Episode #128 Puppies & Patterns

Today let's talk about patterns. How do we teach a puppy good behaviors and help them practice patterns to form good habits? 

Transcript

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This is the puppy training Podcast, episode 128 Puppies and patterns. This podcast designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the puppy training podcast. And I'm your host, Amy Jensen. How you guys, how was your holiday? I hope you had a wonderful break. It was nice kind of just taking a little time off. You guys ever feel like when you get back at it that your brain needs a revamp? Getting back at it this week? And I'm realizing oh yeah, this is what I do on Mondays. Oh, yeah, this is what I do on Tuesdays. So here we are doing a podcast and I'm super excited to be with you. I'm glad you're here listening. Today on our q&a, we were talking about interrupting unwanted puppy behavior and distracting them or redirecting them. So the word that my client used was distracting. But we're going to talk about interrupting redirecting them. And I thought you know what, this would make a really good podcast. So check it out. Can you discuss the balance of Nope. And ignoring and distracting unwanted behavior? Yes, this is one of my favorite things to talk about. Okay, so any of those things that we just mentioned. So the, and I just it comes out naturally. I don't even know where that came from. It was just like, I see my dog doing something. Hey, you know, it's a great interrupter. And that's all it is. It's an interrupter word, my dog kind of goes what, you know, what did you say? What did that what was that sound? No is the same thing. No, is just an interrupter word. So know what huh, right. Nope. I like to say nope, instead of No, because it keeps me in a happier state. Honestly, that's the only reason. Like if I say no, or if I say nope, nope, just reminds me. No big deal. Just try again. Right. And I'd rather come to my puppy in that state of mind than a really frustrated no state of mind. So Nope, I love but again, it's just an interrupter. Like nope, sorry, you're not going to get a reward dragon. Like try something else that didn't work. Okay. Now ignoring the distracting unwanted behavior. So if, for example, your dog your puppies already latched on to you. Okay, we missed the opportunity to prevent this. And now we're having to deal with this. So a noise a sound something like, or I just, sometimes they'll just go. And they go, Well, what was that? And as soon as they let go, Oh, now I have an opportunity to move forward successfully. So I pull out some food, I get them into sit, maybe I lure them into a spin. But I'm now being able to stay Yes. Right. So they spin Yes, here's a tree, they sit, yes, here's a treat, I can then lure them into a pen or a crate, and they're good to go. Okay. So if a puppy is doing an unwanted behavior, like they're currently biting you, we want to interrupt with some sound like a or, or, or something, right? It interrupts them, they let go, we put food right on their nose, lower them away from us. And now we manage Right? Or we go into a training session or whatever you have time for. So if they're currently doing unwanted behavior, interrupt redirect. Okay. Now, we want to do that same pattern, without this in it as much as possible. So if my puppy runs over to me, I want to anticipate Oh, it's probably going to latch on to my arm, or my pant leg or my pajama pants that are flapping in the wind, right? So I see my puppy running, I want to interrupt and redirect before they clamp on before they bite me as much as possible. Doing that just get this out of the pattern. This isn't even part of the pattern and puppies learn in patterns. I need to explain right here that when I say this, I'm demoing to them the puppies latching onto my clothes, so we don't want the actual biting behavior to be part of the pattern. We want the pattern to happen without the biting so we're managing preventing, anticipating what the puppies behavior might be, and then helping them be successful at a behavior we like without the puppy biting being part of the pattern. Let's keep going. You can say I to kind of interrupt them. Nope. Is you're they're already doing something. Maybe you said sit and they lay down. That's a perfect time to say nope, try again. So think of your nope as nope, try again. Sorry, that's not right. No reward is coming. Right? Ah, all those little sound things are kind of like interrupters trying to get your puppy's attention onto something better. And then ignoring when I say ignore you guys, it means don't give attention to the behavior unnecessarily. So here's a common example with new puppies. I also have a client say my puppy loves the bark. Every time we go outside, they just go straight for the bark. And oftentimes we make such a fuss over the bark that they really like it. It's like wow, this does golden because me get so excited about the work. And I'm not really excited about it. I'm usually saying no stop. Don't do that. Ah, right. So Rather than do that, rather than draw all this attention, which is attention, whether it's good or bad, it's a tension and my puppy loves it. I would rather as they head out and see the bark, I can interrupt and redirect them before they get to it. But oftentimes, a puppy just wants to put it in their mouth, taste it, spit it out, put it in their mouth, taste it, spit it out. And I don't need to draw, I don't need to become super crazy reactive over that, right? So ignoring I'm gonna be here, if my puppy happens to go over to the bark, and they're checking it out. I'm gonna choose to ignore that. And I'm going to go through a party over here. So I'm going to squeak a toy. And it's not about my puppy. At this point, I don't want a puppy. I don't want to be begging my puppy to come to me. I want to be like, Wow, I'm having a really good time over here so that my puppy feels FOMO. Like, what is happening over there. And then they're like, I want to see, I want to see and they come running over. So there is a big difference in the puppies know it between she's trying to get me over here. It's a trick. And oh, wow, that looks fun. I want to go check that out. So when I say ignore, yeah, I'm going to ignore that my puppy is in the bark, I'm going to see if they'll come over to a diversion over here, if I can get them away from it without drawing attention to the bark. Does that make sense? And that goes for a whole host of scenarios. It's just be careful not giving attention to what you don't want your puppy to do. Because oftentimes, that attention, they like it, they want your attention. So they're like, I know how to get her attention. Watch, I'll bite the carpet, she'll come right over. Right or I'll pee on this carpet, she'll come right over. So that's where people get stuck on a nasty loop of consequences. You gotta get off of that. You got to get on to the preventative side, the A side of the ABCs. Right, I'm going to manage and prevent and set my puppy up for success. 90% of the time. Yeah, 10% of the time. I missed it. They peed on the carpet, no big deal. I'll pick it up. I'll clean it up. Whatever, we'll move on. We'll get better. I'll pay more attention, right. But that's the concept. I could honestly go on for an hour about that. I love that concept. But try your best. This is for anybody who owns a dog. Try your best to start to anticipate behavior, right? My puppies running at me. I'm going to assume they're going to jump at me they're going to bite me they're going to bark at me, What can I help them first, I have a helpful little video. If you go to our first week together in the puppy biting barking and jumping section. It's the last lesson in the first week together. I'm out on the patio in my kennel with Baxter. He's like a nine week old puppy at the point. And I'm doing sit to say please. And you can see that he comes running to me and I'm helping him be successful. Before he even gets to me. He's like two feet from me and my hand you can see my hand already going out. We just went over this in basic training the other day. So you'll see that video on basic training if you're signed up for that this week. But that concept of I'm showing him what to do before he can be naughty. I'm showing him what to do before he does unwanted behaviors super helpful. Let's touch just a little more on the concept of ignoring. So sometimes people think I say ignore and that just means let it happen. That's not my definition of ignore. Ignore is don't give attention to the behavior that you're not wanting to happen, right. I'm not giving a direct attention to it. But I'm not just going to sit there and take it right. If my puppy is biting my foot, I don't want you to just sit there and let the puppy bite and bite and bite until they are stopped biting, right? They're done biting, I want you to do something about it. I want you to interrupt redirect, I just don't want it to constantly be that pattern of the puppy bites I interrupt I redirect the puppy bites I interrupt I redirect because then the puppy has this pattern down that includes the biting. I want the new pattern to be I see the puppy coming at me I anticipate he's probably going to bite me. I'm going because he's wants to play right. This is all in fun. And he's coming over at me I know he's going to bite my foot I want to interrupt, show him what I want him to do before he bites so that that Biting is not part of the pattern. The new pattern is he comes to me, I show him how to sit, he gets a treat, we start to play and now the biting is gone. And again like I mentioned this will go for any behavior. So you see your puppy going to the counter. You don't want them to counter surf. Don't wait for them to put their paws up on the counter. That's now part of that pattern. I want it to be the puppy runs to the counter I interrupt redirect the puppy away from the counter before the counter surfing happens. And that is the new pattern right I see the counter oh I directed away from it I go get something else. We all move on with life. I'm not waiting for the puppy to put the cup pause on the counter then I interrupt and redirect the puppy puts the pause on the counter. I say a lot of people say off right you put a pause on the counter we say off you get to treat but the paws on the counter we say off he gets a treat. Yeah, that's okay if they've already got their paws on the counter. But 90% of the time, why are we letting them get to the counter? Right? Let's show them what to do before they get to the counter. Let's take away the temptations up there on the counter when they're young, from even wanting to get up there in the first place. That's the management part of it. Keeping the kitchen clean, keeping them out of the kitchen, keeping them tethered to you and you're in the kitchen. There's lots of management prevention that can happen. The training is oh we see the counter I want you to redirect away from it. Maybe we go into a downstate or a go to bed behavior. There's a lot of options at that point. But think of it as in terms of patterns. And we don't want the be the unwanted behaviors to be in those loops. We want to do something show the puppy what to do before that behavior happens. It's magic. Okay, it's no, it's just good old fashioned hard work, but you guys can do it. All right. I hope you enjoyed that little bit of our q&a session today. Thanks for joining me today on the podcast. I will talk to you guys next week. We have some good topics coming up. So I'll talk to you soon happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other Puppy Training question, visit my site Baxter & bella.com to contact me