How to Build a Healthy Relationship With Your Dog

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. The new Red Bull Dragonberry Energizer is now at McDonald's. Made to lock in.

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Ready to go.

Let's do it. 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. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck? 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 giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, it's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence, not a dog trainer, just a dog training enthusiast. But of course, as always, joined by the expert who is Max O'Neill from the Down Under Dog Trainer. And today, Max, we want to talk about relationships with your dog, but a balance with that relationship.

Yeah, this is something that's been popping up a lot in my consults lately, so I thought it'd be worth addressing in a podcast for the wider audience as well so that we can start to make some sense of it. So when we look at relationship balance and, you know, having a healthy relationship with your dog, there's a lot of moving parts. And we're going to talk about leadership in a separate episode, maybe even today. But what we're really going to talk about today with our relationship balance is in terms of how much time you and your dog spend together, how much time you spend separated, and what that time looks like. Because with balancing out a relationship, it is a bit of a balancing act. Just before we started recording, Jack and I were talking about this, where we've built up this really awesome engagement with both of our dogs. But with building really high engagement, you've also got to balance that out so your dog still feels okay being away from you. I see a lot of people who toe this line and maybe end up on the wrong side of it where their dog is super engaged with them, but they build up some dependency. Then on the flip side of the coin, you can mean very little to your dog and you'll never have any sort of dependency or separation issues or anything like that. Your dog will leave you alone, but also when you go out to a park, your dog will also leave you alone and probably not be super interested in you. So today we want to talk about how to tread that line, how to have a healthy and well-balanced relationship with your dog. So that you're, I guess, fulfilling both of your needs. You're building nice engagement, but also building some nice dependency between them. That's what I want to chat about.

Yeah. I mean, as I said to you before we started recording, like Kira and I have this relationship now where she very much looks at me for most things, which is great, which obviously is brilliant. It's what you want. It's that engagement. But at the same token, like when I'm at home in the house, you know, 9 times out of 10, if I move from one room to another, she has basically got her nose right up my jacksie. Going, where are we going? Where are we going? I'm like, mate, just chill. Like, it's like she's panicked that I might leave the house without her. And again, like, same, same when we're out of the house. Again, there's that great engagement. But, you know, if I get to a point where I'm like, okay, because I take her out for maybe an hour or so every day and I'm just like, okay, let's do 20 minutes training. And then I sort of give her a free and let her go off and walk. But she's still— there's still this thing where she doesn't seem to be totally like, well, I don't Don't quite want to leave you that much.

Yeah.

And that kind of ties in with what we're talking about today. But the other thing we can do there is we can actually start to use some conditioned cues to insulate that working frame of mind so that our dog knows when to finish. So for example, like we've got the State of Origin game 2 tonight. If the ref never blew the final whistle, the players would never stop playing. That's something I like to tell clients all the time. It's the same if we turn our dog off or on, sorry, and we don't have a cue to turn them off. Our dog will constantly be in that state of anticipation of what's next. So for Nelson, we've got cues that turn him on. So for him, his cue is let's work. And he's like, what the fuck does that mean? And we start training. So over time, he started to learn that, oh, let's work means we're going into that state of mind. And then finished means like, all right, like we're putting your reinforcement away. I'm not going to give you any of these like crazy things to do. Just go back to being you. So that's like blowing the final whistle. So our dog knows when it starts and ends, but it ties in with what we're talking about today as well.

Okay, perfect.

Cool.

Alrighty, well, let's talk about relationship balance. So I want you guys to imagine in your heads a little pie chart that kind of looks like a Mercedes logo. We've got 3 equal slices of the pie in there. Each of those 3 separate pieces of the pie, we've got total togetherness where you and your dog are together and spending time together and interacting. We have got total separation where you and your dog are away from one another. Maybe you've left the home, maybe you've sent them out on like an adventure walk or something for the day. And then we've got together but separate, which is what Jack talked about earlier, where you guys are in the same house but in different rooms. Now it's really, really, really important to make sure your dog is getting a healthy amount of all 3 of these each day. It doesn't have to be exactly 8 hours of each. We don't have to split our day into 3 and we go, we need exactly 8 hours of this, 8 of this, 8 of this. But we need to be spending a considerable amount of time each day. At least a couple of hours in each column in order to have a healthy and well-balanced relationship. Let's break that down. Let's look at total togetherness. That's you and your dog spending quality time together, whether that's them just being, you know, under your chair at the desk while you work from home, whether that's you guys having a cuddle, you guys playing, you guys training, or whatever. It's you guys having meaningful interactions. Now, our dogs need a substantial amount of this every single day. I see loads of dogs whose needs aren't being met in that area, and that's where we start to see problematic or fulfilment-seeking behaviours where that dog will start seeking that from somewhere else, or we'll start to see demand barking. They're really craving that attention. So your dog definitely does need that every day. But if we give them too much of that, your dog can start to get addicted to you. Like I said, follow you room to room, demand it as soon as it's gone, be really pushy. Maybe even they get possessive of you. So we want to give them an amount of that, but it's also really important to balance it out with the next 2 parts as well.

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The next part is together but separate. And this is one thing I don't see any— well, not anyone, I don't see anywhere near enough people doing. It's you and your dog being in the same house, but separated by a bit. This is where crates are really handy. This is where if you've got an outside area or even just teaching them, hey, you stay on your bed, I'm going to go in another room. I see so many people who say their dog, you know, sits outside the shower when they shower, sleeps beside their bed, even follows them to the toilet. Or like you said, room to room, if they forget their phone charger in another room, the dog has to accompany them.

Honestly, sometimes it drives me insane, especially if I got to go upstairs. Like I'll literally just go upstairs to grab a jumper and Kira will follow me Up the stairs. I'm like, mate, obviously doesn't understand me. Like, mate, I'm just getting a jumper and I'll come back. And she's back down the stairs again. I'm like, dude, you need to chill.

Exactly.

It's a lot. And we do start to see that unhealthy attachment where your dog starts to see that not as a 3-sided pie or a 3-piece pie. They see it where they're totally separate. Like, I'm okay with you leaving, but if we're together, we need to be together.

Yeah. It's like there's no separation anxiety. I can leave them at home and leave and there's no barking or anything like that. But when I'm here, Yeah. It's like, okay, now. Yeah, that's exactly it. So when I'm here, we're together.

Exactly. So if we've got—

Don't leave me or I'll find you.

And it is, it's frustrating. I get owners all the time say, this just, this is a thing that drives me nuts. And we call that when you've got a problem with that piece of the pie, we almost call that, I call that FOMO. Your dog's not anxious when you're gone. If you're gone, gone, your dog's like, sweet. But if you're there, they need to have full and unrestricted access to you or they get really antsy. So the way out of this is to start to teach them An incompatible behaviour like place training. Hey, I'm going to put you in your place. I'm going to go to another room. You can't follow me.

You know how that works for me in this house. Place training. It's my biggest issue with that dog.

It's, yeah, that's your like one sort of thing, innit?

Yeah.

So place training or even just going, hey, you're going outside for a bit or you're going in your crate for a bit or even tying them out. It's just going, hey, we can be on the same property, but we don't have to be together. And this is something we focus on heaps with Nelson when we got him. My wife works from home and when Nelson was at home, I'd say like, hey, it's going to be really tempting to let him spend all day with you under that desk. Yeah, but that's not going to be fun long term because it's going to be cute for a few weeks. A few months in, you'll start to get over it. A year in, you're going to be absolutely despising this dog if they're following you around 24/7.

Especially now you've got a baby on the way, like, and she's going to be obviously carrying that baby around. If Nelson was like right up in her grill all the time, you'd be tripping over him going, mate, what are you doing?

Get out of the way. And it's also I always think it's really unfair to set up a routine or a thing for a dog that's not sustainable. If you go, hey, if you're only going to do this for a week and then plan on ditching it, don't do it. Like, don't, don't invite your dog into this world and then, and then kind of—

I mean, some people listening to this may love that and may love the fact that their dog follows them everywhere and their dog wants to be next to them and all the rest of it. And if that's your jam, then that's your jam. But I think it can, like for my situation, it can be like, mate, and I do it all the time. Obviously I've got this new now fancy sort of Dog Pod studio. Yeah. And most of the time I'll say to Kira, mate, out. Like, you know, go spend some time outside, go lay in the sun, and I'll come out and she'll just be laying in the grass out in the sun. Exactly. Because, you know, and I do let her. I mean, she's got a mat in here, but it's a case of like, this is not your space, so to speak. I'll let you come and hang with me sometimes, but most of the time, mate, go outside, lay in the sun, whatever.

100%. That's about having a healthy and balanced relationship. And like, like Jack said, you might be the sort of person who's like, no, when I'm home, I just want to spend every minute with my dog. And that's cool. But I'm speaking to most of you who are like, no, like, I don't, I need my time away from my dog even when I'm home. Because that can be the thing is people go like, yeah, cool. I get out the house, but as a moment I'm home, it's all about my dog and sometimes wants some me time. So that's our second slice of the pie is together but separate. And there's those few ways of doing it. Place training, tie-outs, outside time, or crate training.

And it's the same, like, and I do it all the time, but it's just no different to having kids. You love your kids. You know, they spend time at school. You spend time at work. When you come home, yes, you spend some time with them, but at the same time, And you want to say, hey kids, go and play in your toilet room, go and play in your bedroom for a little while, go and have some, you know, some you time because Daddy, Mummy, we want to have some us time because we've been at work, you've been at school. It's not that you don't love them and it's not like you don't want to spend time with them, but it's just everyone needs that sort of separation.

No, exactly right. And I think it's— you deserve to give that to your dog because it gives your dog or your kid the best version of yourself. Sometimes you need that breather, that time away from them to miss each other and then come back. And rather than them getting this burned-out version of you who's irritating, is like, get away from me, get out from under my feet, it's like, hey, thanks for letting me go and shower, let's hang out again. And just, just things like that. I think it's really healthy. And that brings us to the last slice of the pie: total separation. This is another one I see. I see most people having 2 sides of the pie, but not all 3. And I see a lot of people who either have too much total separation— like, I'll get to some people's houses and I'll be honest, it's pretty crap. Like, the dog will spend probably, you know, complete total time outside, 24 hours a day outside. They barely come inside. And that's cool if that's your jam, that's cool. But you want to have still not just a big yard with heaps of toys or a second dog, is you want to be out there spending a good part of your day with them. Otherwise, what's the point?

I was going to say, well, I mean, if you've got a dog and all you do is you just chuck it in the yard and then that's it, it's like, what?

Why?

Why do you even got one?

Exactly. Get a goldfish if you don't want to interact with your pet. So in terms of total separation, you want to have a healthy amount of it. Again, if you never have any, and especially as a puppy, if you don't get your dog used to total separation, it's really tough to convince them to like it and be accepting of it later on. But also, if you do too much of this, your dog's not going to give a shit about you. I get these same people go, you know, when we do take him to the park once a month, he doesn't come back.

Once a month?

Why do you think? No, seriously, that's a common occurrence, unfortunately. Your 3 pieces of the pie is total separation, together but separate, and total togetherness. You need to balance all 3 throughout the day because like we said, if you only have 2 slices of that pie, you will have a problem depending on which slice is neglected or missing altogether.

Cool.

All right. There it is, everybody. If you've got any questions, as always, jump on the Facebook group, the Dog People Podcast, Instagram, all that jazz. And we'll catch you on the next one. 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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