There's a common thought out there that
setting out to train your young dog means it's going to look
unruly or out of control. But I'm here to tell you it
doesn't have to be that way. I'm going to show you the secrets that
I use to get better results faster. When you train your young dog. I'm
Steve. Welcome back to McCann Dogs. [inaudible] something we see occasionally in the
comment section of our videos is how we're using already trained dogs. And I want to spend some time
today to talk to you about, it's not necessarily about
starting with train dogs, but it's about setting your dogs up
for success so that looks more trained. All of the dogs that we
use in our videos, um, have the same sort of training final
that you've seen in a lot of our videos.
Even in the most basic videos. The
first video that I did with them, two days after I got him, somebody
had said, well, that's great. You're using a train dog, but I'm going to share the secret that
I use to help you and your dogs get results faster in your dog training.
When you're out in the real world, if you feel that your dog is being a
little too overwhelmed or unruly when you're out and about, you need to really look at changing
things to help make you and your dog more successful. And that may
mean making things easier, removing some of those distractions, moving to a little bit quieter place
and helping your dog to be correct.
Cause that's our entire goal. If my
dog is making mistake after mistake, I'm not helping them. And that's when I need to really look
back at some of the foundation exercises. Now while I talk about this, we're out here in a great spot that's
very safe and secure and final's got some great skills. So I'm going to give
him a little bit more freedom. Now I'm gonna give him a little permission
to going out of a run while I talked to you about some of
the secrets that we use. Now you'll notice even when I tell him
it's okay to go, he's off having a run, but Jett here, my older dog is hanging out and wanting
to pay a little bit more attention to me and that's because we spent a lot of
time building a lot of value for working with me and all of this is the result of
doing things step-by-step and building the foundation.
I sort of look at my
training, like we're building a house. I have to spend a lot of time building
that basement first before I throw all the drywall on the paint up.
I need to make sure my bet, my basement and that foundation is
solid before I head outside or add more distractions and if you look behind
me, their finals out for a little run. But he has actually looking back and
checking in with me waiting for that information. Hey, good
foe. Excellent job. Hi Ray, why do I got a puppy dog? And again, he knows the value of me even though
he is free to go anywhere else. You've seen me teach him
a lot of different things. You've seen me teach him to ignore
other dogs when we're out and about.
You've seen me teach him to walk on leash. You've seen me teach him not to pull on
leash and you've seen me teach him to settle when he's a little bit maybe
overzealous when he was a young puppy in that video. In fact, I shot two days after
I got him and still people said, Hey, are you using a trained dog? It's
not about using a trained dog. That's what's setting up your dog for
success every single time and it's also about starting that success in
very low distraction environments.
There's a lot of distractions out here.
We've got trees, you've got smells. You've got the Creek over there and he
is off because I know that if I need him to come back to me, he can.
Well, I didn't start like this. I didn't start giving him that freedom
and allowing him to make those mistakes. I started by building a ton of value
for me first and then giving them those freedoms. What did these basic steps look like and
how can you take advantage of them to help your dog's success
rate increase? Well, things like using your upstairs hallway
and your house with all the doors closed where there are no distractions,
to teach the basic stuff, to help teach them to
respond to their name, to make sure that they're not getting
overwhelmed where we feel they're too distracted and can't learn by removing
all those distractions and building on success, the dogs can learn that
foundation exercise that we want.
Again, if I want to build a base of things, it needs to happen and it
needs to happen more often. We think things happen quickly. One or two repetitions in our dogs
understand it and your dogs might in that particular situation. However, go from that hallway and transition
that to outside in the real world. Dog hasn't had enough repetition of
success. So instead of thinking big steps, I want you to think about baby steps. Maybe the upstairs hallway with all
the doors closed and maybe just the downstairs hallway with a few
people in the living room. We want to make sure that we help them
in little teeny increments and several repetitions to build on that
success. Now, like anything else, you also have to pick the
right motivator for your dog. We often use food for a lot of
dogs who are food motivated, but we also know that there are
dogs who aren't food motivated.
So that may be meaning you're using your
toy or using yourself as a reward for your dogs. The point is you find out what that is
that works for your dogs and you build on that. Even dogs that we
have no relationship. You'll remember the video I did with
the yellow lab a little Maggie. Uh, she, uh, was very food motivated, so I was
capable enough to take advantage of that, to build on success very quickly with her. And it was also something she'd
never had a little bit of cheese. So you have to make sure that you know
your dogs and find out what motivates for Florida. Now practicing. This does take a lot of repetition and
one or two minutes of this is not really going to teach your dog and solidify
that understanding in every environment.
So transitioning from let's say your
front hall to the sidewalk out front where traffic is going by and other things
that may be big that may be too big of a jump for you and your dog. You need
to look at making those little steps, but then you also need to look at
how successful your dog is being. If your dog is starting to get a little
overwhelmed and they're starting to make more mistakes, you need to make a choice. And my suggestion at that point is
make the choice to make it easier.
Go back inside, spend more
time on the foundation stuff, and then add maybe a
step halfway in between. Maybe instead of writing the sidewalk, you work just on your front
walkway or your front driveway. And if that goes well, then start
to add a little bit more distance. Ideas and dogs are setting up
for success every single time. The most basic of exercises that you
can teach your dog in any environment is just a little bit of
value and focus for you. Even though she's sitting
up here on this rock, she knows to look at me and
I don't have any food money.
Not these requiring her to do that. I'm
certainly not bribing her to do that, but I have spent ton of time since the
day I got that. Anytime she looked at me, I can reward her. Yeah.
With a little bit of food. She's pointed in my direction. She
understands that good things come from me. She also understands that the
information comes from me, the things that I need her
to do all come from here. She's not looking elsewhere, trying
to decide what she wants to do.
She's waiting for me to
give her direction. Okay, and you can start that right in your home. You start in the living room every
time you are sitting with the dog. If they look at you, yes or
no, war build value for you. Whether it be with food,
whether it be with a toy, or whether it would be with just a quick
little physical plan, a little pet.
Having the dogs understand that you're
valuable is the first step in getting those results faster. Remember, our
ultimate goal here is to kill our dogs. Freedom to teach them to listen to us
so they can run free and they can enjoy the world. But knowing that when we call their
name or when we need them to respond, they will do that reliably. Now what
do you do when everything does go to, so what do you do when things actually
go well? You need to change things. Taking away our dog's ability to rehearse. Doing the things that we don't want them
to do or acting in a way that we're not really happy about has to happen quickly. The more they rehearse those
behaviors we don't want, the more they will go to
them. So you need to stop. You need to just bring your
dog into you a little bit, move away from the distraction or realize
that that particular situation and environment is too much for
your dog, so taking them home, starting things again, a little bit more basic level can
really help solidify the behavior, but really make sure we stopped the
rehearsal right off right off the bat.
One of the questions is how do I make
it easier for my dog while changing the environment by taking away
some of those distractions, so instead of being out in the park, head back to the house or in the front
drive work to the place you were less successful. Oftentimes people
don't want to take that step back. They really have in their minds
that the dog should know this, but you also need to be listening to your
dog. If your dog is not getting right, you need to understand that they
don't know it, but that's not, they don't know it at all. They don't know it in that particular
situation with that particular distraction or that particular thing
going on in the environment. The big thing is even if my
dog does get overwhelmed, I'm not going to just leave it
and head back and not train. I will go back to someplace that's a
little bit less distracting and always try and end on success. Something even as simple as having my
dogs sit when I ask them to or respond to their name in the front hall.
Start with that success or finish with
that success and your dogs will remember that going forward. When
you look at our videos, you'll see that anytime
we start a young dog, we started in an area
with no distractions. It's an empty room or it has
one or two little things. We want to make sure that we introduced
the distractions one at a time and if you find that certain distraction
is too much for your dogs, maybe it be the kids are riding bikes.
I want to take that distraction away, solidify the behavior first.
Then maybe introduce the kids, riding their bikes on the
other side of the road, someplace further away and a little
teeny steps to teach your dog to work through it instead of
being overwhelmed by it. There's that tipping point in all our
dogs when we know they can work through this and they can start to build or when
they're really starting to check out from us and get a little too overwhelmed. Now sometimes changing the environment
to help your dog be successful can be a challenge.
Sometimes you need to
think a little bit outside of the box. I'm taking advantage of the time at our
training hall where there aren't any classes running. There aren't students
coming get on with their dogs. There aren't cars coming in
and out of the parking lot. So I really taking advantage of the open
space to allow my dog some freedom and this is a bit of a test for him to see
how well he's listening and as long as he continues to listen, I will
continue to give him the freedom.
Really big thing to keep in mind is that
dog training is not easy and to keep the dogs being successful
takes time and it takes effort. It's a big thing to keep in mind is we
know dogs are going to make mistakes. That's fine. They're animals. Our
job is to help them to be right. Our job is also to understand
that they're making mistakes.
We're not failing them. We need to do is change things
to help everybody be successful. That's one of the other reasons why I
really try and end on a success no matter what or how simple the success is.
It makes me feel better about myself, continues to maintain the
relationship with my dog, and I can kind of take a breath
and start again another time. There will be times when your
dog's gonna make a mistake. There will be times when your dog is
going to get overwhelmed and it's really important. You don't look
at that as a failure.
If dogs are making mistakes
because they don't know it, not because they're being
bad or being spiteful. Our job is to make sure we take a breath. Realize this is part of the
training process. Make it easier. Here's the biggest thing to keep in
mind when you're training your dogs, good dog trainers. We'll see mistakes happening and
make adjustments to help the dogs be successful. Great dog trainers. Anticipate those problems and make the
changes before the dog has a chance to make a mistake. Our goal is to set them
up to be successful 100% of the time. And if you keep that in mind, you'll have a lot more fun training and
your dog will be a lot more successful faster. Now, if your dog pulling on leash
is the biggest struggle you're having, click that video right there. This
is your first time on the channel. Make sure you hit that subscribe
button.
And with that, I'm Steve. Thanks for watching. Happy training..
