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.