Ty The Dog Guy On The Daily

Your last dog is not your current dog. It might be a dog that you had to give away, or passed away from old age, or a great companion who died too early from cancer. But it isn’t your current dog. This is a big source of frustration for dog owners, and a big hurdle that prevents them from doing the best for their current dog. Owners will say things like: “I’ve had golden retrievers my whole life, and this is the first time I’ve ever had a problem with one.” How many golden retrievers did that owner have? Probably three or four. What they’re really saying is that they’ve had a few good representatives of the breed and can’t believe that one is showing them difficulty. I’ve heard this with countless breeds over the years, and it’s always a source of shock and frustration. That attitude becomes a hindrance when owners use it as a reason not to seek out more help, whether that’s hiring a trainer or going to a seminar or investing in a good program. When all you can think is “I’ve never had this problem befo

In this post, I want to tackle the somewhat controversial topic of dog fights. This subject came up recently because I was chatting with a client about our daycares. We run a daycare, and it’s a little different than most. I was explaining the difference between our daycare and other daycares. They asked what we do in case of a fight, and I realized that we’ve never actually had one. I’m looking for some wood to knock on as I write this, because I know that it’s improbable to expect that we will never see a fight. But as a rule, we don’t see fights in our facility. There’s a reason for that. I’ve been doing group work for about ten years. Before I had a training facility, I had eight to ten dogs at my house training most of the time. We have had the daycare facility for almost three years. So I’ve been working with a lot of dogs for a few years, and a decent number of dogs for the years previously. In all that time, I’ve never had a full-on fight. Once or twice, we have had dogs bite at kennel staff. On

My daughter is ten and a half—and she needs braces. As we’ve gone to the dentist over the years, it’s starting to look like all of our other kids will need them too. When I think back to having braces, I remember how awful they were and how much I hated those years. My lips got cut, and I couldn't brush or floss. It was ugly, painful, and just no fun at all. And since I didn’t wear my retainer very well, I actually had to get braces twice! To this day, my bottom teeth are still kind of crooked. Now, my daughter is going in tomorrow to get braces and we were talking about it last night. She was acting kind of bummed about it because she thought she was supposed to be—but at the same time, she was smiling. “Oh man, I’ve got to go in and get braces on Thursday!” she said. I was up front with her: I told her that braces hurt my teeth and mouth, but that technology had advanced in the past twenty and she’d be in better shape than I was. She knows that this isn’t going to be a pleasant thing, but she was still a

With today’s post, I want to talk about child aggression in dogs. This is a very tough topic. Dog aggression is one of my favorite things to work on, and I’ve developed some processes and techniques that are really world-class. I enjoy it, because there’s a lot of predictability in how you can solve aggression in dogs—whether it’s toward other dogs, or animals, or people. But dog aggression toward children is probably my least favorite to work on because it’s so much more difficult and the stakes are so much higher. I wanted to talk about that today, give some examples of things I’ve seen and when you shouldn’t even risk it. The first thing we need to look at is teaching our kids to treat dogs with respect. This is a big deal. I remember a client who had a service dog growling at their kids. We tried to look at the situations from the dog and the kids’ perspective, talking about how the kids treated the dog. “Well, they smack him and they’re rough with him. They lull his tail.” No wonder he was showing so

In today’s post, I want to talk about crate training. The crate is very important for the majority of dogs, and its level of importance is often related to other factors like age and maturity. In the beginning stages of training your dog in your home, it’s a safe and calm spot (ideally) for your dog to relax and not do anything wrong. When you’ve got a new dog in your house, they don’t know the rules. If you’re not around, they may want to chew or go to the bathroom on the floor. The crate is a fantastic tool for teaching them not to do that. Dogs are creatures of habit. If we prevent them from going to the bathroom indoors and other bad things, that often does the lion’s share of getting them to behave well in your home. Here’s the thing: a lot of people want to move away from the crate faster than they should. This happens for a few reasons. First of all, they look at the dog and say, “Oh, I wouldn’t want to be in a crate! That wouldn’t be fun for me.” (Usually they say this before they go off to work

In today’s post, I’d like to tackle a topic that comes up a lot among my clients: developing realistic expectations for our dogs. On one end of the spectrum of expectations is the dog owner that doesn't realize the great accomplishments and successes they’ve had. For instance, say someone is dealing with an aggressive dog. When they come back to us after a few sessions, they’re down in the dumps. But as we dig deeper, we find out that before they couldn't even go on a walk because the dog was lunging. The dog used to be a nightmare, but a few months into the training he’s doing way better. Unfortunately, the owner’s complaint then becomes: “We’re doing fine on walks, except when another dog charges at us! Then we’ve got a problem.” That’s totally valid, and we have to fix it. But it’s not uncommon to see someone make huge strides and solve 80% of their dogs’ problems, yet still focus on the problems. From a mindset perspective, that’s an issue. It’s hard to get the ideal dog if you’re constantly nitpicki

In today’s post, I want to speak a little more about socialization. I’ve written about how almost every dog trainer hates dog parks, but I want to get a little deeper and help people understand what we’re trying to do with socialization. I talk about what not to do, but that doesn't give a lot of information on what to do. When you understand the purpose behind socialization, it’s easier to know what to do. It’s very hard to accomplish something when you’re just being told “do this” and “do that.” Knowing the core principle makes it easier to figure out what’s best for you and your dog. “Socialization” is a misused term, and the process itself is often done improperly. When someone gets a puppy or rescues a dog, they think they need to go to the dog park or to a neighbor’s park to get socialized. Most people want their dogs to get around stuff and interact with it. They want their dogs to play and have a good time enjoying those things, whether it’s other dogs or neighbors or children. That isn’t wrong on

Today I want to talk to you about execution. No, I’m not taking about executing your dog—even though some of you might be looking at your dog’s behavior problems and wondering if that’s an option! But I’m thinking about executing a plan. To some extent, this is a flaw in the human condition. A huge percentage of the population wants to write a book. How many actually do? The number of people who write a book is pretty tiny in comparison to the amount of people who say they want to do so. No one executes on their plan. What about losing weight—how many times over a person’s life do they say they want to get healthy and then not execute on that desire? Or what about people who don’t get along with their spouse or children, yet complaining about it is as far as their problem-solving goes. People’s thought process stops at the lament. “Woe is me!” we say. “I can’t have what I want.” That’s because execution is the hardest part. Execution done poorly is usually better than execution not done at all, because

With this post, I want to talk about languages. I speak Spanish very, very well. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. If I talk to someone on the phone, oftentimes they think that I’m a native speaker. I think that’s a pretty big deal, considering that most people’s second language Am I tooting my own horn? Absolutely! However, it took me many years to get good at speaking Spanish. I still practice it whenever I can with my clients who are from Mexico or random people that I meet. I always joke that I’m good at two things: Spanish and dogs. So far I’ve made a living with dogs. Maybe it’ll be Spanish one day. When I first started learning Spanish, if someone had just come up to me and started talking in Spanish, getting upset when I didn’t understand, I would have been completely confused. After all, what is language? I’m sure there’s an excellent dictionary definition out there that I’m going to butcher right now, but here goes: essentially, language is external communication. It’s something that p

Husbands are the bane of my existence. Now, I realize that I happen to be a husband. Is this a post about self-loathing? No! See, I’m a good type of husband. But I always joke with other dog trainers that if it weren’t for husbands, I’d be a rich man. Husbands have cost me more dog training over the years than anyone. This is something that’s happened numerous times. I’m not calling anyone out. The other day, I got a call from a woman who’d been referred to us by her friends. She said, “We have a real problem. Our dog is attacking people. He has some big-time aggression. My husband’s been working with him, but we just can’t seem to make headway.” We chatted, and I told her the program that I recommended. She immediately responded that this was what she thought they needed. “Now I just have to see if my husband is on board,” she said. So I sent her the information, and told her I’d be in touch in a few days to see if she had any questions. I could tell she wanted to move forward. A few days later, I called

Someone asked me an interesting question recently, and I wanted to share it with you. The question was this: “You have over 20 years of experience working with dogs, so you’ve seen a lot of things. Given that, if your experience and knowledge was erased, but if you were able to keep mastery of one dog training concept, what would it be?” I thought this was an intriguing question when it came up, but it actually didn’t take me very long at all to determine exactly what that one concept would be. For me, it’s the ability to create focus. Focus oftentimes is looking at the owner. Now, I’m not talking about the kind of focus that is created when your dog looks at a treat you’re holding. Rather, I’m talking about a level of focus where the dog is engaged with you, trusts you, and defers to you. That focus, the more I think about it, is at the root of solving 99% of the problems we deal with. Aggression, anxiety, bad manners, lack of obedience, destruction—so much of this either goes away entirely on its own or g

“Checks and balances” is a term that we use frequently in the United States to describe politics. We often use it to describe the three different branches of government: legislative, judicial, and executive. (I can’t believe I remembered those!) Ideally, the legislative checks the executive branch, the executive checks the judicial branch, and so on. As a result, a single branch can’t run away and do whatever it wants. Whether that works well is a topic of hot debate. This is also a term that I use a lot in dog training, in a very similar way. In government, this system helps to balance each branch. What we end up with is something that works much better. Dogs are much the same. If we allow one mindset to continually get its way and go without any sort of balance you almost end up with problems, such as aggression, anxiety, or hyperactivity. That’s just the reality, and that’s why I talk so much about creating checks and balances in our dogs’ lives. Dogs’ minds and bodies are very intertwined, and they’re

In this post, I’d like to speak to you about how to create a healthy relationship between training time and “real life.” I find myself talking about this a lot because many of our clients struggle to find that balance. They tell me: “When I go outside to a field or park to practice this, my dog does amazing. But when we’re just around the house, he has problems.” I always reply that these two situations are in fact different, because we’re behaving differently and expecting different things from the dog. When people are out training, they walk a certain way and pay 100% attention to their dog. They have their training gear and treats with them all the time, and they’re ready to follow through on their commands. But when they’re just hanging out in the house watching TV, they don't always follow through. As a result, their dog realizes that they have two sets of rules: one for who they’re out training and another for when they’re not. In these scenarios, we teach our dogs when to pay attention to us. That en

In this post, I want to talk about stubborn dogs. Here’s the thing: even if you think you have a stubborn dog, I doubt it. You might, because they do exist. But I highly doubt that you have one. It’s common for me to be working with a client and hear something like, “Oh gosh, my dog is so stubborn!” This is a frequent claim that owners make about their dogs. Sometimes I’ll agree with them—but not often. When I call a dog “stubborn,” this is what I mean: the dog fully understands what you’re asking, and then chooses not to listen or pay attention. Makes sense, right? It’s not a crazy concept. But the reality is that very few dogs actually know what’s being asked of them, and so many owners think their dog knows exactly what’s being asked of them! So when owners complain that their dog knows what they’re asking but doesn’t do it, they almost always mean that their dog is clueless! The dog hasn’t been taught very well. Maybe the dog understands what “come” means in certain situations, but once they change

With this post I want to talk about overcoming fear, perhaps in a manner that you aren’t familiar with. While I have written about this subject in the past, I want to cover some new ground. Today I had my last private session with a particular client before they start coming to our group sessions. This client had gotten a two-year-old rescue dog whose history and background was totally unknown. When she first got the dog, she was scared of everything: sounds, people, and even her own shadow. Since she was an exceptionally nervous dog who didn’t like to cuddle, her owner really wished that she would bond more with her. A lot of owners want physical affection from their dogs, and this dog just wasn’t into that. I can still remember sitting in our first session and taking about this issue. The client asked me: “What can we do to get her to want to bond with me? How can we help her get over this fear?” She had tried many things that you would naturally do, like giving the dog lots of treats. Unfortunately, ho

A question I get frequently is “How aloud I walk my dog?” I know that sounds silly, but all people are really wondering is whether they should let their dog sniff around and wander or keep their dog next to them the whole time. There is no absolute answer to this question. We handle this in a very structured way, which we believes helps a dog become calm and get over aggression, and behave well. We’ve found that walking dogs in a specific way does make it easier to achieve those results. Maybe that sounds ridiculous to you. The answer, to me, comes down to context. Generally speaking, if I’m walking a dog on the sidewalk in my neighborhood, the dog is heeling. If I notice that she needs to use the bathroom, I’ll scoot over to a green strip and encourage her to use it. In that case, I would let her wander a little bit. But for the most part, I want her at my side when we’re in the neighborhood. Now, dogs who have reactivity and aggression issues, this is ten times more important. When your dog is in a posit

Today’s post covers a topic that’s become controversial in recent years: electric training collars. These tools, sometimes referred to as shock collars or remote collars, are often accompanied by a lot of debate. The bottom line, however, is that they’re incredibly useful tools. My company does a lot of great work with the e-collar. The question I receive often about the e-collar is simple: “Why do you use it?” I usually get this question from two competing groups of people. The first of these groups is comprised of trainers who use treats and toys (and hugs) in order to get results. When they ask this question, it’s normally with the implication that I’m a monster. The second group that asks that question is just asking because they’re interested and wonder why I use one. In today’s post, I want to spend some time talking about why I love e-collars, why I believe that they’re the most humane way to train a dog, and why they’re so much misunderstood. At the root of my love for this tool is the fact that an

In today’s blog post, I want to talk to you about pressure. you’ll hear many dog trainers, including myself, talk about something called “pressure and release.” This is essentially a training strategy that uses the combination of a pressure—like a leash or body language—and a rewarding release. Maybe you have a leash pulling towards you, and as the dog comes that pressure is released and the dog is rewarded. Or maybe the dog has been given a stay command on a bed, and when he tries to get up we move toward him, increasing body pressure until he sits back down. This concept isn’t unique to dog training. In fact, horse trainers use it as well. And it’s modeled on the way life actually works. If you get up in the morning because there’s pressure to pay your bills or make breakfast. Even something like going to the movies comes from the pressure to have fun or avoid boredom. Pressure and release dictate everything we do. Here’s the problem with training that involves release but no pressure. Treats and p

Today I want to talk about drugs. Not in the Nancy Reagan, 1970s, “Just say no!” way, but in relation to dogs. It seems that every year, more and more dogs are getting on drugs to hopefully modify their behavior. These are drugs similar to the ones that humans take for depression and anxiety to deal from everything from aggression to hyperactivity to excessive barking. There are generally two groups that push for drugs. The first is veterinarians, whose mindset I can understand even if I don’t agree with it. I love vets and I think we all need them. But they don’t generally have expertise in dealing with behavior. Even veterinarian behaviorists tend not to be up to snuff on how to affect change in dogs’ behavior. Why is this? Because veterinarians look at the body. They want to know how they can neuter a dog, heal its wounds, or treat an allergy. When it comes to behavior, their training persists. So when a veterinarian is confronted with an aggressive dog, then, they often suggest giving a pill to make

In today’s post, I want to talk about a potential problem that people run into because they misunderstand their dog’s needs. If you poll dog trainers, you generally won’t get the same answer from any of us. We tend to disagree about everything. Sometimes I think that’s just for sport. You could ask “What’s the best color shoe to train dogs in?” and some trainers would argue that red or gray or black shoes are better than others. The reality is this: we don’t agree on many things. But there’s one thing that most trainers actually agree on: don’t take your dogs to a dog park. Dog parks tend to create inappropriate relationships, which in turn lead to aggression and fear. The majority of the aggression and anxiety problems we see at my company stem from time at dog parks. Every time I say this, I get an email from someone whose dog does wonderfully at parks. Well, some people can smoke cigarettes for ninety years without getting cancer, but that doesn’t mean that is good behavior! The same is true of dog par