- We all want to have a dog that listens reliably,
and a great way to get that is by
showing your dog that you're a great leader.
Now, in this video, I'm gonna talk
about some leadership training tips.
I've actually pulled seven examples
of great leadership training opportunities
from our Thursday night Livestreams for you,
so if you're looking to have that dog
who learns things faster and makes less mistakes,
then this is the video for you.
I'm Ken Steepe, and welcome back to McCann Dogs.
(guitar strum) (dog barking)
Dan and Ellen say, is indoor freedom
the same as outdoor freedom?
That's a great question. - That's a fabulous question,
and absolutely for sure, I find that sometimes
even when you give your dog a lot of freedom outdoors,
maybe without you being involved, it's very
self-rewarding because there's like, outside's tons of fun,
there's lots of things to dig and chew and chase,
and get into and... if you're giving them a lot of off leash
or outside freedom without you, some dogs can develop
barking issues, your recall, your come command can go
up the tubes really quickly, they can get into digging
and things like that so to answer your question, yes,
so what we do to manage the dog outside because we obviously
want them to go outside and have some fun,
is when they're babies we'll go outside with them
and we'll often attach a really, really long line,
so I'm talking like, we have a fairly decent sized yard
so we have about a 20 foot long, it's sort of like a
lunge-line almost, but it's like a long cotton web,
and the puppy, initially when they're first learning
we would keep it in our hand for safety.
But once the dog has a little bit of skills where they
can respond to their name and maybe they have a few little
verbal commands under their belt,
we would just let them drag that line around,
and we would only use it if we needed to,
so if they started to dig or started to bark at people
walking, you know, past our driveway,
then we could address the dog if they weren't listening,
we just have a bit of a backup, and then when
we're inside and we're controlling the freedom,
we would take the long line off because that would be a pain
of course, and we would put a leash on instead,
or if you have a really young puppy you could
even use like a long piece of rope.
And what we usually do is cut the handle off,
or cut the loop out so that it doesn't get caught on
things, and it still does get caught on things.
I'm not gonna lie there. - Yeah.
- It is a pain in the butt, but it's a pain
in the butt like 5% of the time,
and it's like a lifesaver 95% of the time.
So it like outweighs the annoying parts,
but that's sort of what we do with our leashes,
and again we're not pulling and dragging dogs around,
we're enhancing our verbal control,
but the line and the leash is there to back up
if we ask our dogs to listen to us and they choose not to,
which they will do, - Sure.
- When they're young and adolescent.
- They're learning - They're trying to
figure it out.
- Let's see Kathy's question, 'cause that's a good one,
she says I have a puppy that steals and runs
with everything, I use a leash in the house,
but when she does get something how do I get her
to drop the stolen object without using a treat?
And she's from Indianapolis, Indiana. So, that's a
really, really important question,
and we don't want to be training our dogs
for us to reward them... I guess
that's probably confusing sounding.
We don't want to teach our dogs that every time they do
something wrong we're - Mhm.
- going to bring out food, so you need to be really careful
about these types of situations
- I really like that you were able to...
- I know... - pinpoint that.
- It's really great Kathy that you could identify that,
this is where the house slang comes in handy,
you can reel your puppy in and all you've gotta do
in this situation is gently take their collar
and remove the object, but knowing that
you have this problem, you definitely wanna be working
on your out, this is something that we teach our puppies
very early on and we do use treats, when we're teaching our
puppy out, you know, with a puppy that offers up
the food in a separate event, you know, aside from these
situations where your puppy's stealing toys
and going for a run with it, you wanted to say something?
- Yeah, if my dog was to do that I would slip my hand
underneath the collar and I would actually roll the collar
up a little bit so I'd have more of a secure grip.
The other thing you wanna be really careful
that you try not to do is whatever object
is in their mouth, try not to pull it out,
because a lot of the times when you pull
something out of a dog's mouth,
they work against that and they'll actually grip much
harder, so what you actually wanna do is just
keep your hand in the collar and have your hand on
whatever's in their mouth but let it be really still and
sort of dull and boring - Yeah.
- So that the dog isn't really interested in continuing
to hold it and basically you're just gonna wait the dog out
because eventually the game of grabbing the toy
and running away with it or pulling on it,
it's not really fun anymore, because you're immobilizing
the whole game from stopping, and as soon as they finally
go ugh, this is a bore and they spit the thing out,
then you can say yay, good puppy!
And then you can play from there,
sometimes what I'll do depending on what the object is
of course, sometimes I'll let them have the object
back for a second and I'll tug and then I'll practice
my out, and then I'll have the dog release it to me,
and I'll give it back and then I'll release it
so we'll practice back and forth.
Obviously, there's certain items that
you don't do that with, but I would try to make sure
you get your hand on that leash and then slide
your hand down the leash right to the collar,
slip your hands right underneath it,
it's best if your fingers are underneath the collar
pointing towards the head,
you don't wanna be holding like this.
So underhand grip, you'll have way more control and power,
and you're just going to immobilize the dog but do not pull
on that item, because your dog's gonna think
there's a whole... - Tug time!
- Tug-of-war game about to start and then sometimes...
- Dogs love that game.
- The game is like, even more exciting so keep that item
limp and boring and dull, and then it's a waiting game
and you're gonna wait longer than the dog.
- Yeah.
When should a crate stop being used for overnights?
- This is totally dog-dependent so I don't wanna throw
an age out there, because all dogs are so different
it really depends on how well their house training
is going, how well their obedience and listening
is going, you know, are they doing a good job
with not chewing things in your house,
that's probably the big thing.
So it's hard to really say but you know,
when your dog you know, can be trusted
when you're not there, uh...
To not do bad behaviors, that I would say that would
be a similar time where you can start letting them
sleep out of their crate at night.
Bee-Line was pretty young when she started to sleep out
of her crate at night. - Yeah.
- But she also was really quick to not...
she wasn't really a dog that like
chewed a lot of things - No, no.
- But also keep in mind we're dog trainers and we don't
give the dogs many opportunities to make those errors.
- Right. - So we were able to give her
freedom overnight very quickly, I would say under a year
she was already sleeping out of her crate,
but it was definitely after the point where I completely
felt she was ready, it wasn't like okay, let's try this out
and see if still have a baseboard in the morning.
- Right. - It was, you know, I felt
very confident about what we were doing, so that would
be sort of my best answer, I don't wanna give an age,
it's more about behavior and the dog's ability
to make a choice by that point.
- So Lindy Smith mentions Hi I'm new here,
I follow you always my dog is crate trained
but when he's out he likes to run around the house.
How do I make him listen and to stay in one place?
So that's sort of a multi-tiered question but certainly
Kayl talked about using a house line or a leash,
so there's a video on the channel that is linked above
if you wanna check it out but having a leash
on your dog when they're in the house,
so that you can have a little bit of control of them
if they start to make a bad decision.
Actually a story that we heard from a student was
that she was getting her pill out for the morning
and her puppy was meandering about the kitchen
and she dropped the pill, and because she had a line
on the dog, she had the house line on the dog,
which is just a leash, you know, with the loop cut off.
Her puppy made a beeline for the pill and she was able to
step on that line - Mmm...
- So it's a real safety issue, but there's all sorts of
things you can do to have your dog want to listen to you.
But being sure that they're safe and supervised well
is the most important thing Lindy,
and using that houseline is going to be really helpful.
Check out our video on teaching your dog to go
lie on their bed - I was just thinking that.
- Yeah, that'll be a great one for you and then you can ask
your puppy to go lie down on their bed and they can rest
there and they're rewarded by it.
Steven said I let my 1 year old lab allow me to let
him set the training scheduling, one day he just stopped.
After that it was his choice if he wanted to,
he's past it but very few manners, back to square one?
Yeah, I love where your head is at,
you do understand that you need...
Here's the best training schedule, all different times of
the day, you know, don't set up like at 10:30 we're gonna
train or don't, you know, if your dog comes to you
looking like oh, take advantage of those times to train them
but also make sure that you're integrating it into your
making lunch, or maybe it's you know, after dinner,
or something but make sure it's throughout the day,
and it needs to be on your terms.
It's really, really important that both the...
Your dog's understanding that he needs to listen at all
times of the day, but he does need to listen to you
and it's not up to him when you guys train.
So, Brandon mentions how do we stop our little Boston
Terrier from pooping on the rug?
We try to keep him on a schedule but
we have to sleep sometime. Also, not keeping him in a cage.
So this really speaks to the idea of a crate,
now dogs are denning animals, so they naturally want to do
that kind of thing, they want to...
You might see your little Boston sleeping underneath
the table, you know, he might go and find a little
corner to curl up in because it's really comfortable
and it has that sense of security for him.
So, don't overlook the opportunity to, even if it's not
a cage, maybe it's a limited space area,
if that makes you feel better,
what's really important here is not giving him the
opportunity to make these mistakes,
because unless you're supervising him 100% of the time,
because you do need to sleep, then he needs to be
somewhere where he's less likely to make those bad choices.
- Yeah, to make the long story short you can't stop him
from pooping on your rug unless you put him in a crate or
some type of confined space, and it's probably
it sounds like it's you that has the issue with the crate
not so much the dog, so educate yourself a little bit more
on crates and all the fun things that you can do with them.
Because you know, it really will stop all kinds of bad
behaviors and most importantly it keeps your dog safe,
you know if you have to go out and you can't take the puppy
with you, you know, I would feel horrible if I went out
and my dog ate something that they shouldn't or you know,
chewed on an electrical cord or swallowed something and
I just had no idea, so number one it's for safety,
and you know, secondly, it's gonna solve a lot of unwanted
problems because you know, no one can supervise a dog
24 hours a day, there's just no one has that kind of time.
So that's why the crate is such
a necessity in your training.
- Dan and Ellen in Luton mentioned
we find the hardest, oh we just lost...
We find the hardest time to keep that freedom under
control is when friends and family are over.
- Oh yeah. - Everyone loves a puppy, it's
been hard sometimes to say no even
if we know it's the right decision.
- So true! - It's so true, absolutely,
but these are sort of the things where you...
- When people come over even like walking down the street
and you have a puppy people just get like,
these squeaky high-pitched voices...
- Yeah. - The moment they see a puppy
and it just makes our life a lot harder but...
- Absolutely and these are sort of the things, and we've
talked about this on previous livestreams and in some
videos, sometimes you've gotta be just a little bit...
What's the word I'm looking for?
Gruff, I don't know?
Abrasive? - Direct?
- Direct, I guess, yeah. When you're working on this puppy
stuff 'cause it's for the good of your puppy.
So there's been times when we will be out for, maybe we're
traveling or something and we have a dog or a couple of dogs
on leash and someone will say oh, your dogs are adorable,
are they friendly, can they meet my dog or can my dog
meet them, or whatever, and we will 100% of the time say no.
- Aah! - No, it's just not good,
especially for you guys with a young puppy in training,
it's just undoing all your hard work.
Now, there will come a time when they can go hang out
and they can go visit other dogs that you know,
and all of these things but that's long after
you've established that when you call they come to you.
You know, that they will sit and wait on a loose leash
beside you, you know, you sort of have to
have all these checks and balances before you allow
them that sort of freedom or to make those kinds of
decisions, because your puppy is
going to find that really gratifying.
- We find it a good idea if you are having people
come over with your dog is have the puppy or the dog
in their crate for the first couple minutes
until everybody gets in the house
and like the excitement of people arriving has
sort of settled a little bit, because that stimulation
can sometimes be just too hard of an environment
initially for the dog to be able
to make any good choices because they're just
so ramped that it's like, it's just not
gonna be successful so, you know, you always
can control the dog's environment by removing them from
it if you need to or getting them further away
from it, so rather than letting them get like, right
at the door and getting their head like poking
in everywhere, you know, have somebody
with the dog on the leash like back away from the door
a little bit, so that they can see the excitement
but they can't like, get right in to the hustle and bustle.
And then work some control exercises,
- Right. - We teach a controlled sit at
our left hand side where the dogs learn to be calm
and to be well-minded, and then once they're
settled you could let them go and greet from there,
but greet on leash so if they decide to jump up or
nip at people's hands, or whatever they do,
when they're excited, you have the leash to address
those issues opposed to just sorta
letting everything go free willy and hope that
it goes well, and you know, if the situation
is too overwhelming and your dog is not making good choices,
you need to be able to pull the plug,
and say okay, this is not good rehearsal,
I have been working my butt off and I can see
things unraveling before me, I need to
address this and get the puppy out of the situation.
- Now if you haven't stopped by already make sure
you pop by one of our Thursday night Trainstation
livestreams, so that we can answer your specific
dog training questions, and if this is your first time
on this channel make sure you hit that subscribe button,
so that I can help you have a well-behaved,
four-legged family member. On that note, I'm Ken.
Happy training!