에피소드 51: Jim Bradley

Now, in hindsight, knowing what I know now, I a hundred percent understand what was going on, but I didn't understand. Because I decided, okay, instead of going through a rescue, let me go find my own Malinois. So I pulled up something called Pet Harbor. It was like Pet Harbor or something, Pet Harbor.com, where you can search a breed at any shelter or rescue and pull it up. So I pulled up a list of Malinois and there was one within a couple of hours of me. And I went and I got, I saw the dog, fell in love with it, got that dog. Here I had a Malinois. I thought. It wasn't, it wasn't anything like a Malinois, but I was perfect. The dog was perfect. The easiest dog you could ever have. So I had a Malinois. I could train a dog and I was an expert in Malinois. And I would later learn how much I wasn't. I just happened to have some sort of a show line. Perfect. And she's sitting right here right now. I just like the perfect show line. Easiest Malinois you could ever have. And anyway, so that sort of got me involved in the world. And I thought I knew Malinois. You know, I had one. Anyway, another one shows up at a shelter that. So now I'd already been researching, finding one of the shelter. You know, I'm getting one of these dogs. So I'm on every list. And anyway, one shows up at Miami-Dade. So I go down to get the dog. The dog was adopted. Well, really, because I felt sorry for the dog. And I had one just like her. This sandy color or whatever it is. Looked just like her. So I went and I said, I'm going to get that dog and help that dog and help it find a home. And then I contacted, I think, Mad Rescue at the Malinois Dutch Shepherd Rescue at the time. And they were just starting. They were, some of them spun off from ABMR and started this rescue, which was new at the time. What is the MBRR? ABMR is the American Belgian Malinois Rescue. American Belgian Malinois Rescue. Excuse me. All right. So that's ABMR. That's probably the largest Malinois Rescue. And now I say behind it, you have the Malinois and Dutch Shepherd Rescue. Again, a lot of these are offshoots of ABMR. If you think there's conflict, if you think there's drama in the training world, enter the rescue world. You know, I think there's something about the fashion for dogs that brings out a lot of drama and people disagree with. You know, whatever. Anyway. I'm sure we actually will get to those things because they're very interesting. And they're, I mean, I'm quite familiar, but it will be an interesting conversation. And people need to know what's going on in this world. For sure, we need to talk about it. But go on. Go on. But anyway.

So that's sort of my beginning. So I began fostering that particular dog. And it turns out that dog was an actual Malinois. So I was quickly over my head with that dog. But you make it work and you try and figure it out. And a lot of these rescues have a lot of resources and people you can talk to to help you and walk you through it. As they were new, and I was down here in South Florida where we have Palm Beach, Broward County, Miami-Dade. We have some big shelters. And there are a lot of dogs here. So when you start out with a new organization, they need people to go down and evaluate dogs. So I would go down and evaluate a dog. And the problem is you don't have enough fosters. So I would go meet these dogs. And they would, well, you know, we don't have a foster available. And I said, well, I just spent 20 minutes with this dog. I've got all this videotape with this dog. You know. And you make a connection with these dogs when you go into the shelters. And to leave them there, I thought, well, what am I going to do? Now, I didn't trust my own opinion. So I made sure I took a lot of video at that time of the dogs. Always had video of these dogs. So when they couldn't take a dog, I said, okay, let me post this video. And I would put some corny music to it. And then I'd post the video. And then it would get shared and shared and shared. And somebody would adopt the dog. Oh, that's interesting. I'd go evaluate another dog. Maybe they couldn't take it. They couldn't find a foster. A foster dropped out. I'd post that video. And the dog would, someone would see it. And they'd go adopt the dog. So I thought, well, this is interesting. So I began to think, all right, let me try and develop followers who are interested in this breed. Because it's a unique breed. And people should know what this breed of any dog. They should know this breed before they go get one. So my thought was, all right, I'm not a rescue. I can't do what a rescue does. A rescue is going to evaluate the adopters. They're going to do home visits. They're going to, I can't do that. But I can do better than what shelters do. And what a shelter does is, you want a dog? Okay, great. Here you go. $50, walk out. But what I could do is I could find followers who are interested in the breed. At least they could say Belgian Malinois. And that's a start. And it's better than what's walking into the shelters today and walks in, sees this dog, looks like a little German shepherd and gets the dog. Because one of the biggest problems is people go to a shelter. They adopt one of these dogs. They think they just have a cute shepherd, a smaller shepherd.

And the return rate on these dogs is probably about 50%. And when you're down in Miami-Dade, you know, it's particularly bad for the return rates of these dogs. So I really wanted to do a little bit better than the shelters were doing. That could never do as good as Mad Rescue or the American Belgian Malinois Rescue or a lot of these rescues. But they were over, but they're even then overflowing. So I was always, I viewed myself as sort of in the middle somewhere between the shelter and the rescues, just trying to help the dog, trying to get publicity. And the other thing that happened as I went to the shelters is I was shocked at how amazing the dogs I was seeing was. I had the same expectation as I began to go to the shelters that these dogs are broken, that there's something wrong with them. And then I would go to a shelter. And you might see three at a time, three in a day. And so you go down, you take the dog into the play area, you videotape the dog, and you play with it. And here I was. Like, I'm relatively new to Malinois at that time, and I'd heard all about Malinois and how difficult they were. And I was taking these dogs out of their kennel with the help of the staff there and playing with them. I'm saying, does nobody see the dogs that are here? And that was another thing that's a reason to start to, I have to show people these dogs. Because if you look at just the pictures that they show on a website, they tell you nothing. Zero. Zero. I would go and I would look at it every time. I would see a picture of a dog that's in the shelter in Broward or Palm Beach. And I would immediately form some idea of what this dog is going to be. And it was never right. And I would go and I would meet these dogs and I would start playing with them. And that was, to this day, it's one of the most fun things I like to do, is to go to a shelter, take one of these dogs, because these dogs have been sitting in the kennel nearly 24-7. They don't get out that much in any of these major shelters. So you get a chance to take the dog out to play with it. And then I started, again, putting these videos out, putting the music, maybe starting to tell their stories a little bit. Oh, where did this dog come from? What's his story? Go, bed, whatever it is, tell the story. And then people started sharing them. And then sometimes, you know, early years ago, it wasn't as bad. So I could put a video and maybe it would get 500 views, but a dog would get adopted. Today, it's much harder. Adoptions have slowed. And I think there's a lot more Malinois today than there were five years ago. Yeah, there is a lot of them.

There is no question. There is a lot of them. And then I, you know, when I used to work early, well, late 90s in a, at San Francisco, in a shelter at the SPCA. And, I mean, people didn't have a clue what that breed is. They were just not, they were not here. They were just individual dogs across the country. They just, I remember me just the easiest way when somebody asked me what kind of dog my dog is, to say that it's a mixed breed so I can walk away. Because the moment you say the name or just like you get stuck in a conversation, now this has changed. This is no longer the case. I mean, occasionally, somebody wouldn't know the breed, but that's not the case anymore. It was, at the time, you know, any type of bully lab mixes, that was the traditional dog that you would see 70% of the population in any shelter. Now it seems like Malinois, unfortunately, are competing for the most popular dog that gets thrown in a shelter. And they are comparing to the bullies. Malinois are very difficult in this type of environment. They just cannot, not that it's a good environment for any dog, but Malinois are a little more edgy, a little more temperamental, and that, just that claustrophobia drives them nuts in there. So the presentation is so... And I think their desire to be with a person is, so they're alone in the shelter. They're just straps. That attachment they have, I think, of yellow breeds, is another thing that makes them crazy. The energy level, that makes them crazy. And when you're in a shelter environment, and you are spinning, they consider that a quality of life issue, and they say, okay, well, he's not, he's thriving. This dog is not thriving in the shelter environment. And that puts them on the list to be euthanized, because they're just not doing well. Or they, or their defensive characteristics, they're going to end up being a higher tendency to bark through the, through the, through the kennel, right? That's something that, that gets dogs euthanized. I mean, right now we're in a situation where space is, where dogs are being euthanized for space all over the place. So we're going to take the dogs that aren't thriving, and the tucker dogs, and the dogs that are not going to be adopted. You know, a mallin walking dog or any, hey mommy, come here. It's, my neighbor's dog is out. Anyway, you're going to end up, rate of euthanasia for these dogs. So I think it's a special breed. And I love the fact that I'm on here, because I think that many of your listeners, your trainers, your serious people, they have an opportunity, if they know what's happening, to foster, to do something.

You know, you don't have to go, these people don't have to go start a rescue. Go foster a dog. Or don't even foster a dog. Go to a shelter, pull up on PetHarbor.com or one of these, any of these search engines. Go play with a dog. Just do that. You go play with a dog. You'd be very surprised at what you see, I think, in the shelter. That's kind of how you get sucked into that rescue, shelter type of work that sometimes, sometimes it's very heartbreaking. Yes. There is no sugar coating. And when you get stuck there, and you go, and you take a dog out, and then you go to work, and then four days have passed, and you're like, I know that dog is not going out unless I go and take it out. And now the wheel starts spinning, and you're getting sucked into that, which is good and bad. And eventually, like I really feel for the volunteer people, because they're just always really amazing, amazing people, regardless of, you know, if they want to have a prone collar, or they're totally against a prone collar, whatever, that's totally irrelevant for the moment. But just the fact that anyone can give a little bit of their time to go and take those dogs out on a walk, which they are just starving to get out. Like it's like the only good thing that they can ever see. And as a volunteer, you totally, like within the first time you take a dog out, you immediately realize how much you're contributing to the life of any dog that is stuck in there. And then you're getting hooked. And it's very hard to get off of this. And the hardest part for them is when a dog gets put down. And typically, some of the volunteers try to find some backdoor opportunities to save a dog. But again, you can save so many until somebody would have to be euthanized. For no apparent reason, besides just, we really don't have any room. And he's or she's been here for more than 10 months or whatever their protocol is. And it's heartbreaking. You know, I'm stuck in this in a way. You know, I think there are plenty of times I'd like to not do this, get off Facebook and, and, you know, go back to my normal life, go kite surfing and doing the stuff. You know, maybe we play with a couple dogs here and there. But so in a way, I am trapped in, in this because whatever this thing that I've created for followers, it, it, it helps the, it's like, I know, I am highly confident if I go into a shelter and meet a dog and play with that dog, takes video, go home, spend a couple of hours on that video, host it. Right. If like an honest assessment of what that dog is, there's a very good chance that dog is going to get out of the shelter. Like, like I would say close to 80% of the, of the time. And my goal is to get the dog

out of the shelter through, to follower or to a rescue that I work with over somebody who's going to walk into the shelter because I know they're going to end up in a better home if the person at least knows what the breed is. So, you know, every now and again, I'll get a call from a shelter, from a shelter, volunteer or worker. Can you do something about this dog or that dog? Now I, I take some shortcuts now. Say, okay, get me video of the dog. I want you to play with the dog. Give me different angles, throw some toys. So, you know, you think about stuff for that, you know, for, for a Malinois, play tug with the dog. I want to see a lot. Give me a, you know, 15, 20 second clips, a bunch, a lot of them. And then you put something together with music, something that you can see the dog, see the reaction of the dog, see the eyes, see how he responds. Now you have something that someone can look at like a foster, okay? Maybe they're not a current foster for a big Cypress, German Shepherd rescue or mad rescue. Maybe they're an inactive foster, but if I can put those videos and people can see with their own eyes, this dog, how it interacts, how it reacts, then a rescue is in a position to say, okay, I can see that dog. I could see, okay. And they can send that video over to someone else to, hey, you're in an inactive foster. Take a look at this video. What do you think? Would you take that dog? And the person who's going to take the dog can say, okay. So that's like another thing that I try to do to work with all the rescues to help them evaluate the dog. Give them an honest opinion of the dog. What happened to the dog? How did it end here? Everything that I can tell them about the dog. Yeah. Any story is a good story. Earlier that we met through, yeah, I didn't want to jump ahead, but I sent the video of that dog to you because I wanted your opinion so that I could go back to the rescues and say, okay, here is what this guy says about this dog. Here's why it's like this. Here's what's happening here. I never expected, first, I never expected you to reply, but I never expected you to reply as you did, which was quite, yeah, you said I baited you into that. And I was looking for I'm good with my decisions always. I never, yeah, yeah, but, so, I think that there is, like, all right, I want to go back, take a step back, because you talked about getting sucked into this, into rescuing things like that. I, I'm, I'm very specific. I love all dogs, but I, I made a decision that I was going to focus on this one breed, not be an expert in this breed, and that is what I'm going to focus on. So, I've gotten good at going to the shelter, putting blinders on, going to K3 or wherever that dog is, and going to that, and just focusing on that one dog. I don't have to

save everybody. You know, there's that parable of the kid who walks on the beach, and there's a starfish, he's throwing starfish back into the ocean, and a man comes up to him and says, what are you doing? You could never, you could never make a difference with all these starfish, and the kid throws a starfish into the water. He said, I made a difference to that, to that, to that one. And I think that's what you try, what I try to do. Take one dog and make a difference to that dog, and that's him. That one at a time. And if 10,000 people do that, that's, you know, or, No, no, it's amazing. I don't want to come, like, I probably came off as I'm trying to discourage people from volunteering, which is totally not, not what I want to say. No, but you're hitting exactly the problem. You're, you're, you're, you just, I think it's a, it's such a delicate, and, and it can be very, very traumatizing to the people that come to help, to volunteer their time. and, looking back to, man, I have so many cool ideas of, of what kind of changes can be done in, in shelter and rescue environments that maybe sometimes I, I just need to really sit down and, and, and, and, you know, put all this together, but, but like, going back to the volunteers, one of the, the things is, those people, are such a, they're just such a, good hearted people that ultimately, sooner or later, if they stick doing this for more than three months, they will be heartbroken. There, there is no question. They'll be heartbroken and burned out. what can be done about this is just, as they come to volunteer, to have a simple conversation that kind of, you know, I mean, it's a, psychological level type, of, you know, like, preparedness of what you're going to do. So, so you, you have a little bit, it doesn't just hit you one day as hard as it can be, but, but you have a little bit more of, of realistic expectations, what you're going to do, and what, sometimes, the outcomes will be there. And, and I think if, if this happens, and it's done prior to, to starting to actually really do, do heavy duty volunteering, uh, uh, have some really good, like, uh, intro course, that can, um, that can have more sustainable number of people that, that will stay longer in this type of environment, because it's just really not easy. Uh, the only problem with that is I think that, I don't think people understand the connection that they're going to end up making. Uh, when, I, I don't think they really get what's, you know, they, they're going to go, they see these, you know, they're just these random dogs and they're just going to go in there. So I, you know, yeah, it's great to help a dog and they're going to walk in. I don't think they're prepared for, for how emotion, uh, like, when you see

the wide range of emotions of a dog, that's when you begin to truly appreciate what we're dealing with, the gift that we have. So, you know, someone has to be prepared to accept the knowledge that you want to give them before they know what's about to happen to them. It was like, when I look at these, like, I'm, I, geez, when I look at these dogs, I love, I've never had a foster, I didn't fall in love with and cry when they left. Uh, it's, uh, it's really amazing. I only had one. It was a puppy. It was like a five month old puppy. It's the only dog I ran out of the house and threw into the car and then ran inside and locked the door. The puppies, I can't stand those, but give me a two-year-old dog or three-year-old dog and then you see that wide, wide range of emotions from the dog that you bring home to the shelter, from the shelter who's afraid of you and who's, you know, shaking and then to see them make the transition to happy and confident and a jerk and just, you know, that's, when you see that wide range of emotions, I think it makes you fall for the dogs much more than, oh, there's a dog. Correct. Yeah. When you start to see like, wow, look at, look, this is amazing. This is, you know, most of my life, I think I went through life looking at dogs and just, oh, it's a dog, you know, but until you start to actually see it, it's, like, it takes very little interaction, but it's the interaction that makes everything, connects everything. I mean, the volunteers is like, you know, they, they relate to the dogs one way or another and chances are a lot of times, like, I've spent a lot of thinking, especially when I was working, you know, in that environment, there was always this question, man, like, there's these people that, I mean, I was like, they, they must like and love dogs more than me and then I'm sitting back and thinking, well, how is that even possible when I'm just, it just cannot be possible but then I think of them and it's like, okay, well, they work, they come, they go back to work, they go, they don't take vacation because that dog, they're just attached to and some, very often, the people that go and volunteer, they also need the dogs, it's kind of like a two-way benefit, like, you know how you would have therapy dogs? Yeah. A lot of volunteers will do that, so they are, maybe they have some troubles in their life, they're going through some bad shit and they would rather take a dog out and talk to the dog than deal with humans again, which makes it even more hard, That's actually fairly common, this is fairly common, by the way, I think that many people involved in rescue have some sort of trauma in their life, somebody had told me that and I thought, it doesn't sound, and then as I, the longer I stayed and got to know people more,

there really does seem to be, not for all, but many, they seem to have a trauma, so I think what you bring up is actually quite interesting and I think there's a lot of truth to that, that the dogs are helping them. Yeah, and that's a lot of times, you know, because of lack of education and the whole for three ideology and, you know, there is always these conflicts ongoing of, well, we cannot use aversive, we cannot use pain, we cannot, there is the fallout, all these horrible words and so on and the people that volunteer, they fight with everything they can because they're convinced that that is the good thing to do, you know, not really understanding that sometimes you will save a life if you break through the ideology, but that's a different conversation maybe for later. Yeah, but no, I think that like the people who volunteer are the people who work in the rescues, absolutely fantastic, wonderful, loving, caring people, but it is infiltrated, inundated, infiltrated with the force-free ideology because it certainly does sound good. You know, we talk about that there aren't a lot of people in rescue who were really in it for a very long time. The burnout is real. This is real. So, you don't have a lot of like really grizzled veterans in the rescue world because they just get burned out. So, you have a lot of people who I think you know, I think that in the rescue world we could do better about training, knowing training, understanding training, but when you constantly have a just new influx of people, you don't have that. that turnaround is difficult just because you eventually just like with anything, you know, you have different levels. You have dogs that are not your easy dog to take out on a walk. They need a little bit, at least a little bit above the basic level of understanding how to walk a dog. And then the more experienced the person is, there is that satisfaction of being able to take the more difficult dogs out. But as you are doing that, now the pressure on you starts to be harder because those dogs are not easy to deal with. And then with the tools and what is available or what you can use or not use, that doesn't help to make the walk easy on the dog and on the volunteer. dog. And here we go in some really crazy loop that then that dog starts to sit more and more in the kennel, starts to go crazier and crazier. Absolutely. And you see it in, you see this in practice happening down at something like Miami-Dade. You cannot, you cannot come in there with a prong collar. So there were dogs, there were wonderful volunteers down there, but they don't want to take that dog for a walk. They don't want to take the dog we were talking about earlier for a walk. You imagine trying to take her for a walk when she was at the shelter, right? God bless the girl who was in that video shortly

who would take that, but she wasn't a volunteer because normally they have volunteers, but they can't take that. They can't take that dog. And no wonder why the dog is insane in the shelter. Meanwhile, you put a prong collar on a dog, you show somebody how to, you know, a couple quick things, boom, you got a dog, you can walk on a collar. And after, you know, five minutes later, you could walk a dog on a prong collar. Sometimes it's super easy, at least in my eyes, it's super easy. It's like, you just outweigh the cost and benefits. And if the cost is higher, okay, but if the benefits are higher, how can you, why would you be so stubborn? Because, yeah, it's unexplainable. Because they'll be attacked. Because the management over at a shelter, I don't want to say Miami Day or any, you know, but the management is afraid that they'll get attacked and it could look bad having a prong collar on a dog. That somebody can bring this and look at this because it's such an easy thing to do to say, look at this. I mean, I have them sitting right here. I use them all the time. But, you know. If this is the deal breaker for somebody to be able to take a dog out on a walk in a controlled manner and allow the dog still to enjoy some freedom and shake it off and smell the roses outside and take them back out, why are we making such a big deal? Why are we trying to point this fallout that are highly questionable? ball? Nonsense. Nonsense. I have no problem using the prong collar. Call any one of these dogs. Karina, come. Call me a mama. I've used prong collars on every dog here. If I take the prong collar out, you know, no one's running from it. Right. Right. But no one's running away. Come here, mommy. this one, Freya. Well, you can't see, but. I think also because of the ideology of the all positive training, the criteria and like the when they have to accept the dog or they have to try to work a dog in a shelter environment and they evaluate what they can do with the tools they are allowed to use, then a lot of dogs just don't get accepted at the door because they would be considered difficult, dangerous, uncontrollable, and basically not rehabilitatable simply because it cannot be done with the dog training equipment that they are allowed to use. Yeah. Well, you know, there's two, one of the things I want to mention is you have a municipal shelter. So you have a municipal shelter that are run by, for example, the county. So you have Miami Data Animal Services. They have no care and control, right? They're open admission. They have to take every single dog. No matter what, they have to take the dog. Well, that's always, but now there's over population. Anyway, that's the theory is the municipal shelter takes every single dog. There are the no-kill shelters, which are often run by rescues, maybe like the Humane Society. Those are limited admission, so they

don't euthanize dogs, but they also don't take, they're only going to take good, you know, they're only going to take good dogs. So you have the municipal shelters, then you have the sort of the next level down, which are the humane societies, which are no-kill, limited admission, and then there's another type of rescue generally, which is the foster based smaller rescues. So you have Miami Dade, Palm Beach County, they're supposed to take every single dog. The bad dog that comes in is going to the behavior section, it's never going to show up on the adoption floor when you're walking through the kennels at Miami Dade, you're not going to see the bad dogs because they're in the behavior section. A blast, an email blast goes out to the rescues, hey, we have this dog, here's a bite history, the dog's getting euthanized and no one's going to see it. But you can't put a pinch collar on it, no prong collar on the dog, they're going to euthanize it in the behavior section. It's just getting euthanized. So there's very little chance to work, and you can barely get in to even see those dogs or work with them at most municipal shelters. The way it works, if a rescue wants to pull a dog from the behavior section, that dog is usually clutch pulled and dragged in, put into a crate, and that crate, you give them a crate, they put in the crate, and put in your car. Nobody's touching that dog. And I think you're seeing that more and more where dogs are not being touched. Their dogs are just being dragged in, and the rescues can't, and there's too many good dogs, there's too many dogs that are known, that are on the adoption floor, to spend any time with these dogs that are hidden in the behavior section. So that's a whole other world. But if I was a rescue, I could take this dog that I could see that Jim interacted with and played with, or I can take this dog. Well, I don't have enough fosters even for the good dogs. So these other dogs, there's really no hope for the ones that end up in the behavior section. That's another one. You know how I was saying I have so many cool ideas. I think they're cool ideas about advertising and letting the dogs be seen in a different light. I remember again, just working back in that environment. A lot of times, it will come down to how skillful someone is to write the kennel card. Okay, my name is, this is my personality. That was the deal breaker. So you can have a dog that you can get very creative and somebody can be very good at writing and somebody's not. But that time is gone. We have videos, as you said. We have social media, as you said. Even when you, like, one thing, if I have, if I am like some, you know, running a shelter or a rescue group, I would have video monitors, I mean, players. And so whatever, if it's a kennel or if it's a little, like, a room type of environment, depending how much money

that place is spending on the dogs, but every dog will have a player behind. I love it. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I love that. What that dog does. Like, yes, he can go on the beach. Yes, he can meet people. Yes, he can lick other dogs. Yes, he can play ball. Yes, he can do all this. Yes, he can lay down. What you're seeing right now in the cage, that's not the dog. All right. My offshoot, and I did this and it worked. There was a particular dog who showed horribly in the kennel. And this was down in Miami. He showed horrible in the kennel. And some networkers, these are people who are, like, sharing the dogs, etc., begged me to get involved with this dog. He wasn't a Malinois, maybe a touch of Malinois, but I got roped into helping this other dog. And so, okay, I go, I meet the dog, I make a cool video. It doesn't get adopted. I make another one. I do a photo shoot. I ask my friend who's a photographer, could you do a photo shoot, Gabby? We do a photo shoot with this dog. And, you know, so I can make another cool video with some great pictures, but nothing is happening. So I make, I decide, okay, let me take one of these videos. I want people who are in the shelter to come look at the dog, but be able to scan the kennel card and see the video. So I made my own QR code. I mounted it on the kennel. This dog was one of the longest. He was over there, he was in there for something like a year. and if people walk by, he just hid in the back of his crate and nobody, nothing. And then I put the kennel card up and a week later somebody scanned the card, saw the video of him and I playing together. She adopted the dog. The dog sat there for a year because anyone saw that this dog was just, you know, scary. He was a little scary looking dog. So, again, that's the sort of like what I try to do. Show people what this dog is outside of the kennel and how it can play and be a real dog. So, that was Champ. That dog's name was Champ. And Malinos, I mean, like, I think with our breed, people have a, I mean, you know, like you, have to be realistic when you're talking about Malinoa. And if a Malinoa tags you because you surprised it, it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily mean much besides being the breed and, and knowing how to handle this kind of situation. I'm not saying all of them are like that, but that's not surprise, it cannot be surprising to anybody. This is the good and the bad that comes with the breed. That's why they are so cool. nobody, but nobody who, the average individual who goes and adopts a Malinoa from a shelter has absolutely no idea about that. There was a dog, Wookiee. Wookiee got adopted from Palm Beach. A woman, you know, he was going to be euthanized and a woman saved, you know, whatever, I don't know if he was going to be euthanized, but a woman adopted him for Orlando. I get a call like a week or two later. Wookiee's on

his way back here. He, he, he, he bit, he bit her, bit the mother. I said, do you have a picture of it? So they send me a picture of it. Nothing, you know, nothing, absolutely nothing. And she's on her way and she, somehow I get her number and I call her. I'm like, listen, what just happened to you was you got mouth. That's it. He just mouthed you. No, he's aggressive and I'm driving in the car right now and he is being aggressive right now. He's, he's attacking me. I'm saying he's fighting my arm right now. I said, ma'am, if a Malinois is attacking you, you would be in the side of the road right now. I'm not mouthing you, but it didn't matter. She, she kept driving. She dropped the dog back off and the dog was immediately given three days, three days and they were going to nice to dog. Now, fortunately, she had sent me videos prior of the dog playing and I was able to put a video together of Woogie and to sew. This is the dog and this is the bite. She even sent me the, so in the video is the bite, which is a scratch. so that dog is doing fantastic today. So, people don't understand. trainers, this is like, you know, depending how much somebody is working with dogs with bite history. Actually, it's not even that. I don't know where I'm going with this. Like, the criterias for somebody, and I'm not talking somebody that is adopting a dog, I'm talking about a professional trainer. And when they say, well, this dog is really aggressive, and then I look at the dog being really aggressive, and I'm like, what are we talking about? Like, I wouldn't even change anything about this dog. And then when I consider something as an aggressive dog, in the eyes of somebody else, this dog is to be euthanized within the next hour, because there is no chance. So we have a very different levels of what aggressive dog is, and what can be rehabilitated, and what not. I hate to say it, and I don't hate to say it, the force-free people that work in the shelter environment are, in my opinion, responsible for euthanizing dogs that should not be euthanized at all, like dogs that are not difficult dogs to put back in the right track. people don't blame the individual trainers, but I think it's the management of these shelters. It's all political. The people who run the shelters to political appointments, they have to worry about getting elected. So it comes from the top. It comes from them. They'll print out the pamphlets and positive only, whatever. These employees are limited to what they can do. It's positive only, that's all they can do. But they are indoctrinated by the shelter system when they come in.

So I think that's where a lot of it comes from. They don't have a choice other than to be mistake. But I think it's a mistake. I believe it's a mistake. Because even if force-free can get the result eventually, eventually is not soon enough. You have to get the results quickly. because there are too many dogs to let these things drag out for the weeks and months that it might take a force-free positive only differential reinforcement to work. Sometimes you have to tell the dog, knock it off, that's it, and end the issues. Then you can address the deeper, but sometimes you have to stop the dangerous stuff first and go from there. Even, man, it's such a, I knew we were going to be talking about this, and it's an interesting conversation to have, and I'm sure a lot of the people that listen to my podcast will be interested in all this. just the environment in any shelter that has more than 30 dogs in their facility, which is pretty much every single shelter in the country. The really good ones, or I shouldn't say the good ones, but the ones that have done good PR and get good money and get, you know, they can do a little bit better than some other places that are really run down. There is, like, like, everywhere I would go, the dogs are just out of control, frustrated, and it's, no matter how the shelter environment looks like, the dogs themselves act like how people will act in a jail. And then the good ones focus on the enrichment side of things. Well, what can we do? Let's put the TV there. Let's put a sofa and let's give them the mind games and whatever and whatever. But it's all focused based on how we can reinforce good behavior. And good behavior is very small percentage that you can afford to wait to reinforce. Most of it is just bouncing off the walls and barking and making lick sores on themselves and doing all sorts of things where we have to put them on trazodone and gap and all the other more serious psychotropic things. None of it really works the way it should. good. But why can they not try at least in one section of the kennel that they can say you know what this nonsense just bouncing off the walls and feeding from each other's frenziness is just not allowed. Like knock it off. Like everybody just knock it off. you know and play with it and see the cost and benefit. Well you know dogs playing for life. I have

to commend those. I saw those guys well first of all I saw those guys those guys at Miami Day just knocked my socks off. There was a guy there I wish I could remember his name. This guy weighed about 130 pounds soaking wet tall skinny guy. I don't know what his weight was but this guy was phenomenal. They made sure to take every single dog that was in that shelter every single dog that was in that shelter they got him out into the play yard with the other dogs it didn't matter and he got him out of the behavior section. There was a particular dog Nino everybody was afraid of. Nino I found somebody who was going to adopt Nino I found someone who was going to adopt Nino. He was in Georgia and he was going to try and train him to be a police canine. He was supposed to come within a couple of days. Anyway dog playing for life is in there. They've got every single dog played with. And then I said okay. So this tall skinny guy gets up and says okay did we get every dog there's like 400 dogs in Miami Dade. They got them all except for this one dog except for this one dog they hid Nino in the back. They didn't tell him. So I was there but I knew. I that son of a gun. He's like put him here I'll bring him in. He opened the gate. That dog came in and just played like a champ with everybody. People were amazed. Now sad story for Nino. He a couple days later I came back and somebody was taking him for a walk. I think an inexperienced vet tech. had him on a string. Not a prong collar. One of these strings blue and white strings. Nothing. You can't hold it. You can't control the dog. That's what he took the dog out. The dog came out, lunged at somebody and broke her arm. That dog was euthanized within an hour. That dog was on his way. He was going to leave within a couple days. It didn't happen. I talked about enrichment. I got off track there. Dogs playing for life. The enrichment. Bring them out. Having them play with other dogs. Having them play with other dogs is actually an activity. The enrichment is just let's put some cool things in their cages so they can entertain themselves. most dogs don't want to entertain themselves alone. No matter what kind of enrichment you're putting in there and how often you become more creative and you put new things, dogs still, especially dogs that are stuck in there, they don't want to be entertained by themselves. They want an interaction. they want to get

out, they want to do something with a person or another dog or dogs or whatever and this is the you know well we cannot do that. Well we probably could but we need some different tools perhaps. We need some different ideas of what we can do and not do in order to provide that kind of control and save the environment when the dog can thrive. Of course if we don't, if we're not able to control it, yeah, that's a disaster ready to happen, right? I mean, but I mean I guess it comes down to having enough volunteers to put any of this into place. I think it's like, I don't know, I was talking lately with some of my graduates here and there are a few of them. You probably follow some of them too. But like going to shelters and doing some work and trying to just help some of them. Dylan Jones is one of them, very good example, yes. And then you know, somebody from the shelter will kind of jump and say, oh, we cannot do that. And then it's like, okay, then what can we do? Like, show me how do we take that dog out? Because do we want to take the dog out or not? And if we cannot, we know what's happening with that dog. It's doomed. So, can you take it out? Can you show us, can you teach everybody if you have a better option, just let's do it? Well, I don't have. Well, now we have a problem. This is 100% what happens in the shelters. 100% what happens in these shelters. They're run by bureaucrats. You know, and I think some of these, listen, I love the shelter employees, the guys who run in the kennel staff, but sometimes the management of these places, I don't know if they're just been there so long, they're just numb to it and don't even care. But not all of them. I think just as you said earlier, some of them are just very reluctant to go against the mainstream. They're just sincerely afraid that they're going to get jumped by all these fanatics that they're abusing and torturing dogs in their facility, which again, if you can do something, then do it and show everybody how to do it, and let's get those dogs out, let's train them, let's allow them to have some quality time, not enrichment, but actual quality time of doing cool things, so they can maintain some sanity, it really comes down to that in a shelter environment, but to simply say, well, no, these barbaric tools are not allowed, so we have the two things, it's like, okay, well, we can use those tools and we can give

the quality of life and interaction that I'm talking about, or we can take them away, which is fine, let's take them away, but I would have a problem if taking away those training equipment will take away with the tools the quality of interaction. now, you know, I think it comes down in the end to how things look. How does it look? And I think that's what the management of these places are driven by. How will it look? How will it look if I put this on a dog's deck and somebody takes a picture of it? how does that look? Because they're more concerned about their job than anything else. And it's such an easy thing to say, oh my God, look at that. It's such an easy thing to criticize this. Yeah. And it's like, like, I, I, I, man, I don't want to talk about the fanatics like, like there is the extremists. And, you know, anytime I'm against force-free people, I keep emphasizing this. I'm not against somebody that trains force-free. Actually, I admire when they try to find a way to do something in the way they want to do it. But when we're compromising welfare, and what I mean by compromising welfare is we're going to euthanize the dog. That is a compromising of welfare based on what we can and what we cannot do to change the dog. So, let's say me and Zach George go into a shelter. he's going to take maybe 80% of the dogs. I mean, at best, I don't think he is at all. I have zero respect as a trainer because I've not seen nothing of substance as a trainer. But anyway, let's say he can take 80% of the dogs out. the other 20% or the other 10%, he will have to do what is prescribed by the ideology. You're going to, the dog's going to pull a little, you're going to take it back, you're going to do that, you're going to, and you're going to end up spending a lot of time just to try to put the leash on and perhaps get to the lobby of the shelter. Yeah. And these, nobody has time. And I will. Nobody has time in these shelters to do this. if I or any other trainer can put a certain training equipment on that dog and take it out on a walk, like on a long walk, how can you convince me that you are on the better side of the story? How? You can't convince, you can't convince me. You can't convince me. I've, I've used prong collars. You know, the great thing about whatever I do is that I, I don't have to answer to anybody. I don't take contributions from anybody. I don't have any employee. I have one client,

that's the, that shelter dog that's relying on me. So I don't have to worry about pleasing anybody. I don't have a client that I have to say, oh, you, oh, you want to train force free. I care about one thing, that one particular dog. So I'm going to do whatever I can for that one particular dog. Okay. And if that means using a, you know, teaching how to use a prong collar, you know, that's what I'm doing. If it means using an e-collar, I'll do that. I rarely use an e-collar. I don't have anything against them, but I rarely use it. I'll use a prong collar often, but I'm going to do what's right for that dog because I care about that dog. I don't care what you think about me. I don't care how it makes me look. How am I going to, how am I going to address you, this particular dog in front of me? So, you know, management of these places, they're, everyone's busy. You know what? Everyone's busy trying to either impress or keep their job or worry about, worry about one thing. So, it's frustrating. It's frustrating. Do you ever get dogs dropped, like directly at you or people trying to just really bypass all the rescue and shelter? What do you do in that situation? Sometimes I'll get, I've had dogs come directly to my house. Like, for example, one of the shelters down here, Broward County, they know who I am. If a Malinois or a shepherd comes in, you know, they're full. Everyone's full. They have my number, so I'll often get a call. Hey, so-and-so over at the shelter gave me your number. They're full. Can you help me? So, I have them come and drop the dog off at me. And I, you know, if I can take the dog, I can't, I can't always take the dog. But sometimes I can take the dog, hold it, maybe get it to a rescue, sometimes hang on to the dog. So, yeah, sometimes dogs come directly to me. Yeah, you're really deep into it, I guess. Like, I always try to have some boundary for myself. And even now, I mean, I always, always, always have some problem dogs. I mean, Tina is a prime example. Like, at this point, can she go somewhere and live her life? Probably. But she's my dog now. I've put so much, so much in it. There's no question. You know, it's kind of like, what was that book? The Little Prince and the Fox. You know, like, you spend enough time to tame me and things change. You know, and it's like such a common narrative. I have this little chihuahua mix now, Rocky. I've had, I mean, I always had dogs. Another chihuahua. I think you had, what, years, years back? Yeah, that was a chihuahua. That was a Yorkie at the time, too. Oh, you are at that right there. That was a, man, if I show you, it was a six-month-old puppy that was just kind of bullying his sister. And they ended up putting him on fluoxetine. At six months old, a Yorkie, chasing the

other dog around. No, this is wrong. I mean, this is wrong on so many levels. Like, much more worse than even just trapping a shock collar on the dog, you know. Because it's just a temporary something. I don't know. But where I was going with this is, you know, it's a, I always try to have a little boundary because there is that side of me that, you know, like, it was very, very hard for me. Like, I don't think I've even talked about this so much on podcasts. But it really traumatized me at one point in my life working at the San Francisco SBCA. And then, you know, that was the time when the whole force free movement really was picking up. And it would just seem to be the right thing to do because it's a humane society and welfare. And it just was promoted and marketed in such a way. But ultimately, when you are in it and you know the dogs that can be helped are now rejected and you know their destiny is, yeah, you're going to be put down in some matter of days. And I was at a position that I had to evaluate and test dogs that are adoptable and accept them from the animal care in the SBCA. And then work with them as long as they're there and probably give some help to the people that adopt them and so on. And eventually, it came down to me not able to accept dogs that I know that I can help. And they have to be put down. And one day, I quit. And that same day was the day that I kind of realized what the, how bad I felt for how long I felt that way. It's kind of like a, you know, how some people get stuck in the daily traffic going to work and spending hour, hour and a half in traffic until eventually maybe you change your job or change something in your life. And now you're no longer stuck in traffic for three hours every day. And then you realize this when you're looking back at it, you're like, what the fuck I was doing? You know, it's a very, very tough. I feel you. I don't know how I, I, I feel for these, I feel for these volunteers. And she got, I want to shout out to a Marcella Garcia Bonini. She is a volunteer down in Miami-Dade. He goes to the shelter. She does what I do. Meets the dogs, videotapes them. Please follow Marcella on Facebook and Instagram. Absolute angel to these dogs down there. She goes there day in and day out filming these dogs just one after the other, posting the videos. But how she does it, I don't know. You know, I get to draw boundaries myself. I have, you know, I have a great little setup here that I've kind of created. I can, I'll go to the shelter here and there, maybe get a dog. Maybe I'll, and I'll have a rescue to back me. And then I can focus on this one dog that I have here. I don't have to see everything in the shelters every day.

I do love going to the shelter and going straight to the kennel with blinders on to the dog I'm going to focus on because I know there's a good chance I'm going to get that dog out if I go see the dog. Um, but like to see all the bullies who walk by to see every dog that they're just not getting out. That is home. At least by focusing on, and I would suggest like focus on one breed. And then that helps, you know, mentally partition and say, okay, I don't have to, I'm not going to look there. Let me just look at this one dog. You know, if somebody were to do what I do and just focus on. That's a good way of thinking that actually can keep you a little bit more protected and not as vulnerable to, to your emotional breakdowns. To say, this is, I am the expert in this part, this dog, I'm the expert, you know, I want to help you, but I, I just, you know, I, I can do better if I just focus on this one breed that I would suggest anyone who wants to help dogs pick a breed, be the expert in that breed. It's going to help you get dogs adopted. People will pay attention to you more when they're looking and they'll start to reach out to you. I'm looking for this dog. Then you start to adopt. Calling you. It's easy to find dogs that need homes. What's really hard to find are people who want to adopt what you're, what you have. Being an expert in a particular breed, people start to call you. Hey, I've got a buddy. I got a call yesterday, a message yesterday. Hey, I've got a buddy. He's, he's looking for a Malinois. Got an 11 year old daughter. Should be stable. Okay, great. Let me put that, you put that in my head. And then you end up being kind of the person to go to if, if somebody is looking for a, you know, just like if, you know, if, if, if somebody wants to get a BMW, it's going to go to the BMW dealership, right? It's not going to go to Ford and vice versa. You know what also bugs me a lot is the, and again, I, I get more and more impatient with, with the extreme views of ideology when the ideology stands above a life of a dog. And, and you will have a professional trainer that perhaps has the knowledge and perhaps can do something, but the ideology is not allowing it to happen. But why can you not stop for a moment and think that if you don't help the dog, chances are it's going to end up in a shelter. And that's the best case scenario. And even when it ends up in a shelter, chances are it's going to get euthanized. So there is a lot at stake. And it's mind boggling to me that you can put ideology above dog's life. I don't get that. I don't, I certainly don't get that. Um, I can't see it. I can't. I don't even know, you know, I don't

even know where to go. Well, you know what? I think the problem is, I think the problem is that I, the people who've been sold the ideology believe it. I think they, I think they believe it. I don't think they've, you know, they haven't gone to your, your force. They haven't, they haven't even tried. You know, I talk to people and, um, in rescue and they never, they are afraid of a, of a prong collar. They're like afraid to put a prong collar on a dog. All right. They believe it. They, and these are people who love the dog, whatever. And I, I've had someone talk to me recently who runs a rescue, fantastic rescue, but, um, and she's having trouble with the dog. And she's like, you know, I'm having trouble with this particular dog, but and maybe it needs a little bit more than, than we, I would say, yeah, bring the dog by. Let's, you know, see, I want to see what the dog's about, you know, and maybe you might want to have a prong collar. If you're having trouble walking the dog and he's going, let's, oh, she, oh my God, can, can, can, can you walk through with me? I said, yeah, bring the dog over. Let's, let's do that. So they have all been sold, not all, but many have been sold this bill of goods of the force free of how good it is and the fallout from, uh, from, from prong collars or, uh, saying no to the dog. Someone said that the other day. Oh, I was talking to somebody. They said, I shouldn't say no to this. I'm like, people are still telling people they can't say no to a dog. I thought that was just, but they're saying it's still, it's still going on. Yeah, but I, I, you know, so anyway, I think a lot of people are just, they're well-meaning, uh, people in, in the rescue world, but they are, they are. And like I said, it's, it's, it's, you don't have the grizzle veterans because everyone burns out. So you have a lot of newer, younger people, uh, rescues can come and go because it's just a horrible business. So everyone, let's say everyone is new, but a lot of people are new in the rescue world and they are listening to what the, what the YouTube algorithms put out, which is going to be more of the force, force free, positive only stuff. So I think there's, uh, you know, that that's part of the problem. The rescue, the rescue, you know, like local different places across the countries, man, there is so many different types. There is, there is a lot like, and I'm not exaggerating. There is a lot of con artists in this business, simply getting money, donations, running shady practices, shady practices that just pieces me off so much. A hundred. Uh, yeah, a hundred percent there, there, there, you know, I, I am lucky.

I know I, I work with like, um, a few rescues that I know really well. And I, and I end up working with those rescues who I see what they're doing. Um, by the way, I want to take a step back a second. Hold on one second. Remember, remember what you're saying. I, I, like, I, I just, I know I'm going to forget this, but talking about, you know, how I always defend one side. I don't always defend one side. I can tell you right now that there is this, this, I, I know of rescue places that every dog is trapped with a bar collar. Every dog is put in a garage, in a crate, and they're just having a miserable life all together. And yes, that sucks, and that's incorrect. This should not be happening. They should not be even in the business of doing any of this. This is like total suppression. That's not what it's about. I have to say that, because sometimes I always come as somebody that attacks only the, the forcied ideology. And, and I, I definitely, um, I'm so much against the, that there, there is bad stuff happening. You know, you cannot be a rescue place and just trying to stack dogs and, and keep them in crates with bar collars so they're quiet so the neighbors don't worry. You're not having the environment, you don't have the time, you don't have the knowledge to provide a healthy life that can bring some future to these dogs. This should not be happening. Then, you know, somebody, as you said, there is the other ones, there's the good ones, like, uh, I mean, Sylvia with her, uh, what was the rescue garage, you know? I mean, every time we have a class and we have like the, like expert trainers or whatever, we get dogs from her and, and they spend the week with training and doing things. And, and I know what she does and I know her heart is in the right place and she may not have food for herself, but they're fed, they're woke, they're, they're taken care of. There's, there's different levels and not everybody is the same. I have to stop. I love Sylvia. Sylvia is the best. A rescue garage. Shout out to Northport. I have one of her dogs right here. Hey mama, where are you? Uh, I emailed her the other day, uh, day before yesterday, just, uh, there was a dog with Demodex in bad shape, a little puppy. And I, I wanted to get her opinion because she is one of the most knowledgeable rescue people that I talked to. And she is an exception. There's, there is sort of a grizzled veteran, somebody who knows, who knows, uh, rescue one of the smartest people. So when I have a question or an issue, uh, and I actually got to introduce through you with Tina because whatever, but, uh, she is one of the professionals in this business.

So when I have an issue and I saw this puppy, I sent the picture to Sylvia. I said, you know, tell me about this condition and what, uh, uh, before I had a chance to type anything, she said, I'll take it. And, uh, come here, where are you? Well, I got to show you this. Well, I think that's, come here, mommy. Mommy, come. All right. She's around here somewhere. I'll bring her out, but she's a pathetic looking dog, but I love her. Anyway, that's Sylvia and one, another expert and someone who, uh, I wanted to make sure I gave a shout out to while you brought her up. It's important. No, no, no. That, that's all I had to say is just that there is there again, just like with everything else you have, you have a very shitty car mechanic that is just trying to rob you. As soon as you go for oil change, all of a sudden you're paying for your engine to be replaced. And, and, and it's the same in the dog industry. It's nothing different. Yeah. And the trainer, there was a trainer over here. I can't remember the org, the company's name. Um, and, uh, one of their trainers was videotaped helicoptering the dog, choking out, hanging the dog. And there was videotaped for that dog and they eventually shut him down and they, but they confiscated the dog. And that was a dog, uh, by the name of Arson. Arson went to the Palm Beach shelter. You know, some, I get to do like some kind of cool stuff every now and again. And when I saw Arson had gotten confiscated, it said that the dog, someone said the dog had had bite work. So, okay. He's had bite work. So this is going to be a problem for like ABMR or mad rescue, because generally those two rescues don't take dogs that have done bite work. Uh, or generally don't take dogs that have done bite work, which is, uh, yeah. I mean, to some extent it's kind of understandable. It's, it's, this is a, uh, okay. Keep your thought for a moment, but this, this is a problem. And, and the problem is when you take a dog that has been trained and also has some problems and you're, you, if you're responsible and you take it seriously, there, there is a, a certain level of, of, uh, um, risk that you are taking that you shouldn't be taking. Like you, you cannot be taking risk within this job that you are in. Um, so, but strangely enough, how many actually trained dogs end up in the shelter? Yeah. Yeah. Very few, uh, none, none. Uh, well, very, yeah. I think those are probably the proper numbers you're talking about one or 2%. Those dogs are not ending up. Uh, and that's another thing I want to touch about. It is in a little bit about training, but, but first let me tell you about arson. So, so the woman's dog who had

helicoptered this dog and had bite work. So now I've got a problem. Here's this, uh, here was a Dutch shepherd, uh, that ends up in the shelter. This had bite work. And, uh, what do you do with this dog that, you know, has had bite work? Uh, and, uh, so I went to go, um, I went to go to the shelter to go evaluate the dog and then another rescue nearby pulled it, but I happened to know who she was. I connected with her and I said, I want to take this dog and I want to have the dog evaluated by somebody who knows what they're doing. Do you know, Mike Lorraine? I think, you know, Michael Lorraine, Mike Lorraine. Yeah. So Mike Lorraine is, uh, around here. So I reached out to him and I said, Hey, I've got this. I didn't really know Mike. I might've talked to him once before or something, but I reached out to Mike Lorraine and I said, would you evaluate this dog? And I, uh, so I got the dog from the rescue that had just pulled him and we brought him up to Mike Lorraine. And we did a super cool video of him doing bite work with the dog and, um, posted that video. And, uh, when I posted the video, TJ Dobbins at, uh, Alpha Pack, canine Alpha Pack saw the video. He said, I'll take the dog. So Alpha Pack canine trains, takes, takes some of what they do is take some of the shelter dogs and train them to become police canines. So by seeing that video that I did with Mike Lorraine, uh, TJ Dobbins took the dog up to Ohio. And today that dog is now a police canine. So that's like a super cool thing that, uh, you get to do, you know, one of the cool experiences. That's, that's exactly. Well, man, I mean, uh, I mean, somebody like, again, I, I not gonna, I mean, there's, there's extreme for three people that are actually against police having dogs, you know? So I remember, uh, Zach George, Zach George did some, some obnoxious hack job video on, uh, on police canines that, which was probably the most absurd thing I ever saw. Uh, I don't know. I don't know how many times he said the Nazis, the Nazis, the Nazis, you know, it just, uh, it's ridiculous. And, and, and the point is, do you, do you want the, the, whatever the, if it's a criminal or whatever we're gonna find out, at least we can find out later because it just gets bit. It doesn't get shot. And a lot of times they don't even get bit. All they need to hear is come out, stop or I'll send my dog. And they're coming out. We have a dog here. Come out. Uh, uh, like, you know, but, but it's a kind of, it goes in a higher level of, well, do we need control and, and do we need, um, laws to be enforced or no? And it's like, well, we, we're totally in a different planets on this.

So I have no reason to talk to you about this, you know? Um, what do you think about the dogs that come to you? And let's say you were not allowed to use the tools that you're using. How successful do you think you would be? I think you could eventually be successful. It's just going to things are just going to take longer, but you know what? I, it's hard. You know, I have six dogs here right now and it's strange dogs are coming in, in and out. I, I think one of the hardest things to do, if I had to be force free and bring in new dogs, you know, integrate them into the pack, you know, I don't, I don't have kennels. I don't really, I have these kennels, but they're pretty much just for quick management. Like they're not, they don't sleep. They, they, they sleep in my house. You know, I've got six dogs around the house. They have to get along with each other. I have to be able to correct the dog. If he's staring down another dog that I just brought in from a shelter that's sitting in the kennel, you know, I have to be able to correct that dog because I'm never going to be able to manage these dogs together if I can't correct somebody. So if I couldn't do them, then I couldn't take the dog period. Yeah. But then like, if I felt that I would be, then you're not fit to, to even do this kind of work. That would be the, well, I don't care. Let's show me, show me what you're doing with these dogs. You know, show me what you're doing. So, uh, that would definitely get in the way. I mean, and, and the fact. Time is very critical. I was going to say important factor. I was just, I was, that's exactly. But time is the most critical factor in the whole part of, of everything that we are doing with, with these dogs. It's about time. Everything is like. A hundred percent. This is exactly where I was going. And you have to be very consciously aware every single second that that clock is ticking. Yeah. I have a, I have a full-time job. Like I wouldn't be able to do, you know, do what I do here. If I didn't have a full-time job somewhere. So I have a full-time job. I have six dogs. I have a life also. I have things and responsibilities. There's only so much time in the day and I don't have that much time. So I've got three fosters, three of my own dogs here. Time. There's just not enough. And that's it. So you have to be effective and move things along quickly. And if I thought that it affected my relationship with any of these dogs, you know, then maybe I'd have to think about it. But to the extent, to the extent that I use correction, corrections, not one of these dogs are intimidated by me, afraid of me. There's no fallout involved.

And, you know, so that's all just nonsense. And I think there are people who, who maybe never, who are so afraid to correct the dog or so afraid to use a prong collar. Like they believe that that's going, like that's real for them. It's real. Just like, just like, I don't want to go into politics, but just like the, you know, all the, all the, the women shaving their heads and, and doing all these things after the elections, you know, like I don't want to ridicule them. I really don't. It's very real for them. It's very sad. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a, it's real feeling. So I only, you know, I know what I know. I mean, I know through experience working with dogs in and out, in and out, um, what works and, and the, these dogs love me. I love them. And the fact that, you know, I might put a prong collar on there and pop their collar. It doesn't, it doesn't even. Nothing. I mean, nothing. So why do you think, you know, why do you think it's such a, such a gap, such a separation and animosity in between us? Between the force free and the, and, uh, sort of the balance training. What is it? I don't know. I think, uh, I think, uh, some people care more about how they look to other people than they care about the dogs, uh, you know, cause I would highly doubt if anybody, and again, that, that was a conversation I just recently had with Dylan Jones when he was here, uh, for his, uh, expert thing. And, and, and we were talking about something where you have a dog in front of you and you have ideology that you are behind and your ideology is failing, but there is something we can do. How do you, where do you go at that point when you have that dog looking at you and you're standing for the ideology, um, that's not gonna help? How do you justify that you're not gonna help the dog or at least not gonna make an attempt to? Yeah, I, I, I, I don't think, I, I, I don't think that they believe that using a prong collar is, I think they are convinced that they are doing the right thing, that if you go put this prong collar on, you're gonna ruin the relationship and that's, I think they truly believe that. Right, right. But I'm talking about, uh, like there, there is, it's not a, uh, an exception. There is, there is cases that are happening daily. It's like, no, you, you literally have a dog in front of you that it's, his clock, his time is up. And you've done religiously and you've searched for advice and you've done all of your homework and you say, well, we tried everything. And somebody says, well, but would you want me to try something that could work? Yeah. Yeah. No, we can't.

It's not, it's not in the, it's, we can't do that. It's against, uh, I, you're asking somebody who doesn't understand, who, who can't understand it himself. Right. I think you'll almost do anything you can. It's gonna, you know. I would think that everybody would. Save the dog's life. My guess is that everybody that is faced with this direct situation, that they are attached, that they have some attachment. Even, even like, I know, like I have, it's like, no, it's actually your dog. And you can utilize it or you can try something just like somebody is dying of cancer. Do you try horse medicine or not? What, what do you do with your kid that's dying from cancer and everybody gave up? You would, you would try. I would. I think there's a very powerful psychological thing that happens and it's, it's us versus them, uh, that we are genetically or our minds are pre-programmed to have an us versus them. This is a very, and it's a very powerful, yeah, it's a very powerful emotion and, and it probably maybe overpowers, uh, overpowers. But what I'm saying is, I agree with you, but what I'm saying is it, it should break in those situations when they're directly affecting, it's your child or it's your spouse or it's your dog and you have to make a choice to try something alternative and give it a go or don't. Yeah. Well, maybe in private, they try it, but in public, they don't. Uh, or, you know, I, I, uh, by the way, you know, yeah. You get so wedded to an idea that we are committed, that we are absolutely committed to something. I, I think that plays a part in it too, that we get sold something or we are, we believe something. It's very hard to make that slip in your brain to say, I'm going to try something else. We sell ourselves. You know, uh, unconsciously when we sleep, we sell ourselves up on these ideas that we've convinced ourselves of. And then it becomes very difficult to, um, to undo that. What are things that you would give, uh, like some advice to people like yourself that are stepping into the, the, the type of work that you do? What kind of advice would you give them? In terms of, um. Like how to, I mean, yeah. How, how to like, like any of the kind of bullet points that you think you, you must know what you're getting into and, and, uh, um, how to, how to navigate through that whole, uh, um, I mean, it's a, it's a very special niche of. Industry that you are in. Yeah. I can't even, because I can't even explain what I necessarily do. Um, you know, I don't, there's no job title for it. I don't have a job. I'm not a five. I mean, I have a, you know, job outside of this. Um. Well, my.

I think the, the first step that you make is you go to a shelter, pick a dog. Uh, meet that dog. And tell that and, and be. That dog's advocate. Okay. That's where you start. One dog. You don't have to save anything after that. You go and you save this one dog. Okay, great. I'm going to save this one dog. Okay. How am I going to do? How am I going to save this one dog? I don't have to save all those other dogs. Fine. He's a cute dog. He's my. I'm going to. I'm going to try to help this dog. Now. How do you do it? Okay. First thing. Is. You got to go meet the dog. Play with dog. Play with the dog. Evaluate the dog. What's the dog like? Get lots of pictures. Lots of video. Okay. Then go home and stick it into any program. Dump it all in there. You don't have to be a genius. Just dump the video in there. Put some music to it. Post it on Facebook. And ask people to share it. Share it with. And then. You know. Share it with your friends. Share it with a rescue. Whatever. Contact. The rescues. Hey. I just met this dog. Here's what the dog is like. Here's the video. Because. This is what. Rescues need to see. They just. They don't want a picture. They need a story. Here's the dog's story. This dog was found. Over here. In the Everglades. Dumped. It's got a broken leg. It's got. Tell this dog's story. Let. Let other people know. What the story is. Bring them into it. And then. It gets them invested. Into the story. And then. So. That. You're just the advocate. Now. There's a good. Maybe you'll find an adopter. Maybe somebody will see that. Because. It's so easy to go to a shelter. And adopt a dog. It's got all the shots. It's. It's. It's. It's health checked. Etc. It costs $50. So someone can go walk in. And if. If they see that dog. It's a healthy. Normal dog. Walk right in. Adopt it. If you post it. The right person sees it. Or a rescue sees it. And they just. Or a foster. Who. Oh I can foster for this. This organization. You've got a real chance. Because otherwise. Just a very good chance. No one's ever going to see that dog. There's a very good chance of that. If you. If. And I would say. Like. Thing that I did. It really all sort of just. Folded. As I. Just happened to pick. Pick a breed. Just happened to pick. This particular breed. Happened to become. You know. An expert. In this breed. People in rescue. See me as an expert. Then they take you more serious. And it just kept growing. And a relationship. With all. So I'd have a relationship. With all the rescues. He'll take one of these dogs. And not everyone. That's the other thing. Not everyone's going to take. A Malinois. Most small rescues. Don't. Will not take. Will. Will generally not take. A Malinois. Malinois. But. They're. At least smart.

You know. Smart enough to realize. Okay. My foster can't handle. That dog. So. And then when that happens. Then the rescues. Start contacting me. I have a Malinois. Can you help me? So sometimes. They will end up. With one anyway. Can you help me? Because now. They know. I have followers. Who are interested in Malinois. So they'll contact me. And then I can say. Absolutely. Let me post. Your dog. So then I. You become this. Clearing. Point. For this particular breed. Because you're the expert. In this breed. There could be a hundred. Of people like me. All over the country. Doing this. There could be. There could be ten more people. Doing what I do. In Florida. Let alone. Texas. And California. And I wish. That people would just copy. Whatever it is. I'm doing. There's a woman. Jennifer. She's out. Out in California. East Valley. She's doing something similar. To what I do. Except I think she does it better. She's going in there. She's looking for high drive dogs. Really in general. And so. Jennifer is. So every time she has a video. I make sure to share. Jennifer's video. From the East Valley. So. And. I don't want to just share. Of a dog. Like this dog needs help. I want to. Share. The video. The story. I want to follow. The dog's. Journey. From the shelter. To. The rescue. Or to the adopter. And I want to. I want. I want people to follow me. Because they're going to get more. Than just. A desperate dog. And then the next desperate dog. I want them. I create. I'm trying to. Because I'm trying to create. A following. Of people. Interested in this breed. I want. A reason for people. To follow me. And. You're going to see. You're going to follow the story. As it unfolds. And that's kind of. A cool thing. Or something. Different. So. I always try to make sure. I sort of close the circle. With any dog. Here's the dog. I just met the dog. I post the dog. And the rest. Then I start getting. You know. People interested. Oh. Okay. They're going to pull the dog. Send me pictures. Send me videos. How's the dog. Oh. That went to the vet. It had a broken leg. It had this. What's happening. And then. And then. Then you have something. I think that's. Interesting. And worth following. So. How do you. So. So. I don't have any. You know. I mean. That's what I do. And then I start. Oh. Another thing. Is you start to. Meet the trainers. This is for the Malinois. I think more important. Than anything. Because what's failing. The Malinois. These dogs. Is that. They're. That. First of all. The average trainer. Out there. Is pretty pathetic. Okay. Who's generally. Out there. Training. Pet dogs. Yeah. They're going to be. The force free dogs. The force free. Trainers. They're pretty poor. And they're not. Really. Equipped. To. To. Train.

These dogs. Any. Trainer out there. They're going to teach. The dog. To sit. Staying down. Whatever. But. I think. It. Different world. Like the sport dog. The. World. The protection world. The. The. Police work. Those are the trainers. You want. People who learn from that. In. From those people. And learn from that group. That's who you want. To train your dog. And those trainers. Are out there. But people don't. Know them. They just hear. They just. I don't know. They. They. They. They've got a. Hard off of. A Starbucks wall. Of some force free trainer. And then they. They use them to train. Their. Their high drive. Malinois. That they accidentally. Picked up from somewhere. Yeah. Kind of like. Like. Victoria. Stillwell. When she had this. Whatever. Her show was. With the. With the. Police dogs. The night. Whatever it was. I can't think of the name. It's. Total disaster. They had to. Have. Non-disclosure agreements. Just. Just cause it's just like. They cannot say how. Silly. And ineffective. All of it was. You know. You know what is the. Another big problem. That I. Have. It's. That kind of. Puts people off. Is some. Some of the people. That work in a shelter. There are some of the volunteers. Some of the rescue groups. And. People like yourself. That actually. Are so. Frustrated. And angry. At people like myself. I've been breeding dogs. Since 1989. Like. I have bred. A lot of dogs. Like. I have bred. A lot of dogs. In a lot of people. I am. The reason. Why. There is dogs. In a shelter. Because. I want to. I want to talk about that. Because I think. People will. Buy a dog from me. Instead of going to the shelter. And get a dog. And I don't. Think. They're. First of all. The first of all. I have a lot of DNA. I. Often do DNA tests. On many of the dogs. Mad rescue does them. So I see a lot of. I see a lot of DNA tests. So I see their relatives. And I see who's related to who. And they'll show. You know. 30 different relatives. And you sometimes see. Where the dogs come from. So. You know. I've done that with a. With quite a few dogs. And I've never seen a Vitoja dog. Or a dog. That. That I could tell. Came anywhere from you. Your dogs. Are not ending up in the shelters. And. And I. They're not even breeding. I can't even see where there's breeding. I would expect that. I would have seen. Maybe. But I don't see that. What I do see is. I see many of the rescue dogs. Being related to each other. That keep ending up. So. There are some breeders. And I. I. I wish I could. Better figure out the puzzle. Where are these. Backyard breeders. Where. Because that's. You're seeing relations. In these dogs. That came out of Miami. And then. This dog. That's over at. Big Cypress. And. Rescue. And this one over at. Mad Rescue. Is related.

And I've. Messaged people. Oh. Where'd you get that dog from? Oh. It came down from here. But. You don't see it. Really coming from. The. Now. That's number one. So. Your dogs. Aren't ending up there. Number two. I think it's critical. That. You have. Excellent breeders. Who really know. What they're doing. To keep. The genetics. Of the dogs. Healthy. This is critical. To have. So you. Absolutely need. Ethical breeders. Who are. Making sure. These dogs are going. To the right people. That. The genetics. Are solid. So you need this. Otherwise the breed. Is going to decline. So. I have. No problem. With ethical breeders. Backyard breeders. On the other hand. The kind that you see. Down in Miami. The kind that you see. That are selling. Dogs on Craigslist. Because I see. The. The. The. The females. That have been breeding. And overbred. Landing in the shelters. Because that's what's. That's. When you're. When you're on there. Buying that $500 dog. Or four. This is what you're doing. All right. So. I have. Serious problems. With the backyard breeders. I have. Zero problems. With. Excellent breeders. Who are doing. The right thing. And if something. Goes wrong. With the dog. And the. You know. Are going to take the dog. Back. And all that sort of stuff. That. That a great breeder. Would do. In the rescue world. I think you're right. I think people. Are. I think many. Hey look. If you saw. What some of these people. See. On a regular basis. When you walk into the shelters. You could. You could. Almost. Understand. But I don't think. They have the perspective. That I have. Or at least. You know. I operate. In a different world. Working specifically. With Malinois. But if you look at these. General. Rescue. People. Who are. You know. They're rescuing. All mixed breeds. And things like that. And. I could just imagine. They would be. Crazy about. Anyone breeding. Any dog. Ever. But I come from. A different. I guess. I have a different perspective. Working with. This particular breed. That have a particular purpose. Yeah. That's where. Very well said. And. It goes even. Deeper than that. Some people get attacked. Simply. They're not breeders. They just. Wanted. A purebred dog. It's like. Shame on you. When there is. So many dogs. In the shelter. How do you. Deal with that one. I. If somebody. I don't. That doesn't. If somebody. Wants to spend. The real money. You know. Spend actual money. Yeah. As long as they don't go on. On. Craig's list. Or buy it off. These crappy. Facebook groups. You know. I. I'm not. Hey listen. I. I don't. I try not to get involved. I. I try to focus on. What I do. Not. You know. Not change. What everyone else is doing. If there's any influence. That I try to have. It's. It's to say. Hey. Look at these dogs.

Foster one of these. This is awesome. You know. That's where I try to. Make. Any impact. Or influence. Anyone. To say. Fostering is actually pretty cool. To foster a Malinois. Probably. Like. Absolutely. One of the coolest things. You could do. To take a dog. From. And. I would say this to. Gosh. I'd say this like. To the trainers. Who are watching this. You know. We all. They all. You know. Many had. Demo dogs. All right. Now. They saw they get a. Whatever. You know. The Tosher. East. You know. German. Or European. Demo dog. Or whatever. Don't do that. Go to a shelter. Get a Malinois. From a shelter. Use that as your demo dog. Because when you can walk in. And say. Because. If. If I take a. You know. Beautiful. Incredible dog. That I just bought. And I paid $10,000 for. And. And I showed somebody. They'd be like. Oh. Well. Of course he's that. You know. But if you go to a shelter. And you pull the dog. And you. You. You teach a. Shelter dog. To do sit. Stay down. People are like. That dog came from a shelter. Yes. I go to. I go to. I go to the mall. The mall around here. And. I walk. You know. To socialize the dogs. Or just to teach the. So I go to the mall. Every time I go to the mall. Somebody stops me. And wants me to train their dog. And say. I don't train dogs. I just do. This is just shelter. That's a. That's a shelter dog. Like. You'll be. It's. People are so impressed. That you taught a mall. That you got from shelter. How to heal. Wow. Yeah. I mean. You just put a. Very cool twist on this. Like. Like. It's really. Uh. Uh. I mean. It's a win-win situation. And it's. It really speaks. It's like the perception. That people have. And it speaks volume for the trainer. Because. Just as you said. It's not like this. Yeah. Of course. It's a highly trainable dog. And whatever. No. I'm not impressed. But. There is this one. I got this guy from the shelter. I love it. I love it. Hopefully people. People that do this demo dogs. Take that under consideration. That's a brilliant. I mean. I mean. Even just for their business. For their marketing. It's far better. Than. Than doing something with. You know. It's. Just not as impressive. It's just not at all. Yeah. I just got it from the shelter. Better yet. You know. Yeah. So. If. I mean. I could. I. I'm. In my. In my. My. My. Other life. I'm a financial advisor. I don't train. Any dogs. I don't train. I don't. Nobody pays me to train. I don't take. Well. You know. I don't take money or anything from anybody. But. I get. I get message like. Almost every day. To train a dog. If. So. If I was. One day. Wanted to retire. And become a trainer. It could happen like that. Because people see. People see. Be with the. You know. I make the silly videos. And they're sitting. You know.

We play around with the dog. It isn't to show anybody how to train a dog. It's to show. The dog. Like. And that's really all my videos are about. But people think I'm some wonderful. You know. There. There are people. Who. Who don't. You know. Who think I'm some wonderful trainer. Because the videos I make. And yeah. I edit them a little bit. You know. There's. You know. That's one of the things. Like. I'm not selling. I tell you. Like. With the. You know. I mean. You've gone through. Through my program. The. The training without conflicting. And. A lot of times. After the written test. The trainer has to. Do a practical. And they're like. Well. I don't have the dog. And I'm waiting for a client. And. And that's what I would do. I'm like. Why would you wait? There's. There's. Dogs. And dogs. And dogs. Waiting. For attention. And interaction. Take it from the shelter. Make it adoptable. Maybe. You will end up. Maybe. You will end up. With the dog. Just because. As I said. You put the time. And time. That's what time does. You know. And these. You know. You could do it so easy. It's so many of these. Municipal shelters. That most everyone has it. Where you could just walk in. And shelter a dog. You don't have to get. You know. And then. You walk in. Say. Okay. I want to foster. I want to foster a dog. And. Yeah. Great. Well. And they'll hand your dog. You go home with the dog. And when you're done. You can take the dog back. If you really. But after you put some training. On the dog. Then you can find a rescue. Pretty easily. You know. Then you can contact any rescue. And say. Look. Here's what I've done with the dog. Boom. The dog goes to a rescue. They'll find a home for it. Or. You just put it. Or. I mean. Even better than that. You know. You post it. Hey. I just trained this dog. We were just working with him. And post it. On your Facebook. It's a great advertisement. For your business. You know. It. That goes a lot. It's better. I mean. It's really. Way better advertisement. In my book. I would be. As a trainer. I would be far more impressed. With you. Accomplishing something. With a dog. That everybody's given up on. Than. Than having this. Highly. Trainable. Specifically. Bred. Animal. For. For something. It's just. That's. That's easy. Yeah. It's. And. It's so. It's so easy. To train these dog. It's no. It's so easy. To. For any Malinois. Is easy. You know. Is easy to train. So. If there's one. You know. If you got them from the. From the shelter. But you look brilliant. When you do it. To. To. To people. Who don't know. You know. To outside people. To. To clients. They think you're brilliant. Because you trained. A rescue Malinois. You know. And. You know what is a really big problem. At least for me. In the last. I'd say.

Five years. I mean. It's been there. Kind of lingering. But it's becoming more and more pronounced. And that's the. Going out of country. And grabbing all these stray dogs. And rescuing them. From being. From being. Stray dogs. And sticking them in. Your apartment. For eight hours a day. When they had a. A freedom. They had. They had a life. Could they get. Run by a car. Sure. Did they eat. Or did they skip two days. Yeah. Questionable. But. I don't know. Why. How. I don't know. How. I don't know. How we're importing. I don't know. Why. We're taking these dogs. I think. I think. There is a lot. There is. Again. A little bit of a. I mean. There is some. People that do it. For. Just because. It's kind of misguided. In my opinion. As I said. Like. Like you're taking the freedom away. From. From. From a. An animal. That really. Really. Really. Appreciates freedom. It is. Like. Like. The. The. Ultimate abuse. As far as I'm concerned. But. So when they come from a foreign country. You're saying. The ones that come from. Right. And any of the stray dogs. Like. Like. You know. Go to Greece. Bulgaria. Whatever. You know. Any Eastern European. Where the. Turkey. I'm not talking. Okay. They're stuck in. 20 of them. In a cage. And they're going to be. Meat. They're going to be dinner. That's a different thing. But. But. Even then. It's. We have to fix it. We have to fix our own problems. Right. Right. Miami. Right. Go to Miami. I think there's some crazy number. Like 30,000. Stray dogs. In Miami. Okay. I don't know if that's true. But it's something like. Some. Assured number. They have 700. Seven. Last I heard. I heard something today. They have 700 dogs. In Miami. Dade. They have the new shelter. And they have the medley shelter. Which is the old shelter. And both are. Both are full. So. It sounds high. When I heard that number. But it's got to be at least 500 straight. 500 dogs. Then you've got. A guy like junior. Who's down at Redland Dog Sanctuary. Who's got a hundred dogs down there. And the dogs are being dumped. All over the place. Down in the Redlands. Okay. Let's fix this problem. Let's go to Texas. Let's go to California. And let's fix these problems. Before we start importing. More problems. I believe a lot of the imports. There is some. There is some scheme. There is some. Like. Like it's a. Money. Kind of laundry. Like. I don't know. There is something. To do with that. I'm not. I don't want to. Really open this. But. But. There is. There's got to be something. Because it just. Doesn't make sense. When you have. As you said. Dog right here. In your eyes. In your backyard. That you can do something with. It. And you're going. Out of your. Like. Like. Doing this crazy thing. Okay. Now. There is situations. I mean.

There is different. Like. Who was the one. There was like. This incredible story. And I know. You would know it. The guy was running. A marathon. Somewhere. I don't know. Was it China. Or was it somewhere. In Sahara. Whatever. I mean. It was like. A long marathon. And a little dog. Got stuck with him. And kept running. And the guy was like. Okay. They're going to give up. And give up. And whatever. The dog never gave up. It just kept going. And eventually. The guy was like. Okay. I'm taking the dog. He takes the dog. He took the dog. The story ended up being. Really. I mean. It's a. Very happy ending. But from there. Somehow. The dog got lost. Because. It was with. Somebody. That they were. Just taking care of. The dog. Temporally. And he went on the street. And. And eventually. Social media. Exploded. I think. I want to say. It's China. Or. But I might be mistaking. But somehow. They ended up. Finding the dog. And eventually. Again. The dog came back. And they took it back. To the country. And it's just. Beautiful story. But that's very different. Than. Than. Yeah. Than taking plane loads. Of. Loading up plane loads. And bring him here. When we're not taking care of the dogs. That we have here. You know. And. The other thing. That. Down in my. Down in. The idea of the stray dogs. You know. When I was. I was in Brazil. And the stray dogs. Seemed very happy over there. The stray dogs. I see down in Miami. I don't know. If the conditions are different. We have mosquitoes. We have heartworm. We have infestations. When I see the dogs. That come. That are. That are stray. Taken from the Everglades. And they end up in the shelter. Those dogs are in horrible shape. So these people. Who are dumping dogs. Down into the Everglades. Dogs are going to die. You're not giving. Those dogs. You're not giving. Some wonderful freedom to. Because they end up with heartworm. And. Infestations. And they end up dead. And that's. But down in Miami. That's. Like. They're literally closed to intake. They don't want to euthanize any dogs. So they. They're literally closed to intake. And that's also. I think. Broward County. And Palm Beach as well. For the most part. They're closed to intake. So now you just have more dogs. Populating the streets. And it's like. It's an. It's a problem. That's just getting. I think. Worse and worse. I kept thinking. There was hope. But I. I. I don't see any. Hope. So let's stop importing dogs. Right. Right. It's just not. Not. Not the right thing to do. Like. It's not the right thing. Jim. What do you think about. How. COVID. Played. Or did it play. A role. In. In everything. A hundred percent. Played. A hundred percent. Played a role. In this. A friend of mine. Used to have a car mechanic. And. It was just.

Shortly after COVID. And he calls up the car mechanic. He said. Okay. I want to get my oil changed. He said. Oh. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm a. I'm a dog breeder now. You're looking for. You know. So many people. Became dog breeders. For. Because for that brief window. You get. Ridiculous amounts of money. So. There was. I think there was an explosion. Of dogs. And then there was probably. Another. Boom. Let. You know. And I think that that was. That was a big. Problem. Now. The. And the. Thing that happened. Is you had COVID dogs. That were poorly socialized. In that time. Which are now. Behavior problems. So you have them. Ending up in the shelters. Because now they're. And as people. Had gone. Went back to work. Um. So now you have a problem. With that. So people have gone back to work. Uh. And then. Now you have. Now you have dogs. That weren't properly socialized. That are problems. So they're going. Into the shelters. So. COVID was. You had. It was a brief window. Where you had all these. Wonderful pictures. Of shelters being empty. For you know. For uh. For a couple of months. And then it just. Uh. It just didn't work. It just. It just didn't last. Yeah. That was recently. Um. I actually. Downloaded it. Uh. It was somewhere on the news. A couple of months ago. It was a. A really. Reputable. Like a very good place. In Colorado somewhere. A shelter. And. And. They were in the. In the local. News. Talking about how. They ended up with. Way more. That they can chew on. And. And. Dogs that come in. End up. I mean. Clearly. A lot of dogs that. End up in a shelter. They come in. With some issues. But instead of trying to. Rehab them. The issues get amplified. Or. They even. Add more to it. To the point that. I. I. Know. That. Even if they don't like. To talk about. A lot of the shelters. Are kind of. Up the wall. Like. Okay. What do we do. How. Like. Like. Whatever you're telling us. That they can work. And all the. Again. Going back to enrichments. And all positive. And all that. It's not really. We're not. Even. Closely. Trying to. Manage. Just manage. Forget about. Improving their lives. But even. Maintain. Where they came. In. You don't. I don't think there's. I don't think there's a real desire. To fix the behavior. Of dogs. And shelters. It's easier. To say. This dog. Is a behavior problem. And to euthanize. The dog. Because. We're euthanizing. Dogs. For space. Anyway. So. It sounds. A lot better. If you're the administrator. That we had to euthanize. This. You know. We tried everything. We tried. You know. It was all. You know. Positive only. We did. We did everything. The. You know. We're supposed to do. And we just couldn't fix this dog. So. It's not our fault. We just had to euthanize the dog. So. They really don't.

My own opinion. Is they really don't care. If they fix the dogs. It's just. A good way. It's just a great way. To show people. Oh. Look what we're doing. We're. You know. Here we are. And. You know. Yeah. Here we are. We're. We're doing everything. And we're. Rehabbing dogs. It's because it's just show. So. Yeah. Well. Show it with no. You know. Don't show it with a pink collar. Because that might look bad. And we don't really care anyway. Because we're going to euthanize. You know. We have to euthanize them anyway. So it's better to euthanize a dog. With a behavior issue. You know. And we couldn't fix it. Well. We tried. You know. So. I know that sounds a little skeptical. But I honestly believe. That's. That's. Where we're at. We're not. Because if you fix the dog. Where's he going? There's still not enough. There's still not enough space. And. So. But. Like. The. Your. Your idea. Again. Going back to that idea. Of. A dog trainer. Having their demo dog. And. And. That hits home for me. Because as a. Malinois breeder. It's pretty much. I wouldn't say daily. But. At least a weekly thing. Somebody's going to be. Hey. I need. I need. I need a puppy. Or a little bit. A kind of. Younger dog. It's going to be my demo dog. For my business. That. That's. Comes so. So. Frequently. Um. The same thing. Would be. Well. I. I'm going to. This. Dog training school. And. I. Need a Malinois. To learn with. And it's like. It would be so much. Cooler. And. And really. Like you're. Doing something. So. Cool. Getting a dog. From the shelter. And going. This route. With. Yeah. I mean. I would love to have. A Potosha dog. You know. That would be so much. Overkill. For me. I'm not in. Dog sports. And. You know. So. That would be overkill. For me. But. Oh my God. Like. The amount of. One. And two year old. Malinois. That show up. In the. In the shelters. Fantastic. Awesome. Dogs. That show up routinely. I could get three. Probably. Right now. At any of the shelters. Around here. Literally just walk in. Like. I can't go on to Pet Harbor. Because I can't see it. Because. You know. There's only so many dogs. I can. I can have. But I know. That if I go there. I'm going to play with the dog. Like. That's a cool dog. Okay. Right. May not. It's going to have a different. I can't tell you what the dog's going to be like. That's one of the cool things about these dogs. They're so different. From each other. Well. Anyway. That's another topic. But. Yeah. I don't see how more trainers. Are just walking. And getting it. Getting it. And. Hopefully. We give some ideas to people. Because that's like. Like I totally. And. When I'm thinking. And. And. And. Most people that. Kind of follow me. And know about me. They. They. Either. Know me as the. Defending. Electric shock collars. Or.

High level competition trainer. Or. In some of them. I'm. Animal abuser. And whatever. But I have a. I have a. Pet training business. For. Since like. 2000. Yeah. I don't think I've ever. Done. Any. Demonstration. With my. Competition dogs. Which will blow. Anybody's mind. If they. See me. Do something. I mean. They would absolutely. Blow their minds. When you. Regardless. Where you are. If you see this. Kind of level of training. Like. In close up. It's. It's. Very different. Very different. But. It would never. Cross my mind. To bring one of those dogs. To. Demonstrate. What I can do. To get a client. To come. And trust me. With their dog. Because it's not about that. Well. Well. Plenty of. I see it all the time. I mean. People. Like. Sometimes. Get. Reached out. You know. Looking for a demo dog. Or. This one's looking for. I. I thought this was going to be a demo. But it didn't work out. Like. Well. How could it. Not work out. It's a Malinois. How. You know. Whatever. No. I think. Well. Again. I think. Even if you don't want a demo dog. Go get a Malinois. Out of a shelter. And. Train it. Work with it. And. And just. Get it adopted. Just put it out there. That's like. What a great business card. You know. Who wants to see the typical pet trainer ad. Nobody. But. If you're putting out a dog for adoption. That you just adopted from the shelter. You know. You're going to get shares. Someone's going to share that video. Please share the video. So. I mean. I'm not telling anyone. How to market their business. Because I'm not a dog trainer. But that is a marketing. And it's brilliant. I mean. I totally. I'm sure a lot of people. I. Yeah. I just know what happened to me. Like. I could train dog. I could. Professionally train dogs. And get enough business. Just because of what I do. And I thought. Well. Geez. If I ever did that. I know. I know the direction. I'd go with it. And then you're doing something good. And. And even if you don't do that. Just. I think that it's. I think this idea. That the shelter dogs are broken. Is. Is so exaggerated. And I think it's exaggerated. Because. The average train. Most dog trainers. Are. Subpar. So it's a lot easier. To say. Oh. The dog was broken. You know. It's a shelter dog. And the dog was broken. A really good trainer. Is going to be fine. With the overwhelming. Vast majority. Of dogs from a shelter. A poor trainer. Yeah. Well. Okay. That dog's broken. So I think that's what. What fuels the narrative. A lot of bad trainers. Who just. It's easier to blame the dog. Because. The dogs that I. I. I don't. I don't. I'm not screening dogs. For the most part. I go to a shelter. If I've got space. The dog's. Going to come home with me. And. I am not having issues. With the. Vast overwhelming.

Majority of dogs. Just walk in. And they're. And they're just like. Okay. Yeah. You're going to. Take a dog. Hey. Freya. As she. As. Freya's digging holes. As. As. So I think that's over. I think it's overstated. And I think the other thing that happens is. There's a bias. You know. That. That. That. That crazy story. You know. That. That story of a. Of a. Of a. Of a. Shelter dog. That did this or that. You know. Something bad happened. Those stick out. Those stick out in their mind. But. All of the boring. Stories that I have. Well. I got this dog. From the shelter. He was awesome. Got adopted. He's having a wonderful life. Okay. That doesn't. Resonate. There's no. There's nothing interesting about that. But that story is over. And over. And over. And over again. And then. Yeah. There's the other crazy stories. Like. Even Tina. You know. Tina. Tina. Tina. Maybe we should talk about Tina a little bit. Tina by the way guys. Is the. The little black dog. That. I'm sure even by name you know her. But she. She was. She's like one of my. High. High. Like. Like. The. The most problematic child. Probably. And. And. In terms. Not of. Killing people. Or anything like that. But just. Having. Just. Demons in her head. For a long time. Like. Extremosities. And. You know. Anybody that hasn't seen. The videos of her. Highly recommend them. They're. They're on YouTube. But yeah. The only reason that you. Saw Tina. Is because. She was a dog. That was. Completely different from anything. I'd seen up. Up to that point. And to this. And to this day. And. So. I was at a loss. When I met this dog. To. Figure out. What am I looking at. In this. Insanity. That I'm seeing. I couldn't. So. I sent it. I sent. A little video. That I had. And we put it to crazy train. And I sent it. To Ivan. And. And. And other trainers. To say. Tell me. You know. What. What. What do I see here. Happening. So. I want to make sure. That people understand. That. You know. Tina is not the typical. Shelter dog. She's the exception. In the unusual exception. Because I don't want to perpetuate. This. This myth. Of broken shelter dogs. But. But. But. Tina is that broken shelter dog. You know. One. That one. In probably a hundred. That really is broken. And the only reason. Why you have that dog. Is because I sent. This something. With this dog. And I sent it to you. For that. For that purpose. This. So. Going back to Tina. I met Tina. I was evaluating other dogs. And somebody came to me. And she begged me. To go meet this dog. And she had. That. And I. So. She said. So I said. Okay. I'll go. I'll go meet Tina. We were at the shelter. And. And. So we went to go meet Tina. And. I said. Okay. Let's go to the play yard. No. We can't go to the play yard. With this one. It's. She's. She's a problem.

We have to go. To the. To this other area. You know. Away from the shelter. Because she's just nuts. And. Tina. So we get Tina. Out of there. She's bouncing off the walls. And her eyes are darting. All over the place. And she's licking her lip. Licking the. And looking the lights. And just. So I. I'd never quite seen that before. Anyway. She takes us on her. A little walk. A run. To this special. Tina's special place. And Tina goes charging into the sawgrass. After she gets there. And just starts tearing. At the sawgrass. At the weeds. And the bushes. And she's just going. And it's not playing. It's anger. And frustration. Multiplied by. 500. Yeah. Yeah. It was. I'd never seen it. I saw. I'm like. What am I. What am I seeing here? And that's when I sent it to you. I never expected your reply. And I never expected to say. I'll take. You know. You asked a couple questions. How old. Whatever it was. I'll take the dog. I. I. I. I almost fell off my chair at the time. And I said. Okay. So whatever. We had to. We had to arrange it. And. It's a beautiful story. Her story. It's actually. A beautiful story. Of. I didn't know. Like. I didn't know. The. The. The. The reason. I took her. It was. Very much. The same reason. As. You. Were. Puzzled. And I saw something. Very. Very. Extremely. Disturbing. In her. And. Then. There was that question. I. I didn't recognize. Disturbing. Uh. Until I had her in the car. Until I picked her up. At the shelter. And I put her in the car. And I. I didn't want to put her in a kennel. In the car. Because I was afraid. I wouldn't be able to get her out of the kennel. When I got to you in Tampa. Four hours away. I. I. Buckle her into a harness. Is because I. Do not want to be faced. With trying to get this dog. Out of a. Out of a kennel. So I buckled her into the back. Into a harness. In the back seat. And we began our journey. And it didn't take long. For her to step on the. On the buckle. And for me to have a loose Tina. In my car. It happened multiple times. And she was bouncing off the walls. Every time a truck came by. Anything came by. And she was absolutely possessed. I think is the best word. Like. I don't think people. Under. People. I don't think people. Understand how crazy. This dog was. And that's when I realized it. When I was driving over to you. I. I thought. Shit. What have I done? No. You. When you. When you. When you. When you came in. You were like. I'm ready to take her back. And. Put her down. Because. I. I don't see what else. We should do with her. No. No. What I said to you. I. What I said to you. I said. I said. Of course. All right. I had a conversation with myself. The entire way. I said. Okay. There's no way. He's going to take this dog. Like the look in her eyes.

She was absolutely. Crazy. I felt. Horrible. For this dog. I said. There's no way. This guy. And I didn't know who. I didn't really know who you were. I didn't do sports. And things like that. So I'm driving this dog. And I'm thinking. This is a problem. There's no way. He's going to take this dog. I just committed to this dog. To get this dog out. I cannot go back to the shelter. With this dog. Because it'll be euthanized. Or. It'll be stuck in the shelter. And I will not. Going to put this dog. Back into that shelter. To live in the conditions. That it did. For any longer. Because that dog. Was suffering. In that condition. I am not capable. Of handling this dog. At that time. At that time. I was not capable. Of handling that dog. At this time. And I said. And nobody had adopted. That dog. So that dog's. Time was running out. There was no rescue. Who was going to take the dog. Nobody wanted to adopt the dog. I couldn't handle. And so it's the first time. I thought. I think I have a choice. To make. With this. If he doesn't take it. What am I going to do? Am I going to euthanize it there? Am I going to. What am I going to do? And that was really. It was. That was really. A watershed moment. For me. To you know. To try and help a dog. And then realize. Holy shit. I'm over my head deep. And. So I said. I went there. And we. I finally dropped the dog. I get to you. And I said. I said. Look. I. Now. I kind of understand. What I'm looking at. Now. Having spent four hours. With the dog. But. I said. If you can't. Work with this dog. I will come back. In two weeks. And I will euthanize her myself. And you said. She's not dangerous. I think she's going to be okay. My heart. I just. Oh. What a relief. What a relief. I drive home. I think. Oh boy. I don't think I'm going to see that. I don't know what's going to happen here. The next day. You're on like. Well. I got this dog. This is a problem. And I'm like. Wow. Son of a bitch. He put that right out there. Right. Like. Right away. The next day. Like. Didn't hide it. Said. I got this dog. I don't know what we're going to do. But. Let's figure it out. It was a. An emotional. Roller coaster for me too. Because I was. Genuinely. Very sad for her. Then. As a trainer. I was like. Okay. This is a challenge. But. There are some moral. And there's some. There's some ethical. Decisions here to be made. Like. Like. Where are we going. You know. What. What really can be done. And how far I want to go. Before we. Like. It was a. Toss up. In. All along. It was a toss up. Yeah. You were pretty clear about that. You know. That. Like. Can I fix it? What. You know. Like. This. This was. This was never. You never looked at that. And said. Oh yeah. I've got this taken care of. You were.

In all your early videos. You were pretty much like. Like. Figuring it out. Like. Okay. How are we. Figuring out the puzzle. That's. You know. I. Some of the videos. I've heard you use that expression before. Like I tell you. Like. For. For. Everybody listening. Because. Even though they have. Some. Some of you guys have seen videos. Yeah. Like I. I. The first. Few days. Or week. I. I was just trying to see. What do I have. I mean. What. What is going on. I mean. It was like a. It's totally insane. So. Here I am. In my training room. She's off leash. And she is just. Licking the floor. And I have a big training room. And she's just licking it. In this. Like. I've never seen. Obsessive. Compulsive. Behavior. Like this. Then going through the walls. Then. All of a sudden. Realizing. That the fence. Are going. And making shadows. And then. It was raining. So. Outside. She's just attacking. Like. Anything. There was a. No. None of the behaviors. Was. Even. Goal oriented. In any way. And. As I'm making the video. I'm like. Okay. She has to. I mean. She has to. Just. Somehow. Wear herself out. And stop. And as I'm filming. There is a timer. Right. And I'm watching. And I'm like. Okay. We're 50 minutes. On. This madness. I have to stop her. And that happened. In few situations. Just to. Just to. For me to. Understand. The depth. Of. Possession. That she. She. She. It was. Really. Really. Really. Really. Just. Scary. Sad. You are. Bringing. Back. Memories. Of that drive. That four hour drive. To Tampa. It was. The worst thing. I ever did. I thought. What have I done? What have I done? And I got this dog. In my. And. And that's exactly. What she was doing. Looking up at the. Looking up at all the lights. That are. That are flashing by. And with these. Bug eyes. In her head. And I'm like. Holy cow. And. She. Bouncing off the walls. You know. As I'm driving. You know. I say. I don't know how people. I want to say. You know how people drop. Dogs. Into the. Into these. Everglades. But I'm telling you. That dog had me. Like. Bananas. As she was breaking loose. And was going crazy. Like. I could see it. I. You know. Couldn't see it. But I could almost see. Like. Holy cow. This is four hours of this to you. And that's how I realized. Wow. What a. What a terrible mistake I've made. I am. I am so over my head. On this dog. And. And. And. And. Like to think that I. I have to. Am I going to have to euthanize this dog? Probably. You know. It's probably. It's probably the right thing to do. Because I couldn't see myself addressing that. And when I. So. I don't know if I don't. Fast forward. But when I saw you. With her. Several months later. And I thought. What. He. What. Holy cow. That's what I said. Okay. I want to know. What everything that guy knows. Whatever.

Whatever he did. To. To make her. To fix this. Or. To manage. I want to know. I mean. I was. That's when I became. One of your biggest fans. When I saw. What you did to that dog. If people only knew. If people only saw. What I saw. Or you saw. Like. You can explain it to them. But until you've been there. I've never seen a dog like that. To this day. I never saw him before. Yeah. I'm. I'm kind of. I. Don't want to. I feel like I'm ready. To take. On. Something. Similar. Like her. Although. I don't. Even. Think. There is. Going to be. Ever. Anything. Like her. That's just. Extreme. I. I've. I've never seen another Tina. I. I've never. I. I've seen a lot of dogs. There's. There's. I've seen dogs. That look like her. But. I haven't seen a problem dog. Look what. I see aggressive dogs. You know. That's something I'd like to. I'd like to do better with. A really aggressive dog. But I don't know if there's. You know what the problem with aggressive dogs are. There's too many good dogs. There's too many good dogs that need help. That you could spend some time doing some just like basic training. And get adopted. And then to invest time. Into. This is. You know. There's tough decisions in. In rescue. Like. You almost have to just let them go. You almost have to let the aggressive ones go. Because there's just not enough adopters. Yes. That's. That's what I'm saying. That's. That's the. Heartbreaking part of. Of what you're doing. And what anybody. In. In this. Area of work. Is going through. It's. It's this. Their decisions. To be made. Daily. And. And a lot of times. Those decisions are. Really. Heartbreaking. I've seen. You know. I've seen. I thought I had a dog. Almost adopted. And then. Then the dog freaked out. And. They were. They were getting ready to spay. Spay or neuter it. Or something. And the dog. I don't know. The. Day before. Just went after. Went after one of the. One of the vets. Or something. Vet techs. Or something like that. And I had to tell the person. Hey look. This is what happened. And the person backed out. And the shelter was like. Listen. We think we're going to put the dog down. It's asleep right now. And. You know. A lot of. A lot of the. Almost with all behavior problems. The. The. Unfortunate. Thing is that. It's always just a little bit too late. By the time. The. Pet owner realizes that they need help. They have. Let it go. For too long. Which makes it. In some cases. Very. Very difficult. To. To make that change. If. If. Pet owners. Were just a little more. Acting. A little more. Untimely. Manner. A lot of problems can be. Stopped. Like really. Controlled. But. By the time. Somebody says. Okay. Well. I have a problem. And. And. You start to gather. The history of the dog. And the history is going for.

Not for a month. Not for six months. But for three years. And it's progressively going to the point. To where. Now. Now. Where. Where are we going? Um. I. I wish that pet people. You know. Can recognize those. A little sooner. But that. So. Just a wishful thinking. That. That just never. Will happen. Pet owners. The average pet owner. The average pet owner. Is so. Is so. Bad. At. Understanding dogs. It. It's. Absolutely. Shocking. And. The average. Adopter. Is just. It's just. Idiotic. What happens. And it's. Heartbreaking. Because you'll. You'll hear about a dog. That got adopted. A Malinois. That got adopted. And just something. Stupid happens. They do something. Dumb. The dog. Nips them. And the dog. Goes back to the shelter. And gets euthanized. Just. You know. Oh. I just. I don't know. I reached into the. To the. You know. So they just get the dog home. From the shelter. The dog is on edge. Doesn't know what's going on. And was. Well. The dog was hiding. In his crate. And I reached in. And I. I grabbed his collar. To pull him out. You know. That's like. Do dumb things. And also the dog. Will turn around. And nip them. Well. The dog's aggressive. Like. On the day. The dog got home. And they'll reach in. They'll grab the collar. Or they'll do something dumb. And then. Boom. It's a death sentence. For the dog. And they'll just do stuff like that. Oh. Well. The dog's aggressive. Just like. I think another. Hold on one second. I mean. Alexa. Turn on gazebo lights. That's. There we go. I was going to think. We got to stop the podcast. Beautiful. So. Another. Interesting. Problem. With. With this. Whole. Adoption. Process. Is the. Most. Often. Than not. The shelters. Are like. Okay. They. There is this. Facade. I. I wouldn't say. Facade. I mean. They are truly. Trying to scan. And. And. See if. The. Home is. They're trying to get. The home is. The shelter. The municipal shelter. They are trying to. Get the dog. Exactly. That. That's it. Now. The rescues. Are different. The rescue. But even in the shelter. Even. Even though they. They seem like they are very strict. And they're making sure that the dog's gonna be. You know. That. That. The owners are capable. And so on. They do a very poor job. Of. Giving some. Help. And some instruction. Of. How to handle. Any dog. Regardless of. Good or bad. Or how big of a problem. Or no problems. What do you do in the first week. Or two weeks. Or a month. When the dog comes. From shelter environment. To your house. If I had a business. Or you know. One of the things. They should do. Every. Every dog. Should have. A dog collar. With a telephone number on it. And there should just be. One business out there. And their specialty. Is helping. You know. When you're having a problem. With a dog.

Because most of the problems. You see. Are just. They're just. They're. They're. They just happen. Over and over again. So you need a hotline. Hey. This is what. You know. This is what happened. And. So that. And then. Real trainers. Are on the other end. Really. Helping you. To. Keep that dog. One of the things. That I do. And I. Is. Is. When a dog gets adopted. Whether it's from the shelter. Or the rescue. Is. And I'm. I'm involved with the dog. Is. People. Message me all the time. Oh. I had this issue. Like. You know. I had a guy. Called me. The next day. After he got a dog. He's like. Oh. This dog. Has been crazy. He was barking all night. And I. You know. And every time the dog barked. I went in there. You know. I gave it a treat. And then it shut up for a little while. And I'd go back to bed. And he'd start barking again. So I'd go in. I'd give it another treat. I was like. All right. Well. Congratulations. You just trained the dog. How to bark. And call you. Because. And. Like. This is what they're. You know. So. This is what they're doing. Okay. You got to say. Okay. Stop. Doing that. You're teaching this dog. You're rewarding this dog. You know. Bark. I'm coming. I'm going to give you a treat. That's what you just trained the dog to do. Not to be quiet. Yeah. No. No. No. You know. Like. Definitely. Some kind of lifeline. Can be. Of. Of. Very. Very. Helpful. Very. Very. Helpful. But. I'll tell you. Sometimes. I. When. When I. Am. Just. Need to check out. And. And. Just for. Entertainment. Purposes. I would. Go on social media. Or YouTube. And I would. Watch. Some of those. Hotlines. And ask me anything. Kind of. Trainers. That. Start. Just so bluntly. Just. Giving. Advice. And. And. Most of the time. Is. The. The. The. Worst. Advice. Possible. Only. To. Demonstrate. Their. Knowledge. And. And. Maybe. Follow. Certain. Narrative. Being. Balanced. Being. Force. Free. Whichever. Cam. They are. But. But. Some. Of. The. Advice. And. Some. Of. The. Those. Those. People. I. Find. Extremely. Dangerous. Because. Illiterally. For. Me. It's like. Okay. I'm having. This crystal ball. And. You're asking me a question. I'm going to tell you. Exactly. How dangerous. Your dog is. And. How. You. Suck. Or. It's like. No. Like. This is such a dangerous. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Advice. And. And. You're dealing with people. That really. Are calling for help. And. You have zero information. You're just sucking. From your fingers. Something. To. To make yourself. Really big. Expert. Of dog training. So. There is a danger. Of those things. And. I. Watch them. Just for. Really. Sometimes. It's just. Very. Entertaining. When I'm not. Looking at it as. From. From that. Point of view. Of the person. That needs the help. Because the help. That is provided. It's really. There is no help. It's about. Me. Being. I know everything.

And I'm going to tell you. Before you even. Ask the whole question. I'm going to tell you. How wrong you are. Or. Or what you should do. And. It's. Just as bad as. The dog going to the. Veterinarian. And. It's like. Oh yeah. Let's put him on. Fluoxetine. Let's. Let's. Psychotropics. Because he's a bad dog. Anyway. I don't know. It's a tough one. But. If there was a. If there was a. Person that would. That would do this. Kind of lifeline. That it's not about. Them. Looking good. But actually. Sincerely. Trying to help. And not following. An agenda. And say. Well no. You've been training it. Because you're using. Things you're going to end up with. If you're dealing with the municipal. If you're dealing with the municipal. Municipal shelter. And politics. And people vote. And you're going to end up with. Probably you're going to end up with. Force free. I mean that's. But even the other way around Jim. I mean. Even. It's like. Oh no. You need structure. And let's just hammer him. And let's just. Show him who's who. It's like. How do you know. Just because somebody's telling you something. You cannot take this for face value. And just all of a sudden. Write a whole prescription up. This cannot be more wrong. I think the value of trainers. Is underestimated. Is completely underestimated. And unappreciated. By the average individual. This has to change. You know. And this has to change. I grew up. You know. I grew up in the 1970s. We didn't. You know. I guess we were sort of. A lower middle class. Nobody had trainers. You had a dog. It was good or bad. It went to the. It just went to the shelter. Or. It didn't. Or it was just the bad. You know. The. The only trainers. You know. Lassie. You know. A TV. A dog. On TV. They. Lassie might have a trainer. But that was like. So out of. Out of. Out of this world. That. Someone can train a dog. To even sit her down. It. It was just around. It has to get to another level. It. Where people have to appreciate. What trainers. Are actually. Capable of doing. A good trainer. What a good trainer. Is capable of doing. And there are too many. Bad trainers. That I think. Are giving. The good trainers. Like. Like a. Like a guy. Like Dylan Jones. Who's next level. There are too many. Average mediocre. And nobody can. It's hard. For the average individual. To tell the difference. Between. That average. Mediocre. Low. You know. Pet smart trainer. To another. You know. The pet owner. Can't tell. So. One of the things. That I'm trying to do. Is. Spotlight. Like. Exceptional trainers. Uh. So. That's. I think it's so important. For this breed. So. One of the things. I want to do. Is find. Really good trainers. And meet them. And videotape them. With the dog. Like. I did something recently.

With a guy. Eric Good. I'd heard about. I'd heard. About Eric Good. I said. Oh. Who is this guy? I looked into him. A little bit. And he trains. For the Fort Lauderdale. Uh. Uh. Uh. Police department. So. I reached out to Eric. I said. Eric. I'd have to meet you. Talk to you a little bit. Take some video. So I made a video. You know. These are exceptional dog. Malinois are exceptional dog. They need an exceptional trainer. Boom. So. To. I get to promote. Other trainers. Because I don't care. I'm not competing with anybody. I'm not doing any. Any. Uh. I just want what's right. For this breed. And for this dog. So I get to do stuff. That other trainers. You know. Everyone's trying to. You know. Promote themselves. I don't have to promote myself. At all. But I can. Promote others. Who are out there. No. No. That's super cool. I. You know. I'm kind of laughing. A little bit. Because. You surprised the hell out of me. With one of the videos. Because of course. I watch your videos. And I share. Whenever. I. I. Run into something. To. To try to help out. But. But there was one. You actually had. Bambino. Doing ring sport. With. With. Your. Rescue dogs. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean. He's like. Top of the top of the line. Decoy. In ring sport. This is a. This is an exact. Example. That people. Have the ability. To have a guy like. Bambino. Downright. Downright. People. I'm sorry. I forgot. Bambino. I forgot. Downright. It'll come to me. People have a chance. He's right in my backyard. The people around here. Could train. With that guy. Like. That's phenomenal. Okay. And they don't know. Or they go to the pet smart. Or they. Or they go to the pet smart. They don't know the difference. They don't know who Bambino is. And. But. And they don't know who the pet smart is. So. What do they know? So. If I can promote somebody like Bambino. Or Eric Good. Or. My friend. John Narditsky. Or. Any of these trainers. And. And a lot of these guys help me too. You know. No. But like. I mean. Sometimes I haven't. For example. He's like my go to. Decoy. When I'm doing ring sport. In fact. He's. Like. We have a bunch of sessions. Already scheduled. For like. December. And whatever. And. And then to see you. Playing with your dogs. With. With the. High. Of the highest level. Expert trainers. In doing this stuff. It's just. So cool to see. It was. I. I cannot even imagine. How I didn't even message you. On this one. And he was great. You know. Bambino. And he's the reason. Because I had. So I had that dog. Storm. That came out of Miami. Was just a super solid. Strong. Drivey dog. And you actually played with Storm. When I. When I came to one of your. Sessions. You played with Storm. At. Because Storm. I believe. I said. This dog can be. This dog can be a police canine. I.

Like. And that. That's a dream. For I think. Any one of these rescue dogs. And. But I needed to promote him. A little bit. So I knew Bambino. I could. I could. I could take this dog. Over to Bambino. And so. Bambino. Did a session. With Storm. Just phenomenal. It just was phenomenal. It was such a cool video. So I posted that video. And. Uh. Uh. Uh. And. Uh. T. Uh. T. J. Dobbins. Over out. He saw the video. There was one. Where the dog. Went in. Boom. Fell. And rolled over. Jumped up. Came back in again. And T. J. Saw that. He's like. I'll take that dog. So he went up to Ohio. Trained to become a police canine. And today is a canine in Indiana. And that was because of Bambino. And you gotta give it. I mean. Him and Kim. You know. I mean. Very cool people. And. And not just them. It's just. Anybody that it's in this high level. Of sport training. It kind of goes both ways. I mean. I admire that you seek this kind of knowledge. And. And you get excited. Because it's. It's definitely exciting. But also for. This type of people. That are. Literally. I mean. They're like the high end. Sport. Like really. Really. They know their craft. Coming down and saying. Oh sure. I'm gonna do some. Cool stuff. With Jim. And his rescue. I mean. That's admirable. You know. Absolutely. You know. That's. If there's a secret. That I. I mean. If there's a secret. That I have. It's not that I'm a good. Dog trainer. Great at rescue. Or anything like that. It's that. I'm humbled enough to say to anybody. I have no idea. Can you help me? And all these guys. Like Eric. Good. Or. Or. John. Darditsky. Or Bambino. Or you. Boom. Come right up. And say. Yeah. I'll help you out here. You know. So then. Then if I can promote. And so I like to. In the video. Say. Okay. This is such and such trainer. You know. Because I love nothing better. That the people. Who I respect. Because I'm only going to people. Who I respect. Who I think. Are really good. So then I get a chance. To promote. Their. You know. To help promote them. And I hope they get some business. From helping me. And I. So that's another thing. I'd like to continue to do. To meet. Exceptional trainers. Highlight them. Because these dogs. Need exceptional trainers. And not your typical. Run of the mill. They need. So. And that's. Sport trainers. The protection. In my eyes. It's really silly. It's very. Very simple. To. To. To see. High quality training. And proven trainer. Versus. Somebody that has. Tons of followers. And likes. And they're doing it. For the wrong reason. You know. Very much for the wrong reason. But there is a. Huge confusion. It's incredible. The confusion. Of how people. Are totally lost. Of. Who is who. And somehow. You're managing. They have no way to tell. You're managing this.

You are really. On the right track. Of. Whatever you're doing. Research. Or it's intuition. Or whatever it is. But. But you're. You're making. Good choices. You know. Yeah. Well. It's. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. Here I am. Like I said. Relatively. New. In the dog sport world. But I've. Gotten to be. Guys like you. And Bambino. And all these guys. Like. Mike Lorraine. Just. People who are just. Just the best. In Florida. And around. And that's been super cool. To be able to do that. Because of this special breed. You know. That I've been. I just. Dumb. Dumb luck. Sort of fell into whatever it is. That I do. Wouldn't it be nice. To just. All of us. Collaborate. And not fight about. Stupid. Oh. Prone color is bad. No. This is whatever. Like. Like. Yeah. I. You know. And I try to. Keep my head. I try not to get involved. With the politics. And the rescues. The. Or the back and forth. I just do my own thing. And. You know. I'll use my prong collars. I'll do what. I'll use. I'll do what I think is right. I'm not afraid to. You know. Show anything. You're staying grounded. And. And nobody. Thinking about the dog in front. Nobody. But. I've. But I also realize. I'm fortunate. Because. I have a different. Outside. Business. You know. Job. That pays me. So. Nobody. Nobody owns me. I don't. Can't. No one can. Go ahead. Shut me down. Shut my Facebook. Who cares. You know. You're not going to. No one can do anything to me. So. I'm just going to keep. You know. And I don't have a big following. You know. I don't have some. You know. But. No rescues. You know. I tell you. One thing. I do want to touch upon. Is. Anything that I do. Is. So much of it. Is because of the rescues. Like Sylvia. Like Mad Rescue. Like ABMR. All of these rescues. Are really. What does the heavy lifting. In. In most of this. So. I would say to anybody. You know. The easiest thing to do is. Hey. Fill out a foster application. With any of these organizations. Big Cypress. German. German Shepherd. Rescue. In. In Naples. Or. Sylvia. Or. Mad Rescue. And there's tons of other great rescues. All over the place. Foster a dog. That's super easy to do. They pay for the medicals. They. They'll find an adopter. You know. And train the dog. And so you got to foster it. You know. Get a Malinois. I think that's a good way. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. is help one dog in any way you think you can, but you can't. For sure, there is something you can do to help one dog. And maybe you will like it, maybe you will not. But imagine if everybody helps one dog. Will you help one dog? You spend a few weeks or a couple of months with one dog. You have given that dog another 10, 15 years of an amazing life. Because you took a few weeks, a couple of weeks.

Then, I know there are dogs all over the place that are living lives because I took them for a couple of weeks. And I had a great time with them. And then when that dog leaves, all right, you're gonna tear up. It's gonna be sad, but within a couple of weeks, that dog is already bonded to the next person. And you're gonna go meet that dog. And the dog is like, sorry, I'm with him. That happened to me. And that was really a relief. I always thought, oh my God, these dogs. I'm the only person who can take this dog as part of my family. No, they move on. And then they click to the next guy. And then I had a dog. I wheeled out of Miami day with broken legs after I was hit by a car. I took care of this dog. It lived in my house for months and months. Took it to the vet. I went to see that. I met that dog six months later. That dog didn't want anything to do with me. It was like, I'm with this family now. And I thought that was beautiful. It really did. Uh, because I'm like, okay, I feel better about all those other dogs that I worried about. I think we wrap this up. I wanna, I wanna really, I, I, I don't know. I, I really admire your passion and, and just who you are as a person for the dogs. Thank you. Thank you, Ivan. And that's the only reason that I wanted to, to have the conversation. And, and hopefully your story inspires people. And hopefully, as I said, everybody helps one dog at one point in their life. The, the, what you get back from this, it's, it's something very special. And, and I think you, you drove that point tonight. So, um. Thank you. Uh, thank you. Uh, I, I, I wondered if I was, had 20 minutes of stuff to say. So I'm a little surprised. It's a perfect conversation, my friend. Hopefully I see you, uh, sometime soon. And I hope so. And I would have loved to come. But I would have loved to come up because, uh, you, you've created a very special place over here at your, uh, Doors open always. You got it. You got it. Take care. Cheers. Cheers. All right. Bye-bye.