Before you can start focusing on obedience, adventures, or fixing problem behaviors you must teach these three things. Once you spend the time to teach your dog these fundamentals you might find that you do not need to fix every tiny behavior. You can rely on these three skills for almost everything.

In today's episode, you will learn how to teach your dog to settle, build engagement, and a solid recall; the fundamentals of a well-behaved dog and reliable companion. 

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Podcast Transcript

00;00;18;13 - 00;00;41;25
Michael J. Accetta
What skills did you teach your dog? The first engagement, solid recall, and settling calming them down. Those three things are the first things you should focus on. Whenever you get a new puppy, whether you're getting an older dog or you finally decided to start training your dog. I'm Michael Aceto, founder of Matador Canine. Brilliant author of The Dog Training Chico and host of the Acknowledged Dogs podcast.

00;00;41;26 - 00;01;01;03
Michael J. Accetta
Thank you for being here. Before we dove in a little bit more about those three things, I want to offer a free gift to you. Click the link in the description and get the free PDF download for resolving complicated bad habits without having to use punishment. It's a very short read, but it is packed with useful information, so please take advantage of it.

00;01;01;06 - 00;01;20;28
Michael J. Accetta
It is my gift to you. Okay, so the first one is engagement. Engagement is huge. This is where Lucy's walking can be fixed. This is where a solid recall can be built. And that's why it's before the solid recall. Engagement comes first. If you go out into an environment and your dog is not focused on you, there's no way you can teach them to do anything else.

00;01;22;15 - 00;01;40;06
Michael J. Accetta
You have to teach them engagement. First, they have to be engaged. Or do they have to be focused on you? They have to want to learn with you over all of the other stimuli in any environment. Right. You go out for a walk, they're going to be looking at the squirrels and be looking at the cats. They're going to be looking at the dogs, and everything else besides you.

00;01;40;22 - 00;02;05;00
Michael J. Accetta
You can't start teaching basic obedience or manners or nice loose leash walking, or any of that If your dog is not engaged with you. So how do we build engagement? Well, my favorite way is to wait. What would I wait for exactly? Go sit on a park bench. Hold your dog's leash and wait. At some point, they will get bored with the outside world and they will look toward you.

00;02;05;22 - 00;02;29;06
Michael J. Accetta
When they look toward you. You're going to mark and reward. That is my favorite way to do it. Shaping engagement. The more they turn toward you, the more you mark the reward. Sounds super simple. But when done effectively, your dog becomes insanely responsive, and they're actually looking to you more than everywhere else. Once they start looking at you, we can start to ask for more things, right?

00;02;30;04 - 00;02;50;11
Michael J. Accetta
But we can't ask for more things if they're not looking at us. So take the time today. This is my action plan for you today. Go outside, sit on your front stoop, sit in your car, or sit on a park bench. Hold the leash with the clicker and some treats They're going to turn around eventually when they do mark and reward the second they make the decision to turn.

00;02;51;13 - 00;03;15;08
Michael J. Accetta
If they start to go, you click and they don't come all the way to you. That's okay. Don't worry about it. At least toss a treat out to them. Eventually, they'll get it. Practice this over and over and you start to do these in different environments. That way your dog is engaged no matter where you are. We know dogs don't generalize well, and they're very specific about what criteria are important in a scenario.

00;03;15;21 - 00;03;34;20
Michael J. Accetta
Criteria in this scenario are when you're with me, you should be engaging with me. Everything else doesn't matter whether you're wearing the leash or are you wearing a harness collar whether you have a halting on you got booties on, whether we're out of the park or we're in a parking lot, no matter where we are, you should try to engage with me more.

00;03;34;20 - 00;03;54;23
Michael J. Accetta
You engage with me, and the more I'll reward you for the next step, that solid recall we're going to hold off on for just a second. I want to focus more on settling. Many dog owners struggle with their dogs not being able to settle and relaxed all over the place. They're having a grand old time just running around the jumping off the couch.

00;03;55;20 - 00;04;15;15
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe they're tearing down your blinds. My dog Tommy is a very big boy, and he gets very excited last night. He was very excited because we were playing with him and he gets excited and we can stop him by saying, go lay down, go settle. So if you have a puppy or you're deciding to teach your dog something new, they're going to get excited to work with you.

00;04;15;26 - 00;04;39;01
Michael J. Accetta
We're building engagements. They're going to get excited to work with you. But you also have to teach them how to sell, how to relax. When you sit down on the couch, they should sit down. They should be nice and calm. You can do that by teaching a place command, right? Have a nice bed for him, walk them on over, get them to offer to go on the place multiple times for a reward, and then have them come off, say place before they jump back on when they jump back on the market board.

00;04;39;01 - 00;05;08;16
Michael J. Accetta
Now, you've taught them the word place we chose to say go lay down is just the phrase that we use. You can say anything. Go take a chill pill. Go take five. All right. You could say anything. I would not say down because that's an obedience routine command or cue writing down is a very specific behavior. I don't want to ruin the down or my settling Q by cross-contaminating them if you will.

00;05;09;12 - 00;05;28;05
Michael J. Accetta
Right. If I say down, I expect my dog to stay focused on me in a fit any active down, which means they're primed and ready to get up and do the next thing. Go lay down or go settle or go on. The place is a passive type of down. They're actually laying. Maybe they roll their hip. Maybe they lay like a pancake, completely flat.

00;05;29;09 - 00;05;37;10
Michael J. Accetta
I want to have differences there, and I want my dog to know the difference. I'm going to use a different word to signify different behavior. So that's important.

00;05;41;27 - 00;06;02;02
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 now you can teach this without saying anything, and that's how I would prefer to do it.

00;06;02;06 - 00;06;18;07
Michael J. Accetta
That's what we did with my other dog when I sat down in a chair when I was first teaching him, he was attached to me by a leash. When I sat down in a chair, I immediately started putting treats on the ground. You learned whenever Dad sits down, I should lay right next to him and I'll get my treats.

00;06;18;23 - 00;06;32;13
Michael J. Accetta
Now, this might not be what you want. You don't want your dog constantly sitting next to you. In the situations I was in and I was training in, I was in college I was in class, and he was laying right next to me. And that was totally fine. Nowadays, when I lay down, he lies right next to me.

00;06;32;17 - 00;06;50;00
Michael J. Accetta
And it's wonderful until I go to move the chair and then he moves and that's right. But I've taught him the action of me sitting down, telling him to go settle. We don't play when I'm sitting down. We play what I'm standing up and we're running around. When I sit down, everything stops and we should relax and settle.

00;06;50;12 - 00;07;07;01
Michael J. Accetta
Insanely useful, insanely, insanely useful for so many things. You go to a friend's house. You want them to relax in your own house. You want them to relax. You got kids, you want them to relax. You got other dogs. You want them to relax. You're in a zoom meeting and your dog's pestering you. You said, go lay down and they go lay down.

00;07;07;01 - 00;07;28;27
Michael J. Accetta
Now, everyone in the Zoom meeting is impressed, right? Moving on to the third one, recall this is huge. And if you've listened to the other episodes, you know that I think a recall is one of the greatest things you can teach your dog. If you teach your dog a solid recall, you can prevent them from running away. You can prevent loose leash walking be a problem.

00;07;29;06 - 00;07;50;29
Michael J. Accetta
You can prevent them from running up to people when they're not supposed to. You can prevent resource gardening, stealing food, jumping up on so many things, chasing animals, chasing other dogs, and playing too rough, fix all of those things with a solid recall. Solid, solid. But you can't have a solid recall until you have one of two things.

00;07;50;29 - 00;08;13;16
Michael J. Accetta
One, really good engagement. So that when you say your dog's name, they actually want to engage with you and you can't have a solid recall until your dog can settle in a lot of places. Why is that? Well, what ends up happening is most dog owners don't work with their dogs in distracting environments until they're told to, so they never bring their dog out to Lowe's.

00;08;13;16 - 00;08;35;00
Michael J. Accetta
Home Depot, Dog Park just to train, right? They just go to the dog park to run around. But if you head to all these places and worked with your dog, they would learn that being engaged with you and settling with you is important, despite where we are when it comes to the recall. If they can't be calm and engaged with you in these areas, there's no way they can do the recall.

00;08;35;05 - 00;08;58;20
Michael J. Accetta
There just isn't unless you resort to punishing them, which in that case, you're really getting their attention through punishment. You're not rewarding them for recalling them. See the difference, which sounds nicer in my opinion, getting their attention and recalling because they're going to get a reward is much stronger and more beneficial for our relationship. It makes me feel better, right?

00;08;59;08 - 00;09;24;17
Michael J. Accetta
But positive behaviors, which positively reinforce behaviors are much stronger than punishing behaviors. That's why punishment always has to happen again and again. And the race to be a refresher course. You reinforce behavior enough and you could stop reinforcing it. It'll still work, especially if you use reward schedules. Think about the time when you were punished for something let's say your job, right?

00;09;24;18 - 00;09;44;21
Michael J. Accetta
You got scolded at your job for doing something. Yeah. It might not have been as severe as anything else, but you got punished and you still came back the next day. Maybe because your job is really reinforcing because of money. It's a good job that you really enjoy or the people you really enjoy, whatever it may be. That's not another example.

00;09;45;02 - 00;10;10;02
Michael J. Accetta
Friends and family. Someone could say something negative to you and it hurt your feelings, but because you like that person, and it's positively reinforcing to hang out with them, it outweighs that negative. Someone would have to do something insanely, insanely punishing to you for you to completely disregard their existence for the rest of their life. And I don't even think that's true, although people do terrible, terrible things right.

00;10;10;03 - 00;10;35;10
Michael J. Accetta
Their stories of murderers eventually being given forgiveness. And I have watched a movie recently. It was called The Professor and the Crazy Man or something like that wonderful movie. Mel Gibson's in it. And this man went crazy and he killed his father. Of a couple of children, didn't kill the children, but killed the father. He ends up going to an insane asylum.

00;10;36;03 - 00;11;04;07
Michael J. Accetta
And the wife of the husband that was dead fell in love with him. What a plot twist there. Fell in love with the man who murdered her husband. Sure. It's a story, right? Although I'm pretty sure it's actually accurate. I believe it wasn't a documentary, but I'm sure it was based on true events because it was about the writing of death, not the Declaration of Human Rights about writing in Webster's Dictionary.

00;11;04;29 - 00;11;22;11
Michael J. Accetta
I think it's Webster's Dictionary. Yeah, the dictionary. But writing the dictionary. This professor had written the dictionary I'm going on a very sad tangent, but you get my point. If you could positively reinforce your dog for settling and engaging in these distracting environments, you can have a really solid recall that is based on rewards and want to be with you.

00;11;23;06 - 00;11;45;27
Michael J. Accetta
The recall becomes very strong at that point. They're running to you, they're engaging with you, they're having a great old time. Every time you call their name, they light up with excitement and they run straight to you. Regardless of what else is going on. You got to work on the settlement and the engagement first. Now when it comes to the recall because you already did the engagement, it should be fairly easy and you don't already want to come to you.

00;11;46;10 - 00;12;14;12
Michael J. Accetta
So you're just going to mark with a clicker or a verbal marker when they're running toward you and give them a treat when they start doing that consistently. Right? Just choosing to run towards you. Then you could add in the word right before they do it. So you'd say come, they run towards you, click treat. And I'd always click right before they get to you until you know if you're working on having them sit perfectly in front of you for a, you know, competition or something like that.

00;12;15;15 - 00;12;36;07
Michael J. Accetta
I would mark them as they're running to build that motivation because running is the most amount of effort they're putting forth. So we can make a really strong recall, really strong recall by marking as they're running. And then the treat becomes the end goal for them, right? They're running all the way to the tree. Eventually, you can have them run, grab a hold of them first and then mark and reward them.

00;12;36;18 - 00;12;55;12
Michael J. Accetta
But in the beginning stages, you really want that motivation. You want them running to your mark as they're running. You should be practicing this in all different scenarios too, not just because you did the engagement in settling in those different scenarios, but the recall should be practiced in different scenarios. Go to Home Depot, go to Lowe's, go to the park, go to a friend.

00;12;55;12 - 00;13;22;11
Michael J. Accetta
Now, put up my words this morning. Go to a friend's house or a family member's house and just practice a recall in their house or in their backyard. Say, Hey, can I buy you some pizza? You know, whatever it is, I'll take you out to dinner. Can I just practice my knowledge? Recall in your house hopefully they're nice enough to let you do it because it's important that your dog can do these things all the time, no matter where you are.

00;13;22;26 - 00;13;41;01
Michael J. Accetta
If they can't do them. What was the point of training? In my opinion, if it's worth training, it's worth overtraining. And some people say, Oh, you shouldn't overtrain. You know, I want my dog to be as best as they possibly can, just like I want to be as best as I possibly can. That's not the right word. I want to be as good as I possibly can the best I can.

00;13;41;29 - 00;13;57;07
Michael J. Accetta
I don't know what's going on with my words today. I want to be the best that I can be. There we go. I want to be the best that I can be. I want my dog to be the best that they can be. So if I'm going to train, I'm going to overtrain I'm going to work through all of these problems, all these problem behaviors that so many dog owners suffer through.

00;13;57;19 - 00;14;18;17
Michael J. Accetta
I'm going to work through all of that so my dog can have a nice, freedom-filled life. And I can't go hiking with my dogs. If they can't recall, then they don't have any engagement. I can't bring my dogs to an outdoor cafe. If my dog can't settle right. I gain a certain level of freedom and adventure simply because I work with my dogs.

00;14;18;26 - 00;14;39;06
Michael J. Accetta
I train them and I get them the exercise that they need and the skills required to live in our society. We needed to learn skills. That's why kindergarten exists. That's why parents have to teach you things you have to learn the skills before you can move up into, you know, first grade, let's say. Right? You got to be potty trained before you can go to kindergarten.

00;14;39;06 - 00;14;56;05
Michael J. Accetta
I think that's why pre-K exists I got a two-year-old now who's trying to be potty trained and he's got to learn that skill before we get to those upper grades. No, they're not upper grades. They're low-grade. But for him, they'd be upgraded. So he's got to be potty trained before we can do that. He's got to learn the skills just like a dog.

00;14;56;17 - 00;15;14;27
Michael J. Accetta
You got to learn the skills of engagement, settling in a solid recall for you to have any chance of an adventurous, freedom-filled life. And I hope you work on that so you can have the same freedom that I get with my dogs. Thank you guys for listening today. Again, please take that free pdf download in the description.

00;15;14;27 - 00;15;32;05
Michael J. Accetta
It's absolutely free. It's ten pages. It's a nice little short read, but it'll help you understand how to resolve the bad habits of your dog are the problems that they have without using punishment, yelling at them, correcting them, without making a whole big fuss out of it, just teaching them what they should be doing. Take advantage of that.

00;15;32;13 - 00;15;44;23
Michael J. Accetta
Also, if you are interested in training your dog with me through one on one coaching, click the link in the description as well, or head over to training at matador canine for six-week coaching, and I'll see you guys in our first session.