybody and you ask them well, what's your approach? Your approach you know my dog. You explain the situation. My dog's got resource guarding. It guards me. My husband comes walking into the living room. If I'm on the couch, then if my husband gets within 10 feet of me, the dog jumps off and bites my husband. Ask them how would you deal with that? What is your approach? And you know you can say hey, listen, I know you can't tell me everything in this short conversation, but overall what's your approach? Yeah, folks, if you hear things like correct the dog, ok, or alpha, you know, show them who's boss, things like that. If you're not hearing about body language, if you're not hearing about thresholds and distance, if you're not hearing about body language, if you're not hearing about thresholds and distance, if you're not hearing about counter conditioning and desensitization hire someone else hire somebody else yeah, because what that person's going to do to your dog is going to.
Speaker 3:they're going to fix the problem temporarily, very temporarily, and they're going to do it in a way that makes your dog very fearful, probably induces pain and absolutely intimidates them, and that's not what you want from your dog.
Speaker 2:The number one thing, and I want to listen. I'm not beating up on trainers that are out there, because I feel like if you're working with animals, I assume you're a really good person and that you've got really good intentions, but the dog training industry is not regulated. Nobody has to be educated. You got a lot of folks doing things and they don't really know what they're doing. They think they know They've got misinformation. They don't necessarily do what's science-based or evidence-based, like what Jordan and I have been talking about. Absolutely All right, but what I see a lot, a lot of trainers how they address the aggression, is through obedience training, and obedience training is fantastic. Okay, having your dog be able to focus on you, to sit, to lay down, go to its place, to stay All those things are fantastic. How many times, jordan, have you heard somebody that says, yeah, my dog was reactive to dogs on walks and so now what I do is I tell my dog to sit all the time Right.
Speaker 3:The fact of the matter is it's not a. It's not an obedience problem, it's a behavioral problem.
Speaker 2:It's an emotional issue, exactly, all right, it's an emotional issue, um, and you change that underlying emotion, the behavior that you don't like, the aggressive behavior, will go away. Yeah, you, when you ask the dog to say listen, I've trained the dog really hard to heal and the dog heals like a robot. He looks up at me the whole time we're walking and healing and now and now I can walk past any dog and as long as my dog is healing with me really well, and the dog's looking at me, we don't have a problem. Guess what, guess what.
Speaker 3:What's that?
Speaker 2:That's very situational and you didn't do anything to change the dog's underlying emotional state. Okay, you've got a dog that's scared, because here's the thing, when the dog disengages, if this is your way of dealing with it, when the dog stops looking at you, what happens next? Whoever's handling the dog? What?
Speaker 3:happens next? The dog is going to go right back. It's going to go right back to the original problem, but doesn't the trainer correct the dog Absolutely Punishes the dog right.
Speaker 2:So you're adding more anxiety, you're adding more stress, suppressing the behavior and all the time you're thinking man, this stuff's great, my dog's doing fantastic, doesn't want to get corrected by you, doesn't want to be punished and I'm not talking about abusing the dog, yeah, All right, I'm talking about most people.
Speaker 2:if they're correcting the dog, punishing the dog, hopefully they would be using the least amount of pain, the least amount of pressure, the least amount of intimidation and it would cause the least amount of fear. However, all of that is bad, all of that's not going to help the situation. Yeah, and the most important thing, all of it's not necessary. Right, it is not necessary. We have worked with some of the most aggressive dogs, yeah, and turn them around, and we don't have to do any of that I don't think I have ever go ahead.
Speaker 3:I don't think I have ever once in my entire career of rehabilitating dogs with fears, phob, anxiety and aggression, ever corrected one of them, not one time.
Speaker 2:You're going to kind of laugh maybe when I say this, because not everybody knows Jordan. He's been off the podcast for quite a while. Yeah, jordan was a military working dog handler. I was, and what I wanted to say, because before you met me you didn't know about this counter conditioning and desensitization and being somebody who was a military working dog handler and also law enforcement right Were you MP.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Jordan was law enforcement right, were you mp? Yes, sir, yeah, so jordan was law enforcement too. So he had dogs that you know could go after and attack an assailant. He had dogs that also did uh, narcotics detection, uh, explosive detection. But let's go into, because I know it's happened, it always happens. Have you ever had one of your military working dogs that had inappropriate aggression, so to speak, where it wasn't controlled and channeled?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, oh yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And what does the military do?
Speaker 3:The first thing that they do is they sedate the dog. They put them on to some sort of heavy sedative medication, normally gabapentin or trazodone, and you have this dog that is just heavily sedated all the time. But every single time that this dog has any outward aggression we are shutting that down With a big correction aren't you With a huge correction.
Speaker 3:We call it a baseball swing. You take both hands on that leash elbows up and you step into it and you can crank. Your goal is to lift that dog off of the ground. With that correction, if the dog doesn't come off the ground, you did not correct the dog now.
Speaker 2:Now you don't do that anymore. I think it's important to say that Jordan has learned that that is not the way to do it.
Speaker 4:And here's the thing.
Speaker 2:You would think that the military of all well, military intelligence. Sorry, but what was the outcome of those dogs doing that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Honestly, the vast majority of them. You would be vast majority of them. You would not be surprised. But a lot of people would be surprised to know that a lot of dogs get kicked out of the army due to being too aggressive or shutting down or failing out, because now you have a dog that doesn't trust its handler.
Speaker 2:Now, how much does it cost to get and train a military working dog on average?
Speaker 3:we could pay as much as twenty five thousand dollars for one of those dogs but how much time and training? And cost, from beginning to end, hundreds of thousands of dollars hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lot of these dogs end up being washouts.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, and if we used reinforcement, if we did the work of counter-conditioning and desensitization, the military could be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the dogs that are washouts.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's something that I'm trying to work on.
Speaker 3:actually, I'm in communication with some of the trainers down in Lackland, which is where the DOD trains all of its military working dogs, and I'm hoping that they will allow me to come in and do a just just a lesson, like to show the difference between the training that I was taught when I was in the military and the training that is creating these amazing dogs out here that I've learned working alongside. You Will, because you've taught me quite a bit, honestly.
Speaker 2:We talked about it yesterday and kind of laughed about it when we were talking about counter-conditioning and desensitization. Tell the story about the first day that you were with me and I started teaching you counter-condition, conditioning and desensitization with a dog and a client, and then we presented the trigger and we're feed, feed, feed, feed feed constantly, continuously. Then we have the trigger go away. We stopped feeding, yeah.
Speaker 3:We went out and we had this dog who was fearful of strangers just fearful. Sometimes would display aggression, sometimes would display aggression if a stranger got too close and never really like attacked, but might snap, might, might nibble. You know it's not going to be a severe bite, but you'll get a bite. Um, and will is teaching me how to counter, condition and desensitize. And I'm just standing back watching as will is walking into the doorway and the client is feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed. And then Will steps out of the doorway and the feeding stops. And I'm watching this and I'm thinking to myself this man is nuts, he's crazy, he is insane.
Speaker 3:There's no way that this dog and it went crazy at us and now we're standing in its front door and the dog didn't care. It works. Now, not every dog's going to move that fast. I want to put that out there. There are plenty of dogs that you're going to spend five months and you don't even make it to the front door. Yeah, but the point of the matter is this dog was happy. It. It was not being, it was not being forced to sit and stay, otherwise I'm going to correct you. No, it just got to stand there and get food shoved in its mouth and, as a result, it could care less about the strangers, it could care less about the triggers, and we were causing change.
Speaker 2:People need to understand because you said something I just want to clarify. Hey, this is not about just shoving food in a dog's mouth. There are a lot of little nuances, like we talked about, different characteristics and context and timing is huge, creating a different context where you turn the corner, there's no trigger, no feeding. Yeah, to get the dog truly understanding, it's only when the trigger arrives that good things happen. Right, making sure that the dog isn't confusing the positive reinforcement with something else isn't confusing the positive reinforcement with something else.
Speaker 2:The vast majority of dogs and the vast majority of professionals working with dogs like this don't have lasting, permanent success and have great success. And it's really just about the principles that we're teaching here and they're not that easy and that's why we say, hey, it's important to hire a professional, especially anytime you've got a dog that's aggressive. And let me just say this I probably should have said this on the outset but you need to rule out and make sure there's no medical issues that are contributing to the dog's behavior, especially if you've got a dog that, almost overnight, they just their behavior changed on a dime. Yeah, okay, but any dog, all right, that has a problem like this, any dog that's fearful, anxious, stressful, reactive, aggressive. You need to get your dog to the vet.
Speaker 2:Rule out any dog that's fearful, anxious, stressful, reactive, aggressive. You need to get your dog to the vet. Rule out. Make sure there's nothing medical that's a contributing factor to this behavior, because I don't care how much behavior mod you do, I don't care how good you are, you're not going to be correcting a medical problem with behavior intervention, absolutely. And if you've got a dog and how many times have we had dogs that there was a pain component.
Speaker 3:Oh, my gosh, so many. Do you remember that dog that had the toothache? He had that rotting tooth and we the dentist they like pulled the tooth and put them on this antibiotic and fixed, you know, like all the, the infection that was in his mouth and we didn't have to do any training. He just was a better dog, he was fine. It was all because of the pain in his mouth.
Speaker 2:Now it's usually not the case where you just get rid of the pain and, boom, everything's all right. Yeah, but I want you to think about a dog, that maybe you've got multiple dogs in the house. How many of you have a dog or had a dog that was older and maybe started getting a little bit arthritic, maybe started having cataracts and stuff like that, and as it got older, would start growling and becoming a little aggressive when any of the other dogs came near it, but when it was younger it was playing with all these other dogs, didn't have any problems. Pain matters Absolutely. Pain is a huge contributor.
Speaker 3:You know elbow dysplasia or any spinal problems, tendons and ligaments and cartilage being eaten away as they get older? I mean, think about it. You know what it feels like now that you're getting older. Will I already know what it feels like it hurts, those joints hurt.
Speaker 2:We can talk about genetics because of my degenerative disc disease. Yeah, pain matters, it really does matter. And as your dog gets older, things happen. As any animal gets older, things happen. That's why we have brought jordan on, just to make sure that sometimes the wrong things don't happen. You know, um, interestingly enough. Interestingly enough, okay, I read a study the other day. Yeah, um, have, I believe, a 20% or higher greater chance this is for people of getting dementia if you go to bed consistently before 10 pm.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's crazy Before 10 pm and listen.
Speaker 2:Millennials are obsessed with their sleep and a lot of them are going to bed at like 8.30.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nope, not me. I go to bed at like 830. Yeah, nope, not me. I go to bed at like 2 am Will.
Speaker 2:I'm not getting dementia. No, you got to get good sleep. You got to get restful sleep. But one of the things that I'm going to be talking about in an upcoming show is how your dogs sleep. Or lack of sleep or poor sleep affects behavior, or?
Speaker 3:can affect behavior. That's a good one. That's a good one.
Speaker 2:That is a topic that we've never covered, and so I want to be able to do that?
Speaker 3:I would love that topic. Man, it is crazy how quickly time goes. Huh, yeah, it is crazy, we went over. Yeah, we definitely went over today, folks.
Speaker 2:Twenty five minutes late here, yeah, but anyway, I want to thank everybody for being here. Hey, do me a favor, hit that like button. Please share this on your Facebook page that more people can benefit from this. Don't forget. We're here each and every Saturday. Every Saturday, we're here at 9 am Pacific, 11 o'clock Central and 12 noon Eastern, until the time changes and then we all get screwed up. Every Saturday, we're going to be here doing our Facebook Live, god willing. Also, check out the audio podcast of the podcasting sites and you can check out dog training today, whether you get your podcast on Apple podcast, whether you get it anywhere.
Speaker 3:Where do you get your episodes?
Speaker 2:Do you? Yeah, there's over 152 episodes. Yeah, where do you do listen on Spotify?
Speaker 3:Spotify. Yeah, I always listen on Spotifyify. You can find it right on spotify. Just dog training today with will bangura on apple podcasts and I believe are you on the amazon prime podcast as well yeah, I'm pretty much on everything there.
Speaker 2:We go pretty much. Yeah, absolutely all right everybody, we are out of time. We'll see you next week. Have a great, great weekend.