#020 STSK9의 니노 드로바에르

I think, I believe, because you can't know it all. That's why you have so many, you know, specialized people on your podcast, I assume, because they all have their traits. They all have their unique talents. And, yeah. Yeah. Great to have you. And that was one of the ideas to, of course, I want to talk about specific training topics or how to select dogs, et cetera, how to build a business. But in the first instance, this series of interviews is really to get to know the people. So, and so I don't know if you have had the chance yet to, to listen to one or, or another of our episodes so far. I've not, unfortunately. I try to, I multitask though. I thought, you know, people ask me, what's on your headphones the whole time? And I'm, most of the time I'm listening to, you know, podcasts or, you know, sometimes music. But lately it used to be always music, but now it's usually work related. So I can do two things at the same time. So how good is that? See, so what song is, what, you know, what playlist. Sorry, guys. It's so boring. It's sometimes it's about how to operate a camera, how to operate this mic, you know, software and all those kinds of things. It takes a lot of time to assess it. And yeah, if I can do two things at a time, it helps because the days are too short. But I guess that's a good thing for many people, the days too long. So I've been at the police for 18 years actively. And I remember there was a lot of days that were very long. We were looking at our watch the whole time, even though we were living the dream. Look, you can work with a dog, a dog you trained yourself. And, you know, it's a dream job, right? Because you can get to work with animals. And I loved it. But at days, the time went by very slow. You know, everybody that has done night shifts knows what it is, how to live a slow night. Nothing happens. You get very tired and nothing happens and you get more tired. And yeah, that's a long day. And that's just at some point you have to ask yourself, why am I doing this? And then there's always only one answer that comes to that question is why are you up at night when nobody's up? Nothing's happening because, you know, you have a job. But why do this job? Because you're getting paid to be there at that time. Because, you know, I always have better things to do than just wait for time to disappear. And I think that's the great thing about running your own business or your own company or, you know, your own mission is, well, now everything you do has a purpose. There's no waste of time. I mean, besides the time you decide to waste yourself.

But nobody can tell you to waste time and stay put or wait, you know, or hit the clock and then you can leave, whatever. So I think that is one of the greatest things for people that, you know, are entrepreneurs or, you know, self-employed is they get to choose what their priorities are. And I think that's a great thing. Also for dogs, I train my own dogs at no clubs anymore. And it's the same thing. When you go to a club, they expect you to train and do what the sequence tells you to do, what the program wants you to do. And I remember going to one of my first clubs, the NVBK, which is phenomenal sport. I love it. And I wanted to bring my police dog. And they said, you can't. And I said, what do you mean I can't? I mean, because the dog's legit. He can do all the stuff. They said, no, you know, no mixing disciplines here. It's either this or nothing. So you're going to get a sports dog or it's not going to work out. So I was very surprised with that. So they only want you to do those things with one dog only and don't like mix things up. Don't like do too much. And it's this in the box thinking that surprised me that like those limitations they put on you as a handler, for sure, because they just tell you you can only do one thing, but also towards the dog. So very surprising because I proved them wrong. As in I did compete with the dog. I did went to the finales. It did become a police dog. And it was also what people like to call my circus dog when I do all the moves on the Internet. But seriously, that stuff to me was just fun. But, you know, in social media or whatever you post on the Internet, there's something that people have a preference. I can post bite work all day. They're not going to like it all the time. But when you post obedience and the obedience looks fast and flashy and all that kind of stuff, they want more. So I started posting more of that flashy stuff. And to me, it was just an extra because this dog had other purposes than be flashy on the Internet. But that's what people see. I know a lot of people laughed at the dog sometimes like, yeah, circus, circus. But the dog had moist deployments and the history of the department. That's not so funny anymore. If you think about it. Right. Because it was serious work. And, you know, he did go to the finales. I, you know, I could have won. You know, it's always, you know, little things that you lose. I have the whole trial on my tape. So when I look at it again, I was like, I was pretty close to winning the championship. If it wasn't for the jump, he fell off. Something like stupid things.

But, I mean, overall, the performance was one of the best performances I've done with that dog. And he was doing the police work as well. So, you know, dogs can do so many things. Those limitations they put on you. And I'm happy I never listened to anyone. I've said, listen, listen. Do this. Do that. But I also wasn't like a troublemaker. I would, you know, respect them and just not. And say, okay, yeah, I'll try it. I'll do it. You know, and I went home and did it. Of course, then I think the real training starts when you go home. It's like now you can be yourself. Now you can do whatever you want. Now you can, you know, live your imagination, try stuff, experience, do experience. You know, that kind of stuff is what I like. Because backyard, nobody controls me. But that's, I mean, that's a journey a lot of people go through. They have a dog. They have ambitions. And it's other people leading their minds. They tell you what to do from day one with a puppy. Do this. No, don't do that. Oh, you're going to do bite work and obedience. No, no, no, no, no. Only do bite work. Then the dog becomes that kind of stuff, you see. So they already embed a certain way of thinking, traditional way of thinking. Especially the older the sport, the more traditional the thinking is, of course. And I don't like it. It's something like when I quit the club life after more than 10 years, it was, I felt free. Seriously. At first I thought I'm going to miss it because, of course, you know, you spent so much time. But I didn't at all. It was like, that was actually the best decision I ever made. Not because of the people not wanting to help you. Because I have to tell you, they always want to help. You know, either like love them or hate them. If you ask them something, they'll help you. Which is very, you know, it's very cool. Because these people and I get paid to help you. And they still help you. So they always have good intentions. But the whole atmosphere around the club, other people telling what to do. And, you know, the way they do it is, it's either that way. Or if you don't go with that idea, they might show you that they don't like it then that much. That you just go your own way. And it separates you a little bit from what's going on in the club. Which is what usually happens to me in multiple clubs. I'm not a very good club person. Because I like to do things on my own. And now that I can, I can do whatever I want. And that's why I'm doing things that I think a lot of people have not shown. Like a side of the dog that has not been shown. And a side of me that I was never able to show if I wasn't for the internet.

You know, the stuff that I do with my dogs or without my dog even is not something very common. I mean, I haven't seen it. I'm on YouTube for many, many years. I haven't really seen anybody do it. So, you know, when people start comparing, I was like, okay, well, show us. I mean, talk. You can compare and talk all day. But you got to compare in performance. You got to compare in what do you do exactly then that looks like A, B, C. So we can make this resemblance and then judge. Okay, it looks like you're a spinoff of XYZ person. But I'm looking at the field myself. And I'm thinking, well, you guys all look alike, but I don't look like you. Which I believe is, you know, it's the biggest compliment I can give myself. Because I didn't want to look like you. And by you, I don't mean just anyone. And usually, you know, the average person that went to a club, got his results, was happy. Or any police dog that I met, they're all happy. They're all getting their results. But that didn't cut it for me. I didn't just want the result of becoming a canine handler or having the certificate or competing. Just competing. I wanted more. I wanted to see what full potential was available from my side and from the dog's side. And there's no way you can extract that by just staying put in your club and listening to other people. It just doesn't work like that. You have to stand up and you have to create your own imagination, your own style. You have to come up with your own ideas. You have to be alone with your dog. Really, you and your dog. And that's it. No influences. It's just somebody already watching you, already influenced. Because maybe you don't want to try something. You don't want to look stupid. Or maybe you don't want to have this person critique you or whatever. There's so many things that create a fixed mindset. And, you know, that's why training alone could be literally setting yourself free from anything else. And I truly believe in it. And I think the best results we've seen from trainers that I coach alone, they come back. It's like, what happened? What did you do? They're just in their comfort zone. That's when you thrive. That's when you, you know, you can pick up multiple skills. Start combining them all. And then you come up with great results alone. Really? So people always ask for coaching. You're the dog's coach. That's already a coaching position. That's already taken. Only one person is the dog's coach. So, but I understand some people need guidance, need structure, need a framework to work in. Like, what can I do? It's not like, how do you do it? It's not, what can I do? What are my limitations?

What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? How do I make these assessments? How do I even judge what a dog's limits are? All these things, these are legitimate questions you have to ask yourself. And once you know the answer, that means you have an assessment ready. And with this assessment, you can start creating a plan. You know, starting living the imagination of what you want to achieve within, you know, the realistic approach of what the dog can do. Because a lot of people ask me sometimes, oh, you and your flashy, whatever. And then they ask me, can you do this with a breed that I've never heard of? I have to look it up on Google. It's like, no, of course I can. That's what I'm talking about. See, because people think, oh, you're so tough now because you can train a Malinois. Okay, I do it with Labrador. Oh, well, of course you can do it with Labrador because he's highly driven for food. Yes, but isn't that the case with everything? I mean, if your bike's tires are flat, you're not going to win the tour. You're not going to win a race. That's impossible. You got to start with something. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. And you also did it with, what was it, a papillon or what other dogs? You showed some video clips with some smaller pet breeds. Yeah, the poms, the small breeds, like in the end, there's no distinction in what can your dog do when he is active. But the problem is with the very small breeds, you have to bend down the whole time. I think that is the hardest part. It just doesn't give you that flexibility, that movement that you can display with a bigger dog. And a puppy, the face, you know, you grow. And then the dog, just after a few weeks, he comes better size for you to handle. But the little dogs are also limited because their movement, because their paws are so small, they cannot show super elegance. They can only do rapid movement with their little paws. So it's quite limited on what they can show, as you can't expect the prance, like an IGP healing and stuff with a very miniature dog. And that's, of course, something that I enjoy. So, you know, these little dogs have their limitations. And to me, to bend down the whole time, like every day and knowing this is going to be forever because they're so small. So that sometimes helps me back from putting more time in these guys because actually they're just a lot of fun also, really. To me, the question is not always what breed is it. It's like, does he want to be in the game? Is he active? Does he want to come forward and earn something? Yeah, then we can do it.

We are also having right now in our hand, of course, a small pincher, miniature pincher, I think. And it's a great dog. He's dry, he's flashy. And there's nothing wrong, nothing wrong to try to get as far as possible with all kinds of dogs. And I think that's, for me, before getting in the more professional branches, I learned so much from doing just the pet dog training because you get confronted with dogs who are treated like solo kids. They get everything they don't have to share. And they might not be expected to work for food or toy. And suddenly you need to think around the corner and think outside of the box how to create motivation and how to build something desirable for them. And I think that's a very interesting aspect of dog training. It's easier in the end to just work with the working breeds because they bring so many hardware already with them that is useful for our training. Well, wait a second. So it depends on what you define as easier, right? Because I'm sure if you give many people a dog with, if you would call it triple A class, like highest level of genetics, and I don't think it would be easier at all. I think it would be a complete nightmare. It would be maybe even dangerous. It would be super hard, very frustrating. So it all depends on what skill level these people have to start handling these dogs. So we have to be careful what we call easy. We first have to frame then, okay, what exact training do we talk about? And then, okay, this or that might be easier with a pure working breed. But only easier if you've developed a skill that belongs with this trait you want to extract. So that's my brain. It's always this continuous assessment. Okay, what's the task at hand? What do you want? Well, then, what is your plan to get it? And how do you want this to look? Very important. It's a sit-down stand. You know, it's a very basic what we call obedience. But there's many ways to do it. You know, let's say your dog is in a down and you call it into foot position. And you could say, well, that's easier with a working breed because the dog is more active. And I would say, well, it depends on how you want this dog to move into this foot position. If you want it to be super fast, explosive, dynamic, symmetric, completely on point, in perfection, with its chest lined up against your knee, all of a sudden, that's not so easy anymore. Even though if the dog is willing to do so, it's your perception on how far do you want it is one command and immediately your brain will tell you, this is how it looks, right?

If you have some imagination, it will tell you, this is exactly how I have this exercise in mind. And to me, the answer comes then, how obtainable is this? How long will this take me? What will I have to do? How will I have to work this dog? So easy and not easy is if you have earned the skill, it's easy. But I ask you, can you drive a car and call somebody at the same time? And if you're going to say, of course, even though it's illegal, you can do it still, if you want to, or you can put it on speaker, you could do two things. You can focus on this conversation and on the road. But when you were just driving a car, there's no way you could do it. There's no way you have to focus on what's happening, like your feet, your hands are moving. And I think it's the same with dogs, you know, or with any skill, you know, if you earned a master skill, you're adding one on top of it. You're adding and you're adding and you're adding. This is what we call talent is the more combinations you have, you can make in skills, and you can all use these simultaneously. This is the definition. This is how you benchmark talent. So if we're going to talk about any dog's talent or any handler's talent, we should refer to this because this is what definition will go through my head. If you say, oh, X, Y, Z, if we're going to talk about trainers, is talented. To me, it's the combination of skills they can access you simultaneously so they can do things better and faster than somebody else. That is the definition. So this is what I always refer to. So if you say, this guy is talented, always think, skills, what combinations, and the more complex skills, and the more combinations, the more talent. Because if you can combine very complex skills all at the same time, and you can access them always in your subconscious, like I said, like driving a car and having a conversation, subconscious, you're driving a car, you're still paying attention. It's the same with the dog. Look, if you can do all these things subconscious, you can listen to the podcast. I can train two dogs at the same time. I can process many things, leash, leash, e-collar, for example, if you use it, marker, food, like so many things that go on. To me, normal. My brain is used to processing all these skills at the same time. Of course, if this is your first time, it's not going to be that easy. Right? So if somebody puts a benchmark on, okay, what is handler talent? How do we measure it? Very important question. How do you measure it? And we have to measure it because we've been, I'm sorry. Yeah. We've been measuring dogs too much. Always measure the dog.

How good is the dog? Where did the dog win? You know, show me the video. Okay. I got it. Look, we show all show performances of dogs. But if you want to coach, here's where the difference comes in. If you want to coach, if you want to teach somebody how to get the same result, we can't just look at the dog. Now we have to make a full analysis profile on handler. Right. And this is even more important because the handler is responsible for extracting the talent of the dog. He needs to develop the skills for the dog. So the dog can combine all the skills. So he's already in a coaching position. So he must be skilled by, you know, from the start because else, this is what we see a lot in professional dog training when clients come. They all have good intentions, but the results are very poor if they're not getting any guidance because their subconscious cannot handle complex skills yet. But yet they're doing it because they see an example on YouTube or whatever, and they don't know. They cannot extract what skills are being applied. So they just replicate. And then it's a little bit of everything. And it's going all over the place. It's impossible to assume they're going to get great results, the majority, by just watching a YouTube video and, you know, getting into this journey of trying to get a performance from a dog. But if you ask even the professional, then how are you going to get a performance? You, how do you turn your skill better? Can you tell me what skills you're even looking for? Even professionals, high-end professionals, how are you going to get better than the guy next door? If I ask you, hey, somebody's moving in and you live in Germany and this person is very skilled, he can do a lot of things with dogs. He's cheaper than you. He's getting his results. You have a problem as a professional because your customer base, they're going, oh, well, I can choose between A and B, but B has better quality results. It's cheaper. And I got faster, you know, I get my dog faster again, or I have more fast, you know, results myself. He's going to go for B. Even though he likes A, he's probably going to go with B. So, so what are you going to do to, to stay on the A side? Literally, it's a legit question you have to ask yourself as a professional. Yeah. And that's something that, that would follow us in, in every, every state of life, I guess. And, and maybe something that can be described of the survival of the fittest. Yeah. Dorman theory. It's a very, very strong believer in all these theories. They make a lot of sense. So Nino, now I have to make a cut.

It was already a great intro, but we haven't really introduced you yet to the shows. So we already drifted, but I loved it. So everyone listening in already have heard a lot. And our, today's guest is, is no other than Nino Tovert from STS K9. I guess most of you will know him from Instagram, from Facebook. We see a lot of great reels and videos explaining, but also training dogs. To put it in Nino's words, a lot of very flashy training. A lot of training that if you know already a little more about it, you realize how hard it is to train a dog to be that fast, to be that precise. And that's how I got really attracted on, on Nino's work. So hello, Nino. Great that you find the time having a talk with me tonight. Thank you for it. Let me know where are you, where are you at right now? Are you in, in Belgium? Yes. Yes. Now I'm in Belgium. I reside in Belgium. I do. I mean, I do go a lot to the U S for events, but you know, post COVID it's not been as much as, as I used to before. Okay. So, but we'll be back next year with a, a good event schedule. So, but for now we're, we're doing our stuff from Belgium mostly, you know, train the dogs. So. And you have been and still are in the police. Yes. Yeah. It's called a leave of absence. So at the police, you get a chance to pursue your other career if you want to, which in this case is, you know, the dog training business. And, uh, that's what I've been doing for five years now. So five years I've been self-employed and well, believe it or not, in Belgium, you can take off seven years. So, yeah, it's, that's crazy, isn't it? So could you imagine going back after seven years? But yeah, that's, that's the case. So I've, I've got two more years. And then you have to resign. Yes. Then you have to choose, you know, either go back or you're never going to come back. So that's the case. Great. So to all our listeners who, who are not that familiar yet with SDS canine, what does SDS stand for? What's the shortcut and what's the philosophy? Yeah. So, uh, SDS stands for specialized training system. Now, what is so special then about this system? And what do I do is, so what, what I stand for is I want to use traits, natural instincts of a dog and extract these, these traits. And we call them potential. And the potential is used to develop skills. The more skills we teach the dog, the more he can combine these skills that we teach him, the more we can define the dog as talented. So what we do is develop talent of a dog, right? But in order to do so, you have to make an analysis on how handler talent then looks like. Same thing for you, right?

Because you're the one who's going to have to do all this stuff with the dog. So, uh, we profile, uh, handlers, trainers, uh, and we see what skills they need to achieve. They need to develop and how they can make these combinations. And that's what we call the master view, right? Because you have one side as a handler, other side is a dog. And it's only by making a full assessment analysis on both that you will find a way to extract the potential and then, you know, lift, elevate the dog to, to live his full potential. And, uh, and this is something that I really enjoy because, you know, I love working dogs. So we mainly do working dogs and the potential they have is, is usually unseen because we focus on certain sequences or certain purposes. Like for example, patrol dog, police dog, okay. Sports dog, protection dog. So they always do certain things. So they highlight certain things. And what we've done is we've put them not into sequences, but more into overall strengths that we want to see from a dog. And I call these the five pillars. And within these five pillars, we are making these assessments and, and the count of these five pillars is going to show us how good the dog truly is and how much control you have over this. Because in the end, if you're going to train a dog as a predator, so do not assume a predator is going to follow you like a slave. Because if you want to enslave a predator, you have to use force. That's, you don't need a book to understand that the predator is not going to follow you unless you use force. So what our job is then cognitively, how do you understand to manipulate a predator? So he is willing to share things with you. He is willing to do things in your favor also. Because, you know, if you talk about dog psychology, of course, people understand a little bit of it. No dog is selfish. He wants to do stuff to obtain something. So our quest is then how do we, you know, create this symbiosis. So animal and, and human in this case, get mutual benefits without using force or, and then it's not about positive only, or, you know, using a compulsion, but like, if you have to, you know, touch the integrity of the dog to get your results, if you make him stressed out, or if he gets confused, you lose the symbiosis. So, and that is something it's very hard to, to pinpoint. Oh, when you get it, you know, when you get it, that's the cool thing. Once you get it, once you go on the level of, you know, synchronization, movement, flow, flow state, energy exchange, this is like very holistic when you talk about it, but when you

feel it, you will think, whoa, there's, there's much more to it than just, you know, doing a sequence, which I have also done. I really enjoy sequences, but there is more to it. And this is what we do is we specialize and we focus on training handlers, develop the skills so they can, you know, then become either competent or develop more talents so that they can extract the potential of the dog and do the same thing. So we, it's always a team effort. That's why it is important. That's why analysis are important. That's why coaching is important. And that's why understanding what skills, the five pillars, same for the handler, also five pillars, five key elements you have to focus on. And yeah, that's what we've been doing. And it's what we travel is we, we, we talk, we give lectures about this and we help the dogs on the spot. And then of course, through my online program, people can learn from any place in the world on what this exactly means and how do you get to start doing this. Great. Great. So, you know, you've been a police canine handler. You've also been a head trainer at the department. That's, that's what I read on your homepage. And now you have SDS canine. Who are your clients and what you're already told a lot, but what branches do you provide for them? So yeah, we reach out to anybody who has working dog ambitions, but that doesn't necessarily mean your dog has to be working breed because there's a lot of great dogs that are not in the bracket. You see, here we go again, brackets and boxes of dogs where we shove them in. Oh, this is a, you know, hunting dogs. These are protection dogs. These are, you know, pet dogs, you know, all these. And I don't know all the categories, but there's so many. It's not limited to categories. It's more like, is your dog willing to be, to use his energy? And like, is he willing to eat? Is he willing to play? And more important is what are you willing to get out of this? Are you willing to establish a relationship with the dog where you fulfill some of its purpose? What it's meant to do is be active, is do things, is be very intelligent about what he does. You know, move fast, be dynamic, be symmetric to you. Like all this, is this something you're after? And if the answer is yes, you want the most out of your dog, well then we're the people that can help you. If you just want like plain pet obedience, just like you want just to sit and to stay and walk, that's not really what we do. We want to push ourselves further. We want to develop as handlers. And so we can create this unique experience with having a dog and training it.

So it becomes like an addiction almost, you know, you want to train this dog because now you find out every day he can do so much more than you initially thought. And this is, this is not limited to a certain group of dogs or a certain group of people. This is across the board. But I would say the majority of the people we train usually have a working breed. But with working breed these days, we talk about bullies, even Dobermans. We talk about Wattwires, Malinois. We talk about Border Collies, Labradors, all hunting. There's so many, so many to name. Some breeds I don't even recognize and they're getting like, whoa, you're doing the same stuff that we do. This is great. So yeah, usually just, I would say active dogs and also active people that want the most out of this. Perfect. Being in a unit, but also traveling around, around the world, doing workshops, giving trainings. Is there a nickname that got stuck to yourself that you can't get rid of? A Maverick or Iceman? Or how do people call you? No, no, we're not. How do you call it? It's not the Avengers yet. I'm getting fancy nicknames. I don't know. Maybe I'm referred to the guy with red shoes for people that don't know me. But other than that, not that I'm aware of. So they just call me Nino usually. Great. And getting up every day, what keeps you motivated doing so many things? Man, this is all mission purpose driven. Seriously. I don't even think about what I want to do. I think about what has to be done. And I know there's a bunch of dogs here that have to be worked. But I also know there's many, many students that need help, that need guidance. Every day we have messages of people reaching out. How do I get what you do? How do we get this obedience? How do we get this bond? How do we get this connection? How do we get this result? So people are genuinely worried about extracting the potential from their dogs. They don't know how to start. They came in with high ambitions of, of course, motivation. But then, of course, if you don't have a blueprint, if you don't have any guidance, you're going to be stuck really fast. And then the panic comes because the dog is getting stronger. He's getting more powerful. Usually it's a bigger breed. You're losing time, of course, because the dog is asking me a lot. Is my dog too old? I said, how old is he? They say, oh, eight months, 10 months. I was like, that's not, I mean, that's just starting. So, well, what are you worried about? We had students with a nine-year-old dog doing incredible things. But you could see that people can stress about this and they're worrying.

So we get up in the morning and this is our motivation to make the best possible instructional videos, to put on the best seminars because this is a mission. This is not like, oh, I like to do this stuff. No, even, you know, nobody likes to be in a plane for 10 hours, 14 hours. Nobody likes to live in a hotel away from the family and, you know, be by yourself the whole time and getting from one trip to the other already. But it's like, you know, you chose this, you know, I was having a good job before this. So I wanted to do this. So it was a purpose. I already combined it and before I gave all my holidays to spend on teaching and make this happen. So now this is all I do. So for me, it's great. I don't ask myself this question. Why anymore? If there is one word you could choose, what would describe or how would you describe yourself? Yeah, it's what I just said. It's purpose driven. And for me, this purpose, purpose, yeah, definitely will defeat the pleasure. So for me, if you say, hey, I want to invite you for a holiday, it's I won't get excited. I'm going to be honest with you. So, you know, the work is the pleasure. So I designed my life so I can work the way I want to work. I don't have to, you know, listen to people. They tell me what to do or they tell you what to do the whole time. Do this with your dog. Do this with your dog. Go stand there with your dog. Even I mean, that's already a dream job for most people. Oh, they can take the dog. But then they still tell you what to do with the dog. So no, those days are over. And to me, that's the permanent vacation. The state I'm retired, like mentally I'm retired because even if I wouldn't make money for this, I'd still do it. Because this journey of helping people grow, seeing my students have more followers than me, having, you know, greater results even. To me, that is exactly the reason why I said I wanted to do this. Because I was, you know, in the worst position possible when I was young, 27 years old. I wanted to train with dogs, but I was afraid. I knew nobody. Where do I go? I go to a club. I go to this person. I ask, you know, it's the confusion. The, you know, the fear of making mistakes. The fear of not getting your results. Yeah, I had to buy DVDs. I had to do all this kind of stuff. And now I'm in a position to help people. And I want to do it the best possible way I can. So, yeah, I'm a freak when it comes to that. So, but I guess you have to be a little bit obsessed with your work if you want to do good work. For sure. So, what runs the engine? Do you drink coffee? Do you drink alcohol? Are you a meat eater? Any specific diets?

Or are you doing workouts? Cool questions. Nobody ever asked me this. They usually ask me, how do you train the dog? What do you eat? They ask me everything about the dogs. Nobody asks me what I eat. So, this is really cool. Yeah, I'm happy to tell you that I was not a coffee drinker. I never drank coffee in my life. I hated coffee. So, can you imagine being at the police working night shifts and not drinking coffee? Coffee and donuts. It was hard. Yeah, but I didn't. But I had to lately because I work like sometimes 16, 18-hour shifts. And I was like, okay, let me see what coffee does here a little bit. I have to go slowly here. So, I always do cappuccino or cafe macchiato, right? So, it's a little bit more light than the strong coffee. And it helps me a little bit. So, that's the only thing I do. I would say 80% vegetarian slash pescatarian. So, no meat sometimes. So, yeah. I've been vegan for a few months. It's really hard. We try. For me, it's very hard because if you're on the road and traveling, it's not easy, really. Even on the plane. If it's with eggs, it's not vegan, right? So, cheese is not vegan, you see? So, it becomes a problem. So, anyways. It was. Yeah. Yeah. But I'll try to. You said. What did you say? Sorry to interrupt. Beacon or pescatarian? What did that mean? Yeah, pescatarian. So, if that's the right translation to English because I'm not a native speaker. I speak Dutch. Yeah. Which I assume is in English the same, which means you only eat fish, no meat. So, you eat fish. Oh, okay. So, you're not vegetarian because you eat fish then, but you're also not vegan or whatever because you don't eat meat. That's the only thing you exclude. So, they call this pescatarian. Yeah. All right. Again, something learned. And apart from the dog training, which can be physically, how to say, struggling sometimes the longer you do it. But you work out. At least you look like you're a sporty guy. Yeah. Well, I've been working out forever because when I was a kid, my best friend who lived above me, he was an Olympian, he was a 200 meter runner. So, he had the body like an Olympian Greek god, right? And of course, I was just a skinny guy. And I realized if you ever want to come close to looking like him, you're going to probably have to do a lot of things that he does. So, I was luckily able to spend a lot of time with him. He took me to his trials. He took me to his world. He introduced me to his friends. And then if you're introduced to people with a certain lifestyle, you become that. So, to me, I only met people that ate clean, that worked out, that were very driven, very disciplined, very focused.

So, to me, that became the norm. And then I had a 10-year relationship with a Belgian runner, champion, eight-time champion, very high-level runner. So, to me, it was like, this is what we do. So, it was a very, very, I would say, you know, we didn't do anything. We didn't spend money. We didn't go on holidays. All we did was train, eat clean, train seven days a week. It was like, for most people, it would be a nightmare. For me, it was the best time ever. So, only focus on one thing. And just so that mindset on how driven people can be to achieve something, it takes over. Like, you think about it day and night. You wake up, you think about it. You think every step you make is like, here's, I got to take rest. Here's where I got to eat. Here's where everything has to do with what you want to achieve. And for me, it was just getting closer to the level of, you know, my inspiration, my friend, and my girlfriend at the time. But, you know, very disciplined people. And that, I think, stuck with me forever. So, I always knew if you want something, you're going to have to work really hard. So, in comparison to doing dog training on, let's say, high level, you know, a lot of training professionally. And if I look back and if you want to become Olympian, for example, or try to be, right? It's very different. There's still a huge gap between if you think dog training is hard, try being an Olympian. Then you know what's hard and what's technical and what's going to, you know, keep your mind 100% at the time. And doubt, you're going to make it. You're going to do it. So, it's just overwhelming if you want to achieve something and aim high. And, of course, I didn't make it. Not even close. But then going to dog training, I was like, oh, well, I wouldn't say easy. Nothing, like I said before, nothing is easy. But it's definitely not as hard as trying to become. So, I think from that mindset also, when I came and saw people work dogs, immediately I thought, okay, what kind of technical level? Because, of course, when I tried to run, at first I thought, okay, run just as fast as you can. It's easy, right? No, no, no. It's not that easy. Okay, the way your hip moves, the way you push your feet into the tarmac, the way your technique is in the bend, your body, like it was just immense. It was, whoa. It's very technical. Very, very technical. So, I completely underestimated that. And then, of course, I became a freak to understand this technique, to push myself. I wasn't like very, very gifted, even though I thought I could run fast. When you look at the fastest runners, you're very slow, right?

And then, yeah, it's a disappointment, but I never let it get to me. But then when I saw people training dogs, I was like, okay, how hard is this technical level? Because, of course, I assume also to be very, very high. And I was surprised it wasn't. And actually, it was the people that were good at it. They didn't even know what they were doing. And it's not like they were thinking consciously before about the footwork, the handwork, the coordination. And I think this is what set me apart a little bit because the way I processed movement, the way I saw, okay, this is wrist control. This is your footwork. This is where your explosiveness can come in to help. This is where you set the pace for the dog, the speed, all that kind of stuff. To me, it comes from my true passion. It comes from running. So, that's where I got this passion. I want everything to go fast. I need to be clean. I need to be perfect, right? The perfect race, the perfect track, the perfect time, the perfect elegance in your running, everything. And I was looking in my subconscious, of course, for the same thing because I was not the athlete anymore. It was a dog. The dog had to do everything that I wanted to do. Be fast. Be dynamic. Be explosive. Be responsive. You know, and so now a chance to have my dog become the athlete. So, I was very technical on what the dog needed to be. So, and this is what I've done for so many years. And I had to think, okay, when people started asking me after the first videos on Facebook 14 years ago, and they asked me, how do you do it? How? How? I was like, okay, let me think. Because to me, it was at that time already normal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and now, of course, you know, people know what I do mostly. I use the handwork, the wrist work, the control of the hand feet, you know, all this conscious coordination. And then it becomes subconscious. That's when it becomes easier because then you can add more complex tasks to it. And I'm doing the police work. I think police work is hugely underestimated. I heard you also are involved. And the reason why is because you're facing the same challenges as any dog trainer slash coach, right? Because you have to extract this potential femur dog. You have to, you know, get in, dive into the skill. But on top of that, you have all your police skills. So for you, there's more combinations of skill. And then there's one very, very important factor that nobody else faces is you have a constant threat. If you're dealing with, you know, patrol dogs, for example, or violence, threats, whatever, there's a stress factor. And we all know what stress does.

It can diminish your competencies or your skills to very basic or zero if you're too stressed because then you cannot access your new skills any longer. And this is why dog handling is actually very, very hard on a high level with the police because you have to use your police skills. You have to use your new dog skills. You have to assess the threat. You have to communicate. You have to make the right decisions. You have so many things. And if you don't consciously focus on what these components are that are going to, you know, be in your way, you're probably going to struggle more than you're having fun. I remember this is a true quote from one of my students at the police when I was an instructor. They said, I thought this was going to be fun. You see? Okay. So I asked them, well, what do you mean? You said it was your dream. They said, yes, but I thought this was going to be fun. And of course, nobody wants to feel stressed. If I give you a scenario, like a true scenario where things can go wrong and they will go wrong or there are threats towards your physical integrity. And now you have to make big decisions, right? Now, all of a sudden, this is not so fun anymore. And I see that. It's not fun. Who wants to be in that position, taking these decisions where you can either hurt somebody or get hurt or this is not a fun thing to do. So I can feel the stress because I've been there. This reminds me on something that Pat Nolan quoted when he was into the bird dog training. And they were working heaps of dogs every day. And he had co-trainers. And one of these trainers said, I will quit after this season because this is hard work. And people who are getting into the business, well, maybe sometimes they just underestimate that this is real work. People smile at you and say, well, you live the dream. You're a dog trainer. But it's hard work. And it's not always fun. And it doesn't have to be always fun, I guess. It's a lot of discipline and gaining skills. And no pain, no gain, I guess. Yeah, the performance always exists of four components, which is talent, your combination of skills, then the passion you have. You have the energy to get energy. So forget everybody, everything else. If you don't have energy, no passion, forget about any performance. Then comes focus and discipline. Oh, this is binary. You miss one of those, you're never going to get the best performance. Never, ever, ever. Same for the Olympian story that I told you. If one of these components are missing, forget about it. You're not going to be even close to being on any Olympian level. Impossible.

And that goes across the board, of course. And anything you want to do, you want to do it very well, you need those components. So then, of course, first question is, what skills then? What skills are you talking about? Let's do analysis in depth. Passion. This is not something you can just get. Like, you either have this or not. It's like this subconscious thing. You get up and you're energized because you read something. It's something that inspired you. Whatever it is, it gets you up. You want it so bad, you get energy. Even if you're tired, you get energy off of this. And, you know, it's a very important component that we have hardly any influence on as a coach, as a trainer, as an instructor. So when people come and they want to learn the skills, but they have no passion, true passion, it's always harder for them. Always harder. Because if they're long days, if there's a lot of repetitions, if it does get tough and you don't have the energy, forget about time. If you're thinking you have good time management, but your energy is low, it's irrelevant. You need high energy. It's more important. Do you have siblings? No. Yeah. Well, I have two sisters. And are they also sporty or was it really this young friend of yours that got you into this close circle of very sporty, very ambitious? Yeah. Nobody in my family does any kind of sport. Okay. My sister is a lawyer, so she likes to study a lot. So, but no, nobody, nobody, any, so I have any, any purpose of, and sport, whatever. So, but of course, this, this young kid influencing, being influenced by an Olympian, I don't have to tell you, this is life changing, defining everything. Of course, I had to go back, right. As a coach, I have to, you know, assess my life myself. Like, how do you get like to answer your question? So I know very well where this comes from. And I talked to him sometimes and I said, Eric, you know, man, this is all thanks to you. But he, he doesn't understand because he was just being himself, right? He doesn't understand the impact somebody has, who you look up to. And then, you know, he gives you all these subconscious traits that you follow up, you know, about the diet, about the workout, about the ethics, about the morals and, you know, and achievement. Right. So. And there's also what you, because they're the circle closest, also what you told me about the clubs. Obviously there you didn't find, find the right energy. It wasn't the right surrounding to grow. So, and I think that's, you know, sometimes it seems to be a little bit non-social.

But I think it's, if you want to achieve something, it's important to look out for the right group, for the right peers to be with, to be able to, to gain the energy and to be disciplined, to work on your goals. And sometimes it's just hard to leave this ballast. Yeah, I think there's, you know, so much truth in what you say is finding that right group that where your personality fits in, where your control mechanism is not going in overdrive because of the stress these people add onto you. Or you don't agree with whatever they say and you want, you respect the people, but maybe you don't respect the method and see, or first conflict already. Okay. So these people want to help you. You have a good relationship with them, whatever. So you, they generally like you, vice versa. Not to tell you, Hey, do this. I know it works. And you're new to this and you don't agree. And you're thinking, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Please. I don't want to do this. And they tell you, all right, you ready? What are you going to say as a young guy, a young woman? What are you going to say? That's the dilemma. The dilemma of so many young handlers, especially in, in police or military, because they want to be a dog handler. And then they have this gut feeling. Ah, yeah. Some of these things are just not right. Yeah. And it's such a difficult point, but I think that could be a great topic on itself. On its own. Yeah. But this is all human psychology. It has nothing to do with the doctor. The method. No, not at all. You know, let it be good, bad, whatever, confusing that, you know, all of a sudden you're getting this whole mechanism playing in psychology, like a driver mechanism, you know, all the stuff that the professor has taught me, Mark, who I am, you know, I see as also one of my big mentors. Phenomenal guy. He's done us. He's made psychometric tools scientifically, had them validated to scan, to assess people's talents, professional talents. Phenomenal. So I was very lucky to work with him, to travel with him, to study under him. Very grateful for what this man, what these insights were, what he also brought to the table for developing the master view. So, you know, a lot of respect for him as well. So also one of my big influencers on creating this system, because I also thought, like anybody else, it's about the dog, right? We get the people to do the right things with the dog and the dog is going to do it. You get the results. No, no, no.

So it's the psychology, the way you develop talents, what is going to hinder you from developing, what is going to, you know, set you back, why you are stagnating, all this kind of stuff. What kind of coaching you need? What kind of energy you can build? Growth mindset versus fixed mindset. All these kind of things, such a huge impact on any performance you will ever do to neglect that part. To me, it doesn't belong to what then I would call modern dog training. If you're saying modern dog training and you're only talking about motor skills for dogs, you're only talking about stuff on how to do and tools and all the stuff for the dog. I'm sorry. That is nothing to do with modern. This is what something people have been doing for decades and decades and decades. And they've written books and books, hundreds and hundreds. It's all coming back. It's all the same stuff. But positive psychology, for example, has only been studied since the early 2000s. So, I mean, the way we have developed, you know, if you look at the Olympian disciplines, for example, how they have reached out to external consultants to help them with the performance. It had nothing to do with the technical part of their mechanics that they had to put in play. But it was very important to psychology for them to perform on the highest level, to keep developing, et cetera. This is something dog training has never been done. And I know why. Because there's no money in dog training. Like, who's going to go and reach out? These external, like, let's say, for example, the professor was not passionate about dogs. And I would ask, hey, professor, I'm interested in your stuff and your work and your research and your life's achievements. Can you come into my world and I will pay you as a consultant? I mean, this would be unaffordable. This kind of level. Okay. So, you need the luck to meet these people that have the same passion. And then they want to help you almost, you know, for free because they want to also give their information. And because else, you know, unless you're talking about Olympian disciplines that have money involved or that have money eyes on them, it's going to happen. But in the case of dog training, not so likely. That's why we have stagnated. I think we can fairly say dog training has not evolved the way we want to make it look like it's evolved in words. Revolutionary. Modern. No, I'm sorry. It's not. Actually, there's many transcripts that prove it is not. Pre-Skinner. Pre-Pavlov. And even if you refer to Skinner and Pavlov, then definitely do not use the word modern. These people are decades ago.

So, have they done significant things that give you insights and behavior? Absolutely, yes. Do you need to study them as a professional? Absolutely, yes. But do you need to prioritize this in a framework where you are given people, new trainers, the, you know, the physical tools to start learning and achieving? And I would say, actually, don't go on number one spot for me. For me. Because you always have to look in how did you get your results yourself? Did you read books? Did you study these people first? Were they your, like your idols? Were they the people you wanted to become? But they're scientists. You can't become them. So, you can't idolize the science, right? So, but it's good. If you read them, you have cognitive skill. It goes into the bracket of cognitive skills. But it's not going to help you on the spot with the dog and high drive or whatever technique you have to pull off. It's going to be meaningless. So, where are you now with all the different pieces? Yeah. Yeah. And that's a trigger. Books. And before, you mentioned that when training dogs, you're not just listening to music. You're listening to podcasts or audiobooks. What are you listening or reading to right now? Yeah. So, right now. Any recommendations? Oh, I have a ton of recommendations. But, you know, the book that I like a lot, that I really enjoyed the audiobook. Because, like I said, during the workout, it's good to listen. One that really stuck with me was, oh, my God, what's his name again? I just had a blackout on his name. I was just about to say it. I mean, the Navy SEAL guy. I got his book. Jocko Willink? No, the other one. Oh, well, his book also. The other one. General McChrystal? No. No. I think I already read it twice now. Yeah, sometimes I get a little blackout. Come on. But we can get a... The runner. The marathon runner who also done the marathon. I mean, I could... I recommended this book to so many people now. And I can't come up with his name. I'll just get a little blackout. He... There are also many interesting short interviews with him. Many short reels. But I think I know whom you mean. Yeah. He's bald. Yeah. It's a shame. I don't... Yeah. Yeah. It's going to come before the end of the podcast. He's an extraordinary guy. Yeah. It's insane. Do you have... Do you have... You already shared a quote from one of your students. But can you share a quote that is always in your mind that keeps you on point and helps you to keep others on point? Is there some... Yeah. Manta or something? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because, you know, life, when you're young, they tell you, enjoy, right? You have to enjoy. You have to, you know, eat well.

You have to do fun things. You have to enjoy a glass of beer, wine, whatever. And all of these things do not align with the purpose that I have. And the purpose is, in this case, I want to, you know, achieve things with my dogs. I want to make videos. I want to do all this stuff. And none of that stuff is going hand in hand with the pleasure. And the problem is, if you have a lot of pleasure the whole time, you go on trips, you go on... You do fun stuff with your friends. Everything is cool. Everything is, you know, fun and games. It sets you off track. And I've seen that on the Olympian level also. The more fun they have, the less good things happen for them. But that's all right. If you're chasing fun things, that's totally fine. But I look for, you know, I'm on a mission. And I look for a certain purpose. So for me, the purpose exceeds the pleasure. So purpose over pleasure is a quote that I really like. Because it aligns a lot with what I want to achieve. And sometimes, you know, 365, working 16 hours a day. It's not... People think I'm always kidding. I'm not. I wake up and I think about my work and I go to bed. And I am still thinking about it. So, of course, now it's shifted a little bit. Before, I only had to worry about my own dog. Now I have to worry about so many other things that, of course, I need more. And, you know, it's something that I think if I get older, because I am, you know, already 44. Or, you know, I'm not taking a lot of pleasure. But then again, if I would, would I be happier? I think at this point, my purpose has given me the pleasure. And once again, I'm on the same level as I was when I was very young. You know, trying to pursue my athletic dream. And I'm back where I was. And then it was crazy routine. Crazy. It was sleep, eat, train, work. Always the same thing. And I was very, very happy. It was the happiest time of my life. And I'm back. So for me, it started putting things in perspective. Yes, I watched movies before then, in between. I had some fun. You know, try to find what I could do to feel better and stuff. Nothing makes me feel better than, you know, seeing how your work can grow into what you envision it to be. You're the same for your dog. If I have a puppy and I see this puppy develop and becomes this dog that is now inspiration for so many people, to me, that purpose defeats anything. So that's how I live. Nice. I still can't remember the name of the guy. But I know who you're talking about. Yeah. Nino, do you have other pets than dogs? Yeah. Well, the palms are pets. They don't have the working life.

The working life to me is, well, they also, just like us, we have to perform certain tasks, right? The working dogs, they have to move certain ways. They have to do things. They have to learn new skills. They have to get achievements done and stuff like that. So they, I mean, they can't just hang around and do whatever they want. Do you train them? Well, that's the thing. Not so much because they're so little. I'm more likely to pet them the whole time because I do like to pet dogs. Like, it's something that eases the mind when you're petting a dog. I love, I love dogs. It's like, do you have the little dog on my lap, my chest? And then it puts his, his snot like in your neck and it's like relaxing. Ooh, this is the best ever. So I enjoy this too. But the thing is with the, with the working dogs, it's more like, hey, these guys are real. They have raw energy. They have raw instincts. They want, they want something. They want fast. Okay, let's, let's find a good way for both me. I get, you know, to extract their potential. They can do what they love. It's a win-win situation, but it's also serious. Like you don't, you don't just go and open the, the door of the kennel or the crate, whatever. And then, all right, you can do whatever you want. Oh, it's very, it's very strict. So, and this is a sort of discipline I also use for them. You know, same for me also goes for them. You have to first do this, do that. And then you can play. The problem is the more dogs you have, the harder it is to organize this. If I always say, if you have big ambitions, like serious, big ambitions, one dog, one dog, and he's going to consume all your time. And, but the results you get then with this one dog, yeah, they can be phenomenal. But the problem I have to divide my focus on four or five different. It's too much. Actually, I'm going to tell you the truth. Like I can manage it, but it's not ideal. So, but I want, of course, my old dog, never going to, of course, give up my old dog. I have the Labrador, I have the other dogs also, the training. So I have to, I have to, it's like, I don't have a choice. But if you want ultimate performance, ultimate control, I would recommend one dog, yeah. Do you prepare these younger dogs for other handlers? So would you hand them on to someone else? Or are they your projects and your demonstration dogs? Yeah, they're my project. And some of these dogs, over time, I can say, okay, maybe they can go with another handler who has certain ambitions that I feel belong with this dog. And I cannot give it to this dog because, you know, I have a different structure,

different, you know, type of setup here. So it's very movement oriented. It's very high drive oriented. So, because, you know, I need to showcase what the dog is capable of. And, you know, at some point, okay, I cannot keep all the dogs here because I need continuous puppies, young dogs to show stuff. And then, yeah, sometimes I sell a dog. Sometimes I give away a dog. It depends. Great. So you're in the dog training business for quite some years now. And we talked about the traditional club worlds, police work, etc. And also about the modern way of dog training. But I talked with Pat Stewart about that. Innovation is not always helpful. At least sometimes it's helpful in concerning that you find out that all the ways also made good progress. And is there anything that hasn't changed since you started with dog training, but it just still works? It just still does a good job? Well, of course, you know, you're not going to change the core of how you can get along with a dog. And that's pretty easy. And in terms of either you're going to give him something or you're going to take something away from him or you're going to correct him. So, yeah. So I don't think you needed to be a scientist to understand that's how the animal operates. So, of course, it's going to be either food driven. It's going to be ball driven or you're going to have to use tools. So and I know it's always going back to that same story. And of course, if you ask me, do you use food? Of course. And does this guy 100 years ago use food? It probably does if he's smart. Right. So did you use something that was attached to the dog to have it connected and to not have the dog run away? Yes. Did they do this 100 years ago? Yes. So in those terms, yeah, pretty much has been the same. But in other terms on how you develop these skills specifically in a manner. And here's where the difference is. So you can have these results faster and better and more efficient while doing less effort than somebody else. And the dog's happier and you're happier and the energy exchange is even higher. Now you're talking about variables that were not talked and discussed many, many decades ago, at least it's in the literature. So if it's not in literature, there's no videos. Right now we have the luxury to find videos on everybody and everything. But back in the day, you have to read the book. You read the book. It's not in the book. Nobody's books. Okay. That means I guess nobody's done it. Or it must have been on a very, very small scale. These days, everything is so scalable. You make this video. You make this podcast. You know, maybe 10,000 people listen.

Maybe 1 million. Maybe two people. But it's out there. You can find it. You can Google it. You can find hashtags. So that's the thing. But is that what you were asking? Yeah. Yeah. That's a perfect, that's a great answer. That's a great answer. So Nino, you have already even run through some of the questions. I didn't even have to ask them, but your answers are great. So now we've come to the point of our keyword fast response game. So I would just throw some terms or short phrases at you, and I would ask you to answer them as fast as possible, intuitively, and very short. So we would run through around six bullet points. Wow. Are you ready? Yes. What's at stake? So you see, either we have to win something or lose something, because the incentive is, well, you can just take, you know, take as less time as possible. Well, maybe I'll take as much time as possible. The last keyword fast response game was this morning. I had Boki on the show. He was fast. He was fast. But I don't, in this case, I would say there's nothing at stake, but it's always interesting to find out the fast responses compared to the longer and thoughtful answers. So let's find out what is on your mind. Yeah. Yeah. And the first, the first one. And somehow you already answered it, but let's do it again as a summary. Talent versus discipline. You know, inherently connected if you want the performance. Great. Second one. Second one. Essential trainer skills. Or skill. Essential trainer skill. Movement. 100%. Look, I always say, if you can't, if the dog can't move, let's say genetically, you had the best genetic dog possible, but he loses one paw. How are you ever going to prove it now? And same goes for you. So if you're disabled, for example, as a dog trainer and you're into performance dogs, okay, I'm not talking service dogs. Of course, these people have done unbelievable jobs, you know, to serve people with handicaps and stuff. So incredible. I truly respect this more than anything. But if you're looking performance, if you're looking, you know, any competition style, whatever, and you can't move, there's nothing you can do. It's a serious problem. So, yeah, movement. 100%. Both for you and the dog. Movement is the enabler of all talent. It's the enabler. Without it, you cannot expand in more skills. So, movement. Great answer, but you lost points on this one. I took too long. Okay. Next one. Development of breeding dogs. Development of breeding? Dogs. Development of breeding dogs. Problematic. Yes, problematic. Importance of sports in the working dog community. Less and less and less. And can I tell you why? Sure.

Because the sequences have always ruled everybody's entire routine, everybody's philosophy. Everything was always about the sequence. And I'm going to tell you really honest. And I can tell you why. Because one of my students has more followers than any of us. If you're talking 400,000 plus on YouTube, 5 million on TikTok, over 100,000 on Instagram. No dog tweener has this. And I generally can tell you that the majority of people that are interested in working dog performances, they do not care if this is either PSA or this is IGP or this is KMPV. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. They want to see the performance. And the performance can be displayed in many forms, in many ways. And the days that we needed to support as, you know, our ultimate guide, because we have no creativity. We don't know what to train. Please help us and give us a sequence. The sport is dead. The NVBK here, the traditional sport, which we all love so much in Belgium, it's almost dead. And it will continue to, you know, to go on a decline. Same for the KMPV, same for all these great sports. It's going downhill. So does that mean that working dogs are less popular? Actually, no. They've never been this popular. Why? Because we have the exposure now. So, but the relevance of the dog sport, that does not imply I don't like sports at all. I'm just telling you, the influence becomes less and less important. Very interesting. We will get back to this after the last bullet point. You have traveled the world. What was your favorite destination? Believe it or not, it was Alaska. Oh, right. Yeah. I was like, what am I going to do in Alaska? Too cold. Of course, it was cold. I went in the summer, luckily. It was still cold. But the nature is so violent, so rough. It's like, we were driving back there and I was thinking, if my car breaks down, there's nobody here. Only wild animals. This is pitch black. This is crazy, crazy rough environment. You go up 30 minutes by car. It's freezing to death. Snow. It's like the valleys. It's so overwhelming. If you've never been in this type of environment, for me, you know, Europe, Belgium, there's nothing really violent here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe up north. Wow. Alaska. That would be also one of my favorite destinations. Yeah. It's very unique. On the to-do list. Yeah. Great. So, this has been it. And for the next guest, I will definitely think ahead to find a what's at stake. You've got to give up the word, right? Sure. Sure. Sure. Or maybe we should let our listeners do the rating. Yeah. In the future. So, let's get back so I don't mix things up. Talking about the development of breeding.

And from what I've understood, of course, the sports world affects the breeding a lot. Yeah. So, how do you see this? Also, with the NBPK or the KNPV, are the criteria of breeding dogs decreasing? Did we have higher quality dogs 20 years ago, 30 years ago? My opinion is yes. But the problem is you can't measure all this. Because today you can bump it to the greatest dog that you've ever seen. And then you could say, well, what's the problem here? Because I see a great dog in front of me. So, they must have had great dogs before. Because how else is this great dog here today? It's all the reaction chain of having a great dog to start with. And you just continue to breed with other great dogs, whatever. But the truth is what you just said. The sport is on its decline. The pool of genes where they used to be very selective is not so much anymore. So, back in the day also, bad training was disguised by a very good dog. So, they knew if this dog can go through this, you know, the jumps and the pressure and the grip work and all that kind of stuff would tell you a lot about the dog. These days, people, of course, luckily also got a little bit better. So, you can disguise some of the raw genetics that may be lacked or maybe enhance things by using better skills and stuff like that. So, even if you use the sport as a genetic pool, it's still going to be hard then to find out then, you know, they're offering this champion to breed. But is this truly the dog that you want to breed? It might be the most popular dog to sell because everybody knows the name and everybody wants a piece of this dog because they've seen brilliance and its routine. That doesn't necessarily mean this is the best dog to breed. Okay? So, this is always a problem. But the thing is, like now, these days, because the pool has, you know, become so much smaller and the internet demand has become so much bigger. You know what happens, right? Either the price goes up. But how do you jack up the price for a working dog to, you know, you can't start charging people now 20, 30, 50,000 dogs for puppies and say, look, very selective here. So, what's happening is even the good dogs that are still here are just going to normal homes, normal people and, you know, not, I would say, super skilled people that extract all the potential you need to see. So, what's happening is you lose a lot of, you know, prospects and people that do have the analytics to make assessments on what is a good prospect at the year, year, two-year-old mark before it even competed. You've seen it in training. This is very inside information.

And then usually these dogs also, and I know it happened, they get sold for, you know, then we talk about the 20, 30K prices. And now these dogs are gone. Maybe they are getting now great results in China, maybe in Israel, maybe in wherever, but not in Europe. Maybe not, you know, in more majority of people do not have access to them anymore. Yeah. So. Did you have your own breeding programs? I don't, I don't have breeding programs. I have a really nice dog like Rocky and he has done his service because he, one of his sons is a special forces SWAT dog, very high level. The youngest dog to, to get certified, you know, it's crazy good dog. So in that case, his mission is already accomplished. He gave genes now where we serve community on a high level, you know, because to me, that's still one of the most important jobs. Just like service dog, you know, for this community work, the dog going in the line of fire to, to get, you know, high risk people, take out criminals. It's very important. So, uh, yeah, he served his purpose, but look, I'm not, you see never on my website here, I have this dog to breed. But I'm not, I'm not asking anyone because I'm very selective. If you come here today with your female, I'm not just going to say yes. I also want to see, because I know it's not just going to be one dog and every dog has flaws and every dog has strengths. And there's so much stuff to, to take into consideration. So breeding has become, but the money for some people is just so attractive. I think they'll just breed it with anything. You'll sell it because the demand on the internet is so high before in Belgium. Where are you going to sell this dog with no internet? What do you think you're going to do? You put it in the newspaper. You don't even have a picture, right? Pictures did not exist. So you only have like three lines, uh, Malinois for sale. Okay. Who's going to come? Well, people looking for this dog specifically for, you see, now it's a different world. You put one picture, the dog looks cute. One ear up, one ear down. You have sold your dog. You see, this is what it's happening. So before you would say, Hey, I don't know if I'm going to breed because maybe I keep one puppy. What am I going to do with the other eight? You see, do you want to take care of eight dogs? No, of course not. So that problem is no longer a problem. You can get rid of anything. Sometimes I think, how is he ever going to sell these dogs? I looked at this litter and it was like the worst ever. And then one week later, every dog is sold. I'm like, okay, we have, we have some people with problems today.

There's no other way. So this is a reality, right? That's why people make money on this professional dog training stuff, board train, whatever, you know, to behavioral modification. It's necessary. So it's good. These people exist because there's many problems, but of course, ideally we don't want these problems. Right. We want to start with creation. We want to start with a good vibe. We want to start with good genetics. That's the thing. It's not the case. Not for any breed. All breeds have problems. All of them. If it's not health problems, it's behavioral problems, it's issues. The brain goes crazy. Even the working dogs, they also have problems. Sure. Sure. So. Yeah. And they, we, do you think, can we say that we overbred them or was it too little scientific aspects on, in terms of the selection of genetics, et cetera, that we created? Because we have tests, we have health tests, for example. Dogs are getting x-rayed the hips, the elbows, the shoulders, the back, et cetera. But we can't get rid of all the sicknesses. Yeah. But look. What's your, what's your opinion? My opinion is I actually had a great conversation about it with somebody. He said, oh, you have x-ray, x-ray. Look, I have x-ray because the police asked me. Before that, I don't know, anybody had x-rays ever on his dog in the circuit of the NVB cape is like the x-rays. Well, I don't know, but look at his dog jump. Look at his athletic performance. Look at what he is capable of doing at the age of six, seven, eight, nine years old, still competing. Well, then you know the dog is going to be fit. So, you know, and because those dogs, only the best dogs were used to breed. Well, they give good genes. It's like survival of the fitness. It's like how you already started, right? So the ones that had the best genes had the most chance to survive. And actually, if you look at it, the best dogs had the most chance to survive with the worst handlers, right? Yeah. And those dogs were bred and they were tough as nails and they were very strong frame. So there were no problems, to be honest. Like the mallet was a poor man's dog. Pay little, you get it for free. This dog would become 15 years old and not go to the vet once, not get any vaccines. Belgium, man. This is a talk in Belgium. Nobody went to the vet. Like this is all new. You know, you had this dog when, you know, my grandparents, whatever, they had this dog for free. Never go to the vet. Never, never nothing. So I think there is a problem these days. These days, every dog has allergies. These dogs every day have intestine problems. There's a digesting problems. There's a nerve problems.

There's, there's more problems than I can count. So yeah, I think there's something happened, but I don't know what I'm not qualified to be honest to tell you what exactly, but this is my sense of how things have shifted before. Nobody asked you x-rays, what x-rays, you know, how expensive x-rays are for people. You're going to put x-rays for dogs now. So you see where I'm going? And now you need the x-rays because these, these dogs have never made a jump in their life. And then of course, maybe their frame is a total wreck. And then you need to know, oh yes, we can use this dog because this frame is like, but if you would have trained it, you probably would have known. So yeah, you would have known, oh, dog's two years. He cannot, he cannot do anything. So yeah, well, I wouldn't say that is the norm, but there's exceptions because very muscular dogs, they will, they will disguise. There is an underlying frame problem, like a orthopedic problem. So of course, then you're unlucky and you will be happy. You have your x-rays. So the people with all the x-rays will be, will be saying, what does he know? Of course, because we are x-rays. Now we exclude dogs from breeding. It says, oh, great. Like I'm fine. But let's not forget why you do them in the first place. If you're talking IGP jumps, would you, it would be the same as me running in 16 seconds, a hundred meter. And then, and then comparing to Olympian level. Look, your dog jumps one hurdle, a hundred centimeters on grass. How is this now a, a, a, a, an L, I mean, a criteria to define if your dog is athletic. I'm sorry. It's not an A-frame is not the pinnacle of athleticism for dogs. Believe it or not. So some people will hate it, but this is the reality. Same goes for the camp EV. Sometimes they send me videos, the camp EV, this dog jumps over a puddle. It's like an arm length big. Look, any dog can jump this. This is not, this is not like high discipline. So let's see, you have to put things in perspective and you have to be very critical, critical on what you assess. You can't just say, yes, of course it's elite because look at these dogs going to world champions and look at how fast they can jump. Look, these dogs could be crippled and jump one meter. No clue. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And still, it's still, it's the permission for breeding, at least in many countries. Yeah. Yeah. So we already given the answers ourselves. The policy, the federations, the money in the pedigrees, all that kind of stuff. The NVBK is not recognized by the FCI. Why do you think that is? It's a monopoly. The monopoly said FCI will only recognize one federation per country.

So NVBK, I'm sorry, but we already have sent the bear. So you cannot come in. So your dogs are not official dogs. It's a money game, right? Yeah, sure. So, but of course now everybody knows in the whole FCI Malinois pedigrees, there's many, many NVBK dogs. Everybody knows. Oh, but now they have DNA testing. Yeah, yeah. Of course. But the pedigree is already a false FCI pedigree to start with. So it doesn't matter if you have DNA testing. Like it's, it's, it's all a shit show to be honest. Sometimes people send me pedigrees and I have the luck to live in Belgium and I can ask people that have lived here, done this much longer than I have. And I asked them and they know, uh, uh, this is all fake. This is all this. And you're thinking, if, if only, you know, this one guy, two guys in the whole country where this is all coming from, how is somebody in the United States going to know? Or in, or in Canada or in Australia or whatever, they don't know. So it's, that's where it already starts. So. But the question is, would they care if, if the dog, if the dog is healthy and, and energetic and driving? Does it really matter about the, the pedigree? I guess the MVP case similar to the KNPV. No, not at all. No, no, no. But I, I, I mean, in terms of the, the quote I have in my head, they say papers don't bite. So they don't look for the fanciest pedigree. They, at least that's what I've learned. I'm far from being a nerd on pedigrees, et cetera. But it makes sense. It makes sense. If you, if you're not looking for the most beautiful one, but for the one who has the skillset. Well, with all the respect for the KNPV, I don't think they're in a good position to talk about how to breed dogs. Okay. And, and the reason why is because if you create your own database and it's, it's an, it's a bunch of outcross and, and, you know, what's the assessment on all these dogs? Was it pH one, whatever? Okay. I get it. But if I tell you right now, and let's just be very, very open and honest. If a dog, which is a not elite Malinois, right? If you're talking about a Bouvier or you're talking about any other, you know, not so standard breed can win your championship. That says a lot about the standards of pH one. Although I'm the last guy to say this is easy. Nothing is easy. Nothing is easy, but let's not also over exaggerate the pH one. I will actually tell you that there's not, I don't know any pH one, or I don't know any KNPV paper dog that has ever accomplished something significantly in the MVPK. And you can say, of course not, because they're from Holland and you're in Belgium.

It's, but there's always a, you know, a spinoff of, of dogs. If they're really, really that great, well, then Belgium, people will go shopping and find KNPV dogs to perform in their program. It's just, it's just how it is. And it's, it's, it never, it never happened. So, so, I mean, to me, these are indications that, okay, this is not watertight. First of all, if you're going to start, you know, messing around with all these different breeds and sizes these days, they have Malinois weighing, I don't know, 45 kilos, 50 kilos, and everybody's fine with this. I'm the last guy to say, okay, he can breed, but I mean, let's also not make this into a, well, a freak show. Why is a Malinois not 50 kilos? And everybody's proud of it. Look, if I buy a Malinois by standard, I'm looking for a 30 kilo dog, 32 kilos. It can be deployed in, you know, elite forces, whatever. You're not looking for a 50 kilo dog, in my opinion. So, but if, if this is now the norm, everybody can do whatever they want based on drive, based on their assessment. And I don't know if that's a long-term great plan for breeding. So, maybe the quote sounds great. Paper Zombadia, of course. I agree with this. You have to look at the dog itself. But to look at this as now, well, the Dutch are be, like, be above anybody else. Or they're more advanced in their breeding just because they match everything and they try to see what works. And they have a lot of drive. I've seen very, very high drive dogs that did not have other abilities that I think are very important also. But, you see, then it becomes also a pissing contest. Nobody wants a pissing contest. You know what that means? It's like, mine's the baddest. No, mine is stronger. No, but yours cannot bite that good. Well, but mine at least has, can retrieve metal. Yes, and if I took my dog off, my dog wants to come again and my dog, these are kids' stories I don't like, you know, to assess talents. So, and then again, we go to the definition of what is talent. Well, talent is a combination of skills that you can apply and use simultaneously at all times so you can do things better, faster, and more efficient than somebody else with less effort. Okay, same goes for the dog. So, how many skills can we teach a dog? Then let's define what skills you want to teach them first. Are you talking about jumping skills? You're talking about biting skills? You're talking about movement obedience skills? You're talking about focus skills? You're talking, you see, so many skills now. Now let's see which one can make the combination in stressful conditions.

So now we can define who is the most talented dog, not the one-dimensional dog that we think, oh, look how tough he is. He just cracked somebody's arm, you know, because he came in so wild and so good. Yes, this is one part of the overall skills that you're looking for, right? So let's not also be blind through this spectacular exercise and assume this is now the next best breeding prospect or whatever. You're going to come back very fast and realize it just doesn't work like that. You can breed with specimen A and B great dogs and have a complete not fit dog for your program. So, and again, this would be a great, great topic for, for a whole episode and talking about the talent, maybe even selecting, because I totally get the point of your, your definition. I just think it, it's, it's hard to, to, to have, to rate. So how to find out if someone is, or someone or a dog is talented, you have to train to find out, right? It's misused, Florian. The word is misused because majority sees talent as your natural gift to perform or do whatever. You're, you're talented. You're good at this. No, being good at something does not mean you're talented. Give you example. We both go to the police, right? As a police. And we spent 20 years at the police, 20 years, both 20 years. And you are very competent in what you do. You can go to any assignment and you can, you know, make everything work. You make the filings. You're very extremely competent police officer. Okay. Then the next guy, how are you going to tell us this is a talented police officer? Well, we both do the same job after 20 years. We both go and do this assignment. We both finish the filing. We both do great things. Okay. So, so what are you going to measure this now? How are you going to measure who is talented? So that's why it's important to understand the distinction between competent means that over time, by putting in a lot of repetitions, experience, work, you become competent, right? So from being not competent, so the first day you come in, you're not competent to be a police officer. You're not, just not. It's impossible. You have to learn all the new stuff and then you have to get experience, whatever, and then you're competent. But then how do we make assessment or differentiation between this is a talented police officer? Well, there's a speed of learning. Yes. Then there's the amount of effort this person had to do to accomplish the same results that you did. So, and then there's all these skills being combined at the same time in stressful conditions that he can access at all times and you struggle with.

But you both are competent for sure. But one guy is going to be talented and one guy is not. And this is the same thing you have to find out with dog handlers is who's going to be, what is talent, right? So if you win the trophy, and I had actually within the IACP, I had a little discussion with somebody who was also a speaker. I said, you know, at the end of the day, if you want to define yourself as great or whatever the conversation was, then what would it take for you to become great or amazing or whatever? And that's a legitimate question. You have to think about this and say, okay, this is my, this is what I want to do to define myself as great, amazing. Well, then if you're great or amazing, does that mean you're talented? Because let's say you win two titles, one title. And does that mean you're now the most talented? Or does that mean your dog is just the best or just, you see, you see, so what, maybe you took 20 years to become the champion, 25 years. So you are very competent. Does that mean, but what is it you're looking for? You're looking for the most talented dog, you're looking for the most talented handler, or you're looking for the most competent one. And there's a huge difference. And also, if you're going to select coaches, you're going to select idols, or you're going to select the role models. Are you looking for somebody who was extremely competent or somebody who was very talented? Because the route on how they became what they are is going to be very different. So that's why assessing, profiling, and analyzing what this talent consists of is the breakthrough. This is the holy grail in dog training now, in my opinion. Because everything's been said and done about dogs. Look, if you bring in the best IGP trainer today, and we bring them live, and we have this discussion. Say, Nina, why do you do this with your hand? And I say, why do you do this with your ball? Why do you move your foot like this in IPO? And he says, why do you move your two feet? And all this discussion goes back and forth. And at the end of the day, people will judge. I like his dog more than this dog, or whatever. And it basically becomes just a back and forth of how. How did you do this? And it's irrelevant. The question is, how do you give this skill to other people? Because we're not going to last here forever.

How do we pass this on so you can do the same with less effort even, or you can get the same results by understanding what you need to prioritize, what you need to develop, and what you need to be looking at from a perspective at the handler itself so you can become more efficient in training your dog. And then the same thing for the dog. And this is going to be the difference. And not the how-to. You use a ball. I use a marker. You use a voice marker. I use a clicker. You use a boom ball. I use a tug. You bite on jute. I buy on synthetic. All these discussions and dog training are about this. My sport is better. And actually, we just said my jump is higher. My jump is natural. My courage takes more for this sport. Yes, yeah. You understand all this stuff, right? I get the point. I get the point. It's great to talk to someone who really made some thoughts about it. And obviously, you bring along some, in German, we would say hand fest, which means strong arguments. And it makes sense. And to be honest, I've had my... And sometimes it's difficult on how you define the terms, like talent or grit or discipline. But I think you just brought it on. Yeah. Yeah. The terminology is very, very, very important. If we bring on anyone, like we join this conversation with anyone, and we would have a complete different perspective on what talent means and what competency means and what skill means. Yeah. On what combination of skills means. Like all this kind of stuff, non-competent, more or less competent, very talented, less talented. You see, now we're throwing words. Big impact, but meaningless unless we first benchmark what it truly means. If I would reverse this now, I would be your interviewer. I would say, can you define the most talented dog trainer, how that would look? What is your perception of this? Do you see now a sport? Do you see a guy doing 10 things? Do you see a circus handler, for example, because he can manage 10 crazy little dogs and 10 big dogs, and then he can make them all do these things at the same time. You see, what is your definition of the most talented dog handler? Do you want to become a talented dog handler or you want to become competent in a certain sport and win the trophy or become talented in the sport and win the trophy faster than the other guy? You see? So then what is it? Now we're getting into the depth of the conversation. First, let's benchmark what we talk about is the same. And then we can have a genuine discussion. Okay, I agree with this or I don't agree with this. What are you basing yourself on? What are the parameters?

What is your foundation to prove this, for example? Is this arbitrary? Is this proven? Is this what results did you get with this? So you see, we have to start working now with the stuff that we've done, that we find out about this. And I tell you that there's a lot to learn about people to develop talents. You know, like, let's leave dogs out for a second. And if you want to find the best possible way to develop a new skill, this is psychology. And then later comes the how. Later comes the motor skills. Motor fine motor skills. Gross motor skills. Your cognitive skills. Social skills. Aesthetic skills. All this stuff, right? Now it becomes holistic. But in the end, let's first define what we're looking after. What we want. And then we can set out a plan. This is how this works. Dog training is based on your current status of skills and competencies. Same for the dog. Now let's build. Everything else, you can watch 20 seminars. You get some tips here. You get some tips here. But you really don't understand why these guys keep winning all the trophies and you're not. I'm trying to do the same. I'm in this club. I try to look at him all the time. I've been in clubs where people were high-level champions. And some people, they looked at this guy 20 years and they could not do it. And they see him do it. Does that mean they have no hands? They're not working? Yes. But you see, it's almost like, well, of course. It doesn't mean because you're not talented, so the other guy is more talented. Yes. But what skills then is he using that the other guy doesn't have? Can we at least define these? Why he is winning and this guy is not? Because they're both showing up. They both have passion. They both have discipline. They both have focus. They both have the same genetic dog. He even uses the same dog as the same. He used the off-spin, this guy, whatever. And still, they stagnate very fast. This guy always wins, wins, wins, wins. Stacking wins. This is something we really have to get to the bottom of. Don't just take, oh, well, he's more gifted than you. That's not the answer. Why is the Olympian that I train with, why is he better than me? I train just as much as him. I look like him. Seriously, you collect my picture when I was 25. I look like him. My legs, everything looks like him. I'm just as tall as him. I'm explosive. I have everything. Why is he running always faster than I am? We're talking tens of a second, right? Why? Okay, now we have to look into slow motion. Now you have to look into depth, pleometrics, psychology. What's influencing this performance here? Now all of a sudden, it's a little bit more skills.

It's so many things here. Now it becomes high level, right? Because you want to understand why you are not hitting the mark. And the higher the level gets, well, the more sources you need, the more professionals you need to think, okay, what's happening here? Why is Usain Bolt winning everything? Why is he making everybody else look so bad? How is this possible? I think as you mentioned, it gets holistic because there are so many parts that play their parts in the whole game. Of course, it's talent, it's discipline, it's genetics, obviously. And do you know the book? For sure you know The Power of Habits. Who wrote it? Let me check. His family name is Hahnemann, I believe. Daniel Kahn, Kahneman. No, sorry. It's not, no. It's a different one. I'm reading and I'm listening to books, so sometimes I really mix it up. Yeah. One was The Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg. Right. And it's a great one to listen to. And he's talking about one of the Olympic swimmer. And he obviously, his coach, when he first met him, saw that this boy has the physique and the talent for swimming and to become the best of the world. And in the end, he was right. But what made the difference between all the other swimmers was creating habits that just made a big difference, not targeting the swimming itself, but it was targeting the whole preparation, the daily routine. And of course, or obviously, this place, or it has a high impact on the end performance. So it's the whole preparation that goes ahead of the performance of a runner or a swimmer. And in the contest, it might take a few minutes only. But yeah, for me, and I have very little knowledge about psychology. I didn't study it or whatever. So, but I think there's so many parts that we still don't understand. Yeah, and that it's because we don't understand them. We break them down as motor skills for dogs. Yeah. No, seriously, that's what happens. Where's my how-to? Where's my step-by-step? In all honesty, I use the term step-by-step sometimes in creating the content. Because if I talk about all this holistic stuff, like in my introduction, people will go, what is going on here? I can't comprehend what he says. So I say step-by-step, but it's what people like to hear is a step-by-step. But if you think about it, step-by-step with a dog, it's a very individual process. The dog is also very individual. So it actually can be step-by-step because everybody's level is different. Everybody's dog's reaction is different. So by definition, it has to be already very interactive because you need to ask me questions like, hey, but I tried this and that's not working. So we have to make assessments, right?

So there's got to be multiple dogs on this program. There's got to be multiple type of handlers on this program because else, how are we going to benchmark what's going to work and what's going to be a potential problem? So I think the way of teaching also changed a whole lot. The way we are able to process images and videos in 100 frames per second, you know what that is? Before something happened, it's like, hmm, I don't know what that was. But you can look at it 100 times, you never see it until you see 120 frames per second in super slow motion close-up. Ooh, now you see things. Now you consciously see, oh, here's where he's doing something that I did not see. Here's where the footwork is going to be such a detail in this ultimate, you know, shift of weight and all these things, right? All right, this is a new way of teaching. We didn't have 50 years ago, 20 years ago, not even 10 years ago, 100 frames per second in 4K. That's like, I can poke your nose on a 70-inch screen and look in slow motion as clear as it could possibly get. It's insane how clear that is. So that's a camera, for example, we used to shoot due to slow motions. But of course, you will want to have to see it because if I give you the video, you're just like, oh, I don't care about how this dog moves or how he moves. Well, then of course, it's not going to be useful. But if you want to analyze it, if you finally say, hey, he's given away the blueprint of what he does, so let me see then what is the detail here because it is in details a lot, then you can at least look. But if you can't see, you're not going to pick anything up, right? So if you talk about this podcast but you turn off the volume, you're not going to hear it. You're not going to get anything out of it. It's the same with everything. Either you want it and you're going to listen. You're going to process, assess. Your brain's going to start working and find ways or you don't. Maybe you're looking for the hack. Maybe you're looking for the shortcut. Maybe, hey, if I get this secret from him, I'll get my faster results. But I tell you right now, the definition, again, for the fifth time, it's a combination of unique skills that allows you to do things better and faster. So unless you have earned the skill, right, explanation mark, earned it through work, you're not going to get it. So that's why I go into a seminar and people give me docs and I have five minutes, ten minutes and they tell me, do this because it's not working for me. And they've trained this dog for one year. If you think about it, how crazy that is. So you train the dog for one year. You ask me in five minutes, I don't know this dog,

I don't know this place, I've never been here and you want me to get better results than you have in five minutes. How is this possible? Well, I'll tell you why. Because by using multiple skills simultaneously, you can do things better, faster than somebody else. And in this case, in five minutes, it is truly happening in five minutes. Yeah. But of course, if you do not have all those skills, you're not going to take that dog. You're going to find all the reasons to not take that leash. Oh yes, you're going to find your way through the event that you don't have to hold anybody's leash, let alone anybody's dog, let alone anybody's problem. You don't want that. Why? Because maybe you have not earned the skills and maybe you don't consciously know what components are going to have to be used here and maybe your analytics are too low to make this assessment in one second, two seconds, 50 seconds, one minute. You're being put on the spot, 50 people watching you, right? Do you want to look bad when 50 people watch you? You're just as bad as the guy giving you the dog? No, of course not. Oh, now we're seeing also differences in approach. And I think that's the point. So I don't think people get shocked, but at least they're that smart that they are aware of how much work it is to earn the skill set, to earn the experience to realize what it costs to create a certain movement and reaction from the learner, the dog. And there, I think, we see the separation of people who have the grit and the endurance to go and start doing it, who know that the journey is going to be long because you didn't, you weren't born with these skills, right? You're not supernatural. You just put a lot of work and effort into it. And I think, but Florian, let me get back to you on the grit. The grit factor has been studied by scientists to see how important is grit, you know, if, if it's performance-based and, you know, where it was a significant, very significant results based on grit was only in special forces, for example, in highly elite levels where your skills were actually not relevant anymore. You can have people go into a testing pool of special forces and they have physique, they have skill, they have power, they have strength, they have all the, all the traits, all the traits to become the perfect soldier. It's irrelevant if you don't have the grit then, or usually the grit is the factor if you're going to make it. That's not the case in dog training. If you're going to test grit, Florian is very important here, if you're going to test grit with dog trainers, aspiring dog trainers, you're going to have nobody left. There's not going to be any dog trainers. So how do we avoid this grit factor

playing the biggest part is by using people's strengths also. So you also have to use strengths continuously. Let's say you define somebody who wants to be a working dog trainer and you define a big weakness and you tell them all day, this is what you do, this is what you do, this is what you do, you have to keep training this. You will ask his grit factor to stand up. If he doesn't have this grit factor, he's going to quit. But the problem is you're in dog trainers, you can't consistently be looking for grit high grit factors because this is something not as trivial as we just named it. Grit factors. But is strength, can strength be used now interchangeably with talent or is there, do you define it differently again? I'm talking about... Strengths in dog trainers. Yes, well, and strength pure physically, let's say you have done the lift work, you have done the cardio work, you have the traits, like the traits to become a great soldier physically. But having the traits itself is not going to get you through special forces. We know they're going to test you to see the grit, to see if you don't want to be there anymore, are you staying? Are you choosing to stay if you can go? And we make it so hard on you. This is your grit factor. And this is something that not a lot of people have. That's why there's a reason there's only so many special forces, elite soldiers. And this is, so that's why I mean you have to be careful if this is what you want to get from dog trainers, you're going to not have any dog trainers left. So if you make it so hard, if you make the skill so unattainable that they have to use their grit to get through it, well, that basically you punish them for their weakness and you say, do it again, do it again, do it, show me again, all right, you quit, you go. This is not the way to go because if you want to be like strengthened people, you have to always use their strengths. But how do you define their strengths is by making an assessment, making an assessment from ground zero. How do you make this assessment? Well, that's where STSK9 comes in and helps you make this assessment. But it's only useful if you have your vision ready. If you just come in looking for the hack and I give you an assessment, you're still going to ask me the same question. Where's my hack? Where's my food? When do I stop using the food? When do I stop using the leash? When do I stop using this? When do I get my freestyle healing? When do I get my prance? You see, when do I win? Take it easy here. This is a journey. This is not a 10-day path you're going to walk. This is a 6-month path, 12-month path. Okay? So take it easy. Sit down. Assess. Look, people go into my MVPs, my highest class, 700 videos.

You can't just rush in, see 700 videos, and then say the next day, I'm ready. What do you mean you're ready? It's a process. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that's the thing, you know, because of the internet, the swipe culture, swipe, swipe, swipe to the left, swipe to the right. You know, this is what it is. People don't see it as a, oh, why? Dog training also consists of multiple skills. But I don't even want to listen to what skills, I just want the result with the dog. Well, good luck to you. You see? Wow. You, you did your homework here. I really enjoyed listening to these, to these minutes. And I hope you still have some more time left for some more questions. I can do this all day, every day. I believe so. Because this is my, I told you from the beginning, this is what I do. This is, this is what I live for. This is what I wake up for. This is my mission. So, nice. Very impressive. I really enjoy this. So, Nino, back to the catalog of questions I've prepared. Sure. And I'm curious about this one. This is about your person. What's, what was one of the biggest mistakes you did in dog training? That's a hard question, really. See, because there's so many mistakes that I, that I make, but like, you're talking minor mistakes, big mistakes. Maybe it was a small mistake, but with a major impact on, on how you treated things in future. Yeah. maybe the biggest mistake was I can, yeah. The biggest mistake was because I'm very technical, right? If you look at my videos, you'll see it's all has to be technical, but I think a lot of competition is one. Also, with having great cardio, which I did not always prepare. So, it's not because you, you do your routine twice a week or twice a day. I mean, that you have great cardio, you know, stamina for the dog. So, I think this is something I underestimated. Now, here on the MVP, we also had great champion, Christian Fleischer. I don't know if you've heard of him. Very special guy. You should interview him. He's like, he's a one in a million. Well, yeah, Christian Fleischer. So, yeah, he also did a chapter on my MVP on how he became a world champion. And I was so impressed with it. And I told him when I talked to him and he talked about his routine and I knew right then, I said, not in a million years I would beat you. The way you train and what I do is no way. Even though I am technically better than Christian. I mean, and I can tell that why because I've seen it myself, like, you know, the coordination of the body, the movement, the way I can perfect movement into the dog, but it's not going to win me that title. but he was capitalizing on things that would get him to win that title. So, and it's, it's that, you know, that mistake that I would make in overcompensating with, you know, technique

and stuff like that and, you know, doing it in a certain way that he would have the competitive edge all the time because his dog would be way more prepared to do a routine in 30 minutes in blistering heat and still, you know, do everything perfect. So, you know, it has to do with a combination of things and I think that's a mistake that when I was competing I overlooked, I didn't think of this, how much of an impact this would have. That's a great point, I think. And it doesn't depend on what you're doing but as soon as it gets to the possibility of having to do it a longer time for a service dog or every dog that you can't definitely know is the task going to be 10 minutes or three hours. It's something to prepare for. Yeah, absolutely. Good one. Good one. We haven't had this so far. Yeah, we overlook it a lot. So, I think the overlooking is a big mistake because if you overlook it means you missed opportunities because we're going to make mistakes anyways. it's inevitable but missing an opportunity is like, oh damn, that's something I don't like. Yeah. I've just been to Switzerland for a workshop for a search and rescue organization and their mission readiness test lasts for three to four hours and these are multiple searches after each other in alpine surroundings so you're they're not defining hectares like we know from area searches or wilderness searches from IRO or something you have six hectare or 45,000 square meters to search and they count in meters in height so this is not an additional part and they have to prepare the dogs for for being able to endure these physical tasks and then I went to Germany to a part to a more flat part and there was a difference in not in all dogs of course but the dog's physique from the mountain organization to the flat land and I don't want to rate but there was obviously a difference and it's an important fact to to record yeah yeah especially if you go and look at high performance you really have to do your homework on what's going to be competitive edge if you if you're determined to win if you're like hey if I'm good I'm probably going to get maybe a shot or I'm going to maybe you know if you say I want this it seemed like hey how do you become the best youtuber in the world have you ever thought about this how do you get the most views how do you do it see again how to well I guess being the best youtuber or highest paid youtuber is not your concern because else you would go okay I know you see here's my I have ideas but that's the thing you really want it what do you think it will take and that's that's where you will already tell me how serious you are so because we all want something we all want something but the question is what are we willing to sacrifice everybody wants muscles of course I don't know anybody that says no I want fat belly you know of course

if I can have a choice I'll take the muscles but of course the effort for muscles or the effort for a fat belly is very different right one is pleasure and one other one is sacrifice yes when everybody's enjoying something you know tasty you're eating you know very plain stuff whatever so yeah it's a sacrifice that people don't want to do you sacrifice sleep also if you train dogs all day I mean all day every day you sacrifice rest because this dog has to come out this is like 365 he can't take vacation he cannot call you up and say it's good man you can just you can sleep in today we're good here in the no he's like I want out I want to do something I have to like this dog is a machine like he's programmed to hunt he's not gonna he's not just gonna lay there I don't know what types of dogs some people have but here they are awake and they want to move so you better move so we move on to the next one Nino what was the worst advice you've ever received the worst advice well the worst advice is the one you took and you executed that's usually where they didn't really get me all the way so the worst advice in dog training itself would be resorting to brutality that's to me is the worst advice brutality if the brutality is the answer I will accept my loss because you know I made me think of a certain scene and then I think today I would say all right I guess I'm not gonna I'm not gonna just take this and be happy with doing this and then maybe getting that result by resorting to this type of stuff I don't like I don't like violence and dogs brutality that kind of stuff so it's nothing to do with tools because tools is very sophisticated in my opinion it's it's very it needs a lot of skill but when it becomes like truly brutality yeah and this advice is being given a lot like do this right slap him kick well I wouldn't say kick maybe but like be rough or take the stick or do that or pop the collar this way it's like why is somebody giving this advice why because you always have to ask yourself as a student do I want to become this person do I want his result and if the answer is no then don't take his advice so it's a very easy rule you want to be him right then do what he does you don't want to be him take his advice this will already help in everything in life so if you could what advice would you give to the 20 year old Nino I wouldn't because that's the same thing because advice can be left or taken what I would do is find yourself a role model a coach who will impact your life and not just give you advice will have an impact by doing the things he does and by inspiring you the way he is executing these things this will be a way better thing to have is getting that role model in front of you instead of getting advice everybody gets advice every day good advice everybody leaves it on YouTube it's full of good advice there's people billionaires telling you this is how you make money this is how you become millionaire

well if you got advice why didn't you take it you see it's just advice yeah sure it's true Instagram is full of it but if you're looking for coaching yeah if you're looking for impact in your life that's going to significantly change everything about my life we're not talking advice now we're talking different level be level this is you to the core if I BM your coach and my ethics my core beliefs do not align with yours I can never be your coach never never you see the acceptance of somebody's ethics somebody's morals somebody's you know core beliefs this is the first step to being being eligible to coach so if you don't have that forget it so I can give all the advice hey Florian do this do this look what worked for me it's it's never gonna work never so and and this is why advice you know in school they start giving you advice right away so everybody goes his own path you don't take your teacher as your coach but your coach is just to teach you things right he teaches you math he teach you how to write he teach you okay got it move on next there's no no no impact whatsoever there's only a few teachers those you remember but they're becoming very few so that's again I learned a lot already today and I'm sure our listeners as well so you you know you've accomplished a lot you've had a service dog working dog with great records as you mentioned you've been sporty you've reached again your your physique you you said you build a great maybe even lifestyle for your students you've built great training programs that are understandable for others so others can do what you're doing I think that's one of the biggest traits for real let's I don't want to now to use the wrong terms but for a coach or for instructors and they're able to create training systems that others can apply and I don't know did you mention that you you're having a family what are you really proud of you reach so many things you've accomplished so many tasks well I'm proud to be happy what makes me also unhappy if you this is a maybe hard to understand so you know it's to accomplish a goal is one thing and then you can be happy but I'm still unhappy because I have so many other things that I did not achieve and this so I can be happy being unhappy this is what I'm actually happy about that to me I don't need anything anymore so if you say you have tomorrow 10,000 students or 1,000 or 500 or just maybe one the one is enough for me if I could spend my time if I do one-on-one here at my house I forget about everything everything else it's also good so because I say you can only judge if you need something if you have it let's say you have let's say money people sometimes say money doesn't make happy I'll ask you do you have money yes then how much do you have so you can judge generally judge if it doesn't make you happy okay I have 50,000 okay well maybe 100,000 maybe 1,000,000 maybe how much money would you need well you think this is

going to make me happy then make this money and then judge it's the same with the dog performance once you have it how happy did this make you and I can tell you for me I told you yesterday when I showed you a little clip we never talked before and even though we never talked I said look this is to me what I enjoy the most the clip that I sent yesterday is being in sync with a little puppy for me that to me this is the best possible feeling a puppy that wants to be in the game I don't tell him it's not like oh yes but you lower but the dog wants to do this he even when he is fed he's still coming forward he's still hey I want to do this because we can no longer have the dog be a predator we can't just put him in the woods and say hey bye bye you live your life you're good no he needs to be attached to his handler so the handler what best possible life can he give a dog where he chooses to say hey the work is the worth so the work instills the worth it's also one of the quotes that I love you have something now which has value because you money having success anything the work is the most important this is something that also goes to your core belief as integrity hey if I have nothing left let's say today every business is destroyed economy is dead everything everything everything I could still genuinely enjoy going outside with this dog with a piece of bread because then nobody will have money let's say we hold a piece of bread I can still lift a piece of weight and I can enjoy this because it gives me satisfaction so basically I need nothing really I still wear the same clothes as I wore 10 years ago it doesn't change anything having 1000 students or 100 students or 50 thousand students if we can help more people great but it's not going to change the mission so I'm happy with that I already have impact on people's life today my mission was I want to be a coach because I knew what it took for me to become a good trainer handler canine handler instructor so now I can learn from this and give this trade to other people and they've shown it that they can do even better than me I I don't know whom I got this quote from I think it was liver king also found him on Instagram and he said don't try to be like me you will fail try to be the best version of yourself that you can be and actually I don't I think that's that's a good one because before you said find an idol that you can follow and I think that's a good one but maybe we shouldn't try to copy that version try to be the best version that we can be like the comparison of your childhood friend or youth friend and yourself you did you look the same but still we are different individuals with different benefits and traits and luckily we're not clones but look if look into this depth of this be the best version of you well let's say there's a lot of limits of what your talent does to you your skill development so I think it's not always easy to find what skill is suitable for you which you learn fast and it's easier than to say be the best version of yourself whatever you do is great and it's only going to get better but for some people having a

strong relation to that model of what they want to see it can be helpful if things are not going their way and if they have to revert to themselves better version of me and let's say in the early days you look at yourself but there is nothing really to improve from now one that I can look into the mirror and be proud of so you need that external it's what we call in psychology the outside inside right so the outside is your inspiration is your whatever you are wanting to obtain and then you revert to the inside and you ask yourself how do I become him or her the new psychology or the better approach would be inside out so basically a little bit your own energy level and then you have your vision your ambitions and you understand what it will take from you to become that right but in order to do that we must first know how to assess ourselves and talents and this also takes maturity and time and maybe coaching because if you ask anybody and say what are your talents what are your traits what are your core beliefs what are your they haven't found their ways so for them outside inside is something they can relate better to than inside outside movement so this is a common mistake we make when we want to achieve things is we focus so much on what they have and then the first thing we ask them what do we do to get what he has and the problem is if you don't have those internal traits yet you never going to acquire and then if you do your work if you gain knowledge then you will be able to make right assessments and by making these right assessments now you can design your vision your ultimate goal within what you can possibly do because let's say if I would have kept telling myself you're going to be Olympian you're going to be Olympian you're going to be Olympian it's not going to work so I had to assess but before somebody could come in and say the first day you see this guy how fast he runs now let me see you just be focus on you man you're not going I think both ways depending on the situation the age experience ambition for sure and also on the receiver so as we had the not the issue but the topic with the understanding of terms it really depends on what the receiver does with the information and if it sounds limiting so if I hear or if I would say to myself I'm trying to be the best version of myself I wouldn't see the limits you know what I mean so I would describe myself for example as quite restless not unhappy but knowing that I could do better so this is something that keeps me driving and that drives me along but of course not everyone would have this attitude so yeah you're in the next stage you're in the next stage so for you it's very normal if you look at a 13 year old kid right troubled kid doesn't get good grades plays video games all day doesn't work I have nothing no ethics whatsoever you ask you tell this guy hey be the best version of you be the better version of me what version there is not no ! It

takes guidance yeah it takes guidance to a certain point no doubt Nino we've almost reached the end and I have something for my guests that you will answer a question or I hope you will answer but I'm sure you would that my last guest asked and the guest who is asking the question never knows who is the next one on the show so Boki this morning prepared a question and now I will read it to you I'm curious on the answer and after that I would be happy if you could ask the next question for my next random guest so this is Boki's question have you met him do you know him Boki Dummies what does he do exactly he he he's he's almost the opposite of you he's very silent on social media and but he was training like not not really good or bad he is he was working for the I have to read it Norwegian People's Aid training center he was training a lot of mind detection dogs detection stuff and yeah they shipped the dogs all around the world and now he collaborated with Tobias yeah yeah I think he was at the IACP he's from Norway and Tobias is from Sweden from Sweden and Boki is from Bosnia but but they're both detection right yeah mainly yeah okay all right so yeah I'm curious about the question so I took notes how many breeds did he in this case did you work through the years and would you and you somehow already answered the questions would you put them in different categories for how to say like a Malinois is not a Malinois do you have the ability to see or work a Malinois or a Labrador for a few minutes and realize what the talents would be for this dog have you gained such a gut feeling yeah it was my core business yeah so this is what I do all the time is when I travel I get this you know I have to make assessments and of course you have to judge your assessment because you know they're going to put you on the spot like because there's always a limit to talking the talk at some point they're going to have to make you walk the walk and seminars are a great way to go in there and you have to walk every single walk because these people bring multiple breeds crazy good bad worse nervous afraid bold aggressive it's you don't know it's like the biggest surprise ever you go to an event you always have this you know imagination of how things are going to be it's always different so it's kind of cool actually so but yeah how many breeds that I worked in if I would include all those people giving me those dogs countless I don't know maybe 50 30 I don't know something like that I've seen so many breeds that I some of them I can't even recall what they were so but the majority majority would be shepherds of course those are the ones I've worked with most if you were sent if you were sent to an island not knowing what expects you there loneliness or different tasks what dog would what breed would you take with you

I was just I already had an evil thought I was thinking about a very fat big dog so if I can't catch anything maybe I can eat it yeah and adversity I've been told you will be introduced to yourself in ways you have not imagined so look at the people that crashed the city and us you know so many years ago I am sure they did not expect to eat the guy that was sitting next to them on the plane yeah right those are some of those things so but good question so you will bring a sharpie I don't know maybe that's all skin I don't know that's cruel to say because like that would be definitely the last thing I probably die before I do it because I couldn't kill a chicken to be honest yeah so that's just a joke actually all right Nino so not knowing whom I would be interviewing next what's your question for the random guest oh my question would be if you're on the mic and somebody's asking you questions so somebody's interviewing you what message do you want to bring out what is your what is it the one thing that you want people to remember that you wanted to tell and I think in this case because I didn't I told you I want an unscripted talk with you I don't want your questions I don't want any of this I just want to talk to you and I think from this conversation you understand I stand for certain things I believe in certain things and I would ask the same thing is like what do you stand for what do you believe in what is the message you want to bring to the dog trainers out there that have invested their time in listening to you that would be my question great question and I'm already curious on the answer yeah yeah let me know who's next yes for sure for sure I will let you know so since I'm doing this podcast in English and German if it's in German answer I will translate it to you but I will let you know for sure if it's English I will just send you the link of the show awesome Nino we've we've reached the end anything else to add how can people reach out to you how can they what what would be the first step to enter your online training program what do you recommend what to start with well I would always say don't just step into something that you don't know so I would say just look us up it's always the same name YouTube Facebook or even the website stsk9 google it stsk9.com if you want to see the website but if you just want to follow us first and then see what we're about see what we do or see the previous videos YouTube stsk9 it's all going to be the same you'll see our students the way we we work with them the energy we have so and if you're attracted to this yeah you can always DM us because I like personal contact it's also one of those things I like people to reach out and ask questions before they just you know wow let me just do this I like matchmaking also especially like

if it's in a coaching role so you can ask us anything of course you know there's limits of what we can answer if tomorrow one million people would ask me a question it's that would be impossible to answer but yeah you know we try to answer as much as possible so I would say yeah just check it out see what you like if you're attracted to it yeah you can find us for coaching training and instructions no problem because we've we've been going through this a long time seeing how we can get the best possible results and it's it's working I have many many students still in the in the queue to be on the spotlight so they're getting better so if I look at myself and I'm looking back how much time I needed I'm thinking I couldn't do this in six months so great well that means it's working obviously there was something that one of my first trainers told me she wants us to become faster better than she is now and I thought that's inspiring and and very humble and she didn't try to hide her experience and her knowledges they just passed it on and I yeah thank you for sharing this with us thanks for spending almost two and a half hours with with a random guy from Austria sharing your thoughts your standpoints it was a blast and yeah getting to know to you a little little definitely was was a great thing to do so thank you thank you for having me thank you for you know giving this conversation a platform so yeah I'm always here if you need me if you want to talk again so for sure for sure if you if we find the time we have a lot of topics that we could oh yeah oh yeah for sure and yeah maybe maybe sooner or later we meet somewhere I would love to do so and I will put your links of your social media of your homepage etc in the show notes so guys listening if you like the show please let us know and send us a comment on the device that you're using to listen to our podcast to our show please hit the subscribe button for not missing any episode follow us Kuno Tech on social media as well as Estes K9 even though they already have certainly more followers than us more than a hundred thousand that's impressive man so all right Nino I hope you're having a good evening and welcome you too thank you for the invitation and I'll talk to you soon perhaps for sure all right then bye bye bye bye bye yeah yeah yeah Thank you.