What's happening in the K9 industry? For all the latest news, views and expert opinions, stay right here for the K9 paradigm. You'll hear from industry leaders, experts, giants of the industry, learned colleagues, moveers and shakers, and the odd, randy guest. Get the latest insights and expert advice from both here and abroad from the people in the know. Now, here are your hosts, Glenn Cook and Pat Stewart. And I'm lofty full-ton, and I'm out of here. Hey, Glenn. Yes, Pat. I can't help but notice you have a new puppy out there. I do have a new puppy. Have you thought about getting some expert advice on how to raise that puppy? Ouch. [LAUGHTER] Well, it just happens that we do have an expert as part of our sponsor group. Really? Yeah. Dan Croft K9. Did they run puppy classes? They run amazing puppy classes. What, what on earth do they do there? Well, they've got whole ranges of foundation for puppy school, so they're running a complete socialization package and they're doing a whole range of different levels for puppies. And that's what they really wanted to emphasize is that they are experts in puppy raising and draining. Where are they experts in puppy raising and training? In Toronto, Canada. Whoa. So if you were in Toronto, Canada, and you had a friend, a client, a relative, just anybody who was getting a puppy and you wanted to set that puppy up for success, you could probably send them to Dan Croft K9. If I was over in Toronto, Canada, with my new little rock-wiler puppy, Mando, I would go over, and I swear this, I would go over and I would do the socialization program with them. I love what they're doing. Have you seen this set up online? Oh, amazing. Fantastic. Amazing. They had a tyre with a medicine ball, with a pit ball doing a drop-stay on top of it. My goodness. Amongst a dozen other dogs that were doing all similar things, like on Bursu balls and all sorts of things. My goodness. It was great. Fantastic. Unbelievable. Yeah. Hey, so you have your puppy. What's going on with these nutrition? Couldn't go past K9 Tuticles. Supplemented up. Supplemented up to the help. My goodness. Yeah. So he should have arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger by the time we finished. Where did you get those K9 Tuticles from? From Narell Cook. Narell Cook. How do you know her? Funny that she's got the same last name as me. The supplier is very local. Absolutely. K9 Tuticles, but legit, it's probably the best supplements available for you. Best supplements available. Human grade. Gone through the absolute rigorous testing program. I mean, Narell's got stat sheets on it and everything like that on demand. So if people want to know what they're actually putting into their dog's body, supplement wise, they can reach out to her and she's got all the facts and figures before she even put it down as a physical product. She spent years and years researching it before it was actually come to market. So great stuff. Yes, the puppy's definitely on it. All our dogs are on it. And there's a shit ton of people around. Australia and New Zealand who are taking K9 Tuticles and the feedback is astronomical. Amazing. Yeah. Do you plan on taking Mando on your motorbike? If I did, you know who I'd have to go to, don't you? You'd have to get one of those roudy-hound boxes. Roudy-hound dog kennels. Yeah. From Hwani George. George Kitchwich himself. You'd have to get one of those roudy-hound dog kennels to go on the back of your motorbike. How good is your social media? It's best. Yeah. I love watching the dogs cruise around motorbikes. I think it's one of the coolest things ever. They've got their little doggles on. Yeah. You know, like we talk about living the best life, well, for people who are motorcyclists, they can do both. I'm serious about thinking about getting one, but then I've got to train a. I don't know if having a rotwiler on the back of the bike is going to be great like you. Your sportbike. But I think you do it. Maybe one day when I've got a smaller mid-sized dog, I would get a roudy-hound dog kennel and I could travel around. So I could not only enjoy the company of my dog, which hundreds of people seem to be doing across the United States of America. And I could motorcycle at the same time. So two things that are very dear to my heart, coming together. All right. This ad's going on for a long time. I need to get out of here and go and train some dogs. Yeah. But you know where I got the equipment that I'm going to use to train those dogs? The goat. The goat. The belly goat's gruff. Inswer me. The weiner himself. Inswerke dog quip. Yeah. If you're not buying all your dog training gear from them, I don't know where you're if I can get it from. Well, if not from Ferman. Inswerke dog quip. The Inswer weiner. How the hell does he sell anything being such a grumpy old bastard? He's online now. He's got a website. That's right. They don't have to deal with him. You can actually buy things off the website. You can actually do it. Yeah. Yeah. Inswerke dog quip.com.au or just.com. Probably one of them. I don't know. One of them. We'll put it in the chat. Yeah. But you click. You'll find the links. You can buy some stuff. Welcome back to the Can I'm Parrot I'm I'm your host Pat Stewart. I'm joined in studio today by my co-host Glen Cook. Good evening everybody. You're afternoon or morning wherever you are in the world. Yes. Hello. Hmm. Before we kick off. Yes. Have I told you how proud of my wife I am? No. I am. Well, for what she's doing with her product. Oh, yeah. She has done an amazing job with that. One of the good indicators is that now she's starting to get contacted by several vet clinics. Oh, yeah. Who are hearing from clients that it's a great product. They've done a lot of checking out them themselves and they're contacting her and getting on board with her, which is great. That's cool. It really is. I've got some of her collagen right here that she just gave me to try and keep Remy going. I'm putting in the work to try and keep him working for a little bit longer since he's rapidly falling apart. So I'm excited to try her stuff. I've got a big handful of canine suitables right now. Yeah, I got home from work and I heard you guys having a conversation about trying to work on Remy's ailments. Hmm. Mr. Brittle. I know this sounds like a shameless plug and it kind of is in a little way, but it's also genuine that I am really proud of her because I'm fortunate that I'm surrounded by some really intellectual and cerebral people in a lot of ways. But I'm also surrounded by a lot of integral people which I find myself very fortunate to be in. It's wonderful. And, yeah, Narell is one of those people. I see myself a fortunate man. Hmm. Congratulations. Thanks, man. [laughter] Hey, I've got a topic. Yes. We're chatting about that. Yeah. Because we're not starting off winging about prong collars. No, we wouldn't. We're straight into some actual dog training information. But there is a but. What? Kirsty and Brittany, the heroes of the dog world. Heroes of the dog world were in parliament. They have stated their case. There were several other people who joined them from the balance community. Then we're backing up support. But our heroes of the dog community, Brittany and Kirsty were there and it sounds reasonable. It sounds like they were presenting a case in front of a reasonable group of people. Yep. So everything they could. They've done everything they could. And that's all you can ask of anyone. If you've done your best, that's all you can ever ask. It's up to them now to be reasonable and to take on the material that's been presented before them. And if they are reasonable people and they are genuine and they look at the science that's been put before them, not the emotion, which has been delivered in the counter argument. But if they look at the science behind it, they have to come away with something a little bit more than this is just a story. This is a reality in science and fact. Mm-hmm. Congratulations, heroes of the dog world. But I'm not going down that path. We're not going down the path. We're not going to win you about it. We're talking about the mediation and the partial success. So something that's come up a few times, and it's in our discussion topic. I think TK asked for it. It's something we've discussed quite a few times. And never dedicated an episode to, but it's definitely something we've discussed. And I thought that we could talk about the difference between negative reinforcement and negative punishment at the point of ending a session that's not going well. Mm-hmm. We've discussed it a few times, and I have pretty strong feelings about it that evolve. [LAUGHTER] So you've probably heard us talk about it a few times, and it maybe is a little bit different every time. And I think that happens because of my own experiences. Right. So like, you know, I try different dogs. I have different experiences. I see different things. I see different outcomes. As well as my own understanding of the science and the best ways to explain it. To be honest, the way that I do things has not evolved so much, but the way that maybe the language which I use to explain them sort of has. So I thought, what better way to come to an even better understanding of that than to have a conversation with you about it? It's interesting that you want to talk about this. I had the last week with a new group of NDTF students. And Dan, who's Jordan Cyster, was on the course. It was a really good course for intellectual conversation. There were some really science-minded people amongst that group. You often get a smattering of people who, they've either done psychology or they've been involved in university. They've listened to this or they've been involved in other aspects where they've picked up something along the way. So there are people that come along into the course that do have a strong understanding of the academia behind it. It's great because it challenges you. It puts you in a spot where you really need to think about what you're saying, not just deliver on something that you've been doing over the course of 10 or 15 years, which is what I have been doing with the course. And the course is evolved slightly, but it's still a third three. It's not designed to be overly technical, but that doesn't mean that we don't get into the realms of technicality sometimes. Because as we have licensed to discuss topics, sometimes we carry into things which are important and are interesting and do have a concept to how people are learning and what they're hearing online, what they're reading in books and so forth. So there was a real stage where when Stephen Lindsay's books came out and people were reading those quite religiously, there was a lot of science he talked that was going on during that time, which was really good because it encourages you to learn and stay at a head or at least be involved in the conversation to a cerebral level. You have to sort of read it and you have to have an understanding of it. You know, like if you're going to teach it, you've got to know it.
So the quadrants or as some of us call it, which I like to refer to it as the matrix of motivation can be a really confusing topic. And especially a very confronting one when it's first presented to you on how it works. A lot of times when students are looking at that or just other trainers or anybody in a conversation for that matter, they get fixated on it only being one section at a time. But as I said to them, this can be a wheel at a bingo convention. I like it can spin quite readily and it really is up to the dog where it lands. Yeah. That's the difficulty of it. You've got to assess it the best you can, but it's the dog who's feeling what actual quadrant it's sitting in at that mining time. And the only thing that you can do is interpret to the best of your capability. You and I have had really great conversations with them before. I've listened back to Pongcast, what we've done in the past, where we've talked about this and you have a concept of where you think it is, but is it really? Yeah. And I guess that's leading up to this conversation. Yeah. Well, that's my logo. That's why I designed it that way. Because I feel like operant conditioning, the matrix of motivation. I think that not that I understand quantum physics, but I think it's a lot like it in that those particles or those quadrants are everywhere all at once. But when you observe them, that's where they are. Yeah. Right. And so when you look at an atom, you can draw an atom and you can see like he's the electrons and he's the neutrons, but they're actually spinning and you can't draw them spinning. And when you observe them, they're not spinning. They are where they are. And I think that's the same with operant conditioning. I think that operant conditioning is at play. Like whenever you observe the dog, what led the dog to making the choices that it has is not what is necessarily obvious and happening right here and now. That's what you can observe and you can go, well, that's because of that. But in reality, in the background, all four quadrants are at play from all the experience that the dog has had in similar situations, you're leading up to that point. So I think one of the really obvious ones is punishment is always at play because if you have really used it effectively, the example I use is because people sometimes do this by accident is they've punished their dog for biting the ball. Right. So you're a lot of people, they say their dog doesn't have good toy drive or he doesn't want to put the ball very often. It's because they've accidentally punished the dog for going for the ball. Might be positive punishment, might be negative punishment. It might be something that they can't even remember having done or even think of themselves as having tried to diminish that, but in one way or another, they have. And so when you bring that dog into the room and he doesn't go for the ball, that's punishment at play. Right. And that's not observable in that moment. That seems like a dog who's not going for the ball. Right. But in reality, that could have been two years ago, whatever it was, whatever, whatever, whatever event it was that made the dog choose if he ever did want to. And now says, no, I'm not going to. I have an aversive for that. I know that that's off the table. There's no good outcome for me. You know, my desire to get that ball is lower than my desire to avoid the aversive that would come if I tried to get it. So therefore, I'm not going to get it. And there's nothing that unless you're a very keen reader of the dog, even then there may be nothing that indicates to you that punishment is at play right then. So you would then you could do a session and you could use nothing but you click on you could teach the dog a bunch of things around the ball. And a lot of people would say, well, in this session, everything went well. This was a session of positive reinforcement only. Now, we could certainly make the argument that any delivery of positive reinforcement is also the association of some form of negative reinforcement. So there's like some desire that is a building pressure that you're relieving by the application of positive reinforcement. The obvious example is if you're training with food, you're relieving hunger. That's not always linear. I think some people that use that example sort of because they can poop who the idea of using positive reinforcement and say that there is only reinforcement because you are relieving negative reinforcement every time you deliver positive reinforcement. - Some less of the reinforcement. - Yeah, but I mean, in the hunger one, that may very well be the case and it's something I want to expand on quite a bit later on. But some dogs, you don't actually relieve the hunger by feeding them. There's that gene that the dog is insatiable. He will never be satiated for food. And you see it in like certain Labrador's and certainly some of the sportier mouths that have been bred to have that trait will just eat their bottomless pit. They never actually feel full. And they're the dogs that you have to be very careful of and how much you feed them because they'll always work for their 100th piece of kibble in a session as well as they'll work for their first piece of kibble in a session. - There are dogs who have literally ruptured their stomach lining over, as you said, just gorging so much on food that it's almost like a child that isn't capable of monitoring the feelings or the physical aspect behind it. - Yeah, even that opens up another doorway we can go through and talk about food is almost always considered positive reinforcement. And certainly in the moment, it can be a reward, but it's not necessarily always positive reinforcement. The example I would use is the time that I accidentally left the grease trap of my barbecue and remy ate the whole thing from a brisket. So he ate like all the fat that had come out of a big eight kilo brisket. And it was the day that we met to be recording with Jay. Do you remember that? I had to call you and I was like, "Dude, I'm holding my dogs ears back while he's vomiting." And he's never, that has never happened again. And so for sure that was positive punishment. What seemed like in that moment, positive reinforcement, he's taking the food, it's going to make him more likely to want to take that, because of the outcome that that had on him that was positive punishment. And it actually, he's never, never tried to get anywhere near that grease trap. - Oh, so he has learned and supported it. - Yeah, yeah, okay. - He made that association for sure. - Well, that's an interesting concept because I was about to ask you the question, was the dog capable of making the association between the behavior and the outcome? - Was the outcome immediate or was it delayed? - I ate. - Because that's where I'm intrigued on it. - I don't know, because he did it overnight. - Yeah. - In the morning, he was a hot mess. - Yeah. - So I don't know what time and happen. I don't know how close it was together, but what I know for sure is these never-done-it seps. - Now that I think of it, and I'm just thinking of this on the fly, so I could be wrong. And I'd be interested if anybody wants to chime in in the comments when they hear this podcast, is that he may not have made the association of it initially, but because of the smell of the grease when he was vomiting it up, he may have made it the association then. Because all faction is so powerful and so delicate in canines, that's my theory behind it, just thinking about it now, that he might have smelled it coming out and thought, "I'm sick, I can smell this smell, it's relatable." And then going to smell it in the grease trap before, I thought, "I'm not touching this, the last time I had an association with this, it was while I was vomiting totally." And as well as that, he's a very highly trained dog and attuned with me, reads my body very well, is very entuned with what I do and it's relevance to him. And it's very likely that I somehow informed him. And that was what did it, by realizing what had happened myself, and he could have potentially realized that the way that I looked at him, having noticed that it was gone, who knows, right? There's multiple aspects. And the only person who really knows is Remy. But I'll tell you what, though, that barbecue is in his cannel. He eats next to it every day. So it's pretty interesting, like he's not scared of the barbecue. There's no issues around it. He just knows, don't eat that grease trap. Yeah, like don't eat this. It's like me with Southern comfort. Same thing. I don't, you can be around it. I don't even want to look at the bottle when it's on the shelf at the liquor shop if I'm going there to get anything. I just don't acknowledge it's existing. Yeah, but that's what I mean with him. He can totally be around it. Like I say, he eats next to it every day. It's sitting right there. He doesn't go anywhere near. Anyway, I digress. As we do. The point of what I wanted to talk about was that, operant conditioning, it's always at play. And I think one of the things, certainly, we don't always do a good job explaining that it's a diagnostic tool more than a, like, in the moment, you know, analysis in that you really don't know for sure. Exactly like the example I just gave with Remi. Like you really don't know for sure whether you've used positive reinforcement until you can observe given the same set of opportunities if you did strengthen the behavior, if you made the behavior more likely to happen. I think sometimes a lot of the scientists among us get upset at the way that sometimes us as dog trainers refer to positive reinforcement in that we say the dog does something and we say pay him, give him positive reinforcement. And it's an assumption at that point that it is going to be reinforcing, that it is going to be positive reinforcement because technically it's not until you give the dog the opportunity to try again and we get to determine whether that repetition made the next, and its outcome made the next repetition more likely or less likely to happen. So that's kind of the more accurate way to talk about operant conditioning. And I don't think as dog trainers, we always do that because I think that it's sometimes helpful to do so and it's sometimes not so helpful to do so within the language that we have and the commute like what we're actually trying to convey especially in the moment. Like when you say reinforce that dog, that's the right thing to say in that moment to have the person perform the right action, but it's maybe not scientifically the accurate thing, right? It's maybe not the most accurate thing. I think when we talk reinforcement, I personally think the designation between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. And now I want to outline as well, who am I to realign skinners work? Like I'm not trying to change anything and I'm not trying to add anything, but how I find it helpful to think about it is that positive reinforcement is helpful for making something happen next time. And negative reinforcement is for making it happen this time, right? And I think
I think there's tools of negative reinforcement, but there's also tools of positive reinforcement. And I think that that's how I think is more helpful for me and the people I teach to delineate between those two things. If I wanna make it happen again, I can use positive reinforcement because that will make it happen again. But if I wanna make it happen now, negative reinforcement will make it happen now. And so I can future predict what's gonna happen by using negative reinforcement. Are you saying immediately or in time for the first time the dog experiences negative reinforcement around that action or something? - The first time I'd, like anything, I've got to approximate towards it. - Yeah. - Although, depends on the behavior, depends on the action. Right? Like there are certain behaviors I could not that I would, but I can think of plenty of ways that I could teach something using negative reinforcement in that one rep. For sure, there's ways to do that by giving the dog a single event. - Like a single event. - Yeah. - I think the same with positive reinforcement as well. But like I say, I think the delineation is between, in training, I'm not talking in teaching a new behavior, but in the practice of behaviors, or asking a dog to do something it already knows, negative reinforcement can make the dog do it now. Where it's positive reinforcement makes it more likely to do it again next time. - If we're talking averages, which I think we are, then I would agree with you. However, we're also, we've gotta take into account, intellect, because I think that there are students, canine students I'm talking, and even human students, if you wanna get into the realm of human understanding and learning comprehension, some students will pick it up immediately because it makes sense to them, and others will have to contemplate it over time. I think on average, yes. - Yeah. - However, we still need to take into account the comprehension, understanding, and intelligence of the subject. - Maybe I can simplify it even further, in that imagine I need a dog to sit. - Yep. - If I have nothing but positive reinforcement, I need the dog to sit by himself. I need to find a way for that to bring that on. Now, I can, there's many, many ways. I can lure it, I can wait for it to happen. Like, there's many things I can do, which still involves a lot of negative reinforcement along the journey until you can point. - No, no, but like if I only intend to use positive reinforcement, I could lure the dog. - But can you avoid using negative reinforcement? It's not your choice sometimes if the dog is feeling pressured in the behavior. - But if I'm trying to avoid that, work with me. - Work with me. - Work with me. - Okay, I've got positive reinforcement. - Okay, we're gonna pretend. - We're gonna pretend. I've got food in my hand, and I want the dog to sit. If I haven't taught the dog that, if I'm, this is session one, rep one, and I intend to be as positive only as I can. - So you're talking about a free shaping sort of aspect here, rather than however, I have to be free shaping because once you start shaping, and then you're in negative reinforcement territory. - So if I intend to make that happen, I can't make it happen when it eventually does happen. I can give positive reinforcement, and make it more likely to happen again. That's what I can do with positive reinforcement. - Yep. - But if I need that dog to sit now with a sleep place, I can make that happen now. I can make it my seat now, right away, with a sleep lead. - Yep. - So that's the difference between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, is that with positive reinforcement, so I can make it more likely to happen next time, but with negative reinforcement, I can make it happen now. And I acknowledge a point, if I'm going to be teaching with positive reinforcement, and I'm gonna lure, and my hand makes contact with the dog's face, and he moves backwards in order to avoid that, and happens to find himself in a seat, then I brought on that seat with negative reinforcement, and I'm gonna make it more likely to happen next time, and avoid using the negative reinforcement, by the application of the positive reinforcement that comes afterwards. - Yep. So I'm with you, I acknowledge that. But what I'm saying is, that's how it's more like at a macro level, like we're gonna get micro, you can never be sure of any, whether it's positive or negative. - Yeah. - But at a macro level, we can say, if I want my dog to do something, negative reinforcement can make it happen, and positive reinforcement can only make it more likely to happen next time. You agree with that? - Initially, I'm not sure. - Okay. - Over time, I don't know about the first rep. The first rep is where it doesn't sit so well with me. I'm not sure about that. - Okay. - Well, of course, there would be complex behaviors that you couldn't teach in what, like you couldn't get the dog to do the exact thing with negative reinforcement the first time. - Set up the scenario for me with negative reinforcement. Are you talking about like you're guiding the dog in position, or you literally just saying, look, I'm putting pressure on the dog, and he will sit. - Either. - How does the dog know to sit though? Like how does the dog know how to sit in that session? Like that doesn't determine that the dog is gonna spiral off, and your disang will just maintain the pressure until he gets in the right position. Is that what we're-- - Well, I'm not advocating doing that, but I'm saying-- - No, no, you're not advocating, but we're like-- - Especially a very simple behavior. - We've got this ethereal discussion going on. So I'm just-- - Especially a very simple behavior, yeah. Like a sit, for sure. - I'm saying the likelihood of a dog going into a sit would probably be more likely than anything else, but you could get the dog shunting away from it, like spinning out, having a bit of a tantrum about this. Like, I'm confused what he want me to do, blah, blah. I know I'm making this more difficult than it needs to be, but people are listening to this, like, once this gets into their mind, they're gonna start be thinking the same sort of thing. If I'm controlling the dog and framing it in a position, then yeah, I'm saying, yeah, that's gonna happen. You know, because I'm gonna make that happen. I don't even need a slip lead for that. I can literally just frame the dog, put the dog in position, it's gonna happen. Primarily, with compulsion, there is no way of avoiding it. Resistance is futile. Like, it's happening. You're going into that sit position. You're going into that drop position, unless you're more powerful than me, you know, and you can throw me off. But otherwise, it's happening. Yeah, it's happening. It's definitely happening. Negative reinforcement all the way. You know, like you're going into that position. Let's say for the argument's sake of guiding dog in position, but I wouldn't say that the dog is necessarily gonna repeat that again without me intervening. Like, I have to intervene again to get the dog to do the behavior again. Yeah, of course. Yeah, but I'm saying, but that first time, you can still make it happen. Yep. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Okay. Yeah, well, that's gonna happen for sure. Yeah. Well, then we agree. Yeah. So negative reinforcement, you can make it happen. Yeah. And positive reinforcement, you can only make it happen again. So it has to have already happened. Yep. And then you can say, yeah, I want more of that. I want to increase the frequency and likelihood of that. Whereas negative reinforcement, I can be like, you're doing this. And when you do that, I'll relieve the negative reinforcement. I can't stress enough. I'm not advocating that that's how behavior should always be taught, but that's the reality of those two modalities. And that one makes things happen. And one makes things happen again. One makes things happen now. And I can make it so. But the other is that I can only make it more likely to be so next time. You agree? Yes. Okay. I needed to workshop it through my head a little bit. Yeah. And so I did think that that was an easier way to understand it, but maybe it's not. Well, maybe it's just me. I think probably you thought about this a little bit longer and harder than I have. Maybe it's immediately comprehensive to you where I had to sort of sit through and work through an example inside my head. I think you're thinking more like a real first rep. I'm thinking on a dog that you're training with. All right. So, you know, like the example you always will use is the dog chasing something and you're going to recall him. Now, in order to be able to recall that dog if he's been trained only using positive reinforcement, you're going to find out whether your training has been effective. You're going to be like, well, here it comes. I'm going to use it. And we have competing motivators and all these different things. And you have to be like, I will find out about my success. I've hopefully have done enough work in the positive reinforcement of the past that it makes the behavior more likely to happen this time. Whereas if you had a leash on the dog and you call him back, you can make him come back. It's going to happen. You can make it happen. By hook or by hook, it's going to happen. So we're not going to get a fenton on our hands. Yeah. So like I say, I'm not advocating yank and cranking dogs, but I am saying that when it does happen, that's the category of falls into it. So here's the infuriating side of this that any discussion around using negative reinforcement or any compulsion whatsoever immediately has to come to the forefront of this as a yank and crank exercise. In all the NDTF groups that we do, whenever we get to the subject matter of talking about compulsion in block one, often what I do is I go and grip some on hand and help them out of a chair. And this is compulsion. Like if you're working in a home for the elderly or disabled, you're using compulsion on a regular basis because you are lifting people up and putting them down. You know, like this is happening. And I said, it doesn't necessarily involve anything to do with pain, nothing. And it doesn't have to. And I asked the question, did you feel pain? Was that uncomfortable? Did I hurt you? People say, no, no. But then the discussion in the past, which is again, is fills infuriating is the topic of consent, where they say, yeah, but I consented to it. What about a dog who doesn't get the opportunity to consent to it? And I said, well, babies don't consent to it. They don't get to consent when you're lifting them up or when you're changing the nappies or anything like that. Like how can you get a baby to consent with things like that? That's a frustrating side. I know we've done a whole episode on consent, but these conversations still come up. Like people talk about them. And there are times, what about when you're intoxicated sometimes and ambulance drivers have been insulted by intoxicated people who are trying to help them on to a trolley, because they've cracked the head open on the pathway. They're trying to get them to consent, but you've just got an argumentative person who they're trying to help and assist them into those situations. Anyway, I digress. This is a conversation of digression. It's a frustration point at me that whole topic of, you know, this is not about consent. This is about you describing the dog and forcing it into a position. And I said, but sometimes it's for the dog's benefit. For example, most vets that I know of don't give the dog the opportunity to wait half an hour to do a force-free training practice in their vet clinic. Now some may say they do. There's all these topics about cooperative care and everything like that. Now I believe,
they lessen the impact and they are a little bit more patient and so forth. But eventually that dog's going on the table and it's getting at the moment or it's bomb. Yeah. You know, and there's no way of having that conversation. There's no way of telling a dog, "Hey, we're gently going to ease this into your penis." Like it's going in. Yeah. One way or another, it's going in. I'm pretty strong on the fence about that cooperative care, but I think that I'm just more of a realist about it. And then why with my dogs do quite a lot of preparation for those kinds of things? Yes. Actually, let me give you a great example. So when we delivered Fred and Frank down to the police, the vet want has to give them a once over. Yep. And the police are mostly buying green dogs, right? And to get a proper physical and go over them, and this is a dog that has been prepared for the police, even if they're fairly green, they're usually pretty spicy. And it's a bit of a difficult endeavor for the vet, but it has to happen. Right? The dog has to get this medical because he has to be checked for health before he can be purchased. Whereas jazz prepped those dogs so well that the vet remarked he couldn't believe how well they consented to everything. And whether it consent is the right word or not, I don't know, but they were prepared for that. And so I think preparedness would be a bit more than consent. Exactly. So I, with my own dogs and with dogs that I interact with, I do as much work as is applicable to prepare them for that kind of treatment. But at the end of the day, they're getting it whether they're ready or not. If they need medical intervention, they're getting that medical intervention, whether I have to pin them down to the table or not. Right? And is that preparedness coming through some form of early compulsion, teaching the dog to be lifted? Well, let me give you an example. When Remy smashes teeth, and the vet would need it to seize teeth, I just got him to hold a pipe and you could do it and he won't. He was holding the pipe. His teeth are the very pipe that he smashes teeth with. He was holding it in his mouth, exposing all of his teeth, I put it in the back, and the vet could see perfectly into his mouth. And there was no, aside from the pain that he was already in from the broken tooth, there was no discomfort applied by me or the vet. And the vet got to check it all out. But then when it came time to have surgery, I had to hold his leg up and I had to hold his leg out and present his leg to have the IV put in. And he didn't want that. And I was like, hey man, you gotta get this done. Similarly, when I had his back cracked, he had to have his back cracked in a muscle because it was a painful experience and he hobbled over to the guy who was going to do it, put his, I put the muscle on, I'm holding him by the front. He's clearly in a lot of pain at that procedure, but then walked away from it way better than the way he hobbled over to it. So I'm all about doing the work. I think everybody should do the work to prepare their dog for medical intelligence as much as possible. 100% but at the end of the day, if you need it, you're getting it, whether you have to be pinned down or not. And frankly, it's the same with people, right? With actual, and he's sick, he doesn't want to have like the medicine, they must hate it. Do what they might about baby medicine. They try and make it sweet or whatever, better want it. But he's getting it. Like when he had COVID and he's got a 40 degree temperature, you're getting pinned down and I'm giving you this because you need it to stay alive. I'm not saying like, oh, you don't want it. And I think that's the same with dogs. But I think that truly the people who think the opposite of that are not worth talking to. And I think that there are a very minuscule percentage of the people who are the true death before discomfort. And I think that they're noisy, but I don't think there's many of them. And the majority of people who preach cooperative care, they mean exactly what me and you do. They just make a big deal about it. They mean you should prepare your dogs, but of course you should. There's absolutely no argument for me that you're a peer dog. I don't know a single person who when their dogs got a broken leg, they're like, oh no, you can't pin him down and and render first aid because that's against these consent. Like I don't know a single person that would really do that. And I think that we over dramatized that. And I think that if you were to say that and put it on Instagram, you'd get a bunch of new followers from that. And you'd get a bunch of social media traction. I think that's why people say that kind of stupid shit. But at the end of the day, when their dog needs help, they're fucking giving them that help, whether their dog wants it 100%. And so is the vet, all the groomer that you're going to. Yeah. I absolutely 100 support what you were saying in early preparedness. Yeah. But in my mind, that comes through some form of compulsion. I think all training, like all good training involves some level of compulsion at some point. There's no avoiding that. I just can't see otherwise, mate. I just can't see a way around that with young puppies. Like if puppies are doing things and you're lifting them away and preventing them from doing things, you can say, well, I'm using one of the quadrants, which you are. That's true. You are using one of the quadrants, but you're still physically stopping that dog from doing that. Before you're compelling the dog away from that doing that behavior physically. So we can talk pretend. What do you call it? Pretendies. Pretendies. Yeah. We can talk pretendies and pretend it's not happening. But it is happening. Yeah. You know, like I've seen people who are preaching, we don't do this. We work on consent, but they're lifting and forcing the dogs into situations. I just think, how can you not see this? Like how does it evade your gaze? Yeah. And how do you work past this and not acknowledge what to actually going on here in the moment? Honestly, mate, I think that's just a language thing because they're trying to appeal to an audience that want to hear them say that. I think that if they were more realistic and just said, listen, we're going to do everything like exactly the conversation we just had. We can and should do everything that we can to make the dog okay with this experience and not want to escape it. I mean, that's that's the reality of like consent with dogs. Yeah, we did a whole episode on this is that the dog doesn't really have the capacity to understand the consequences of doing it versus not doing it. So they can't really give consent properly and they're not capable of it mentally. But the reality is you should do everything that you can to prepare your dog for that so that it is a minimally aversive or not at all aversive experience for the dog. I'm glad you actually said that because we talked about a little bit of Lima last week and I was going to say, this sounds like Lima. Yeah, totally. You try not to until you have to. Yeah. And it's like the user force continuum, the same sort of thing. Like you attempt not to and then you think I have to escalate it to this point because this is just now ridiculous. Like trying to avoid this just for the sake of avoiding it. Fuck, we run out of stupid pills. Yeah. But I mean, like I say, you get to use myself as an example again, when my dog got injured, I had a lot of tricks to help him get through the medical procedures of having to deal with that injury. But that's my training, the preparedness. But I still hear the limit. Yeah. It's still got to the point where we're in a headlock on the floor and I'm holding his leg out so they can get the IV in. Yeah. I mean, because what I couldn't prepare him for is the stacking of all of those things. Yes. And he doesn't understand it. Yeah. And he had had an IV when he got his hips and stuff done. He'd had a line put in a cannula put in. And I had prepared him for that. But I had prepared him for that under like best case conditions. Yeah. Right. When he had that done, he was on an indication on a washer with his feet out and you could put the IV straight in. No problem. Right. Didn't break contact from the washer. But then add to the fact that we just driven 10 hours. He's got two smash teeth. He's in pain. Yes. So like there's a lot of catalysts going on. Yeah. Stacking my training fell apart. And so it's like, well, he's a headlock and I'm in a hold your arm out and the vet's going to put that in and you're going to go to sleep and wake up with new teeth. Right. Like that's just reality. I've done everything that I can to prepare you for that. But we're not going to say to the vet, well, give me a few weeks to work on this and I'll be back. But I don't think any reasonable person is. I think that people talk about doing it so that you don't have to encounter that. They're not affording their dog medical care because of the lack of consent from the dog. And I think that anybody that says that they are, they're just an unreasonable person. And it's like, let's not continue the conversation with you. I was out just earlier before I came here and actually was walking around in circles and there was a new crazy guy in my neighborhood. And he's another one. Yeah, new one. Okay. And he's screaming and carrying on like out people. Everyone that walks past, he's screaming something new with them. And sometimes I see him and he's really nice. He carries around this bongo drum and he plays a bongo drum and sometimes you're entertaining. And then, you know, I guess he suffers like, you know, severe mental health problems. And today's like really aggressive and problematic. And so I always think when you're dealing with people online, that dude is super observably crazy. The moment you lay eyes on him, you're like, "Oh, okay. Yeah. Like I see what we're dealing with here." But if he's online writing posts, there's no context to that. And I think people take literally a lot of the things that people write online, especially in the dog space and you're like, "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you're totally, you're totally an unstable person." And you're just saying things for the sake of saying it. And there's loads of people that do it. When you see them in real life, it's super observable. You're like, "Oh, go ahead, man. So whatever you want." Like I can see that you're schizophrenic and this is a different thing and like go for it. Right? Don't be violent, but be as crazy as you want. Like you be you. But when you then like they're writing comments and they're writing the same, they're "Shit, this guy was screaming at people walking past was like truly horrific shit, but he's super observably a mess." And so everyone's like, "Oh, well poor bugger. You don't get upset at him because he's like, he's a mess." But if he's writing those things online, you'd be like, "How dare you give me a fucker!" Right? So I think it's like, I think a lot of people that say the ridiculous things like death before discomfort, you're like, "Oh, you're a ridiculous person. That's a ridiculous thing to say. There's no reasonable person thinks that. Let's not continue this any further. To do so would be unfair to you because I'm just throwing fuel on the fire that is the dumpster fire that is your life." Right? Like I'm not going to make that worse for you. Well, to rail the ganglion. Oh no, we haven't even got onto negative punishments. I know. Let's get to it. So the whole reason now that we've confused everyone even more, right? Reason I want to explain all that is I think sometimes when people say ending a session and say it goes poorly and they say put the dog up, like put the dog away and very often that gets referred to as negative punishment and I think that
it is almost never actually negative punishment. I think that when you end a session because it's not going well, the chances of that getting to go into the negative punishment quadrant is slim to none. Now, like I could probably paint a really bizarre hypothetical, especially in bite work we do it, right? Like we'll drag a dog off of something. But even then, I feel like I don't really want to put that in the negative punishment category. I want to put that in negative reinforcement. Well, that's one that cycles through two very fundamental ones of negative punishment or negative reinforcement. The only time that I could say that it was truly negative reinforcement, like if you were taking a dog out and frustrating it on the way out and that dog was really paying for that, like going back to the car thinking, "Fuck, I've missed my opportunity," then I would say, "That's observably to me, negative punishment." But I've seen a lot of cases over the years and especially when we've been doing PRA, when we've done that same sort of thing. And yet, as soon as the dog gets near the doorway, it just goes, "Bulk and run straight out the door." Like, "Thank fuck I'm out of there." And I think to myself, "Well, that's negative reinforcement." Clear as day to me because the dog put on a little display of bravery, but thought, "As soon as I can run out this door, I'm run out this door." And immediately it escapes the pressure, "Fuckin' tears out the door and it's reinforced for running outside." I'll elaborate on that because it's negative reinforcement of the exact opposite of what you were trying to achieve. Exactly. What I was trying to do was to do the first example that I was talking about before, where you're truly trying to encourage negative punishment, like saying, "You weren't behaving well in here. You fucked around. Your bite was pretty ordinary and pretty washy. I'm going to take you out, but I'm going to frustrate you out the door. And I'm going to hope you go back to the car, feeling like, "Fuck, I've fucked up and I've missed a lot of opportunities. Shame on me. Next time I go in, I better do better or else I'm going to miss out. This is going to happen to me again." Which is the hope. That's what you want to do. You want the dog to think, "I'm missing out." You want to encourage FOMO at that point in time. But if you've got a dog that's a little lacking, I would say, or even some other dogs, like if there's an interest outside at the time, like the smell of piss when they walked in the building and they think to themselves, "Yeah, I'm not really in this tonight. You know, like my heart's not in it. Other nights I am, but just tonight I'm not. Like I really couldn't give a fuck about it." And you know, the dog puts up a mediocre performance, gets to the door and turns around, goes, "Cool, I'm out. Immediately there. What you observed or what you thought of was, "Yeah, fuck you. You got your negative punishment." The dog goes, "Well, fuck you. I got to run out. They don't smell this piss." So I won. And that was the thing that was stronger or meant more to me on the night. So those sort of things are frustrating. And I mean, you do need to observe those type of things because that's not a good win for you as a trainer. Like you didn't achieve your objective there. The dog did. Mate, I've been like this before when I used to do boxing and kickboxing as a kid. You know, their times are, I really did not want to go to the gym and looking for any excuse not to be there. And I might go to the gym and things are not going really well and the coach might say to me, "Hey mate, maybe you should go home tonight." As a jab at me to say, "If you're not into this, then maybe you should piss off to try and insult me. I'm thinking, "Perfect. You played straight into my hands." It's exactly what I wanted you to do. You know, and then you say, "Oh, well, and they go, "Well, fuck off then." You know, I piss off. Don't come to training tonight as a way to try and punish you, but it's not really punishment because to you, you're thinking, "Well, that's exactly what I wanted." Yeah. That leads me into explaining sort of ending the session that way. Because quite often, you know, in that example, their idea of, "Why don't you leave?" Right? That's relying on you wanting to be there. Exactly. And that would be negative punishment. Yeah. So it's one of the things you see, like horses do it when they're in packs. They push someone out of the pack. Yeah. And it's like, "No, beat it. Like, you're not allowed in." And they all face in together and the horse who was a jerk or whatever. For whatever reason he's been pushed out, they're like, "You can't be part of the community for a period of time." Yeah. And they try and get back in, you know, like, you can really see like, this is stressful. Yeah. And so the stressing, that's the same with a lot of sort of communities where if someone makes a mistake or does something that is against the community, you see this in churches and cults and all kinds of stuff where it's like, "You're out. You can't be one of us." And that's negative punishment. That's like, we have taken from you something that you want. But if you're sort of an unwilling participant in being in that community and they kick you out, that's probably positive reinforcement because you're like, "Oh, sweet, I'm done. I'm out of here. I got the permission that I wanted. I got the catalyst. I didn't have the balls to get up and leave. But if I've been kicked out, then perfect." See, later, like you've pushed me along, right? So I think that's one of the things I want to sort of explain now is that ending a session that has not gone well is seldom anything but negative reinforcement. And usually what it is is the built up of desire for next time. But very often, it's none of those things because the thing that caused the session to derail that time is not present next time. So for example, one of the things I see with, say, pet dog, let's stick with pet dog stuff, is that someone might be doing a session and the dog's just kind of checking out and is not that interested in the food. He's not that much of a willing participant in the session. And very often we say put that dog away, he doesn't want to be here. Now that can be effective training modality, it can be, but it's not because of negative punishment. If the dog doesn't want to be there, then taking him away from something he never wanted is not negative punishment. If you're training with food, you ask the dog to do something and the dog knows how to do it but doesn't do it and you then say, "Well, I'm putting you away and I'm not giving you this food." That not giving him the food is not negative punishment because he never wanted it. If he wanted it, he would have done the thing that you're asking him to do in order to earn it. He doesn't want it, therefore not giving it to him is not a strong consequence. What about putting him away? Well, it depends on why he's not being a participant, right? Now if the dog is distracted by an environmental motivator, right? So you're training with food. And the dog knows the behaviors that you're asking for or is at least just playing some level of competence in it. And he is just suddenly not interested because of birds flying past or whatever, right? He's suddenly interested in piss on the ground or whatever. And you put him away that you could probably put into the category of negative punishment but not by association. Well, the issue is you need to recreate that scenario to be the same next time. Yeah. Find out whether it was negative punishment. Because if you're doing a session and the dog, there's piss on the ground and the dog's like, well, I don't want the food because I want this. And he said to the dog, well, I'm taking you away from that and I'm putting you into the box. First of all, there's issues with putting the dog away in the box because the dog has to go in the box at some point. That's the issue with putting the dog in the box as negative punishment is because, yeah, and I should elaborate, when I say in the box, I mean, like ending the session. And like for me, that usually ends up put the dog in a crate, right? Or the kennel, whatever. The issue is you don't really know whether that worked as a negative punishment for the dog checking out from the session. That would be the thing that you're trying to punish would be checking out from the session and going to that external motivator. You don't really know whether that has been that unless the next session is identical or close to and that same competing motivator is present. So sometimes people might have a really bad session and, you know, they're training with food and the dog's distracted and it's just not into it. And then they go, well, fuck you and they put the dog away. And then the next session the dog comes out and is great. Now, they think, oh, it worked. Yeah. Well, it may have worked, but it could have worked for a variety of reasons, different, different environment, all of a sudden. So it might be that it didn't do anything and that the next session, those competing motivators are no longer present. So the dog performs much better because what you have is now the only thing of interest to the dog. It might be that the dog just got hungrier if you were training with food and you didn't eat him in that time. So now your thing that you're reinforcing with is higher value and the other distracting motivator is still there and present, but yours is higher value or it could be that the dog made the association and realized that because I checked out and went to that competing motivator, I was put away. And you really, it's very difficult to know which one of those things it is. And that's why my issue is, I think usually if you're going to end a session and say, like, no, that's it. It's over. I prefer to think of that and frame my use of it to be negative reinforcement. I want to end the session and say, no, it's over in order to leave the dog unsatiated and not fulfill the desire of what he wanted to do. So if I'm putting the dog away, like I want to put him away and that be frustrating to the point where I'm like coiling a spring. And I want to think of that as negative reinforcement, like the pressure of desire, you know, and whatever that desire might be, it might be, you know, to be a participant with me, it might be to earn the reinforcer. It might be food. It could be lots of different things. Can I just stop you for a second and ask this question to you? Yeah. Would the putting him away be negative punishment and then bringing him back out for another opportunity, be negative reinforcement? My way of thinking of it, like, let's say for example, a dog does poorly in a situation gets taken away and he is truly disappointed about losing that opportunity and going into an area, a box, a crate, whatever it is, okay? Getting taken out. That point to me, my comprehension of that would be negative punishment. I fucked up, you know, and the dog learning along the way, especially when it gets put into the place, it doesn't really want to be in and losing connectivity to what it's actually trying to do. So it's disconnecting and it's comprehending at the same time. This is a fucking disaster for me, you know, like I'm getting taken out of it. The negative reinforcement, the way that I would comprehend it is when the dog gets to come out of that place and then gets represented to the same skill set again.
more to the behavior. How would you put that in the category of negative reinforcement though? What would be relieved by doing that? Coming out the pressure of being in that spot. Okay. Getting the pressure removed from him and then getting the opportunity to represent. Yeah. The difficulty with that also is that there is a time delay between that. And that's probably, well, that's what I want to get to is that I think that if you're going to use, if I'm going to put the dog away, yeah, I almost always will do that in order to coil a spring, and I want to increase the desire for next time. I want to say the dog, how you missed the opportunity, you're going away. But I still think that's negative punishment. I don't think that's negative reinforcement. Yeah. Yeah. If the dog wanted the thing. Yes. But I think that that is more negative reinforcement because you're then building the desire that will then drive the behavior that the dog will do. Right. So I think as well, maybe you're thinking of it in terms of the dog doing it, but just not doing it well. And maybe I'm thinking in terms of the dog not doing it. This is where it gets into the realm of only the dog knows. Well, I think as well, it's specific examples. I think that when you're talking sort of just about the dog doesn't do it, it gets into the minutia of what is it and how. So, you know, for example, if we're doing bite work and the dog's grip is insufficient and I can take the sleeve, then that, you know, stopping then is negative punishment because I took from him what he wanted and he'll be he'll be punished. Therefore, we'll no longer, it will decrease the frequency and likelihood of a poor grip. Right. It's make the dog more likely to grip at harder and better next time because that gripping better and more is the result of negative reinforcement or reinforcing the some kind, but not gripping poorly next time is the result of negative punishment. So I think in that instance, it certainly is a fusion of the two together working in unison. I agree with that. I think that's a better example for me. That's it's better with me that comprehension of yeah. And in the building of power, I think that's almost always the case. It works beautifully. It's why we like finishes that way. It's very observable. Yeah. And we do that all the time in the building of power for things. Right. So like I want to build desire for the way that the dog will respond to the sleeve being presented or something like that. Dragging the dog off because it made a mistake, probably punishes the mistake. Right. So he's not going to be, you know, he's less likely to drop the sleeve or not bite it sufficiently that it can't be taken because taking it from him would be negative punishment. But that is then going to coil the spring and cause a better grip next time. So you kind of like tapping both at the same time very likely in that circumstance, you decrease the frequency and likelihood of shitty grips. And the consequence of that is to increase the frequency and likelihood of good grips because of the building of desire and the absence of the opportunity to grip. But when we then talk training obedience and the dog is just checking out of the session, finishing the session and putting the dog away could possibly be punishment from removing from what it got checked out from it could be. But more often than not, the reason why you'd see a better performance next time, I think is because the reason it checked out from your session was because it was distracted by something and that distracting motivator is no longer there. And so you could observe it and go, yeah, it worked, but it's like it didn't necessarily. We can't actually be sure unless you create the exact same circumstance and get to observe what happens now. And I think one of the things like if the dog is no longer a participant in the session, he's just like, I can't be bothered, I'm not interested. You really need to think about increasing your motivation by a positive reinforcement in that moment and increasing the value of the positive reinforcement that you have. And if the dog is interested in something else, I would rather devalue that thing with negative reinforcement out of that and into the positive reinforcement and probably abandon the behavior that I'm trying to teach. Let me give you a specific example. So why couldn't you use positive punishment to devalue it? Well, I could, but that would be a different thing. That's one of the ways that I could do it. But what I would do, I imagine that I have my a decoy. So like in pet dog trainer terms, imagine you've got to like a very high value item. Maybe your dog's favorite tug on the ground and you're training with food. And the dog, you tell him to go to the marker board to go to his place bed or whatever over the tug and do that in order to earn food, not the tug. The tug is a distracting motivator. Yep. If that happened, most people then would say, oh, okay, you send the dog to the place board and he grabs the tug because he's got the opportunity to everybody would look at that and go, oh, okay, well, the tug was the problem. And I can remove the tug from the equation. Or if I can't, then what I would do is I would sort of give the dog a nag away from the tug via the prong collar or something like that. And into the food like you need to perform the work in order to earn the food. Or what you probably would do is right there in that moment, you would restrain the dog. You would maybe use proper negative punishment in place. Don't let the dog get to the tug, let him try as hard as he wants, let him realize he can't do it. And then maybe he gets a couple of pops on the prong or something like that. And then he realizes, okay, getting that now in this moment is off the table. I can avoid all the discomfort that now is associated with trying to get the tug when I'm not meant to. And go to the food and do the food work. Now that's really obvious to most people who would, you know, train with that modality when we're talking about a tug on the ground. But if that's pissed on the ground, it's the same. It's the same shit. Nothing changes. All the system is the same. Only now we're like, oh, he checked out and didn't want to work. And it's like, no, he just wanted to do that more. And you're better off probably fixing that in this moment, right? Rather than putting the dog away. And I think that that's where I'm sort of going with this is that it's very rare, unless you are in one of those scenarios where you are trying to use that fusion point of negative punishment and negative reinforcement. I'm going to end this session and take your way from it because you did something. And I don't want you to do that anymore. And in taking it away and you no longer doing that, you're now more likely to do the thing that I wanted you to do. That's kind of the only time when ending the session is useful. And I think that we very often hear people say, well, in the session, because he's, you know, he's distracted. He's checking out. He's trying to get that other thing. And it's like, no, imagine that other thing was something you were in control of because you are. You're the master of this. You're overseeing it. Fix it in the way that you would fix if it were a tug that the dog wanted to get. If he's busy just sniffing the ground or whatever, you have to treat that. What's actually happening is that is a higher value reinforcer than what you're able to deliver. And so you would try and maximize the reinforcer you're delivering. You would look at your own training and you'd be like, okay, maybe my dog is satiated if I'm training with food. Maybe the way I deliver it is boring. Maybe I've created some sort of like a version to the way that the dog interacts with me in this kind of session. Maybe it's Tuesday. Maybe the moon looks like a tennis ball. Like, what can I do in order to increase the frequency and likelihood of the dog doing the work for my food? How can I increase the value of that? And that's a really obvious decision when there are two reinforcers that you're in control of. But when it's something that is some sort of external motivator, very often I hear people saying, well, put the dog away. And it's like, that's not necessarily going to help. It may, but probably not for the reasons that you think putting the dog away might mitigate how much more damage you can do to your commands and your relationship with the dog. And that kind of thing because you're just throwing shit at a wall and hoping that something is inevitable. Yeah. So maybe ending the session is the right thing to do because that session was never going to be successful because you're not set up to give success. So ending it is the right thing to do. That's a good point. That last bit you just said then, yeah, like if you're not in a position and all the framework isn't in place, you'd say, well, fuck it. Just end it then. Yeah. Because you're not the Marionette. You're not in control of your puppet. You've got cut strings. The session is over. You've got to go into repair work. Yeah. So yeah, I agree with that. Finishing a session midway when you're like, oh, the dog's not, he's not doing it right. That is more about you going back to the drawing board and going, why did that happen? And what was the set of circumstances that first of all led the dog to wanting to be more interested in environmental motivators than what I can provide? So fundamentally what you're saying if you're ill equipped, you should end the session. Yeah. But identify that because as I say, like, identify that. You still have to end the session to identify it. Yeah. Just have to go up and sit in front of your chalkboard and work out the equation. Like, what do I need to do better this time? So I don't have to end the session like we can deal with it on the spot. Yeah. And I have the tools in place and the preparedness, which is something we talked about to say, okay, mate, we're going to learn a lesson here today. Yeah. And then there's a checklist involved in like, yeah, yeah, yeah. What was the dog was in with you? What was it? The dog wanted the things that I have within my ability to pay the dog with. How do I bring that to a level that's above the environmental motivator that he wanted? Right. Now, the best example to be personal about this is birds with my dog. My dog fucking loves to chase birds. Right. He's pre-programmed. The whole leader like to do it. I thought Valerie taught him to do it because she loves it because she's a bird dog, but Remy loves chasing birds. In a session, if I can see that he would rather be chasing birds, I can end the session and put him away and go like, okay, nobody's chasing birds, right? Like, this is a disaster. Let's go back to the drawing board. But then when I go back to the drawing board, I go, okay, how good can I get at tug? What is it that I can possibly do to keep you more interested in staying with me than chasing birds. And I can do work
in that zone. I can go, okay, I want to get you as good as I possibly can. But if it's still not enough, then I can go, all right, now I can devalue chasing the birds, right? Now I can be like, hey, there's a negative consequence for chasing the birds. Maybe I use a prong collar to bring you back to me or I could do a punishment event in place for trying to chase the birds. I can diminish them if I can't bring up my positive reinforcement that I am in control of. Or you can do a great big combination of it all, where you go, like, okay, I'll use negative reinforcement to make sure that the behaviors that I want happen, because I'm not in control of the reinforce at the birds are flying around, right? So the positive reinforcement part is ever present. He always has the ability to chase them. So I will use negative reinforcement to compel behaviors that don't happen. And then I'll just release him to that positive reinforcement of chasing the birds. And now the birds is never an issue for me anymore. In fact, they help me. The more bullshit there is going on, the more likely my dog is to be in a willing participant, because he knows that the game with me is still pretty fucking awesome, right? And I can make it better than chasing birds. I'm capable of that for in short bursts. Yep. If he chooses to chase birds instead of playing my game anyway, I'm not going to allow him to do that. I'm forcing back into the session and he's going to have to do work in order to earn the ball. Yep. But if he's playing with the ball and I can see that he would kind of rather be chasing the birds, but isn't giving me any difficulty in doing what I want, then I can say, hey man, just go chase the birds. And when I call you back, if you don't want to come back because I can't, you know, like it's like having no out on a dog letting them deal with an environmental reinforced. Yeah. Like with food, it's real easy because you can just go click his your food. The dog's like, okay, give me the next rep. Yep. But with the ball, if you got no out, then it's like, fuck, how do we do this next rep? And that's the same with dealing with an environmental reinforcer is that you then release the dog to it. The dog has it and you go, okay, but fuck, how do I get you back from that? If the dog's sniffing the ground, I was chasing birds or whatever. And that's where my negative reinforcement comes into play because if my dog is out chasing birds, and I say, hey man, I need you to come back, come back and heal. And he's like, no, I'm chasing the birds and nothing can do about it. That's where I'm like, well, actually I can do stuff about that. Right. And now he's my negative reinforcement that's going to make you heal. And you like, I can compel that action and I can then still pay you with the birds afterwards. Yep. So I think the whole idea of this confusing conversation about the difference to a negative reinforcement and negative punishment at the ending of a session is that I think that the use case of when that actually is successful and when that really does actually help is very limited. I think that it's a very narrow scope and I think that it gets overused quite a lot. People say just put the dog away. It's misdiagnosed. Yeah. And when it gets used quite a lot, I think that the reason it sometimes appears to work is because the circumstances that led to that shitty session happening are no longer present at the next session. And so you're not really getting to do an assessment of did I use negative reinforcement? Did I use negative punishment effectively? Because you don't give the opportunity to find out next time. You don't get to see what actually happens next time. Because it's so rare that you can recreate an exact scenario. The dog's going to be feeling the same way. He's going to have the same opportunities. He's going to do all those same things, which is why if I'm going to use punishment, especially negative punishment, I would rather use it right here right now in place. And then I give my dog my time out, whatever, however that goes down, I isolate the dog. You know, take the opportunity to earn away from him. I put him in some sort of time out on the spot. What I want to do then to use negative punishment effectively is give him another opportunity right there before anything changes too much. I want to like those same distracting motivators, those same scenario, the same opportunities, the same reinforces everything to still be the same as it was. So I had to punish her. And the way it's all happening. And then I can assess it more than anything that like he will have his learning moment, hopefully, but I can then decide yet worked or it didn't. And I know for sure that given this given this circumstance, I know what the outcome's going to be. Whereas I think sometimes we put the dog away and people go, oh, well, because I put him away, it led to a better outcome next time. It's like, I don't think it did, man. And I think that when you present that exact same scenario, you'll probably get the exact same result. And you don't really know until you do it. And when you do it might be, you know, it might be six months later. And then people will then often say, well, it was a resurgence of the behavior. And it's like, no, actually you never got rid of it. It's just been there just the circumstances never came together again, where the dog had the opportunity to do that or display that. Hmm. A lot to think about it. But I think what it all comes down to is that rather than dealing in punishment, like building motivation for our dragging away, like I say, in building grips and in certain types of high drive activities, that is the prescription. And it works. It's our soft. It's perfect. And especially with puppies, you know, all the time, you want to let them think that they didn't perform well enough. No matter how well they went, you want to finish the session, like where they lose the item so that they're never satiated in the grip work. And they never, you know, like, of course, we do that with young dogs. We do that all the time on purpose. But I think that is a very specific use case that doesn't apply so well to the average pet dog when you're trying to teach it to do some stuff. And it's just flatten is like, nah, I'm not interested. Putting that dog away is very often exactly what that dog wanted. Yeah, that's a negative reinforcement concept where the dog goes, oh, fuck this. I'm out of here. I'm happy to be. I'm going to go get the box. This is fine. And then if he comes out tomorrow and works well, it's usually just because he was going to work well that day regardless. So I think the better prescription in that moment is to go, okay, how do I increase the value of the positive reinforcement that I have? Like I say, ending the session is still maybe the right thing to do, but don't end it because it's the dog's fault. Like, I think that's the issue. Like people like, well, fuck him. I'll put him away. And it's like, actually, fuck you. You turned up without the right equipment. You didn't have the tools. You didn't have a strategy in place. You didn't have the reinforces. You didn't have the gear to communicate with the dog effectively. So finishing is the right thing to do. But now you've got to decide how do I proceed from here? Like, how do I prepare myself for this scenario when it happens again to be able to convey what I want to convey to the dog rather than just having to quit? The burden of negative punishment because we acknowledge it works. It's an effective form of punishment when it's applied properly. But the burden of it is is that you're restricted by time in a lot of situations. However, it can be immediate sometimes. There can be an immediate recognition of what's going on. And I'll use this for example with Randy. Let's say for example, I've got the ball out and it's very direct at that point in time. You can see he's kind of thinking to himself, I believe I'm doing the behaviors to get this. And then I put the ball away to punish him. Like, that's negative punishment right there. And then I can see him like very frustrated. You can see his eyes and pupils dilate to think, what the fuck is going on now? What did I do wrong? And then he attempts to do right behaviors. Nivies right? The opportunity for the ball comes back out again. So I get to relieve him in that moment. But most times when people think about negative punishment, it's the concept of sinbinning comes in the mind. That's not always the case. That's predominantly the biggest discussion point where I hear people talking about negative punishment is I'm taking my dog away. It's going away. But it's not just the dog being removed from the situation. It's something that is being taken from the dog that the dog is expecting to get. Like that's being taken from the dog as well. There are applications of negative punishment that don't always involve I'm getting taken from a building and I'm getting put into a timeout situation. It is the thing that I expected to get. I'm thinking I'm getting that. But apparently I'm not. What do I have to change right here right now in order to get that? And I like that concept where you're talking about, let's deal with this now. But in the situation, and I agree, I think in a situation where you're ill equipped to deal with that situation and it's going pear-shaped, then the dog has to be negatively punishment. You have to stop that situation. You have to get out of there. But just on top of that, again, there might not be any direct recognition on what's actually going wrong. This is just simply like, let's call that a reset in some situations because you're just thinking I'm feeling that it's negative punishment because I'm frustrated and angry with the dogs. I'm going to give the dog a timeout. But is the dog directly learning about the behavior at that time? Because at that point in time, that could just be a one-off. It's not replicative all. You know, like you can't reset that situation up immediately. And that's why you're burdened by time in those sort of situations. I think as well, especially in the scenario you're just painted with Randy, I think there's a spinning wheel between negative punishment and like a variable reward schedule as well. And I think that's one of the trapping points that sometimes people get themselves in when they intend to do one and they do the other. And that goes in both ways. Like I see people that try to go to a variable reward schedule and too early and the dog then goes, well, the thing that I expected to get didn't come. And therefore, I'm not going to do this, right? So, they essentially punished the behavior that they wanted to build. Can I just interject there? Because I was having a good thing about that the other day. And I think on that sort of situation, that's a time-bill in the action. And that's that whole concept of millimeter, centimeter, meters. Like, if you go beyond that scope, then I'd say yes, you're gone from a variable schedule to negative punishment in this sort of situation because you've missed judge time. And instead of it being a learning experience, a positive experience where the dog goes, I can control this. I know what's going on here. And the dog feels unhinged about what's going on. It went from a learning experience, the comprehension of how do I control this to I'm being punished. Yeah. Even more simply that the dog just imagine, you know, that the classic example is in the stand because everybody wants their stand to be perfect. Yeah.
And you start going to a variable reinforcement schedule and the dog goes, "Hey, I didn't get paid for this, I'm not gonna continue doing it." So that would be like withholding of something the dog was anticipating and therefore he then says, "Well, I'm not gonna do it." I'm not doing this baby because standing results in me not getting paid, so I'm not gonna do it. But then the opposite is sometimes people have a shitty stand and they then go, "Well, like, I'm gonna punish you by withholding the reward." And the dog's like, "Well, that's what I thought was gonna happen anyway." Like, that's why I have been standing shittily. And so then often then paying more for the shitty version results in a better version. Do you still think that that is because they have gapped it out too far? Like in those sort of situations, like they've made it untangible for the dog, so the dog is not following ahead and going, "This gap is too wide between here, I don't get what you're trying to do." Like, this feels like punishment instead of a learning opportunity. Like in a situation where the dog would attempt to do the behavior and then you would reward because you're working on a variable schedule. You know, like it's different, you're still pacing it out and you're still trying to say, "Well, you know, I want more from you, man." And the dog tries a little more and then you reward the dog. So the dog goes, "Oh, that's what I need to do." Yeah, for sure. In those terms, then yeah, like if you don't. I think it's a gaping issue. Yeah. If your anticipated next point of reinforcement is beyond what the dog was willing to give, then yeah, the dog would interpret your attempt to go to a variable schedule as potentially negative punishment. I'm not getting what I wanted because of this. I think negative punishment, when used really effectively, is done right where you stand. And I think very few people taking the reinforcer away from the dog is very often when the dog makes mistakes, they can't have it. But it's the progression towards it that you can often take away from the dog. So like you see, when my dog barks in the healing, I just have to not let him heal anymore and leaving him there with no information. Like I'd say, "No, like market." I say, "Hey, that's the wrong thing." And all I have to do is give him nothing. And right there where he is, he's stuck where he is. I have someone on a back line, I have me on the forward line and I give him no information. And to him, that's about as fucking aversive as it gets. And I can do that for 30 seconds right there. In the presence of everything that he wants, I give him no direction about how to get it. That is to my dog, an extremely aversive experience. Now, if he had less training and he wasn't trying to offer me, if he was just trying to get it, that would be coiling a spring. That would be negative punishment. So, you know, imagine I'm healing. Very specific example. Imagine I'm healing along and there's a decoy right there. My dog barks. I can just say to my dog, "No, I step away from him. Someone holds a back line and he knows the path to biting that decoy is me giving him permission and the most likely place I'm going to give him permission to do that from is the heal." And so he wants the heal. He's going to start trying to pull towards me. And what's extremely punishing to him is not letting him heal. And I just go like, "No, you have to stay right there. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not going to give you anything." The decoy is still present and the session is still like here, but I'm not giving you access to any of these things. Even just me, I'm part of the progression towards the bite. So that whole thing is reinforcing. So just go, "No, man, you can't have any of that. You have to sit there for 30 seconds and think about what you did." I mean, you've seen it. It's devastating to the dog. Devastating. And he's like, "Holy shit." Like that was the most diverse thing. But then I can just go again straight away. I remember the first time I did this, when we were doing it, I was like, "Oh, I can see that this is working. I am in this session decreasing the likelihood of embarking. And I am doing that via negative punishment right here in position. And each punishment event is probably taking 30 seconds, right? Because I just say like, "Hey, the whole world just crumbled around you. There's no opportunity to continue doing what you're doing until you are essentially helpless. And there's nothing you can do to change that. And if he tries to offer me different things, and if I were to allow him to do anything that turned off that punishment event, that would actually be negative reinforcement. Because if he can escape and then avoid it, that's negative reinforcement. But if he can only avoid it, then that's punishment." So in those moments, when I give him the time out, and any dog that I give the time out to, all I do is I just go, "Hey, there's nothing you can do. There's no behavior. There's nothing. You're just here alone in the dark, right? And I can do that to you right here in position. I can just hold the leash. I can just give you no guidance." I've done it with heaps of military working dogs and heaps of police dogs, especially the ones that you can't use, well, not that you can't, but it's very difficult to use positive punishment on because they see all pressure as an activation signal. They've just been made too powerful. Yeah. And you just let the world crumble around them. And especially in the white work, when the dogs do things like barking, or they break up down position or whatever, I did see the police dog a little while ago that they were having big issues with. And in 15 minutes, we fixed the issue. Because the dog was just, isn't an awesome dog. It just was off-tap. And what happens is he sees someone he's going to bite, whether it's a real life or a decoy or whatever. He's holding it down. He eventually hits the point where he's like, "No, I can't do this anymore." He breaks up and then the handler, like, you know, prongs him or whatever, puts him back into position. And then he feels like I achieved something. It's like the bluff valve got a little, got an opportunity to go. And he's like, "Well, even though I've received quite a lot of pressure to get back into the down, I'm okay with that because I made some progress." Yeah. Like, I'm an inch closer to that by at than I was. And all we did was double line the dog, no tools of a version, just his own harness and his flat collar. And when the dog, I was the decoy, when the dog broke their down position, I dropped the sleeve and turned my back on him. Yeah. Because what I do is like, it's like looking down the barrel of the camera in a movie. Like, you just go like, this is all fake. And the dog's like, "What the fuck?" And the dog's like, "Hey, go on. Every--" That's a worse scenario. Yeah. The dog just goes like, "Oh, shit, everything I thought was going to happen, it all just fell apart." Like, it's like you imagine, it's like being on the Truman show and the the walls of the set fall down and you see the camera. Just realize this is not real life. Yeah. And the dog, it was devastating to the dog. It was perfect use of negative punishment. And within 15 minutes, we got the dog holding the down, you couldn't derail the dog. Because he's like, "No, fuck that." Because if I get up, I have to endure this again. I'm not making progress. Well, that's a good point because I think the only time that you can conclude something is punishment is when it's understood as being exactly that. It's punishing exactly. It reduces the frequency of likelihood of it. And that's why I think ending a session and saying, "We ended that session and that was negative punishment because of what's going to happen in the next session." I think that's a long bow to draw because that next session is a whole new day. The circumstances are not going to be the same. Everything's going to be a little bit different. It's a new opportunity from the dog's perspective. That's why I think if I'm going to use negative punishment, I would much rather use it right there and then I would rather be very clear in what I'm doing and go like, "Hey, here is your point of isolation. There's nothing for you. You're just alone in the dark." Which is a very immersive experience, especially to a working dog. Just the lack of being told what to do. Just lack of guidance can be the worst thing. That would take some experience to be able to pull it off well. It is. But the amount of dogs that I have, it's usually always on the killers, like really high-end, super high-drive dogs, they're kind of, they're expired in the use of pressure. They're so tough that pressure is always an activating signal. But when you just go like, "Hey, man, you can't do that." And the dogs try and stop me. You go, "Well, I'm just going to not do anything." And the dogs like, "Wait, that's the worst thing I can imagine." The dogs like, "Can't you just prong me and you just suck the oxygen out of the room?" Yeah. And you see it. When I did it with the, I did it with the military working dog that was really bad at barking on the approach to the target. As soon as he saw his handless gun go up, he went into this gun fighting position. They're like, "Oh, we're gunned by someone. This is fucking amazing." And we did it within a few reps. What we did was we had the whole team go guns up, aggressive posture towards a building. The dog started loading, and he barked, and the whole team just dropped their guns. They're on slings, right? They just dropped their guns, turned and look at the dog. Like, "Can't believe you just did that." Like, give him that you're the fuck up look. And you see the dog go like, "Wait, what happened?" The first two reps, the dog's like, "Holy shit, what the fuck's just happened here?" And by the third one, the dog's like, "Wait, I'm doing that." And that's horrible. I want to be making my way towards that building with the guns up because that's how I get bites. That's what makes me excited. So dogs like, "Everybody was doing that at the exact moment I barked. I'm not doing that shit anymore because I want to avoid that happening. That's punishment." But also, I want to get to the thing. That's the role of positive reinforcement, which means that all the quadrants were in play at the same time. Yep. Just we've bounced around. Deep into the weeds on that one. That one's going to cause some headaches. Get ready for some penitle kids. Hey, listen, there's a caveat on this when you're listening to this. I'm not suggesting that people don't know what we're talking about. And I'm also not suggesting that we're 100% right what we're talking about because this is two people debating about an issue that's near and dear to us. Yeah. We've spent many years thinking about this and putting it into play. There were times where I've had people like literally and tears over this topic. And I mean literally because there's a lot to grasp here. One thing I will say about this is that it takes time to get your head around it. And there was a lot of the verbal behavior when you were in the fields of working through how this motivation all works because sometimes you're steadfast in your opinion that you got it right. And sometimes it's not observable in the way that the dog is behaving. So that means that it's not right. That's where I had trouble as a younger trainer letting it go because I was fixated on my belief that I understood what I was doing yet observably. It was not working out the way that it was expected to through my mind. Even though I had a plan on paper, it wasn't playing out in the field with the dog. Therefore you have to go back to the drawing board and think yourself. We're
without falling over your own feet and feeling defeated in this. Sometimes you just have to have a look at it or even better is come and get someone to have a look at it for you. Because in the show, in many of the situations that we've been talking, we've talked about the inclusion of having a second set of eyes when you're in this. And sometimes you are so close to a problem that you just cannot work your way out of it. And this is very beneficial to have somebody who is a little bit more adapt in this situation to say, you're actually on the other side of the fence, which is the case. And it still happens to me this day. Sometimes I'm so close to it and I'm so fixated onto it that my ego is saying, no man, you're right. You're 100% right. How dare anyone tell you what to do? That's the completely opposite mindset that I'm what I want to be in. The mindset that I want to be in is clear and not fixated on. It has to be this, but looking at the possibility, well, I thought it was this, but it's changed. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that's a bit of a heavy episode with us genuinely thinking out loud. Yeah, which is fun. I like doing that. It's fun. It's great fun. It's a good conversation to have because it forces you to think outside the square sometimes because you can get too comfortable in thinking in like a two-dimensional manner. And there are a lot of dog trainers out there. This is one thing I say to many of the NDTF guys is there's an abundance of good dog trainers out there. Like there's a glut of them. There's just not an abundance of great dog trainers because people get very comfortable. Yeah. They don't want to talk about the hard things anymore or they're easily swayed. Yeah. And even when you look at David Asher's conformity test, it's very easy to convince people even when they're right that they're wrong simply by putting a little bit of pressure on that because that's a form of a negative reinforcement itself. Yeah. I don't want to be that type of person. And in some cases, I have to be and I don't like it. It doesn't sit well with me. You know, like I don't digest that really well. And I'm disappointed with myself when I think, dude, you're right. You should have just fought a little bit hard for yourself because like you've backed down from something that is correct only to stay relevant or social with people who sometimes really don't deserve that. You know, like they're showing you contempt by pushing you away from it. Sometimes if you're comfortable with it, you can turn around to people and say, well, actually, I've thought long and hard about this. I've been with people who appear to know what they're doing. So prove me wrong. Rather than just beat me down and stop me from having an opinion on it, prove me wrong. Like the burden is now on you to prove me wrong. Yeah. I had a story I wanted to tell, but I'll save it because it fits into all of this. It's part of some business conversation, but it was about motivation, the matrix of and people's understanding of this is negative reinforcement because you're going to put people in pressure till the next episode and then relieve them. Well, they'll have to wait. Yeah. And it could, I know we'll do one, but I'm away next week, but we'll find a time to record. Yep. All right. Was it for another episode, can I? As always, if you like, we hear just fucking scream at. Yes. Scream at as loud as you can. Like Johnny Depp did to Amber Herden, the courtroom. Did you see that meme? I put that. I was like, oh, go, what the where is he fucking going with this? And I read the whole thing. It was like, well played. Well played. I must admit, I stole that from other dog trainers. I'm not going to claim that was my own material. I did not write that whole thing out. So, okay. Just so anybody that sees it goes, dude, you got that from me. I probably did. Yeah. Content repurposing. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So do a Johnny Depp. Just yell as loud as you can that the kind of. Yeah. And the court. Yeah. And the court judge judges just about to read out the verdict to say, hey, you're on. Have you heard about the can on parod? Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Have you ever seen getting square? Oh, love it. It's the great. David Wenham is superb in that movie. Yeah. If you're an American, you wouldn't have seen getting. You want to learn about Aussie culture. If you want to see one of the funniest scenes ever in an Australian movie, get on the YouTube and type in David Wenham, getting square courtroom scene, that will bring it up for sure. And it is one of the funniest fucking scenes I've ever seen. If you want to know what an Aussie bogeyne is, he is the paradigm of an Aussie bogeyne. It's so good. And he just runs those baristas in circles. Oh, it is hilarious. Yeah. As a junkie just has them wrapped around his ego. It's so good. You got to watch it. You know, who's paying for my bus fare today? All right. So tell everyone, you know, jump into whatever subscription service you download from like rate share subscribe. I'll do all that kind of stuff. If you want to support the show, the best way to do that is to jump into Patreon. Yes. That is a wonderful way to support us. We've been getting some really generous people in Patreon lately. Have we? Yes. I haven't ever looked. Yeah. Some people have upgraded their subscriptions. Some of the numbers that have come through. I've been looking at them. So God bless you. Baby Jesus is sweet baby Jesus. Sweet baby Jesus is sitting there and he is adorning you. Well, we've got trophies to buy. We threw that out there and we still got to do it. I'll organize that this week. Yeah. I'm doing that. I'm doing it. They deserve it. Yeah. He writes about the dog world. Yes, they do. They've earned those tickets. So Patreon, thank you to you guys really, really, truly, truly appreciate it. It's unbelievable that people sling us dollars. They are really appreciate it. But by fucking T-shirt, man. Yeah. Spring. Spring. Get on there. Yeah. By water bottle, T-shirt, all those things. Well, not a water bottle. Yeah. I've still been lazy. I haven't done that. And I've got to put James' new design up. I haven't done that. I have not done that. I feel so bad about it. I think about it. Every time I think about it, I get called onto a job and I've, you know, like I go away from it. Life's busy. Life's been crazy. Yeah. All right. It's put the show to spring. If you're going to contact with us. Yeah. You go jumping the discussion group. That's where the fun's happening. Yes. It may be, it depends on when this comes out. But I'm going to America. I'm going to do a seminar. Okay. I'm going to put this at the end. This is only for the people who listen right to the end. The week before the IACP conference. Yep. I am going to do a seminar in Chicago. Wow. It's going to be, I think, two to three September is a Saturday Sunday, two-day seminar. And then for five days after that, I think eight people, I think is what we can fit. We're going to do like a five-day live-in boot camp thing. Oh, two to three September. That's a bug. I was going to hope to plan that as a PSA troll day. That's not going to happen. So I'll be in the States. I'm going there for the IACP conference the week before. It's probably the only seminar I'm going to, it's the first one in two and a half years or whatever. I'm going back where I finished because it was at Fabian's place in Chicago that I did my last one in the States. Yep. So it's going to be two days there. And then there'll be like a boot camp for I think it's eight people as we can fit. We're all going to live in together. He's amazing premises and we're just going to, I'm going to try and teach you everything I know. Cool. So for anybody that wants to do that, get on with details. Yep. Look on social media. It'll be there. Or it might be website. Yeah, it'll be there. Yeah. There'll be a link to Fabian's website. Anyway, that's coming. And you could choose an email. We are
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