Training Without Conflict™ 팟캐스트 에피소드 6: Dr. Roger Abrantes

Okay okay. And my family um my ancestors came from Macau so I'm also a little bit Asian. Interesting. Um so I am I'm really I I used to say I'm a citizen of the world. That's that's how we should be all of us. Macau the last time I was there was two years ago. And so where where do you reside right now? Are you in Portugal or do you go back and forth? I go back and forth between Portugal and Denmark right now. Yeah well right now we have the COVID so it's a little bit more difficult to um to travel but and I I I really um you know uh spend a half time in Portugal half time in Denmark. So before we get into some deep serious conversations in some rabbit hole how how did you get involved with dogs specifically like was that your first thing that you went into the science or how did all happen? It was very accidental like I think most things in life or at least in my life uh I I was um a student of um I had finished my studies in philosophy and I was a study of biology and I was interested in uh in having more uh hands-on uh you know understanding of of behavior of of animal behavior of learning and um you know the easiest of the time for me and it was to get a dog and then to get two dogs and then uh beginning experimenting a little bit with them. I remember I went to training and and um and I I after some sessions I I was a little bit unhappy about that because it was nothing of what I expected. Look I came to it with the with the student's mind so I I was expecting them to give me um some principles some explanations and there was nothing. Look we're talking about uh 1982, 81, 82 so it's a long time ago so I decided to go home instead and um try to see what I could find to read about it to learn there was not much at the time now that there is a I don't know a zillion books about the training as you know yeah but there were there was not much at the time so um I started to I I decided okay so let me go to to the more fundamental and uh you know start learning about um I I was studying biology at the time uh so ethology was normal for me but but learning theory was not so I had to make um my my own studies in learning uh theory so I started with uh everything starting from uh Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike, Skinner you know everything you can imagine and then I trained my own dog uh myself um at the time a little Cocker Spaniel female and um and uh I I went to you know I was a member of a club so I went to the final um um um competition day uh in in the club uh and uh participate with my dog and uh and we we won um

and it was a big surprise for for everybody because they have never seen a Cocker Spaniel uh win a competition an English Cocker Spaniel do not confuse them with American please um and um and on top of that uh you know a long-haired guy with blue jeans uh it was not exactly what they expected uh well now I don't have any hair but I had at the time um it was not what they they expected and uh it's how it started because then people came and asked me how did you do that because it was so good we actually got max points uh at the uh in that competition I remember and um and then I just explained what what what I've done and then people came and asked me oh could you could you please help me with this and then yeah well yeah let's meet Saturday afternoon or something like that so so that's basically our how it started thanks to my um little Cocker Spaniel Petrina I will never forget her interesting yeah and then you know one thing brings the other and suddenly I was involved in um training animals which I never thought that that I would um I would do I continued my studies of course and my main interest is not training at all um actually when people ask me and sometimes I say it's gonna come as a surprise for you but actually I don't even I don't like so much to train animals because you know I've been doing it all my life I said what I like in it is I like to understand the animal I like to interact with the animal that fascinates me and I like to see how I can change the animal behavior but also how the animal changes my behavior because it's it's a feedback it's a feedback loop constantly going forth and back so it's how it started you know and then uh from some dogs I went into horses and cats and you know rats in Africa guinea pigs you know everything and always learning always trying to to become a little less ignorant for every day yes this is you know actually this is a very similar story the only difference I don't have the PhDs I did not I really stuck with the dog training but eventually I I had my first dog that I really started to be like oh this is exciting there is so much into this it was a collie it was I mean again it was back in the 80s and I was back in Bulgaria the cold war Russian style military training and I had this female collie because it was the last year you know and and just like you I I realized that I have this talent and I went and I won a bunch of competitions and all of a sudden Bulgaria was just too small and I had to run I mean literally escape the communists and go to to Europe to Belgium to you know to to do chase my

dreams and it was much much later that I I wanted to know what why is it working what I'm doing and that's how I got into the science so so in your case like um but even even let me just tell you one thing uh don't worry about you said I don't have a PhD well that's only a piece of paper okay uh the knowledge behind it it's important the piece of paper I don't give anything for that uh that's just uh uh you know a recognition from a group of people uh well who cares about that what I care about is the the the knowledge and the the open-mindedness the self-criticism that we have shown you know um so I would say uh and the experience of course you know how you process so like I will just kind of give a little just a little introduction and then and then I'll just let you hear it because that that's definitely your specialty but uh like for for for the my audience the people that don't know we talk a lot about evolutionary psychology behaviorism mythology um and etology is a you know it's it's really like when when we decide there there is this mega question about what drives behavior right is it nature is it nurture is it inherited is it learned this is always the big topic and as a dog trainer depending how you handle this you can hit a wall and do really dumb things because you're fighting genetics that are programmed not to accept your idea or you can find a way to guide it and and if you know anything about conrad uh lawrence nicotine burger you know they these are the the leading forces that started at i believe early 1930s and uh it started almost at the same time with the behaviorism with john watson and trondyke and skinner and and so the behaviorism had that idea that we all come out born as a blank slate and then everything is about punishment and reinforcement no matter what to where etology really is about uh how um uh uh uh nico tinbergen says it's the study of uh uh what was the like to to to speak their own language yeah it's an interview but you have to speak their own language meaning you have to observe the animal in its own surroundings in order to understand it just like uh um you know you don't you don't study a dolphin in a bathtub and there is a reason why the horse is born with hooves and and so on this is this is what etology is about but uh there it's probably the main reason i really wanted to talk to you um because uh somehow i don't know why but we're still we meaning the whole dog training community somehow really very stuck believing that we can change and do everything through reinforcement and

punishment and still go with the uh the idea that it's it's so outdated of of of watson saying that there are no instincts it's amazing how how this whole uh idea goes and it also surprises me a little bit because um um because there is so much more to it yes and it becomes very dangerous it really if we don't understand what comes from the genetic programming versus what is learned as a dog trainer you know we can do more damage than good yeah but i can give you an example of of you know you say you don't understand well uh i i think the reason why uh you know the as you said reinforcements punishes schedules of this and that and uh all that is so popular it's because um it's like a a cookery book recipe you know you have the ingredients and the one do these two do that three do that four four do that mix everything together let it cool serve it uh in a certain way you know it's it seems easy it seems easy and actually doctrine is it's not it's not that easy and actually doctrines these days they have a tendency to maybe oversimplify it to a point where they even miss the essence of behaviorism if that's what they wanted to do um because we have to be i don't even i don't even believe they are doing uh justice to behaviorism behaviorism is much more than than what they are um using talking about they mix all the concepts together very few people these days know what the reinforcement is or a reinforcer and nobody knows what the punisher is um and they get emotionally involved uh and and then everything goes uh haywire you know the the the difference to ethology is is is enormous of course uh even the terms are different uh look in in mythology for instance there is no there are no reinforcers and punishers there are benefits and costs and benefits and costs can explain things that for instance behaviorism that that reinforcers and punishers cannot uh for instance um benefits uh long-term long-term and short-term benefits you can talk about that but you cannot reinforce a behavior like uh two hours later or three hours later you cannot explain or or two years later you can actually you cannot explain that an animal there's something now to be reinforced um three months later um you cannot but you can with the with the concept of uh in in mythology with the the short-term and long-term benefits so we're talking about two different approaches um and and if you ask me you know i i wrote the the my my last book was is uh animal training my way i called it and then i i i i the subtitle is merging ethology and behaviorism

because if you ask me uh you know all my career i thought actually it was impossible i looked at the ethology tier behaviorism is there they are totally uh incompatible but i found out actually that you can uh combine the best of the two worlds my approach is still the approach of ethology it's a more complex approach but it's one that i think also allows us for deeper explanations of what's happening and that feedback loop that we were talking about you know when i told you uh i i i i teach the dog something the dog teaches me something i change the behavior of the dog the dog changes my behavior and then uh and if we combine that that approach and and and knowing you also spoke about um understanding the animal the behavior of the animal speaking the language of the animal exactly that is very important if we combine that with some of the principles of of behaviorism and we know how to apply them then i think we have a um a good tool to be able to um you know to understand one another you spoke about the the language of daniel you know i i'm probably one of the last alive uh students of professor lawrence that attended his lectures in person and i remember that he used to to tell us if you want to understand an animal you have to become each partner he said yes i have actually yes you know understand the animal in for its own what animal is and that is the thing that no matter what species i work with no matter what individual i work with my first idea is not uh i'm gonna change your behavior uh you're gonna change mine the first is let's understand one another let's see do we have a common language you know like um oh okay disease okay so let's see if we understand one another and then we we take it from there and and reason for the motivation and emotions and how emotions affect like behaviorism at least the the the old school traditional behaviorism really i mean i mean i i am mind blown still that there's people really truly believe at least in dog training and i think there is something to do with social sciences and i think where you and i can perfectly speak our minds about everything i don't think neither one of us have any breaks uh when it comes to science and and call it what it is but uh i think really social sciences in in in it's a the whole idea of be all you can be and know you're gonna work harder no you're gonna you you have everybody has equal chance and and completely disregarding genetic makeup completely disregarding your instinct and tendencies i think that ultimately

hurt dogs and people yeah sure you can you cannot you you you you can look we have the genetics we have the environment now we even discovered that we have something called epigenetics to complicate things even a bit further but also to make them more interesting and um of course all that is is we have to take that into into consideration um there are things that we cannot ask the animals to do because simply they cannot do you know um so for me it's right uh it's obvious uh that um as you said that we have to study the animal first and to understand the animal before we begin implementing any behavioral changes but people are impatient i know from our students you know our students ethology institute we start by giving them um behavior you know ethology uh all that and and then we give them um animal learning but they are so um impatient they will no no i i i want to train the animal i want to to train them so i always ask them what you want to do you want to change the behavior of the animal that's what you want no no i want to train it and they say look training is changing the behavior right yeah well yes no no no no yeah yeah well yeah it is yeah it is so how how come that you want to change the behavior of someone that you don't even know you don't even know the animal and you know sometimes i you know we used to divide them into the we call them the dog girls and the the horse girls we call them girls because 90 of them were girls you know so i used to say to the boys sorry guys you are honorary girls in this context and um and then uh i said okay so you are a horse people and you are dog people okay so for the first six months of our course here you horse people you are you're gonna work with dogs and the other dog people you're gonna work with the horses oh why why is that and so on that's what you're gonna do no complaining and then i promise you one thing when you go back to your favorite species you'll be a much better trainer much better and then they they they agreed with me six months later or they said wow i learned so much now i can make my dog do these much easier now i understand my dog better and the others too they said oh now i understand my horse better you know and then and then you know what even when they were when they felt comfortable with horses and um and um dogs you know what we did we gave them cats and then the misery was complete that's that's uh that's i would say an ultimate challenge right so but how um i'm i'm still curious like how did etology snuck in to you where where where you know

i i don't know i i i evolutionary biology you know i came from philosophy remember that i came from philosophy so philosophers we like to speculate about things you know to think about things so when i i found out in in in philosophy actually that i needed some some knowledge about biology otherwise i wouldn't be able to understand anything of the of what i was trying to understand and i i changed and and well i finished philosophy but then i went to biology then in biology what began to interest me most was the what the evolutionary aspects of of of of everything of life of of behavior and then especially behavior interested me for some reason i i don't even know why but it began to interest me so i specialized of course in in in mythology and i was very lucky because it was a time where we still had the professor laurent and team bergen they were alive and i had have i've had the incredible good college that that probably you know eric seaman uh freder christianism yes i've heard the names fred you and i we even uh uh lived not so far away from one another so we very often could could meet and exchange opinions at the time that's that's mind-blowing that's just mind-blowing and work with the wolf because fred you um freddie and and his girlfriend at the time brita rothausen i don't know if you know the name they they got some wolves and they they started the wolf park and they did an amazing research there and and i was on on on my on on the afology institute not so far away um you know like uh two hours away by car um i had the i was doing the research with the foxes and the dogs comparing so we were comparing all the behaviors of them of all these animals i can tell if you want to i can tell you a a a a a very nice experiment with it i would love to i would love to we we try to see with the wolves dogs and foxes uh which kind of reinforcers now to go to the to the behavioristic language they would prefer and we had the three types of reinforcers we had the the the sound reinforcer emitted by us human which was a word we actually used the the danish word dukti which means clever but it has a good sound and then we had the mechanical reinforcer which was not a clicker it was a whistle but it's the same actually so when people come to me these days and say oh i'm very modern i use a clicker training the i say modern we were using not the clickers but we were using whistles in the beginning of the 1980s you know yes and then the third was food a food treat so we tested all all three with wolves foxes and dogs

and some some some surprising results we we we reached some surprising results for instance the wolves their favorite which which one do you think it is our voice the whistle or food uh yeah that's a tough one i mean my guess would be for some reason the voice just because they would be more in tuned and more observant of their environment stick to that one even you're right it was the voice yeah it was the voice and um and uh uh actually they they would only accept food um if um if they felt accepted by us if they had built a relationship with us so the voice was much more important for them and we i'm talking about wolf cubs the the the first priority was to establish a relationship to us to feel accepted to feel safe after that they would accept food and your and your voice is immediately gives away your emotions which is what they need yeah exactly and then they would accept food and then if we train them with the whistle there was no problem uh the fox is on the other side uh food was definitely number one uh if you don't have food they they didn't care so much about our voice uh the the the the whistle worked like that if you you know when you condition you you the whistle and food whistle and food whistle and food you make the association then you can use the the whistle the problem is that or the clicker we can talk about the clicker because it's the modern uh equipment that you use yeah um but if we if if you if you for for a short period uh stopped pairing the the the clicker or the whistle with the food they would disregard the clicker completely um so you really have to maintain the value of the the or of the clicker of the whistle by often pairing it with food yeah yeah it's what we would call high maintenance yes and in the middle we have the the dogs the domestic dogs they were in the middle so do you think do you think that the foxes just because they are not as as social yes yeah something to do yeah that that was our our informed uh uh gas at the time yeah and and we still stick that they they are not and you see there comes genetics as you were talking about but not genetics like uh like in a simple way we have to think about about it in evolutionary terms it's everything is an adaptation the fox do not need we cannot say oh so they are not as developed as wolves no that is not true they are as developed as wolves as dogs or as humans they just adapted to to other circumstances to other environments and and they don't need that because they don't need it they don't have it it will be a waste you know the dogs were in the middle of the

the wolf and the fox they would respond well to to very well to the to our voice uh reinforcer they would respond well to food of course um they they responded better to food than the wolves if uh before the wolves knew us the company was you know um and in and the the the clicker the comparison between them and the foxes was that it we didn't need to maintain it as strictly as we did with the foxes we could um uh once the it was conditioned as a conditioned reinforcer we could use it for a long time without having to pair it this was very interesting because it shows really the differences of of of of the the species of the animals and the importance of uh evolution of the the process of adaptation i i'm not talking about this adaptation of the individual i'm talking about the adaptation in a more uh general evolutionary sense yeah wow yeah this is super interesting so well by the way um do you want to hear another nice one i i can listen to him all day long my my colleague and friend um um brita rothausen at the time she said it would be interesting to train a wolf to see how it would perform in a police dog test you know uh protect protection work um no sense um no sense detection including so she trained the wolf to do that and she passed actually she passed the the the the test and i don't know if if she's still there but she and the wolf were in the guinness book of records as the first wolf ever to pass the police police dog test amazing but you know what uh the most difficult uh skill or exercise for the wolf can you guess which one was in the protection work obedience protection it was a combination i tell you what it was it was the the the grabbing the bad guy you know why because it would do if it would be uh uh with with the with the british husband fred you no problem because they knew one another they were mates you know but a stranger wearing that strange sleeve there you don't go there and buy the stranger for fun yes you're smart enough if you're a wolf not to get yourself vision you know of biting you know i don't fight the strength because if i bite the strange i only bite the strength for two reasons either i want to to kill him or her or or get rid of them forever or because i want to eat them that's the only two reasons to do it and the dwarf looked at the poor guy there with the sleeve you know and say i don't know that guy i cannot do that there is another reason for to bite which is not real bite and it's play play behavior social behavior and that's why that wolf had no problem in biting uh freddy because freddy was a mate was a friend you know i'm

using mate now in european term not american term okay i hope that our listeners don't uh are not implying that i'm talking about making in in a sexual uh term and i if you're at for the for the for the listeners if you read my books i distinguish between mate and alien a mate is someone your survivor depends on an alien alien is someone that your survivor does not depend on it has nothing to do with them with the sexual behavior i even used to say quite the contrary um you don't need to mate your mate to be a mate um it's um you know just a teammate in the sense of team team yeah yeah yeah um and and and and that that that that was the reason why the wolf would not go and bite the complete stranger because it's not a play and um there's no reason to buy the strength that i don't know and i obviously i cannot eat him so i'm not going to do that that was the most difficult you know all the other things that you have to do the jumps and the what um was called obedience at the time that was no problem for the wolves to do sometimes in those studies and it's um i wish somehow we can do a little bit more of a broader you know study different not not just uh one pack or one close families of wolves but uh i mean we know all all of them even you know comparing the european to to to some other parts of the world wolves they they they're still wolves but they still have their own niche and and and um but it's difficult i think it's very difficult to do studies like this to where what do you do afterwards you you take the wolf and you do all the studies and and then what do you do with it right that is the problem and that's one of the reasons why um um fredio and the breeder got stuck with so many wolves in there and started the wolf park uh because they have them and actually i can tell you that most of them they got them uh at the time there is a there is a story there too there was a a a movie being being uh shot uh and and and they used some some wolves from from poland and they finished the movie and they didn't know what to do with the wolves they even speculated whether they should kill them yeah you know and then fred and breeder got in and said no no no we will take them and then suddenly they were stuck with a with a group of of wolves um and and that's when they they started to uh to make the wolf park um in in denmark so the the wolf park is still it's to present date it's still there and it's still going no it moved it moved to uh it moved it had to move you know things like that tend to have lots of of problems with the

authorities about uh regulations and uh and unfortunately uh um you know many local governments do not really you know realize the value of of having um a research center um like this one uh it's always the the same fight you know if it doesn't give money if it doesn't give money to the government it's not interesting yes yes and especially if it's it's a little bit outside the trend of the ideologies that are running things definitely so i i another question that i have that i'm i i just have so many questions i hope i remember all of them but i i i wonder how was it for you going through evolutionally psychology biology etology i mean at the time that you were really going deep in it it was clear already that the behaviorism had huge holes i mean john garcia and harlow's monkeys and all those things were already there like how how um how was it presented like at school and when when you were going through through uh your phd how how how did you guys look at behaviorism at the time well i i was not very interested in behaviorism actually remember i i'm i'm a european um well right citizen of the world but uh most european but did you touch it at all uh as far as like world by the way there is this thing that americans do yeah a little bit yeah yeah yeah we we we we we studied a little bit uh watson uh thorn dyke skinner um but not i guess uh as as deep as as they would have done in in american um colleges uh for sure not we we had our own tradition the the ethology tradition of uh from fritz lawrence steenbergen and so you were clearly already seeing that that that's not all it there is oh yeah oh yeah no doubt about that actually i had to uh to to go much deeper into behaviorism later on because i i wanted to understand um behaviorism and i wanted to understand the the flaws of the model because all models have flaws by the way it's not only behaviorism all models have flaws uh models are only you know very rough uh ways for us to understand the reality um and and behaviorism as it's as well behaviorism is reductionist as as all science is and there is nothing wrong with being reductionist as long as you don't become greedy as long as you don't become a greedy reductionist which means you want to explain too much with too little um and and i think maybe that that is the problem that that we see these days but but um please even we remember one thing we really have to distinguish the behaviorism used by doctrines these days and uh to be fair to behaviorism sure sure sure and the real behaviorism because i mean if

you go back to skinner and thornback and so on there are uh many good descriptions and amazingly good things 100 oh yeah no there is there is many many many i mean yeah i i actually agree 100 we would not be able to do what we do they definitely have that piece of the puzzle that fits very very well but at the same time they put a hold on on understanding how we learn for a very long time and pavlov by the way let's not forget pavlov too when we speak about that and i can give you the example power was uh then injustice uh for quite many years uh starting with the lost in translation as i used to call it because you can check it uh because i'm sure that you understand the russian if you read the uh uh pavlov he never wrote about conditioned reflexes he wrote about conditional reflexes conditional in russian uh which is different from condition and that doesn't do any justice to pavlov because pavlov's uh philosophy was uh that that everything basically was conditional everything depended on certain conditions uh and it goes really badly lost in translation when you speak about conditioned reflexes instead of conditional now i have to go back i don't think i've ever actually go go back and read it in um in russian i have it i have it behind me in russian i do not read russian but i want to have the originals and i go check and uh and and sometimes i i ask people to help me with the with the transitions yeah no yeah absolutely when when you want to go deep into something we know very well that sometimes translation just kills it i know from my experience sometimes i would go and do some workshop or a course somewhere and make a presentation of any any way and i depend i mean you know you depend on the translator 100 percent it's he's like he or she's the first one that's gonna either make the seminar right or it's gonna confuse people and then you know by the audience when you see those eyes it's like oh what what is the translation and i'm like okay something must have went wrong oh i experienced that in japan uh where i i lectured and then suddenly i realized there was something wrong because the reaction of people was not the one that i expected and then in the break actually someone came and told me that the translator was actually translating what i was saying completely wrong so we have to have to have a talk about that words are important the way we formulate things are important no doubt about that the translation and the interpretation but it's the same with learning it's exactly not you know does apply the rules but you know what ivan everything is a question of

translation of interpretation of uh everything you know the way the way we see the world we we see the world in let me give you the example of the colors we see the colors we see and we we believe in our human arrogance that the objects are the way we see them and they have the colors that we see them that's reality if you ask a bee a honeybee the honeybee will tell you no no the the colors are you see you guys you see colors completely wrong and why is that so as an evolutionary biologist i i i i firmly believe i'm i'm more and more tending toward believing that evolution has not developed us to see reality the way the reality is evolution has developed as all the organisms to see reality the way that it best increases their inclusive fitness which means you see the world that suits you the best the one that gives you the greatest chance to survive and to reproduce um and i do my way and if we do it differently now imagine how a dog or a rabbit or a bee or a jellyfish or or an octopus right so i think we need this kind of humility i think we think we need to be to be to be humble with them with them what we know and we do not know and and um not to be go against the kind of absolutism you know things are the way they are uh well yes they may be but um how are they i'm not sure that i have the right the perception you know yeah yeah yeah yeah which i don't know but somehow it made me think of uh now nowadays our artificial intelligence and how how we go back and forth from from okay this is how uh a living being learns and this is what's important and then how you can program and how you can actually go back and forth and bought our benefit and we are really like skyrocketing as far as understanding learning because of artificial intelligence nowadays yeah and we're gonna have a problem one day a big problem because we're gonna have some um organisms with artificial intelligence that are as good as we are if not superior right yeah and you know why they will be that because they will be able to control their emotions that was interesting i don't know where i read did i read it or it was at youtube some somewhere but it was very interesting artificial intelligence and and they were talking about making a mistake like let's say a robot makes a mistake and there is no emotions but when you program the robot to make a mistake and have emotions and basically say oh i'm i'm truly sorry or something of this sort and now the human mind is so much more willing to go along because there is that so-called human traits and it's all artificial intelligence in the same way it's it's it's crazy

have you seen the movie ex machina yes beautiful movie oh beautiful movie so you know what i'm talking about when the emotions may be our downfall you know yes exactly right and then you start like you know i'm okay i know it's a robot but it's okay for me right so tell me um another thing like i i know we we both go long ways away as far as the evolution of dog training itself like i i'm not sure but i would take a wild guess and i would assume that you also started in a very traditional way of of reinforcement and punishment and avoidance escape avoidance that was my background i i did came from from a military russian style of training which was a curry cutter you know uh i mean i mean it was the best at a time um but eventually we started to realize that that emotions matter and that we cannot do some other things and i know that you at least i think i think i think um i started to pay attention and and realize it was probably the late 80s or very early 90s is when i was like okay i i'm completely changing and i'm i'm very accomplished in what i do and i never stop taking anything that's that has benefit um so needless to say when the whole movement the whole ideology of force free came in i jumped on it i mean there is nothing better than being able to accomplish something without the use of aversive period um and i know that um and i know that uh i mean you at the time i i i mean even i think still till very recently you you were going and giving a lot of uh uh presentations and you you were very strongly supporting this and i'm curious where are you standing right now look you're speaking about the force free and all that uh movement you know i i i we didn't call it force free but i i was among the pioneers of of that current if you can call it this is my first book look look at how i look like can you see it yes yes yes this is from 1984 and you know what 1984 everything that i that we we talk about uh that people talk about now it's here but it's here in in a slightly different way first it's not here in a dogmatic way um it's there as as as an approach you know um and and the idea at the time in the 80s was because as you said i also started like you you know when i when i went to training with with the dogs it was i mean training came from the military yeah they were though they trained the you know the the dogs and and that's what we had and that's what i questioned um not only me of course many others well not many others but some i can and this algrain in sweden was one of the maybe first uh actually i i would i would credit him with being the first one to look at

it differently because he even goes back to the 1970s what is what is his name anders halgren okay and um and then we had in dunbar of course in in uk well us um we had the roger mcford at the time in england and the things that we were doing were different we we actually met all three for the first time um in bermuda uh and we were very surprised you know it's not like now we didn't have internet we didn't have nothing like that so we were very surprised that we were doing similar things with different approaches um but but but still trying to make a chance you know and the the most interesting for us was not so much the similarities but were um that we were trying to achieve the same goal but with different kind of different approaches because remember i came from biology and the salgren um and and the roger mcford from psychology ian denbar veterinary so of course we have different approaches but that doesn't that didn't prevent us from um being able to talk and to inspire one another and the movement grew which i think it was of course good it was progress uh it was good um what i don't think it's so good is that uh is the that the movement lost um became too dogmatic um too um uh you know imposing uh to to to to too sure of itself in a way look there is nothing in this book here um that says this is the the the way and the only way to do things you know um and these and these days if you if you do not do things in a certain way uh like certain groups want then it's like everything is wrong and you know if you ask me my experience shows me quite the opposite that it shows that there are many paths to the top of the mountain uh and one uh needs not be more right than the other it depends on many factors it depends on what you want it depends on what you have available it depends on your priorities you know very true very very well said so so if you ask me of course i mean for me all interactions with all living organisms no matter what species uh will be based on on respect respect for what they are and i don't care if we talk about the dog or or or an octopus you know or you know it's a living harmony organism um i i firmly believe in the darwinian a difference of the greed not kind you know um so as as long as that respect that basic respect is is is preserved uh i cannot say um i'm sorry maybe some people will get very disappointed but i cannot say that one one method is correct and all those are wrong i cannot even say that one method is better than others because again as i said depends on the conditionals to go back to pavlov

let's give the let's give the the behavior is something yes i think this is when um unfortunately where we are right now we are extremely divided and we are extremely divided because of the two extremes that's the that's our problem and it i mean it's such a animosity and and like there is no there is no possibility to have conversation between everybody yeah you're right there are the two extremes and the and the worst of that is is even that the if you are in the middle uh then you are even worse because you are pinched by both sides yes yes you're you're truly forced to choose a side today otherwise you really don't belong anywhere it is a very very bad idea um but i yeah i i i don't know like i don't agree with with neither one of course and i think that there is always uh like people that really want to learn and want to maximize and do the best they can for their dogs and i'm not talking just teaching the dog how to sit and and what's the recipe to make the dog walk next to you and all that i'm talking about actually accomplish this but having this amazing motivation and desire of the dog and if the dog can speak back to say i feel really good i i enjoy doing this and somehow though the both extremes those camps they affect that like they each one will kind of try to pull the rug their own way and it's like well no if you i mean forgot like like like the the most extreme parts is when you let's say let's say on the all positive trainers it's like well if you tell the dog that he's wrong that's already a bad thing and this is where i when you trace this all the way down it goes probably way back to to uh skinner and and saying that punishment is just doesn't work it's not even on moral it's just like he really thought that it doesn't work but then you take this other group of on the other side and everything they do is based on suppression and forcing and neither one is right but but there is no debate yeah because neither one and you just uh he hit the nail on its head when you said before that um you wanted to do those things with the dog and if the dog could speak to you would say this is fun this is good right but you know neither of these groups speak about it and i don't care what they call themselves they got they can they can choose the nicest names to describe their movement it doesn't make it better that they are still manipulating the animal to and and they're not the dog is not you know the positive side that says oh but look at my son my dog my dog has a lot of fun no the dog doesn't have any fun the dog is doing it because it's

being fed because it needs food or because it's brainwashed to respond to to uh uh conditioned reinforcers and conditioned signals or whatever um so you're still using force you're just using a a different kind of force um it didn't change anything you know i used to say you you changed the you changed the the plates but you didn't change the soup the soup is the same you just serve it in different plates i don't know if you have that expression in uh no but that's uh that's easy to to get okay but that's what i use it it's still the same exactly the same there is no difference the only difference are are the the plate here the names that you give it uh and and i i i i i want a different approach i want the approach of understanding what makes the animal tick what motivates the animal how can we do things so that we both benefit from it and people say oh but it's not possible and so on yes it is look i've been there i've done it i'm not speaking and you can see movies of me working with the dog uh with the horses with guinea pigs with all kinds of animals um so yes it is possible to do it uh people say oh but the the dog is not going to do anything just because of you well yes it is because dog is a social animal so if if i if i if i created a good relationship with the dog of course the dog is going to do it for me uh and i'm going to do it for the dog that's in the genetic blueprint of the animal you know um so you don't need to the the you know the to go with lots of bags of foods and and and food and and and um devices you know all the devices that you can buy these days they cost a lot of money and they don't make you a better trainer um if you ask me and allow me to be as bold if you ask me what is your or my best training tool i tell you it's me it's you your best training tool it's you um and if you use yourself correctly then you can do whatever and i don't need to tell you that even because i know what you you've done i know what you've accomplished i know very well that you know all these you know so i don't need to tell you that but it this is a very very important conversation for especially for my audience to hear because uh this is this is it's been a quest of mine to to try to educate and put a different light on on this and uh yeah you're you're very um like you mentioned play originally at some point earlier on the conversation and uh i'm super big on play as an interaction and sometimes trainers are like oh well you're using a ball or whatever the toy is and i'm also

and i always reply like i the toy is just the object that we interact with but finding the way how to cooperate how to follow the certain rules to interact with that object that's deep that has nothing to do as you just giving a ball to a dog and the dog kind of just enjoys the ball and i think play is very underestimated and yeah yeah you even let me tell you you you i like to say that it's not the ball in itself the ball itself in itself means nothing it's it's uh the the interaction between you and the animal what you do together yes exactly like the ball is just um an accident yes if you end up just giving the dog the ball and he goes away and he's happy that means you you haven't accomplished anything you want you want the interaction you and me interacting in a very different way than being the food dispenser and controlling there is so many we know now um i mean what it's been at least 20 30 years now since uh what was his name john pass pass with the with the tickling rats and how finally we realized that play is a biologically programmed it's an innate brain system just as it's any of the other primary reinforcers but you can still see in the dog training world and i don't know if it's coming from the marine the marine trainers the sea world trainers but like very often you will see still people that will i mean even even that the dog equipment companies will sell a toy that has a little pouch so you can put food to teach the dog to play and you're completely missing the most beautiful way of interaction to coming to some cooperation that two different species can come into interacting in a beautiful way and you just butcher it with another primary reinforcer it's it's mind-blowing no you're right but but i would like also to emphasize because i don't know i don't know your business your but but i want to emphasize that i have nothing against using food uh strategically in animal training i i've i've used it and i used it um when when when necessary but to make food like you see these days you cannot hire me your dog by feeding the dog you know if you don't use food you're not a good trainer i've seen i've seen statements like that i've i've read statements like that and that really uh makes me in a way a little bit disappointed with the humankind in a way if you think that the relationship all relationships are based on food and nothing else than food then you are being very unfair not only to the dog but you know to food in itself as well you know yes yeah no no but but no doubt food has its place it

everything has its place but it's a it it the at least the way i see the ultimate goal between dog and human interacting is to be able to use whatever whatever your tools you want to use and i i i know i take a big chance to saying this but whatever the tools you want to use being food being toy being whatever the aversive tools you want to use ultimately if you can strip the dog down and the dog works for you and i see that dog loving it and choosing not because it's a press not because it's brainwashing manipulator but really choosing to interact with you instead of anything else hats off to that i'll be the first one tell me what you're doing yes i agree yeah yeah yeah yeah that's right and this is the like i think um i think both sides have so much to bring to the conversation and somehow we are not having that conversation because of the extreme sides of things yeah and it's uh emotions run high you know um and also the the the i i mean basically it's a question of attitude as well it's the question it's that attitude that i that i i don't understand the one i know everything and um i'm right and all those are wrong you know um if i if i've had that attitude i would never have learned anything in my life um i i can i can give you an example you spoke about my book dog language which is also there and it's translated in in many languages and it it's been a a long seller as my publishers call it they don't call it the best seller they call it a long seller interesting but i have to i have a confession to make sometimes i look at the book and and and i say oh no how could i write that oh no no no did i write that oh no did i write that i mean i i'm asking my my publishers these days to please allow me to edit that book allow me to edit that book because there are so many things that they are not directly wrong but they are not as as correct as they could have been you know because the book was written many years ago and if i had the attitude of i know what is right and that's the only thing that is right and all those are wrong i mean my book would be forever right and it's not uh and you know i'm not even sad because of that i mean it's still i think to this day it's one of again thank you i want thank you very much i wish it would be much better right i'm surprised that they don't let you change some some of it and make a a new new addition no no they they um they i i i got finally um i'm allowed to do that i just need time to do it but you know the problem is that instead of being uh like this it's gonna be double right yes yeah for

sure oh i i i also wrote a book but it was a it came a little bit after yours uh and it's kind of uh very strictly oriented to the sport of schutzhund with the tracking being protection and it was during the time that i was heavily influenced of the all positive no we we you know so pretty much all of my approach in the book was written this way and if i have to do it again i i know that i will definitely um add some things and i will not be so concerned about is it force free is it all positive reinforcement but i will be much more concerned how easy it is for the dog not to get frustrated when learning and if that dog needs a little just flip hey don't do that that's stupid and he says thank you what is the right solution you know but but where the times we're living in it's it's it's very difficult to do something like this yeah um yeah it is uh but but and you're right i mean what you call it it it doesn't really matter uh i never think about um um this is i'm gonna write something i'm from a positive or force free or whatever point of view i i i just i don't know i'm i'm kind of jumping a little bit but i'm really curious about the rats that you did with the detection like how how did that all even came about the rats well it's um i was invited by by the the the creators of the project um um and and i i was invited invited to go there and observe what they were doing uh-huh um and give them some good ideas maybe and i did that and we talked and apparently they liked my my approach and then they invited me to to write um the the manual the instructor's uh manual of the of the rat trainers uh which is a big thing that i wrote with all the standard standard operating procedures and uh you know so how long does it take on average uh and and what are the different levels or or uh yeah i mean first uh look the the procedure is strictly behavioristic procedure of the the training of the rats because um uh you know they have to be highly efficient they have to be able to be worked by many different operators um and the operators don't have the necessary background knowledge uh to be able to be creative by themselves so in this case we are talking about giving and also we don't want accidents to happen so it's very strict uh do these these these these etc and then there are certification um tests for for the rats and for the operators of the rats as well and um i mean what you do is you you start by by by teaching them the um an indication behavior which uh people call an alert in in um scent detection normal but i i called it an indication behavior and the the rats have um

two natural behaviors when they find something interesting one of them is to stick the nose poke the nose into that whatever it is to sniff it and the other one is to scratch with the with the paws and then some prefer one thing and others prefer another one so we we gave them a little bit of freedom there you can choose uh kind of so those that um have tendency to poke the nose uh into whatever that they found interesting we reinforce that now to to use behavioristic language and the others that scratched we reinforce that instead and then we introduced the the the target sent to them which was the tnt and we used tnt because tnt was the and is the the the famous component of of the explosives that you find in minds of all of them independent of whether they came from uh earlier suviate union or or or or the united states of america is the thing and then once they have that uh uh that target sent we introduced them other sense so so that they could learn scent discrimination um but they had already the indication behavior so it was no problem and then you train you train you make it more difficult you introduce more variables into it like um rain humidity you know different soils because of the landmines are are placed in different songs right um at the time i hope we had the training the the biggest minefield in the world to train with over 3 000 different minds um of many different uh uh uh fabrications different uh ones and then you train direct to not not to to to make mistakes you know uh a false positive um you you'd say well a false positive is not so bad right well a false positive is actually often worse than than than you can imagine because um you don't know where it is uh there is a suspicion that there is a mind there but you don't know where and you cannot find it and you cannot release the land to to the local population um because it's dangerous so you have to find it um so we hope that um that we do do not have false positives also the rats trained in the working teams so that um we didn't take the word of a rat for granted we always wanted to have a confirmation and with the tv we also trained them at the time all this work i'm talking about amazing work is done by a popo a popo in morogoro tanzania christopher cox um is the executive director um and and and the and uh bart vettians by the way uh let's not forget him because bart and and and and christ they they started the project many years ago they come from belgium by the way maybe maybe you know them both um and they and then and they they also started the projects of detecting tuberculosis and the photo

tuberculosis um we always had three rats running through the same samples uh and if all three agreed then we would say that okay that's a safe one uh if two agreed but one disagreed then it was a suspect we would say it you know it will require then uh lab analysis to find out um who was right which one of the rats were right so what about the like uh how do you or how do they select them is that uh is there something specific test like how you would run a a dog or or is it less important yeah that's interesting because you know the first rats they were completely wild um so the the they started with wild rats tamed you know got them used to to people and that's i guess why you have to start with the behavioristic principles um because it was what also would give you the quickest results not necessarily the best but absolutely the quickest results um and then and then apobos started its own breeding uh program uh the best threats uh together you know uh and of course the second third and first generation they they are they are different because we've been doing what natural selection does you know selecting according to a criteria and the criteria there were only basically well two main criteria of course we we want the rat to be healthy and all that but the two basic criteria is a good nose that's the first one which they all have basically and the second one um is to learn to be easy for us to interact with them um and that is very much connected with curiosity uh the more curious the animal is the the easiest would be to um to teach the animal new behaviors so is there is there like uh when when you say the first the first the first ones yeah the first batch what um would you would you put them in like different groups of like okay these are really bold really bully like these are aware of the environment more careful i mean rats as a general i would think it's they're very aware and careful but are there some that are really extremely careful to where would not be suitable yeah yeah there were there were and there were some of them that were so fearful of of everything that had to do with humans that you could basically not work with them so that that is the first uh that we have to sort out uh which animal starting with the wild animals is always difficult we had the same problem when we worked with the foxes and they were also wild animals and even if they were the first ones when they were very small when when we got them uh if you get them three four weeks of age it's already too late uh most of the imprinting is is um is underway or or it's not completed but it's um

it's too late so you can get maybe get them used to humans but they will never consider a human a kind of a species you can interact with on equal foot you know with dogs i mean i guess with every every living thing but but specifically with dogs like if you are to give an advice to a new trainer that starts that has obviously interest and it's young or or maybe it's not young but definitely it's like wow i'm fascinated by dogs and how they learn and how we interact any any where would you what would you give them as an advice how to being living in a in a social media environment where everybody gives advices and you can get lost in a very dangerous rabbit holes yeah that's right i i you you mean if if uh what advice i would give people if they want yeah yeah like like if they really seriously besides that just oh i'm just want to learn this basic thing but but there is a lot a lot of hungry people that that just like us get involved and and they go and they don't watch netflix they try to read things they try to do the right thing and and educate themselves what kind of advice would you give you know the but even it's different because we live in a different time now the problem is that you and i we read books uh we we have to be active to go there and find things um you you had to go and and so did i to the library to find books to find papers we have to go through those you remember those micro fish those uh uh deeply annoying things that you have to go through we have to be active in searching uh uh the knowledge and and these days people are not active um people want everything served they are used to have everything served i think they are active but they they are lost i think like right now if somebody has such a number of followers and likes all of a sudden it's this is the right person and we know this is not the right person just by just glancing through their stuff and you know this is so wrong but it's not easy for the for the young crowd to to to navigate through through the confusion you know what what i i try to teach our students and always did was be critical be yourself be critical ask why why don't accept things um just because someone tells you that and i even used to tell them if if i ever see you doing something because i i say uh without questioning me or questioning yourself whether it is right what i told you then i will get very offended i don't want you to do what i tell you because i tell you i want you to do it what i tell you because you investigated

it and you think it is correct uh so i i think we have to reawaken that critical uh thinking sense in in people um to make them question uh things of course it's difficult because people tell me also that um my students they they belong to two different groups you know our students and and they tell me what but in that group you know i asked the question and they threw me out they banned me from the group yes yes yes so you know you if you are not even allowed to to question uh then we are in in a vicious circle you know and the and even and it gets even more vicious because of what i told you before because people kind of are used to get everything served i i can tell you we did some studies on that and i i post a link we post a link with a picture and a little summary of an article that i write it could be an article that could be important for people to understand like the one that we have right now on our page or about evolutionarily stable strategies you know that will make people understand a little bit better why um why we sometimes behave aggressively other times we behave fearfully other times we behave dominantly and other times we behave submissively just to use an example that would that would then that that would explain and and then we go behind behind the scenes because you know we have our technical people uh that can can see everything and then and we have likes likes likes likes dislikes and so on but you know what if we have let's say that my article got um 500 likes and uh you think oh that is good but then we go behind and see how many read the article because we can see how many clicked and read the article and then we have we have only 25 who read the article so what is it that they like do they like the picture uh in that case i i will stop writing books and only post pictures instead you know yes yes it's it's really the the phenomenon and and the fast pace of everything and it's impossible to pay attention it's really impossible yeah what about like your new book um like if if you are to introduce your book the the last one the uh animal training my way to to the audience how would you what would you say i would say that that book is a book about um us controlling our emotions and controlling our behavior behavior and um i write there that if if if i control my emotions and i control my behavior i will produce in others maybe the behavior that i want not against their will or not by using pseudo techniques like uh psychological techniques but because they want the chance

the ability to do that um and that's what the book is about i i emphasize immensely and i show it on on several videos i don't say one word i don't use one word to the dog or to the horse not one um everything is my body language my written uh with the animal my my facial expressions as well which work very nicely with dogs by the way we're very lucky from that point of view um they work less well with horses but but much better with the with dogs so that that's what it is all about and and and it it's um it's about making things simple uh not simpler than necessary but but but simple using ourselves um um you know we have we are so so afraid of failing sometimes that um we we project uh that that uh fear in our body language and if if we fail i and and if we do that if we feel if if we if we project fear and insecurity what dog will follow an insecure person right i mean you know dogs only go three places they go either they go someplace or they go simply somewhere else or they go nowhere right so when i when i say when i see dog owners walking with their dogs they walk like they where are we going we're going we're going there well you know the hill the hill thing hill exercise which is so easy and they walk like they're drunk or like like they are zombies and i tell them what dog will follow you you know so so if you if you want to walk you say i'm gonna walk there and then when you get there you say i'm gonna walk there and then you don't walk anywhere and if you show that very clearly the dog the wow this guy knows where you where he's gonna do what he's gonna do and if you stop also with the and you feel certain of yourself the dog will also stop and look at you like oh he stopped why did he stop you know and people are so afraid of failing and because then people ask me what if it goes wrong well tough luck sometimes things don't work you know then what you do start all over again but when you start all over again you believe that you're gonna succeed so i i really believe that that from from the experiences that i have that um you don't need to force the animal to do anything you just need to show the animal that you know what you're doing and and if you know what you're doing and you show that then of course the animal will follow you yes and and yeah i i cannot agree more with you on this and on i'd like if i need i would add something to this is you actually don't need to be a dog trainer you just need to be very sincere and pay attention and you will find a way how to

get along and and come to some agreement it's it's this is like the amazing part of of dogs not too many other animals can do this with us but dogs somehow are very eager and very keen to to catch and follow us if we if we address it and we don't be like oh i'm the master in your you know like they they really intrigued by us just as much as we are by them exactly yeah yeah but you know i never think on those terms i'm the master no matter what what animal i work with yeah i never think about i'm the master is the my my servant servant but i i do not think the other way around either um i i'm not i i don't accept any animal independent i don't accept a human doing that and then of course i don't accept a dog or a horse or a jellyfish uh you know to um push me around you know exactly okay another one i hope we have a little more time you know the and and i i really don't know how you feel about this so i was very very curious to hear but um the whole thing about the the our dog dominant animals and the whole dominance conversation and i i i will refrain from starting anything because i don't want to say anything but i i know it came from david mac when he first and he just got picked up that one phrase that no they are not dominant there is no i actually tried to have him on my podcast specifically to talk about this but somehow he he's still in a uh some government position and he he's just not they did not let him talk with me but meanwhile i know that he retracted that state like actually he's like no yeah we don't we understand that wolves are not the kind of parts that i was explaining that they are more families but there is definite hierarchy and there is definitely somebody that says you little dogs and wolves follow me right even i i hope you you you succeed in getting david mitch to in your program and having him clarify that because it was actually unfortunate what he said and it was i i know he was under tremendous pressure from from those uh very extreme groups um and and and and that happened but but you know and i know also that uh he also retracted that uh and said no uh they they are misquoting me or misinterpreting my own words and i've told them many times that uh all our tutors at the institute do that and still there are a group out there that continues to say that um dominance dominant behavior doesn't exist and and maybe it exists for all other animals but apparently not for the dog which would be which would be an evolutionary uh like winning the lottery or or or or dogs are aliens and have completely different genetic makeup than every other one in on

earth yeah i wrote an article once called the dominance making sense of the nonsense um where i look i i'm an evolutionary biologist and ethologist i define very precisely you can find it on our website um courses and i wrote over 100 articles which are free for people there to write to read and i define the dominant behavior um submissive behavior aggressive behavior and fearful behavior very clearly and the way i interpret that in my model which started actually with them another book the evolution of canine social behavior which was published at the same time of dog language uh in my model i i see these things as not characteristics of the individual but characteristics of them of the behavior you cannot say that you cannot say that someone is dominant you can say someone behaves dominantly you cannot say that someone else is submissive you can say someone behaves or is submissive behaves submissively if you know what i mean right yes it's the behavior those terms are adjectives of behavior not of the individual then of course you have hierarchies you have you do that and i mean if you if you see the function of hierarchies are not to um to oppress some uh particular individuals more than others it's to actually to make the group uh work better harmony of course for for for for for the benefit of everybody um and if you look at them you can even actually uh if you if you go back to the the idea of the selfish gene you can see that um the selection is not or been been done at uh at the group level it's been done at the gene level uh or gene gene plex the the complex of genes uh level um and in that case it favors uh it favors everybody in the group a well a well-structured group favors everybody people i have so much against hierarchies and i said look and and and also another thing i don't understand by the way van is that people these days have so much against wolves well they are always have wolf has also been uh persecuted and it still is um there is a faction of dog trainers and dog owners that they want to distance themselves and their dogs from wolves like we were talking about vampires you know but that is because of the the the propaganda of the ideology because it doesn't fit the narrative yeah yeah maybe maybe you're right yeah maybe that's why you know uh and there is nothing nothing to be ashamed uh uh if if our dogs yes they are very close related to the wolves actually there is no other animal as close related to the wolf as the domestic dog um and and i i i don't see anything to be ashamed of that actually some people even contradict

themselves you know if you look at the studies um wolves show much less level of aggressive behavior for instance when they grow up uh than dogs do and the people say oh aggression is a bad thing they forget actually that dogs are more aggressive than wolves look at the structure hierarchies they don't like hierarchy they if you speak the word alpha they get uh feet you know and they enable they immediately label you like a a bad person because they bring the the most awful description and example of it and it touches everybody's heart and off you are on the bandwagon yes exactly yeah you do but if you look at the structure of a wolf pack um is is um well organized um it's it's family based of course interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact interact streets of rome the the the dog pack is more like a a band of of deliquent teenagers in the in the middle of l.a you know there is no no real structure um there is no no goal no direction for the group um it's uh it's the survival of of the strongest not the fittest you know and and there is the difference again if you look at the wolf there is for sure the the there is structure um there is a direction for for the for the pack and it is the survival of the fittest not the strongest the alpha wolf is not the strongest is actually the the wisest normally is the father of the family and the mother it's uh we call alpha pair because of that you know and why is that so because they are the the wisest and one day they won't be the wisest and then they lose it and then someone else wiser takes the place you know yeah yeah i'm glad we we're talking about this i i mean also we we have to make sure that we we understand that we the the whole idea of of constantly going after your dog as a pet owner and suppressing him and thinking that he's gonna take over your world it's wrong but you know of course it is but but who says that i mean but you cannot oh there is um there is a lot of um um i mean on on both sides of the extremes i think there is uh there is this notion of uh well you know that the traditional approach will be he needs to know who's the boss but he needs to know who's the boss is it's in a very uh um with a lot of animosity and and like like they before they even start interacting with the dog they are all were already convinced

that the dog is gonna show them the middle finger no matter what you know and it's like so therefore we we need to start right now and he needs to be and and this is not the authority because there is difference between authority and respect versus total total fear and and i really i mean and the but but even to go from one extreme to the other doesn't bring the situation of the dog better correct because if you use that kind of authority i shall use the boss the dog lives in a state of fear because he doesn't know what to expect but if you go to the other side and you say oh no we are we are there i know was it no no we are all equal and all that the dog also lives in a constant state of fear because there's no what to do and nobody nobody is showing directions you know right so again what have you done we we have changed the plates the soup is the same and the dog is is insecure and miserable before uh or after as it was before so you know i would say that it's all a question of balance and now i know that people are gonna label me and uh and you know what even i don't care i still think one of maybe the lessons that i've learned throughout my life of studying nature of observing nature is it is a question of balance in nature extremes do not fare as well as balanced individuals in all aspects yeah yeah yeah yeah wow very very nice conversations but but uh just to you know kind of finish the conversation about when when we talk in mythology about dominant submissive aggressive and fearful we don't mean anything like um uh either uh i'm the boss or uh you can do whatever you want you know it's it's not the terms do not mean that the terms describe very specific behaviors which play a role in in um in a global evolutionarily stable strategy yeah uh i hope you found it interesting to what i have to say i oh i i i can i can have that conversation like like we can go on but i know it we we did quite a bit we can do it another day we can we should we should because uh we really i i think we have a lot we we have a lot of things that we can talk about and and i think at least for me it's very mind stimulating and and i know my audience the people that like my podcast they would absolutely love you so um thank you very much for joining we i i want to tell you that we also have students and even tutors among uh among ourselves that are great fans of yours thank you thank you thank you by the way uh um i mean just just at the end like uh how somebody can reach you and and very briefly just a little bit about the the institute because i know i mean i follow it of

course but you know i have also my own school and i i teach um but um i i really would like people to know about uh what you do with the institute because it's a it's a very important yeah ethology institute you can reach us on our website at ethology.eu and what we we do basically is that we offer courses and programs programs for um um the doc the the first one different levels you know the dog training uh advanced dog training and the animal training but we call it applied ethology because for us the important thing is not so much the the the training part is the applied ethology so one of the it's called one of the the the levels it's called um um certificate in applied canine ethology and the other one is in um advanced animal uh ethology applied ethology um so we offer the courses we these days we offer them uh online the all theory online with them we have forums where the students and the tutors meet and discuss these things um we have meetings like the one we have having now zoom zoom meetings where where we tutors meet the students and talk about whatever they need and all the practical work um you can also do it from home um actually we we we wished i i still missed the on-campus atmosphere being able to be there live with the students and the animals but these days is not possible so we do it by by by video actually the tutors are in contact with the students like like here for instance or through skype normally and um they they show what they do the the tutor corrects they do it again you know through through video yeah so how how long normally it's like the your uh the initial program well how long does it take cpdt which is the certified professional dog trainer um program people can do it in about one year depending on their practical skills if they are very good uh with the practical skills then they can do it in six months which is even but you know the problem is always the practice we we um we wait the practical part quite a lot because we don't want our students to be people that know everything about everything but cannot show anything we want them to be able to show um i used to say words are cheap show me instead yes and that is what um takes time i most students they do the theory in four five six months and then the rest of the time is um um struggling struggling with the the practice and i really say struggling because many come with bad habits you know and um and we have kind of start from from ground zero right right and then we have the next program which is the cert

certificate in applied canine anthology that takes about six months more and it's more demanding and he includes also the scent detection canine scent detection not because we want them to be especially good at scent detection but because of what it teaches them uh-huh to to pass the blood the double blind test in scent detection has taught them to be able to communicate with the animal to read the behavior of the animal to understand the difficulties of the animal and i think they learn a lot and then we have the last one which is the certificate in applied animal mythology where they have to work besides working with dogs they have to work with two other species and most choose dogs and cats but we also have dogs and guinea pigs we have dogs and marine mammals horses and marine mammals i mean you can combine that in many different ways so that's what the ethology institute does and then we have as you know our group on facebook um which is called the ethology institute group where we invite everybody to discuss whatever topic they may want the only rules we have is that um you they they must respect one another they have to be cautious to one another and and and provide arguments we don't care whether you come from the right or from the left on the contrary like you said we want everybody to talk together we want all i ideas to be there but one thing that we are very strict and we will not tolerate these bad manners if you know what i mean yeah yeah especially now you may disagree with the statement but you may not disagree with the person i used to say a person is different disagree with the statement that's fine provide arguments that's fine we have extremes in our group we have people from both extremes um discussing and that's fine we monitor that as long as they are polite to one another and and provide arguments that's fine that group is also very important for us because it's part of what we call knowledge to everyone everywhere that's our goal that's our goal to spread knowledge to everyone everywhere we don't have any special ideology or school that we um that we promote you know like um you have to do it like that no yeah we we want to promote open-mindedness uh real science and critical thinking that's the best way to do it's really the best way it's very similar like i at my school the training without conflict it's it's very similar um and we do have the zoom calls and do have everything and and um yeah it's really probably quite similar because convincing both extremes that they are they are really just blindfolded and and yeah and i also hear

that you promote also the open-mindedness you know very much so very much so like i i tell you what like if somebody says right now that they they have a better way whatever that is but it's a better way and they live in alaska or hong kong and it's covet times i will find a way to go and learn it like i will find a way to go and learn it and i think i'm not alone i think uh many many dog trainers will do the the same where we struggle with is especially with social media and especially with some of the scientific kind of sell the papers that's like oh no this works better it's proven to work and then you and then i go and i spend a week and trying to get a hold of anybody okay it's proven but where is it proven i i actually can you show me you say that there is videos there is there is this there is this like like you telling me that it's proven it's just very insufficient and if we get to the core it's like no you you're better and you know you think you have something better present it and show it and and and you will get everybody on board and i think somehow we need to on on from all angles we need to approach this a little bit different than one being taller than the other it's like no it's proven you have to just trust me that this is how it is like no that's not how we work that's not how we function it's our own approach yeah even we could go on forever i know it was a pleasure i i cannot like i i know i i'm so so happy that i was able to invite you and that you had some free time to do this with me thank you thank you and the pleasure is mutual it's been a pleasure for me as well to to have met you finally because i've also heard as you know a lot about you uh also from our tutors yes maybe one day we meet in person maybe i know i have so many ideas and so many conversations that just will be interesting like you know for example dealing with competing reinforcers and how all the different reinforcement where is their place and how they affect the most emotions and like i know i know we're gonna talk a little bit at some point again oh yeah oh yeah we we have we have one of our to follow her on um on um on our group page um christina she called christina sette budi from singapore she's very much into that now studying that you know we all have our specialties at the institute right um and that that you mentioned there it's her specialty she's right into that now doing some research uh i think you could have some very interesting discussions with her about that too yeah roger thank you so much again and we'll be talking again we will thank you ivan thank you so interact