Training Without Conflict® 팟캐스트 에피소드 48: Mia Skogster

So, you know, we'll see what happens. But that's what we've been doing like in the last, you know, 10 days, two weeks. It starts to kind of, you know, break competition, starts to get in your head, get up all of a sudden. It's like, hey, should we go tracking or should we go to do videos? Yes, yes. Do you have a... Who is a judge in your Nationals? The judges. So we have... Oh, man, you're going to kill me now. I think you know him. It's just kind of very cool guy. He's done bunch of... Oof. Now you really got me. I'm not like I'm thinking somehow Paavo Rapila comes in my head and it's so not because it's finished. I only know the Estonian. Estonian. Estonian. Yes. I think it's the... Give me the name. Ivo Obligas. Yes. Yes. Ivo Obligas. Yes. Yes. Because I was really thinking that I don't know any Lithuanian, but then Ivo came to my mind about tracking. Yeah. Okay. So you have... I mean, I'm horrible. Like to me, Estonia, Lithuania and Lithuania are like very confusing. And I know they even speak so different languages that they don't even understand each other probably. But for me, it's kind of, you know. But so, yeah, he does tracking. And then Mark Oliver and... What is her name? Natasha. She's from Slovenia. Ah, you have Oliver Nadke there as a judge. Yeah. Yeah. So they're going to do... Ivo. I know. They're going to do... I don't know how they're going to do it. I think both Natasha and Mark Oliver will both judge on the stadium together, I think. I don't know. I don't know. But these are the judges. Very thin. She's from Slovenia. I can't think of her name. She breeds also. A German depredo? No, a Malinois. Is she a German? No, no. Yeah, she breeds Malis in there, but I can't think of... How do I find the names? This is so bad. Like, I'm so bad. But they just like both together obedience and protection. I think this is the plan. Do you have a long distance to the championships? Yeah, we're going to have to drive... Yeah. I mean, it's a... We have to... It's a good drive. But I was saying, like, we... I mean, the getting ready for the competition right now. That's the... That's the big thing. And Natalia is a little more prepared than me. I'm gonna... Hopefully... Do... Okay. But it's the qualification. So we have no choice. We have to do it. And they made it kind of weird this year. Like, I don't know how you guys do in Finland. For us, it's always a little bit... It always seems to me, for all the years that I've been competing, or at least the last 10, that somehow the Malinois Championship or the Old Bridge Championship, always in some conflict with some other World Championship or something.

So like right now, you have the FCI starting basically this weekend. And in the following week is the Malinois National. So even anybody that was on the team at the FCI and tried to make another competition has only one week off. And this is just very difficult, considering that you have to fly and come back. And it's just not possible. We have the same. We have the same. We have always finished Malinois Nationals second weekend of October. And that basically means that people who have been competing in FCI, and then they are usually traveling by car. So you have the long flights, but we have the long distance driving. So people are like taking the ferries to Sweden or Estonia or somewhere, and then they are driving there. So usually some people actually fly there, but I personally prefer always go by car when possible, because I have so much stuff. How it is with you when you go, for example, Nationals, if you consider that it would be like, let's say you have to drive like one day, like 24 hours or something, or do you prefer fly and rent the car? Which one you then prefer? Yeah. Yeah. If you can go by driving. We got really, really screwed up right now with flying. Like it was becoming very difficult before COVID, but now after COVID, there is only two airlines that fly dogs out of all the airlines that we have. Only two airlines that are only two airlines that are only two airlines that are only two airlines. And they have some crazy requirements that it's very difficult to meet. So, I mean, we're kind of joking that if for some reason there is a competition in California and we need to go to California, probably the best way to do it, if we're going to fly, is to go to Frankfurt and then California. That's how crazy, that's how crazy it is. Yeah. Yeah. Like flying is becoming very, very tricky and every time they make some restrictions like this, we think, okay, that's just for the moment, but they seem to like it. I don't think that our airlines, at least, I think they're done dealing with dogs and lawsuits and stuff like that. So, they're just done. And so, yeah, we're going to drive. We have to drive. Yeah. I don't remember this because when I was last time in USA and I was going to Brazil and I thought that maybe I would take my dog to Brazil. Maybe you remember. And then I check the prices and the prices were like, they would charge, I think American airlines would have charged me per kilo price and, and, and some kind of like cargo kilos, like whatever weight, it was super expensive. It would be like something like, I think it would have been something like $10,000.

What I would need to pay or something like this just for the dock ticket. So, it would be like, say like a more expensive than me, me, myself flying in the business class or first class or something. Right. So, it was terribly expensive. And then I decided that, okay, it makes of course no sense. But yeah, but also personally, I prefer actually in Europe, even it, even we would have the championships in Greece where everybody would just basically fly. I would drive there. I would drive there if possible because, you know, I have my car, my huge amount of stuff, and I have like, I don't have to think about what I'm taking with me because I have always too much. And I never, you know, so much stuff with the dogs, all the food, everything. So, I think it would be easier for me just to drive. Plus the dog can be in his big cage where he's used to be and so on. Right, right, right. Maybe in Greece, maybe if it is an island, I would consider to fly there though, and then rent like a fan. But generally, I think I would always drive if it's just possible. Even it takes me two days to drive. Yeah. Man, it's crazy now that you, we talk about FMBB, the, the Portuguese club just kind of decided not to. Yeah, they canceled. Like, but, but this was talked about so long time that they will cancel and then, um, they, nobody admitted it and then it really happened. Yeah, they were just hoping that maybe something's gonna come true. Yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe the Greek club you know, now that they did it one time, maybe they have a good run this time. You know, sometimes when you, when you have one time and you kind of see how it is and you get better, you know. Better. Yeah. It's kind of like how Slovenians, you know, I mean, they've done so many now, that's kind of okay. Like a routine. Yeah. Croatia is the first time, right? I don't think Croatia has done anyone, any championships. No, I think it's the first time either. Yes. It's gonna be a good one. I mean, it will be interesting. I think, I don't know. I don't know. Do you know who the judges are on this one? I, I haven't even looked at that. Was it also Mark Oliver Radke? Are you really? I'm not sure. It can be that it wasn't, you know, I, I haven't checked because I, I wasn't going to go there. I decided to skip that. Right. As I also qualified there, but I was like, I will not go big. Not because of the Croatia. It's because of, of me and my dog. Right. But that was the reason. Do you still, is it still with you? How are things going? Yeah. Because I'm now, I'm now waiting

for the Finnish, um, um, army, the special forces. Like they, they have, um, they have, um, the paperwork will take a long time there. You know, it's goes like further and then it goes to the next table there. And they told me it may take a few months before they eventually can. That's how, that's just how they work. How the process is done. But that's cool. I remember long time ago with Helge, um, the helper I trained that time, uh, Jan, he, um, had an accident or like he had some injury in his, uh, left shoulder. How surprising that a lot of helpers do that. So we trained Helge always with the right arm sleeve, like, like, you know, just because of that. Right. And then before competitions, you know, we have to also do some helper work with the left arm. For sure. So. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, I mean, I mean, just like people that haven't done it at all, like once you try to even put the dog down for the escape and you're like, down in the escape. This looks really weird. And typically the dog starts to look at the judge and not the decoy because the judge is in the wrong side. It's very funny. Yeah. And, and also side transport, I think side transport is also hard. Right. No, no, you definitely have to show the dog. Yeah. I mean, they definitely have to see it. But the good thing at least is that I think they have two guys to the right arm. So, yeah. You know, because it's, I've been, I can't remember, that was a long time ago, but it really kind of messed up the whole championship that year because the guy that was doing the right arm, I don't know if he got tired or injured or whatever, but they had to replace him. So they replaced him with the left. Yeah. And that just kind of changed the whole, you know, just something to think about. It doesn't feel like it's completely equal. Right. Right. Right. And especially for, for us crazy dog people, we are right away, oh no, this is so bad. You got the one who has that and that's why it works like that. Yes. The new rules are out. I haven't looked at them yet, but I looked at the, I mean, I looked at the proposal, so I'm assuming that basically they just got accepted. They just kind of came a few days ago. Have you checked them out? No. No. I haven't yet. No. We just trade. Tell me something. No, I didn't check them out either. I've been just busy training. You have been busy with other things like training dogs, for example, without knowing the new rules. Crazy. Right. I mean, that's funny. No, but I did look at the proposals when they came out. Right. And

I think we talked about it. So, I'm, yeah. I mean, there is not much noise on the internet, so I'm assuming that nothing else has changed there, you know. Maybe the others are like we, they just haven't, they're like us, they just haven't read them. Right. That's why there is no noise. They are also busy with training until one person reads them and it's like, by the way, there is this and that's gonna be Yes. Like a game changer. But that's the bad thing about us competitors, you know, we like, we have to read the rules. There's no time for. Yes, we have to read the rules, but we don't really have time for that. We don't have time to politics. We don't have time to actually anything else, just training our dogs and perhaps eating and sleeping when it's time. So, the new one seems to be doing really good, huh? You like him and everything, like you're moving with your new dog. Things are looking very nice. Oh yeah. I love him so much. He's now 13 months old and you know, I have this feeling that finally I have a dog I can train. I can move forward without, without stuck in some unimportant little things which keeps me circulating. Yeah, I'm super happy. How is that, you know, like, I just kind of jumping back to something because I thought of it when we were talking about driving or flying or flying or whatever. Like if you are in Finland, like October, is it already the dark part starts kind of the longer dark? Yeah. So, how does like if you go to let's say somewhere in Europe further down, do the dogs get affected by that? How does the dog really deal with this six months, six months? You know, we don't, it would be easier after the summer, but we don't, we don't go in October anywhere. It's kind of like, we are depressed. Yeah, because there is nothing happening. You're right. The death is coming, exactly. Death is coming and nothing happening. But, but the bad thing is always in springtime because we have in April, we have still snow. And, and if we are lucky, the snow melts away just like a week before the FMBB World Championships. But very often people have been leaving our country when it's still like, you know, minus degrees at night, and then something like zero degree in the morning or it can be super cold still kind of. And, and then, um, then when we go somewhere like Greece, uh, it, you know, the dogs usually feel that much more heavy, heavier, heavily. And then, um, when they get used to it, like during the summer, uh, then it's easier for them to tolerate the warm weather. In my opinion, I think that that's, that's very experienced. Of course,

we have also individually very different dogs that some dogs don't react so much if they have, if they have high energy and they have, they are very high driven dogs, they don't feel it that much. But of course, calmer dogs and lower driven dogs usually react harder. And so like in the summer time when they were like, I know when you go to bed, you put the curtains heavy, so you kind of make a dart. But what about the dogs? Do they need that or they're fine with daylight to sleep or? Oh, they are fine. Somehow dogs can sleep like even it's like, like bright throughout the, you know. That's crazy. I've never talked with anybody about this and it's like always been in my mind. Like, you know, I think that the kind of light and darkness and all these things, they affect only on humans. Dogs are more somehow tolerant for that kind of things. I think they are more heavily reacting for, like, temperature. Yeah. Whether it's warm or cold. Yeah, for sure. How is your experience like if you come to Europe? Do you have like, Yeah, that effect, I totally believe that that affects them. I don't know if it affects them in the same way as us. Like I've, I've been to Europe only three days before competition and we did really well. Yeah. But typically, you know, at least a week ahead of time, at least a week ahead of time you go. I would say, I would say almost everybody goes 10 days minimum ahead of time, which is, which is a long time. It's interesting. Have you felt it ever like this, that if you are like long time living in a hotel or in a worst case in different hotels, because first you go somewhere like two weeks before, then you stay in one hotel somewhere, you train in some environment, then you travel to the competition place. It's another hotel, it's another car perhaps, or, or, or, or so on, at least another environment, that your dogs would be actually more tired in the, in the really best competition days, than if he, if you would just come there a little bit earlier. Yeah. Like, how do you feel like, what, what is in your opinion, or have you seen differences in different dogs that some dogs cope with better in that way and some dogs on the other way? Can it be like individual thing or, or do you feel that it's more universal thing? Yeah, no, I, man, this is so interesting to talk about because um, if you do it smart, which is never happens, right? But if you were to do it smart, probably going a little early, it's, it's a good thing. But you cannot, no matter how you organize yourself,

here is how it goes. You fly, hopefully the plane, everything goes right, everything, you get your luggage, all it's good. Mm-hmm. You go to your hotel or Airbnb, whatever that is, and then the madness begins. Now you have to drive around to find tracking fields because you have no idea where you are. So you're like on Google Maps, so this looks really green here, let me try. Well, no, too bad for you. Then you're looking for some place where you can do some obedience. And what really ends up happening, no matter how well you're organized, even if you, if you have friends in the country and they secure some place for you, most of the day becomes just driving experience. And, and very often you just drive from A to B just to find out that nothing's possible to happen there. And then you have to drive two hours in the other direction to, so, so it really, really, really sucks when you, you think, okay, I'm going ahead of time and everything. And, and ultimately what happens is, is just a lot, a lot of driving and you kind of learn depending how many times you've been in competitions, but you kind of learn not to get frustrated, disappointed because you dropped two hours and the tracking field that you were hoping that's going to be good. It's already, I don't know, the farmer just puts cow shit or whatever, like it just nothing. Yeah. It's not for you. You're out of luck again, you know, and, and that's, that's the tough part to where the benefit of going two, three days right before, like you, you know, where you go, you're at home, you're in a routine and you know, and basically if you have the courage, which is very tricky to go to Europe and do one or two sessions and basically go into the, the general practice and, and, you know, and I guess it depends. I mean, I will hear what you think, but I think it also depends on, on, on where your dog is. Like if, if the dog is already, let's say five, six years old and it knows exactly what we are doing and how it's going to go and you have nothing to fix. Yeah. I mean, we're talking ideal situation. Who doesn't have anything to fix to three days before the trial, right? Right. You know, gurus, they don't have that, but, um, you see, of course I'm the kind of risk taker. So I like to go there. Like I like to go to the competition place, um, usually two days before the official training. No, I can see the good things. Two or three days, but it's also because that's typical in Europe because it's different. We don't have the time difference and so on. So

usually I start driving like, like maybe on Friday or Thursday from home and I arrive Saturday or Sunday the competition place wherever the competition is somewhere in central Europe, usually or Southern Europe or Western or, or Eastern and, or Northern. And then, um, and then, um, yeah, then I have like a few days time. Usually it's like Sunday and Monday is a time. So there is two days time to actually even try to search some kind of tracking field or, or, or something. And I have tried to organize it beforehand or asking at least some, some help if possible to do it once or twice. Um, so, um, yeah, that, that's the usual situation, but it could change because when I have been last time competing in the Europe, we used to have FMBB in May and that was much better because that means that we were able to track in Finland, uh, at least two or three weeks. I mean, two or three weeks is, is a brilliant amount of time, you see, after winter break. And then, then nowadays when the competition is in April, that means that we would, I would be like forced to drive there earlier that I can do at least a few, like, like one week tracking before or two weeks. So, so something like that, that would force me to do that. But my experience generally about traveling is, and I have been always wondering about the TV USA and Canadians and, and, and Brazilians and all those people who have to come from far away distance, that how much more harder it is for the dogs, because you are forced to take a rental car and, and flying, and that is stress for your dog, no matter how good dog you have, he has to change so much more in environment and also the weather can change and so on. But then I've been thinking this, that at least with my experience, young dogs, when we have like really young dogs, like one year old dogs or two years, two year old dogs, when I'm traveling first time with them to Europe, like just by car, ferries, different hotels, and I'm, I'm going to Czech or Germany or somewhere, uh, Austria or whatever, my dogs get usually quite tired, especially the longer the trip goes. So if it, after two weeks, for example, I can feel that my dogs are not in, they are not so highly aroused when I take them out of the car or so on. So they are clearly a little more tired when they are good dogs. Of course, they still want to work, but you can see like the peak, like that they are a little more tired than they are at home, for example. And then the older they come, they seem to not to stress about and getting tired

so easily. So when they come like three years old or four years old, or if we compare it for five, six years old dogs, that they seem to like cope better the traveling and the stress. And then there also seems to be some dogs that can cope better this kind of stressy environment, like, like a changing environment than other dogs, that some, some dogs just don't react so much. And then I know a lot of Finnish dog trainers, for example, who have told me that when they are traveling, their dogs just come more lazy, because they are like getting just tired after three, four days. And eventually when the competition day is, their dogs are not that motivated, for example, kind of flat. Yeah, yeah. No, no, I can't. I know, I know. Yeah. That definitely can happen. But that's also the strategies of the trainer. It's so hard to have this strategy to make it right, because the strategies always change, right? It's not like, okay, I got it down, it worked for this trial, so I'm going to do the same thing for the next trial. It's just not going to go the same way. And you got to be smart. It's smart. It's different. Or you have another problem fixed, or something. With our traveling, you know, what is one of the kind of, at least, again, depends on the personality of the person, but like travel can get you very frustrated. I mean, your back gets lost, or the connection gets delayed, or they don't have the right rent a car, or you realize that the Airbnb is like in a really bad area of town, and you have nowhere to walk the dogs. Or there is no place to walk with your dogs. Exactly. Or there is no street dogs, or whatever happens. And all these little things, they get you frustrated. And now the dog is like, what is he or she upset so much about? And now, you know, it kind of rolls into the dog, and the dog starts to be concerned too, that okay, something is really wrong here. I don't know what, but something is wrong. I have noticed that it helps, at least, I have always liked to walk when I go with my dogs. So if I'm competing, so I do everything to my dog that my dogs would feel comfortable and relaxed. Because eventually, it is, or the most important thing is the dog in that trip. So it's not that I get the best wine, or if my luggage is lost or something. So I'm like, I'm very picky with this, that my dogs don't hear me even talking with a nasty way or negative way to my friends. So I want to leave my dogs to the hotel, and then I can go or Airbnb somewhere. And then I want to talk this kind of things, like somewhere where my dogs are not listening to. No, I mean, that's super cool.

And then another thing is that I think exactly what you mentioned about this, when it when you when your whole time goes for this stupid driving around, and that is stressing because your dogs, first of all, they are in the car, they can hear you what you say, and talk to someone and so on. And anyway, this kind of like sitting, even to a dog sitting in the car box so long, so many hours per day can be also stressful. So at home, my dogs are sleeping in the house, and I just drive into the training field and back short distances. And then I go often walking with them so they can sniff and just run freely in the forest. And what is really stressful for many dogs is that when you travel, you have no this possibility to keep them free. Because maybe maybe it's like in the city, or maybe it's some kind of place where a lot of other people, a lot of other dogs. So the first thing what I'm searching for is the place where I can drive and set my dog free, even some kind of like, you know, road next to fields or forest or something. And I noticed that it's also something that clearly makes my dog, first of all, more hungry. But if I think about tracking, so you can take a fresh air, they can walk more, they can sniff, they can get the stress out of themselves just by chorting and walking. And so that is something important. What I try to do systematically when I'm traveling with my dogs. And if I compare like, if I'm just traveling with my dogs to train, you know, like if I go just to train them in Central Europe, I think I don't so much walk with them, I can be more like, relaxed, you know, I go training with them. And of course, I walk before and after the training, that's for sure, like cooling them down and warming them up and so on. But then I can just, you know, bring them to hotel. And I'm so, I want to, you know, go to a restaurant and eat and something. So I think I'm a little bit more relaxed there, but it's maybe not so good for the dog. So kind of in the competition trips, I I give more attention for the dog. The dog is like the king and the most important thing there. That's crazy how, I mean, I think the same way, but I try, I do it a little bit different. I try to make sure that I do whatever needs to be done for me to be in the right mind. Because if I'm not in the right mind, then for sure, everything just goes bad. But that's also a good tactic. Yeah. So I mean, we are reaching the same goal. Same thing. Same goal. But I'm like, I know that if I, if I cannot make my mind, like if I'm upset and I cannot get rid of it

and whatever, I know it's just going to go right to the dog and he'll be like, oh, shit. So I try to pay attention more on me because if I feel good, you know, they know, I mean, you can take it as much as you want, but they, they pay attention. They know so well that they know, I think they know most of the time if we are making a very good effort and when we are really, really enjoying, you know. I think I become like the real actor, actress just before the competitions. And when the competition is over, I'm not only tired because all that stress and everything, but I'm tired because I have been acting so much. I have been acting in front of my dog, which is like, I'm suddenly this super cool person that is like, or I tried. And I was, I was thinking, for example, before Phoenix Championships with Mahis, I think the last one week, I was like in a super merry mood, just in front of my dog, not like, maybe everywhere else, but just in front of my dog and all the training, I think Mahis must have been really thinking that, oh, it's like a super fun right now with her. So he kind of like cheered up. I think he was better, but often my dogs are a little better in the competitions. And I have been thinking whether it is because I become a nicer person. Right. I tell you with me, like, I mean, I share with, obviously with the whole world that's listening, but I also, I want my dog to, to, to know that the moment, you know, we, we have a very good feeling, but somewhere, somewhere, and, and it's not even on purpose. It actually happens in during training for a good reason. But, you know, not too close, not like the day before the trial or two, but let's say three or four days before the trial. I'm like, don't do that. No, we don't do that. To, to where they, you know, like, it's like, okay, this is, this is real business. Okay. Okay. We were back to doing it. And, and so I have, and again, I don't think it happens on purpose. I think it just happens in the training and my pressure for the competition, but there is this moment that it's like a few days before the trial that I'm like, dude, this is like, don't do that. Not now. It is not good. And then we go nice. But I think this moment that, you know, we have that kind of conversation for my dog is important, you know? Yeah. Like, like, okay, don't fuck around. Like, it's just not the right time right now. I, I think I have exactly what you have, but I just have that earlier. For me, it happens always two or three weeks before the competition, before I actually

start traveling. And it happens, and it's like, this is not accepted. Right. It's a little similar. Yes. And then it's like, this is like that a question, but we don't talk about these questions again. But it, it, it absolutely, I think I, for me, for me, this kind of training, um, situations where my, I would say that where I'm a little more, when it goes more, my nerves, something like that is exactly two or three weeks before. But then the funny part is, just like when we are like traveling, then usually it is, I have had my moments like in the past, where this kind of situation also has happened, like, uh, before the official training, right? Or something. Usually it's like, like, like then, but, uh, like, like also earlier, like, or like later, how to say later, like just more closer to the competition. But nowadays, I think I have become a little better with this, but I'm completely intolerable for people around me. Maybe like, just before the official training. And it seems that every single person goes to my nerves, like right before. Because everybody sees you and they want to talk to you. And it's like, how is everything? And good luck. And it's like, no, I, I talk like a lot, like all kind of bullshit, but I think, and I grow people's nerves, really, but official training is something that it never, um, stops wondering me how it comes that people don't know what they are doing in the official training. And I need to know what I'm like, I know exactly what I'm doing. Like every single doc, I know it when they were born, what I'm gonna do with them. I bring them to competition, you know, do official training kind of. And then when I'm asking the other people who are in this team, you know, because usually it's like, you know, five people or six people in this group, and it seems to be even worse in the nationals, because in the nationals, you have more unexperienced people in your group. And somehow they really trigger the worst out of me. Like, I'm like, Hey guys, could we talk like a couple of days before the official training, like what everybody is doing and I can call it through in my mind. And I'm gonna plan my program with that. Because if I'm number four, I want to know exactly what the number one and two and three is doing and also five and six. So I can place myself to the field, to the right spots. And I can perhaps do a little bit healing or something there. And then they are like, we don't know yet. Oh, I do a little bit healing. And then I do that. And then I'm like, and then in the worst case,

what happened is that they don't do that. They start to do something different in the field. And for me, it's like, everything collapses. See, those are the moments where a really good team captain, experienced team captain can kind of make this, you know, like this is probably the most important time for the team captain to make this for everybody. Is it always similar what you prepare when like, but in the nationals, we don't have the team captain, you know, like we usually have like a local team or the club that is going there. And then it's, there is no captain. So it's more messy even there. I think in the world champs, it's easier. Do you always do the same kind of practice? Yeah, I do. And I kind of like, the only thing I'm wearing basically is whether I do the jumps or not. It depends how old dog I have, you know, like if you have an elder dog, perhaps you don't have to do that, but younger dogs. Or if the jumps are set up something funny, then you have to ride. Yeah. Yeah. Or just like, you know, just can be that I just ask my dog like one time jumping and giving the ball, but exactly I want to save time. So I'm like, I need to know when I can go to the jumps. So I need to know the people like how much time they are spending in the middle of the field and which order because I could easily do it. Meanwhile, that, yeah, but yeah. But when you do it, is it more of a like, because you have a few different ways, I guess people would have. One would be to present more of a trial kind of picture to the dog. The other one to present more like a play full session. Like, where do you go with those? I think I go a little bit between. So I start heal my dog towards there, like in a trial, and I reward my dog from that. So just the beginning is like the same, but then I change it completely. And I play with my dog. And when I have once played with my dog, then it doesn't really anymore matter because right, my dog, he has already been, you know, giving his reward one time. And then I can just bring him, you know, to do the jumps, for example. And I just do like, I always do one recall. And then I have to recall, I want to show him the send away so that he I will turn him so he can see it from a shorter distance. And then we run together in the beginning of field, and I sent him there. That's like how I always do. I don't want to have anybody there showing the toy or something because this could go wrong. I mean, anything can go wrong. But that's just how I'm used to do this. And I want to spend like my, my most important part, of course, is in obedience,

I spent more time in obedience than in protection. It's just applying search, right? Of course, this can vary, I can have like one reward in some of those blinds can be that I have one reward, for example, in the fourth blind or something. Yeah. And then there is, of course, helper in the sixth. But what seems to be a little problematic, at least that we seem to have like every year, some kind of like big conflict going on in Finland, at least with this, that that, like last time I got like, like, again, because of my nerves, I got like, this is a bit embarrassing to say, but I got like, uncomfortable, I lost my nerves a little bit or I was a bit maybe nasty to some competitors, because they were like, Why do I need to do so much in obedience? Like why I need to do recall, send away and jumps. And I'm like, I'm not gonna spending more time here, right? Because I'm gonna do my charm, just like one jump and give it the ball like, yes, meanwhile, somebody is doing, you know, healing, and send away or something. And then my recall and send away, they happen very quickly. And then in my blind search, that doesn't take much time because my dog will basically find the toy in the fourth blind. And then, then I'm gonna immediately place him down, call him, send him 15th and 16th and he gets reward after, you know, five bucks. So it's gonna be like, really much in the time schedule. And then the person who said this to me, she was rewarding her dog in each point, like each blind almost, I think she had helper in each blind, even her obedience was like shorter. And that takes also time. And then I was like, and then I was like, you know, like, I'm not gonna spare. But it's I think also because we didn't have a team leader or somebody who would have, like you said, that team leader can say, like, like, make it really nice. Like, you know, a bit like, yeah, like a team leader, chop. Right, right, right. No, I know exactly what you're saying. And going back to the traveling around and driving around, like, not, not all the time, but very often when the team decides to do things together. So let's all of us train together. Let's all of us meet somewhere. And then we meet together. And then, and then it becomes a chaos because everybody's a little tense. Oh, everybody's trying to be nice. Everybody's trying to do the right things. But, but it's just normal pressure from competition, and you're trying to do your best. And then a lot of times me just watching some, some, you know, training that's not going well, that the dog maybe is not ready or

whatever. And, and I'm starting to doubt my own training just because I'm around it, you know, and, and, but then you, you know, I, I often try to just kind of stay away if possible. So I don't, I don't start to question, well, is my dog also gonna go around the jump because these two dogs are doing that. And, and, you know, like it just kind of can mess with your head watching those that are not ready for competition. And, and so it's an interesting one. And that adds to, you know, on one hand, you want to be a team member, you want to kind of, but ultimately we, you know, we have to take a lot of our team members and we don't even accept the reality that at least what I think our sport is individual sport. It's not a, it's not like let's play volleyball and it's five of us. It's really, yes, we are a team. Yes, we have to help each other. We have to do whatever we can do, but to a point to where I'm not sacrificing my own training. Right. What do you think about that? It's interesting because I have been in teams like in the past where we did like basically almost every training together. And I felt that when we traveled together, we had had like a very good team spirit in many times and, and, and then we also felt more connected and so on. Of course, we always have some people who said tomorrow I come, I come also to the field because somebody, um, you know, like, like, like in the ideal world, we can decide ourselves that, okay, I'm gonna tomorrow at in the morning, I go to tracking and in the evening I go to do obedience or protection. But in the real world, it happens that somebody gets you the training field in the morning, you know, and that means then you go in the morning to do the training, obedience and protection, and you do the tracking whenever it's possible. Again, like compared to those times, but somebody gives you. And then, then I realized that people in the old times when we competed, nobody of our team, they understood this. So they kind of like adapted with that. And I think it's nice to have people who adapt with that in a kind of way that we understand that we are there and we are thankful if somebody is organizing us a field and helps us to get to tracking, right? So we go exactly and we plan our training according to that. But what makes it very stressful if you have like unexperienced team members and some who are like extremely, how to say, they don't really understand that it cannot be like at home. And they are like, no, no, no, no, I want to go tomorrow morning, like tracking. I don't want to now train or something.

And then they make a fuss about it. And you are like, well, this is not possible. So you have to either accept it or you don't train at all. Right? Right. Right. And then, and I think that is something also that it depends a little bit on the team members and how, how flexible they are to change their own mind, uh, fitting to the possibilities what we have there. And, um, and then, um, and then when I, once we have the world championships in Finland and then our team didn't train at all together because everybody were at home and we just kind of drove, you know, it was like that. And I think that was the time when we had the worst team spirit ever. So it was maybe also because everybody felt that they were like at home. So it felt a bit like in the nationals and, and people were kind of more competing against each others than if I would compare it when we have been traveling all together, because, you know, it starts often that we like in the old times we had the ferry together. So we were like sitting in the ferry, eating together and, and, and, and sharing all the uncomfortable situations and comfortable situations like, you know, and so, but maybe it's also the people, sometimes people also click better. So I think it's very much also about the people kind of thing. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think so too, but, but, but, but like you said, I think it's also that, that also matters how we experience maybe, I mean, I mean, like we can have some beginners who are actually doing great, like really great, but maybe it's more, uh, typical when you have like, like, like you said, dogs who are not ready and if you watch their obedience and their protection, and then you watch when they are so stressed about it and, and you can't really help either. I mean, and that also can start to stress you because there is like, the fact is that in the competition week, you can't change almost anything. You can just keep up the work you have been doing. Yeah. You cannot do major changes. Very, very true. So like that's what, that's kind of where I, I'm like, man, sometimes I would watch and I'm like, I know what I would do, but it's so out of my place right now, two days before your competition to, to, to even interfere in any way of what you're doing. It's just, uh, but there is sometimes a, like I've had crazy experience with teams. Like we've had some amazing ones, just as you said, like, like I would do that every day. Like I would do this with the same people who even without competition. I would, I would go to Italy or whatever, and just redo the, the, the week again

with these people because it was cool. Right. But I've had also the experience to where one person is like, I don't like this food. I don't want to go to this restaurant. It's like, we're too bad. It's like 10 of us and we have to get something to it so we can go to do what we need to actually do. Yeah. So put up with it, you know, don't make a big deal. It's like, and if you're so picky about the food, you know yourself, then, then bring some snacks, like, like deal with it somehow, but you cannot, one person cannot make everybody, oh, let's go 20 more kilometers to find a different restaurant. It's like, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's that, you know, there can be some little things, but it can make a big, big difference for the team spirit and everything. Here is a good one for you. Do you get more nervous now comparing to when you first in, in your earlier world championships? Like how, how, how are you handling how, how is changing? I mean, I get nervous every single time. Every single competition is important, but I would say that I have better tools to control. You kind of know yourself better. Yeah. I know myself better. I can prevent things happening easier. I can try somehow at least avoid some mistakes. And when I think about the first world championships, I was so nervous, so nervous. I couldn't eat in like in France, where we have been together. I, I, I really couldn't eat anything in the whole week. I got maybe one bread down per day, like some little piece of baguette or some, I don't know what, I just didn't feel like eating. So I was really, I didn't even feel hungry. I was so nervous. And then in the last day, you know, when the competition was over, then I was like, now I'm hungry, hungry again. And so unfortunately this, this, you know, I mean, I shouldn't say this because it's again, like bad joke and whatever, but I'm from that generation, you know, where it has been typical in my country to do some body shaving. So, you know, with women kind of like my age of women have been so used to this, like the good thing is that I didn't feel like hungry. Right. Right. So, so, so unfortunately now I do, now I do feel hungry in the competition so I can keep on eating. Okay. But the good thing about the first times was that nobody knew who you are. Right. And that was a good thing. That, that, doesn't that put more pressure? Like for me, it's always like, okay, well, let's see what's going to happen now. I miss the times when it was my turn to go on the field

and everybody goes to buy sandwiches and buy dog food. Really? I hated that from first moment. I was so sad that people just walked away when I came in France to show my dog and I failed it. Like, they really miss so much. Right. And I was like, and I was like, they, they don't do it second time. I just cause half of the crowd is for you. I like to be a little bit like cocky. But on the other way, I'm really, really good at myself by putting myself pressure because of course, I feel like what if I really completely, um, you know, ruin it. Like we, we don't do like, we don't match the expectation. My dog does something like, you know, just about the points. I, I don't really think that, oh, I don't want to think that we would ruin it so badly that people would be like, so disappointed what they see, but we can still have like some exercise that, that just goes wrong. And then like 10 points away, you know, it could happen something like this, maybe that it's going to be ending up, or I don't know, something like this. So it would be like, and I, and I think another thing is that I have become more, like, I have become more stressed about this, that what I want to show there. So I wouldn't go there with the dog that, but I think I have always been like that though, that I don't want to go there if the dog is just not matching my standards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of where I am right now, but I have no choice. I have to do this competition. Like I, I wish I had. I just did it, you know. You know, right. I was just the same, you know, with Mahis in the last Finnish championships. I think what you are doing right now, right? Yeah. With the young dog. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I have to do it smart because I don't want to, like, I don't want to pressure him for something that he's not, you know, and I don't know, maybe it's just in my head. Whenever we train Natalia, always is like, no, everything is looking good. It's just like this. What is the discipline you are most worried about? Obedience, tracking or protection? All. All. Yeah. Equally all of them. Yeah, I think so. I would say protection is probably the safest. And then I just, again, I mean, they are not, by no means nothing is, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go to competition if I didn't think I don't have a chance, right? I just that it's a little bit too soon, like just two months, like I could have trained a little bit more, you know, not so intense. So kind of like, I feel like I am trying to chase it, to catch up something. And maybe it's in my head. Maybe, maybe it's not really, maybe he's ready.

I mean, I don't see, like, I don't have a problem. Like I cannot say, well, he's not downing on a send away or he's skipping a corner on, you know, like, there is nothing like a big thing. It's just some, yeah, I don't know. Like putting all things together and making everything like operating as excellently as possible. Maybe it's my competition. Maybe it's just how I think about it. I know, like with, with ice, with my, my dog before Tarzan, when he, he tore the ACL two weeks before the FMBB. Yeah. And, and he was done. Like, that was a competition that I was like, so looking forward to, because just for the six years that we've been trying to put it together. Yeah. Yeah. I had it together, you know, like I, of course, it's a competition. Of course he could, any dog could fail, no doubt, not whatever, you know, like, I mean, it's dogs. Yeah. But I never felt this prepared and confident. Yeah. So that, that was very painful when, when we just had to call it off. Um, but who knows? I mean, it's the cool thing about competition, right? I mean, all, all this kind of mind games and trying to, trying to see what is the best. The good thing with your case would be, I think the good thing with your case is that if you qualify to the championships, to the worlds in your nationals, you will then have half year time to, you know, finalize everything. And, um, like before we talk about this French, this, uh, competition in France in Letouk a long, long time ago with Helge. And I remember when I went to our nationals and I did, um, 92 points in tracking, I think, I think it was 92. He had problems in every corner. He checked like right, left, make like around himself. And then he started, not in every corner, but he made it like, I think two corners. Yeah. In two corners, he made something like that. So he lost points and in obedience, he made 87 points, I think, or 88, 88 or 87. And he, uh, was slamming into me in the, in the recalls, um, in the fronts. Yeah. And then in the, um, uh, with the A-frame, I threw the dumbbell crooked. So he, I think he did something like this, that he climbed over and then he came directly back without climbing back. So, so, so either way, but he, he missed the five points for the hurdle. So he got, I think 83 points or something like this. Yeah. And then there were little mistakes here and there, like little things. And then, um, and then in, um, protection, he did, um, I think 90 points or something. I had to give him two, two here, force commands, like, like, like, what extra command that he was coming to me. And in the back transport,

he was forging so much that only his tail was touching anymore. My, my, my leg when, when the helper attacked. So they were like a lot of control mistakes. And then, um, then when we went to the world championships there, uh, he was still slamming into me, but there he climbed the A-frame both directions and, uh, his tracking was very brilliant. He got 98 and then he got 92 in obedience because he needed two ex two commands for the down in center way. And then, um, and then in the, uh, in the protection, he made 97. So there he was perfectly under control. He had a very nice protection. Like, like, like, like, yeah, he did a very nice protection there. So I'm just thinking that you, you are able to fix so much in, in, um, in a half year, right? Like when he's not, not ready for the nationals. And I was the last one who was qualifying to the team with a place number six. And I got exactly 270 points. Wow. You know, it was something like, it was like 90, 88, 92, something like 92, 88, 90. So if I would have got 269 points, they wouldn't have taken me to the team because that time 270 was the minimum. So I was like super lucky. May this bring you luck to your nationals as well. Thank you. You know, there was a very cool one. I just watched, I mean, a month ago or something in, uh, one of the social media, I don't know where, but he, it was like this, like a glass and a bottle. And he was saying, okay, that's enough. That's enough. But it keeps coming. It's like, okay, thank you. Thank you. And then they zoom out and it's him for himself. But he's like, okay, that's good. That's good. He's like, okay. Thank you. Thank you. And then it's like, oh, it's just me. Yes. What about training? Like when you, when you think about, I don't know, 2007, 2024, what has changed in your training and what actually, like what has changed? I'm very curious, but what I'm more interested for whatever reason is what is still not changed. The same. Yeah. I think what is not changed is basically, um, how I prepare, how I put everything together, how I, um, use my emotions. Of course, I'm a little more aware, sorry, more aware of things like, but I'm still doing it exactly the same way. Healing is very, very, very same. There are little things like how I teach my dogs to do, for example, um, about, like little details or little details, how I get there. Like, like, like how I'm like teaching a trick for a dog. Make it a little easier, more clear. Make it a little bit easier. Yes. And more clear for the dog and less a conflict and so on.

So this, I can train a bit more clever way for different types of dogs for sure. But the general idea, how I, when I raise the arousal level, how, how I do that, how I get my dogs focusing, um, and, and precise and motivated and keep that motivation up all the, all those years. I did not, nothing has changed in that. Um, and then, uh, what has changed, um, also like I'm, I'm, I have much more, more clever way now to teach, for example, speed in retrieves. When I compare back to those days, like those days, it didn't matter either how fast the dog was. Now it's a little more important. The rock is like a little extremely more like a faster. Um, and then or we also, you also need to have a talented dog for this. So, so, but however, um, I'm much more better. I think the way how we teach control in protection, this is much more clever nowadays. Like it's split to more small pieces for the dog. And, and this is something I think better, uh, how we can, uh, manipulate the dog thinking that it was the dog's idea and he wants to do it well. And he understands it more clever. In the old times, it has been more so that you need to do this in order to get that. But the part has been a little bit more complicated and more difficult for the dog to understand. Yeah. They still, so it's been harder. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. Back, back, um, yeah, some years ago, it was more of like still kind of the dog still was thinking that it's, that there was some clash as to where right now we have so many cool ways to say, teach first something to work with me without the helper. Yeah. Yeah. And also without, without the helper first, like teaching some, teaching a lot of like free skills for the dog. Yeah. And then the dog knows this better. And then we can start from some simple thing first. Um, but still nowadays, sometimes depending on the dog, I'm, I'm very efficient person. I know that time is limited. So if I have, if I can choose whether I choose the way that is effective, but also, um, good, you know, ethically good way that the dog understands what we want from him and so on, I'm choosing the way that is like effective as well. I don't spend my time like for, um, showing the dog every single thing when it's not needed. You know, we, we, sometimes when we have very, um, um, uh, how to say extreme dogs, like extremely hard, extremely soft, extremely impulsive, or extremely dominant or something like that, then we need to think that, okay, in this particular exercise, this might become a problem. So we really have to think how can we teach this in the best

possible way. But generally, um, sometimes it's a waste of time to, you know, like sometimes people ask me like, how long do you, how many repetitions your dog has to do like jumping perfect 60 centimeter hurdle before you put it 70. And I'm like one time, no one time. And then next training, I'm trying if I have like a high driven dog who trust his body, who has good drive. I'm like, okay, I just started with the good example is with Voitto. I started, uh, four weeks ago and we started from 40 centimeter high hurdle. Now we jump one meter. So I started like, Oh, 40. Oh, it was fine. Now it's 60. Yeah, it goes fine. 70. Ah, why one time 70 is enough. Let's go 80 immediately. And then I was like, you know, a couple of more weeks and then we were one meter and, and, and then, and if the dog does a mistake, like he tries to go around it, it happens. I'm like, uh, let's go again. Ooh. And then I help the dog and boom, he goes. And I'm not like, Oh, that was too much. I still have to stay with 80 centimeter the next two months. You know, no, no. I go more directly to the point because why would I waste time for this? And probably if it doesn't go well, you're quick to recognize and reset it. Right. If you need it. Right. Yeah. You can either help the dog and if you realize, okay, the helping was even that not enough, then you can go back to the lower hurdle, for example. But so that it's a, yeah, but just like an example that, um, like, that nowadays I think when I'm watching, uh, the kind of, I don't know, generally people's training, people have become sometimes even a little bit too careful. So they are like, spending a year. Yeah. Super, extremely methodical. Right. And very methodical and very like, like, uh, it's like, no, no, give it a try. Push it a little. Right. Give it a try. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and so many times nobody can say how many repetitions you have to do or so on. You just have to take a risk, try and learn from that. And whether it was good or bad decision, then you, you help. Yeah. I, I'm very much with you on this. Like there, there's this whole saying of, well, you gotta do it 10,000 times or whatever. It's like, no, you don't have to. It's, it's about understanding and clarity. Right. Right. You gotta, you gotta kinda really go with the flow. Exactly. Right. It's, it's like, if you start counting how many times you've done it and how many times are left, you're, you're missing the point of, of teaching and, and learning. Reading the dog and reading the situation.

And I think that also makes me a lot of fun. I'm like, now I got this idea, but maybe I can try to date this and let's take, let's give it a try. And then, and it can happen. I didn't even plan to do that, but it just happened. This, this idea came while I was training my dog and I felt that now my dog shows something like a, like a good attitude so I can try to move forward. Yeah. And then I try it and then it works out. I'm like, that was the best training. Did you see that? Yes. And if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. It really, it's not the end of the world. Yeah. So tell me now with then with, with the three phases, in which one you've changed the most today, you would think? I think I have changed the most in protection. Yeah. Just because the way how I eat so many like things like how I introduce the blinds, how I introduce the side transport, the back transport, the call out from blind, healing in the, in the, in the protection. So there I have changed the most. I haven't changed anything about the dog's emotional state or what I want my dog to show in protection or something. It's just like how I add the control part there. And if I compare obedience in, yes. And in obedience, I think healing is almost like nothing has changed. Um, send away, nothing has changed. Blown down, nothing has changed really. Um, um, then, um, I sit and down and stand, I have tried all kinds of things throughout these years in the dog spot. And I kind of circulate them. And then I kind of come back always for the same. I'm like, whatever. I kind of, I don't know. I find like, okay, with these, like that work, that that like this works. And I think that's a little bit of a little change. And, um, and so little, little changes for sure. Little change for sure. But not, not, not. Well, the little changes, even, even the rules and the competition, they kind of, they demand that we make these little ones. Um, but still, I would say that, um, like when I'm comparing, like, how did I teach, like where I focused, um, like in the seat exercise, like, you know, I'm a really bad seat trainer. Like I know just shining in that one. Right. So my dogs are not famous for the most flashy fast, quickest seat of the world at all. So, and they have never been, but my dogs, when they sit, then they are focused and they are watching at me and they are self-confident. Right. Yeah. Like when I walk away. And so I was focusing on that then and I'm still, so now I think my young one seems to be like a relaxed sitter, like at least so far.

And I'm like, but that is not because I have changed something better, not at all. It's just because he's a natural talent. Just him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just him. So yeah, he's like, you know, easiest one of them. Like I have had like one, I think the last one was extremely worst one. And then, uh, then I have had something like reasonably bad ones before and some normal ones maybe in the past and yeah, all that. But, um, yeah, so I'm still focusing. I have always been focusing on the focused phase. I think a lot of trainers maybe didn't focus that so much like in 2007, like they nowadays do, but I always focused on that though. Um, then retrieves, nothing changed in the jumps in the A-frame and how I be, how I teach the holding part, nothing there. Only thing I, I'm a bit, I'm better nowadays to train my dogs with this two toy game from, you know, Peter and Eric. And so I have learned this from them. So this is the only thing. And of course made it a bit like my version, but that's the only thing I, that's the most biggest thing I have changed in my opinion was the retrieve, how I build the speed, how I use the speed in the retrieves. And I think it's also the understanding, like I think, uh, I mean, at least for me, like I start to, at some point I started to be like, okay, this is not a joke. This is like an important piece. I cannot just take it for granted. Like I, I need to pay attention to it. You know, being the speed on the retrieve, being, uh, you know, focus on the, after a position. Um, and, and it's, uh, like I, I haven't changed much. Well, okay. It's a lie. I mean, like we change, we cannot not change. We have to adapt and we have to, in order to stay competitive, you, you have to improve. But like my biggest change, I think if I have to say it is, uh, I can do what I used to do, what it used to take me this long. Now I can make it shorter, but not because it's because I'm trying to force it to be short. It just because I understand the elements and the components of what I'm trying to teach. Yeah. And I pay attention to them. And, and so the, the timeline, it's much shorter. Do you, do you find the same? Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, that is exactly like, for example, in healing, I would say that, um, like that's, that's a very good example from that exercise that I can train it much more quicker, get the same results in much more shorter time. And I don't have to spend so much time by thinking. And I also can adapt to different docs. Like if I have a, that type of dog or this type of doc, I know the kind of, um, challenges, which I

have to take care of, and I can reach the same end result with more different types of docs than what I would, what I would have been able to do, I think in 2007, for example, because then I would need it to, I, you know, I have learned, I have trained so many much more. You would still make it, you would still make it, but you, it was a, a longer process, right? To where right now. Longer process. And I maybe made some mistakes as well, like not, not with the current competition docs, but you know, when I have been training and seeing, you know, like even fixing people's, uh, like training problems. So now I would know like quicker ways to fix the issues and, and, and what is the, what is maybe the missing part, why it didn't work with that doc or this doc or something. Interesting. So it's like coming like this, um, how about tracking? Have you changed something there or not? You know, tracking, tracking for me, I mean, kind of like obedience and protection, assuming that we have the, the, the dog that has the natural ability, right? The natural talent. Tracking is probably the one that really requires for you to get out and go fucking tracking. Yes. I agree. And, and, and, and, and just go and do it, you know, like, like I, I, I really believe that most of the problems with tracking is the lack of, of enough tracks. Consistence. Right. To where like in obedience, just as, as you were talking about the healing, I, I totally agree there. Can make it very much more efficiently from, from zero to stable, not just to kind of understanding, but to, to be stable in it. I know what I'm doing and I, I understand it and I enjoy it and so on. And for tracking for this to happen, like, I mean, you gotta show him, okay, well it's raining. Well, yeah, it's raining. We still gotta figure it out. Okay. Well, it's a little hot. Well, the grass a little tall. Well, it's short. Well, there is some cow shit. Like, there is just too many things that they have to experience. And unless you keep going. And you can't have a shortcut. Right. Right. Yeah. And if you try to have a shortcut, you kind of, you, you end up forcing the dog to where I think the worst thing in tracking is when the dog starts to feel pressured that they have to, and they're not allowed to, to think how to solve a puzzle in the truck. Yeah. Because they know that you, you want them to go and then they start going and now it just rolls into problem after a problem. It's a, yeah. But I, I think it's somehow about going tracking and not trying, I guess I need to add some important piece in this, going tracking

as much as possibly you can and not try with every single truck to make this big leaps of accomplishment. Because I think in tracking it happens more gradual. I don't know. Yeah. I really agree. It happens like more gradually there and you can't just make like huge improvement in tracking. You cannot have those big experiences. Like I just told you in obedience, for example, Hey, let's try to make the one meter jump so quickly. And this is not going to happen in, in tracking because there you have to be more patient and, and just grinding. Grinding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is not my patience really. And my, my, I think my biggest problem is exactly tracking because I realized that I haven't been tracking with my young dog because I was focusing more now with my competition dog. And I have been very busy with everything, like really everything somehow. And then, and then now the winter is coming and I'm like, I have maximum and I'm, I'm, I'm soon starting to travel. I go to like, like Turkey, Belgium, India. And then, then it's the winter. It's a full winter when I come back. So I don't have more than two weeks time to track. And I haven't been tracking last time, I think two months ago with a young one. So, so what happens, how, how do you tracking, like, I mean, I'm sure even if you say you, you, like you've tried tracking in the winter, like how much would you track in snow or what? I haven't, I don't, I don't, I really don't like me when we start to get the snow. It's so, it's so bad. Like, it's like, if there is no snow, at least it's going to be like ice and water and just, just some pleasant. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it would be like the dog would just learn to kind of, I mean, I have never actually done that personally, but never, I have been tracking, I think once in, in the winter time, but it happened when it was super warm weather in December. And, and I, and we were able to do it like a few weeks or something. And then actually the snow came, but I have done it like only like this one time that it that it was like, it was like maybe five degrees warm. And it was just like a really, like really wet field. Like, yeah. So, so, man, that is a long time for, for just not touching, tracking whatsoever. How many months in a year? Like three months, what, four months? No, no, it's more, it's more, it's a, it can be even six months depending where you live. So it can be from, it can be from November until April. I would say in most of places, it's going to be five months, like from November,

December, January, February, March, because in April, the snow starts to melt already. So you make and go depending. But yeah, it can be bad. And in some, some years here in the south where we live, it could be, it's a bad winter kind of, we call it bad winter when the snow is not coming. And we can track until December. And then for example, we have only three months break or something, but it's, um, in the last years we have had, uh, quite cold weather. And then it makes like no sense, when you see, oh, now it's one week, you know, snow melts away. But then, you know, it can be only three days or something. Like why do you go to tracking? Because you know that, you know, the next, why do you bother? Because it makes no sense to have like, not consistent tracking. In the worst case, it goes badly. And then you have no time to kind of like recover your dog from that. So yeah. So yeah. I have been actually thinking about that. If I should go somewhere like in January or February this year, because now I really lost tracking possibility with my dog. So I was I was thinking about maybe I should go, I don't know, like Spain or Brazil or something there. But I can't come because, you know, I don't have the work visa yet. I must get the work visa to the U.S. So bad. But today I did something really unique. I wrote my first email to a, how you call it, lawyer, immigrant, like this kind of lawyer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Immigration. Yeah, yeah. Immigration lawyer. That I would apply that. So I have done a good thing today. Cool. And I hope he replies me. Cool. Yeah, no, they definitely, I mean, there is lawyers that know what they're doing and there is always ways. So that's a good thing. Because I really need to, I love USA. But I don't want to, I don't want to come there for living. So no worries. Nobody have to worry about that. I'm not going to be the bad immigrant. I just want to come to visit your country for holiday and spending money there. It's crazy, right? I want to come to. Right. It's terrible. It's terrible. You know what I'm thinking something? Yeah. Because now with the winter time and the trucking and it just got me to think about. How are you feeling about training little puppies versus training, starting to train a little older youngster? Like, do you, like some people start very early and do like, I don't know. I mean, you will go to Bulgaria, I think, I don't know, next year or something. I had, I was there like a month or two ago. And they had this nice puppies out of the same breeding, like Glinda, the same father and whatever. And, and I mean, they were like nine months, nine weeks old.

Yeah. They were training like you would be training for a world championship. And it's like, this is like a nine week old puppy, like just, just let it relax and have fun with it, you know? But I don't know. I mean, some people start immediately right away, quite intense. Some people start later. There is always this toss up between what, what is the best? What, what is the. Do you mean about tracking or. Any, any training, like just any training, like, and how serious you get into it. How, how demanding you get into it. Like, of course the dog should feel it's like a fun, you know, and fun, fun and games and, and, and not feeling like a work. Right. I, I start as early as possible. If you know, but in the winter time, if I get the puppy so that he was born in, let's say the worst time the born was a little bit like how Voitta was born. Yeah. Because he was born in the end of the summer. So basically he had tracking and everything only like the very little glimpse of it. Yeah. So he has put his nose on the ground and learned to find food until he was three, four months old, three, four months old. And then the snow came and then suddenly he was like a big dog. The snow melted away and he got his next track in May. And he was like, I felt like, Oh, what's going to happen? That he has like actually no idea. But, uh, yeah, but, uh, yeah, but it's, it's, uh, I have had dogs who have been born in November, in January, in, um, April or in summer. So it depends a little bit, what can I do in which, because it's a seasonable thing as well. Like we have these seasons here, but. I would otherwise start with a little puppy tracking, showing him that the food can come. And I would like to introduce this and go move forward, but in a nice way. And then, uh, in obedience also I move forward, but not maybe you, what you mean is that sometimes I have seen nowadays people who are so obsessed about it. When they especially see in Instagram or, or YouTube or somewhere, they see puppies who can do. Almost like an adult dog that you have to get rid of the, like the hand helps and everything. And the rock has to do like a perfect healing without hand helps, without physical targets. When the rock is like three and a half months old. And that's going to be like the biggest goal. And you can go there, um, with some talented puppies. I mean, they don't have to be talented even for winning the world championships, but they have to just be talented for healing exercise. And then they can learn to do it so quickly. And then we have a bunch of dogs that they can reach excellent healing one day.

If you just don't rush with them and try to bring them Instagram stars at this age, because they just absolutely can't do this beautiful movement yet at this age, because they need more prey drive. They need more fighting spirit. They need more energy. Come inside them first before they can show something like this. Yeah. They don't show it for the food, for example. And then if you are too obsessed about, and you think that you are too serious about it, and you all the time like observing and you are stressed about, the rock is now bouncing like, or not bouncing, but the rock is like, let's say the rock is, how could it pacing? Yes, the pacing, how can you let him heal because he's not moving like he should. And it's like, he's not bouncing. He's just pacing. So I'm going to reward him. So I don't care. And I think also with the, like the young puppies, like little puppies, sometimes if they make a mistake, it's much more difficult to say, hey puppy, that's a wrong thing to do because it's their little brain cannot get it yet. Right. So, so like what you can demand from a 10 month old and say, hey, you're, uh, with a puppy, you can change it, but you cannot like put like this obligation and pressure. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, like you have to be very, you can't guide how to make it. You can't guide them so well. Right. But that's also one thing because some dogs, they need more guidance. Like you have to help them more, but you cannot help them at that age. You cannot give the feedback at this age for some dogs you can in some, like with your verbally, for example, but not for example, with a leash or something like this. And then, and then, then, uh, if, if, if, if some kind of like physical help is needed and feedback is needed, then you have to wait. And, um, and this, but I think it comes also from experience, you know, that, oh, I just keep my dogs now in break. He needs to grow and then I can start this exercise again. And meanwhile, I don't have to keep my dogs just in the kennel. I can just actually teach him the tracking. I can teach him to play. I can teach him forever, like a good creep in front of me or something. So you can, you can move forward in other areas. Um, you know, why I came up with this question is because I have this, I think we talked about it a little bit. I don't remember. Yeah. Um, I have, you know, Kim, but the one that I do the mondeering with. So I have a sister that I sold as a puppy and I sold her for, to, to do sports, but the people just didn't have time. Um, so she was maybe 15, 16 months old and she came back.

They just called me one day. They're like, she's super cool, but we are not doing anything. And what I mean by not doing anything, I mean, she looked like a coffee table. She was just like little fat, Marlino, that didn't know anything. 16 months old and within three months, the, the amount of understanding of IGP that she, like she, she does. In a lot of ways, some things way better than my boy. Um, and I find that a little bit easier to teach her. And I don't know if it's just because she's so talented and it just, she's searching to, to, okay, am I doing right? You know, it's one of these dogs. It's like, is that what you want? You want to cooperate. Right. Right. That's, which is super cool. And we move very fast. Um, yeah. Um, but like anything that I show her, the difference between if I do it with a little puppy and do it with her, like with her, I immediately can, I, I feel that she understands the purpose of the behavior. Like, why do I need to do it this way or, or to where the puppy will do it, but not understand that, you know? Yeah. So that, that's kind of why I was asking how you feel about those. Cause, uh, I haven't in a long time, I haven't done, started that late with a dog. And, and if she was the only one that I trained, uh, we, we would be like, like, like I would feel that all this, you know, three months, four months old, five months old, six, seven, nine, 10, all this time. Um, I wouldn't say that it would have been wasted time, but I, I don't feel that I lost anything besides right now. I just don't have the time. Yeah. But it can also be, um, I think it can be quite individual thing as well, because in some cases, if you have the dog who naturally wants to engage with people, or maybe the owners, even they didn't really train him, train her anything, but maybe they at least were able to, to, to teach him or teach her like, uh, like, um, good relationship or something. Right. Right. Right. Like maybe they mean like, you know, like making him, making her feel like self-confident. And she understood that it makes sense to, you know, to look at the human and, and, and, and somehow, you know, something, but then we, of course, know that we also have those dogs. That if it depends, how do they live, if they would live in the kennels, or I have seen sometimes dogs that would be living in the kennels or, or even in somebody's house.

But if the person hasn't been able to anyhow, communicate with the dog or engage with the dog, and if the dog has a little bit difficulties and no motivation generally to engage with the human, it can be, or the dog can be more impulsive dog or nervy dog or something. It can also be quite, uh, quite, uh, how to say, quite a package, like, like you, of course, and then we have those extreme dogs. Like you have this, Tina, Tina. Yeah, yeah. No, no, yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so, like you can miss a window. You can miss a window in, uh, if you didn't. And then I'm thinking, and for example with Tina, I was thinking about this, that, did you say Tina or Tina? Tina. Tina. So, Tina, so, Tina, I was thinking that I would love to have seen that dog that if you have, if you would have been the breeder and you would have kept her from early beginning, that would the dog never even be diagnosed by any kind of wrong behavior. You know what I mean? Yes. Very true. So, I would just be actually considered to be like maybe a little bit, um, impulsive dog, but still like completely normal dog. You see what I mean? A really good point. How really good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is something that, um, and so, so in the kind of way, it also matters who keeps the dog and what kind of natural behavior, natural personality the dog has. That some dogs just, they can become like perfect pet dogs, but also perfect competition dogs. Even they would have been kept a bit different ways kind of, and even you would start training them like later. And then with some dogs, it matters much more how they are raised. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, very good point. So, yeah. So, yeah. It's interesting to think about stuff like that. How do you, what do you think about the, and you definitely experienced that because of your winters, but I'm not talking about this kind of a long break, but like, let's say two, three weeks of, of, for whatever reason, just as you said, you've got to go to India, you've got to go to New Zealand, you, you cannot train, you come back. Do you feel that there is more motivation and it comes more easy everything, or do you feel that you need to catch up? Well, how do you feel that kind of break affects the training? Often it doesn't affect much if it's just like three, four weeks. So not, not that much. But again, we come from this individual point that with some dogs, it affects more positively and for some dogs more negatively and for some dogs not at all. That's like my experience that, yeah.

Like, like, and even what part it would affect, like can be that the dog is a little more, like if I have a dog who has a little difficulties to, little difficulties in self control, for example. And then I have been away, then maybe the first few sessions, I have to remind them that it makes sense for them to control themselves and reward them from that. And even sometimes correct them from that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you have the toss up between control that you want, but also that extreme desire. It's like, I'm going to break the down because I really want to come for the recall, right? Yes. Yes. So we cannot, like, it's very delicate situation, right? Not to, not to, I mean, to get the control, but not to break that motivation that's building up. Yeah, yes. And then also depending how, how tired you are from traveling, right? Like we talk in the beginning about our emotions. So sometimes when we come back, and we wish that, you know, we kind of like, we would like to start exactly where we ended up. And then, but now we are maybe a little bit more impatient, maybe we are a little bit tired or something like this. So I have also learned some things, like when I come back from somewhere that maybe I try to, I try to lower my expectations and then I can positively surprise. It's better than I expected than expecting it to be completely perfect and starting from where we ended. And then also understand myself, like what I need when I come back after, you know, and, and it depends also on the dog, because I have those dogs, like, that I'm like, I'm so excited to again, take my dog and go training. Yes. And then I have those dogs, I'm like, no, no, let's go, let's go training. Where is it going to go? Go training again. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like, it's, it is like, it's like easier when you really, you know, get so much joy out of the training versus when you just take it as a learning process. Yeah. So, so yeah, I guess it goes both ways. Like also the, the, you as the trainer, how, how you feel about the separation, right? That's a good point. Yes. Yeah. It's like, it's like, it would be like human relationships, you know, whether you come home and you're like, you're like, I love to come home. And, and, you know, you know, even you would have like a great travels, but still, of course, traveling is stressful, but you are like, either you are coming home and you are enjoying also like that, or whether you are like, oh, yes. Yes. Very true. The holiday ended. I know that. Yeah. Good one.

How about the, how about the, because like we bought, well, now you have your focus on one dog, but for a moment you train two dogs and I, I ended up training at the moment three. I mean, I have. Oh yeah. Tarzan, I have the Mondio and now I have the, the female that we just talked about. Cause I, I took her back. I'm like, well, I mean, the genetics are right. She, everything is right about her. I'm a breeder. I have to keep her. But then everything I showed her, it just skyrockets and I, it would be so wrong not to train her. So here I am with three dogs. You for a moment had two dogs. What is, what is your feeling about focusing on one dog versus having two dogs? And there is the dangers of course, of when we have one dog and, and I hope this never happens, but you know, like I've been, actually, now that I'm thinking throughout my years, I've been twice in this situation where I had a very nice female one time. And all of a sudden at two years old, she decided that she is noise sensitive. And, and it just, it was the end of it. Then I had another male that I spent. So, so like there is the, you can, you can spend three, three good years to get somewhere. And there is this dead end. And you have nothing. And you have nothing. Yeah, some of a health issue or something can happen. Right. For example. Right. So how, how are you feeling about having two dogs versus one dog versus like, what's your take on those? Um, I personally really enjoy just training one dog because then I can just, because I have a feeling that you always have your favorite kind of where you, or I have like kind of, and I have so busy life and so many things going on that, um, not only the dog sport, but I do also so many other things. And I'm pretty sure that most of people do the same. So, um, you have your work, maybe you would do some exercising yourself. Maybe you travel, maybe you have friends or family or children or something. So, um, I think that I would love to just focus on one dog. And I have at least personally, I have like clearly the favorite dog, which I want to focus on. But then I had the competition dog that I have to bring in front of the people's touching eyes. And I really had to focus on that. Yes. You have to, you know, choose because often they have a bit different needs, even for tracking wise, that you have to decide whether you go to track to the certain kind of area where, which is good for your older competition dog, or you go to some easy field, which is better for the puppy. But you choose actually the competition one because you know that that is going to be judged, you know, like soon.

And, and, and you just cannot risk that. So you have to do that. So then I didn't have time to, Oh, I first drive there and make my track. And then after that, I drive to another field. And so it's, I just didn't track them so much, you know, and, um, so something like this, but on the other way around, what I'm now concerned is because I stopped training, of course, the elder one. And now I'm just focusing on the young one, but I was thinking that I would, should I take another puppy? Biggers, you know, this, this, look, this really cool young puppy, what I right now have. Bigger, I x-rayed him. Bigger, I x-rayed him. Bigger, and he has one vertebra, two less. Bigger, so he has the LTV four, because he doesn't have seven vertebras. Bigger, he has six vertebras. Bigger, and I don't have experience of this kind of thing. Bigger, I have experience of having Malinois. Bigger, once there was a female who had one extra vertebra, so the back was very long. And so the LTV four came from different reason, but this dog, I gave it like to one of my friend, but this dog had to be put down later because he just had, he, she really got like big problems, big issues in her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And everything. And now I'm really stressed about this, that what if my dog, for example, starts to get symptoms one day, now he's perfectly healthy. And the, and the veterinarian and the orthopedist, they told me just keep on doing just like nothing would have happened, you know, like he would be perfectly healthy. But then, then I was afraid of like, like, what if they come spondylose or what if something happens and I'm like, and then I have put all my heart and soul for this dog, which I love to do. But then on the other way around, what if he's three, four years old and I can't compete because he suddenly starts to limp. And the part that sucks is that it's going to show right about that time, right? It's not going to show now. Yeah, it's not going to show now. And, and then, and, but, but then the veterinarians, they told me like this, that you know what, you can have a perfectly healthy dog and you keep on training for years. And one day he breaks the leg. He just breaks the leg. That's right. Or he gets a cancer or he gets whatever. You just don't know that. Just like us. Kind of like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can know that. It can, anything can happen. So basically, but, but that made me thinking that I'm going to die if even this happens to me. So maybe I should take a puppy. See, that's crazy. So you're, you're already getting sucked into another one. Yeah.

But then I'm just thinking that if I would take a puppy, I know that that puppy would be more like, not like you mentioned before, like crazy way trained. He would be the puppy who just like, you know, learns to behave. I make a little bit work. I take it very easy way, very relaxed way. And then I will start to train in one day, like more effectively. I mean, the important, there is important kind of imprinting if you want to call it that. I mean, there's some important things that for sure you have to do as a puppy. Yeah. For sure. For sure. But not that, not that like, not that heavy way, not that kind of like a forcing, like a, because of course, like when I'm thinking about that, I want to make Voito the next world champion if it's anyhow possible, or at least the greatest possible working job I can have. And, and so I also put more pressure on that also to myself, even I skip the tracking though. But, but then it's, it's, um, yeah, no, I know, I know that I, I wouldn't need, but you can also take it a bit more easy. Like also with, I'm pretty sure that even Voito has had so much tracking now I can still catch it up because he's talented and he has like, everything is in a good way. So even it will start next spring. I think I can, you know, I mean, we know the tracking, you just have to kind of work. Yeah. But still, I believe that it's not that, um, it's not taking that long time if you have like reasonably talented dog. Yeah. That nothing is like yet lost because I didn't track for two months, you know. I think with the young ones, like where I was, it just came to me about the, you know, like how with kids, let's say a kid is really good at tennis. And then the parents are like, okay, let's sign them up five times a week, tennis. And at some point the kid is like, I'm not gonna ever, as soon as I am old enough, I'm not touching this anymore. And it's not because they didn't like it to begin with, but it just was, they felt so forced into it that it was, they, they killed the fun. Tennis and nothing else. Right. Tennis and nothing else. Mm-hmm. I have had this a bit personally with myself in dancing, like when I was a kid. So I was dancing six times in a week and only Sunday was free. So always after school, I went to dance school. And I remember that I had never time to like meet my friends or had a feeling that I didn't have so much time for that when friends meet each other. And I have to go there and no matter, like, of course, sometimes I wanted to go, but then there were moments I was like, you know, and we had like some dancing, like ballet, jazz dance, modern. Mm-hmm .

And I didn't like all the teachers and all the lessons. And it was like, oh, we have ballet today. I would just like to go to jazz dance. And so eventually I was teenager and I quit like everything, like all of a sudden, like, now I can decide myself. I just don't want to go there anymore. Yeah. And then, then, and then maybe also because I, I was also, I really wanted to ride with horses, but I just didn't get the chance. You know, my parents didn't want me to do that. So, and also, you know, for many other reasons as well, maybe it was also very expensive. And, and so, yeah, maybe it's with the dogs the same. Maybe the dog just wants to play, but the handler has decided that the dog has to learn with the food to do the healing. Yes. Yeah. And then every single day is going to be sit down, sit down here, down, and, and listening to the commands and learning to separate them. Then, then make the heating, the hand is up, learning to go around, all kinds of things, what you can do with food, because you can work a lot with food. And we have a lot of puppies who are not that food motivated and they work because they have to work because they don't get the food other way, you know? Right. And it's not a problem if you can make it fun for the dog, but if it comes for the dog like, oh, I, you know, and the handler feels herself or himself that I must do this obedience every morning and every day time and every evening. Otherwise, my dog doesn't make progress. And then also the dog starts to feel like the same pressure, like the handler doesn't have fun. Maybe the dog starts to have not so much fun. And the handler feels that the dog is not that talented like some other dog, what he sees in the Instagram or the brother shows so much more progress, you know, same time. And then the handler starts to feel like, I, he doesn't get the ears up. I don't get the tail so happy. He really drops the head always when I start first step healing forward. What should I do? But the handler thinks that she has to be, you know, patient and she has to be hardworking. So she keeps on pushing and eventually the dog is like, who's whoops. I know, I know. Yeah. You know, there is a, man, what was the name? A really cool, I'll say, I'll post the link for everybody as well, but a documentary about some of the biggest superstars in the sports. It's called the search in search, in search of greatness. And so they were kind of the documentary goes about Wayne Gretzky, you know, the famous hockey player and the Williams, the tennis, the sisters and like, just like the biggest superstars of different sports. Yep.

And they interview them and they kind of go back into their lives. And, and because of the coaching today, how, you know, a coach will go and you have to fit, you have to, if you're going to do this sport, you have to be about this height. You have to be about like a certain look, a type, and then you have to train so much. And almost none of those superstars fit. Like if, if a coach was to select them today for, for their sport, they would totally just ignore them. And Wayne Gretzky was really, I mean, they all are, I mean, I highly recommend the movie. Like he. What was the name of the movie? In Search of Greatness. I'll put the, I'll send you the link. In Search of Great. It's, it's, you would absolutely love it. I need to see. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, okay, it was winter time. So we play hockey. There is nothing else to do. The lakes are frozen. We play hockey. Then spring comes. We play basketball. We climb trees. We, we're kids. We do, you know, like we do things. So they had the freedom to explore and just kind of get better in, in many different areas, instead of this narrow minded, hockey only, right? Only the ones. Right. Yeah. And, and so the, the, just of it, the, in the documentary was that, you know, you gotta allow the kids to, to grow in, in many different areas, instead of just focusing them in one place, even though that's their main talent. Very cool movie, which kind of goes what we are talking about, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think it's, it could be applied a bit with the dogs as well in this way. And especially in our sport, because we have so, we have three disciplines. And then you get a puppy. You can already see from the little puppy where the puppy is the most talented, or he can be in different areas talented, or he can be all of them. But then when we see that there is some part where he's a bit having like some struggles or maybe, or at least we have to wait or give more time or do some other things. So the good trainer, the, the good coach in this case, who wants to raise a super dog star should kind of see it that this puppy needs now just playing. And I'm going to make him great in that way, or this pup needs more of these and give different experiences. And now I just teach with food. I do like a, another kind of games, but he enjoys, but I don't go forward, for example, in the healing or something. Right. Or I don't go forward in that or something. So of course we have also some dogs that are not talented for any one of those. And they are just the sport dogs, right? But, but then most of dogs are not the multi-talented in every single thing.

So like with humans, it would be the same that they can become like super cool stars, but we have to coach them a bit differently to reach their full potential. And that's the key to, to be able to kind of navigate, step out and, and it's like, okay, that's not what I would do, but that's what the puppy needs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes. And, and also I think this is so important to also to handlers to understand that in our sport, there is no, like, like, um, one method that has to be forcefully, uh, um, done or, or execute. It's, it's, it's that you, the best results always come when you learn to adapt and, and, and, and go a little bit, the truth always individual. Um, um, like, like choose it wisely, like what you do and what not to do and, and, and read the dog all the time. And also, I think that's also funny part is reading the dog all the time, because you can do this kind of reading in a clever way without putting pressure on the dog. Yes. Or you can be obsessed about that as well. Like, oh, I have to read now the dog, now the dog shows, ah, the ears go behind. And, and now the dog feels insecure. Yeah. He feels insecure because you feel insecure or, or the dog feels unsureness or, or confused. He's confused because he just doesn't know what to do and you don't show him the way or something. So, yeah, we can also do that like obsessed or we can have it, we can do it in a nice way. Where do you think it's going? Yeah, the emotions. What do you think about the, do you think the stick hits will come back? Stick hits. In protection. Do you think, do you think it was a good thing anyway to take them out? Yeah. It was a good thing. Like the, you know, I mean, two years ago they decided, okay, we're not going to do the stick hit in protection. Yeah. Do you think that was a good idea? What do you think? No, no, it was not. It was such a stupid idea, but it's a little bit the same. Like we have this, I'm most afraid of the same happens with the stick hits that happens with airplanes, that they make new, weird, restrictions that you cannot fly with dogs and they just kind of like, like to keep it from that way. So you kind of don't get back for the old ones, but no, I think it was stupid because first of all, we have, it's like martial arts and it's just the dogs who enjoy the fight. Yes. They also enjoy the stick hits. Yes. And when you make it forbidden, you actually, it like, it's like answering for those animal talibans that it's okay. It's not okay to hit the dog because stick hits are like a, it's like a kind of, it's a, it's a kind of a game with the dog. It's the challenge. Exactly.

The good dogs enjoy the challenge and, and the good dogs, they get more excited and they're like, oh, I'm going to make more fight and I get more excited. And then you have to keep on fighting with them. Like so gently that I don't touch the dog with the stick. Oh, I do nothing. I don't even, you know, then the dogs, the good dogs are like feeling it a bit even boring. Yes. They feel it's a bit like, it's like playing with a kid, some game, like some board game and letting him win so that he feels that you let him win. And there is not actually, you're not a real opponent. So true. So true. It's the same. Yes. So I did a, yeah, I love it. I, I just did a podcast with a very interesting guy, Dr. Sergio Peles. And he famous with doing, researching play with animals and specifically a lot of times he spent with rats and how they play. And basically figuring out what, what play is good for and why we play and so on. And, and this came up in the conversation, which we know, even if we don't think about it intuitively, we appreciate that there is some, when, when two dogs play, when two people, you know, that there is a challenge and there is some level of discomfort that you, you, you kind of want to, you know, kind of want to mess with it. You want to experience it. You want to. Yeah. Overcome it. And when you do, you grow out of that, you know, and that's where the, like the, all the animal rights and the force free trainers, they start comparing. I don't know, some golden retriever or chihuahua or something. Yeah. To a, a Malina or a German shepherd. Right. And it's like, well, how many people want to get punched in the face? Not, not everybody. Right. But there is kids that dream that they're going to end up in a fight, in a competition and, and test themselves. And they see it as a, in a very different way than, than somebody else. And just a random person who doesn't make boxing, for example. Yes. Yeah. And then if you think about like, you remember, we have been in roller coasters, roller coaster together in Disneyland, right? Or somewhere we have been in Samba. Yeah. Okay. So, you see, it's this comfortable. I don't like when it starts to go, it starts to go down, but eventually it's cool feeling. Right. Like eventually it was fun. Right. And so, but it's a little discomfort there, but we don't go for that kind of, it makes some people, they don't want to go to this kind of like a, like a, we have a name, like a post. So do not in finish is like a pig train, like a, for little kids, like for those three year old ones. Yeah.

Where there are not big hills, but adults don't want to go there because it would feel like exactly like all there because it's not even a, even a hill, you know? Exactly. And then it doesn't make any discomfort. So, so people do lots of things to excite them. Like, like even you would like to get punched in the face or you don't want to do boxing, but a lot of people want to go to amusement parks. Yes. And part of this kind of amusement parks idea is that you do like things that are a bit like scary and you feel slight discomfort, even sometimes a little bit like a fear, but then you overcome it and you're like, oh, I was so brave. Yes. And I was, it was so cool. And we go again, that was actually funnier than I thought. And you want to go again to the same equipment or, or so on, you know? And what is the cool part is that it's all by choice. Like you cannot force a dog to do protection. Yeah. You cannot force it. No. They, they either like it or they don't. Yeah. Just like a boxer, they either like to box or they don't. Yeah. And when we were talking with that. They don't want that, you know? Right. Right. And when you see like the dogs that we train, you see like, there is like, we, we, we talk about it when I was in Florida with Mahis when he was young. And that people should see when we already take him from the, you know, from the car or from the kennel or somewhere and we bring them to the field, how much they pull. And he was like so happy that he didn't know how he was like jumping up and down. And it's the ultimate high. Ultimate high and ultimate happiness. What this dog can ever feel anywhere. And to take that joy away from that dog. It would be in my opinion, animal cruelty almost. Right. Like he loved it so much. No, for sure. For sure it will be. Yes. That's kind of what, so when we were talking about the play with that professor, you know, what he mentioned was, we know this, like everybody knows it, which is like, you don't need. Like you almost don't need the study for something like this, but if two rats play or if two dogs play and the one plays way too nice. The other one would rather pick somebody else to play with to where there is a little more challenge to where he's trying to grab him by the neck, but the other one doesn't let him. Or equal pass there. Right. Yeah. Like there's gotta be a little bit of that. Otherwise, who wants to play? Just as you said, like who wants to go in a, in the baby two year old rollercoaster? Yes. Hopefully. Yeah. Hopefully. I mean, I hope that somehow this gets reversed because it changed. Like it really changed us.

Like when I look at it right now, our sport is not quite the same. And just taking the emotions, like generally thinking that the animal, I don't know how to say that. I have been, I have to say them, like, I know I shouldn't say that, but I'm kind of like the, kind of like the extremists, those real animal Taliban. Right. They, they, they always want to take all the emotions, like emotions would be a bad thing. And they try to make like every dog should just stay like calm and not experience anything and just be all the time. So, oh yeah. And that, that is like, it's just so. And this is a night, this is the nightmare for a dog like yours or mine dog. Like they, it's a nightmare. You have to put them on some, some project. You have to like, like that would be the worst thing possible. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and for example, yeah. So it's, it's, and then they start to have all kinds of bad behaviors like this Tina dog. For sure. You have experienced. For sure. Not all of course, but, but, but more that direction, they start to bark at people. They start to get like loud in the house and, and, and, and do stupid things just because they don't feel the ultimate happiness ever. And then. They're trying to find that. They're trying to find that experience and they end up finding it in their own way. It's like with people. I mean, if you don't bring those active kids to do, for example, hockey or boxing or whatever, like sport where they can feel the excitement and, and so on. They also end up the streets and do stupid things. They end up finding their dopamine from drugs or, or something like that, because that, that's going to be, or doing some criminal actions or something. And, and we also have people, we always have to remember, we have people who are perfectly happy, just drawing nicely and painting some books, you know, for, for three hours in a row. And then we have also, as an adult, they also have fun to do things that makes them calm. They like to go to day spas and they like to do things like that, which like, I mean, personally, I hate to go spas. I'm like what I'm doing in the spa. I'm like, it's, for me it's like, it's not picturing the thing that I enjoy to just lay there in some, you know? I think that's the problem, right? That's the problem trying to put everybody in the same box. Yes. It's like, well, like the classic one is like, well, I have three dogs and my dogs never chase anything and they don't need, whatever. It's like, great that your dogs don't. I can condition them with the food perfectly. Yes. Everything. I have been so good trainer.

I always gave them food and they will have never chased any animals because this whatever counter works so perfectly with them. And it's like, yeah, right. And then, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so labeling dogs, labeling people to the same box and thinking everybody has same needs is so wrong because dogs really have personalities. They have so different kinds of personalities, even inside the same breed. And then we even have so many dog breeds that as we know for Chihuahua, it would be animal cruel ever to threaten him with a stick and let him bite. Right. To the sleep. Yeah. And everybody knows that, but then we have dogs who really enjoy of that. Do you think there is a chance that we can reverse this or no? Yes. I don't know. I hope, but I hope that the whole world, I think we just have to change the whole world. I hope the whole world would go more reverse because it's not only about this thing. I think that is wrong nowadays that we have become so, like we are offending our minds, like, like, because we think that, or some people think that an animal suffers when we train and, and the person has never asked from that animal that he really suffer, you know? Right. And the same happens, become so sensitive that we are like, I felt bad because I saw something. And then, well, it doesn't mean that it was a bad thing because you felt so. You know what I mean? No, exactly. That not what you are feeling is not like, and this is another, another big problem that we always have. It's deciding, like the humans deciding what the dog may or may not like. Instead of watching the dog telling you what they like and don't like, we have to decide for them. How wrong is that? Yeah, but, but, but you know, they, they were the same nowadays with humans, right? They're like, I felt unsafe. Yes. Because you said something that made me feel unsafe. Even it's not like about me, but maybe somebody else could come offended about your birds. You know what I mean? So maybe the, so it happens a bit the same. Like if you, if you crack some blonde jokes, you know, and I'm kind of like a fake blonde, but whatever, I don't feel offended about that. Right? Or something. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's such an interesting, yes. Yes. But if you do it in some other way, it's like you, you're going to be canceled or something. Yes. So we are like canceling people about a lot of things. And I hope that the whole world would go back a little bit for this, that, that people need resilience. Dogs need resilience.

We should actually, instead of trying to save everybody from all the little, uh, these comfortable situations, we actually could learn how can we become more stronger and learn to handle. Like. Right. You know, different emotions and get up from that. And, and, and, and then also the one thing is that we should always be able to discuss about things and not get so offended by something, but somebody has done. Or some, somebody has said that we cannot, that the person or the animal or anybody has not even right to show after that actually it didn't mean anything, you know, or, or, or what they really meant or something. Because nowadays some things are so sensitive topics that we cannot even talk about it. And I think that's the first issue that we should be able to talk about the stick kids and talk about these kinds of things and, and, and, and whatever it is. I hope that we do. I hope that we do. I hope that we, I, it's time to, to, and I understand, like, I totally understand, like, okay. If, if some country without naming any country, but if some country has went so far out to be so extremist and it's, they, they have no chance. Okay. Yeah. Then let them deal with it, but don't impose it on everybody else. Yes. So, you know, like, there was no, like, I, at least from what I understand with the stick kids and I don't know if why I probably, why I brought it up, but it's always in my mind because I tell you why, because I just watched the, the Bundesliga-Prufung. And I'm going to watch the FCI and you will. And, and we're watching a different game without the, without that little challenge. We're watching a different game. It, it's just not the same. And I think that's kind of why it came to my mind to talk about it. What is really the, the big puzzle for me is that nobody actually complained. Nobody forced the IGP community to get rid of the stick kids. That was, from, from what I understand, it came like from inside without the force of the, the animal rights. Exactly. So, they were like thinking that we prevent like problems happening by making it this beforehand, you know, something like that. And then the crazy part here is that in training, like, for example, like, how to say, like, it, it goes for this direction that how you are playing with your dog. Are you allowed to touch your dog during the game? Are you allowed to things and something like this? And, and like, um, and, and, and for example, when my dog is holding a toy in the mouth and I'm taking him from his cheek, like, like both hands, like grabbing, like, what is this? And I make these kind of emotions on him.

And he's going to be like, oh, it's mine. And he comes more possessive and he really fights hard for his softball or his little fox or whatever he has in the mouth. He has in the mouth, you know, a toy, toy fox, not a real fox. So just everybody who is, you know, even the animal rights activist. So when he's like, it's going to be mine. But even these kind of like, of course, the same kind of movement, if I would do it to Chihuahua, when he has no toy in the mouth and I would do the same, they would get super scared. Right. Yes. But the same thing during the game is kind of like, like, look how the dogs are wrestling by themselves. Like you look to my animals play fighting each other. They do much more harder things. Like they, they use their mouth and they don't know it's like canceled and banned and, and, and ethically wrong to fight each other. So something they are happily just playing. And I was the same when I played with my dog like this, but it, it, it, it, it can be like, everything can be all the physical because in, in my country, the animal activists are saying that you shouldn't never even touch the dog. Like in any way, not doing playing, not doing like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like basically the whole touching is like, like, um, I don't know how to say, but there is like no need to. Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll help you. You're, you're, you're dominating the dog and the dog didn't consent for you to do this. And, and they just go crazy. Yeah. Like, it's just crazy. You didn't ask permission from your dog or something. And just as you said, like how you explained with the, with the, you know, the dog holding his toy or the dumbbell and you grab it. And then I release. That's like, we can argue that that's actually what the dog is really waiting for. This is like the, the, the ultimate highlight moment is like, oh yeah, test me, try me. Let me show you. Like they're hoping that you're going to do that. Right. Yes. And when, when she sees I'm coming, she's like, oh, she's going to come here. And then I'm like, yeah, I'm going to have that. Oh, yo, yo, yo. And then he's like, yeah, it's so strong. And the whole game goes like this. And eventually, of course, my dog plans, like he said, so this is the whole, how the little puppies, I built them up and then that how they learn to play and find that. And that doesn't make them more aggressive. That doesn't make them anyhow more difficult to control or something. We have very clear communication. They have perfect out.

I mean, most of those dogs who are trained, you know, this force free method, and they try to play somehow with their dogs. Most of them end up having big conflicts with out. And eventually they cannot even play with their dogs because their dogs aren't let out. Right. That's the typical situation in my country. I see this so much. And so, because they can never give you any feedback for the dog, you know. And the owners get frustrated because they kind of, they are told, okay, this is wrong. They feel that that's what they should do. And the dog is not like clearly not happy of how they interact. And I don't know. And yeah, there are many things how it impacts on the dog. And even in many situations, it makes the dogs much more insecure because they don't have that kind of, first of all, they don't have fun with their owners. Like that much fun, like those dogs that we can play those kind of games. The second thing is that they also never learn to trust anybody because they cannot rely on the person. The person is always a bit insecure. Just an observer. And they know that they never like, because they can never, you know, anyhow control the dog physically either. So, I can honestly say that the most unhappy dogs of my breeding, what I have sold dogs, have been the ones that have gone to families where they tried to train them completely force free. And they can't, and I just like, I just got like a message today from one pup buyer who has trained the dog completely force free. The dog is now, I think, I don't know, four or five years old. And I think five or something and, or six even, I don't know. And then, then the dog cannot go to BH. The dog has like a yellow line in on the leash. That means that the dog is aggressive to other dogs and people. And, you know, but the handler has chosen to train the dog in a certain method. And what can you do? Interesting. There is just like, I can't, I don't even try, honestly, I don't even try to help anymore. Like my time went already. Like I can help if the dog was three months old. Right. Yeah. But now we are already in that situation where the only possible way to make the dog under control in all those situations, that would mean already like much more stronger correction. Right. Which is not possible to do in my country. Right. Right. Right. And then I don't, I can't help anymore. And so it's like, yeah, you know, because, you know, we can't use any equipment that you can use. We cannot do this and that.

I tell you what though, even, even though that we can use them, those animal rights and force free trainers, they, they still get very loud and very upset. Even the, even the problem would be fixed in one day or a couple of weeks or something. Right. They would actually, they would actually hate it. If, when it gets fixed. And then they will say, oh, that was a quick fix. Of course it was a quick fix. But when they say that was a quick fix, they mean that that was just fixed for the moment, but actually it's going to have a big problems later on. It's like, man, you, you cannot talk to these people. It's, it's frustrating. Yeah. And I think that if the, if the doc has had that problem already four years, then, then how we can talk about quick, you know what I mean? Like four years, the doc has wasted his life for the stress already. Should you wait four more years or what? Right. And that's when they will put it on medication. And then, and I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Medication. And, and, and I know for example, that this handler, like this doc, what I just mentioned about, he, she has been with this doc. She has been going to a professional dog trainer, like regularly, like, like, like continuously, you know, force free trainer, but still they are not able to make the doc even behaving that well that the doc would pass the BH. It will take time. That's what they say. It will take time. You need to be patient. You need to. And then when it doesn't, when clearly it's not working, what they end up doing, which is very, like, I, I, I hate that part. Then they start blaming the owner of the dog that they are not doing the right. They are not following the instruction correctly. It's not the, the system. Or the breeding. Or the breeder. Or the breeder. Yeah. The breeder has bred a dog that has no impulse control or not that control or not this or not that, you know, that's another thing. They blame the dog's personality or they blame the handler that she is not doing it correctly. But that's why we need to make sure that the sport and not just IGP, I think all the protection sport, all the dog sports stay the way they are. And we don't submit to the pressure because we, it causes problems. I mean, these are unhappy dogs that eventually end up being a problem dog simply because, as we were saying, like with the kids, you know, they, they end up doing bad things on the street instead of getting better at the gym and learning discipline and how to, you know, be good contributors to society and so on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And as a, as a breeder, I have also learned that my interview for the papyrus is nowadays also different. Like, like my questions I'm asking are something like, if you would need to physically prevent your dog, like chasing cars or animals or fighting kids or whatever, are you able to do that? Are you, are you ready to do that? Could you do that? How it fits to your personality? So I have like a certain kind of mental test for the papyrus or something like that. I like it. And if they say, no, I don't, you know, if, and then, and then it's, it's like, and when I have, since I decided to do this kind of thing, I have been able to have actually just like the right papyrus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. I mean, if they feel like that, I would say, I would recommend you to take, for example, like a, another breed, completely another breed. You know, they can take a chihuahua or some other dog like that, because maybe the dog will face a little bit similar issues, but not in, they are not at least big dogs. And they, you know, yeah. Yeah. And, and we also have those dogs that have, are just less demanding generally. So. Exactly. Exactly. So then, then, then those are the dogs that they should be taking. I'm thinking also, you know, like there, I mean, there are some, but these are the exceptions. This is just not how it is. There are some force free trainers that can get somewhere. They cannot get, at least not yet. I mean, I'm yet to see some force free trainer get to where you have been consistently. They cannot yet, but they can do pretty good job. Yes. But these are few trainers and they devote all of their time and energy and knowledge. Cause you need the time, you need the energy, you need the knowledge to make that happen. Yes. A normal everyday person cannot be that trainer. Yeah. Because first of all, it needs a lot of skills. Like they have to be good in communicating with dogs generally. Like they have to have a good, really good touch with dogs anyway. Their timing, their body language has to be so good already. And when they have this passion combined with their physical abilities, like they have good body control, good voice control, excellent timing and knowledge behind. And, and the ambition to do that. And they are ready to put their time and effort on that. They can bring the dogs, for example, to the championships. They can bring them to a championships. Maybe they are not the constant winners, but they can make nice results with, you know, with good dogs there and so on. But the problem happens when we have people who have done already mistakes. Right.

I mean, it's like, it's difficult to fix the mistakes and somebody has not the same time, not the same skills, not the same this and that. And a little bit more complicated talk even. And then, then, then this is like, there are like so many challenges that you can't anymore fix them with a reasonable time. If you just are ideologist, you know, and like your ideology is then like too limited. Yes. You're restrained by the ideology. And the methods what you can use, they are also limited. Like I said that when, when, for example, I told you about this one, like an unfortunate pup who has learned to misbehave so badly. When the problem is already huge, even I can't help him. Even I would like to help and I would have knowledge about the positive methods. I know it's not going to work. So, so now it's not possible anymore. And then actually the only way to help the doctor best and the only ethical way would be to actually help the doctor would already require like another kind of actions. But yeah. But yeah. So, right. Yeah. It's just how it is. But hopefully we, but that's why I hope that we don't, we are not in a situation where soon we have more and more of these kinds of problems. Yes. I think it's very important that we, we stop backing up and, and always be like feeling guilty. It's like, no, there's no evidence. There is no reason for this. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Man, where we went, I didn't mean to go in this conversation, but it's, it's, it always comes up and it started with the stick hits because again, just watching the competition. And it's like, man, like, it's like going to, you know, UFC or boxing, but you're not hitting each other. It's like, no, that's not the game. You just fake hitting. Right. Right. It's called shadow, shadow boxing. Yes. It's like a joke. Yes. Even I could then do boxing if you are not allowed to hit because you know, right. You know, I'm like, I don't want to have like, I don't want to have like different lips or broken bones in my own nose. I don't want to mouth from my nose. I'm very sensitive person about my face. Right. So I don't want to do boxing. I don't want to do boxing. And, but if there would be this kind of shadow boxing, you know, maybe that could be my spot. So in some ways you can say, okay, we have more, more dogs and more can participate. More people than not as well. But what about, what about the people that actually, the only reason they're doing it is because of that discomfort, because they like to do exactly that. You cannot take it away. Maybe, maybe we reverse it.

I hope I'm, I'm positive that maybe even the people up there that are hopefully listening to us, maybe, maybe we change it. But often, often in the world, things happen, like they go with one extreme to another. And then eventually it's coming like balances when we realize that it was like, like even with maybe even with children education, it doesn't function on that way that we just with every single child is educated the same way. And, and we never have, and we never use any punishments with them or anything because, you know, even that is changing or so. Yeah. So hopefully this changes. Yeah. So Mia, where are you going? What are you doing next? Where is the next travel? Next travel is going to be in Belgium. Belgium. Cool. So Belgium. Yes. In October. Very cool. So that's the next one. And what is your one? I haven't been to Belgium in a while. My next one, really, my next one is like, oh, I'm focusing on, on the other side. Like all I'm focusing is the, the, the nationals that that's like my, my, my, like everything is in there right now. Cause it's just two weeks away. Yes. Then, then I'm doing Hong Kong, but that's more of a, like a protection dog stuff. Yeah. And I'm planning, well, not, it's already organized. A, a very interesting big event in England. When do you go to Hong Kong? Hong Kong is like two days after, so like mid, the middle of October. Okay. Okay. Going there for four weeks, two weeks. Okay. I have quite a few clients with a protection dog there and, and, and, you know, periodically I gotta go and check on this. Yeah. I understand. But January, it's like a, gonna make a really big event in England. Yeah. Three days, just, just kind of talking about stuff that we, we talked a little bit about and try to bring common sense back in dog training and what dog training is about. And so I'm, I'm already preparing for this one and we had the study out. You heard about it. Yes. I heard about it. We're gonna work on another one now. Of course, the first three hate it. And they should. And questioned about it. They should. It's, it's totally fine. We, we have hated every single study they did for the last 20 years. Yes. And we, we have no idea what the studies were about and how they did it. Yeah. In the one that we did, we actually can explain everything. Yeah. And you know what is the, I'm gonna be talking about this eventually, make like a little presentation. But I don't, you know, like, I don't really, it's not so important to me, the comparison between the force free and the dogs with electric collar, which one is better. Yeah. Because you can have different ways to do it. Yeah.

What was very important is that we demonstrated very clearly that you can use electric collar. And there is no, this tragic side effects for life that the dog gets so traumatized because they have experienced electric collar. This absolutely was shown that that's not the case. Like the dogs were just totally cool, very playful, just, just, you know. Now, if anybody thinks, oh, we can do the force free side better. Sure. We can do the electric collar side better. Like nobody. Yeah. For example, when we use electric collar, we also use positive reinforcement, which in the study wasn't allowed. We had some, you know, parameters that we had to follow. So I would understand, for example, that normally every dog trainer, modern world, at least most of what I know, would first of all motivate the dog first, that the dogs know what here means. Like here, you know, and they have been conditioned for that, like, like a long time and they have been rewarded from that long time. And then if they still decide to chase the animal and you call them here, then comes, for example, no here or some kind of correction. It can be made with a leash or it can be perhaps sound like in your, your, um, test. It was done with E-collar, as I assume. Yes. But, but I'm, I'm, but, but anyway, and then when the dog would then react on and stop, be stopped from that, then they would be praised and rewarded from that. Like, for example, like I do like this personally with my dogs without E-collar for sure, because you know, why do it for the puppies and in my country, we can't have the E-collars, but the same idea. I, I conditioned my dog first, but with a here and then my dogs are on the leash and when they first time, they don't react on me. I correct them with a leash and, and make them sure that, Hey, you can't do that. And then, then before they even have a chance to start to chase something. So you, so, so basically like, like my dogs have learned already on that way, but, but nevertheless, I think that if they are like touching that, Oh, it should have been done better with a positive group, but as well, it should have been, it could have been done also in both ways better. Exactly. Not only like, and that was the idea. The idea was to show that dogs don't get like lifelong stress or any seriously negative side effects after getting correction from E-collar. Yes, it was highly effective and we can do it in a very, you know, timely manner. And it was without the negative side effects that every single study loves to say that there are.

And, and as you said, we did it in a way that that's not exactly how a trainer would do it. So, but it's okay for them to be upset. Some of them, they, they, like, I know that some of them, they will never change. Like you can, you can really try to tell them that the earth goes around the sun and you can show all the proof you want to. And they will not accept it. But they decided to do otherwise. It's okay. And those people, you know, like we, we cannot deal with that. But little by little, I think we're starting to, to stand our ground and, and to say like, no, you cannot bullshit us. Like everything that you're saying in a study, we're not seeing it. We are the people that train dogs every day. And we're not seeing what you have seen. And, and you're trying to convince us. Yes. Now that's not to say like, of course there is people that are just bad people that do bad things to animals, but they don't need any kind of equipment to do bad things. Right? No, no. So. Absolutely not. And, yeah. And one of my veterinarian friend has once stated to me that the worst, when she has been seeing like, like really bad things in her career, like when the animals have been abused, they have been done by that poorly by hands or, you know, like, or, or, or legs like kicked over, you know, like, like hit or, you know, like, like hit or, you know, like, like, hit or, you know, like, like, like, hit. Or something. Or something. So they haven't been actually done with any dog training equipments, like, not with collars or not with something like that. So those, those situations where they have to, for example, put the dog down or put an animal down because it was so badly, badly. Um, I would say violently. Abused. Yeah. Yeah. So abused. So, so some kind of like, like really crazy situation. So it's very unfair to put everything into the same basket. It's like, no, there is like, there is animal abuse. And I think we all are against animal abuse, but what animal abuse really means and what you are like in the keyboard in your computer fighting against. Yeah. Like, even like with humans, you know, when we think about like home violence or anything, I mean, people can be so badly violated by either mental violence, but even if you think about physical violence, I guess in most of cases, it's just, it's not like done with some special equipment that should be abundant. Right. It has been done by, by, you know, bare hands basically. Yeah. It's very physical. Whatever equipment, what was available at the certain time moment when the person was losing his, you know, self-control and getting aggressive.

So that's, that's, that's a completely different thing. And eventually a lot of equipments have been created for sure to actually prevent violence happening. Right. But you don't have to do that. You don't have to prevent the dog violently, like, like, like, you know, chasing an animal, like, like, like really like pulling, like letting him run like 10 meter and then stop him with a, you know, with a rope or, or something that the dog goes circle around himself or whatsoever. When you can do it also like more clever way, you know, this is like a bad example, but no, no, but kind of that way. But, um, of course, like in my country, we cannot even talk about the colors. So we are like canceled about that. We are forced to not to do that in my country. We have to kind of everybody agree that, for example, equal art is in every single situation, a horrible equipment, and you cannot use that. And that is already like, like, I think something that it for this works will be that I cannot open it even, even consider about, like, even talk about you or asking about your opinion about it or something. Because it's like, I'm basically forced to not even talk about that. And I think it's even like, kind of like crazy that we cannot even talk about it, because we can talk about it like guns, but we cannot talk about the e-collar. Yeah, strange. You see my point. Like, yeah, but in my country, it's like, um, maybe people who don't train dogs, maybe they could talk about it. But if you are dog trainer, it's like, even I mentioned it right now here, and even I mentioned that I can talk about it, they would just record this part of our conversation. Yes. And they would use this against me, and they will do properly one day, because that's their goal to show that if I even talk about it, I must be a bad person. So, it has come from that far here, and so I hope that in your country, you can keep on discussing about different options, because in some situations it can be useful. I think we were fortunate enough to learn from what happened in Europe, and also having the, like the internet, comparing to what it was 10 years ago. Right now, you know, we can say, no, no, listen, I also can tell you that something is not right. You cannot just kind of go silently into the government and pass some law without nobody knowing. It cannot happen anymore. We are ready for this, and we will, we also have something to say about. They tried to do this in San Francisco. It was a year ago. They called it Shock Free San Francisco.

And somehow, they thought that they're going to sneak in and pass a legislation, a law that they will ban in the electric collar. And then all the trainers learn about it, and we went and we, you know, there was a hearing and, you know, we stand up. And all of a sudden, the people that were supposed to, you know, make this law, they realized that there is a lot of people, a lot of people, a lot of dog trainers that have a different opinion, that not everybody agrees on that. And then they were like, oh, hold on. We are not ready to do this. That's not like what you're presenting. That's not the whole dog training community doesn't accept that. And so, I don't know. We are in a good place. And I am actually hoping that eventually, we can start to kind of reverse things even further back in Europe to where, to some extent, because it doesn't make sense. Like nothing makes sense. I don't know. We'll see. And we also know that, you know, we have had laws, let's say, we have had laws in Finland, where alcohol was forbidden, right? And in Europe. Like when it was considered like, you see my point, like we have had all kinds of laws, so nothing what is now solid, it doesn't mean it has to be five years later, 10 years later, or 15 years later. So, things can change. And we have had a lot of laws that we thought that it would never change, but actually it has changed. So, I like that. Yeah. Let's stay optimistic. We have to. Let's stay optimistic and not make everything forbidden just because somebody will drink too much, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is people that will drive their car and hit something in the middle of the road. And we have to ban a car and hit somebody and kill somebody. It doesn't mean we ban cars all of a sudden. Nobody drives cars. I mean, this is ridiculous. Yeah. Right. Cool. Okay. But hey, thanks for… Good conversation. Good conversation, yes. Hopefully, I don't know where I'm seeing you again. It's going to be somewhere in Europe, I guess. I wish best luck to your nationals, both of you, you and Natalia. So, I really hope to see you in the team. Super. And if you compete, I definitely want to come to visit in Greece. Super, super. Okay, Mia. We stay in touch. So… Good one. Yes. Take care. Ciao. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you.