Consistency vs unpredictability in dog training

I was talking about being unpredictable in your dog training here recently. And yet I also talk a lot about being consistent!

It’s a fine line we need to tread. Between boring the proverbial pants off our dog and retaining some semblance of knowing what we’re doing.

And it’s not only in your life with your dog that you need to keep this in mind … more below.

Predictability

In your training you need to be predictable. Your dog has to KNOW without a doubt when she’s got something right.

So this is why using your marker at the right moment is so important.

“Marker?” you ask? This is what you do when your dog does something you like. Some folk like to use a clicker, but most will get along very nicely with a word. I use YES. Quick, clear, to the point. Whatever my dog was doing when I say YES is something she’ll consider worth repeating.

Why? Because YES is always followed with a reward.

Always. No exceptions.

This is where the clarity and consistency come in.

So if you’re woolly over your timing, your dog’s response is going to be equally woolly.

I often say Lacy wears her heart on her tail! Because I know EXACTLY when she’s GOT the new thing she’s learning, as her tail starts to swish as soon as she does the required action.

This is great feedback for me!

Your dog may give a clear signal like that. Or you may have to depend on

🐾 sparkly eyes,

🐾 slightly parted mouth,

🐾 eager stance …

See the image at the top for a demo of this. By the way, Lacy hadn’t just eaten a cat - I was wearing a red jumper and it reflected back on to her pearly whites!

You’ll get to know exactly what your dog does when she gets it. This is wonderfully rewarding for us, too.

Unpredictability

But there’s also a place for being UNPREDICTABLE!

Don’t be a clockwork dog owner - keep your dog guessing!

🐾 Do you usually train in the kitchen?

✔️ Train in the bedroom.

🐾 Do you usually sit in a particular chair?

✔️ Choose another.

🐾 Do you usually train your dog at a certain time - or place?

✔️ Mix it up.

Get the idea?

And if your dog is doing something you’re not mad about, follow this simple recipe:

1. Your dog is doing something.

2. Decide what you’d like instead.

3. Teach the new thing.

4. Be consistent.

Please don’t expect your dog to somehow know - not only what aspect of her behaviour is troubling you, but what you want her to do instead!

Dogs are remarkably sensitive and observant, but they don’t have a crystal ball.

Not only with our dog . . .

For some ideas of how to go about this with ease, check out our free email course

  THIS FREE ECOURSE IS A BONUS FOR YOU WHEN YOU SIGN UP TO RECEIVE EDUCATIONAL EMAILS AND OCCASIONAL OFFERS FROM ME. YOU CAN UNSUBSCRIBE AT ANY TIME.
Privacy Policy

And it’s not only with our dog we need to combine unpredictability and consistency. If you’ve done the same things, day in, day out, since forever . . . you’re going to get the same results as you’ve always got. Stands to reason!

So to get the change we all need - to move forward in our lives and fulfil our true potential - something has got to change. We can’t stay stuck in childhood our whole life.

Change things up, be unpredictable! This is the ultimate sign of a flexible mind.

Choose new thoughts, new feelings, new things you can do.

While, at the same time, being consistent!

Always stay true to your values and your core beliefs.

That’s a puzzle for you to work out. Have fun!

YOUR NEW PUPPY – 9 STEPS TO GET IT RIGHT FROM THE START

This post was first published on positively.com and is reprinted here with permission

“I wonder if I’ve done the wrong thing … Perhaps I’m not capable of looking after a dog.”

I don’t know exactly what had caused such a devastating loss of confidence in what was clearly a capable individual. But Gwen voiced a sentiment I come across from time to time.

Her family had left home at the same time that she retired from a responsible and caring job. She needed something to nurture. She chose a suitable breed of dog for a pet in a quiet household, and named her Tilly.

She’d done her homework. She’d done everything right. But now she had this little individual to care for she was afraid she wouldn’t measure up.

Her worries were all centred on injuring the puppy in some way. She feared letting her off lead in case she got run over. She feared grooming her in case she hurt her. Keen to use only force-free methods of interacting with her dog, she was in danger of becoming an over-indulgent parent.

You can use positive methods of training without relinquishing control

Acknowledging and rewarding the good does not mean you turn yourself into a doormat!

Teach the owner first!

So my task was not to change any bad things the puppy was doing, but to show Gwen how she could get Tilly to do what she wanted without using force or nagging.

Puppies are happy to take direction. They have no wish to rule the world, to take over the household, to hold their owner to ransom - or any of the other things you may hear will happen if you are not heavy-handed!

Dogs in general are not stubborn, obstinate, or disobedient, and they don’t “know they’ve done wrong”. Whenever a new puppy-owner tells me “He knows the meaning of NO,” I flinch inwardly, and reply that my dogs don’t! Because I don’t use NO with them.

NO gives your dog no information about what you want him to do - only that you’re cross with him. He will have no idea what has caused your anger, and no way of knowing how to appease you.

So having just been told off for jumping up, he may assume he didn’t jump high enough for your liking and try harder!

Gwen’s fears were unfounded and all she needed was some support and to be shown how to do the things that she was anxious and nervous about.

Here’s what Gwen learnt about how to get the best from her new puppy

1.  She learnt a new mantra: Reward what you like, Ignore what you don’t like, Manage what you can’t ignore. And found that life instantly became much easier! No longer was she telling Tilly off endlessly for minor transgressions.

2. She learnt, for instance, that a baby gate silently prevented cat-chasing without any need for Gwen to say a word.

3. She got a firm understanding of what house training her puppy entailed, and that any puddles were not the puppy’s fault, but her own - for not paying attention.

And there’s a free Housetraining Cheatsheet for you here which shows you just what Gwen learnt, so you can get your puppy clean and dry in a couple of weeks! Your Guide will arrive by email

THIS FREE GUIDE IS A BONUS FOR YOU WHEN YOU SIGN UP TO RECEIVE EDUCATIONAL EMAILS AND OCCASIONAL OFFERS FROM ME. YOU CAN UNSUBSCRIBE AT ANY TIME.
Privacy Policy

4. She excised NO, Ah-ah, and other such words from her vocabulary.

5. She learnt that blaming this little scrap, who’d only been on the planet a matter of weeks, was pointless - and unfair.

6. She flourished in our calm Puppy Class environment, and enjoyed seeing that the other puppies were very much like hers!

7. We went on walks together to demonstrate that she was perfectly able to let her puppy off-leash safely and call her back again.

8. She enrolled on a short grooming course at her local Community College to learn how to trim her puppy’s hair and claws without any danger of hurting her.

9. We tidied up one or two things at her home - like when and how to use the crate, and best practices for feeding - to ensure that the puppy didn’t start to take advantage of her fears! Once Gwen knew what was reasonable to ask of Tilly, she was much clearer with her boundaries.

Forming a relationship with a puppy is much like falling in love. 

In the initial euphoria you are afraid that you may do something wrong and it will all come crashing down around you. But as you get to know and trust each other these fears evaporate.

Just as babies and children need structure and boundaries, so do puppies

It’s absolutely understandable that Gwen had anxieties around this new person she’d introduced into her life - just as new parents make mistakes, so did she.

She had no qualms about consulting a car mechanic when her car wasn’t running properly - rather than asking her aunt or the greengrocer which tyre to kick! So she had the good sense to invite a professional dog trainer to give her the advice she needed to get quick results with her new charge - and not listen to the endless old wives’ tales circulating amongst friends, neighbours, and online.

A year or two have now passed, and Gwen and Tilly have formed a bond that cannot be broken. They delight in each other’s company. They fit each other like a pair of comfy slippers. Here’s what she wrote a little while ago:

"Thank you very much for all the help and support you have given Tilly and myself (mainly myself!). As a first-time dog owner I feel that I have come from having no idea to having some idea of what I need to do to care for her.

I was worried that, as she is such a cute dog, I would let her get away with whatever she wanted. I know now how to set boundaries, and have the confidence to - but to do it kindly.

With your help Tilly has developed into a confident, funny, friendly, well-behaved (usually) and loving little dog. Obviously she is still a ‘work in progress’ as far as recall is concerned and we will find other things to work on in the coming months but I have the confidence to tackle matters as they arise."

I was delighted to receive her letter and see her confidence shining out on the page. And Gwen knows now that when she chose her little dog as her companion she made the very best decision.

To get a look at some of the strategies I taught Gwen, go to our Free Courses page and get an 8-email course which goes into all the things you need to be aware of with your new puppy or dog.

Want a bible to help you through this stage?

Go to www.brilliantfamilydog.com/new-puppy and get New Puppy! in ebook, audiobook, or paperback.

And for a complete new start watch our free Workshop

Dogs are creatures of habit - so are we!

We are creatures of habit. We do things the same way day in, day out. For some things this works - brushing your teeth daily, for instance, is a good habit.

When we repeat an action, we make a path in our brain so that we can do it easily, without thinking. For your teeth this is ok. But you can improve on this experience by getting other parts of your brain working too.

Brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand can drive new neural pathways, and wake up parts of you that don’t work as efficiently as they might. It’s a simple thing, and it feels very clunky to begin with - but think of the flexibility it’s building in your body and your mind!

For all the daily habits that make your life run more smoothly - because you don’t have to think about them - how many things do you do that really aren’t worth doing? And how would it improve your life if you looked into some of these habits forensically and made some changes?

While you ponder that, think of our dogs:

Our dogs are habitual creatures too.

They are right- or left-footed, just as we are right- or left-handed (and -footed!). They turn the same way in their pre-sleep circle. They sleep in the same spots in the house. And maybe their daily routine is the same every day.

How much more do you think your dog can achieve if you change this up a bit? No need to break old habits if they serve you both, but how about developing some new ones?

If you always do things the same way, in the same order, your dog can sleepwalk through her day.

Keep your dog guessing!

Be unpredictable! Keep your dog guessing! She’ll have to pay more attention if you do things differently.

And so will you.

So what sort of things can you change?

🐾 If you always turn right when you leave your house, try turning left - or just cross the road and turn there.

🐾 Do things in a different order. If you always feed your dog before you prepare your own dinner, cook first and then feed your dog.

🐾 If you always enter a park or field and follow the path round the edge, try walking straight up the middle.

🐾 If you always feed your dog from a bowl, try scatterfeeding, or feeding from a tray or foodtoys.

🐾 Zigzag on your walk instead of going in a straight line.

Yes, these are very small changes, but they can have a big effect.

Leaping around and barking!

You’ll have noticed for sure, that when you do certain things you get the same guaranteed result from your dog. Again, this can be a good thing if your dog spins round on one call and barrels back to you!

Want to learn more about how to build up the GOOD habits? Enjoy our free Workshop on getting your dog to LISTEN!

But there are some sequences that you could do without.

Like the sequence when you put on your coat or pick up the lead: of hysteria and over-excitement from your dog, leaping and barking and racing around. This you could certainly do without! And it’s been built and grown and you’ve carefully nurtured it by repeating the same sequence every single day.

So take your coat and go to another room to put it on. Instead of getting the lead, sit down and read for a few minutes. Do keep half an eye on your dog’s expression - it’ll be very comical!

Put the lead in a different place. Leave by a different door. Do whatever you can to alter this sequence so that it’s like brushing your teeth with a different hand. You are causing your dog’s thoughts to go down a different, new, neural pathway - one without the leaping and frantic behaviour!

She doesn’t know what’s going to happen next so she has to pay attention and learn a new way. Dogs LOVE knowing what’s going to happen next. They LOVE predictability.

Hence being unpredictable is one of the best ways to get your dog to pay attention to you!

Habits can be useful

Some habits of course, are useful. The habit of looking both ways before crossing the road; the habit of using an oven glove when you open the oven door. 

But some can be counter-productive - even destructive!

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. John Dryden

I’m thinking of the habit of self-criticism. Maybe you spent your early life being criticised by family, parents, teachers. And now they’re not there, you fill the gap so you can continue this habit of self-deprecation, encouraging a feeling of worthlessness. The habit you created is now in the driving seat!

You may struggle to find a way to get over this, to allow yourself to blossom as you should. Drop me a line and let’s have a conversation about how you can change this and flow freely towards what you really want.

Don’t accord privileges to destructive thoughts, just because they’ve been around for a long time!

What can my dog chew?

Many people buy the chews that cover whole stands in the aisles of their local pet shop in the belief that they are good, wholesome, and safe.

Sorry, but they may be none of those things!

You’d think that rawhide would come from the meat industry, but in fact it’s a by-product of the leather Industry - it’s technically an industrial waste product.

And far from foody substances being used in the manufacture of rawhide chews, lead, arsenic, mercury, chromium salts, quaternary ammonia, formaldehyde, and other toxic chemicals have been detected in rawhide, along with the occasional addition of e coli and salmonella. Not to mention the glue used to hold them in shape.

Though there are a very few companies making chews without this shocking list of ingredients, most of the rawhide chews sold come from countries where, shall we just say, the health of your pet is not their top priority.

What can go wrong?

While the toxins and bacteria listed above are not things we want our dogs or ourselves to be contaminated with, the chief danger is obstruction or choking. Some chews even carry this warning:

“Choking or blockages. If your dog swallows large pieces of rawhide, the rawhide can get stuck in the oesophagus or other parts of the digestive tract. Sometimes, abdominal surgery is needed to remove them from the stomach or intestines. If it isn’t resolved, a blockage can lead to death.”

Sure you want to give your dog that chew?

Yes, they can be useful to amuse a young puppy. Unless your pup is a new designer breed Velociraptor cross, they’ll mostly only mouth and soften the chew. As soon as they are able to swallow any of it, it should be removed and you should no longer give them to your pup, as they’ve now moved into the blockage danger category above.

Healthy alternatives

There will be downsides and possible dangers to anything in life.

Some folk like to give antlers - though for some dogs with iffy teeth these may be too hard and cause tooth damage.

Some people with strong stomachs and a poor sense of smell like to give pigs’ ears. Just keep in mind that the ear is often full of needle holes from all those hormones and what-have-you that are injected into factory-farmed pigs on a daily basis.

And some - with an even poorer sense of smell! - give hooves. Hoof slices were always popular with my dogs when I was trimming the goats’ and sheep’s hooves. But I wouldn’t be mad about them having a whole hoof, breathing horrible smells into the house, then bringing it up on the carpet later.

What do I give my dogs to chew?

I give mine raw meaty bones. Hugely popular, safe, unpolluted, untreated, truly natural, satisfying. The major benefits are teeth cleaning, physical exertion (ripping a bone apart is hard work!), mental absorption for an hour or so at a time, and high nutritional value.

Avoid marrowbones and weightbearing leg bones. The strength of these bones can result in tooth damage, so I’m told. But forty years of feeding bones to my own mix of large, medium and small dogs has never resulted in this. In fact the whiteness of my dogs’ teeth has often been remarked upon, and they die at a good old age (mid to late teens) with all their teeth intact.

You’ll find that your dog will vomit up any bits of bone or indigestible tendons a day or so later. This is a natural clearing out of junk from the stomach and does not mean anything is amiss. Too much information? Just forewarning you so you don’t panic! Dogs and cats have a simple digestive system: it either goes down or it comes up again.

Government food protection

We’re used to being protected by government legislation. But this legislation does not necessarily extend to our pets. It’s up to us to be aware of what’s in what we give our dogs to eat, to chew, or to play with.

Caveat emptor! Buyer beware!

While it’s easy enough to simply exclude these commercial chews from your home, understanding canine nutrition is a whole nother ball-game! And it’s another place where dreadful “foods” are promoted - even by vets! - which we should not give house-room to.

Check out this ingredients list on a popular, vet-prescribed, expensive, dog food from Royal Canin:

Rice, Vegetable Protein Isolate, Wheat, Animal Fats, Maize Gluten, Husked Oats, Maize, Hydrolysed Animal Proteins, Minerals, Soya Oil, Beet Pulp, Fish Oil, Flax Seeds, Fructo-Oligo-Saccharides, Mono and Diglycerides (Emulsifiers), Borage Oil, Marigold Extract, Antioxidants.

Yes, there is a teaspoonful of meat in there, not named or quantified, listed at no.8. The whole product is nutritionally rated in allaboutdogfood.co.uk - the site run by a canine nutritionist - at 22%.

22%! Vet-recommended! Currently £5 per kg!

Commercially-produced raw and cooked foods, on the other hand, show exactly what meat is involved (e.g. beef kidney, duck breast) and how much (often as high as 90%).

You can see that if this is news to you, you have your work cut out!

Don’t take anybody’s word for the quality of what you feed your precious dog. Do the work. Bone up on the knowledge ;-). You’re the one who will be paying the vet’s bills when you run into trouble with these awful “foods”.

But I don’t want to feed raw …

Here’s an article which goes into more detail about how best to feed your dog

It looks at what will suit you and your dog best. I’m not on a crusade about how you choose to feed - but I do want to make you aware that it’s not all unicorns and roses in the commercial petfood and dogchew world!

For a free email course on the most frequent behaviour queries I get, click here:

THIS FREE ECOURSE IS A BONUS FOR YOU WHEN YOU SIGN UP TO RECEIVE EDUCATIONAL EMAILS AND OCCASIONAL OFFERS FROM ME. YOU CAN UNSUBSCRIBE AT ANY TIME.
Privacy Policy

Your dog may be your greatest teacher!

I am firmly of the belief that we are sent the dog we need. The dog who needs to teach us.

And if your dogs all seem to misbehave in the same way, it’s because you haven’t yet learnt the lesson the first dog was trying to teach you! So you get the “same dog” over and over again.

This is not confined to dogs, by the way. We all know people who keep having failed relationships with the “same person”. And folk who persist in the same way of communicating or working which always results in the same disappointment and frustration.

Who is your best teacher?

It may have been an actual, official, teacher. Or your mother, your grandfather, the man in the corner shop, trees, a child, the sky, yourself.

And the lessons may not be the lessons you expected! You are being shown what works, and what doesn’t work.

As James Wedmore puts it,

You either get the result you want, or the lesson you need to learn.

There is no failure, in other words. You always get a result - but it may be a surprise to you . . .

Is your best teacher your dog?

Let’s look at your dog again.

If your dog is ruling the roost it’s because he’s teaching you better than you’re teaching him!

I’m perplexed when I see how people mistakenly treat their 8-week-old puppy as if he has the knowledge and wisdom of the ages.

He doesn’t!

He knows nothing!

I know they’re not nasty people - they have been misled into this way of thinking, by tv personalities who claim to be dog trainers, and by popular perception and old wives’ tales..

But expecting him to “know”, or to “behave”, is as unreasonable as expecting the same of an 8-week-old baby.

In every interaction, one participant is shaping the other.

That is to say, one is calling the shots and the other is complying. This never has to be nasty - imagine you’re dealing with that small baby. There is no assumption of right or wrong, no blame, no shame - just getting things working well, for both of you.

I never want to enforce obedience. I would far rather manage my dogs so that they choose to do what I would like them to do.

And it’s entirely possible!

Though you may need to make some mental adjustments yourself:

🐾 Ditch the concept that you are superior to your dog.

🐾 Ditch the idea that others must obey your “commands”.

🐾 Scrap the thought that failure to comply is outright rebellion and must be quashed! 

Have a look at what this Brilliant Family Dog Academy student had to say, two months into her program:

I’m delighted and love that the dogs seem to be deciding what it’s best to do, so that life is calmer and simpler, and a proper partnership. Thank you, Beverley. MC

Want to know how she achieved this?

Watch our free Workshop to get your dog to listen, and find out just how much of the learning is for you!

Once you change what you’re doing, your dog will automatically change. Exciting!

And when you reflect on all of this, you may find you could do with a bit of help and healing in order to change where you are in all aspects of your life.

Drop me a message and we can have a conversation about how you can achieve what it is you truly want in this one precious life of yours!

All your eggs in one (dog) basket

Now that the social distancing restrictions are being relaxed - a little - I’m delighted to see that many of my UK colleagues in the force-free dog training world are once more able to run their classes, albeit with many restrictions and caveats.

It has been a hard time for them. A business they had worked to build up over years of dedicated hard work - closed overnight.

Many got government relief, some did not.

And it got me to thinking about diversity of effort.

Diversity in everything

The more streams of income you can generate, the less dependent you are on just one. Many of these trainers - along with yoga teachers, personal trainers, cookery teachers, and the like - have discovered the joys of online learning. It kept them in touch with their audience while they couldn’t meet physically, and it kept some income coming in.

Many of these people have dropped this internet work like a stone, and gone back to face-to-face classes only.

There’s huge value in “live” classes, of course. And there are dog-owners who cannot see the possibilities of online classes. But this is usually based on a misconception - that the trainer has to see the dog behaving poorly in order to make change.

If you’re working with an expert, there’s a lot you don’t need to explain or show. I can’t tell you how many clients - when I visited their homes to help them with their reactive dog - would start putting on their coat so they could take their dog out on to the street to put him into a difficult situation and demonstrate to me just what their dog did!

Not only did I not want the dog to get stressed at the beginning of our session, but I absolutely knew already exactly what their dog did! It’s what I do! That’s why they engaged me! That’s why I was there!

So if you’re feeling concerned that working with a dog training expert without them actually seeing your dog won’t work - think again! I know from the response to my books and my online courses that physical presence is not necessary (and in some cases, entirely inappropriate) for massive change and improvement to happen.

Just be sure the trainer you pick is force-free! Using force with a reactive, anxious, aggressive - Growly - dog is not only cruel, but counter-productive. i.e. it makes things worse!

But we’re not out of the woods yet

What may happen if there’s another clampdown?

Not so many years ago, the internet was not even a spark on the horizon. There were no e-readers, no audiobooks. Phones were used for . . . phone calls! What we now take for granted was only seen in sci-fi films - strange visions of the future that we never really expected to happen.

Who knows what new things await us! This is exciting! And I for one want to be there, exploring the new possibilities to get our valuable message out to the world. There are billions of people who still see dogs as chattles, soulless, non-sentient beings, not worthy of respect. We are inching our way into changing this way of thinking. SO much more to do!

Being open to novelty is not only essential in our business lives. It’s just as important in our own personal life, and of course in our life with our dog.

One of the chief triggers for reactive dogs is novelty. The ability to accept and process new things is vital to their rehabilitation. So treading the same path (figuratively speaking), always having the same responses, dealing with the same reactions, feeling the same frustration, is not going to lead to change!

You know the old saying,

Your mind is like a parachute - it only works when it’s open!

An open and enquiring mind will lead us to the answers and directions we seek.

Change for your dog!

◆   “No matter how many times I say xyz, he still carries on the same …”

◆   “I’ve tried everything …”

◆   “There’s no hope for my dog, he’ll never change …”

All these statements I hear frequently suggest that what you’re doing isn’t working! Time to put your thinking cap on and find a new way.

Repeating the same actions and expecting a different result is not terribly realistic. And, as is attributed to Einstein,

“You can’t solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.”

Your dog is a sentient being - like you. This is happily enshrined in law in many European countries. He’s not a machine that just needs a few tweaks with a spanner to function correctly. Your journey with your dog is a journey you take together. It’s what’s happening between the two of you that will dictate the level of success you will reach.

So what are you going to do this week to make some changes with your dog? What new thoughts are you going to bring to your dog “problems”? What new approach might you try?

Let me know what you decide on, and what works for you. A new approach could be just what you need!

Is your dog or your little puppy throwing up more challenges than you anticipated? Check our free courses and find how to change things fast!