Dog Training Today with Will Bangura for Pet Parents, Kids & Family, Pets and Animals, and Dog Training Professionals. This is a Education & How To Dog Training Podcast.

#161 Preventing Canine Separation Anxiety and Fostering Independence, Effective Training and Enrichment Tips: Dog Training Today will Will Bangura, M.S., CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP

• Will Bangura, M.S., CAB-ICB, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP is a World Renowned Dog Behaviorist, Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, Certified Professional Dog Trainer, and a Fear Free Certified Professional with over 36 years of experience with the most difficult • Season 5 • Episode 161

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Can letting your dog follow you around all day actually contribute to separation anxiety? Let's explore this common concern and find the right balance between bonding and fostering independence in your canine companion. Join me, Will Bangura, as we debunk the myth that comforting a fearful dog reinforces its fear and discover why positive reinforcement is key to effective training. This episode is packed with insights on how to keep your dog mentally and physically engaged through enriching activities that promote their overall well-being.

Understanding dog behavior isn't just about managing separation anxiety and fear; it's also about addressing everyday challenges like a dog's excitement when guests arrive. Learn practical strategies to teach your dog alternative behaviors and manage their energy levels properly. We'll also dive deep into the principles of desensitization and counter conditioning, offering step-by-step guidance to help your dog overcome fears and anxieties. From controlling triggers to providing gentle comfort and distraction, these techniques will foster a happier, more balanced dog.

Creativity is crucial when it comes to keeping a bored dog entertained, especially for those working from home. We'll explore innovative enrichment activities such as scent work games and impulse control exercises tailored to keep your dog mentally stimulated. Additionally, I’ll share tips on ensuring your dog gets the right amount of aerobic exercise without risking overexertion, and discuss the pros and cons of dog parks and doggy daycare. Tune in for actionable advice to help you and your dog thrive together, and don't forget to check out my website for more in-depth articles on these topics.

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Speaker 1:

Raised by wolves with canine DNA in his blood. Having trained more than 24,000 pets, 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 2:

Would you like to go on? Y'all ready for this.

Speaker 3:

Well, good Saturday morning dog lovers. I'm Will Bangura. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Dog Training Today Live. We're here each and every Saturday morning on Facebook Live, 12 noon Eastern nine o'clock Pacific. If you're brand new to Dog Training Today, let me talk a little bit about what we do here. But first do me a favor, show me some love. Go ahead and click that like button and please share this to your timeline.

Speaker 3:

Okay, but anyway, if you're brand new to dog training today, this is an opportunity. We're going to be here for an hour. I'm a certified dog behavior consultant as well as a certified professional dog trainer. I've been training dogs professionally for over 35 years and for the next hour we're going to be talking everything dog. We're going to be talking everything behavior. We're going to be talking everything behavior, and if you've got questions, that's right. If you've got questions about your dog's behavior, I want to hear from you. Do me a favor If you do have a question about your dog's behavior, I'm here to answer it. Just go ahead and type your question down below in the comment section and then a little bit later, I'm going to look at those questions and I'm going to do the best I can to provide you with great solutions that are based in positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement you might be noticing that Jordan is missing. Today. Jordan contacted me, let me know he's not feeling well, so hopefully he begins to feel better and hopefully we'll see him next Saturday.

Speaker 3:

I want to go straight into some listener questions, and one of the first questions and I get this a lot from folks this is from Stacy and Stacy's actually in Hawaii, and she said should I let my dog follow me around all day? That it's going to make my dog dependent on me, cause my dog to have separation anxiety. So let me go into that because I get that a lot. That is a loaded question Should I let my dog follow me around all day long? Well, see how do I want to answer this?

Speaker 3:

To begin with, well, there are some benefits to letting your dog follow you around, and one of it is bonding and companionship. Right, allowing your dog to follow you. That can strengthen your bond between you, providing your pet with a sense of security and companionship. The other thing is, dogs learn a lot by observing the pet parents. Following you around can help them understand routines and behaviors, which can be useful in training. However, there are some drawbacks and, as your boyfriend was talking about, separation anxiety, allowing a dog to follow you everywhere well, that can lead to or exacerbate separation anxiety. Your dog might become overly dependent on your presence and anxious when you're not around. The other thing that can happen some dogs might become overstimulated or stressed out by constantly following you around, especially if you're in a really busy household.

Speaker 3:

The other thing is lack of independence. It's essential for dogs to develop a sense of independence. Constantly following you around can hinder that and it can make it difficult for them to be alone, even for short periods of time. So let's talk about best practices. We really want balance and a routine. So we want to encourage balance where your dog spends time with you and also has designated periods where they're alone or engaged in independent activities. So that can include time in a designated safe space, especially when you're busy or when you're out.

Speaker 3:

As far as training is concerned, use positive reinforcement to teach your dog to stay in that specific area or engage in independent activities. You can start with short durations, then gradually increase the time that your dog is spending alone. Now enrichment activities are critical. Provide plenty of mental, physical stimulation through toys, through puzzles, regular exercise, training. All of that can help to keep your dog from getting separation anxiety. Now, if your dog does start to show signs of separation anxiety, well then you need to begin the process of counter conditioning and desensitization. And we talk a lot about counter conditioning and desensitization on the podcast, so I'm not going to get into all of the details of that, but sometimes it can be pretty challenging if you do have a dog that has separation anxiety. But for the most part, you can allow your dog to follow you around. Again, you just need to have moderation. You need to have some kind of balance with that so that your dog can develop some independence as well and so that your dog doesn't become too dependent upon you.

Speaker 3:

Now I want to go into another question. This is a question. I get this over and over and over and it warrants us discussing it a little bit. Yeah, I got to have my coffee in the morning. I don't do anything without coffee, folks. So the next question is from Rob. Rob is from Wisconsin and Rob says will comforting my fearful dog reinforce my dog's fear? Well, the question of whether or not to comfort a dog when it becomes scared, and in this case Rob's talking about when he walks his dog. His dog gets scared and he wants to know hey, is it okay if I comfort my dog? All right, so that's a very, very common question and there's been a lot of conflicting advice on that particular issue. However, recent evidence-based research provides us with understanding of how to handle that situation and how to handle that effectively.

Speaker 3:

Now, the first thing that I need to talk about is the fact that the idea that comforting a dog when it's scared will reinforce its fearful behavior is a myth. I'm going to say that again the idea that comforting a dog when it's scared will reinforce its fearful behavior is a myth. All right, fear is an emotional response. It's not a behavior that can be reinforced through comfort. Ok, providing comfort to a scared dog does not increase the likelihood of the fear reoccurring in the future, and that's just a fact based on science, based on studies, based on research. Look, you, either follow the science and believe the science, or we have all these myths that go around in dog training Comforting your dog, rob that go around in dog training?

Speaker 3:

All right, comforting your dog, rob when it's scared can provide them with support, the reassurance that they need to feel safe, and that is something that can help to reduce their anxiety and build their confidence over time. So it's a good thing to be trying to comfort the dog. When comforting your dog, though, it's important that you remain calm and that you're confident in what you're doing, because your dog can pick up on your emotions. So staying composed can help to reassure your own dog that there's no real danger. Now you want to use positive reinforcement to associate the scary situation with positive experiences, for example, offering your dog treats or praise, or engaging in a fun activity or play. All of that can help to create a more positive association with the fearful stimulus, with the fearful stimulus.

Speaker 3:

But you've got to understand that when it comes to and again we're talking about counter conditioning and desensitization, when it comes to counter conditioning and desensitization, we're exposing the dog to the triggers or situations that are scary for the dog, because we want to change the underlying change, the underlying emotional state of fear. Now, the biggest mistake that everybody makes and, a matter of fact, I was just talking with a client this week and she's got a dog that's fearful, and she is doing the right thing. She's wanting to get the dog out, get the dog exposed, wanting to pair positive association and positive reinforcement with those scary triggers that are out there. But the way that it works, you have to start at a distance where your dog doesn't have a care in the world. You know, it's one thing if your dog, rob, is scared and you're comforting your dog, which is a good thing, which is a good thing.

Speaker 3:

But if you keep putting your dog in situations where your dog is scared, if you keep exposing your dog to those triggers in such a way that it's eliciting the fear, you're going to have a really hard time getting over that. Even if you've got one of these dogs and there are dogs out there usually when they're really anxious they won't take food. But there are dogs that are out there and, rob, maybe you've got one of them that even when they're anxious they may take food. I mean, there's some crazy chow hounds out there, like Labrador Retrievers. Trust me, I had a lab. I had a chocolate lab that had some issues, some fears and anxieties a long time ago but, trust me, her appetite was incredible. She would take food anytime, anywhere, no matter what's going on.

Speaker 3:

But when you're exposing your dog, rob, to fearful stimuli, when you're exposing your dog to triggers that are scary. You want to get your dog far enough away from that trigger where your dog doesn't have a care in the world, and then what you want to do is you want to create very black and white cause and effect associations, so working. Let's say that your dog's afraid of a person or your dog's afraid of strange dogs Working with a helper, having that helper come into view with itself or another dog, but at a distance again, where your dog doesn't have a care in the world. When your dog notices the trigger, when your dog notices the strange person or your dog notices the strange dog, that's when you want to start the positive reinforcement. That's when you want to start the praise. That's when you want to start the love and affection. That's when you want to start feeding high value food rewards. That's when you want to start play and the way that I like to teach it.

Speaker 3:

We do that for a few seconds while that trigger is there and we're controlling the situation. You know I'm talking on speakerphone. All right, come into view. Then here comes the trigger into view. Right, the dog sees it. Feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, constantly and continuously for about one to three seconds. Then I'm telling that trigger hey, go out of view. And then, as that trigger goes out of view, we stop feeding, the positive reinforcement stops. And I might do that for about 10, 15 minutes. 15 minutes is a very long session for counter conditioning and desensitization.

Speaker 3:

All right, counter conditioning is just a fancy word that says, hey, we're going to counter, we're going to do the opposite. We're going to change the current conditioning your dog has. We're going to do the opposite. We're going to change the current conditioning your dog has. Your dog is conditioned that it has an underlying emotional state that it views that trigger as scary. So that emotional state is fear, anxiety, stress. That's the conditioning that your dog has gotten over and over and over. And so what we don't want to do, rob, and again, this is the mistake that a lot of people make. They've got really good intentions. Matter of fact, a lot of dog trainers make this mistake, and I know we have a lot of trainers that listen to the show, so it's important that you hear this too. If you have the dog so close to the trigger that the dog is displaying anxiety and stress dog is displaying anxiety and stress you're either not going to really produce any results or your results are going to be minimal and you're going to hit a wall very quickly.

Speaker 3:

The whole idea of gradual and systematic desensitization is about keeping your dog in an emotional state where your dog doesn't have any stress, doesn't have any anxiety and little by little, getting closer and closer. Now counter conditioning is about pairing that positive reinforcer with the trigger. But when we're doing that remember I said that the trigger is far enough away, the dog doesn't have a care in the world. Well, if you think about it, when the trigger is at that distance from the dog, the dog's emotional state should be neutral. If the trigger is closer, the dog's emotional state is one of fear, anxiety and stress, all right. But you get the dog far enough away where it doesn't have a care in the world. It's neutral, it doesn't view it as positive. Yet that's the role of counter conditioning. That's us creating opportunities on our own where we're designing exposure sessions and bringing the trigger into view in a very controlled way, where we can control the distance and we know that there's not going to be other scary things happening at the same time.

Speaker 3:

That's another mistake that a lot of people make with fearful dogs. You know, fearful dogs oftentimes have multiple fears and there's a term in training and behavior mod called trigger stacking. Okay, and that's just what it sounds like trigger stacking, where you've got multiple triggers, multiple things, multiple different stimuli that are causing anxiety, fear, reactivity, aggression. Right, because most aggression, most aggression, is based in fear. Very few animals go into fight or flight unless they perceive something as threatening. Doesn't mean there's a real threat.

Speaker 3:

Okay, but you know, as far as practical steps, as far as practical steps comforting a scared dog, you want to assess the situation right. First. Ensure that there's no immediate danger, all right. If the source of fear is something benign, well, go ahead and proceed with comforting your dog. Right, use a soothing voice. Speak to your dog in a calm, soothing voice. Your tone can really help. As far as conveying a sense of safety, a sense of reassurance to your pet, okay, they know they can pick up when you're anxious. So you being calm, you being relaxed, is important. Now start some physical comfort gentle petting, okay, or holding your dog to provide physical comfort. All right, now, always be mindful of what, always be mindful of your dog's body language. Ensure that you know any contact that you're giving them is actually comforting and not adding to their stress. Ok, and then a lot of folks are into the distract and redirect method, right. So, if possible, try to distract your dog with a favorite toy or a treat, redirecting their focus. That can really help them to move past that fearful situation.

Speaker 3:

And we talked about the gradual and systematic desensitization. So when you're on a walk, rob, you may encounter a trigger, you may encounter something that causes your dog to be fearful, causes your dog to be anxious, and at that exact moment, yeah, comforting them is a good thing, reassuring them is a good thing, and it doesn't reinforce the behavior, because it's an emotion. It's an emotion, all right. Behaviors are what gets reinforced. So, giving positive comfort during a situation where you're on a walk or you encounter something that's scary, that is perfectly fine. That's what I want you to do.

Speaker 3:

But as we identify these scary things, we have to say, hey, wait, these are triggers, I need to work on these. And what I'm going to tell you is that if you keep exposing your dog to scary things, you're not going to get too far. So what nobody wants to hear in the beginning, so what nobody wants to hear in the beginning in the beginning, you need to go slowly with your dog. In the beginning you need to be watching for triggers. Get your dog out of there and really in the beginning we shouldn't be exposing our dog to any triggers. I know you don't want to hear that, but imagine if the problem was a broken water pipe. What do we have to do to begin before we can fix that water pipe? We got to turn off the main water valve, right? Yeah, we've got to turn off the main water valve. Imagine if the water's leaking all over the place. We're not going to be very successful trying to fix that broken water pipe.

Speaker 3:

Well, turning off the main water valve, that's us avoiding the triggers, the scary things. Now, not that that's the answer, but it's the first step to the answer, so that your dog doesn't keep getting that emotional state more and more conditioned by being exposed to something scary. That emotional state doesn't get reinforced or conditioned when you're giving the dog comfort. However, if your dog keeps on getting exposed to triggers and your dog keeps experiencing negative emotions, things aren't going to get much better. So, avoiding the triggers but then making sure that, hey, three to five times a week, at least three to five times a week you're doing counter conditioning and desensitization sessions.

Speaker 3:

Now to learn more more in-depth information on counter conditioning and desensitization, which are the critical tools, the big tools in behavior modification that help dogs get over fears, anxieties, phobias, reactivity, aggression. To get more information, go to my website it's either over here or it's over here, but you can see it there below my name. Wherever it is, I never know what side it is because sometimes I get a mirroring effect when I'm doing this. But go to dogbehavioristcom. That's one of my websites. I've got a local website, phoenixdogtrainingcom, but I also do behavior consultations globally with people all over the country and in other countries as well. But I've got over 94 articles and a lot of them are very in-depth training guides on counter conditioning, desensitization, dogs with fears and phobias, dogs that are reactive, dogs that are aggressive. So check out my articles that are all free and let other people know about the articles on the website at dogbehavioristcom. Hey, do me a favor If you're just joining us. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 3:

I'm Will Bangura. I'm a certified dog behavior consultant as well as a certified professional dog trainer. I specialize in the areas of dog aggression, reactivity, fears, phobias, separation, anxiety. If you've got a question about your dog's training. If you've got a question about your dog's training. If you've got a question about your dog's behavior, do me a favor, go ahead and type it in the comment section below.

Speaker 3:

In a little bit I'm going to be taking any questions that we might have live, but we're going to be here for an hour. I'm here every Saturday from 9 Pacific until 10 Pacific, that's 12 noon Eastern time till 1 pm Eastern time every Saturday. If you are not listening to the Dog Training Today audio podcast, do you listen to podcasts other than Facebook Live, because I'm here every Saturday but I'm doing other podcasts throughout the week and you can find my audio podcast like on Apple Podcasts, spotify, stitcher, google Podcasts, itunes, ask Alexa for the podcast, but make sure that you listen to that so you don't miss anything at all at all. The other thing that I want to talk about a little bit today is something that, well, next week, actually, we're going to be getting into talking about veterinarians. We're going to be talking next week about the veterinary field and we're going to be talking about veterinary behaviorist.

Speaker 3:

What is a veterinary behaviorist? What does a veterinary behaviorist do? How does a veterinary behaviorist help your dog? What dogs are appropriate to be seen by veterinary behaviorists? And we're just going to talk about the state of the industry as it comes to veterinary behaviorists, because there's very few of them.

Speaker 3:

There's only 72 veterinary behaviorists in North America, or actually in the United States.

Speaker 3:

There's about 80 in North America because there's some in Canada, but in the United States we've got 72 veterinary behaviorists and we've got about 190 between dogs and cats.

Speaker 3:

When you take the total number of companion animal cats and the total number of companion animal dogs, it works out to be about 180, 190 million, and we figure that there's about 20%, roughly about 20%, of dogs that suffer from severe emotional distress, severe behavior problems where there's an underlying emotional state that's driving that behavior fear, reactivity, aggression, phobias, those type of things.

Speaker 3:

Well, about 20 percent of dogs have that stuff pretty severe, and separation and separation anxiety would add to that as well, and those are the population of dogs that can really benefit from being seen by a veterinary behaviorist. But because there's only 72 in the United States and we've got 180, 190 million dogs and cats, when we take a look at roughly that 20% the severe cases that really need a veterinary behaviorist we're talking about over 2 million dogs and cats per veterinary behaviorist, which is just undoable. So there's a crisis in the veterinary field, and it's not just veterinary behavior as far as lack of veterinarians. It's all specialties, and we'll be talking about that more. But before we get any further, we need to hear from our sponsors, we need to pay the bills, and so do me a favor. We're going to be back in 60 seconds.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 3:

All right, very good. Hey, do me a favor, make sure that you visit our sponsor, calm Dogs. You can go to doganxietycom or calmdogscom. Please support them. Well, if you're just joining me, I'm Will Bangura. Thanks for joining me here on Facebook Live. I'm here each and every Saturday, 9 am Pacific until 10. That's 12 noon Eastern time, and that goes until one as well.

Speaker 3:

I want to get into more questions. I've got another question here. This was one that was emailed and this one is from Joanne and Joanne says yeah, this is one we get all the time. Joanne says I've got a dog that is always jumping and goes absolutely crazy anytime we have guests over, and it's very embarrassing. What can I do?

Speaker 3:

Well, so there's a multi-pronged situation here. Your dog's overstimulated when people are coming over, and a lot of times one of the challenges is maybe you don't have people come over that often, right, and if we're not having people come over that often, we don't always have an opportunity to be able to work on it. So one of the first things we need to do is realize that, hey, one of the pillars of dogs learning, one of the pillars in how they learn, is repetition. Okay, and so when it comes to, you know, repetition that means that how often? Well, how often do you have to do it? That's a great question, right? So again, I tell people look, you've got to be working on things at least three to five times a week, and that means proactively. See, a lot of you are only dealing with the problem reactively and oftentimes, when we're reacting to a problem, we are not prepared and it catches us off guard and we might not be doing things the correct way. So we might not be a good teacher in that moment. And the pet, the dog, if we're not a good teacher, they're not going to learn well. And so it's important to be proactive, and that means to set things up, stage setups.

Speaker 3:

Now, the first thing that you know I like to do is teach an alternative behavior, because it's easy to punish, right, and those of you that have been listening to the show for a while, been listening to the podcast, you know that we don't use aversives. There's not a need to use aversives. You don't need to use punishment, you don't need to use correction collars, you don't need a prong collar, you don't need a shock collar, you don't need to knee your dog if your dog is jumping, you don't need to be yelling at your dog. First of all, your dog's not being dominant, okay. Your dog's just being a dog. It's being unruly. What does that mean? It means that your dog is without rules, and it's our job our job to teach them what the rules are, and it's our job to teach them that in a way that is positive.

Speaker 3:

How do you like to learn? How well do you learn if you're being punished? How well do you learn if you're being rewarded? Okay, so when? Maybe your common sense and it's wrong, it's not common sense, but maybe your common sense says hey, I just need to nip this in the bud, I'm just going to punish the dog, and a lot of trainers will tell you to do that. I believe those trainers have good intentions, but they don't know what they don't know. I believe those trainers have good intentions but they don't know what they don't know.

Speaker 3:

And science, research, evidence-based training that's out there. We can train in any behavior and we can train out any behavior just using positive reinforcement. But, joanne, as far as your dog jumping and as far as your dog going crazy when you have guests over, there's two different things there. One is getting your dog to be calm around people and the other is to get your dog not to jump. And the trigger might not just be the people. Your dog could start getting excited when it hears or sees a car approach and come into the driveway, or sees somebody walking up to the door, when it hears the doorbell ring or when somebody's knocking. So it's at that moment, that first moment, the first moment that your dog starts getting overstimulated. That's the first trigger that we need to work with and we need to do the counter conditioning and the desensitization. So if your dog starts getting excitable when cars come by or people come by, you're going to have to proactively stage setups with cars going by or people going by, but control the environment where you can create more distance and maybe it's moving your dog further away from the big picture window, further away from the door, but where your dog is not overstimulated. Your dog can see the trigger but they're not overstimulated and then you're going to be pairing with that trigger. Have that trigger go away, stop the positive reinforcement, do that over and over and over 10 to 15 minutes. Again, I've got more detailed information at my website at dogbehavioristcom, and you can check out all the articles there, especially the ones on counter conditioning and desensitization.

Speaker 3:

But I like Joanne to teach the dog to do an alternative behavior. So my dogs can't be jumping and sitting at the same time and I love to teach sit as an alternative to get attention versus the dog jumping, which they just want attention when they're jumping and we create that. We've said a lot of times on the podcast that we create those behaviors when they're jumping and we create that. We've said a lot of times on the podcast that we create those behaviors. When they're puppies, we start picking them up, picking them up to our chest. Well, that's kind of like jumping right, and then, as they start jumping themselves, when they're little, we usually pet them and we think it's cute. But then when they get big, it's not so cute right. Then when our 80, 90-year-old mom or dad come to visit and they're on blood thinners and we don't want our dog jumping on them and we don't want them breaking a hip, then it's no longer fun, is it? So I do a lot of work with having helpers come to the door making the dog sit. Come to the door, make the dog sit. Now I'm rewarding the dog every time.

Speaker 3:

Now, if your dog can't maintain the sit, then you've gone too far, too fast in this process. Maybe the only thing that your dog can maintain that sit for is just hearing a person approach or seeing that person approach from a distance, right, but you have to be able to keep the dog in that sitting position and you've got to proactively begin to work on calm, what I call calm distractions or low level distractions. Right, you might start by bouncing a ball, okay, and you may start by just having people in the house creating a little bit of commotion, okay. If your dog breaks the command, if your dog comes out of sit, just re command the dog into sit. All right, if I'm treating it as an implied stage man, I don't like to reward the dog when I re command, but within about 10, 15 seconds of the dog maintaining that sit again, I am going to be rewarding that, because I'm now rewarding the stay component of the sit, and that's really what I want.

Speaker 3:

All right, because my dog can't be committed to staying in a sit and having its butt down on the ground and jumping at the same time. It's got to give up one behavior for the other. It can't do both. All right. So teaching your dog an alternative behavior. We call that differential reinforcement. You're using positive reinforcement. See how that doesn't involve punishment. See how we don't have to knee the dog or use correction collars Teaching the dog an alternative behavior. That would be incompatible if they're committed to it. They can't sit and jump at the same time.

Speaker 3:

Now, when you start doing this, you're going to do this with low-level distractions, but little by little you need to up the ante on the distractions. So maybe it's somebody coming to the door quietly to begin with and maybe they're just knocking ever so lightly, or one knock right, or we had them rattle the door handle. Or maybe, as we're moving towards that door to open the door to let the guest in, all of a sudden our dog gets out of sit Right. So, just working on the approach to the door, gradually and systematically, taking two steps dog doesn't come out of sit, go back. Reward the dog Now. Take three steps towards the door. Your dog doesn't take the bait and stays in the sit, go back. Reward the door. Four steps, five steps go back. Reward the dog Little by little. Make your way to the door and then also make your hand to the doorknob. If your dog maintains the sit, go back and reward Now. Open the door just an inch. If your dog maintains the sit, reward the dog Now again.

Speaker 3:

Anytime your dog breaks from sit, just go back. Re-command sit right, start, get a little closer where you had success and again try to build your way back to the door, but do it a little bit slower. Make sure that your dog make sure that you're helping your dog learn what is success. Your dog should be having a lot more success than it should have. Mistakes, all right. If your dog is having mistakes more than 20% of the time, your distractions are too much, too soon. Dial them back down a little bit. Dial those back down, okay, and eventually you're going to be opening the door and in the beginning when I do this, I don't even have a stranger out by the door. I'm getting my dog comfortable with that door opening a lot where it's really boring and the dog is maintaining the sit, then I bring a very calm person to the door and I work with teaching the dog to maintain the sit there. Then I have that person start getting a little more animated. Now, this might take me a couple of weeks to do If I've got a dog that is really excitable, has a lot of drive.

Speaker 3:

It might take even a little bit longer, but the difference between punishment and positive reinforcement when you use positive reinforcement, you're really modifying the behavior. You're going to get a lot more permanence and reliability, and there's a lot of dogs that get anxious when somebody new comes over, and that anxiety doesn't have to necessarily be a bad thing. Right, many of us go on vacation and we have a little bit of anxiety. That's not necessarily a bad thing, all right. Many of us go on vacation and we have a little bit of anxiety. That's not necessarily a bad thing, all right. But when we're punishing a dog, that's just going to add more anxiety to the dog, and a lot of these behaviors have their basis, are rooted in anxiety, and so punishment, even if you can suppress the outward behavior temporarily and that's all you're doing you're suppressing the outward behavior it's going to be temporary. Usually the behavior always comes back until you actually do real work, until you actually do real training.

Speaker 3:

And punishing a dog doesn't take any skills, all right, you've got to be a lot better trainer, you've got to be a lot better skilled in order to use positive reinforcement and not default to punishment because we're lazy, because think about it. I mean, how much effort does it take to yell at the dog? How much effort does it take to shock the dog with the shock collar, press the remote? How much effort and skill does it take to correct the dog with a yank and crank correction with a prong collar or a choke collar? I don't advocate that you do any of that. Okay, positive reinforcement.

Speaker 3:

Again, if you're working at the dog's pace, you're going to get there. Sometimes dogs will get there quickly. I guarantee you, if you take your time, you're actually going to get there faster than if you're trying to cut corners, because now you got to go back and you got to fix things that you messed up. So, teaching your dog an alternative behavior, joanne, starting to work with low-level distractions, building those up to moderate-level distractions and then really building that up to chaos where people can come in your dog's on a sit and people are just very animated, making a lot of noise, a lot of movement.

Speaker 3:

Now, if you want this to work a little faster, if you want to have a little more success, forego the sit, teach your dog to go to its place, or teach your dog to go to its spot or bed, because all of those things, there's that physical boundary, and that physical boundary just kind of helps the dog kind of stay put a little bit. And especially if you use a place cot that's what I call it, those, you know, those elevated dog cots. They're just a few inches off the ground. They got kind of a mesh material that those couple inches, believe it or not, have like a psychological cliff effect. It really helps keep the dog there. So if you're working on a stay and that's the most important part of the sit right If you're working on stay because you don't want your dog jumping and they can't be staying and jumping at the same time you're going to have more success early on teaching a dog to stay on their place, on their bed, on their spot, where it's clearly marked, and especially if it's elevated, and the training of stay will go faster, the training of being able to keep your dog there with heavy distractions go faster. Then I recommend, once you have that, now start to generalize that Take your dog off of its bed, take your dog off a place, take your dog off of the spot and start having your dog doing sits and having your dog just lay down, not on place, not on its bed, not on its spot, but anywhere and work the same distractions and little by little, gradually, systematically, you're going to be able to get there.

Speaker 3:

All right, let me see. You know what I need to do. I need to actually get onto the Facebook page and need to take a look at the actual video Because, see, when I go there now, I can go into the comments section and look and see, hey, do we have any questions? Comment section and look and see, hey, do we have any questions? And we do have one. So V has a question. V says I work from home and throughout the day, my three-year-old Yorkie Terrier mix dog seems so bored. I walk him in the morning and provide toys, but he doesn't seem, doesn't seem to be enough. Any suggestions? Well, yeah, there's a lot of things, v, and we call that enrichment, okay, and dogs can get bored.

Speaker 3:

First of all, as far as activities and things that you can do, one of the best things you can do is let your dog sniff, and a lot of people take their dogs for walks and they don't let their dog sniff. Okay, 25% of the dog's brain, anatomically, is designed for sniffing, for smelling. Now let me compare that to a human, our brain, a human brain, about 0.1% of our brain, anatomically, is there for smelling, and so, think about it, when a dog is using their nose, they're stimulating a quarter of their brain. Most of us don't even use a quarter of our brain. Okay, so, getting your dog out on walks, letting your dog sniff, but I love people to teach nose games. Now, in some see, here's the thing. Yeah, I love the puzzles and that's one type of enrichment. You know how you get the little puzzles and you put the treats in it and the dog kind of sniffs and gets. But those can be easy, right, and they just start feed, feed, feed, feed, right. But what I like to do is actually do scent work. Okay, where I'm starting to teach them how to search and find a particular scent for play, maybe a reward, maybe a food reward, but it doesn't have to be food, but something the dog loves.

Speaker 3:

Now what you can do is you can get three plastic containers that are identical okay, like a margarine container, where it's got the plastic top as well. Poke a couple holes in the top of each one of them and what I do is I will go and I will get one or two cloves yeah, the spice cloves and I'll put it in one of those containers. And I'm going to set up three containers about a foot apart. One of those containers has cloves in it. I'm going to get my dog to smell the three containers. When my dog sniffs the container with the cloves, I'm going to ask for sit and I'm going to reward the dog. Now I'm going to take the dog out of that room. I'm going to bring the dog back in. Have the dog smell the different containers. Two have nothing. One has a couple cloves in it.

Speaker 3:

Again, when my dog sniffs the container that has cloves, I ask my dog to sit. I reward the dog. I do that over and over and over. The dog begins to learn. The dog begins to associate that, hey, when I smell the container that has cloves and I offer a sit, good things happen. When I smell those other containers, nothing happens. So that is going to get the dog to want to gravitate towards finding the smell of the cloves. Offering a sit so it can get rewarded. Now again, that reward could be play, offering a sit so it can get rewarded. Now again, that reward could be play, and I prefer that it be play.

Speaker 3:

In a situation like this if your dog's willing to play, all right, but some dogs they're not that into playing, so maybe it's getting a food reward. All right, in the beginning you're going to reward your dog every time your dog hits on that scent. In the beginning it's really easy. You're bringing your dog to those containers. As your dog gets good at that, hide the containers a little bit. Don't make it difficult in the beginning. Make it pretty easy, even though you're hiding it.

Speaker 3:

While you're doing this, while you're practicing, while you're teaching the dog to sniff and sit and get the reward, start overlaying a cue or command, I like to say search. Now I'm not asking for a search in the beginning. Remember, I'm setting out the three containers. One's got a clove, the other two have nothing. I am saying search, search, search.

Speaker 3:

When the dog sniffs the container with clothes, I ask for sit. When the dog sits, then I. When the dog sniffs the container with clothes, I ask for sit. When the dog sits, then I reward the dog. I do that over and, over and over. Then I can start to hide or create more distance between those containers and ask for search. And now the dog gets the idea and now the dog starts really using its nose. Now the dog starts really using its nose and the dog gets the idea and now the dog starts really using its nose. Now the dog starts really using its nose and the dog um starts to find things and use that 25 of its brain and make it more challenging little by little. If your dog wins, if your dog can't find it, it's too challenging, okay. But I love to do scent work, scent games, okay.

Speaker 3:

The other thing is all throughout the day doing some obedience training. You know you've got lots of opportunities and they can be short sessions, five minutes here, five minutes there, okay, of opportunity and they can be short sessions, five, five minutes here, five minutes there, okay. But getting your dog doing nose work, teaching your dog basic obedience commands, I'll tell you, working with heavy distractions, they have to really use their brain and they have to start developing impulse control. And that's hard. And when you do a lot of distraction training with your obedience commands, I find that it really tires the dogs out a lot, okay, and so that's one of the things that that I like to do is a lot of distraction training, a lot of scent work, okay, and so that's one of the things that that I like to do is a lot of distraction, training, a lot of scent work. Okay, when I do take the dog for a walk, making sure they have plenty of time to sniff, that it's not some kind of a robotic walk where they just got to be looking up at me or they can never have their nose down on the ground. That's critical.

Speaker 3:

Now, if the activities that you're doing with your dog are very high energy activities, in some cases, maybe that then amps your dog up and when your dog's back home, your dog now is a little bit unruly. Every dog is a little bit different, so you've got to base it on what's your dog's energy, what's your dog's response if you're doing high energy things Getting involved in dog sports, doing agility, doing fly ball, you know, finding your local AKC training groups, getting getting on the AKC website and finding if there are groups in your um town that do different training and offer inexpensive training Um, it's a lot of fun, a lot of fun, but those are some of the things that I would recommend, um, that you do. Let's see here yeah, you know three, your dog's starting to get into its maturity, as far as you know, fully grown. As an quote unquote adult dog but Yorkie, terrier, mix and being bored yeah, you know they're little hunters. They're little hunters. So getting them chasing and usually they like to chase after things like a ball and things of that nature Okay, but what a lot of people don't realize, you know they're like yeah, I take my dog for this mile walk.

Speaker 3:

We go on a three, two mile walk. Really, what dogs need is aerobic exercise. Okay, aerobic exercise, 20 minutes of running a day. Now you've got to be careful. If you've got a dog that has a lot of weight, that could be a lot of stress on the joints. Maybe we're not running so fast. Let's work on the weight. If you've got an older dog that might be getting stiff or starting to get arthritis, we're going to pare that down a little bit.

Speaker 3:

But based on what you're telling me and where a lot of people need this is when their dogs are younger and they've got a lot of energy. Now you also have to understand you could have a Yorkie and a Terrier. That's very low energy and then you can have some that are really jacked up. That's very low energy and then you can have some that are really jacked up. It depends on genetics, depends on personality, all right, and so if you've got a dog that has a lot of energy, well, you're going to have to do things throughout the day.

Speaker 3:

Now there are some people with enrichment that like to, for example and this is great for a terrier create their own little box outside, you know, kind of like a raised garden, but there's nothing in it. All right, you know, using two by six planks and building like a squared out area, putting dirt in there and actually allowing your dog to dig, and you can put very little things in there. Treats, you know, like a half an inch down and they'll start sniffing it. So now they're using their nose and they start digging. So it's physical, All right, and that's something that a lot of people do that you might want to design for your dog.

Speaker 3:

You can get on my website at dogbehavioristcom, where I've got over 94 articles. Go to the menu, click on articles, find my article on enrichment. Matter of fact, at the bottom of the article that I have on enrichment, there is a embedded YouTube video with some great ideas, do-it-yourself enrichment activities that you can do as well, so you can check those out. Hopefully that helps answer your question, because I know a lot of people, because I know a lot of people they've got dogs at home and their dogs are bored. Now, what a lot of people will do and I want to caution you against this because you've got a dog that's bored and maybe being a little bit unruly, don't just go out and get another dog for your dog. Granted, that might be a great idea, all right, it might be a great idea, but the first thing you need to do is get your dog really well trained and make sure that if your dog's around other dogs, that your dog's stable, that it can handle being around other dogs and that you can bring another dog into the home. So playdates start working on playdates.

Speaker 3:

Now. I'm not a big fan of dog parks. Why? Because, listen, people don't pay attention to their dogs. Not everybody's dog is vaccinated. All right, that's a great way for your dog to pick up an illness.

Speaker 3:

Going to a dog park. The idea is fantastic, very well intentioned, but it's usually not a matter of if it's a matter of when your dog gets into a fight with another dog at the dog park. Because what do a lot of people do? They've got a dog that's fearful, skittish, nervous and boy that can turn on a dime into fear, aggression. If the dog can't get away, right, fight or flight. If I can't get away, if I can't go into flight, then I am left with the only thing I can do is go into fight. I can't go into flight? Then I am left with the only thing I can do is go into fight.

Speaker 3:

Now imagine somebody that says, hey, I've got a dog like that. I need to do something to get my dog over this. I need to expose my dog, socialize my dog. And they start bringing that dog to the dog park. And here comes a bunch of dogs running up to that dog because, hey, we're just having a blast. But that dog is scared and says, growling, right, maybe even lunges and tries to nip. Maybe it actually bites and harms your dog. And then what happens? Usually when there's a fight, then a bunch of other dogs, they get involved and there's a melee. So I'm not a fan of dog parks and there's a melee, so I'm not a fan of dog parks. I'm sorry. Find people that you know friends, family that you know they've got calm dogs, that their dogs are not aggressive, they're not reactive and they've got decent manners and set up playdates with your family's dogs, friends' dogs. Now, I'm not a fan of dog parks. I'm not really I'm not so much a fan of doggy daycare, but not like dog parks. All right, at least in a lot of doggy daycares they evaluate the dogs before they bring them into doggy daycare. Now, there's one problem with that, before they bring them into doggy daycare. Now there's one problem with that Many dogs do not start showing their true colors until they've been coming somewhere or hanging out somewhere for several months.

Speaker 3:

We see this with shelter dogs all the time. Okay, you bring your dog right. Let's say you already have a dog at home, you want to get a second dog. So you bring your dog to the rescue organization or the shelter, or they bring the dog to you and you do a meet and greet to see if they're going to get along. And it appears, hey, they're getting along.

Speaker 3:

And maybe in the beginning things are going great. The first week, two weeks, three weeks, the first month, the first six weeks. Now, all of a sudden you get between six weeks getting into that two month period around eight weeks, two months to three months. Now all of a sudden, aggression starts to show. That's not uncommon. The dogs are nervous. When they're in a new environment they're kind of suppressing some of that behavior. And, trust me, dogs can have a lot of anxiety and you don't know, if you don't know canine body language, well, they can have a lot of anxiety and you've got no clue. And so it's really important that you understand that when you bring your dog to doggy daycare, there could be dogs that show up and never start to get aggressive until they've been there for a couple of weeks or a couple months.

Speaker 3:

So it's not a perfect science as far as having somebody assess dogs at a doggy daycare, thinking, oh, every dog that comes into doggy daycare has been assessed, so my dog's okay, everybody's dog is going to be okay. That's not necessarily the case, so you got to keep that in mind. But what I prefer friends, family, they've got dogs assess their dogs. And also, if you don't know how to introduce dogs because what I like to do is, you know, start at a distance. If everything seems good, if the body language is calm, if they're not reactive, then I will bring them in. Let them sniff for a second, take them apart, bring them in. Let them sniff for a second or two, take them apart, because many times they come in and sniff everything's good for a second or two and then all of a sudden, boom, it's on. Okay.

Speaker 3:

So there's no rule that says you just got to dump two dogs together, have them on leash, go to a neutral area, start at a distance, see how they're doing there. If they're very reactive, hey, get the heck out of there. That's not a good idea. But if everything's going good at a distance, start coming in Again as you're going in. Make sure things keep going well. If they start going bad, get out of there. But come on in. If everything's going well, a little sniff, then take them away. Bring them back in a little bit longer sniff, take them away. Once you do that several times and you've had a little bit of duration to them and everything's going well, then you might have a situation where those dogs are just fine being able to play together. You can give that a shot. You can try that.

Speaker 3:

Do me a favor everybody. Hey, we're just about out of time. But if you love what we do here, if you're a regular listener to the podcast especially, please just hit that pause button. Please hit that pause button If you listen on Apple podcast or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and give us a five-star review, your reviews, your love is so appreciated. That's the best way you can say thank you, because it allows our rankings to go higher and that means that more people get to benefit from what we're doing here at dog training today, because we know not everybody can afford dog training. Dog training can be expensive, especially when we're dealing with the more severe behaviors, like aggression, fears, phobias, reactivity. So please share this. If you're on Facebook, share this on your page. If you're listening to this on YouTube, do me a favor make sure that you hit the like button and make sure that you subscribe. Also, click on that little bell which will alert you every time we upload a new show, every time we upload a new podcast. Okay, well, that means we are out of time. That's right.

Speaker 3:

I want to thank everybody for being here. Thank you for your questions, thank you for your support. Thank you for listening. We're going to be back here again next Saturday, right here on Facebook. Just go to the Dog Training Today podcast on Facebook. We're here every Saturday Again, 9 am Pacific till 10. That's 12 noon Eastern till 1. Come with your questions. Next week we're going to be talking about veterinary behaviorists. We're going to be talking about different areas in veterinary behavior and we're going to be taking your questions and more. Have a great weekend, everybody. I'm out of here. Thank you.

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Will Bangura M.S.,CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP

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