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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to Houndations. I'm your host Tony Peterson.

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Speaker 1: In today's episode, is all about keeping things positive during

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Speaker 1: training sessions so that you can develop your dog to

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Speaker 1: a higher level. Look, I know this one seems simple,

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Speaker 1: but it's kind of not. Positive interactions with dogs make

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Speaker 1: a big difference and can really help them develop into

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Speaker 1: something special. But it goes so far beyond that and

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Speaker 1: will foster a relationship with your dog where they actually

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Speaker 1: want to please you and they look forward to training.

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Speaker 1: This is huge, It's so important, and it's what I'm

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Speaker 1: going to talk about right now. My skill level as

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Speaker 1: a basketball coach topped out when my daughter's hit sixth grade.

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Speaker 1: At that point, it was time to hand the reins

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Speaker 1: to someone else who was just better suited for the job.

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Speaker 1: I actually loved coaching, though, and it's one of the reasons,

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Speaker 1: at least until that point in our lives, where my

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Speaker 1: wife and I coached every team our girls were on

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Speaker 1: that we could coach. You learn pretty quickly in that

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Speaker 1: situation what works and what doesn't. As far as trying

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Speaker 1: to get girls of various talent levels and maturity and

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Speaker 1: experience to try to change their behaviors for the better.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that I stumbled on that really

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Speaker 1: seemed to resonate was the right kind of positivity at

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Speaker 1: the right time. With second graders, like in t ball,

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Speaker 1: you almost had no choice but to be extremely happy

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Speaker 1: for them at all times. But as kids get a

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Speaker 1: little older, that kind of changes. You could work with

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Speaker 1: them on a more individual level, and the best way

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Speaker 1: to do that was to find something they were really

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Speaker 1: good at. You know, maybe they were the best pitcher

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Speaker 1: on the team, or kind of just a natural team leader.

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Speaker 1: Maybe they just always had something nice to say about

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Speaker 1: their teammates and were always cheering them on. If you

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Speaker 1: pointed that positive thing out and made it a special

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Speaker 1: thing to them, you could then ask that individual to

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Speaker 1: do something for you, you know, like work on how

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Speaker 1: they throw, or ask them to pay more attention when

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Speaker 1: the coach is talking something. A genuine personalized compliment went

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Speaker 1: so far to get those kids to try harder and

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Speaker 1: to think through what they were doing and will be coachable.

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Speaker 1: Anyone who has coached anyone will tell you this, but

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Speaker 1: players with good attitudes and who are coachable will win

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Speaker 1: more games overall than players with tons of talent but

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Speaker 1: shitty attitudes. We see This play out in all level

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Speaker 1: of sports, and it's real interesting. The thing is, at

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Speaker 1: least with young impressionable athletes, you can almost shape their

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Speaker 1: attitude for the better until they get to a certain

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Speaker 1: age and then all bets are off. But that doesn't

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Speaker 1: negate the reality that a compliment in some genuine positivity

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Speaker 1: is almost always a good move. And this goes for

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Speaker 1: dog training too. Now. I touched on this somewhat earlier

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Speaker 1: this year when I talked about energy and how it

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Speaker 1: affects dog training sessions, but that really only scratched the

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Speaker 1: surface on this top and it's an important one. This

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Speaker 1: is because you can just through your words and actions,

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Speaker 1: trigger a dopamine response in your dog. While they might

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Speaker 1: feel stress, now scratch that, they will feel stress when

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Speaker 1: you ask them to do something new, they are also

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Speaker 1: ripe for a positive interaction that will drip that sweet

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Speaker 1: sweet stuff right into their brain. This is a Pavlovian

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Speaker 1: response and it matters. When you can get a dog's

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Speaker 1: brain to release a little hit of dopamine and connect

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Speaker 1: that feeling to a behavior, you have a dog that

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Speaker 1: will want that feeling again. Praise and positivity do this

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Speaker 1: and it's more effective than fear dominance based training, which

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Speaker 1: produces a lot of stress. Think about it this way.

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Speaker 1: When someone gives you a compliment, like a real compliment,

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Speaker 1: does it make your day better or worse? Does it

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Speaker 1: make you want to be a better person, maybe a

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Speaker 1: better employee, a better spouse. That it does, and the

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Speaker 1: reason for it is the same as it is for dogs.

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Speaker 1: We get a little hit of something that makes us

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Speaker 1: feel real nice. There is a loneliness epidemic in our society.

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Speaker 1: We have a mental health crisis going on in our country. Now.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that complimenting the people in our lives,

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Speaker 1: including strangers or co workers, or our friends and family

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Speaker 1: would fix everything, but it would be a step in

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Speaker 1: the right direction. If we were more comfortable and confident

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Speaker 1: in complimenting people and just generally being nice, so much

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Speaker 1: of throw's quiet desperation would partially go away. I think

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Speaker 1: we owe that to each other. But it's not easy.

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Speaker 1: It's also not easy to stay positive with dogs all

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Speaker 1: the time, nor should you be expected to. I hate

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Speaker 1: to even bring this up, but it's relevant to this topic,

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Speaker 1: so I'm going to anyway. Some years ago now, a

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Speaker 1: story broke here in my home state of Minnesota about

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Speaker 1: a police officer who was caught on camera working over

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Speaker 1: his canine pretty badly. It was an ugly, ugly scene

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Speaker 1: that was caught on surveillance tape, which happened, I think

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Speaker 1: I remember this correctly after a training session went wrong. Now,

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Speaker 1: normally I fall pretty hard on the side of the

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Speaker 1: dog in situations like that, but I really felt bad

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Speaker 1: for both the dog and the owner. So I have

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Speaker 1: a good buddy who runs a canine here in the Cities,

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Speaker 1: and his stories make me feel ashamed to even have

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Speaker 1: the job that I do. The stress of that life

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Speaker 1: is no joke, and those dogs need to be as

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Speaker 1: close to mistake free as possible. That dogs don't really

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Speaker 1: understand what's at stake in each pursuit or article search

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Speaker 1: or whatever, but the officers do, and that creates an

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Speaker 1: intense dynamic with a lot of stress and a lot

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Speaker 1: of pressure. Now, it's not the same thing as training

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Speaker 1: a dog to flush and retrieve grouse, if you get

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Speaker 1: my drift. Doesn't excuse the behavior of the officer in

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Speaker 1: that moment, But there's a lot of nuance to life,

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Speaker 1: and it's not so cut and dry that he should

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Speaker 1: be marched out to the guillotine and be headed over it.

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Speaker 1: He should have handled that better, for sure, But it's

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Speaker 1: a good reminder for all of us and gives us

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Speaker 1: a chance to think about our interactions with our dogs. Now,

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Speaker 1: you could make a pretty compelling case that most dog

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Speaker 1: owners aren't hard enough on their dogs during training sessions.

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Speaker 1: A lot of folks let their dogs get away with

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Speaker 1: too much, which is a good path to take if

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Speaker 1: you suddenly want to lose your shit on your dog

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Speaker 1: at some point. All you have to do here is

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Speaker 1: just not train them very well and then take them

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Speaker 1: into a situation where they have to perform. You'll see

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Speaker 1: what I mean. Now, this is a subject that could

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Speaker 1: fill volumes of books or about ten thousand of these podcasts,

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Speaker 1: so I really kind of want to narrow it down

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Speaker 1: to the positivity aspect of training. If you spend time

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Speaker 1: with professional trainers, you'll see that they kind of fall

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Speaker 1: into two factions. I'm totally stereotyping here, but the younger

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Speaker 1: trainers seem to fall into sort of a pre heavy approach,

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Speaker 1: while some of the older trainers seem to engage in

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Speaker 1: a more forceful approach. This is likely a carryover from

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Speaker 1: when dogs were trained with two by fours in a

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Speaker 1: little to no love. That might sound harsh, but that's okay.

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Speaker 1: I don't really care. That's as dumb as it is

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Speaker 1: to treat dogs like fur babies that can do no wrong,

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Speaker 1: which is just the other end of that two by

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Speaker 1: four training spectrum. In between, which is where the best

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Speaker 1: trainers live, is a world in which corrections are necessary

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Speaker 1: and implemented when warranted, but the whole thing is structured

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Speaker 1: to live off of positivity. First. Now I realize that's

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Speaker 1: a word salad, So what I mean is that you

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Speaker 1: won't develop a great working dog without having to correct

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Speaker 1: it at some point, just like they do out there

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Speaker 1: in the wild with their pack mates. They're going to

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Speaker 1: test you to see what they can get away with.

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Speaker 1: They don't really want to follow your rules, but they

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Speaker 1: will either if they're forced to, or they have learned

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Speaker 1: that it's a rewarding path to take it. Kind of

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Speaker 1: is that simple. The best way to get them to

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Speaker 1: choose the rewarding path is to make sure they know

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Speaker 1: they are doing a good job and to provide an

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Speaker 1: escalatory training approach that allows them to develop at their

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Speaker 1: own pace in a way that is laced with positivity.

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Speaker 1: Of course, this is also something that needs to be

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Speaker 1: catered to the individual dog. Take my labs for example,

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Speaker 1: My older dog Luna never responded super well to praise.

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Speaker 1: Now she will take some love if you want to

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Speaker 1: throw it her away, sure, but she would rather you

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Speaker 1: tossed a dummy for her. Hell, before she retired this season,

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Speaker 1: you couldn't really pet her while you were hunting. She

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Speaker 1: didn't want it, she didn't care. She wanted to hunt,

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Speaker 1: just like she wanted to reach for train or whatever.

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Speaker 1: She wanted to work. My young pup, Sadie, different story.

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Speaker 1: She's driven, probably as driven as Luna ever was, but

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Speaker 1: she will swing by for a head scratch during a hunt. Now,

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Speaker 1: if I stop for some reason when we're out there

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Speaker 1: in the field, she'll come on over and lean up

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Speaker 1: against me, just to hang out and get some contact.

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Speaker 1: She responds extremely well to praise, and it's a powerful

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Speaker 1: motivator for her, and it's honestly made her pretty easy

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Speaker 1: to train. Dogs are individuals. They need different things. But

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Speaker 1: whether you're running a Luna type of dog or a

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Speaker 1: Sadie type of dog, staying positive and letting them know

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Speaker 1: you're positive is so important. It makes corrections far more

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Speaker 1: meaningful and it makes the overall process of training so

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Speaker 1: much better. It's also so easy to establish that as

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Speaker 1: a reward. This happens during the puppy stage, when you

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Speaker 1: go from treat training to praise training. When they are

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Speaker 1: real little they don't really care about us, so calories

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Speaker 1: are important to get them to sit or lay down

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Speaker 1: or stay or whatever. But after a short period of that,

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Speaker 1: it's wise to start transitioning them to praise rewards because

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Speaker 1: that can become just as effective and it's good for

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Speaker 1: the rest of their lives. This is also the time

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Speaker 1: when it feels like they stop thinking about themselves as

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Speaker 1: individuals and start viewing the whole thing more as a

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Speaker 1: team deal. If you don't think that is important, you

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Speaker 1: might be a cat person. Think about it this way.

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Speaker 1: If you are positive with your dog and you praise them,

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Speaker 1: it's like you getting a genuine compliment from someone. You

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Speaker 1: have the power to use that dopamine, dump that feeling

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Speaker 1: to freely encourage your dog to do better and want

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Speaker 1: to work for you more. I know this seems simple,

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Speaker 1: so let me give you an example of how it's not.

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Speaker 1: When I train my Golden to find shad antlers, I

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Speaker 1: realized a few things about that process. The first is

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Speaker 1: that while I had a dog that would retrieve just

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Speaker 1: about anything, including squirrels and snowshoe hairs in addition to

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Speaker 1: anything with feathers, she wasn't all that interested in antlers.

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Speaker 1: Most dogs really aren't, at least not when they have

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Speaker 1: the option to sniff out something more interesting that might

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Speaker 1: also either be alive or was alive recently. Antlers just

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Speaker 1: aren't that interesting to dogs, but they will retrieve them

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Speaker 1: with lucks. I saw this early on, and so even

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Speaker 1: though she had already been trained to hunt ducks and

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Speaker 1: upland birds, I kind of had to backtrack with her

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Speaker 1: when it came to antlers. I had to really turn

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Speaker 1: on the positivity around anything that she did right in

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Speaker 1: the early stages of shed training, so that she'd connect

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Speaker 1: that behavior to one of the things she wanted most

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Speaker 1: in the world, which was my love and general excitement

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Speaker 1: over her doing something. I probably could have treat trained

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Speaker 1: her to fine antlers, but I don't think it would

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Speaker 1: have been as effective as playing into her natural pleasing

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Speaker 1: nature to get her all hyped up to do something that,

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Speaker 1: at least at first, wasn't all that appealing. To her. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is all pretty simple and intuitive, I'm sure. So

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Speaker 1: let me throw a wrench in the whole thing with

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Speaker 1: a hypothetical. Let's say, you know, because you're not stupid,

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Speaker 1: that of course you're supposed to train dogs through praise

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Speaker 1: and let them know when they do a good job.

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Speaker 1: But what if your dog is I don't know, four

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Speaker 1: or five years old and seems to know the ropes

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Speaker 1: and really doesn't need much guidance or encouragement anymore. You'll

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Speaker 1: probably just naturally dole out praise in sort of a

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Speaker 1: stingy or a way. It's just not that necessary. If

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Speaker 1: you think that's not true, here's a challenge for you.

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Speaker 1: Go on out there and get married. Then stay married

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Speaker 1: for about ten years or so, and tell me if

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Speaker 1: your relationship is the same as it was after your honeymoon.

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Speaker 1: I'd bet good money that there are more negative interactions

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Speaker 1: between you and your spouse than there were a decade earlier,

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Speaker 1: and that a little praise is definitely needed every once

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Speaker 1: in a while. Relationships are like that, even the ones

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Speaker 1: we have with our dogs. And I can take this

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Speaker 1: even a step further. Now, imagine that four or five

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Speaker 1: year old dog that seems to really have figured out

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Speaker 1: the hunt dead command, for example, so that when you

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Speaker 1: knock a rooster down or a dock or whatever, it's

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Speaker 1: most likely going to be delivered to your hand at

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Speaker 1: some point. But what if the dog doesn't find the

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Speaker 1: bird that happens, You're probably not going to praise it

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Speaker 1: for not doing its job, and you probably shouldn't, but

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Speaker 1: you also might be bringing some bad energy to the

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Speaker 1: scene and changing the whole tone of things. Now, if

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Speaker 1: the next bird you drop becomes a similar problem, you're

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Speaker 1: in danger zone territory with your dog. Now, if it

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Speaker 1: finds the bird, it's party time. Don't take that lightly.

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Speaker 1: Confidence in dogs is like confidence in humans, and it

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Speaker 1: might feel like a constant until suddenly it gets all

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Speaker 1: shook up for some reason, and then that confidence needs

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Speaker 1: to be rebuilt. The easiest way to show your dog

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Speaker 1: that you are fully on its side and ready to

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Speaker 1: keep working as a team is to be positive and

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Speaker 1: to praise heavily when it's appropriate. This isn't just a

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Speaker 1: hunting scenario thing, either. Think about all of the times

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Speaker 1: when you're training and working on something new and the

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Speaker 1: dog just isn't sure what it's supposed to do. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you're working on a wagon wheel drill with some bumpers

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Speaker 1: and you're really trying to dial in the hand signal thing.

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Speaker 1: At first, your dog nails it, but when you increase

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Speaker 1: the difficulty somehow, maybe increase the distance to the bumpers

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Speaker 1: or something, the wheels fall off. This is a moment

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Speaker 1: that exists in training all the time for all of us,

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Speaker 1: and there are two paths to take. Force the dog

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Speaker 1: to comply or back up to the easier thing and

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Speaker 1: let them get a win and see you happy for it.

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Speaker 1: Then try again on that harder task. The way to

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Speaker 1: look at training is like two steps forward and one

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Speaker 1: step back. It's kind of like the stock market. It

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Speaker 1: can go up or down, but over time it's going

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Speaker 1: to move in the right direction. On any given day, though,

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Speaker 1: who knows. With dogs and dog training, as long as

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Speaker 1: you work them correctly, they're going to get better over time.

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Speaker 1: But they have off days, they struggle with certain tasks, whatever,

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Speaker 1: and that means you might get angry, you might lose

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Speaker 1: your cool. That doesn't do the dog any favors. Instead,

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Speaker 1: try to manage the situation so that your dog can

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Speaker 1: only do so much wrong before you allow them to

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Speaker 1: do something they are virtually guaranteed to succeed at and

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Speaker 1: when they do show them, you are fully on their

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Speaker 1: side by loving them up, get excited, hype them up,

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Speaker 1: let them know. They just kick so much ass that

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Speaker 1: you can barely believe it. A dog that has given

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Speaker 1: the right amount of that kind of praise is a

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Speaker 1: dog that will learn to love the challenge of training

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Speaker 1: and will show up to work for you, and not

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Speaker 1: because it's afraid of what you'll do. You can train

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Speaker 1: through fear, but you won't have a dog that really

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Speaker 1: loves you. If that's the route you take, it's better

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Speaker 1: to go the other way. This is something that we

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Speaker 1: inherently know and understand when we deal with puppies, just

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Speaker 1: like when you're coaching eight year olds at basketball. But

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Speaker 1: it becomes less of a thing as dogs and kids

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Speaker 1: get older. That doesn't make it less important, It just

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Speaker 1: means we have an obligation to choose the best moments

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Speaker 1: to use praise, just like compliments in our interactions with people,

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Speaker 1: so we can encourage the right behavior and make things better.

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Speaker 1: Think about this as you work with your dog, maybe

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Speaker 1: as you hunt the late season with your dog, or

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Speaker 1: anytime you're asking them to do something new or different

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Speaker 1: or challenging. While you can put an ecoller around their

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Speaker 1: neck and light them up, you won't get the same

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Speaker 1: end product. You'd get through way more positivity. You might

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Speaker 1: achieve the same behavioral result, but you won't have the

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Speaker 1: same dog. Look at it this way. If your boss

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Speaker 1: says I need you to do this task for me,

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Speaker 1: because on the last task you absolutely crush it and

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Speaker 1: we are very excited to see what you come up with,

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Speaker 1: You're going to be one kind of employee there. Now.

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Speaker 1: If your boss says we need you to tackle this

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Speaker 1: project or you're fired, you will be a completely different employee.

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Speaker 1: Your boss could get the project completed to a satisfactory

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Speaker 1: level with either approach, but long term it's definitely not

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Speaker 1: going to work out the same. Consider that as you're

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Speaker 1: working with your current dog or maybe kicking around the

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Speaker 1: idea getting a new pup, and then consider coming back

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Speaker 1: next week because I'm going to talk about setting goals

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Speaker 1: with dogs and trying new tasks and always keeping the

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Speaker 1: momentum moving in the right direction. That's it for this week.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been The Houndation's podcast. As always,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for your support, cal and I

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Speaker 1: here really appreciate it, just like everybody else that meat

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Speaker 1: Eater does. We truly have the best audience. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of hard to believe, and I just want you to

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Speaker 1: know like we absolutely appreciate your support. If you want

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Speaker 1: some more mediator content, you know, maybe you want to

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Speaker 1: watch me hunt some white tails and bears with my daughter,

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Speaker 1: or you want to see Steve out doing something Kenyon, whatever,

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Speaker 1: the mediater dot com has you covered. While you're there,

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Speaker 1: you can go do a little shopping for Christmas if

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Speaker 1: you still want to do that, or you can find

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Speaker 1: tons of podcasts, articles, recipes, all kinds of stuff there

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Speaker 1: at the medeater dot com. Check it out, and again,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for everything.