Ty The Dog Guy On The Daily

In this post, I’d like to talk about the power of duration work, by which I simply mean doing something for an extended period of time. It’s highly uncommon for a dog not to know how to sit. Many also know how to lie down. A few more know how to come when called or heel. Regardless, every dog that I meet has some level of obedience training. It’s very rare for a dog to not know any commands.

Today, I want to tell you about the three things that are standing in between you and the results you want from your training efforts. There are a million mistakes we can make, but there are only three categories of mistakes: tool problems, technique problems, and consistency problems. One of the biggest reasons that people don’t get the results they want is that they don’t have the right tools, or aren't using those tools properly. Training is tool-heavy in the beginning, whether that beginning period lasts for a couple days or a few months. This principle applies to any style of training. Regardless of the style or method that you’ve chosen, it’s always going to be tool-heavy.

Today I want to give you some more information about tools, technique, and consistency, which I’ve said before are the only things standing between you and the results you want to have with your dog. Those are the three categories of mistakes that you’re making right now, and they’re leading to you not getting the results that you need. We’ve already discussed tools, so today I want to talk more about techniques. When it comes to techniques, we need to look at two main aspects: do we have the correct technique, and are we performing the technique correctly?

One idea that I often come back to is the “collateral effect.” This concept doesn’t just apply to your dog—it also applies to you. Imagine that you begin every day by drinking a smoothie and meditating, or a long jog and some time with your children, or maybe eating a healthy breakfast and reading a great book. Now imagine that instead of starting your day off like that, you woke up, hopped onto Facebook right away, and got into an argument with someone about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Maybe you’re late to get to work and are scrambling around, trying to get ready on time.

Spending more time outside in the beautiful Utah spring has reminded me that many owners envision their backyard as their dog’s domain. Over the years I’ve noticed that, of the hundreds of clients I speak with every year, only one or two have full-time backyard dogs. Very few good dog owners keep their dogs outdoors all the time.

For the past decade, there has been a non-adversive movement in dog training that rejects correction in favor of positive reinforcement. Unfortunately, this trend is sponsored more by public relations and feel-good sentiments than by actual science about the way that dogs learn. According to this philosophy, undesirable behaviors should be ignored or avoided by desensitizing dogs to their triggers.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about a trend that I see among many puppy owners. I frequently talk to puppy owners who want to make sure that their dogs never bite anyone or misbehave in any way. In other words, they want to hedge their bets.These people come in with the right mindset: they’re ready to put in the work early on so that they don’t have more serious problems later on.

Believe it or not, your dog understands equations. Not on a human level, of course, but there is still an element of comprehension in their minds. Let me illustrate this using an example. If I have a tasty piece of meat sitting on the kitchen counter and I’m standing beside it, my dog will leave it alone because I’m right there beside her. To her, the equation looks something like this:

Today I’d like to talk a little bit about adrenaline. I’m not going to give an explanation of what adrenaline is on a chemical level—this isn’t a science talk! Instead, I’d like to share a bit about how adrenaline affects your dog and his behavior. If I take my dog out for a walk, wandering around and having some fun, is there adrenaline in her system? To a degree. But if some birds were to fly up out of the grass, her adrenaline would spike very quickly, and she might take off and chase them.

I've talked about the relationship between focus and adrenaline in the past. Today I want to talk a little bit more specifically about focus, and explain how to help your dog overcome a lack of it. Recently, I took my dog for a walk. As we approached a fork in the road, she got distracted by a man on a bicycle, and I lost a bit of her focus. A few minutes later, her ears perked up and she started to get distracted again by what was happening further down the road.

In this post, I'd like to tackle a different sort of topic: the difference between the way I raise my kids and the way I train my dogs. A while ago, I was speaking to a trainer who opposes the use of any kind of correction in dog training. "You wouldn't use an electric collar on your kids, would you?" he asked, thinking he'd caught me out. I told him that I wouldn't. "Well, why not, if you use them on dogs?" For the same reason that I don't take my daughters out into the back yard to use the bathroom, or put them on a leash to take them for a walk, of course!

Through the years, I’ve found that dog owners and trainers alike frequently misunderstand the concept of exercise. Quite often owners come to me for the first time and say things like; “We don’t understand out dog. He’s really aggressive. We exercise the heck out of him, but he’s still aggressive on walks.” Or: “I don’t get it! My dog chewed the couch and dug up the back yard even though I exercise him all the time.”

Dog owners commonly come to me saying things like, “I got this Labrador”—or Pyrenees, or any other breed—“and the breed book tells me it’s going to be exactly like this.” Or, “After I got my German Shepherd, I started reading up on them, so I know exactly what they’re like.” Here’s the thing: there are differences between breeds, but most breeds have been drastically altered from the original breed standard. Your dog’s temperament, appearance, and behavior probably don’t match up with what’s in the breed book, at least not in every way.

A while ago I made a post about dog breeds, and today I’d like to come at this subject from a different angle. Another thing that’s important to understand about breeding is that, even though many breeds have changed over time, there are certain characteristics that are common to certain breeds. That’s not always the case, but it can be.

When I talk to an owner about their dog’s behavior problems, the conversation often sounds like we’re discussing icebergs. See, when you first glimpse an iceberg, it’s 90% under the surface. What you're actually seeing is the tip of it. Often, people tell me about the tip of their dog’s iceberg. This isn’t to say that there are a billion hidden problems lurking under the surface, just that people fail to comprehend that they have a different problem than they actually think they have.

The other day while I was hanging out with my dogs in the living room, I noticed an important difference between my house and many of the other dog-owning houses I go into. As far as toys for the dogs, all I have is a small chewing bone, a tennis ball, and a deer antler. That’s it.

Today I’d like to talk about two concepts that I call “structured motion” and “structured stillness.” Although this concept is one that I frequently utilize in training of anxious dogs, it’s one that not every owner thoroughly understands. When I work with other professional trainers, I have found that this concept frequently goes unexplained. But it is still an integral part of helping dogs that struggle with anxiety and insecurity.