One of the scariest things you can experience as a dog owner is having your dog run away. In today's episode, I am going to go over exactly how you need to train your dog to keep them safe no matter what!

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00:00:01:08 - 00:00:32:15
Michael J. Accetta
Welcome. My name is Michael J. Accetta I'm the founder of Matador Canine Brilliance and author of The Dog Training Cheat Codes. You're listening to the acknowledged dog's podcast The first time I ever experienced my dog running out, it was chasing after a rabbit. I was about 17 years old. My dog Breezy ran out of the front door after I had walked out and I just left the door open.

00:00:32:22 - 00:00:50:21
Michael J. Accetta
She sprinted out after me. She ran down the block. I turned around. I saw her sprinting and I recalled her back. Now, if I had not done the work that I'm about to tell you about, there is no chance that she would have stopped, turned around, and came right back to me. She would have gone straight onto the street.

00:00:50:21 - 00:01:14:13
Michael J. Accetta
She would have gone into the main highway, which was not very far. In an attempt to chase after this rabbit. I don't want this to happen to you. And in fact, every time I drive down the street and I'm in an urban area and I see people with their front doors wide open, it makes me panic. To this day, I still have an internal feeling about doors being propped open because I think dogs are going to run out and they're going to get hurt.

00:01:14:20 - 00:01:29:06
Michael J. Accetta
They're going to get hit by a car or they're not going to get home. Are going to get lost. They're going to end up in a shelter somewhere and the family is going to be heartbroken. All because they did not do what I'm about to tell you in today's episode, if you don't know who I am, my name is Michael Accetta

00:01:29:14 - 00:01:53:03
Michael J. Accetta
I'm the founder of Matador Canine Brilliance, the author of The Dog Training Cheat Codes, and the host of the Acknowledged Dogs podcast. Thank you. For being here. What I want to talk about today is how to teach your dog to not run away. And I believe that every dog can do this. If you're in a situation where your dog is frequently getting out of the house or you're just trying to be proactive, then this is the episode for you.

00:01:53:20 - 00:02:23:10
Michael J. Accetta
The first thing we need to do is understand that you are responsible for everything that happens to your dog. You are responsible. It does not mean you have to be a boss. That does not mean you have to be an alpha. That means you are responsible. You have to hold yourself to that standard. If your dog does not know what to do because you did not teach them Now I want to drive that point home to you, but understand that your dog has a level of responsibility as well.

00:02:23:11 - 00:02:45:12
Michael J. Accetta
I cannot completely blame you and I cannot completely blame your dog. The important part here is to find the solution. But I want you to start thinking about how you can implement structure into your life and how you can be responsible for your dog's success. You can't put it on your dog and you can't put it just on you.

00:02:45:13 - 00:03:09:07
Michael J. Accetta
You guys have to be together as a team trying to solve the solution, but you are inevitably responsible for everything that happens to your dog and everything that your dog does. You have the intellect to learn more. You have the capacity to lock them in and manage their situation. They do not. They cannot go to YouTube and type in How do I not run away?

00:03:09:23 - 00:03:26:15
Michael J. Accetta
You have to say, How do I teach my dog not to run away? So you have to be responsible, and I hope you are taking that into consideration. Now that you are listening and watching this episode, you're kind of taking it okay. Yet it is a part of my responsibility. I have to be the one to teach my dog.

00:03:26:15 - 00:03:52:06
Michael J. Accetta
So how do we do that? Number one, you're going to control as much as you can. If you can have a gate in front of the door if you can lock the front door so that they don't go out. If you can have them on a leash and literally tie them to your hip, if you're going to be going in and out, that's a wonderful way to teach your dog not only to stick by you, to build engagement, have wonderful obedience and manners throughout the entire day, but it stops them from getting into bad practices.

00:03:52:21 - 00:04:09:05
Michael J. Accetta
Recently, I saw an ad for this tiny little gadget that attaches to your door. If you have a smaller dog, this might work. If you have a big dog. It definitely will not work. It's just, if not meant for that. It's meant for a smaller dog, but it connects to the door and it connects to the frame of the door.

00:04:09:05 - 00:04:33:22
Michael J. Accetta
And so when you open the door, it creates this fence or this net so that your dog doesn't rush out. In the process of teaching your dog what we want them to do. This might be a perfect solution for you. Now, it is not a long-term solution. It is just a simple solution to help you limit your dog to practicing the bad behavior of rushing out the door every time they rush out of the door.

00:04:33:23 - 00:04:50:01
Michael J. Accetta
They will get rewarded for the experience as long as nothing bad happens on the other side. If they were to rush out and everybody starts screaming at him and they get fearful they run back into the house, then no, they won't be reinforced for it. But if they ran out to go say hi to somebody, they ran out to go to the bathroom.

00:04:50:06 - 00:05:09:00
Michael J. Accetta
They ran out to go sniff the grass. They are going to get rewarded for running out in the first place. That's no good. That's not what we want. We want our dogs to be engaged with us and to listen when we need them to listen and not to run out of the front door or the back door or the side door or the garage or the car, whatever it may be.

00:05:10:02 - 00:05:32:05
Michael J. Accetta
So that's number one. Control as much as you can Number two, you're going to teach them when they can go out the door and when they can't. This is called stimulus control. Stimulus is the cue that sets off a behavior. When you get the green light, that means you can go. When you get the red light, that means you can't go.

00:05:33:04 - 00:05:51:07
Michael J. Accetta
When you get a phone call, that ringing tells you when to pick up your phone. If you don't get the phone call, you wouldn't pick up your phone and hold it here. Here at this very very clear communication between when you can do it and when you can't do it. Now, what does that mean? That means your communication has to be perfect.

00:05:52:05 - 00:06:14:15
Michael J. Accetta
Now, there are a few ways to go about doing this. One is my preferred way and one is an alternative. I understand that individuals' lifestyles are different and what is required of you might be different. So I want to give you some alternatives here. The first way you got to do it, the way I prefer to do it is to teach my dog that when the door opens, they should do some incompatible behavior.

00:06:15:07 - 00:06:39:08
Michael J. Accetta
What do I mean by this? If I'm going to open up the door, my dogs are going to sit. This does not mean they sit. And then I open the door. It's very simple confusion. The old method. Oh, well, I'll have my dog sit and then I'll open the door, and then we'll go out. Instead, I teach my dogs that the action of me putting my hand on the handle and opening the door tells them to go in the sit position.

00:06:39:14 - 00:06:58:18
Michael J. Accetta
Just like the words sit tell them to go on the set position. The door opening tells them to go in the set position. Now, the other thing I do is release them outside. I say, okay, they go outside and we've made it a habit to immediately turn back around and face me every single time. They go outside every single time.

00:06:59:12 - 00:07:32:05
Michael J. Accetta
This creates consistency, predictability, and certainty. They know what to expect and I know what to expect. So when they go out the door, muscle memory tells them, turn around and you're going to get a tree. Turn around and I'm going to engage with you. Turn around and I might call you back in. Now, the other way to do this, the other way to have your dog in that kind of situation is to have the door open and always let them out, but have them immediately turn back around.

00:07:33:04 - 00:07:53:04
Michael J. Accetta
So one is way more structured and the other is way more relaxed. The reason I like both but prefer the first is because if I open the door and I don't want my dogs running out I have the choice to do that with the first example, my dogs will stay inside. I can go outside and I can close the door behind me.

00:07:53:26 - 00:08:14:18
Michael J. Accetta
If you live in a more rural area, and you got plenty of space and you have some time that when your dog runs out, you can record them back, you're not right up against the street, you're not in the city, you're not in an apartment complex. That kind of thing. It might be more relaxing for you to let your dog go out the front door, turn back around, and if you have to call them in, you can.

00:08:15:03 - 00:08:36:12
Michael J. Accetta
If you don't have to, then you can let them hang out outside. It really depends. But if you are struggling with your dog or running out the front door, I'm going to give you a hint here. Go with the first option. I'd much rather have my dog be reluctant to go outside than have them go outside consistently after having been reinforced for it.

00:08:37:07 - 00:08:58:14
Michael J. Accetta
And then try to get their attention. We're just we're competing when we should be succeeding. We want to succeed. You want to have complete control of the situation. Now you've managed everything you've taught them either to go ahead and stop before you open the door and then go out and turn around towards you, or you've taught them just to go out when you open the door and then turn around towards you.

00:08:59:00 - 00:09:22:14
Michael J. Accetta
That engagement is huge, and that's really where step three comes from. If you never want your dog to run away, you have to work on engagement. You must build a connection that's so strong that there is no question about leaving like with my son is two years old. When we start to walk away from the park, we don't have to say anything.

00:09:22:25 - 00:09:38:12
Michael J. Accetta
He just leaves the park and walks with me. And his mom like we just go, There isn't a fight. There isn't a Hey, we're going to leave now, buddy. Let's go. And he's like, No, I want to stay at the park. Sure. He wants to stay at the park. And I completely understand it. When I was a kid, I wanted to stay in the park.

00:09:38:23 - 00:09:57:08
Michael J. Accetta
But in the situations that we've practiced, every single time we walk away, he follows with us and then we engage with him again. We ask him how playing was. We ask him what he thinks of this. We start working with like and I mean working as in talking with him interacting with him like you'd be working with the dog.

00:09:58:00 - 00:10:26:29
Michael J. Accetta
Now, I don't treat my son like a dog, but I do teach him very similarly I use positive reinforcement. I build engagement first. I teach him what I want him to do and then tell him when to do it and when he's not allowed to do it. We just got him a nice little set where he can hammer some fake nails in, but he's got to learn when he can hammer, where he can hammer, and when he can't, you can't hammer the cat you can't hammer my office desk.

00:10:26:29 - 00:10:44:10
Michael J. Accetta
He can't hammer the door. So he can't hammer the window when he can hammer in this very specific spot. So you have to teach your dog when it's appropriate to leave and when it's not appropriate to leave. And you got to work on any of it because even if you miss everything else, even if you miss everything else, you don't do the management.

00:10:44:20 - 00:11:06:15
Michael J. Accetta
You don't have your dog stop before you go outside. You don't have them reengage when they go outside. If you have an engagement, they'll be glued to you regardless right there will be glued to you regardless. I'll tell you a short little story. I was interning at a guide dog facility where they train guide dogs for the Blind as well as veterans with PTSD service dogs.

00:11:07:21 - 00:11:25:14
Michael J. Accetta
And one thing I asked was, you know, are you ever afraid of these dogs running away? Because we were pretty close. The facility was very close to the main highway and they didn't really have many fences they did for a play area. But those dogs really didn't get to play much because they wanted them focused on work. They were too tired from playing.

00:11:25:14 - 00:11:38:17
Michael J. Accetta
They wouldn't focus on the work kind of thing. And so I asked, I said, hey, are you ever worried about them walking away? And running away and that kind of thing? And the trainer looked at me and said, Do you think this dog is going to run away? I was like, I don't I don't think so. I don't know.

00:11:38:17 - 00:11:53:03
Michael J. Accetta
This was a couple of years ago. I said I don't think so. But, you know, I would be nervous about it because I just don't know. And he would say, watch. And he just dropped the leash and walked away. Didn't call the dog, didn't try to engage with the dog. He didn't have treats with them, didn't have a toy with them.

00:11:53:18 - 00:12:13:05
Michael J. Accetta
And the dog just stuck by his side. And he said, Michael, this dog has been within six feet its entire life. It always has a leash on. It's always been reinforced ever since it was eight weeks old and it started learning everything it needs to know. And this was now the dog was about a year and a half.

00:12:13:24 - 00:12:42:08
Michael J. Accetta
Everything it needs to know. It has been on a leash consistently locked into six feet because that's the leash that the use of six-foot leases. There was no chance that this dog would run away or walk away. And in fact, they never even taught a recall because the engagement was so strong. It was so important to have the dog be engaged with the handler, especially doing service dog work that a recall was pointless to them.

00:12:42:16 - 00:13:01:08
Michael J. Accetta
Why are we going to spend the time to teach the dog how to recall at 100 feet if it will never, never be 100 feet away? They never taught fetch. They did if it was a service dog and they had to go get something and bring it back, but they never taught fetch as in playing right. The dogs really didn't get to play with each other.

00:13:01:23 - 00:13:25:00
Michael J. Accetta
It was all strict business and that's how you've got to be for at least a short period of time. You have to be business related, structured. Don't worry about necessarily teaching them or recalling them right now. Worry about the engagement, worry about having them focus around the door because the door is such an exciting event and every time you go to it, your dog gets excited, they get animated, they get Oh my goodness.

00:13:26:12 - 00:13:45:17
Michael J. Accetta
And so they can't think as clearly you've got to work on engagement in that space before you could ever hope to have your dog not run away. They're running away because they are engaged with something else. Not you. Thank you guys for listening to today's episode. If you want more, head over to Matador Canine e-Comm and I'll see you next time.