판단이 사람이나 개에게 도움이 되지 않는 이유: 이츠여초이스 LWT #91

And I know a lot of my online students have dogs that live outside for various reasons. I have seen this work really well, but for the most part, I have seen it not work so swell. And so, I've said this before. It's a great quote from my friend, Ellen Bader, who says, when you feel furious, it's time to get curious. I'm not saying that I was furious at this woman, but you could replace this as when you feel like you're making a judgment of somebody else, get curious about them first. I just think that's such an important lesson for all of us to adopt. But alas, that's not what I did last Sunday. I did get curious. I kind of heard that little voice in my head and I said, wow, what breed of dog will you be getting? And she said, they're golden retriever puppies. Again, it made my heart hurt a little bit. My judgment, I believe, as I said to her, I said, you know, all dogs really like to bond with their people and they like to be where their people are. And particular breeds like golden retrievers who have really been bred to work with man. Not to say that there aren't all kinds of field bred dogs that live outside. It's just my vision, my perception. And I put this on this poor girl. I could tell she was clamming up a little bit and I was making her feel a bit, I don't know if the word shame or guilt about what she was doing, but you could tell her bright bubbly outside exterior had now gone. So, then I tried to build that relationship again and I asked her why outside. And before I tell you her answer, let's do a moment to interact with your dogs. So, I want you to ask your dog to sit. I want you to pivot in front of them and open up your palm with good tasty treats in that palm, right? We're doing a round of It's Your Choice. Put that palm pretty close to your dog's face. And I want you to now just move it away about one foot. I want to see if your dog moves their paws. If they do, you're going to close your palm and put it back at your side. Stand up and then go back and try it again. If your dog fails twice, then I don't want you to play It's Your Choice on this round of Learn, Walk, and Train. I want you to go back and play an interactive game of chase me, get a cookie. But if your dog doesn't move any other paws when you move that palm a foot away, I want you to pick up a cookie, pause, and hold it there for a couple of seconds. See if any paws move. And if not, feed right away. So, when I asked this woman, why do you want the puppies to live outside? And she said, I just don't like dogs in the house.

So, then I might've spoke without a filter. And I said, you know, it sounds like maybe a couple garden gnomes might've been a better choice. Yes, indeed. That is what I said. Hurtful, a judgment, my opinion. Here I am, a professional in a position to really help this girl, to really make an impact on those puppies' lives. But my quick judgment and lack of filter put a wedge between us. And there is no way she was ever going to take any input from me. And so, I gathered up my groceries. Obviously, she said nothing else to me. I went to the car and here's what I thought a few seconds later. I thought, well, as much as it hurts my heart to think of these puppies living alone outside in Canada in the winter, I'm hoping she'll have a shelter for them. I'm sure she will. She seems like a nice enough girl. I quickly changed my demeanor and started laughing as I thought about all the damage those puppies are going to do to her backyard. So, it gave me a little smile. And then I went about my day. But here's how our subconscious works. That behavior that I showed is not congruent with the person I believe I am. It's not congruent with the person I would like to show up to for the world always. And so, I didn't think about it again. I went to bed and when I woke up, it's the first thing that I thought of. I thought, wow, Susan, there was so much more you could do. You could have actually said some kind words to that girl. You could have said, wow, two puppies, that's going to be a challenge. Listen, I have a lot of free information on raising puppies on my YouTube channel. I'm going to write down my website here. If you have any questions, you just drop my team a line because we're very responsive to anybody who needs help. What a different interaction. One far more congruent with the person I want the world to know. One far more congruent with the person I'd like to show up to, not just for my dogs, but for everybody in my life. I thought it was super important for me to talk to you about this because let's just go to behavior number two, shall we? If you had success with your It's Your Choice, sit number one, we're moving on to number two. Everybody ask your dog to sit and you're going to pivot in front, put your palm of your hand with all those tasty treats super close to your puppy's or your dog's nose, and then move it away one foot. And now you're going to pick up that cookie. You're going to pause. Now you're going to praise your dog in a way that might get them to move. I mean, you're not going to go, Oh, good girl.

Yeah, that was good. I want you to go, Oh, good baby. Something really exciting. And if the puppy or the dog that you're playing is your choice, if you get that palm movement, put the cookie back in your hand, close the hand, put it back at your side. Stand up, wait a second, go back, try it again. We want to make sure there's no paw movement, no squirt. I mean, of course they're allowed to wiggle their bum. They're allowed to like wag their tail because you're talking to them in a really, you know, encouraging way. If you have success this time, pick, pause, praise, and quickly feed before they have any second thoughts about moving. Okay. Success number two. Let's go on. Judgment. Last week I posted a video on my YouTube page and there was confusion. And looking back, it was my bad. In the video, I was walking behind my puppy and she moved her front paw. And I was talking to the camera. It's very difficult to teach and train at the same time, but I've been doing it for many, many years. So, I think I've got it pretty much down. What I did was I offered my puppy a nose bridge. So, with a nose bridge, I dropped my hand and then she pushes her nose up into the crook of my hand. That allows me to help guide her feet into one position or another so she can be successful. And if you're interested in having me teach a nose bridge, come to my YouTube page, find this learn, walk, and train episode, and just leave me a comment. Anyway, that's what I did. And somebody who was watching thought I grabbed her muzzle to discipline her. And as a matter of fact, two people thought that. One person was very kind and said, you know, why I might have done that. The other person was very judgmental, called me some bad names and said I was being mean to my puppy and that my videos were garbage. Something along that line, I should have got the exact quote, but it made me think of, you know, judgment. What does judgment do to us? Now, let me preface this by saying every moment of our lives, practically, we are making a judgment. Do I go with a high fat keto diet or do I eat low fat or do I go sugar-free or do I go junk food all the way? How many chocolate chip cookies would be good for me today? These are judgments. We're constantly making judgments. What kind of car do I buy? How would this outfit make me look when I'm wearing it today? Judgment, judgment, judgment. So, it's how we're programmed. It's different when we're making judgments for ourselves and our best outcomes. But you can see how easy it is to make a judgment of other. If you took that moment,

when I feel furious, time to get curious. And maybe, like I said, maybe furious isn't the way, when I feel irritated, it's time to ask questions. That's really what it's saying. When you think about dog training, the entire gamut of dog training at one end of the spectrum, we have people who, you know, many years ago, wasn't that long ago, 30, 40, 50 years ago, the main way to motivate a dog was through fear and intimidation. There was no food and no toys involved in dog training. It was you do it or I will correct you. And just like dog training today, if you had really good timing training a dog like that, the dog could still have the appearance of being happy, but they were working for the absence of punishment. They weren't working for a reinforcement. And you know, I'm happy to say you rarely, I don't even know if I know of anybody who trains that way today. There are people who mix a lot of reinforcement in with a lot of physical corrections, intimidation, but I'd like to think there's nobody out there training that way today. And me just saying that, I just made a judgment. It is not my cup of tea. That's my judgment. And if you're listening to this podcast, it's probably not your cup of tea either. At the other end of the spectrum, we have people who believe that dogs should never be told they've made a mistake, even by withholding a cookie. On our last repetition of It's Your Choice, if your dog made a mistake and I told you, put your cookie back in your hand and bring that hand down, they would have said, that's wrong, that you need to feed the dog, even if they make a mistake, because we need to not let them know they've made a mistake. That's another far end of the spectrum. And somewhere in the middle would be people who use reinforcement as a lure. So, they put it on, cookie on their dog's nose to get them to come or to sit beside them or to go into a down. And it's still reinforcement-based training. However, I see it as having limitations because the learning is stunted. I'll give you an example. Like if you ever use a GPS to get someplace and then you try to find that place without a GPS, well, the GPS lured you. And so, the learning doesn't happen the same. What I'm teaching is definitely on the far end, closer to all dogs are always right, but it's game-based. It's fun. I do believe in teaching the dog how to work through frustration. So, my point is there's so many different types of dog trainer. There's an old joke that goes like this. The only thing two dog trainers can agree on is what the third dog trainer is doing wrong.

And sadly, it's true. It's a judgment. Okay. Let's train our dog. If you had success with the last round of It's Your Choice, move on to round number three. If you didn't, I want you to take a break, either go back to the easier round of It's Your Choice or play, chase me, get a cookie. Okay. Round three. I want you to ask your dog to sit. You're going to go out in front. You're going to take a big step forward. All right. You're going to open that big hand and you're going to pick, hold it up, pick the cookie up, and you're going to praise. And then you're going to slowly move it towards the dog, watching for those paws. See if any movement happens. You're going to go micro slow, micro slow, and then feed the dog. Okay. That one's fun. Pick up another one and then praise. Boom. Super fast. Feed your dog. So, there's lots of ways to train a dog. But I want you to think like I have, how sitting in judgment of your dog's behavior, of someone else's behavior affects not only you, but if you've got kids in your house, how does it affect the children? If they see you deeming the dog is wrong because they did something they shouldn't have and getting mad at them or scolding them, then what lessons are we teaching the kids is that if somebody is weaker than us, we can overpower them and dominate them. That's how I really came to settle on the way that I like to train dogs is because I believe we can teach anything through games. It's still going to be very educational. As a matter of fact, I challenge that it's maybe the best way to learn because you're in a high state of focus. You're in the peak arousal state to learn when you're playing a game, both the people and for sure the dogs. And so, it's important when you're selecting how you train your dog that you consider the effect that that training methodology has on the psyche of who you are as a human being. Do you want to look around at all the things that are wrong with what an animal or somebody in your environment is doing? Okay. Let's get that dog out again. And if you had success on level three, let's go to level four. If not, take a step back. We're going to ask the dog to sit. You're going to go out in front just like before. This time you're going to pick up your hand and you're going to hold it maybe a foot away from your dog's nose. And I want you to pick up the cookie and say good and feed as fast as you can. I want you to do five cookies. Pick up the cookie, good feed, good feed, good feed, good feed as fast as you can. Now, I want you to pick up another cookie,

say good and hold it and see what the dog does. We're looking for paw movement, but this time we're also looking to see how much they lean forward to try to facilitate the cookie coming towards them. Just close your hand around the cookie until they sit back and then you can feed them. So, getting back to the grocery store, that one little interaction, what it made me do is decide I need to get business cards made. Do you guys remember those things you give out? I don't, I don't have any. I need to get business cards made. And when I see somebody struggling or somebody asks me a question, I want to make it a possibility that they don't have to remember my website. They don't have to remember my YouTube page that we've got solutions. And hey, if you have questions, you leave me a comment on YouTube and somebody on my team is going to reach out to you. So, that's the one big change that I'm going to make. The second thing is I decided I'm going to go back to that store this week and I'm going to see if she's working on the same day. And I'm going to do just that. I'm going to apologize for the things I said. I'm going to ask her how her new puppies are and I'm going to give her access to my website and let her know you might not need it right now. You might not think you need it right now, but down the road, I'd like to be there for you if you have some training challenges. Okay. Let's do another round of it's your choice. This one is super easy. Ask the dog to sit, open up the palm, pick up one cookie. You're going to drop your palm lower. I just want to drop you almost to the ground. The palm with the cookies is going to go almost to the ground and you just hold that one in your hand. If the dog stays in position, you're going to feed them, right? Do one more just like that. Pick up the cookies, drop the palm to the ground, pick up one cookie, drop your palm to the ground to see what the dog does. If they hold position, just feed them. So, the lessons we're trying to teach our dog here is that I will bring you your reinforcement. You don't have to come to me. You don't have to move your paws. I will take care of that for you. And you need to think about that every time you give your dog a treat, if you've asked them to sit or down, that what are they doing the moment that the treat enters their mouth? Super, super important. The last thing I'd like to say about judgment is if you're listening to this podcast or you're watching any of my videos on YouTube and you do have some critical

information for me, please do not be afraid to reach out to me. Go to our website, click on the info, and you can send a message to me through my team. I would love to have that dialogue because as far apart as dog trainers are right now from one spectrum to the other, I think with more conversations, conversations about how similar we are, we can limit those distances and have success all trading on a very, very similar page. We're all going to have our unique differences. It's true, but those unique differences don't have to make us adversarial. That's it for Shaped by Dog. I'll see you next time.