도그 트레이너스 팟캐스트 에피소드 20: 마이클 엘리스와 함께하는 가르치는 기술 파트 1 전체 영상

the journey, right? Sometimes when we look at a professional like yourself and we see your content and your teaching ability, it's really hard for us to know that once upon a time, like you weren't good at stuff. For sure. And and you know, there's a there's a lot of you know, especially speaking for my own generation, there's a lot of impatience. There's a lot of huge desire to want to get good really fast. There's a lot of passion that kind of sometimes go misdirected. And so, you know, we we'd really like to dive into understanding a little bit more of your story, how you started, what your passions were, who your mentors were, etc., etc., etc. because this is a journey. I've been doing this now for 12 years myself. Mariano, almost 10 years now. And it's it is a journey. And you would ask me when I was 18 years old, I wouldn't have told you like, "Yeah, I'm going to be a professional dog trainer. Yeah." No, I didn't think that. It was one of those things that you follow your passion, you follow your heart. As Tyler Muto said last week, he said, you know, dog training can be very mentally stimulating if you allow it to be. And I I couldn't agree more. So, anyways, let's go ahead and hand it over to you, Michael. Um again, thank you so much for being on this podcast. Let's dive into the story that is Michael Ellis. Sure. Thank you guys again for having me on. I really appreciate it. Um I think you hit on a couple of things that are really important, right? We live in a time where people are sort of um enamored with instant gratification, right? You can get a lot of things fast. I can get information fast. You can get lots of things fast. But uh we all know that expertise there takes time, period. There's no shortcutting it. And we're in a good time in that you have access to lots of information that frequently took longer to acquire. Like I came up through the dog training club system, I'll talk about in a second, through that club system. And so, you had to physically go to fields and meet trainers to see what was going on. Now, there were no training schools in the same way that there are now. The internet was not active, so there was didn't exist. And so, people weren't getting access to the same kind of information you can now. And so, that is great. We can you can jump-start certain things. You can you can get an education faster than you used to be able to. But you can't shortcut the the hands-on experience. It just takes time. You got to do it. You got to be there. You got to see it. Somebody can tell you something. Um but regardless of and you may that may make sense to you, but that doesn't mean

you know it. You know it in your body, in your heart, and like you but like I've seen this, I've done it, I've felt it. I know what it should feel like. All those kinds of things. So, so hopefully the passion that people have for training is what allows them to stay in long enough to get good at it because there aren't going to be shortcuts there. There are shortcuts to information, but not shortcuts to true knowledge, the real kind of knowledge. And so, I came up I started in South I grew up in Southern California, grew up in San Diego. Nice. Yeah, bugged bugged the parents relentlessly as a kid to get a dog and they finally caved when I was about 13 and uh they let me get a I wanted a Doberman. They said no Doberman, but they let me get a German Shepherd. Oh, even better. Everybody thought Dobermans were vicious and I was enamored with them for all the wrong reasons, of course, as a kid because I thought they were cool and whatever. But I got a German Shepherd and the parents demanded that I that I train it if I was going to have the dog. I had to take care of it and train it. So, I went to the local German Shepherd dog club and took an obedience class and uh that got me connected with people in the club and I started getting into junior handling and I'd kennel sit for one of the older couples that ran a kennel and I got into showing dogs all through into high school and through high school. Uh and so, it was a a hobby and um in high school, I was 18 probably, I was at a dog show and there was a police and Schutzhund demo at this dog show. And I saw that and I'm like, "Okay, that's that's for me. That that's totally I got to do that." I went home and immediately looked up what a local Schutzhund club. None of the dogs I had were even remotely suitable for that. They weren't going to be doing it. So, I started doing decoy work cuz I was young and able-bodied, so they're like, "Here, put the sleeve on. Do this." like work work your way in, kid. Go ahead. So, I was I was involved in that I got in that way and I was involved in AKC obedience and dog shows and all that kind of thing. No intention of turning it into a career at all, right? And so, it was all a hobby and as I went through college, still a hobby. And I taught like an obedience class for pet stores. I worked a little bit for a friend's kennel to make money on the side part-time while I was going to school and stuff like that, but I didn't envision this as a career, sort of like you had said. No. What did you envision as a career? Uh actually I was going to be a biologist. So, I my degree's in biogeography. So, resource conservation, rain

like environmental planning, that kind of stuff. So. Yeah, that's my one of a girl I dated that was that's her major and still is. Yeah. And she became a world-class dog trainer. Right. Maybe. Who knows where life's going to take you. I can tell you not where you think it's going to take you. That Yeah, I I thought for sure I'd be like a an environmentalist and involved in that stuff. So. Um So, as I went into that, it just happened that while I was in school, um one of the clubs that I'd worked with had some new members and they asked if I would come and help show them the ropes a little bit. So, I did some kind of little weekend clinic for a group of trainers at one of the Schutzhund clubs that I'd been going to. And it went reasonably well and so, another club nearby had asked about hosting a a seminar type thing and they said, "Well, he did a good job. You want to do it?" And so, I went I went and did another one. And um it literally started like that. I was competing in dog sports and doing that stuff as my hobby and I would do a seminar here and there. And over the course of several years, it started to pick up steam. I was getting I didn't advertise. I didn't start a business. Clubs just started to ask me to do these things. And at a certain point, it started to really pick up. And so, for Ooh, 14 years, I guess it it was, I traveled and gave seminars to dog training clubs and organizations. So, police departments, military, um various dog clubs from agility clubs and competitive obedience clubs and lots of bite sport clubs and that kind of thing. Uh and at some point in there, um I'm like, "Well, I guess this is my job, right?" It got busy enough that I'm like I'm still going to save the animals. It got busy enough that I'm like I this is this is what I'm doing, I guess. And um in that process, I realized very quickly in the early seminars that I was doing that you can know how to do something, but teaching other people to do it is a completely different skill set, right? And so, my wife is actually has a teaching credential and I she gave me some strategies for teaching and I started paying attention to think about that. I realized one of the first seminars I did, I realized that people are going to ask you about everything you do, every little tiny thing. Like, how do you hold the tug exactly? Like, what foot are you standing on when you give it to the dog? How do you do this? And I'm like, "Uh hold on a sec. Let me figure it out." It's like As a dog trainer, you if you're doing it for a long time in that sense, then there are things that you just figured out and you don't remember when you

figured them out and you're not Right. You just do it a certain way. Right. And so I started to pay attention to all that thing those things and I started to break them down. I started to read about teaching strategies. I started to when I got up in front of people and talked, I learned to pay attention to their facial expressions and whether they were understood what I said or not. I spent thinking about different ways of saying the same things. So I started teaching myself to be a teacher ultimately. Um because I realized that's what the job was. Like you got to know your subject as a teacher, but ultimately can I get other people to understand this and can I engage them in a way that makes sense to them. And so that was a perfect laboratory for that. While I was doing these seminars, I got to land myself in front of a new group of people Mhm. every week every weekend I was in some place different. New group of people, brand new group of dogs and you had to go in there. You had to make sense to them. You got to watch them troubleshoot with their dogs and give them advice and the education I gained doing that is was is immense. I don't know it would take five lifetimes to get that information to get that kind of education if I wasn't if I didn't have kind of dive into that. Right. And at the end of that period of time when I was doing seminars a lot after this was 2000 9 is when I opened the school. So 2007 and 8 those last couple of years, I was doing about 40 to 45 seminars a year. So I was flying some place different every every weekend. So I'd fly out on a Wednesday or Thursday and I'd come home on a Monday and I'd fly out again somewhere else. And um at that period I was just I got to the point where I'm like I can't I I can't travel anymore. I'm losing my mind and so I had a choice at that point to open up a dog training business. I'm like certainly and I'd done that like while my wife was in grad school and we were in New York. I did seminars, but at that time I'd do you know one a month kind of thing. And so I was training pet dogs on the side and all that kind of thing. So I figured out I could start a training business. But I'd really spent the last decade getting good at teaching trainers to be better trainers. And so well, let's let's open up a dog trainers school and and so I did that in 2009 and started in a warehouse in Fairfield and it went well and You're doing all right. You're doing all right. So right just before I opened the school, I I hooked up with Leerburg. So actually Cindy wrote did that happen? Tell tell us about that. Yeah, so Cindy Rhodes Ed's significant Cuz cuz we cuz we used to think you were

Leerburg. Right. That is a misconception that's all. That's no doubt. No, Ed's been doing this a long time and Yeah. what what we have on the internet now Ed had VHS tapes and when I came up in dog training like if you wanted to know if you wanted to see what KNPV was about or if you wanted to watch the Bundesliga or whatever He produced those. You either went to Germany or Holland or whatever or you bought a Leerburg VHS tape. Yeah. Nobody else was doing that. So I have boxes of old Leerburg VHS tapes in somewhere in in a storage cuz I saw Belgian ring that way. I saw KNPV that way. Yeah. the stuff through that, right? These these European dog sports. And so he was hugely influential on me cuz cuz cuz that content was it just wasn't available. The internet Yeah. exist. Yeah. And so um I was doing a seminar in Minnesota and uh Cindy Rhodes Ed's significant other very good dog trainer showed up at the seminar. Uh we really clicked and she went back and told Ed and Ed came to the next seminar I did in that area and he's like, "Hey, you want to do videos?" And I said and I had said, "Yeah, I've been wanting to, but I just I don't have time. I don't like I can't stop what I'm doing now. I go somewhere every weekend and find the time to film and script them." And he's like "Okay, well we'll take care of it." So he actually the initial videos he shot at seminars. Yeah. He'd come to a seminar and he'd videotape and then he'd go back and cut it up. That's why some of them are so long, right? So some of them were unruly. We've gone back and redone a lot of them, but some of the originals were just basically cut together footage from seminars. Right. And then as we got further into that process, uh then I we I started scripting them ahead of time. I I said, "Okay, I'll organize an outline and we'll do all that kind of stuff ahead of time." Um but the original ones were just shot at seminars. But it was huge cuz that got me out there in a way that so that when the school opened, people were already starting to know who I was due to that kind of stuff as well. So it was hugely helpful in letting me get the school started and stopping traveling at that point in time. Right. It's crazy. So it's like it's the the internet really just I think you were I don't know if you were Were you the Was there someone else who was Michael Ellis-ish or were you the first one to just kind of No. take off on the internet? On the you know I don't I I don't know cuz like I'm I'm on the internet I'm terrible about all of the stuff. So I use it like everybody else does, but to order pizza. Yeah, yeah, right. And so um there were many other trainers that were

spreading good information ahead of that. So and people eat that right up. But it's it's such a weird thing where like my my little sisters at my mom's house do this thing where they they watch videos of little girls playing with dolls. They have toys of their own, but they they watch these kids play with other toys and I'm like, "Why is this so interesting?" Yeah. We should be concerned. We should be concerned about it. These are her own, but no way, man. So so tell us about you, man. You have kids? You have a family? What's going on? I I have a wife of uh 30 years now and Wow, that's amazing. We have no kids, lots of dogs and other critters. We live in Sebastopol, California which is in Sonoma Western Sonoma County. Uh Okay. hour north of San Francisco in wine country. Uh Very nice. Quiet. A low place, yep. Uh and uh yeah, that's that's it. My wife was is a actress and theater director. She had an MFA from Columbia in acting and uh uh when the school took off and started to get busy, I stole her from her actual career and made her and made her administrator of the school. So she doesn't get to do nearly as much theater

that these days as she would like cuz she's too busy helping you have? How many you have? It would not be happening without her by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, you have having a good woman by your side, man, doing what you're doing. That's everything. That's that's everything. Um so let's dive into another little question about the past. Let's talk about you know, like some people they remember some of their like first element like their favorite elementary school teachers. They know them by name and they remember them and they remember the impact that they had on them. Let's talk about some of the people in your journey that have really just impacted you where you were like I will this I say this because this person taught it to me when I was blank, Who are who are those impactful people? So some of the some of them are are school teachers for sure before I that have nothing to do with dogs. So certainly Mrs. Ostermeyer a junior high English teacher there are some people that that really helped me with my intellectual journey and so as a teacher they helped me kind of organize how I think and be comfortable in front of people and they made me read a lot and made me curious about learning and a lot of that kind of stuff. So I had several teachers through through that. When we start talking about dog people, I have tons of them because again I came up through a club system. So there are people like many people I learned so the the people that got me into dogs originally that the people that I took the initial obedience class at the German Shepherd Dog Club there were a couple there Victor and Harriet Gega who owned Von Victor Kennels in San Diego County forever long since passed but they kind of grabbed me and said like hey look there's this whole other world of dog stuff and they would let me kennel sit for them when they went on vacation and and so there was all kinds of stuff that that that sort of hooked me into that that world. I worked for a veterinarian while I was in high school when when I was going to dog shows that was in this showing dogs too in Pennsylvania and that was very influential but the dog people you when you train with a variety people in clubs you wind up meeting a lot of people. So there were a ton of trainers in the Southern California area when I was coming up that I spent time. So Al Banuelos was a well known Schutzhund trainer at the time trained American Bulldogs and then eventually had Malinois. I mentioned Ivan Balabanov was coming up at the same time and his way of thinking was hugely influential. There's a woman I wish I knew her name when I had learned training initially

like everybody else at the time that I learned training we learned um straight up Keeler method pressure right? So choke choke foot leash and a choke and a choke chain and um there was a obedience club that shared one of the bite sport fields that we worked at and there was an AKC obedience trainer there and she had a Border Collie and she was out doing obedience one day and I wish I knew her name. I would love to call her and say thank you but she I'm like her dog doesn't look like our dogs. Like what that dog looks happy. What is she doing right? I watched her train and talked to her a bit and it sent me off on a different journey right? I had seminars that I went to like a Karen Pryor seminar back in the day when she was just starting and talking about clicker training and all that kind of stuff was like changed the direction of my way of thinking about training and and that kind of thing. Gosh Mitzi Robinson now she was Walker then was a woman that ran a Schutzhund club in Northern in Ramona Northern San Diego County when I when I grew up and I started doing helper work there and she showed me a lot taught me a lot. And when you're in the club system and I was young and unattached so we drove everywhere the people trained with Lisa Maze who was my partner in breeding dogs for many years. We came into that that bite sport world around the same time 1989 I met her. And uh she had an incredible way of thinking about training was highly influential on the way I thought about training as well. Um What do you think the big takeaway was from that? From her? For her she she was the she was the probably the original balanced trainer in my opinion. She was thinking of it. Like so she was a very good pressure trainer and she was a pressure trainer like everybody else and when she got attached to reward based training she did a very good job of blending it and hers was really balanced right? So these days people talk about balanced training a lot of people are using it as an excuse to use pressure right? I get I I did two days of food work and then I put an e-collar on the dog. I'm a balanced trainer kind of thing. She really had a balance and she also had an kind of out of the box way of thinking about things. So it wasn't specifically techniques. She just kind of read dogs well and thought about things differently. There was an empathetic side to her. that I do. Like so I'm very analytical and very step by step and she had a kind of feel and so she would approach a problem and sometimes she would say something to me in a way that I was like that's not the way I would have thought about it and it makes you come at a

problem in a different way. Ivan Balabanov is also the very very much the same way. Like he is a dog training savant like he is a genius and every once in a while he would say something or do something that where I would say that shouldn't work. Why does it work you know kind of thing? And so it always made me pause and re-evaluate things that I thought I knew which is essential to you becoming a better trainer right? You have to be able to say like we know things but can you modify that your knowledge and can you change your your thinking about certain things? And that gets hard the better you get at it and the more success you have the harder it is to sort of shake up the way you think about things a little bit. Stewart Dr. Stewart Hilliard is a good friend of mine. Yeah yeah actually who talked to us about Dr. Hilliard? It must have been Tyler. Must have been Tyler yeah. Oh yeah cuz that was post yeah sorry go ahead. Yeah he's I love him up. Yeah he's a amazing guy brilliant a very good dog trainer. He was creating content. So before if you want to talk early content that was him in the 80s he was doing videos for canine training systems which was like Leerburg's competition making dog training videos. They were a company in Colorado. And he did some videos on Schutzhund and helper work and stuff in the in the 80s. He was actually the person that hosted and brought French Ring Sport to the US. Oh wow. Very first Ring Sport seminar in the US was after Stewart made a trip to Europe Europe and came back and um brought French trainers back and did a a seminar Colorado I want to say in the mid 80s 86 87 something like that. Did a seminar here and that kind of brought that to the US but watching his he still he there's a tape on protection work that he did and he was decoying and he was showing foundation protection work and as a decoy and I don't want to go too far down this road cuz lots of people don't probably don't know what I'm talking about but anyway the person getting bit by a dog in protection work is the person training the dog. But you take when people think of the training their dog in protection you're handling the dog the person getting bit is the one that's teaching the dog right? The decoy the helper the agitator whatever you want to call that person their skills drive your success. If you're going to be successful it's because they are doing their work right and it's it's a kind of a reaction to the dog. You observe the dog you read their body language and when they do something you need to react so that they make an impact on you right? And this is a huge thing and he was super dramatic in his

reactions in this video like his first video very dramatic but that's when it clicked for me. Like nobody explains it you watch people work the dogs and it doesn't look like they're doing anything. You can't see from the outside but his reactions were big reactions. And I remember clearly at the time I'm like oh my god that's my job to make the dog feel empowered by but his would be like he'd stare at the dog and the dog would bark and then it was like a wave of water he'd throw his arms back like he was getting hit big but it made it obvious to somebody that was starting in that world of upper work. had a little bit of theatrics to it a little bit. And you you saw it clearly you saw him as opposed to some little subtle reaction that I might make where the dog's biting me and I twitch my arm a little in the in the sleeve you don't even see that from the outside. So I'm thinking oh and it was a game changer for me like right? And so I felt I I felt like I knew him before I met him the first time right? Just from watching him and I and I want it was incredible. So he had a big impact on the way I think about training. And then there were just many trained trainers from Europe that came over and did seminars other friends people you meet along the way that you get a good idea here you get a good idea there like watching good people train you pick up epic amounts of it. You once you get your education to a certain point and you know the core principles going and watching good trainers do their thing which I had the luxury traveling around all the time of watching just scads of incredible trainers do their work and I pick up something here and something there. Now were you were you the type that that learned the most from watching or would you straight up go to the person after with a bunch of notes and be like what about this what about that explain that to me like how would how what was your process? Watching definitely. And mimic mimicking what you saw. Mimicking yep and seeing it and kind of trying to figure out why what they were doing was working why what someone else was doing wasn't working and that kind of thing. And it was a process I would collect that information in my and then and then deal with it that way but mostly from just watching. I mean, you have conversations and ask people you know what they think and you know what their process is and all that kind of thing a little bit, but most of it was just from being around them watching them work, right? That's always the That's always a a big aspect of of watching you work and watching your videos that is fascinated me is is how do you know exactly what

pieces of information or I guess over time you've just kind of boiled it down to a science. The tiny pieces of information that you know people need to know. And And an example was I was watching a video of you doing food work with uh I think it was Rush and you were using food in your hand and you were explaining in in great detail the importance of you know, vertically speaking staying the same height off of the ground with your hand. And so, you use that step in order to you know, keep your body low to the ground cuz of course if you stand still your arm only goes so far before it ends up coming up. Mhm. Yeah, absolutely. And that's all stuff that I got to once I started having to teach it. Okay. So, I realized I figured out over and again. I got to practice that a lot. So, Uh when I would go out you'd realize people would ask you things and then you'd step away from that and I'd analyze and I started to think about okay, why Well, why does this work? How come that dog keeps hit keeps hooking at the end or how come that dog keeps biting my hand here? What's Right. down, right? Right. And so, I started to break things down and then I started to think about it the way you would if you were going to teach somebody a sport like isolating pieces instead of like there's a lot of variables. You put somebody out there with a dog, they have to focus on the dog and how they're moving and too many variables at once when you're beginning. And so, if you focus on one thing you lose something else. If you focus on that thing you can't hold them all in your head yet. And so, the idea of breaking things up into smaller pieces sort of like what we do for dogs, right? And if you're doing training you break it down into little digestible pieces. And it's I sort of started to do the same thing a little bit for training and like watching people to see if they were processing the information. If I was giving them too much. That one of the hardest things when you're beginning to teach training is what details to give somebody at what point in their development. And so, if I take a a total beginner, I can't hit them with everything. Right. Right? So, which ones are the most important, right? And how fast can I give them the next pieces? And it's going to be different with different people. So, if you teach enough and you pay attention to people's reactions and you watch them, you're like this person needs to stay here a little longer. Right. If I give them the next piece, they're not they're not going to process it. And that understand it, but they won't process it. And that particular piece of information is something that's always

fascinated me. And And I like that you liken it to sports because it's it it does kind of make sense from a sport point of view. And one thing that we talked about with Tyler and Brent and I have talked about this before is you know, a sport that I like is is jujitsu. I practice it a lot. Boxing I've been doing for a long time. And And it's it it is funny. And I also kind of wanted to tie this into the balance training aspect of things because I do notice you're absolutely right. When someone's very new at something, they have to meticulously focus on the process to get something done, but in the big picture it's not very much of anything. An example being, you know, if I if I'm learning how to do a triangle choke, it's hard to do in and of itself as it is. So, I'm putting hand here, putting leg there. But, like in the grand scheme while you're sitting there slowly figuring things out, you could lose the round one of a million other ways. And I noticed that younger trainers do have that sort of thing to them to where if they focus on one thing obviously they should and and learn it well, but they can't lose sight of the big picture. And And to bring it back to balance training, Tyler had a really interesting perspective which we kind of figured out before we even spoke to him, but when we had a chance to finally hear his own words it was yes, I mean if you're going to work a dog, you have to make sure that they're doing things right and you know, but but also the overall momentum of the lesson itself matters more than a little hiccup here and there. And you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot in order to make some point that that otherwise would be Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean One mistake I made So, sorry. Sorry. One mistake is my personal my personal growth was being too meticulous with the person and making them feel that they can't do it. And I remember that was something that when I was a young teacher, it was just I would be like, "Nope, foot's wrong. Do it again. Nope, hands wrong. Do it again." This and I would just break their confidence. Yeah, that absolutely can happen and then beyond that too, you you can get to a spot where um they're so afraid to make a mistake that they're they're not willing to experiment and push, right? Right. Yeah. Like you can get very good instruction, but there's it the interaction each time is a little bit different with a dog. A living creature, right? And so, it's slightly different in the the larger principles apply, but the feel for when to push or when to try something new. Like when you're up against something and if I if you make people if you're too structured a

little bit too soon, people are afraid to make a mistake. up, yeah. Yeah, and so there are mistakes that you have to make to get better and you have to try some stuff. Like okay, now you're stuck there. You know what? You know what what's funny is a a tiny bit of our back history is Brent and I have been working together for a long time. You know, once upon a I'm in but at once upon a time I lived in LA and he and I worked when he was like the head training manager and I was I was learning like internship program I was never actually an intern. I would just stay after my shift and this story. and just learn how to train dogs. So, I'd be there like I'd be there from opening to closing and then after that and he and I would go to the bar after a long day's training session and talk about things. And well, one thing that I noticed about what I think just made us such good friends is Brent pushes a lot. But, I just don't take it personal. I understand he's trying to make you better. And And And you know, something that I really found interesting was Well, you were you were like my Malinois. Like I could put pressure on you and you'd come back and be like, "Do it again. Again. I'll do better next time, right?" Um But, it was a matter of perspective though. It's like I understand I So, it's like okay, a couple things that are clear. You're smart. You're You're tough. You're You're like You're strict, but also that you care and and so on and so on. So, So, the reason why I bring this up is to Yeah. So, the the reason why I bring this up is to say that when we had our other assistants. So, now we're talking years down the line. And Brent and I are training and and we had our training assistants, they would learn their particular phase of training, whatever that was at the moment. We've got a dog that's two days in, three days in and they know how to do food work, sits, downs and whatever else. And And they know how to do the stuff that comes after. But, they would be a little reluctant to move from here to there. And so, we had to give them confidence sometime and coach them through like, "Look, I know you know how to do this and I know you know how to do that. Work from here to there and and show me how you do." And kind of taking those training wheels off a little bit. Yeah, no it's it's essential part of it. And there's there's developmental spots where people are ready to receive things. That's the hardest thing. And I still as a teacher it's it's it's hard because people are different like the dogs are different, too. And so, I know for sure I was given information at various points in my development that

I wasn't ready to receive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody would say to you and you'd nod like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds logical, but I have no place in my world view to put that." Right. Three years later or five years later you're like, Oh. Oh, yeah. That was really good advice. Yeah. place to put it yet, right? Yeah. Yeah. a microcosm of that same kind of thing. And that's going to happen for the rest of your training life, right? Mhm. You may have been exposed to an idea that didn't fit your whole methodology or world view yet, but there may be a place where it does. That's one of the things that's really challenging. And of course, excited dog trainers want to get to there. That's right. Right? So, That's hard. Um So, one thing we talked to Tyler about is we were actually discussing I asked him I said, "Okay, dog training is an art form. And if dog training is an art form and we're all to be artists, what is our color palette?" Right? What is the color palette? As an artist you need to know how to use your colors. But, then there's other variables as well. There's dimension. There is you know, you know, other things like contrast. There's all these different thing, right? There's all these variables. And so, I asked him I said, "Let's If you were to paint me a picture of like a young and up-and-coming dog trainer, what's his color palette that he need to start understanding right off the bat?" Right? Are they methods? Are they techniques? And he responded. He goes, "Principles. It's all the principles." And he goes, "Understand your operant conditioning. Understand your classical conditioning. Understand your reinforcement schedules. Understand, you know, all of these different things." He goes, "If you study those principles, you at least now have the color palette understood." Right? If we were if we were going to elaborate on this, what else would you add to like Okay, so that's kind of like our foundational stuff. Right. that's our theoretical. It sits right in our mind. Yeah. How What else would you elaborate? Like I'd add the the mechanical stuff. So, I think there's two worlds and they're not always connected for people, right? And so, that's the how dogs learn portion. Mhm. You have to understand what makes them tick, how they work, how we're going to communicate with them, kind of the science behind it. That understanding those principles are key, right? Then there's the mechanical part. The mechanical part is totally separate. You can understand perfectly how operant conditioning works, but you can't hold a leash. You can't execute, yeah. You don't have timing. Uh you don't know how to move your body.

There's a lag between seeing and communicating. Mhm. That's learned. That's practiced It it like anything else. And so, all those things are the things that we break down the mechanical way. So, obviously, this can be a very big topic, but there are some basic ways in which we typically create behavior physically, right? So, we use conditioned reinforcers, markers, and clicker, whatever kind of thing. But, the physical ways in which we manipulate dogs, luring, Mhm. Spatial pressure. Spatial pressure, using the leash, shaping stuff. And so, the mechanics of that stuff also needs to be broken down for people. Yes. Yes. the mechanics of that, they can understand it, and they get really frustrated. So, some of the students that have the biggest problems when they come to the school are very smart people that really understand the intellectual part of it. They get it. Right. Right. They've read it all. They've watched the videos. It all makes perfect sense in their head. Mhm. But, their body's not cooperating in the beginning. Yes. Both of those And then the the other side, you have people that naturally are very good talented physically. They move well. They've got good timing. That just feels easier to them. Mhm. But, they don't know the why or the how, and they make mistakes because they don't understand the other part of it. That's huge. Mechanics is the big deal. Right. And that's huge because I feel So, I've trained many trainers over the last uh train 8 years, and you know, you get someone who comes from a different uh you know, like a pure positive background who now is ready for something new, right? And as soon as you start introducing pressure, A, there's always kind of this um this aversion to to pressure in general, even if something is light as leash leash pressure, like a front to heel, or you know, something like that. Um and there's this visceral response based on how much what they think and what they feel they understand that they don't even want to execute the physicality of it. Yep. But, once they get over that hump, they go, "Oh, super easy." Yep. You know, and that's that in and of itself is a struggle. That's that's great. The technical skill. I take my dogs out my my board and train dogs when they were good about, you know, my way of socializing and getting them outside is I take them places where they can be inside. And one of the places I take them, of course, is like Petco, just because they're super dog friendly. And I ran into a couple trips ago, but also today, I was there a little while ago, Um there one of their trainers. And he's a really nice guy. I mean, obviously,

he's pure positive cuz I know Petco only does like all positive training. And I you know, I spoke to him a little, and he's very nice, very like personable, and Uh invited him on, so I figured we'll have him on at some point. But, but I definitely think that it's important to talk to people from the different training ideologies and kind of get their perspective on things. Absolutely. 100% It's and it's weird to watch the evolution, right? So, there are things that I learned when I was naive and young that if somebody asked me to learn to do that now, would I be able to? Right. There's a point I'm 8 6 16, and somebody says, you know, here's how you yank on a leash, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, I could do that. And you're and you're like, "Really, I'm supposed to yank on the dog?" And they're like, "Absolutely, that's what you do. You You got to commit to it. It has to be this way." And not knowing anything else, right? You commit. Mhm. And you learn a skill. Mhm. Then, as your your journey progresses, I learn better ways of doing that. And I learn that maybe I was unfair at various times and a whole bunch of other stuff. But, by that time, that skill was in my toolbox. Yeah. So, although I don't use it as often as I used to by any stretch, it's there. And so, now we have a whole generation of reward-based trainers who are very good at certain aspects of training, like better than I was early in my my journey on reward-based training when I was discovering how to that, right? And so, they're exceptionally good at this, but they can't handle a leash. Right. And they know enough that they're in their own way to learning it cuz you In order to learn it, you have to commit to to right? Yes. And you're going to make some mistakes. Like, you're along the way. I I say it all the time, but like I I would love to resurrect certain dogs and apologize to them, right? I I've learned to do things on you, and you're the one that suffered for my lack of skill and mechanics and my lack of understanding at that point in time, right? But, if I hadn't gone through that, would I be able to do that now if that was my journey? It's really It's challenging when you're trying to educate dog trainers. Which piece do I give them when, right? Right. So that they don't get so in their head that they can't commit to learning the new skill because it feels uncomfortable or it doesn't feel right. Well, one thing one thing I've seen is also like I remember when I came up, I had a community of dog I worked at a kennel, and then eventually, I went from, you know, assistant trainer all the way to

training manager. And so, I had trainers around me, and I had mentors around me, and I had people I could ask or see, and you know, uh you know, shout out to to Edward Valle, one of one of my homies who is in Texas now, and he doesn't even know I have a podcast, but that guy taught me technique, like such clean technique. And I remember being like, I want to do it like that, where everyone else was cranking and yanking and doing all this other stuff that, you know, but but yeah, sometimes the support of the community that's around you, the dog training community, it's easier to fall into those good and bad patterns, right? So, you could be you could have a community of, you know, a pure positive or very heavy-handed Keeler method trainers, and because that's the community, it's like you're going to you're it's easier for you to commit into that. Right? And so, like one cool thing that I you know, you you look at like the whole Leerburg crew, or you look at like what Tyler's doing with Consider the Dog, and we're we're creating communities of dog trainers with different platforms, and how can we learn from each other? Um and ultimately, you know, this whole Yeah. Again, I kind of agree with Tyler that the term balanced dog trainer, but the theory, the concept of the balanced dog training, we need to create more of that, right? It's too polarized, and we just need to kind of create Yeah. more communities for people to feel safe to explore these ideas and theories, and not and get coached, not judged. Yep. And I think honestly, the the hardest part about the balanced training is that it looks so different from dog to dog if you're really doing it. Yeah. Yeah. If you really are embracing that ideal, then it's the dog that's in front of you. And one dog is going to be 90% reward-based. Like, it's going to be 90% Yeah. reward. Another dog, it's going to be 90% the other way, unfortunately, right? Just because of their temperament and their situation and where you are in their development. And those adjustments are hard for people, right? And everyone kind of a formula for it. Like, I'm going to come in and I'm going to do a week of this, and then I'm going to do a week of that. I I think unfortunately, you got like pet dog trainers have it harder because a lot of in a in a sense, what they're asking dogs do is typically easier than a working dog trainer would be. Like, you but, what they have is they have arbitrary timelines put on them by economics, Yep. So, they're constrained by the marketplace, and so that what will end up happening is until we sort of pull the general public along and get

them to start understanding better dog training, the fact that it's a process, it takes time, like What if you let start when he's small, not when you do it with a dog in a two-week in-board, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're training well, how much are you going to accomplish, right? Yeah. You're going to put way too much pressure on that dog to make sure it looks like it you accomplished something. Yeah. Or, the dog's going to look like, hey, it looks at you. It seems happy to be around you, and it sits, but you're you're barely scratching the surface. And so, unfortunately, some of the timelines and some of the formulas that trainers are asking for, and like, how long should I do this before I do this? And how long should I do this before I do this? Um are thrust on them by the economics of True. market bears, you know? That That guy says he'll do it in 4 weeks, so now I have to have offer that, otherwise, I don't get clients. You know what's funny is with with this kind of latest push, it seems, at least to me, of like advertising-based dog training, I see a lot of that like that two-week off-leash trained, you know, any dog, any age, any stuff like that. And and I've actually been pushing the other way and having a pretty good amount of success. So, instead of trying to like race these people to the finish, I've I'll get a lot of phone calls that are like, "Hey, well, I spoke to so-and-so, and they were saying for this price in 2 weeks, X, right? For my like 4-month-old Doberman puppy." And I'm like, "You know, the reason why I take longer is because you just number one, I mean, could you theoretically teach the dog these things in that short amount of time? Possibly, but at what cost? I want the dog to not only learn their commands, but I want them to learn to just enjoy training, learn to enjoy working and paying attention and being with you. But, also, the extra amount of time I mean, sometimes there's just or really all the time, there's just no substitute for good old just drills, and just get it get it ingrained into your brain, and really give the dog time in order to like you talked about, that even in a in a dog's training program, I noticed this especially when we talk about socializing or when we do balanced training with the dog, where at some point or another, you do have to put pressure on the dog. I noticed that every dog's trajectory, they're capable of more pressure the further they are in the program. Oh, I have And and I I wanted to say that to kind of speak to your point about just like a a human student, dogs, you can try to teach them the lesson early if you'd like, but

they're not really going to grasp the value of it until they're ready for it. Until their fundamentals are down. Exactly. Yeah, just like humans, you know, I I I always look at why I sucked at soccer. I played soccer for many years. Because but intermittently as a kid, I 5 years old, 7 years old, 9 years old, and I I didn't pick up that sport that well because I was too busy figuring out how to dribble the damn ball. I was dope at Well, whatever, dude. All right. Well, where were we? Is that all right? I got off topic. Like you I I talk to students about this all the time and talk to trainers about this all the time. There's this idea that if you're a better trainer, you can do things faster. Right. Right. What do the best trainers do with their own dogs? They're not sweet ass time. They take sweet ass time, yeah. They take their time. They make sure all the fundamentals are beautiful before they worry about layering that on. Like they're like, "Do I Do I have an e-collar on my 6-month-old?" No. Mhm. No. Yeah. No, I have plenty of other stuff to do. I have lots of groundwork to lay. We have to get there, right? And so it to to Mariano's point, that's it, right? So, that's the the deal. The more you have in there, then when you get hit the pressure point, the dogs are like, "Oh, yeah, I got this. I'm ready. I absorbed this. I have a place to put this information, right?" And that kind of thing. Well, you know what's funny? Go ahead. I'm sorry. So, so the way that I I've always thought about it with the dogs is is the way that we were talking about our assistants, and they know what to do, it's just shifting from gear to gear is something that even if they know what those gears are, they're reluctant to take that step. Dogs, as they get better, the reason why I think they're more capable of handling larger amounts of pressure, which is exactly why you up everything, right? Desensitization, distraction later on in the program. That's why I don't take dogs out to Petco until they're like far enough along that I know that they can handle it. But, I think the reason that that is is because they already have these kind of preset pathways that they can take. "Oh, if I'm distracted, I do this. If If they tell me do this, do this." Even if there's, you know, so so there's all these different routes that they can take. They have all these different tools under their belt already, so that they can access them more readily. And then me as a trainer knowing that they know these things, pressure is is less of an immediate option because I know that I I can choose this tool, this tool, this tool as opposed to being kind of like a

one-trick pony because earlier on in my training career, I was definitely heavy with pressure, really needed to to develop my food work. And when I did that, I I've noticed, I mean, not only fundamentally speaking do the dogs look quicker and happier and everything like that, but they they just enjoy the process more, and so they're they're more consistent more of the time. And it's amazing to see that. And they're more resilient to bad experiences and all the rest of that kind of stuff, right? You have them. You have more in the bank to bounce back from stuff and to handle things. You have coping mechanisms, the whole nine yards, for sure. That's awesome. What's the So, like what's the solution? As pet dog trainers, cuz that's the that's the majority. Would you Would you say that there's more pet dog trainers than there are competitive Oh, by a lot. Okay, yeah. That's the It's the bread and butter of the dog industry, for sure. There's no It is. It is. What What do you think I know I don't want to dive into like the polarities of methods and all that stuff anymore cuz I I think we talk about it too much in all the other episodes. But, let's But, let's But, what What could we you know, what How could we solve that problem? How could we solve that economical problem? Is it a club creating clubs where there's smaller memberships? Is it, you know, is it creating more content? Like what is Education. It's education. So, that I This is my mission in life, right? So, since I get to access the trainers that are going to go out and access the general public who aren't trainers, right? Mhm. Then we have a huge opportunity to influence what people think about dog training. And the average person that comes to a dog trainer doesn't understand dog training at all. They don't know what it They have all kinds of misconceptions of what's possible, what dogs are, what good training is, what it should look like. TV doesn't help, right? Like all that kind of stuff. And so people have these misconceptions. So, our job as trainers that the trainers that would contact the general public is to educate them in a broader sense about what dog training is. And we got to pull them this way. It's a process. You have to You have You have to be involved. I can't train your dog and hand it back to you and then we're done. Yeah. Yeah. And And you should like it. We're cheerleaders for getting them excited like about what training is. This is fun. It's super cool. You can have a relationship with a dog that we can't have with any other species. It's ridiculous. They're amazing. And if you dive in, you will be richly rewarded.

And so our job is to get them to take their time and participate in the process. So, little bits of little bits we all pull it. And if people initially may go, "Oh, that guy, he couldn't help me. He wanted me to take 6 months to do this." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other trainers said that. But, if more and more trainers start giving them the same information, Yeah, that starts becoming the norm. It becomes norm. It pulls the whole culture that way, and better dog training will be available to to everyone, and people will really understand what dog training is. Yeah. Ultimately, right? How long do y'all go to school to get even fairly competent at things, right? Yeah. Right. Right. It's true. And in a strange way, I kind of just get kind of getting to know a little bit more like your background of animal conservation and all that stuff, it's like that Would you say this mission in dog training kind of comes back to that intrinsic goal that you had initially that made you want to go back into conserving animals? Yeah, I think for sure. There's no doubt like my interest in critters in general like has been there since I was a little kid. Like I love that. And um I hate what we're doing to natural world, and certainly dogs are part of that. But, I think more it's it's like anytime you get really into something, right? So, anything you're really super passionate about, it's very hard to interact with people who don't care about it, right? Yeah. And that's what it is. Like you have somebody hear something that you really think is amazing, something that you really care about, and now you have this person that's like, "I don't want to know about any of that. No, I don't want to put that much work into it. Just make my dog stop pulling on the leash. Make him stop." Right. Right. Well, it's kind of like I don't know if you remember Well, of course Of course you remember. Of course you remember. You're You were there. Uh but, there is a There was a time in dog training uh in my career at least where um you know, I I'd ask people, "What kind of dog do you have?" And they'd answer with, "It's a rescue." And they'd they'd say the word rescue as if it was a breed, right? And so there there kind of there kind of became this this this vibe socially where it was like if you weren't rescuing, if you were buying puppies, you're you're a messed up person, right? And so that came through, you know, a lot of media and a lot of, you know, social media stuff and just like the the vibe was just created. Rescues are the way to go. If you're not rescuing, you're a jerk, Mhm. right? You're a jerk. And always what my goal was was try to to try to figure out how

can we make I don't I don't necessarily want to create that type of propaganda for dog training, but to create a societal feeling of like, "You're not training your dog? Come on. Do Go train your dog." Like Like Like where you get judged for not training your dog. But, it seems like it's so normal to not train your dog until they're destroying something, being annoying, or being aggressive, right? And I always tell people is that the difference between a good dog and a trained dog. A good dog is just a dog who's not being annoying, aggressive, or destroying anything. Right. He can do He can do anything else in the world, and he's a good dog, right? So, So, I I think it's it's all moving in this direction that we're trying to change the societal thoughts of like, "You should train your dog." Just like you should send your kid to school. You should, you know, I don't know. What's normal for kids? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. But, like And it's getting better. You're right. Like it is getting better. More trainers are thinking like this. Mhm. They're going out to clients. They're not trying to design their programs strictly to compete with the other guy. Right. They have the the Oh, this guy says he's got a the off-leash three-weekend board, right? Dog fully off-leash trained in three weeks. And people have stopped saying like, "I'm I'm not going to compete with that. Like I'm going to create a program that's right and finds balance and helps people successfully long term." Cuz those people aren't You They're going to rely on an endless supply of new clients because that client's not going to be happy down the road, Right. right? You do that, the dog goes back, they didn't participate in the process at all. It's going to gradually erode, and then 2 years later they're going to say, "I I paid this guy all this money, and look Look at this dog, right?" So, unless you get them connected, and people are realizing that. Trainers that are out there are realizing that, and they're they're extending their programs, they're doing good work, they're coming up with hybrid in-board and uh private lessons, including the people in the in-board training, like all that There We're It's getting better, for sure. Yeah. And that's our continued mission. And it's And it's all It's all in efforts to get the involvement of the owner, right? I think if if we can if we can make that you know, that more of that responsibility fall on the owner, then Yes. then we will be more successful as dog And they'll be happy, too. Like when they come into a problem, they'll go, "Oh, okay. I think I know what to do here." Because they were a participant

in the process the whole way along, right? You know what's funny because I I've been working on this very recently. I think, you know, you guys talked in the beginning a little bit about COVID has really helped restructure programs that in a lot of ways from an intellectual standpoint, it's been pretty good. You know, it it makes you think, and and it makes you get creative. And for me, it really helped because I started my online programs. And so I wrote up my homework and a little PowerPoint, and it and it does sharpen you a little bit. But, there was a dog that I've been talking about for a while now, Milo, the the little dog that's so fearful. He barks at airplanes in the sky. You know, he I swear he's actually afraid of his own shadow, and that wasn't an exaggeration. And so he's been He's been working with me. I'm going to have him for a total of four weeks, and he's now three weeks in. And what What started doing with people is if the dog's doing, you know, 3 week, 4 week, whatever the case, at about the 2 week mark, I'll bring them in to visit the dog, but we do a lesson. The dog stays with me, but we'll go somewhere, do a little lesson. I'll explain to them some stuff of what the dog's been doing and why and what they're going to be doing. Then for the next lesson when the dog actually goes home, we dive into the normal fundamentals of, "Okay, so he's home now. Keep your routine in check. Make sure that all these things are in order." And then we'll get fancy as we go. Yeah. And I found that there is There is actually a lot of value to that. You The The people feel a little more part of the process. Right, because they go home and really have a week to chew on the information that you gave them. And the dog, it's been very valuable for me depending on the dog because of course they There are certain behaviors that a dog gives owners that they don't give the trainer. And 2 weeks into the program, we talk about the dog being able to handle certain pressures. Owner comes in and the dog goes, "Oh, you're right. I am protective." You know, so So then owner goes home and I'm left with the dog that still has a little is now showing me a little more of these things so that I can address them more directly now that we've got our foundations in place. And it allows my momentum to stay peaked for the rest for the rest of the program. Then the dog goes home looking as solid as possible. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that kind of thing is essential. The last inboards that I did before I don't obviously don't do them anymore. Um at the time, I had factored in client involvement the whole way. So I would take the dog for a week

and then they would come in at the end of the week and I would show them everything I did during that week. I would literally walk them through. This is how I started this. This is why I'm doing it. Now you try what I just what I'm doing. And then I said, "Cool. I'll see you next week." I take the dog, I do the next thing. You come in a week later. Here you go, right? And then I wouldn't have inboards shorter than 6 weeks. Mhm. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm at a month right now, but I do 6 weeks for really intense cases. even if they didn't do it themselves, they knew what the dog looked like at all those steps. They participated some and they had at least an idea of what the process would be like, right? You know what? And that really shows to the mastery of your skills because there are so many dog trainers who want to keep it all a secret or maybe they're ashamed of what they're doing and they don't want to put that in the forefront, you know? So yeah, like that's that's that's a skill I had to learn teaching a lot of workshops and group classes was like I need to make sure that my skills are refined so I had I don't feel uncomfortable doing them in public. Isn't that the weirdest thing that people have that urge to to keep things a secret like that? Yeah, like I never understood it. There I mean there are lots of people that do and there are people that think, you know, that they're super gifted. They have something special and they want to maximize what they can get out of it. We're all Brits. We're all playing with the same principles. We're all Yeah. Right. There's no new dog training. It's And and and a and a raising a rising tide lifts all boats, right? Right. Right. Right. All that stuff's out there, somebody else is going to innovate off it. You're going to get the feedback from that. Somebody else is going to innovate off it and we all get better as a result of that. So So can I ask you a question then that with with exactly that saying, "A rising tide lifts all boats"? I know that it's tough for younger trainers out there who may be listening and us too even. It's tough to find the time to record your sessions and to make content, but is it not absolutely essential these days? Not only not only to help get information out there, but also I noticed that nothing sharpens you. I learned this little trick in boxing. Nothing sharpens you like watching yourself back and you're like, "Oh my god, I made that mistake?" Huge. That's one of the biggest benefits of the online classes that I've done for the students. Mhm. So I have some where they have to shoot video homework every week. Like some live now interactive, but

they would get things and they'd have to shoot their video homework. And so what they got and at the end of 16 weeks of that kind of thing or whatever it was going to be, it was their habit to film every time they practiced. I love that. Their phone up every time they went out to practice. And once that you learn so much watching yourself back right after a training session, turn around and watch yourself back. You can go like, "Oh, there. I didn't even realize I did that and I didn't And so if you can make it a part of your habit, it's a great thing. Yeah, and I've noticed too when it's you when you're watching yourself as opposed to all the other I mean cuz there's you online, there's Tyler, there's amazing trainers online, but when it's you in particular making your own mistakes or whatever the case, you have that Is it first person or third person? Where where you know the thoughts that are going through your head? Like it is interesting. I'll watch myself with the same dog today versus yesterday versus the day before. And I I noticeably am weaker at something and I'm like, "Oh yeah, that was the day that I stayed up till like 2, huh?" And and so you you have insights that you're like, "Man, it's crazy how much of your active time with hands-on with the dogs revolves around everything else being in sync." And and that's I think crazy insightful information for younger trainers to keep in mind. Record yourself, watch it back, it will change you for the better. And keep keep a training journal too. Like so Oh, really? Yeah, absolutely. We like we make all of our long-term students keep training journals. And so you basically you sit down and at the start of training a dog, you write down everything you hope to do with this dog. Mhm. Aspirational. Like if this if everything lands well, this dog is going to be a pet dog. He's going to hang out at my house. He's going to sleep in my bed. We're going to go hiking. I'm going to take up search and rescue and agility or whatever that hell is. that. I'm going to do that. Put it down and then make a list of all the behaviors that your dog would have to know and the skills they'd have to have in order to do all those things, right? So you're you're reverse engineering the goal. You have a template here of if I'm going to get here, what would my dog have to know? So you can focus your direction in your training session. So when you go in, you say like, "Okay, wow, I I haven't started this skill. I should start this skill." Or whatever that's going to be. That's genius. of everything you do with the dog. Like how much exercise, how much you fed it, how long your training sessions were

exactly, like what your how much the dog played with the other dogs that day, and your plan for a training session when you go into it. And then what you actually did. Plans are good as long as Yep. Yep. As long as you're willing to abandon them when they need abandoned. True. what you did and then your impressions afterwards. And if you videotape it too, then that helps you with your impressions of, "Oh, my dog seemed a little flat today. Well, this is you know, we took the the 10 mile jog this morning so that probably shouldn't do that before I train on training day." Or whatever you're going to be, right? Right. Right. patterns that you won't hold in your head otherwise. You'll look back and notice the things like you said. Like, "Oop, that was the night I was up too late. That's the night I kept my dog up too late and he's not in the right frame of Whatever that is. And you'll start to recognize those things and it's helpful. Like you're there's no way you're holding that all in your head all the time. And especially if you've got multiple dogs. Multiple dogs in for training, like you got to shift gears every time and that helps you sort of reset where you are with that dog all the time. Thank you for listening to the Dog Trainers Podcast, a podcast created by dog trainers for dog trainers or anyone who's ever fallen in love with man's best friend. Join us again next week for part two of The Art of Teaching with Michael Ellis.