에피소드 7: Michael Ellis

I mean, the training part is, I don't know, I, for, for you, I'm sure it's the same. There are endless curiosities there. Like you, I could never burn out on that. You're in front of a group of new people. There's always an unusual dog that doesn't fit your ideas of how this should go. Um, you find a handler that doesn't present normally and you have to find a way to, to kind of reach them some way. There's somebody that's skeptical over there that you have to try to break through. There's, there's, I don't, I don't think I could ever get tired of that part of it, the teaching part of it. And then the kind of trying to understand, uh, understand dogs. And so that part I love, but it, you know, you, I mean, I'm preaching, I'm preaching to the bar here. You know, they're exhausting. You're on your feet all day, the concentration, the physical wear and tear on your body. But it's the, it was mostly the travel, like being away from home and away from my own dogs, my wife and that kind of thing. And then when I came home, I found that I didn't want to do anything. Like after you do one of those things and I just come home and just plunk down. And so there was a point at which my wife's like, Hey, let's go out and do something. And I'm like, how about we sit on the couch? Right. So, uh, and so that was a big part of it. And at the point that, that, um, I decided that, Hey, I can't keep doing this forever. Um, I could have, of course have opened a dog training business to help people train their dogs, but I'd spent the last 15 years sort of coaching other dog trainers, people that were already passionate about it and the rest of that. So a school for dog trainers seemed like kind of the next, the next logical step in that evolution. Um, and it, and I, you have the same thing I'm sure is that I think we're lucky in that we, anybody that's dog trained, uh, and made their living at it. We've certainly done professional pet dog training, companion dog training, and helped people. I took in inboard dogs and all the, all the things that a traditional dog trainers journey includes, but coaching trainers and then opening a training school allows us to get in front of people that are already really passionate about it. So regard for me, regardless of how, uh, talented or untalented someone is, uh, if they really want to, if they're really interested and they really want to learn it, then I have a lot of patience for those people. Right. And so in running a school for trainers and you know it too, and coaching other trainers, those people are all really on board. They want to be better. So that's it.

It makes it kind of an easy thing in that way, easy to keep your motivation up because they want it so badly. And so, so for the last 12 years, I've run a, run a school for dog trainers. It's been, yeah, it'll be 12, 12 years this year. 12 years. Crazy, crazy. Time is going. It seems like it was yesterday, right? Actually, I guess this year it'll be 13, right? So it's September of this year. It'll be 13 years. But that was, uh, as you said, it's for sure the most logical step after what you did and what I've done, you know, teaching, teaching instead of just spending time training individual dogs and a person, um, that, that, uh, in any other way, I would think that vast experience of going places, working with so many different varieties, finding all the similarities, find all the differences, and then brainstorming with all the crazy problem dogs that you enter with. Then you have a day or two, maximum three days to figure it out, try something and prescribe a go home. That's, you know, like, uh, you can read, you can train one dog, but nothing, nothing really comes close to giving you that experience. And, and it's, and it's, and when I'm going with this, it's, it would be shame not to share it. Because what do you do with it? You master it. You master how to teach, you master how to understand behavior, emotions in dogs and people and their objectives where they go. It will be shame not to, not to give it back, you know, like, yeah. And I think a hundred, a hundred percent you're, you're exactly correct. And I, I feel like, um, at this stage of our careers too, it's, it's, it's our duty. What we, what we all want is to elevate the general understanding of dogs out there and to make as many people benefit from that information as possible. And so I look at it like if you affect, uh, somebody that's going to become a professional trainer, if you affect their way of looking at this and you improve their knowledge, then they can touch a way more people than you could ever touch individually. Right. And it's sort of that, that trickle down idea and, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. So the more the information gets out there to a wider variety of people, the better it is for dogs everywhere. Right. And, and, uh, and so that, that part is true and you're absolutely right. And you've done exactly the same thing. Like I tell people all the time and you may not even remember it. I don't remember whether it was a seminar in Montana or one of those places. And somebody showed up with a dog to hear somebody that showed up with a dog that was wholly unsuitable. Right.

The dog was just unusual in every way, difficult, not a sport dog at all, but early in the seminar, the dog piqued your interest because it wasn't presenting normally in any way. Right. Everything about the dog. And you could tell it was bugging you the whole time. And so the traditional format for anyone that doesn't know of these kinds of seminars is you would come out, you'd talk, you do obedience, and then you do protection with everyone's dogs kind of thing. And usually in a day you get a round of obedience and a round of protection and maybe two protection rounds. I think you brought the dog out like six times over the course to the point. It was actually kind of annoying. Some people you're like, Hey, get that dog again. Right. Like it was great on you. And that kind of thing is fantastic. It's a laboratory for you to sort of work through that stuff. In addition to a masterclass in learning how to teach, because you've got every kind of personality type out there. And so you learn to give information in as many different ways as possible. I've come up with 20 different ways to say the same thing because somebody can hear it here and somebody else can hear it there. So yeah, it was an indispensable, if a little bit exhausting education for sure. Man, I don't remember that one, but for sure I can totally see it. I totally loved it about you. It was the best thing. I was like, that's awesome. Preoccupies your mind. You can't just leave it alone. Absolutely. Right. It's not like I'm just coming here. I'm going to, I got to, I'm going to do my job and leave. And I don't care. Like to see somebody that successful that invested in a dog that was never going to go on to competition. Like it wasn't going to go there. It was the wrong genetics for that, but just making that dog's life better and understanding that dog. It was cool. It was like, it sticks with me now. So I try to cultivate that mind. Imagine what, what do you think? I mean, the way when we started, we, we basically started right at a time where AOL had, you've got mail. That was the extent of the internet. There was no YouTube. There was no resources. There was nowhere. We had to learn in a very, very different way. In fact, I teach something in my school. Um, let me see if I can say it right, right now. Um, there is two ways to learn. And the one is that you learn something because it's presented to you at the moment and you don't know it's necessarily where to put it. And the other one is to learn at the moment what you need to learn for that particular

moment, which is the beauty of what kids and anybody, including me and you have the opportunity to do right now. You can just come up with an idea about any random thing that you want to learn about and you get to do it at that moment. It's the most brilliant thing. And we didn't have that opportunity. But my question to you is how, how, how do you feel about the past, how we went through? I mean, it wasn't easy, but I know it was fun. I know we had much more life interaction, much more. I think we were dreaming much higher than, than, than, than what's happening today. And, uh, less animosity. There is always competition, but what's going on in the dog world right now, it's in a different level, the dynamics. And we'll get to that, but I'm just curious how you feel about past and how we got there. I feel conflicted. Like, so for sure, um, there were things about the way that we came up that were, um, that were better. Like, it's almost like, um, organically you were able to process information as it came in in little bits because you didn't get it all at once. Right. Like now with the internet and things, one, like you can be, new trainers can be overwhelmed with information and opposing viewpoints and all that kind of stuff. And maybe when you're learning something new, too many voices make it hard can, can force you into inaction. Right. And I think what probably for me, certainly, and I'm sure for you, we were out there, you'd be exposed to other trainers, you'd get an idea, but then you were sort of left on your own to mess around with it. Exactly. Experiment and work through it. So you felt like you really knew it before you were given more information. Right. And I was given information at various times in my development that I wasn't ready to receive at the time. I'm sure every trainer has this. Somebody said something or showed you something and maybe it made sense, but you had no place conceptually to put it in your personal experience. And so you just kind of went, man, whatever. Yeah. And went along and did your thing. And then two years down the road, you're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, that was actually good information, but I wasn't ready for it. And I feel like right now, to some degree, with the internet and the amount of information, which is a great thing, like trainers can move way more quickly through certain things and you can get access to information from all over the world. The top trainers, you can actually listen to them and watch them and things in a way that you would have to make big efforts to do.

But also, I think it's overwhelming and confusing for some beginning trainers to have that same amount of information. And so, and they're not left to experiment either. Yeah. Yeah. The, the overload without letting it simmer and without letting it actually really set in and, and, and try and feel and understand and practice and, and then do it again. Yeah. Yeah. And do it wrong and, and make adjustments because you did it wrong yourself. Having somebody there telling you, I mean, you know, from the seminar circuit too, there are lots of people that can execute something. If there's somebody standing around telling them what to do that are physically mechanically talented. And if they have a training director or someone there to mentor them, that's basically watching them and reminding them, you can become a good technician without kind of feeling in your bones and understanding and making the adjustments. And, and then you get, they get afraid because there's so much information out there. People can get afraid to make a mistake. So they're unwilling to try things for fear of, of, oh gosh, I'm going to, I'm going to ruin my dog or I'm going to make this mistake. And so I feel conflicted, right? Also, I think that a lot of what's on the internet is oversimplified and everything is edited to be, this is a problem with society in my opinion, anyway, right? With the idea of instant gratification and things given to you in like intense little bits, right? But dog training is not like that. It's like the, the slow movement out there. It's, it's, it's showing up. It's being there. It's like focusing, intensely focusing on another creature for extended periods of time. And all the little blips and short clips give people information, but that doesn't, that's not how dog training feels when you're doing it right. You know what I mean? Right, right, right, right. Yeah. In a lot of ways, I think it makes, um, anybody that gets into dogs right now because of that access and because of that overload. It forces you to be impatient and, and, and not to, not to be able to focus and comprehend something that's given to you. It could be valuable. It could not be valuable, but even not valuable information is interesting to say at least. But if you're rushing and you're just YouTube hopping and, and from then you're back on Instagram and, and chasing clicks like, uh, that, that, that's a problem. I think a very serious problem right now. It's almost, there is, um, how good of a trainer I am in the social media environment. Oh yeah. I have all kinds of difficulties with social media, but I chalk it up to us being old,

but remember like that, that whole world, like they're just asked the presentational aspects of it really bother me. Like to the idea that something has to be flashy and catchy to get people's attention. Maybe it doesn't have to like, but. Like I want to really dive into a subject deeply and a lot of what's, uh, design social media is designed not to, they want you to move on immediately. Right. They want you to see something catches your attention, pay attention, and then move on to, to something else. And, uh, uh, that's not the way to get very good at anything, right? The way to get expert at anything is to take a deep, deep dive. And I don't know that that formats the best, but then I'm, I also realize you can reach so many more people with good information. So if you can package good information, you can affect people's lives that would never have the ability to access it otherwise. So it's, there's a democratization aspect to it as well. Right. So that's why I'm always conflicted about it. And I'm not very good at using it because I, I, I, I hate marketing. Like I'm super old fashioned in the sense that I think like good work will allow you to be successful. If you do good, if you do good work and you really understand it, you'll be successful without all the flashy editing and music over your videos and all the rest of that stuff that's nonsense, fun sometimes, but nonsense when it comes down to really understanding it. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I feel the same way and somehow I am falling into the stream with, with the race, you know, it's, it's very difficult, very, very difficult. Matt, me too. And I think the next generation, if you want to get, if you want to have them hear you, even if, even if that's not the primary way you interact with them, if you want to get their attention, you're going to have to do it there. That's the way they're, that's the way they're processing the world. So we don't really have a choice. Right. At a certain point we got to get in. So I, I want to, I want to kind of hear a little bit about your school. I mean, I, of course I'm paying attention. And of course I follow and check what you do and everything. It's, it's just, there is no way I wouldn't. But what I'm interested in right now, like my question that's coming up, where, what, what is interesting for you at the moment in dog training? Where, where is your head? Where is your, what, what's going on? It's funny. You should ask this. There's a couple of things from the school perspective. The thing that's always interesting to me. And I'm, I still struggle with this.

How much of what kind of information to give a new trainer at a certain stage in their development. Right. So meaning do you try to give them everything? Do you say right on day one, Hey, modify what you're doing based on the dog you're getting, or do you give people certain kind of core skills and tell them, don't ask too many questions, just learn this. And then once you learn that we can talk, it's a little like a jazz musician learning scales or whatever, before you start improvising. Right. And I struggle with that sometimes, like where in a person's education, do they need to hear certain things? So that is always interesting to me because I keep tweaking all the time, what I'm teaching people at what stages of their development and not overloading a new person up front, but giving them useful skills and that kind of thing. So from a teaching perspective, that's always fascinating to me. And I struggle, uh, or I, I'm constantly trying to change how I'm working with that. And it's a little like adapting to the dog in front of you. So it works really well for one student and not so much for another. And then you're like, how do I make it better for that student? That kind of thing. In dog training, um, I went through, uh, a period where like most people our age, we learned training. What would, what we call now traditionally, you know, sort of escape avoidance, traditional keeler method style stuff. And then got into reward-based training and a lot of stuff was once I started playing with dogs, my whole world opened up. And from the time I was a kid, I liked, I mean, part of the most fascinating thing about having a dog was the fact that it would chase a, retrieve something, chase a ball and bring it back to you. Right. When I was, when I was a teenager, that was like, why do you have a dog? If you're not going to throw things for it, I would chase it. Right. Kind of thing. And, and so then started playing with dogs and it opened up an entire world. And then the more you get into the science of it and the detail of it, then there's a whole world out there about breaking things down in tiny, tiny pieces. And can you, with a working dog, get tiny perfections in head position and healing, or like all these kinds of crazy things that trainers go down the rabbit hole. And that's interesting at first, because it's different. And you're like, well, how far can we take this? And all of that kind of stuff. And then lately, and then a period of while you're trying to do things all with rewards, how much can you do just with the giving and withholding rewards? Right.

And then you realize, okay, that's, that's an incomplete picture, of course. And then how do I merge those worlds to get the best benefits? And then I have a little renaissance of using negative reinforcement because, Hey, look, that's that layering it over like well-trained reward-based behaviors. And what does that do? And I go through that. And now truth be told is I loop back around and playing with dogs. Like I'm raising a young dog. Now she's 11 months old. And I'm, I don't care about behaviors. Like I'm just playing with her and I just sort of let them come out. Right. I, our play relationship gets really good. And she starts doing things. I get controls on that. And it's how I would train like 15 years ago, like a little bit. And it feels really good and kind of natural. And I'm letting go some tiny details of head position. That's not so interesting anymore. Right. And then there's a, for me too, now a big interest in like, I play in monitoring a lot. So recognizing the challenges and the interesting part of real generalization of behaviors, right? The idea that dogs are such easily patterned creatures and, and how changes, small changes in the generalization landscape, the environment can have a dog that feels really well trained, make errors and mistakes, just like human beings do. And so that's always endlessly fascinating. Right. Yes. Yes. That's a, yeah, man. We, we, we have so much to talk. Shit. I don't know. I don't know if we're going to have enough time. I mean, this is like a couple of episodes. Like for me, the, the, one of the really cool things also is the, the kind of going right where you left it right here. It's understanding the power of habits. Like, it's just mind blowing to me how, how strong it can be a habit. Like, like you, like if you have a way to create a habit or if you try to destroy a habit that you don't want. Yes. It's so interesting. And it's, it's so much there that, that, yeah, it is, it's a, there's a reason that whole branches of human psychology are devoted to the creation of good habits and the difficulties of extinguishing bad habits too. Right. We know it. Like they're, they're hard. They're really hard to change. Right. So they are incredibly powerful things. You're right. That's where sometimes, you know, like, um, the, the, the whole force free movement, that there is some valuable information. There is some, there is some message there. It's not complete for sure. It's not complete. And I, I, I know we're going to go into that much deeper, but, but there, there is some good side in there. Mm-hmm.

And I think habits is one of the interesting things that they, they're, I don't think they're quite in there. They don't quite understand. Yes. But ultimately, if you, of course you cannot go against genetics. Like, there's just no, you know, like forget, like that, that, that's where, that's where the, they, they completely fell on their faces. Cause they, they just really think that with some super smart, intelligent training and differential reinforcements and, and whatever you want, they can do magic. And, and that's a, that's a problem. There's very similar. I mean, I think we, we both grew into anybody. I think in the time, late eighties, early nineties, everybody jumped on that wagon. I mean, how would you not, if you can possibly train dogs in this way, why would you not? Right. Why would you not? Yeah. I was so excited. You were all so excited about that. It was incredible. Yeah. And, and as you said, the, the, the, you know, just, just figuring different ways how to apply negative punishment in dog sports. And I, I remember you and I, I think, was it in Kentucky or I don't know where we were. I mean, we had some endless nights just, just talking and just getting excited over each other's words. I, I, I, I, that's where I ended up writing the advanced shotgun book. And, and I mean, anyone that would look at it totally based on that movement and that era at the time. Yeah. but then we figured it out just as you said like can we train dogs this way yes we can we know we can now how far does it go how does it compare and is the dog really happier and less stressed as it's learning strictly that way that was those were the questions that eventually came up correct absolutely that's a that's it in a nutshell what you said right there too is the dog is their life actually better are they actually ultimately less stressed right and in certain circumstances yes if the dogs made the connections you wanted quickly but they're in that movement god we could go about we could talk about this by itself for hours but in that movement there's the idea that the dog needs to be left to make their own choices all the time right that while they figure it out and we all know how fucking frustrating it is pardon me to to be trying to figure something out and not getting the information you need to figure it out and keep butting your head against the wall and think you've got it and then you don't have it and you and i both have all seen dogs too that get frustrated in those circumstances and it provokes

aggressive there's all kinds of stuff that's there and it's not stress that that kind of stress is no nicer than some discomfort is in various circumstances and so it's like what um allows the dog to understand and make the connections the most efficiently right and with as little stress as possible in the learning phase of it ultimately right once a dog knows applying you we applying stress to a dog that understands something is a completely different bottle of wax than learning under stress right and and so that once we we kind of butted up against the limitations of thinking that way then it all becomes about how you merge the worlds that we came from before that and that but you can that needed to happen at that period of time and we all needed to do that i think like it to swing the pendulum to get people thinking differently about training that that absolutely had to happen i know you and i may have had this conversation before but i found like when i first started traveling and doing seminars for working clubs i found found myself like you i'm sure being a proponent for positive and negative reinforcement in the working dog circle you came from all these everybody's thing was set the dog up so you could correct them make them make a mistake so you could correct them right kind of this whole mentality and so you're preaching to all these trainers about like hey you don't always have to go to the correction first there's other ways to approach this and then at the end of my traveling portion i found myself going to clubs and saying hey you know what it's okay to say no to your dog it's okay to correct them it's like it's all right like you guys this is good great you figured this part out but you're now limiting yourself again on the other side this is where um organizations such as apdt and and and any of those force-free and their lima list intrusive minimally minimally yeah yeah you know it's a big problem like i i just don't understand why would you have this outlined in such way to say like the the only point that you're trying to make is to say how horrible punishment is and that you should try everything else in order to avoid it and that doesn't i mean besides not having logic i'm just surprised how many people very sincerely believe in this uh uh presentation because when you again like like you can just you know i mean i i kind of stepped a little bit further out but what you said about um waiting on a dog strictly you know doing some shaping and doing some like oh no he's gonna figure it out

figure it out is a cool thing if you can set it up correctly and and even then i personally would prefer not when i teach i like in my school i teach how to i teach you have to know how to i mean if if you don't teach a dog to grab its blanket and roll over and go to sleep or open the toilet or you know like you if you're serious about dog training you should definitely explore this world a hundred percent but you gotta understand and appreciate dog with motivation and desire that when you leave that dog to figure it out and it's not as easy you open such a kind of worms and you put the dog through hell for absolutely no reason but just so you can show how um you know like what were two years uh like how good of a trainer how how much you understand skinnerism and and and you know and it's completely artificial right so that's not the way the world works in any way it's not the way nature works it's not the way any of us go through life like it's completely artificial i do the same thing i teach free shaping to the students so they have to have exercises that they have to mess with that with so that they understand the process but you know what it it is it's it's it's an exercise for the trainer exactly it's not for the dog it's for observation timing you know criteria setting criteria raising it's it's for the for the trainer right like you could give them a chicken and do the same thing ultimately right like the same idea there and so but once it gets to the dog then i don't want to leave them in limbo like that i want to help them grasp what i'm trying to teach them right which doesn't necessarily mean force obviously right off the bat it's setting up a session so that the dog makes the connection that you want them to make quickly and efficiently which we can help with like what i call assisted shaping instead of like leaving the dog hanging out there you know with half the information yeah yeah that's that's uh but it's i don't know why why why we are where we are it's very interesting time i think it's i think it's an attractive idea when you don't know better like there's a moment it's for me it was a there was a moment like the way i learned to train dogs as a kid wasn't fun right it was um it was uh satisfying when you got through it and you had a dog that you had that relationship with and you could communicate with and you had a trained dog and it's always nicer to have a trained dog than an untrained dog in that sense and so there was something gratifying about but the day-to-day of that the the the

completely negative reinforcement positive punishment based way of training wasn't fun it felt like a necessary evil so some of the reward-based revolution for want of a better term you open your eyes to there were other possibilities and so that's pretty um exciting at that point and doing that work initially was fun the dogs were having a good time and you're having a good time um but i think if you're an analytical person and you start to think about it you realize what a like an oversimplification it is of the way things work and you quickly abandon that kind of religious fervor with which people continue to embrace that right they it's it's not it's not about the dog it's about them at some point and how they view the world it's it's not about what's best for that dog that's in front of them yeah yeah yeah yeah they this is um negative punishment you know super powerful when it meets the right circumstances and totally ineffective if it doesn't meet them that's another thing that's piqued my interest recently too is and you're you're gonna this is gonna resonate with you is that like negative punishment if you can set up the contingencies properly so that the dog connects it with what you want them to connect it with in the teaching phase of something new can be a really powerful tool it's you're absolutely right and it's cool to watch it you know you've been teaching a dog to jump and the first time they touch the jump you withhold reward and the next time you watch them pick their feet up by their ears like like you can see the adjustments that dogs make when set up correctly and that kind of thing and then also you see as the dogs become more fluent and you have repetitions and things over periods of time that it becomes kind of less effective right and so one of the things that i've i've recognized and we all know it like how come the dog doesn't seem to care if it touches the jump anymore now now that it's two years old and it's been jumping for a year right and um so i've gotten kind of interested in neurobiology and that kind of stuff recently trying to i i i'm sure you're the same i love when like uh a scientist confirms something that you've observed and you know in your in your gut and you just don't know the mechanism and so when a when a biologist explains what's happening you're like hell yeah that's cool i know that that that just i know that's exciting thing when that clicks for you right and so i listen to lots of neurobiologists there's a guy named robert sapolsky that teaches at stanford and like lots of interesting stuff there but the when the

dopamine rises during learning right and so the dopamine rises once the animal becomes fluent in anticipation of reinforcement so you withhold reward after a certain point and it doesn't change the dog's behavior anymore because it's what's reinforcing what's driving their behavior is the anticipation of reward and then when they don't get it you're on variable reinforcement so they produce more dopamine and the behavior gets more intense and like and so it works perfectly at a certain spot if you can set up the right contingencies and then not so much in other places and so and when you when i heard that the first time i'm like yes yes okay of course like there now i just have a nice fancy scientific explanation for why what we already knew was the case right right right right man dopamine is a very such a interesting and such a trendy subject but somehow somehow and i don't know where it comes from but dog trainers and certain type of dog trainers are like like like finding somehow an excuse to do what they're doing and justifying it with somehow dopamine dopamine makes up for for what you do and it's not necessarily a cool thing that you do to the dog but dopamine overrides it and as long as we say this magic word all of a sudden we have justified to do what we are doing and then oh it's really bugging me but it's a very very i'm with you 100 yes right yeah i need to but like i also i have been like really just going kind of wild with dopamine studies and and there is a book that just doesn't come i i have to uh i i have it in my we're gonna put that book in the bottom of the thing of the podcast later but uh and like they had something very cool where um like the way the guy explains it is like so complicated but so freaking interesting because what dopamine loves more than anything else is reward prediction error yeah then it goes crazy yeah which which means basically it's the the discovery that something is better than what we had anticipated it's gonna be so it's we think it's this but it's actually better than what we thought it would be and paradoxically dopamine does everything in its power to avoid such incorrect forecasts right yeah yeah like that's not adaptive like like incorrect predictions are dangerous in nature right but but at the same time reward for the dopamine the reward prediction error feels great because the the you know the dopamine gets excited over the fact that there is something new because that's the prediction error it's like oh shit there's something different boom and it gets excited

right and it's unexpected and it's new and and but being surprised by an expected something means that the resource isn't fully um explored in a way right so now the dopamine the dopamine can make sure that it explores it so this surprise cannot happen again of course yeah and and and and that feels good but but here is the the the final thing by doing so the dopamine actually extinguishes its own pleasure and there is that chase that goes on and it's super super cool i'm gonna i don't even know if i said it correctly but i'm gonna give it that i'd love to read it yeah for sure because that's the kind of thing that i'm into right now for sure or for sure but also i i think some of those uh kind of discussion of neurobiology or um epigenetics and like larger drivers they're complicated right and so the people that really dive into it are gonna tell it they're trying of course like everything else to isolate what each of these hormones or neurotransmitters or do in the body but a lot of them have multiple functions and they operate differently when when creatures are in different states of mind and different stages of deprivation and in combination with other hormones and neurotransmitters and all that and so it's it's a way of kind of understanding parts of why animals behave the way they behave and why we behave the way we behave but it's never the whole picture right and so it i think it's a trap a little bit like these things get trendy and i think like you said and it's important to draw people's attention to that idea so for me i don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole and like you said people start justifying well if withholding rewards not working then my only alternative and they do something abusive and stupid right instead of being smarter about kind of setting up their training circumstances which doesn't mean again that we're not correcting dogs at the at an appropriate time when they understand and they can take that information and do something with it but they're using that as a justification and the at the other end of the spectrum is people will say we'll see since it you know the it it's all about the dopamine well no that's a piece of a larger puzzle and so i think it i want that information it's interesting to me it helps me sometimes recognize when i might be kind of beating my head against the biological wall like what and and different dogs i'm sure just like human beings it's more positively they've done studies that genetically different dogs and different people produce more of certain

neurotransmitters right there's reason that people get ssris and take serotonin update inhibitors right and that kind of thing because their body doesn't produce enough to make them functional right and so why wouldn't dogs be the same way and so i've come to this my my pet hypothesis recently and i is that there are thrill-seeking personalities and dogs like there are thrill-seeking personalities in human beings right why does somebody want to go rock climbing and jump out of a plane and do that kind of stuff and they get a huge charge out of it and somebody else is like no it just makes me sick to my stomach i never want to see it again right what's happening neurochemically there or in your genetic makeup that makes that feel good to one person and not good to another person because i know it's true in dogs right yeah like yeah there are dogs that we we select for dogs that like these kind of crazy high arousal activities that get addicted to them really easily right and and and then some other dog like somebody's basset hound's not going to do get addicted to that same kind of thing no matter how much you you try right and so that that whole world is just another way of kind of trying to understand what's happening and for me checking myself if i think i'm fighting against biology and genetics because we lose that battle every time yes yes you you you it it's stupid to go against it i mean it's really stupid to go against it and like what what you just said like i i call it i know that i call it i i'm sure i i picked it up from somewhere but i i i call it home base like that like if you i mean you can something super cool can be happening around you but if your home base is to find something shitty about it and get upset and angry or get sad you will find it and you will become that and it's the same dog dogs do have a home base and most trainers are preoccupied with making the behaviors and not understanding where is the home base it's just like the first thing understand what what ticks in there where do you want to be and let's see how we can change that if we need to change it or let's feed it but i i'm very very few trainers i talk and i see really looking to and and appreciate oh that's that's that's its home that's where he wants to be no matter what's happening around he wants to be excited and happy and oblivious and now you're trying to force him into something and you're almost upset that the dog is oblivious but oh that's his home base i love that i love the way of talking about it i call their happy place whatever you want like this the spot

where they're what it's the same in in humans right so the same idea that that we want to change somebody into our societal ideal of the the ideal person right so if you're shy we want to bring you out of your shell right if you're uh there's all these sorts of ways of looking at what's natural for a person or a dog as something that needs changing and dog trainers especially because you get paid to fix what people think are problems right and and not to say that there are dogs out there doing things they shouldn't be doing for sure like all that kind of stuff but the idea that without appreciating that individual dog's dogness you're not going to be successful at that right unless you know where their home base is like you're never going to be successful at that or you're going to make the dog's life miserable even if you appear to block stop whatever the behavior you don't want for a period of time you haven't changed the essence of that dog and any it's like building a house on a shoddy foundation it's going to come down because you weren't built on who they really are right that's a behavior modification kind of thing i i just started teaching a class that i call behavior modification a couple years ago after all this time because i refused to do it i'm like no it's like it's not its own thing this idea that the problem dogs have a problem and how do you come in and fix that problem give me the recipe for separation anxiety give me the recipe for leash reactivity like that kind of thing and to me that was driving me mad i'm like just it's understanding the individual dog it's all the things that we would do in training period and it's just good dog training like i don't want to talk about it like it's its own thing in isolation and i finally caved because people have to hear that term if they're going to hear what you have to say about it afterwards yeah especially when we are teaching we have to yeah that's it's that's the world in which we live so then you start teaching and then i was like where's this dog coming from genetically are you gonna fix it are you gonna change nope you're not like how do we make it better how do we satisfy the dog's needs are my solutions in line with with that and how do i learn to manage the environment and recognize where i can put this dog and where i can't put this dog right so that the dog can have as functional a life as possible with those people right but that idea that you're going to somehow change that that's the whole that that is the whole point i had a i don't

know sometime last year i had a very very cool podcast with two evolutionary psychologists um and jane hawk is the one and uh dr lyle um super super brilliant like just again i mean evolutionary psychology going totally against skinnerian behaviorism and so you're gonna love this she's like well for whatever reason we humans think that we we look at dogs with a very very different eye than any other animal for example if somebody comes to the house and the cat hides nobody gives a shit but if the dog does it now it's a big problem so true so true it's exactly it's totally true right that's it that's awesome okay let's fix it it's like why why okay maybe maybe we can attempt to fix something but not make why make it as the objective of our life to torture a dog instead of finding a way how we can give him some safety and some environment that he can strive and flourish and be comfortable instead play the big dog trainer ego and let's fix it let's fix it 100 you've got oh it's right now my current one of my current obsessions is what i'm calling it uh over socialization like this idea that you got to get your puppy out in the world you got to drag them around everywhere they got to meet a bunch of new people this whole thing this idea that you take a puppy that has some confidence issues and in an attempt to fix them you make them 10 times worse right it's you're forcing them into uncomfortable situations one after the other after the other right and recognizing that like and it drives me crazy and there's a point at which obviously you can't isolate creatures during development from the world around them we all know what happens if you completely isolate them their brains don't develop properly all that kind of stuff but there's that's gone way too far it's a little like the reward based movement it's like our understanding of early development has come to the point we realize the power there and people are pushing too much they're putting young dogs in over their head in uncomfortable situations and then attempt to fix their shyness or their their anxiety over things and it's it's it's a problem instead of taking the dog away putting them in places where they're comfortable giving them something that they they can really latch on to and gain confidence through coming back around to that when the dog has a global confidence yeah at the very least start there so you have a reset and then step out see if it goes well or if it doesn't you know where to go back and leave it alone like sometimes just leave it alone like yes you're good dog

trainer your ego is not gonna be destroyed because you didn't fix something and on the other hand though you know like um the the the whole uh psychotropic medications shit's just going off the roof like carelessly like carelessly it's bugging me so much like i mean i'm talking real real people with real dogs a six month old puppy happy happy playful and excited let's make him lifeless yeah oh it's horrible just because we can uh no it's maddening it really is and it's like everything there's um uh a place for that and so again we never want to throw the baby out with a batter there are dogs at a certain stage in their life that have that can be their lives can be improved through those things or they can help you work through a problem in a certain case you can you have a reset for a dog in a sense and that kind of thing and so there there are benefits but it's like everything once people realize it it's like oh the quick fix like my dog's too happy my dog's too energetic my dog you know oh the boom ssris right right it's it's crazy but i don't think even the the owners realize that it's a i i don't think they're looking for a quick i think the i think it's pushed on them through the whole chain of the the positive trainer and the behavior veterinarian and kind of that whole combo of working together and they haven't even seen the dog and the dog is already on a monthly prescription it's super super upsetting but somehow it's justified and it's supported and it's like a cool thing and oh and as you said there's definitely times where dogs do need it just like people do need it some some people and some dogs they they need to come into peace at least have moments of it and not not be hunted by demons that's different story but for a uh an excited lively playful animal instead of asking well what is the outlet what do you do with that puppy oh let's ride him let's give him something we'll mellow him down no it's infuriating right it's the and the the i mean part of what we should be doing as dog trainers is the opposite of that our things should not be stepping in to fix people's problems because they don't they don't know better necessarily like the first you're the you're the people that are educating them about dogs and in general and like anything that wants like if you're having a conversation with a companion dog owner and saying to them like uh they're like i don't want my dog to bark i don't want my dog to dig i don't want my dog to chase things i don't want my dog to like he gets too excited when i come home like this kind of stuff

it's like you want to take his entire dogness away from him at a certain place and it's uh on us to say like hey like what does he need it's we see the the mirrors and of the same thing in uh in in in human psychology and everything else right the the use of medications for kids with adhd or hyperactivity or stuff like that right there there are children whose lives are imminently improved through that and then there it's become so crazy that if the kid you just have a busy energetic kid and they're like medicate him like right away like he can't sit still for six hours straight so put him on medication right and no appreciation for just the variation in in type right and like that's part of the incredible thing about the dog world right got everything from like pugs to like to malinois and they're completely different creatures and we should have you should have an appreciation for that not a like i want to turn him into something that's absolutely nothing like what he is either right and how do we you know well while making dogs also fit into society like there are rules for living in society for all of us right so where do we find the middle ground on that exactly i like that term dogness that's the third time i hear you say that i love it but it's it's really it's exactly what it is and it's it's actually uh um it it really hits home base again you know because because you you have to i mean it's not even beginner dog trainers it's just like certain type or they just need time to grow up and relax a little bit but allow the dog to to be a dog like you you cannot like it you it doesn't matter how good you are as a dog trainer it's it's i i was gonna say borderline cruel but it's actually cruel if you're gonna make that dog heal all the time around the block and stop at every sidewalk curb and not allow him to sniff and do the dog things and and and and that's why you have the dog he wants to pee he wants to sniff he did this is its life like people are so surprised sometimes when i it's like oh yeah that's how my dog was on leash yes he walks on flexi and yes he's pulling me around and he's doing that it takes we were totally we're totally cut for the same cloth like i i i what's the like if you're a professional trainer you're coaching professional trainers people are always like how do you teach dogs not to pull on the leash how do you make dogs walk politely how to like that's the first thing everybody wants to know that i'm like you know that's the least interesting thing in the whole world of interacting with dogs it's the absolute least interesting part of it to me like

my my dogs i walk my dogs exactly like you do like they they learn to do that when i ask them to but most of our walks they're on a flexi they're out in front of me they're loose like hiking loose and like once i get certain levels of control on them like do they're like would your dog pull on a leash my dog will pull on a leash a little bit if i'm not paying attention and so like it's just like can you make up can i make them walk along like this like you watch people out there walking the like the group dog walkers kill me right that's the ugliest picture in the dog world right a whole bunch of dogs plodding along with their head down not passing the guy like uh not sniffing not like what the hell like and they're and they're walking people's dogs for enrichment that's supposed to be this this is your dog's outing right this is they're at home and that that's what the dog gets to do like great isn't that beautiful like it's depressing yes yes yeah that's a very very it's interesting and it's a it's a fine line between of course you you of course you don't want the dog to jump on the street and get hit by a car you want to be able to say knock it off get back here walk 10 feet along next to me just because i said so not because you're going to get something but because i said so but then go and do whatever you want to do right 100 i i think i think what it's come to and a lot of trainers it's because those dogs get structured nowhere else like so lots i know with lots of companion dog trainers they have owners going out and making structure on the walk because that's the only place they get kind of undivided attention and they don't have structure in the dog's life day to day you and i our dogs have plenty of structure as a part of the regiment of our training regime so that for for my dogs is a blow off steam kind of be a dog and we're compensating for it somewhere else so and i think for a lot of trainers it's like i can't get them to change their habits around the house while they're distracted and they've got kids and they're like that kind of thing but i'm there on a walk that's their time with the dog at least i can get them they're going to be out there for 30 minutes so now do this this and this right which of course destroys the walk for a dog but maybe yeah that's that's where it goes man i don't know why i got back to negative punishment all of a sudden in my head because uh yeah you know what like it always kind of disturbing the the i mean some some of the like i don't know if you've seen the i actually

you've just seen the the position statement of the animal veterinarian society behavior and that and i mean i mean it's extreme it's basically you really cannot like like there is positive reinforcement and there is positive reinforcement yeah nothing else yeah at least in our reality on this planet in our universe that does not work it cannot work like we're we're we're bio i don't think biologically uh were any creatures wired that way right no it's not not the way dogs deal with other dogs evolutionary it's not the way any of us learn about the everything like that's it's that's not the way the world functions and it's a it's a weird arbitrary laboratory type idea and you want to see a huge increase in medicating dogs yeah like make it all positive 100 positive reinforcement is the only tool you have to use like like every dog's gonna have to be medicated it's crazy that's unbelievable yes yes between between the spay and neuter and going against certain breeds and medication we i mean this hopefully we fight against and never happens but if we were to allow this to happen we will have lifeless dogs we will have we will have we would rather have a goldfish in an aqua there is no point of having a dog at this point because that's that's actually the most inhumane thing to to take the purpose of dog's life and just feed it and walk it around the blog it's just just so mind-boggling and the truth is i one of the things that galls me the most about the that position statement or the studies that they are citing to support their their their position is that they're asking the wrong question right off the bat they're asking the question electronic collars or positive reinforcement they're asking the question prong collars or positive reinforcement yes it's it's like uh are you the good person or are you the bad person and you have one answer right now to say oh we touched your heart i want to be who who who in the world doesn't want to be the good person right of course yeah but at the same time as you said we and not we humans but every fucking living thing from from the single cell organism plants mushrooms fungi anything on the planet which i have a fungi story though we did this i'll get to that um but we are fundamentally programming it's like probably the most basic programming we come with and this is approach something good and avoid something bad that's the most fundamental concept generically programmed in billion in in if you for whatever reason didn't fit you were done right approach something pleasant avoid something unpleasant everybody knows you don't

need to learn this at school you don't need to this you come fucking programmed with it and when you have the animal and animal veterinary society of animal behaviorism scratching it off you don't need to learn this at school you don't need to learn this at school you don't need to learn this and and and and i have zero zero zero respect towards them at this point right it's it's it's incredibly frustrating right and it is and and an entire world of people that are advocating for this that don't actually in a day-to-day basis put their hands on dogs and get them to do things and interact with them in a meaningful way right so this is coming from outside that world of experience and trying to influence a world that they don't in a do in a day-to-day nuts and bolts basis but it's also so much that's the most basic piece of it you approach something pleasant you avoid something unpleasant that's at the basis of biology but beyond that it gets more complicated to think of all the things that we do that are uncomfortable that we gain intense satisfaction from right so think of there's like i in my youth obsessed with rock climbing right obsessed with it like i i want to do it all the time and there's all kinds of discomforts involved and there are points where you're scared really scared and you do you want to do it again yeah you do like if you're a certain type of person then that that there's something that feels good the pleasure discomfort paradigm is they're they're blended like they're all kinds of things that way right and in our lives and so the idea that any kind of discomfort at all is bad like and back to our like our early discussion of um when we were trying to do everything with rewards with positive reinforcement and negative punishment right we also made dogs that lacked resilience to any kind of stress yes if you shield the dog enough from unpleasant experiences of any kind they don't learn to cope with them at all either and life is going to throw them at you right eventually you're encountering those things you don't operate in a bubble and so we are not preparing the dogs for the real world either like in a sense like it'd be like doing the same thing raising your kid

like nothing bad's like nothing bad's ever gonna happen to you everyone's gonna be nice to you all the time all the same that like at some point they're gonna be sorely disappointed and they don't have the tools like so we all know that appropriate doses of stress high levels of stress we all agree it's not good it's bad it's abusive it's all that sort of thing but there are levels of stress that help that make connections more quickly and actually improve an animal's resilience to stressful experiences later on right they're they're made stronger by that and in a sense and so we take all that and so we take all that out when when you start throwing that stuff out the window and we cannot avoid like you no matter no matter who you are and what you try you cannot avoid stress it's it's here and it's here and it's good and it's bad and it's okay it should be good and it should be bad embrace it embrace it learn it learn it learn it and use it in the best possible way why don't we spend time to actually figure it out how to be better at it instead of trying to pretend that it doesn't exist or that we have I'm gonna go there now I don't think I'm gonna go there I don't think I'm going there oh evidence-based training so it's science-based what the fuck is that mean like like if you tell me that you have this magic solution I don't care where in the world you are but I'm gonna buy my ticket tomorrow and I'm gonna spend a month with you to learn it just tell me where where to meet you and I will pay you I will I want to know yeah but don't give me the bullshit of saying it's evidence-based science says show me fucking show me it's like no reading something in elsefire or or any of those uh paper uh new magazines scientific you know they're kind of becoming crap magazines too like I have so much frustrations with this I don't know why because that it's like a whole community that it's very very who in their right mind will think that somebody that's a dog trainer like you me any any of the people that probably will watch this we want to know if there is a better way please yeah I want to know absolutely show me show me show me tell me what I need to do show me but if you tell me that it's evidence-based and that but you don't want to tell me you don't want to show me and I don't see it I compete I fucking have been competing in dogs for I don't know how many years it's ridiculous right like 30 years yes are there excellent force free trainers that do sports yes they are are they competitive no they are not and that's nothing bad against them I totally understand them I

you know like I mean we know then it's fancy we know uh shade we I mean there's excellent trainers and they have their point of view and that's how far they go and they're clear and honest about it nothing wrong with that but when you try to present something in a paper and you say oh you know what that just works better or at least just as the same what is the evidence besides reading your paper why why can I not see the study the videos of the studies right because you always say that there is videos everything is recorded everything is watched everything is that should be attached to the study for sure I would let it I would want to see oh there's so many things who who wouldn't who wouldn't so many things in that and one science's job is not to tell you how things are science has no agenda science has no bias science technically is just a way of evaluating information it's basically you come up with a hypothesis what you think and you set up an experiment to see if you can test it you take that information and then you modify that information every time you get new information it's not like I say that this is what it is and it's static science doesn't have an agenda like that that's the problem people say well science says this well maybe one experiment point this is our best guess at this point but they're serious scientists are always ready to modify what their conclusions are with new information and so one it drives me crazy that there's like a hard fast science is just a way of going through the world and kind of reevaluating in a controlled way trying to eliminate bias not bake it in and like the study that everybody refers to when they're talking about banning e-collars and stuff now the 2014 study like there's so many things wrong with it one let's watch the mechanics of what's happened let's see how they did it right yes let's see the dogs see their reactions are you reading their reactions correctly do you know was there consistency in the how the things were applied all there's so many things and then five days of training in that day like five days that's ludicrous man you're just getting started I'm just figuring out how you work and making a relationship I'm like we're not actually stepping in and fixing your recall problem in five days like that's you're advocating for bad dog training no matter how you approach it if you say I'm going to go in here and see what's most effective in five there were so many things wrong with that right yes for those for the audience just so I can kind of because we totally jumped into something crazy here but but just just so we are clear there was a I mean there are several studies

and we probably can even touch upon them briefly because they are interesting they are valuable and they do affect dog training and dog trainers very seriously and I think it's important for us to to finally kind of stand up and talk about for a few reasons one one one super important reason is you have no idea how much I have tried in the last three years I have contacted probably every single of the most celebrated force free PhD university lab scientific canines to talk with me have an intelligent conversation not even a debate just just bring it on tell me what you have to tell me and convince me but you're avoiding it why are you avoiding it what are you afraid if you if you're a scientist if you're a real scientist and you're coming up with something don't you want to be challenged a real scientist wants to be challenged 100% why are you avoiding it and and so the what we're talking about is the it's in England that 2014 study the welfare consequences and efficacy of training pet dogs with remote electronic training colors in comparison to reward based training and it was a professor Daniel Mills and like in this podcast you and me this like the first time I'm openly frustrated because again after three years literally three years I've been trying to talk with them and and I guess the beauty you know how we were talking about today's social media well I don't need to talk to you I can just give my opinion to everybody that wants to listen and they can decide for themselves if you don't want to defend your position I'm not going to be silenced too bad too bad and and so the the study and again I'm we're going to list the studies below just because they're important and the reason they're important is dog training tools get banned and it's not just dog training tools but as you've read the position statement of the you know humane dog training in the states right now everything is banned unless you're giving cookies or maybe playing with the dog but everything else is a no-go and so I actually tried to talk to him I tried I tried to few of them and it's just about somebody to try to talk and then they pull away and I never hear back from them and it's frustrating because ultimately as I said we want to know we want to learn and we want to be better and when you tell me that it's evidence-based and that it's science-based and that it works better but you don't want to show me and you don't want to answer me questions but instead you're doing the dumbest thing of banning and putting legislations in all sorts of different governments show me one thing in the world that ban actually

worked for better yeah virtually none never and especially like they're talking the thing that caught my variety of things that caught my attention and reading that but one of them was the idea that these tools shouldn't be available because people have poor timing and they lose their temper and if they get frustrated they can cause all this damage and you think oh taking this tool away from somebody's going to change their nature they're going to suddenly have better timing or they're not going to get frustrated and lose their temper they'll get frustrated and lose their temper and they'll do something else like the little video you sent me the other day somebody's going to kick a dog they're going to smack it in the head they're going to do something else there are going to be people out there and our job is to show people the right way to teach them the skills to do it appropriately to avoid all of that but yeah are people going to get angry you banning the tool is not going to make suddenly rid the world of frustrated people with anger issues right they're going to find some other way to do it we've all seen it we all know like it is far more dangerous far more dangerous everything goes underground everything goes it cannot be more dumbest idea that I you know but it's somehow politically correct because you can make politicians go with it oh I'm a dog lover I have a soft spot for dogs and meanwhile let me go into the real shit that I need to push through in my agenda in the whatever government I am with but that's like a oh dogs yes we're good we don't we we don't like all over all over Europe right now let me see how it goes the if you you cannot inflict pain or something like this and and you know again you're you're completely disregarding our biological programming it's in our DNA and you cannot you cannot just like you cannot fuck with a dog that genetically wants to do something and you you can keep suppressing it maybe you're going to succeed but if there is no outlet it's going to go nuts sooner or later something's going to just blow up and the same thing you can no matter how many legislations no matter what you do no matter how you demonize and look down on dog trainers saying that this is bad this is horrible this is whatever positive reinforcement is a solution no it's not we clearly know that it's not and unless we spend time and figure it out how to do it better we will continue to see people like that that shitty video that I just watched it one time and it's gonna stay with me for a while yep I'm on the same boat I think there's this black and white nature of everything people want a simple concrete explanation is this better than this is this right or is this wrong whatever and there's some part and there's a complete lack of appreciation for complexity and nuance right so when we say discomfort it's like there's either discomfort or there's not discomfort no

there's an infinite parallel an infinite kind of progression of levels of discomfort from very mildly uncomfortable to extreme right and we're talking about it that we're trying to talk about in a simple way like the e-cology they're talking about like can I I could a leash on a dog a leash on a dog I can use incredibly subtly and non aversively I can use it mildly aversively I can use it intensely aversively right and there's all these various degrees of things so the question isn't whether or not there should be any discomfort or not discomfort or any stress or not it's the degree there's a level and it's going to be different from dog to dog and so when people are looking for simple answers it's the tool that's a simple answer electrocuting a dog's bad that's a sick oversimplification but it's easy for somebody and for somebody that doesn't know anything it makes sense they're talking to a wider audience this is why the politicians get on they don't know anything about dog training and they don't care like this looks like a popular idea like if I come out in favor of the anti-cruel the dogs exactly exactly so for them I'm a good politician so for them it's a no-brainer like of course I'll support this like people but of course that's a complete not the way any of it should work and instead of banning the tool all of our energies should be put into teaching people how to use it appropriately and when it's right and when it's not like because we you and I both are on the same boat like I see people out there slapping e-collars on puppies and doing all kinds of stuff right out of the bat it drives me mad right yeah but so so do all kinds of other stuff that people do with dogs and development it drives me crazy it's just not good dog training so do we say okay take that tool away from everybody or do we try to teach them how to use it correctly and when it's not the tool for every situation and it doesn't need to be used on every dog in every circumstance great we all acknowledge that we don't have any problem with it it's like that should we use e-collars or should we use positive reinforcement we should use all the tools that are at our disposal appropriately for the dog that's in front of us in a given situation and that's but that's a complex discussion and complex discussions are challenging when it comes to policy making right people don't want to hear that they want to hear like well which one's better right which just is the wrong way to think about it in my opinion right yeah that was I mean with that specific study that 2014 with Jonathan Cooper and Daniel Mills and them you know like totally like just like this was the culminative point to me where you I realized that there is just they just feed from each other and support each other and probably and this is just my speculations because I don't know why otherwise they would be

doing this but they're getting grants for research there is students that need to get their PhDs there is thesis there is masters you know they have to write papers it's guaranteed at this environment at this landscape that we live at the moment it's guaranteed that if you use the magical words and you go with positive reinforcement and force free and welfare and so on and then you say shocking the dogs who's going to get the funding yes yeah 100% and I think this is a serious part of why they are avoiding the conversation because people are making conclusions from their research that they might not even make if you ask right and so they don't want to be put out there to defend the conclusions being made from it potentially too right because the people have picked that up and are running with it in a way that maybe speaks beyond what they intended maybe they did intend I don't think the study was constructed well but regardless maybe they intended to have a well-constructed study and now they can feel the bias because it feels like they wanted a conclusion from it from the way they constructed it 100% Michael it started with a conclusion all of those studies start with a conclusion and going backwards finding a way how to prove it it's all it's so clear in everything that I do and what is even more disturbing is then the study comes in 2014 and then from the same university another graduate student that needs to get PhD writes a thesis goes back to the same study and says yes that study is right and basically points out the same crap that already has been said and now it becomes a scientist and nothing like I don't know I should not be talking this with so much animosity but I'm furious and the reason I'm furious is because they avoid the conversation and I've been trying to have that conversation in a very intelligent level and everybody is avoiding it for some reason that study guys just so you understand it's like well let's find out which dogs training is going to work better positive reinforcement reward based evidence based or punishment electric color and punishment based training this is another thing that we will go to this because I have no idea what the fuck that means punishment punishment based training so you don't want the dog to do anything is what you're saying that's what punishment based training is because it only stops behavior how can it be even a term punishment based training like what are you training you don't create behaviors without reinforcement behaviors don't happen that way you stop things you stop doing things a punishment based trainer their dog just doesn't move so back to the studies just so everybody kind of gets on board with us they chasing sheep is a big problem chasing farm animals

in UK is a serious problem and people let dogs run because there is land but there is also livestock and they chase and kill livestock daily in big numbers and it's a big big problem so the study they divided in three groups of course there is control group there is a you know everybody is wearing collars they are supposed not to know who is actually being tapped on the collar but how would you not know the one guy has a control in his hand and the other one doesn't the one dog goes I got tapped the other one doesn't I mean where is the blind studying that I don't get it they do it in two completely different not even different neighborhood different one is in Scotland one is somewhere in England one is in spring time and the other one they do it in Scotland in the worst possible weather like a record like I actually really I talk to because I'm seriously trying to dig deep into because I'm very curious to find out like I'm just very sincerely curious to know how do you guys do it like show me if you say that it's working why why are you so secretive there is videos right well guess what I do have some videos now I do have some pictures now yes we can look at them I can pull them off because you will be I know you're curious to see oh yeah and there are so many things beyond the ones you described too that they they did five days absurd they evaluated dogs day one three and five but the other thing is on day five they gave the dogs back to the owner not the person that trained that had been working with the ground none zero ever like I use it in every time I do play and I teach people to play and I'm like okay well yeah you you're really moving that toy like a dead squirrel there is no way you can trigger anything from within that dog to want to grab it without movement right yeah so guess what there is three sheep in a play pan and the play pan is man as I'm talking I'm going to try to share this because it's ridiculous so what what predatory instinct you're you're talking about right I mean I mean seriously what in the world is this who will what I mean if a dog wants to kill a sheep right now it's a very different problem than the dogs that actually chase sheep on the fields in England right a very different problem yeah the dog's loose it's away from handler influence it's already been activated by predatory behavior it's in the act of chasing there's so many things there that are

not realistic right so and yeah anyway so and the whole idea too is not like the idea that any good training program wouldn't be about just going in on day one and making strong avoidance or trying to reinforce an alternative behavior it's going to be both of those things right and that's a process it takes time it should be taught away from that environment and transfer the environment they all you know complain about the possibilities of superstitious associations with electric collars the dog associating with something in the environment all that that's just a bad use of a tool right we all know as somebody that uses the tool relatively regularly we know how to avoid the dogs taking that taking the information that way and it's through appropriate teaching right and so it's infuriating on one level to because they're saying this is an appropriate experiment that I could draw a conclusion in this amount of time with this number of repetitions we could like all that kind of thing about whether a methodology is effective right do you see that on the screen yeah the border probably with the head halty on exactly so are you trying to convince me that this is like the force free approach with the most restrictive aversive equipment dogs hate those things seriously aversive tool it's the only piece of equipment that the dog is very much a certain dog I mean dog that is lifeless dog they don't mind they okay put whatever you want but any dog that immediately you put this on they're like you you just restricted me from doing anything oh yeah well I have a problem with that a huge problem and how is it possible that the force free movement adopted head halters right as they're like are you kidding me like pull 100 dogs and see what right the worst there you go right and when when does it say that in the study you never see that they they never say that the dogs were wearing halters or anything like that so the problem is now like the vast majority I was going to say the vast majority of people aren't going to look at that they just look at the conclusion and now it's buried seven layers deep right so now that study is cited in a little citation in some other position paper and it gets further and further removed it's already been taken into the community as gospel which is a major problem right this is the big big problem and the thing is I mean those photos and the little short video clips that I have nobody sees those I have tried literally for three years I have tried to approach it in any possible way you can think of to see anything about those studies and not just this one there is the other one ! I mean there was a really big one and I think it was let me see so I don't make mistakes here because I know I have notes 2003 that's kind of where it all started training dogs with help of the short and long term behavior effects Matthias Schiedler and Joanne van de Borg Holland University of Oortrecht Netherlands 2003

I actually tried so hard and finally I reached out to somebody and I'm not going to say her name because she clearly refused to be on the podcast but it's nothing really to do with it but just like with every study they have videos nobody sees those videos like if you're convincing me of something you cannot just tell me well trust me no trust me we are scientists it's evidence based but show me the fucking evidence it's so easy it's so easy and in fact you know what you don't even need to show me the evidence I would see I train dogs every day I go around the world just like you do like we see dog training every day from every single corner of the world anything new we will know anything new that works we will know anything dumb maybe we will know maybe we will not but guaranteed everything that's work and it's better lightning lightning fast we will know right like I always talk about this flip phones did they need to ban them so we can use smartphones do they need studies to tell us that it's no really trust us we've done a research the flip phone doesn't work as good as a smartphone no no yeah of course not yeah and the truth is like so who's so they use lots of measures of body language to to measure perceived stress levels right and who is evaluating that not the people that are experts in dog body language the people that do it every day right so they have a veterinarian on board right and a veterinarian is an expert in canine medicine not in canine body language in my experience in my personal experience right they would go bonkers if I'm out there diagnosing dogs without a medical degree but oh yeah they're gonna listen to the veterinarian before they're gonna listen to the person that spent their entire life watching and manipulating dogs I assume they must attribute some kind of sinister motive to our wanting to keep these tools there like there's something about like if electronic collars did what they said they did and didn't work I wouldn't use them I wouldn't own one right there's no way I'd be advocating against them in every possible way we all want it to be the best thing for the dog like no question no question there's there's a hundred percent and so if somebody could literally show me in a meaningful way that that was the case but we all we all know from actual personal experience that we use correctly that's not the case like the dogs aren't damaged and they're better their lives are opened up and more fulfilled because they can do more things and go more places and there's so many things about it that it's that's that are frustrating and I'm with you like because that the other position is so much easier to sell to the average person that doesn't know any better we have to be extra careful about our our demeanor like so I always try to be like hey calm cool collected about this it's not personal like I we just are trying to very clearly figure out what the best thing is for the dog and so they have an easy sell and lots of trainers now get

worried about their reputations with clients people are out there with electronic collars on with bandanas over them so that people don't see them and things like that which of course lends energy to the argument that they should be banned right that trainers are saying like see they're covering them up because they know that you know it's we we have to have an honest frank discussion but we have to be extra calm and thoughtful about our approach because because theirs is an easier sell to somebody that doesn't know any better what they're selling is way easier than what we're selling ours may where I believe we're correct but but they have an easier sell and so I you like as we get passionate and get frustrated it's because we're together we both have been battling this battle now for years yes really because it's a I hate to get that kind of I I don't know I don't think I even I don't think I've ever been that upset and frustrated on my podcast as I am right now because we just kind of hit a spot that's been just boiling it's boiling you know yes it's a it's really like sometimes you use some words and they don't really match what's going on but but this is really this is fraudulent research these are fraudulent papers and and no one no one no none of them openly want to come and discuss you know and talk and it's a joke and but they continue to convince continue to get grants and it's truly just a wasteful expenditure of money and research funds you know for like they can use like we literally can move man with all this science canine labs that are around if they sincerely want to do the best and understand how dog training and how dog behavior and how dog emotions really work you cannot fucking disregard that other side of life this is just you cannot it's upsetting watch this I'm gonna show you right now um let me see how I can can I play it like this do you see it yep it's one of the dogs of the study it's the it's a positive dog handled by a positive trainer with the head halter on and and of course it has they're trying to put electric collar for the blind study I mean but anyway I'll let it I'll let the video speak to itself he's super happy that dog right now it's like can you get the fuck away from me and then they're controlling it with the halter which makes it stress about that fights against that mouthing against that so but this is not mentioned in the this is you think this is not an important piece you think there is no nothing aversive about that what we just saw yeah 100% oh yeah no exactly

why why are you doing this I mean why are you doing this and why why avoid the conversation uh-huh yeah well it's the same early on in like my discussions with purely force-free trainers there were some well respected kind of pioneers in that world that were became kind of gurus of that world and they uh I I saw numerous of them do things to dogs that the dogs definitely found aversive but they would tell everyone out there that they were doing everything with the giving and withholding of rewards right and yet they'd raise their voice with a border collie which that dog found strongly aversive the dog's like uh-oh right you could see the change of body language and in some way they're they're I'm not using a prong collar but that doesn't mean you're not being aversive right and the head halters we both know of course are and like unless you spend huge amounts of time habituating and the dogs hate those things they find them strongly aversive right and so there's so many of those those false kind of um uh narratives out there right that people are saying look I did all this with with the without any of the those tools but that doesn't mean you didn't do something else right yeah and I don't know uh personally and if somebody can show me one uh a well what we would call a well-trained dog in a variety of environments like take the dog in unpredictable environments and still have control those dogs that's a force-free trained dog like are there good for you were saying before there are there good force-free trainers out there yes are there good force-free trainers are they competitive in the world of dog sports no and if they are at all successful they're successful in a very controlled environment yes like in their in their little skinner box right it has to with a skinner box may be an agility field or it may be something like that but you're controlling within a very narrow parameters exact exactly the dolphin the bathtub for the dolphin may be a little bit bigger but still in a bathtub yep exactly right yeah and so it's almost like at this point it's such a ridiculous discussion to us to be having this really basic discussion about stuff that we all accepted as true a long time ago but we're forced we're forced into this position now like they're talking about banning these tools they're talking about really changing dogs lives and you want to talk about dogs dying as a result of that and medic being medicated as a result of those changes all that kind of so the dog's lives inherently made worse because of that so now we have to have a discussion about something that we've accepted as true years ago like without any and so we're having to have a ridiculous discussion over and over again about this stuff and that's where the frustration comes for for me and I'm sure for you too right you know absolutely

absolutely you know like this is the the I and I'm I've always been surprised why the Europeans bend over okay I think in the beginning when I was there I I think they were talking how oh this just publicity whatever we we're still gonna do what we want to do that's just some little just to make certain communities happy and little by little one step at a time right now you're criminal you're horrible person you just like it's it's a nightmare I think that the problem with the Europeans is and this is we can learn from this right as you're right early on they thought ah you know it's that we'll continue to do what we want when it started to get restrictive serious trainers would kind of hide it they'd go someplace where they could use what tools they wanted to use they would not do it for public consumption which is the exact opposite of what should be happening right because you again the the double-edged sword of the internet is people that want to advocate against the use of these tools can go out there and find all kinds of examples on YouTube of people using these tools inappropriately yeah and and so then they have all see look look look so unless people like us that are experienced start to step up and speak out and do the work publicly like it always drove me crazy and I'm sure you too in the world of competitive sports and even in pet dog training to some degree people do in boards because they want to do things to dogs that they wouldn't do in front of a client right I'll take the dog over here and I'll do it sport trainers like I'll do this off the field where nobody can watch me that like that's horrible I'll do anything that I would do in front of everybody like there's nothing that I would do to a dog that I wouldn't do in front of everyone bring the whole reward based training world out like let's do it and then let's have a discussion about why what works works and why it doesn't like it should be a moment for us to talk and I think people were avoiding the confrontation of it thinking it's a passing thing and then it got too late for them and now they're in trouble and so we can we can learn from the way the European trainers did not stand up to it appropriately at the time they should have right you got me look thinking now like if I am one of those scientists a professor in a canine science lab and I'm not hopefully that's not an actual name of a lab because I don't have any anything in specific but if I was one of them and I have a grant I'll be like let's let's see that bad thing what can we do to make it better as a project can we can we use aversives in a humane and better way an effective way no we don't do that research why because it's a bad it's devil it's like no this you're you're already a horrible person just

thinking about this kind of research and but the beauty of dog training and dog trainers combined with social media right now it's kind of like UFC the martial arts the fighting it's like no you can you can talk all you want on your keyboard you can be the best in your gym or in your little lab you can be like the leader of your tribe but eventually you have to go in that ring and fight somebody and you're either gonna lose or you're gonna win and then if you lose a few times you lost my interest and dog training is the same thing I think we you know like going out in a monduring field putting the dog naked letting him work for 40 minutes do it all positive I promise you I promise you if you do it better than everybody else all these studies you can just fucking burn them nobody will care and everybody gonna run to you yep 100% but don't give me an agility as an example don't you know like no I'm not interested in sports where only negative punishment can kind of manage certain things let's deal with competing reinforcers and show me how you're going against that but instead what they do in Europe they're trying to ban all these protection sports because they don't have answers to them that's my opinion and now it's bleeding over to the world of real life dogs we'll get to that we'll get to that but just to finish this with like you know how you then they try to ban protection sports altogether they're almost almost there in Europe they're pushing it they're at the door not understanding that if we master how to deal with competing reinforcers at that level without total suppression with actually dog that enjoys to do it and we know how to do that why are you not interested in this it's like the best lifelong free lap that doesn't need any grants and you have thousands and thousands of volunteers and you have something to show come there we're waiting we're hungry right yeah well I think that's the thing about IGP that changed the methodologies there was the you they they took the emphasis strictly off aesthetics I mean off of efficacy and they made an aesthetic component right so this is what I'd love to see in done in ring sport too right it doesn't have to be the whole program like IGP the dog doesn't have to be as fast as it can be and as animated as can be but they should have at least one exercise healing where your dog has to show animation and lack of showing lots of lots of stress signs and a lot and then suddenly that that impetus because trainers competitive trainers one of the beauty of competition is one you have to prove it like you could

no amount of talking that's going to get there the second thing is it breeds innovation like we all want to do it better and if you make part of doing it better that the dog has to enjoy its job you can't have a dog out there like we've seen in certain circumstances a dog with his ears pinned back and its tail tucked to his stomach doing the behaviors because it's a genetically and certain type of specimen that will absorb that and still do the job that's a different thing but if we put a slight aesthetic component on it suddenly everybody has to innovate and they will and they'll innovate and they'll find better ways and then that trickles down through the whole dog community right that gets transferred to other ways of thinking about things so we're talking about controlling dogs in very high states of arousal which is the problem with predatory sheep chasing livestock chasing and all kinds of issues that people have with dogs the experts are the people doing what we're doing controlling dogs in very high states of arousal humanely right exactly that's why I say that's why I say that's our lab because it is that's exactly why you don't want to take that away you'll learn how I'm not going to even repeat what you said but I feel like I should because it's so critically important and any of the top trainers of protection sports of any of the protection sports that are actually credible protection sports does well consistently for two years which is for some may seem like it's very easy but it's fucking not easy it's hard they that person will instantly have followers and not followers like social media followers but people that are striving to learn teach me come to my seminar no come here no come here no show it to the whole fucking world because you have something the others don't and meanwhile we have the dog scientist with the research making a youtube video that has 100 views so that's not working nobody wants nobody believes you because you're not giving enough if there is something you're not giving it so why would I but that other person already the whole world knows about him and knows the method and strangely enough it goes all the way around and reaches the force free trainer and then somehow think that it's their shit and it's so easy to like no you guys are totally lost I'm sorry like most of the most innovative and high level trainers and thinkers come from dogs protection sports and you know because it's challenging you're dealing in a very different it's very different and and and of course you know it's like anything it's complicated in that I every time I'm I'm coaching somebody that's new to dog training I'm like explore the world of competition you may not be the person that wants to make it your life but you have to explore that world that's where the change is happening that's where the people that live and breathe this stuff are creating new and better ways of thinking about this and if you're interested in competition check you got

to check your ego though right so it's true that they're in competition the other side of the coin is that people become so goal oriented that they stop caring about the dog and they stop looking at right but you won't be successful for long that way but you check yourself like am what I doing here the right thing for the dog and when am I putting a square peg in a round hole genetically all the us to progress I just that little piece that you just said I feel like it's in my course like I have a module about this that I talk like that exact same thing like you if you're really going to be serious about dog training and you don't want to just stay behind and talk how great you are and trash everybody else go in put your feet there it doesn't matter what level what like that I'm not interested not everybody has everybody has different goals but go in and let one time experience it it's so fucking valuable experience it and hang around those people as you've experienced it too stay in that there's a community there that will lead you to better ways of thinking about things these are the people that really want to figure it out badly so that's the people you want around you with anything you're passionate about right you want the people that are the most successful and the most innovative and the most thoughtful around you so that you don't hit a level of complacency right it's easy in certain aspects Why would scientists be not interested in this? Like what is wrong? If again if I'm the scientist I will be like hey you guys are doing something that is supposedly the most horrible thing that you can do on a dog and look at that dog he's happy as fuck he's enjoying every moment you can do saliva urine shit whatever test you want he will be who you see he is he's ecstatic about doing what he does because he's genetically made to do he's working with his person and they have accomplished a level of mastery that you don't understand and because you don't understand it you're either trying to put legislations to ban it or right but man like I'm just really trying to be in their minds and if I'm a dog man the way I am right now who I am who you are and you know you you actually know that you can open that door and see hey they're doing something that is supposed to be very wrong but actually they have mastered it and it works better than anything else if I'm that scientist even if if I go against the propaganda the ideology the tribe even if I need to hide I could not help myself but to find out what the hell is going on there because I'm a dog trainer you know how are they not curious about it and maybe they are too but most of them are have some other kind of underlying education right so they're up in some university at a certain level and maybe they studied just general biology or some narrow avenue of biology or something like that they're

looking for a connection in animals or behavior there and maybe they're not passionate about dogs in the way we're passionate about dogs right so there's something about that maybe they're passionate about the underlying science of the subject i would still think they would want to get it right but you know what motivates us like we would as you said before we'd turn ourselves inside out to if we thought somebody had a better way of doing something right if suddenly it's out there that I think somebody is doing really good work that that is something different than what I'm doing oh I want to know I want to see it immediately we're the same on that front but that's not necessarily the case they're just looking at it as this is a project and then I'll have another project pretend but I'm just guessing you know without knowing any personally right and there's something about being detached from a subject in certain cases that can allow you to see it more clearly too and there are other times where you don't understand the nuance when you're detached from the mission position statement of the humane dog training here what I'm going to do is I'm going to randomly pick some lines I swear randomly and we have three minutes for each line okay here we go evidence supports evidence supports the use of reward based methods for all canine training evidence supports the use of reward what the hell does that even mean for all canine exactly it's solid with the right with the right keywords that you just hearing the keywords and you don't need to make sense this is where the brains are right now I'll repeat it again evidence supports the use of reward based methods for all canine training wow true okay who would fucking argue that now based on these factors reward based learning offers the most advantages and least harm to the learner I mean that's powerful yeah it's it's it's it's it's a powerful statement that doesn't actually mean much either right like and how do you test for that like why why would you even like why why do you I mean are you just kind of trying to use this fancy words in sentence that people like are like I'm not getting it I must ! be really dumb no you're not dumb and when the purely reward based trained dog you know gets run over or something like that then was that providing for better welfare I suppose it would be right are you ready uh oh no yeah go ahead current literature on dog training methods shows a clear advantage of reward based methods over aversive based methods with respect to immediate and long term welfare training effectiveness and the dog human relationship wow I mean wouldn't you who let me ask you who are you don't you want to be that person of who wouldn't yeah who would not want to be that person and then conversely I would like to find one skilled dog trainer that learned dog training from the literature right right

literature is not how we learn dog training it can give you new ideas support things but this is a very kind of one of their favorite slogans for years now the evidence based versus punishment based training yeah they have an easy sell like you're talking to a whole bunch of people that haven't actually got out there and put their hands on it and gone through it and so that's an appealing sounding mission statement and it's an appealing sounding encapsulation of and ridiculous oversimplification but it's appealing so it's easy for them to sell that at some point and so somebody I said before that it's more about the people that really believe that on some level it's about them like it's not dogs there's just no way you can be in the world and see a lot of dogs of all the different temperaments that we see and the different types and actually believe that that you can effectively control and train and make full the lives of dogs strictly with positive reinforcement like it's it's it's nonsense so if they're adhering to that idea it's for some other motive something in the way they view the world their trauma or the fact that they have that it's easy for them to sell too like it's easy to tell people that and they they take it and when you start talking about the other tools then that's a harder harder sell for somebody that doesn't know any better right especially like have you ever heard anybody like in person talking about punishment based training no i haven't either like i i would love to meet that person just to ask him like what do you mean like can you like elaborate a little bit because i don't understand it like you're just saying really pink elephants and the worst nightmare of your life that that doesn't it's not a conversation but like when you say punishment based training what is it like what what do you mean because i there is no such a thing it can't exist i mean what would it be you let a dog engage with the environment don't give them any feedback or any anything other than when they do stuff you don't want them to do how cool how cool would it be if if we wanted to actually brainstorm and unite and learn from each other because there's they do things they have opportunities they they're valuable freaking unbelievably valuable imagine imagine if we work together imagine like imagine if you and i go to the apdt conference this year and we don't even present we just walk in ask us anything you want to know we'll we'll talk to you whatever you want to know it's we're not gonna try to convince you in anything we're just gonna tell you answers let's do it they they will there is no they will not do it there is no this is a cult i mean i'm sorry to say it but this is not this is a cult and if you have you i mean i i listen to all of their presentations i you know like i would never not listen i'm a again we're dog people we're we're interesting if you have something cool thank you

congratulations i i know how they are they they're just such a cult that if you if you anything that challenges their way of thinking you're out you're not invited it's a shame but the thing in you're mentioning it all of us kind of coming together to brainstorm better ways the same thing i would i would love to have the opportunity to bend the scientific community towards real useful studies like the idea is like i would love to know some of the genetic differences and whether those are identifiable in certain ways with dogs at different times or propensities there does this dog have like high is there something different in their makeup that makes them more addicted to adrenalized type behavior and that kind of stuff there's lots of ways that we could talk about let's do negative reinforcement let's do blind study i'll train a dog i'll train a dog i'll train two dogs and you will not know which one was trained through negative reinforcement and which one was trained through positive reinforcement you will not know that would be interesting to you wouldn't i mean how would it not be interesting to you yeah it should be absolutely and and ways in which they could help us be better instead of like they're they're trying to identify like really broad polarizing topics instead of giving trying to find information that the dog community could build on always going for the worst case scenario the worst example and it's not even an example it's all hypothetical all fictitious bunch of the early studies on electric color they're like yes it works and actually the whatever fearful experience is very brief and they recover and they actually the training last and so almost all studies in the early ones say that but then they have to backpedal and still say well but then the group of dogs that was randomly shocked didn't want to enter the training room anymore so therefore we need to ban electric colors that's that's the and the next thing you know the study after doesn't cite the hey if you do it right it works very well but goes to the hypothetical part that what if some the most dumbest idiot you give him a remote control and he just does that yes he will fuck up the dog yes and so that part is taken from that study and then the next one and by the time it's 2022 they're referencing a list of bullshit that nobody has time to look and actually expose it and nobody wants to talk to come and talk about those things frustrating let's talk let's change something else yeah I know I know I know I know I know cheers let me let me just sip some so what about let's talk dog sports man yes I think we're coming from a few different and at the same time the same things very few people probably know that I mean they know you as the Monduring guy but they don't know

that you and I and Cathy O'Brien and whatever it was like the first train in the states and like and it was right in the early like whatever was it 90 something very early yeah early 90s 93 94 in there for sure early 90s right after Monduring landed here for sure yeah yeah you were immediately intrigued by it too like for all of us I came up through through IGP like you you did and there are many really interesting things to be learned in that discipline which is which is where where exactly where I was going to just give give me give me a little bit about Mondio let's let's let me let me hear your passion about the sport one so it comes from two angles one is the the focus on generalization like we talked about before like so it has all the exciting protection stuff that we like has the dogs have to demonstrate like extreme athletic ability and all the things that kind of get us excited about about the dogs that we play around with but on top of that there's the changing environment and that and the deliberate effort by a judge to set up things that can sort of foil your training and but within parameters that make it fair if you're thinking properly then you can prepare a dog for novelty like if I can construct a dog that's properly prepared and there are points at which everything has to be very predictable for them but if I do a good job of educating that dog that dog can then make a leap to a new situation it's never seen and solve the problem correctly and then some of the other stuff about that's kind of how I'll let you go on but that's exactly how I see it as well it's a it's probably the most masterful sport of the generalization discrimination stage of learning right it's there is nothing like it it's a mind fucking game and it's beautiful and just as you said when the environment starts to change if you are smart trainer you're teaching concepts you're not teaching and then the dog understand how to function because he understands the concept instead of just oh this is what I do right now right here and that's the cool there's so many cool things anyway I just wanted to say that but go on you encapsulated that perfectly that idea that one something that we preach all the time if you're a dog trainer is that it's built on skills and concepts and if I do my job and then that those skills and concepts are easily transferable to new situations at a certain point and it and then the exercises that allow the dog some freedom for personal expression of a style a dog within parameters you can recognize something in a dog that they do differently and I don't have to change that about them if it's effective in that sport they're given a little leeway for personality within it which is kind of cool I love to see that kind of expression and then exercises like the object guard and stuff where the dog is left on their own to deal with the

problem out of the influence of the handler in a sense and putting that together it's just kind of fascinating to me and then the other thing that brought me to it is just a love of Malinois so when I first met my first Malinois and we just clicked like I'm like this is the dog that I was born to have right like we get each other I like you like this is great and my first introduction to them was I I'd seen some in Chutzen and IGP clubs but some videos of Belgian ring and stuff and I was like whoa what is that like and so some part of Mondial ring is kind of the closest thing to Belgian ring that's available to us and so that pulled me over into that world as well right so also it's an international sport and and you get different flavors from still no matter you still get different flavors of training and you know oh absolutely but I think the conversely though I think my I my education coming to that after having done Chutzen I I P O IGP there were things that I learned about the way to be with a dog and manipulate mood and work on things like like speed and precision at the same time and stuff like that that I that I appreciate so much that I that I have in my toolbox and it's a different kind of way of thinking you're manipulating different things and equally challenging and I still think right now current modern IGP training is the best laboratory and dog training in terms of managing mood precision animation speed all in the same package like there are disciplines that are asking for precision but they don't care about the dog's attitude and the speed with which they do things right and that's difficult in its own way but it's not so difficult then you can have lots of animation and lots of speed and but you don't care about precision right and and so IGP that's where people your dog has to look happy has to do things fast has to do things precisely and so there's another for me it's helped the evolution of the of of better dog training yeah yeah yeah yeah hundred hundred percent they they all have their their part there is no question about it I mean I'll I'll go into IGP for a second but even even before that what is probably the most the coolest thing about dog training that I hope everybody that is starting out now listens to this that the main idea of what we are trying to do is to teach the dog and no matter how we teach it it really no matter how we teach it because the brain doesn't really for the brain it's all the same aversive reward it it functions it's okay I'm not gonna go there right now but the main goal the main goal of dog training is that we we teach behaviors we teach whatever we're teaching but ultimately I will listen to you if you have taught that dog to love what it does and not to do it anymore for avoid or approach but just loving what it does if you do that yes then I appreciate it

it's the ultimate thing that's beautiful for sure and for and for me do what you does what you do with the dog have room in it for that dog's dogness that dog's individual personality right so you have to listen to me in certain circumstances you have to do certain things that you don't want to do in that moment potentially and but all of that but is there room in there yes to show who you are how you want to move the essence of who you are at that yeah absolutely and that's a different thing for different dogs right so that's the other thing the kind of dog that we spend all of our time with our personal dogs doesn't mean we don't interact with other kinds of dogs lots of them and they all have some something like that and it's on us to figure out what it is right so that there's room in it like why have them if they can't why do we even have them as a part of our lives if they can't have some personal expression I don't want humans in my life that have that taken away from them so why would I want a dog in my life that's had that taken away from them too right so but that would be like if whenever this happens and this happens you see it you know it's not like we're not talking fiction here it happens and this is something that should be appreciated it doesn't matter what camps and what is your tribe and what is politically correct at the moment you know what I'm thinking like man it's a little bit hard one but all these European trainers that are really incredibly good they cannot talk they're afraid to talk and rightfully so I mean you're criminal if you do I mean even if you think in very abstract way and mentioning certain tools and training you're already a bad person no question in there but you know when they do seminars when they write books or when they make videos what do they do they make them politically correct and okay so you're selling me something that you know that that's not the story and I'm gonna buy it but then I have to come back to learn it underground but at the same time the force free freaks are saying oh you don't think it can be done all positive look at that see they've done it that's a big problem it's shitty and when people are fed that myth then people that are learning dog training come up and they think that they're no good they think that they did something wrong they think it like and so it undermines their confidence and their ability to move forward and learn what dog training really is because they've been fed by accomplished trainers a mythology that's about something it's disingenuous right and so that it's that's another thing that just bothers me extensively the first time I saw it in action no names but a very well-known reward-based trainer and advocated like everything they preached what they wrote all that stuff was not the reality of how they were with their own dogs and realized it I was super upset because people believed it bought it and then said it's about working for me I must be no good I must not have and discouraged lots of people

made them feel bad about themselves in a way they shouldn't ! have right? like they were very interesting story about my experience like I had a very I had a really really strange interesting experience with force-free trainers I'm going all around Europe early 2000s teaching seminars and I already have my training without conflicting so the seminars are promoted as such well guess who hits in it oh it's without conflict therefore it's without a force-free there is no punishment this is a force-free training so they come to my seminar and I'm like no I can I can most certainly help you in a force-free way but I also can show you with that other dog if they are up to it a little bit something else and then you can make up your mind and some change in an instant and some didn't because even if it works it's against the ideology it's against the tribe you just cannot do that and the next thing you know they are angry they are screaming their eyes are bulging they are just trying to be the scariest gremlin in front of their dog in order to have some effect on their submissive just listen to me sit and stay but man you're looking at a gremlin and then there will be the grabbing and the shake and then there will be the throw but nobody talks about that I saw it like in so many countries the force free they're frustrated most of them they're like what can I do with my dog everybody says that it's going to work and I've been doing this for two years now yep and unless you're keeping your dog in a skinner box it ain't working right so yeah yeah you have to like so many of the the the protocols the whatever are predicated on 100% control of your environment like which is of course not the way the world works man wouldn't be nice for us to go wouldn't be nice for us to go to IPDT and just stand up and say okay you have an hour just kill us with your questions destroy us make us submit we're not gonna be arrogant we're truly gonna just answer you honestly every single question you ask oh I would love it let's do it oh my god like the thing is that that's that's the people that I want to be talking to because they will challenge us the people that yeah the people that have found us for whatever it is about what we're ! doing already by what we're saying so we spend most of our time talking to people that already believe what we believe right and if we're going to elevate the level of training and make it better for more dogs and more people the people we have to convince are the people that don't agree with us yes or or the other way around or something mutual mutual 100% mutual absolutely 100% mutual for sure but that's where it's at yeah please please show me a better way how who can disagree with this right so what about French ring because we we stepped out of sports we were going to talk sports French ring I admire and love French

ring too in a sense there and the athletic ability and the technique and some of the stuff that comes through there and the decoy work is phenomenal they're like professional athletes I think it's the fact that it doesn't matter what it looks like and the fact that they take too much from the dog like the the focus on just getting on there and hold on and endure and get out instantaneously when I say get out doesn't allow for the dog to express its power and stuff in a way that's problematic and there are very very good dogs in there the dogs that make it at a high level and tolerate that but it feels like it's constantly taking from the dog to the point where it forces a certain methodology onto you to be successful at the highest levels in it right those dogs just have to get in there get what they can get hold on and then be prepared to let out it doesn't take into account the dog's mood in any way and that stuff so that that bothers me a little bit although I've learned much borrowed a ton from that world in terms of technique yeah and so but I just feel like it just takes a little too much from the dog right yeah if I could if I could do Belgian ring sport I'd do Belgian man you killed it you killed it but you're spot on no I cannot disagree with anything you said so let me let me see if I can bring some good points super I mean the hardest which is not necessarily a good point the hardest on the body of the dog oh yeah but at the same time that creates the natural selection and we have very athletic very agile high endurance dogs that function high longevity which is super cool I mean the and and then you have that opposition that no other sport has between men and the dog it's like no I'm gonna fuck you up no I'm gonna fuck you up like in a pretty much the closest as real as possible right and that's a cool thing like oh no I see your twitching I'm gonna go at you not on this bite but on the next bite you're mine or the dog is like you you got nothing no no you got nothing I agree the only thing I would like to see a little bit is that you the dog gets cut some slack because the dog has to have the pressure from both ends right the decoy doesn't like the decoy is not getting hurt yeah I take that back you can get hurt chewed up a fair bit but that idea that like their focus on instantaneous outs and that stuff like in that sense if I'm gonna let a dog really battle with the guy you we all want control but I think they've taken it too far so now the dog's facing and which is something about the character of the dogs that get through it but it also eliminates a lot of dogs that that fight in a different mood right so a dog that that fights in a slightly angry state that that feels it's a little more real and a little less of a game for them those dogs really they will learn

yeah they get broken because of the pressure from both ends which I think is a little bit unfair but you're right the the battle and a good french ring decoy that can read a dog and and knows how to pressure like there's so much it's like it's like jiu-jitsu with dogs yeah the instantaneous yeah there's a lot of that stuff that's very that's beautiful right for sure I am I am training a little well it's not it's two years old now but I decided that I'm gonna do french ring with her I cannot do mondial because it's just not a it's it's a lot there is a lot like like just I've tried a few times and I've gotten to certain place but you need you need a whole village to just to keep changing accessories and ideas and fields and and you and at least have three different guys to play with because you don't want your dog to learn just somebody's moves you need to teach a concept and you don't teach a concept by just playing with one guy in that sport and and so it's such a it's a hard one a hats off to anybody that does it because you know it's just the it's kind of like I you know I compare it to people in the south like Florida Texas doing IGP tracking is a bitch like you like we have four nice days that I can just walk around and put some food on the truck and enjoy it otherwise you and I love tracking but it's hard and and I think Mondio is just the the you know to do it right of course to to really to really dive into it man like what what do you do with all the I I guess they probably should have some exchange like oh I'm done with all of my field accessories send them to you and you send me yours you know right yeah yeah yeah it has to be done by a community in that way right the people that are serious they're like I'll send you some pictures some of the folks that I train with here near the school have put they're passionate about monitoring hobbyists and they have put in a big field and they have the resources and they keep building on it it looks like it looks like it looks like a village because they keep adding new hides with ramps I would join that club yeah but it is it's that's challenging to prepare like for French ring or IGP sans the tracking you just need a patch of grass right and you can you can do most of the fun you eventually have to travel with the dog and you eventually have to show them different you know but you can do a lot more on your own or in smaller without so much artifice I'm thinking about Mondio now if something bugs me kind of I don't know how to explain it but Mondio ring allows at times a mediocre trainer to compare and get leveled up with a high high level trainer simply because both dogs missed an exercise and it just so happens that the very next exercise they both did it therefore I'm good as you that bugs me it does you get you have to get over it like so in Mondio ring but you know

what I'm saying right oh it oh yeah and it always drives me crazy just because you think it's endorsing someone's training methods right when it when they just got they just had a good day yeah the lay of the land there's a couple of things connected to that that bother me too so there's that one there's the fact that you you have to be okay with completely tanking right and I think in a lot of competitive dog sports people want to say that if I did my job and prepared my dog I'll get the points or most of the points but Mondio you can you can have a pretty well prepared dog and if the setups are not right for your day like stuff can go way south on you can miss a whole bunch of exercises with a dog that's pretty well trained actually and so that's good for your ego I think it helps you keep your ego in check like you don't get this way like hey I know all this but a judge can also there's room for a judge to make things impossible and so some of the judges that aren't trainers anymore in that world they really bug me right because they're the ones setting up the scenario creative in a strange way yeah creative in a way that like there's enough there's leeway in there to make a scenario that's virtually impossible unless you knew it ahead of time and that kind of thing and you had plenty of time to practice it one thing very that is a lot of interest always in Mondio and it happens almost I mean almost every other trial it happens and it's very interesting and that is when the judge sets up the level one or two to be the easy thing and make some really complicated shit for level three and it ends up being completely the opposite happens all the time love it I love it it helps you think of the dog because it happens even to us in training all the time I'm like let's make an easy one today this is a thing you think it's going to be easy and then all the dogs struggle with something you're like what the hell and then something you think is going to be oh I'm going to really push my dog today and they all right away like it happens routinely it reminds we're not always clear about how the dog sees something this is a very much like the you know very much like the in IGP well in IGP they don't have it anymore but the old and the Ziger you know for for the bridge shows the attack out of the blind kind of like how they have the Belgian the DMC the the the boogeyman jumps out and yes you know that the boogeyman is going to jump out and you still react because it's instinctual you cannot train it it's very hard to train and it's a shame that they took it out of IGP I agree 100% I think this was a just like with we were talking with Amonio there is sometimes you think this is very difficult for whatever reason that attack coming out of the blind it separates the dogs it's kind of like the gunshot you either run or you stay yeah exactly no it's true I agree 100% that's one of the cool things that I loved about the DMC

Korung for anybody that does the German Malinois club had designed a breed test it's but granted the way they did it they they truly what they wanted to do is they wanted to play ring sport but it wasn't at the time allowed in Germany so they found a way because they have Malinois and they want to play like everybody else and also I think that you probably realize that that if you if you're attracted to the breed they are that because the ring sports of the Belgian ring and KMDB are what created the dogs that we love and so even today if we don't have Belgium ring there is no Malinois no more no I agree 100% speaking of which like few weeks ago I got a message on Facebook talking about how there is good and bad I get message from the Diopotois Luke Van Debruch really yes he's like cool how's Luke I know he's like I've been going through this and this and this but I'm back I'm like wow he's like can I I see your pictures and you know I recognize some dogs can I use them for I'm like are you kidding me please what can I do to make it easier for you hell yeah exactly oh yeah that was that was exciting of course I'm like no there is no way I mean there's no way the guy disappeared he quit he was done I'm thinking some impost some you know like yeah I am the Diopotois now whatever oh you're thinking it's fake of course I mean for a moment of course but then I'm like oh wow cool so that was interesting for sure I could see him being interested in stuff down from Turkados yeah and he wanted he wanted a picture of Nikita he's like now that was a dog man this was the whole story was so fucking ridiculous I've said it so many times that I don't think I I should repeat it because I really have said it so many times but go find Ivan's story about Nikita she was that was a phenomenal bitch like she was an extraordinary creature yeah he impressed me so much back then look you know the story right I mean I have to say it now because it's in my head tell it now tell it now people that don't are going to have to go go tell it so I I mean I live in Belgium at the time I go from Bulgaria kind of like what you said like I knew that I have to have that dog I haven't even seen Malinois in my life I've seen it in some Italian dog show magazine and I'm like this looks really cool I want one and for whatever crazy circumstances of life I end up in Belgium and I get connected we go to his house and he has this amazing just like the most gorgeous dark features puppy walking around in the house while everybody else is Belgian style outside in the little kennels and whatever I'm like I want him he's for sale he told me he's for sale and then he starts talking to the guy I'm with and he's like well does he want competition he's going to do competition or he's just one as dog because my French was I mean that was as soon as I got there so I really didn't understand much French that's why I had people with and he's like I have

the I'm like no I'm of course sport I'm so excited I'm finally in Belgium where you can actually do things whatever you want at that time like it was like and he's like well then he has to take this one and he goes out and he brings her with her big white feet and she's already three and a half four months she's older she went to Switzerland to somebody and they didn't like she had white feet so they sent her back and he's like you have to take her and I'm like you're just trying to sell me the dog that you cannot sell to anybody and we argue and he's getting I can see his blood starting to boil and I'm like now I don't know what to do but I really like this dark puppy you know and finally he's like okay you're taking this one and this one and in two weeks you're bringing one back get out that was that was it I mean that story is ridiculous it's a beautiful story and to his credit too right well I've used that one so many times you'd never done anything like like he could easily have said here yeah just take this one right so yeah he's like there is no way I can convince this dumb ass right now worked well for everybody involved yeah she was remarkable that was a she's an incredible dog man we had some cool dogs yeah still do like it's crazy it's crazy now like generations down I'm a like current dogs like seventh generation of our breeding at a certain point like sixth or seventh generation and you're like it's the through line is so cool at a certain point like it's you're like oh yeah I see this from your grandfather and all that kind of stuff yeah it's like no no you don't know but I know you yeah exactly you don't know it yet but I know you exactly true right yeah it's a remarkable it's been a it's been a cool journey man breeding is a cool stuff man it's all it's just so so I love it these days I'm I'm crazy frustrated with like dog placement so right I could go crazy here but just there are Malinois everywhere right now like everybody that has two of them are throwing them together and like now the rescue is full of them shelters are full of them people are trying to get them as pets and stuff in a way that like it's frustrating now to me to to have puppies go out to people who you know sound like they know what they're they want know what they're doing and then they get out there and they say they tell you oh this nine-week-old puppy's no good right because I took it to club and the decoy whale to stick around at it and just that kind of stuff is just aggravating at this stage but the the the the beauty of kind of trying to match up genetics and putting combinations together and watching them develop and it's just endlessly fascinating me I love it so I'm so into it like yeah that's what keeps me doing it like at all I just stop but that that that's such a puzzle and what and just watching them develop every time like is this going to

be am I going to get the perfect combination of traits this time and it's it's awesome it's great yes I I man I don't know like if it's just me or but now I look at litter of puppies and there is that one that 15 years ago there would be no question like yeah that's the one and everybody else dog person or no dog person will say no that's the one it very rarely is sometimes is but it very rarely is isn't it very rarely is yep 100% you're spot on very rarely is almost always the phenomenal dog and then if you've paid attention really paid attention to them and then you see that one that's really good it's like dude you were nobody you were just I mean you weren't the worst there but you were right in the middle there I don't know who you were actually I had to go back and read and watch videos because I don't know who you were right you're exactly right I can't tell you how many times I've said that to people I'm like anybody that tells you that they're gonna pick the best puppy like they're they're full of shit if you've done this for any little time there's no way and you hit it I say that exact thing it's the forgettable one not the worst one not the best acting one it's the one that was in the background somewhere and you're having to scratch your head like which one was that puppy yeah dude like I would never guess like trust me it's gonna be okay yep oh yeah and how many puppies have you looked at and how many puppies have I looked at it still happens like I think and it's hard not to gravitate towards the one that looks that's showing you everything and it doesn't mean that the one that's showing everything is gonna be a bad dog but like if he's passed up by his almost than a litter mate the other thing that drives me crazy now is just an over emphasis on on puppies like what you expect to see from a puppy like it's not a fucking puppy contest right like they're that's that's that's the problem of social media that's the that's the youtube competition and then you see the 45th take of some miserable training that looks so cool with this little puppy and then it grows up and then it's six months old and next thing you know gone what what what happened what what happened there is the next superstar oh no watch this one oh but that's another thing like I keep going back to positive training they they don't have most of them don't they have if if any with very limited experience about breeding genetics selection raising the no if you had one border collie that had six puppies that's not what I'm talking about right no real breeders yeah that's the same thing that a breeder that says like how many litters you have I have one every five years I have to plan the perfect litter like you're not that's not a breeder you're not you're not figuring it out that way it's like trying to pick out which dogs

are the best working dogs without working them right at a certain point you want to line up does the dog have the basic genetic things do I know about their background are they healthy that and then in order to find out which ones are the good breeders you got to breed them like and you're gonna have to make a number of puppies to figure out what works and doesn't work and all that kind of stuff right it's there's no shortcut for that and they should be like seriously they should be really interested in in how we do this and like when you when you breed selectively when you know what you're doing when you raise it then there is that moment that I know that I'm gonna do a certain thing that's gonna give you that kind of rush that you're gonna be in love with me for the rest of your life and that's not skinnerian behaviorism how are they not interested in this because like no no yes you can do this you can do the whatever variation of whatever the trend of the training is right now or you can do what that dog will just light up because he's genetically prepared to light up when you do that and you just use it and the dog is like I don't know why but I'm in love with you for the rest of my life yep and I think and maybe part of my attraction the Malinois after getting to know them is the fact that I found those buttons easy to push in Malinois and other people that that trained differently don't find that to be the case they struggle with the things that their Malinois nests as it were right in a way where early on I I think I stumbled upon that same thing like you could push if you got to know them you push a certain set of buttons as it were and they they just came alive like and they they were passionate about it there was no like half-assid ness it wasn't like they were kind of doing it and getting a little more intense and a little more intense no like the light turned on and it was on and it was great ah yeah they're remarkable creatures man and all dogs have like lots of dogs have their own version of that and as dog trainers you try to find what it is but definitely at this stage of your career and my career I definitely know how to press the buttons with a malinois without having to think about it anymore very much right yeah it's they just get them like no I I know you people people are asking all the time like hey so are you still gonna have a malinois on your 80 and I'm like oh yeah like there's there's no way I could not have them around like it did I can't imagine a life without at least a couple of them around actually what else do you have what do you have any others any other dogs besides the mallis not now not right now I have in the past I've had labs and I've had lots of different dogs over the years and stuff like that but now it's it's all malinois at the

house now yeah the same here like I I still want to have some little dog but it's just so much going on I know and I feel like I had a really nice Labrador I got I got a lab and I kept him until he was two and a half and eventually I gave him to a student at that point but he was a fantastic dog like a really first class dog really well put together crazy athletic lovely temperament played great I used him to socialize malinois puppies because malinois puppies can don't dig labs that much a lot of times right out of the oil and water thing so I'd use him around the Valen water get him used to that but I felt like I always felt like I was doing him a disservice because he always came second or third at my house behind everybody else and it wasn't like I wasn't meeting his needs but he was somebody's dream and they're also thinkers there there's so many unbelievable qualities laughs he have to yeah but he was he was someone else's dream dog and he was just a cool dog at my house as opposed to you know when I have the right malinois it's like this is my dream dog this is this is this is what I want and so I just felt like I lent him to a student that did our long-term program and at the end of the program I gave her to him and she was thrilled to death she's done all kinds of crazy stuff with him and but it just felt like right and so every time I think I think the same thing like I get a little dog to hang around the house and you just hop in everybody's lap but then I always feel like he's gonna get short shrift as I pay more attention to the other dogs than him so or her whatever do you have more time because I have one more question that fire away that I know I wanted to ask and man I don't know if I need to even give something ahead of time but it's not it's nothing that much against the sport I surely like I mean it's it's just another dog sport and every dog sport has its cool things PSA yeah so I'm conflicted about PSA there's stuff about it that I like for sure I like the same some of the same things I like about Mondia Ring in that I like some of the variability and the changing scenarios and I like the fact that they don't they're not kind of anti-aggression they actually want aggression in dogs and some of the sports have become this place where any dog that shows any kind of aggressions an aberration like everybody wants this kind of biting Labrador thing that looks at it like a glorified tug of war and so PSA definitely doesn't do that some of the way in which it was judged the inconsistency of what they they didn't have a clear kind of idea about what aesthetically they wanted at every phase of it right and I don't know kind of any serious trainer that doesn't want to know kind of how they're going to be judged like so

early on and I think some of this has been ironed out I I I don't I haven't watched a lot of newer PSA trials and talk to the judges and stuff so I don't want to speak out of out of school here but early on one judge would like focused healing and the other one wouldn't care right and like and so it was a little inconsistent in in that way and then some of the kind of focus on like more or less a specific bite target area and stuff like that in a suit sport I think I don't like as much as little like KNPV that way a little too rigid that but I mean there's stuff about it that's cool and and it's it's popular it's popular for sure yeah it originally seemed to attract a lot of personal protection type people or people who wanted aggressive dog without control which of course turns out you obviously have to have really good control to be successful in PSA but at the same time man like when I when I watch it and I've watched I mean again I like I'm a dog person it's everything is interesting to me and PSA is definitely interesting sport and there is as you said good things and and there is bad things just like any other sport so since we are talking about all of them one of the things besides the the what you just brought up which is very valid point and I I hope that they kind of stick into some vision and have that to where somebody can raise a puppy and get it ready and know that that moment when it's two years old you flip the program on him it's just not that that's a problem right and and and you brought that one already and and the other one it's almost regardless that there is it looks like there is so much going on ultimately it's quite simple or at least I see it as that it's like okay people will do things whatever whatever but you just have to understand that you bite when I tell you to bite and it's kind of okay so you know like in in in Belgian ring you will have the the decoy mess during the the defense of handler whatever it's a concept so then you have five of them it's still it it at some point does not matter right but it looks amazing but no I can have 22 of them doing anything you want yes that's an interesting point absolutely yeah it's just it's just showing the same skill in different settings right it doesn't yeah yeah I get that for sure and I always I felt in the beginning of it like many of the things like in the US like and this is our kind of desire to come up with something new right in a sense and I felt like one the the the protection sport community isn't that big in terms of the the whole dog community out there and it was a little bit like reinventing the wheel a touch and that there were well established sports that tested the stuff that had systems in place they'd already done the hard

work of like how do you select decoys how do you select judges how do you how do you create a program and so I felt a little bit like it was pulling from established dog sports in the beginning and people that maybe initially were attracted to it hadn't been successful at the other sports in some fashion and they thought oh here's a new one I can do that and it appealed to them in a sense and so but I feel now it's been around long enough and is established enough that it's kind of here to stay in a sense I mean they're still paving their road they're still paving their road there's you know if if and I don't think it's going away because as you said it's it's quite it's really popular and if it keeps growing it's going to end up being something cool and I and I feel and I feel like at the end of the day is as long as there's good dog training happening then that's that's all I really care about right you can always see good dog training it doesn't matter where you're absolutely right yep and I'm all for people doing whatever with their dog if it's good dog training and one way or another it's it's the American sport I mean come on it is it is yep but I like I I like you to love what I I've been so I think my my personal worldview and stuff has been so enriched by the international aspect of of of the protection sports both IGP Schutzen originally and then the ring sports it's put me in contact with people all over the world and different cultural ways of thinking about dogs and training so that education like I wouldn't I wouldn't want to come up in just the American dog sport like I think now it has a chance to add to that conversation but I felt like for me learning about dog training coming from growing up here and already having the American point of view it was really beneficial to me to have a culturally different way of thinking about dog training that that access to the original protection sports that I was exposed to allowed me to do right meet trainers from Europe and people from other countries and then go there and like that was hugely beneficial I think right to my my personal growth and looking at training right so I like that too and that's one of you had mentioned to the kind of international aspect of Mandia Ring I love that it's cool when people from you know 20 countries field teams that's that's a that's a really cool thing right and it's motivating and you you know just so much more flavor variety and and you can you know but at the same you know I mean gosh we we we just don't need to talk about Belgium Ring because it's essential to the breed it's essential to to you know but they've done this for hundreds more than hundred now like 120 years or so yeah pretty much the same

thing I mean when you look at the pictures is the same old man with the same outfit but hats off keep going because we need you and this is where like you know like a program it's like no these are the points this is what you get this is what you've been getting the last 50 years we're not gonna adjust the a frame to be like this because some cannot jump that's the whole point if you cannot jump you're not selected this is the whole point yep yep that's absolutely true if you don't grip a certain way if you can't punch somebody if you can't drill somebody with a muzzle on like yeah all that it's a it's for sure uh necessary I feel like we're losing it though I feel like we're losing it like it's it's still pockets but there are man yeah yeah it's not it's really not easy there and and you know what though on uh like um the kmpv people like they just I think they they and and I that that's not right to talk about as a group but there there's certain in every sport I guess there is just dumb asses that hurt us so I I'm not gonna even go there because it's really a every every sport has it you know absolutely it's it's but why why all of us need to pay for like if if somebody pocks himself with a fork and it sticks out of his lip so what we all use chopsticks I mean really like that's the solution I mean I like that one I have to borrow that yeah that's exactly right well it's that it's that reducing everything to the lowest common denominator right how do you make this so like this can't be misused in any way well then what the hell like what what what are we left with that you heard the whole thing about what happened in Berlin in in Germany how they banned the prone callers now I mean it's banned the yeah the prone callers so it's banned now officially well in the whole in the whole country but what happened in Berlin at least right now it was all over some news and it was in the Guardian also in the States a little bit but anyway the story is they banned the prone callers so now street dogs police canines that are actually street dogs not detection but patrol dogs they end up being pulled out they if they don't use the the right training equipment they're not gonna have control over them yeah of course not yeah so that became a big deal and somehow the latest that I heard is that I mean it's a big so you have the animal rights activists but then you have reality well but we do have bad people and canines actually work and the only way that we can do it is when we have control over them and it's a it's a tough fight so somebody got a band so they came up with some really weird solution that you cannot train with a prone collar but you can

deploy the dog with a prone collar so you can control it in the fight oh my god great plan but I can't see anything wrong with that and of course they're gonna probably train the way they do but but now now the actually the people that are supposed to fight crime become criminals it's sad and and it's really mind-blowing why in Europe they are so afraid to stand up and at least have some debate is there like nobody that has the knowledge or is everybody's care shitless to to say hey let's talk about it prove me show me I mean we all know we we all know Germans that have the knowledge like right like can't be that they don't know they know they're they're not they're smart analytical like the Germans are nothing if not analytical it's structured in that sense like the I it's shocking to me and it has to be it has to be either they didn't recognize the problem is as big a problem or but even now even now bring it back make it make it a life talk about it like even you know even like the big organization like the SFAO the the German Shepherd Club which is still leading club you have board of directors whoever there like hey you represent us stand up talk educate if you don't know how select somebody that can because somebody can you're like we've elected you so you can defend the dog training and the dog what we do that's who you are same thing with our FCI working group I mean I'm probably gonna get some shitty scores next time I go to compete but you know like you're in the you're this seven people that's called the working commissioner of FCI and instead of work for the people that have elected you work that you your passion is not to bend over and accept the political correctness and and follow animal rights people infiltrated stand up for us talk and then lose the fight I mean if you lose the fight but you actually fought it's one thing no I agree I I don't understand but also culturally I don't I I don't know the pressures on them right right right politically in that sense I don't know here we're certainly we're encouraged to stick up and speak our minds in a sense and that doesn't mean that there aren't repercussions for that but it's a little more free here that may not be the case there like there may be a little more cultural being ostracized culturally and stuff like that I don't I don't know I don't I don't have a good enough feel for that but it's unfortunate because we I mean no matter what we we still kind of we don't give up and they from day one they were like I I I really don't understand that I don't know I wish they did do something well we'll make a pact right now to stay ahead of it

here right no I mean that that's like and and it's good for the dogs and for the training and for all these new people and it's beautiful what we do and then we have and then and then and then we have to self-police a little bit too for sure this this is yes this the video clip the video clip you sent me that we watched and and man I'm even scared when I try to defend electric colors or some other form of training because somehow I feel like the worst crowd teams up with me and it's like no just because you and I have the same training equipment we are not the same like we don't even think the same yeah you could buy the same leash as me that doesn't mean we're doing the same things yeah for sure no that's that's a that's it's a little bit of a problem but it's necessary yeah and you know there's I always feel like those people have have room to get better and so if I although I don't want to be lumped in with them methodology wise I I want to have access to them so that I can talk to them and right and maybe their mistakes are out of ignorance right and that we can then right we can help with that hopefully yeah sometimes we are sometimes we are for sure very quick to judge somebody and that's all they know that's that's what they've seen they think even even if they subconsciously and intuitively feel that this is a bad thing what I'm doing it's kind of I mean there's so many psychological experiments that were done like you yeah you do bad things everybody can do bad things knowingly when you're in the certain environment and and some people can be educated and then there is some people that it doesn't matter you can take everything away from them there will be bad people hard one that's a hard one so but you gotta give chance to people I think you have to give chance I also like in in especially in dog sports you know sometimes we're like oh let's do background checks let's see how many times he's been whatever it's like man this is probably his last chance to to try to be somebody like give give him some opportunity don't don't give him the world but allow people to you know we sometimes grow and change and flourish sure yes you gotta and and dog training can be that outlet just like martial arts you know I agree 100% and people you see all the time people whose lives are radically changed by it so yeah for sure yeah absolutely how are we doing man it's been a long one it's a long one yeah well we we should we should just plan to do more such things so then they don't have to be three hours long or whatever the heck they are right I totally enjoy it but we we should

wrap it up so we don't you know but uh like that was a a much much needed much much needed I agree and it just has to be a first step to you and I getting together and training a little bit here too yes yes it's on after this this current semester uh I'm deliberately slowing down a little bit ha ha ha tell me when you teach me how I'm gonna travel more and do that stuff so I'll you next time you're out this way you show up here I'll get out there I'll show up there we'll very very cool man Michael Ellis everybody thank you buddy I really appreciate it thank you Michael love you love you too buddy yeah Thank you.

Welcome to Training Without Conflict podcast. I'm not sure which episode this is, but very, very, very excited to have a conversation with Michael Ellis. Michael, tell us a little bit about yourself and how it all started and where you are right now. The short answer, right? So first, thanks so much for having me on. And it's really good to talk to you again, sir. I was trying to calculate how far back we go. And it was around 1990, I think, because I remember when you were at Nationals with Nikita and Riverside in 91, I think. And so it was just before that, I believe, that was the first time we trained together. So it's been a long time. And I don't think we see each other often enough. So if I have to do it on a video screen, then that's how it has to happen right now. So anyway, I run a school for dog trainers and have a kind of long and convoluted history in dog training. And that I, like I think, probably like Ivan and some other trainers came into doing it professionally kind of as an accident. It was a hobby from the time I was a kid. I got a German Shepherd junior high school and had to train it by the parents. And so started down a path and did it as a hobby. Got into AKC obedience and into protection sports and all that. And had a long hobby love for the training dogs. And it gradually, I got asked to do some seminars for clubs that I had worked with in the past. And they sort of picked up steam. And at a certain point, I looked up and said, I guess I'm a dog trainer professionally. And after traveling for 15 years full time, giving seminars to training clubs and police departments and military organizations and that sort of thing, I was about broken. You made some world record in the very last year or two years before you started the school of traveling and giving seminars. I thought that you will just like get so burned out that you will never, ever do it again. I mean, that was, I started to interrupt, but that was like just amazing to just witness. Like, I mean, it was every weekend for a very long time. Yeah, you're exactly right. I think it was the, it was the thing that spawned me opening the school was the three years before I opened the school, the last three years before I opened the school. I did 45 a year each year. So it was basically every weekend for three years solid. Yeah. And, uh, and at the end of that, I w I was like, I don't, I don't think I could get on a plane again. I don't care if I never leave my home again. I was just broken in terms of traveling. So you did burn out a little bit of the travel then. Yeah. Yeah. It's real.

I mean, the training part is, I don't know, I, for, for you, I'm sure it's the same. There are endless curiosities there. Like you, I could never burn out on that. You're in front of a group of new people. There's always an unusual dog that doesn't fit your ideas of how this should go. Um, you find a handler that doesn't present normally and you have to find a way to, to kind of reach them some way. There's somebody that's skeptical over there that you have to try to break through. There's, there's, I don't, I don't think I could ever get tired of that part of it, the teaching part of it. And then the kind of trying to understand, uh, understand dogs. And so that part I love, but it, you know, you, I mean, I'm preaching, I'm preaching to the bar here. You know, they're exhausting. You're on your feet all day, the concentration, the physical wear and tear on your body. But it's the, it was mostly the travel, like being away from home and away from my own dogs, my wife and that kind of thing. And then when I came home, I found that I didn't want to do anything. Like after you do one of those things and I just come home and just plunk down. And so there was a point at which my wife's like, Hey, let's go out and do something. And I'm like, how about we sit on the couch? Right. So, uh, and so that was a big part of it. And at the point that, that, um, I decided that, Hey, I can't keep doing this forever. Um, I could have, of course have opened a dog training business to help people train their dogs, but I'd spent the last 15 years sort of coaching other dog trainers, people that were already passionate about it and the rest of that. So a school for dog trainers seemed like kind of the next, the next logical step in that evolution. Um, and it, and I, you have the same thing I'm sure is that I think we're lucky in that we, anybody that's dog trained, uh, and made their living at it. We've certainly done professional pet dog training, companion dog training, and helped people. I took in inboard dogs and all the, all the things that a traditional dog trainers journey includes, but coaching trainers and then opening a training school allows us to get in front of people that are already really passionate about it. So regard for me, regardless of how, uh, talented or untalented someone is, uh, if they really want to, if they're really interested and they really want to learn it, then I have a lot of patience for those people. Right. And so in running a school for trainers and you know it too, and coaching other trainers, those people are all really on board. They want to be better. So that's it.

It makes it kind of an easy thing in that way, easy to keep your motivation up because they want it so badly. And so, so for the last 12 years, I've run a, run a school for dog trainers. It's been, yeah, it'll be 12, 12 years this year. 12 years. Crazy, crazy. Time is going. It seems like it was yesterday, right? Actually, I guess this year it'll be 13, right? So it's September of this year. It'll be 13 years. But that was, uh, as you said, it's for sure the most logical step after what you did and what I've done, you know, teaching, teaching instead of just spending time training individual dogs and a person, um, that, that, uh, in any other way, I would think that vast experience of going places, working with so many different varieties, finding all the similarities, find all the differences, and then brainstorming with all the crazy problem dogs that you enter with. Then you have a day or two, maximum three days to figure it out, try something and prescribe a go home. That's, you know, like, uh, you can read, you can train one dog, but nothing, nothing really comes close to giving you that experience. And, and it's, and it's, and when I'm going with this, it's, it would be shame not to share it. Because what do you do with it? You master it. You master how to teach, you master how to understand behavior, emotions in dogs and people and their objectives where they go. It will be shame not to, not to give it back, you know, like, yeah. And I think a hundred, a hundred percent you're, you're exactly correct. And I, I feel like, um, at this stage of our careers too, it's, it's, it's our duty. What we, what we all want is to elevate the general understanding of dogs out there and to make as many people benefit from that information as possible. And so I look at it like if you affect, uh, somebody that's going to become a professional trainer, if you affect their way of looking at this and you improve their knowledge, then they can touch a way more people than you could ever touch individually. Right. And it's sort of that, that trickle down idea and, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. So the more the information gets out there to a wider variety of people, the better it is for dogs everywhere. Right. And, and, uh, and so that, that part is true and you're absolutely right. And you've done exactly the same thing. Like I tell people all the time and you may not even remember it. I don't remember whether it was a seminar in Montana or one of those places. And somebody showed up with a dog to hear somebody that showed up with a dog that was wholly unsuitable. Right.

The dog was just unusual in every way, difficult, not a sport dog at all, but early in the seminar, the dog piqued your interest because it wasn't presenting normally in any way. Right. Everything about the dog. And you could tell it was bugging you the whole time. And so the traditional format for anyone that doesn't know of these kinds of seminars is you would come out, you'd talk, you do obedience, and then you do protection with everyone's dogs kind of thing. And usually in a day you get a round of obedience and a round of protection and maybe two protection rounds. I think you brought the dog out like six times over the course to the point. It was actually kind of annoying. Some people you're like, Hey, get that dog again. Right. Like it was great on you. And that kind of thing is fantastic. It's a laboratory for you to sort of work through that stuff. In addition to a masterclass in learning how to teach, because you've got every kind of personality type out there. And so you learn to give information in as many different ways as possible. I've come up with 20 different ways to say the same thing because somebody can hear it here and somebody else can hear it there. So yeah, it was an indispensable, if a little bit exhausting education for sure. Man, I don't remember that one, but for sure I can totally see it. I totally loved it about you. It was the best thing. I was like, that's awesome. Preoccupies your mind. You can't just leave it alone. Absolutely. Right. It's not like I'm just coming here. I'm going to, I got to, I'm going to do my job and leave. And I don't care. Like to see somebody that successful that invested in a dog that was never going to go on to competition. Like it wasn't going to go there. It was the wrong genetics for that, but just making that dog's life better and understanding that dog. It was cool. It was like, it sticks with me now. So I try to cultivate that mind. Imagine what, what do you think? I mean, the way when we started, we, we basically started right at a time where AOL had, you've got mail. That was the extent of the internet. There was no YouTube. There was no resources. There was nowhere. We had to learn in a very, very different way. In fact, I teach something in my school. Um, let me see if I can say it right, right now. Um, there is two ways to learn. And the one is that you learn something because it's presented to you at the moment and you don't know it's necessarily where to put it. And the other one is to learn at the moment what you need to learn for that particular

moment, which is the beauty of what kids and anybody, including me and you have the opportunity to do right now. You can just come up with an idea about any random thing that you want to learn about and you get to do it at that moment. It's the most brilliant thing. And we didn't have that opportunity. But my question to you is how, how, how do you feel about the past, how we went through? I mean, it wasn't easy, but I know it was fun. I know we had much more life interaction, much more. I think we were dreaming much higher than, than, than, than what's happening today. And, uh, less animosity. There is always competition, but what's going on in the dog world right now, it's in a different level, the dynamics. And we'll get to that, but I'm just curious how you feel about past and how we got there. I feel conflicted. Like, so for sure, um, there were things about the way that we came up that were, um, that were better. Like, it's almost like, um, organically you were able to process information as it came in in little bits because you didn't get it all at once. Right. Like now with the internet and things, one, like you can be, new trainers can be overwhelmed with information and opposing viewpoints and all that kind of stuff. And maybe when you're learning something new, too many voices make it hard can, can force you into inaction. Right. And I think what probably for me, certainly, and I'm sure for you, we were out there, you'd be exposed to other trainers, you'd get an idea, but then you were sort of left on your own to mess around with it. Exactly. Experiment and work through it. So you felt like you really knew it before you were given more information. Right. And I was given information at various times in my development that I wasn't ready to receive at the time. I'm sure every trainer has this. Somebody said something or showed you something and maybe it made sense, but you had no place conceptually to put it in your personal experience. And so you just kind of went, man, whatever. Yeah. And went along and did your thing. And then two years down the road, you're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, that was actually good information, but I wasn't ready for it. And I feel like right now, to some degree, with the internet and the amount of information, which is a great thing, like trainers can move way more quickly through certain things and you can get access to information from all over the world. The top trainers, you can actually listen to them and watch them and things in a way that you would have to make big efforts to do.

But also, I think it's overwhelming and confusing for some beginning trainers to have that same amount of information. And so, and they're not left to experiment either. Yeah. Yeah. The, the overload without letting it simmer and without letting it actually really set in and, and, and try and feel and understand and practice and, and then do it again. Yeah. Yeah. And do it wrong and, and make adjustments because you did it wrong yourself. Having somebody there telling you, I mean, you know, from the seminar circuit too, there are lots of people that can execute something. If there's somebody standing around telling them what to do that are physically mechanically talented. And if they have a training director or someone there to mentor them, that's basically watching them and reminding them, you can become a good technician without kind of feeling in your bones and understanding and making the adjustments. And, and then you get, they get afraid because there's so much information out there. People can get afraid to make a mistake. So they're unwilling to try things for fear of, of, oh gosh, I'm going to, I'm going to ruin my dog or I'm going to make this mistake. And so I feel conflicted, right? Also, I think that a lot of what's on the internet is oversimplified and everything is edited to be, this is a problem with society in my opinion, anyway, right? With the idea of instant gratification and things given to you in like intense little bits, right? But dog training is not like that. It's like the, the slow movement out there. It's, it's, it's showing up. It's being there. It's like focusing, intensely focusing on another creature for extended periods of time. And all the little blips and short clips give people information, but that doesn't, that's not how dog training feels when you're doing it right. You know what I mean? Right, right, right, right. Yeah. In a lot of ways, I think it makes, um, anybody that gets into dogs right now because of that access and because of that overload. It forces you to be impatient and, and, and not to, not to be able to focus and comprehend something that's given to you. It could be valuable. It could not be valuable, but even not valuable information is interesting to say at least. But if you're rushing and you're just YouTube hopping and, and from then you're back on Instagram and, and chasing clicks like, uh, that, that, that's a problem. I think a very serious problem right now. It's almost, there is, um, how good of a trainer I am in the social media environment. Oh yeah. I have all kinds of difficulties with social media, but I chalk it up to us being old,

but remember like that, that whole world, like they're just asked the presentational aspects of it really bother me. Like to the idea that something has to be flashy and catchy to get people's attention. Maybe it doesn't have to like, but. Like I want to really dive into a subject deeply and a lot of what's, uh, design social media is designed not to, they want you to move on immediately. Right. They want you to see something catches your attention, pay attention, and then move on to, to something else. And, uh, uh, that's not the way to get very good at anything, right? The way to get expert at anything is to take a deep, deep dive. And I don't know that that formats the best, but then I'm, I also realize you can reach so many more people with good information. So if you can package good information, you can affect people's lives that would never have the ability to access it otherwise. So it's, there's a democratization aspect to it as well. Right. So that's why I'm always conflicted about it. And I'm not very good at using it because I, I, I, I hate marketing. Like I'm super old fashioned in the sense that I think like good work will allow you to be successful. If you do good, if you do good work and you really understand it, you'll be successful without all the flashy editing and music over your videos and all the rest of that stuff that's nonsense, fun sometimes, but nonsense when it comes down to really understanding it. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I feel the same way and somehow I am falling into the stream with, with the race, you know, it's, it's very difficult, very, very difficult. Matt, me too. And I think the next generation, if you want to get, if you want to have them hear you, even if, even if that's not the primary way you interact with them, if you want to get their attention, you're going to have to do it there. That's the way they're, that's the way they're processing the world. So we don't really have a choice. Right. At a certain point we got to get in. So I, I want to, I want to kind of hear a little bit about your school. I mean, I, of course I'm paying attention. And of course I follow and check what you do and everything. It's, it's just, there is no way I wouldn't. But what I'm interested in right now, like my question that's coming up, where, what, what is interesting for you at the moment in dog training? Where, where is your head? Where is your, what, what's going on? It's funny. You should ask this. There's a couple of things from the school perspective. The thing that's always interesting to me. And I'm, I still struggle with this.

How much of what kind of information to give a new trainer at a certain stage in their development. Right. So meaning do you try to give them everything? Do you say right on day one, Hey, modify what you're doing based on the dog you're getting, or do you give people certain kind of core skills and tell them, don't ask too many questions, just learn this. And then once you learn that we can talk, it's a little like a jazz musician learning scales or whatever, before you start improvising. Right. And I struggle with that sometimes, like where in a person's education, do they need to hear certain things? So that is always interesting to me because I keep tweaking all the time, what I'm teaching people at what stages of their development and not overloading a new person up front, but giving them useful skills and that kind of thing. So from a teaching perspective, that's always fascinating to me. And I struggle, uh, or I, I'm constantly trying to change how I'm working with that. And it's a little like adapting to the dog in front of you. So it works really well for one student and not so much for another. And then you're like, how do I make it better for that student? That kind of thing. In dog training, um, I went through, uh, a period where like most people our age, we learned training. What would, what we call now traditionally, you know, sort of escape avoidance, traditional keeler method style stuff. And then got into reward-based training and a lot of stuff was once I started playing with dogs, my whole world opened up. And from the time I was a kid, I liked, I mean, part of the most fascinating thing about having a dog was the fact that it would chase a, retrieve something, chase a ball and bring it back to you. Right. When I was, when I was a teenager, that was like, why do you have a dog? If you're not going to throw things for it, I would chase it. Right. Kind of thing. And, and so then started playing with dogs and it opened up an entire world. And then the more you get into the science of it and the detail of it, then there's a whole world out there about breaking things down in tiny, tiny pieces. And can you, with a working dog, get tiny perfections in head position and healing, or like all these kinds of crazy things that trainers go down the rabbit hole. And that's interesting at first, because it's different. And you're like, well, how far can we take this? And all of that kind of stuff. And then lately, and then a period of while you're trying to do things all with rewards, how much can you do just with the giving and withholding rewards? Right.

And then you realize, okay, that's, that's an incomplete picture, of course. And then how do I merge those worlds to get the best benefits? And then I have a little renaissance of using negative reinforcement because, Hey, look, that's that layering it over like well-trained reward-based behaviors. And what does that do? And I go through that. And now truth be told is I loop back around and playing with dogs. Like I'm raising a young dog. Now she's 11 months old. And I'm, I don't care about behaviors. Like I'm just playing with her and I just sort of let them come out. Right. I, our play relationship gets really good. And she starts doing things. I get controls on that. And it's how I would train like 15 years ago, like a little bit. And it feels really good and kind of natural. And I'm letting go some tiny details of head position. That's not so interesting anymore. Right. And then there's a, for me too, now a big interest in like, I play in monitoring a lot. So recognizing the challenges and the interesting part of real generalization of behaviors, right? The idea that dogs are such easily patterned creatures and, and how changes, small changes in the generalization landscape, the environment can have a dog that feels really well trained, make errors and mistakes, just like human beings do. And so that's always endlessly fascinating. Right. Yes. Yes. That's a, yeah, man. We, we, we have so much to talk. Shit. I don't know. I don't know if we're going to have enough time. I mean, this is like a couple of episodes. Like for me, the, the, one of the really cool things also is the, the kind of going right where you left it right here. It's understanding the power of habits. Like, it's just mind blowing to me how, how strong it can be a habit. Like, like you, like if you have a way to create a habit or if you try to destroy a habit that you don't want. Yes. It's so interesting. And it's, it's so much there that, that, yeah, it is, it's a, there's a reason that whole branches of human psychology are devoted to the creation of good habits and the difficulties of extinguishing bad habits too. Right. We know it. Like they're, they're hard. They're really hard to change. Right. So they are incredibly powerful things. You're right. That's where sometimes, you know, like, um, the, the, the whole force free movement, that there is some valuable information. There is some, there is some message there. It's not complete for sure. It's not complete. And I, I, I know we're going to go into that much deeper, but, but there, there is some good side in there. Mm-hmm.

And I think habits is one of the interesting things that they, they're, I don't think they're quite in there. They don't quite understand. Yes. But ultimately, if you, of course you cannot go against genetics. Like, there's just no, you know, like forget, like that, that, that's where, that's where the, they, they completely fell on their faces. Cause they, they just really think that with some super smart, intelligent training and differential reinforcements and, and whatever you want, they can do magic. And, and that's a, that's a problem. There's very similar. I mean, I think we, we both grew into anybody. I think in the time, late eighties, early nineties, everybody jumped on that wagon. I mean, how would you not, if you can possibly train dogs in this way, why would you not? Right. Why would you not? Yeah. I was so excited. You were all so excited about that. It was incredible. Yeah. And, and as you said, the, the, the, you know, just, just figuring different ways how to apply negative punishment in dog sports. And I, I remember you and I, I think, was it in Kentucky or I don't know where we were. I mean, we had some endless nights just, just talking and just getting excited over each other's words. I, I, I, I, that's where I ended up writing the advanced shotgun book. And, and I mean, anyone that would look at it totally based on that movement and that era at the time. But then we figured it out. but then we figured it out just as you said like can we train dogs this way yes we can we know we can now how far does it go how does it compare and is the dog really happier and less stressed as it's learning strictly that way that was those were the questions that eventually came up correct absolutely that's a that's it in a nutshell what you said right there too is the dog is their life actually better are they actually ultimately less stressed right and in certain circumstances yes if the dog's made the connections you wanted quickly but they're in that movement god we could go about we could talk about this by itself for hours but in that movement there's the idea that the dog needs to be left to make their own choices all the time right that while they figure it out and we all know how fucking frustrating it is pardon me to to be trying to figure something out and not getting the information you need to figure it out and keep butting your head against the wall and think you've got it and then you don't have it and you and i both have all seen dogs too that get frustrated in those circumstances and it provokes aggressive there's all kinds of stuff that's there and it's

not stress that that kind of stress is no nicer than some discomfort is in various circumstances and so it's like what um allows the dog to understand and make the connections the most efficiently right and with as little stress as possible in the learning phase of it ultimately right once a dog knows applying you we applying stress to a dog that understands something is a completely different ball of wax than learning under stress right and and so that once we we kind of butted up against the limitations of thinking that way then it all becomes about how you merge the worlds that we came from before that and that but you can that needed to happen at that period of time and we all needed to do that i think like it to swing the pendulum to get people thinking differently about training that that absolutely had to happen i know you and i may have had this conversation before but i found like when i first started traveling and doing seminars for working clubs i found found myself like you i'm sure being a proponent for positive and negative reinforcement in the working dog circle you came from all these everybody's thing was set the dog up so you could correct them make them make a mistake so you could correct them right kind of this whole mentality and so you're preaching to all these trainers about like hey you don't always have to go to the correction first there's other ways to approach this and then at the end of my traveling portion i found myself going to clubs and saying hey you know what it's okay to say no to your dog it's okay to correct this is like it's all right like you guys this is good oh great you figured this part out but you're now limiting yourself again on the other side of it right this is where um organizations such as apdt and and and any of those force-free and their lima list intrusive minimally minimally yeah yeah you know it's a big problem like i just don't understand why would you have this outlined in such way to say like the the only point that you're trying to make is to say how horrible punishment is and that you should try everything else in order to avoid it and that doesn't i mean besides not having logic i'm just surprised how many people very sincerely believe in this uh uh presentation because when you again like like you can just you know i mean i i kind of stepped a little bit further out but what you said about um waiting on a dog strictly you know doing some shaping and doing some like oh no he's gonna figure it out figure it out is a cool thing if you can set it up correctly and and even then i personally would prefer not to and i teach

i like in my school i teach how to i teach you have to know how to i mean if if you don't teach a dog to grab its blanket and roll over and go to sleep or open the toilet or you know like you if you're serious about dog training you should definitely explore this world a hundred percent but you gotta understand and appreciate and appreciate dog with motivation and desire that when you leave that dog to figure it out and it's not as easy you open such a kind of worms and you put the dog through hell for absolutely no reason but just so you can show how um you know like what were two years uh like how good of a trainer how how much you understand skinnerism and and and you know and it's completely artificial right so that's not the way the world works in any way it's not the way nature works it's not the way any of us go through life like it's completely artificial i do the same thing i teach free shaping to the students so they have to have exercises that they have to mess with that with so that they understand the process but you know what it is it's it's an exercise for the trainer exactly it's not for the dog it's for observation timing you know criteria setting criteria raising it's it's for the for the trainer right like you could give them a chicken and do the same thing ultimately right like the same idea there and so but once it gets to the dog then i don't want to leave them in limbo like that i want to help them grasp what i'm trying to teach them right which doesn't necessarily mean force obviously right off the bat it's setting up a session so that the dog makes the connection that you want them to make quickly and efficiently which we can help with like what i call assisted shaping instead of like leaving the dog hanging out there you know with half the information yeah yeah that's that's uh but it's i don't know why why why we are where we are it's very interesting time i think it's i think it's an attractive idea when you don't know better like there's a moment it's for me it was there was a moment like the way i learned to train dogs as a kid wasn't fun right it was um it was uh satisfying when you got through it and you had a dog that you had that relationship with and you could communicate with and you had a trained dog and it's always nicer to have a trained dog than an untrained dog in that sense and so there was something gratifying about but the day-to-day of that the the completely negative reinforcement positive punishment based way of training wasn't fun it felt like a necessary evil so some of the reward-based

revolution for want of a better term you open your eyes to there were other possibilities and so that's pretty um exciting at that point and doing that work initially was fun the dogs were having a good time and you're having a good time um but i think if you're an analytical person and you start to think about it you realize what a like an oversimplification it is of the way things work and you quickly abandon that kind of religious fervor with which people continue to embrace that right they it's it's not it's not about the dog it's about them at some point and how they view the world it's it's not about what's best for that dog that's in front of them yeah yeah yeah yeah they this is um negative punishment you know super powerful when it meets the right circumstances and totally ineffective if it doesn't meet them that's another thing that's piqued my interest recently too is and you're you're gonna this is gonna resonate with you is that like negative punishment if you can set up the contingencies properly so that the dog connects it with what you want them to connect it with in the teaching phase of something new can be a really powerful tool it's you're absolutely right and it's cool to watch it you know you've been teaching a dog to jump and the first time they touch the jump you withhold reward and the next time you watch them pick their feet up by their ears like like you can see the adjustments that dogs make when set up correctly and that kind of thing and then also you see as the dogs become more fluent and you have repetitions and things over periods of time that it becomes kind of less effective right and so one of the things that i've i've recognized and we all know it like how come the dog doesn't seem to care if it touches the jump anymore now now that it's two years old and it's been jumping for a year right and um so i've gotten kind of interested in neurobiology and that kind of stuff recently trying to i i i'm sure you're the same i love when like uh a scientist confirms something that you've observed and you know in your in your gut and you just don't know the mechanism and so when a when a biologist explains what's happening you're like hell yeah that's cool i know that that that just knows an exciting thing when that clicks for you right and so i listen to lots of neurobiologists there's a guy named robert sapolsky that teaches at stanford and like lots of interesting stuff there but the when the dopamine rises during learning right and so the dopamine rises once the animal becomes fluent in

anticipation of reinforcement so you withhold reward after a certain point and it doesn't change the dog's behavior anymore because it's what's reinforcing what's driving their behavior is the anticipation of reward and then when they don't get it you're on variable reinforcement so they produce more dopamine and the behavior gets more intense and like and so it works perfectly at a certain spot if you can set up the right contingencies and then not so much in other places and so and when you when i heard that the first time i'm like yes yes okay of course like there now i just have a nice fancy scientific explanation for why what we already knew was the case right right right right man dopamine is a very such a interesting and such a trendy subject but somehow somehow and i don't know where it comes from but dog trainers and certain type of dog trainers are like like like finding somehow an excuse to do what they're doing and justifying it with somehow dopamine dopamine makes up for for what you do and it's not necessarily a cool thing that you do to the dog but dopamine overrides it and as long as we say this magic word all of a sudden we have justified to do what we are doing and then oh it's really bugging me but it's a very very i'm with you 100 yes right yeah i need to but like i also i have been like really just going kind of wild with dopamine studies and and there is a book that just doesn't come i i have to uh i i have it in my we're gonna put that book in the bottom of the thing of the podcast later but uh and like they had something very cool where um like the way the guy explains it is like so complicated but so freaking interesting because what dopamine loves more than anything else is reward prediction error yeah then it goes crazy yeah which which means basically it's the the discovery that something is better than what we had anticipated it's gonna be so it's we think it's this but it's actually better than what we thought it would be and paradoxically dopamine does everything in its power to avoid such incorrect forecasts right yeah yeah like that's not adaptive like like incorrect predictions are dangerous in nature right but but at the same time reward for the dopamine the reward prediction error feels great because the the you know the dopamine gets excited over the fact that there is something new because that's the prediction error it's like oh shit there's something different boom and it gets excited right and it's unexpected and it's new and and but being surprised by an expected something means that

the resource isn't fully um explored in a way right so now the dopamine the dopamine can make sure that it explores it so this surprise cannot happen again of course yeah and and and and that feels good but but here is the the the final thing by doing so the dopamine actually extinguishes its own pleasure and there is that chase that goes on and it's super super cool i'm gonna i don't even know if i said it correctly but i'm gonna give it that i'd love to read it yeah for sure because that's the kind of thing that i'm into right now for sure or for sure but also i i think some of those uh kind of discussion of neurobiology or um epigenetics and like larger drivers they're complicated right and so the people that really dive into it are gonna tell it they're trying of course like everything else to isolate what each of these hormones or neurotransmitters or do in the body but a lot of them have multiple functions and they operate differently when when creatures are in different states of mind and different stages of deprivation and in combination with other hormones and neurotransmitters and all that and so it's it's a way of kind of understanding parts of why animals behave the way they behave and why we behave the way we behave but it's never the whole picture right and so it i think it's a trap a little bit like these things get trendy and i think like you said and it's important to draw people's attention to that idea so for me i don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole and like you said people start justifying well if withholding rewards not working then my only alternative and they do something abusive and stupid right instead of being smarter about kind of setting up their training circumstances which doesn't mean again that we're not correcting dogs at the at an appropriate time when they understand and they can take that information and do something with it but they're using that as a justification and the at the other end of the spectrum is people will say we'll see since it you know the it it's all about the dopamine well no that's a piece of a larger puzzle and so i think it i want that information it's interesting to me it helps me sometimes recognize when i might be kind of beating my head against the biological wall like what and and different dogs i'm sure just like human beings it's more positively they've done studies that genetically different dogs and different people produce more of certain neurotransmitters right there's reason that people get ssris and take serotonin update inhibitors right

and that kind of thing because their body doesn't produce enough to make them functional right and so why wouldn't dogs be the same way and so i've come to this my my pet hypothesis recently and i is that there are thrill-seeking personalities and dogs like there are thrill-seeking personalities in human beings right why does somebody want to go rock climbing and jump out of a plane and do that kind of stuff and they get a huge charge out of it and somebody else is like no it just makes me sick to my stomach i never want to see it again right what's happening neurochemically there or in your genetic makeup that makes that feel good to one person and not good to another person because i know it's true in dogs right yeah like yeah there are dogs that we we select for dogs that like these kind of crazy high arousal activities that get addicted to them really easily right and and and then some other dog like somebody's basset hound's not going to do get addicted to that same kind of thing no matter how much you you try right and so that that whole world is just another way of kind of trying to understand what's happening and for me checking myself if i think i'm fighting against biology and genetics because we lose that battle every time yes yes you you you it it's stupid to go against it i mean it's really stupid to go against it and like what what you just said like i i call it i know that i call it i i'm sure i i picked it up from somewhere but i i i call it home base like that like if you i mean you can something super cool can be happening around you but if your home base is to find something shitty about it and get upset and angry or get sad you will find it and you will become that and it's the same dog dogs do have a home base and most trainers are preoccupied with making the behaviors and not understanding where is the home base it's just like the first thing understand what what ticks in there where do you want to be and let's see how we can change that if we need to change it or let's feed it but i i'm very very few trainers i talk and i see really looking to and and appreciate oh that's that's that's its home that's where he wants to be no matter what's happening around he wants to be excited and happy and oblivious and now you're trying to force him into something and you're almost upset that the dog is oblivious but oh that's his home base i love that i love the way of talking about it i call their happy place whatever you want like this the spot where they're what it's the same in in humans right so the same idea that that we want to change

somebody into our societal ideal of the the ideal person right so if you're shy we want to bring you out of your shell right if you're uh there's all these sorts of ways of looking at what's natural for a person or a dog as something that needs changing and dog trainers especially because you get paid to fix what people think are problems right and and not to say that there are dogs out there doing things they shouldn't be doing for sure like all that kind of stuff but the idea that without appreciating that individual dog's dogness you're not going to be successful at that right unless you know where their home base is like you're never going to be successful at that or you're going to make the dog's life miserable even if you appear to block stop whatever the behavior you don't want for a period of time you haven't changed the essence of that dog and any it's like building a house on a shoddy foundation it's going to come down because you weren't built on who they really are right that's a behavior modification kind of thing i i just started teaching a class that i call behavior modification a couple years ago after all this time because i refused to do it i'm like no it's like it's not its own thing this idea that the problem dogs have a problem and how do you come in and fix that problem give me the recipe for separation anxiety give me the recipe for leash reactivity like that kind of thing and to me that was driving me mad i'm like just it's understanding the individual dog it's all the things that we would do in training period and it's just good dog training like i don't want to talk about it like it's its own thing in isolation and i finally caved because people have to hear that term if they're going to hear what you have to say about it afterwards yeah especially when we are teaching we have to yeah that's it's that's the world in which we live so then you start teaching and then i was like where's this dog coming from genetically are you gonna fix it are you gonna change nope you're not like how do we make it better how do we satisfy the dog's needs are my solutions in line with with that and how do i learn to manage the environment and recognize where i can put this dog and where i can't put this dog right so that the dog can have as functional a life as possible with those people right but that idea that you're going to somehow change that that's the whole that that is the whole point i had a i don't know sometime last year i had a very very cool podcast with two evolutionary psychologists

um and jane hawk is the one and uh dr lyle um super super brilliant like just again i mean evolutionary psychology going totally against skinnerian behaviorism and so you're gonna love this she's like well for whatever reason we humans think that we we look at dogs with a very very different eye than any other animal for example if somebody comes to the house and the cat hides nobody gives a shit but if the dog does it now it's a big problem so true so true it's exactly it's totally true right that's it that's awesome okay let's fix it it's like why why okay maybe maybe we can attempt to fix something but not make why make it as the objective of our life to torture a dog instead of finding a way how we can give him some safety and some environment that he can strive and flourish and be comfortable instead play the big dog trainer ego and let's fix it let's fix it 100 you've got oh it's right now my current one of my current obsessions is what i'm calling it uh over socialization like this idea that you got to get your puppy out in the world you got to drag them around everywhere they got to meet a bunch of new people this whole thing this idea that you take a puppy that has some confidence issues and in an attempt to fix them you make them 10 times worse right it's you're forcing them into uncomfortable situations one after the other after the other right and recognizing that like and it drives me crazy and there's a point at which obviously you can't isolate creatures during development from the world around them we all know what happens if you completely isolate them their brains don't develop properly all that kind of stuff but there's that's gone way too far it's a little like the reward based movement it's like our understanding of early development has come to the point we realize the power there and people are pushing too much they're putting young dogs in over their head in uncomfortable situations and then attempt to fix their shyness or their their anxiety over things and it's it's it's a problem instead of taking the dog away putting them in places where they're comfortable giving them something that they they can really latch on to and gain confidence through coming back around to that when the dog has a global confidence yeah at the very least start there so you have a reset and then step out see if it goes well or if it doesn't you know where to go back and leave it alone like sometimes just leave it alone like yes you're good dog trainer your ego is not gonna be destroyed because you didn't fix something and on the other hand though

you know like um the the the whole uh psychotropic medications shit's just going off the roof like carelessly like carelessly it's bugging me so much like i mean i'm talking real real people with real dogs a six month old puppy happy happy playful and excited let's make him lifeless yeah oh it's horrible just because we can uh no it's maddening it really is and it's like everything there's um uh a place for that and so again we never want to throw the baby out with a batter there are dogs at a certain stage in their life that have that can be their lives can be improved through those things or they can help you work through a problem in a certain case you can you have a reset for a dog in a sense and that kind of thing and so there there are benefits but it's like everything once people realize it it's like oh the quick fix like my dog's too happy my dog's too energetic my dog you know oh the boom ssris right right it's it's crazy but i don't think even the the owners realize that it's a i i don't think they're looking for a quick i think the i think it's pushed on them through the whole chain of the the positive trainer and the behavior veterinarian and kind of that whole combo of working together and they haven't even seen the dog and the dog is already on a monthly prescription it's super super upsetting but somehow it's justified and it's supported and it's like a cool thing and oh and as you said there's definitely times where dogs do need it just like people do need it some some people and some dogs they they need to come into peace at least have moments of it and not not be hunted by demons that's different story but for a uh an excited lively playful animal instead of asking well what is the outlet what do you do with that puppy oh let's ride him let's give him something we'll mellow him down no it's infuriating right it's the and the the i mean part of what we should be doing as dog trainers is the opposite of that our things should not be stepping in to fix people's problems because they don't they don't know better necessarily like the first you're the you're the people that are educating them about dogs and in general and like anything that wants like if you're having a conversation with a companion dog owner and saying to them like uh they're like i don't want my dog to bark i don't want my dog to dig i don't want my dog to chase things i don't want my dog to like he gets too excited when i come home like this kind of stuff it's like you want to take his entire dogness away from him at a certain place and it's uh on us to say

like hey like what does he need it's we see the the mirrors and of the same thing in uh in in in human psychology and everything else right the the use of medications for kids with adhd or hyperactivity or stuff like that right there there are children whose lives are imminently improved through that and then there it's become so crazy that if the kid you just have a busy energetic kid and they're like medicate him like right away like he can't sit still for six hours straight so put him on medication right and no appreciation for just the variation in in type right and like that's part of the incredible thing about the dog world right got everything from like pugs to like to malinois and they're completely different creatures and we should have you should have an appreciation for that not a like i want to turn him into something that's absolutely nothing like what he is either right and how do we you know well while making dogs also fit into society like there are rules for living in society for all of us right so where do we find the middle ground on that exactly i like that term dogness that's the third time i hear you say that i love it but it's it's really it's exactly what it is and it's it's actually uh um it it really hits home base again you know because because you you have to i mean it's not even beginner dog trainers it's just like certain type or they just need time to grow up and relax a little bit but allow the dog to to be a dog like you you cannot like it you it doesn't matter how good you are as a dog trainer it's it's i i was gonna say borderline cruel but it's actually cruel if you're gonna make that dog heal all the time around the block and stop at every sidewalk curb and not allow him to sniff and do the dog things and and and and that's why you have the dog he wants to pee he wants to sniff he did this is its life like people are so surprised sometimes when i it's like oh yeah that's how my dog was on leash yes he walks on flexi and yes he's pulling me around and he's doing that it takes we were totally we're totally cut for the same cloth like i i i what's the like if you're a professional trainer you're coaching professional trainers people are always like how do you teach dogs not to pull on the leash how do you make dogs walk politely how to like that's the first thing everybody wants to know that i'm like you know that's the least interesting thing in the whole world of interacting with dogs it's the absolute least interesting part of it to me like my my dogs i walk my dogs exactly like you do like they they learn to do that when i ask them to but

most of our walks they're on a flexi they're out in front of me they're loose like hiking loose and like once i get certain levels of control on them like do they're like would your dog pull on a leash my dog will pull on a leash a little bit if i'm not paying attention and so like it's just like can you make up can i make them walk along like this like you watch people out there walking the like the group dog walkers kill me right that's the ugliest picture in the dog world right a whole bunch of dogs plodding along with their head down not passing the guy like uh not sniffing not like what the hell like and they're and they're walking people's dogs for enrichment that's supposed to be this this is your dog's outing right this is they're at home and that that's what the dog gets to do like great isn't that beautiful like it's depressing yes yes yeah that's a very very it's interesting and it's a it's a fine line between of course you you of course you don't want the dog to jump on the street and get hit by a car you want to be able to say knock it off get back here walk 10 feet along next to me just because i said so not because you're going to get something but because i said so but then go and do whatever you want to do right 100 i i think i think what it's come to and a lot of trainers it's because those dogs get structured nowhere else like so lots i know with lots of companion dog trainers they have owners going out and making structure on the walk because that's the only place they get kind of undivided attention and they don't have structure in the dog's life day to day you and i our dogs have plenty of structure as a part of the regiment of our training regime so that for for my dogs is a blow off steam kind of be a dog and we're compensating for it somewhere else so and i think for a lot of trainers it's like i can't get them to change their habits around the house while they're distracted and they've got kids and they're like that kind of thing but i'm there on a walk that's their time with the dog at least i can get them they're going to be out there for 30 minutes so now do this this and this right which of course destroys the walk for a dog but maybe yeah that's that's where it goes man i don't know why i got back to negative punishment all of a sudden in my head because uh yeah you know what like it always kind of disturbing the the i mean some some of the like i don't know if you've seen the i actually you've just seen the the position statement of the animal veterinarian society behavior and that and i mean i mean it's extreme it's basically you really cannot

like like there is positive reinforcement and there is positive reinforcement yeah nothing else yeah at least in our reality on this planet in our universe that does not work it cannot work like we're we're we're bio i don't think biologically uh were any creatures wired that way right no it's not not the way dogs deal with other dogs evolutionary it's not the way any of us learn about the everything like that's it's that's not the way the world functions and it's a it's a weird arbitrary laboratory type idea and you want to see a huge increase in medicating dogs yeah like make it all positive 100 positive reinforcement is the only tool you have to use like like every dog's gonna have to be medicated it's crazy that's unbelievable yes yes between between the spay and neuter and going against certain breeds and medication we i mean this hopefully we fight against and never happens but if we were to allow this to happen we will have lifeless dogs we will have we will have we would rather have a goldfish in an aqua there is no point of having a dog at this point because that's that's actually the most inhumane thing to to take the purpose of dog's life and just feed it and walk it around the blog it's just just so mind-boggling and the truth is i one of the things that galls me the most about the that position statement or the studies that they are citing to support their their their position is that they're asking the wrong question right off the bat they're asking the question electronic collars or positive reinforcement they're asking the question prong collars or positive reinforcement yes it's it's like uh are you the good person or are you the bad person and you have one answer right now to say oh we touched your heart i want to be who who who in the world doesn't want to be the good person right of course yeah but at the same time as you said we and not we humans but every fucking living thing from from the single cell organism plants mushrooms fungi anything on the planet which i have a fungi story though we did this i'll get to that um but we are fundamentally programming it's like probably the most basic programming we come with and this is approach something good and avoid something bad that's the most fundamental concept generically programmed in billion in in if you for whatever reason didn't fit you were done right approach something pleasant avoid something unpleasant everybody knows you don't need to learn this at school you don't need to this you come fucking programmed with it and when you have

the animal and animal veterinary society of animal behaviorism scratching it off you know it's a biological need and and and and and i have zero zero zero respect towards them at this point right it's it's it's incredibly frustrating right and it is and it and an entire world of people that are advocating for this that don't actually in a day-to-day basis put their hands on dogs and get them to do things and interact with them in a meaningful way right So this is coming from outside that world of experience and trying to influence a world that they don't do on a day-to-day nuts and bolts basis. But it's also so much, that's the most basic piece of it. You approach something pleasant, you avoid something unpleasant. That's at the basis of biology. But beyond that, it gets more complicated too. Think of all the things that we do that are uncomfortable, that we gain intense satisfaction from. Right? So think of, like I, in my youth, obsessed with rock climbing, right? Obsessed with it. Like I want to do it all the time. And there's all kinds of discomforts involved. And there are points where you're scared, really scared. And do you want to do it again? Yeah, you do. Like if you're a certain type of person, then there's something that feels good. The pleasure discomfort paradigm is they're blended. Like there are all kinds of things that way, right? In our lives. And so the idea that any kind of discomfort at all is bad, like, and back to our early discussion of when we were trying to do everything with rewards, with positive reinforcement and negative punishment. Right? We also made dogs that lacked resilience to any kind of stress. Yes. If you shield the dog enough from unpleasant experiences of any kind, they don't learn to cope with them at all either. And life is going to throw them at you. Right? Eventually, you're encountering those things. You don't operate in a bubble. And so we are not preparing the dogs for the real world either. Like in a sense, like it would be like doing the same thing, raising your kid. Like nothing bad is ever going to happen to you. Everyone is going to be nice to you all the time. All the same. Like at some point, they're going to be sorely disappointed and they don't have the tools. Like so we all know that appropriate doses of stress, high levels of stress, we all agree it's not good. It's bad. It's abusive. It's all that sort of thing. But there are levels of stress that help, that make connections more quickly and actually improve an animal's resilience to stressful experiences later on. Right? They're made stronger by that in a sense.

And so we take all that out when you start throwing that stuff out the window. And we cannot avoid, like no matter who you are and what you try, you cannot avoid stress. It's here and it's good and it's bad and it's okay. It should be good and it should be bad. Embrace it. Learn it. Learn it and use it in the best possible way. Why don't we spend time to actually figure it out how to be better at it instead of trying to pretend that it doesn't exist or that we have. I'm going to go there now. I don't think I am, but I am going there. Oh. Evidence-based training. It's science-based. What the fuck does that mean? Like if you tell me that you have this magic solution, I don't care where in the world you are, but I'm going to buy my ticket tomorrow and I'm going to spend a month with you to learn it. Just tell me where to meet you. And I will pay you. I want to know. Yeah. But don't give me the bullshit of saying it's evidence-based. Science says, show me. Fucking show me. It's like, no. Reading something in Elsevier or any of those magazines, scientific, you know, they're kind of becoming crap magazines too. Like I have so much frustrations with this. I don't know why. Because it's like a whole community that it's very, very, who in their right mind will think that somebody that's a dog trainer like you, me, any of the people that probably will watch this, we want to know. If there is a better way. Please. Yeah. I want to know. Absolutely. Show me. Show me. Tell me what I need to do. Show me. But if you tell me that it's evidence-based and that, but you don't want to tell me, you don't want to show me, and I don't see it. I compete. I fucking have been competing in dogs for, I don't know how many years. It's ridiculous. Right? Like 30 years. Yes. Yes. Are there excellent force-free trainers that do sports? Yes, they are. Are they competitive? No, they are not. And that's nothing bad against them. I totally understand them. I, you know, like, I mean, we know Dennis Fensi. We know Shade. I mean, there's excellent trainers. And they have their point of view. And that's how far they go. And they're clear and honest about it. Nothing wrong with that. But when you try to present something in a paper and you say, oh, you know what? That just works better. Or at least just as the same. What is the evidence besides reading your paper? However, why can I not see the study, the videos of the studies? Right. Because you always say that there is videos. Everything is recorded. Everything is watched. Everything is. That should be attached to the study for sure. I would want to see. Oh, there's so many things. Who wouldn't?

Who wouldn't? So many things in that. And one, science's job is not to tell you how things are. Science has no agenda. Science has no bias. Science technically is just a way of evaluating information. It's basically you come up with a hypothesis, what you think. And you set up an experiment to see if you can test it. You take that information. And then you modify that information every time you get new information. It's not like I say that this is what it is. And it's static. Science doesn't have an agenda like that. That's the problem. People say, well, science says this. Well, maybe one experiment at this point. This is our best guess at this point. But serious scientists are always ready to modify what their conclusions are with new information. And so one, it drives me crazy that there's like a hard, fast. Science is just a way of going through the world and kind of reevaluating in a controlled way, trying to eliminate bias, not bake it in. And like the study that everybody refers to when they're talking about banning e-collars and stuff now, the 2014 study, like there's so many things wrong with it. One, let's watch the mechanics of what's happened. Let's see how they did it. Yes. Let's see the dogs, see their reactions. Are you reading their reactions correctly? Do you know? Was there consistency in how the things were applied? Oh, there's so many things. And then five days of training in that day. Like five days. That's ludicrous, man. You're just getting started. I'm just figuring out how you work and making a relationship. Like we're not actually stepping in and fixing your recall problem in five days. Like you're advocating for bad dog training, no matter how you approach it. If you say, I'm going to go in here and see what's most effective in five. There were so many things wrong with that, right? Yes. For the audience, just so I can kind of, because we totally jumped into something crazy here. But just so we are clear, there was a, I mean, there are several studies and we probably can even touch upon them briefly because they are interesting. They are valuable and they do affect dog training and dog trainers very seriously. And I think it's important for us to finally kind of stand up and talk about for a few reasons. One super important reason is you have no idea how much I have tried in the last three years. I have contacted probably every single of the most celebrated force-free PhD, university lab, scientific canines to talk with me. Have an intelligent conversation. Not even a debate. Just bring it on, tell me what you have to tell me, and convince me. But you're avoiding it.

Why are you avoiding it? What are you afraid? If you're a scientist, if you're a real scientist, and you're coming up with something, don't you want to be challenged? A real scientist wants to be challenged. A hundred percent. Why are you avoiding it? And so what we're talking about is the, it's in England, that 2014 study, the welfare consequences and efficacy of training pet dogs with remote electronic training colors in comparison to reward-based training. And it was a professor, Daniel Mills. And like in this podcast, you and me, this is like the first time I'm openly frustrated because, again, after three years, literally three years, I've been trying to talk with them. And I guess the beauty, you know how we were talking about today's social media? Well, I don't need to talk to you. I can just give my opinion to everybody that wants to listen, and they can decide for themselves. If you don't want to defend your position, I'm not going to be silenced. Too bad. Too bad. Too bad. Maybe playing with the dog, but everything else is a no-go. And so I actually tried to talk to him. I tried. I tried to a few of them, and it's just about somebody to try to talk, and then they pull away, and I never hear back from them. And it's frustrating because, ultimately, as I said, we want to know. We want to learn, and we want to be better. And when you tell me that it's evidence-based and that it's science-based and that it works better, but you don't want to show me, and you don't want to answer me questions, but instead you're doing the dumbest thing of banning and putting legislations in all sorts of different governments, show me one thing in the world that ban actually worked for better. Never. Yeah, virtually none. Never. And especially, like, they're talking, the thing that caught my, the variety of things that caught my attention in reading that, but one of them was the idea that these tools shouldn't be available because people have poor timing, and they lose their temper, and if they get frustrated, they can cause all this damage. And you think, oh, taking this tool away from somebody is going to change their nature. They're going to suddenly have better timing, or they're not going to get frustrated and lose their temper. They'll get frustrated and lose their temper, and they'll do something else. Like the little video you sent me the other day. The other day, somebody's going to kick a dog. They're going to smack it in the head. They're going to do something else. That's, there are going to be people out there, and our job is to show people the right way,

to teach them the skills to do it appropriately, to avoid all of that. But, yeah, are people going to get angry? You banning the tool is not going to make suddenly, rid the world of frustrated people with anger issues, right? They're going to find some other way to do it. We've all seen it. We all know. It is far more dangerous. Far more dangerous. Everything goes underground. Everything goes. It cannot be more dumbest idea that I, you know, but it's somehow politically correct, because you can make politicians go with it. It's like, oh, I'm a dog lover. I have a soft spot for dogs. And meanwhile, let me go into the real shit that I need to push through in my agenda in the whatever government I am with. But that's like a, oh, dogs. Yes, we are good. We don't, we don't, like all over, all over Europe right now. Let me see how it goes. Because the, if you, you cannot inflict pain or something like this. And, and, you know, again, you're, you're completely disregarding our biological programming. It's in our DNA. And you cannot, you cannot, just like you cannot fuck with a dog that genetically wants to do something and you, you can keep suppressing it. Maybe you're going to succeed. But if there is no outlet, it's going to go nuts. Sooner or later, something's going to just blow up. And the same thing, you can, no matter how many legislations, no matter what you do, no matter how you demonize and look down on dog trainers, saying that this is bad, this is horrible, this is whatever. Positive reinforcement is a solution. No, it's not. We clearly know that it's not. And unless we spend time and figure it out how to do it better, we will continue to see people like that, that shitty video that I just watched it one time. And it's going to stay with me for a while. Yep. I'm the same. I'm on the same boat. I think there's this black and white nature to everything. People want a simple, concrete explanation. Is this better than this? Is this right? Or is this wrong? Whatever. And there's some part, and there's a complete lack of appreciation for complexity and nuance, right? So when we say discomfort, it's like there's either discomfort or there's not discomfort. No. There's an infinite parallel, an infinite kind of progression of levels of discomfort from very mildly uncomfortable to extreme, right? And we're talking about it, we're trying to talk about it in a simple way. Like the E-College study, they're talking about like, can I, I could, a leash on a dog. A leash on a dog, I can use incredibly subtly and non-aversively. I can use it mildly aversively. I can use it intensely aversively, right?

And there's all these various degrees of things. So the question isn't whether or not there should be any discomfort or not discomfort or any stress or not. It's the degree. There's a level. And it's going to be different from dog to dog. And so when people are looking for simple answers, it's the tool. That's a simple answer. Electrocuting a dog's bad. That's a sick oversimplification. But it's easy for somebody. And for somebody that doesn't know anything, it makes sense. They're talking to a wider audience. This is why the politicians get on. They don't know anything about dog training and they don't care. Like this looks like a popular idea. Like if I come out in favor of the anti-cruel-eating dogs. The good versus the bad. Exactly. Exactly. So for them. Oh, I'm a good politician. So for them, it's a no-brainer. Like, of course, I'll support this. Like people. But of course, that's a complete. That's not the way any of it should work. And instead of banning the tool, all of our energies should be put into teaching people how to use it appropriately and when it's right and when it's not. Like, because you and I both are on the same boat. Like I see people out there slapping e-collars on puppies and doing all kinds of stuff. It drives me mad. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But so do all kinds of other stuff that people do with dogs and development. It drives me crazy. It's just not good dog training. So do we say, okay, take that tool away from everybody? Or do we try to teach them how to use it correctly? And when it's not the tool for every situation and it doesn't need to be used on every dog in every circumstance. Great. We all acknowledge that. We don't have any problem with it. It's like that, should we use e-collars or should we use positive reinforcement? We should use all the tools at our disposal appropriately for the dog that's in front of us at a given situation. And that's, but that's a complex discussion and complex discussions are challenging when it comes to policymaking. Right? People don't want to hear that. They want to hear like, well, which one's better? Right. Which just is the wrong way to think about it, in my opinion. Right? Yeah. That was, I mean, with that specific study, the 2014 with Jonathan Cooper and Daniel Mills and them, you know, like totally, like just, like this was the culminative point to me where you, I realized that there is just, they just feed from each other and support each other. And probably, and this is just my speculations because I, I don't know why otherwise they would be doing this, but they getting grants for research. There is students that need to get their PhDs.

There is tests, there is masters, you know, they, they have to write papers. It's guaranteed at this environment, at this landscape that we live at the moment, it's guaranteed that if you use the magical words and you go with positive reinforcement and force free and welfare and, and so on. And then you say shocking the dogs. Who's going to get the funding? Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I think this is a serious part of why they are avoiding the conversation. Because people are making, people are making conclusions from their research that they might not even make if you ask them. Right. And so they don't want to be put out there to defend the conclusions being made from it potentially too. Right. Because the people have picked that up and are running with it in a way that maybe speaks beyond what they intended. Maybe they did intend. I don't think the study was constructed well, but regardless, maybe they intended to have a well-constructed study and now they can feel the bias because it feels like they wanted a conclusion from it, from the way they constructed it. A hundred percent, Michael. It started with a conclusion. All of those studies start with a conclusion and going backwards, finding a way how to prove it. It's all, it's so clear in everything that I do. And what is even more disturbing is then the study comes in 2014, and then from the same university, another graduate student that needs to get PhD, writes a thesis. Goes back to the same study and says, yes, that study is right. And basically points out the same crap that already has been said. And now it becomes a scientist. And nothing like, I don't know, I should not be talking this with so much animosity, but I'm furious. And the reason I'm furious is because they avoid the conversation. And I've been trying to have that conversation in a very intelligent level. And everybody's avoiding it for some reason. That study, guys, just so you understand, it's like, well, let's find out which dogs, which training is going to work better. Positive reinforcement, reward-based, evidence-based, or punishment. Electric color. And punishment-based training, this is another thing that we will go to this, because I have no idea what the fuck that means. Punishment, punishment-based training. But... So you don't want the dog to do anything, is what you're saying. That's what punishment-based training is, because, like, because it only stops behavior. How can it be even a term? Punishment-based training. Like, what are you training? What are you training? You don't create behaviors without reinforcement, right?

Like, behaviors don't happen that way. You stop things, you stop doing things. Right, right. A punishment-based trainer, their dog just doesn't move. So, back to the studies, just so everybody kind of gets on board with us. They... Chasing sheep is a big problem. Chasing farm animals in UK is a serious problem. And people let dogs run, because there is land, but there is also livestock. And they chase and kill livestock daily, in big numbers. And it's a big, big problem. So, the study, they divided in three groups, of course. There is control group. There is a... You know, everybody is wearing collars. They are supposed not to know who is actually being tapped on the collar. But how would you not know? The one guy has a control in his hand, and the other one doesn't. The one dog goes, ah, I got tapped. The other one doesn't. I mean, where is the blind studying that? I don't get it. They do it in two completely different, not even different neighborhoods, different... One is in Scotland, one is somewhere in England. One is in springtime, and the other one, they do it in Scotland, in the worst possible weather, like a record. Like, I actually really... I talk to... Because I'm seriously trying to dig deep into, because I'm very curious to find out. Like, I'm just very sincerely curious to know. How do you guys do it? Like, show me. If you say that it's working, why are you so secretive? There is videos, right? Well, guess what? I do have some videos now. I do have some pictures now. So... Yes. Interesting. We can look at them. I can pull them off, because you will be... I know you're curious to see. Oh, yeah. And there are so many things beyond the ones you described, too, that they did five days. Absurd. They evaluated dogs day one, three, and five. But the other thing is, on day five, they gave the dogs back to the hand. To the owner. Yes. Not the person that trained, that had been working with the dog for the previous four days. And then they judged the efficacy of their methodology that way. Like, there's so many things about it that just are like, oh, my God. And you were talking about dogs that have predatory instincts to chase livestock. Show me one dog that likes to chase a dead squirrel. Or a sick squirrel that's just crawling on the ground. None. Zero. Ever. Like, I use it in every time I do play, and I teach people to play, and I'm like, okay, well, yeah, you're really moving that toy like a dead squirrel. There is no way you can trigger anything from within that dog to want to grab it. Without movement. Right? Yeah. So, guess what? There is three sheep in a playpen.

And the playpen is, man, as I'm talking, I'm going to try to share this because it's really ridiculous. So, what predatory instinct you're talking about? Right. I mean, seriously, what in the world is this? Who will, what? I mean, if a dog wants to kill a sheep right now, it's a very different problem than the dogs that actually chase sheep on the fields in England. Right. A very different problem. Yeah, the dog's loose. It's away from handler influence. It's already been activated by predatory behavior. It's in the act of chasing. There's so many things there that are. Yes. Not realistic, right? So, and yeah. Anyway. So, and the whole idea too is not like the idea that any good training program wouldn't be about just going in on day one and making strong avoidance or trying to reinforce an alternative behavior. It's going to be both of those things, right? Correct. And that's a process. It takes time. It should be taught away from that environment and transferred the environment. They all, you know, complain about the possibilities of superstitious associations with electric collars, the dog associating with something in the environment, all that. That's just a bad use of a tool, right? We all know, as somebody that uses the tool relatively regularly, we know how to avoid the dog's head taking that, taking the information that way. And it's through appropriate teaching, right? And so it's infuriating on one level to, because they're saying this is an appropriate experiment that I could draw a conclusion in this amount of time with this number of repetitions. We could like all that kind of thing about whether a methodology is effective. Right. Do you see that on the screen? Yeah. The border collie with the head halty on? Exactly. Exactly. So are you trying to convince me that this is like the force free approach with the most restrictive, aversive equipment? Dogs hate those things. Yeah. A seriously aversive tool. It's the only piece of equipment that the dog is very much a certain dog. I mean, dog that is lifeless dog. They don't mind. They, okay, put whatever you want. But any dog that immediately you put this on, they're like, you just restricted me from doing anything. Oh, yeah. Well, I have a problem with that. Oh, a huge problem. And how is it possible that the force free movement adopted head halters? Right. As they're like, are you kidding me? Like, pull a hundred dogs and see what the worst. There you go. Right. And when does it say that in the study you never see that they never say that the dogs were wearing halties or anything like that? Right.

So the problem is now, like, the vast majority, I was going to say the vast majority of people aren't going to look at that. They just look at the conclusion. And now it's buried seven layers deep. Right. So now that study is cited in a little citation in some other position paper. Yeah. And it gets further and further removed. It's already been taken into the community as gospel, which is a major problem. Right. This is the big, big problem. And the thing is, I mean, those photos and the little short video clips that I have, nobody sees those. I have tried literally for three years. I have tried to approach it in any possible way you can think of to see anything about those studies. And not just this one. There is the other one that was, I mean, there was a really big one. And I think it was, let me see so I don't make mistakes here because I know I have notes. It's 2003. That's kind of where it all started. Training dogs with help of the shock collar, short and long-term behavior effects. Matthias Schiedler and Joanne van der Borg. Holland, University of Utrecht, Netherlands, 2003. I actually tried so hard. And finally, I reached out to somebody. And I'm not going to say her name because she clearly refused to be on the podcast. But it's nothing really to do with it. But just like with every study, they have videos. Nobody sees those videos. Like if you're convincing me of something, you cannot just tell me, well, trust me. No, trust me. We are scientists. It's evidence-based. But show me the fucking evidence. It's so easy. It's so easy. And in fact, you know what? You don't even need to show me the evidence. I would see, I train dogs every day I go around the world just like you do. Like we see dog training every day from every single corner of the world. Anything new, we will know. Anything new that works, we will know. Anything dumb, maybe we will know. Maybe we will not. But guaranteed, everything that's worked and it's better. Lightning, lightning fast. We will know. Right? Like I always talk about this. Flip phones. Did they need to ban them so we can use smartphones? Right. Did they need studies to tell us that it's not really, trust us. We've done a research. The flip phone doesn't work as good as a smartphone. No. No. Yeah. Of course not. Yeah. And the truth is like, so who's, so they use lots of measures of body language to measure perceived stress levels. Right. And who is evaluating that? Not the people that are experts in dog body language, the people that do it every day. Right. So they have a veterinarian on board. Right.

And a veterinarian is an expert in canine medicine, not in canine body language, in my experience, in my personal experience. Right. They would go bonkers if I'm out there diagnosing dogs without a medical degree, but oh yeah, they're going to listen to the veterinarian before they're going to listen to the person that spent their entire life watching and manipulating dogs. I assume they must attribute some kind of sinister motive to our wanting to keep these tools there. Like there's something about, like if electronic collars did what they said they did and didn't work, I wouldn't use them. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't own one. Right. There's no way I'd be advocating against them in every possible way. We all want it to be the best thing for the dog. Like. No question. No question. There's, there's a hundred percent. And so if somebody could literally show me in a meaningful way that that was the case, but we all, we all know from actual personal experience that we use correctly, that's not the case. Like the dogs aren't damaged and they're better. Their lives are opened up and more fulfilled because they can do more things and go more places. And there are so many things about it that it's, that's that, that are frustrating. Like, and I'm, I'm with you, like, because that the other position is so much easier to sell to the average person that doesn't know any better. We have to be extra careful about our, um, our demeanor. Like, so I always try to be like, Hey, calm, cool, collected about this. It's not personal. Like I, we just are trying to, to very clearly figure out what the best thing is for the dog. And so they have an, uh, an easy sell and lots of trainers now get worried about their, uh, their reputations with clients that, you know, people are out there with electronic collars on with bandanas over them so that they, that people don't see them and things like that, which of course lends energy to the, the, uh, argument that they should be banned. Right. That trainers are saying like, see, they're covering them up. Cause they know that, you know, it's, we, we have to have an honest, frank discussion, but we have to be extra, um, calm and thoughtful about our approach because, because the, theirs is an easier sell to somebody that doesn't know any better. What they're selling is way easier than what we're selling. Ours may, where I, I believe we're correct, but, uh, but they have an easier sell. And so it, I, I, I, you like, as we get passionate and get frustrated, it's because we're, we're together. We both have been battling this battle now for years. Yes.

It really, because it's a, I, I, I hate to, to get that kind of, I, I, I, I don't know. I don't think I even, I don't think I've ever been that upset and frustrated on my, on my podcast as I am right now. Cause we just kind of hit a spot that's been just boiling. It's boiling, you know? Yes. It's a, it's really like, sometimes you use some words and they don't really match what's going on, but, but this is really, this is fraudulent research. These are fraudulent papers and, and no one, no one, no, none of them openly want to, uh, um, come and discuss, you know, and talk. And it's a joke, um, and, but they continue to convince, continue to get grants and it's truly just a wasteful, uh, expenditure of, of, of, of money and research funds, you know, for like, they can use, like we literally can move men with all this science canine labs that are around. If they sincerely want to do the best and understand how dog training and how dog behavior and how dog emotions really work, you cannot fucking disregard that other side of life. This is just, you cannot, it's upsetting. Watch this. I'm going to show you right now. Um, let me see how I can, can I play it like this? Do you see it? Yep. It's one of the dogs of the study. It's the, it's the, it's a positive dog, uh, handled by a positive per trainer with the head halter on. And, and of course it has, they're trying to put electric collar for the blind study. I mean, but anyway, I'll let it, I'll let the video speak to itself. It's super happy that dog right now. It's like, can you get the fuck away from me? And then they're controlling it with the halter, which makes it stress about that fights against that mouthing against that. So, but this is not mentioned in the, this is, you think this is not an important piece? You think there is no, nothing aversive about that? What did we just saw? Yeah. A hundred percent. Oh yeah, no, exactly. Why, why are you doing this? I mean, why are you doing this? And why, why avoid the conversation? Uh huh. Yeah. Well, it's the same early on in like my discussions with purely force free trainers. There were some well-respected kind of pioneers in that world that were became kind of gurus of that world. And they, uh, I, I saw numerous of them do things to dogs that the dogs definitely found aversive, but they would tell everyone out there that they were doing everything with the giving and withholding of rewards. Right. And yet they'd raised their voice with a border collie, which that dog found strongly aversive. The dog's like, Oh, right. You could see the change of body language. And in some way they're there.

I'm not using a prong collar, but that doesn't mean you're not being aversive. Right. And the head halters, we both know, of course, are like, unless you spend huge amounts of time habituating and preparing the dog for these, the dogs hate those things. They find them strongly aversive. Right. And so there's so many of those, those false kind of, um, uh, narratives out there, right. That people are saying, look, I did all this with, with the, without any of the, those tools, but that doesn't mean you didn't do something else. Right. Yeah. And I don't know, uh, personally, and if somebody can show me one, uh, a well, what we would call a well-trained dog in a variety of environments, like take the dog in unpredictable environments and still have control of those dogs. That's a force-free train dog. Like, are there good for you were saying before there, are there good force-free trainers out there? Yes. Are there good force-free trainers? Are they competitive in the world of dog sports? No. And if they are at all successful, they're successful in a very controlled environment. Yes. Like in their, in their little Skinner box, right? It has to, with their Skinner box, maybe an agility field, or it may be something like that, but you're controlling within a very narrow parameters. Exactly. Exactly. The dolphin, the bathtub for the dolphin may be a little bit bigger, but still in a bathtub. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And so it's almost like at this point, it's such a ridiculous discussion to us to be having this really basic discussion about stuff that we all accepted as true a long time ago, but we're forced, we're forced into this position now. Like they're talking about banning these tools. They're talking about really changing dogs' lives. And you want to talk about dogs dying as a result of that and medic being medicated as a result of those changes, all that kind of stuff. Dogs' lives inherently made worse because of that. So now we have to have a discussion about something that we've accepted as true years ago, like without any. And so we're having to have a ridiculous discussion over and over again about this stuff. And that's where the frustration comes from for me. And I'm sure for you too, right? You know? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, like this is the, and I've always been surprised why the Europeans bend over. It's just, okay. I think in the beginning when I was there, I think they were talking how, oh, this just publicity, whatever. We're still going to do what we want to do. That's just some little, just to make certain communities happy. And little by little, one step at a time.

Right now, you're a criminal. You're a horrible person. You just like, it's, it's a nightmare. I think that the problem with the Europeans is, and this is, we can learn from this, right? Is you're right. Early on, they thought, ah, you know, it's that we'll continue to do what we want. When it started to get restrictive, serious trainers would kind of hide it. They'd go someplace where they could use what tools they wanted to use. They would not do it for public consumption, which is the exact opposite of what should be happening. Right. Because you, again, the, the double-edged sword of the internet is people that want to advocate against the use of these tools can go out there and find all kinds of examples on YouTube of people using these tools inappropriately. Yep. And, and so then they have all the, see, look, look, look. So unless people like us that are experienced start to step up and speak out and do the work publicly, like it always drove me crazy. And I'm sure you too, in the, the world of competitive sports and even in pet dog training, to some degree, people do inboards because they want to do things to dogs that they wouldn't do in front of a client. Right. Right. I'll take the dog over here and I'll do it. Sport trainers. Like I'll do this off the field where nobody can watch me that like, that's horrible. I'll do anything that I would do in front of everybody. Like there's nothing that I would do to a dog that I wouldn't do in front of everyone. Bring the whole reward-based training world out. Like let's do it. And then let's have a discussion about why what works works and why it doesn't like it should be a moment for us to talk. And I think people were avoiding the confrontation of it thinking, ah, it's a passing thing. And then it got too late for them and now they're in trouble. And so we can, we can learn from the way the European trainers did not stand up to it appropriately at the time they should have. Right. You got me thinking now, like if I am one of those scientists, a professor in a canine science lab, and I'm not, hopefully that's not an actual name of a lab because I don't have any, anything in specific. But if I was one of them and I have a grant, I'll be like, let's, let's see that bad thing. Like what can we do to make it better as a project? Can we, can we use aversives in a humane and better way, an effective way? No, we don't do that research. Why? Because it's a bad, it's devil. It's like, no, this, you're, you're already a horrible person just thinking about this kind of research.

And, but the beauty of dog training and dog trainers combined with social media right now, it's kind of like UFC, the martial arts, the fighting. It's like, no, you can, you can talk all you want on your keyboard. You can be the best in your gym or in your little lab. You can be like the leader of your tribe, but eventually you have to go in that ring and fight somebody. And you're either going to lose or you're going to win. And then if you lose a few times, you lost my interest. And, and, and dog training is the same thing. I think we, you know, like going out in a monduring field, putting the dog naked, letting him work for 40 minutes. Do it all positive. If I promise you, I promise you, if you do it better than everybody else, all these studies, you can just fucking burn them. Nobody will care. And everybody going to run to you. Yep. A hundred percent. But don't give me an agility as an example. Don't, you know, like, no, I'm not interested in sports where only negative punishment can kind manage certain things. Let's deal with competing reinforcers and show me how you're going against that. But instead what they do in Europe, they're trying to ban all these protection sports because they don't have answers to them. That's my opinion. And now it's bleeding over to the world of real life. It is. It is. It is. Yeah. So it's going to bleed over into the world of. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But just. And detection dogs. Yeah. Just to finish this with like, you know, how you. Then, then they try to ban protection sports altogether. They're almost, almost there in Europe. They're pushing it. They're at the door. They're not understanding that if we master how to deal with competing reinforcers at that level without total suppression, with actually dog that enjoys to do it. And we know how to do that. Why are you not interested in this? It's like the best lifelong free lab that doesn't need any grants. And you have thousands and thousands of volunteers. And you have something to show. Come there. We're waiting. We're hungry. Right? Yeah. Well, I think that's the thing about IGP that changed the methodologies there. Was the, you, they, they took the emphasis strictly off aesthetics. I mean, off of efficacy and they made an aesthetic component. Right? So this is what I'd love to see in done in ring sport too. Right? It doesn't have to be the whole program. Like IGP, the dog doesn't have to be as fast as it can be. And as animated as can be, but they should have at least one exercise feeling, achieving where your dog has to show animation and lack of showing lots of, lots of classic stress signs. Right.

And a lot. And then suddenly that, that impetus, because trainers, competitive trainers, one of the beauty of competition is one, you have to prove it. Like you could, no amount of talking that's going to get there. The second thing is it breeds innovation. Like we all want to do it better. And if you make part of doing it better, that the dog has to enjoy its job. You can't have a dog out there. Like we've seen in certain circumstances, a dog with his ears pinned back and its tail tucked to his stomach doing the behaviors because it's a genetically certain type of specimen that will absorb that and still do the job. That's a different thing. But if we put a slight aesthetic component on it, suddenly everybody has to innovate and they will, they'll innovate and they'll find better ways. And that, and then that trickles down through the whole dog community, right? That gets transferred to other ways of thinking about things. So we're talking about controlling dogs in very high states of arousal, which is the problem with predatory sheep chasing, livestock chasing, and all kinds of issues that people have with dogs. The experts are the people doing what we're doing, controlling dogs in very high states of arousal humanely, right? Exactly. That's why I say, that's why I say that's our lab because it is. That's exactly why you don't want to take that away. You'll learn how it just, I'm not going to even repeat what you said, but I feel like I should because it's so critically important. And any of the top trainers of protection sports, of any of the protection sports that are actually credible protection sports, does well consistently for two years, which is, for some may seem like it's very easy, but it's fucking not easy. It's hard. They, that person will instantly have followers and not followers like social media followers, but people that are striving to learn. Teach me. Come to my seminar. No, come here. No, come here. No, show it to the whole fucking world because you have something the others don't. And meanwhile, we have the doc scientist with the research making a YouTube video that has 100 views. So that's not working. Nobody wants, nobody believes you because you're not giving enough. If there is something, you're not giving it. So why would I? But that other person already, the whole world knows about him and knows the method. And strangely enough, it goes all the way around and reaches the force free trainer and then somehow think that it's their shit. And it's so easy to, like, no, you guys are totally lost. I'm sorry.

Like, most of the most innovative and high level trainers and thinkers come from dogs protection sports. And, you know, because it's challenging. You're dealing in a very different, it's very different. And, and, and of course, you know, it's like anything. It's complicated in that I, every time I'm, I'm coaching somebody that's new to dog training, I'm like, explore the world of competition. You may not be the person that wants to make it your life, but you have to explore that world. That's where the change is happening. That's where the people that live and breathe this stuff are creating new and better ways of thinking about this. And if you're interested in competition, check, you got to check your ego though. Right? So there's true that they're in competition there. The other, the, the other side of the coin is that people become so goal oriented that they stop caring about the dog and they stop looking at, right? But you won't be successful for long that way, but you check yourself like, and what I, what I doing here, the right thing for the dog. And when am I putting a square peg in a round hole genetically, all the things that, where that can, that can be inhumane, but it's, it's the lab for. Yes. For us to progress. I, I, I just, that, that little piece that you just said, I feel like it's in my course. Like I have a module about this, that I talk like that exact same thing. Like you, if you're really going to be serious about dog training and you don't want to just stay behind and talk how great you are and trash everybody else. Go in, put your feet there. It doesn't matter what level, what like that. I'm not interested. Is it not everybody has, everybody has different goals, but go in and play at one time. Experience it. It's so fucking valuable. Experience it. And hang around those people. Yes. As you've experienced it too. Yes. Stay in that. There's a community there that will lead you to better ways of thinking about things. These are the people that really want to figure it out badly. So that's the people you want around you with anything you're passionate about, right? Do you want to, you want the people that are the most successful and the most innovative and the most thoughtful around you so that you don't hit a level of complacency, right? It's easy in certain aspects. Why, why would scientists be not interested in this? Like what, what, what, what, what is wrong? If, again, if I'm the scientist, I will be like, hey, you guys are doing something that is supposedly the most horrible thing that you can do on a dog. And look at that dog. He's happy as fuck. He's enjoying every moment.

You can do saliva, urine, shit, whatever test you want. He will be who you see he is. He's ecstatic about doing what he does because he's genetically made to do. He's working with his person and they have accomplished a level of mastery that you don't understand. And because you don't understand it, you're either trying to put legislations to ban it or. Right. But, man, like I'm just really trying to be in their minds. And if I'm a dog man, the way I am right now, who I am, who you are. And you know, you actually know that you can open that door and see, hey, they're doing something that is supposed to be very wrong. But actually, they have mastered it. And it works better than anything else. If I'm that scientist, even if I go against the propaganda, the ideology, the tribe, even if I need to hide, I could not help myself but to find out what the hell is going on there. Because I'm a dog trainer, you know. How are they not curious about it? And maybe they are, too. But most of them are have some other kind of underlying education. Right. So they're up in some university at a certain level. And maybe they studied just general biology or some narrow avenue of biology or something like that. And they're looking for a connection in it, in animals or behavior there. And maybe they're not passionate about dogs in the way that we're passionate about dogs. Right. So there's something about that. You know, maybe they're passionate about the underlying science of the subject. I would still think they would want to get it right. But, you know, what motivates us, like we would, as you said before, we'd turn ourselves inside out to if we thought somebody had a better way of doing something. Right. If suddenly it's out there that I think somebody is doing really good work that that is something different than what I'm doing. Oh, I want to know. I want to see it immediately. We're the same on that front. But that's not necessarily the case. They're just looking at it as this is a project and then I'll have another project. Pretend. But I'm just guessing, you know, without knowing any of them personally. Right. And there's something about being detached from a subject in certain cases that can allow you to see it more clearly, too. And then there are other times where you don't understand the nuance when you're detached. So, yeah. So, I have the printout from the position statement of the Humane Dog Training here. What I'm going to do, what I'm going to do is I'm going to randomly pick some lines. I swear, randomly. Okay. And we have three minutes for each line. Okay. All right. Here we go.

Evidence supports the use of reward-based methods for all canine training. Evidence supports the use of reward-based methods. What the hell does that even mean? For all canine. Exactly. It's solid. With the right keywords. That you're just hearing the keywords. And you don't need to make sense. This is where the brains are right now. I'll repeat it again. Evidence supports the use of reward-based methods for all canine training. Wow. True. Okay. Who would fucking argue that? Now, based on these factors, reward-based learning offers the most advantages and least harm to the learner. I mean, that's powerful. Yeah. It is. It's a powerful statement that doesn't actually mean much either, right? And how do you test for that? Like, why would you even, like, why do you, I mean, are you just kind of trying to use this fancy words in sentence that people are like, I'm not getting it. I must be really dumb. No, you're not dumb. And when the purely reward-based trained dog, you know, gets run over or something like that, then was that providing for its better welfare? I don't suppose it would be. Are you ready? Oh, no. Yeah, go ahead. Current literature on dog training methods shows a clear advantage of reward-based methods over aversive-based methods with respect to immediate and long-term welfare, training effectiveness, and the dog-human relationship. Wow. I mean, wouldn't you, who, let me ask you, who are you? Don't you want to be that person? Who wouldn't? Yeah. Who would not want to be that person? And then, conversely, I would like to find one skilled dog trainer that learned dog training from the literature. Right. Right. Literature is not how we learn dog training. It can give you new ideas, support things, but learn dog training in the field. But this is a very, kind of one of their favorite slogans for years now, the, you know, the evidence-based versus punishment-based training. Yeah. They have an easy sell. Like, you're talking to a whole bunch of people that haven't actually got out there and put their hands on it and gone through it. And so, that's an appealing sounding mission statement. And it's an appealing sounding encapsulation of, and ridiculous oversimplification, but it's appealing. So, it's easy for them to sell that at some point. And so, somebody, I said before that it's more about the people that really believe that on some level. It's about them. Like, it's not dogs. There's just no way you can be in the world and see a lot of dogs of all the different temperaments that we see and the different types and actually believe that.

That you can effectively control and train and make full the lives of dogs strictly with positive reinforcement. Like, it's nonsense. So, if they're adhering to that idea, it's for some other motive. Something in the way they view the world, their trauma, or the fact that they have, that it's easy for them to sell, too. Like, it's easy to tell people that, and they take it. And when you start talking about the other tools, then that's a harder sell for somebody that doesn't know any better, right? Especially, like, have you ever heard anybody, like, in person talking about punishment-based training? No. I haven't either. Like, I would love to meet that person just to ask him, like, what do you mean? Like, can you, like, elaborate a little bit? Because I don't understand it. Like, you're just saying, really pink elephants and the worst nightmare of your life. That doesn't, it's not a conversation. But, like, when you say punishment-based training, what is it? Like, what do you mean? Because there is no such a thing. It can't exist. I mean, what would it be? You let a dog engage with the environment, don't give them any feedback or anything other than when they do stuff you don't want them to do. How cool would it be if we wanted to actually brainstorm and unite and learn from each other? Because they do things. They have opportunities. They're valuable, freaking unbelievably valuable. Oh, my God, yeah. Imagine if we work together. Imagine, like, imagine if you and I go to the APDT conference this year. And we don't even present. We just walk in, ask us. Anything you want to know, we'll talk to you. Whatever you want to know. We're not going to try to convince you in anything. We're just going to tell you answers. Let's do it. They will not do it. There is no. This is a cult. I mean, I'm sorry to say it, but this is not a cult. This is a cult. And if you have you, I mean, I listen to all of their presentations. I, you know, like I would never not listen. I'm, again, we're dog people. We're interesting. If you have something cool, thank you. Congratulations. I know how they are. They, they, they're just such a cult that if you, if you. Anything that challenges their way of thinking. You're out. You're not invited. It's a shame. But the thing in, you're mentioning it, all of us kind of coming together to brainstorm better ways. The same thing. I would, I would love to have the opportunity to bend the scientific community towards, towards real useful studies.

Like the idea is like, I would love to know some of the genetic differences and whether those are identifiable in certain ways with dogs at different times or propensities there. Or does this dog have like high, is there something different in their makeup that makes them more addicted to adrenalized type behavior and that kind of stuff? Yes. There's lots of ways that we could talk about. Let's do negative reinforcement. Let's do blind study. I'll, I'll train a dog. I'll train a dog. I'll train two dogs. And you will not know which one was trained through negative reinforcement and which one was trained through positive reinforcement. You will not know. That would be interesting to you. Would I, I mean, how would it not be interesting to you? Yeah, it should be. Right? Absolutely. And, and ways in which they could help us be better instead of like they're, they're trying to identify like really broad polarizing topics instead of giving, trying to find information that the dog community could build on. Always going for the worst case scenario, the worst example, and it's not even an example. It's all hypothetical, all fictitious. Bunch of the early studies on electric color. They're like, yes, it works. And actually the, whatever fearful experience is very brief and they recover and they actually, the training lasts. And so almost all studies in the early ones say that, but then they have to backpedal and still say, well, but then the group of dogs that was randomly shot, didn't want to enter the training room anymore. So therefore we need to ban electric colors. That's, that's the, and the next thing you know, the study after doesn't cite the, hey, if you do it right, it works very well. But goes to the hypothetical part that what if some, the most dumbest idiot, you give him a remote control and he just does that. Yes. He will fuck up the dog. Yes. And so that part is taken from that study. And then the next one. And by the time it's 2022, they're referencing a list of bullshit that nobody has time to look and actually expose it. And nobody wants to talk, to come and talk about those things. Frustrating. Let's talk, let's change something else. Yeah. Go ahead. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Cheers. Let me, let me just sip some. So what about, let's talk dog sports, man. Yes. I think we're coming from a few different, and at the same time, the same things. Very few people probably know that, I mean, they know you as the Monduring guy, but they don't know that you and I and Kathy O'Brien and whatever, it was like the first train in the States.

And like, and it was right in the early, like whatever was at 90 something, very early. Yeah, early 90s, 93, 94 in there, for sure. Early 90s, right after Monduring landed here, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You were immediately intrigued by it, too. Like, for all of us, I came up through IGP, Schutzen, like you did. And there are many really interesting things to be learned in that discipline. Which is, which is where, where exactly where I was going to. Just give, give me, give me a little bit about Mondio. Let's, let's, let me, let me hear your passion about the sport. One of, so it comes from two angles. One is the, the focus on generalization, like we talked about before. Like, so it has all the exciting protection stuff that we like. It has, the dogs have to demonstrate like extreme athletic ability and all the things that kind of get us excited about, about the dogs that we play around with. But on top of that, there's the changing environment and that, and the deliberate effort by a judge to set up things that can sort of foil your training. And, but within parameters that make it fair, if you're thinking properly, then you can prepare a dog for novelty. Like if I can construct a dog that's properly prepared and there are points at which everything has to be very predictable for them. But if I do a good job of educating that dog, that dog can then make a leap to a new situation it's never seen and solve the problem correctly. And then, and then some of the other stuff about. That's kind of how I'll let you, I'll let you go on, but that's exactly how I see it as well. It's a, it's probably the most masterful sport of the generalization discrimination stage of learning. Right. It's, it's, there is nothing like it. It's a mind fucking game and it's beautiful. Yeah. And, and just as you said, when the environment starts to change, if you are smart trainer, you're teaching concepts. You're not teaching. And then the dog understand how to function because he understands the concept instead of just, oh, this is what I do right now, right here. And that's the cool, there's so many cool things. Anyway, I just wanted to say that, but go on. You encapsulated that perfectly. That idea that one, something that we preach all the time, if you're a dog trainer is that it's built on skills and concepts. And if I do my job and then that those skills and concepts are easily transferable to new situations at a certain point. And, and, and then the exercises that allow the dog some freedom for personal expression of a style. A dog within parameters, you can recognize something in a dog that they do differently.

And I don't have to change that about them if it's effective in that sport. They're given a little leeway for personality within it, which is kind of cool. I love to see that kind of expression and then exercises like the object guard and stuff where the dog is left on their own to, to, to deal with the problem out of the influence of the handler in a sense. And, and putting that together, it's just kind of fascinating to me. And then the, the, the other thing that brought me to it is just a love of Malinois. So when I first met my first Malinois and got, we, we just clicked. Like, I'm like, this is the dog that I was born to have, right? Like we get each other. I like you. Like there's, I'm like, this is great. And my first introduction to them was I I'd seen some in Chutzen and IGP clubs, but some videos of Belgian ring and stuff. And I was like, Whoa, what is that? Like, and so some part of Mondial ring is kind of the closest thing to Belgian ring that's available to us. And so that pulled me over into that world as well. Right. So also it's an international sport and, and you get different flavors from still, no matter, you still get different flavors of training and, you know. Oh, absolutely. But I think the conversely though, I think my, I, I, my education coming to that after having done Chutzen, I, I, I, I, I, I, G P. Um, there were things that I learned about the way to be with a dog and manipulate mood and work on things like, like speed and precision at the same time and stuff like that, that I, that I appreciate so much that I, that I have in my toolbox. And it's a different kind of way of thinking. You're manipulating different things and equally challenging. And I still think right now, current modern IGP training is the best laboratory and dog training in terms of managing mood, precision, animation, speed, all in the same package. Like there are disciplines that are asking for precision, but they don't care about the dog's attitude and the speed with which they do things. Right. And that's difficult in its own way, but it's not so difficult. Then you can have lots of animation and lots of speed and, but you don't care about precision. Right. And, and so IGP, that's where people, your dog has to look happy, has to do things fast, has to do things precisely. And so there's another, for me, it's helped the evolution of the, of, of better dog training. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. They all have their part. There is no question about it. I mean, I'll go into IGP for a second, but even before that, what is probably the coolest thing about dog training,

that I hope everybody that is starting out now listens to this, is that the main idea of what we are trying to do is to teach the dog, and no matter how we teach it, really no matter how we teach it, because the brain doesn't really, for the brain it's all the same, aversive or reward, it functions, okay, I'm not going to go there right now. But the main goal of dog training is that we teach behaviors, we teach whatever we're teaching, but ultimately, I will listen to you if you have taught that dog to love what it does, and not to do it anymore for avoid or approach, but just loving what it does. If you do that. Yes, then I appreciate it. It's the ultimate thing. That's beautiful, for sure. And for me, does what you do with the dog have room in it for that dog's dogness, that dog's individual personality? Yes, flavor. Yes. So you have to listen to me in certain circumstances. You have to do certain things that you don't want to do in that moment, potentially. But all of that, but is there room in there? Yes, to show who you are, how you want to move. The essence of who you are. Yeah, absolutely. And that's a different thing for different dogs, right? So that's the other thing, the kind of dog that we spend all of our time with our personal dogs. Doesn't mean we don't interact with other kinds of dogs, lots of them. And they all have something like that. And it's on us to figure out what it is, right? So that there's room in it. Why have them if they can't? Why do we even have them as a part of our lives if they can't have some personal expression? I don't want humans in my life that have that taken away from them. So why would I want a dog in my life that's had that taken away from them too, right? But that would be really like, whenever this happens, and this happens, you see it. But, you know, it's not like we're not talking fiction here. It happens. And this is something that should be appreciated. It doesn't matter what camps and what is your tribe and what is politically correct at the moment. You know what I'm thinking? And, man, it's a little bit hard one. But all these European trainers that are really incredibly good, they cannot talk. They are afraid to talk. And rightfully so. I mean, you're criminal if you do. I mean, even if you think in a very abstract way and mentioning certain tools and training, you're already a bad person. No question in there. Yeah. But, you know, when they do seminars, when they write books or when they make videos, what do they do? They make them politically correct. And, okay, so you're selling me something that you know that that's not the story. Yeah.

And I'm going to buy it. But then I have to come back to learn it underground. But at the same time, the force-free freaks are saying, oh, you don't think it can be done all positive? Look at that. See, they've done it. Yeah, it's a big problem. It's shitty. And when people are fed that myth, then people that are learning dog training come up and they think that they're no good. They think that they did something wrong. And so it undermines their confidence and their ability to move forward and learn what dog training really is. Because they've been fed by accomplished trainers a mythology that's about something. It's disingenuous. And so that's another thing that just bothers me extensively. The first time I saw it in action, no names, but a very well-known reward-based trainer and advocated everything they preached, what they wrote, all that stuff, was not the reality of how they were with their own dogs. And when I saw them with their own dogs and realized it, I was super upset. Because people believed it, bought it, and then said, it's about working for me. I must be no good. I must not have. And discouraged lots of people, made them feel bad about themselves in a way that they shouldn't have. Right? Like they were being fed a myth. I will tell you a very interesting story about my experience. Like I had a very, I mean, I had a really, really strange, interesting experience with force-free trainers. I'm going all around Europe, early 2000s, teaching seminars. And I already have my training without conflicting. So the seminars are promoted as such. Well, guess who hits in it? Oh, it's without conflict, therefore it's without a verse, therefore there is no punishment. This is a force-free training. So they come to my seminar. And I'm like, no, I can most certainly help you in a force-free way. But I also can show you with that other dog, if they're up to it, a little bit something else. And then you can make up your mind. And some change in an instant, and some didn't, because even if it works, it's against the ideology. It's against the tribe. You just cannot do that. And the next thing you know, they are angry. They are screaming. Their eyes are bulging. They are just trying to be the scariest gremlin in front of their dog in order to have some effect on their submissive, just listen to me sit and stay, because you... But, man, you're looking at a gremlin. And then there will be the grabbing and the shake. And then there's going to be the throw. But nobody talks about that. I saw it, like, in so many countries, the force-free. They're frustrated, most of them. They're like, what can I do with my dog?

Everybody says that it's going to work. And I've been doing this for two years now. Yep. And unless you're keeping your dog in a Skinner box, it ain't working, right? Right. So, yeah. Yeah. You have to, like, so many of the protocols, the whatever, are predicated on 100% control of your environment, which is, of course, not the way the world works. Man, wouldn't it be nice for us to go to IPDT and just stand up and say, okay, you have an hour. Just kill us with your questions. Just destroy us. Make us submit. We're not going to be arrogant. We're truly going to just answer you honestly every single question you ask. Oh, I would love it. Let's do it. Oh, my God. Like, the thing is that that's the people that I want to be talking to. Because they will challenge us. The people that, yeah, the people that have found us for whatever it is about what we're doing already buy what we're saying. So we spend most of our time talking to people that already believe what we believe, right? And if we're going to elevate the level of training and make it better for more dogs and more people, the people we have to convince are the people that don't agree with us. Yes. Or the other way around. Or something mutual. Mutual. 100% mutual. Absolutely. 100% mutual. For sure. But that's where it's at. Yeah. Please. Please show me a better way. Who can disagree with this? Right? So what about French ring? Because we stepped out of sports. We were going to talk sports. French ring. I admire and love French ring too, in a sense. And the athletic ability and the technique and some of the stuff that comes through there. And the decoy work is phenomenal. They're like professional athletes. I think it's the fact that it doesn't matter what it looks like. And the fact that they take too much from the dog. Like the focus on just getting in there and hold on and endure and get out instantaneously. When I say get out. Doesn't allow for the dog to express its power and stuff in a way that's problematic. And there are very, very good dogs in there. The dogs that make it at a high level and tolerate that. But it feels like it's constantly taking from the dog to the point where it forces a certain methodology onto you to be successful at the highest levels in it. Right? Those dogs just have to get in there, get what they can get, hold on, and then be prepared to let out. It doesn't take into account the dog's mood in any way and that stuff. So that bothers me a little bit. Although I've learned much, borrowed a ton from that world in terms of technique. Me too. Yeah. And so, but I just feel like it just takes a little too much from the dog. Right? Yeah.

If I could do Belgian ring sport, I'd do Belgian. Man, you killed it. You killed it. But you're spot on. No, I cannot disagree with anything you said. So let me see if I can bring some good points. Super, I mean, the hardest, which is not necessarily a good point, the hardest on the body of the dog. Oh, yeah. But at the same time, that creates the natural selection. And we have very athletic, very agile, high endurance dogs that function, high longevity, which is super cool. I mean, and then you have that opposition that no other sport has between men and the dog. It's like, no, I'm going to fuck you up. No, I'm going to fuck you up. Like in a, pretty much the closest as real as possible, right? And that's a cool thing. Like, oh, no, I see you're twitching. I'm going to go at you. Not on this bite, but on the next bite. You're mine. Or the dog is like, you got nothing. No, no, you got nothing. I agree. The only thing I would like to see a little bit is that you, the dog gets cut some slack because the dog has to have the pressure from both ends, right? The decoy doesn't. Like, the decoy is not getting hurt. No, no. Yeah, I take that back. You can get hurt. You get chewed up a fair bit. But that idea that, like, their focus on instantaneous outs and that stuff. And that, like, in that sense, if I'm going to let a dog really battle with the guy, we all want control. But I think that they've taken it too far. So now the dog's facing, which is something about the character of the dogs that get through it. But it also eliminates a lot of dogs that fight in a different mood, right? So a dog that fights in a slightly angry state that feels it's a little more real and a little less of a game for them, those dogs really struggle. They will learn. They will learn. Yeah. They get broken because of the pressure from both ends, which I think is a little bit unfair. But you're right, the battle and a good French ring decoy that can read a dog and knows how to pressure. Like, there's so much. It's like, it's like jujitsu with dogs. Yeah, the instantaneous. Yeah, there's a lot of that stuff that's beautiful, right? For sure. I am training a little. Well, it's not. It's two years old now. But I decided that I'm going to do French ring with her. I cannot do Mondio because it's just not a, it's a lot. There is a lot. Like, just, I've tried a few times and I've gotten to certain place, but you need a whole village just to keep changing accessories and fields. And at least you have three different guys to play with because you don't want your dog to learn just somebody's moves. You need to teach a concept.

And you don't teach a concept by just playing with one guy in that sport. And so it's such a, it's a hard one. A hats off to anybody that does it. Because, you know, it's just the, it's kind of like, you know, I compare it to people in the south, like Florida, Texas, doing IGP. Trucking is a bitch. Like you, like, we have four nice days that I can just walk around and put some food on the truck and enjoy it. Otherwise, you, and I love trucking, but it's hard. And I think Mondio is just the, you know, to do it right, of course, to really, to really dive into it. And man, like, what, what do you do with all the, I guess they probably should have some exchange. Like, oh, I'm done with all of my field accessories. Send them to you and you send me yours. You know, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It has to be done by a community in that way. Right. The people that are serious. Like, I'll send you some pictures. Here's the, the, uh, some of the folks that I train with here near the school have put, they're passionate about monitoring hobbyists. And they have put in a big field and they have the resources and they keep building on it. It looks like, it looks like a, it looks like a village because they keep adding new hides with ramps. I would join that club. Yeah. But it is, it's, that's challenging to prepare a dog. Like for, for French ring or IG, IGP sans the tracking, you just need a patch of grass. Right. And you can, you can do most of the fun. You eventually have to travel with the dog and you eventually have to show them different. You know. But you can do a lot more on your own or in smaller without so much artifice. I'm thinking about Mondio now. If something bugs me, kind of, I don't know how, how to explain it, but Mondio ring allows at times a mediocre trainer to compare and get leveled up with a high, high level trainer. Simply because both dogs missed an exercise. And it just so happens that the very next exercise they both did it. Therefore, I'm good as you. That bugs me. Oh, it does. You get, you have to get over it. Like, so in Mondio ring. But you know what I'm saying, right? Oh, it drives, oh yeah. Yeah. And it, it always drives me crazy just because you think it's endorsing someone's training methods. Right. When it, when they just got, they just had a good day. Yeah. The lay of the land. There's a couple of things connected to that, that, that, that bother me too. So there's, there's that one. There's the fact that you, you have to be okay with completely tanking. Right. And I think a lot of competitive dog sports, people want to say that if I did my job and

prepared my dog, I'll get the points or most of the points, but Mondio, you can, you can have a pretty well-prepared dog. And if the setups are not right for your day, like stuff can go way South on you can miss a whole bunch of exercises with a dog. That's pretty well-trained actually. And so you got, that's good for your ego. I think, I think it helps you keep your ego in check. Like you don't get this way. Like, Hey, I know all this, but, but a judge can also, there's room for a judge to make things impossible. And so some of the, some of the judges that aren't trainers anymore in that world, they, they really bug me. Right. That because they're the ones setting up the scenarios. Creative in a strange way. Yeah. Creative in a way that like there's enough, there's leeway in there. To make a scenario that's virtually impossible unless you knew it ahead of time and that kind of thing. And you had plenty of time to practice it. One thing very, that is a lot of interest always in Mondio and it happens almost, I mean, almost every other trial it happens. And it's very interesting. And that is when the judge sets up the level one or two to be the easy thing and make some really complicated shit for level three. Yes. And it ends up being completely the opposite. Happens all the time. I love it. I love it. It helps you think of the dog. Cause it happens even to us in training all the time. I'm like, Oh, let's, let's, let's make an easy one today. This is a thing that you think it's going to be easy. And then all the dogs struggle with something. You're like, what the hell? Like, and then something you think is going to be, Oh, I'm going to really push my dog today. And they all right away. Like it happens routinely. It reminds you that we're not always clear about how the dogs see something. This is a very much like the, you know, very, very much like the, in IGP. Well, in IGP, they don't have it anymore, but the old Schutzhund and the Ziger, you know, for, for the bridge shows, the attack out of the blind. Kind of like how they have the Belgium, the DMC, the Kjörn. The, the boogeyman jumps out. And yes, you know that the boogeyman is going to jump out and you still react because it's instinctual. You cannot train it. It's very hard to train. And it's a shame that they took it out of, of IGP. I agree. A hundred percent. I think this was a, just like with them, we were talking with them on you. There is sometimes you think this is very, this is very difficult for whatever reason, that attack coming out of the blind, it separates the dogs. It's kind of like the gunshot. You either run or you stay. Yeah, right. Exactly.

No, it's true. I agree. A hundred percent. That's one of the cool things that I, I loved about the DMC Kaurang for anybody that does the German Malinois club had designed a breed test. But granted the way they did it, they, they truly, what they wanted to do is they wanted to play ring sport, but it wasn't at the time allowed in Germany. So they found a way because they have Malinois and they want to play like everybody else. And also, I think that you probably realize that, that, that, that if you, if you're attracted to the breed, they are that because of the ring sports of the Belgian ring and KMDB are what created the dogs that we love. And so even today, if we don't have Belgium ring, there is no Malinois no more. No, I agree. End of story. A hundred percent. Speaking of which, like a few weeks ago, I got a message on Facebook talking about how there is good and bad. I get a message from the Diopotoir, Luke Van St. Bruch. Really? Yes. He's like, I know. He's like, I've been going through this and this and this, but I'm back. I'm like, wow. He's like, can I, I see your pictures and you know, I recognize some dogs. Can I use them for, I'm like, are you kidding me? Please. What can I do to make it easier for you? Hell yeah. Exactly. Oh yeah. That was, that was exciting. Of course. I'm like, no, there is no way. I mean, there's no way the guy disappeared. He quit. He was done. I'm thinking some impost, some, you know, like, yeah, I am the Diopotoir now. Whatever. Oh, you're thinking, you're thinking it's a, it's fake. Of course. I mean, for a moment, of course. But then I'm like, oh wow, cool. So that was interesting for sure. I could see him being interested in stuff down from Turkados. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And he wanted, he wanted a picture of Nikita. Ah. He's like. Now that was a dog. Man, this was, the whole story was so fucking ridiculous. I've said it so many times that I don't think I, I should repeat it because I really have said it so many times, but. Go find Ivan's story about Nikita. She was a, that's a, that was a phenomenal bitch. Like she was an extraordinary creature. Yeah. He, he impressed me so much back then. Look. You know the story, right? I mean, I have to say it now because it's in my head. Tell it. Now tell it. Now people that don't are going to have to go to try to find it. Go. Go. Tell it. So, I, I, I mean, I live in Belgium at the time. I go from Bulgaria, kind of like what you said. Like I knew that I have to have that dog. I, I haven't even seen Malinois in my life. I've seen it in some Italian dog show magazine. And I'm like, this looks really cool. I want one.

And for whatever crazy circumstances of life, I end up in Belgium and I get connected. We go to his house and he has this amazing, just like the most gorgeous dark features puppy walking around in the house. Well, everybody else is Belgian style outside in the little kennels and whatever. I'm like, I want him. He's for sale. I mean, he told me he's for sale. And then he starts talking to the guy I'm with and he's like, well, does he want competition? Is he going to do competition or does he just want his dog? Because my French was, I mean, that was as soon as I got there. So I really didn't understand much French. That's why I had people with. And he's like, I have the, I'm like, no, I'm of course sport. I'm so excited. I'm finally in Belgium where you can actually do things, whatever you want at that time. And like, it was like, and he's like, well, then he has to take this one. And he goes out and he brings her with her big white feet. And she's already three and a half, four months. She's older. She went to Switzerland to somebody and they didn't like, she had white feet. So they sent her back. And he's like, you have to take her. And I'm like, you're just trying to sell me the dog that you cannot sell to anybody. And we argue. He's getting, I can see his blood starting to boil. And I'm like, now I don't know what to do, but I really like this dark puppy, you know. And finally he's like, okay, you're taking this one and this one. And in two weeks, you're bringing one back. Get out. That was the, that was it. I mean, that story is ridiculous. It's a beautiful story. And to his credit too. Right. Well, I've used that one so many times. You'd never done anything like, like he could easily have said here. Yeah. Just take this one. Right. So yeah. He's like, there is no way I can convince this dumb ass right now. Worked well for everybody involved. Yeah. She was remarkable. That was a, she was an incredible dog. Man. We had some cool dogs. Yeah. Still do. Like it's crazy. It's crazy now, like generations down. I, I'm like current dogs, like seventh generation of our breeding at a certain point, like sixth or seventh generation. And you're like, that's the through line is so cool at a certain point. Like it's, you're like, oh yeah. I see this from your grandfather and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's like, no, no. You don't know, but I know you. Yeah, exactly. You don't know it yet, but I know you. Exactly. True. Right. Yeah. That's a remarkable, it's been a, it's been a cool journey. Man. Breeding is a cool stuff, man. It's all, it's just so, so. I love it. These days I'm, I'm crazy frustrated with like dog placement.

So right. I could go crazy here, but just there are Malinois everywhere right now. Like everybody that has two of them are throwing them together. They're like now the rescues full of them. Shelters are full of them. People are trying to get them as pets and stuff in a way that like, it's frustrating now to me, the, to have puppies go out to people who, you know, sound like they know what they're, they want and know what they're doing. And then they get out there and they say, they tell you, oh, this nine week old puppies, no good. Right. Like, cause I took it to club and the decoy whale to stick around at it. And just that kind of stuff is just aggravating at this stage. But the, the, the, the beauty of kind of trying to match up genetics and putting combinations together and watching them develop. And it's just endlessly fascinating me. I love it. So I'm so into it. Like that's what keeps me doing it. Like at all. I just stopped. But that, that, that's such a puzzle and, and just watching them develop every time. Like, is this going to be, am I going to get the perfect combination of traits this time? And it's just, it's awesome. It's great. Yes. I, I, man, I don't know. Like if it's just me or, but now I look at litter of puppies and there is that one that 15 years ago, there would be no question like, yeah, that's the one. And everybody else, dog person or no dog person will say, no, that's the one. It very rarely is. Sometimes is, but it very rarely is, isn't it? Very rarely is. Yep. A hundred percent. You're spot on. Very rarely is. Almost always the phenomenal dog. And then if you've paid attention, really paid attention to them. And then you see that one. That's really good. It's like, dude, you were nobody. You were just, I mean, you weren't the worst there, but you were right in the middle there. I don't know who you were. Actually. I had to go back and read and watch videos. Cause I don't know who you were. Right. You're exactly right. I can't tell you how many times I've said that to people. I'm like, anybody that tells you that they're going to pick the best puppy. Like they're, they're full of shit. If you've done this for any time, there's no way. And you hit it. I say that exact thing. It's the, it's the forgettable one, not the worst one, not the best acting one. It's the one that was in the background somewhere and you're having to scratch your head. Like, which one was that puppy? Uh, yeah, dude. Like I would never get it. It's like, trust me, it's going to be okay. Yep. Oh yeah. And, and how many puppies have you looked at and how many puppies have I looked at? And I still, it still happens.

Like I think, and it's hard not to gravitate towards the one that looks, that's showing you everything. And it doesn't mean that the one that's showing everything is going to be a bad dog, but like if he's passed up by us, almost a litter mate. The other thing that drives me crazy now is just an overemphasis on, on puppies. Like what you expect to see from a puppy. Like it's not a fucking puppy contest, right? Like they're. That, that's, that's, that's the problem of social media. That's the, that's the YouTube competition. And then you see the 45th take of some miserable training that looks so cool with this little puppy. And then it grows up and then it's six months old. And next thing you know, gone. What, what, what happened? What happened? There is the next superstar. Oh no, watch this one. Oh, but that's another thing. Like I keep going back to positive training. They, they don't have most of them. Don't they have, if, if any, with very limited experience about breeding, genetics, selection, raising. The, no, if you had one border collie that had six puppies, that's not what I'm talking about. Right. No real breeders. Yeah. That's the same thing that a breeder that says like, how many litters do you have? I have one every five years. I have to plan the perfect litter. Like you're not, that's not a breeder. You're not, you're not figuring it out that way. It's like trying to pick out which dogs are the best working dogs without working them. Right. At a certain point you want to line up. Does the dog have the basic genetic things? Do I know about their background? Are they healthy? That, and then in order to find out which ones are the good breeders, you got to breed them. Like, and you're going to have to make a number of puppies to figure out what works and doesn't work and all that kind of stuff. Right. It's the, there's no shortcut for that. And they should be like, seriously, they should be really interested in, in how we do this. And like when you, when you breed selectively, when you know what you're doing, when you raise it, then there is that moment that I know that I'm going to do a certain thing that's going to give you that kind of rush that you're going to be in love with me for the rest of your life. And that's not Skinnerian behaviorism. How, how are they not interested in this? Cause like, no, no, yes, you can do this. You can do the whatever variation of whatever the trend of the training is right now, or you can do what that dog will just light up because he's genetically prepared to light up when you do that and you just use it.

And the dog is like, I don't know why, but I'm in love with you for the rest of my life. Yep. And I think, and maybe part of my attraction, the Malinois after getting to know them is the fact that, um, I found those buttons easy to push in Malinois and other people that, that trained differently, uh, don't find that to be the case. They struggle with the things that they're Malinois-ness as it were. Right. In a way where early on, I, I think I stumbled upon that same thing. Like you could push, uh, if you got to know them, you can push a certain set of buttons as it were. And they, they just came alive. Like, and they, they were passionate about it. There was no like half acidness. It wasn't like they were kind of doing it and getting a little more intense and a little more intense. No, like the light turned on and it was on and it was great. Ah, yeah. They're remarkable creatures, man. And they'll, and all dogs have like lots of dogs have their own version of that. And as dog trainers, you've tried to find what it is, but definitely at this stage of your career and my career, I definitely know how to press the buttons with a Malinois without having to think about it anymore. Very much. Yeah. It's just get them. Like, no, I, I, I know you. People, people are asking all the time, like, Hey, so are you, are you still going to have a Malinois on your 80? And I'm like, Oh yeah. Like there's, there's no way I could not have them around. Like it did. I can't imagine a life without at least a couple of them around actually. What else do you have? What do you have? Any others? Any other dogs besides the Malis? Not now. Not right now. I have in the past. I've had labs and I've had, I've had lots of different dogs over the years and stuff like that. But now it's, it's all Malinois at the house now. Yeah. The same here. Like I, I still want to have some little dog, but there's just so much going on. I know. And I feel like I had a really nice Labrador. I got, I got a lab and I kept him until he was two and a half. And then I eventually I gave him to a student at that point, but he was a fantastic dog, like a really first class dog, really well put together, crazy athletic, lovely temperament played great. I used him to socialize Malinois puppies because Malinois puppies can don't dig labs that much a lot of times, right? Oil and water thing. So I'd use him around the Val and water get them used to that. But I felt like, I always felt like I was doing him a disservice because he always came second or third at my house behind everybody else. And it wasn't like I wasn't meeting his needs, but he was somebody's dream.

And they're also thinkers. They're, they're, there's so many unbelievable qualities labs have too. Yeah. But he was, he was someone else's dream dog and he was just a cool dog at my house as opposed to, you know, when I have the right Malinois. It's like, this is my dream dog. This is, this is, this is what I want. And so I just felt like I lend him to a student that did our long-term program. And at the end of the program, I gave her to him and she was thrilled to death. She's done all kinds of crazy stuff with them. And, but it just felt like, right. And so every time I, I think, I think the same thing, like, ah, get a little dog to hang around the house and you can just hop in everybody's lap. But then I always feel like he's going to get short shrift as I pay more attention to the other dogs than him. So, or her, whatever. Do you have more time? Cause I have one more question that fire away that I know I wanted to ask. And man, I, I don't know if I need to even give something ahead of time, but it's not, it's nothing that much against the sport. It's really like, I mean, it's, it's just another dog sport and every dog sport has its cool things. PSA. Yeah. So, um, I'm conflicted about PSA. There's stuff about it that I like for sure. Um, uh, I, um, like the same, some of the same things I like about Mondia ring in that, uh, I like some of the variability and the changing scenarios. And I like the fact that they don't, um, they're not kind of anti-aggression. They actually want aggression in dogs. And some of the sports have become this place where any dog that shows any kind of aggressions, an aberration, like everybody wants this kind of biting Labrador thing that looks at it like a glorified tug of war. And so PSA definitely doesn't do that. Um, some of the, uh, the way in which it was judged the inconsistency of what they, they didn't have a clear kind of idea about, um, what aesthetically they wanted at every phase of it. Right. And I don't know kind of any serious trainer that doesn't want to know kind of how they're going to be judged. Like, so early on, and I think some of this has been ironed out. I, I, I don't, I haven't watched a lot of newer PSA trials and talk to the judges and stuff. So I don't want to speak out of, out of school here, but early on one judge would like focused healing and the other one wouldn't care. Right. And like, and so it was a little inconsistent in, in that way. And then some of the kind of focus on like more or less a specific bite target area and stuff like that. Um, uh, in a suit sport, I, I think, uh, I don't, I don't like as much as a little like

can PV that way, a little too rigid that, that, but I mean, there's stuff about it. That's cool. And, and it's, it's popular. It's popular for sure. Yeah. It originally seemed to attract a lot of personal protection type people or people who wanted aggressive dog without control, which of course it turns out you obviously have to have really good control to be successful in PSA. But at the same time, man, like when I, when I watch it and I've watched, I mean, again, I like I'm a dog person. I it's, everything is interesting to me and PSA is definitely interesting sport. And there is, as you said, good things and, and there is bad things just like any other sport. So since we are talking about all of them, one of the things besides the, the, what you just brought up, which is very valid point. And I, I hope that they kind of stick into some vision and have that to where somebody can raise a puppy and get it ready. And not at that moment when it's two years old, you flip the program on him. It's just not that that's a problem, right? And, and, and you brought that one already. And, and the other one, it's almost regardless that there is, it looks like there is so much going on. Ultimately, it's quite simple or at least I see it as that. It's like, okay, people will do things, whatever, whatever, but you just have to understand that you bite when I tell you to bite. And, it's kind of, okay, so, you know, like in, in, in, in Belgian ring, you will have the, the decoy mess during the, the defensive handler, whatever. It's a concept. So then you have five of them. It's still, it, it, it, at some point does not matter. Right. But it looks amazing. But no, I can have 22 of them doing anything you want. Yes. That's an interesting point. Absolutely. Yep. It's just, it's just showing the same skill in different settings. Right. It doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. I get, I get that for sure. And I always, I felt in the beginning of it, like many of the things like in the U S like, and this is our kind of desire to come up with something new. Right. In a sense. And I felt like one, the, the, the protection sport community, isn't that big in terms of the, the whole dog community out there. And it was a little bit like reinventing the wheel a touch and that there were well established sports that tested the stuff that had systems in place. They'd already done the hard work of like, how do you select decoys? How do you select judges? How do you, how do you create a program? And so I felt a little bit like it was pulling from established dog sports in the beginning and people that maybe initially were attracted to it.

Hadn't been successful at the other sports in some fashion. And then they thought, Oh, here's a new one. I can do that. And it appealed to them in a sense. And so, but I feel now it's been around long enough and is established enough that it's kind of here to stay in a sense. I mean, they're still paving their road. They're still paving the road. There's, you know, if, if, and I don't think it's going away because as you said, it's, it's quite, it's really popular. And if it keeps growing, it's, it's going to end up being something cool. And I, and I feel, and I feel like at the end of the day is, is as long as there's good dog training happening, then that's, that's all I really care about. Right. You can always see good dog training. It doesn't matter where. You're absolutely right. Yep. And I'm all for people doing whatever with their dog, if it's good dog training. And one way or another, it's, it's the American sport. I mean, come on. It is. It is. Yep. But I like, I, I like you to love, I I've been so, I think my, my personal worldview and stuff has been so enriched by the international aspect of, of, of the protection sports, both IGP Schutzen originally, and then the ring sports it's put me in contact with people all over the world and different cultural ways of thinking about dogs and training. So that education, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to come up in just the American dog sport. Like I think now it has a chance to add to that conversation, but I felt like for me learning about dog training, um, coming from growing up here and already having the American point of view, it was really beneficial to me to have a, a, a, a culturally different way of thinking about dog training, uh, that, that access to the, the original protection sports that I was exposed to allowed me to do right. Meet trainers from Europe and people from other countries and then go there. And like, that was hugely beneficial, I think. Right. So my, my personal growth and looking at training. Right. So I like that too. And that's one of you had mentioned to the kind of international aspect of Mondia ring. I love that. It's cool when people from, you know, 20 countries field teams, that's, that's, that's a, that's a really cool thing. Right. And it's motivating and you, you know, just so much more flavor variety and, and you can, you know, but at the same, you know, I mean, gosh, we, we, we just don't need to talk about Belgian ring because it's essential to the breed. It's essential to, to, you know, but they've done this for hundreds, more than a hundred now. Like 120 years or so. Yeah. Pretty much the same thing.

I mean, when you look at the pictures, it's the same old man with the same outfit, but hats off, keep going cause we need you. And this is where like, you know, like a program, it's like, no, these are the points. This is what you get. This is what you've been getting the last 50 years. We're not going to adjust the A-frame to be like this because some cannot jump. That's the whole point. If you cannot jump, you're not selected. This is the whole point. Yep. Yep. That's absolutely true. If you don't grip a certain way, if you can't punch somebody, if you can't drill somebody with a muzzle on, like, yeah, all that it's a, it's for sure. Necessary. I feel like we're losing it though. I feel like we're losing it. Like it's, it's, it's still pockets, but there are, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's not, it's really not easy there. And, and you know what though? On, on, uh, like, um, the KMPV people, like they just, I think they, they, and, and I, that, that's not right to talk about as a group, but there, there's certain, in every sport, I guess there is just dumb asses that hurt us. So, I, I, I, I, I'm not going to even go there because it's really, every, every, every sport has it, you know? Absolutely. It's, it's, but why, why all of us need to pay for, like, if, if somebody pocks himself with a fork and it sticks out of his lip, so what, we all use chopsticks? I mean, really? Like, that's the solution? Right. I like that one. I have to borrow that. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, it's, it's that, it's that reducing everything to the lowest common denominator, right? How do you make this so like, this can't be misused in any way? Well then what the hell? Like, what, what, what are we left with? You heard the whole thing about what happened in Berlin, in, in, in Germany, how they banned the prong callers now? I mean, it's banned the, yeah, the prong callers, so it's banned now officially, well, in the whole, in the whole country, but what happened in Berlin, at least right now, it was all over some news and, um, it was in the Guardian also in the States, a little bit. But anyway, the story is they banned the prong callers. So now, street dogs, police canines that are actually street dogs, not detection, but patrol dogs, they end up being pulled out. They, if they don't use the, the right training equipment, they're not going to have control over them. Yeah, of course not, yeah. So that became a big deal. And somehow, the latest that I heard is that, I mean, it's a big, so you have the animal rights activists, but then you have reality. Well, but we do have bad people and canines actually work.

And the only way that we can do it is when we have control over them. And it's a, it's a tough fight. So somebody got a band. So they came up with some really weird solution that you cannot train with a prong collar, but you can deploy the dog with a prong collar so you can control it. Oh my God. Great plan. I can't see anything wrong with that. And of course, they're going to probably train the way they do. But, but now, now the, actually the people that are supposed to fight crime become criminals. It's sad. And, and it's really mind blowing why in Europe, they are so afraid to stand up and at least have some debate. Is there like nobody that has the knowledge or is everybody scared shitless to, to say, Hey, let's talk about it. Prove me, show me. I mean, we all know, we, we all know Germans that have the knowledge, like, right. Like can't be that they don't know. They know they're, they're not, they're smart, analytical. Like the Germans are nothing if not analytical. It's structured in that sense. It's like, I, it's shocking to me. And it has to be, it has to be either they didn't recognize the problem as, as big a problem or. But even now, even now, bring it back. Make it, make it alive. Talk about it. Like even, you know, even like the big organization, like the SFAO, the, the German Shepherd or club, which is still leading club. You have board of directors, whoever there, like, Hey, you represent us, stand up, talk, educate. If you don't know how select somebody that can, cause somebody can. You're like, we've elected you so you can defend the dog training and the dog, what we do. That's who you are. Same thing with our FCI working group. I mean, I'm probably gonna get some shitty scores next time I go to compete. But you know, like you're in the, you're this seven people that's called the working commission of FCI and instead of work for the people that have elected you work, you, your passion is not to bend over and accept the political correctness and, and follow animal rights people and feel threatened. Stand up for us. Talk. And then lose the fight. I mean, if you lose the fight, but you actually fought, it's one thing. No? I agree. I, I, I don't understand, but also culturally, I don't, I, I don't know the pressures on them. Right, right, right. Politically in that sense. I don't know here. We're certainly. We're encouraged to stick up and speak our minds in a sense. And that doesn't mean that there aren't repercussions for that, but it's a little more free here. And that may not be the case there. Like there may be a little more cultural. Being ostracized culturally and stuff like that.

I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't have a good enough feel for that. But it's unfortunate. Because we, I mean, no matter what, we, we still kind of, we don't give up. And they, from day one, they were like, I, I really don't understand that. I don't know. I wish they did do something. Well, we'll make a pact right now to stay ahead of it here. Right. No. I mean, that, that's like, and, and it's good for the dogs and for the training and for all these new people and it's beautiful what we do. And then we have, and then, and then, and then we have to self-police a little bit too. For sure. This is, yes. This. The video clip, the video clip you sent me that we watched and, and. Man, I'm, I'm even scared when I try to defend electric colors or some other form of training because somehow I feel like the worst crowd teams up with me. And it's like, no, just because you and I have the same training equipment, we are not the same. Like we don't even think the same. Yeah. You could buy the same leash as me. That doesn't mean we're doing the same things. Yeah. For sure. No, that's, that's a, that's, it's a little bit of a problem, but it's necessary. Yeah. And you know, there's, I always feel like those people have, have room to get better. And so if I, although I don't, I don't want to be lumped in with them methodology wise, I, I, I want to have access to them so that I can talk to them and. Right. And maybe their mistakes are out of ignorance. Right. And that, that we can, we can help with that. Hopefully. Yeah. Sometimes we are, sometimes we are for sure very quick to judge somebody and that's all they know. That's, that's what they've seen. They think even, even if they subconsciously and intuitively feel that this is a bad thing, what I'm doing. It's kind of, I mean, there's so many psychological experiments that were done. Like you, yeah, you do bad things. Everybody can do bad things knowingly when you're in the, the certain environment. And, and, and some people can be educated. And then there is some people that it doesn't matter. You can take everything away from them. There will be bad people. Hard one. That's a hard one. So, but you gotta give chance to people. I think you have to give chance. I also like in, in, especially in dog sports, you know, sometimes we're like, oh, let's do background checks. Let's see how many times he's been, whatever. It's like, man, this is probably his last chance to, to try to be somebody like give, give him some opportunity. Don't, don't give him the world, but allow people to, you know, we sometimes grow and change and flourish. For sure. Yes, you gotta.

And dog training can be that outlet, just like martial arts, you know? I agree a hundred percent. And people, you see all the time, people whose lives are radically changed by it. So yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. How are we doing, man? It's been a long one. It's a long one. Yeah. Well, we, we should, we should just plan to do more such things. So then they don't have to be three hours long or whatever the heck they are. Right. I totally enjoy it, but we, we should wrap it up. So we don't, you know, but like that was a, a much, much needed, much, much needed. I agree. And it just has to be a first step to you and I getting together and training a little bit here too. Yes. Yes. It's on. After this, this current semester, uh, I'm deliberately slowing down a little bit. Ha ha ha. Tell me when you teach me how. I'm going to travel more and do that stuff. So I'll, you should, next time you're out this way, you show up here. I'll get out there. I'll show up there. We'll. Very, very cool, man. Michael Ellis, everybody. Thank you, buddy. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. Love you. Love you too, buddy. Love you too, buddy. Love you too, buddy.