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The Everyday Trainer Podcast
The Everyday Trainer Podcast
From Reactivity To Reliability: Marker Words, Flexi Leashes, And Clear Criteria
The fastest way to a reliable recall isn’t a bigger treat pouch—it’s a cleaner language. We break down a simple system that teaches dogs to look back, come in, and shut off pressure, starting with two markers: “get it” to send away and “yes” to call back. Once that loop is automatic, we layer the e-collar over the turning moment so the sensation becomes meaningful and predictable. The result is a dog that chooses you, even when the world gets loud.
We also draw clear lines between heel and with me. Different sides, different bubbles, different payoff zones. That clarity matters because accountability only works when the rule is knowable. We show how to use a flexi leash to mimic off-leash freedom, when to tap vs hold, and how to stop living at low levels the dog ignores. Instead of nagging, we teach first with leash and food, then correct for breaking known commands. That shift tightens heel, sharpens recall, and keeps sessions upbeat and fair.
Reactivity? We tackle it from the ground up. Build engagement at home, rehearse calm returns near triggers, and correct the choice to leave position—never “shock the reactivity” first. We share practical steps for door barking too: a brief hold to interrupt, release on quiet, then a calm scatter to reset state. Add in smart victory laps at the end of play to vent drive without losing focus, and you’ll feel the whole system click. Want more help dialing levels, timing markers, and shaping criteria that stick? Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a better recall, and leave a review with your top training question so we can coach it next.
Visit us on the website here to see what we've got going on and how you can join our pack of good dogs and owners.
Hey guys, welcome back to the Everyday Trainer Podcast. My name is Meg, and I am a dog trainer. Today's episode is a group call from my dog training community. If you don't know, I have an online community, and each week we meet to discuss dog training things, problem solve, or just kind of upflot each other on our way. So this episode we chat about the callers, how to correct, when to correct, what behavior to correct, how to work through reactivity, and the importance of building a solid foundation education in our dog training. You know the drill. Grab yourself a tasty drink and meet me back here.
SPEAKER_04:Welcome. Do you have any questions or things that you want to go over?
SPEAKER_01:Can you just go over what you covered briefly, I guess last week? I couldn't watch the whole thing. I had to go to work. So I didn't train Bella.
SPEAKER_00:I'm trying to remember what we did. Do you remember where we left off? Was I training Bella when you logged off? Yes, right around that time. It was when you were doing the e-collar conditioning with her. Okay, yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Um, okay, so I started with building up our marker words and our like get it. So for me, get it is tossing food on the ground. If get it means like go get the reward that's on the ground, it's away from me. And then our yes marker word means come back to me to get the reward. So how I condition that is just tossing food, get it, goes and gets the food on the ground, turns around to come back to me. Yes, I shuffle backwards, pay, pay, pay. So for Bella, that's what I'm layering the E-collar over. So essentially, on those like turns for her, it's get it. After she gets the food, I'm gonna tap, tap, tap. She turns around to look at me. I stop tapping, yes, and then shuffle backwards and reward. So the default of what I'm teaching there is when you feel this sensation, I want you to look back to me, give me your attention. I'm gonna mark with yes, and then you come back and then I pay in reward. So that's like the starting point for e-caller for me is I want the dog to be like, what the heck is that? They look at me, tapping goes off. Yes, tells them that I want them to come back. That way, in the future, when we go to do recall, e-caller taps, the dog is gonna default to coming back to me because I've started with that little drill. So the get it's just allowed to create some space and get the dog away from me. And pretty much everything that we do in dog training is about sending the dog away and calling them back to us. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, no, thank you for explaining that. And then, quick question though, you know, um, so if you're tapping right when they're like going to get the food, um, is that when you continually tap until they turn around? And if they don't respond to that, are you gently giving like a leash tug?
SPEAKER_03:Um, that's where yes, you can totally, um, but that's where me practicing the drill before adding e-collar comes into play, right? So I'm doing get it. The dog turns around, yes, get it, dog turns around, yes. I do that a million times so that that's the default response, right? And what I see a lot of is people don't have properly conditioned yes markers. The dog is like, do I come back to you? Are you gonna pay me in position? Like it's not really strong enough. So I like really want a strong yes marker so that in those moments where the dog is like, uh, I don't know what to do, I can say yes. And the dog is like, okay, I know that means come back to the person, you know, but we can also layer our e-collar with just those walking drills. So for example, let's say we have our dog on like a 10-foot leash or walking, walking, walking. They get out in front and they're just about to put pressure on that leash. I can tap, tap, tap, I'll start to move backwards. So I'm guiding the dog backwards with that leash pressure and with my body language. As soon as the dog commits to coming back to me, tapping stops. Yes, and then I can pay.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much for explaining that. No, that makes so much sense. Now I can check that with my dogs.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the only thing with um and layering it with leash might be a little bit easier for you. So um, if I have like slower dogs or dogs that don't have a problem like walking around away from me, like Bella is very clingy. So I have to pair my e-collar with like her away from me because if I just stand there or if I do walking drills with her, she's always like checked in with me. So when would I tap on my e-collar? You know, but if I have a dog that will hit the end of the leash, then I can pair my e-collar with those walking drills. So we're walking, walking, walking, dog gets out in front, tap, tap, tap, tap, they come back to me. Yes, tapping stops, and then we pay. And then you just do the same thing again. You walk forward, dog gets out in front, and I'm kind of looking for the moment where you realize they're no longer checked into you. You know, like if you stopped walking, they would keep going because they're not like visually checked into you. That's the moment where I'm gonna start tapping with the dog. So since Bella is like a little clingy, I'm pairing the get it first because I need to get her away from me. And then I can use the e-caller to like grab her attention, pair it with the yes to call her back my way.
SPEAKER_01:I see. Okay, no, thanks so much, Meg.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_04:Marta, how are you? Victoria, how are you?
SPEAKER_02:I'm I'm good. I'm driving. I don't know if you can hear me.
SPEAKER_04:I can hear you. Okay, cool. I'm good. How's your training been?
SPEAKER_02:Uh it's been we like we kind of had to take a break because of all the health stuff, but we're back on it now. And it's been really fun. Um, he is like gowns uh like from a distance are like super clean now. It makes me so happy because I can like see somebody on a trail and like put him in a down, and I know he will hold it, like bikes, runners, everything. I'm so happy. And people make it so impressive. I'm like, this is amazing. I like was walking the other day and I like saw some people up ahead and I like put them in a down, walked past him, like picked him up in heel, and people were like, what the fuck is this?
SPEAKER_03:That's awesome. I love that. Did you figure out what was going on with uh like the health stuff?
SPEAKER_02:I suspect he's allergic to liver. Is my like allergic or like really sensitive to liver? I yeah. So I switched to a food that doesn't have it like as an ingredient, um, and he's doing a lot better.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting. Were you using like liver treats?
SPEAKER_02:No, but the like freeze-dried raw had it as its second ingredient, so yeah, that's wild.
SPEAKER_03:I can't believe you figured that out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, so I took him to the vet for like a little skin thing, and they gave him liver treats there, and then he like came home and like emptied his guts from both ends, and I was like, this was like not even at all the problem I went to the vet for. Um, so that was like my biggest clue, and then I cut it out, and he's doing better. So fingers crossed. It's like pretty rare though to be allergic to like a kind of organ meat because I'd been feeding like different freeze-dried raws, and like they all had liver, but it was like duck liver, beef liver, like different stuff, and he seems to react to all of it. So huh.
SPEAKER_03:I I have heard of that where people are feeding their dogs the like liver treats too much. Yeah. Um, I wonder if I don't know. I wonder if it's like the enzymes or something in liver. I've also heard of dogs like eating too many organ meats and they get like the hormones or something from the animals that they're eating.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know, but I'm glad you figured it out. That's crazy. Victoria, how are you?
SPEAKER_05:I'm doing well. We are doing better and more chill with the daily morning walk now. I feel like Marta has inspired me to pick things up a little bit because I'm like slowly progressing. No, so I will try to. I mean, I haven't tried the I I unfortunately forgot to bring my charger for the e-collar when we went on a couple of like trail hikes recently. That would have been nice to sort of try to pair it with the flexi. And I saw you, Meg, doing that in one of your either stories or videos. So I think I'll try to do that. Um, do you when you use the e-collar paired with the flexi, do you normally give a command before you then use the e the tap for like a correction? Or it's just like similar to walking drills where it's like right before they hit the end? Like how aware should they be or be expected to be in terms of how far she is away from me?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um, if I would say flexi, give command first, and then if she doesn't follow through, then it's gonna be higher level correction. Your dog knows the things, so you can hold her accountable to higher levels after the command if she chooses not to listen. But like, for example, um Bella, since I'm still kind of I'm like halfway in the conditioning stage, halfway out of it. Like I'm using it at higher levels with the things that I know she knows. Like I know she knows heal. So when she breaks out of heel, I'm just correcting her. I'm not necessarily labeling it with like a no. Um, because I want her to be mindful of where she's at in her position next to me. So, like for that, it's like, okay, you're walking out in front of me. And when I notice that you're no longer checked into me, I'm gonna tap at not like a correction level, but enough to be like, hey, you're kind of out of place. Um, and then with like uh a recall with a flexi, if I let's say she's sniffing something and I say, Bella, come, and she does not come, then I'm gonna tap at a higher level because I know you know what recall means. So if you choose to not listen to me, there's gonna be a consequence. And I've only had to do like higher levels with her like twice, and now I say, Bella, come, and she's like, like zooms right over to me because she wants to avoid that consequence, you know.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, yeah. So I'll it it's it's so that we can eventually get to off leash, where like she doesn't really know like what there's no end of leash, but she is obligated to if I say come back or or to sort of like pause, which she should also know that she does it. If not, I'll correct her. Exactly. I'll try that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and we want to pair it with our command because we we don't want the e-collar stim to just happen out of nowhere, like she needs to know why it's happening in order for her to learn, you know.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I also think it'll be good to help uh sharpen how long she stays with me because she's really good at mice pepper, like she even if I that's usually our like pay attention to me command, but even then she'll already be on her way back with like a lot of energy um enthusiasm, but she'll like take the treat from me and then like go right back out, and then because she's on a flexi, it's harder to just be like, oh my god, like stop doing that. Um I I haven't done a good job of telling her or communicating that I want her to chill around me, um, which is sometimes helpful when there's someone coming by and I want her to just go to heal.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and so you can, you know, recall come once she gets over to you, heal, you know, and then if she breaks heal, then it's correction again. Yeah, you know, or like all I have like a with me, which is not really heal, but like stick by me.
SPEAKER_05:Is that do you give do you give the dog more leeway when you do that? Because I technically have I I want to have like two options too, but I've been giving her like basically on the the the leashes, the black part a little bit higher, like three inches higher than the black part, is where I normally hold her when she's at heel. And then I use like the traffic loop for like stay close, but that that sort of means that her heel is a little bit loose already, but I want that too. So is is what I'm doing just like basically the same but reversed, where like stay close is is my heel, but um or no no no your I forgot what your command was, but your uh oh right with me is is my heel and my stay close is basically the heel because it's like shorter. Yes, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, how do you set your criteria for like having like different levels or like strictness of heel? Because like contact heel is easy because it's like we have to be touching me, but like if you're trying to differentiate between your like heel and like your street heel or casual heel or something, then like at what point do you correct the dog for breaking it?
SPEAKER_03:Um I do different sides, so right hand side is gonna be my with me, left hand side is heel.
SPEAKER_05:Um I do interesting, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And I do that kind of with like my it's like the same thing as like a sport focused heel versus just like a pet heel, you know? So like uh OPA is like a focused heel, or like for me and Minka, it's like a contact heel. If I say OPA, it's contact. Um, and then with me is I just need you to stick by me. And I just taught that first with leash. So I would just guide her over to the right hand side. If she would get too far out in front of me, no, with me, pop, pop, pop, she comes back over, good, and I can pay in position, right? But it's not gonna be the same as like a focused heel. Like I don't need you contacting or focused heel on me. Um, but I'm just using leash. I'm using leash food shaping that. Once I know that like Minka knows kind of the boundary of the with me, then I use my e-collar to hold her accountable to it. They're very smart, they definitely get it. Just think of like beforehand, get really clear on your criteria of what you want out of the dog, right? So, like if I am doing, let's say, a pet heel, for example, with Bella, if I say Bella, heal, I expect her to kind of be behind me and I'm gonna pay her kind of behind me. And if she goes in front of me, I'm gonna correct her for going in front of me. But if I say with me, I'm not gonna hold her accountable to that super strict heel. I'm not necessarily gonna pay her in that heel position super tight and close to me. I can pay her out a little bit and she can like wander off a little bit, but I just I have a bigger bubble. So I think that is helpful is like make sure that you set up your criteria before going into it. And then you know, okay, I know my e-color, I know my leash, I know my food rewards and rewarding and position and all of that stuff. How can I use those tools to teach the dog this expectation for this command? And I think it, I think it just gets a little muddy if we don't set those expectations beforehand because then we're like, heel, well, the dog is kind of in a with me, but I'm not really holding the dog accountable to that, right? They're like out in front a little bit. Um, I'm not really gonna correct that because like that's fine, but that's where it gets a little muddy, you know. So make sure that like if heel is like right next to you, then the dog breaks that and correction as long as the dog knows, right? And we start with legion food first. But if I say with me, I'm not gonna correct you for getting out in front of a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:Would you use one to teach the other, or do you just teach both of them independently, kind of the same way, but with a different criteria?
SPEAKER_03:I teach them independently, and that's also what helps it like the different side helps with that as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But like for Minka, for example, like I cannot get her to walk on my right hand side. She just like in moments of stress, she just defaults to the left. But she understands that like OPA is like contact heel, and with me is like, I just need you to walk with me, you know. So, like, let's say I'm walking past somebody and I want Minka in a tight heel, I'm gonna call her into an OPA, even though that's like our sporty heel, but it's contact for Minka. And then with me is like, I just need you checked in with me. So if she walks out too far in front, she's like, Oh my bad, and she'll like look back at me and wait, and then like keep going, you know? Yeah, but I teach it, I teach it separate. So like with with muffin, I do her with me, like if we're walking onto the field for our training sessions, I don't necessarily want to call her into like a heel, so I I hold her on my right hand side and muffin with me if she's too far out on front, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Once she comes back over to me, good. And I'm just kind of casually paying her on the right hand side, it's not like a perfect heel here, you know. But she understands now, like, okay, with me is I just have to like walk with her and I can't put pressure on the leash. Um, but for most of my like for Bella, I'm just gonna use heel, heel, and break. I don't want to overcomplicate it for her owner either.
SPEAKER_04:You guys got anything else for me?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I have a question. Yes. Um, what during active sessions? I feel like that's our weakness. Um how focused should I hold her accountable to me? So so an example is um I try to get her riled up a bit, and to do that, a lot of times there's like a ball or like something involved. Um and when I toss the ball, she'll depending on the ball, there's like one ball where she'll like immediately get it and then bring it back to me. Then there's another ball, which like I think because it's a little bit harder for her to grab onto with her jaw, like it's like much bigger. It's meant to be a herding ball, but she doesn't know how to herd yet. Um she gets distracted, but once she latches onto it, she just like goes into like she circles around the yard and she's like really intense about it. So it's like good for getting her like up there in terms of drive, but I also like I like bring it and like she doesn't always come back, but when she does, she does, so it's like really inconsistent, and it's I I don't know if I should stop her from doing her thing and like celebrating, or how I make it clear that like you can celebrate for a bit, sort of like what you do and you let um Muffin like tug with you. I think the difference is because you're still at the other edge of the tug, it's still like focused on you. Whereas when she's celebrating with the ball, she knows I'm there. Like, I don't think she's like lost uh awareness, but she is like not really engaging in what I'm saying. So, how do I should well for first question is should I make sure she's always focused on me during these active sessions? And if I do, then how do I fix what she's doing right now when she's like celebrating that she got it?
SPEAKER_03:I'm fine with that, but practice, like try to get her to bring it back. It doesn't have to be like right away, you know, like she can do her victory laps, and for some dogs, that's just like that's the reward for them, you know. Like Muffin likes to grab the ball and like thrash it. So I let her do that, but the the reward needs to match the behavior, I guess. So I would maybe like make that almost kind of like your jackpot of like, hey, we're gonna work for this like lower value thing, and then when you do a great job, I'm gonna say, get it, and let you get this one, do your victory laps, and then I would kind of like run away from her. So with Muffin, like Muffin is also she just started bringing the ball back to me. I would like let go of the ball that she was tugging and she would just like leave, and she would like go sit on the couch and like possess it. And so I started just running away from her, like, okay, I'm just gonna leave you. And then I like take off sprinting, and then she's like, Wait, where are you going? You know, so you can kind of do the same thing, but I would make like that reward. That's kind of like your wow, good job, you know, like you did your training session, or maybe at the end and let her kind of like do her victory lap. And if you want her to bring it back to you, you can either have like a flexi on her and be like, come on, come on, come on, and like run backwards. She brings it back to you. Wow, good job. Let her play with it again, you know. So use your tools, use your flexi, use a leash if you want her to bring it back. Um, but I would let her have like her little victory lap. I don't see anything wrong with that. Okay. And then like with Muffin, I I've like talked about this all the time about how every every time I like train with a new person, they're like, you're boring, and that's why she checks out. Um, so my sessions are very fast-paced, like it's like, get it, yes, you know, and I'm like quickly running through things because that's what I'm trying to build duration in is that like focus on me. Because when I go to do sports with her, she can't be just leaving, you know, like you can't just leave. You can't just go leave and like, oh, get into this little bag that's on the floor over there that has like tugs and stuff in it. Like, I need you to be engaged with me. So whenever I see that she's checking out, I run away from her. I run away from her, I'll be like, come on, come on, come on. Um, pull her towards you with your body language. Um, and if you want like that really focused engagement, I love the get it's because it buys me some time, you know. Like when trying to train the dog, like they think so quickly that it's like faster than we can think about like what the next thing is that we want them to do. So if you need to get it, you know, throw a piece of food, she goes and gets the food, comes back to you, yes, couche or down, you know, go into a down, think about what you're gonna do next. Okay, heal, you know, call her into heal or place or whatever. So we have like our obedience and our get it's to kind of buy us some time, especially if we have like a really fast dog that thinks quicker than we do.
SPEAKER_05:Got it. That works really well. My my get it's I've like practiced better with food because there's like a clear, like she gets the food and then she always comes back. But with the victory laps, like she it it goes on. So in those cases, do I just like unless it's excessive, which it never lasts more than a minute. So like if it's not excessive, do I just wait for her to finish her situation and come back to me unless it takes too long? And then I'll do the next command.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I would maybe use it at the end of your sessions. Wow, good job, you know, and then when she comes back, all done, you'll put it away, and that's like the end of your session. Got it. Okay, cool. Yeah, because typically we want like with our active sessions, we want the beginning to be like focused on you, right? Because that's what that's what we're aiming for. That's why we get the dogs barking at us. That's why we even if the dog isn't barking, they're like check in with us, yes, and then we'll shuffle backwards and pay, pay, pay. We want to start like setting the tone in those active sessions of okay, now's the time to focus on me. So I wouldn't necessarily put the thing that you know is gonna have her check out in the middle or the beginning of your session. I would put it at the end. Got it. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I had a quick question, you know. So I don't know if this is a place to ask it, but I basically have two pretty reactive dogs. And you know, I know you're talking about how important engagement is with them. Is that like the best place to start with them? Or do you have any other like recommendations of like what I should do? I mean, I know working on our marker words would be helpful, but is there anything else? Like I'm I'm really struggling with these two.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, where do you live? Oh, I'm in Hawaii. So I come see you, but I don't know how that would be possible.
SPEAKER_03:That's okay. Do you live in a house or an apartment? Yes, a house. So I have a backyard. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And where do you struggle with the reactivity the most? Out on the walks, and then even like if we're going hiking, you know, hiking at the beach.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, especially one of them, my younger one, my 10 almost 10 month-old German Shepherd. I mean, he's pretty reactive. Like he'll as soon as anybody or any dog is walking towards like in our direction, he'll just start popping off, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Is there intention behind it? Is there like any aggression, or do you think it's just like loud, like to be reactive?
SPEAKER_01:So for him, I I question, you know, I wonder. My girl, I think she just she is overly excited and she just wants to play with everybody. So I think there's some excitement and a little probably a little bit of insecurity too. But with my my male, he I don't know. I don't know what his intention is sometimes. Yeah. Does he do it off leash?
SPEAKER_00:Like if he's off leash, will he run up on another dog? I never gave him that opportunity to be off leash, completely off leash yet.
SPEAKER_01:Good.
SPEAKER_03:So reactivity is like explosion due to a barrier. So the leash, fence, window, all of those things are our barriers. That barrier causes frustration, the dogs start to like pop off, basically. So I ask if he does that on leash, because if he's doing it off leash, then there might be a little intention there, right? There might be a little like aggression underlying some of that. Um, but I would say build up the foundation, don't do walks necessarily right now while you're in the process of working through that reactivity. Build up that engagement just like I'm doing with Bella. You can do it in the yard. We can do go, you know, throw a ball. They go and bring the ball back to us. Yes, play, play, play, go, throw the ball again, just like a game of fetch. Um, we can mix our obedience into there, but those sessions are just allowing us to build up that engagement and also in our marker words and our expectations when the dog hears those words, right? Because if we don't have a way to communicate with them, then when they're over aroused, barking at another dog, we're especially not going to be able to communicate with them because we haven't built up that communication in a lower drive, lower arousal state. Does that make sense? So I would say for now, like limit your walks and just do these active training sessions. It can be with place, you can practice heel, you can practice down, sit, just getting the dog using their brain, your practicing your marker words, your timing of everything. So that like when you do start to take your walkout, like let's say we start just out in front of your house and we see a dog in the distance, you can you know walk, walk, walk. Your dog starts to get out in front, shuffle backwards. Yes, pay, pay, pay. So then our default of okay, you see another dog, check back in with me. Check back in with me, you check in with me, I'll pay you. You know, and then once we've got a foundation of our marker words, our leash pressure, all of that stuff. If you want to use e-collar, you can layer e-collar on top of that stuff very easily as well. And that's the e-collar is basically our accountability, right? So I teach the foundation, I teach the dog heal. If I tell you heal, I don't care if there's another dog, I don't care if there's people or cars or whatever, you have to go into heal. And if you break heal, I'm gonna correct you. So that's where our e-collar comes into play. So, like for Bella, for example, um, I am getting out of our conditioning stage with the e-collar. So I'm just using it to hold her accountable, just like what we were talking about with Victoria. If she gets out of that heel, no, stim, heel, she gets back into heel, good, you know. So you break that position and I'm gonna correct you. So when you go to leave to go be reactive to another dog, I'm not necessarily correcting you for being reactive, I'm correcting you for leaving heel, for leaving that command, you know, and uh that's the beginning stages of how we work through reactivity. We have to first teach the expectations, teach our language, uh hold the dog accountable to those expectations and prevent reactive moments as much as possible. You know, like we're not necessarily gonna change how the dog feels in though in doing that, but we're practicing not being reactive. We're practicing seeing another dog and looking back to mom, seeing another dog and coming back in to heal, trying to create some new behaviors. Once we've got the dog no longer reacting, then we can work on things like counterconditioning. You know, you see the other dog, hey. That will that's how we're gonna kind of like long-term change the way the dog feels about like whatever is causing them to be reactive. So it's definitely a process, but I would say start in your backyard, do some fun little training sessions. You can record your sessions as well. Um, and if you even want to, like next week when we do our call, set up your phone and you can do a live session and I'll coach you on exactly what to do. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks, Meg. As long as I'm not working, I'd love to do that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and um, we can always like we can work around your schedule too. So if you just want to send me a message in the community and let me know like if next week at this time works for you and if not, but I know that a lot of other people in the community would want to be able to see that, you know. Tons of people struggle with reactivity. So, how do we get started with that? You know, I'm happy to like walk you through all of that, and that way we can all learn while you're in the process of learning as well, you know. Thanks so much. Yeah. Um, but feel free to record your sessions that you have now, and you can either post them to the group or send them to me privately. Um, if they're long, you can upload them onto YouTube and just publish them as like unlisted, which means it's not public, it's only for people who have the link so that like only the community members can see it or only I can see it. Um, and that way I can give you some feedback on what I'm seeing with your dog because your activity can come from a bunch of different reasons. Sometimes I have dogs that are overexcited, sometimes I have dogs that are fearful. Sometimes German shepherds just like to be reactive because it's enjoyable for them, you know. So in that case, it might be like, well, maybe your dog just needs to be corrected because he's never been told no, you know, he's never been told to not do that. So finding a meaningful correction, just record yourself and that way I can see what type of re reactivity you're working with. Well, dude, no, thank you. Yeah. Because Bella, for example, the the board and train, she's reactive, but I don't think she it's not like some deep-rooted issue for her. She just likes to be reactive, and no one's ever told her no. So I told her no one time and she's like, okay. And she's hasn't really been reactive since. So just a meaningful correction for her was enough for her to not be reactive. And you might have the same situation, but it really just depends on the dog. So record your sessions, you can upload them or send them to me. Um, and then we can plan on next week if you want to do like a live session, I can coach you through exactly what to do.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, great. All right. Now that sounds great because so many people, I mean, other trainers have told me, you know, just slap on the e-collar and shock them at a high level, you know, and I'm like, okay, I mean, fine, but isn't there other ways too that we can work on this, you know? And or they say pop them really hard on the, you know, the prong collar. And I'm like, okay, I mean, I can try that too, you know, but I've been really trying to search for other ways to go about doing this to really get to the root, root of the issue. I mean, and if if it's not possible, maybe it's just managing the behavior. So, I mean, I'm down to try anything at this point.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, he's still very young. There's tons, there's tons that you can do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know what you're dealing with, but I saw like a massive shift in my guy around the same age, 10 months, all of a sudden he was just like quite reactive. I saw a massive shift in him from conditioning the e-caller without ever having to correct him. I think just because he learned how to like think through pressure. And that he like could think through like a higher state of mind, that then like even like low level he and adding like there's no barrier, so like leaving the loot leash loose, and then if he just like he leaves heel, I disappear. There's no pressure on the leash, there's nothing. I'm like, you're on your own, but and he was like, uh okay, because I really felt like if I put pressure on the leash, he's like, Yeah, you're backing me up, man. He like got a lot of confidence from it. So the e-caller, like it's I'm not saying shock your dog for being reactive, but it allows you to apply pressure without there being like a barrier, which I found like super helpful for my guy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely things.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and that's also why I love the flexi too, is because it's basically mimicking off-leash, like there's a tiny bit of constant leash pressure, but not like when a dog is putting full force on like a regular leash, you know, and so go ahead, leave me once I've taught my language, my commands, my markers, my e-caller, what that means. Go ahead and leave me, and I'm either gonna leave you and then you're gonna feel insecure because you're like, wait, where are you going? Or I can stim you. And when I stim you, you're far away from me. So you learn that good stuff happens when I stay around mom. And when I leave her, it's uncomfy, you know. But that's kind of like the later stages, once we've taught our tools. I do not love just slapping an e-collar on and correcting a dog for reactivity. Um, they just don't know what the sensation is or where it's coming from. So that's where the conditioning comes into play is I want to I want the dog to know what that sensation is, how to turn it off. And I like that it's coming from me. I want the dog to be like, oh shoot, like that's mom trying to get in contact with me or trying to, you know, guide me back to her, instead of just like, oh my gosh, I was reactive and then I just got like struck by a lightning bolt. Like I have no idea what that was. But reactivity is like, it's just an impulsive behavior. And so we can't just start correcting impulsive behaviors because the dog doesn't know. So if the dog doesn't know that they're like doing it and that it's like a bad thing, we can't correct it, you know. So that's why I'm big on let's teach the the structure of our heel, you know, let's teach the expectations, let's teach our marker words and our clarity and our language and all of that stuff. That way, when you do go out and be reactive and break the heel, you know why I'm correcting you. You know that it's coming because you broke the command and you're doing what I don't want you to do.
SPEAKER_05:I don't think this is falls into the category of being reactive because she doesn't do it most of the time, like on walks or anything anymore. She whines a little bit, but it's just feelings. Um at home, I I heard what you said about how like if a dog barks a bit at like a stranger entering the house, like that's totally fine, and I agree with that. Um, and like she sort of still can have her moment. Um, Halloween was like an exception where I I just like want to be able to establish a quiet or a leave it or like some sort of a I've got this, it's okay, I know it's your home, and there's a stranger entering, but like definitely alert me if there's a burglar or someone I'm uncomfying about, but like after you've alerted me, I I need like a it's good command. Yeah, is just is given that she corrects herself or like knows how to understand the e-collar on walks now. Is this a good time to to use the e-collar in that case? Where if I stay quiet and you keep barking, I can like sort of like um stem you and hopefully she learns that way and it doesn't escalate. Yes, okay. I haven't tried that yet because I Halloween was like special, like just the little kids, and I would be like, Shut up, Pepper. And like some little kids just like started running away too, because they're like, Oh my god, this is all sold, it's crazy, and then other kids were being extra uh friendly. I I never let her outside because I just thought that that might be a bad influence at the moment, but um, because of the weird, erratic little kid behavior, she was just like really rattled by that. Um, and also people coming into the house. Like it just gets so loud when she's nonstop barking. And I I want to have like a good quiet command.
SPEAKER_03:I would definitely correct that with e-caller. Um, and it's probably gonna be hold down for like two to three seconds. Sometimes tap can like jack the dog up, right? So if I want the dog to be quiet, I'm gonna press and hold for like a couple seconds, and she might be like, ooh, and then like stops, you're gonna let go of the stem. And then to reinforce the quiet, let's say she's quiet for a bit, good. I want you to grab a handful of treats, walk over between her paws, and drop some food. So it's kind of like a scatter.
SPEAKER_05:And relative in terms, relatively speaking, for the level of STEM, should it be? It's obviously not just the working level. Um, should it be like the outside uh outside heel, if she gets out of heel or like the you've crossed a threshold, that's dangerous. I'm gonna really high-level stem you. Like what where does this fall from?
SPEAKER_03:Don't do too high level. I kind of want an in-between between our working level and like a correction.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03:It should be enough to stop her. So if she doesn't stop and she's just barking through it, then you need to dial up.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, yeah. She's usually pretty obvious about like because sometimes even outside, if I don't go high enough, she'll still like fixate and like lunge at a score. She hasn't done it since I picked up a little bit. Now she's like, Oh crap, like if I cross that line, I'm gonna get into trouble. Um so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And then good, walk over, drop some food. So the scattering of food like in front of them gets them sniffing and it gets them into like a different drive state. So when a dog is barking, they're in defense.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, yeah. Luckily, she's never gotten to a point where she won't take food, she loves food and will always take food.
SPEAKER_03:Amazing, yeah. So just mark those quiet moments, good, move in, pay. And we used to have to do the same thing with Toma's dog, Hawk. Like, he was the same way. He, if there was like his thing is bite work, right? So if there's bite work going on, I remember we came to the facility before it was ours, it was when Oscar had it, and um, we're like, okay, we're working through his like barking and king whenever there's other things going on. So Oscar had us take Hawk out. He's like, All right, just tether him, tether him. And Hawk lost his ever-loving mind. No stim. He's gonna go. And then when he quiets, I let go, right? Because we want the stim to go off when you give me the behavior that I want. So when you're quiet, it stops. Good, walk over, scatter. Walk over, scatter, you know, so we can practice the same thing, and it's just it's just over-arousal, and you just have to practice like bringing her down when your triggers are around, which is people at the door, kids, that sort of stuff. But Hawk was so bad he like had anxiety diarrhea while we were trying to work through this.
SPEAKER_05:I don't think your girl is gonna be that bad. She one time we were in home and we had a friend, a house and dog sitting, and the only time she like slightly peed her pants was my friend was taking a hot shower and triggered the fire alarm, and the fire people came and she just like lost it, and there was like a tiny little puddle of pee. Oh, but I mean that that that's pretty intense.
SPEAKER_03:Like there were sirens, and the chances of that happening again are super limp. Yeah, yeah. Um, and then like the let's say I have a dog that like really will not stop barking, they won't stop barking with like e-color stem, then um lemon juice in a spray bottle and you spray it in their mouth. So when their mouth is open and they're barking, no, and you squirt it in their mouth and they're like and then they keep their mouth shut because they don't want lemon juice in their mouth. Interesting, yeah. But that's like a police dog, German shepherds, like super intense dogs. But I don't know, your your dog might might be like that too. You just have to kind of play around with it. And if the e-collar is like, if you're like Meg, this is not working, like it's just jacking her up even more, then we got something else, you know.
SPEAKER_05:All the standard tools have worked as expected. So fingers crossed that this is like the prong collar sort of just caught on, she doesn't care about she wasn't like scared about it or like all the the horror stories. Um, so yeah, I'll keep you posted.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and just make sure that I don't know, I feel like I know you. I don't want you to hang out on low levels because you're gonna get to the point where you've just conditioned her on like too low of levels that you're having to dial up all the time. I would rather you be higher than too low, especially now that she knows the e-collar and the expectations, you know.
SPEAKER_05:Is is 10 still too low? She like dips her head down a little bit, so I feel like she feels it for a correction? Uh for for a for a like you're you slipped slightly out of out of peel.
SPEAKER_03:If I like a I would I would get out of the working level stuff. I think you're past that. And you said that you feel like your weakness is the active sessions. I feel like you're doing great, you have really good timing. Don't don't talk shit about yourself. So because you've put all of this work into conditioning the e-collar and you know setting the expectations, you can hold her accountable to it. And I think you will realize that she's a lot smarter than you're giving her credit for. There just hasn't been a high enough consequence for her to really think twice before breaking heel, you know.
SPEAKER_05:So go it 10 is still a working level, so it needs to be much higher than that.
SPEAKER_03:Not, I wouldn't say much higher, but like, for example, Bella, her working level, she's like not a sensitive dog at all. Her working level is probably 15, like if we're just walking outside. So a correction for her is like a 35. And sometimes she goes, but when I say heal, she fucking whips into heal now, you know. So it's not like she doesn't know it, it's there wasn't a consequence that was big enough to really hold her accountable to it. And I like sent a video to her owner, and her owner was like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe she's not like dragging you around trying to sniff things. And I was like, Well, I held her accountable to that, and she tried to, she tried to drag me over to the side to go sniff something, and I told her no, and I corrected her at a 35, and she was like, Oh shit, she's gonna hold me accountable, you know. So now when she smells something and wants to drag me off to the side, she like looks at me because she's like, Oh, I'm not gonna do that because there's a consequence when I break those commands, you know, and I I did that twice, and now she stays in heel and she doesn't think about leaving heel because she's like, Oh, there's a consequence. Whereas I don't want you to be walking in heel and you having to use your e-collar 20 times on the walk at a level 10 when you know that she knows what heel means, you know. So we can hold her accountable to it, even if it if even if it's uncomfy for half a second where she goes, heal, she gets back into heal, good, you know. And then she'll probably think twice before she goes to break the command again. So, and I'm only saying this because I know that you've done the conditioning, right? I'm not gonna tell you that if I'm not sure about your training or I'm not sure about like the clarity of what your dog knows. I feel like you've done a really good job with that. So now we can really hold her accountable. I know you know these things. We gotta practice that impulse control. You can't just hit the end of the leash to go get the squirrel and me kind of like nagging you at that low level all the time.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, okay. I can do she she's the only time she's yelped or like you know, done the oh god, I just got corrected, was when she was caught off guard because I had just put on the e-collar and she's used to such low levels at home. Like I think I was at like a four or a five. And the moment I like used her to her usual 10, which is the outside voice, um, because she was like poking her head out the door too too much, and I wanted her to step back a little bit, and I like stemmed her, and she's like because she didn't expect me to correct her in at the threshold. Um, so yeah, I'll she's never done that outside. I think like it's just 10 is probably really chill for her, so I can definitely afford to go up.
SPEAKER_02:Your dog can handle it if you hit them like five too high, just adjust. Yeah, like I range my dog feels it at five, and I range up to 40, depending on what is going on, and I'm like playing with it all the time. And then if you hit them too high and they're like you're like, Oh, my bad, won't do that next time. You don't need it. It's okay, it'll be okay.
SPEAKER_05:Do you like screw around with the dial a lot? Because it's so sensitive that I've been trying to just like stay at like a five interval so that I could use the boost, but I don't think there's like that much of a difference to her between like a 10 and a 15.
SPEAKER_02:I play with it a lot, but it's like it is a lot to manage until you get a feel for it.
SPEAKER_03:I'm also not a pro, so I always have my fingers on the dial. And in the beginning, I'm very controlled with the level that I'm at. But once the dog knows the things, I'm not even looking at the number, I'm just cranking up. Okay. And you'll get more comfortable with it, where it's like that becomes like intuitive for you, and you can kind of dial down and dial up like without looking at the number. Um, but like in the beginning, when I'm conditioning the e-collar, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna stay at this level. Sometimes I feel like, yes, the dog feels it, and sometimes I'm like, I don't really know if they felt it, but I would rather like err on the side of caution when the dog doesn't know what the e-collar is. But then once we get past that and I'm holding you accountable to the things, I'm just gonna dial up. I am kind of all over the place, even with my own dogs. Like Minka the other day was in drive, she was like chasing a squirrel. I dialed up to 100 and I said, Minka, come. She didn't come immediately, and I hit her at 100, and she was like, whoa, and like jumped up at the skin. But I need you to come back the second I call you. You know, it's a safety thing. Like, you have to come back to me. So that was like a high-level correction for her. And I knew she was in drive, right? So, like, you'll get to the point where like you see your dog and you're like, okay, I know that I need to be at like a 25, whereas normally I'm at. You guys got any other questions for me? I think I'm good. All right, sweet. Thanks so much, Meg. You're very welcome. If either of you guys want to record sessions and send them to me, feel free. And then next week, uh, Jenny will plan on doing a session with you, okay?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I'll let you know how my schedule is and if it works out with you know with my work. So just wanted to thanks so much.
SPEAKER_03:And as always, thank you guys so much for being here. If you want to join our community, I will put the next week.