Episode #40 When Am I Ever Going To Use This?

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This is the puppy training podcast episode number 40: When Am I Ever Going To  Use This? 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.  

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Hey, everyone, how was your weekend? Back at it, it's a Monday. I have to tell you, I love doing the podcast. I've come to the point where I get so much feedback from you guys that you honestly feel like family, and it's fun to sit down and chat with you on Mondays. I've been thinking a lot about what to share with you today and this topic of 'when am I ever going to use this?' popped into my brain. I used to be a math teacher; that's my educational background from many years ago. When I went to college, I decided to study mathematics education, and I taught middle school and high school for several years before deciding to stay home with my kids. As a math teacher, that's a question I got a lot. Of course, I gave them a wonderful answer. Part of that just includes even if you're not going to use it in your profession, if anything, I'm teaching you how to problem solve, which everybody needs. Now when it comes to dog training, this question also applies, 'when am I ever going to use this?', but maybe in just a little bit of a different way. Our program, the Online Puppy School, teaches you a lot of really cool things that you can train your dog to do. But if we never practice these things that we train our dog to do, if we don't incorporate these things into our everyday life, then really, honestly, when are we ever going to use this? And why are we teaching our dogs to do this? I have a challenge for you this week: I want you to be able to say I use this all the time. Your goal is to take what your dog nose and use it throughout the day. Not just in focus training sessions, but when you're doing things that just are everyday tasks. Today I want to share a few ideas with you. This is gonna be a little bit of a shorter podcast, but a really great one with some good ideas, because I want this training to carry over into everyday life. I want you to apply what your dog is learning and make it beneficial for you and your dog. It's not just about training the dog or giving him a structured schedule or things to do every day. It's really about making your lives meshed together, and behaviors that we're training, getting good behavior from your dog because he knows how to do these things, we just simply have to practice them and apply them to everyday situations. All right, I have four behaviors that we're going to go through. We're gonna go through a 'sit-say', a 'down-stay', a 'go-to-bed', and a 'jump-on'. I'm gonna give you just a few ideas with each of these different behaviors, some of the everyday tasks and activities that you can accomplish simply by having your dog do these behaviors. As we go through these, I want you to think about what unwanted behaviors will automatically be eliminated. I think you'll be surprised, and we're only focusing on four behaviors today. This could apply to any of the lessons that we teach in the Puppy Prep, our online puppy school. There's five units of study there. There are lots of behaviors your puppy's gonna be learning. I'm gonna pull out for today and just show you the benefits. All right, so here we go.  

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We're gonna start with 'sit-stay'. Let's say that you're going about your day and you need to tie your shoes. Let's put your dog in a 'sit-stay' before you tie your shoes. What will this eliminate? This eliminates jumping on you, this eliminates eating your shoelaces or trying to play with them. Also biting at your feet or your ankles, or trying to get your socks. Simply, just put your dog in a 'sit-stay', and you can tie your shoes in peace. Another task we do it several times a day, hopefully: brushing our teeth. That's a great opportunity to put your puppy in a 'sit-stay'. What does that prevent while you're trying to brush your teeth? It prevents your puppy from trying to get into the toilet paper roll or any other items that are lying around your bathroom that look fun and engaging for the puppy. That's a great way to practice a 'sit-stay', simply because it's a short 2-3 minutes that we're brushing our teeth which is very doable for a young puppy to be able to hold a 'sit-stay'. Now, obviously, you're gonna have to train that in the beginning. It's literally a one-second stay. Some of you with brand new puppies are like, 'Oh, yeah, that's where we're at. We're at the one seconds stay'. That's okay, that one second turns into two seconds, two turns into five, five turns into ten. Once you get a nice 20-second stay, you can go to our unit four-lesson on adding the four D's and add in all of the distractions and durations and difficulty. Once you can do that and your puppy can stay for several minutes at a time, brushing your teeth is a great time to practice that. Let's say it's lunchtime when you're hungry, and you wanna make a sandwich. Put your puppy in a 'sit-stay'. Making a sandwich, again, is not a long activity. It's probably a five-minute activity. That's a great time to practice the 'sit-stay'. Most dogs can sit in that position for about five minutes. So pull out the bread, pull out the cheese, pull out the meats and the sauces. Make yourself a sandwich and let your puppy practice a 'sit-stay' at the same time. What does this prevent? This is going to prevent things like counter surfing, your puppy putting its paws up on the table to see what you've pulled out. Maybe he wants to get into that cheese and that meat because it smells so yummy. By having your puppy practice a 'sit-stay' while you're making a sandwich, it's a good practice for him, and it prevents things like counter surfing. Little tasks, like when you're ready to leave and you want to grab a jacket and grab your keys. That's a great time, again, to practice those 'sit-stays' because it's a short time. It doesn't take long to grab our coat and grab our keys and start to head out the door. At that moment, wherein you want to just kind of gather your things before you leave, put your puppy in a 'sit-stay'. What does this prevent, or how does this help? This would prevent your puppy from running off. Maybe you're distracted by getting your things, and your puppies like, 'Hey, she's not watching, and I can run in the other room and pee in a corner!' Or, 'I can run in the other room and steal a sock, or something that's on the floor. Again, in these little moments, 'sit-stays' are fabulous for that. Any time you're gonna do a task that doesn't take very long, I would say under five minutes, think of how you can practice these 'sit-stays' throughout your day. Another final one for 'sit-stay' would be somebody's dropped off a package on your front door. The UPS man or the FedEx guy came, dropped something on your front porch and you need to go pick up that package. That's a great time to put your puppy in a 'sit-stay' while you open the door, get the package, and come back inside. That's even doable for brand new puppies because they're stays are very short like we mentioned. Maybe you have a 10 second, 20 seconds stay. Most of us can open a door, grab a package, and be back inside within 20 seconds. All right, so challenge number one: practice 'sit-stays'. Find little times during the day when you're not going to be doing something for very long, the duration is very short, but you can practice those 'sit-stays'. And look at all of those benefits that we went through in just a few minutes. The jumping, eating your shoelaces, biting your ankles, getting into things in the bathroom, counter surfing, running out of doorways, just darting off, things like that, 'sit-stays' solve all of those things.  

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Okay, let's move on to a 'down-stay'. When might I have my puppy practice a 'down-stay' versus a 'sit-stay'? Anytime the duration is going to be a little bit longer. Dogs just naturally hold their downs better than a sit. It's more comfortable for them. Things like, maybe you want to sit down after work and watch a show, like an episode. What, 20-30 minutes? Some of us, if we record them and we don't have to watch the commercials, a show is 20 minutes long. A little episode. That would be a great time to practice a 'down-stay'. I would bring some treats with me, and I would just drop them in between the front paws off my puppy while he's staying in that nice position that I'm wanting. I would vary that, I'd mix that up, maybe every few seconds, every few minutes, depending on your puppy's ability. But just keep him in that nice 'down-stay' by occasionally just dropping a reward. Typing emails. Let's say you have to get some work done. A 'down-stay would be preferable for this activity, but I would practice getting my puppy into it down and asking him to stay. I would type an email. After that email's over, maybe I release him. We get up, we play fetch, we play tug. Let him run around a little bit, and then we go back into another 'down-stay' for the next email. That not only keeps it fun for our puppy, it also keeps that duration doable as we work to build it up to longer and longer. Say you have a brand new puppy, and maybe he could do a 'down-stay' for one email. Then you can work up to the point where you maybe he can stay in a 'down-stay' for five emails or six emails, and then you get him up to play and reward him. A couple of things about that, rewards don't always have to be food. I do heavily use food that first year, especially, because it is so motivating for dogs, and again, to keep that up, as you keep your puppy in a nice 'down-stay', feel free to just drop a little piece of food in between his front paws. It's going to keep him there longer. Just be sure that you mix up those intervals of how often you're dropping those treats. Otherwise, our puppies are super smart and they figure out our game. If they know when to expect the next treat, they might start to goof off a little bit in between. They're pretty smart. We know that. How about cooking a meal? That's a great time to practice the 'down-stay'. It takes a little bit longer. I wouldn't necessarily expect my puppy to stay in a 'sit-stay' while I cooked a meal. But for 20-30 minutes while I'm cooking or prepping dinner, a 'down-stay' is very doable. Brand new puppies, again, very short. Maybe you do something like chop up this onion while my puppy's in a 'down-stay', and then you release him like we talked about with the emails. You get him up, engage him in some tug or a little bit of fetch, and then we put him back in a 'down-stay' and chop up the tomato. Things like that. Be creative! Think of all of the things that you're preventing by using these 'down-stays'. By having our puppy right by us, we can see what he's doing. We know he's not wandering around the house getting into trouble. He's also not having to be in his crate. A lot of us work during the day so are puppy has already spent time in the crate most likely. When we get home, they want to be out. They want to be with us. Why not put him in a 'down-stay' while you prep dinner? It allows them to be out and about by you, but he's also thinking about something. He's doing some mental exercise by staying in that position. Another one for the 'down-stay' would be helping kids with homework. Let's say somebody comes home and they need some math help or they need some English help where they need you to just sit down and focus on them for a minute. Again, put that puppy in a 'down-stay' right by you. That kid adds a distraction, it adds a little bit of difficulty to that behavior. it raises the level of your puppy's ability to stay in a down. Practice when there are distractions around and different things going on. This is really good for them because they know when you're not focusing or paying attention to them. A lot of times you're sitting down with your child to help them with homework and your puppy is like, 'Oh, she's not watching me'. They might pop up. This is a good time to remind them that even if I'm not looking at you puppy, even if I'm not focused on you, I still want you to remain in a down. Things like this incorporated it into our everyday life really helps proof these behaviors so that our puppy can also generalize them and understand, 'Oh, 'down-stay' is a 'down-stay', even if she's not looking at me or even if she's talking to someone else'. These are all really helpful things for our dog.  

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The third one is 'go-to-bed'. This is one of my favorites. In fact, in Puppy Prep, the online puppy school, I have it labeled as 'this is my favorite'. I teach this to every puppy I train, and I make it a point to help families train this behavior with their dogs. Number one, it just helps train that nice, calm puppy that so many of us desire, and it also gives our puppy a very structured thing to do when guests come over or we are doing some tempting things, like cooking meals. It gives them a nice, obvious place to remain. Anyway, you can go check that lesson out, but it is one of my favorites. Make sure that you do this with your puppies. Think of the things that we could possibly use this for on an everyday basis. When guests come over, as I mentioned, that's a time when our puppies are most likely excitable. They hear the doorbell or the knock, and they're anticipating who's behind it and it's someone new for the day that they haven't smelled yet. Generally, that excitement levels up. Also, if you have a family and have children running around your house when that doorbell goes off, what happens? The knock or the doorbell, and there's a rushing to the door, which just kind of naturally teaches our puppy to be excited about this event. I did spend a lot of time with puppies. I train puppies by knocking on walls and playing doorbell sounds from my phone to try to desensitize them to the excitement that's oftentimes incorporated with this event. But when guests arrive, that 'go-to-bed' behavior is very, very useful. It prevents our puppy from running up to the guests and jumping on them. Instead, they're on a 'go-to-bed' behavior where they stay on the mat until released. It's a lot like a stay, but it's a little more flexible. They can stand up and turn around and readjust themselves, so it's a little bit more of a relaxed position because of stay is you're literally a statue, don't move. The other times that I use 'go-to-bed' would be having friends over and we're gonna play a game, some cards or other games that might take an hour or so. I can bring my puppy's bed over by us and have him lie down on the bed and stay there until released. Or you could leave that bed in another room. It doesn't have to be right by you, but a lot of times our dogs do want to be with us, and they want to be right by us, so why not let them be by us? But giving them a nice behavior to do, where they are to remain on that map prevents them from bothering our guests as we play a game. During mealtimes, as we talked about. Prepping the meal, you could also use a go to bed. I feel like 'down-stay' and 'go-to-bed' I incorporate a lot interchangeably. If I wanted my dog to have more freedom, it's the 'go-to-bed' behavior. If it's not gonna be for too long, or maybe I'm somewhere where I don't have access to a good spot to use a 'go-to-bed', then I would use a 'down-stay'. I do use both of those a lot, but that 'go-to-bed' is nice because it is a little bit more flexible for your dog. He couldn't, again, move around a little bit. Mealtimes, maybe when you're eating that meal instead of putting your dog in a crate or tethering him somewhere, he can go lie down on his bed. Watching a movie. Movies are a little bit longer than shows. Movies might last an hour and a half or two hours, and we might want a puppy to be able to stand up and move around a little bit and readjust himself, so 'go-to-bed' during a movie is a great time to practice that behavior. Now think of all of the things that your puppy can't be doing if he's on the bed. If he's cued to go to bed and he can't get off until you release him, think of all of the things that you're preventing in the meantime.  

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Okay, very last, we're gonna talk about 'jump-on'. This is kind of a funny one to throw in, but I thought I would just throw in a random one. Let's really dissect it and see what can I get my puppy to do if I ask him to jump on and then what kinds of things are we preventing? Number one, getting on furniture. I can say, 'Puppy, jump on'. Then he knows that he's allowed to get on the furniture. By putting the jump on behavior on cue, it helps us train our puppy when he can or cannot get on the couch. Maybe there's times we want him on there, and maybe there's times that we don't want him on there. Just putting it on cue, maybe we say 'jump on', or whatever you want to call, is very helpful. Let's say you need to groom your puppy, and you'd like him to get up on the grooming table. Some of us have very large puppies that weigh a lot, so picking them up is not necessarily always an option. We need them to be able to get places on their own, so 'jump-on' is very effective, especially if you have that larger breed puppy who's going to be pretty heavy. You could have a little step stool that he can step on to get up onto that grooming table, but that saves you from having to actually physically lift him up onto that table. Getting into a vehicle. You can say 'jump-on' or I use the term 'load-up' as well. You can call it whatever you like, but again putting that behavior on cue where want our dog to jump up into the car is very useful, especially for those of you who have bigger dogs. Think of all of the nice things, just being able to say that to your dog, he understands what it means, and then he does a lot of these things on his own, instead of you having to physically maneuver him or get into any kind of power struggle or battle with him. I like to prevent as much of that as possible. In all of puppy training, we try to be very force-free, let the dog do it on their own and make their own choice to do that using the motivation and the rewards, paying them for good behavior type of thing. It's just a much nicer way to train, and I enjoy the relationship I have with my dog because of it. 'Jump-on' is really useful because you're teaching your dog how to maneuver himself and what you're wanting him to do, but you're doing it with just a few words. And then he understands, 'Oh, yeah, she wants me to move here, do this'. That's very useful. Let's say you go to the vet and it's time to be examined and he needs to get up on the counter. You could cue him to jump on and he can do on his own. That gives the dog choice that gives the dog freedom to do this on his own without being maneuvered around by someone else.  

speaker 0:   16:54
That's it, you guys. There's many more. I'm sure if you go through the things that your dog knows that you'll be able to identify times on a daily basis when it would be very useful, and I encourage you to practice all of the behaviors that your dog knows on a daily basis, but not just in a specified training session. Let's break that mold. Let's start treating our dogs and incorporating these behaviors into everyday life and really practicing them at times when they would be most useful, both to us and to our dogs. All right, happy training. Have a wonderful week, and I'll talk to you next week. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site BaxterandBella.com to contact me.