Training Goals vs Reality: What’s Fair to Expect from Your Dog

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Uh, 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, uh, 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. Uh, and I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address, otherwise the vote does not count. Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. 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.

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It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, it's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence, joined of course by Max O'Neill from the Down Under Dog Trainer. Max, I had this thought the other day, right? And you might be able to help me with this is, you know, sometimes I wonder if I'm trying to make Kira a dog that she's not. Yeah. And I explain that because like, I seem to jump around from training. So I originally, when obviously I got her, I was like, oh, what are we going to do? I need to find something, an outlet for her. You know, she's naturally a herding dog. So, you know, we got the staffy ball thing, which she absolutely loves, but it's not There's not much in it in the way of her and I being able to do stuff. Like I kick it around like a footy and stuff like that. But other than that, there's not much to it.

Yeah.

So then I found the gundog stuff and I was like, I wonder if I could teach her to be a gundog. She loves chasing. She's got the drive, but can I teach her to chase something that's not moving and all that sort of stuff? And I have, I've managed to teach her to, she'll go and get a retrieve, you know, she'll, she'll go out and get what they call blinds, memory retrieves, all that sort of stuff. And I'm like, fantastic. And so we'd go through that and do that. And then more recently, because you've got your amazing new course coming up with the ultimate obedience stuff, I'm like, okay, well, there's stuff in there that I maybe need to get her to do. So, which is maybe a bit more protection style stuff. So maybe I should like teach her to bark at people, like, you know, when I ask her to. And then I'm training her and I'm thinking the other day we were doing the switching stuff. So there's nothing where you get dogs to switch between balls.

Yep.

And her, I don't want to use the term aggression, but that's the only thing I can really think of in my head, but her aggression towards the ball to get that ball. It just doesn't— she thinks

she's really keen on ball A. When you go switch and get her to ball B, she's like, yeah, but she's just—

but she never grabs the ball. Even I just have one ball. She won't, you know, you see a Malinois, it flies at a frickin ball and just rips it out of your hand and flies off. And I'm like, why is my dog not doing that? And sometimes I worry I'm trying to make her something that she's not. And like, she's, she's a very loving animal. She loves people. She's like, she loves other dogs. I've never heard her growl or bark in an aggressive way to anyone. And now I'm like, Why are you not taking that ball like you want to rip its head off? Come on, dog. And sometimes I'm like, I think I need to slow down and I, you know, and just realize that I'm probably in some respects, you know, asking too much of her when that's just not her nature.

It's, it's such a tough one. It's, it's a never-ending thing, right? Is your dog's always going to have some type of ceiling on their temperament, behavior, training, whatever it is, because of their breeding, their lineage. their speech, everything. And it's the— yeah, it's, it's a never-ending debate in your head and with other people about, is this just the dog's limitation, or can I be bringing more out of them? And the best trainers in the world are the ones that can get the dog right to their ceiling and get everything out of them. And then we really find out who that dog truly is. Whereas sometimes this whole, oh, it's just the dog's genetics, can be so overused and it can be a really lazy thing. Like, I'll go to some people's houses, whether we're trying to improve on, you know, fix a problem or get something really fun out the dog. And some people say, oh, the last trainer said this, this is him genetically. I'm like, he can't just be a poor lead walker genetically. Like, that was just, you know, oh no, like, I'm gonna sound really intelligent by mentioning DNA and genes, but this is a massive hop out. But that's a whole different tangent. And yeah, but you definitely can't change, like, like, who your dog is, like, who those They're— they are who they're destined to be, whichever way you want to look at it. Like, I think they are who they are, and I've very much seen that between like my last 2 dogs as well. Like, um, you know, my last dog London, my Weimaraner, I definitely tried for so long to get everything out of him and squeeze that lemon and get, you know, I tried to get him to be something he wasn't, and he just wasn't. He wasn't this high drive, I want to go to work all day, I want to learn new shit. He was very much like a, I want to snooze at home and be a couch potato with one long walk a day dog. And we tried and tried and it was a bit of a square peg round hole situation. And we've obviously got exactly what we want now in Nelson. But, but there's— yeah, it's just dogs are who they are. You can definitely change their behavior set and to a degree that can kind of change how you might describe them, but they're still going to be who they're going to be. Like if Kira's— if you're doing everything you possibly can, then maybe that's just who she is. She's like, I'm not a dog who's ever going to strike a ball that hard, like her predatory motor sequence, that, that portion of it, the strike just might not be that strong in her. And that's, and that's cool. That's Kira.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's about me. It's my problem, not hers.

Exactly.

But I mean, you know, to give her due, everything I throw at her generally, she just takes it. She just takes and runs with it. Like, I mean, like the other day when we were talking about your obedience course again, you're like, oh, there'll be, you know, the sit, down, stand. I'm like, oh shit, hold on.

Yeah.

We don't know stand. Yeah. So not only did I start teaching her stand, I then brought along, I made a very janky shaping box. She'd literally She's just sort of learned stand, and then I throw this shaping box at her, and now I'm like putting her in a shaping box and getting her to sit down, stand. She's looking at me going, what are you doing to me? I'm like, no, no, it's great, you'll love it, you'll love it. But she does it all in her stride. And

then I've seen Jack's box, it looks like something out of a fucking Saw movie, honestly.

What's great is my wife— I came home one afternoon just to pick up something because we're not living at home at the moment.

Oh, Jack's hoarding garbage.

I know what there was. There was this this planter box and I went, I reckon I can make a shaping box out of that. And my wife's like, where's my planter box gone? I'm like, well, it's now a shaping box.

Yeah, I've cut half of it off.

Literally just jacked this thing together. Yeah. And I'm like, Kira, you'll be fine. Just jump in that. She's like, oh God, what's going on?

Shit everywhere.

So yeah, so I mean, like, I do ask a lot of that dog, you know, and I ask her to do a lot of things and she usually comes to the party. So I probably just need to be less of a stage dad and just go, you know what? She is who she is.

Yeah.

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But it's tough because you always go like, I don't want to leave any stone unturned. Like, if there's more I can get out of them and like that. Like, I'm sort of— now that Nelson's 2, I'm, you know, starting to really understand who he is. And there's some awesome parts that— there's some not so awesome parts. For example, with Nelson, his strength is despite all this— not in spite of, you know, however you want to look at it— is with all this protection work, he's still the most social dog. He'll always assume that people are— people mean well and everything. And he's a dog you more have to really activate, whereas other dogs are like, I'm gonna assume everyone's fucked up.

Yeah, until you tell me otherwise. Until you tell me.

Yeah. So there's— we always look— that's what we wanted, him being a family dog and living inside the house. And with what I do for work, I'm like, I need him trusting people by default. But the limitation that is, is it took him a long time before you could really kick him into gear. He's getting the stage now where you can just really turn him on and instantly without provocation you can go, oh, like he'll go ballistic. But initially you said he'd be like, I don't know, like he's waving that stick, but is he waving the stick in a friendly way? Like, no, Nelson, he's trying to fucking hurt you. Don't fucking bite him. So there's that. I guess we're kind of terms, okay, like that's going to be Nelson, that's cool, but where they're still figuring out, well, that's— if that's who he is, how do we get everything out of him that he can be? But in the pet world, probably the most common thing I see, this is like introverts and extroverts. I came from a case just this morning with a Cavoodle, and they were like, oh, we just want him to love everybody and be friends with everyone. I'm like, look, we can certainly get him acting with better behavior towards everybody. He'd slowly started to develop like a bit of a bite history and this, and we got that out pretty quickly. But I was like expecting this dog to be like sitting in the middle of a group of girls and letting them put ribbons in his hair. I was like, this is pretty unrealistic. Like, that's just not this dog. And you guys You need to be okay with that. You're never going to make an introvert an extrovert and vice versa. Like Nelson is the biggest extrovert of all time, which is awesome and everyone loves it except me because I'm like, stop being such a slut, Nelson. Whereas my last dog in London, the biggest introvert you ever met, not remotely interested in other people, not scared, not anything. Just like—

Same as our old dog. She used to like— she just didn't have no interest. Like my wife was like, she just cuddle me on the couch and she was just not interested in that whatsoever. She had no interest in the kids. So literally like in the morning she would walk to the front door. Like just stand there until we let her out. She'd come outside, go to a tree that she loved in the backyard. She sat there all day while the kids are up. As soon as they gone to bed, she back in the house. She's like, "I'm back now." She wanted nothing to do with the kids, whereas Kira couldn't be any more different. I have to stop her with the kids. I'm like, "Leave the children alone," yeah, and leave other dogs alone. And she's like the most social animal. So they are like dogs are like people. They have their own personalities.

Yeah, exactly.

And you know, you get what you get. And yeah, don't get upset, as my 6-year-old tells me.

Um, you know, Nelson could legitimately be one of those therapy dogs at a kindergarten. You could stick him with the kids all day and he would be in heaven. He would be like, that's sweet, like, leave me here forever, I never want to go home.

It's so fun. We're currently sitting in DogPod HQ, and as we look outside the window right now, we'll get a photo. He's got this big, big head with a massive smile on his face just looking in and going, hey guys, you're talking about me?

I heard my name. You guys all good in there? Everything all right, boys?

So what we're saying is basically, yeah, um, this was more for my personal thing than anything, was, uh, you know, the dog that you get is sometimes the dog you get. And yeah, you know, just—

And I think enjoy it. We need to be more understanding of it. Like, I see the introvert-extrovert thing, but also it's like a breed thing. I'll get people who will go and get a cattle dog. That's one I see a lot. We go, look, we just want him to be a lot better at switching off. I don't want to have to throw the ball all day. I don't want him running up and down the fence. I'm like, You've just described the complete antithesis of what this dog was designed to do. It's like you wanted something that looked like a cattle dog but didn't behave like— it's like, then what are you doing? And then same, I'll get people who will go get this Mastiff and we go, oh, I want— can you teach it to focus heel? I go, honestly, probably not. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we kinda— but like, we'll get, we'll get this dog doing the best version of what that is. But if you wanted this, you should like— you should have got something different. Yeah. It is what it is. And it's—

I mean, this goes back to our episode where we were talking about, you know, choosing the right dog for you. Like, you've got to think of these things before you get your dog. Like, what do I want out of a dog? What do I want this dog to be? Do I want it to be at home with me as a couch potato? Do I want it to be friendly with everyone that walks past? Or do I want a dog that's going to come out with me and just run until it can't breathe and collapses because I go on marathon runs or whatever? So you've got to make sure that before you get your dog, You know exactly what you want out of it.

Yeah. And pick the breed that you think is best going to fulfill those needs and desires that you have. Like, there's certainly exceptions to it. Like, shout out to one of our clients, Alana and Lala the pug. Like, this pug has got the nicest focus heel you've seen on any dog, and it's a pug. And she was like, yeah, I wanted something really flashy. I'm like, so you got a pug? She's like, yeah, I didn't think much of it, but it's worked out great. And luckily the two of them found each other. She managed to get this, like, the one high drive pug in the world. Yeah, the owner who really wanted that. And there's certainly exceptions to it, but 9 times out of 10, like, get something you think is going to fit that. 'Cause you're not going to get a cattle dog who wants to sleep all day. You're not going to get a Mastiff who wants to focus heel and spend 8 hours at the beach. Like, pick something that you think is going to suit you because you can't change who your dog is.

All right. Well, any questions at all, as always, head to the Dog People Podcast on Facebook and we'll get them answered for you. Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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