I wish every reactive dog owner could hear THIS (Private Session)

So one of our clients has just recalled her reactive German Shepherd off a trigger mid-lunch in a public park, and a stranger was even watching and said, "I can't even believe that's the same dog. 6 weeks ago, that dog couldn't look at another dog without losing its mind." What you're about to watch is a real coaching call with real clients inside our TWI program. No scripts, no rehearsals, no cherry-pick success, just people in the middle of the process working through the exact problems you're dealing with right now. You're going to hear from owners that are dealing with reactive dogs, anxious dogs, the dogs who can't go for a walk without shutting down, dogs that have bitten other dogs, dogs that won't play because they're too wired to the moon. And you're going to hear from Kirkie, our head trainer, walk each one of them through exactly what to do next and how to solve their problems. Not theory, not it depends, actual specific do this then that guidance. And if you've ever wondered what it actually looks like inside one of our online programs for reactive dogs, this is it. Pay attention. We don't normally give this stuff away for free. However, we're doing this as a bit of a one-off. There's more free value in the next 45 minutes than most trainers will give you in a paid consultation.

It looks so professional.

I know, we stole his room for a bit. Anything to report?

Yes, I did the walking with the other little dog and my neighbor yesterday. Um, and so we got the little dog— could— oh, his threshold was about 15 feet. So once we got to there, his— he would perk up and he would start to growl and then get all, you know. And so Milo wouldn't react, and it was interesting, he'd start to growl and Milo kind of look at him and then just kind of turn around. So that's good, but we're just trying to close the distance.

Now. Okay, cool. Um, obviously there might be a ceiling on that if the other dog's just not got the tool set there in terms of coping with it. So you probably have to go off that dog rather than Milo.

That's what I was wondering, just kind of keep at his level of comfort.

Um, comfort, basically. Yeah, because I would probably back you and Milo to be able to get pretty much interacting, but the other dog just might not be capable of that at this point anyway.

Exactly.

Yeah, because he's, you know, he's, he's got a very different style of training and things like that.

Fine.

Yeah, just go off the ceiling of that dog rather than Milo, but Oh, machine, use them all the time. That's no problem.

Okay. And then, um, with Milo, I want to make sure, you know, like when I start out and everything like that and I give him freedom and he's kind of just, um, going around like this, how much of that, you know, do it? Yeah. I mean, like literally he, he's, you know, he's going like this, like how much do I correct that at that point? How much do I just kind of let him do his thing? Because right now he's, he's doing pretty good with the leash and then he'll get a smell and he's starting to be like, he's realizing that I'm giving him freedom when we have the other dog, he likes to push his boundaries. Um, so he's going like to the edge of his leash, so I'm just popping him and saying, hey, you know, we don't— you know, that type of thing.

Yeah, if he's not in a heel, then yeah, do that option and just keep the, the lead— just keep you off the end of the lead. That's fine.

Okay, that, that was— that's been my goal. Do I just use the slip leash to do that, or am I—

is—

am I using the e-collar to do that?

Probably usually lead. Lead. Okay.

Okay, because when he's off leash and I need him to heel, I just use the e-collar.

Yeah, you're not asking him to heel, are you? It could— if you tap it now, he might just heel, which would be almost overshadow what you're trying to do, if that makes sense.

Exactly. No, okay, that makes total sense. One other thing, he is— every now and then he does perfectly fine, and then he does like a whole, like, check on the dog, whole flip around, turn around, and then, and then he'll just pop right back where he's supposed to be.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. I mean, is it on any of the videos that you uploaded, that pattern?

Yes, I think so. I think, I think it does have him. One, that one, he's actually calmer and so he just flips around. But I think the one that I tagged Alicia in, I can go back and tag you on it as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be, that'd be probably the easiest thing.

Otherwise I'll just—

Okay, I'll tag you. I'll tag you in it and you can see him just kind of swirling and us swirling and all that sort of stuff.

Got you. Yeah, yeah, no problem. It would be my hunch to just let him do it, like, because he'll— the movement will almost be like a, a way of releasing tension, if that makes sense. So my instinct would be to let him do it. Okay, so long as it's not leading to something and it's not like a precursor to something else, I'd probably just let him.

Right, thank you. Then I'll just let him kind of do his thing. It doesn't seem to be adding or loading, it just seems like you said letting off stress, because for a while and then he's like, oh, never mind, I don't— it's just the same dog, so whatever, you know, that type of thing.

Yeah, the only thing you can get— I have seen a couple of Shepherds where it becomes almost like an OCD thing. Yeah, it's going that way, you might have to interrupt it. But if it's just like every now and again he's doing it just to let off a bit of steam, I wouldn't worry too much at the moment. I'll have a look you, um, okay, yeah, I'll tag you.

Okay, yeah, thank you.

No problem.

Margaret, update as from yesterday. So we tried Olive's e-collar, like they do in the yard, um, yesterday after the session, and then this morning she did a lot better in terms of responding. I didn't put her on the leash and she was in her backyard. Anyway, the fenced-in backyard. So I think we found her level. So I'll continue to like work on her, um, with that.

Cool.

I did have a question as to walks though. So I've been trying to take her on walks in the morning, um, mixing it up with either walking her or playing her and then doing the crate rest. Um, on her walk, she's definitely anxious. Like, I can just tell by her body language, her ears are kind of pinned back. She will stop, look behind her to kind of see what's coming, and there might be nothing. So I was using the, the Brain Trap this morning just to kind of see what the guidance is on that, and it sounds like I should more so refrain from walks and just try and work on the play around and near our house. Is that accurate?

Or should I—

it probably depends on the scale of it. Like, okay, obviously the only way to— I think we spoke a bit about this yesterday in terms of like resilience and like, um, almost exposure to stress. The only way to do it is to do it to a degree. Um, it just depends on how stressed she is. Like, so there'll be an element of like, okay, a bit of stress, like, and then recovery, stress and recovery, stress recovery is what builds the resilience. Obviously, if you plowed like into a real huge amount of stress, you could sensitize it to a thing. It doesn't sound like that's what the case is. It just sounds like she's just kind of like, yeah, okay, she's alert and like hyper-aroused, but it doesn't sound like she's having a full meltdown. So I'd probably err on the side of the former one. If she'll play outside, it'd be cool to do a couple of stints of play when you're outside because that's a natural anxiolytic, so that reduces anxiety. You can't be jovial and anxious at the same time. So if you will play outside, I potentially mix up a couple of little stints of 2-3 minutes of play within that. And what it might do is allow you to be out and exposed to those things for longer. And then you can use your terminal marker on your food as well, because again, it's like, okay, it brings arousal back, the dial onto like a favorable side, if that makes sense. So when we're talking about helping emotions, play is obviously massive because that whole thing of you can't be jovial in a playful state whilst in like a fearful state. So that pulls them out quite nicely. Not always necessarily logistically technically easy to play. But because we've spent a lot of time classically conditioning this marker and the food response to also elicit positive emotions, you can use that too. So it won't be as powerful as play, but it should be like, oh, I'm getting something good. My anticipation is, is now of a good thing rather than, oh, my anticipation is, is there something behind me? So that might allow you to pull her into that state as well. That makes sense?

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. And I guess in terms of play, like, if I'm taking— because I've heard you on the walk early in the morning, so there's less like triggers, less dogs, people. And they're like field, so what a good example of that, like maybe bringing her ball and just tossing it a couple times and then getting back on the walk with that.

Yeah, yeah, like I just play with it for a minute, cool, give her your, um, end of play cue, crack her back on with your walk, walk maybe 5-10 minutes more, do the same thing again, and just basically like keep pulling her and drawing her into the, um, jovial, happier feelings, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, that makes sense.

Okay.

I think those are the only questions. I did submit a request for a one-on-one because I just want to make sure we're on the right track with where she needs to be in terms of progress. Otherwise, I think that was all for me. Thank you.

No problem. Adriana?

Hi everyone.

We got our new equipment yesterday.

Awesome.

Yeah. So Mateo is doing really well. We are starting to notice really big changes, so we are really happy. With the prong in the e-collar, I'm just putting on it on him for him to get used to it for a couple of days. He's not having any trouble with it, but I want to give him a little bit of time.

Of course.

Sleep collar, I tried it yesterday to go for a walk.

Yeah.

And I wasn't very successful in avoiding people and bikes. And then something very interesting happened. Someone came in our direction and he reacted and launched on the collar and like he noticed something is different and he had to cough a little bit. So I was also afraid that he's going to hurt himself.

Yeah, you probably get less when you switch to your prong collar, but if you introduce a new piece of equipment, the first time you want to do it, it's got to be within play or within your redirect or focus exercise. I don't do like— ideally don't do that. Does that make sense? First time, people really mess up equipment. Um, and like, it's like old school balanced, um, trainer's version of doing it. Like, oh, okay, this tool will fix his reactivity, so I'll put this on and show the dog the trigger. It's not a way to do it. You need like a foundation of one, just so you get used to the tool. Two, he's then used to the tool creating a certain effect. He gets loads of history reinforcement of, oh, basically it just makes me turn around when you say my marker. And then Obviously at some point that person comes walking towards you, use your marker, he doesn't turn around, you just use the lead to say, hey, you have to turn around, and you pay. Because again, like we said, an emotional talk today. So if we're trying to change the emotions of the dog towards a thing, you've got to catch it like the second he sees it, multiple, multiple times, so that the— this thing coming into my presence announces this good thing that I like. And that's when you can shift in emotions, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you are right. It was late in the night, so I thought— yeah, and yeah, it was, uh, so I will do it differently, uh, from now on. But something happened, so that, that was the first encounter, and he was relaxed. He, he was able to come to me. He was not a big deal. So second trigger came, and he pulled, but not so hard.

Yep.

And then the third one, I could see he was thinking about it and he didn't, he didn't make the jump. He looked to me and I did the marker thing and it was great.

Perfect.

Okay. Well, what you got to do is make sure that we're creating that rather than hoping for it.

Yes.

Right.

Makes sense. So yeah, brilliant outcome and you've done exactly the right thing. He's gone, hey, there's a thing there. 'Yep, I'd rather you do that, thank you.' But obviously setting up in a controlled way would be just more optimal, that's all. But fine, no problem. So go and enjoy your equipment, introduce it in a good way, create some leverage, and by the sounds of it, you'll have a lot of success off the back of that. That sounds good.

Yeah, yeah, we are really happy. So I will have a lot of questions about the e-caller the next days, but for now—

Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, no problem.

Good. Thank you.

No worries. Paula?

Good morning. I just wanted— I won't take up much time. I know yesterday we were on the call. I just want to let you know my husband last night during our evening walk let her make her decisions based on your feedback yesterday and very successful. So Kennedy felt very stressed but pulled through and was resilient. So I thought I would share that. And so definitely this morning's walk, you know, we go to the park at 4 o'clock in the morning. I just attribute a lot of that to since we haven't been able to introduce introduced the e-collar yet. We plan on doing that Saturday after our one-on-one on Friday.

Yep.

And this is definitely a dog that couldn't even look at a dog without reacting. So, yep, um, just the little things that we've done has made tremendous progress. So I'm very hopeful going forward.

Wonderful. Excellent. Good.

Keep—

um, that sounds really good, really positive. Obviously, like, in terms of the— obviously you can start with e-collar over the weekend anyway, but like we spoke about yesterday, it doesn't necessarily have to be an e-collar thing. Like, if you can go out and do that, I would almost start thinking, right, okay, we've actually got we've made strides here. And no, yeah, there'll be little blips in it, but if you can go out and create the results that you need, like you say, maybe there'll be an element of stress, but getting through it, brilliant, perfect.

Yeah, and I think the more—

yeah, the morning walks have been amazing with her because, you know, the time that I go, we have a huge open field in the park. I put her on the Flexi after she's earned it, and we just— I just let her go crazy with smelling and going through the park, running through the park. And then we get back onto the prong and the slip lead combination, and we go back into— I go in and out of So hopefully that's okay. I go in and out of her being aroused and smelling back onto the prong and the slip and walking at a heel, and she just seems very happy and just very fulfilled. And yeah, so I think that's been like the secret.

Yeah, yeah, perfect. So like you want to almost like sine wave in and out of the stressful part, right? A bit like, um, I used to do cold baths, you know, when there was a bit of a cold bath phase and everyone was— they were carrying the fashion. Like I'd get in for a bit, it'd get a bit much, I'd jump out, I'd warm up, I'd get back in. So same kind of principle, like, okay, I'll get out, relax a little bit, get back in, and yeah, you'll make progress that way. That'll be nice.

Yeah, so, and I'm still hand feeding at the park, and so is my husband in the evening walk. So just that alone has made tremendous progress where she can actually see a dog and redirect.

Beautiful, excellent. Keep it going. Thank you. Really good. Maureen.

Hello.

Hello.

I like the new YouTube video yesterday that you guys put up.

I don't know which one it would be.

It was with you and Owain doing, I think it was Ollie.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, the German Shepherd. Yeah, that was a great video.

You've been along with me, big meathead.

Okay, um, we have had some good interactions and bad interactions.

Okay.

Um, we, we had an interaction a couple— like, it was last week sometime, uh, with a couple of dogs. It was good. Uh, I kept her on the long lead or long line, and we kind of just walked with this group of dogs.

Cool.

Um, and she did great, didn't have any issues.

Okay.

Um, I walked my other dog, and this was just funny because there was a, a lady that didn't speak English and she had two sausage dogs on flexis. She dropped one of the leads. Okay. And this little sausage dog starts charging my dog.

Yeah.

You know, because they think they're invincible.

Yeah.

Um, and the lady's just sitting there laughing, and I'm like Come get your dog. My dog's going to eat your dog. But it was fine. It was fine. It was just funny. We've done a lot of, um, off-lead time at the lake where there's nobody. So she's getting plenty of fulfillment. We're just catching dogs when we can and hopefully making those interactions positive. She's done less barking at home.

Okay.

Like people are walking by, she does feist. Fence fight with the small dog next door when she is irritated that someone's walking by.

Okay, so she almost redirects her arousal on the—

right, but it doesn't last very long.

It's up to you whether you try and fix it or not, but if you do, you'd have to be really consistent with it for a while. I had to interject in a boot camp we've got here today because there's a few questions about that type of thing. They thought they couldn't be consistent with it. You can't, then you can't try and get rid of it. Because the problem is if you inconsistently do it, the dog ends up playing like a game of like, oh, can I get away with it? And then they get the good job of getting away with it, and you're actually probably going to make the problem worse. So like, you've got to make a decision, like a hard and fast decision, whether, okay, is it okay, can I get away with it, or is it, nah, this has to stop?

No, I— yeah, I want it to stop.

That's probably the hard part if it doesn't happen very often, because you really have to be even more on it when it does happen. So just if you're going to do it and you start down the road of it, just be super consistent So it's a habit to not do it.

Okay, I'm done.

Cool.

Thank you.

Karen?

Ari's been doing great. He is now— I'd had a little trouble getting to a clear distinction between— we're doing the loose lead walking between the sort of heel and the break. And so he was sort of sniffing persistently during the heel. Well, so Alex, recommended putting him on, stopping before a break and putting him on a flexi lead and letting him do his thing and then put him back on the other. And that's worked beautifully.

Nice.

He's, I don't, I mean, literally the lead is loose on the heel part and he stays right with me. He, for the first time this week, he's been walking past other dogs on the other side of the road. Reacting to it.

Very nice.

Great.

Yeah. I mean, he'll notice them. The only dog he's actually reacted to are, there's a pair of black, beautiful black labs who he visits with. And so when he sees them, he gets excited. But we have an agreement, the, their owner, if I say it's a training day, he just walks on by. And so he doesn't stick on them.

Yeah.

He doesn't stick on them once they go by. So that's all great. I think we've completed through phase 2 of the e-collar. His recall is so good that it was really difficult to tell if he was even responding to the e-collar. Yeah. I think that we're ready to move to phase 3. Yeah, slowly. The really good news is that even without the e-collar, there's a dog, there's a pasture right behind our house and it's just a wire fence. And there's a dog there that he likes to run the fence with. Not in an aggressive way. They have—

Oh, yeah.

So he was doing that and I was quite far from him and not visible. I was around some bushes and I gave him the whistle and he came. He just broke off with that dog, which would never have happened before. So that was— I'm encouraged. Does it happen? Like we had a couple of times when he didn't respond to the whistle, but then when I gave him a pull on the leash, he did.

Yeah. Okay.

Cool.

Yeah.

So it's pretty good. I'm pretty— I'm very positive about that. The only thing I have trouble with honestly is play.

Okay.

He plays, but he doesn't like to play for very long.

Okay.

Unless we're playing I chase you. Then he'll play forever. But I don't want— I'm not doing that anymore when I'm also old and do not wish to do that forever.

When you say he won't play for long, like roughly how long do you think he plays for?

2 or 3 minutes. And then what happens and what was happening is I think I've fixed it. In the beginning, I was trying to do the out, you know, and he got that really quickly. But then he also stopped playing. Okay. But I think I've fixed that when I found a— got him a new toy that was much more exciting. That's the other thing is he gets bored with toys very quickly. So I gave him a new toy, so now he will re-engage, but it— he sort of— the energy kind of of re-engagement will sort of fade off pretty quickly.

Okay, so try and like anticipate the point before that because you're never going to know when it drifts off. But like when we're trying to use play as a tool, if you can get to like 5 minutes of play with a good start and finish cue, you've got a decent basis for, for using it as a as a tool when you've got a bit of reactivity. So you're not a million miles away there.

That's pretty good. I just have to get it to be a little more consistent. And he does have— he knows I have a good start, and he— I always make sure that I give the finish command when he's still excited about the play, or I try to. Sometimes he just goes, yeah, no, I'm done.

Yeah, okay, perfect.

Otherwise, I'm pretty jazzed about the progress.

Yeah, and it sounds like you, you're pretty much ready for that proofing phase of the e-collar, so I'd look at that straight away. Yeah, beautiful, wonderful, wonderful. Dave, or is it Sophie on Dave?

Yeah, it's me. Yeah, you're right.

Yeah, good, thanks. How are you?

Yeah, good, thank you. Um, so we went to see Owen on Sunday.

Yep.

Um, which was really good. I mean, Caesar wasn't the dog that pulled me over. He did react and things, but he didn't react the same as when he's with us.

Yeah, okay.

Um, but he was still really helpful, um, and he's given us some homework that we're working on, and he said once we've done that bit of homework, then he's going to help me build my confidence to go back out with him again. So yeah, no questions really, just yeah, it was just really good. So I just, yeah, I've done some listening today.

Obviously I caught up with him afterwards and he was like, you don't really need more input, just need to polish the stuff that you were doing. So if he's giving you the homework, just crack on with that.

And I think, yeah, yeah, we're back and rewatching all the videos and kind of like, oh yeah, we've forgotten that little bit of that and that bit of that and just kind of, yeah, working again.

Cool.

And Dave's been taking him out each morning and letting him off, like, as soon as he's got across the road into the field, he's letting him off. And he said that he just stays by his side now.

Yeah, cool.

So, um, that's working as well, quite well. So yeah, um, and I think we'd kind of— when we were— the place that we met up was a really nice place, and we've kind of been avoiding places like that. Um, but he's like, no, these are the places you need to come to. So we're going to try and every weekend get him out to different places where there are lots of dogs.

And I think, like, obviously when you've got a bit not necessarily PTSD, but you've had, you know, like things have happened, it's sometimes easier to shy away from doing that sort of stuff. But then like realistically, probably what he needs and what's going to help him. And then like these days I don't go to busy parks, but I could. I don't because I'm antisocial if nothing else. I want to be in the middle of nowhere, you know, see no dogs and no people. But at one time I did go there. I've obviously got Flea just before Christmas. I'm going to places like that so he can do it, just so it helps his general like like, not even training, just his life experience.

Yes.

Yeah.

So yeah, crack on with that. Do the homework that Owen's giving you. He's a good trainer, is Owen, so you'll be fine. You'll be fine.

Yeah, that's good. Thank you very much.

No problem. Krista?

So we started Phase 3 e-collar on Friday, last Friday, um, and I went out— I think it was Friday, or maybe I was doing Phase 2 at that I think I was still doing Phase 2, and, um, you, or maybe it was Owen, I don't even remember now, um, was saying to work on it just this next 2 days and then do, um, some line recalls, and that went great. Uh, we walked to the neighborhood park, which we haven't been to in a while because, you know, we've been trying to— yeah, close to home, you know, not running through a lot of random things, and we walked on slip lead there, and then when we got there, I switched over to e-collar and we walked all around there. It was like midday, so not tons of people, so that was great.

People—

he did not focus in on any dog. She was very responsive to me. She would look at a dog, come back to me. I mean, she was just on it. And, um, I ran into a friend actually. I was trying to take video because I just kept— she kept ended up being too good. I was like, I kept taking these videos and I was trying to use this woman walking by with her Rottweiler. This woman probably thought I was crazy. I couldn't get any kind of real reaction from my dog. So just seeing the dog come back to me, recall was great. So it was, I was about to leave and I saw one more dog and I, and I was like, okay, we'll try to take a video here. And turned out it was one of my friends who I had not seen in the park. Park, and he hadn't met my dog yet, and he was like super excited to meet her. But I was like, oh, we're training. And, uh, so we stayed on the field and they walked by, and I was just chatting with him, and she was great. And so I said, well, hey, this is going so well, do you mind if we just like parallel walk with you like to the end of the park?

Yep.

And it was, it was great, it was perfect. And he was so impressed. He was like, I can't even believe this dog. You told me you were working through all this stuff, but I am so impressed. And I was like, well, I know who to call if you want to, you know, start training more. Um, but anyway, uh, like, so impressed. And it was a bigger dog, it's a Shepherd Husky mix, and they just walked, you know, and she was a freaking angel. So that was great. And so the next day was when we started phase 3 to, uh, proof. So we did a walk that day and it went really well, and Brought her home and we rested. And I had an event that evening. It was my husband's birthday and we went out to his parents' house, which they have a lot of land, so we always take our dog. But there was going to be a lot of people and potentially other dogs. So I was super anxious to take her and I had messaged the other dog owners like, are you going to be there? I'm really focused on this like training.

I—

if you're going to be there, please help watch the dog's interactions. Keep your dog like, I don't want her to like bite your dog because she has before.

She—

this one dog she's pretty finicky with. Um, and they were like, oh yeah, we promise. Of course they didn't. But, um, it actually turned out really well. Um, and I took her and I did— I used it as an opportunity to proof more on phase 3. Um, and I barely even had to. She was just so locked in and Anytime I thought she was getting a little too aroused, I'd just recall her. And we were cooking, so she was just like focused in on the hamburgers, and all the dogs were, but she was the best one there. And so that was incredible. So we've just been doing that since this weekend. We went on a long walk on Sunday with the long line to a different park. So I'll walk to a certain area on the, the, um, slip lead, trying to keep her in heel, and then I'll say, okay, break. And then we're in a long— on the long line, put the e-collar on and just kind of let her do her thing and recall her. And that went really great. There was only like one or two times it was like something weird in the park, some lady throwing out peanuts or something, I don't know, something weird where she kind of charged off and I had to boost her and it worked. So I feel like it's really, um, proofing the recall.

Yeah, cool. Okay.

And, um, so on the way back, we were actually coming around the corner and she was up ahead of us and the dog was right there, and I called her back and she turned on a dime. And those ladies were like, whoa, that was so impressive. Um, I used her nag though, just to be sure. Um, immediately back. So I feel like that's been going really well.

It sounds good. Okay, just on that, I would just like— obviously when you get to the proofing phase, just keep an eye on how many times you have to use your Boost. Okay, using it like every walk, it probably wants to go north a little bit because you really— like, me, I don't know, like 1 in 7 walks or something might be like a little bit normal, but okay, you wouldn't really expect to be using your Boost like regularly. It might be that you don't, obviously you only just started using it, so it might be that you don't have to touch it at all. Yeah, but just keep an eye on keep a tally of how many times you're having to use it for walk, maybe.

Yeah, we've been— I haven't used it much at all. Like, we went, we went on a longer walk yesterday on kind of a newer route, and I didn't, I didn't have to use it. Um, the only times I've really had to is when it's been something like a cat or, uh, something like prey, like, that she's really bolted for.

Yeah.

Um, so anyway, I'm not sure where to go next. Um, we're still having to keep her away from the fence because she fence fence fights as well. Yep, maybe Maureen was talking about that, um, or Pamela. Um, but yeah, she— I'm trying to keep her away from that. I bought a block for the fence, like this cover.

Okay.

Um, but that dog comes out and barks at us every time we're out there. Um, she, she hates that dog now.

So it's a difficult one when the other dog's, um, either reciprocating or even starting it.

Yeah, the dog barks Immediately.

Yeah, because really, like, you'd be like, you'd say, okay, well, there's a punishment thing, but it's like punishment is only for crimes, right? Okay, if the other dog's coming out and going crazy at her, she does it back, it's like, well, yeah, I mean, you could do it and you could say it. I just, I'd feel a bit funky about it if the other dog's starting it, but it's gonna be life-changing for you if she doesn't do it, then like, okay, cool, let's do that.

Yeah, I'm I'm still hesitant about how to proceed with that because I don't want to screw it up. I've really just been managing it so far, but we do spend a lot of time outside and this dog just pops off immediately. It's a dude. She kind of hates him. And this dog just barks immediately. But on the other side, our neighbor had her— his sister and she had two dogs and every time they were out, one of them would bark some, but I would recall her and just kind of keep her focused on me. So that was, that was good.

It's just, yeah, so you've got— this is a little bit like, um, the barking at the door when the mailman comes scenario. Like, it might be that it's like, okay, well, I, I get it, I understand it, but if it was that situation, you'd be like, okay, well, I'm going to use my end of play. If you don't listen to my end of play, there'll be a consequence for not listening to that. The consequence isn't necessarily directly for you doing the thing in the fence, because I get it, but hey, I've said enough, like, come one. Yeah, so like you could look at it that way. Um, you just want to make sure that that end of play queue is really, really squeaky before you start issuing consequences. And ideally have a little consequence out of the context of that enough. So it would be like, okay, you say you're end of play queue, you leave the toy on the floor, you go to walk away, she tries to get the toy or continue the game, hey, that's bad. Just so she's like, oh, okay, if I don't listen to enough, there's the potential of consequence. So that when you use it in that context, she's already primed for the potential of consequence if I don't listen to her enough.

Okay, so you're then taking your cue for end of play and applying it to other scenarios?

Yeah, because it's essentially like, like, this is an activity you can do but not right now, like it's over for the minute. Okay, yes. Well, then you can have, like, so long as the dog's really, like, sure what that means, you can then have consequence for not compliance of Okay.

Okay. So I feel like I need to get more solid on the end of play cue because she does sort of drift away from play sometimes. And I try to reengage her and then tell her the game's off. But, uh, if we're outside, she can get distracted. Um, so I think for me, I guess I need to solidify that and then also continue to work on my punishment marker. Cause I've had a hard time with that. I set her up this weekend and I set my camera up. Like 4 different scenarios in the kitchen. I was making a cake, macaroni and cheese, and there was cheese wrappers hanging off the countertop. And as soon as she knew I was around, she was just looking for me. I just don't know, she would not take the bait for like 10 minutes. So, uh, I don't know, she knew, she knew.

Yeah, not weird, smart.

I've had a hard time like getting that locked in.

So yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

Persist with it a little, and then if you can't really find any situations, then we'll, we'll discuss.

Okay.

So maybe should I maybe set up a one-on-one soon? It like— I'm kind of at the point where— okay, yeah, okay, that would be great. Uh, yeah, I feel, I feel pretty good about like walks now, um, but there's a few sticking points.

So yeah, well, yeah, yeah, so maybe one-on-one would be a good idea.

Yeah, okay, great.

All right, thanks.

Uh, Rob? Okay, uh, quick one. So, um, had to recharge her terminal marker the other day. I think I kind of burned it out a little bit. So anyway, I recharged that, no problem. Um, what I have noticed at the dog park is that she's pretty submissive to other, like, assertive dogs. So if she does go up to a dog or a dog comes up to her and they, you know, and they start to play and whatever, and then the other dog starts to get a little bit pushy, um, usually she will kind of drop her tail end down a little bit. Sometimes she'll even just lay down on the ground, and then she starts to kind of look around, you know, like her ears are up. And it's not like she's looking for me or whatever, she knows where I am, but you know, you can tell she's a little bit uncomfortable. So usually I just walk over, you know, I'll move the other dog away, we walk off, she follows me, all good. Um, any problem you can see with that? Like, I, I don't see— the other dogs aren't being nasty or anything particularly.

She just— okay, okay, just sounds like she's just like, oh, I've got a limit of of where I want to go. And yeah, as long as when she's stopping, the other dog's not then pestering the crap out of her, then no problem. Yeah, like in a child context, like if you had a 13-year-old playing soccer with a 5-year-old, yeah, they'd be way bigger, way stronger. At some point they might get a bit carried away and you might have to go over and say, hey, come on, like, calm yourself. Yeah, it's kind of the same context, right? So it's just like, okay, you would never leave them unsupervised and just referee it. And she seems uncomfortable and the other dog doesn't relent, then all right, well, I'm gonna relent you.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, I don't put up with that.

Yeah, perfect. All right, cool, wonderful.

Yeah, so I think that's it. I think she's learning, I think I'm learning, and everybody's learning, everybody's happy.

So yeah, beautiful. Hello, hello.

Um, we just had, um, started day 1 of week 2, I uploaded a couple of videos on the feed.

If you could review it, that'd be great.

We are going to have our equipment bundles delivered today. Yeah, I think you answered my question about when, like how to introduce those collars and where to use it first. So we're going to introduce them with like redirection exercise and play first.

That's right. Yeah.

Okay, and then when can I start doing like punishment protocols? Because I was told to wait until—

so basically, the way I always try and describe it is the tool is a catalyst in the process. The punishment process you can do without a tool. Okay, the tool just adds a little bit of icing and makes the process easier. It also makes the interruption part much easier. So when you watch it, like like you'll understand what I mean by you've got to interrupt the behavior entirely so the dog can't progress forward trying to do the thing they're trying to do, and then comes the punishment event. The tool makes the interruption part easier. Okay, not really the thing that is punishing the dog. The thing that's punishing the dog is your depiction of disappointment. So just have that in mind when you do it. But yeah, for sure, like I would get, I don't know, 2, 3, 4 sessions in of like the redirect and a little bit of play with your tools on, just so the dog's got the idea of the sensation like, if you went straight into punishment with a really fresh tool, particularly if a dog's not used to any kind of real pressure, you'd probably just overdo it and make the dog really flat, and it would be— it wouldn't be— also, like, get them used to the sensation. That might only be like 3 or 4 sessions, cool. And then while you're doing that, by all means, get yourself well-versed in the punishment kind of protocol so that as soon as you think the dog's got an idea of the tool sensation, cool, we can go and do it. One thing, um, that crops up a little bit is that because it's like called punishment rehearsals, people tend to like put the stuff on the dog and then do the thing. If you're gonna do it, you need the equipment on like well in advance of you practicing the rehearsal. Otherwise, you putting the equipment on will be a cue that you're about to do the rehearsal. Oh, I get this, I'm not doing anything, I know what's about to happen. So you'll get a dog that won't experiment with different stuff, maybe won't counter-surf if they normally do, because they're like, I've I've got this gear on, I know this means that I'm doing some work. So you might have to have that on a little bit just at random or well in advance of your rehearsals, if that makes sense.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Um, and I had a question about Play as well because she, she used to love like chewing on the toys, not necessarily like tugging as much.

You mean like almost practicing consumption rather than like actively tugging with you?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Like, so before we started all this, she used to just like chew on toys, like, for hours, not tugging as much. So the max, like, she plays would be like 3 minutes-ish. Oh, that's pretty good.

Oh, okay. It's reasonable. Like, if you're genuinely playing like hard, 3 minutes is a long time.

Like, if you—

I don't know if you've done— you may well not have done anything like this, but if you do like jiu-jitsu or something like that and you roll for 2-3 minutes, you've—

oh, that's true.

Yeah, it's the same thing with the dog, like it's just practically falling, like it's tiring. Um, so like if we're looking— if you can get to 5 minutes of decent play, like you can use your play for most things that we might use it, um, in a reactivity program for then.

If she—

so basically like dogs favor different parts of the predation cycle, which is where play comes from, right? So if kind of favoring the consumption part of play, you just make sure that she knows that when she gets the toy, that's not the finish of the game where you're going away and chewing it. So you'd want a long line on her, and then you can give her a victory lap so she can parade it. Like, you can hold it, you can have a trot around, you can be really proud of what you've just done. You just beat me, well done, great. And then you gradually tease it back in and then reinstate the game. So I've just got to teach her slowly over time that this, this section of play doesn't finish with you consuming the thing.

Okay, but you didn't like bring her toys back ever, so she would just like chew on it and just—

yeah, that's where the long line comes in, and you just kind of give her the opportunity for a victory lap if she beats you. Brilliant, there you go, there's your little trot. You can puff your chest out and trot around and feel real good, and then as you're doing that, you can just like gradually tease it back towards hold the toy, get back into the play.

Okay, that sounds good. Um, and then should we start like playing in other locations as well?

If you will, yeah. Okay, if she plays pretty hard for 3 minutes, then for sure you can play in other places. If it's a little bit like, yeah, for 3 minutes, I would make it really, really good initially, then move elsewhere. So you have like windows of opportunity, right? So like hunger, thirst, rest and play are all under homeostatic control, so they can be satiated. So if you're thirsty and you drink, you're not thirsty anymore. You're hungry and you eat, you're not hungry anymore. So sometimes we have to turn the screw on the leveraging windows in terms of like, well, if we've got a dog that's not particularly food motivated, we have to say, hey, okay, well, your only opportunity is now to eat in this window. And that's why we encourage like gradually making the environment more difficult rather than like, okay, we've got these skills that make it hard because the dog probably wouldn't. We go, oh, they're not eating. We go back there again, not eating again. So we have to kind of peel it back. But then all the dog learns is that, oh, you'll make it easier for me. Like, nailing it at these gradually increasingly incremental, um, difficult areas, and then you'll create momentum. Same thing with play. Play can be satiated. So like, a lot of people who think their dogs won't play, either the dog's getting his kicks out of being reactive or dogs getting its kicks out playing with other dogs, or the dogs getting kicked out, kicks out, all these kind of different stuff that they might find entertaining, and we're missing out on that window. So sometimes when we take those options away, we open up more opportunity where we might be an option. So the same thing could happen if you've got a dog that's a little indifferent with play. It may be that if you try to play somewhere else and you still play at home, that she says, well, no, because I'll do my play at home, and out here are going to bother all this stuff.

I see.

You may have to pull the rug at play at home and say, okay, your only opportunity to play is now here, but you wouldn't make that too difficult. Does that make sense?

Yeah, because like she plays really well in backyards, but in front yards, um, like she gets really reactive when, when a dog like, you know, walks by.

Yeah, person walks by and then play stops there, you know.

Yeah, for sure. So the yard's a difficult one because obviously you bring a bit of territorial stuff into mix. So quite often, like, the front yard is like the epicenter of reactivity, right? Okay, I'm a little bit unsure about dogs anyway, and this one's in my bloody house, then it makes everything more difficult. Sometimes it's easier to do it somewhere further away from home and then gradually work your way back to the epicenter.

Oh, I see, I see. Okay, one would be backyard and two would be front yard, so we were like kind of progressing.

Yeah, for sure. And that, that Obviously, there's— there are the location list as an example, but it depends on the dog a little bit. If you've got a dog that's like got a heightened territorial response, it might well be that like, oh, okay, actually we need to skip a few and then come back to those.

I see, I see.

Okay, makes sense.

And then, yeah, and then should we try like place and other locations too?

Yeah, same thing, like you just gradually go through the— the—

okay, so we are supposed to like do all those trainings in other locations Not just—

okay, yeah, like the redirect is the big player, right? Because that does a lot of different things. It differentially reinforces a job that instead of reacting to something, and it also helps you with counter conditioning because hopefully we're getting our timing right. And when our dog sees a trigger, we're using a marker. So rather than our dog seeing the trigger and thinking, oh, something terrible could happen, the dog sees it again and goes, oh, I might get the thing. So like, it, it does a few different things all under one kind of umbrella. So that's kind of the bigger player. Once you've got a dog that's like fairly comfortable out and about, then yeah, cool, layer in some place in there as well, no problem.

Okay, I see. Yeah, we did have another like reaction when, you know, when a person walked by and she started barking, but then she responded to the terminal marker.

Yep.

And then she stopped barking like right away.

I mean, it doesn't happen always, but Yeah, so with that, you want to, um, the danger of that is that you actually apparently increase the chance of her barking at people because you said, yeah, here's some money. You wouldn't have changed her emotional status, so don't worry about that too much. But ideally, the second she puts eyes on that person, you terminal mark then. One, it's probably more likely to work, and two, it's like, oh, the presence of the person meant I got I got the good thing rather than me barking got me the good thing. Does that make sense? You're not gonna like make her feel differently about the people by accidentally marking at the wrong point, but what you might do is create the propensity to bark being a little higher. When I was barking that you gave me that thing, that means I'm doing the right things.

I see. Okay, so this is one of the—

this is one of the other reasons why we are advocates of sometimes using like punishment to stop stuff, right? Because that's gonna happen at point and she's gonna start barking. We don't want her to think that works and makes the person go away. Contraint gives us a way of stopping that, so we then got a window to say, hey, look, you didn't need to, and look what you get when you do see a person. It's great.

Yeah, that makes sense. So I should like wait until like she doesn't bark? I mean, yeah, I'll—

yeah, so you either catch it as soon as she turns and goes, oh, person, you forget whatever it is that you're doing. She should snap her head around, you pay the food. If she doesn't, you're going to use your leads in the background.

Job.

Or at some point when you've got a well-conditioned punishment marker, if you miss the jump and she does bark, it's like, hey, don't do that. Oh yeah, okay. And then you show the next person and she doesn't, and you go, hey, here's some money. And she starts putting two and two together, like, oh, when I do this, this happens. When I do that, this happens. I'd rather have this option.

Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, thank you.

Pleasure. All right, brilliant. I shall let you all go. Go forth and attack training. See you all soon.

So that's what it looks like. Uh, that's a real call, real dogs with actual problems, some very big problems. Every single person on that call come to us with a dog they were struggling with a matter of weeks, sometimes months ago, and they all thought their dog was a lost cause. Some of them had already spent thousands on other trainers who just threw obedience at the problem, or of course just threw food on the floor. Now they're recalling their dogs away from triggers in public spaces. They're walking past other dogs without a meltdown. And more importantly, everyone's getting to enjoy their dogs again. And the reason it's actually worked is because they're not doing it alone. Our training programs are like a GPS system. Instead of following a roadmap to get to your destination, taking a wrong turn here, a wrong turn there, getting caught in traffic, getting frustrated, and maybe even not getting to your destination at all. How about we install the— what are they called? TomToms. They used to be called TomToms, right? GPS. Exactly what to do. Maybe more like the Waze app. They're gonna tell you where traffic is, potholes are, exactly how to get there in the most time-efficient manner as possible. So you're not gonna waste another second of your dog's life. Anyway, if you wanna apply for one of our programs, hit the link in the description and we'll see you there. If you don't feel like you're ready yet and you wanna watch more content, you can click this video right here.