In this episode of "The Canine Paradigm," hosts Glenn Cook and Pat Stewart address the threat of e-collar bans in Australia, sparked by a listener question. They argue that banning tools is counterproductive; instead, the focus should be on education and proper training, similar to Australia’s firearm licensing. Pat Stewart proposes creating a "media champion" for the balanced training community—a relatable, highly educated woman who can effectively counter the emotional arguments of the force-free movement. This champion would undergo intensive, multi-year training from top industry experts in tool use, legislation, and media presentation. The hosts emphasize the need for a funded, full-time position supported by a body like the IACP, allowing the champion to lobby and educate without personal financial burden. They acknowledge challenges: industry egos, the difficulty of finding someone altruistic enough to accept such a role, and the need for global cooperation to prevent bans from spreading. The discussion highlights the importance of facts and science in public debates, using examples like Bart Bellon’s training videos to show dogs enjoying balanced methods. Ultimately, they call for unity and a strategic, professional approach to protect trainers’ rights and promote responsible tool use.
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 Fulton. And I'm out of here. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by I'mzwick Dogquip, who's our good friend, Jason Furman. That's E-I-N-Z-W-E-C-K Dogquip. Jason's the importer of HF Mills, Hermes Springar, and can pretty much get you anything dog related that you need. All your stuff from Jason. Yeah, we've got everything. I've got all my stuff from Jason. Yeah, I've got plenty of stuff from Jason too. We use the slip lead to here at work. Yeah, I use the slip leads all the time. Yeah, fantastic. Yep. Jason can get you brammer web. He can even, they get the personal like logos. All that stuff. I've got one saying so Randy. So Randy. You know what we do at the PSA trials? Is we give away leashes as prizes with your name and position and score and everything. That's right, we do. Jason provides those. He does. He's such a good sponsor. In line with being an all-round good guy and sponsor of the show, I'mzwick Dogquip have provided us with one Europhone ball, one treat pouch, three tugs, and two handled tug thing. I'll put up pictures of this. So anyway, that's a giveaway. And we've decided the way we're going to give that away is there's a bit of a process. You have to buy one of our t-shirts and the first person. Only one? Well, at least one. At least one. The first person who can send us a photo of them with a celebrity and we'll decide whether it's a celebrity on the eye. Is going to win all this cool dog training stuff from I'mzwick Dogquip. So that's it. If you need any dog training equipment, talk to Jason, I'mzwick Dogquip. Chances are he can get it for you. Good on, Jason. Thanks for supporting the show. (upbeat music) Welcome back to the Canine paradigm. My name's Glen Cook and joined in the studio is my all-time co-host, Patch Stewart. All-time. All-time. How you doing? Like my life partner. Except the one time that I wasn't here for. Yeah, when Neville took you place. Neville stood in for me. When Gerrard O'Shea was here and we fucked up the sound. Yeah. Yeah, that was disappointing. 'Cause I'm not here to ruin the text. But it was good, it was good. I really enjoyed it. It was a really good one, actually. Gerrard's very interesting. I've got to have him back on the show one day. Well, we have to have him back on the show. Not I. Oh, I'll make it excused and not lazy. That would be awkward, wouldn't it? Yeah. Okay, so last week we did the question and answer time and which we were really grateful for because obviously people are listening to the show 'cause they're asking questions. They're coming back to us and saying, "Got some thoughts on this, what do you reckon?" And can we talk about it as a community, which has been great. And we want to encourage more of that. So if you have good questions for the show in the future, as we love doing our origin stories and talking to really interesting people, we also want to come back. This is a show for the people in the dog community. So we do want to acknowledge that. We do want to talk about those type of things. So we've got some really good questions. We wanted to continue, which is why we did a part one and part two. The next question that Pat's got is going to be quite a big one. So, a couple of year seat belts and get ready for a ride. So we finished working down the list of questions people asked and Juliet Fisher who said, "How do we stop the E-Color band in Australia as a community?" I've got the perfect answer. So I'm just telling the fuck off. (laughing) Well, I had to leave with that. No, actually, I don't think that would work. No, unfortunately, no. Well, it's already creeping in Australia. E-Color's our band in New South Wales. They are. That has been for a long time. Yeah. Restricted use in Victoria. I'm not sure. I believe that, I believe the original band was headed by somebody to do with kelpies. That's what I read. Someone lobbied the government that was involved in stock dogs. I could be wrong. I'm not sure, but it's been in effect for quite some time. There was a lady in Brisbane that was leading some very, very strong campaign, quite some time ago to try and abolish the use of prong collars and/or remote trainers and everything like that. My thoughts on this, somebody said a while ago, and I think it was Chad Mackin who came on the show and said, "One of the good things about the positive only crowd was that it kept the balance crowd honest, like the thugs in the balance crowd, it kept them honest." And I thought about that for quite some time. I thought, "Well, that's actually a really good response, and it's very true, because it has made people more accountable to stop. Well, did police and keep an eye on some of the thuggery that's going on in the industry because there are some real peanuts in this industry that no matter how hard we try, there'll always be the media cameras switch on too. We've said before, "If you look for ugly, you'll find it. It's a common thing that people do. If they're looking for something to make their statement, they'll go and find that image on Google Search. They'll go and find that idiot in the street who will happily stand in front of the camera and say all the things that the agency wants to report on at the time. And these are the things that we've got to be mindful and we've got to be careful about. However, my philosophy, and I guess it's a shared philosophy amongst many people is we really need to stop all this talk about banning. We need to continue talks about education. What I would like to see is a good body of people, an elected body of people that represent as well, that encourage education campaigns to basically say, "Not everybody can have them. People who are educated, done qualification, you can have them." But you need to do proper qualifications. It's the same thing with firearms in Australia. We have quite extensive legislation that says, "You can have a firearm, but you've just got to go through quite a extensive program to keep them." And then you've got to have saves to lock them away and you've got to be quite responsible. So I don't mind that. I actually don't mind that. I think we should do the same thing with training tools. We should say there are suitable bodies that can provide adequate training for you and you'll need to do courses with them otherwise, forget about it. I think I agree with all of that definitely. Education is the key and showing people how to use those things correctly. But I think to really get to her question, which is how do we stop the E-Color band Australia as a community? I've had an idea on these since I came into dogs. And I feel like the balanced training or lemur or whatever group we belong to, right? People who will use all four quadrants of operand conditioning. We need a champion. See, these battles have played out in the media and whoever puts forward the most compelling case. Now, I don't say accurate and I don't say truthful. I say compelling is going to win. And this is what's happening throughout the world is say, take Victoria Stirlwell for an example. She's a media darling for the positive crowd. That's right. But she's a plant. She's a creation. She's not a dog trainer. She was created. She's a character that fronts a body. So we need one of those. We need a person that is our public face. And what we need is a highly educated, highly skilled person to do that. This is why I have such reverence for Dr. Jordan Peterson because he's one of those people who isn't afraid to stand up and tell us how it is in an educated way without losing his temper and without insulting people. In fact, he gets insulted a lot in interviews and sits back and rather than gets better and twisted by it, he turns around and he says, well, now that you're done insulting me, let's talk about some of the facts around this. And that's a type of person that we need to. We need somebody who's going to make the time to get to the interviews and be well aware that they're going to be on fire all the time. Yeah. And under fire. Well, that's right. So this is, like I said, I've had this idea for a long time. I've told many people about it. I would love maybe in the hour that we have a little bit of a platform someone could come up with a plan of how to do this. But the balanced training community, see, like I say, you've got to fight fire with fire. Victoria Stirlwell, who is the big voice in the banning of these tools and the nonsense force free movement. Not the good luck. There's people who do it great. And she's a manufactured character. And we need to manufacture our own character and do a better job of it. Because here's the thing, right? Say, somehow, if I was a point of that person, I'm not the person. I'm not relatable. I'm 12 years in special forces that immediately gives people a picture of me, right? What we need, and this is my dream. And I don't know how to begin this. If I did, I would nominate a way to do this. Is we need a person who, first of all, and I hate to upset people, but they need to be good looking because they need to be on TV. So they need to be a soft appearing person. It needs to be a woman, too. It needs to be a woman. Because, again, that, unfortunately, look at those. But I mean, without trying to sound funny, without bringing any humor or insult into it, people like us are now looked at as privileged white males. Yeah. And that's disappointing. That's really disappointing. But we don't even need to approach it from that angle. The thing is, as well, you look at me. So just take me for one example, right? I'm a over six foot guy telling you that it's okay to cause pain.
dogs. That's not the picture that you want to give. Now it is and I can explain to you all the reasons why and I can show you eloquently and all of that but the image is not good. And so what you need is a softer person that tells you that that's okay and shows you with all the same ways. Now if we had a body in Australia and the IACP is this body in America and I know that Iastase stands for International and hopefully that they get some more traction here. And maybe that we need to get together, choose a person that would have to be a volunteer because as you say that's going to be a huge weight on this person's shoulders and it's going to be a stressful job. But we can't just throw them in a deep end. There needs to be a significant period of training and they need to travel around and they need to travel. There needs to be a knowledge bank on people that are supplying education facts and real figures. And a lot of people who don't necessarily get a long day today need to come together in order to train and educate a champion. We need to have a person that we all give the maximum of our knowledge to to get them ready and they need to be coached and trained in presentation and media and delivery as well as having all the real knowledge on how to use these tools, how they work and the application and the use of finesse in all of those things. That's probably a two, three year venture to train someone to that point and then we go, okay, well now we can fight fire with fire. Here we have our media darling who we've all put in the work in. So, you know, to name, well, I won't even name any names, but the big players in Australia who from all over this country really would then who may not get along for whatever reason blah, blah, blah. Need to go, okay, I'll take candidate X for three months. They come under my wing and I teach them this and then they go to the next person, okay, my specialty is this and we go to this and this and this and they travel around. The issue is and the reason, you know, the pessimist in me says this will never work is because through the victory of that person getting these things through because it will work. I'm confident it would work. They will become rich and they will become famous. And that will fuck with people's egos. Yeah. And nobody wants to give away everything that they have in order to promote someone else and really cause the success of someone else. But that unfortunately, that's, they're going to have to do it. That's the only way I see. And this is one of those things of the greater good, isn't it? Yeah, this is the thing, this is the world according to Pat. But I think that would work if we had a champion that went forward, did all these meetings, all these presentations was all over the media saying, look, this is okay and he's how and why and I'm a good presenter and I can explain it to you and you're not afraid of me and there's nothing, there's no skeletons, you're going to pull out of the closet on me because there's people who can do these sorts of things. There's people in Australia that do a good job in the media, but we don't want the surface scratched on them because you find out things that you don't want found out. Right? And like I say, there's people who like myself, I'm not a relatable person. I have a lot of the knowledge that I feel like I could do a good job in these things, not all of it. I have a lot, but I could say if someone could come to me and I would give them everything that I can and then they go to someone else and they give them all they can. You need to know the legislation. I'm not good at the legislation. But having someone that's trained by all these people, now we put them forward and they represent us all. Yeah, it will become rich, they will become famous and we all just have to go, geez, that's good that that happened along the way because now I can still. It happened for the great of good. Yeah, and now I can still perform my regular duties. I can still carry, I can still keep it up because most of the people who are like vocal on this sort of thing on the use of broncholazzy colors, most of them are ex-police or military type trainers right and it's not relatable because people, it's easy then to just go, oh well, like that's a police, let the police have that. And then that doesn't, as we've talked about in other episodes, it's no good only the police having e-colors or the military having e-colors because then dogs can't be prepared for them and the average user can't end up using these things. We just need to get over the line where people come to understand it in a way that they can digest. Oh, yeah, these tools are not for horrific use. There is a good way to do it. And then the implementation of that will follow. I think that's a brilliant start and I agree with everything you've said. The only thing that I would add to it is I think we need to be, it needs to be an international movement. It has to be, because otherwise we're put a spot fire out here and then it'll be in another country. Yeah, that's right. And then we'll be putting a spot fire out there. I think it needs to be ongoing research. I can't see it being successful unless there's going to be a proper world movement on it where people are going, you know what, this is enough. I'm sick of sitting back and having everything taken away without anybody even fighting for my rights anymore without speaking any truth because they're afraid of being labelled as something. And this is, in the last 10 years of our lives, it's more about people being afraid of being labelled something. People I've known through my life who would actively speak out when they saw injustice won't do it anymore. They're actually afraid to do it. And I think to myself, I can't believe that you as an active spokesperson would be afraid, like you'd sit back and and taken on the chin and not speak up for your rights anymore. And they'll say to you, yeah, but man, I'm just tired of being beaten down by these people like they're crazy. You know, they don't stop. They gain momentum and they just keep going. Yeah. And they just run through all the time. I just, I don't want to have that sort of hectic life. So you're right, Pat, I totally agree. I think the person that does do this regardless of the outcome for them, which would most likely be a good one, is that we do have to stand behind that. We do have to appreciate that if that person is taking that type of heat, they're prepared to be in that situation. They need the full support and they need, they need us to give them every ounce of backup that they can possibly get. Yeah. And so I feel like, I mean, what we're talking about really is just the lobbyist that a person that puts it forward. And so they would need to be paid by a body because it would be more than full time job. And they need to go fund me thing. Yeah. Well, and surely there's an organization that it can do this like I this what the I see P can provide is this something that they can do. I would happily pay I would, you know, whatever the membership fee is like I would happily kick in money and what I can to pay a salary to someone whose job is to do that. And the thing is say like say Tyler, for example, he's a president and has done a awesome job getting banned over turns and writing letters and that's the thing. But he's got a real job as well. He has to feed his kids. He has to maintain his family, right? It's like all of us. We've got full time positions that we have to maintain. So maybe it is Tyler who knows, but he should be if it were him, then there needs to be, you're not the president of the I see P you're the front man. And he's the, he's the package, the salary that goes along with that. And you're an employee of that company. And then there's a board that backs and pushes all these things. And the education like I say that person needs to, it's a bit of a dream because of how altruistic they would need to be to in the start like it's a real step up like this is a professional gig. It needs it needs a and the skill level house. Yeah, the skill level would have to be huge. It needs a back of house where people are like the movement is real. Yeah. People are researching people are coming up with science fact like people are debunking well, and there's a lot of that's right. There's a lot of information that you would have to know for baton like if you ever seen like Ben Shapiro talk like when people throw like their idea at him and he goes, well, here's the exact statistics on that. Like bam, here they are and know them off top my head. And that's the sort of argument he needs like the. You have to, you have to present them with the fact that especially when people are crying and they're getting emotional, they're accusing you of lighting dogs up and burning their necks. So that's the type of person you need, but then you also need the skill level to be out of go and here's my dog and here is all these things like he's my dog prepped in this system like and I can show you and then he's your random dog that you give me out of that shelter and let me apply the my knowledge to that. So it's a it's a special person, but that person exists. We we just have to train that person and whether and if you want to see a picture of that like it well Pat's talking about that type of dog if you want to see a dog working in that. No, I know we've talked about this multiple times, but watch Bartenthal. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, watch that video. If you can if you can pick a moment where that dog is not enjoying himself and having a great time with these with these training partner. Yeah. You know, I'd love to hear from you. Yeah. And like I say, we can make this person in this person exists. There's some facts exist. Yeah, exactly. That's that's that it's not a hard argument because the facts actually exist around it. Well, and I think that the reason that we are losing and potentially will lose this battle is because we have right on our side. So we're lazy because we go no, we're it's correct. Like the side anymore. No, I know, but that's why balanced trainers have been come complacent and are complacent because we're like, no, you can't be on it. It's we're correct. And what you're saying is nonsense, people are going to see through that. But they don't. We need a person to to fight it. We need to fight it. But that's not the only reason though. The other reason is because people are fighting amongst each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over the most insignificant points. Yeah. And I mean, the perfect example is that is when you want to go and do Mondo. Yeah. You know, I mean, that in itself, that shows how broken we are as a community when there's stupid movements. And that's one of many things. Okay, I'm just going to bring up that that's one of many things. There are so many things where people are screwing each other over in this industry. The balanced trainers, I mean, I know that the other movements do it to each other as well. But I mean, just some really shameful things that happen. For anything that I've done the past that has screwed someone over, I apologise for because now shit's getting real. And I don't want to have this happen anymore. And you and I, we're talking off air. You know, like when we're trying to make a change in Australia, when we're this is not Europe. It's on America.
We've got our own laws, we've got our own country, we've got our own sovereign, everything that we do in this country to a lot of degrees we're on our own. So we have to stop comparing to what's happening in other countries because to a degree it influences us, but to a degree or to a larger degree it doesn't. So the people of this country have got to get behind the people who are actually trying to make these significant movements. Stop standing in their way. The typical Australian tall poppy syndrome where we cut and people down that are trying to get up. For things like this, for a common movement, we actually have to surround ourselves and support that person and lift them up and carry them through. Otherwise, just accept that it's gone. Yeah, because it won't take long. Well, like I said to say on the other day, we're just going to be extinction by division. We just keep dividing and dividing and dividing until the voices become so small and irrelevant that they disappear. And that's how you basically kill a movement off is that you just keep dividing it and pushing the sides against each other and working them against each other. Which is part of that psychological movement. That's exactly what they want us to do. And I know I've said this and I'll say this again and probably again and again and again, Benjamin Franklin, hang together or be hung separately. That quote was said to the people who wrote the American Constitution about the Americas, about the people within the country, hang together or be hung separately. And that's what happens. If you don't stand as one large voice, no one cares about the small squeaky will. But when you've got a voice, when you've got an itch that can't be ignored anymore, you force them to deal with you. You force them into a point of negotiation. And that's what we want. If we don't want it all our way, what we want is negotiation. We want the right to be heard. We want the right for a real scientific argument to be put forward instead of pseudo-sidence and constant emotional bickering. People getting on camera and crying and telling interesting but fabled stories, that's not reasonable. I agree. So that is probably, that probably ticks that off. That's that very so long. You can talk about that for ages. We could and we could, there's weeks in it. But there's more to do on that. Now that we've discussed this, before we do move on to the next bit, now that we've discussed it, what now folks? We've discussed it. We put this on air. The question's been asked. Thanks Juliet. Now what? Where do we go from here folks? Because Pat and I aren't the brains trust in this deal. Yeah, we're just too dedicated to the microphone. That's right. We're happy to be spokespeople for people. We're happy to be part of the revolution. But in order for that to kick off, in order for that gain legs, this needs momentum. We need sound people and I mean sound people. Not people who want to get up and scream and yell and jump up and down. That's not going to win this argument. Nobody wants an hysterical spokesperson and nobody wants angry people shouting and kicking blame and stuff like that. Even I've had to curb myself from doing things like that in the past, where I've got angry and I've gotten emotional over it, doesn't win you any favor. People just look at you and go, "That's what I wanted from you. I wanted to make you upset." And I did it and now you look foolish. Yeah, we just don't need that. So let's go guys. The fire's been lit. I know this is a sexist thing to say, but I do want to read her. I think that you have to fight fire with fire and the person to be that champion really should be. And I know this is going to upset people, but a good looking girl. That's the truth because that's what the media will want to put on TV and it's harder to portray you as a thug when you're a good looking girl. That's such a shit position, but I really do think that it's true. Triggered. Yeah, it's just the truth. It is the truth. It's a hard truth, but it's the reality. And it's not your and my truth. It's the truth of. No, that's right. Because I can think of people. I can think about people off the top of my head that are ready to do this job, chasing it the bit to do it. But they're not the image. They don't have the right image that is going to win this argument. And that's part of it. We're like, this is trolled by media and the media are going to. They need to not be able to dig and find problems and they need to not be able to portray you as a thug. And you are too easy to do those. Well, that's why I do radio or not live TV. (laughing) Yeah, exactly. But true, like, anyway, I don't want to harp on it, but I am harping on it. I do want to harp on it. That's a shit position. And I don't apologize for saying it. I do apologize for the world being that way. But that's again on my phone. But it's not something you and I orchestrated. No. As you said, there are people out there who are more than suitable to do this. And they really should be the person. Yeah. And same thing, I can think of dozens of people who would jump in this chair right away. Yeah, 100%. But anyway, they're probably not the best person to do it. Well, some of them not. Yeah. So there's a bar and just stuff under that question that we can go on. Okay, Paul Doyle then says, "How can dogsball clubs work together and open up more trials?" Well, stop fucking banning people would be the first thing. I can't speak for the culture's outside of Australia. I don't know them particularly well, but it is become ridiculous in Australia that people, if you're in one club, you can't be in another. If you participate in one sport, you can't participate in another that really has led to. Division. It is, again, it's division, it's a leadism. It'll be extinction by division once again. I'm sure Paul is being a smart-ass in writing that, but it does trigger the question. There's no doubt he is. But he's right. Look, I'm glad someone asked the question. We had a bit of a dig about it a while ago because you were pretty upset the fact that you were preparing for a trial and then at the last minute got told, "Oh, sorry, Pat, there's no homers allowed." And then when you said, "Well, there's one homer in the tree house and I go, no homers, we've already got one." That's actually the perfect analogy. And that's the analogy. That's literally exactly what happened. That's pretty much what happened here. Except there were two homers in the club because there was another. There was a German shepherd with no paperwork that was about to compete. Which is just bizarre. That's one. And again, it was one shitty thing in history that's happened to people. The figureheads bragging that they're keeping the riff-riff out and stuff like that. I mean, that. And that's the thing that probably needs to change as well. You need figureheads in organizations that are looking to be global. You know, they're globally minded, they're not secular. - Yeah. - They're not saying, "Well, this is mine and I'm controlling this and I'm having people. I'm not singling anyone out. So if anyone's listening to this trying to be triggered, I'm not picking on one person. I'm saying this is a general thing. And this is things that I've been involved in in the past where I've stopped people from getting in as well. - Yeah. - I'm gonna be clear about that. I'm no saint. I've been with those people and I've been part of that group and I won't do it again. - Yeah. - I won't do it again. If you're gonna grow up, if you're gonna get smart in your older age, those are the things that you have to realize they're wrong. You have to understand they're wrong. I understand they're wrong. I don't want to be that type of person anymore and I don't want to be a part of those people anymore. I believe that there should be a standard of people that should be representing. I believe that there should be a standard of people that are in the club. I've got no issue with that. That's fine. You can have that in your constitution, in your rules and your agreement. But it's gotta be fair. It's gotta be fair. If you're saying that this is the standard and then you're letting other people break that standard, well, then you're really making a rod for your own back. - Yeah. I don't know whether we should bother explaining all the different breakdowns of who and why you can compete in the various associations in Australia. That would take a long time. Don't you think? - Well, working German Shepherd, Del Club, won't accept an individual who is a member of any other Bitesport club, even if they intend to compete with different dogs in different events. So for example, if you have a Malenwein, you're competing with Working Malenwein Association in Montyuring, Working German Shepherd Club will not let you join if you have a German Shepherd you intend to do I pair with. Should some Australia will not let you join or participate in their trials, if you have your dog that has ever worked on a suit. So as the individual is probably welcome, but if your dog has ever worked on a suit, then it is not allowed to do I pair with them. Working Malenwein Australia will not let me in. I don't know why. They're the three associations in Australia. There's a fourth PSA that lets everybody in. Anybody can come. - Yep. - That's kind of bizarre, isn't it? - Isn't it? - Yeah. - I don't understand it. And this is this division. - And I've looked, I'm gonna say on this show because I've had this discussion with you multiple times where there's people, individuals that we don't personally like as people. And I've said to you, I've asked you this question, what if they have a suitable dog and they turn up to the field and they wanna train their dog and your response is? - They're allowed to come on. They can do whatever they want. I don't have to train with people. We don't have to go for a beer afterwards. - Yep. - But they're allowed on the field. - They're allowed on the field. They're allowed to come out, they're a make a fool of themselves. They're allowed to-- - Or not. - Or smash me. - Fucking kill it. Either way. So the thing I don't understand about, this is such a ranty episode. I don't know if we should leave this in. But the thing I don't understand about all these bike sports is when people want to keep other people out and say, oh, he's shit, we can't be trusted in this. If you say that someone has an advantage over you in the bike sport, you are calling into disrespect. The decoys on the field, you're calling out the integrity of the decoys and all the judge. Because all these sports have rules that are written down. And we all just perform within the rules. Now you could be the biggest turd in the world. But on the field, you perform within the rules or you get to qualify it or you fail or you do well. Whatever, all right? The rules are written. The decoys, if they're licensed and are decoys, helpers, whatever, if they're licensed and allowed to be on the field, they should be acting the same way.
way for every dog no matter what. They shouldn't be showing any any favoritism to anybody's dog over another. And if they were to that would be obvious. People would notice that. And the judges are meant to have the integrity to judge by the dog that they see before them, not the dog that they know how it trains, not the dog that they know what they're capable of or the dog that they have chosen to win because of the pedigree it has. It doesn't matter. The rules are written down. So I don't understand why anybody should be blocked. If I'm to be totally truthfully 100% honest, should some striers ban on suit dogs in IPO? Do you think that's a safety issue? Yeah, I get it. That's what I'm saying. Like if they want to do that, like I don't believe that that's the case, but certainly say in say in the the level two fended in PSA could potentially be an IPO sleeve. So the dog sees an IPO sleeve and has to ignore it and bite the man. So fair enough if you want to ban because of the on those grounds. Okay. Like that's your deprovedive. No problem. I think it should be clearly explained. Yeah. I think it I think people are owed and a good explanation for it. Yeah. Like if they want to stop it, they should say, okay, on the merit of this being a potential risk, this is why we have a club stance against it rather than just know you can't do it. But then like if you want to do a BH, like you should be should be like to a BH. Yeah. So and the reason that this all pisses me off is because I want to do some I wanted with my dog to do some kind of social as social test be to be hatred or a monday or mad or whatever just so that it is a no, but it doesn't it there's no requirement for a dog to be social in that there's no this is a thing in PSA. There is no requirement anywhere for a dog to be social. Yeah. And I want to just for my own dog, I just want to get that on him. Yeah. And there's not an organization in Australia that will allow me to do that. But surely, Pat, you're just being a smartass. This is a thing. There's not an organization that will allow me to do that. Yeah. And I'm I'm almost positive. This is a plan by those organizations to then say, are those like those PSA dogs are dangerous and I have no way of proving otherwise. Because I know you, I know that what you're doing comes from a good place, but the suspicion and other people won't believe that. Yeah. And that speaks more about them than it does about you. Because I know that you just want to do this because you love dog sport, you love training, you love time with your dog, like, I mean, you've told people on this show before and you've told me multiple amounts of times that, apart from your family, you just want to spend every waking moment training your dog, doing as much as you can, learning as much as you can, since you left the army, it's giving you purpose, it's activated your drive as Bart talks about, you know, you've got ignition in this and it's something that you want to see through. And you're a very purpose driven sort of guy. Like, I know. And again, to repeat myself, I know that it comes from a very good place. But when other people look at it, they, for some reason, they obviously see you as a threat. And I don't know what the threat is. Anybody who wants to dispute this is welcome to come on the show and talk to us about it. Yeah, I'd love to. If there's a real reason that you think that it's unsafe to combine the sports or at least allow people in to do the elementary level, the socialisation tests that you have as gateways in there, where you can ride it into your constitution to say you're welcome to come and do the socialisation component, but nothing else. Yeah. So you can progress to that, but because you're a suit train dog or something like that, you can't proceed past the initial socialisation test. That's it. I want to move on from it. I don't want to harp on it, but it does. I do generally get really upset by it. And like I say, even if I was to do some IPO with my dog, he can distinguish between person wearing a suit, wearing a sleeve, but also I am a trial decoy. I wouldn't put someone else in danger. If I thought no, my dog is going to bite the man and not the equipment, then I wouldn't do it. And like, I don't know too many people in the sport that I don't know anyone that would go out there to do that, because like I say, and we've said it here before, there just aren't that many people who are first capable and second willing to give up their time for free and go on the field and catch other people's dogs. Yeah. So like you got to look after those people, I'm always I'm very vocal about looking after decoys and never hurting them where possible. Why would you? Exactly. Yeah. Why would you look after anybody who's going to develop your dog or help the judging of your dog to succeed in the trial? Exactly. The other thing to do to before we move on for this is the issue that you're raising here, like this warring tribal issue that's going on currently is a catalyst for question one, Julia, it's a regional question. It's the same sort of thing. It leads into the reason why we have the problem because we've got so many little groups of people 20 or less that won't talk to each other, won't cooperate with each other, which is the reason it's easy to move in on. If you guys can't see that, if you don't understand the concept behind that, if you're not looking at that, if you've never even given it any critical thought, I really question your intelligence. You know, because you have to actually have a look at that as a holistic side of that argument, you have to look at that and saying, holy shit, you know, while we are bickering and fighting amongst the semantics of who can come in a trial, we're also alienating ourselves from relationships and friendships with people who might stand up for me and go toe to toe with me in a fight to prevent me from actually being able to use the equipment that I see as suitable and needed in training dogs and also being able to maintain and do these sports. Yeah, allow my dog to express himself in the way he was born. Right. Because there'll be a stage, I'm sure that club trials will come under fire and nobody will give a fuck about a group of 20 people when they just want to roll over the top of you and say, that's enough. We're sick of your dog sport and you can go away now and nobody will care. There won't be anybody that will come to your aid because you've alienated yourself from every single person that would possibly come over and say, I want to help you, I want to support you, we're brothers and arms and sisters in arms, whatever, we're all here, we're all family, let's fight to the bitter end. Yeah, exactly, not as a group of 20, as a group of 20,000. Yeah. So we've got an old preachie and borderline upset about it all, but to answer your question, Paul, there's how can dogs, sport clubs work together and open up more trials? Well, they can do it by stopping fucking each other over and I'll reiterate, I'm the assistant director for the international region in Australia of PSA and Australia where everybody is welcome and PSA, like all these other sports, they're not PSA aren't the only geniuses, the sports are designed so that if your dog isn't suitable and you're just some dickhead who hasn't trained and just turns up, we'll find that out in the first few minutes and it's safe because the dog's on lead at that point. There's like, there's no way that it's not dangerous to just let people turn up to trial because then they're not prepped and they're not someone special that you trained with. If you just because you haven't seen them trained, doesn't mean they can't have a go at trial and because you'll find that out and they'll be de-cued before the point gets to the point where the dog comes off leash and we find that out. Right? So it's all these sports are designed like that. They're designed to be able to be done by people you don't know. I don't know you, I don't trust your dog, I don't know what's going on. Well, if it turns out your dog, you don't have control of your dog. Before it gets to come off lead and becomes dangerous, you'll be de-cued. You won't pass. And we don't have to be best friends guys. We don't have to hang out with each other and have beers and barbecues. We can come and I mean there's plenty of people who've come to seminars here or have been to seminars in their location. We're not besties in any way, shape or form, but they tolerate me and I tolerate them. That's how it should be. Yeah, it's that. It's right. It's an everyone's best interest. Yeah. Drop your guard, stop being so difficult and let's co-operate with each other a little bit better. Yeah. All right. Moving on. Tracey Fisher. Oh God. I understand the OSPCA is considering working towards a band of E-colors in all Australian states. I'd really enjoy discussion on its correct use and appropriate behaviour, shaping applications. So here's the thing. We've tried to do an episode on how to properly use an E-color and it can't be done via a podcast. It's not the way to learn that. It's a practical thing really. That's right. You need someone to teach you how to do that. Tracey, I don't know where you are. Get enough people together, organize to bring someone. I'm happy to do it. I'm teaching people these things. You just can't do it in New South Wales, but we can do it in another state. Get enough people together, put on a weekend seminar. The best way to do that, what I feel is I can put on something like that and bring my own equipment because I know how to use that equipment the best and that can be built into the cost and you get the equipment. I only use Martin System stuff when I'm teaching this so you end up with that from it. But that's the way to do it. You can't learn this over a podcast. I'm very sorry. I wish you could, but you can't. Yeah. A good point on that. That point alone. There was a lady on a forum years ago who was asking me about correction change and I said to her, I don't feel comfortable giving you the explanation because you'll go away, you'll try. What it will be is an interpretation of what I've said. You'll interpret what I've said on your dog. If it fails, you'll come back and say, well, it doesn't work. And therefore you'll call me out online. And I said, but what I am happy to do is I'm happy to meet with you in person. Gratis, no charge. And this person was in the same state as I was and she said, why won't you tell me? And I said, I will in person physically, I will show you. I will bring a dog or you can bring a dog and we can go through the pros and cons of it, but I can show you a technique that's going to work well. And she kept saying to me, but why won't you tell me what have you got to hide? There is nothing to hide. It is a certain things you can explain them. Certain things actually need explanation and practical demonstration. And in one of those things, I support that 100%. I think that the best thing to do is show it working on the dog, show it in an application where it's visible. People can take away the proper interpretation rather than because they can go away and say, well, your own.
a reseller of that. So it's in your best interest to do so, but they can't deny what they're actually physically seeing, what the present at the time. If it's there, if the skill is being presented, you can't deny it. A good picture speaks a thousand words. Yep. Jessica Torent says, "A discussion on using prey drive as a motivator and reward basis for training scenarios such as tactical response dogs and search and rescue dogs versus using repetitive reinforces. How do we find our dogs mojo? How do we best tap into their inner prey drive?" How could you not call a predatory motivator and the repetitive reinforcer anyway? Yeah. I think all you need to remember, Jessica, along these lines is that if your dog finds it reinforcing, it's reinforcing. It's reinforcing. So it means whatever your dog wants as a reward. Yeah. That's one of the key sentences that we always teach with NDTF is use what works. And I know Pat was going to ask me that question before was Esther's quote, "It doesn't matter what you think and feel. It's what the dog thinks and feels." Yeah. That's Esther Schorke's famous quote that she just briefed over one time when we were talking here when she was doing a seminar. And it's one of the things that like it stuck on me like incessantly when we were thinking about it because when you think about it, when you think about that whole concept of use what works and it's not what you think and feel it's what the dog thinks and feels it's important, that whole concept is that people clearly ignore what's reinforcing to the dog and that can change quite rapidly. For example, Esther and Huns, they use a female in season for their males. And when people complain in environments where they say, "I don't want a female in season anywhere near the training field with my dogs there because it's going to ruin the dog." What they do is they say, "Well, no, we train our dogs to be rewarded that when they do do a high level of behavior and there is a female in season after they've done the work for us, we'll let the dog go and smell where the female's been as reward." Because that's what the dog wants at the time. And things like that aren't always incredibly practical. But if you've got a dog that wants to drink water, what you can say to the dog is, "Hey mate, do some work for me. Once you show me a high level of work, I'm going to let you drink the water." Fine, you can have it straight away. You can have whatever you want, whatever you want, whatever is practical, whatever I can viably offer you, but you've just got to give me the behavior first. Just don't ignore those type of things. Pay close attention to it. And also, what I would add to that is pay attention to the state of mind that your dog's in at the moment. If your dog comes out and it's a flat as attack, and again, we spoke about this from last week's episode, with part when he talks about the water boiling. If your dog comes out and the water's not boiling and it's not going to boil, put your dog away. You know, don't do a training session with a dog that's flat because you're teaching the dog at the same time. I think the only thing I want to add to that is you're talking about working dogs here. And I think that if you're training a dog for work, choose the right breed and try and have the work be reinforcing. Like people have spent centuries breeding dogs to have purposes. And something that drives me crazy is when I see people trying to get an off-breed to do the wrong work. And yeah, you can train it. You can do it. But if it's really someone's life's going to depend on that, just get the right dog. Don't spend a lot of time trying to find a re-enforced. Like you use the example of search and rescue, right? Like if you have a dog that doesn't like to search, doesn't enjoy sniffing, then you're in the wrong job. Now if you just have a dog and you decide you want to get into that first and fun, cool. But if someone's life is going to depend on your dog's ability to find it, get a dog that likes to do that job. I've used the example before when people talk about using malnwires for conservation detection, finding small animals and that. Now you can train one to do one for sure, but they'll be working for a re-enforcer. My springer will find animals all day for free without payment, whether she finds one or not, because that act of doing that is really reinforcing. So think about that. Something that really, we know what grinds my gears is when people want to get an off-breed dog because they feel like they've got something to prove. Just making it harder on yourself and probably putting the dog through a difficulty that it doesn't need. Well, you've a look at human sports, like the Olympics for argument take. I mean, that's a selection criteria of thousands and thousands of people that, you know, like in their own countries, in their own area and their own city, there's hundreds of people in there and then there's hundreds of people behind that that they start going in like K2 round where it's a knockoff. It's the hungriest man or hungriest woman on the planet. That is finally getting to a situation like they're the best of the best and then they finally get them to the point. And I mean, if you're working in high-level areas anything, like Pat said, detection, law enforcement, sport or anything, you really want to be looking at that type of dog for it. If you want to compete at a high level and be reasonably successful. If you just want to have a go, if you're just interested to see how it's working out, then no harm, no foul. But if you're thinking to yourself, look, I want to get somewhere with this dog, then again, you've got to have that dog that comes out and wants to work. It's pushing you and saying, I'm ready to work, I'm ready to work, I'm ready to work, I'm ready to work. Not a dog that's saying, okay, inspire me. Yeah. Well, and so just on that as well, so people sometimes say, I'm a malnwag guy. I don't know if we've talked about here. You got to speak in Spanish. Yeah. And I'm not. If I could have any breed of dog, I love pitties. I fucking love pit bulls. But the chances of me getting a people that would work the way that I want to work a dog is one in a million. They exist. I've seen them, right? Right. And then you'd be accused of supporting fighting dogs, nothing stupid like that. Probably. But even leave all that out. The chances, this is why I have malnwag because the type of work that I want to do, the sport I want to compete in, there's still a huge failure rate for even malnwag. It's not like they just come ready, right? People have that in their head that like, oh, they just know how to heal. They just know how to do all this stuff. No, they come with inherent desires to do those, to do the things that I'm going to do. These are the arguments. They are a better dog because they've been less fucked with than most breeds have. Sure. And I know this is going to upset people, but because no one cares about the confirmation of males and the show people are winning ribbons and trophies off them, they aren't purposely destroying their character. And I know that triggers people. I've had this argument with people. When push comes to shove, nobody in a confirmation, well, that's not fair. That's not true. There are people who do care and who do try and maintain a behavioral expectation of the breed, what it was bread for, but they're far and few between. Like their unicorns now compared to what they used to be. Where the male is completely different to that, but getting back to your point, this is like saying to someone, you can just stick steroids in your arm and your instantly muskly. Without thinking, dude, these people still like strain in the gym, lifting enormous weights, eating ridiculous diets, and training for four hours a day. And that's why the steroids definitely help. They definitely make you bigger and they make you stronger and so forth, but you still have to do the work to get the muscles on your body. And it's the same thing with the dog. You have to have someone who's committed and partially crazy as well because this is another life that you have to have on top of your life. But so I've played life. Just say PSA, for example, that we know well that put in there any game sport, joy, or activity, whatever, for every malinois that makes it through, there's thousands that don't. And then for every shepherd that makes it through, there's maybe 10,000 that don't. And for every rotwiler that makes it through, there's probably 100,000 that don't. And for every people that makes it through, there's probably a million that don't. So you've got to decide what do I want my chances of success to be. And that's for me, that's why I have that breed. Like I love pitties, but I just know that it's unlikely, especially here in Australia, for me to get put my hands on one that will be suitable for what I want to do. All right, moving on. Can we talk about the boxes as well? No. Jay Jack says, talk about how and why you use different terminal markers, direct food, indirect food, direct toys, indirect toy, and the difference between a release word to an indirect toy reward and a bite command. Being considering, changing my work on the spring pole war climb, would you use a release to an indirect reward object or a bite cue? Right now I use a general terminal marker. Okay. And if I present the award, it is obviously direct. If they're already queued in an indirect reward, they're released. They'll obviously go for that. And when I'm running them between direct and indirect, I have a send away gesture that I do with the release to tell them it's the indirect option. I'm fighting between my battling urges of simplicity and clarity. So that's a good one. And I can tell a little story on this. I think I did tell it to Jay when he is here. So you remember at my first time, Mike Saddle was here and we'll play in around with Val doing bite work and Brad was actually working out. She was in a down and I went to release her to the bite. And I clicked because at the time I was just using just a click as a terminal marker, take your reward. Right. Yep. Whether it was a toy food direct indirect, I was really in that one marker model with her. That's why I clicked and she just fucked off. She just ran chasing a bird. Yep. Right. And that's what she wanted. Yeah. That's what she wanted to do. Everybody, everybody laughed their asses off and it was funny because first of all, why were we trying to do bite work with a spring hour? But that's how she understood it. Yeah. She was totally within her rights to do that. She took the highest value reward. She could
I could find and I gave her no further information on what it was and that for me I went, I think that was actually on video, it might be somewhere. For me, that was the day where I went, okay, this is not enough information. I'm not giving the dog enough information. So one thing I want to clarify on what Jay said there is direct versus indirect reward. My definition, how I use it of that, I had got from Bart and it's a little bit different from how I've seen other people use it. The direct reward could come from me, an indirect reward could come from me. It's not necessarily where it comes from, it's the dog's focus and so one is seen, one is not seen. Yeah, so we really go for more of an idea of an away reward or a from reward. It's either away from you or from you. Now because it becomes tricky, say here's an example, my dog's healing, if he's looking at the decoy, that's a direct reward. If he's looking at me, then the decoy is an indirect reward. If in using the lure or using the reward, I trick the dog or compel the dog into the behaviour, then that's a direct reward. If the act of trying to get it brings on the behaviour, that's a direct reward. If the dog has to find the behaviour in order to get the reward, then that's an indirect reward. Whether I give it to the dog, whether it comes from me, whatever. So I don't have different markers for direct versus indirect. I do have different markers for away and from. This is just what I do and I've had pretty good success in it and I like it very much. Is I have a, the clicker is food. With a puppy, I'm very lucky, the puppy I got now, Sam, sorry, the dog I have now, but as a puppy, Sam had been clicking since he was four weeks old, so the clicker came charged. Perfect. So the clicker means food and only food to him. Carrying a clicker is not ideal. If I'm teaching my dog something new, I use the clicker because of how accurate it is. I can't get more accurate with a verbal marker or anything else, but I also then load in front of the clicker, a clicking noise I make with my mouth like that. And so he understands that as well, but I can't be as precise. It's got the same values of clicker, but I can't be as precise. So if I'm teaching something new, I use a clicker. For general work, I use that noise and that's always food, always food. Then I have a word for a toy reward. And that toy reward is something that I'm carrying. Now that doesn't, it may be direct, it may be indirect. I may even throw that thing, it might be a frisbee and I'm going to throw it. They can figure all that out, but I go, and that means it's the toy. Take the toy. And then I have an away reward for when I want the dog to, well, this is something that will become my bike command. And so I stay still and even when it's food, right? And I use a start that with the manners minder. So I have that on the ground. It has its own tone and I paired to that my bike command. So even if it's the ball on the ground, I tell my dog, Stellan, and he goes, that's his bike command, he goes and gets the thing that's away. And that's the three markers I use and I'm having success doing that. And I reprogramed Val into the same system that was pretty easy to do. And it's good because I can distinguish. And I think that if you're going to reward your dog, say in PSA, where we're around a decoy and you expect decoy neutrality, I expect my dog to take the ball and have a good time and find the ball rewarding in the presence of a decoy. You've got to have different markers for that or you're going to be in trouble. It doesn't matter what you say to the dog, what does matter entirely is what the dog understands from that communication, from that language. Yeah. I mean, you can use any language in the world that you want to use. You can use debris. You can speak clinging onto the dog if you want to. But what does matter is the clarity of how the dog interprets what you've said. If you are confusing in your message to the dog in any markers that you're using, whether be direct or indirect, if the dog doesn't understand it, if you can see that there's confusion there, of course, that matters. And I think that's one of the things that we discuss in great detail in all NDTF courses that we do. In fact, in most education systems that I've been in when we're talking about learning theory, one of the primary points that we discuss is you must have complete clarity for the sake of the dog. If you're confused about what you're saying, like if you come out there and you're thinking, what does my clicker mean? What does it mean when I say yes? What does it mean when I say good? If you're confused by that, it's going to be total fucking chaos for the dog. So the only thing that I encourage people to do is have a goal, have a game plan that's designed to clearly indicate to the dog, is this a Pavlovian effect or want you to feel something about this queue or is it operant? Do I want you to actually understand there are consequences for compliance or non-compliance of this queue? That needs to be established quickly. If that's not, it's like I said, it's complete fuck up for the dog. It's language guys. I mean, main thing is is that we find a good rosetta stone that the dog is clear about everything once we're on the field. There's no mistaking what's happening. If it's a bite command, it should be a bite command. If it's a focus command, it should be a focus command. If the dog is supposed to feel something about it, the dog should feel something about it. That's my view on it. Yeah. I guess the last thing I'd say on having different markers for different awards is it allows you to transition between those things without any conflict. So if they're really conditioned and on a reflex response, I.E. My dog takes food after the click as a conditioned reflex response. He doesn't choose to do it. It happens whether he wants to have a low vinaffect to it. Yeah. So then I can get him to out offer things with no conflict. I don't have to yell at him. I don't have to cause any discomfort. He's not even cognitively deciding to out. He just finds that he did. We made a video on that. I made a video of him very young with the ball in his mouth to prove that. He's on the meal with the ball. I try to give him food. He won't take it. I put the food in his nostril. He ignores it. I actually put it in his mouth behind the ball. Just ignores it. Then I click and he spits the ball and takes the food. It's the case of how else would I get that ball off the dog with zero conflict? The food didn't have the same value as the ball. The ball's higher value. He would choose it. But I can immediately give it to him. I don't have to bring out another ball and try and weigh him up and cause chewing issues then. But all those things, especially as Jay says using it on the spring pole, if his dog is loaded for a clicker for food and you're teaching you're out of the spring pole, you can have your bite to go get the spring pole and then you can click and out them from the spring pole. They come back for you and then there's no conflict in there at all. It's just the dogs happily doing things that it's reflex response to do. That's the goal in all of our training. I know Jay knows this. All of our training, our goal is to get our commands as a reflex response. If you were to ask the dog to steal boyhood, who is saying as you tell me to interview the dog. If you were to interview the dog, why did you let go of the spring pole? The dog would be like, I don't know. Couldn't help it. Just happened. That's the goal. I agree. I think since, from the very early days we used to teach outs and it was a very conflicted behaviour, it was out under load, being punished for not letting go. The dog is in a very. You're adding to avoid punishment. That's right. But the dog is in a very feel good state while it's biting, while it's in the sleeve. It's thinking to itself, well, I really don't want to. There's a couple of thoughts that are most likely going through the dog's head at that point in time. Is A, I'm really enjoying this and B, what happens if I do let go? If the dog doesn't understand that, then the dog is in conflict straight away. That's why you start getting shifting in your grip and the dog starts shifting and moving around or it starts delaying in the time that it starts letting go. The best way that I've seen is that reflex if out. When the dog can't help it, it's a Pavlovian effect that you hit the clicker and the dog goes, "Oh, I've got to go and do something else." I mean, to be honest, I love it. I think it's the best way going forward for dogs to learn. You did it in a demo that you did with Remy when you were doing, I think Tammy and Shoron and Kool-Up Challenge. That was challenges. Remy was biting jazz at the time and you clicked and he just came straight off and took a handful of food. I guess the most important thing about that is people say, "Oh, it's not a real dog if it will out for food." The point is he's not choosing anything. He just finds, "Oh, I heard the clicker and I have to go." That's just one of those statements. That's a Jono statement. That's not even relevant. Now you see it and people will say that kind of thing and the point is the dog is not out for food. You've used that marker to condition that response. I think having different markers for different rewards, I feel is important so that you really are on a variable reward schedule. I understand the value. I think markers have to be markers. This is why I stopped using a yes and I get away from verbal markers as much as possible. I think where a lot of people go wrong and I've seen some very good dog trainers do this and boast that they do it is that they will announce the value of the reward with how they say the yes. Now, if you're doing that, it's true they pitch it differently. It doesn't have the salience of a clicker or a whistle where it's the same. That's right. It's uniform in the way it's delivered. Now yes, at that time you will be communicating to the dog that you are happier than you were on the last one. When that's a good rep, that's great. Where that becomes problematic is where it's not so good rep and you just say, "Yep, and now you get this." First of all, the first problem is that you never hit that reflex response because it's not conditioned. It's not, if it has to be identical to the condition. If you are changing your pitch, you're conditioning it to the value, pre-announcing the value of the reward.
the reward. And so now that won't work because if you're in this example, Jay's one where we're calling the dog off the spring pole, if you're using a yes, now, and you're changed the pitch and tone of your yes in accordance with the value of the amount of food you're going to deliver, your dog can determine that. So that means your delivery of your food will have a measure in units of reward. Now that spring pole has a measure in units of reward. If it's safe, the units of reward go to 10. It's like people who say I wouldn't get out of bed for anything less than a hundred bucks an hour. That's right. So if that spring pole, if there's 10 units of reward possible, and your spring pole is nine and a half, your dog's only in it out without conflict for 10 units. Right? So if you have your yes where you go yes, and the dog knows you're going to deliver three units of reward. But you go yes and you're going to deliver 10 units of reward. Why trade something? Why trade down? You're going to have to use that. That's right. Yes. The 10 unit of reward one to get the dog off the pole. But here's the thing. You then have to deliver the 10 units of reward every time, which is in practical because that would be a hungry dog's whole meal. So like I mean a starving dog's whole meal. So it's in practical to use that. Now the temptation as a person is to light of the dog then give that higher value one and then not deliver. Give that high value yes and then only deliver the three units of reward. And now the dog knows you're a liar and won't believe you next time. By using a mechanical marker or a consistent yes, it's lucky dip. That's right. You create a gamble out of the dog. The dog has to be a gambler for that marker. And this is something I like to I spend a lot of time teaching this to my clients of how to get this truly how to turn the dog into a gambler through the variable schedule of reinforcement. Yeah. And you know your dogs are gambler when you put a hungry dogs whole bowl of food in front of him. And while he's eating that food you click and he gives up that food to come and get whatever you have whatever amount of food you're going to give him you know he's a gambler because he will that amount of food in his bowl is quantifiable. I can look and I can count how many kibbles are here. But when I hear that click I have no idea how many you're going to give me. And the chances are it's going to be more than this. So it's worth investigating the power of maybe. That's right. So if your dog can do that then now that dog will 100% come back on the clicker. Now I want to do a whole episode on that. And you know this is something I spend a lot of time explaining to people a lot of time when people come to me for training. I say over your marker. Okay. They go, yep. I go cool. Put your dog in a down. Come around into this blind and use your marker. And if the dog doesn't jump up and come run around in the blind I say all right step one we're loading the marker right because it's not loaded sufficiently. Yeah. So that's that's that's that's that makes sense. It's a very deep question from Jay. I mean I wouldn't expect anything less from Jay. I'm excited about seeing Jay. I am too. Look I've got to say just a break away. I drank the Kool Aid and I started BJJ. Oh yeah. Because of. It's all you're fucking talking about. It's sitting here and looking at your ghee hanging. Yeah. No, I'm hanging up right next to our training equipment. But yeah because of people like Jay and Brent and Sweets and Sean and everything like that and Josh. Everyone who's been here. Yeah. I am. I am. I'm part of that part of them now. I was watching him rolling around the floor when we were having beer here one night and I thought yeah that looks actually something entirely different than anything I've ever done. But one thing I've got to say what this was leading into was Jay's got a instructional series that he has online functional BJJ. And I got chatting to him one night just letting him know that I'd started and he said if you are interested he said I've done a video series. I've got to say Jay is a brewing instructor. I'm super super impressed with the quality of the material that he's put out because of what I watched. I mean it's improved my game straight away like I went to training and people looking at me going what the fuck dude like you're like you started a week ago and you're already pulling off like stupid moves like where did this come from. And like before that I just felt like flailing around on the mat like thinking I'm just getting laid on top of and squashed by dudes that half my age sounds like you're dream day. But it was it was frustrating because it just looked like you're laying there while people are breakdancing on top of you and thinking what the fuck you know how do I get out of this. But after watching Jay so Jay legend made I'm really I know why people review you and and respect you so much in your craft. I've got probably what's the functional BJJ. Functional with people Google out and that's the academy over in Maine in the US and if you're over there and you want to get into it I'd hook up with Jay I'd definitely speak to him. He's a he's a very very skilled martial artist. And I've and or a good guy. He is a really good guy. He's very intelligent. He thinks very deeply and he's very skilled in any slot processes. It's clear in his instruction. So have a look at it. All right. Well there's more questions but again I'm out of time. Keep going. Oh you got to go do yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go get. So it's got to be round three. Well maybe there well the next questions are Bernie wants to roll back on the show. She's doing that. She's she's actively she's pursuing a topic at the moment and she's also in the process of writing a book of nutritional feeding. So for pet dogs. So she's she's well and truly into it. Yeah she's very inspired by all this. She's she just did a call. She blitzed it like she does with most things. She's fucking smart girl. Yeah. Kim James discussion on health regards to diet vaccinations, external and total parasites. So this is a real thing. That's yeah. We can't I can't talk anything about that. Judy bouquin. Bucking. Judy Bucking. Bucking. Yeah. Talking about Andrew Clark's episode and laws in regards to each state. And there's a fair bit about that which so what I wanted to say about this was if there's anyone that is really fully across all of that. All right. Like and across state to state. This is because the issue is with sort of almost half our audience now is international. Right. Yeah. It's well I've just saying to pet before in six months Australia is well and truly ahead of any other country at the moment. But probably in six months the United States will probably roll over the top of Australia. We're picking up a massive audience there. How dare they? I know. Not like Canada is just like a blip. I don't need joking. No it's great. Canada is all sudden there's been a pickup in Canada too. So thanks guys. We appreciate everyone. Look everyone who's jumping on the show like it's so appreciative. Especially when we consider that you know they're probably we like 100 people in Australia listening to the show and we've got thousands of people listening to the show now and and regular feedback. I know I've said it in many shows before but I'd just like to extend our sincere thanks to people because this was just a fun thing that Pat and I would tell them stories and somebody said you know you guys should do this professionally or in in some other way. It's fun. The funny thing was I remember when we first started we wanted to say oh we didn't have any news that all should put out safe there's any questions and I said we can't do that. We don't know if anyone's fucking listening. That's right. What if we say yeah anyone got any questions and no one writes anything? And this is a cricket stripping background. They can't ask anything. No look I do have to go but there's a few ones here that we can do this another time. Just with Judy before you do go just with Judy Bucking. Judy you are an extensive researcher in many things like Judy is one of these people who who would be very very good as part of the brain's trust for for tools in training. I know she's done it in the past especially with prong collars. Judy was leading the charge in the early 2000s in regards to that and extensively pulled up a lot of factual information that people were overlooking. We're in there polite to emotionally charge it and create triggers around it. Judy was she had a like a swagger of information around that. So Judy you're a great researcher somebody that I actually look up to in that fact. So I think you would be a great candidate for coming to us with that information. I'd love to draw some information and create it you for it because obviously I've got a lot of respect for you and your work. So if you do have the time and the inclination to do it I would love to how either have you on the show or or credit you for it if you would prefer to do that but yeah you're certainly that person. If you have those studies Judy see one of the things I think would be cool is in this discussion group is maybe we have a file section. Yeah that would be great. All those kind of things because you regularly see that around Facebook people saying like hey I'm locked in a battle with someone who's got a link to this study on you know whatever. And so if you have relevant ones that might be a good place to store them in here so that everybody can get access to them really quick because if you're listening to the show you probably you're probably on our side of the argument. And even if you're not if you're listening to this and you've got a counter argument to it I'm not interested in your how you feel about it okay I'm interested in the facts around it. So I don't want to I don't want to have an argument that ends up in tears because somebody is saying in my opinion what I'd prefer if you've got a counter argument to it and you've got real science not just pseudo science where people are saying it in my opinion or I don't like it in some sort of language. Present it. Put it forward. Come and speak to us about it. There's a vet that I'm planning to have on the show at some stage that wants to debunk the whole raw feeding issue. Oh really? Yeah. And I'm encouraging him to come on the show. I spoke to him at a conference I was at not long ago and this is the first time Pat's hearing about it because I forgot about it until we just started talking about this but I had extensive talks to him. He works for a pet food company, I put the question to
right away. I said, "Look, you're probably going to think this is a rude question, but you're obviously on the company payroll and you're paid to have a stance." And he said, "Well, no, I actually worked in Abbotwars when I was doing my residency." He said, "I worked in Abbotwars and I've been around it and I've extensively researched it, so I have a different take on this." So I said, "Look, would you come on the show?" And he said, "Yeah, I would like to." He said, "I'll just find out if it's cool." And at some stage, I'd like to have him on the show and have his thoughts on that because, I mean, it's not about creating controversy. It's about talking about the facts around things. Yeah. Not just why we think certain things, but what is the fact around it? And it's the same thing with tools and training. Like, if you have facts against it, like genuine scientific facts, let's hear it. If you have facts for it, genuine scientific facts, let's hear them. Yeah. We've been numerous times people have asked us to organize some sort of debate between a force-free trainer on here. And we've tried, but it's just not possible for a couple of regions. People are very welcome to come on and we can sit here for as long as we want. I'll clear the day and we can have an unedited, unedited, except the fart noises and coughing that happens. But unedited discussion about it, but it just doesn't happen for, because what happens is, there's only really same people who are, that we're willing to do that with. And the only answer that same people usually have when they are strict force-free only people, they just go, "I just don't want to do that." And how can you argue that? It's not my job to tell you what you can't do. So they just go, "The only true answer." And it's totally a fine answer, and there's, "I've got no problem with it." And these people just say, "You know, for whatever reason, that's not how I want to train dogs." And who will we to tell them how they should? So there's no, there's no debate to be had. Not with the same person anyway. But it bit in closing to that. Let's make it, let's make it crystal clear. So it is a k-beard on what we've discussed, okay? None of us, and I, I've made this clear so many times. I made it clear through many, many years of owning dogs and loving working with them and dogs being like a very important part of my life, my work, my family. I didn't do this, and the best dog trainers that I know in the industry and the great people that I've met along the time didn't do this and aren't using tools because we enjoy inflicting pain and want to see the dog suffer. It's because I don't like seeing dogs being put down for no good reason. And I know that debate's been circling around the internet and people say, "Yeah, but they say that, that's their emotional blackmail and so on and so forth." Because that's basically the ammunition between both of our parties at this point in time is the amount of dogs that have been willfully disposed of and destroyed. They've been thrown away like old iPhones. You know, they get them, they just don't serve a practical purpose anymore and they've been thrown away. And some of the reasons are just they're ridiculous. They're ridiculous. That's the only thing that I can probably say. They're just ridiculous reasons why dogs are being discarded. And a lot of times it's over the way the dog is behaving. So people will vaccinate their dogs and spend money on their dogs and they'll do all these type of things. I mean, vaccination is an unpleasant exercise and stressful for dogs too, but we do it for the greater good. We do it to make sure we're saving our dogs lives. And yet more dogs, like a million times more dogs will die from a social issue over they will over a pathological issue. They are not pathological. Is that a pathogen issue? So many more dogs will die from a pathogen issue or an issue where the dog is some sort of trauma has occurred. The figures are staggeringly stacked against dogs with social issues. This is a training issue. And this is what we're discussing. This is why we're doing this podcast is because we're talking fundamentally about the training application living with and socializing with dogs in our lifestyle. We need to do it better. We need to find a common ground where we can say what would work with you, what would stop you feeling so aggravated about people owning tools? Would it be education? And some people will never agree on that no matter what. Where there's always an us and them, there's always a left and a right. As wise people say, both sides of the wing belong to the same body. So there you go. I've never heard that one before. Haven't you? No, that's a good one. I like it. These are good ones. It's not mine. It's some wise person who came up with that. It's important. There's left and right wing political stances is genetic trait. It's very important that we have both because we need people that to keep us honest. Well, it's not so much to keep us honest. Right wing people are very good at managing things. Left wing people are very good at creating things but not running them. Yep. So you need right wing people to be actually facilitating the day to day and left wing people sort of creating those things. Then moving on to the next thing and letting right wing people run that. There's evidence to that. And it's they've done twin studies. So they know it's a genetic thing. You know what's funny about the discussion you're just having? It perfectly describes balance. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, that's the thing. It's a necessary. Anything that's genetic is necessary. Yep. Otherwise, it would be gone. Anyway, that's it. Hey, that's it for another episode. It's a bit of a preachy one. Just keep in mind as maybe we depressed you a couple of times as well. We spoke about Mark as so much. We're just two decades of microphones. So don't take too seriously. There they go. He said we could be wrong about on fire with this episode. We could be wrong about many things. And if we are, I apologize, let me know. But that's that's the truth as well as I know it. We're not saying that we are the bastions of all knowledge. We're never maintained that. What we're saying is that we've got microphones. Yeah, we've got microphones. And we know some things. But what we also know is what we learn from the community and what people, you know, like relevant science of people are putting forward. So again, we invite people to if there's something incorrect, like blatantly incorrect, present us with the right knowledge. And we will happily put that on there. We will happily correct the statement and say, well, we were wrong in what we were said or we had inaccurate information at the time. And we would like to correct that. So we're not trying to set the world on fire in general. We're not trying to create enemies. We're actually trying us. What we're actually trying to do is build and improve and grow the community. If that's not obvious by now, then please keep that in the forefront of your mind that we're trying to bring people together and not push them further apart. So this episode will probably come out prior to us. I leave tomorrow to go to the I.C.P. I leave Thursday. By the time you listen to this and probably already in the States, we're going over there. We've been threatened with good times by numerous people. We better deliver. We plan to get a load of interviews done. It might be a little while before an episode comes out, but rest assured we'll be recording. I'm planning to do one while I'm over there. If I've got internet, I'm putting a shower out. Oh, perfect. There you go. Well, standby. They're coming in hot. But yeah, Wes, I'm really excited about going. I'm not saying we won't be drunk. And partying up a good time. And as a saying, if you are going to be at the I.C.P. conference, it's my first time, please be gentle. But also, please come over and introduce yourself. I love the whole reason I'm going is to meet as many industry professionals as I can. So please introduce yourself to me. All right. That's it. As always, if you like what you're hearing, please jump onto whatever subscription service you download us from. Like, rate, share, subscribe, tell a friend, or that helps us get the word out. If you want to support the show, you can do that by buying a T-shirt off of us. That's probably the best way we sell the Canon Parade on T-shirts with our cool slogan. Highten your arousal and lose all impulse control. Thank you, Jedda, who came up with that. That's on the front logo on the back. And thanks to Jason Ferman, our show sponsor. Ah, yeah. Thanks again to Jason for sponsoring the show. Oneswick. Oneswick Dog Quip. And those shirts, we're going to have them at the I.C.P. conference. So if you want one, we've got hats as well. So if you want one there, I guess we'll come up with some kind of conversion to US dollars and sell them there for help support the show. And if you want to get in touch with us, the best way to do that is on Facebook. We are the Canon Parade. I'm on Facebook. That's it. Music.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The episode discusses the threat of banning tools like e-collars in Australia and the need to counter this through education rather than prohibition.
The hosts propose creating a "champion" – a highly educated, media-savvy, relatable figure (ideally a woman) to represent balanced dog training in public debates.
This champion would be trained by top experts across the industry (tool use, legislation, presentation) over 2-3 years, then funded by a body like IACP to lobby and educate.
The goal is to fight "fire with fire" against force-free movements like Victoria Stilwell’s, using facts, science, and compelling communication.
Success requires industry unity, altruism, and ongoing international collaboration to prevent piecemeal bans.
Summary:
In this episode of "The Canine Paradigm," hosts Glenn Cook and Pat Stewart address the threat of e-collar bans in Australia, sparked by a listener question. They argue that banning tools is counterproductive; instead, the focus should be on education and proper training, similar to Australia’s firearm licensing. Pat Stewart proposes creating a "media champion" for the balanced training community—a relatable, highly educated woman who can effectively counter the emotional arguments of the force-free movement.
This champion would undergo intensive, multi-year training from top industry experts in tool use, legislation, and media presentation. The hosts emphasize the need for a funded, full-time position supported by a body like the IACP, allowing the champion to lobby and educate without personal financial burden. They acknowledge challenges: industry egos, the difficulty of finding someone altruistic enough to accept such a role, and the need for global cooperation to prevent bans from spreading.
The discussion highlights the importance of facts and science in public debates, using examples like Bart Bellon’s training videos to show dogs enjoying balanced methods. Ultimately, they call for unity and a strategic, professional approach to protect trainers’ rights and promote responsible tool use.
FAQs
It's a show covering the latest news, views, and expert opinions in the K9 industry, featuring interviews with leaders, experts, and movers and shakers.
Einsweck Dogquip, imported by Jason Furman, sponsors the show. They provide dog training equipment like slip leads, Europhone balls, treat pouches, and tugs.
Listeners must buy at least one K9 Paradigm t-shirt, then send a photo of themselves with a celebrity. The first person to do so wins the prize pack.
The community is worried about the creeping ban on e-collars, which are already restricted in some states like New South Wales and Victoria, and seeks ways to prevent further bans.
They suggest creating a 'champion'—a highly educated, relatable person (preferably a woman) to be the public face of balanced training, similar to Victoria Stilwell for force-free methods.
They believe a softer, more relatable female figure would counter the negative image of men as privileged white males causing pain to dogs, making the message more palatable to the public.
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