Are You Rewarding Your Dog’s Bad Behavior Without Realizing It?

Amy Castro (00:00.224)

Struggling with a dog who just won't listen and no matter what you do things aren't getting any better or maybe they're even getting worse? You might be making some surprisingly common mistakes that actually encourage your pet's bad behavior. Today I'm talking with Bradley Pfeiffer, professional dog trainer and a behavior consultant and we're here to help you see where things go wrong and to show you how to fix them.

Amy Castro (00:25.282)

You've reached the Pet Parent Hotline, your lifeline to practical solutions for your toughest pet parenting challenges. I'm your host Amy Castro, and I'm here to help you cut through the noise and turn expert advice into step-by-step strategies so you can stop chasing your tail and start enjoying life with pets again.

Amy Castro (00:49.774)

I've seen this firsthand both in my own rescue work and in conversations with so many pet parents who feel completely stuck. It's not that they don't care, it's just that no one ever taught them how to avoid some of these traps that we fall into as pet parents when we're trying to train our pets. That's why I wanted to bring Bradley Pfeiffer on the show today. Bradley is a professional dog trainer and a behavior consultant with 17 years of experience helping pet parents improve their relationships with their dogs.

He's certified by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers, where he also served as their executive director. Bradley, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity.

I appreciate it because I know that as somebody in the dog training world and in dog showing too, right?

Yes, I am. I've been showing dogs since I was 21.

Amy Castro (01:38.082)

Wow. So you see, probably see a wide range of behavior from, you know, from not only on the part of the pets, but the, you know, the actions of pet parents. I know for me, sometimes I see things that I'm not a dog trainer by any stretch of the imagination, but I see some things that make me cringe. And it's like, why are you doing that? You're making it worse. And that's why I wanted to talk to you about this today, because I think there's a lot of things that pet parents think they're doing right. And they're actually encouraging the bad behavior.

So I think part of it too, starts off with picking the dog. And I don't want to get too deep into how to pick the right dog for you, but how often do you see in your training work that as much of the pet parent's behavior is the issue. It's you ain't got no business having that kind of dog. Or is it just me that sees that?

 Bradley Phifer

No, I would agree through I see it a lot I think people you know we fall in love with dogs based on their stories you know a lot of people are adopting dogs from rescue groups and so we fall in love with their stories and we want to help them or we get a breed that we had when we were kids and we were reminiscent of our childhood dog and how great it was but we forget that mom or mom and dad did all of the all of the stuff right and took care of all the dog and fed it and walked it and those sort of things so every great dog owner relationship starts with finding the right individual for you, your lifestyle and your needs. It always goes awry when we pick a dog for looks or because they don't shed, we don't want a shedding dog, something kind of more superficial. We've really got to focus on temperament and individual personality. Probably the same thing with our human relationships, right? Like every boyfriend I've ever picked based on looks has not really worked out.

Yeah

Bradley Phifer (03:20.344)

You gotta find the guy who really gets you and you get him and that you can be friends with. So it's all about temperament and personality.

Amy Castro 

That's such a good point. And we are so swayed, you know, and in addition to the things that you mentioned, too, I think people will see something in a movie and they decide like I remember and I don't even remember the name of the movie, but it was a moving movie with Channing Tatum. And it was like a military working dog. Of course, it was a Malinois. I thought, good God, please don't let everybody go out and start getting a mal, you know, because that's like not for 90 % of the people in the world.

maybe 99 % of people in And you see too, every time we have a movie come out and there's dogs pictured or featured in the movie, the parent clubs for that individual breed always come out with a statement encouraging people to do their research before they purchase one of those breeds or to visit breeders or talk to breeders, give them a list of ethical breeders and really try to not maybe sway them on that breed, but educate them on.

Maybe so, yeah.

Bradley Phifer (04:19.083)

the realities of what it's like to live with a Malin Wall or a Great Day or Golden Retriever or Dalmatian, you know, which is really responsible and thankful that they're there to do that for us.

Yeah, and I think rescues can do a better job. Like I know I have a, and it's not a dog, I have a kitten right now. And you would think, okay, it's a kitten. How bad could it be? Well, she is hell on wheels and she is mouthy like a dog. And so when I...

I don't want to sound like I'm discouraging people, but when you've got a two year old and a five year old, they're going to hate this cat by the time a week goes by. She needs somebody that's going to rein that in and work on that. And somebody that's not going to scream bloody murder every time she grabs him because she does it all day long. I had to close the door, close her out of here. Otherwise she'd probably be like flying on my head. I think rescues could do a better job with.

You know, we want to adopt out pets, but we also don't want them ending up in a shelter or I, know for me, because we have a lifetime return. I don't want it back a year from now or six months from now. So I'm going to tell you everything I know about it upfront. And, know, sometimes try to convince you that it's not a good fit for you. And sometimes people get pissed.

I think from the pet owner's side, right, from the pet owner's side, we don't know what we don't know. And that's, isn't that the rule for life? Like I don't know what I don't know and that's not going to happen to me, right? I can exercise it, I can train it, I can, you know, and then you three months down the road, the novelty wore off a little bit and you've got the hell raising kitten or the adolescent, you name it, Malibu, Great Dane, Lab Mix, right? And you're like, my gosh, they were right. And so...

Bradley Phifer (05:54.826)

It is, think, important responsibility for both breeders and rescue groups to really know their individual dogs, like what are their strengths, what are their stressors, what type of home is going to be most fulfilling for them, and then to do a good job, you know, pairing them with the right home. It's much harder, I think, for rescue groups sometimes because they have an influx of dogs, there's always someone waiting, there's limited resources. Some dogs just based on

age or breed type are less adoptable than others. And so sometimes it's like, wow, somebody's actually interested in this dog we've had for three months, but it's your responsibility or our responsibility. I breed as well to make sure that we're protecting not only the animals that we're responsible for, but also protecting the community from heartbreak, sadness and everything else that comes along with mixed match relationship.

Yeah, definitely. And safety. You know, I think I feel a very strong sense of public safety in all instances where...

the animal's behavior is, an issue. It's like, you might think you can control that, but what if it gets out of your yard or what if this happens or that happens or whatever the case may be. But anyway, let's, let's go ahead and just run with the assumption that we have the dog now, whether we've, whether we've made a good choice or not. And, know, hopefully people are doing their homework and asking good questions. Let's kind of start with some of the behaviors that you think are a common and B things that people kind of just have the wrong idea, maybe instinctively or.

They got the bad advice on Facebook groups that they're doing the wrong things and making that behavior worse.

Bradley Phifer (07:30.902)

I think it's important to maybe take one step back and say that most people's common complaints about their dog are they're jumping up on me and my guest. They're not coming back when we call them. Pulling on leash, I would say maybe digging, depending on the dog, right? Digging. But really, I think it comes down to the thing that has to happen if you want to be a successful dog owner is you've got to be disciplined and you've got to be proactive.

And what we oftentimes do, especially with puppies, you know, we know now that when you get a puppy, you've got to, you've got to go to the vet. You've got to get your puppy class. You've got to your training. And I think most people are really investing on the front end into their training, but you do that and you get your puppy at 10 weeks old and do your training by the time they're six, two weeks old, you probably completed your puppy class. And you know, most people I think in their head go, Oh, she's trained. She's doing great. And then during adolescence, they kind of slack off a little bit. Yeah. They kind of slack off a little bit.

Life gets in the way and if you're a family, you've got a lot of cooks in the kitchen responsible for maintaining and caring for the dog. And so it's easy to decrease your discipline and your proactive training during adolescence. Cause you know, they're not chewing on stuff anymore. They're crate trained. They're not peeing in the house anymore. Like we, you know, they understand the basics, but they're also, that's probably the worst time to let up because they need it during that adolescent stage. They need to be out and about more to make sure that they're learning that the world is a safe place.

And the dogs need to have some daily practice lessons, even if it's just five minutes a day where we run through calisthenics of come, sit, down, stay. It's important to maintain those skills. And they also need the maintenance of expectations. Things like sit, stay at doorways versus barreling past me. Things like sitting for attention or becoming less excited when I come in the house before I greet you.

Yeah. So, that's, and that's such a huge, mean, just a quick point on that one. Like people, they create and I'm a talker. I actually talk for a living, not on this podcast. This is, this is just volunteer, but my actual paid gig, I go out and run my mouth and I get paid for that. I can talk. And, you know, that people just talk too darn much and then they, create the excitement. Like I come in the door, I come home.

Bradley Phifer (09:36.801)

Lucky!

Amy Castro (09:45.652)

I'm so happy to see you. And then when the dog gets wound up, now it's like, stop. It's like, well, you just heard the key in their back and you turned it all the way up and let it go. And then you expect it's going to stop. It doesn't work like that. so it's just surprising that people don't get their role in that.

Yeah, or maybe they do understand their role. They're like, you know, we know we're not supposed to, but we just love her so much, you know? So sometimes it's a double-edged sword because we do, we love our dogs. And some of the things that we don't mind about us, like, you know, if you came to my house, very few people get to see the young show dogs because the motto is, no is not in the vocabulary. And we want them to be full of themselves and enthusiastic and have showmanship and things like that. And they are sometimes wild during adolescence.

But when they come into the house, they learn to be a little bit more inhibited and during retirement, they're reined in. But we oftentimes, to your point, we do, get the dogs, we love them so much. They are a part of our family. So what we don't mind, we encourage. Like I like that she jumps up on me and gives me kisses in my ear. It makes me feel good. I like doing that. The dog enjoys it as well. But I hate it when she does it to my mom or my sister-in-law or I get embarrassed that I want to scold the dog and that creates conflict. And so.

it's really important for us to have an idea about how do we want our dog to behave? Because dog training and living with them is really all about emotional responses and behavior patterns. Owner comes in, I'm excited, my excitement is manifested through jumping up. And so owners have to really think about what do you want life to look like when the dog is two, three, four, five? And we talk about that a lot in our puppy classes where, yes, they're cute, you love them, it seems really benign right now that they're just kind of jumping up a little bit for attention.

but that behavior is gonna progress day in and day out through practice because it's important to remember that behavior that continues to occur is rewarded. You may not think you're rewarding it, but because it continues to occur, we know that it's being rewarded, right? So is it access to my owner? Is it access to get out of my crate? Is it getting a food treat so I stop barking? I mean, there's any number of reasons, but it's important to remember that concept. And so we talk all the time that there's gonna come a point with your puppy or your young dog or even your newly adopted dog where,

Bradley Phifer (11:57.282)

the novelty is gonna be wear off and you're gonna be like, I wish they weren't doing this. And so from the onset of that relationship, whether I got you as a puppy or I adopted you as an adolescent dog, I think it's really important to say, what do I want life to look like? When I come in the door, I want you to sit, I want you to lie down, I want you to go to your bed, know, or I want you just to be kind of neutral. And I think we probably don't, we probably with our dogs don't acknowledge the need or the benefit of neutrality. Like we like them to be excited to see other dogs. We want to socialize them. We want them to like people.

but then we don't like when they are barking, pulling on the leash, jumping up. And so I think the concepts we try to teach is just be neutral. It's not a big deal when mom and dad come in the room. It's not a big deal when the aunt and uncle come over for drinks. It's just like be neutral, not a big deal. And if you can't be neutral, then we can train you to go to your bed and stay. We can make sure you're comfortable in a crate or laundry room, a mud room with a gate up so that way you're not.

Practicing the other the wrong behavior the undesired behavior. So those are important pieces

Yeah. And I think that's something that people need to kind of think about like before you even get the dog, because you mentioned, you know, what do you want it to seem like in, in two years or when the, you know, when the dog's in adolescence and modeling that behavior young. And that's such a good point. Cause people do this all the time when they meet one of our dogs, it's like, that's fine. The jumping up, that's fine. And I tell them, no, it's not fine because

Just because you like it doesn't mean the next adopter that comes along is going to like that or that they don't have their grandma living with them and it's going to knock grandma down. So we need everybody to kind of follow those rules. But I think establishing what you want your life to be like, like even just something as simple as getting on the furniture, you know, don't, don't wait until the dog's three years old and now try to say, you can't do it because now you're too big, you're too hairy, you too slobbery, whatever it might be, you know, as decide whether that's going to be a thing and start that.

Amy Castro (13:52.088)

from the beginning, because I think it's very good. I mean, I would assume you tell me I think it's confusing for dogs to, you you've let me get home on the couch for two years and now I'm suddenly getting kicked off because you've got a baby on the couch instead or you've got, you know, you're letting the cat or the puppy or whatever it's like, yeah, that's a good one, too. It was all fine and good with the old crappy sofa. But now that I have a new one, nobody's allowed to touch it.

It's in life, Isn't that a common message? In life, it's easier to be proactive and prevent problems. You name this situation, right? Take care of your house versus laying the roof right out, right? Take care of your car versus letting the engine fail. Take care of your health versus waiting until you're actually sick and have to go get all this treatment. So it's easier to be proactive and disciplined in creating a harmonious relationship with your dog.

than it is to fix problems later on. Because once the behavior is there, it's much more difficult to fully correct, depending on the breed, how reinforcing the behavior is, how frequently the behaviors practiced and reinforced. You know, there's reinforcement issues there. So that's an important piece to remember for people. And again, you don't think about it. It doesn't matter how many times you say it as a professional. You know, when you get that puppy, you're not even thinking about three years from now. You're thinking about today. And so I think, you know, kind of talking about our main point.

The message must be being proactive and disciplined doesn't mean that you're being mean to your dog, you're punishing your dog. It just means that you're putting structure in place. know, things like you're in your crate or your crate or your X pin for 30 or 40 minutes while I'm doing something else, you're kind of on a reset rest period. You come out, we'll go potty. You can play with the family for a little bit. We do a little bit of training and then you're go back in your crate for a while. And that sort of cycle.

can go on for a while until the puppy or the adolescent dog is trained to a point where they can be more trustworthy. But being disciplined in that way, or even just something as common as having the dog sit, stay at doorways so the dog learns we don't just rest the doorways. You have to sit and stay, give the owner some eye contact, and they'll release you if it's time to go outside. Little pieces like that teaching the dog to inhibit themselves slightly, deescalate and calm down, be more neutral before they get attention, be comfortable in the crate or confined space while you're home. All of the...

Bradley Phifer (16:03.618)

those things are going to set up a really successful situation for you with your dog compared to, and I worry sometimes we talk so much about positive reinforcement and, not, know, think disciplines and synchrozymes be misinterpreted or be a bad word, but I think sometimes people, especially younger dog owners, first time dog owners, there's so much information. don't know what to do and they don't want to do the wrong thing. But I will tell you a lack of structure, a lack of training, a lack of routine is probably the

biggest predictor of behavior problems, right? That combined with, and we can get down this route a whole bit, that combined with just exercise and fulfilling your dog in general, knowing who your dog is, what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy, knowing what they need in order to beat exercise fully. know, if you had a, going back to the Belgian Malinwall, if you had a Belgian Malinwall, you're going to do a lot more in terms of enrichment and exercise. And I mean like running, jogging, training, obstacles than if you got a cavalier, you know?

That's exactly the dog I was thinking about. Complete opposite. And people think, and I did for years too, I couldn't understand, I had a Doberman Pinscher, his name was Jack, we had him for 13 years, got him as a puppy. So anything that he did was all my fault. But, you know, I did many things along the way and overall he was a good dog, but I don't think his life in the end was as good as it could have been because of mistakes that I made.

You know, I took him to the puppy kindergarten class and we continued to work on the training, but we didn't work on the social socialization. So turned out he ended up being around other dogs and definitely not good around small children. And then, you know, all I can remember are a lot of what I can remember about him being in the house is Jack, go lay down, Jack, go lay down, Jack.

because he wasn't getting the exercise because we were a bunch of couch potatoes. I finally got a bike with a bike attachment and that made a huge difference. But thinking that I was gonna just let him out in the backyard and that's gonna be enough exercise for a Doberman and mental stimulation, that was stupid. I should have known better, but I'd always well.

Bradley Phifer (18:02.334)

Again, didn't know and the ones that you saw or had been around were successful maybe because of their individual temperament or because you just didn't see what was going on in the back end with their owners. think it's also, this is probably a great opportunity to talk a little bit about too that you can over socialize your dog. Socialization is something that you should do. Socialization is enjoying experiences of life.

Go into the vet having a positive experience. Sitting on a park bench and being exposed to noises or dogs walking by. Socialization is leaving your comfort zone, your bubble, and being out and about in the world, experiencing the world, sights, sounds, smells, maybe meeting a couple of other dogs or a few other people. Socialization is not flooding your dog with going to the dog park every day or having 13 kids walk up to

the dog at the bus stop and pet them. You can over socialize your dog to the point where it can be counterproductive. And it happens in two ways typically. One, the dog doesn't have a, it's not mature enough to handle the stress that you're putting them in. So it actually develops reactivity or maybe some, some fear-based aggressive behavior later on, or they love it so much. And every time they're out in the world, they get to say hello to this person and those dogs.

Yeah, no, see.

Bradley Phifer (19:27.266)

that they can become frustrated because they can't get to, they don't have access to what they wanna see. just sometimes when people say, I took them everywhere, we did all these things. Sometimes you can over socialize your dog and it can be counterproductive. Especially if your dog has some sort of bad experience, you're letting your dog be greeted by another dog on leash and the other dog snaps and growls at your puppy. You gotta be conscientious of those things.

That's such a good point because you can think you're doing the right thing. it's funny. And I have thought about this before is that I remember taking Jack when he was a puppy to puppy kindergarten at a big box chain, you know, with a, with a lot of puppies and he was scared. Like he kept kind of going under, under my chair, going behind me. And so I wonder if I traumatized him early on. And again, you know, I think it's good that we're going to be just so everybody knows to be watching for.

another episode we're going to do about picking a trainer because I think that even if you do your homework, they say you should go to puppy kindergarten. But really should you go to a big box store with 25 other puppies? Is that the best thing? It might be fine for one puppy and not good for another puppy. And how do I know that? Because I, it's a brand new puppy.

But one thing to keep in mind, most people, like you said, you hid behind my legs. He was uncomfortable. It's important that we advocate for our dogs. And even if the professional says, it's fine. He'll warm up. Don't worry about it. If there's something going on where you feel uncomfortable, like you see your dog doing something that demonstrates they're uncomfortable or something's going on that, you know, the dog's jumping on someone and that person goes, why don't mind if he jumps? Well, I do mind.

You're always the one in control. You can advocate for your dog, whether that's a training situation, say, no, Jack, we're gonna sit or we're gonna lie down or we're gonna walk away and not jump on this person. Or you can advocate for your dog by saying, actually, would you move your dog away? Or I'm gonna take my puppy out of this class and give them space because I can see that they're not comfortable. And after three or four minutes, they've not tried to even come out and sniff. And so let's take a step back, reset.

Bradley Phifer (21:36.654)

and figure out how we're going to move forward in either one of those scenarios. Not doing that, whether it's because of inexperience or maybe I don't want to make someone mad, that could actually open up the door for problems later on. So I think learn resilience. They have some bad experiences. They would get their first bath, it's a little stressful, but they their second bath, their third bath, their fourth bath, and they go, oh, that's not so bad.

they leave the house and a dog barks at them, but then they have fun at the dog store, you know? So they learn resilience through these interactions. But if every time you leave the house, the neighbor's dogs are harassing you or someone rushes out of their yard and grabs you on the leash and collar, right? If you have too many bad experiences, you're going to lose resilience. And then you're going to develop behavior problems because every time you leave your bubble or you're around someone who's not within your family, something unpleasant occurs. And so it's really, you know, thinking about

One of the things that we do that we don't even know we're doing that may contribute to behavior problems, not advocating for our dog, not being training focused, putting our dog in situations where they can't be successful or they're not enjoying it. I run a daycare and all of our daycare students have been training dogs first. sometimes those dogs grow up, they don't enjoy the company of other dogs as much, right? They'd rather be at home with their owner or they may have to be hanging out with two or three dogs, not.

a bunch of dogs, whether that's an age thing or temperament thing. mean, there's a number of reasons, but we oftentimes see that people are sending their dogs to dog daycare because like in your story, Jack needed more exercise. You were busy or you didn't feel like taking a jog that day or whatever it was. And so it's easier to send them to dog daycare and have them wore out. But is dog daycare an enjoyable experience for them? You know, do they come home fulfilled or do they come home mentally exhausted because they were beat up all day? And that's nothing against dog daycares, but

The reality is a lot of dog daycares are ran by people who may or may not be super dog savvy and they may not be trained to pick up on all of the cues or the subtleties that your dog is uncomfortable until a dog triggers a fight and all of a the dog who's being aggressive is being the problem for weeks, months, exactly right, days, weeks, months.

Amy Castro (23:46.424)

But the trigger has been happening.

Bradley Phifer (23:51.414)

And so he, till finally he becomes defensive. And so we don't always think about those sort of things. And then people feel bad because their dog is attached to the dog at dog daycare. But really there's been a progression. If we had really looked at it, you know, the dog wasn't enjoying dog daycare or he's being harassed by another dog. And it just compounds and progresses until we have a situation, an altercation.

Yeah. So trying to pull all this together, and I want to talk about some of this. Maybe it is a matter of what are the mistakes and then what are the solutions. So we talked about obviously starting early and we didn't actually say it necessarily with these words, but being consistent, you know, start early with what you want your lifestyle to be, be consistent, regardless of, you know, not allowing puppies to do things and then deciding later on because it's now big, we're not going to allow that anymore.

I think, you know, what you were talking about towards the end too is really knowing your dog's individual personality. You know, like just for example, the jumping, I know a common thing that people do with jumping. The instinct is to push them down, but lo and behold, just, they jump more when you do that. So like things like that, what are the mistakes and what can they do instead?

The measure of success is, is the behavior continuing to occur or is it decreasing? Because if it's continuing to occur, the behavior is being rewarded. And so as an owner, can say, well, every time I come home, I ignore her, I have her sit, I have her sit. Well, who else lives with you? Is it your dog walker? Is it your husband? Is it your wife? Is it the kid? Like somewhere in her world, the behavior is being rewarded because it's continuing to occur. So let's figure that part out first.

And then is what I'm doing working? Well, is the behavior decreasing? If so, then it's working. Typically the best path forward in terms of training is going to be first and foremost, managing the dog. So how can I prevent my dog from rehearsing this undesired behavior while I work on a training plan? When sometimes it's long-term management, you know, there isn't a fix where you can just say, well, we did it. The problem is resolved. We no longer need to manage it. Dogs, in my opinion, really need long-term management.

Bradley Phifer (25:57.164)

What I experienced is that the more we let down those management protocols, the boundaries, if you will, the more the dogs self-manage, meaning they're just free in the house when I leave, or they're just in the backyard doing their thing, we almost always see an increase in digging, barking at strangers, trying to eat the UPS man, you know, those sort of things. so...

It's kind of like letting your teenager have too much slack, you know, no curfews, no rules or regulations, and they're gonna do exactly that then. They're gonna push it out to those boundaries. And obviously on a dog's bark, it's not like a conscious rule-breaking thing, but that's such a good point.

Self-management, think oftentimes it opens the door for behavior that we don't actually like. So first and foremost, how can we manage the behavior so it doesn't continue to occur? Because practice makes perfect. And if I'm jumping on you every time you come to the door and you can't follow the training plan because you got your bag or your kids or whatever, then the behavior is going to continue to occur.

Well, I just want to hit on that for a quick point, because I think that's such a different way of looking at things, because there are people that would say, well, if I walk in the door and, well, if I walk in the door and my dog's in a crate, but you know, if I'm preventing it from happening, then I'm not working on fixing it. But that's such a good point. If you're not prepared to work on fixing it every single time, or like you said, you walk in the door, you got your hands full of stuff, or you just maybe.

You know, I was always of the rule that don't talk to me for 30 minutes when I walk in the door, know, but human or otherwise. So I didn't want to deal with the dog when it came in the door. So it was easier to have the dog already away from the door. I can go do my thing, decompress, change my clothes, and now I can deal with the dog. And that's such a good point. Cause I think people, they, they flood, like you said, they flood them with this experience, but then they're not prepared to manage it. And then they wonder why it gets worse.

Bradley Phifer (27:51.15)

You know, my opinion is a little bit different than some of maybe the average pet owners because I know I'm coming from the background of both a trainer, a breeder, we show dogs. And so there's a bit more that just that mentality is a bit different than I think today's pet owner, if you will. But regardless, and I'm to go back to your point in a second, it is very important that we remember as much as we love them, and they take on parts of our personality and they're our family and we want the best for them.

they are still dogs and they need guidance, training, direction, and good management because left to their own accord, they may do things that we don't like. Even as adult dogs, they may do things that we don't like. that's going to think, I really enjoy doing that. Who knew? You know? And so now we've got a behavior problem. So I would say, I would say for the, for the life of your dog, just be practical about managing it. And the other reason that management is important is because even if 80 % of the time you leave your dog out and about and they're fine.

when you're away from the house. There may come a time when you need to manage your dog, right? You're getting all new windows or new doors, or you've got company coming over, or the dog had to have surgery, need to be confined for a period of time. If dogs aren't accustomed to being managed or even restricted in some way, and now all of a sudden they have to be, or there's a situation where you need to manage them because maybe there's a guest coming over who doesn't like other, or it doesn't feel comfortable with dogs, then all of a sudden you're gonna create stress and conflict.

frustration because you're changing up the routine and that's also going to drive potential behavior problems, right? So it's really important to do that. But you're right. If the goal is, you you have your management, your management solutions, it's crate training, it's putting the dog in a space behind a baby gate. It's, those sort of things. But you also want to try to train a new response. And so what do you want the dog to do when you come into the home? Do you want them to go to their bed and stay? Do you want them to sit? I always think about the analogy I use with my clients and times is that if I were a hugger,

And every time I came to your house, said, Jan, how are you? It's so good to see you. I'm so excited about our training lesson. I hate when Brad hugs me. I don't even know him that well. The next time I came to your house, she would go, hey, Brad, how are you? And you would put your arm out to stop me from hugging you. You would train me to do something different.

Amy Castro (30:05.038)

Have a hot frying pan in your hand behind the kitchen island.

Something right or a vest that like stinky when I touch you but what has to happen is is the dog has to Learn that new skill so you walk in the door you say Sophie sit and you don't look at her talk to her touch her give her treat pet her until she sits when dogs are excited They're climbing that ladder whether excited and jumping excited and barking It's really important that we can work to de-escalation work to neutral before we move on to the next step Okay, so we asked her to sit she sits we count to ten you engage with her

I do think what you said earlier is really spot on. You walk in the door and you may say, Hey, Sophie, real casually, but you keep your eyes forward. You put your mail down, put your computer down, pour a drink, go through whatever it is, but you're, doing some other activity where your attention isn't on the dog until they relax. That might be 30 seconds. That may be three minutes, but they've got to get to neutral before you look at them, touch, talk to them or touch them.

You can't always do that, right? You can't always, you know, you've got a big dog and you've got on a nice suit and they're going to rip it or your dog's big and they jump on you and it hurts. So that's not always a feasible strategy. Certainly with most dogs when they're younger, is again, thinking about how social interaction drives behavior. Every time we come home, we're excited, they're excited and it just promotes this over aroused greeting over time. So I do think your strategy is right. Just give them a second, let them settle down, but also we can train behaviors. And one of the things that we do all the time is we send them to their bed or just as we walk in the door and say, sit.

Like even before they can think about jumping, get like an arms length away from us and we say, sit, and we don't look at you, talk to you, touch you, or engage with you until you sit and you take a breath. Good girl. How was your day? Nice to see you. How, you know, and as we talked to them, we use more of a soothing tone. Like what a good girl you are. How was your day? I'm so glad I'm home. Let's go outside and go potty. Things like that. Hi, did you miss mommy? Did you miss mommy? Yeah. Yeah. Cause tone is important, right? Tone is important. And if you already have a very enthusiastic dog, like a Labrador, right?

Amy Castro (31:54.337)

to that.

Bradley Phifer (32:03.966)

the more excited you are, the more excited they get. And the more excited they get, then they're more likely to jump or mouth. And so don't underestimate the power of being neutral.

Yeah, that's a good point. You know, I started thinking about something, you know, with people who are listening to this and thinking, well, how can I walk in the door? My dog's so happy to see me. It's going to hurt their feelings. Like how much of the projecting. Great point. I would feel rejected if you walked in the door, Bradley. He didn't say hi to me. do you see a lot of that?

I do think there's a change in dog ownership. You know, what I'm gonna call like old school dog owners and I classify myself into that, into this more pet parent, there are kind of pseudo child, which there's nothing wrong with it. That is not a criticism at all, but it is important to remember they are dogs and they do what work and they follow your lead. So if you come home and you're really excited, they're really excited. And I think what's more detrimental is creating a situation where for three months, six months a year, you name it.

You come home and every day, this is how we greet each other and it gets worse and worse and worse or more intense. And then all of sudden you say, you can't do that anymore because I'm pregnant or because I just, my new partner doesn't like dogs who jump, right? And then you start scolding the dog. Every time you come in and they jump up, you're scolding them because you're frustrated or you're embarrassed. That I think is more detrimental to your dog and your relationship with your dog. That's gonna create conflict and confusion and stress.

more so than if you came in and you were just neutral for the first three minutes and waited until the excitement had worn off to engage with them. Your dog is not sitting around going, you know, to your point, man, they must hate me today, right? They're just saying, okay, well, the longer I lay here, or as soon as I lay down on her feet, or as soon as I just stand here and look at her quietly, she's gonna look at me. They're focused on what works versus the resentment or the jealousy or the...

Bradley Phifer (33:57.058)

you know, the emotion that we sometimes equate to. If I don't say hello to them, they're gonna feel that, you know, I don't wanna hurt their feelings.

Yeah. And that's such a good point you made too. And you made it before and I forgot to hone in on it, but it reminded me again that, I don't think too many people think about, they think about what they don't want the dog doing. I don't want them jumping on me when I come in the door. Okay. What do you want them to do instead? They have thought about that. That's such a good point. And it could be whatever you want. Is it sitting there? Is it going to your bed? Is it.

you know, whatever it might be. think for all of the behaviors we want to eliminate, we need to start looking at what's the behavior is going to replace that.

Right. Every great training plan should begin with a strong management strategy and focusing on what do we want the dog to do. And once you've done those two things really successfully, you probably don't need to worry about how do I stop the behavior because you're going to have trained new behaviors. But you know, if the case arises where you're still having some problems, then you can progress your training plan. But you start with strong management and reinforcing heavily the behaviors that you want. And you said it earlier, it comes down to consistency. I'm,

horrible at it. My clients don't get to see the young show dogs because they would be like, I'm paying you to do what because look at these hooligans, right? But my lifestyle is a bit different with them. And if I ask them to stop the can, and that's all fine. But you've got to you've got to decide what you want. You got to stick to it. It's like with anything, right? You want to quit smoking, want to lose weight, you want to build stronger muscles. I mean, it's not being disciplined.

Amy Castro (35:23.724)

Yeah, that's so true. So true. So any final thoughts or advice for people who are kind of maybe in the throes of this process of, well, it never ends, right? I mean, you're going to be doing this for your dog's lifetime. It's not like, and I think people thinking about it, I thought about this when you said something about, know, we get them trained and then we think they're trained. It's like, think about the foreign language you learned in high school or junior high or whatever. And I remember being like pretty darn fluent in French when I was, by the time I was a senior in high school and I couldn't put a

I might be able to put a sentence together, but I sure as hell couldn't have a conversation in French right now. And it's like, well, what happened to it? I didn't practice it. You know, I didn't use it. And that's going to happen to your dog training. Yeah, they knew sit, they knew all this other stuff when they were little, and then you never reinforced it. So guess what? They've moved on.

I think that that's a great point or, or so you've got training as a process throughout life, especially for the first two years. You know, when you see a dog that is at four or five years old, just the best dog, the quintessential dog, those dogs have had an owner that has chosen the right dog for them or their personality, right? Their lifestyle. They have committed to solid management. They are fulfilling their dog's needs on a daily basis, physical, emotional, mental, and their training, right? That first two years is really, really important.

in laying a foundation for adulthood. And we oftentimes receive that they do it for the first, maybe they're training for the first six months and then things start to fall off. You've got to make an investment in training for the first two years. You've got to get your dog out and about in the world and practice these skills and incorporate these skills and have an expectation that your dog is going to behave and be polite before they get access to things that they want and enjoy. Sometimes we're only practicing skills at home with the

leash in our hand or the food bowl in our hand or their nightly cookie, you know, and so the dogs are good in those contexts, but take them out of that context and they don't have that training hasn't generalized because they're either too excited or the level is too difficult for their training experience. So it's gotta be a commitment, especially for the first two years.

Amy Castro (37:30.444)

No, that's such a good point. And if somebody finds themselves, you know, wherever they are in the process, their dog and the two year thing I think is so important because lo and behold, guess what folks, as a rescue person, and for all my rescue friends, guess what most of the dogs that people call the owner surrender, guess how old they are? They're right in that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Because because the groundwork has not been laid. And now it's not fun to have the dog anymore.

Even half the dogs that show up in shelters, you know, yes, there might be some elderly dogs and shelters. Don't get me wrong. But I think at least in Texas, it turns into that I didn't do what I was supposed to do by my dog. Now it's a big pain in the ass in the house. So we're just going to put it outside. And then it, the long guy lets it out. It climbs the fence. It digs a hole, whatever it is. And it ends up in a shelter. And then I claim it wasn't my dog in the first place. I mean, it's like, so it's preventable, but you've got to, you've got to start that process. But regardless, if they're in that process.

wherever they are along the way and they've realized either I'm doing something wrong and I can't figure it out or I'm not being consistent. What alternatives do we have? I obviously we're gonna do a whole episode together on selecting a trainer, but at what point do you say to yourself, this isn't working?

It's in terms of it's not working so I need to re-home the dog or I need help.

Well, I need help or I need to do something different because I can't live like this.

Bradley Phifer (38:55.854)

You, yeah, if you find yourself, we know that living with a dog has a lot of great benefits, right? More than we can discuss. But it is a lot of work, it's a lot of responsibility to care for another being and fulfill their needs. If you get to the point where you are frustrated with your dog's behavior, you said, I'm trying, I've tried this, I've tried that.

And you're frustrated, you find yourself not wanting to be around your dog, you find yourself yelling at your dog, you find yourself acting outside your norm. I never envisioned this is what my life was going to be like with this dog. I had pie in the sky, last he was going to be here, my kids were going to fall into a well, he was going to go save him. It was going to be the quintessential experience. That's when I think you reach out for help, whether it's with a dog trainer, you're a veterinarian. There's a lot of resources available to pet owners, dog owners, online and even in person.

That would be my deciding factor. I just, don't like being around you. I'm frustrated and I'm acting outside of who I think I am as a dog owner. I'm not proud of myself as a dog owner.

Or you know, the other thing that I see too is people who like they're not they're not living their perception of a normal life because of their dog. I can't do this because of my dog. I do that because of my dog. I think that's a huge thing. don't you know, one of the yeah, I can't have I can't have people over like I refuse to invite them or I can't go on a vacation or you know, I can't have

You aren't coming over anymore.

Amy Castro (40:18.156)

this dog leave this room because it gets into that with that animal or the dog or whatever it might be. I can't leave my apartment because this happens when I take my dog out in public. I can't go to the vet because that happens. I mean, that to me is a red flag because you should be able to and one of the reasons we just rebranded this show is I really wanted to focus on the human. You should have a life too, you know, and a good life and your dog should be part of it, not taking over it.

Great. I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah. Couldn't agree with you more. And I, and we see that all the time in the training world, where people are just exhausted. And sometimes it's simply because you're not stepping up as a dog owner, doing what you need to do. And sometimes it's as simple as you were given a dog that should have never been with you and you were destined for trouble from the onset because you adopted a Ferrari and you were looking for a station wagon. You know, it's just like, just, was never going to work. You need a dog who is

trusting, outgoing, and has resilience. And you've got a dog who is untrusting, fearful, and doesn't want to be on strangers. So, you know, so it's just, we had kind of takes this full circle from the beginning. We were talking about matches and getting the right dog, but I think that's, that's very important. I would advise anyone who is feeling frustrated with their dog to reach out for help. Even old dogs can learn new tricks. It may not be as quick as it would have been had we started this as a puppy or what have you, or if you had adopted the dog when it was younger, but training can make really

great improvements, a commitment to training with a good trainer, an owner who's committed to training with a qualified trainer, they can make vast improvements in dog behavior. We see it every day. And so don't feel like you're alone. Don't stop having people over at your house. Start working with someone, ask for help and get help and figure out if this dog A is right for you and B, how are we going to make this better? You know, there may never be full resolution, but how can we make improvements so that way we're all a happier with each other.

That's good advice. So Bradley, if somebody wanted to work with you, how would they go about getting in touch with you? Or if just wanted to learn more about what you're doing, because you're doing a lot of stuff, the training, the daycare, the showing, the breeding.

Bradley Phifer (42:26.338)

Yeah, so my personal website is BradleyPhifer.com. So you can always reach me there if you want to talk to me directly. If anyone is in the need for a dog trainer or finding someone in their area that can help them, they can visit the CCPDT website, is CCPDT, certification council for professional dog trainers.org, ccpdt.org. And there's a trainer directory on there that will help them find someone in their area. And then we also have fetchtheanswer.com.

FetchtheAnswer.com is a free resource that has online, like training resources and informational handouts just to get you started. There's also a trainer directory there for trainers that are CCPDT certified.

That's good to know. we'll put all of those links on our show notes. So Bradley, I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and your experience with us today. hope this gives hopes to dog owners that it's never too late to start taking action and start creating a life that works well for you and your dog and that there's help out there. That's so awesome.

Yeah, very much. Thank you for having me. This was a great conversation.

Great, thank you so much and thank you to everybody for listening to another episode of the Pet Parent Hotline. We'll see you next time.