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.