Ep. 4: How to Train Your Dog to Be Naughty

You read that right, we are going to walk you through how to train your dog to be naughty...and hopefully avoid these pitfalls in the first place! We'll discuss how even trainers fall into this trap, what you can do to avoid this trap and how to fix the sticky situation you may find yourself in.

Speakers:

Dianna L. Santos

TRANSCRIPT

Dianna L. Santos (00:00):
Welcome to the It's Time to Train Your Dog Podcast. In this podcast we talk about all things dog training. This can include dog training tips, a behind the scenes look of what your instructor may be going through and much more. In this episode, we're going to be talking about how you can train a naughty dog and basically try to point out some ways that you may be able to avoid doing that in your daily life where you're not inadvertently training your dog to be naughtier than you like.

(00:25):
Before we start diving into the podcast itself, let me just do a very quick introduction of myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I'm the Owner and Lead Instructor for Family Dog University, Dog Sport University, and Scent Work University. These are online dog training platforms that are designed to provide high quality dog training instruction to as many people as possible. Quite literally, we have a client base worldwide. The whole purpose of this is that you would have access to this type of instruction and dog training from the comfort of your own home. So you may not have an instructor near you locally, or you may not be able to fit a group dog training class into your schedule. Online dog training can solve that problem. At Family Dog University in particular, we offer online courses, webinars, and seminars. These, again, are designed to help your dog be the best family canine companion they could be. So now to know a little bit more about me, let's dive into the cus itself.

(01:20):
So when we're talking about training our dogs, a lot of times what we're doing is we're trying to figure out what it is that we can do to help our dogs be better family companions, how it is we can help them have better manners or be better behaved in our homes or out in public. So it's always in the vein of wanting our dog to more often than not do something else. Maybe you have a dog who likes to jump on you when you come home from work. Maybe you have a dog who likes to beg when you're eating, or you have a dog who likes to steal your shoes or your socks. All those things are very normal and they're actually fairly common for dogs to do. They may be seeking attention. They may find that begging works, or they may find that stealing your shoes or your socks can either be comforting or can also be a really great way for you to then play the Chase Me game.

(02:12):
The thing that I wanted to talk about in this podcast episode is something that I'm currently going through myself, and it is a trap that people fall into where you could actually be inadvertently training your dog to be really super naughty in that you are actually feeding into the very same behaviors that you don't want them to do. I no longer teach in person. I have a really bad neck and back. So I'm always working from home. I'm running these three sites. I provide online courses and webinars and things like that. So I'm home all the time. And the dog I have now is a Doberman who is very, very smart. He's very sweet, he's very active. He loves to train, but he's also incredibly intelligent and I'm also very busy a lot of the time. So I spent a lot of time on my computer and we don't get to do as much as I would have liked, particularly within the last couple of months.

(03:05):
I've been revamping all the sites. It's just been a lot of battling with technology and things of that sort. So the way that I try to show him that, oh, I do still love you. We may not have done so much today that I would've liked, but here I'll give you a goodie or Here, I'll let you do this. And oh look, I had a little bit of steak today. I'll give you some pieces of that. That within itself is not necessarily a bad thing. What is when you start making things really unclear as far as what the rules are, as far as how it is that they could get what they're looking for and what's expected of them. So for my guy, when I first got him, when I first brought him home from the breeder, he was returned by his prior owner who had some health issues.

(03:52):
He had excellent manners. He would come in if you had any food, he'd go straight to his bed. It was wonderful. He waited at doorways, he would get out of your way if you were walking down the hallway and it's really tight, he would just go around the corner and he would let you pass. It was fine. There were no issues. And that continued for a while. You then have, now that I've completely undone all this, and if I'm eating, he now says, oh, well, I'll just sit on my bed and I will stare at you the whole time. And as soon as he knows that I'm done eating, he is now standing there and he whines. He's like, now I want what's ever left over. Why do you think that's happening? It's because I have actually given him scraps from my plate. And again, it's not that table scraps are bad in and of itself, but what I've done is I've basically trained my dog to beg and to demand and to say, Hey, aren't you done eating that yet?

(04:45):
I want my piece. So what I wanted to talk about in this podcast is first of all, to show that this happens to trainers too. It's not as though we live on some magical island and everything we do is perfect. It's not true. It's also very easy to fall into these traps where we have suddenly demolished very clear rules and guidelines that really helped our dogs be successful for whatever reason. A lot of times it happens because of life. We're really busy, things are coming up, things are happening, and we decide to do something in the heat of the moment, and then that continues. And then suddenly we find ourselves in a situation where we're eating dinner and the dog is like, okay, finish that up so I can have my part. That's obviously not a good thing. So what I wanted you all to think about with this podcast is how it is that you may be designing your life in regard to your dog, and are you being clear as far as what the rules are?

(05:42):
And if you find yourself in a position like the position that I'm in, don't fret about it, don't stress about it, and don't beat yourself up about it. Don't be upset with your dog. Your dog is just being really smart. They're being opportunistic, and they are basically following your, you have basically trained them to do these things. I have trained my dog to beg very, very well. When you are honest and you're able to accept that that's the situation that you're in, you then have to come up with a solution. And the big thing that I see even for myself that's really easy to fall into as far as a pitfall is you get angry because you're like, oh, I don't want you begging. But again, remember why they're doing it. They're doing it because it works, and they're oftentimes doing it because you had actually almost queued them to do that because of whatever life event you were really busy, whatever it may have happened in that moment that you were then promoting them to do this thing.

(06:39):
So if you can just take a step back and say, okay, I don't want my dog to beg anymore in my situation. What do I need to do in order to ensure that that goes away? How can I help him learn what the rules are again, and how can I hold myself accountable to it? And it's that second part that's really tricky because a lot of times when we do things like this, whether it be feeding into begging or we're encouraging our dogs to jump up on us sometimes, or we're encouraging our dogs to steal things or whatever the case may be, there's part of it that we like to do. So that's another piece that people really have a hard time admitting. And when you say, okay, well, we just can't do that anymore, that's really hard.

(07:29):
So for myself, when he is so adorable and I know that I've ignored him for way too many hours and I feel guilty, I feel really bad. I need to just take a step back and be like, you know what? We'll be able to get up. We can go do some more training. We can do some more playing. We can go for a walk or a hike, whatever the case may be. I don't need to give him the scraps on this plate in order to show him that I'm sorry. First of all, he's not going to make that connection. And second of all, it's actually making things worse. So it's not going to make me feel better. It's not going to make him feel better. It's not going to make the situation better. It's actually going to make it worse when I could just put the plate in the sink and then go outside with him to play for a little bit or do whatever we may be doing, whether a training or a walk or a hike or whatever.

(08:18):
So that's the part that I think I've seen a lot of clients struggle with where they don't want necessarily to look at that side of it. Why is it that you are continuing to do this? What in your actions are perpetuating your dog to be naughty? And just remember that your dog does stuff that works. So if your dog is begging consistently and you thought that you were working on it to get them to stop, but they're still doing it, that means that begging is working. That means whatever you're doing is still telling them that begging works. They're still getting something out of, for myself, what am I doing? What's a solution to my problem as to how I've now developed this dog who is just absolutely phenomenal at begging and being really super rude? Well, a couple things. First, get into a mental space myself of saying, okay, I need to set him up to be successful.

(09:15):
I also need to eat my meals and then get up and get the food away. And then we need to be doing something else later so that I don't feel guilty that I was working all day and I didn't give as much attention to him as I would've liked. And then fall into the trap of, oh, but he's just so cute. I'll just give him one little piece because that just undoes everything that I just did leading up to that. So what that means is that when I may be getting ready to actually sit down to eat, I'll give him a stuffed Kong. So he's on his bed. So we're basically going all the way back to the very first stage when you may be working with a dog who is really super rude. So he gets a stuffed Kong in his bed. So he gets the idea of when mom is eating, I get to get really good goodness on my bed.

(09:57):
The bed is where I need to be and I don't need to worry about her. Step number two, I need to eat. Don't have to shovel it down my face or anything, but I need to concentrate on my eating and then not give any kind of attention to him while I'm doing. So making sure that that Kong is frozen so it can actually take him a little bit of time is actually a really good idea. The third piece is once I'm done eating, don't just sit there. Don't just try to vegetate, actually pick up the plate, take it into the sink. So I'm not prompting him to do all the behaviors that he's learned work, because the longer I sit there, the longer he winds, the more cute he gets, the bigger his eyes get, the more guilty I feel, the more likely I am to give him a piece.

(10:40):
And then at that point, we can then go outside and maybe play some games, maybe play some ball, or one of the games we like to play is with a flirt pole, we call it stick, where he basically just chases around a toy that's attached to a lunge whip, and it's like a giant cat toy. It's one of his favorite things to do. So maybe we'll do something like that. And with time, what will happen is that he'll learn that being on his bed produces so much more benefit than him trying to whine and beg because he is not getting anything for those things. It's not going to happen overnight. I'm the one who really is in control of this as far as how well we do. I need to stay strong and not given to that guilt that I feel like, oh, but I've been working for seven hours straight.

(11:28):
Oh, the poor little honey. Oh, maybe he could just use one little piece. No, he's fine. Well fed. He gets treats all day. He gets lots of love and attention. He'll be okay so that you're not mad at him the other times you're trying to eat and he's all up in your face. Just let him be successful. So that's the plan. We'll see how it goes. But those are the of things that you want to think about. If you're struggling with something like this with your dog, whether it be, again, if they're jumping up on you when you come home, whether or not it's stealing something. A lot of times these behaviors that we consider naughty is really something that we have fed into oftentimes, inadvertently, but we have basically diminished the rules or we have made it so confusing where sometimes they're allowed to do it and sometimes it's even encouraged.

(12:19):
Or in my case, it's actually rewarded, and then other times it's not. So whenever we're doing stuff with our dogs, the clear that we can be, the better it is. And if you can think forward thinking when you're designing your rules, that really makes life a lot easier. So if you notice that when you first get a puppy, for instance, you're like, oh, they're just so adorable and they're jumping all over, you're like, oh, they love me. Okay, that's great. And it's really cute when they're tiny. But if you have an adult dog who may be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90 pounds, are you going to be happy with them jumping on you? My guess is no, you're probably not going to want that. So you want to think about these kinds of things. It may be cute right now, but are you going to think it's cute later?

(13:06):
And if the answer is no, then maybe you shouldn't be feeding into that. So just a really quick and dirty kind of podcast just talking about something that I think a lot of people struggle with. It's not something that we just struggle with dogs. We struggle with it with ourselves, we struggle with it with our children, our spouses, our friends. It's just being clear and then understanding what we may be doing to promoting those behaviors that we actually are not particularly fond of, and then ways that we can come up with solutions to work around that. So I hope you enjoyed this podcast, at least I hope it got you thinking a little bit. Happy training. We look forward to seeing you soon.