에피소드 50: Jacqui Zakar

Pretty much all of them heard voices, and I worked in, like, a residential setting with them for people that had come out of hospital and were trying to get to a point where they could kind of go out into the community again. And what I think I got from that was part of my job was advocating for these residents. Like, I would go to their psychiatrist appointments with them. I'd drive them there, because a lot of them weren't really at a place where they could do that. And working in that and kind of seeing their experience really showed me how broken the system can be. Like, a lot of the psychiatrist appointments I would go to, the doctor wouldn't even make eye contact with them. It would be pretty much like, oh, how are you going? Yep. Okay, here's your script. Off you go. You know what I mean? And I was like, which I found quite shocking, because you assume that the system knows what they're doing, and they're really trying to take care of people. But I realised that the system in mental health in Australia, and I think it's probably quite similar in the UK and the US, it's really a management system. It's not so much a recovery system. And the non-for-profit organisation I worked for worked for a recovery model. So sometimes that was quite challenging, that we would be pointing things out to the people that kind of had a lot of control over our residents, and we couldn't get them kind of advocacy that they needed. And a lot of the times it felt like they don't really even want them out in the community. They want them to be managed. They just want them to fill their script. And it becomes a really revolving door of in and out of hospital, because there's no recovery. So that kind of made me a little jaded about the system. And that's actually the main reason that I left that work, because it was just so frustrating. But it was very interesting. I probably learned more working in that job than I did in four years of a psych degree. Like, I learned so much about it. It was fantastic. And after that... Yeah, there is nothing like Canton, right? Oh, yeah. 100%, 100%. And even the residents hearing voices, and some of the residents that I had, literally, their voices would tell them, to kill staff. Like, and some of those guys, they didn't even bother me that much. Like, you really got used to that kind of thing, because it was their experience. And you really learned to accept that it's not about, oh, they're not real. Just ignore them. You'll be okay. It was like, look, that's your experience. That's your reality. Like, how do we know that that isn't a real experience?

So if I had a counselling session with one of them, and they were struggling that day, I would say to them, like, are your voices bothering you? How about, you know, you come back tomorrow morning? Like, go and rest up and take some time. So that side of it was really eye-opening, you know, that you've really got to look at the different experiences and think outside of the box that it's not always how the system dictates and how you should approach these things. But when I got out of that job, I went into pharmaceuticals, and I worked in pharmaceuticals for eight, nine, nearly 10 years, I think it was. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I was a product specialist or a pharmaceutical rep. But I would educate doctors and surgeons, pharmacists. Because guess what we're going to talk about at some point. Okay. I don't know what that was. Blocks. But I, and what I kind of got from that was, and look, I know the pharmaceutical industry is controversial. So, like, that's kind of another topic. But as a rep in Australia, we have to do a certification in Medicines Australia. So you have to do a year's study learning the process, how the research works, our responsibilities, all of that kind of stuff. So here, if I'm in front of a doctor, and I'm presenting them with a new study about the medicine that I'm educating them on, we have such strict guidelines that you cannot say anything that deviates from what the data shows. Like, if you do, it could cost your company like hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. So we had to be very, very careful what we said. We couldn't manipulate anything. You know what I mean? If one doctor used something off label, we had to make sure that we were very open and honest about that and that it wasn't recommended in the profile of the drug. So I think from that, coming into dog training and starting to see how research is interpreted and how it's spoken about and when people say evidence-based this and evidence-based that, I found it quite shocking thinking if I ever misinterpreted research like I see it is done here, like, I'd be out of a job. Like, you just would not be able to do that. So that's why one of my biggest pet peeves is that I'm a science-based trainer, I'm an evidence-based trainer, because the amount of data and the amount of, you know, experimental research you need to have to make that claim is just not there. So I think those two industries really gave me a slightly different angle on how I look at dog training and the lack of professionalism that we see in dog training and everything.

So when I got into it, because I'm a little bit older, I got into training when I was in my early 40s and I'm in my early 50s now, so not quite 10 years. I'd also had the experience of most of my life just being a dog lover and a dog owner. Like, I wasn't a trainer out of the womb. And I'm not really one of those people that's just a natural dog trainer or a dog man or whatever you want to call it. I really had to learn it, probably because I second-guessed myself a lot and I took, or I was so late when I got into the game and I was very aware that everybody was better than me and everybody had more knowledge than me. So I really wanted to jump in and learn. And I found there's a great accreditation in Australia, which is a balanced accreditation and it's the only government and nationally recognised dog training accreditation in the country. So I'm really glad that I did that one because that gave me more of an insight. And I've also just had some incredible mentors from kind of different points of view and have really had the opportunity to watch some incredible trainers just do incredible work. And I think those combinations of things have just given me a little bit of an interesting insight that I really had to immerse myself and learn about it because I knew it didn't really come naturally. I was the cliché kid that would sit outside with the dog when you went to family, friends' houses. And I love dogs, but I didn't really understand them. You know what I mean? So when I was an owner, I made all of the mistakes. All of the mistakes I see. So what happened? Where was that big shift? Was it a specific dog or was it really just understanding more about just what you can do with dogs as far as training? Within the training? Yeah. Yeah. Like how did you just, I mean, that's a big change from what you were doing at the moment, at the time, you know? Like did you get a dog that you just, because that's typically what happens or how did you? Enter in this? It was, it was something that I kind of always would see when I, because I did, I did a bit of obedience training with my border collie and we did a couple of trials. And I remember always looking at the trainers thinking, wow, how cool that that's your job. It never occurred to me that I could do it. So I always just thought, oh, I could never do that. Like I'd never be able to do that. And yeah, my husband and I, not long after we got together, we got a German Shepherd puppy and we thought we were doing all the right things off to the dog park.

And we would literally drive around looking for clusters of people standing around their dogs because we thought that's what socialization was. And he was a beautifully balanced, beautifully bred, show line, German Shepherd that just had the loveliest nature. And we created a dog aggressive dog. Like that was completely environmental. It was a hundred percent us. It was all the steps that you see. So when he became dog aggressive, I was the owner that was opening the front door and he was scanning and I was scared. Like every time we would approach a corner, you know what I mean? So I really understand what that feels like. And I started what we started working with some trainers. And again, I was lucky that I worked with two or three different trainers who came from quite different perspectives. But I learned a lot. I started to see, wow, there's kind of different ways of looking at this and there's different approaches and everything. But I was still working with him when I started my accreditation. I was the annoying student that kept saying, well, my dog does this. Like, so would you do that in this situation, which I know annoys everybody. But he was the first dog that I really successfully rehabilitated and with a balanced approach, quite a traditional balanced approach. But he was kind of the benchmark for me that I think I really rehabbed him when he was about six or seven. Like when he could be in college and have dogs approach him and he was fine. And it was all down to relationship. Like the last few years of his life, we just had the most incredible relationship. He was always my husband's dog. Like he was his person. But I did all the training and everything. And we still had this incredible relationship. But no matter which dog I work with or which approach I learn or what article I read, I often, as everybody does, I often think back to him. And I think, could I have done that differently? And to this day, the only thing I think I could have done a little differently would have been play. I didn't know about play that well then. Like he would chase a stick or a ball, but it wasn't the game. You know what I mean? He liked the ball. Yeah, he liked the ball. But apart from that, we had a great relationship. He was emotionally far better after that process. So I always look back to him as the benchmark. And then I think once I got into training, you get those outlier dogs where you throw everything out the window and it just changes everything. And you realize, oh, this isn't going to work with this dog. Like I've got to find something else.

So it's all of those dogs and the people that I've gotten a lot of advice from and just going through the process. But I think, yeah, I think I have a lot of empathy for owners because I do understand what it feels like. I understand what it feels like to be embarrassed, to not have control of your dog. I know there was a rumor around my area that I was the person with the German Shepherd that was attacking dogs. You know what I mean? It was devastating. So I know what that feels like. First time I ever took a dog when I was about 18 to its first obedience class and they said, bring treats. I bought chocolate. That's how stupid I was. Literally. And I couldn't figure out after 15 minutes why my dog didn't want to train anymore. That's so funny. I've done this myself. And you know how I... Oh, really? Yeah, but I was living in Belgium at the time and my dog just got into a big box of chocolate candies. And I don't know, I ate like maybe 10, 15 of them. And I was hearing something that's happening in the other room, so I run in. And then with my way of thinking, I'm like, oh, what if I use this as a reward? So I actually did try it too. But it was a bad idea. Can you not get any luck? No, it was a bad idea. That's so funny. I'm glad because I almost wasn't going to mention that because I thought people will scream at the screen, you idiot. Like, you don't know what you're doing. Tell me a little more. I'm probably not the only one that will be interested in the school that you went. Was that like online, in person? How long? This is always of interest to me. Yeah, the name is the National Dog Trainers Federation of Australia. And it's a year-long accreditation. And it's mainly online. But you have two quite large block periods that you, for me, there was no practical in Perth. So I had to fly to Melbourne for 10 days. And you did two blocks. So everything that you've learned, you go over there and you practice. And it's the classroom setting. And you've got hands on dogs. And I absolutely loved it. Like, to be able to go away for 10 days. And it was just dogs. Like, it was fantastic. And I'd say, I mean, obviously very grounded in positive reinforcement. Like, we were learning Grisha Stewart's bat. And everything to do with aggression was pretty much positive reinforcement. Because it's like an entry course. But you also get that balanced approach. I believe most of the course is actually based on Steve Lindsay's books. Because it was created, I think, maybe 10, 15. Oh, no, it'll be longer now. Maybe 20 years ago. But, yeah, I really enjoyed it. I think it's the only balanced accreditation in the country.

Most of the other ones are all force-free. And the funny thing is, I did consider those before I got started. And I look back and I think, wow, I wonder how my path would have been different. You know what I mean? If I'd done one of the other ones. Because I can get quite passionate with my opinions. And I wonder, would I have been, like, one of the first extremists? But then I think to my German Shepherd, Zolle. And I probably wouldn't have been. Because I know it wouldn't have worked for him. But, yeah, interestingly enough, like, one of my favourite instructors, when I did my accreditation, I started in 2015. I'm now on the board with, for an organisation called Professional Dog Trainers Australia, which was started about three years ago now by a trainer named Steve Courtney, just to bring some representation into Australia that kind of covers all trainers. Because we don't have that here. So we're involved in, like, you know, the tool bans and sitting in government meetings, like, going over the tool ban processes. We were involved in the IGP situation. I think it was in South Australia where they wanted to change the criteria to IGP dogs are considered attack dogs. And luckily that got over the age. Didn't they even ban it for a little bit altogether in one of the states? In Victoria? Yeah, in Victoria. I'm not sure if it's specifically banned. But the regulations and restrictions are such that you just can't do it. I'm not sure if that's... Victoria is probably the most extreme state in terms of those kinds of regulations. But it would have been a similar thing in South Australia. Because you wouldn't have been able to import dogs because they're now deemed attack dogs, trained attack dogs. So it would have killed the sport in South Australia. But luckily that's been overturned and they've taken that out of the legislation. So that was fantastic to see that. But, yeah, we're still fighting tool bans here. I think Tasmania here has just announced that they're looking to redo their legislation and they want to ban e-collars in Tasmania. So we're involved in that. But as you know, it's a tough battle. But we're chipping on. But what I was going to say was my favourite instructor from the NDTF is actually on the board of PDTA with me now. So it's kind of like a full circle that I'm like, wow, like I used to look up to her so much. She was so clever. And does she remember me being that annoying student? That's very cool. That's very cool. But that's very important too.

I mean, for people that have the knowledge to be in this kind of committees and boards and, you know, like there is a need for people that understand what the fight is about. And hopefully, I mean, Australia is in a pretty interesting place and you also have the different states and just because something passes in one, it doesn't mean that necessarily goes through the next one, right? That's kind of how it is in the States. But we have this fear that if the door gets cracked open anywhere, it will just, it's just gonna be it. And actually, I feel very comfortable now. I don't know exactly why, but I don't think this is happening in the States. I really don't think so. There's no vans in the States, is there? They have been tried quite, I mean, almost every year somewhere somebody will try to do something and there will be some, either a big petition or some legislation kind of secretly trying to get passed. But eventually, all, you know, dog trainers and just pet owners will go to the hearings and just, it will be so overwhelming that it gets shut down every time. And, yeah, I really think that it's almost, I'm not saying we need to not be aware and pay attention and continue to defend. But if we do what we are doing right now, I don't think this is ever happening in the States, hopefully. I feel bad for places in Europe, how they, you know, the early 2000s was just very different landscape. And even with internet and the Europeans just didn't think that this is anything serious. I don't know. There was many factors why it happened. And it's very difficult for them right now to reverse. But they're trying, though. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it also comes down to, I mean, I get told all the time online, oh, just ignore them. Right. Just show your training. Like, we all hear that. But the problem is their voices are loud. And if you don't say something, they're the only voices being heard. And I don't think people realise how far this could go. Like, people think, oh, you know, it's not the end of the world if there's some tools banned. I'm like, that's not where it's going to go. I think in, I could be wrong, but I think in Portugal at the moment, they're actually trying to ban all aversives. Like, aversive training. I've seen a document, but it's in Portuguese, so I can't read it. But I think there's an emphasis on e-collars and choke chains and stuff. But I think there's a general theme of they want to ban all aversive techniques. And that's where it's going.

I mean, there's rumblings now about police and military dogs with all the emotive language about that and sports and everything. And I think people don't realise that organisations like PETA do have an influence. I was reading the other day about PETA saying it's a myth that we want to take your dogs, that we're going to come and take your dogs. But the interesting thing is, in that same page, down the bottom, they state they want to neuter all dogs. And they want to get to the point where there are no more dogs being born because they don't want any animal in servitude. Like, that's where this is going. And I think people are like, oh, no, that's sensational. It's not. That's where this is going. We've got a political party here, the Animal Justice Party, and they're very, very much PETA. Like, they're kind of going that way as well. And they've got influence, you know. So I think people need to understand that you can't just train your dog and show your work because nobody wants to go onto your page and look at your work if they disagree with you anyway. Yeah, and what is interesting is also that it's just so hard to talk to each other, you know, when we have opposing views. It's just impossible. Like, I've honestly given up on this for a moment or a year or two. So I was really thinking, well, if we talk to each other more and if we end up exploring and learning about how things can be done, we can collectively come to the, you know, grow together and get, you know, to just be better overall as a community. And, yeah, I, you know, I kind of lost hope on this. I don't know. What is your take on this? Yeah, I think there's a, I mean, and whenever I talk about force breed trainers, I always want to be really, really clear that I'm not talking about force breed training. And I'm not talking about. Yeah, that's the thing. There is just the levels of. Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah, that's very true. Go on. Yeah. And I have some force breed trainers who I consider almost friends. Like, we chat online all the time. We share ideas. And it really comes down to the person. I know with some of them there's certain points of conversations that we just don't really go into too much because we just have differences of opinion. But whenever I say, well, force breed is doing this, I'm really talking about that radical kind of extremist end. And I think, I don't know how large that part of the community is, but I think it's pretty large. Like, I find it difficult to connect with many trainers online that are more moderate and even interesting. And interesting. Anything I have to say.

Like, and I think, like, like you said, you've lost a little bit of hope. And I think the reason for that is that you've got to have curiosity if you want to take a step like that and hear somebody. And I just think at that end, there's no curiosity because they believe, you know, a balanced trainer and whether you like that term or not, it just makes it easier to say it that way. It's like shutting down dogs and being violent and they just don't believe in engaging with anybody like that. So I think that's the tricky point. I think speaking with more moderate force breed trainers may open the eyes of some of them. But I think sometimes the force breed trainers, as you've seen, the force breed trainers that do speak to balanced trainers are almost vilified more than the balanced trainers. True. You know? Yeah, very true. But I agree. I mean, when I have to say something not so positive about the force breed trainers, I always have those force breed trainers that actually are forcing their ideology on us. And as you said, they are not a handful of people, unfortunately. That there is a, I wouldn't say it's a big number, but they have a strong community. And they, yeah, I feel like they're in a mission to just try to shut down and do what they think is the right thing for everybody, which is kind of ridiculous to begin with. And I don't know. It's frustrating. But as I said, I have, in a way, given up. Like, I've learned a lot over the last few years about who they are. One of the things that always amazes me lately is that I start to realize that, you know, like, they really believe that if you're using any form of a verse for any reason, that means that you are not understanding what positive reinforcement can do. You don't know anything about schedule reinforcement. You don't know anything about reinforcement delivery, primax principle, extinction births, markers, cues, jackpots, and all these things. Financial reinforcement. You know, it's like, no, you don't know anything. Because if you do, then you wouldn't have to use a verse. And I have so much to talk about this, but nobody wants to have that conversation. And in some way, you know, it is what it is. But they're really living in a bubble where everything is just made up. It goes against any fundamental biological, like any laws of how life on Earth functions, it goes against. It's like just a fake reality in a lot of ways, you know. And on top of that, like, I mean, you know, and, you know, like when we spend some time going over their studies,

it's at this point, they're not even cherry-picking data anymore. It's like outright design to produce a desired outcome. It's not like a... And that's what makes me lose hope that any conversation can be productive. And there hasn't been, like, I mean, I know that I'm so vocal and sometimes very stubborn, but I do listen, I do change my mind when, you know, you're like, you have to present something that will be legit to change my mind. I don't believe in fairy tales and fake realities. I trained dogs for 40 years, and I go out there, and if you do something really good, I want to know how you did it. But just to tell me that some experiment and study showed with 20 dogs that this is better than something else, and that was done 20 years ago, and that hasn't picked up any momentum to prove in real world that this is actually possible, I'm not interested in it. Fair enough. And I think because when I got into dog training, I was so conscious of how little I knew. And I guess just as a person, I really dislike black and white thinking. Like, it just really annoys me. It doesn't matter what the topic is. I'm like, if you see the earth is flat, like, Google a credible website. Like, it's so easy to fact check. I mean, you've got to know what you're researching, but I kind of try to make a point of if I'm going to tell somebody, look, like, for example, there's a training course here, which I think is probably underwhelming now, which is force-free snake avoidance training. And it's a 12-week course. I don't know how much it costs. And if I see something like that, I seriously consider doing it. If I'd had the time, the only thing is I would have felt like a little bit of a mole, like hiding and observing. But I would genuinely like to do it. Like you say, if somebody says, well, we're going to do this because it can be just as effective and it's whatever, I'm like, well, I want to know how to do it. Like, I talk about one of the hills that I will die on is kind of e-collar training for predation because I just think it's so important. And I think it saves, you know, dogs' lives, animals' lives. Whenever I talk about that, I always hear, oh, predation substitute training. Like, you know, that can do it too. And I see a lot of people saying, oh, that doesn't work. And when people say you should check it out, they say, why would I bother? But I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I get on Amazon and I buy those books and I read them and I want to see what are they doing. I actually think predation substitute training is really cool. Like Simone Miller has a really good understanding of predation.

She presents it really, really well. I think if you have the time and the resources and the dog and the environment that you can do that, you could probably do quite well with it. But when people say to me, oh, the dog's killed an animal, you can do predation substitute training. Simone Miller even says that it won't, you shouldn't have a dog off leash if it's actually killed an animal. Like it's not appropriate for that. So they're even misrepresenting what she says. And I think it's still a great thing to do. And I think for a lot of people, it could probably be effective if they have that commitment to do it. But the reality is it is never going to be as effective for those dogs that are just more serious or the owners that just don't have those resources and environments to do. It's just never going to be as effective. And people say, well, you know, we don't know that e-collars are doing this or doing that. It's probably the most well-researched training method. And that's saying something, considering there isn't a huge amount of studies. But if you want to talk about evidence-based practice, I think there's very little you could point to more than e-collar training for predation. It's evidence-based, like I argue. You know what I mean? Oh, but the welfare issues. You know, well, great. Then you do the studies and you add the welfare component into it because that's how research works. On that note, I'm not sure if you're aware of the study, but there's a study that's like a literature review that was brought out a couple of years ago, which reviewed all the training approaches to predation. And it broke it all down. And it went through the Christensen and Dale and all those studies. It didn't include the ones that looked at coyote predation, which I found was interesting because they showed a lot of efficacy, but they were just looking at dogs. And, you know, those studies show efficacy for what they're measuring. And not a lot of them have welfare measures. But the researcher says the problem with these studies is they're not looking at welfare. So we should look at anecdotal evidence like the rattlesnake force free aversion training and do research on that. And I'm like, hang on. That's not the process. Like if you if you see an effect and you and you see there's always limitations. You can't measure everything. Then you say, OK, we've got efficacy like that works. And we see it works in the field all the time. Like there's so much evidence out there. So then you would do the next study and you would add welfare measures to that and would measure the time.

Like is this throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But the I mean, the interesting thing about this review is it's a single author. And in the in this section where it says I have no, you know, competing financial interests or anything. The author is a force free predation specialist who sells prey drive training courses and has a Facebook group for her clients. And one of the rules in that Facebook group is no recommendations of aversive training or aversive training methods. Now, that's not a competing like she doesn't have any other authors. Like I know people would argue the same thing about your study with with Dr. Wynn, but you you're not the researcher like she's a researcher. Like how is that not a competing interest? You know, that was very interesting. Very different with us. Like I was not the researcher and I had two of the most high end force, positive reinforcement only people that are designing the study, you know. You know, with Simone Muller, it was very interesting. Yeah. Emery Johnson's a force free trainer. Oh, big time. I mean, like, like, like, like, and then genuinely in a good way, not, not, she's not just blowing up smoke. Like she, she really believes in, in doing the best possible approach for the dogs. And she is convinced that is the force free approach. So, so, so you know that, that there is no, yeah, I, I don't know how much I want to even talk about that study because, um, um, it was very good study. Like, it was really, really good study. Um, we, we approached a lot of people to, to offer either advice on what they would do as force free trainers or be part of the study. Yeah. Yeah. And like, like, like that study that Clive and, and Anne-Marie did, anybody can replicate it tomorrow if they wanted to. And if they have any questions, they will answer their questions the same day to help them replicate it. Hmm. Hmm. Now, if I try to replicate Daniel Mill's study, the famous Lincoln University, there is zero chance. It's a, it's like a swimming in muddy water looking for your iPhone that you dropped in, in a lake. There's zero chance. There's zero chance. And if you, well, I have tried to talk to him several times. That's the interesting thing with, with most of the people that do that research. They, it's not that they hide, but they hide when they feel that they will be challenged. Hmm. Hmm. But they are very open to show up at any conference, any podcast, any, any speaking engagement where they're gonna, they know for sure that they're gonna get praised for what they do. Hmm.

And, and, you know, like, I mean, being a dog trainer or being a scientist, like you have idea, you, you, you're trying to show something. And, and, if I was to say something, I would be, you know, and somebody challenges it, I would be interested to hear. Anyway, I, I was talking to him a few times over the years. And to the point that we were almost gonna have a podcast. Um, but then, all, all, um, communication stopped, like, just abruptly stopped. And I tried a few more times, and there was, there was just no, no point. And, and that's the, that's, you know, that's on them. Um, and that's kind of what I mean by, if you, if you don't want to really have that conversation, have that debate, have your findings challenged, proven that, prove that you're right or accept that something you might be wrong about. Um, it, it's a strange thing to, to say that you're doing science at this point. Um, it, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's like, it's an ideology, it's dogma, it's just not, not, I don't know. I mean, the same happened with, uh, Simon Miller, you know, and, and just like you, I go everywhere. Like, I, I, I, I pay for any online conference, webinar, being AVSAB, being APDT, being, um, aggression conference, whatever it is. I'm, I'm genuinely curious to see what people do. And if there are any takeaways, always. Um, so, um, I mean, I'm, I'm really familiar. I'm familiar with Simon Miller's, uh, approach to, to predation. And, and just as you said, like, I, I was, I even asked at one point, I, I can, I mean, I certainly have a lot of dogs and cases here that we can try to work online. Or she can refer any of her people that, um, finished her course that they can help with, with some dogs. And, and, to me, at least it was interesting because when we talk, then she could say, she would admit that, okay, no. If the dog is, you know, if the dog is already killed an animal or even if he didn't, but it's this hardcore wired predation instinct, then, then it's a different story. And then there is so and so. So, but, but, but ultimately it will be just management. But, I, I don't think that's what she says when she's promoting her work, you know, from, at least from what I've seen. Um, and everybody believes that this is an alternative, at least in the forestry community. Like, if, if we're talking about it, the, the, you know, she, her name will come up as a very, uh, strong alternative. But that's really not the case. And, and she would admit that that's not the case.

Um, the way she goes about it, at least the way she has told me is, well, in Germany, electric colors are forbidden. They've been forbidden since many years. So, we're working with what we can. Fair enough. Fair enough. Very true. Um, but if you have, who, if you have. If you're, if you're, if you're working with a snake avoidance. And you're not using aversives. It's very similar to if you're training a guide dog. And you will not teach the dog that cars can be dangerous and you should avoid them. But you just teach them to cross or not to cross when you tell them to. So, um, that, that's, that's like the, you know, I mean, in differential reinforcement programming, this is a big issue depending what we're dealing with. Right? If, if there is definitely times when it just feels right that I, I know that that's a bad idea. Instead of, oh, I really want to do that and I would rather do that without ever really knowing that if I don't. And, and, and, and, and when you do that only for the name of, of, you know, force free ideology. Because it's not like when we're talking how, what, what, how much aversives and, and, and what is the, what is the fallout and what is the whole, the whole, you know, Sidman coercion and it's fell out, you know. I'm going all over the place, but, but, but it really, he, he, he's probably the, the, the, the biggest name to blame for all this. Um, and, and, and, and I highly doubt that even the hardcore advocates have ever read and studied his work. Because if you do, you would have a lot of questions. Like you will really have a lot of questions. It's, it's, you know, I don't know. Um, um, you, you, you totally can teach a dog to do something else when they see a snake. But the dog will never know that snake can hurt and can really do a bad thing, which is the most natural way that you would learn about a snake. What you, what you actually need to know about the snake. And it's, I think it's dishonest the way these courses are marketed because they're marketed as force-free snake avoidance training. And I'm like, but by definition, you cannot teach avoidance with positive reinforcement. You're actually teaching the snake to detect and to use that as a cue to return to the owner, which is, which is what a process is. And like Dr. Elif said in your, um, podcast, I really liked Dr. Elif. He's so cool.

He's so interested in what dog trainers are doing, which is so rare. And I think that's so fantastic. But like he said, sure, it could work, but it could also increase the likelihood of a dog approaching a snake in the right moment. If the handler doesn't notice the indication or maybe the, because I mean, at the end, when Dr. Elif talked about the Kiwi studies and how the, um, aversion to stimuli doesn't necessarily generalize to the real bird. Force-free trainers aren't using real snakes. They're using scent and they're using dummy snakes. They're not using real snakes. Right. So that's one thing. And, and I think they present it like e-collars can do this and it's why would you want to hurt your pet? And there's a kind of way, but I'm like, you've got to be honest and at least say like, you know, this takes more work. You will need to dedicate a lot of time to this. I know, I know somebody, I think there were a client, it was quite a few years ago who did a force-free snake, um, avoidance course here. Cause obviously we have a lot of it here. And they, they said there were about 10 people in the class. It was a six week course. Every single one of the students or owners failed in the last, like the test at the end of the six week course. And the trainer said, you should have done more homework. So it's like, that's the problem. Yeah. This is, this is like becoming this, what you just said is becoming a very hot topic, uh, at least among trainers that I am around. Um, that blame and shaming that when, when the system is failing that you either didn't understand it or you didn't do it correctly or didn't do it enough or, but it's on you. It's, it can never be the system that you put in question. Exactly. And with the, and, and going even further with, with the, the snake avoidance. I mean, if the dog sees the snake, the owner doesn't see the snake, the dog is expecting now reinforcement. Now the reinforcement is posed. Now the dog is kind of tapping into some extinction burst. And it's like, Hey dude, there is a snake here. Yeah. I need my treat. And now the dog actually is forced to mess with the snake to point it out to the owner so it can get paid for it. It's, it, it, it, it has, it's flawed. Uh, just the idea to think of, of, it's just such a derailing. Then that, um, I, I don't know why we are doing this just, just because we are so much against the use of a verse F. And, and again, it, like, I mean, I would love to talk with some, some of the force free, like the, the extremist force free people, the, the ones that try to force on everybody about, about Ziedman.

And, and, and I mean, the, the, the whole, the whole thing, like, it's a flawed conflation of coercion and aversive control. It's just, it's like, they're not the same thing. You know, it's like you, he equates coercion exclusively with punishment, negative reinforcement. And, and, and we know that positive reinforcement can also have coercive properties. Like, and he knows that. It's, he, he knows that. I mean, any kind of deprivation, you know, uh, I don't know. It, it, it, it's crazy. Plus, I mean, the, the, who was it? Uh, Perone, Michael Perone. He had a really good one, the one, uh, where, where he was talking about, you know. Negative response, positive reinforcement. Right, right. And how, how, um, you know, positive reinforcement, you know, has, has often embedded aversive elements, frustration when rewarded is called. I mean, frustration goes long ways. And, I mean, that's just one of it. And on top of that, control is control, positive or negative. You, you cannot, it's, it's such a, it's just ideology driven. It's not, it's not a, it's not scientific. It's a, it's a very wishful, it's good thinking. But, you know, the, the so-called fell out of the punishment, uh, um, at best, it's, it's never, you know, intrinsic. It's, it's contingent on poor application, maybe. Absolutely. Um, if, if anything, we need to get better at it. But the, the idea to abandon it altogether, it just makes zero sense. It's been this big step that we seem to have just stepped over, which was now let's test it properly and do some proper applied research. And they're like, well, no, if owners are yelling at their dogs and scruffing them and that's causing stress, then nobody should be able to use aversives. And I'm like, do we, do we do owner surveys to see how well they do medical interventions? And if you didn't see good results, would that mean we can't do medical interventions anymore because owners are doing it wrong and they're not even qualified to do it? It's just, it's so illogical that that's how, that's, that's how, that's what we're taking from research. Like there's, there's the couple of, I think it's the Hibby and the Rooney studies that show up in every position statement. They're literally one of three references on Wikipedia when they talk about the history of dog training and that they say positive reinforcement training is more effective. And I'm like, it's, it's just bizarre to me that people are using those studies. And if you look at them, we have no idea about the variables of the dog owners are doing random angry things.

And if you look at the limitations, the authors say themselves, it could also be that owners lack an understanding of training methods and learning theory and timing. You know, the authors say it themselves. And I think if you're a trainer, you're like, yeah, that's actually what it is. That's not the, that's not, if the issue isn't that positive reinforcement is more effective than aversives, it's just, you need to know what you're doing. I mean, a lot of the force free trainers say, oh, anybody can punish a dog. Like that's easy, but no, it's not. Like if the research shows us anything, it shows us, because I don't think there's any, there's no such thing as really bad research in a way, because research does tell you something. Even all the owner surveys and the Lincoln study tells you something. And that is, if it's not done properly, it can cause issues. You've got to know what you're doing. You've got to have competence. And I think that's what people, that's the key, like certifications, education, regulation. I'm, I support regulation, but yeah, it's. Yeah. And like when you said, it's not easy. And at the same time, what is easy about punishment is that when it's done properly, besides being effective, we, like, like any living being on our planet, responds exactly the way it should respond. Exactly. That there is no fallout at that point. Right. Like the, like, like, like, like Siedman's ideas of, you know, the, the exclusion of aversive control. I mean, ignores just reality. Like, like, it's the most critical way we learn through, through natural consequences of aversive experiences. Like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, and, and, and you know what, I, because I've put at one time a lot of time in, in his work. And Eduardo Fernandes work kind of mirrors his work. And Eduardo Fernandes work kind of mirrors his work in a lot of ways. They, they really, like, like, like in a lot of ways he just copies it and presents it as a, as, as a work. I'll explain and see if I make sense to this. But going back to Ziedman's ideas, it's like, okay, well, let's say coercion is, it has, like, it has the fallout. And let's say that coercion and aversive control are one and the same, which they are not. Like, it's just ridiculous thing to even talk this way. But let's say that, like, if you, like, if I think and I say, well, so what can we do? What are our options then? And everything starts to lead towards errorless learning.

And then I've listened to at least four very long presentations that Ziedman did on errorless learning back, way back, like when it was a hot topic, when Skinner was just thinking that that's just going to take over the world, which would have been great. But this is now, what, 50, 60, 70 years ago? And it hasn't happened. So the alternative answer that they proposed, it's not there. Like, it's really not there. We know errorless learning has extreme limitations. We know trial and error has, I don't know, I get so frustrated with this. Me too. Because... Sorry, go ahead. No, like, really, that's when you start to kind of peel that onion, that's where it goes. Like, okay, so what do we do? And eventually we're going to say, well, we just, it's errorless learning. Where in our planet, errorless learning really flourishes? Like, we're talking slightly more complicated tasks. And errorless learning is in deep trouble. Like, we're not talking anything complicated. Just you throw a little curveball into the errorless learning and we have a problem, a big problem. Exactly. And I know in Dr. Benander's study, which I've only gone over once, so I haven't gone over in extreme detail. And I know you have to control variables. So it's not that I'm criticizing this, but they, I think they excluded some dogs from that study because their food drive wasn't high enough. And, you know, you've got to have an equal playing field just to show the results. So I'm not saying, oh, my God, they shouldn't have excluded them because I understand why. But that's the reality. Like, as trainers working with dogs day to day, like, that's what it all comes down to. There's so much nuance. There's no way you can look at these things in black and white. And that's where, like, negative reinforcement, even like CAT. Like, I think CAT's one of the coolest training systems ever either as well. The problem with it is it's difficult to control the environment to do it. That's the problem. And the owners have really got to know what they're doing. But I think it's all negative reinforcement. Well, it's mostly negative reinforcement. And the dog has choice and all these things. But it's poo-pooed by, like, our veterinary society here in Australia because it's negative reinforcement. And you shouldn't use negative reinforcement in training. Like, that's such a black and white statement that doesn't take into account so many factors. What are you going to do with a dog that just doesn't want to take food? But some owners, they don't have three months to build food drive and put in all that work.

Like, they have a dangerous situation and they need to do something now. Like, I sent you that study the other day, which I'm preparing for the workshop on the weekend. So I think I've been diving through a lot of research that DOAN 2023, which is actually a very thorough review because it goes into the humane hierarchy and cat, bat, all of these things. But it's a literature review on force-free training practices for aggression and fear and anxiety. And I'm literally reading from it. It says, there's a surprising lack of research into the effectiveness of behavior modification programs and canine aggression and fear and anxiety. The scientific evidence for efficacy of behavior modification interventions for aggression and fear and anxiety without medication and canines is almost non-existent. Like, that's where we are. And it goes through it all. And one of the biggest factors I've seen in this and I've seen in a lot of other studies that do look at, like, classical conditioning procedures and stuff, is one of the biggest barriers to success is compliance. And that's another thing that I really got out of the pharmaceutical industry is when I would speak to doctors, doctors aren't always choosing a medicine just based on the highest efficacy and the lowest side effect profile. Sometimes they're not choosing a medicine because the regime is too complicated and the patient won't do it. And that's the truth. And it says that in this literature review and it says it in a lot of other studies. Owner compliance was low. Once the trainer handed the dog back over to the owner, they didn't continue with it. You see it in cooperative care at vets. Like, they'll do all the training. And, of course, you should do all that R-plus and teach handling and desensitize that and everything. But as soon as they're in the vet room, they don't do it. Like, and so then all of a sudden the dog's in a situation that they've never dealt with before because they haven't learned to deal with pressure and cope with stress. You know what I mean? So it's lovely to have this ideology in the perfect world. But our clients aren't professional dog trainers. They're people that I've got single mums with small children and two jobs. And even getting them to do two five-minute training sessions a day can be difficult. And it's not because they're lazy. It's not because they're lazy. It's because they have challenges in their lives and they only have certain resources that they can allocate. And that doesn't mean, oh, we should throw e-collars on all of them. Correct.

But it does mean we need to look at things which are going to help the dog's quality of life long term as much as possible. And that comes down to competence of the trainer. You know what I mean? To be able to meet that goal without too much aversion. But also, you know, give the owner hope that they can get somewhere with their dog. Like this review, it points it out black and white. It's not effective. And I think there needs to be inclusions of other things. You know, that's what it is. A lot of trainers doing some amazing work. I've got one of my mentors and very good friends, Brett Bailey, who's a good boy in the streets. His business name is he works in New York City with some really, really serious dogs. And his approach is almost force-free most of the time. He's a balanced trainer. So he's using negative reinforcement and stuff. He's very good at what he does and it can be done to a certain degree. But he's still not a completely force-free trainer because it is not under the illusion that it's going to be effective for everybody. Yes, and that's really the big, like if we really just have to break it down to the most simplistic argument is that the positive reinforcement people want everybody to believe that one size fits all. And then there is the other crowd that says that's absolutely not true. And there is time and place when something will be more effective than something else. Like that, and I don't see why would you even want to argue and how can you argue that? Like how could you argue that? They argue, well, effectiveness is in everything. And that's what Susan Friedman said in the Humane Hierarchy. And that's what Dr. Fernandez says in his life model. He says it can't just be about effectiveness. And I agree it has to be about quality of life and understanding welfare. But at the same time, it does have to be effective. Like otherwise, what are we doing? Like it does have to be effective. You can't go, well, we're not so worried about it being effective. So we will just settle for it not being effective at all in a lot of cases. And I'm not saying it can't be effective. Like a lot of my reactivity programs are pretty much force free because the client can do it, because the dog's capable, all those factors. But it's not everybody. You know, that's the thing. I think everybody thinks that we're just throwing a prong collar and e-collar on every single dog we see. And some trainers need to do that because they're getting all the most difficult dogs that have been failed by everybody else. So it's not that I even judge that.

But I get involved in the arguments and the comments. It's one of my toxic traits that I just can't not. Sometimes I can't stop because I get so mad. But doing that, I've got such an insight into how the arguments go. Like I could create a flow chart. Like I know I'm going to say this and then they're going to say this and then they're going to say this. Like it always goes one of a few ways. Right. And whenever you really get down to it and you're like, okay, cool, tag me in a video of somebody doing it. It's just not that different how politics in any government is the same thing. But I tell you something. And they'll say, well, I don't need to show you. You can find your own evidence. Right. And I'm like, if I'm going to argue something and I make a point, I'm going to give you the evidence to back it up. But then they're like, Google is free. Like because they know it's ideology. And I get into those arguments because I hope at some level I might plant a seed or somebody else might see it in the comments and go, oh, is there evidence? And they actually go looking for it in these cases where we know there's no evidence. Apart from maybe the odd dog that does really well, you know, in extreme cases for sure. But you can't provide a treatment that is only effective for like 10% of your target population. Like that's ridiculous. And that's when dogs fall through the cracks. And that's what we're seeing. You know, there's a vet behaviorist in my city and a client sent me the letter and the report. There's a vet behaviorist in my city that when you go to see them before your first session, you have to sign a contract that states, I agree that in some cases when a dog has bitten a person, the only way to keep people safe is behavioral euthanasia. And they haven't even seen the vet behaviorist yet. And they said that was very off-putting. Luckily, their dog wasn't human aggressive. But because that's the expectation sometimes. Sometimes they put on the reports, no aversives used or aversives used. Like that's a huge factor in the aggression case. That's right. You know? Yeah, very strange. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, before we go to this, I just want to go back. I'll tell you and everybody kind of interesting situation that I was with Eduardo Fernandez. You know, like after he came up with LIFE, which I have to even think now what exactly stands for least inhibited. Man, what was that? Least inhibited. Oh, I should know because I've been reading it so many times. Functionally effective. Functionally effective. Yeah, yeah. I like the functional part of it.

So, no, again, it's very much, that's why I say, like I can see how the ideas of Moray Sidman, you know, it's the same thing. It's like coercion and it's fell out. It's like, well, we can do LIFE instead of Lima and so on. And the question remains the same. What is the alternative? And, of course, just like Sidman, he comes up with the errorless learning comparison to trial and error. And, as you said, like anybody that spends a little time that knows what to read, like it's, like first off, out of, I don't know how many dogs, only third makes it through the actual training stage. I mean, just think about that. Imagine you have 100 people in a study and only 33 manage to finish. We have a serious problem. Like this should, like as far as I'm concerned, this cannot even go into publication. It's just there is nothing there. Something, and I don't know what, but something went very wrong. I mean, it's insane, it's a big red flag. Then there is the, what is really puzzling to me is the, what happens with a trial and error dogs for incorrect responses? Like, what are the feedbacks? Are we just kind of, like, are there any consequences? Are we kind of vaguely say some words? Like, what actually is really what he considers trial and error? In a study that is so important that we are comparing, that it actually can change the direction of where the whole training industry goes. Because, you know, like, what do you do in this for incorrect responses, right? Like, how does the dog know that they were wrong? And are there any consequences? Like, like, like, like, it really just left in the open. It doesn't make sense. Then, then the training session. I mean, it's a mess. Like, there is a, that, I, I don't know. How was it? It was just really kind of mismatching. Like, there was a claim. There was, like, two-hour session. But then they, they were, like, one minute to 12 minutes. And, and you kind of, like, you cannot put it together. How, how long the sessions? Or is it one, like, in some increment? Like, like, how long that was? That, that's, you know. But then there is even a bigger problem. Like, like, with the, with the groups of, you know, from the way I was reading it, it sounded like definitely the, the errorless group had some extra training to, to go through the, what do you call it? Yeah, I know what you mean, but I haven't read it enough times to remember exactly what I said. But, I mean, anyway, like, like, it's just not, it cannot be.

It just cannot be enough of a, something that the dog trainer should consider to change and say, okay. Again, you have the, the, in one study, you have the huge dropout rate. The questionable or zero feedback when the trial and error dogs make the wrong decision. The confusing setup. With, with the, how long the sessions are. The, maybe, maybe the different training groups, the, then the. are there any consequences in a trial and error? Because otherwise what kind of trial and error that is, right? Are we doing some shitty version of errorless learning and we're calling it trial and error? And we're comparing it to the perfect trial and error version? I don't know. But he also don't want to talk. Like I've tried to talk to him. Like I've tried for like two years. I am busy. I'm working on something. I'm like, okay, I'll call. Check with me in a month or two months, three months, four months. And I kind of mark it on my calendar and I check with him. I check with him. Eventually there was a point where he's like, okay, I want to do it. I mean, I told him like you're clearly for whatever reason. You don't want to and that's fine. He's like, no, I want to, but I need to do it. We don't. Moderator. In a panel. And there has to be a woman in it. And we have to do it live. I'm not joking. What does he think you're going to do? I'm like, okay, I'm totally fine with that. But I don't think I can come up with all that shit. So can you make it happen? And I think he did it just because to create this impossible, you know, it's like, okay. I reached out to him and he said an appointment within a week. But. Right. As long as, as I say, as long as they know that they will not be challenged. They're extremely happy to talk and receive praise. I mean, I definitely challenged him. And again, I don't want to, I don't want to personally attack Dr. Benadis. He's obviously a very well-respected scientist. And I like some of the components in his life model. A lot of it, I don't. But it's, you know, researchers are people. And I think unless you're a, you're a dog trainer, you know, like Dr. Plonsky and Roger Abrantes and people like that. I think that you have to accept that you might not understand the methods that you're judging. When I, when I spoke to Dr. Fernandez, I didn't, I didn't tell him I was a balanced trainer. I said I was a trainer. Like, I don't really feel like I need to put a knee on light about what kind of trainer I am. I just said, I'd like to talk about your life model. And that was, that was true. And we had a nice discussion.

What was interesting though, was we talked about the functional part of the life model, which I like. And it says that you need to really understand the function of the behavior so that if you train an alternative behavior, you're meeting the same function if possible. So I asked him, I said, when it comes to like predation or something like that, the function of the behavior is to attack an animal because it feels good. So if we just do differential reinforcement, we're not really addressing the function of the behavior. And I said, plus there's so much evidence that e-collar training can be so effective in predation, for example. I said, surely from a welfare scientist perspective, wouldn't, wouldn't the next step be to look at welfare more so that we can make sure that it's been done safely. What was interesting was when I said that Dr. Fernandez said, which studies are you talking about? He hadn't heard of about five of the studies that I was talking about. And I did send them to him afterwards and he picked them apart and just said they weren't any good. I'm like, they're probably, you know, they're probably better than any study that, you know, that we've really done in any, in anything else in a lot of ways. And, you know, I respect that he has his opinion. I think it's quite, personally, I think it's quite biased, but it's just disappointing to see that lack of critical thought that, oh, well, you know, maybe look at this and yes, that's good, but we really need to make sure the trainers know what they're doing. And what was almost a little uncomfortable was he started to talk about the balance trainers that came for him in a way that I thought, oh, even though I'm talking about e-collars and stuff, he's obviously hasn't clicked that I'm a balance trainer. So I didn't really bring it up. And it was almost a little, a little awkward, but, you know, I appreciate it this time, but it's, that just goes to show like he's presenting the evidence of what's effective and what's not effective. And he wasn't even aware of Dale and Totoro and Christensen and those studies. Like, cause I said, why aren't we seeing those studies in position statements in the reference list that you recommend? And he said, which studies are you talking about? So it's almost like there's research that's now almost being whitewashed. Like it just doesn't exist because it doesn't fit the narrative. And the researchers and the dog trainers aren't even aware of it because it just suits the agenda. Right. Yeah. It's a, again, I mean, it's, it's a tough one.

And, um, like I, I have difficult times with, with this, um, you know, because when you, when, when somebody has influence and it's advocating for something that they know, or they may not know that it's misleading, I think this is a problem and it should be exposed or it should be at least, yeah, I mean, exposed or talked or whatever, like the whole life thing, like, like just something as simple as that. It really fails to acknowledge situations when punishment is absolutely the only available option. Like this is not arguable. And, and no matter how you want to talk about it, if you cannot agree to that, um, I mean, there's just canon, I mean, there's just so much literature and there is so much empirical, like I, I've been training dogs for a long time and what a study can tell me if I cannot find use of that in when, when, when, when I'm training dogs, actually training dogs, what value is that to me? And, and why do we need to, uh, um, praise a study like that? It's a, it really, like he overemphasizes the whole, you know, minimally, uh, inhibit, inhibitive approaches and techniques and whatever. And at the same time, really neglecting situations where more assertive interventions are just, like really needed. There is, uh, there is an emergency that you need to do something like this, this, like, like I know from, and, and many trainers, like if they get familiarized with this, they'll be like, this is going to lead to, to disastrous outcomes in certain situations with certain dogs without a doubt, like without a doubt. And what do we do? Then we say, well, we tried everything and that's where it gets very shitty. We tried everything and then they will go. That's what I was showing. Then, then we will go to the psychotropic stuff. Right. I mean, I have bottles and bottles and bottles of this shit from, from, I don't know from how many years. I will tell you something really, um, at my, like with my students at my, well, not my students, but, uh, like I have like my graduates from my school, like we have monthly calls. And, and, and, and I made like a, as we had a zoom call, like a survey. And there were probably, let's say 50 to 60 people on the call that are actively training dogs professionally, pet dogs. And I asked them how many of them have had clients in the last two years that the dog was on psychotropic meds.

Every single one had a client. Every single one. Now that's disturbing. Next question that I had for them was, what was the youngest age that the dog came with psychotropic meds? Six months old for being active, for being a puppy that likes to play. Then my next question was, any of the dogs that came through the training, was their intention or a process to get wind of the medication eventually? No. No. That's disturbing. And then, when you think about it, it's not even, at this point, it's so generic, unfortunately, that it's not an animal behaviorist. You, any, any vet, the dog's going to come to the vet clinic and it's going to say, no, I don't want the vet techs to jump on me. And the veterinarian's going to prescribe, in some cases, Prozac. For not even having the knowledge, not having even a consultation, but have the ability to write a prescription. And that's kind of, this is what happens when, you know, the force-free and errorless learning and all the differential reinforcement starts to fail. The next step is psychotropic meds. And it's so overdone. And you're coming from, from a specific background that I didn't know. So, I want to hear what, what you think of all this that's going on everywhere in the world. I, yeah, I, I'm seeing that as well. I can, I can easily think of three dogs in the last six months. I think one was a Border Collie, one was a Rottweiler, and one was a cattle dog. You know, dogs that can be a bit energetic and stuff. And all of them were young, like five months or so at obedience training. And they said, oh, you know, she just couldn't concentrate. And she was like, oh, it's just so excited and wouldn't listen. And the trainer said, oh, well, sometimes medication can help them focus more on obedience class. And I'm like, no, your dog just shouldn't be in that obedience class. They need to be fulfilled somewhere else. And luckily, all three of those owners, it just didn't sit well with them. And I'm like, I'm not surprised. And every single one of those dogs, they didn't even have really behavior problems. Like, they just pulled on the leash a little. You know what I mean? It wasn't a behavior problem. It's like, oh, your dog can't focus, medicate it. And, you know, when I worked in pharmaceuticals, we, as reps, we profile doctors so that you kind of know what area or what kind of perspective they come from. Like, some are very patient focused. Some are very clinically focused. Some just want to show the reps that they know more than them. Like, so we would profile them. So every time we go and visit them, we know, okay, he's clinical focused.

He's really going to want to hear about this study. Whereas other dogs are like, well, I need to relate that to my patient. But doctors vary. Like, some write scripts quick. Others don't. But, you know, their side effect profiles are real. And how medication is considered least inhibiting or least intrusive is beyond me. I mean, you take, I mean, I haven't taken SSRIs. But I know if you take SSRIs, they say, like, you might feel nauseous. You might feel like this. We can't explain that to a dog. Like, how do we know how they're perceiving, how they're feeling? And when there's not even any research really showing efficacy for what they're prescribing it for. I mean, that didn't woody. That's a big, big problem. When one came out. That's really a big problem. There is not one study on that. No. The dim woody study that came out a couple of years ago, it was a survey. It showed that medication did not help in one instance of the types of aggression they were looking for. Not one. And I think that's part of the problem. Because they're getting too prescription happy. Because the training isn't working as well as it could. So we've got to find another solution. And it becomes a vicious circle. And I've got this in my workshop. It's with the welfare situation as well. You look at all the welfare models. One of the biggest criteria across most of the models, the five freedoms, the five domains, all those models, is freedom to express natural behavior. In the latest model, which I just read, which is actually quite interesting, they keep emphasizing that, that a dog needs to be able to interact with its environment in order to learn to adapt to stresses and seek positive alternatives. Like that's a key indicator of welfare. But so many dogs cannot do that because they can't be trained to be in the environment. And so if you say, well, they need this for welfare, you know, there are balanced training solutions that can be minimally added to a positive reinforcement training program that could allow a dog to spend more time with its owner, be in the environment, have a better long-term quality of life. Or no, we can't use those because they cause welfare issues. It's like a vicious circle. You know what I mean? It's, and the problem is curiosity. They've decided this is what it is and there's no curiosity. And that's not science. Like, take a look, be curious, come and have a look. But they don't want to. I had a person troll in my page yesterday who said, e-collars damage relationships. You should use love and kindness. Positive reinforcement allows dogs to live their lives. You know what I mean?

And I was very polite. And she got back and I said to her, please feel free to have a look at the dogs on my page and tell me which ones have been trained with aversive and without or something like that. And tell me they don't look happy. And her response was, I will absolutely not look at your page. And I'm like, well, what are you doing commenting if you don't even know what I'm doing? Like, have a look. Show me the dogs that are shut down. They refuse to even learn both sides of their argument. And I said to her, you lose this argument by default because you have no interest in understanding. And even that dog helped. Yeah. You know, I listened later. I don't know. It was recently something. Again, as I say, I really, really am very curious. And I listen all the time, regardless if I like or don't like the people, because sometimes they are takeaways. And so anyway, it was just recently. And then it was the Daniel Mills talking about punishment and just said something like, I'm paraphrasing probably grossly here, but something like, if you are punishing your dog, how do you expect them then to trust you? And so this is a person that has spent their life. He has every possible credential he can have. He's teaching. I mean, he's like, like, in the cream, in the top 1%. And when you give such a statement, I can tell you, you absolutely don't understand what you're talking about. Like, you have no idea what you're talking about. You don't know what punishment is. Just like whatever, like, I have him here, because I know that was, you know, like, you know. Yeah. It's exactly the same thing. He's the same thing. You know, and Skinner and Sidman and everybody, for whatever reason, they cannot make a difference between this universal suppression of any behavior. And what functional punishment, contingent punishment really means. They're not the same thing. And every single time they're talking about punishment, we're talking about this universal suppression. Of course it's going to have fallouts. Of course I would never want to walk into that room when just bad shit's happening that doesn't make no sense. But why are we talking like this? Like, just because the ideology calls for it? Or because we don't understand it? Or, I mean, really imagine if that was the case. If you punish, you're losing the trust of your dog or your kid or your whatever, like, how can you say this? It sounds like interesting thought. But the moment you put a little more deeper thinking into it, you have to realize that that's just something went wrong. And that's not what we are talking about.

That's not what punishment really means. Nobody talks about that. I mean, I cannot say that dog trainers don't do that because there are shitty dog trainers that do that all the time. Of course. And that's always the argument as well. But too many people have done it wrong. And I'm like, well, a lot of people are drinking and driving. But we don't ban cars, you know. You know, we don't just focus on them. Like, they need education. They need licenses. Right. And the other thing is there's this idea, which I think is a little bit of anthropomorphism. There's this idea that a physical punisher must be so much worse than anything else. When I was a kid, there was still, I was, you know, I'm old enough that there was still corporal punishment at my high school when I was a kid. And my brother, who was a couple of years older than me, he was a bit of a troublemaker. He didn't go to school a lot of the time and got into trouble. And sometimes he would get, I think they had the stick or the ruler on the back of the hand and he would get that. Sometimes he would get detention. He hated detention. But he didn't care if he got the ruler because it was quick. He didn't really care. And it was over and done with. Like, and I'm not saying that that's how it works in dog training. But it's like, it's how the animal perceives it. And there's a lot of situations where, you know, like my, my melon one who I didn't mention comes from Ben Gertz of Kaizen K-9 who had you, had you out in 2019. It's where my male comes from. But for her, if I, if I give her two pieces of kibble because her sip was a bit slow, she looks like she's going to like bite me in the face. Like if I stop a game, which I don't do, she would be so angry. You know what I mean? And I don't use many corrects because she's quite sensitive. But I know when she's in drive and stuff, a little correction is really just communication to her. But if it's restriction, she's, she's mad. When I, when I did my BH in April, it was the only time I did the full routine and she didn't get the ball at some stage. And she loves her ball. And I was really looking forward to the end when you sit down and the judge is giving you communication and you love on your dog. Because, you know, I see everybody do that. I'm like, oh, it's going to be such a great photo. That's going to be such a great memory. We got to the end of the routine. She's such an affectionate dog. So I was so surprised we got to the end of the routine and I was trying to give her affection. And she looked at me like, you, because she hadn't had her ball. And she's like, did you forget something?

Like, you didn't see it. And I was like, she was mad. She was literally mad at me. She wouldn't even let me pat her, you know. I took her and we had a, we had a game after we left the field. That to her is the worst thing in the world. Like, people need to start or need to stop making these assumptions and these comparisons to human children and all those kinds of things. I think Dr. Melanie is talking about that quite a lot at the moment. How the person receives pain. Like, it doesn't have to be physical. And restriction, which can happen a lot. Like, a lot of my clients, their dogs would have been so heavily restricted without some kind of aversive management or some kind of punishment or negative reinforcement that they would have a much lower quality of life. And so would their owner from the guilt that they would feel. You know, that is the reality. But unless people start being curious, I think it's, I don't know, I think it's getting a little better. But at the same time, I think it's getting a little worse. It's definitely gone up a notch in the last few years. Like, universally or in Australia? Universally. I mean, we see it here, the extremism here as well. We're in an interesting situation with the States where prom collars or e-collars aren't banned. You can't walk into shops and buy tools like that. Like, you cannot get them over the counter. You can only buy them online. And it's usually quite difficult to get them. Like, you still get some of the cheap Amazon collars. So if I'm out and about and I see a dog on a prom collar or an e-collar, that dog is almost certainly being trained by a professional trainer. Whereas I know in the States, it's probably not so much like that, you know, because I think the access is so much easier. So in a way, Australia is doing it right. It's difficult to get these tools. And you can generally only get them through trainers. But they still want to ban them. There's no abuse cases on file here with prom collars or e-collars. It's just propaganda. Yeah. I don't think this makes a difference, honestly. Like, my experience over the years, like, especially with electric collars, because that's always a kind of ongoing conversation of, well, they shouldn't be. Like, you cannot go just to the pet store and buy one. And I've gone back and forth with this a lot. But lately, I'm, you know, like, when I think throughout all the time when a client comes to me. And people don't know, but I do have a pet training business. Like, I do it because I like it and I take cases. I can afford to take cases that are interesting to me.

But I've done pet dog training for, like, really since the 90s, early 90s, you know. Like a legit pet training business. And very rarely, like most of the times, somebody's going to come and they have a problem, whatever the problem is. And they have went to the pet store and they have bought an electric collar. But they are shitless scared to try it on their own. And even when they're with a professional trainer, they're still extremely careful and reluctant. I'm talking the majority of the people that come. Of course, there is some dumb ass that will do dumb shit. Nothing. We cannot do nothing about them. Like, we just have to accept that we cannot do nothing about them. And unfortunately, you know, with social media, they can be seen and something can happen. Right, right. But as a rule of thumb, the pet owner that goes and buys an electric collar from a pet store, they're not just putting it on and starting to play like with a remote control car. They love their dogs and they really are doing it because, you know. So anyway, that's kind of my experience with. And as I said, I go back and forth with that. And I mean, I cringe more when I see a client hasn't worked with a trainer on my assessment form. And I say, what tool do you work your dog on? Walk your dog on. And they say slip lead. I cringe more about that than if I see prong collar because I know that's way more dangerous. But slip leads come in pretty colors. So that's okay. You know, they're the most dangerous tool there is. They're probably my favorite tool because I think they can be used so subtly. I rarely use prong collars and e-collars, not because I don't want to. I just don't have the kind of cases that often need that. And generally, we're just using a slip lead. Sometimes we're using a harness, you know. Right. And I always say to people with clients, like, if they're like, oh, gosh, you know, they look so wolf warm. Like, if you had seen, if you saw a prong collar for the first time and didn't cringe, what's wrong with you? But that's the problem. Nobody takes a step further than that and investigates them. You know, I advocate for tools and e-collars and prong collars. And people say to me, well, you're lazy if that's all you use. I haven't done a single e-collar program this year. I keep my skills up. But I will die on the hill of, like, there are some dogs and people think, oh, you've been so sensationalist. I'll die on the hill that they do save lives and they can improve welfare. And I think that just cannot compute to some people. But I'm like, come and see. Come and see.

And you will see that, you know, dogs aren't shut down and having to wear collars for their entire life. Why? Because of clear contingencies and clarity and training. That's why. Just like everything else. This is a next study I'm kind of planning to do with some different people that it's really strictly focused on ethics, welfare. And it's not a comparison. Like the whole idea of comparison force-free to any form of aversive. It's just no point of that. It's not the point. If force-free works, great. If it doesn't work, is there another option? Probably, yes. Are you willing to try? Well, that's up to you. But as I was saying earlier, I mean, control is control, positive or negative, you know. It's control behavior. And what is really just mind-boggling is that we present aversive dog training equipment as humane and not aversive. Like we're just flat out lying to each other. And I don't think we're lying to each other. I think everybody understands that they are aversive tools. But we have to have that facade that they are not. And that doesn't help either. No, it doesn't. That's just as shitty as the electric collar trainers that tell you that, oh, we're just tickling the dog and he doesn't feel nothing. And it's pretty much the same kind of, like, why cannot be honest conversation? I mean, what is a gentle about the gentle leader? It's an aversive control. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. It's management. Right. Which is also another problem because which one is better to actually train the dog not to pull or manage it for the rest of its life? Like, what is the pros and cons? What is the cost and benefit? Exactly. Exactly. And I use head collars sometimes. I use most tools, like here and there. Head collars, if I've got a sensitive dog or I'm worried about the dog being stressed, head collars are usually the last tool I would reach for. But I think every tool, I have so many people say, oh, you shouldn't use those tools. You should just use a head collar. And I'm like, how do they function? Like, what is the function of how they work? And they're like, oh, they just manage the dog better. And I'm like, what is the function? It's negative reinforcement. And some dogs really struggle to accept them. And that's a highly aversive situation. And they're like, oh, well, I can't believe you're not using head collars, but you'll use prom collars. And I'm like, oh, I use them. I'm just honest about how they work. Like, I don't need to say something as management. You know what I mean? I can say, yeah, I'm going to use this because I want to incorporate positive punishment into this training program to stop that behavior.

And that they, you know, say, well, you know, for people that say, oh, e-collars don't hurt, they tickle. You know, physical punishment is meant to be aversive. That's kind of the point. It's how it affects an animal long term. That's the question. I mean, that's one thing in the life. I don't know if it's in the life model or if it's in a welfare paper that I read talking about good welfare is measured from during and after the training process. But I'm like, but sometimes training is stressful. Even if it's positive reinforcement, it's long term quality of life. You know, that's what we need to measure. We need more longer term studies that aren't SHIELDER 2004. Yeah. Unless you take cost and benefit under consideration, you're unfair in your judgment. You're very unfair. I put that. I put that to Dr. Eduardo because I said to him, it's a little bit like, you know, cars are contributing to the climate crisis. well we should ban cars but I'm like well maybe we should find other alternatives of research and see if we really can find a better alternative before we ban that thing because we don't like something about it and I think that's exactly what's happening in dog training and I put that to him at the moment we know ecolors can be effective and we can see that in the field every day do all the research find the find the alternative methods and find that they're effective and have higher welfare if that's what you want to do but isn't there an argument that we shouldn't get rid of some one thing until we find an effective alternative and just wasn't interested in hearing it because of the welfare concerns you know right but their claim is that they they have found the alternative and it works and it's superior and and this is the problem that we are you know face and then you list the lincoln study is proof right come on you know like going back to even the lincoln study like he again like because i've been trying for so long to talk to dr mills there was a and he has said this few times in different occasions that he he doesn't argue about electric fences he argues about electric colors and the argument is that well because of the human error right and you know it's a shitty argument and even if that's your argument then at least be very open about it don't try to make a funny study that proves nothing i mean i'm sorry that i'm so direct about it but but it is a really just just nonsense that nobody knows what happened unless you really try to dig in and try to find some pictures and like snippets of videos to actually understand what was going on

the whole force-free community swears by it and they truly believe that this is the answer they have the answer but then when it comes to demonstrate it it's not there and it's the same with dog training with with competitions are there any great force-free trainers that do protection sports yes are they winning consistently no and i and i think the argument there will always be oh well you don't need to use aversives for sport it doesn't matter if you don't win so much but but if the if you're not progressing and successful and your dog's not doing well then you probably won't do it as much and then you've got a dog that isn't being involved in that sport that they love so much like just because you use a minimal aversive amount in sport doesn't mean that the dog's terrified to walk on the sport field that's what they want to argue with um i really like the analogy that you give with the hot hands like it's part of a it's part of a game it's if it's clear and you understand it it's not going to cause long-term issues and you can both get on with enjoying the game um with the rules like um most games are the most interesting games are there is an aversive element to it most interesting games and then there is the extreme there's this thrill seeking kind of there's people and dogs and animals that are genetically wired to seek it because there is a a very different satisfaction just like just like you know we watched a few days ago ufc fights i mean some people people want to be punched in the face this is just what they enjoy and it's not for everybody and go go and treat that person without aversives he will find a way to get what they need and typically he will end up in a what in some street fights and go to jail and so on and and you know instead of having a much healthier outlet that satisfies that generic predisposition and and that this is again the problem with the positive reinforcement ideology that one size fits all it's like no again some people like to be punched in the face some people like to do ice skating and some people just want to watch tv and eat potato chips all day long and there is nothing you can do to change neither one of those and yeah i'm pretty convinced and i have um i am working on a new presentation about this that um should be very interesting but the the the competitions are one of the most cool things that we have as a dog training industry for for so many reasons even how do you how does anybody can say that trainer is better than that trainer what is it by well he's been paying taxes on his business

for 30 years so he must be a good trainer because he didn't go out of business is that a criteria or oh he was working much harder cases than that other trainer well how how can we compare which case is harder that's true or there's nothing of subs not nothing like competition gives you this format it's like no we we we have a certain thing that we all gonna do under the same conditions and we can see who's doing it better who is more effective in the training what is the emotional state of the dog and so on and so on and so on um and and and and so that that's kind of what i'm saying with having a study and man i almost want to start talking about surveys because that's another can of worms that's just so horrible i mean that that whole avs beating the the their missions position training statement and and on there the bottom of the page they're just giving the you know the four studies and then four more studies that are citing these four studies and then few surveys and this is basically this is overriding the all the behavior and all animal learning and psychology theory that we have for 100 years i know i'm with you i i get so every day i get so frustrated i'm not at the point where i'm at burnout yet well i can't handle it anymore i'll still get into the comments and argue about it because i know once you ask them certain questions they can't answer you like it always hits a wall one of one of my mentors said years ago the force free extremists are so angry because they know they don't have as much control and they get angry and i'm like sometimes i think that's what it is they just and i also think it comes down to people and personalities of some people just want an enemy to make themselves better about themselves and social media is a perfect opportunity for for all this fighting too yeah um yeah but there is no like like for me really like i'm so in peace with like i i i have no reason to try to convince somebody that has no idea how to train dogs even even i don't know like like they're like most people that are talking very loud on social media and most people that are involved in the studies and the research they are no dog trainers or they're very very poor dog trainers they have zero skills to do any anything of value um likes followers i don't i really don't care i'm old enough that i just don't give a a shit about likes and followers i need to see something that you can really do with a dog not not take a clip out of 200 tries and give me 10 seconds of something insanely cool i mean

very good but that's not what what dog training is about um and and as i said there is ways that we can compare high level dog training we know what high level dog training means and there is no not one person that comes to mind from the force-free extremist people that it's even remotely close to being a good trainer that has proven to be a good trainer that's part of it they find a way to be relevant in their community by fighting against the evil balance trainers i think there's a strong negative correlation with how extreme you are and how little dog training you show yeah like if your training is so good why are you talking about mine all the time talk about yours what do you do like you know like the moment you show that you're better everybody looks up to you people people can tell yeah it's a but this is this is really again where i am and and i kind of learned this from like i started to mimic some other trainers in in trainers that i know i'm like yeah that there is no no absolutely no reason for me to waste my time to try to argue or convince or just just do anything with somebody that is very happy on a keyboard that cannot train dogs and there are many of them oh yeah and and and when i realized that they cannot like that the one of the reasons that i was you know in the last few years trying to talk to them was because i really believe that we can come together we can have some unity and we can you know accept who we are accept that we all have ultimately the same interests to have happy healthy dogs that are not abused used um but then but that's not the case and they they the moment you know i know in the states they cannot do much as loud as they are there is a very big opposition to them uh and that they just cannot prevail they absolutely cannot prevail i'm certain of that so what's the point of of wasting time um and having said that just like you said i have plenty of people that train force free and i really love it because i like how they think i like how they try to problem solve i like even their frustration where they're like damn i wish i i i would so like correct him right now but but i'm not going to you know because that's my part and you know you appreciate that you appreciate it right i respect of course if you've got a dog and the only way you can give it um freedom is you take you drive further and you have a long line and it's 15 meters or whatever and your dog's getting fulfilled and you just don't ethically want to use an e-collar i have nothing yeah i'm no problem with that if your dog's needs are being met and they're getting

to live a good life with you it's that's unfortunately i find that's quite rare i think i think a lot of force free training techniques are great i want to learn them all and i want to be as good at them as any force free trainer because i think they're so valuable and they're the foundation of everything that i do but that's not everything you know and i think that's what people really need to understand and when i when i argue with these people in the comments and stuff i know i'm not going to convince them but i want other people to see like if they say something and they go oh yeah they might be right they can see that i've said well no that's not actually the way it is no i encourage you to keep going i think it's it's it's my toxic trait it's a good thing to do no seriously i i encourage you to keep going with it um um you know going back to i just thought for a second about the errorless learning and and as much as i speak against it when you have the errorless learning as a principle in your head when you're creating a training plan then your trial and error learning becomes extremely effective just because the errors are minimized because of the way you're thinking about creating the plan and and setting the criterias of the training plan um so so you know i'm you know as much as i'm talking against that i'm not against sure in in this pure form of no i hate this this not good idea i just their their limitations but their benefits and the benefits again is the you know if you if you if you start to think of any any dog training as far as how could i create errorless or close to errorless learning in your training plan and how you raise the criteria or come down then whenever there is an error it will be very effective the the the whole learning process right so yeah i um sometimes people think it's all i'm so against that and it's just like if i if if i walk into a room and they blindfold me and i have a choice to play hot hot and cold or only hot i'm playing hot and cold and if you choose to play hot good for you but i'm not like there's no reason for it regardless of of how far the game goes i'm playing you know i need to know and that's trial and error in in in very simple form it's interesting so what are you well let's change the subject a little bit what what are you doing with your dog like what are you training with amali um we we did our bh in april so i funny thing is i almost a few weeks before because she's had a couple of foot injuries and and i've been busy and i've been kind

of in and out of training but um when ben gert said at the beginning of the year you had to put on the board what if you were going to do your bh or whatever and i was like oh shit now i really have to commit to it i really i really appreciated that having goals that's good exactly and that little push was helpful and i thought and this was in february and i thought there's no way there's no way i'm ever going to get there and within two two weeks out i almost pulled out of it because i thought i'm not going to be able to do it and we got best bh on the day and it just goes to show like you don't know you know how you're going to go but she's had she's had another couple of foot injuries so whip she's got this term off that will start in the new year and i put myself down for um igp obedience one she's not ready for protection and and nobody likes doing tracking but i do need to get i do need to get into that but ben keeps saying you'll learn to you'll learn to love tracking you'll learn to love tracking so i'm waiting for that to kick in but well it's it's i i don't want to even say it's discouraging like i i mean at least from what i remember tracking is it's pretty hard the conditions in in where you guys are you know yeah we get all the ants and right it's very similar to florida i didn't know if you knew that ben got um national champion at the nationals like this year with this dog stan oh wow no no i have i i kind of i'm not good at keeping track of everything like one thing lately that got my attention and it was on your facebook page i think or instagram and it was about the wild dogs and the dingos um all right yeah what tell me a little bit more about this because i'm like one of my obsessions is stray dogs and wild dogs and like uh uh like like this stuff is very interesting to me and and i can't remember exactly the post i was like oh i need to go back to this because there was some link but then somehow of course social media takes your mind away and i'll send it to you i'm not i'm not an expert on the topic but from from what i i mean that post was there i think there's a stat i'm not sure if it's western australia but you know how vast australia is there's such big areas there's a station somewhere and i think they actually do accommodation and they had a couple of dingoes that come and go that they know quite well by name but the area that they're in um dingoes are legally allowed to be hunted because i think they're considered that um i don't know know the legislation or the laws in australia and i could be wrong so if some if i'm wrong somebody

correct me but um that they designate dingoes as feral dogs and that means that they can be killed and these two dingoes that will come and go from the station were killed by hunters and the the state people i think they found them because they didn't see them for a few days and they were just devastated so there's this big push to to redefine dingoes which i think they used to be they did some dna some testing right there's actually some new research going on in sydney i looked it up the other day and i think it's just a research grant that's just been approved and they're only just starting the research and they're really deep diving into um i'm not good with genetics the genomes or whatever it all is because they they're they are a unique species i think they're meant to be the only domesticated dog that when came into australia um became wild again and i think that's what makes them unique but the argument is they don't um they don't damage the environment or the ecosystem because what they do kill and and what they do interesting fundamentally like damaging livestock populations or anything like that like they they keep a balance and that's what they and that's what they're not recognized as at the moment so i think there's a lot of research going into that because um yeah i don't know all the details about it i think they were defined as one thing and now they've been redefined and now they're trying to define them back with proper um research but they're they're really interesting really interesting how how often do you see them do you like if you go out and about do you do you get to see them or not no no i mean not unless i'm i'm near perth which is you know the biggest city in western australia so you're not going to no you're not going to see wild dingoes around here i've had a couple of clients that have that have had dingoes which were really interesting to train they were actually more biddable than i expected them to be but they they had a decent prey drive on them though but um but yeah no you you'd have to go out and um i've never seen a dingo and i probably never would unless i went to the right areas i think you have to be pretty far i'll tell you the funny story we i mean i because i think at the time you know when i was there and somehow i don't know if i i i really talked about it but it became apparent that i wanted to see them so we we we ended up at the zoo or some animal park but i was happy even with that you know because they're pretty cool like to me it was more important to see dingoes than the any of the

kangaroos or koalas or anything like that that looks like no i gotta see the dingos when one of my mentors was out from um canada doing a seminar here all he wanted to see was working kelpies so we went out oh i didn't think of that but that's amazing animal what what was really interesting to me when we did that was i knew we were going and they bred kelpies as well and i knew we were going to see like proper working line working kelpies and we were going to see them work oh you're gonna make me want to go back to australia come back but um what was really cool was i kind of got there expecting to see all these really energetic working dogs and everything and they had like um about five or six kelpies just on chains and the shade and stuff they were so chill and they were so social and so polite and and it really which i know anyway but it really just hit me like god these dogs are so fulfilled you know what i mean they can chill and they're not frustrated and but as soon as the like the handle the farmer came to get them we're just on yes running across the sheep and it was just so cool so cool to see a dog working like it's supposed to work yeah you're talking about it just reminds me of uh all of my experience with sled dogs they act exactly the same way they would be just look like the laziest dog just staying in the sun not even curled just like spread out and getting all the sun and whatever is happening they don't care they're just laying down 50 of them and the moment they start to bring any dog equipment to set up a sled it becomes a madness everywhere and and and and there is this insane joy when they do what they are selected and bred to do it it's like so amazing and and what you're talking it just reminds me of exactly the same in just some different uh dogs that are bred for different purposes but kelpies i mean they they they can do any livestock i mean they they are very hardy dogs right they are when when you train the when i when i train ones in the home it's it's a real shame but i think the genetics and stuff you see a lot of weak genetics like in the kind of more companion dog kelpies a lot of really fearful kelpies and yeah out of the healers and the border collies and the kelpies i'd say i see more fearful kelpies than any of those other breeds healers are usually pretty robust because not a lot of people get healers and they're pretty tough dogs um border collies are kind of hit and miss nothing worse than a human aggressive healer because they will redirect on you so quick never see it coming you never see it coming i love

them and i've worked with some incredible healers and there's something really special about them a lot of people call them redneck malinois and i think that's so fitting yeah yeah yeah no but um but yeah when when i see one that's human aggressive i'm like oh man i'm gonna i'm gonna get tagged if i'm not if i'm not careful yeah but it's a real and that's why it was so surprising to see those kelpies that day because i've never seen kelpies that balanced before which is such a shame you know but i'm i'm kind of squeamish i don't like seeing animals suffer or animals be killed or anything like that but but i must admit i really love watching like the english terrier videos when they when they lift their haystacks and all the terriers go in and get the rats or they're overturning the dirt because they just love it and they're so quick and they're so efficient you know if i had a terrier i'd totally go ratting with it i think it'd be cool this is so i'm not gonna pick up the rats somebody has to pick up the rats afterwards this is so funny we just did this like i have one of my trainers here she has two and and of course we have dog food we have kennel and so there was a bunch of rats kind of starting to hang around and and this morning we let the little guy out and he just caught four like like just you know when they know what they're doing i mean you know i there was there was a moment where we had to he went under a deck that kind of like a real labyrinth under there like he he was gonna get lost so we had to try to dig him out and he doesn't want to come out but that's the drives and the the genetic makeup you know they they know exactly what they're doing and then yeah they're little killers i've had i've had clients with some really cool little um australian terriers and beautifully bred dogs and the client wasn't really up to speed on what they had on their hands and it was just a little puppy but he was one of those dogs where the client was like oh my god this dog's so full-on and i'm just like this dog is awesome like he's got everything you want all the drive all the confidence you know everything um and she was like oh i just you know want to be able to walk him and i'll do what he needs with all that kind of stuff she lived right across from a wildlife area with no fences and we're all these like little baby ducks and stuff and i'm like you need to be on top of this dog's training like he might be little he's a little killer like you're gonna have to be on top of this dog and i think she really got it by the end of the program but

he was a cool dog he's one of those dogs i would have just totally taken home but to anybody else he was just a terror because he just wanted to go go go all the time the beautiful little dog i totally heard you know that reminds me of something like about another ongoing conversation when when when a pet owner has a dog and the dog has a problem and then somebody that has the same breed and it's like oh no my dog is good and it's good because it's my training approach and it's because i raised it right and and that that happens so often when it's like well you don't need this kind of training you don't need this kind of tool you my dog doesn't need it it's like it's great that your dog doesn't need it but but those are so different they can even even leader mates are you know one can be way more twitchy than another one one can be way more pronounced you know predation instincts and and the other one can just walk around squirrels all day long and not care and and you you you have to take under consideration their individual makeup you know and when people say that it's like i don't know why you use those tools i've never had to to use them and i'm like do you like walking to cancer wards and say why are you here i've never had cancer like right right we are very much the same it's not about you i've done this i've had this i've had dogs for 30 years it's but it's not everything's about you like there are different people with different needs and different dogs it's just yeah ignorance i don't want to go back down that rabbit hole right do you have i'm gonna have to go in a minute because i've got to get ready for this workshop that i'm gonna go to yeah i'm gonna kind of check that one out too um tell me about just just really quickly are there any bands as far as dog breeds in in australia uh yeah we've got the american people terrier is banned and has been banned since the 80s i think and what does that mean you cannot breed or you cannot own or or like i mean i think when the band came in you just couldn't breed or bring any into the country i i think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find an american american people terrier yeah but i've trained some dogs that i'm pretty sure there's some in them but you can't breed them and you can't import them so they're just trying to breed them out i think queensland has just banned or wants to ban um oh i'd have to look it up but the pressican area i think is banned here the dogo was it dogo argent okay the the typical cases do you have the ex-bullies how the uk has the

problem with that or not yeah not not yet but they're probably they're probably we don't send to see i mean the uk has got some issues like you know um to be fair we're not seeing it here i'm seeing a lot of um clients that i do have i've had two or three in the last six months that have got excel bullies they said people are starting to be mean to them and crossing the road and not wanting them to come into the park and which is so sad you know but yeah no we don't have a we're having a bit of a spike in dog attacks loose dog attacks and stuff and it's always convenient that they only mention the breed if it's a bully breed otherwise they don't mention the breed at all which is really frustrating so queensland is is pushing to ban breeds what's really interesting about that is um pdta um was in a discussion like a zoom discussion with the queensland government and we were in the discussion with the ava which is the australian veterinary association and the rspca and you know what we all agreed we all gave the opinion that it's not about it's not about the breeds it's about education it's about breeding practices it's about proper containment and training and we all agreed and that's awesome i don't think i was in that one i think um our president was in it and afterwards it was like wow like we just had a conversation with the bridge but you know what the government did they're going to ban the breeds because they don't want to hear that it's because that's too much work education and breeding legislation and stuff it's so much easier to be viewed as these dogs are dangerous let's ban them all and we know that doesn't work it doesn't work because that's not the main problem and a lot of times politicians do that just to just to look good of course for for for you know what the people want they want to get voted in again right right yeah right jackie that was cool conversation um thank you um you're gonna i what was the topic you're gonna cover on that conference it was very cool catchy title that you had it's um i can't even remember i keep saying misconceptions but that's not the actual title it's um myths and navigating truths in um the dog training industry yeah we're gonna we're gonna go through research and stuff i actually wanted to ask you if you'd mind if i use one of your e-collar games because i want to um kind of go through that and kind of uh absolutely absolutely yeah because i heard you talk about them i thought that might make it fun because otherwise it might be a bit dry but we're gonna we're gonna cover yeah it's called beyond meets navigating truths in dog

training yeah very cool one flying out to melbourne tomorrow so we'll see how that goes now it's gonna be fun i mean it's so so is it gonna be streamed or or is it just in person it's an in-person one but i just don't know how it's gonna go because i've never done anything like this before and i want to make sure it's fun but if it goes well we i might do something live or um i might break it down into like smaller sections um and maybe so if i give you a an advice at least for yourself you should make a video for yourself at least that it's of decent quality you know i've got my dslr i could take i just don't know how much memory stick i've got because it's an eight hour seminar it's worth making those recordings it's and it's not hard nowadays so i don't know send me a cinematographer that'd be great yeah well thank you for doing this one and and hopefully we we stay in touch and we keep uh because it's interesting like like on on the side when we talk about all this you know yeah um it's very um you know it kind of energizes me and it's always always interesting conversations that we have the opportunity to rant because i have to hold it in yeah jackie thank you and uh enjoy the rest of the day thank you i'll chat soon yes take care you