Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's guest
Speaker 1: producer Roll over there, and that makes this Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know about dogs. We love dogs, heart them. We
Speaker 1: talk a lot about dogs, have dogs, We have dogs.
Speaker 1: Just love dogs in general. They're the best. Train them
Speaker 1: up the end the end, train them right though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was an interesting one for me because I am
Speaker 1: terrible at dog training. Uh and I just I do
Speaker 1: a mix of so many things. I'm just my poor
Speaker 1: dogs don't even know what to do. None of their
Speaker 1: behaviors their fault. Well, yeah, I think my fault. That
Speaker 1: seems to be true among um like like I want
Speaker 1: to say, not high end, but a good dog trainers,
Speaker 1: like professional dog trainers. Trainers. Yeah, they they would agree
Speaker 1: that not just with you, but any dog's bad behavior
Speaker 1: as a result of their human not training them well
Speaker 1: or properly, are at all true. Although I will say,
Speaker 1: I mean any dog can be trained supposedly. I've seen
Speaker 1: those shows. But uh, you know, my dog Nico is
Speaker 1: just so hot wired when someone comes over. Now, she's
Speaker 1: the uh brindle, just so hot wired when people come
Speaker 1: over that I just don't know what to do. What
Speaker 1: do you mean hot wired? Just so excited and like
Speaker 1: so excited she's about to implode into a nuclear fission reaction,
Speaker 1: like just really really low knows he knows, Nico. It's
Speaker 1: like it's very very tough to rain her in when
Speaker 1: someone knocks on that door and comes over. Chill out
Speaker 1: after ten minutes, but it's just hard to not get
Speaker 1: her to jump up on people and stuff because they
Speaker 1: got to be in on it too, you know. Well,
Speaker 1: I would say that probably any high end dog trainer
Speaker 1: would would say that you should give her tranquilizers all
Speaker 1: the time, especially when somebody's coming over, but you better
Speaker 1: sleep her life away. Your instinct as a dog owner
Speaker 1: is when someone comes over and your dog jumps on him,
Speaker 1: it's to say, now, Nico, get down, get off of them,
Speaker 1: and even like pull them off. But this article says like,
Speaker 1: like no, even a scolding is reinforcing that behavior, because
Speaker 1: all that dog wants his attention, even if it's a scolding, right,
Speaker 1: and and if you if you say no or whatever,
Speaker 1: the dog gets the attention. It prefer positive attention where
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, jump up, that's great, but it'll take
Speaker 1: you know, Nico or any other dog will take UM
Speaker 1: will take the the know what they say to do
Speaker 1: is to just ignore it. Just ignore the dog until
Speaker 1: they're doing what you want them to do, and then
Speaker 1: reward the dog. And I think that what you said,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you said this because we really need
Speaker 1: to get this across. What people have been discovering more
Speaker 1: and more about dog training in the last like twenty
Speaker 1: years is that having a dog and raising a good
Speaker 1: dog is requires way more than we previously thought. It did,
Speaker 1: way more attention, way more research, way more patience, way
Speaker 1: more persistence, way more than it used to and and
Speaker 1: rightfully so, I mean it should require this and one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why it does require more is because
Speaker 1: there's been a real shift in mentality over what direction
Speaker 1: you should take to train a dog. I keep saying
Speaker 1: raise a dog. I think that's a good way to
Speaker 1: put it too, but um that it used to be different,
Speaker 1: and that still is that way for some people. Who
Speaker 1: is we'll see, but there there. It used to be
Speaker 1: much easier because you just asserted yourself physically, psychologically, you
Speaker 1: yelled at your dog, you spanked your dog, and you
Speaker 1: basically showed your dog who was boss, and then after
Speaker 1: that they would just kind of behave. They're saying like, no,
Speaker 1: don't do that anymore. That's not good. It really has
Speaker 1: really terrible effects on the dog, harms your relationship with
Speaker 1: the dog, and instead, um, you really need to just
Speaker 1: give a hundred and ten percent whereas before you're giving.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's right. So what you're talking about are the
Speaker 1: two main approaches dominance or positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is
Speaker 1: a straight up operat conditioning technique where you reward your
Speaker 1: dog for good behaviors or I guess we shouldn't even
Speaker 1: say good and bad. They say not to do that
Speaker 1: with children and dogs, desirable behaviors and a focus on
Speaker 1: what a dog should do, whereas dominance is a technique
Speaker 1: to discourage unwanted behaviors what you should not do. And
Speaker 1: the whole dominance theory is based on this idea, and
Speaker 1: this has been around since well who knows where it
Speaker 1: got its original start, but at least since the seventies.
Speaker 1: They're these dog training monks in Cambridge, New York called
Speaker 1: the news Skeet Monks and they are monks who raise
Speaker 1: and breed German shepherds and write dog training books. Right, well,
Speaker 1: I mean that the monks are supposed to give something
Speaker 1: back to the world. Someone throw beer, and these guys
Speaker 1: trained dogs. I like the beer brewers better. But um,
Speaker 1: it's been at least around since then. But this is
Speaker 1: based on the the idea that dogs are really just
Speaker 1: wolves two point oh in dogs clothing. Yeah, and that wolves.
Speaker 1: We should look at the behavior of wolves and they
Speaker 1: are pack animals with an alpha male and an alpha female.
Speaker 1: Will get more into that, and we can extrapolate that
Speaker 1: to dogs. And so that's how and this is what
Speaker 1: these monks say too, that's what you should be doing
Speaker 1: is mimicking what wolves do. And well it's about to
Speaker 1: say in the wild, not that not the case. Really
Speaker 1: what wolves have been studied doing in captivity, which is
Speaker 1: a key point. Right And then like because they have
Speaker 1: packs with the leader calling out alpha male and alpha female,
Speaker 1: the alpha male and female um maintain their position um
Speaker 1: through dominance, through acts of like aggression, violence, and that
Speaker 1: they're constantly challenged for these positions. So that so much
Speaker 1: so that this constant struggle over dominance and alphadom, uh
Speaker 1: is what shapes wolf society, and that that if you
Speaker 1: take that and you just assume, like you said, that
Speaker 1: dogs are just a different type of wolf, that they're
Speaker 1: so closely related to wolves and descended from wolves, that
Speaker 1: the same kind of mentality applies to dogs. If you
Speaker 1: create that kind of situation in your own home, you
Speaker 1: will have a happier, more obedient dog who understands its
Speaker 1: place in this household, which to your dog is just
Speaker 1: a pack. That's right. Uh. This has started in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. There were a bunch of studies observing these
Speaker 1: wolf packs and their social structures. I saw it even
Speaker 1: earlier than that. I saw a guy named Rudolph Schenkel
Speaker 1: was doing this in n and that he's the one
Speaker 1: who coined this ide the idea and the term alpha.
Speaker 1: And he was also the guitarist for the Scorpions. If
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, I think you're thinking of John Fogerty's guitarists,
Speaker 1: which is I think was his brother Rudy Schenko. Rudy Schenko.
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, So they're they're observing these wolves and
Speaker 1: they're saying that, um, there's a continual pattern in the
Speaker 1: in the pack of the male members vying for control,
Speaker 1: challenging the alpha, and then the alpha putting it down,
Speaker 1: usually physically and also psychologically. I guess as much as
Speaker 1: you can get into the psychology of a wolf. And um,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I mean, should we go ahead and
Speaker 1: say what the deal is? I feel like that's there.
Speaker 1: Should that be a third ex spoiler? No? No, I
Speaker 1: think we can go ahead all right? That I said
Speaker 1: they were studying captive wolves. That's the that's the rub
Speaker 1: here is that they're studying wolves in captivity. And it
Speaker 1: took this the guy and the when was that then?
Speaker 1: The nineties? Yeah, David meck, Yeah, that actually studied wolves
Speaker 1: in the wild. And he's like, that's not what's going
Speaker 1: on at all, because you're it's like studying humans in
Speaker 1: a refugee camp or a prison, Like the behaviors aren't
Speaker 1: gonna be the same. What I'm observing is these animals
Speaker 1: that follow what most animals in the animal kingdom do
Speaker 1: or many, which is uh, their their families. And the
Speaker 1: alpha is the alpha because he's the dad, right exactly.
Speaker 1: That Like when they said like, oh, no, wolves are
Speaker 1: constantly you know, under these physical attacks for their status
Speaker 1: is the alpha alpha wolf. Um. They what they were
Speaker 1: saying was like, these these wolves are in a completely
Speaker 1: unnatural setting in situation, and you've got a bunch of
Speaker 1: different alpha's who are trying to figure out who's in charge.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there was a lot of aggression and dominance.
Speaker 1: But this was a terrible thing to base this idea
Speaker 1: on how to train a dog because it was a
Speaker 1: totally artificial situation. And it wasn't until I think, what
Speaker 1: did you say that mec he actually revised in earlier book.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book in nineteen eighty that took these
Speaker 1: earlier ideas and said, yeah, these are totally correct. And
Speaker 1: now he's like, I wish I'd never I got it
Speaker 1: so wrong. Yes, there is dominance, there are alpha's, but
Speaker 1: it's like you said, Chuck, their mom and dad that's
Speaker 1: what we would call him, just in the same way
Speaker 1: that your mom and your dad are the boss of
Speaker 1: you when you're a kid, same thing in a wolf pack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and dad goes out and gets the food. Uh, moms
Speaker 1: takes care of the kids and protects the kids and acts,
Speaker 1: as you know, the defensive guard over their den. And
Speaker 1: that's just how it works. And then after a couple
Speaker 1: of years. Um, the male puppies, I guess leave. They've
Speaker 1: become alpha's of their own families. And he observed the
Speaker 1: stuff over where is it Canada's Elsmere Island every summer
Speaker 1: for thirteen years and they have the that island has
Speaker 1: the best carnival in Canada. It really changed the way
Speaker 1: people look at wolves and ergo dogs. Yeah for the
Speaker 1: UM what the revision of it or the earlier stuff, Well,
Speaker 1: the revision of it, sure, yeah, it totally did because
Speaker 1: everybody realized that this dominance based training that people have
Speaker 1: been doing, where you basically beat up your dog if
Speaker 1: there if there is like a sense of like alpha
Speaker 1: dom that your dog is following, your dog is basically
Speaker 1: like my dad is beating me up and yelling at
Speaker 1: me all the time, and I'm just scared and anxious
Speaker 1: about everything. So the dog training world realized that this
Speaker 1: is what was happening, that it was based on faulty
Speaker 1: preliminary original research, and they switched. They change. They went
Speaker 1: to a much more respectful, happier, friendlier UM way of
Speaker 1: training that doesn't involve punishment, it involves basically rewards. An
Speaker 1: extinction is well, we'll look at later on. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's take a break. We were talking about beating up
Speaker 1: your dog, but when we come back, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: specific techniques the people that subscribe to the dominance theory believe.
Speaker 1: And all right, so you talked about people beating up
Speaker 1: their dogs. I know you're sort of kidding, um, but
Speaker 1: there are actual physical things that they say to do
Speaker 1: in dominance training. Uh. And they are as follows. One.
Speaker 1: It's called the alpha roll, uh not R O L
Speaker 1: E R O L L. So this is when the
Speaker 1: trainer will are you know, I guess if you're the owner,
Speaker 1: and trainer will pin the dog on its back and
Speaker 1: hold the dog there by the chest or the throat
Speaker 1: until the dog gives in and and stops the struggle. Okay,
Speaker 1: that is slightly different than dominance down. That is pinning
Speaker 1: the dog on its side until the dog stops struggling.
Speaker 1: So same thing. I mean, you've got a dog that
Speaker 1: is doing something that you don't want it to do,
Speaker 1: so you are pinning it. You're physically restraining it in
Speaker 1: an aggressive manner until it just basically dies inside. I
Speaker 1: will say that I have have done the dominance down
Speaker 1: before because of a dog fight between my two dogs,
Speaker 1: getting the dogs separated, and then you know, pinning one
Speaker 1: down until they calm down. One thing I saw um somewhere.
Speaker 1: I don't remember where I saw it, but the um
Speaker 1: Actually i've heard it. I heard it a little while ago.
Speaker 1: The way that you break up a dog fight is
Speaker 1: you grab them by the back legs. Is to rub
Speaker 1: yourself a steak. Right, you just walked through and be like,
Speaker 1: who's a steak? Why fight when you can have steak
Speaker 1: grabbed the back legs? Yeah, that makes sense. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing though, if you've ever been involved in a dog
Speaker 1: fight up close, it's an adrenaline rush. You don't know
Speaker 1: quite what to do. Uh, and it's scary. It's like
Speaker 1: super scary. Yeah, well, your brain just becomes totally Like
Speaker 1: my brain becomes clouded. When like Momo starts barking at somebody,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I get all flustered and whatever. A dog
Speaker 1: fight is like it is one of the most flustering,
Speaker 1: like clouding experiences you can you can have. I've heard
Speaker 1: through a water on them, I could see that. I
Speaker 1: could also see him just fighting right through the water.
Speaker 1: If the fight's bad enough. Yeah, I mean my dog Lucy,
Speaker 1: who isn't with us, gotten to a fight with my
Speaker 1: former co dog, Jake, the pit bull who you know,
Speaker 1: my prince justin ended up taking and it was ugly, man,
Speaker 1: and they're both not with us, and they're both really
Speaker 1: sweet dogs, but they looked at each other wrong and
Speaker 1: it was on from the get go, and like Lucy
Speaker 1: took off part of Jake's ear and it was just
Speaker 1: like it was bad. He was scary. You don't know
Speaker 1: what to do, right, And so a person who um
Speaker 1: who is who subscribes the dominance theory training says, you
Speaker 1: need to show that both of those dogs that you're
Speaker 1: in charge, and you tell them they're not fighting there,
Speaker 1: that they're acting out their misbehaving because they don't understand
Speaker 1: their role. But at the same time, I would be like, well, no,
Speaker 1: it sounds like that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't
Speaker 1: think you're the alpha. They're trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: their position over one another in this packet or just
Speaker 1: dogs being dogs, man, that's another way to look at it.
Speaker 1: For sure. You know, like Lucy got attacked at a
Speaker 1: dog park when she was young, and from that day
Speaker 1: forward was you know, if a dog was slightly aggressive,
Speaker 1: it was on and scary. Yeah, so we couldn't take
Speaker 1: around other dogs, that's the up shot. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: would say so. One of the other things I want
Speaker 1: to call out here, rather than waiting, um, when a
Speaker 1: dog acts aggressively, every trainer I've seen on both sides
Speaker 1: says that it's fearful that the dog is actually afraid.
Speaker 1: That was for sure Lucy's case. Yeah, so yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's that's why I thought of that, because you know,
Speaker 1: she had a negative experience and she was afraid, so
Speaker 1: she would act aggressive in the face of fear. So
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why people criticize dominance training, as
Speaker 1: we'll see, is that you're physically and aggressively punishing aggressive behavior.
Speaker 1: So you're you're punishing a dog for feeling fearful, which
Speaker 1: is going to make it more fearful of whatever it
Speaker 1: is it's afraid of at that moment, which means it's
Speaker 1: actually probably likelier that it will become more aggressive rather
Speaker 1: than it's like a human kid too. You know, if
Speaker 1: you have a kid who has learned to be aggressive,
Speaker 1: in your way of discipline them is to hit them, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is gonna happen? I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about human kids. I only know
Speaker 1: about dogs. They're the same. So back to the uh,
Speaker 1: the physical methods of dominance training. There was alpha role
Speaker 1: dominance down. There's the scrub shakes when you grabbed the
Speaker 1: dog's jowls they're scruff with both hands and shake it
Speaker 1: really hard and stare them, stare them in the eyes.
Speaker 1: Leash jerk if you're on a on a walk with
Speaker 1: your dog and they're pulling you let them get up
Speaker 1: ahead and then jerk back really really hard. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then using choke collars or pinch collars or shot collars
Speaker 1: uh instead of like the more humane gentle leaders what
Speaker 1: they call them. This sort of looks like a muzzle,
Speaker 1: but when the dog pulls, it just sort of pulls
Speaker 1: their nose down and they don't like that. Right. The
Speaker 1: that's for the other kind. Physically hurting them when they
Speaker 1: pull on the leash correct or when you jerk the
Speaker 1: leash back right or the choke pinch or shot collars
Speaker 1: are all all dominance or there's psychological methods to um
Speaker 1: staring at the dog until the dog looks away like
Speaker 1: I'm boss, who's gonna blink first? You dog? You? Or
Speaker 1: Growling at a dog or making dog noises to the
Speaker 1: dog is another dominance technique. Yeah, psychological dominance. So so
Speaker 1: you've got all these techniques and UM as far as
Speaker 1: dominance training goes. If you employ them in a UM
Speaker 1: consistent manner, eventually your dog is going to figure out
Speaker 1: who's boss. And they the people who subscribe to dominance
Speaker 1: theories say this is actually a gift to your dog,
Speaker 1: because if your dog is acting improperly, if it's misbehaving,
Speaker 1: if it's being aggressive, it's asserting itself because it doesn't
Speaker 1: realize that you're the alpha because you haven't asserted yourself
Speaker 1: over your dog, and so somebody's got to be the alpha.
Speaker 1: So this dog is confused and is trying to step up.
Speaker 1: So if you assert your dominance over this dog, you
Speaker 1: will reassure that there is an alpha in charge and
Speaker 1: it can just relax and be a good, happy dog.
Speaker 1: That's what people who who subscribe to dominance theory say
Speaker 1: is the whole purpose of dominance theory. Right on the
Speaker 1: other side, you have people saying, no, your dog is
Speaker 1: not just becoming super happy because they know you're in charge.
Speaker 1: They're going on into shutdown mode. Basically, because they're afraid
Speaker 1: to do stuff and they're basically living in a state
Speaker 1: of shutdown mode because they're afraid of being alpha rolled
Speaker 1: or barked at or pinned or whatever. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: that what they'll do is is here's the thing, and
Speaker 1: this is really important to remember. Nobody's saying dominance training
Speaker 1: doesn't actually, at least in the short term, curb problem
Speaker 1: behavior and dogs. But the way that you're doing is
Speaker 1: actually like breaking the dog's spirit. You're not you're not
Speaker 1: providing it this comfortable position in the household. It's pack
Speaker 1: You're basically just breaking a spirit so that it it
Speaker 1: it doesn't do anything until you tell it to do something.
Speaker 1: It's that shutdown that you were just talking about. And
Speaker 1: people who subscribe to the other way. So no, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a different, better way to do this which
Speaker 1: doesn't involved breaking the dog, which allows the dog to
Speaker 1: lead a happier, healthier life. And and there's um what's
Speaker 1: called the least intrusive, minimally aversive list of how to
Speaker 1: train a dog and using dominance theory techniques are at
Speaker 1: the bottom of this list. Yeah, I think they listed
Speaker 1: six things, and that was number six was positive punishment,
Speaker 1: which is a bit of a contradiction in terms I guess,
Speaker 1: but yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, that's what the
Speaker 1: whole list or just the positive punishment, well, just about
Speaker 1: the punishment problem. Yeah, I mean, that's when you're delivering
Speaker 1: what they called an aversive consequence or I guess averse
Speaker 1: consequence to reduce probability that a behavior will occur. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in this in this sense, positive and negative doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean like good or bad. It means the introduction
Speaker 1: or the removal of something. So so you can have
Speaker 1: a negative reward where something bad is removed in reward
Speaker 1: for the you know, the dog doing the behavior you want.
Speaker 1: And then you also have negative punishment, where you remove
Speaker 1: something good when the dog does something you don't want
Speaker 1: it to do. You also have positive rewards, which is
Speaker 1: basically giving a treat to a dog it does something
Speaker 1: good and you say hey, here you go, or praise
Speaker 1: or something like that. And then positive punishment, which sounds
Speaker 1: like okay, that's an alright kind of punishment, that's actually
Speaker 1: the worst of all of them as far as the
Speaker 1: most professional dog trainers are concerned. That is where you're
Speaker 1: introducing punishment because the dog is doing something. So you're
Speaker 1: yelling at the dog, you're alpha rolling the dog, you're
Speaker 1: spanking the dog, you're introducing a punishment as a response
Speaker 1: for an unwanted behavior in this hope to train the dog.
Speaker 1: And so they say, well, here's there's the basic problem
Speaker 1: right there with dominance theory and dominance training is that
Speaker 1: eventually you're going to come to positive punishment. It's woe
Speaker 1: even into the fabric of dominance theory. And if you're
Speaker 1: punishing your dog, if you're yelling at your dog or
Speaker 1: outa rolling your dog, you're going to create this shutdown dog.
Speaker 1: And what's more, it seems that positive punishment, as far
Speaker 1: as training techniques, conditioning operat conditioning techniques go, is the
Speaker 1: least effective of all of those four. And not it's
Speaker 1: not just dog trainers saying that. Even B. F. Skinner himself,
Speaker 1: who created a Skinner box and raises poor little barefoot
Speaker 1: electrocuted children, and he said, yes, positive punishment is the
Speaker 1: least effective of all of these. Yeah, they say, the
Speaker 1: number one on that list is health, nutritional and physical factors.
Speaker 1: And this is basically setting up your house then being
Speaker 1: assured that your dog is like healthy and well fed
Speaker 1: and like there's nothing physically wrong with a dog. Like
Speaker 1: if your dog is peeing in the house and won't
Speaker 1: get housebroken, they're saying, the first step you should do
Speaker 1: is take your dog to a vet and make sure
Speaker 1: it doesn't have like a urinary tract infection. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: let's go over this list, because that's really helpful. There
Speaker 1: was um The Association of Professional Dog Trainers have a
Speaker 1: list of misinterpretations. Urinating the house is one of them.
Speaker 1: A dominance explanation would be like, no, they're peeing on
Speaker 1: your bed, because they're trying to show say like this
Speaker 1: is my territory. It's it's a really paranoid place to
Speaker 1: come from, kind of you know, all the dog, the
Speaker 1: dog thinks it's better than me. What is really going on,
Speaker 1: they say, is that it's just the house training has
Speaker 1: been inconsistent, Yes, which or you have a urinary tract
Speaker 1: infection or something right, and you would find that out
Speaker 1: by taking that first step, which is taking the dog
Speaker 1: to the vet to make sure there isn't a health
Speaker 1: or medical issue that can solve this problem, because again,
Speaker 1: it all comes down to this problem behavior. Why is
Speaker 1: the dog doing it or what do you want the
Speaker 1: dog to do instead right, jumping up on people. This
Speaker 1: is Nico Steele. A dominance explanation would be that that
Speaker 1: she's doing this to assert their height and rank over you,
Speaker 1: like I'm just as big as you are, Whereas what's
Speaker 1: really going on is she wants to lick your face
Speaker 1: and it's fun and she's excited and wants to say hello. Right,
Speaker 1: So what you would do is you would say, teach
Speaker 1: your dog to sit um whenever you go to open
Speaker 1: the door something like that, or if your dog is
Speaker 1: jumping up um, to to ignore it until it's sitting
Speaker 1: with all all four paws on the floor and then
Speaker 1: you reward it. Because it's, like you were saying, one
Speaker 1: of the easiest ways to train your dog is accidentally,
Speaker 1: And what you're doing is training your dog to do
Speaker 1: all the stuff you don't want your dog to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you come home from vacation and Nico jumps
Speaker 1: up on you, like your first instinct is to kiss
Speaker 1: her face and tell her how good it is to
Speaker 1: see her, and that's the wrong thing to do. Like
Speaker 1: I'm good at that, Like I can come in and
Speaker 1: just turn my back and ignore and it works. But
Speaker 1: you gotta get people coming in the house, all your
Speaker 1: friends coming in and family, like everyone's got to be
Speaker 1: on board. Yeah, Like like Momo barks that stranger is
Speaker 1: when they come into her house. She does not like,
Speaker 1: like say a contractor coming over to to bark or
Speaker 1: to come to her house. She just doesn't like it.
Speaker 1: So ideally I would give the stranger a treat, say
Speaker 1: the contractor treat. I'd be like, by the way, can
Speaker 1: you show up five minutes early to our appointment. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you a dog treat. Slide a treat under
Speaker 1: the door. You and I are going to go and
Speaker 1: sit and get situated at the at the table, at
Speaker 1: the dinner table, and we're gonna just talk calmly. And
Speaker 1: then my wife is going to bring my dog into
Speaker 1: the room and you're going to give her a treat.
Speaker 1: Don't stand up in the presence of my dog. Once
Speaker 1: my wife removes our dog, then we can go on
Speaker 1: with our appointment. That would be the ideal thing. What this,
Speaker 1: what this thing says to do is Okay, instead of
Speaker 1: all that, just keep your dog outside. Go hang out
Speaker 1: outside with your dog. Make it say your dog has
Speaker 1: no idea. Anybody even came over. Yeah, that's easier sometimes. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the number two thing that you're supposed to do
Speaker 1: after taking the dog to a vet. Um is just
Speaker 1: changing the dog's world so that the problem behavior doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: because the thing that creates that problem behavior isn't part
Speaker 1: of the dog's world anymore. Yeah, the situation last week
Speaker 1: where I was out of town. You know, we had
Speaker 1: our house worked on in the contractor. The framer guy
Speaker 1: who was there most of the time, like hands on,
Speaker 1: really loves dogs and loves our dogs, but he had
Speaker 1: to come over and do something. He hadn't been over
Speaker 1: in a while, and I was gone, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I can tell you how to get in
Speaker 1: my house if you want to go put them in
Speaker 1: the in the bedroom so the plumber can come in.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is on you, man, if you
Speaker 1: want to do this. He's like, sure, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: And he came in and texted me afterwards that said
Speaker 1: that Charlie. He said, as soon as I walked in,
Speaker 1: bolted and ran into the bedroom basically, and that Nico
Speaker 1: like barked and barked, and then it was just like
Speaker 1: downstairs trembling and afraid, and he eventually was like, come on, Nico,
Speaker 1: come on up, and he got her into the bedroom.
Speaker 1: That is that is so sad. It's but it's also
Speaker 1: really sad too when you think about your dog, um,
Speaker 1: you know, barking or being aggressive or something like that,
Speaker 1: when you're just like, oh, it's so obnoxious, be quiet,
Speaker 1: But then if you realize like they're actually doing it
Speaker 1: because they're scared, witness makes the whole thing just heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a really important thing to remember
Speaker 1: too because it changes your perspective on it. It It goes
Speaker 1: from being like, stop being aggressive, stop being hostile, you know,
Speaker 1: to to realizing you're saying, stop being afraid, you know,
Speaker 1: stop being a chicken. That's no way to talk to
Speaker 1: something that you love. And that holds true for a
Speaker 1: dog too, so to think that really kind of changes
Speaker 1: your perspective. The advice of my monologue, uh and then
Speaker 1: a couple of other behaviors pulling on a leash. A
Speaker 1: dominance explanation might be that no, they're trying to assert
Speaker 1: that there the Aleph and get out in front of
Speaker 1: you and be in charge. Whereas what's really good going
Speaker 1: on as your dogs excited to be on a walk
Speaker 1: and they love to get out there and smell things,
Speaker 1: and um, that's why they're pulling. Uh and then finally
Speaker 1: running through the doorway. First I get run over by
Speaker 1: my dogs all the time trying to get outside. Um.
Speaker 1: And the dominance theory is that they're trying to push
Speaker 1: you out of the way to show you there in
Speaker 1: charge again. Uh. They what they're doing is pushing out
Speaker 1: of the way because you're blocking them from getting outside
Speaker 1: where they love life a lot more. Right So, and
Speaker 1: this really kind of I think, does a beautiful job
Speaker 1: Chuck of putting side by side the dominance theory and
Speaker 1: the um the What is the positive positive reinforcement I
Speaker 1: guess yeah, positive reinforcement theory, those are the two main ones.
Speaker 1: But just the the almost night and day ways that
Speaker 1: they see dogs like what makes dogs dogs? That to
Speaker 1: a dominance theory person, the dogs just like I'm in
Speaker 1: charge of you, get out of my way. Where the
Speaker 1: the positive reinforcement theory says, no, dog just likes to
Speaker 1: go have fun and it's really not very concerned with,
Speaker 1: you know, social niceties of letting you go first. It
Speaker 1: wants to go have fun immediately. It doesn't really have
Speaker 1: anything to do with you it's a dog exactly. I
Speaker 1: just I don't know if if everyone's figured this out
Speaker 1: or not, but I tend to fall a little more
Speaker 1: on the positive reinforcement side of that same here. So
Speaker 1: let's take a break then and talk about a little
Speaker 1: bit more about the problems with dominance training, but then
Speaker 1: the joy and the goodness that is positive reinforcement beautiful. Alright,
Speaker 1: So earlier in the show, you said that dominance training
Speaker 1: can achieve results. No one argues that that can be
Speaker 1: effective at times, but we talked about why it's effective
Speaker 1: that your dog is being shut down. Essentially, your dog
Speaker 1: might be fearful. Uh. And one of the other problems
Speaker 1: besides harming the relationship between you and your dog that
Speaker 1: you might even know it's harmed, is that if your
Speaker 1: dog is aggressive at all, this can really ramp that up,
Speaker 1: and that can be a big problem. Yeah, because again,
Speaker 1: you're punishing your dog for being fearful if it's if
Speaker 1: you're punishing it for aggressiveness, and you're just making it
Speaker 1: more fearful. So two of the other big problems that
Speaker 1: can arise from dominance training our injury to the dog.
Speaker 1: If you say, you know, do an alpha role too
Speaker 1: hard and you break its rib or something like that
Speaker 1: that can happen, or if you're instilling further aggressiveness in
Speaker 1: the dog, an injury to you or the trainer or
Speaker 1: somebody else. Yeah, there was a study in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: so it's a little old, but I imagine it's still
Speaker 1: pretty true. Uh, published in the Applied Behavioral Science. UM.
Speaker 1: I guess journal, Um extravaganza. Uh. They serve a dog
Speaker 1: owners who would reported problem behavior and a rssian. They
Speaker 1: completed the survey about their training techniques and of the
Speaker 1: dogs that were physically punished, hit or kick, which I
Speaker 1: can't even go there in my mind, of those dogs
Speaker 1: responded with aggression, duh um. And then what else if
Speaker 1: you that a dog it was for dogs, Um became aggressive? Okay,
Speaker 1: that staring was the scruff shake of dogs. Um, we're
Speaker 1: aggressive in response. And the alpha role was right. And
Speaker 1: this is one reason, another reason why there's a near
Speaker 1: consensus despite what Caesar Milan might say on dominance training
Speaker 1: not being the way to go. The Association of Professional
Speaker 1: Dog Trainers, International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, American Veterinary
Speaker 1: Society of Animal Behavior, Pet Professional Guide, and the Certification
Speaker 1: Council for Professional Dog Trainers all say this is not
Speaker 1: the way Caesar. Yeah, they say it's like, not only
Speaker 1: is it bad for the dog, it's not rooted in science.
Speaker 1: That the whole thing that dominance theory was based on
Speaker 1: is not correct. Yeah, the whole wolf thing. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: Caesar will still say I mean, he's still out there
Speaker 1: saying nope. Animals love, they want to be in a
Speaker 1: pack and they want to have a strong pack leader
Speaker 1: and that is up to you to be that pack leader. Yes,
Speaker 1: So this article kind of says that, Um, basically the
Speaker 1: people who are in the dominance are amateur dog trainers, unaccredited,
Speaker 1: and UM, I guess not high end is the way
Speaker 1: I would have put it, you know, twenty minutes ago. Um,
Speaker 1: and the a lot of pet dominance training, UM, tool
Speaker 1: industry people like that sell the shot colors are yes.
Speaker 1: And then people who watched Caesar melt right because he
Speaker 1: is He's a force onto himself as far as dominance
Speaker 1: training goes, because people watch his show and they're like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: this really works. You can go to a dog and
Speaker 1: the dog will like stop doing what you want to do,
Speaker 1: and and so he does. He produces results. But again
Speaker 1: that that question of what what kind of a dog
Speaker 1: or what kind of a mentality he's producing in the dog,
Speaker 1: or that that kind of training produces in a dog,
Speaker 1: that's the that's what's that question that's also heavily edits
Speaker 1: the TV show. We have to remember it is well,
Speaker 1: you know, he got in a lot of I don't
Speaker 1: want to say he got in a lot of trouble
Speaker 1: um water, maybe a little bit. But there was like
Speaker 1: a petition that got like ten thousand signatures to have
Speaker 1: a show canceled on National Geographic because, um, yeah, the
Speaker 1: pig thing where he there was a French bulldog that
Speaker 1: had killed two pot bellied pigs in its past and
Speaker 1: the owner was like, I don't want my dog to
Speaker 1: kill pigs anymore, and Caesar is like, I have just
Speaker 1: the idea. Let's put it in a pen with another pig.
Speaker 1: And apparently it was going very well, but then um,
Speaker 1: they let it off of the lead and the dog
Speaker 1: atta at the pig and took a chunk out of
Speaker 1: its ear. And they aired this um and I'm sure
Speaker 1: they aired it because they were trying to be true
Speaker 1: to their documentary roots, I guess, rather than just editing
Speaker 1: the whole thing out and being like, well, we can't
Speaker 1: show that they included it, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of outrage and they were like, this is a clear
Speaker 1: act of animal abuse, like this pig was harmed because
Speaker 1: of this shows actions and seizure bonds actions. And there
Speaker 1: was an investigation by Los Angeles County, I think um
Speaker 1: to see whether you know, they could charge him with
Speaker 1: animal abuse, and they cleared him eventually, but it created
Speaker 1: it produced this round of um of interviews for him,
Speaker 1: a lot of publicity for the show, but also he
Speaker 1: did a lot of interviews and in every single one
Speaker 1: he said, I understand that you know, the people who
Speaker 1: are who are who prompted this investigation care about animals,
Speaker 1: and they are you know, the people who are doing
Speaker 1: the investigating are doing their job and they should and
Speaker 1: it's it's great and I'll cooperate. But in every single
Speaker 1: one he stood by dominance training. He did not question
Speaker 1: it for a second. That's true. He still believes in it.
Speaker 1: So on the other side, we have positive reinforcement, and
Speaker 1: that's generally like a two pronged thing where you reward
Speaker 1: good behavior. And this next part is really key because
Speaker 1: it's easy to reward good behavior but not accidentally reinforcing
Speaker 1: bad behavior, which she talked about earlier, which is someone
Speaker 1: comes in, Nico jumps on them in my instinct is
Speaker 1: to pull her off and say, no, I am reinforcing
Speaker 1: that bad behavior just by giving her even negative attention,
Speaker 1: right exactly. So, So what's the whole point of positive
Speaker 1: reinforcement is ignoring the behavior that you don't want to happen,
Speaker 1: which means you're not accidentally reinforcing bad behavior, and then
Speaker 1: rewarding the behavior that you do want to happen. So,
Speaker 1: in the case of Nico, the um the part where
Speaker 1: you're ignoring it's called extinction, where this idea that the
Speaker 1: unwanted behavior goes away if you do nothing. Um, when
Speaker 1: you come in and she's jumping up, you just turn
Speaker 1: your back to her and ignore and just go about
Speaker 1: your business, say, unpacking your shoes. Maybe you've got a
Speaker 1: wet bathing suit that you need to get out of
Speaker 1: your suitcase with that kind of thing. You know, you've
Speaker 1: just come home from a beach vacation. Did she does
Speaker 1: this when I go get the mail? Okay? All right, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: So you come back and you're looking to your your mail,
Speaker 1: your Garnet Hill catalog, and you know, you're thinking, maybe
Speaker 1: I will spend a little more on Halloween decorations than
Speaker 1: last year. And um, you you you're ignoring her. You're
Speaker 1: just doing your thing. And then the moment she sits
Speaker 1: quietly and looks up at you, Bam, you're there with
Speaker 1: the treat, with the tug of rope, tug of war rope,
Speaker 1: the verbal praise. You're like, you're right there. And then
Speaker 1: you go back to it. She jumps up, and you
Speaker 1: go right back to your mail. You just totally ignore it.
Speaker 1: In the moment her feet are on the floor, Bam,
Speaker 1: you're right back there with another treat. So you're you're
Speaker 1: very consistently. This is really really key. You're consistently rewarding
Speaker 1: the behavior that you want, and you're consistently ignoring the
Speaker 1: behavior that you don't want. Yeah, and again, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: good at about this with myself. Um, and she doesn't
Speaker 1: jump on me, but it's just it's with other folks.
Speaker 1: So that's the thing. I got to really really work on.
Speaker 1: Some of our closest friends that come over a lot, understand,
Speaker 1: and they ignore her and try and turn their back
Speaker 1: and stuff. Until she comes they hate me. Oh goodness.
Speaker 1: Another thing you can use is the clicker um, and
Speaker 1: that is uh, something you hold in your hand that
Speaker 1: makes us clicking sound and you just sort of reinforce
Speaker 1: that along with the treat. But they hear that click,
Speaker 1: and I guess it's sort of like that Pavlovian response
Speaker 1: where the precision of that click it makes it easier
Speaker 1: for them to to put two and two together. And
Speaker 1: pretty soon you can make that click and they know like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'll just sit down and behave because
Speaker 1: the treats coming my way. Well, you're with the click.
Speaker 1: I think you're more marking the behavior. Like there's five
Speaker 1: different things that she's doing as she says settling in
Speaker 1: or whatever. Maybe she was looking up out the window
Speaker 1: and you said good girl because she was sitting down.
Speaker 1: But to her, you're saying good girl because she's looking
Speaker 1: out the window. If you clicked, if you clicked the
Speaker 1: moment she sat down and settled, um, she would know
Speaker 1: that what you were talking about was the seating, the
Speaker 1: sitting part, rather than looking out the window part. The
Speaker 1: clickers just it's it happened so fast. It allows the
Speaker 1: dog to mark that behavior. More than your praise, right,
Speaker 1: because it takes a lot longer to say Nicol, you're
Speaker 1: so good then that little click, So you'd want to
Speaker 1: click first and then hit her with the praise. But
Speaker 1: the click is like, oh that thing, that's right. And
Speaker 1: the consistency that you were talking about is so key
Speaker 1: because you can be going down a good path for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks and undo it all in a
Speaker 1: couple of days or even a single action if you're
Speaker 1: not consistent with you know, this training. But but it's
Speaker 1: like with the being in the house thing, maybe the
Speaker 1: house the house training that you engaged in originally did
Speaker 1: you didn't quite finish, You weren't quite consistent enough, so
Speaker 1: go start over. It's not like it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'll never have a nice rug again. My dog just
Speaker 1: peas in the house. It's like, no, you you go
Speaker 1: back to house training your dog or you know, if
Speaker 1: you have this, uh whatever, the unwanted behaviors, you just
Speaker 1: have to go back to it and do it again
Speaker 1: and your dog will pick it up um probably way
Speaker 1: faster the second time, and you just stick to it.
Speaker 1: It's just more consistency, which is why I was saying
Speaker 1: earlier it's you know, a little more involved owning a
Speaker 1: dog than we used to think it was. But the
Speaker 1: dogs that were, you know, like sharing our lives with are,
Speaker 1: I would argue, are way happier and healthier mentally and
Speaker 1: probably physically too than say they were thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: In general. Yeah, and there is a certain amount you know,
Speaker 1: you don't get dogs and cats if you want to
Speaker 1: have um, well it is not necessarily true, but if
Speaker 1: you need a pristine house that's hairless, you probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: have pets. Like, there's a certain amount of giving into
Speaker 1: the fact that, um I mean, and you may have
Speaker 1: rules where like pets aren't allowed on any furniture, which
Speaker 1: is great. That helps, but like in my house, their
Speaker 1: furniture dogs. So we know, our sunroom couch is never
Speaker 1: going to be the nicest, greatest couch in the world.
Speaker 1: It's always gonna have some dog here on it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's just the way it is. That's fine with us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you me and I are defiant. We have not one
Speaker 1: but two white couches. Yeah, luckily MoMA doesn't shed. But
Speaker 1: as as Mom ever thrown up on the couch, no,
Speaker 1: she hasn't. And I know now that I'm saying this
Speaker 1: back at home, she's throwing up on the couch for
Speaker 1: the first time ever. Are you know my friend Justin Uh.
Speaker 1: He and his partner Melissa have a great dog named Fully,
Speaker 1: who is Nico's best friend, and Fully is not allowed
Speaker 1: on their furniture and is really good about it, but
Speaker 1: he is allowed on our furniture. So when Fully comes
Speaker 1: over for spend the nights and played times, he fully
Speaker 1: milks that stuff. But it doesn't they and I was
Speaker 1: worried it was gonna mess them up at home, but
Speaker 1: it hasn't. He gets a difference. Yeah, I think probably
Speaker 1: because dogs are a lot smarter than than we give
Speaker 1: them credit for. Probably, he probably likes a spender. Two.
Speaker 1: I can tell you Mama was very smart. Yeah. My
Speaker 1: dogs are smart and dumb, you know. Yeah, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: a good way for a dog to be too. It's
Speaker 1: like sometimes you think, man, what a smart dog, and
Speaker 1: then you see them eating like poop out of the
Speaker 1: cat litter box and be like, wow, you're really not
Speaker 1: very smart. After and they're like, oh, it's so God.
Speaker 1: Or they come around the corner with cat litter on
Speaker 1: their nose. They're like, what I wouldn't do it anything right,
Speaker 1: play it off, just played cool. They don't know anything,
Speaker 1: they can't prove anything. You got anything else about cat poop?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Don't hit and kick your dogs, man,
Speaker 1: don't beat up your dogs. That's uh well, if you
Speaker 1: want to know more about dog training, there is a
Speaker 1: lot to go read about on the internet and a
Speaker 1: lot of these conflicting So definitely choose wisely. And since
Speaker 1: I said choose wisely, it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one. It delighted us. Oh, I
Speaker 1: think you probably read this one. Um, I enjoyed the
Speaker 1: short stuff. Guys. On barbed wire, I wanted to share
Speaker 1: the fact that my great great grandfather, one William Harvey Beale,
Speaker 1: invented the barbed wire tightener. How about that? Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is what enabled ranchers and farmers to install their own fencing.
Speaker 1: I am the twelfth generation and a long line of
Speaker 1: Beals that began in the US in the sixteen eighties
Speaker 1: from England, first landing in Pennsylvania and gradually by creating westward. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that remind have you ever? Do
Speaker 1: you watched what we do in the shadows I have
Speaker 1: seen it here there, yes, so you know it was
Speaker 1: a it was a movie and now it's a TV show.
Speaker 1: And the TV show one of the elder vampires, uh
Speaker 1: any time that you know they're on Staten Island and
Speaker 1: talks about Manhattan, he calls it Mannahatta. That's hilarious, but
Speaker 1: there's no reason for it to be hilarious, but it
Speaker 1: describes that. I like the TV show more than the
Speaker 1: movie because almost exclusively because of Matthew Berry. Really, I
Speaker 1: think anything he's in is just that guy is good.
Speaker 1: It's great. You know, one of the writers on that
Speaker 1: show and producers is Tom Sharplin of The Best Show. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I don't know how that reminded me of it. I
Speaker 1: think I was thinking about them landing in Pennsylvania and
Speaker 1: what it was called back then, Pennsylvana. Back to the letter,
Speaker 1: William Barby, whose generation eight was homesteadying in Kansas nine
Speaker 1: and took a job as a barbed wire fence salesman,
Speaker 1: and he said that Goodness knows, there was plenty of
Speaker 1: fencing being shipped into the country by that time. You
Speaker 1: couldn't do any good trying to farm without it. Big
Speaker 1: problem there for farmers they got the fence up, was
Speaker 1: how to pull the wire tight on the post. So
Speaker 1: he tinkered in a forge and developed a device to
Speaker 1: pull the wire tight. So kind of patent and was
Speaker 1: soon selling the beal wire tightener to quote every bedevilled
Speaker 1: fence tender for miles around in quote. She sent pictures
Speaker 1: of the device and the patent and William working on
Speaker 1: a ranch and that was great, she said. He traveled
Speaker 1: around the West. He traveled around the West for eight
Speaker 1: years selling his invention, was able to pay off his debts.
Speaker 1: Eventually moved to California, a with the next four generations remain.
Speaker 1: I'm writing from San Diego. I know all these details
Speaker 1: thanks to William's youngest daughter who recorded extensive oral histories
Speaker 1: and books. What a great letter. That is a great letter, um.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to show for about five years. Flew
Speaker 1: to Phoenix to see you live last year. Here the
Speaker 1: highlight of my week. With love and gratitude, Chandra in
Speaker 1: San Diego. Thanks a lot, Chandra, Pennsylvania to San Diego. No,
Speaker 1: I love it. Over three hundred and forty years the
Speaker 1: Mannahatta Um. That was a great one. Thanks and for
Speaker 1: the pictures too. That was just excellent. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with this, like Sandra did Schaendra right? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot
Speaker 1: com and check out our social links. And if that
Speaker 1: doesn't work, you can always try a good old fashioned email,
Speaker 1: Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send
Speaker 1: it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
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