Episode #181 How can I help my dog be neutral in public?

From the safety of your backyard to the sensory smorgasbord of a bustling cityscape, we map out a path to canine calmness. Hear about the art of tethering your dog while you go about your activities, a method that subtly instills in them the virtue of tranquility. As we unfold the steps to build up your dog's impulse control, you'll learn how to reward moments of peace and extend those periods of serenity. Join me, and let's embrace the joy of a well-mannered dog that can sit by your side, unperturbed, making every outing an absolute delight.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Puppy Training Podcast, episode 181. How can I help my dog be neutral in public? This podcast is 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. Step of the way. This is the puppy training podcast and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:35

I'm guessing you have a dog or you're getting one soon, and want to know more about how to train your new friend to live in your home. Perfect, you are in the right place and I'm so glad you're here today. We are talking about calm. This is a favorite topic of mine. How do we get our dogs to be calm or neutral in public? More specifically, so we're out and about. I don't want my dog to bark or lunge or pool or react crazily to things they see in the environment. How do I get them to be neutral? Introducing your dog to the busy world outside your home can be fun, but, yes, it can be challenging, and ensuring that your dog remains calm and neutral in public settings is important for their wellbeing and our peace of mind. We want to be confident in taking our dog out into the world with us and not embarrassed by their behavior right Now. This process, which requires patience and consistency, as does everything with dog training, involves gradual exposure and training techniques aimed at helping your dog adapt to the various stimuli that they will come across. We don't want them to become overly excited or anxious when they see such stimuli.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Now, before embarking on any outdoor training, I want to make sure that your dog is fully vaccinated. So if your dog's not yet fully vaccinated maybe they're a young puppy then you want to do this kind of work as you carry your puppy, so take them out places, let them see the world, experience the world. They're hearing the world, but they're being socialized safely as you carry them around. And then, once they're fully vaccinated yes, four paws on the ground you can walk them and take them out and about. So really, the only difference is, if your puppy is not fully vaccinated, we're carrying them, but we're taking them places, and then, when our puppy is fully vaccinated, they can be down on the ground all four paws. We can walk them places Now. This protects them from potential diseases and allows you to focus on training without health concerns. Also, we begin everything we do with our dogs just in our home, so, in a nice controlled environment, we introduce them to sounds, smells, different challenges daily, um, a different objects daily, different people daily. So there's a lot you can do before they're vaccinated, but once they are vaccinated, I throw a party for that. I'm so excited to be able to take my dog out into the world where we can walk around together. It's a great day, um, and you'll want to again start gradually doing that as well, because we want our dogs to feel happy and safe as we go about this process.

Speaker 1: 2:52

So, all of that said, I would start by taking your dog with you on a leash and then tether them to you. So maybe we head to the park and we find a bench and they're tethered to me, or I can either tether them to the bench and I'm going to sit and read a book. I like to engage in activities like reading, working on my emails, uh, watching a show, and I just keep these sessions short initially. So these activities teach my dog that they can just remain relaxed and understand that there are times when they do nothing. That's it. We're just training them to do nothing. All you have to do is just do nothing, right here, to be calm and composed even when they're not the center of attention.

Speaker 1: 3:30

So sometimes our dogs want us to look at them or talk to them or pay them rewards. Right, we reward our dogs a lot for good behavior. I just want to gradually increase the duration between the rewards I'm giving them and recognize there might be times that I don't want to necessarily interrupt their nice calm, relaxing behavior with a reward. So, yes, we want to reward our dog for the good things we see. And initially, as they settle into that down or they finally relax and stop, you know, pacing around, maybe we keep that leash a little shorter so they're not pacing, and then they do go into that nice down behavior. Absolutely reward them, pay them for that behavior.

Speaker 1: 4:07

But then see if you can just start to go into your activity, where you're not looking at them, you're not talking to them, and they're going to start to self-manage. They're going to start to figure out okay, here we are at the park, amy's busy, she's not looking at me or talking to me. What do I do with myself? How do I self-manage? Can I just lay here and relax and we start to do longer and longer sessions of that. We can gradually increase the duration of these sessions as our dog's attention span and maturity develop. So a young puppy might only be there for a few minutes, but as our dogs grow and their attention span lengthens, their patience increases. Then we can make those sessions longer and longer. Recognize some of the training you do at home with sit, stays, down stays, waits, anything where the dog is having to stay in a position and wait. That builds patience, that builds impulse control. And then when we go to the park and we do nothing, our dogs are better at it. And once our dog is comfortable with staying calm at home, we begin introducing them to public settings. Choose a busy place like a park, a market or a pedestrian street for these exercises.

Speaker 1: 5:14

The goal is to expose our dogs to various sights, sounds and smells, all while maintaining a state of neutrality. I like parks. Parks provide a great space, space, really space. They provide distance and area for you to sit far enough away that your dog can settle and relax. Sometimes, if we're too close to the chaos, like we're right next to all the kids running around on the playground, that might be too stimulating, especially for these young puppies, to be able to do nothing. So parks are beautiful because you can create that distance where your dog can see and hear things and maybe that exciting stuff in the distance. But they're not so close to it that they can't settle or relax.

Speaker 1: 5:53

And it's not going to be perfect right at the beginning. Your dog might stand up and sit back down and lay back down and then stand up again and turn around in some circles. So, number one again, find a suitable spot. Find a location where you can again create that distance away from the main hustle and bustle. Again, this ensures that the stimuli that are present are not too overwhelming for your dog.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Then, number two we sit and observe, with your puppy tethered to you, to sit quietly and watch the world go by. Again, the objective is not to interact with the environment but to just let your puppy be part of it. Let them acclimate to it passively. The environment, but to just let your puppy be part of it. Let them acclimate to it passively. This passive observation helps your dog learn they do not need to react to everything they encounter. We don't go and greet every dog we see. We don't go say hi to every person we run into, like we can just watch and observe and just be.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Number three would be to stay calm and consistent. My demeanor plays a crucial role in this type of training. If I can remain calm and composed, my puppy will look to me for how I'm behaving. So if I stay relaxed, my puppy is more likely to mirror that behavior as well. Number four is gradually increase exposure. So as our dog's attention span grows, right as they mature, as we practice more and more of these shorter sessions, we can gradually increase the time that our dog becomes more comfortable just doing nothing.

Speaker 1: 7:14

It's kind of a weird thing to think about. We, we train our dogs to do a lot of things. You know, do this, do the hat, do this. We're kind of asking our dogs to do nothing, really just relax. I guess we are asking them to settle, but that just means do nothing, which is kind of counterintuitive. So we want to reinforce positive behavior.

Speaker 1: 7:34

Again, be careful with the rewards. Sometimes, yes, a reward will help your dog, but if you bring too exciting of a reward or you're rewarding too often, you're interrupting them just doing nothing. It might actually work against you. So be careful in in giving out too many rewards in this scenario. Yeah, if you need to show them what to do or show them what you're asking for initially, absolutely show them. Hey, I'm looking for this behavior, this got you that reward, but ultimately we want them to just settle. So if you notice that the rewards are interrupting settle, then maybe wait till the end to reinforce right to pay them or to reward them for that.

Speaker 1: 8:13

So whenever your puppy displays calm and neutral behavior in public, you can praise them. You can say good girl, good boy. You can give them little breaks, especially with these young puppies. If they'll just kind of chill for a little bit, then you can get up and go play a little game of tug or fetch or let them do a go sniff walk for a few minutes and then find another bench and try to settle again. Give them enough time that they'll work through it. They might be frustrated in the beginning. It might be a little bit hard for them in the beginning. See what they do, give them some time and see if they can figure it out. This reinforces the idea that staying calm in different environments leads to positive outcomes. So we can reward them.

Speaker 1: 8:51

But also, as I mentioned, be careful on how you use those rewards. It's kind of a delicate balance Occasionally react to distractions. They see this is okay, we can handle this. So when this happens, just gently redirect their attention back to you with a cue, like a touch or a look at me, and then offer a food reward. Avoid punishing them or scolding them, as this can increase their anxiety and counteract with our training efforts. Also, as needed, you can just stand up and walk away, so create more distance. If they see a person reward them, turn and walk away and create some distance, um, or find a bench that's further away.

Speaker 1: 9:27

That's where we talk about creating that space, initially knowing your puppy and how far away you need to be for them to be able to relax and settle, and if you know your puppy has a tendency to react to people or dogs or any other triggers that you might identify, just simply, they see it. Reward them, they see it, reward them. See it, they see it, you reward them. This starts to create what we call an auto watch. They look at you every time they see one of these triggers because they know food is coming. So that's how you can handle some distractions if needed. But again, that space is really important. We want to show our dogs what to do and that they get paid for doing that. But then also sometimes, if they're happily settling, let them happily settle. We can reward them when we're done.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Now, patience and consistency is important. As I mentioned, training a puppy to remain neutral in public requires time, patience, practice and that consistency is really important. So regular short training sessions are more effective than having once in a while really long ones and again celebrate the small victories and understand that progress may be slow but steady. So if you have taken any of my classes, you see me kind of with my hand make these waves. Puppy training some days is great and other days we have a setback and then we take two steps forward and maybe one step back, and two steps forward and one step back, but over time. If you see where you started and where we finished, you can see the progress that you and your dog are making.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Now. What are the benefits of neutral behavior in public? Teaching our dogs to be neutral in public settings has numerous benefits. It enhances their social skills, it reduces anxiety. It makes public outings more enjoyable for both of you. Right, a well-behaved dog is also more welcome in various public spaces, which contributes to positive experiences for everybody involved.

Speaker 1: 11:16

So how about that for this week? Is that a good task or challenge for you? If your dog is fully vaccinated, take them to a park, find a bench and sit and do nothing and see how they do. We want to train our dogs to remain calm and neutral in public. I think it's an essential aspect of their development. By ensuring they are fully vaccinated, again, starting with at-home training, see if you can build some patience and impulse control at home in a controlled setting and then gradually expose them to busier environments, you can help them adapt to the world outside. Remember, stay patient, be consistent and positive throughout the process and soon your dog will become a well-adjusted companion who's ready to explore the world with you by their side. You guys can do this. Have a great week and happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site, baxter and Bellacom, to contact me.