Interviewing Dog World

[00:00] So, he's a young guy that invited me because I think I'm a little bit a role model for him. I see myself in him also being young and full of desire, knocking doors, not coming in. It's [00:29] typically. When I was a young man, I did not understand that the boss of a company could not be young. I couldn't understand that. Now, by becoming older, I understand why. Because when you're older, you're a little bit more mature and you have more wisdom. So, when you're young, you don't have that. But I recognize everything that I had in you. And for example, [00:56] on dog training, there is a lot of animosity around dog training or having a dog. And all the critic on training always come from dog side, not from people not owning a dog. So, in the dog world, there is a lot of emotions. When there is a lot of emotions, the head is not working anymore. So, everything starts with a definition. For some people, training a dog [01:24] or having a dog is let the dog just run around the house and the property and the streets and let the dog be a dog. It's okay. For me, it's okay. For other people, dog training is running a pack of eight or nine dogs and let them run together, let them fight a little bit, let them be dogs. Okay for me. For other people, dog training is there in the corner, don't move. Well, if that's their definition, okay for me. My wife and me, we have our own definition about dog training. And we say, for us, dog training is, make a dog, always do on command what he can do. But when he does, it must be with heart and soul. So, that's our definition of dog training. And we accept other people to do it another way. And we will never criticize them. [02:16] Criticize them. They're happy. That's good. And we should like to receive that same respect from them to us. Because we receive a lot of critics from people that don't know. What they don't see is that our dogs always perform with heart and soul. But it's really often that, mostly people that they make critic comes from people that they are not sure about what they are doing. [02:44] And because of this frustration, they need to criticize something to feel better. Well, they call it, and they call it the freedom of speech, which is one of the American amendments that they hammer into American kids. Freedom of speech, freedom of speech. But that means that you must also accept the freedom of speech of somebody else. So, it's the whole thing that is in dog training. And my wife and me, we created the system, which is NEPOPO, which stands for negative, positive, positive.

[03:19] And this is a system where you can make a dog always do on command, but it looks very spontaneous and it looks very attractive. Wow. How do we get there? Because that's where I'm here for. Well, it starts all with spontaneous behavior. And we try to make the dog think that he's the inventor of the exercise. [03:49] And when a dog thinks that he invents the exercise, he's very strong in the exercise and he loves the exercise with heart and soul. Because that's what we want in every exercise. Wow. How do we come there? Well, it all starts with one question. Why does a dog do something? That's a basic question. [04:15] And the answer is, a dog does something to better his own condition, situation. Basta. That's it. It's the same with people. Humans are the same. I think all living beings are the same. From that answer and knowing that answer, another question is born. How can a dog better his own situation? [04:42] First answer is by adding nice feelings. In dog training, we call this system positive training, adding nice feelings. My wife and me, we call positive training, positive reinforcement, positive training. Go ahead. One question about the positive thing. The positive reinforcement is one part of the learning theory. [05:12] That it's adjusted on dog training. But the dog positive training is misused. Well, last years. And I think it's misused on predators from most of people due to marketing. Well, positive training is a nice marketing tool by people that don't understand the real theory of positive training. [05:40] The real theory started with delphin training. The delphins are trained in a sterile swimming pool. There is not one fish in the water. The delphin can only survive by the goodwill of the trainer that will give existential food. And existential food means the primary reward. The money we need to survive. [06:11] That's why the delphins do work. The consequence for doing is the delphin can receive money. In this case a fish. The consequence for not doing when the delphin does not understand, we do nothing. And the consequence for not doing when the delphin does understand is we stop the training [06:37] and we take our fish with us to the next training session. Which can be two, three, four, five hours later. Or the next day. That means that there is a very strong consequence for doing. The animal receives existential food. And there is a very strong consequence for not doing. The animal does not receive the existential food.

[07:03] That's the real power of positive training. And that's what we must understand very well. People only understand, I give my dog something. Well, it starts with dessert. They give the dog a little dessert, a little bonus, which is good for motivation training. But you have no consequence for punishing the dog. By not giving the dessert, the dog says, Redator, I don't need a dessert. I have my belly full. [07:33] I have covered my needs, so why should I work for my needs? Oh yeah. Of course. So it's like us. If you get pain for not working or... Of course. Yeah, yeah. It's totally the same. So, what people also don't understand in positive reinforcement is that you need between 4,000 and 6,000 redators. And 6,000 repetitions before you have the command under control. [07:58] If the distractions of the environment are not stronger than the take-check you have in your hands. So that's a little bit the problem of only positive training. Where I must admit that it's very good training if you start with a young dog in the system. The conditioning must start when we are young. And that's the problem of the professionals that have a dog that is 2 or 3 years old. [08:24] Older than me. Not understanding the values and... Yes, he's spored because home there is a bucket of food. I call it the Himalaya mountain. Now you must try to train that dog with food. It doesn't work. So we only have results with dessert training. And there, of course, it's motivation. But you don't have a strong punishment by not giving it. [08:50] So it's a little bit hard to understand it. So you must understand why does a dog do something. The first facet is positive training. People speak a lot about it but don't understand it. Two, he calls it in etiology negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is a very criticized training method today. [09:18] Because people again don't understand it. In horse riding, in the horse world, it's only about negative reinforcement. Everybody accepts it. In dog training, people don't understand it too much. The definition of negative reinforcement is unpleasant. Little discomfort stops when the dog does what I want it to do. [09:45] It's a little discomfort thing. It's not a high discomfort thing. You must compare it with, I put salt on the potatoes. To make the potatoes taste better. Good. I will eat more. By accident, I put a little bit too much salt on the potatoes. You don't want to eat them anymore. It's an aversive sting. Instead of reinforcing it to eat more, it is the opposite. We never eat again.

[10:14] But also in that, like you said before with the positive reinforcement, that it has to be from the early age, that the dog understands the value and everything. Isn't it the same with the negative reinforcement? Well, with negative reinforcement, the easiest is when the dog has hope. Negative reinforcement works very well with dogs that are a little bit cooler. [10:40] They have hope. And my wife says it's always very well. You cannot add more negative than the data is hope. Because if there is more negative than that result, the dog shuts down and stops working. So it's an easy way of explaining it and it makes it very clear for people. So, the negative reinforcement tool, there you only need between 400 and 600 repetitions before having the dog control. [11:11] And when the dog is not doing it, you have a correction which is immediate and the dog will stop doing bullshit and do the exercise. That's the biggest advantage of negative reinforcement. You can give consequences immediately and you can continue training if the dog is well trained and tough. Problem is, people over stimulate the dog and instead of making behavior repetition, they stop the behavior. [11:43] Now, you can bring the two systems together, the best of both worlds, and then you have the Me-Po-Po system, which my wife and me do. We registered the name, trademarked it and we have a school about this because I'm too old to continue doing my seminal life. Okay, my third is it. Well, yeah, but physically, I mean, physically I feel that the traveling is harder and harder and I would prefer doing the school. [12:19] Where in the school, my wife and me have a result of the examinations. We have a whip so we can see who is understanding it and we have set up the criteria very high. Only people that achieve 90% in the school, 30, five days, can come to the gold school, which is hands on dogs. [12:47] The whole thing will come back. All different enforcement, negative reinforcement with a stick, choke, pinch collar, the e-collar, and so on, and so on. So people must learn to speak the language before doing it. Because what do we see? My wife and me, we see that too much people in dog training, train a dog on monkey see monkey do.

[13:12] I see that on YouTube. I did see that, I see that, I see that. And people copy it, but they don't understand what they can't. They just replay what they have seen. I was the same as a starter. Once I was receiving psychology during my studies, I slowly understand classic conditioning, upper-out-of-conditioning, and it changed my whole training systems because now I slowly [13:38] did understand there in my mind what I did there on what I call YouTube learning today. So, it's a little bit, and now I hope that people will not be fixated and mad to me, but too much dog trainers are an alphabet in the basics of ethology. They do, but they don't understand what they do. And me and my wife, we try to learn the people, the alphabet of modern dog training, and when they know the alphabet, [14:10] they can write little words, little sentences, pages, and they can write a book. Sorry for interrupting, but also understanding the alphabet of how dog works and how dog learns. I think it's also the base about ethics and about how really, what is abuse and what is not abuse. Because I think the core of abuse also in people is like the same. Of course. [14:35] Is that when you act with someone, with a dog for example, and you don't understand their nature first of all, and their needs. So if you don't understand this, you cannot give them what they need. Oh yeah. So then start some abuse. Oh yeah. So it's really important, and this you can, and we can see that in your videos also, and in your work, that we can see dogs that they perform really nice. Nice is in your work, but also with really big motivation and heart. [15:04] Yes. Hard and soul. We want heart and soul in everything the dog does. We want to see that. And you cannot oblige the dog to do heart and soul. The heart and soul must come voluntarily out of the dog. And that's why, of course, in Naples Paul, you manipulate the whole system. We are masters in manipulating. And the more that my wife and me are dog trainers, we evaluate more and more in the sight of what we call ignition trainers. [15:35] What we train is the ignition, the desire of the dog. And the desire must come out of the dog. For example, if you buy a car, do you buy a car to open the door, sit in, put the keys in and let the car drive you? Or do you want to buy a car that with the keys doesn't work? You always have to push. Everybody will tell me, I want a car can sit in.

[16:00] Why are you pushing your dog? Let the dog... Push you. Yes. That's, let the dog push you. That's a good word. And when there is desire, my wife and I will call that, when the water cooks, you can put the spaghetti in and within 10 minutes you can eat. What do people do with the dog treading? They have cold water, they put spaghetti in and after 10 years there is still no exercise. [16:27] And they are also mad? Of course, to the water. They are mad to the spaghetti because it's not soft so they cannot eat it. So it's an easy comparison but it's a fantastic comparison. Yes. And then, why is it to do something? I go back. Adding nice feelings, positive training. Stopping the discomfort, the definition of negative reinforcement, which is NEPO training, negative, positive. [16:56] And by bringing the two systems together we have NEPO-Po. So we have more motivation possibilities. Instead of staying in the 90% of every system separately, we have the whole spectrum, 180 degrees. To suit with stool and with method you will... Oh yeah. And will it make my dog twice better? No. But it gives me more chances to be successful in my relationship with my dog. [17:26] And then, the fourth thing that we use in dog trainings are aversive stims. To stop the dog doing what we don't want him to do. And the corrections will mean stop the bullshit and do the exercise you know very well. So we train people to have a backpack with tools. And tools are the four tools to train dogs. The positive tool, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement tool, the NEPO-Po tool and the aversive and the correction steps. [17:58] The four tools. And some people prefer the positive tools. No problem. It comes also from the character or something. Oh yeah. And every dog needs another motivation system. It's true. It's like you have a team of football players. You have 20 individuals. One individual you must tell him, hey you're the best. That guy will fly on the field. Another guy you say, you, I don't want to see you anymore. On the bank, you don't play, you're not in my team anymore. [18:26] He's pissed, he's frustrated. And on the aggression, he will come back the day I put it on the field. And another player, he needs a little bit, a joke. And you have 20 players, they have all another little character. That's why he needs something. That's why I'm here for. And I think also for me, as a logic, does not make sense if a living organism like a dog learns in certain rules.

[18:57] For me, it does not make sense to use some of them. And I think it's not right for the dog also. No, no. I mean, if you can use and it's better for the dog and better for the results also. And by results I don't mean points. I mean character and stability and the quality of work and obedience, whatever. Why to choose to use only positive or only negative? [19:24] It's not right for the dog if you go so. No. And what for the moment is a big, big, big problem is that a lot of good dog trainers are a little bit lying about the whole picture. They say too much, everything is positive because it's marketing and behind the screens they work also with negative and they work well, no problem. [19:50] Why don't they tell the world? Because the world receives the wrong information from what is negative. Yeah, not only that because it's not only the wrong information about what is negative, but the wrong information on how it can work. Because they only receive the beautiful version, which is marketing. And that's a little bit the problem worldwide. So is the animal welfare comes up, which is good, but they have another agenda. [20:19] We trainers have also our agenda and we must find the consensus in the middle of the road. And me at my age, I don't want to be loved. I don't care. I want to tell the truth to people. I want to tell, which I always try to do, try to tell the truth. If it's not appreciated, it's something else. But I do my best to tell the world that dog training is not only about love. [20:45] But life is not about love. No, I don't know. Nature is not about love. And it's really important for me to, and this is what I like in your system and in your style, is that you teach the dogs. First of all, what is pressure and how they can handle it. And they handle it because there's hope. Yes. Because in real life, you cannot avoid stress. [21:11] Risk conflicts. It's in human life also, in dogs life also. And what I want to tell you about the positive training is that even positive trainers, they do use negative reinforcement. But with tools like they're marketing positive, like healthy or like, this is also negative pressure. Of course, it's negative. And then what people must understand is that real good positive training, for example, with

[21:43] food, only works that what you put in the mouth must take a little bit of discomfort away in the stomach. Which is delphin training. And nobody has problems with that. That's the reality. And that's why I'm here for, to tell the younger generation a vocabulary and to tell them a strategy to defend themselves for what they do well, [22:09] but it's not always appreciated by the big world that doesn't understand it and have another agenda. So, I mean, if I'm training wrestlers, fighters, boxers, they always watch to their diet. They must stay under 60 kilos. They must stay under 65 kilos. They must stay under 70 kilos. Nobody has problems with that. If I'm the coach on the soccer team, they measure the fat of the football players. [22:35] If one player is too fat, too much fat. They say, hey, on a diet. If you don't do, you're not on the team, you take money away. The ballerinas, all their lives, they're on a diet. Nobody has problems with that. I mean, it's life, so… But someone will come and tell you, okay, that ballerinas and football players, they choose that. Yes, I know. And dogs not. Well, I answer. [23:00] It's often… Of course, but I don't feel well. I go to the doctor. The first thing the doctor says, what do you eat? Ah, too much. What do you drink? Oh, too much. So, we must lose a little bit of weight to be good. What's wrong by keeping our dogs healthy in weight? I think it's good. If I see the dogs of the general public, excuse me my word, but they are a little bit overweight, [23:26] and due to that, they will live two, three years less of their lives. And they will have less quality in their life. So, I don't think that I'm doing a crime by keeping them in good shape, you know? And that's why my wife and me are going to stop with the seminars, because we cannot see enough, do people grab it? Of course, it's entertainment what we do. [23:52] People say, wow, it was nice, and we laugh a lot. At the end, it's… Did people grab a lot? What did hang there? So, all that… We've been checking in the beginning. It is your last seminar in Greece. Yes. It's the second time I invited you here in Greece, and it was the first time I was ultra-satisfied. So, now, it's 2016, will be the last year doing seminars.

[24:20] Yes. That's the plan. That's the plan. So, the new plan or changing will be like you do schools instead of seminars. Yes. So, it will be normally something like a week or… It will be a week silver. A week means five days from nine to five. No dogs. Only theory and learning the alphabet. Only theory. Learning the alphabet. And at the end, there's examinations to see what do people get. [24:45] Ah, so you will have examinations also. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they must have 90%. And if they don't have 90%, they will do it again, do it again, do it again. And if they cannot make it, they come back for free next time. I want people to understand what they do. And if you do that in a school with kids, it's the same. It's the same. It's no problem. You're not good enough, you do it again. You're not good enough, you do it again. [25:11] We call that deep practice. It's very important. So, and then, you know, it will be the school and we need people that become what I call reproducing the reality and the truth. They must reproduce it to the world. Because what people don't understand very well is there is an animal welfare law that says [25:38] it's forbidden without valid reason to inflict pain to a dog where from suffering could follow. what's the valid reason to inflict pain, that's the first problem in that law. The second thing is, and it's an elastic, what is pain? What is painful to you can be enjoyable for me. And what is suffering? What is suffering to me is for you a piece of cake. [26:05] So these are three definitions. And can be easily interpreted. Oh yeah, it is interpretation. But that's the European animal welfare law. That means that in dog training, when we train dogs, we have always the framework. But regardless of the valid reason. So it's only two valid reasons to inflict pain to a dog. First of all, we must save a human being. [26:30] When a dog is biting that human being, even the biggest gangster of the world, the dog must out and stop the biting action. With whatever means and tools you use, the dog must stop the biting. There is no judge that can condemn us for being unfair against the dog. If it's a human being, the human being gets higher. It's higher in the dog. [26:55] Yes, even the gangster, higher. Higher ranks than the animal. So that's the reason to inflict pain to a dog. Another reason to inflict pain to a dog, a valid reason is, if by inflicting pain, we can save his life. It cannot be condemned. It's impossible. It's interesting that what you say, because when I was in Germany living, I was a lot into

[27:20] forms and in Germany the welfare movement, it's really high. And for me it's a typical muscle of five problem. If it goes very well to people, if time for things to grow. And it was really, for me, strange. And I have set some measurements that in societies that laws about the colors or the rating of euthanasia in dogs is going higher. [27:55] And it's really, for me, this is what is not ethical, is that because of our appetite, humans, we destroy dogs and their psychologists. Because we only take from the dog what we need, but we don't take care what the dog needs. Because the dog normally does not care if it's a one euro jacket to sleep on or if it's a five thousand bed. [28:20] Oh yeah. And by destroying these dogs, we cannot use collars or repressors or whatever because it's unethical. We go only to euthanasia. So it's completely the hypocrisy that it's in the bad thing we do to animals, it's there. So I think we must respect animals. I think it's very important. [28:45] And I think that if there is abuse against the dog, it must go before the judge. Let the judge be seen case by case. That's it. So it's all interpretation again. I'm sure that my wife and me, we work in Naperpool and we stay in the framework. We prepare dogs to one day take the correction that will come. [29:13] You cannot evitate the correction if you train a dog in the real world with real distractions. But the dog will take that correction or grinta and say, I'm never going to do that again. I love my exercise. Because that's the whole setup. And I love my papa. Yes. Of course. And we prepare the dog for that day. We prepare dogs that are smart, that have ignition, that do understand. [29:38] And very important is the dogs in the training process should not have stress. When we use the word stress, we must give a definition to that word. Stress is uncontrollable reactions of the organism on physiological and psychological pressure. It's uncontrollable. That's why it's stress. [30:04] Good dog training must be controllable for the dog. And of course, there is a trial and error process. But at the end, the dog must have success with his trial and error. He must learn from his errors. And that's why for my wife, the book, The Talent Code, an American bestseller, become our Bible. Because The Talent Code is a big book. And it's about three things.

[30:30] The first thing in the book is deep practice with a lot of trial and error processes. The second part of the book is ignition, the benzene, the gasoline to do the deep practice. The drive. The drive. And the third thing is master coaching. We, the dog trainers, must master coach the dog. A dog that has a too good life, we must give a little bit shit, excuse me the word. [30:55] And a dog that has a little bit too much shit, must receive a little bit good sugar, good life. It's in the middle of the road. So we prepare dogs very well for that. And that's why we try to tell people, we give people a vocabulary that they can be the engineers of their construction training with every dog separately. Reasons for doing, reasons for not doing, or we call the consequences. [31:22] And when the dog receives the consequences, he must make a link between his bad behavior and the consequences that comes and the link between the good behavior and the consequences that comes. That's all of that. And then a lot of things is also about making people understanding what is classic conditioning and what is operant conditioning. And that's what we are here for. And that will be taped or explained in two days. [31:48] We're in the school, I have five days. And then five days practical after it. So in two days, it goes very fast. And what my wife and me are always amazed to see is the interpretation of the people of what we tell them. Some people… Right. Right. I'm always amazed to see that. It's like a song. You hear nice music and you only hear the voice of the singer. [32:15] You don't listen to the instruments or you… Yes. But that's a specific instrument. Yes. By time and time. But if you listen 20 times, 30 times, you always discover there's something more than just the lead singer. At the end, you realize, wow, there's a whole symphony orchestre behind it. There's a system behind it. Well, that's why my wife and me try to tell people. But we are always amazed to see what people understand from what we explain. [32:45] And in dog training is the same. You can have a very good system. It's not about how good your system is. It's about what your dog understands from your system. That's the whole thing. What's the interpretation of my dog, what I'm trying to tell. And this about system, what you say for me is… And I say that to my clients also that it's more… The most important thing, first of all, is to have a system. Right.

[33:10] Even if the system is not great, it's better to have one system than changing systems all the time. You must have a system with consequences. And when you have a system with consequences, whatever the system is, your dog will learn. To find the best system for your dog, you must be able to read. Does it have food enough? When a dog has food enough, it's very hard to train him on food. So you must start by… Don't give him food. [33:35] It takes one week and you reinstall the gasoline food. If you don't have a play drive, how can you use prey to reward a dog? You must install prey. When prey is there, you can reward him with that. And at the end, we don't want a dog that works for the money. We want a dog that likes to do the work for the work. Therefore, we can refer to a study done by Professor Sapolsky in California University. [34:07] And there, they did study on primates, monkeys. What is the most important thing? The key that started the job, the work. The key that started the whole setup. Is it about the working? The working, in this case it was pulling levers. Or is it about receiving, in this case, the predictable reward? What was making the monkeys happy? [34:32] The question is, we cannot ask the monkey what makes you happy. We only can measure it by measuring the dopamine. Dopamine is the happy hormone. And then what did we see with the predictable reward? That the key that started the whole event was the dopamine maker. The key. The work did not give too much dopamine. And the reward, zero dopamine. [34:58] Zero. It's amazing. So the key that started the event was the most dopamine making. And then they said, well, how can we make the work be more important? By changing the reward system. From predictable, they went to non-predictable. By changing the chances of success with 50% down. [35:25] They hired the dopamine with 50% up. And that's a proof why me and my wife over the years were so successful in drop training. We don't reward too much. That's why it was always the gung ho of the drop, the drive. Now we know why we did it. Because of a good feeling. But we did not know why. Background. Yes. But now we have the scientific background. Interviewing Dog World 28 July 2016 28 July 2016 - Interview Sotiris Kountouras - Michael and Bart Bellon.

Our new project "Interviewing Dog World" regards people interviewed in the world of dogs who have prooved their experience with actions in dog training, breeding etc. The purpose of the Project is to inform young and old for the views and the perspective of people who have contributed to the current situation and our perception of the dog. Who is better then to "premiere" the project than Bart Bellon, the father of modern dog training.