Structure – The Key to a Balanced 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.

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How now, brown cow?

That's definitely going at the start of this episode.

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 they 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, a podcast giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly!

My name is Jack Lawrence, uh, not an expert at all in dog training, just enjoy it. But luckily, every week joined by this expert, uh, Max O'Neill from Down Under Dog Trainers on the Gold Coast.

Max, we've been covering off on the 5 sort of essential things. What do we call them? The 5

musts or— 5 things you should be doing with your puppy when you first get them. That's why I've got a

professional in. So, we're going to talk about the structure side of things now.

It's something you get told to do a lot. It's something you read a lot about. But what I often get people or see the information I see is a lot of people saying, here's why you want to do it, but not a lot of the what it actually is and certainly not a lot of How to actually implement it. So, I get a lot of clients that may go, look, we know we need to be structured. We're trying to be, but we don't actually know how to do it or what that actually looks like. So, today we're going to address both of those for you. So, what is structure? Structure is for your dog providing some level of order, rhythm, repetition, and predictability to their days and their weeks. Okay. And we're going to today discern the difference between structure and routine. As we were just having a bit of a chat off air, that routine can sometimes be problematic. So, we'll chat a little bit about that. But in a nutshell, structure is providing that order, rhythm, repetition, and predictability. So, what that means is if you've been listening to the previous episodes, we talked about outlets, we talked about their time for sleep, we talked about socialisation and things like that. It's looking at, okay, if I've got a 24-hour period and I've got a 7-day week, how can I kind of structure and order my day and my week so that it kind of makes sense for me and makes sense for my dog? So, for example, let's look at roughly what my dog's structure is. We get up at 6 o'clock every morning and my wife and I will go to the gym. But for our dog, what his day looks like is before we go to the gym, we get up, we start his day with toileting, and then he goes back to sleep while we go out. I don't know what he gets up to, but his first part of the day is downtime. We've deliberately structured our day like that because I never wanted to start our day with something intense and him expecting a walk because I didn't want him bursting out of bed going, let's go, let's go, let's go. Nothing wrong with that, but for me, that wasn't how I wanted to structure my day. Once we're home, then his day really begins. Moments we're home, we'll kind of make our brekkie, do our thing, and then we go, okay, now it's your time. Now we'll put your first activity for the day. Let's go and do some training for your breakfast. And that's what his morning always starts with. After he's done his training for his breakfast and he's eaten, he's toileted, he's done everything like that, then he kind of generally wants to have a nap for a couple of hours because he's generally Pretty gassed after that. So the next part of his day we structure in, or we put in there, is a couple of hours of downtime while I go to work and my wife works from home. The middle of the day is he gets another toilet trip. That's when we generally just go, like, I come home for lunch, my wife's on lunch, and that's when he generally gets lots of cuddles and affection. And it's that part of the day we give him that. The rest of the afternoon he tends to sleep, and then in the evening he's either doing— he does more training with me for food. He'll also then do training for his PSA and protection staff, or he'll come to a class with me. So, his evening's always got something on that stimulates him as well. And then nighttime's always downtime. Then he goes to sleep and we rinse and repeat. And that's pretty much what a day in the life looks like. So, it doesn't have to be this set-in-stone routine, but it's this structure, order, and predictability. If you could speak to Nelson and have a conversation with him and say, hey, good morning, what does your day look like today? He'd roughly just be able to describe to you, and he should be able to describe to you what Isis did then. And that's what all our dogs should have the ability and opportunity to do, is to have that structure. Where we have problems is if we were to take the average dog and go, hey, what's on the agenda for you today? And they go, I don't know. That's where we have problems. When a dog doesn't have that predictability, it means they can't predict whether or not they're going to have an outlet. It means they maybe can't predict the order of the day. So, they don't know where to put their energy and their outlets and things like that. So, all of a sudden, you get quite a dog who's a bit erratic in their behaviour because there's not that structure to provide them with outlets. But also, if we don't have predictability in our routine and structure, we also all of a sudden have a very unpredictable dog. I can predict Nelson's energy patterns and everything like that. And I know when he's going to be tired. I know when he needs a nap because I've got that structure. I know that I'm going to burn him out in the morning with training. rest of the day he's going to be pretty chill. I know that I'm going to burn him out again in the afternoon, so the rest of the evening and night he's going to be pretty chill. And because I've got predictability in my structure for him, I've got predictability in my dog's behaviour. And there's an absolute direct correlation in that when I see with my clients' dogs is they've got— a lot of people say to me, oh, I just hate how unpredictable he is. But that's because quite often their days and their weeks are unpredictable.

You know, with Kira, obviously she gets her outlet most days. It's pretty Pretty much the same. I'm like you, we get up at the first thing in the morning. I come down and I work and she just comes down with me and she'll lie with me while I do some work. The kids get up, have breakfast, and then I take my son to daycare and then I put her— she jumps in the back of the car. And then once he's dropped off, we then go and do our thing at the spot that we like to go and train and do bits and pieces like that. But that's not always the case, obviously, because our lives are forever changing and being different. So sometimes I might get up in the morning and I'll have an interview to do with someone and that may drag out past when we normally go out. And then it gets to the point where it's too hot in the day to then take her out. I'm like, okay, we're gonna have to push this back to the afternoon. My structure, I suppose, does chop and change. I mean, she knows every day she's going to go out and do something. She knows she's obviously going to get fed. I do a lot of scatter feeding with her because

I find that really helps with her mental battery to drain that.

100%.

So, I have all these things that we definitely do in the day, but I don't have Okay, so we wake up and definitely this morning after we drop Teddy at daycare, we're going to go and do training. So sometimes it changes.

And honestly, for most dogs, that's what I recommend is it doesn't have to be this set in stone routine. It can just be, hey, I promise you every day you're going to get this outlet. You're going to get fed. You're going to get downtime. You're going to get some enrichment. In terms of the order and the time that happens, that can vary.

Yeah.

And getting your dog used to that is— there's an old saying, you know, dogs love routine. And that's definitely true. But I think what we're understanding more and more is quite often dogs can love routine a little bit too much, which means they adopt it very quickly. But when it's broken, they can get a little bit Sheldon, Big Bang Theory about it and be like, hey, like, why is this not where it should be? It's 4 o'clock. We haven't started the walk. Oh my God, the world's ending. And our dogs, some dogs, I mean, herding breeds in particular can get a little bit hung up on that. So, that's why, same as you, I have a structure and a loose routine. around my day, but it's not set in stone. Like, when I get home from the gym, sometimes I'll get straight into Nelson's training. Sometimes it might not happen until 8, 8:30. In terms of Nelson's evening, sometimes like it's a 3 o'clock class, sometimes it's a 7 o'clock class. So it's not always this like, hey, like the day needs to run to the minute. And, um, I, I find also I like to tell people that because I see some people who are almost a bit of a slave or a hostage to their dog's routine. They go like, I Sorry, I need to be home at this time because my dog's going to go mental if I haven't started their walk by then. And that's when it can get pretty exhausting on a dog. So we always say make your dog's life fit around you. So provide them with a structure, but it really doesn't need to be a set-in-stone routine. And in terms of why you want to do that, again, we're going to compare dogs to kids a lot on this podcast. And I know that's an unpopular opinion. You know, people say don't humanise or anthropomorphise— I always struggle with that word— your dog.

I don't even know what it means.

Just to humanise it essentially. Often it's such a fair comparison in a lot of ways. And in the same way that if you imagine a kid with zero structure and they can, you know, they can really struggle, is our dogs are no different. Is kids might not want a bedtime, they might not want to go to school, they might not want to eat lunch when they don't feel like it, etc. But we know these things are good for them, you know, regular meal times, regular sleep times, doing things that, you know, tire them out physically, mentally, and times when they learn, times when they do their homework, although it's unpopular. Again, we're the human, we're the adult, we decide what's best. And same for your dog is in the same way that a kid could struggle if they just have absolutely zero structure and they decide what they do all day, every day, that's not going to end too well. It's also the same for our dog. If we just provide zero structure and just let them do whatever they want, all of a sudden living with a different species starts to feel really tricky because we're like, oh my God, this dog wants to be awake all night and sleep during the day. And that's a total opposite to me. When I want to do downtime, they want to do crazy stuff. I want to sit on the couch, they want to eat the couch. That's why you've got to have that structure.

I feel like every time we come up with issues in this podcast or things that could go wrong, you always say, yeah, that's typical with herding brains. And it's just a little part of me dies inside. It just goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel all of this.

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Hello, legends. Just a quick reminder before we jump back into the episode that we have got a Facebook group that is open to you right now. Just search the Dog People Podcast on Facebook. Join us for the discussion around dogs, everything to do with dogs and dog training. We want to be your source of help, because we know this world of dog training can be a minefield to work your way through. So join us right now. Let's get back into the episode. You know, obviously we've said these are the top 5 things that we're doing. And I feel like all of these, you could say, oh, which is probably the best to focus on? But I think all 5 of them need to be focused on on a daily basis. And that again, I think where people don't understand, especially if you're thinking about getting a dog, you've got to think about these things. We don't, we're not here to try and put people off and say, oh God, it's hard work having a dog, but it is hard work having a dog. Our shelters are overflowing at the moment full of dogs. And there's a reason behind that, because people don't really take into consideration all the things we're talking about and realise having a dog is hard work.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we'll talk about getting the right breed for yourself in another episode. But again, I think that's why it's important to look at what dog you're going to get before you get the dog so that you're not buying— I would never advise anyone to get a working breed dog if you're just looking for a dog that can be fun with the kids and play and that sort of stuff. And you just want a family pet. Never. Don't ever do it.

It's a lot.

It's a full-time job. On days where we haven't been able to get out like we normally do, I get guilt.

I suddenly am like, I mean, once the kids have gone to bed, I have to say to Becky, I have to say, I've got to get— we've got to go out. I've got to take her out. You know, she jokes that I take the dog out more than I take her out, but I just have to.

And that's it. Our pets and our working dogs all have different levels of needs for this. My last dog, my Weimaraner, required and actually thrived in a very low level of structure. And in fact, when I put more structure upon him, it was actually too much for him. So, we really stripped that right back. And my current dog, Nelson, likes kind of a medium to high level of structure. But I've also looked after friends' dogs, mostly Malinois, that required very high levels of structure. It's

amazing that you've come across so many Malinois.

Yeah. Yes. Lots lately.

A couple of you had a Weimaraner.

Yeah, I had a Weimaraner. Yeah, that was, um, if you look at my logo, it's actually a Weimaraner. That was the dog that got me into dog training, funnily enough.

That's amazing because Weimaraners, correct me if I'm wrong, they're protection dogs for other animals, like for farms and stuff. Is that right?

No, no, you might— I think you're thinking of a Maremma.

Oh, Maremma. Right. Okay. So quickly, just quickly school me up on a Weimaraner.

So Weimaraner is a gun dog from the town of Weimar in Germany. So Weimaraner, gray silver color, they're nicknamed the gray ghost. They surprisingly, for their grey colour, camouflage really bloody well, especially in a tree line.

Oh, okay. I know what you're talking about now.

They're like the sort of silvery trunks. If you went to the forest with him with gum trees, you'd absolutely lose him. But yeah, so they're a gundog, so really high prey drive, really like to chase things. Same thing with him. We did a lot of gundog training and he loved his formal retrievals and things like that. But one thing interesting about the Weimaraner, just for a tangent, is again, when we look at exaggerated breed traits, Is when the original breeders of the Weimaraner bred the Weimaraner, one of the things they said was, we want a gundog who is loyal because quite often a lot of the gundogs would follow their nose and run away and not come back because they'd forever be chasing stuff. Yeah. Whereas these dogs were quite clingy. So at the end of the day, they wanted to be good company. They wanted to find their way back to you. But over a couple of hundred years, that became a very exaggerated breed trait. And yeah, now they've— most of them have got separation anxiety.

So. There you go. Well, a topic we will definitely cover at some point 'Cause I've experienced a dog with separation anxiety and it's hard work.

It's a lot.

All right. Well, there it is. Any questions, as always, jump on the Dog People Podcast Facebook group, chuck in your questions. Max is always there to answer them. And of course, as I've said in the past, we will collate those questions and we'll, we'll do a podcast where we just answer your questions on there. A Spooky Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill.

Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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