Episode 70: Living with a reactive dog

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 fullton. And I'm out of here. Hey, it's been a while since we talked about our old mate, Jason Furman. Has he paid his bills? He has paid his bills. Oh, okay. So we should record him and you add. Surely he has a website now. No, he does not. Oh, maybe he's provided a direct phone number people can order through. I'll just check. Nope, no phone number either. I like the way that you're actually pretending to look whether he has provided. So if you want to get in contact with Dation, you still have to do that through Facebook. It's I'm Zwik Doggwip, E-I-N-Z-W-E-C-K. Jason can hook you up with all the things you might be interested in getting. The fire poured meals, which a lot of people are getting and loving. He has Herms Springer products if you're into those. Yep. He has balls, leashes, tugs. Yep. And at the moment, he has a 10% discount on all K9 USA products. That's pretty cool. And I believe he's got a lot of the other stuff that you can use to compete in GRC as well, such as the sleds and the spring poles. Yeah, that's correct. He sure does. Well, that's a great thing. That's a sport taking the world by storm. Yeah. So for into that, we just like train your dog having a good time. Have a chat to Jason on Facebook at Eineswik Doggwip. Yep. Send him an inventory via Messenger and get your gear. (laughing) Get a website, Jason, your Bozo. Yeah. (upbeat music) Welcome back to the K9 paradigm. My name's Glen Cook and joined in his own studio is my regular co-host, Patch Do It. Hello. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I thought we might as well tell people that you are in your own home and I'm in my own home. Yeah, that's right. We tried to pull the wool over people's eyes and we failed, just really. (laughing) Well, I don't think too many people mentioned it until we actually brought it up as part of a prize giveaway where they won a dog a hand grenade. Yeah. Which is not a live hand grenade, by the way. I just thought I'd better, in just in case, we've got ace no flocking to the group and they thought, "What are those two bullfeds doing, giving hand grenades to dogs? How irresponsible." But Sonia picked it in like a minute. So I reckon a lot of people probably realized that people were interested. Yeah, look, there is. Oh, the sound was a bit off. There is a little bit of a variation, sound, but it's not too bad. Like I, as I said to you, when I heard you with old mate, what's his name? Ben D'A. With Nick, yes. So when I was listening to that, the sound quality was actually quite good and I thought, "Wow, that's actually very good." So for people who do interviews, depends on the mic situation you've got. I mean, if you've got tinny old shitty gear at home or just, you know, like Applehead phone things, I'm not packing Apple, don't get me wrong. I don't want a letter of cease and desist, put them, of course, but. (laughs) But if you've got good gear and it's a decent connection with your Skype connection, you can get good sound out of it, which. Yeah, well, we thought we'd get away that 'cause I'm using the exact same microphone that I use in the studio there, but yes, it's just that connection, right? It doesn't come through as clear. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It still does the job and we get through the interview quite well. I believe anyway. I'm the party one about sound, so I should know. Yeah, you are the party one. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hey, so we're gonna keep working through that list 'cause we haven't organized, been able to organize a guest. We've both got our. Well, I've got my ass hanging out with the Silver and E-Po Post School. So there's no time to get out there with you and then therefore we didn't have any time to organize an interview or a guest because we didn't even know where we were gonna podcast. So we're fitting one in. So we're gonna keep working down the list of topics that people gave us. Yeah, you're right. Look, at the moment, it's for both of it. It's inconvenient time. I wasn't home all day today. I won't be home tomorrow. So, you know, some. Well, I'm not on site at Jura, or I'm out doing other things. We've got crazy business going on at the moment. So, which is good. But yeah, it's just swallowing up a whole lot of my time that I thought I had. So it's very convenient that we can get together in the evenings and do this at distance and still get quality out of it. Yay. Yeah, so Sian Marie Pepper has written here that she wants us to talk about living with a reactive dog and misconceptions of reactive dogs. And then Daniel Coruso, who's almost a karate kid, says, "Hey, beat me to it, yes, since I'm working with my guy through it, I've been so interested and invested into learning this behavior. Would love to know what the thoughts are or make it a Patreon." Oh, we couldn't done that. And then someone says. Well, we kind of did really because in the aggression episode I did, we talked about reactivity in dogs. Yeah. You know, I mean, this is a single topic and it's a popular one because there's a lot of people who live with reactive dogs and children. Yeah. So how do you define that? What do you think of when you say reactive dog? What do you think he of? It's aggression. It's fear of aggression. Yeah, that summarizes it. I know that funnels that into a one-stop shop sort of approach to it and it may not be that simple. But generally speaking, when I go out and see a customer or client and I've got an issue with the dog and when you go around there to assess the issue, I would say 99 times out of 100, it's a fear related aggression. And that's where the reactivity is coming from. And generally again, it's poor socialization. That's my summary when I'm even speaking to them over the phone like as we start to do the interview and we start to undress and unpack the situation, we start summarizing when do they get the dog, what did they do with the dog, what was advised to them, how much training if they received and the list goes on, there's a myriad of things that must be asked to summarize what is their assessment of the issue, what do they know about it and when did it start, how frequent is it, what's the intensity level like, there's a number of things that shouldn't must be asked, I guess. I certainly think of fear, but I don't always think of aggression when people say reactivity because usually when it's aggressive, when it's aggression people usually say that. Yep. And I certainly have encountered a lot of what I would call like fearful reactive dogs, but I find that people often use that when it's not aggression that's being displayed because then people go, he's aggressive, but when it's just general fearful, flee maybe even shut down, but nervous displacement type behavior, which is usually fear-based, or almost always fear-based, people tend to refer to as reactive. That's what I hear a fair bit. But how many of those dogs do you see as you were pointing at before, like I've gone around the client times and they've said to me, look, I've got a very aggressive dog, like I go down to my dog park, dog park, and, you know, like my dog gets so reactive when it sees dogs. So the question I ask them, I think there's a question that most people should ask them is your dog being engaged in any violent activity with another dog before, I.e. has a bit in another dog, has a gone to bite another dog, and you generally find out that a lot of these dogs are reactive, but they haven't actually engaged in any violent type of behavior before. Yeah. On closer inspection, when I've gone down there with them, and they've not trusted themselves to handle the dog around other dogs, but I've handled the dog for them. And we've met, you know, a dog that's physically in the same sort of ballpark that that dog is, and the dog has a very calm demeanor and characteristic, and you've also got a willing participant who's accepting of having that dog being brought over to them, or your own dog. So in some cases, you might have a suitable dog, a suitable pet dog of your own that you would take along to that sort of console. But I've been to situations before where we have met up with somebody and I've said, "Look, I won't get your dog involved in the situation. "I need you in a handle." So we have a, like, a good 15-minute conversation around it, how it's going to look and how we're going to plan it out. And that dog certainly is reactive. Don't get me wrong. So the dog does react. It's charging at the other dog. It's barking. But when it actually gets over to the other dog, something transpires that has everybody befuddled, is the dog is not aggressive. It's just frustrated because it wants to get to the other dog, but the frustration is creating this panic to behavior, which is misconstrued as aggression. And it's not. It's not aggression. It's for frustration that the dog is not allowed to make contact with the other dog. Therefore, it's a social issue that's been induced by somebody who's overreacted and panicked. And don't get me wrong. I don't want to say to people, "When you see that, just throw caution to the wind and run your dog over and see how it fears." Because it very well might be aggression where the dog is calling upon the other dog to say, "Come over here and I'll smash her." We don't want to lead anybody into that sort of situation at all, but I guess on inspection with diligent people, good handlers and good management, a good system in place, where all parties are aware of what could happen and how to quickly get themselves out of it. If it does turn into something negative, I've generally found that it doesn't. It doesn't turn into that negative situation. You know, exactly what we're talking about. I see this heaps in my area. And it is, it's almost not exclusively, but I see a lot of it in the brachy breeds. And so these are people who have bought, say, let's say a French bulldog. And when it's a little puppy, they take it to all the places. They go to puppy school where it's like free range playing with dogs. He's got his little dog friends down at the park or whatever. He's almost like a free range dog and he develops a lot. of reinforcement playing with other dogs and really enjoys it. Then as he grows up a little bit or they're walking around and these people tend never to have those dogs on collars, they have them on harnesses because they get told brachy or fricchio or brachycephilia. Don't put them on a harness, don't put them on a collar, you rest damaging the airway. So the dogs wearing like a no pool harness, they're constricting type harness. He sees other dogs, he wants to pull towards them, that reinforcement against his body, that squeezing against his body feels reinforcing and he feels like pulling and lunging towards another dog is what I should do. I'm being reinforced for trying to get to the other dog that I want to get to as well. Then exactly as you say that that bark comes out, that frustration just like I want to get over there. Then at that time those people tend to give a jerk on the leash trying to give a leash correction or a leash pop to stop that barking, but because the dog's in a no pool harness, they actually then reinforce further. The dog likes that stimulus and then the dog gets the idea, I'm on the right track by barking at this other dog, you like it, I like it, it's generally reinforcing and that just spools up and spools up and you can end up with what appears, it gives the picture of quite a dog aggressive dog that every time it sees another dog, it lights up at the end of the line and starts barking and carrying on. And nine times out of ten, exactly as you say, if and when they actually do get to that other dog, they just get there and want to play with it. There's no aggression in it whatsoever. I guess technically by the true definition that there might be, but it's not aggression towards the other dog, it's aggression through the frustration of the restraint. Well, it's a perceived aggression, it's not actually an intent of aggression by the other dog, it's just purely frustration, it's just let me add a meal, I want to get over there, I want to get over that position. So the total concept is perceived, like our concept or our way of looking at it is if it quacks like a duck walks like a duck, it's got to be a duck. And by the way, let me say, how do you so go on to talk about how pressure could be perceived as reinforcing in behaviour? Absolutely disgusting. How dare I? How do you? It's absolutely, I'm beside myself here, I'm just, I need to drink a glass of water while you are having that conversation with me, I nearly passed out. So he's a funny one. Yeah, go on. Have you seen Stephen Crowder does those change my mind? I love them. So Jeff, I won't say his last name in case he doesn't want me to talk about it on the podcast, but he says he wants to set up a booth that says negative reinforcement is the only type of reinforcement changed my mind. And his argument is that you're relieving the pressure of something, no matter in your pursuit of the positive reinforcement, is only inevitably tied to the relief of some negative reinforcement. So whether that's hunger, stress of desire or whatever you're relieving something. And after listening to that other podcast, he wanted to do that. Well, I hate to say it, but anybody who's got a dog that pulls on lead is using negative reinforcement, whether I like it or not. Yeah, all the dogs almost using it on them. Well, the dog's using it on them. So I mean, in they'll say, well, that wasn't the intent. Well, it wasn't the intent, but I mean, it still happened regardless. I mean, the dog's falling on lead to get to a location when it gets to the location, the pressure relieves and the dog gets reinforced. Boom. Yeah. Sounds like perfect knee, popo to me. Does tomato. Anyway, so yeah, I think reactivity, Sihan says talk about reactive dogs and misconception of reactive dogs, but I think that part of that certainly is a misconception. That is a misconception. What we're talking about before, where people aren't aware that the dog all it wants to do is socialize with the other dog. But I mean, I generally, and I don't want to make this a breed as thing because I'm around them a lot. I see a lot of German shepherds do it and they're very vocal dogs. I mean, shepherds winjen hell and scratch at the floor and bark and they carry on like pork chops. And there's no wonder that people do perceive it as aggression. And that's why I said it's perceived aggression is they look at it and they think, wow, that look at that behavior out of the dog. I hate to see what would happen if it got over there to the other dog. And yet, like I said before, and I know you've done this and many other trainers I've spoken to, they've walked over their confidently, calm assertive handling. They've taken the dog over in the location of the other dog, allowed the dogs to sniff and suddenly you get this play bell behavior where the dog that was had the perception of aggression is actually trying to initiate play because it's a new, it's a completely new scenario to the dog. It's never been allowed to do it before because of the perception. But when it is allowed to happen, it's thinking, wow, this is fantastic. I'm here. I mean, natural. The German shepherd one. The German shepherd one's a bit funny because that's certainly been the case of dogs where I have dense seen. It is, well, even if it starts out the same picture where it is, just a frustration to get there, a lot of the times some breeds then will continue to display their frustration by biting. And same deal, it may not even be that there's a problem with the other dog. It's not fear based. It's not dominance based. There's nothing like that. It's a boil over like that. Yeah, it's just that I'm coming in hot and whatever's in my way is getting bitten just because their mind says that it's going to relieve the frustration. They're feeling at the time. That's right. Yeah, it's a boil over effect where there's so much tension there. And it's almost like somebody who gets, you know, like they get so angry, they then turn around and smash a wall. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because they just, they think that I've got to do something to get rid of this pent-up energy. You know, like there's so much energy surging through me. I have to relieve the frustration because it's so intense at this point in time. So, you know, some people grab the pillow and scream into it. Some people turn around and hit a wall. Some people get into fights. They might punch another person. And all of that isn't, you know, it's an act of rage at the time where there's so much energy there. And they might, straight after doing it, they might think, "Oh, shit, you know, that was terrible. What did I do that for?" And immediately feel regret for their action. However, they still went ahead through, they still went through the behavior. And generally you find that's the emiglia part of the brain. I don't know. You left to ask Dr. Bob. Bobbi. Dr. Bobbi, uh, Sapolsky. Bobbi Sapolsky, I'm eight now, close personal friend. But so I feel like when we're answering people's questions, it's always good to define the terms that they're using. And so reactive dogs is a tricky one because, you know, I would say there isn't a clear picture of what some people are saying is a reactive dog. Might have a totally different picture in other people's minds as to what is a reactive dog. And so I think that really we talk about a dog that is acting on a stimulus, like reacting in a way that we don't like. I think that that's probably the best way to cover the broad spectrum. That's the transcribed thing. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And then misconceptions of is I think that we've talked about just then, is that I think a lot of people misunderstand why a dog is reacting to a stimulus in a particular way. As we said at the start, I think that fear is often a big motivator in that, but frustration can be another one. I think, you know, we talk about living with a reactive dog and it is a fucking headache. I've done it. It's a, you're on guard all the time. That's the issue. Yeah, exactly. And I think that if that reactivity is grounded in fear in any way, shape or form, the best thing to do is just increase the, the braveness of that dog. And there's so many exercises we've talked about a million times in ways you can do that. Well, the box work for one of them. That's, that is generally good go to is that the dog can start meditating on the box. Yeah. And learn to do it. I mean, I know we're talking about doing a Patreon episode on the box very soon. Yeah. Which will be great. Because there's been so many questions around it. And I guess there's been a lot of misconstructed actions on that as well. So I'm trying to clear that up for a lot for for people so they can invest a little bit clearer on what that's all about. But I think I certainly think that's a good, a very good go to place to start to bring the dog back to a, give the dog a bit of peace and a bit of time away from whatever's troubling it. So it can start focusing on something. It doesn't, it's not to say, and I'm sure you would agree on this. So there's not a cure for all dogs. But it's a great starting place. And for some dogs, it's going to have a very profound and positive effect on them within a very short amount of time. Well, the beauty of it when you're dealing with a reactive dog or a feeful dog in any way, especially if there's a specific trigger is that you don't have to address that trigger. And I feel like a lot of the times in training, especially if you're alone, if you're training by yourself with the dog, and maybe your trigger is something you don't have reliable access to, then that's why the box is so handy, especially, you know, I'm, Jess Ward is on the Silver School at the moment. And she was one of my early, what would you call it? One of my early student trials specimens of the box. And she was one of the examples that we used in her dog being vaccinated with his head in the box. But she's telling me just the other day about like he's almost a different dog completely. And the big difference is the storm phobia. And that's one of the things, you know, in the past, before I really knew how to desensitize counter condition indirectly, I have probably publicly even said that I don't think it's possible to address storm phobic dogs, dogs that react to storms because you can't, and I still believe this part, is you can't replicate that reliably because loud noises is only one part of it. There's the atmospheric conditions, there's static in the air, there's so many different things that happen in a storm. Yeah, you can't replicate an event. Yeah, and you might be on your way to desensitizing counter conditioning all of those trigger events. And then you're not home one day when there's a storm and everything that you've been working towards gets done. Yeah. And so I've said publicly before like I don't think that you can fix storm phobic dogs. Not that you, I don't think you can. I say that it's extremely difficult and unlikely to happen. However, now I totally, I've seen it with many times in the that it's the indirect approach is that you just make a dog that is stronger in every way. So certainly living with a reactive dog and the box as a product offer doing that is so powerful because it creates a tougher dog in every way. Certainly if you're working towards a specific trigger you don't have to work towards, you don't have to use that specific trigger in your training, in your desensitizing counter condition. You just make a stronger dog in general, full stop, tougher guy, deal with the world. And so that for sure is my go to in every time I hear about a fearful or reactive dog, that's what I wanted to do straight away. And for reactivity is often, you know, the dog is reacting to a stimulus as we say. And the box is the technique to teach them to focus on a particular thing and not pay attention to anything else. So to be a one trick pony and carry on about the same thing, that's really like it is the fix. And yes, I have to film that we're doing the Patreon theme. It's going to be a video, but it's not going to be a video. It's not going to be like a video, I mean the dogs, there's shit loads of that out there that's all there. It's going to be me explaining it in front of a whiteboard and how to do the different styles depending on the different problems with the dog. Yeah, that's good. When you're talking about the use of the box and the dog, I think the great thing about it is you described something to me a while ago, which I haven't really considered. And you're talking about the proper use of the box and how it should be meditation for the dog. And that was at the time when I started talking about how I was using that head product, the muse and quite still using that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still using it. I forget to use it. And then when I start feeling stressed again, I start going back to it. So there's two things that are actually great meditation for me at the moment. One I didn't expect and one I kind of knew, one is definitely the muse, which is the known part of it. The unknown part of it is BJJ. Yeah. That is helping me overcome a lot of, like just times when I have troubling thoughts and I'm finding that I'm not at ease, I just find that going down there and spending an hour on the mats rolling. Just rolling around getting sweaty with other men that really puts you at ease. That puts me at ease. Who I thought? Oh, dear. But it is. It's a form meditation. And I think, you know, like when we're talking about these forms of meditation, there's a lot of people who have considered large dog socialization, but also talking about the social programs of working with dogs. And again, you know, like I brought her up many times before, but stealing some of the discussions from Esther Schalk and lateral thinking people like her considerate of the fact that idle hands are the devil's tools. And that basically, we've said that on the show many times, I know we have, but it's prevalent because well dogs haven't got a job to do. They're thinking about other things. And it's the same thing with people. The worst thing in the world for somebody to do is not feel that they have purpose in life. When they don't feel that they have purpose in life or opportunity to do good, then they look for the opposite. And sometimes they don't even know. They don't even realize they're not aware of what they're doing is a bad thing. And we talked about this in the last episode, just a reference to it referencing your son, Rip, about talking behavior. And you said to me, you say he's got an issue. I don't think he's got an issue. I just think he's exploring through behavior. And you made that point profoundly yourself. The other thing that I like to make people aware of with dogs all the time is dogs aren't aware that they're doing the right thing or the wrong thing. They're just aware that they're doing the thing they need to do at the time. They're in behavior and they're selective in behavior because that's what life determines you need to do. So when you aren't as analytic as what human beings are, when you're not sitting there and you're cognitive about what the wise, the how's the who's the what's you're not contemplating everything. And I can't say this with absolution with dogs because like we've said, many of us have said this on the show before, the jury's still out in the intelligence dogs. We can't determine how intelligent they are or are not. But from what we do know, what is measurable and what we currently know in science, we do know that dogs aren't as intelligent as human beings. So it's our current belief in science that they don't analyze and deep think about topics that we currently obsess over. Things that we're, you know, there's no such thing as two dogs having a podcast with each other, but they communicate with each other. They communicate effectively. So they're effectively in behavior with whatever they're doing and we, we're the ones that label it. We say, well, it doesn't subscribe to our form of living standard. So therefore it's a bad behavior or it does. So therefore it's a good behavior based on what human consumption is all about is does this fit my lifestyle? No. Well, it's bad behavior. There it is. And some people might like that. And therefore they say, well, that's good. I like it when my dog does that when he's reactive to somebody that's cool. So therefore in their definition of it, it's a good behavior. So, you know, we're stuck in that paradigm itself of it's by definition of the user, you know, the end consumer is the one who determines if it's a good or bad behavior. So the dog is stuck in that it's plateaued in that environment because it doesn't really know what it's supposed to do. And it's not until the dog either is reinforced or punished through the through life to realize, well, I either need to do less I will stop this behavior or do more of or continue to do this behavior. You know, I grow in it or do I reduce in it? So therefore I'm a big believer and I've seen more effect including the work with the box and many other examples of that and better socialization practices that dogs really do need a job. They need something to do. And especially the dogs that are suffering and have these reactivity issues. This is a often the thing over the years of doing it. I've looked back and I've been a little bit more analytic. And even this podcast has made me question a lot of things that we've done in the past and a lot of training etiquette that I've learned and so on and speaking with people and their preferences in training because a lot of the times when you really do look at it, they're not meeting the needs of the dogs. They're not even close. Therefore the dog is basically, it's coming to terms with the fact, well, this entertains me in a way. Yeah. I think, you know, certainly with some people, what gets called reactivity is just like displaced nervous energy. And you know, that's obvious to me, say at the moment where I'm working away from home, like my schedule is out of the moment. And I have to meet my dog's needs in irregular times. I'm getting up at 4.30 in the morning so that I can make sure that my dog gets his needs met prior to me going to work at the Army based on this Nepipo school because he would be bouncing off the walls displaying what you would maybe observe and say like become a reactive dog. And I don't want that to happen. So therefore I have to, he has a job. He has things that I know keep you under control and stop those behaviors coming on. And I'm not around during the day to do those. I have to find the time to and I have to, I have to give him the outlets. I have to find the time. We have to go training the morning. He has to pull the sled. He has to do all those things so that he can keep you shit together through the day. And if you've got a dog like mine, when you're not doing those things and then you're wondering why he's just bouncing off the walls all the time, you might look at that dog and go, oh, nervous or you know, reactive to stimulus or everybody's just, he's just got a lot of energy to burn. And he's, you know, reacting to the environment because he has such built up energy and it's got to go somewhere. And so totally I agree. It's giving that dog, giving every dog a job and a purpose and a, and a, a focused training program with something that they do. I think that again is an indirect treatment of reactivity and therefore living with a reactive dog. Cause you know, that's, that's, that's Sian or Sian Marie. That's what she actually says, living with reactive dogs. That's a question. I know, I know, I know for sure that the path to living with a reactive dog peacefully is reducing the triggers. Well, reducing the things that make that dog reactive and I believe that even if it is fear based, giving them jobs to do and training that they can focus on will go towards making them braver. Not just the box, you know what I mean, like it, there's other things. There's other activities you can do. Get them on a meal, get them, you know, just training, just doing things in the environment, giving them a task to do. Yeah, that's what I have a job. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as I was just thinking when you're talking as well, like, there's so many different facets of reactivity and we're trying to cover them all. One of the interesting ones I think people don't think about too much is, yeah, that dog we talked about at the start that maybe is actually just quite social and wants to play with other dogs. I manage that in one of two ways. I think that the dogs don't need other dog friends, right? They might like them, but they don't, they don't need them. That's a very good point and that, that was actually a point I wanted to talk more about on this. So it's, it's great. You're going down this angle because I, yeah, it's very important. So I think, I think that if you all, if you want your dog to play with other dogs and you, you're okay with that and you can provide, you have access to dogs that are safe and the, the play will be fine. You then just have to control that and that is a high value reinforcer to your dog. And so you should approach it as such. We don't, you know, as much dog trainers and you're always talking about, you don't feed from the bowl. So you don't just give that dog free access to playing with other dogs. You use it as a high level motivator and yep, for a lot of people, you know, when you're dealing with pet clients and they have a dog that they say, this always made me laugh when I talk to pet people. They say on our way to the park. He drags me like a freight train and on the way home He just walks casually next to me because he's tired Yeah, you gotta feel no It's not because he's tired. It's dragging you to the park because that's his giant reinforcer Yep, and he's in a rush to get there And he's not dragging you home because he has no desire to go home There's no he's not it can't wait to get home to to be put in the backyard again Have I ever told you how long it took me with Harley to stop him from doing that to me? No when Harley was alive You know who Harley is I've told you about it before when Harley was alive and this is years and years ago He's been dead for years now But when he was alive it took me a solid month to stop him from dragging me down to the park and that's exactly the same scenario So I was relentless about it and I would not let it continue and I never ever let him off lead while he was dragging me down there What I had to do was totally Reeducate him on how we walked down to the park So it took me a solid month before he finally got it and accepted it and relented to the fact that Nothing will ever happen favorably to me while I'm doing this or trying to run and escape to play with the other dogs So after we conditioned the behavior he was absolutely fine about it forever more He actually learned at that stage strut down to the park Run off burn off all your energy come back when you're cold hop on the lead go home and we get to do it all again tomorrow Yeah, exactly so I think that if your dog is happy to play with other dogs and that reactivity to other dogs is Truly that they just want to go play with them Well, then you have a very powerful reinforcer on your hands right there, right? Like if you have a dog that's getting nail himself at the end of the leash and you're you know You always have that picture of someone who's got the dog on the prong collar and smashing it and that the dog still just trying to fight to get to the end of the leash Well, that's a lot of hope in that behavior That's a really that's a powerful training tool you have there Those same people are probably using their clicker and the dog barely wants to eat and you know casually strolls over to them and is like oh, I've got some food and then you've got this ultimate jackpot of going to play with other dogs So from my mind, I think you're crazy not to use that I always talk about it at the moment when I talk about markers I don't think I've talked about it on the show very much because it sort of escapes me a little bit I don't think of it in training so much But one of the markers that I definitely have with all my dogs is I just say okay And that's a release to the environment. That's just like literally go do whatever you want and for my dog That means for depending on the dog for Valerie that means go chase birds and for Remy that means you know Go to backflip somewhere like but it's go and do whatever you want and then Having the ability to release the dog to the environment it gets over so it seems so simple But a lot of people don't ever do that they finish their training the dogs on leash I can they go yep good job. We're gonna go right and the dog never gets to go on Yeah, it's unclear and what I like about that is then when I have distractors in the environment They're not distractors. They're indirect rewards and I'm trying to as much as possible when I talk about training It's to get away from that word distraction. I don't believe that a dog can be distracted by anything He's just motivated in another direction you have to control that motivation and so we talk about They're not the cloud. Your term as a distraction Well, I don't I don't see anything as a distraction if a dog is is trying to look at something else other than what I want him to look at It's because he's motivated towards that so everything that could possibly distract my dog is just what he's more motivated to look at It's just more motivating to do that and so Now if that's something that it is possible for my dog to be To engage with if I'm okay with that and I'm crazy if I use that if I don't use that as a reinforcer And and the classic example you know when we have people in the club and they say oh I can't come to training because my dogs didn't hate I'm like no you come to training and they're like I have to be careful I'll make sure the dog empties out like right at the front of the field I'm like no way take around the field and let a piss on the field But I want to know exactly where it pissed I wanted you to put a flag in there and I want to know exactly where it is and now that's my reinforcer Because that's one of the most strong thing This is one of the strongest things my dog can find as a reinforcer And if I know where it is and I control my dog's access to it then that's really powerful for me because later When my dog smells that he will still perform tasks under control because he thinks it's possible He'll be released to that and the only way he's going to believe that that's possible is because I've done it many times Like in the in the past and so it's the same with the release to the environment to just go and play with You know chase birds or for my dogs to play with each other or in the case that we're talking about is to just go play with other dogs Both my dogs will remease quite social about doesn't have a lot of value in other dogs but He enjoys playing with other dogs He would much rather work for the ball or for food or whatever he would rather engage with me But if I'm not giving him the engagement that he wants he'll he'll happily find that with other dogs and so for 100% I use that I'd use that as a motivator all the time because when I'm getting a need a recall and and I don't have Reinforced us on me so if a situation catches me by surprise It my recall will work because I almost always have my reinforce available to me because whatever he's at What some people would say he's distracted by I say no at that time he is motivated by it and He understands that I can call him off of the same way I can get him to Drop his ball and come into heel to go and get the same ball again Yep, if he's playing with another dog he knows I can call him back from that other dog to come into the heel Because there's a very good probability. I'm gonna let him go back to play with that other dog And so the only way that he believes that that is the truth is because it has been many times and when it is on that day It is a problem like we spoke about in an episode a few weeks ago where he was stuck next to a dog reactive dog And was in a position where it was difficult to call him away my competition whistle Even though I don't have my reinforces on me works with charm He can't help but fly back and then there's the he he knew at that time Well, he can't know but I didn't have any of my reinforces on me But I had the whole environment that he was happily playing in and there's the possibility of being released to that So I think that if your dog likes to play with other dogs and you You're okay with that and you have the opportunity and it's safe to do so and blah blah blah all the things that everybody worries about All those things are covered off I personally think you're crazy if you don't use that as a jackpot style reinforcer As long as you know especially say you know as long as you know about it as long as you're aware of it That's like the example you're using with female in-season scent You know like it that's fine as long as you know about it the time it drives me crazy is when someone brings a dog on the field And you don't know about it and then your dog is distracted by it or motivate it to it But but that's not a problem if you have trained the pitcher prior Yeah And you can control how the dog behaves around it and use it as reinforcement to say to the dog Yeah, you can go often smell it after we've done this exercise. It's no problem Yeah, so in the training you know about it. Yeah, but on the day when you don't know about it He knows about it very much and he smells it and goes aha that's gonna be my reinforcer I'll do it. I'm told because there's a good in the air and gonna be sent to that yeah Yeah, that's fine That's that's important to me But I think that as we're talking about is if that's what your dog is motivated by use that reinforcer Don't try and fight with another competing Marine Force or if you don't need to use that opportunity. Yeah You can play with other dogs conditional on this But on the flip side of them want to talk about if your dog is not good playing with other dogs And you decide that you don't want to do it then that needs to be the case a hundred percent of the time Yeah, I feel like once you decide you're going down that route You know before sorry before I go into this, you know I'm not a big I have social dogs that I socialize my dogs in in just in the world But I don't run socials, you know, this is a Chad Mackin. This is a Alex Edwards topic But both of them for sure have I've heard say that one of the best ways to have a dog who Has social issues is socialization right so that he gets out like the more you get to play with dogs for less value Value playing with dogs has values related to scarcity So a dog that has is overly frustrated and doesn't get to play with dogs as much as he wants By allowing him to play with dogs more he then doesn't want to so much because values related to scarcity But there's a point of diminishing return on that where the hope disappears eventually They give up the idea of getting to play with other dogs and for some people like certainly That assistance dog that I trained was the same so he was overly socialized with other dogs He was 16 weeks old when they got him yep and was left with his litter mates until 16 weeks old So all of the his imprinting was done on other dogs he really You know sometimes we talk about does a dog identify as a dog or as a person and we never know that for sure But I feel like a dog that was raised with other dogs stay with his litter mates till he's 16 weeks old He's a dog in his mind. He knows for sure like I I prefer the company of dogs I hang out without the dogs rather than prefer the company of people and so he would say the dogs are non-binary dogs now But I mean this is totally anecdotal but I feel like a lot of the time people if you get a dog at the right age at You know seven eight weeks or whatever you raise it in the home It doesn't spend a lot of time with other other dogs it become a lot of them and orientated Yeah, yeah, and if you were to ask him hey, you know Where do you fit into this you'd be like I'm just a weird furry little member of this family Yeah, and then what I've regularly seen again This is anecdotal is when those people get a second dog and they have the dogs together the second dog is more dog-like and dog orientated than the first because he's got the second dog in the home Yeah, and that's like I've explained that to people for years that they either they say to me What do you think of the dog and I mean it's you only you it's descript by observation really I mean and you observe the dog in behavior, and if the dog is more motivated by the actions and the stimuli of other dogs, then you know that that dog is more of a dog dog than a human dog. - Yeah, yeah, and like I said, there's nothing that, I don't know that there's any way we could ever scientifically measure that. There's probably not a lot that's-- - There's a sort of observation there. - That's right. - That's how science is formulated through the powers of observation. - Yeah, well anyway, so as I say, if you then go, okay, well this dog is never gonna play with other dogs, that has to be the case all the time. And when we're dealing in training, we're dealing in hope, we're hope dealers, and if we want to behave in a go away, then we have to just completely remove hope, just eradicate it all together. And there'll be an extinction burst, that behavior will get stronger, that behavior will be more obvious to us, you will try and harder to play with other dogs, you'll become more reactive to other dogs, and when then eventually, you know, and every dog's timeline is different, and how you address this in the meantime, and the punishments and reinforces that you use, but eventually that hope will die. And the dog, if he's never allowed to play with another dog, he will realize that he never will again, and he'll stop trying to do that. Now every dog is different, but what where people fuck themselves doing this, is they just about get that behavior gone, and then through their own laziness, or something that happens outside their control, I certainly believe that happens. You turn a street corner and there's another dog there, and then you're fucked, because then your dog is like, man, I was just about to give up on this, I was about to stop buying these lottery tickets, I was almost ready to give up my gambling addiction. - Now, now I see how you're doing it. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And so that's how unfortunately, I don't know a lot of people who have done extremely good work, they brought their dog back to a neutral position, where the dog is behaving exactly the way they wanted it to, and foolishly they've done something like, take their dog to a dog park where it should never have done it, and let me say on this, we have made it clear, multiple times, there are some dogs that just don't need to be force socialized with other dogs, they really don't want to do it, they don't like doing it, it's the same thing with people, sometimes people, they don't function well in large groups of people, they just don't like it, they're not extraverts in behavior, they're more introverted in the way they behave, they prefer sitting inside, reading a book, spending times with a couple of friends rather than a lot of people, and it's the same, I was thinking about this in the car on the way home, I don't know why, but there's conception that you have to get out there and own multiple properties and wealth create, and if you don't do that, you're a failure, where other people think to themselves, well success is not based on having multiple properties in a large bank account, the Mercedes, and looking like a million dollars, success for me, is grifting through life, enjoying nature and doing all those sort of things. I think this is a misconception that we miss a lot in, not only our human counterparts with our dog counterparts as well, we often misdiagnose it because we're so steadfast in what the popular concept of fashion or success looks like, or what the popular conception of what dog socialization looks like. So with Randy, I couldn't give a shit if Randy socialized with dogs or not because he doesn't care about them, he's okay to be around them, and that's the only thing that I'm concerned about is that he is not overly concerned about other dogs, he enjoys his time with me more. So even when there's other dogs in the backyard with him, it's like get out of my way, you know, like I wanna play ball with Glenn, I don't wanna play with you, and it's not like he's mean to them or anything like that, it's just like he's just thinking, yeah, I'm not really interested or not into this game with you. So I don't think a dog like that has to be forced into a social position because he doesn't want it, he doesn't need it, it's not something that he subscribes to. But like I said, the very fact that he's happy enough to be around other dogs and they don't bother him, I mean, it's the same thing even when I'm walking up to PSA, he doesn't care about the other dogs that are on the field whether they're going in or going out, he's just waiting for his turn to get on the field, he's waiting to interact with me, and that makes me happy in my heart. You know, I'm happy about the fact that my dog could not give a shit and to be quite frank, that's the way I've engineered it. I've engineered it to specifically be like that. So with people that have these non-social dogs sometimes, once you get into the point where they don't want to react where they feel harmony about dogs being around them, then don't go ahead and start forcing them to be around those dogs. I think that's anybody who encourages or do that. I'd really ask you to dive deep on that a little bit and just say, what's the need for it? Do I need to do this? Or is it just something that you want me to do because it makes you feel better about yourself? - Yeah, for sure, that's something we see at Fairbid, especially in this area that people have dog park friends. - Yep. - And that's great, social for them. - It's fine, if the dogs want to do it. - It's certainly, yeah, but there's certainly people who will say, they're almost trying to push their dogs into being social with the other dogs when you can see that the dogs is just not interested. And not aversive to it, but just has no interest in it. My old board of collar you Ernie, he hated going to the park to do nothing. He was a runner and it was back when I actually had a body that worked and me and Ernie used to just run everywhere. I'd take him running and he'd come with me everywhere we went. And if you went to the park, he would just kind of stare at you and be like, "What are you doing here?" - Yeah. - Like what's the deal? - He wasn't a real ball chaser or anything. I mean, he was a seven year old boarder collar when I got him and I knew nothing about dog training. But he didn't want to play with other dogs. He was not, I'd never saw any dog aggression or a meme ever in his life, or fear or anything. He just would stare at other dogs like, "What value do you have?" Like you have nothing for me. And then he'd just stare at me like, "Hey, when are we gonna go running?" I don't understand what we've come to this grassy area for if we're not gonna go running around. Like what on earth are we doing here? - Yeah. - And I was foolish at the time too. I was like, "Oh, we'll take him down the park and he can hang out with other dogs." And he'd just stare at me like, "I can stare at you at home, wear my couch and my toysa." Like, "What have we come here for?" - I think if you get in that position in your life where you refuse to acknowledge what you're observing, especially in situations like that, where a picture speaks a thousand words in many situations. And in those sort of circumstances, your dog is explaining to you the best way it knows how. I don't wanna be in this situation. I don't want to play with these dogs. I'm not aggressive to them. I don't really care about them, but I don't wanna be here. Or I don't wanna be in this location. I don't really care for it. It doesn't really do anything for me. Then if you still insist upon doing that, you have to really question yourself, not only as a dog owner, but if you're doing it as a dog trainer, my God, then you really need to question your craft. Should you be still considering being a dog? Because that's like a scientist, being a scientist, ignoring observable science right in front of your face and just saying, "You know what? I'll just burn that trial and just hope that nobody else noticed it 'cause I don't really want that to be successful." And it's a. - Well, that happens. - It does, it does. - It also does, especially when it's not viable or it's going to. - It doesn't show what the sponsors wanted it to show. - Exactly, yeah. And when you're willfully doing that with your dog, I really think you have committed a crime, a canine law crime. And the canine police should come after you really, because you're just doing yourself a great disservice, but not only that, I think it's a terrible lifestyle for the dog too, that it's forced upon the dog, that the dog must endure something. That's one of the things that you said, not that specific point, it wasn't that specific point, but what the point was that you said is that, it keeps you up sometimes at night, wondering what all these dogs who don't get drive satisfaction are doing. You know, like, are sitting in their backyard and not getting their drive satisfaction met. Well, I think another one, and I'm, you know, I think one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot more is why are people insisting on making their dogs do something? They don't want to do. You know, why aren't they looking more into the behavior of their dog and saying, you know, my dog doesn't actually like this situation. He doesn't like being dragged off to dog parks, or he doesn't like being taken to the park and having a ball thrown for him. It's torturous and monotonous for the dog. He'd rather be running with me or doing something that the dog enjoys doing. Don't insist on doing something. Your dog doesn't want to do. It finds no joy, no life in doing. You know, I think that's a much deeper question. It is really, isn't it? Yeah, because you know, I was sort of sitting in the sun, quite tumultuous there. Well, one of the things that's interesting to me is the stigma around moving a dog on, right? And so like we have it culturally to us, you get a dog, you get it for life, right? Yep. And that was always my picture of like, that's what you had to do. And certainly I think that if you just go like, I don't want this dog any more you're out on the street, then you're a total piece of shit. This is not what I'm talking about. Yep, but sometimes people in a dog aren't a good fit and there's the idea of like privately re-homing a dog, like not just dumping him at the rescue and saying, "Good luck." But that idea of like, "Hey, this dog doesn't fit, we're not a good meat." The dog doesn't like that. It's not happy, it's not, it's a lifestyle is not fulfilled being with me. Yeah, and that's totally, that happens all the time. It does. And it does with family, too. With children and wives and husbands. Yeah, but there's, I mean, I feel like there's, there's less stigma around getting a fucking divorced than there is moving a dog on. And now that people have that, now there is. People have that, like it's a really hard hurdle to get over. And I think even people in the dog world, they kind of find themselves like, "No, this is the dog I've got forever." And maybe you've got a great, you know, I know people who want a competition dog and they don't have it. And they're like, "Well, now I have to wait another 10 to 15 years before I try again." [BLANK_AUDIO] a competition dog and like, no, you have the perfect pet dog. Yeah. And there are people out there who are in desperate search for that pet dog and you can just move that dog on. Or if the dog is, you know, my dog's too civil to do what I want to do. And I say, well, he can go work on a door somewhere. This is not like, I, you know, I've much, for a long time now, I've wanted the job as the dog allocator. Yeah. I totally want to just be able to take dogs off people and go, you don't deserve this dog and that dog it can do better than you and put that and somehow in my magical dog allocators brain, no, the person that's looking for that kind of dog and do the shuffle and go, okay, you're getting the catch potato from over here and you're getting the athlete from over here and everybody's going to be happy and I'm going to allocate all those new. Perfect match for the right fit. Say again, perfect match for pets. Yeah. That would be right. Like a dating website where you swap dogs. Hang on, we might be under something there. Yeah. Well, you can be the new Greg Evans. But yeah, I just feel like there's a real stigma around that and I had that myself until you, until you manage that and for me, it came by raising a dog for Sonil. So it was never my, it was, I was never going to get to keep the dog. That was never on the cards. Yep. I was only having the dog. The first time I did that was I was just having the dog until it was like 12 weeks old, eight to 12 weeks old and people see you with a puppy and they're like, well, you got a new puppy. That's amazing. And I was like, no, this is not my puppy. I'm just raising it for someone else and then it goes. And people in rescue do this all the time, like, you know, as we talked about Dallas, like that's foster is they just have the dog for a period until they find the right person it moves on. And I tell people, I tell a lot of my clients when they're looking for a sport dog or a working dog or whatever, I'm like, just get the dog with the idea that it's not permanent. And that doesn't mean you treat it any different and you start treating as well. It's definitely going to be the dog that is right for you. But exactly that. If you're having a negative impact on each other's lives, if that's not the dog you want, you're going to resent it for the rest of its life. Or if you are going to have to force that dog into a shitty existence compared to what someone else might be able to give it, then I feel like as an industry, we should, I don't know, maybe just if there's a stigma get over it because I think there is a stigma around that. And it's only, and people tend to imply it to themselves, not so much to other people. They're like, oh, this is, you know, my ethics tell me I've got this dog for life. And if someone else can give that dog a better life, then that's in my opinion not ethical. I don't know. I'm thinking out loud here, Glenn. Help me out. Well, I'm not wed to any of these. I use a case example of this that when I was at school, there was a brother and sister that was, the brother was in my year group and the sister was, I think, she was either in my sister's year group or below or around that area. But what happened was there was issues with their parents. I'm not sure what they were, but the kids weren't doing well at home with their parents. And they went to live with their aunt and uncle. They went from unachievers in trouble all the time. Both of them were, you know, like, I think they were mocked and picked on at school. I don't, it's not a good situation, but their whole life was just miserable while they're at home with their parents. However, when they went to live with their aunt and uncle, who were a lot stricter on them, who were more demanding of their social activities and the way that they perform their school, homework and their curriculum around school. Within in around two years, these two kids had transformed into, they didn't even look the same. The way they looked, they came to school, dressed well, groomed well, looked well, ate well, performed well, spoke well. But everything that happened in that transition between parents to aunt and uncle had transformed those children into higher cheaters. You know, they were academically coming up in the world, socially moving up in the world. Like I said, they became different people based on a course correction in their lifestyle. And to reinforce what you were putting forth before is if this happens the same with the dog, like if a dog is not doing well in a home and therefore you take on the due diligence or your duty of care to that dog to re-home that into a better lifestyle where that dog can have that course correction and be the dog it needs to be in that home, then it's like a perfect ending fairy tale. Everyone lives happily ever after. We know that doesn't always work out that way. You know, sometimes that could be a bit of a pipe dream. However, again, you pointed this out before where you said, you know, if you do your job properly and you rather than just dump this dog onto some unsuspecting schmo out there or just dump it into welfare or something like that, but you actually go out there and look for the right home, understand what the precursors and the requirements of the dog's behaviour and how it would marry up with the right people and at least do some form of interview with the person and allow them to have a grace period with the dog to see how it goes. I think you could find that you could do quite a lot of justice in the dog's life by doing something as simple as that. Yeah. And in the working dog world, that's quite normal. That's totally what happens because dogs either have the goods or they don't for the work and they have to go somewhere else and people, you know, end up, you know, if you're most people in the working dog industry, you know, ethical people and they know, okay, like I have channels by which the dogs that don't work out, I have channels that they have, that those dogs can go into. I think, you know, I, we mentioned it briefly before. I can't remember what context it was in, but Mike Suttles of a well known person. I just about the same Mike Suttles. He's a good example because he can't. He's a well known person for giving you the like of he's from dogs from his own kennel. He, if they don't work out, he gives a fair, you know, he's got however many thousand followers on Facebook. He gives a fair assessment of the dog and explains why it's not going further in his program and gives him away. Like not, doesn't, you know, try and turn a profit on them. It's like this dog is not suitable. He's the reason. And, you know, again, to point out what a good guy he is, it would be my turn to hang on to his pocket instead of you this time is that regularly fucking bites him in the ass because he's then had people, you know, breeding those dogs and claiming that they brought it off him and it's been, I've seen numerous things unfold, but he's true to his guns. He's like, no, this is what we do with those dogs. That the dogs that don't make it and every breeder, a lot of breeders will tell you, no, they all make it and they're all amazing. Well, that's fucking bullshit. That just doesn't happen. Yeah. That is the way the dice rolls in the genetic lottery, that means that there's always washouts. That always happens. And instead of just disappearing, he puts them out there and says, hey, he's the deal. And if someone wants a nice look and dutchy, here he is, but he ain't going to work. If you want a nice companion dog, we've got one here. He's ready to go. And I just think that it's such a common thing you see in working dogs and I think a lot of pet people, if they could just come to terms with that, would maybe be a lot happier in their lives and allow their pets to be much happier. Provided the re-homing happens in exactly that, like I want to stress that enough, it's not that you just get rid of the dog. There's no way, shape or form saying that. You never said that. Yeah, find the right home and put that dog in the place where he should be. And more often than not, this is a trade like a trade up. It's because people have the perfect dog for like the type of people who are like these dogs not doing what I want. It's because it doesn't have the drive that they want. And so that's the perfect dog for someone else. And the people who are looking to move it, like the average pet person who's looking to move the dog on is because they have too much going that dog. And if for whatever reason, as trainers and dog well people, we can't motivate them into doing the things with that dog because that's just not some people. It's just not what some people are going to do. We can try as hard as we like that. You're never going to convince everybody that has a dog suitable for GRC to go into GRC. We can try and we should, but we're never going to convince everyone. And so sometimes it needs to be just a way to say to people, "Hey, there's another option. You can give it to this guy and he is going to do GRC." Or this dog is one and a million dog and he's going to go on to, he can do protection sports or whatever. Whatever the thing is, he can be the best dog dog in the world or he can go to the army and become a cent dog, whatever it is. But I don't know. I feel like as a lot of industry we should do more to convince people that that's okay. That's a bit of a rant. Hey, do you reckon we answered the question? As best as we could at this point in time. The question was living with a reactive dog and misconceptions of a reactive dog. I think so. I feel that we did. Yeah, I feel we did answer it and I would, after we do the episode, hopefully Cian gets to listen to this episode and I think she will be the one to determine whether we answer that to her fulfillment. You know, it'll probably end up very, there'll be like some facet of reactivity that we didn't talk about at all. Well, actually, I was talking about doorbell reactivity. So thanks for nothing, you fox. Well, you should stipulate that in your question. But yeah, I think that's it. Robin, if door part two, we can do a part two. Yeah. I think manage why you can address through activity and if it's fear based, make it all strong. If it's a desire that users are reinforced or do it that way, I am just always careful of that management. I think that so many people fall into a trap of management. I've done it in the past and I'm more and more convinced that on a long enough timeline management fails. So do like give your dog a job. That's my advice to a lot of people is give your dog something efficient to do in life. It needs to. Like, well, yeah, I just think there's far too many unfulfilled dogs out there. They're not doing enough. They need to do more. That's part of the responsibility, guys. I mean, if you're, and I know many of our listeners understand this because they're just as frustrated as we are about it because they're also seeing clients and echoing these same words. But nonetheless, and this is a, I feel this is a constant bugbear of mine, made mention of it many times and probably will well into the future is that we are, and we do have great access to such a wealth of information. And it puzzles me the fact that things that I would have, I just can't believe when I was first learning to train dogs. You know, like, you'd have to actually go to libraries and read books and watch old Krusty VHS tapes to get access to the information. It was so difficult to get, but now it's like a five second Google search to get a myriad of answers on YouTube and social media. Whatever platform you want to do it, I mean, you've got literally thousands and thousands of hours of very, very good work out there that people are giving away for free that you can, you can pretty much train a dog without putting a scent down for it. You know, the only thing it cost you is your internet connection. That's about it. You know, but that some of the material I've read, some of the science papers that people have put up in the balance symposium or even on the canine paradigm or in other people's forums that I'm involved in, that you're involved in, that many other people involved in, I mean, there is so much fucking good information out there. It is mind boggling how people still miss the point on some of the most conscripted basics that are out there and training at this point in time. And I get it. And I said this last week. And I do understand, I know this is a noxymoron in itself because I just said I don't get it now. I say I do get it. You and I laughed about this the other day. That was quite funny. But I do understand that, you know, with enough time and practice, you and I could be surgeons. You know, we could do operations. If we were taught how to do it, okay? The fact is, is that we haven't gone down that pathway. We haven't, that's not, that doesn't fulfill our job satisfaction basically. But when we have more time, we're hungry to tell the story about the time I perform surgery on a guy. Well, we, that is something I do want to know about. But the reality is, is that we could do it. There's nothing to say that we couldn't do it because a lot of people go into becoming GPs and surgeons and so forth. But it's, it's the time that they allocate to it. However, I mean, in a pinch, it sounds like you've done it, you know? Yes. But I mean, look, I taught myself to weld, watching YouTube. I literally, I sat there with my iPad and I just burnt metal until it actually started to work and that's how I learned to do it. So there is a lot of, my point is my frustration is, is there's a lot of real, I know there's a lot of crap information out there and there's a lot of people who call themselves dog trainers who aren't. I mean, there's people in all sorts of fields who say their doctors, lawyers, you know, investment bankers and et cetera, et cetera and that list goes on and on and on. There's a lot of people out there who are in that field but the reality is there's a lot of amazing people out there too and I made that point before who are giving this information away for free. It's just people aren't choosing to access it. They're not making good choices in their information. They're being lazy. That's what I'm trying to get to. If I'm being honest, they're being lazy in their approach to it. Hey, for your wrap up, something else thinking about before and I just want to tell a little story and give a big shout out to Alex Hill who bred my little springer. So I've got these clients at the moment, Rachel with this American bulldog, really nice little bully but he's like 16 weeks old and quite a lot of drive. They've cultivated all they wanted, they wanted to do GRC with him. They've been, you know, as good of clients as you can imagine, Camden did lessons prior to even getting the dog. Organize the Skype session for me to talk to the breeder to get the dog started before they even got it. You know, like everything's on track and the dogs doing great. Well done, guys. But, you know, he's a 16 week old American bully. He's an enthusiastic player and needs to learn to modulate, he's and regulate himself in play with other dogs, right? And being around other dogs. And because being a bully, there's, you know, such a high likelihood of dog aggression developing. I want to, I told them, you know, we need to manage all of his interactions with other dogs. It needs to be, because I live in the city, they live in this area, they need, you know, they're going to be interacting with other dogs. That's inevitable to have to say that to go down that path like we said where the dog never gets interacted with other dogs. That's just not, that's not a reality that they can live in. So anyway, little Valerie comes out to work, right? So in my garage, they're about the same. So I was, now he's 16 weeks old. And same deal, he sees I just loses his mind and starts trying to play with her. And you just have never seen a dog or you probably have, but just so perfectly correct another dog in a way like teach that dog about play in a way that you or I or any other human being just does not have the capacity to do. And he was, you know, she, she loved this puppy. So they had a little play and then he jumped all over him was too much. So he got corrected. And then he'd never been corrected in that way before. So he came back again and she corrected him again and almost went not over ball, but she did it perfectly where he was a little bit upset and he ran over to Rachel's legs and like hid between her legs. And I'm little Valerie goes trotting over and actually like recover. So it's not like she just like gave him the correction and then she realized, oh, I think hey, maybe that was too much. He, it's what he needed, but maybe this was getting close to being aversive and giving him a bad experience. And she identified that and then went over and actually sort of nestled him a little bit and was like, hey, we're still allowed to play. You're just not allowed to play like that. Like I could see that was exactly what she communicated to him. She was like, well, you can hang out. We can be together, but you just can't be a little fucker like that. You have to keep your shit together. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. And then you're going to be lying live on air that your dog used physical force to correct another dog. And that I cannot believe that the punishment was highly effective. I cannot believe what I'm hearing here. Lord, believe it. Lord, take me now, please. You know, this, this world is just not for me anymore. I know. Right. But to finish on that note, like I just thought it was one of the most, I was thinking about it. I was just hoping for it. I was hoping for it. I was hoping for it. I thought I should have just standing there watching it, but it'll happen again. It happens. It happens with every puppy I put her in front of, but the correcting dog she always does, I use her for that all the time. She's perfect for modulating how the dog's behavior. But that where she almost went too far and that little dog was okay. Like I'm a little bit scared and I retreat to my, to my own hour. And I said, don't do anything. Just leave him, leave him be. Let him finally see her. And she came over and was like, Hey, we can still play. You're not, you're not in trouble. You just can't play like that. And he was like, okay. And next thing, they're just kind of awkwardly standing next to each other, bowing at each other and nothing, nothing crazy is going on. Well, I just can't believe that nature can regulate itself without human intervention. And there's so many shocks, so many auditorial firsts that are happening for me today, it just cannot believe it. Yeah. I think one of the greatest imbalances in nature is human intervention. Yeah, 100%. 100%. But we just so arrogant and out approach to it, it really is quite silly. But this is the thing like her being able to do that. Like I say, there's no way I can teach a dog that as effectively as she can. That is impossible. She did six weeks worth of work in two minutes right there and was more permanent in that dog's mind and is going to have a more lasting effect on him for the rest of his life. Of course, it has to be generalized. I'm not saying that this is the only experience that you do, right? She does it with all puppies. Like she's the ultimate at it and she's very caring. She's very good with other dogs, but she's very good at, she gives them a lot of strength. She gives them a safe place to be, but she also accepts no bullshit from them either. Like she's like, this is, these are the rules. But you know, she's that little springer has raised some pretty tough mallies and she knows when I bring one home, put in the yard, like an end when I have other people's dogs and I put them in the yard, she's like, okay, I have a small window in time where I have to get in your head before you turn into a machine that could bite me in half. She can back remedy on the stair and does every day. That's cool. And like the only thing that she really guards in the house is me. Like she, you know, when we go out, he gets all of my attention. She goes and does vowel stuff. But then she's like, no, when we're cuddling on the couch, that is our time and you do not interrupt that. And he got his sense of it. Like, oh God, oh, oh, and just with a step, she just does it. But there's no way like she couldn't physically best him in any way, shape or form. He could bite her in half in half, beat like it would be nothing, but she's in his head. Anyway, I loved that little dog. I just wanted to give her an Alex who bred her and you know, what a good job he's done. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, hey, let's wrap it up. Yeah. Well, hopefully we answered the question and before we do wrap up, what I do want to say is you mentioned my ex-settle before. It's just over a month until he's in our shores. It's exciting. And yeah, there's a lot of people who have spoken to me recently about sent detection and their nose works or their NDTF. I've mentioned it before on the show. If you are involved in any type of sent detection and you're looking to up your game, I can't you pass, Mike Suddle. If you're not considering Mike to come and learn off him for his expertise in his cent work, you got Roxanne Head. It's as simple as that. Mike is one of the best out there. I'm sure anybody who's been to E7R before would have to say that he's ahead of his game in cent work. Were you jealous that I was holding his pocket and you just wanted to. Yeah, I did. I had to best you. I had to finish on that. No, I'm looking forward to that. It's going to be awesome. I 100% can care anybody that's involved in cent work from those works to. All around the sky. It's very, very intellectual and just a great wealth of knowledge to be around. Yeah, but from those works to bomb dogs and everything in between, you got to be there. All right. Hey, that's it for the second Skype episode of The Can I Am Paradise. Hopefully we'll be together this weekend and we'll be able to do a live episode. And maybe an interview we never know. Hopefully. We'll see what happens. Let's not jinx ourselves. So, if you feel like it, if you've maybe a good guy or gal, just give us a like, rate, share, subscribe on whatever subscription service you download us from. We haven't had. We haven't been getting many of those. We feel like we've maxed out. I feel like we've hit our listenership and everyone's just like, "Oh, we can't have because we've got like a hundred and something like some shares and yet we've got like thousands of people on our. on our social media page." So really, what are the rest of you doing? Like there's nine, hundred of you that I haven't understand as well. How is it that we only have, I think, like, 2000 followers on on the social media, but like, 4,000 downloads per episode. I don't understand how those numbers work out. Is that people who just. They don't have social media? What's going on there? I don't know. Maybe we've just got a lot of haters in the back. I don't know. I'm not sure. There's a list of you. Well, they don't want it. They're like, "I give you an hour a week to be in my ears. I don't want you on my screen. You're flux." Yep. Could be that. All right. Well, anyway, if you want to support the show, do that on Patreon. Three bucks a month will get you some extra content. Ten bucks gets a live Q&A. And what do we say? Five hundred bucks gets you a hug on your kids and you get to choose who that's from. Yep. If you want to get in contact with us, do that via email. We are info at the canineparadine.com. And that is it. Glenn, music. (upbeat music)