- Now a lot of people out there think
that being a leader means that you need to be really loud
and heavy handed and like a drill sergeant.
But today I'm gonna talk to you
about how you can be a great leader for your dog
without being any of those things.
I'm Kayl McCann, this is Grand Slam,
welcome back to McCann Dogs.
(gentle music) (dog yips)
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Today we're gonna talk about
one of the most important topics
when it comes to dog training,
and that is the idea of leadership.
Now, it's sort of a strange word
and it's something that gets thrown out a lot.
And unfortunately it's something that's misunderstood.
A lot of people think that leadership
is all about being really in charge
or being really controlling
or yelling and screaming at the dog
and getting them in trouble.
But I wanna talk to you about how you can learn
to be your dog's leader
in a much less confrontational way,
in a way that builds your relationship,
builds your dog's confidence,
and teaches them to like to listen to you.
In the 20 years that I've been
a professional dog trainer,
I've helped 10s of 1,000s of dog owners
to train their family pets.
And one of the most common things people ask is,
how do I get my dog to listen to me?
And of course there's many responses to that.
But one of the most important things is
that you learn to be a good leader for your dog,
because dogs love to listen
to whoever they feel is in charge.
And in fact, dogs seek leadership.
So it's really important that you are able
to provide that for your dog
so that they can sit back and relax
and let you do all the work.
People are often apprehensive
to go through some of the steps
that are needed to provide good leadership over their dogs.
When we start to ask people to implement structure
or rules or things like that,
sometimes people think
that the dogs are going to not like them
if they take away some of the luxuries
that they've already been giving their dog.
But the truth is, it's actually the humans
that are a little bit more worried about these steps
than the dogs are.
What we need to remember is that dogs are not babies,
they're not kids.
They have a completely different way of thinking.
So it's really important that we treat them like dogs
and that eventually, once they understand the rules
of where they fit in and that you are a good leader,
you get to spoil them rotten,
just like you've wanted to from the beginning.
How do you know whether your dog
needs more leadership or not?
Well, it's actually pretty easy.
You just need to look at, you know,
how are they handling the freedoms
and the luxuries that you're giving them already?
How good of a listener are they?
How well do they make good choices in your house
around distractions or your furniture or your kids?
How well do they listen
when you take them outside
and there's a lot of distractions?
Right there is gonna tell you
how much respect and how well do they listen to you
when there's other things
that could tear their attention apart
from being a good dog and making good choices.
It's very common for people to come to us with dogs
that are well under a year of age.
And sometimes the luxuries or the opportunities
that those dogs are given
allows the dog to make too many poor choices.
So what happens is the dogs start to learn bad habits
because they're maybe given too much freedom in the house
or too much opportunity to self-reward,
which means you become a little bit
less important in their life,
therefore you're gonna start to struggle
with some leadership issues.
So the goal is to come out
right from the beginning with your puppy
and to establish really good rules and structure.
And then as your puppy starts to show good behavior,
they start to make good choices,
we then start to give them more freedom
and more luxuries.
So basically the more well-behaved they are,
the better listener they are,
the more opportunity they get to kinda do their own thing.
What a lot of people don't realize is
that there's many things that you'll do in your dog's life
that your dog will view as an important resource.
And it could be something simple
as whether or not they're allowed
up on the furniture, the bed, the couch,
what toys they have available to play with all the time.
Do they have the ability to decide
whether they can go outside or not,
like with use of a doggy door
versus asking you to go outside first?
There's all kinds of scenarios or decisions
that can be made all throughout the day
that either the dog can choose to do on their own,
without your help,
or you can use those resources
that your dogs find valuable
and you can use them to your advantage,
to teach them that you're a leader
and you're in charge of those things.
And that right there is a great non-confrontational way
to say, "If you want this,
"you have to come through me first
"because I'm the boss.
"But guess what, it's a pretty fun thing
"when those things happen."
Now let's talk specifics.
Let's talk about non-confrontational ways
that you can teach your dog that you're a good leader
and to listen to you
without you having to be a big meanie.
So first things first is, say what you mean
and mean what you say.
So when you ask your dog to do a behavior
and they deliberately ignore you,
it's really important that you follow through.
And it could be something as simple
as asking your dog to sit.
So if you ask your dog to sit, for example,
and they're too busy sniffing the floor
or barking at a distraction,
all you need to do is repeat sit
in the same kind and neutral voice you did the first time,
and then follow through by helping him
to move into position.
But often what happens is,
people will start to say, "Sit.
"Sit, sit!"
And they'll get louder and angry
each time that they ask the dog
until the dog finally gets overwhelmed and learns to listen.
Well, I don't know about you,
but I don't wanna have to scream at my dog
in order for them to listen to me.
I want them to learn that if I ask them to do something,
they need to follow through.
So my follow-through needs to be really calm and collected
so the dog's not getting worried or stressed.
They basically just learn, "If mom tells me something to do,
"I really need to listen."
The other thing that we really recommend is
trying to put your dog in situations
all throughout the day
where they're less likely to make poor choices.
And this is how we train and raise our own puppies.
You know, in my house, I control scenarios
so that most of the time the dog is sort of
being influenced to make good choices.
So I spend most of my day reinforcing,
praising, playing with my dog
rather than saying, "Leave that, leave that.
"Don't, no," all that stuff.
I wanna try to avoid that.
Now of course if I need to help my dog
to understand a lesson,
if they make a mistake, I'll help them with that.
But I don't want that to be my primary way
of delivering information.
I might utilize things like my crate more often,
a leash or a long line.
I don't have any kids yet,
but we have baby gates in our house
and we barricade rooms off
so the dog can't go wandering and doing their own thing.
So we try to control the environment
so that the dog is less likely
to get into mischief and to learn bad things.
There's actually other easy things
that you can do to help show your dog
that you're a good leader.
It could be things like, you know,
don't just hand them food for no reason.
Make them do something for it.
It could be something really fun, too,
like doing a trick or asking them to sit or to lie down.
And then you can reward them.
It's fun to give your dog a treat just because they're cute,
but you're missing a perfect opportunity
to teach your dog that you're a good leader
and they should listen.
I often will have my young dogs
wait in their crate when I open the door
so that I can easily put the leash or long line on
before they barge out and I need to release them
so that I'm working a little bit of control
into those scenarios.
You can also do things like control their resources.
So typically when my dogs are young,
I don't have dog toys scattered everywhere around my house
so that the dog can go and play on their own.
I might have things like chew toys,
chew bones, or kong toys
that aren't gonna hurt my dog
if I'm not paying attention.
But I save the really fun toys
for times that we can play with them together.
Maybe it's through a game of tug of war
or a game of fetch.
But those things I want my puppy to associate with me
so that it gives it a more valuable role in the dog's life.
Now let's talk dogs on the bed
and dogs on the furniture.
Now, I will be the first one to admit,
my dogs absolutely snuggle on the couch with me
and they sleep in my bed.
But here's the thing.
I don't offer those luxuries to my dogs
until they have good training and they listen really well.
So in the time being, if you have a dog
that tends to be a bit unruly
or maybe they're not listening that well to you,
those are two areas that you can remove from your dog
as an extra luxury.
For example, if your dog is up on the couch,
make sure that if you tell them to get off,
that your dog happily gets off the couch when you ask.
Or maybe you come into the living room
and they're lying on the couch,
you know, in your spot.
Rather than going and find somewhere else
to sleep or to lie,
have them just move out of the way
so that you can sit there.
You know, maybe you have them sleep on a dog bed
beside your bed instead of up on your bed initially.
Or we usually start by having our dog sleep
in a crate beside our bed.
And then as time goes on and our relationship
and our skills start to get better,
then we start to allow them
to have those additional luxuries in the house.
But of course that's all personal preference.
If you wanna go your entire dog's life
without letting them on the couch or on the bed,
that's totally fine.
But we often suggest that you wait
until you've established some good control
before you allow your dog to do things like that.
Our ultimate goal is to be such a strong leader for our dog
that when they make poor choices,
we're able to redirect them
with the simple use of our voice.
But unfortunately when your dog is young,
you first need to teach them that your voice has merit,
that your voice, you know,
there's a reason to listen to you.
So this comes back to my follow-through comment.
If your dog is making a poor choice,
whether it be getting on the furniture
you don't want them to,
sticking their head in the garbage,
barking at the people walking by outside their fence,
it's really important that when you're asking your dogs
to not do those particular behaviors,
that you're then following through
with something that's gonna actually get them to stop.
It could be utilizing your leash
and you're maneuvering them away from that particular area,
or taking them and placing them into position
if you've asked them to sit.
Try not to be repetitive with your words.
Our ultimate goal's that our dogs learn to listen
the first time and every time.
And if your ultimate goal is to have your dog
to listen to your voice
without having to follow through at all,
it's imperative that you have good timing
when you're going to help your dog
understand these situations more clearly.
For example, if their head's in the garbage
and you tell them, "Leave it,"
try not to take 10 years to walk across the kitchen
and remove their head from the garbage.
Move close to them, repeat "Leave it,"
and then follow through using the leash.
Dogs learn within one second.
So it's really important that when we're teaching them
that we remember what time
and what types of information they need from us
in order for it to be clear and not confusing.
Be careful you're not allowing your dog
to spend extended time in the backyard
without you paying attention to them initially.
Be careful that you're not allowing your dog
to just have free range of your entire house
so that they can get in your laundry
and eat your kids' toys.
It's very important that you're trying to spend
quality time together as much as possible
so that the quantity isn't as important any more.
Here on the YouTube channel,
we often talk about three elements
that we find is very important in your dog training.
And that is to be consistent,
to be clear, and to be fair.
And if you can nail down those three elements,
you're bound to be a great leader for your dog.
Now we talked about many exercises today in this video
to help you establish yourself as a leader.
Now I've made a playlist
that has a lot of those exercises in them,
and you can check those out right here.
If this is your first time on our YouTube channel,
make sure you hit that Subscribe button.
We post brand new videos every single week
to help you to have a well-behaved
four-legged family member.
And on that note, I'm Kayl, bye for now.
Happy training.