Pet Chat continuing this afternoon. Julie, we haven't seen you for quite some time, so I know your thing is to get behaviour in pets, but have you been out looking after people for a while? Is that what's been happening or what? Ha, ha, ha. People ask me, do I do husbands? And I say no. And do I do children? No, I did that for about 30 years in the public system. So those two categories are too hard. They're closed now. All right. Now, we'll look at changing behaviour in dogs. Now, for those who may have a dog's behaviour they want to change, are there some basic guidelines for changing a dog's behaviour?
There are many, and it depends on whose philosophy you follow. So in our philosophy... We're in for a long chat, aren't we, Kimberly? This is good. What we say is do no harm. No matter what you're doing, do no harm. And the basic principle is don't let the dog keep practicing a behavior that you don't want. So you've got to work out ways to stop that behavior from happening until it becomes what they say extinct. All right. So that's the trick is, I mean, there's the unwanted behavior. And I mean, the dog's not a person. We can't just talk to it and say, look, we don't want you to do this. So how do we make that unwanted behavior not work for the dog? Well, we do two things.
stop it from going any further and I'll give you some examples so if our dogs see the visitors come and my dogs are very social like I am and they're outside at the back door and carrying on like fruitcakes we pull the blind down And that's called a punishment, but it's the best kind of punishment because it's just taking away what they want. And you see, it's so easy to teach them because then you put the blind up a little bit and they carry on like idiots, so you put it down again. And so after a while, dogs are very clever. They go, this isn't working for me. Every time I bark or jump on the glass, the blind goes down. So if you're walking with your dog on a lead and everybody wants the dog to walk beside them, but if the pulling dog gets to where it wants to go and then it's achieved its reinforcement because it got to where it wanted to go, you need to stop them getting there. And the best way is to stop walking.
And when they make the lead go loose, they start to pick up, oh, tight lead, I don't go anywhere. Loose lead, I'm allowed to walk. Is it sometimes possible, Julie, that what seems to be the most simple and obvious answer is usually, maybe not always, but usually the best one? I'm going to agree with you, but it involves consistency and a belief by the owner that it is going to work long term. Sadly, some people look for really short term things. So they'll put a choker chain or a prong collar on a dog and they will punish it physically for pulling. The dog will look like it's been trained, but it's actually shutting down and it's fearful because it's having these negative nasties done to it. And look, sometimes I mean, people can argue that fear works, but it's not actually going to give you the long term result because you'll end up damaging the animal. Absolutely. And what we say is, you know, you want to build that positive relationship with your dog. Now, some people think that's a bit of, you know, mamby pamby hippie.
But honestly, you know, people would go, I love my dog so much. Well, yeah, we all do. And the best way is to create a good training and behaviour relationship of respect. All right. How soon, how early in this process should we start trying to flip the behaviour around? I'm guessing that you're going to say as soon as it happens or am I on the wrong track there? Oh, no. I was sort of thinking like eight weeks. Okay. Because I say to people, you know, a puppy, dogs are from Planet Dog. They're not from Planet Human. They're from Planet Dog. And on Planet Dog, they wee and poo wherever they want. It's not a bad behaviour.
That's just what they do. So we need to set them up with that, that they can't do it in the places that we humans don't want it. If the puppies went down to the pub on a Friday night and got together, they'd go, those humans are so weird. They'd go in one hole in the house. Go in one little room. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, when do you start? If you want to make those behaviours not work, start it in puppy school. Jumping up, start it when they're puppies. Well, what about the concept of treats? Whereabouts does that fit into the scheme of things, Julie? Oh, so many people say, how long do I have to keep using treats for? And I say to them, how long do you want to be on the payroll in your job? Oh, yeah.
Forever. Because your treats are going to perform three functions. They're going to be used as a lure to get the dog maybe into a position or to gain their focus. They're going to be used as a reinforcement for the dog to say, good job, that's the one I wanted. And remember, we're trying to extinguish the unwanted behaviours. So if unwanted behaviours get little to no attention and desired behaviours get a bit of food, like, wow, that's a pretty obvious cards on the table there for the dogs. So, you know, people, I ran into a lady in a shop and she said, are you still using treats?
I said, I'm walking a Labrador through a pet shop with treats on the shelves. Like, I want my ammo in my treat bag. Thank you very much. So people call it a bribe. I believe it's only a bribe when you show firsthand and go, if you're a good boy, you're going to get this.
If the treat is out of sight and you set the behaviour up and it comes in the absence of the treat and then you pay, that's very powerful. I would also argue, and maybe, Kimberly, you've got a thought on this as well, the method that you're using there with the treat is almost the opposite of a bribe because the dog has to come to its own... It has to set its own behaviour. It has to act the right way on its own without the waving it in front of its eyes first and then you go, oh, yeah, more of this and I'll be treated more respectfully. It digs up human way. Yeah, absolutely. And what we do is we stick a marker word in the middle of it so the dog does what we want and we say, yes, but the treat's still not out.
But we've taught the dog that yes means there's going to be a treat on the way. So that behaviour is often maintained for a little longer because you've used the magic yes word and they're there going, okay, put your hand in your treat pouch now. I know what's coming. And, you know, you get a very, and you're so connected to them. Would it be fair to say, though, that then you have, if the big yes with exclamation mark is going to be your precursor to the treat, you then can't use that word in a situation where there's no treat attached. Very good point. What I say to people is we choose yes because it's short. And the way we say it is not normally the way you would say it in your normal conversation. So would you like a cup of tea? Yes.
I doubt someone's going to say it like that. So they're going to hear that little funny short yes probably only in the training. But you can say any word you like. You can say good. We like to choose one syllable, but you can say blue bananas if you like, if you train them onto that. Whatever works for you. Exactly. All right. So, again, a lot of the simple stuff seems to be the way forward. Do we just overcomplicate this process sometimes, or at least in our own mind, Julie? Or is that unfair? Well, no, it's like with any science.
You know, there's the far ends of the spectrum, you know. So people are... I had a puppy in puppy school recently and went through all the positive stuff and whatever, and the young owner, young adult, said, oh, he doesn't think he needs to do an adolescent course. He thinks the dog's pretty right. And his father went out and bought a choker chain and walked the dog around, I won't say the suburb, and came back and said, there's nothing wrong with the way that dog walks. Well, he's already shutting down a puppy. It's only five months old. It's just so... And what we battle against is that that harsh method looks like it works, you know, but...
Depends what you call works, doesn't it? Yeah, we've gone full circle, mate, haven't we? So, yeah. No, keep it positive. You're going to have less problems later.
Across Newcastle and the Hunter, our two new RFM 103.7. As we continue with Pet Chat, Dr. Kimberley Earle is here and our behavioural specialist, Julie Tolliday. Julie, you've been watching, monitoring our behaviour as well. Oh, yeah. How are we doing? Are we doing all right? Yeah, I'm not good enough for a treat yet, so keep working. Can I have a treat in half hour when you guys go? Maybe, but if you ask for it, you usually don't get it. You have to earn it. Out of the blue. Who invited you? G'day, Lee at Morrissette. Your three-year-old shepherd cross is giving you some sniffing problems. What's happening, Lee? Oh, he drives us nuts. And it overrides any treats that we have. So he's...
I'm sure he has bloodhound in him, but when we walk him, he walks with his head down to the ground, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff. And then when we meet other dogs, he's happy, like he wants to go and meet them, but he's so intrusive with his sniffing that other dogs turn, you know, they'll stand there for a second, but then it's like, yeah, no, you've gone too far, mate. And they'll snap at him and it may end up in a scuffle or, you know, and even with people, you have visitors around and, yeah, it's right in your crutch and right up your backside and, yeah, it drives us nuts. Oh, I've got some good things to say to you. So first of all, when you meet those other dogs, are they on the lead? Yes. Okay, so I want you to remember this, that when a dog's on a lead, it's got no flight response. Right. So even more so, you're going to point the finger at your dog and go, well, listen, that poor dog can't even get away because it's on a lead. My dog's on a lead too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they're all on leads, so they're all in a trapped situation. And I think that for your dog, I'd be teaching you, and dogs don't have to meet on leads. Some dogs don't want to meet. And the thing is, people get caught up with this thing about, oh, my dog's friendly.
Yeah, your dog might be friendly, but when it gets into a dog that's on a lead and can't get away and can't say that's enough, then a trainer who I love says, then it's rude. It's not a friendly dog. It's a rude dog because it can't read. Yeah. So when we teach it in class, we do little practices of two people, dogs on leads, they're facing each other. They gradually take steps closer and the dogs have to keep sitting and waiting, sitting and waiting, sitting and waiting, realising that it's no charge in a bum sniffing party. It's like standing your distance. And then when we do let them.
If they can sit settled between one and two metres, we will say to the owners, okay, say, all right. And they can have three seconds. And that's plenty. That's enough to probably do a little saliva sample from each other's mouths, probably go to the groin, go to the butt. And by that stage, you've had your three seconds. And what you need to teach your boy is the let's go cue, which, and practice it without a dog. First of all, it's a U-turn. Just practice saying to your dog, let's go. And you get his attention and he goes the other way.
Let's go, and then you'll put a dog in it. And go and practice with dogs, if you can, that you know where you can just do the exercise. Step, sit, step, sit, step, sit. Okay, good dog one, good dog two, good dog three. That's how you count seconds in dog training. And then say, let's go, and go teach him that. You don't need treats for that. I don't use treats for let's go. Julie, would it be possible for Lee to use...
people that come into the home for that as well? Because, Lee, you said that there was also people that the dogs were facing with. It's really embarrassing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know, I know. But I say to people, the dog doesn't need to be loose when your visitors come in. In fact, it's a really good idea to have the dog on a lead. Knock, knock, knock. Someone's at the door. Hang on a minute. I'm just putting my dog on a lead. If you can, get the dog to sit or to focus on you. Maybe even ask the people to walk past and go into the lounge room.
Go to the fridge, get the bottle of wine out and tether the dog. You would need to practice tethering the dog when there's no visitors there. Just have a lead near their bed and just click it on and wait for the dog to settle themselves in the presence of visitors. First of all, you'll do it when there are no visitors. You'll just, I'm going to tether you, you're on your mat, settle down. When they settle, give them a treat, that's fine. Then you do the visitor thing and then your visitors might go, can I say hello? And you'll say yes, but the dog's going to stay on a tether and you can go over to Pat. But if the dog jumps or goes for the crutch, the person turns their back.
And that is starting to extinguish the behaviour. If the dog realises every time I go in for a crutch sniff, someone turns their back, well, I'm not going to get there. So, yeah, have a go with that. I've described a lot. I hope you've got a good auditory memory. Honestly.
I had to chuckle then when you said turn your back because I thought, oh, that's just presenting another opportunity. You can always go side on. You want to take your attention away from the dog. Well, yeah, but actually I love when they're tied up, you can go, you can turn your back out of the reach of the leg. Out of the reach, yeah. And sometimes if there are children involved, I'll do a chalk semicircle on the floor so the kids know where the safe zone is. So if the dog's going to be an idiot, step outside the safe zone. Lee, best of luck with all of that. Thank you. When we have Julie back again, you'll have to let us know how you go, all right?
We'll practice it and see how we go. All right. Thank you so much for your help. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, bye. On air, online, on your smartphone. To when you are FM, 103.7 as we continue with Pet Chat. Dr. Kimberly Earl is here. Julia Talladay, our pet sort of behavioural specialist is here. And she's been keeping an eye on the humans in the building as well. She's keeping a close eye on us, Julie. Yeah, you are doing better. I'm going to give you an 8 out of 10 now. Does that mean it's treat time? Do I get a treat? You've got to get a 10. What a 10. Good afternoon, Christine. It's Sessnock. We've got some toilet issues with your doggies at home. What's happening, Christine? I've got... Firstly, hello to you all. I've got two little jack ruttles.
who are now 14 months old. We started off toilet training them the correct way with the puppy pads and then taking them outside and everything. But they still haven't progressed from that. They still go to the puppy pads. And if by chance, I've taken it up and mopped the floor and everything, and the doors are open for them to go outside, they will still go to their spot.
and do their weaves and sometimes do their poos as well. But now the other bigger dogs that we have have all decided, well, if they can do it, so can we. And so we're getting a little bit frustrated with this. How the hell do I break them of this habit now, now that they're like 14 months old and the big dogs have decided that they want to join in on the hunt? It's driving us nuts. Yeah, so, Christine, the first thing that I would say is that we wouldn't recommend, wherever possible, teaching puppies to...
to toilet on a pad. You really want to start from day one teaching them to toilet where you expect them to toilet for the rest of their lives. Because early on in life, they will develop substrate preferences and location preferences very early for where they want to toilet. And I always tell people in consult, my very first golden retriever was a winter puppy. This was back when I was in Canada. She toileted for the first six months of her life on snow. And when spring came, and the snow started melting, she would go to the tiniest little bit of snow until all the snow was gone. And then she worked out, okay, I just have to go on the grass now. But she kept looking for the snow. And so essentially what you've done is you've set up your puppies to want to toilet. You taught them that that's where they want to go.
But now that you don't want them to go there, you need to teach them the alternative. So it would have been faster probably to just take them straight outside when they were little. Now that they're 14 months of age, the good news is you can still teach adult dogs new tricks, but it's going to mean putting them on a leash and taking them back to puppyhood as if you were dealing with brand new puppies. And when you expect them to go to the toilet, you need to pop them on the leash. You need to show them where they need to go. They need to relearn a preference for going out to the toilet where you want them to go.
And it kind of means that they're not going to be allowed to have free reign of your house until they've got that down pat, until you know that they're going to go back out there. And, yep, sure, the other dogs are being led astray because it smells good over there. And so why, if those little guys can't toilet there or can toilet there, then I'm going to do it because it's probably a lot easier than going outside in the rain. You know, so what have you got to think? Can I just tell you here that during the day, we're out on a farm. During the day, the door's open. Our dogs are our family and they've got full run of the house. And so during the day, the doors are open.
In the evening, we have to close the doors because there are bush rats around, you see, and we don't want to be encouraging bush rats into the house. So it's the over the evening part that... seems to be the most problematic. Problematic, yeah. So I would say that during those times they need to be either tethered or crated and so that they're given, you know, because dogs inherently are clean animals, they don't want a toilet where they're sleeping and so you need to give them an incentive to hang on to their body functions until you put them where you want them to go. Any other thoughts, Julie? I agree with absolutely every word and yes, when you start limiting them to be in a crate or be tethered, they actually become better at holding anyway rather than being able to just walk around the house and squirt wherever they want. When you take them out on the lead and they go, you see, what you've got is an advantage there.
because you can take them to places where the other dogs have just gone and they're more likely to go on top of that anyway. Give them a treat. Give them two treats. Give them three treats. Show them that the pay is so good when you go outside and do it on the grass. And the other thing, a newer thing, there's a company, and I can't remember its name, but it delivers, you could probably just rig this up at home, but it delivers patches of grass for toilet training. And you could put that where the puppy pads have been so that they're getting, you know, I say to people, they've got to know that the toilet is one particular sort of surface.
It's not a bit of fabric sometimes and other times it's grass because then they start to think if they find a bit of fabric on the ground, oh, this is a toilet. So, yeah, those grass pads. But you could make something up. You go down to Bunnings probably. Just get some side. Yeah, and just get a square. And the thing, Christine, is that the reality is that you're going to have eight weeks where it's a real pain in the butt because every time you think, okay, it's been 45 minutes since I took the dogs out to the toilet and I'm right in the middle of the best part of my show, you're going to have to get up.
take them out to the toilet, give them an opportunity, stand out there for 10 or 15 minutes until they do something and then lots and lots of praise and then bring them back in. You just need to treat them again like they're eight, nine week old puppies until they're in the habit of doing what you want them to do. And the other dogs who are used to doing it will probably revert back to their, you know, appropriate behavior. But if they don't, then you'll have to do the same thing with them, unfortunately, and get them, you know, get them back into that habit of not coming into the house or whatever it is to toilet inappropriately. So it's short term, relative short term pain. But you remember 14 months old, you've got 14 years with these dogs. It's well worth putting in the effort now so that you enjoy them for the rest of their life.
lives. Yeah. I don't think the crating and the tethering is going to work at night because they all sleep with us in the bed. Well, but they don't need to be allowed to get up. I mean, 14-month-old dogs, there's no reason they can't hold their bladders for 12 hours. To be totally honest with you, they need to be given a reason. So if they sleep with you in the bedroom, I would tether them to the bedside table. And then if you hear them get up, you know, or they can't go outside, you'll hopefully hear them. You can take them out. But really, they should easily be able to hold their bladders for 12 hours. Well, we've got room for one more as we turn our attention, ladies, to Jeanette at Spears Point, whose nine-year-old dog barks whenever another dog appears on the TV. Jeanette, you just have to stop watching TV. That would be the suggestion, wouldn't it? Obviously, obviously. Yeah, Jeanette, that's a little bit of a tricky one because dogs are everywhere on the television and in the media these days.
And other pets. And I certainly know that my dog pays attention. She does her best golden retriever, you know, perfect show stand when she's watching something on the television. Listen, I guess I would, like Julie has said earlier, we don't want to let them, if possible, practice the behavior we don't like. You know, repetition means that they just do it over and over again. So we want to try to distract and redirect the dog's attention away from the dog that's on the television. So it might be that you do turn the TV off during that period of time or more that you have, you know, if you know that you're watching TV at a time where you're likely to see a dog or, you know.
pet-related commercials come on, have some treats in your pocket and try to redirect your dog away, even put a leash on and walk it away out of sight of the television. We want to try to distract the attention away so that we're not sort of focused on that dog. Because it's a bit of a, it's one of those hard things. That's a target that your dog's never going to be able to interact with in the way that he wants to, right? It's a dog that's on the screen. He's never going to get the attention that he wants from that other dog. And he's never going to be able to sort of fulfill his requirement for interacting with it because, you know, it's just on the television. Julie, what else would you recommend?
Well, my Labrador doesn't like any living animal on the television at all. And so quite often she's sat at an angle in our lounge room, just outside the lounge room door, where she can see us and everything that's going on, but she can't see the television. That's a really good cure. And she's tethered for that. But if she's in the room and she's having a lovely relaxing time and then those meerkats come on in that insurance ad, I will...
I do have a cue that tells her to look at me. And even if I haven't got a treat with me, I can tell her to look at me because she's practiced that so often. If I've got human food with me, sometimes I hold up a bit of human food and tell her to watch. And so you can tell them to watch while you're holding a bit of food up to your eye. You can put a leash on, like Kimberly said, and say, okay, I'm going to have a dog program on. And every time my dog.
show some focus, I'm going to turn them away with the leash. You can actually do a training session. The other thing that you can do is to teach them the find it game, which works for so many things to get a dog's focus off by having the treat and getting the dog's attention with the treat and saying, find it and throw it just a little way and the dog goes off to search for the treat. So you're giving them something else to do instead of the behaviour that's driving you nuts. You'd like to get to the stage where the dog sees the dog on the TV and turns to you and goes, what have you got? Yeah, definitely. Teach them that a dog on the television means that there's a fun game for me to happen. But it's a work in progress and it's one of those things you're just going to have to, you know.
work on to try to get your dog so he's not barking down the house, I guess. When the dog, if it's an ad or whether it's a show, when the dog just disappears from the screen all of a sudden, as ultimately it would do, what does your dog do then? Does it just have that look as if it's won the game or whatever? Scare the dog away? Well, no, there doesn't seem to be a victory in it. It's just like, oh, well, that's over. Distract and redirect is what we're looking for. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the tips.
I'll give it a go. Hey, nothing to lose. If not, you'll just have to stop watching television. It's like any behavior thing. There are no quick fixes. These are all works in progress, right? And the fail rate is directly proportional to the owner's consistency and the owner's perseverance. So every training thing will fail if you're only going to try it for five minutes. Well, to finish up on that point, Julie, we'll give you 20 seconds here because you have a background in human behavior as well, teaching all the rest of it. Is a lot of this stuff a failure in our behavior that we want a quick fix now?
Absolutely. We live in a quick fix society. But yeah, sometimes people's faces drop when I say, okay, well, each day for about 10 minutes, I want you to do such and such. Honestly, I have to apologise that my magic wand is broken every time. So is mine. My magic wand doesn't work most of the time. We've given some good tips out today. Ladies, thank you very much for coming in. A great chat. Hopefully we've helped some folks this afternoon. I hope so. Thanks for listening to this podcast from 2NURFM at the University of Newcastle. You'll find them all at 2NURFM.com.