What Should a Good Dog Training Session Look Like?

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This is the first episode in a two-part discussion about what good dog training should actually look like.

In What Should a Good Dog Training Session Look Like?, I focus on the training itself: where training should happen, how a trainer should prepare before the session, how skills should be introduced, and why training needs to progress from simple environments to more distracting ones.

The second episode, How to Choose the Right Dog Trainer: What to Look For Before You Hire, shifts to the client side of the equation—how to research trainers, what questions to ask, what to look for in communication and transparency, and how to decide whether someone is actually the right fit for you and your dog.

A few of the biggest takeaways from this episode:

• Work on problem behaviors where they actually happen whenever possible.
• A trainer should understand your dog’s history and your goals before walking in the door.
• Start with simple foundational skills before expecting success in distracting environments.
• Give owners enough time between sessions to practice and build routines.
• Training should teach the owner what to do—not just show off what the trainer can get the dog to do.
• Skills matter, but routines are what make those skills useful in everyday life.

The trainer’s job is to teach, coach, explain, and help you build a process you can repeat after the session is over. The real training happens when the trainer leaves and you start practicing.

K.I.S.S. Dog Training
Dog Training Ain’t Cheap... Experience Counts.

https://kissdogtraining.com/

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another Kiss Dog Training Podcast with certified dog trainer Mike Deef. Dog training isn't complicated. You just need a little more information. Mike's coming up with all that info.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hey guys, welcome back. It's Mike with Kiss Dog Training, and today we are going to tackle the topic of what should a dog training session look like. I mean, let's face it, uh, for probably the last 10 to 20 years, we've kind of been inundated by TV shows, um, blog posts, Google, now artificial intelligence, ChatGPT. We have more information than we've ever had before. And unfortunately, some of these things, while entertainment, don't really describe what it should really be. Um, it's kind of like the age-old sitcom, we can solve any problem in 30 minutes. Well, we did the same thing with dog training, too. Here we have this dog who's completely and totally out of control and has this terrible back history, and by the end of the show, the dog is perfect. Well, that's not really the way it's gonna happen. And I think maybe what we're gonna be really delving into at this topic is what really should it look like. Um, I think the first thing we gotta consider is where the problem behaviors happen. They don't have happen in training facilities, they don't happen um while they're being videotaped in most cases. Um, they are where you live. So me with Kiss Dog Training decided, you know, probably about 10 years ago, maybe not quite that long ago, is that I was gonna focus 100% on in-home dog training and not do group classes. Um the in-home side of it, that's where the problems happen. If it's what happens when a person enters the house, I want to work right there at the front door. If this is a dog who barks in the backyard and won't come inside the house, I want to deal with it right there where it's happening. If it is a dog who's pulling on leash like a demon, I want to deal with it in your neighborhood, not at a busy city park. Now, we might get to the busy city park, but where we're gonna start is where the problem happens. So I think that's the first big takeaway of what should dog training look like. It might start with where it happens. Okay, if where the training happens is so important, what else do we need to think about? I think we need to think about how it happens. Um, what happens before the trainer gets to your house? Well, I think a good training, the the real scenario here, what really has to happen is if you've got a good dog trainer, before they ever show up to your house, you're gonna be filling out a behavior history. You're gonna be filling out what's hopefully a pretty detailed behavioral questionnaire. Because if the dog trainer is walking into your house cold with just a quick contact form that they got, that these are the three things I want to fix, there's a lot of things they don't know about your your house, about your life, about your schedule, what your routines are, how the dog does with said problem, whatever it's going to be. Um, there might even be a section I know there is on mine where I want to know what the veterinarian thinks. Has the veterinarian dealt with this problem before? So I think if where the behavior is happening is important, then the the how it's happening is just as important. So I would be real cognizant of if you're not filling out a big behavioral questionnaire, ask yourself a better question. How is that trainer gonna really know what to teach me when I get there? Okay, now one of the things I just said was if the dog trainer just comes in with what are the top three to five things you want to work on? Um, I said that was wrong. Well, it's wrong. I would come up with that question and that answer after I had looked through the behavior history. So it's funny the way mine is set up is you give me all the history, and then at the very end of the behavior history um is what are the things you want to accomplish? And I only give you about the option of three to five, okay, because you know, usually if we get much past that, um we're we've got such a huge um expanse of what we want that we almost go into that paralysis, doing an analysis, there's too much information, where do we start? How do we go? So I think it's important that we know where we're gonna be training, which is gonna be in the house, or where the behavior is happening that you want to fix. That your trainer needs to have a really good idea of how it works, when it works, why it works, so on and so forth through the questionnaire, okay? And then finally, we've got some really major things. These this is what we want to focus on. Now, does that mean when the trainer comes into your house, they are going to immediately start working on your list? And the answer is no, they're not. And the reason is you might have let's say I want my dog to pay better attention on a walk. Well, that's great. If I start on a walk, it would be like me um telling somebody that I want to understand calculus, and they immediately whip out a calculus book. Well, they do the calculus may be way past what I'm capable of. We may have to use a questionnaire with that person and go, show me the math you can do. Can you answer this question? Can you do this question? Can you do this? And I'm gonna get a pretty good idea by that questionnaire of what you're capable of, what your dog is capable of, and where we need to start. In most cases, I start really simple: hand feeding. I want the dog to understand, don't bite the hand that feeds, and that without me you don't get to eat, at least for a period of time. Then I can use that aspect to get the attention of the dog, but I can also be sneaky and know that the client or you, the person, has to feed the dog twice a day. So if I can trick you into hand feeding those two times a day, working on videos and games and techniques that we learned during the session, I am not only getting the dog to pay attention, but I'm getting the owner to practice. And now we've got a foundation to work on. Okay. And that foundation gets built in layers of distraction. So, what's the least distracting environment you got? Chances are it's your house or your apartment, it's where you live, because that's where the dog lives. This is normal. Um, so if I do that all in the first session, it's really important. I gotta get that foundation. Now, the second part of this equation is going to be even more important, and that is not expecting the dog to do something in an environment that can't handle yet. So let's say I start in the house with a behavior, paying attention, doing a sit, using a positive mark and a release word, teaching a redirection cue or a leave it command. I might even get some leash work going inside the house where we can work on auto sets and we can practice sit stays and downstays from distance and duration. But now I've incorporated the leash, which is adding a little bit of a distraction. Well, the next time I come out, I'm gonna be like, Okay, this is awesome, great. Now, let's go out in the backyard and see if you can do the exact same thing with the dog. And people will look at me like, well, duh, of course I can. But the funny part is when they go out in the backyard with the dog, everything falls apart, and they don't understand why, and it's the layer of distraction. One of the examples I always use with my clients is I live in Kansas City, so we have an amusement park called Worlds of Fun. Everybody's got a different one. It could be, you know, six uh six flags, it could be Disney, it could be whatever, but you know what an amusement park is. Well, if I take a six-year-old to an amusement park and expect them to pay attention to me right out of the chute, they're gonna be like, uh-uh, I want to go see Goofy. And they're not gonna pay attention at all. Whereas at home, they're a good kid, they pay attention, but you've never asked them to pay attention in this environment. Now, if the family goes out and gets a season passport and we go, you know, every other weekend all summer, by the time we get to the end of the summer, the kid is less stimulated, um, less overstimulated, pays attention better, and is a little bit, you know, easier to handle just because you have rubbed the shine off of the amusement park. It's not as exciting as it was the first time, excuse me. And that's where a good dog trainer will realize I have to teach foundational work in a really simple environment, and then give you some time to make that routine solid. I I put two weeks in between sessions. Um, if you've got a trainer that is wanting to meet three times in one week, how much are you really getting by meeting three times in one week? Because you haven't had enough time to practice the stuff you did on Monday when he comes back on Wednesday or she comes back on Friday. Um this is where I put a lot of onus on the owners, and I'm really upfront about it. It's like, look, you got two weeks to practice, get this down because here's what we're doing next. We go out in the backyard and we kind of have to start over. Okay. And once we kind of start over, then we get the behavior in the backyard. It's working. Most people are like, why the hell why the hell would I want to use a leash in the backyard? It's not necessarily that you would want to use a leash in the backyard, but it's gonna be the easiest place for you to learn skills. Adding a layer of distraction, working. Okay. And then I might say, the minute you start seeing success, I want you to cheat to the driveway. We're gonna start taking those games that we learned in the house, then to the backyard, and now we're gonna work in the driveway. And usually, if they can accomplish getting some reliability in the backyard and the driveway, that's plenty for the second session. Okay. And again, then I'm gonna say you got two more weeks just to kind of build the routine, get everything all set up. And then guess what? We're gonna head for a walk. And then I might wait two more weeks and I might introduce one of my dogs to the equation. So there is a live, non-reactive dog to practice with, and your trainer, me, can keep the amount of distance to a point where you can handle it. So if I've got my dog sitting right next to your dog, probably not gonna work. But if I'm a driveway or two behind you, and we're all stopping each time we get to a driveway, and your dog looks at my dog, and now you can practice to leave it, I've put you in a situation to succeed, not to fail. So, a lot of times, really long story to a short statement way back when was even though you got your three to five things you want to work on, your trainer may very well adjust that and go, Yeah, that's a great end goal, but we gotta start over here. And you gotta be patient. Because if let's say this is a year and a half old adolescent puppy, and I shouldn't say puppy, adolescent dog. If it's taking a year and a half to get these problem behaviors to show their ugly face and to become a pain in the butt, if you honestly think you're going to get it solved in two or three sessions, it's not gonna happen. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Just search the name Mike Death, D-E-A-T-H-E. Books are available in audiobooks, ebooks, and in print. In the notes of the podcast, you'll find the link where you can donate as little as $3 a month to help support us on our journey to bring more good, solid, scientific, positive dog training information to the world. We appreciate that help. Remember, dog training isn't complicated. You just need a little more information. Here's Mike.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Okay, so if we're gonna be coming from this at an angle of we start in the least distracting move to the most distracting, it also brings us up to the idea of skills versus a big word that I use all the time, and it's really not that big of a word, but it's a big concept. Um, routine. Yeah, we're gonna teach sit, we're gonna teach down, we're gonna teach stay, we're gonna teach come, we're going to teach leave it, watch me, uh, we're gonna do leash walking. Okay, those are all the skills, the nuts and bolts of dog training. It's easy to take a treat and lure a dog into a sit, okay? It is easy to toss a treat across the room and say, go find it and call the dog back to you, mimicking a recall. But those have no reality or basis in your everyday life, they're just skills. Um, you know, uh, good example, guitar players. I am a frustrated musician. Both of my kids got all of the um skill, and I was the one that gave them the passion because they saw me desperately trying to be good at playing guitar. A lot of guitar players can play a G C a G chord, a C chord, and a D chord. Very few of them can put it together in a cohesive pattern along with some riffs and some lead lines and this and make something that people are just amazed by. And that's kind of what we're talking here. So if I talk routine, that routine is way more important than the nuts and bolts. But you gotta have the nuts and bolts to build the routine. Now that sounds really weird, but think about it. I can have a big bag of nuts and bolts. I can play with them, I can put them together, but I also have to have the routine to know what we're building. Okay? So when we talk about routines in dog training, it really comes to the question of quit asking or quit going after your dog for what they're doing wrong. You already know the dog's doing it wrong. Dog has no idea they're doing it wrong, but you're acting like a maniac. So they might stop behaving that way just to get the maniac side of you to go away. But it doesn't teach the dog what you want. So let's take the dog who jumps up. Dog jumps up, uh, we'll negatively mark it, we'll do the ts noise, we'll go, uh-uh, we'll, you know, missile and whistle and throw something at him, we'll do all sorts of crazy crap, okay? It might stop the behavior, but does it teach the dog what you want? No. Okay, this is the magic of a routine. We have to teach a routine, number one, what do I want instead of jumping? That's not to say there won't be a consequence and that we won't redirect the jumping behavior to something else. And we might even add a consequence that says, if you do this, this happens. Okay, we'll get to that. But if your trainer is not teaching you the routines of what is rewarding should be repeated, and what is driving you nuts should be redirected, then what are you really learning? Okay? And let's remember, let's not get caught in the weeds here. The entire purpose of this conversation is what should a good dog training session look like? So let's get back to the dog who jumps up. Client will say, I want my dog to quit jumping. And the first question I asked, Well, what do you want your dog to do instead of jump? And they go, I don't freaking care. I just want the dog to quit jumping. Well, I can't teach, I don't freaking care. How about we teach the dog to sit instead of jump up? And they mean, what do you mean? I'll get it. Dog already knows sit. Yeah, but the sit is not a default behavior. The jumping up to get attention has become a default behavior. So we have to break that skill down. We have to replace it with something and make it more rewarding. Okay? So I start with this silly little game, the nuts and bolts, of the turnaround game, where I turn my back on the dog and call them and they come around front and I give them a treat. And I turn my back and they come around front and I give them a treat. This third time I turn my back, I wait for them to come around, I pull my hand up to here, which looks like a sit command. The dog sits and I give them a treat. And I kind of play with this. I might start walking around the house, but usually within about 20 or 30 minutes, I got a dog following me, coming around front, sitting and looking at me. Well, in a sense, right there, I've got the nuts and bolts of not jumping. Is it gonna work in a distracting environment? Is it gonna work when somebody walks through the front door? Is it gonna work on a walk when I'm on a leash? Probably not. That's where once we have the nuts and bolts, we have to add layers of distraction, which is the beginning part of teaching routines, and then we have to do it. Now, flip side of that, I could also turbocharge this idea if the dog, let's say, is crate trained. I'm going to assume in this example the dog is already crate trained, and the dog will go to the crate on command. What if while I'm doing all this other stuff, I tackle it from the other side and say, each time you jump up on me, I'm gonna go, uh-uh, nope, go to your room. And I'm gonna walk the dog over to the crate. They're gonna go in the crate, I'm gonna give him a treat. I'm gonna shut the crate, and I'm going to go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Okay, come on out. You want to try that again? We should go, baby. And then all of a sudden they jump on me because I'm giving attention. Uh-uh, go to your room. Keep in mind, I'm still giving the dog a treat. I want that to be clear. I'm gonna explain it here in a minute. But now I'm teaching cause and effect, and there's a consequence to jumping up, which is I have to take a little quick time out in the crate. Um, I know there's gonna be some people out there that hate using any kind of device as a punishment. Um, punishment's not a bad word. Punishment simply means you decrease the frequency of a behavior. Now, I think if we start talking in terms like choke chains, prong collars, shot collars, um, that leaves the world of consequence or punishment or redirection, I guess you could use all three of those interchangeably, into the world of abuse. Okay. Um, it's a lot like the safe seat in an elementary school. If you act like a dingleberry, the teacher's gonna make you go sit at the desk over there. Now, most people looking at it outside in are gonna say the punishment's going and sitting at the at the chair over there. Really, the punishment's losing access to the class. The chair or the desk over here is just the management device, and that's what we're using the crate for. But now we're adding a consequence to a bad behavior while we're teaching the right behavior. And before you know it, now I've got it in the house under control here. Doorbell rings, dog goes to the crate, a little calm down. Person comes in, I give them the instruction hey, look, we're a little crazy, we like to jump up on people. Give me a minute, let him calm down, and then I'll let him out. If they jump on the person, I might redirect to the crate real quick, and we start practicing the skills, the routines we want to work. Okay. So as you kind of see this, if you're not getting the vibe, then I'm gonna teach you the nuts and bolts, I'm gonna give you time to practice, we're gonna throw in good routines and teach that there's a better behavior that's more rewarding, and here's how you redirect, and that might take you two or three sessions. Well, then what are you learning? So it all goes back to that original question: what should a good dog training session look like? Okay, so at this point, we kind of are starting to get an idea of what a good dog training session should look like. But two things are going on here. I'm realizing that this script, the notes I put together for this presentation video podcast, however, we're gonna, you know, disseminate the information to the world, is um was maybe a little bit longer than I expected. So this is gonna have a part two that's coming out next month. Um, and I'm gonna end with one of my biggest frustrations in dog training. Now keep in mind, even me, when I started dog training, I was guilty of this. And I think it is a difference between somebody getting their footing in dog training, learning how to teach in comparison to show. Um and basically all I want to get across to finalize or finish this little talk up is the trainer should not be the show. Okay? It's really easy for us as dog trainers to walk in and show you all the cool crap we can get a dog to do. But all the cool crap we can get a dog to do is not gonna help you when we leave. I joke with people all the time. Training takes place after the trainer leaves, not while they're there. We show you, we talk to you, we teach you. It's up to you to do the routines and the reinforcement and the redirection and all that other stuff we've talked about today. So if your dog trainer is too busy showing you all the cool stuff they want you to do with your dog, versus no, I'm not doing it. Here's some treats. You go over there, I'll coach from over here. Okay. You know, you're holding your hand up when you need to hold your damn hand down if the dog comes to you, right? When the dog gets to you, pop your arm up, that looks like a sit-hand signal, and your dog will sit. And we start showing you all the cool tricks of the trade. Um, it's funny, I think some people don't teach that stuff because they don't realize it's important at this point. They just want to get the important information out for you to have. I do think there's some trainers who hide that stuff, and it's kind of like it makes dog training seems magical to some people. It's not magical. We just learn little tricks that you don't even notice where we're holding our hand, how we're standing, if we've moved forward, if we've moved backwards. Um, and I think some people don't want to give up that magic information. Well, if they don't want to give up the magic information, they're not dog trainers. Okay, they're dog understanders, they understand what's going on, and it's cool to watch them, but if they can't, you know, sprinkle that information on top of you and let it grow in your brain, what's the point? So, um, if you find yourself working with somebody who is more of a show than a tell, um I think it's important that you know we are going to have to show you. Then we're gonna have to step back and explain it to you. Then we're gonna have you explain it to us. Then we're gonna try to get you to do it. And trust me, if we're doing all that in one session, we're gonna be lucky to do one or two skills at a time. But it's all gonna build each time we meet. Because there's if you're if you're working with a good trainer, they've got a format, they've got a a toolkit that they use. Um, my toolkit looks totally different than other trainers, but we're teaching the exact same thing with the exact same techniques. But over the years, we've kind of figured out different ways to describe it, show it, and get it out into the world. So, um, the big thing here is just to stop and think. Is that trainer giving you time to practice? Are they teaching you what you need to do? Are they showing you how to reward? Are they showing you how to redirect? I think all these things are really important. But there's an entire part two of this little conversation of what should a good dog training session look like. So, with that, I'm gonna say I'm Mike with Kiss Dog Training, and come back in a month and we'll do part two of this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

And that's a wrap on the Kiss Dog Podcast. Mike's back next month with more information.