No, really, stop doing that! Why dog training fails.

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces why dog training fails and questions common internet training advice.

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered. Trigger warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the truth in dog training.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Off Leash and Unfiltered. I'm Kati Peppe of Diamond K9 Dog Training, and today let's talk about why dog training fails <laugh>. We've all been there, haven't we? I know I have, before I was a dog trainer. Um, and this, you know, I've touched on this before, um, that the internet is, you know, just sort of filled with crappy training advice and, uh, don't be surprised if it doesn't work for you. So actually, in, in preparation for this, just to give myself a little inspiration, I <laugh> hopped onto the internet, uh, did a little DuckDuckGo search and just searched for, you know, teach my dog to greet people calmly, right?

'Cause that's a common one. And boy, I was, I was not disappointed, <laugh>, I was inundated with shitty advice. So, <laugh>, so let's talk about this. Let's talk about why dog training fails so that you can get unstuck, um, and maybe start making some progress with your own dog.

Uh, so, uh, the biggest reason dog training fails, in my opinion, is too much freedom. So, one of the big reasons that board-and-trains are so successful, at least for me, um, I'm primarily a board-and-train operation, is I control everything, guys. Dogs aren't just running around my house. They're not off leash. They're not free to do what they want. I'm not leaving things up to other people, not leaving things up to the dog. I control everything. So I have a mantra for, you know, puppies or dogs in training. It's like gates, crates, leashes, use them, control everything, control the environment, control what your dog is doing, where they are, who they interact with.

You are driving the bus. So you have to take accountability for that. You have to control everything. No, not necessarily forever. Um, although you do want, you know, what the dog is doing and where they are and who they're interacting with to be intentional.

Like, you don't want things to be chaos 'cause you might never get where you wanna go, but you know, you don't necessarily have to micromanage everything forever, right? But in the beginning, early on, you do have to. How else are you gonna pattern what you want? So a good example is, you know, when I have clients and their dogs bark out the window at people walking by or they bark at skateboarders, or, you know, whatever the case may be. Well, if you don't want to use a crate, well, excuse me, but you're gonna struggle <laugh>, okay?

03:00 — Unsupervised window barking lets dogs continue practicing the behavior owners are trying to eliminate.

Because when you are there, even if you're willing to do the protocols, as I show you, as I explained to you, when you're home, what happens when you're not home? Your dog just goes to the window and barks. So how are you supposed to eliminate that behavior? Okay?

How are you supposed to convince your dog that they can't do that anymore when they're still doing it? Okay? So you have to control things until your dog is able to make the right decisions. Okay? Another example, which is similar, as I have a client who ended up with a big livestock guardian dog. Uh, not what she wanted. I don't think it's what she intended. Uh, I don't think she really knew what she was getting, but that's what she ended up with. So naturally the dog protects the property, right? And so anybody that pulls into the driveway or, or walks up the driveway, the dog immediately runs over to the fence and jumps up on its hind legs.

And you know, the dog is contained, but it's a big dog. Um, and he's intense and he's barking and snarling at them and, and that sort of thing.

And it's an accident waiting to happen. And so, you know, and she's a, a busy mom. She's got multiple kids and she's taking care of the house and they homeschool and all this stuff. And, and it's part of her routine to just turn the dog out in the yard, um, which is great and he's very happy out there, but he's rehearsing all these behaviors that she doesn't want him to do, right? Because she has to worry every time anyone gets near her house that something bad's going to happen. Um, and so it can be difficult to explain to people, you, you gotta change your routine.

No, not forever, but that's the training. You have to control things. So for her to fix that, okay, she's going to need probably to set him up to make those mistakes and put him out in the yard on purpose and be watching and have the strangers coming and going and address his behavior directly, right?

Until it's knocked out. And so you keep setting him up until you can see, oh, he made a good decision, he made a good decision, he made a good decision until it's consistent. And then, you know, you can turn him out in the yard and trust him. But if you just turn him out in the yard and go upstairs and do your laundry, take your shower, and he's outside barking at the FedEx guy, I can't, I can't help you with that <laugh>. So you have to control the situation, right? So we all talk about consistent, we have to be consistent.

You can't be consistent if you're not even there, okay? So you have to take responsibility for taking the opportunities away from your dog. You can't give them the opportunity to do the behaviors that you wanna get rid of unless you are present so you can address it.

That's the idea. So too much freedom is far and away, I think, the top reason people fail with dog training. So because it does interrupt your routine, it can be hard, you know, all these things that used to be just mundane things you now have to think about. Um, instead of just going about your day, you now have to worry about dog training, but it's not forever, right? You just make the commitment to dig in and do it until it's done and then it's done. And that's not to say that you're a hundred percent done and it's gonna be perfect forever.

Your dog still might need some touch-ups here and there because they're living things that make decisions. And they might start to backslide. They might spontaneously make a different decisions. You have to be ready for that. But for the most part, once they know, they know and you just test them periodically, throw 'em a curveball and make sure they do the right thing.

Um, but too much freedom, guys. Same thing with greeting people, right? We just, we have the dog, they're not even on a leash and they're just running up to people and jumping all over 'em and, and all that sort of thing. So too much freedom. You need to control things. Keep your dog on a leash, keep your dog in a crate. Be present during times that you know your dog tends not to make the right decisions. And that's, you know, a big, big part of the recipe, I think. So a lot of people are putting the cart before the horse and they wanna give the dog the freedom before they're ready.

And I think greeting people is a really good example of that. Um, because people want immediate gratification. They say, okay, I want my dog to be able to greet people calmly. But here's the thing, the way that you should teach your dog to greet people calmly is to teach them not to frigging greet people. <laugh>.

08:00 — Kati recommends teaching dogs to ignore people and follow their owners before allowing greetings.

So teach your dog to listen to you instead of going to greet people. So once you do that, then guess what? Greeting people becomes an option, right? 'Cause now you have control of your dog, but everybody wants to skip that step. Everybody wants to skip the step where we just ignore people and you engage with me. You follow me, okay, we're doing something together. Don't worry about that person. Nobody wants to do that. Everybody's like, no, I want immediate gratification. I want my dog to greet people now. It's like, hmm, that's not how training works.

It's a process. Okay? If I wanted to run a marathon, guess what? I'm not going out there and running it tomorrow. It's a process <laugh>. So at least for me it would be, I don't know about you. Um, but yeah, you have to be willing to reduce the freedom, reduce the decision-making on the part of the dog, control things, maybe forfeit the things you actually want until your dog is ready for it.

I guess that's really the point, right? Because that, that's really the point in all these stories I gave you. It's like the person has this goal in their head. They have this picture of what they want. But what you have to understand is that the process of getting there involves you sacrificing that for now. Otherwise, you might never get there. You probably won't get there. So you can't put the cart before the horse. Teach your dog to listen to you. That's really, that's really the big one. And so secondly, the reason dog training fails, and this is another really big one, no negative consequences.

So everything's cookies, everything's rewards or ignore, right? If your dog does something bad, just ignore it. Dog jumps on you, turn your back, okay? Which was advice given to me, by the way, um, <laugh>, when I had a, a Rottweiler that basically wanted to tear everybody's limbs off, the advice was to be a tree.

Uh, it didn't work <laugh>. But even if you just have a happy-go-lucky dog, guys, like turn around and be a tree, it's not gonna work. I'm not gonna say it never works. I'm sure once in a while there's a dog that's half-heartedly doing the stuff that doesn't really care about jumping that much. And so maybe they stop jumping or maybe they finally just get old after, you know, 12 years of people being a tree, the dog's hips finally hurt and they stop jumping. Everyone's like, oh look, you know, training worked. Yeah, it took 12 years.

I don't know about you, but I don't, I don't really wanna wait for my dog to get old to stop jumping on people. So, so the be a tree <laugh>, yeah, is no good. So this whole idea of extinction is kind of a fallacy, right? So I'm not gonna say it never happens, but it doesn't happen just because you remove reinforcement.

It kind of just happens because that's the way the dog's behavior naturally evolved. It's very unlikely that it's going to happen as a result of you just removing reinforcement, because that doesn't take into account genetics. So jumping up on people is a genetically generated behavior. It's not just enjoyable, it's not just that they like it, you know, they're drawn to your face, to your breath. Um, and it's sort of a reflexive natural behavior. It's not something that they just do to get a reward from the human. It's a genetically generated natural behavior to jump up on you.

12:00 — Kati describes jumping as natural behavior and argues that rewarding sitting alone will not…

And so you can remove reinforcement all day long, but guess what? That doesn't change the fact that it's a natural behavior for the dog. So what's going to stop them from doing it? And you can reward sitting, and they might sit more often. They probably will, but that's still not gonna stop them from jumping. Okay? So that negative consequence is super important. And the other thing I'd like to say about that specific scenario that I'm describing is, what do we all do when we're trying so hard to train our dog not to jump on people during greetings?

And then of course, all the people are like, oh, no, it's okay. Right? And they're petting the dog. And that's what all, all—by the way, this article I just read, that's what they blamed it on too, is the intermittent reinforcement.

So, you know, they're saying that they're reinforcing your dog. And so that's why your dog keeps jumping, right? Certainly doesn't help. But even if they didn't do that, your dog would probably still continue to jump. So instead of scolding the person for reinforcing your dog, just provide a consequence to your dog. <laugh> I mean, first of all, it's a lot more socially appropriate, and second of all, it will actually fix your problem. So trying to eliminate behaviors with cookies and rewards and redirection or just ignoring things, it's not gonna work. You're gonna struggle. The dog is still gonna practice these things, at least intermittently and probably regularly, okay?

So negative consequences have got to be a part of your recipe if you want your dog training to work, okay? And that's primarily in the context of stopping behaviors, but it's also true in the context of building behaviors.

So we don't start with corrections for building behaviors. Of course, I don't teach a dog to come to me by punishing them. But once I have taught a dog to come to me, once I have taught a dog to heel, once I have taught a dog to sit, all these things, and we have put in the time and we have put in the reps and we have put in the practice, then yes, there is a negative consequence if you don't comply. Because if there isn't, then there's just no reason for them to do it. Is there? <laugh>

There really just isn't. I mean, this, this isn't rocket science, guys. This is very, very straightforward behavioral principles. So negative consequences have to be a part of your recipe. And of course, rewards should be a part of your recipe too. But the problem is, most people that I talk to when they're talking about their training failing, it's a whole, it's a whole slew of bad behaviors that they're just trying to stop and everyone's trying to jump to the cookies. And I don't have a problem with the cookies, I don't have a problem with the rewards.

They can be very powerful tools, but you can't start there with unwanted behaviors. If you wanna get rid of a behavior, get rid of it. And then once the dog chooses to do something better on their own, automatically use your reward, build that better behavior up, absolutely. Okay? But I don't talk a ton about that because everyone is already really good at rewarding their dog <laugh>, most people are doing it too much and they're just not balancing that with, with the negative consequence side of things. They're only giving their dog half the information.

16:00 — Kati identifies immediate gratification as another obstacle, emphasizing consistent management before granting desired freedoms.

Okay? So too much freedom, no negative consequences. And number three, I kind of brushed on earlier, which is people just want immediate gratification. They have this idea in their head of what they want and they want it right now with the immature <laugh>, it's immature. So when we all, we all talk about it, right? Oh, we know we have to be consistent and we have to make a commitment. And it's like, that's great. I'm glad you acknowledge that. But do it <laugh>, okay? Not to, not to sound like super mean here, um, but saying it and doing it are two different things.

So you have to understand, what does that mean? Consistency doesn't just mean be consistent when it's convenient for you, it means control everything. Okay? So you have to sacrifice your idea of how things should be until the training is in a place where your dog can make the good decisions. Then maybe you can have this grand picture that you have in your head. Maybe then you can just turn your dog out in the yard. Maybe then you can just let your dog go, say hi to the people that you're having over for dinner, right?

Because you've gone through the training. But you can't start there. You can't say, well, I wanna train my dog how to greet people by just throwing him into the ring on day one. I mean, gimme, it's like, okay, well we do that with a jiu-jitsu fighter and be like, okay, we're gonna teach you how to fight. Throw him into the ring with, with a champion fighter. Is that, is that what we would do? No, that's not what we would do, right? We would go practice <laugh>. Not that I'm a jiu-jitsu fighter anything, but I have to imagine this is how this would work.

You would practice, okay? You would practice somewhere else, not in the real deal. So you would practice somewhere where conditions are controlled and then when you were ready, then you would be put into the real scenario.

It's no different. So you gotta go through the process. But I find that people really wanna just throw their dog onto the front lines without the training. They wanna do the training in real time. And that just isn't how it works. You actually can in some cases, but you can't, the dog isn't gonna do this stuff automatically on their own. There's no magic fairy dust, okay? So you do have to go through the process of giving them the correct feedback before they're going to make the decisions by default. I guess that's the point. And lastly, we try to fix things with commands.

19:00 — Kati argues that repeated sit, stay, and wait commands do not teach dogs polite…

So you can't do that. The dog needs feedback, guys. So how many of us have seen the dog that are, is excited to greet people and everybody's, ah, sit, sit, sit, sit. Ah, ah, wait, stay. Ah, okay, don't do that. Stop doing that <laugh>.

So here's what I tell my clients. Like for instance, let's say you're going through the door to go for a walk with your dog. When you get to the door, what do you do? Do not tell your dog to sit. Now, I don't have a problem with teaching your dog to sit at the door, but I do have a problem with managing their door behavior by saying sit. It does not teach your dog to be polite at the door. It doesn't, okay? It might teach your dog what you would like them to do. It does not teach your dog what you would not like them to do.

Big difference, right? So I tell everybody, I tell all my clients, you're allowed to use two words at the door: good and no. Now, why is that? You're not allowed to say sit, stay, wait. And God forbid, you're not allowed to say, ah, ah, ah, <laugh>. Okay? You can say good. And if you say good, you can follow it with a reward. If you want to—praise, affection, food, I don't care. And you can say no. And if you say no, it should be followed with a correction. Okay? The reason that's important is because you let the dog make a decision and then you provide the feedback. You tell the dog, good decision or bad decision.

And guess what? Magic happens. The dog starts defaulting to good decisions. And that's why, particularly when it comes to unwanted behaviors of any kind, you have got to start letting your dog make decisions. And then you provide the feedback, right? But in a controlled environment, don't just turn your dog loose. Control things, set it up, be ready for it, and provide the appropriate feedback.

And that's it. That's the magic, guys. So what were those four things again? Too much freedom, no negative consequences. We want immediate gratification and we try to fix things with commands, okay? If you want your dog to be polite at doors, if you want your dog to be calm when you have guests over, if you want your dog to walk by other dogs without going crazy, you can't use commands to fix any of that stuff. You have to let your dog make decisions and you give them feedback. And like I said, all the information out there is gonna tell you, have your cookies ready.

Redirect your dog, give them a biscuit. If that doesn't work, maybe keep some raw chicken in your pocket or some bacon. And guess what? A lot of the dogs don't even want that crap. So what do you do with them? Huh? How do you help those people? They don't know. But even if your dog does want that stuff, you're not telling them what not to do. So it's just garbage. It's garbage advice.

So again, if you're stuck with your dog, don't feel like it's you. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong. It doesn't. You're probably following the advice to a T. It's not you. I mean, it is you, but it's because you have the wrong information, <laugh>, and there's nothing wrong with your dog. So try implementing these things and see if you don't get a little bit further <laugh>. Okay, guys. Um, that's it for this time. I look forward to the next one. Till the next time, happy practicing and hope to see you back here real soon. Don't forget to hit subscribe so we can do this again next time.

Thanks. I.