Paws and Reflect: Dog Behavior & Real-Life Training
Paws and Reflect is a dog behavior podcast hosted by certified trainer Penny DiLoreto, helping you understand your dog and create calmer, more balanced behavior using practical, humane methods.
Paws and Reflect: Dog Behavior & Real-Life Training
WebinarTV Review of my Webinar, “ Is your dog struggling”
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The Phil and Amy Show on WebinarTV brought their signature energy and broke down the tips, takeaways, and everything in between from my receint webinar titled, “Is your dog struggling “ You don’t want to miss this podcast 🐶😊
Welcome to Paws and Reflect, where we explore the heart, science, and soul of living with dogs.
I'm Penny DiLoreto - certified dog trainer, behavior specialist, and lifelong dog lover, here to help you build a calmer, kinder, more connected relationship with your dog.
Thank you so much for spendin this time with me of Paws and Reflect. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it with a friend or fellow dog loer - it's one of the best ways to help ore dogs and their people.
Ad if you haven't already, please be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. I'll see you next episode,
“Thanks for spending time with me today on Paws and Reflect.
If this episode helped you see your dog in a new way, be sure to follow the podcast and share it with a fellow dog lover.
Until next time… stay kind, stay curious, and give your dog a little extra love today.”
Have you heard what Phil and Amy are saying? The Phil and Amy show on Webinar TV just dedicated an entire 18-minute segment to reviewing my webinar. Is your dog struggling? And you do not want to miss it. Phil and Amy brought their signature energy and broke down the tips and takeaways and everything in between. Whether you're dealing with a dog that jumps on guests, barks nonstop, or turns every walk into a tug of war. They've covered it all. So let's listen in now.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to the highlight show. I'm Phil Kessler.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Amy Ryan.
SPEAKER_01It's great to be here. I literally just closed the tab on that masterclass session, and I have to admit, my head is completely spinning right now.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I know. It is a massive paradigm shift.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I have to jump right on the mics with you because I am just uh I'm reeling from how entirely wrong my assumptions have been.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you sit there watching this presentation, and suddenly years of interacting with dogs just flash before your eyes. Right. You realize you've been speaking a completely different language. And honestly, I was just wondering how any dog ever manages to understand what we want from them.
SPEAKER_01Seriously, like if you are listening to this right now, have you ever looked at a dog that's just blatantly ignoring you or you know, chewing up your favorite chew? Oh, definitely. And you just thought they are doing this out of pure spite because I absolutely have.
SPEAKER_02It's so easy to think they're just being stubborn.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. I thought dogs were just stubborn. But this session entirely flipped the script for me. The realization that these frustrating behaviors are just canine instincts uh in prior reinforcement doing the talking. It was so eye-opening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's communication, it's not malice.
SPEAKER_01Okay, let's unpack this.
SPEAKER_02So empathy is really the foundation here, but it's a very specific kind of empathy. It wasn't just, you know, a list of neat little training tricks.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_02The core message is about fundamentally changing how you process the dog's environment. Like if you want to fix the jumping or the incessant barking or uh the leech pulling that feels like it's gonna dislocate your shoulder, yeah. The way you actually have to stop projecting human reasoning onto the animal.
SPEAKER_01But we do that constantly. We think, well, I told you no, you know the word no, so you should understand what I mean.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01But their brains aren't mapping the interaction that way at all. Which uh brings us to the underlying physiological state of the dog.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because you cannot train an animal if you don't understand the chemical cocktail running through their brain.
SPEAKER_01What's fascinating here is the concept of the stress bucket and specifically the biology behind it. This completely changes how you view a dog suddenly snapping or reacting out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_02It really does. Because we tend to view behavior as a response to an immediate trigger. Like the dog barks at the mailman, so the mailman caused the barking. Right. But behavioral science shows us it is never just the mailman, it's the accumulation.
SPEAKER_01The stress bucket is essentially a visualization of cortisol stacking.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Throughout the day, different stressors drip into this bucket. It could be sensory differences, which, I mean, for a dog, are immense. They basically see the world through their noses.
SPEAKER_02Right. A weird smell in the wind isn't just a distraction, it's a massive download of data that requires cognitive processing.
SPEAKER_01And then you add in a siren in the distance, or even just their built-in breed tendencies bubbling up when a squirrel runs by. All of these things accumulate.
SPEAKER_02And the crazy thing is, cortisol, the primary stress hormone, it doesn't just vanish once the immediate stressor is gone.
SPEAKER_01No, it stays in the bloodstream.
SPEAKER_02Right. It can actually take up to 72 hours for a dog's cortisol levels to return to a baseline after a major stress event.
SPEAKER_01Wait, 72 hours?
SPEAKER_02Three whole days. So if your dog had a stressful encounter at the dog park on Tuesday, their bucket is still half full on Thursday.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02So when the mailman drops a package on Thursday afternoon, the bucket overflows. That tiny trigger causes a massive outsized reaction.
SPEAKER_01You know, if you think about human psychology, it's the exact same mechanism. Oh, for sure. Imagine you have a terrible day. You wake up late, you hit every red light on your commute, you have a tense meeting at work.
SPEAKER_02A classic terrible day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then you finally get home, pour a cup of coffee, and accidentally spill it on the counter. You absolutely lose your mind, you start crying or yelling. Yeah. But it's obviously not about the coffee. The coffee is just the final drop in an already full bucket.
SPEAKER_02That is a perfect analogy. And yet, when we see a dog react to their version of spilled coffee, our immediate human instinct is to resort to verbal scolding or punishment.
SPEAKER_01Every single time.
SPEAKER_02And the master class highlighted a really critical warning about this. You cannot train over the threshold. Right, that was huge. If that dog's bucket is overflowing, their sympathetic nervous system has completely taken over. They're in fight or flight mode. Forcing them to practice a command or punishing them in that state is physiologically useless.
SPEAKER_01Because their prefrontal cortex, uh, the logical learning part of their brain is basically offline.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01You are just adding more water to a bucket that is already spilling over, which makes our overuse of verbal scolding feel so profoundly unfair.
SPEAKER_02Really does.
SPEAKER_01We are demanding cognitive focus from an animal that is biologically incapable of giving it in that moment.
SPEAKER_02And this physiological reality also completely dismantles one of the most persistent myths in dog ownership. We've all heard the cliche, you know, a tired dog is a good dog.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, yes. People think that if a dog is acting out, you just need to run them for an hour.
SPEAKER_02But the data presented completely destroyed that idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Physical exhaustion without cognitive release does not fix behavioral issues. Not at all. If you have an anxious, reactive dog and you just run them for five miles every single day, you aren't addressing the underlying stress or the behavioral pathways.
SPEAKER_01You are just creating a canine triathlete with an anxiety problem.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. You just built a fitter, faster stress bucket.
SPEAKER_01That is such a wild realization.
SPEAKER_02Right. But you know, understanding that stress state is critical, but empathy alone doesn't actually train a dog. You have to pair that understanding with the structural framework that the dog can reliably understand.
SPEAKER_01And the presentation formalized this as the ABCs of canine logic. Antecedent, behavior, consequence.
SPEAKER_02Let's look at the underlying mechanics of that, because the way it was laid out in the book they recommended, the ABCs of training, is so refreshingly logical.
SPEAKER_01It really is. So the antecedent is the setup. It is whatever happens immediately before the behavior. Like the trigger. Right. It's the environment, the trigger, the cue you give, the time of day, just everything that sets the stage.
SPEAKER_02And then the behavior is simply what the dog actually does in response to that stage being set.
SPEAKER_01Okay, sure.
SPEAKER_02And the consequence is the crucial piece. It's what happens immediately after the behavior, which dictates whether the neural pathway for that behavior gets reinforced or weakened. You set the antecedent, observe the behavior, and then apply a consequence.
SPEAKER_01And the consequence has to actually matter to the dog. It has to be something they naturally want to avoid, like a brief withdrawal of your attention or a high value reward for a desired action. Right. But here's where it gets really interesting. And this was my immediate pushback when I was watching the breakdown.
SPEAKER_02So what was that?
SPEAKER_01In theory, this framework sounds amazing. You control the antecedent, you shape the behavior, but how on earth does a normal person control the antecedent out in the messy real world? Like I can't control when a skateboarder flies by or when a neighbor decides to rev their motorcycle, you know?
SPEAKER_02And that is the exact trap most dog owners fall into.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They attempt to apply the ABC framework in the middle of chaos. The masterclass heavily emphasized stepwise skill building and environmental management to counter this. You do not start training a new behavior or trying to extinguish an old one in a park full of erratic variables.
SPEAKER_01It's like trying to learn a complex new language. You wouldn't drop someone into the middle of a bustling street market in Tokyo and expect them to successfully negotiate a business deal on day one.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_01You start them in a quiet classroom with basic flashcards, you build the cognitive pathway in an environment where it is safe to make mistakes and where you can easily isolate the concepts.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. You practice the ADCs in a completely low distraction space first, like the living room. You control the antecedent perfectly there.
SPEAKER_01Because it's your living room.
SPEAKER_02Right. You build the skill, you build the reliability, and then you incrementally introduce distractions. You move to the backyard, then the front yard, then a quiet street.
SPEAKER_01Makes total sense.
SPEAKER_02You are actively managing the environment so the dog continually succeeds rather than constantly failing in an environment that is too difficult for their current skill level.
SPEAKER_01Applying that stepwise framework to the big three real-world scenarios uh jumping, barking, and pulling, that was an absolute revelation.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it was so good.
SPEAKER_01These were the specific problems submitted in the pre-session questionnaire by the attendees, and the solutions are beautifully counterintuitive to everything we've been taught to do.
SPEAKER_02Let's dissect the jumping first. Because when a dog jumps on you, the standard human response is to push them down, maybe put a knee up and firmly say no, get down.
SPEAKER_01Which is the exact opposite of what the ABC framework suggests, because it completely ignores canine psychology. The session noted that jumping is almost always attention-seeking or excitement driven. In a dog's world, face-to-face interaction is a high-level pack greeting. Eye contact alone acts as a chemical reward, releasing dopamine in their brain.
SPEAKER_02So even if you were yelling at them and physically pushing them away to the dog, that is successful engagement.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02You are touching them, you're making eye contact, you are vocalizing. They threw a party and you just join the mosh pit.
SPEAKER_01I love that. You join the mosh pit.
SPEAKER_02You are inadvertently providing the exact consequence they were hoping for.
SPEAKER_01And the actual solution is to immediately and completely withdraw attention. You turn your back, you cross your arms, or you completely leave the room.
SPEAKER_02Leave the room entirely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The presentation was incredibly specific about using brief timeouts of exactly 1.5 to 2 minutes. And the biology behind that specific window makes perfect sense.
SPEAKER_02It does. It's not a 10-minute banishment because after a few minutes, a dog's associative memory drops off.
SPEAKER_01They just forget why they're alone.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. They forget why they're isolated. But 1.5 to 2 minutes is the exact physiological sweet spot needed for that acute spike of arousal to dissipate. It breaks the cycle without causing prolonged distress.
SPEAKER_01So the consequence for jumping is the total removal of the one thing they wanted, which is your attention.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Then the loop finishes by consistently rewarding an alternate behavior. You teach them that the only way a greeting sequence initiates is if their bottom is glued to the floor. You heavily reward the sit, creating a competing, incompatible behavior.
SPEAKER_02But it takes immense self-control to fight our own human instincts.
SPEAKER_01Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_02And that same accidental reinforcement applies directly to barking. When a dog is barking frantically at the living room window, the default human response is to yell across the house, hey Bryant, stop it.
SPEAKER_01So what does this all mean? If our attention accidentally rewards jumping, it is doing the exact same thing with vocalizing.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Barking is a primary communication tool. It's usually an alarm signaling a perceived threat.
SPEAKER_02And when you yell back at a barking dog, the dog doesn't process your words, they process your tone and volume. Right. From their perspective, the human pack leader is now barking alongside them. You have just validated the threat. The dog thinks, awesome, they see the danger too. We are defending the territory.
SPEAKER_01We are quite literally cheerleading their anxiety.
SPEAKER_02We really are.
SPEAKER_01The strategy detailed to dismantle this relies heavily on managing the antecedent and the consequence. First, you never ever reward barking with attention. Not even a sideways glance. No. You have to wait for the silence. Even if it's just a split second pause for them to take a breath, the moment they are quiet, then you reward.
SPEAKER_02You capture that silence and attach a specific quiet cue to it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But perhaps the most practical, immediate advice regarding barking, tied back to what we discussed about environmental management.
SPEAKER_01Yes, the drapes.
SPEAKER_02Right. If the dog is triggered by the mailman, or people walking their dogs past the house every single day, just close the drapes. Remove the visual trigger entirely. Control the antecedent. If you know the mailman comes at 2.0 p.m. and your dog's stress bucket overflows every day at 2.0 p.m., change the environment. It's so simple. Put up a window film, close the blinds, or move the dog to a different room. You don't have to fight a battle. You don't need to fight while you are still trying to build foundational skills.
SPEAKER_01We get so intensely caught up in fixing the dog that we completely forget we have the power to just change the room. Exactly. But the most physically demanding issue they tackled was leash pulling. This is the one that causes literal injuries, and it's a perfect storm of everything we've discussed so far.
SPEAKER_02Oh, leash pulling is a big one. It usually stems from an overflowing stress bucket combined with a complete lack of skill. Right. The outdoors is a sensory overload of sights and smells. And most dogs have simply never been taught the specific isolated skill of loose leash walking. We just snap a leash on them and expect them to understand the concept of walking at a human's bizarrely slow pace.
SPEAKER_01The visual metric they used for loose leash walking was brilliant, though. You watch the leash, not the dog.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I loved that part.
SPEAKER_01You are looking for it to go from a relaxed J shape where there's a visible dip in the line, to a tight L shape, the J to the L.
SPEAKER_02It removes all the emotion and subjectivity from the training. The rule relies entirely on the ABC framework. The absolute millisecond that leash hits an L shape, you stop dead. All forward movement ceases, you become a tree.
SPEAKER_01Because we have to ask ourselves, what is the consequence the dog is seeking when they pull?
SPEAKER_02Forward momentum.
SPEAKER_01Right. They want to get to that specific smell on the fire hydrant. If you keep walking while they pull, even if you are pulling back, complaining, and getting frustrated, they are still achieving forward motion. They are getting the reward.
SPEAKER_02And there is also a biological mechanism at play here called the opposition reflex.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'd never heard of this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when a dog feels pressure on their chest from a harness or on their neck from a collar, their instinct is actually to lean into that pressure, not to back away from it. By pulling back, you are biologically triggering them to pull harder.
SPEAKER_01So you stop dead, you deny the forward motion, you wait for the dog to realize, hey, the human anchor stopped. Right. And you wait for them to check in with you. Maybe they turn their head or take a single step backward toward you, relieving the tension. The moment the leash goes back to a J shape, you reward that proximity, and only then do you allow forward movement.
SPEAKER_02And returning to our discussion on the environment, you do not start teaching this loose leash concept on a busy hiking trail on a Saturday morning. You practice this indoors.
SPEAKER_01Walking your dog in literal circles around the kitchen island. Yes. It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but it makes total sense. You are building the cognitive association where there are zero competing smells or distractions.
SPEAKER_02Another critical piece of advice for leash pulling is burning off excess energy before you even attempt to train the walk. Right, because of the cognitive load. Exactly. Training a dog to maintain a J-shaped leash requires immense cognitive focus from the animal. If they have been cooped up for eight hours, they don't have the capacity for that focus. Play fetch in the backyard for 10 minutes, let them drain some physical energy, and then train the cognitive skill of the walk.
SPEAKER_01When you look at all of these behaviors, the jumping, the barking, the pulling, the undeniable common thread is our own accidental reinforcement.
SPEAKER_02It really is.
SPEAKER_01We are usually the architects of the exact behavior we are complaining about.
SPEAKER_02That is a hard truth to accept. If we connect this to the bigger picture, converting these short-term behavioral shifts into lasting fluency requires immense discipline from the human, far more than from the dog. Oh, 100%. It requires intense consistency. You cannot ignore the jumping on a Tuesday when you're in a good mood, but punish them for jumping on a Friday because you happen to be wearing expensive clothes.
SPEAKER_01Right. The dog has no concept of your wardrobe choices or your work stress. Exactly. They only understand the consistency of the consequence. It requires repetition, it requires strict environmental control, and above all, it requires deep patience. You are systematically rewiring an animal's understanding of how the world operates.
SPEAKER_02It is a complete shift in perspective, moving away from an adversarial mindset into a collaborative one.
SPEAKER_01And to you listening, we've only scratched the surface of the physiological and behavioral mechanics here. If you found yourself nodding along or realizing you've been accidentally reinforcing the wrong things, that full masterclass webinar is absolutely worth watching from start to finish. Highly recommend it. Watching the presenter break down those real attendee scenarios during the live QA, tailoring the ABC framework to specific, messy, real-world situations is what truly cements these concepts. Plus, delving into the recommended book, The ABCs of Training, provides a fantastic written guide to formalize everything we've talked about.
SPEAKER_02It bridges the gap between theory and actual practice. And you know, this raises an important question, a final thought to leave you with. We've spent this entire time dissecting canine psychology and behavior. Right. But if we take this exact same ABC framework, managing antecedents, evaluating the stress bucket before we react, and ensuring our consequences are actually productive rather than just emotional outbursts.
SPEAKER_01Oh boy. I see exactly where you're going with this.
SPEAKER_02Could we apply this logic to improve how we communicate with the humans in our lives?
SPEAKER_01Oh man.
SPEAKER_02When your partner or your coworker snaps at you over something minor, do you immediately yell back? Or do you take a second to consider how full their cortisol stress bucket might be today? That is deep. When someone in your life demands your attention in a negative way, what behaviors are you inadvertently rewarding by engaging with them?
SPEAKER_01That is a wildly confronting thought. I might actually need a 1.5 minute time out just to process the implications of that for my own relationships.
SPEAKER_02It all comes back to the core premise. It's communication, not malice.
SPEAKER_01We often think we're reading a clear situation, but we're really just completely misunderstanding the language being spoken, whether it's by our dogs or our peers. And sometimes the best thing we can do in any chaotic situation is just stop, breathe, and look for the J in the leash.
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