Dog Training Today with Will Bangura #128: Preventing Your Dog from Turning Thanksgiving into Their Banquet: A Guide

Are you ready to tackle the chaos of Thanksgiving with a dog who has a nose for the turkey? Trust us, we've been there too. That's why we've put together a special Dog Training Today episode, teeming with practical strategies that will not only keep your dog from swiping that sweet potato pie but also foster reliability in their training.

The holiday season sneaks up on all of us, and we understand intensive training might not fit into your packed schedule. So, we dive straight into methods that manage your dog's behavior without formal training. Hear us out as we guide you through containment strategies, like using crates effectively, and how teaching your dog alternative behaviors can be more rewarding than that piece of turkey they've been eyeing. And if you're looking for resources to help you teach your dog these behaviors, we've got you covered.

We're also letting you in on the secrets of how to effectively train your dog to prevent counter surfing and respond promptly to commands. Timing is everything, and we highlight the potential dangers of superstitious association and the importance of precision when correcting your dog's behavior. From reward systems and the use of markers and clickers to reinforce positive behaviors, we unmask it all. So, put on your headphones, get cozy, and let’s prevent our canine friends from turning Thanksgiving into their banquet! Tune in to episode 81 of the Dog Training Today audio podcast, and let's navigate this holiday season together. Dog Training Today with Will Bangura

Chapters

• 0:00 Preventing Dogs From Stealing Thanksgiving Food
• 3:56 Managing Dog Behavior Without Training
• 17:33 Dog Training to Prevent Counter Surfing
• 28:00 Training Dogs to Respond to Commands

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So we're a few days away from Thanksgiving and every single year I get the same calls right after Thanksgiving, the dinner was completely ruined because some dog got up on the counter and stole the turkey and more.

Speaker 2: 0:16

Raised by wolves with canine DNA and his blood. Having trained more than 24,000 vets, helping you and your fur babies thrive, live in studio with Will Bangura answering your pet behavior and training questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert, will Bangura.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Good day pet lovers. As I said, we are just a few days away from Thanksgiving. I hope everybody's planning to have a fantastic holiday and please have safe travels as you travel this holiday weekend. Like I said, every year I get the call or I usually get a few calls where the Thanksgiving dinner was absolutely ruined because somebody's got a dog that hasn't been taught to leave other people's food alone. They either got up on the counter and stole something huge Maybe they got into the actual turkey but then also what I'm hearing is that you've got guests over to the house, they're setting flatware and plates down on side tables and we've got dogs that are running up to everybody and stealing the food off their plate. So I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about some things that you can do. There are some things that you can do this Thanksgiving weekend if you haven't put any of the training into your dog, but also things that you're going to be able to do if you've got this problem and not have this problem next year at Thanksgiving. So let's talk a little bit about what you can do right now.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Well, there's not a lot of time to get reliability and permanence in training as far as being able to teach alternative behaviors, which we're going to be talking about in just a little bit. How do you stop unwanted behaviors? We're going to talk about how you can stop your dog from begging for people food, begging at the table, begging at the counter. How do you stop your dog from stealing food off of plates. How do you stop your dog from stealing food off the table and off the counter? We're going to talk about how you can do all of that without having to punish your dog. No, you don't need to yell no at your dog. First of all, if your dog knew better, your dog wouldn't be doing that. Now I know a lot of you're going to say listen, how are you going to fight that temptation of the dog to want to get the food? Well, it takes some work and we're going to talk about the work that you can do, like I said, so that next year you're not going to have this problem. The other nice benefit is, if you start doing this now, you could have a New Year's Eve party, most likely, and you're going to have a dog that's not going to be stealing food, getting up on the counter, getting up on the table, stealing food off of people's plates, so you'll be able to use this well in advance of next Thanksgiving. We've got other holidays down the road In the summertime. We've got the 4th of July, so you've got Christmas. If you work really hard, you might be able to have some of this ready for Christmas and have a dog that has really good manners around food.

Speaker 1: 3:56

But let's talk about what we can do right now. If we have zero training put into the dog, what are we going to do? Well, it's going to be about management. How can you manage things? Well, is your dog crate trained? One of the things you can begin to do is get your dog comfortable with the crate. If it's not comfortable now, begin to do that for down the road, in case you need to crate your dog. See, I'm a firm believer that every dog needs to be comfortable in a crate, to not have anxiety, being confined, to not have separation anxiety. So if you've got a problem with that with your dog or your puppy, that's something that you need to be able to work on right now, because being able to confine your dog, being able to crate your dog and your dog being calm, your dog being relaxed and content, is one of the best management things that you can do, because, think about it, if your dog is in the crate and your dog is comfortable, your dog is relaxed, your dog. You've given your dog some toys. Maybe you've given it, gave it a bone or something that chew on as well, but your dog's completely content. What a great way to be able to prevent problems from happening when you don't have the training put in your dog. Now, would I prefer your dog not to be confined? Would I prefer your dog not to be in the crate? Would I prefer your dog to be able to be part of all the activity and the people and the fun and the festivities? Absolutely. But when we don't have the training put in the dog, we're looking at chaos, and what I'm trying to do is prevent the chaos from the phone calls that I get each and every year. So one of the first things is you manage things by utilizing a crate. Now, this is not something that is just helpful for holidays, when you have food. Being able to utilize a crate, being able to confine your dog when you can't supervise your dog, is an incredible tool for you to have.

Speaker 1: 6:15

It's important if you've got a dog with potty training issues. The number one rule of potty training is you supervise your dog or puppy, have them in your eyesight at all times, and when you can't watch them, they need to be in their crate. They need to be in their little confinement area, because most dogs are not going to soil their den, they're not going to soil their den, they're not going to soil their crate, and so we use that to help us potty train our dogs and to prevent potty accidents in the house. Also, some people have a dog that has destructive chewing. Crates are fantastic for that. Again, if you can't supervise your dog, we can create the dog and that allows us to prevent problem behaviors from occurring.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Now, that's not the answer. That's just management. We want to do the training, we want to do the behavior modification, we want to do the work so that the dog can be part of all the activities. But the best thing you can do to manage that behavior is to be able to create your dog. Now, maybe you've done work and your dog has a really reliable place command, or maybe you don't call it place, maybe you call it bed or spot, but what we're talking about is an exercise that you teach your dog where they go to their place, their bed, their spot, and they stay there and you work on distraction, work so that it's very reliable. You've got a very reliable stay on the bed, on their spot or on their elevated dog cot, which I call place. Now, if they're truly committed to that behavior, it would be incompatible with stealing food, because your dog can't be committed to staying on its bed, staying on its place, staying on its spot, and be getting off and stealing people's food at the same time. It has to give up one behavior for the other and we call that differential reinforcement and that's one of the things that we do as an alternative to punishing dogs when, quite frankly, the dogs usually don't know that they did something wrong because we haven't taken the time to teach them.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Listen, a dog stealing your food is just being a dog. I mean, the food is fantastic. Dogs are predators, they're social opportunists. If you've got incredible food sitting out all over the place and you haven't proactively taken the time to teach your dog not to steal that food, of course the dog's going to do that. Come on, if I'm a dog, I'm going to be doing that. That doesn't mean that you've got a bad dog. It doesn't mean that your dog is dominant. There's nothing dominant about wanting to steal food for a dog. That's just the nature of a dog.

Speaker 1: 9:32

It's our job to take the time and to be able to work with the dog and teach them behaviors that we don't want them to do, by teaching alternative behaviors, making the alternative behaviors more rewarding than stealing the food. Now we've got to put in time and training. But again, there's two things that that behavior of teaching them to go to their spot or going to their bed or going to their place, not only does it act as management, but it allows them to still be part of the activity. No, they're not running around between people's legs, but they can still hang out in the room where everybody's at. And again, if they're on their bed, if they're on their place, if they're on their spot, you can give them a bone, you can give them a toy, you can give them a chew, something that they would enjoy as well while they're hanging out there, while you guys are having your fun. So that's one thing that I recommend.

Speaker 1: 10:33

And if you need to learn how to teach place, if you need to learn how to teach your dog to stay on their bed or their spot. Go to my website, go to dogbehavioristcom Again, that's dogbehavioristcom. And when you get to the website, go to the menu, look for articles, click on articles and you're going to find almost 80 articles all on different behavior problems. And how do you work through those behavior problems? But if you'll go to the articles and you scroll through those articles, you're going to find one on how to teach place. That is probably one of the best things that you can do to teach your dog, because it has applications to be able to manage your dog's behaviors in various settings.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Even if I have a dog that is vicious and hates people, if I've got a really good place to command, if I have taught my dog and my dog is committed to staying on its bed or its place or its spot, it can't be attacking people at the same time. Now, granted, I don't want the dog attacking we're going to work on the aggression but I'm trying to make a point here. You could have the most vicious dog in the world that you've made no progress with, but if you have that dog so well trained that it will stay on its bed, stay on its place, stay on its spot even with heavy distractions. Well, people, people that the dog might not like, in the biggest sense is just a horrible distraction for the dog. Now your dog might not be comfortable being in that room with that other person. I'm just talking about management. Now, if I did a great job teaching place and my dog's committed to being there, my dog can't be jumping off a place, biting and attacking other people.

Speaker 1: 12:32

So even the most vicious dog, I can manage certain behaviors by teaching alternative behaviors that when the dog's committed to that other alternative behavior, they can't be engaging in the behavior I don't want. I've talked about it a lot like teaching sit when you've got a problem with a dog that likes to jump on guests. When they come through the front door and new people come over to the home, they get excited, they want to jump. Well, they can't be sitting and being committed to staying in that sit and jumping on the person at the same time. So that's what I'm talking about when I say differential reinforcement. Think different differential, different Differential reinforcement. We're using positive reinforcement to have a very well conditioned behavior that we're teaching that. We're rewarding the dog for that. The dog wants to do, is excited to do, and when the dog's doing that, it can't be engaging in the behaviors we don't want. See, we don't have to punish dogs today because, quite frankly, nine times out of 10, when somebody wants to correct a dog, when somebody wants to punish a dog, it's for a behavior that is natural For a dog, the most natural, normal behavior in the world, or it's a behavior that, quite frankly, we've been reinforcing all along, for example, jumping.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Does your dog ever get up on you and do you pet the dog? Have you ever done that in the life of your dog? Because I'm a firm believer. We teach dogs to jump and it starts when we pick puppies up and put them in our arms and hold them to our chest. Isn't that the position where the dogs are? When they want to jump, they want to get up on us and then we're going to pet them. We help to reinforce and create that behavior. So a lot of the behaviors that dogs do are just natural behaviors for a dog.

Speaker 1: 14:38

Again, they're not being dominant, they're not trying to spite you, and I don't believe it's fair to punish a dog. I don't believe it's fair to cause any kind of emotional upset. I don't wanna yell at my dog. I don't wanna use a physical correction, especially when my dog's just being a dog. That's not fair. This is about an ethical decision. This is about an animal welfare decision.

Speaker 1: 15:09

Yes, can you punish your dog, can you use a correction? Will it work? Yeah, it might work, but at what cost? At what cost to the relationship that you have with your dog? When you're the one doling out the upset, you're the one causing the fear, the pain, the intimidation with your dog. I don't wanna cause any fear, pain or intimidation with my dog because I love my dog. I love my dog.

Speaker 1: 15:45

Imagine that somebody else took your dog a stranger and you started watching them punishing your dog. How would you feel? How would you feel if some stranger was punishing your dog? So what makes it any different when you're the one punishing your dog Because you're frustrated? I understand I get the frustration, but really that's just communication that we have not taken the time to teach our dog behaviors that we want alternative behaviors that we want that if they're engaged in, it would prevent them from doing the behaviors that we don't want. See, we know today with modern dog training, evidence-based, science-based dog training that, yes, punishment, you can use punishment. That's an option and I am not gonna sit here and tell you that punishment won't work. I will tell you then in a lot of situations punishment merely suppresses the outward behavior Temporarily, temporarily takes that behavior, puts it on the shelf. But because it only suppressed outward behavior, because punishment doesn't do anything to change the underlying conditioned emotional response that's within the dog motivating the behavior, because punishment doesn't change that, that punishment just temporarily suppresses the behavior for a period of time and in most cases the behavior comes right on back because we didn't change the underlying emotional response that the dog has.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Also, your timing with punishment has to be incredible. You've gotta make darn sure that your dog understands the reason it was being punished was because of its behavior. You know you could have a dog talking about stealing things from the counter, talking about stealing food at Thanksgiving. You could have a dog that is jumping up on the counter stealing food and your three-year-old dog or three-year-old toddler could come up to the dog because it knows it shouldn't do that and might be saying, hey, don't get on the counter. And let's say you've got an electronic collar on your dog and you shock your dog right then because you're like, hey, I caught him in the act. They're right there at the counter. They're stealing food. If I give a well-timed correction with this shock collar, we're gonna be able to fix the problem. But you know what can happen.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Have you ever heard of a thing called superstitious association? Superstitious association can happen and oftentimes happens with punishment. Remember I said here we've got a situation the dog's up on the counter getting ready to steal some food. You've got a remote in your hand, a shock collar on the dog. You wanna correct your dog with that shock so that it won't get up on the counter and steal food anymore. But you've got a three-year-old toddler standing next to your dog trying to say to the dog hey, you shouldn't be doing this. And then all of a sudden the dog gets a shock. Yeah, yeah, that's me at my poor attempt at yipping like a dog. And because the toddler was right next to the dog, the dog thinks that the toddler caused that pain. Now the dog might be afraid of the toddler and out of anxiety, out of fear, the dog might start becoming aggressive towards that toddler. This happens all the time, folks, superstitious association, it's a real thing.

Speaker 1: 19:36

It can be very difficult in some situations to make it extremely clear to the dog why they're being corrected why they're experiencing the punishment and the pain and the fear and the intimidation. Hey, let's face it, I don't care how humanely you use an electronic collar, I don't care how humanely you use a prong collar. They are designed to cause discomfort and pain. They're designed to teach a dog to stop a behavior, because when they stop a behavior, it turns off the pain. That's how it works. It would not if it didn't do that. It would not work. And if it's not doing that, then why use it? Because there are other ways to teach.

Speaker 1: 20:25

And again, I'm not saying that punishment won't work. What I'm saying is is it fair to your dog and are you okay, do you think it's ethical, do you think it's right and are you comfortable punishing your dog for a behavior that's unbelievably natural? If you didn't take the time to teach the dog, hey, I don't want you to do that. Do this instead. So really, what we need to do if we want long-term permanence and reliability with a dog that's not gonna be stealing your food, your sister's food, your brother's food, your mom's food, your dad's food, grandma's food, uncle Bob's food, aunt Nancy's food and everybody else that you have over to the house we need to start doing some training, and one of the best things I've already talked about is teaching that place, teaching place and how to just hang out there. If your dog is used to having experiences where people are coming over and it could be hey, let's just say it's you every night that you have dinner. How about put your dog on place? And when you're done and you pick up the plates and the foods away, how about then release your dog from place and reward your dog while your dog's on place? Make it worth its while, intermittently, reinforce, give a high value food reward. If your dog's calmly hanging out on its bed, on its spot, on its place, of course we should reward that. That's what we're looking for. Then we can also begin to teach.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Leave it. One of the easiest ways that I begin the process of teaching leave it is I'll have some high value treats, some high value food rewards in both hands and I've got my hands closed and I bring one of my closed hands that has the high value food reward towards the dog's nose. The dog starts sniffing it it knows that there's something yummy in there and I go leave it. I take that hand and I move it away from the dog. And then I take my other hand that has high value food rewards and treats and I give it to the dog. Yep, that's exactly what I want to do Two hands full of treats.

Speaker 1: 22:46

One hand goes towards the dog. The dog smells it. Once those treats, I go, leave it, pull that hand away, bring the other hand out, open it up, give them the food. Then, after I've done that for a while now, what I'm going to do is that second hand is not going to have the food in it, but I'm going to pretend it does. I've got two hands that are closed, one hand with food in it. The other hand doesn't have food. The hand that I've got food in with my hand closed, I'm going to bring it again towards the dog's nose. The dog's going to sniff it. It's going to want the food that's in it. I say, leave it. I pull that hand away. Now, with the other hand, where there used to be treats and high value food rewards in it, I open the hand. The dog sees I've got nothing there. But then I reach in my treat pouch and I pull out a high value food reward. I give it to the dog and maybe I reach in my pouch and give a second one. Maybe I reach in my pouch a third time and give a third one. Basically, what I'm teaching the dog is that you're not losing anything when I ask you to leave it. You're going to get something just as good or you might get something even better, and that's really important.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Dogs are animals. Guys, they're animals. It wasn't that long ago that they were running around wild. When you take a look at the big scheme of things on planet Earth, again, it's the most natural thing for them to do is. I wrote a book on resource guarding, taming the treasure keepers. If you're a dog trainer, if you're thinking about being a dog trainer, if you work with dogs with aggression, if you work with dogs that have resource guarding or possessive aggression, you're going to want to get a copy. It's the first textbook ever written for pet professionals on resource guarding. Quite frankly, about 50% of dogs have some form of resource guarding, because it's a natural thing. It's part of evolution with dogs, it's part of their genetic makeup and oftentimes it's going to be something that we're going to deal with to some degree with most dogs that we have. I mean, if 50% of dogs have issues with resource guarding to one extent or another, half of you are dealing with it. So, while the textbook is designed for pet professionals and again you can get this on Amazon it's called Taming the Treasure Keepers by Will Bangura. It's all evidence-based, all science-based, but it's primarily for pet professionals. If you're a pet parent, there's probably an awful lot in that book that is overkill for you. That would be perfect for somebody who's a trainer or a veterinarian or a veterinary behaviorist or a behavior consultant or thinking about going into a profession of working with pets, their training and their behavior. Again, that's Taming the Treasure Keepers and you can get that on Amazon.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Going back to what you can do to begin to teach your dog to leave people food alone unless they've been given permission, one of the other things that I always do anytime I'm giving my dog people food and yes, I do give my dog people food. Sometimes they get sex because you know what the people food I give them is healthy and my dogs don't beg. And the reason that they don't beg number one I don't allow the behavior to occur. If my dog were begging, I'm going to go put my dog on place. I have an alternative behavior I can give the dog. It can't be at the table begging and be on place at the same time. If I do that long enough during mealtimes, that behavior of begging for food is going to extinguish If it no longer gets reinforced and there needs to be a period of time. But if there's a long enough period of time and there's no reinforcement, that behavior is going to extinguish.

Speaker 1: 27:01

But I'm also going to be doing things like teaching leave it and teaching the dog that hey, when I ask you to leave it, when you have to give up something, don't worry, you're going to get something just as good, if not better. And that's one of the most important things we can do to prevent resource guarding and also to be able to get your dog to continue to want to listen to you and to continue to want to give you what you want. Because imagine this, imagine that every time your dog had something in its mouth, you're like leave it and you took it away from the dog and that's it no replacement, not even a thank you. How many times does that have to happen before you're like oh no, I'm not going to mom anymore, I'm not going to dad, I'm not leaving anything, because they just take it away and I get nothing. They're just always taking things away from me. That sucks.

Speaker 1: 28:00

It's kind of like how people poison their recall. You know the command for having the dog come. They put that on cue. But you know what? How you can destroy the come command, how you can destroy having your dog come to you on cue is every time they grab something they shouldn't have in their mouth, you call them to you Bobo come and Bobo gets to you and you take it away and they get nothing in return. And then the next time they grab some, bobo come and Bobo is doing a great job of coming to you and you take away what Bobo has.

Speaker 1: 28:40

Every time you take it away, that's punishment. That's called negative punishment, taking away something the dog wants. Well, if every single time the dog comes to you when you ask for that and you punish the dog by taking away something it likes, before long your dog is no longer going to be coming to you when called, because you've poisoned that cue by pairing it with something. That's punishing. So you want to make sure that when you're teaching leave it, you're doing tradeouts and that what you're giving the dog is just as valuable, if not more. Now, little by little. As you continue to do this work, you're gonna be able to reward less and less and you're not gonna have to interrupt your dog as much. But remember rule number one we need to be controlling the environment. We need to be arranging the environment so that we're preventing these problems from happening when we know we've got a dog that does it. Otherwise, it's our fault.

Speaker 1: 29:48

If I know that I've got a dog that's gonna get up on the counter, that's gonna steal food, and I don't do something and my dog gets it, shame on me. It's not a bad dog. I'm just not being a great pet parent and doing what I need to do to teach a dog what I want it to do. So you want to teach? Leave it. If you don't know how to teach, leave it. And you need more information than what I just gave you. Again, please stop by my website. Go to dogbehavioristcom again, that's dog behavioristcom. Go to the menu, find articles, click on articles and I've got an article that goes through step-by-step instructions on how you teach. Leave it Now. Let's say, you know, leave it's great before your dog has it in its mouth. But let's say, now your dog has it in its mouth and we need to teach drop it and your dog's got something super yummy in its mouth.

Speaker 1: 30:58

One of the ways that I begin to teach drop is I'll take something that I know the dog will pick up in its mouth. Maybe it's a tennis ball and I don't want to go crazy. If I've got a dog that's absolutely ball crazy. I don't want to get the dog too, too excited because then it's gonna be really difficult to get it back. The dog's not gonna want to let it go typically, but I'll take that ball and again, to do this you've got to have a dog that's willing to pick something up. Like, if I roll a ball, will my dog pick it up in its mouth. If I throw a rope toy, will my dog go run after it pick it up in its mouth. So I want some kind of a toy that I know I can get my dog to pick up. I'm going to create the behavior of having my dog pick that thing up, that toy. So here I am rolling the ball or throwing the rope as my dog goes to pick it up, grabs it in its mouth and actually picks it up.

Speaker 1: 31:59

I'm going to label that behavior fetch. I'm not necessarily trying to teach or train in tech a fetch, but I want to label that behavior. Okay, I'm not going to be rewarding that behavior, not in this particular instance. I can and I can do other things with this, but for the purpose of this podcast, we're gonna talk about capturing the dog grabbing something in its mouth. We're gonna overlay the cue of fetch. We're making an association that fetch means pick something up, but I'm not gonna engage with the dog. After the dog picks up that item, I'm just gonna kind of freeze like a tree. I'm gonna be really boring and I'm gonna wait for the dog to drop it, to let it go. It's not gonna keep that item in its mouth forever. When my dog let's go of that item, I'm also gonna capture that behavior and I'm gonna overlay the cue drop. However, right after I overlay that cue, I'm also gonna click and reward. I'm gonna mark and reward. I'm going to reward. I'm gonna reinforce the behavior of letting that object go. Now, do you see what I'm doing here? I'm creating a behavior to get the dog to pick up something. I'm labeling that behavior. I'm not necessarily reinforcing that behavior, because what I want to reinforce is the drop. I wait the dog out when it has something in its mouth until it drops it on its own. And when it drops it on its own, I'm gonna overlay the cue drop and I'm gonna click and reward. I'm gonna mark and reward.

Speaker 1: 33:45

If you don't know what clicking and rewarding or marking and rewarding is, if you don't know what it means to train with markers or use a marker training system, you've got to find out what that means. It is a game changer when it comes to training dogs. So again, if you don't know what I mean by marking and rewarding, if you don't know what I mean by marking, if you don't know what I mean by clicking, if you don't know exactly how to do clicker training or marker training, please, please, please, go to the dog training today audio podcast. Just just go to Apple podcast or go to Google podcast or Spotify. Do a search for dog training today with Will Bangura. Look for, look for. I believe it is episode 81.

Speaker 1: 34:36

Episode 81 should be an entire hour or more podcast that is talking specifically, step by step. How do you train with markers? How do you train with a clicker? What is clicker training? What is marker training? How do you use this in training? If you begin to use markers and a clicker is a type of marker you're gonna have much greater success in training.

Speaker 1: 35:04

You can go to the dog training today podcast. Find that on episode 81. You can also go to my website again. It's dogbehavioristcom. Go to the menu, look for articles, click on articles, scroll down and you're gonna find an article on clicker training and at the bottom of that article, the audio podcast, that hour-long podcast I've embedded in the article. So, better yet, go to dogbehavioristcom, find the article on clicker training and read that article and then listen to the podcast at the bottom.

Speaker 1: 35:44

So with this, now we've got alternative behaviors that we can teach. We can have the dog go to its place it can't be on place and be committed to that and stealing food. At the same time, we've taught our dog how to leave it. We've taught our dog how to drop it. And the other thing that I will say to you is that you're going to want to start having dinner, having lunch, having breakfast, having snacks, eating with, having food around and in the real world with you and your dog and food. You're gonna start utilizing the training. You're gonna utilize leave it. I pray that you don't have to use drop it, because, in my opinion, if you have to use, drop it. You've made a mistake. If your dog got something it shouldn't have in its mouth, that just means there's not enough training. It doesn't mean you've got a bad dog. It doesn't mean that you've got a stubborn dog Dogs aren't stubborn.

Speaker 1: 36:48

Sometimes we've got to be creative on how we need to motivate the dog. But don't confuse a lack of motivation as stubbornness. I mean you might love your job. I don't know what kind of work you do. You may absolutely love it but let me ask you this how long are you gonna continue to go into work and how long are you going to do the work day in and day out? If they stop giving you a paycheck? Seriously, if they stop paying you, are you gonna continue to go to your job? Are you gonna continue to do the work? I don't know anybody that's ever said yeah, unless you're financially wealthy and independent. But most people, if they stop getting paid, they're not gonna continue to do the work, and it's the same thing for your dog, and that's about motivation. It's our job to use motivation and to use the science-based and evidence-based training practices that we know works. But it's those simple things If you need to manage your dog's behavior being able to comfortably put your dog in a crate and your dog be relaxed or alternative behaviors.

Speaker 1: 38:06

Maybe you've done some differential reinforcement. You've taught your dog to stay on its bed, its spot or its place when you have guests over so it can't be harassing the guests or stealing their food, but yet it still gets to be part of all the fun. It's hanging out with you just on its place. Then we take it further where we can have the dog wandering around being a part of all of us. But we have proactively been teaching the dog to leave it. We've been working with people, food, human food, teaching your dog leave it. We've been working on drop, teaching drop. We have on our own, proactively begun to.

Speaker 1: 38:54

I like to take paper plates. I like to eat on the floor where it's easy for the dog to want to grab it and that way I've got training opportunities all the time. I like to go ahead and put plates on chairs and they've got food on it and I've got the chairs about six feet apart and I like to walk my dog in and around those chairs like a figure eight and as my dog shows interest in the food that's on the plate, I can go leave it, and when the dog does, I can mark and reward with something that the dog loves. And now, instead of the dog having to give up something, this just becomes a fun game and the dog understands how it works. Now I also spend time teaching my dog that they're only going to be getting people food from my hands and from their dog bowl. So anytime I give my dog people food, it either comes from my hand or it goes in their dog bowl.

Speaker 1: 40:00

I don't let other people give my dog food so other people do not get to hand feed my dog. I have taught my dog leave it when other people attempt to offer food and then I reward my dog. So if I'm proactively working with my dog and my dog knows, hey, the only way that I get people food is dad puts it in my dog bowl or it's in dad's hand and dad will hand the food to me. But I can't take food any other way and I've proactively worked on it. Now I can have a dog that can mingle with all of my guests on any holiday with any kind of food that's out there, and I don't have to worry about Thanksgiving being destroyed because my dog got on the counter and stole the turkey. I don't have to worry about the Christmas party and my dog stealing the food then, and if you work really hard, maybe that's the case you won't have that problem. Have a great day, everybody. Have a great rest of your weekend. Have a great Thanksgiving.