E319- Is Your Dog Not Listening OR Are You Asking Too Much?

0:00 [SPEAKER_00]: You can tell a fish not to swim, but it's probably not going to work. [SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly what we're talking about today. [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the No Bad Dogs podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: I put these out every single week twice a week. [SPEAKER_00]: Make sure you hit that subscribe button if you're watching this on YouTube and make sure you follow me if you're listening to this on podcast.

0:26 [SPEAKER_00]: so many dog owners out there including you are dealing with things that you can't control, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So involuntary behavior. [SPEAKER_00]: I had a client on my online academy, which I go live each week to talk to people about their dogs and help them through the process. [SPEAKER_00]: She was saying, hey, I just rescued a Koonhound or no, a plot, one of the hounds.

0:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And the dog is winding a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: The dog is barking a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: The dog is disengaged with me. [SPEAKER_00]: The dog doesn't really respond to me. [SPEAKER_00]: Earlier, my neighborhood shout out to Sammy's owners if they're listening and watching. [SPEAKER_00]: Amazing, incredible, beautiful golden retriever came running up to us on a walk.

1:00 [SPEAKER_00]: No big deal at all. [SPEAKER_00]: The owner said, hey, Tom, how do I stop my dog from running away? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, you can't stop your dog from running away. [SPEAKER_00]: You have to teach your dog recall. [SPEAKER_00]: These are all things that a lot of dog owners have backwards, which is A, why people fail with their dog training.

1:14 [SPEAKER_00]: and be they stay confused. [SPEAKER_00]: And in most cases, a lot of people who are actually searching for change in their dog spend and waste an incredible amount of money because they are like, I want my dog to stop and I've had clients do this too. [SPEAKER_00]: Like Tom, I want my dog to stop running away.

1:31 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, you can't tell, they can't tell this fish not the swim here. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, your dog is running away because they're bored, your dog is running away because they're a dog, like you can't, so that's what we're talking about today is obedience versus temperament. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is something I really haven't explained before and after doing content for 10 years.

1:52 [SPEAKER_00]: There's very little things in my career wheelhouse that I get to talk about new. [SPEAKER_00]: So this is pretty profound to me that I stumbled upon this today with my online academy students. [SPEAKER_00]: And so again, just going back to the chirping of the dog, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So this dog was chirping and chirping and chirping and so I was explaining to her, look, you can't [SPEAKER_00]: This is probably an involuntary behavior, which means this is baked into the dog.

2:16 [SPEAKER_00]: This is, this is who the dog's baseline is. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the temperament of the dog, right? [SPEAKER_00]: We can't tell this fish not to swim, and it's very difficult. [SPEAKER_00]: She was saying, I tried to correct it. [SPEAKER_00]: I tried to change it. [SPEAKER_00]: I tried to stop it.

2:30 [SPEAKER_00]: I tried to do all the things. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, look, you know, your first of all, you adopted this dog at a, you know, at a, [SPEAKER_00]: shape this dog and form this dog into who he is. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's that and he's intact. [SPEAKER_00]: He's not fixed. [SPEAKER_00]: He's super driven.

2:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, she came on and she was telling me things that [SPEAKER_00]: word the dog, you know, it's like, hey, I got a St. Bernardi's drooling. [SPEAKER_00]: What do I do? [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I got a newfoundland in their hairy. [SPEAKER_00]: What do I do? [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I got a GSP dog and their pointing at birds.

3:05 [SPEAKER_00]: What do I do? [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I stop this. [SPEAKER_00]: So, so here's where it boils down to, so you might say, okay, Tom, well, how do I decipher the difference between what they're supposed to be doing and what is involuntary and what is acceptable and what is it? [SPEAKER_00]: And this is something I've leaned on recently, actually, with a client that I was working up in Nantucket, and I think that's on my sub-stack, I don't know if I mentioned it here.

3:28 [SPEAKER_00]: But I started talking about the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. [SPEAKER_00]: So inappropriate behavior is, and again, one of my other students asked, [SPEAKER_00]: Do you ever correct the dog for doing something while they're what was the question? [SPEAKER_00]: We ever corrected dog for doing something while they're on their break even I can't remember the exact question I apologize.

3:50 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna butcher it, but basically the question was is will you allow your dog to do certain things when they're on a break? [SPEAKER_00]: Right, and I said no. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean listen, there's a there's baseline appropriate behaviors. [SPEAKER_00]: There's baseline inappropriate behaviors [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't care if your kid is on recess, they can yell and scream and play and have fun and be a kid because they're on recess, right?

4:09 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what it's for. [SPEAKER_00]: But they can't take a rock and hit somebody over the head. [SPEAKER_00]: So again, inappropriate and appropriate behaviors baseline across the board. [SPEAKER_00]: So getting back to the differences between obedience and temperament, like you can't [SPEAKER_00]: again, tell a dog to be completely different.

4:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Howans were literally bred to disengage from people, use their nose and vocalize when they are excited or vocalize when they're overly stimulated or vocalize for targeting or vocalize for locating. [SPEAKER_00]: And literally the question from this student was, how do I get my hown to engage more, you know, less notes to the ground and stop whining?

4:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, well, do I have an answer for you? [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, you're not gonna like it. [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, I'm a reality type of person. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm gonna shoot you straight. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna tell you what you need to hear not what you wanna hear.

5:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And you going down the line of trying to correct this behaviors, probably gonna cause more conflict in your relationship more than anything. [SPEAKER_00]: So to me that would be appropriate behavior for that particular breed right now then you start running the lines of like okay Well, what if I have a big protective dog and they so here's where it gets interesting and This is why I love having a podcast So it is it is 10 o'clock PM right now and I had this idea and I'm hopping on here, which is why I have my podcast [SPEAKER_00]: So welcome.

5:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And I this epiphany today and you know, you might say like, okay, well, what if a protected dog starts to attack people? [SPEAKER_00]: Because what does that mean? [SPEAKER_00]: Is that appropriate for the breed? [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not. [SPEAKER_00]: So here's the thing. [SPEAKER_00]: If you have a dog and they are reactive and aggressive towards somebody who is not a threat to you or anybody else around you, regardless of their training, that is inappropriate behavior.

5:50 [SPEAKER_00]: that is not breed standard, that is a dysregulated, nervy, insecure, and not a safe and stable dog, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So you have to, you know, read between the lines, but with different dogs and different breeds, but I just want to be clear that [SPEAKER_00]: when you have a particular dog like again you have a GSP in their whiny or they pointy in their this like there's appropriate inappropriate behaviors right or if the dog is literally in the house running around just screaming and barking that's inappropriate behaviors that's unwarranted.

6:25 [SPEAKER_00]: this particular client had a situation where she would get the dog in the car and she would drive to a place to bring the dog, usually an exciting place or even in some cases, maybe not exciting place. [SPEAKER_00]: These types of dogs are going to be extremely vocal, right? [SPEAKER_00]: obedience versus temperament.

6:44 [SPEAKER_00]: So we can get a dog to down, sit, heal, stay, recall, etc. [SPEAKER_00]: That's your obedience. [SPEAKER_00]: Those are things you can control. [SPEAKER_00]: One of the, one of the same things the student with the house said is, well, Tom, my dog breaks the stay. [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: So same breath, same conversation in the same question loop.

7:04 [SPEAKER_00]: I said, well, that's different. [SPEAKER_00]: You can absolutely control your dogs obedience because that is obedience. [SPEAKER_00]: When you ask your dog to down, sit, stay and heal or recall and they don't, that is 100% something that you can control. [SPEAKER_00]: So this is the overarching point of this whole podcast and it's very important, very important.

7:26 [SPEAKER_00]: You can control that obedience. [SPEAKER_00]: Your dog getting off a place and walking away because their board is an obedience problem. [SPEAKER_00]: Your hound whining in the back of a car because they're overly stimulated or maybe disengaging [SPEAKER_00]: is a temperament problem. [SPEAKER_00]: And to be honest, it's not really a problem.

7:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It's who the dog is. [SPEAKER_00]: So once we start really dialing in, what is appropriate behavior for our dogs and what is inappropriate behavior for our dogs? [SPEAKER_00]: And what is obedience and what is temperament controlled, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And what I wrote down on my original notes was obedience and behavioral compliance, which I think temperament makes more sense.

8:05 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that that is really the onboarding that I wanted to do to you guys is just understand the difference between when your dog is inappropriately behaving, getting off a place, barking like crazy for no reason, pulling on the leash, etc. [SPEAKER_00]: Those are all things that you can absolutely correct and change with obedience.

8:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Nine times out of ten. [SPEAKER_00]: your dog being a hound and disengaging and being vocal is probably an involuntary thing that is baked into the dog's DNA and we have to work with it. [SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm not saying it can't change, I'm just saying it's going to be very difficult and potentially unfair to correct.

8:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things she said was I was correcting the dog and the dog just didn't stop. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, okay, well, you're probably not going to stop that. [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have to manage that, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So use some food. [SPEAKER_00]: Your dog starts to wine and habitually start to get a little squeaky or what I call chirping.

9:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Use some food to direct the dog around. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, my dog's not interested in food. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, because you have a hound, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So there's only so much that we can do. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, like, I'm, you know, I should just name this the reality dog trainer, or the realistic dog trainer, because [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't tell people that there's a fix for every single thing.

9:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, there's a lot of different ways that you can manage situations and there's a lot of ways that you can make your life more enjoyable and there's a ton of different ways that you absolutely can change things with your dog. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of ways you, you can stop things and fix things for sure.

9:34 [SPEAKER_00]: But, but this was just one of those epiphany things and I was like, oh, wow. [SPEAKER_00]: We need to be read, you know, and this is why I talk so much about breeds and I talk so much about temperament and obviously, you know, going deep and passionate into the different dogs that you have and understanding them and what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior.

9:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I talked about a big guardian breed before if you guys know my story about burly same exact thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Is a guardian breed supposed to react and be super aggressive maybe when there's a threat or there's somebody who's seeking violence? [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: Are they supposed to do it with neutral people?

10:12 [SPEAKER_00]: No, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a temperament thing and that's a that's a that's a different topic, but [SPEAKER_00]: I guess my point is it's just understanding significant, there's a significant difference between obedience, compliance, and temperament compliance. [SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of where all this wraps up.

10:28 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you have a dog that is doing something that you either are frustrated with, you can't get rid of, you've tried everything, you have to really look at this scenario right here that I'm talking about. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, is this something that is appropriate for your dog to be doing or not, first of all?

10:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And then is this something that's going to be obedience compliant or is this something that's going to be temperament compliant meaning can't is it fair for you to ask your dog to do this or even stop this in certain scenarios, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So again, overly stimulated how in chirping on the way to do something exciting.

11:03 [SPEAKER_00]: You're probably going to be wasting your time and potentially be damaging your relationship by correcting the dog for it. [SPEAKER_00]: Is it possible, yeah? [SPEAKER_00]: You can. [SPEAKER_00]: But you're going to run out of batteries on that bark collar for how much that's chirping, right?

11:15 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just important to understand this. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, I wanted to download this into video and to audio form because it's like a really new idea in my head. [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that. [SPEAKER_00]: As a teacher of over a decade, again, to reiterate, it is kind of not so often that I get [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm excited about it.

11:35 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just like a new way of explaining things which are absolutely love But hopefully this is helpful for you guys and I want to go back to the golden really quick before we end it again Your dog getting a whiff of something and running away so a lot again Here's the scenario a lot of people deal with well time.

11:51 [SPEAKER_00]: How do I stop my dog from running away? [SPEAKER_00]: Put your dog in a stay forever, which isn't realistic or fair, which you're not gonna do, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, but, but more importantly, recall, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So temperament would, so this is so great. [SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, God, I'm so happy I stumbled upon this.

12:07 [SPEAKER_00]: I keep the, the layers in my brain that keep opening up. [SPEAKER_00]: So look at this, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So a golden that runs out because they smell and hear people and they love people and they're just the sweetest dog in the whole world and they come up with they're like, hi, my name is Sammy.

12:19 [SPEAKER_00]: I just love everything. [SPEAKER_00]: What's up, Sammy? [SPEAKER_00]: Right? [SPEAKER_00]: So again, somebody says, how do I keep my dog in the yard? [SPEAKER_00]: They, you know, they might be implying that, [SPEAKER_00]: They want their dog to just naturally stay in the art. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's not going to happen because you have Sammy.

12:33 [SPEAKER_00]: You have a golden retriever. [SPEAKER_00]: They love people. [SPEAKER_00]: They love dogs. [SPEAKER_00]: They're social butterflies. [SPEAKER_00]: And when they hear people out front, they're running. [SPEAKER_00]: So again, great example. [SPEAKER_00]: That's something that you can absolutely change with obedience.

12:46 [SPEAKER_00]: But you're not going to be able to change the temperament of the dog to not want to do that. [SPEAKER_00]: Bingo. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so and I'm being genuine guys like when I when I think these things out in my head I literally hit record on my microphone and on my camera and I'm like I'm gonna work through this for and with you guys But that's what it is, right?

13:04 [SPEAKER_00]: So that golden retrievers temper mid [SPEAKER_00]: is to go oh my god people I gotta go right so you might be thinking how do I get my dog to just not care about people how do I get my dog to just stand the art and do whatever you can right same thing with mispeaches for those you don't know mispeaches they're port noise dog sweetest dog ever worked with Dave it was awesome he's a great guy and one of the things he wanted was I want to keep mispeaches in my yard I'm like look you can't [SPEAKER_00]: This dog has been locked up in a shitty environment, excuse me, language for her whole life and now she's living on one of the nicest houses in Nantucket and she wants to roam she's never been out here like you're not going to be able to tell this dog that they can't run off your job is to watch your dog and then recall the dog if they get away, which is what we did.

13:50 [SPEAKER_00]: and we did it in a very short period of time with the eight-year-old nine-year-old pitbull that's never been trained ever. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I digress. [SPEAKER_00]: But that's, I mean, I go, I can go on forever about this. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just important to understand that we can't change who our dogs are.

14:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And then we have to ask ourselves, is it realistic and is it fair for us to ask her dog to do this? [SPEAKER_00]: And now a dog running away? [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to be recall, but you have to watch your dog. [SPEAKER_00]: You can't just let your dog outside and go, ah, then, you know, like for an example, my 14-year-old dog Lola when she was around, but she's not anymore.

14:26 [SPEAKER_00]: When she was around, shout out to Lola and heaven. [SPEAKER_00]: When she was around, [SPEAKER_00]: Or even Lakota, my Dutch Shepherd, when they're both around, their temperament is, is if I let them outside, they're going to lay out in the art. [SPEAKER_00]: That's their temperament. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't train that.

14:39 [SPEAKER_00]: That's who they are. [SPEAKER_00]: I never trained that ever. [SPEAKER_00]: They would just lay in the art and enjoy being outside. [SPEAKER_00]: If somebody would walk by and say their name, they may walk up, wag their tail, say hi, and then go back to the yard. [SPEAKER_00]: That's literally their temperament.

14:50 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not training. [SPEAKER_00]: That is who they are. [SPEAKER_00]: And I've done many podcasts and videos on temperament in particular because it really should and can and will and does change the aspect of how people look at their dog because a lot of people just think that everything is training when it's not temperament matters considerably sometimes you have control of it sometimes you don't.

15:10 [SPEAKER_00]: actually had a lie. [SPEAKER_00]: Do you really never have control of it? [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you can have more predictability and sometimes you don't, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So even if you go get a pure bread dog, sometimes it doesn't work out. [SPEAKER_00]: I bought a pure bread dog when I was 19 years old and he died at six months and he started my whole entire career.

15:27 [SPEAKER_00]: I get, I pick up shelter dogs off the floor and they're the best dogs I've ever had and they live until they're 18. [SPEAKER_00]: So you just never know, right, is my point. [SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, I think that there's a bigger discussion here that I haven't really grasp yet, but I wanted to download this to you guys.

15:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And I really wanted to just say thank you for everybody who's watching me on YouTube and on Spotify and listening to me on every other podcast platform. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much. [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate everybody out there who's continuing to support me. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you like this, leave a comment.

15:54 [SPEAKER_00]: You can leave a comment on Spotify. [SPEAKER_00]: You can leave a comment on YouTube. [SPEAKER_00]: Let me know. [SPEAKER_00]: And also let me know what you like, what you want to see, what you want to hear, and I'd be more than happy to take some advice for a playlist in the future. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys again.

16:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Talk to you on the next one. [SPEAKER_00]: Peace.