Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the PET | TAO Holistic Pet Products podcast, I'm your host and today I've really got a special guest, friend, and colleague, and his name is Stewart Clay. What we're gonna be talking about today with Stewart is training your dog and what you need to look for, what you need to be aware of, and get some professional advice from somebody who I've dealt with for a long time, who I've trusted with client's pets and actually I do work for Stewart both as a veterinarian, as a collaborator on different dog issues, and so please welcome Stewart Clay. Stewart, how's it going? Stew Clay: Good Marc, thanks for having me. Marc Smith, DVM: Stewart, can you tell everybody what you do? Stew Clay: I own a website business called K9 Contenders. It essentially helps people find puppies, breeders, trainer, stud dogs, if you're looking for a breeding dog, really everything sporting dog related, sort of a resource to help you find the right people and connect with them in a way that it enhances the experience of going through that process. Essentially represent professional trainers and breeders all over the country to help people find things like puppies, reputable trainers, breeders, that kind of thing. Marc Smith, DVM: You say sporting dogs. That may be a term that a lot of people don't understand. What exactly is a sporting dog? Stew Clay: It can mean a lot of different things. In my world, it's a gun dog, a retriever, a duck dog, or a dove dog, it can be a flushing dog; most of it's a retriever-type dog. It's meant to be for any sporting dog, whether it be agility, dock diving, hunting, or all of those types of things. It's a relatively new business, so right now, it's pretty sporting dog related in terms of hunting, but it's really meant to be anything that is an active outdoor type tool or something you would use for an activity outdoors if you will. Marc Smith, DVM: Those dogs, they're high-powered machines, right, and they have to be trained to do what the owner wants. Stew Clay: Absolutely. Marc Smith, DVM: What we're gonna do is Stewart, he has this awesome website, but he also has trained dogs for how long, Stewart? Stew Clay: Oh gosh, 20 plus years for sure. Marc Smith, DVM: Twenty-plus years and he's dealt with all different kinds of dogs, and so what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about some ideas and some concepts from a professional dog trainer, and like I said, I've known Stewart oh for probably ten years, and he's a client, and I refer a lot of people to him, and I have a lot of faith in what he does because he gets results out of the way he trains dogs and his training methods. Stewart, if you're telling people, as far as training their pet, let me back up. Let's talk about a scenario. Somebody goes out, and they buy a puppy and bring it home, and it's great, and everybody's happy, and life is wonderful, but then they're faced with the hard task of getting this dog to be a functional pet in their home. Can you talk about that and talk about the advice you give people. I know you train a lot of those dogs, but can you give people advice for some things that they can do at home or to make this transition from a crazy puppy to a functional pet or a functional young adult dog? Stew Clay: Yeah, sure, I would say the most important thing to start with is to get the right puppy. They're not all created equal. They all have their purpose and they're bred for a reason in most cases, so it's important to find out that the temperament is a fit and that the type of dog is a fit for you and your family. I would say first use a reputable breeder or someone like myself that's familiar with those people to make sure that you get the right puppy out of the gate. That's probably the most important decision you can make. Secondly, start right away. That's a blank canvas just like a child, so it's important that you start to train that dog on how it needs to behave in every walk of life. The second you get that dog home at 8, 9, or 10 weeks old, that's when you start training. A lot of people think that you start training at 5, or 6 months old, but that's not the case. Marc Smith, DVM: You're already behind the eight ball a little bit. Stew Clay: Right. A lot of the things that I see as a trainer that people encounter with young dogs and even older dogs, is these are habits that they've created as a puppy and they've gotten away with those things, and so now they have habits that have turned in to almost daily activities, so they're conditioned to do these things. As a trainer what I like to do is to build that puppy from the very beginning so that I can show it the things that I want and don't want in terms of its behavior. It's important that you work with that dog right out of the gate and you do it in a manner that makes sense to the dog and the picture is clear. In most cases, dogs are very black and white, so if you can paint that picture for them, then you can teach them, but if you can't teach them, you can't train them. Marc Smith, DVM: When we've given these puppies these 6, 9, 12 sets of shots, they're like, "Hey Dr. Smith, how do I get my dog to pee in the right place, how do I get them to go to the bathroom?", can you tell people real quick how you do that? Do you give them a trophy, do you shower them with love, what do you do? Tell everybody. Stew Clay: I train all dogs this way to start, no matter what the age, but when I get that puppy home, the first thing I'm gonna do is buy a kennel or a crate, whatever you want to call it, and I'm gonna use that as a tool. I'm gonna use one that is small enough to contain that puppy in a small environment, with no blankets, no toys, I mean it can have toys, but no blankets, no beds, no padding of any kind, and that's not to be cruel, that's to teach the dog to hold the potty. If you get a dog and you put it in a crate that has a blanket in it and it pee-pees, the blanket is just gonna soak that up. There's no ill effect to that, so the first thing we want to do is teach that puppy that it has to start to control itself, and if it pees, it has to sit in it, so that process makes the puppy think well that's no fun, I'd rather hold it longer and see if I can go out. The second thing, the most important thing to do with a young puppy is to take it out of the kennel, carry it to a spot in the yard, set it down, and give it a job. Marc Smith, DVM: The same spot every time? Stew Clay: Yep. I'm gonna take that puppy out, I'm gonna set it on the ground and I'm gonna say hurry, hurry, hurry, potty, potty, potty, whatever word you want to use. Marc Smith, DVM: Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. Stew Clay: Yeah, it can be Cheerios, as long as it's always Cheerios. I'm also going to use a food called Bil-Jac, that I use to train, again new dogs, certainly puppies, and so I'm gonna have that food with me, and I'm gonna say hurry, hurry, hurry, when the puppy goes to the bathroom, I'm gonna say yes to mark the behavior, and then I'm gonna feed it. Marc Smith, DVM: Yes, to mark the behavior, that means you're telling the puppy good job, kudos, hell yes, whatever it may be but yes. Stew Clay: Can be a lot like a clicker trainer, you know clicker marks the behavior and then the reward, so yes is telling the puppy I want that, that's what I'm after and here's your reward. Let me explain something quickly, and maybe we should cover this in another segment or something, but this is not reward training. This is food motivational training or luring. However you want to call it, there are lots of different names for it, but the goal is to use that puppy's desire to eat to your favor. Everything that I do with a puppy is gonna be driven by that dog's desire to eat, and in most cases, I don't even have to talk to the dog. It does what I want, I say yes and I feed it. It doesn't really even need a name. Through the process, the dog starts to learn what I'm after. Marc Smith, DVM: Right, okay, that's really good for people to hear, and the structure of putting the puppy in the same place every time, the structure of giving a treat in a predictable manner speeds up the whole process of this puppy learning what's expected when they're a young puppy and growing up. Stew Clay: Yeah, I think it's important to clarify one thing. At first, I'm gonna carry that puppy from the kennel to the yard, as that puppy starts to get bigger, I'm gonna give it more freedom and more leeway to do it on its own, so for instance, I'm gonna carry the puppy out, set it down, tell it what to do and then when we go back inside I'll carry the puppy to the kennel, set it down in front of the kennel and tell it kennel and help it in, so I want it to get in the kennel on its own. Marc Smith, DVM: Then you say yes, and then you reward it at that time for doing what you want. Stew Clay: As it gets bigger and gets the process down, I'll let it follow me outside and follow me inside, but at first, I don't want to do that. I don't want it have an accident on the way out or the way in; that's one of the reasons you use the same spot. It's familiar, it becomes conditioned, so it's a process. Marc Smith, DVM: We've gone over these elementary ways of house training, let's say, gotta be consistent. How long should somebody expect that to take if they're consistent with marking the behavior, giving them a treat, how long, three months, six months, four years, how long? Stew Clay: Every dog is different, certainly a couple of weeks. The key is, is to test it in the right environment. We could go on and on about this forever, this process, but at the end of the day, the goal is to have the puppy learn the process; so for instance, a lot of people take puppies out, and they play, and they don't do anything, and they take it back inside and the next thing you know it's had an accident. Marc Smith, DVM:
