dogs really experienced the world through body language, right? That's why they're so in tune with us because they're constantly reading every little movement that we do. And that's how they communicate with one another.
Dogs evolved to have a relationship with people. Sometimes it's companions, sometimes as work dogs, and other times, just to learn how to look cute. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today, we're talking with an animal trainer who not only trains dogs to learn to sit, speak, rollover and all that stuff, but also how to perform life saving tasks.
I'm Sam stocking and I am owner of Corey the canine dog training, I offer dog and service dog training services and a couple classes at Heartland dog obedience and tricks training. And next semester, I'll be offering a few other services as well
tell us a little bit about training service animals.
So a service animal is an animal that has been trained to do a specific task for somebody, for example, like for someone who's blind, right, helping them walk across the street, for myself, for my dog, he alerts me when my blood sugar goes too high or low, I have a diabetic alert dog. So they're trained to do very specific tasks for people rather than something like an emotional support animal, which is really just a pet that people you know, who have anxiety or depression kind of rely on that for emotional support, it's a different scenario there. The training for service dogs is much more intensive than for, you know, your typical pet. And we do a lot of public access work, depending on the type of service dog, but it is right we have a lot more intensive training, sent training, you know, visual, behavioral training and all of that. So there's a lot more that goes into it.
So you mentioned sent training. And you mentioned that your dog is trained to be a diabetic service dog. How do dogs smell lower high blood sugar? How does that work?
Yeah, so when your blood sugar goes high or low, you emit different hormones and chemicals that humans can detect that dogs can. And the way that that works is when you're experiencing one of those higher low blood sugars, you collect the scent sample, so you put some like cloth or old t shirt on your body, basically, where you sweat a lot. And you absorb the sent in those and then you save those samples to use for training. That way you don't have to work when you are higher low, but rather you can you know, simulate that and get a lot more practice in
how do you know it's working. But what does the dog do? So it's,
you know, varies person to person what you want your dog to do, right? I personally trained my dog Cory to nudge me with his nose for a low blood sugar and to spin in a circle for a high blood sugar. And you can tell it's working relatively quickly, when during training sessions. You know, as soon as you open that sample, the dog is right there, they're ready to go. They know that that scent means something you know, at the beginning of training, they might not know exactly what they're supposed to do. But they're very aware that that scent means treats and means positive reinforcement and means something really exciting for them. So they're kind of right there. And as you work with your dog you notice to us like when you start experiencing those high and lows, that your dog is much more attentive to you. They're kind of looking at you all the time, like, hey, you know, is this when I'm supposed to come and let you know something's going on? And eventually it clicks and then they start doing it on their own?
So are there certain dog breeds that are better for this sort of thing?
For anything that is scent based service dog work, you just need a dog that has a good nose. So you know, unfortunately, no hugs or friendships or anything that have that brother squashed nose, they tend to have more breathing problems, then, you know, other dogs with a long nose too. But that being said, I mean any kind of service dog work, it really comes down more to what kind of tasks do you need your dog to do for you? Right? I wouldn't have a chihuahua help someone that needs help standing up, for example, that chihuahuas can actually be great Diabetic Alert dogs. So you kind of have a big variety of what breeds work best. It's just really comes a lot more down to personality, right? There's certain characteristics and personality traits that we look for in dogs to make sure that we're selecting the best candidate for whatever service dog type of work it is.
Tell us a little bit about other types of service dog programs that you teach. What other training do you do?
Yeah, I offer so obviously diabetic alert and I do psychiatric alert. So that is for PTSD, anxiety disorders. It's a little bit in the realm as well of for people with autism. You know, having a dog there being able to just offer that support or bring water or, you know, do a body block because that person is feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated that the dog has big support there for for people with autism as well.
Tell me a little bit about how that works, especially with some of the things you're talking about working with people with autism, what are the sorts of things that you train the dogs to do? What behaviors do you have to teach them? And how do they learn to be kind of alerted to the need? Sure,
a lot of it has to do with for people with autism, it's a lot of sensory overload, or, you know, noise overload those kinds of things. And they have behavioral cues that when they start feeling uncomfortable or feeling anxious, but they start doing right, some people tap their fingers or start shaking their legs, and that is then the cue for the dog, okay, my person is doing that, I need to go over and help them. And we do a lot of just kind of touch based training so that the dog really comes and sits on their feet or comes in and does a deep pressure therapy, right lays completely on the person's body or lap just offering that fresher and that comfort of here, right? You can pat me, it's okay. Right? Let me help you calm down.
Let's talk a little bit about the non service animals do the basic principles of training somebody's regular old dog that they're not counting on doing a whole lot of work, apply the same way? Can you teach your dog to just be a better citizen? The same way? What's the big approaches that are universal?
I think a lot of it is just taking the time to have patience with your dog, your dog doesn't speak English, so it doesn't know what you're asking. So it's really taking that time commitment to sit down and work with your dog, you know, I'm a positive reinforcement trainer. So I work with treats, praise, anything that makes that positive connection for the dog. And it really, I think it comes down to being mindful that your dog is a living, breathing thing. And it has feelings too. And it might have some days where training doesn't work. And some days we're training goes great. And I think that's what I try to convey to people that it's really about finding the time where you and your dog are in a good zone. And putting in, you know, that time together to work on the training, right? Regardless of pet or service dog, it really is about the time commitment that it takes to train your dog to do these things. Because, you know, dogs were bred to have jobs. And if we don't give them jobs to do, whether it's service dog or pet, then they get bored. And they come up with their own jobs. And some of those jobs we don't like Right, like jumping, barking, chewing things. So it's up to us to help them learn how to live in our world, right?
Also dogs don't you know, experience the world the same way we do. So do I know a lot of times, maybe think voice commands are really the way to get their dog to behave. And I knew that know that dogs do respond to voice commands. But is that the first thing that they respond to? Or is it? Are they more likely to respond to physical cues to other things? What are the big things that really spark your dog's attention?
A lot of it is, you know, they can obviously pick up certain verbal cues, right, like sit because it's so done. So often, they really know that word. But if you have something more complex like spin, you definitely want to add in cues to all of your commands, like visual cues with your body language, because dogs really experience the world through body language, right. That's why they're so in tune with us because they're constantly reading every little movement that we do. And that's how they communicate with one another through body language. So if we add those visual cues to our verbal cues as well, your dog will pick up on things in a much bigger way than if you're just telling it to sit.
I was wondering this about dogs to the extent that they can differentiate verbal things I don't know about in your household, but my dog has a name. But then he has like four or five different nicknames. I don't even realize I'm calling him. So there's my dog know his name, and there's nicknames? Or does he just kind of just know I'm making some random sound in a certain tone?
You know, it's hard to say they've actually done some studies on that. And, you know, we don't really know, but we, they definitely know we're talking to them when my dog's name is Cory. And I call him like, handsome or buddy, or you know, all of those different nicknames that you have for your dog. And it's more about with the nicknames, the intonation that you're giving them, right. You know, we kind of say it the same intonation every time. And so they know that that means Hey, pay attention to me, or, you know, my human is talking to me, because they're using that tone of voice with me. I mean, they definitely know their names, that's for sure. But with all of those nicknames. I think it's really just more about oh, hey, they're talking to me. Like, you know, cute and fun, I should go over there and say,
I know that sometimes dogs can take to training pretty quickly. But I also wonder, can they fall out of things that they've learned pretty quickly as well, what makes a dog stop doing the things that you've tried to train them to do the behaviors that you've spent a lot of time and effort on and reinforced? And then they just kind of forget it?
Yeah, that really comes down to human error. Right? It's kind of like you learning math, right? You know, your addition and subtraction, and then you get to division, and then long division, and so on, and so forth. And I think most of us in our day to day don't really use calculus or long division anymore. So if we had to do that, all of a sudden, we'd have to go back and relearn it a little bit. And it's the same for a dog, right? If we're not practicing it with them every day, even just a little bit, two minutes a day, one minute, a day, five minutes a day, they will just kind of forget how to do it, because we're not reinforcing it. And so people will tell me all the time, well, well, they learned this puppy class three years ago. I'm like, Yes, but have you been doing it with them every day? Oh, no, we haven't. Like that's exactly why they're not remembering it. Because you've kind of let it fall to the side, right, we have to keep reinforcing these behaviors that we want from our dogs, in order for them to remain solid.
Sometimes dogs do kind of learn bad habits. And is it harder to teach a dog to lose a bad habit than it is to teach them to pick up a new skill or a new habit,
it really always comes down to the dog and how reinforced the habit is, right? If it's something like counter surfing and stealing food, it's much harder because the dog has, in and of itself reinforced that behavior because it's been successful and getting something that it wants, which is the food, right. So things like that are much harder to counter train a behavior for just because the dog has been so successful and reinforced the behavior. Whereas if it's something you know, like, with puppies nipping or chewing on things, were much more easily able to redirect that behavior to something acceptable to chew on, right, here's your bone, you're not going to chew on my shoe. Those kinds of things are easier to do. Because we're able to reinforce a more positive behavior, right? A lot of it isn't really stopping a behavior, but you're changing a behavior, right? We're teaching a counter behavior. A lot of people say, Well, my dog runs and jumps on people, when people come over and I say, Okay, well, then let's train a counter behavior, right? Let's train the dog to go wait on a bed or bring a toy, right? Something that counteracts the jumping, but we're still letting the dog be involved in our world.
So what is the counter behavior if they do things like jump up in and try to steal food or something like that? Because you always Yeah, that's when the at least in my house, my dog gets the bad habits, because people come over and they want the dogs love. And so they immediately, you know, it's just like your parents with grandchildren. Right? They set up all this bad behavior by doing things that you don't like. So how do you try to redirect that? Because I would think a dog is always going to react to food. That's one of the primary motivators that used to train them.
Yeah. As for, you know, jumping, running to the door jumping on people, you know, it's very exciting. They love most dogs love people, right? So that's just something that you have to work on every day, all the time. That counter behavior note when the doorbell rings, we actually go run to our bed and we wait there to be released to go say hi, rather than charging and knocking grandma over when she comes as for you know, things like counter surfing, it's it's much harder when you know, you can set up little traps, right so that the dog jumps up something falls and makes a loud noise to kind of scare it. Oh, no, if I jump up, something loud happens. And I don't like that. Then people try, you know, like, little sensors. So if the dog jumps up, there's a beep, and then the dog jumps down. So there's a lot of little different things we can try. But at the end of the day, if your dog is so food driven, and you've accidentally let something out, the dog is likely going to still try to get that food.
Your dog Cory, who you mentioned earlier, is sort of internet famous. He is. Tell us a little bit about this. And if you intended to do it or not, or what has happened since then, let us know how people got to know Cory.
I have to say a lot of it was COVID times. So I was chatting with a friend and she was saying hey, well, you know, Cory doesn't have an Instagram. He's so cute. And a lot of us would love to see the training that you do with him for the diabetes work. And I was like, Yeah, you know, that's a great idea. So I kind of started Instagram for family and friends. And then my husband said, hey, well, you should do You know, put it on tick tock, why not? Right? And I was like, Oh, I'm too old for tick tock, right? And he was like, no, no, give it a try. So I did I put it out there. And like, it was kind of overnight, somehow our videos that our training videos started going viral and just kind of snowballed. From there. It just grew into Corey, the canine and what it is today.
So I saw one Corey was wearing socks. So why was Corey wearing socks? Do you just not want to scratch up your floors or what?
No. So Cory is a little bit special in that when he was about seven or eight months old, which is when dogs go through a second fear period. So things that weren't scary before are suddenly scary for a little bit of time. And then they go back to normal Heath was chasing a ball across our laminate floor, and he slipped, and he pulled a muscle in his leg. And so he wasn't super injured or anything. But it scared him enough to where he did not trust any kind of slippery flooring at all. And, you know, we tried putting rugs everywhere. We tried taking them all away and seeing if we could just force him to go through and we tried, really everything we could think of and nothing worked until I was like, Well, I have his snow shoes for outside, maybe that'll work. And so I put them on. And it was it was like magic. He was like, Oh, hey, I can walk again. Like I'm totally. So he wears socks or shoes. For the most part anytime anyways, when we go in public, a for the slippery floor and be just because I don't want my dog to step on glass or anything like that when we're out in public and at home, if we're working a lot in the kitchen or something. But we do have a lot of rugs. And I have to say that over time, he's gotten much better, he will kind of run really quickly across the slippery floor to get to the next rug. But it's huge progress since it first happened where he would not take one step forward. So yeah, that's why he wears socks and shoes.
So you mentioned the second scare period other periods with dogs where they develop, like new fears are more prone to them at certain ages.
Yes, so there's two fear periods, one happens when they're really, really little puppies. And the other one happens a little bit later on about six to nine months ish, you know, again, depending on the dog, and it's where they become a little bit more fearful of things. A lot of the times it's things like the garbage can, or, you know, a car driving by that didn't used to bother them, all of a sudden, they're a little bit more freaked out by it. And it's important for us to just acknowledge that this is a phase don't make it a huge deal, right? If we baby them, then we're validating the fear. We're saying, Oh, you have a reason to be afraid. So we just say, Oh, it's okay. And we keep moving. And then eventually they re habituate to it. And it's fine. Right. So that raises
one other question, how much of the cue do they take from the person in how they react to something that's going on? Like, for instance, if the dog barks at the mailman, and you make that a big deal? Will that mean that that you're reinforcing? He or she should bark at the mailman or another dog or something along those lines?
Yeah, so they pick up a lot from us. So oftentimes, two people will say, well, they're barking and I'm telling them to stop and they won't stop. And I say, Well, when you're yelling at your dog, when they're barking, they think you're also barking. So they think they're doing the right thing, they think we're all barking at the mailman, and the mailman goes away. So it's, you know, again, reinforced, the dog isn't aware that the mailman wasn't going to stay at our house the whole time. So we're reinforcing that why we accidentally reinforce a lot of our behaviors, because we aren't aware that that's what we're doing right for the jumping, people are talking to their dog, no off, stop down. And again, you're giving the dog the attention. Even if it's negative attention, it's still getting some reaction from you, which is what it wants, it wants to engage with you when it's jumping up, right. So that's reinforcing again. So a lot of times, we have to check our own behavior to see how we're reinforcing things with our dog and what we have to do to change it. Right. A lot of times, we have to just kind of ignore dogs when they're doing things we don't want them to do. And then engage with them when they are doing something we like. So for the jumping, I ignore it, I'll turn my back, I won't engage at all, I won't even look or talk to them. And as soon as the four paws are on the floor, that's when I'll go and get a little pet or say hi, that's when I engage, right because that's what I want the dog to do. When I see it. I want it to four paws on the floor nice and calm, and that's when I engage.
So one final thing, the title of your continuing education class at Heartland Community Colleges teach your dog new tricks. And that of course, is a play on the you can't teach an old dog new tricks. So my question is can you do Doesn't matter how old your dog is, can your dog still learn some training? Or is there a certain point where you have to give up?
No, I mean, all dogs can learn pretty much at any age, of course, unless there's, you know, health problems that are going on. It's just a matter of, you know, just like when people get old, we might be a little more set in our ways. So it might just take a little bit more encouragement. But dogs really do love to learn new things, and they love to have things to do. So you really can teach an old dog new tricks as long as you're willing to put in a little bit more time and effort for it.
We'll say thanks so much for talking to us about dog training and about Corey and about the various ways that you train dogs. I appreciate you being with us today.
Yeah, thanks so much for having us fun.
Sam stocking is a certified dog trainer and she teaches young and old dogs new tricks. One of the way she does that is by teaching their owners in the continuing education class and Heartland Community College. If you enjoyed this interview, please subscribe to random acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this one. Thanks for listening
