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. 

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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