Pawperfect Guide Interview

[00:00] it's quite cold about three degrees celsius okay so hello everyone and welcome to our series the perfect guide uh today we have with us the most awaited one of the series with michael bellin and bad bellin they don't really need an introduction so i'm gonna straight go and not [00:26] waste any time and let them start speaking a little about their journey into dog training or when did you guys start which was your first dog you should i should michael starts i've been training animals most of my life when when i grew up we had always dogs in the house but i think that's true for everyone really what hooked me was uh when i [00:56] was riding horses so that was my real real passion um and then i came around back to dogs later me my dog journey started in africa when i was a young kid my parents had a young dog together with my bird around so i did grow up with a little mixed dog [01:30] and maybe that did imprint something in my mind and then when i was 14 we did left africa for belgium and there we lived close to malines which is a city in belgium where the name of the malinois the dog from malines comes from [01:57] and as a young kid i was always dreaming about the malinois don't ask me why maybe due to the fact that it had to do with the big city and big city is 80 000 people it's not numbai it's not a billion so so we have other figures in belgium in there when i was 14 years old i had my first moly noise and that's how it started and the club nearby was in those days one of the top clubs [02:30] in belgium ring sports and then slowly it degraded to a little club of nothing and we had goat that were eating the grass instead of a grass mower so that's how it started and slowly you become better and better and better and before you know you are semi-professional and then before you know you are professional [02:59] and by being a hobbyist you have a lot of passion and then we become we call semi-professional is what we call a jobby a guy that has a jobby it's not a job it's a jobby it's the extra job and then one day jobby brings more money than your job and then you are in professionalism and then you must pay bills and taxes and then you see whoa whoa whoa whoa being professional is not so easy now we must make money

[03:29] to live from our dream so a lot of times being a hobbyist is easier because then you have time for your own dogs whereas when you're professional you're paid to train other people's dogs that are not too good and your good dog sit on the shelf you don't train him that's the story of a professional and what we advise to all people that are professionals is don't take private dogs you already you must [04:03] concentrate on the dogs of your customers and in your free time you must reload and do something else otherwise your job will kill your passion wow okay i think it's much easier that's an interesting take yeah to be a hobbyist and have keep your passion i had once a french friend long ago a certain monsieur andre noel [04:36] and andre noel was the man in france was making the molly noise popular and he worked for the movie industry and all the movies where the dogs they came to andre andre was a guy that was well spoken and very intelligent and one day i asked him andre why don't you train dogs anymore and he asked me bart [05:06] my job did kill my passion i never forget his answer and i could not understand it until the day i was also and then i did remember every word okay so that's about our journey and then one day by playing around the world michael and i we met each other on training seminar she was divorced i was divorced and then we [05:40] met in room 223 in the hotel so that's our journey and then we did marry in las vegas where a friend fred hassen told us hey michael bart in las vegas you can marry very fast and then we did marry in a truck [06:07] and we had this carloads on the heart and then the priest asked us do you wanna come out of your truck and we said no but do you have a wedding ring we said no do you want got involved we said well not this time so you want you want a kiss we're like nah nah and 15 minutes later we were married and we still [06:34] married that's our story okay then okay uh so tell us something about what made you want to create your own system you know nipopo what was it that you were seeing in doc training that made you think okay you want to create your own system i i don't think it was so much that we wanted to create our own system it's [07:02] something that came naturally and ended up being different from the norm you must understand that in the old days doc training was based on submission and then the late 1980s there came the book from current prior don't shoot the dog which was a propaganda for only positive training

[07:35] but in the book is also written consequence not doing because positive training is always linked to rewarding never to correcting the dog and yes in positive training you do correct the dog and not giving the animal the reward for five hours ten hours and the reward in this case is existential food [08:05] so that book did change the world of dog training and over the years and certainly in europe animal welfare became very strong and there is a law that stipulates it is forbidden without valid reason to inflict pain to inflict pain to your animal in this case the dog where from suffering could follow [08:39] that means that if you train dogs that legal framework is always watching to you and you must stay in that legal framework the problem of that legal framework is that every country and every state and every county has another interpretation of this law what is the valid reason to inflict pain because the law says you need a valid reason [09:11] and the valid reason is to save a human being from the dog you must inflict pain where from the animal could suffer you're not yeah you're obligated another valid reason to inflict pain is to save the life of your dog you must inflict pain where from suffering could follow and then there is two other elastics in this legal framework what does mean pain [09:42] i like a soft bet and maybe the fakir that person wants a bet with nails so what is pain to me the fakir he or she enjoys it and what does mean suffering so it's very complicated but at the end good dog training must be fitting in the legal framework so and that's why michael and i [10:10] did come with the nepropo to make a system that is politic palatable in the world and all over the world and well i'd like to interject here that in the karen prior book what is a very powerful reinforcer positive reinforcer is existential food that's a very powerful reinforcer but [10:42] to be powerful that existential food must take away a hunger pain and taking away something unpleasant is the definition of negative reinforcement so here again we have a paradox what michael means is that positive training when it really works is based on negative reinforcement taking the hunger pain away because once it's full it's no longer really [11:13] rewarding anymore and we just did touch that topic so all over the world you have different opinions and different religions my question to you is is in buddhism is it allowed to correct a dog we have no idea so is it allowed to not give food as a

[11:39] correction to your dog because most people that like the dog for example people stay in positive training but they use the correction from negative reinforcement which is popopone and that doesn't work because the dog is prepared they're adding something yeah they're adding something unpleasant yeah the dog's not prepared for that so if you are in a training system please stay in your training system and use the consequences for [12:13] doing and not doing from your training system and that is why mike and i do propaganda over the world so when we come for a school we teach positive reinforcement in all its power corrections and of course the rewards and we use negative reinforcement and we tell people negative reinforcement in the rewarding [12:38] and in the correcting and then we say but why don't putting the two systems together and there you have naples and in naples you use the double reward you can use the double correction and you have all the advantage from both systems because the biggest problem the positive reinforcement is you need a quantity of repetitions big huge quantity of repetitions and yes you have an immediate correction possibility but with the delayed effect [13:13] you can say as a correction we stop the training we take you out of the playroom and we don't feed you for 24 hours which is an immediate correction but with a delayed effect and it's very strong that people don't use it so that's what michael and i teach all over the world we try to explain people the system the advantages of the system the consequences and then we tell them by putting both together [13:43] maple paw is a training system where you can always make your dog do on cue with heart and soul because that's what maple paw is so we use the maximum of the advantages of both systems yeah absolutely i think that was the most important thing that you said you know that the negative punishment is the one which you know we end up using so badly [14:11] like we just don't put the thing away all right yes yes now okay sorry you were saying this is the question i can ask yeah someone's asking from the audience how did you discover negative reinforcement as a way to teach well we did not discover that then negative reinforcement is old as the street it works

[14:43] perfect on horses people that do horse riding they just do negative reinforcement where stopping the pressure is the reward and is the stopping the pressure is the keep on going signal the big difference between positive reinforcement and positive reinforcement and positive reinforcement is and that is a very important one in positive reinforcement the behavior is the bridge to get the money [15:12] in negative reinforcement the behavior is the reward you don't need to work because the behavior is the reward the behavior is the reward the biggest problem from negative reinforcement was that in the old days the language of negative that we use as a reinforcer was too high in level and instead of reinforcing the behavior we were making the behavior aversive for the dog and the command [15:40] related to it also was averted because we did not understand too much the level of reinforcement we should use and and that's the that's one of the uh disadvantages of negative reinforcement because you could you can cause scars if you're not using it properly and normally we say that the negative reinforcement you use cannot be higher than the hope once it's higher than the hope it's aversive [16:10] it's aversive what you must also understand why is it reliable well there is a book and the name of the book is the talent code and in the talent code the author does explain about reflex response so that means that all people that are good in what they do they do it on reflex response [16:37] what training is the same if your dog is not answering with the reflex respond on your command he's not trained how do you arrive at that reflex response in negative reinforcement well the discomfort creates a type of alarm situation in the body of the dog and when the dog find the quality zone where the [17:02] unpleasant stops that makes a very strong myelin around the synapse the synapse is the place where muscle and the nerve come together and that makes three flexed response so strong and that's what make that behavior reliable because it is a reflex response and if dog training is not reflex response the dog still thinks should i do it should i not do it he's not trained so and yes negative reinforcement

[17:35] is very reliable due to that but positive reinforcement also can bring you there if you use the hunger pain too much people do positive reinforcement of course yeah it's the same that's because it's negative reinforcement of course good yes positive training with food is by definition negative reinforcement if you if you if you say to your child bring home the car and if you come home on time i'll give you a [18:07] lollipop or if you say bring the car on time or i'll take away your car privileges i burn the car which one do you think is going to be more effective in making them come home second take away the thought privileges yeah kids don't need the lollipop no yeah especially if they're not hungry at that time yes exactly or if they have a better offer than a lollipop that's what a lot of people do in positive [18:37] training their reward is a motivational reward which you cannot punish with taking away the ball is not a punishment for a dog it's not it doesn't it creates frustration but the dog does not need the ball to survive the food so i think that takes us to the next question which we are like right there at the point [19:03] is what do we do in a situation where the distractions are bigger than the paycheck offer so we just said the same thing yeah of course it depends on where you are and where you are in your system because the learning pyramid says it's three levels the first level is always help the second level is intermittent health and the last level is stimulus control i say you do now when we are in positive [19:36] reinforcement and when the distraction is stronger it means that we have no motivation it means that we have no gasoline and the dog is not interested in our paycheck and there people make the mistake by making the paycheck stronger by giving more you must make the paycheck stronger by stopping the training for 24 hours now the paycheck will be strong it's not a it's not a distraction problem it's a motivation [20:06] problem yes yes and in different reinforcement you can devaluate you can devaluate the distraction by tapping light or higher until the distraction is so devaluated that the dog watches to you and as you and as you and pleases you by doing the commands so that's the big and of course you want to go from a relatively sterile environment to more and more and more distractions to make it successful

[20:42] you don't go from a sterile environment to a war zone you cannot not see what most people do yes a lot of people do that and most people are in the first level of the learning pyramid always helped and then they go to competition where no help is allowed so they forget the step in between the intermittent and it's beautiful people but what can we say so can you tell us a little bit more about the intermittent phase of rewarding [21:15] well intermittent phase of rewarding there is two things you can do you can intermittent randomly and randomly means it has nothing to do with the behavior of the dog you just reward now and then without reading the dog and that makes certainly a jack top dog it's jacked up so it's based on quantity [21:41] not quality yes and then there is a better system and that is shaping where you only will reward the better behavior technically and faster in the intermittent phase that's how you do and and of course you want to reach most people especially in competition want to reach the top level of the pyramid which is under stimulus control that means when you say the dog does so in the beginning [22:12] you're in help always and when you're in the stage you're in more help but less and less help and as you move up in the intermittent stage you're offering less and less help so you're only helping less and less until you're at the top that means that for example if you are in positive reinforcement and when you are in intermittent the dog does you do nothing the dog does we do nothing the dog does you can reward [22:45] that's the jackpot that's the dopamine machine or the dog does it better and faster now you reward so that's the intermittent and the idea is that slowly you take away the reward until the behavior is the reward the idea of training is that the behavior should become the reward due to classic conditioning behavior [23:11] the behavior will take over the power of the food that's the idea and that goes over a lot of training okay that is the intermittent and that's the same positive reinforcement and if you're randomly rewarding based on just being random [23:40] without looking at your dog you're going to have high motivation that's not going to be as correct as succinct as uh to the point as if you are rewarding randomly but based on good behavior and then very important in positive reinforcement it's not about the rewards it's about the hope maybe get to the reward

[24:08] and that has been proved by the study jackpot dopamine from professor stapolsky and you guys can look that whole study on youtube but there you see that if positive training must create dopamine and if you use the predictable reward which most people do you create communism and there is no dopamine in the behavior [24:34] there is nothing the only dopamine that comes is when you start the exercise the cue for starting the exercise and the real good positive reinforcement is with the intermittent reward and intermittent reward creates that hunting behavior and that dopamine for the hunt the pleasure for the hunt that's why feeding too much [25:01] is making your dog slow and less excited every two steps i feed and then three steps i feed and then two steps i feed and then sit and i feed and down and i feed and the dog falls asleep because he knows exactly what he's going to get and when he's going to get it i cannot speak for mike but for me by looking to that youtube session from professor stapolsky i did understand for myself why for years i always have dogs with punch always [25:36] i always automatically used intermittent reward because it is good with my nature with my personality he likes to withhold i like to withhold yes and i saw that people that always reward have always lazy dogs so i also saw that but i could not explain why so i knew that by using what i did was bringing [26:02] flashy dogs but i did not know why and due to that explanation of professor sapolsky i understood why and that's why mike and i used that book or not the book but the youtube session from dr sapolsky as obliged um um homework yeah i think i've done that mistake with my dog i have rewarded a lot i have rewarded every single [26:30] time and yes you're right he has become slow he does go into the down but he'll go uh okay she will give it to me yeah so i do see my mistake now yes in economic system they call it that there is two there is capitalism and there is communism and communism certainly everybody's slower there is no special needs whatever you do the paycheck is the same why should i work harder and then you have of course [27:01] capitalism where you can work hard and make a lot of money but there is a lot of pressure also what if you are sick in communism no problem in capitalism there is a problem okay so it's very interesting and then the i see there is another question does the dog like the work or the handler or the reward well

[27:27] yeah so because a lot of people you know so they have this uh unfortunately there are trainers you know who are going to uh tell owners that okay you know let's the dog should work for you not for anything else but i think we rather think that the dog has to work for his work that he likes to work right like not so much to do with the handler or the rewards or anything well if you are only the sugar mama it will [27:57] not work and if you are the papa with the ak-47 on the throat of a dog it will not work neither it means that the dog must find his advantage and whatever system you use the dog will the dog is a gold digger try to find gold but you must let the dog try to find gold it's like when you train a dog you need [28:24] gasoline you need what we call ignition it's like if you drive a car you need gasoline and if you don't have gasoline you cannot drive your car so that means that michael and i we are gasoline trainers we only start training a dog when ignition when they drive when there is no drive we don't start we call that the water is not cooking the dog's water and when the dog's water is cooking you throw [28:53] spaghetti in that water which is behavior exercises 10 minutes later you can eat spaghetti so if you have ignition you can do hundreds of repetitions because at the end you need repetitions and in positive rain you need much more repetitions and there the problem is in my question you use food and you have a little chihuahua how much food can that little chihuahua eat 10 kibbles a day well you can [29:22] only do 10 repetitions if you always reward so that is no gasoline you need stronger gasoline that you can do hundreds of repetitions yeah okay so uh it's a follow-up question from what you said a while back so when you say stop training for 24 hours do you mean no food and no training and also no play during that 24 hours or basically no interaction with the dog or just no feeding well a punishment should be a [29:53] punishment a correction should be a correction it's like in my day when i was a kid go to your room means it's cold there is no electricity there is no television there is no wi-fi that was a punishment today if you go to your room there is wi-fi there is television there is a nice bed it's not a it's not a punishment that means that if you're 24 hours if that's a punishment okay now it depends on how old

[30:21] the dog is what the training level of the dog is and a lot of personal if it's a if it's a puppy a five month old puppy you can just put him away and try again in an hour okay one meal later later it's three four hours later you see the adult dog it can be the next day be careful by not drinking giving a drink to your dog so and no interaction with our dog that's true you say okay you don't want to be in our [30:53] pack we don't want you to be in our pack neither i mean normally we we like them to once they do the work then we have fun that we sort of after we train we have a good time together listen the biggest mistake the old people did tell me was never let a dog beg the biggest mistake they told me was never [31:19] reward begging behavior that's the biggest mistake that ever told me so michael and i when a young dog is begging of course we reward that they they push us to start so i let my dog out my dog goes to the bathroom and then my dog starts going between my legs looking up and prancing next to me jumps on his bed or jumps on the bite table or goes into the bucket and gets all the force fetch things and starts [31:47] carrying them around that dog is telling me let's go i want to go let's go and then of course i'm the young dog i'm the bimbo so i say okay we start it's in each teaching children is the same you must create an environment of teaching where the child is demanding teacher teacher please teach me and i think this is very important that in the talent code in the last third of the book they talk about [32:17] master coaching and the master coach of the beginner is much different than the master coach of the expert in the beginning a master coach is one who makes love for that behavior however they do it they make love for that behavior even if it's not perfect they make them love it so that's the job of [32:45] the beginner coach and in the middle you make enough ignition that they notice their own mistakes and have a passion to learn on their own that's the middle and then expert is to learn and really fight for those last two three percent so it's a different so it depends on when you're coaching it depends on whether you're [33:14] old they are and how advanced they are me i'm a good master coach for the last step of the dogs he likes the last one percent i like the yes many dogs so i i i like the last level where the master coach pushes the dog to become three four percent better that's my thing i actually like i like all of it but i like i like it when i train a dog up to

[33:45] that and bart does love two percent wow that was perfectly fine i'm guessing great now to answer mr kashi visual's question again yeah yeah but you cannot say that it's empty for our punishment punishment must be long enough to be a punishment right whatever that is that was the previous question [34:15] uh okay and in this question does it go ahead yeah uh that's a dog trained in positive methods have to be retrained again in nipopo or how do you transition a dog which knows the behavior taught in positive methods but i think that's a punch no it's a good question it means that some people train the dog in positive only [34:44] and are good at that perfect that's perfect but you know exactly that their dog one day will be disobedient and yes in positive reinforcement you have a correction that you apply immediately but the effect of that correction is only 24 hours later that means that in the reality you need a dog that you can correct now [35:10] and continue immediately for example we go to find a elder person that has alzheimer and they request the police with the canine team to find the person man trailing we call that good police comes and now the officer the officer the police officer tells his boss boss my dog is not in the mood i need a 24-hour [35:36] correction and tomorrow i can come back if that my officer i kick under his eyes and i say i never want to see you again we need a team that say go immediately that means that dog must be trained so that you can make them do also when they don't want to do but when they do they must do it with heart and soul that means that people that do train their dog in positive only and if they are smart they realize [36:06] whoa i have a missing link i cannot correct my dog immediately and continue the exercise immediately when he doesn't want to do yes and that's why you must introduce and we call that the contact method in every command that your dog understand you add a negative reinforcement sit and then you do the rest of your training click reward whatever down and the reinforcer can be mechanically it can be a bamboo [36:36] stick it can be a pinch color it can be a choker it can be a e-color as long as it gives the dog a type of tactile feeling that's not aversive and that's a negative reinforcement yes it's a negative reinforcement that you introduce at the lowest level in every command that the dog knows very well two weeks later and you do it in every command two weeks later you hire the top level you hire the pressure a little bit

[37:06] higher and that's why electronics are so easy there you have preset levels and for example in our brand you go from level one to level two and you add level two in every command together sit down still and then the dog does you can click you can do whatever you want until one day you go to intermittent and one day you go to i do nothing anymore and i wait until my dog is distracted and makes a mistake [37:37] and now i can correct my dog with my electronic mechanics or whatever the biggest problem from people is that imagine they use a bamboo to teach the dog sit down stand still then you must use the bamboo sit he doesn't do then the bamboo correction must come you must stay the correction must stay in the language of mechanics that you did use your dog if it's a pinch color that you used as a reinforcer you must use the pinch color as a correction tool [38:09] if it's a bamboo stick that you use as a reinforcer to do you must use that bamboo to correct your dog for not doing and that's where people make a deadly mistake i hope to answer his question yes and so so again from what you just said you rather introduce it as a reinforcer first right like if i directly use a prong uh to punish my dog or basically to teach a no if my dog is doing something wrong and i've [38:40] directly this first interaction with the prong has been for me to say no and correct him then to take him back to teach him with just for negative reinforcement it's gonna be tougher right now you cannot start with aversive that's very hard you must start with reinforcement and that can become a correction or aversive later the biggest problem for example is in the e-color world is the anti-bark color or the fence [39:08] the invisible fence the anti-bark is a high unpleasant stim together with unwanted behavior and it should stop stop when wanted behavior is there and what is wanted behavior normal barking if you start a device like that for three months and later you go with the e-color to learn your dog sit down and stand still that's very hard because there is an electronics car that did make your dog a little bit whoa from electronics [39:41] and that's why when we use electronics on puppies for example or any new dogs we don't use it in aversive ways or in punishment ways when we first use it we only use it in shaping ways or the contact method small negative reinforcements what everybody will understand is you have a little baby a child and the only way you speak to the child is you you scream and you match so the little child is totally

[40:14] terrified by your voice and later you start trying to whisper to the child that doesn't work the scar is there and that's the mistake too much people do okay yes absolutely absolutely okay uh moving on to another very common thing that people talk about is free shaping or luring so you know to teach any [40:39] behavior what is it that you prefer um i mean especially something like a heel or something like that like would you still go with free shaping or you can do a little bit of luring there we're not extreme extremely dogmatic in uh teaching behaviors via shape free shaping or via learning the whole idea luring the whole idea of free shaping is more to make the ignition of the dog to make them thinking to make them confident [41:11] and independent and to make them think that they did invent the exercise and that they claim a patent on that exercise and later they will fight for the patent when they are not allowed to do that exercise so so so we believe very strongly in free shaping but not to the exclusion of everything else once you get a dog that's very strong from being free shaped and he's very strong and independent you can go back to the old [41:44] napopo system you can use luring now free shaping or luring only will work if you have a good paycheck if there is hope so whatever system you are in both will only work if your paycheck attracts the dog that's one thing okay then not all dogs can be free shaped and not all dogs can be lured and have it look [42:14] like it should the big problem of free shaping is that people that do free shaping like it so much that they do forget to introduce the verbal command they just stay in free shaping and the dog after five years still does not answer on one command the idea of free shaping is that when the dog does the behavior more and more when you are happy with the behavior you can name it when the dog does it later you [42:46] can name it and the dog will do it so we have stimulus control so the whole idea of both systems is that you have stimulus control i say you do but the big advantage of shaping is that the dog invents the exercise the dog is not inventing exercise learning is the dog will follow they don't invent so they are certainly

[43:14] active but the dog is not creative and the only creativity in luring that will come is one of the lured exercises so if the dog for example you learn the dog is down and still you learn the dog in left healing and right healing and then at a certain point you do nothing the dog will start to be active on his own but in the five patterns left healing right healing sit down and stand still that's it [43:43] well in free shaping dog will start over and over and over again behavior and opposite behaviors and that's what we like but don't think that we stay in shaping what you must understand is that if you do nose work in nose work in nose work the best nose work dogs are always coming out of free shaping in nose work you cannot pick your doctor it's impossible the not that there must be the activity [44:13] from the dog must be coming out of the dog and that's the real sniff dog in excess you must use free shaping techniques and of course you can also use blurring techniques but at the end it's about how the dog does understand your system there is an american politician that says it's not so important what i say what is important is what you do comprehend from what i say dog training is the same we know people [44:44] that know everything perfect and they do everything perfect but the dog does everything wrong that means that the dog is not interpreting their system so there again we learning versus shaping if the results are there perfect for us we like to see an active dog we like to see a dog that is on command with heart and soul and yes the big problem from shaping is that too much people stay too long in searching behavior [45:15] and searching behavior is always slow because when the dog knows he's not searching and he's faster and faster and faster and faster okay but the nice thing about taking a dog to learn his behaviors is that when you need to learn a new behavior the dog is as quick to be trying to figure it out as you want hey how many people do you have in india [45:46] because one guy's asking how many people do you have in india there are lots of people so let's take questions from other people sure that's a very good question that was an excellent question i was thinking i was thinking one person there is one i like his question so there are a lot of comments i'm just posting the questions

[46:12] which are you know an absolutely new topic so uh that's right that was a very very good question yes why do we teach opposite behavior and let me answer that yes yes it's a very good question for one billion people everybody's name is kashi visual question if you teach bark it's easier to teach bark if you if you teach bark and quiet once they're quiet you can [46:55] have the bark if you teach sit and you only teach sit then when you try to reach down when they're confused they just sit the sit becomes mother language we always want if they look to us we want them also to look to something else because when we want them to look to something else if we've only taught look to me they're locked on looking only at you so we try to always do behavior and opposite behavior [47:25] so that for every man you aren't stuck in a mother language both the behavior and the opposite behavior you must be able to reinforce with the same reinforcement and the same level of reinforcement and both behaviors you must be able to correct by not doing if i say look to me he must look to me and if he does not look to me he will feel the consequence [47:56] if we look to target and if the dog does not look to target the dog will feel the same consequence for the opposite behavior and that's what most people don't grab but it's very important it's a little bit like if your dog chews on your leash rather than your dog stop you stop doing it you can say he holds the leash without chewing you reward him he holds the leash without chewing and you reward him so you [48:22] teach him hold the leash hold it and now once you teach hold you teach give hold and give hold and then he tries to hold it and you can't hold it you see so it makes it easier to teach both wow that's interesting okay okay we have another question from marcel from florida in the us can you use nepo [48:52] pore system without any color of course of course you can the only problem is that the big advantage of the e-color is timing and it is not personal whereas you use bamboo or whatever the animal knows exactly that you it's your hand it's your foot it's your leash it's your they know that exactly and also good quality if you use a good quality quality the calibration is the same try using a pinch collar with the exact

[49:23] same force every time it's impossible it's impossible but with an e-caller if you're using a good quality one level two is level two three is level three when you're when you're using your hand or a police it's variable it's impossible to get the same got it okay uh that takes us to the next thing which we [49:53] see you know on your site and everything where you talk about the same whip where you use it for multiple purposes right to pet a dog or to correct a dog or to give the dog to hold or to retrieve uh can you tell us a little bit about that it's very easy when i was 14 years old 14 years old old wise man told me [50:19] because in those days we used the bamboo stick bamboo stick for everything healing and he told me little guy if you use the bamboo stick you must be able to pet the dog with the bamboo stick with the same bamboo stick you must be able to give directions with the same bamboo stick you must be able to reinforce go go go sit down stand still [50:46] with the same bamboo you must be able to say sit and when the dog does not do you correct and after you give the dog a correction you throw the bamboo away and you say fetch if your dog understands this complete picture you are a top trainer that's contextual not not on the basis of the object it's a contextual understanding it's like my hand I can be nice with my hand to my dog by petting [51:14] him this is a calm down signal this is a jack up signal to make them excited then I can say the command together with the reinforcer I can say sit and it doesn't do I say hey what the fuck so my hand is contextual what Michael said is they understand perfectly to not be afraid from your hand because if you only use your hand to kick the ass they will be afraid of your hands right and [51:43] you can see that very well if if if every time somebody takes a stick their dog cowers away that means they're only using it for for bam bam we use it the bum bum stick right right and if for example this is the situation with the dog like you said you know they pick up a stick and the dog is getting scared but now this person wants to change it once the dog to understand yeah okay so we can walk

[52:12] around it and make them understand this entire context of course you need a strong hope which is food yeah just before you give food which is the what we call the real needs the the basic signal existential reward just and when that is strong just before that you show the stick and even when the dog is afraid no problem you get the food after ten days they see the stick they say whoa why am I afraid the hotel is open the [52:41] restaurant is open that's how you count the condition of course yes yeah that's great okay let's take a few more questions from the audience I should like to interfere yes Bruce Bruce it what's his name again the last seminar I was in India mr. Prousty [53:08] and mr. Prousty asked me Bart when are you coming back and I said never not because I don't like India but we don't go back to other countries neither the only moment I will come back with my class when thousand people wants to come when thousand people are there Michael and I will fly in thousand people wow it's nothing you guys can make it well we fly in [53:37] if a thousand people are there. And if a thousand people are there and everybody pays 10 euro, everything is paid. Wow, okay. I never forget promises. But what is a thousand people on a billion? I'm so amazed to see that people cannot realize thousands. That's good news for us because I've been having people who are asking me that if we can someday have the Silver School [54:06] in India, so I think... The school will be... The school will be no, but... A seminar. A seminar, a two-day, what we call a Pimp-Up to... You can't give a thousand people the school. That's impossible. To give people a good feeling, to give people a motivation speech, to give people the beginning of the, I want to be a dog trainer, for that we would come. [54:31] We would be coming for that first motivational two-day session. We are good at that. Superb. That's good news for us. That's great. Okay. So, should we take a few more questions? We do have five odd minutes. You did have a... The previous question was out there. It was interesting. Yes. Verbal motivators during training. [54:57] Yes. And normally, I'm not going to speak for Bart, but normally for me, I don't talk to my dog when I'm training. I... My dog doesn't need me to say anything to know he's doing well. It's the same as in competition. The same as in when you have a real scenario. A little bit, the problem of verbal motivations is that the dog starts to depend on it.

[55:27] It's like you depend on your GPS when it talks. And when the GPS does not talk, you think, whoa, the GPS is broken. And you, hey, GPS, speak to me. Speak to me. Am I on the right road? Yes. So, it means that too much dogs start to rely on too much... There's been too much time before you said, good dog. So, am I doing it right now? That's the danger. And then, of course, you must say it more and more often to keep them calm. [55:54] That's it. Yeah. So, nothing wrong with motivators. If the motivators don't start to be the head part of the game. So, if it's just now and then, why not? The problem is people cannot shut their bloody mouth. Right. And the dog starts to be totally depending on good boy, good boy, good boy. Right. And when good boy is not coming, the dog thinks, oh, I'm a bad boy. I either must do something else or this must be good. [56:20] So, we want the dog, if we say nothing, keep doing what you're doing. And there again with the emotions, show emotions. Well, if it works well with the emotions, bring them in. It's not our thing. We see too much people with emotions in both sides. And they say, good job. But the dog understands, fuck. When boss say, good job, he's not happy. [56:45] When boss say, hey, he be poor, then. So, it means that too much work by the dog. The boss say, good, but it means it's no good. You see what I mean? So, that's always the problems. And that's the power of the clicker. The clicker is the marker that announces, come and get your package and discover the gold in the package. [57:11] And maybe it's nothing, but maybe it's 20 kibbles. And that's why it's deadly to show what you give when the dog is coming. Deadly. Deadly. So, because then the dog only works for the visual money. Or for the thing that he wants. Yeah. Deadly. He must work for whatever we give him. But another reason, showing emotions when the dog does, our policy is not that we never give any help. [57:42] We give help, but as little as possible, but as much as is necessary. So, if your dog needs a lot of encouragement, we would do that. But we want to fade that as soon as possible. They shouldn't need encouragement to work. They should work on their own. What you must understand is that we have been on the road as the secret spice for a lot of top trainers,

[58:08] sport trainers, one percent more. One point more. So, for years we were the doctors behind the scenes that were creating and helping people to become better in the sport. That means that our background is a little bit related to sports, where you just can say the command. And that's it. No reward, no corrections. It must work on the road with you. [58:33] So, that's our background. And that's why maybe people think that we never speak or we never do. We tell people do it, but as less as possible and as much as needed. That's it. But don't start singing a song for your dog. I mean... Get it. Got it. Once a guy said to me, Bart, you never speak to the dogs when you're home. I said, well, they never speak to me neither. Why should I speak to them? Interesting. [58:58] I know that people have the need to speak to their dog. I don't have that need, but I accept other people to do. Yeah. And if at the end the dog does well, however you do, fine. I mean, I'm not at home, I don't say anything. I mean, unless I tell them something. Do you speak to me sometimes? Okay. [59:23] I did have an announcement to make. I mean, we have planned a new silver and gold pool in America and the silver pool will be the 22nd to the 26th of March in 2021. And the gold will be the 24th through the 28th of May in 2021. [59:52] So that's new as of this morning. Okay. Okay. Great. I hope that really everyone has paid attention to the dates. So whoever is interested, please, please get in touch with them. Yes. Well, power of the clack clack is that once the dog understands the control position, because it's about a control position, the animal starts to nail that clack clack with more and [60:19] more energy. And then if the dog nails that clack, you can click it. So the clack clack is a feedback for the handler to reach. Well, also it's, it's, it's different examples where you will need to hear them. If the dog is supposed to go into the blind and be in a certain position and bouncing up and down and barking, you can hear it. [60:45] If the dog jumps over the jump, you want them to land in a certain spot. You can hear when he hits the clack clack. You don't have to see it. You don't have to position yourself so that you're watching him. For example, we like to reward in the barking when the, the, the front legs are low. We don't like dogs barking in face of people. Reason you cannot tell politicians that it's just a prey game.

[61:12] And you cannot tell politicians when the muscle of the dog is open before face of a person that is, is friendly. So we don't want that. We let all the people do. But for us, we want the dog to be very low in barking. And then when we hear the clack clack saying clack clack, that's the moment we reward the low position. So the dog will not jump high. We don't like that. [61:37] And there is another reason why me personally, I don't like it. I've been helper in the French ring sport for a few years. And if a dog is jumping high, I can escape out of the blind by pushing him away. And I make 10 meters distance. Whereas when dog is very low, I cannot treat the dog. He's on his four legs and he's strong. [62:02] When a dog is only on two legs, he's weaker. He cannot react so far. So, I mean, it's also... So it only looks crazy. It only looks attractive, but it has its benefits. Yes. Well... The, the jumping up, a lot of people like that look. I hate it. Yes. Pat Nolan. Say hi. Hi Pat. So when you first condition the e-call of a negative, say for going to a table, you usually add a positive food or tongue quickly after the end of the stim. [62:37] So that it increases the positive effect of the stim ending. The stim becomes paired with the reward. Well, that's the basic idea. Yes. That's Nepo Po. That's Nepo Po. And Pat does... All the good dog trainers have that in their fingers and they like extra motivation at the end of stopping the tap. I mean, what top people understand is that stopping the stim, for example, I stim, stim, stim until my dog is in the healing position. [63:07] The dog will feel the safe zone of the healing position and will try to stay in that safe zone. And it's very hard to get that dog out of that zone. That's why we like that extra click release to get him out of that safe zone. Because before you know, the dog does not like to go out of the safe spot. That's why we like that extra positive. [63:32] Wow. Okay. Yes. To be a top trainer, you must be the power manager of your dog. Can you please explain more about this issue? I can still remember where Michael Lee did write that down. Michael Lee was in Finland and it was a seminar that was about 150 people. And Michael Lee was there and it was the first time that I had verbal conversation with Michael Lee that I do appreciate very well.

[64:05] And it was about the energy of your dog. It means that a lot of people before starting the training, they throw away the ball 30 times back and forth. And then they come on the field with a dog that has no more energy and no more desire. That's where the name comes from. You must be the manager of the energy of your dog. [64:31] For example, if you work with 100 kibbles and you give 90% from your kibbles in the first exercise, well, then you have only 10% left to do 10 more exercises. So you must be a little bit the manager. What do I do with my money? It's like a mother in the family. She has $100. With $100, how do I spend it to feed my family for one week? [64:57] So it's a little bit the same. And if you stop your training when you're 10 kibbles away from your end of your budget, how much of an impression do you make? By the way, Michael, we love your little videos from your young puppies that you do. Well, we love it so much and we hope that they all are in good hands. [65:23] And we think on you a lot. So Michael is a good friend of ours. And if I went to China and if Michael is not there, I don't go to China. Because I need a translator that understands everything we do. And Michael is... And has a sense of humor. And a sense of humor. It's a strong leg. It can handle more than one. It's very hard. [65:49] All right. Should we take this last question about what is the right time for anyone? No, no, no. You set up another. We like to stay on our one hour. So it was very nice. You keep that question as the first question the next time. Is that okay? Okay. Definitely. Definitely. It becomes boring. Thank you. [66:14] Yes. We don't want to be boring. We don't want to be boring. We want to be like a rock and roll band. You stop when people want more. Well, it's interesting. Yes. People say, when do I stop training my dog? Do I train my dog as long as he has passion? Or do I wait until the passion is gone? And our answer to those students are, well, when you drive your car, [66:39] do you drive until you're out of gas? Do you drive until you're out of gas and push your car to the gas station? Or do you stop when you still have gas and you can make it to the gas station? I'm guided. Okay. Love you too. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I hope, I mean, everyone has enjoyed this and we hope to see you guys really, really soon. Thank you everyone for watching.

[67:04] Obviously we couldn't take all your questions. It's impossible. So stay tuned. Probably we'll be back soon. The thousand people is the same for the rest of the world. If China brings thousand people together, we are there. If India brings thousand people together, we are there. Michael and I belong to one country. We belong to the world of dog trainers. So there are already people saying this, that we are all ready. [67:31] Everybody, stay safe. Make sure Corona doesn't get you. Yeah. And we will see each other soon. Bye-bye everybody. Be safe. Bye-bye. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Pawperfect Guide Interview 24 October 2020 24 October 2020 - PAWPERFECT GUIDE with Michael and Bart The next one in the trainer series of the PAWFECT GUIDE is all about an amazing dog training system followed all across the world. NePoPo® is a system of dog training that was inspired by nearly 50 years of experience which encompasses history, education, life experience, politics, and practicality.