Top 10 Reasons Dog Owners Fail!

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Why do dog owners fail at training?

Sometimes owners are not putting in the work. Sometimes their expectations are unrealistic. Sometimes they picked the wrong dog for their lifestyle. And sometimes the dog-training industry has done a lousy job of explaining how much time this process actually takes.

In this episode, I break down 10 of the most common reasons dog training falls apart.

A few of the biggest ones:

• Lack of consistency and frequency. Ten three-minute training sessions can be more useful than one 30-minute marathon. Build training into normal daily routines.
• Unrealistic expectations. The calm adult dog you admire had to get through puppyhood and adolescence first.
• Looking for the quick fix. Training is a process. If somebody promises to fix everything in a few days, start asking questions.
• Picking the wrong dog. Breed, age, energy level, size, family structure, schedule, and lifestyle all matter.
• Making an impulse decision. A cute puppy or rescue story can tug at your heart, but bringing home a dog is a long-term commitment.
• Expecting the kids to do the work. The dog ultimately belongs to the adults in the household.
• Creating a “living room dog.” If your dog only practices inside the house, do not be surprised when everything falls apart outside.
• Banishing the dog to the backyard. Isolation often creates barking, destruction, escaping, and even more frustration.

One of my biggest recommendations is simple: talk to a good trainer before you get the dog.

Figure out what kind of dog actually fits your life instead of trying to force your life to fit the dog afterward.

I also recommend Meet Your Dog by Kim Brophey for people trying to better understand how genetics, breed tendencies, and individual needs affect the dog standing in front of them.

Free Book Offer Mentioned in This Episode

I also talk about my book:

So You Want a Dog, WTF Now?

It was written around many of these same issues: what you should think about before getting a dog and what you need to understand if you already have one and things are starting to fall apart.

As mentioned in the episode, email:

mike@kissdogtraining.com

Tell me you listened to this podcast, and I’ll send you a coupon code to download the K.I.S.S. Dog Training eBook or audiobook version for free.

K.I.S.S. Dog Training
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If you found this episode helpful, please take a minute to leave a review. Reviews are one of the best ways to help other dog owners find the podcast. Follow the show so you do not miss future episodes, and share this one with somebody who is thinking about getting a dog—or wondering why training has not gone the way they expected.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 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_00 0:32

Hey guys, welcome back. It's Mike with Kiss Dog Training, and today we are going to kind of do a top 10 list. Um in the last couple of weeks, months, um the world has been the world, okay? The economy is what it is. People are working more hours, people are honestly adopting more dogs, and I'm getting a lot more phone calls. But the funny thing is, I either get people who really appreciate my transparent style, and more on that at the very end of the podcast, because I have a gift for you. Um and my very direct style. And what it really comes down to is why do people fail in dog training? And I'm getting the impression that I'm getting a lot of phone calls because maybe they have failed at trying it themselves, or maybe with working some other people, and now they are trying to find some help in other ways. So this is really kind of a top 10 list of the common reasons why people fail at dog training. And also, I think maybe as we kind of look at each one of these, is how dog training has failed some people. Okay. So um I've got my notes here, so if I keep looking down or I keep pausing, depending on whether you're getting this from a video or a podcast, um, I apologize, but gotta keep the brain clear. Um, number one, and honestly, let's say number one and number two are kind of twins. You can't really talk about one without talking about the other, but it is consistency and frequency. And what I mean by consistency is you gotta work every single day. Now, when most people hear that, they go, My God, I've already got a job, I've got kids, I've got a husband or a wife, I've got this, I've got that. How am I supposed to train every single day? Well, it's the exact same way that we handle our to-do list, our email, our cell phone, our bosses, our spouses. We get into routines that work. So when I say you have to be consistent in dog training, what I guess I really mean is you have to create routines that focus on behaviors you want versus focusing on behaviors you want to chase and try to fix. Okay? So that's it's really simple. Now, when we talk about frequency, I think a lot of people think I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to work, you know, an hour a day and I just don't have that. Look, 10 three-minute training sessions are better than one 30-minute training session. You gotta remember your dog, even if we give them all the benefit in the world and say that they're an adult dog, have the have the intelligence, cognitive ability of a pre-verbal toddler. So they have a really short attention span. So we gotta work from a standpoint of number one, let's create routines at work. Okay, and let me give you just one good example. Um, a lot of people are like, well, I'm not gonna crate train my dog. Okay, I don't care if you're gonna use the crate in the traditional sense. If you want your dog to sleep with you, let your dog sleep with you. But what if we just use the crate as a way for the dog to reset and to be managed during times when maybe our training isn't quite ready for uh independence and trust and letting you just do whatever you want. So when the doorbell rings, one of the things I always try to get clients to do is teach a dog to go hop in the crate for a cookie, shut the door on the crate, then go answer the front door so the dog number one can't jump all over the person coming in the house, they can't dart out the front door. You know, you don't have to be um a hundred percent aware of where the dog is because you know the dog's in the crate with a cookie, and it gives you a routine that you can practice day in and day out, which ironically then makes the crate normal. And if it's normal, the dog likes the crate. So there's things that we can do. We gotta just create ways around it. So, you know, from a frequency standpoint, I would rather have a client that would say, I can spend 15 minutes around, you know, around the idea of hand feeding seven days a week, right after I get done with my coffee and after I've done my emails, I'll grab the bowl of food and we'll work on some skills. Now, we're gonna talk later about how we can take that little beginning routine and really complicate it throughout making everything better. But you gotta consider consistency and frequency together. And I'm just gonna be honest with you if you can't handle the consistency and frequency, then maybe you got to start asking yourself, is this the appropriate time for you to get a dog? Are you ready? Can you handle it? And as I said, there's gonna be a gift at the end of this where we're going to hopefully be able to be a little bit more transparent with you about what to expect when you get a dog. Okay, number three, unrealistic expectations. And here's the issue is we all consider the situation from okay, I've seen my neighbor's adult um Labrador retriever who's four or five years old, and that dog is just perfect. That's what I want. Well, we forget that before you have an adult dog, you've got a puppy. And after you have a puppy, you have an adolescent. And those are gonna be tougher times for you to go ahead and try to have that expectation of the dog. Yeah, that can be our end goal, that can be what we want, but you've got to realize there's steps to get there. Yeah, you know, when I had my sons, you know, my goal was I wanted two young men that would head off into the world and do miraculous things, and one's 21 and one's 25, and well, they're out in the world and they're doing things. It's not quite miraculous yet, but I've got a plan. And boy, let me tell you, the teenage years were rough, and so were the you know, um toddler stage when you know my ex-wife and I were both working a ton of hours and we were trying to figure out how to survive. Um, but we made it through, and we couldn't expect our kids to be adults when they weren't, okay? So, you know, expectations uh get people in all sorts of time, you know, issue. And again, you're gonna hear me say it. If you don't have time to create a great dog, then don't expect a great dog. Okay, they have their own mind, they're not computers, it's not like we can just put a program in and say, boop, hit enter, everything's gonna be fine. It's just gonna take a it's you know, it's not a hasty bake oven. Okay, so okay, number four, looking for the quick fix. Now, this is where I think maybe trainers sometimes don't help the situation. We all write books that say, you know, train a dog in seven days, how to potty train in three simple steps, we can fix any dog. And that puts the idea of it being quick, you know, and it's all a sales approach, it's marketing, it's this. Um, I kind of took a different perspective. You know, the tagline to my business is simple. I don't train dogs, I train owners, and I have fine print and frequently asked questions on the website, and it's everything I expect from a client, what they can expect from me, and how long it will take, and the frequently asked questions, and the prices are right there on the website. And I try to be as 100% transparent as possible with people, and I try to be as honest and upfront with, you know, hey, look, yeah, we're gonna do the puppy package, and when we're done, we're gonna have a really good puppy. But that really good puppy is gonna turn into a teenager, and you're gonna have to work through that process when they're testing rules and boundaries and so on and so forth, and you know, um, you know, as we there there's more and more wrinkles as we go in dog training, and ironically, they're all going to be kind of that that scenario. Um, but I I do think owners need to be a little bit more realistic with what their timetable is, and trainers need to probably be a little bit more honest about how long the training process actually takes. Now, is it quick to teach somebody how to hand feed, how to set routines, and how to start the process? Absolutely. This is another reason, I guess. Another weird thing that I do that I think more trainers are getting into the mindset of doing is I put two weeks in between training sessions because I want them to hit all the hiccups and hills and valleys in that two weeks so that I'm getting contact from them and I can help them talk off, you know, talk them off the ledge when they're frustrated because it's not working. And I can say you're right on track. This is exactly you're gonna see peaks and valleys. I kind of talk about it in a base camp kind of idea of climbing a mountain. You have to make three or four base camps before you can sum it. And once you sum it, then it gets easy because you're going back downhill the other side. But you got to be prepared to get from base camp one to base camp two to base camp three to base camp four, and it might take 27 base camps before we get to the summit of the hell, and we're gonna do that. So, um, if anything, um ask questions when you're talking to trainers. Um, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Um, okay, so let me skip pages here because we're now on number five, and that is picking the wrong dog. Okay, so I have been banging this drum for 15 years now with Kiss Dog Training. That please hire a dog trainer before you get the dog. And the reason is so that we can sit down and talk about, you know, what's your lifestyle, how many people are in the family, how old are they, um, what's your energy level, what is it you want out of a dog, why are you thinking about going out and getting a Dago day Argentina? Um, because that is a maybe more problematic dog for folks who've never had a dog before in their life. Um, are you getting a big dog, a little dog, a medium dog? These are all questions we need to talk about. And this is another chance where I'm going to be able to uh promote a book that's come out here within the last couple of years called Meet Your Dog by Kim Brophy. I think it is a great book that people should read before they get dogs.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

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 as audiobooks, and you can even get them in print on Mike's website, kissdogtraining.com. Just search the web for KISSDog 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 Deeth. 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.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Here's Mike. Just because you saw a dog on TV and you thought it looked cool, you just saw John Wick and you saw those cool Belgian Malinois that were climbing, you know, the walls of buildings and doing all the cool stunt work. Um, and you live in a single um room apartment down in the city where there is overstimulation, galore, and dogs and people around, and that's probably not going to be the best dog fit for you. But ironically, a lot of people will pick their dog because they saw an example of a dog. And to say that every golden retriever is the same as every other golden retriever is crazy. But to say that, you know, just because I saw a working dog breed on TV that was perfectly edited for camera and very well behaved as a canine actor, that that's what you're gonna end up with as a pet dog? Probably not. So I think sometimes in the same aspect, um, somebody who works 8, 10, 12 hours a day and is going to go out and get a puppy, and they have a 30-minute drive to work and a 30-minute drive back, you're probably better off to get an older dog who needs, you know, less work and already has some good routines, and somebody lost their job or somebody passed away and the dog got into the system. You could find a great dog that would be a wonderful companion for you that has already gone through the puppy and the adolescent stage. So um, number one, picking the wrong dog can be a huge mistake, and number two, not hiring the trainer before you get the dog so that you can get some ideas of what you really need in a dog and what that dog needs from you is also a mistake that I think we could quit making. Um, number six, uh, impulse decision to get a dog. And this kind of has to do with picking the right dog, but that is just going to get fish food at the local pet store and them having an adoption event and picking up a puppy and falling in love and leaving with absolutely no idea what you're about to get into. Um, or being on Facebook and seeing that there is a blind three-legged dog who just needs somebody to give them a chance. Now, look, I got a three-legged pit bull, um, but I knew what I was getting into when I did it. I've had a blind dog. I knew what I was getting into when I did it. I was ready for those things when I did them. I researched it, I read books. Um, and yes, that is exactly what I'm telling you that you need to do before you get it. Um I always tell folks do not make an impulse decision on getting a dog. And a sidebar on this dogs and puppies are the absolute worst gift on the face of the planet. You are gifting somebody the responsibility of a living entity for 15 years. Nobody's gonna turn down a cute, loving little puppy because they're adorable. I want one too. I want everyone that I pick up. But they might not be ready, they might not be able to handle it, and then it ends up being a scenario where it just falls apart and then everybody's heartbroken. Okay. Um, number seven, thinking that the kids will do all the work. This isn't my dog. I'm getting my dog, my kid, a dog, so that they learn about responsibility, and they, you know, I can teach them this and that, and that's a great idea as long as the parent realizes that that dog belongs to them, not the kid. They're using the dog as a way to teach the kid responsibility and ownership and empathy and caring and all the wonderful things that an animal can teach, but it's not the kid's dog. You've got, let's say, an eight-year-old who can't even remember to clean up his own room on a daily basis, and you think he's going to take care of the dog. Okay, you know, even just running in and trying to make a phone call for work, the kid's watching TV, the dog poops on the carpet, and now the dog and the kid are in trouble when really the parent who wasn't managing the situation should be the one in trouble. And really, I guess nobody should be in trouble. We should have thought the process through a little bit better, had better routines, had better, you know, systems, logistics setup, baby gates, crates, this, all this kind of stuff. But it's not the kids' dogs, it's your dog. Okay. Um, number eight, I call the curse of the living room dog. And this, over probably the last generation, has gotten so much worse, okay? Um, we we don't get dogs out into the world. And what I let me just back up. The curse of the living room dog is very simple. Your dog over time becomes pretty reliable and is pretty damn good within the four walls of your house. But the minute you walk out your front or back door, your dog becomes a blithering idiot because they overstimulate this huge world that they only get to see maybe every 10 days to two weeks, and it's like taking a kid to worlds of fun. And now all of a sudden, you're mad at the dog because they can't pay attention as well as they do at home. Well, if you want your dog to be perfect in all environments, you better damn well be ready to practice in all environments. So anybody who's worked with me before knows that I set up my sessions where we work inside the house, we get skills down pat, then we move to the backyard with the skills, and that's when we kind of start introducing the leash and the long line and good stuff like that. And as we get the house in the backyard going well, we'll grab that long line, we'll head to the driveway, we'll set up a camp chair, we continue the hand feeding there, we start working on a leave it command so that when we start seeing kids and joggers and other people walk in the neighborhood and dogs that are being walked, we can practice that. Hey, don't pay attention to that, pay attention to me, come here, here's your reward. And we start getting used to and normalizing, habitualizing, desensitizing whatever fancy words you want. But if we can't, over the period of the dog's life, get them out of the house and make life boring to where it's not overstimulating, they're never going to be able to pay attention. So I do think that's one of the huge issues is people will do all that work at the very beginning of having a dog and get them pretty good in the house, and then they just kind of take a break that they never get back to training. And then you you have a dog that you know becomes reactive on leash or becomes a runner and starts escaping the backyard or barks incessantly, stuff like that. We're gonna talk about that a little bit more as we go too. Um, in fact, I guess we're gonna talk about that right now as I look at my notes, which is the banishment to the backyard. Um, it's amazing how many times that I come into a house and the dog is out in the backyard, and I'm like, well, why isn't the dog inside? Well, because we can't control the dog. So we just put the dog out in the backyard. Um, I will tell you that throwing a dog in the backyard usually ends up one of three ways: a nuisance barker, a destructive dog, or an escape artist. Um, the example I always use is the backyard is a lot like your first office. You're so excited to get it. You go buy a pencil cup and you get a desk pad and you hang your pictures and your diploma, and it's the most stimulating environment, and you can't wait to take over the world. Within about a month to six weeks, that office becomes a prison cell. Uh, you'll do anything you can to get out of that office, okay? And that is kind of what a backyard is to a dog. Dogs are social animals. Now, if you're in the backyard with them, if you're engaging with them, even if you're just reading a book and being present with them and being with them, it usually helps a ton. But you have to interact with the dog in the backyard. If you just put the dog in the backyard and expect them to just do nothing, they're going to get bored and they're going to do something else. Um, and then that opens up the entire next can of worms and problem behaviors, and that's usually a step or two away from you know, calling the breeder back, calling the rescue, and saying, you know, we're in over our head, we can't handle this dog, we need to relinquish or, you know, take the dog back. And then we have another dog in the system, and we're trying to find a second, third, fourth, fifth home for these dogs, and they become one, two, three time losers, and it just gets completely out of control. So if you're frustrated enough to put the dog in the backyard, that should be the first clue to you that okay, we need to take two or three steps back so we can take four or five steps forward. It's time to hire a good positive reinforcement trainer that will help and get us back on track. So that brings us to number 10. Um, how do I do it? And I kind of mentioned this before. Um, number one, um, people will email me. Mean I always email them back with either I need more information because the email simply says, uh yeah, I need help with dog aggression, how much will it cost? And I'm gonna need way more information than that. Um or it's something simple, and I'll send them a training recommendation right off the bat. But at the very beginning, it says the first thing that you gotta do is go to the fine print and frequently asked questions on the website. You gotta start at the start here tab, and it will tell you all about my philosophy, how I do things, um, how long it's gonna take, what I expect from you, what you can expect from me. And if you've gone through all of that and you still jive with me as a trainer, let's go ahead and let's pick the time slot and the day of the week that works best for you. I'll find a calendar invite, you know. I'll send you all the calendar information. I will send you a non-refundable deposit invoice, um, and then I will send you an Adobe sign document that says you have to agree to the fine print and frequently asked questions, and you're on board with all that stuff. And that's me being as transparent as possible. I've had other people go, God, do you realize how many clients you lose by making them jump through all those hoops? And I'm like, no, I'm finding out if the people are going to jive with me. I want to over, I want to underpromise, over-deliver. I almost said it backwards, but I'm not going to beg people to come work with me because if I do, I have overpromised, and in most cases, I will underdeliver. I want people going into this process eyes wide open. Um, a lot of dog trainers won't put their prices on the website because they want to talk to me and tell you all about it. No, I put all the prices right on the website. It's totally transparent. It tells you exactly what's going to happen, and you know going in. Um, about two years ago, might be three, I'm not sure. Things get kind of fuzzy with age. Um, we wrote a book called So You Want a Dog or You Got a Dog, What the Fluff Now. And it was a book kind of based off this top 10 list. And it was, here's what you need to know before you get the dog. Now, unfortunately, most people who read this book have read it after they got the dog and things started going, but it's the first book I make people read because it kind of gets them prepared, okay, on what's about to happen. If you want, if you want to fix this, this is what's going to need to happen. And my gift to you in this podcast or video is very simple. If you will email me at mike at kissdogtraining.com and say that you listen to this podcast, I will send you back a coupon code where you can download an ebook or an audio book of that particular book, which is hopefully somewhere around me. And you probably the person who's smarter than I am and will edit it will have a picture. Um, but if not, it's available on Amazon, it's available on audio, audible.com. But if you email me, I'm gonna send you a coupon code, you can get it on the website and you can just download it for free. So I know a lot of people who you know listen to podcasts or videos like this and will do it because they're having problems with dogs. Maybe this will help you kind of get things going in the right direction. So, again, this is kind of a top 10 list of why dog training kind of fails. Um, and hopefully, after you read the book, you listen to this information, you got a better idea how to do it. But if you don't, you got more questions, please reach out to us through social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all that good stuff. You can email us through the website. Um, and there's all sorts of ways to get hold of us, and we'll get back in touch with you. Or who knows, maybe one of your uh questions will become a topic on a later video or podcast. Thanks for listening. This is Michael Kids of Trading Great.