에피소드 24: Aimee Sadler

And, um, she just felt like, of course, I've been following you for a long time. I knew of you. You just didn't know about me, but it was, um, thanks to Connie that she introduced us. And, uh, you've been so generous with helping us with some of these problem children that we have, but we're very grateful. Yeah. So, so would you say it was almost right about the time that you guys opened up the facility then? It was within the first year. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Because we had, didn't we have most of the, yeah, because remember you both came and we had most of the Ontario dogs. Yeah. So it was very early on. Yeah. That was the Ontario dogs. I remember now, um, we did some, we did a workshop and yeah, that's kind of how it started. And then, then we had a few of your, uh, people from the team, uh, came to and went through the school. Um, yeah. Uh, but that's what it was exactly. But that's what it was exactly. And then, and then you got me hooked with all the interesting cases that you have. Yeah. That it's like, uh, you can, you just can't leave it alone. And by the way, you know, also Jay Jack, remember he had come down to work with us and there was his favorite dog that we had from the Ontario crew, Jack. He called you about Jack originally. I don't think you, you may have met Jack at one point, but you two were kiboshing about him over the phone. And speaking of shelter dogs, I just recently saw your video about Tina and what a lovely thing to see a dog just doing absolutely nothing and being content. So thank you for working with her. What a beautiful thing. Tina, I don't know what I'm going to do with her. She, she is completely in love with me and I think it's mutual. So I don't know. We'll see. She's a... That's what happens. That's what happens when you work with these dogs that need so much help is that they, but that's actually an interesting point for, and you and I've spoken about it a couple of times when you've come down with regard to our program that we, we are working really hard to progress the dogs without relying upon our relationship, right? Because they're not going to be staying with us and we have to pass them off. And that is, that's really the biggest thing that I learned when I started training dogs in shelters. It's like, why is the stuff that I, you know, normally was doing as a professional trainer that was so working so well, why is it falling apart when I try to teach the same things in this context? So, but that was one of them figuring out that we're building relationship all the time,

but we're trying not to rely upon the relationship to be the reason the dog is progressing. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and the attachment, the attachment is on a different level with a, with a dog that has problems, right? Yeah. Because all of a sudden you're the only person, so to speak, that the dog accepts and, and now you're so special and now you understand the dog. And then there is that it's a difficult situation. It happens so often. Uh, and especially for, I'm sure for the trainers, not the new trainers that come to your place. I'm sure that there is a moments when it's very hard on them. Oh yeah, definitely. You know, when we, when the canine center opened, I was hoping that we'd be able to have a 50% positive outcome. I mean, we're still holding, we're down to 83%, but I just never anticipated that because these are the dogs that are all euthanasia candidates. And like you said, pretty much within the sheltering world, the worst of the worst. So yeah, the team gets really bonded with them. You know, they go into the dorm rooms with them, but it's interesting. One of the pieces of advice that you had given me with one of the cases you were helping us with was let the dog really bonds to one person. And, uh, Jay Jack gave us that advice too. And I've always thought about that. And the team begs for me to have project dogs. And I've held really firm. Not that I don't, you know, I follow most of your advice, but on that one, I just think the bond that then the, the emotional damage that might be done to the dog, if they're so bonded to one of us. And then it's no different than when we get so mad in sheltering when, when owners surrender their dogs. And I think that we're not understanding that if we bond with them like that, and then we turn them, you know, give them up and give them to someone else, the dog's experience is the same. You know, they're losing that primary bond. So, um, we're, we obviously are building strong relationships with these dogs and sometimes you can't help it. The dogs just really gravitate to some of the individual handlers. There's a real problem that I'm having as I get older is that dogs are definitely, they're quick to hyperbond with me and, um, and they want to be very protective of me is what I've, what I've learned lately, which has changed a little bit. And it's more as I've gotten older. And so it's, it's really trying to not set the dogs up for failure and setting up them up for success so that they were trying to teach them. This is our little catchphrase, essential skills for a life fulfilled.

And so we're just, we talk about wanting to be like the best camp counselors. You know, they get to come and have a great time with us, learn these new skills, but then they go home to their family and then they fall in love someplace else. Of course they fall in love with us and we fall in love with them too, but we're trying so hard to not create that bond that will, that could be traumatic for them again. They lose us. How is that now? Like, um, how, how busy are you guys there? Oh, we're always, we're always full. We have a long wait list. Um, I mean, it's never, it's always going to be full. There's always going to be a need. And I think in sheltering, what's, what's, and I'm not sure how much, you know, about the sheltering world on the whole, but right now we're, you know, post pandemic, I have to say that I've been proven wrong because I expected that there were going to be a bunch of returns of dogs that were people going back to work and dogs that would have separation anxiety and that, um, we're just not coping with that such a dramatic change in their lives that, that we have not seen that to be the case. And there hasn't been an influence of intake, but what has happened and the shelters across the country are in crisis. They're over full, they're overflowing and many shelters that had been passed euthanizing for space. Some of them are reverting back to they're overcrowded and they're having, they're needing to euthanize animals that they don't have a medical or behavioral reason. And they're just utilizing for space because they're, the outcomes are stagnant. No, nobody's coming to get dogs from the shelters right now. I think that the only thing that we're, I heard this and I don't know if this is true yet. I don't know if this has been really fleshed out, but that there's a possibility that during the pandemic, when everybody was learning how to order everything in their life online, that also included pets, right? Because what we know, I, the last time I heard, I'm not the best with retaining exact numbers, but the gist of it was we should be able to get all these dogs in need, even some of these problem children, right? Into homes, because I think there's something like 17 million homes a year will acquire a pet, 17 million. And we're euthanizing less than, I think we might even like less than 3 million pets out of our shelters a year. So why, why, why are we having the problem? But it's where people are acquiring the pets. So I think people started ordering, even not, you know, well, for, for people that are looking

for a purebred dog specifically, even though there's purebred dogs in the shelters, you know, you could speak to that point much better than I ever could, but I'm talking about people even buying just mutts. And I think they were doing it online and from backyard breeders or whatever, whatever it was, but, and people are breeding all kinds of mixy dogs. And so it's kind of, it's a conundrum. Can't quite figure it out. I haven't checked that on your website, but do you, do you have a, do you have all the dogs listed? No, because interestingly, Ivan, we're not a, um, an adoption center. We are a board and train facility. We don't own the dogs when they come. So it's a unique, the reason that I never set it up to be that we were actually placing our own dogs directly was because I knew that my save rate or my live release rate over time was going to get worse and worse and worse because the dogs would get more difficult and I couldn't be measured if I'm a nonprofit and I'm looking for funding. I can't be measured if they're going to compare me to other shelters that way. So we are, we, so the dogs are owned by the originating shelter while they're in our care and in training. When they're ready to be placed, they move on to a placement partner. Few dogs go back to the originating shelter, but as we're doing this, fewer and fewer of the originating shelters will be able to maintain the dogs in their normal adoption centers with the level of training that we've put on them. Uh, we don't think that the dog will thrive in their care. So most of them go onto our placement partners like, um, Jacksonville Humane Society is one of our strongest. Peggy Adams is another Florida shelter that is a placement partner for us. And so they then will take a dog that's finished in training and typically they'll trade, right? So they'll take two of our dogs to send one new problem dog, right? Um, and so we'll trade and, uh, and then they do the placements for us. So the originating shelter just transfers ownership to the placement partner shelter. You, you have a place in, in California also, right? Well, we are working, we are contracted right now. We've had received some grants to be embedded at the Los Angeles animal services. Los Angeles, right. So we're working with them and Cody, you've met Cody, my oldest son. He is, he's now, because we have a lot of activity in Los Angeles, he's now the director of Los Angeles programming. He wanted to also relocate. And so he's managing two other team members that are there. He bounces around because he's not designated.

His position is not only designated for LA animal services. So he's also been over to the Los Angeles, the County, the department of animal care and control, um, and their care. So hopefully we're going to be embedded in all of those shelters to really drive our model forward and to demonstrate. There's been other models that have been. I know I'm paying attention. I've been paying attention. Yeah. So I'm hoping if we, if we, that we are definitely embedding at Los Angeles animal services, that's been approved in their budget. So that'll move forward starting in January. So we'll end up with DPFL teams on the ground at all six of their care centers, but there's another seven care centers over at the County system. And so you're talking, I think it's 130,000 dogs a year that we'll be hopefully working with. And then obviously be able to demonstrate with stats. I'm a big, I am not an academic at all. Um, but I like to have at least measurement to the work that we do because, you know, I don't want things to just be my opinion. I'm a very opinionated person, but you know, we've got to be able to back up what we're doing, especially with all the, you know, crankiness that goes on about what we do. So, yes. So, so since we are on that topic, um, what, what is the, how, how is dogs play for life different than anything else out there? So the, the core enrichment programming separate from the canine center, um, you know, we have teams that are traveling around going into shelters and teaching them how to implement play groups as like a foundation for what we call is the every dog every day program. And that means that not every dog has to go to play groups every day, but we want to ensure that, you know, dogs in, in U S shelters are getting quality time out of their enclosures every day. And when you're talking about, like I just said, that those two systems at the South LA shelter, where our team is mainly housed, they've got, they're supposed to have about just under 300 dogs. They're up to 440 dogs at that one facility. So how do you get 440 dogs? And some of them can't, you know, they're being medically treated or they legally, you know, they're a court case dog. They can't come out, but think about all those other dogs that can, right? How do you attend to them? So if you're, if you're, you're talking about the, what's unique about us is that we can, we can serve high volumes of dogs because we focus on our play group model, which really allows the dogs to get out and play. We're not micromanaging them. We assume that dogs want to be social with each other.

And that's actually the, that's how we go into it. We're just, we're just here as hall monitors for you guys. Let's just let you get together. Now, when we show up at high volume shelters where the dogs haven't been enriched, obviously things are tense when we get started. And so the, it can be, you know, challenging to get going, but then once you get in the rhythm of getting the dogs out, letting them play, it is amazing how it smooths out and how much easier it becomes. And it's interesting that people say, well, we don't have the staff to do play groups. When you're understaffed, that is even more the reason that you should be doing play groups because it's the more, most efficient way for you to attend to those dogs and let them get their yayas out and to be enriched adequately. Right, right. Very true. Very true. Like, there is always, I mean, we'll talk about the latest canine symposium, but there's always presentations and always talking about shelter environment and always trying to think and brainstorm how to improve. almost always seems to be the conversation around enrichment, but enrichment, like, what can we put in their kennel, what toy or what, you know, but an actual interaction, dog to dog or human to dog interaction, very little has been always talked about in those presentation and symposiums and conferences. And I think that's one thing that really got my attention. You know, I mean, obviously, when I heard that you're taking all the dogs that nobody really, everybody has given up on, tried everything, being force free, being whatever. And before the dog gets euthanized, they contact Amy. Amy, what do you have room? And Amy takes the dog. And that's pretty much how I found out about you. I was like, well, I need to see this place and I need to see what you guys do. So, now, the other big difference between you and the majority of shelters is that you don't, you're not shy to use form of a verse if you're not shy to use electrical or if it's needed, if you feel that it's going to benefit. I mean, we always have cost and benefit. And ultimately, there is no ideology that prevents you from helping your dogs that come because pretty much the ideology already gave up on those dogs. You know, I have such tremendous respect for all the training that you do and a lot of people that you've had, the trainers that are on your show. But the sport that you all train for, I didn't have any personal interest in that, not even competitive obedience. But I started learning a long time ago from as many very accomplished trainers as I possibly

could learn from because I didn't want a dog that, I didn't want a dog to fall through the cracks in my care. So, I just wanted to try to become sophisticated in my understanding of training, even though I wasn't ever going to go out to train to that level. And that's where I was exposed to, you know, so many different styles and techniques of working with dogs and dealing with problems. I'll never forget, oh, it was one of Bart's seminars a long time ago. And I brought my, this was my heart dog right here, Cooley. And I brought him because I wanted to learn, again, whatever the latest and greatest was around remote collars because he was an amazing dog. But I didn't have that, I didn't have a recall under all circumstances. And I had done all the preparatory training, but I knew if he flushed a deer at the wrong time that I could get myself, the two of us into trouble and everything. So, I wanted to learn about remote collar and polishing and finishing some behaviors. And I wanted to learn, you know, some refined work. And so, anyway, all of that got started because, again, I wanted to be, to me, I want the dogs to have, I'm into like freedom and independence and everything. So, I'm not shy about whatever it's going to take to allow you more opportunity is what I'm always looking for. And so, we just never, well, I can share one really funny story with you. I went up to, I went up to see a Ted Turner seminar. This is when I had first started in sheltering, not Ted Turner, the TV Ted Turner, but the Marine Mammal Ted Turner. And I came away from his seminar and seeing just incredible work. There was a, he was working with a, I think a commissary dolphin and there was medical issues and they were having to all get in the pool and corral. And it's a very kind of stressy species of dolphin. Yeah. And they were having to corral him and they thought, well, the dolphin's going to have a heart attack. We're thus trying to actually treat him. And he asked the veterinarians to give him something like two weeks. And so, in two weeks time, he trained the dolphin to come to station, open his mouth and be intubated. You know, what's the word? Intubated, not with being coerced, but voluntarily. Voluntarily, correct. And taking the treatments and everything. And that was ultimately to save the dolphin's life. So, I watched something amazing like that. And I thought, I came back to my shelter. I was at the Southampton Animal Shelter at that time. And I felt so ashamed that I had moved too far away from my roots because I had originally,

I had been a marine mammal, I had been an apprentice for a marine mammal trainer in California. Oh, really? Yeah, when I was 19. So, I quit my office job and worked at Marie Callender's outside of Magic Mountain in California and apprenticed for the Dolphin and Sea Lion Show. You can't see it. This is Kaidina. I just had a podcast with one of those trainers, like just my last podcast. And we talked about volunteer, like, you know, drawing blood. And it was actually a sea lion that they pulled a tooth. Out. Yeah. You know, giving the shot, numbing the jaw, giving another shot and another shot, and finally pulling the tooth. Yeah. Just with that process. So, anyway, that's interesting. Yeah. So, when I went to that seminar and I saw him, I felt like ashamed that I'd almost become lazy, that I wasn't staying so pure to everything that I had learned about basically, you know, mental manipulation training, but not without the physicality behind it, right? And so, it took me about three days of being back in the shelter. And I thought, well, I know exactly why I've moved away from that. Because it does not pertain to work in this situation, in this context. And these animals and these adverse conditions. And, you know, my thing about, and I don't want to sound like I'm going to be like, me, me, me, me, me, me, against force-free. I love everything that force-free trainers do or that positive-only trainers do. We do all of that, too. We consider ourselves pretty masterful in all of that. Right. It's just, for it to work, this is what's so crazy to me. For it to work, you have to control the environment and access to resources. Period. You have to have control of that. And ultimately, we do that so that we can mentally manipulate another creature or living being to do things that we want them to do by controlling their environment and their access to resources. Why do we think that that's so humane? It's just a human construct. Right? So if you think about it, it's pretty twisted. Right? And then especially when we have all these conversations coming up around consent and all this kind of other stuff. And I'm like, wow, human beings have this miraculous ability to create a story in our heads that, boy, do we want to believe. But I do really. So three days back in the shelter after watching Ted Turner doing amazing training that I think, you know, I could, there's nothing wrong with that. It was amazing. But I thought that if I try to apply that to my, this shelter dog here right now today, I am going to take, it's going to take me so much more time.

And this environment is deteriorating this dog faster than I can help this dog. And not only this dog, I've got 30 others that I have to help. So it was trying to put it together in my, like, can I be logical? What can I do that is going to be least, least, least invasive, minimally aversive? Right. That was always intuitively what I would do. What can we do in the true spirit of what that is supposed to be? I just always felt like, no, I've got everything in the kitchen sink. I'm going to use anything possible, any tool, any technique to support this animal to rewardable behavior so that they do not have to live here and they get to go home with someone. Exactly. That's the bottom line. That is the bottom line. And to add to what you're saying, any of those marine animal centers, okay, they may convince the sea lion to leave his flipper to take blood. But in the very next minute, maybe they have to move him from one place to another. And most likely they use some aversive to convince him and cox him to get there because he doesn't want to all of a sudden. But nobody talks about that part. Right. No, and I think that, well, and just the, it's a caged animal. We've, you know, we're working with animals and we've taken away all their freedom. Just as you said, you control the environment and everything that the animal wants. So you can manipulate it in a very, yeah, intelligent way. But, but that's not a, when that's not possible, what is the solution? And if there is a better solution, then teach us, right? Show us. With the, like, I don't know, like the whole aversive and negative reinforcement and, you know, like if, if we don't have negative reinforcement in life, all life will cease to exist, basically. I mean, we will all be gone, you know? I mean, I should repeat it, like we, without negative reinforcement, all life cease to exist, period. Same thing. If you, if you put a leash on a dog, soon or later, somewhere, you're using it as an aversive. Well, you already blew it, right? You know, it's so funny to me. Like, not you already blew it, but you can't attach a leash to a dog and influence their behavior in any way, shape or form and consider yourself a force-free trainer. Right. If it influences their behavior. Now, if it doesn't, you know, then they never feel the end of the leash or whatever. It just, and it just seems so silly. It seems so silly to me that we're even concerned about that. And, you know, when I'm doing presentations now, I think I do one on Thursday, Thursday, but it's called For Dog's Sake, Will You Please Stop Doing That?

And it's basically all the handling things that people do so terribly wrong that just sets the dogs up for failure. And I do talk about that whole concept of consent and that they didn't consent to the leash and the collar in the first place. They don't consent to the medical treatment we put them through. They don't consent to being in the shelter in the first place. And we do all of that to them because we have the sense that it's in their best interest ultimately, right? Right. We make decisions. We decide when we're feeding our dogs, right? Most of us. And consent is such an abstract. Even talking about it, it's kind of weird because I can trick a dog to consent to pretty much anything a dog can do that does not want to do it. But they will eagerly consent because of manipulation. So why are we... I don't know why we're going that path. And it's different. Like the conversation I'm having with you is very different than the conversation I will have with some sport trainers because a dog's life is on the line here. And if a force-free advocate say we would rather euthanize the dog than help the dog or at least make an attempt to help the dog, this is a... To me, that's very unethical. That's way more unethical than anything... Any attempt to try to save dog's life. It's been shared with me that there are some academics that have said that specifically to that they would euthanize a dog before they would let dogs playing for life get their hands on them. In the context of letting them be in play groups, training them, whatever it might be. And I find that... Listen, I have absolutely no problem at all. Like, you know, the joke about us, the only thing two trainers are going to agree upon is what the third one's doing wrong, right? Like, so I always... It's always fine to me that people will... Oh, and I thought I've got to say it on this. Remember when you first came and you said to us, your obedience is shit. Oh, my God. And you said that's not like, I know, I know, but you have to, from your perspective, I know it is, and we're going to work hard to get better. And then now you always tell me to stop saying that, but it actually was... I thought it was so funny. It's one of my favorite things to tell people that Ivan says our obedience is shit. Because it is in comparison to what you do, for sure. But the whole point is... Well, it's a very different... Come on. This is a joke, everybody. Like, what they do, it's really, really special. Well, thank you. It is true compared to what the obedience that all of you master competition trainers do. Sure, sure.

But the whole point of it is that I think that this is what really, for us, most of the time, we don't... Our main job is not to teach dogs to do things. Our priority is to get them to stop doing things that is really valuable. Yeah. Really valuable. Yeah. I mean, that really is what our program is about. Other than playgroups and everything and enrichment and the training and the shelter, that's really about how can we keep you mentally and physically satiated. Because here's the thing, you know, if we just physically satiate the dogs and let them, you know, run and get their yayas out, but there isn't that mental stimulation, that component that goes with it, we're just conditioning them to need more and more. They're just going to need more and more if we're just doing the physical conditioning, right? We have to provide some kind of mental stimulation when they're outside of the kennel to combat all the frustration and repetitiveness and, you know, barking dogs in the kennel. It's like us having to live in a house with a fire alarm going off all the time, right? So we have to do something for them. So the playgroups and everything and allowing them to interact is basically have that intensive social interaction so that you have to conflict resolution skills. You've got to put all that kind of stuff together. You've got things to think about. Sometimes the dogs will be stressed in the initial process because, but it's the kind of stress that will lead to adaptation that is going to strengthen them and create resiliency, which is what our job is. And then at the canine center, when we're talking about dogs that are coming to us because they've got stranger danger or whatever, it's, we teach them things to do so that we can redirect them to rewardable behaviors, of course. But ultimately our job is to make them stop doing whatever it is that landed them with us in the first place. And that's really what it comes down to. So that's why I just, it's just mind boggling to me that, and how do you, and we have to stop them from doing it, not just with us. And, you know, most of the time we never even meet the adopter. Dog leaves us, goes into another facility to be handled by complete strangers that don't handle like we do. And then we'll be adopted. And they have to be successful through all of that. Yeah, exactly. This is a, it is a very difficult situation. And there is always the conversation around studies, right? And there is not one, like I've been thinking lately about this. There is no one study. Like we, we should focus on, on a study where we measure quality of life after that moment

of discomfort. Like what happened? Where is that dog today? You know, like none, none of the research focuses on that part. Everybody's like, oh, you, you tap the dog with the shock collar and he yelled. Therefore, da, da, da, da, da, da. Like, okay. How about, really, how about we measure quality of life after the moment of that discomfort? What happened next? Why do we not pay attention? But somehow, hypothetically, the whole, you know, the force, it's always that the love to talk about the worst case scenario, as it has happened over and over and over again. And making assumption that the future is going to be like predicting the worst hurricane that's coming to Florida that will never come. That's how, that's what we are based on. We, nobody on their side tries to acknowledge the fact. And I'm going to talk to you about Tina a little bit later because she's a very good example of that. But you have plenty of dogs. Like I, again, I mean, not plenty. Pretty much any dog that you have, it's, it's a difficult dog that clearly failed positive reinforcement approach. And sometimes in fairness, Ivan, sometimes dogs are sent to us because the training that was installed was not force-free or positive only. It was the opposite. We have plenty of dogs. Just the wrong training. We have plenty of dogs that have come in. And one of the core things that we have to resolve for them first is that a leash has been weaponized for them. And they have, not only are they wary of being handled, but they, a lot of them would turn and go after you if you tried to pick up a leash. Right. Right. What does that indicate to you? Right. Right. So, I mean, so we have. And that's the other thing. That's another good case of how the force-free ideology would think. It's like, well, they will give those examples. But these are the examples that, again, the worst case scenario and non-contingent. And all the dogs typically need is for some clarity, for things to start to make sense so they can take a breather and fit in the environment. Right? Well, I just, you know, I love Dr. Protopopova. I think she's done some really nice work. And she, when, at the Canine Science Symposium that I attended a couple weeks ago, she brought something up in her talk. I don't know if this was something that you were going to talk about because I know you attended it remotely. Right? But the, when she said... They did not have it. I mean, I, you know I attend everything that, anything that's of interest. So, I listened to all the presentations. But the, like her presentation, there was a few interesting presentations. She was one of them.

And they were in the afternoon. And the webinar did not include those. Which was, like, very weird. So, yeah, that was, at least as a title, it was something of interest. And then, of course, you messaged me. And you were like, well, are you paying attention? I'm like, no. I'm out of it. Well, I have to say, I really applaud her because, and I thanked her at the end, because she brought up to all of us, do you, what would you, she asked all of us in the audience, would you prefer safety or independence? And she wanted us to all just think about that. And I thought it was brilliant, because basically what she was getting to is that we all have our, you know, we're looking at the world through our lens, right? So, I am a person that would, if I had, if I choose, I want independence, right? That's what's so primarily important to me. So, of course, I've built programming that comes from that core foundational need that I have as a human being. And I imagine that for people that need safety, that that is what they are, they need to thrive more than anything. If that's the priority for them, I understand why people will then develop programming and go in a direction that is going to ensure that. And so, I, it made so much sense to me because I am not, what I don't want to be, I don't want to be at war with a force-free community. Right. And I would be so, we are so open and welcoming and welcome, just that, open and welcoming. But what's so hard is that that's just not returned. That respect or that, and then when I think about that, is that the people that feel, that are really disturbed by our programming because we're not force-free, I realize that they truly, truly believe that what we're doing is not in the best interest of animals and that means so much to them. So, I feel like, all right, I get why you want to question what we're doing and everything. We all want the same thing. But I truly, in my heart of heart of hearts, believe when one of the presentations was talking about really, really trying to prioritize the value of a human interaction, right? And I might be oversensitive about it. It was, I don't know if her intention was to say less playgroups and more people time. I don't know if it was that exactly. But what I would say, yes, of course, people time is so, so, so important. But if there's going to be like an academic push in sheltering to give the dogs more one-on-one time with people, that's more important. Sure. I wouldn't even argue that point, but tell me who's going to get there to give it to them, right?

So, and if you don't have enough people to provide them with that adequate out of kennel one-on-one human time, then you have to give them something else. And I would 100% stand down and say, if you have enough people to get these dogs out and have one-on-one time, then you don't need to do playgroups here. I still think, actually, to be honest with you, I still think letting dogs be dogs and playing together is something that is so important to so many of them. I still think you're denying them an opportunity, right? But I would be willing to let it go. I wouldn't fight for playgroups if they were being attended to. And there's been shelters that I'm like, no, you don't. There's another playgroup program. We're not the only one, but we have a polar opposite approach. And there's been times where we've had shelters that have called us for a training. And when we've heard their kind of statistics and where they are, that they're much more risk-averse, whatever, we'll refer them to that other group. We just know that the other training would never be able to assist the shelters that we assist because we can help volumes of dogs because of the way our program is designed. Yeah. And it's not, it's really not that complicated to be able to establish certain rules in the group of dogs. Just like you establish certain rules in a group of people. We're really only there. We talk about establishing steering and brakes. A very good friend. I've asked you before if you know Waleed, and I think you knew him from a long time ago. He is one of the first people that I was learning from, Waleed Milouf. And he talks about this analogy of training dogs is like driving a car that you need steering brakes and gas. And it's the combination. It all changes depending upon where you want to go, the kind of car, blah, blah, blah. So I've always, I've always loved that analogy and I give him credit for it all the time. I'm always to give credit where credit is due person. So he, so when we talk about establishing steering and brakes in the play groups, that's because the only thing that we feel that our rule, we are not there to possibly, the activity, letting the dogs be dogs and us getting out of their way is the positive reinforcement. That is the enrichment. Our job is only just to be the hall monitor and to say, you need to slow down with that. You need to go to something else or you need to stop that. And if the dogs can tell each other that, that's ideal. Right. You know, if we don't have to interact or engage with the dogs and play group and they just manage all of it themselves.

I mean, those are the best play groups. Yeah, the best. Yeah, I always keep saying that dogs, dogs interact through use of aversives. They use negative reinforcement and punishment with each other all day long and they love it and they, and they understand how to do it because that's their language. They cannot, they cannot say, well, if you, if you bite me too hard, I'm not going to play law or I'm not going to give you whatever. Like this is a human concepts. This is abstract for a dog. Yeah. They always like, I'm going to try to bite you. And the other one is, I'm going to try to not let you. And here the game begins. And, and, and as a supervisor, you're responsible to set some limits and consequences just as, you know, there is a hockey game and they get into their little fight and somebody goes on the bench for two minutes. That's a, that's just normal. But it's not normal in, in, in the narrative of the force free, that's not normal. And they're going out of their way, including the cherry picking of all scientific research. Like they literally will pick two sentences and not say the third one because it is to them controversial or it gives ammunition. It gives a reason why a verse, it would make sense. Well, that doesn't sound very scientific, but I'm no academic. No, it doesn't. And that's a, I mean, I, you know, like when I listened to going back to that canine symposium that just happened, I mean, it was what, like a few weeks ago, right? And, and I was so ready to listen to Erica Fairbacher. Let's talk about prone and shock callers, a review of what we know something right. And, and throughout the whole presentation, I, I wish I actually emailed her and I have not received response yet and hopefully, maybe she hasn't checked emails. But that's the disconnect we have with them. Like we, I, I believe that we want to have a discussion and talk. And I don't think they want that. I think they feel very comfortable of going to a symposium, making a presentation, giving their sight and never have the, anybody challenged that. Well, I have to tell you when I, when I was there and I had listened to, um, I think you shared a link with me and I'd listened to her do an interview prior to, but you know, and it's, it's, she is very, she's very passionate and she loves animals and she's doing great work when she's helping dogs and shelters. And I am grateful and thankful that she's to anybody that's out there doing anybody that's out there that participating in my world, trying to make shelter dogs lives better. I'm all for it.

I think what was, I, what I was disappointed about, offended about, frankly, is that there were claims that any of us that are, that are balanced or whatever, that we don't want the exposure. And so we won't allow for research and that, and I kept my composure, but the only thing that bothers me about that is, is that's so very not true. I have invited anybody to come study us because one of the excuses for not having more relevant and new research is that the, the, it won't make it past an ethics committee. But here's the thing. I have a training facility with 18 kennels on one side, 18 kennels on the other side. I'd be happy to say, we have this many people and we will work the dogs on this side. You can have the same number of people and work the dogs on this side. You've got one month go or just come watch what we're doing and come code the shit out of everything that we're doing. Just you, I've invited so much opportunities for research, but nobody will come. We're doing it anyway. It's not like you're asking us to do something to dogs. This is what we're doing with the dogs. I, I, I've thought about this and you know, I, I did a little research earlier in the year and I think we're going to do another one project. And it's going very, it's very interesting because it's truly a collaboration and it's not a, it's not about competition. I, I don't like that format that you just mentioned. Like, okay, you come, you take this side of the kennel and we do this side and we see who's more successful. I don't think we need to do that. I think we need to find what works sometimes when something else doesn't work. And then we need to decide, is it ethical? Is it worth it to dive deeper into understanding and maybe redefine it and making it even better? Or should we not? And, and again, back to Erica's presentation, which was the main reason I emailed her is because she, I don't know, probably somewhere towards the end, she mentioned that she doesn't have access to trainers like me or you and that she would be very interested to see and, and, and, and take history from the beginning to the training process and after. And that's kind of what I wanted to offer because, um, I think there is some, something to, to be done there. Hopefully, um, hopefully it happens. Um, because again, like if, uh, like I, I, I give you the Tina story, she was a, she, she was a stray, they caught her, a stray dog, maybe 10 months old, running crazy in Miami, which I have no idea. She must have just got loose because she would have been killed by a car in the next few minutes. But luckily somebody got her.

They put her already on medication there. They were going to euthanize her. And I saw, I saw a video. I'm like, I, I will take the dog. And I was very, very sincerely wanting to see what an animal veterinary behaviorist will do. What would the approach be? I, I want to learn it. And I contacted a few of the, like, in the board of their, you know, the, the people that write the mission statements and all the protocols. And they refused because they look at my website and because I use aversives and I'm a balanced trainer. So we have a, I, I don't know how they put it, but some conflict of interest and it would not, it would basically not work because of that. So I tried to assure them. I'm like, listen, I, the reason I'm contacting you, I know who I am. And I was not going to hide who I am. I actually told you up front. But I'm telling you that I can do step by step anything you want me to do. I want to help the dog. And you believe that you can. So they refused. But they gave me another person to contact locally. So we got in touch. We, you know, I mean, we went to evaluation. It was, they, they basically said that was a top five in a whole career of the veterinarian behaviorist. Top five of any cases. And she's been in this business since the 80s. So extremely severe case. I mean, you've seen the videos, licking floors and chasing and biting things for hours without, like, you have to stop her. I mean, like, like an obsessive compulsive disorder in, in the, the worst possible way, you know. And, and there is something to, like people, when, some people understand it, but some people don't know what really means, how, how crazy this is. And it's like a, the, the, the behavior patterns. They take over the environment, as opposed to the environment driving the, the thoughts and the behavior patterns. It's like the, the, the opposite. So the, the OCD includes the, the behaviors, the obsessions, and the compulsion is basically the actions that the dog does, right? So, and, and they, they're paired and they work together. So the compulsion relieves, like, kind of satisfies the obsession. We, it's very sick, sad situation. So, like, you know, you cannot do that. And so, of course, we, we put her on SSRI. I mean, on Prozac. Mm-hmm. So, immediately, we put her on a higher dose because she is a tough case. But it was very difficult for her. And these, these medicines, they have a, insanely problematic side effects. And to some people and some dogs, they're very amplified. Mm-hmm. And so she was one of them. Granted, she was on a higher dose.

So, but then I know that anybody that has dealt or experienced anything with psychotropic meds is, you know, there is a process of trying to find the right dosage. Right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and I, I was not able from, you know, my kennel to the training building, how, how, how much of a distance that you think is. I am so bad in feet, but what, like 100 feet, 200 feet? It's not that long. Okay, sure. Right? But, so if I was to bring her out from the kennel to the building, she would lose her mind. Mm-hmm. And by the time she's in the building, she is just, like, wasted. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, then I asked them, well, so, I cannot use a verse. If I cannot put her on prone collar, I cannot put her on, you know, I have to somehow bring her in. One, the suggestion was, well, we offer a toy. She's like, she does not want a toy. She was a dog that would never think about, that was just not in the repertoire. Yeah. So, that was not a solution. Then, the other one was, well, let's teach her Karen overalls, take a deep breath relaxation protocols. I'm like, okay, you have to explain to me what are we doing. And I watched a little video of a dog supposedly taking deep breaths. And I had to ask, well, I don't understand what are we looking for and what am I supposed to, how do I teach her and how do I reward her? So, I dived a little deeper into Karen overalls protocols. I mean, I was 100% invested to do the prescription they gave me. 100%. And, yeah, there was nothing of use. It's basically, what I was supposed to do is, I show her food or I capture a deep breath behavior and I give a treat. She doesn't want treats, though, right? No. No. And even if she takes a treat, she takes a treat with anger. Like, she's just because it's in, like, she cannot avoid it anymore and she has to take it. And it's like, I'm taking this and just fuck you. You know, like, that was the attitude. That's not positive reinforcement, then. Right. So, I, you know, like, I think it was about three weeks. And it was not going well. Right. Like, I was at the point where I cannot watch her anymore. Of what she's doing. So, you were in the exact same position, right? That when those trainers are looking, saying, we refuse, we won't even engage with you because we won't even be able to stomach watching you even attempting with the dog, right? Right. I don't think, I don't think, I think it's so hard for people to understand that for people like you or people like me, watching the dogs not improve, when you know that it is relatively simple to help them improve and to change their state of mind that is in such a bad place.

It's as painful for me to watch dogs linger like that any longer than they need to. Fearful dogs, that's another one for me is when super, super fearful dogs and nobody wants to put any pressure on them whatsoever. To me, it's so cruel to leave them like that. Right. The longer you leave them like that, like who wants to live in a state of fear all the time? So, I apologize for interrupting you, but it just, it was very poignant to me that you were saying there, it's painful to watch something that's not working. And then we, you know, like, I mean now, in the last few years, we, like science actually, I mean there is new research, there is book, I think, The Rise and Fall of Psychopharmatology. Like I've read that book a few times, Edward Shorter. I will post it for anybody that is interested. And, and, and, and like so, so interesting. And basically, you, like I, I am in the business of training dogs. I, I interact with dogs that come to me that have been prescribed psychotropic medications. And, and, and, in, in most cases, I think they're so easily prescribed. So easily prescribed. It's going nuts in the shelters, Ivan. It's going nuts in the shelters. And when we're talking about evidence-based, the, the words that they love to do, I think psychotropic medication is like absolutely without any evidence-based reasons or any approved indications. Like there is, there is nothing, nothing to say. And forget about dogs, because with dogs, there is even no studies. There is no, we don't know what, what the outcomes are without, besides the point of, well, the animal veterinary behavior says that the dog has improved now. But, studies with humans, and those studies were kind of put aside for so long. But, studies comparing antidepressants to placebo, they found that it's very, extremely difficult to distinguish between the two. It's not one study. There is like, I, I can pause those. And, and we're talking with humans because you can actually, they really did some, some research. So, and, and one of them was like, what did they do like over a period of eight weeks or so? The ones were, this one or placebo. And they basically found like a very, very small difference, one favoring the medication. But, but absolutely not clinically significant to the point to where every dog that we see that is just a little out of control, a little too happy, a little too shy, a little too aggressive. Like, pretty much every dog that they get a consultation walks away with a prescription. And dogs are being medicated again. I'm sorry to get on my rant.

Dogs are being medicated in shelters before, probably because they don't get out of their kennels every day. Right. So to me, that just is crazy because you, they should get out of their kennels every day before you start doing something like that. We, all the dogs that come to us that are on medications, we wean them off always at first because we feel like we need the baseline without the medication. We do it, we do it properly. And we have a vet that supervises us, right? With that, we wean them off. And a couple of dogs, we've decided, okay, we can see that this dog is, despite the fact that we have adequately satiated them, they're having trouble processing. And so when we then see for ourselves, okay, this dog is having trouble processing, you know, despite everything, then we might go back to the medications, find the right dosage while we're doing the behavior modification plan. But we've never sent a dog out on medication. So the whole point is, but it's, yeah, I'm definitely disturbed that with how much medication is being used for dogs and shelters. Definitely. Yes, because of that whole, yeah, no, I mean, we shared the same frustration. And that whole notion of chemical imbalance in the brain. I mean, that was solved for so long from, you know, big pharma. And there is really no evidence right now to support that theory. And most of the researchers, most of the researchers at this point no longer believe this to be true. Now, even if it is, let's say, let's say they work. If you are, if your heart is in the right place, wouldn't you be at least curious to see how, what did I do to have Tina being able to play? Not one time since her first month show any OCD behavior in licking floors, walls, attacking fans, shadows, flies, killing cars, and like having a miserable life. To where she comes out, she plays, she does obedience, she acts like any dog. Like, she acts, she behaves better than some of my malign ones. I can put her in the house, I can work on my computer, I have videos. Like, like, like an amazing, amazing change that it's actually documented. Like, I have filmed every single session since the day she came. To the moment to where I felt that we have crossed the difficult point. That would be interesting, at least to be presented somewhere to those animal veterinary behaviors. Because if we can do behavior modification, and yes, use some form of aversive, but you don't even know, like, you should be at least interested in how much aversive it was used. Because aversive, as we said, dogs play, they use aversives, like there is levels.

And there is ethical and non-ethical, there is contingent and non-contingent. There is so much to be talked about there. It doesn't fit the narrative. That's what it comes down to. It does not fit the narrative. So what is the, I'm curious, I'd like to know, what was the, what, what did you do for Tina? What changed it for her? So the, the, the, one of the very first things was that, um, and it took me a very long time to, to redirect the obsessive compulsion. To, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to try to convince her to play. And you know, play is my specialty. Like, this is what the whole training without conflict is about. But I knew that even if I cannot convince her to, to, to play as a normal dog, I knew that at least I should be able to redirect the OCD from licking the walls and killing cars. To have that same frustration, the same compulsion, but towards something that I choose. So that was, that was the first step. Um, as I said, I have a, I mean, it's step by step and I'm not sure what we want to do with this. Like, I'll, I was in the beginning posting them every single session to, to my certified trainers because, you know, um, but then it became very tasking on me because, I mean, I was spending, let's say, two hours every day on Tina. And, and, and then imagine uploading a two hour video and saving that and then putting it up for a discussion. And, and I mean, I mean, it became really tasking and there is a lot of other projects. So, um, I don't know. We, we have everything. And one day we probably gonna have a, a, a, a big presentation or make a documentary or something. I don't know. It has to be shown. I, I know that, um, I know that there's people that have zero interest in it, but I know that the majority of the dog training world would love to see it. And, and. She, she definitely, for the, the level of OCD that she had to me also ranked high. I mean, I haven't had, we haven't had a dog that has had specific OCD like that at that level. Um, we had, did have one recently and, um, he did not make it. We tried and tried and tried and tried. Um, and it was a kind of a version of that. And we, same thing, we're trying to get him to redirect. And it wasn't, it wasn't like he was OCD, like with her with licking the floor and, and almost inappropriate behaviors with it. You know, it was almost just looked like as soon as he was out, he was like a normal dog in the, in the, in our, you know, he lived in the office for a while and he was, he was fine when he was inside. But as soon as he went outside, so it was almost like, was it predatory drive?

Was it, but we couldn't quite put a, our finger on it, but it was, um, we had him for a long time and sad, really bummed that we weren't able to, we, we weren't able to turn things around with him. And we were of course trying to go to play, but we could not get him to stay focused on any kind of toy, no matter what we, what we tried. Um, you may have been able to do it, but we were not able to do it. And sometimes it's also even, I mean, even, even like the, the, the whole kennel environment and the kennel schedule. Kind of doesn't, doesn't help. You need to get them totally out of all, all antecedents, say anything. I mean, she was, she was at the point that I, we, we can put her out in a kennel run. And within two minutes, I'm talking like the first couple of weeks, you cannot bring her back. You cannot catch her. He has this white, bulge, mad eyes and she is attacking unseen things. And, and she's redirecting and, and she's just so sad. Yeah. Um, to where I had to, I had to, I had to change so many things. Uh, ideally then, then, then, I mean, I, I mounted a camera on her kennel run. I had a, you know, and then, and then we went through so much, uh, different ideas and options. Um, yeah, they are not, they're definitely the, the, the, those really extreme cases. They, they take time. They take time in terms of you cannot work with that kind of dog for 15 minutes one day and come back two days or three days later and do another 15 minutes. There is, there is, there is, there is so much more of, of the, of the bad type of reinforcement of that compulsion and that, um, you know, that it cannot even come close to trying to fight with it. But again, like I, I would never say medication doesn't have place. Me neither. But what, but what I will say is that a lot of times I see it firsthand is that a dog owner will go because it sounds, they feel that they are going to the best of the best. It's an animal veterinary behaviors and they're, they're like not that many in the country, in the world. Mm-hmm. You make an appointment, you go through some Q and A, they make an evaluation, maybe an hour, maybe an hour and a half long, 400, $500 later. Almost every dog walks out with a prescription. We have not had great success when we have tried to consult with, um, veterinary behaviorists. And in my, before the canine center, when I was in private practice, uh, there's a couple of clients that I had referred to a veterinary behaviorist and never had success with that.

Yeah, I mean, again, like, as I, as I, as I said, like, like, if, if you have a, two groups with humans and you have a placebo and, and the drug and within eight weeks or 10 weeks or whatever the time period was, no significant difference. Mm-hmm. Very, very, very, very sketchy thing. And, and, and very difficult, especially with dogs. And we, we don't have, there is no one single study. Forget about, like, like, like, we're just prescribing a medication that is supposed to control chemical imbalance and mostly serotonin levels. And now we know that you don't want to necessarily control serotonin levels because you're controlling all serotonin in your body. And there is no evidence that serotonin even has anything to do with it. Well, I count on people like you to know all those things because, uh, um, I definitely, getting through all those studies, I don't know how you have the time to do that, all the research that you do about all the research. But thankfully you're doing it, so. Yeah, I don't, I don't even know why I spent so much. I mean, it's interesting to me. I mean, this is why, this is why I, I originally came to you. This is why I had, uh, you know, I mean, anytime, anytime you said, I, I need you to look at a few dogs. I'm like, bring them. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I mean, on one side, I want to, we, we have that relationship now. I, I cannot, like, of course, if I know that I can help you, I will any day. But in the beginning, it was almost purely kind of just because of my own growth. Like, like, well, let's see how, how difficult that dog is. Have I seen that before? Mm-hmm. Where can we take it? What can I pick? Like, like, it was just for my own, uh, uh, evolution, if you want. And, and the same thing, like, with Karen overall, so, or, or Amy, I mean, why would I attend a canine symposium where I know that they will not talk in, in a good way about certain things that I do? Because, and, and the same reason you, you call. Because we want to try to have the best opportunity to, to be better people for those dogs. Mm-hmm. That's really why we're doing it. Yeah. And I, that, that was exactly the experience. You know, I, I felt like, and, um, everybody's, you know, kind and professional and everything. It was, it was great, though. It was Dr. Carly from, um, Best Friends. She and I have become friends over the years. And she, um, and I, you know, I was very comforting that Dr. Carly was there and me, that I could sit with her. And, um, Dr. I, I don't know how to pronounce Victoria's last name. Dr. Kusan. Busan. Yeah. Yeah. From the ASPCA. Yeah.

And, um, she's definitely, um, she just was at the K9 Center recently. So it was nice, uh, nice to have her there. But, and, and people were, but listen, I, I go through, I, I go through the same thing. I'm going into, this sounds hostile territory for me to go up there and to be, um, but, you know, I hate that. And I don't want it to be that way. And I, because I'm going to, I want to go and learn like everybody else. And so it was all just, just being brave enough to go and be a part of it. And I learned, I have, in fact, this is right here. Nice. Because I have all my notes from it and everything. And I have been intending to write some emails as well. And, um, some thank you emails and everything else. And, and reaching out to the, to the people that I learned some good stuff from and everything. And then also sharing some feedback, but I haven't gotten around to those emails and maybe I'll check it out. But I have this here forefront and there's a ton of things that I brought back and sent to the team. I was firing things off to them like crazy. Let's try this. Let's try that. And, um, uh, and you know, anything that's going to expand our programming and so that we can help the dog, because it is the amazing thing about what we do. And just to your point that you just said, there was some curiosity about coming up and seeing what we were doing and that even in all of your years and you were in sheltering and you were working, you know, helping dogs at San Francisco SPCA originally, right? That was your first shelter that you were working with. Right. And all the stuff that you've seen. And this was, and this was back in the early nineties. This was when. Jean was there, right? No, I was, me and Jean overlapped like for probably less than a year. We just couldn't find the common ground. Yeah. I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. We both have this personality, which are, um, but those were times when fighting rings. I mean, there was like national conventions. There was like West conference, East conference, like a, like a baseball league, you know, like animal care, the cops and us will go. And bust a ring with, with dogs. And then some of the dogs will come in. And now, now I listen to some of, uh, like, uh, the YouTube dog training influencers, you know, like, oh, I work with pit bulls in shelters. And it's like, in the shelter that you're working, chances are that pit bull has nothing to do with fighting. Like with, with actual pit bulls that are selected. Like, again, there, there's levels, you know. Mm-hmm.

And, and, and it's the interest that, like, we, we have the interest to, to, to learn their side. And for some reason, they don't. But I tell you something. I have conversations. And I'm sure you have conversations. Like, I'm like, with, with a high, high, high level knowledgeable people that have a very different facade in front of the world. And when we talk, the conversation is very different. I cannot convince them to come to talk on a podcast. They simply, they simply cannot. Because probably they have a, a, a position and something well established. And they are at risk that, I mean, I mean, look at the, just a, a, a silly podcast that I did with Michael C. Cascio. Like a, a, a ridiculously stupid podcast that we didn't, nothing was said. Nothing. Mm-hmm. And, and. I actually reached out to Michael when I saw that go down. And I, you know, and I, I know Michael from afar. I haven't known him well. He, I, I love it, though, because he uses a video, I think, in a lot of, in many of his presentations of my son handling a dog in a, in a top kennel. And Cody's handling was just beautiful. And so he uses that as far as safety and kind of defensive handling. I think Trish McMillan uses it, too. And I had reached out to him to say, I saw you wrote a post. I heard that you're on Ivan's podcast. I haven't even listened to it yet, but I'm assuming that that's what that's about. And whatever you're being put through, I'm so sorry. And I, I think I, I, the vitriol is, I, I guess I also cannot wrap my brain around if there's a community, community that is fighting for trainers not using versus. I cannot wrap my brain around the cruelty and the meanness to people in that process. Like, I just don't understand the, to me, there's such a hypocrisy in that. So then that always leads me to then because the, because, and listen, I can be a, I can get pretty cranky about stuff and get pretty worked up and pretty reactive about things. And I think, okay, what makes me get that reactive? What makes me get that emotionally driven about something, especially if I'm supposed to have a clear head and have a level of professionalism or whatever about me. So it always brings me back to that, that the people that are in that position and that end up being so hateful about it. I think it, because they are, they honestly feel that they are, they're trying to protect animals from cruelty. I mean, this would drive them to it. So, but I, I don't know, I guess it's kind of redundant. We already talked about that, but I, it's just, it's challenging for me to understand it.

But, but, but not to, not to be able to talk, not to be able to come and have a conversation and, and answer question and allow to be challenged and challenge me back. Like say, say all the things that you're saying in presentation, say all the, bring all the studies that you, like, like have that dialogue. Because, because, because, because I will have something to say. I will have something bad to say that's going to challenge you and stimulate you to think a little bit further. And, and not necessarily point a finger and say, ah, see, I got you. Maybe, maybe you have a very legit, solid answer to my questions. But everybody wants to hear it. We, I think we're done with what science says, because clearly everything that canine science has said so far has not done anything to change the, the, the divide. I tried to try, I tried with, I mean, I even, I, I contact Gene Donaldson. And I'm like, maybe you would want to come to the podcast or I talk to on your platform. Like, just talk about dog training. You're a dog trainer. And you don't like electrical or shooting. They're horrible tool. Let's talk about it. Maybe, maybe you convinced me. Why, what makes you think that you cannot convince me? I think you said something earlier when, when I was talking about, I've got 18 kennels on either side. You said, well, I don't, and I wanted to ask you about that. You said, I don't think the competitive setup like that is really the answer. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah, because, um, I don't know. Like, I, I've competed all of my life. Like, I'm extremely competitive person. And I guess I understand what competition does. Like, you, you, in competition, if you're competitive, you're not just doing it for recreation. If you're competitive, you would do whatever it takes to, to have, um, the odds in your favor. And I don't think that's what's about. I think it's about, I, I think it's about even, you know, like when you said you, you use positive reinforcement and you use it just as good as them. I would argue with any single positive trainer that I can at least do it on their level. That's how well I understand positive reinforcement. And I promise you that I probably will learn something from them about positive reinforcement. And I promise you that they will learn something from me about positive reinforcement that they do not know. They have no idea simply because they stay in the bubble they have chosen to stay. I watch them how they, like, again, like, I watch, I take so much time because it's interesting to me to know and, and, and be very, very current on everything.

I know the level of positive reinforcement they have. And I know that they can learn something from us. Mm-hmm. And as I said, I know that for sure I will take something from them. So even if we start there, even if we don't bring aversive training at all, and we just collaborate to begin with on positive reinforcement techniques, I think there is a lot to be done, a lot to improve on both sides. Mm-hmm. But even, even that's a problem, problem. Right. Because I think that even being associated with trainers like us is too risky within that, within that community. And that's what happened to, you know, that's why Michael got told the way that he did. Yeah, and you know what is really crazy about me and Michael? Like, we had that conversation, and I, I know quite a bit of what Michael does because I have, I have paid attention to what he does. I don't know if he even knows a little bit of any of my training besides some, I actually don't know. Mm-hmm. Because we never even went there. We just, it was a first conversation of what I thought we can have more. But I'm afraid to even hit a like on his Facebook. Because of the blowback that he'll experience? Right, right. Yeah, you know, it's, um. I mean, even like a few weeks ago, Jean Donaldson and she had a little Facebook Live with, with few of her graduate students. And, and they were talking about him without saying his name and how they are still having that reluctance to, to even attend any event of his or something. Like, it's still a big, big deal. You know? It's, it's stunning to me because he is an accomplished trainer and he does, he does good work. And, and he's, he delivers information really well. I think he's a, I mean, I think that, I just think that it's a shame. I think that people should be, I actually did a little bit of a rant post my own recently because, you know, there's, there's a group that seems to want to promote their work by debunking ours. That's just kind of their shtick that they do. And, um, it just gets annoying after a while. And I finally just hyped off about it. I'm like, why, why not stand on your own merits? It also, that's, I guess that's why I get to this competitive place about, I, I am tired sometimes of defending, defending the, the, the work that we're trying to do on behalf of dogs, especially when I know, I know that if you put me in a position, I, you know, it's like the proof is in the pudding. I know that I can outperform in some circumstances. So I want that to be the thing. It's like, can you stop? Okay. If we go toe to toe together, then will you stop?

If I actually, if I actually can, you know, beat you in that competition. And so that's why I thought it was so interesting. You being a competitor of why, so I guess that's where I'm coming from. And it's, it's maybe not the most sophisticated place for me to come at. I'm just so tired. And to be honest with you, it has a really, it has a strong impact on our work because it has a lot to do with why, or if people will or will not fund us. I was just going to, I was, I was going there. I was going right there because exactly right. It's dead serious for us. Yes. You know, I, you know. And you have to choose to save lives, help dogs, or be politically correct. So you can get the funding. That's, that's a horrible place to be at. Oh yeah. And you and I have, you know, you and I've had a couple of conversations in the past where I've had to share with you. Like I'm really reluctant because there's some things and boy, do I hate that. You know, like I really want, I consider myself a person of integrity. I like, I mean, I'm the kind of person would, you know, I'm not a very shy person. You know, I'm really like wide open, wear my heart on my sleeve, fully want to be fully transparent about everything. And I just, sometimes I feel like I do have to be considerate of the people that do back our work because even, you know, this conversation today, you know, I want to make sure when we were talking about it, like let's really, it's time because the stakes are so high right now. And to be honest with you, I was pretty inspired to come speak with you after going to the canine science symposium because there's some things that were, again, I learned things. And then there's some things that are troublesome. And I always had, because I'm not an academic, I have to go to the people and bounce things off of them. And I remember once, my point is, is that I've had to be careful sometimes. You've asked me, do you want to have this conversation? Can you help me with this? And I've had to say, I don't think I can help you with that right now. But to be honest with you, I just, I just, it's almost like being reasonable isn't helping. Like me trying to be like, just even trying to invite people. And it literally has gotten in the way of funding for us. So it's no joke. So when I have other, other programs that I give the courtesy of referencing them positively, and I will even refer clients to them, I will do those things because I will leave it as the right thing to do in that moment. But I think their program will serve this agency well, and therefore the dogs will benefit, people will benefit, right?

So I care about the outcomes for the animals more than anything. But it gets exhausting to then have to have the little petty posts about debunking everything that we say to lift themselves up. I mean, why don't you lift somebody, lift yourself up on the merits of your own work? The proof is in your own pudding. Stop focusing on mine so much. You know, you'll help more dogs if you just get in there and, you know, do it more. Just go to the shelter and get some dogs out. Just do that. Get away from your freaking computer and your keyboard warrior stuff and get into the shelters. And if the program is really good and it's working and it's better, ultimately it should be a matter of time to where everybody would move out to the better option, right? I mean, that would be logical. I'll train to change what I do. I was at the Canine Science Symposium a few years ago. I think it was the last one because they didn't have them for the pandemic. And Janice Bradley was there talking about a big brain. And Dr. Merkam was presenting some of the playgroup research that she'd done at that time. And I turned to Janice and I said, do I need to change what I'm doing based upon this research? And she said, not yet. It's not there yet. But, and I love Dr. Merkam. But at any rate, so I said, okay, you tell me when there's research like Ivan. If you came to me and said, Amy, listen, I found this research about why you need to let your trainers build relationship with individual dogs. And it's now been proven. And I'd say, okay, then I give because here's good research that is demonstrating that this is the way to go. But one of the things that really had bothered me too, you know, and it was around punishment. I think it was Dr. Fierbacher's. And there was this study, and I'm sure you know of it, about with the smokers. Do you remember that? How human beings, they had, they put basically some kind of a shocking device on human beings to see if they could use punishment to prevent them from smoking. Right? And it was kind of flip, but they were just talking about, well, the people just took them off. Right? So that clearly didn't, I think it was presented as if the punishment didn't work. I'm like, well, that's silly. The whole point is, what if they had an ankle bracelet? Right? Like, you couldn't take off. Right? Would it ultimately work? Would there be a point where punishment could succeed in making people stop smoking cigarettes? So, not that I'm not invested in that one way or another.

I'm just saying that it was, it seems silly to me to say that, oh, it was, it was a failed, it didn't work because they would just take the device off. That's not the conclusion that you should come to from that. That, you know? And that's kind of how the, like, again, I would love to talk to her. I would love to talk to her, even if it's in private. I wish she contacts me. Because it's a conversation to be had. Like, it's a good conversation to be had. You know, like, pretty much everything that it's, you know, what I said earlier, it's all about the worst case scenario. And it's all about this non-contingent use of shock. There is no reason to talk about it. Clearly, this is a bad idea. There is no reason to use somebody's money for that. It's clearly a bad idea. Those grants can go into much more sound research. Let's find out how it works, because sometimes it works, and it works better. And sometimes you cannot even, not that you cannot even tell which dogs are, have used the versus event, which have used only positive reinforcement. But which ones are better without, without knowing. And then dive into that and find out how. Talking about aggression, like in her presentation. You know, it's one of the favorite places that they like to go to. In the, I don't know, it was 60s or 50s, putting two rats in a Skinner box, putting a shock either in their brain or the floor, and they attack each other. Yeah. What does that have to, what does any of that have to do with the work that we do today? Right. And, and, I, you know, it's funny. It is interesting to me, too, when, like, I have, like, when I saw some of even Pavlov's video documentation of his studies with the salivation, I was, I couldn't watch it. And I thought those poor dogs, the condition of the dogs, you know, there's, I'm thinking, so I watched some of those studies thinking, that is, I know we need these things supposedly to have knowledge, and now we won't do it anymore because of the other, and it was those poor animals at those times when they were going through all of that. Right. I just saw that, I even find that curious that I can't even stand watching some of the videos of this stuff. Yeah. So I'm like, I don't need to see all that to know that I have a dog in front of me that needs my help, and what can I do to help them cope and thrive and become more resilient and more, like, well-balanced and normalized, right? Right. Because if that was the case, imagine, I mean, all, like, the number of electric colors that are out there.

Imagine the level of aggression and dogs that are just attacking and biting randomly, I mean, we will not be able to have dogs at that point if that was the case. But on top of that, on top of that, just for a second, even in that very worst-case scenario, there is a further research that was done that shows that even non-contingent, provoked, induced aggression can be suppressed effectively through punishment forever. Like, there is plenty of research for that. She didn't mention that part. Because it doesn't fit the narrative. It doesn't fit the point that she wanted to bring in through the presentation that she had. Now, I agree more than anybody that there is very shitty training going on. But for you not to be able to help a dog because of somebody doing really shitty things to dogs, with or without electric color, there is no logic to that. But, right, because you could apply it to anything else. Apply it to driving a car. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Some people drive cars very irresponsibly and recklessly, and people get hurt as a result of it. Yeah. So why are we still in cars? Yeah. And the only reason most of us, the 99% of people, drive responsibly is because we're trying to avoid penalties and abide to rules. Because there will be, like, if you imagine society today and there is no more cops, there is no more consequences to rules, kind of like what goes on in California right now. You know? We're not going to get into politics, are we? No, no, no, no, no, no. We don't need to. Anyway, yeah, no, it'd be so crazy. But imagine what happens. Well, how do you even drive down the street? There will be a chaos. There will be a chaos. Yes. Yes. That's the funny, that's my thing, actually. There would be chaos in the universe if we really thought that this bizarre human construct that we've come up with that was discovered in a laboratory with animals being completely controlled and manipulated, right? Right. And we consider that one of the foundational things. It's just a human construct, but that's all it is. And I can't remember who it was, but one of the things that somebody kind of mocked people like me that will say, I'm more of a naturalist. I'm going to follow the lead of what I see, animals and creatures and what happens in nature to me, because that's the real deal, right? Everything that we've created comes from systems that already exist in nature, right? So, to me, it's why would I want to construct something that is completely unnatural and does not exist anywhere else other than by human construct? You know what was interesting?

It just reminded me again, going back to the, it was actually the closing on the canine symposium. What was Sarah? Sarah? I don't know her name. Yeah, I wouldn't remember. Oh, okay. But she had that, yeah, she had that closing and it was, it was about wolves and free range dogs and pets, right? And this big push to keep talking that wolves and dogs are so radically different. And to give the analogy between how apes, how chimps and humans have 99% identical DNA, but we are so different. And to transfer that to wolf and dog difference is so far fetched. Like there is, there is a very unknown problem of how humans, how, why we are who we are. Why none of the other species on earth have that level of abstract thinking, function, mathematics, music, and whatever. There is something that we do not know. But what we do know, and it cannot be twisted, wolves and dogs behave very, very similarly. Mm-hmm. To, to, to the point that they can, you know, like, like there is a lot of lessons to be learned. And the only reason they are driving so strongly that push is to avoid the, the dominance theory. Well, interestingly, I just saw, I was just flipping through reels and I saw this incredible video of gorillas. And there is a, a mother with a baby on her back. And then another, it must've been an adolescent. I don't know if it was a male or a female kind of went up to hassle her. And the silverback came from the back, boom, went right over and got him and basically submitted the other one. Oh yeah. It was a little punk. I saw that one too. You saw that one too. Right. And so I just, I just find that all fascinating. Like that, that doesn't make me feel like, but again, if we go back to what Dr. Protopapova was saying about what, what lens do you look at the world through? Right. When I think about independence and everything, I think, wow, that was a beautifully delivered correction. Yeah. It was appropriate and good. And, but you know, we don't see much of what happened after that. Right. The reel cuts off right away. So it would be curious to see, but I just, I find that so fascinating when I see animals, no matter what species communicating naturally the way they want to communicate without human interference. And I just think you can't learn. I mean, you just learn so much from them if you're just a good observer. And I think coming back to like training dogs in the shelter environment, I think that it's very hard to put all this together. Like, I think you're getting the gist of where I come from with things, but then I'm looking at, but now I'm enclosing animals and a kennel too. Like I have a kennel too.

Right. So I'm not into this. Oh, let's everybody just be free and do what they want. But I, I, there has to be rules and regulations and all this kind of stuff between that's how everything functions. You know, everything functions that way. There has to be, again, go back to cars. What we do if we were just all getting in our cars and there were no streets and traffic lights, even there wasn't even all of that. But I think from a training perspective, why, why would I, okay. With, with the shot collars, I can tell you that there is one technique we call it the electric leash technique. And it's because we've had a number of dogs that come in where the leash has already been weaponized for them. Right. So they're, they have high defense. If a person has a hold of a leash and, and they're also super high drive typically. So they have strong, strong play drive. They want to tug, they want to do whatever, whatever. And they have accomplished and rehearsed basically leash climbing, going after the person. If you dare try to guide them in any way there, it's basically game on. This has happened multiple times. It's become an antecedent for, for, yeah. Right. Exactly. Just the act of having a leash on. So of course if I say, if I'm, if I, who was the guest that you had last? She was wonderful. I loved listening to her. I don't know. Joe Rossi. Yeah. So I loved her. And I thought it really fascinating that she's competing and that she's really, really, um, dedicated to being, to remaining, uh, without using aversives for her training to a competitive level. I really wish that I could have her come down to and say, okay, in our circumstance where this is dangerous for people to handle. So to me, that's an immediate, this has to be off the table. You grabbing that leash is off the table and I don't want it to be about me. I don't want you to be upset with me or think I'm upset with you. It has nothing to do with what, how can I very cleanly provide clarity for you? Putting your mouth on that leash is just off limits. Yeah. And that is one technique where we will, where the dog doesn't necessarily have a lot of other foundation where we will go to a remote collar because it makes it less personal with us and it makes it just about the leash. And it's like a one and done. And it's for the dogs that we feel like it will be dangerous for us. And because there is so much that's already been front loaded in them and there is so much experience and reinforcement history to that behavior. And then if it's not dealt with right away, it's ending up redirected onto the handler.

And so like, that's an example of where we'll go immediately instead of trying to build, um, you know, alternative, rewardable behaviors or replacement behaviors. That is a whole part of our repertoire. Most of the time, we're always trying to build all of the foundation. These are the things you can do because by the time I tell you, you absolutely may not do that anymore. You have all these other choices, right. That are very well reinforced for you. But sometimes they come in and we can't even get to the good stuff because it's so dangerous. Right. And, and, and I just cannot even describe. And I just have to, I have to interrupt you and make us like a note to everybody that listens. Because when, when, when you're talking about dangerous dogs and dogs climbing up the leash, like these are dangerous dogs climbing up the leash. This is not your average dog. Like, like some of the dogs that end up at dogs play for life. And, and, and they, they are an extreme examples of, of difficult dogs that can be turned around in a lot of cases. Sorry. I, I had to make sure that it's not a, because everybody thinks, oh, I, I've seen that kind of dog. Oh, I've dealt with so many dogs like that. And, and chances are you have not. And I mean, it's, it, it is the reason why I use so many of your dogs and, and, and stuff even in my course because of the, the level of, of pronounced, of dangerous behavior sometimes. Well, I appreciate you acknowledging that. So both of you and, but here's the thing, but I don't want people to have the impression that we, we want to be lion tamers. And we are also accused of that. Right. Right. We also get told, why are you putting this much resource into these problematic dogs when, and it is true now, our industry, we were basically had got, by the time the canine center came around, we really were in the United States, you know, most dogs that were adoptable. Of course, there are some places that perfectly healthy animals were being euthanized, but we were moving really, really farther and farther away from that. Unfortunately, right now, I think we're back to it a bit. So I'll have to rethink, you know, maybe it, we won't need, we, maybe we can't help this, this level right now. Maybe we have to go down to, we're just going to have jumpy mouthies that we have to, because there's going to be too many of those as dogs are being warehoused in shelters. Right. And their needs aren't being met and they're being driven crazy in the shelters. And so that is one of the key components to why we do what we do.

It's not because I get off on being a lion tamer and look at how I can work all these most difficult dogs. That's not what it's about. What it's about for us is that from what I saw over all these years, and I started doing this in 1998, working with shelter dogs exclusively, is that that dog is behaving that way because of what its circumstances are and what is not being provided and who wouldn't behave that way. And so it was, to me, it's a matter of, we don't have the right to call it on them if we had something to do with why they're there. So if once we've done something for me, like I will, I, it's as important for us to call animals that should not be placed as companion animals in our society. I find that responsibility just as important. Oh yeah. And I am not a believer in that we, that we can save them all. I think that there are some animals that are not appropriate to be companion animals. I know. We've had those conversations. We've had this, actually both of us in tears making these decisions. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's, it's because, and it is true that maybe, maybe there is always a home. And so I, you know, actually I don't mean to be disrespectful to those that really want, especially if somebody is willing to provide a sanctuary that will, and I'm not talking about any particular organization, individuals at all. If somebody wants to take an animal home and live in a situation, and as long as not at the expense of others, right? I mean, I understand. It's just that I'm handing this dog. When I was a private trainer, I had many, many clients. I used to be pretty darn good at pretty advanced aggression cases, even when I was just a, you know, not a shelter trainer, but I was a trainer and with my pretty high end clients and many, many times I would come in and they would say, my dog has bitten this person, this person, this person. I am not putting my dog down and I'm hiring you to help me install some training. So I have some insurance. Like I might have that window to prevent my dog from biting somebody again and also to teach me proper management, but I will not euthanize my dog. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. That's fair. If you're willing to take responsibility for this animal's behavior, I will give you my best professional advice for you to prevent this dog from making a mistake. That's going to harm another again. I will do my very best, right? There's only one private client that I discontinued working with them because they had a golden retriever that was such a, the, the kind of resource guarding was weird and very concerning.

And I had taken him in as a board and train and they had small children at home. And I said, you know what, when I'm seeing in this dog, I really do not feel comfortable that this dog is going to be safe in your home environment. And so that was the one where, where I felt like, I don't feel like I can resolve this for you in your current home situation. I didn't necessarily believe that the dog need to be euthanized, but I did not believe he was going to be safe with these, this age children. That's the only time. Every time else I would accommodate the client. But as soon as I ended up in sheltering full time, it's a whole different ball game to be the one putting that animal in someone's hands. If an owner already owned the dog, I didn't, I, you know, I'm just going to help you because you're now in a bad situation, but I don't want to create that bad situation for you. And so, you know, it is, you know, we do have, uh, we're at like 83 to 84% save rate with the dogs that we work with. Now we have never Janice Bradley asked me once has, uh, any of the dogs that you've placed, you know, like hospitalized someone, have you had any, you know, level four or level five or like hospitalizations? And I said, no, and she said, well, you're already doing better than the average public, you know, dogs out in the public. Right. So she expected that we, we had placed dogs, that there had been some terrible incident and no, not that hasn't happened. We also, our returned adoption rate, um, is at, I think it was 13, 10, between 10 to 13%, which is within the normal range of adoption, returned adoptions for regular shelters and regular dogs. So to me, what's so important about that is it's not because I don't want to claim easy for us to say, oh yeah, we fixed that dog. We had a positive outcome, but then what happens? We know what we are keeping close contact with the dogs that we put in the community. We also have gone to pick up dogs. We will always stand by our dogs. That's also another thing. I very much do not want to place dangerous animals. I do not, but I also don't want to have put, I don't want us as the sheltering community or as animal welfare to have driven a dog to this behavior and then say, oh, well now we're, now we're going to call it because they're not behaving well. I think they, they really deserve a fair and comprehensive assessment and attempted intervention. And attempted intervention. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think that's what they deserve. There was something I was going to, so your, um, the gal that was just on with you, she was wonderful.

It was really curious because I would let, like there was a German shepherd that we did that electric leash technique. And by the way, let me, let me, let me stop because I wanted to say something about that and it just went back and you just got my, my thought back. Like, um, you know, like she, like she will not, she, she will be right along with you. She will not, um, she will try anything in her repertoire and in her knowledge with all the force-free approach. But when it comes down to, can she save the dog or can she attempt to save a dog by using an averse if she would have no restriction not to help the dog. And that's something, that's something very important. Exactly. And this was what, uh, Michael Shikashi, which I kind of put him in that place. And he, he basically said the same thing. There is sometimes a place where this can be the only opportunity to give a chance. And he said that he would. And that's what, that's what killed him. Yeah. Yeah. So, I, I admire them like, yes, do what you do. And, and hats off. And then, if you know, I, I wouldn't think of, of them as ideologists. I think of them as trainers. So, that's why they, they would try to help a dog and try to help a, I mean, he might, I mean, these are families. They have a dog. And that dog's going to be put down just like a kid that has cancer and everything is off the table. Like it's months left. Would you give it a try? Yes, you would. Why wouldn't you? Right. Why wouldn't you? Well, and also again, you know, for me, behavior change is so interesting, right? It's just, it's so interesting to your, to your point. What was the speaker's name that I liked that you're just referencing? I can't. Joe Rossi. Joe Rossi. Joe Rossi. Okay. So, I respected that about her, but, but also that she wanted to be a purist with her own personal competition dog, right? She was really, really, really trying. And that, because that's a completely different scenario, right? Okay. So when this, uh, remember Chris that came down to you or my team member, Chris? Yes. Right. So he is our, um, training and behavior manager at the canine center now. He was really good. I mean, he was really good here. Yeah. He's really good. So talented. And, um, and he's a great teacher and he, um, I came into one of the stints and they had a German shepherd that was, this is one of the dogs that we did the electric leash technique with. And Chris came to me right away. And Chris is my strongest, my strongest handler, my strongest trainer. And he, um, he said, listen, I, I just don't know. This dog is making me nervous.

I'd like you to, Chris does not get nervous very easily at all. Right. And he's very capable. And the leash climbing on this dog made him that nervous that he wanted to be in a bite suit, right. To actually walk this dog out and everything. So, um, at any rate, that's why we went to this technique. I said, Chris, if you're telling me that that's it, let's get this off the table right away. And, um, I would love for Joe Rosie to come. I wish that somebody like that was with, and because if we were missing something, if there was a way for us to redirect him positively to something else, we a hundred percent would have done it. What I think is so interesting is when people can get really creative. That's one of the things that I find, like when she, when she talks about training in her clubs and they're saying, we can fix this for you right now. She's like, let, let me go back and think. And I want to try to create that scenario because they've become masters at managing the environment and access to resources. Right. It is so interesting how creative they can become. And I do always think that, and we've, we pride ourselves on doing that too, but I'm like, wow, I would be curious to see if she saw this dog in action. Would she say, I think we can create a situation where you could positively reinforce him for either an approximation or for something else. And I'd be fascinated to know that, wow, I didn't even think about that. I mean, I love those moments, but I'd be curious. I'd really be curious. Like there was one dog that we had that went back to his original because we, we didn't recommend placement for him. And it was the only dog that we'd had. He'd been with us for weeks. We still had, you had to be in a bite suit to, to, and the only thing that we were doing with him is interestingly at our center, we can get a dog out of its kennel and out into our big, beautiful free roam yard. It's like 13 acres fenced in. Right. And because for me, freedom, independence, you know, is so important to, as a lip for a living being, we want to provide that no matter what, right out of the chute. I want to satiate them first and attend to their needs first before I start kind of compressing and organizing them and expecting things from them. We always go there first. And so at any rate, we can corral dogs out of the kennels. And just so if we can't handle them yet, and you know, most dogs, just to let you know, if we identify that a dog is offensively aggressive to people, in other words, we can't open the kennel and just let them corral themselves out and then take a pack walk with them and

just migrate through the field because they will just come attack us when we're not, we're just minding our own business. I don't, we don't try to resolve that. It is so rare. It's so rare. It's usually nothing. Any of their aggression has usually nothing to do with that, especially with people. So that is something if we identify that where we're calling it, right? But we can, we can corral these dogs out and they'll get moving with us and we, and we'll do all these different things with them. And so we can take our time so that we don't have to be so invasive and put them into defense. So we have all these abilities to manipulate these things. But this guy is still sad for, and he had been heavily medicated and he had been kept at a shelter for a long time. And he had one handler that could handle him. And that person was trying to take him home and then was trying to acclimate him with that person's partner. And it, you know, I felt very heartfelt and it was very hard to tell her, we do not believe we can resolve this issue because it was two weeks later or a couple of weeks later. And we still had to be in a by-suit because if he felt anything, he had to, you know, he had a long line drag or he had to live with a long line dragging for a while. If he felt anything, he, he would cross like to come back at you. It was just so, um, anyway, these are just kind of bizarre pieces. No, no, that's, but this is the, the kind of call I'm trying to make to, to all trainers that are interested, no, no balance, no force free, whatever, all trainers that are interested to collaborate because we, we learn from each other. And like, I get stuck, I get stuck some, not sometime pretty much on daily basis watching YouTube videos of influencers on both sides. And so many balanced trainers are, are like, I would say 80% aversive training and maybe 20% of some positive reinforcement, but, but not, not like, like a primitive level positive reinforcement to where, when you, you know, like when I teach at my school lately, I've been emphasizing this to, to everybody. Force free people, they're, they're handicapped. Like imagine left leg and left arm. You don't have them. You don't have negative reinforcement. You don't have positive punishment. In order for you to function, you have to, you have no choice. You have to become very good at mastering reinforcement programs. Yeah. Susan Garrett talked about that a ton with you. Yeah. She talked a lot. Unfortunately, she, she didn't want to converse. I had to just let her talk. I was a little bit sad about how that conversation went because, um, I don't know.

She just came with the agenda to, to say that. Convert you. She wanted to convert you. She's better. She, she, she wanted to say that she's better without ever knowing what I do. Like not, not even nothing. But, but if you, you know, like, like there is, there is a lot to be learned on both sides. That's bottom line. A lot to be learned on both sides. And ultimately it's a combination. If you are not open to, then you're limited. I, you know, I, I, that is exactly why I've tried to learn as much as I can from as many different kinds of trainers as possible. When I was at a Longline Humane Society, I, um, and it's very interesting when you're a shelter trainer, a lot of times in communities, the, the, the trainers that are in the community kind of look down on you like, oh, you're a shelter trainer. Cause you couldn't make it in the real world. Right. So a lot of times trainers would come in and, um, they would want to, they would sometimes, in fact, I, in fact, I did this talk at IACP last year about how to create mutually beneficial relationships as a professional trainer with shelters. Cause a lot of trainers come in kind of to do their demo for the shelters. Literally, usually what they're really looking for is to get referred by the shelters. Right. So maybe they'll come in and offer to help a little bit, but they really want to be referred. And, um, I ended up reaching out to trainers all over in the community, all different kinds of trainers. Some of which I, you know, I, I wouldn't want to train the way that they're training, but I learned about them and invited them to the shelter and, um, treated them with professional respect. Many of them would come in and want to just kind of show off to me about how great their techniques are going to work. But it was interesting when you, when I sent them in with problem dogs in the shelter environment, how many of them would say, well, you know, I have to, I need time to build relationship. I need time to do this. I'm like, I don't have that time. Right. We've got to do it right here, right now. Right. You're, you know, we'll get there, but you got to get this dog out of the kennel right here, right now. But what I would do is I would observe them and I learned about their, their styles, their techniques, their programs. That way, when I had a dog that came up, I thought this dog, I think will really thrive in that trainer's program. And so I had this community of trainers that were willing to help if I called them about a particular dog.

And we ended up, I started to host training, um, Friday nights at my house and we would all get together and we would pick somebody that would be our coach. And in the beginning, you know, you would see people would kind of be, you know, the same types of trainers would be paired off with one another. And there was some tension because there were some old rivalries. There were some shelters that, I mean, some trainers that were from the same community and competitive with one another that, um, so we had, you know, every kind of training. And interestingly, over time, when they started to have some respect for each other, somebody would finally reach out and maybe somebody who was used remote callers primarily would ask the clicker trainer, hey, I'd like to, you want to coach me on this session? So it was really interesting. And I loved creating that community and, um, haven't been able to replicate it since, but I really, I really, really did love that. And back to like what you were talking about before with the kind of dogs and the lion taming stuff with us is that, um, funny when it's very reinforcing for us when somebody of your caliber comes in and says, okay, you're, this is the real deal. And JJ did that with us too. He, you know, especially with fight bust, you know, fighting dogs and everything. Cause that's really his shtick. He, um, with game bread dogs, he, he said, everybody tells me that they've got, Oh, they've got a real. And he, the same thing came in and said, this is, you've got a kennel full of the one percenters right here. But, um, but why does that matter? I mean, why did I bring it back around to that? I think it's about, I mean, think about the trainers that I've even had come down to the facility to work with us and everything. It's, um, because we learned something from everybody. It is the only way forward. Yeah. I have to admit though, that I do, I do feel like we have, we are accomplished enough in our programming that I do only invite trainers that have demonstrated results. Like I can see it for myself either. And I, you know, I have to like watching a person with a dog in hand. Like there's some people that know so much, like they understand training really well. You know, I talk about in my presentations, the difference between a master handler and a master trainer. And ideally you strive to be both. So you have a good clinical understanding, but you also can be magical when a dog is in hand with you.

But the problem with that is if you're really just a masterful handler, you can make a dog look damn good, but it doesn't mean that the dog really understands independently. These behaviors. Now you're a competition trainer. So you obviously are an expert at teaching dogs to do a very, very complex task independently. Right. But think about average, just trainers out there in the world. A lot of them do not have much understanding about how to train something at a complex level like that. Or even to get to the underlying, this is what's been so curious for us is these underlying motivators. Like I can't, there was a, maybe for you, you're going to be like, duh. But I mean, I've been training for quite some time and it was about two years ago that I thought, you know, it was sustained, we call it sustained eye contact drills. So we have, that's what we call it. Maybe other people have been doing it. I just, nobody had taught me this before and it just finally came to me is that we had all these stranger danger dogs and we're trying to teach them how to greet people appropriately. And I kept watching my handlers and I'm thinking, we all intuitively will avert our eyes at the right time if the dog is uncomfortable. But an average person, that's exactly what they do wrong. Right. They'll have the big smile. They'll be forward. They'll be staring at the dog. Or if they're concerned about the dog, they're going to be just watching the dog like a hawk. Right. And so I realized that for so many dogs, that was said, talk about an antecedent. Right. That was a big trigger for a lot of the dogs to not feel comfortable. Right. No matter what, whether we had them in. If I have a dog holding the sit and I, my handler approaches the stranger, that was another thing that we decided. Let's make sure that the dog knows you're not responsible for figuring out if this person is friend or foe. Right. You just hold your position. I'll go out and I'll, as your handler, demonstrate to you that this person is friendly. Right. But then when I realized about the sustained eye contact thing, it was like, oh, we, we, we train our dogs to give us eye contact as a default response. If there's anything that's either concerning, exciting, whatever, that they should check in with a handler. We want that as a default. Right. And we do a pretty good job at that. But now I told my team, I'm like, I want us to teach the dogs to avert their eyes from people because people are going to make this mistake. So let's train for that. Let's prepare them for that. And so we had one dog in particular that was a face popper. Right.

She didn't want to bite you, but she, you know, if you gave her eyes, she boom. So we started with her. So we do all, I'm not going to describe the drills because it's too. Right. Right. Right. Right. But it was a matter of just teaching her. And it was funny because we had conditioned the eye contact. Right. So she was looking at us perfectly happy. But there was a point where she's like, what are you doing? Like, that's so uncool because we would just stare at her. And then we would start marking her for when she would break, avert her eyes or break her eye contact. So then we started reinforcing the heck out of that with other people when the dogs. But, you know, like, Ivan, how long did that take me to figure that out? How long have I been training dogs? And then finally, two years ago with this particular, I was like, why are we teaching the dogs to avert their eyes when they're uncomfortable? If they don't like the way someone's looking at them, why don't we teach them that? Yeah. I mean, there is, there is like, there is that and there is that other version of the opposite one to where you, you actually, you, before the dog even looks at the trigger, you tell him, hey, it's right there. And then you change it back and forth. But yeah, I mean, these are, these are the skills that we need to be sharing. This is why I wish that there is a, there has to be a different, almost a different organization. I know. That allows everybody to come together. And in my world, and I'm wondering what you think about this, how much it would pertain to the competition world, or just the professional dog training world. I tell my team all the time, the universe is not going to adjust to this dog. The environment is not going to adjust to this dog. Right. And that's what we always talk about. Also training this whole concept about blown thresholds. That's another one that makes me go nuts because, and I think Joe Rosie did talk about that. She actually reinforced that a little bit too. Like I'm always talking about, I would not only want to knock on the door of that threshold, but I do want to step over it in the training process because life is going to blow our thresholds. You know, you're going to walk around a corner when you're out in public and you might not be ready, but a reactive dog comes around the corner. So it's just as important for the dog to understand how to manage themselves when their threshold is blown or teaching these dogs to try to manage themselves or default to something else, even if the handler doesn't support them correctly. Because this is an average person.

This is not a professional trainer that this dog is going to go home with. So we want to first of all find out what are you going to do? What's your worst case scenario when you're not being supported correctly and when you really can behave the way you want to behave? We've got to discover that. And the interesting thing is in private training, you know, we very much, you know, we don't need, we don't want your dog to be allowed to rehearse that. You don't need to show it to me, right? Because every time they're rehearsing it, they're self-rewarding and you're just, but in my world, I 100% want the dog to show me who are you going to be when all these things, these stars align for you. What is your worst case scenario? Because I actually need to know what I'm solving for. Right. So I can't, I don't want to be managing it from the onset. I don't want to, I don't want to create errorless learning. I absolutely do. For me, I think there's a time and a place like, okay, if this is a cutesy little thing that I'm teaching you to go to place and we're in the front lobby and I'm going to free shape that, that's how we train it and everything. Sure. I want to do all that kind of stuff. But when we're coming down to the problem and the actual reason that you're with me, you know, that's all the kind of stuff that's become, these dogs have taught me, even though I had the privilege of working with marine mammals, I had the privilege of training exotics. I had the privilege of training horses. And I think that is also some reason why I'm so open to more comprehensive is because when you work with multiple species, some that are no contact and that you can't physically manipulate, and some that it's all about physical manipulation, like most horse work, right? Like I just learned in a podcast, just the one I did with sea lions, they typically hate to be touched. You actually have to work your way to that level. Oh, yeah. Even though they look very similarly like you're training dogs, but there is definite differences. And we have dogs that we start out as if we're working with an exotic no contact animal because they have, they are very well rehearsed and telling you what they do not like, right? And they've had very bad experiences. So we, in the beginning, we still have to be able to work with them, even if we can't touch them. And then we also have to be able to teach them if there's nothing that's positively reinforcing for us to provide for them. That's my big rant about why we embrace, I think, in training programs for shelters, there are two things that really make our program stand out.

Number one is that while we build relationship, every time we're interacting with animals, we do not rely upon the relationship to be the thing that is progressing them. And number two is we embrace negative reinforcement as much as positive reinforcement to be teaching new behaviors. Because when the dogs tell us that I have nothing to offer you that is positively reinforcing to you, either because I'm frightening to you, right? You don't want food. You don't want touch. You don't want to play. You don't want any of those things. I still have to be able to teach you. Yeah. So if I don't know how to use negative reinforcement effectively, I am incredibly handicapped. And most likely the environment will deteriorate that animal further than where they even are starting from faster than I'll be able to help them. If I am not willing to embrace elegant negative reinforcement. But you've taught us so much about the overuse of negative reinforcement and not being able to finish behavior when you stay lingering in that state too long. Oh, we learned all that from you. We have to, you know what I was thinking. And I'm going to, I mean, I will talk to you outside the podcast about this, because it's been something we've been talking about lately quite a bit. You know how sometimes you come and you bring dogs for my certifications and stuff? I'm coming next week and I have two I want to bring you. Let's go. Okay, you let me know. We'll be there. You know how it works. But I think we're going to end up doing a little bit even better collaboration to where I'm going to be offering a different program for my graduates. Like so far we've been doing a lot with the current students always, you know. But I'm thinking to do some, a different level of the school to where it's a lot of hands-on. And like they will come here for a certain amount of weeks and we will arrange, we have to talk, work out all the logistics of it. But you basically, on your end, you're going to have extra hands that are skillful and they will have the problematic dogs that they can get better as trainers, you know. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I keep not finishing my thought that working with dogs in a shelter environment is really what I think has made me a better trainer. Even with all the other animals and species and venues that I, it was trying to help dogs in adverse conditions and handing them off to somebody else who's not going to know what to do. I think that definitely is the thing that made me a better trainer for sure. And I would love to have your students come up.

I think that we could definitely get something going with that. And, you know, we have, I'm really pushing this year because there's always been a high demand for us, you know, the seminars where we go out to the shelters and we do the playgroup trainings and then we do basic like leash handling. Yes, which we actually didn't talk about this. Can you talk a little bit about this? Because I'm sure people will be interested. And that's a very good thing that you're going around and teaching. Yeah. We provide educational services to shelters. So we travel to shelters and introduce our core enrichment programming. We started to talk about it. That's that every dog, every day programming that revolves around the implementation of playgroups. And that's the core skills. So we don't, shelters calls and say, will you come do a training on how to deal with on-leash reactivity? We will do that after you are implementing playgroups, after your dogs are getting out of their kennels every single day, after we've taught you basically leash handling and kennel routines, like the basic things to teach dogs that will, that make them more mannerly and more appealing to adopters, more pleasant to handle just in your day in and day out. Once you've got that mastered, then I'll help you with the tricky stuff. Because you, of course you're going to have, if you're not doing all that stuff foundationally, of course you're going to have reactive dogs, right? You cannot have that both ways. You can't not be getting out of the dogs out of the kennels, but say, you know, but I want to fix reactivity. You know, you just can't have that both ways. So that's what we do. We are running around, putting teams on the ground, two shelters to install that. And that's thanks to Petco Love, ASPCA, Petco Love Foundation, and the ASPCA, they sponsor those seminars and everything. But then we also have our mentorships, our level one mentorships that are the Jacksonville Humane Society now, where people can come to us for four days and learn about playgroup implementation. So they can come to us and learn the same thing, playgroups, leash work, kennel routines. Then we have our level two mentorship, where people can come to the canine center for four days. And then we're usually working, you know, they're working our more difficult dogs. And by the way, we have students working our difficult dogs, right? So what does that say, right? You got to get somewhere. I've got to have dogs that students can actually handle, right? They've got to go in the kennels and they've got to be strangers to these dogs and everything.

So they come and they learn more about using playgroups as more of a behavior modification tool to work on dogs that are actually struggling with their dog-to-dog interaction because most of our dogs are definitely more on the selective side at the canine center. And then we do specific behavior modification cases. And then the other program that we have is the shadow program where people can just come and drop in and just, we just meet you where you are and you just train dogs with us and we just kind of observe you. You tell us, it's really more catered to that individual person and they can come for as few or as many days as they want. But to the point that you just talked about, I really, we don't have, I don't have enough, we've got 28 people on our team now, but we don't have enough people to meet the needs. We've got a long wait list for seminars. We've got a long wait list for dogs coming in. We're trying to get many more students to us. I keep watching this school that you have developed, right? I'm like, wow, look at him go. And we really want to pump out people that can go into the animal sheltering world. We're saying that we want to create the next generation of canine caretakers for shelters and that DPFL wants to train people. We've got to up our game, got to ready to help large dogs that are going to be kept longer in shelters. We want to do that by training people how to be canine enrichment coordinators so they can get on the ground and start from the foundational pieces, install playgroups, and then build from there. And we want to do it through scholarships through the Willen Fund, you know, because of Willen. And I know you were so good to Willen. And I want to brag about you for a second, if I may, about how much you have, you know, as one of the best trainers in the world, the amount that you have given to us, how much of your time and expertise that you've shared with us and that you've been so generous. You let Willen come down to see you right before he passed last year. You've let Chris come in and bring dogs with you. A couple of people went through your school, but you also invited us to send, you know, you've just done so much. And I just want to thank you for that. And, you know, I was actually really curious that when you did ask me to do this with you, it is, I'm curious. I thought, your audience is not going to be interested in what I have to say, right? Because I just think I'm just like a baby trainer to your audience, right? So what do you think it is that's interesting about what we do other than, because we're not lion tamers. Yeah. So really what is interesting is that first and foremost,

the intention to help dogs and teach people how to help dogs. I mean, I can just stop right there without elaborating further to that, but that's on its own. It's absolutely fantastic thing. Like, hats off to that. and everybody that you have sent from Waylon and Cody and Chris and everybody, they've been just like sponges, like so willing, so like I, yeah, I'm kind of going to tear up a little bit because of Waylon. that time, Ivan, that you gave Waylon really, he was so inspired from that time and Waylon was one of those people, as a matter of fact, Cody and I talk about it all the time, that, um, Cody's a pretty phenomenal handler. I consider myself to be a pretty good handler. We kept talking about that, wow, Waylon was one of those people, just his handling ability, just his handling with dogs. No, no, there was a different role level of talent there, you know? Yeah. like intuitively. Well, you made his day when he came down there, he was, he was, uh, sometimes he would get a little bit down because he was a very sensitive person and, you know, he, he was always hit really hard when the dogs were really struggling, but that time with you was, uh, really impactful for him. I, I remember like the dogs he would bring like, I'm like, how did you even, how did you even ride with the dog here? It's like, of course, of course. Do you remember? Remember the time that we had, what was it? Oh, I wanted to tell you that, uh, you remember when we were in your parking lot and we were trying to get, it was Zoe. That was Zoe that we were trying to get because she did not want to get back. She was done with the crate. Yep. Yeah. She was like, I'm done with this crate bullshit. So funny. And, um, that was, that was hysterical. And then the other talk that you came, but this is where, this is where skills and, and intuition come above any, any learned skills that you have, you know, how to act in a moment that you, you're learning, you're like, what you've learned doesn't really help in you anymore and you just have to do something and you're going by intuition. And he was, he was one of those guys that it was, that's why we liked each other because, you know, that this was very similar to both of us. Like he, he would, he would trust his intuition and it wasn't, uh, like, uh, it wasn't misleading him, you know? Mm-hmm. No, no, he's really, really talented. But, um, do you remember when you first, I think it was your, you came down to just check us out for the first time and then you came back and you worked with a dog named Kate and she was the one you, we were trying to determine she was very protective of her handler but she liked people so you're, you remember her? Yeah. Do you remember that bizarre because you were in the suit so you actually,

we were, you were assessing her so you were actually, the boogeyman actually showed up. You came in, in the suit and you were being threatening and do you remember that bizarre behavior where she came screaming across the yard? She went out, she did, but it was, it was, I've never seen something like that because she was like terrified. Yes, it was very extreme. She, she really made it all, she, she made a story in her head like she was, she was maybe five minutes ahead of what was happening and her story was not going well. Yeah, right. I just wanted to, I don't know if we've even shared it with you but that, and it, she went, she went across the yard to go after you but like, almost like screaming like afraid. She didn't want to, right, exactly. She, she was coming and she did not want to. It was so, yeah. Now remember I said earlier if we identified offensive aggression to people we would not, we would not work with that but we really, even seeing that even though she crossed the yard to get to you, we, I was just like, but she loves, she enjoyed meeting people, she just needed to feel like you were safe and everything but I just want to let you know that she's been placed and she's doing beautifully and there's never been, yeah, yeah, she was placed. I would love to see something. I would love to see her. You've got to send me something. Yeah, so I'll try to find out for you. I'll ask Lauren if she can look that up for me but I'm thinking when I asked you the question like what is your audience going to want to hear about? I think some of these funky cases might be interesting to them and Kate was definitely an interesting one and it took a while for us but I'm glad that we stood by her and I fostered her for a while and she was an amazing dog to live with and so she was one of those, even though she was wary of strangers or whatever, once she had those routines that she knew, oh, when somebody comes to the door, this is how, these are the things, this is the drill that I go through, she really did enjoy people so it was really nice to have them. And that's what it's about where, and how, you know, we talk even whenever we talk the responsibility that you have knowing, I mean, it is a different level of responsibility to try to place a dog and to be successful because so many people would love to point this one time that, see, they, they're doing wrong things and it's not good and instead of looking at the amazing stuff that you're, you know, I don't know, as a dog trainer, a lot of times people think of me as a sport trainer and all this stuff behind me. But you know, that's, I mean, I love doing that, I'm a competitive person, but dogs in general, it's an obsession, it's an obsession and and, you know,

and that's, I don't think you and I are exceptions, I think there is so many people that want to be this kind of trainers and what, one of the huge barriers for them is this divide, this line in the sand, it's like, you know, it's like, where do I go if I, if I even tell these people that I've been there, this is already gonna blow up and that's why we cannot move forward, we cannot learn, we cannot get better, we're getting better, like even, you know how, I don't know, Susan Garrett comes to mind when she gave me the story how and her story is a very, almost a cliche story for a lot of force free trainers, oh, I have used prone collar, I have used choke chain, I have used electric collar and now I know I can do better and what I can tell these people is that what you have done 30 years ago, we are a long ways from there, there is, there is a very different level of how things are done, are there still people that are stuck in what was happening 30 years ago, of course there are, but we don't need to pay attention to those people, we need to pay attention to every successful trainer, regardless of where they are and what they believe in and get together, come together, you know, that's how we get better, that's why it's, you know, Michael, Giorosi, like, like, you, me, I mean, I mean, there is a lot of people that want that and that's kind of why I keep talking that there has to be, somehow we have to start organizing our own conferences to where we are getting people because when we have APDT, IACP, and again, I'm not against them, I mean, I'm going to be presenting again this year and I don't know exactly, I'm bouncing off a couple of very interesting topics for them. In my head, either organization just because of the image they already have, people from the other side feel uncomfortable, feel unsafe to get there and we need to find a way, an opportunity to have conferences to where we can meet together regardless of the extreme, like we have to do something. Because there are people, the majority of people, the trained dogs, I know that they want to learn. Even if, and this is what I do with my school, this is I think what is different with my school. I teach people, there will be people that are totally force-free trainers, but I can teach them what aversive training, what good aversive training is about. And it's your choice, don't use it, ever. learn what it is instead of learning from somebody telling you what it was 30 years ago. Right. I think that's what's hard for me when I'm presented with some of those older studies is that especially when the stuff that's around punishment because it has nothing to do with what we're even dealing with. what does that have to do with what we're doing? Right. And so I don't like

that being paintbrushed or broad stroked or whatever. It's very difficult. It's very difficult. You can always pull out somebody on YouTube or Instagram or whatever that's doing stupid training. It's easy. On both sides, it's easy. And sure, when you use aversive and you're doing stupid things, it's, of course, more inappropriate than unethical. But we need to focus on the beauty, the skill, the mastering to where actually you cannot tell which one is which. And this is where Lima, you know, when you mentioned Lima at one point. And you do. What is the new thing? What's the new thing they're coming up with now? So Lima is not going to be satisfying enough because people are protesting that Lima was being hijacked by the force-free community, right? As per Dr. Lindsay, right? He's like, no, that's not what it says. What's the new one that they've come up with again? Life? What does that stand for? That's the thing. There is always the playing with words. As soon as they're losing an argument or if something is going a certain way, then just something new pops up to try to get that agenda regardless. That's what's so frustrating to me, especially from academics and scientists. Right. I mean, that's where I'm like, but those are the fields that we're supposed to count on for that just core knowledge that would guide work. work. And so then it's frustrating when you feel like it's being presented in a manipulative way for an agenda. And then that's where I really struggle. And when you talk about Lima, where I was going, you cannot talk about Lima without taking under strong consideration time. How long does it take? Right. Effectiveness. To what degree you are promising a success and to where you're starting to speculate. Without this too, you cannot talk about Lima. Lima. Right? And so much we can do. So much we can do. And I'm sure right now there are trainers that are on both sides that would love to join our conversation because they would agree with us. And at the same time, I know, well, I don't even know if the high level, like the few extreme groups will ever, you know, but I don't care about them anymore. They just like to stay in there. They don't, they're absolutely not willing to even discuss, forget about consider anything, even a conversation they're not willing to and it's sad. Well, and also for me, it comes down to like, okay, if you're so opposed to the work that we are doing, then come take some of these dogs, help them. If you're so afraid that the dogs are being treated so poorly with us, come get them. Right. That would be a statement. That would definitely be a statement. And this is where, you know, like Daniel Mills, with, you know, the one Lincoln study about predation and basically how positive reinforcement proved that they can do better than using electric colors to stop dogs from chasing a ship. Right.

There's so many questions to ask there. Like, if you just say, believe me, it's true, we did a study, but not come to talk about it. Yeah. how, how, how, how can I, yeah, I mean. Yeah, it's really frustrating. And again, you know, I think, I think we've talked about it. I think we're kind of going round and round about that one particular point. But I think if we talk about the nitty gritty of, Dr. Proto-Papova did, you know, she was very kind, you know, also everybody when I was up there, you know, people that knew me well enough knew about losing my son. And so obviously it was like, oh, please don't, because then I'm just going to cry. But at any rate, she was, she was just really sweet because she, she just reinforced, she said, I think what's so important about the work that you're doing or that, that is that, or what people are doing is the context and taking things into context. Right, because you're in the right place, like your heart is in the right place, like you're not doing this for any other reason. And, and if, if somebody can help you to do it better, come forward, help. Yeah, yeah. You're more than welcome, more than welcome. I'll never forget with Cooley, when he was, I was doing agility with him, we weren't that great, I mean, he got, anyway, basic titles. But, I remember when I was trying to get him to send away from me a little bit and Waleed was helping me, and he was suggesting, this is what I think you need to put a little bit more pressure on him, and this is, you know, I can't remember the details of the exercise, but it revolved around putting a little bit more pressure on him. And I, you know, that night I was thinking about it, I thought, you know, Cooley doesn't love agility. It's just a hobby that I have, and he's my dog, and so he kind of does it to, you know, dork around with me, but it wasn't a passion of Cooley's, right? He was doing it for me. And I thought in that context, like, I don't need to put more pressure on him for this, you know? Right. It just, because it doesn't, he doesn't need to do this, right? So it's like sometimes I feel like saying to people, like, I can be a real softy about certain things, but when I'm talking about a dog that is, if I cannot help you decide you're going to be dead. And I don't, you know what I hate about remote, the remote collar arguments are when so many people say to us, well, Amy, again, they won't say this publicly. I've also had plenty of those experiences that very well credentialed people will have reasonable conversations with me privately and offline, but they won't present those positions publicly. And I've been told over and over again, you know, listen, we understand you using aversives or you using remote collars or you using whatever, because we know we have faith in your application and your skill set

and your conscientiousness around it, your sensitivity to the dog's experience, all these things. But I'm just, you know, do not believe that this is possible for other people. And what's crazy to me is most of these people are legitimately educators, right? So this is what I think is educators. We have a responsibility. If you feel like somebody is going to do something poorly, it's our responsibility to teach them how to not do that poorly, right? Rather than saying, well, maybe these five people can do this adequately and well and reap the benefits of it, whatever it might be. But these 500 people are going to bungle it, whatever it might be. Therefore, we're not going to allow these five can't do it either, right? It just, it's just not, it just doesn't seem logical to me. I think that as educators, we have a responsibility to teach people how to do it well rather than say, let's put it away or sweep it under the rug or pretend it doesn't exist or ban it or do whatever. It just, I don't think that that makes anything improve. Anything. I don't even care what we're talking about, whatever the it might be. Very true. Very true. That's, I mean, for some reason, nobody's paying attention or don't want to pay attention and I keep saying it almost every time I talk about this topic. Europe is such a good example of how you can put legislations and bans and you're solving nothing. It just makes you feel good at the moment that, okay, we won. this battle and I think it was Nick Benger, we had a conversation with him and it's like, no, I know how many callers are still sold there. I know trainers that use it. I know that when you talk to them, they will tell you different. When I talk to them, they are feeling open to talk about it. It is there, trust me. You have not, the ban is not a solution. It never, it never has been, like, never in history anything has been successful like that. And, yeah, do we regulate it? Do we not regulate it? I think this is a different conversation. I think bottom line is that we can, we have to come together, we have to talk, we have to educate. If you are a force-free trainer and you have spent so much time to master, because not so many have mastered reinforcement, positive reinforcement, not, no, like, by no means, like, like, when, just because somebody went to, to IPDT conferences, went to a few webinars and wrote down a bunch of secret words to get credits for, for their continued education, it does not make you a capable hands-on trainer that you understand what you're doing, but the ones that do, they already know, even if they don't want to know, they already know the foundation of how aversive would work, simply because they know how reinforcement works anyway. That is one of the things that's troubling me about the concept of

certification, because I swore that I was never going to certify DPFL handlers, in other words, like, you're certified as a, because I thought, there is room, once we teach playgroups, let's say, we know that there's room to personalize it, and that you will morph it a little bit into something that is going to work for you. and we've seen in animal welfare specifically, even when you get inter and intra tester, inter and intra tester reliability and lack thereof for like the behavior assessments and all this stuff. I mean, we've learned over and over again, when you try to say, we have trained you in this, and I don't know how, because I know you're certifying your trainers, but your school is very comprehensive, right? It's a whole different ballgame. But I'm curious, how many students do you feel like, okay, these students are really maintaining with integrity. Like, I feel like these students would be a good, solid representation. Like, I know I've had plenty of people that have worked for us or that we've trained, and I feel like that is not what I taught you to do. Right? Yeah. So, what concerns about certification is that the certified, certified trainers that I've met, I don't care what letters you have after your name, and some people can talk an amazing game, like they know their stuff, and then I'll see them with a dog in hand, and I'm like, it is so uninspiring. So, the problem that I'm having is certification is not giving me, I love it in concept. I think that having trainers, not just, not have it just be a shingle hanging thing that anybody can do it and take money, which is the way it is right now, I think there should be something that regulates it or at least sets a standard, but I'm just not at all convinced about any of the certifications. I keep saying I'm going to go get certified by the IACP to support that organization, and I keep just not taking the time to do it, but I don't know, what are your, you know, I know you've talked about certification before, but it's concerning to me. Yeah, I'm certified by whom? So, the way I, like, I mean, I speak for my school, my goal with certification is if somebody certifies, I want to make sure that they understand the concepts of what, what I teach and what I get certified. Are they going to ever use that? That's up to them. Now, I know their school, especially on the force-free side, like, like, you know, well, Ken Ramirez took over, Karen Pryor's, and Jane Donaldson Academy and whatever, they actually, you cannot certify unless you convert. Oh, yeah, you have to take a purity pledge. Right, and I, I think that's a, that's a wrong approach. I think, you know, it's not the American way. You, you can, you should be able to go and learn, and if you understand it, and you can prove that you understand it,

and you choose not to, they're two different things to me. And with certification, looking in a, in a much bigger picture, like, I can tell you from examples from different, in Europe, Europe, Germans, you know, there's like few countries that have very long tradition of working dogs, or any kind of working dogs, not just German shepherds, and, but hunting, and whatever, and, and they will have tests, like, trying to create this ultimate dog, so there will be a certain criteria for breeding, so in German, will be like the ZTP, and the Kjorung, and the Czechs, like, all, all kind of big countries that are into dogs, they have this breeding criteria to develop and maintain certain qualities, and they all start with very good intentions, and then things change, and the way things change with this kind of stuff is when the person that designed it stepped down, and now a new person came in, as the new person comes in, there is a new vision and new construct, and so with certification, like, let's say you and I design a certification, we're not going to be here forever certifying people, somebody else going to take over, and whenever that somebody else take over, what's going to be certified, it most likely will be very different, and this is good and bad, because you can maintain the vision, or you can change it to your liking, not necessarily the ultimate interest to the breed, or the training concept, or whatever, but to your liking, and this is the dangerous part, and I think the, something like the Jane Donaldson school is a good example of that, it's like, no, you have to throw the prone collar, an electric collar away, and it's the only way that you can move forward, right, and this is, this is my, it's a big concern, and I don't think I have a solution, or an idea how to go, but one day I'm like, yeah, maybe we should look into certification, and another day I'm like, well, once we start certifying, then, then the criteria keeps changing, and which way it's going to change, we will not have control anymore. That's what I'm saying, and certified by whom, right, so I, you know, I have two pieces of advice. I think it's much easier if we focus on a person, like, like, one thing that we can easily do right now is we, we look at somebody that is clearly abusing dogs, and it's not even just, it actually, animal care and police, I mean, it's a, some, some criminal offense at that point, they should not be able to train dogs anymore, like, we can start with something like that. I think we need to focus on individuals than trying to, just like with driving cars, you know, you drink and you hit somebody and that person's dead and you

will pay a consequence for that. But I will not pay a consequence because I'm also driving. Right. I really think that, yeah, it's a, I don't know, what do you think? Well, so, Wendy Bolhard, have you met Wendy Bolhard? Yeah. Yeah. That was a long time ago. Yeah. She gave me advice years ago and she said, don't you dare go get certified now because once you become part of, there's, it will box you in in some way, shape or form because you've now prescribed this or whatever. She said, and you're already established enough and you're doing your work and your work is measured. So don't do it now. Your train is too far down the tracks. You're better off. You're more free to work the way that you want to work and you're doing good work. So keep it up. And then I'm trying to remember who doctor, there's another veterinary behaviorist, I think. God, I cannot remember who it is. It's terrible. Anyway, she said, you know, Amy, you're going to be taken a lot more seriously if you actually just go and get yourself certified. Like you are smarter, you're a critical thinker, you're smarter than a lot of you, understand all this stuff, even though you're self taught in all of it, whatever, that you are solid, just go take the test, get yourself certified because then you can step into the arena where right now they won't let you in. And you have important stuff that you should be sharing, but you're not going to be taken seriously when you don't have those certifications. certifications. And so really polar opposite advice. What would you advise that I do? Certify or don't certify? Yeah, it's a tough one, very, very tough one. Again, like thinking about my school and again, like what I'm certifying is about you're proving that you understand what I'm teaching you, but that's as far as it goes. and if somebody comes to you to train their dog with you, it's your choice. And I hope that you make it clear to the person that comes to you that you're training the way you decide to train. Now if somebody comes to you and says, hey, I want to my dog, I want you to use as much as possible training without conflict. I want kindness methodology, then I hope that that's what you will do because they're coming to you knowing that you have certified. But ultimately it is up to you to choose where you want to go. I guess the answer then is the truth is we can't control these things. And we always say it's not the tool, it's the tool. So you're talking about people that have the inclination to be abusive or people that have the inclination to be abusive. And I think that that's, no matter what tool they have in hand, we've all heard those conversations before and everything too. I think that the concept that we are going to be able to control, I mean, I don't think you and I are looking to control anything, but I feel like people are looking

to control me through these processes. And I'm just like, I just don't, I don't even think, even if I believe in why they want to do that, I don't know why they think that it's actually going to solve a problem. Again, and now I think we're talking in circles again. I think that, you know, and I've heard you have this same conversation with many of your guests, right? So I, in the end, I think when we're talking about helping dogs, whether you're professionally training or whether you're working in the sheltering world, whether you're competing in an enthusiast, you know, one of my, I just have raised my kids, do the best you can every day of your life, don't, don't benefit at the expense of others. That's the bottom line. Just, why don't we, you know, that old saying that everything that in life, everything I need to know in life, I learned in kindergarten, remember those kinds of, sometimes I do think we're just all trying to make it too complicated. And when people do bad things, yes, there's people that behave badly shouldn't get what they want. but guess what? Children that behave badly shouldn't get what they want. Dogs that behave badly shouldn't get what they want. You know, I just feel like it's just not that complicated. And I feel like, you know, nice, good, positive, civil behavior should be very well reinforced. Like if we focus on something, like really certification, how about, how about the people that are clearly not supposed to have dogs? Forget about, forget what they're doing with the dog, what colors they're using. It's just unfit person to own a dog because endless reasons for it. Right, right. That's, I think, a priority to figure it out. But we, just like with the legislation with electric colors, it's a, it's a, it's a feel good and it's a, oh yeah, let's go after something. How about we try to think about how can we create something where it's like, okay, maybe pass certain tests, like you saw the latest in Texas, the little dutchie that died in a kennel in Texas a few days ago. I didn't see that. What's that about? So, the guy sends two dogs for training, pays 15,000. The dog dies in the kennel, taken to the vet, he does autopsy, extreme dehydration, blisters, like, like blisters, like wounds on the feet, like the dog has been sitting in a concrete under the sun, cooking. this is what we need to focus on. Like, there is actual serious issues that we can focus on. That's so sad. Yeah, I mean, yeah, every once in a while I'll be scrolling and I get very sensitive. There's certain things that will bog me down. They shouldn't be able to move now to a different town or different state and open a new business with new name. They should not. Okay, so this comes down to the enforcement, you know, and when you talk about even in, again, just my world is animal sheltering, right? So a lot

of communities, animal control agencies are trying to change from a punitive model to an educational model, right? Instead of being the one that's going to show up with a ticket, instead I'm going to show up with your dog that I found wandering and talk to you about licensing and have a conversation with you and educate you about microchipping or are there resources that we can provide so that the fence is fixed or whatever, right? So a lot of agencies are trying to move to resource provision and support and education than enforcement, right? Like a lot of them are changing their names from animal care and control to just animal care centers or resource centers or, and so we know, and I do like those trends, like I do absolutely think of, instead of everything just being, which I guess that's the human version of a compulsion system versus a reward based system, right? That's even from humans to humans. So I think, but what I would say is exactly the same thing. There's stuff in between. There must be consequences for bad decisions that negatively impact others. Like there has to be. But yes, it's much better if we can inspire that person that might be inclined to doing something that is harmful to another. It would be nice to have intervention and teach them about alternatives for their frustration, for their, whatever it might be, right? It's the same thing. But so whenever we come down to, like even with people, we can't, we can't, I don't want it at all to be about, you know, you've made a mistake and now you're locking you up. We've got to, you know, it's always complicated. You know, it just comes down to. It is complicated, super complicated. We, we are just a fucked up species. That's what I think. And we're the ones that make a mess of everything. Like I guess, yeah, it's, it's just sometimes the, the, the way today's marketing is and so. Well, you know, it's trying to be crazy. You keep using the word influencer. Like I'm, I have a no selfie policy with my company so that when everybody's out because it was driving me crazy where I had staff that were on gigs and everything and they're doing these selfies about them and then kind of, you know, I'm like, this is about the work and about the animals. That's what this is about, you know? So. That's exactly, okay, so that's what I'm talking about. That's exactly it. It's like even, even, you know, even again, like all the YouTube influencers, they're not there to teach and help dogs. It's about me getting likes and getting, which is nothing wrong with that, but if you're not taking it seriously, that sometimes sometimes you cannot help, you just don't have the knowledge or you're stuck and you, there is no one of those people on YouTube, not one, that has ever said, you know what, that's about me. I don't know what to do with that case. You should,

I, it would be wrong for me to give you an advice right now. There is not one time I have seen and I'm telling you, I've watched them because they're tending to me. That's, that's a problem. I do, and I think that again, I think we're talking about it's come into our world of training, but that's a bigger societal problem that we're facing right now. And I think that, yeah, I think that's a bigger societal problem. And I, there's something else I was saying. We were talking about influencers and the no selfie policy. The no selfie policy. I love it. Yeah. I mean, I want, I want, I want my staff to have pictures of them with their dogs, but you know what I'm talking about. I wish that I, I wish that, cause there, there are some that I've used because they're super cute and they were done in the spirit of the dog and I together. and it really did look about like it was about a moment for the dog. Actually, even my, even my photograph that is my, that's on my, my bio and everything, that was actually me taking a selfie, right? The reason being is I was trying to promote that dog and it just, it was a great picture because the dog looks like he's looking at me and so I, so I even used one. So I'm such a hypocrite because my, my, whatever, my main picture that I use, it was me taking a selfie. But, but you know what I was trying to get at is that I had some of the staff that it was like you are distracted by your need to create good posts for yourself. You're distracted from the focus of the, of the work. I know what I was going to say is that even with my, with the team, the trainers that I have lately, one of these phrases that I keep coming up with and it talked about human psychology and everything stuff too, is that sometimes when they were coaching each other or they would be regarding, talking about the dogs, they would say, well, confidence, right? And I finally started saying, wait a minute, let's think about it this way. How about if you want to feel better, do better. That's why we try to teach essential skills for life fulfilled. So if you want that person or that dog to boost their confidence, teach them a skill. Don't try to work so hard to make them feel better so that then they can actually, why don't you try flipping that? But that's not the way our world is going. Not today, no. Our world is telling us, well, us, I'm talking about in America right now, right? It's the world. It really is the world. So everybody, and this is the thing about our species, and I have a hard stop in 12 minutes because I've been to my stepson, but I think as a species, human beings right now, we are so freaking self-absorbed. Everything is so focused on my experience, how I feel, my perspective, everything, and I think, gosh, if we could just turn things back out and look at, that's why with my staff, everybody's

like, I'm having a bad day or I'm feeling emotional, I'm feeling this, I'm like, well, go do something that you can accomplish. Go accomplish something, do an act or learn a skill or do something, and guess what? You'll probably end up feeling better. right. Yeah, I mean, I tell you, people sometimes are like, well, they don't even know I'm training pet dogs, like, they don't know, because if you have to chase this perfect shot that you have in your head that needs to come out, and you have a dog that's like X number of weeks for you in training, but you're actually not spending time to teach and work with the dog, but you're chasing this interesting video to get likes and clicks. Yeah. That's a huge problem where we are. Yes, I agree, I agree, I agree. And, you know, again, you've met our team, and there's been some change since you've been there, so I think every time you come, there's probably a couple of new people, there's some that you've probably seen every single time that you've been there, but I'm telling you what I think is really impressive about the team is that they are working some gnarly dogs, and these are some young kids, and they are relatively green, and we are somehow managing them, and managing to teach them to do something effective that is really causing some behavior change, and so what is that? It's not me, you know, and by the way, what I always tell people is that, and because, you know, especially after losing Willen, that team's been holding it together without me there like I was there before, but I always tell people, I think I'm a pretty accomplished trainer, I've accomplished some things, this dogs playing for life thing has become pretty cool, but I'm not doing anything new, I have not invented anything, everything that we pull from, all the good trainers, it's just that we still have, there's these core foundational things and it just depends upon how you choose to put it together and then what your mastery is in delivering that to people or to animals, but I mean, I am so sick and tired of people trying to come up with something that makes them relevant, I mean, again, get some good freaking work done, that creates relevance. That creates relevance. Amy, I know you've got to go, tell me, I really want to make sure that people know how they can help dogs play for life, like any kind of donations where I'm going to put it in the in the description on the podcast, but I need you to talk a little bit about that because that's important. You're a nonprofit, you need the support for sure and everybody that has listened to you and like what you are and what you are doing, they need to know how they can help. Yeah, I mean, definitely we could really use some donations and support right now. You can do that through our website, it's

dogsplayingforlife, all spelled out, .com or .org, we'll get you there. And the thing that I'd like to share with your audience that I think will be poignant for your audience in particular, is that we do have very generous funders that support the aspect of our programs where we go into the shelters and we teach them how to improve the experience and quality of life with the shelter dogs. And just my last little thing about that is I've always believed that when you improve quality of life, you're going to get life-saving. And one of the things that's been going wrong in animal sheltering is we've been so focused on saving lives alone that animals have ended up kind of warehoused and their needs aren't met and then that's where we end up the driving them crazy thing and then even sheltering them. But our Canine Center, Florida, where I have the privilege of working with you and that you seem to be in support of the work and our efforts there, we have zero funding there, zero support. And you know why that is? Because of everything that we've talked about today and because of the resistance to fund something that is not politically correct and force-free and under that umbrella. And I've always maintained our integrity and always told the truth that we are an all tools and techniques program because we want to reach as many dogs as possible. And that, being honest and open about that and transparent about that, is our biggest obstacle and why that critical program has not received the funding that we receive. You know, it seems like such an obvious to people. Yeah, get the dogs out, let them play. It's a real feel-good and, you know, people love that. And so we have very generous support there. But all of this really, the efforts that we've been putting in to really becoming sophisticated, sophisticated about helping because it's going to, we've got a long wait list, there is a need. We did a survey of the shelters that we've worked with, with the enrichment programming, with the seminars and everything. And we asked them, if you had a place to send your behaviorally challenged dogs, would you? And it was over 80% say, yes, there's a need and we would like it. And then it was in combination, I think, most of them said, but we don't have the funding for it. And some said that we did, but it was a high percentage, between 70 to 80% said, yes, we would like a place for that to happen. And I always, I did envision that we should have these regional behavior centers because I was in two brick and mortar shelters that were adoption centers, trying to help the dogs and seeing as, as our thresholds kept, we were expanding. Like at first we were just saving these and then, well, Hey, now we've got that kind of,

now we're rocking and rolling and that's pretty easy. What's the next level of behavior that we can work with and save? And then we, it just kept increasing. And there got, there came a point where I felt like, I think I could reach a next population of dogs if there was a dedicated space for them to go where we could really meet their needs. And you've seen our facility is beautiful. Then that came along and it got donated. And then, then we were off and running, but all along, I knew that we were going to have that 10 years ago. I knew what was going to happen, that we were going to end up the dogs that were going to remain in brick and mortar shelters would be larger dogs that were struggling more behaviorally because all the low hanging fruit is going to end up being safe pretty soon. So we are going to, I think that as an industry we need to up, up our game. So while the core enrichment programming, we will never stop teaching that and that is so important. These, the concept of these centers that will be more comprehensive and more sophisticated in their approach and not handicapping themselves by trying to adhere to one ideology over another. It's going to be really critical if we really want to, if we really want to kind of finish this right, you know, and become like, why in the United States should our animals, our companion animals be languishing in these tough conditions? Why is that happening in this day and age in this country, right? So we need help. If the canine center is going to stay open and if we're going to build out more and if we have opportunities to train more people, we do need support because that aspect is a pretty dry for us. Well, hopefully, hopefully that helps some. You know, you have my, me at any time with anything I can help, but hopefully anybody that can chip in. It doesn't matter where you are and what you can afford, but help is definitely needed. So please, if you, if you can, that's, that's a place where you know your money will get to be used for a very good cause. So, I mean, thank you. Thank you for, for coming to the podcast. And, um, as I said, we will believe you invited me. It's crazy. Thank you. With the people that you have on this thing, I'm like, how do I get to sit here too? We, we, it's been long overdue actually. It's been on my mind and, um, because we always talk, we always talk and we, I'm like, people would like to hear what we talk about, you know? Um, but anyway, in the next few days, we're going to connect and, uh, we're work some logistics of, of my plan that I was telling you about this. Okay. That collaboration. And since I'm going to be on the ground again, I've got a couple of dogs.

If you've got the room to see us, we'd love to pile some people and dogs down. Whatever makes it, whatever makes it doable for you. You are always welcome to come to us, but of course we're always willing to come to you if you can give us the time. Okay. Yeah. I'm, I'm like in the next month or so, I'm totally free. I, I had this workshops, I had, uh, certification, certification weekend. I had, I had a lot going on in the next couple of days. I'm grading the, the tests. So that, that, but that will be done. And then definitely let's go, let's go. Okay. And then maybe we'll have something really like a really interesting case study that then you can share with everybody again. Now, now you really know, I cannot say no. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. Thank you, sir. All right. Beautiful conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.