Amy Castro (00:00.802)
Are you frustrated with your dog pulling on the leash, barking incessantly, ignoring you when you call them, jumping up on your guests, or chewing up everything in sight? Well, if any of these apply to you, you are not alone. These common dog problems can turn a loving pet relationship into a really stressful challenge, and in extreme cases, can actually cause pet parents to consider giving up their pets.

In today's episode, we're going to dive into these issues head on and offer practical solutions to help you regain harmony with your dog. Stay tuned. You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians, and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.

Amy Castro (00:51.214)
Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, Amy Castro. And I don't know about you, but sometimes my dogs drive me crazy. And it's 100 % my fault because I will admit that I have not done the best of jobs in doing all the types of training that they need. I've kind of done some and then ignored some other issues. Well, today we're gonna be tackling some of the top issues that not only kind of drive pet parents and the people around them nuts sometimes, but on a serious note can actually push pet parents to the point of

considering giving up their pets. So my guest today, Ruth Hegarty is the founder of Creature Good Dog Training. And she does work not only in person, but online. She does training programs and education programs to help pet owners who have fearful and reactive dogs and they're struggling with that same frustration and sometimes embarrassment that we all might be struggling with a little bit from their dog's behavior. And she gets them to the point where they're kind of

to enjoying their walks and enjoying living with their pets, which is the ultimate goal. And what I like about Ruth is that she not only has a ton of dog certifications, but she also has people certifications because it really is a people issue. Sometimes I think more than a dog issue. So she's got an MS in education and she's got certifications in dog training, life coaching for people.

dog bite safety education, dealing with canine separation anxiety, which we're gonna do on a whole nother episode because that's another thing that comes up a lot. And she's even finishing up a certification as a pet bereavement specialist. And I wish I was living where she's living right now after this hurricane just came through Houston, but she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her pit bull shadow Dawn. So Ruth, thank you so much for being here today with us. my pleasure, Amy. I'm really happy to be

Yeah, so I know when we talked before the show, it was kind of a struggle. We were trying to figure out what topics, because there's so many topics that we could talk about that would be helpful for pet parents. And both of us kind of did some research and put it out to our followers to say, hey, where do you think we should start? And this idea of the top kind of most common and sometimes relatively simple bad dog behaviors. I think if we could tackle some of these or at least get pet parents to pick their worst one, that we could be a long way towards

Amy Castro (03:09.685)
not only keeping pets in homes, but keeping homes harmonious along the way. So the first one on my list is the pulling on a leash, reactivity based or not, because obviously there can be multiple reasons why pets do this, but that's something that can really get to the point where you just don't even want to leave the house with your pets. So what's your advice as far as how do pet parents kind of identify that that's an issue and then work on resolving that? Sure.

So I have sort of two rules I follow in dog training. And one thing I say, this is dog training. It's very important. You have to do this thing. Like recall, it's a safety issue. Your dog should know it. And then there's what I call parenting issues, because I call dog owners dog parents. So how much your dog pulls? A little bit of parenting issue. So long as they're not pulling you down to the point of injury, you can decide what's too much, what's too little.

But in general, if you feel like the walk is uncomfortable, the walk is unsafe, you're afraid to walk your dog because they might knock you down or pull you down. Dogs are very strong. Your average dog has the pulling power of a human man three times their weight. So they're much stronger than their size will sometimes give you the idea. Also part of pulling, and this doesn't necessarily mean your dog is reactive or aggressive. It could be over excitement. Some dogs are also

naughty on leash, but not off leash because they are frustrated by being contained. So if they're pulling to the point where their front paws are coming up off the ground, that's pretty extreme. If they're also barking while they're doing it, if it looks scary to pass your by, if it's hard, if you have to have 20 feet between you and the next person walking their dog. So there's certainly extremes.

A tiny bit of pulling could be problematic if you have a balance issue or a back problem. you know, a little bit you get to decide how much pulling is too much pulling, but it is a common problem. And as you were saying, problem behaviors are the main reason people surrender their dogs. And with a bit of training, that doesn't have to be a problem. You can keep your dog and enjoy your walks at the same

Amy Castro (05:25.163)
Yeah, I know one of the things that always scares me is when you see the person that has a pretty powerful dog who's dug in and I'm just waiting for them to let go because they're just gonna not be able to hold it and then presume all heck is gonna break loose. And then you start wondering, well, why does that person bring that dog out in public? But eventually you gotta get out there in public and expose your dog to those scenarios because walking around on a leash well -behaved in your backyard is not doing us a whole lot of good either. And if people get frustrated,

I'm not a small person. I'm a six foot tall woman. My 60 pound dog can take me down if she really wanted to. So they're very strong and you don't want people to feel like they have no choice but to put a prong collar on their dog. I'm a positive trainer. I don't want that for people. I don't want that for their dogs. And you can teach your dog. Obviously if you get a puppy or a small dog, it's going to be easier because the first thing they learn is to not pull. But if you adopt an adult dog,

You can still teach them, right? I got Shadow, she was two, almost three years old. You can still teach them to walk politely on leash. Dogs will pull by default because they walk faster than us. They are so interested in getting to that next smell and pulling doesn't bother them. They don't mind how that feels. So it's, it's a human issue for a human society. So it's, it's incumbent upon us to teach

it's really better for me as the human for you not to do this. Right. So you mentioned the prong collars, which I am opposed to those mostly because I think people jump straight to that as a way to control the dog. You know, they'll go from having a pit bull on a harness and then say, well, this isn't working. And then go to that opposite extreme. What do you think are some of the biggest equipment mistakes? Like I think harnesses are a huge equipment mistake for a dog that's pulling, but I'm sure all dogs are different.

All dogs are different, different shaped dogs. Sometimes the easy walk, which is a type of front pulling, can be easier for some dogs to slip out of. So equipment is meant to help you, right? My mom used to say the right tools for the right job. She was the tool guy in my house. So equipment can be your friend. Just like for anything, you want to use the right kind of equipment to keep yourself safe or do the job the best.

Amy Castro (07:49.749)
The main mistake that people make with a harness is getting a harness that hooks in the back. That's just going to give your dog more pulling power. You know, if you picture, you know, a sled dog team and where they're hooked, it's just going to make it easier for them to pull you. So ones that hook in the front are better because they use, that's where your dog's center of gravity is. And when the dog pulls, they're designed to sort of turn them to the side a little. And there are a few different models. There's the easy walk, which

Some people love it, some people hate it. Like I said, some dogs can roll out of it. So if you like it and you want to use it, you can get another little piece or use a carabiner if you have those already to hook it to the collar so that if they do roll out of it, they're not going to get away. And the harness I use for my dog and recommend to my clients is the two -hound freedom harness. So it hooks in the front and the back. So you have a choice depending on what you're doing.

I, for my dog, hook her on both. So she is double leashed to the front and the back because she's so strong and that gives you more control. Yeah. I love having that backup too. Right, right. My dog has some aggression issues, so she's quite hooked. But the reason that the harnesses are good is they're going to reduce the pulling. Those front hooks will reduce the pulling almost by half just by nature

how they're designed. And that's going to make it easier for you to teach your dog not to pull on leash. OK. And what about when you are starting off with a young dog or a puppy? Is there a way to modify the behavior other than equipment to just control it? 100%. 100%. So you always want to teach them. You don't necessarily want to only rely on equipment. can only rely on equipment. It's up to you.

Yeah. So there's a few different ways, right? The traditional ways is there's, were two sort of traditional ways to teach a dog what we call loose leash walking. One is every time they pull, you turn around and go the other way. And the other is every time they pull, you stop and wait for them to kind of readjust. Some dogs get very frustrated at the stop and start. I have found that the turning around works much better. The reason.

Amy Castro (10:15.457)
these methods work is because it teaches your dog that you're whimsical. At any point, you're going to turn around and go in another direction. And so they want to keep their eye on you. They want to make sure they know where you're at so that they're not surprised by a turn. And that will help them to kind of get more in sync with you. So you cease to just be the person that can open gates and you become the partner on the

And if they want to smell something, you let them smell. The smelling part of the walk is more important to the dog than the walking part of the walk. They really want to get to all those smells. Another way that you can teach them is to teach them that approaching you and staying nearby you is more desirable than pulling or wandering off. And this will also help with recall when we talk about that. And you can do that by putting your dog on a long line, know, 20, 30, 50

and just kind of wander around the field or your backyard. And every time they come up to you, they get rewarded. And it's their choice. Do they come and walk near you so that they can get multiple treats? Or do they wander off because the smells are more interesting to them in that moment? But what you're doing is making being with you rewarding and also their decision, their choice. And you want to teach your dog to make choices that you approve of.

that will help them be less frustrated. It will help them just default to the better behaviors. So there's a few different ways and it's, I'm not gonna lie, walking your dog when you're trying to teach them not to pull can be kind of a nuisance. You're not gonna get very far, but it doesn't take long. It's not gonna take you four weeks. Maybe it's gonna take you one week. So it's worth it. Yeah, and I think the problem with most people, myself included,

is that because it does take time and it takes consistency, just like training anything else, is that people start off, you know, they go to that puppy kindergarten class or whatever they do, they hire a trainer for X number of weeks and they get started and the dog is trained, you know, and then they're not consistent in deploying whatever methodology that they're using. And then the dog becomes untrained, you know, cause I know my dogs.

Amy Castro (12:38.409)
There's lots of things that they used to know and used to do and now don't do so well, but it's because I've been inconsistent in how we manage that. It's just a question of practice. And if you're loosey goosey about it, which again is your choice, right? But what it tells your dog is that sometimes it's okay to pull, sometimes it's not. And so that translated into it's up to me. Do I feel like pulling today? I'm the dog. Do I feel like pulling today? Because that's

being inconsistent teaches them is that it's not that important to you. So they'll just, they're entitled to do what they want. And I mean, I would think that too, if I was them. Sure. I mean, it's the same thing when you're teaching kids certain things, you know, if it's like, you will hold my hand in the parking lot or you will sit down on the grocery cart or whatever it might be. If you're inconsistent in managing that behavior, then it's, eh, you don't really mean that. So therefore I'm going to run my own agenda.

But teaching them to walk lightly on leash is easier than teaching them consistent recall. In the moment, you're like, oh, I can't spend the next 15 years of my dog's life doing this. It's horrible. I'm like, no, no, not 15. You know, they're going to learn it. You're going to do it for, you know, one week, two weeks. And that's going to get easier and easier. And that is just going to be natural. You're not constantly going to have to, isn't your life from now on. This is just, you're going to do this for a little bit. And then you're going to reap the rewards

doing it for that little bit. Right. So let's talk about my next favorite subject, nuisance barking. So we had a dog and she would, anytime you put her outside and you left her out there for more than 30 seconds, she would start barking. But you know, opening the door and hollering, be quiet, stop barking. Didn't really help the situation too well. And so we actually, and I hate to admit this, but we actually resorted to a bark collar.

because in my limited experience, which was even more limited 35 years ago, you we put that bark collar on, it operated once or twice. And then after that, it didn't even have batteries in it. We just put it on her when she went outside and she didn't make excessive noise while she was out there. But there's gotta be, there's gotta be a better way to deal with that. And then I've got, you know, like I'm trying to do this podcast and my daughter out there by the time I get off this podcast is gonna be like, woo.

Amy Castro (14:55.383)
Cause she's trying to manage six dogs and keeping them to shut the heck up while they're out there. Yeah. You can see how smart dogs are because when you put the bark collar on them, it, whether it's sprayed citronella or had a high pitch sound and ultrasound, only took one or two times for the dog to experience it before they're like, I'm not going to make that thing hurt me again. Yeah. So no one suggests that, you know, aversive measures don't

We just don't like them because Yeah. Is there a better alternative? barking is fascinating. It's truly a fascinating subject. An excessively barky dog actually impairs their human's ability to think properly. Studies have shown that it's considered a type of noise pollution. It's extremely annoying. My dog, Shadow, she has this problem. It's so much better. I've had her about a year, so much better.

that it was in the beginning, but I got deep into barking because of her. And frightened dogs, now I specialize in fear and anxiety, frightened dogs bark, right? Just like frightened people scream. So there are a multitude of reasons that dogs bark. Ideally, if you can figure out why your dog is barking, then you can specifically address the underlying cause. If you can't figure it out, that's okay. You can just do some trial and experimentation.

to address the underlying cause, know, throw a few things at it and see. With barking, you want to first minimize the barking because if your dog is at their peak of barking and they're just yip yip yip yip yip yip to the point where you're like, I have to stop this by any means necessary, your dog isn't in a position where they can learn. So the first step is always to look at the environment.

triggering my dog's barking. Is it what they see out the window, which is Shadow's issue? Before you even start training, you block their access to their triggers to reduce the barking and give them an opportunity to take a breath and focus. Then you add enrichment. Some dogs bark because they're bored. Some dogs bark because they're stressed. So you add in all kinds of enrichment to help them relax, help them be entertained. Whatever needs to be covered is covered.

Amy Castro (17:18.347)
right? Puzzle toys, licky bats, chewing, licking, sniffing are all naturally relaxing for dogs. Then once your dog is kind of like, huh, and they can focus, you teach them, maybe you teach them a quiet cue, right? Cause all dogs bark, they're going to bark from time to time. Sure. My last dog actually deterred a man trying to climb in my window in the middle of the night one time, a robber, I'm going to assume. So that was good. You know, he barked.

You want them to do that sometimes, but you don't want them to bark excessively. So you can teach them, they bark bark and you say, okay, thank you, quiet. Or you redirect them. If they bark at guests, you know, they get so excited, they bark at your friends that come over. Maybe you teach them an alternative, like go get your favorite toy and show it to your guests so that they're still using their energy. They're still getting the attention that they're craving through that barking

you're not having to sit and listen to all that barking. So there's a lot of different ways that you can approach it depending on why they're barking. If it's separation anxiety, that's a very unique scenario. You can address it, but you have to address the issue of separation anxiety as a whole rather than the barking. the barking is just a symptom. Right. And there's a very specific protocol for dealing with separation anxiety.

But most barking is territorial. It's warning barking as attention barking, it's excitement barking, boredom barking. And those are all things that you can address with changing the environment permanently or temporarily. Now, if it's just as easy for you to put a couch in front of a window or something like the table so that your dog never looks out it, problem solved. Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting you said that though, because I think a lot of times people

And I have thought this before running an animal rescue, we get a lot of deliveries. mean, the poor Amazon person, the Chewy person, the UPS guy, the mailman, whatever, you know, we get a lot of people coming and going. And not only does it turn into a barking situation, but it's turned into fights before because somebody's trying to control somebody else. And it just, you know, so I guess I thought it was like a personal failure that I had to shut the blinds in order to prevent that. But if that's the easy, simple solution.

Amy Castro (19:42.689)
then yeah, you know, I always think of things like closing the blinds as akin to I lock my door, right? Now, is it, is it a failing on my part that I don't trust society not to come in? Absolutely not. But also, you know, one of the things that you can do is you can sort of change your dog's emotional response, right? Whether your dog

thinks there's an intruder or just so excited that someone's coming over, you can actually use desensitization and counter conditioning to change the response to the doorbell. in a 30 second demonstration, it's ring the bell, give a treat, ring the bell, give a treat, ring the bell, give it until your dog starts to associate the bell not with, oh gosh, a big scary man's gonna come in, but ooh, treats.

Now see, they need to invent, maybe we should do this. We can go into business together and invent a doorbell that has a treat dispensing portal on the inside of the house. And every time the doorbell rings, it kicks out a treat like those little automated ones that they have. We could make millions. Ring is not listening to this podcast episode. Next thing we know, we're going to see it on the market. So I like that. you know, starting off with, with, you know, identifying the stimulus.

preventing what stimulus you can and then redirecting the behavior is the way to go. And I would think just like with anything else, that's something that would start in puppyhood too, because I've noticed that having had litters of puppies here, some of them are just, even though they're from the same litter, they're just, some are talkers and some are super quiet. And so identifying those talkers and redirecting that early. Yeah. Yeah. It's, mean, just like if you have six human children, they're all going to be different.

You know, even though they have the same parents, that's just how genetics works. It's fascinating. But, you know, we socialize puppies. If you adopt an adult dog that maybe hasn't been socialized, things can feel more triggering to them. But yeah, we do teach puppies. You know, that's one of the benefits of raising a dog from puppyhood is being able to expose them to a lot of different things that they might not have been if you got them as an adult. There's special joys to adopting an adult dog as well.

Amy Castro (22:04.553)
So, you know, it's just sort of what works best for you. Mm hmm. Yeah. All right. So let's move on then to and we talked about this a little bit because you talked about using a long lead and recall, but any other tips that you want to talk about? Because if you don't have recall, you shouldn't have your dog off leash in public. And it's amazing to me how many people do. Recall is important. It's a safety issue. And I think everyone should focus on it. And it isn't as hard to teach as as people think. And there are two

main mistakes that people make with recall. The first I alluded to earlier when I said they let it go and cause their dog to believe that it's optional. So if they call their dog, they've been working on it in the house, and then they take it to the yard, they call their dog and their dog doesn't come, they'll say, well, he didn't come. You can't do that because in your dog's mind, it's like, well, they call me, but it's up to

So you cannot let it go. And if they don't come, you have to make it easier for them to come. If you have to get within a foot of them and still call them, they take one step towards you and you're like, good boy, yay, you did it. Here's your treat. You act like they ran a mile to get to you through like razor wire. Because you want them to know that it's not optional. You want them

when they hear you call their name, want them to like, if it was a romantic movie and at the end of the movie, the people are like running on the beach to each other. You want that to be you and your dog when you call their name. And so the other major mistake people make is they fall into this trap of only calling their dog when they actually have to call their dog. It's time to leave the park. It's time to come in the house. It's time to go to the vet. So you have to practice calling your dog.

So that only 30 % of the time, it's actually the fun is over. Otherwise your dog can develop a negative association with being called. Nobody wants to go to anybody if the only time they ever call you is to like disappoint you. Yeah, that's such a huge point is how many times we use our dog's name, you know, calling him when we're angry about something or calling them because you're to give them a pill or calling them, you know, it's like

Amy Castro (24:30.989)
caught myself doing that. And it's like, even though they're good natured and they're coming over, it's like, oh, maybe I would have been better off walking over to them and giving them that pill or walking over to them and then just cutting their nails than to use the name. Or if you call them 10 times, only cut their nails one time, the other nine times, they got a treat and they got to go back to play or they got a treat, a belly rub, and then they got to go do what they want.

So you're saying the dog's playing the odds, right? Yes. They're like, hmm, let me see. Dogs are eternal optimists. So that if even sometimes a bad thing happens, they won't focus on that. They'll focus on, sometimes I get cheese when she calls me. Maybe this is the time, you know? Yeah. Even if every once in a you give cheese, the rest of the time you give kibble, they'll be like,

I wonder if this is the cheese time. They'll run over and they'll be kibble and be like, dang, maybe next time will be the cheese time. They'll just do it because they're like, maybe next time, maybe next time. Well, and think about it though, because I think about, there are certain words that I, if I say them in the kitchen, like oops, or I use a bad word, everybody comes running because they know for a fact something has likely fallen on the floor. it's like, it's interesting. They all come running when you say, crap, or something like

but yet they don't come when you call their names because they've learned. Trainers have this expression called poisoning the queue. Whereas you've taught them something, but you kind of messed it up. Now it doesn't work anymore. You can just change the word. You could literally be in the park and go, crap, and all you dogs will come running. And if it works, it works. Everybody's dogs are going to be coming home with me then if I do that though.

Now that's such a good point. Yeah. Maybe you come up with a better, a different recall word. Yeah. Because it doesn't matter to the dog. You could use the word dollhouse for recall. And so long as everyone in your dog's life knows that they come when you say dollhouse, it's fine. It doesn't matter. They don't speak your language per se. They've learned a particular sound and they've related it to a particular behavior. But it doesn't matter to them what that sound is.

Amy Castro (26:52.587)
Yeah. now I've got all kinds of fun thoughts running through my head about the things you could be screaming out in public to make your go. And have people wondering about your sanity. But anyway, okay. So that's, that's definitely something. And that's, think also something that I have made the mistake of not doing when I've had puppies is it's so much easier to work on that when they're little and you can catch them, you know, and they can't get that far away and in, making that a positive thing to come back to you.

When I'm working with a client and we're teaching recall to their dog, I always say, when you get to the point where you 100 % think you can trust your dog to come away from distractions at the park off leash, you put them on a long line and practice it for another month, right? And then you try letting them off. So you have to raise up the distractions slowly

when you think you can trust them, you still need to work on it because your dog knows the difference between being on leash and off leash. Yeah, I had a golden retriever in high school and that dog, I will say that other than the recall, I mean, he was so well trained. He would do everything with hand signals. I would set up obstacle courses and he would go over, under, around, you know, he would heel and spin around and sit at my side. And we worked and we worked on that long and obviously I either did something wrong or I

work on it long enough, but I felt like we did the long lead so many times and I swear it was a thing like, okay, he was reliably coming and then I would take the leash off and he would come once, he would come twice, he would come halfway the third time and then it was like a light bulb went off and off he went. And then I finally gave up, like couldn't get past that point, but yeah, I never did break him of that. He was always a runner.

I do also tell people when you're practicing it, wait till your dog comes all the way to you before you give them the treat. And some of the time touch their collar and then let go and give them the treat because dogs will sort of come close enough to get the treat, but not so close that you can grab them. And that way you can desensitize them to the touching them and the hooking them and that sort of thing. And there are a couple of breeds that are more difficult.

Amy Castro (29:12.333)
to teach because of what they've been bred for. Huskies, beagles, I mean, I'm not saying you can't teach them, but it is more challenging because it goes against their genetics. I had somebody tell me, and I can't remember if it was a trainer or just a person who had said something about after a certain age that the dog can kind of, like, let's say you've got a dog that's sitting 10 feet away from you and you call them, that they have the ability to think to themselves, I'm here, what do you want?

I think at any age, some dogs will do that. I think that's a personality trait more than an age or a breed thing. Some dogs, my last dog, he would think, you I'd call him and I'd wait it out. And he would think for a minute and then he'd slowly kind of shuffle over. My dog now, Shadow, I call her and she flies at me like I'm going to give her a million dollars. So, you know, your dogs have different personalities.

Is it bad to keep saying, cause that's another thing I see people do. It's like I say, Gunny, come Gunny, Gunny, Gunny, come, come, you know, like, should you really say it once and then wait it out? And when do you repeat it? This is something that other trainers do different. I know there are trainers who say, it once. And if they don't come, they didn't come. I don't agree with that. I am a two strikes guy. Call my dog. If they don't come, maybe they don't hear me.

I'm to give them a second chance. Call them again. Also give them a moment to finish their sniff, right? If I ask my friend to grab me a coffee while they're in the kitchen and they're like, yeah, in a minute when I finish this phone call, that's not a no. That's an I'm doing it, right? Give your dog that same benefit of the doubt. Unless there's a bear coming at them. Give your dog that same benefit of the doubt. And if they're running to you and you want to encourage

then you could say whatever you want while they're coming. Like you're cheering on a race. So the reason that we say typically don't repeat yourself is we talked about how the dogs don't really speak the language. They understand sounds. So to a dog, come shadow is not the same as come, come, come, come, come, come, come. There's two different sounds. And so you don't want to confuse your dog. So I usually tell clients count to 10 in your head before you repeat yourself.

Amy Castro (31:40.055)
Give your dog a moment to kind of wrap their mind around, they said, come, I don't really want to, but I love them and they have hot dogs, so I'm gonna go. Before you say it again, I focus how I do things on what your average family with a dog is comfortable with, right? So if you're telling me you wanna train your dog for obedience competition, you're gonna have to learn it a completely different way, but I don't do that.

And I work with families who want a safe and healthy and happy dog and dog owner experience. And so that sort of informs how I do things and what I think most people are going to be comfortable with and capable of. So that's sort of what backs up my philosophy, which makes me differ a little bit from some of the other trainers. Not all. mean, some others are like me, but you know, there is advice that says you call them once, use a unique sound like.

or something instead of a word, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. All right. So another personal favorite of mine, we're down to our last two items here is jumping up on people. So a pet peeve that I have as I am trying to adopt out dogs and I'm trying to work on the jumping up thing is when you have the guest or the potential adopter who,

tells you, no, that's okay. And you know, it's like, I have to go through this explanation of why it's not okay. Because at minimum, it's because we're trying to train the dog not to jump up on anybody because not everybody loves it is kind of the bottom line with that. But I've tried different techniques for doing that and I've had various success. So I'm curious what your thoughts are as far as like, is it okay for a dog to jump up on people? Or is it something that everybody should be eliminating from their dog's behavior?

It's okay for your dog to jump up on you if you don't mind, right? Shadow jumps on me every time I come home and I think it's adorable.

Amy Castro (33:44.619)
But would I allow her to jump on a passerby like she wants to do? No, because that's not appropriate. You don't want people to get dirty, frightened. You never know who has a medical issue that a dog jumping on them could set them back. So you can't allow your dog to jump on other people who don't want your dog to jump on them. Or if you're not sure they don't want to be jumped on, you default to they don't want to be jumped

It's perfectly fine if you don't mind your dog jumping on you. But how does the dog know the difference? So what I do with people, because this comes up, that the dad loves the dog to jump on them and the mom and the kids are like, no, I hate it. Default to teaching your dog never jump on people. That's the rule. Never jump on people. Unless a people invites you to jump on them. So unless someone says, come on, come on, then they don't

Dogs are smart enough to understand that the way you teach your dog not to jump on people is you teach your dog rather than try to tell them, don't do that thing. That's hard. That's nebulous, right? You teach them to do something else that's incompatible with the original behavior. So jumping up, putting my paws on your body, the opposite of that is me keeping my four paws on the floor. So I teach the dog, keep my four paws on the floor.

Or do something else. When I hear the bell, I go to my place. When I hear the bell, go get a toy. Whatever it is you want to teach your dog, there's always multiple ways to go about it. But you teach your dog that the other behavior, the desired behavior is preferable. And you do that by using treats or toys, some kind of reward that feels good to your dog. And by trying to make jumping on people as boring as possible. One way to make it boring is

for the person not to respond. Which is hard, because even for a dog, like if you're like, no, no off, that's exciting. Yeah, you're playing, it's like a game when you're put, especially I've seen people a lot, they're talking a lot, they're flapping their hands, they're pushing the dog and it becomes a game. One of the things that I've always done is just to put my arms up, of cross them across my chest and out of the way and turn my back to the dog. If I've got a dog that's jumping on me just because.

Amy Castro (36:08.353)
I'm certainly not gonna make it fun for you and I'm not gonna engage you while you're demonstrating that behavior. Right, if the dog isn't rewarded for the behavior, the behavior will fade away. So if that response is possible, it's a good solution. And by possible, I mean the human is physically capable of it and the dog responds to it. Because some dogs, when people do that, get frustrated and they'll start to nibble on your bum.

I usually say, and I address this the same way I address things like demand barking. If the behavior is new, if your dog just figured out that they could jump up, ignoring it is a good way to shut it down. Cause it's not a fully ingrained behavior. If your dog has been doing it for four years and you finally got to the point where you're going to address it, you're going to have a hard time just ignoring it because when in a situation like that, the behavior is going to get worse before it gets better because it has always

and your dog has an expectation that it will work. And so they're going to double down. Like this always works. Why isn't it working? Maybe they don't feel me jumping on them. So they're going to, they're going to double down at first before it fades away. It's just harder for you physically and mentally probably. So if the behavior is ingrained, I usually go straight to teaching an alternative behavior. And so let's say it's jumping on guests when they come in the house, you can create

block, you can put a baby gate or a X pen or something to help your dog stay away from the guest, keep your guest behind it or whatever. But you can also leash your dog, right? Like have, when the people knock or, you know, have your friends, you can practice it yourselves or your friends text you when they're outside, put your dog on the leash. The person comes in, ask the person to come in and sort of be boring. Don't come in like, Hey, everybody, how's it going? Come in quietly. Just stand

throw treats on the floor for your dog so that they start to associate someone coming in with like little smorgasbord on the floor. And you'll see after some practice that your dog will hear the door start to open and look down for their treats. And then you can start to practice it off leash. The reason for the leash in the beginning is that if your dog always jumps on people, minute someone comes in, they're going to default to jumping.

Amy Castro (38:31.689)
Even if they see your treats, it's going to be after they jumped on the person. So the leash will help you in the beginning. And you can slow it down where if your dog starts to yank on the leash, when the door just starts to open an inch, okay, close the door. No one comes in because you did that. You can, different dogs, can take, some dogs you can come right in, some dogs you really have to go minuscule step by minuscule step. It just kind of depends.

Dogs are lovely in that they don't mind giving up an old behavior for a better behavior. know, humans sometimes we feel like, I've always done it this way. I'm not going to try your newfangled way. Like we can get in our heads like that sometimes, but dogs don't. If you show them a better way, they're happy to do the better way. Okay, great. Those are definitely some good suggestions. And I think that, again, that goes back to the, especially when you're talking about having to, you know, open the door an inch, open the door an inch, you know,

it's patience on the part of people. And it makes me wonder, like, I'm sure people say to you, you know, I've got three kids and I'm busy and I don't have time to do this all the time. And, you know, my thinking is always, then you shouldn't have gotten a dog, but maybe I'm just being rude. I don't usually, well, sometimes I do say it, but I try to say it as nicely as possible, but it's like, this is what it's gonna take. So yes, I don't say that because,

I mean, partly because this is my business and people pay me to come to their house and help them not tell them what they're doing wrong. So I want them to succeed. And so I think what will make them succeed? I mean, I've had clients with, you know, multiple jobs and multiple kids and they had a newborn and their grandma's sick or, know, like, yeah, people's lives are complicated. And whether or not they have the emotional and time.

resources for their dog, they have their dog, they love their dog. Maybe their life changed after they got the dog. You know what I mean? I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it's the fact that they had a baby or that they moved that creates the unwanted behavior. So dog was well behaved before and then something happens in their life that changes it. So you do not need vast amounts of time to train your dog.

Amy Castro (40:55.245)
You can take five to 10 minutes a day. You can take five, three minute increments. And almost everybody can find that amount of time, right? Like, well, leash walking that we talked about earlier. You walk your dog anyway. It doesn't matter how far you get. You might as well practice not pulling on leash while you're walking your dog anyway. Right.

The easiest way to find these five -minute spots in your schedule to teach your dog is around the things you do with your dog anyway. So maybe five minutes before you feed them, maybe even while you're getting their dinner ready, you're like, sit, lie down, come, place, run through some things, practice so they don't forget, or while you're on a walk. If you usually walk your dog for 30 minutes,

walk your dog for 20 and take that 10 minutes to practice recall or whatever it is you want to practice the not jumping. And the fact that your dog is using their brain and in their body too, if they're, you're practicing recall, they're still getting that same level of stimulation, enrichment and exercise that they would have if you spent that 10 minutes doing a little bit longer walk. So, you know, you, you look at people's schedules and you fit it

where people are able to fit it in. Because I mean, the way I look at it, like I'm not a successful dog trainer if my clients aren't successful with their dogs. So whatever it takes for me to figure out for them, like here's exactly what you do. This takes 30 seconds. This takes 30 seconds. Here's four 30 second things that you're going to do two minutes, four times a day, right after breakfast, right after, you know, whatever it

And that's all it takes. You don't need more time than that, right? You just need a little bit of time and you need to do that every single day. I mean, you're going to skip a day. You're going to catch the flu. You're going to skip a week. Go back to it. Just, you know, just like the same advice applies when people are like, well, I have to, I have to start exercising. Okay. Well, where can I fit it in? How much time realistically do I need? Where can I fit it

Amy Castro (43:16.781)
You know what I mean? Well, eventually it'll become a habit, right? Right. Your 28 days or whatever it is they say that creates a habit. And also, you know, it's self rewarding. So it's not just rewarding for the dog. If you're working with your dog, one, it's good for you, right? Playing with your dog lowers your blood pressure, reduces stress. As you see your dog's behavior improve, you feel good. And you're like, this is working. That's self motivating to

doing it and then you're like, what else can my dog do? At first, when you're looking at all these unwanted behaviors and you're like, this is an unsurmountable mountain of trouble and I don't know what to do and I don't know who to turn to. All of that kind of stuff. You know, I've had problems like that too, where you're like, where do I even begin? But once you get started and you have someone you trust to help you, you're like, wow, look, I didn't know my dog could do that. You know, you feel so good. You want to keep going.

Yeah. Yeah. You got to have the, you definitely have to have the right motivation and go for those smaller wins as they come along. Yeah. All right. Last but not least, I'm going to protest my property taxes. And one of the things I'm going to show them is the work that I would need to do on this house to get it up to the value that they believe it is. But part of it is because I've got all kinds of places on my walls, on my baseboards where

various creatures who have been in this house have chewed. So that's one we hear a lot and it's not just puppies that chew on things. obviously I can't take the baseboards away, they exist. So what is your advice for the destructive chewing? So dogs, most dogs have a need to chew. It is a way to self -soothe. It's a way to clean their teeth. It's enjoyable, like how some people like to chew gum. It's fun.

So you need to allow appropriate outlets for your dogs chewing so that they don't chew on inappropriate things. And in order for them not to chew on inappropriate things, every time you catch them chewing on something they shouldn't, you redirect them to something that's okay to chew on. And anytime you see them maybe sitting around thinking thoughts like, can I do? Offer them something appropriate to chew

Amy Castro (45:39.911)
So that they're meeting their need to chew. It's helping them relax. And especially for you, where you have rescue dogs, you know, that's a stressful situation to be in. They're homeless, right? They're living in a shelter. They, you know, they don't know who their real mom is going to be someday. And, and it's a stressful situation for dogs to be in a new environment with different smells and different sounds. So different dogs have

Preferences for chewing some like harder some like softer some like to tear something up some like to just chew on something that stays the same so Baseboards if they're wooden they have that say, you know, maybe yak cheese might have a somewhat similar mouthfeel Can try that or you can just try a variety of different things edible and non -edible in Order to satisfy that need on something that you don't mind them chewing

And then you just, you the main things to think about is the size of the dog, because the size of the mouth matters. know, the Kongs come in different sizes, different hardnesses. So don't, the Yak Cheese and lots of different things. They make teathers now for puppies, but adult dogs can use them too. So you want to avoid choking hazard. You want to supervise a dog if they're chewing on something that can break up, like a bone.

You can get them real bones, just not cooked bones that you can either buy at a pet place or you can get from a butcher if you have a butcher. My dog now, she likes tracheas. She likes to chew on tracheas. They're disgusting. But she loves them and I buy them. And some of them are going to last longer because I know we used to do the, my Doberman loved cow hooves, the little cow hoof trimming things. But boy, you got to watch that like a hawk because we had a couple of scary instances where

I didn't get that last little half dollar sized piece up off the floor and the next thing you know, he swallowed it and caused an obstruction. So keeping an eye on the condition, same thing even with the stuffed toys. It's like once they eviscerate it, pick up that stuffing, don't let them swallow that stuff. Right, right, because you don't want to bowel obstruction. The other thing you want to think about with hard shoes, just like people, different dogs have different strength teeth, whether it's genetic

Amy Castro (48:02.337)
the nutrition they had as a puppy. So a lot of vets are recommended against antlers because they've met dogs who've broken their teeth on antlers. you kind of have to know your dog. If you're not sure, you can ask your vet, you know, do you think this is appropriate for my dog? Because they're going to know your dog's mouth better. And then also what does your dog like to chew on? My dog would, my last dog would chew on anything I dipped in peanut butter.

Yeah, and I've had dogs that have had no interest in chewing things. Like I had a dog named Bonnie that she had her little stuffed fleece baby and she would carry that thing around. I mean, she never, never ripped it, never really chewed on it. And she didn't really want anything to do. I mean, she, like an edible bone. Yeah, she ate that. But something that was just solely for the purpose of chewing, she wanted nothing to do with it. But then you have other ones that

You give them something stuffed and it's just in a million pieces in two seconds. Yeah. Right. Some dogs prefer licking. My dog now, Shadow, she'll destroy toys except for particular toys that she treats like babies and she hides them in a big pile on the couch. She checks on them every once in a while. They're under a blanket. And the only difference is that they make, like there's a cow and it moves and there's a chicken and it squawks.

So to her, those are completely different from the regular squeaky toys and she treats them different. And I, know, the other thing I would say in my experience, cause I've learned this the hard way is supervision goes a long way. You know, it's like when I close dogs up in the hallway with a baby gate and go to work or whatever it might be, I'm kind of asking for it. If I don't know that dog well enough to know, yes, they're going to chew on the baseboards or puppies. You know, if there's not enough.

Sometimes even if there is enough stuff in there, it's like they've been there, done that with that toy and they're looking for something else to do. They're curious animals. Some dogs will chew on electric cords. Some dogs won't do anything naughty. Some dogs are safer crated when you have to leave them unsupervised. One thing you can do is same thing people do with human children is take half their toys and put them in a closet and every three to six months just rotate everything out. So it seems new again.

Amy Castro (50:18.143)
or trade toys with a friend so that they have completely different smells. Every once in a while, just like do a toy trade with the mother, you your dog mom friends or dog dad friends and those toys. You know, other people's toys are always more interesting than your own toys. So there you go. So that helps too. Okay. That's a good, yeah, good idea. Just make sure you wash them good and everybody's up to date on all their disease prevention. Of course. I wouldn't even wash them. I would

give them because they're going to smell like the other dog. But I wouldn't pick it up off the street, give it to my dog. Okay. Well, Ruth, thank you so much for all of your wisdom and information here. I'm hoping that those who are struggling with some or maybe even all, hopefully not all that would kind of But you know, some of these issues at least have some, some starting points and some food for

But I know that you, obviously you're in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area, so people that are in that area can seek you out for in -person. But how would people get a hold of you if they wanted to pursue you to help them virtually or through the courses that you have to offer? So my website is creaturegooddogtraining .com. And you can find everything there. You can make an appointment for a free consult with me.

I have created a handout for the stuff we talked about today where I've written down my advice. People can download that through my resource library, social media, through my website. So that's the easiest way. Yeah. And I'm happy to answer questions and you know, I could talk about dogs like all day, every day. So you do, you already do. think it's my job. Yeah. All Well, great. Well, I put those, those links and information up on the show notes

Hopefully people who are struggling with this realize that this podcast is just a starting point. You don't have to go it alone. And I'm quite sure that the advice that we've given and I think we alluded to it throughout is that all dogs are gonna be a little bit different. All situations are different. So seeking out a consultation to basically say, here's my specific scenario is obviously gonna be even more helpful because Ruth would be able to give you specific advice tailored to your needs.

Amy Castro (52:35.191)
that's gonna fit your lifestyle, fit your dog's personality. I mean, that's just like anything, getting help from an expert's the easiest way to go. DIYing it is harder, but if you're a diehard DIYer, you can do that too. That's right, you've got options. You've definitely got options. All right, well, again, Ruth, thank you for being here and thank you to everybody for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. We will see and hear you next week.

Thanks for listening to Starlight Pet Talk. Be sure to visit our website at www .starlightpettalk .com for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss a show. If you enjoyed and found value in today's episode, we'd appreciate a rating on Apple. Or if you'd simply tell a friend about the show, that would be great too. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode of Starlight Pet

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