에피소드 31: The Dog Daddy

So, I mean, it's pretty much been a whole life long of doing it, you know. It started as just me being just interested in dogs. It was something that my family couldn't get me away from. Actually, I was born in Massachusetts. You know, I grew up in Brazil. And I was always fascinated with all kinds of animals, not just dogs. And pretty much dedicated my entire time to wanting to spend time with them, learn about them, learn to communicate with them. I was always really fascinated with any animal trainer, including circuses. I was, of course, not a little kid, but anything that involved animals. And I've really always admired relationships that people would form with their animal. You know, whether it was someone that had a cow that was really well trained or a dog or a horse. That was something that I was drawn to. But in Brazil, dog training as a career was not a very popular thing. It's true it's not, but especially when I was growing up, it was not a thing that he hear, you know, I'm getting my dog to get trained or I'm going to become a dog trainer. And it was really nothing to look up to other than what I would say on TV, like police dogs, you know, protection dogs. Those were a little bit more popular, but I was limited to that. So my family always tried to get me away from it, right? And they tried to get me into sports and music and they wanted me to go to college. They would ask me every single day, what are you going to do? And I really didn't have interest in anything else. Leading forward to basically 18 years of just that. So 18 years of, I pretty much, you know, I didn't have cell phones until I was 18 years old. I didn't have internet. I didn't have anything distracting me other than I was forced to go to school. And then I would go home and I would spend my entire day learning from dogs. Now, I grew up in a very isolated part of Brazil. I feel like most people wouldn't be able to experience that in life. You know, most people would not. It's just very much on the top of the mountains. It was dirt road, we're away from everything, meaning there was no distraction. It was just nature. The dogs there would run free. They would go hunt at night. They would live as a pack. They would, you know, all the neighbors that had their dogs, like they were all like there in their own territory, but free to come and go as they pleased. So it was the dogs migrating, dogs going miles away to breed with another dog. Like I said, hunting, there was like the pack conflicts between different packs that, you know, didn't belong, they didn't know each other.

And so, again, I grew up with that until I was 18 years old. I was always noticed for having the dogs around, having them listening and following without any formal training up until that point other than I had worked with other dog trainers. So the trainers that were in the area, which weren't many, like I said, this was not something that was popular in Brazil. But they would usually go to another stage, take some courses and become certified dog trainers to then do police dogs and, you know, protection dogs. And so that was my whole thing up until I was 18. I dedicated my entire 18 years old from the time I could walk until I turned 18 in Brazil because I came here on my birthday, on my 18th birthday. I didn't speak English, but we're going to get into that. But basically, the first 18 years of my life was just working with dogs hands on. And I had a lot of dogs. Like my grandfather used to bring dogs from the streets. He felt he was like a rescuer of street dogs, basically. You know, I grew up with my grandparents away from my parents. They bought this ranch that they lived on top of the mountains as a retirement place. So I was allowed to run the farm my entire childhood. Like they weren't farm people. So I had horses. I had my own cows. I had to learn business in the sense of like milking my own goats and the cows and sell the milk and sell the eggs. And then, you know, my passion was getting these dogs to understand me and getting to understand them. And there was nothing else. Just that. When I turned 18, one month before I turned 18, my family had tried my entire life up until then to get me to come to the U.S. I was the first person in the family born in the U.S. My grandparents had been coming here for the last 40, 50 years and they, you know, were like confused why I was the only one that didn't want to come here. I was like, no, I just I mean, I feel like I'm at home, you know, on this ranch. All my friends, they would love to have the opportunity to do to have to be able to come here, to be in my shoes, basically. And I never accepted it. For some reason, something clicked about one month before my birthday. I said, I'm going to go as a trial, you know, I'll see. I don't know how long I'm going to stay. I have family here. They bought my ticket that same day for 30 days ahead, which would be my birthday. On my birthday. So, by the way, I had to then literally place my cows and my horses with people downsized so that my grandparents could take care of, you know, because I ran this farm on my own. My grandparents were there.

They just gave me, like, opened the doors for me to do whatever I wanted. So, I learned with all the farmers how to trade and sell the animals and breed them and, you know, run a farm. And so, I did that until I came here. So, up until this point, I was only coming here for maybe a month. I put these animals in boarding with friends and downsized and, you know, there I went to the airport. And so, I came here. My family wanted me to go to college. So, they wanted me to go to college. And I wasn't allowed to have any animals. I felt very out of place. This was the only time out of… Did you go back to Massachusetts or somewhere else? I went back to Massachusetts. There is a big community in there. I mean, like, all my Brazilian friends started for some reason in there. Yeah. That's why they have been coming. Well, the Portugal immigrants, you know, that's why they first landed is on Cape Codan. So, it was definitely not the climate. Oh, yeah. No, definitely not. But it was just a convenience of having, you know, connections. For sure. They had, like, Brazilian businesses there. And so, I went there. And I felt very out of place. Like I said, this is, you know, out of 18 years where I did not have any animals. That was the first time in my entire life that I did not have a dog around. And my family, you know, really pressured me to, what am I going to do? I have to go to college next year. And I felt really depressed. I felt out of place. I was here. I was working. This is the only time also that I worked a regular job. I was working in a restaurant. I didn't speak English yet. I was working two or three jobs. And basically, in my head, at this point, I was like, I'm going to make some money. I'm going back to Brazil. I'm getting my farm. And I'm going to have my dogs and run my farm. And that's it. That's going to be my life. And so, I had no vision of anything else at all at this point. So, what happened was about six months to eight months, I would say, that I was in the U.S. Time just goes by. You know, you're waiting to see when you're going to go home. I came on a one-way ticket. And I just kept staying longer and longer and longer. Finally, after all this time, because my family was really strict. Like, there was basically two aunts that I had here. They didn't even have kids up until that point. All they did is go to school. One of them is a pilot for Delta. The other one, she is a translator. She's a journalist. She's got all these different degrees. They speak five languages. They wanted to basically be a step ahead from where they come from. Because we came from nothing.

You know, my grandparents, they came here. They worked just in restaurants as dishwashers. And they went to Brazil. They got this ranch. And they paved the future for their kids. So, basically, my aunts and my father. So, they were really organized people. They walk, you know, in a straight line. They don't have, they don't want to have the responsibility of having a pet. They're very animal-loving people. But my aunts, in particular, they wouldn't have the responsibility of having a dog. Because they just focus on their career path, their careers. So, it was really hard. And then, finally, somehow, six to eight months, they allowed me to get one dog. It was like this moment. Like, okay, we're going to allow you to have one dog. They wanted me to get a small dog. They were very strict on anything that they read. Because my family, honestly, in the sense of this could be something for me to do, it was never an option for them. They never believed in it. They never saw potential. They never understood it. They had this mentality that you have to go to college to become something. You have to get the real job eventually, right? Maybe they wanted me to be a veterinarian. But, like, I don't even like school. You know, I don't like school that much. I'm not looking to be a veterinarian. I always knew I would be on a farm. That was my lifestyle. And I like to work with dogs. But I never even thought about doing dog training as a business, as a career. Because, again, I did not have something to look up to. Anyways, they allowed me. But they were really strict. No German Shepherds. No Papers. No anything that they read that this dog is destructive. This dog is aggressive. You know, I had to follow whatever they were saying other than even though I knew better. So they agreed on a Labrador. So because I didn't want a small dog, they agreed on a Labrador. And at this point, I still had no connections. I worked two or three jobs. We'd go to work. We'd go back home. And during this time, I was doing a lot of research on dogs. Just dogs in general. Because I was away from my environment. My farm with all my dogs where I was hands-on every single day. So the only thing that I'm interested in is animals. So I would go either towards people that had animals here, that had dogs. And I would try to befriend them. Or I would be online researching. Because this was my first time really having access to internet like that. So I got my first phone. I'm on the internet for the first time. I'm researching, reading, watching lots of videos. I was between learning English and learning about dogs.

That was all I did for the first year that I was here. And so when they finally allowed me to get that dog, it was kind of like a turning point to a certain extent. Because the moment that I had my hands on that dog, it was like, which is something that I guess people don't really understand. I was never really a social media person. I had a lot more attention in person before I ever went onto social media. Everywhere I took that puppy, I had a stroke of people around me. She could do all these different tricks. She literally could. She knew the right paw, left paw, go in the crate, close herself in there, put your back legs on the wall. And I wasn't filming it. It was all in person. But people would come there, oh my God, teach my puppy to do this. Now, because I grew up working with dogs, I would go there. And they would pay me like $20. And I would spend the whole day with them. I was just in paradise, being able to be doing what I love to do after being deprived for it for so long. You know, after I first moved here. Then I would go and I would be working with them. And people were amazed. The feedback was always there. I literally was 100% positivity. You know, I would go. And the funny thing is they would hire me to teach the dogs just to sit and lay down and walk on the leash. But then they would have like some problems at home. Maybe the dogs are fighting or they don't let people come over. But these people had accepted that that was the reality, that it couldn't be changed. So they weren't hiring me to do that. They didn't think anyone can help them with that. But instinctively, I would help them. Oh, I can introduce it. But no, yeah, your dog, they can get along. I can see body language. I can see these dogs have potential. And I would show them more than what they hired me for. And because I didn't really start in a way that I could be greedy, I think because I didn't really have a plan. Oh, I can charge, you know, $1,000. I can charge this. I was just happy to be doing it. I would charge them $20. And I think that also made people feel really like a certain way about it because it wasn't really about the money because it really never was about the money. But I think it emphasized that with my clients because I would spend hours with them and answer all their questions. And my goal was just to help them, help the dog, help them. And it made me feel good. I think anyone would feel good if you can achieve something, succeed with something and be appreciated by it, you know, which I hadn't been appreciated by just having a connection with dogs up until I was here.

So this started to snowball into your neighbors and friends and relatives would call me and help me. I heard they're so great with dogs. Come and help me. So I started doing it more. I started getting more dogs as well. So at this point, I would go out with one dog and then I got two, I got three. Within a month, I had five dogs. I had never been without a pack until I came to the U.S. I got the five dogs. My aunt didn't even know it. I was in a Finnish basement in their house. I was hiding the five dogs in there. They thought I only had one dog. They would run free in the house when they were at work and they would come home. The dogs would be put away. And for a few months, they had no idea that I had the five dogs in there. And I would go out and I was building a name for myself because at this point, everybody's noticing me with the five dogs. So I was stopping traffic. I was getting more and more business. And again, I was just doing this out of love. And I would spend literally the entire time, the entire day with my dogs, out meeting new people, building new connections, helping people with their dogs and spending time with my dogs. I was always at the parks, always out and about. One day, my aunt came home early from work with all the dogs running loose. And she freaked out. She was like, oh my, she was like pale when she saw these dogs. Because like I said, she is like very organized with her life. You know, so for her to see these five big dogs running in her house, she just thought all kinds of like legality issues. And oh my God, what's going to happen? Like what is all this? She ended up calling the animal control on me. She's like, those dogs have to go. The animal control. She didn't even enjoy it like in a mean way. She was like, she wanted to make sure she's not doing anything wrong. Right, right. You know, so the animal control comes over and ironically, she's like, well, where are the limit? You can have up to five dogs here. I didn't even know anything about regulations and, you know, how many dogs you can have. So I just happened to be lucky. But then my aunt was like, no, only the original one, only the original dog. Everybody else has got to go. So at this point, I had for the first time been appreciated by people that understood me that the feedback was right there, that it was no denying the help that I was able to provide people, how the level of great, like how grateful they were, you know, it's just something that you can't deny and you can't not see it. It was right there. It was something that I could feel it.

And it gave me that confidence that this is what I want to do for my life. I am not going to just get rid of these dogs, be down to one dog because I knew with my five dogs, I was becoming like very noticeable. I was becoming where I was able to do it full time. You know, people would see me with how obedient my five dogs were and they would stop traffic. They would come up to me. So I was getting new clients all the time. And at this point, I decided that I would move out and I wasn't really well established yet. I had built some connections. It was only a few months. So it was nothing that I would be like, oh, I can just buy a house and move out, you know? So I ended up still moving out. It was a big jump. I was only here for less than a year, less than a year of speaking English, less of a year of connections, understanding how things work here. And for anyone at that age, it's still kind of hard. You know, you put yourself out there, you don't have enough save to sustain yourself. So I moved out with just a pickup, old pickup truck that I had bought from my aunt. They always made me work for things, which is something that I appreciate. They flew me here. They gave me a place, but I don't need a car. If I want a car, I can buy one of their used cars, you know? So that's off topic. But I had a pickup truck and when they told me that I could only have one dog, I decided to move out. I was talking to people. I was telling them what was going on. I started trying to look for places. It was really hard. It's very difficult to rent a place when you're 19 with five dogs, you know? But I moved out. I had to downsize on the dogs. I had to get rid of them. There was not enough time for me to just move out overnight. So I had to go down to one dog. But I still didn't settle. I didn't say, I'm going to keep one dog and I'm going to stick with it and stay here. I knew that they were trying to force me to do something that I didn't want to do with my life. So I moved out with that one dog. There was many obstacles. It wasn't easy. I slept in my car. I had to go from hotel to hotel. No money. Couldn't really go to work at this point because I'm so stressed out. Like, what am I going to do the next day? And that lasted for back and forth, I would say, like at least a month of that before I was able to start renting a room in someone's house to then a little small studio. And then I got my dogs back. And then I went to that studio, opened up to like a big apartment in the same building to then eventually rent to the entire house. And then at this point, I started going viral.

At this point, we're about a year, you know, a year and a half into this whole ordeal. But the whole community on Cape Cod knew me. So I had been featured on the Cape Cod Times and all the local newspapers there. Just, again, I was kind of like the sensation in town where people wanted to see the five dogs and talk to me. And that was the talk of the town. At this point, I was doing training full time. And I had a lot to learn as I, you know, learned, but I didn't know yet what was to come. So eventually the owner of the place that I was living in ended up dying. And the people that took over the house had a policy, no dog policy. So up until this point, I had no controversy, right? I was 100% positive. It was this amazing guy with the dogs helping people. There wasn't one complaint about me, not even one client had complaint. But I was in that position again where I have no place to go. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm not that well established. I have a car. I got a place. I'm building myself up. And then all of a sudden, this bomb, you know, like you got to get out of the house because we don't allow the dogs here. So I started looking again and I found this house. It was like an elderly Russian couple. That had the house paid in full. It was a brand new house. They had just built it three years before. They couldn't even live in it. By the time that they finished building it, they got so old that they couldn't go up and down the stairs to go to the bedrooms. So they ended up trying to sell the house. And I reached out to them and I would see if they would rent it. It was just, I was trying everything. I was literally hustling, looking for a place for me to go with my dogs. So I met them in person. I showed them what I did. I met a lot of them. I explained everything about me. They felt a certain way about it. And they decided to rent the house to me with an option to buy. So essentially we ended up doing an unconventional mortgage. They financed the house. And put the money down, they financed the house, which is basically unheard of. So for me to say that, you know, I was still like 20 years old at this time. Yeah, that's for sure. Nothing. It's pretty much unheard of. But they did it. And I stayed in the house for about two years or so. And so that's where my problems began. So I started to get more and more publicity. So at this point, my YouTube video went vital. And then I was on Inside Edition and Chronicle and, you know, all just major media outlets were talking about me. And when this happened, I had the first problem, which is they said the animal control in that

town told me I couldn't have the dogs there. So there was no way to apply for a license. I was in the corner against the wall. You either have to get rid of the dogs or you are illegally having the dogs here. So this became my first controversial thing. It was like illegal kennel. That's all they had. I'm an illegal kennel because I have two or three extra dogs over the limit. There was still no complaint. My dogs weren't hurt anybody. There was no noise complaint. There was nothing other than, you know. And honestly, I'm really looking back. It really damaged me a lot, my reputation, because I didn't know my rights. And I didn't know how to explain these things. I was just feeling attacked and confused because the community were all in favor of me at this point. But the animal control and the articles that are coming out, which basically called me an illegal kennel and how, you know, I have 27 dogs because my dogs had a couple of litters at the time. So they counted them all as dogs. And so now it was really dramatic. How can house 27 dogs in their house? And then I had a bedroom which had put closet doors, but it was a full-blown bedroom with two windows. They called me keeping the dogs in a closet. So between all these little things that they put out, it's really all the local trainers, because they were skeptical at this point. All the trainers were like, who the hell is this guy? My clients, I got to say, like, they were, I never asked for testimonials. I never really, I always let people come to me. I still do that. You know, I don't have a uniform. I don't really go outside of my platform, outside of my path to get people. Like I said, I never wore a uniform that says dog trainer, hire me. I don't even have business cards. I don't really even tell people what I do. I let them find out for themselves. I showcase my work and let them see it. But the local trainers were like, who the hell is this guy? Just people, you know, bragging and raving about their experience with me and how I was the best trainer, how I was the only person that was able to help them. And this was all over my page. You know, people posting and bragging and they were excited that they found me. And so these other trainers, they had this confusion. This guy is 20 years old. He's brand new here. There's no way that he knows what he's doing. There's no way that he can properly take care of those dogs. But they still had nothing to use against me until these articles came out. Now, it was all over the internet. Don't go to him. You can call the animal control to verify. He is an illegal kennel.

He does not have a license to do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's got, you know, all these things. And that went on for literally two to three years of this, like nonstop. It was just, I was raided. My house was raided at six o'clock in the morning by the police. I was investigated and inspected by every agency. So we're talking about the Department of Agriculture, the SPCA, the Animal Control, the police, the all, any organization that you can think of, the American Candle Club. And they would knock at my house anything from six in the morning to midnight. Because people would complain that my dogs were abandoned by themselves, that they were eating each other, that they were just all kinds of different crazy complaints. None of this ever came to be a thing because it wasn't a thing. So just so I can make it clear, I have never been arrested in my entire life. I have never been charged with anything because they like to make me out to be like the biggest criminal that, you know, ever existed. And my and everybody that had been to my house had evidence that was nothing wrong. Even when they raided my house at six o'clock in the morning where I had nothing that I could hide. I was just waking up and they came and they filmed the entire thing. They were looking for something to be wrong, but there was nothing wrong. It was just people from the Internet. And people at this point in Massachusetts in particular, they would call from all over the world. Like they would call from Canada and say that something was happening in my house. And so the complaints, every time there was a complaint, they had to investigate it. So now it's like this illegal criminal guy who is being investigated. So again, I don't know how to explain. Okay, I'm being investigated. But me explaining now that all I had was three dogs over the limit and that investigating just means someone complained, a random complaint. And they are looking into it. That's all that it means. But back then, I allowed it without knowing for it to become a bigger thing. You know, people associated that with me already being a criminal because I'm being investigated. It must be really bad. And so that was all that there was. And that went on for a few years. So there was a lot of little things like that. People started putting rumors on the Internet at this point of all kinds of things. You know, my dogs attacked them, ripped their faces off. I killed my dogs and feed it to each other. It was like the craziest things that you could ever hear. Those are things still posted online. And they still come back to the surface now.

You know, whenever there's anything that comes up, that stuff come up. And so all those things have an explanation. And like I said, it was just a lot of that. And I was very young, learning how to be in this country, learning how to be on my own, learning how to run the business, and learning social media. Because at this point, I started posting videos online and getting attention. But it's still very random. I was still, you know, very confused about everything that's going on. So that went on for a long time. I ended up moving to – so my customers have always been there for me. At this point, with this illegal kennel thing, I decided to move out. I walked away from thousands of dollars. I have invested my entire life into this, which is, I think, something that people don't bring into consideration. I think I could easily do something different other than just being myself and, like, just what I believe is the right thing. Right? We're still going to get into that. But I have slept on the couch for longer than I needed, driven old cars for longer than I needed, just to be able to have a place that I could have my dogs and continue to do what I do. And, again, at this point, I had put all the money down into this house. And when I couldn't really stay there any longer, the animal controller would park in front of my house, and he would stalk me. And every time he saw the extra dog, he would give me a fine. So I'm paying $50 to $100 every time he spotted the dogs outside. He would park outside so that he could hear the dog barking inside the house so that he could say, there's a noise complaint. The guy literally made his career about me. And the proof was there. He was at my house every single day. And after you investigate someone and you're welcome to come into my house and look for yourself, you know, you walk away from that. But because there were so many people complaining because of the Internet, it gave him a reason to be there and gave him a job, basically. And so I decided to move out. And my customers, like I said, being there, one of my previous customers ended up allowing me to come to her 100-acre property in Massachusetts, which is, again, another thing that's kind of unheard of. You know, there's not big properties in Massachusetts with 100 acres. It's almost unheard of. And one of my customers that happens to have this long-owned property and she said, come over there, bring all your dogs, and you can do your business here. Now, we think that's going to be easy enough.

Now, all these people that attacked me for not having a kennel license, as soon as they heard that I was applying for a kennel license, they switched it up to, oh, my God, don't let him go there because now he's going to run out of control. Because if he has a license, he's going to have 100 dogs and his dogs are going to run loose and they're going to do all these crazy things. And so a simple license on a 100-acre property to have 25 dogs that would include board and train, my personal dogs, rescue dogs, they made a big deal about it. And it took three months, three public meetings where the whole community could come and put that two cents whether they wanted me to be there or not. My lawyers did it for free. They represented me for free. They were customers. The neighbors came and spoke in my favor. Even though the haters were sending them messages how my dogs are going to go there and hurt them and they're going to do all these crazy things, I got them to know me, got to know my dogs. They actually came and spoke in my favor. The only people speaking against me was one person who brought 40 pages of things that she manipulated from the Internet. People have done a lot of manipulation with my videos. They have done it from the past and they do it now. Back then, one of the big things that I can remember is that there was a picture that I had posted before and after of how dirty puppies get and how much work they are. So I posted side by side. I just cleaned this 30 minutes ago, but they just ate and now this is what it looks like. I was very transparent. She only took the dirty picture and she said, this is how his puppies live. And she brought it to say that I was mistreating the dogs. Those are pictures that I posted. She did about 40 things similar to that. So then the next meeting, my lawyer had to come with 100 pages just proving everything that they said about me. They made me jump through all these different loops. They came to inspect the property, things that weren't part of you getting a license to have dogs. But they did it all. They approved my license and I was good to go on this property. And I was there for another about two years. But I felt a certain way. Even though I had 100 acres, I went from being completely independent, living on my own, having my own space since I was 20 to now living in someone else's property, sharing it with her. We're good friends to this day. I really, you know, cannot thank her enough for even giving me that opportunity because otherwise I wouldn't be able to keep going.

But it was also something that, I mean, I needed to figure out a way to move out away from that because I was used to having my own space and doing my own thing. And I was like, you know, living under someone else's roof. So I did that for a couple of years. The complaints online kind of like went away at this point. It was a little bit of a settle down. They tried. They had people come there. Being that she is older and had more experience, she was able to stand up and say, hey, you guys have been coming here every single day. We need to know who is sending these complaints. You can't just be just walking to my property every single day about the same complaint. These people would call about horse urine, urine that they would smell, and the complaint was someone from North Carolina when I'm in Massachusetts. And they would have to come investigate. They would be transporting animals illegally. Like, you name it. Like, they tried everything. I feed my dogs raw. So because it's not illegal to feed raw, they said that I was giving my dogs live animals for them to kill, which I have never done, which would be completely wrong to do. You teach them the wrong things. It would be illegal to do in many places. So there's many reasons why I wouldn't do that, and I haven't done that. And they tried to say that that was what was happening. And so that was a lot of investigation going on, a lot of harassment going on. I survived through it all. And then finally at this point, I was like, time for me to move on to bigger and better things. So I'm looking now to make a big move. I have established myself again. I had customers left and right. I was busy every single day just training dogs. I did breed dogs at that point as well. So it was a combination of both things, which is a whole other controversial topic that, you know, we can get into that if you'd like. But from there, I ended up moving out and going to South Carolina. So now I rented a property with 10 acres by myself, got my team to help, and I started living in South Carolina. Because I researched that South Carolina was nice and sunny, easy to move in, affordable, you can get big properties. I moved there, and I immediately regretted the next week. It was cold. It rained a lot. All that red clay. It was not ideal for me and the dogs at all. I was isolated. I had to learn how to use a house phone because I was so isolated that there was no phone signal on my property. I moved away from all my customers to basically nothing. And I went down to the dirt for the first year. Like, literally, there was no clients, no one that I knew.

No one would pay me the amounts that they would pay me in Massachusetts. I was happy to start brand new. And I don't know how I did it. I survived. And after about one year, I started driving again. So at this point, people were flying in from all over the country to come to that property. They were driving in. They were sending the dogs to me. And I was doing a little bit of traveling here and there to go meet people as well. And so I found a way to make it work. I think I was doing some phone training at this point. Anything that wasn't ideal, but it was like people were finding ways to work with me still. And the main thing was I didn't feel like at home in South Carolina. I felt like I was isolated from everybody. I was depressed again. I was just feeling like I'm not utilizing my time the best that I could by being in the middle of nowhere in South Carolina. And so about two years again from that. And again, I didn't have a license. So at this point, just also because I started progressing, not going backwards. People like to say that I run away from different states. I have never been kicked out of any states. Like you can't do it here. It's very simple. You can't get a license in this house. You have to move out. I got a license in another property. But again, I was living with someone else. It was my choice to move. I was completely with a good standard license with no problems at all up until I moved from Massachusetts to go to South Carolina, which I upgraded my license to now a $50 license. Actually, it was 100 dogs. You know, it was no limit, basically. You can get a license there as long as you have the right property, the right space. You can get a license. So I was unlimited, basically. And I was there. And I had my horses at this point from Massachusetts. I transported them to South Carolina. I had my dogs there. But I wasn't home. I started thinking of ways around that. And I decided to move to, well, I decided to travel first. I was going to do all these different trips. I had a following at this point. We're talking about, you know, 50,000 subscribers on YouTube. So it wasn't like millions. But I noticed people that I could pretty much go anywhere. And there was clients that wanted to work with me. So I decided to start traveling, which I had done in the past. And the very, I did just see this that I was going to go to. And the very first stop happened to be Los Angeles. So I come to Los Angeles. And immediately, everybody's like, you have to be here. There's so many dogs. They're going to love you here. You're going to fit in so well.

I, you know, all, just like the same story as everywhere. There's many incompetent dog trainers that people just don't feel like they got anything out of it. They just don't understand what's going on. They don't feel like they got any improvement, any knowledge. And so I think that's a very common thing that when you get someone that really speaks common sense to them and shows them things that actually make sense to the owner, at least they appreciate it. And people are telling me the same thing that I have heard all the time. You know, my dog, I paid all this money. There's all these trainers here. And no one is able to help. You did it in one session. And you have to be here. And I made a connection with someone who had a house. And he said, bring your dogs. Stay here until you find your own spot. Because otherwise I wouldn't see myself coming to California, you know, to pay $5,000, $10,000 to a house and have to find a place and move across the country like that. I wasn't prepared to do it. But the opportunity arose. And I had a place to come and stay and bring the dogs. And it was a big mansion. And I did it. So I went back home, canceled all the cities, packed up, and moved. And so during this move, I had to downsize on the dogs. So I did have about 20 to 25 dogs on the property. And I never was open enough to have other people take care of my dogs. That's why I had so many. I had all the way from the oldest dogs to the youngest dogs and the rescue dogs. And I wouldn't let fosters or other people take them on. I had them all on the property. And I was overwhelmed. It was definitely not ideal. It was something that I never wanted to do, never want to do it again. I had to learn by experience. I do not want to have a facility with any amount of dogs, really, that is in a facility setting. It was not my thing. It was stressful for me. It was stressful for the dogs. I think you can do it without being stressful, but it's hard. It's a very stressful position to be in when you're running a facility with a bunch of dogs. Especially when they're being sent in dogs that are fully untrained and have anxiety. So anyways, I made this decision and I packed up. I opened the doors to my friends and connections that I had to take those dogs, to foster them. I downsized to six. I made plans and I traveled and I had someone drive my dogs. I flew in and I was in California three days later with my dogs and started to take them out. You know, go out in Santa Monica. I started to create videos more consistently because now at least my mental health was in a good spot. It was in a good place.

Being in South Carolina was depressing because I didn't feel like at home. So when I hit California, beautiful weather, friendly people, opportunities, I started to go out and film. And I was in the right mood for that every single day. So I started to grow my TikTok, started posting videos on TikTok that I never kept. I was always the last person to join every single platform. My friends always telling me, like, people love you. They love your dogs. Go on TikTok. You're going to do so well. Never care for TikTok. So I posted on TikTok immediately in the first week, 100,000 followers. Millions of views, 100,000 followers and started, you know, that had attraction. And also on other platforms, I would go vital here and there. But again, I never put enough energy into, like, what types of videos should I post? What is it going to, that is doing well? I didn't even realize that, like, my customers were coming mostly from YouTube because they would go to Facebook to message me on Facebook, but they were actually finding me organically on YouTube. I wasn't paying that much attention to social media. At this point, I started paying more attention. So I started being consistent. And this was about four years ago. The first, and within about the first, like, year and a half of being in California, I was thriving in a business sense more than I have ever been. I was able to afford all the things that I had only imagined. I was able to get my first brand new car. I was, you know, got a house of my own in California. And I was training full time. My prices were able to be adjusted to a fair amount, which still wasn't as much as it is now. Even my prices are controversial. But I was doing well. And I continued to do that. And my TikTok account ended up getting banned, which motivated me to start posting on other platforms. So I started a brand new TikTok account. So my original TikTok account had 2.2 million followers. It got banned. And within six months, I had my 2.5 million followers back on TikTok. So people really admire what I do. And they follow. And I started posting at this point on TikTok and all the other platforms. You know, so now combined, I'm with 8 million followers. And it's all from the last year and a half. So up until a year and a half ago, which was basically, we're going to get into that. So I was the pandemic. So this is also all happening in the middle of the pandemic. I ended up packing up and going to Mexico for a couple of months. I was just looking for ways to create content. Being that you couldn't really work in California at this point, things were all shut down.

Everybody's like afraid to come out. You know, business is shut down for the pandemic. I went to Mexico with the idea that I could create content, rescuing dogs there, helping the shelters there. And I did that. And again, same thing. Just didn't feel like at home. I was not feeling it. I ended up coming back to California. Now, right before I came back, one of my dogs ended up getting distempered. And she died. So she died when I was in Mexico. And that was kind of like a light bulb that went on. Because up until this point, I wasn't really fully committing to my business, to my clients, to training full time, to doing the seminars that I'm doing. I would do that very randomly. I would be like scheduling some classes here and there. Do one-to-one. It was very ununiform. You know, there was no system in place. It was just me on a day-to-day picking and choosing however I wanted to do it. And so it was okay, but it didn't open the doors for things to really take place and for me to become the dog daddy. I was literally just Augusto, Augusto the dog trainer. I was just the guy with the dogs at this point. So I went to Mexico. The dog died. The light bulb went on that I am dedicating too much time to just my dogs. I'm not stable enough at this point still. Meaning I don't have a team and a place that I can travel and do my trainings and have my dogs. So I'm like stuck at home watching my dogs. So at this point, the dog died. I decided to, since I already have disconnections with people now, I'm going to downsize. I'm going to have them watch my dogs. I think this is a calling. It's a wake-up call that anything could happen to my dogs and I'm still a nobody. I'm just the guy with the dogs. Like I haven't built really anything for myself up until this point. So I decided to put my dogs with friends and get on the road and start to do what people had asked me and admired and appreciated and told me on a daily basis that this is what I'm meant to do. I should be out there training as many dogs as possible. So I decided to do that. I started right there and then to schedule some classes, random places that I just wanted to visit, that the weather was going to be nice. This was December. I decided to do this the very first week of January last year. So I set up some classes, started going for them, and started just traveling around the country. So random cities, random parks, two people, three people, have a dozen people, ten people, started building up. I got to the point that all the classes were sold out.

So now we have 20 people signing up with dogs, which would be 20 to 30 dogs, you know, in any given class. And more people wanted to sign up. And I started with charging like $100, $200, $300, $400, and they were still getting sold out. So everything was sold out and the demand was there. And I can't help everybody that needs help. And people are begging me. And because of the types of dogs that I work with, I get a lot of requests from people that are so desperate, but not in a just desperate of saying like they're just desperate because they want a quick fix. These dogs are ruining their lives. You know, they are destroying the house. They're fighting. They're biting people. The neighbors are having problems with them. The household is having problems with the dogs. The family, the property is having problems. Like everything, the law around them, the city can sometimes have problems with how bad the dogs are misbehaving, the problems that they're causing. So because I get a lot of these people, it's really hard to say no. It's really hard when people are sending you pictures of their arms completely beat up by the dog and they love this dog and they're not ready to get rid of this dog. And they know that if they do, the dog will be euthanized because the dog is too out of control. No one wants to take this dog. And that's just a reality. You know, people surrender the dog to the shelter. No one wants to really touch them. They don't feel the need for it. You know, so it's hard for me to say no. And so I started to open more and more classes. So now instead of doing one, two classes per city, I'm doing four to six classes in every city and still managing to get everything sold out. I started opening spectators. So now people come to watch me train and I continue to do that. It got to the point that, and of course, this is where my videos started to roll in. So all, you know, the most aggressive dogs that come to the classes because I'm advertising, I can help your dogs. I don't refuse any dogs. And I build a reputation for that, which is unintentional. It's just that that's, you know, most people, they see me doing that. And that's something that they would come, you know, I don't know. I wouldn't even encourage people to bring their dogs to my classes just for obedience because of how many people need help with more severe cases. And I build a reputation around that. So with that being said, I'm doing this full time. It got sold out. But there's still more people requesting for help. And I am also in a position where I start to think to myself, I can't touch every single dog.

I can't handle every single dog that is out there. And I can't put 100 of them in a class anyways. And I can't keep doing this in the way that I'm doing, which is something that you have to live and learn. You know, like, I mean, realistically, there's no program that I can create where I can help every single dog that people inquire for me to help them with. I just, there's no way. I can't do it. But I had to do the most that I could do to realize, like, what is the limit? So I started downsizing already. So at that point, I'm doing 20 families with their dogs. I drop it to 10 families with dogs, which is still a lot. Most people think, you know, you can't put 10 families with crazy dogs that they can't control in a place. And I agree. And I did it because, again, the demand, the need for help is there. So I tried to do as much as I could until I realized I can't do that many anymore. So it's ironic because I think that would be the biggest, not complaint, but I guess, not even controversy, but because it's something that I agree. I think the biggest thing that balanced trainers would agree with, right, is just putting too much onto the dogs too fast and it's unnecessary. Which I guess you would say unnecessary if we're just dismissing the fact that these people need the help. And I guess it's kind of like saying the need is there, right? Dogs get given up on every single day. There's no denying that they're just there. There's not many competent trainers that can help them. So if I know from my feedback from my clients and they understand it's going to be stressful, it's not ideal scenario for your dogs to be trained like this. But I'm giving you the information. You're paying me for the information. You want to bring your dog. You want me to show you how to get them under control so they can start to train them. So then it can actually go to another trainer that maybe if you show them that you have your dog under control, they're more willing to work with you. And in many ways, it opens the door for my clients. And my feedback is there. You cannot deny. You cannot unsee the feedback from my customers. Out of the thousands and thousands of people, I may get one or two complaints. The success rate is undeniably high and the feedback is amazing. So what is the choice? I just don't do it. I just go home and don't do my classes. Or I tell them, however many dogs I can physically handle in a setting in one group, I will put you guys there. And they choose to come to the classes understanding that.

And it's not ideal, but again, it's given the circumstances in the country and in the world that we have with how many people don't know what they're doing with dogs and how many dogs need the help. So I do that. But I am always looking for ways to improve. So that's something that, again, I'm not doing the seminars for the last 10 years and think that's the best way, the best approach. I did it. I already decided that I'm downsizing to one class, poor city now. I'm bringing other trainers on. I'm also doing things where not all the dogs come in at the same time. They do maybe three, five dogs, get some one-on-one time, and then the next group comes in. So there's many things, many room to improve. And I'm always open to ideas as well and trying to learn the best ways. But the people that have come to my classes, they have never once complained about my approach, my techniques, my philosophy in training. Never. Not even one person have said that makes no sense. You don't need to do that. No one that spent the entire time in my classes have complained. And I have had veterinarians, animal control officers, dog trainers. I have had people that took your courses come to my classes, Cesar Milano's courses. Everybody, people from all over the world have taken my classes, all different levels of experience. So I would be the first person to say, hey, everybody that has seen in person is calling me out. I have to educate myself. I'm doing something wrong. But it has not happened. It has not happened. And I have to rely on these professionals, these people that have experience, owners. Again, you name it, I have had it in my classes. And they have praised me for what I do. And the biggest complaints I have ever had is, we can't hear you too well, get a microphone. That's the number one. So with next classes, they're going to have microphones. I haven't done it because I just, I'm in a rush. I'm always there. It's like every week in a different city. It's very hard. I'm always, I have a life. I have my own dogs. I have a whole team that travels with me. This thing has gotten to a big level now. But that is the number one complaint. Second complaint, not even a complaint. I wish I had more time with you. They don't want a better method and a better approach and a better technique. They want more time with me because no one is going to train a dog in one setting, in one session. Right? But they get a lot of knowledge, a lot of information. Everything that makes sense to them, it makes sense to the dog. The dogs respond well to that. So they want more time with me. That's what the number one that my clients ask.

They wish they had more time with me. And that's about it. You know, that's really to the extent that people would reach out to me and say, it was an amazing experience. It would have been bad if you had a microphone that we could hear everything that you're saying. And when can you do a private lesson with me? They want to do a private lesson because they understand that if they get more time with me, they're going to get more better training. And now here we are. You know, basically with all this being said, all the things that I do, that whether it's lies or things that are like putting these dogs in a setting, in a group that people may not agree with, which I don't agree with. But I feel like it's either I tell them no and I hear the messages coming in of I gave up on my dog. I killed my dog. Sorry. Because I already hear that. Something that's hard for me to hear every single day. Oh, you didn't respond to me in time. Thank you anyways. You know, my dog is dead now. Because I put myself as like this hero that can help them. And I know if I physically spend time with people that have common sense, at least, I can help them save the dogs. I can help them management, you know, safety precautions that they can take and training and showing them like the best training approach that I think could be appropriate for their dog so that they can find a trainer that will at least give them results. So any of those people that come to me with that type of mentality, I know I can help them. But it's hard because I can't help every single person that messages me. And so with the fact that people know I can do these classes and I know for a fact if my audience, the people that have come to my classes, if I said I'm just not going to do it anymore just because it's just stressful for the dogs, they would be like, I'd rather my dog go to that stressful one class and I go home. And I know that that's not something that they're going to bring the dogs every single week or every day to train like that. I am the first person and that's I think that's why my clients love me so much because I'm transparent. There is no lie. Everything that I show in my videos is done in person, but I explain every step of the way. They know that's not the best environment to train. They know that sometimes I'm having to push the dog a little bit more because if I don't, they will be in the same level that they came into the class. And so I'm going to go home and the dog will have not improved at all.

So I have to push the dog a little bit more in order to save the dog's life, which is dramatic to say, but it's like, or save the relationship between them and the owners. If I don't get the dog to a certain level where the owner feels like they can reinforce it and, you know, follow other ways to train, they're not going to do it. So with that being said, I'm so open with my clients. I'm not manipulating them. I'm not tricking them into believing that something is effective when it's not. They see it. They get all their questions answered that when they go home and all this drama and controversy. I mean, I just added new classes. People already buying it all day for January. Like they are overlooked. I have protests in my classes. My clients all step all over around that and they all come in. People are literally saying, I'll help you for free. I'll do a better job. And they're trainers and my clients don't want to hear it. You know, they have seen enough of what I do. And I really appreciate that. And again, it's just complete transparent. And I'm going to let you speak now. You know, maybe have questions for me. I'm the most transparent. I'm not perfect. I, you know, make mistakes. But the things that they call me out for are not things that I believe I'm doing wrong. Nice. Well, okay, man. You talked like you had a lot to say. Like, I'm sure it's in your head all the time. So thank you for all that. I guess, I mean, yeah, I have questions. And a lot of it kind of starts to come together. So from me, like, my own questions first. Like, where does it go? Like, let's say I have a dog. And it's not the case. It's a difficult dog. And I need help. I see you on YouTube. I come to you. We do a, what, I don't know how long your workshops are. But what happens? Where do we go from once I walk away? Like, what would be, because you obviously are getting a certain type of dogs. So they're difficult dogs that pretty much everybody has lift their hands up and given up. And it's kind of, okay, last hope, so to speak. But I come, I see that, okay, there is somebody that can stop my dog from acting that way. Regardless of anything else. Like, we don't want to go to that point to talk about actual techniques. But what happens when I walk away? What would be, where do I go from there, I guess? So the thing about the base of my training, which techniques and methods you can learn every single day. I continue to learn, you know, a new approach for little things here and there all the time. But my base of training is really understanding body language.

So I'm able to tell the client really well, this is what's going on with your dog. So a lot of the times people think I'm, like, ignoring the body language. No, I can see it. But I know how to work around it. I know how to improve that. I know how to improve the dog's mental state as well. And the fears. And help them deal with those things. But the whole thing is, it's not the same message to every client. But when they come, I address whatever they are dealing with. So my dog is reacting towards dog, right? So I teach them, it's not a matter of just correcting the dog and making the dog comply. That's very different than what I do in my classes. People just don't get to see that. I get the dogs under control. And the follow-up of hours, it's like three hours, my classes, it's basically teaching them, this is why your dog feels that way. They see another dog. They're afraid for different reasons. They're genetic, lack of socialization. They have trauma. They have psychological issues that they think the other dog is bad. They see the dog. They get dance. They become reactive. You're just holding back. Your dog is becoming reactive. You're showing that their natural instinct is to become defensive, right? To show aggression, to bark, to launch, to defend themselves. So they're being the aggressor. But most of the time, and again, different dogs, different reasons, but most of the dogs that are reactive, they are uncomfortable around the triggers that they have. So let's just use another dog as an example. They see a dog. They get chased by a dog when they were younger. They became afraid of dogs. Now, every time they see a dog, they are on high alert that they have to be defending themselves. They have to be reacting. They have to be scaring their dog away. And now, you know, with these dogs, they already turned into a habit. So now, as soon as they go to certain places, they're going to see dogs or they smell a dog or they see a dog from a distance, they're already ready to be reactive. I don't just teach my clients, oh, this is easy. Just put a phone call on them or you call it and boom, your dog is behaving. Now, the thing is that sometimes your dogs are also reactive with people. They're reactive with everything around them. They pull on the leash. They don't follow directions. They have more than just the reactivity issues. So I get the dog's leash. I get the dog under control. And then so that the client can actually not be overwhelmed with the dog yanking their arms back and forth all the time. I get the dog and I talk to the client. Now we go into extra training.

When you see a dog coming, you have to go out with your dog. Your dog is reactive. You don't just go to a picnic table and you just hang out there with your dog. You have to be aware of your surroundings. You see a dog coming towards your dog. What do you do? You redirect your dog. But how are they going to redirect this dog if this dog doesn't know? Leave it. Come. Sit. You know? They don't know to heal. So I teach them all those things in the class. This is how you get a dog to want to pay attention to you. There's many... I use a prone collar in a way that I feel like people always tell me. And I show in my classes. And again, I think one thing is to my fault is that my videos don't show what I do at all. None of my videos show what I do. I don't have anything to hide in person because I explain this really well. But in videos, I feel like I just haven't found the perfect way to put it in a video to really highlight everything that I do. But I teach my clients' dogs to follow directions with just a sensation of the prone collar. There's no yanking. There's no corrections. This is after the dog is under control. Again, if the dog is lunging, completely crazy. I don't put any special tool on them also to get them under control. I take the leash with whatever they have on because I have techniques that is just restricting the dog until they slow down. And they pay attention to you and they start to follow directions. So that's my main approach to get the dog to just stop. Some of them have prone collar on. Some of them are very enabled. They put up a fight. They get tense. There's all types of different personalities. The majority of the dogs in my videos are going to be reacting, going crazy, out of fear. It's a habit. They have been doing that for a long time. And they haven't been addressed. And they have felt that that's the only way out. So you're going to see me taking the leash and the dog retracting. Now they don't want to deal with it anymore because it's something they haven't seen before. People just go away when they bark. Dogs go away from them. So now I take the leash. They pull back. They show fear. I can usually just hang out there with this dog and they're going to warm up for me. They're going to be fine. But that's not my goal. That's not going to solve anything. I have to get the dog to follow directions. I have to get them to be able to. And they do. People say the dog shut down. They don't shut down. They go quiet for a little bit. They freeze. But this is seconds later. The dog is back to following directions and able to follow directions. And that is what I need to get them to do.

That's what I do. If I just give it back to the owner after they're quiet, they learned nothing. That would be actually going in favor of what people criticizing me of doing. But instead, I keep pushing the dog, teach them to follow directions. And then I pass it to the owner. Teach a dog to follow directions. When you can get a dog to follow directions and the rest is on you, to basically just give them directions. So when you see a dog, you teach a dog to go around their dog. You teach them that you give them a way out. You can redirect their attention. It's better than correction. Using leave it and a little bit of leash pressure. It's so little because your dog is already conditioned to that. You either don't need any leash pressure. You can just let your dog leave it. And they respond to it because I teach them techniques to reinforce that. Or in the worst case scenario, your dog is not paying attention to you. They don't care for the treats. They don't want the ball. They don't want your voice. You use a little bit of leash pressure and the dog responds. But again, at this point, the dog is already conditioned. So then they go home and they know body language. They know what is making the dog uncomfortable, how the dog feels, what to look out for that tells you the dog is getting uncomfortable. So many signs, the eyes, the ears, the tail, the hair on the back, the way the dog is panting. I show them everything so they can learn that. Now, I train these classes with dozens of people for three hours. My clients tell me they got more knowledge than they had in even taking courses for days or done multiple months of training and professional trainers. And you can name any trainer and my clients have been there. And so the thing with that, all that I'm trying to get at, is only three hours. I'm not expecting them to go home and know everything and become dog experts and their dogs will never have problems again. And neither are them. Some people have that idea and they can go to any trainer and have that expectation that if they go to a trainer, they will never have a problem with their dog again. So I get the same types of people as well. But the majority of my people and the people that have common sense, they don't come with that mentality at all. They come to get information, to get knowledge, to understand their dogs better. Maybe they never heard of a prone collar or they are afraid of a prone collar or they were told no, no, no. And they see it for themselves. And then they have knowledge. Now they go home with like, wow, that really works. That actually makes sense.

That's actually improving my dog. So we're going to get different levels of results there. There's people that go home after one single class with me. And that's a lot of people. I think there's a lot of people that go home and all the dog's issues are gone because they paid so much attention in the three hours. They filmed it. They are people that are smart. They follow directions and they go home and their problems are done because not because the dog is fixed, but because they learned what they needed to do. And they learned so much in three hours that they're able to implement those things to actually improve the dog's behavior in the long run. Then there's other people that, again, my dog is so much better. I get a lot of this. In one session, my dog is so much better. But it still reacts here and there because, again, they did one class with me. And there's no way that I can guarantee every single person that comes to me they're going to have 100%, you know, transformation. And I don't advertise that. I advertise that they're going to see results. It's different when someone brings a dog to me and there's no improvement. It's just me saying, like, I don't know what to do with this dog. I've never seen this. Or try this. Try this at home. And they don't see any change, you know. So that's what I promote and advertise that I will give them common sense. I will give them knowledge because that's something that I receive with the feedback that that's what my clients get. But after they go home, if a dog, if I feel like the owners need a lot of training, the first thing that I do is recommend that they go find a trainer, which, again, the first thing that they tell me, do you have any recommendations, which is hard because I really don't, you know. There's a lot of trainers out there, but there's only a few that I would feel comfortable. And usually they're far away, you know. And it's like it's really not as easy as people think to just go to the next trainer and get the help. But I tell them, find a trainer that if – and I don't try to tell them, like, see, my method is the best. My method is what's going to help you. No, I let them decide that. I say, if you like what I'm telling you, if it makes sense to you, if you feel like it's working, try to get a trainer that works kind of like in a similar way that will understand what I'm telling you so that they can help you reinforce because you need more training. Sometimes, you know, I take the dog from them multiple times because all that I'm trying to sell is the idea, which is true, that my methods are very effective.

If I take a dog and I apply the methods that I promote, if I apply those methods myself, I'm going to have a very high success rate with every dog that is given to me, whether it's a fearful dog, an aggressive dog. When it comes to the sense of real-life situation, I specialize in real-life training. I want a dog that is not reactive, that is not jumping on people, that's not pulling on the leash, that knows the obedience commands, that actually know those things. I don't have to force them to do it with pressure. I can get those dogs to follow these directions and fit into society very well with my methods, and I'm very confident. And I haven't seen methods that are more effective for that in the sense of taking dogs that are already out of control, especially, you know, and then rehabilitating them and getting them to do those things. So with that being said, the owners go home, and they are to decide what they want to do from there. All that I'm giving them is the knowledge. What I was saying back there really quickly is that I move my methods to them. So sometimes the dog goes back to them, the dog is being reactive again. It's very clear. And the people that are there, they're watching, they understand dogs, they see it. So sometimes there's one client that they're not doing what I'm telling them, and I'm telling them 10 times over and over again, and take the dog over. And I show them, see, I take the dog immediately, the dog is being responsive. Why? Your energy is not right. These owners, they have a lot of things to fix. It's not just learning a technique or learning how to use a prone collar. They have so much more. They have to understand body language, understanding how to deal with different scenarios, how to relax, how to be the leader for these dogs, to be confident. So I'm there trying to teach them to do all of these things. And, you know, it's one of those things. Like, I think I don't get frustrated. I feel sad sometimes that I know they're going to go home and they're not going to have improved. Even then, out of the thousands of people that I train, these clients don't go home and say I'm not able to help them. And, again, I'm talking about thousands and thousands of people. You may see a comment here and there of someone that came to my class and said, I did not get anything out of it. And those are one of these people. And even then, that could be more people because I know they go home and they still struggle. But I am proving to them that the methods work and that they have a lot to learn. That's all that I'm doing. And they're still improving.

So they understand if the dog is still misbehaving, it's because they need more training. It's not because my methods weren't effective. Because I went over and over again and explained every step of the way and demonstrated and showed evidence that it works. And then they're like, I know. I just want, I need to learn this. And dog training, in my opinion, is just like art. If I was, if you put a bunch of people to have to draw something or paint something, you know, you can do it in front of them many, many times. They're not going to go home and become the best painter in the world. So some of them are going to be horrible at it. And I would be, I use that as an example because I would be horrible at it. And so I can only imagine myself trying to learn to do something like that. And so there's only so much that any trainer or anyone can do. So that is not even a discussion that I would have with anyone because I agree with that. I agree. People will go home and they need more training. So to answer your question, my advice would be get more training. You know, use the methods that I'm showing you. Do this in the meantime. Sometimes 99.9% of the time, I will give them something that they can take from the class. Whether it's even showing them techniques to put the mouse on the dog or even the idea that, hey, your dog is not that aggressive. But see, because they nip at you or they bite the leash, it's a problem. Teach them, condition them to the muzzle or a prone collar or whatever it may be that gives them some level of improvement. But if I feel like they really need more, which I think pretty much you can never get too much training. I always tell people try to get as much training as possible. But the ones that I feel like they really, really need it in order to see any level of results with the dog, then that's what they go home with. Yeah. Because you, I mean, three hours is really not, I mean, it's a blink in time. And there's different dogs. There's different types of people. I know from my experience, people will come to lessons and they will know them, they will agree, and they will give you a really good impression that they got the message and they have their homework and so on. And sometimes it takes a long time and sometimes it just never happens. And so I'm trying to get to, so like the, and you tell me if I am getting it, like the promise when it comes, when, when somebody comes to, to one of those seminars or classes, is it that they see that the dog, that somebody can actually stop that dog? So training can happen later on. Well, it's not necessarily just that.

I mean, they bring them to me because most of the trainers that they are working with, they're telling them things to do from far away. Like they're trying to work around the issues and they feel like they're never getting anywhere. Because the biggest thing that you hear the positive reinforcement only trainers saying is that you can avoid all these situations easily. And that's not true. My clients, they live in apartments, they travel, they have family, they have to walk the dogs in the neighborhood. Like they cannot just avoid dogs. They literally, the moment that they step outside, they see. So that's already, you know, out of the question. So do they need to have the, like, like we have to agree that when you have a dog that's coming at you and it's a master of impressing, even if he has never really came through to really damage and bite, but he has this big facade and it takes some skill to be able to protect yourself while you're trying to calm the dog down. That's not, if the person could have had that skill, they already probably could stop the dog, right? They would not know how to, where to go from there, but they would be able to kind of stop the dog and say, hey, off limits. Well, basically what I teach my clients is how to manage the dog. So the reason, again, the reason that I have to get them under control is because these dogs are so out of control that they can't follow directions and the owner can't learn to give directions. So that's the only reason I get the dog under control. Now, let me address something really quick because the biggest misconception is, yes, if I did one-on-one with my clients, I would be able to use a little bit of a slow approach. These classes are three hours. I have to give them the knowledge. I have to send the message. Otherwise, they're going to go home with the same issues. People are driving hours to come to these classes, sometimes traveling across the country, and they need the help. So I need to deliver that help, and that means I have to get the dog under control. I have to push the dogs a little more, which, again, I'm learning ways to make my classes better, which means I'm doing less, I'm bringing different smaller groups. I'm already addressing that, but that's nothing to do with my approach. That's given the circumstances, and I put myself in that position, and I was trying to help them as many dogs as possible. There's too many dogs. There's too much going on in a class, and I have to move fast. So I have to take the leash. But even with a lower approach, there's also all the different personalities.

And let me give a great example. There's some dogs that have been in my videos that are probably one of the craziest ones that you have kids that you could see. They're as more aggressive with the way that I have to stop them and how they're fighting. And those are the dogs that would, to someone that doesn't understand really the process that I use to train them, they will think that I'm triggering the dog. Because, for example, some of his dogs, let's say, you know, there's an Akita that I trained recently. So that dog is reactive towards other dogs, but he's a very chill dog. Like, you have to get really close to him, and certain dogs that he picks and chooses. But when he picks and chooses that dog, he has no boundaries. He turns around and bites the owner. But otherwise, he's a chill dog. So what do I do with a dog like that, right? Like, I'm teaching the dog to be able to comply and follow directions because, yeah, dogs can get conditioned to that. And the owner understands some breeds, like in Akita, that's more dominant. You're not going to get that dog to be a submissive dog that just, you know, is happy to follow directions. But it can certainly get them to a level where they have more respect for you. And you have to kind of condition the dog to be able to do that. So what I did with that particular dog, the owners cannot put a mask on him. He takes the mask off. The dog has no respect for them. And he's just laying there until he sees a dog that he doesn't like. And then, boom, you have this huge dog that is lunging at this other dog. And if you apply any pressure at all, he turns around and he attacks the owners. So they're afraid of their own dog. So I have to take the dog. And the dog puts out a fight and is fighting with me. And everybody there understood that. Before I touched the dog, I said, this is going to happen. And I said, if the muzzle comes off, unless I tell you to take your dog back, don't approach me. And so I deal with the dog. I get them to follow directions. And, again, a dog like that, he needs a lot more training. Right. And they know that. They go home understanding that. But I know exactly what the dog needs. That either you're going to put this dog to live in a backyard and you're never going to get this dog out. Or you have to get a dog to follow directions. And you have to get a muzzle that the dog cannot get off. And, you know, even if it could, maybe it's going to take a year. Maybe this dog is never going to be 100% better. But I still show them the management that everybody talks about.

If you're going to have to walk your dog out in public, condition them to a muzzle. They cannot go out in public without a muzzle for the rest of their lives. Every time they're going to be around other dogs, they're going to have a muzzle. Now, I'm not saying that that's necessary. But I'm just not an extremist, you know, where I'm just going to say, oh, just put a muzzle on your dog. No, I'm going to first use something that I know is effective. I'm going to try to condition the dog to follow directions. Because if they get conditioned to that and they're comfortable doing so, they won't feel triggered anymore. So they won't be reactive and they won't put up a fight. So that means there's no more corrections necessary. And it's a very effective thing that works with dogs. So I try to do that. But if I only have one session, it's really sad that I can't really give them all the training that they need. I give them all the knowledge. But, again, going back to what you're asking, is that they come with hope that they're going to learn what they need to learn to help their dogs. And I give them a lot of knowledge. It's not everything. For some dogs, they don't need much. I work with some dogs that are very, like, have caused very severe, bad damage. And they are really misbehaving. Like, they are a serious problem. But with the right technique, it's like overnight change. And as long as they manage that, they manage the dog, the dog never escalates, the behavior never escalates back to how bad it was. It keeps improving every single day that they take the dog out because they're managing the dog. But I teach them how to manage the dog. So I call it managing because they're not waiting until the dog is so afraid again and becomes reactive again. They learn how to pay attention to the environment, to the triggers, to the dog's body language, and how to go about communicating with the dog properly to make the dog understand. You can give them directions. They don't have to rely on that natural instinct of fighting. They can just trust you to give them directions. And you are going to be proactive to give your dog those directions. So the majority of people, believe it or not, that's all they need. The rare cases of those dogs, they're like, they're a kidder. They really need more. So what's the approach? What's the full training that's going to help this dog? Or a dog that's really fearful. They're literally shut down. Like, they go anywhere. They don't move. They're afraid. They're shaking. They're shaking. It's not because I'm there.

The owners are bringing that dog that literally poops themselves when they're being handled. Now, let me give you some scenarios. Because, again, people are going to be like, you don't need to do that. So if I can prove, which I can, that the method is effective to help the dog and that this dog is nine years old and nothing else has helped them, but the owner brings them to me for me to help them. Now, they can say, you never have to put a dog in that position. Let me just say that this dog has a chronic ear issue that has to go to the vet every couple of months. That already is a good reason because the vet is saying they can't shrink this ear. Put the dog in that position. What position do you mean? So I mean in a position where, like, they have to deal with people touching them, for example. Okay. So I mean, one thing, for example, is the dog has a chronic health concern that has to be seen by the vet, but the vet is not willing to touch them because the dog becomes very aggressive. The owners cannot put a muzzle on them or keep a muzzle on them, and the dog is either shut down or lashing out and biting everybody that touches them. So what I do is I desensitize the dog, and people call it not desensitizing. I consider it desensitizing because it works to get the dog desensitized to my touch where they go from being sore for it and screaming, pooping themselves out of fear to then relax, freezing for a second because that's what they see. But, yeah, then they shake it off, and they start to let me touch them. They start to follow directions. And then I show the owner how they are going to hold on to the leash and present this dog to the vet or to the next person. And also, gradually, they're not going to do it. And they all know this. All my clients know this. They won't do it that same day. I show them many other things. Teach a dog to pass by people first. Teach them to walk around people. Teach them just to walk on a leash. And then you get closer and closer to people. So your dog is going to be improving. I show them the entire process that they have to follow. I just don't have videos showing it. But I can say this with total confidence. I show that to my clients. And so, but even with that fast approach, it works. So let's say if I had to take one of those dogs. Let's say I had a client that had a dog like this, and it was an emergency situation. They said, my dog needs to go to the vet. With my approach, the vet would be able to do the treatment on this dog without getting bitten, without having to sedate the dog.

Or without not being able to do it all together because they can't get close to this dog at all because of that approach that I use. And that's assuming that that owner is able to follow whatever directions you're giving them. So how confident are you that they're able to do that? So when it comes to those types of dogs, that would be, and I can say this with confidence again, that would be no method. That would be easy and effective to help their dog. I'm only showing them a method that does work. Just like anything that you could do or any drug trainer could say, this would work. The only difference is I'm showing them with evidence that it works. Basically, the opposite of what I do would be someone saying, do this and that and that, and that's going to help your dog. And the owner only have those words to believe. Right. Like they tell me no one has ever touched my dog. It never worked. Right. So this is like, there is some benefit to the owner to see their dog all of a sudden changing its mind and looking for other options and way to interact with whatever it is that he has to interact with. Like it reinforces that what I'm teaching them works because if they don't believe in it, I feel like people are more prone to giving up. They're like, no, that's not, that's a joke. It doesn't make any sense. But when I show them that it does work, it makes them want to look into it. It makes them want to really dig into that training. And trust me, in my classes, I, I'm calm. But I tell people like, no, you're not doing it. It's not going to change. Your dog is not going to get better. I'm constantly saying that in my class. No, if you keep doing that, it's not going to improve. I tell them they hear from me before they hear from anyone else. Now, as far as, again, answer your question, every owner is at a different level. Sometimes all they need is to learn what I'm showing them and they're done. All the owners, they have no idea that they will come in there to experience what I'm showing them. They just thought they're going to get the dog fixed. And in reality, I'm telling you, you have a lot more issues than you can see. You know, before your dog is just biting someone, the underlying issues that they have is like a big problem. And it comes from the owner not understanding the dog, not understanding how to train, not understanding, you know, all these different things. So I feel like I'm pretty confident because I tell them so much. And my clients tell me I'm really good at teaching them and explaining things to them.

I feel like I use very everyday term instead of very complicated terms, which makes the everyday person understand me better. It could be hard maybe for someone that it made me look, made me sound uneducated. But I actually do it on purpose because I'm talking to them, real life stuff. These things that my clients understand really well. So they are not just like, even when I say conditioning or redirecting, I have to explain that most of the time to my client what it means. So imagine me using more difficult terms that I don't really use in my training because I find it unnecessary. I think if you want to be a dog trainer, maybe be educating that it's not necessarily a bad thing. But I'm using real life everyday terms that make sense and that I can show them this is what it means. Say redirecting a dog, what does it mean? Get a dog to pay attention to you. Be neutral, not to focus on what the trigger is that is coming towards them. So how do you do that? Then I show them techniques to do that. And they, you know, they do pretty well. I work with so many people and so fast in every weekend. You can bet. I run into people that I can say this a hundred times and I know they're going to go home with the same issue, you know. But they can't go back and say he didn't show me anything that was effective. He didn't show me anything new. My whole thing is that because I'm promoting something that would help dogs if people understand it and they follow through. Which basically I am a balanced trainer. The only time that people would say that I'm not a balanced trainer is when they are picking up portions of my videos and using only that to say this is not balanced. And certain positions that dogs have been put into that they think it could, you know, a slow approach could have been used. Which in given scenarios that I'm given by my clients, I would disagree. I would think there would be no, it's either, again, the other extreme would be the trainers saying a bunch of nonsense that gets the dog nowhere. They're telling them method and they're speaking and it's getting nowhere. And I'm showing them something that gets the dog places. But sometimes it's more stressful. And yes, I will take it. I can slow down my pace a little bit, meaning basically the dynamics of my classes will change, which they are changing, to make it last. But still, it's still going to be many dogs that will be fearful of the touch. And I tell the client, do you want your dog to go to that or not? Sometimes I'm just in the moment and I don't tell them, but I always stop and explain.

But 99% of the time, I will tell my client, your dog is probably going to poop themselves. It's going to be really afraid. Because I know that otherwise, that dog will never get comfortable with people. They will be in a bubble. Right. I mean, clearly when somebody, like I, just speaking from experience, like if. If any trainer is doing something with somebody's dog and the person doesn't feel comfortable or it sees that things are going off the rails. Most people would end the session there and take the dog back and go home. Right. And so you end up keeping those people throughout your class. They walk away with something. And there is a lot of people that come through the classes. So on one hand, it's very difficult to argue that you're not at least giving some hope, even if it's just the fact that they can see the dog that, okay, just stop acting this way. What do you think is the big criticism towards you from the other side of things? Well, I think, you know, even from the balance trainers, it's just a combination of the controversy that have already been out. Because they always jump to something. Like I could make videos and have someone, a trainer that is respected, come to my class and say, no, everything was good. I saw everything was explained. It's a different approach in a certain way because most people don't even show. They don't, you know, they don't want to push the dog that much. They're afraid. They don't understand the dog so well that the trainer themselves wouldn't feel comfortable doing that. I explain everything. So it's so smooth. Everything goes so easy with the dog and the owners because they understand what's going on. They understand the context to the dog. But again, people, if that was to be proven, they would jump to the next thing. What about the dog that he dumped in the desert? What about the horse that he saw at the lag? It's like basically what I'm trying to say is the stuff that's posted online about me in a negative way always comes to the surface. And they combine that with things that they don't understand that I do. I would say the biggest thing amongst balanced trainers with me is they don't have a full context of what I do in my classes. Because none of the trainers that have come to my classes, they're balanced. They're staged the entire time. I'm not saying that they have to agree with everything that I do, right? But they, they all, I mean, they're not like criticizing it. They're not like this is completely wrong. This guy has to stop doing what he's doing. Just real criticism are coming from people that don't understand my classes.

They have not been to my classes, which is, you know, I offer spectators for a reason. It's open to the public. It's not, it's $100. But like if you're really going to go as far as making videos and on top of videos about what I do, I think for $100, it'll be worth it for you to know firsthand what you saw. And again, if someone was to come and it's open, I know I'm opening the doors so that people could come and manipulate things from the classes as well. But they would have to deal with the fact that dozens of other people were present and saw for themselves as well. And this person is going to look like, you know, a fool. So I feel confident to let people come. And everybody films in my classes. All my classes are filmed. So there's nothing here. And there's not, you know, a dark room where people can't see what's going on. I never take the dogs out of sight. They're all happening right in front of their eyes and they're filming it. So the whole thing about it, though, is things being taken out of context. And, you know, and me on my part doing a bad job of representing my training online, you know, in a way that really reflects what goes on in my classes. I mean, this is what I hear from even all my customers. It's like it's different in person. There's just so much more, so much more details, the energy that they're feeling in person. And I feel like in videos, there's definitely a way to improve it. But it's hard. I haven't figured out a way yet. If someone is watching this and they are dog trained and they know how to film, they can come, you know, and they can do it. Like, it's not a matter of not being one to invest into it. It's just I have hired very skilled videographers that don't know anything about dogs. They don't really know what they're getting. And plus, I have to also train myself to be like, okay, we're going to film this. But it does a lot of work to be, you know, to be creating something of a level that people can understand where I'm not leaving gaps for people to misunderstand what I'm saying or what I'm doing. So that's on me. I have to get better at doing that. But I have no reason to be intimidated or afraid or anything like that in person because the people that come in person, again, I would love to hear criticism. I would love to hear alternative methods. And I believe from my experience of over 11 years of training and all the thousands of people that I've been in person training with them, that if anything, the only thing that would be left to argue at the end of the day would be different opinions.

Like, where basically there's nothing that says, like, this is proof that what you're doing is wrong. I think when everything gets down, I don't know if it makes sense. When people, if people have a chance to come there and spend the entire duration and ask your questions and maybe try to even count it with something like, what about if you do this with this dog? I feel like all in all, I'm not perfect. I'm sure there will be some adjustment that I can do as well. But you would be a balance where everybody would be like, okay, you're definitely not almost 100% right. You just have to do a couple of little things different and you can do it right. And I can tell them the same thing. But unless they have this whole idea of, like, there's no need to touch a dog. There's no need to put a hand on a dog, which I disagree with. And I would explain why. And then I feel like clients with dogs that are dealing with the things that I'm going to say, they're going to feel like, yes, I want dog daddy to help me with my dog. Not someone that says they're not going to touch my dog because they already know that they're not going to get the help if they don't do that. You know, it's not a matter of every dog is the same. It's just a matter of the dogs that you see in the video that do certain things. That's just the reality. If someone tells me they have a dog that's nine years old and no one can ever put their hand on their dog. And then I show them that there's a way. And now the dog actually willingly put the paw so I can cut their nails that have been overgrown. I can clean their ears that need medication. Whatever it may be, they're going to want to do that. And the dogs are not going home and they're shut down and afraid of people and becoming more aggressive, like they say. That's a very fine line, too, in my opinion. Because, you know, yes, dogs can always regress. They can always go back with bad training, lack of reinforcement, lack of understanding. And also, if you just correct a dog and you don't correct the actual underlying pauses of what is making the dog misbehave, which I do. And I explain to my clients the process and how long it's going to take. If I was only correcting the dog and giving back to the owners, this is where I could see this dog becoming more aggressive. But instead, they understand what to look out for and how to work with the dog and precautions to take. Because the problem is, yes, any dog, when you're correcting them, they can become more aggressive. But that can go away. That's why they're becoming more aggressive. They're frustrated. They're confused.

It's something brand new. And you're addressing it with getting them under control because you have to get them under control first. The dog is not comfortable with that. They retaliate because they're trying to find a way out of that. And so it becomes a problem. But once you understand that, you work around it. So let's just use an example that you bring a dog out in public. And your dog, as soon as they see a dog, they're really reactive. Now, not that he stops this dog. You cannot convince this dog to stop. But you apply pressure. The dog now, before they stop, they fight at you. They bite the leash. They try to bite your hand. They try to attack you. Trainers that are positive reinforcement only is going to say, oh, that's because you corrected him. Don't correct him. He won't do that. But if you don't correct it, the dog will still have the same problem. So you have three ways there. Two are extremes. It's either you don't correct the dog at all and let it be the way that they are because you're afraid to correct them because it's going to cause dog rash him because the dog is not comfortable with it yet. Or actually, so the second way would be you deal with it, but you learn how to take precautions. You put a mouse on the dog at home before you take it out. You also try to redirect. So you're de-escalating the situation. There's ways to de-escalate without completely avoiding the situation, right? Because if you completely avoid it, then you're not dealing with the issue. You're not really getting the dog to understand how to deal with those issues. You can take a slow approach, but you still have to make some level of step forward, too, because if you have a dog that just wants to have to work on a regular basis, you can't take six months just to get the dog to pass by one dog. I need the dog to pass by random dogs. Dogs are going to bark at him or her. They need to be able to fit into society, and they have to tolerate more. I think the biggest thing that is unfair is that dogs have to fit into society. They have to fit into what we put them through, which is all the dogs that are reactive, all the loud noises, all the people that are wearing whatever they want to wear. You can't control the environment. So with that being said, I feel like it's unfair, but it's like they have to comply. The argument would be left like, no, you don't. You don't have to take your dog in that situation. Where do you live? What planet are you in? Because in my reality, people have to walk their dog. They have to take them to the vet. They have to go on trips. People get sick.

They have to go to doctor appointments, and they have to get someone to watch the dog. There's literally like I could probably name 100 scenarios where this dog will have to face a trigger or another. Whether it's a person, a dog, or some situation, they cannot avoid those situations. So that means if the problem is big, like where the dog is pulling them down to the road, they're attacking someone, they're attacking the owners, they need that address right away. So you feel comfortable within these three hours to get the history of the dog, evaluate the dog, put him under control, and give some prescription for the owner to walk away. More or less on a very consistent basis, right? Yeah. And it works pretty well. Like I said, the owner sent out a lot of information about the dogs. They have a form that they fill out with pictures of the dogs, history of the dogs, whatever. Prior to coming to the class. Yeah. They sent us a whole list of all the information about the dogs. I personally don't even look at it as much because I'm going right there in the moment, the things that are the most relevant. You know, I can tell body language. So a lot of things I ask questions that are relevant to that dog because I can see through body language things that indicate certain things to me. Like, you know, your dog is really quiet, but what is it that's going on? Because I already know this dog is quiet, but this dog means business. Like this dog will attack you the moment that it takes that leash. This dog is dominant and standing its ground. Or a dog that is, like, not reactive yet, but I can tell by the eyes. This dog is very insecure. And so it's most likely a reactive dog that is unsure because they're in a new environment now, so they're not being reactive. But then I know. So I ask just, you know, relatable questions that the owners will answer. How long they have had the dog? Have they tried other trainers? How old is the dog? And then they tell me what's going on. And they tell me. And most of the people that come to me, they don't know how to walk the dog on a leash. So I'm, like, doing it, like, having to build them up from zero. Yeah, no question. There is, like, I mean, for most of those dogs that come and those owners that come, there is definitely something to take away. What about the ethical aspect of things? Because that's where the big part of the controversy is, like the cost and benefit of when do you and do you draw a line to where sometimes it becomes unethical? To go the route that you go? Like, are you stubborn to where it's like, no, I will make every dog under control?

Or do you sometimes say this is just not going to happen? Well, so there's definitely some cases where I'll tell the owner that the things that they need to work through with the dog is not worth to even get started in the class because it's going to create a bigger problem. If that's what I mean. Like, you know, a dog that's going to – I mean, I really believe it or not, which I say believe it or not because, again, of the controversy. But I really actually try to always use the calmest approach that would work for a dog. The calmest – I do try to de-escalate. All the trainers that have worked with me, they say that I de-escalate more than most trainers. And this is not when someone is watching me. This is, like, every class. I'm taking – I wouldn't want to, you know, put on, like, a feedback that is not, like, honest, you know. So I'm saying from honest – because I would even think, like, there's a video of a dog that is a cancourcer that literally screams and she's on her back and she's pooping everywhere. I had a lot of trainers in that particular class. But with everything being explained, that's what I'm saying. They think that I still use the calmest approach that I could have used to work with that dog given the context, given the circumstances that the owner is dealing with. I could use a little bit of a slow approach if I had more time to get to know each dog and each owner, which I'm not going to be doing the seminars forever, right? I'm training other people right now. I want them to go do one-on-one. It's going to be more affordable. I can't – you know, it's like with the demand and all the help that people need, I can't be the one person doing it all. So I have to, like, find all the ways, like I was saying. But it's like if I was to do it for $100 or for free where everybody can just bring their dogs, it would be even a bigger problem because now more people would be wanting to sign up. So I would put my prices in a place where I'm trying to educate people, you know, with the spectators. And instead, I'm giving, like, less people have the opportunity to work with me hands-on. Now, it's not because I don't want to do a hands-on. It's because I already reached my maximum. And actually, I over – went over the limit of – because this is the main problem. But I don't think, honestly, that that is the main issue with my training or my – or the controversy. It's mostly people, one, manipulating what they see and then tricking people to believe that what they see is what I'm all about, which is yanking these dogs, making them afraid, choking them until they poop.

It's not that at all. But some – I feel like – because I want to be careful with what I say, I feel like I can slow down a little bit given that I'm going to have more time to get to know each dog. But it won't be that all of a sudden these dogs are no longer trying to bite me and these dogs are no longer pooping out of fear. Some of them, like I said, you can come into this house every single day and the dog is happy-go-lucky until you touch them, until you go to approach them. And how long would you do that approach before you're like, no, let me just go to the bottom of this and put my hand on the dog? And now, in my classes, there are dogs that are very afraid of touch and I'm able to slowly get my hand on them and get them comfortable. There's others giving the context, again, understanding the age of the dog, the body language, what the owners are telling me. I combine all those things and I determine, no, this dog, you can go for the next five years walking them side by side with new people and they still won't let people pet them because they're so convinced that this approach with a hand is dangerous and they're very scared of that and they are conditioned to being on the defensive. So you're not going to be able to convince the dog, especially because they have already tried for so long and the trainers still cannot put their hand on the dog. The dog was improved, now it's around people, now they follow directions. But the main problem is too that I always, it gets to the point, I always evaluate the situation as well, right? So if the owner tells me my dog, let's say, the dog doesn't have anything that's hurting anybody, right? It's not hurting the dog, it's not hurting the owner, it's not putting the dog's life at risk. I'm not going to say, oh, let's just go ahead and put my hand on this dog right from the first time. I would say it's not necessary. Your dog is not being aggressive. You know, it's a little shy of people touching, but it's not really aggressive, it's not doing anything. I will say there's no need for me to push this dog right now. Do more of like another approach that will improve your dog more, you know, before you push it a little more if you need to. Now, on the other hand, if they tell me, like, it's a problem because I have a kid at home that has a disability that tries to touch my dog all the time and my dog is biting them. Or they tell me my dog has a chronic condition that has to go to the vet and the vet can't work with my dog.

And they keep telling me to luteinize because my dog has a problem and they can't fix it because they can't touch my dog. In those cases, they'll say, well, let's go ahead and get this dog desensitized to being touched. And yes, it works. That approach that I use really does work and that's why I would recommend that. But I always go, it's not that every dog is afraid of touching. I just go immediately and put my hand on them. You know, it's out of the thousands of dogs that I train, in reality, if you really go down and you look, there's only going to be like a handful of dogs. And that's mostly working with problematic dogs with severe fear, severe aggression, severe reactivity. I'm not saying thousands of dogs are counting puppies. Thousands of dogs that have been given up on by trainers, told to luteinize, completely out of control, have bitten people, have bitten dogs, have killed other dogs, have killed other animals. Like, there's enough dogs of that category for me to say, you know, even then, my approach is not the same for every single one of those dogs. It's just that when you put videos online and people say that that's what I do and I don't have enough evidence, which again, I would be the first to say it's my fault. I don't have enough evidence to back up everything that I'm saying because I haven't done a good job of filming it. My only evidence in person, it's there. In person, I have no one who came up to me and said, try this instead. And I literally genuinely have people question me. They do question me in my classes. They're like, but why this? But what about in that scenario? But why, why, why are you doing this? And I would tell them and it makes sense. They're not there to, unless they come there with a, you know, a certain idea in the head of it. They're there to get some type of footage so that they can use it, which is very rare, which is, I think that speaks for itself. People like to say that I'm hiding something. I think it speaks for itself that 99.9% of the videos that go around that are talking bad about me are my own videos. And out of the thousands of people that film my entire classes, they are choosing not to be using it in a negative way because they could. It's easy to manipulate a video. I think being that I'm so genuine in my classes and I really am not pretending or hiding anything, people understand. And they would be, they would have to be like literally evil to try to do that, you know. And so I'm very lucky that my, my customers are very loyal because otherwise I would have a lot of people just doing it for views.

So you feel comfortable with some of those people that criticize you and that want to take you out of the dog industry. They're welcome to come and interact and see and have a back and forth with you during sessions like that. So again, my, my classes are open. The only thing that I would say, and I mean, it's kind of crazy that it has gotten to this point. I mean, we have to have security bodyguards. Some of the classes have three bodyguards. We'll put as many as we need to put to keep everybody in this class running smoothly. I just did a podcast the other day. I said the same thing. If these critics wanted to come in there and hold a sign that says, don't train with dog daddy, they can do it. As long as it's not interrupting my class, they can be, they can pay the $100 and be inside my class doing this. If they come there and they generally want to ask me questions, they won't be rude. They won't be disrupting the class. They're more than welcome to do that. They don't have to agree with me. They can put up their valid points at the right times. And I'm going to answer them. As long as my clients were paying to get the help and they really need the help are able to listen to me and, and be there and get the help that they paid for. If someone is to come there to be like yelling or creating problems, that's a different story. You know, they, they'll be kept out. Right. That's why now all the classes like in private venues for that reason, but it has never happened. You know, again, my class has been pretty peaceful. Peaceful. It has not, nothing really has ever happened. And yeah, that would be completely comfortable because it's not, no different than what I'm telling you right now. You know, and if someone said, Hey, I don't think you should do that. I, I, that's what I said earlier. It leaves it down to opinion. So if an owner has a dog and they say, no, I want my, I wanted to touch my dog because I'm having these problems. And I believe that your method is going to help my dog. They're making that choice. I'll leave it up to the owner. Even there, if someone was to say that they have a better way, I would want to see it. And I would, I would counter that with what about in this scenario and in that scenario? What about if this happened? And ultimately the owners will decide because all that they have to have is confidence in who they are paying to help them. And while they have confidence in me is through evidence, physical evidence of the dog that I help and testimonials and showing them what I do. It's, it's, it's in the work.

It's not really by I follow this book or that, you know, science evidence. I, I use a combination of many things that make sense to me and to the dog and to the owner. And, and there's no actual real evidence contradicting what I say other than. Like not, no physical evidence, I should say. Like where you can see someone demonstrating, see, you can do this with a dog. I feel like every time that I train at using positive reinforcement, proves that you can train an aggressive dog without using correction. They get the dog to warm up to them. Do you know how many of those videos I could make every single day? Like I could go via the left and right if I wanted to fake it. I could literally, dogs can warm up to me, but that does not fix the problem. If your dog is not under control and people can still not have friends over, they can still not walk the dog. What are you proving by going there, giving them some treats, sit on the ground and all of a sudden the dog likes you. Unless they can show that that works when they're meeting a total stranger. That's okay to do that. I'm not saying that it's wrong to get the dog to a certain level where they're comfortable with you first. That's fine. I don't see them really showing real life scenarios. And people that come to my classes, they have real life scenarios. I want to see a dog that is very aggressive, very fearful, and very reactive to then being able to pass by a dog that barks at them. Now, people can say like, but why? Why would you put them in a dog that's barking at them? Because my clients, they live in places where they pass by unruly dogs. They pass by reactive dogs. They cannot avoid that. So unless the dog complies to follow directions and go by this dog that is lunging at them, the problem is still there. It's only half the better. And they stay at that level forever. How do you respond to the recent mission statement letter that the American College of Veterinary Behaviors put on you? Well, the same thing that I'm saying. They don't have enough knowledge about what I do because obviously people don't. People that have not come to my classes, no one have enough knowledge. It's my fault. But they will say there is plenty of evidence. That's what they say always, right? There is plenty of evidence. There is a lot of research and so on and so on. So my first thing is that they don't know enough. So the people that are there, I think they, again, it comes down to it's true opinion. They are using stories and all that, but it's no evidence for people that need physical help.

So for the people, I'm not trying to be like, I'm right and you're wrong. I'm like, if you need help, you make a decision. All that I'm saying is they don't know enough. And then the other thing is they have their opinion. So they believe dogs should never be corrected, right? So there's no need for correction. If it really comes down to an opinion, so that's not an opinion, it's a fact, then we want to see evidence. So it goes back to physical evidence. Show me dogs that can fit into society and tolerate the things that they have to tolerate because they have to. Because there's two different things that we're fighting about there. It's like you have to do this and you don't have to do that versus you can't just avoid those things and you can't. So we have to agree on one thing first, right? So the people that follow me, they agree. No, dogs have to fit into society. They cannot just make their own decisions. They cannot just choose to be friendly. And whenever they are not friendly and afraid, we just remove them from the situation. Given the fact that people agree to the first topic, which is, no, I pass by dogs, I pass by people, people wearing hats, sunglasses, cars, bikes, skateboards, anything that could be a trigger for some dog. And it's a whole other topic right there on the hat and the sunglasses. Most dogs that come to my classes, that's like nothing to them because they're so triggered by everything anyways. So that that's not even a problem. But in general, they have to face one thing or the other that they cannot avoid. So with that being said, now we're at that position. Can you prove that you can get a highly reactive dog to go from being highly reactive to facing all these distractions without corrections? And honestly, and with my training, I got to say this. I use the minimum amount of corrections. I use more redirecting. I do not make the dog just comply, just sit over here and behave because I'm telling you to do it. I do not do that. I teach, I actually teach the owners to de-escalate the situation, but it's still in a level that they're able to fit into society. This means they're able to pass by people, able to pass by dogs, able to pass by common everyday things that they have to face. And it's not always possible with every dog. I'm just saying that I use the minimum necessary for that particular dog. So if you have a dog that's completely out of control, strong, mentally willed, physically powerful, and they don't actually going to have to use more pressure, more corrections.

But if I get one that if you don't do anything at all, they're highly reactive, but if you redirect them, if you give them directions, if you tell them they're in charge of the leash with minimum amount of pressure, the dog responds, then that's all we use. And so I have a lot of training that actually goes more to the minimum necessary, but it's still enough to get them to comply and be as comfortable as possible. Sometimes cannot be comfortable. Sometimes, again, I have never seen, if anyone that criticizes and that is a positive reinforcement only, I want them to agree first that dogs have to fit into society and then to prove to us that you can get them to fit into society without using corrections. Because they refer back to bears in the zoo and a whale, you know, in the water. Those animals don't have to fit into society. You can work on their terms. You can go there for three years every single day, sit on the ground until the animal allows you to do something. But the dogs do not have three years. They don't have three months. They don't have three weeks. Like some of these people, the dog, an incident already happened. The dog already attacked another dog. They need the dog under control now. Like they don't want to wait for it to happen again. So we're not going to work with an approach that we're convincing the dog. I get it. Dogs are very smart, right? We're using positive reinforcement. Dogs are more motivated to learn. They learn better with positive reinforcement. But I think there's a fine line when it comes to what you consider learning, right? I mean, I feel like if you're teaching the dog to sit and lay down, anything. He'll roll over tricks. It could be really anything. If you're doing it with positive reinforcement, the dog will learn better. But what about when the dog also learns that they don't have to listen all the time? And then they still have to fade into society. So let's say recall, for example. Dogs are so happy and they learn and they're so smart. You call them, they come because you give them a treat or reward them every single time. Easy peasy. They loved it. There's no correction necessary. But what about for the majority of dogs that one day smelling something or they see another dog or they become reactive or they become fearful or anything else? The recall is going down the drain. Like you're calling them. They don't want to come. They don't care for the treats. They don't care for the hot dog. They won't come to you. Right, right, right. But then you put up a call. I don't use e-callers. I'm not against them.

But again, someone that is, you know, efficient with them. Use whatever way that you're going to reinforce it. We're not correcting the dog, but we're reinforcing it with pressure. So now it's considered adversarial. Right. But that's given the... Let me ask you this. If there is that way where you don't have to use aversive and you can be successful, as equally successful, would you change anything or would you stay in the same path that you're on right now and improve that? Or would you mix it up? Or what would you do? Because this is where, like, they would say, well, this is again, I'm repeating myself, but the force-free advocates will claim, well, you're just not a good enough trainer. You had a bad childhood. And that's kind of you're stuck in this primitive ways of interacting and suppressing dogs and making them fearful. While there are better ways, and we know there are better ways, you're just not as good of a trainer, and you're not taking time to educate yourself to find those ways, right? That's a classic argument. So, I mean, I 100%, and again, it's not a matter of just learning. It's given all the facts that go together with it. If there was an approach that did not require a prone collar or any type of correction, any type of aversive methods to get the dog to improve in a reasonable amount of time. Now, what's reasonable amount of time? Again, that's variable. Because it cannot just say it shouldn't matter if it takes a year. No, it does matter. Because if a dog needs to fit into society. It definitely matters. Right. So, given that fact, if there's a way that within a reasonable amount of time, the dog improves and they can fit into society to an extent that is also acceptable, which is the other thing, is meaning the dog can just face real-life scenarios that they have to face on a regular basis. If that is proven that it works, I feel like why would anyone not switch to that? You know? And we're talking about by percentage as well. Not because you train a puppy from puppyhood and you pick the right temperament or you get lucky with the right temperament and you do the right training using only positive reinforcement. Which, even to that extent, I would go as far as saying that those trainers still don't expose their dogs to as many distractions as some clients have to do with their dogs. Right. So, but with all that being said, if there was a way that they could show all of that, I feel like, I mean, I can speak for myself. 100% I would stretch my ways of training.

Now, as far as adjusting my ways a little bit, like you said, I think there's definitely room to do that. Not really with the methods or the technique. I think it's just, I have been, I'm not a, another thing that they say is an impulsive, you know, a very impulsive trainer. I'm not an impulsive trainer. I have had moments, both online, where I was, and this was old videos. My impulsive training videos are very old. But where it was way too much correction, way too much correction on the dog that was cringy for me to watch those videos years down the road. Now, why did it happen? It's not because I didn't know better. It's because their rush of this, all these people ready to see this video. They're going to be amazed with how this transformation happens. And so I go a little bit over the top with like letting myself get carried away. And we're talking about over seven years ago. Now, all the scenarios now more recent would be the need, like the amount of dogs that are coming. So that creates some type of hype as well because there's all these people that need help. And I have limited amount of time and I have to go to the next class and I'm going to the next city. And there's that rush that I'm not doing it on purpose. And I don't do it necessarily as like my way of training. There has been instances where I was impulsive because of like just everything that I just described, you know. But that does not make my training as like an impulsive trainer. I'm not like just this dog is misbehaving. Let me show you. Give me the lesion. That's not how I do it. That's not at all how I do it. There's been very few incidents where I was too much in the moment. I just love like, you know, there's all these people. They're going to see this video. There's going to be a good video. And I was impulsive. So improving from that is definitely something that I have done and continue to do. And again, I said this a few times already. With my current scheduled classes, definitely I'm working on many different ways, not just one or two things, but many different ways to make things easier for everybody. Less stressful for the dogs. Easy for the owners to understand what's going on in there. For me to also be able to take videos out of it and, you know, post it online. I have done, you know, I have done live sessions of my training, by the way, that they don't talk about. Like the entire three hours of videos that were online that were completely live for people to watch on TikTok. So I have done it before. And again, maybe I might even do something like that again where it's live.

There is nothing to hide, but there are things that I can do differently to improve. And they are not my training philosophy, basically, which is I'm a balanced trainer. I would be no different than using, I use positive reinforcement. It's just people don't see that. So they're basing it off on what they see. So I said that again. It's my fault. It's my fault. But I do use balanced training. I do not believe in just making the dogs comply. I just, to a certain extent, it's necessary. Why do you think a lot of the balanced trainers are extremely concerned with what's going on? Well, there's a couple of things that I have heard. One, people get afraid of getting attacked, right? So I take the heat. I do, I think I do a pretty good job with not just changing my ways or hiding or pretending. But most people don't want to handle that. I have to deal with all these harassments that I have to deal with because I choose to post what I do. But I feel like a lot of people that want them. Either they support me, but they don't want to openly say that because I am in, you know, in contact with a lot of balanced trainers. And they don't necessarily be like, I was in his class and I support him. They will message him that. And I'm not ever going to ask them to just, you know, take my fight for me. Given all the controversy that is already out on the internet, it's a scary place for people that are not in my shoes to just step into what I do. They're scared of it. And then the other half of the people, the trainers, they don't understand what I do. They haven't been there. I feel like I can say this with confidence. Like, it's not like just people have all been to my classes, not even one entire class, let alone understand me by following me around. I do a five-day trainer's course where dozens of dogs come. And I get these videos in the presence of dozens of people. So it's not like they're successful trainers. There's a guy that came in from France this last month, and he has 500,000 followers on YouTube. He's got a successful training, three different companies related to dogs. He doesn't need me. He comes to learn and see for himself. And, you know, it's like he was so impressed with how I was actually less aggressive than what he has seen other trainers be, given the circumstances, given the types of dogs that I work with. You know, again, when you just put their dog and you're like compared, this is how he trains dogs. Of course, it looks horrible. But when you understand that this dog, like, has caused severe damage, this dog doesn't respect anyone. Everybody's afraid of them.

They have tried everything else. Nothing is working. And then I take over the leash and the dog puts up a fight and it's stressful. When you understand all of that, let's just say that there was someone that would come in my class and say, this is abuse. You have to stop this. They would have to answer to the owner and to the entire audience there that they are saying that this dog has to be put down because the owner already tried everything that they can say that it would work and it doesn't work. So now it's up to them. I will stop. If it's the law, I will stop. But they're still going to be in the room because it's like it's whatever you are considering an abuse. It's only based on the clip on that. That's an or even if it was in person. It hasn't happened in person because everything is explained there. But even if it was to happen, they would have to justify why the owner has to go home with that dog without any improvement, given that I can prove through evidence of my previous clients that my method works to help their dog. So if the client say, no, I tried a trainer that used only positive reinforcement that is highly skilled and respected, but he said my dog is untrainable and to utilize my dog. And I say, I can help you. How would they explain why they want me to stop using a method that actually is working to help their dog? You know, it could happen. I think any balanced trainer is afraid of that as well because they imagine how much harder it is for you to defend your methods when he uses aversive method. When a dog trainer can say, I can train with only using treats and your dog is going to be so happy and you never have to be corrected. Of course, it's so much harder for us to defend ourselves. And so when I'm already getting so much hate because of people that don't understand what I do, it makes it harder for other people to defend me. When they do defend me, they have people that come and attack them because these people know better. You know, they have never been to my classes, but they know better. I mean, I have veterinarians that have spoken out. I have animal control officers that have spoken out. I have police officers. I have dog trainers that train for police dogs. Trainers that have successful training facilities. Like, you can't deny that someone has a successful training facility for 100 dogs and they are respected and they come to my class, which many of them have done it. They just try to, you know, put it all under the rug and pretend that they didn't do it as far as, like, my critics do that. But those people are there. They're on my side.

It's just that I feel like more people don't come forward. And I'm never asking someone to, but because of that, it's two reasons. They don't understand what I do themselves or they're afraid to stand up because they're going to get hate for it. Many of the balance trainers, I think, are concerned that what you do is used for the force-free community to be able to put legislation and to be able to ban electric callers, prone callers, use of aversive. And basically, you're like the poster child of how things can go off the rail bad. I think that's a big concern of a lot of the balance trainers that, well, everything is divided. And again, I'm not taking sides. Just like I wanted for a long time to have a conversation with Zach George. I know it's not going to happen. He just doesn't have that courage to sit down. And I would do exactly the same thing. I would allow him to talk the way you talk without taking a side and let you say what you see, how you feel, and let everybody decide for their own. Of course. But from the little that I know, I don't think any legislation or ban on any equipment will change much of what you do. Clearly, anything can be done with various equipment, and you can go down the line banning all sorts of equipments, and there always will be another option, right? Yeah. Yeah. I understand your concern, too, with what you're saying. I mean, it's almost what happened with, and I kind of, you know, everybody's a little bit paying attention to this, and now he has these campaigns and whatever, and he's thriving. He's becoming somebody that he never had the opportunity to be because of you. Right. Because of a good cause, right? Yeah. I think I have to be truthful to myself. I have to make adjustments that I think are fair to be made, like we have been discussing here. But obviously, my next steps, just so that everybody knows, is to take advantage of, I have all the eyes on me as well. So this is my time to have to, whatever I have to do, I have to show more evidence of what I do to get more people to understand. I think, you know, again, being able to slow down my pace in general because I'm able to create systems that are easier to operate and help dogs, which I have been doing. And then there's always going to be the controversy. There's always going to be the two different sides. But I think given that I'm what I'm working on to improve my side of things will, instead of me, like basically, because there's extremes. I would have to literally like stop promoting what I do in a sense, which I can tone it down because in reality, it does not have to be that rush.

And I am the first person to say that you don't have to have all these dogs in that environment. But I feel like I'm afraid of what's going to happen because if I either I don't post the whole reality or I post exactly what it takes to train a dog. And there will be some dogs that was there's still going to be stressed out throughout a first training session without having a way around it. If, you know, we are trying to follow everything that I said before with fitting to society, having to live in a house with people, having to face triggers that triggers them. If you're going to really try to address that, you know, with a way that I find it very effective, there will be times where you won't be just easy, where it's just positive reinforcement. But I think they're going to continue to use that because I'm already at a level now that they're not going to stop unless I completely stopped. Unless I said I learned that, yes, you don't need to correct a dog. You can just use only treats. Then they would stop coming after me, you know. But in reality, I feel like any moment that I even say anything about correcting or anything like that, any type of aversive method or tools, they would continue to go after me. Now, I think in general, educating is key. So educating the audience, because, again, I feel like I'm, you know, speaking for myself, but from the feedback that I get, the support that I still get without having putting as much evidence that I can still put out to defend my methods, I think I'm doing pretty well because I feel like most people would be out of business. I'm selling tickets all the way back in January right now, and they're going well. And this is in the middle of the entire controversy where everybody is like, you know, with all like going crazy against me, you know. But with that being said, I can only imagine what's going to happen when I actually present in evidence, in videos, everything that I'm telling you, you know, in the podcast right now. So I think when I do that, and I'm talking about like context with the dogs that I'm working with, the full picture of what I'm doing, the long-term effect of my training. When I show all of that. The long-term and follow-ups, that would be important. Amazing, yeah. So that's what I'm working on right now. It's actually as we speak, like this is what I'm actively working as we speak, is going back to clients that have come to me, whether it was once or twice. And it doesn't matter. I'm picking up those dogs, and I'm doing where they're at now, where they were at at the time of the first session.

And everything, why this is even better enough, because now it's 101 that I'm doing with them. I'm literally doing free follow-up to all my clients. Free follow-up, just so that they can get more training, and I can get evidence of what the training is doing to the dog and to them, and how it's helping them or not helping them. So that's going to be huge, and I guess, you know, that is the only thing that I can say is that with that getting done, the balanced training community is going to grow. Because there's a lot of people that are on the fence, that are people that are genuine. I think there's a lot of people. I'm also working on, working literally hands-on with positive reinforcement trainers that are open-minded. And this is what I'm willing to say. I think we're going to see a lot more, and we currently should do, already do, we see more positive reinforcement trainers switching to balance than the other way around. And that's just from my observation. But if I'm correct in my observation, that should speak volumes. Because I don't see a lot of people saying, I used to be balanced, and they have evidence of that. Like, they were working on using balanced methods, and they go to letting go of prone calls, e-calls, any type of correction. And they now use harnesses and treats only for training. I haven't seen, I personally haven't seen one person that have done that. I'm sure they exist. But I have seen a lot of people that have come to me, that have done, that have been certified dog trainers from well-known schools, that are positive reinforcement only, that switch to using balanced methods. That they never thought that would happen. Until they started hands-on training dogs in real life, and they realized clients were dumping them because they weren't getting results, they were feeling like a failure because they weren't able to help all the dogs that they thought could be helped. And then they were able to use common sense and be like, well, when we're working at voluntary shelters with the dogs there, they couldn't walk the dog because putting a slip lead over the dog's head was considered aversive. Now, I put a slip lead on the dog, and a week later, this dog is happy-go-lucky, going for walks, and leaving out of the kennel. So they see for themselves that there's an example that I'm using because I have heard it from them. So I think we're going to see a lot more of that when we make things more clear. I think this is just like the positive reinforcement community, they are thinking that this is a great opportunity for them to get the industry to be regulated

and for people to be more against correction. It can also, and it will, I'm very confident that it will backfire where people will see, because we as balanced speaking, I have to even be careful not to be like, he's not a balanced trainer. I'm a balanced trainer, and if you have been to my classes, you'd know that. But with that being said, I think balanced trainers, we use common sense. Like, real life, everyday situation, common sense. Like, not just a lot of talk, you know, that doesn't really get you anywhere. And so with that being said, anyone that has a dog, anyone who actually wants to be good at their job and help as many dogs as possible, I find it very hard to even understand how anyone would look at all the evidence and be like, no, I don't want to correct a dog. Unless they would go back to, they'd rather the dog die, or they'd rather the dog live in a backyard for their entire lives. And they say that. They say, yes, I'd rather my dog never go out in public if I have to ever correct them. Right. Then it's a matter of opinion. But besides that, I don't understand how anyone that would have common sense, that would watch everything, which the balanced training community is much stronger in the sense of successful trainers, successful, you know, helping dogs. When it comes to helping dogs fit into real life. Like, I think if you're comparing it to police dogs or agility or competitive obedience, that's a whole different story. There's no doubts there. But when it comes to real life, everyday scenarios with the dogs, there's no question in my mind, and I have never seen evidence, that there's more trainers being successful with positive reinforcement. Between testimonials, video evidence, all of that, I don't see it. Let me play one scenario for you. Let's say a dog comes. It's aggressive towards strangers. Like, it's not just display. It goes forward, it will bite. And you or somebody, a trainer, takes over, suppresses the dog, stops the dog, controls the dog, whichever words we want to use, depending who's going to use those words, you know, can say any way. But then the argument is what happens, that the dog maybe wanted to bite because he knew ahead of time that he doesn't trust strangers. And instead of waiting for something bad to happen, they're proactive at that point in their experience in life, to where they go forward and decide to beat that. Instead of waiting to respond, they are going forward, they are doing the biting. When dog like that gets oppressed, would that dog say, well, yeah, I knew strangers are bad, and that particular stranger won a battle against me,

but also reconfirmed that strangers are bad? Mm-hmm. Right. Question. Yeah, I'd love to answer that. So how do you convince the dog to trust strangers in that situation like that? Okay. So that's a really good question, and I explain that a lot in my classes as well. So when I, like you said, the different terms, suppress, correct the dog, get them under control, and they could be getting angry at me, having a very negative association with me because it's something that they had to face for the first time. You have to realize that seconds compared to a lifetime that I would have, whatever, it doesn't take that long, but I would have literally a lifetime to compensate for that and to give the dog positive association with me. So once they're under control and they no longer try to bite me, whether they're really afraid or really tense, very confused, I can start to show them that they can trust. A little petting, talking, calm, my energy, food, whatever it may be, the dog starts to realize, oh, I don't have to be afraid. Every time they even think about going back into attack or aggression, anything, quick correction, it takes less each time. Usually from that literally seconds that the dog just surrenders, everything else becomes easier. So I do it by creating positive association with the environment or the triggers that they currently have. So if a dog is reactive towards people, positive association with people, now there's a little bit of a process because it's not as easy as it sounds. So I'm getting the dog under control. I still have to keep managing them while still creating positive association so that the dog has a chance to see for themselves. I also address the dog's intentions and not the actions. So when I see the dog even looking like someone like, whoa, someone's getting close. I might have to do something. And before they do something, I know a little reminder. I see what you're thinking. Stop that right now. That makes me way more qualified or efficient to work with these dogs than the owners, of course, because that's a huge point that they can't see all these little details. But again, I'm referring to my method. So my method would be the dog is under control. I whether I put a mouse on them or not, depending on the dog's personality and the body language that I'm seeing in there. But the follow-up is always the same, building positive association with me and with the environment. And there's many ways that I do that, which is basically giving the dog room to process what's going on, giving them room to move around and decompress and be able to follow directions.

If I'm able to do this and show evidence that the dogs in my classes, they do become a lot more comfortable in the classes, more than the owners have ever seen them be around other dogs and people, in that stressful environment, it can only imagine the benefit of this training when you use a less stressful environment and use the same approach. So this means, you know, someone, like a dog that's really out of control, cannot be around anyone. They just bring the dog out to a park, but it's just me and that dog. I get them under control. And all they have to worry about is me and them. And then I add all the distractions, right? It's a lot more effective. And that's basically what I say about where I can tone down my training which is when I don't have to do seminars with so many dogs anymore, which we're downsizing towards that. But the method has proven to be very effective because it's no different than how any other trainer would do it as far as even positive reinforcement. The only difference is I'm getting the dog physically under control first, right? And you could think like, oh, but that was a negative association. They're going to hate you. There's a couple of things. One, dogs are really smart. They're able to kind of process, you know, the entire scenario and not just that one second of me taking the leash. That's so minimal compared to everything else that I'm going to do that the dog is going to forget that, right? It's not enough for them to imprint, just like any other type of training. It's not going to imprint where the dog is like, whoa, you are bad. I have to be defensive. The only way that that would happen, in my opinion, would be if I took the dog, got it under control, said, see, your dog is not behaving. And I give it back to the one and I go home. The next time the dog sees me, yes. There's two things that can happen there. The dog would have just bite the next weaker person that they feel as a threat or they're going to be more, they might be respectful of me. Anything can happen, right? But there's also that potential that the dog will see, whoa, he's here. I got to fight again. Especially if I don't win. Especially if I take the dog, they're trying to bite me. I hold them under control, but they're still pretty tense. They haven't relaxed and I give it a let go. Yes. They think it's by association. Again, association and by the dog's intentions. If the dog is really tense, they're putting up a fight, they're thinking like they're putting up a fight. If I walk away in that moment, they're going to think I walked away before they walked away.

If they completely relax and I walk away, I would say at this level, dogs will be above 50-50. The dogs that would just completely respect me. I don't want to say I know this because I do this all the time. I go back to take the dog from the owner, they're at least 50% better because I left them at their level. But then after I do, the more follow-up that I do, the second time I take the leash, the third time I take the leash, which is a huge, I think, important fact about my training, is that out of every single dog I have trained, they have never been as intense the second time I have them on the leash, ever. They could be the most fearful dog, the most aggressive dog. They're not 100% better. They can still be reactive, learning, trying to bite me. But every single time I take the leash is lower, lower, lower, lower, lower, lower. Whether it's the same day, a month later, months later, a year later. They remain to that level because the training is so intense and I work so much with them during that training session that really takes me to a level that the dog has a chance to understand. And what I was saying about it being the same as any other trainer is how would you train the dog to become less aggressive with people? You give them positive association with people, whether they're just walking around, whether you're doing other things or you're getting people to show them food or whatever it may be. There's many different ways that you can do it. But the dog would learn, oh, this person is not bad. The only reason that I find that that approach is not effective is because it's not effective when it comes to, when you add all the different distractions and different scenarios. Right? If I was trying to get every dog to just like one person, then yeah, that could work for probably 80% of dogs. Maybe it takes some time. But, you know, I think like most dogs, honestly, if the trainer or someone that's going to move into your house just comes every day and gives them food and spend time, most of them, they will warm up to that person. But it's still not an effective method of actually training the dog. Because every time that someone comes to the door and the dog is reactive and they don't have treats and they don't have enough time to spend with this dog, they are practicing the bad behaviors. They are regressing because they are going backwards. So the trainer could come every, you know, every week and the dog after three weeks, great with the trainer. Now, it took three weeks, but the dog loves them.

But every time someone else comes, the dog is reactive because they are not using correction and they don't have the same knowledge or the same amount of time as the trainer to work with this dog. So I feel like they are regressing every single time. So it's that, you know, it's not really solving the problem. Unless, like I said, you're trying to get the dog just to like the trainer or just to like someone in particular. Then there's nothing wrong with using that approach. But when you are trying to do like fade into society, real life training, then in my opinion, it wouldn't work. Cool. How do you feel about medication? Do you have any dogs that come that are on any psychotropic medications or anything like that? A lot. I feel like in general with very high doses of medication, I have some clients, what do you say? Some clients basically report that the dogs are a little bit calmer, but they're still not, you know, it doesn't replace the training. And they have to be under this medication all the time. And then sometimes they have some side effects and different, you know, issues with the dogs as well. And people, like, they don't know what's going to come down the road. Medication, abuse of medication can't be good. You know, when they're using it to suppress, it's the same thing as suppressing the behavior. Even though it doesn't do it to 100%, but still they're suppressing the behavior and doing that by medication. If, I think it all comes down to that matter of opinion again. If someone says, I've read my dog be medicated every single day than be corrected one time, because really my classes, the dogs are only really corrected in that minute one time. Then who am I to say? You know, the doctors say, you can just put your dog on medication. And I'm saying, well, you can just put your dog to one training session and it will improve. And the training will actually make a way your dog doesn't need to be corrected anymore and it doesn't need medication. The medication is only going to make that your dog needs medication for the rest of their lives. And it's not as effective to really solve the problem because, you know, it's not like that you're completely sedating the dog. You're just kind of getting to slow down a little bit, calm them down a little bit. But, yeah, I'm not a doctor, so I'm not going to speak on it like, you know. Yeah, I don't want to put you in that situation to speak in terms of that experience on the side of a doctor.

It was more of a, do you get clients that come that the dogs have been on medication and it didn't work, didn't expect it or it worked, but they're looking for some other options. And that was the question. Yeah, usually the clients that come with those dogs, they either don't see a difference or they see a difference, which, again, a lot of them do report that they see a difference. The dog is calmer, but when you really ask them, like, they're not really exposing the dog to scenarios, you know, these dogs are still in my classes. They're like, you really can't see a difference when you expose them to triggers. But at home, maybe the dog was, like, really anxious at home, you know, maybe a little less. But, yeah, it's pretty much every class I have someone with a dog with, like, you know, that's on medication. It's pretty big pain now because they're trying to suppress the behavior by every means possible. Honestly, I know people that, I know, I'm sure I'm not the only one that knows this, but there's people that literally make their dogs fat so that the dogs slow down. Like, I know that. I know people do that. I have people that told me that. They put them on a little bit of the choppier side, they say, so that the dogs slow down. So that means they're looking for any quick fixes that they can get, which is something that bothers me because people like to say that my training is a quick fix, and it's not. I put a lot of work. If I were just to think about it this way, my classes could literally be just one hour if I was to be a quick fix. It could, from three, I could put it at one hour because after half of my class, all the dogs are calm and I'm speaking for an hour to an hour and a half. Of me just speaking to the audience that is there over and over and over again and answering questions and all the dogs are just chilling at this point. So if I was all about just suppressing the behavior, I, first of all, you wouldn't work because it would be, just people would be correct. Suppressing does not solve the problem. But my methods work because it's not suppressing. It's not just suppressing. There are certain things, I don't even consider suppressing at all because I feel like suppressing is just, that's it, right? It ends there. I feel like if you are getting the dog under control and then you're following it up, following up with actual training, then it's no longer considered suppressing. Unless you can just say suppressing, but then you do something else. But in my opinion, it's not even suppressing at all.

It's just you physically restrain the dog, get them to comply, and then you make them feel bad about the situation, right? Because every reason that I already explained of dogs not being able to feed into society and the daily struggle that the owners are suffering with. What about spaying odor? You know, there's a lot of research that shows that there's no medical reason that is efficient evidence compared to the counterpart, which is to do it. There's also side effects with doing it. I think in certain circumstances, it's helpful. If a client comes to me and they have two female dogs or two male dogs that are intact and they're starting to get into fights, I'm going to give them all the training. One thing about me too is that I'm not someone that says, like, you have to do this or the things are going to go wrong. You have to do this method. You have to use this tool. I always tell them, this is why I would recommend that you do that. You know, and I rely on them believing me, trusting me, and having ways to research to back up what I'm saying for them to make their ultimate decision of what to do. In my personal opinion, I think for especially male dogs, especially some breeds, it can definitely help them be less dominant with other male dogs, which can, you know, prevent problems. And again, people at home that have the same gender dogs that are prone due to breed or personality of that dog, that have certain tendencies of getting more in trouble with each other, then I would say it could be a good idea to fix them. But it's not like one of those things that, you know, you fix that it's going to really solve your dog's behavior issue that people think. If anything, when you put it by percentage, I think it doesn't really change anything from behavior other than dominance in things with same genders. Of course, there's some dogs that people report, yeah, I spayed my dog and it's so much calmer now. But I also hear the opposite. My dog is more fearful now, more aggressive. So it has, you know, it has both. So all in all, I don't think I'll fix a dog just because I think it's going to make them easier to train unless same gender dogs. Yeah. What do you, what is your advice for preventing from, for dogs not getting to the point to where they need to, you know, preventing the situation? Because I would not say all aggression is preventable because there's a genetic component to it. But a lot of it can be absolutely avoided. I didn't want to give opinions. But anyway, what is your take on that? One thing, the honest education.

So I tell people to get as much training as they possibly can on the subject. Understanding the dog is really important. So my base of training, as I said before, is understanding the dog and understanding how to communicate with them. So I teach, I want to, I, my advice would be that people do that even before getting a dog or if they already have a dog, like immediately look for signs of, you know, behavioral concerns that they may have. Address it right away. Get a professional trainer to help. Try to get educated because it's, you know, it's so confusing when you're, when you're researching different things because of different opinions. But trying to be educated on methods that you believe are more effective based on evidence that the trainers show. Socialization for the puppy, of course, like lots of socialization. I explain a lot how, a lot of people don't understand the basic concept of like even stuff like that, socialization. They think, oh, I have three dogs at home. They play all the time. No, that's not socialization. But people really don't, they're so far behind, you know, what they need to know. So I would say educating. I feel like that I, a lot of people, which is something that a lot of trainers should start to do is have programs for people before they get a dog. Because, you know, we all want to say, oh, there should be a law or have regulations of people even owning dogs. But no one is really doing anything to educate. So I haven't seen anyone. I started doing the seminars for that reason and people are coming and they are learning not just, it's not, even though I'm not doing a lot of like actual obedience. Because I feel like that they can get anywhere. But they're getting understanding of like what makes a dog reactive, what to look out for, what to do to prevent that. So if a dog even starts, just shows signs, they can pick it up right away and address it. So I'm getting a lot of people that come to my classes, they don't have dogs. More and more people don't have dogs. And there's spectators. So that's a huge thing that I think more people should be doing to educate. Because education on, I have people that are barely trained puppies. I have done it all, but I don't have the time for it. It's just something that traveling around, I'm not going to be like, bring a little puppy to come train with me. Because, you know, you want to be consistent with that type of training. But I have, when I used to do puppy classes all the time, people come with a bring a puppy that they were petrified of them because the puppy is mouthing.

And they think the puppy is attacking them. And I'm like, no, this is just a puppy. It won't even hurt. It can let the puppy even bite you. It's like those very gentle puppies, like a little pug come and they are like jumping up the couch because they're afraid of the dog. And so me saying this is just kind of highlighting how problematic like dog ownership is right now. That people are just so far behind on understanding what a dog is, how they think, how they learn. So my recommendation is always educate yourself. Go to as many classes as possible, as many as you can afford. Watch videos, read. But the more you can do, the better because you can't never know too much. Even as trainers, you know, I can speak for myself. Like you learn new things all the time and you see new situations all the time. Good conversation. I'm trying to think if there is anything that comes to mind. I know there's a lot. No, we covered a lot of ground. I mean, I'm glad I had the opportunity to have you speak and you did. So that was important. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. It's good to be able to, you know, put the message out as much as possible because of how much misunderstanding it is. And it's really the misunderstanding. I take blame for some of it, which is the lack of my videos, you know, highlighting exactly what I do. And then a huge portion of it is people twisting what I do. And that's really the sad part is, you know, there's the trainers who I have to believe that they know better. There's no way that they don't know better that they are using certain clips and using certain ways to get people to feel a certain way about me. Which is, I don't care that someone disagrees, you know, everybody disagrees. But the level that they take it, it's not like that in real life. So why is it online? If it was where all the people that come into my classes were having the same problems, the same concerns, then I would have to be dumb to not reevaluate myself. But because it's not, it really comes down to there's certain things that I can improve, there's certain things that we're not all going to agree with. But in no way would I ever accept that that's like what I'm doing is all wrong and it should be stopped, you know. And so, again, those people creating those false narratives and literally manipulating. Because if you take only positive, there's no context and it twists the context of what I posted in the video. When you go to my videos, it's all positive comments because it's my audience. They understand what I do. And then you go to those other videos, it's all negative comments.

So that goes to show context. Now, there can still be room to have arguments and disagreement. But it's not to the extreme of me being the god of dogs and then the other one is like, you know, have to go to hell and go to jail. Because those are two different extremes, you know. It's a matter of, I feel like I do help a lot of people. I mean, the feedback is there. I can't see that. I can't hide that. No one can hide that. But there's room to improve. And, you know, I'm glad I'm able to come here. Yeah, yeah. I know. So, I mean, I'm sure we will, the podcast will get the same mixed feelings. And I think that's okay. Some people, for sure, we will be like, why do you have Augusto on the podcast giving him a platform? Not giving him a platform. In a sense of everybody now has a platform. You have followers. You have, you know. I think the conversations are so important. And that's where I started the podcast with. Like, we need to hear each other on all sides. At least to start there to hear each other. I agree. I mean, if you're willing to help the dogs and are really concerned about, you know, actual, the actual problem at hand, which is what is effective, what is not, what is necessary, what is not necessary. I think when you're looking at it that way, you want to have these conversations. And it's like one of those things, like, if I'm just wrong and it's based on people that haven't even been to my classes and I'm not able to explain what I do, then what is that goal? It's just that they just have to be right and I just have to be wrong and I have to go away. You know, when there's enough evidence that just true my clients. Like, there's no way that anyone doing everything wrong would be at the level that I am. Like, with classes, clients coming back, with my clients being happy, like, you can't do that without having something there, right? And again, I wouldn't even say that if it wasn't, like, literally years and years and thousands of people that for me to back me up. If it wasn't for that, I would be, like, not sitting here right now and be hiding. But, you know, they want to just dismiss all of those things and I think that's a big problem, sure. Because I'm open. I always tell people, too, I'm very open to learning. I'm very open to learning, updating my ways, whatever it may be. There is always evolution. There is always improvement. There's no question about it. Anybody that stops and says that they know it all at that moment and there is nothing more to be learned. It's kind of, you basically scratch yourself away. Right.

I'm not that person and I feel like, you know, with that being said, you know, people should be open-minded enough to hear both sides, essentially. Right. Very good. Anything to close? Any? No, I think we pretty much covered it all. We talked about everything. I think it's between, you know, my personal experience with others and to everything else. I think we got it all. We did. Maybe. The best podcast we both have been a part of, I think. Yeah, I, again, my, my, my goal is to, to allow you to, to hear your story and to hear your take on things. Just as if, again, any other trainer of, depending on, no matter where it's coming from, I would be happy to have Zach George come to train, you know, or. I mean, I have, you know, I haven't even offered money to it. It's like it, it, there's the whole thing. There's a lot of talk and a lot of excuses and backing up, back, hiding behind, you know, lots of words, but there's no evidence. I mean, it shouldn't be hard. I, I, on the other hand, would be willing to go into any of these trainers and show them what I do. I wouldn't have nothing to hide. It's already so transparent, but I would, I would be open to them saying, you know, I don't, I don't agree with it. Right. And again, I have my reasons why I do it. And, and there's enough people that need the help that. And yeah, it's just, I feel like cornered in a way of like, either I do what I know is helping people and helping the dogs that I work with. Or I just listen to people that just say that it doesn't work, but they have never shown another way. And they haven't even worked, worked with me. And so that doesn't, it's like, I would need a good reason, you know, to, to learn and to update. Like, and again, there's little things that I already know. I'm not learning anything new. The moment that something new, I'd be like, yes, that's a good idea. I definitely have to use that for my next time I train. And, but if I'm just hearing people say like, this is wrong. You should never use this. And it just ends there. That's not helping my clients. That's not helping me. It's not helping anybody. That's not helping anybody. That's for sure. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you so much. Take care. And Augusto and yeah, maybe we'll do another one sometime. Yes. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye. Bye.