Chris Loverseed: Bed & Place Commands: Essential Techniques for a Calmer Dog| E23

[00:00:00] So for me, for a pet dog, let's you any dog to live with a dog. Yeah, let's just call it to live with a dog. This for me is the most important skill inside the house.

[00:00:10] So for me, but two most important skills are walking nicely on a lead. When you're outside of the house, this is number one of the outside environment and inside environment go to your bed because here if a dog understands a bed or a place command, it doesn't matter if they can sit down, stand whatever might be.

[00:00:29] And solve most issues with them be able to go to their bed and stay there. So I'm really big as well like we're talking about pet dog owners is focusing on one thing and getting that really strong.

[00:00:40] Instead of trying to do five different things and not perfecting any of them. So if you're going to teach one skill, it would be place or bed.

[00:00:48] But for me, it's hugely important because so many of the higher problems can be solved and all prevented by the use of it. Welcome to the Pet Care Report podcast by Pet Summits. Here's your dog training host, Melissa Viera. Hello and welcome back to the Pet Care Report.

[00:01:10] While there are many skills that we can train our dogs and might be a little bit less overwhelming for pet parents to focus on a few essential skills in the beginning. But what exactly are these skills and how do you go about training them?

[00:01:25] Today's guest is going to tell us about one of those essential skills. Joining us today is Chris Loverseed. Chris is an esteemed entrepreneur, dog behavior expert and the visionary behind positive canine training.

[00:01:40] With over 13 years in the field, Chris combines his vast expertise with innovative digital strategies to redefine dog training.

[00:01:50] Today we're going to learn more about Chris's positive first approach. So before we jump into today's essential skill that we're going to tell Pet parents all about, Chris, thank you so much for being here.

[00:02:02] Can you tell us a little bit more about your business and your background training? Hello everyone and thank you for your very kind words. So I guess a little bit about myself, I started this business. About 14 years ago and now.

[00:02:17] So I guess as most job trainers you get a dog that has some issues, you go down the path of learning, you get the bug and then it was pretty organic.

[00:02:28] It wasn't something that I said out to do that makes sense. So I had a corporate job and all those things.

[00:02:34] And then as time went by, things just started to evolve. So like with online training equipment, gurning salon, digital consulting for pet businesses and so on and so forth.

[00:02:48] But that's pretty much my background on nutshell obviously would be a very long story but that's a long story short. Yeah, so your company is offering both in person and online training correct correct.

[00:03:01] I guess we've got a couple of sites so you've got like pecanine training which is our face to face training business. So there are a team of 18 staff and we probably help about 300 dogs in the owners every week.

[00:03:15] So we've got group classes, pop your schools in home training, assistant stalk training animal acting like for full nine yards. Very cool. So obviously we have the online component as well. So I guess the reason why we started that was honestly lockdown was a part of it.

[00:03:35] So you're on the US, you can cope with as bad as us but so where I live in Melbourne, we're with the most lockdown city in the world. Yeah. So we couldn't cope further than five kilometers from our house like we couldn't do anything.

[00:03:49] So I started it then. But honestly, it became a little bit of a passion project because I'm really big on believing that most pet parents, pet parents dog owners whatever words you want to use for parents.

[00:04:02] We can go down that path is the biggest issue people face is having access to variety information. Because if people know what to do they can avoid so many behaviour problems.

[00:04:14] So I really want to help people, I guess give them a platform where it's, I guess affordable because I'm sure you're aware like one of one dog training for a lot of people is out of reach. It's it's a lot. It's not a cheap thing.

[00:04:29] So by having like an online platform is extremely affordable and people get access to literally everything would still teach in our face to face sessions but just online.

[00:04:39] Yeah, and I think the other part of that is it's just so overwhelming with the amount of information out there for pet owners like where do you even start with that.

[00:04:48] So somebody trying to train their dog themselves at home they get on the internet and there's so much conflicting information. So that is not always very helpful but having a professional service that can guide you step by step.

[00:05:02] I think it's a really great idea so that's really neat that you're able to offer that and that you're doing that for so many dog owners each week. That's really important.

[00:05:10] Yeah, and trying to keep people of Google or so, and last time we had some friends over and one of them comes the whole family adopted and they'll talk me about like the last thing you want to do is doctor hot because every single doctor is going to have a different treatment plan.

[00:05:24] So you have to pick one and stick with it. Exactly. Yeah, for sure.

[00:05:30] So this essential skill we're going to talk about today speaking of there being so much information out there it can be helpful for pet owners to focus in on a few essential skills maybe when they're first starting out.

[00:05:43] So we're going to discuss training dogs to go to their bed or go to their place, which is something you often do with your clients or your company does with the clients and can you tell us a little bit more about what that looks like for you of course there's many different ways to train this and many different styles.

[00:06:00] So what exactly does the place or bed cue look like for you.

[00:06:04] I would say I guess so so many people to get confused on the terminology like obviously me US places what most people say but bed not essentially just teaching a doctor go to an object and staying there.

[00:06:17] So because eventually after a while you can generalize it as well, like so it can start off as your dogs bed or like something that's raised and then go to like a park bench or a rock or whatever in my day.

[00:06:29] But in short, just teach you a doctor go to one spot and staying there.

[00:06:33] I almost look at like one way of looking at it as well it's almost like teaching a dog to be mindful to a certain extent, but it's have to go to a place and just focus on one thing or one thing idly which is just being still on this object and not getting off which can't be tricky for some dogs.

[00:06:49] Absolutely can we tricky for a lot of dogs. Do you use any type of release signals or are they staying on that place until told otherwise? Yeah, good question.

[00:07:01] So I guess for us we're always big on implied stays and obviously this can vary across different trainers so for those at home that don't know what an implied stay is. So any stationary position where it sits down, stands, bed, place.

[00:07:16] You want your dog to stay there or we want dogs to stay there until we give them a release command.

[00:07:20] So generally speaking we use a word such as free break, go whatever you want to use literally signifies that this exercise is over and you can now get off. So dog goes onto what's been you say free now the dog can move.

[00:07:34] I guess for us for exception to where rule is so there's always exceptions to where rule. Now it all depends how old school the trainers are.

[00:07:42] So you have some trainers that will sit there and say hey, you know if you told the dog to go to its place but dog falls asleep and wakes up. It should still stay there.

[00:07:51] I don't believe in this sort of all like me if you tell your dogs to go to the place and they get off after they wake up like this is completely fine. And I'm also big on what we call like at big ends with exceptions.

[00:08:03] So I'm not sure you're across this concept as well like let's say for example, but dogs on its bed and you know another dog comes up and starts making it feel really uncomfortable or child comes up and starts trying to poke it like a more than happy with dog to then move out of that command as well.

[00:08:21] I couldn't agree more with that that's huge. Now when a dog is on their place are you looking for a specific position or should the dog just be comfortable? Yeah good question sorry for me.

[00:08:32] I guess initially I don't care if a dog does handstands or whatever is on it because if in shelter while the dog will learn like hey, I can't get off so I might as well get comfortable.

[00:08:42] And so ultimately what you want is it's like relaxation on cukes eventually the dog knows all hey I'm going to bed I can't get off a miles or just keep back and relax because you're fine most dogs especially high energy dogs they go there initially and they're just.

[00:08:57] I'm thinking to get off or release to go do something else but eventually after a while once you do this in our face they learn how to self-serve self-settle whatever words you want to use to describe it just to go there and chill out so ideally it's want to see a dog just kicking back.

[00:09:13] And they're allowed to shift positions and move around in your training methodology I would assume so if they start and it down they can kind of stretch out and. What is a dog stone get off that object?

[00:09:26] Yeah, why they can get up they can adjust and all those top things yeah I'm not really being on like. The dog wants to down on there they can't move like I'm more than happy for the dog to get up adjust all those things.

[00:09:38] Yeah, it's just a twist like if you lie down and you want to sleep and have a nap but you might as well be comfy.

[00:09:43] Right absolutely and we're going to talk more about the uses of place later on which will bring us more of like how long should a dog actually stay on there.

[00:09:52] But just to give us an idea is this a long duration behavior are you using it for a little bit longer than a few minutes or is it typically just a quick navigating to the target and then release or maybe it depends on the situation.

[00:10:07] Yeah, but a lot of so it really depends on the situation so it can be quick exercise or can be a duration exercise.

[00:10:14] So why is this one of the most important things that you teach your clients I'm sure there are many other important things but I think this is rated pretty high on there for one of the essential skills and why is that.

[00:10:28] Yeah, I'd say so for me for a pet dog what you any dog to live with a dog. Yeah, let's just call it to live with a dog. This for me is the most important skill inside the house so for me to make some important skills are.

[00:10:42] Walking nicely on a lead for when you're outside of the house this is number one of the outside environment and inside environment go to your bed because here if a dog understands a bed or a place command.

[00:10:53] It doesn't matter if they can sit down stand whatever might be. You can solve most issues with them be able to go to their bed and stay there.

[00:11:00] So I'm really big as well like we're talking about pet dog owners is focusing on one thing and getting that really strong.

[00:11:08] It's said it's trying to do five different things and not perfecting any of them so if you're going to teach one skill that would be placed or bed.

[00:11:16] But for me it's hugely important because so many bad haigrop problems can be sold and or prevented by the use of it. So let's say for example your dogs annoying you whilst you're having dinner.

[00:11:28] If your dog knows to go to their bed, you don't have this problem. You know if a dog jump me up on the couch they go to their bed.

[00:11:34] You know if a dog charging up and jumping on visitors when they come from a front door they go to their bed. You're vacuuming your mopping your sleeping.

[00:11:43] They go to their bed like it's just such a practical exercise and because so many people are focused on trying to tell the dogs what not to do. Here it really gives you a chance on teaching your dog what to do instead.

[00:11:56] Absolutely and one thing you mentioned is training one skill well so not just starting something and kind of leaving it uncompleted but making sure you train that through so that you have something that's strong and that's solid with the dog.

[00:12:10] But how can pet parents actually measure that? So how can they tell that that skill has been trained start to finish and they they have it pretty downpacks. Yeah good question. I'll say so much short in America.

[00:12:23] Juicy so I'm like obviously we've got different terminology across across the state so to speak. Do you guys use with three days? Yes, yeah, yep absolutely. Distance duration. So you probably have had all that you cover.

[00:12:37] Yeah, but it's not much sure like obviously terminology can vary so much. Yes, so for people watching your home so any stationary position or literally anything you're doing dog training really. You want to work on what we call with three days. So distance duration distraction.

[00:12:53] So I just taken some example teaching dog go to the bed and stay there. Yeah, so first and foremost let's talk about duration. There's no point only having a dog stay on their 30 seconds. You want to be able to build it up to at least 15 minutes.

[00:13:07] Now, the reason why I say 15 minutes is because once you get to that you generally don't have an issue with half an hour and hour. There are a few hours. But by that stage of 15 minutes, most dogs will generally self settle in relax.

[00:13:20] So that's your duration part the next part is distraction. So you want to be out it and they always look at it in training.

[00:13:27] I say it's no different with preparing for a flight. You always want your training to be harder than reality because so many people training is easier than real life. That's when they then run into issues. So let's just talk about the distraction component.

[00:13:42] All right, let's say you need to have a prepared dog for you know, the doorbell ringing people walking for a refund door. Hello, all this excitement people bringing you food. If your training doesn't replicate this or is harder than this, you're really going to struggle.

[00:13:57] So you want to make sure, well, can you do upstand with bed as you vacuuming? As you drop food, as you kick a soccer ball around, whatever I might be, as you do star jumps, as you do push ups as just do some crazy stuff.

[00:14:10] Yeah, completely out of ordinary. As you ring doorbells, as you fight tennis balls pass and this is really your distraction part of it.

[00:14:19] Yeah, then your distance part here can also come into two parts as well. So how far away can you be with your dog when you send them to that object? But also how far away can you be with your dog staying on the object?

[00:14:33] So for example, you want to be able to be at the front door, your beds never kitchen about a sandwich adult two of your objects. But also have you dog reliably stay there whilst you are, you know, 10 meters, which is 33 feet away from it.

[00:14:47] Yeah, and I like that you broke the distance up into those two components because I think a lot of pet owners do get confused about that distance part.

[00:14:56] Because of course, there is the distance of, you know, can you go finish cooking your dinner while your dog remains on the place even though your kitchen is a room away.

[00:15:04] But also if you're already cooking dinner and your dogs at your feet, can you send your dog away from you? Can you get your dog to navigate all the way over to that place? So that's huge.

[00:15:14] And those are all separate training sessions, right? So that's what I think. Yeah, and I like the distraction component. You make it sound very interesting, which is important as well. Yeah, it has to be like novel, like just really random.

[00:15:30] But one thing I did want to touch, I just remembered as well because we spoke about release commands before.

[00:15:35] So I'm hanging on there until you release them and one issue I find with a lot of pet parents or dog owners in general is not understanding a rousal levels in classical condition.

[00:15:46] What I'm about that is so so many people they have a release command that can lead to excitement. So to speak, so they're like breaking with dog and golf and chase a tennis ball or buy a toy or chase food.

[00:15:59] And I guess when we're trying to teach calm exercises like go to your bed, when you tell your dog free off the bed, you don't want for dog jumping out like a bullet in a china shop.

[00:16:08] So so many people they condition of release commands to be explosive like dogs in a set free boom you can golf and chase a tennis ball.

[00:16:16] So it all depends on the owners, but I do recommend if you have condition your release command to have excitement around it to teach it separate release command.

[00:16:27] So I generally like for word finish, so for some people so finish for the dog has a really calm annotation to what's like set.

[00:16:36] Finish you just there's no expectation after release that makes a lot of sense and when you begin training this, do you usually recommend using food toys probably not toys because we talked about that excitement level a little bit.

[00:16:51] So what does it look like when you first start training this. Yeah, good question. So yeah, we always recommend using a leash and food initially as well going back to the whole food thing we're really big on the dogs working for that they daily food intake so.

[00:17:06] As I said, just putting your puppies food your dogs food on a ball split this up into training sessions so reason why we use a leash is to just help guide with dog but also prevent mistakes from learning because I guess.

[00:17:20] What's the best way of looking at if dogs or a horse behaviors that's what they learn so to speak.

[00:17:25] So we've a leash like when are there to correct the dog or anything like that we could just simply help block them like let's say for dog goes to walk off the bed we could just block them and go either back to right the area.

[00:17:36] But also as well like when you are teaching like let's say like you don't for doctor Chase for cat well if you don't have a leash on with okay. Okay, it's going to chase it.

[00:17:44] It's nothing you can do to stop them or squirrels everyone loves squirrels in America. I saw that in stable. Yes, squirrels are quite the excitement around here.

[00:17:55] Yeah, so when you're starting to train this do you recommend leaving the place down all the time or putting it down just for training sessions.

[00:18:03] Yeah, look this this is actually really good question and you have two four or two different camps on this so me personally like I just laid my beds on my places out.

[00:18:14] Because my dog chooses to go there on their own free will and they choose to go there on their own free will. I always look at there's a big difference between like it can manage a position and something that dog does at liberty.

[00:18:26] Because some people sit there and say hey well you don't want to leave your place place out there because you don't want your doctor or her is bad behavior on that.

[00:18:35] For me on the flip side you could then say all right well you don't want your doctor lie down unless you are some two because they can really reverse bad lying down.

[00:18:43] It goes with the same part for me so yeah I'm I just leave a bed down for dogs want to go line with their it's but I'm also big on that part as well like so obviously rewarding with dog for choices they make on the own.

[00:18:58] So for me, but more the dog goes that they're just chills out naturally by choice I will always reward this behavior because most people especially dog owners.

[00:19:08] Pit parents they want their dogs to be proactive in behavior choices so for me I'm really being on rewarding dogs that make good choices on their own so.

[00:19:17] I didn't ask them to go to their bed all the place with dog is gone there on their own I will always acknowledge this behavior.

[00:19:23] I think that's great training for the humans as well of how to be more mindful of the dogs behavior because it's so easy to forget about them when they're actually being well behaved right when they're up in our feet and they're.

[00:19:35] It's a little easier to notice them so it's great training for them. But let's say we hope we have a dinner table you know and so many people like the dogs will come up and they'll leave it that for dog when they're at the dinner table.

[00:19:46] You know what I mean and they're rewarding that behavior but if it dogs being a good boy on their bed, they don't give any attention so it's so big to be mindful of this absolutely.

[00:19:56] Now what about multiple dog homes do you often use the place when homes have more than one dog? Yeah definitely I guess so multi dog households like we could do a whole another. Oh yeah.

[00:20:09] There could be a very lengthy one as well all depending if you have issues and that stuff but just touching on with their basic so for me multi dog households I do recommend having separate dogs for separate beds or places.

[00:20:24] Because the main thing is probably the biggest issue people face with multi dog households is co dependency in dogs becoming overly attached upon one another.

[00:20:34] So in ideal world you want to have one dog on a bed call the other dog off move that dog to a different place and have a dog's independent from one another and not have massive foamer when start screaming and carrying on like, you know, we're going how come I can't follow Bob.

[00:20:50] Yeah it's great for training practice too. I know with my group of dogs having the place I can work with them all at once when I'm kind of short on time so they're all on their places and I can still do their sessions together.

[00:21:03] Instead of having them all out like around me at one time the place kind of organizes that training session a little bit so it can be really helpful.

[00:21:10] Especially like for me we call items are uses a bit like I still I don't try as much I used to but so I got some very like equal violence but like I was grab a couple of them at the same time and just so much easy.

[00:21:19] So my Jesus that way like a adults got improved like right it's a distraction got more variables and even though you're doing healing with one dog you have a dog still rehearsing and being rewarded for a good the high meal.

[00:21:32] Yeah that's fantastic. Do you have a preferred place to start with this so are you starting with the distance duration or distraction or does it again depend on the situation and the client schools.

[00:21:46] Look I think every dog you start off with literally no distraction no distance no duration. We start there dog goes on you're rewarding the behavior couple of seconds release guide back on and then gradually over time you build it up.

[00:22:05] Now do you have any tips for anyone that might be struggling with trying to train this at home so they're listening to this episode they start training it what is making them struggle commonly what is that number one mistake that you typically see.

[00:22:20] So probably two but they go on something expecting too much to soon would probably be the biggest mistake. Um, do you want to say just getting 1% better a date over a year is a massive improvement. Yeah.

[00:22:36] Not using a leash is probably the biggest mistake so because that way with dogs or as herzing all sorts of the behavior that I want them to rehearse.

[00:22:45] And how much quicker are those training sessions when you set the dog up to succeed instead of chasing the dog around and trying to reset it's just like good time management to prevent that.

[00:22:58] Yeah quicker but also you have a dog actually learn something because a lot of people go to run from to piss off run away from you and do all the activities you don't want them to do. Yeah for sure.

[00:23:09] Do you have any other tips that you would like to share with our listeners whether it's regarding the place or just any important tips that you want to make sure that you get out there.

[00:23:19] Yeah, I was going to say like I think going back to what we touched on before is being proactive with your dog so.

[00:23:28] And I think this is a very important part of the process that we're going to do is to do this with a lot of people and we're going to go back to what we thought we could do.

[00:23:38] I expect that's a reactive and people are going to go off another like you're like a reactive dog or a proactive dog.

[00:23:44] So when we talk about reactive in this setting, I mean, a dog that's always waiting for you to give commands versus proactive where dog that's learned how to make better choices.

[00:23:55] So just acknowledging your dogs when they do something good without you asking them, the me is probably the biggest piece that so many people are missing.

[00:24:05] They always wait for the dogs to do something wrong to tell them off or for a training session, but they're not proactive because

[00:24:13] I look at it this way. So many people have children and trying to your child isn't something that you go out and do for one hour on a Sunday.

[00:24:21] You know, and they're like, honey, I'm just going to take Bobby outside and just trying to for a little bit like every way moment with them is a training opportunity.

[00:24:29] And it's no different with your dog. So just being really mindful of present with your dogs, but knowing that hey, like whenever they make a good choice is you should acknowledge them for this for me is huge.

[00:24:40] This is great information Chris. Thank you so much. So I want to make sure our listeners know exactly where to find you and where they can sign up for some of this training.

[00:24:50] So can you tell us where the best place is to find your business and to find you?

[00:24:55] Yes, so probably social media to be honest. So Instagram is where we're most active. So just search positive cano and training and you can find us if you want to do online training it's just pk9 online dot com. And if you're in Australia, pk9 dot com dot you.

[00:25:16] And all of these links will be right here alongside the podcast. So it'll be easy to click on those links and to find you.

[00:25:23] And I think we covered it all for today. So thank you again for being here. Again, those links will be there for any of the listeners that want to hop on over.

[00:25:34] And we just want to encourage you to subscribe and share this episode so that we can reach more pet owners with valuable information and experts such as Chris. Thank you again for being here until next time.