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Now, here are your hosts, Glen Cook and
Pat Stewart. And I'm lofty Fulton. And I'm
out of here. Hey I need to tell
some. Oh, god. What is it? Some time
ago, we did an add episode where we
talked about how we were going to get
better with our ass.
Wondering
shit
said
get better and we just
so bullish shit.
Alright. Well, here they are? We got 5
sponsors currently. Alright. Who are they? First is
the O. The ai winner. Oh, that knob
the buff. Yep. Now. He's the Og been
with. He's star. He's good. He he's gonna
sell you whatever you need. Yep. He'll get
it. What you should do is contact Jason
for Minds Don't quit. Mh. With some peculiar
product, telling him me want it and make
him get it in. Salt you. Even if
you could buy it somewhere else, just make
sure he gets it in for you. Just
make that bastard work.
But in all, honesty, I'd say 90 percent
of my shit comes from him, and it's
all the best stuff. I did see some
feedback on our forum where somebody was really
intrigued about your handler package. So you got
from Jason. Obviously, it works. Yeah. People are
paying attention in daily great even though we
shoot at this, we do a terrible job
of actually trying to keep things updated. It's
great to see that the people who are
investing in our show are actually getting some
leeway. Yep. Made I've heard that your wife
sells some Can products. My wife is doing
great guns at the moment. I said before
that she's being supported terrific in the United
States which been good, but I will swing
that back home and say that so many
more people in Australia are doing it. And
it's great to see, like, there are people
finally, in the sporting dog world who are
starting to prioritize nutrition for the dogs. And
I know them and I can see them
when Noel comes and says, I guess who
bought some product off me for the first
time. So you're saying there's no patient confidentiality.
No. You're a confidentiality. Oh, sorry.
It what's a mob list. You... Are you
aware my dog is taking p, collagen, and
what everything it takes Anton. Anton. Yeah. Yeah
To been on that. Anton is not Business,
but I've gotta do a shout for. They.
Are absolutely fantastic. The very supportive of her
show. Mh. Whenever we've done seminars and so
forth, they have been first to dip their
hand in their pocket, they are very generous
with their product.
But let me just say all that aside,
their generosity and their advertising and marketing. Let
me just say on the other side of
that they're is amazing. Yeah. Like, it does
work. It's very beneficial for sure. It's 1
of those things where they say Anton for
every dog every day. I totally agree with
that. Nor has even supported that when people
have asked them about her product, she says,
the 2 things that I would absolutely give
to you. Is anton and her gut protect
formula. Yeah. Gut protect is like her holy
Grail. Of of her holy of the range.
This is not me market talking. Okay? Because
we mad. This is this is an ad,
but this is not made to a market.
But we've already pointed out where she did
at. I know. Of all the things she
sells and she sell some kill a product.
But the 1 thing that she does sell,
which I absolutely agree with her every dog
should have this product is the gut protect.
Really, a hundred percent. It's nothing that they
need for being sick. It's something that they
need to do just to maintain great gut
balance. Okay. And gut balances like mental health
That's it's 1 of those things that you're
absolutely they wanna get control around. So products
like anton, Great every day. Gut protect, great
for every day. There's other products that aren't
even related to hers called things like called
Rose vital and stuff like that. Absolutely fantastic
for dogs to be on every sort of
day. Mh. But I know there's other people
we need to talk about if you wanna
learn more about Nor products, go to a
website, canine
dot com. I think it's.
I think it's... Till you'll figure it out.
It's dot
you. It's 1 of those, you. Everyone just
google's it and yeah goes Google it. You'll
find it. Hey. Yeah. George. Alright wish you
get him on the show. We should have
George on the show. Not only is he
devilish handsome. Yep. But he's got a fantastic,
1 of a kind product that I've never
seen replicated anywhere in the world, you or
me. Were getting a car ride by him.
We got to see the prototype first hand.
And then his bike got stolen with the
prototype bike that? Yes. Yeah. But anyway, George
has Rowdy had dog box. Yeah. So it's
a crate that goes with the vacuum motorbike
so that you don't can go over with
you. Yeah. It's cool shit. It's a great
idea. You should totally get 1. Taylor canine
nines in Canada. Yeah. Do you know that
Taylor from tele is hosting Jazz w later
in the year? I do know that. I
saw the ad. Very good. Yep. So she
doing great stuff with her tailored Canine, her
training business, training business, but she's also getting
a fantastic trainer over there to help with
her tailored training. Cheers is. And finally.
Barber groot. The sugar mama from the heart
dog trainer heart dog trainer. Just fucking throws
cash this supports the show god bless. Yeah.
I think later on the year when And
I are over doing a seminar with Melanie
Ben. Barbara D group is coming over. I.
I think she has put down a a
like, and I'd said you better come sugar
mama, and she gave me a thumbs up,
So hopefully, she's gonna be there, and I
can give her some love to repay us
for all the kindness and support that she's
thrown Addison asked nothing in return. Alright. That's
our ad. Yeah. That one's good to go
for at least another 4 years. That hear
from us then.
Welcome back to the canine paradigm your host,
Pat stewart, and I'm joined in studio today
by my c host. Glen cook. Hello, sir.
Hello, everyone. How. Are you? I'm good. Like
we're pretending we haven't just been talking for.
No. We can see. We're all be camping
day.
Hey. I got a beam upon it. Let's
go. I talk about leash. Yeah. It's a
good topic. Yep.
Something
I've been thinking on. Mh. And sort of
swirling around in my brain a lot lately.
Yes. Is about leash. Yeah. And there was
a final tree just recently
that just kind of prompted me to think
out a structure of things I wanna talk
with you about today in terms of leash.
Oh, share it with me hear all about
it. So I like coffee. And most days,
I get coffee from the same place. There's
an awesome little cafe just up the street
from my shop. You know these people who
can have a coffee and then not poo
directly after? That's first coffee of the day.
Okay. But
Yeah. Yeah. I'm at least A2A day ago.
Yeah like, coffee. Really? Get 2. A minimum.
If not 3. 0, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I
maybe may have 2. Yeah. Yeah. If I
have more than 2, then I can't sleep
properly at night. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I have
a cut of, like, 3 in the afternoon
usually, although I break that rule from time
to time. Yep. Anyway leash? Yeah. Currently.
So anyway, this Cafe. Yes. I
know them pretty well. I get a lot
of my meals there. Yep. But often when
I'm walking to work in the morning, they're
doing their setup. Mh right? Now in this
cafe,
there's a dog, and people who follow me
on Instagram will have seen our post stories
of him sometimes. His name's Pong,
and he lives at the cafe. He's the
owner's dog. He's a little... I don't know
what he is. He looks like maybe a
little cock span ish Oh, yeah Yeah. I've
I've seen him money stories. He's a cute
little dog. Yep. Actually
incredible
trained. Yep. Like a straight dog. Sort of
Yeah. So he's at the cafe. It's got
a big outdoor area at in a courtyard
sort of space. Yep. He is just off
leash all the time wandering around. I've never
seen that dog harass someone that didn't wanna
be harassed. Yep. The cafes dog friendly. I've
never seen him approach another dog that wasn't
inviting the approach was gonna have an appropriate
interaction with. I've never seen the dog cause
any issues whatsoever,
he only engages with people who he's clearly
welcome to engage with. Mh He never causes
any issues with any of the other dogs,
and he just wonders around does his own
thing. You were eighties kid or a nineties
kid, eighties. I was born in 83. When
you and I were young children. That was
pretty much normal life. Yeah, people with dogs,
we grew up in an era where we
weren't so constrained with
over overwatch by councils,
state government, federal government. Nobody sort of... More
people cared
But dogs were very social and people were
very rural minded with things. I grew up
in the outer suburbs. I lived in the
city as a very young child, but then
I sort of moved to the out of
suburbs as a pre teens and teens and
so forth. But life with people then was
dogs wanted,
And dogs were very social with people. Yeah.
Of all sizes, they're were even social with
each other. Like, it wasn't uncommon to see
groups of dogs playing in the street with
each other or just, you know, roaming the
neighborhood, and then they'd go home to be
fed. Yep. That was our life as children.
Yep. But laws, laws and
litigation. Exactly. So Po go hangs out in
this cafe. The other thing I should add
never seen him beg for food. Like, never
once and there's food over it's Cafe. Yep.
As will feed him or they encourage him
not No. Some people do. And if he's
interested if he feels like it, he'll might
take a piece of food. Yeah. But he
doesn't... The dog is incredible.
At just being the dog in a cafe.
Alright? Now I've never seen it anywhere else
I don't know what it's life looks like
anywhere else, but I see it there, and
it's great. Yep. But as I'm walking to
work most days at about 05:30 in the
morning. I'm walking past their shop as they're
setting up. Pong goes is out there doing
his own thing, and my 2 dogs are
on leash as I'm walking them down the
straight. Now every now and again, I will
take 1 of my dogs or both of
them or whatever, to go get coffee. Mh.
And they're on leash, and I might leave
them
outside as I walk into order and put
them in a seat or a down or
something like that. But they don't move, they
get put static, and I might leave them
in this somewhat secluded area depending on whether
I take them or not, which is pretty
uncommon. So anyway, the other day, I tag
them on Instagram when I posted a thing
of Pong, and they then looked at my
Instagram. I found out on the dog train
Like, they don't really know what I do
for a job other than that it's in
the dog space. Right? And I'd like I
don't suppose like care. But they looked me
up on Instagram and saw Oh, you're real
dog trainer? You do real dog stuff. So
the owner then said to me, how come
your dogs are never off leash? And I
was like, Oh, well,
and Didn't really have an answer.
But I just kind of was stuttering for
words
because what I realized was This is a
much bigger conversation. Like, you don't actually give
a fuck about my answer. Right? Then she
goes, look, Pong goes always around. Like, I
just tell him what I want from him
and he does it. And I'm like, yeah.
Okay.
And I ended up to say, well, my
dogs are a work in progress. Alright? Like
that's... I just left it at that. Yeah.
Good answer. But then I went back, and
I was reflecting, and I was like, well,
my dogs always unleashed. Was her dog wears
off leash. And I know the answer to
that is because her dog is
naturally good or she put a lot of
work into when he was young.
Teaching him how to make the appropriate choices
and how to be social in public and
whatever. But he's also not exactly full of
drive either. Yeah. It's exactly. Yeah. Just puts
around. Nothing really kicks that dog. Nothing that
I've seen. And certainly, maybe this was the
case when he was younger. They're trained it
out of him. I don't know. But nothing
really excites him to the point where he
needs to be restrained. He doesn't have any
really strong desires. Yep. I don't engage with
them a lot every now and again, he
comes over and talks to me. But the
people that do
try and push engagement with him and that
he enjoys a company of. When he sees
them, he casually
walks over to them. Like, he doesn't go
at them like a bullet gate, like, high
drive dogs do. Yep.
And so why are my dog's leash and
hers not is because it's not appropriate for
my dogs to be off leash and it's
entirely appropriate for her dog to be off
leash.
And then it started me sort of thinking
about why that is shocking to someone else
to see these guys a dog trainer.
He clearly can train dogs. They've seen videos
of me training dogs now. They know that
I'm capable of training a dog to do
most things that anybody would wanna train a
dog to do.
Why have I not trained them to be
able to just walk around off leash? Because
could easily do that with my dogs. If
I wanted my dogs to be off leash
everywhere dogs, and that were a priority to
me, I could easily do that. But that
is not in the slightest a priority to
me. But it caused me to reflect, and
I was like, there was a time when
that was a priority to me. Now it
was before I was a a dog person.
When I was a kid, we had border
Collie growing up. We had 1 called panda
because she looked like a panda bear. And
she died when I was maybe 4 or
5 something like that. So that was my
first dog and all my initial memories of
a dog of that dog.
What do you remember of her? I remember
a couple of things. The first was that
she knew how to play cricket. Yep. She
understood the game to the extent that me
and my friends,
all we needed was a batter and ebola,
and she was the field. It worked perfectly
because she understood you take the ball so
straight back to the person who threw the
ball to the guy who hits it with
the bat. And. So it was the best
when you're 4 or year kid and your
buddies in the area, You can play cricket
all day. Yeah nobody has to be the
field because you only wanna be the batter
or the bowl. Yeah. That's that's shit jobs.
Yeah. No 1 wants to be out there
fielding. But the total loved it because it
was getting... We play with the Tennis ball.
I don't know that she understood the game
in so much as that you had to
catch the ball on the full to get
people out, but being a border collie, she
was always trying to catch the ball on
the fall. So that counted as you're out.
Yep. And she would feel in that as
quickly as possible should would run the ball
back to the bowl. So she say she
our border collie needs. And total guys get
to play cricket. Totally. Awesome. The other thing
I remember really distinctly about panda is that
she was stolen when we're young. She decided
for a period, and then we got her
back. I feel like there was more to
that. I should probably talk to my parents
about the details of that. Now that I'm
old enough to hear the real story.
I think that there was probably some interesting
developments in house... No No. She came back.
Okay. Because Panda got really fat and where
my parents live? It was at the time
of functioning mental hospital, but like, a big
open
flowing once. Now Cow Park, right? Where, like,
I've trained my dogs all the time and
so. When it was a functioning hospital
because dogs would roam. Right? Like you said.
That dog would just disappear and come back
and would spend the day out with other
people and then just come back in the
evening and be with her family who had
got home from school and whatever Yep. And
she's always fat, and we could never figure
out why. And it turns out because she
had, like, 6 different people feeding. Know. And
we found that out when she went missing
and we were looking for her. And they're
like, oh, we know. Yeah. She hasn't been
around. Right? And so we're like, oh, how
well do you know? Like, we feed her
every day. Like, now now we understand First
of all, why she disappears and why she's
fat. That's my excuse too. You know? Yeah.
Too many people for And.
Too many people enjoy your company and give
you food in order to bring you in.
That's right. Yeah. And then we had another
border collie called Sasha, and Sas was pretty
similar. Just another dog that you know, I'm
sure that there was a terrible period with
a
puppy that I don't know anything about because
I was a little kid, and I'm sure
my parents and my older the brothers and
sisters dealt with all that. But all I
have is these amazing memories of this dog.
Sac to be, I think 15 or something
like that. It was my dog, she was
mine right up until I, like, left to
join the army. And and and actually, it
was 1 of the things I remember telling
my mom because she was kind of at
the back end of life. I remember when
I went to basic train I was like,
if I dies go and don't tell me.
Like, I don't think that in the layered
dress model would help. But then she died
about a year after I joined the army.
Anyway, but those dogs were mostly awfully dogs.
Yep. They weren't really unleash very much at
all because we lived opposite the park where
they would go. And so they often were
on the front step, not in the yard.
They were just sort of dogs that were
around, and they made good choices. Mh And
so the street... It's just 1 street crossroads.
It's not a traffic street it's the local
street. So the dogs could basically cross the
road.
Safely. They would check for cars and walk
across and
spend their day where they wanted to and
come back. There wasn't a lot of cause
to strain them ever. And so for me,
when I then got my own dog,
and Jane got a dog together, his name
was Ernie. I think Sasha had at me
that just died was like, right at the
doing it. Like, but she obviously stayed with
my parents and me and jail together. And
Ernie
was a 7 year old like Mu Bot
collie thing. And I remember, 1 of my
first goals was, like, I don't need to
be able to take this dog off leash
to the park. Like, I need to be
able to walk to the place that I'm
going. Off leash, and it was mostly back
streets to get there. And like I did
it, but I don't know why I had
that as a goal because to me that
was just normal dogs are off leash.
And I remember being proud of myself that
I made it to the park and only
had to tell Ernie to get back to
me 500 times. Like it was... You know
what I mean? I like, that normal pet
dog people I'm like, I would told you
my dog good to go. Like, totally reliable
or leash. Yep. And every step I be
like, you're Come back here. Hey Hey. But
like, and, of. Sound like you got to
re.
Like dude. And and of course, he'd walk
back from the park way better than he
would walk to the park. And Be I
I'd be like, look, my training is getting
better. Like, all the dumb shit that
people who don't know what we know. I
was 1 of them and said all those
things. But for sure,
having the dog off leash was a priority
for. That was a thing. Before Was a
dog person,
and it was an image thing for sure.
Like it wasn't that holding Alicia hard. And
I think as well if I'm really sort
of think on it. I think part of
it was that All those dogs as soon
as you put a leash on them would
pull like a freight trade. And so it
was easier just to be like, well, I
won't put a leash on. And knowing what
I know now, Those are conditioned responses. It's
that the dog pulled into the leash got
to where it wanted to go, the pressure
turned off. Now whenever the leash gets pulled
on, the dog just goes okay well, Pull
into this thing and it takes me places
that must be also like, I understand all
of that now.
That's really basic and every dog trainer gets
But before I was a dog person when
I was just looking at, well, the dog
pulls on the leash, I don't like that,
probably if I don't use the leash, I
won't have that problem. And that's true. You
don't have the problem of the Don't leash.
You have a massive sm board of new
problems, and you're accepting a whole new level
of risk and liability.
The dog doesn't pull and you you don't
have to worry about that. Yeah. So like
many pet dog owners,
that was a big goal for me. And
I was able when the owner of the
cafe kind of looked at me like, what
are you a fuck up? Like,
yeah don't mean like, yes.
Are you not good at your job? Yeah.
Why is your dog's on leash all the
time, and it occurred to me, I presently
have the 2 most highly trained dogs I
think I've ever had. Right? Valerie is 10
and basically can read my mind. Like I
really don't have to tell her to do
much. She has been so ind in the
process of my life that she just does
the things. She's what made me pay attention
to you in the early days. Yeah. To
be honest, like, when I first met you,
I just thought You just another do that
you know guy? No. Army guy that says
things.
But when you brought value around, and I
watch your trainer, I thought, Holy shit, I've
never seen anyone
manny just bring up that well. Yeah. Usually
when I see people manage bring gets like,
they're just crazy and they just piss off
and run off and Yeah. Same thing it
takes them forever to try get the dog
back. But she was like, walking between your
legs. She was shifting positions well, healing beautifully,
focused
heels,
coming back when cold going to markers. Like,
she was doing all the stuff, and I
thought you've put some work into this little
door. Yeah And I did. Yep. And that's
why she's so
easy now. Was the first 18 did the
ground her life. The first 80 months of
her life were insanity. And not Insanity, but
I was at the kind of Yeah. And
we we were filming everything. What's wrong that
that's how should be. No. Exactly. Like, if
you look at the timeline of a dog
between the time you get it. Let's say
you get dogs from puppies. I I know
this conversation happened many, many times in my
head a lot as well. It's what I
say to people when they come to me
for dog training problems are said, the issue
is
We get puppies from 8 weeks. Give will
take a couple of weeks here there. By
the time we get dogs trained,
they're at an age where they're old. There's
789 years of age. They're given up on
pulling and so forth because they're just thinking,
oh, just don't have the energy for it
anymore. Yeah. And you've had to go through
all that time You just said, you know,
like her life was very hectic in that
first 80 18 months. If only... Yeah. Yeah.
If only, everybody did that, Yeah. Forever more,
that's a life saving technique right there. Yeah.
So if you're talking about animals getting pissed
off to welfare to rescue to being eu
and so forth, if only other people did
what you did. If only people structured their
dog's life in that first day 18 months,
the rest of the time is cake, Yeah.
It's fucking cake. I mean, it's a bit
of chilly at the start, but the rest
of the time it's cake. Yeah. Exactly. I
learned that before I was even in dogs
when I was on a working on a
building site and there was a guy that
had his, like, back of the car dog.
Yeah. And it was the same thing like
it... I think we've talked about our building
mate dogs like I had 1 called assholes
ourselves that doug your ass and yeah. And
Oh, well, like, when I was in apprentice
because I, you know, Worked on voting sites
for a year before I joined the army.
This is in 2001.
Yeah. So it's not like this is a
long time ago. It is a long time
ago, but it's not like this is 23
years ago okay. Yeah. But back then, like,
if you try to take someone of someone's
unit, and their dog would buy you. You're
an idiot for getting bitten by their dog.
There was no, like, Oh, no. Like, no
issue. No. Not issue. That was scared. You
went to somebody else's. Yeah. Car, you touched
their shit with without permission. Beat you fuck
you. Yeah. You should... You're an idiot. You're
not bitten by that dog? But so this
1 guy I remember talking to him and
he had his dog on the site. And
I remember asking him, like, how did you
train this dog? He I remember him saying,
you just gotta be really strict for the
first 08:18 months. That's it. And then everything
else just falls into place.
Anyway, Valerie has been that. Like, she's a
borderline wild animal. I think that if I
actually tried to give her straight commands, she
would look at me like, hey. I don't
get told what to do. But She just
knows what to do is appropriate at the
right time. Right? So she knows when I
put her on leash. She walks on my
left, Ram walks on my right. They both
just walk along beside me.
Anyway, I digress.
Having my dogs off leash is just not
a goal that I have for walking around.
Now Valerie could easily do it. And as
I say, the 2 dogs I have now
Valor and Rem that are my dogs have
at 1 point in their life been extremely
highly trained dogs. Rem still is, you know,
like, we only just got a Psa 2
a month ago. Like, we are still in
a very high level of control.
And he will do basically what I tell
him to do. Every now and again, he
might be like, hey, I'm very interested in
something else, but I have the compulsive ability
at that point, like I've layered the pressure
to be like, no. No. You're doing it,
and he happily does it. Yep. So if
I wanted to, I could easily walk from
my house to wherever I want. And Rem
you're doing it in a focus heal. You
what I way? Like, it's totally possible, but
it's just not something I'm interested in.
But then I there's too much scope for
things to go wrong in those sort of
scenarios. Totally. For putting all that prep work
in, and then having an end goal for
it. Only let your ego get carried away
with you and say, oh, now I've gotta
walk the dog down like up into a
cafe, just so the lady at the shop
thinks everything's okay. Yeah. So that I look
cool and people believe that I'm good at
doing what. And it's great if it goes
great. But you only have to have the
dog run onto road. You don't have to
have another dog come out. And then the
level of control that you've got in those
sort of situations.
And it might not be your dog's fault.
Be the other dog's fault. But the problem
is it's now giving your dog something else
to think about that you didn't want your
dog to think about. Yep. Exactly. That's my
thoughts around it anyway. Like, I've had on
discussions with people over a myriad of years.
And I remember sort of recount in my
head, a technique that I did with Holly
when he was a young dog thinking about
some of the stories that you've talked about
from L, mine and yours and in the
variance and in dogs growing up. I got
Hal in 19 89.
So 19 89, that's when my mate mark
and I cohort bought Holly together. He had
to move out of the house, so I
paid him for the rest of the money
and I took possession of the dog. That's
a whole
lifetime ago for some people. I remember as
he started growing up, my uncle at the
time he said to me Mate, you can't
have a dog like this. Because we all
thought he was a pure Rod. It was
a Rod shepherd Cross. But he said you
kind have a dog like this and not
be involved in active training. It was the
best words I've ever got. For all the
things that my uncle didn't do in life.
He did that really well. He gave me
some great guidance and he gave me some
books that he had, and I read the
books covered cover, like, 3 or 4 times.
And I used to walked down to the
park that was behind us, and my... I
remember 1 day I went to go down
there, and he pulled me like, a fucking
steam train the whole way down there, and
I was so angry by the time I
got there.
Mind you, I was only just getting into
my training career at this stage. I'd been
to other places and I knew a little
bit about training just enough to be dangerous.
Mh. But I got down to the park,
and I thought to myself, there is no
fucking way. I'm gonna let you get off
laid now that you pulled me all the
way down there. Because I used to let
him go down there and we used to
walk and letting him get to the park,
but it became such a negative reinforced
behavior that he got better and better at
pulling, and I just wasn't paying attention to
it. Mh. To this day, where just thought,
no. I'm impatient. I'm going, and you're gonna
let me go as soon as we get
there. We got there, like, literally because he
pulled me tumbling down the road, and I
thought not, and I fucking marched him all
the way back to the house. I put
him in the back garden, and I just
ignored him, no food. So I kind of,
like, lay punished him for everything.
I got him out the next day. He
was pulling, but he wasn't pulling as bad,
but I just thought not I just turned
around. We got 3 calls of the way.
I just turned around, did the same thing.
I put him in the back garden and
just ignored him, no food. I gave him
food later on course like... Yeah, But no
not Don't know what. He would pair to...
Right. Yeah. It had to be stacked because
even though I was learning about the terms
of negative punishment, it wasn't really conclusive in
my head that was doing the right thing,
but I just thought to myself, fuck you.
I'm not gonna let you do this. That
was embarrassing. It was insulting to our relationship.
It's not gonna happen.
So marching him back home and put him
in the backyard.
This went on for a 4 week, a
4 week of us struggling with this position,
and he was wearing correction chain at the
time, but he just thought fuck I'm pulling
through it. So the correction chain turned into
a choke collar, because he was just literally
1 of those dogs that gag and the
hu and passed. Mh Mate we got to
the stage where he understood it. He kinda
thought I'm losing here. So let's say, 2
and a half weeks into this because I
was vigilant back then. Like, If I stuck
in my mind about something there was no
way I was gonna come back on it.
So 2 and a half weeks, we got
down there and he walked beautifully
wasn't healing. We do social walking down there,
but he walked loose leash the entire distance
from the house to the park. So then
what I did, I thought, I wonder what
happened when I make the noise of the
g snap when I click it. So I
I clicked it, but I left it on
and he went to dash. I dragging back
home. And after period of time, I could
sit there. For me, I was just very
bloody minded about things. I just thought you
cannot beat me at this game. Yeah. I
have to win this for both our sakes.
Reflecting back on this story,
I didn't know
1 twentieth of what I now. Yeah. But
I did everything right. Remarkably. I did everything
right. Because I sitting there and I go
snap and he tried bolt and then he
start looking at me. And again, this was
a week later of him not getting off
in the park. I remember, my wife at
the time said to me... Because I tell
the story when Went home because I was
fuming mad And she go, oh, it's so
cool. You should just let him go and
said, but then he wins. Yeah. Then he
gets everything and it's all for naught. And
she said, yeah, but you've walked all the
way down there, and I said so There's
gotta be a lesson in this. So after
a period of time, like I'd walking down
beautiful Loose leash walk, I'd sit down there,
and I'd sit on the seat, and I
just got PPPP
with the g snap. By the end of
it, I was taking his leash off and
putting it back on with had him even
knowing that it was on and off. Yeah.
So we've gone through creating a habit that
I didn't realize that I'd had let sleep
into my methodology
into creating a, like a much better form
of behavior that every single time we walk
to the park, he knew the requirements of
getting there and getting to an off leash
status if at all was, he had to
walk down beautifully unleash, had to be a
beautiful loose leash walk all the way down.
This was an informal walk of course. I
didn't make him do focused heal or anything
like that. He'd do periods of healing, but
mostly
informal loose walking. We get to the park,
sit on the chair. I'd snap the leash
for a period of time. I'd take the
leash on and off him, and then I'd
give him permission to do it. Now when
I let him run, I'd always make sure
a, there was nobody else in the park
that he could interact with. Wasn't a dog
aggressive dog at all. He was very social
with people. Holly is still to this day
is still 1 of the most brutal
and active working dogs that I've ever worked
with and never had the privilege of living
with. But the most
gentle, beautiful soul of a dog that would
play with anybody in his path. Like for
him, meeting people in the park or meeting
people in the str or meeting people in
my home was the best thing in life
for him. That wasn't a job he was
told Did it was like you soldier. Like,
if you told you're on a mission, you
need to go out. There's bad guys you
need to do this. You go, okay. That's
the job. Mh. You know, we need to
do the job for the sake of world
peace or peace in this area or to
stop a barbarian from raping and murdering and
pill and whatever.
Holly was a smart dog incredible through training,
but he knew that that was his life,
but his
Default position was 1 of the kind of
dogs you ever met in your life. Yeah.
Incredible dog. It sounds like I'm immortal him
from something that happened a very long time
where it doesn't exist a lot of media
about it, but there were a lot of
people who saw it. Yeah. You know, like,
I'm talking
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who
all saw it people from
America, people from Germany people from Holland, local
people in Australia, probably thousands of people who
saw it. So I have collective evidence of
people who knew inventory him and witnessed him
being that type of dog, but switch him
on. He was a fucking brutal machine. Mh.
But such a lovely lovely dog to share
a life with.
And this event that we went through, like
it was such a struggle at start, but
I was determined I was not going to
be fucking drag down the street. On my
belly by this big powerful fucking beast of
a dog, and then put on my ass
every time I was gonna do it. He
learned in no time at all. There is
no advantage for me to get to this
park and act like a and then have
no relief from it. I would say within
a month, we have it perfectly rounded off.
We go down park. Letting him run his
fucking legs off. I'd kick a ball ram
for him. We'd play balls. We played biting
on tug. We do all that sort of
stuff. I asked him to come back. He'd
come back. I'll pop him on the leisure
walk down beautifully. So within the framework of
all that struggle and might to be honest.
There were times where I was wholly emotional
about it to the point where I'd nearly
go home at burst tears because I so
upset that I was being the asshole, restricting
my dog from going on the I really
felt
like, I'd done an incredible injustice to my
dog. Mh but I hadn't. When you reflect
on that, Yeah. Being that that's over 30
years ago. Mh. And you were not a
trainer. You were just a person that had
a dog. Yeah. Was just a guy with
a dog. Is it make you laugh like,
that you spend a month doing it when...
Like, you got their goal. But like now
you'd do that on the walk. Like, you'd
be able to do it on the way
there. Yeah Like if a adult pulled your
knee, you pause your whole, you're bring him
back in into position, you wait till larry
reset it, then you hit going forward Like,
you know, most
dog trainers, a lot of our business is
just to teaching Loose walking to the people
whose dog drag him down the street.
And most of the time, you, we can
get a dog not pulling in 15 minutes.
You know, Like, and then you can walk
around
to an extent with the dog understanding. You
oh, there's no success in pulling.
Does it make you a sort of laugh
to think like, how
effective you would be at that now versus
then?
I recall a comment that you said
many, many years ago into our podcast history
together. Where you said, I wish I could
have the time with my dogs again and
apologized. Yeah.
The injustices that they had to go through.
And there's so many things that I wish
I could say to Holly. He was the
template
for which I built my career on. And
again, I had great true. I had great
mentorship, but I didn't have
a lot of framework. You know, like, now
when people are sitting at home when you're
not at club and your mentor is not
there. You can get online and you can
research shit to the hilt. That wasn't around.
So, basically, for me, it was a a
week to week thing. Like, you had to
kind of wait till or Thursday or Sunday.
To ask these questions and be left with
the resolution in your own time. Mh So
it's no wonder that things took such a
long time because you kinda had to work
it at yourself. Yeah had to become handy
and crafty in what you were doing. Now
people just fucking hand you the information. Yeah.
You've got a glut of fucking fantastic
mentorship. Yeah. Yeah. And programs and online courses
you can do with people
spoil for fucking choices. All the information there
the only difficulty is filtering it. Yes. That
is the issue. It's like a drag net
of information. And what I mean by that
is there's tons of good information out there
as well, but there's so much more poor
information. Like, it's... There's... You have to swim
through sewage to get out into the nice
water sometimes, and you just think
how do I know? And the only way
you know is when you know. Yeah. I
know that sounds like a bit of an
oxy moron of an answer. But the only
way you know is from experience. Yeah. Like,
you only know that something's good when you
know what bad is. Yeah. For sure. Everything's
relative. Everything's relative. Leash, leash back to it.
So I'm sitting... I have this conversation with
this lady in the cafe. I go back
to my work and I'm sitting there and
I'm thinking about leash. Right?
Something about my own training style since I
became a dog person. Alright since I was
a dog trainer. Or like, not a dog
trainer. I've only been, like, professional dog trainer
for just coming up on 9 years now,
because I left the army. But, like I've
been in dogs and doing dog stuff for
a while, like, a decent amount of time
prior to that. Mh But this is just,
like, as a profession.
I was like, okay, I'm a I'm a
professional dog man. What do I think about
leash? And then I sort of started revenue
on...
I've been through some iterations of of how
much I use leases. So when I first
started getting in dog training, I was very
least heavy. Yep. Because I had dogs that
I had to control it and I had
to keep a hold of I was trying
to bring them back in so it became
a bit of a habit. Mh And then
I definitely have been crew phases
where I've not used the leash anywhere near
as much as I wish that I or
on reflection that I should have, Mh. Or
that I would do now. So, you know,
especially once when I got into shaping. And
when I really got into shaping and when
I really started understanding electrics and how to
use them in order to communicate with the
dog and stuff like that rather than just
straight a aversion. I definitely spent a lot
of time with no leash on the docks.
And 1 of the things I think is
always super interesting.
We see it in a b. We see
it in the Psa level 1
where there's a healing on leash and there's
a healing off leash. Yep. And what we
almost always say it at those things is
that the healing off leash is better than
the healing on leash. Yeah. And I think
that that is a real
insight into the conflict that people create with
their dog via. Yep. And so it sort
of had me thinking about my own training
styles and how I've been through these different
iterations of training.
Depending on who I'm working with, what I'm
interested in, And the reason I do this
for a job is I genuinely love it.
I put up an Instagram post the other
day about how we constantly joke
in training groups and a club and stuff
like that. 1 of the beauties of having
the club is that we get to develop
dogs end to end. And we're nurturing the
trainers, we get to do all the Bite
work sessions I get to either do or
be at.
I'm pretty tapped into what everybody's doing their
dog. So I get to see how things
play out. You get to find out does
this work. Yeah. That's the
conclusion that you can come to when you're
doing that end to end training, and the
great thing about it if you see something
that's not working quite well, you get to
modify it along the way. Yeah. It's kind
of, like writing a book and then you
realize
This story doesn't actually play out with the
conclusion. So what I need to do is
change 1 of the chapters. So it makes
much more sense. Yep. Along the way in
the next book I read. Right. I don't
know that there are that many dog trainers
that
get to see the start to finish. Like,
there's lots of people that teach puppy school.
Right? Yep. But they don't deal with adult
dogs. That's quite a common thing. There's lots
of people who just say, or no, I
just do puppies. And once they're an adolescent
dog they're out of my funnel, I only
want own puppy schools. That's fine. Yep. Except
some of those people are fucking installing boob
traps into those puppies. And they don't realize
that because they don't see what does this
puppy turn into. We'll just have a template
that they work across and they say, this
is how you train a puppy. Yeah. And
so they might be running, like, what feels
like a good puppy school. Mh. But then
certain people in particular like I can think
of who do a lot of, like, food
trading stuff. And you account like, this totally
unnecessary. Don't do the other puppy. Don't fuck
with their food. Right? Because you'll create you're
creating a potential of food aggression. Yep. When
you could just have no feelings about food
and people fucking around with it. Right? So
like I see people doing that and I'm
like, But you don't... When people call and
say I've got a problem with my now
at adult dog, you refer them to a
different trainer. You don't get to, sort of
remember what that dog was like as a
puppy and think don't get the opportunity to
reflect and go, oh, shit. Maybe I cause
this. Alright? And then course correct on other
dogs than a similar, and you don't do
the same exercise. The same, I think happens
when we do him home behavior mod stuff
or when we're just dealing with a a
pet dog owner and we do a 3
week board and train something like that. Right?
Like, we just see this dog for a
snap shot. Yep. And it's rare that we
ever get to be really involved in the
training. Beyond our own dogs,
it's rare that most dog trainers get to
be involved in the end to end. Right?
Like the start to finish of this dog
and sort of see it through the majority
of its life. And I think that's 1
of the beauties of having a club environment
is that
you get to draw an aggregate
beyond, like my own dogs, of course, we
see the end to end with our own
dogs, but I get to see that with
lots of dogs. And you don't get that
with even police and military stuff because what
happens when I'm not there, I have no
idea. You know what I mean? And you
can give all the best us. But then
they've gotta to work within their own policies.
And those dogs live in a kennel, and
so... And they're bought in as adults. Yeah.
So people have had inter But there's so
many foundational grounding that's been done already. So
many variables. Yes. Yep. So 1 of the
things that I've sort of noticed with my
own training
and I have
definitely given advice that's led people Astra, and
some of that was through not enough use
ablation. So when I really reflected on my
own training, especially over the last few years,
I am so much more leash heavy now
than I've ever been in the past. I
use leash so much more than I ever
have, and it's so rare for me to
ever leave anything to chance in a session
where, like, Let's see how the dog goes.
Most of the time, depending on what we're
doing, there's at least 1, sometimes up to
4 leash on the dog. To the point
where recently, you know, I'm was doing a
session with a dog that on his recall
from the guard. So if we were to
out the dog and call him straight back
to the handler off of a decor. He
had tendencies to get up to mischief on
the way back. Now, like there's degrees of
that. He might spin on the way back
just to take 1 last look at the
d decor. Or if there were other d
decor on the way, he would feel a
lot of draw to those d decor. And
so the fix is delicious. Like everybody in
the room has a leash on the dog.
Some of them were flexi glaciers, which is
gonna freak people out. But you imagine like
a square
there's 4 points on the square.
1 of them is the handler. Diagonally opposite
is the d decor, and then the other
2 points are both d decrease. And if
all of them have a leash to the
dog, and the dog gets sent to go
out to the d decor and decides to
take take a d to her, he can't.
Because we can just tighten those leash. And
the beauty of using Flex is they just
run in and out and if the dog
goes wrong away, all have to is push
a button. Right?
Then the dog on his way back. If
he decides to spin, we can stop him
spinning. And if he decides to her and
go via at 1 of the d decode
on the side. The opposing 1 can stop
that because he can lock his leash and
the other that only success can have is
going back to the handler,
everybody else restricts the dog from moving. The
reason why I'm so obsessed with leash, I
think at the moment is because I put
so much weight now into making sure that
I'm explaining things directly to the dog. As
long as you have an effective fading strategy.
Of course. But, yeah, we wanna get to
the point where the dog then is no
longer making mistakes. Yeah. Not using these leash.
Yeah. And I think I get it because
it technically falls under the framing category where
a lot of times in the early days
when we teaching fronts, we'd have to old
door panels. That were fixed in the ground.
So the dog couldn't move left or right,
he had to come into the funnel and
sit directly in front of you. Like, I'm
a fan of using early framing work to
teach the dog, the fundamentals of it. But
as I said before, as long as you
have an effective fading strategy. Yeah. Because
eventually, the tools have to go away. Yeah.
But it doesn't hurt for the dog to
revisit these strategies on a reoccurring basis as
well. Even if we do have a fading
strategy, we can bring the dog back. Like,
if we can start to see any variance
in the work that we're doing. We can
say to the dog... Okay. Well, now I
need to bring the framing in, just to
remind you what you're were supposed to do.
Yep. Yeah. I man, A fan of it.
I mean, again, reflecting back on early training
models. We had long leads on dogs regularly.
Dogs were on leads a lot of the
time when we were tying dogs into work,
so we could teach a dog where to
be in the guard or Holden barker we
were calling it back then.
You know, we could put the lead between
our legs or whatever it was just to
show the dog. This is how close I
want you to be. Remember, In the early
Ad days, we went through this stage where
obsessed with making dogs come like, literally when
I referred to Dave Sc dogs stagger.
His dog's jaw would be bouncing on your
nuts sack while you're doing a hold box.
Sorry people who get offended by that, But
that... That's the reality of it. It was
as scary as how when you're were doing
it for the first time because this dog
was right on your grind. Mh. Then we
all got fixated on changing it. That the
dogs had to be, like, a meter away
from you so the dog couldn't be stabbed
or hit with anything because we were doing
patrol dogs back then. Mh. We kinda thought
this is stupid because if you've got a
shave, you could literally got the dog while
standing in front of you. Yeah. Yeah. I
know the dog could bite you too, but
the likelihood is if you've got a weapon
and it's concealed, and you... The dog's on
you, you've just stabbed the dog. I've demo
that to a guy 1 time. He's dog
he did have a nice dog, but there
were some holes in his training. Yep. And
I was showing you Dogs not gonna bypass
passive. Like, the dough get off tap. And
I was like sure that I was gonna
bite someone, but ain't gonna be me because
I'm not gonna run away from it. And
all your decor work has been entertaining it.
So the dog came in and like nip
me. And then when I didn't react,
it just went, like, oh, I don't know
what's happening here and went into a back
and hold. Yep. And really
slowly, I just leaned down like enough sub
threshold, just leaned down and grab the dog
by the collar. And then was... Then I
could move, but I've got you. Like, I've
got control the door, and he could not
bite me. I had him by the collar.
And I like, handed him back to the
hair. I was like, this is a really
nice dog, man, but we've got some work
we have to do here because your decor
needs too much cheeky chicken chocolate to buy
it, to get you.
Yeah. Haven't had that 1 for ages. Yeah.
There you go. I think my big thing
on at the moment
is that I have a sense and certainly,
maybe I was 1 of these people, but
maybe not to the extent that I'm seeing
people doing it at the moment, is I
think we too often
balance trainers anyway,
rely on being able to use, like, pressure
to tell the dog that they're wrong. And
maybe that's your electrics or whatever.
When you can just have them not get
it wrong. And 1 of the beauty of
the leash is you can let the dog
try as hard as it wants to get
the thing wrong. Take for example, he's at
1 example, and it's a bite work 1,
but there's plenty of different ones I can
give if we wanna talk pet dog training
all the way through other things. If you're
doing directional,
and you've got 2 people to buy it
and you're bringing those directional fairly close together,
you can point to 1 and have an
active decor who is trying to draw the
bite it, and you have a passive 1,
and you're telling the dog, like, I know
that 1 looks more
enticing,
but this other 1 is the 1 that
I want you to buy it. Of course,
at some point, most dogs are gonna wanna
go to the 1 that's more enticing.
And what I see is people doing stuff
like that, and then steaming the dog or
punishing the dog in some way or causing
in a aversion.
And, of course, then, yes, the training results
in the dog understanding. Okay. Well I went
to the 1 that looked good to me.
Not the 1 that I got told to
go to and there was an immersive experience
in future will go to the 1 that
I'm told to go to. Like that training
will work.
But
you're giving that dog immersive experience. It doesn't
need to have, and there's risks every time
you do that. Now, I'm balanced trainer. Goddamn
we've
we've made it clear that I'm not afraid
to use comp propulsion. Or a version, punishment,
negative reinforcement. All those things we're very happy
to use them. But when there's the thing
to you. There's gotta be mindful of what
were you thinking about when you got punished.
Yeah. And that's the issue is not what
you as the handler we're thinking about because
this is all template in your mind. Like
you know the structure you know how it
should have played out. But what was the
dog thinking exactly. And that's the risk. That's
the risk. Whereas if I had a leash
alicia on that dog? Yeah. And I have
someone running a back for me so that
85 is not possible Yeah. And I can
send the dog and and in fact, when
I teach directional, I will make sure that
this situation happens. I will fucking make sure
that when we hit this point in the
level of training,
I will make sure that the dog will
make it the wrong choice, and I will
let the dog find out that it is
impossible to not do what I tell you
to do. Not because I I'm am beating
on you and telling you this is how
it's gonna fucking go. Or because when you
make bad decisions, it's dangerous and that you
can get lit up with the e collar.
What I'm gonna do is make sure that
the dog sees a situation where he goes
I know you said go to that 1
on the right. But this 1 on the
left looks much more exciting to me, and
that's the 1 I wanna buy it. And
I'll let him make that decision and find
out he can't do it. And so without
a leash, I'm stuck with the point where
I need to... The reason he doesn't do
it is because I cause an aversion to
doing it. But with the leash, I can
just let him not get to that decor.
And then I can explain to the dog
and, like, the whole
framing of how the dog will think of
its learning moment becomes different. Yep. In that
the dog doesn't think I need to do
it untold because or else,
the dog's perception of what it learned in
that moment is you know something I don't.
Mh Right? And so the dog then goes,
well, I wanted this 1 it seemed to
me like it was available,
but I can't get to it. I'm restrained
via this leash. And eventually, within a few
moments, and you might use the prong to
help the dog understand like you might knee
him a little bit away from that decode
towards the other 1. Eventually, you give him
the help and the guidance to make the
right choice. And then the tension comes out
of the leash from whoever's holding the back
for you or if it's a back to
Whatever, and you let him blast the other
decor and be successful. So
the learning outcome is that the dog then
instead of thinking, will I better do it
hold or else. He just gives up on
the making the wrong choice. And he's framing
his
state of mind is that the handler knows
something I don't. And he's not guiding me
to what he wants me to do.
Their dog should then think of it in
terms of He knows how I'm gonna be
successful. He is giving me the guidance to
get to what I want, and he'll stay
in that more clear sense of arousal. Now
like I'm saying, I'm not saying that you
can't punish a dog for biting their own
day. I'm not saying all those things. But
what I'm saying is
you maybe don't need to,
especially in the learning phase. Now, eventually, as
you said, the leash has to come off.
Right? Like, your dog's not finished until the
leash is off. Yep. But, like, we have
dogs that we train, you know, being in
the area that we're in, or we use
is insulation color on those dogs. Right? And
prior to going into competition,
I wanna know that it's gonna work without
the leash. And, of course, there's the element
of dragging the leash like that's a thing
that has to know, play into your training
that has a feel to the dock. Right?
Like your dog can tell when it's got
a long line dragging behind it. And if
you're gonna do call offs,
Then yes, for many reps, you need that
long line on in order to make sure
the dog can't be successful in doing the
thing that you told him not to do.
But before we can call the dog trained
and put our hand on a heart and
say, yeah, that call is gonna work. We
need to fade out that equipment.
And at that point, then I'll go, okay.
No worries. If the dog doesn't call off.
I feel like he knows it,
it's been 10 reps since we've had to
use the leash. The leash hasn't been, like,
it's been on. We've been ready to use
it, but we've had no cause 2 for
10 reps. Mh. Let's now see how we
go absent the leash. But we're not going
no equipment. We're gonna go the equipment that
we can now use to punish the dog
if he doesn't call off. Because we have
to give him that opportunity to do it.
But that's not where I wanna start. Know
what I? Like I don't wanna set the
dog up right from the jump to be
in a position where he's still learning
and to learn via that kind of experience
rather than just not letting him be correct
and helping him and be correct. And so
That's the biggest bug bear I have about
leash in the training space, especially amongst balanced
trainers. Because balance trainers, I feel like very
often take some risk knowing that we can
fix if that problem happens. Now there's plenty
of other issues that come other training methods,
like, for sure, I remain about trying. Right?
But I feel like a big part of
my bug bear about a lot of the
training that I see is that people are
allowing their dogs to get things wrong.
Knowing, I can clean this up. Yeah. I
can tell him that don't to do that
if he does it. Mh. Whereas, for sure
that works, and there's a time and play
Like you do have to do that. You
do have to give you the dog the
opportunity to get it wrong so you I
can say, hey, I know we've been doing
it in a particular way, you made a
choice. This is the outcome of that choice.
But I definitely don't want that to be
anywhere near my learning phase, I want that
to be in my proofing phase. Yeah. I
agree. When you're talking about timelines,
in the early stages, if you create that
pathway, it's still a pathway.
Regardless of you think you rounded it out
and you've got rid of it. It's still
there, like it exists. It's a thought it's
in the dog's head now. I call that
the maybe concept that you're thinking. Well, maybe
today is my day. Maybe this is the
that I can get away with this today.
Like, I'm in a different place. There's a
different person there. So maybe this will work.
And if the dog tries it and is
successful with it, it goes Well, my maybe
be paid off. Mh. Like we've learned in
dopamine parts and so forth, like the concepts
that maybe make your dopamine mean fucking sore
through the roof. It's the highest form of
reinforcement sometimes when you're in that gray zone
of thinking. Well, maybe I'm gonna get away
with this sneaky little fucking behavior today. Listening
to you talking about this too. I know
you know this, but I'm talking to the
public now when we're talking about podcasting. Like
this says a significant carryover effect not just
for sporting and working dogs, but for dogs
that have significant issues as well. There's so
many dogs... For some reason, over the last
month, we just had a glut of people
coming to us with significant problems where counsel
intervened, and I have to write reports for
them and speak to counsel on their behalf
and consider whether the dog gets a dangerous
men or nuisance order on them or if
they can get clear of it altogether some
people are coming to me because they want
it removed, and there's a whole range of
things. The vast majority
of the people that I'm speaking to in
these situations They are letting the dogs off
leash. Mh. We're having conversation about what's going
on. And when we get into the meat
of the conversation, they reveal to me that
they're letting their dogs off leash. Like, they're
either walking their dogs in a situation that
is far beyond their capability to control it,
or the dogs is off leash entirely. Mh
So once we get down to that point
in the conversation, because as I say to
them, when we're talking, I'm an agent of
yours. I'm here to help you. I'm not
here to hurt you. So if you don't
reveal something to me now, and I end
up going to court as a subject matter
expert for you. I'm telling you the prosecutor
will reveal to me what you've done wrong.
Like, if you don't tell me, I'm stuck
and I can't defend you. Yeah. I've got
a surprise over me. And I said I've
had this happen on 2 occasions where I've
gone to court before. Where my client didn't
tell me the entire truth, like they didn't
tell me exactly what happened. And then the
prosecutor showed me photos and showed me evidence.
I've wrongdoing on multiple other occasions. And I'm
fucked. Yeah. There's nothing can I help you
it? I'm not your lawyer. I'm your
representation, and and I'm going up there. On
my good word and saying now I've seen
this dog and I know the capability of
it, and then they're going, yeah, but do
you know about all this preexisting
history. Now they're all the little babies is
that people have created where the dog is
gone, why, Did it before. Can do it
again. Yeah. And that's why the dog does
do it again. That's why the dog a
repeat offender. However, when we do get into
a situation where we start teaching dogs in
learning teaching phase that you can't do these
things. And if you have an body experience
where you're out of your head with the
occupation of some other stimuli,
bird b, other dog, whatever it may be.
Dogs have an incredibly hard time dealing with
these and then suddenly, being reinforced by this
when they can actually get to it. Whereas
if you just teach it, you're on a
late mate, There's no way that's gonna happen,
you can look as much as you want,
but I'm dragging you out of that situation.
So after a period of time, the dog
starts realizing, well, that maybe just doesn't exist
for me. I'm just... It never paid off.
I can't actually get to it. You do
need professional help. That's where you need to
step in with somebody who has the guidance
and measures in place to say to you.
Okay. You need to be doing this, and
this needs to play out this way. And
that's why for such a long time
as a trainer, I wasn't an advocate for
people going down to off leash dog parks.
Or dog parks in general, where we create
these may scenes for people I know. You
and know I've had conversations about this before
where you've said, yeah, But that's the goal
for some of these people to get there.
But goal or not. Some of these dogs
are not entitled to go down these parks
off for sure. And they just shouldn't do
it. For sure. To quote an old phrase,
you wouldn't put a fox in charge of
the hen house just because it's got experience
with chickens. Yeah. And some of these dogs
just should not be in these situations. And
not, I mean, I'm the 1 who has
to break the bad news to people. So
now when we are doing a follow up
and counsel are satisfied that I've had a
look at the dog.
Then I've gotta say to people. Now you've
gotta to go to a trainer, for a
long period of time, and you cannot take
your dog off leash. This is it. The
next
part that happens here is either a, you
go to the highest tier or they seek
the destruction order of for your dog. Yeah.
And they say to me, oh, but this
is a sucky life in my dog. And
I said, it's not
You've just got it in your head. This
is a fairy tale that somebody is put
in place. Your dog is gonna have a
great life for the rest of its life
it's gonna have a better life now because
now it's got measures in place, it's got
control mechanism set by you, and I said
rules and boundaries rules and boundaries.
Whether we like it or not. Some of
us really reject some rules and boundaries that
are given to us. And I said, now
some of them granted are unfair and unjust.
But if you've got fair and just person
that is basically saying, I care about you.
I want the best for you, like you
have with your children as you've been raising
them.
All I want for you now is to
learn how not to get yourself in trouble.
How not to get yourself hurt, how not
to get yourself killed. That's the rules and
boundaries that I'm putting in place for you.
Inside of these rules and boundaries, This is
Disneyland. Mh. Like every day will be a
fucking great day as long as you play
within the rules or boundaries.
If you're a smart enough person handler or
trainer, and you can convince your dog that
this is your dog's idea. Like we've talked
about with the illusion of control Mike Concept
of it. That's a hell that I'm gonna
die on. But if you can convince your
dog, that this is now the dog's idea,
where you going wrong with all any of
this? You haven't. You... All you've done is
created
a network of an incredible life style together.
Yeah. 1 of the things that I've been
asking people all along the way because I
had a client come in the other day
and 1 of these people that had a
a cancel order against them. And I said,
what's most important to you and what do
you want at the end of the day
with this stop? What do you wanna do?
So they started rattling off this
occupation to me of what they thought they
wanted. And I said, who told you to
say that? And they I said, oh, the
other trainer that we went to? And I
said, let's go back to
grassroots here. I said, I'm not gonna eradicate
everything that they've said, and I said because
there's probably some good information in there, and
I said, but none of that is. And
I said because that's trying to get you
back into an off lead strategy again. We
can't do this anymore. It's off the table.
You cannot do it. And I said, does
it make sense? And no said yeah. And
I said, alright. So let's start again. Going
forward, what's important you? What do you wanna
do? And I said, we don't wanna have
that situation ever happened again because it was
felt so invasive and felt like the sky
fell on top of her head, and I
said, alright. Well, let's rebuild it from the
ground up, and I said because we can
do that. We have the tools to make
that happen, but it's entirely up to you.
But there are some things that we have
to do, which means going back to unleash.
Yeah. And so you've hit the point there
the 1 of mine here that I have
the leash for safety. Yep. And that's the
biggest thing in that, like, the average dog,
people who are not listening to us, like,
the average person with their their normal dog.
The biggest thing they get from the leash
is that they can stop the dog getting
itself run over. Yeah. Getting itself attacked by
another dog putting itself in a position where
it's gonna get into trouble. The last thing
I wanted to say before we run out
of time is that
I think that
without using
the leash,
you're missing a, like, critical point of communication
with the dog. Yeah. And I think that
people have been put... There's cave paintings. There's
literally cave paintings
of leash on dogs. Absolutely. We've been putting
leash on candidates
for probably 10000 years or more. And so
they are
hardwired to understand those signals quite well. And
I realized
again when I was sort of really rem
on this or thinking this through is that
I am able to give to my own
dogs and into the dogs that I train,
so much clarity and guidance via the least.
It's insane. That's a really good word that
you just use, and I just keep meaning
to mention to people stop thinking of this
as a crutch or something that's
having a negative appeal to your dog because
it's basically a guide rope. Yeah. When you
use a leash properly,
instead of just allowing the dog to pull
in leash, and it being a point of
frustration. Mh. That's what I think we see.
And that's my point is that when we
see a Psa 1 people do they do
their only leash healing, and then they do
the off leash healing and often the off
leash ceiling is better than the leash. Yep.
That just shouldn't be the case. Now I
admit,
mine was that that was the same with
me because I at the time was free
reshaping everything.
And the leash was to me at the
time,
just a point of control for the dock.
And it represented frustration to my door because
it was how I'd hold him on the
back tie. Like, it was how I'd post
him during the bike work and stuff like
that. The leash represented to him
a restriction of getting what he wants.
And I think so many people are still
in that model. And now
with that same dog and certainly with all
the dogs that I train and all the
dogs that I have influence over the training
for is I never want them to think
of a leash like that. I want them
to think of the leash as like, oh,
thank fuck you have that on because that
is a signal
that I can get every time. It's a
tactile cue. I will feel it. It doesn't
matter whether I'm like, highly.
It doesn't matter whether I'm focused on something.
That is a tactile cue that I will
be able to feel. When we talk hierarchy
of signals,
probably odor will go above that. But we
don't control that. So of the things that
we control,
the down the leash pressure that goes into
the collar, the directional you can get from
that, the amount of clear signals
control and guidance that you can give to
a dog with the leash. When it's done
with that intent, I think is something that
I took for granted for a long time.
And now appreciate more than I ever have
in the past. Good. As as well as
I am trying to pass that on to
as many people as possible because I just
think that it's a mist thing. Imagine trying
to ride a horse without any reins. Yeah.
And by a particularly
skilled horse,
that's possible.
And with a particular kind of horse,
that's possible. I know. But then you get
into, like, the 1 percent. But this is
Why Pong can be at the cafe. Yeah.
And he can be off leash, kicking it,
do his thing. And this is why, yes.
I could probably achieve that with my dog
if I put the work into it. I
have no fucking interest in doing that. I
have no desire
to get to the point where my dog
can walk around the area off leash
because although I could probably do that right
now, could probably take the leash off my
dog and give them the commands that I
want them to do. They both have a
loose leash wore command. And if I were
able to
take their leash off. Like, I can drop
those leash.
You know, if I have to pick up
a shit that I'm am dealing with with
both my dog walking around, like, I can
easily just those leash and they stay exactly
where they are. But I would rail... It's
only if I absolutely need to do that.
I need those hands. I have that level
of control, that level of trust, but I
don't wanna rely on that. I don't want
that to be the heel that my dog
literally dies on because I decided that I
had a level of control but then my
highly impulsive and somewhat powerful dog sees something
that he wants and takes off faster than
I can stop him. Right? Like... And I
think this is a thing what we see
is
everybody
assumes that us as dog trainers have this
massive level of control of our dogs. And
we do. For sure. But not everybody passes
every trial. Right? And not everybody gets full
points in every trial. So it's not that
we... The dog will always do what we
say. Dogs blow off recalls. Dogs see something
and just decide not, I'm doing it. And
if there were a guarantee
that my dog would call off something. It
wouldn't be impressive that in the level 2
of Psa, we have a call off. Like
if that was something that you could guarantee,
you can teach that to a dog, and
it 100 percent work, a hundred percent of
the time, and you never have to worry.
If your dog takes off after a cat,
if you do the right training, will 100
percent of the time be able to call
that off. This is not fucking true. That's
just not true. It's very good chance at
Will. If you do all the right trading,
there's a really good chance. And you gotta
do everything right, but that's why we have
a call off in these things because it's
like test this motherfucker. I see how well
you can train that. Mh. And even for
all of us who are spending our whole
lives
dedicating it to training our dogs to achieve
these certain tests still fail them day and
again. My abs solution does doesn't exist in
dog training. Exactly.
So
That's my big bug bear about leash lesions.
Good. I think that I get it. I
understand why people wanna be off leash. I
understand why the average pet dog owner wants
to be off leash. I understand why
some dog trainers don't wanna use issues because
I've absolutely been 1 of them. But now,
the point that I'm at I'm leash crazy.
I see all of the benefits to it.
I take those. I understand the cons to
it and I accept those and I have
work around them. And as you said, like,
you got a face that shit out, I'd,
like, yep. For sure you do. But not
early, You know? How many years have you
known me for?
9. How many times you've you ever seen
me, let my dog just run into the
shed with alicia? Never once. Right. That has
to say something right? Exactly. Just because this
is my backyard. We train here and stuff
like that. I don't let my dogs ever
run off leash.
Because on the way there, I don't know
a, if there's another dog in there. I
don't know who's in there. I don't know
what the dog's gonna do if he gets
in there and there's d q doing a
drill or something like that. I just cannot
fucking I take the risk That's. That It's
unnecessary.
Unnecessary. It's foolish and it's very irresponsible my
behalf as a handler and as a trainer
and mentoring people to then walk in and
do something
completely
irresponsible like that. Like, if I let my
dog off lady that ran in there, and
somebody got hurt. I'd never forgive myself. I'd
be so disappointed and so down on myself.
Like in all the gears, there's always times
where you have mishap and, you know, minor
accidents, but I've been around people before that,
you know, I've seen major accidents happen, and
it's literally because they take those unnecessary risks
They'll let their ambitions get mixed up with
their capabilities and the next thing you know,
someone pays for it. Yep. And at the
end of the day, when you're dealing with
dogs. It's a dogs that fucking pay for
it. Yeah. You might. You might get hit
in the hip pocket, but your dog's life
is on trial. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because
of your ego or your sense of entitlement
got in the way of thinking, my dog
is at this expert level. He should be
able to deal with all oncoming
distractions and a listening stimuli. Well motherfuckers that
doesn't happen. Yeah. It's good what we're having
this conversation. And it's good that we're discussing
a rethink of returning to basics because the
evolution in most trainers should be... I'm learning.
I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm learning.
I'm learning. I'm learning. Now I'm thinking. Now
I can see that my mentors have showed
me away? And yes, it's worked well for
them. But then when I watch them, why
are they going back to? Why are they
doing all these control mechanisms where they're framing
their dogs and positions. The reason they're doing
that is because they understand you have to
have a return to the basics. Mh never
be in a rush
to eliminate the basics. Like, the basics are
there to to hold everything in place. I
heard panel say this before in 1 of
his episodes where he says, in the word
basics or it was look. It local panels.
In the word basics, the word is base.
Okay? Because you've gotta have a base. You've
gotta have a base layer. You've gotta have
that foundation set. 1 of the things that
I learned, it wasn't just from dog training
was from Martial arts as well. 1 of
my old teachers are yours always used to
say to louis we build a solid foundation,
have a good base. Mh. Be strong in
your mind, but also be strong in your
stance and in your body as well. He
never taught that you had to be rigid.
He taught that you could be flexible and
so forth, but he always said, have a
strong foundation. Yeah. Any mental that I've ever
worked with with everything I do. I mean,
when I try and rush guitars. Jake says
to me you settle down, slow down, don't
be in a rush to get through this.
Because I'm thinking I wanna sound a certain
way. When I'm a dog trainer, I'm thinking,
I wanna look a certain way. When I'm
doing martial arts, I'm thinking, I wanna do
those high flying kicks.
It works a very small percent of the
time, but then everything starts falling apart. Yep.
So leash... Yep. Don't rush to take them
off. Of course, we have to get to
leash control. That's the point. Yeah. Yeah. But
there's no rush to get there. And the
path to off leash control is tons of
leash. Yeah I agree.
Alright. That's it. Cool. That's it we've just
solved all the world's problems. Yep That's it
another episode. Can I power? Cool. As always.
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