At the Gate: Threshold Training That Could Save Your Dog’s Life

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. Awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hoping to giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. Uh, my name is Jack Lawrence, uh, not a dog trainer, just a dog training But of course, Max O'Neill from the Down Under Dog Trainer is a superb and a phenomenal dog trainer. If you're ever looking for some help in that respect, of which I am right now, Max, because as I said to you a while ago, this, the whole purpose of me wanting to do this podcast is for free dog training advice. And here I come. So my beautiful dog, Kira, who is now, well, she's getting on for 2 years old now.

I was going to ask how old she is.

Yeah. She's nearly 2 yet. Well, she's 2 in July, so she's not far away as we record this. A wonderful dog. She's, you know, she's been a challenge, but that's what's sort of given me the bug when it comes to dog training. The most recent challenge is a serious one that we need to really get on top of, and that is threshold stuff. Because recently we're having a bit of work done at the house. We've got tradies here and working around the house, and obviously gates and doors and things like that are open.

Mm-hmm.

And Kira will not go through a gate or a door when I'm there. So I did all that training. We don't rush through doors. She sits and waits. I can even— we've got a big back gate where the roller door gate opens and I put the bins out at night. She will not cross that line while I'm there putting the bins out. Put the bins out, she stays where she is, come back in and close the gate. All fine and good. The issue is when no one's looking.

Yeah.

So when we're not around, like, because I'll be in the office working, whatever, and someone's left the door open, she will find that The open door and she is gone. And it started off very innocently, shall we say. We live right opposite a creek and she loves the water, so she would get out, literally go across the road and into the creek, and then I'd go outside, find her, bring her back inside. But the trouble is now I think like she's getting more confidence with doing it. So the more that's happening, because it's happening, it's happened really quite a few times over the last month or so because of the having the builders here and doors being left open and And each time she's getting a bit further and further away.

Yeah.

And obviously that is not good because cars, roads, all the rest of it. Can you just talk us through the whole threshold situation? And obviously we know why that's important when it comes to a home situation because of the dog getting hit by a car.

Yeah, for sure. So in Kira's case, like what you're saying, there is, is a very, uh, natural order of progression with things. Whenever our dog is successful in a behaviour, they're likely to repeat it and they're likely to repeat it with more effort. And we use this obviously intentionally with training, with like a principle of progressive overload. We gradually increase things. And she's the same. She's like, oh, well, today this worked out well for me. Tomorrow I'll venture even further. So that's, that's what we're seeing. So, uh, right after this episode, we're gonna go out and do some work on that and record that for you guys. So you'll have that as an online video resource in the, um, the Dog People Podcast Facebook group. But with threshold training, like what, what it is, we're not referring to like a dog's stress threshold. We're referring to like a literal door threshold or gate threshold or, you know, hallway or whatever threshold, like a line we want to teach our dog not to cross. And this can be internal to the house, this can be leaving a property, this can be exiting a car, so on and so forth. And the reason we want to teach these is because if we think of where a lot of our doors go, they quite often lead to dangerous places like roads. You know, front door, side gate, car door, garage door, they all lead to roads. Or, you know, other, you know, thing— doors, uh, or thresholds, you know, lead to a kitchen where there's chemicals.

Or maybe you've got a new baby, you don't want the dog in the baby's room.

Exactly. So every dog, no matter their situation, circumstance, whatever, does need some level of threshold training. So that's what we're going to really help you guys out with this, um, and get this really, really solid. We've had some pretty crazy cases. Like, the threshold training, the way we teach it, it's a little bit unique and does get really, really good results. And we've had some pretty amazing life-saving sort of things from this. So the best one we had was a client on their way out. They shut their— press the button on their gate and their sliding gate started to close on the— going along the driveway and the dog waited. And then just at the end, the gate got caught on a ball and felt it and then bounced back.

Oh, no.

But the owner had actually left.

And they thought they'd do it at the gate. Oh, no. And they just stayed over. They drove to work.

So, they came home, discovered their gate was open, went, shit, like, how long has this been open? The dog was still there. So, they drove in, checked the cameras, and they saw what had happened. The dog had waited there for like 9 hours while they're at work.

And then did not walk out once.

Not moved. And that was because we had trained for situations like that. Their gate was known to malfunction. So, we had trained for situations similar to that, but the dog obviously went above and beyond and just was a champ that day. But things like that can happen, or we can have kids who forget to shut doors. People coming and going, tradies, or the other day, for example, we dropped glass in the kitchen. So luckily we had a threshold where Nelson wouldn't come in and get his tongue or his paws cut, things like that. So there's a whole host of reasons why you need to do this, but also in a broader sense of things, the more things we put in place around our house that cause our dog to slow down and pause and go, oh, hang on, I'm not allowed on that, I'm not allowed to there, I'm not allowed to do that, it starts to really just slow down the racing mind. So if you do have a dog who's prone to hyperactivity and getting quite aroused, as I think Kira can be A little bit.

She bloody vibrates when people come to the house. It's like, mate, just relax. You're going to have a fucking heart attack.

Yeah. The more boundaries we put in place for our dog, and thresholds are a boundary, it can really help to slow them down and make them quite slow and cautious and considerate of where they're supposed to be. I guess I always compare it to like, you know, when I'd go to my nan's place and she's very like, don't touch that. Don't sit on that. You're not allowed in there. It would make me— I wouldn't race around her house like a little hurricane like I was a kid. I'd be much slower and considerate of what I'm doing, and it has the same effect on our dogs. So that's what thresholds are. That's why you need to teach them. In terms of the how, guys, head over to our Facebook group. We're going to post a video there and show you exactly how to teach this. It's really, really easy. It's a 3-step system. It's actually a lot of fun to teach, and it's one of the most worthwhile things because at some stage it could quite literally save your dog's life. It's up there with recall for me.

And let's just make this clear. We're not talking about dogs that try and escape like Jumping fences and stuff like, because Kira will not try and actively escape. She's not digging under anything. She's not jumping over fences or anything like that. She just is, she's a dog of opportunity. If the door's open, she's going to walk out. So this isn't about if you've got a dog at home who you're leaving and it's jumping over fences and it's trying to get out and it's digging through holes, because that could be an entirely different situation altogether.

Exactly.

So, so this isn't for that specific purpose. This is purely for these instances where someone's left the door open, gates, like, you know, what Max was saying with his clients, the gate, was left open by accident, you know, and it's to stop your dog walking out of the property, basically.

Yeah, exactly right. So, yeah, we'll shoot a video on that and make it really easy for you guys.

Well, I'm looking forward to having a dog that no longer tries to run away and I'm having to cycle on my little pushie down the street to go and pick her up.

Let's do it.

So Max and I have recorded this video for you. It is available right now on the Dog People Podcast Facebook group. Just search that on Facebook and find it. I can tell you Since recording the episode, I have done 3 sessions with Kira and we're already on the way to having her stop running away from the home and sneaking off down the street to make friends with strangers. This is a highly important skill that every dog should know and learn. So make sure you teach them by checking out the free video for you right now, the Masterclass with Max on the Dog People Podcast Facebook group. See you next time. See you next time. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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