Training Without Conflict 팟캐스트 에피소드 9: 저강도 전기 목줄 조건화의 단점

So let's get started here. The first thing I want to tell you, I am first and foremost a professional dog trainer. And what that means is it really it's not, I'm not specializing in one specific area. I am a pet trainer. I am a pet trainer. I am a pet trainer. I am a pet trainer and I have a pet training business. I've been training companion dogs since 1998. That's like 25 years or so as a professional pet dog trainer. If you come to my pet trainer. If you come to my facility at any given point you will see four or five dogs in training. These dogs are typically we would select some very challenging cases, very interesting cases. Not necessarily only aggression but anything that is more challenging and interesting to me to work with. And most of the time I would say these are dogs that either have been rejected by other trainers or have gone through other trainers and have failed and you know they still need help. I feel that I feel that I could help. I feel that I could help and that's when I would take them. We don't advertise like again as I said the pet training side of my businesses. It's very busy and we take only a few dogs. So there is no point of me advertising. But for those of you that think that I am a pet trainer or a male person or whatever you want to you know that's really not the case. In the early 90s for about five years I worked as a guide dog instructor in San Rafael California trained golden retrievers and Labrador retrievers and German shepherds as well as of course instructing the students and so on. So that's another big part of my dog training that I learned a lot during that time. After being a guide dog instructor I was animal behaviorist at the San Francisco SBCA in California which means that I was responsible to evaluate and accept dogs in the shelter, make a rehabilitation plan and ultimately place them successfully. back in the real world. I also started the dog training academy, academy for dog trainers in San Francisco SBCA which later Jean Donaldson took over and basically changed everything and did it all force free which is what she does. I worked with her for about probably we kind of overlapped. I worked there maybe six, seven months together. I mean not together but we co-existed somehow. Eventually the San Francisco SBCA took off in a direction that I really didn't like and kind of forced me to leave that job and go on and do other things.

I am a Malinois breeder. I've been breeding Malinois since 1989 under the kennel name of Vitusha. I have competed in many different sports including agility. My biggest sport accomplishments come from the IGP also known as Schutzhund or IPO. I am 15 times national championship including last year I won the DBG national championship. I am two times world champion. I have been vice champion. I have been vice champion of the world. I have been maybe I don't know four or five times more in the top ten of the world. I have participated being part of the American team at the world championships 25 times. Now all this may sound like bragging but later in the conversation I will point out why you need to know this. I give seminars, I give presentations, lectures all around the world. In fact it will be easier for me to tell you to name the countries that I have not been to than naming every place that I have made presentations or gave seminars. I teach search and rescue teams, police departments, army, special forces, sport, ring, PSA, IGP, AKC obedience, any aspect of dog sports, any areas of dog sports. So I have a well rounded knowledge and experience in dog training. I can go on but if needed if you need to know more about me of course you can follow the links and go to my websites and social media and you are going to find out more. The last thing that I want to mention and I am a little hesitant because that is not the point of the conversation is that I have a school for dog trainers training without conflict. And it is a very successful school. That is kind of you know it preoccupies, takes a lot of my time right now and I totally enjoy it. But again making this video is not about me trying to convince you to come to my school. It is simply to point out the disadvantages that I see with low level steam conditioning. There is also a big chance that if you have been training dogs for a while you are using something from my concepts like you have picked up something. Maybe not directly from me, maybe from a book or a video or from another trainer but if you trace it back there is a high chance that it might be coming from my concepts. And as I said I have been doing this for quite some time and I have been very successful.

I have taught many of the currently very influential dog trainers as well. I am not telling you all of this as a plug in to subscribe to my stuff, go to my school and all this. The reason I feel I had to is simply because people are so easily fooled on the internet especially social media. People don't do their homework and mostly rely on number of subscribers and likes to channels to determine which trainer is credible and what source they should subscribe to. It is unfortunate but the truth is that popularity on social media has nothing to do with actual expertise in dog training field. And there is one more thing that I forgot to mention and this is it is really not intended to be an attack to anybody. I somehow feel that the dog training community is divided in many different camps. It is not just positive and balanced or whatever we want to call it but there is just way more fractions. And we are not able to talk honestly, have conversations about dog training and express concerns because we feel that that will be a direct attack on somebody. And really this is not the point of that podcast. The fourth reason is another big one for me and this is just because I am successful as a dog trainer. For some reason people that have not worked with me, that have not really heard me talk or seen me train, but they believe that I am also using low level steam conditioning in my training. No, like I don't do that. And it's important for me to make sure that anybody that thinks that, oh, Ivan is successful, he's doing so many different things, he must be using low level steam conditioning because it's the modern way, it's the humane way of using electric collar. And that's not necessarily the case. So, no, I never have used low level steam conditioning. As I say, I don't like it and I will explain why. Having said that, you may think that now I am just blasting dogs off in the stratosphere and I am one of those other trainers, bad trainers. And that's also not the case. This is one of the self-pitches that low level steam trainers will have. They will always point out to all these bad trainers that use the collar in a certain way on a very high level and the dog is not prepared and it freaks out and there is many negative blowbacks and stuff like that to where the low level steam conditioning, on the other hand, has this very methodical way of teaching, conditioning and preparing the dog for what comes in the future.

And hopefully, hopefully I will be able to make a good case why that's not true. In my opinion, I think both are extremes and they are both not helping the dog training community at all. The modern electric collar has come a long way. Like, I remember still the times when the first electric collars came about. They were very rigid, they had very limited options to control intensity and so on. The dog trainers also didn't have the knowledge that is available right now. But nevertheless, everybody that used it saw that there is some future. There were some clearly benefits. It's just that the tool was not that refined yet. How the low level steam came about is interesting. Because there is two reasons. One is the force free community. The force free community is very much against the use of electric collar, period. They consider it as a cruel, inhumane and unethical dog training tool. They believe strictly in positive reinforcement and some form of negative punishment to train dogs. They believe that that's all you need to do to be able to train a dog. Now, this is false. This is a mantra that they keep repeating, but that's really not the case. This is a whole different conversation that I am willing to have. But anyway, the low level steam conditioning trainers, they felt that they can present the electric collar in a way that's going to be accepted. The force free trainers basically would say, oh, this is actually not that bad. It's not what we thought it is. So they would, I'm sure, if you're a low level steam conditioning trainer, you preach the talk and it sounds something like, well, it's only the feeling is like a tickling. It's not a, you know, we don't use high levels. You can barely feel it. And there is a working level and it's a very, very mild discomfort. It's a communication tool. It doesn't hurt, you know. And when it's done correctly through that low level steam conditioning, it actually prepares the dog. So there is no really any negative blowbacks like if it's done this way. Now, all this sounds really cool, but it doesn't work. And, like, because you say that, because you talk like that to the pet owner or to somebody that is against the use of electric collars, I don't see how you have a good case and how you defend the electric collar. I think you actually do more damage than good.

And one of my concerns is that because of the low level steam conditioning trainers, they give ammunition to the force free community to ban the collars in our country as well, in the United States. And hopefully we can change that. The low level steam conditioning trainers have one more argument. And this is always pointing out to those old school trainers, those primitive trainers that blast off the dogs in a very high level and don't understand markers and reinforcement and, you know, just kind of talking solid, really. But it's very, it works to some degree. At least, you know, you can, they succeed to convince quite a few people. Because it's like, well, no, these are the bad people, but we use it in a very different way. We use it as a communication tool. We prepare the dog. We use working level that is low level and so on and so on to where those people, they, they are barbarians. They use very inhumane approach and they are very cruel to the dog. And they are the reason why electric collars are banned. So, I think both extremes are not helping. And since I am talking about low level steam conditioning, I want to make sure that, as I already said, I do not like it. I do not use it. But that does not make me immediately one of those other trainers either. Like you, we have to accept the fact that just because you are not on one camp, that doesn't put you immediately here. Okay, there is, there is many other options. There is many other choices. But this is not even the point that I want to make. I am not here right now to teach you how I do. I am here to explain why I do not like something. And there is a difference. I should be able to talk openly and freely about what I do not like and give you a good reason. Make a, you know, express my concern clearly so you can understand them. And you take it or leave it. But that does not mean that I have to teach you how I do it at the same time a different way. That, again, is a very different conversation that we can have. So, the low level steam started in the hunting community. The hunters are, in a lot of ways, the masters at the time when electric collars came around. Because the dogs can wear the electric collar at all times. They can use and have control in a big difference, long distance. And there is, of course, competing reinforcers. There is ducks and birds and rabbits and whatever the hunting dogs do. So, that's how it came about.

Then, of course, there is several different variations, if you want to call it that way. Of, you know, there is certain schools. Like, there was Martin Dilly, which was a British guy that was a very good dog trainer and really cool person. He was one of the very first ones that started to kind of sell the idea of low level steam conditioning to trainers beyond the hunting dog community. Now, I don't want to give you names. You know everybody that does low level steam. And if you don't know them, it's not that hard to find now. You have social media, of course. Anybody that is not familiar and wants to learn, at least make an effort to learn first hand. Go to the actual source of the concept, of the method that you are learning. Learning from third or fourth person down the road is a bad idea, no matter what you are learning. Like, not to sidestep too much, but I know at first hand, like, there will be people that have been to one of my seminars or know somebody that knows somebody that has graduated my school or something. And now they think that they train and understand my concepts. And this is just a, it's laughable. So, if you ever want to learn more, try to go to the sources. It's not that hard. That's the best way to learn, okay? So, that kind of hopefully explains why low steam conditioning has, it's popular in at least some dog training circles, right? It's the misrepresentation of, oh, well, it's only tickling, it's a communication tool, it prepares the dog. That's the conversation they will have with the force free community. That's the conversation they will have with the pet owners and so on. And, of course, they will point out, they will never forget to point out how those other bat trainers are doing really bad things, right? And, once again, I'm not making them a good trainer. I'm not justifying what they're doing. It's clearly, it's not a good approach. But that doesn't make low steam conditioning a better approach. I think they're equally bad. I think, when you are in these circles of dog trainers, you're almost going to end up believing that this is the norm, that this is really the, like, if you're successful, that's what you need to do. If anybody is successful, that's what they do. And it's like some, there is low-level steam, it's this secret that's been kept for a long time. And it's not a secret. It's been around for at least 20 years. It's nothing to do with modern or humane. And, again, I will make sure that I explain myself on that. Most knowledgeable dog trainers that use electric collars do not necessarily subscribe to the low steam conditioning narrative.

And if you're in a circle to where everybody around you is using it, that's okay. You can believe, but at least have an open mind. Listen to what I have to say. Listen to what I ask other top trainers. Hey, do you use this system? Are you a low-level steam advocate? Ask questions. Go around. People will openly tell you if they do or they don't. They may not have to explain you anything further, but they will definitely tell you. There was a time, like in, I think it was 60s or so, doctors were making advertisements for cigarettes. Yeah, doctors were making advertisements for cigarettes. And if you were sick and you're in a hospital, actually the nurse will come with packs of cigarettes and have you pick one, which one you want to smoke, because they thought that that's good for you. The reason I'm bringing it up is because things are changing. It's changing, you know, don't get stuck, stigmatic into something. Like, have that open mind. Hmm. Okay. So, let's talk about how, what is low-level steam. Basically, for those of you that don't know, and for those of you that think that I don't know, and I'm just talking without understanding the concept, here is how we can work what that is. Low-level steam, basically, it's a process. You put a collar on, you go from zero, start increasing the intensity, and eventually, as you watch, you will see the dog's body language, the dog's reacting in some way to that level of, you know, being discomfort, or being, just getting out of it. This is a kind of, we can argue, this is not necessarily clear. Some dogs can be much more sensitive, some dogs may not be as sensitive. You may reach a level that it's discomfort, or you may reach a level to where it truly is some form of like, tingling feeling that is like, well, I'm feeling something, but I don't consider it necessarily good or bad. So, let's call it some mild, mild, very, very mild discomfort, right? Unpleasantness. What happens next is you give a command, and at the same time you press the button. And the dog makes the command, you release the button. And, of course, you can reward, you make sure that you reward. This is one of the, that's where low-level conditioning trainers get very defensive. It's like, no, but I also rewarded the anti-reinforce with treats or whatever. And I use a clicker and so on and so on. Yes, you do. With every command you say, you press the button. The moment the dog performs the command, you release the button.

Now, as I said, there are different variations. There are certain different schools. So, some will teach the behaviors in advance through positive reinforcement. And then they will introduce the electric collar. We can go down that rabbit hole and discuss which one is better and which one makes more sense. But there is no point of doing this. This is, this even, you pick the better option and we stuck with that and we go on. Okay? You teach the dog to go away, you teach the dog to come back. And you are using the low-level stim. It's debatable. Now, you can say you use it for two days or you use it for a week or use it for three weeks. And eventually, you make the decision that now the dog is prepared. Now, the dog understands how to work with and around that feeling, that electric impulse. Now, the dog is prepared. Now, the dog is prepared. Now, the dog is prepared. Now, the dog is educated. Now, the dog is prepared. Now, the dog is educated. Therefore, we can now increase the level to where it's clearly unpleasant. Because, in order for the electric collar to really do what it's supposed to do, it has to have an unpleasant feeling. It has to go like, well, I don't like to touch this. I'm going to move my hand away. Right? That's the motivation. That's the negative reinforcement if you want to go technical and use terminology. So, at that point, now the dog experiences a different level. Right? And my first argument is that all that preparation, so-called preparation and education, really didn't teach the dog anything about how it's going to feel. What is the level of intensity? I'm really going to try to avoid to give you too many analogies because there is always something that somebody is not going to make sense. It's not going to click for you. If you take a classic example of the hot stove. You have the stove is turned on, but you can keep your hand as long as you want. Yes, it's a little bit different than the room temperature, but it's definitely nothing to worry about. Nothing will happen to you. You can keep your hand as long as you wish. Now, after a month or a year, we dial up. Now the stove is hot. Now if you touch it, you go, whoa, I cannot keep my hand there.

So, my argument is that all that, if you kept your hand for as long as you want to, and you know that it's a little bit warmer than the room temperature, that really did not teach you how hot it can get. The true learning experience happened when you touched it and it was unpleasant enough that you basically said, whoa, I better not do that. From that point on, that was a very different chapter of the book. That's a very different learning and everything that you did prior to absolutely did not prepare you to know that, oh my God, that feels, that can really feel this way. Now, one of the kind of, I wouldn't say silly arguments, but you know, how low level steam people will defend and respond to what I just said is that, well, but at least now the dog knows how to respond to it. We have prepared them. And this is not true. And I will tell you why it's not true. Because there is a fundamental biological programming. It's a law in our planet. Every, like, human, dog, horse, fish, a single cell organism, anything that is alive on our planet, is genetically, biologically programmed to approach something good and to avoid something bad, something unpleasant. This is not something that you have to learn through experience. What you learn through experience is that that specific thing can be good or bad. But how you react to something good and how you react to something bad, it's biologically programmed in all of us. So when you touch the hot stuff and it was hot and you moved your hand, your brain told you to do that. It wasn't something that you had to learn through experience and education. Okay? Because anybody, again, even like the single cell organism, that tried to disobey that fundamental law, ultimately it's non-existent. They died. Like, if you disrespect this, you will die. Right? That's how simple that is. The next argument, I guess, the way the low-level steam conditioning will defend their approaches, they will say, well, the electric collar, the electricity itself is so foreign to the dog that if we just use it, the dog's not going to know what that is, and it's going to blow up, and it's going to freak out, and you're going to be one of those bad people that you don't want to be.

Again, that's a, it's a, it's a, it's a good conversation to have, but it's unfair to think this way. Just as I told you, you approach something good, you avoid something bad. If you're not going to be the same way, is it electric impulse? Is it the hot stove? Is it a needle that you get pocked with? You will respond very much the same way. You're not going to necessarily say, well, this, this feels very foreign to me. No, you will just say, that's unpleasant. That's dis-comfortable. My brain commands me to stay away from it. And that's, that's the bottom line. That's what is important. So, if you believe that because of all that low level steam conditioning, you're actually educating the dog, hey, this is electric collar. This is an electric impulse. Don't be afraid. Don't panic. It's very illogical thing to do. And it's very, I really don't recommend anybody to talk to their clients this way, because that's nonsense. It really is a nonsense. If you want to go even further and deeper into this, electric impulse is not that foreign to anything that is alive. Like, just the fact that I am moving my hand right now, it happens through electric impulses. You know, there's these neurons that communicate and just talk to each other and everything happens with electric impulses. Like, I can, my very well, just rub my hand here and then touch the cup and get us started. Electricity is not by no means that foreign to us on top of what I said. Even if it was, your response is, I avoid it because my brain tells me that it's not good, because I am programmed to avoid something that is unpleasant, something that is discomfort. And if you go that route to teach the puppy or the dog and say, hey, let me show you electricity, how it feels, and you go from zero, for the sake of the discussion and the conversation, let's, from now on, imagine that we have an electrical or remote control that goes from one to 100. And one is obviously something that you, even if you concentrate deeply, you most likely will not feel anything. And so you start with that low, one and two and three, and you go very gradually higher to where there is the tingling, there is the, you know, all these different feelings. And you are educating the dog about what electricity means. Now, you certainly can do that. Like, I can teach you how to, like I can put a collar on you, and I can go to level 50, and you will jump away, because your brain is going to tell you, get out. But, if I do it very gradually, or if I do it several times, I go one, two, three, four, five, and you get to experience it gradually,

you are actually going to be able to go much higher than the original 50 that I just mentioned. So, what does that do? What do we do to the dog if we educate it in such way? One of the things that we do is we create, yeah, the low-level conditioning people will say we are preparing the dog, so we can communicate later with the tool. And we are basically habituating the dog to the filling of the electric collar. And throughout that process, there is few things that are happening. One is we make sure that the dog starts to understand, and it's not on purpose. Want it or don't want it? Ultimately, the dog will start to understand that those electric impulses are coming from you. They're not just happening. It's not like God out of nowhere just gives them some aversive. They will start to understand because you give a command, use the collar, seal simultaneously, time after time after time, session after session after session. It takes very little time for a dog to be like, okay, I know, yeah, I got it. You have this magic distance control over me and I can feel some discomfort. Now, if we do that conditioning this way, when we decide to use the electric collar to stop, to suppress undesired behavior, something that's, I don't know, dangerous to the dog itself or to somebody, dangerous to others, or just some undesired behavior that is just you don't want the dog to do. And you want to use the electric collar to suppress. If you have done low level conditioning, that means that you will have to use higher level than the normal level that you typically would have done if the dog did not have that low level steam conditioning, that preparation, that education. I talked briefly about this in my other podcast, so I'm going to mention it here again. Experiments. There's plenty of studies, but you don't really need studies. It's a very logical, like, there's times that studies are done just to confirm something that is already very obvious. But here is one of them. When you, you know, all old monsters, imagine you have the mice, you have a mace and you have a cheese. Mice, cheese, and the mace, right? Now, if we have this little metal plate that we can deliver electricity to in the beginning of the mace. So, as the mace or the rat goes through, touches, walks over that metal plate, feels that little tingling, goes all the way, finds the cheese, eats it, gets reinforced.

In the next repetition, being the very next round or after certain time goes by or the next day, but that electric plate, we can increase the intensity very gradually. So, if we increase the level, what happens is the mace goes, kind of feels it a little more than tickling. It's clearly a little bit unpleasant, but goes through, gets the cheese. So, they keep increasing every time they let the mace go, they keep increasing the level of intensity. And the experiment basically is to see what will it take to stop from going to get the cheese. So, what they found is that when it's done so gradually, the mace becomes more resistant. It kind of gets conditioned, it gets educated to overcome the discomfort. And the level, as with every try, the level gets, the intensity gets higher and higher. And now, when the mace goes, it clearly is in pain. It's not even discomfort, it's not unpleasant. It's actually, you see it screaming and jumping. But, nevertheless, because of all that prior experience, it believes in itself. It's self-confidence like, I can overcome this. I always beat it. So, makes a leap and goes and gets the cheese again. We set from 1 to 100 level of intensity. So, let's say, they keep going higher and higher. Ultimately, they reach a level. Let's assume 80. To where the mace says, okay, this is too much. 75 was painful, but, you know, I pulled through. But this, I just cannot no more. Now, here is where it gets interesting. They have, they do the same experiment with a brand new subject. A new mace comes that has not experienced electricity. And instead of going gradually increasing the intensity, they say, what about we just start with 40? It goes, it gets surprised, it goes, whoa, and never wants to go forward. It's plenty. Lesson learned. So, the story, the point I'm making is that if you use that conditioning and you decide that you want to suppress a behavior, you ultimately going to end up using much higher level than if the dog is not educated, it's not prepared, it's not habituated to the core. If it's not, then much, much, much lower level is needed to accomplish exactly the same. So, you can ask yourself as a pet dog trainer which one you want to do.

Of course, there will be an argument how this making more resistant and more determined to go through the aversive can be beneficial, but I will get to that and also see if I can convince you that that's a bad idea as well. My next argument for pet trainers, remember I said it's a bad idea if you're a pet trainer for quite a few reasons. So, here is one. When you work with companion dogs, you have your client, you know, sometimes they come to do basic obedience, but I would say most likely the chances are that they come in because they have a problem. And depending on what the problem is, we need to try to stop the dog from doing something basically, right, as a dog trainer. Something that is, again, either dangerous to itself or others or it's very inappropriate behavior and it has to stop. Or the dog has to be going to the shelter or put down, who knows. That's the reality, right? That's the dog training profession. Now, here is a big disadvantage. And even just this one right now, on its own, in my opinion, is sufficient enough to where any pet trainer will not use from here on low level steam conditioning. So, here it is. Let's assume that we have two dogs. One is conditioned, habituated, prepared, it communicates with the caller, and one that does not. Both dogs have the same behavior or problem. So, let's pick what? Let's say, chasing cars, digging holes in the backyard. They are both undesirable behavior. One, of course, chasing cars has much more dangerous consequences than the, you know, making a mess in the backyard. Although you want to be very upset, it's still the dog not going to die. But anyway, so let's say these two behaviors. Or you can pick whatever, imagine whatever you want, that you want to try to suppress, right? The beauty when the dog does not have prior experience with electric caller, is that we can make, create a setup where the dog can have a direct association and learn something. As we said, this I avoid. This I do not like doing. So, if he chases a car, and we do put the electric caller for a few days prior to, then create a setup, and show, have that dog experience that the car can actually bite him back, so to speak.

And when we use appropriate level of discomfort, to where it's not like, oh, this is, no, I, that's, was so stupid of me to do. I don't think I want to do that again. There is something in learning theory called single event learning. I'm sure all of you probably already know. But one thing that I want to mention about single event learning is, even though it's called single event learning, it's very, very rarely that it's a single event. Typically, to be successful, you want to do that a few times. So, we make few setups. The dog confirms that chasing cars is a bad idea because chasing cars can turn and bite him back. And ultimately, it's not good for him or her. Now, when we put the caller prior for a few days, then we use it. Then we keep putting the caller after for a few days. Now the dog cannot really say, oh, this is because of the electric caller. No, it only happens when I chase cars and the caller cannot make, they cannot make the association. To where, when you do that low level steam conditioning, very quickly the dog understands where it's coming from. So, with the other example, let's say it's digging holes in the backyard. As he gets really into it, here it is all the way down. And next thing you know, the boogie monster comes out of the hole and bites him back. It happens a couple of times. The dog most likely will come to the conclusion, you know, digging holes in the backyard is a bad idea. There is the boogie man there, the monster. I don't do that. It's not good for me. It's very logical, right? If you have already conditioned with low steam and you do the same thing with the car or the holes, you're going to need, first off, much higher level. And second, it will work. You will suppress it for the moment. But to actually solve the problem, you may or may not be able to. Why? Because direct association between the activity and the hole, the chasing and the car itself is not made. They understand that they are not supposed to do digging because you don't want them. They understand that they are not supposed to chase cars because you don't want them. Sometimes in dog training there is a benefit of that. But in the examples I'm giving you, the ultimate is that the dog interacts with the car, interacts with the hole or whatever it is, and understands that that's a bad idea and that the hole, there is somebody there, the car can turn around and so on and so on. Like a puppy is biting on an electric cable. Yes, you can do all sorts of things or you can say, you know what, the electric cable can bite you back.

And lesson is learned very fast, very easy. And once again, just because it's a puppy, you use the right level of intensity. And this is, again, I'm not trying to teach you all about dog training. It's not as easy as I'm describing it. But anybody that does low level steam conditioning hopefully can make sense of what I'm talking about. That puppy that's going to bite the electric cable, it does not need to know how electric feels. It does not need to. All we are using is, again, that biological programming. You avoid something unpleasant. Yes, chewing on a cable, bad idea. There is a danger. There is always dangers. And if you, as a trainer, want to fix, resolve, suppress undesirable behavior, you have to leave it to that. Now, if he's going to chase a car, but then you say, well, but now I'm going to punish him for chasing the squirrel. Now I'm going to punish him for chewing the shoes. Now I'm going to reinforce negatively to come for a recall. That's not going to work. That will be not a smart approach because in some way what you're doing is a different form of what the low level conditioning is about. You are educating the dog, hey, there is this thing that I can do and I can control you in so many situations. So, what I teach and what I do at my school when the trainers come, I specifically say if there is a serious behavior problem, then you leave it the caller and that electric impulse only associated with that problem. Let that be resolved. Let that sink in. Let's make sure that this is done for once and for all. Then later on, feel free to introduce the caller and work in whichever way you want to work with. But don't rush and don't just because you have this remote control, let's start using it everywhere for anything we want. That's a bad idea. OK. Here is another argument against low level steam. That whole spiel, that whole beautiful conversation convincing the force free or the pet owner, how it prepares the dog, how we are so methodical and we are using this system and so on. What we are doing is what the low level steam conditioning people don't realize are doing as they present it in such way is if you are talking to somebody that never really used electric collar before and you present it like this, well, we prepare the dog, we educate it. It only, it's a tingling feeling. It's a communication tool. And once it's prepared, then if we use it on a higher level, the dog knows how to respond and so on and so on.

What that does, and trust me, as I said, I see this over and over and over and over again because I am a professional dog trainer and I have clients just as you do. It gives the pet owner a green light to use that tool all over the place just because now they think that, well, the dog is now prepared. So, I have a green light. So, I have a green light. I cannot ruin my dog anymore. It's a very dangerous water. It's such a bad idea. And, as I said, I do see this, that that's, you know, pet owners that have done electric low level steam conditioning, they overuse it. And they use it all over the place. And the reason they do is because they are made to believe that now the dog knows how to and has become resilient. And it actually makes it even better. And we're going to talk about this further later on when I start to talk to you about competition and sport dogs. OK? Now, here is another argument. The force free people, the positive only, the animal rights. The main reason the electric collar is so, there's so much against it, it's not what you think. I talk to you about it. I talk to you about it. I talk, I go everywhere. Like, I'm, this is what I do all the time. The main reason for the electric collars to be banned in Europe, in certain countries, and the main reason that they want to ban it here, the main reason, is overuse. Electric, electric, electric, electric, electric, electric, electric, electric, electric. And trying to justify it as the dog is prepared and it's communication and it's related to the other people, the main reason, is overuse. Electric, electric, electric, electric, electric, electric, electric, electric, electric. And trying to justify it as the dog is prepared and it's communication and it's resilient. Anybody that has a little bit of knowledge of what is going on will disagree with you, no matter how smart you're going to present the low-level stim. Okay. So, overuse. Overuse is a big, big problem. And it's a problem for the dog, of course. You know, like, there is, we know so much more about how to convince a dog to do or not to do something than just going with that remote control all over the place for everything and anything. The conversation you want to have when you talk about electric collar. It would be, I would first explain how the electric collar even came about in dog training.

And what that is, it was a long time ago, more than hundred and something years, when studies were conducted in the laboratories with all sorts of animals, pigeons, rats, mice, dogs, whatever. And any time they were studying aversive, the use of how the animals respond to aversive, they had to do something physical to those animals. Being like, you know, poking them with a stick or doing some air puffs in their eyes or whatever they could think of. And that was very problematic. For once, there were a lot of injuries. And even at that time, that was not something that everybody was looking forward to when they go to a laboratory to do studies. So physical injuries were one thing that was a serious issue. The other one was that it was very difficult to have consistency in their experiments. You know, like if somebody pocks, they can poke with certain intensity and the next day they have to do it, they will do it probably a little bit less or a little bit higher. On top of that, if somebody else has to do it, then it's going to be again very different. So that consistency of how the aversive is delivered, what is the intensity level, that was a big serious issue. And studies were very difficult to replicate, to be peer reviewed. So ultimately, eventually, the electricity came into place. Because, first, it was safe physically. There were zero physical injuries from that point on. That's a big plus. And it's very controllable. If the intensity level is set on level eight, then no matter who pushes the button and how they feel, it's still going to be level eight. So, in a nutshell, that's kind of how it all started. Eventually, it moved into dog training. And I like to, when I explain electric collar, one of the ways I talk about it is that, of course, you know, depending who you talk to, and I suggest that you study a little bit because it's important to understand how it actually works and why nobody can die. But in an everyday conversation, you don't necessarily need that. There is a, you know, what it's taken under consideration is the, like, the electrical potential, the current, and the power. And basically, the various relationship, how the, between the voltage, the resistance, the amperage, and open and closed circuits, the ohms, low, and so on. And I just happened to graduate from a school where I studied all that stuff. But again, it's what we really need to know about electric collar in a simple layman terms is that it's localized. And when we talk about this 3000 volts, that really doesn't mean nothing.

It depends, again, as I just said, like, if it's a close or open circuit, if it's a, in what kind of relationship between the current and so on. Like, for example, if you just go like this on a carpet, you will go probably even more than 3000 volts of static. When that impulse goes through these two probes on the collar, they go from point A to point B. So it's very localized. Okay? This is important. It's not going to travel to somebody's heart. They're not going to just have a, you know, that's not going to happen. If somebody pictures as how some of the force-free community try to really scare the hell out of you, and you picture one of these with a lightning strike through your body and you're dead, that cannot happen. Can the electric collar do damage? Yes, it can. But we have to be reasonable and have to make sense what we are explaining. And this is where I have the problem with, again, with the low steam conditioning trainers, they really misrepresent how the collar works and how they use it. And it doesn't make sense, and people understand that it doesn't make sense. So there is plenty of these awkward situations. And it's, you know, you need to be honest when you talk about it, and you need to understand what you're talking about. The beauty, really the way that it works is that it's a, if you want to think of it as a false alarm that sends to the brain. So basically, that impulse, the brain recognizes as a danger. If you go through the low levels conditioning, you can explain to the brain that, okay, it's not really that dangerous as you think. Get used to it, feel it, it's okay. But this is not the point of the use of electric collar. We want to use it as something, oh, I need to watch out, I need to avoid it, I need to escape it, instead of, that's not a big deal. This is the only tool that we can use and have that fake illusion, that fake emergency in the brain, without any physical injury, without any mental issues, nothing. It's, this is the beauty of the electric collar. And when used correctly, being to suppress something or to encourage something to happen, you can do it in both ways. Now, I don't want to go and teach you how to do all that, because that's, again, a very different conversation. But this is, in essence, why the electric collar is so beautiful when you need to use it in situations. Because it triggers a response, but it's actually harmless when used correctly.

I can, just like with the low level conditioning, if we want to, I can go from dial to dial to dial, and slowly make you feel more comfortable to where you will be looking, you know, you can feel the tingling. Next thing you know, you may see your finger, your pinky kind of contracting the muscles, not necessarily being afraid or anything. And eventually, it can go higher. And you're more accustomed, you're getting habituated, so you're not freaking out. Now, the question is, do you want to have that response of, oh, I want to avoid, oh, I want to escape? Or, do you want to be habituated, and you want to say, oh, I don't care about it? And if that's the case, then you have to use much higher levels later on. And that's what I have the problem with. Another thing, like, I don't want to go off rail here, but just because we have that really, really modern equipment, we're talking about the electric collar. That doesn't mean that we have to use it for everything. You know, it's not, there is no, there is no shortcut to becoming a really good trainer, or to be training a dog to perform to its best. If you think that the electric collar is some kind of magic wand that's going to create this, and compensate for the lack of knowledge, and lack of understanding how to work with the animal, that's not going to happen. Actually, things will go ugly, and, yeah, that's what we see all the time, and that's where the problems become. There's definitely no shortcuts to excellent training. So, you need to understand how to motivate a dog, you need to understand... Focus on the things that are important. Don't focus on, don't believe anyone that tells you that there is this magic wand, and you can create this super dog because of that. In some ways, the electric collar makes things easier. But, we certainly can train dogs without electric collars. The problem would be, just as I said, with the experiments hundred and so years ago. If we want to apply some aversive, then there may be more opportunities to injuries. And this is going to be the problem. That's what we're trying to avoid when we use electric collar. Here is something interesting that a lot of trainers just are not aware of, even in Europe. As I said, and as you know, quite a few countries, in Europe specifically, have banned the use of electric collars. They consider it dangerous, inhumane, unethical, and so on.

Switzerland was one of the first countries. Switzerland is very force-free, right from the beginning, from the early 2000s. I believe they were the first ones to ban the electric collar. But, interestingly enough, also Switzerland, even today, allows the use of electric collar in special circumstances. They still recognize that the electric collar has a place, especially when we're talking about behavior problems, dangerous problems. There are few people that are selected, that have passed vigorous tests. They understand, they've proven to understand learning theory, and they have plenty of hands-on experience. So, they have the permission to use electric collar for behavioral problems. The difficulty with that is that those few people live in different parts of the country, and if somebody has a problem with the dog, they have to go through various channels, and finally get a hold of one of those trainers, schedule an appointment, drive there, and work at their facility. And working somewhere else instead of where the problem is, is not the best option. Having said that, we still need to understand that there is still room to defend electric collars. Even, now there is several different studies and surveys, but the reputable studies that suggest electric collars to be banned, they acknowledge, even in the studies, they acknowledge that if used properly, they are safe, and they actually have a place in dog training. The problem is always that it's overused. As I said already, that's the low level steam conditioning trainers. That overuse of electric collar is what really, really concerns the force-free community. Now, I will try not to go too much into learning theories, but I have to to some level, because most of the low level steam conditioning goes against learning theories. And what we specifically want to talk to you about is the classical conditioning, the forward conditioning, backwards conditioning, simultaneous conditioning, so on. To give you something to think about. Let's take, for example, the road and the signs on the road. If you are driving with 100 miles or 140 kilometers, road is wide open, and there you have a sign. And it says, sharp left turn. That sign is normally placed in a very, very specific spot.

If, as you are driving, you have to see the sign, acknowledge it, slow down, prepare yourself, and make the turn. This is what is called forward conditioning. Forward conditioning is very, very valuable. Like, you have to, if you are not familiar, and you are a dog trainer, that is probably the very first thing that I advise you to learn about. Now, of course, that sign can be placed in many different places, correct? So, if we put the sign maybe five miles before the turn. So, you are driving 100 miles, you see the sign, you slow down, you get ready, nothing is happening, nothing is happening, nothing is happening. You pick up speed. You say, well, that sign didn't give me any information. That was dumb. Pick up speed, you go down the cliff, you die. Right? Now, the example, that next example that I am going to give you is what is typically done with low level steam conditioning. And it is super, super wrong. And hopefully this example makes it clear for you. If we put the sign exactly on the turn, not before, but exactly on the turn, and you are driving fast, what will happen? You will not make the turn, correct? Why? Because that sign did not give you any useful information. You could not get prepared. Even if you saw the sign, you are going down. Most likely you are just going down. So, this is how low steam normally is explained. This is how you get instructed. You give a command, and at the same time, you use the levels. You give a command, you use it. You use it. At the same time, command, use it. Command, use it. Command, use it. Command, use it. If the sign does not give you information, then you just accept it as, okay, well, that is just something that happens. I am just going to feel this. I cannot avoid it from happening. I cannot prevent it. I do not know when it is going to come. This is a very bad approach to dog training. It is unfortunate. It is so mind blowing to me. I do not even want to give names of the electric collar companies, but man, pretty much all of them. I mean, I have to. Even like the very big ones, you take Garmin, Doctra, you watch their instructional videos. Sometimes they come on CD with the collar. Sometimes you can just watch them on YouTube. They are really, really dangerous. That is exactly what they teach you to do. The sign is at the turn. The command and the electric impulse come at the same time. This is called simultaneous conditioning. And this is a bad idea. This is proven that it is a bad idea for many reasons.

And somehow the companies that make electric collars, they are the advocates, along with the other low-level steam conditioning. They are also doing harm and helping the force-free community to ban the electric collars because of what they teach. And there is a good reason why when you have scientific research in all these canine labs and sometimes they will make a study and say, well, yeah, the dogs that use the electric collar in the study, they acted weird. They showed avoidance. They showed stress. They showed whatever. Of course they will. And unless, you know, we cannot, sometimes I am very much against them, all these studies, because they are done incorrectly for many, many reasons. But you have to give it to them for trying to do somewhat reasonable study. When they do these kind of studies, they contact people that are considered experts on the field. They contact also the electric collar companies, which they make the collars. They should be also knowledgeable of the proper application. And they are not. That just puts more fuel into the fire. That gives more reasons for the force-free community to want to ban the tool. Because if the experts are misusing it, if the companies that make them are explaining it wrong and giving wrong instructions, what do you expect from the average person to do? Okay? To give you the last few examples, so we have the forward conditioning where the sign is pressed. The sign is placed right before I see the sign, I slow down, I prepare myself, I drive. It gives me information. It gives me a signal to do certain things. If it's too far in advance, I'm not going to pay attention to it because a long time passes and I cannot make association. I cannot predict this to this. I cannot put two and two together. That's too far. It has to be closer. But if it's at the same time, then it doesn't give me information again. If it's past the turn, like let's say if you, for some pure luck, make the turn, it's kind of like congratulations, you made the right turn. Right? That makes no sense too. So, when we, if you want to use it correctly, learn what forward conditioning means and learn how that works. It's not that hard. And then, once you understand it, then go ahead and watch experts and watch YouTube videos and see what goes on and what low level steam conditioning trainers teach you to do. And, I'm not sure, or at least some of them. As I said, there are several variations.

But, even within the variations, I hope that so far I'm giving you plenty of arguments, no matter which school you are subscribed to, that there is a downfall to using low level steam. And, I'm not done. I'll keep going a little bit more. This one is kind of obvious. It's about the, you know, my dog is color smart. So, color smart basically, it becomes, if you do a low level steam conditioning, I promise you that your dog is going to be color smart. Why? Because that's pretty much what you're doing. So, you're purposefully hanging back and communicating through the caller for a very long time with your dog. You can call it communication. If it makes you feel better. But, dogs are intelligent beings. You know, they are not stupid. They know, yeah. I have the collar on. I know what's coming. It happens over and over and over and over again. It used to be that all companies, all electric collar companies sell dummy collars. So, the dog is supposed to wear that one and it can trick him and fool him that it doesn't mean anything. But then, you make one training session and within that one training session, you use for, let's say, 15 minute training sessions, you use the collar maybe 30 times. I probably will say that even 30 times is a kind of conservative estimate for low level steam conditioning for 10 minutes. If I train dogs, no matter what kind of dogs I train and I use the electric collar, that amount of clicks will probably be, I don't know, weeks, months. And they will do it in one session. It's going to be like 30, 40 taps on the collar. And it doesn't matter what is the level. It's that communication, so to speak, that makes it collar smart. There is a whole other nuance of low level steam conditioning. It's popular within certain circles. It's called activation. It's called activation. And what that means is the electric impulse comes ahead of time. Not at the same time with the command, but ahead of time. Unannounced. The dog cannot predict when it's coming. The dog doesn't know why it's coming. Okay. As that, and now again, the process is the same. You start with a very low level to where it's, if it's unpleasant, it's very mildly unpleasant.

But once the dog knows, then we are reaching, going to a higher intensity to where now it's clearly a discomfort that the dog is very much motivated to escape from. Yeah? So, press on the button. Hold for a second or half a second, whatever, but a little bit to where the dog is like, okay, something just going on and it's wrong. Then give the command. As you give the command, you continue to hold on until the dog performs the command. As soon as he performs the command, the aversive goes, shuts off, and then the dog gets on top of everything paid. Food or toy or whatever. You know, there are several steps to this. And I don't want to explain the whole system of training because it's not my place. So, if you want to learn about it, again, go to the people that really understand it and know it and learn from them. Definitely don't learn from somebody that is kind of trying to talk and use fancy words but has no idea what they are talking about. But you definitely, if you want to learn it, you can learn it. It's out there and it's available. You activate, you give the command, the dog performs the command, shuts off, then that gets rewarded. Now, the idea is that because we are doing that activation process, that unannounced, in advance, unpredictable discomfort, that stimulates and motivates the dog to perform the behavior in a whole different level than before. Supposedly in a much better way, with much more desire, with much more flashiness and so on. Yeah? That's in theory. I've been around dog training for a long time. I don't see it. And the reason I'm mentioning and the reason I'm making this video is because I don't think it's a good approach in any of this low steam conditioning. If it was one dog or five dogs, okay, but I have so many people that come to seminars and to private lessons. And I have to help them and the first thing that I need to do is just take that remote control away from them. You know, like if you do this kind of activation, I will explain in a second what happens in the brain. Because that's very interesting and I think it's important to understand. Now, just so you understand, like at least most of the people that do this kind of training, they do make sure that all the behaviors are already learned through positive reinforcement. And now, after they know how to perform them, now they are double down on. Now we are introducing that aversive, that discomfort, that unpleasantness.

And that's supposed to intensify and make the performance more flashy and the dog just wanting, searching for commands and having more desire and things like that. Okay, let's imagine the brain. Like our brain, the dog's brain. It's basically a simple analogy. So you understand how the brain really functions and what the brain needs and what the brain doesn't like. Imagine my cup. And we open the lid and we put the brain in here and we close the lid. And this is kind of how it feels. There is your brain, the dog's brain is in this black box. But the brain is the thing that commands everything. It regulates your body functions and it also controls how you interact with the outside world. What to do and what not to do. Now how does it do it when it's locked in that black box? It uses the senses. It's the only way that it can work. It's like your eyes, your smell, your touch, your taste. All the senses basically are designed. That's their purpose to inform the brain about what goes on outside. And that's not just all that the brain does. It's pretty crazy. And again, I'm really trying to not talk to crazy scientific and hopefully that's sufficient. But the brain also, as I said, regulates your body functions. You know, like if you get up in the morning, you need energy, you need sugar, you need glucosamine. The brain says, OK, let's give it some. OK, your kidney says this. Your heart's pumping. It needs, like you're running. The heart needs to pumping. The blood needs to move. All this is communication back and forth with the brain. And then you have the external world, the outside world. And the job of the brain is to make you survive and to make you function. And basically, ultimately, go back to that fundamental law that I told you. You approach something that you like and you avoid something that you don't. Otherwise, you die. Right? So, let's take some example. I don't know. Let's say somebody is throwing a baseball at you for the very first time. You've never experienced anything flying at you. You will not react. You have to learn that. But the moment it touches you, you're going to be, whoa, that was unpleasant. What happens is the brain registers it and says, OK, this is what happens.

So then, when the next time this happens, the brain says, oh, I know what that is. You need to move your head. Right? The job, one of the constant jobs of the brain is to be able to predict what happens. So, it always, like from the moment you are born until you are dead, the brain, this is like a big function of the brain, is to make sure that it can predict. And it uses the senses and everything that happens is puts it and saves it in a file if you want to look at it that way. And when the information is needed, it retrieves it immediately and says, OK, this is what we do in that situation, because we know from experience that that's what happens. So, prediction, being able to predict, it's a very important task for the brain. So, that's in a way when you talk about learning, this can be even around the definition of what learning is. But, let's go to now activation in dog training. When we do something in advance, we deliver something uncomfortable, something unpleasant in advance, out of nowhere, when it just really does not make no sense. It cannot be predicted. So, let's say, imagine the dark box and there is a poke. And the moment I poke, you move away, because it's unpleasant or it's more than discomfort, it's painful. You get poked, you get poked, you move away, right? What does that mean? You get poked, you move away. You're reacting, right? So, poke, you're reacting by moving away. When you react by moving away, you're escaping the aversive. You're shutting it off, right? Which is a really good option. Imagine if you're stuck and you're poked and you cannot escape. That's worse. But if you can be poked and you can move away, that's a better option, right? So, activation comes. Then we say sit. We're holding the button. The dog sits. We shut it off. And we reward. So, we poke out of nowhere. The brain doesn't know when it's going to happen. And this is critical to understand. What that means is that the brain can never, ever predict when that will happen. When you do not make sense, when you cannot put two and two together, when all of a sudden you get poked, the only thing you can do is react. And as I said, this is better than not being able to react and stay here.

Poking away, it's better. But ultimately, what the brain is designed to do and what the brain wants to do is to predict when it's going to come so it can avoid it altogether. Does that make sense, I hope? Unless there is the prediction and the brain can avoid it, it can only react. And react and react. Yes, it can shut it off. But it cannot avoid it. And this is a problem. If you do it, you can do it to your friend, you do it to some, have somebody do it on you. Put the collar on yourself. And don't do vibration. Don't do tickling. Do something that's going to make you go, whoa! Right? And before I say, hey, come over, I go, boop! Hey, come over. Hey, have a drink. Hey, sit down. And pretty soon, you're going to go into some form of nervous breakdown. From mild to quite extreme. That kind of always reacting is extremely tasking to the brain. Extremely tasking. Because it cannot be predicted. Okay? And when you talk about activation, this is one of the biggest dangers. And this is where I see the dogs just twitching out of nowhere. Nobody says anything. There is not even command. It's like, okay, maybe something's going to come. It's like, you know, that reaction becomes uncontrollable in some ways. And it's like, whoa, whoa! There is yawning. There is lip licking. There is all this body language that tells you that the dog is not in a comfortable emotional mindset. And the reason for that is because it cannot predict. It always reacts. This is when the dogs will be also vocalizing. Being whining, being out loud, barking. Being out loud, barking. So, you know, that there is a form of spookiness, unsureness. And they express it. And it's clearly to see. Now, this is the one extreme. The one way a dog will express that discomfort. And that mindset. Another one that is a little bit more confusing for people that don't have experience is distinguishing between a dog that is self-confident, that it's right here enjoying what it's doing. And it's in a beautiful emotional mindset. When we compare that dog to a highly aroused dog, that it's in a way similar in the body language.

So, if you have experience, you see that dog is not at peace. That dog is actually frustrated. Maybe borderline angry at you. But it looks active. So, you can confuse active. So, you can confuse active with confident. And forget about everything else. But what is the emotional state of the two? The one that is the one that is the one that is the one that is the one that is like very comfortable and very willing for a very different reason. The mindset is very different. So, what I see is either that dog that is just borderline spooky, just reacting and worried and concerned and always in avoidance in some way. So, what I see is always kind of like, okay, well, I just have to accept that there is nothing I can do to that. Or that other one that is like, oh my god, I just want to punch somebody. I want to bite somebody because this is like nonsense. I wish I can do something different about it. At least that's like, okay. At least that's how I see it. Okay. This is the problem when you can never predict when the aversive comes. Think about it. Don't just go against what I'm saying just because you are one of these trainers that uses it. Try to think of what I'm saying and see if you can justify what you do logically. Okay. If you can, that's great. As I said, there are a few more steps into that kind of low steam conditioning. Let me talk to you a little bit about dog sports. And especially when we talk about activation, it's one of the cell pitches that, again, it's supposed to create a completely, the dog performs the behavior in a whole different level of excellence with so much desire, so much power, flashiness and so on. And this is what some trainers, not everybody, I want to be clear, not everybody and actually very few trainers believe that. But they do believe that if they use that, they will have an edge against their competition by that activation factor. And it's nothing but illusion in my experience, not my opinion, but in my experience. And let me remind you again, I've been training dogs for a very long time. I have been 25 times at the World Championships in IGP. The reason why I point out IGP, or formerly known as IPO or Schutzhund, is because at present time, this is the only sport, the only competition that evaluates and penalizes bad emotional state. So if we see a dog that is only reacting, a dog that is kind of suppressed, that does things only because it has to, because it's forced to avoid something unpleasant.

That dog, depending on the extreme, can very easily even get disqualified from the competition. But it will definitely never, ever be promoted as this is the model, this is what we want to see, this is what we want to accomplish, this is our example. No, they will always stay on the bottom of the competition. And I have competed for 25 years in the world teams. I have, I know every single top 10 trainer in the world at any given year from the last 25 years. Maybe not all of them are friends of mine, but we know each other. We talk to each other. We compete against each other, but we also share ideas. We invite each other, we collaborate. Every single one of the top trainers that I like, and I like their approach, and I see their accomplishments, and I go, wow. I know that they do not use low steam conditioning. I know that they do not use activation. This is a fact. Now, is there somebody that has accomplished something one time in their career that uses it? Yes. Yes. Yes. But when we look at the big picture, that doesn't make sense. Just because there is an exception, that doesn't mean that they have a secret answer, because they obviously don't. If they did, they will be on top of things consistently. And there will be many more on top, right? But that's not the case. And we have to start to learn how to navigate between all the social media, all the likes and subscribes and posts and seminars and podcasts, and compare them and make them equal to actual real accomplishment. You know, like if you go to an IGP World Championship, that means that you have competed in your country. You are one of the top five in your country, and then you compete against all the rest, top five of the world. And very often this is 120, 150 teams. And then you stand on top in the top ten. This is quite an accomplishment. And in the IGP sport, it cannot be accomplished unless the dog is in the right emotional state. It doesn't matter if he performs everything. When you see a dog that doesn't feel comfortable, and it's always reacting and escaping, that's not the picture we want to see. And that's what spoils the sport. This is what makes, you know, all these force-free people go against IGP and against protection sport because they see dogs that are clearly uncomfortable when they perform.

And having said all that, again, the reason I'm mentioning it is because somehow when we say, well, this is the way, this is more humane, and it's modern, and it's the secret sauce of getting on the top. Well, that secret sauce has been here for a while. This is not something that just happened this year or last year, and nobody knows, but only you know, and you have an edge over everybody. That didn't happen. It's been for a while, for like a good 20 years at least now. Yes, it's improving. Yes, there are versions. Yes, there are variations. But what are the results? That's what you want to look at. And you look at the results when you go, like, it's beautiful, for example, that the German website, working-dog.com. Look up somebody. Type their name. Scroll down. And you will see all of their placements in different competitions. Have they won seven times? Or have they won one time? Have they won a regional championship or a national championship or a world championship? And another argument against this kind of training is when you are promised to have that result, that you have these superior performances in the competition field because of that approach of training. And you are not getting there. And you are a beginner trainer. And you are not a beginner trainer, but you are new to that approach. What would you do? Would you quit? Or would you do more of it and go harder? Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. Not to figure it out. conditioning phase long enough maybe you know and they get stuck and they keep repeating and do more and increase intensity and break down their dogs sometimes dogs are resilient and with a little break and a little different approach they can bounce back and sometimes this is not possible again is there one dog is there two dogs 20 dogs that have done something very nice maybe but this is a small like super small percentage of all the best trainers fixating on a magic approach instead of really taking the time and really get to know your dog get to know how reinforcement and punishment works and create truly create a dog that likes to do things

for you now everybody says that but it's very easy you look at the dog performance that's when the bullshit stops that's when all the talk has no meaning no more can it happen once again it can but there is better ways that's that's what I think having said all that you can see how the conversation between people that use electric collar and the force-free community gets so twisted where like all these low-level steam conditioning trainers are trying to sell and present something or actually misrepresent it to anybody that knows a little bit of learning theory and looks at a dog they know that this is not a good thing you cannot convince somebody that that overuse of electric collar for everything all the time the electric companies doing this instructional videos the wrong way we're not helping we're not helping and unfortunately if I have a remote collar in my hand and this person has one and they're the old school or whatever we're gonna call it they just kind of hammer dogs and those you know release their anal glands and and all these horrible things and then you have the low conditioning person that is just to get to get to get all three are put in the same place we we we are all the same as far as the force-free community is concerned and one more thing dog trainers that have gone to my course and they have been to other courses they have been they know a lot of different training styles and they follow different trainers and they follow different trainers when they are asked about training without conflict I hear sometimes that it's like oh well it's it's very much the same thing it's a variation and and you know they all have a point but what I want to make sure that at least for those that are curious and want to know directly from me anyone that has gone through my course and subscribe to the low level steam conditioning in any form most likely didn't graduate and I definitely don't approve as you can see and hear me right now hopefully I was able to give you several arguments against low level steam conditioning hopefully you don't feel offended if you are one of the trainers and hopefully we can have conversations and talk about when something you like and something you don't like and still be cool with each other ultimately I think we all are here to train dogs and to become the best dog trainers we can be we all have good intentions there is no question about that I'm sure that I can keep going and I can keep talking to you about it but hopefully you got the point and hopefully you understand that it's not as easy as subscribing to

to low level steam conditioning or activation programs to your and next thing you know you're making this amazing leaps and accomplishing and doing better than everybody else. I really wish it was that easy, but unfortunately or fortunately it doesn't work that way. As a trainer, if you want to be a good trainer, there is a real path that needs to be taken and much broader understanding of all aspects of learning. It's a must. There is no shortcuts. You have to understand that. There is no shortcuts. And as I said, just to close the podcast here, I really believe that low steam conditioning and activations spoils the dog sports, gives fuel to the force-free community to go after the protection sports and continue with the bans all over the world and, of course, the United States. And hopefully we come to our senses, we have honest conversations, and so we can prevent this from happening here. We certainly can make a difference and we can change the way the direction of training goes. Take care. Take care. Thank you.