Susan Garrett — Master Dog (and Human) Trainer (#200)

Thanks Tim! I’m a Licensed and Board Certified Behavior Analyst trained in the Skinnerian tradition (and long time listener). It is so awesome to see our little world given good exposure in the media! I always thought your worldview would jive nicely with the objectivity and deterministic framework of Behavior Analysis. Keep digging deeper into it!

Negative reinforcement and punishment are not the same thing. Negative reinforcement is still….reinforcement.

this was awesome! thank you Tim and Susan!

Great podcast!

These concepts are all new to me and they were fascinating to hear about.

I’m wondering if I can use the same ideas to get myself to workout more consistently? I’m an artist and I practice that for hours everyday and I love it. I also like working out but it’s definitely second string to drawing.

I’m not out of shape, but I still would like to be able to maintain a consistent routine even when my art deadlines are tight or when I’m working on a really fun drawing and don’t want to stop.

Any ideas how you could use some of her techniques to do that?

Like I said these are very new to me and I’m going to re-listen now, ant any help would be great!

Tim. Do you have someone who is an expert on your book to help me in my business pursuits

Thanks

Loved this!

Man, this couldn’t have come at a better time in my life. Between my pregnant wife, my daughter, and running a business it’s been hard to train Goji. I get to spend time with him, but never enough. This episode has made it so the time I do spend with him is well spent! My wife has to handle a toddler and my golden doodle pup at the same time in many cases. We’ve got to get him trained well before the arrival of our son! The advice Susan gives here is easily implemented the same day and I believe it will change the relationship we have with our dog! Thanks for posting this on the perfect day! Thank you Susan and Tim!

Great to hear from a) a knowledgeable woman (not too many of those are featured on your show….) and b) someone who has more dogs than me! Thanks for this one.

Lots of great info here… Susan Garrett was a terrific choice for a dog training guest.

A couple of points I’d like to make (not that anyone asked).

I don’t think it’s right to say that world championships in agility are an objective measurement of how good a dog trainer is… it’s just an objective measurement of how good they are at teaching dogs agility. There are several different types of dog trainers and too often they all just get lumped in the same bucket.

I am a “dog trainer” in Austin, TX… my specialty is working with dogs that have behavior problems, often some kind of “aggressive” behavior related to fear. That’s my thing and I’m confident I can do this type of work as well as anyone. But there are no competitions for this – I have zero trophies on my mantlepiece and competitive canine sports have just never interested me that much. It would be a serious mistake for someone whose goal it is to win agility competitions to come to me. And it would likely be a mistake for someone whose dog is exhibiting behavior problems to select a trainer based on agility championships.

That’s not to say one can’t be great at both and that certain skills don’t crossover, but you can’t just assume because someone is good at one they are also good at the other.

There’s a lot of talk about how other animals learn and how it applies the same way to dogs. But something I wish was emphasized more in dog training is what makes dogs DIFFERENT from other animals and how those characteristics can be used to enhance learning. Think about how dogs, compared to other animals, respond to our voices (activating excitement with higher pitches, etc) and hand gestures (specifically finger pointing). Look at the research (Paul McGreevy – “An overview of the dog–human dyad and ethograms within it” is a good place to start). I love clickers and the precision they provide for certain things, but how we use our voices and bodies to communicate naturally is woefully neglected by too many.

I’d take the science not supporting “jackpots” thing with a grain of salt… jackpots can be given and used in so many different ways and for different purposes. I look at a jackpot as a tool for trying to get a certain result in a particular situation. There’s more to it that just giving extra treats when they perform something particularly well. I wouldn’t dismiss the importance of Susan saying she jackpots because it FEELS good to her. This is huge! It’s a natural and honest display of gratitude, which is good for the relationship and for the soul! The Jackpot is the ENTIRE party, not just the beer.

In reference to the struggle you had getting Molly to do stuff at the party, think about what leverage you had. You mentioned tipping with $20’s, but maybe in this situation you have to tip in $100’s. What would have happened if you’d picked up a little pizza cheese or burger meat as a motivator? Or even a brand new, never been played with before squeaky toy? Maybe you tried, maybe you didn’t and maybe the results would have been the same, maybe they wouldn’t have been. Only the dog can decide what job is “worth” doing in any given environment. But the first thing I’m asking myself in that situation is “what leverage can I use?” The difficulty level of Distraction is ultra high in that environment. Maybe you were able to use $20’s to get Molly to do the easy jobs. But for the harder jobs, $20 might not cut it. Successful repetitions of the hard jobs in that environment will make the job easier for the dog to do in the future. So you might whip out those Benjamins and get a bunch of successful reps. When the job becomes easier for the dog to do, then you won’t need to (and shouldn’t) use $100’s anymore. This is not necessarily a one party process – it’s something you might do at one party, then another, until the dog generalizes.

This is also why you don’t use hot dog or cheese at home if your dog is excited to work for kibble – you waste leverage. It’s not just that they are taking it – they need to be excited by it. I’ll take a dollar for nothing, but I won’t run thirty laps for a dollar. I have a technique called the Golden Treat that I use for finding the right treat for any environment, always trying to maintain leverage. It’s a mistake people make with loose leash walking very often. You take your dog on a walk and they are already super distracted, so you immediately break out the $20’s every time you go for a walk. All is well and good until suddenly your dog sees another dog and goes apeshit and suddenly your dog couldn’t care less about $20. You’ve lost some leverage. You need to have something BETTER than $20 for those situations.

I might be wrong, but I think there was a miscommunication about the tethering – it sounded like she thought you meant it as a way to force a bond, but I think you meant it as a way to not let Molly go off and get herself into trouble. Otherwise, tether or x-pen, you’re still forcing the dog to stay within a certain area…

I could go on and on but I’ll spare you any more of my foursigmatic fueled ramblings. Hopefully my writing made sense. Would love to hear an episode about more serious behavior adjustment stuff!

Your “Be nice to your dog for God’s sake” sign off was perfect.

Thanks as always for the great content!

Aww…I remember when you first adopted Molly and were considering training options on your FB page — I was one of the many that chimed in against CM, and refered you to Ian Dunbar, Susan Garrett, Karen Pryor, Jean Donaldson, etc. I am so pleased to see that you made the sound decision to utilize humane, effective, scientifically proven methods to modify and shape her behavior to create a peaceful, stress-free life for her living in our human society. I am only shocked that, being who you are and what you do, and that you were able to make this excellent choice for methods to train Molly, that you continue to feed kibble. I know. I know — the diet issue is such a can of worms, and with most people I wouldn’t even say a thing, but you are so plugged into the diet/nutrition topic for humans that it’s just shocking to me. It’s just so hard to believe that you wouldn’t feed her a species appropriate, wholesome, fresh food diet – particularly since you are so interested in health and nutrition that you don’t recognize how feeding her a raw diet would “just make sense”. But well done on the training aspect — you are making well-informed and excellent choices for Molly on this front! Perhaps you could explain your reasoning behind choosing to feed her processed foods vs. a species-appropriate fresh foods diet? I would be curious to hear your thoughts. Apologies if you have already discussed the “dreaded” diet decision and topic in the past, but you’ve tackled the training topic (and..training, diet, off-leash access, spay/neuter and vaccinations are the biggest lightening rod issues in dogs/cats) so you’ve already tackled one on this list – diet next? 🙂 Cheers! Kasie

Not sure if you’re planning future episodes on dog training, but Canada does seem to be a hot-bed for it.

Another family here, the McCann’s, have been doing dog training since 1982, with their daughter, Kayl McCann, winning 21 Gold Medals (35 overall) for Team Canada (http://kaylmccann.ca/about-kayl-mccann/).

Potentially worth checking out their facility if you are ever near Toronto — https://mccanndogs.com/

I am interested in “What you should do in the first 24 hours of adopting a puppy”, because dogs have different behavior, as well as character!

Great episode Tim. I will be revisiting it and putting into practice next month when I dogsit for my parents for six weeks!

I am an interviewer and I’m always trying to improve by studying great interviewers (like you). One of the ways of studying I have found helpful is to transcribe just what the interviewer says / asks. This way you can attempt to follow their train of thought as they were listening to the subject. It’s particularly interesting to hear how the interviewer handles transitions from one subject to another, and how they ask follow up questions.

Aside from actually interviewing people, what homework / study / practice have you done to improve your interviewing skills?

Thanks!

Conor

didn’t see what kind of treats were given. or food for that matter. was looking forward to that part. i did look at your youtube video on what food you feed molly.

Hey Tim, great interview. A few things I would differ on, and a few inaccuracies regarding quadrants of training. But most of the comments below covered that.

What I will add is you should look into a couple of other trainers for interviews, as this is a hotbed of interest.

Check out the father of clicker training for dogs, Gary Wilkes. He will give you plenty of insight on the place positive punishment played/plays in the clicker/marker world. And remind us to consider that dogs are not whales or chickens. While whales are predators, their food doesn’t generally bite back. Dogs evolved from dealing with food that didn’t want to be eaten

https://clickandtreat.com/wordpress/?p=884#more-884 (he tells about the start of clicker training, the seminars he did with Karen Pryor)

And for a different perspective on e-collar training, the biggest disrupter is Fred Hassen. The founder of Sit Means Sit dog training franchise. Sit Means Sit dogs have won titles is virtually every dog sport, from perfect scores in Rally (Excellent level) agility to world records in Dock Diving, to 2nd place in the World at this years Mondioring. He has changed the perspective for police handlers and pet owners across the board. The Sit Means Sit franchise trains over 15,000 dogs in the US and Canada every year. http://www.sitmeanssit.com

I love dogs! big salute for Susan Garrett for the dog trainer!