KC 0:04
Hello, you sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to Struggle Care. I'm your host, KC Davis And I want to welcome you to a special episode with Andrew Gleason from dog savvy training. Andrew is my personal dog trainer that I train my dog with. And so Andrew, thank you for being here.
Andrew Gleason 0:21
Absolutely. Thank you for the introduction. Of course, we're
KC 0:23
doing a week of dog talk, kind of on the podcast this week. Okay, talk to a bunch of other trainers who have talked about things from the perspective of like, if you're somebody that struggles with mental health or disabilities, like what should you think about before you get a dog? And how should you train a dog towards things that you might like, strengthen weaknesses. And so that's been really those have been really fun conversations, but I really was excited to kind of talk to you, I'm going to ask you some of the same questions. But I also just love your whole approach to dog training. And it's different than what I've seen before. So can you tell us first like, what's a little bit of your background? Like what has brought you to being the kind of trainer that you are?
Andrew Gleason 1:02
So well, I'll do the CliffsNotes. I really got interested in relationships with dogs and dog trainers when I was very, very young, I loved my family's dogs, and was just fascinated with relationship with them. And the differences between humans and almost like had some really burning questions. Some things didn't make sense. Like, for example, I got bitten in the face one time by a neighbor's dog, and coming home crying bloody my dad was like, oh, yeah, you should probably shouldn't stick your face in the dog's, you know, head that, you know, now. And that right there, like was like, Well, I don't understand why like, what difference does that make? You know, and that kind of sparked the next almost 30 years of just asking questions, you know, and I grew up in I say, air, quote, grew up in a very traditional style type of training, I learned from some amazing trainers that were service dog trainers and pet dog trainers and hunting dog trainers. And so I have a different kind of diverse background, then a lot of different trainers, a lot of other trainers, but there always seemed to be to me some shortcomings that were just taken as this is the way we do things. And you know, after most 15 or 20 years, I just was kind of came to the end of myself, and I was like, I just don't think this is good enough. I think we could be doing better. I think we could be doing
KC 2:29
what were some of the things in particular that you felt like weren't quite connecting for you, for somebody that's listening that's maybe like, I don't really think about how they train dogs. Well,
Andrew Gleason 2:39
you know, so I would separate it in, you know, the popular training, which I often to refer to as like conventional or traditional training, but to somebody that doesn't know anything about training, that doesn't mean anything, right. So what I would say to further describe that is command base or obedience based programs. So when anybody goes and looks at a dog trainers website, you're gonna see different services they offer. And those programs generally include some variation or list of commands that they teach a set down away a place caught a here, all these things. And so what happens is, simply put, the time it takes for somebody to acquire the skill level to produce those behaviors reliable enough to function with a meaningful impact in their everyday life is extremely difficult. And what I found, and I'm not the only one who so I'm not speaking just, I mean, certainly I'm speaking my own experience. But this is not a unique experience in the dog training community. Again, tradition is very powerful. Oh, this is what we do. This is how we do things, right. But we find that in a lot of different industries, it's hard to think outside of the box. But just to give you an example, you know, I have a very high skill level of dog training. I've been training for almost 30 years, I've competed in obedience. I've competed in performance Canine Sports for police dogs, I've been all over the country doing that. And even internationally, trainers that are level in those arenas, frequently have dogs that fail, they're set or they're down, or their obedience or whatever it is, and and that's routine. So if somebody at my level of expertise and proficiency and skill of training, those behaviors routinely have things fall apart under pressure, what is the likelihood that I'm going to be able to get you to that skill level, that a sit or a down would actually count or some behavior that you're trying to work against?
KC 4:45
I love that you said under pressure, because I feel like when you think about teaching a dog to sit and feel or think they're like, Well, that's easy. I've taught my dog to sit and it's like, well, yeah, like I feel like when you talk about the conventional way, command base It's true, you're also talking about a conventional way of teaching commands of like, well, yeah, all you have to do is like reward them when they sit and maybe punish them when they don't, whatever, right. And like everyone could teach their dog to sit, but sit like there's such a difference now that I have a dog, I'm realizing like there's a difference between like parlor tricks and like functional commands in real life. Like, it's nice and cute that I can make my dog sit. But if I can't make my dog sit, when there's a cat running by, or when, you know, my daughter falls, and I don't want the dog to go jump on her like, then what's the point of putting in the work to have the dogs? You might as well have them play dead? Like, it's like, yeah, that's cute. And that's funny, but like, isn't giving me a dog that is better adapted at like being cohesive in my lifestyle, and like knowing how to live with us, or
Andrew Gleason 5:51
I mean, I think that's a great point that you bring up. And that was one of the things that was stewing for so long for me that I wasn't able to articulate, even if we could produce those sets and downs and weights and watch means in place caught, which are like all the big five, right, the popular five, you know, even if we could produce that, even if I could teach somebody to produce that level of skill in those behaviors, the question is, Does it really even solve what we're trying to solve? You know, which is, you know, brings me to the point is, it's like training all of that control. And that's what I'll call like, another word control based training. Generally, when we're thinking about obedience, or when anybody is thinking about dog training, whether No, nothing is, is our culture is so ingrained in this is obedience, my dog won't listen, I need them to listen, they need to be more obedient. You don't have to know anything about dogs to think that way. about dog training, right?
KC 6:47
I mean, we're that way about everything right? Were that way about children were that way about compliance, compliance, compliance, compliance,
Andrew Gleason 6:53
100%. And what I just began to discover is, is that that's not actually what most of my clients want. That's not really what I want. I'm not saying that nobody wants that, that we shouldn't have some level of mutual respect and compliance in the relationship. But dogs don't struggle with conceptual understandings or mechanical understandings of performance behaviors. I break that down a little bit. Yes, please do. Teaching your dog to sit is very simple. The only time you have a problem getting your dog to comply with that is when they are having big feelings or an emotional internal struggle, it is not their conceptual understanding of what you're asking them to do. They know how to turn the key on the car.
KC 7:37
Okay, so if I teach my dog to sit by saying sit and then giving them a treat, and never tolerated about my dog understands what sit means they understand the behavior that's expected by sit. And so if they're ever not sitting, the issue isn't they don't understand the set. The issue is they don't want to, I
Andrew Gleason 7:56
don't want to sit there stressed. They're over excited. They're overstimulated, they can have a mix of those emotions going on at a high intensity level. Here's the crux, right? Here's the kicker, we only generally need that obedience
KC 8:11
when they're in high stress. Yes.
Andrew Gleason 8:15
And to look at obedience as a way to control for the misbehavior of the dog. It's just the wrong viewpoint.
KC 8:24
And so let me ask you this. I feel like the average person when when you talk about dog training conventionally, like the name that comes to mind for me is Cesar Milan. Like so many of us grew up watching the dog whisperer, her whisperer, where this guy would come in. And he'd say, like, the reason your dog does it obey you is because he doesn't think you're the alpha dog, he doesn't think you're the leader. And you have to like, put down the hammer and show him that you're the leader or whatever. And one of the things I want to get your like opinion on that, but one of the things that I've also observed because I spent a lot of time on Tik Tok, obviously, and I follow a lot of dog trainers and all different kinds. And there's this really particular personality that seems to be attracted to that, like compliance based, it's always a dude. It's always a dude that has like a very, like, I don't know, it's very, like I'm so like, it's very, like, watch this as I walked down the street, and I go down, and the dog gets down and doesn't move and you're like, Whoa, and I feel like that's also a big part of like, a laypersons understanding of dog training. And so how much did Caesar Milans thing color? The dog were or what's your reflection of the dog world at that time?
Andrew Gleason 9:37
That's a really great, great question. You know, so many trainers currently are, I have the fortunate luxury to be old enough to have been in the industry for a very long time and seen a number of different pendulum swings. And that's what we tend to do just human behavior, right. Oh, this isn't working. So let's go clear to the other side of the you know, field But so Cesar Milan, I think, well, first of all, let me say this amazing marketing team. Like, the videography is magic, you can make anything, look, whatever you want. And so, kudos to Caesar Milan's charisma and his marketing team, as far as the information that I think that was received in that really did influence, I would say, a large portion of professional trainers, but but more so the general public. And I think that I still encounter people with that mindset. And I don't judge anybody for how they what they know and what they don't know. But I don't generally have any pushback, trying to help them to a more healthy, more harmonious kind of approach and mindset towards relationship with another animal. You know, it certainly affected things. And I would say from a dog sample, let's just talk about panels. I don't know any animal that thrives under that type of dominance and control and perceived threat,
KC 11:08
not to mention the whole like Alpha Dog theory has been completely debunked in case people don't know that it was originally this study that a man did on wolves, where he was like, Oh, there's one alpha wolf that kind of is the leader, and everyone has to listen to him. And he makes challenging does that. And then like, the actual like, person that wrote the study came back later was like, oh, nevermind, like actually, that's only in like captive wolves that are in like, this weird place. And it's not that doesn't happen in nature, like they're much more community based in their packs. And even so, like domestic dogs are not wolves. And like, it wouldn't apply even if it was but like, we no longer think the Alpha theory is a thing. And you're right, like, we're at an age where we remember Cesar Milan, and also at an age where, like, when I was growing up the trainers that came in, I mean, my husband, I have talked about this, like that was the era of Well, if your dog goes to the bathroom in the house, rub their face, like stick their face in it and scream know at them, right or like put them on their back. So you know, who's whatever.
Andrew Gleason 12:03
Okay, see, that was like common knowledge. I mean, you know, when I first started professionally, training in 1996, I was 16 years old, that's a long time ago, and training has progressed exponentially since then, our understanding of what can actually be accomplished, the complexities of learning in the animal is far more deep than we originally knew. And our culture has shifted, right. And so taking a newspaper to their nose, you know, and swatting on their nose was absolutely common knowledge and not really thought of as like unusual or bizarre. But our dogs have become so much more part of our lives. And we form deeper and stronger connections and have a desire to do that with our dogs at the same time that that's occurring. Our lifestyles and work life home. I hate that word balance. But it's also changing at a rapid pace. It is faster paced, it is more stressful, it has different components in it than it ever has before, we are more distracted than we have been before. And when you put those two things together with a very sentient, complex social animal with more expectations, you know, this idea that we're just going to dominate and control them is a little bit short
KC 13:21
sighted, what are some of the negatives or some of the fallout that you have seen as a trainer from that style of, well, let's just go really heavy on commands, let's go really heavy on and here's the thing that's really interesting about this is that I talked about human psychology, right? And you're kind of like the dog psychology world. And in particular, when you think about human psychology and our education system, it's very operant learning for a lot of parts. And especially as you get into special education, right, which is, oh, well, here you have this child is autistic, and they don't know their numbers will just sit them down at it at you know, for a few hours at a table. And when they point to the right letter, you reward them, right, whether it's with a cheerio or praise or iPad time. And if they don't, we put in either some negative reinforcement or some positive punishment, whatever, like, Okay, you can't have this until you do x. And what they found was like it works, you can absolutely condition a behavior from a child, but there was negative fallout from that, right? We would get kids 1020 years later who had gone through some of these therapies going this was traumatizing going, Hey, I'm, yeah, yeah, I learned to make eye contact. But what I really learned was to suppress how painful eye contact was for me to please you. And what I find so interesting is that when you started talking about the fallout of that conventional dog training, it sounded a lot like the fallout from sort of that conventional education response, which is, yeah, dogs were learning, but what were they learning and what was happening to their emotional well being, and then what was that dysregulation of the emotional well being kind of causing that was not great. So
Andrew Gleason 15:00
I would say, there are two general responses that will find in a dog who is undergoing that type of training. And listen, there's a spectrum of what I just call air quote that type of training, right. And so we'll just reference Caesar kind of the Alpha more dominant approach, control bass, that can happen in varying intensities, you can be extremely dominant, right or extremely alpha with your dog, or you could just generally subscribe that you need to be in control of things, right. And that would be a little bit of a spectrum. So let's just talk about the two largest responses that dogs would give you in those scenarios under those circumstances. One is the dog's individual makeup and personality is going to either tend to suppression or reaction, and because it's hostile on the emotional system, and so I'm not saying somebody is hostile towards their dog, I'm saying that approach and the techniques generally applied, whether it's a Caesar approach, or whether it's a very heavy handed kind of punishment approach with less Caesar ish dog trainers and more science based dog trainers with punishment, the dogs will either tend to suppress behavior, or they will tend to what we would call like, go into a defense drive, and that defense drive would manifest itself as maybe barking back or, you know, fighting that. And if we think about humans, this is like, that's gonna be our general responses in humans to I'm either gonna, like verbally disagree with this, get on it real quick, or we're going to be the type of person who just kind of gets quiet and like, starts to just like, know, their place, you know, like, whoop, but I'm not going to step out like that again. But we didn't change behavior in a very healthy way for the dog. And here's the seductive part of it. The seductive part of it, if you have what's called dog, a response is the suppression the seductive part of that for the human is that the behavior that they were trying to address stopped, therefore, it's highly reinforcing to the human because their frustration or embarrassment, or anger over that particular behavior is now gone. And that's when I hear you know, things like it was great training, training was awesome. That speaking from the emotional human side of the problem, meaning I don't have any more problems with my dog, except we have a dog over here that's like it came at the cost has problems. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I always separate like, you know, any new client that I have, I really want them to and help them understand that there are two distinct sets of problems. There are the problems that your dog is struggling with. And almost invariably, they're all some type of emotional conflict that the dog isn't able to resolve themselves. Well, okay, that's what produces the frustrating behavior, that not being able to listen, the chasing the squirrel and all of these different things, right. So that's the problem the dog is having, well, that creates our human problem, whether it's embarrassment or frustration, or I just don't feel like I'm connecting with my dog, and they're not listening. And so when you get hired, it's really to solve the human problem. Like I don't want to be frustrated anymore, right.
KC 18:16
So can we use this example that I think will be helpful for the audience? Let's take something like leash walking, okay. Okay, so let's say that, you know, a person would say, like, my dog won't walk on a leash, they're pulling, they're not staying neck, they won't stay in a heel, they're barking at people. How would you give us a little like autopsy of in that snapshot? What are the human's problems? And what would you say the dogs problems? Yeah,
Andrew Gleason 18:40
so I mean, the dog could be having a number of problems. But let me just create the scenario here. More often than not, the dog is in an emotionally excited state. So we got a lot of adrenaline and dopamine and serotonin enroll in, there are lots of stimulations around, which is very distracting, you know, just behaviorally and to the dog, there could be some stress elements, because it wasn't really exposed properly in the process of socialization. So some of those things can be a little bit overwhelming. And so we have a generally, what we have is this very big mix of big feelings. And then the human is layering some type of control mechanisms over the dog to get it to do something else. And so we have this back and forth with a dog who, and I'm just going to use the term stress not necessarily as negative, but just the impact of what's going on in the nervous system is it stressed it's overworking and then in that exact moment where the dog isn't the most conflict that could be in internally, I'm also or the owner is also struggling with that behavior trying to control it. So we have a lot of conflict there both for the dog and the human and it ends up being very frustrating and not enjoyable for both but there are two problems so
KC 19:57
the dogs problem is Your stress, overwhelm over stimulation. And then like as the owner, my problem is the dog fiddling, right? The dogs pulling the dog won't walk the dog is lunging. So that would be my problem. That's the dog's butt. Okay?
Andrew Gleason 20:12
And it's not enjoyable for you, and I get a call on my dog. It's miserable. Which is so common, right? I mean, no judgment it is. And so
KC 20:21
I saw this tick tock video the other day of somebody who was saying, like, Okay, here's me teaching a dog how to walk on leash. And it was interesting, because he was sort of like an old school trainer. And then there was a newer trainer that do WeDidIt, where you can see that video side by side, and she said, Watch how I'm going to do this in a different way. And it was really interesting to watch these two diverging ways. So the first guy what he does, and he doesn't tell us if there's any pre work to this. So we have to assume there is no pre work, we haven't put any pre skills to this dog, just fresh dog, right, so he puts the leash on it, and he starts to walk. And he's got a real tight leash on the dog. And he's basically like walking a few feet and turning really quickly. And as he turns, he yanks on the leash the dog, like look like kind of has to go with them. And he just does that over and over and over. So I'm doing tight turns so that basically, he does it so long. And then combined with that pop that the dog kind of goes, I have to be paying attention to you 100% of the times, I don't know where you're gonna go next. And if I don't pay attention, there's this discomfort on my neck. And so, you know, obviously, you watch that, and eventually the dog kind of starts to walk on the leash or whatever. And it was interesting, because to me, that was kind of like that old school, here's my heavy hand in control, mostly that I don't know the that I get the scientific words, right, whether it's punishment, or negative reinforcement, or whatever. But then the other person said, let me show you how I do this. Because the way you're doing it is confusing to your dog. There's no pre skills here. There's no whatever. And so she took her dog and she had like a handful of treats. And she just started walking with her dog as the dog like walked with the treats or whatever. And so it's like, Oh, that's interesting. It's almost like the to kind of like polar opposite approach is very different, right? And what I think is interesting, and I want to hear your thoughts on that. But then I also want to talk about what you mentioned, the pendulum swing, so thoughts on that, like, oh, yeah, we leash the dog up, and we just walk and we pop him when he doesn't do it. And we, you know, whatever. Okay, so
Andrew Gleason 22:19
let me back up to our previous conversation and mentioned something that's relevant to this, when we're talking about any type of learning whether it's human, or, I mean, we're animals, right? We're mammals. So we need to separate that into two different categories. One of which, and gent like, in talking to you, I'll use a little bit of lingo, but when I'm working with my clients to kind of use any trainer, complicated jargon lingo, but this is relevant, because it'll make a distinction, we have what's called constructional model learning. And then we also have what's called Emotional model, learning. constructional was what I was referencing earlier, when I said, like, understanding the conceptual like tasks of a set or a down, you know, and the biggest human, the easiest human example that I use often is understanding how we learned how to drive a car, like I knew where the gas and brake pedal and how to turn the key and the wheel, and the blinkers. And all of those things, I knew exactly how that worked well, before I knew how to drive. But as soon as you get in the car, and it's moving, and you're behind the driver's wheel, that conceptual like understanding of the mechanics begins to be tested under emotional pressure. So going back to the walking is that generally the dog can grasp the concept of it, but he's having problems with the emotional model learning to be driving in five o'clock downtown Austin traffic, right. And that's where we tend to jump to with the dog because that's where our problems are. So we jump to the where the dog is having the largest problem, because that's really only where my problem is. And in both scenarios, that's where the training was happening, where the dog is having the most problems, because that's generally again, where the human problem starts, that we tend to try to solve our problems. And but our problems only really occur when the dog is in the most conflicts, we need to back up and like you said, pre skills. And so you know, whether it's using food to teach a walk, or using what we call social pressure, which is all the terms and stuff, both of those are going to have fundamental flaws in them. And I think lots of methods would have some weaknesses, some have strengths, and some have weaknesses. Let's talk about the one that's turning because that's extremely popular. You're gonna see that all over online. That's one in particular, that requires a pretty high skill level of timing and execution, and understanding what the dog's responses are to each one that most trainers just are. It's outside of their awareness how much skill and timing that that requires. The other thing is is like well, what was the animal learning in that right? Well, great, I got my dog to finally walk next to me. Well, it's really concerned that something is going to change and get uncomfortable real fast.
KC 25:11
Yeah, almost like teaching hyper vigilance. Yeah, that's exactly.
Andrew Gleason 25:14
But here again, that's a really great illustration of that, if the dog is no longer doing the things that they were frustrated about, our tendency is to say, oh, man, I feel so much better my dog is, you know, listening, right. And so and on the other hand, like using food to teach a walk, you could get, and this is my experience, my approach, where I feel like that's a better approach, but still has a really critical component that's difficult to deal with is that if you use food to produce a well behaved walk, you now have to fade that food out of the picture, and still maintain the performance that you've got with the food.
KC 25:57
Yeah, not to mention the fact that like, with my dog, at least, she won't take food at a certain stress level. So like, I could do that in my living room all day long. And then like the first time I took her into the front yard, she wouldn't take food. Yep. So it's like, what do I do now? Yep.
Andrew Gleason 26:12
Now you've lost your biggest leverage in learning and supporting learning and helping them learn. And that's also really common. And just to, you know, for everybody listening to give you some idea of what's happening when you see that occur is that internally, the dog has an I forget what you call window of tolerance, you call it a window of tolerance, yeah, has exited their window of tolerance and is stressed. Again, I use stress generally, right? That could be excitement, or that could be distress, or it could be both has left their window of tolerance to the point where they are refusing food that can occur with us, too. If we were under enough pressure, enough excitement, enough distress, somebody just died or whatever. There are points in our day in our lives where we would refuse food. And so to just give you some kind of idea to place yourself in your dogs, it doesn't matter if the dogs not like being aggressive. It means that something internally is going on to where they can't manage that and they are now food inhibited. Or we want to work on that. Yeah,
KC 27:15
it was so eye opening to me when I like the first time I took my dog on a walk. And she was in my eyes fine for several blocks. And then all of a sudden, she saw something she spoke, she turned she tuck tail. She ran home pulling all the way and I happen to have videoed it and showed it to you. And it was really eye opening for you to say like, Okay, so for you when you describe it was I didn't have a problem. And then I had a problem because she was pulling home even though I was thinking it was her Oh, she had a problem. And her problem started blocks ago, her problem started literally when you took her out the front door, and she became overwhelmed. And she wouldn't take food from me. But she wasn't giving me any behaviors that were problematic to me, or that even read to me. Like if she had been like cowering and shaking, oh, I've been like, oh, no, let's go inside. But I didn't see those. And so like, some of that is just like, being able to understand, like reading a dog's signs, right. But that was eye opening when you were like, you know, we can't just focus on solving your problem, we have to tend to what her problems are first? Absolutely. And that's when we started talking pre skills.
Andrew Gleason 28:23
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, what I have found is the fastest best way to solve the human end of the of the relationship problems is to target and zero techniques and methodologies that support the dogs learning and resolving their problems. Because the moment they don't have any emotional issues or conflict that's driving their ideas and attitudes and behaviors, the moment that's resolved, we don't have any issues with our dog ever.
KC 28:53
Okay, so what are some of the problems that we see with that suppression later, because if I'm listening to oh, they suppress the behavior, and I'm going well, that's what I want. I want you to suppress jumping up on my guests, I want you to suppress, pulling, I want you to suppress those things. But what are some of the things that I know in my term when I talk about people is I say comes out sideways. So you know, maybe I'm irritated with my friend or my partner, but I know not to be, you know, cruel to them or rude to them. So I suppress that behavior, but I don't actually deal with my internal resentment. And so it comes out what I call sideways which is I may be on passive aggressive later over something totally unrelated. So like, what are some of the things that like, so even if I was someone who's like, well, I don't care if my dog is emotionally regulated? I just care if the behavior suppressed. Why should that person still care? Because it seems like it's not just oh, your dog will be unhappy, which personally I think that should be enough. Sure. But it seems like there's this like behavioral fallout that happens. Oh man, where you see things go wrong. If
Andrew Gleason 29:57
I were on the phone with that person, I think I would bring and how it would impact the dog, but more particularly in how that approach will continue to impact her life in ways that are his life in ways that she's not anticipating or that they're not anticipating, which would be first of all, you're absolutely right, that's going to come out sideways. And I usually, like if we had a, you know, a boiling pot, we had a lid on top of it, we have all these holes that can the steam can comes out, well, if we just suppress this one and suppress this one and suppress this one, like it's going to that steam is going to come out somewhere. And so but that may not really necessarily be relevant to you know, okay, that's fine. Well, the impact of that is that now you're going to be chasing behaviors, and that you actually they may actually not be connecting the one with the other. So let's talk about some restless hectic behaviors, let's say about digging in the backyard, talking about chewing, whether that be shoe or your baseboards or a piece of furniture, we could talk about demand barking, let me define that a little bit barking for your attention specifically for your attention to do something and getting frustrated when you don't do the thing so that they bark at you. So those are really common behavior at leash biting, like the dogs just overwhelmed on the walk. And they just turn around and bite the leash and, and that kind of stuff. So if we stop those and punish them, lots of different ways to punish things. But I just want that to stop and I want the chewing to stop and I want the digging to stop. And so command based and control based training comes over and says okay, cool behavior happens in a vacuum, and that we can address these isolated issues as if they're totally unrelated to anything else going on underneath this. And that the reason the dog was driven to those behaviors was probably out of a place of frustration that didn't know where to go, right. boredom, restlessness, hectic, energy, anxious, whatever, right? unresolved, it's got to go somewhere emotions are energy, well, we just cut off all of the steam escapes. And now what we have is maybe we're getting even more reactive out on a walk. Or now maybe we're trying to dig under the fence and escape.
KC 32:09
This is where the videos of like people come home and their drywall is missing. Like the dog has taken the entire drywall out. Or like I think the the one that concerns most people outside like those things are all concerning. But I think also like when we talk about bites, like I had a trainer say to me recently, like, like the most of the people that call after a dog bite 75% of them are going I'd never in a million years would have thought my dog would have bitten, like, and we see so many, you know, maybe shows or examples where it's like, oh, he's bitten three people, and what do I do or he growls he lunges and just like you always think like, that's the dog that's gonna bite. But she said that 75% of the dogs that bite when she gets called, he's the friendliest. He's that he we never would have thought he would he's never growled at anyone he's never. And that's like one of the most severe sort of like sideways or like blow your top behaviors. Well, the
Andrew Gleason 33:02
other thing is the statement that he's never done it at XYZ is missing some information. I'm not saying that they're wrong, I'm just saying that it's missing a little bit of information, we generally talk about our dog's problems through the lens of our own. And I think we probably do that with our kids to some degree. But you know, if the dog, let me give you an example, if the dog doesn't have behaviors, that frustrate the owner, and that affect them negatively, whether it be embarrassment, or frustration, or worry, or whatever it is, then the response is, oh, he's a great dog. And he may well be a great dog, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have any struggles or problems of his own. And in the case that you're describing, particularly a prone to stress, right, the dog may be prone to stress, but the behaviors that are exhibited from that stress just may particularly not bother you. And so that's why they say like, Oh, he's been fine, I would have never expected meanwhile, for last three years, the dogs been really stressed out. And it's just been building up. And you know, and that's their defense mechanism. By the way, you know, they use their teeth and under pressure, different dogs will respond more quickly or less quickly to those things. So
KC 34:13
we've been talking a lot about some of the problems of what I would my terms of like the very heavy handed almost like Whack a Mole behavior, compulsion compliance things. So let's then talk about the pendulum swing. Because the other content that I see all over my social media, is this the term like force free training, positive reinforcement, only training, right, which is, it's admittedly very much more holistic. You have people that begin to have those conversations about relationships and trust and you know, it's okay, like, I saw one the other day where he goes, it's okay that your dog doesn't always obey you. Like they have thoughts and feelings. And I'm not saying that it's not important to do training. It's not important to Yes, I have to keep my dog out of safety. I want my dog to have a solid recall. But also, like, we don't have to, there's not this panic of like, I'm not a good dog owner because every time I asked, my dog doesn't do XYZ, and another one that I follow that talk to she, he had his four dogs in the front yard to off leash to on a long lead. And he said, here's the deal, like, you don't have to train your dog to be off leash. And some dogs may never be off leash dogs, either. Because you don't, the time it would take to make that dog an off leash dog, it's just not realistic for your lifestyle, or because you don't have those needs. And he's like, I'm a professional dog trainer, I have two dogs that can go off leash all day, I have to keep on long leads, for one reason or the other. Like, that's fine. It's fine, like your dogs are there to live with you and be happy and do this and did that. And I actually really appreciated a lot of these new ways of looking at, you know, is your dog happy? Does your dog trust you? Is it a relationship? And so I'm curious if you could talk about from your experience of being a dog trainer for so long? Like, how have you seen that pendulum all the way over? Because the other thing that happens on that side is don't use any force, right? And force is everything from a leash pop to the E collars to you know, what are like any kind of force, right? No newspaper rolls, no squirting No, all of that stuff. And so I'm curious, what are some of the pros and cons perhaps that you've seen from that shift all the way over to this very kind of almost warm and fuzzy. I don't mean that me and I really, I really appreciate so much of the force free movement, well, and I
Andrew Gleason 36:30
do 200% A dog training would not be where we're at today. Without that movement, the and I'll say like, the technologies that we have the training technologies, the techniques, and the methods, and just the technical understanding of certain things is improved so much because of that, I have learned so much of what I do from that kind of movement, I think, from my standpoint, and I've been trained under both and sought out both, because I'm just that person, I'm just curious. And like, I want to learn how to learn, and I want to learn why this works and why it doesn't work, and what are the shortcomings. And that's just the nature that I am very curious. So they're both exactly the same.
KC 37:19
Ooh, tell me more in that
Andrew Gleason 37:21
the fundamental approach is to change behavior, which is the outward most thing that we see. But it is all driven by thoughts and emotions.
KC 37:37
You know, what I thought you were gonna say, which I think is still accurate, when you said they're both the same. What first came into my head was, it centers around how the person feels? Yeah, what 100%, right. Because like, on the compulsion side, you have, I must be in charge, I must be respected, I must be the leader. I don't like these behaviors. I want these behaviors to stop these behaviors are a problem for me. And I think the error that can happen on the full other side is like, I don't ever want my dogs to feel discomfort. I want my dogs to be happy. I want them to trust me, I want them to be I want all of their
Andrew Gleason 38:10
which is still all about the human. Yeah, yeah, it's very human centric. And the both of the models the ideology, and the approach centers around controlling behavior, influencing and changing behavior, not saying that's wrong, I'm just saying that shallow, there are three levels of effect, but we need to think about kids, right? If I constantly meet them at a behavioral level, and try and adjust and modify and change their behavior. And that's all that like, you know, we're trying to do is implement control measures around behavior, we're gonna have problems like big problems, right. And I think, you know, we generally accept that idea with our kids. And then when we look at a dog, it's all flies out the window. And that's big, partly because our training industry is so entrenched in such conventional thought that we, it's very hard for us to think outside of our box, as it is with any other industry of training, lots of professional training, and conventional training tends to create rigid thinking, you know, and so, and that's why I say they're really the same. They look very different. They sound very different. And I
KC 39:13
would rather someone err on the side of being to force free than being to compulsion. Oh,
Andrew Gleason 39:19
absolutely. Well, there's gonna be a lot less learning fallout in that approach than the other and then we're going to have a lot more success because of that. But there are going to be some limitations because we're throwing the bathwater on both ends both of this doing that.
KC 39:33
So what is the baby? Like what you don't I mean, like, what's the core stuff that tends to get thrown out? So
Andrew Gleason 39:40
I feel like limitations and boundaries are really healthy, implemented creatively, in a healthy way, tends to produce the same healthy optimism, connection. Respect, I don't mean that like as a dirty word like you need to respect me, mutual respect, right? Like, and I think that part of our relationships with friends, family, coworkers, kids, dogs really needs to have an element of that to be complete.
KC 40:19
You it's interesting that you say that because I have two thoughts, and I don't want to forget them. So the first one is going to be about boundaries. The second one is going to be about the mutual respect thing is like one of the things that has been so different. And our approach to Luna, our dog is not just focusing on trying to get her to understand how we're communicating to her, but also taking steps to understand how she's communicating to us. So for example, when we're out in the backyard playing, you know, like, we want her to understand when we communicate, like, Hey, we're done, or like, you can't jump on me while we're playing. You can't run after my kids when we're playing. But at the same time, like, I've taught everyone in my family, and we just sort of this wasn't a behavior we taught, it was something we observe, and now respect that when Luna lays down with a toy, she's done. So leave her alone, don't go take the toy away from her, don't go try to make her fetch more. And we just early on observe that and said, Okay, we're gonna allow that to be her signal to us that she's done. And she even if it's just done for a few minutes, and it's been like that approach and all areas where it's like, hey, we know that when she does this behavior, she's communicating a feeling. And so how can we have respect that feeling? You know, when she's asking for space, or when she wants affection, or when she's confused about something, or when she's scared about something, or when she wants to lay down and rest. And I feel like that is a really big thing that we took from your approach, even though you never told us specifically to do that. But it was like, if we really want a symbiotic relationship, we're learning each other here, right. And then the force free trainers that I really respect are the ones that talk about like, there's a difference between being permissive. And when you're forced freeness. And having boundaries, because we still teach boundaries. And I definitely have seen people do that. But I'll go back to something else that you taught us that I think was like kind of like life changing when it comes to tools, because there's a big controversy about tools, how you use collars, or slip collars or prawn collars, or E collars or any kind of tool like that, and which was around the idea of punishment or negative reinforcement, right? Pressure that like pressure, whatever we're to call all of that, right? That tools should never be used to. I'm trying to think of a way to put this because there's like a layman's way of saying the word punishment. And then there's like, behavioral scientific way of saying punishment, do the what I mean, so I'm talking layman's terms, that tools are for clarity, not punishment. And what I mean by that is that we can use pressure or certain tools, sometimes people use that in a way that says, if the dog does what I don't want it to do, I will make disobeying me such an uncomfortable experience that they will be afraid to do it. That, to me is what I'm talking about when it's like punishment. Right? Versus I know, the way that people and animals learn is that when they have a positive experience with something, they want to do it more. And when they have an aversive experience with something they want to do it less and using an aversive not to teach. If you don't listen to me, it hurts. But instead to teach clarity around this is what I'm asking you to do. Does that make sense? I feel like it's a fine line. But like I just I don't know, you know, there's I'm sitting with my dad doesn't know a lot about dog training this morning. And we use a squirt bottle right in some of our training. And part of that that we've done from you is that as much as possible, the squirt bottle can never be like known by the dog. Does that make sense? Like we don't take it and wheeled it out. And like so we hold? Yeah, so we're sitting there and the dog is not allowed to jump up. And so I sit in a certain position when I think the jump might be coming sort of inconspicuously, and when she jumps we squirt, and that makes her get down. And then the moment she gets down, there's a reward for getting down. And then every time we see her come up and not jump, there's rewards. And so it's like 99% rewards based, but sometimes she needs that clarity of like, what exactly is it? And so we've tried to use those two. So we're sitting there, and then the dog comes up and wants to play. And so she's pushing into my dad with this toy, which is like how she asked to play and he's like, stop it, stop it. I don't want to play I don't want to play and he goes, give me the squirt bottle. And I was like, no, because in his mind it was if you're doing something I don't want you to do, I can use a squirt bottle to give you an uncomfortable experience so that you'll stop doing it and go away. And I'm having a hard time explaining that those are two very different things and have different effects. Maybe you can do better. So
Andrew Gleason 44:54
as you know, because you're one of my clients. That's actually a big conversation that We touch on a number of different things so that we can get real clear on what it is and what it isn't and how we're going to accomplish really good clean learning for the dog without creating a bunch of Fallout and the process, learning fallout in the process, but really simply like, so just the bushes take an isolated like, I'm going to squirt you for doing something you don't want me to do. And without other things happening around that there's really no, there's very little learning that happens. Except for learning from pain or discomfort. It's really important when we're dealing with dogs, to establish a very simple one communication system, but to we need to help the dog learn how to learn. And that means simply put, we need to be able to communicate in ways that say, Yes, I like that, keep doing that. But that isn't the whole story of how to learn, we also have to have ways to say no, I don't like that, I'd like to see less of that. And there's 100 ways to accomplish each one of those. But in my experience, in my approach, we need both and that both actually done well creates a sense of safety. And both myself, my wife and my co workers and my kids and like and my dogs and sense of safety and security and expectation and predictability, right. But we have to put a little bit more thought, you know, the I'm gonna go to the extremes here, the heavier handed the punishment side is more there's just stop the behavior, we have less concern about the fallout from that not saying that it doesn't happen. I'm not saying that there aren't things to try and counter that. And then of course, the force free side is we don't want to use any of that, because of the fallout. And just over 30 years, I'm like, Well, I don't really like either, because I don't think either is a complete full, you know, learning system for the dog, right. And that going back would be the baby out of the bathwater, right is from this side, we're just not caring for the emotional development and how it learns and the emotional fallout that can come with those type of punishments. And on the other end, the baby is the limitations and boundaries can be able to communicate clearly and develop that system for the dog in the way that the dog understands and feels optimistic about.
KC 47:22
And I want to tie that back to a point that we made at the beginning in case people have some confusion, because at the beginning we sort of talked about, it's not hard for a dog to learn what to do in terms of like sit lay down, rollover, blah, blah, blah. But those behaviors are in isolation. I think it's a lot harder to teach a dog to do something different when there's a lot of things. So when I'm in a quiet room, every time the dog sits, I give them piece of food that learning is easy, right? So we go under and derogatorily like the parlor tricks, kind of like the basic commands, but teaching my dog not to jump up on someone is like, there's so many other variables happening, because he doesn't speak English. Right? So if she jumps and she hears No, well, first of all, does she know what no means? And if she does, what know what, no, getting close to this person, no jumping on this person. No being happy to see this person, no king, this person, like I just did nine behaviors at once, like what's the know? Right? And then if we come in with an aversive whether it's a you know, this that of the other, let's say the squirt bottle, and she backs up? Well, now she's going okay, I get that the answer was no, but no what No, this person like is this person every time I it's a bad thing happened to me every time I'm with this person. Like there's other things that are a lot more complex for a dog to learn than just sit stand, which are like, honestly, the things that matter the most.
Andrew Gleason 48:50
Yeah, so what you're saying is, is like, and you're exactly right, like just saying no to the dog, or even just squirting the dog may not convey all of the information that we think it should be conveying, and that we assume that it is and the dog could be learning any number of things along with don't do this thing, right? Just it could absorb and we call that learning Fallout or we call that superstitious Association. It did learn the thing, but it also grabbed this other learning that were just really wasn't the point. Right? And that's kind of what I teach when we bring in something aversive is is that let's and I explain this with a conversation that an example of you know, person A and person B in how we interpret and emotionally respond to boundaries, right a boundary conversation and so we all have different you know, people in our lives and Person A vi communicated a boundary like say he offended me or something, or crossed a personal boundary. Maybe he didn't know, you know, that's fine. But I said, Hey, listen, that makes me a little uncomfortable. And I would appreciate if you wouldn't do that in the future. Cool. Great person is like, Oh man, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that. I feel like I know you better that's a little uncomfortable. But I certainly don't want to cross your boundaries. And thank you for telling me that right person a person B, same conversation, same boundary, I say the same thing. And they're like, Oh, my God, you hate me, you're never going to talk to me again. I don't feel good about this. And I'm really embarrassed. And I feel shame. Now, it was the same boundary, it was the same context. But the learners A and B had very different emotional responses to that. And so in my mind, it's not whether you use or don't use punishment, or that even really being the conversation that we need to have is is that first of all, how did a become an A? And how can we help a B become an A, and can we even do that, and it before I bring in any type of correction, boundary aversive for some type of behavioral learning, I really need to teach that aspect, that function of optimism that he has that beat doesn't, if I can shape a dog, and help them become really optimistic, meaning I'm going to expect pleasant outcomes from the conversation or the correction, well, then I can begin as the human, the handler, the owner, or the trainer, or whatever, then I can begin to actually have those conversations with zero emotional fallout. But there's some things that I still need to care for in that process, so that I can continue to maintain their strong optimism. But if I use that, and teach the learning system about that idea, and attitude first, I want that intact before I ever use it, to talk to them, or, quote, talk to them about a specific behavior
KC 51:36
that really was the game changer, I think in how we've been approaching Luna using your system versus like, what I remember growing up because like, what I remember growing up when my parents had aversives that they were using with our dogs, it was like the aversive was a tool that you use to just get the dog to stop doing something in that moment. And so you know, whether it was the little squirt or the puppet on the nose, or the choke collars or whatever. And so it didn't necessarily teach the dog which behaviors weren't wanted, it was just a way to get the dog to stop in that moment, because that was easier. Right? And so then the dog was always confused. The dog didn't really know when an aversive was going to happen. And there was like, a lot of fallout from that. And then they started associating. I don't even like this part. Now, um, dog is growling at dad because dad keeps squirting it right. And so I was really really hesitant when we got to the part in training where we were using a versus we were going to use an aversive and there were literally like so many things we did with Luna before we got to that point, which I just want to stress because I don't want anyone to like you know, listen to the podcast and be like, Alright, go fill up squirt bottle. But what's really interesting is that I have this video of Luna with my kids. I got really bad backlash on Tik Tok when I talked about using a squirt bottle as an aversive for Luna and end up taking the video down. I was like, I'm just not going to talk about this is too controversial. But I have this video of my kids three and five and my three year olds autistic. And it was really important to me that we teach boundaries for our kids and our dog. And it's this beautiful video of my youngest running and looking back at the dog and going chase me chase me chase me loves to run with this dog. And I think that pre working with you would have been like the dog is not allowed to chase. And we have to teach them a specific behavior. But with the work that we did with you with all these things that we don't even have time to get into about teaching that when we free shaped a bunch of stuff when we rewarded a bunch of stuff. When we did isolated activities that seemed like they had nothing to do with this, my daughter will run through the yard and Luna will chase her at a distance of about three feet and doesn't touch her doesn't hurt her doesn't nip at her doesn't crowd her space. And when my daughter stops, she stops. And when my daughter gets close to her, she lays down and she started behaving this way towards Laurel when she was 16 weeks old. We're talking the height of puppy hyperactivity, right. And so I posted this video and people were just in awe. And I just laughed because this one person said, I wish my like I have a well behaved dog, but I can't get them to control their hyperactivity around my kids like and then someone said, Can you teach us? Can you show us how you did this? And I just was like, no. Because you won't like it. Because the truth is, I don't let my dogs and my kids interact ever unless I'm supervising which means the puppy has been in a playpen for six months, and the only time they interact is outside when I'm there and I have treats and I have my squirt bottle and the first time that she got into my kids space. She got squirted. And then she avoided the kids because she thought well do bad things happen when I'm around my kid right? And so we had the kids start to give her treats they had we had like special high value treats and the kids just shower her with treats right So she goes, Okay, so wait, no good things happen when I'm near these kids. Good things happen when I'm near these kids. And then the second time, she ran to close and got in their space, she got another squirt. And she backed up. And then my kids came near her and gave her treats. And I kid you not, she has never been squirted around my kids again. And from that time on from that clarity of this very complex concept of kids mean good things, and I can play with these kids. But I need to have a certain posture towards the kid. We never taught her to lay down, we never taught her only three feet, like she just naturally made choices that were exactly kind of what they both needed. And that, to me was like such a life changing moment of, oh, how much time would it have taken us for our dog to get clarity around this, if we did not have the use of an aversive in a way that was still respectful, still mindful, still a lot of protection around any kind of Fallout, and it was complex, like you took us through several rules, we had to follow it even to get to that point. But that to me was like you've won me over Andrew like, I am a believer of this like way of doing things where like, the most loving thing we can do is give our dogs clarity quickly, because now she has much more freedom than she had. And much more reward and much more reward because now it's just treats all day, because we didn't stop with the kids giving the dog tree.
Andrew Gleason 56:27
Yeah, and you know, just to add a little bit like, I feel like using aversives is in the way that I teach you and all of my students, all my clients is really helping the dog learn about choices and freedom of choice. And in that way, I'm training the way that they're thinking not the way that they're behaving. And you can think about it like this, we're on a computer. And if I want to interact with the computer, or the software, I have to use the keyboard or the mouse or whatever, right, there's some external thing that I have to do to be able to interact and interface with the software. But the software is what I'm after I want to influence the software, I have to use the keyboard in order to do that, well, with dogs, I want to interact with the software in the hardware. And in order to do that, I need to come up with ways to influence a talk about behavior. That's not really my focus. And so when we talk about like, you know, scoring the dog for, you know, getting too close, and all of these things, it's like, I'm only using that to say, hey, I really don't prefer this behavior. And then the rewards come in and say all of these other things you're gonna get paid really well for and in that process. What just happened with the dog is is it learned about its choices, and on its own began to make free choices in ways that were more beneficial to it. And it made sense to the dog for the dogs reasons to do that, rather than for my reasons is, is I'm just a little concerned that she's too close to the dog, right, which is true, but we need to make it make sense to the dog.
KC 57:59
It also like, you know, having freedom and autonomy and not always having to because like it takes a lot of emotional energy to be dialed in to someone else, if you're looking for your next command, right? Or if you're looking for the next expectation of what to do, and that's exhausting. And so the other thing is like a lot of times I'll see in training these days, and this will be my last point. So I know we're I could talk about this forever. But is that you know you have it. Let's say you have a dog that jumps on someone. And you'll hear someone say, well, we can't just teach the dog what not to do. We have to teach them what to do. And so they'll say, well, so every time somebody comes in, the dog has to go to their place, and then they reward the dog for going to place. And then you actually turn that on its head and it was like, well, that's real restrictive. That's really restrictive. And wouldn't it be better if we could just with clarity in a way that protects against emotional Fallout communicate to the dog? No, actually, like you can do anything you want, except jump. And now the dog has so much more freedom so much more. And from what I know of talking to people about you know, how we think about things is that the concentration and the emotional cognitive energy it takes to go okay, don't do that. So instead do this. And now hold it, but I want to move but hold it but I want to move but hold it the emotional regulation of that. Like, that's a lot of work and to expect that of a dog that's a high level of obedience versus can I help my dog learn that there's one thing here they can't do, but that's okay, because actually all the other things are so much more rewarding. And now my dog gets to just be and not have to constantly be thinking or being hyper vigilant about following the protocol, the nine step protocol, just don't do that. One thing that's
Andrew Gleason 59:38
so much easier for a learner you know, when I designate an area or a context in which there's really no construct it to where there's really only one mistake here but there's 100 right answers and then I haven't predetermined any of those for you. As long as it's not this one, you're gonna get paid. It just is really so much easier for the dog whether it's, you know, two On the shoe and I put a shoe out and I kind of set it up. And of course, they're gonna go to this shoe because that's what they do and you know, do my little thing. And there's 100 Other possibilities here, you want to go play with your bone or go lay on the couch, you want to go on your crate, you want to come over here and sit next to me, you want to go eat some food, you want to go outside, and all of those things are gonna get rewarded, right? And so for the learner, it's like, oh, I don't really want to do that. Anyway, I want to do these other things. You know, that
KC 1:00:22
quick clarity. Like, I remember seeing this, this really is the last thing I'll say, okay, there was a tick tock of some of that said, here's the deal. And they were a force free trainers, I don't really use tools. However, I'll say this, if somebody can use a tool, well, and ethically under the guidance of someone that knows what they're doing, and they use it to get quick clarity, sometimes that's the kindest thing you can do. Because it is not kind for you to be constantly frustrated at your dog constantly yelling at your dog constantly, you know, that stress you feel when they're they've got the shoe and they're running, or they're running for like, they know that displeasure. And I think what's been cool about doing things from the beginning, where we do a lot of management, right, she has a playpen, she has a crate, she can go outside like we don't, she doesn't just like run free. And we do a lot of exercises, we taught a lot of relaxation. And we taught a lot of clarity around certain things, and we're not picky about others, is that I spend very little time being frustrated at her even though there's a lot of things she can't do. But we just don't allow her to go to those areas. And we don't you know, and there's the things that she could do wrong in her little world of the backyard, the playpen, the crate, we've taught some clarity around and so like she really seems so happy because she doesn't have to think about making mistakes all the time, or get yelled at for all these mistakes. She didn't even know were the thing. So Andrew, before we wrap up, because I'm butting right into another recording now, but can you tell people where they can find you if they you're from the Austin area? So if anyone in the Austin area who wants dog training, or you also travel some bit of a radius, so can you tell people what your company is and where they can find you?
Andrew Gleason 1:01:55
Yeah, absolutely. So my wife Brittany, and I own dog savvy training. We're located in the Austin, Texas area we do in home, puppy and dog training for our local service area clients, we also do and this is what you have been a part of is we do our hybrid online and virtual coaching program. And that's to anybody across the country. Both of those programs are highly successful. And one of the things that I wanted to commend you on I was like about to tear up when you were describing like how Luna is with your daughter's and everything. And you had a question and the question was is how long would this have taken to get here in another process? And I'll go ahead and answer that for you. Because I trained in that process for 20 years, you may not have gotten there. And you did it in a few weeks. And what we teach is we help everyday dog owners and dog lovers just like you with wild child overly enthusiastic about life friendly, but a handful dog right go from, you know, chaos to calm and under 30 days. And we do that really simply in a very step by step process that's easy to follow, easy to do. And I think you know, and I explained it another way, like if anybody is familiar with Montessori method and Montessori parenting, this would really resonate with you and make a lot of sense and a lot of aha moments. Now, you don't have to be familiar with Montessori to do well in our program. But if that's something that you're, you know, keen on, within your own home, many of our families have said, they just feel like their family and the way that they raise their kids, and now their dog is more congruent. And that's a value system. But again, you don't have to be Montessori 100 know anything about you don't care about that. If you want fast results with less skill, less time and less effort. And actually what you want to achieve, like you said, I don't really want my dog on a play Scott, I would like them to meet and greet Well, right. So let's just do those things. And it turns out those things are much easier and more clear and take less skill and less effort to produce
KC 1:04:04
and that's what we did. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Andrew. Yeah, and thank you for
Andrew Gleason 1:04:07
having me on. This has been really fun.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
