The Lottery Winner Problem: Why Your Dog Needs to Earn It

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.

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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. And then they 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 hopefully 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. Max O'Neill, down under dog trainer. Uh, Max, today we're talking about winning the lottery. We want to talk about How that can relate to your dogs.

Yeah. So, uh, it's something that I observe all the time in pet dogs and something I get a little pushback on. And it's a concept of like, when you give your dog absolutely everything for free, praise for free, food for free, toys for free, resources for free, entry and access to all areas for free. If you just make them not have to work for anything, it's actually really quite depressing. It makes life boring. And then they end up going in fulfillment seeking in all these areas that you really don't like. So I always can compare it to clients to like, you see when people win the lottery in the news, they go absolutely mental because they have no structure and no, you know, they don't have any direction or ambition or purpose or anything anymore. And they have this mental 12 months, spend it all, and then end up super depressed for the rest of their life and go back to life and it just feels all very weird for them. And I guess it's kind of the same for our dogs. If you give them absolutely everything and be like, hey, you like, you won life, that's for free, that's for free, that's free, you never have to try and do anything, is honestly 99% of our dogs actually find that really boring. We think it's kindness and we think it's the best thing for them, but it's really one of those cases of killing them with kindness.

I truly feel. I mean, I was going to talk to— I was going to say this off air and I said I'll wait because I had literally a similar experience. I was out training with Kira the other day doing our thing and this lady came past and she says like, oh, it's amazing how much she listens to you. I never get that out of this one. And I said, she's only listening to me because I've got what she wants. She wants the toy. I said, and she doesn't get the toy unless we're out. And she went, oh, that seems a bit depressing.

But that's cheating.

Yeah. She goes, well, that seems a bit sad. I'm like, and I said, no, not at all. I said, for instance, I said, look, imagine, you know, your kids, right? Your kids have got in their bedroom, they've got a PlayStation, they've got a TV, they've got a fridge, they've got everything they ever want in their room. And you say to them one day, right, go wash the car. If you wash the car, you can play on your PlayStation. They go, nah, I'll just play it later when I want to play it. I said, if you just give them everything, then they'll never want to work for anything or do anything for something. I said, she loves it. I said, look at her. I mean, she, it's not like she's not depressed. She is. This is the best part of her day. She doesn't go home and just lies around and mopes and is depressed. She goes home and sleeps because she's exhausted.

Yeah.

Because we've done this training and we've done, she gets to fetch and play and do what she wants. I said, she, You know, there's structure in her life.

Yeah, she had to work and challenge herself and have that sense of achievement. And yeah, and that's the other side of the thing. Like, if we go back to our lottery analogy, is you see some people spend it all, go mental, and just, you know, completely implode. But you do see other people, and, you know, I've watched weird docos and research on this weirdly, um, who really go, okay, I've been given this unique opportunity where I don't need to work, I've got unlimited resources, I'm now going to create my own purpose and maybe they volunteer or donate to this or set up charities and stuff. Yeah, do that sort of shit. And again, because there's this deep innate need in all of us to have some type of task and be—

Well, you need a purpose.

And be useful.

Yeah. You need a purpose in life. You need a reason to get up. Because my wife always said to me, oh, what would you do if you win the lottery? Would you give up the podcasting? I'm like, absolutely not. I said, I would still do the podcasting. I just wouldn't be stressed about it because I enjoy the work. You know, it's the stress that comes with trying to make money from it that I don't enjoy. But, you know, at the end of the day, you've still got to get a reason to get up in the morning and to do stuff. And if you don't have a purpose, then you're just like, what's the point? And it's the same as your dog. If you give your dog no purpose because it's got everything it needs whenever it wants, then it'll just— yeah, I mean, but then it looks for fulfilment in other ways.

Exactly. They enter that fulfilment-seeking sort of mode. And then one of the worst things you can have is a self-employed dog. That's what we always say, is a dog who'll go, all right, well, you've not given me a task. I'm going to go find a task. And that looks different for every breed. We see, you know, Yeah. 90% of German Shepherds I get called out to are like reactive to guests or, you know, run up and down the front fence fighting everything. You know, the Kelpies will be biting guests on the ankles, going, you know, sprinting around the kids in the pool. You know, just things like that. Like every dog will have its thing. You know, a Golden Retriever might start resource guarding over something and having that possession. And it's the last thing you want. And just, you really want to give them something, guys. You really want to start to put some level of challenge or obstacle between your dog and at least one of those things in their life, whether it's freedom or access to an area, whether it's making them— even if you know you give them those 2 meals a day, not just asking them sit, high five, eat. Like, give them some type of challenge. Like, each month try and make them learn a new trick, even something as small as that. Like, still to this day, every time we serve up— Nelson's a 1-meal-a-day dog— we make him run anywhere from 2 minutes of obedience to 10 minutes of obedience and just make him work for it. Same with his toys. He's got a couple that are left out that are for free to keep him entertained. But the ones that like really spin his dial, he's got to work for them. And same, like, you know, even just having permission to enter areas and things like that, he's got to control himself and be calm enough to be allowed in the bedrooms, allowed in the baby room, allowed in the playroom, all that sort of stuff. And even just those little things, just giving our dogs some purpose is so huge for them. Another way I can— you can think of it is if you're, you know, a bit of a gamer, is once you've completed a game and you go, cool, I've done every mission, I've got unlimited money, I've got my characters fully upgraded, there's no more challenge. We typically turn the game off and go, oh, this is, this is fucking boring now. Like, you know, I used to play Pokémon as a kid, right? The moment I complete it, you've beat all the gyms, beat the, you know, for those listening, the Elite Four, you've got all the Pokémon.

This is going over my head.

By the time you've done it, by the time you've completed every mission, The game just goes, oh, okay. But imagine being forced to just play that and you go, what do I do? Whatever you want. Yeah, it sounds great, but it's boring.

No, it is 100%. I mean, I'm a Red Dead Redemption man.

Oh, there you go.

Once you complete that game, you can go around the world and do whatever you want. I'm like, there's nothing. I don't know what to do. Give me something. Tell me what I need to do. I need direction.

And imagine if that was like the only game you had where they're like, no, no, no, Jack, like you're going to play Red Dead Redemption for the rest of your life. Rest of your life. Like, you would find ways of making your own fun that you'd— I'd walk in on you playing and go, what are you doing, you freak? Because again, you'd go fulfillment seeking in weird areas.

I think the thing you've got to try and get past is so many people—

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Probably look at what we're saying and think that what we're saying is so militant and, oh my God, you know, your dogs live in this world where they just, they get no toys and they have to do everything for their food. My mum, my mum, the amount I make Kira do for food and toys. My mum is just like, oh, that poor dog. You make her jump through hoops. I'm like, yes, exactly. Because she loves it. And like, look at her. She's having a great time. Like, it's not like she's sort of, you know, when I ask her to go into a position for her ball, it's not like she's sort of, oh God, all right, and wandering into position. She's flying into that position. She's looking at me and she's like, can I go? Can I go? Can I go? And then I throw it. She's off. And then she brings it back and she's ready to go again. She doesn't take the ball and then fucks off and go, well, I'm not bringing it back to you because you make me do all this shit for this thing.

She doesn't.

She brings it back, she's like, let's go again. What are we doing next?

Yeah, exactly.

And I think a lot of people, especially ones, people, I mean, you don't have to have a working line dog either for this. You know, it doesn't matter what dog you've got.

Every being wants to be useful.

Because, and at the same token, every dog originally was bred for a purpose. You know, it was funny the other day I was, there was a lady with a Dalmatian at the park where I was going and I was like, and I said, I wonder what Dalmatians were bred for. They must've been bred for something. They were guarding breeds. Like bred to protect carriages and horses and stuff when they're in the olden days. So, like every dog, no matter how pretty or small or, I mean, especially small ones. Look at Yorkshire Terriers. They're lunatics.

I think it's even like Shih Tzus were developed to sit in like the long-sleeved robe of like Chinese emperors. And if people got too close, they'd fly out and bite. And you're like, oh, that's why they still do that.

So, if you've got a Shih Tzu, buy yourself a nice old Japanese-style outfit and put it inside the sleeve and just go up to people and go, g'day, how are you? Yeah, exactly. Actually, like, if you've got a dog, doesn't matter what it is, your dog will enjoy doing something. And most of the time, as we've spoken about in many episodes before, the dog will show you what that is by what they enjoy doing, whether it's pissing you off by digging the garden, whether it's, you know, what Kira does, herd and bite the lawnmower when I'm trying to mow the lawn. You know, it'll show you what it wants to do.

Yeah.

And then, you know, if it's a German Shepherd running up and down the fence, barking at everyone that goes past. The dogs are showing you, this is what I want to do. And it's just then your job to harness that into something more productive than biting a lawnmower or chasing everything that walks past the fence.

Yeah. Into a productive task and making him do that task to get essential resources.

Yeah. And that's the other thing.

Like, we've got a few other examples you're going to use because we really, both of us really want to drive this home because we're so passionate about it.

And I only want to drive it home because I never knew this because I learned it from Max, who opened my eyes to all of this.

Well, Jack's been both sides. So have I. Like, both of us have been both sides where we've both given dogs— before I did this for a living, we've both given dogs too cushy a life and then seen the behavior problems that, um, that come with that. Um, so a couple of other examples we can do is like, one, look at us. All of us work for our money. All of us have to go to work. All of us have to do house chores. All of us have to put in effort and intention to get by in life. And It's normal. It's not unfair. We go, cool, like, what else would I be doing? And our dogs are no different. Like, having dogs as a pet has really only been a thing for honestly the last like 100 to 150 years. Before that, dogs were a working thing. Like, it was unusual if you had a dog just to be— yeah, just to have it.

Yeah.

What's the point? There weren't such things as working breeds. There were just breeds. All breeds were working breeds. It's only like, you know, more recently when people go, oh, like, what if we just create this toy breed with zero drive to do anything and just wants to mooch about?

Like, cool.

But before that, there were just breeds and people didn't have their dog unless they were there to work. So what I'm saying is like, over the last few hundred years or, you know, 20 generations of dogs, we've not completely bred that out of them. That's just completely naive to think so. So all that drive to do stuff and be productive and be useful and needed and wanted and whatever is still so deeply ingrained into there. And you'll absolutely, you know, just have a recipe for behavior problems if you don't appeal to this need in them. And a classic point is looking at animals in captivity is I've done some work with animals in captivity, dingoes at a zoo on the Gold Coast or, you know, animal wildlife park, whatever they, you know, whatever you want to call it. And it's that they're really, really good. But I've also been in some really shit zoos around the world where they'll have lions and every day that it's throwing a carcass on the ground and be like, there it is, you don't have to work for it. And these animals are pressed, they pace, they bob and weave their head, they've got this really sad and completely unnatural behaviors. And that's a pretty drastic version, but I've then also been to other zoos in, you know, first world countries where they'll, you know, hide the carcass, hang it in a tree, make them compete for it, whatever. And those animals are far happier and healthier. And that's just an example of kind of what we're doing to our dogs is we're just giving them You know, all these anxieties and depressions and behaviour problems we see in our dogs is largely because we provide them with a completely biologically inappropriate lifestyle.

Yeah. Which a lot of people unfortunately think is a, you know, it's kind of, as you've already said, killing them with kindness, basically.

Yeah.

100%. The same when we see fat Labradors.

Yep.

Yeah.

Well, he's hungry. I don't know. I think he could skip a few meals. All right. Any questions on that one? Make sure Make sure you jump in the Facebook group, The Dog People Podcast. 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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