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Paws and Reflect: Dog Behavior & Real-Life Training
Paws and Reflect is a dog behavior podcast hosted by certified trainer Penny DiLoreto, helping you understand your dog and create calmer, more balanced behavior using practical, humane methods.
Paws and Reflect: Dog Behavior & Real-Life Training
The ABCs of Dog Training Book Review
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The ABCs of Dog Training book is suitable for all experience levels, from those bringing home a new puppy to owners of older dogs who need behavior adjustments. Penny DiLoreto brings her extensive background as a Certified Professional Dog Trainer and AKC evaluator to the text, ensuring the methods are humane and grounded in the science of operant conditioning.
In addition to the training guide, the book includes a glossary of terms and a curated list of resources—including books, podcasts, and organizations—for owners who wish to deepen their understanding of canine psychology.
Welcome to Paws and Reflect, where we explore the heart, science, and soul of living with dogs.
I'm Penny DiLoreto - certified dog trainer, behavior specialist, and lifelong dog lover, here to help you build a calmer, kinder, more connected relationship with your dog.
Thank you so much for spendin this time with me of Paws and Reflect. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it with a friend or fellow dog loer - it's one of the best ways to help ore dogs and their people.
Ad if you haven't already, please be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. I'll see you next episode,
“Thanks for spending time with me today on Paws and Reflect.
If this episode helped you see your dog in a new way, be sure to follow the podcast and share it with a fellow dog lover.
Until next time… stay kind, stay curious, and give your dog a little extra love today.”
Welcome to today's deep dive. We are looking at a fundamentally different way to communicate with, well, the animals living in our houses.
SPEAKER_01And it is a fascinating topic.
SPEAKER_00It really is. So we have our hands on a book called The ABCs of Dog Training: Mastering Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence.
SPEAKER_01It's written by Penny Delareto.
SPEAKER_00Right. And she is a certified professional dog trainer who uh actually created force-free snake avoidance programs.
SPEAKER_01Which is just a wild concept on its own.
SPEAKER_00So wild. But the entire focus of this book and our mission for this deep dive today is to pull out the most valuable insights from this framework.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00We want to help you understand your dog's underlying needs, build a really strong, unbreakable bond, and basically ensure you have a happy, well-mannered companion.
SPEAKER_01And achieving that well-mannered companion, you know, it requires tearing down some very entrenched assumptions we all have.
SPEAKER_00For sure.
SPEAKER_01Because the core framework Deloreto introduces, the ABC model, is just a massive paradigm shift.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Okay, let's unpack this a little. What does that shift actually look like for the listener?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Well, it moves us away from this really archaic idea of just like reacting to our dogs when they mess up.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Like shouting no after the fact.
SPEAKER_01Right. Instead, it places the responsibility on us to proactively architect their environment.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell So we're shifting from being uh drill sergeants to being guides.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell That's a great way to put it. We are in a constant two-way dialogue with them.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell So if like a chewed-up shoe is just the dog's way of communicating a specific anxiety, getting angry completely fails to address the root cause.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell It probably just makes the anxiety worse, honestly.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Yeah. That makes sense. So to fix that, we have to look at the very beginning of the behavioral loop, the A in the model.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Which stands for antecedent.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Right. The antecedent. So what exactly is that?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell The antecedent is the setup. It is uh whatever precedes and triggers your dog's action.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell I think a lot of people, myself included, assume an antecedent is just a verbal command. Like you say sit, and that's the trigger.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell That's the common misconception, yeah. But Delareto argues that the antecedent encompasses the entire environmental and emotional context.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell Wait, really? The whole context.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Yeah, yeah. The sound of a doorbell is an antecedent, the rustle of a jacket, even the time of day.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell See, I always used to think of an antecedent purely as a physical prompt. Like uh how laying out my gym clothes the night before triggers me to actually work out.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Right, the visual cue.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. If the clothes are there, the behavior happens. But the book dives into invisible antecedents, which I found like way more compelling.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell They are huge.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell So what if the trigger isn't a physical object, you know, or a sound? What if the antecedent is actually my own mood?
SPEAKER_01It absolutely is. And this is where we get into the biology of why this framework is so effective.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell The biology. Okay, explain that.
SPEAKER_01So the source points out that dogs possess a specialized form of mirror neurons.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Mirror neurons. Those are the uh empathy cells, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. They are brain cells directly linked to empathy and mimicking behavior. They allow an animal to literally mirror the emotional states of those around them.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Okay. Think about being a passenger in a car. The driver suddenly gasps and grips the steering wheel. Oh yeah. Before you even look up to see what's happening on the road, your own heart rate spikes. Your stomach drops.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Because you're reacting to their stress.
SPEAKER_00Right. It is a completely involuntary biological response to the person next to you. Is that basically what's happening to the dog?
SPEAKER_01That is the perfect analogy. Your stress biologically hijacks their nervous system.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. If you were running late for work, rushing around the house, breathing heavily, you know, radiating anxiety. Their mirror neurons are firing rapidly, they pick up on that tension, and their own cortisol levels spike.
SPEAKER_00So my stress literally becomes the antecedent for their erratic behavior. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Precisely. You cannot command a dog to be calm if your own nervous system is in full fight or flight mode.
SPEAKER_00Which means identifying antecedents requires a massive amount of self-awareness from you, the owner.
SPEAKER_01It really does.
SPEAKER_00If you realize your dog only starts pacing and barking frantically when you're like aggressively grabbing your keys in a rush, you have the power to change the outcome.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Because you control the trigger.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus Exactly. You manage the environment, you manage yourself, and you prevent the bad behavior before the dog even has to act out.
SPEAKER_01And once that antecedent, whether it's the doorbell or your own anxiety, sets the stage, we arrive at B.
SPEAKER_00The behavior.
SPEAKER_01Right. But to actually build that strong bond we want, decoding the action is critical.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Because it's not just about what they do. Right.
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus No, we have to neurologically unpack why they are doing it to actually meet their needs.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell And the book categorizes these behaviors into a few different buckets.
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus It does. It breaks them down into instinctual, learned, social comfort seeking, attention seeking, and stress-induced behaviors.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell But the real tension seems to be between instinctual behaviors and learned behavior.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Oh, that tension is immense.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Give me an example of that.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Well, an instinctual behavior, like a dog's prey drive to chase a squirrel, is deeply embedded in the primitive parts of their brain. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Like the basal ganglia.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. It's hardwired for survival. But a learned behavior, like teaching a dog to leave it and ignore that squirrel, requires them to use their prefrontal cortex.
SPEAKER_00They have to actively suppress that primal urge. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And it is an incredible amount of cognitive work for an animal to do that.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus And we often punish them when that cognitive work fails or when they exhibit like comfort-seeking or stress-induced behaviors. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Which happens all the time.
SPEAKER_00Like coming home to find your favorite pair of shoes completely destroyed.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00The immediate emotional human reaction is usually my dog did this out of spite. They are mad that I left them alone.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell, which is an entirely human projection.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Right, because dogs don't think like that.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell No, dogs do not have the cognitive capacity for calculated spite. They just don't.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell So what's actually happening with the shoe?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell The book explains that a destroyed shoe is almost certainly a dog attempting to self-soothe.
SPEAKER_00Self-soothe from what?
SPEAKER_01Separation anxiety. It's a stress response. They seek out an object that smells intensely of you, and chewing actually releases endorphins in their brain.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. So it literally calms them down chemically.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah. They aren't plotting revenge, they were just desperately trying to manage their own panic in your absence.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Reframing that is so powerful. You go from viewing your dog as like this malicious adversary to viewing them as an animal struggling to cope.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell It completely changes the bond between you and your pet.
SPEAKER_00It really does. But it raises a bigger question about how they communicate with us in the first place.
SPEAKER_01What's fascinating here is that studies show dogs are uniquely attuned to human communicative signals.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Even more so than our closest relatives, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Even more than chimpanzees. The chimp comparison is vital to understanding dog behavior.
SPEAKER_00Because genetically, chimps are closer to us.
SPEAKER_01Genetically, yes. But socially, dogs are far closer to us.
SPEAKER_00How so?
SPEAKER_01In behavioral tests, if a human points at a hidden treat, a chimpanzee generally will not follow the pointing gesture.
SPEAKER_00Really? They just ignore it.
SPEAKER_01They just don't inherently understand human intent. Dogs, however, have co-evolved alongside us for thousands of years.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell So they know what pointing means.
SPEAKER_01Instantly. They will look exactly where you point. They are biologically wired to study our faces, our gestures, or eye contact. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00They are constantly trying to bridge that communication gap between our two species.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Exactly. They perform a behavior like jumping, barking, chewing, trying to react to an antecedent or communicate a need.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell But whether they ever perform that specific behavior again is entirely up to how we respond.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Which brings us to the C in the ABC model, consequence.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell Right. The consequence shaping the future.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Now anyone who has read even a little bit about dog training knows the basic foundations of operant conditioning.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus The stuff B.F. Skinner demonstrated, building on Pavlov's old association studies.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Right, the four quadrants: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell But we don't need to rehash textbook definitions here.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell No, the real value in Deloreto's book is how she specifically applies these quadrants to modern force-free training.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell She heavily favors positive reinforcement, right? Like adding something pleasant, like a treat.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Yes, and negative punishment, which is removing something pleasant, like your attention.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Here's where it gets really interesting, though, because I want to push back on this negative punishment idea.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Okay, push back. How so?
SPEAKER_00Well, it reminds me of ghosting someone who is being annoying, just ignoring them.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell That's a good way to describe it.
SPEAKER_00But the reality of applying it seems incredibly difficult. Take the book's example of a dog jumping on guests. Okay. The traditional reaction is positive punishment. You add something unpleasant, you yell down, or push them away.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell, which causes fear and breaks trust.
SPEAKER_00Right. So Dilloretto argues we should use negative punishment instead. Turn your back, ignore them, and remove the reward of your attention.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00But if I just cross my arms and ignore a 70-pound labrador that is frantically jumping and clawing at me, I'm gonna get knocked over.
SPEAKER_01You definitely might.
SPEAKER_00Or my guests are gonna get scratched to pieces. How does the book suggest we handle the physical, chaotic reality of ignoring a huge hyperactive animal?
SPEAKER_01It is a brilliant question. And it highlights the crucial difference between training and management.
SPEAKER_00Management.
SPEAKER_01Yes. You cannot effectively train a dog in the middle of chaos. If you have a 70-pound dog actively knocking people over, you have failed at the A stage.
SPEAKER_00The antecedent.
SPEAKER_01Right. You haven't managed the environment. Before you can even attempt negative punishment, you must use management tools.
SPEAKER_00Like what? A leash?
SPEAKER_01A leash, a tether, or even a baby gate.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I see. So you restrict their physical access to the person first?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. You manage the environment so the dog literally cannot physically knock the guest over.
SPEAKER_00And then what?
SPEAKER_01Once safety is secured, then the guest applies the negative punishment.
SPEAKER_00So the dog jumps up at the baby gate.
SPEAKER_01And the guest immediately turns their back and breaks all eye contact.
SPEAKER_00Ah, okay.
SPEAKER_01Because of that coevolution we talked about, dogs crave human engagement.
SPEAKER_00Even negative engagement, like yelling.
SPEAKER_01Yes. If you yell at a dog, you are looking at them and speaking to them. You gave them exactly what they wanted.
SPEAKER_00But by turning your back, you starve them of that engagement.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And the second all four paws are back on the floor, the guest turns around and offers the positive reinforcement.
SPEAKER_00Like a treat or some pets.
SPEAKER_01Right. That makes perfect sense.
SPEAKER_00The management allows the training to actually work. And the book points out why traditional yelling or physical corrections are so counterproductive, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Neurologically speaking, it comes down to cortisol again. The stress hormone. Right. When you use fear or pain to punish a dog, their stress hormones spike. High levels of cortisol actually block the learning centers of the mammalian brain.
SPEAKER_00So they aren't even learning the lesson.
SPEAKER_01A terrified dog is not learning your arbitrary human rules. They are simply shutting down to survive the moment.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01And it completely destroys the mutual trust that a healthy bond relies on.
SPEAKER_00But even if we drop the fear tactics and strictly use positive reinforcement, there is still a massive hurdle for you as the owner. Timing. The book makes it clear that the window for delivering a consequence seems impossibly narrow.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Oh, timing is everything. Dogs live entirely in the present moment. Delayed consequences just confuse them.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell The window is like roughly half a second, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Their brains associate a consequence with whatever action they are performing at that exact millisecond.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Give me a breakdown of what delayed timing actually looks like in practice, because I know I'm guilty of this.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Imagine you're teaching your dog to sit. You give the cue, the dog sits. But it takes you three or four seconds to fumble with the zipper on your treat pouch.
SPEAKER_00Right. I'm digging around for the treat.
SPEAKER_01And by the time you pull it out and hand it to the dog, they have stood back up, wagged their tail, and sniffed your knee.
SPEAKER_00Oh no.
SPEAKER_01You think you just rewarded the sit. But the dog's brain thinks you just rewarded them for standing up and sniffing your knee.
SPEAKER_00You accidentally reinforce the exact behavior you didn't want.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. If you want a well-mannered companion, the positive reinforcement must be delivered the absolute fraction of a second their bottom hits the floor.
SPEAKER_00That pinpoint timing is what creates the neurological association.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_00So we have this incredibly proactive paradigm. We manage the environmental triggers, we decode the biological reasons behind the behaviors, and we time our consequences down to the half second. Right. But this entire system only works if the architect of the system, the human being, maintains it over the long haul.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell, which is inevitably where things break down.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The dog usually learns the system far faster than the human adapts to it.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell The book is pretty blunt about this human element, actually. It points out a hard truth. Inconsistent commands completely confuse dogs.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell They absolutely derail an animal's cognitive loop.
SPEAKER_00Like if I tell my dog come on Monday, but on Tuesday I say here boy, and on Wednesday I just whistle.
SPEAKER_01You are presenting three completely different antecedents and expecting the exact same behavior.
SPEAKER_00Right. And you're breaking the ABC loop.
SPEAKER_01You're expecting the dog to generalize language the way a human does, which they cannot do.
SPEAKER_00So consistency is everything.
SPEAKER_01Consistency is the only thing holding the ABC model together. Everyone in the household has to act as a unified front.
SPEAKER_00Same vocabulary, same hand signals.
SPEAKER_01Same boundaries. If one partner lets the dog sleep on the couch and the other partner aggressively scolds the dog for jumping on the couch, what happens?
SPEAKER_00The dog gets confused.
SPEAKER_01More than confused. The dog is forced to live in a state of chronic anxiety. The rules of their universe are totally unstable.
SPEAKER_00No, it's terrible. But um even with perfect consistency, progress isn't always linear, right?
SPEAKER_01No, never.
SPEAKER_00The book mentions keeping training sessions incredibly short, like five to ten minutes maximum.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Because dogs, especially puppies, have very short attention spans.
SPEAKER_00See, I think a lot of people assume if they spend an hour drilling commands, the dog will learn faster.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell An hour of obedience training is intellectual torture for a dog. We severely underestimate their cognitive load.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Because they're using that prefrontal cortex again.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah. Deciphering human signals, overriding natural instincts, memorizing behavioral chains, it burns a massive amount of glucose in their brain. Wow. A focused 10-minute training session causes more mental fatigue than a two-mile physical walk.
SPEAKER_00That is wild.
SPEAKER_01If you push them beyond that five to ten minute window, they become frustrated, exhausted, and they start making mistakes.
SPEAKER_00So you always want to end the session on a successful repetition. Right. While they are still eager to work.
SPEAKER_01Precisely. Keep it short and positive.
SPEAKER_00And what about when training just stalls out? Or when a dog just suddenly forgets everything.
SPEAKER_01Ah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, you've been training them for months, they're perfectly well behaved, and then one Tuesday they look at you like they have never heard the word sit in their entire life.
SPEAKER_01That is called regression. And it is a perfectly normal part of the learning curve.
SPEAKER_00Okay, because the human tendency is to view regression as defiance, like you're just being stubborn.
SPEAKER_01Right. But usually it is a response to cognitive overload, an environmental shift, or an underlying health issue.
SPEAKER_00Like what?
SPEAKER_01Did you just move to a new apartment? Is there a new baby in the house? Are there joints aching due to the cold weather?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell So how do you troubleshoot that without getting completely frustrated?
SPEAKER_01You drop your criteria, you do not punish a dog for regressing, you go back to the absolute basics.
SPEAKER_00Just rebuild from the ground up.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Shorten the sessions even further, pull out the highest value treats you have, and patiently rebuild the foundation until their confidence returns.
SPEAKER_00So what does this all mean? It makes me realize that everything in this book points to one overarching theme. Dog training is secretly human training.
SPEAKER_01It absolutely is.
SPEAKER_00To get the dog we want, we have to deeply regulate our own consistency, our own patience, and our own clarity.
SPEAKER_01And if we connect this to the bigger picture, if you can master that self-regulation, the book really pushes you to take the relationship even further.
SPEAKER_00Through advanced training, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes. It dedicates significant time to things like agility courses, scent work, trick training, and even therapy dog preparation.
SPEAKER_00I will admit, I always used to look at people running their dogs through like agility tunnels at the park and think, okay, you just have a lot of free time and you want to show off.
SPEAKER_01A lot of people think that.
SPEAKER_00I just didn't see the practical value in it for a normal house pet.
SPEAKER_01But it is incredibly practical because of the neurological enrichment it provides.
SPEAKER_00Enrichment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, advanced training isn't about teaching parlor tricks, it is about providing intense mental stimulation. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Which burns off the anxious energy that leads to destructive behavior.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. But beyond that, it is the ultimate tool for trust building.
SPEAKER_00How does agility build trust?
SPEAKER_01When you and your dog are navigating an agility course, you are no longer owner and pet. You are operating as a single cohesive unit.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I see.
SPEAKER_01The dog is relying entirely on your micro cues to know where to turn next, and you are constantly reading their physical momentum in real time.
SPEAKER_00It completely transforms the dynamic.
SPEAKER_01It deepens the mutual trust between you and your dog in a way nothing else can.
SPEAKER_00You literally become a true partnership. Which is exactly what the book promised at the beginning, building an unbreakable bond.
SPEAKER_01It's all connected.
SPEAKER_00So to wrap this up, we started this deep dive by talking about a secret language happening in your house. And it turns out learning that language isn't a chore, it's a constant dialogue.
SPEAKER_01It is a two-way street.
SPEAKER_00By mastering the antecedent, the behavior, and the consequence, you are literally learning to speak your dog's language.
SPEAKER_01And on the topic of speaking their language, there is one final intriguing nugget from the source material that I think we need to mention.
SPEAKER_00Oh, lay it on us.
SPEAKER_01It's about how this communication actually happens physically. We spend so much of our time talking to our dogs, using our voices to give commands.
SPEAKER_00Because that's how humans communicate.
SPEAKER_01Right. But dogs communicate primarily through highly nuanced body language.
SPEAKER_00Which explains why they are constantly watching us.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. They respond far more reliably to hand signals and physical movements than they ever will to vocalizations.
SPEAKER_00That makes total sense.
SPEAKER_01And we frequently misinterpret their physical signals in return. Like we assume a wagging tail universally means a happy dog.
SPEAKER_00Wait, it doesn't?
SPEAKER_01No. The book points out that the speed, the rigidity, and the position of the tail can actually indicate nervousness, overstimulation, or even a precursor to aggression.
SPEAKER_00Wow. I had no idea.
SPEAKER_01They're incredibly complex physical communicators. Because of those mirror neurons we discussed earlier, your dog is constantly reading your micro movements, your breathing patterns, your posture.
SPEAKER_00They are studying us all the time.
SPEAKER_01They are studying you right now. So I'll leave you with this. What is your resting body language telling your dog right now, in this exact moment?
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. That is a brilliant thought to end on. It really changes the way you sit in your own living room. Thank you all for joining us on this deep dive into the ABCs of dog training. The next time you look at your furry best friend, remember to take these insights into that interaction. Look for the triggers, manage your own mood, and go build an amazing bond. See you next time.
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