In today's episode of the Acknowledged Dogs podcast, we're exploring the concept of reward placement and how it can affect your dog's training. Reward placement refers to the location in which a reward is given during a training session. When used correctly, reward placement can accelerate your dog's learning and improve its behavior. However, if used incorrectly, it can lead to disobedience and further problems.

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Episode Transcript

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:21:07
Michael J. Accetta
To the Acknowledged Dogs podcast. Today's episode is all about exploring the concepts of reward placement. What is reward placement? How does it affect our dogs? Learning, how does it affect our dogs training and how if we use it effectively, we can accelerate everything that our dog is trying to learn everything. We're trying to teach them the skills that they need to know to adapt to everyday life.

00:00:21:12 - 00:00:42:02
Michael J. Accetta
Or if you're trying to do competition to try to fix problem behaviors. Reward placement is huge. When working with your dog and trying to do anything of value. We're also going to talk to the concept of why reward placement could have negative effects, how it could create disobedience, it could create more problems than good if we do it incorrectly.

00:00:42:11 - 00:00:57:13
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, we're going to go over the science of reward places. We're going to go over positive reinforcement and how it influences your dog. We're going to talk about some of the common mistakes and the techniques that you're going to be able to use right after listening to this episode with your own dog and accelerating your training. So let's jump into it first.

00:00:57:19 - 00:01:21:29
Michael J. Accetta
What is reward placements? To understand reward placements, you have to understand what's called the reward event. Whenever you give your dog a treat, whenever you give them a toy, whenever you give them praise the big picture is what's called a reward event. Now, professionals will use a reward event in different locations to prompt their dog to do something different in the next repetition.

00:01:22:13 - 00:01:43:01
Michael J. Accetta
For example, if I want my dog a little forward and whatever behavior I'm trying to do, I might reward them in front of them. If I want them to back up, I will reward them behind. The best example I can give to this is if you're having your dog recall to you. Of course, if your dog's running directly at you, you would not toss a toy behind them, right?

00:01:43:02 - 00:01:57:09
Michael J. Accetta
That might seem normal when my dog's running to me. Maybe I want to reward them with a toy, so I'm going to toss the toy behind them and they're going to chase after the toy and then they're going to come back. What actually happens more often than not is instead of our dog running all the way to us, they'll stop further and further away.

00:01:57:22 - 00:02:16:28
Michael J. Accetta
Every single repetition, they are rewarded further and further away from us. They're going to stop further and further away. Instead of coming all the way to us, they're like, Oh, well, you're going to toss it behind me. I might as well back up. I might as well get ready for it. That is reward placement. The reward event is happening further away from you, and so they are actively looking to go further away from you.

00:02:16:28 - 00:02:33:21
Michael J. Accetta
Professionals know this, and instead they'll toss the toy behind them, their dogs running directly to them. If you can get your dog to run between your legs, that's fantastic. Your dog's running to you, toss the toy behind you. They'll run straight through your legs. They get the toy, you turn around, you recall them again, they run back to you.

00:02:33:26 - 00:02:51:09
Michael J. Accetta
You tell them to drop the toy. They drop the toy. You throw a second toy. Behind you. You're teaching them to run through you in order to get the toy order to get the reward. The reward event is happening behind you, which means we're motivating them to push through us. That's just one technique we're going to go over a couple later on.

00:02:52:00 - 00:03:08:02
Michael J. Accetta
But I want you to understand that the reward placement can be very, very useful. When you use it correctly. If you use it incorrectly, if you toss the toy behind them, then we're creating problems, right? We're creating disobedience. I call I recalled them. I want them to come all the way to me. And instead they want to go that way.

00:03:09:26 - 00:03:32:14
Michael J. Accetta
Now, the science behind this is that dogs are very simply opportunists. They're opportunists. They are looking for the opportunity for and worse, reinforce That is why positive reinforcement works so well. Our dogs are actively seeking reinforcement. They want to find the thing that's going to bring them joy, give them extra value and get this dopamine hit in their brain.

00:03:32:14 - 00:03:50:23
Michael J. Accetta
When they solve problems, they get a dopamine spike, the chemical dopamine, which is good feelings and elation. They get that in their brain and they want to do it again. The more they do it, the more dopamine they get, the more they want to do it. This is the power of positive reinforcement. All right. If you've trained your dog for any length of time using treats or toys, or praise, then you know this.

00:03:51:02 - 00:04:09:06
Michael J. Accetta
Once you pull out the toy, once you pull out the treat bag, they get excited. They want to do stuff with you. So when they're looking for that opportunity, they're engaged with you. They're trying to get the reinforcement. If we give them the opportunity to go to a specific spot to do it, they will beat us there. They will run straight there.

00:04:09:06 - 00:04:24:09
Michael J. Accetta
That's why dogs run to the back door when you grab the leash. They know outside is exciting and the reward placement is outside. So they're going to be opportunist. They're going to get ahead they're going to cheat the system and they're going to get to the back door. So that won't put the leash on where that much closer to going outside.

00:04:25:20 - 00:04:43:14
Michael J. Accetta
Imagine you put the leash on at the front door and then took them out the back door. Where would they go? They're probably going to go to the back door. That was a trick question. You might say, Oh, well, they'll go to the front door. No, because the reward placement is at the back door. It doesn't matter what happens before the reward placement.

00:04:43:14 - 00:05:03:17
Michael J. Accetta
What happens is where is the reward placement? Now, this is very commonly used in heal or competition work. We want our dog to be further behind us. Right. If they're glued to our leg and they're forging forward a little bit, maybe you want them to back up. You're going to reward behind them so that they back up. They're intentionally holding themselves back instead of coming forward.

00:05:03:22 - 00:05:20:29
Michael J. Accetta
If we want them to come forward a little bit, we can reward them in front. Now, there is some complication to this. Okay. Now that you understand the science, let's talk about technique. Technique where we place the treat or where we place the toy or where we place the praise. Can be manipulated by using one of two things?

00:05:21:00 - 00:05:41:00
Michael J. Accetta
Number one, a conditioned reinforcer, the clicker, right? I use the clicker in the moment where my dog is in the perfect position that I want them. Then the reward event can happen anywhere. Okay. So so if I'm doing a recall, like the example from before, I recall my dog all the way to me, they sit in front of me, I click the treat can go anywhere, the toy can go anywhere, I can toss it behind them.

00:05:41:14 - 00:06:13:14
Michael J. Accetta
Because they finish the behavior. The conditioned reinforcer that click or the word yes indicates to my dog that it is over. We are done over with. Okay? The behavior is completely done. You've earned your reinforcement. Wherever that reinforcement goes is totally fine. However, you can use reinforcement placement to encourage them to do the next repetition. For example, if I want my dog to look at me, right, I'm practicing having them give me eye contact instead of giving them a treat directly in their mouth while they're already looking at me, I might toss the treat over there.

00:06:13:24 - 00:06:29:20
Michael J. Accetta
It gets them to turn away from me so that I can have them practice turning back towards me. As they turn back towards me, I mark and toss another tree. They're going back and forth. I'm setting them up for the next repetition. If I don't set them up, then we're in this weird loop. I do this with obedience constantly.

00:06:29:27 - 00:06:46:20
Michael J. Accetta
My dog puts their butt down in a sit. I will click, run backwards and give them a treat for standing up. Does this encourage them to stand after I click? Yes. And that's okay because the click indicates that the behavior is done. It doesn't mean that all of our training is done, but it does mean that the set is done right.

00:06:46:20 - 00:07:06:16
Michael J. Accetta
I said, Sit my dog, but there, sit down. I could say Good boy, I could keep them going, right? I could release them with the release word. Okay, free. Or I could click. And when they click, they're allowed to stand up and get their treat. I'm essentially teaching them to break the command by a terminal markers, what it's called a conditioned reinforcer that ends the behavior is called a terminal marker.

00:07:07:05 - 00:07:21:04
Michael J. Accetta
So once I get them up good, I give him a treat. Now I can ask them to sit again because they're standing. Same thing with doubt. Same thing with standing, actually. Right. So they're standing. If I tell them to stand, I might push them back into a sit with a treat. Or I might ask them for a sit and then have them stand.

00:07:21:11 - 00:07:37:15
Michael J. Accetta
You have that flexibility when you understand these concepts and these principles and you can put them in to where you need them. Okay. Now, the other way, right? I mentioned there was two there's kind of two ways to do this. The other way is to add words for all of the different reward placements that you're going to use.

00:07:38:11 - 00:07:55:22
Michael J. Accetta
What do I mean by that? First, there's indirect, indirect rewarding. Some people call this the pre-match theory. I call it indirect, indirect rewarding. If I'm going to directly give my dog a treat, I'm going to take it from my hand and put it in their mouth. That is direct if I'm going to send them to go do something that is indirect.

00:07:56:06 - 00:08:18:26
Michael J. Accetta
So instead of giving them the treat, I'm sending them to a bowl of food or I'm tossing a toy and having them go get that's indirect, rewarding. They go, they get it, they come back all great. Right? So first you need to determine that. And what I can do is I can have a clicker for direct rewarding. I click, they come directly to my center and I give them a treat and I can say, go and they'll run off and I can toss the toy.

00:08:18:26 - 00:08:46:18
Michael J. Accetta
That would be an indirect conditioned reinforcer. What they've learned is that word go means run off until you find the thing that I sent you to go get. But it's not a command, it's not a cue. It's not telling them to do something. It's relieving them from what they've done by indicating what they just did. Earned them reinforcement go because they sat patiently means now you can go and get a toy or go eat the food in the bowl.

00:08:47:18 - 00:09:02:13
Michael J. Accetta
Now, there's even another level to this, an advanced level to this. If let's say we have heel is the best way to describe it because of all the different complexities in that one moment. So if we have our dog heel right next to us, they're glued to our side. They're following along with the theme of our pants, right?

00:09:03:10 - 00:09:20:28
Michael J. Accetta
And they're looking up at us. I can do a couple of things. And again, we're going to pick different conditioned reinforcers, these different sounds that mean different things. And you'd have to find that out for yourself. But if I had my dog in a heel I might put a toy right on my shoulder so that they're looking up at my face.

00:09:20:28 - 00:09:35:29
Michael J. Accetta
Now, I don't like this too much simply because they're looking at the toy, not my face. And that's a clear indication, right? If I were to hold the toy away from me, they're probably going to still look at the toy. If I can teach that separately, then fantastic. I can have them look into my eyes. But let's say I put the toy maybe in my armpit or on my shoulder.

00:09:36:18 - 00:09:56:27
Michael J. Accetta
They make magnetic toys that fit with vests. So you can do this. And when they are looking at me, I can flick it off my shoulder or I can have my dog jump up and get it. Now I'm going to need a conditioned reinforcer that's clear to do that as opposed to have my dog go behind me. And I'm going to toss a toy off to the side away from me.

00:09:57:19 - 00:10:31:22
Michael J. Accetta
That way they're learning to be closer and closer to me again. Reinforcement placement teachers. Our dog to go forward in a position or retreat in a position to get closer to where the reward placement is. So if I if I have my dog on my left side and I want them to hug on to me and be closer to my right side, I will toss the toy or the tree onto my right side, which means they're going to be pushing into me in the hopes that I will let them slip behind my leg or slip in front of me and go get the toy over there if they're on my left and they're really pushing into

00:10:31:22 - 00:10:46:23
Michael J. Accetta
me and I need them to relax a little bit, but I still want them right next to me. I might reward them right next to me, or I might toss the toy to the left. So they're going to peel off to the left and go get it. I can also have them peel off to the left and go behind me, peel off to the left and go forward, peel off to the right and go behind me.

00:10:46:23 - 00:11:03:14
Michael J. Accetta
Peel off to the right and go forward right. I have all these different directions that I could have my dog go into and when we really get into the nitty gritty of competition or training and that kind of thing, you want to have conditioned reinforcers for all of these different aspects. You want them to go on from the left leg.

00:11:03:14 - 00:11:21:29
Michael J. Accetta
You want them to spin in a circle and go behind you. You want them to spin in the circle and then go forward, right? Because maybe you want them to learn how to tuck there, but more behind you, they're flailing out with their butt, meaning instead of being parallel to you, they're flailing out. Their hind legs are further away from you than their four limbs.

00:11:22:05 - 00:11:47:25
Michael J. Accetta
Right? So instead of having that happen, I'm going to teach them to turn to the left that tucks their button. So why? Why would I then use a conditional reinforcer instead of just using a lure or using a toy and just tossing it in a random direction? This is why it creates clarity with your dog. The clearer training will be, the faster your dog will learn.

00:11:48:23 - 00:12:07:23
Michael J. Accetta
It's just like in school, right? If you remember back to grade school or high school or even college, when you went to a class, the outline was laid out for you was clear what you were going to learn. It was clear what the topic was. That way your brain was in the right mindset to learn that information. If you went into English class and started talking about math, you'd make no sense.

00:12:08:04 - 00:12:33:27
Michael J. Accetta
And that's why a lot of people struggled with science because we're talking about science and we start tossing in math. Yes, they go together. They absolutely go together. But you're prepped for science. Lengthy text, difficult words like proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, right? Those difficult words your brain is prepared for, not numbers. Once you start throwing numbers in there or algebra a lot of people hate algebra because there's letters in there.

00:12:34:15 - 00:13:04:18
Michael J. Accetta
Why are there letters in there? I'm talking about math right now. On a rudimentary level, we all understand math is math, science or science. And they co-mingle together because they have to. But it's much easier for you to digest new information when you understand the rules and the outline of the information of the context. So when I use a condition reinforcer and I tell my dog spin right there in the heel position, I say spin and I want them to spin off to the right and maybe twirl a spin off to the left.

00:13:04:28 - 00:13:24:04
Michael J. Accetta
I say spin. They are already looking to where the reward is. They know what to expect but it is clear to them what they should be doing. Okay. If I were to say spin and I tossed the toy in front of us and spin meant turn around and go behind me, now he's going to be lost, it disrupts the flow of training.

00:13:24:16 - 00:13:43:20
Michael J. Accetta
It makes him second guess what he's doing and he doesn't become as enthusiastic or creative in the process. Because he's constantly worried about what's happening next. All right. If we look at the back training principle, essentially my dog should always know what's coming next. What my dog knows least comes first. For example, the word right. My dog needs to know the behavior first.

00:13:43:20 - 00:13:59:26
Michael J. Accetta
They need to know that we reinforcements are available actually first, right? First they need to know reinforcements. Are available. Then they need to know what a to reinforcer is. The clicker means. Yes, you've got a treat. Then my dog needs to know what behavior to do. And then they need to know when to do it, when not to do it.

00:13:59:26 - 00:14:25:00
Michael J. Accetta
That's the word when you say sit. Everything I just mentioned happens afterwards. Sit. My dog does the behavior. They hear the conditioned reinforcer, and then they get the treat. They have to know the treat, then the condition reinforcer, then the behavior and then the word. That's how the process should go. And so at the end of day, if you're struggling with your dog's behavior, break it down like that and make it clear for them on what they should be doing and what they shouldn't be doing.

00:14:26:10 - 00:14:45:16
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, we got a lot there's a lot to digest. There are a lot to unpack. Now, I want to talk about the common mistakes that people make when they have a plan to start implementing reinforce ment policeman. Right. This is a very deep concept. It goes very, very deep down the rabbit hole of training and theory and techniques and all of that.

00:14:45:16 - 00:15:05:11
Michael J. Accetta
You really have to know what you're doing to implement it correctly. Now, the common mistakes kind of go like this. Number one, you either don't know what you're doing and you're just kind of messing with it. Number two, you don't spend enough time conditioning the reinforcement appropriately, right? You have to teach your dog what you want them to do first.

00:15:06:07 - 00:15:27:22
Michael J. Accetta
Number three, you're overcomplicating it. Or number four, you're setting them up for failing by testing them. Okay, you're testing them so let's do it like this first one. You just don't know how to do it. It's over. Complicated. Right it out. I want you to write it out. Write everything out. Get everything that's in your brain out on paper first.

00:15:28:14 - 00:15:47:29
Michael J. Accetta
Write down what you want to see. Right. I want my dog to down ten feet away from me. Okay. That's what we want to see. I want my dog to down ten feet away from me. Well, where could I reward them? I could reward them where they stopped. I could reward them behind them. Or I could reward them for in front of me, which would be more likely to improve the performance of the behavior.

00:15:49:06 - 00:16:07:05
Michael J. Accetta
Now, if you're writing this down, fantastic. Because these are the questions that are going to be perfect. If you're struggling with this, what do I want? My dog to do? List out where you could reward them and then pick which one is going to be more likely to improve the quality of the behavior. I want my dog to stop at ten feet and they're stopping at six feet.

00:16:07:13 - 00:16:23:10
Michael J. Accetta
And this, of course, I'm talking about a recall down halfway there, 100 feet or 50 feet away. You recall them and you want them to stop ten feet in front of you. When you say the word down. So when they're running, I say the word down. I want them to drop immediately. Do I reward behind them? Do I reward them where they are?

00:16:23:10 - 00:16:43:11
Michael J. Accetta
Do I reward them in front of me? It depends. If they are closer than ten feet, I'm going to reward them behind them because it's going to improve the likelihood that they stopped sooner or maybe they slowed down their run to listen better. That's oftentimes what happens if they're right on the money, they're right at ten feet. I might reward them in their spot.

00:16:43:11 - 00:16:58:29
Michael J. Accetta
Or maybe I might reward them behind if I want to ensure that they slow down, maybe I reward in front because I want them to speed up, but continue to stop at that same spot. If they're 20 feet when they're supposed to be ten feet, then I definitely want to reward them in front of them so that they come forward more.

00:16:59:25 - 00:17:19:21
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. This is the kind of difference. So right out your training plan, right out what you want to see right out where you could reward them in the different spaces. You could reward them and then ask yourself what will be more likely to increase the likelihood that this happens. Okay, now overcomplicating it, overcomplicating it, it does not need to be difficult.

00:17:19:24 - 00:17:36:17
Michael J. Accetta
You do not need to have 15 different conditioned reinforcers, like with heel, with advanced competitions. They got behind them, they got to the right, they got to the left, they got in front of them, they got jumping up and getting a train over here. They got jumping up and getting a toy over their right on different shoulders and different armpits.

00:17:36:17 - 00:17:55:05
Michael J. Accetta
They got the toy in between their legs. They got the doing the, the toy in their pocket like all these crazy stuff. You don't need to have 15 different conditioned reinforcers. If anything, you really only need three. Okay, here are the three conditioned reinforcers that you need to have with your dog. Number one, a terminal marker. What you just did is over.

00:17:55:11 - 00:18:14:23
Michael J. Accetta
You can now have the reward. The second one is what called Keep going signal. What you're doing is fantastic. I want you to continue doing it until I give you the terminal marker. Fantastic. And the last one you need is an indirect reward. So instead of directly rewarding your dog, you need to have something that tells them they're allowed to go do something or get something.

00:18:15:03 - 00:18:32:12
Michael J. Accetta
They're allowed to go say hi to somebody. They're allowed to go take food off the counter. They're allowed to go eat the food on the floor that your three year old son dropped for my dogs. It's okay. Clean up, right? That tells them that there are it's a terminal marker. They stop doing the behavior, which is relaxing and waiting.

00:18:32:22 - 00:18:52:13
Michael J. Accetta
And then I say, go clean up. And that is their condition to reinforce. I say the exact same way every time. Go clean up. And now they're allowed to go and take the food off the floor that my son dropped. Those are the three that you need. Terminal marker keep going signal and an indirect reward marker. Essentially, go and get the thing that you want that is as overly complicated as you need.

00:18:53:00 - 00:19:12:22
Michael J. Accetta
You could just do two. I would pick either the direct reward or the indirect reward, right? I would eliminate the keep going signal because that's really just to motivate your dog to continue doing what they're doing, but they should do it anyway based off the training that you're doing. Okay. But bare minimum would be one bare minimum. You need a conditioned reinforcer.

00:19:12:23 - 00:19:34:14
Michael J. Accetta
That's the only way you're going to be able to select. What your dog did in that moment is what's deserving of the treat or the reward. Okay. Now, not teaching at first is a big mistake. Number three, if I want my dog to go get food off the floor, I cannot ask them to do a whole obedience routine and then send them confused as all hell to go get a treat off the floor.

00:19:34:14 - 00:19:47:12
Michael J. Accetta
You're going to be like, Okay, what? What? They're going to come up to me expecting a treat and I'm not going to have one again. This goes back to before it's going to create a level of or a lack of clarity. But and we were confused. I thought I was getting a treat. Why didn't I get a treat now?

00:19:47:12 - 00:20:09:01
Michael J. Accetta
It's dishonest, and we're getting into all this chaos. Instead, I have to teach them first the treat over there, you're allowed to go get this automatically happens if we're doing an A, leave it right. My dog sits in wait patiently. I tell them to go get it. Now they can go get the treat. Once you implement that and you start to pepper it into all your other training, it becomes very clear to your dog, Okay, go get it means go get the treat that's over there.

00:20:09:01 - 00:20:24:18
Michael J. Accetta
That's super simple. But let's say you're teaching something different I want my dog to go from a down position, get up and turn around to get a treat or a toy. I have to teach that first. How might I do that? I might have my dog down next to me, I was facing the same direction. Show them the toy.

00:20:24:19 - 00:20:39:20
Michael J. Accetta
Tell them to go get it and toss it away from them. That way they can clearly see where it should be going. Or maybe I break the behavior down so that instead of rewarding behind them, I rewarded a 90 degree angle to them, a perpendicular line to them so they can see it out of their peripheral. And then they go and get it.

00:20:39:20 - 00:20:54:23
Michael J. Accetta
And then I slowly work that back and back and back. Depends on how you want to do it. Depends on your dog's level of skill, your level of skill, and the amount of patience that you might have or what you're already used to. I personally would break it down unless I'm talking about a leave it, which I've already done right.

00:20:55:21 - 00:21:10:22
Michael J. Accetta
You have to teach at first. You want your dog to spin off to the side and go get something. Then you have to teach them first to spin. Right? And this is where the fancy lowering comes from. When someone has a lot of treats in their hand and they're getting their dog to spin in a circle to the right, spin to the left, they're trying to put them in the right position and rewarding them accordingly.

00:21:11:12 - 00:21:34:22
Michael J. Accetta
But in actuality, they're also teaching them a spin so they could just remove the treat, tell them a different condition to reinforce or have them spin in that direction. Mark and treat. And then they wouldn't need to mark a second time. Right? So that conditioned reinforcer leads to the other conditioned reinforcement. I'm getting confusing here. The condition reinforcement that tells them to spin, meaning what you did, where you were, is exactly where I want you to be.

00:21:34:25 - 00:21:54:26
Michael J. Accetta
You're now done. You can go do something else that would then be followed by a click and treat because they're accustomed to the click and they know what they did was right. Again, we're teaching behaviors intentionally used to reward our dog accordingly. It's a very deep concept. Very deep concept. I don't want you to get muddled up in the mechanics of it.

00:21:54:26 - 00:22:11:19
Michael J. Accetta
Understand the principles. The mechanics will come a lot easier. And then the last one is setting your dog up to fail. And this is what I call testing. There's three levels to teaching your dog anything teaching, training and testing. A lot of people spend more time in the testing area than they do in the training or the teaching area.

00:22:12:17 - 00:22:31:26
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. Testing should probably be 20 to 10% of all of the training and work that you do with your dog. Essentially, when you're doing something with them and you go, I don't know if they can do it, let's find out. That's a test. You are testing them to see if they can do it and you end up setting them up for failure because they don't know what your expectation is.

00:22:31:26 - 00:22:44:23
Michael J. Accetta
They don't know how to do it. And you're you're you're just struggling at that point. This is what I unfortunately did when I started working in college. When I started working with dogs in college, we everybody was so excited about working with dogs were like, Okay, well, I wonder if this dog could do this. And we tested it out.

00:22:44:23 - 00:23:14:03
Michael J. Accetta
The dog failed. We were like, Oh, okay, well, you know, let's move on to the next thing instead of learning how to do it. And my professors pointed it out. They said, You're not teaching these dogs. You're expecting them to do things that they cannot do, teach them. And then let's talk about it afterwards. And we were all given the assignment, whatever it was, that we had our dogs testing, jumping over something or whatever, it's like, Okay, break it down, split the behavior back, change it condition reinforce or positive reinforcement reward schedules, all the good stuff I always talk about and those doctor able to do it much easier, much more competently and with a certain

00:23:14:03 - 00:23:33:15
Michael J. Accetta
level of confidence that made it look easy, right? It wasn't easy before because they were struggling, because we were testing that, we were pushing the limits of what they could not do, did not know how to do and wouldn't do in a natural situation. And so if you're having your dog heel next to you or you're having your dog recalled to you and you're just you decide to do something that they've never done before, they're going to be confused.

00:23:34:16 - 00:23:57:19
Michael J. Accetta
And again, lack of clarity leads to a lack of effectiveness in training, too. Simple as that. Lack of clarity leads to a lack of effectiveness and training. This episode was jam packed. A lot of information here. So I want to go over a little bit just as a summary so you can start to understand everything we talked about and make sure you look up the information if you don't have it.

00:23:57:25 - 00:24:27:09
Michael J. Accetta
Or maybe you write down questions after I've saying what I'm saying and you go listen to the Acknowledged Logs podcast again. Okay, so what is reward placement? The effectiveness of rewarding our dog in a particular area with the reward event, whether it be a toy treat or praise to encourage the likelihood of that level of performance in a particular area, whether forging ahead, moving back off to the side, closer or further away, we're controlling how our dog performs the behavior by rewarding them in a particular location.

00:24:28:13 - 00:24:46:22
Michael J. Accetta
This works because our dogs are opportunists. They are looking for the advantage. They want to be closer to the reward of when they don't want to wait. They are cheaters like dogs are cheaters. They want to find the best way to do something, the most effective way to do something. And if they are eager for reinforcement it, they will do this ten times better.

00:24:46:26 - 00:25:05:19
Michael J. Accetta
Working dogs are amazing at this. That's why they have behavior problems like going through trash or ripping someone's pants off. I knew a dog that did this didn't get the reward fast enough, the ball. And so it ripped the guy's cargo shorts off to get the ball. They were not waiting. They are opportunist. They want what they want and they will go get it one way or another.

00:25:06:07 - 00:25:32:18
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. Now science behind it. The dopamine in the brain tells them to do this. It's so it's such a such it's such a powerful chemical in the brain for people. It's a powerful chemical. That's why TikTok is so addictive. That's why social media was addictive or is addictive. Still right. And when the next thing comes along and gives us more dopamine faster at a higher rate of reinforcement, talk about higher rates of reinforcement all the time.

00:25:33:07 - 00:25:55:24
Michael J. Accetta
Tick tock gave us a dump of dopamine at a high rate of reinforcement. So much so that Instagram is kind of far to the side. Facebook is far to the side, unless you're not on TikTok. But if you're on TikTok, then this is what's influencing a lot of people's emotions and struggles right now, because they're getting such a overload of dopamine and a dump at one point that once they're off, tick tock, there's no more dopamine.

00:25:55:25 - 00:26:12:27
Michael J. Accetta
They don't know what to do. And so when the dogs are looking for dopamine, once they get it, they feel great. They want to do it again. Okay. Don't create a dog that's addicted to tick tock in that way or dopamine. And that way it's bad for people, it's bad for dogs. It should be regulated. But the best type of dopamine is those that solve problems.

00:26:12:27 - 00:26:29:21
Michael J. Accetta
When we solve problems, we get a hit of dopamine that makes us feel better, makes our dogs know better, more creative, more excited, more engaging in the techniques you can use. We got to use indirect rewards. We got to use direct rewards. We have to challenge our dogs, but also create a lot of clarity for them. Teach them what you want them to know.

00:26:30:08 - 00:26:51:29
Michael J. Accetta
Don't overcomplicate it. Make it as simple as possible for them. Do not set them up for success by testing them and spend time really learning and understanding how to do it right. Everything down. Make it really easy for yourself. It doesn't need to be complicated again, those three basic ones that you should implement a terminal marker, meaning it's over, it's done with it.

00:26:51:29 - 00:27:17:19
Michael J. Accetta
Keep going. Signal mean, continue doing what you're doing. It's fantastic. I love it. And then an indirect reward. Go forth and go get the item Thank you guys for listening to the acknowledged podcast. If you have questions, please let me know either on social media or leave a review on the Acknowledge Dogs podcast. Thanks for listening. If you're interested in training with me, head over to Matador Canine dot com forward slash coaching Matador Canine dot com forward slash coaching.

00:27:17:19 - 00:27:34:14
Michael J. Accetta
I have one on one private virtual training. It's the most effective training in the world. You're going to get not only one on one instruction through Zoom lessons, you're also going to get the complete video library, audio library and workbooks to supplement all the training that we're doing as well as 24 sevenths support and mobile access on your phone to the courses.

00:27:34:14 - 00:27:51:17
Michael J. Accetta
It's an absolute onslaught of information and content to help keep you successful and reliable in your dog's training. So that the next 15 years of your dog's life is effortless. Thank you guys for listening. I'm going to open up the live for questions if you have any, and if you haven't tuned into our live events, you're listening to this after the fact.

00:27:51:25 - 00:28:10:16
Michael J. Accetta
Make sure you check it out. We go live almost every single day at noon around time. Follow us on social media so you can get the notifications when we do go live. I'll see you then. All right. Open it up here. What do we got? Questions, comments, concerns. What did you like about the episode? If you were here for the whole time, What did you miss?

00:28:10:16 - 00:28:18:13
Michael J. Accetta
What would you like me to go back over? What problems are you struggling with? Your dog? What's going on? Dogs Anonymous.

00:28:20:15 - 00:28:46:05
Michael J. Accetta
Yes, I'm recording a podcast. The Acknowledged Dogs podcast. The best podcast. People just don't know it yet. It's the best one out there. We have over 160 episodes of the Acknowledged Dogs podcast, which is an absolutely absurd amount. Not a single dog training podcast that I have found has that many episodes. I'm proud of it. If you haven't checked it out, Apple, iTunes or Apple Podcasts, I think it's called the Apple App.

00:28:46:05 - 00:29:11:19
Michael J. Accetta
Apple Podcasts. I always say iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. Now that just happened last week. Amazon Music now it is now available because if there's no other questions, no worries. I know it's been a lot, so take all that information in, absorb it, use it to ask questions. Either in the comments section of my videos, or you can send me a message.

00:29:11:19 - 00:29:21:09
Michael J. Accetta
If you're like, I don't understand what this guy was talking about, I'd love to answer them. I'd love to make more videos about reward placements because it is such an in-depth topic. Thank you guys for listening and I'll talk to you next time.

Whether you have a puppy, are getting one, or adding a member to the family you will want to listen to today's episode. It is important to do these three fundamental steps in order to ensure you have the best companion for the next fifteen years. 

If you have a younger dog, the information will still help you learn why your dog might be the way that they are and what you need to do in order to jumpstart your training and gain some momentum. 

To build your dog's confidence check out this free e-book on Building Confidence

https://www.matadork9.com/confidence

Want to work with me? My private training gives you everything you need to succeed and more!! Schedule a call with me here

https://www.matadork9.com/coaching

Episode Transcript:

00:00:18:07 - 00:00:34:14
Michael J. Accetta
You just got a puppy or you're getting a puppy and you want to know, how do I socialize my dog? How do I build their confidence in one of the first three things I need to be able to teach my dog first to really have a good, long lasting relationship for the next 15 years. Then this is the episode for you.

00:00:34:14 - 00:01:01:07
Michael J. Accetta
Stay tuned on this. All right. So first the socialization period. You just got your puppy. Now they're not allowed to leave their mom until after eight weeks. You are already most of the way through a socialization period. What does that mean? When your dog is born, their brain starts to develop a lot faster than an adult dogwood. And so they're taking in all of this information what essentially happens is between three to 12 weeks of age.

00:01:01:07 - 00:01:27:02
Michael J. Accetta
And that does depend based on the breed and the size of the dog between three to 12 weeks of age. They take in everything that they need to know is normal. That's the key phrase that I want you to take away from this. They need to know that is normal. Now, if a dog grows up on a farm and they're never exposed to busses or trains or subway stations, they have never been on a plane, that's what they think is normal.

00:01:27:10 - 00:01:44:10
Michael J. Accetta
So if you were to remove a dog and teleport them from a farm into the city, they would freak out. Vice versa. If you got a dog that grows up in the city and you take them to the farm, they might seem actually stressed because there isn't a lot of interactions. There isn't a lot of noise going on all the time.

00:01:45:06 - 00:02:03:14
Michael J. Accetta
So whatever your dog needs to know is normal should be exposed to them between three to 12 weeks of age. Now, again, if you're getting a puppy or you got a puppy and they're eight weeks old, you only have a couple of weeks to do this. So before you get the puppy or right now write down everything your dog needs to know is normal.

00:02:03:14 - 00:02:16:14
Michael J. Accetta
Do they need to know how to get into the car? Do they need to know how to be picked up and handled, manipulated, put into the trunk of the car? If you're going to have a, you know, a big car with a crate? Maybe they need to be able to go into the trunk. Maybe you want them to sit in the front with you.

00:02:17:11 - 00:02:33:07
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. I don't do that because I think it's a little dangerous, but many people do it. And if you do that, then you need to teach your dog that sitting in the front is normal. You need to teach your dog around kids, socialize them to kids, socialism to other dogs, socialize them to the family members in your house.

00:02:33:07 - 00:03:00:11
Michael J. Accetta
Those things need to become normal. If you are going to be someone who grooms your own dog, then you're going to want to teach your dog that all of the equipment in grooming is normal. The Clippers the brush, the shampoos, the scrubbers, everything, towels, even different textures, all of the things that you are going to use in your daily life and maybe even above that should be exposed to your dog.

00:03:01:08 - 00:03:20:00
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, three to 12 weeks, you get your dog at eight weeks. You only got four weeks to do that. You got a month to do this. Now there is something to be said about doing too much. If we overexpose our dogs to these things that we want to socialize them to, what can end up happening is actually stressing them out more.

00:03:20:01 - 00:03:38:08
Michael J. Accetta
You've overexposed them and they become afraid of it. So throughout the entire training process, the socialization process, the exposure to these new things, you don't want to be pushing them to the point where they're freaking out or panicking or and this is the old method, what's called flooding you're forcing them to get over it. You got to you got to know how to do this for the rest of your life.

00:03:38:10 - 00:03:56:12
Michael J. Accetta
I don't care how you feel. I'm going to put you in this situation. You're going to get over it eventually. This is not the way to go. About it. This is what I first did with my first dog, Breezy, plus her soul. I was learning so much back then, and now the experience I have with my other two dogs have been 100 times better simply because I learn from Breezy.

00:03:56:12 - 00:04:14:02
Michael J. Accetta
So I thank her for being a guinea pig in the beginning. I had done flooding to teach her how to go to the baths now I was very patient. I wasn't going to throw her in there, but it took about three to 5 hours. I don't remember exactly three or 5 hours where we just sat in the tub together. And we did nothing.

00:04:14:05 - 00:04:31:00
Michael J. Accetta
She was shaking. She was shivering. She was terrified, and I hated doing it. But that's what I thought was the best method. That's what I thought was going to work. Of course, now I know different. Slow exposure, increasing the level of difficulty over time, building up their confidence, playing games with them. I didn't know that at the time.

00:04:31:00 - 00:04:48:00
Michael J. Accetta
And so I just brought her into the tub with me. 3 hours later, she finally felt relaxed and I took her out of the tub. That happened day after day after day. She still doesn't like the tub, but she tolerates it. That's the difference. You get a dog that tolerates what we asked him to do, but doesn't particularly enjoy it.

00:04:49:02 - 00:05:05:08
Michael J. Accetta
So when I got my next dog, I went really slow. I expose them to the bath, calmly getting into the water. Out of the water. Into the water. Out of the water. Sure. I did a lot of things that didn't actually require taking the full bath. Right. We just went into the bathroom and then we left the bathroom.

00:05:05:13 - 00:05:19:14
Michael J. Accetta
I jumped into the tub with them. They jumped out of the tub. That was it for the day. Right. Like those tiny little steps every single day made it so much easier for me to be able to give my dog a 20 minute bath in comparison to a three hour long bath with my first dog. A 20 minute bath.

00:05:19:14 - 00:05:42:14
Michael J. Accetta
Is it astronomical difference? And that's what can happen when you take the time to expose them correctly. Okay, so you got your dog at eight weeks, maybe they're nine weeks, maybe they're ten weeks, maybe they're 11 weeks. You only got one week left. What should you start doing? Make a list of three important things that you should be doing Car outside and people.

00:05:42:14 - 00:05:57:09
Michael J. Accetta
Sounds and noises. Okay. Sounds and noises are kind of the same thing, but people and experiences out in the world. So first is the car if there's an emergency, you're going to have to get into the car. If you're going somewhere, you're going to have to get into the car. And if you have an expose them to the car already, this is the time to do it again.

00:05:57:09 - 00:06:14:06
Michael J. Accetta
You want them to think that this is normal getting into the car is normal. You don't need to get sick. They don't need be panting. They don't need be freaking out. Again, my first dog, Breezy, she was found in the woods. I got her as a rescue. The only time she'd ever been in a car, to my knowledge, was on the van ride from Kentucky all the way to New York.

00:06:14:12 - 00:06:28:02
Michael J. Accetta
It was a straight trip. So when I put her in the car for the first time, she was panicking. She's like, Oh, my God, I'm being taken away again. I'm going to be in this car for so long. That's not what happened. Over time, she started to get better at it, but she would pant, she would draw, she pace around.

00:06:28:04 - 00:06:40:14
Michael J. Accetta
She couldn't get her footing was also for her. So when I got my next dog and then my third dog, that was something we were heavily, heavily focused on. They're going to get in the car, they're going to sit in the front to get used to it. They're going to sit in the back and get used to it.

00:06:40:14 - 00:06:59:05
Michael J. Accetta
They're going to sit in kennels and get used to a different kennels, wire kennels and taxi crates, plastic and fabric kennels. Okay. I'm going to get them used to going on the hood, going under the car to get a ball. I'm going to get them used to the car. I'm thinking it's a great thing because I don't want them to be stressed the way my first dog was and then we also went on the train.

00:06:59:09 - 00:07:18:06
Michael J. Accetta
I went into the city with them. We went on the subway, went on the train. They have yet to be on a plane. One of them has, the other one has not. But we still went in the area where there were planes and they could hear it. They could see it. Maybe we didn't get to go on them, but they're used to the noises, and that knocks out two out of the three perceptive variables that our dogs have.

00:07:19:03 - 00:07:39:05
Michael J. Accetta
Right. Clearly touches different, but sight, sound and smell. So they're used to the sight, the sound and the smell. I'm sorry. They're used to all three. So they're used to the sight, sound and smell. Getting on it is just that much easier because they're used to it. Okay, now how do we build our dogs? Confidence let's say maybe you're past this point.

00:07:39:11 - 00:08:00:02
Michael J. Accetta
You've got a couple of month old dog, and they're starting to either show some bad behaviors because they're afraid or they're just shutting down This often happens around the four to five month mark. It's called a fear period. Okay? When ends up happening is they've been over socialized, they're out in the world, and that's important for their biology so that they can learn about the environment.

00:08:00:14 - 00:08:21:13
Michael J. Accetta
What ends up happening is right after that, they go, Okay, now let's retreat. We figured out what was normal. We've explored now let's retreat to preserve our life, keep and keep ourselves alive, right? That's a biological necessity. And so they retreat in order to protect themselves, but often they can overdo it, especially if we then coddle them and say, Hey, it's okay, everything's fine now.

00:08:21:13 - 00:08:46:13
Michael J. Accetta
I don't want to necessarily push my dog and punish them for feeling that way, but I do want to express and bring out their confidence, and we can do that through reinforcement I want to take a moment and thank all of our loyal followers. This podcast would not be possible without you. Leave, review and let us know what you like and want to learn on the next episode of the Acknowledge Dogs podcast.

00:08:47:03 - 00:09:08:00
Michael J. Accetta
Now back to the show so what do I mean by that? Essentially, I'm going to put my dog in a situation that might be slightly stressful, and you'll have to gauge and it's slightly stressful I'm not going to throw him into a lake. I might just take them to the shore, especially if they're afraid of water. That's another thing.

00:09:08:03 - 00:09:35:01
Michael J. Accetta
If you have a young puppy, you should take them to the lake, you should take them to water, get them used to swimming around it to do absolutely wonderful exercise, burns calories, keeps them healthy, low impact on the joints. As they get older, they won't be beating up their legs right in their hips. Wonderful, wonderful exercises. So as a puppy, you want to get them used to that it's going to prolong the legality of exercise and activities you guys get to do together and make it easier.

00:09:35:01 - 00:09:54:05
Michael J. Accetta
If you ever had to do rehab at some point because they use water very often so you're not afraid of something. You want to break it up into manageable pieces, make it easy for them to build up their confidence. So I might go to the shore not to the point where they're backing away from the water, but instead just rewarding them around the shore.

00:09:54:05 - 00:10:09:09
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe we play the favorite game that they have tug, snatch, search, whatever it may be. I want to play and build up their confidence, making them think that the shore is the best place to be, and then we're going to slowly move into the water. I did this when I started teaching my dogs how to kayak with me.

00:10:10:05 - 00:10:25:00
Michael J. Accetta
I got into the kayak and they were going to go behind me. The kayak was big enough behind me, so I said, Okay, they're going to go behind you. They're going to sit behind me. First thing I did was get them used to going on to the kayak on dry land. Now I stabilized it. I held it so that they didn't wobble around because that would have thrown them off.

00:10:26:02 - 00:10:44:08
Michael J. Accetta
They would have been more nervous about it. Now they're on balance equipment all the time, sit, pause and bosu balls and all that thing, so they know what it's like to balance and maneuver. But this was something new. So I wanted to make it easy for the I stabilize it, they get on awesome. We're good. Then I'd have them jump off prematurely before they got nervous.

00:10:44:14 - 00:11:01:02
Michael J. Accetta
I'd have them jump off, reward them with a treat or praise and get them back on over and over and over. We did that. I slowly brought the kayak into the water, had them do the exact same thing on the shore while half the kayak was in the water and then had them do it in the water on to the kayak.

00:11:01:02 - 00:11:19:06
Michael J. Accetta
That was it. Just in case they fell off while we were kayaking, they could climb back up. See what I'm doing I'm breaking down every single aspect of it to build up their confidence, their competency, and their confidence in it. That way, they can be reliable. When I asked them to do something, they're not hesitating because of how nervous they are now.

00:11:19:06 - 00:11:43:00
Michael J. Accetta
I go in way more depth about building up confidence in this free resource that I want to give you. The link is in the bio. If you're watching this right now, but if you're listening to this after the fact, you can go to Matador Canine dot com forward slash confidence, matador canine dot com forward slash confidence. It's a free PDF on step by step on how to build your dog's confidence that they can enjoy the life that you want to provide for it.

00:11:43:13 - 00:12:04:08
Michael J. Accetta
Now, the last thing I want to talk about is the bond the fundamental building blocks on what you should be teaching your dog. First, you've got a puppy. You've socialized them to the environments, to people, to other dogs, to the car, to swimming. You've, you've socialized them with those things. Maybe you had to build up some of their confidence or maybe they didn't have that bad of a fear period.

00:12:04:10 - 00:12:22:00
Michael J. Accetta
Fantastic. Now you can really get into the nitty gritty of training. Now, many people think, Okay, I'm going to jump right into obedience. I'm going to join an obedience class. I'm going to sit down, stay. He'll come. That is not the first thing you should be doing since you've already done a little bit of training with the socialization and the fear period.

00:12:22:11 - 00:12:42:05
Michael J. Accetta
This first step should be relatively easy. You're just going to build engagement when you go outside. Your dog should only be thinking about you. This is going to help prevent reactivity when they bark at other people and dogs. Socialization will also help prevent reactivity. It's going to help make recall easier and all other behaviors easier. In any environment.

00:12:42:12 - 00:13:01:04
Michael J. Accetta
If your dog is engaging with you, they're interacting with you. They're looking to be with you. It's easier to get their attention excuse me, easier to get their attention and ask them to do something. So I can say sit. If they're not looking at me, they're not paying attention. When I say sit, they're not going to do it simply because they've checked out.

00:13:01:07 - 00:13:28:11
Michael J. Accetta
They're looking at something else. But when I do say sit and they actually do it, then I can reward them. So by building engagement, I'm setting my dog up for success. I'm preventing reactivity and I'm making sure that I have their focus. I have their attention. When I ask them to do something, they're ten times more likely to do it now that the first thing that's the first thing, okay, you've got to have engagement down solid.

00:13:29:08 - 00:13:51:05
Michael J. Accetta
Now, the second thing is shaping games. The second thing you want to do, you just games that involve your dog. Learning how to learn is the best way I can describe it. If you give your dog all the answers, right, you're like Okay, I'm going to lure them with a treat or I'm going to mold them, actually take their body and physically push it into positions.

00:13:52:00 - 00:14:11:02
Michael J. Accetta
If I do that, one ends up happening as my dog becomes reliant on the food lure, moving them around, right? It put it in front of their nose and I bring them over here and I try to get them to sit down and become reliant on the food law. There are ways to phase it out, but if you can actually teach your dog to start shaping the behavior by themselves using successful approximation, that's what it's called.

00:14:11:11 - 00:14:32:03
Michael J. Accetta
Essentially, my dog offers some version of the behavior, a small little step of it. I'm going to let them know that that's exactly what I wanted. You can say, yes, you can use a clicker, and then I'm going to reinforce them with their preferred reinforcement, whether it's a treat, whether it's a toy, whether it's praise, whether it's access to something, and then they're more likely to start performing that behavior again.

00:14:32:08 - 00:14:47:01
Michael J. Accetta
So they you know, pick up their right shoulder. I'm going to mark that. I'm going to give them a treat. They pick up their shoulder and their elbow mark that give them a treat. Now they're paw comes fully off the ground. I'm Mark that can mature and I'm teaching them how to lift up their arm to maybe give me pause.

00:14:48:05 - 00:15:12:07
Michael J. Accetta
Teaching your dog that way, builds their creativity, builds their confidence and helps them have more problem solving skills. Everything. We just talked about socialization. Excuse me. I got something in my throat here. I'm so sorry. Socialization and that fear period. Trying to build their confidence. This is the best way to incorporate all of it. Because now that they know how to learn, you can teach them things a lot faster.

00:15:13:06 - 00:15:35:07
Michael J. Accetta
As well as put them in stressful situations and have them solve problems solved by themselves. So if I put my dog in a kayak and I let it go into the water, my dog knows there's a few things that he could try. One, he could sit, he could lay down to stabilize the kayak. He knows that because of all the balance equipment practice, we do him laying down becomes easier because it's not as wobbly center of gravity.

00:15:35:07 - 00:15:59:14
Michael J. Accetta
Now, he's not thinking of that. He's just knowing I well, lay down, it becomes easier. He can jump off and swim back to me. Why? Because we practice swimming but he has a skill set simply because we've done so many things. So when you're teaching your dog anything, start off with engagement. Make sure that you're engaged with you wherever you go outside front yard, backyard, down at the park, down at the cafe, whatever it is, and then move into shaping games, essentially standstill.

00:16:00:02 - 00:16:18:09
Michael J. Accetta
Wait for your dog to offer anything they look somewhere, they paw at you, they sit anything you're going to market. Reward that in the never mark and reward that one again during that session. So you want them to try something different this is called 101 Things to Do with a Box. It's a classic, classic shaping game, but it's one of my favorites for puppies to do.

00:16:19:08 - 00:16:55:05
Michael J. Accetta
And then the last thing you have to master is management. I talk about management all the time. I'm going to call extreme management. When you have a puppy, everything they do, everything that you do is going to shape the next 15 years of their life. If you can manage the first six months of your dog's life while training them how to live in your world the way you want them to live, the next 15 years is going to be so much easier if you don't manage it and they develop problematic behaviors or they do things so-so or they kind of listen.

00:16:55:05 - 00:17:13:08
Michael J. Accetta
But more often than not they're just doing it to get a treat and they're becoming dependent. What ends up happening is the next 15 years of your life, you're playing catch up. Maybe you do three years of solid training. You're never going to get to exactly what you want or what could have been if you did training early on.

00:17:13:12 - 00:17:37:08
Michael J. Accetta
So be proactive about it. You just got your puppy or you're getting a puppy, have everything laid out. First thing I'm going to do between three to 16 weeks. First thing I'm going to do, socialize my dog to everything they need to know is normal. Number two, I'm going to build up their confidence that way. We have the ability to do the fun adventures that we want to do together, as well as just make life easier.

00:17:37:12 - 00:18:03:09
Michael J. Accetta
Even if you're not looking to do fun adventures it's going to make it easier for you. Fireworks aren't going to bother them, are getting into the car stressful situations. That's not going to bother them going to the that's not going to bother them. Those kinds of things. And then you're going to move into teaching the fundamentals. First thing I'm going to do, I'm going to I'm sorry if the old engagement fundamentals build engagement game and games and you're going to manage everything at the same time.

00:18:05:06 - 00:18:28:09
Michael J. Accetta
It's that simple. I know it sounds simple, like now that I'm saying it, but it's that simple. Break it down like that. When you do that the next 15 years that promise, you are going to be so much easier. Thank you guys for listening to the now Dr. Podcast. I'm going to open it up to Q&A. If you're here live, if you're listening to this afterwards, feel free to message me your questions and I'll talk about it on a future episode of the podcast.

00:18:28:13 - 00:18:29:12
Michael J. Accetta
Thanks, guys, for listening.

The classic mantra of Exercise, Discipline, and Affection has a new layout.

Exercise, Education, and Affection

 This is a more effective and appropriate mantra for you to be able to train your dog with positive methods that actually last. In today's episode, I go over why this is so important and how changing the word discipline to education makes all the difference in the world to you and your dog. 

If you want to be able to have the dog of your dreams schedule a call with me with the link below. 

https://www.matadork9.com/coaching

Want to train your dog from the comfort of your home to be well-behaved and listen no matter what? Get access to Matador University with the link below!

https://www.matadork9.com/14daytrial

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:26:05
Michael J. Accetta
What we're going to be talking about today is the classic phrase exercise, discipline, affection, and what it should actually be, which is exercise education and affection. So if you have a dog and you've heard the phrase exercise, discipline, affection, I'm going to change your thought on that middle piece, that discipline aspect, because it doesn't give you everything you need in order to actually have success with your dog, in order to have a dog that is well trained, well behaved.

00:00:26:10 - 00:00:56:01
Michael J. Accetta
Exercise, discipline and affection is not the right line up. It should be exercise, education and affection. So let's go through exercise. Why do we even care about exercise? Exercise. Make sure that our dog is healthy, happy and fulfilled long term. Okay. Yes. You want a dog that is well-behaved. You want a dog that listens however if they have all this pent up energy that zooms at 7:00 at night, if they have all that pent up energy, they're not going to be able to think clearly.

00:00:56:04 - 00:01:11:03
Michael J. Accetta
This is what's called the Yorks docks and law. So if you think about a hill, the more excitement that your dog has, the less focus they are. If we get to the top of the hill, they can be really, really focused until we get too excited then we actually start to go down in the level of focus. Okay.

00:01:11:03 - 00:01:33:06
Michael J. Accetta
So over here, we got a couch potato at the bottom of the hill on the side. There's no excitement. There's no energy. When we start to get energy, maybe we pull out a treat or a toy or we jazz our dog up, we get excited. Then we get to the middle of our hill, that top of the hill where our dog is perfectly focused, and then it goes back down to the bottom when our dog is too crazed, too much energy, too much excitement in the environment.

00:01:34:02 - 00:01:52:14
Michael J. Accetta
If your dog has way too much energy, you have a high energy dog and you actually tire them out a little bit. They can think clearer. This means that you can teach them faster. They'll absorb new information faster, and you don't have to struggle trying to, you know, be more jazzed up with your dog. You can actually be at a more level playing field.

00:01:52:14 - 00:02:13:06
Michael J. Accetta
You should do this with my clients all the time. If I have an individual who doesn't have a lot of energy, naturally they aren't all over the place and bouncing around or can kind of fake it till they make it. If they can't do that for whatever reason, we need to tire the dog out first. If I tire the dog out first, then I have them on a level playing field.

00:02:13:06 - 00:02:31:12
Michael J. Accetta
They'll actually work together. If the dog is crazy and the individual has a low level of energy, they're not going to line up. Same thing if it's the opposite. If the owner has a high level of energy, they want to do a lot with their dog, but their dog doesn't. Their dog wants to be relaxed. Then we also don't have a nice line up.

00:02:31:12 - 00:02:49:04
Michael J. Accetta
Our dog gets like Drudge along with everything, and they don't like it. They don't enjoy it as much. So the first thing, if you're having problematic behaviors, is to burn your dog's energy just a little bit. Doesn't have to be crazy. Yes. The whole classic two 45 minute walks is perfect. However, there's some other things you can do to burn your dog's energy.

00:02:49:09 - 00:03:09:13
Michael J. Accetta
Teaching them different games, playing puzzles with them, teaching them to search stuff in your house or just teaching tricks for that mental engagement is going to burn their energy a lot faster than physical. The other aspect of working on physical energy a lot is that our dog would build a tolerance. If you go for two 45 minute walks a day in the span of three to six months, your dog is going to get used to it.

00:03:10:05 - 00:03:35:09
Michael J. Accetta
And then two 45 minute walks a day are no longer adequate. You actually have to do more. So we run into a problem when we try to chase this physical exercise, but if we do mental, it's not so much pressure on you, but it's a lot of good exercise for your dog. They're actually going to burn more energy and get tired because of the mental expenditure that goes on in solving problems, learning new behaviors, and the engagement exercises.

00:03:36:00 - 00:03:57:01
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, so that's step number one. Burn our energy. If you're having problem behaviors, burn their energy. Number two, I changed the phrase from exercise discipline to affection to exercise education and affection. Now, the education part is really important if you're going to discipline your dog, that kind of has the connotation that you're going to say they did something wrong.

00:03:57:07 - 00:04:16:14
Michael J. Accetta
Right. My dog jumped on the couch. I'm going to discipline them, going to tell them that was wrong. Get off the couch. That doesn't give them a clear understanding of what they should be doing. That's why I change to educate. You should be educating your dog on exactly what they need to know in the environment you want them to know it in to the extent you want them to know it.

00:04:17:06 - 00:04:37:14
Michael J. Accetta
So we're hanging out right now. My dog, Tom, he's laying over here on the side when we're in the bedroom. Or in the office or just hanging out. I want him to relax. If we go outside or we go to a park and I take him off leash, I expect him to run around and have fun. But still listen when I need him to, the expectation is there, but I need to educate him on each one of those types of expectations.

00:04:38:14 - 00:04:54:12
Michael J. Accetta
So in the office, I didn't just have him come in here and expect him to know everything I know. I took the time to teach him. When we're in the office, you have to relax. When we're in the bedroom, you have to relax when we're inside, essentially, you have to relax. And I sit down you should lay down next to me right when I sit on the couch.

00:04:54:12 - 00:05:16:06
Michael J. Accetta
If I don't invite you up, just lay by my feet until I invite you up. So I have to go forth and teach him the actual expectation that I have. I can't expect him to know it. If he knows it, great. And this is what happens when you adopt an older dog. Some dogs just know certain well-behaved skill sets or habits if you got a puppy where you got an older dog, it doesn't have these skill sets.

00:05:16:12 - 00:05:30:13
Michael J. Accetta
Oftentimes you struggle and this is where training comes in. So the first thing you're going to do is teach them what you want them to do and then use it constantly until it becomes a new habit where you no longer have to reward them. You no longer have to engage with them as much. They just naturally do it.

00:05:30:13 - 00:05:46:04
Michael J. Accetta
That's what Tom is doing here. I came in to sit and chat with you guys and he just laid down next to me. He's nice and relaxed, super simple. That's what he understands is the habit. That's what I've educated him to do. If I didn't do that, he probably would be up in my lap. He'd be like, Hey, what are we doing?

00:05:46:04 - 00:06:07:14
Michael J. Accetta
Are we going outside? What are you doing? Talking to people on the Internet? What's going on here? So how do we how do we break this down? Okay. If you want to learn how to teach these kind of daily skills, I have an entire course on daily skills. She's got to go to Matador Canine dot com forward slash daily skills, Matador canine dot com, forward slash daily skills.

00:06:08:14 - 00:06:28:00
Michael J. Accetta
It goes over everything you need to know in order to have a well-behaved dog on the day to day kind of skills. But you cannot just rely on those things. You also have to give your dog affection after exercise and education. So you exercise them. You got them nice and tired, right? We did something this morning to get Tommy nice and relaxed.

00:06:28:07 - 00:06:48:07
Michael J. Accetta
Then he knows the expectation and I have to then reward him or give him some type of affection. Now, Tommy loves people. He loves hanging out with people. He loves cuddling with people. So this in of itself is ring free enforcing. If he was crazed all over the place, I might kick him out of the bedroom or the office and he would go, Okay, well, that's no way to hang out with Dad.

00:06:48:07 - 00:07:08:03
Michael J. Accetta
I'm not getting reinforced for that crazy behavior. If I come back in and I relax, then maybe I will get reinforced, see how it works. So the affection is still important. We just put it last because of how much we already put affection on our dog, right? You you love your dog. It's easy to love your dogs, easy to give them affection and love and caress them and cuddle them and all that good stuff.

00:07:08:11 - 00:07:26:14
Michael J. Accetta
But you have to do the education and the exercise first. You have to do those first before you go to the affection. If you do the affection first, we end up rewarding bad behaviors. So let's say my dog's crazy to run around having do and I grab a hold of him and I start rubbing their belly and I'm getting all crazy with them.

00:07:27:03 - 00:07:50:06
Michael J. Accetta
I just rewarded them for having zooming I've rewarded them for thinking that the best thing for them to do is run around like a crazy puppy or crazy dog being all over the place, having your dog jump up on guests if I reward them with praise and affection and love, then my dog thinks that jumping up on people or on me is the right thing to do and accidentally giving them affection or praise for the wrong behavior.

00:07:50:06 - 00:08:09:09
Michael J. Accetta
The thing I didn't want them to do. And then we go into education. So if I'm trying to educate my dog, I can use affection. Certainly but it's much easier to use treats or a toy to get clarity on what you want them to do and then phase those things out with general praise. You can do that through reward schedules.

00:08:09:09 - 00:08:26:05
Michael J. Accetta
Which kind of events? Technique. I talk about it on other episodes of the Acknowledged Dogs podcast, where instead of rewarding every single repetition I'm going to reward maybe every two repetitions and I'm going to praise in the middle. So I reward with a treat or a toy. Then I praise, then I reward with a treat or a toy.

00:08:26:05 - 00:08:43:09
Michael J. Accetta
Then I praise, then I reward with a treat. Or a toy. So I'm slowly weaning them away from becoming dependent on the treats. They're becoming more dependent on the praise. And then I might do treat praise. Praise treat for each repetition. I'm I don't mean I'm doing that in sequential order directly after one behavior I told them to set.

00:08:43:14 - 00:08:58:01
Michael J. Accetta
And then I give them a treat. Praise them, praise them, treat. That's not what I'm saying. Saying I asked them to sit. I give them a treat out of position so I can get them to move again. I ask them to sit again. Then I'll praise them for that repetition. Get them to move, ask them to set praise again.

00:08:58:06 - 00:09:27:13
Michael J. Accetta
Get them to move. Ask them to sit and then treat. Okay, treat, praise, praise, treat. And then I would just keep extending that treat. Praise, praise, praise. Treat. Or maybe I do praise first. Treat, treat praise. Alternating those is also good exercise. Educate, affection And here are some things that are going to go wrong along this cycle. If you do exercise every single day and you don't do education, what ends up happening is the exercise wise.

00:09:28:05 - 00:09:47:14
Michael J. Accetta
It's become a management practice for or supplementing the education, actually replacing the education. You're relying on your dog being so exhausted that they can't do anything wrong. This is what the mistake I made with my first dog. I had the mantra exercise, discipline, affection in my head, as many of us do when we get a dog exercise first.

00:09:47:14 - 00:10:03:02
Michael J. Accetta
A tired dog is a good dog. Write all of those phrases. And so I used to run maybe six miles or bike with my dog for six miles a day, get them exhausted. They couldn't they couldn't do anything. They were so tired. They just slept the rest of the day. Now, at the time, I was nervous of my dog and kicked out.

00:10:03:02 - 00:10:19:10
Michael J. Accetta
I was young. I was a teenager. My parents said, if this dog does anything wrong, it's getting the boot. This is my first dog. And so we went for six mile bike rides two miles, three times a day. Morning, afternoon and evening. I wanted this dog exhausted because I didn't have the time to train it and I didn't know what I was doing yet.

00:10:20:01 - 00:10:37:05
Michael J. Accetta
I had all this information as a teenager, but I didn't know how to apply it effectively into it until I learned that, until I had practiced with my dog, I needed to manage it, and that's fine. But if I had kept doing that and never moved to the educational step of actually training and teaching, then my dog would not be as well behaved as she is.

00:10:38:00 - 00:10:59:01
Michael J. Accetta
We wouldn't have been able to go on bike rides off leash. I wouldn't have been able to recall her when she ran out of the house towards a squirrel. So I had to move from the exercise into education, which means I had to reduce the exercise because she was way too tired to learn. I had to reduce the exercise in order to have her be motivated and eager to work with me, excited to have the energy to actually learn.

00:10:59:14 - 00:11:21:11
Michael J. Accetta
Then once she learned, we moved into affection and just daily life skills because she knew what to do and what my expectation of her was. It was much easier for us to reward her and engage with her and relax and and hang out. Okay, exercise first, education second, and then you move into affection. Thank you guys for listening to the acknowledged podcast.

00:11:22:02 - 00:11:36:11
Michael J. Accetta
If you're watching this live, I'm going to open it up for Q&A. If you're listening to this after the fact, make sure you jump in on a live events so that you can ask questions based off the podcast in real time or other questions you may have I'm going to open it up for Q&A now. Thank you guys for listening.

The thanksgiving feast is almost upon us and that means that there are also bad behavior problems looming in the corner. 

Stealing food, jumping on guests, barking at strangers in the neighborhood and so many more

Don't let your dog ruin this holiday season with their bad behavior. In today's episode, I go over how you can prepare yourself and your dog for the best Thanksgiving dinner you have ever had. No chaos, no stress, and certainly no visits to the hospital. 

Here is the download I mentioned in the episode Thanksgiving Dog Etiquette E-book

https://www.matadork9.com/thanksgivingmanners

If you want to get started training before the big day, give me a call right away, and let's get started before it is too late!! https://www.matadork9.com/coaching

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:18:08
Michael J. Accetta
If you're nervous about your dog and what they're going to do during dinner, when guests come over and there's food all over the place and there's good smell in Turkey all over the place. What are you going to do That's what we're going to talk about today. I'm going to go over the four things that you must have in place in order to have a successful and enjoyable Thanksgiving with the dog.

00:00:18:13 - 00:00:39:02
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. Now, the first thing we're going to talk about is management. This is crucial to have any type of enjoyment during the holiday season. If you cannot manage your dog's behavior, nothing is going to go right. If your dog is already well behaved, then you kind of already did management. You've you've done all the management ahead of time.

00:00:39:02 - 00:00:54:02
Michael J. Accetta
And that's led to a successful time right now. But we only got a couple of days until the big feast. If you want to call the big feast, we only got a couple of days until the big feast. And so right now is not necessarily the time to teach your dog anything new. Maybe you don't have the time for it.

00:00:54:03 - 00:01:11:08
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe your dog has never done any training and it's way too much to be putting on yourself and overwhelming yourself with right now. Instead, what we need to do is set up parameters and where a dog can be successful. What does that look like when people are coming into the house? We don't want to have the dog in the living room by the front door.

00:01:11:12 - 00:01:30:02
Michael J. Accetta
It's just going to create more chaos and more excitement. Someone's coming in. They're all over the place. And then our dog loses it and they run into the person. And now we have all this chaos over. Excitement leads to sometimes biting, sometimes playing too rough and nipping the person. Sometimes it can lead to urination and having our dog all over the floor.

00:01:30:09 - 00:01:50:03
Michael J. Accetta
That's not what you want when you're having guests come into your house for Thanksgiving. It's just not. You're adding more chaos. It'd be easier to say, Okay, I'm going to put my dog into the bedroom or into the bathroom. I'm going to wait for everyone to come over, and then I'm going to have my dog come out. Once everyone's there, the excitement of having them come through the door has now been eliminated.

00:01:50:13 - 00:02:05:14
Michael J. Accetta
Your dog is still going to be excited when they see the people that they miss and they love and they want to hang out with. But the level of excitement has changed. It's gone down simply because we haven't had them introduced right at the exciting point of coming into the door. So that's one way you could manage it.

00:02:06:08 - 00:02:20:00
Michael J. Accetta
The other way you can manage it is having gates up. So maybe your U.S. of a party house where the dog hangs out. And if people want to go hang out with the dog and they're good with them and they can be relaxed, then they can go play with the dog. Otherwise, the dog stays out of the picture while you have guests over.

00:02:20:14 - 00:02:35:05
Michael J. Accetta
Now, what about dinner when you actually sit down and you're trying to enjoy a meal? Well, I would either do it in one of two ways. One is kind of like having guests come over. We're going to put them to the side. Maybe we put them in the bedroom. We have gates set up, maybe we put them in the kitchen, whatever it may be.

00:02:35:12 - 00:02:54:08
Michael J. Accetta
I want to create some space and distance so that they can go relax over there. The alternative is to have one person. Usually the person who's the best with the dog was done training, maybe takes them out for walks the most, has the better relationship. They're going to be solely responsible for training the dog in that moment. Okay.

00:02:54:09 - 00:03:10:01
Michael J. Accetta
So when you sit down to eat, their focus is really on the dog. They're not going to converse with everybody as much. They're not going to be getting up and getting, you know, people's food or more drinks or whatever. They're going to sit in their spot and they're going to just focus on the dog. That's one of the best things you can do.

00:03:10:01 - 00:03:31:14
Michael J. Accetta
Have one person focused on the dog because not only do you stop the dog from doing bad behaviors, you're using that as an opportunity to train. You're having an opportunity to train the dog. Now, not everybody wants to do this. Some people are just, Okay, I'm gonna put the dog away, and that's totally fine. If you are not in the mode of training and you just want to enjoy having guests over, there's no problem with putting the dog in a space where they can enjoy themselves.

00:03:31:14 - 00:03:49:06
Michael J. Accetta
You give them something to do a puzzle, maybe put a movie on. And I know that sounds silly, but that's a little secret pack. Many dogs enjoy watching something, even if it's, you know, the National Geographic, where there's not much going on, and it's just nature going by as long as your dog is not barking and freaking out about it.

00:03:49:14 - 00:04:06:12
Michael J. Accetta
But if you give your dog something to do after the side, not only does it distract your dog for a little bit, but it gives you a little bit more peace. In many cases, you're like, Okay, my dog is completely excluded from the picture. They're just not in the picture. Right now. Okay, so that's the first thing you need to do to have a successful Thanksgiving.

00:04:07:06 - 00:04:31:05
Michael J. Accetta
You have to manage as much as you possibly can whenever your dog is in a situation where there's a potential for bad behavior to come up. We end up punishing them, which isn't good, right? So if I put my dog in a situation where guests are coming over and the guest walks in the door, my dog freaks out and they start jumping up on the person and I start yelling at him or the person starts yelling at him, I've just I've created this big problem.

00:04:32:00 - 00:04:54:05
Michael J. Accetta
Why not put my dog away when guests come over, make it easier for my guests to come in, for me to greet my guests, and easier for my dog to learn the right skills at the right time. This might just not be the right time. Okay, so we're moving on to number two. How would we actually introduce our dog to guests, whether you want to do it in the beginning, when people come over or you want to do it after the fact.

00:04:54:08 - 00:05:10:12
Michael J. Accetta
Let's talk about after the fact first. So we've managed the situation. We put our dog in the back room or off to, you know, the bedroom or the bathroom where maybe people come in, maybe ten, 15 minutes go by, maybe you wait an hour. Either way, depends on the dog. You've waited some time. Things have kind of settled down.

00:05:10:12 - 00:05:29:02
Michael J. Accetta
People are sitting chatting. You can either do it one of two ways you can bring the dog out. Just let them sniff and interact with people. Depends on your dog. If your dog is very high level of excitement, and they love these people, maybe it would be beneficial to have them on a leash and actually work through how you would want them to interact with people.

00:05:29:02 - 00:05:44:08
Michael J. Accetta
Do you want to walk your dog up? Have them sit patiently and then be told to go say hi? Depends on what your level of training is and what your objective is, what your goals are going to look like. So that might be the way you do it or you just ain't got the leash. Let them go out, sniff around many dogs.

00:05:44:08 - 00:06:06:01
Michael J. Accetta
That's totally fine. They come out, they go, Oh, there's people here, whatever. It doesn't really matter. I'm just going to sniff them and do my own thing. I have done both. My first dog Breezy, we ended up just letting her come out and she would sniff my other dog, Tommy, who loves people. We'd have him on a leash because we needed to control how he greeted somebody, especially during that training phase of teaching him, Hey, you cannot go up to everybody.

00:06:06:09 - 00:06:26:03
Michael J. Accetta
I'm going to stop you before we get to people. And when you do get to the person, then I'll let you go say hi. So it depends on the situation you're in, depend on what your goals are. But greeting people is going to be a very, very large portion of having guests over and the biggest potential problems. Okay.

00:06:27:06 - 00:06:47:12
Michael J. Accetta
Now, number three manners. During dinner, as I mentioned before, having somebody 100% locked in on your dog is going to be the easiest way. But what do they do? What does that person do at that time? Well, one, they should have treats to the dog, should be on a leash, doesn't have to be a collar or maybe just a harness and maybe you put a bed next to the person sitting down.

00:06:47:12 - 00:07:05:14
Michael J. Accetta
So if I'm sitting here, I'd have my dog right next to me. I would get to eat my food and maybe I have a mason jar on the table of treats like. Right. I don't have to give them food scraps. And in fact, one of the big parts of Thanksgiving, the fourth thing we talk about is the foods that are safe and not safe to eat.

00:07:06:02 - 00:07:25:10
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, so there are plenty of foods that your dog can eat from Thanksgiving, but there's a lot of foods that they really should not be eating. And I've actually created a PDF on all of those things. Which you can get at Matador Canine dot com forward slash Thanksgiving manners. It goes over all of this in more depth as well as that list of food your dog can and cannot eat.

00:07:25:11 - 00:07:52:02
Michael J. Accetta
Matador Canine Dot com forward slash Thanksgiving manners. Now back to what I was that you got a a jar mason jar of kibble or cheese or hotdog slices something super high value and all you do is slowly slip your dog a treat for laying down and being patient and waiting while you're having dinner. This is much easier said than done, especially if you've never done it before.

00:07:52:02 - 00:08:06:12
Michael J. Accetta
There's a lot of trading going on over and over and over and your dog's like, oh my God, this is fantastic. I love this. But you're like, I just want to eat my turkey. I just want to have some stuffing. And you run into this problem where you then just go to eat and you forget that you're supposed to be ruining your dog.

00:08:07:03 - 00:08:26:08
Michael J. Accetta
What happens then? Our dog gets up and they do something bad in order to remind you. They say, Hey, hey, hey, you were rewarding me. What happened right now, they don't actually say that in their brain. They're just trying something new. But that's how we can conceptualize it. We say, Hey, you know, you were rewarding me and you stop and I kind of want what you had, so I'm going to try something new.

00:08:26:10 - 00:08:42:09
Michael J. Accetta
But if you forget about me again, I'm going to get back up and I'm going to do something that you don't want me to do. And so we want to do is have this internal clock going, and at first it might be over 5 seconds, then we might expanding after five, ten treats to every 10 seconds. Then we might expand it a little again.

00:08:42:11 - 00:09:02:06
Michael J. Accetta
15 seconds 20 seconds. Then we might go back to 3 seconds. Why would I do that? Why would I go back and make it easier if my dog's getting better at it? Because I don't want my dog to think that it's always going to get harder. If we're constantly pushing the abilities of our dogs, they end up thinking that, Okay, well, I got it, and you're just making it more difficult.

00:09:02:09 - 00:09:20:01
Michael J. Accetta
That's no fun. It's kind of like a video game. If you defeat a level and the next level was always more difficult, you're eventually going to not want to continue playing that game because there is no enjoyment in beating that level because you're just going to get hit with something harder unless you're the type of person who really likes the challenge.

00:09:20:01 - 00:09:36:04
Michael J. Accetta
And there are dogs like that. But at the end of the day, what we want to do is actually pull back and make it easier. If you've ever played a video game and you've done like four or five levels and then the six level, is this really easy thing? And you're like, Oh, okay. And then you go to level seven and it's ten times harder.

00:09:36:04 - 00:10:07:03
Michael J. Accetta
That's exactly what they're doing. They're making it easier that boosting up your confidence and then they make it harder so you can definitely do that with your dog. And that is something you should emulate with your dog, especially in this exercise. My dog's lying next to me. I'm going to reward them a whole bunch. Then I'm going to stop for a second add some time, reward them at some time, reward them, add some time, reward them, then immediately reward them again and then add more time I want to slowly build up how long they're willing to wait in order to get the reward.

00:10:08:04 - 00:10:28:01
Michael J. Accetta
If I can do that, I make it easier for myself to enjoy my dinner and easier for my dog to be relaxed. Right? The harder it is for them to understand what they're doing, the less likely they're going to do it longer. What I mean by that, the confidence goes down. They go, Okay, and understand why I'm still here.

00:10:28:05 - 00:10:46:11
Michael J. Accetta
But someone dropped chicken on the floor or turkey on the floor, so I'm going to go get that. Now, if that happens, what's your backup plan? Right. You've got to be able to get your dog back. That's why I mentioned the leash earlier. Whether it's on a harness or a collar, at least you have something to control them in the event that they jump toward something.

00:10:47:02 - 00:11:05:12
Michael J. Accetta
You might even want to position yourself far enough away from everybody so that if they drop food, it doesn't become a problem. No notice when, say, when they drop food, you could be perfect. You could be perfect. But in the situation we're talking about, we're having Thanksgiving dinner. People get messy, people get sloppy, they're all over the place, right?

00:11:06:02 - 00:11:26:01
Michael J. Accetta
You go to eat and you just drop it on your lap and then you kind of brush up on the floor because maybe you don't have a dog or maybe you do have a dog in your dog or that person's dog we're talking about. They're used to letting their dog eat all of the food. But as I mentioned earlier, there are foods that your dog cannot eat that are very popular during Thanksgiving very popular.

00:11:26:01 - 00:11:50:03
Michael J. Accetta
And there are foods at your dog, Kenny. Okay. Again, there's a whole list of I'm not going to go over there now, but mad at our canine dot com forward slash Thanksgiving manners has that list. It's a PDF Download. It has that list for you because there's a whole bunch of I mean, there's quite a lot that you would not think are unsafe or are safe to have so big takeaways here.

00:11:50:04 - 00:12:10:03
Michael J. Accetta
Big big takeaways. Number one, manage everything that you can if you can put your dog in a space where they can be more successful long term, do that. If you want to go through the process of training perfect this is might be the time to train I say might because it might be too much for your dog to handle and if it's too much, we want to have them put away.

00:12:10:11 - 00:12:29:11
Michael J. Accetta
If it's not too much and you're working on these things actively before we get to Thanksgiving dinner, then yeah, this is perfect. This is the time to train. Your dog has worked all this much, all this much. So your dog has worked this much for this moment. Okay, this is the moment that you need and you're probably not going to have unless you really have people over every weekend.

00:12:29:11 - 00:12:53:02
Michael J. Accetta
You're not going to have this many reps to play with. Okay, this is a perfect opportunity to do it. And then when you're having dinner, actively having dinner, you're going to be as relaxed as possible. You're going to reward your dog for being nice and relaxed. You can give them breaks by having them get up, or you can even do place and you mentioned this, you could have them go to a place if they know, please just understand the likelihood of them breaking the position.

00:12:53:02 - 00:13:16:14
Michael J. Accetta
If you haven't really practiced place that much with that level of distraction is very high. They are going to break place in order to get something that maybe they don't you don't see and they're going to go sneak and get it. And then you realize they're not on place anymore because you've been distracted, engaging in conversation with people and then they win, not necessarily win because they're not malicious, but they took the opportunity to go get a reward and it wasn't from you.

00:13:17:12 - 00:13:38:10
Michael J. Accetta
So what you might want to do is put them on place and then recall them to you every couple of minutes and send them back to place. You recall them to you, they get a treat, they go back to place. You toss a treat over to them, make it as easy as possible for them to succeed. A lot of rewards, a lot of praise, a lot of encouragement, because the situation that you're working in, depending on how many people you have, is very distracting.

00:13:39:05 - 00:13:59:09
Michael J. Accetta
The more distracting environment is the less likely our dog is to perform, unless they are used to working at that level. Of distraction. Okay. And then with guests, same thing when you're having them come over, if you can put them away, great. When it does come time to reintroduce them to the party, you got two options. Have a leash on them and control the way they're meeting.

00:13:59:09 - 00:14:18:01
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe they have to give PA first. Maybe they have to lay down and rollover first. Whatever it is to try to slow them down. You have to do that before they get to meet the person. And the alternative is to just let your dog go and see what happens. Now, if you're nervous that your dog is a big dog and going to take out grandma, then option two is not for you.

00:14:18:05 - 00:14:41:14
Michael J. Accetta
Option one is have them on a leash, have them controlled. If you have a tiny dog, nobody's going to step on the dog. And they're used to running up to people and just being happy and sniffing. Then you can just let them go. I would say a dog over £60 you should have on leash and have control over even though they might be wonderful now they've never jumped on anybody, especially if this is the first time you're having this many people over to your house.

00:14:42:03 - 00:14:52:06
Michael J. Accetta
This is the time to set them up for success. Don't wait for them to fail and then try to fix it later. Set them up to do everything right now and will make it ten times easier for you next time.

There are 1000s of ways to train a dog and somehow, we fall into figuring out how to do it differently with our dogs. Whether you are trying to solve a problem behavior or work on training for the next sporting competition, there are some things about training that will always stay the same. 

In today's episode I will be going over the nuances of dog training and how you can train without needing to focus on the differences, but on the similarities which will make it easier and more enjoyable for your dog. 

Learn how to stop your dog's bad behaviors here - https://www.matadork9.com/resolvingbadhabits

Work with me - https://www.matadork9.com/coaching

Episode Transcript

01:15:33:20 - 01:15:53:21
Michael J. Accetta
This is going to be an insanely controversial episode of the acknowledged dogs podcast. I'm going to make some people have said, especially if you are in the dog training world, whether you're a sport dog trainer, a working dog trainer or service dog trainer, I'm going to make you upset. I'm going to bruise your ego. And it's intentional because you need this kind of reality check.

01:15:54:17 - 01:16:12:10
Michael J. Accetta
I want to talk about the different nuances of dog training. Now, to fully understand this, I want to define what a nuance is. Okay. It's great to have these kind of definitions. You can fully wrap your head around what I'm talking about. If you don't fully understand something, I'm going to lose you. So I want you to understand what a nuance is.

01:16:13:06 - 01:16:45:12
Michael J. Accetta
Now, the definition of a nuance is a subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression or sound, a subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression or sound used in a sentence. The nuances of facial expression and body language. Some similar words or variation, degree, shade, graduation, refinement, overtone. You can use it as a verb, give nuances to the effect of the music is nuanced by the social situation or listeners.

01:16:45:12 - 01:17:06:17
Michael J. Accetta
That means it's it's subtly changed a meaning simply because of the social situation of listeners. Now we're talking about the nuance of dog training. And what's really wonderful is, as I started to look up some information about today's episode and what I wanted to talk about finding a definition is a finite definition for dog training is rather difficult.

01:17:06:19 - 01:17:29:12
Michael J. Accetta
There's a beautiful one that I'm going to read for you just in a second, but it is difficult to find a real clear definition on dog training. Now, of course, we could break those two words up dog. Canine familiarity as a family, right? Mammal and training is the act of going about educating yourself and working through particular problems to a certain level of competency.

01:17:29:21 - 01:17:46:10
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. But if we look at dog training, the definition, this is the best one that I could find. And I think it really lays out exactly what I'm talking about because it is a long definition, and that's exactly what we're talking about, the different nuances of dog training and the fact that this definition needs to be so long because of the nuances of doctrine.

01:17:46:11 - 01:18:16:06
Michael J. Accetta
Here we go. Dog training is the application of behavioral analysis which uses the environmental events of antecedents and consequences to modify the dog behavior. Now, you could stop right there, but that's not the nuance of dog training behavior. So after we have that part, either for it to assist in specific activities or undertake particular tasks or for it to participate effectively in contemporary domestic life.

01:18:17:05 - 01:18:41:14
Michael J. Accetta
I'm going to read the whole thing again here. Listen carefully. Dog training is the application of behavior analysis, which uses the environmental events of antecedents and consequences to modify the dog behavior. Either for it to assist in specific activities or undertake particular tasks, or for it to participate effectively in contemporary domestic life.

01:18:43:17 - 01:19:14:03
Michael J. Accetta
We're talking about multiple things here. Dog trains the application of behavior analysis. That means the individual who's training the dog, whether it be an owner handler or a professional who's teaching a dog for somebody, for a client. The application of behavioral analysis, understanding how behavior works, analyzing it objectively and then force going in, using it in environmental events of antecedents and consequence to understanding why behavior happens and the positive punishment.

01:19:14:03 - 01:19:42:22
Michael J. Accetta
Positive reinforcement, negative punishment, negative reinforcement after the behavior happens in order to modify the dog's behavior either. Okay. Now, there's multiple reasons as to why we use behavior analysis in their environmental events of antecedents, the consequences to modify the dog behavior. It's either one for you to assist in specific activities that's a service dog or undertake particular tasks that might be a service dog or a working dog sport dog All right.

01:19:42:22 - 01:20:10:21
Michael J. Accetta
We might have police dogs herding dogs, that kind of thing, or even more cause for it to participate effectively in contemporary domestic life. That is your everyday dog and how they live in our complex world. So there's a whole bunch of nuances here. And this is where it actually becomes difficult to understand, because if you're looking at this and saying, Okay, well, I'm either teaching a dog to be a service dog, I'm teaching a working dog, or I'm teaching a dog for contemporary domestic life.

01:20:11:08 - 01:20:37:09
Michael J. Accetta
Do I teach those things differently? No, you don't. Because dog training encompasses all of those. This is what I want to talk about today. When we're looking at dog training as a whole. The bigger picture, dog training is not different depending on what you're teaching. You might be teaching different behaviors. You might be teaching different behaviors. Your goal might be different.

01:20:37:22 - 01:20:58:13
Michael J. Accetta
But the processes by which you go about it are exactly the same. This is where I said I was going to bruise your ego. If you're listening to this and you're a professional dog trainer, you're a service dog trainer, you're a sport dog trainer, don't get caught up in the fact that just because you teach those specific things means you have to be the best at something.

01:20:58:20 - 01:21:18:20
Michael J. Accetta
This is oftentimes what happens with sport dog trainers or working dog trainers. I have heard countless times, Will, you don't know how to train my dog? My dogs are working dog. You don't know how to train this. I'll tell you right now. I do. And I'll tell you a quick little story. I was working at a facility who had other trainers at the time.

01:21:18:23 - 01:21:38:17
Michael J. Accetta
Well, they had other trainers they all left. It was me and another trainer. And this client had not come in for a while, which he had this beautiful Dutch shepherd whose name was Bear, and she came in and she was expecting to work with the other trainer who was my senior. She was the operations manager. And the operations manager had to work with another dog.

01:21:39:05 - 01:21:57:15
Michael J. Accetta
And so I had the lovely privilege of working with Bear. And the owner, she comes in and she said, Why aren't I working with the operations manager? And I said, she's busy at the moment. I'll be doing your session for the day. And she said, I'd like to cancel my session if that's the case. She had never worked with me before, so I'd like to cancel my session if that's the case.

01:21:58:03 - 01:22:20:12
Michael J. Accetta
And I said, We're already here. Why don't we start the session? If you're not happy with it, we can reschedule it, no problem. And she said, No, I'd really like to work with the operations manager, so I completely understand. Give me 5 minutes if you're not happy with it, we can reschedule your session. No works, she said. Fine. And as the operations manager walked by, she told the operations manager she was upset and she said, Michael's fantastic.

01:22:21:10 - 01:22:43:06
Michael J. Accetta
Just enjoy your session. Next session will be with me. Whatever. Now, as my personality as confronted with certain things, she had kept saying, you know, you don't know anything about my dog. And I said, I completely agree with you. I don't know anything about your dog. I was able to look over the notes of your past sessions, but it's been about a year and a half since you've been it, so please catch me up.

01:22:43:06 - 01:22:58:18
Michael J. Accetta
How are things going? What's going on? What are you looking to do? And she started to tell me and she said, well, you know, he's he's a working line dog. He's a serious dog. We do agility, but he's a serious dog. So I don't want to you know, we're not going to play around rock and do it. I said, I completely understand I said, What is he like?

01:22:59:22 - 01:23:16:14
Michael J. Accetta
He said, Did you guys bring treats? Does he like treats? She said, no, he's a working dog. He doesn't eat treats. Doesn't he treats? Does he like toys? Oh, yeah, he loves the ball. I said, Great, that's my favorite to do. She said, Yeah, but you don't know how he does it. I said, Great. I would love for you to show me and we'll see where we go from there.

01:23:16:23 - 01:23:32:05
Michael J. Accetta
I'm very open, okay? I'm not about shoving things down people's throat and saying, No, what you're doing is wrong. What you need to be doing is this. I'm not interested in that. If they already have something good going, great, I want to elevate it. I want to make it better. So I asked, Well, what do you have going for you?

01:23:32:05 - 01:23:48:18
Michael J. Accetta
What's going on? How things go? And so she showed me what the problem was. She was trying to do a recall, and what happened with the dog would turn around and it would run towards her and it would stop halfway to get her. And it's because she had the ball out in front of her. And I said, Okay, we're just going to change one thing, if you don't mind.

01:23:48:18 - 01:24:09:16
Michael J. Accetta
Just test it out for me. Now, I knew this was going to work, but I didn't want to put pressure on her for her to become defensive and so I'm thinking about how not only the dog's going to respond to the training that we're doing, but how my client's going to start to respond to what's going on. If I start challenging what's worked for her in the past, since she's already frustrated her is not listening.

01:24:09:20 - 01:24:29:00
Michael J. Accetta
I don't want to create more frustration, and I don't want to create more animosity between the two of us. Now, this is a nuance to how you go about training somebody and training the dog. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but essentially there was no difference between how I treated this situation and how I would treat any other situation.

01:24:29:00 - 01:24:49:14
Michael J. Accetta
A nervous dog. I might treat it slightly differently in mind, but my determination are demeanor, rather. My demeanor might be different, but the mechanics were still the same. The fact that the dog was turning around and looking back to her and not recalling simply because the ball was present or wasn't present. That's what was happening. The dog was turning around and didn't see the ball.

01:24:49:17 - 01:25:08:11
Michael J. Accetta
So it said, Oh, well, I'm not getting anything. I'm not going to come to you. And so we did a few repetitions of changing. A very small mechanic always hide the ball when the dog comes to you, Mark, and then produce the ball. The ball isn't getting the dog to come. I get the dog to come and then I reward them afterwards.

01:25:08:11 - 01:25:36:16
Michael J. Accetta
That mechanic is vital to any training. It doesn't matter whether you're teaching, you know, what was the definition here? What we got, whether you're teaching them for specific activities or undertaking particular tasks, service dog trainer should do this all the time. Why would you teach your dog to become dependent upon a reward or a toy? When we're teaching service dogs, that would be awful to try to do because at the end of the day, your dog cannot just listen when you have a treat.

01:25:36:16 - 01:25:57:13
Michael J. Accetta
They have to listen all the time, even if you're unconscious or there's something going on where you can't get a tree out. That's very important for a service dog. We're talking about working dogs, police dogs. I don't have time to stop and pull out treats. I don't have time to stop and pull out the ball. My dog has to perform knowing that afterwards they're going to get their favorite thing and then we have contemporary domestic life.

01:25:58:05 - 01:26:15:22
Michael J. Accetta
This is often where we let the mechanics slide because, oh, it's not that important. Many, many trainers chalk this up. Oh, well, we don't have to teach everything perfectly the way I would teach any other service dog or working dog. This is where that nuance comes in. This I'm going to change it simply because it's a domestic dog.

01:26:16:09 - 01:26:32:12
Michael J. Accetta
It's a companion dog. It doesn't need to be that important. My client, I treat them as it's that important because it is. If my dog doesn't recall and they run out into the middle of the street, they're going to get hurt. If my dog jumps up on somebody and they're not prepared for it, they fall back. They hit their head on something.

01:26:32:18 - 01:26:55:18
Michael J. Accetta
Now, he got a rushed to the hospital my dog could become aggressive because they haven't been, well, socialized in the environment. These are very important things. And because of how the gravity of all of that, when you do actually train and you understand of that certain level, the world opens up for you. Everything becomes a hell of a lot easier when your dog is fully trained, when you don't have a fully trained dog and you chalk it up to, oh, well, they're just a lap dog.

01:26:56:01 - 01:27:16:09
Michael J. Accetta
They don't need to know all of this stuff. Fine. When problems arise, it's going to be a bigger problem for you than the person who actually went forth and trained their dog. And then on the other side of things, if you're training your dog as a working line, police dog, service dog, whatever it is, and you hold them at a very high caliber, that's fantastic.

01:27:16:22 - 01:27:43:08
Michael J. Accetta
But that does not mean you neglect the fact that they are still a companion animal. This is oftentimes what happens with high end working dogs, professionals and people alike will treat a high end working dog as a tool, and it is to an extent, but they forget that that dog is still a dog, it still wants to be loved, still wants to be taken care of and petted and rubbed and all that good stuff.

01:27:44:15 - 01:28:11:16
Michael J. Accetta
Right? It still needs a little bit of freedom. It cannot be a robot and we cannot switch the way we train a dog simply because there are working line or simply because they are a service dog or simply because they're a companion dog. The way you train the dog is exactly the same. We keep it fun. We use good mechanics we set our dogs up for success, and we maintain the behaviors over long periods of time with controlled practice and reward schedules.

01:28:13:01 - 01:28:31:22
Michael J. Accetta
That's how you do it. No matter what you're trying to teach, that's how you do it. Service dog, police dog, companion, dog. You're doing sport work. You keep it fun, you keep them engaged, you keep them successful. You teach them everything they need to know in order to be successful. You don't just push them and say, Yeah, well, they better know how to do it.

01:28:33:00 - 01:28:48:20
Michael J. Accetta
So how it works the methods for teaching are exactly the same. There is a little bit of nuance on how we might go about it. Now, if I have a nervous dog, I might be a little more gentle. If I have a really confident dog, I might push them a little faster. But I cannot say, Oh, well, it's a working dog.

01:28:49:04 - 01:29:15:21
Michael J. Accetta
I'm going to use punishment instead of rewards because it's a working dog. I hear that way too much. Oh, well, you can't train a working dog with positive reinforcement. Baloney. You absolutely can train a working dog with positive reinforcement. And in fact, if you did, the dog would be better. They'd be more willing to work, more willing to train faster at learning new material because they enjoyed it so much and they're so stubborn.

01:29:16:19 - 01:29:56:08
Michael J. Accetta
If you have a strong, confident, stubborn, working, lined dog, positive reinforcement is perfect. Perfect for them because of how determined and dedicated they will be to doing that behavior because they know that it works. I'll get passionate here because it's a passionate topic for me. The nuance, different subtle manipulations of the dog training industry creates a division. It creates the divide if you don't want your dog to struggle in training, you have to play with them like a companion dog.

01:29:56:11 - 01:30:28:05
Michael J. Accetta
That's their only job. And treat them and train them to level the high level of working dog status. That's the secret train them with excitement and joy and happiness, but to the level of a working line dog. That's what we did with Bear My goal was on making it as fun as possible for the dog, but understanding that this owner wanted the dog at such a high level I said, Great, we can do that.

01:30:29:03 - 01:30:48:12
Michael J. Accetta
All we have to do is fix these mechanics. And by the way, at the end of the session, she said she was fantastic. She did not know that I knew as much as I knew about dogs in general. She didn't know me, but she didn't think the things that I knew would apply to working like dogs. And I didn't try to validate it by telling her that I had worked with 12,000 dogs.

01:30:48:18 - 01:31:07:11
Michael J. Accetta
I didn't try to validate it by saying I had an animal science degree and had worked with individuals who have 50 years of police dog training experience I didn't validate it by saying, I've been in a bite suit and I've done bite work and I've done detection work and I've worked with police dogs. I didn't validate any of that to her because honestly nothing was getting into her brain at that moment.

01:31:07:11 - 01:31:28:04
Michael J. Accetta
She was just defensive, which is oftentimes what happens when you hear this kind of information, which is why I told you in the beginning of this episode that it was going to be an ego bump, it was going to hurt your feelings because it's supposed to. It has to wake you up if you're training a police dog or working like dog, a high energy dog.

01:31:28:05 - 01:31:47:06
Michael J. Accetta
I encourage you this week is my task for you this week. This week, all I want you to do is play with your dog in between all the obedience that you do. Obedience first playing and then obedience again. If you have a companion dog, same thing. Instead of just doing obedience, start to treat them like a high end working dog.

01:31:47:17 - 01:32:22:09
Michael J. Accetta
Do obedience. And it doesn't have to be aggressive obedience on either side. Obedience can still be fun obedience then play and then obedience again. Okay, if you're struggling with problematic behaviors, all of this still applies. And in fact I created a PDF for you to download on result in complicated bad habits without having to use punishment. Everything I talked about today on keeping things fun and exciting and keeping your dog successful is in this PDF, so I'm going to put the link in the description where you can head over to Matador Canine Ecom Forward Slash Resolving bad habits, matted, working uncommon, resolving bad habits.

01:32:22:17 - 01:32:45:10
Michael J. Accetta
If you want to work with me and get one on one private coaching, head over to Matador Cain Uncommon Forward slash coaching Matador Cain Icon Forward slash coaching and we can schedule discovery call see if the training is right for you. I'm probably going to be doing a Black Friday sale. So if you're listening to this during Black Friday, make sure you schedule will call this week as soon as soon as you hear this schedule call.

01:32:45:15 - 01:32:52:17
Michael J. Accetta
Let's see if we can do something together so I can help you have the freedom that I get to have with my dogs. Thank you guys for listening and I'll see you next time.

Would you believe me if I told you that there are only 5 reasons your dog does anything? Only five. Although it might be hard to hear, dog training stems from understanding these 5 reasons your dog does (fill in here, hahaha). 

Anything you can imagine is a result of these 5 influences and today I am going to go over each one of them and why they are so powerful over your dog's behavior. 

Learn how to stop your dog's bad behavior with this free guide 

https://www.matadork9.com/resolvingbadhabits

Work with me! Schedule a discovery call here

https://www.matadork9.com/coaching

Episode Transcription:

Your dog only does certain behavior, certain things for five influences, five reasons Now I'm going to break down each one of those reasons, and it's going to help you start to take the actionable steps toward solving the problem with your dog. We're not necessarily going over those actionable steps today. However, once you understand how to diagnose the problem, you know where it stemmed from and what the reason is.

00:00:57:09 - 00:01:19:04
Michael J. Accetta
It can help you move on the right path. So if you have a dog that has behavior problems, they are chewing on the couch, they're chasing after the kids, they're barking at strangers. There's a definite reason as to why that's happening, and it's going to fall into one of these five influences. That's it. It is super simple. It's not about this or that or all of that.

00:01:20:02 - 00:01:44:03
Michael J. Accetta
Get that out of your brain now. And I want you to start to absorb that. There's only five reasons why your dog does anything Are you ready? The first reason is going to be genetics. Now, this episode, this podcast that I'm recording here actually stemmed from somebody saying that if you get a dog, any breed of dog, of course, you should do your research.

00:01:44:03 - 00:02:02:06
Michael J. Accetta
Of course, I agree with that. But they were saying that if you got a breed of dog, you should understand that you are getting exactly what that breeds description is. And that is just not true. We put so much emphasis on genetics, actually an overemphasis on genetics, and then we say that there's nothing we can do about it.

00:02:02:09 - 00:02:35:01
Michael J. Accetta
So I don't want you to put an overemphasis on the genetic breeding and selection of your dog. Yes, it's something to consider. Yes, it's something to look at when selecting the right dog. However, we cannot assume just because we got a German shepherd or just because we got an Australian shepherd or just because we got a bulldog, that they're going to act like all the other German shepherds, Australian shepherds and bulldogs that we've met, for example, I was working with a German shepherd once who was the complete opposite of a German shepherd, stereotypical.

00:02:35:09 - 00:02:54:13
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. It acted more like a golden retriever. It didn't want to do anything, but it was happy about seeing people. It didn't bark at other people. It didn't mouthy you at all, barely wanted to use its mouth. It was completely opposite to what most people would consider a German shepherd to act like another. An advanced breed would be a Belgian Malinois.

00:02:54:14 - 00:03:27:05
Michael J. Accetta
People get a Belgian male and what to do, bite sports work, agility, frisbee, really intense kind of stuff. And I was working with this beautiful Malinois and the gentleman wanted to do bite sports, wanted to do agility, wanted to do all this stuff. And we couldn't because the dog was terrified, terrified of the environment. Okay. Now that might stem into some of the other reasons for behavior, but I want to understand that just because you're looking at a specific breed doesn't mean you're going to get every single aspect of that breed.

00:03:27:14 - 00:03:56:09
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. I understand that. That's a possibility. Now, that being said, within genetics, there's two factors that we can control. Number one is the breed. And number two is the selection of the ancestry. Okay. So if you're looking for a dog or if you're looking for your second dog or you just want to have some fun with it, you can look at what your dog's stereotypical variables are or selection or behaviors that they do, and then see how close your dog fits that.

00:03:57:12 - 00:04:21:04
Michael J. Accetta
If your dog does not fit and fit it very well, then there might be another reason All right. And we're going to go over those. There might be another reason as to why your dog's not fitting into the stereotypical breed behaviors However, if you're looking to get a dog, then you're going to need to talk to a breeder and find out what the ancestry of the dogs are.

00:04:21:12 - 00:04:41:11
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. The lineage that heavily influences the specific genetics of the dog that you get. This is where people who are doing bite sports work or police work, they're looking at sporting line versus working line dogs. It's a very big conversation, a very big topic. They want to know, are they getting a sporting line dog or are they getting a working line dog?

00:04:41:11 - 00:05:01:03
Michael J. Accetta
Because they're going to behave differently? Not to say that they're going to be perfect, right? You could get a working loan dog that acts more like a sport dog and you can get a sport lined dog that acts more like a work dog, but you're getting as close as you could possibly get, roughly. Of course, there's variances in all of this stuff.

00:05:01:07 - 00:05:26:09
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. That's genetics. Why my dog does a specific thing might be contributed to genetics. They're breeding. They're hurting. Sorry, they're hurting. Their breed would determine that they hurt. Or maybe they point. Maybe they were tree really well. Okay. I know plenty of golden retrievers who do not retrieve, and I know plenty of pointers who have never pointed ever in some dogs do it naturally, and that is attributed to their genetics.

00:05:27:04 - 00:05:54:11
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. Don't get so hung up on the breed specifically. Just because it's a German shepherd. Just because it's an Australian shepherd, just because it's a Belgian Malinois doesn't mean it's going to act like that specific breed. It could act like a completely different one. Okay. So let's move on to two. The second one, after genetics, after we say, Okay, I've looked at the genetics, my dog is not acting the way they're acting right now because of the genetics, you know, chewing up the couch.

00:05:55:14 - 00:06:17:14
Michael J. Accetta
They're not hurting, but they're are hurting dogs. So maybe that has nothing to do with the genetics. Let's move on to step two chemistry. The chemistry in your dog's brain, whether it's a naturally occurring or it's influenced by their diet, is going to contribute to the imbalance in their brain or hypervigilance in their brain, just like people. So there's a chemical imbalance in your dog's brain.

00:06:17:14 - 00:06:44:11
Michael J. Accetta
It is going to influence how they act, whether they they're slow, whether they're jittery, whether they're nervous, whether they can't walk straight. Right. There's a chemical imbalance in your dog's brain. Oftentimes people ignore this because they don't want to accept it, just like human beings, right? If you have ADHD or you have something else Sometimes medication can help you on the road to learning the coping mechanisms.

00:06:45:12 - 00:07:03:13
Michael J. Accetta
If you don't go through the process of learning how to cope with certain behaviors, you can never get any better. Same thing goes for your dog. If your dog is freaking out all of the time and losing their mind there is no way for you to give them new information to teach them how to cope with the world.

00:07:04:08 - 00:07:24:13
Michael J. Accetta
So what we need to do is get us on a level playing field where they can start to interact with us and absorb the new information that we're trying to teach them, and then we can win them off medication. I was working with a dog named Piper to walk into the facility and immediately want to kill me. She would look at me, she would lunge at me, and this was the dog's problem.

00:07:24:13 - 00:07:49:02
Michael J. Accetta
It was reactive towards men So after a few sessions, we started to say, Okay, we're not seeing as much progress as we typically do with these kind of cases. Why don't you bring the dog to the vet and see what the vet says? They did a screening test, whatever. And then they recommended some medication to lower the dog's threshold to make it easier for the dog to start to absorb information because of how worked up she was.

00:07:49:08 - 00:08:10:00
Michael J. Accetta
She wasn't getting anything. Those training sessions. She wasn't absorbing the information. It would have taken years for her to get it, and then it might not have been possible because her brain wasn't in the right space. So they administered a very low dosage of medication. The dog then started to accept the new information of training, started to realize, Oh, this guy's nice.

00:08:10:00 - 00:08:25:04
Michael J. Accetta
This guy wants to do fun stuff with me. I want to do fun stuff, like playing agility. And so now we were able to progress, and eventually we got the dog off of medication. We were able to wean the dog off medication because the dog had learned a coping skills of when it's stressed out and it doesn't like somebody and it wants to lash out at them.

00:08:25:08 - 00:08:49:11
Michael J. Accetta
It can just walk away from the situation. He couldn't do that when its brain wasn't in the right mindset. The brain wasn't able to think clear enough because of how crazy it was. So if your dog is completely over the moon for something or there might be another neurological thing going on, whatever it may be when it over, the moon, whether they're completely lethargic, there might be a chemical imbalance.

00:08:49:11 - 00:09:19:11
Michael J. Accetta
And again, that could either be from a natural occurrence from the genetics. Okay, that's happened or it could be from diet. Okay, so you're feeding your dog something and it's causing a chemical imbalance. Now, that's one and two, genetics, chemistry. I'm going to move on to healthier. And personally, I had this happen with my own dog. Now I got Hawk when he was four years old, he had an abscess in his cheek that made him aggressive.

00:09:20:00 - 00:09:41:06
Michael J. Accetta
And I know that sounds ridiculous. Your dog's aggressive. Yes, he was simply because he had a pain in his cheek. And when you pressed it, he would react. Stands to reason. If I have a headache, I'm going to be a little more grumpy Right. And so once I solve the health problem, the behavior almost immediately went away. He's no longer aggressive.

00:09:42:10 - 00:10:14:06
Michael J. Accetta
That's an influence of health That is because there's a health problem causing what's called pain induced aggression. But that's not only what it does, right. Health doesn't just cause aggression. It can cause a bunch of other things. But essentially what we're looking at is, okay, genetics checked off, chemistry checked up. Is there a health problem? My dog doesn't want to sit because their hip hurts My dog doesn't want to run quickly to me in a recall because they broke their toe okay.

00:10:14:08 - 00:10:37:08
Michael J. Accetta
My dog doesn't want to go up the stairs because their shoulder hurts. There's a health reason involved. My dog doesn't want to keep running because they don't have any more cardiovascular capacity to continue running. They are beat. They're wiped out. They're tired. That's a health problem. Now, I know I've been talking a lot about behavior problems, but I also want to flip the script and talk about the positive side streets, right?

00:10:37:08 - 00:10:56:09
Michael J. Accetta
If you're looking to do something with your dog and you also want to go through these checklists. Okay. I want my dog to be a sport dog. I want to agility with them. Great. Let's first look at genetics. I'm going to look at genetics. Find the breeds. Maybe I pick three or five that I'm willing to work with in order to have an agility title.

00:10:57:08 - 00:11:15:03
Michael J. Accetta
Then I'm going to look at the chemistry. So I want to look at the tests. If I'm getting from a breeder, I want to look at the lab results and see what's the chemistry of this dog. You know, if you understand chemistry, if you understand what you're looking at, great for you. That's fantastic. Or you can just ask your vet to kind of explain it to you or the breeder if they're a competent individual.

00:11:16:09 - 00:11:32:04
Michael J. Accetta
And then you want to look at health. So after you've looked at the chemistry, okay, the chemistry all looks normal, which is great. That means we're not going to run into any problems when we're doing agility. And I want to look at the health, I want to look at the parents of the dog genetics. They are going to influence the help, and my dog's health is going to influence their performance.

00:11:33:12 - 00:11:56:10
Michael J. Accetta
See how it all trickles down like that? So then when the health is involved, I want to make sure that my dog has a long career in agility, a long career in spite sports. But then also I can influence the health by doing certain exercises, conditioning routines, strengthening certain muscles to make sure that my dog can perform at their absolute best.

00:11:57:01 - 00:12:22:08
Michael J. Accetta
Genetics. Chemistry helpful now. Still sticking to the good side of things. We're going to move on to the fourth influence of behavior. The fourth reason your dog does anything, and that's going to be early experiences, early experiences. This is between three to 12 weeks old. Sometimes it extends a little bit past that, depending on the breed it could go up to six weeks.

00:12:23:01 - 00:12:47:01
Michael J. Accetta
But roughly we're looking at the first three to 12 weeks of age. Oftentimes this is going to be with the mom of the dog unless there's been some unnatural occurrence or this is going to be under the supervision of a breeder. So the breeders really responsible for the socialization period of what's called the three to 12 weeks of your dog's behavior.

00:12:47:01 - 00:13:06:07
Michael J. Accetta
And what they need to learn is everything that is normal to them. They need to learn what a car is, how to walk, how to have a leash on, how to have a harness on how to be handled, manipulated, groomed. All of that should happen before 12 weeks of age. Otherwise, you're moving into the next category. I want to talk about that in just a second.

00:13:07:07 - 00:13:24:02
Michael J. Accetta
So that experience is huge. Think about a dog that grew up on a farm or in the city, vice versa. The dog grew up in the city and you've moved it to the farm. It's going to behave very differently as well as if you had a dog grown up in the farm and you brought it to the city.

00:13:24:02 - 00:13:43:06
Michael J. Accetta
It's going to behave very differently. The early experiences that that dog had is trying to help guide it through the rest of its life. And so if we don't set them up for success between three to 12 weeks of age when they eventually get to where they're going to be for the rest of their life, they're going to struggle because they just don't know what to do.

00:13:44:09 - 00:14:05:13
Michael J. Accetta
See the problem here? So the best thing that you can do is talk to your breeder or if you're rescuing a dog. Ask what the early experiences were that we have a better understanding, especially if you're going to be doing sports or something like that. You don't necessarily want to have behavior problems creeping up while you're trying to focus on getting titles and ribbons and awards and stuff.

00:14:06:09 - 00:14:23:14
Michael J. Accetta
So depending on what your goal is now, if you already have a dog, then they have behavior problems. And you've looked at the genetics, chemistry and health. It could be from the early experience, but unfortunately there's nothing you can do about it, right? Chemistry can go see that. Genetics, you can't do anything about it. Health, you can go see of that and you can fix the problem.

00:14:23:14 - 00:14:42:06
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe you strengthened some muscles, maybe you do some rehab, that kind of thing. Early experiences. There's nothing you can do about it's already happened. We've moved on from it, and what we need to do is move into the last influence behavior, and that's adult learning. Why does your dog do blink? It's because they've learned it as an adult.

00:14:43:04 - 00:15:01:07
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, why does my dog jump up on people? They've learned that jumping on people gets them praise, gets them to say hello. So of course, they're going to jump on more people, right? Why does my dog sit patiently when I go out the front door? Because they've learned to sit patiently before I go out the front door. See the difference here?

00:15:01:07 - 00:15:22:10
Michael J. Accetta
See how we can influence the rest of their lives through these five influences the behaviors that your dog does every single day are only influenced by these five things. So no matter what behavior problems you're having, no matter what your goals are with your dog, you have to look at these five things and start to understand where they stem from in order to move forward.

00:15:23:03 - 00:15:43:06
Michael J. Accetta
But there's really only two that you can control. Three you can control sorry, chemistry health and adult learning. So if it's not, chemistry of chemistry is not the problem in health isn't the problem, then you need to do more training. If you've done a ridiculous amount of training and something's not clicking, go backward. Or maybe it's a health problem.

00:15:43:06 - 00:16:03:12
Michael J. Accetta
No, it's not a health problem. Maybe it's a chemistry problem. So you can go back and forth between those three chemistry, health and adult learning or adult learning health and the chemistry. I'll give you a couple examples here. My dog's not sitting Is it their hip or just have I not done enough training? My dog is not recalling well, is it a health issue?

00:16:04:01 - 00:16:26:09
Michael J. Accetta
Is it a chemistry issue or is it adult learning? I just haven't done recall enough. I haven't practiced the behavior enough in able to warrant doing it in that environment. Now, a genetics could also play a role in that if my dog's not recalling because they're pointing at a rabbit. Well, the genetics would say that the dog should point at the rabbit and should continue to stare at it.

00:16:27:06 - 00:16:49:11
Michael J. Accetta
Now we need to do something else. We need to do more training to combat the genetic side of your dog's predisposition. Okay. Now, if you're struggling with any of these problem behaviors and understanding, okay, how does this work? How do I fix any of this? I made a guide for it. It's called the resolving complicated bad habits without using punishment.

00:16:49:12 - 00:17:15:03
Michael J. Accetta
The links going to be in the description. Or you can just go to Matador, Canine Brilliance Forward Slash, resolving bad habits. Matador, Canine Brilliance. I'm sorry, matador, canada. Come forward. Let resolving bad habits matter lurking out of that, come forward. Slash resolving bad habits I'm going to leave you with this. Just because your dog's behavior stemmed from one of these places does not mean you have no control over it.

00:17:16:00 - 00:17:51:03
Michael J. Accetta
You have complete control over your dog's behavior whether you think you do or not. And when you do train your dog, when you do work with them, when you do solve problems, not only does it build a stronger relationship, you get to have more freedom with your dog. But the world opens up. I promise you, no matter how difficult it is right now to work through these problem behaviors, to work through the the difficult training sessions, the obstacles you have in order to get to where you want to get to the world opens up when your dog is well-behaved, when they're well trained, when you get to experience new things with them for the first time

00:17:51:03 - 00:18:01:13
Michael J. Accetta
and have full confidence that they're going to be safe and respond and listen to you because you've done the work, because you've put the effort to get out there, go train. Thank you guys for listening and I'll see you next

Wanting your dog to be off-leash is not just some power move to show your neighbors you are better than them. It can actually be life-changing for your dog and save them in case of emergencies. However, there are a few things you must teach and get out of the way before you embark on this new adventure of off-leash training. 

In today's episode, I go over exactly what you need to teach and feel confident in before unclipping the leash for the first time. You will also learn exactly how I have taught over 12,000 dogs and their owners to have reliable dogs that they can trust off-leash wherever they go. 

Here is a free PDF download on stopping bad behaviors without punishment to get you started in training and succeeding. https://www.matadork9.com/resolvingbadhabits

If you want to work one on one with me schedule a discovery call here and let's make sure this is a right fit for you. https://www.matadork9.com/coaching

Episode Transcript

00:00:35:12 - 00:00:59:05
Michael J. Accetta
What I want to talk about today is off leash training, off leash training and the prerequisites that are required in order to have an off leash dog. It's not as simple as just unclip the leash, although a lot of people just do that. That actually gives me anxiety. That makes me nervous when someone just unclip the leash. And I've been around enough trainers and enough individuals that I know.

00:00:59:10 - 00:01:20:04
Michael J. Accetta
Some people just do it. They just go, Oh, it's going to be totally fine. Let me just unclip my dog's leash. And, you know, they're not going anywhere. I know they're not going anywhere. Great. Okay, that's wonderful. But for me, I need to have some reassurance. I need to know that there's been training involved. I need to know that I have multiple boxes checked off before I unclip my dog's leash.

00:01:20:14 - 00:01:42:10
Michael J. Accetta
So we're going to go over those things. What do I need to check off? In order to make sure that my dog's ready to have the leash taken off that are we can start having off leash adventures that we could go into the woods and go for hikes or in the event of an emergency. I know that I can call my dog when I need to if the leash breaks or the harness snaps or I trip and I dropped a leash.

00:01:42:10 - 00:02:01:13
Michael J. Accetta
I've seen all of these things happen when your dog's running away. How do you get them to come back? Now, I was thinking the other day was walking with my family of a three year old son and my significant other. We were just walking. We were kind of enjoying our day. We had the dog with us, and I started thinking my son has never worn a leash.

00:02:02:01 - 00:02:24:12
Michael J. Accetta
My three year old son has never worn a leash, but my dog has. They've always worn leashes. And I started to think, what if society said dogs can't have leashes? Like we don't put leashes on kids, okay? There's a certain prerequisite to a child being able to walk around, right, without being carried or put in a stroller. They have to listen.

00:02:25:01 - 00:02:41:11
Michael J. Accetta
They have to understand what you're saying and they have to have some type of engagement with you. They want to walk with you. They want to hold your hand. Right. They want to ask you questions. So they're engaged with you. And we don't even think about that when it comes to our kids. But we never think about it.

00:02:41:11 - 00:03:06:05
Michael J. Accetta
When it comes to a dog. So I was really thinking about it and I was like, okay, let me let me look at this from a scientific perspective, because that's what I do as a dog trainer. Our dogs get used to having the leash on and we get used to the leash being there. We've essentially become dependent on the leash keeping our dog at a certain distance, it being, you know, six feet or ten feet if you have a long legs or 30 feet, if you have a really long range.

00:03:07:00 - 00:03:26:14
Michael J. Accetta
I like to walk with a four foot leash because I like my dog to really close. But if I just lost the leash and I had to practice building my dog's engagement and rewarding them heavily, wouldn't it be different for them? Would it change something? And that's what we're going to talk about today. The prerequisites to having an off leash dog.

00:03:27:05 - 00:03:52:09
Michael J. Accetta
What I do with my clients when I want to build engagement is I tell them to get rid of the leash because there's two main things we need to have in the beginning engagement. Actually, there's three things. There's engagement there's confidence in socialization before you take the leash off your dog. So that engagement comes from practicing, giving them treats, giving them praise, having them want to interact with you.

00:03:52:09 - 00:04:05:06
Michael J. Accetta
If they don't want to interact with you, then you can't have an off leash dog because once you take the leash off, they're going to go run after something else. They're going to go run after the squirrel. They're going to go say hi to somebody. They're going to go sniff the grass over there and you have nothing to get them back.

00:04:05:06 - 00:04:22:14
Michael J. Accetta
No reason for them to want to come back. Okay. So you have to have me engagement aspect there. If you don't have the engagement aspect, nothing is going to happen. You just you don't have the confidence to let your dog off leash. And I think that's one of the biggest pieces that are missing when we have our kids.

00:04:23:01 - 00:04:43:02
Michael J. Accetta
Our kids want to engage with us. They want to talk with us. Or if you went for a walk with a friend, your friend doesn't just take off in another direction. No, they hang out with you, right? They want to interact with you. You guys are having a conversation. If something was really blown out of proportion and they ran off to go somewhere else, well, the conversation wasn't as important as that.

00:04:43:02 - 00:05:01:02
Michael J. Accetta
Something else. My point being, there's a simple way to build engagement with your dog, and that's treats. That's what we always talk about, right? Something that can reward the dog and encourage them to continue hanging out with us. The more you reward them, the more they want to hang out. The more you get to reward them, the more they want to hang out.

00:05:01:09 - 00:05:23:01
Michael J. Accetta
And then we talk some about some advanced stuff where you don't have to reward them as much. But that's a later episode. So once you have the engagement down, your dog wants to engage with you. You then need to build confidence and socialization. You cannot have an off leash dog if they are nervous or unsocial. So if you have a reactive dog, then you can't have them off leash.

00:05:23:06 - 00:05:48:08
Michael J. Accetta
Kind of makes sense, right? My first dog, her name is Breezy, but she's still alive today. I think she's nine or ten years old. She lives with my parents and she is terrified of the world, or at least she was for a majority of the time. We've done a lot of confidence building over the years, but in the beginning, when I first got her, she was terrified and we were always nervous about her slipping out of her collar or the leash breaking or the harness breaking anything could happen.

00:05:48:10 - 00:06:11:00
Michael J. Accetta
This is where my brain, my my brain, my brain goes all the time, right? I'm constantly thinking about what is going on, what could be the potential problem And so instead of waiting for it to happen, I intentionally trained for it. So we worked on a recall very, very subtly every day. We just did a little bit here, a little bit there, building engagement outside, trying to build up her confidence.

00:06:11:09 - 00:06:41:09
Michael J. Accetta
And one day she ran out of the front door, sprinted down the block after our money, and I was able to call her name and get her to turn around. She practically skidded on the floor. And it made it so much easier and better for me because of all the practice that we did, because otherwise my dog would have ran down the street, gone to a main highway chasing after this funny and potentially gotten hurt but because I had engagement, because I did a lot of practice, I was able to at least get her attention.

00:06:42:09 - 00:07:03:03
Michael J. Accetta
Then she freaked out because she was outside and she was nervous about being outside and she just kind of froze. So we had to then work on confidence. We had to work on the obedience part of being out in the world and socializing. And that's what we're going to get to in a second. What confidence if your dog is nervous, they can't think clearly when they're nervous.

00:07:03:11 - 00:07:22:09
Michael J. Accetta
A friend of mine had a German shepherd who was afraid of lightning and rain. It got out during a storm. Of course, the lightning happens, the rain happens, the dog freaks out. And then it ended up a couple of blocks away. I think it was lost for two or three days because it got afraid. It got so scared, it ran to try to protect itself.

00:07:23:10 - 00:07:47:10
Michael J. Accetta
And the owner couldn't then go get the dog, couldn't recall the dog, couldn't get the dog's attention, couldn't do anything because the dog was that afraid. And so if you know what your dog is afraid of, I encourage you to practice everything you do with your dog. It doesn't just have to be recalled, doesn't just have to be engagement, doesn't just have to be obedience, but tricks, manners, Agility it, conditioning.

00:07:47:10 - 00:07:58:05
Michael J. Accetta
Anything you do in your dog, you should practice in the situations where they might be a little nervous. It's going to build up their confidence, their certainty in their capabilities of what to do when they are nervous.

00:08:02:04 - 00:08:26:05
Michael J. Accetta
I want to take a moment and thank all of our loyal followers. This podcast would not be possible without you. Leave a review and let us know what you like and want to learn on the next episode of the Acknowledged Dog podcast. Now back to the show and then you need to have a dog that's well socialized. As I mentioned before, if your dog is reactive, they're barking at people and barking at other dogs.

00:08:26:05 - 00:08:56:08
Michael J. Accetta
They're barking at squirrels, cats, bicycles, skateboards, cars, whatever it is, your dog is not well socialized enough to be trusted off leash What do I mean by that? You, my dogs barking at people. I can't take them off leash because eventually they're then going to go run to the person and they're going to be so worked up and all over the place that they end up either, you know, maybe biting the person potentially if they're reactive, maybe they get up there and scare the person and the person starts swinging at the dog.

00:08:56:14 - 00:09:14:02
Michael J. Accetta
Absolutely. Can happen. And it's absolutely happened. Right? So you don't tick tock all the time on social media all the time. So your dog needs to be socially seized with those things. They need to not necessarily love them. They don't have to love them to be socialized with them. They just need to know that they exist and that they're normal.

00:09:14:14 - 00:09:46:04
Michael J. Accetta
Like socialization does not necessarily mean your dog has to love something or play with it or enjoy being around it. They just have to be neutral. Around it. They shouldn't be overly dramatic on one side or overly excited on another. Usually people get this confused when they get puppies. So if you have a puppy and someone saying, Oh, you got to socialize your dog, it doesn't necessarily mean bring them to playdates or go to the dog park or bring them to PetSmart or bring them to a boarding place where they can play with other dogs every day daycare.

00:09:47:01 - 00:10:12:07
Michael J. Accetta
And it's not what socialization means. Socialization means they can be neutral in the presence of anything a bike, a car, a shopping cart, a guitar, someone with a hat on, someone with glasses on, someone stomping and workman's right, holding them upside down, grabbing them, squeezing them. Those things they have to get socialize. Do they have to get used to those and know that they're normal?

00:10:12:07 - 00:10:35:00
Michael J. Accetta
If they don't know they're normal, they're going to be a little weary of them. And if you're out in an environment your dog's off leash, either by accident or intentional in something spooks them and they're not used to it. Ride a car like those big trucks that whistle, then do not do it. All right. Those trucks often scare dogs or 18 wheelers.

00:10:35:06 - 00:10:52:06
Michael J. Accetta
Those often scare dogs because they're just not used to them as much unless you live in an environment where they hear them all the time until you it would behoove you to play sounds like that in your house while your dog eats best way to do it. There is nothing for them to actually get afraid of sight wise.

00:10:52:06 - 00:11:17:09
Michael J. Accetta
They don't smell anything but they can hear it. They can use the the south. Then when you're out in the environment because they're used to one aspect of it, the sound, you can start to focus on the site and the smell of it. You're kind of your chopping away, if you will. If you have this giant piece of marble, you're chipping away at all the pieces that might cause a problem and you're leaving just a masterpiece in the middle, which is all the success of the off leash ness that you're striving for, that you're looking for.

00:11:18:07 - 00:11:43:10
Michael J. Accetta
So the three things engagement, first confidence. And then socialization. Now that's just an emotional kind of prerequisite, behavioral wise, the behaviors that our dog does. There's three more prerequisites that you need to have an off leash dog. Now, this can go over any type of obedience that you want, and that's totally fine. It could be sit you can be down you could be heel.

00:11:43:11 - 00:12:01:04
Michael J. Accetta
They could stand in between your legs. It could be a place map, right? You just walk around with a blanket, throw the blanket down, have your dog lay on it. But these are the three requirements Number one, it must be reliable the first time you say it the first time, not sit, sit, sit, sit, sit. It should be sit.

00:12:01:12 - 00:12:30:01
Michael J. Accetta
My dog does it immediately. Okay. Before you even finished saying the word, they should start the behave. That's how you know that your dog is reliable in the behavior. Okay? They know what the behavior is. If they don't know what the behavior is, they're not going to do it. Oftentimes, that's the problem. When your dog's not listening, you tell them to do something, and either it's not the right word that they've associated or it's not in the same environment that they learned it.

00:12:30:02 - 00:12:50:08
Michael J. Accetta
So they're a little confused Dogs don't generally as well. And so if you tell your dog to get off the couch in the word, you always do say as off, right? To say off, off off. Eventually your dog does pick up. That off means get off the couch. But today you said get off the couch. Well, those are two different things.

00:12:50:08 - 00:13:11:00
Michael J. Accetta
Right off and get off the couch are completely different. So if I say the word often, I know my dog can jump off. Great. Now I can reward them for listening to the correct word and the right terminology. And the behavior that they did. But if I say get off the couch and they don't do it, and then I scored them for it, they go, Oh, well, I don't really like listening to mom or dad because they scold me when I don't understand.

00:13:11:06 - 00:13:33:09
Michael J. Accetta
Nobody wants to learn when they're getting scolded for not understanding something nobody wants to learn when they're getting scolded for not understanding something that just doesn't it doesn't help them learn. It doesn't make them feel confident, doesn't make them feel comfortable. It doesn't open their brain to the possibilities of what life could be like if they learned that material.

00:13:34:12 - 00:13:50:14
Michael J. Accetta
Same thing with your dog. Your dog is going to shut down and go. I don't know why mom and dad are mad at me, but I'm going to go do something else. So they have an off leash dog. You must have that level of reliability when I say sit, my dog has to sit every time. They can't ignore me.

00:13:51:01 - 00:14:15:05
Michael J. Accetta
They can't choose not to. They can't get distracted by something every time you say sit, they must do it now. The second prerequisite to obedience behaviors is having them at any distance. And any duration. Rabbit. Okay, any distance or duration. So if my dog is 100 feet away and I say the words sit, he still has to sit.

00:14:16:06 - 00:14:33:10
Michael J. Accetta
If my dog is ten feet away and I say Sit, they have to sit or down, or he'll write. Even if it's at a distance, they're 100 feet away. I say he'll they should run all the way over and then he'll next to my leg. So you have to be able to do it at a distance because if your dog is off leash, they're going to get far away from you.

00:14:34:03 - 00:14:46:11
Michael J. Accetta
Like that's the whole point of having an off leash dog. If you're going to go hiking with your dog or maybe you're going to go to the lake or maybe going to go to a field and start playing fetch or whatever it is if your dog is off leash they're going to be farther away from you than normal.

00:14:47:01 - 00:15:08:02
Michael J. Accetta
If they were going to be close to you, you might as well just put them on a leash for safety reasons. But if they're going to be farther away from you than normal, you need to practice having them listen farther away from you than normal. Oftentimes people run into the problem of having the dog on a 30 foot leash and practicing on a 30 foot leash and then once they take that 30 foot leash off, the dog knows, oh, 31 feet.

00:15:08:05 - 00:15:28:14
Michael J. Accetta
I don't have to listen. That's often the problem with using punishment to get your dog to do something. There's a contingency involved. The leash is there, the collar is there. My presence is there that says, You must do this. Now, if you don't do it, I'm going to correct you, okay? We don't want that. We want it or to want to do the thing.

00:15:29:01 - 00:15:48:06
Michael J. Accetta
If they want to do the thing, then we can reward that and they start to think, Oh, I'm the one making the decisions here. Dad just seems to give me stuff. When I do stuff, I can make him give me treats. That's fantastic. I'm fine. With that. If my dog thinks that it's great, I let my son think that he's in charge half the time.

00:15:49:06 - 00:16:06:12
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, when we go out to eat, I say, Hey, do you want this or this? I give him the option of two things, and he goes, Oh, I want that great choice. I love that. So he he's kind of in a box where he can make a decision and that's what we're doing with our dog, especially when you have a leash or you're doing some kind of setup like that, right?

00:16:06:12 - 00:16:26:03
Michael J. Accetta
You're creating a situation where, well, they can either go ahead and get nothing or they can come towards me and get a tree more. Which is it? Which do you want to do? And we just make the one so interesting, so inviting to them that they choose the option we wanted them to choose in the first place. But in their mind, they thought they figured the game out.

00:16:26:06 - 00:16:40:01
Michael J. Accetta
Oh, I figured it out. All I've got to do is go to Dad and he's going to give me a tree. And then, of course, there's advanced techniques to getting rid of the tree and later on. Okay, would you dog needs to be able to listen at a distance. They also need to be able to listen for duration, for timing.

00:16:40:10 - 00:17:13:05
Michael J. Accetta
This is often overlooked, and it's one of the fundamentals to having a dog that listens reliably and on the road to off leash. So what do I mean by duration? I mean how long it takes your dog to do something? No, actually mean the opposite. How long your dog is capable of doing the behavior. If your dog is sitting and they sit for 5 seconds and then they just pop up expecting a treat or expecting to go somewhere or do something else, or that's just the habit that they've gotten into now what ends up happening is that's the routine.

00:17:13:05 - 00:17:28:12
Michael J. Accetta
I sit, I wait for 5 seconds, I get up and I go do something else. What we want to have happen is when you say sit, you should sit forever. Until you tell them to do something else, whether it be you tell them down, you tell them to recall to you or you release them, you can have a release word.

00:17:28:12 - 00:17:57:00
Michael J. Accetta
Right? Okay. Is my dog's release work? Meaning you can go do something else. So the duration is highly important because if you're going to teach it down at a distance, and it's an emergency behavior, right? It's an emergency obedience behavior. My dog is running after something and I say down. I need to be able to get up to them and grab their collar because the situation might warrant not being able to recall them to me.

00:17:57:00 - 00:18:30:04
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe I was lucky to get the down because of the level of distraction in the environment. I don't want to then push my luck by trying to recall them, which releases them from the down and creates the potential for them to run after the thing that they were running after. So I need I need to have something that can keep them there also, duration is going to help create space between whatever it is that's distracting them and the urge to get up and go after it.

00:18:31:06 - 00:19:04:11
Michael J. Accetta
What do I mean by that? If my dog can sit in and down uninterrupted by any distractions for 3 minutes, once we start to increase the level of distractions, we increase the difficulty. The duration is going to go down. This means if 3 minutes with no distractions turns out to be 30 seconds with distractions. So I've actually given myself a better opportunity, better chance of succeeding, given my dog a better chance of succeeding simply because I practiced a little bit more duration than normal.

00:19:05:03 - 00:19:23:03
Michael J. Accetta
Then maybe what I need in an average life right? My dog just got used to it. Oh, 3 minutes. I'm going to stay in this down. Perfect. That's fine. Then, with the distractions. Oh, it's 30 seconds, whatever it may be. Okay, now there's one more prerequisite when it comes to emergency behaviors that you have to dial in. Nobody talks about this.

00:19:23:03 - 00:19:47:04
Michael J. Accetta
Nobody does it. And it is one of the biggest mistakes okay? If you're going to have a dog that's off leash, they need to be able to listen in any orientation. What the hell do I mean by orientation? I mean, in relation to you, if you were to think about a compass or a clock, it's easier to think about as a clock if you're facing 12:00 they're facing 12:00.

00:19:47:07 - 00:20:15:07
Michael J. Accetta
Will they still listen? If you're facing 12:00 and they're facing 6:00, will they still listen? Right. Oftentimes we're facing 12:00 and they're facing 6:00. So we're looking at each other like this. What happens when they're looking the wrong way? What happens when they're looking away from you and they're running away from it? That's what happens when they chase after something and when you don't practice them listening, running away from you, they don't ever learn to turn around in order to come back.

00:20:15:09 - 00:20:42:10
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe you don't want them to. Maybe you want them to stop and face the direction they're going. Maybe you're doing hunting work or you're doing bite work or some kind of sport event. So you want them to continue, drop into a down and stay facing their direction. That's totally fine. You can train them, but most of the time when we're talking about an emergency recall or having a dog off leash, when we say their name we would want them to turn around and then we could call them to us, or we can have them turn around and then down so that we have more of their attention focused on us.

00:20:43:08 - 00:21:05:02
Michael J. Accetta
But they're still added distance and that's totally fine. But you have to practice having those different orientations, whether they're facing away from you. They're the angle that aside or maybe you're in front, maybe you're facing the wrong way for whatever reason. Okay, that's more of a what's called a permutation and permutations, the orientation of two points now and how they're related to each other.

00:21:05:10 - 00:21:28:08
Michael J. Accetta
And so if you're permeated one way and they're permeated the other way, they're behind you, then, well, they still listen. Those are the things you need to practice. Okay. That's a lot of prerequisites. I want to go over all of them again, just for those who are tuning in now, it's the prerequisites for an off leash dog. One confidence two engagement.

00:21:28:10 - 00:21:54:11
Michael J. Accetta
Three, Socialize with the environment, especially the one that you're going to be in when you're off leash. Then you need to have emergency obedience behaviors locked down. They need to be one reliable. The first time you ask to, they need to be in control of distance, duration and distractions. Okay. And then number three, you need to be able to do it in any orientation or permutation.

Take the time to learn how to train effectively and you will have all of the freedom you could possibly want with your dog. However, this training does come at a cost, especially when you don't know how to do it effectively.

So many of my clients come to me after going with another trainer and wonder why they weren't told everything from the beginning.

They trusted someone and they got burnt. A lot of the time dog owners will never go back to any training and that leads their dogs to have less-than-ideal lives and more stress in the home than necessary. In today's episode, I am going to go over exactly what Balanced Training is and how it can hurt or help you depending on the situation you are in.

Here is a free PDF download on stopping bad behaviors without punishment to get you started in training and succeeding. https://www.matadork9.com/resolvingbadhabits

If you want to work one on one with me schedule a discovery call here and let's make sure this is a right fit for you. https://www.matadork9.com/coaching

Episode Transcript

00;00;01;05 - 00;00;20;01
Michael Accetta
Hello. Welcome to the show. My name is Michael Accetta I'm the founder of Matador Canine, brilliant author of The Dog Training Cheat Codes and host of the Acknowledged Dogs Podcast. Thank you for joining me today. Today's topic is about balanced training. Now, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you looking into this. I'm not going to use it. Let's jump right into it.

00;00;20;14 - 00;00;48;11
Michael Accetta
Balance training. What is it? Balance training. Is the concept an idea of using as many quadrants and what is quadrants quadrants of learning for your dog? This is positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment. They try to use a balanced amount. Now, many dog trainers that are switching into a balanced field, it's very popular right now, have either come from a compulsive background or a positive reinforcement background.

00;00;48;17 - 00;01;10;13
Michael Accetta
What do I mean? By that? A compulsive background is where they mainly at verses. Okay. They're correcting dogs constantly to teach them. They're using leash pressure and then releasing that pressure when the dog does do the thing that they want. Or a trainer is coming from a purely positive mindset. This means they're training dogs with a lot of treats, and maybe they weren't seeing the results that they expected.

00;01;10;26 - 00;01;34;11
Michael Accetta
And so now they're figuring out new ways to get easier results for them. Now, balance training as a whole is not a terrible idea. I'm going to tell you very, very bluntly. It is not a terrible idea. Bounce training in theory makes a lot of sense. That's exactly how dogs learn. Things get punished and things get rewarded. Things that get punished.

00;01;34;18 - 00;02;05;10
Michael Accetta
Decrease in the likelihood of being present and happening and things that get rewarded. Increase in the likelihood of them happening. So if you do something and I give you $100, you're more likely to do whatever it was that got the $100. That's exactly how it works. What ends up happening? However, if a trainer came from a compulsive mindset and is moving towards a balanced training, probably not because of an inner change of heart, although it is possible.

00;02;05;25 - 00;02;29;10
Michael Accetta
Most likely it came from social pressure because the purely positive side says you don't need to correct your dog, ever. You can teach them everything they need to know. And if you do it correctly, if you do it right and you spend the time doing it well, then you don't have to correct your dog. So a corrective based trainer is now in a very weird predicament.

00;02;30;10 - 00;02;53;07
Michael Accetta
Everybody's eyes are on them. Everybody is judging them. Everyone is telling them they're doing it wrong even though they have been rewarded. Mind you, first, however long they've been doing it, trainers that have been training for 40 years have been rewarded for 40 years of the same thing that they've been doing. This means it is very difficult for them to give up on their old ways and move into new ways.

00;02;53;20 - 00;03;18;18
Michael Accetta
Unless something is that traumatic for them, I think it comes down to social pressure. If as a whole, we're all pressuring these individuals to move away from aversive methods. They're going to find something that still allows them to do these old habits, even if intermittently, which then puts it on a variable schedule. Right? So even intermittently they can still do the old habits they have.

00;03;18;18 - 00;03;45;19
Michael Accetta
And if they fall back on those old habits, it's excusable with that. With that comes the problem of doing it too much. So a compulsive based trainer who's moved into a balanced trainer mindset still might correct their dog 90% of the time. That's just the old habit. It's going to die hard right? Old habits die hard. That's just what's going to happen.

00;03;46;16 - 00;04;07;20
Michael Accetta
Now, a purely positive trainer who moves into a balanced trainer mindset probably has a better skill set when it comes to using more treats and more rewards than the compulsive trainer. Now, I didn't say they just have a better skill set. They have a better skill set when it comes to treats. The problem, though, is that they can still correct wrong.

00;04;08;15 - 00;04;38;16
Michael Accetta
They can still punish incorrectly, and the dog isn't going to get the information that they need. This is where a good balance trainer will get results. I'm not suggesting that they don't bounce. Trainers do get results and they do get them very quickly. However, however, at what cost is it really about going about punishing the dog for doing something it doesn't know is wrong and trying to cover that up by using treats?

00;04;39;20 - 00;05;01;16
Michael Accetta
Now, I want to tell you a very quick story about a dog named Neptune. This is my favorite dog in the world. If I could have him, I would while I was in college, I'm studying to be a dog trainer I was given a task of training this dog to just do general obedience. Nothing crazy, but the dog was going to say seven or eight months maybe a year old.

00;05;02;17 - 00;05;23;18
Michael Accetta
Absolutely. Off the walls. Loved him for it, but he was off the walls. He could run for 2 hours a day. He could, you know, he could beat you in a race any day the week over and over and over again. He never needed to stop running. He loved life. We even got him on the treadmill for a half hour before doing any training because he had too much energy.

00;05;24;17 - 00;05;49;02
Michael Accetta
That being said, we did obedience work. No big deal right now in the class that I had him, I did a lot of work making sure that he understood he had to focus on me for an extended period of time. I had to do a lot of duration work. And that's important. If you have a high energy dog and you need them to calm down, the more duration work you do, the easier it is for them to relax.

00;05;50;07 - 00;06;17;12
Michael Accetta
In another class, they used compulsive methods on him. Now, this was because the college was determined to teach us all of the skills of dog training so that we had a well-rounded understanding of every aspect, tool and technology. So we also learned compulsive methods and I insisted that this dog did not need compulsive methods. I insisted so much so that a professor and I had a disagreement about it.

00;06;18;13 - 00;06;44;18
Michael Accetta
Didn't end in me getting a bad grade or anything. It just ended in. Okay, well, prove it. Prove that you can do this. And I did. I practiced over and over again. I did not have the skill set I do now, but with the skill set I had, I was still able to get really good results, really good obedience, simply because I worked with what I was presented with, if I had resorted to just punishing him.

00;06;46;02 - 00;07;05;15
Michael Accetta
The charismatic nature of this dog would not have been there. And I could see it when he was in the other class. He wasn't bouncing around. He wasn't having a great old time. There was no smile on his face. He wasn't happy. He was just shut down. Sure, he did sit and he did down and he did his stay, but he wasn't happy about it.

00;07;06;04 - 00;07;25;13
Michael Accetta
And that dog had so much charisma. So much charisma. If you shut that down, what's the point of training the dog? Did you want a robot or do you want a well-trained dog? I would like a well-trained dog. I don't want a robot. If I'm going to have a robot, I might as well get a robot dog. They do sell them.

00;07;26;11 - 00;07;50;10
Michael Accetta
I think they come over from Japan or China. They do sell robot dogs that you tell them to do something and they will do it immediately. I think even then, sometimes they won't do it as a programing feature. But if you're going to be a balance trainer, understand that 90% of your work should be treats. And if someone says, Oh, aren't you a bounce trainer?

00;07;50;10 - 00;08;16;22
Michael Accetta
Aren't you supposed to use corrections? No, because corrections should only take place, only take place when you are 100% confident that the dog really knows the behavior in the situation that you're asking it for. And there is nothing else There is nothing else outlining why your dog shouldn't be doing the behavior but I have one more problem. I always got problems, right?

00;08;17;13 - 00;08;36;24
Michael Accetta
I have one more problem with it. If I taught a dog for six months that training with me is a positive, enjoyable thing, and I say sit over and over and over again at my dog, understand? Sit is a great thing to do. We call it a great thing to do. Any trick is a great thing to do because of the amount of rewards they get.

00;08;37;12 - 00;09;15;14
Michael Accetta
And all of a sudden I say it, they don't respond. And now I correct them What does that teach them? There's a tonal shift. They learn that behavior does not always mean rewards. It might mean punishment. And here's another caveat to it. If punishment only ever happens, one out of every 100 chances, it's on a variable schedule, which means my dog does not know when they're going to get punished and they're going to start to be more concerned about the behavior instead of excited about the behavior.

00;09;15;29 - 00;09;35;03
Michael Accetta
I want my dog to enjoy running to me, enjoy performing with me. And I was doing competitions with my dogs. I want them to look happy and excited. Pretty sure judges look for that kind of thing. We don't want a robot. We want a dog that is lively and inspired to work. This is what we mean when we say dogs love to please people.

00;09;35;07 - 00;09;56;17
Michael Accetta
It's because they look like they're loving to please us because of how excited they are to do their work. If a dog doesn't look excited and doesn't look like they're enjoying the activity. Why would you do the activity? In fact, a person. I mean, yes, there are some parents who force their kids to do things, and they end up being wonderful, wonderful athletes and musicians and artists.

00;09;56;18 - 00;10;22;13
Michael Accetta
Yes. Beethoven. I'm pretty sure his father locked him in the basement for 10 hours a day into practice. He became a wonderful, wonderful musician and composer. But he was sad. He was sad most of his life. That's a terrible way to live. I'd much rather have somebody who's excited about music and is inspired, even despite being pushed down and berated.

00;10;23;03 - 00;10;52;17
Michael Accetta
I'd love to see somebody do that, not just doing it because they're forced to do it. So for bounce trainers, it comes down to this. Are you a balance trainer? Because you are from a compulsive side and you're starting to change your heart? Which I would absolutely love. I think going to a balance trainer is a wonderful step before realizing that there are complete, complete systems to train any behavior you previously thought of.

00;10;53;20 - 00;11;21;08
Michael Accetta
You can now do it with positive reinforcement. And in fact, I know some trainers that can't think of what they should do in order to teach these new skills. Right. If you're an older trainer or you've just been taught a different way, starting to think about new ways of doing things is very difficult. When I first started out and I had learned primarily positive reinforcement, first, I couldn't fathom how you would teach a dog to do something through corrections.

00;11;22;03 - 00;11;36;04
Michael Accetta
How could how could I teach my dog to do a dance routine with me with corrections? It just didn't seem possible Am I just going to nip them in the feet and have them jump up? Of course not. And I don't think corrective based trainers would do that.

00;11;38;10 - 00;11;57;25
Michael Accetta
There was probably a time and a place where they did. But if you're a corrective based trainer, an aversive based trainer, an alpha dog trainer, which has been debunked if you're any of those and you're moving into a balanced trainer area, kudos to you. I think that is great. You're using more treats, you're using more rewards, and maybe you'll find you don't need to correct.

00;11;58;21 - 00;12;21;28
Michael Accetta
If you're a positive based trainer, you're using so many treats, so many rewards, and you're moving into a balanced trainer concept It might be because the skills that you have are not full. They're not complete. You're missing something. You're missing some kind of mentorship or tutelage from someone who's been doing it for a very long time and has had a lot of success.

00;12;23;04 - 00;12;44;16
Michael Accetta
A lot of success. Now, if you like the concept of teaching your dog without punishment, without any punishment at all in solving problem behaviors, I want to invite you to download the PDF Guide below is resolving bad habits without using punishment is a wonderful PDF. Of course I wrote it myself was my gift to you is absolutely free.

00;12;44;25 - 00;13;04;10
Michael Accetta
It walks you through the steps on how to end problem behaviors without punishing your dog, without yelling, no correcting them, without having to use equipment. You can just engage with your dog and stop the problem. Behaviors before they start, while they're happening or afterwards trying to be proactive, interrupted, or reactive. And I go over that in the guide.

00;13;05;14 - 00;13;26;24
Michael Accetta
Thank you guys for listening today. I appreciate all of you taking the time. I hope I didn't waste it. I hope you gathered some information. If you're deciding whether to move into a balanced area or you're a dog owner who is looking for a trainer and you have heard bounce training and know, is it good, is it bad, it is fine, it'll get you results, good training, regardless of what the method is, we'll get your results.

00;13;27;26 - 00;13;42;10
Michael Accetta
But if you don't want to correct your dog, you don't want to punish your dog and you want to be able to do it by bringing life to your dog, enjoyment to their training, go with a purely positive trainer who knows exactly what they're doing and how to get you with results without waiting years to do it.

00;13;43;24 - 00;13;48;04
Michael Accetta
Make sure you download that PDF guide and I'll see you guys next time. Oh,

There are a thousand mistakes that people make when training a dog but these three can make all the difference. If you are willing to correct these mistakes and take charge of your dog's training and learning you will open doors you did not even know were available to you.

In today's episode, I am going to teach you the 3 biggest mistakes dog owners make and how to solve them without spending thousands of dollars or hundreds of hours training. 

Get my training planner for free here https://www.matadork9.com/planner

The Dog Training Cheat Codes https://www.matadork9.com/cheatcodes

Resolve your dog's bad habits with this free PDF Download https://www.matadork9.com/resolvingbadhabits

Work with Me!!

https://www.matadork9.com/coaching

Episode Transcript

00;00;01;08 - 00;00;29;19
Michael J. Accetta
Welcome. My name is Michael, etc.. I'm the founder of Matador Canine Brilliance and author of The Dog Training Chico's. You're listening to the Acknowledge Dogs Podcast Today we are talking about the mistakes that everybody makes. I've made them. Other trainers I know have made them, and they're not something that you necessarily think about all the time until someone calls them out.

00;00;30;00 - 00;00;50;15
Michael J. Accetta
That's my job. I got to call out the things that we don't see all the time. Once I realize that that's happening in my life, I have to tell you guys about it. I tell you about it, and then you go, Huh? Yeah, I guess I do that, too. And we all grow as a community, as individuals, and together we're all going to grow and move on, and our dogs are going to get better and better.

00;00;50;19 - 00;01;18;23
Michael J. Accetta
My goal is to push the industry forward. That's my long term goal, right? I've seen the past. I've seen the present. I don't know what the future holds, but I want dog training as a whole to become better and better. I'm tired of it being stagnant, sitting still, using old technologies I want to learn new things. And by doing that, by giving you information, everybody starts to learn the things that I know and they'll bring new things to the table.

00;01;19;15 - 00;01;36;07
Michael J. Accetta
What if everybody's trying to catch up? We can't move forward. At least that's what I think. So please take the resources that I give you. Listen to the podcast listen to the episode. Follow us on social media because we're always posting things. Little tips and tricks here and there. But today we're talking about the big mistakes that everybody makes.

00;01;36;21 - 00;02;01;10
Michael J. Accetta
This is hands down. The biggest mistakes that I see over and over and over again. Trainers make these mistakes. Owners make these mistakes. Parents make these mistakes with their own kids and even not even dogs. Just kids. These mistakes that are made constantly. Now, the first one we're going to talk about. I want to actually read from the book The Dog Training Chico's.

00;02;01;28 - 00;02;23;02
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. Now, this is a book I wrote. It is available at Matador Canine XCOM. You can get a physical copy. You can order a physical copy or the e-books if you're that kind of person. If enough people are interested, I will record the audio version of it. So if you're interested in you want an audio version, please email me or message me on social media saying, Hey, I'm not really a eBook reader, but I would love to listen to it.

00;02;23;02 - 00;02;47;13
Michael J. Accetta
I want to buy the audio version and I'll record the audio version. I don't mind, but I want to know if it's something people want. Okay, so we're talking about a dog's didn't have that, didn't have any aggressive issues or behavior problems, but it behaved poor poorly for what the family wanted. They wanted a perfectly well-behaved dog that would listen to anything they said Problem was, they weren't practicing with the dog.

00;02;48;07 - 00;03;14;22
Michael J. Accetta
Just like anything in life, you need to practice in order for it to improve every single day. You do a very small thing and write it in your training journal, which we talk about in the book as well. You'll see a slow but gradual improvement over a long period of time. Right. So if you if you're tracking these things, which again I talk about in the book, if you track these things, you're much more likely to see improvement not only in your day to day life, but you'll be more cognizant of it.

00;03;15;20 - 00;03;37;18
Michael J. Accetta
So I always think about the gym and I'm actually going to talk about in a second gym. But with the gym, if you were to workout every single day, you might not see something from day to day. But if you look at a photo from 30 days ago to now are the classic transformation photo to 30 days, if you see that, you're like, Wow, that was a wonderful transformation, but you don't see that day today.

00;03;37;22 - 00;03;59;18
Michael J. Accetta
And other people who don't see you very often, they are going to see the transformation a lot more than you do. Think about when you were a kid and you want to go see Grandma, Oh, how big you've gotten. You didn't think you got big with Grandma. Thought you were huge. And it's because there is a giant leap between what we realize for ourselves and what someone else realizes for us.

00;04;00;07 - 00;04;20;14
Michael J. Accetta
So let's keep reading more consistent the progress is the more permanent the progresses. If you were to go to the gym for two months and absolutely obliterate your body in order to get in peak physical condition for the summer, your body isn't going to stay that way for long. Right. You could you could obliterate your body in the gym every single day.

00;04;20;14 - 00;04;43;18
Michael J. Accetta
Your PR goes up every single day. You are absolutely smashed. Yeah. You're going to grow. Your body is going to adapt. It's not going to stay that way for long. The same would go for if you dropped £100 by fasting for 30 days and only drinking water. This is a classic thing that people do. They'll do a cleanse and they feel really good and they look really good, and then they go eat something and they build it up.

00;04;44;19 - 00;05;03;26
Michael J. Accetta
Right? The second you eat something, you're going to balloon back up. However, if you take a slow, calculated approach by doing small habitual changes like diet or daily exercise, your body will slowly adapt and the consistency for doing those routines will benefit you. Long term, this does not mean you have to train your dog diet or workout for your entire life.

00;05;03;26 - 00;05;18;11
Michael J. Accetta
It simply means if you do it long enough, you don't have to think about it anymore and you'll see more progress in the long term. So you're not training enough, right? That was a big mistake, number one. And there you go. That's how you kind of solve it. That's how you fix it. Make it a habit to train your dog.

00;05;18;22 - 00;05;40;05
Michael J. Accetta
5 minutes in the morning, 5 minutes at night, breakfast, a dinner breakfast and dinner, 5 minutes in the morning, 5 minutes a night. That's 10 minutes a day. If you don't have 10 minutes a day, you have to reevaluate your life because you have way too much going on or you have to start eliminating things that are distracting you as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, I have to eliminate things that distract me all the time.

00;05;40;24 - 00;06;00;18
Michael J. Accetta
I work from home. I got a two year old. I would love to play with him all day, every single day, but I got to focus on my work. So for me, it's a personal thing. I got to tighten everything down and I still have to work with my dogs. I got to do certain things with them. So those 5 minutes here and there, you can find a guarantee, you can find it, and if you can't find it, email me.

00;06;00;18 - 00;06;18;11
Michael J. Accetta
Let's figure out what's going on with your life. What can you subtract? Maybe too much television, too much social media. If you read too much, maybe you're not the traditional. Oh, I'm on social media so much maybe your traditional reading books, maybe you do a lot of art and you just get lost in the zone, whatever it is.

00;06;19;02 - 00;06;42;18
Michael J. Accetta
5 minutes here in the morning, 5 minutes at night is all you need with your dog. It's 10 minutes a day. It's over an hour a week. You do the math. All right. 52 weeks a year. You're doing an hour a week. Let's just say an hour a week. Then that's 52 hours a year. It's three days wow. Two and a half days.

00;06;43;19 - 00;07;00;09
Michael J. Accetta
More like two days. So now now I want to make a point. If you were to go to a class on a Tuesday or Friday, whatever, you know, your local training club does as their class, it might be an hour long class, so. Oh, well, I train an hour a week is not the same thing. It's not the same time.

00;07;01;03 - 00;07;21;20
Michael J. Accetta
5 minutes a day is much better than an hour. One day work because your body and your dog and all relationship gets used to this pattern, your brain. I'll start getting used to this pattern. Okay? I'm going to work with my dog every single day. My dog is going to get better every single day. My dog then starts to practice these behaviors a lot more.

00;07;22;05 - 00;07;42;24
Michael J. Accetta
They get better at it. And so they, they're greasing the groove is what it's called. If you practice something every you're greasing the groove every day. So your brain is constantly thinking about what you might be practicing today. What I wanted to learn the piano. I tried to make a point to go whenever I pass the piano, open up the piano and I play a couple notes and then I close the piano that's greasing the groove.

00;07;43;28 - 00;08;03;20
Michael J. Accetta
My brain was always thinking about playing the piano. Then every time I passed up, I should play the piano. And so my brain starts to initiate the concept of playing the piano. Even if I didn't play the piano, I was walking past it. My brain would start to practice mentally, satirically in my brain. I'd start to practice playing the piano, some greasing the group.

00;08;04;01 - 00;08;26;00
Michael J. Accetta
Your dog does the same thing. You practice, sit down and patiently waiting and walking nice on leash, doing all those things every single day. That's where their brain goes to all the time. The first thing they think of instead of excitement, excitement, excitement, six days out of the week and one day the week. I'm asking you to focus and you can't because we're at a imbalanced ratio.

00;08;26;16 - 00;08;50;23
Michael J. Accetta
Six days of excitement, one day a focus. It's not going to work. However, six days of focus, one day of excitement is a much better balance, even though it might not seem so much better of a balance. Big mistake. Number two is wasting time teaching things that don't actually serve you. They aren't important. Everybody does this. You teach your dog, PA.

00;08;52;09 - 00;09;08;05
Michael J. Accetta
I love poor. Think it's a very cute trick. But teaching your dog poor doesn't help them be patient. It doesn't help them get your attention. It does help them get your attention, but not in a productive kind of way. They're going to start pawing at you and scratching you they're going to get mad and then you're going to try to correct them.

00;09;08;14 - 00;09;25;07
Michael J. Accetta
But Paul walked over here and you're correcting me. I don't want you to keep asking me for Paul. This doesn't make any sense. So teach your dogs the thing you need them to do first. And it doesn't have to be obedience, doesn't have to be sit or down or recall. It should, because I think it sets a really strong foundation.

00;09;25;07 - 00;09;48;21
Michael J. Accetta
But it doesn't have to be I want to take a moment and thank all of our loyal followers. This podcast would not be possible without you. Leave, review and let us know what you like and want to learn on the next episode of the Acknowledge Dogs podcast. Now back to the show Think about if you didn't learn a language, you didn't learn how to read or write.

00;09;49;07 - 00;10;12;11
Michael J. Accetta
And yes. For hundreds of years, thousands of years, nobody learn how to read and write. In today's day and age, if you don't know how to read and write, things will be much more complicated for you. As you get older, you can't gain new knowledge and read. Forget government forms trying to fill those out. If you can't read, write, it creates a huge barrier for you.

00;10;12;23 - 00;10;37;14
Michael J. Accetta
And you are stuck in a certain section. You either always need help or you can't advance in life because you're stuck. I, I can't read this new information that will help me because I can't read. I know it would help me. People keep telling me it'll help me, but I can't read, so I can't and the fact that you can't even you couldn't even go read about reading to learn how to read better because you can't read.

00;10;37;21 - 00;10;48;21
Michael J. Accetta
That's why video style formats are so good. Takes away the reading part. People don't like to read. Sometimes if you're going to read, you should read the dog training decodes. But. Shameless plug right there.

00;10;51;09 - 00;11;15;02
Michael J. Accetta
So if you have the skills, you can then apply them when you actually need them. You don't have to apply them all day, but you can apply them if you need them. When I was younger, I did a lot of martial arts. I went to class three or four times a week. I absolutely loved it. I got my black belt the age of 13 And for those of you who say that's not really a black belt, I think I was pretty damn good.

00;11;15;11 - 00;11;43;04
Michael J. Accetta
Okay. I could hold my own in a fight against multiple opponents. Anyway, point being, I was constantly working out and keeping myself in really good shape. I was also young, but as I've gotten older, I haven't kept up with the martial arts as much. I've been focused on other things. I started dog training and does that in the third when I was requested and needed my body to adapt to a certain situation.

00;11;44;19 - 00;12;04;03
Michael J. Accetta
My athletic abilities were there when I needed them because I had the skills prior to needing them. I could jump over things. I could do physical feats that maybe other people couldn't. I could jump over a car, like those kinds of things. I had no problem doing because I was really fit. I could run, I could jump, I could slide.

00;12;05;08 - 00;12;24;10
Michael J. Accetta
I could almost do a backflip without really trying. There was no effort involved for me. I could just do it. Playing dodgeball in high school. Favorite thing in the world? Because I had the skills from doing the martial arts. And as I've gotten older, my brain still has the skills. So if I need them in a jiffy, I could do them.

00;12;24;29 - 00;12;41;02
Michael J. Accetta
I fell down. I did a nice roll, tuck and roll perfectly how I would have. And I was taught to do martial arts. When I got up, I was a little sore, right? My body just hadn't done those things in so long. So I'm out of practice and I know I got to get back into the gym. That's a personal note for me.

00;12;42;14 - 00;13;04;26
Michael J. Accetta
But my point is, if I just learned the fancy kicks at karate, they were not going to help me in a street fight. They weren't going to help me if I fell down. First thing you learn in karate was to fall down because you're going to fall down a lot If I didn't learn those skills, those fundamentals, those basics, the things that teachers trying to tell us since day one, learn the fundamentals, learn the basics.

00;13;05;08 - 00;13;24;07
Michael J. Accetta
You can't do the advanced stuff without the basics. Your dog's the exact same way. Yes, I can teach them tricks. You can teach them part. You can teach them to spin around in a circle. But if they can't sit still for 3 minutes, they can't go with you anywhere. You can't go to an outdoor cafe. You can't bring them to the store, you know?

00;13;24;12 - 00;13;52;29
Michael J. Accetta
Clearly, a place that allows dogs you can't bring them on vacation with you. You can't bring them through the airport. You can't do anything with your dog if they can't relax. Sure. They can get everyone's attention by spinning around in circles and giving them power, doing all these keep things. But if you're not going to teach things that help you have the freedom with your dog, that serve you I always talk about a teacher dog to sit when you touch the handle of the door that serves you, that helps your life.

00;13;54;10 - 00;14;09;13
Michael J. Accetta
Right. Dogs that can carry things. Even though we don't need our dogs to work, it gives them something to do. It helps you out. It's just like kids. Hey, could you hold this for me? I ask my two year old to feed my cat, say, hey, can you feed Daniel? He takes a thing, he gets the food he goes over.

00;14;09;13 - 00;14;27;01
Michael J. Accetta
And if he's learning how to do these things to help me in my life, but it also teaches him responsibility and to take care of my cat, I'm not abusing. Having a two year old and going off and make him do everything and file my taxes and paint the walls. No one to ask him to do simple things that he can do.

00;14;27;14 - 00;14;55;03
Michael J. Accetta
So he learns a responsibility. Our dogs don't learn the responsibility the same way a two year old would, but they learn that helping us is a way of bonding. Think about farming dogs, herding dogs. They love working. And a lot of dogs have behavior problems because they don't have a job. So give them a job and teach them the skills they need to serve you, to help you, to be with you and have the freedom with your dog before you start teaching those fun tricks, agility and all that kind of stuff.

00;14;55;09 - 00;15;22;03
Michael J. Accetta
Those are great, but teach the fundamentals first. And the big one. The biggest one. This one I will fight at the top of the hill until my last breath okay. I well, I'm serious. I will fight this until my last breath. It is doing a preference test. Nobody does them. Nobody talks about them. It is so important. And I listen to a lot of podcasts.

00;15;22;10 - 00;15;46;23
Michael J. Accetta
I watch a lot of YouTube videos. Nobody's talked about preference testing with your dog. What is preference testing if you are using the wrong treat with your dog, the wrong reward, let alone a treat wrong reward, your dog will not learn as fast as they can. My job is to be as effective in my training as possible. I don't want to spend a large amount of time on one given task.

00;15;47;02 - 00;16;12;19
Michael J. Accetta
I want to get my dog successful repeating the behavior to build up the confidence. My confidence is repeated success. So I want to build up their success and confidence in that behavior and grow it or move on to the next thing. That's my goal in every training scenario. Get them success. Build up the confidence hi reinforcement history. Move on to the next part, whether it's the different variables, whether it's different reward schedules, whether we're moving to an entirely different behavior.

00;16;13;04 - 00;16;32;18
Michael J. Accetta
And I can't do that as quickly if I don't have the right reward. You just can't. You just can't. I was working with a client once. You wanted to do agility with their dog. She had gone to a different trainer to do obedience. It's totally fine. The place I was working at, we did a lot of fitness, so it was totally fine.

00;16;32;18 - 00;16;57;24
Michael J. Accetta
She wanted to do obedience with a different trainer. Go for it. Kudos to you. But they didn't use any treats. That trainer told me owner that the dog being next to you, that that person's presence is a reward in itself. To the dog and that she should take the dog and pull her and hold the dog to her hip in order to reward the dog for good behavior.

00;16;59;12 - 00;17;22;00
Michael J. Accetta
Many dogs. I think that's great. If that works, wonderful. However, in most cases, dogs are not going to find that as rewarding as the outside environment, especially agility and some dogs don't like that. They don't want to be pinned against you. For example, one of my dogs, wonderful dog, he does not want to cuddle with you. He just doesn't.

00;17;22;07 - 00;17;39;08
Michael J. Accetta
He'll sit next to you. He loves sitting next to you. He doesn't mind being touched. He loves his belly. Robbie loves playing fetch, but he does not want to cuddle with you. My other dog, on the other hand, will try to get inside your skin so that the owner told me this. Oh, well, you know, my dog being next to me is her reward.

00;17;39;27 - 00;17;55;21
Michael J. Accetta
I said, Okay, let's try to do agility with it. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, tried to do agility with it. The dog wanted no part of the owner and running agility. I said, Why don't we try a toy? Of course, the dog was perfect through the agility course with the toy in the dog owner chalked it up.

00;17;55;23 - 00;18;16;10
Michael J. Accetta
Well, of course you have a toy. Of course she's going to be motivated to do it. Why wouldn't you use a toy? That to me, it didn't make any sense. Why why would I make it harder for my dog and myself if I know that using a reward properly can build up the motivation, have them enjoy the process a lot more, get the results faster.

00;18;16;14 - 00;18;35;09
Michael J. Accetta
And I can say is that the toy later on? Seems like common sense to me. But if you don't have the right reward, let's say you're using a lower value reward to try to teach something instead of using a higher value reward. That low value reward, yes. Will teach them that. The high value reward will teach them much faster because they're more motivated to learn.

00;18;35;18 - 00;18;53;26
Michael J. Accetta
They want to keep engaging, right? They want to get to the next step because they know they're going to get more rewards. Do you have something low on the scale? They're not really motivated. I'm going to give you a penny for doing something versus $100 if the value is way higher than whatever. I'm asking you to do.

00;18;54;10 - 00;19;13;07
Michael J. Accetta
Right. I'm asking you to go knock on a stranger's door. You'll do it for a hundred bucks. But if I'm only going to give you a penny back, no, it's not worth it. That's exactly what your dog thinks. Take the time before you start training, officially formal training. Figure out what your dog loves, not likes that are interested in loves.

00;19;13;29 - 00;19;33;26
Michael J. Accetta
They should get serious. I have posted on social media hawk with a tennis ball. I pull the tennis ball. He goes from panting and loosey-goosey to deadly serious. He wants to kill that tennis ball. That is the kind of focus that you need. And when we find that we call it the magnet because the dog is so attracted to it.

00;19;34;21 - 00;19;55;18
Michael J. Accetta
It's their preferred reward and you keep that value as best you can. So Hawk only has the tennis ball when we're training, when we're doing something really exciting and motivating. I need him to really engage with me. I won't teach him necessarily with the tennis ball, but I can reward him heavily with a tennis ball. And I teach him with low-value rewards so he gets the skills down.

00;19;55;18 - 00;20;15;05
Michael J. Accetta
Right. We talked about it teaching the fundamentals first, and then I can start to build out things. So if I have, let's say, cheese I can teach him really quickly and now he can move on to the tennis ball where I can get faster behavior, more motivating behavior. And he's really, really serious. I'm also not fattening my dog up with treats I can actually exercise with the toy.

00;20;16;00 - 00;20;31;15
Michael J. Accetta
So those are your three big mistakes that literally everybody makes all the time. I've made them. I've forgotten so many things oh man. I should have turned down a preference test first. I just got excited and we jumped into it. Or you miss a day or you missed two days of training with your dogs. You've broken down that habit.

00;20;32;02 - 00;20;52;24
Michael J. Accetta
All it takes is three days of consistency, and now you're completely gone, right? If you're training every single day for six months, three days go by and you don't train. Now you're starting to get into this other habit of not training. Something is stopping you. Either you're convinced you shouldn't be training your dog anymore, that they don't need it, or you're uncertain of what you should be doing.

00;20;53;02 - 00;21;11;28
Michael J. Accetta
You've kind of hit everything, you know, like, what do I do So make sure you have a list. You can teach tricks. I have no problem teaching tricks. Just teach those fundamentals first. See how they all kind of go together. All right, guys, thank you for listening. I appreciate it. If you have questions, comments, or concerns, leave them in the comments.

00;21;12;10 - 00;21;32;03
Michael J. Accetta
You can. Also message on any social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, if you are interested in the dog training cheat codes. It's a book I read earlier in the episode. If you're interested in that it's at matadork9.com/cheatcodes and if you're interested in training with me head over to training that matadork9.com/coaching.

00;21;32;17 - 00;21;33;25
Michael J. Accetta
I'll see you guys next time.

00;21;39;00 - 00;21;46;18
Michael J. Accetta
Thank you for listening to the acknowledged Doug's podcast. Subscribe to this podcast. Leave a review and connect with me on your favorite social media platform

You are the best person to train your dog. Whether you think you are or not is another question. At the end of the day, you have the best connection with your dog, the most understanding, and the ability to be the most consistent. That is all it takes to have a well-trained dog and progress quickly.

On the other hand, you also need the know-how in training in order to be successful. Click the link below to learn how to resolve bad habits without needing punishment. https://www.matadork9.com/resolvingbadhabits

The Dog Training Cheat Codes are still available at a discounted price so click below to get your copy today. https://www.matadork9.com/cheatcodes

00;00;02;01 - 00;00;25;14
Micahel J. Accetta
You are the best person to train your dog. You. Yeah. I'm talking to you. You are the best person to train your dog. And in today's episode, I'm gonna give you three reasons as to why that is. Thank you guys for jumping on. Thank you for listening to me today. Of course, I am your host, Michael Seda, author of The Dog Training Cheat Codes, founder of Matador Canine Brilliance, and the host of the Acknowledge Dogs podcast.

00;00;26;06 - 00;00;48;27
Micahel J. Accetta
We are talking about why you are the best person to train your dog today. If you don't believe me, just hang in there. Okay? I'm going to go over three very key components to a dog's success and how you already fulfill those needs. Okay. I'm also going to give you a couple of tips and pointers throughout today's episode, and I'm going to mention later on a little more depth than a free download that's in the description.

00;00;49;01 - 00;01;06;00
Micahel J. Accetta
If you just want to pause and go check it out right now, you can do that. But I will be talking about it a little bit later. So rule number one, the first key component I want to talk about today with the first one is a level of consistency. You are the best person to train your dog because they're your dog.

00;01;06;15 - 00;01;25;26
Micahel J. Accetta
You have access to them. 20 47. Granted, you might go to work sleeping, those kind of things in there. But breakfast, lunch and dinner and breakfast and dinner at least if you work an eight hour day, you can train your dog every single day. If you stay on a schedule, you have it built into your habit. It's a consistent practice.

00;01;26;21 - 00;01;50;24
Micahel J. Accetta
Now, this is different than if you were to send your dog to a boarding train or to send your dog to a class, or you go to a class once or twice a week. Yes, those are great things. And you're going to be working with your dog in a class that's once a week. And if the trainer is going to be working with your dog in that setting, like I've seen a lot on social media where people go to class with their dog, but they're not the one training the dog.

00;01;50;24 - 00;02;07;02
Micahel J. Accetta
The trainer trains the dog in front of the owner and then hands off the leash and expects them to do it at home. That's not how it works. Right? You need to know what you need to be doing. Granted, you don't need to have the level of skill that a professional trainer has. Right. And I don't mean this in a bad way.

00;02;07;02 - 00;02;26;21
Micahel J. Accetta
But you could be an amateur trainer and still get amazing results compared to a professional. Now, I don't want you to think I'm calling you an amateur. Amateur is simply someone who does not do it. To get paid as a profession. Right. I'm an amateur juggler. I love juggling. I'm actually pretty good at it, but I would not consider myself a professional juggler.

00;02;26;21 - 00;02;45;23
Micahel J. Accetta
I still drop things that I can't get the perfect spins if I'm using clubs, but I can juggle clubs. And so there's at different levels. I don't want you to think I'm bashing you by saying you're an amateur trainer. You might be a very good amateur trainer. Above average. Almost at that cusp of professional. But you will not have the experience.

00;02;46;05 - 00;03;11;00
Micahel J. Accetta
The Hands-On experience, the Expertize, the small nuances that a professional trainer has. It's just not possible on an amateur level as a professional level. Absolutely. And if you're competing all the time with your dog, you can get up there. But my point is, you have to train your dog in order to get good at it. And because you have 20 47 access to your dog, you can practice all the time.

00;03;11;16 - 00;03;31;02
Micahel J. Accetta
Think about someone who's strongly committed to working out the rock Dwayne the Rock Johnson. He goes to the gym every single day. I think he even goes multiple times a day, two or three times a day, which is insane. It's insane. Some of us don't even go once a day. But he has such a strong connection with working out, feeling good, building himself up.

00;03;32;00 - 00;03;59;26
Micahel J. Accetta
Then in fact, instead of going to the gym, he brought the gym to his house. Now, that's kind of common. Okay, I'm going to have the gym in my house. I'm going to work from home. Sure. However, Dwayne The Rock Johnson takes it another step further, and he brings the gym with him. I believe he has. I forget what he calls it, but it's a trailer that he has a group that is in charge of just bringing his gym equipment with him to wherever he's going.

00;03;59;26 - 00;04;17;21
Micahel J. Accetta
He's going to go film a movie in Australia. He's going to go to the movie the location in Australia. And he's going to film it there where he's going to work out there. So he actually has such a strong connection to it. He's going to bring it with him. Imagine you did that with your dog. Imagine you brought your dog with you when you went somewhere.

00;04;18;03 - 00;04;32;28
Micahel J. Accetta
How much better they behave in those environments? You have the access to do that to 24 over seven, access to your dog you can do it all the time. You can do it every single day. You do multiple times a day. You can bring them with you, right? Ask your boss at the office, Hey, come, just bring my dog with me.

00;04;33;13 - 00;04;54;01
Micahel J. Accetta
I promise they'll be well-behaved. Now, that puts some emphasis on you. Make sure they are well behaved. I love offices that allow dogs when I move out of my home office here and I have a giant facility which will happen eventually. It's going to clearly be a dog centered facility, but people will be allowed to bring their dogs to work with them and they can hang out underneath the desk and do whatever.

00;04;54;04 - 00;05;15;27
Micahel J. Accetta
So having that 20 47 access, that consistency with your dog is imperative to their success. If you only ever work with your dog once a week on Saturday and Sunday, you're a weekend trainer. You're not going to see the results. You're not going to get what you want. You are the best person to train your dog. I am 100% confident in that fact.

00;05;16;03 - 00;05;36;08
Micahel J. Accetta
You are the best person to train your dog, even if I don't even talk about the other two, which I will in a minute. The consistency is so huge. Imagine paying somebody to come to your house, professional trainer come to your house every single day. How much is that going to cost you probably a couple thousand dollars for the entire length of the dog's training.

00;05;36;25 - 00;05;53;14
Micahel J. Accetta
They're going to come to your house every single day. It's a lot now. If you were to look at it from the standpoint of well, I'm going to pay myself thousands of dollars by having a really well behaved dog. Which would you rather do? We'd rather pay someone else to come to your house and have that level of consistency see, that is important.

00;05;54;01 - 00;06;12;08
Micahel J. Accetta
That will get you results regardless of the training style, but will get your results. That level of consistency is important. Are you going to pay someone to come do that? Or can you do it? Save yourself some money, maybe even pay yourself in the long term, maybe not monetarily, but success wise. Okay, so I think we've gotten that down.

00;06;12;08 - 00;06;36;19
Micahel J. Accetta
You guys get it. 20 47 access to your dog. There's a level of consistency there. Number two is trust and relationship. This really goes for dogs that are nervous or anxious. They're a little, you know, they're nervous. They're high strung, if you will. The level of trust in relationship you have with your dog is going to help them progress faster through the training process.

00;06;36;28 - 00;06;56;27
Micahel J. Accetta
If you don't have that relationship first, you have to build the relationship and then you can start working with your dog. This is why I think board and trains fail most of the time. If they don't fail, they're very limited by what you should get out of it. Send your dog off somewhere, a couple thousand dollars, you send it off off somewhere.

00;06;57;17 - 00;07;16;25
Micahel J. Accetta
The trainer is going to have to first build a relationship with the dog. Now, some dogs have a relationship with everybody right away. Some dogs don't. If your dog doesn't, they have to build that relationship first before they start trying to teach anything. You can't learn. If the relationship isn't there, the engagement isn't there, if the interest isn't there.

00;07;17;12 - 00;07;42;17
Micahel J. Accetta
I remember being in high school, middle school, elementary school, and the teachers that were engaging, exciting that I had a relationship. I learned so much better from the teachers that did not care to get to know me and I did not care to get to know them. I suffered a lot. One of my favorite teachers who I hope is watching this at some point, I hope this gets back to him because I lost contact with him since I graduated high school.

00;07;43;00 - 00;08;03;00
Micahel J. Accetta
Name is Kenneth Frank. Wonderful teacher, wonderful, wonderful teacher. He cared more about the students than anything else. I think he now works at Apple, where he was at least often offered a job at Apple, his wife. And I'm going on a tangent here, but his wife ended up winning Jeopardy a couple of times. Anyway, kind of Frank, if you're listening to this, please reach out to me.

00;08;03;00 - 00;08;18;10
Micahel J. Accetta
I'd love to chat up and see what you're up to. But a wonderful teacher and he showed an interest in all of his students and not just in their learning, but their lives. He wanted to know what was going on. You know, if you're a great start to slipping, he wanted to know maybe something was going on at home.

00;08;18;19 - 00;08;46;02
Micahel J. Accetta
Wonderful. Wonderful teacher. And he showed me the excitement of reading and how good it could be and actually started reading more from there. Ended up reading 100 games. I ended up reading all of the Harry Potter, and I grew up with dyslexia, so I didn't have I didn't have this desire to read. I hated reading up until I found someone who showed a real interest in me and showed me the joy of reading the world world of a difference.

00;08;46;02 - 00;09;03;27
Micahel J. Accetta
For me, it completely changed the game. And how I learned and how I've developed and how I think because I had a relationship with him, I was able to be open to the style of learning about reading. Same thing goes with your dog. If they're not open, if they don't have a good relationship, they're going to be combative.

00;09;04;13 - 00;09;28;18
Micahel J. Accetta
You're going to shut down. They're going to try to hide. They're going to do everything they can to avoid opening up their mind. Not intentionally. This isn't malicious, this isn't spiteful. It's just a nature nature's gift. If you will, of protecting them from things that they are uncertain about your dogs uncertain. They're going to be guarded if they're certain, if they're happy, if they're excited, then they're going to let things okay.

00;09;28;19 - 00;09;48;28
Micahel J. Accetta
Number three, now, I said I was going to talk about the free gift is down and the description of you did not click on it yet. I'll tell you a little bit about it. Resolving complicated bad habits without having to use punishment. And that's basically what number three is. You have the Internet, you have access to a mirage of dog training information.

00;09;48;29 - 00;10;06;04
Micahel J. Accetta
And that's exactly what that PDF guide is about. It's about resolving bad habits, but it's information. It's supposed to guide you through the process. And it's 100% free, by the way. It's a short little ten packet, ten page packet, but it is packed with information. So take advantage of it. And this is what you should do with everything on the Internet.

00;10;06;12 - 00;10;31;14
Micahel J. Accetta
You're watching this video is taking advantage, right? You're watching any dog trainer on social media is taking advantage of the good pieces of information that you can't get just walking through your neighborhood as a dog owner in the 21st century, you have access to something that no one else has had up until this point. If you're if your friends didn't know something that was it friend, you didn't know it.

00;10;31;28 - 00;10;52;11
Micahel J. Accetta
And if your parents didn't know something, that's it. You didn't know it. If you didn't experience it, you didn't know how to solve it. With the Internet, you can experience things through other people, through me, through another trainer that you follow. Whoever it is, you can experience their life and their mistakes and their learnings and their journeys, and you can apply it to your own thing.

00;10;52;11 - 00;11;10;04
Micahel J. Accetta
That's one of the reasons I wrote the dog training Chico's. It's because I felt that some things that I've learned throughout my years had been left out. I've read a lot of dog training books, but there were some things that had been left out, and that's why I wrote that book. I wrote more specifically things in there that don't get mentioned anywhere else.

00;11;11;22 - 00;11;28;05
Micahel J. Accetta
They just don't. So I wanted to find a book I couldn't. So I wrote one. I wrote a book about the things that I couldn't find in other books, and I had to figure out the hard way. I think that's how everybody progresses forward, and that's something that you should be interested in if you're trying to train your dog.

00;11;28;15 - 00;11;48;29
Micahel J. Accetta
There's online courses Matador Canine sells them, but other course create or sell them as well. Online courses with PDF documents like the one in the description below, there's free YouTube content. Their social media content there. There's that in the search. But here's the problem. Here's the problem. You don't know which is which, which is good and which is bad.

00;11;50;05 - 00;12;09;06
Micahel J. Accetta
If you can't discern which is good and which is bad, you're just lost. No matter how much free content is there in the world, you will be lost on what you should be doing. So find a trainer that you trust. If it's me, I am honored. I am flattered. I love that. I hope I never let you down.

00;12;09;27 - 00;12;32;05
Micahel J. Accetta
If it's me, great. If it's not, that's okay. That is okay. But find somebody that you trust, right? Go back to trust your dog. Has to trust somebody and you have to trust somebody to get knowledge and information from that. We take that knowledge and information and then look at it under a microscope. Really dissect everything they've set right for me.

00;12;32;26 - 00;12;56;19
Micahel J. Accetta
Quick example. Fear regression is the biological purpose of making a fearful thing lesson or go away. Does that make sense to you? If it doesn't mean someone might be able to explain fear aggression better to you? Now, that's for me, that's a definition. Biological purpose of fear. Aggression is to limit or lessen or make the fearful thing go away.

00;12;57;25 - 00;13;20;12
Micahel J. Accetta
Right? Biologic purpose of social aggression is to establish and maintain the hierarchy. Those to me are definitions. They are solid. I'm convinced that those are the definitions of those terms. But if they make no sense to you, they mean nothing to you, then it's not going to help you positively. Enforcement. I would talk about positive reinforcement all the time.

00;13;20;21 - 00;13;46;18
Micahel J. Accetta
I'm giving my dog a treat, and then they do the behavior more because they like getting the treat. That explanation might work better for you, then positive reinforcement is increasing the likelihood anything that increases the likelihood of a particular behavior. Right. It doesn't have to be a treat. It doesn't have to be a toy. Whatever your dog perceives as a reward is positively reinforcing them and they increase the likelihood of that behavior.

00;13;46;18 - 00;14;05;04
Micahel J. Accetta
Happening in the future because of their past experiences of getting rewarded, whatever the reward is. So, yeah, I talk a little technical. I like to get into the science of it and I like to explain it that way is that you have a full understanding because I want you to have a full understanding. And it's simply because I went through education.

00;14;05;04 - 00;14;33;24
Micahel J. Accetta
I have a college degree in animal science, and when I look on YouTube, it is insanely difficult to find somebody who's talking the way I talk about dog training in that deep of science and that type of concept and complexity and trying to break it down in an easy to understand analytical format. And if that if none of that makes sense to you, then find a trainer who does make sense to you, trust them, take their information and try to apply it to what you do with your dog.

00;14;34;12 - 00;14;52;06
Micahel J. Accetta
But there is so much out there that you have to be careful of what you let in. I heard a quote this morning. I was listening to a podcast. The individual was talking about your mindset and what you let into your brain. Yes, you should have an open mind, but it should have a gate, have an open mind, put a gate on it.

00;14;52;24 - 00;15;07;06
Micahel J. Accetta
Only let the things in. You open up the gate let things come in that you like. Maybe you check the papers, you check their I.D. and then you send them back out. If you don't like it, you can have an open mind and you should because that's the only way to learn but you can't take in things that are going to be damaging to you.

00;15;07;28 - 00;15;29;08
Micahel J. Accetta
Think about everybody who's stuck on the concept of alpha theory. It's been just proven. The guy who brought it up in the first place has been trying for decades to disprove and show that it's disproven. He just proved it. He knows it doesn't. Is it a real and you've been trying to convince everybody else since that because people opened up their gate to let it in and they closed their gate.

00;15;29;24 - 00;15;53;20
Micahel J. Accetta
They can't let anything else in. Alpha theory is in their brain even though it's not accurate, it's not correct. So find something, find somebody. Find a trainer that you like, you trust, you appreciate and take everything you can from them. And if you find another one, good. Find a couple. But if they start competing with each other, if ideas start to conflict, you're going to get stressed.

00;15;53;20 - 00;16;13;16
Micahel J. Accetta
You're not going to know who to trust, and you're going to be uncertain of what to do with your dog and your dog is going to pay for it. Right? When I first started out, my training I was just learning a little bit at a time. And because of that, this patient is my dog was I was not as good as I am today because I didn't have all the resources that we do have today.

00;16;14;02 - 00;16;32;23
Micahel J. Accetta
A dog training as an industry has exploded over the last ten years. I'm lucky to have been a part of it, but ten years ago, I was not Ten years ago, I was stuck reading old books that told me old information that didn't help me get to what I wanted to get to today. That was through experience and training thousands and thousands of docs.

00;16;33;07 - 00;16;56;10
Micahel J. Accetta
You don't have to do that. You now have access to the Internet. You now have access to the PDF Download below that you can read and understand Oh, how do I do? How do I do? How do I resolve complicated bad habits without having your punishment? Right. What key codes can help me, right? You can name anything. It's one of the chapters in this book.

00;16;56;10 - 00;17;12;25
Micahel J. Accetta
You can name anything. What does that mean? What? You might not mean anything to you if you had the book, you would read that chapter and you would understand what it means. You can get the book if you're interested. You can get the e-book or the physical copy at Matador Canine Dot come up with the link down in the description as well.

00;17;13;04 - 00;17;29;21
Micahel J. Accetta
But if you don't want to buy the book and you just want the free resource, take advantage of that. It's in the description below. So what was it? Three Do you remember Do you remember why you are the best person to train your dog? Number one, you have 20 47 access to your dog. You can train them all the time, every single day that could be attached to your hip.

00;17;30;06 - 00;17;49;15
Micahel J. Accetta
And you could train them every single day number to trust in relationship. Your dog will learn better. You'll progressive faster through the training program that you're doing. Because they trust you. They have a strong relationship with you. And number three is you have access to all of the information you could possibly want about training your dog. All you have to do is sift through it.

00;17;49;26 - 00;18;15;03
Micahel J. Accetta
Open up the gate, let it in, check it out, send it back. If you don't like it, keep it and use it. Add it to your toolbox if you do. Thank you guys for tuning in today. Again, I'm your host, Michael, etc. I appreciate you taking the time. Take advantage of that PDF down below. And if you have questions or comments or concerns, you can ask on social media, or you can put it in the comments section of this video and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

00;18;15;13 - 00;18;16;28
Micahel J. Accetta
Thanks again. I'll see you guys next time.