개는 행복하면서 동시에 훈련이 잘될 수 있을까요? #43

Hey, now I'm a little bit afraid of you. And when this, my most recent puppy started to poop poop. And all that I did was call her like, quick, quick, quick, let's get outside, let's get outside. And I picked her up and we ran outside. And the difference from my early dogs, thank you guys, to this puppy in my approach is completely different. And it has been an evolution for me. And it made me think of that a common thing that people say to me when they meet my dogs is they say, your dogs are such characters. They are such goofballs. Like they're all uniquely individual personalities and they're goofy. And I believe that's because of the clarity of expectations that my dogs live with, that they know exactly that they can trust that whoever they show to me, I'm going to be okay with that. And we're going to work together. Some people who would lead you to believe that training the way I suggest dogs should be trained won't work for all dogs. And they might even suggest that your dog is different and your dog needs a different approach. And I guess that's up to you to decide, which is why I posed that question. Would you be willing to trade off a well-trained dog for a happy dog if you had to give one? And I think back to, you know, the question of how to help a puppy understand not to go to the bathroom inside. It comes to my mind, this phrase, to what end? So, what if screaming at her, getting her to freeze makes the house training happen a little faster? Really? It's my responsibility. That dog pooped in the house because I didn't do a good enough job containing her environment and getting her outside when she needed to. So, why do I have to break that trust between her and I by screaming at her when it was my bad anyway? I remember back in the eighties, I was teaching dog training at a school and in puppy classes, after puppy classes, they would gather the group around and we would teach a little puppy lecture. And one of them was on, and I think, I don't know, week four or five, we talked about puppy nipping. And what we taught the students to do, we would ask for a demo dog. Does somebody have a puppy that nips? Yeah. Okay. I'll take little Rover. And little Rover was so happy. Hi, hi, happy puppy coming up all wiggly. And I want to see you. Oh, hi, happy puppy. We would take Rover by the collar and we'd encourage Rover to, we would pat his mouth until he nipped at us. And then we would shake him, scold him, and give him a little smack under the chin. And the look in these puppies' eyes

was one of complete devastation. Now, the most amazing thing about dogs is that God gave them more forgiveness than he gave any one of us. And so, they put up with the crap that happens to them in the name of training and they still roll with the punches, but there is still a breaking of the trust. Now, you can go back to some of my earlier podcasts to see how I teach a puppy not to nip. And I can assure you it is nothing to do with physical intimidation or mental intimidation. So, the question I have for you to consider is, are my actions and my decisions to help my dog understand how they can fit into my life, increasing their happiness, increasing their trust in me, or decreasing their happiness and decreasing their trust in me? And then you've got a question, well, why did you get a dog in the first place? Did you bring this being into your house just so you could be a ruler over that creature? Did you bring them in to add more anxiety and stress into their life? Did you bring them in to just make them a slightly more unhappy so they could learn to fit in with your rules? I would certainly hope not. Then if your goal was to have this amazing partnership and this amazing family pet, why settle for less in the name of to what end? Getting them trained faster. Possibly it might get trained faster, possibly not, but there will always be fallout with choices that involve intimidation or coercion. And I understand that there are some dogs that came to you anxious. Some of you have rescue dogs that there's some anxiety already there. So, the question then is, are your choices and training decisions adding more anxiety to that poor soul? That's the question that I would just like you to consider. You know, for all of us human beings, what we learn first, we learn best. So, we get really, really good at blame and judgment if we were taught to raise and train our dogs with blame or judgment. But we can change. It just takes conscious thought. And you might want to review podcast number 20 here on Shaped by Dog, where I talk about bridging the gap between blame and kindness in dog training. That might be a good first step for you to take. And also, if you are sitting there in this position, don't beat yourself up for what may have happened in the past. Maya Angelou says, when we know better, we do better. And all we can do is do better. Even if you are a first-time dog owner, even if you're a first-time puppy owner, you might not know the exact signs of, is your dog happy or is your dog stressed or confused or anxious,

but you can make the decision that everything you're going to do is going to add to that dog's confidence and add to their trust and add to their joy of life. Now, I'm not saying let the dog be a little hoodlum. My dogs have very, very clear rules in their life, but they are raised in an environment where the rules are very, very clear. And when they show me that they understand and have success with these rules, they're given more freedom, more choices. At first, I might keep the puppy in a little pen like the one you see behind me if you're watching this on YouTube. And I can supervise her there a lot easier than giving her the roam of the whole house. When she has success there, she gets more and more freedom. In a very short time, she's living her life just like the rest of my dogs. Probably within six months, she lives with the same kind of freedom of all of my dogs. So, forgive yourself and dig in to the knowledge of how to do this. Regardless if you are a first-time dog owner or not, your goal is to create clarity for your dog. Okay. So, what can you do now? What if you come home and your dog's shredded a couch, or you come home and your dog's pooped on the rug? Our dogs, they take on our emotions. They can tell when we're angry, when we're frustrated, when we're disappointed. And quite honestly, whatever your dog has done, they've done it because you have given them the permission to do so. So, if you're going to be angry, frustrated, or disappointed in anybody, be angry, frustrated, and disappointed in yourself. And do not let your dog even think that they had something to do with it. You can do better at setting up their environment to be successful. And you can plan your responses. Plan your responses. So, know that, you know, when I come in the house, if the puppy has peed somewhere, I'm just, I'm going to like, okay, I'm not going to be disappointed. I want my puppy to be, no, I'm going to get my puppy outside and then I'm going to put them somewhere. And then I'm going to clean up the mess. And then I'm going to maybe pour myself an adult beverage, or maybe open up some of my favorite vegan chocolate chip cookies. And I'm going to get over myself. Then I'm going to come up with a plan on how I can do better for that puppy. No matter what the struggle or challenge, no matter what you've walked into. And if you are challenged to do this, then you've got to decide what could that puppy do, or that rescue dog do that would cause you to completely lose the plot. And then do your best

to prevent that from ever happening. And if you say, well, Susan, I can't, I don't believe in all these rules. I think I got to let a dog be a dog. You know, when I was doing some research for this podcast, I looked up what is an antonym for anxiety. And the first thing that came up as an antonym for anxiety was clarity. The opposite of anxious is clear. It said, uh, uh, certainty, serenity, and tranquility is the opposite of anxiety. So, we can create certainty with our dogs just by showing up and being the same person, being consistent for them. You might be learning together. Again, you might be a first time dog owner. It's okay. But the choice is yours. You know, we're all going to make mistakes. Just yesterday, I was doing some filming for one of our agility memberships, Agility Nation. And I was using my puppy. She's 10 weeks old. And over the course of three hours, I brought her in to do a lot of different little video shoots. And she was amazing. She was nailing it. And it almost makes me forget that she's a 10 week old puppy until at one point she was in what we call the hot zone. She was just sitting up, chilling out on the bed. And I was talking to the camera and she said, right, union rules, I'm done. And she got off the bed, which is unusual. She would never get. So, I said, Hey, little this, hop it back up there. And she got on the bed and then got this look in her eye. Like, I think I'm done. And then she took off and ran around the bedroom, grabbed one of the toys I was playing with her, and then ran to her favorite spot, which is under my bed. She loves to play bitey face with her mother from under the bed. So, she'd come out and look at me. And that was her showing her stress about what went on. So, I felt bad about it. I mean, I laughed because it was funny, but there was nothing I did to add to more stress. I didn't say, Hey, Hey, Hey, I told you to get on that bed. That's where you should be in the hot zone. She let me know I'd made a mistake and I believed her. So, the choice is ours. You can be a dictatorial alpha kind of leader, or you can be a benevolent leader who creates clarity through kindness in everything you do and all of your interactions with your dogs. You see that look of bewilderment in your dog's eyes, that look of broken trust that you see, that dog with their ears pinned back or their whites of their eyes showing when they go, Who are you? I didn't, I've never seen this side of you before. Or the dog who gets the zoomies because they don't know how to please you.

Or the dog who has that so-called guilty look or the look of shame on their face. Maybe that's the dog who turns away from you while you're working and they just start sniffing and you're supposed to be training together. Those are looks of confusion. Those are looks of broken trust. That dog is letting you know you did not do a good job of hiding your frustration or disappointment or anger. That dog is helping you to become a better dog trainer. That dog is helping you to become a better dog owner. And that dog is helping you to become a more compassionate human being. And that my friend is how you too get shaped by dog. I'll see you next time.