Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's guest producer Roll over there, and that makes this Stuff you Should Know about dogs. We love dogs, heart them. We talk a lot about dogs, have dogs, We have dogs. Just love dogs in general. They're the best. Train them up the end the end, train them right though. Yeah, this was an interesting one for me because I am terrible at dog training. Uh and I just I do a mix of so many things. I'm just my poor dogs don't even know what to do. None of their behaviors their fault. Well, yeah, I think my fault. That seems to be true among um like like I want to say, not high end, but a good dog trainers, like professional dog trainers. Trainers. Yeah, they they would agree that not just with you, but any dog's bad behavior as a result of their human not training them well or properly, are at all true. Although I will say, I mean any dog can be trained supposedly. I've seen those shows. But uh, you know, my dog Nico is just so hot wired when someone comes over. Now, she's the uh brindle, just so hot wired when people come over that I just don't know what to do. What do you mean hot wired? Just so excited and like so excited she's about to implode into a nuclear fission reaction, like just really really low knows he knows, Nico. It's like it's very very tough to rain her in when someone knocks on that door and comes over. Chill out after ten minutes, but it's just hard to not get her to jump up on people and stuff because they got to be in on it too, you know. Well, I would say that probably any high end dog trainer would would say that you should give her tranquilizers all the time, especially when somebody's coming over, but you better sleep her life away. Your instinct as a dog owner is when someone comes over and your dog jumps on him, it's to say, now, Nico, get down, get off of them, and even like pull them off. But this article says like, like no, even a scolding is reinforcing that behavior, because all that dog wants his attention, even if it's a scolding, right, and and if you if you say no or whatever, the dog gets the attention. It prefer positive attention where you're like, yeah, jump up, that's great, but it'll take you know, Nico or any other dog will take UM will take the the know what they say to do is to just ignore it. Just ignore the dog until they're doing what you want them to do, and then reward the dog. And I think that what you said, and I'm glad you said this because we really need to get this across. What people have been discovering more and more about dog training in the last like twenty years is that having a dog and raising a good dog is requires way more than we previously thought. It did, way more attention, way more research, way more patience, way more persistence, way more than it used to and and rightfully so, I mean it should require this and one of the reasons why it does require more is because there's been a real shift in mentality over what direction you should take to train a dog. I keep saying raise a dog. I think that's a good way to put it too, but um that it used to be different, and that still is that way for some people. Who is we'll see, but there there. It used to be much easier because you just asserted yourself physically, psychologically, you yelled at your dog, you spanked your dog, and you basically showed your dog who was boss, and then after that they would just kind of behave. They're saying like, no, don't do that anymore. That's not good. It really has really terrible effects on the dog, harms your relationship with the dog, and instead, um, you really need to just give a hundred and ten percent whereas before you're giving. Maybe that's right. So what you're talking about are the two main approaches dominance or positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is a straight up operat conditioning technique where you reward your dog for good behaviors or I guess we shouldn't even say good and bad. They say not to do that with children and dogs, desirable behaviors and a focus on what a dog should do, whereas dominance is a technique to discourage unwanted behaviors what you should not do. And the whole dominance theory is based on this idea, and this has been around since well who knows where it got its original start, but at least since the seventies. They're these dog training monks in Cambridge, New York called the news Skeet Monks and they are monks who raise and breed German shepherds and write dog training books. Right, well, I mean that the monks are supposed to give something back to the world. Someone throw beer, and these guys trained dogs. I like the beer brewers better. But um, it's been at least around since then. But this is based on the the idea that dogs are really just wolves two point oh in dogs clothing. Yeah, and that wolves. We should look at the behavior of wolves and they are pack animals with an alpha male and an alpha female. Will get more into that, and we can extrapolate that to dogs. And so that's how and this is what these monks say too, that's what you should be doing is mimicking what wolves do. And well it's about to say in the wild, not that not the case. Really what wolves have been studied doing in captivity, which is a key point. Right And then like because they have packs with the leader calling out alpha male and alpha female, the alpha male and female um maintain their position um through dominance, through acts of like aggression, violence, and that they're constantly challenged for these positions. So that so much so that this constant struggle over dominance and alphadom, uh is what shapes wolf society, and that that if you take that and you just assume, like you said, that dogs are just a different type of wolf, that they're so closely related to wolves and descended from wolves, that the same kind of mentality applies to dogs. If you create that kind of situation in your own home, you will have a happier, more obedient dog who understands its place in this household, which to your dog is just a pack. That's right. Uh. This has started in the nineteen sixties. There were a bunch of studies observing these wolf packs and their social structures. I saw it even earlier than that. I saw a guy named Rudolph Schenkel was doing this in n and that he's the one who coined this ide the idea and the term alpha. And he was also the guitarist for the Scorpions. If I'm not mistaken, I think you're thinking of John Fogerty's guitarists, which is I think was his brother Rudy Schenko. Rudy Schenko. So uh yeah, So they're they're observing these wolves and they're saying that, um, there's a continual pattern in the in the pack of the male members vying for control, challenging the alpha, and then the alpha putting it down, usually physically and also psychologically. I guess as much as you can get into the psychology of a wolf. And um, here's the thing. I mean, should we go ahead and say what the deal is? I feel like that's there. Should that be a third ex spoiler? No? No, I think we can go ahead all right? That I said they were studying captive wolves. That's the that's the rub here is that they're studying wolves in captivity. And it took this the guy and the when was that then? The nineties? Yeah, David meck, Yeah, that actually studied wolves in the wild. And he's like, that's not what's going on at all, because you're it's like studying humans in a refugee camp or a prison, Like the behaviors aren't gonna be the same. What I'm observing is these animals that follow what most animals in the animal kingdom do or many, which is uh, their their families. And the alpha is the alpha because he's the dad, right exactly. That Like when they said like, oh, no, wolves are constantly you know, under these physical attacks for their status is the alpha alpha wolf. Um. They what they were saying was like, these these wolves are in a completely unnatural setting in situation, and you've got a bunch of different alpha's who are trying to figure out who's in charge. And yeah, there was a lot of aggression and dominance. But this was a terrible thing to base this idea on how to train a dog because it was a totally artificial situation. And it wasn't until I think, what did you say that mec he actually revised in earlier book. He wrote a book in nineteen eighty that took these earlier ideas and said, yeah, these are totally correct. And now he's like, I wish I'd never I got it so wrong. Yes, there is dominance, there are alpha's, but it's like you said, Chuck, their mom and dad that's what we would call him, just in the same way that your mom and your dad are the boss of you when you're a kid, same thing in a wolf pack. Yeah, and dad goes out and gets the food. Uh, moms takes care of the kids and protects the kids and acts, as you know, the defensive guard over their den. And that's just how it works. And then after a couple of years. Um, the male puppies, I guess leave. They've become alpha's of their own families. And he observed the stuff over where is it Canada's Elsmere Island every summer for thirteen years and they have the that island has the best carnival in Canada. It really changed the way people look at wolves and ergo dogs. Yeah for the UM what the revision of it or the earlier stuff, Well, the revision of it, sure, yeah, it totally did because everybody realized that this dominance based training that people have been doing, where you basically beat up your dog if there if there is like a sense of like alpha dom that your dog is following, your dog is basically like my dad is beating me up and yelling at me all the time, and I'm just scared and anxious about everything. So the dog training world realized that this is what was happening, that it was based on faulty preliminary original research, and they switched. They change. They went to a much more respectful, happier, friendlier UM way of training that doesn't involve punishment, it involves basically rewards. An extinction is well, we'll look at later on. All right, well, let's take a break. We were talking about beating up your dog, but when we come back, we'll talk about specific techniques the people that subscribe to the dominance theory believe. And all right, so you talked about people beating up their dogs. I know you're sort of kidding, um, but there are actual physical things that they say to do in dominance training. Uh. And they are as follows. One. It's called the alpha roll, uh not R O L E R O L L. So this is when the trainer will are you know, I guess if you're the owner, and trainer will pin the dog on its back and hold the dog there by the chest or the throat until the dog gives in and and stops the struggle. Okay, that is slightly different than dominance down. That is pinning the dog on its side until the dog stops struggling. So same thing. I mean, you've got a dog that is doing something that you don't want it to do, so you are pinning it. You're physically restraining it in an aggressive manner until it just basically dies inside. I will say that I have have done the dominance down before because of a dog fight between my two dogs, getting the dogs separated, and then you know, pinning one down until they calm down. One thing I saw um somewhere. I don't remember where I saw it, but the um Actually i've heard it. I heard it a little while ago. The way that you break up a dog fight is you grab them by the back legs. Is to rub yourself a steak. Right, you just walked through and be like, who's a steak? Why fight when you can have steak grabbed the back legs? Yeah, that makes sense. Here's the thing though, if you've ever been involved in a dog fight up close, it's an adrenaline rush. You don't know quite what to do. Uh, and it's scary. It's like super scary. Yeah, well, your brain just becomes totally Like my brain becomes clouded. When like Momo starts barking at somebody, I'm like, I get all flustered and whatever. A dog fight is like it is one of the most flustering, like clouding experiences you can you can have. I've heard through a water on them, I could see that. I could also see him just fighting right through the water. If the fight's bad enough. Yeah, I mean my dog Lucy, who isn't with us, gotten to a fight with my former co dog, Jake, the pit bull who you know, my prince justin ended up taking and it was ugly, man, and they're both not with us, and they're both really sweet dogs, but they looked at each other wrong and it was on from the get go, and like Lucy took off part of Jake's ear and it was just like it was bad. He was scary. You don't know what to do, right, And so a person who um who is who subscribes the dominance theory training says, you need to show that both of those dogs that you're in charge, and you tell them they're not fighting there, that they're acting out their misbehaving because they don't understand their role. But at the same time, I would be like, well, no, it sounds like that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't think you're the alpha. They're trying to figure out what their position over one another in this packet or just dogs being dogs, man, that's another way to look at it. For sure. You know, like Lucy got attacked at a dog park when she was young, and from that day forward was you know, if a dog was slightly aggressive, it was on and scary. Yeah, so we couldn't take around other dogs, that's the up shot. Yeah, and they would say so. One of the other things I want to call out here, rather than waiting, um, when a dog acts aggressively, every trainer I've seen on both sides says that it's fearful that the dog is actually afraid. That was for sure Lucy's case. Yeah, so yeah, and it's that's why I thought of that, because you know, she had a negative experience and she was afraid, so she would act aggressive in the face of fear. So one of the reasons why people criticize dominance training, as we'll see, is that you're physically and aggressively punishing aggressive behavior. So you're you're punishing a dog for feeling fearful, which is going to make it more fearful of whatever it is it's afraid of at that moment, which means it's actually probably likelier that it will become more aggressive rather than it's like a human kid too. You know, if you have a kid who has learned to be aggressive, in your way of discipline them is to hit them, Like, what do you think is gonna happen? I don't know, I don't know anything about human kids. I only know about dogs. They're the same. So back to the uh, the physical methods of dominance training. There was alpha role dominance down. There's the scrub shakes when you grabbed the dog's jowls they're scruff with both hands and shake it really hard and stare them, stare them in the eyes. Leash jerk if you're on a on a walk with your dog and they're pulling you let them get up ahead and then jerk back really really hard. Uh. And then using choke collars or pinch collars or shot collars uh instead of like the more humane gentle leaders what they call them. This sort of looks like a muzzle, but when the dog pulls, it just sort of pulls their nose down and they don't like that. Right. The that's for the other kind. Physically hurting them when they pull on the leash correct or when you jerk the leash back right or the choke pinch or shot collars are all all dominance or there's psychological methods to um staring at the dog until the dog looks away like I'm boss, who's gonna blink first? You dog? You? Or Growling at a dog or making dog noises to the dog is another dominance technique. Yeah, psychological dominance. So so you've got all these techniques and UM as far as dominance training goes. If you employ them in a UM consistent manner, eventually your dog is going to figure out who's boss. And they the people who subscribe to dominance theories say this is actually a gift to your dog, because if your dog is acting improperly, if it's misbehaving, if it's being aggressive, it's asserting itself because it doesn't realize that you're the alpha because you haven't asserted yourself over your dog, and so somebody's got to be the alpha. So this dog is confused and is trying to step up. So if you assert your dominance over this dog, you will reassure that there is an alpha in charge and it can just relax and be a good, happy dog. That's what people who who subscribe to dominance theory say is the whole purpose of dominance theory. Right on the other side, you have people saying, no, your dog is not just becoming super happy because they know you're in charge. They're going on into shutdown mode. Basically, because they're afraid to do stuff and they're basically living in a state of shutdown mode because they're afraid of being alpha rolled or barked at or pinned or whatever. Yeah, and so that what they'll do is is here's the thing, and this is really important to remember. Nobody's saying dominance training doesn't actually, at least in the short term, curb problem behavior and dogs. But the way that you're doing is actually like breaking the dog's spirit. You're not you're not providing it this comfortable position in the household. It's pack You're basically just breaking a spirit so that it it it doesn't do anything until you tell it to do something. It's that shutdown that you were just talking about. And people who subscribe to the other way. So no, there's a there's a different, better way to do this which doesn't involved breaking the dog, which allows the dog to lead a happier, healthier life. And and there's um what's called the least intrusive, minimally aversive list of how to train a dog and using dominance theory techniques are at the bottom of this list. Yeah, I think they listed six things, and that was number six was positive punishment, which is a bit of a contradiction in terms I guess, but yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, that's what the whole list or just the positive punishment, well, just about the punishment problem. Yeah, I mean, that's when you're delivering what they called an aversive consequence or I guess averse consequence to reduce probability that a behavior will occur. Yeah. So in this in this sense, positive and negative doesn't necessarily mean like good or bad. It means the introduction or the removal of something. So so you can have a negative reward where something bad is removed in reward for the you know, the dog doing the behavior you want. And then you also have negative punishment, where you remove something good when the dog does something you don't want it to do. You also have positive rewards, which is basically giving a treat to a dog it does something good and you say hey, here you go, or praise or something like that. And then positive punishment, which sounds like okay, that's an alright kind of punishment, that's actually the worst of all of them as far as the most professional dog trainers are concerned. That is where you're introducing punishment because the dog is doing something. So you're yelling at the dog, you're alpha rolling the dog, you're spanking the dog, you're introducing a punishment as a response for an unwanted behavior in this hope to train the dog. And so they say, well, here's there's the basic problem right there with dominance theory and dominance training is that eventually you're going to come to positive punishment. It's woe even into the fabric of dominance theory. And if you're punishing your dog, if you're yelling at your dog or outa rolling your dog, you're going to create this shutdown dog. And what's more, it seems that positive punishment, as far as training techniques, conditioning operat conditioning techniques go, is the least effective of all of those four. And not it's not just dog trainers saying that. Even B. F. Skinner himself, who created a Skinner box and raises poor little barefoot electrocuted children, and he said, yes, positive punishment is the least effective of all of these. Yeah, they say, the number one on that list is health, nutritional and physical factors. And this is basically setting up your house then being assured that your dog is like healthy and well fed and like there's nothing physically wrong with a dog. Like if your dog is peeing in the house and won't get housebroken, they're saying, the first step you should do is take your dog to a vet and make sure it doesn't have like a urinary tract infection. Yeah, I mean, let's go over this list, because that's really helpful. There was um The Association of Professional Dog Trainers have a list of misinterpretations. Urinating the house is one of them. A dominance explanation would be like, no, they're peeing on your bed, because they're trying to show say like this is my territory. It's it's a really paranoid place to come from, kind of you know, all the dog, the dog thinks it's better than me. What is really going on, they say, is that it's just the house training has been inconsistent, Yes, which or you have a urinary tract infection or something right, and you would find that out by taking that first step, which is taking the dog to the vet to make sure there isn't a health or medical issue that can solve this problem, because again, it all comes down to this problem behavior. Why is the dog doing it or what do you want the dog to do instead right, jumping up on people. This is Nico Steele. A dominance explanation would be that that she's doing this to assert their height and rank over you, like I'm just as big as you are, Whereas what's really going on is she wants to lick your face and it's fun and she's excited and wants to say hello. Right, So what you would do is you would say, teach your dog to sit um whenever you go to open the door something like that, or if your dog is jumping up um, to to ignore it until it's sitting with all all four paws on the floor and then you reward it. Because it's, like you were saying, one of the easiest ways to train your dog is accidentally, And what you're doing is training your dog to do all the stuff you don't want your dog to do. Yeah, I mean, you come home from vacation and Nico jumps up on you, like your first instinct is to kiss her face and tell her how good it is to see her, and that's the wrong thing to do. Like I'm good at that, Like I can come in and just turn my back and ignore and it works. But you gotta get people coming in the house, all your friends coming in and family, like everyone's got to be on board. Yeah, Like like Momo barks that stranger is when they come into her house. She does not like, like say a contractor coming over to to bark or to come to her house. She just doesn't like it. So ideally I would give the stranger a treat, say the contractor treat. I'd be like, by the way, can you show up five minutes early to our appointment. I'm gonna give you a dog treat. Slide a treat under the door. You and I are going to go and sit and get situated at the at the table, at the dinner table, and we're gonna just talk calmly. And then my wife is going to bring my dog into the room and you're going to give her a treat. Don't stand up in the presence of my dog. Once my wife removes our dog, then we can go on with our appointment. That would be the ideal thing. What this, what this thing says to do is Okay, instead of all that, just keep your dog outside. Go hang out outside with your dog. Make it say your dog has no idea. Anybody even came over. Yeah, that's easier sometimes. Yes, that's the number two thing that you're supposed to do after taking the dog to a vet. Um is just changing the dog's world so that the problem behavior doesn't exist, because the thing that creates that problem behavior isn't part of the dog's world anymore. Yeah, the situation last week where I was out of town. You know, we had our house worked on in the contractor. The framer guy who was there most of the time, like hands on, really loves dogs and loves our dogs, but he had to come over and do something. He hadn't been over in a while, and I was gone, and I was like, you know, I can tell you how to get in my house if you want to go put them in the in the bedroom so the plumber can come in. I was like, this is on you, man, if you want to do this. He's like, sure, I'll do it. And he came in and texted me afterwards that said that Charlie. He said, as soon as I walked in, bolted and ran into the bedroom basically, and that Nico like barked and barked, and then it was just like downstairs trembling and afraid, and he eventually was like, come on, Nico, come on up, and he got her into the bedroom. That is that is so sad. It's but it's also really sad too when you think about your dog, um, you know, barking or being aggressive or something like that, when you're just like, oh, it's so obnoxious, be quiet, But then if you realize like they're actually doing it because they're scared, witness makes the whole thing just heartbreaking. But I think it's a really important thing to remember too because it changes your perspective on it. It It goes from being like, stop being aggressive, stop being hostile, you know, to to realizing you're saying, stop being afraid, you know, stop being a chicken. That's no way to talk to something that you love. And that holds true for a dog too, so to think that really kind of changes your perspective. The advice of my monologue, uh and then a couple of other behaviors pulling on a leash. A dominance explanation might be that no, they're trying to assert that there the Aleph and get out in front of you and be in charge. Whereas what's really good going on as your dogs excited to be on a walk and they love to get out there and smell things, and um, that's why they're pulling. Uh and then finally running through the doorway. First I get run over by my dogs all the time trying to get outside. Um. And the dominance theory is that they're trying to push you out of the way to show you there in charge again. Uh. They what they're doing is pushing out of the way because you're blocking them from getting outside where they love life a lot more. Right So, and this really kind of I think, does a beautiful job Chuck of putting side by side the dominance theory and the um the What is the positive positive reinforcement I guess yeah, positive reinforcement theory, those are the two main ones. But just the the almost night and day ways that they see dogs like what makes dogs dogs? That to a dominance theory person, the dogs just like I'm in charge of you, get out of my way. Where the the positive reinforcement theory says, no, dog just likes to go have fun and it's really not very concerned with, you know, social niceties of letting you go first. It wants to go have fun immediately. It doesn't really have anything to do with you it's a dog exactly. I just I don't know if if everyone's figured this out or not, but I tend to fall a little more on the positive reinforcement side of that same here. So let's take a break then and talk about a little bit more about the problems with dominance training, but then the joy and the goodness that is positive reinforcement beautiful. Alright, So earlier in the show, you said that dominance training can achieve results. No one argues that that can be effective at times, but we talked about why it's effective that your dog is being shut down. Essentially, your dog might be fearful. Uh. And one of the other problems besides harming the relationship between you and your dog that you might even know it's harmed, is that if your dog is aggressive at all, this can really ramp that up, and that can be a big problem. Yeah, because again, you're punishing your dog for being fearful if it's if you're punishing it for aggressiveness, and you're just making it more fearful. So two of the other big problems that can arise from dominance training our injury to the dog. If you say, you know, do an alpha role too hard and you break its rib or something like that that can happen, or if you're instilling further aggressiveness in the dog, an injury to you or the trainer or somebody else. Yeah, there was a study in two thousand nine, so it's a little old, but I imagine it's still pretty true. Uh, published in the Applied Behavioral Science. UM. I guess journal, Um extravaganza. Uh. They serve a dog owners who would reported problem behavior and a rssian. They completed the survey about their training techniques and of the dogs that were physically punished, hit or kick, which I can't even go there in my mind, of those dogs responded with aggression, duh um. And then what else if you that a dog it was for dogs, Um became aggressive? Okay, that staring was the scruff shake of dogs. Um, we're aggressive in response. And the alpha role was right. And this is one reason, another reason why there's a near consensus despite what Caesar Milan might say on dominance training not being the way to go. The Association of Professional Dog Trainers, International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, Pet Professional Guide, and the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers all say this is not the way Caesar. Yeah, they say it's like, not only is it bad for the dog, it's not rooted in science. That the whole thing that dominance theory was based on is not correct. Yeah, the whole wolf thing. Yeah, but Caesar will still say I mean, he's still out there saying nope. Animals love, they want to be in a pack and they want to have a strong pack leader and that is up to you to be that pack leader. Yes, So this article kind of says that, Um, basically the people who are in the dominance are amateur dog trainers, unaccredited, and UM, I guess not high end is the way I would have put it, you know, twenty minutes ago. Um, and the a lot of pet dominance training, UM, tool industry people like that sell the shot colors are yes. And then people who watched Caesar melt right because he is He's a force onto himself as far as dominance training goes, because people watch his show and they're like, oh, wow, this really works. You can go to a dog and the dog will like stop doing what you want to do, and and so he does. He produces results. But again that that question of what what kind of a dog or what kind of a mentality he's producing in the dog, or that that kind of training produces in a dog, that's the that's what's that question that's also heavily edits the TV show. We have to remember it is well, you know, he got in a lot of I don't want to say he got in a lot of trouble um water, maybe a little bit. But there was like a petition that got like ten thousand signatures to have a show canceled on National Geographic because, um, yeah, the pig thing where he there was a French bulldog that had killed two pot bellied pigs in its past and the owner was like, I don't want my dog to kill pigs anymore, and Caesar is like, I have just the idea. Let's put it in a pen with another pig. And apparently it was going very well, but then um, they let it off of the lead and the dog atta at the pig and took a chunk out of its ear. And they aired this um and I'm sure they aired it because they were trying to be true to their documentary roots, I guess, rather than just editing the whole thing out and being like, well, we can't show that they included it, and there was a lot of outrage and they were like, this is a clear act of animal abuse, like this pig was harmed because of this shows actions and seizure bonds actions. And there was an investigation by Los Angeles County, I think um to see whether you know, they could charge him with animal abuse, and they cleared him eventually, but it created it produced this round of um of interviews for him, a lot of publicity for the show, but also he did a lot of interviews and in every single one he said, I understand that you know, the people who are who are who prompted this investigation care about animals, and they are you know, the people who are doing the investigating are doing their job and they should and it's it's great and I'll cooperate. But in every single one he stood by dominance training. He did not question it for a second. That's true. He still believes in it. So on the other side, we have positive reinforcement, and that's generally like a two pronged thing where you reward good behavior. And this next part is really key because it's easy to reward good behavior but not accidentally reinforcing bad behavior, which she talked about earlier, which is someone comes in, Nico jumps on them in my instinct is to pull her off and say, no, I am reinforcing that bad behavior just by giving her even negative attention, right exactly. So, So what's the whole point of positive reinforcement is ignoring the behavior that you don't want to happen, which means you're not accidentally reinforcing bad behavior, and then rewarding the behavior that you do want to happen. So, in the case of Nico, the um the part where you're ignoring it's called extinction, where this idea that the unwanted behavior goes away if you do nothing. Um, when you come in and she's jumping up, you just turn your back to her and ignore and just go about your business, say, unpacking your shoes. Maybe you've got a wet bathing suit that you need to get out of your suitcase with that kind of thing. You know, you've just come home from a beach vacation. Did she does this when I go get the mail? Okay? All right, wow, okay, So you come back and you're looking to your your mail, your Garnet Hill catalog, and you know, you're thinking, maybe I will spend a little more on Halloween decorations than last year. And um, you you you're ignoring her. You're just doing your thing. And then the moment she sits quietly and looks up at you, Bam, you're there with the treat, with the tug of rope, tug of war rope, the verbal praise. You're like, you're right there. And then you go back to it. She jumps up, and you go right back to your mail. You just totally ignore it. In the moment her feet are on the floor, Bam, you're right back there with another treat. So you're you're very consistently. This is really really key. You're consistently rewarding the behavior that you want, and you're consistently ignoring the behavior that you don't want. Yeah, and again, I'm pretty good at about this with myself. Um, and she doesn't jump on me, but it's just it's with other folks. So that's the thing. I got to really really work on. Some of our closest friends that come over a lot, understand, and they ignore her and try and turn their back and stuff. Until she comes they hate me. Oh goodness. Another thing you can use is the clicker um, and that is uh, something you hold in your hand that makes us clicking sound and you just sort of reinforce that along with the treat. But they hear that click, and I guess it's sort of like that Pavlovian response where the precision of that click it makes it easier for them to to put two and two together. And pretty soon you can make that click and they know like, oh, you know, maybe I'll just sit down and behave because the treats coming my way. Well, you're with the click. I think you're more marking the behavior. Like there's five different things that she's doing as she says settling in or whatever. Maybe she was looking up out the window and you said good girl because she was sitting down. But to her, you're saying good girl because she's looking out the window. If you clicked, if you clicked the moment she sat down and settled, um, she would know that what you were talking about was the seating, the sitting part, rather than looking out the window part. The clickers just it's it happened so fast. It allows the dog to mark that behavior. More than your praise, right, because it takes a lot longer to say Nicol, you're so good then that little click, So you'd want to click first and then hit her with the praise. But the click is like, oh that thing, that's right. And the consistency that you were talking about is so key because you can be going down a good path for a couple of weeks and undo it all in a couple of days or even a single action if you're not consistent with you know, this training. But but it's like with the being in the house thing, maybe the house the house training that you engaged in originally did you didn't quite finish, You weren't quite consistent enough, so go start over. It's not like it's like, oh, well, I'll never have a nice rug again. My dog just peas in the house. It's like, no, you you go back to house training your dog or you know, if you have this, uh whatever, the unwanted behaviors, you just have to go back to it and do it again and your dog will pick it up um probably way faster the second time, and you just stick to it. It's just more consistency, which is why I was saying earlier it's you know, a little more involved owning a dog than we used to think it was. But the dogs that were, you know, like sharing our lives with are, I would argue, are way happier and healthier mentally and probably physically too than say they were thirty years ago. In general. Yeah, and there is a certain amount you know, you don't get dogs and cats if you want to have um, well it is not necessarily true, but if you need a pristine house that's hairless, you probably shouldn't have pets. Like, there's a certain amount of giving into the fact that, um I mean, and you may have rules where like pets aren't allowed on any furniture, which is great. That helps, but like in my house, their furniture dogs. So we know, our sunroom couch is never going to be the nicest, greatest couch in the world. It's always gonna have some dog here on it. Uh. And that's just the way it is. That's fine with us. Yeah, you me and I are defiant. We have not one but two white couches. Yeah, luckily MoMA doesn't shed. But as as Mom ever thrown up on the couch, no, she hasn't. And I know now that I'm saying this back at home, she's throwing up on the couch for the first time ever. Are you know my friend Justin Uh. He and his partner Melissa have a great dog named Fully, who is Nico's best friend, and Fully is not allowed on their furniture and is really good about it, but he is allowed on our furniture. So when Fully comes over for spend the nights and played times, he fully milks that stuff. But it doesn't they and I was worried it was gonna mess them up at home, but it hasn't. He gets a difference. Yeah, I think probably because dogs are a lot smarter than than we give them credit for. Probably, he probably likes a spender. Two. I can tell you Mama was very smart. Yeah. My dogs are smart and dumb, you know. Yeah, Okay, that's a good way for a dog to be too. It's like sometimes you think, man, what a smart dog, and then you see them eating like poop out of the cat litter box and be like, wow, you're really not very smart. After and they're like, oh, it's so God. Or they come around the corner with cat litter on their nose. They're like, what I wouldn't do it anything right, play it off, just played cool. They don't know anything, they can't prove anything. You got anything else about cat poop? I got nothing else. Don't hit and kick your dogs, man, don't beat up your dogs. That's uh well, if you want to know more about dog training, there is a lot to go read about on the internet and a lot of these conflicting So definitely choose wisely. And since I said choose wisely, it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this one. It delighted us. Oh, I think you probably read this one. Um, I enjoyed the short stuff. Guys. On barbed wire, I wanted to share the fact that my great great grandfather, one William Harvey Beale, invented the barbed wire tightener. How about that? Yeah, this is what enabled ranchers and farmers to install their own fencing. I am the twelfth generation and a long line of Beals that began in the US in the sixteen eighties from England, first landing in Pennsylvania and gradually by creating westward. Um. I don't know why that remind have you ever? Do you watched what we do in the shadows I have seen it here there, yes, so you know it was a it was a movie and now it's a TV show. And the TV show one of the elder vampires, uh any time that you know they're on Staten Island and talks about Manhattan, he calls it Mannahatta. That's hilarious, but there's no reason for it to be hilarious, but it describes that. I like the TV show more than the movie because almost exclusively because of Matthew Berry. Really, I think anything he's in is just that guy is good. It's great. You know, one of the writers on that show and producers is Tom Sharplin of The Best Show. Anyway, I don't know how that reminded me of it. I think I was thinking about them landing in Pennsylvania and what it was called back then, Pennsylvana. Back to the letter, William Barby, whose generation eight was homesteadying in Kansas nine and took a job as a barbed wire fence salesman, and he said that Goodness knows, there was plenty of fencing being shipped into the country by that time. You couldn't do any good trying to farm without it. Big problem there for farmers they got the fence up, was how to pull the wire tight on the post. So he tinkered in a forge and developed a device to pull the wire tight. So kind of patent and was soon selling the beal wire tightener to quote every bedevilled fence tender for miles around in quote. She sent pictures of the device and the patent and William working on a ranch and that was great, she said. He traveled around the West. He traveled around the West for eight years selling his invention, was able to pay off his debts. Eventually moved to California, a with the next four generations remain. I'm writing from San Diego. I know all these details thanks to William's youngest daughter who recorded extensive oral histories and books. What a great letter. That is a great letter, um. I've been listening to show for about five years. Flew to Phoenix to see you live last year. Here the highlight of my week. With love and gratitude, Chandra in San Diego. Thanks a lot, Chandra, Pennsylvania to San Diego. No, I love it. Over three hundred and forty years the Mannahatta Um. That was a great one. Thanks and for the pictures too. That was just excellent. If you want to get in touch with this, like Sandra did Schaendra right? Yes, okay, you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot com and check out our social links. And if that doesn't work, you can always try a good old fashioned email, Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios How stuff Works. 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