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at this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking can I ask you a personal question now what see broken time what the I'm a cybernetic organism living tisue over a metal [Music] endoskeleton this episode is brought to
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and welcome to another Edition another episode of the Tim a show where it is my job to deconstruct worldclass performers from all different trades all different Specialties entertainment military Sports you name it this episode is By Request thousands of you have been
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asking for an episode on dog training and I would expand that to human training how do you condition other people or yourself to do what it is you want them or you yourself to do this episode features Susan Garrett who is an incred incredible not only dog trainer
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but competitor she has a Bachelor's of Science and animal science she's one of the most consistently successful competitors in the sport of dog agility for now more than two decades she's been on the podium of world and national
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champion let me try Engish again Championship events more than 50 times winning those events a total of 38 times she was of great help to me when I first adopted Molly my own pup and her book shaping success was voted or selected as
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the 2005 dog training and Behavior book of the year she is a champ both for her competitive track record but also in her ability to convey concrete tips and recommendations for for instance the most critical games and exercises to play with your dog the three types of
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reinforcement how to use crates properly what you should do in the first 24 hours of say adopting a puppy and we talk about just about every facet of dog training and really the way you should think of this is behavioral modification
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and conditioning so this applies to chickens it applies to maybe irritating in-laws the cat that won't stop sleeping on your kitchen table I think I borrowed that from don't shoot the dog but it's all the same thing so there are principles in this that you can take
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away even if you have no interest in training dog having a dog or dogs in general so let me then allow Susan to do the talking you can find her on the Facebook and she has a very active page lots of great picks and videos and that is very simply
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facebook.com suan Garrett g a r r TT Susan Garrett dog agility so facebook.com/ suan Garrett doog agility say hi to her and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did Susan welcome to the show thanks Tim really happy to be here I have wanted to
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get you on the show for quite a while now after our first conversation I knew that we would eventually meet again with recorded audio because my audience has been asking me for an episode on dog training and so on for ages since I got
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Molly and you and I spoke very very early on in that process for me uh right when I was not I wouldn't say flatlining but kind of before I hockey sticked in my training educ and uh so I could think of no better person to have on and uh part of what
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appealed to me was the fact that you have an objective and verifiable record what I mean by that and for those people who are wondering how I seek out experts part of it is finding people who can be evaluated objectively it's not their
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opinion it's not someone else's qualitative opinion uh you now I'm just just going to read a little bit of your bio I won't go into a ton of it but you are one of the most consistently successful competitors in the sport of dog agility over the past I guess at
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least two decades you've been on the podium of world National Championship events more than 50 times winning those events a total of 38 times I was I was hoping perhaps we could start since most folks well I shouldn't say most but many
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folks are not familiar with Dog Sports what is dog agility what is what does that sport look like most people would have seen it but maybe didn't know what it was you know we used to have an event on ESPN a lot uh every year so it's the it's a sport where the
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dogs go over the jumps and through the tunnels and they weave in and out of the poles and it's a really fast fast sport it's it's really gotten to a place where it's you know it's tough to keep up unless you're really great shape as a Handler but it's a lot of fun for both
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dog end Handler and what are some of the ways in which that is scored how how is that scored and I think we talked at one point maybe you and I talked about this false starts is that a big part of the or is that a piece of the equation not
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not in in agility it definitely is in flyball which is another sport I actually won World Championships in as well before I really got heavily involved in in agility agility is scored think of it like a if you watch a horse
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jumping competition at the Olympics time is number one um but it has to be time with a clean round so there isn't Style points it's just you know getting around over all the obstacles as fast as you can without having a fault and uh what what separates a
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good uh Handler from a great Handler in let's just say for for now talking about the uh the sport component well like any sport the number one thing that separates us is the mental game and once you take put that aside it would be um the E the do the
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Handler's ability to train their dog or and you can put an and or the Handler's ability to outrun their dog and most of my competition are in their mid 20s and at the at the world championship level so they are able to outrun their dog uh
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in my mid-50s I am not able to outrun any dog so I Rely more on the dog training aspect of it to be successful and what what would you say differentiates your approach to training compared to others uh for those people who have maybe only seen a handful of
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like Network TV shows with celebrity dog trainers and so on I train you know I train dogs very much the way they they train marine mammals or you know exotic animals it's it's a reinforcement based program think of it like a killer whale you can't get
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in the tank and and correct them and you know beat the crap out of them when they're wrong right can't hit it with a rolled up newspaper exactly so it's it's choice-based dog training and and with the focus on reinforcement it's um it's
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incredibly successful and that's why you know when I raise a dog my focus is to have a phenomenal family pet first and then I know that lays the foundation to be a world champion later and and it's all done through you know being intentional and purposeful with what I
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want and and creating basically the dog of my dreams every time get a new puppy and uh when you say choice-based what what does that mean choice-based training there's basically you know if I if I was going to lump training into three categories there would be
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punishment based which is more traditional because in the military that's the way animals were often trained with um you know you're the master and they will do it they're told and there's really no very little reinforcement it's the absence of
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punishment that makes the dog keep working and it's the Brilliance of dogs that allows them to still have this great bond with us in spite of what went on U with punishment Based training and still goes on because it's it's certainly not gone and then there's
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reinforcement Based training where people put a cookie on the dog's nose and lure them to do to get what they want from them and and that certainly is a step up from punishment in that you're you're creating a relationship of fun
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and Trust uh it has its limitations on its sucess once that lure is gone and and then what we do do is is a different from that because we definitely use food and toys and and anything the dog loves as a reinforcement but it's only after
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the dog has made a choice so they make a choice and the you know it's it's like consequence basically you know I come from a family of of nine kids and so and I never ever heard my parents raise their voice so how you have success with that and this is really how I trained my
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first dog is I I just modeled my mother and if we were upstairs watching Disney and it was you know 5 to 6 and they called us for supper they didn't yell and stamp their feet and you know carry on they would give us a chance to make a
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choice are you coming for supper and if you if you choose not to come down for supper then she would go into the basement unscrew the fuse for the TV and there'd be no TV for the rest of the night and for the next 24 hours so you have the choice to either do as you're
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asked or not and you live by the consequences of that choice and that's pretty much you know how we raise the dogs you create an environment rich in reinforcement so that the correct Choice the one you want them to make is the one
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they end up wanting to make but if they choose something that isn't what you want the environment controls the consequences so that you don't have to you know punish them or beat them up with a red up newspaper and what what would be a good example of that in dog
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training I mean and the story of the TV brings to mind a video I watched of you actually I believe it was was helping to train a woman's dog with leave it and covering the food I think you were covering the food with your hand could
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you explain if that's a good example I don't know if it is but could you explain how that works yeah that's um one of our foundational games so we have four games we tell people you know you can rock it with your dog if you get these four games in and the first one is
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the one you described it's called it's your choice and I I I've created my own word and it's just one word it's your choice and we want the dogs to know you're in control of all the good things that happen in your life and and it's just a response cost of Me closing my
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hand around the food so you know you get a handful of of really attractive treats and depending on the dog's food drive like if it was a you know a sight hound a dog that doesn't have a ton of food drive I might get like you know the the
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top level value food I could get steak and cheese and put that in my hand and if it was a a Chow Hound you know like a labrador they just love food or a Shelty you could put kibble in your hand and the dog's going to like paw and bite and
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bark and go crazy they're going to be on a leash so that they don't have access to just go find something else to do but as soon as they stop all that you open your hand it's your choice so your choice was to stop unwanted behavior and my choice was to open my hand and then
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the dog says hey party on I'm going to dive into the food well I didn't like that choice so I'm going to close my hand and this goes back and forth like a tennis match until the dog's choice is just to sit back and stare at the hand
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when it's open and then I pick up a cookie and I feed them and that's the first communication that's clear to that dog I am in control of the good things in my life because if I do what this person wants good things happen and that's the premise for absolutely
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everything we do whether you know I have students who train animals at the Toronto Zoo and and it's exactly the same premise that you you control access to the reinforcement and then and you reward good choices by giving access to
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reinforcement and the thing is with dog owners they don't realize you know when we think about reinforcement they think well I got to go cut up some cheese because I'm training my dog but the there there's really you know there's there's three really big reinforcements
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for our dogs it's the food is obvious toys you throw a ball or a frisbee that's obvious but it's the hidden ones the ones that aren't so obvious that are the ones that get people into trouble so the it's permission to do things so if you're going to the park and your dog's
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pulling you on a leash and and they're chasing a squirrel and you're and you're like okay I got to get rid of this I'm going to take the leash off so and the dog gets this massive reward of getting to chase a squirrel but what you've just
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done with the permission you've rewarded what the behavior you don't want exactly pulling on a leash so that goes on all day long and it's and it's when you have an Awakening to where's we tell our students where's the value where's the
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value for the dog right now and and if you have an unwanted Behavior like pulling on leash you've got to say okay here's what I want let's just get clear this is be real intentional about this is what I want this is what it's going to look like this is what I've got so
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what's between there is a gap of what I have to train and the first thing to identify is where's the value for the dog because dogs they just do what's reinforcing and you just identify where that reinforcement is and start to control it in a way that you give them
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permission for what they want so and if we go back to that dog pulling on a leash you might stand still until the dog came in beside you and then praise them so that they connect oh my action gave me the access to be free and Chase
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so you make that connection that all the value comes through you and you become part of the process instead of the dog and the squirrel being the only two people in the process or two animals in the process and uh you know this is I'm
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it's it's it's been a little bit since I was digging really deep in a lot of these videos uh which were fantastic but is that uh do you call I think in this particular case the sort of um common heel position like the dog to your left the reward zone is that the right term
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right exactly reinforcement zone or reward zone and and if that's what you you think of it that all good things in life happen right there and again pulling on leash is such a pain in the butt for so many people but they don't realize that the dog's just seeking a
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position where we've built a a lot of value for because we give our dogs their dinner and we bend down and put it in front of us we give them a cookie they might be you know standing in front of us or even jumping on us we give them a
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cookie we're sitting in a on the on the sofa and we go to Pat the dog they're in front of us and if you become more intentional about all the good things you deliver happen from the reinforcement Zone from your side bam you have a dog that wants to seek out
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that position MH and you know you mentioned a couple things that I want to underscore just because by my fans have been asking me for my personal experience and I want you to feel free to jump in and be like you know what you
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made a mistake they're doing X for this reason but there are a few things that I I think are worth underscoring so when I was working on at one point for instance uh recall so for for people who don't know that term getting your call your
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dog to come is the easiest way to think of it I suppose but just doing different types of recall and practice at different distances and different uh you know durations and with more distractions Etc but uh at one point I remember I was getting very frustrated
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which doesn't help matters as you know but because Molly just wasn't responding wasn't responding and then I met with this trainer and she looked at my treat bag and she goes what is this and I go it's her favorite kibble she goes she said
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dude it's a crowded bar you got to tip with 20s exactly and so I went I got these uh much higher end you know origin fancy treats and immed like problem solved it was not a train it was it was not a technique issue it was an incentive issue and
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so uh that was embarrassingly obvious in retrospect so I wanted to to mention that and then uh you talked about the three uh sort of reinforces food toys and then this permission right and I guess uh the biggie right and uh I think uh you know one guy who came up when I
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was pulling my audience for folks to pay attention to in the dog training world was um Ian Dunbar and I don't know I'd be curious to hear your your thoughts on him but he uh talks quite a lot about life rewards I think is the way he puts
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it but non food-based uh rewards and I don't know where I got this from maybe it was from you maybe it was from elsewhere but I remember being told early on that I could have sit equal pleas and I was like okay well then let me practice having Molly say
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sit before every type of feeding sit before any type of exit through a door so that I can go out first and then bring her through the doorway uh and just treating sit like please and then granting that permission has worked out
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spectacularly well uh it's it's really been fantastic the other thing that I'd be curious to hear about from you or to hear you elaborate on are kind of prerequisite skills that help all of the other skills so you mentioned it's your
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choice and one variation of that that I found really helpful and I think it's a similar concept but you could correct me is training Molly to give me when in doubt give me eye contact and uh I did that with a clicker which we'll talk about but I would basically hold up a
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treat right in front of her nose when she was sitting down and then move it out to the side she would look at it and then eventually glance back at me and I would click and give her the treat and over time training her to do that so that I could release her out of a out of
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a given position say getting out of a car or something like that she would always check in with her eyes and it's been hugely valuable uh not to mention cute and what are what are some of the other uh you mentioned critical games or uh
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prerequisite skills that that help all of the other types of training they're all games of um where the dog can see that their choices leads to Great reinforcement so you know it's your choice for for those of us in the sport World um you know what you described
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with having the dog look at your face that's something that we want the dog to um look at work so it might be a spot on my body rather than my face because if I'm running agility and I have a dog who's drawn to want to look at my face
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it would get complicated because I'd be tripping over the dog right so um so it but it's you know for for the expectations of a pet owner there's no problem in that at all because you you're building value for a place on your body rather than a value value for
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scanning The Horizon for something right right um so so it starts with that choice game and we get to a point where when we're training a dog we want the the ultimate goal of dog training is the value of what the dog want most of all
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goes through you so there is in the end there is nothing more valuable than you so if if if you start with the hand open and Clos and then you put the cookies on the floor then you could put like bowls of food on the floor and be training
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your dog they wouldn't even think to go and look at the food on the floor because they know that they have to work to earn that and that's what you want you know to be at a and it and it really takes no time at all if you're consistent with your expectations and we
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mooved from there to Crate games which is really the foundation of everything we do and and and it it doesn't matter if you if you never wanted to do a sport with your dog if I never stepped into any ring again crate games is is the
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bomb for me because um it it you know it sounds like it's just getting a dog to um like their crate but it's not it's a model for so many things and and it's giving the dog a a comfort zone if you're going to visit friends or family you can bring that crate along and today
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they've got so many phenomenal popup crates that are softsided that are really convenient I actually throw one in my in my luggage when I travel do you have any do you have any favorite uh brands or models of the popups um I have so many of them I'll
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get back to you on that one Tim okay there is there is one that I really like to when I'm going to Europe because it's so convenient but I honestly have to make sure that they still make it before I give no problem I'll put it in the
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show notes guys you can check that afterwards so I interrupted you though yeah crate games I'd love for you to elaborate on because this was a huge uh Epiphany for me because I grew up with dogs but they were effectively wild animals that lived in my house I
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now I now I now realize I mean just like zero training probably even worse just like confused Savage animals who are loving but really confused the whole time so the crate Molly was the first pup that I had a chance to raise in a uh
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using a crate and it just changed everything uh so i' I'd love for you to elaborate on why that's so helpful and so important well first of all dogs are Dent animals and you you're creating a spot for them anytime you want to chill
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this is your spot no one's going to come bother you in there um so they're comfortable in there because basically you know it's our responsibility number one to keep our dogs safe at all costs and number two as pet owners their next job is to build confidence in that dog
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and I'd like to elaborate more on how when we fail them in that it often leads to aggression um we'll go to into that later but um so crate games we we can do both we give them a place of safety and every time think of a a kid who's
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learning a new skill the better they get the more confident they feel and the more they want to learn and that's exactly what happens with crate games because rather than let's say you're trying to teach your dog to sit in a traditional school they may tell you you
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know either use Corrections or food to get the dog into that position and then if the dog moves you have to go back with your collar and Leash and reposition the dog and keep telling them you know no stay or whatever it is you do but with crate games all you do is
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you watch the dog and you you go to give them a cookie and if as you open the door they get out of their sit you just close the door so there it's goes back to the fuse being unscrewed when we didn't make the right choice with the TV
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that if the dog moved the door just got closed there was no yanking or pushing or yelling from from us it I you don't even have to say anything you just have to close the door until eventually you can open that door and the dog stays in
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a sit and you can feed them and then you grow that to be so many things like you said sitting as soon as I put my hand on the front door all five of my dogs boom they just go into a sip because they know good things will happen if I do that and and it the touching of the door
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just becomes the cue to do the behavior there's no need you know Q people think cues and dogs are verbal sit but cues can be obviously signals but they can just be um any kind of motion like touching the door that means oh yeah this is a good thing that's going to
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happen next so crate games is you know it's just so much so many things to to um to your dog and you can grow layers of understanding from there so if it's um I don't want my dog to jump on my guests when they come in the house bam
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you you and you don't want a big crate in your living room once the dog understands they don't come out when you touch the door you can then throw cookies and toys in front of the the crate and I've seen you've done this with Molly right Tim yeah yeah and then
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and Molly won will stay and then you can reward them and and the permission back to that big reinforcement the permission to get out and Chase the toys or the ball or the the cookie that's on the floor that that's what builds value for
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the dog wanting to stay there and then you just replace your your crate with a nice dog bed which I think my my husband always gives me the gears because we have five dogs and about 40 dog beds around this house you can issue good for your cross training and gymnastics I
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guess exactly I I totally have an issue with I see a nice dog bed and I have to I brought two home from Spain when I was at the World Championships last month oops anyway I digress so now you have a nice looking dog bed in your living room
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and then someone knocks on the door you just touch the door and the dog goes flying into their dog bed and you can open the door your guests don't get jumped on you can you know talk to the UPS guy get your delivery close the door and then you throw your dog a handful of
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cookies because they're doing good things so crate games is just the start where you put foundation foundational layers um for good choices and you keep growing it from there and keep moving on so um that was the second game the third
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one you've already made mention of and that's restraint recalls and you can't do those enough you just you know so I'm sorry what was the name of the second exercise uh the third one or the second one was crate games the third restraint
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restraint recalls so and when I was single this was an awesome way to meet people you go to the park and say could you just hold my puppy while I run away and I'm gonna so you get somebody to hold your puppy by the collar or the shoulders you move out five feet call
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the puppy's name and take off running the dog chases you because dogs are prey animals and they love that chase so we're we're putting their name with we're pairing their name with the condition to run as fast as they can towards us and eventually you make that
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distance bigger and eventually you don't run you just stand still until they get partway to you and then you start running because we want to bleed off the the big trigger of you running for them to come running and you know because I
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don't always want to run when I call my dog's name but if you build this in at first you create a like a a knee-jerk reaction that I hear my name I run and now I might be just standing at the front door and they're still going to run because of all these restraint
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recalls that we've done it's fun you know what you get a little exercise in there and the dogs just love it and you can do it in your backyard you can you if you're by yourself if you're really you know stuck you just wrap your leash
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around a pole and and you kind of move out a little bit and throw the leash when you call the dog's name and start running and if you're a fast runner it's a no-brainer yeah that's that's what I ended up doing uh since there are no
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women in San Francisco uh hence man Francisco uh oops oops hash moving accident up but the the uh device that I didn't of course as a as a dog naive person or training naive person at the time is I didn't realize you could get a training leash that's 30t long or 40
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feet long uh or what is it called a lead maybe I don't know I don't remember the exact lead or leash either either one so so yeah so I had a 30 foot and I could just wrap like you said wrap it around I wrapped it around the kind of leg of a of a f
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bench in the park and it worked out fantastically it was perfect that's great you just want to make sure it's not one of those retractable ones yeah not not retractable just a gigantic like lasso that I have to carry around yeah uh so restraint recalls and then what's
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what's number four and the fourth the fourth one is the collar grab game where anytime you're going to give your dog a cookie around the house anytime you grab the collar first and the dog before you get you know you have the C in your hand
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grab the collar and give the cookie so at the end of a St recall if you're going to give your dog a cookie the first thing you do is grab the collar and then give the cookie and we want to uh classically condition like Pavlov ring the bell the dog would sal sal
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salivate we want to condition in the dog when I reach for your collar good things are happening and we want to do this for two reasons number one if there's danger at any time and you and you're not yourself and you're frantic and you want
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to lunch for your dog you want your dog to not be afraid but say hey this is that game we play every day all day it's awesome I just give him my my collar um and number two if you don't make a habit of that your dogs the most brilliant
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things about dogs and the the way that Evolution has built them is that they are far better at predicting events than we are so they can predict reinforcement and they can predict what they what they decide is punishment so let's say you're
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late for work and your dog's in the backyard and you go to reach for them they're going to dance about two feet outside of your reach and that's and that happens most when you're in the biggest hurry of course but if You' put in the value of the collar grab as soon
33:39
as your hand goes out it just switches it turns a switch in them oh yeah that's my game where I put your my my my collar in your hand and good things happen to me so it's a game that doesn't take any time at all to play you you know if you
33:51
have a dog at 10-year-old dog you could start it today and just anytime you have a cookie or something the dog really values just grab the collar and give it to them and just make sure though that you don't have the food motioning towards them before you grab the collar
34:07
because it's just like that Pavlov's Bell thing you know Pavlov did the the experiment where he rang the bell and presented the food but when he tried it in reverse and presented the food and rang the bell didn't work so he he with
34:20
with every breed of dog he found that within 25 repetitions ring the bell present the food he got an expected response from any dog dog but when he did it in reverse after 200 repetitions dogs didn't even care so really important that you know once they see
34:36
the food all bets are off and you're not conditioning anything so don't move your hand with the food until you've got that collar then you move your hand and that's a really simple simple yet incredibly powerful game and when you really need it you're going to say wow
34:49
thanks Tim Ferris that chick you had on that show she taught me something really worked uh well yeah well you're you're you're this is going to be a very dense and actionable episode so I'm stoked and I'm taking all these notes for things
35:03
that I want to continue to practice with with Molly also the restraint recalls is uh call once uh because I remember uh yes really important because I remember we were trading I think it was text at the time and at some point I asked you a
35:18
question and because I was going through a bunch of your uh different exercises and games and you said in the early days you can work on more than one at a time for example no problem doing collar grab it's your choice and call once all in the same session if you can do three to
35:30
four sessions a day of four to five minutes in length you'll be golden and I think the we we'll come back to the training session length but is call once a relative of restraint recalls or is it a variation it's actually a combination
35:44
of restraint recalls and the collor grab so you it's just a shorter distance and it's a more intense of um you know you can do it by yourself but it's best if you have especially if you have kids this is something you know you want to bring your kids into the training of
35:58
your dog and so you just get a little semicircle and everybody's got a cookie in their hand and somebody calls a dog's name and when the dog's head turns they grab the collar and give them the cookie then the next person calls the dog's
36:10
name grab the collar give the cookie and the dog is learning to give you that head whip response when they hear their name and you're also building in the the grab of the collar it's it's an awesome little thing to do with again you can do
36:21
it by yourself and I would just keep the dog on leash call the name grab the cookie grab the caller sorry um but it's brilliant if you've got if you want to you know maybe a spouse that really doesn't want to be involved with a dog well this is a way that they can see um
36:36
something happening which is really cool and it makes and it helps them to become more a part of that dog's life and it helps the dog um listen you know respond a little bit better to that other person in in the home and uh you you mentioned
36:52
earlier with the restraint recalls uh using the running initially and then removing the running and there's there's a progression in this training is that an example of what you would call shaping Behavior or is there a better is there perhaps a
37:09
different example that you'd use to explain this concept of of shaping Behavior yeah you know everything we do is some regardless of it's and and you know the underlying thing I tell people is it's it's all Behavior whether we're
37:24
doing it with people or we're doing it with dogs and we're just shaping their behavior to have a better outcome for them so whatever it is we're doing when you're allowing the dog to make a choice then you're shaping so that's how I would Define what's shaping it's the dog
37:42
makes a choice and they get a positive outcome um when it could be a negative outcome too you can shape them away from something as well but we uh don't go there but it's the same thing so that's really what shaping is and so what we're
37:56
doing with when with our recalls when we're uh what we're doing is we're taking the Reliance of the prey Instinct away and we're working on the dogs just responding to their name and some people like to say the word come instead of their dog's name I encourage them to
38:11
pick one or the other word and um and make it a magic word so again if you've got kids in the house and you want them to be involved with this you've got to tell the kids they've got to have the magic key in order to be allowed to say
38:24
the dog's name so anywhere around the house they're not allowed use the dog's name because that's how the dogs just learn to to tune it out right they they hear their name a hundred times and then they don't respond if you want a dog to
38:36
respond to their name every time you say it again with the kids tell them you know here's the the treat bowl and and you get a cookie and then you wait until the dog's not paying attention to you say their name and then you can give them a cookie but that's the magic key
38:51
is the cookie and if you don't have a key you can't say the name and I tell them to give them another word like pop po pop you can call the dog pop pop pop unless you have the magic cookie and so you know that that's what what works to
39:02
help build that behavior and so when we get to the restraint recall the dogs's got an understanding of what the name is and they're starting to chase you but you might build up to maybe 30 or 40 feet that you're away and and you just delay a little bit you call the name you
39:19
wait until the dogs may be taking two strides and then you run and then eventually you just ping pong that distance you're you're unpr ictable the dog really doesn't know when you're going to run so their their first response is always to chase because they
39:32
want to catch you up that goes back into that prey drive and you mentioned for instance I think what is a at least a key component for people who view themselves as busy which is the collar grab as one example doesn't take any
39:49
additional time it's it's something that you have the opportunity to do in the course of doing things you're already obligated to do right it is is extremely easy uh and I mentioned earlier that you'd recommended you know in an ideal
40:02
world three to four sessions of four to five minutes in length as opposed to trying to do a marathon 60-minute session with a three-month old puppy or something uh they uh which just for those people wondering doesn't work very well uh the uh the other the I just
40:19
wanted to share a personal experience I'd be curious to hear your thoughts so I had uh along the same lines thinking of things you're already doing try to using the time you're already going to allocate to your dog more intelligently
40:32
I recall at one point I had to take a trip I came back this was pretty early on in having Molly and uh Molly stayed with my girlfriend at the time and I came back and I was working with a local trainer who was great out uh on Long Island and I came back and it felt like
40:46
Molly didn't even know me it was really interesting she was no longer my dog is how I felt and I was really worried about this I was like oh my God I think I've lost Molly she doesn't know who I am and I talked to the trainer she said
40:59
you know what you should try is uh feeding her by hand feed her her Meals by hand and I was like huh okay well yeah I'll give it a shot and so I started uh at the time I still use this and I don't know if you have any recommendations here related to food but
41:14
uh I I was using Stella and chewies tend to use yeah the the the freeze-dried patties I tend to use the the lamb or the rabbit it's a little easier to break up and uh uh so I started walking I would take her outside walk with her and
41:28
I would keep her in the reward zone and feed her this kind of mush by hand and it was just incredible because it's like the the the same roughly the same amount of time it really didn't take very long I was able to develop two things a the bond between uh me and
41:45
Molly just skyrocketed I mean it was really and and the trainer was effectively said he or she who feeds the dogs is the dog is the dog's closest friend I was like okay so I'm going to feed by hand and and also made huge strides forward in getting her to uh
42:02
come to that heel position um which was fantastic so anyway just a just a side note in something that really didn't take very much time at all the other combination that really helped me related to the crate and uh permission was just like you said the
42:20
dog sits you open if it if the dog stands up before being queued you shut the door right and you can train that behavior what I what I did from the very beginning with Molly is I would open up the crate use my hand to get her to uh
42:35
just as a kind of a stay um hand signal to sit until and I I would have the food sort of in front of her and wait for her to make eye contact and gradually increase the duration of that eye contact and then give her permission to to eat the food and before long I mean
42:53
really within the span of probably a week was able to to stop you using the hand signal because she knew she had to be seated and then I could just use a release word to get her to to eat the food that I found extremely helpful uh and still find helpful so we still
43:08
practice that you know a couple things though that you said Tim that I just want to point out um number one um what happened with you and Molly when you came back was a great example of a transfer of value and and you made a comment that
43:23
that he who feeds the dog gets the respect and response of the dog which isn't the case because I never feed our dogs for you know John and I been together for 20 years and he's the only one who ever feeds them and they don't give him the time of day and the reason
43:39
the reason is is there's no transfer value he does nothing he he they don't have to do anything to get that food right they they they you know they can run around and be goofballs and the food still comes so there is no transfer
43:53
through him versus what you did was you had in the reward zone and reinforc her there and that's the magic that's how you get the transfer of value is that it isn't just here's your food and don't you love me it's you know you you're you
44:11
don't give it away for free you've got to make great value of I think there's some old folklore your mother might have told you about that it's the same holds true it's it's they it's got to be earned and that's when the magic starts
44:24
happening that's how you start to build a relationship and you know and it it goes again with with any animal it look look at a kid a kid who has absolutely everything and and doesn't you know they they they don't necessarily want to go
44:37
out and play catch with you versus the the kid who has virtually nothing and really really appreciates the opportunity to come out and play catch with you because it's value through you that helps create a better Bond and it's the same with dogs value coming through
44:52
you that you don't just have you know a lot of people's homes when I used to go in do oneone in people's homes the number one mistake they would made is that the food was always on the floor right so the food it never it never had any association with you whatsoever the
45:05
dog didn't have to work for it they didn't really need you at all so that that's a biggie yeah that's a that's a Super Key Point I've never had food left out ever um and uh so it's it's an event I mean it's and there's an exchange every time
45:22
we do it there is always an exchange uh it's it's because training with people is um I mean dog training should be intentional but most often it's either accidental or reactionary and so it's accidental and that the dog learns how
45:36
to tip over the garbage and get stuff out or it's reactionary and that you see something like the puppy chewing on the slipper or the the puppy you know peeing on the floor the puppy it's a reaction and that's and and if you are intentional which you have been really
45:51
good with Tim being very intentional about what you want the outcome to be then you don't tend to have the same problems and you know I tell people in the whatever 30 years I've owned a dog I've never had one Che a slipper or two furniture or it just doesn't happen
46:07
because I'm so intentional about what I want when I'm raising them so let's let's talk about that and dig into it a little bit because I think it's it's super important and I'd love to hear you uh elaborate on it the the sort of dos
46:19
and don'ts of say getting a puppy or rescue dog I adopted Molly uh out on Long Island how to go about it common mistakes because I remember reading up on there was a I think it was a uh PDF from Ian Dunbar it's kind of uh before you get a puppy and then right after
46:39
getting a puppy and the one of the points I took away and I think it was from his stuff was it's your best bet is to not give the puppy an opportunity to make a mistake it's a lot harder to correct the behavior than to Simply prevent it in
46:57
the first place so bring Molly home guess what no shoes on the floor anywhere for her to chew on this is just the Temptations are not there and but it's the same with it's the same with us right like I um recently started I was going to do this uh kettle bell
47:14
challenge it's I don't know if you've heard about this 10,000 swing kettle bell challenge so that's a lot no I know about kettle bells but 10,000 so there's this challenge going around and I'm not going to do 10 thou I might I might get
47:24
to 10,000 but they want you to do 10,000 in 20 eight days which is not going to happen but I thought I'm going to do um it started with 100 swings a day and then I'm going to go to 200 swings a day but I decided you know what I want to I
47:34
think I've got pretty good form but I videoed myself looked at my form checked it out and then I posted it in a Facebook group that I belong to it's a kettlebell Facebook group dudes like can you give me any input on my form because before you start you know you want to
47:46
make sure you're doing it right because if you do 10,000 repetitions of something you're you're going to be you know creating bad form and it's the same with your puppy you bring that we get we all get one one chance to make a first
47:58
impression with our dogs when we first bring them home whether it's a puppy or a rescue dog you get one chance to make that first impression and if they come in and go wow no rules I'm here at Disneyland let's go um then you're in trouble because they learn to have bad
48:12
form and they keep having bad form and it's more difficult to correct bad form than it is to start with good form right from the beginning and and I see that as the number one problem with people with dog trading is there's this mis mismatch
48:25
of expectations with the people that and in my own my my parents they when we had our family dog you you kind of touched up with your family dog they're almost feral because we just expect that they're going to do what we say and you
48:37
know it's crazy because there was never any actual you know reinforcement put into what we wanted it's just like dude what's wrong with you don't you understand English well no they don't so people people they just expect so much and they haven't really prepared the
48:53
dogs and I I say this to all my students I've been saying this for 25 years our dogs are a reflection of our ability to train so if there's areas that your dog isn't brilliant at if your dog doesn't bring the toy back if they don't come
49:08
when they're called when they're maybe 50 feet away chasing a deer then that shows they're just a reflection and they're trying to help us be better dog trainers and you either take that information or you ignore it and I've got on my YouTube page I've got this um
49:23
video called The Journey it's probably one of my it's got like 300,000 hits on it and it's all about yeah and it's all about that that our dogs are here to teach us and if you don't open your eyes to that you're going to miss these
49:35
lessons and chances are your next dog is going to try and teach you the same lessons it's it's not a coincidence and so our dogs just reflect what we're good at and you and you look at that and go okay well I'm GNA I'm going to fix this
49:47
you have a dog that you know goes to the bathroom on the floor all the time then it's reflecting to you that you haven't made it clear that there shouldn't be options here and um so when when people get a new dog I tell people it's the the first 24 hours is
50:02
critical and I would and I and I and I intending to put this on our website there a free download of what you should be preparing for the first 24 hours but you know the obvious things is you should get a crate and you should get really good quality dog food and um
50:16
educate education you know and again be intentional find out what dog training resonates with your core beliefs with how you want um your animal to be raised and and you know somebody was telling me yesterday somebody I really respected
50:31
was saying how you know he was getting his friend's dog he was training it by scaring it and I'm like dude do you do that to a four-year-old kid like is that really how you want an animal to respond to you to be terrified of you so there's
50:46
just some things that you should be prepared with um a really good quality chewy for the dog something that um that you know when they if they did happen to chew on something you didn't want to them to them to chew on you would just replace it with what you do want them to
50:58
chew uh you know and a toy tug toy so these are just all the things you should be preparing education being the number one thing and a crate I would say would be number two and then for the first 24 hours um you know the I'll just go
51:12
through if you if you want me Tim I'll go through what I do when I get a new puppy sure that first 24 hours so you know the first thing I do is I play I play tug with them so I get a nice long fluffy tug and I create the first game of choice right there so I'll tug then
51:26
I'll pull it out of their mouth and I'll put it a few inches away from them and they dive on it and they tug and I pull it out of their mouth and I put it maybe a little further and they dive on it and I'll do that a few times and then the
51:36
next time I won't put it down I'll put it up against my body and they'll bounce at my body and they'll bite at my body and as soon as they start stop bouncing or biting then I put it back down and tell them they can get it and so we're
51:47
building an interaction of choice right from the first moment they come into my home and so we get that puppy played out and you know obviously give them a drink water put them in their crate let them sleep and you go back between playing
51:58
feeding and sleeping before whatever sessions you have and we touched on you know 3 to 5 minutes and and then maybe two hours before you're going to go to bed you would have your last one of these sessions and then they would get another drink and then they wouldn't get
52:12
access to water again and one of the important things that um you know I have never had a puppy wake me up in the middle of the night past the first night and some of them don't even do it that first night but it just never happens
52:23
and I talk to people who they have seven and eight-month old puppies still wake waking them up in the middle of the night and so you know this Pro this protocol that I have for the first 24 hours you know it it it really works well um one of the things that I do is I
52:36
take a chair from our kitchen and I put the crate on the chair and I put the crate right beside my face on the bed so I'm sleeping and my breath is blowing into that puppy's crate you can even get these toys that create a heartbeat like
52:50
the mother's heartbeat and I think those are are are great too if you wanted to go that route and put it right in the crate with a puppy if the puppy wakes me up I this is the only time when a puppy tells me I need to go potty outside that I don't make any kind of interaction
53:05
with them so I open the crate there's no crate games I just lift them out I put the leash I actually clip the leash right around their collar and I don't care if you have a fenc in backyard put the leash on the puppy and I take the
53:18
puppy out they do their business I say nothing to them I pick them back up in my arms take the leash off put them back in the crate so the mistake people people make is they go oh the puppy's really energetic at two in the morning so I'll just do a little bit to Tire him
53:31
out oh hell no reinforcement builds behavior and if you're telling the puppy uh play session at 2 am happens every night you're gonna get woke up at 2 am every night so any other time when I take that puppy outside it's always on a
53:46
leash so that I can help to create you know what I don't want you pee in my garden I'd like you to pee in the back corner where the where the trees are that's where your potty area and your dog's going to just you're you're going to be able to clean up the same place
53:58
all the time because the the dogs grow up learning this is where they want me to do my business so they're always on a leash and the other thing about always on a leash is let's say you end up going to a hotel which I do if your dog hasn't
54:13
been raised to do their business on a leash they're not going to do their business on a leash and so you're going to be walking up and down in this hotel on that little strip of grass out in front trying to get them to pee and they're not going to because you haven't
54:26
conditioned it from the time they were babies so um when you take them out always you're quiet until they start doing their business and I'm personally I like to give that a name have you done that Tim with Molly give it a name when they do their business uh yeah I said uh
54:42
you mean yeah potty was my was my was my was my go-to y so and it's good because if you again are taking a puppy to visit family or friends you want them to uh you know empty their bladder before they into this house so if you condition a
54:58
word and it's again it's just like Pavlo you wait until they start peeing and then you just say that word really quietly in a way that doesn't disturb them right so if it's potty it's you to say potty potty potty and you start to
55:10
condition that word with an act of releasing their bladder and it's they get reinforcement because it feels better because they've released their bladder but if you want to give them a little cookie for peeing outside after that's cool too but on leash in you know
55:21
in an area you want them to to do their business in and you just get into this routine of potting on leash and playing and feeding and then you have a puppy that has you know we have a one time to make our first impression and our first
55:35
impression is all good things come through you and um you know and when I and I don't I I have this rule don't wake the mama at night mama likes to sleep don't be awaking to Mama at night and I and I don't I just don't get woke up so it's awesome for me I'm not cranky
55:50
in the morning because my puppy woke me up and certainly if you know if they are sick that's fine have exped of diarrhea whatever they they can wake me up and I will always get out with get up with a dog who wants to get out but I won't
56:02
interact with them in any way and that's a biggie that you not make that re reinforcement don't be reinforcing it so I also with the potty just a couple of notes on this because I've had a lot of fans ask me about potty training uh which went very well with Molly uh you
56:18
know she's probably like many dogs and many humans uh good at some things not great at others I take full accountability but the the training went very well and this I think is also a good area in which to explain the downsides of negative reinforcement or
56:36
yelling at your dog putting its head in a mess if it goes to the bathroom in the house uh but suffice to say I I used a clicker also um and I think we can we can actually maybe just give a brief explanation of what that is remember you
56:52
once described it to me as an audio scalpel which I thought was a really cool way to look at it uh so I would say potty while she was going potty and then as soon as she finished cuz I didn't want to interrupt her uh as soon as she
57:06
finished like the millisecond she was done click and then treat and uh I became obsessed with clickers for many different things uh can you explain to people what a clicker is and uh I was introduced to it I think first through I want to say Karen prior and don't shoot
57:25
the dog which which really enjoyed also background in training dolphins and marine mammals could you explain to people what a clicker is and what they are good for and what they're not good for so it is a a marker in in the Marine
57:42
Mammal world we call it a bridge so a bridge between marking what we really like and when we can get that reward to the dog so in a perfect world when a dog did something we wanted we could magically make food appear right in front of their face but that isn't
57:59
possible so we need to bridge um for the dog between the time of when they did something amazing and when we we can get that food to their face um and I know um friend um a good friend of mine Greg lanus who's won gold medals at the Olympics he said um they they have used
58:18
it for divers as well to Mark when they're in their spin that that was okay your arms were in the right spot boom so the diver can hear and start to know you know get that feedback because it's really difficult to point to pinpoint so
58:31
it's exactly the same thing as if you were you know clicking a dolphin for doing a spin in midair it's like that's the time that I like it so just a just a quick Interruption I apologize for those people who don't know Greg lugan is's
58:44
second act he's a competitive dog trainer right he is a hand he's a Handler and and that's how we met Greg was a student of mine for many many years and now we're we're great friends and uh I'm yeah he's an awesome guy and um and he still helps with us diving too
58:59
so it's really cool so he brings his what he knows about dog training and brings it into the diving world so so clicker isn't is awesome but it is a a conditioned reinforcer it's telling the dog it's a promisory note that something
59:13
is going to happen that's amazing and there's a lot of different things you can use like you can if you have a a pen click you can use the top of a pen clicking um you can even you know use a word yes is the word that I use most often the difference between a clicker
59:27
and the word yes is yes can be judgmental so it's not necessarily the best thing meaning it's not it's not as consistent you mean as right because you can say if the dog did something amazing you might say yes and if the dog you
59:42
were like oh it was okay yeah yeah yes so where clicker is a clicker and it doesn't have any judgment and it's just marking that was good you're going to get a reward and when I but I still use the word yes but yes isn't always followed up with food a clicker is
59:59
always followed up with a toy or something the dog really has high high value for and um and a clicker basically it's using classical conditioning so it goes back to ring a bell present the food instead of ringing a bell we are clicking a clicker and and it's best for
1:00:16
behaviors that are really um that you can you want to isolate a small H slice of a behavior so for example a recall it's harder to click for a recall unless you're going to click the moment they give you the head turn but you don't
1:00:31
want to just click that moment in time or it becomes like musical chairs where the dog turns but they don't move because they're waiting the music might stop here because you always clicked right here and so you know you a clicker
1:00:46
as I said to you is a scalpel and there you know there's some great tools that sometimes you need a skelo like if I'm teaching my dog to to wave put their hand their paw up above their their ear then I would use a clicker for that because I want the height of how high
1:01:00
can you reach that paw I'll click that um and but sometimes you know if you I I use example if you're going to have brain surgery you you you want your your surgeon to use a a laser and that's what a clicker is it's really pinpoints but
1:01:14
you wouldn't want that surgeon to use a melon baller and sometimes a melon baller will do for us yep and that is the word yes so there are times where you can just Mark yeah that your yes that was good thanks for bringing that ball back yes good dog other times you
1:01:28
really want something that gets the message across super clearly that this is a slice of the behavior that I love and that's when you use a clicker and uh how do you feel about using a clicker directionally and what I mean by that is if a dog does something partially
1:01:45
correctly for instance you're trying to get your dog to roll over let's just say and so you start with hypothetically a treat and you kind of whine nose back towards their tailbone to get them to roll over but they only do it a quarter of the way would you
1:02:01
click to encourage them to continue in that role uh or is that something that you would only reserve for the completed action no I would definitely use it for part um to to start create Crea a behavior I would do parts of it for sure
1:02:20
and um oftentimes I wouldn't like I don't use the cookie as a lure um but I would and not that I would have a problem with anybody doing it at all um it but if you a lot of the times like let say you were getting your dog to spin in a circle you know similar to
1:02:35
Rolling on ground but if if they started turning one and they started going part way and you click that they're likely going to carry on the rest of the way to get the cookie right and so you're actually clicking you're marking that's
1:02:46
what I like and then they're coming around to get the cookie so it finishes the spin and you get the spin a lot faster by using that clicker instead of just you know luring the spin all the way around around same with if you were wanting to teach your dog to back up
1:02:59
we're going to get some good party tricks for people here you could take like a a a piece of kibble on your kitchen floor that's the best combination for teaching the dog to back up and you know you would you would wait that the dog make shifts or weight
1:03:11
backwards you would throw the cookie between the front paws and then you and then the dog would look down for the cookie and you could click that and then guess what they're going to look down for another cookie and you click that
1:03:22
and now you're clicking them for backing up and they you just wait till back up even further and you just keep rolling the cookie we call that about placement of reinforcement is just so powerful when you're trying to shape behaviors
1:03:32
it's you know the we want the behavior to be assoc the reinforcement to be associated with what the dog is doing therefore if for example if you're trying to teach your dog to lay down and they laid down and you clicked them and you gave them a cookie when they got up
1:03:46
they would still learn to lay down but the placement of reinforcement is such that it delays that learning it would take you longer and if if if you got the cookie in while they're in the down that would be much better right and this
1:03:59
actually relates to what i' mentioned earlier about potty training and why punishment can backfire because you have um and I I'd love to hear you elaborate on this but just based on my understanding for instance with Molly um I grew up in a house where it's like the
1:04:15
dog went to the bathroom it wouldn't be like shove the dog's face in the poo or anything like that but it' be like bad dog bad dog right and then put the dog out the dog would have this shameful look and then hopefully they learned something and of course they didn't
1:04:27
learn anything um I mean eventually they ended up going to the bathroom outside because they just preferred to be outside but the the the the point being uh as it was explained to me you know if number one you're probably not going to
1:04:39
catch the dog in the act so there's going to be a temporal dislocation right there'll be the the there will the dog may not put causality together and number one number two if you just terrify your dog they're just going to find a nice quiet secret corner to go to
1:04:57
the bathroom in and on top of that you we were talking about getting a dog to back up the benefit of the positive reinforcement and you can see this it's amazing to watch Molly who's really the first dog I've trained ever uh to offer
1:05:13
behaviors right you want the dog to try to figure out the puzzle and so sometimes when Molly knows I want something and she lights up she enjoys training uh and she'll try seven different things it's like no we're not doing Paul no we're not and spin no no
1:05:26
no and she'll slowly try to figure it out and deduce it you want your dog to do that so that you can then reward when the dog does the right thing right or does something approximating the right thing and moving in the right direction
1:05:38
if you terrify your dog they're just going to opt out right I mean they just they don't offer the behaviors and then you have nothing to reward so it becomes a lot harder to use a bridge or a marker to use any type of conditioning
1:05:51
classical or operant conditioning um to connect the dots for the dog uh so the the and I remember reading this somewhere it was from a u I think it was a police trainer actually who said I don't have anything against negative reinforcement or punishment if it were
1:06:10
the most effective I just haven't found it to be the most effective and so the argument was not so much a moral one in that case although you could make that argument it was a practical one um and I don't know if you have any anything else
1:06:23
you'd like to add to that since you brought up police officers I have you know this great analogy with punishment and reinforcement and it's um being the punishment of being pulled over to get a police a speeding ticket which I'm sure you've never had a speeding tiet you're
1:06:38
just far too nice a guy but those of us who've actually had speeding tickets um we that's a punishment right it's a little bit of cash out of the wallet and in I don't know how it works in the States but we get these demerit points
1:06:49
and if you get too many you have to go in and get an interview in the whole nine yards so it's a punishment but it's it's an for those people wondering you are in Canada correct yeah yeah I'm in Canada and so um does it does it change the targeted Behavior the targeted
1:07:06
behavior is we don't want you to speed again well clearly it doesn't because there are some of us who do speed again but punishment all punishment has Fallout and the Fallout is it changes a different part of the behavior unrelated
1:07:20
to the targeted one so the Fallout of getting a speeding ticket is anytime you you see a parked car on the side of the road what do you do you immediately assume it's an un unmark police car and you take your foot off the gas even if you're not speeding you have a a
1:07:34
visceral response of this is the Fallout of the punishment that I've earned and if a police officer pulls in behind you and you're driving in the city even if you're not doing anything wrong you know what are your emotions you know you get
1:07:47
a little tense you get your perfect driver's ed 10:00 and 2:00 uh positioning on the wheel and you check your and you start driving by donut shops and Hope that the police officer will go somewhere else and you're you're just it's not a comfortable feeling
1:08:00
right and and then and then if you take that so so so punishment you know can't alter Behavior but punishment can suppress it so what it does is when you know there's a police officer there you will not speed and that's the same with punishing a dog for getting on the couch
1:08:21
or getting in the garbage or pooing in the wrong spot you've suppressed that behavior to the point where they won't do it when you're around or they'll come when they know you can get them but when you're outside of your Arms Reach they
1:08:33
won't because punishment has suppressed the behavior of them being naughty when you can catch them but not when you can't so punishment in order for punishment to work it has to be catastrophic it has to be life altering so I use the example in of of let's say
1:08:50
you're you're speeding and you get pulled over and and you try to you know explain to the police officer you try to get out of that Tech oh I was listening to the music and it was really cool and they go well you were you know you're
1:08:59
going 10 kmers over the speed limit so um you have to be punished and they open the back of your car and they take out your dog and they shoot and kill your dog so it's catastrophic and um if you if you ever like once you got out of prison for killing the police officer
1:09:17
you know you got to think would you ever drive again because of this punishment like would you and if you had to drive for work would you drive with a dog in the car and if you had to drive like the the dog to the vets would you speed there's just
1:09:30
no way you would speed you'd probably go like 10 kilometers an hour down the road because you would be terrified and you'd probably be sobbing the whole way because you're driving with a dog in the car and you don't want to get in trouble
1:09:43
and then what if a police officer pulls up beside you or behind you at the now you would just be enraged and you'd probably break into this Hy hysterical you know it it would just be it catastrophic punishment has catastrophic uh fallout mild punishment has mild
1:09:58
Fallout but neither of them fix the targeted Behavior now let's say if you're driving and um you're driveing the speed limit a police officer pulls you over the lights go on and and they go hey uh we notice you go the speed limit and uh you know we're we're
1:10:12
honoring model student uh model citizens this week and here's $2,000 and they get back in their car and you go wow okay and then a week or two later you get pulled over again hey you notice you stopped a full stop at that stop sign uh
1:10:26
here $400 in your pocket and this goes on and you get a couple more rewards and then do you speed again you you if you knew you had to be at work at 9: and it takes you 15 minutes to get there you don't leave at 10 to 9: anymore you
1:10:40
leave it like at 7:30 so you can you know tour around the streets and look for police officers to show them how good you are and if a police officer pulled in behind you then would you get all re clamped and and you know have this visceral no you'd be like dude hey
1:10:55
it's me like you'd have this amazing resp response to seeing a police officer near you and that's what reinforcement does for our dogs and that's the the difference between it being effective and it not being effective and and that's why I I tell people no matter
1:11:11
what it is you're trying to create reinforcement is the answer and if you have a problem that you can't fix it's because there's some incidental reinforcement out of your control that's either happening in the environment where the dog is you know you're asking
1:11:24
them to come and they don't come and they end up catching a jack rabbit instead massive kudos for them big time reinforcement right so you know you that the the reinforcement is there when the dog isn't doing what they what you want
1:11:37
them to do it's just out of your control and you have to you know bring that back in which is why it's always better to do it right the first time and have a plan but it doesn't matter how old the dog is you know the old you know can't teach a
1:11:48
dog new tricks that's crap um you absolutely can start with a dog of any age we had the oldest we've ever had in our class is 17 somebody from uh Jersey brought their 17-year-old dog up to learn how to how to shape and it was awesome and they absolutely can do it so
1:12:03
no this is a great story and I want to tie it into perhaps a question that some people listening might ask which is okay Ferris well if you're not uh chastising your dog for taking a dump on your kitchen floor what what the hell are you doing
1:12:18
and uh number one is coming back to and feel feel free to interject at any point here but number one is just like I removed the shoes uh so that my dog my puppy at the time wouldn't shoe on the shoes and develop that as an incentive right a a
1:12:35
uh reinforcer uh she was very confined in the beginning number one we used I used a crate all the time uh and I I think a lot of people suffer uh they they want to be extremely nice in in their minds in the short term and they they they
1:12:55
sacrifice a lot of potential long-term rewards for the dog and for the family by not using say a crate early on um so number one Molly was spending a lot of time in the crate but she was also when she was outside of the crate always
1:13:12
within eyesight and in say one room she was not allowed to wander the house and uh the the the times that I did uh find her say peeing on the floor and it happened a few time happened a few times I would I would immediately pick her up walk her out pick her up walk her
1:13:30
outside put her where I wanted her to pee and then click and reward so it was that's it and it was really not giving her not being a bad teacher in the sense that I'm giving her a million in one opportunities to make a mistake I just
1:13:47
did not give her that many opportunities and I don't know if this is a is a is a accurate rule of thumb but in someone had told me you know a puppy can hold his or her bladder for about an hour for every month of age I don't know if that's true or not but I I just kept
1:14:04
that in mind so I was like okay I'm going to take her out every 3 hours every four hours every five whatever it might be and that is when she knows it's time to pee because I've rewarded her and trained her to do that and uh the
1:14:16
other thing I did was very early on and this took some finagling because I I really wasn't experienced with any kind of shaping or uh clicker use at that point but I I bought bells that hung from the door so that she could paw or nose the bell and teach me that or tell
1:14:37
me that it was time to go outside and I just began that process by every time we were going to go outside on the three-hour Mark or the 4 Hour or the 5 hour I would tap it myself and then open the door and eventually she totally got
1:14:50
it and started nudging it herself and that was that was a happy day uh and you could you could have even just shaped that behavior as a separate Behavior teaching them to paw at the Bell you know that and and and and and do continue to do what you did like ring
1:15:05
the bell before you before you went out and and I mean it just would have been a fun game there's um there's a um I don't remember when it was it was in San Diego Zoo there was a uh a drill and it had and it was like it's one drills are I guess like one of the
1:15:24
most dangered species on the world you know the ones with the big long can9 teeth the big 3-inch teeth oh yeah the mandrel baboons yeah yes and um it had diabetes but it was the only male in the San Diego Zoo and one of the you know I
1:15:38
think like a handful of males left in the world and it wasn't a diabetes that was genetic so they wanted to you know give it these insulin shots and um it got to the point like they're powerful animal so they would use a crowd gate to
1:15:49
get them in a corner and give them the needle every day right well it's just a big creature and a tiny little needle but it was you're trying to force me to do something so it got to the point where he was injuring some of the zoo stuff and I think if you look up Gary
1:16:03
priest I think was the trainer that I heard you know that that worked through this process um when I was at a work Ms are scary scary baboons strong strong really scary and so so Gary all that he did and you know similar to the Bell
1:16:16
thing he what he did was he created a um like a shoot a tube a metal tube attached it to the to the to the baboon's um cage shaped him to put his arm through the tube for treats and then they put a rod at the end of the AR of the of the tube and so he would put his
1:16:36
arm through the tube and hang onto that rod and that flexed his arm so when they wanted to take blood they could take blood and they could give in a m in a matter of weeks you know they have this baboon who's loving the game of giving
1:16:49
blood and getting his insulin every day that's amazing so you know you can you can shape anything it saved the baboon's life and um probably a couple of zoo workers lives too um you shaping behavior is is is it's just so it's far more cooperative and the other thing
1:17:08
about it is it it creates far more opportunities for the dog because when punishment doesn't work which it won't long term you end up that dog ends up living a life of restriction so they don't get to go off leash at the park uh they don't get to have freedom
1:17:25
of running you know living in the house um and you know when when by the time if you do what you did and have the dog in a in a crate the puppy in a crate or the dog when you first get them and then what we do is we also we call it the
1:17:37
gated community so you can get an X pen they're called x pens a lot of the confirmation showd dog people use them they're they're like a little um three or four foot high uh pen that you can put up in your kitchen and when you're
1:17:50
supervising the dog but you say you're cooking supper so you're supervising but not really you can throw a couple toys in there and you're cooking supper and you can watch and then if you have to leave the room or go outside then the puppy can go back in the crate so
1:18:01
they're still in a in a a smaller area so they don't have access and people think oh I want them to be my family pet well when you have a baby you keep them in a play pen you don't like let them crawl all over the house you don't let
1:18:14
them play play with the silverware exactly and it's about when the baby can make good decisions for themselves then you don't have to confine them so much and this exactly the same for our dogs right you you set them up to make good choices and that gives them the
1:18:31
opportunity to earn a life without restriction and by not doing that that dog doesn't live as full of life and you are sentenced to management for the rest of that dog's life when you go outside you have to put the garbage on the on
1:18:44
the counter because a dog might get into the garbage and you you can't leave any um you know food around or they'll rip into the food and they you know so it's a life of management you you have to make the latch is on the gate in the backyard because the dog once they get
1:18:57
out they're gone down the street and and so life of management for you which is a ton more work which leads to a life of complete restriction for that dog which is sad because you know what they deserve to have as much joy in their life as they can get because they're
1:19:10
awesome totally and I get asked by some of my friends for instance because from their vantage point and this is not me saying this is true uh across the board because you have a different you have a different Benchmark as someone who's a professional who
1:19:29
trains competition dogs and so on but a lot of my friends who have basically had the types of dogs that I did Growing Up animals who live in your house and maybe they sit and they probably don't go to the bathroom in the house anymore but besides that like all
1:19:46
bets are off so they see Molly and they're like oh my God that's the best trained dog I've ever seen because we can do some fun stuff like I can have her go from heel and like through my leg and do a little spin around and kind of
1:19:57
you know rotate different directions and She'll follow the heel and all this kind of stuff the decorative stuff right and uh I just said and I'd be curious to hear your opinion on this but I said you know if I look back at what I did it all it took was about 3 months
1:20:13
maybe even less of doing two or three very short like 5 to 10 minute sessions a day that's it that's all it and doing the stuff that doesn't take any extra time sit for please anytime Molly wants something to go out of the door if it's
1:20:30
uh especially for anything safety related right so she doesn't go charging out of a car or something I always go through doors first right that was one of the protocols and it's like well you're going to do that many times a day
1:20:41
so you're going to and that's just in the course of your day but it was it was maybe two two three sessions a day and and I really feel like if you get it right in the first 3 months you're kind of set I mean you can't just slap off but it's it's amazing I guess my
1:20:57
shameful confession is you know I'm not doing a ton of training with Molly anymore but because I just set aside and guess what people like you probably do need a couple of 5 to 10 minute breaks yourself anyway uh it was not that hard
1:21:13
and if PE if you can't afford to put in that time you probably shouldn't get a dog right I mean it's absolutely uh and uh that's that's uh that that's been my experience I wanted to ask a couple of questions so the first is one of the things that I experimented with uh and
1:21:31
ultimately the room was small enough that I could keep an eye on her without it but instead of using an xen which is a gated community you talked about which a lot of people seem to have used very very successfully I experimented with
1:21:43
tethering so using uh a say a short leash or uh some people use these uh supposed cords of sorts to keep your dog attached to you as you walk around the house or whatever what is your opinion of of that approach not a fan because it's removing choice
1:22:01
and I love to give the dogs choice so um you know it it's a difference between trying to create the bond because you become accustomed to being with me all the time or creating that Bond because they're inspired to want to be beside
1:22:18
you all the time and and you know so so that's the reason that i' I've not been a fan of that uh the other thing is I you know what I I go to the bathroom five dogs want to go to the bathroom with me my dogs follow me everywhere and so that that relationship and that kind
1:22:32
of a you know phenomenal bond is there with all of my dogs and even like I have a 17y old and I have a one and a halfy old and it doesn't matter it's still very very strong the other thing I move so much like it would it would just they'd be underfoot all the time so you
1:22:48
know the big reason though for me is it comes back to I want to train my dog in environment based with choice so that they have the choice to just hang out um with in their their exen and then I'll do things like I have um I'll have my
1:23:02
expen in my office and it's there's a flight of stairs to go into the kitchen and so I'll walk into you know take them I'll walk the puppy down into the kitchen and I get to a dog bed and this is this would be like a you know a three-month old puppy and I'll just
1:23:15
stand there by the dog bed and I'll wait and the puppy will offer to go in I'll throw cookies as and I'll keep throwing cookies as I'm making my way across the kitchen to get my water and then I'll throw throw cookies all the way back and
1:23:27
then I'll give them a release word permission to leave and come with me again so it's like those are all choices that lead up to this phenomenal relationship that I have with my dog that um it's not because you have to it's because you want to and you know
1:23:42
anytime we have a choice in life do we hear the alarm get off go off at at Monday morning at nine o'clock and you have to go to work and suddenly you go like I think I have a sore throat I might have a sore throat but if the
1:23:54
alarm goes off at 6:30 in the morning because you have a hockey game on Saturday morning boom you're out of bed done because one is you have to and one is you want to and I want to inspire my dogs to always want to no matter what it is and and so I get dogs like even my
1:24:08
Terriers if they could be out chasing a squirrel they might be within a mouthful of of catching them and I'll just say we're going this way and boom they'll stop on a dime and come back because they've always had those choices in life
1:24:20
and and those choices have been layered so that they always want to do what I want and uh so a couple of other things that I'd love to get your take on uh I feel like I found these things useful but I'd like to get your take because I don't
1:24:34
want to recommend them but they they seem to be useful for you so one was not so much variable reinforcement schedule that we could get into that but that might be a rabbit hole that is round two on the podcast yeah exactly but I did do
1:24:49
uh particularly with recall practice jackpotting right so like like once or twice a day just randomly instead of getting one treat it'd be like boom you're getting 10 treats or whatever it might be and uh do you feel like that is a valuable practice at points or or how
1:25:12
yeah where it's something that I will do but it it is science has proven it has zero value in training and and sometimes it will actually hurt your training but you know what it makes me feel good and so even though I know that I will still
1:25:28
do it like if my dog does something exceptionally well oh hell I'm all in it's you know what I'm jackpotting that but here's here's what the science has proven so there's a couple by the name of Bob and Mary and Bailey and they were
1:25:39
uh my mentors Mar and passed away and Bob's still an awesome friend he just turned 80 today actually and they they they made a living instead of being scientists who um you know were in a laboratory and playing with dolphins they're Liv Ood was based on training
1:25:56
animals for the armed horses for Espionage remember this yeah like pigeons cats every 1500 different species of animals they trained Phenom we could do a whole podcast talking about was what was the last the last name of the couple again
1:26:14
Bailey and actually Mary and Bailey uh she was a a graduate student of BF Skinner and so yes the skner Box phenomenal yeah pH phenomenal work that they did and so every their you know their their putting food on the table was dependent upon getting the science
1:26:32
right and so many of the people that we would talk about as being you know Founders and really having big influence in in animal training were teaching at a university these two were in the trenches taking notes like they their livelihood they they had to do this
1:26:50
right and so um like their research is phenomenal on all different aspects of training and um so they found that it actually absolutely did no value and they tried it with all different animals had no value in training and there was
1:27:03
another woman I I don't know if she ever finished her PhD but she was doing a PhD on jackpotting and dogs and what she found and you may find this if you you play around with this one Tim that it increases the variability of response so
1:27:17
let's say you were uh trying to teach your dog to back up and you do what I did suggested and you throw the cookie between their and you click for that you click for that and then all of a sudden you get like two or three really good steps and you jackpot that well what you
1:27:29
will find is the dog won't go right back to backing up they'll start throwing waving and and and it creates an a overarousal state with a dog and so they won't go back to the thinking State of offering you the same behavior knowing all that I still do it but like I just I
1:27:45
get excited and I so you know it's it's more for me than it is for the dog and whatever and uh Bob Bailey I'm looking at some notes I took a lot of notes the first time we got on the phone uh and I really still want to do this he does the
1:28:01
uh chicken training classes chicken camps now can you explain why this is important and and I think there's a quote that I read I'm blanking on this there another trainer they said unless you've had to train a chicken you shouldn't be allowed to have a
1:28:15
child yeah that's true I can't remember who said that but that is definitely I have heard that quote chicken Camp is something that Bob and Maran um started up many years ago and uh I went through some of their early programs when they
1:28:28
were teaching and it was amazing just to listen to Mary and lecture she was so it was you know you did it was five days and you did a little bit of training and little bit of lecture and they picked the chicken because they're a they're um
1:28:41
a phenomenal model of behavior they're super easy to train and um you can and and you can see responses immediately immediately like it's it's very black and white with chickens and there's no emotional attachment and you use a little measuring cup to deliver the
1:28:59
reinforcements just boom boom and um it it covers so many things it covers the mechanics of of training and you just think about training in a completely different way um once you've been through chicken camp and I was actually talking to Bob just two days ago he told
1:29:14
me because he he he stopped doing the chicken camps he's going to be doing a cruise very soon and um and where he's going to be talking doing lectures and then he's open up another chicken Camp he he pretty much retired but he does
1:29:27
work with uh the armed one of the Armed Forces in one of the Scandinavian compan countries now so fascinating fascinating guy he was up at our place for uh three weeks this summer and just you know he would just have anybody on my team just
1:29:41
you know God Smack because listening to his stories about what they were able to do with you know whether it be um you know training a sea lion to swim under the US ships looking for a diver that might want to be putting explosives on
1:29:56
the bottom of a ship and the Sea liines would be swimming with a a leg clamp and if there's any diver in the water that sea line they could swim faster than the divers and they would have a leg clamp on the on the diver and the diver would
1:30:08
be up on the deck like just little things that amazing amazing things um that they train cats to go through airports and back in the 50s 60s they had this project where um they had the cats had a clear implant and they would they would control where the cats would
1:30:25
go with um high frequency noises and when there was a conversation they wanted to listen to they would get the cats turn right turn left Sit Stay and it would you know transmit this conversation and it was just amazing amazing stories of uh they turn out
1:30:42
lights wait wait hold on I'll let you finish that and I have a question uh about well actually the question is why why has this not been made into a Hollywood movie yet but wait they trained they trained cockroaches to do
1:30:52
what they a roach to turn out a light so the thought was if they needed somebody to go into a room that needed to be dark they would put the cockroach in and it turned on I think actually Marian did that as her part of her PhD if I'm not mistaken but um amazing
1:31:10
amazing big cockroach uh that's terrifying he has a he has a video you can grab Tim it's called patient like the Chipmunks and it and it's got a documentation of some of their experiments or some of the work they did all right patient like the
1:31:25
Chipmunks uh and the question about the uh the chicken training is that is it most valuable because you can't because the chickens do not respond to negative reinforcement just doesn't work like you you can't do anything they'll fly away
1:31:42
you you you are at the mercy of pure Behavior you can observe behavior and if you get your mechanics wrong you'll have a chicken in your face because if you aren't good about getting the food in and getting the food out they will shape your behavior and it and it's it's
1:31:58
basically like dog behavior but it's intensified so with dogs they'll do the same thing but it might take you a month to figure out what's going on and you know I always I always tell people with any relationship with with two animals one is a trainer one is a trainee and
1:32:14
with a chicken they will be your trainee in a heartbeat if you're not quick about what you're doing trainer they'll be they'll be your trainer you mean they'll be your trainer they'll train you to you know put the cookies the the food out
1:32:26
faster for them like they their their responses will shape you and it's the same with the dogs you know one of us is a trainer and one of us is the trainee and if you aren't intentional about what you want then you'll get a dog people
1:32:38
will say my dog is stupid or stubborn or and it's it's not your dog's just brilliant and they actually have trained you in the way that they wanted I mean it was not like they're conniving and thinking up at night looking in a book on what they can train you to do but
1:32:51
they they recognize patterns of reinfor enforcement so fast that they will get what they want and then they then you what you see is oh this dog is stubborn oh hell no this dog has figured out that they can shape you and always one
1:33:08
person's a trainer and one person's training let me give you an example um when John and I uh first moved in together one of my Jack Russells had this routine that didn't bother me but I drove him nut so when you're starting to feed dinner she would run up your back
1:33:23
making Terrier noises as you were putting out the food right sounds a little unnerving I I didn't even think about it and so when John took over feeding the food the dogs it drove him crazy he didn't want this Terrier running up his
1:33:38
back and making all these monkey noises so I thought I'm a clever person I don't want to have to go back to doing that chore so I have to stop this behavior in the dog so I just shaped her she was a little you know 10 pound dog I shaped her to jump up on a kitchen chair
1:33:54
whenever anyone in went in the kitchen to either prepare human food or prepare dog food and um so that was her gig you went in the kitchen you could go in the kitchen it was fine but if you started preparing food she'd jump on a chair and
1:34:06
at the time we lived in this house with a pine floor and it so the floorboards were a little uneven and so anytime I was cutting carrots or whatever I'd throw our cookie over on the chair and but if I was in a hurry and I didn't notice it what she would do is she would
1:34:21
walk around on the chair till she found the uneven spot and then she'd go back and forth and rattle it and that would make me notice that she was there oh what a good girl and I'd throw her cookies and it took me months and months before I figured out
1:34:35
I'm being shaped but I mean I still did it for the rest of her life because it cracked me up that she was so freaking smart but dogs are brilliant at figuring out patterns of reinforcement and um you know it you you'll just look at finding
1:34:50
your own dogs they will they will pick up and that's why when you pick up a set of car keys if a dog loves to go for a ride they're the first ones at the door and if they don't like the car they'll be the first ones in the back bedroom
1:35:01
hiding so they they just are brilliant at figuring out those patterns and going how can I get the pattern I want faster and the chickens are like the intense version of that it's a lot of fun chicken Camp's awesome oh yeah I really want to do chicken Camp so the uh couple
1:35:16
more so a few things that I was told uh that again could be complete placebo effect but some of which I I I think was helpful in the beginning and I'd love to get your take uh your BS meter on some of this so I read one point and I think
1:35:33
this was again a can9 uh officer in the police force somewhere and he said if the dog doesn't know the if the dog cannot perform the behavior in 20 locations the dog doesn't know the behavior and it was something along those lines and the point being like if
1:35:49
if you if you haven't trained it in different contexts and what it seemed to me was different surfaces in particular for for Molly as a puppy don't expect it to work I mean you you have to really practice the behaviors that are most important and I guess for me I was
1:36:08
trying to focus on not necessarily paw and things like that but the the the behaviors that could save her life right the things that you that you really want like a remote Sit Stay or uh recall the uh leave it these types of thing where
1:36:25
you don't want your dog licking antifreeze or whatever it might be uh how do you how do you think about I guess uh failure proofing behaviors to the extent possible one thing that another kind of heris that I found helpful to think about were the the 3DS
1:36:41
and I mentioned it earlier in passing but having a simple Behavior but then ratcheting up the distance you are from the dog the duration of fill in the blank uh and then the number of distractions right as you can kind of take them from white white belt level to
1:36:58
black belt in a given behavior um exactly H how do you think about failure proofing uh the some of the most important behaviors absolutely and and you know the 3DS are are you know they are the ones that are going to build the Brilliance the thing is what we do is we
1:37:16
make sure that we introduce all of those things in crate games where you can control what the dog's doing so any distraction you're going to use for your recall any distractions you're you're going to use you know the distance away
1:37:28
the duration you could all do that in a crate where that you can just close the door and it doesn't affect your relationship with your dog and then once they've got that it's almost like you know they've got the first set of inoculations against distractions right
1:37:42
and and then when you take them out to the real world to do that you're just building in that second set so that you are really getting a killer immunity for the dog against any distractions that they may come in contact with how would
1:37:55
you you're talking about shaping and being shaped as a trainer so we we why did Tim Ferris stop using the Bell on the door I'll tell you why and you can probably guess so I know where we're yeah so Molly bright pup that she is figures out pretty quickly oh wait a
1:38:14
second if I kick this Bell I get to go outside so she started kicking it all the time because she didn't have to pee she just wanted she was bored as hell watching me do whatever boring stuff I was doing in the house and she wanted to
1:38:26
get outside so I I and I I was not sure how to correct it and so at that point I was like all right you know what the only solution that I can see in front of me and I'm probably missing something was to remove the bell and she was old
1:38:39
enough at that point that I was like all right she's she's not going to pee all over the house but what would you do in a situation like that cuz this type of thing I imagine happen can happen with all sorts of things uh all sorts of behaviors absolutely yeah so it's
1:38:51
recognizing that you're being shaped first of all and so what I would do is I would make sure that um the first bell ring the dog gets to go out because you know maybe she does genuinely have to do something and then you come back in the second
1:39:05
bell ring she goes out on a leash and if the nothing's done she goes in a crate got so it's like you asked permission but I'm confused because you didn't do what I expected so then you must have been asking permission to go in your
1:39:18
crate I could put you in your crate that's cool like you know it I I was confused what that bell ring was and so she would learn bell ring and I I have some action out there that's cool B bell ring I don't get some action out there I I get a consequence that I
1:39:33
really didn't wasn't expecting and so you know because it's all going back to to reinforcement and and I'm going to decrease your access to reinforcement or I'm going to allow the reinforcement to carry on you know I had a a student once
1:39:46
who had a German shepherd and a Jack Russell and she said that the jack russell was a really she wasn't she was really energetic dog but was running really slow in agility and so I watched her and she had pretty good skills but um I said tell me about your life around
1:40:00
the house and she said well she's a picky eater so I put the food on top of the German Shepherd's crate so she can jump up there and um when she jumps up there and when she's there we know she's hungry so we put it down she GES a mouth
1:40:12
full and then we put it back up on the Shelf so the German Shepherd can get it and when she wants us to play ball she barks at the ball in the kitchen sink and we run outside and we play ball and then you know if she's hungry she goes
1:40:22
back up on the CR and I'm like no wonder she runs slow and Agility because that's the only time in her life that you actually try to tell her what to do so um you have to really um just have an awareness of How It's all rolling out dogs are brilliant at figuring out
1:40:42
patterns of reinforcement and they'll run with them as you found out as I found out and continue to find out now you gave me a piece of advice early on that was very helpful to me uh but it seemed seems like there is as with anything a right and wrong way to do it
1:40:59
and uh these are some notes that I took down um Susan focuses on arousal state of dog to get them used to responding in high arousal States now that's kind of part two the the part one which was what immediately helped me was before all
1:41:13
training do some tugging or running to get their heart rates up and this was uh kind of a real phase shift in my training I mean an inflection point where things really improved much like the hey dude it's a crowded bar you got to use 20s not singles uh I would take
1:41:29
Molly from inside where she's laying down for hours at a time and I'd be like okay time to train let's do training and and uh it it it would be productive but it wasn't hyperproductive until I started adding in even just a minute of
1:41:44
playing around getting her running getting her heart rate up um so what is what is the right way to do that and what are common mistakes that people make it really depends on the dog you know you have a dog Molly is a dog that likes the rough play and and bouncing
1:41:59
around you might have like a a you know a smaller dog that doesn't get into that kind of play but the most important thing is you've got to get the heart rate up think of it um you know the the typical arousal curve of sport when
1:42:11
they're at the low end of arousal they notice you know as an athlete or a dog you notice in you know in in you know insignificant things in your environment so if you're stepping in the ring to compete and and you're in in a low state of arousal then you're going to notice
1:42:25
the crowd you're going to notice people waving to you you're going to and you're not going to have have your your head in the game you won't be in the zone you'll do a terrible job and the same with the dogs if they're in a low state of
1:42:34
arousal then they're going to notice oh look there's a fly there's something to sniff there's and there and and you're you might get some work but it won't be productive and so if you can get them into that higher state of arousal and
1:42:46
the changing the physiology is the easiest way to to create that and with a with a dog that maybe doesn't like the tug you can you know do a recall where they chase you for a cookie you can do things like rolling a cookie across the floor or hiding a cookie in the couch
1:43:02
cushion so that they have to get engaged and find it you know you can give them to find it so so you're getting them into a hyp a more hyper aware state where the distractions don't notice them so when you're in the zone when I step to the ring at the world championships
1:43:14
and they say my name I don't even notice that the speakers are on because I'm just focused on my task and the same is true with when my dog's training with me if there's other dogs in in the area there's it doesn't matter what's going
1:43:25
on they are completely in the zone with me and that's what we're doing when we're we're tugging or or getting them moving around first how much is too much and the reason I ask and and I guess my second question is is there a way to
1:43:37
calm your dog down if they're red lining and and uh I'll give you a very specific example so Molly um unfortunately she lacerated her her foot on I think a piece of glass so she was stitched up for a while we didn't do any real training and she seemed to be
1:43:56
in a more easily distracted state after a bunch of kind of lethargic sitting around we went to a friend's house there were tons of people around new environment uh big pool in the backyard Molly loves pools uh bunch of kids petting her playing with her and like a
1:44:13
crotchy old dog that just wanted to kill everything that was super Y yappy and just like you distracting to me uh and doubly distracting to Molly and people ordering pizza and cooking meat there was just everything going on uh and
1:44:27
basic obedience no problem sit down remote stay whatever that was all fine but my buddy had seen her do some pretty dramatic stuff at least in his mind and he wanted to see it so I was like okay sure no problem uh so I go to do some of
1:44:40
the fancier stuff and you could just see the the the the beach ball you could just see like the the computer Frozen uh and and she was just like getting it 80% right but not quite figuring it out cuz the dog was freaking out everything's going nuts in a situation like that do
1:44:56
you just kind of pack it in and say hey live to live to fight another day or are there things that you can do to get your dog to calm down you know failure is a great uh great teacher and it's awesome to get a failure and then say how are we
1:45:11
going to work through this because then it makes the dog more resistant to that failure the next time so you know depending on that if if she was a super young puppy you might just say let's pack it in but you know she assuming
1:45:23
she's reasonable age think of it like a a a dart board with the heat Zone being right in the middle and so she's in the middle of all this activity all that you would do is say back away 10 feet and ask for the same behavior and and you're
1:45:36
you're getting away from the the heat Zone to a less intense distraction area and then if it doesn't work there back away another 10 feet so you might go from the backyard to the front yard where it's clim and and then you would start with simple behaviors that she can
1:45:49
respond to and then and then when you get the response you want and the front yard go back to the backyard and then work your way I wouldn't go right to the heat Zone but I would you know say okay we've had some success here we're going
1:45:59
to break it off here and then the next time you know you do this a couple times she's going to learn oh I respond any time all the time and that you know failure is never a bad thing it's it's just what you take from that failure and how you can respond to it so uh I want
1:46:13
to be respectful of your time and I think there's a chance we may end up doing around two on this cuz I love talking about this stuff the and and I always learned so much when we're jamming but I you started Ed a story before we hit record that I want to hear
1:46:28
which was your vacation to Ireland tell me about tell me about what happened because I said no no no stop I want to I want to talk on the about this during the podcast and I don't want to hear it twice so let's uh let's jump
1:46:40
into it my um my my husband is from um I'm Brit Britain and we were going for vacation quote unquote because I was lecturing over in Britain I said look let's go to he's always he wanted to go to Ireland I said well go to Ireland have a non- doggy uh vacation it will be
1:46:55
lots of fun and I I said I'll order a we'll get a B&B in Dublin because I'm vegan and it's easier to get good food in a big city and he said no I don't want to be in a big city so I'm okay so I found a you know it was on a in a farm
1:47:09
a beautiful they raised organic beef and 200 acres and he said yeah that sounds perfect so we pull in and there's 13 dogs so much for the dog free vacation he pul he looks at me he said did you know this and I and he loves dogs he
1:47:23
just wanted a vacation for you I said I had no idea because it wasn't in the advertisement I showed on the advertisement so they had um 12 uh field Springers and no they 11 field Springers a border to call in a Great Dane and they as soon as you get out the car they
1:47:37
all jump on you and of course I it's just awesome and they're so very sweet couple they're all apologetic oh they're terrible they jump on us and and I said um listen I just I just happen to have some my camera equip me with me uh equipment with me is if you don't mind
1:47:52
uh if I video this I can fix it for you tomorrow and she's like fix it tomorrow like did you hear what she said fix it tomorrow and I explained who I was and that I could do this so um the next day we went out and we did a shoot and we
1:48:04
fixed we fixed it and I explained again it's about reinforcement and knowing if you you anytime you have a behavior you look at what do I want I'd like people to I'd like my dogs to greet people when they when they see them and um what do I have
1:48:20
I've got Hooligans that jump all over well where's the value because there's reinforcement there somewhere and so the value is these dogs are incredible social creatures and they love to greet people and so let's change that value so
1:48:35
what I did was I came out with um you we we' gone out for supper to a really nice restaurant John ordered a a nice stee I took half of it off so that I could use it for the dogs the next day and um he's loving this so then I um I go out there
1:48:51
and um before they jump on me I just reward them for not jumping on me I take the two the two ones that are the real culprits and I just reward and reward for not jumping on me and then um they get the idea that they that who you know there's going to be food on the ground
1:49:04
and so I wait till they sit and then I reward that and then I want a failure because the greatest lessons happen through failure so then I get them all excited what good dogs your so they jump on me and when they jumped on me I just turned my back because what they were
1:49:17
seeking was that social attention and I didn't give it to them and then when they got off of me I turned around again and I did this two or three times until they made that connection I've had lots of really good Stak for sitting and I
1:49:29
got a back turn for not sitting and so then I couldn't get them to jump on me and I said you know this is they're not going to jump on me anymore while I'm here and if you just do this with a couple of friends and a couple of visitors you're going to create a new
1:49:43
pattern for these dogs and and they're not going to jump on people anymore so you know it's it's it's all about being uh present and purposeful with what what you want from your dogs and and really anybody can train it it's not you don't
1:49:57
you don't have to be a professional dog trainer you just have to have to seek out what you want and the thing is most people try to train from the world of don't don't jump on me don't bite don't bark don't dogs don't understand don't
1:50:10
because don't is a concept they understand do they understand Behavior so what you have to do is look at what you don't want and create a behavior that you do want so that the dog can be right and you're setting them up for reinforcement and and that makes for a
1:50:25
much better relationship for you and your dog and anybody else that comes in contact with your dog and it's also uh it's also very transferable to everything else right I mean we're talking about not just a rat in a Skinner box we're not just talking about
1:50:38
a dog in an xen or a dog in the backyard we're talking about as you said you know 1500 different species including human beings so operant and classical conditioning we are not exempt from uh from from those from those rules and if
1:50:56
you look at say for instance I interviewed a gent named Jason Nemer is the co-founder of Acro yoga if you look at partner acrobatics one of the core rules is don't tell the person what you don't want give them a simple command which is more of what you do want and if
1:51:11
you're going to coach someone effectively and perform at a high level or even an effective level in that type of environment with a lot of variables the rules are the same and uh I love it I love talking about this stuff and and the thing is when you
1:51:29
if you are a person that looks for what's good in your dog and you're trying to create ways to set them up for Success you become a person who looks for all that's good in life and it it changes you you know you it makes you a
1:51:44
a better co-worker a better spouse a better parent a better because you're always looking for how can I set this up for for Success how can I create an environment that's reinforcement reinforcing and you know it's all the same if whatever I'm I'm you know
1:51:58
sometimes I get asked to give um marketing lectures and it's I just take out the word dog and put in the word business and we run to the races and do the same thing right it's it's the same thing and uh so I would love to wrap up with a couple of questions that I know
1:52:13
people are going to want to ask and then we'll talk about where people can find more about you and everything you're up to so question number one is related to uh tools to bring home with your dog or get before you adopt a dog now the the
1:52:29
recommendations that came up the most for me uh when I pulled my audience way back in the day uh uh were uh get a crate number one with a partition right so you can make it larger as they get larger but not give them too much space in the
1:52:47
beginning uh second get a Kong third get a uh Nature's Miracle for when they do something on the floor so they so they don't go back to the same spot which is something uh I learned the hard way and it really does work and uh get a clicker those were in effect sort of I would say
1:53:09
and I may be omitting something but those were kind of the big four that come to mind is there anything do you have any to add to those or uh anything else that you would consider you know the obious a leash and collar and I like
1:53:24
a a buckle leash not a not a pinch collar not a chain collar a buckle leash to you know and and if you need if you have a really exuberant say you're getting a rescue dog I like uh head halter and Gentle Leader is the brand that I really like to use yeah the head
1:53:38
halter super super uh interesting you you said it what was it called Gentle Leader Gentle Leader is the one that I like to use and um really good quality dog food what type of dog uh yeah I like to feed Raw so um you know the the chewy
1:53:54
and sell and chewes is a phenomenal brand that's when I'm in the states that's what I buy and um really high good good quality you know $20 bill treats you need to have some lower value treats too Tim because you don't always want to tip with 20 or there's an
1:54:09
expectation that you're the guy with the 20 so when you're at home and it's a less distracting distracting environment and you're not asking for a lot you might use low value like cut up carrots or mix that in with some high value
1:54:20
rewards so what type of reward do you use what what uh any particular brands or types of foods I use all kinds of different things I like to mix it up from low value um like origin just origin kibble um like super good quality stuff that um that's my lower value and
1:54:40
I might you know pinch some of John's Rose beef because as I said there's no meat in my household but um so I'll mix I'll mix that up and and carrots like raw carrots are another really good one especially if a little dog that might
1:54:52
weight on really fast so you want to be really conscious of that because they the calories are they add up fast when you're training a training a dog especially if it's a rescue dog that's already full grown they're not really growing um so and crate games so that's
1:55:06
a video that's that we have that's going to help people help people with the understanding of the crate and I also have a um a step by step on it's your choice a p an ebook that they can they can get from us and and the way they would get
1:55:21
that is to go go to um dogs that listen and Tim dogs listen.com Tim and you can get that there that's something that's within our we have a $500 course that we keep that within but we're taking it out for people who are listening to this podcast perfect yeah
1:55:38
and I'll put that in the show notes as well it's just a few more and then uh then we can both well at least speak for myself get a bite to eat the uh so the uh question of trainers so you said very early on you finding a method of
1:55:53
training that resonates with you who are some of the trainers or thinkers in this world who you respect very highly and who are the types of people you could name specific people if you want that you would recommend staying away from well you know the um the trainers you
1:56:12
for for myself personally Bob and Mary and Bailey are really the people that I've learn from and Bob still does have some uh educational um opport unities for people I I'm really a big fan of learning online and and when I remember
1:56:29
when I first looked into this 10 it was probably six or seven years ago people told me oh it's a mechanical skill you people can't learn it online but here's the thing when you are learning something in a classroom you have the distraction of all the other dogs and
1:56:42
the people and the environment and it is the worst place for a dog to learn something the absolute worst um because the environment is so out of your control and instructor tells you to do something you've got to try to remember that or write it down when you get to
1:56:57
your you know back into the car but when you're learning online you can look at a video you can pause it you can try it you can go back you can re re replay it over and over again so I'm a big fan of that there's ton of stuff you can get
1:57:09
online for free and and the thing that I advise people to stay away from U anything anything that a person tells you that you must be the boss of your dog they must you know that's old school um training should be should not be physically punishing or mentally
1:57:27
intimidating to your dog and if it is then then you're doing it the wrong way and there is absolutely you can have the most phenomenal success I don't care if you're trying to create a hunting dog that can work 200 meters away from you
1:57:39
with with birds nearby it doesn't matter what you're trying to to train you can train it in a way that's creating a better relationship with your dog um it full stop it just doesn't matter what it is I love it and uh is there are there
1:57:53
any other places people can find you online or uh I was going to say elsewhere I'm not sure don't give out your don't give out your home address uh or your email people have made that mistake on the podcast before uh any other places online where people can uh
1:58:08
we have my blog my blog has got a ton of free resources and that's Susan Garrett dog agility really good dog training and um you can Google me or on YouTube or on Facebook um Susan Garrett dog agility it might be our business page and there's lots of
1:58:32
good stuff that we post there so I'm all about giving people free there's tons of great valuable content on any of our sites dogs listen.com is a place that I I suggest to people that go to and because you know the that that's my goal
1:58:49
in life is to help dog owners better understand their dogs and help dogs to have the most joy and the best life possible so that's what I'm out for and and I'm happy to say that we're changing the world one dog at a time here and and
1:59:03
thank you Tim for giving us this opportunity to share that information with the world my pleasure I think it's uh it's also changing the world one human at a time uh and I think these are extremely not only useful but fascinating principles to explore
1:59:23
because you start to learn about not just dog training but behavioral modification if you are a smoker and you know it's bad for you you know it's going to give you lung cancer or potentially kill you eventually why don't you stop if you want this is a
1:59:36
this is a puzzle that is not that dissimilar from dog training at all I mean the they're are common course you want to lose weight but you can't stop eating Oreo cookies well maybe it's uh kind of like the shoes in the house where you allow the dog to develop a bad
1:59:50
behavior probably have to get the those out of the house you know just keep asking yourself the same thing with the dogs where's the value where is the reinforcement coming from for the behavior that I want to change exactly and it doesn't matter what it is
2:00:04
you're changing and it's you know 24 hours a day we've got to be considering that with our dogs it's not just we're training for five minutes and then let them run and be Hooligans for the rest it's where is the value coming for all
2:00:15
the behaviors that they're starting to develop exactly well this has been a blast uh Susan I really appreciate it uh and thank you for taking the time of course my pleasure Tim and to everyone listening I will be adding all the show notes links to resources all the URLs
2:00:34
that Susan mentioned into the show notes as per usual you can find the show notes for this episode and every other episode at 4hourworkweek decomp podcast all spelled out and as always and until next time thank you for listening and be nice to your
2:00:51
dog for God sick and intelligently thanks for listening guys hey guys this is Tim again just a few more things before you take off number one this is five bullet Friday do you want to get a short email from me would you enjoy getting a short email
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