What Are The Trainer's Dog Like???

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What are dog trainers’ own dogs actually like?

Perfect?

Not even close.

In this episode, I talk about my own dogs and why I think the idea of a “perfect trainer’s dog” gives people the wrong picture of what good dog training is supposed to look like.

My dogs are good at the things that matter in my life and in my business.

They can redirect away from distractions. They can work around other dogs. They can settle in public. They can interact appropriately with people. They can come with me to client sessions, shows, patios, and other places where I need a dog that can handle the environment.

But they also have personalities, quirks, bad days, and behaviors that still need routines and management.

The Goal Is Not Perfection

I would much rather have a dog that can calmly lie on a mat while I talk to someone than one that can perform flashy tricks but cannot relax.

Good dog training is not about creating a robot.

It is about building a dog that can live successfully in your world.

That means working on things like:

• Redirection around distractions
• Recall
• Stay
• Calm behavior in public
• Appropriate social behavior
• Routines around visitors, furniture, sleeping arrangements, and everyday life

My dogs are also different from one another.

Little Bit, Liberty, and Loki each have different strengths, personalities, energy levels, and roles in my family and business. Some are better working around reactive dogs. Some are better out in public. Some are simply really good at being spoiled family dogs.

And that is okay.

Manage, Modify, and Improve

One of the things I say throughout this episode is that we do not “fix” dogs.

We manage behavior. We modify behavior. We improve behavior.

There will always be distractions that are harder than others. There will always be good days and bad days.

If you can consistently take three steps forward and only two steps back, you are still moving in the right direction.

The real magic word in dog training is routine.

Practice first where things are easy, then gradually take those skills into the backyard, front yard, neighborhood, and eventually more distracting public environments.

If you can make crazy normal, you can build a pretty reliable dog.

K.I.S.S. Dog Training
Dog Training Ain’t Cheap... Experience Counts.
https://kissdogtraining.com/

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to another Kiss Dog Training Podcast episode with professionally certified dog trainer Mike Deeth. You have dog training questions? Mike has dog training answers. Mike is coming up with all the info. Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Hey guys, welcome back. It's Mike with Kiss Dog Training. Today we're going to tackle a question by a client. She was, we were talking on the phone, and she was calling different dog trainers, and she was trying to find a dog trainer that she jives with. And Little Bit is a Great Pyrenees mix that kind of looks more than a sheep like a sheepdog than a Great Pyrenees. Those are the two that work in the business. And while they do a great job at the command leave it and being able to handle distractions and just kind of chill out in public, um they are by no means obedience champions. Um I couldn't take them and run an agility course. Um if somebody told me my life depended on a you know two-minute downstay, I would probably be in a lot of trouble. Um they're good at all the commands. I just for me, the way I look at dogs is I want them to be able to interact and live with me as a member of the family and a one that listens and behaves and isn't out of control. Um, does that mean that they are periodically out of control? Absolutely. And I think any trainer worth their salt would be willing to admit that to somebody. Um, in fact, my kids along the way is they have edited a lot of my videos. Uh my dogs have, you know, failed or, you know, trying to do door skills where they won't, you know, blow through a door. There's a video on our YouTube channel, or my old black lab decided in the middle of winter just to take off out the door and run. And my oldest son was like, I'm not editing that out. People need to see that your dogs aren't perfect too. So I guess, you know, as we talk about this topic, it's really going to be about the fact that no dog is perfect, and to hold them to a perfect accountability is about as fair as let's say your boss holding you to a hundred percent uh perfection or accountability all the time. You're gonna make mistakes. Um, that's just part of life. Um, I have seen trainers out in public who are promoting their business that will do anything from have a dog sit on a fire hydrant to show off their skills or to be constantly working tricks and things like that. Um, I do a lot of these shows and I would much rather have a dog who can lay on their you know their spot and uh be calm as I'm talking to somebody else, or when they walk up, go, Oh my god, that dog is gorgeous. Can I can I say hi? Sure, you know, you know, come here say hi. The dog gets up, comes over, says hi, might get a sit, you know, a treat from the person, and go back to the blanket and lay down and be calm. To me, that's impressive. Um, I think sometimes um trainers will want to show off a little bit more, and I think that sometimes just having a really calm dog is the best way to kind of show off. So uh my third dog, which I did mention, is a little three-legged white pit bull named Loki. Um, Loki is the spoiled little princess of the group. Um, in most cases, the dogs that work with me in the business are going to be showing up in that third, fourth, fifth session of private and in-homes instruction where I bring a dog out, we've already learned to leave it in the house and maybe the backyard and the driveway using a long line, and now we want to add a non-reactive dog so that the client can practice with their dog, redirecting away from the distraction or trigger back to the owner and do a watch me and learn to ignore distractions. Um, and that's what Liberty Um and Little Bit do. Loki, because she's only got three legs, doesn't she wears out pretty quick. Okay, so she doesn't do a lot of work in the business. Um, she does show up at a lot of the shows, she goes out in public with me. Um, she's fun to be around, but she is not a quote unquote working dog in my business. And I would also tell you, kind of maybe on the flip side, is a lot of trainers have multiple dogs, and we might have a dog that somebody else gave up on and we decided to keep, and they might have an aggressive or reactive dog at home that they're continually working with, and they have found a way to manage, modify, and improve them into their pack in their home, but it wasn't working out for the client. So when you hear the old sayings, kind of like, you know, oh, the barber's kid always needs a haircut, um, most dog trainers don't have perfect dogs. Um, but really and truly, when you stop and think about it, how many people actually do have a perfect dog? Um, perfection just is not something that comes in the world of humans or canines, if you ask me. Now, you know, can you can you improve, modify, and manage behavior? Absolutely. We can we can work on a lot of stuff. Um you know, this this conversation is going to go back and forth between, hey, stories of my dogs and maybe some things that frustrate me about the dog training industry. I think way too many dog training websites, YouTube channels, podcasts, advertising, always gear on I can fix any dog, we can fix any dog. And you can't fix people. You can't fix dogs. You can manage, modify, and improve. And I know I sound like a behavioralist when I say that, but to expect perfection, you know, how would you feel um if somebody were to ask your boss, is this individual a hundred percent perfect all the time? Of course your boss would say no. Okay. At best, most of us are 85, 90% perfect all the time. And I would say really the realistic answer is probably 60 or 70% of the time doing what we're supposed to do. Um you know, this is why it is so difficult for human beings to do um New Year's resolutions, working out, quitting smoking, things like that, because it requires consistency and frequency. But you look at a lot of us dog trainers, and it's funny the things that we think are super important redirection, coming back when called, a decent stay. Okay. Um but we understand that hey, look, if I'm doing a great sit-stay with my dog, and a squirrel runs right in front of my dog, that stay is probably not going to hold. Okay. The distractions of the environment, the situation, um, they're all going to be different. Some days are gonna be good, some days are gonna be bad, and you just need to be able to survive. I always describe it to my clients as if you can take three steps forward and two steps back on a regular basis, you're always creeping forward and making the right choice. If you're kind of falling into that, I'm moving two steps forward, three steps back, you're constantly kind of backing up and you're not getting any traction, and it feels like nothing's working. And that has way more to do with the consistency and frequency and the magic word in dog training routine. So, me as a dog trainer, I want to work with my clients on creating a routine routine inside their house that fits their dog and their lifestyle and what they want. We are going to have to spar at times, and I'm gonna go, okay, I know you want that, but it's not really realistic. What if we look at it this way? Because you want this, but what if this happens while you're doing it? And they'll be like, Well, the dog wouldn't obviously succeed. I'm like, Okay, perfect, you understand. So we have to work at the least distracting, a little bit up, a little bit more, a little bit more. Um, another one of my favorite sayings to clients is if you can make crazy normal, you have a reasonably bulletproof dog. But most people's normal is the four walls of their living room. It might work a little bit in the backyard, but it doesn't work near as well as it does in the living room. And if we go to the front yard, it falls apart even faster. And God knows if we go to a PetSmart or a Home Depot or a Bass Pro, it's gonna completely fail because the dog can't handle the distractions of the world. So when people ask me, now the f I guess, hold on, let me back up. The ironic part is while I will tell you right here and right now that my dogs are not perfect, and I can list off all of their um shortcomings. If I'm out in public with my dogs, the things I normally hear are, God, you got a great dog. I wish my dog was like that. People don't want perfection, they want a dog who's redirectable, that listens and pays attention and likes people and is social. Okay. If you can get there, you got a good dog, you got a great dog, you got a good member of the family. Um, I think if you go into the situation wanting your dog to be perfect, it's gonna, you're gonna set yourself up for failure. Okay. So kind of getting back to my dogs, um, if you look at Little Bit, Little Bit is the perfect mama dog for the fosters we bring into my house. She's great with them. She is a typical kind of great Pyrenees, doesn't do anything fast. Um I guess another ironic part about dog training is I would say you have trainable dogs and you have intelligent dogs, and in some cases you might even have an intelligent, trainable dog. Okay. Um, I'm gonna use some generalizations here, but to me, a great Pyreneese is a highly intelligent, hard-to-train dog, or more difficult, I shouldn't say hard. Um they're just not the typical golden retriever, Labrador Retriever that would be highly trainable, but maybe not quite so high on the intelligence rating. It's kind of two things. But flip side of that, you look at an Australian shepherd or a border collie, and you get a very highly trainable, highly intelligent dog, which everybody sounds, you know, says, oh, that would be the awesome dog. Well, that's a dog you gotta work 24-7. And it's a Menza dog. Okay, they are highly intelligent, highly trainable. You better keep them busy, or they're gonna find something to keep themselves busy, and it's usually not in a productive manner from the perspective of a human being. So, a little bit not great at recall. If she is gonna recall, she kind of just turns around and kind of lopes towards you at a very slow pace. You know, kind of I'll get there when I get there. But she's great with other dogs, she doesn't overreact. So, for parts of my business, she's absolutely perfect.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

If you love the topics you've been listening to, remember that Mike has written tons of books on dog training, and all are available on Amazon.com. Plus, you can also find them all on audible.com and audiobooks. And you can even get them in print on Mike's website, kissdogtraining.com. Just search the web for Kiss Dog Training or Mike Death, D-E-A-T-H-E. Before we get to Mike, allow us to take a quick pledge break. Buzz Sprout hosts our podcast, and you can find us at any of your favorite podcast providers by simply searching for Kiss Dog Training or Mike Death. You can also find a direct link to our podcast on our website, KissDogtraining.com, by looking in the About tab and just clicking on the word podcast. It's at that link where you'll find a subscription link where you can donate as little as $3 a month to help us provide monthly podcasts and information on positive, science-based training methods for dogs and their owners. And we would appreciate that help so much. Mike is back now to help answer even more training questions. Here's Mike.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

You look at Liberty. Half purebred German Shepherd, half purebred Great Pyrenees. She's got a little bit of that trainability that a German Shepherd has. She's hopping and popping ready to work, but she's also got the goofiness of a Great Pyrenees. Okay. I like to refer to her as my broken German Shepherd. She can't guard her way out of a paper sack. Um, but she loves people, loves dogs, sometimes is a little bit of a goofball who wants to play bow when I want her to do a sit, things like that. It's hard to take that personality away from her because that's what makes her her. Um, and again, great with redirection work, you know, of I can sit here and pay attention to you, Dad, while that dog's barking at me, doesn't even bother me. We're walking by, we're kind of doing this, and I can kind of in those situations, by the distance I choose to be away from my client's dog, I can make it easier on the client so that they get a little bit of success working with Liberty or a little bit, so that when they see a dog on a walk, okay, I'm gonna move up into the driveway, I'm gonna put my dog in a sit, I'm gonna do a watch me, I'm gonna let the dog walk by, then I'm gonna continue my walk. You know, so for what I do, those dogs are perfect. Um, but if you saw them inside my house, you'd be like, oh my lord, sometimes they're out of control. When somebody comes to the front door, you know, there's an entire routine that has to be followed so my dogs aren't jumping all over people because they're just they love having visitors. Um, everybody has this problem. And for a dog trainer to tell you their dog is perfect and does everything wonderfully, eh, I don't know. You know, I I've I've been doing this for going on 18 years, and I've I don't know that I've met a perfect trainer's dog yet. So um Loki, um she's my special little dog. She goes to the breweries with me, she goes to restaurants with me out on the patio, she loves to get treats and pets from people, she likes to roll over and show everybody she's missing a leg, so you'll rub her belly. Um, she takes full advantage of it. And she, if you've ever met any of my friends, they will tell you that is the most spoiled dog on the face of the planet. Um when we, as dog trainers, you know, people will ask me, Well, you don't let your dog sleep with you, do? Yeah, well, my dogs do sleep with me. Um, you don't let your dogs on furniture, do you? Yeah, I let dogs on furniture. Now, is there a routine in my house on those topics? Absolutely. Um, but a lot of people would be like, Well, you you know, it's gonna depend on what the client wants. Now, are there things that we have to think about if you're gonna let a dog sleep with you? Absolutely. Are there going to be things that we have to think about if the dog likes to jump up? Or in my case, I have giant breed dogs, you know, uh my mom's 90. There is a very specific routine if she comes over to the house with the dogs, because I'm not gonna have my dogs, you know, knock her down. So if I allow my dogs to do some of these things that other dog trainers might say are, you know, no go, um, I have to be ready and willing and have a routine in place that make it successful so that we're not practicing bad behavior. So, you know, it's funny, this this entire topic, it was just this was kind of the conversation that this client and I had back and forth on the phone, and it made me really think that this is something I think people need to hear. I don't think dog trainers have perfect dogs, the good ones or the bad ones. Um, we just simply have dogs, they're members of our family. We all have different ways to, you know, deal with them, create routines, redirect. Um, there might even be consequences for bad behavior. Um, right now the world of dog training is all in a tizzy over positive reinforcement versus positive punishment, the use of adversives, things like this. You know, if you've listened to me for a while or ever been on my website, I'm a positive reinforcement guy. But I know if I attack the other side or I attack the client if they're using a prom collar, that I'm just creating a riff and trust where they're not going to listen to me. Um, I have told clients, hey, look, if you're using a prom collar and you're dead set you're gonna use it, I will allow you to use it for a period of time, but I'm gonna teach you how not to need it. And the minute you don't need it, I need you to quit using it because I just don't agree with it. And if you're not cool with that, you know, I'm gonna suggest finding a different trainer. But if you, you know, we can work with it and I can show you you don't need it. Um, I do think it's important to have these conversations, to be honest, and to realize me as a dog trainer, I'm not gonna be a perfect fit for every person out there. And I think trying to prove that I am the perfect fit for everybody does a disservice to clients, and it does a disservice to me as a dog trainer. So it was a really interesting phone call. I will tell you at the end of it, she decided to sign up with Kiss Dog Training, and it made me feel pretty good. But it was, I think, the honesty of saying, hey, no, we don't have perfect dogs. We've all got issues, I've got issues, you know. My sons have got issues, my girlfriend's got issues, but I wouldn't change any of them. That's why our issues make us who we are. So this is kind of a long, disjointed little conversation podcast video, however, you're getting the information. But I thought it was important enough to kind of have a conversation. Um, if it brings up other questions, things you want to hear us talk about, um, if you've got a question that's come up in your brain because of this, just email us. Um it's you know mike at kissdogtraining.com. You can message us on Facebook, Instagram, uh, there's a contact uh form on the website. There's lots of different ways to get hold of us, and we would love to talk to you and get topics that you want to hear on dogs. So come back next time. We'll we'll have a new topic and we'll go from there. But this is Mike with Kiss Dog Training. Have a great day, and just remember.