How To Train Your Dog With Love And Science - Dog Training with Annie Grossman, School For The Dogs

After years of researching breeds, Joanie Comenzo of Manhattan decided to get a Welsh Terrier. When she went to pick up her new dog, Nelson, the breeder pushed him into her arms and said "Your puppy is an alpha." Joanie loved him from the moment she saw him, and that love never waned, even after he bit her multiple times, and sent her mother and boyfriend to the hospital. Over the last eight years, Joanie has sought training and medical advice from a wide array of professionals. Today, Nelson wears a muzzle every moment of the day that he isn't in his crate. He and Joanie live a happy, if unusual, life together. This is their love story. Notes: Nelson's preferred muzzle - Fun Dog Fact Of The Day: As late as the early 1900s, dogs were allowed to roam off leash in Philadelphia as long as they were muzzled - Woof Shout Out: Zuri, who wears a muzzle to deter people from pestering her for being so cute, can be found on Instagram at Instagram.com/zurithebolo - Music: "Love Is Strange" cover by Toast Garden --- Partial Transcript: Joanie speaking to Nelson: Good boy Nelson, Oh, what a good boy. **music** Annie: I'm here with a client of ours, Joanie Comenzo and her dog Nelson, who is, a Welsh terrier. Is that right? Joanie: Yes Annie: I wanted to speak to Joanie about being Nelson's person because I think as a dog human pair, they've encountered some,pretty formidable obstacles and have come out on the other side, still loving each other. But let's start from the beginning. So you got Nelson when he was a puppy? Joanie: Yeah, 14 weeks. Annie: Okay. So what made you decide to get this breed in particular and where did you get him? Joanie: Well, I had a Yorkie that I had as a teenager and then I went off to college, so it kind of became my mother's dog. And I knew I wanted something a little bigger, but I liked, you know, Yorkie was a good experience, you know, as a terrier. I knew I wanted a terrier. Everyone told me that the Jack Russell's too insane, don't get a Jack Russell. So I was, I listened, funny story that I ended up with Nelson, but, and I'd seen a few Welsh Terriers around. I was thought they looked interesting and then I just did some research and they just seemed like the perfect dog for me, you know, they said good with kids, I thought I was going to have children. You know good with kids. Good for city or, you know, country living. They adapt well to an apartment or you know, like they just-- Annie: I always feel like those breed books make such grand generalizations, right? And yet so many people buy their dogs based on what it says. Joanie: Yeah. And just so much, you know, everything I read about them, I was like, I think this is going to be the dog for me. And then I researched rescues, it was impossible to get and you know, Welshies are just so hard to come by. There was no rescue with the dog for me and I was like, you know, I waited and I waited and I researched breeders and I found, you know, the top Welsh terrier breeder and you know, in the country and I was on a waitlist there for a really long time and they went through this huge interview process. You know, they were interviewing me to make sure that I was proper for their dogs, you know-- Annie: Which is something you want from a breeder. You want them to be doing their due diligence too... Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

As much as we want our dogs to be social beings, the sad fact is that city streets are not an ideal place for leashed dogs to socialize. The close confines of the sidewalk can keep dogs from having enough space to greet each other properly, and leashes too often can become uncomfortably taught, leading a dog to think that even just the sight of another dog predicts yanking and choking.  This episode addresses:  -Avoiding other dogs on the street  -Using the presence of other dogs on leash as a cue for your dog to pay attention to you  -Providing your dog with appropriate off-leash socialization opportunities  -Choosing which dogs you might let your dog greet  -Helping your dog greet other dogs naturally and appropriately ... and more  Notes:  7 things to consider before letting to dogs greet on leash https://schoolforthedogs.com/7-things-to-consider-before-letting-two-dogs-greet-on-leash Dogs In Need Of Space  https://dogsinneedofspace.com/ The Yellow Dog Project  Mendota leash -- Annie's favorite, lightweight leash  https://storeforthedogs.com/products/braided-leash Woof Shout Out: Dog adoption vests by Mimi Reid  https://etsy.me/2PzKd9T Fun dog fact of the day: NYC dog names (dogs named after fruits, vegetables, etc)   https://nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-york-citys-dog-population Follow School For The Dogs on Instagram: Instagram.com/schoolforthedogs Ask Annie: AnnieGrossman.com/ask --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hey everyone! So today we are going to talk about dog-dog greetings, specifically dogs greeting other dogs on the street, and I'm going to suggest how you can teach your dog to greet another dog well and all the things you need to keep in mind when deciding whether or not you're going to let your dog greet another dog. But before I get into the thick of it, uh, I wanted to give my number one suggestion, which is don't do it. Don't let your dog greet other dogs on the street. That's it. Now the reason I'm not going to end it there is because I know that that sort of like a bummer piece of advice. People don't generally love the idea of shielding their dog from every other dog on the street. We like the idea of being able to walk our dogs and have it be a kind of social thing where they can say hi to the other dogs in the neighborhood and everyone's gonna get along. But here's some reasons why I generally advise against letting your dog interact with other dogs on the street. First of all, I see a lot of crazy dogs at School for the Dogs, all of us trainers do. And a lot of those dogs are dogs who have issues with other dogs and, especially, those are dogs who have issues with dogs on the street, issues with other dogs at close proximity and in New York City where I am, and in a lot of cities, when you're having a dog greet another dog on the street, there's a lot that could go wrong. And I have to assume that it's the minority of dogs who have problems greeting other dogs or problems even just being on the street at all where other dogs may or may not appear or just problems being on the street at all, no matter where other dogs are. Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/podcast/

When Brett Podolsky's dog was chronically unwell, he had an idea: What if he bought the same ingredients listed and in the commercial brand he was feeding her, and made her fresh food? The change in her health was drastic, and led to Brett, who was then working as a comedian, convincing his best friend, Jonathan Regev, to start a subscription-based high-end dog food company with him. Now three years old, their Brooklyn-based company, The Farmer's Dog, has secured some ten million dollars in VC funding and their health-supportive recipes are being enjoyed by tens of thousands of grateful dogs throughout the country. Annie and Brett discuss what it takes to start a dog food company from scratch, the problems behind commercial dog food, and the shifts in dog owner awareness that are leading to a tide change in the pet food realm. Visit SchoolForTheDogs.com/Farmer and get 50% off a two week trial subscription.  Notes: Learn more about the Farmers Dog at schoolforthedogs.com/farmers - Brett and Jonathan in Forbes - Fun Dog Fact: Yes, it's possible to dog food that is nutritionally viable (according to government standards) using shoe leather, crushed coal, water, and motor oil. Woof Shout Out: Our sweet doodle student Webster recently moved to San Francisco. We miss him, but we enjoy keeping tabs on his left coast life on Instagram! instagram.com/westcoastwebbie/ Have a question about dog training? Get in touch! Podcast@SchoolForTheDogs.com  --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hey everyone. Today I am speaking to Brett Podolsky, who is one of the founders of The Farmer's Dog, which is a high end dog food subscription company. I first discovered The Farmer's Dog three or so years ago, not long after they opened up shop because I was at a cafe that I often go to near my apartment. And there was a guy there with a dog and he and I started talking about his cute dog and it came up in conversation that we're both dog business entrepreneurs. And I started looking into his company and that was Brett’'s business partner, Jonathan Ragiv. A year later, I was reading about them in Forbes.com. And last year, I read that they had secured an $8 million investment. At which point I realized these guys were actually maybe a big deal. So I was psyched to get the opportunity to talk to Brett **music** Annie: So tell me how you guys got started. Brett: Yeah, so Jonathan was actually living with me at the time. Annie: And how did you two know each other to begin with? We met abroad and basically just like hit it off and spent every single day with each other. Literally it might be like four and a half years now. Annie: Were you traveling together? Brett: Yeah. Yeah. We met like on a trip. And we bonded over, I think it was funk music and yeah, after that, we just had one of those moments, like, did we just become best friends? And then after that, yeah, we basically spent every single day with each other for years. Annie: So were you like trying to figure out what kind of business you could do together, or were you suddenly inspired by the idea of a dog food? Brett: No, it's funny. Well, when I met him, I thought besides just being like a great person, I thought he was like the smartest person I've ever met. So I was like, I definitely, if I'm going to start a business, that man will be my business partner. I don't know if that's what he was thinking at the time. He had been working on a couple of different startups. Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

Katie Sturino is many things: A publicist, an influencer, a fashion blogger, a product developer and more. You might know her from The12ishStyle, the blog and Instagram account where she suggests celeb-worthy looks that can be worm by larger ladies who identify as "body positive" or "body neutral." She also has a product line, MegaBabe, which tackles problems like boob sweat. But all of her successes have sprung from her passion for being a "dogager" or "momager" to a brood of dogs who've gained nearly a half million devoted followers on Instagram. Katie and Annie discuss her passion for rescuing puppy mill survivors, the challenges of living with five dogs in Manhattan, and what it takes to make a dog Instafamous. Notes: AnnieGrossman.com/podcast27 - Katie's Instagram accounts: Instagram.com/The12ishStyle - Instagram.com/ToastMeetsWorld - Instagram.com/UnderpantsTheDog - Instagram.com/MuppetsRevenge - Sponsor: Train your inbox with SANEBOX! Get $15 off at SchoolForTheDogs.com/sane --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hey there everyone. So if you’re into following dogs on Instagram, really, I don't know why you wouldn't be, you've probably come across an account called Toastmeetsworld. Toast, who sadly passed away last year, was really one of the first mega stars of Instagram. She had over 350,000 followers. She appeared in Vogue and on Good Morning America, she was in Harper's Bazaar. And it's tempting to say she brought all of this upon herself because she was just very, very cute and particularly memorable because she had this funny face with a tongue that was always sticking out. But I'd say the real reason for her success was the powerhouse publicist who rescued her. Katie Storino, who I was fortunate enough to interview for this episode. Katie now manages several Instagram accounts for her dogs. She continues to manage Toast’s account and also her late dog, Underpants’s account. She's, she has a real talent at naming dogs, I think they're all very funny, very unique names. And when she isn't on Instagram, she is managing the lives of three dogs right now. Muppet and Cheese who, like Toast, were both rescued from puppy mills and then Sock who is a 16 year old Shih Tzu, who moved in with her when her fiance moved in with her. And there, there just so many amazing things about Katie. I mean beyond the fact that she is one of the only people I've ever met who has lived in a Manhattan apartment with five dogs, although now she's down to three. I think what's coolest about her is the way her career has kind of evolved and thrived in these unusual, exciting directions because of her love for dogs. Having these Insta-famous dogs ended up leading her to get attention for a blog and Instagram account she started for herself called The 12ishstyle, which is basically about how to look awesome in celebrity-worthy clothing, even if you're not a tiny celebrity-shaped person. She uses the term body neutral, which I really like as an alternative to the whole body positive movement. And as someone who is a pretty solid size medium, I don't know, I think it's a nice way to label yourself, like can I just be a normal sized and healthy person and not have to attach myself to some kind of movement. Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts

There are two types of conditioning we use in dog training: Operant (aka learning by consequence, or "Skinnerian Conditioning") and Classical (aka learning by association, or "Pavlovian Conditioning"). When we teach new behaviors, we tend to focus on Operant Conditioning. In this episode, Annie talks about the differences between these two kinds of teaching/learning, and reveals how, in many cases, Classical Conditioning can produce very reliable behaviors with little effort. Notes: AnnieGrossman.com/podcast26 - What vending machines can teach us about training "come" & "drop it" - Music: "Time Is On My Side" cover by Toast Garden - Sponsor: Train your inbox using SANEBOX! Get $15 off at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Sane Like this podcast? Leave a review on iTunes at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Listen or visit us on Anchor at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Anchor to support it with a monthly contribution of $0.99, $4.99 or $9.99 a month. Thanks! --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hello there, mammals. So I'd like to start this episode off with a little riddle. And uh, if you make it through this episode, you will be able to answer this riddle. So here it goes. You're in a room. Let's say it's a pretty small room with two people. One is a baby and the other is an adult, let's say it's a man and he doesn't speak English and you don't speak his language. Now he's holding a basketball and you want to teach him the meaning of the words “drop it.” Now, so just to recap, we have three people in the room, you, a baby, a man who doesn't speak English and is holding a basketball and that's it. There's no dictionary that you can use to translate. There's no dry erase board that you can write a diagram on and you are not allowed to really do any kind of a miming in order to try and get him to drop it. You also cannot touch him. So that's the setup. What are you going to do? Today's episode is specifically about teaching “drop it.” Of course we're going to focus on how to teach “drop it” to a dog, but teaching “drop it” to a dog is a little bit like teaching “drop it” to someone who doesn't speak your language and we're also going to talk about “come.” Now I know at a first glance it might not seem like these two behaviors have very much in common, but, again, by the end of this episode I think you will see what they do have in common and why I wanted to pair these two very important behaviors together. Now before I get too much into the nitty gritty of teaching these two important behaviors, I want to do a little review of the two kinds of learning that I'm always talking about on this show and that are so important to dog training: operant and conditioning and classical conditioning. So operant conditioning is what we tend to think about when we're thinking about dog training. Operant conditioning is really anything that fits into like a “if then” equation. If my dog's butt hits the ground, then I'll give him a treat. Or if my dog pulls, then we will stop walking. Of course, humans are very much affected by operant conditioning too, just think of everything in your life that you can put into this a kind of equation, right? Like, if I go to work, then I get paid... Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

If you have a dog, you've likely encountered bully stick chews. They're great for keeping dogs occupied, but there is always the risk of swallowing them, especially when they get chewed down to their ends. Several products have recently hit the market, each of which tries to solve this problem in a novel way by sheathing, clamping, or holding the chews in such a way to make it impossible (ideally) for a dog to choke on them. Annie surveys some of these products, and interviews the inventor of the The Everchew, designed by Austin-based inventor Kirby Kendall. Help fund his product on Kickstarter (through 10/3/18) at Everchew.com.  Notes: AnnieGrossman.com/podcast25 - What is a bully stick? - Bully stick holders at StoreForTheDogs.com - Music: "Bully of the town" cover by JazzBanjoRex - Sponsor: SANEBOX! Get $15 off at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Sane --- Partial Transcript: **music** Annie: So, you know, you're a pretty big dog loving nerd, if you can get very excited about bully stick holders. And, uh, I'll explain later in this episode exactly what a bully stick is, if you're not familiar with bully sticks, but basically they're a very popular kind of dog too. I recommend them to clients all the time because they're a single ingredient and dogs love them. Lots of great things about bully sticks. But one downside to bully sticks is when they get to their very last  inch or so, they kind of look like cigars depending on the size that you get, but when they get down to that little nub, there's always the risk that a dog can swallow it which is never a good thing. So over the last few years, a couple of companies have started offering various kinds of bully stick holders, basically devices that keep your dog from being able to get to that last little bit. And at School for the Dogs, we get really thrilled when we receive one of these things to try because like I said, we recommend bully sticks all the time. So right now a storeforthedogs.com, we sell three and each one kind of has a different approach to solving this problem. Probably our most popular one is called the Animaswizzler. It's this very cool looking kind of like plastic and rubber cage that fits over a bully stick. And we sell a lot of these. I like them, but they're not really great for super heavy chewers because plastic and rubber can be broken and sometimes the dogs do end up breaking them. So I don't recommend them for heavy chewers. Then we have one made by the company West Paw, which is a really great company. It's all rubber and you kind of shoved the bully stick in. It kind of looks like a really big hot dog bun. Um, and that also has its advantages and disadvantages. I think the main disadvantage is most of the bully stick is lodged in the rubber thing, so your dog really can't get to it at all. And then the third one we've be recently started selling is called the Bone Head. And it's kind of like a clamp that literally screws onto a bully stick with a screwdriver... Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

Ani Corless is a dog groomer and the owner of the NYC-based business Luxury Groomer. Unlike most groomers, Ani goes into her clients' homes to groom their dogs. Annie and she discuss her path to becoming a groomer, some common mistakes that well-intentioned dog owners make when grooming their own dogs, and the various ways that in-home grooming can benefit dogs, dog owners, and groomers alike. Learn more about Ani at luxurygroomer.com Annie and Ani discuss the annual "Creative Grooming" competition held each year in Hershey, PA. Annie produced a short video about this event for Vice.com in 2011. youtube.com/watch?v=yq2f5ACx2fM Interested in pursuing a grooming career? PetGroomer.com offers both a list of US programs and several informative articles on selecting a school. petgroomer.com/schools/ petgroomer.com/selecting-grooming-school/ Sponsor: Is your Inbox a mess? You need SANEBOX! Get a free trial & $15 off when you sign up at Schoolforthedogs.com/sane --- Partial Transcript: Annie: So today I am interviewing a groomer. Her name is “Annie” like me, although she spells it, uh, Ani where I spell mine, the more, the more normal, boring way. And Ani is an in-home groomer in New York City. She goes to people's houses. I'm really interested in in-home grooming this concept of a groomer who comes to you for a variety of reasons, some of which we will get into in this episode. But the main reason is I think it can really be the most dog-friendly way to have your dog groomed. I think a lot of dogs get stressed out going to the groomer and you don't know exactly what's happening to them at the groomer. And the longer that I do dog training professionally, the more respect I have for groomers who really take the time to be thoughtful about how they're handling dogs during grooming and how the dogs are responding. You know, I used to think about a groomer kind of the same way that I think about like a shoe repair person, like, I just would bring my dog in, kind of like, I bring my messed up shoes in and then they would fix the dog. Like they fixed the shoes and I would pick them up and all would be well and I didn't really need to know about what went on in the interim period. But the fact is that grooming can be really traumatic for a lot of dogs. So I give a lot of credit to groomers who not only put in a lot of time and effort to acclimate dogs to the grooming process, but also who are willing to be transparent about it and if you have a dog groomer coming to your house, whether or not you're actually involved in the grooming process, you can at least be there to make sure that your dog is feeling comfortable. And if your dog isn't comfortable, the good news is grooming is usually not something that has to be rushed. It's something that can be done over  a period of times, whether that means a groomer showing things that you can do to help your dog get better or feel better about grooming or having the groomer come again. But, it doesn't have to be a one stop process. And at School for the Dogs, we are encouraging our owners, our dog owners, from the time the dogs are puppies really, it's something that we, we try to drive home in Puppy Kindergarten to think about husbandry as part of training, to think about how you can make your dog feel comfortable around the equipment you're going to need to use with them or other people that are going to need to use with them from a very early point and to get them used to being handled. I think it's a really, really big favor that we can do to our dogs. Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts

In this Q+A episode, Annie discusses how to deal with dogs in elevators, and how to navigate dog parks. She also talks about what to do if your dog gets off leash, and how to help a dog who attacks her brother whenever they pass another dog. Have a question for a future episode? Visit AnnieGrossman.com/ask Show notes - Products: Fleece Activity Mat - Wall-Mounted Slow Feeder - Freedom Harness - Liquid Treat Dispenser - Target Stick - Whistle Recall DVD - Grisha Stewart's BAT guide - Music: "Back To School Again" by JazzBanjoRex - Sponsor: Is your Inbox a mess? You need SANEBOX! Free trial and $15 off at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Sane --- Partial Transcript: **music** Annie: Hey podcast, listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is a Q and A episode. This is my second Q and A episode. It's also our back to school episode, and I don't know about you, but I hated school, pretty much. I pretty much hated school all through all of my formal schooling to be totally honest. And I feel like September always felt like a sad time where there was sort of, dread, which I think, this song conveys. But now as an adult and as the owner of a school, School for the Dogs, I don't feel that way at all.  I love the weather and I love that my dog students are all coming back from their vacations and they're psyched to be back. I'm really glad to see their owners. So many of whom have become really good friends. And it feels like it feels like school is, is a good thing and it's revving up. And actually we just signed a lease on a new space for School for the Dogs, our second space, we're going to be operating in both locations for at least a few months, if not longer. The new space is on East Seventh street. We're hoping to it open by next month. So that's another reason that I'm excited about this back to school season. But for me when I was younger, I think the only thing that made going back to school slightly manageable was the back to school shopping. To be honest, I liked getting books and pens and I liked getting a new backpack and I liked that part of it. So I thought in that spirit, I would mention before I start answering some of the great questions that have come in, I thought I would mention a few of the cool new products that we have at storeforthedogs.com and maybe a couple of ones that we've had for awhile. We’re really excited about these new activity mats that have come in, they're made of fleece. They're kind of like snuffle mats, which is something that we've carried for a while. Different kinds of snuffle mats, snuffle mats are basically fabric kind of like rugs that you can hide things in, you can hide dry food or treats and they're like really, really super plushy stringy bathmats. But these new activity mats have even more, sort of like, fabric obstacles on them, where you can hide things, tuck things in flaps and such. Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

In 2011, Annie Grossman and Kate Senisi were both trying to figure out how to make a business out of dog training. They met through the Association for Professional Dog Trainers' message board, and discovered they lived a block away from one another in Manhattan. They also discovered they had complementary talents: Kate had an eye for detail, a background in graphic design, a head for organization, and a passion for dealing with aggressive dogs; Annie had an entrepreneurial spirit, writing skill, and lots of creative ideas. They decided to join forces, and together turned Annie's living room into a dog training classroom--they called it School For The Dogs. Here, Annie and Kate discuss SFTD's early days and their paths to becoming trainers. Notes: AnnieGrossman.com/podcast22 Training videos: Tawzer.com Music: "Sister Kate" cover by Lloyd Davis lloyddavis.bandcamp.com/track/sister-kate Sponsor: Is your Inbox messy? You need SANEBOX! Get $15 off at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Sane Partial Transcript: Annie: This week, School for the Dogs’ podcast is sponsored by Sanebox, the email service that is designed to make dealing with email a breeze. Sanebox gives you a powerful set of tools that can work just about any email client. It’s kinda like artificial intelligence for your inbox. Sanebox will automatically sort your email for you, defer your email for a more convenient time, set up reminders and more. Get a two-week free trial plus $15 off when you sign up at schoolforthedogs.com/sane. **Music** Annie: So I am sitting here with my- what do I even call you… Kate: Partner in Crime? Annie: My partner in crime. My partner, not in sexual way… Kate: yes, I always worry about when I say.. introduce you as my partner. I clarify it with… business partner? Annie: Business Partner. She with whom I founded School for the Dogs. Kate Senisi. The one, the only and Kate has certainly been one of the most important people in my life. Kate: Well Thank you. Annie: in the last decade. Kate: And you in mine. I think we are also friends. … I’m just kidding. Annie: Kate, do you want to be friends? Kate: I don’t know it might interfere with our working relationship. Annie: Laughing Kate: Is it possible? Annie: No, I really feel  so lucky that we found each other when we did and I, so, I brought Kate on to talk about how she got into dog training and talk about some of the things that we both love about dog training. I think one thing, among many things, that we both have in common is we both get really excited about geeking out on training and I knew early on that that we were going to be friends for a long time when we were curled up on your couch drinking wine watching, like, Kathy Sdao.. Kate: Oh yeah the Tawzer days.. Annie: recorded videos of DVDs of seminars on Saturday nights together after dog training all weekend or figuring out how to become dog trainers all weekend, we would watch videos about dog training with our dogs. I remember one of those nights thinking like, “This is it. I have found a certain kind of soulmate.” Kate: I found an equal nerd partner. Annie: So Kate and I started working to gather pretty soon after we first met which I believe was in 2011 Kate: I think so. Annie:  And at that point we were both.  We had studied dog training on our own in different ways, which we will talk about in a minute. I think we were both at the point of trying to figure out how to parlay our interest and knowledge into work... Full transcript at Schoolforthedogs.com/Podcasts

Renowned behavioral psychologist BF Skinner codified much of the science behind positive reinforcement-based animal training, and is a hero to many dog trainers. But for over half a century, his reputation has been tarnished by rumors that his daughter went crazy and killed herself because he raised her in a box. Annie interviews said daughter, Deborah Buzan, who is alive and sane. She was in fact raised in a box... sort of. Buzan discussed the "Air Crib," aka the "Baby Box," and growing up with a genius father who was devoted to engineering ways to make life easier and happier for his wife and daughters. Notes -  Music: Hello My Baby cover by Melissa Mahony of the Channel Drifters - Blue Danube cover by David Beckingham - BF Skinner Foundation: BFSkinner.org - Sponsor: Is your Inbox a mess? You need SANEBOX! Get a free trial and $15 off SchoolForTheDogs.com/Sane --- Partial Transcript: Today I am speaking to a very famous baby. Of course she is not a baby any more. She is a woman in her seventies. The story of her babyhood has become something of an urban legend. The misunderstandings about her youth I think actually dovetail with a lot of misunderstandings about dog training. Deborah Buzan is an artist who lives in England and we spoke via Skype, and, unfortunately, we didn’t have a great connection. So, this recording isn’t wonderful but I did my best to clean it up. But even if it is not the most easy listening I hope you’ll make it through this episode because we had a really interesting conversation. She is the daughter of B.F. Skinner and if you’ve listened to this podcast before, you’ve probably heard me talk about Skinner. He is one of my heroes and a hero to many good dog trainers out there. Skinner, who sadly passed away in the early 1990s, is considered to be one of the founders of the science of behavior.He codified a lot of what we know about the science and philosophy of behaviorism. If you’re not familiar with Skinner, I suggest going out and getting all of his books, or at least one of them. About Behaviorism a good one to start with, or Beyond Freedom and Dignity. He also wrote a novel called Walden Two which is kind of about how you could create a utopia creating positive reinforcement. Anyway, I thought the best way to introduce Deborah would be with this clip of her father discussing some of the misunderstandings about how she was raised. “I’d like to correct some rumors that go around. I am sure that some of you have heard them. A distinguished psychiatrist whose name you all know, I won’t mention it, told a distinguished person whose name you also would know, that the child that we raised in the so called box, the air crib, became psychotic. I wrote to him that we’ve heard this before and I’ve often heard this, would you mind telling me where you heard this rumor? Our daughter is very intelligent and talented, married, her husband teaches international studies at the Univ. Of Warwick, they live in London. My daughter is an artist, she does large color etching and sells all she can produce and so on. I don’t see any ill effects of the air crib on her. Well, he sent me a very apologetic letter, I must say that. But he didn’t tell me where he heard it." Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts

Every time you feed a dog, you have the opportunity to channel some of her energy into an appropriate activity, to tire her out, and to give her a sense of purpose. "Work To Eat" toys provide dogs with jobs, and dogs like to be employed! If we don't give them jobs, they too often make up their own jobs, alerting you to every sound in the hallway, or redesigning the couch cushions with their mouths. There are lots of kinds of "Work To Eat" toys. In this episode, Annie talks about one type: Slow Food Bowls. These kinds of toys can be used with any kind of food or treat (wet, dry, raw or frozen), and are no harder to use than a regular bowl.  Slow Food Bowls: StoreForTheDogs.com/collections/dog-bowls-and-treat-dispensers  Types of "Work To Eat" Toys: SchoolForTheDogs.com/WorkToEat "Ain't We Got Fun" ukulele cover by Jazzbanjo Rex: youtube.com/Jazzbanjorex/  Find Annie at AnnieGrossman.com --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hi, my name is Annie Grossman and I'm a dog trainer. This podcast is brought to you by School for the Dogs, a Manhattan based facility I own and operate along with some of the city's finest dog trainers. During this podcast, we'll be answering your questions, geeking out on animal behavior, discussing pet trends, and interviewing industry experts. Welcome to School for the Dogs podcast. **music** Annie: Hey everyone. So Anchor, which is the wonderful company that hosts this podcast has just launched a really cool new feature. And they've asked us to be one of the first podcasts to try it out. It's called listener support. Today is the very first day they're making this available. And basically it's kind of like a tip jar. So if you enjoy this podcast and you want to support it in some small way, let me know that you're listening and you're into it. You can sign up to give a monthly amount, either 99 cents, $4.99 or $9.99. And that recurring contribution will go straight back to helping produce this podcast. All you need to do is go to any browser, type in anchor.fm/dogs, and then just go ahead and click that listener support button as a special thank you. During this launch of this new feature, the first five supporting listeners will receive a School for the Dogs bandana. So go ahead and check it out and thanks to the folks at Anchor for inviting me to be a part of this launch. **music** Annie: So today we're going to talk about work-to-eat toys, specifically, slow food bowls. And let me tell you, I have exerted a lot of brain power and a lot of time trying to figure out how to approach the topic of work to eat toys, because there's so many great work to eat toys, but they're like different kinds of work to eat toys. So my conundrum has been well, do I just try and cover all of my favorite work to eat toys in one episode, or do I talk about just a specific variety of work to eat toy, or do I mentioned a single work to eat toy in every episode, and, I'm not sure what the right answer is, but what I've decided to do is to start out talking just about slow food bowls. And I hope that I will have an episode soon where I'll cover some other kinds of work to eat twice. I'm not sure how I'll do that yet, but the reason I want to start with slow food bowls is because I think they're kind of like a gateway work-to-eat toy. They're really easy to use. But anyway, let's back up for a second. Full Transcript available at Schoolforthedogs.com/Podcasts

Newsflash: Your dog already knows how to sit! But he may not know the cue you want to associate with that behavior. Annie breaks down how to use the "capturing" technique to teach "sit" anew and to add a novel cue. She covers:  -The downsides of "luring" a behavior or "molding" it  -The trap of trying to teach a behavior by asking for it repeatedly   -The difference between a "cue" and a "command"  -How to add a cue  -The never-ending process of "shaping" a behavior  -How to fade a lure and turn it into a cue Show notes - Get a clicker - Sponsor: Is your Inbox a mess? Train it with SANEBOX! Get a 2 week trial & $15 off when you sign up at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Sane - More On Pooper Scooper Law -  Featured Dog: Instagram.com/LeoTolstoyFrank Want to support this podcast? We now accept "Listener Support" at Anchor.FM/Dogs. Chip in $.99, $4.99 or $9.99/month. Thanks! --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hey everyone. I am so glad you are here. Today we are going to talk about how to teach a dog to sit and whether or not your dog already knows how to sit. We're going to start from scratch. You can always start from scratch. And of course if your dog does already know how to sit he or she might not know, however, the word or whatever cue you have attached to that behavior. So rather than use the word “sit,” which I think if you've tried to teach your dog to sit before, if you have taught your dog to sit before, that's probably the cue you've used, we are going to use a new cue, just for the sake of showing how to teach something totally from scratch. The cue we're going to use is either going to be a finger snap or a hand clap. I usually do two. But before I get into the details of how to teach this behavior, I want to talk about some of the common ways sit is taught and I'll talk about some of the pros and cons of using these methods. And then we will go over how we teach it at School for the Dogs. Now, I think probably the most traditional way of teaching “sit” is basically just to say the word sit until your dog sits and then praise your dog, kind of like the word “sit” is eliciting the “sit” from the dog. I've heard this called the midwife approach as you are pulling the sit out of the dog. And in reality, two things tend to happen. One, usually people start saying it and then they repeat it and then they do kind of like something with their body to kind of try and help the dog, whether it's leaning or holding their hand over the dog's head, or even pushing the dog's butt down, which I'll talk a little bit more about in a minute. Or they just keep repeating it until the dog sort of gets frustrated and tries to do something. And when you think about it as kind of actually teaching, using negative reinforcement, the behavior that you want to happen, “sit,” is encouraged because it makes the annoying person who keeps saying “sit, sit, sit,” it makes them stop. Again, negative reinforcement is just another way of encouraging a behavior, but it's encouraging a behavior by making the behavior be the off switch that makes the annoying thing go away, as opposed to positive reinforcement, which is a behavior is encouraged because it produces something good. Now, if these methods of teaching “sit” have persisted for generations and generations, I think it's just because dogs are so forgiving and tend to pick things up pretty quickly. Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

So, you have a carefully engineered environment (see: The Dog Training Triad Part 1) where your dog is likely to do lots of things you want him to to do, and you have also selected really appropriate rewards (see: The Dog Training Triad Part 2). Now what? you need to make sure your rewards are being given with really excellent TIMING! Dogs are doing things constantly, and concurrently. Behaviors are overlapping at every moment, and a dog may sometimes think a reward is for something other than what you thought it was for. In this episode, Annie explains how to deliver rewards with A+ timing by using a "marker" signal. Read more about this on our blog: schoolforthedogs.com/tmng Parts 1 & 2 of The Dog Training Triad series: SchoolForTheDogs.com/mgmt SchoolForTheDogs.com/rewards Show notes: AnnieGrossman.com/podcast18 Music by: TheEnergyCommission.com Sponsor: Take control of your email! Get a 14-day free SANEBOX trial & a $15 coupon. Sign up at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Sane --- Partial Transcript: **music** Annie: Hello, humans, Annie here. I have got to tell you that I am pretty excited because this episode is the third in the three part series about the dog training triad, as I call it. I think of the triad as basically like a universal recipe that you can train any animal to do almost anything that you want, that of course they are physically capable of doing. And this recipe is not species specific. I really believe it can work on all animals. Of course it is individualized from one individual to another. And I can't tell you the specific ingredients you're going to need to train your individual student, but it's kind of like baking bread. There's like a basic recipe for making bread, and then you can riff on it from there. So if you can really grasp this training triad, I think you're about half way to figuring out how to train whatever it is you want to train. I say about half, because I do think there are three other really important factors to dog training. I think you have to understand operant conditioning. I think you have to understand classical conditioning. And I think you have to develop the ability to read some basic dog body language. And those are basically the big pillars. So we have the training triad and then we have operant conditioning, aka learning by consequence. Classical conditioning aka Pavlovian conditioning or learning by association and then dog body language. And we've talked about those latter three things in some previous episodes. And I will go into more detail about all those three things in future episodes, don't you worry. But if you've listened to the first two parts of this series, and now you're onto this third and final one about the dog training triad, give yourself a pat on the back or pat on the head or wherever you like to be pat, because you are well on your way to becoming an excellent dog trainer. So first part of the dog training triad, which we spoke about is management-setting the stage for your dog to succeed. Management I think of as everything that we can basically do from the outside in, in order to control behaviors and to make sure that we're going to get lots of behaviors we want and reduce the likelihood that we're going to get behaviors that we don't want from the get go. Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

Once you've set the stage to up the chances that you'll get lots of behaviors you want (see The Dog Training Triad Part 1), you'll need to figure out how to reinforce those behaviors. In this episode, Annie discusses: -The difference between reinforcers and rewards -Discerning whether something is a reinforcer -Figuring out your dog's individual reward cornucopia -Understanding rewards as currency -The changing value and appropriateness of rewards -"Real life" rewards -The importance of treat size when using food Read more about this on our blog: schoolforthedogs.com/rwrds  Products mentioned: Lamb Lung - Liquid Treat Dispenser -  Kalles - Tricky Trainers "Big Rock Candy Mountain" cover by Nicole Toombs Learn more about... Leslie Hawke's Romanian initiatives: AlexFund.org Photographer Milla Chappell: RealHappyDogs.com Pike13: SchoolForTheDogs.com/Pike Partial Transcript: Annie: Hi, there. This is the second episode in a three-part series on the training triad. The training triad is made up of three things: management, reward and timing. And, in my opinion, these are the three big things that you need to consider when you're creating any kind of positive reinforcement based training plan. So in the last episode, we talked about management and management is just setting the stage for your learner to succeed, really creating a path where you are definitely going to get lots of behaviors you like, I like to call it the yellow brick road. So it’s a path that has boundaries which make it impossible to get a lot of behaviors that you wouldn't want. But within those boundaries your dog is going to have a lot of opportunity to do all the things we want him or her to do. And we talked about different ways you can think about management: you're going to physically manage their space, manage their time and you're going to manage their energy. So definitely go back and listen to that episode. But now we are going to be moving onto the next step. So you have this well thought out path where your dog is going to be engaging in lots of appropriate behaviors, things you want him/her to do. Now what? We need to communicate to the dog that we like all these behaviors that are going on. We need to encourage these behaviors and how are we going to do that? Well,  we're going to reward them. I’m using the word reward here, rather than reinforcer, but truth is to use these words pretty interchangeably, I find most dog trainers do which is really fine but I just wanted to explain the difference even though, like I said, we often just use one word instead of the other. But the truth is that not all rewards are reinforcers  and not all reinforcers are rewards. Technically speaking, reinforcer is anything that encourages the likelihood that a behavior is going to happen again and usually those are rewards. Right? Anything that your dog likes is gonna be reward. And if your dog engages in a behavior you like and you reward appropriately that behavior should be reinforced. The thing is there's another kind of reinforcer which is called a negative reinforcer so the reinforcement that we usually think of we think of that reward is now good stuff right: money, love, affection and attention, but a reinforcer is anything that encourages a behavior, that’s the definition of what a reinforcer is.. Full Transcript available at Schoolforthedogs.com/Podcasts

There are three major ingredients required in any positive reinforcement-based dog training plan. They are: Management, Timing, and Rewards. This episode is about Management, and is the first of a three part series on the Triad. Simply put, management is all about making the right options the easy options for your learner in order to up the chances of getting the behaviors you want. In this episode, Annie looks at the many ways in which we can set up our dog students for success by controlling their physical space, and the ways in which we can also smartly manage their time and energy. Notes: The Dog Training Triad Part 1: Management -  Work-To-Eat Toys post - Shop Work-To-Eat Toys - Crate training - The Klimb Platform - 8 Things You Didn't Know About The Kong --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hey there everyone. So today I am going to talk about management and this is going to be the first part of a three part series on what I call the training triad. And this triad as its name would suggest is made up of three things. Management being the first, the other two are timing and rewards. And I think that with any kind of training that you're doing, management, timing and rewards are the three things that you need to consider in order to basically get whatever it is you want out of your dog in whatever the training situation is. So when we're thinking about management, in terms of dog training, we're really thinking about the stage that we're setting. We're thinking about all the parameters within which our dog is going to exist and thrive and have a great likelihood of doing the things that we want him or her to do, and not have a lot of opportunities to do the things we don't want him or her to do. The three most important things that we're managing when we're training dogs is their space, their time and their energy. And while these are really three things, I kind of lump them together into two: with space being one and time and energy being the other. So let's talk about space first. Now there are certainly a lot of things that you're probably already doing without even thinking about it, to manage your dog's space. You might be managing your dog's environment by using a crate or using a penned area. Even a leash is a management tool, right? Could you teach your dog to walk nicely next to you and never run in the street? Absolutely. Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/