에피소드 20: Jo-Rosie Haffenden

I mean, it's a different, different challenges and different puzzles that you need to solve in, in a specific way. Um, yeah. So how do you like, like when you, we do mondioring and I mean, I'm sure you're exposed to variety of, of trainers that use aversives as well. You're, it's not like 99%, 99%. So even all of my club, I don't go to a positive club or anything like that. I'm the only trainer that doesn't use them at my club. Um, I train at three other clubs sporadically and all of them use tools as well. I'm the only one in those clubs that don't use them. So we are, we're a rare breed, especially in Southern Spain. That's very cool. And how, how did they, how do the, the, the other trainers go, go along? I'm, I'm assuming that you have to give them some directions because probably their way of thought it's, oh, let's do this. And, and you have to kind of present a different, uh, uh, idea, right? So it was very difficult at the beginning. When I first moved over here with my older dog, Blake, who's there. Um, when I first moved over there with him, when, when I first moved over here with him, it was really difficult because they didn't know me and they hadn't seen his training at all. And so there wasn't any, I hadn't built any trust with the clubs and with the decoys, um, that I could even do it. So they were kind of like, there's this little girl who's come here with a big Mally. Like what, what, what is this over time, basically merely by continuing to turn up despite their attitude every week, week and without twice a week, putting the working showing that I could train the dog. Um, I think I gained a lot more respect to those clubs, um, to the point where they were much more open to listening to my ideas. So when I first started, it was a lot more about me saying, I don't want you to do this. And so it was a lot more about just saying to the, like, for the, for example, for the decoys, um, if they had the dog on the bite and he had a lead on, I didn't want them to correct him on the, on the lead. So I'd have to just say to them, I don't want you to do, I just don't want you to do that. And we, it wasn't really a dialogue at that point because they didn't really trust me, but I could, I could out my dog or that I could recall my dog in those situations. Um, but then over the weeks, I think we got to a point where we like now we've, we've got a massive respect to me and my coach for each other. And, um, and the trainers that I train with, it's like, it doesn't really matter.

They know that if there's a problem, they'll say to me, for example, my dog was barking in the defense. Um, and they will say to me, this is how we would fix this. We can fix this like now in this one session, like pass me a problem and we can do it. It's done. But I know you don't want to do that. So do you, so a lot of the time I will then say, okay, I want to, let's just stop the session. I'm going to go and I'm going to think about it and I'm going to come up with a solution and then I'll go home and I'll think, how, like, how am I going to do this? Like a little game of chess. Um, and then sometimes I'll have a solution in my head straight away and be like, I've thought about what was going to happen if this happened. Um, so can we try this route instead? And it's, it's been super, super eye opening in so many ways, like super eye opening. I've learned an absolute shit ton. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this podcast, but an absolute, is that right? An absolute shit ton. Uh, in terms of methodology, handling techniques, mechanics, um, even just the way they've done something when I've gone, I wonder if I can do it exactly the same, just without that. And like, like amazing stuff. Um, and it's also, it's also given me so many, so many moments where there's a real ethical dilemma where I have to like barking in the defense was a really good example. So defense against the handler, my dog has to stay in contact with me and move around me, keeping vigilant with two decoys. And then when they come over, um, and make contact with me, he bites them. And he had a problem that, uh, he had, he takes, he takes that particular exercise quite seriously. Um, and just to, just to interrupt for the people that may not be quite familiar with ring sports, the, the barking per se, it's not by any means, any penalty, but it leads to problems. It kind of opens the dog to, to become more pushy and then not focus and then take initiative when it's not supposed to. So just, just so everybody kind of understands why we, it was almost the opposite problem with Blake. So he, he wouldn't bite because he's, he's, he's a bit busy with the barking dog anyway. He's, um, I like to blame it. He's got poly A22. So I kind of like to blame it on that a bit, but it's, it's nothing to do with that. He's just one of those dogs that when he gets into barking, he gets in a bit of a loop and he can't remember really what he's doing. Yeah. And he's like, so I didn't want him to bark for that. He doesn't lose any points.

When he first started doing it, he was very able to do the exercise. I made the error of allowing him to do it a couple of times thinking he seems okay when he's barking. He doesn't seem to lose his head too much. And then by like the third or fourth time, I think it becomes so rewarding for them as well. He just loses head. So I then had to think outside the box because my, my trainer was like, we'll just put a prong call on him. And then in one session I can fix this. I can make this super clear for him. And he's, you know, he's beautifully sensitive anyway. We don't, we don't have to do this. Um, and I said, no, I want to think outside the box. And to start with, I wanted to use kind of the strategy of if I can manipulate his access to the decoy, then I should be able to, to prevent him from barking. So all the time you're not barking, the decoy is going to move around you. The exercise continues. And the minute you start barking, the decoy goes stationary, completely still. And we wait, I tell you to quiet. If you quiet, the decoy continues to move. If you carry on barking, wait a little bit. I'll ask you again. Um, but what I found was that after like maybe three sessions of this, I could see that it wasn't clear for my dog. And it put me in this horrible, like ethical dilemma where I was like, this isn't that this isn't providing him with clarity. And it wasn't the decoy's weren't doing what I asked because they did. It's just for whatever reason for him, that lesson, that picture wasn't clear to him. Just saying that barking in a very different level for him, like the meaning of barking and engaging in the barking, right? Mm hmm. And, and obviously, he does bark and hold. And it just like for him, it just didn't, it didn't work. Like, I could see it. I was thinking if I carried on doing this, maybe for three or four months, then I'm going to get to where I want to go. But ethically, like if we're going to, if we're going to forget about what tool is, is most and least painful or aversive or startles the dog most and instead really concentrate on kind of the ethics of what is good training and what's going to be quick and smart and improve clarity and teach the dog the lesson in a way that's going to be quick for them to get clear and open the window fastest for reinforcing. I could see frustratingly that the prong collar was in that way much more ethical than the sort of program that I designed. And, and in the end, I found a, I found a little sidestep round it, which is that for my dogs, I would say that my style of training is very, very, very verbal.

And, and so I, I give them a lot of, I give them a real indication as to when they're going well and when they're not going well. Feedback on both sides, right? Feedback on both sides, right? For sure. For sure. So, so for me, what all I did really in that situation, what I like suddenly had a brainwave and thought, why aren't I talking to him? Like, because I can't talk to the decoys, I'm not talking to him. And I thought, what am I doing? Like, why didn't I just talk to him? And so I started going, good boy and stroking him. Good lad, good lad. And then as soon as he barked, I'd give him a mistake marker and say, ah, remove my body language. Like I'd emotionally change and he'd go, oh shit. And actually that was really, really quick. And so that's, we can, we can debate all day long as to whether or not, in fact, that was probably more aversive than if I had used the prong. But either way, that was my kind of like, that was my sidestep round, but it definitely got me to debating in my head. Like, even when I, when I saw a route that was more ethical for my dog, I chose not to do it. Why did I choose not to do that? Because is that just my, that's my own ego, really? Right. Right. Yeah. So that's definitely, that's definitely training with those guys so regularly has given me so much food for thought like that. And training ring sports full stop has given me so much food for thought like that because we're training dogs that are very high drive and that of the love being out on the field. Which is one of the, one of the, the books that you did, that you write about the, uh, uh, making sure the dog has an outlet and a purpose in life, which we talk a lot about. Uh, um, but it's a tough road. I, I can only imagine your first sessions, knowing me being a decoy myself or so many years, knowing how somebody would come and, and most of the time as a decoy, you know, that that person has opinions and ideas, but from my past experience, you really also know that they are not coming up with some ideas that not. coming up with some ideas that make sense. And, you know, the decoy ego always gets hurt. And I guess the reason it worked for you is you stuck with it. And they started probably seeing that there is some logic behind it and probably even get interested. So, well, let's see what Josh is going to do. Just out of pure dog training curiosity, right? In some ways, I actually think that because here it's such a masculine sport, all the ring sports are such masculine sports here, like 90% men. And I actually think that my gender was to my benefit in that situation

because I think they kind of allowed it a little bit more than they would have done if it was a bloke. Because I think they're a little bit like, I'll let that little girl do her silly things because actually sometimes it works out for her. And then they started to ask me questions. I remember one of the funniest times where it did work out for me, where they were interested, was when I first – all dogs go through it, don't they? When I first had that problem where Blake didn't out, where he first went through that little step where he says, nah, I think I'm going to stay here with this guy because he's much better than you. And I remember I did a second whistle and my coach said, no, put the reward away. Put your ball away. Don't give him the reward. And I was like, no, no, I need to give him a party. I want to give him a party more. And we had this moment where he looked at me like, you're mad. You're mad. Because in my mind, the dog hasn't outed properly and so you should be giving him less or no reward. But in my mind, the dog hadn't outed immediately. So I needed to massively increase the motivation for him to out next time. So I'm giving him a party. And everyone in the field is looking at me like I'm totally – like I've lost the plot. Like she's giving this dog more of a party. But the next time I outed him, boom, he's off straight back to me. Yeah, this is a classic one. And I guess sometimes – I mean, it could go both ways. Like I just – as you were saying, I picture also a dog that does anything halfway mediocre and the dog trainer would be, well, let's reward the good one and we ignore or we stimulate the not so good ones. But exactly right, like if I call a dog and they're casually coming and throwing, but then they get a big reason why they need to come, then you're increasing their motivation to come the next time. You're not necessarily rewarding that one. When you're building, you know, the present is used in the future. And it's kind of where we are. It's like show me the money, isn't it? Show me the money. Right. And then – and I think that is the only – so I have a real problem with the Quadrant being used all the time because it's such an outdated model. It's so reductionless. We overuse it. We try to use it to explain things that don't fit into those boxes. I have a massive problem with the Quadrant, which I'm sure we'll come into at some point. But it's one of the reasons that it is useful is literally for that because if you're going to throw a party for the dog when they haven't outed the first time,

when they've come back to you or when they're recalling and they're recalling slowly and you throw a party for them, the only real logical way to deal with that is to go, what's my criteria? What's the consequence? And now is the behavior increasing or is it decreasing? And to measure it. That's the only way, is it? Right. Like essentially, the dog's going to come off the next time and the next time better and better or they're going to go, oh, when I come back slowly, I still get a massive reward. So I might as well come back slowly. So you can only really deal with that by doing – ultimately doing more and more reps and just measuring and seeing whether or not that consequence has – like whether or not it's reinforced that slow behavior or whether or not it's reinforced the initial behavior of coming back. So when you see trainers that use aversives and they – like how much input you're willing to give? Like my guess is that because you're on that other side of looking at different ways, you probably see the problem, like you can bring something beneficial to the resolution. But I guess how stuck are the trainers? Are they adopting any ideas of what you're doing or is it – like how does that work? I would say in the obedience, yes. So I think in the obedience, a lot of the methods that I've seen have changed. Ultimately from – when I first started, I saw a lot of like just modeling the dog into position and like marking when they get it wrong and a lot of setting the dog up to fail with things like food refusal and marking the dog when they get it wrong and a lot more sort of compulsion side where you're setting the dog to get it wrong and punishing it because it was – their skill set lay in punishing the dog a lot more. I have seen some really elegant use of those tools where they're kind of like using them more to motivate the dog and to activate the dog or to use kind of negative reinforcement in things like heel work where they're really – where those tools in those situations, the way they're being used by those trainers really is adding clarity. Specifically if they're used at the very end to kind of polish the behavior or to layer on top to kind of add more nuanced clarity to specific parts of the behavior and the behavior was built with motivation. But I think the people that I've worked with generally have – where they've taken most notice is using that kind of – that sort of different, more, I'd say, modern positive style of training in the obedience stuff. So in positions, so like using really high arousal luring with a toy for positions

and things like that where in their heads, positive trainers when they're teaching positions are basically using spatial pressure and luring to get the dog into position and it's slow and it's ugly and it doesn't look great and it's – when actually we've moved on a lot and now using those sorts of much more high arousal luring techniques, we're getting really flashy, fast, like polished and very, very quick off the cue type behaviors when it comes to things like heel work and like jumps when you're jumping place to place and food refusal when you're teaching kind of like eye contact or look towards the owner instead and things like that. So I think that they've picked up a lot on that. I think they've learned a fair amount about reward placement that they weren't thinking about before and about how we can use the placement of the reward. And I like to think – I think some of them, not all of them, but certainly some of the trainers that I work with now also consider punishment placement, which is something that I see a lot of trainers really mess up. What do you mean by punishment placement? I mean like the place, the direction where the pressure comes on. A lot of people, you know, I've seen people use it in a way where you think it's coming from – Emotional kind of mind. Yeah, or it's coming from the right when you want the dog to come in to heel. Like if you're using a prong collar in that way. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Things like that. And I think that now – we talk so often about – Not guiding the dog to easily find the solution, right? Yes, yes, exactly. And I think that there's – I think that they've started – I think that a lot of the trainers that I work with now are starting to think a lot more of using pressure to guide the dog rather than using it just to correct the dog. And when they're using it to guide the dog and they're using it into more of a communication system, I think they're much more – their brain has become a lot more articulate at working out. If it happens then and it happens there, that's going to be better than if it happens then and if it happens there because it's going to make a clearer picture for the dog. And I think that seeing a lot of reward-based training has helped them kind of maybe articulate that more. That would be the dream, at least for me, I'm sure for you, to be able to – like in so many different sports and areas of dog training, to have this – to come together and train together and understand each other and see the – you know, where are the limitations, in which place, what are the benefits and really –

you know, I know in one of the – well, we've talked so much now that – but you know, one of the things that we talked that was very interesting and I ended up, you know, mentioning this quite a few times after we've been talking with the Lima, you know, the least intrusive minimally aversive approach and how, you know, we have to – we cannot underestimate the importance of clarity, timing and – And efficacy, having a goal that gets met. Right, right. Yeah, efficacy is probably like the first thing, but I guess that comes with clarity, right? And I had a – I had an opportunity to talk with Steve Lindsay and very much in the same – the same, obviously he somehow – I don't know what brain he has and like how he writes these books, but after talking to him for a while, I realized that if anybody can write three, four hundred pages books, it's – he's one of those people that can do that, you know, it's just like mind-blowing. But the Lima situation with, you know, like where the force free or positive only or I don't know, like they – I don't – why do you think, before I even go there, why do you think those labels continue to change to something else every single time? The moment I start to get used to how to address them and it's a – no, we are now a different – we have a – we call, you know? I think it's because none – I think primarily a lot of the labels initially were built off the quadrant and I think that never works. It doesn't work because the quadrant shouldn't be used the way it is in dog training. And so there were too many times when people called this section of – let's call it this section – this section of dog trainers, when they called them like positive reinforcement trainers, it became frustrating to everybody because it was so factually incorrect. Like, because it implies like you don't use negative reinforcement or positive punishment or negative punishment. And ultimately, A, you don't know what you've used when it comes to the quadrant until after you've used it because you have to have been able to measure it. So it has to be in retrospect. And B, depends on what criteria you're – depends on what criteria you're measuring before you can – before you can allocate what box it goes into. So most situations in real life can be – are punishment and reinforcement depending on what you decide to measure. So it doesn't make any sense to classify a dog trainer based on the quadrant. It's like it's ludicrous actually when you think about it.

Yeah, especially that we disregard – like if we get completely stuck in that dry, pure version of, okay, reinforcement and punishment, we ignore, we don't talk about emotions, we don't talk about genetics, we don't talk about a bunch of things that are really dramatically affecting the outcome. I've got a beautiful example of this actually based on – so I listened to a podcast. And she was like, oh, there's the perfect example of negative reinforcement. She talked about a dog lying by a fire and getting too hot and leaving. And that blew my mind a little bit because I went, what? Like that isn't the perfect example of that. Like, because to start with, so what measure – if we measure the behaviour of the dog lying by the fire, then the heat positively reinforces the dog for lying by the fire. But if the criteria of the behaviour is lying by the fire, then lying by the fire reduces when the heat is removed and therefore leaving it is negative punishment. If we measure moving away from the fire, then moving away from the fire is reducing when the dog moves – moving away from the fire is reducing when the dog moves to the fire and with the increase of heat. And therefore that's positive punishment. And lying by the fire is positive punishment. And then if we're going to look at moving away, then it is negative reinforcement. But the key factor in that situation is the temperature of the dog. Like, if the dog is temperature X, he wants to lie by the fire. And if he is temperature Y, he wants to move away from the fire. So the quadrant is completely irrelevant because it's so reductionist that it hasn't taken into consideration the most important key variable in that picture. Yeah. So it's almost silly to think about, like, to suggest like, oh, this is, you know, this is a great example of negative reinforcement because you're like, well, only if you're measuring the dog moving away from the fire, in which case moving to the fire was positive punishment in the first place. And it's, which doesn't make any real sense because the only, the thing that's, there's, there's a huge variable that's changed, which is the temperature of the dog. Yeah. And it's kind of depending which glasses you put on, how you want to, which part of that whole thing you want to look at, which is also, you know, that's kind of where, what was his name? Michael something in the seventies when he came with that idea that negative positive reinforcement should, there should not be even a distinction because to have one, the other was existent prior to.

But it just made me laugh because I was like, the funny thing is, is that if you were going to, if you forget the quadrant, right, if we get the quadrant, we rip it up and we throw it away. And you look at that situation, the one variable that you'd want to mess about with in order to create the behavior would be the temperature of the dog. And it's the only variable that doesn't fit in the quadrant anywhere. Right. Like, so it's just, I thought it was a beautiful example actually of how relevant the quadrant can be when we actually look at a full, a full picture. Because it's, and I think it's, it's quite a nice example of the fact that anything at low enough level can be, could be counter conditioned to feel good and anything at high enough level could be conditioned or will become aversive. Yeah. But it's, it's, it's a, it's a shit example of negative reinforcement. Yeah, we, we get stuck in giving sometimes. I, dog trainers are really like, we're preoccupied with coming up with analogies for some reason. Right. It's like, oh, I have a good one. And, and it's like, but sometimes they backfire and they don't make sense. And, and you talk to some client and you, you give some analogy and they're like, that's just not like that. Yeah. And we, I think people say, get so preoccupied with the quadrant as well, that they forget about dog training. And you just, you kind of want to shake them and go, it doesn't matter. Like, you don't need to describe it as negative reinforcement and justify why you're describing it as negative. Like it, that doesn't, that's not a part of this picture that matters. And in every other, like in nearly every other paradigm, like child psychology and most marine psychology, like in, in most other forms of education, when we're educating other beings, this is so outdated. Like, like it's, it's the sixties. We, we, it's so reductionist. We don't think about that when I'm like, if you look through child psychology, you don't, we don't think about that. It's maybe it's like one lecture or one module, like it's not important, but for some reason, dog trainers have become fixated that this is the, the primary and most important thing in dog training is being able to classify something in a retrospective metric system. Yeah, which is just crazy. Yeah. That, that's, it's so true. And it makes it, it kind of, if you, if you can talk that specific talk, you believe that you are validated. You're like, Oh, I, I'm, I am a really good dog trainer because I understand the quadrants and I can apply them correctly.

And, and I, I cannot agree more with you that it's like a, it's very restricted way of thinking and, and there is, I mean, I'm sure we don't disregard them. There is a crazy value in understanding, you know, random reinforcement, continuous reinforcement time schedules. I mean, of course, when, you know, when forward, backwards conditioning, I mean, there's, there is things that they are fundamental, right. But that's not the whole picture as a dog trainer. There is an, and on top of that, besides as what we're saying, genetics and, and emotional state and, and, uh, age and maturity and like, just, just so much. Um, endocrinology of the dog, like the hormones, where it is in its cycle, where it is in its like breeding life, like whether or not it's old and it's kind of finished that or whether or not it's young and it's just starting to qualify as a competitive animal within its social dynamic. And like these things make way more impact than people give them credit for. And then there is a whole part of, of truly being, there is some art form in training dogs, like, like, without a doubt, there is, there is something, you know, there's like this thing that I found a way for you and I to, to do something that doesn't necessarily match as any, any of the structure that we know. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Like I've talked to quite a few very influential scientists and, and almost everybody somewhere in the conversations like you, you cannot forget that what you guys are doing. There is an art to that. It's not, you know, and then I think this is the interesting part for the training dogs more interesting than, than staying focused on the quadrants. The quadrants, right? Way more interesting. And I think it's the part that's getting lost in the education system. It's the part that I find really frustrating because coming from an academic background, I get a lot of students who come from an academic, academic background who have done a degree in animal behavior and so on and so forth. And you come out having read the books and having, having understood the studies and having, having read it and think that you understand it and understanding it on that level is, is nothing like doing it. It's nothing like doing it. And you can't teach doing it without doing it. And it's, I think I worry, especially in England, I don't really know what it's like in America, but especially in England, that the university seem to be churning out academics that are well read. And have very strong opinions, particularly on methodology with, with literally no mechanical skills. Yeah.

With nothing, like, like nothing. Like I'll ask them to walk into a kennel and they can't, you know, like there's a, there's an art to walk into a kennel, isn't there? Like, and, and you'll think you're going to let that dog out. Like how have you not learned? How have you done three years in university learning about animal behavior and you haven't learned to walk into a kennel? It's, or, or, I think it's, this is, this is around the world where we are today, for sure. I don't think this is England specific. And it seems to have gone full cycle, doesn't it? Because to start with like a long time ago, the most famous, the most famous trainers and the trainers that were in England. And the most respected were those that were either head of military head of army, or teaching the Disney dogs on films. Or, you know, these guys were the guys writing the books. These guys were the gods of dog training. And then somewhere down the line, it switched. And instead of going, Oh, it's actually really useful when you understand a little bit about the science and you can do it. Somewhere down the line, it went, no, the science is the, is the most important Holy Grail. And it really, it really isn't. It really isn't at all. And, and, uh, like I was, I don't know, was it yesterday? I mean, a couple of days ago, I don't know. I was just talking with Michael Ellis on the phone. Like every once in a while, we would have this super long conversation. Either one of us calls just, just with ideas, you know? And, and we, we kind of go way back in training to where we witnessed the whole, uh, um, evolution of, of, okay, there is a whole other way that we can do things. And, and it's not, it doesn't always need to be forced that there is definitely a very interesting ways. And for some reason, what we were talking really about was that how dog trainers or, or just humans and society, we just seem to always bounce from the one thing and kind of get to where we should be. But then we keep pushing it further to where it goes so far on the other end that it becomes not just impractical, but we kind of getting lost at this point of, of what, what, what are we really doing? Are we trying to, to train dogs or not train dogs? And, um, just as I said, train dogs right now, from what I gather from, from just how the, the, you know, force free community, or at least part of them, um, that there is a, uh, an idea that we don't even talk about training dogs anymore. It's, uh, it's, it doesn't respect the animals genetics. It doesn't respect why they are dogs, how they are here, or why they aren't the wolves.

And the reason we are together, you know, I mean, they, it's the, this is like the, the most beautiful interaction because it has challenges. We grow together, we find ways we, I don't see, like, I truly don't see what can be better of a way interaction between dog and a person done accomplishing these things that we call training, whatever, whatever it is. Right. Um, but yeah, there is, there is something about this. I think, I think, so what I, what I think happened, I've got a bit of a, a bit of a theory, which is that I think what happened is there was a bit of an industry boom in terms of dog training. And then as a result of that, there was suddenly more accessible animal behavior academia. So I think suddenly, because the result of the industry, they said, right, there's a need, there's a need for this. And at the same time, they said, well, if there's a need for this, let's educate them through education where they can pay us loads of money. And, and I think that coincided with a bit of a change, which, which isn't the change that people like to think it was, but from, from my, from my understanding was simply a change where they said, hmm, hold on, we don't need to alpha roll dogs. And we don't need to force dogs down or hold their mouths clamps. There are other ways of doing this that don't always set the dog up to fail and then punish it. And, and I think actually when the, when the, if we're going to call it positive, when the positive movement started, it included the whole of the balance movement. It pretty much was the balance movement, because it included things like, you know, if the dog jumped on the counter, you'd still tell the dog off and, you know, and make sure that there was a consequence there. The dog didn't know, knew not to jump on the counter again, or if the dog raided the bin. But then on the other hand, if you, then you went on and started food prepping and the dog didn't, you might give the dog something on the floor. It was, it was, it was balanced as in, it was both. And it wasn't, I don't think at that point, there was this great big desire to completely remove any level of aversive communication or any level of mistake marking or telling the dog they'd got it wrong or anything like that. Not at that point when it first started moving over. And I think that that, that whole movement coincided with the increase of academia. And so the two things have somehow become linked so that the academics are only teaching that method because that was the most modern method.

But there's been some confusion where that method has been pushed so far this side, that now that method is, is force free or whatever. And requires this idea that you're not allowed to say no to your dog. You shouldn't give it any consequence that feels aversive. You shouldn't communicate with your dog that you're disappointed in them. You should, which is just so far removed from our, our natural communication skills as humans and their natural communication skills as dogs. But it's like, it's like saying, you've got to speak English, but you're not allowed to talk any vowels. You know? Yeah, it's very true. Yeah. But I think as a result of that, a lot of the academics that don't have the, that real art of training yet come out with this real notion. And, and, and they come out at, you know, when we talk about all the different things that affects behavior, obviously affects humans as well. But they come out at the right age, the right point in their breeding cycle as human beings, et cetera, to be very, to, to desire risk and really come out and be real loud and proud. And they're at that point in the Dunning Kruger where they feel like they know everything. And so they're the loudest part of the community shouting with probably quite a low skill set when it comes to actually training dogs, quite a low experience level when it comes to actually training dogs. Totally, totally, totally, like totally true. But somehow they, they, they really have become the authority. I mean, at least by, by some accepted as the ultimate authority. But is that not because of social media and because of the media? Because again, they're young. So they're the sexy ones. Normally they're the ones who are gorgeous and going out there, looking gorgeous, speaking and being loud and proud, which is exactly what the media requires. Because it's exactly what other humans we desire seeing. And they're the ones shouting, shouting about it. Like, you know, when me as an old woman talking sense doesn't, isn't nearly as attractive as the 21 year old down the road, who's real gung ho and enthusiastic and passionate and saying, you know what? I can change the world with this method and I can give me any dog. Right. Yeah, true. So I think it's, it's an amalgamation of all those things that have kind of got us to where we are now in this incredibly frustrating situation, whereby it feels like there's camp A and camp B. When in fact, there are no camps. We're all just dog trainers. Some of the dog trainers are really crap and they're not very good at what they do.

Some of them are amazing and they're brilliant at what they do. Some of them are developing. And the really good ones that care about the interaction and the welfare and everything about the dog, they, regardless of what side of the sand line, the intentions are exactly identical. Like we, we, you know, we want the best and the, the, the, the, you know, now when we take that best to, to go off rail and, and start to change, like we don't talk about, we, we disapprove of training, even as a term. Dog training is a bad idea. Dog training is a bad idea. it starts to really like what are we doing and why are we listening to, what is your take? Why do, for example, the veterinary animal behavior specialists across the world are becoming the authority of how dogs should be trained? Yeah. When I read all the mission statements, I don't understand how you can have graduated and you can say things that, like you have to know that this is incorrect statements that you're making, but you're saying them because you're going to be approved and liked by many on one side. And that makes the divide somehow. I think it's a blind faith in science. I think like we used to have religion and everybody believed just blind faith. Like, yeah, God, God made it. It's no drama. God made it. But we used to have that. And I think now we've become a bit like that about science, as if science is a finite thing and not method. People say, what did the science say? Say people say, you know, people often say to me, yeah, but the science proves that. But and I'm like, I don't think we're talking about the same science, because science doesn't prove something. There are very few, very, very few laws in this world apart from death and taxes, really. And like the the science is just a method. It's a journey. And usually it's a loop, actually, whereby everything ends up being a continuum, because that is that's the way that life works. You know, there isn't there isn't a black and white. There's always the scale in the middle. And that's really and and science will eventually show that and then it will be debunked and then it will show something else and then it will show something else. And you can use science to say whatever you want. But I think that people have got and I think I think people have got so hit up on what the science says is proof and is correct as if science can be correct and incorrect. And it can't. It's just data. Science is data. But I think people are so obsessed with it that now the the reason that everybody is so like black and white,

these, you know, using using tools is unethical as if unethical is black and white, which it really isn't. And, you know, and using positive reinforcement, you can train anything with positive reinforcement, because science says so when it did a test of 16 dogs jumping through a hoop. Yeah, you know, but but I think people are so obsessed with what the science says now that they that they heed little in the experience of the people who are actually out there in the trenches training the dogs. And at the same time, if you're graduating and you want to put some paper out, you're pretty much guaranteed that if the paper follows that narrative, it will get thumbs up by the the the scientific community and your peers. And and and it's almost a it's a two way street where at this point that those people that are making the studies, they know that they can I mean, look at the what was the one? Daddy Mills, Mills and Mills and China. I mean, she she all she did was just just talk about the the thing that was happened seven years ago. And and everybody's like, wow, great. As if it's a new bit of information. That that study was one of the one of the examples of the the poorest piece of science I've seen. Like it's terrible. It's terrible on so many levels, like because it ignores so many of the really important variables like movement and how movement affects cortisol levels and temperature. And, you know, the fact that some dogs are being trained out in the snow and some are being trained like it's it's ludicrous not to mention the fact that back in the day, the technology that they're talking about when they're talking about the kind of training is chalk and cheese to what we're talking about now, as well as the methodologies which have developed. And I would say the same about the positive training, if you like. When I look at that positive training, what they're doing there is they're conditioning a whistle with food and then walking backwards and all this stuff. You know, we wouldn't do any of that if we were training recall of sheep. Now, you know, you'd use toys, you'd use flat poles, you'd think about reward placement, you'd think about all these other different things that we think about now. So I think I think there should be like a sign, like a like a data graveyard where when data reaches a certain age, it has to be killed. You're not allowed to use it anymore just because the picture of an industry changes so much. Right. And that really should have been put in the graveyard a long, long, long, long, long, long time ago,

maybe a year after it had been made. And that's if we forget all the clearly methodological and bias within the study itself. Yeah, I yeah. So that's so true. Same goes with with how when we talk about what was the word of the crossover trainers one way or the other. And it's like, yeah, I'm crossover trainer 30 years ago. 30 years ago is an extremely long time of what we are doing, regardless if it was all positive or balanced or all aversive. 30 years ago, whatever you were crossed over, you should revisit that even even if you don't want to do it, you should just revisit it of pure interest in dog training and to see where it has gone today. It's a different game. I do feel I feel sorry for balanced trainers in many ways because they are made out to be like some kind of a villain and the tools and, you know, I think I think one of the problems of this is that is the the lack of definitions that the or the inability for some reason in our industry to to understand that the definitions aren't always black and white, because I do think that a lot of trainers think aversive or stress. And these words have got such emotional connotations. And when we think of aversives, we think of torture, and we think of pain, and we think of which is an option, of course. Yeah, for sure. But aversive is just the opposite of appetitive. Like either the animal naturally moves away from it, or they move towards it. And if they move to move away from it, then it's then it's aversive. And, you know, like a tap on the shoulder can be aversive, like me staring at a certain way can be aversive. Like it's not all aversives are not made equal by any stretch of the imagination, not just as acts themselves, but for dogs themselves. And like, for example, I've seen like, for example, the Deaf Dog Network would always recommend an e-collar over or generally will recommend an e-collar over a vibration collar because for most dogs, and I would say for I've got five dogs, for that bulldog there, the white little bulldog, if I put a vibration collar on her, if I put a vibration collar on her, she would lose her shit. She would hate it because she's incredibly like a lot of the bulldogs are, tactile white, she's incredibly sensitive. I can put my hand on her and feel her fizzing like a can of coke. She's just that sort of dog. She hates that kind of thing. But I think I honestly think and I never have, but I honestly think that if I put an e-collar on her, I think she'd go meh. I just I don't think it'd be a big deal to her because in the same breath,

when I play fight with her and stuff, she's strong and robust and she's quite hard. Like if she does something that is naughty, because she's properly naughty in there, when she does something that is naughty. And I say, Oh, don't do that. Well, the other dogs will listen to me and go, shit. She's that typical bullish, ah, so I'm not interested. I'll do it anyway, type, type dog. And so that the very same thing, you know, so so for a lot of the deaf dogs, when when it comes to aversives, the vibration collar is considered significantly more aversive than the e-collar. And, you know, the haughty in the prongs, another one that people absolutely hate talking about. I should really say slip lead just to keep the audience quiet. But you see these mastiffs and they're being walked by an 80 year old woman who won't rehome the mastiff. Fine. I understand that if the dog's reactive, that without a doubt, there is a danger there that even if you train the best loose lead walking in the world, an 80 year old woman walking a 10 stone dog, there's a likelihood there that something's going to go a bit peat tongue and someone's going to die. Therefore, we need to put some controls on it. Arguably, we need to use the least the least aversive. Right. We want to use the thing that's that's effective, that's timely, that works quickly. In terms of owner compliance, it needs to be quite easy. And that is, you know, the kindest thing for the dog. And then you see trainers put these head collars on them where all their skin is squished up into their eyes. The dogs are trying to get it off. They're like they're snowballing down the road, trying to get this halty off. And when you say to the trainer, well, you know, if you thought about teaching the dog, like to yield to pressure and use a slip lead or something like that instead. Oh, no, that'd be so cruel. That'd be horrific. And it's like, I don't know where certain things got the label of this is an aversive thing. And this is not an aversive thing. And therefore, we can use this in any given situation ethically. But we can't use this in any situation ethically. But it goes against the laws of common sense. Yes, this is what this, this in particular is one of the number one problems that we have, because we cannot, we cannot accept the fact that there is levels of using aversive, there is levels of using any form of reinforcement, any form of punishment. And, and when you read, like when you go to the pet store, and you buy a no pull harness, and it tells you how,

how it works, it's just so misleading. And what is wrong to say that this is this is why it works, and maybe it's safer and more, you know, if you if you don't like another option as a prone collar with all these spikes on the dog's neck, there is another option that works exactly in the same principle. But this and this can be avoided instead of painting a completely different picture just for the, for the sake of marketing or, or, or, but that's where it gets so confusing and people and it's perpetuated, it's constantly perpetuated. I was writing a course for someone. And they asked me, they rang me up and they said, Oh, it's all fine. But I'm a bit worried because you've used the word pressure a couple of times in here. And I was like, Yeah, because we are, you know, we're putting pressure on the dogs. Yeah, but we don't like that. And like, why? And they're like, because it's, you know, there's a connotation there that, you know, that's what, you know, balance trainers are using pressure. And I'm like, I don't care. Like, that's like, I'm not not gonna say it's pressure, like, because pressure is one of the most important forms of dog training to understand. Like it always, I watched, I was watching a TikTok the other day. And it's just one of those coincidences that I, that I scrolled from, I scrolled from one balance trainer who was who, and he, he had a German Shepherd on a lead in a muzzle and he's walking it past another dog. And he talks about putting spatial pressure using spatial pressure to guide the dog in the other direction. So he stands, he does that whole typical blocking thing where he blocks in front of the dog, and the dog can't see the other dog. So he moves out the way, and then he rewards the dog and they walk off in the other direction. And I don't agree with everything that guy does. But that's, that's in that. That's what I saw. That's what he did. And then I happened to scroll and then there was a positive reinforcement trainer saying, we don't need all these tools. We don't need blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She had a pit bull on the end of a long line, actually. And she did exactly the same move, but called it, we're guiding the dog around showing, you know, blocking his visual so that he doesn't have to see. And I'm like, you're doing exactly the same, but you're criticizing this guy for using spatial pressure. You are using spatial pressure, exactly the same. You just haven't been taught to you to call it spatial pressure because you're scared of the word spatial

pressure because you think that that's going to be connected with some campus dog trainer that isn't you. Like it's mad. This, this, the, the, the, the, the words are like really crazy. Like there was a, and, and this is done quite often now. They're like, um, in California, University of Davis, they teaching their, in their behavior classes does the students and they make, um, um, like, uh, they caution them when you read certain keywords in, on a website or certain phrases that that's, uh, immediately should be, you, you definitely classify them as something, uh, a very, um, you know, a bad idea. Like, like, for example, I will, I'll read some of you of those. Like, um, so, so they have a, and it's on their websites. It's like caution with these phrases on the website guarantees, dominance, alpha pack, not treats, bootcamp, board and train, shoots, hoon ring balance training, motivational training, negative reinforcement, protection, police training, remote leash free e-collar, canine in the name. So they, they are basically teaching in class that any of these words already put you in a certain category of a bad trainer that it's doing horrible things to dogs. Well, I'm buggered then aren't I? Cause I, right. Like, like, um, it's just, it is, it's crazy. It is a crazy word. I really think the only way forward is essentially us all just completely dropping it and calling ourselves dog trainers. Yeah. Like I genuinely, if there was some sort of a like thing where we go, why don't we like, let's all just call ourselves dog trainers, because I think the best balance trainers that I've worked with, you wouldn't, you would, you would barely know they were balance trainers until the end of their, until the end of what they're doing. Um, and the best reinforcement, reinforcement based trainers that I, that I see still give the dogs very clear consequences. Like I get told off, um, on my social media quite a lot by the more extremists about using mistake markers about saying, ah, when the dog gets hit wrong. Um, and I can see that argument because their argument is that, you know, that's, that's clearly aversive to your dog. Um, like you can see it in the body language of the dog. I agree. I'm, I'm glad because otherwise I've got nothing to tell them when they've got it wrong. Like I want my dog to go, oh, are you disappointed in me? Do you, do you not like that? Do you not want me to do that? I want him to feel like that or her because otherwise how else can I tell them? And, and I, I do believe that often,

and especially with these types of dogs, often they are so sensitive that I think that the verbal communication stuff is often underutilized because, because I think that actually if we talk to our dogs more, um, and show them how we feel more with our body language and our expression and like building anticipation and all that kind of stuff, I think we can, we can develop such a great communication system with them that a lot of the things that are hard to fade, like toys and food and tools and all that kind of stuff are a lot less necessary because we're, we're talking to each other in like a, like a literal fluid language where we're giving information to them and they're giving information to us. It's like you heard me say talking. Which is where we go on, go on, sorry. And, and I just think, um, I think that dogs are so, are so sensitive to how we feel about them because it's literally what they've been bred to be as a species, but we've co-evolved. That's, you know, the main differences between wolves and dogs is their cooperation with us. And like that they're so born to listen to us and to take our cues, understand not just how we say it, but you know, even the latest studies have, have, have produced data that suggests that dogs understand the words that we say and whether or not the words that we say are, are being said in a way, even when it's not been trained and things like this. Um, that I, that I just think that, that we should be using that. We can use that so effectively in training for you. Yeah. Yeah. They're so like, they want to do most dogs want to do the right thing. Like if, if you have a good relationship with your dog on the training field, they, they, they want to get it right. Like I don't have any, I have no doubt my dog wants to get it right. I have a question. Yes. I, I don't know if we talked about it, you know, we've been talking quite a bit, so, um, um, it's been a lot of fun, but it's something in my head and it's not specifically between our conversation and just one of those, you know, thoughts that come in and we know that when you do positive training and we are trying to avoid form of punishment or, or negative reinforcement, um, especially like on the punishment side, we, we think like the, the, the idea is that we, and I'm, I'm going to say it in don't take it quite literally, but, but, uh, you know, uh, it just, it brings more clarity of, of what I want to say is instead of telling the dog, this is a bad idea, don't do that. We focus on derailing the

dog to wanting to do something else, which is right. The, all the differential reinforcement programs that are quite successful. Sometimes they're very time consuming and in some situations they are not enough to accomplish a goal, but, but let's say like the, the thing that keeps them coming back to is how, like, let's say when you do that and you derail the dog, and again, it's not the right word. I don't want it to sound wrong, but we're deflecting the dog into something else. And the fact that there is this one thing that we don't want him to do, but the dog really never gets that message from me that, Hey, I don't want you to do that. Or even if you do that, it's just a bad idea. But instead we put so much work on, on the other side of focusing on what else to do and never really explaining, which can be quite simple to explain. Why, why is that notion? Why, why are we taking that extreme way of doing it? To me, it's an extreme way of doing it. And if we add some combination of both seems to me that that would be the more ideal picture. So I was thinking about this and I was thinking about exactly this, really, I was thinking about this in terms of, cause I was thinking after I had a different, I had a conversation with a different trainer the other day. And I was talking to them about, about if you like, about where you sit on that line. And they were like, where do you, like, where do you sit on that? And I was thinking about exactly this. So I was thinking about dog aggression and I was thinking about how, you know, often when we have a dog that's, let's say the dog's, let's say the dog is genetically motivated to fight. So let's say we've got a game bred pit bull and he wants to fight the other dog. And that's, that's what he wants to do. So let's take fear, which is nine times out of 10 fear is, is involved, but let's take that out of it because it makes it a bit more complicated. And let's say we've got, we've got a bully breed that's desperate to have a scrap with the other dogs. He's quite offensive, aggressive. He sees the other dogs and he kicks off. And in positive training, we tend to, we tend to remove the dog or reduce the trigger or give enough distance so that the dog doesn't kick off or that the kickoff is very, very low and work the dog to let's say, look and look away from the trigger. And if the dog kicks off, we just start that repetition again. And, and the more, you know, the, the better trainers that I work with, we work very hard to, to surf the threshold and to kind of try and try and always stay on that, the distance where the

dog's about to kick off, but they're, which is the perfect, that should be the standard, right? I wish it was, I wish it was because in reality, so many people work so far back, but it's going to take them 30 years. But, you know, ultimately we want, we want to work on that real threshold to push that threshold because the closer we are to it, the further, you know, the quicker we can push it towards the other dog and the quicker we're going to make progress. And I think that actually we, the good trainers that I work with, certainly when I train dogs, I think I make it very clear what I don't want them to do. I just, I just don't, I just don't add, I just don't add something that necessarily startles or adds pain or adds pressure or adds, or does nothing to that dog. And I think I add it later on in the program. So if I'm going to train that dog, the first thing I'm going to do is train the, like, whatever it is I want them to do. Let's say the goal is to be able to do like a pack, like the goal is to be able to walk through the dog park on the lead without the dog kicking off. And if dog, other dogs come and sniff it, irrelevant, the dog can walk free because that's, I call that an anti-socialization protocol. I use it with dogs quite a lot. So my, my aim for my dog owner is to be able to have their pit bull on a loose lead walking through the dog park, other dogs coming to say hello and their dog just says, nope, I'm, I'm walking, I'm walking and doesn't kick off. Because if they can do that, then generally they can go out in town and go to the coffee shop and, and all that sort of stuff. Um, so the first thing I'm going to do is take the dog away from that situation and train it what I want it to do. So I'm going to train it loose lead if it hasn't got loose lead and probably some eye contact exercises. Then I'm going to take it into the situation without the trigger. So outside, but without the trigger and work on some engagement. So the dog is engaging with the owner. Right. And I think it doesn't matter what, what we use, what tools we use. We probably all do some approximation of that to start with. Dog knows what we want it to do. Dog is engaging with the owner. We then take the dog into the situation with the trigger. And what I see balance trainers doing, if I'm honest, and I, and I do work with a lot of them, but what I see the vast majority of them doing, if I'm honest, is they take the dog out into the situation and they will immediately start using corrections on the dog for kicking off.

Right. Right. And for the time being, let's not worry about what corrections they use. We can talk about that in a minute, but whatever it is, it's usually quite a big correction. It's usually some form of physical correction, whether or not it's on a slip or a prong or whatever. Right. And they immediately do that. Now, as a, as, as a, let's say positive trainer, I would, I take the dog in first. I asked them to perform the behavior that I've been training them to do. And I jackpot that. And I give them shit tons of like, yes, good dog, show from a party. I then work towards threshold and get to threshold, start trying to surf that threshold and, and give them ample, ample, ample reward for doing it. If they make a mistake and they go over threshold, I'm not a trainer who would ignore that because that's, that's ludicrous. It doesn't give anything to the dog at all. I'll make it known to the dog. But I guess the main difference would be the, the level of aversive because I'll use my voice and I'll say, ah, no, and we'll walk the other direction. No, come on. Especially if it's a dog that wants to scrap, because ultimately they want proximity to the dog. So I'll, I'll take the dog away. Come on. And I'll start the rep again. No, we're starting again. And I'll make my disappointment in them known. And I'll say, no, that's, that's not, that's not okay for me. I'm not happy about that. I'm not giving you treats for that. All the verbal stuff of going good. Well done. Lovely. That the dog naturally as a being, as we've discussed usually desires. And, and in nine times out of 10, I would say that I'm very, very quickly able to work through those protocols and get the dog doing what I need it to do without needing to, to use the corrections and certainly without using, needing to use the corrections first. My, ultimately my criticism of a lot of the trainers that I see, the, my criticism of the positive trainers that I see is that most of them work too far away from the threshold that they're making progress so slowly. Like I've blown my head off by the time that the dog's anywhere near another dog. A, B that they haven't trained effectively the behavior that they want good enough that the dog really understands what they need to be doing. And so there's some, not very much clarity in there. And B that they're so scared to use anything aversive that they're scared to say no. They're scared of any level of stress from the dog if they do say no, and they're scared to use body language and moving away and things like that. It to show the dog what they don't want them to do that.

But if they, if they can, if they're able to do those three things, generally speaking, I see fast progress. I see dogs completing their goals. It's all good. With the balance trainers, what I tend to see is being very trigger happy straight away using the corrections before they've shown the dog really what they want it to do. And working in a way that rather than encouraging the dog to do what they want it to do, they work, they put so much more money into suppressing the dog against what they don't want it to do. And to me, that ends up with a dog that's flatter, not always, but generally a dog that's flatter. So just not as enjoyable and not as happy in their attitude and what they're doing. A dog that's the relationship between the handler and the dog, if the handler is handling the dog, has been tarnished in a little way. Again, sometimes with these really pushy dominant dogs, that can be a productive thing. But it's definitely something that I've seen. And a dog that is more likely then to kick over and to go over threshold every now and again to go, I don't get anything good for getting it right. I know I might get told off, but I think getting told off is probably worth it and having a little pop. So I think there's pros and cons to both. But I think I think I think if you sit anywhere in following that process, and if the dog will respond to moving away and verbal, et cetera, et cetera, you can you can get good progress. And with the dogs that do require or that do that don't work very well off of that, if you find a decent balance trainer that that uses a similar process, but that just uses kind of the amount of aversive they need to at that later stage in the process, then I think you end up with a good result. But unfortunately, you don't you very often see the two extremes where people are getting it wrong. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's that's that's what I think as well. It is the balance trainers for sure. Well, not again, just as you said, I don't even want to repeat what you said because it's it's exactly how I feel that there's this thing of, oh, what is your dog's problem? And the owner says this is my problem. And the balanced, the not good balance trainer, I have to emphasize this. They they will just jump right in there just to show the owner that they can suppress the behavior right here and now. And and as you said, that's that's a in a lot of ways counterproductive. You know, you you definitely can work it on a small, you know, teach some concepts, work with lower level

of arousal, then eventually lead to the where where the problems really are. But now you have so much your your your equipped exactly. And then you find out that in some cases, just as you say, may not be even necessary because the dog now has other things to do. I think overall in dog training. The majority of dogs don't have problems, they just they're just left out to do whatever they think they can do. And they have no structure and no purpose. And they're just bouncing off the walls, having some energy and desire to do and not knowing what. So they they end up being, you know, what the owner would consider being a problem dog. And and it takes very little interaction and guidance to where to understand that the dog really doesn't have problems. It's just that they're just left alone to do whatever they want to. So they get themselves in trouble because what do you do when you when you have no guidance? Right. I think I think I think one of the problems is that there are quite I think that as as someone who comes from the like the positive trainer label or whatever, I think that sometimes it's quite difficult because I do see the overuse of punishment and also sometimes the over like some some obviously all punishments aren't equal. And actually, I think I think we talked about this last time. Like, like, when I think of, for example, your punishment event, I feel like it uses, I feel like it uses our understanding of dogs in a way that we're we're giving the dog like the worst possible situation very quickly, because we're preventing them from communicating to us because we're isolating them from appeasing. And we're isolating them from trying to provide the right answer. And we're giving them the personal aspect of it, where we know that they're designed to to to get a lot from that that relationship. And then we're also giving them the pain, startle, startle, a verse of whatever you want to call it over even tiny correction. And I can't help but think that from like from someone who and I know last time we talked about me having not seen it and it being much smaller than what I think in reality. But from someone who doesn't use that kind of thing in training, it's hard to hear because I can't help but go what what could what what could a dog do that would possibly warrant using all of their weaknesses against them like that? You know? Yeah. And I think that's maybe where where balance training and and I don't know, I don't even know what to call it, non-balanced training, where that line in the sand, people from that side of that land in the sand,

find it really difficult with this people in this line of the sand, because when we hear about and when we see those those types of of punishments, when you you go, I don't I can't think I can't conceive of a behaviour other than biting a baby, but the motivation to bite someone is so varied that there are so many different attributes to that, that even that isn't that simple. I can't think of a I can't think of a behaviour that would ever warrant the dog to have its weaknesses utilised against it like that. Yeah, that's a and as you said, we did try to hash this out. And I talked with, you know, Nick Benger, right? Yeah, I talked to him, which we will release the podcast soon. And we kind of got stuck in that loop for quite some time, just as we did in our first conversation. And that really made me think very deep into this. And really the only way for us to to understand this, to come to some place and to where we can evaluate it, not necessarily agree, but evaluate what is going on and what the levels are, is that we have to do training together. If we don't do training together, we are really left alone with our imagination where this goes and what it looks like. And when we mention the word punishment, which is so loaded, and it's so like it just brings a lot of baggage, you need to you need to rebrand it. But I don't necessarily think we need to change the word. I think the word is perfectly fine. No, I meant I meant your your the punishment event, maybe you need to rebrand it and call it something else. Because the the I do the whole purpose of when you to to like, like really the biggest there is there is ways of course, I'm speaking for what I teach and the idea to punish when when punishment is needed. And this is, you know, on the discretion of what what you're working and if you decide that that's what you need to do. But you still in the Lima situation very much, we're never never. Like there is no no question that going after like high level of intensity or duration or duration or whatever, is what needs to happen. Punishment really revolves around a message that says, don't do that. And that's a bad idea. And one of the like, like one of the things that I teach is very similar. What we were talking just a minute ago about how you would present the differential reinforcement, you will approach a threshold where the dog can get challenged, but you still managing to have a return. And the same goes with punishment. It's a you know, there is there is there is some learning that needs to happen just as a concept where we say, hey, this is this is a bad

idea. And the whole that the actual application is with the intention to do the least possible and be and be effective because we know that if you go full all in, it's gonna fire back in something there is no for one thing there is no learning because now now the dog is just preoccupied with am I gonna make it through? Am I gonna be alive in the next five minutes or not? Like there is just no place for that. But when I talk to like the more I talk now because it's been very, very educational for me, the more I talk about punishment with we do and and with with some other trainers, it just there is no like, it just goes over there. You know, like it's boom. And for me to explain that this is unacceptable and that we are actually we can apply punishment in a very low levels. That tell the dog don't do it. There is consequences for that. When the dog is in a right mindset, which is a whole different thing. Yeah. Yeah. Then then you're not like like really the idea with punishment is not to to put the dog in this situation when the dog is like, Oh, I'm gonna whatever. And now I go No, no, you cannot. There is no way you can win this. And I will show you how that's really one of the big things that I think what what I have started to think that I will do is create an event. I think what you're talking about, I think what you're talking about is, is what I see is like windows, like we're always looking for windows to explain to the dog, aren't we? We're looking for and sometimes when you get a dog in a certain state, or when you get a dog that's reacting a certain way, it can be quite difficult to open the window in a way where you're like, for example, if you get one of those dogs out and they're like, you know, you get those dogs out there, like fixated on the trigger. So let's say they're human aggressive and they're just fixated on it. And you can't get, you know, there's nothing you can really do. You're, you're looking out for windows. And I think in some of those situations, I think, although I don't employ those techniques myself, I can see how it would be perfectly ethical to give the dog a correction here, just to open the window to something else, just to say to the dog, come on, like there's something else now. Right. That is one of the biggest arguments that I have about like the, the, the positive side effects of punishment is that they, you know, you, you do open the door for good behaviors to happen so you can reinforce it. Good behaviors start to happen more frequently because you have suppressed the one that

you don't like. And I totally get that. Like, like from a, from a positive training perspective, I totally, I fully understand that because I can see how, and the same way that the medication is so often misused because medication should be. Yeah, we want to talk about medication. I have it in my notes. We have to talk about that. So, so for me, medication should be that. It should be that. It should be in vast majority of the time, unless there's a pro, unless there's a sufficient chemical imbalance or the dog is abnormal. When we're using medication to treat normal dogs for behavior, then all that should do is provide a short, a short, um, uh, a short duration window for training. Right. That's, that's what it should do. It should be exactly the same as those questions. It's as ethical in terms of where it's just a different way of doing it. And we say, well, I'm going to put the dog on flux team or I'm going to put the dog on Xanax and, and I'm going to provide a very short, a short term solution where, where I'm giving this dog a window to learn something else like traveling in the car or fireworks or something like that, because they're so fixated on the anxiety or they're so, they're so engulfed in the anxiety that I can't train them. And therefore I'm going to give them, I'm going to give them Xanax on, on fireworks night so that it gives me, or I'm going to give them Xanax when I train them to noise sensitivity so that it gives me a window. I can open a window for it. And it is, it's often misused like more often than not. I would say, I would say it's very rare that it is used like that. But I would also say that's the same when it comes to using corrections, you know, because like in the vast majority of, of situations, like there's been a few situations where I've been training with a balanced trainer and I've said to them, do you think you could do that? Like, do you think you could do it without the prong? I was like, just put it on the flat collar, do exactly the same. Cause I think this dog's like, this dog doesn't, doesn't need that. And they've done it. They've gone, all right, let's give it a go. And they've taken off and they've put the dog on a flat collar and they've done exactly the same, very little correction. And the outcome's been exactly the same. And afterwards they've gone, yeah, fair play, fair play. Like I didn't, I didn't need to do that. Like it wouldn't, but I think, I think there isn't, there doesn't appear to be an emphasis when people are taught how to use corrections ongoing for those low level ones.

And I'm not talking about what we're not talking about is like, like, I listened to your, the video that you put out again. I think I listened to it before when you first put out, but I'm not talking about in any way, desensitizing the dog to a very low level thing so that they're kind of desensitized to it. And so it doesn't, it's still a startle and it's still aversive. But I think, I think perhaps the positive community would have less of a problem with balanced trainers. If they followed the approach of teaching the dog the right behavior first, looking for windows for reinforcement, using corrections to create windows for reinforcement and using corrections in the lowest way that they can for that particular job. But that's not, that's never what we see. I think I've probably seen that once or twice with a very slick trainers. Like it's just not what you see. That's, that's, I mean, this is again, this is the evolution and the hope that at least I have and few, few trainers that I talked to have that we're getting better and changing that. And like everything that like, let's go back to the example with the aggression and the differential reinforcement and getting to that particular window to where you can be right there, but you can deflect successfully. Now, in that situation, when we add some form of aversive, we have to agree that form of aversive is it absolutely doesn't require even an average level. It has to be aversive. Otherwise we, we, we are actually, you know, shooting our feet. I have no problem with the word aversive. Like I understand, like it could literally just be touching the dog on the back and that could be enough for some dogs. And so, and so as we're playing with the differential reinforcement and we reach there and we apply some in, let's, let's call it enough aversive. And we go back to differential reinforcement. Now we have covered both grounds. We have clearly said, this is not worth it, but guess what? There is all these cool things we have. And as you're making your progression, I'm suggesting it is very similar progression that I'm suggesting. It just adds the element of not focusing only. This is what I want you to do, but also says that that's not what we want to do. Like clearly says, this is not what we want to do. When we are playing with distance, when we have this proper level of arousal, we can, we absolutely can use, uh, we can start with a verbal and verbal is somehow it is a conditioned punisher if, if the dog is to respond to it. Right. It's based on relationship and it's based on like, there's no, I don't, I don't have any

problems. People have asked me before, do you think when you say nay, uh, to Fiasco when you're training her, do you think that it's conditioned punisher? I'm like, yeah, of course it is. It doesn't have to have a consequence. The consequence is me being upset with her, but that is still an aversive consequence. Otherwise she wouldn't stop or reduce the behavior in which case it'd be a pointless waste of my time. Right. And so, so that's really like the, the, I mean, the steps are not that different and the dog understands as a concept how things are moving. Um, right. In the example you've given, the steps are exactly the same. The only difference is that you like, when you avoid the aversive side of things, it's kind of left to dog's discretion to maybe make the assumption that we don't want him to do that, but it's never very directly, uh, stated. Right. But I guess, I guess what we've done here is we've actually managed in an example to find the exact, the line, the line in the sand between balanced and positive, because I would argue that I do the same. And when, and I would argue that some good, good trainers that I know you do the same and there's just different language around it. So that you often call it a positive interrupter and you go, or you call it, you call it whatever you want. Um, and where, when it's called a positive interrupter, you move the dog's focus, move it away with a noise, and then you feed it a treat for getting it right. And when you call it, but, but equally, if you were to use, I don't know, more of a noise, so let's say the of a pet corrector or something. So all that, all that's different there is the volume of the noise, but let's say that you use that volume of the noise and you could call that an aversive and the say that it opened a window for reinforcement and then feed the dog. The process is exactly the same. It's just the language we use to describe it denotes whether or not we class it as balanced training or positive training. So, so really what we've defined there is the line in the sand. And then my, my guess is that depending on whether or not you classify yourself as a balance trainer or an or, or not would be how far, how far you're willing to, how far you're willing to choose time and efficacy over, uh, over relationship, because where I go or where I've been in the past, in the last like 15, 16, 17 years or whatever. Um, when I've been training dogs in that situation is that I've never had to go over using a note and, and removing the dog or, or, or whatever,

using those kinds of low level, uh, consequences. But I would argue that my training could have been more effective and quicker had I have put in a punishment there. And, and, um, whereas if I was a balanced trainer, I would argue that I could have just, if I just put a slip bead on the dog in that situation and given it a correction, I could have overcome that issue, um, a lot quicker, reduce the stress of the owner and the dog a lot quicker, um, and to, to no real detriment to the dog. And therefore all we're arguing, all we're arguing about that is how, how aversive should we go in an individual case in order to weigh up the importance of time and efficacy. And obviously that will depend on the owner and the dog situation. If the dog's in a rescue waiting to be homed, then obviously their time's really important. You've got to get it done as quick as possible. If a dog's in a happy home where they're able to walk the dog freely without this situation occurring, then we've got a little bit longer and we might as well do it the ethical way. But the, the, the problem. So, so I think that's, that's what you've described is exactly the line in the sand. But the problem is, is that I never see balance trainers using that technique. Like, I think it's the right way to go. I just don't ever see it. Like in all the balance training that I see, I see them putting it, putting the dog in the situation and using corrections immediately. Yeah. So this is, um, that's, that's the whole, I mean, again, it's not, I, I hope it's not just me, but like this, this is, um, like if there is two things that are, no, this, I cannot say it like this. I just want to say what is the most important things that I teach in my school for dog trainers, but, uh, it's such a intensive program that it's all, all that is there is important to me. Um, but this is one of the, you know, a big, big, big tree, if you want to think that way, um, that, that punishment does not mean what it means for so many trainers on, on either side. Um, and, and it's a, it's a very, I, I, I don't know, like it, uh, the, the, the only way to do this is to, to start to, to get together in different places, you know, and, and we start to talk and, but not just talk, but actually train. Like, let's say we, like, um, and I, I know that's gonna maybe come for, for other trainers now that listening, um, hopefully they do the same and hopefully they do the right teaching because I, I mean, as you see in, in my social media, at least I, I am very strongly opinionated in certain things and I don't like

certain trainings. Um, um, and that doesn't mean that they, you know, they don't work or it's just, to me, I, I have a better way, just like, as you say, you can, you don't ever find the need to do, to use aversive. Um, Well, I, I, I want to caveat that actually, and I want to caveat that for a couple of reasons, because as, as a, as a quite, quite a seasoned, seasoned behaviorist these days, um, I would say that I, I generally don't find the need to use higher level aversives and it, but there are some exceptions to that because I, I, I'm really, I'm very passionate about not creating an unrealistic situation, an unrealistic, I don't want to paint an unrealistic picture whereby, you know, when I was growing into it, there was lots of people that would tell me you could shape anything. You can shape anything with a clipper and that's bullshit. You can't, and there's lots of people, everything is possible with positive reinforcement only that's bullshit. You can't like, it's just not true. Um, and so I, I don't want to paint an unrealistic picture. I have done cases, predation cases, mainly in one dog aggressive case, but, but name mainly predation cases that, that I know would be unethical for me to try and fix with, um, with my methods in terms of how long it would take. And I think really importantly, and we should probably talk about it in a minute, but really importantly, owner compliance, like whether or not it's one thing, me taking a predatory dog and training it day in, day out, using toys, using motivation, using my understanding and knowledge of competing motivators through training ring sports and things like this. But when you've got, you know, Jane and Jim who, who, who bought their lovely dog and had absolutely it's their first dog. And I've, I've got no idea. I can't train them those skills. I can't not only would they not have the, not, not have the mechanics to do it in a way that was, would be good enough for the dog to train the dog, but also the, the, the amount of training that would be required would be completely unrealistic. And so there has been cases like that, but I have sent to, to an e-collar trainer, um, to train. And I have, I sleep at night with that because I know that, that the alternative for that would have been death for those dogs. And to me, there's nothing more aversive really than death, other than torture. Right. And so, and I don't believe that the, that the training, that the short term training that that was undertaken for those dogs was in any way torturous at all. Um, and I always encourage the

owners to go and watch it. And so far they always have, and they always come back and go, oh my God, it was a lot less than I thought it would be. All of them. That's always what they say. But it's, um, it isn't, it isn't, I haven't, I haven't had that. I haven't had, you know, 16 years or 17 years. I don't know now. I'm not a scam. Um, training these dogs and fostering these dogs and rehabbing these dogs and all this just, and, and been like, this is super easy. I, I'm in a situation similar to you, probably where I'm very good at what I do. I'm very skilled at the mechanics and what I do, but that, that comes with a price and a responsibility and the prices that I'm able to change the behavior of dogs that I foster and that I rehab that I know that other people wouldn't have been able to change. And, and that I, that comes with the responsibility of me knowing that there are owners that I work with that, that, that won't be able to do that. And, and, and trainers too, sometimes, you know, you, you meet trainers and you think, God, I've got to explain this really, really complex thing to you now. And I'm not entirely sure if or not you're going to be able to understand it and do it properly or whether or not it's going to end up as Chinese whispers and, you know, you're going to be doing it badly down the park next week and it's going to be worse than it was before. Um, and there is levels also, there is levels, then there is different dogs and, um, difficult, such a difficult topic and, and, uh, always kind of going into a vicious circle. Um, one, one of the things that you, I will always hear is I have a dog and I never have to do any of the things that you're doing. And therefore there is better ways than, than, than doing this to a dog. And it can be true. It really can be true, but it also can be so misleading and so harmful to assume that because your dog has no similar desires and, and genetic drives than another dog that we, we, we can have the one size fit all glove. Um, absolutely. I had, I always say to people, if it's that easy, then why haven't we all got dogs as good as the homeless guys' dogs? Yeah. Cause their dogs are beautifully, beautifully behaved or the feral dogs that live here, like in terms of their social abilities, their, how road smart they are. Fantastic. Yeah. Absolutely. Fantastic. You know, if it was that easy, if it was, if it was that simple and, and the real case of it is that the ones that aren't good at it out there die. Yeah. That's the truth of the matter. Um, and, uh, like you say, it's, it's, it's, it's real tough

one because a lot more dogs, like we don't, you know, we don't, a lot more dogs now are, do seem to have problems partly because of the expectations we put on them, partly because of the genetics and because we're breeding them pointlessly a lot of the time for form over function. And, you know, there's, there's lots of things that go into that partly because everybody's so scared of stress that they're building glass houses. Um, but, but we are ending up with, with a lot of dogs with problems. And I, I, I agree that I think it's, it's, um, it's incredible. And predation is so interesting too, because you have, um, you have so, so many, like I, I was, um, uh, in one of my, I think it was with Steve Lindsey. We were talking about predation quite a bit. And one of the, one of the things that I had to bring up was I, one, um, one of my dogs, he passed away a while back, but when I was working at San Francisco SPCA, he would come to work with me. And at the time, the SPCA wasn't like dogs and cats. I mean, you can see rabbits, chickens, and all sorts of exotic things there. So my office, which was a very small room, like I never knew what I'm going to walk into in the morning. I mean, they, and there will be some in cages and some just free random animals, you know, and my, that particular dog was a dog that I had to convince him. If I give him a, a raw chicken tie, I had to convince him that it's okay to eat this. And I would leave him with rabbits and chickens in this room. And I would go and evaluate and train dogs all day. And there would be times that I would leave and forget him and come back to pick him up. Cause my brain sometimes does this to me. I'm like, Oh shit. I did. I have to go back. My dog is still there. Where I'm going with this is there is dogs that it's this predation instinct is so dormant. It's not that it's not there, but it's so dormant that it's so easy for somebody to say, well, my dog never chases squirrels and never does this. It just doesn't have interest. And I believe it because I see it all the time. There is this kind of dogs. Yeah. Then there is dogs that are one level above that. And there is dogs that are one level above that. And it's so goes further and further. And what's fascinating is that even though there are trends in breeds, you see that even within breeds, like I've got three, three manies in here. And this one, for whatever reason, isn't predatory. He just isn't like, I can, I can take him to the park to the, where the, with a duck pond ducks everywhere. If I was to take the younger one over there, she'd,

she'd be, I'd have to be on her. Like I'd have to be watching all the time and like, come here like night. Cause she, she chased him otherwise this one, he'll walk right up to a duck and be like, all right, but nothing. Like he's, he's got a, a lovely play drive for, for training, but I can walk him up to a donkey. If horses come cantering through the marshes, when I'm walking down the marsh, I wouldn't have to, I wouldn't have to give him a second thought. And people are really surprised about that. Cause he's a Mali. And often I've said, Oh, I could do a really good cheat video with him because everyone says like, Oh, train, train, you know, train a high drive dog, like a Mali, a recall off, off, off birds, off ducks, off, off whatever. Go on. And I always think I could cheat really easily with him because I could send them onto them in a send away or just send them onto them and recall him this far away from them, but not because of my good training, just because he just doesn't, he's just not that way inclined. And it can sometimes be quite unexpected. Like, cause his play drive is through the roof and he bites lovely and he chases anyone that moves, like when it comes to things like that, but just some dogs haven't got, like you say, they just, it's just not there. It's just not there. But when it is there and it's there seriously, it's so instinctual. It's so different to any other behavior we work with, isn't it? Yes. Yes. And this, this like the, with this study that I'm doing, it gets so interesting. Like I've learned so much and I wish one day soon I can openly talk about everything that I learned because I can just, I cannot hold it anymore. Like it's just some cool stuff, you know, like, I wonder whether or not, whether or not this is, whether or not it means anything to you about us. So obviously I came from a background of academia and then I came from a background of experience, working behavior cases and no experience in bite work. And still I started doing one, how old is he? Six, so seven years ago. And when I first started doing bite work, something that really confused me based on my background was this idea that, that, that they would, that they would refer to it as prey drives. And it used to blow my mind because I'll be like, this has nothing to do with predation. And like, they'd be like, yeah, cause it's chasing. And I'm like, this is just play drive. This is just a dog wanting to play. Like, and it still blows my mind. And I've had conversations with, with some, with some decoys who are like, no, it is predation. The dogs are born

with predation. And I'm like, well, his prey drive is brilliant, but he won't, he won't predate on anything. Like it's not the same thing. It is not the same thing. It's not the same sequence. It's not the same. The dog is not in predation when they're after a decoy. And I've heard lots of, and I hate to say it, but I've heard lots of positive trainers kind of use that and go, yeah, well, how can you recall the dog off a decoy? Because they're, you know, when they're in prey drive there, like it's the same. If you can do that positively, you can recall them off, you know, off killing a rabbit positively. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We shouldn't call it prey drive because it isn't prey drive. It's nothing to do with prey. Yeah. So it's a good, good point you're bringing. And like my take on it is we can, we can probably argue that when you are developing a puppy and you're working with a flirt pole, you're kind of tapping into some of that instinct to chase and catch that it's based on prey and just to create the interest to, to, to create the interaction. Right. But eventually that grows into a very different place. It becomes, yeah, we either can think can be a very controlled play or it can be some aggression elements also used in there. But the prey itself, it's, uh, I guess some dogs like this is my, my thinking, even, even when you throw a ball to five different dogs, I think some use imagination and they're truly practicing hunting skills of, of this is what I would do, which is, uh, you know, a normal, uh, um, development in, in, even when puppies play together and they grab a feather and all this stuff. So there, there is that development of skill or it can be pure play understanding, no, this is a tennis ball and that all there is to it. And I'm playing with my guy or my girl and we're doing, you know, just basic play. Um, that does not, I think I've, I think I've, I think I define it slightly differently. Um, because I like to think of it in different, like, so when it comes to like Coppinger's predatory action sequence, um, and I think there's a hole in it, which I'll talk about in a minute, but I think it's missing. I think, I think it's missing, um, uh, possessing parade, which I think should be part of that predatory action sequence. If we're going to, if we're going to include dissecting consume, I think possessing parade comes above dissecting consume, possessing what? Parade. Okay. You know, when the dogs, they move, they move the item. Um, and, and, and some dogs have a desire to move it and show it. So anyway, so you've got your

scent and track, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You've got your predatory action sequence. And, and really when it comes back to how we've domesticated dogs and why we've, why we've got breeds, we've got breeds because we've selected different parts of the predatory action sequence to be useful. So for example, like we've got lamping dogs, um, lurchers and sighthounds and stuff like that. And we've, we've, that's almost a complete predatory action sequence, but then we've got dogs like, like Hungarian business. There's one somewhere here. Um, the hunt point retrievers who are about all about the eye and the stalk and then, you know, so on and so forth. So we've taken these parts of the predatory action sequence, and then we've either exaggerated them and we've suppressed parts of them, or we've tried to make like a gap. So there's like punctuation. So for example, my, my visitor will stalk all the way up to the statue of a bird, and then she can't go into chase because the bird doesn't move. So, you know, we've created these, these kinds of punctuations where we've got commas and full stops between different parts, depending on what the prey does as well. But when, when the dogs are bred with a, with a drive to, to do those, those behaviors, but not in predation, I think it's something different. So I, like I, I always, when I'm talking about it, I always call it selective drive, because I think we've selected elements of the predatory drive, but, but it's not in predation. And I would, I would, I would stake 10 grand that if we were to able to do a live fMRI scan of the dogs in predation and the dogs participating in this behavior when they're chasing sheep or when, like, as in, when they're herding sheep or when they're chasing after a ball or when they're doing any of the other things, hunt point, retrieve it, like when they're, when they're pointing in, in, out of a hunting situation, that, that it would be a completely different area of the brain, because I don't think it's the same. Mm-hmm . And I think when we're doing bite work with dogs, generally speaking, um, I, I shouldn't say bite work actually, because it really does depend on, on what you're training. And, and obviously operationally it's very different. And so I shouldn't say, but certainly when I'm doing Mondio, when I'm doing sports with my dog, ultimately I'm using his selective drive. There's no element of predation in that, even though I'm using aspects of the predation in the same way that when my pit bull, my old pit bull used to hang off the trees, right. Um, and he, he had that typical,

like, he was desperate to be, he was a game bred fighting dog that I got from London and he was desperate to fight dogs. He was desperate in, in his perfect world. His, his absolute ideal ending would have been that I released him onto a herd of cows and he was able to go and, and, and grab hold of them, hold onto him until he was kicked to death. Like that would have been his ideal death if he could have chosen. And, and, and he loved it. So if I had, I'd put spring poles and stuff and he'd go and he'd hang onto them and he'd hang onto him with his dear life, like everything dependent on it. But that wasn't predation. It's part of the predation sequence. It's that grab bite and we've emphasized it. But I do think that the selective drive behavior of a dog is a different thing. And I think often it's confused. I think often dog trainers get confused and call it prey or they say, Oh, well, he's got real high, strong predatory drive because he's chasing cars or, and I'm like, that's not, I don't think it's prey. It's selective drive behavior. It's what the dog's been selected to have a drive to perform, but that isn't the same as, as, as predation. And I think where the differences are really important when it comes to behavior problems is that I think with selective drive behavior, we see a lot of leaking. Ultimately dogs need, most dogs need biological fulfillment of the selective drive behaviors, be it on a tennis ball or on a, you know, spring pole in the garden, they need access to participate in what has been what is biologically fulfilling that those selective drive behaviors. And if they don't get that, it tends to leak out in bad behavior. You know, how many staffies do you see that hang on to your arm when you go around the house, because they're not, they're not getting that fulfillment elsewhere. Whereas I don't think predation leaks, it doesn't leak out anywhere. It's only stimulated by sign stimulus. Do you see what I mean? I do. I do. Yeah, we have to stay on this for a little bit. So if you look at dog with the intention to go and kill the rabbit, what, what different body language, what, what, what is going to be the different things that you're going to see there compared to a dog that is looking at the plastic back for lure coursing, for example, that's moving similar way? I think very little in terms of the intention and the behavior of the dog. I think there will be a level of intensity. I think it's the speed of which the dog goes into behavior that that you see a difference. And I think that it's the, the dogs, I think that it's the cognition of the dog where

there's a difference, because I don't think that there is, I think, I don't think the dogs are thinking when they're in predation. I don't think that there isn't any cerebral activity. I think it bypasses, it bypasses that and the dog is acting purely on instinct. And I think, I think that normally, I think that the lure coursing one is, is tricky, because I do think that sometimes is a case of mistaken identity. And I think that actually, like, you know, you had all those experiments where they made like super sign stimulus with the predation. So you had like the ducks. So birds require a, the red bit of the beak. There are certain, what are they? There are certain gulls that require the red bit of the beak in order to open their mouth. So they need that sign stimulus of the red bit of the mother's beak coming in. And when the red bit of the mother's beak comes close enough, it elicits an instinctive response. The baby's not thinking, I need food, I'm going to open my mouth. They, there is an instinct that as soon as it's close enough, they open up. So the scientists did a whole bunch of studies where they made different, they've made different exact different versions of this to see what the perimeters of the sign stimulus were. If we make a fake beak, that does, that's a different shape, do that, does the bird still open their mouth? If we make a shape, if we use a ball, that's literally got a red bit on the top, does the bird still open its mouth? And effectively, they ended up with something a little bit like this, actually, which, which just, which just like a big red long tip. And they found that the only thing that the bird really, really needed was, was the red tip of it. And that the bigger the red tip, the quicker the birds were able to open their mouth. Right. And so they called it super sign stimulus. And that's when something has enough of the attributes to elicit the instinctive response. And I think when it comes to predation, there are certain things, so like a plastic bag on a lure, for example, when you're looking at track greyhounds and things like that, that the sign stimulus is actually super sign stimulus, there's enough, enough of the trigger is exactly the same, that it elicits the same predatory response. But I think it's unusual for us to find that in in dogs, I think it's unusual, like so for some HPRs, especially when they're puppies, you can use a flirt pole to move in a certain way. And that will elicit the hump, the point. And you can get them to do the full on stalk,

and you can get them to behave in that way, straight away based on that. But I think for the vast majority of dogs, it's very difficult to find sign stimulus that genuinely elicits predatory behaviour. Because if it was easier to find that, then we could train it certainly using positive techniques a lot easier. One of the hardest things about training predation is the lack of a genuine sign stimulus that we can control. Yeah, I like what I see is, it is definitely I so so to me, Yeah, I think for me, play is at certain time, a dog just like a person can look at play as nothing but activity of play, or it can look at out as an activity to master hunting, like just really improve your skills in without having the opportunity, you know, like I you get good at this before you ever like, like, for example. Well, I mean, any example really, but, but it like I really believe that it depends on on what the dog imagines at the moment. And I think they they see it in a few different ways. And it changes in the in in the way the dog attacks a lure. Okay, the way the dog what he does after he catches it, or is it inhibited? As you said, does he really even want to catch it? Or does he want to just stop it and point to it or make it move the other direction which a border collie when you watch a border collie classic, you know, control of me border collie would would be obsessed with trying to stop the lure moving and change its direction. That's its main purpose. And, and you can see them getting frustrated that it's not working. And they really, really don't want to bite it. Because it's it's so far in in it. Not in the repertoire. But after a few days of watching that trying to guide it, and it's not working. Now they start to change strategy and they either put their foot on it to stop it, or they start using their mouth and all of a sudden, they something is waking up. Now when you see a different dog like a like, you know, I read Malinois, so I can talk in a big length of them. And so if I if I think of the dog that I described or any of these dogs that are very cool with animals, and they don't think of anything, they get their food in a food dish, and they're cool with that. But there is different dog with a very different intention that as the lure keeps going, there is only one thing. And it's not by no means there is play. They are in a they they're so serious that when you like if you don't know that that's a lure and you see the determination, and the way they grab it, and what they do with it afterwards. It's a full blown predation. Like, like,

to the to the end. I don't think it is. I think if we were to ask them, I think they know it's not predation. Yeah. So like, I don't I don't agree in that. I don't think that I think that it's incredibly difficult, not not impossible. I think it is possible. And so I will give you a different example of a dog that would kill goats and sheep. And I mean, it has a history of doing that. And then we presented with the lure. And they show some interest to it. They're chasing it. But they're not showing that level of intensity that I just described. Yeah, even in the reason they're not showing it is because they do not picture that same picture as another dog would. So I think, yeah, I think we we kind of this is one that if the dogs can talk, because I don't see how we can do an MRI on that. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how we could. But I wish like, like, I'm convinced. Okay, so here's, here's, here's a bit of an out there question. So you're talking about dogs imagination. And I 100% agree that dogs have got an imagination. Yeah. I think anybody who trains would agree that dogs can imagine can imagine something. Do you think they can imagine something they've never seen? So I think about this, because I think about dreams. And I think about a lot of the town dogs that I've seen that are like, that have never been to the countryside before. And yet you watch them chase rabbits in their dreams. And you think, you what's what is what's in your, I doubt it's visual, it'll be it'll be olfactory, I'm almost I'm almost certain. But what is your what scent is your grain imagining? Is it the scent of rabbit? Is it so is it so ingrained in your genetics, as a let's say as a pointer, that you that your brain can in goes there, even though you've never smelled a real rabbit? Can your brain, can your brain invent a rabbit in your head, as imagination? So that elicits that behavior? Or are you imagining something that's like, fluffy and giant, and looks like a blob? Because you can't imagine a rabbit because you've never seen a rabbit? Like all like the olfactory version of that because like dogs must dream in in scent. I'm convinced of that. Yeah, it would be interesting. I mean, they can dream also crazy shit that we dream that you wake up and you're like, what? What just what was that? You know, what do you think they do? Do you think they make stuff? They're like, Oh, I've just dreamed of this, like, like this, this scent of something that doesn't even exist. Could they like, part of me goes, Why? Why couldn't they? Right? Yeah, so you know, like you brought an

interesting point of can they? So like, one one of this, it's kind of, you know, in common example of evolutionary biology, etology of the rabbit is already born. They cannot, they cannot afford to learn to run away from a fox, right? This is because otherwise it's a, you know, you die, right? It's over game over. So probably when you look at it that way, maybe, maybe they do chase a rabbit because it's a Well, you see, it's funny that you say that. But whenever when it comes to predation, I always, I always like thinking about this. Because I had an epiphany once when I was in the shower, I was in the shower. And there was in Spain, and there was a quite a big, big spider in a web. Mm hmm. Right? And I don't mind spiders in the bathroom because I think they, they do their job. They're good at what they do. So you can do okay in Florida. Yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay with that. So so he's up there. He's doing whatever he does in his web up there. He's hanging out. And I noticed that a flyer comes into the shower. And I watch it. And it's, it's, um, teasing the spider, right? I swear to God, it's teasing the spider. It's going over to the web. It's going near the web. It's going, and I'm looking around, I'm thinking, you've got the whole of the bathroom, the bloody windows open. Why are you teasing the spider? Like what? Why are you messing? Why are you messing with the spider? And then, and then later down the line, we're playing with I'm working at Battersea Cats and Dogs Home in England. We did our staff training there. And I was, I had one of my dogs out in the paddock to give it a run. So I did some work at some of the stuff. And obviously, the pigeons around there are very much acclimatized to all the dogs in the runs, because they're there all day. And I've got these pigeons that are swooping down low to it was this dog actually to my Mally, and he's bounding after them. And then they're swooping up again. And they've obviously got their spots in the pens that they know that they can land on quite safely, right, in order to then swoop away. And it made me think, and I've thought about it, and I've researched it quite a lot since about like the dance between predator and prey, and how it really is a dance because obviously, the predator needs certain behaviour from the prey in order to elicit their predatory action sequence. But it makes me, it made me realise that the behaviour that we consider to be based solely on fear, right, is probably quite intrinsically reinforcing, because of the thrill, the relief of getting away. And that the prey is a

great example of this. Because I think that that those birds and that fly in the shower, I think all of them were participating in thrill seeking behaviour. And there was an intrinsic motivation to practice their, their the same way that we have our dogs that are practicing predation through play. I think that these prey species also practice their prey behaviour in a in a form of prey in a form of play, where they're, they're, they're, they're thrill seeking, and they're, they're, they're teasing. And I wonder, you know, do they do they do that with each other? Do you think like, I wonder if the flies practice their, their prey behaviour with with each other, but when they practice getting out of pretend, like things that are similar to webs, when they land on flowers, or, and whether birds chase each other, you know, you sometimes see them chasing each other through the sky, whether or not sometimes that's just play, and whether or not actually they're practicing prey behaviour, just in the same play that the dogs are, and that there's a level of thrill seeking that that is that the prey species have to have inside them. There has to be there has to be an intrinsic motivator to perform the prey behaviour, it must feel good, it must be or it must at least require some dopamine to push the animals to keep doing it. Yeah, in order to do that. I am with you there. I mean, I think on both sides, predator and prey, they, they have their genetic predisposition to do that. Then I strongly believe that then, then the interaction and the interaction through play is where those skills get fine tuned and practiced. And then it takes it to the next level where they, as you said, birds will kind of chase each other and do crazy things or dogs will do the same and, you know, just continue to master to where eventually they they learn how to, to be who they need to be with maturity, and start to apply it in a real sense. And even when they apply it hunting in a real sense, I think a lot of times they would still play with a prey for the sake of mastering skills. I mean, you can see how many times cats will, it's a really good example of spending an hour to play with a mouse, not really just, just like, okay, and you can really see it. It's like thinking how this will happen and what's the next move of mine and what would it, you know, like, I think it's there. Yeah. I agree. And I think there's a level of enjoyment there. For sure. I mean, there has to be dogs because we know that the predatory behavior in predatory dogs doesn't increase when the dog's hungry. Right? So that in

and of itself tells us something. It tells us there has to be an intrinsic motivator to perform the behavior. The behavior itself is reinforcing the behavior, not the consequence of that. One of the reasons why, at least for me, and I don't think I'm alone in this, but you know, you have this games paintball or laser tag. Majority of people love paintball for a reason. And the reason is because there is that element of a little bit of an aversion to it, to where it's like, oh, I really avoided something real. And it makes you just as you say, it kind of makes you, it builds up your confidence. It makes you be, I can, I can deal with some situations in my life. I can handle those. Um, I think, I think naturally most of us like enjoy a thrill and without a risk, you can't get thrill. Can you real doesn't exist without risk. There has to be the risk of something. Otherwise, otherwise you, you wouldn't feel a thrill. It's why we watch scary movies and go on roller coasters and yeah. And all of that. And yes, there's the chemical underpinnings of that. But, but essentially, I think most, most beings there are, there are definitely thrill seekers. And I think that comes from what you're saying. I think that comes from like, if we, if we look at that for an evolutionary, we can look at, we can look at that through chemistry and just say, well, it's whatever the behavior, you know, it's, it's whatever the dopamine does, you know, whatever dopamine does tells us we need to do it more. And there's intrinsic reinforcement that comes through that and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If we look at it through a more interesting lens, and we think about it by a lot like, um, evolutionarily, then I think that comes from a deep need to build resilience. And it comes back to this whole thing of, you know, not all stress is bad. And that, that it's, it's really important that we experience tolerable stress and overcome adversities in order to build resilience as any species ever anywhere. And I, and that circles beautifully background to the fact that a lot of the time when we're trying so hard to avoid any level of stress, any level of aversion for our dogs, we, we end up building animals that can't cope in the real world. Certainly. I think that there's a, there's an epidemic of, of dogs that are dog aggressive and. Yeah, no, no, no, we are really handicapping them by doing this, just as you said, like, I totally agree. Um, and this is, how do you feel about the, the whole idea of, again, fear, fear, like what, what is

your take on fear? And I'll, I'll, I'll talk also, I'll share my ideas, but you know, there, there is the big thing of fear-free training. Um, or fear-free. I think the idea of fear-free, fear-free training is, is frightening to me because I think that I don't think that there was fear there in the, in the first place. I don't think it was fear. It was just stress. And there's a big difference. I think that it's a couple of things to bring to mind. Firstly, I think that ultimately when I first started learning about dogs, I was taught like definitely that every behavior comes from fear. And I know that there are still quite a lot of people who, who, who argue that I disagree with that. I don't, I think that's, that's way too, way too reductionist. It doesn't take into account the emotion of the animal when they're participating in behavior. And I just, I just don't buy that. Um, the other thing that I think is, I think the other thing that is really, I think that too often any behavior that we see as socially inappropriate or negative, we put down to the dog being scared. And I think that often we don't respect the genetic, um, and intrinsic, I think often we don't respect the fact that behavior can, can be intrinsically reinforcing itself. It isn't always a consequence that creates that. Um, and I think that fear, fear is a good example because being frightened isn't intrinsically reinforcing. We don't enjoy being frightened. No one enjoys being frightened. And I think that very often, uh, let's take a, an example, like, so for example, resource guarding, nine times out of 10, when I hear other behaviorists who have gone to see a resource guard have told the owners, the reason that the dog is, is resource guarding is because they're frightened you're going to take it away from them. And actually I would say that probably eight out of 10 cases that I see that I've worked with and sorted out with resource guarding, that is not the case at all. The dog is either intrinsically motivated by resource guarding. It's incredibly motivating. I watch my dogs do it to each other all the time, pick something up, take it, show it to each other, try and elicit a response, growl, put it on the floor. You can't have it. Like it's something dogs do all the time to each other. And a lot of dogs have a real deep need to perform that behavior and they're not given a decent enough outlet for it. And the other, the, a lot of the other times, it's just that the dog has been genetically predisposed to picking stuff up as in like your spaniels and all of that kind of stuff.

And, and if you're, if you're half, if you're worth, if you're worth any sort in the gun dog world, you know that for the first year of the dog's life, you never take anything off them. You let them bring it right up to you and it looks like they want to give it to you, but they don't. They want you to go, Oh, that's so beautiful. Well done. I love it. It's lovely. Right. But owners aren't often taught this and instead they take it off them and then it builds a conflict and the dog's resource guarding because of the conflict of, I need to pick things up and move around, but you keep taking it off me. And I don't really understand why you're doing that. But neither of those things are fear. The dog isn't frightened of something being taken away. There isn't a fear there. It's not going to develop into a generalized anxiety. That's not fear. Yeah. So, so, and, and, and so often, um, and more often than not more often, so, so often I see defensive dogs. People think defensive is the same as frightened and it's not. They're two very different things. Like when you have your, your, your, your agenda for sure, different agenda. Yeah. Totally different. Like, and, and I think with a dog that's been built to be defensive, like a rotty, I think being defensive in and of itself is incredibly, incredibly reinforcing. They seek the opportunity. It's why most of the kennel club breed standards for your American bulldogs and those types of dogs, it says, where are your strangers? That is because they seek the opportunity to look for suspicion so that they can perform these inbuilt behaviors to be defensive. There's so much confidence in that defensiveness. There's often a lot of cockiness and pushiness in that defensiveness. It's not fear, but inexperienced dog trainers look at these dogs. They look at the output of behavior. They look, hold on, a new person's come and the dog's barking and lunging. They must be scared of the new person because when the new person goes away, that dog appears happy again. And what they don't realize is that the dog is seeking the opportunity to perform the behaviors that we've kind of gotten to know as fearful because that's what they've been bred to do. Yeah. And when you said like, we go back a little bit when you know the thrill seeking too. And I give you an example of just, I think it was yesterday. I had to spend some time with my, one of my young dogs, like a six month old Molly. We have again, I mean, I'm in central Florida. We have, we have everything from interesting wildlife. And, but one

of the things it's, we do have turtles and we have snapping turtles. We have, we have variety of things. So she, she finds this little tiny baby turtle. And guess what you, you see now this interesting conflict in her brain between the curiosity and the fear and the exploration. Like you clearly know she, she's cautious because she's afraid. She's like, well, is this thing going to hurt me or is it not? But then it's like, but I cannot help it. I need to investigate. And, and, and you know, it takes as long as it takes. And then we touch it and it's, oh my God, I touched it. And then it's like, oh, and oh, okay. And now that fear becomes very productive for the confidence of the, of the dog and also allows the dog to experience the world and gather information because if the turtle was something to be afraid of, if that was a porcupine or a skunk, a different lesson would have been learned. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, I was right to be afraid of this. So I don't think even that, I don't think even that is really fear. I think it's apprehension. And I think apprehension is different because I think when a dog is apprehensive, they don't know yet. I think they're going, this might be something I should be frightened of. And I think apprehension is, is so similar chemically and in its, certainly in its presentation to, to anticipation. I think anticipation and apprehension. So you don't think that if you go further dive, start to peel that onion apprehension, the roots of apprehension are not based in fear, ultimately. I think they're based in the, in anxiety, because it's not fear yet, because you don't know, you don't know to be frightened of it. See, I think you are, you're prepared biologically to be afraid and try to overcome, right? Prepared, for sure, that's why the apprehension is there. But I think the apprehension is there because we're prepared. Right. Like we're prepared to be frightened and then we have to be proved one way or the other. Okay. Yeah, okay. And I think that a lot of good trainers can recognize that. And like you say, you, you see the dog's apprehensive and instead of going in and treating it like the dog's frightened and going, right, I need to counter condition this or whatever, and turning it into some big bloody mess. Like you often see, you say, Oh, the dog's apprehensive. Just let them be because the curiosity at that age, they're going to just allow them, especially when they're kind of doing that kind of moving away and going back and moving away and going back and not sure. They're not sure they're not sure.

But that's real seeking. Basically, that's kind of where I was going with this. And that's where, you know, because there's a risk. It's not definite, but there's a risk. Yes. There is a little bit of Las Vegas. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. But I think ultimately, I think that brings about a really interesting point and something that drives me nuts is that is, is, is the body language thing is that we have this idea that stress is, is this list of body languages. And it comes from that book ages ago, and there's no science on it really like the science on it is flimsy at best. But, and for some reason, in, in all aspects, it doesn't matter what camp you're in. At some point in your career, you're going to be taught that when a dog licks its lips, it yawns, it puts its ears back, the dog is stressed. Right. And there's some very good biological reasons that the dog would do that when they're stressed. And I'm not doubting that they do do those things when they're stressed. But what you're not told is they also do that when they're anticipating and when they're apprehensive. And it all these other very tolerable, very important things that you will see in a dog. And certainly the more, the younger trainers that I see in that come in as students of ours, is they are, they, they see, they see a dog and it's ears pinned back and it's licking its lips and it's yawning. And they go, right, we've got to stop this. We need to remove the dog out of this situation because it's really stressed. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no. You don't know that yet. You don't, you haven't seen the dog do anything yet. We like, we don't know. And, and more importantly, we haven't seen the dog recover because some dogs give off this massive, great, big host of pantomime. Some dogs, I've seen dogs in kennels, but where I work like in the kennels I work in here in Spain, sometimes you get put in a shitty situation where flooding is your only option because, because life itself is going to really flood the dog and the dogs in a kennel and it's, it's life or death. And you go in and you think even me just touching you, even me picking you up is, is going to completely flood you because you don't want to be touched, but either you're going to be able to tolerate this and recover from it. And we're on a path to some sort of a life or you're not. And it's a path to euthanasia, like it's one or the other. And so you go in and some of these dogs will scream, right. When you touch them, they'll, and that is everything. And whenever I've

had kind of more force free trainers with me or, or, or any, any trainer actually is that I shouldn't put them in a camp like that. Cause it's any trainer, some trainers, the less experienced ones will shit their pants. And they'll be going. Immediate assumption. This is horrendous. This is intolerable. And, and, and it's fascinating how quickly the dogs can recover from it and the dogs can shake it off very quickly. And you go in and you do it again. And then by about the fifth or sixth time you go in there, they're starting to anticipate you coming in and starting to come over and give you a cuddle and it's okay. And it's always a beautiful lesson in that, you know, that, that we're taught that these things are stress signals. They are stress signals, but they're also signals for so many other things. And stress signal doesn't necessarily mean that something isn't tolerable. Correct. And if it is tolerable and the dog can recover from it, the dog will be more resilient. It will be, there are very few things that, that is completely unrecoverable and in a, in a gradient, the more the dog recovers from it. And it takes a huge effort to, to, to reach this kind of state actually to, to make the dog get there. Yeah. This is, this is very, very interesting stuff. Um, and, um, um, oh gosh, I was going to say something. Um, I think we move so fast away from stress response. Like the dog gives a stress response. The same with the cortisol, you know, it's, it's a, it's a fake measure. It's a fake measure because cortisol is supposed to like all, all of your chemicals, they're supposed to go up and down. Like you, you're sleeping and you wake up and there is immediate change. And you move, you move. If I go for a run, my cortisol levels will be through the roof. If I, if I, if I, um, you know, if I go boxing, I do boxing as a, as a hobby. That's what I like doing when I'm not doing mondial ring. And, um, and when I box, I must come back and my cortisol levels are through the roof. And you know what? It increases my motivation. It increases my ability to, it increases how vigilant I am, how quick I am to react to things, but it's a life force. It's, it's not a negative thing. You know, it's always considered, and people again, with the whole bound down to science thing, they hear the words, the cortisol level in this dog increased and they go, that means that mark, that variable must be the worst variable. Yeah. The same, like really, this is like where we're going, where we're flowing here into a different

topic with, with psychotropic medications and how, how society was for, for so long led to believe that if we control serotonin, if we make serotonin low and, and it's just no big farmers making a lot of money and have a very nice way to convince you to put you on medication. And, and at best it's proven like, which now, now that they've done so many studies on, on, uh, you know, placebo, like giving them sugar and giving them psychotropics and, and there is no reason to believe no reason whatsoever to believe that the psychotropic medication does anything different. It was very interesting how you would put, you know, uh, like if I don't feel good, let's say I broke up with my girlfriend, I got fired, whatever happened in life today. There you go. Some Prozac. Some Prozac. Let's get the pill and two or three weeks later, I'm getting better. Am I getting better because of the pill or am I getting better because I have to get better and move on? Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. The other thing that fascinates me about that medication is that, that there's been a real, um, the, the, so many of the vets and behaviorists that I work with, it's like a one pill fits all like fluoxetine, just give them fluoxetine. Yes. So everything. And it, it, it's mental when you think about it, like, it's so crazy because it's only, like, it's only, it's only looking at serotonin and, and there are, you know, there's so many other chemicals, like, it's like, people go, oh. And nobody really knows exactly what happens, but we know for a fact that they do have a certain numbing effect to where you kind of don't give a fuck. It doesn't matter if there is the atom bomb or there is a big birthday party. You're just kind of like, yeah, whatever. Because it's telling, it's telling your body you're okay. Right. Like, and when you're suffering with like true anxiety, absolutely fantastic. You need to be told you're okay. But when you're struggling with a lack of motivation and you're given something that tells you okay, you just go, I'm never going to fucking leave the bed. Why am I going to bother getting up? There's just no point because I'm fine. Everything's fine. Everything's brilliant. I don't need to do anything. And, and, and it always, it always fascinates me. It's the same as when, it's the same as when they medicate dogs for, for being who they are. And you've got a dog, you've got a got a Malinois that's being a Malinois and they say, right, I think we need to give it something to, to calm it down because it's obviously anxious because it's a Malinois. Right.

And you're like, no, no, the dogs, like the dogs just being who the dog is. Like you can't, you can't medicate the dog away from you. I mean, you can, but it's wholly unethical to medicate the dog to reduce it. And, and I think it can. The behavior modification approach is it's, I mean, it is far more proven to, to, to be more successful. I think medication can be good to give a window. Sometimes there's definitely been cases that I've worked with. I think understanding the drugs, like there are, there's certain drugs for like timidity, for example, like bus prone for timidity. I've worked with some ex puppy farm dogs where it's been absolutely game changing where you've got a dog that won't come under the soap, won't come out from under the sofa, will now come out from under the sofa and it gives you a window to train. And then, but they have to be given with a plan. You know, we shouldn't be giving these dogs drugs for years. It's not a lifetime. It's not a lifetime thing here, but the whole point of them working is to give us the ability to work the dog or that's what it should be. Same as, you know, same as the drugs for fireworks. You know, there's drugs that, that look at the selective, selectively block the reuptake of dopamine as well as serotonin. So increase the dopamine in the system is the way where's the serotonin. And they went out of fashion and kind of got replaced with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors just because of the side effects. But that always surprised me because I was like, no, these are two different types of drugs. Correct. Like they're two completely different types. Like if I've got a dog that I want to increase the dopamine of, and in fact, they, they look at acetylcholine as well. So if I've got a dog where I want the acetylcholine, the dopamine and the serotonin of the dog to increase, I'm looking at increasing the, the focus and attention of that dog. I'm looking at being able to provide the dog with more intrinsic motivation to continue performing behavior, as well as looking at like the reward system and the self-esteem of the dog. And that's a whole different picture. It doesn't matter if there's more side effects because it's a different thing to, if I'm looking at a dog and I'm just going to be giving it serotonin reuptake inhibitors up. It's quite so many of the the behaviorists don't really understand this. Yeah. Well, that's what they learn in school. They, they, they really like, uh, uh, the, the, it's, it's the education is, it's at fault, but who is

sponsoring their education is the, the companies that make the drugs and how many, like when you think about how many, uh, uh, studies are done, what, how the brain reacts when you start to be on the drugs and how many studies are done trying to take away the drug. It's like one to 1000 probably ratio because they have zero interest to, to even think about getting you off the drug. Um, they would say, yeah, it's very easy to do and you just need to be very progressive, but it's not like, it's not anybody that's been on any, uh, sort of psychotropic medication and a test that is just not easy to get off of it. If you stayed long enough on it. Um, what I believe from, from all of my practice, the psychotropics, again, they do have place as we already said there, they are, but they are not for every dog. Like when you, when, uh, uh, you average pet owner has a problem and they think, okay, I have a problem with my dog. I need to look at the highest possible option because I can afford it and I want to do the best to my dog. So I'm not going to go to the dog trainer that that's advertising, but I will go to the animal behavior specialist because it just sounds very legit and much more knowledge. And when they pay $400 for 40 minutes, questionnaire and they walk out with a prescription on, on Prozac without, without exploring any other options, it's so harmful. And what I find fascinating is that people are so quick to say, um, you know, we need to be, certainly at least what I was saying earlier about, you know, we, there's, there's a, there's a kind of a, an order that should be done in training and that we don't move to aversive tool straight away and that we need to try this. And then we try this and then we move up the threshold and we see whether or not a low level interrupter, blah, blah, blah, blah. Surely that exactly the same thing should be done with medication. Because it's the same level of, it's the same level of, um, aversive in a way, you know, it's the same level of, of, of intensity of, uh, a medication, if not more. And, and so surely there should be, there should at least be a pathway plan where, where, where, where, uh, I just thought, the fox come in the garden. I thought, um, I, I just having a game anyway. Speaker 2 Speaking of which I will remember you thought, cause I did have for two years, I had foxes having babies under my house right here. I'm sitting outside on my deck and they will be under the deck and all of my dogs know that we have foxes and there was only one dog that would

want to go and kill them. Only one dog without any, any, you know, but anyway, Speaker 2 I don't think, I don't think these guys want to kill them. I think they, they, they want to chase them. Speaker 2 They'll be interested. Yeah, exactly. And then it's like, okay, I got you. Now what do we do? Can you run again? Speaker 2 Yeah, I think this one, my young one would probably just want to play with them. Speaker 2 They, um, but they're curious and they go out and they run away. And so it's become like a little, this time of evening. It's become like a little, what I believe. Speaker 2 The Bulldog just wants to bark and get everybody else running outside. I don't think she even knows there's foxes. Speaker 2 Animal behavior specialists and, and a lot of trainers are not exploring enough, a different option of, you know, instead of trying to, to numb Speaker 2 The dog to where he's more acceptable to try to change the physiology. Because once the physiologist change, like once you go, as you said, you go do Thai boxing, or you just go on a treadmill and dolphins, like all the, all the good chemicals, they get activated and the brain all of a sudden is like, um, um, you know, I feel good. So instead of getting numb, Speaker 2 The more approach, the interesting approach is how do we create, you feel good and then pair that feeling good association with whatever else possibly. And, and Speaker 2 I'm sure there's some sort of equation that would end up looking like some sort of a checklist, whereby you go through and you'd, you'd put into your equation, you know, what, what behaviors is the dog's got a selective drive for, what behaviors does the dog choose to participate in, what does the dog choose not to participate in, all that kind of stuff. And you'd end up with some sort of a checklist whereby you say, okay, you need to be doing this level of exercise with the dog. You need to, you should be trying, you know, these, these games with the dog, it should be doing X, Y, and Z. Once you've done that for X amount of time, if the behavior continues, then we move on to this, which is like a more positive approach with, you know, training other behaviors using differential reinforcement, blah, blah, blah, blah. But start imagining a different emotional state to, to the perception of, right? Open the window so that when they see the two, they're already in a different place. Yes. It's, I, I like, again, something I, I spent quite a bit of time at, when I teach in that school is, um, and I, I play this really cool video clips of, imagine somebody

that is just walking with their shoulders low, the head down, breathing very shallow, just going like, man, life sucks. And you will find reason why life sucks. Yeah. And we can put you on the medication or we know for certain that we can change the physiology and the brain by becoming, by, by literally just doing some sport activity and, and not allow, because the two things cannot happen at the same time. You cannot be feeling good and depressed at the same time. And instead of trying to work on the brain, if you change the physiology of the body, it immediately dictates how the brain's gonna feel at the moment. What we teach, so what I teach my behavior students, um, is that basically there's, there's like, there's seven lenses to look through when you're looking at any behavior, right? You've basically got, I mean, essentially you can look at them evolutionarily. You can look at the behavior evolutionarily. You can look at it genetically. You can look at it, the physiology of the dog. You can look at it neurobiologically. You can look at it endocrinologically. You can look at it socially and, um, and you can look at it emotionally, right? And you've got those seven lenses and all of them, any behavior, you can choose any of those lenses and there'll be an answer. There'll be a reason why it's happening. There'll be a motivation and there'll be an outcome. There'll be a, for example, if we're going to look at it endocrinologically, then medication is normally the answer because you're going to change the, and you want to change the chemicals of the dog. But the, the skill of being a good behaviorist is being able to say, well, when I look at my little, my pillars of ethics, don't leave a collar on me. Um, when I look at the, the, the pillars of ethics, when I look at clarity, time, like efficacy, relationship, et cetera, et cetera, then, then, and when I look at what's going to be the best outcome, the quickest way, the easiest way for the dog, the, the, the thing about being a decent behaviorist is being able to say which one of these is the, going to be the, the most effective in a timely fashion and the most ethical. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's easy to get caught up on one lens. It's easy. And I always say this to my students, especially when you start learning about neurobiology, when you do your neurobiology modules and you do your endocrinological ones, because it makes you feel so smart, but you feel so clever knowing all the words and all the chemicals and knowing the different parts

of the brain and being able to say, well, the prefrontal cortex is, and all this stuff, like, it makes you feel clever. And because we, because we pray so hard to science, it makes you feel like, well, I am, I am now up there because I can, I understand the science of, of neurobiology. And that's especially clever. Yes. And combine that with your basic knowledge of the quadrants. Yeah. And you have a really good recipe. Absolutely. Absolutely. But it's no more, it's no more important than understanding the evolution of the dog and the breed or the genetics of the dog and the breed or the, or the, or the, the cognition and emotion of the animal. And it's no more smart either. And like our job is to be able to say, well, which lens is the best lens to look through? And then when I look through that lens, I can see your depressed, like if we look at physiology, I can look at that depressed person and I can say, well, you know, let's get them running. Let's get them moving. Let's get them doing exercise. When I, when I look at the emotions, I say, well, you know, he's, he's unhappy. What's going to make him happy? What does the evidence, what does our experience tell us a good methods to improve how he feels? Yes. You know, socially, let's look at him through a social lens and let we know that having friends and having a support network is really important. Is it going to be easier to get him running for this particular individual, or is it going to be easier getting to play pool once a week with his friends? And for this individual, it might be easier to get him to play pool with his friends. He might be quite lazy, overweight. He doesn't want to run. Fine. This is just another lens to look through that looks at the behavior in a different way. But I think one of the biggest problems is that especially like the more medically trained professionals tend to, to, to just end up looking through that one lens every time and, and, and not negotiating. Do you think it's an income issue? Like do you think it's, I mean, I know, I know they, they get, they, they do get it in their education for sure. It's, it's misleading what they're learning. But I, I also believe that there is some, some, you know, benefit of, of, well, this is, this is how I can help. I cannot tell you how to do mondial ring with your dog. I think they see, see wins the same way that all of us do. And I think that they, you know, I think the same way. So what, because, because I'm one of the people that works with like trainers from all different backgrounds, I don't care what, what tools

you use and shit like that. I think that I get to hear the balance trainers going, this client came from 24, three trainers that were unable to help my dog. And I was able to fix it in one session. Yes. Equally, I hear the positive trainers say, this dog is come and it's abused and it's flat and it hates the world. And the owners have said that, that these, these trainers have used these tools on it and, and the dog is now an absolute state and I've managed to fix the dog. Right. And I reckon, you know, a lot of the, from the medical community, they probably go, these guy, this, this client went to 40 different trainers for seven different hours and they weren't able to fix the dogs. I've given the dog drugs within a week, I've seen treatment. And part of that is the feedback that we get from our clients. Cause, cause, cause we do. And part of that is because the different lenses fix different dogs. And ultimately, if you've tried all these different lenses and it's not worked and you've come to this one, then the chances are, it is more likely to work. But in the same breath that I think that there's a bias there, there's a bias in the, in the balance community to think that tools are the, are the absolute, you know, the amount of e-collar trainers that I work with, you go straight to the e-collar. That is the tool of the day, especially like the chameleon collar is, is the, the best thing. Why would you ever use anything else to ever train your dog? Anything. Like ever. And like the napopo. So this is an argument for sure, an argument, the balance trainer, especially electric collar trainers would rush into, well, we're not, we're not using this unpredictable Chinese colors. We're using a high level, reliable color. That's great. But that doesn't give you a green light for let's go, then do everything we can with it. And just be happy clicker, you know. Exactly. So I, I think that everybody's got bias and I think everybody's kind of, there's a, there's a story of confirmation bias from all of them. How do you feel about, how do you feel about, uh, um, licensing trainers? Yeah, I, I actually think it'd be a good thing. I know that a lot of people have got a lot of opinions, but most of the opinions that I hear against it are as a fear from animal rights. And I think that you kind of have to deal with that as a separate issue. Um, and if we deal with that as a separate issue and we just look at like the regulation of dog trainers, I think that, I think that registration would be, would be the first step that's really important. I don't see why we can't all register

under one app, like TripAdvisor or Uber. Sure. And everybody gets a registration number, in which case any client can see how long you've been training for, because it's how long you've been on the app for. Every time you do CPD, you stick it on there so that every time you go to a course or you do so that you can see this trainer has been training for 10 years, but they've literally done nothing. All they've done is trained their own dogs. This trainer has been training 10 years, but they've only gone to university and they've never competed in any sport or won anything. This trainer has gone to university, won this sport, and they're constantly doing courses from different people and at, you know, or, or whatever you'd be able to see all of that. And I think that that would, that would definitely help it. And then I think as time went on, firstly, that, that'd give us data and a complaints commission, which I think is really important because at the moment there's not a country in the world that can tell you how many, how many dog trainers there are charging for services, let alone how many of them are balanced and how many of the positive ones get complaints, what the euthanasia starts, nothing. Secondly, it'd give us really good data on dog bites because we know they're underreported and we don't have any real understanding as to the motivation of dog bites, et cetera, et cetera. One of the primary reasons we have animal behaviorists is to reduce dog bites. And therefore, if there was some sort of standard reporting in there that every time you, your client's dog bit someone, it was reported in a standardized way by the behaviorist who then said, this is what I believe the motivation is to be, et cetera, et cetera. Then we'd get some fantastic data on why dogs are biting, when they're biting, who they're biting. And then as time went on... How do we avoid the bias in this? But what bias? As in like this person you just... So like, let's say... No, like, I mean, let's take... I may be going way out of this now, but unless we start to come together, the force free community will push in one side and the other trainers will push on the other side. And licensing can become difficult. I don't think you'd allow for those labels to be in there. So you wouldn't put in that, you wouldn't put in there if you're a force free trainer or not, you would simply put the methods that you use. And you'd say, you know, you'd have a table and it says, what do you do when the client's dog gets it wrong? And you list your consequences. What do you do when the client gets it right? And we

negate all those labels. Because they don't make any sense anyway. You know, they don't do it. But I think in time, if we were to build an app that did that, I think in time, you'd also be able to have client reviews on there. And you do that the same way as you do on Uber in that only after the client has paid, do they get sent the ability to review so that you know you're not going to get too many forces on there. And then I think, so then you'd end up with some ability to look at like look in your area and say, this train is a five star trainer, this train is a three star trainer, this, this train has seen 7000 dogs, this train has seen 300 dogs, and you'd get a little bit of an idea, it'd be a bit more of a meritocracy in there. And then eventually, I think you'd start to standardize and say, well, actually, you can only join this app. Once you've had, I don't know, three years, three months experience shadowing a different dog trainer that's already on this app, and they have to sign you off, or something like that, so that you end up with a scheme whereby you are setting a lowest possible benchmark when where people can't just say I'm going to be a dog trainer tomorrow. And whereby you are then saying, well, you know, this person is considered a gold dog trainer, because they've been training for this long and have done this, that's CPD and have done this, this, this, this, this person's, you know, or so on and so forth. So that we can start to regulate a little bit, because I'd like to see a bit more regulation in No, I do too. I think I I I really think regulation can be very good. I just don't see how it can how it can take the the our human nature of my ways better than any other way. Like like, you know, in a lot of the European countries, like in Germany, for example, today, if you want to certify and get a license. Guess who is testing your skills? It's a veterinarian, veterinary animal behaviorist. And you have to check certain boxes that says inflicting pain is automatically not okay. Fear based is automatically not okay. Using any of any aversive approach is not okay. And if you check those, as they might be okay, in certain situation, you're simply not getting becoming a licensed professional dog trainer. And I think that's why that's one of the reasons that I would move away from an education based, or an exam based any sort of system that's exam based. Right. I think it's more I think it's registration that we need more than we need data. But I will tell you a really good example of this one.

And so Florida, I think it was maybe five years ago, there was a push to ban the electric colors, it was pretty strong push. And so trainers on both sides ended up going to the city hall and, and, you know, there were hearings and, you know, we went through a process and, and ultimately, the decision was made. There was an interesting arguments like, Okay, well, let's, let's leave the what ifs, let's leave the worst case scenarios. Let's, let's look at data. Yeah, and see where data leads us. And what we decided as a community in Florida was every trainer that is professionally trained, they get registered, of course, with the counties, they have a training plan. And they openly discuss any development in the training with a client. And let's say let's say they take a positive approach, but they hit a wall. And there is a room, maybe to try something else. This is negotiated, this is openly discussed, and agreed upon. And it's done. And all these data, with every single dog, every single trainer that trains dogs in the state of Florida, presents monthly or bi monthly, all the all of their training plans and end results to animal care and control. Yeah, nice. Guess Yeah, it was very interesting. But guess what happened? What? Who, who will spend the time to read all these hundreds of training plans? And who is the one to this like, it just never, never. That was it. It was just something of out this a very good idea. And let's do this. Yeah, but you need a university to do it. So they can, they can then explore that data, because data is really difficult to deal with, isn't it? Yeah, I think all you need an automated system, or you need like with the internet, there's no reason why you couldn't have done all that on an automated system. If that was done online on an automated system, then you wouldn't need to read, they wouldn't need to calculate the data because it come up with its own, it come up with its own pie charts and percentages and all that stuff, because you could, you could create it in such a way. And I think that would have been, that would have been more, you know, a more effective approach. But the openness of the scientific community is not there to look at it, to look at it objectively. Not yet. I agree. And I think one of the biggest problems with the scientific community is the fact that they haven't got, you know, science begins on the field. Like the reason that we have science is because you're out there and you have a question. You go, why does my dog do that? Yeah. Like that, because the only point of it, like usefulness of science is its application.

Without its application, what's the point of science? Yeah. I give my hats off go to Clive Wynn, you know, with the Arizona Canine Science Lab. And, you know, I did a podcast with him maybe a year ago and I convinced him, I'm like, you know, one of the things with, with what you guys do is you, you're not in you meaning in broader term, you're not interested in somebody using something very extremely effectively. And you're not exploring that as a push option to, to, to make some study there. Instead, we're always looking how on the disadvantages and on the negativity side. And I convinced him to, to do this study that we're doing right now with me, just because of that. And, and he was like the only person that was, I'm like, I don't even know how our conversation went, but he was very down to earth. He's like, Hey, I'm, I am very genuinely interested in how things can be better. Yeah. And he's, he's not like a, like too much. It's going to sound awful. He's not too much of a practicing dog trainer to have too much of a kind of bias, really, in some ways, because he's not got enough, like training dogs out on the street is not providing him a living. I think, but at the same time, he has, he has been, and, and I, I think they have a, a behavioral program that a lot of people go and take classes and everything. And, and as far as the curriculum and as far as how they, and he, how he would look at training. Um, hopefully this study, I know this study changes the outlook, at least for him. Um, but where I'm going with this is we, we need to explore when something can be done very intelligently and in a very, uh, there, it's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. Instead of focusing always on the bad thing. A hundred percent. And we need more, we need, we need, we don't just need, we need more data, which obviously you're, you're helping with, but we also need, uh, a broader way of looking at that data in terms of looking at what, what, when we talk about ethical training, what are we talking about? Like, I know fairly firmly, I've got my four things that I look at, like I said earlier, like relationship clarity, time and efficacy, but, you know, as a, as a dog, dog training community, really, we need to agree on those things. Like as a, as a whole and say, what, what is, what is efficacy and obviously like, what is, what is ethical dog training? And, and rather than, rather than argue about it without having any definition of what we're claiming is efficacy. Like what, what, what is, what is successful training? What is, um, what is

clarity in training? What does that look like? Like, that's what we need to be teaching people. But in addition to that, do you think, because when you asked about regulation, it did make me think, like, do you think, so I, I think that two things really, I think if someone's going to go and do an academic course on animal behavior, I think that there should be a qualification that they need at least one year working with dogs and getting experience before they learn the academic side of it. Right. Because I think that learning the academic side of it without the context of the experience is what needs to these armchair behaviorists. But equally, I think that people who are going to use to learn the tools, because the problem I would say with the tools is the overuse of them and, um, the over reliance on them as well. And I think that is, that is the major problem that I see more, more than, more than the abuse that people claim is happening. It's just the overuse of the course and, and first point of call. Do you think that then there should also be some sort of a, a regulation that, that they have to, that a trainer should have undertaken a certain number of years or a certain, certain amount of experience training without the tools before they are allowed to learn to use the tools? Yeah, we, I think you and I have talked about this even on and off the mic. Um, yeah. And, and it has made me, made me think deep into this. Um, I always have this opinions right away, but then I go back and I think, and I wish all of us do that because, uh, try, we, we have to stay, we have to stay open to this. We cannot scratch out something just because of our original thought and, and our narrative and our ideology, whatever that is. And my, some, my current take on this one is that I don't think, it, I agree it, I agree it, they have to learn. I don't think they have to learn it as the end result. That's kind of like how you, how I disagree with where the APDT Lima ladder is right now. Yeah. I think that we can absolutely very safely and actually much more, uh, uh, it will make much more sense to somebody that wants to learn to where they are learning both options simultaneously. because they, they still like when, when we think of, you know, you, you, you understand this one and it's naturally to get exposed to the other one. And I, my, like in, in my perfect world, in my little fantasy, my little pony land where I'm the ruler of everything. Uh, what I would like to see is I'd like to see like, uh, positive reinforcement based trainers, trainers that don't use tools.

The ones, the ones like us, the ones that are, that are education providers and who are providing education for trainers coming together and creating certification courses for trainers with balanced trainers. And therefore they go through and they do the certification for the, um, without the tools and they learn the mechanics and all the methods that we use as someone who doesn't have those options. Then they use, they learn the next stuff and then the kind of examination process or whatever you like, or the, the kind of final step is to, is to be able to prove that they can adequately assess and go, this is the one I want to use. Now there is no right way because every dog is different and every trainer is different, but they need to be able to, you know, analyze that in an intelligent way where they can, where they can look at the different, um, components of ethics and go, I'm going to use this one because of this and not just go in trigger happy. Yeah. It's beautiful to, to be able to have this choice to make based on knowledge. And then based on knowledge, you say, no, I just like how you've decided that you want to stay on this side of things. And, but, but you, you, you have the knowledge, even if you think you don't have the knowledge. Um, I think it's important if any dog trainer is going to be a dog trainer, um, to, if, if you decide to take this only one side of approach and you, you know, you get very creative and very good at this one side approach still to assume that if any of those approaches may fail, which is probable that there is other options. And when you're not exposed to those other options at school, like there is. But it's really hard. Like I can tell you from experience because I've, I've gone around the world learning about using those tools without using those tools. Like I spent some time at Michael's place and like, I've been all over the place looking to learn about it. But when you want to, A, when you want to learn about it, but you don't want to use them, that you do come against real, um, attitude and, and, and, you know, and, and a lot of people that are very keen, like new vegans to tell you why you should be a vegan. And that can be difficult. And I also don't think there are enough safe spaces. I get asked all the time. There are not enough safe spaces for trainers that don't use tools to learn about tools. Right. Right, right, right. That's kind of exactly what I was, exactly, exactly. My point.

It's actually like, uh, like, let's say if somebody goes to one of the force-free dog school for dog trainers in, in, in, in the country here, or, or you simply become a member of the dog trainer. You simply become a member of APDT or one of these organizations. You are signing off. And you're agreeing that this is the only thing that's good. Otherwise your certification gets taken away. And it's such a, um, extreme. And it's, it's so incorrect because even if it, it pushes people that use aversives, like if somebody that is so-called balance trainer and wants to join APDT right now, or wants to go through a, let's say, uh, Karen Pryor's Academy or Jane Donaldson Academy. You, you really cannot have both. You have to be one or the other. And if you don't choose their approach, you're automatically taken out. It's the same in both though, isn't it? It's about an equally. I don't think it's the same in both. I think, uh, I, I think balanced trainers are more open to learn and listen. But I think they, they also are given more opportunity to, you know, I do think that there is the convert thing where as soon as a balance, like we, I work really hard on our courses to, to prevent people from doing it. But I know that if we have, if we have three or four balanced guys in, on a course and 20 or so, um, positive guys on the course, what do you want? Um, then generally speaking. It's like, come on, mom, let's do something. You've been talking too long. Um, then generally speaking, the, the positive guys will try to convert the balance guy. And I don't think that's right. I try and prevent that. Cause I think that's, that's unreasonable and they're there to learn the same as anybody else. Um, but equally, whenever I've gone on courses that are the same thing has happened whenever I've gone on courses that are for, that are not designed for positive trainers. And actually I'd say that I'm normally met with quite a lot of disdain that it's you guys that are against us. You guys are trying to battle. And I'm like, I'm trying to learn about them, but I'm just trying to learn about them. Right. So I, I do think it's both sides. I do think that if we're going to get the industry to come together, which is basically our aim, isn't it? Like I think all of us, all of us who are, who are training at a certain level would, would like to see, you know, a bridging of the gap and, and, and no longer worrying about all this bullshit. You're this type of training or this type of trainer.

Uh, all of us want to see better trainers, just people who are training more elegantly and making more careful decisions and who are not trigger happy, but equally are not ineffective because they're so far away from the threshold and all that kind of stuff. But I think if that's going to happen, that has to start with the education providers. Right. I think that has to start with the education providers getting together and saying, well, we're going to provide education that is both. And you certify with us. You don't have to use the tools if when we get to this level, we're going to teach you about them. And if you want to do the practical sides of that, you can. If you don't want to, you can watch. Or, you know, you don't have to do that, but we're going to educate you in them. The bare minimum is to get exposed and have basic grasp of what it is about besides the fact that this is a bad idea. Right. Yeah. And equally, we're going to, you're going to have to get through. If you're one of those guys, which I'm sure we've all met, who are just desperate to get their hands on the remote. You're going to have to get through X amount of weeks learning to bloody use a toy, learning to work with a dog aggression case without using that. Just using your voice, just using, you're going to have to get through all of that before you get your license to lift that remote. Right. Because actually what you're going to end up doing is becoming good enough at the other stuff that you will at least use it less. So I think that starts with education providers. This is very, I mean, we are on to something. We just have a small disagreement of where the use of aversive should come in a curriculum. But ultimately, I think we agree. But I think that the bit at the end is when it all comes together, because the bit at the end is saying it might be less aversive to put a collar, to put a prong collar on a dog straight away and use it like this. And I think the bit at the end is where you probably do a week or so at a rescue kennel working with hardcore cases. And with both trainers, they're saying, look, I'm going to show you my approach of it. I'm going to show you my approach of it. What are you guys going to do? Okay, there's your case study dogs. You guys go and choose your approach and choose whether or not you're going to use this approach or this approach and see how long that takes you and so on and so forth. Can I? Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I think this is definitely the right path. A lot of things need to get ironed, but it is the right path.

Like I still, my belief would be, and if there is no other option, I would agree with your approach to first learn positive reinforcement, differential reinforcement, and then add on. I still ultimately think that they go hand in hand. And when we are using aversives, like we can have examples that are very extremely benign to understand how aversives work. We don't need, just like, you know, you can do click and treat and then you can step on from there to whatever else. And when we think of, you know, teaching some pet tricks and shaping and, you know, all valuable stuff, the use of aversives can be presented right away and go, like, build those blocks together because you make the same, you know, but you're safe. You're not putting the dog at risk. Like, there is a lot of theoretical part. There is a lot of things that we don't need dogs to do. Like we can play, you know, you can be my dog. I can be your dog. I mean, there's like so many cool options. But this, that's definitely something that needs to be talked about. And I agree with that anyway, because I do think that having both trainers there, it would almost be a case of translation some of the time. Like, for example, you know, I use my, what I call my mistake marker where I say, ah, no, but what's that if it's not an aversive? And if the, you know, if the tutors, one of them was positive and one of them was balanced, the balance trainer would say, now, as a balance trainer, I'm going to call this what it is, which is a conditioned punisher. And there's no two ways about it. And I think that it would begin to mix that rhetoric, you know, and, you know, actually what she's using, she's right. She is using this, that and the other, but it's also spatial pressure. And that's going to be aversive to the dog, which is why the dog's moving backwards when she's putting the lure underneath it. She is luring the dog, but she's also using the pressure of her body to move the dog backwards when she's teaching that pop stand or whatever it is. Right. And I think some of it, by having both of them there, would be able, you'd be able to translate each other into terms. And you'd find that actually, like, like where we came to earlier, the line in the sand can be so fine that it's just semantics. And neither one is forcing you to take that path. It's just, it's just understanding it. It's, you know, like if, if like with any, any other profession, you know, you, you kind of get an overall education, then specializing in something because that's something is more fitting with your, with who you are. Right.

And, and there is nothing wrong with that. Now it only becomes wrong if the other way is clearly far more productive. Yeah. Yeah. Or, or, or, but not even if it's far more productive though, not when it comes to sentient beings, because if it, if it weren't for dogs being alive creatures and if they were just robots, then it would only be about productivity and, and, and efficacy. But it isn't because there's the feelings and the emotions and the cognitions. And as long as the, as long as the students understand that. Well, when I mean productive, I, I, I kind of put it all in a lump. Um, um, um, you know. I mean, if one way was able to encompass everything and be effective in every case in a way that was completely ethical, then, then yeah. But I think if that were the case, then it'd be, then the whole, this, this whole conversation would be a moot point. You know, it'd be, we know that. I mean, like there's, there's silly little things as well. Like I think earlier you asked me whether or not people, whether or not the trainers that I trained with had changed their ways since I trained. That there are so many methods that aren't taught if you only learn one way. And I always find that sort of thing frustrating because I think to myself, oh, if you'd learned both ways, you'd never would have had this problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many, there's so many things that could be like, it'd be lovely to have like, for, for, for there to be enough, you know, decency that you end up with courses that are hot, that are 50% positive trends, 50% balance that the tutors are both. Or, you know, there's a bunch of tutors and some of them come from some, and in every class you make sure there's one of each and they give you the alternatives. Right. I want to know, I want to know how it's taught with an e-collar. I want to know how it's taught with a prom collar. I want to know how it's, and I want to see it in that particular dog. And, and, but I also want to know how it's taught with food, how it's taught with toys, how it's taught with just tactile stimulation. How are we going to, what's, what, what is the lowest, what's the lowest aversive we can use with this dog? Let's have a look and see what's, what, and what boundaries and what measurements are we going to use to quantify that? What's important to us? All that kind of stuff are things that students should be thinking about. And I just don't think there's enough opportunity and all the time that we keep the education systems completely separate. There's going to be a polarized, polarized view on each side.

I mean, we can just end it right here. But I have one, like, I have just something that it's been in my head that I, we haven't talked and I'm curious to hear your take. Spain, Euler, how do you feel? Yet again, the studies are completely inept from giving us any decent evidence because the assessments of the dogs are wrong. Because they haven't assessed the dogs for whether or not they're confident or whether or not they're not confident by, like, whether or not. So the vast majority of the studies give mixed results on whether or not the dog's behavior changes in a positive fashion or in a negative fashion. And to me, this is literally a problem in them assessing the motivation of the aggression in the first place. And if they are able, I think they were, you would find that if the aggression and the behavior problems are based on fear, that neutering makes it worse. And if the dogs are pushy and dominant or whatever words we want to use, I know that's a trigger word for a lot of people, but I don't have any problem using it. But if the dogs are assertive and pushy and confident, then yes, neutering them often reduces the behaviors associated with pushy and dominant and assertive. It often reduces the competition, especially the sexually, you know, sexually motivated competition from other males and things like that. So the aggression often goes down. But unfortunately, there is not one study that has differentiated between the motivations of the aggression in the first place. So instead, we see completely mixed results. And you end up, the vet saying, neuter everything I see at work. And you end up, the behavior is saying, neuter nothing, because it's going to make the behavior worse. And I think actually it depends. And you've kind of almost got a flow chart of little decisions that you have to think about, about the health of the dog and whether or not the dog is going to be prone to arthritis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Outweighing the pros and cons as well, because it might not be cost effective to accomplish one thing and damage five, you know. Exactly. Exactly. So there's almost like a little flow chart of behaviors. And is the dog in its adolescence? I think, sadly, so much sexualized behavior is caught up in adolescence. And people assume it's just testosterone when actually, you know, the dog's got significantly more gray matter in its brain that makes it less risk averse. So it's more likely to take a risk.

It also changes the reward center of the chemicals in the brain, which means it's more likely to be rewarded when a risk does pay off or when they do perform certain intrinsically motivated behaviors. And all of that stuff is going to change with time, irrespective of neutering. So I think there should probably, unless there's health reasons, it would be nice if there was some sort of a time limit where they said you can't neuter a dog until it's past its adolescence. Because we don't know how the behavior is going to actually change. And the likelihood is that it's going to be better for the males, certainly. For the females, things like in-house, I think the in-house dynamic needs to be studied and thought about a lot more before the neutering. Because if you have, I have four bitches and a dog. And if you have multiple bitches, I'm lucky that none of mine fight. Everybody's good. But I know that the breeding cycle and who is considered the right type, not just the cycle of the dog, but also the social dynamics of the dog in terms of age and when a dog gets old enough and when a dog's younger and when you bring him into the house. All of that is massively related to the sexual hormones. And sometimes neutering one dog in a house can completely take away any in-house aggression. And I like, I neutered the oldest dog in the house and I don't have any problems with any of them because otherwise she was going to get, I could see that there was tension building around her and the youngest female who was just getting to the age. And, you know, so I think that neutering should never, ever be done as a blanket approach, ever. I think that in terms of health benefits, spaying a female dog after a second season seems to most likely improve the health of the dog, generally speaking, although it's very breed specific and individual specific. I think neutering a male dog before the age of eight seems to make the health worse of the dog from what I can weigh up. But in terms of behaviour, I think we need to do more studies where we've articulated the motivation of the behaviour and split the dogs up based on their motivation and then looked at the consequence of neutering rather than simply saying, these dogs are all dog aggressive because they're a dog aggressive towards this stuffy. Now we're going to neuter them. The results are mixed because you're like, yeah, that's because half of them are fearful and half of them are pushy little buggers. Right. Yeah. So that's my take on neutering. Yeah, no, it's quite similar.

Like, to me, I mean, now we know there is quite a few downsides of it, of course. So, you know, I mean, it's a hormonal change. It's hormonal change is not benign. And, you know, we have to outweigh the pros and cons. And sometimes, as you said, there is definitely it's the best case scenario. And sometimes it's not. And I think one of the things that we always said when you and I talk, we always touch on this. And I think we should kind of close on this and emphasize that like how we said education, schools for dog trainers, they need to educate. Have a broader picture, not just this one side or this one side. And be sincere about when we be knowledgeable or it takes two different trainers that are knowledgeable. So, so whichever the approach. But the other one is to teach the trainers, which I spend a lot of time. I don't know if you do with your classes. But dog trainers take time to educate any pet on anybody that has a dog, especially younger dog. The benefits of going out and doing some sport. And if it's not, I'm not talking going to win world championships, but do something that that dog is genetically predisposed or likes to do. And even if it's not even that, but just do something with the dog, most of the problems go away. So many people who do sports have a real problem with rally. I love rally. I think it's fantastic. As long as you're not, you know, as long as you're not saying, well, I've won rally. So I'm going to compare myself to a world champion IGP player. You know, as long as you see it for what it is, which is a sport designed for pet owners. Yeah. Fantastic. We have ODM over here as well. I think you've got something similar coming out in America already there. But we have ODM in Spain, which is basically Mondio without the bite work. But the criteria is lower. And it's fantastic for dog owners. Right. I see so many dog owners doing it. Food refusal, positions at a distance, like just real basic engagement. The focused heel work is replaced with like loose-leaf walking. And it's like, it's just, it's just basic stuff. And it's, it's a way of saying to dog owners, like here's your goal. And, and, and you're basically saying you could be a gold standard pet dog. Like perfect. Yeah. Absolutely perfect. But I think, I think you're absolutely right. And I think, I think the other one that I just love, and it's, it's a shame because I know that on the tin, I used to think it was going to be boring. But on the tin, people think it's boring, but nose work. I've never found a dog that, that, that doesn't excel at nose work. Right. I've never found a dog that doesn't do a fun work.

It's a easy, it's a easy, fairly easy thing to, to have fun with a dog. For sure. They're teaching us. We're not teaching them most of the time. Teaching like a really nice, stable indication can help with, is, is a such a great foundation for so many other behaviors when there are behavior problems. Like it improves the bond and the relationship and it allows for a lot of play to occur. It's, you know, Raleo and Scentwork are my two favorites, but, but I couldn't agree more. I mean, if, if, if there's any take home for, for any, like one of the biggest tips that I'd ever give any dog owner is choose anything. It doesn't matter what it is. Just, just get, make a goal. I don't care. Like it could be like teach a dog a handstand for all I care. I don't care. It doesn't matter what it is. Just, just make a goal and commit to teaching it. And, and, and don't be put off by this idea that sessions should be 25 minutes long because the best training I do all day is the training that I do when I'm waiting for the kettle to boil. Hmm. Yeah. Fiddling. Yeah. Fiddle. It's fiddle all day. Fiddle with the behavior. Whenever you get a spare second, when you need a five minute break from, from work and your Apple watch tells you to stand up or just fiddle with it just a couple of minutes every now and again, and you'll get the behavior. You'll, you'll get the bug and the dog will love it. What do you think about the electric collar bands? I don't think banning anything has ever done anyone any good. That's what I think about any bands for anything. Um, I've been to quite a lot of the European countries where they have been, been banned and they're being used just as prolifically as they were before. Yeah. That was a conversation I had with Nick and, and, um, I was trying to, to tell him because when he goes, he goes and he talks to trainers. And when they know on what side of the aisle he is, of course he's getting, when he talks to, let's say, police people and it's like, no, no, we don't use it. When I go, of course we, we have to use it. We don't have a better option. And it goes underground and anything, anything that goes underground becomes very sketchy because the education now is restricted. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the other thing that frightens the shit out of me about the electric collar bands is that sadly, and I have to admit that I wasn't exposed to it nearly as badly until I got involved in ring sports. But sadly, I have seen people do horrible things to their dogs when they don't use a collar, horrible things, you know, a boot and, you know, stringing dogs up and many things that

I'd never repeat, but horrific things to their dogs. Now, do I think that those things are going to significantly increase without the ability to catch, to tackle these problems with an e-collar? Yeah. Because the people who are using e-collars are going to, are not going to go, well, I'm not going to punish my dog now. They're going to find a different way. And also there's like, I don't know if you, I don't know, there was that, you know, the bonker, a rolled up teatow, right? With a bit of duct tape to lob at the dog. I saw it being used horribly on a little pug that was scared shitless anyway. But, you know, what are you doing? In terms of your Pavlovian conditioned response, you're making it worse. The dog's going to be more frightened of strangers, not less. You know, it wasn't being used in any way as a window, but, you know, an object as simple and as completely, you know, non-threatening as a teatow can be used if you want it to. A rolled up newspaper, anything can be used like that, you know, but by banning it, we're just, we're removing the technology. We're removing any level of elegance and control. We're removing any systematic approach that's been designed for the last 20 odd years in terms of what we've designed the systematic approach to use it on a lower level and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. You're removing all of that and you're, you're giving way to much, much clumsier tools, much, much clumsier training and, and, and a lot more people who are going to take out their emotions on the dog. That's what I think. So, I mean, I don't, I don't have fun of it. Perfect. I really like that. We just, we, we just need to find, like, I, I, I will just repeat everything you say because it's exactly how, I mean, identical of how I feel. We do not have a way of how do we penalize people that are not good with their dogs or, or just not treating dogs right. And we kind of go with these blanket solutions of, because it's a feel good solution on, on the surface. But we do need to come up with some way. And this is a problem in, in the balance training. Like, you know, you, people will see, and of course there is levels. And I may disagree with many trainers of their approaches, but I can still see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And it's not, it can just, cannot compare with, with actual abuse that we see. And, but when, when we see that, everybody is very hesitant to, to point down and say, you know what, that's, that's very bad approach because of the idea how social media works.

At least it's like, well, if I tell you that you're a good trainer, that means you have to tell me that I'm a good trainer. And if I tell you that you're bad, that puts me at risk because you will attack me. And if we resolve this to where we can all have a, some understanding where this really awful thing should, should be without question not happening and, and find a way how to, I don't know if it's certain commission, if it's some anonymous, some, but somehow those trainers get exposed that this is not how it should be done. Because when you have somebody that has 2 million followers on YouTube doing ridiculously horrible things to dogs and everybody knows it, but nobody dares to step out and say it. I agree. I agree. I think there needs to also, I think, I think that when we were talking about the education, the regulation of dog trainers, what I would agree with would be the regulation of tools. I don't think we should ban them, but I do think they should be regulated. And I think that if there was some sort of a, I'm going to use the word balanced because I can't think of another one. But if there was some sort of a balanced education system where you were learning both different types and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you had to, you know, you learned the other style of training as well. And you learned the science behind it and all that kind of stuff. And I think there should be more courses like that, that actually end up being the regulation courses for the e-collar. You know, I was saying like how you earn to put that remote in your hand after you've done that time and all that kind of stuff. I think if there were more, it will never completely wipe out the bastards out there that just want to do horrible shit to dogs. But I think it will significantly reduce that. I also think that, and I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I also think that dog owners should be able to hire the sophisticated e-collars of trainers. I don't think they should be able to buy them. And I think that if they are able to buy a more simplistic version for, as I know that a lot of dog owners believe that they're a safety belt for if their dog was to run onto a road or so on and so forth, then I think that they should, those e-collars should come with an app. And instead of buying the e-collar, you pay per time you use it. So if it's just being used as a safety belt and that tool has been faded and the training is good, then instead of paying, you know, £800 for the e-collar, you pay £40 every time you press that button on your app. And that way they can be used genuinely as a safety belt.

My dog has run after a deer. It doesn't normally happen. I have got sufficient control of my dog, but I'm not dependent on this tool that could break at any time. But genuinely, this is an emergency. Boom, I get charged. Fine. I'm OK with that. But I don't think they should be given to the public when they need, where they can just buy a shitty cheap e-collar that's rubbish anyway and learn off some crap on the internet about how to use it to abuse their dog. So here is a playing devil's advocate on the, somebody going through, educate themselves. They actually understand how to use it. But just like with any other profession, there is malpractice. And I think we have to, this is like where I'm stuck. I think we as an industry, we need to come up with a solution with some consequences for malpractice. Even when you are, you know, like you can have the best doctor in the world and he can one day decide to do really dumb, stupid shit to people, right? Yeah, 100%. But I think we can only, we can only come up with that agreement once we've, start some structure. Once we've come together as an industry and once certainly the education providers of the industry can come together. And, and the problem is, is that a lot of the education providers that I talk to don't know shit, but they don't know shit. They don't, they don't understand how to use it or what it is or, or how it works. So how, how, you know, how can they possibly have a decent opinion on it? And then if you don't have those education providers on board with the decision, then it's never going to go through the industry because there is a bias towards what those education providers think. So, so for me, you know, there needs to be some sort of a dog training council that is, that is the top guys from all across the boards that come together. And first off, educate each other on these things. Right. Then we educate everybody else. You know, there needs to be education for the educators that is balanced as in the positive stuff, as well as the negative stuff, the skills from this side and the skills from this side and so on and so forth. Then that trickles down into educating the others. But also that council then is, is of an educated mindset to make decisions about what does warrant abuse. Because at the moment, if you ask the vast majority of people from my land in the sand backwards, they would say all of it. It's like even, even the people that would be like, I can see how it can work somewhere, but I would rather get it banned because it, it, it creates this safety overall. And, but yeah, I don't know.

I think we have a, I think we brought up some really, really, really good key points of, of all of us in the dog training world to focus on and, and brainstorm and, and, and, and move into a much healthier direction. It's, it's totally possible. I think so. I do feel, you know, I have days where I feel less positive about it, but I do feel optimistic that the more conversations that like this, that can happen between, you know, two trainers from, from the other sides, if you like, and the more we can talk, like, like have an open conversation where you ask me, well, what would you do in this situation? And I ask you, well, what, you know, why would you use that, that, that punishment event? And like, we can have these open conversations and we can have, and we, and still draw on the similarities between us rather than the differences. Now, I think the more conversations like that, that can happen, like my hat comes off for you talking to, you know, Michael and, and, and Susan and, and all of that, because I think, I've learned so much from those conversations. You have no idea. But also it's a massive way forward and, and I'm sure they learn stuff. I'm sure I've, you know, I've definitely learned stuff talking to you and watching your videos and stuff. But the more that we can talk to each other about it, the more that we can find common ground. I wish all of us would train together more. And, you know, this is my next step. And I guess I'm going to give it away, but this is definitely my next step of my big projects that I have in mind. And so it was partially the reason I, I was talking to Michael Ellison yesterday or whatever. I just had to call him. I'm like, we need to do this. We need to come here and we need to think which trainers we need to invite. And we need to just train for four days together and have some wine and talk dogs. And, and like, if we don't train together, we, there is no, like the conversations that we're having is they're super cool, but they will wear out unless we take it to the next level. And the next level really is me saying to Rossi, Nick Benger, Michael, Shikashio. Do you want to, what is your timeframe? Where can you come to Florida? And you three and me and Michael, we train dogs for four days. Sure. 100%. 100%. Because also the money, your money is where your mouth is like that. Like I've got my like hashtag that I use on Instagram is shut up and train because it's all well and good us all having these conversations, but they're a waste of time. Like really, unless you can prove it, you know, the amount of trainers that you, that you look,

that you look at and, and, you know, no names, but even trainers that come on podcasts, especially positive trainers and talk about positive training. And you go through all their social media, looking for training videos and going, where's your actual, oh, there is none. There's none. I can see no training. I've got no idea whether or not you're any good at actually training anything. And, and I just think that if you're going to talk about it at such a high level, you have to have the training ability, like the academic knowledge isn't enough unless you're only coming on a podcast as a scientist. Um, and, and I think that because I think I, I hear a lot of people as well talking about the, the theory behind their training, both from both sides. And I think, what does she train? You don't train like that. You know, like, like, and I hate, and I'm not bad mouthing anybody, but I've, I've, I've definitely seen, I've definitely spoken to NAPO PO trainers. That, that use the collar as a correction a lot more than anything else. And I think, well, uh, or the, the dog just doesn't have any heart and soul. And I look at it and I think. Right. Right. It's flat as a pancake. You're a gold instructor and you're, I've only seen you use the collar to correct the dog. Like you can talk a good game when I've spoken to you about it. And I agree with what you've said, the, the, the theory of what you've said, but I can't see the practical of that. And, and likewise, some of the most force free trainers on, in the world, one particular YouTube trainer, who's incredibly popular, um, as a very, very force free person. Um, and I met her on the beach with her dog on a lead with a, um, and the dog was going after sequels, seagulls. And she was correcting it every 10 seconds very badly. And I was thinking to myself, but it's bullshit, but it's just not true. Like what, what you're giving out isn't true. So, so a hundred percent, a hundred percent agree that you like, you've got to have the beans to, to, to actually train it. Um, because also there's the whole, you know, Terry Ryan, who used to train with Bob Bailey. Um, she came and did a chicken camp at my old venue in England. And, um, and I remember her, my favorite phrase that she ever said was, oh, well, we used to always say, put your chicken on your table. Like, put the chicken on the table. If you've got an idea about training, put the chicken on the table. Right. As trainers, we've got to do it. We've got to put the chicken on the table. Cause we'll find out actually, you know. What a conversation. Yeah.

I think, um, I mean, we can talk forever, but I don't think people, I don't know. We've been talking for what, what it's been. Too long, probably. Or three and a half hours. You can use up all your memory cards. So no, no, we're good. Eric is now prepared for long ones. He, he kind of got used to that. We talk forever, so he's not even stopping me. I don't know what he's doing, but, but we're good. Unfortunately, I'm not going to see you in Romania. I told you my, like, we were doing so good. So, so good. Like training was going so well. I had all my really good friends here helping me. Cause you know, training to, to be the, in the top 10 or top five. It's it's you don't train by your, you need, you need everybody. It takes the village. It takes the village. So we got into this like perfect rhythm and, and like, really, I was just such a, such a good place in my mind where we are going with the dog and he tore an ACL and had to have the surgery. And now he's seventh. He's going to be eight in August. So chances are, I really need to, out of this huge dream, the expectation just went down. And my poor dog, he was in a super condition. He, I mean, we are training, you know, like he's like ready. He, and now I have to walk him on my property on a flexi lid. Cause he gotta stay quiet. And, and luckily I tried to look at it in a good side. I have my young dog. So I kind of focus now on them. My hope of, you know, but I don't scratch it out. The, the bad thing with ACL is one goes down, then you start training and chances are super high that the other leg gives it to. And so who knows, but I, it's the love of the dog, isn't it? I've got a, a, a much, much, much more minor version of that at the moment with, with my, so my oldest dog is eight, I don't know where he is, but he's, he's eight. Um, and at my last trial, the decoy made an error with the gunshot. Um, and for the first time ever in eight years, he came off the bite on the gun. And I know the painful journey of changing, recovery, changing it enough. Cause there's always going to be that conflict. And he's eight and I'm like, like, do I bother? Like part of me thinks I've got my young dog who's, who's a year now and she's coming on really nicely. She's kind of ready. And I just think, you know, you got to put the dog first, didn't you? And you've got to go, you know, I'm in it for the dog. I'm not in it for anything else. Right. And it's not, it's, it's, it's, it's shit. I mean, it's, that's nothing compared to what you've just gone through. Nothing. This is one of other thing people really like, like people that don't, that look down on trainers

that do dog sports. They, they, they think that we just kind of use them for our own benefit. That's really what they think. Like the, the, the amount of work and the amount of bond that goes into, um, that goes into having, like one of the reasons that I became so addicted to dog sports when I first started doing athletics with my, um, with my pit bull was the fact that I didn't, I didn't think our relationship could get better. Right. I thought that I had everything with him. Like I got him, he, like I say, he was a game bed pit bull from London. Some of the chopped his ears off with a pair of scissors. It was a nightmare dog. I got him. I basically had to rip up the encyclopedia. Sorry, Steve. Um, of dog behavior, because he went against every rule in every book. And we got through hundreds of different, every time I managed to get one behavior sorted, he would resource guard or decide he hated children or whatever. And, um, I thought I could never be more bonded to a dog than this pit bull. Like he's, he's my, my life. I love him. And then we started doing athletics and I was like, wow. Yeah. Like the working partnership you get is, is, is undeniable. And it was after that, that I was addicted. I thought I'm never going to have another dog and not do a form, but like of competitive high level sport with it again, because what it does for your relationship is, is incomparable to what you think you've got. Yeah. I think the, the biggest takeaway for anybody that listens to us talking for so long is if you're not doing something with your dogs, you're missing out. Like you, you really missing out on what this relationship between dog and person can be. Let's wrap it up. Thank you, Jorossi. I think, um, yeah, I'm sure we're going to be, and I'm there. No, no, this is absolutely. This is like, uh, uh, Michael already agreed. I, I haven't talked to the other people, um, but I, I know this is happening. We were making this happen and it's gonna, and again, what I'm saying, what I'm, my grand plan is that we, we actually do this in different hotspots in the world. Sure. Because we all need to get together. Yeah. Oh, it will. It will definitely happen. It has to happen. I have tons of dogs we can use. Yeah. It has to happen. So again, thank you. Uh, super conversations as always, and, uh, have fun in, in, in, in Romania. It's going to be, I'm sure it's going to be a big one. I'm not going, but we will be, we'll be talking off offline as well. Take care. Thank you so much. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Thank you.