Episode 240: 3 biggest mistakes new dog owners make

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-toned. And I'm out of here. Glenn, Pat. -Simon for new ads. -It is time for new ads. They have new sponsors. But we've also got some remaining ones as well. -That we've got to bless them. -Of course. So it turns out we're actually behind because people jumped into our Patreon and set us much money, and we didn't realize. And they said, "Oh, what's happening?" -Yeah. -It was our ads. -Yeah. -Here it is. We're doing it. You know where you should get dog training equipment in North America now? Who? Mojo.co. -Mojo.co. -Yeah. Mojo.co.com is a website. There's a real store at Sinsh Kago. But it's a website. You can totally go to, and they pretty much sell everything. They've got meals, they've got training gear, they've got a barrel, there's food, there's dog beds, like it's a legit store. -How have you been there? -I've been there. -I've witnessed it firsthand. -I am. You've tasted the food, you've run on the meals. I committed theft. I stole a task. [LAUGHS] I think I was allowed to take it. -Do you like now? -I've got it. I just trained with it today. So basically, he's paying his Patreon money for you to steal these toys. -Yeah, it's a great client target. It's fantastic. A client target. -Yeah. -Oh, you know who else sells a client target? Who? The Buff Head. The OG Buff Head. Really? Yes, he does. He, in fact, he does. I got from the Buff Head, a client flip poll, which all the dogs favor over all the other ones. Really? You shouldn't allow to a preferences link. [LAUGHS] I don't, they do. They choose what they want. We have two places that you could get dog training equipment. Yes. Mojo.co.com. -Yeah, in North America. -Yeah. And I'm Zawena. Yep. -Dog Buff Head. -Yep. [LAUGHS] You know what? It's a really cool product. The Routing Hand Dog Kennel. It's the kennel that attaches, like it's a crate, that attaches to your motorcycle. So you can take your dog anyway that you're traveling if you own a motorcycle and want to take your dog with you. If I own a motorcycle-- Safely. I own a motorcycle or a dog that wanted to ride one. Yep. I would 100% get one. I own a motorcycle. You should get one. I should get one. You should get one. I can see you a little Frenchy hanging off the back of your motorbike. Yeah, I think that Mando would probably cause me to come off my bike. He would probably rock around like crazy on the thing. But yeah, a little dog. Like what George Kittridge does, who's a wonderful bloke and dear friend of ours. Sponsor of the show. Sponsor of the show. And he takes his little blue healer, which is a strange dog. And George has been out here in Australia. He knows all about Australia. He's stayed in Australia. He's done it all. But he actually takes his little blue healer and he rides all around the state. And he teaches other people how to do it as well with their dog. So not only does he sell the product, but he trains people on how to use it as well. That's great. It is. You know, he should get everybody to do a big road trip up to Canada. Yeah. You know what they could do in Canada? What's that? Go to Dancroft. Oh, Dancroft. She's like a watcher puppy class there, couldn't they? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And they're doing seminars as well. Really? Yeah. I'm not a good education, but as I spoke to Daniel, who runs Dancroft, he was telling me all about their amazing puppy classes and they do some kick us social media. Yeah, they do. They've got some pretty extreme type of breeds over there that they've got them all under perfect control, like all these American staffies. They've got all these bull breeds that people complain about, wins you about and say they can't be trained. And Dancroft has them doing not only beautiful stays, but they also have them on balls. So they have the dog inside a tire and the dog's doing beautiful drop stays. Well, they're at peace and at harmony and somebody's walking around all the owners are there with the dogs. They're having a great time. Incredible. Yeah. I bet those dogs are well conditioned and healthy. Yeah. How would they do that? Probably the best way is to get yourself some can on suitable. Are you being using it? I have actually no shit like jokes aside. Remi was circling the drain. He was in bad shape and I said to Neuro-Rale, hey, I want to try and get him back in condition. I don't know how much longer I can get from him because the mind is willing but the body is weak. And so she hooked me up with all the right things and he's a million times better. In fact, he's actually better than he has been in probably two years. And you did a really cool social media content for Neuro-Rale the other day, which you really appreciate. I make sweet reels, bro. You do. You are pretty good with your reels. Again, all jokes aside, I'm not disown as because Neuro-Rale's my wife, I make this very clear. What? She's actually a genius with that sort of stuff. Oh, yeah. When other people are sort of relaxing and kicking back, I know people are busy and they've got things to do. But Neuro-Rale reads white papers. She's doing everything. She's always looking how she can improve the standards in a dog's life. She actually amazes me. She's very, very industrious. So, Mojo Dog Co. Yeah. Onesawena. Onesawena. Rattie Hound. Rattie Hound. Dan Croft. Can I am suitable? Yeah. Thank you all very, very much. You guys, once in a show. If you want to support the show, support them. Yeah. You had a place to get the gear. Yeah. And if you get into Patreon and you tick that box, just do that. We don't check that very often. Yeah. So, you've got to tell us. You've got to shoot a semester. Yeah. It's fine for you to let us know. We really appreciate you. We started off our shows talking about some of our new attributes, things that we've got. Yeah. And we would never have got that without Patreon support. It's Patreon that pays our bills. All right. Enjoy the show. And our sponsors. Enjoy the sponsors. [laughs] [music] Welcome back to the Can I Am paradigm. I'm your host, Pat Stewart, and I'm joined in studio today while I'm like co-hosts, Glenn Cook. Interesting feedback from the last episode. A lot of it, actually. A lot of interesting feedback. Yeah. Mainly positive. Yeah. How about yourself? Yeah, I've only heard good things. I mean, people I get to reach out and tell us, dickheads to our face. They'll just text it to each other behind their backs. Yeah. Sometimes it happens. I mean, sometimes I've had controversial episodes where people have reached out and said, "Hey, you," or Pat said, "something that resonated in a wrong way with me." Yeah. Yeah. That's fine. It's a good part of the conversation. Yeah. And to be honest, I don't mind having a conversation around like that because I think we've proclaimed multitudes of time. It's just thoughts and feelings about things that we see. Some of it may be based in fact, and some of it is largely conversation that we're talking about experiences that we ourselves have and people in the industry have. One piece of conversation I did like was one of the people who listens to our show regularly and does provide feedback said that, "Well, I guess from their words is they felt that we brought some passion back to our show that's been missing for a little bit of time." Really? Some passion back. Some passion back. Right. Okay. They said it felt like we had returned to our old days. Really? Where we were a little bit more passionate and a little bit more risqué with what we prepared to talk about. Goodness. Risqué. Risqué. I took that in its stride and I appreciate taking that on board. Yeah. It was welcome information. It's important to know what people like to listen to. It's pointless getting in front of these microphones and talking about things that people just don't want to listen to. They just switch off and say, "This is just word salad." That's true. Yeah. It's interesting. And you know who I'm talking about. Well, there's a couple of them. But it's interesting watching some of the train wrecks on social media and the dog's face. That just, it's just amazing what comes out of their mouth. What made me think of that was when I brought up the word word salad before and you said it on the other night when I was showing you a clip of the rantings of someone. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. Now I know who took it. And then I compared it to listening to Charles Manson. Yeah. Because it's just incredible how many people have this belief or this mindset that they're absolute and they're all that and more. And it's like listening to the rantings of Manson. Yeah. It's just incredible. It's entertaining. Yeah. And may I find it entertainment? I don't know whether, you know, to feel sorry for the person or whether I don't know how to feel about it sometimes. So I just laugh about it. I just think I don't know whether it's being said with a bit of tongue and cheek with it. I think it is. Yeah. I think it is. Okay. We shouldn't talk about it. I think what happened with that person, you know, it's worth talking about I suppose. Yeah. I think what happened with him, and I don't want to say his name because I've never met the guy, but a video came out of him. Yeah. It was pretty shitty training and it got a lot of traction. People were talking about how he was the worst ever. And I think that he liked the attention. And then I think what happened was he was like, oh, that brought a lot of attention. If you want me to be the shitty villain dog trainer, I'm prepared to be that. It has just totally lent into it. Okay. I feel like he's like, that's what I think it's like, it's like Andrew Dice Clay. I think that he's like, oh, that's the character I'm choosing to play. That's the feel I get anyway. But I mean, we shouldn't carry on about because I don't want to name the person I want to ship me out to me though. I actually quite enjoy his social media because I look at it through the lens of entertainment. Like I look at it and go, this is a person who is just creating content for me to consume and enjoy. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, I definitely wouldn't let him train my dog, not a chance. But I enjoy his social media. That's going to lead some curiosity into every part of the story. I know. A couple of weeks ago, I opened up my Facebook and it says, congratulations. We've changed you over to a professional account. I was like, what does that mean? And so far, I can't really discern too much of it. difference in what that means. Yeah, I've had that message too and I don't know what it means. Yeah, except what I have noticed for sure is now I get targeted ads from social media coaches. So I think that are you getting the emails? Is that what's coming? Oh, I get tons, I get spammed all the time. But like coming up, especially in my Instagram feed, is ads for social media coaches. So people who, you know, I guess now that they've like flagged me as a professional account, now they're like, oh, we serve you the ads of people who use social media professionally. Right. So one of the ones that came up the other day, it's like, you know, someone dancing, like, because they're a social media coach, right? That's their job. And so they're dancing to stupid music, pointing at the things as they flash on the screen, telling me that I should make a real from that sound, because it's trending. And the real should be about the three biggest mistakes new people make in your industry. Yeah. That's what people, they're like pointing to the thing and it's one of them. Well, obviously not because I follow through. But then I thought to myself, first of all, I'm not making that real, but okay. Then I thought, what are the three biggest mistakes people make in my industry? And you know, like I started sort of thinking if I was going to make that, which I'm not, but if I was going to, how would I make a real, a 60 second piece of content explaining the three biggest mistake new people make into my industry? So I unpacked that a little bit and I thought, who are the new people in my industry? And like rather than dog trainers, I thought, you know, the people we serve, our customers, the three biggest mistake that they make, I'm thinking it's people with a new dog, like new dog owners. And so I sort of meditated on that. I was like, what do I think is the three biggest mistakes that they make? And I thought I wanted to explore that a little bit and go long form on what I was advised to be short form. Okay. So number one is, number one is that I think that when a new person tends to get a puppy, they socialize it poorly. And I think that can have a couple of different, like, subsets. I think that it can be not socialized at all. I think, you know, we follow the advice of vets or whatever that say, don't take the dog out of the house until it's 16 weeks old. And I think we have to be very careful saying, don't do that. I don't do that. I've never have and probably never will. So long as I live in the area that I live within. Because I think that my chances of contracting parbo or similar are low in the area that live. I think that I don't take the dog to high risk areas, but I for sure socialize the dog. But I do say that with caution because what I hear a lot of dog trainers and I've certainly been one in the past say, no, no, no, take that dog straight out. Take it straight out. Well, it depends where you live. Right. Like I think that you do have to take into account the instances of infectious disease and all that kind of stuff in the area where you live, as well as your ability to protect that puppy when you do take it out. I have a question for you on, I'm interested in your thoughts. And I'm sure we have discussed this, but it's relevant to this topic. How do you feel based on that comment from the veterinary association as such in general across the globe that they advise people not to take their dogs out and socialize them extensively and be very mindful and cautious of the real risk of coming into contact with Pavo and how detrimental that could be to a puppy. And yet they run puppy training and socialization inside of it clinic. Yeah. Well, I mean, we've covered that extensively. I think that one of the things I think that's interesting is I think I don't know if they're still giving that information. Is that like they all say that? That's difficult to answer. I think there's probably more pragmatic vets now that are listening to the advice of people in training and behaviour and realise that it's probably not the best advice, but giving it as a cautionary tale rather than insistence. Because certainly in some of the vets that I've seen, they've been insistent, do not take this dog out, you will get Pavo. Yeah. Like they've literally said it, creating the horror and creating this mental image that your dog is literally going to liquefy from inside out if you take it out and it gets Pavo. Whereas I've had vets nurses that have come and done the NDTF course with me, the practical side and they've come in and said, we don't do that at our clinic. We tell people that there is a risk. Here is the real information around it. We advise that you are very sensible and cautious and practical about how you expose your puppy during that time because there is a risk of getting it. So all they say is we do our due diligence and tell people that if you take your dog to areas and parks and filthy areas where dogs have been pissing and fecal matter all over the place, then there is a high risk of getting Pavo. Yeah. But Pavo is also earthborn, as we know, they're spores and they are released into the soil. They come from the soil and they're transmitted that way. So you can step in it and bring it home in your shoes. Like if you bring home soil from a place that's got Pavo spores in there, you can bring it home and transfer it into your backyard. And people have done that. People have contracted Pavo and never taken their dogs off side. And they've still got Pavo. So there is a risk of that happening. The APCA, the Australian Pet Care Association, just put out a blanket statement to all the vet in the industry and holding them at task to tell people not to call it Ken O'Coff anymore, but to call it K9 cough, the true name of the actual virus. Right. Okay. They said, if I'm saying on the big issues, are we? Well, the point is, is that it's slander to call it Ken O'Coff. We're in the Ken O'Coff industry. Right. Okay. So, the industry where people immediately think that if you go to a candle, it just leaves here. But there is always the only way that we get Ken O'Coff in is from Patient Zero, who is a dog that comes in from the outside and brings it into our candle. Yeah. So it does not live here. It can't live here. It's a hostile environment for K9 cough to run rampant inside the candles. It's a bit of wordplay, but it's accurate as well. And it infuriates everybody in the industry where they will leave a review saying, oh, I got Ken O'Coff from the candle blah, blah, blah. How do you know you weren't patient zero? How do you know you weren't the dog that brought it in? And in fact, you can infect it like it's like COVID. You are likely to get more likely to get COVID from going out into public spaces and being in large public areas where people are coughing and sneezing and leaving matter around where you're going to contract it. That's just one of those things. But now that we're talking about that sort of veterinary application, it is important for people in the veterinary community out there to work well and work nicely with the industry that they do actually get a lot of work and a lot of support from, support each other. Yeah. You know, as we've said in various different episodes along the line up is we're not spanking beds. We're not talking down to them. We just want to work with them. We want to just have a professional relationship with each other and we do. We have a really good relationship with a lot of people. I just think it's nicer if we communicate facts well. And the good thing is is that vets have responded and said, hey, yeah, you're right. It would be much more professional of us to name it as it is. It's K9 cough. Right. Okay. Yeah. On the socialization thing, you know, it's been more than 10 years since I've been to a vet with a puppy that didn't know that I was a trainer and has given me the spiel. Good. Thanks, vets. No, but so I haven't heard. I don't know what they say to people these days. And I've had plenty of clients when they say, I've got this puppy and I can't take it out to the 16 weeks and I say, ah, don't worry about that. In this area, you'll be right. And they'll just go, ah, sweet. So like they obviously not getting it too drilled into them by anybody, you know what I mean? I think the nice thing they stopped doing was recommending vaccinations every year and changing their recommendations to having even tighter tests or teeter tests, what you want to call it. I like that. I like the progressiveness in the veterinary community that even our own Australian group, the Australian veterinary association, the AVA, got together and said, hey, let's look at it as more of a three-year plan than a insistence on an every-year plan. That's good. Those sort of things are cool. Yeah. All right. So, hey, back to the topic. Yeah. Is that, so poor socialization? Well, socialization done incorrectly, I think, is the first mistake that new dog owners make. And I think that can take the form of, like we said, not socializing at all. But that is just as bad, I think, as going overboard. Yep. And I think there's a couple of ways that going overboard can go bad as well. Is I think that, you know, socialization, you have to be careful. And I think that most people, for the most part, we kind of understand that a puppy is a precious little baby, really, and that you have to sort of manage their exposure and be careful in what you actually introduce them to. But of course, I think that there's, you see it, people just rock down the dog park with their eight-week-old puppy. And so, never mind the medical implications of that. But I think then the issue is, like, that is not a safe environment for most dogs, let alone a eight-week-old puppy. And the chances of something going wrong are pretty big, pretty high risk of, you know, some sort of incident that will lead to a negative experience. But similarly, I think that- I'm glad to hear you acknowledge that online. Yeah. But I think similarly though, like, those negative experiences can happen anywhere. You know what I mean? So, like, I think that, you know, it's not like you just don't take your puppy to a dog park and you'll be right. You can have a weird person give a weird interaction to the dog and that can set you back. You can have just simple things like a siren go off unexpectedly wherever you are that can cause issues, all these sorts of things. There's the example of not taking the dog anywhere. And then there's the example of taking the dogs to many places and putting the dog in unnecessary risk. And then I also think there's a third thing that can go wrong in that, like, types of socialization. I think is that people who think of socialization in this, like, you've got to create positive experiences non-stop. Very few people just take their dog places and let the dog have your neutral experiences. actually experienced stuff. For the most part we see people with puppies and they've always got the bag of food and they constantly trickling food to the dog the whole time and clicking with it and all that kind of stuff and I think that you can cause as many issues doing that as you can doing nothing. I think in a couple of ways the first is that if the dog is always so focused on you because you intend to pay the dog non-stop then it's not really getting the. It's not a social environment. It's a training environment. Yeah well it's just so immunically focused that it's just like hey all I see is you especially if you've got a really high food drive dog yeah all it is is just constantly looking to you for food and it's not actually taking anything in. I like that I like your your mindset around that because I think it creates a fictitious environment for the dog yeah it's artificial and it's not real life yeah and part of the social habitual lifestyle is real life experiences like really absorbing the trials and tribulations of what life offers. Yeah and just I think the main thing of socializing a dog like a young dog when I take it out and like it socialization is my intention. Yeah is I just want it to just be like I don't want big events. I don't want something I don't want to expose it to some big problem if I have to I can recover that so when I go out with a young dog I take the clicker and I take the food and I've usually sort of loaded the clicker at this point but it's rare that I actually use it right like I have those on me but I have those on me at all times and I have a puppy anyway just so that that doesn't become a cue for anything to the puppy and I take the dog out and like only if something goes wrong only if something out of my control something that I didn't foresee something happens in the the puppy startles that's an old click and then I can be like okay I can recover you from that I can like change your mindset around that and I need to have loaded the clicker that all needs to have been done it's not like the clicker carries some magic power I need to have that in place so that I can then if I see that my dog's like oh like this could go bad for me I can go click here everything went well for you if not create a positive experience at least don't make the risk of it becoming a negative experience and then I can take control of the situation get out of there whatever and then you know if my idea is that I take this little puppy to wherever I'm going to go and it would just be like I just want you to experience this stuff a long way investigate shit don't check stuff out watch cars go past watch people go past and I might feed the dog along the way but in it's just going to be like here have a treat periodic yeah like you have a little piece of cue ball and then when the dogs like chilling out I'll go to cafe the dogs it's my feet I can then be like trickling in food while he's there just like hey keep going this is a good you're doing the right thing I don't want to be bringing the dog up in a rousal I think the emphasis needs to be on coping to teach the dog coping mechanism in any given environment sometimes it's serene and sometimes it's a little spooky but no big deal we can get by we can cope with this yeah so I think one of the things that ends up happening from taking those dogs out and constantly keeping them in that sort of high state of a rousal because of you know we're trying to create a positive experience we're trying to give the dog all the food like we said first of all they're not even noticing anything else that's going on but one of the things I've certainly observed is people who condition a really high state of a rousal every time the dog leaves the house because they're like okay now we're going out they get their food they're like we're going on the socialization mission right and so then the dog sees the treat pouch and the whole lot and the dog just gets to the point where the the conditioned response that will stick with it for a long time is every time we leave the house this is a high there's a higher rousal activity that we're going to do it's not necessarily that the dog is excited to get somewhere like you might imagine it's just that leaving the house is high rousal because you you imprinted that on the puppy by overdoing it with food and trying to create positive experiences for the puppy every time you go out that's what I observed so I think all of that goes into the category of socialization and I think that's one of the first mistakes that new pet owners make socialization or generalization well this is your this is that's your hill to die on oh well done that for us I really had some great conversations around that I really appreciate the time that people talk to message me and like I was talking to people on the way to work and all sorts of things because they were intrigued about that or either agreeing or offering alternate opportunities to discuss other things such as neutralization the reason that I call it or think about it as generalization is yes things are social experiences between dogs and other organisms so I believe that if you meet a dog it's a social experience I mean if a dog meets a dog it's a social experience the dog meet the cat and so on and so on and so on that's a social experience but you can't socialize a dog to a lawnmower a whipper snapper a cell phone tower a car that's not social that's habitual that's learning habits around how to cope around those items the combining element of the two of them is therefore known as generalization and that's what we're ultimately working towards is to generalize our dog to any situation whether it be social or habitual in the environment so the dog is learning to generalize to any environment you take it in I can learn it in this environment that environment and I now can learn it in all environments it's pretty much replicant you know like I've seen the social aspect of dealing with an organism I've seen the habitual component of dealing with machinery and therefore I can do and replicate this in any area I can take and that's ultimately what I believe that most of us are referring to as generalization in the true term how the people have suggested well it's making the dog neutral to the environment I don't know if I totally agree with that because I believe that if you neutralize a dog to the environment then it doesn't pay any attention to anything else which that's not true to nature of what dogs do they're not completely neutral I like the term neutralization or a dog being neutral to the environment I do agree that that's great when especially when you need the dog to focus on you that's when I believe you know when we're using real language and thinking about the terms that we're actually using I think that when a dog needs to be focused and fixed on you then it needs to be neutral to everything in the environment that's if you needed at that time but the true nature of us and dogs is even in conversations if we hear something that's intriguing us we're going to turn and pay attention that's not being neutral to the environment that's acknowledging that it's there not meaning that you are so distracted by that you leave what you're doing and go over there or chase it or pursue it but you know it's there you're acknowledging it and that might be something that you are stimulated by so there might be an eliciting stimuli that you normally would react to you've now seen it and you think to yourself my training forbids me from doing that okay so instead of you being neutral to it because you're not neutral to it you're present to it you're just feeling the layering of control through generations of good training and then you're feeling well I can't respond to it the way that I used to I don't get the same benefits anymore in fact it starts there's a cost to go after that now so I'm present to it I know it's there but I've got to stay fixed to you therefore I would say that can't really be a facet of being neutral it's more about being generalized to an environment and being able to cope much better yeah I think all that's fair one of the problems that we have in dogs is we don't have any standard language I think that's a huge issue and we tend to use terms a bit lazy sometimes and I'm guilty of that as well well all of us pretty much are we tend to use terms differently in different areas and different camps so you know one of that I think interesting things is when people say a dog is civil what does that mean you and I would agree we might describe that totally we might use slightly different variations yeah but both of us would look at a dog and make the same assessment that dog is civil yeah and by that we mean like that dog will bite you for real yeah right like that's what it means but like if for people outside of the bite sport community or the working dog community that's a weird thing to say I know because that means that you're civilized or like your that dog is civil yeah he's gonna bite you don't go near him yeah and then similarly I often refer to my own dog as social we're just talking about dogs out there right and discussing about like living with them being around them and I often say you're really social but he's not social in that he enjoys the company of people when I say he's social I mean like he's not dangerous you he can be around right but that doesn't mean like to some people they then expect like how come your dogs not over here getting pat by me like oh he doesn't like that he doesn't like being pat by people he doesn't want to be anywhere near you and it's like I thought he said he was social well in this context I mean he's not dangerous to be around he's he's totally safe to be around but don't try and pat him he doesn't he won't enjoy that right if we were going to label it would you say that a better choice of words would be adaptable maybe yeah but I mean that's the issue right like we don't we have these sort of broad words that don't convey well with every yeah every group that you're with and when you win the right like within the sort of different facets they make sense so like you know and I think most people sort of stay in their lane right like we cover quite a lot where as trainers and people in the industry we're across large portions of the industry and we talk to people and we're talking to people from lots of different areas in the industry whereas you know like you know like I say people involved in biting dogs we use those terms and we know exactly what they mean right social means he's not dangerous to be around civil means he is that doesn't correlate if you say that to people at a agility competition you say oh my dogs very social they for the most part will think that your big just all most of the dogs in that arena are safe to be around saying a dog is social they're going to have some level of expectation that the dog enjoys the company of people and if you say that the dog is civil then they're going to ask what the fuck you mean like that doesn't that doesn't carry any knowledge to them and exactly as you said that sort of indicates that the dog is friendly if the dog is civil oh yeah he's totally civil. He's civilized. It's like, no, means that in civilian clothes, he will show aggression, right? That's probably where it comes from, right? That's probably the origin of of a dog being civil. I don't really, I don't actually really know to be honest. It's a word that I've never really bothered to look deep into. It's just a word that I accepted was the industry language and I thought I didn't know what it meant at the start. I was confused as much as everybody else when people were describing dogs as civil and I thought, what a stupid word to describe, something that is dangerous. But then you learn to accept that was the word play that everybody used. Well, my guess is that it comes from, we do civil work and doing civil work means no bite equipment and so you're in your civilian clothes not wearing any sleeves or bite suit or whatever. You do civil work to bring out real aggression to the man and so then a dog that has done civil work becomes civil. I've always just assumed that that's the progression to how we assume that. There's probably some old German dude who's like, that's not it. No. You don't have shit. But yeah, I have no idea. But I think that's one of the things. When you talk generalization, socialization, all these sorts of things, we don't have standardized language and people use them in different ways. And I think that for the most part is no big deal, whatever. So long as the people that you're actually communicating with understands what you mean and you can have a conversation where you both share understanding. But I think this is the lack of that across the full spectrum of the industry and especially within the different like camps of the industry when we talk training styles. I think very often we talk at cross purposes when we actually mean the same thing. We're just using words differently. Sometimes like we talked about last week, I think that there's people who describe their training and they avoid the use of the word punishment. Now what they do, like, you know, and some of them very effective trainers, you and I might do the exact same thing in the moment that they will do. But the way that they describe what they do in the way that I describe what I do, even though we might do the identical thing or close enough to it, we might convey that to people really, really differently. And then the message gets kind of altered as in the words that we choose. So I think it causes us more issues in our space than we care to realize. It's one of the things. It's one something I learned from Barton. It's something I do, you know, whenever I teach is in the first sort of, you know, before lunch on the first day, it's always like a series of definitions. And I say, hey, after this, you can abandon my definitions, I don't mind. But for today, and tomorrow or however long we're going to be training together, I need you to use these words in this way, or at least know that I am going to use these words in this way. And this is what I mean so that we're on the same path, right? So that you know when I say this, that's what I'm talking about. And after this, you'd make your own decisions. But for here, so that we can communicate, and when I tell you to do something, you know what I'm doing, that's what you need to know. Those words that like I talk about direct reward, indirect reward, I talk about corrections, punishment, that kind of stuff, right? So it's like, is it a correction, or is it a punishment? You know, correction has to have some sort of element of negative reinforcement. If you make the dog correct, the dog has to already know it. I talk about a direct reward being a reinforcer that the pursuit of the reinforcer brings on the behavior, then an indirect reward being a reinforcer that the dog has to divorce himself from the idea of it and do a behavior in order to get it, right? So like, just little things like that, some people like, I've had people say like, oh, that's not how I use those words. I'm like, that's fine. But that's how I am going to use them today. And if you want to understand, if you want to stay up to like with what I'm teaching, I need you to know that that's what I mean when I say those things. It would be great if we all use the same words after this. But just know that's how I'm going to explain these things. And I demand that you accept that. Otherwise, we cannot continue. We can't converse because we're going to talk across purposes. We may find ourselves arguing about something we agree totally on just because we're using different words. Yeah. And entirely agree. And it's conveyed every single NDT, of course, because the same thing comes up is that that's not the way I do it. It creates some frustration. But as it's carefully explained to everybody, this is a bubble that you're in for this week. Yeah. The week that you're here, we're institutionalized and we're doing a course that has to have a metric of making sure every student is saying the same thing so I can mark you off. When you leave here, whatever language that you do choose to use after this is entirely up to you and the correlating club that you're working with. I think some people struggle with that. The whole concept around that is like, oh, this is different than what I know. But different doesn't mean wrong. It just means different. So I entirely agree with what you said before. I can't even begin to mention the amount of times that I've been having conversations with people only to discover that we're arguing with something that we both agree on, but it was just a different language that we were using. Yeah. I've may have mentioned this several times. We have lots of different ethnicities of students that come in from all different areas of the world. We've got a lot of students that come over from China and end up doing the course while they're over here and stuff like that. But we've got people from all over the place. The one great thing is I get them to say sit in their mother language. Each one of them says it in a completely different way. Right at the moment, I've got two Chinese in my group. I've got a French and I've got a German and I think I've got a Portuguese or somebody that speaks Portuguese. So we've got a large group of different ethnicities and different cultures and so forth. So I always say, what's sitting your language and they tell me what it is. I said, so there you go. We've just heard it four or five different ways and it doesn't mean that it's wrong. It's the same thing. It just said differently, but you would argue it if you were saying, well, I wanted in English. And I said, then you could say it's not right. That was the specifics around it. But each person in that room just said sit. They said it the way they knew how to say it. We all speak English. We all know that sit means sit in English, but each single person said a different word. And I said, now if you got an in an argument with them and I said, why asked you to say sit? And you said, I did. And so did he. We all said sit. No one's wrong. But if you got into an argument around that, you would feel pretty foolish afterwards because you would discover, oh, we're saying exactly the same thing. It's just that we didn't understand what we were talking about until we made time to sit down with each other and say, yeah, that's the complete sense. Even like beyond using different words, I think that people also sort of culturally you explain things in different ways. Yeah. I think you know, one of the best examples of that is that movie and glorious bastards where he's pretending to be a German officer. And he's like going like talking about. You're talking an officer, you mean? No, no, the German. So the British guy is pretending to be a German officer. They're in German uniforms and everything. They're in a bar. And he's he's studying. Oh, yes. He studied Germany. He has the accent right. He knows all the things in their like undercover. And then they order three drinks. And the way that he puts his three fingers up to say like he, you know, holds three. We're an audio show people can't see what I'm doing. Yeah. But he holds these three fingers up and they immediately all look at him and they know that he's he's undercover that he's a spy. Yeah. Because Germans would hold up these three fingers. They're thumb in the two the middle and yeah. Point of finger. Yeah. And so it's just like little cultural differences like that can be a big thing. And I think that's a really good example of that. And so, you know, we face that like I say in different communities, we do the same thing differently. The way that you indicate you want three glasses can can really indicate where you're from. Totally offset. Now that you brought up that movie, that is absolutely hilarious when Brad Pitt is using this thick American accent trying to play an Italian. Yeah. Yeah. It's just great. It's a great movie. Yeah. All right. We got to keep moving. Yes. Second problem that new pet owners make. Second biggest mistake. Right. After poorly socializing their dog. And I think this one usually comes into the category of people who didn't socialize their dogs at all. While they're doing that, it's been my experience that they then also give that dog way too much freedom in the house. And I think that often is then sort of a little bit of a case of the guilt because they know fuck this poor dog hasn't left the house in three months, right? Or two months or however long they've had him in there. And so they start offering too much space to the dog. And I think that comes at the cost of structure. Yep. And I think that comes at the cost of discipline. Now I think discipline, you know, that can be a bit of a dirty word to many people. And I think that the lack of discipline can come from lack of effective guidance from a trainer, right? From a competent trainer. I think that a lot of people who are in their like, you know, never say no to the dog kind of camp. That's what I'm talking about, right? Not talking about people who effectively know how to manage a dog regardless of your training style. But the people who are just like just throw food on the floor and it'll be fine, right? Yep. And so, yeah, I think I have seen many instances where it can go really, really wrong for a new dog going into people's homes because of just way too much freedom to that dog in the home, like access to anywhere it wants to go, sleeps wherever it wants. You know, your chances of toilet training a dog like that are so slim. There's plenty of people I'm sure listening or you've had clients that the dog had total freedom in the house and yet somehow was toilet trained. And I think you can thank your breeder for that. You know, like a very good breeder can toilet training a dog for the most part, like or at least get it started depending on how they keep the well-being box and they can teach a dog, you know, you come straight out of the box onto the grass and you go on whatever. And so by fluke some puppies turn up and they that character is over and the situation is similar enough to them that they can maintain their toilet training between training places and they never go inside. But I think that's one of the biggest issues that people face is they don't want to create the dog, they don't want to keep the dog in a confined space, they don't want to manage the dog so tightly that the first most obvious problem is toilet training because the dog then is just too much freedom, it's got too much access and opportunity to go in the wrong place and have no, you know, it just does it, there's no repercussions. I think the other thing then is, so toilet training is the first issue. I think the more like bigger problem that I see from all of that, that usually then progresses and becomes like some sort of form of separation anxiety because in my experience, most of the separation anxieties are not necessarily separation anxieties, they're usually like what we say is separation anxiety or client would tell us is separation anxiety. Community is just a hierarchical problem in the home in my experience. I think very often when dogs are losing their minds when people leave, it's more often like a lack of structure and it's very often that the dog is feeling like it's very in control because it's manipulating the entire environment, it gets everything at once, it's demand barking, it's doing those sorts of things and it's controlling you in the house. We've all seen instances of where people don't ask their dog to get off the furniture because the dogs on the furniture are usually on the floor, right? The dog has exerted that level of control and does really control the people, their whole life revolves around the dog, but inevitably they have to leave to do things, right? They have to go to work or they have to go to the shop, they have to leave the house at some point. The dog has got them so tied around its finger in the home and they do whatever the dog sort of imposes, it's will upon them, but then when they leave, the dog can't stop that. What big cause of stress for those dogs is that they're like, what's happening here? Like I'm not able to control you in this instance. I imagine that to be a very terrifying experience for the dog in that moment because it is in control of so many other things, but it can't control that one aspect. And I think that often represents as separation anxiety, like people will say, oh, the dog loses its mind when I'm leaving the house and becomes destructive or whatever. I feel like real separation anxiety with a dog actually has serious anxiety about being apart from the people. I think that's very rare actually. I think that's like where that is a real issue. And I think that's diagnosed by the dog not taking food while they're gone and there's lots of ways to do it, but I feel like that is quite a rare thing to experience where the dog truly has an anxiety around leaving rather than has a tantrum when it becomes destructive in your absence. That's largely a genetic thing as well. Yeah. And it's mainly seen in Staffordshire Boulteria's. I think at the time when I was speaking with Dr. Robert Holmes, he said that's the number one listed dog in the world. I believe so. Don't quite me on this because it was a conversation we had some time ago. But from my experiences, the one true dog that I have seen and have spoken to many colleagues on multiples of platforms in Australia, internationally, all say the same thing is that the number one client with separation anxiety is staffies. And it's true separation anxiety where they're literally turning the house upside down, trying to dig through the wall, literally pulling their claws off the paws, trying to dig out of the house, breaking windows, breaking furniture, hyperventilating, urinating and defecating inside the house. And the dog is almost at a state where it needs to be seen by a veterinarian because of how it's presented itself on return. Those sort of things, I agree with you. I don't think it's very common in a lot of dogs you see. You might hear the dog getting a little upset for a period of time and then it goes off and entertains itself. On that too, an observation that I have, and it's a glimpse or a snapshot, we all have glimpses and snapshots into what we want to show each other in social media these days. We want people to see this perfect image, like an image of perfection. You know, this is, this is, do I want people to say you dancing to a real, yeah, and ting at the words that are telling people? Well, the trend these days is people want to see a dog bowl that looks like something that a Michelin star chef has presented with like sardines all lined up in a row and you've got your greenery section and you've got all this sort of stuff and it's nice. I like, Narell makes for a good Instagram. It does, it makes for a good Instagram. I put your canine suit equals in there and it's nice. But what does intrigue me and I want to know if it's just story time or if it's, they're convinced that this is a reality that they have to live in. Something along the lines of what you said before is that the dog is presented with this environment that is boundless. It doesn't have any boundaries whatsoever. And it's almost like a competition of have a look at me and our family lifestyle and how much freedom and liberties we give our dogs. Aren't we great pet parents? Then I think to myself, are you doing this to take the piss or are you convinced that this is the right thing to do? The problem is the majority of people are convinced it's the right thing to do and they're even being harassed into believing it's the right thing to do by other online mentors in those sort of areas. I think am I just not getting this? Am I a dinosaur in this training industry that I don't get it? As the world changes, there's something that I'm missing. But they're majority of our clients. They're the people who come to you and say, my dog is literally upending my lifestyle. And I think no shit, Jack, you've posted this dog's lifestyle online for the last six months about the limitless and boundless opportunities that the dog has and the freedoms that are awarded to this dog for nothing. It has every opportunity granted to it and you have become it servant. I can't understand that. It goes against the grain of everything I knew and everything that I believe I know about training and behaviour. I mean, it doesn't even exist for us in our society. It just doesn't exist. I mean, what sort of world do we exist in where we really believe that that's the best thing to do by our dogs? I actually think that that's a form of uncontrollable insanity. Well, I think that that leads to what gets diagnosed as separation anxiety. And certainly, you could cause real anxiety doing it. But for the most part, we label the dogs that grow up in that environment as being anxious dogs. But it's just that they have no boundaries. They're just running around bouncing off the walls because they don't know what to do. And so they're just literally just letting energy fall out of themselves. And they, of course, they're destructive because it's fun to be destructive. Like, a dog that tears your shoes and stuff apart. That's just a dog having a rad time. Rarely is that the dog tears your shoes apart because it has separation anxiety. It tears the fucking door apart when it has proper separation anxiety, right? Because it's trying to get out. It doesn't go into the house and destroy the stuff in the house. It destroys the stuff in the house because that's fun to do, right? Yeah. I think one of the things that maybe you see with dogs that have proper separation anxieties, they might destroy your things that smell like you. And not because they're trying to destroy them, but like they might suck all them and chew them and stuff like that. Yeah. Shoes in particular, right? Yeah, that's true because people have come home and said, you know, the fucking thing destroyed my shoes. Yeah. You might be right. It could be a factor of trying to self-sue the thing. Yeah. I think that's probably the case in some instances. But I think second thing that people get wrong is just too much freedom within their home. And no boundaries to the dog. And I think then it's when they have like start contrast between like no boundaries in the home. And then we put the leash on you and we expect you to now like not drag us down the street. Yeah. I mean. And I think the worst part of all of this is like people just don't know, right? So like this is the whole topic, the whole reason we started on this is the mistakes that new pet owners make, right? The three biggest mistakes. And I think it's not necessarily obvious to people in these modern sort of the modern society that we live in. It's not necessarily obvious to people that you do have to control the dog within the home. And similarly, I think that you imagine you've never been a dog owner before in your life. And you've got friends that are worst case. Imagine your friend is especially excellent with dogs and knows really well. And then you're over at their house and you just see the total freedoms that their dog has because it's a middle-aged dog that has done all the training. So like, you know, again, I'll use myself as an example because my dog is free in the house. My dog does what every once because it took three years to teach that. And he's a working dog before he was anything else and I had to get all that in place and then I start teaching that. But if you look like people that come to my house and see, I like, you've got one of those malinoids, he's like, yeah, and he's asleep on the couch and he'll remain there, right? And so like that, and they see him get up and he walks around, he stretches around, he doesn't fuck with people. Again, because of all those things, like I say, he's not social, he doesn't want the company of people. When people come over, he goes and does his own thing, he sits on his couch, he just chills out. He's not destructive in the house because it took me three years to make him not destructive in the house. I remember one time when Remy was young saying, "Jane, you know, he's not very destructive." Like, he hasn't destroyed many things. And she looked at me like, incredulously. It's like, that's because all the dogs before him destroyed everything we have. Like because when he was in the yard, like outside, I was like, he hasn't really destroyed anything here. So he literally just dogproofed your house up at the other point he came. She's like, all the dogs before him have destroyed everything. We've been through so many days. - Dogs, prior to him, that like, there's nothing left to destroy. I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. - Let me ask you a question. You're allowed to do anything you want when you go to your home? - Anything I want. - Anything you want? - In my own home. - In your own home. - Not anything I want. - I do. - That's right. I would challenge you right now to go home when you get home in the Ellen screen at the top of your voice. - Yeah. - And not have consequences for that. Because I have people say, well, I'm a lad to do anything I want at my home. And I said, who do you live with? And they said, why for husband or kids or anything like that? And I said, you're not allowed to. You think you can, but you've still got social restraints. You've still got somebody you're gonna answer to over your inappropriate behavior. Why would you then allow your dog to do the same sort of thing? Is go home and say, well, there is no rules for the dog. I agree with you. It is a frustration I see. And furthermore, it confuses me when I see people who call themselves pet industry professionals who are advising people that, unless you do that, you're a shitty owner. - Yeah. - That confuses me because, I mean, if I behave like that here and yelled and screamed at the top of my voice and was inconsiderate of neural or just, you know, not taking her feelings into it or behave like that in my workplace, I would be a shitty employee, employer, husband, whatever. People would say to me, dude, what's going through your head right now? Why then allow dogs to do it? I mean, you have to analyze what's going through your head if you think that that's appropriate because I agree with you. It's not appropriate. I wonder why people, or wonder how that came to pass that people feel it's okay to do. The thing that's more confusing to me, I guess the reason why I struggle with this so much when I'm having an outward session about it is I really believed that we would see an improvement in a lot of things that I saw was uncharacteristic in dog owners. And in some areas, it's improved dramatically. I think the way that we treat animals, the respect we have for them, the welfare that we have, but I think it tipped over the edge in certain aspects, not all, but in certain aspects. I think it boiled over well and truly because it confuses me that there is so much information, that people don't have to be hard-lined into one way of thinking. They can get an opinion or they can be strong armed by groups of people, but then they can still go on any other platform and look at it and research the truth, but they choose not to. They absolutely choose not to because they have made a choice to do this. - What makes you think that things are worse though in that regard than they were in the past? - The amount of dogs that are still getting destroyed. - Is that increasing more than population? Is increasing? - According to the industry statistics, the people that have come back and reported it, there's been, I mean, a dog attacks are on the rise. Yes, there's more population of dogs in the world that when I first started in my career, that's true. That's absolutely true. There's been far more wastage, far more dog surrendered, even at the end of COVID, when everybody got sick of the dog that they got to entertain them, although they were in lockdown, there were a lot of them are back in welfare again. So that answers a lot of questions for me. When you look at the back end, the hidden back end, that not many people want to talk about, why is that actually happening? And it's always been a, an unpopular opinion of mine and several other colleagues in the industry that when you start stopping certain training practices and when you start removing tools, you start limiting the capability to control some of these more powerful breeds. And again, I know we're getting back into old territory, old discussions where that conversation has come up in certain European nations, where people are saying, "Well, if that's the case, we shouldn't have those strong powerful breeds." Is that really a conversation we want to have? Is this really what we want to take in a world forum? Is that the answer is? - Well, not at all, no. - That's right. I think that's an ill way of thinking, not a pragmatic and structured way of thinking. - But I think what I'm sort of asking is, we're talking about three biggest mistakes that new pet dog owners make, right? - Right. - But do you think that the standard of pet dog ownership is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same? - The standard of it? - Yeah. Like how well people are living with their pets? Do you think that that has deteriorated, gotten better, or stayed the same over the last 30 years? 'Cause I think that kind of thing's hard to gauge. And I think us as dog trainers have such a fucking warped view of the way people live with their pets because we see the problems, right? So like if somebody's got a great little doggy and nothing goes wrong with it, we're never here of them, right? With why would we? I did that thing, I made it for Patreon, got nearly two years ago, long time ago, about like the stress of raising working puppies. And I did a bunch of interviews with different people. And I put into the like local dog owner group, the In-West dog owner's group, I said, "Hey, who got a COVID puppy, right? Like I wanna talk to you." And I just ran a person like is anybody prepared to do an interview with me? - Yep. - So I go to this lady's house, she's in the video, she's got a little cavalier, doesn't know shit, has a wonderful life with this dog. Like has done everything right. And it's like you know went to puppy school, there were things that I would change, there were things that you and I would do differently, but she has no cause to ever deal with the dog trainer. Like she's doing a great job, totally by herself. The dog was a sweet little dog. In fact, I nearly, I wanted to steal him, he was wonderful. And so I think for us as dog trainers, I think that we have a warped view of how people, how the average dog owner lives with their dog, because we only have cause to deal with the people who are doing it poorly. - That is a good observation and a just one at that. The only thing that I will add to that is I get to see more than average normal pet owners, because some of them are a percentage of people who are here all the time. But we've got a lot of boarding kennels and I speak to a lot of the staff about trends and the behaviors of people that are coming with their pets. Some people are completely clueless, they turn up to an area where it says, please don't take your dog off lead. And they get out of the car and their dogs off lead running around the center, creating mayhem. Where other people are perfect. You'd speak to them, they haven't had any training with the dog, they get out the dog walks in, it's nice socialized, it walks in the office, it's friendly to the staff, it accepts the staff, putting a collar on it, taking it off the owner, walking it down to a kennel, it's never been before placing it in and being able to care for it for an elected period of time. So the trends that happen in pet dog ownership, we're pretty much on them. We see a lot of that. And if people aren't having problems at home, if their relationship with their dog is one that we don't have an issue and the neighbors don't have an issue and the community doesn't have an issue, there is no issue. For me as a dog trainer, I don't need to be involved in that. Again, yeah, I agree with what you said before. The only time that we need to get involved in it is when people come and say, hey, my life is full of fuckery because of this dog. Then we need to step in and we need to do something about it. There's definitely an increase of that because trainers are busy. All trainers that I know have got plenty of work. There's work coming out of the Yazoo for them. So that means that the trend is high. That means that there's a lot of dogs with a lot of problems out there. And for sure there is. No, I just want to work in a class of trainers out there means that there's problems. But I just wonder whether that graph is going up or down or staying there. It's made a has to. If you consider the amount of students that we pump out through NDTF, like they're in almost every state of Australia and we're pumping out a lot of students each year. And that's just one organization that's doing it. And then there's other people who are learning different ways that have nothing to do with the NDTF and have gone through other organizations that are out there. I don't even know who these people are. I just see their names pop up in social media that they're advertising dog training. I have no idea where they got their qualifications from. They've just appeared on the marketplace. But then there's those people that start populating all these different areas as well. And they're busy and they've got plenty of work on. They've got no shortage of work either. So if all these roundoves are popping up in all these different areas and they're all busy and their calendars are full of work, holy shit, that means that there is a rise of populated work in their area. Yeah. And even some of these people are remote like they're in country areas and they're busy. Yeah. And I speak to them. Yeah, that's interesting, hey. That more rural areas still have the same issues because you kind of think of the problems of dog ownership being a more like in the city. Yeah. I'm always surprised when people are in more rural areas and they're very busy as dog trainers. I'm like, that doesn't fit the stereotypes that we sort of say. Like the idea is, the bigger the city, the more disconnected people are from animals and the ability to raise them. So there's no surprises that there's heaps of work in the cities, but that there is heaps of work in more rural areas kind of shocks me. I guess what I used to see as a child growing up in different areas of Australia, like I used to go out to rural Victoria because my family used to have farming land out that way. And in episodes before I've talked about my uncle Ray who used to take me around and he used to have a couple of dogs and a couple of head of sheep around his farm, a couple of hundred head of sheep I should say on his farm. And he had the dogs out there and they were very ruralized type of dogs. Very well trained, very respectful dogs, did a great job, but that was the type of dog that lived in that environment. Now some of those country towns are either ghost towns or they're more populated. They've grown, it's become a little metropolis where people have started to gather into those areas. Dogs are coming in like they are with other major cities and they're house dogs instead of working dogs. And some of these people don't know what to do about a house dog. Like if you put a dog out in a paddock and round up sheep with them, that's their wheelhouse. They know everything about that. But they don't know about how to raise a little white fluffy that their wife wants us a little lap dog. in the house. And I've seen those scenarios and had those conversations with people before, like they've said, you know, this is one of my working dogs. I kind of feel like I'd know what I should do with it, but I don't know what to do with this dog. You know, it's different. And I even feel differently about it. Like I have different emotions about this dog. The one that I remarked on a show a while ago was Ed Frolly when he talked about his relationship with these working dogs and his police dogs versus their little family dog that when it died, how much that personally affected him. And that's one of millions of people who are differently affected differently by different circumstances with different types of dogs. I reckon that might be something you've just hit on there is I think what has changed in dog ownership is that people have the dogs in the house way more than they used to. Like I think that has been a big change over, you know, my lifetime. I think I've observed that even myself, you know, my dogs were outside dogs. They were outside all the time. You went out and spent time with them, but they were outside. You were in the place. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas now my dogs are in the house. Yep. And that's a goal of mine with my dogs is because I want to enjoy their company with them. I want to have them in the house with me. So I think that probably is one of the biggest shifts. I think that has led to the bigger problems. And maybe it's not that people really treat dogs any differently or like train them any differently. It's just that we have them in the house more and want to take them more places. So like we're giving them more access. And so that leads to more problems. Yep. That probably would make sense. Right. Yeah. I think it does. It's always going to be a little bit of an odd anomaly. And that's why sometimes you have to question yourself is am I updating with how it really is? And I believe that majority of the time, myself, yourself and many of the other people in industry who stay current and maintain our training and see what other people in the world is and add and collect useful material that's beneficial for ourselves and our public to benefit their dogs and benefit the society that the living in and how it's modifying and changing readily. It's still curious sometimes when you look at it and you just think, how do we get here? How do we get to the point where the dog is on the furniture and the humans are on the floor? That always makes me scratch my head and think, you're telling me you've got a problem, but you're letting the dog live this type of little Lord font La Roy lifestyle. And you don't see it as being a problem. The problem now is we're more focused about how people perceive us on social media that that's more important than the actual reality of how we need to live our best life as well. I see people talking about that quote, my dog living its best life. Well, they're living a shitty, compromised life and they're frustrated and distraught about where they've been pigeon hold into making sure that they're living that perfect, picturesque lifestyle for the dog. My suggestion is do something about it. If that has become so frustrating for you, then do something about it. Don't let it be that way. Recognize that it's time for change, recognize that maybe some of the advice that you've got from people to encourage you to do that was probably benefiting them, but not you. Recognize that maybe they know something that you don't recognize that they may have been professionally trained. And it would be very easy for you to portray Remy in a falsified way if you are malicious and you wanted to do something like that. You don't. I don't. Randy is an outside dog because he doesn't do well with being inside. He can't settle down. He settles better when he's outside. I let the dogs be where they want to be. All the other dogs are inside. If it's very cold outside, I bring him in, but then I have to create him because he can't settle well inside. And people say, well, you're a trainer. It would be too compulsive of me to have to control him in the manner that he would need to be controlled in. And I don't want to do that to him when I can easily have him outside. And he's in peace and harmony. I provide for him. I have him in a sheltered area. Like he's, he gets everything that he needs to function well. He gets care, affection, water, food, anything that he needs. And he's in the best and brome and he needs to be. I just don't want to have him inside and have him and I or him and Narell in a constant state of conflict with each other. Some dogs just aren't good inside dogs. Mando is a great inside dog. He is absolutely fantastic inside. And most of my bodies have been good inside dogs. Shepherds sometimes can be a little bit rambunctious inside. Not generally. I'm not generalizing and saying that's a general rule because I know other people with German shepherds are in their absolutely fantastic inside. Randy just isn't one of those dogs. He just can't seem to get his head around the fact that he needs to settle or he needs to say in one place. If he's outside, he's got his sheltered area and he's got access to the backyard and he frequently moves between two of them because he's got ants and he's pants. He can't sit still. And I don't like trying to cap all that behavior in him when I don't necessarily have to. I just put him in a suitable location. If you're listening to what I'm saying, if you're actually getting a beat on what I'm suggesting here, he's sometimes in order for your dog to live its best life. That doesn't mean you being a dickhead and doing stupid and unproductive things that have been the benefit of other people's lives. But I'm telling you will be the bane of yours. Do what's best for your dog by making good choices and having good observations. And if you're not sure, call in a professional. There is always time for that to call in someone where you can have a good conversation with somebody that you know, somebody who is industry trusted. You can see their relationship between them and their own dogs. Most people will show you. They're happy to show you what they do with their own dogs and have a conversation with them. Have them come around and sit down with you. They will only give you suggestions. They won't tell you absolute. It's like you absolutely have to do this. I'll just say to you, all right, this is what I would probably suggest that you do. You're a couple of good options. Go for it. See, this can't be done in a real. We just spoke for half an hour about my second point here, giving the dog too much freedom. We're not even onto the third one. They wanted us to write this. They were demanding we just write this in text and point at it while we dance. That's not what anyone does not. I'm going to move onto my last thing. My last thing. That's why I think there's a problem with it. Is people are living this flesh in a pain lifestyle? Would they think some dancing go so? What are you bragging about? Get a go. Instagram to 10,000. Have you seen me dancing on Instagram pointing to we did dance once for an ad. Do you remember that? We did that where we pretended that someone caught us waltzing together. We did it for the ad for the seminar we did down at Alex's place or with Alex, the Unnie Milvin. We would waltzing and we got to a real The Walking Film and then we'll go, "Oh, you caught us." We danced on the internet before it was called a dance on the internet. We're the original. We're OGs, mate. All right. Number one, they poorly socialize the dog. Number two, they then give that dog too much freedom in that small space that they've created for the dog. The dog's just running rogue in the house. I feel like the third mistake that new dog owners make is that they then having done those two things, realize they've got an issue and they want to focus on suppressing that arousal rather than pointing it in a particular direction. Is this finally a discussion on suppression? No. So I think that the poorly socializing dog in giving it too much freedom in the house is the perfect storm for creating a ton of arousal. You're a dog that doesn't know how to settle, goes crazy whenever you take it anywhere. Like, poorly socializing a dog is assuming that the dog doesn't have rock star genetics and you can't derail it from what it was going to be. But I think poorly socializing a dog is one of the ways to create unmanageable arousal outside of the house. You see that with dogs that freaking out or doing it because they've never been out there so that their arousal is like their totally anxious sort of all the time. Or because they did the things that we're talking about where they were just paying the dog nonstop. Now the dog leaves the house in drive basically and has this big expectation of getting to do something extravagant every time it leaves the house. So I think they create that a little bit. And I think that when we're going to talk training, there's not too many people who are really willing to create outlets for their dogs. For the most part, once people cross the line, the mistake that the average pet owner makes is that once they cross the line into like, okay, I'm fixing this dog's driving me crazy. I'm fucking done with all this bullshit. They mostly then just suppress the dog kind of completely. And don't read into that heavy handedly. Like you can suppress the shit out of a dog with positive reinforcement. Like you can just flatten a dog out. And that's what people want is whether, no matter what their technique for doing it, is that they want to just like create a dog that sits there and does nothing. And usually it's after for most pet people, that's, you know, two years in or something like that, right? Where the dog hasn't grown out of the things that they just expected it would be. They make the expuse, you know, oh, he's just a rembunctious puppy. And then no, he's three years old. Like he's no longer a puppy. He's an asshole. And they make that decision in their mind. And they're like, okay, I am stopping this whether they do it themselves, whether they contact a trainer, whether they, you know, just sort of do the research, whatever. I think that the biggest, the third in the line of big mistakes that new pet owners do is suppress the dog's drive. -Colour the. -Rather than giving the dog outlets to express it. And I think that a lot of people also then, you know, they don't like to drive cap, right? So like I think where a lot of people go wrong is even if they've got the idea of like, okay, I can have my dog low arousal in this environment. and I can take him and he can go higher rouse all in that environment. And to the average pet dog owner that looks like the dog can be cool in the house, but they go down the park with the chucket and they can throw the chucket and the dog gets the blast off. And so they have the capacity to have low and high, but very few can modulate that and do what we would call in white sports like drive capping, right? So while you are hyper aroused, I need you to do something for me and be still and then bring back that arousal and turn it on and on. Kind of pre-macking the dog. Yeah. So I think that's one of the things that sort of then gets overlooked. When they've created through poor socialization or incorrect socialization, no matter which way they go, then too much freedom, not enough boundaries, no discipline, then that leads to a dog that they eventually get sick of and then it's like, okay, now I'm just going to crush this dog, right? Because I don't want these bullshit behaviors, you're an adult, I'm sick of it, I'm putting it into this rather than along the way, showing the dog like, hey man, yeah, fuck yeah, go crazy. Like this is an opportunity to show us all of the arousal that you want, but then also being able to show the dog like, hey, I know this looks like the picture of where you're normally aroused, but you're not allowed to today. There's not going to be a positive outcome from that. And you know, setting up and showing the dog like, you know, windows of opportunity, to demonstrate to the dog, this is a time when it is correct to show me high arousal, this is a time when it's not. And I think, you know, as I just sort of explained, but I'll do it again and try and do it better, is showing the dog the picture of, I know this looks like the same as when you should be highly aroused, but it's not because I said it's not and being able to drive cap in that way. That just I think is the third in the line of mistakes that new pet owners make. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah. I don't really think I need to elaborate too much on it because I think you explained it well. Well, I think we've done it. Yeah. We've been through the list. I'm interested in if anybody else has a different set of three. I think that would make for an interesting conversation, but I think the reason I want to talk about this and why we have for the last hour is for sure we can reduce these things down to sound bites. We can say, oh, the three biggest mistakes that new pet owners make is they poorly or incorrectly socialize their dogs, they give the dogs too much freedom and then they just try and crush the dog later on. But where's the expensive explanation around that? Yeah, because that leaves people going, oh, cool. What is that mean? Good for you. Here's a like. And I'll take that delicious like summarizing everything that you were talking about before. I think the reality of our nature in a lot of these expectations is based on our experiences. I think that's part of the big problem. And some of the experiences that people have in those realities are very slim. They have a very small bubble or a very small window into or as lens is a popular word that we're using these days into the realities of what it is, what the reality actually is. And we have a belief on reality. And that's what I see more and more with a lot of pet owners is that they have a reality until they look outside that room. Let's look at life like you were raised in the room that we're in now, one single room. And that's your reality, you know, that is your reality because that's what's known to you. And then when you take a look outside into your neighborhood, let's say just the street, that's an unknown variant that you're looking into. And you could be skeptical about that and say, that's not real, that's bullshit. But it is real. It's a new part of your reality. Like you're starting to broaden your horizons, you're starting to learn more, you're starting to expand, you're starting to become more familiar with things that go on up and down to that street. And then you think, well, that's my reality. That's what I know until you move out into the town and start seeing more and more and more. You know, it's kind of like having discussions with people who are flat earthers. You know, it's really having those sort of discussions because that's their reality. They really believe in that sort of manifestation. I secretly love flat earthers. I love it. I love it. I just think that, you know, it's such a bizarre thing to hang your hat on. It's always an identity, right? Like you're not a person who, you know, has other hobbies and interests if you're a flat earther. Like flat earthers are flat earthers. That's my thing. That's what I believe in, right? I'm entertained by that. I love them. I appreciate everyone of them. I got stuck on a flight with a guy when I was heading over to Europe for my mate Dave's Bucks party over in Poland. He was just flat out trying to talk to me about the flat earth. He was saying, I said, dude, you're a nice guy. And I've said, I've enjoyed some of this conversation. It's been entertaining. And I said, but there's no way I'm going to do another 11 and a half hours of this. There is absolutely no way that's going to happen. And I said, so I said, what I said, what's going to happen? I said, I'm going to put my noise cancelling headphones on. And I'm going to watch a couple of movies and then I'm going to go to sleep. So he just goes, cool beans. And he started talking to the other guy on the other side of me who literally did the same stuff as thing. He was really into it and really energetic and really enthusiastic. And he was willing to walk around the plane and talk to people about the whole thing about, you know, like this is bullshit. And we've been raised to believe this. It was amazing. The ice wall that is there. That's what I said. The nature of our reality is based on our experiences. Yeah. And we've been raised to the world. Like there is no end of suffering in my heart knowing that that could have been easily avoided. If that dog just learned that paddock rule. Don't fuck with the fence. It's going to spank you. I know at the end of the podcast, I don't want to lead this into too much of another longer conversation. It could be a conversation for another time. I don't want to ever disrespect anybody or any technique by assuming it's that easy. And it's, you know, it's just a conversation. It's just a conversation. couple of spanks by offense. That's not always the way it is. I know dogs can go through a level of fuckery. I know they can try people out. I know they do all these weird and wonderful things and I know that there's always these measures of conflicting advice that are going to be relentless no matter what we do. That's going to happen. We will win one fight, we'll lose another one and that's just going to be on and on and on and on. My key philosophy to everybody, the one thing that I always keep coming back to, the number one that I keep saying to people all the time is you use what works. If it isn't working, you're not doing the right technique. If it's not working and that is a simple fact, you can argue with me or any other trainer on the face of the earth, but I can tell you a fact right now. If what you're doing is not working, it is ineffective and you need to change strategies. There is no person on the planet. If they disagree with that, you have to question their ethics and even their understanding of the realities of behavioral modification. Because it just seems crazy to me, really that is what we define as the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Pull your head in. Why make the dog go through all that unnecessary suffering? It intrigues me and again, it's a hill that I do die on in front of a lot of students in training is I tell them that the timeline, if the dog is obtained as a puppy, that a lot of the timeline of a dog actually getting to a point where it does have training if it's lucky to make that is by the time the dog is seven or eight years of age. That is literally because the dog is aging and fatiguing at that time. So it's just at the time where it's just saying, "I'm not going to put in any more struggle anymore." But if you did it properly, by the time the dog is two years old, you've got the rest of the dog's life to enjoy because you've put in, and it doesn't have to be two years. I'm not saying it's two years. It's usually two years for trials. Like I know people who have done exceptionally good work. Let's say containing behavior to be suitable to the household within a 12 month period. And done it easy without flattening the dog, without tearing the dog apart, without creating conflict. They've had a lovely relationship. Everything is working exactly what they want. Far be it from me to tell them exactly how to train the dog. All I'm suggesting to them is how to have a better lifestyle with the dog. How to integrate better with the dog. And I think for a lot of people who aren't interested in trialing their dog, that's the most important part. Like you said, with the lady that you interviewed, the most important part for her is the lifestyle integration. I can integrate nicely with this dog, and I don't have to be in conflict with this dog all the time. Hey, that's it. You won the internet for the year by doing that. That's exactly what you need to do. Yeah. Well, that's it. For the three worst things that new people can do, is that what we call the topic? Yeah, the three biggest mistakes. Three biggest mistakes. New pet dog owners make. Yeah. That's it for another episode of The Canon Powered Home. As always, if you like what you hear, please like, rate, share, subscribe. Do that through whatever subscription service you download us from and then go to another one and do it there as well. No one will know. They don't check. You know they don't check that. Don't they? No, you can just write a review on anything you want. You don't have to actually download it. Listen to it or anything. Wow. Yeah. It's only a effort. Very insidious. Do that. If you want to support the show, the best way to do that is Patreon. Jump in there. A few bucks a month gets you this giant backlog of information as well as more going forward. Ten bucks gets you a live stream once a month. They can ask whatever questions you want in there. I really enjoy doing those, but you could give as much as you want. You could do whatever you like. I'd tell you what, there's some great value for money in our Patreon. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. There is a lot of quality information, vast, vast majority you have put in there. I like doing it. It's good. I like watching what you're doing as well. I'm working on some stuff all the time. Yeah, you put some great content in and it's never a better time for people to jump in now because there's a swag of stuff. Yeah. Oh, man. If you joined today, Jesus Christ, you get a giant backlog. Oh, I mean, there is a vast amount of online learning material in there that it's incredible. Other way to support the show is to buy a cool T-shirt. Yep. You could do that via spring. There's links probably in the show notes. There is. Yep. All in the show notes. All links are in there. Yep. So you can jump on a spring by self-cool show. Yep. And if you're going to get in contact with the best way to do that is jump into the Facebook discussion group. There's like 9,000 people in there talking about cool dog stuff. So you can jump in there. 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