에피소드 19: Nick Benger

tasks that the dogs had to complete and then um also i went along as like to make sure that the dogs were safe and that they were having a good time throughout the trip so i guess and and as you actually said ivan as well i've been training pet dogs for a long long time um i mean really it's kind of a case of where you first start counting because i started training dogs when i was about 16 um and even then because i was in the park training my dog all the time people started asking me for advice so i probably did my first one-to-one when i was like 16 17 years old but obviously it was terrible because i didn't know what i was doing um but eventually i did start my own dog training business and probably been doing that for about 12 years now i also did a degree in canine behavior and training at the university of hull um so so i've got my qualifications as well um but yeah that's that's kind of my background very cool uh the podcast that you did they were primarily with the most influential i mean i i think you've had pretty much every influential force free trainer on your podcast for quite extensive conversations which was very cool but you did have one with pat you did have one with uh nick um uh the mondio decoy who is also a good friend of mine um and yeah that that kind of was interesting to you know being out of pure curiosity or whatever the reason it is i think it's uh you know adding adding more flavor and expanding knowledge and the possibility to think of other ideas that they might be there and you might not know too much about them and when i say you i mean like everybody not not you in specific i i include myself in this and and i think that makes it very very interesting to to have such podcasts and guests and and and um how did you what what made you do the podcast how did that idea came about yeah i guess so at the time i was a really i was a big consumer of podcasts like i just loved the format so i was always listening to other people's podcasts and then um when i first started the podcast i was uh uh i i what no one knew who i was i wasn't like a known trainer or anything like that and uh i guess when i was young as well i had a real um like desire to be the best dog trainer i could be like well i still do but but like like highly ambitious you know like really hungry that was my yeah very very hungry uh and it was an excuse essentially to just talk to the people that were the best dog trainers in the world there was it was an excuse to get to know them get to talk to them and it was extremely successful ivan yes it really was yeah but well i mean

in the sense that a lot of those podcast guests became my friends people i spoke to uh and i still speak to a lot of them on a regular basis so for you know mission accomplished on on that side of things that it it really did help me become so much better of a dog trainer and be exposed to so many different ideas um and and i've always valued that as well um you know i always speak to people of you know that have lots of different ideas um so yeah i guess i've always been been interested in that so you like we were planning to make the our conversation a week or so ago and you got stuck in on the other side of the europe uh was it belgium or or germany but you were getting a dog tell me tell me what's the it's i think it's a german shepherd puppy right yeah absolutely so i've got a working line german shepherd um and essentially i my labrador was my first dog died about two years ago and uh ever since then i've been researching breeders and i've been so heavily into it spent so much time on working dog which i know you reference a lot um just hours and hours on end uh looking at different breeders and another one big inspiration for me actually has not been uh maybe the traditional thing that people go down so i've not been obsessed with working ability so much as um i kind of come from a perspective more of i was exposed early on to people like jim byam harrison who runs a campaign called cruffer which is the campaign against uh the use of flat-faced dogs in um advertising she also had this um documentary called pedigree dogs exposed which highlighted all of the issues that so many pedigree dogs were having um and i was just really acutely aware of the issues in i mean so many different breeds but especially in german shepherds so uh my so that was really um a massive influence for the breed where i decided to go with i think actually um helmet referenced as well in his podcast um he's he's a really fantastic breeder and what i love about the rsp 2000 is they have uh this scheme where you can essentially phenotype a dog and get a pedigree for that dog so if a dog uh looks like a german shepherd you can apply to have that dog get papers as a german shepherd because of the the phenotype of the dog and that is just an absolute game changer because it means you can bring genetic diversity back into this breed so just so lacking it that have been inbred for the longest time um and hands makes full use of that which is just like massively appealing for me because i just really value genetic diversity and then also like

from a confirmation perspective breeding uh german shepherds that don't have this massive slope and i know that this is going to be super controversial but it's really important to me um you know when you i don't think german shepherds should have their back end you know so far down and i know that that's a controversial thing to say but if you uh if you go and watch the seminars of martin fisher who was like the the expert when it comes to dogs he's uh wrote a book called dogs in motion and when it comes to dog movement he is he's you know he is the the guy he deliberately references german shepherds and the issues that they have because of the the changes to their skeleton in the back essentially um so i think a lot of people kind of have the head in the sand about that but that's something that is really important to me so uh so yeah so i've got my uh german shepherd puppy after all of that research and it's uh a reminder of how hard it is having a puppy it's a different ball game i know right yeah i know you know i i totally agree with you with um having the the confirmation should if we focus on confirmation we have to focus on confirmation that actually has a purpose that it's it's a healthy confirmation that allows the dog to show physical abilities and not the other way around and that is a it's an ongoing problem and i think even the the most avid show people understand that like it or don't like it i i'm convinced that they they understand that um there is just a lot of money involved in this as you know and makes it very very difficult for for anybody to to break through but maybe maybe at least there are few types of german shepherds and and you know we can still compare and and make you know you have at least choices if you do the right research often people do end up with a show line german shepherd when they didn't mean to have a show line german shepherd they just got confused because of all the titles and the championship lines and and all that good stuff in the pedigree and and then yeah it's a crossroad and and depending where you want to go with it but i i'm absolutely firm believer on that confirmation has to be looked at as something that benefits the the the structure so the dog has you know physical abilities are amplified instead of diminished and um but but this typically happens when you know what worry i mean we all know what happened with the german shepherd is we kept lowering the levels of the germs we kept making every criteria that originally was in place

easier so these dogs can also continue to pass the tests and and that became a big problem and it still is but that's the world we live in you know what i wanted to ask you is how easy it is now to bring dogs to uk from europe or anywhere else well we we had a real nightmare over and i i i i don't know how typical it is to be honest we just had an issue with the passport and the just being essentially a typo and it caused us absolute mayhem i think if you're super uh you know vigorous with making sure the passport is right and theoretically it shouldn't be a problem but just to jump back to some of the stuff you were saying there as well it's like it makes me kind of i don't know i get a little bit like fed up of it i guess um because if you look i've been doing a lot of research on german shepherds looking into their history if you look a hundred years ago you know the german shepherds looks very very different and this is in the time of course of the founder of the breed uh von steffenitz they looked very different um but now if you post pictures of a dog that looks similar to that people will say well that's not a german shepherd or all the time i i get asked um you know what breed is your dog and it's just uh yeah it just gets a little exhausting sometimes it's kind of funny that uh i think our perception of what a german shepherd is has changed so much and i would love to get back to the point where they're a much more functional dog and i'm full i was so excited when you uh when you interviewed hermit riser and because obviously with his with the rsv 2000 i really feel like they are like really uh pushing that forwards and this is really exciting for for the breed right now yeah totally totally um he it's not an easy thing because it's i mean it is really swimming against the stream and and and even though everybody individually understands the problem when we look at the problem as a community we as individuals say the things that the community expect us to say and and i think this is a becomes a problem with the german shepherd um but at least we have the two types i mean okay well there is quite a few more than two types now but at least we we have a a good opportunity to have the dogs uh to try to maintain some working dogs as well depending where the dog sports go which is a a big problem too um you know it seems like a lot a lot a lot of people don't like the dog sports which is really mind-blowing to me because um you know in particular the the protection dog sports are

so valuable they they really give a very good outlet and purpose for dogs that are bred um for certain traits and yeah if if we don't have that like for example if all of a sudden and i don't want to even think about this but all of a sudden the belgians stop doing belgian ring which is it can happen i mean it's very close to happening because it's only older people like the the younger generations are they are they're busy doing so many more different things and as long as the you know nvbk for example exists we we kind of know that they will be well-bred malinois even even though they are becoming so popular and they're really taking uh um the the german shepherd direction to where everybody wants to have one especially when they say well you're not you cannot have one you're not good enough to have one so that that's just a huge selling point that makes everybody have one and and yeah ideally protecting the dog sports is what um can maintain healthy dogs otherwise we we really don't have anything in our uh um no opportunity to evaluate character temperament structure uh or everything becomes um irrelevant and and this is this is going to be a problem and i i don't know that's kind of where we're going with almost all dog sports but especially the protection dog sports they're under a lot of pressure everywhere and and people that are responsible on the higher level of that they they continue to bend and accept every little push that uh is is put on them and and the programs are becoming slowly very um washed down to where we will have very hard time to be able to select like dogs further and this is um this will end up being a huge problem also for um you know police dogs military dogs because and training um there there's so many values valuable uh things that come out from protection sports that if we don't have them um i think it's gonna become uh a real real problem for doc doc community all together well i think that kmpv has really uh shown a path forwards with the genetic diversity stuff you know by almost kind of having like almost open stub books i think that that is the way that we need to move forwards the idea of having pedigree dogs is just is like clearly uh not going to work long term when you insist on in breeding dogs over you know essentially hundreds of years you know there's only so much genetic diversity and you are going to see that in the in the mallies for sure because if you look at the other breeds have got popular it's already happened to those breeds so it's just gonna repeat itself when you see this massive increase in popularity

in in belgian malinois for sure but yeah the sport is interesting i don't i don't know if there is a pressure i guess you're right because uh a lot of the bike i i mean you would know way more than me ivan but i think that bike sports have been banned in some countries right it seems like there's a certainly a pressure to change that's that's for sure yes it is um um there is even studies that are done studies like interesting i i wouldn't say studies but surveys like for example what is on some trainers website as far as keywords and and sentences and lines and like if you're saying igp or ring sport or you know balance trainer or something like this um it's supposed to be a red flag um there is um there is um there is in uc davis in california they actually teach that in their uh animal behavior when they when they cover dog dog training and and they they really have this outline as a big red flag because uh well i don't know exactly why but it it bothers them that there is that this type of training exists and they don't see a reason for it and do you think that it's the activity itself though or do you think that it's the training that is associated with the activity obviously you know um certainly you know i think that uh the bike sports are more heavily populated by people that consider themselves to be balanced trainers and use tools than any other sport right yes very so i'm just wondering is it is it to do with the the methods of training that go on in the sport or is it the sport itself that they see to be problematic totally totally there is there is definitely a relation definitely um but i think well my take will be not liked by a lot of people that will listen but my take is that if if you are training this kind of like protection sports um and you don't use any aversive you can be successful to certain level but it's a very long road and nobody has been yet and it's not because nobody has tried very talented trainers have tried myself included like in the 90s when when the biggest shake started to really happen and it's like wow everybody got excited i got excited michael ellis got excited we were still back in california together like we would you know and it was interesting and it's like well what can we do how far can we go and we realized yes we can go far but not as far and we found that it's in some ways makes it harder for the dogs because uh uh the puzzles that they are presented with are not so easily resolved than if we have some element of um you know aversive training in there and the whole

uh um you know when obviously when you have a decoy a helper and the dog has to show some form of higher level of confidence and dominance and aggression and still be controlled it's a very different mindset different emotions going through different chemicals going through than if the dog is doing akc obedience or fly ball um and we can you know we certainly could use a lot of differential reinforcement and a lot of negative punishment and a lot like there we know just like everybody else know we we know what we can do but the reason we will use aversive is because and the only reason really for for the good trainers i'm talking is because we see that they help to bring clarity in the training instantly they also help to what what the the you know the force free community would say well it's a quick fix and to me quick fixes uh it's a beautiful thing it's just it's labeled correct incorrectly because if if there is a faster way that you shorten the timeline of a struggle i look at that overall as a huge benefit and not as a disadvantage which i'm sure we will get further in our conversation about this but uh that's my take on the um you know like we we are protection trainers we we try to do the best we can at least the again big percentage i would say of people that want to be successful we try to learn from everywhere we share knowledge knowledge and we're not stuck in one way the moment there is a better way we will not stop because of a narrative it's like well no i mean it's beautiful that works why would i not use it there is nothing in ours uh um even our mentality to to be like oh no well why why would i use clicker well if the clicker works for you and you are having results why would you not i think uh this is a topic we should definitely explore more and uh i i think part of my role is kind of being a guest on on this podcast ivan is definitely to ask hard questions so i hope people don't get mad at me for uh for doing that i'm not i'm not uh it's not out of any kind of dislike or any or anything like that um you know all of in all of the other i just i i feel a responsibility ivan for us to have this kind of like almost hard conversation i expect this from you this is like i'm very absolutely seriously like i like this is where we need to be yes i 100 agree so uh so let me kind of challenge that a little bit you know in in well i would say in in every other sport that i can think of in the past it there was heavy use of aversives and now we see in the you know almost a consensus across the competitors of those sports of using very

very very few aversives um certainly very few little use of tools um so i guess my question ivan is do you think that that's going to come to the bite work world do you think that eventually maybe maybe not today but do you think in 10 years 15 years 20 years we are going to see success at the highest level without the use of tools perfect question and um yeah i i for where we are in our collective knowledge on every side every every uh um extreme and anything in between and where we are collectively in our knowledge i don't think this is possible um and again i need to be very careful what i'm saying i'm not saying that you cannot be successful in terms of you know reaching certain levels and be competitive but to be highly competitive what we know right now it's not enough it does not create these two things that i said like the the clarity and the time and the time and we either have to try to change how the dog perceives protection to where it becomes a little more of a game this is when for example mondiuring if if any sport probably mondiuring will be the closest that could go much more uh full all in of a human uh without use of a versus simply because the dogs don't have to work in that mindset there a dog in igp has to go in the blind and has to show some dominance which i think we will talk about dominance as well at some point and when we talk about dominance we're talking about highly self-confident dog that says i will neutralize you no matter what you try but please try like it's a it's a clear challenge from the dog's part because that's how they are trained to highly believe in themselves and their abilities and when you top that with the right genetics they totally enjoy it it's a it's like a any kid that goes to a gym and does martial arts and realizes that they have talent for this that they are not just there because the parents don't have time to spend with them and they're just you know spending three hours at the gym for the wrong reasons so i don't think that unless the rules continues to change like for example in igp right now they well they it's a this day is a very interesting who are they but slowly but surely now we we since january 1st there are no stick hits in competition to be done and when you don't have that stick hit you're allowing weaker dogs and you're allowing a dog to come and play and we basically are changing let's say a full contact martial art martial arts uh uh fight in a ring to those fake whatever you call them the ww the wrestling things that you know they

kind of do the fake slaps and and it looks very attractive and it's all you know but everybody knows that it's there is nothing uh closely related to actual fight so if we end up turning the protection sports to this kind of entertainment then i know that uh um you know we we will be more successful in the game and we will be more successful without any form of use of aversives now i see many benefits of the protection sports and the ability to use aversives because for example in igp if you make the dog listen to you but the dog looks acts concern acts suppressed acts worried being from the helper being on the field being by the handler all this today will be very highly punished by the the judges because what we really want to see is we want to see control but we want to see a highly confident dog that is not afraid of the owner or the decoy or the boogeyman that's gonna come from somewhere and it will and this is not the way this is what we did i don't know 30 years ago but we start to learn that we can we don't have to sacrifice one from the other and i don't know if this is a good time to go to it's probably not a good time yet to go there so i will that's okay i i can respond to that a bit as well because uh firstly i think it's fascinating that you you said that uh you think that it's a possibility in mondia ring i think uh the reinforcement based mondia ring trainers are going to be massively motivated by hearing you say that so i think that's that's that's really really cool um i i feel like i don't have enough knowledge of the sport honestly to to uh debate you on that kind of stuff i i i know barely anything in comparison to you so i just find it really interesting to get your perspective on it i am definitely curious about it i've attended a few bite work workshops and seminars and i've learned so much from people that are involved in in those sports for sure so uh obviously for igp you didn't think it was a possibility in terms for those of us that aren't super cleared up what is there a particular exercise or or a particular part of igp that you think is the most problematic when it comes to making a shift towards less aversive yeah the and again like less subversives it's i i have to say that anything that goes viral on social media it's i i i don't think any of the more educated and more uh you know influential and good trainers will ever approve of that it actually hurts us because it labels or it puts all of us in the same pot um so when we say less aversives i guess i should clarify that i mean i i and i agree

because i have the same gripe with the term aversives i feel like it's such a broad term that it really doesn't say a lot so i guess i'm really talking more about without the use of uh i guess e collars and prong collars are the things that are probably the two tools that are most controversial so maybe without those two tools so for those that are not quite familiar why why this this mindset and this type of dog is important and why we need to continue to try to get better in that training is to look and i'll get back to to uh what you were asking but um we can compare it and we can look at more into uh military dogs dogs and police dogs and so the question becomes can we send a swat dog that drops out of the helicopter and goes into a room or a building and has to hunt down somebody and he has to go in a fight with them so when you're asking them this cannot be done like we it will be very unfair to that dog because that dog's gonna get damaged that dog's gonna get hurt or killed if we trick him to believe that this is a game in any way when a dog goes i think that's what we're talking about though ivan i think we're talking about the use of e collars and prong collars i don't understand how that relates right so i'm getting there the way it relates is that when you have when we so so there is always the idea in the notion that well the force free he has the answers if it's not better it's at least equally successful and when it comes to this kind of training it has shown that it's not successful now as I say that I know that many people will say no no it is but if it has been successful there is no reason for anybody not to adopt a better techniques that are on top of being more ethical and humane and you know dog friendly but also effective in deployment it absolutely would be mind-boggling why like why would you not you know start to adopt those approaches and it's not the lack of access to ideas because they are there they just have proven at least for now not to be as effective now we can argue how most of Europe electric collar and prone collar along with few other training tools are legislated they're banned there is I mean depending on which country we are talking the penalties are very

very serious that does not mean and I can speak because I'm on the outside none of those people can talk the way I talk to you because that will be that there they will be criminals imagine a police officer in Germany if they tell you well guess what I have to do my job and I have to do the training that I need to do and if I don't know any other way I have to do the training that I have to do the training that I have to do the training that I have to get it done I think that's not this is by no means any exception in any of the countries that electric collars and prone collars are banned and so really my issue is that if we have if we say that something works better but we're failing to to demonstrate it and to teach those trainers that are that need this then then I'm not sure why like I keep saying and I'm sure you have heard me in my in the podcast lately because it's been all about this I don't think legislations will be needed if anyone shows that there is a better way you're saying so much Ivan I feel like this is so much is is really hard for me to respond to everything at once if you know when we have this conversation it's difficult with the police dog stuff I find it really hard Ivan when we have that conversation because I have worked with police dog trainers more than one and and and in the UK and I've asked them that question and they swear to me that they don't use e-collars they don't use prong collars with their working dogs and they would say that to my face and I and I don't have any reason to disbelieve them you know I feel like we have a good enough relationship where they wouldn't feel the need to lie to me about that and then obviously there are and those are people I know personally but then of course there are people on the internet that are involved in in the police that have spoken online about using the training techniques that are used within their police force that don't utilize techniques like that obviously most famously Steve White you know has done many many podcasts on on using more reinforcement based techniques for police dogs so the police dog thing I find kind of difficult because I get mixed messages obviously I'm not a police officer but I hear some police officers saying exactly what you're saying I think usually in foreign countries saying that it's it's not possible without the use of tools and then I have other police officers saying exactly the opposite yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and this is this is the landscape that we created there is a lot of dishonesty and it's very understandable

why do you assume that they're dishonest though Ivan? because I train and I go places and it will be very difficult for me to like for example you mentioned Steve White we just did a presentations and we happen to I know him for a long time and it is very hard to point to somebody's name and ruin their reputation because of the landscape because if you say today that in the people that you train with in England and I'm not saying that it's not like maybe maybe what the needs are with these dogs are very different maybe they don't need to do I really this is just a speculation and guess which is pointless but I know from going to all the countries in Europe from talking to all the trainers in Europe I know that they have to do their job and the way the best way that they do their job is not it's becoming underground this is really a very very difficult problem and they are in such a difficult place that they are even afraid to share a podcast like the podcast that I did about real science and whatever right or wrong just the idea to share that podcast will create problems for a lot of trainers in Europe this is the danger of legislation because we ultimately go underground if I do want to talk about legislation but let's stick on the police thing for a second yes obviously obviously you're implying that they're being dishonest about it but it's interesting because obviously Ivan the electric collar is not something you know it's a relatively modern invention police dogs have far predated so so is your it's obvious that we can have police dogs without the need of an electric collar because we did before the electric collar was popular so is your argument that they're not as effective or could you kind of clarify that a little bit yeah so the that argument is it's an easy one yeah it's still it comes ultimately to overall are there benefits and what are the pros and cons of use of aversive in dog training once we agree on some something there then we have to look into all the different aversive tools and decide which ones are the optimal as far as not not being harmful so when you have when we go back in history and we look into the 1930s and we look at all the experiments that were done with pigeons and rats before electric got adopted into the

uh uh those studies animals were getting injured left and right daily they would go blind they would break their wings they would because we are using physical a form of aversive more mechanical form of aversive which um really creates much different problem the reason they changed to electric was it sends the signal to the brain watch out this is dangerous but it treats the brain it doesn't really go all the way to where you your wings or your eyes or your back it's injured to the point that you cannot walk no more or you are sore for five days or your wings is broken it just replaces in a very smart way and tricks the brain into it and if we use electric collar to wear like I like it it's not that difficult for me to put an electric collar on a dog or on a person and do it so methodically to where I allow the brain to understand that this is not danger no more you you it sounds like your argument then Ivan is that without the electric collar and police dog training police dog training would have to be a lot more barbaric so you know the electric collar is actually almost a kindness because before the electric collar the training was far more physical punishment and you know even worse essentially is that your argument no that is exactly the argument that is exactly the argument we made a switch here though from talking about IGP to talking about police stuff you know even even if we said you know it was necessary for the police police stuff which I do think is somewhat in dispute Ivan because just because of my personal experiences of talking to police officers and I do wonder if there's cultural differences between different countries but I don't think we're going to agree on that and how could I ever tell if someone was telling me the truth or not you know it would seem extremely out of character for them to lie to me but there you go but it's a different story with IGP because we're kind of in a different scenario obviously if we're talking about police dogs we're talking about a dog that absolutely has to do their job for the good of society in IGP we're just talking about you know something that obviously people are extremely passionate about but at the end of the day is a dog sport you know like any other dog sport right right good point so this is the counter argument that's the whole point like a lot of people want to say well yeah this is just a sport but unfortunately and fortunately it's not just a sport and the the reason I bring the police and the military dogs and I compare the two is that the dogs work under the same mindset and when you look at dog training for IGP it is where the most advanced level of work the most like innovative and oh

it's kind of like the boiling pot it's like the lab if you want to look at it that way that you can experiment to some degree and you can refine and you can get better the reason I would be invited to police canine conferences is simply because they know that we spend our life not a month not a year but our life understanding and sharing information and getting better do things go wrong sometimes sure they go wrong everywhere when I say go wrong though that does not imply what we see on the internet like any of this hitting and kicking there is just no place for that that's nothing to do with dog training and the majority of trainers understand that now I want to go back to how you I totally understand that you will have hard time when somebody is telling you no this is what we do this is how we train well if your people know that you are leaning more on the force-free side of things like if they look at your podcast if they just look at your outlook on dog training no matter how close of friends they are it will be problematic which for them to talk to me and ask for advice to help with problems it's not you know there is no hesitation whatsoever on top of that it's very different to have a conversation and it's very different when we spend I don't know like 5 10 20 training sessions with the unit and see what they do now if they do something and they are effective in what they do they should come out forward and teach that to everybody else because everybody else will adopt those techniques without a doubt again it's super difficult conversation and I'm very careful not to put names because these people they will lose their jobs that's exactly what will happen I have I have a list of 10 very big names in the dog world that I just cannot mention them and they will never come to my podcast but they are one of the most influential people that I wish that they have the courage to come and be honest now all of those people know that I will never ever expose any of my correspondences or any of my personal conversation that that will be absolutely the wrong thing to do but this is where we are you have to agree you as an individual they understand but then they have to put a different face and go outside and agree with the collective and I'm talking extremely like people that are in extremely high places in welfare of dogs and also some of the very famous European dog schools that

yeah they basically have rejected the whole idea that aversive can bring anything good in dog training yeah I do agree with you there Ivan I think it's terrible that people are dishonest about their training I can't imagine living like that and actually obviously we first started talking when I made a post about a few different things but talking about the use of aversives and I would be if I was using electric collars prong collars or anything like that I am the kind of person that would be honest about that and something a lot of people have accused me of after that post and actually it's quite the opposite I think I put my head out there and because that was what I believed in I would say if I was using it so but I do believe in the use of aversives at times but I think it depends on the aversives we're talking about which is what I was saying earlier is the word aversives has become synonymous with electric collars and prong collars and actually it encompasses so many different things it's actually quite a problematic term at this point because we can't talk about some use of aversives without it being really stigmatized so I spoke about the use of head collars in some cases I spoke about the use of time outs for some situations both of which I think are hugely valuable in pet dog training and it's almost like a taboo it's something that you can't ! I have a question for you Ivan and it's kind of along those lines as well because one of the things that actually irks me about some of the positive associations is the statements which seem quite uneducated when you say there's no place for aversives in dog training and again it speaks to that point it's like aversives is being used as a term as if it's interchangeable with electric collars and prong collars and what people consider to be the more controversial aversives and actually I think a lot of pet dog trainers don't see anything wrong in some cases with the use of head collars and timeouts correct so that really annoys me because you have a group of hundreds and hundreds of behaviorists and they can't choose their words a little bit more carefully but equally on the other side of things I'm curious what you think the motivation is when you have such a consensus probably in the high 90% of people that are extremely qualified when it comes to dog behavior people with PhDs people that are clinical behaviorists people that are the heads of these associations why do you think that there is such a consensus against the use of let's just stick with electric collars it's easy for us to be more specific then why do you think that there is such a consensus among so many experts it's been on my mind for decades now ever since the very first you know the studies 2003 you know the Dutch with the KMPV dogs and then later on Schalke study with the bagels and the one particular study Matthias and Van de Borg you know like training with

electric or shock collar they call it of course and they painted a very horrible picture to where the dogs were basically shaking lip licking yawning scratching not wanting to look not wanting to walk on the field having low headstand and lifelong trauma this is hard to accomplish even on purpose it's hard to accomplish but if you're accomplishing that that means that you're doing a very poor job and I always say that we look at the most brilliant examples of positive reinforcement and we compare the most horrific cases of when aversive was used when we reread like like go all the way down to Karen Pryor's book it excited everybody me included in fact the first book that I wrote on advanced Schutzhund even though there was prone collars everything was very much you know force free driven approach of training but in her book she gives you some beautiful and brilliant analogies and examples of how things can go beautiful and then a very horrible example of the other side I think somewhere down there things went wrong we like if you and I say this to everybody that I talk to if you see a dog that I will go on the field or I would take on the street with me on a flat collar or without any collar you will absolutely not been able to tell how that dog was trained and I think this is the point that we need to focus on if we can accomplish clarity effectiveness in a timely fashion and the dog is not shitting themselves they are not twitching they are not looking for the boogeyman there is nothing none of these things that the force free community wants everybody to believe are not existent then how can you argue that it has this horrible effects every time it's been used this is this is how the evolution of training you know like even if there was times we are rapidly like like with lightning speed by day by month by year getting better of what we do and if we have a dog that you like as you say gentle leader head collar haltis whatever we want to put no pull harnesses they are all aversive tools there is aversive nature like our it's just fundamental thing we we have to navigate around pleasant and aversive situations every moment of the life but we know how to and the big

importance is that we have to talk when I say clarity this is when we come up with studies that we clearly see something misused and then we say well I told you it's very bad idea but it's clearly non-contingent there is it does not make no sense to the dog in the study Schalke did in I think it was 2006 she had a bunch of bagels three groups or four groups and ultimately the dogs that were contingently trained with electric collar they responded beautifully they apparently showed some level of anxiety or stress during the learning and that was very extremely short-lived and they had no problems whatsoever and they had no problem but also the training was effective the group that led to the big let's ban electric collars was the group that basically they pretty much flipped a coin and said let's randomly shock the dog and see what happens and I don't think they needed to do that it's very clearly what will happen their idea of doing this was well what if a person does it that is not familiar how to do it so maybe they will just kind of do this this is like I really blame those original studies that were done that eventually turn into they I mean there's just huge holes in those studies I don't want to go in details of them we can list them if you want but I don't think there's any need but they were taken from that point on as references so for example if you look from the first studies then the second the third the fourth all the way to the American Veterinary Society like you look at their mission statements and they list all these references and then you like if you take the time and you go through them which I do ! because that's what I do I actually have them I believe that I have every study out there that's been ever done as far as dog training goes and there is a big problem because something that didn't go well it got referenced and just because it got referenced it became legit and then it started to become more and more referenced so a super good example I tried to talk to all really all of them some of them I talked on the phone they don't like to talk publicly I tried to talk to Daniel Mills you are super familiar that that was a big study and this is where at least in UK and the States it's very highly accepted as a very legit study he refused to talk now if you're a scientist and you believe in what you're saying and you're afraid that you will be challenged there is there is a problem with that I have asked for the videos from

that study I did find videos ultimately I did find videos I did find pictures I did talk to people that were part of the study all I know is that the dog the sheep were in confined like in play pants like five meters or something and you have three sheep in there and we are talking about chasing and predation instinct with an animal that is confined we cannot evaluate predation this pretty much equals to say well let's see if my dog is going to chase that squirrel over there that is about to die any moment and it really does not act like a squirrel anymore from what I know and again I like I have documents and I wish that one of those people come forward and prove me wrong the positive reinforcement group was always on long leash now if we talk about efficacy I don't think this is something you know that you even need to do a study you clearly control everything I am in the middle like if where we are talking about line and let's say no pull harness or a halty or whatever if we gonna resort to using one of them and let's say the dog is chasing chasing ship chasing car chasing anything chasing if we decide to actually go that route to use the long line to stop the dog that will be far more dangerous than if we use electric collar and in my why is the long line dangerous because if the dog decides to go like I'm saying not to use if you're using differential reinforcement it's a different situation but if you decide to use a long line to stop a dog that means that you will have to the dog is going to have some momentum and you're going to have to stop the dog unless the dog has not taken off but there is a difference when you have a dog that is thinking maybe I should go maybe I shouldn't go versus a dog that has already committed and it's already in a chase and in that moment long line will be dangerous because I disagree with you there tell me we we have long line first of all whenever we use a long line we connect to a harness so there's no risk of the dog choking themselves or anything like that long lines are used so extensively for every dog trainer ever has used a long line how many injuries have been on long lines I mean I don't think it's a dangerous tool by any means but I also think you're drawing a false comparison there because you're comparing the management of the dog on the long line and that's not a fair comparison you need to compare the electric collar to the training of the dog using reward based methods not just the managing of the dog with a long line that's why I said that if you want to use the long line and whatever the dog is wearing as an aversive option

so you mean ! corrections on a long line right this will be more risky yeah a reward based trainer isn't going to use lead corrections on a long line so I mean yes I mean obviously probably the most common use of a dog training technique in that kind of situation would be like look at me training or something of that nature I I'm not a predation specialist by any means I know that there are reward based trainers that are really specializing in that like Simone Muller she has her whole predation substitute training all of that yeah I'm very familiar with that there are lots of people doing reward based predation training but obviously it's not just a case of just standing there with a dog on the long line that's just a management technique like a balanced trainer might manage that situation with a short lead around the sheep just to make sure they don't chase the sheep while you're doing the training or before training when you're just getting from A to B right so again I am talking more about if we are to use aversive I'm not saying that force free trainer will do that but if any trainer regardless of what label they wear decided to use a long line on any training equipment on the dog as an aversive for predation for the dog taking off and chasing something that will be much more risky to hurt the animal than if you do electric collar what is physically the damage that electric collar can create I agree with you I think if you were to try and do lead corrections on a long line I can see how that would be dangerous I just don't know anyone doing that right well can we jump a little bit further back in the conversation though Ivan because you said a lot there that I wanted to talk about and I asked you about initially about associations and you said that people in the early days these studies came out and they really influenced people's thinking and actually those studies are flawed and that was kind of your argument but I want to make a different argument which I think that you might actually agree with me somewhat Ivan in this or at least in part there are so many people that are misusing electric collars and you say hey I use the electric collar and there isn't fallout you know I I'm skilled enough in it that I can actually avoid the fallout of the electric collar and that there are other people that are similarly skilled but what percentage of people are we talking about Ivan you know realistically if every if I'm extremely kind to your argument here Ivan and every IGP competitor is extremely skilled with the e-collar which I don't believe for a second and I'm sure you wouldn't either even if we took that number in terms of e-collar sales that's got to be a tiny percentage that's got that has to be a tiny percentage and you know personally as a pet dog trainer I don't even give my clients clickers I use verbal markers I don't even trust them with a clicker how would I trust them with an e-collar is something that is very alien to me but there are people that are going into pet shops

and just buying e-collars and the misuse is at a scale which is unbelievable and this is where the argument for banning them comes in so firstly you know what do you think about that Ivan in terms of this misuse of e-collars at scale where people are you know doing serious harm with the e-collar would you accept that no of course not I don't think you don't think that the majority of people that are just picking up an e-collar off the shelf are not qualified to use that tool and are going to do more harm than good so super questions like this is really this needs to be talked about and the first thing I need to make sure that everybody understands this I don't I'm totally against anything that will be against the welfare of dogs and yes there is difference between somebody knowing what to do and somebody not knowing what to do now having said that if we take the electric collar away because of legislation let's get there let's get there let's work our way towards that what percentage of people that use the electric collar do you think have the skill required to avoid all fall out okay so I don't think I cannot give you a percentage because we simply don't have that kind of statistic so this will be a speculation on everybody like I don't think there is such a statistics what do we know we know that electric collars are sold in in big numbers everywhere including the countries that are banned if they are sold in this big of a number don't you think that we will have far especially today when we have this magical thing don't you think that we will the social media will be flooded with bad examples of what is going on left and right assuming that there is such a big number of electric collars out there in in hands that should not be having them but what we see mostly if not at least what I see 99% of the time on social media as abuse it's very physical are just very very bad very very abusive things done to dogs that have nothing to do with electric collars so I wonder why we don't have these videos of this big number of people that abuse electric collars I don't think people tend to record their dog whilst they're at their worst unless it's some kind of funny video or something like that people oftentimes that's not the sort of thing that people are documenting but you're right we don't have the number but we're talking about huge number right I want you to speculate a little bit though Ivan in terms of maybe we don't have the number of you think there are you're part of the balanced community I mean surely you can make some kind of estimation as to how many people you're seeing on courses that are investing their time to become knowledgeable in the use of electric collars I

use electric collars far more far more people that use electric collars properly or if it's not exactly how what I consider proper use I still would not put them in that place to where I would say you know what they should take this dog away from you because this is very wrong what is happening I do see it but I don't see it in the numbers when we again when we compare the numbers of how many collars which is kind of easy to prove because any electric collar company you can see their sales and income and net gross and so on we know that there is a lot of sales it does not match the narrative that story line that there is just overall grossly tortured dogs in the whole world I don't think this is really what is the case and I think that I think actually quite the opposite I think people are very quick to buy a collar but when it comes to actually using the collar they think twice they think five times and they probably decide that you know what I can start calling my dog and giving them treats and then if I need it maybe I use it and they do end up doing the right thing and they never have to use it but I don't think that people take it very lightly as something benign I think it's actually the contrary I think people take it very seriously when they decide to use electric collar it's not a they especially like the pet people it's not necessarily a quick fix of something in my opinion it ends up being they have a dog that doesn't fit a style of training and it doesn't matter which camp we're talking about and they look for alternatives but ultimately they want to resolve whatever the issue is because they care about their dog and they want to have that dog so I believe that a lot of people will end up buying electric collars but I don't think it's a very easy handedly kind of carelessly oh let's just strap a collar and let's start shocking it left and right are there people like this I will absolutely say they are but as far as percentages again if this was to be happening a lot and let me give you a clear example because in Europe they are hunting animal rights activists hunt the sport trainers down they put hidden cameras in the woods they disguise themselves camouflage like SWAT teams and Rambos and they film training after training after training but all the footage that comes out that actually looks inappropriate without a doubt all that is done without electric color most like like 100% of the footage that comes out from those things it's very heavy handed very emotional based angry and like just stupid just very

stupid action of not really lacking education earlier in the podcast Ivan you said that police dog trainers might not tell me the truth because people associate me more with the reward based community so they would be hesitant to talk to me about that but the same is true in this situation Ivan in the sense that if people are coming to you or they've got to the point where they've got in contact with you or something like that is responsible and interested in a way that your average person buying it off the shop isn't and in terms you might disagree Ivan but in terms of the people that I would say have put in the amount of time that you have or have put in almost any time at all in order to use that tool I think are an extreme minority and I think the majority of people that are buying these tools are going to do so because they're really frustrated at something that their dog is doing and they are looking for the quick fix and we don't see that so much in our country with electric collars I possible I do think that thousands of reward based trainers are constantly seeing the fallout of electric collars and I do think that is why even if we take what you're saying to be true in the sense that you are so skilled that you can avoid the fallout of these issues how much on a bigger scale how much societal fallout can we withstand how many in order for you to maintain your use of the electric collar how many other people that are causing huge issues in their dogs even if you don't think it's causing big training issues just ethically just doing the wrong thing with the collar how much of that can we withstand and I think that is where a lot of the argument for banning comes in because even if people think that your use is acceptable people will point to the fact that the majority of people do not have the skill and knowledge that you have and they will say well it's a lesser evil to stop someone like you from using the collar in order to save millions of dogs or whatever number you want to put on it but a huge scale of dogs from having that issue so I think it's a numbers game is the argument to ban it in your opinion and you can speak for yourself or for the 4-3 community all together what is the alternative we ban the electric collars and we ban them to where like they are truly like nobody makes electric collars anymore you can't even get them from China or Taiwan and there is just no electric collars no more what do you think will happen do you think we will just live in this rainbows and unicorn world or how do you see it I mean clearly we're going to feel good about it but what is next well I don't think this is something that is necessary for the majority of dogs Ivan you know you you you you oftentimes

in this podcast we're talking about extremely niche situations you know IGP at the highest level police dog training and stuff like that and even in those situations there is obviously some debate within the police stuff certainly you know as a pet dog trainer I've been training dogs pet dogs for you know 12 years I have worked aggression cases actually the majority of my work is aggression I haven't needed to use an electric collar so if there is a use for an electric collar just in my personal experience that that use case seems to be extremely niche but I'm not some I mean I'm not someone that is you know this isn't the campaign that I feel like is the best use of my time I think there are other debates that are probably more worthy of the time investment but I do think that it's an interesting conversation to have and also Ivan I kind of feel like this was part of the reason I was on the podcast today for us to have this discussion so that's why obviously we're investing the time in the discussion but you said what's the alternative as well in terms of and I actually think that there is an alternative that I think that both communities would see as a positive or I'm at least hoping so and there's something that I don't see get spoken about nearly enough now we both agree that there is misuse of the e-cola some of it is horrendous and if we if we for a moment accept that there is acceptable use of the e-cola then why can't we have a situation where people can get qualified in the use of an e-cola why can't we have some kind of qualification or licensing scheme for an e-cola instead of just letting people buy them off the shelves obviously you you're you're probably one of the perfect people for this Ivan why is that maybe I'm wrong maybe you do but why don't we have that why don't we have some of these balanced associations actually offering a qualification so even let's say I've got a dog and I so why can't we have some kind of minimum standards when it comes to actually using an e-cola instead of it just being a free-for-all yeah we you know that's something to be talked about and maybe we revisit this shortly but you know how you say that I'm skilled and I use it right and then you mentioned that you're also skilled in your form in your approach and you have success do you think every positive trainer is very successful with all these letters behind and all these certificates that they have not for a moment right so I think it goes both ways but the reason what I was asking about what is the alternative like once we ban electric colors nobody else has it what do you think will happen it's a very important question that I think we as a community all of us need to really consider what is the pros and cons this you know like like for example at least in this country in most places right now marijuana is legal what happened when it's legal to when it was not legal bans

are very dangerous idea because it puts everything underground and it prevents the education that you're talking about this education cannot happen openly this will happen kind of like in the 90s when I used to live in San Francisco and work for the SPCA and they had the West Conference of Pitbull rings and animal care and police and me included had to go and bus drinks underground I am bringing this point because of we know that since 2000 several countries have adopted that notion to ban them and what goes on in those countries is this you believe that people are changing and I see that people are not and I really think about very seriously about this if we want to make a change if there is something that is better we need to you know like if if positive reinforcement and differential reinforcement were really better they had the answers why do you think people use electric collar better for what though Ivan you know again you know in the pet training world it's very possible to get very good results even with dogs that have serious aggression issues with positive reinforcement with differential reinforcement and also when it comes to the just jumping back to the collar ! again you know you're focusing on the minority again here so when there have been bans in other countries obviously there are a minority of people that continue to use the e-collars it goes underground and they use the e-collars with their dogs but there are still the majority of people that are not picking them up off of pet shops with no qualifications no understanding of how they work beyond what they read on just assume so you know again we still have the numbers game you know it's very easy to focus on the minority you know what about this dog that might have benefited but what about the millions of dogs that are going to benefit from their owners with no understanding of dog training just sticking it on them and using it correct so but this is where we have the the argument that we have like you believe that it's a minority and when we look at the sales of electric collars in those countries the numbers have not changed they have not changed why did they not change just because you and other trainers don't see it happening that doesn't mean that it's not happening this is my problem with this I just want to understand your point here Ivan you're saying the sales of e-collars in countries where e-collars are banned has not decreased correct really that's a pretty extraordinary statement when e-collars cannot be sold in pet shops they can't be sold in that country that's pretty extraordinary to say that that wouldn't reduce the sales of

e-collars I don't know I need data for that because that's a pretty big statement the data that's the cool thing about data the data is there it's not going to be difficult thing to do we just need to erase where the colors are going and just go with the numbers and it's very it's not a it's really not a difficult thing to do and what is kind of surprising to you which it shouldn't be surprising to anybody this is the whole point of things going underground things going illegal you are not supposed to know anymore that is the point I actually agree with you here I do agree with you here Ivan I generally don't like bans on things so I'm kind of making an argument and you know I'm not fully committed to just primarily I think as well because I take your point I actually don't think bans are hugely effective in achieving what people are trying to achieve so I do understand what you're saying completely and that's kind of why I was putting out the licensing thing because I do feel like it's something that would benefit dogs for people to have a minimum standard for the use of an e-collar and that doesn't have to necessarily be in law at least to begin with it could be something that someone like yourself someone like the balanced associations out there could put out there a qualification and you know try to make it the norm that people that were using these tools especially on clients dogs should essentially be qualified I think that would reduce so much misuse and make it I think that would just be better for everyone I can't see how that would be something cause huge offense to anyone yeah it probably will not cause again I always this is always in my back of my mind it's a it's a you know like the whole idea of being a licensed trainer it always comes to well who is giving you the license what happens in five years when the board of director changes what should the electric collar be used in more educated way by far it should be if we have dog trainers that I don't consider dog trainers and I don't want to say that every single force free trainer is not a dog trainer that would be completely wrong thing to say there is some very good and very skilled trainers just as on the other side of things but there is plenty of people that have I don't like I have and again this is me trying to be up to date on everything but sometimes I really need to google what those abbreviations are standing for because it becomes a very long thing that should mean that that person really knows their shit and they don't and when that person with all these names and all these titles behind fails to help a client what does the client is to do it's like okay I have this super reputable trainer that has gone through all this certification at least seven of them that it's actively but they really are not helping and they are not helping not because force free cannot help but because they are just not good just because I do agree Ivan I agree with this but I don't think that I agree

there are many qualified people out there that aren't the best dog trainers in the world and they do fail a lot of dogs but let's not pretend that something is worse than nothing I'm not saying this is the cure to every problem out there I'm just saying I think it will be a step in the that they are effective in using the tool that would be a step in the right direction I think that would be for the positive community that's great because you can see that they're trying to set some minimum standard and for the balanced community you can go at least we're not going to be let down by someone that doesn't know what they're doing posting stupid videos on social media of them completely misusing the tool so for me I feel like that will be a step in the right direction I hope someone I hope someone within the balanced community actually actions that because I think that would be helpful for everyone sure but it's unfortunate that this is not at all considered by initially if one of the organizations came out and they did this from a self regulation perspective hey I think every you know and we made it a cultural norm that this is something that should be done in the same way that it is in the positive training world by the way there aren't really a lot of positive dog trainers that don't have some kind of accreditation because it's seen as being the cultural norm you need to go out there and get some kind of minimum qualification and I think it should be exactly the same with the e-collar then firstly I think that would actually probably appease a lot of people to the point where they would feel like if that was a cultural norm it wasn't something that had to be taken further and made into law but even if it was made into law that's not necessarily a bad thing if it's required of people to go and do their test I cannot disagree with this where we are today we're fighting a ban a flat out ban and nothing else is considered like if and I'm sure you know like this is it's a big say in the force free community this is where we draw sand in the line it's not negotiable it's really for the diehard advocates this is non negotiable I know there are many people that would disagree with that idea as well but I think that pragmatically it's a step in the right direction I don't think that you need to wait for permission from anyone to do that just think and do it instead of you know it's so easy actually to spend you know look at this podcast Ivan me and you have so much in common in terms of our love for dog training and dogs and yet we spend you know I don't know how many hours we are in now like two hours don't look don't look at the clock we have a lot to talk about talking talking about e-collars and you know what Ivan that actually makes me kind of sad because I'm actually a massive fan of your podcast and I would much rather spend a time talking about things that were having a more kind of positive discussion as opposed to kind of arguing over e-collars and that was a big part of my post as well because I really have come to hate the labels

because I feel like it pits people against each other I think it's the dog training equivalent of identity politics where instead of talking about actual dog training we just spend ages arguing you're positive I'm balanced or vice versa you know and we just butt heads over everything and it leads to some really stupid opinions on both sides as well as opposed to actually just saying hey I'm a dog trainer you're a dog trainer we have that in common let's have a discussion about dog training and if we disagree then let's talk about what we disagree about instead of disagreeing about labels so let me ask you some questions Ivan I have to just interrupt please let me go ahead I do like you know when you talk about education and you know people so you know I have a school for dog trainers I teach how to be effective with electric collar but the reality is that the electric collar is just one of the most the best aversive tool there is at the moment but it's not about how you use the electric collar it's about how much you understand about use of aversive all around head collar no pull harness electric collar understanding negative reinforcement and extending positive punishment just as you understand the other two otherwise we look like if we this is where we are in Germany right now if you want to be a professional trainer and you probably know that you have to pass a test and in that test you have to check certain boxes and one of the those certain boxes that will not make you certified dog trainer is to flat out say that inflicting pain and use of aversives and electric collar and along those lines are not to be ever used because there are better ways this is just as dangerous for the dog training community this is just as dangerous as having anybody that wants to become a dog trainer and he goes to a force free training school and all they hear all the whole education about electric collar is all the what ifs and all the horrible side effects they do not teach you anything else this is a huge mistake but where I was going with this is it's not about electric collar it's about understanding what negative reinforcement is how to apply it what punishment is how to apply it when there is place for it when there is no place for it when differential reinforcement can truly override anything else and why would we use it and when things can become much simpler and easier so I teach this is my job in my school I teach trainers the most up-to-date positive reinforcement the most up-to-date probably probably in the force-free world I'm labeled as punitive trainer because I talk all the time because that's what I feel I need to talk about a lot of the things that force-free trainers are doing knowing or not knowing probably come down to certain things that I promoted in early 90s and early 2000s

I am very much play and positive trainer but there is a but and this is when we talk about Lima and when we talk about Lima and we compare positive reinforcement versions of Lima we are putting the use of aversive in a very dangerous red zone that at the point where we are now debating should we euthanize the dog or should we try this and even even there we are more leaning to euthanizing the dog but it's because of lack of knowledge because every single person that I had opportunity to talk to they don't understand where we are in this realm of using aversives in dog training like how it can be done and there are schools that teach it's not just my school they are school that teach but the only schools that are left to teach are in the states I have people that come from everywhere from Europe to learn ! there are there any benefits well I don't know you don't know that doesn't mean that they do not exist in my conversation with Susan Garrett for example she never asked ! one time what do I do she has no idea what I do it's a big assumption and she comes all in trying to tell me that her way is better not knowing what I do how can you tell me that your way is better and how can you compare like this is a big like I almost it's truly laughable when somebody says that what was the word I used to be one of these trainers crossover trainer right yeah so you're a crossover trainer that's great you had bad experience or maybe you your experience was 30 years ago things are changing constantly if you're crossover trainer because it didn't work out for you that would be just like me trying to learn let's say I'm not a dog trainer but I want to be and I go to one of these graduates of force free that they have all the letters behind and I start shadow apprenticing and whatever we want to call this and I am learning at some point knowing myself I'll like there is none of this is something I feel comfortable doing because of whatever reason but would that mean that I have to scratch everything that the force free community has to offer because of that experience personal experience that I had with that specific individual that would be very narrow minded and just just really wouldn't make sense if you truly want to understand how things work and get better and when we talk

Lima one of the things that are always left out for some reason it's the time how much time like if you if you tell somebody like I know because I we train dogs we have people and and the first thing people will do is they will ask the right questions like well are you shocking the dogs or which way you're going to train my dog and and ultimately I'm like I will train the dog whatever you want I can do what we need to do and a lot of times time becomes a very important factor people don't have like not everybody is a dog trainer people pet owners don't want to be dog trainers you know that I totally agree with you I totally agree with you on the time situation I have 100% I do agree with you and it's kind of funny that I've kind of like ended up at the end of this podcast like I feel like defending qualifications and associations because actually ironically like I got in a lot of trouble on that post for some calling out somewhat some of the things that do annoy they're the best we have and I think probably it's better for us to try to improve them and obviously I assume that you feel the same way Ivan that's why you run a school you know because you want to improve that system what you were talking about in terms of you teach people all about doctoring essentially not just about the e-cola and obviously anyone needs to have that foundational knowledge what I was proposing was more of almost like a proficiency test I guess there would probably be some schooling involved but I wasn't really getting something that people could do that were already dog trainers something much more short term but I do want to shift the conversation because I feel like we're going to end let's go let's go this whole thing and so you were one thing that actually as a fan of your podcast I love listening to your podcast but you do spend obviously you're very passionate about the e-collar and I feel like every podcast descends into e-collar debates so I'm curious if we were to watch you train a dog how much would you be using positive reinforcement how much of the training would be positive reinforcement versus how much would we be seeing the use of the e-collar or the use of things that force free proponents would actually disagree with I've been asked that question and it's not an easy question to answer because I really don't think in this way I'm not bound to those ideas what is more important to me is how do I bring clarity how do I maintain the emotional state because we know very well like I'm sure you will agree with me that when you're positive trainer and you decide to do some differential reinforcement program for something but somehow the dog does not get it and it stays in this loop long enough we're keeping that dog in a bad place in his head well knowingly we can get him quickly out with that so-called quick fix and then very

quickly again do anything that needs to be done on the other side of things use of aversive for me when it's done correct it does not mean pain in pain in the sense of how it's typically described just like any of the negative side effects of electrical or you know negative reinforcement is around us punishment is around us it's inevitable dogs the reason I ask the question over I think this might help is I think if I didn't know enough about you and all I did was listen to your podcast where there was so much time dedicated to e-collars I might assume that your primary way of training a dog was very much you know heavy majority use of the e-collar and I don't I suspect that's probably not true I do think you probably use primarily positive reinforcement with dogs and I just think that's worth clarifying because I think there's probably a lot of people that listen to us spend so much time on the e-collar yeah it is definitely this is this is where a lot of the electric collar approaches and trainers don't like what I say because I don't agree with the extensive use I am to me when we train dogs and this is this is what is more important to do education on is not to trap a dog to control behavior not because you have the food not because you have the remote control but to create that dynamic when the dog doesn't do the things that you do together because they have to but it's because they want to and somewhere along these lines I find appropriate that saying no can be very helpful to guide the dog to give at least some feedback hey dude you you you that that's going nowhere now we can argue if no has any condition punisher properties or no we can argue that maybe we shouldn't say no because depending on the level of force free this is clearly an option if we assume that we can say no and we assume that this can help guide the dog to to interact better with us then automatically when the dog does not respond to the no we have two choices one one is to ignore and focus on the positive side and another is to pair the no as conditioned punisher with actual consequence and when we pair it with an actual consequence this by no means means that we're helicoptering the dog or the dog is screaming their head out or they're blowing their anal glands or they like adding an aversive in training is

like when you look at dogs two dogs play the only thing that if you have an open mind and are honest about it the only thing that you will see is a magical negative reinforcement play it's avoiding aversive just as it is in many games that people play there is clearly a desire to go there and there is a very healthy outcome because you end up being confident in yourself you're not fragile you're like I can handle the world these are words and cliche lines that many balance trainers use and when I see what they do I clearly would not agree with that because that's again when we look at a dog well that dog performs because it has to let's strip everything off let's give it a few days and let that dog perform and let's see the mindset and let's see does the dog even want to be around to do the things that he had to do so the approach in my training is really to focus on the dog liking to do everything that I do with them and if they don't maybe they are not the right dog for this just like not fighting some people want to play chess some people you know this is we have all genetical predisposition and with dogs we have selection now when we're talking about behavior problems or just any pet training we also need to it's not about controlling behavior only controlling behavior we know it's not even the ultimate outcome because if we don't find a way to change the dog perception how they look at whatever the descendants are whatever is going on if we don't change that and we're relying on suppression only that will slowly but surely regress let let me let me ask you which trainers from the positive sphere would you say that you most respect or or most look up to I respect trainers that do things with dogs not not not I I am like I've been very long time in this and I I have learned not to just listen and take what's been said for granted and I admire anybody that puts the time to get better as a trainer out hands on working with dogs no matter if it's the pet area or if it's competition it's much easier for me to say the trainers that I don't like than the trainers that I like again like I you know I'm surprised that you struggle with this even because for me I can no it's not like again it's not really a struggle but it's not a one person it's a very difficult question because I will name two people and I will forget five others

and I think more broadly to answer the question again it's you have to like I like trainers that are not restrained by ideology I don't like somebody like if you have a dog training school and somebody goes to your school and they learn your way but they still say here and there something about other staff of training and you take their certification away because of that this I do not like trainers that I like is kind of what you did to me like you asked me well what are you what do you look like when you train dogs are you forcing them how much electric you're using how much so you you're kind of inquisitive you're curious you want to know and that was something that I liked when I had a conversation with Mike Shikashio this is normally a conversation that I would have with trainers that are doing positive training like Joe Rossi or again like there is names and I will it will be unfair to start adding names and not adding some other names but I like the trainers that that we can talk about training and genuinely being interested in what you do and can I use some of it is there any use like prove me that I was wrong I think this is this is what dog training can be it's not an easy place to train when I give seminars and I go around there will be very often people that will say I am using force free and I want to go through the seminar I have a plan and it's perfectly fine with me and not just perfectly fine I'm genuinely interested in seeing where what the thinking process is where all that's gonna go is it gonna go somewhere and then have conversation if I think that it's not gonna help or help I don't necessarily try to change people's minds of this is the right way and like I was you know when I was talking about making the dog like to do things with behavior problems let's say the dog has aggression problem whatever aggression problem separation anxiety whatever just any of the common problems that people struggle with really everything that we should be doing is the end goal whenever possible not always is possible but whenever possible this should be our end goal and this is to change how the dog looks from their on at those situations and give them tools how to you know like how to say hello to somebody without trying to first scare them and show but

realize that there is a better and a different way that he can be working way better for them but use the use of aversive like when we talk about use of aversive there is this notion that fear is not good and it's a very unhealthy fear is so important in so many ways because if we don't fear we will not exist we actually will like in the very next minute we will do something really dumb and we will be taken out by nature so we are programmed to have fear as a very important part of our interaction with the world I mean getting speeding ticket for example why are we not driving fast because of fear that police will stop us and we are going to get a ticket there is you know like we have certain rules and then those rules can be banned and there should be some consequences and this is a very realistic all around how the whole world with everything from plants and single cell organisms functions and if we this isn't the argument though Ivan this is not the argument the sensible trainers make sensible trainers do not make the argument that punishment does not work we've had I think we've spoken about the misuse of punishment and so on and so forth I don't think anyone is really arguing that punishment doesn't work and your points about fear is a difficult territory to get into fear because it starts to become a question of ethics and ethics are so subjective but I think a lot of people and to be honest with you I think myself included although I'm not sure on your definition of fear I think we could really dig far deeper into that I don't really like the idea of my dog being scared of me or a client's dog being scared of me but I I get the sense when you use the word fear that you're kind of alluding to more of respect as well of course I want my dog to respect me but I don't necessarily want my dog to be scared of me but I feel like that's a conversation that we get super deep on definitions of fear respect what are we actually talking about here yeah so when I think about fear I definitely would not like I would agree 100% with you I would absolutely not like my dog to see me and be like oh shit Ivan is home that would be probably the most awful thing that I would I don't know even what I would do at this point like I wouldn't I'll just burn all my leashes and give my dogs away if that ever is the situation one of the things with the difference with force free and what I think is that do you agree we have to agree that there are certain rules whatever those rules are and whatever

some rules are not important some rules are important but we have to follow certain rules if we don't follow rules if we say well I can like as a trainer that can use a verse if I can say very easy don't touch this and it doesn't mean that the dog is going to have to jump and scream it's just going to be again a very similar message to the dog that the dog understands by nature like like it's already programmed to understand that you avoid something unpleasant and you approach something pleasant it's just it's there and when you like if I tell the dog hey don't do this your approach as a force-free trainer will be not so direct your approach will go around let me think of this situation how I can make him do this instead of this so we gonna go around what really the issue is simply because of the perceived danger of you saying no or using some form of a version that will be very short lived but very clearly understand okay I just don't do this it's not the end of the world I think there are a lot of different options though Ivan ! think this is we're talking so broadly here it really depends on the context I think is a pretty valid approach like for example if we're teaching a leave it and when I say I leave it I mean like you know you're walking down the road and there's some litter on the floor you don't want the dog to touch you know you can very easily teach the dog a leave it and the leave it means to the dog don't pay attention to that pay attention to me and you can do that in a very reward based way or let's say that you want to let's say that you're teaching scent work and the dog is doing false indications on something then you might decide to take more of an extinction approach where you actually just ignore the fact that the dog's giving the false indication because you're 100% certain that it is a false indication maybe it's a situation that you've set up now extinction is obviously an aversive process but I don't think many force free trainers would take huge offense to you ignoring the dog giving a false indication that's why I really don't like the term aversives because I feel like it's it's far too broad a term for you it's very loaded term there's a massive difference between the two examples I've given and then you know maybe in the leave it situation giving the dog an electric shock giving them a correction on the prong collar those are two extremely different situations in terms of aversives all of those methods would probably be effective by the way well they would be effective wouldn't they yeah I don't think at all times they will be all effective I think I you know I think that there is the times when there there is really times and they don't have to be the majority of cases but there are certainly times when differential reinforcement is not going to work unless unless it's paired with some form of aversive to suppress the behavior

situations like this so anything that you will not be able to control anytime when something happens like like if we don't know what reinforces the behavior and this can be a very big problem so you don't know what reinforces the behavior and you don't know how to control the environment this becomes a very difficult puzzle for differential reinforcement just as if you're using negative punishment if you cannot control the environment or if you're not and if you cannot control what the dog wants or the dog can just get something else the negative punishment will be ineffective one thing that frustrates me sometimes Ivan when we have these conversations and positive trainers are really susceptible to this is sometimes you know you can go to an event like clicker expo or one of these really big seminars where it's really good fun to talk about really rare cases and like really unusual stuff and crazy hypothetical situations and it's really interesting and fun to have those debates but then sometimes people take those really niche cases and they start trying to apply it to everyday life or like you know it's every case and it's really inappropriate and I think that needs to be acknowledged because I guess I need a more concrete example in order for us to really carry on I mean let's just think of some behavior problem let's say the dog is killing squirrels squirrels are in your parks squirrels are in your backyard and he's already very intrigued by he knows how to you know see them on the fence and even kind of body slam the fence so the squirrel falls down and they can grab it so the protocol that you will do for this will have to work in the situation when you are not able to control the squirrel coming or not coming how would you do that that's a really fun example because that's like I've dealt with similar situations to that and usually my approach will be twofold it actually my favorite approach for a situation like that so like let me give a similar example I live in a city and one problem that I'll often face or is quite a regular occurrence is someone will take their dog to the park and they'll let them chase squirrels and they'll do that for a prolonged period of time and so the expectation builds from the dog that when we go to the park that's what I do I chase squirrels and that can be really difficult to resolve because that's the expectation of the dog and it's highly reinforcing especially if you have a breed that is you know inclined to find that to be really fun so usually what the approach that I would take is to try to change the expectation of the dog in that area so well as soon as we go into the park or we go into the wooded area or wherever the squirrel is we start doing training we start playing games and we would usually only stay in that area for a very short period of time in the beginning you know maybe

you walk into that area for 30 seconds a minute and during that minute it's high-paced fun games with the dog and then you do that every day and then before you know it that minute becomes two minutes three minutes five minutes and you change the expectation of the dog and so you can walk through that area and the dog is highly engaged with you with the expectation of doing stuff with you instead of chasing the squirrel yeah so very very classic approach do we agree that there is difference when the dog is playfully chasing squirrels or he has the really the predation instinct already because it has killed squirrels and has that purpose to to kill the the squirrel the squirrel do we do we make difference between the two scenarios i think there's definitely a difference in intensity between cases like some cases are going to be far easier than other cases for sure and this is this is a really sometimes i feel kind of ill prepared for this this part of the conversation because this isn't really my specialty so i'm kind of talking about something that i don't really feel like this is this is my massive area of expertise and you know what ivan i have actually had my doubts about this area of dog training and how effective reward-based training can be with extreme predation cases and for me i guess the jury is out a little bit i i have we have a behaviorist that works with us called jordan shelley who's a well-known behaviorist really really good guy and i remember having this conversation with him when he came to work with us and he's adamant that it can be done in a reward-based way and uh that's one of the things that's on our agenda he's going to show me how he's how he how he does it and uh and he's he's got cases that he can kind of point to where where it has been done obviously there are people that that talk about having done it um in a in a reward based way obviously i mentioned samoa muller earlier uh jane ardent in the uk gundog trainer she's written blogs in the past about getting over probation chasing uh with with one of her dogs previously i think one of the things that becomes an interesting question ivan with that thing with that conversation is what you referenced earlier with time in the sense of uh if reward-based training does work in that situation how long does it take and and how much skill is required but but the same question has to be had of the electric collar usage too obviously the high level of skill that's probably required to do that without fallout you know you wouldn't just leave that to the pet owner to to figure out on their own and also jim ivan as well and also ivan sometimes we have this conversation as if electric collar usage is proven to be effective with with

probation chasing like like it's super scientifically proven and i i don't think either approach is like has a massive like uh foundation you know there's not like a huge like both are starting from the same place of like there's not a lot of evidence but sometimes this conversation is had like there's a massive assumption uh with a massive assumption that that e-collars are super proven in this situation and actually i think they're both pretty you know there's there's not a lot of information on either approach it's a it's interesting um so the you know like you the people that you mentioned and i again i i follow them and i find a big difference between having a dog that you're raising and you're raising it correctly not to get itself in trouble later on in life assuming that because of what you're doing to prevent that also will be highly effective when it's applied to a dog that already has a serious problem with that but jordan and jane of both the the cases they're referring to are rectifying a pre-existing chasing situation and i'm sure that simone muller would say the same i don't i don't really know her um you know so i it's not a case of just just preventing it it is a case of resolving the situation when when the dog is already attacking and killing right yeah a hundred hundred percent right but it's anecdotes on each side isn't it no no i i don't really think it is because the again if it's just a a logical thing when when you decide to grab a squirrel and the squirrel bites you back now you have a choice was that a really bad bite or do i proceed and there will be a point where you will say you know what it's not worth it when this program that you're describing works with with everything that we're talking with all that high maintenance we still at least i i think you cannot guarantee that when you are not there and when the dog is not preoccupied with anything else they will not try to kill the squirrel that just jumped in front of them and the reason for that is simple the reason for that is it has never really been in address the dog always had something else to do you you see what i mean i see what you mean um but uh if you talk to jordan he would say uh you know he he talks about the case that he had when he had a dog that was was predatory and uh he had a unique situation in well certainly in one of the situations where he told me but he had a small holding so he had lots of his own animals so uh he even though he wouldn't obviously i think there is a uh certain responsibility about having multiple animals together anyway you know where you you generally like people say about dogs and small children you generally don't leave them

unsupervised anyway but he certainly was as relaxed as you possibly could be around the the animals um but also you you put a standard there where it's like well what happens when you're not around but the same standard has to be applied to the e-collar training what happens when the the e-collar trainer isn't around what happens when the dog isn't wearing an e-collar yeah yeah so that that is the that's kind of where i was saying that you know when we train no matter what approach we take the whole idea is to change the perception of of how we look at this from there on i i think the predatory world this is the world of like the the predatory chasing stuff i think that's probably going to be one of the most exciting areas of dog training over the next however many years because i think there's going to be a lot of people trying to resolve that those serious predatory situations in the quickest way possible um that's something that we want to explore with jordan um he's going to show me how his method works and we're hoping to to film to film that and share it i'll be super curious with this like super sincerely curious because i i also work on on um a study right now and and there is few more studies coming up that are related to this so i i definitely will like to you know get get a little more um um in that conversation with you and him but do you see my point of the the difference where the disadvantage of a dog not understanding oh this is this is just a bad idea um just like a dog going after a porcupine and realizing that that was a bad idea i think this is a very this is more natural way for the dog to relate to than going around the problems and when we talk about aversive we always like like you know you you brought few times in in our conversation the um how did you say it uh you you use a very specific and it's probably just a british word of uh not that not the outlook but uh like the the big blowout of uh uh the use of aversive like fallout full yeah yeah yeah say it again fallout okay right so you you always and this is again like from the the first studies up to today the the one part that is really missing is that we always look into okay well we're going to use a aversive we're going to stop the dog and that dog's going to be affected it's going to be damaged and it's going to be who knows what and we don't take under any consideration how much it will take and in most cases it doesn't take much at all but it's a very it's a not go around the problem approach and if it's a direct approach and i tell you nick don't don't don't eat this this you're going to make you sick

you're not going to eat it or i can steer you into eating a different cupcake but you will never know that going back to that indian chicken will make you sick so sooner or later you end up eating in that restaurant that chicken and and because there was no option for a cake at the moment and in this situation it's the difference between you and i being humans and being able to instruct each other and converse abstractive we cannot do it with the dog and this is where the aversive comes in place that actually it's it is helping and it's so like i like if i start to eat and i you you don't tell me but you just go hey ivan leave it alone i'll i'll say thank you nick i don't want to be sick and go back to florida on the plane with with a major you know just stay in the toilet all the time um this is the kind of aversion that i think of it is a very it can be very delicate and again it can go all the way down to do we say no and how is the no associated and i had this conversation with simon gabois which you had on your podcast and we kind of we we we really tiptoed a lot of different topics and and there was a you know there was a moment i and i don't remember exactly but but this is a common thing it's like do you say no or do you not say no and if you say no how does the dog understand that this is really a conditioned punisher that means well we can say it's conditional porouser we can say it's interrupter which is a whole other thing of of just flipping words because you know we don't train dogs we love dogs we know we are guardians we are not owners and and so on and i i'm okay with all that but when we have a um a easy like if you see me telling a dog hey don't do that and the dog just go okay and nothing else happens like nothing else happens for example and i i really like it's a it's a hard one to to talk about because you know i i don't don't wanna you know the damage the integrity of studies but what we are doing right now it's it's simply that and it's like yeah i can tell the dog don't do that and there will be some discomfort and that it's comfort depends on the motivation at the moment it's very short-lived and it's over like like imagine if we if aversive uh experience is really what um um you you are i i don't know exactly what you're imagining but i'm assuming that that's kind of you you're seeing it as a full out like something very dramatic and so on and and this is not the point the point is not to have this is exactly the the the opposite of this but it has to be enough to convince you okay this is a bad idea and in in many situations

there is not like there is zero um um um not like really nothing is at risk nothing more than one and two dogs playing and you see them doing crazy things dogs are not you know they they they like to play they like to interact they're like okay i'm gonna bite you you're gonna bite me i'm gonna avoid you you're gonna whatever now we're gonna run i'm gonna chase you i'm gonna bite you again has ha i got you playing you know hot hands it's a negative reinforcement an example you gave though ivan you just said no to me right you know i was gonna eat food that i shouldn't have been eating yeah he just said hey no nick don't eat that yeah right yeah that's quite different than if you were to electrocute me you know 100 but that's my point this is this is kind of like you you just cannot come like the moment i say it you're going into electrocution in a electric chair situation we've been speaking about electrocolors for the last two hours so i assume that you're making an argument about that i mean and also when did i ever say that i don't say no to the dog you know there are many times i say no to the dog right but right i i don't assume that you're not saying that that's if that came like that that uh apologies on this um what what i was going with that don't say no is if you're saying no and the dog is not responding to the no now you are at a fork right now you now you have to either come up with hey i have a better idea let's go ahead and do that or we follow up with the no with some form of aversive and that form of aversive being on the electric collar being being you know tap on the whatever like hey whatever but this does not equal lifelong traumas depends on the aversive doesn't it of course i'm not saying that and and by the way i'm not saying that you know uh you use the electric collar once and yeah you know i'm sure that there are many situations where the electric collar isn't going to cause life long trauma either you know but one but uh again we're using the word aversive so broadly here if you have said no to the dog and then i need to follow it up i've like you said you get you you laid out perfectly either i can give the dog something else to do or i can uh or i can follow up with some kind of aversive which could be really could be anything you know it could be as simple as as putting the dog in a sit stay it could be as i could uh you know use a timeout i could you know there's so many different options there and i think that's really where the disagreement lays lies is like in which aversives are acceptable and which aversives aren't acceptable

um and and also like um obviously that's it's just really hard because it's so inherently tied up with ethics as well and and actually you you brought up gabois and it was really interesting because he posted on facebook relatively recently and he he was laying out the electric collar argument as one of being about ethics and saying it doesn't matter what the studies say there's a lot of people that just feel ethically uncomfortable with electrocuting the dog and that's perfectly fine and i think that's an interesting argument in itself yeah yeah so it's not one that you can overcome ivan really is it i mean no you know like my problem my problem my struggle right now and this is my very typical struggle uh in in in this type of conversation is what you picture and what you are for so long accepted as okay when when we see electric collar this is what can happen or this really that will be what's gonna happen and what i am trying to somehow come across here is that aversive has levels and there is levels that they're unhealthy that they absolutely uh um will not benefit the situation it will it will create more problems and but these are the levels and the situation and examples that are almost immediately coming to your mind or not to your mind but any force-free trainer that is against electric colors we we jump from immediately to something super negative and this is the last situation and it's not recommended there's no benefits of that situation nobody will nobody that understands how to use electric collar will uh think that there is this one shot and we're gonna just uh create like life-threatening event and therefore we're gonna fix situation that's that's never we should never even discuss this as a possibility and if somebody does that this is yeah i mean this this person should not have dogs it's it's very there is no nothing to talk about as quickly as quickly as you can i know this is going to be difficult uh you know you you alluded earlier to susan garrett didn't ask you how you use the electric collar and and i agree i i do think do you know what actually i listen to a lot of your podcasts and sometimes it can be hard to understand how you use the electric collar i've obviously obviously heard your podcast where you're talking about you don't like the use of low stim or the way that people have been that's kind of become popularized so it would i i and i know this is going to be hard to make concise but like how do you believe or how do you use the electric collar people that come to my school they they one of the things that

they expect is that we're gonna have like at least two modules on exactly this how to use the electric color but uh the real skill of how to use aversive is not about electric color it's about understanding how negative reinforcement works and how punishment works ivan kirk just quickly do you use the electric collar in the traditional sense as a punishment or or as a negative reinforcer i think it it's used for both i think you can use it for both of course okay of course and and you know like like just as i said we can say hey don't don't eat that food or don't kill the squirrel or we can say do this or whatever whatever it is the one is do the one is don't right i mean that's common that that's that's what we know but it's about like if you if you park your car in the wrong place the cop comes and says hey don't do that and you say okay thank you officer and you're happily ever after never parked there or yeah or in the afternoon you still park there because you're very quick just in and out of the store and the cop sees you again it's like dude i i just talked to you two hours ago and you're parking so here is a ticket i i think i have a better understanding now of um i think it's very with the electric collar thing it's uh easy to accidentally put someone in one camp or the other punishment or negative reinforcement and it's it's interesting to hear that you actually use it as both and yeah when you say it like that it's i mean it's it's kind of obvious that you could you could use it for both but um i think sometimes it's a little bit like uh you know people are very easily put into the hey you must use positive reinforcement 100 of the time or you must use positive punishment 100 of the time um don't know it's it's that's that's interesting it is a problem and you know i i in one of my i think it was with michael ellis one time i i i am open any day to to make demonstration to some conference and get hammered with hard questions and i will i will do the best that i can to answer and and allow people to see and change what what they are assuming because at this point where we are it's a very big assumption like just how you are asking and what your concerns are these concerns are very um that's the norm of almost everybody that i have talked to that are against electric collar and that is the dog will experience something really horrific i guess though i i can i um i can maybe accept that there are people that use electric collar such as yourself ivan that are so skilled that they can avoid a lot of fallout or perhaps even all fallout

and and in those cases it becomes more of a question of ethics um however i think the argument for banning them is one of one of practicality that they're misused on a scale which is is enormous and i take your point that maybe that needs to be that needs more more data needs to be proven but i just think for me personally i look at the amount of people that have the skill level that you do ivan and the amount of electric collars that are sold and there's a huge disparity so i can sympathize with people's argument when they say look we need to ban them because there are so few people that can use them effectively and there's so many sold however the the alternative approach to that in my eyes is to have some kind of licensing scheme and i think in the beginning that's probably going to have to be uh self-regulated and like i said i'd really like to see see someone do it um i i think there's another argument that we haven't really had but we've only got so much time which is um the use once you have that um minimum standard you you also are going to eventually come across the question of what is acceptable use you know is acceptable use predation well you'll probably have more people agree with you in that case but is acceptable use hill work you know uh the use in sports and so on i think a lot of people would feel much more uncomfortable with that um so i think that's another question entirely um which we're probably not even going to really yes because no i i mean it's it's a these are again these are the the concerns that you have and when i say you it's it's the the people that are feeling uncomfortable having the freedom other trainers to have electric colors i i again i don't i i would never take away the option of teaching i would never take the option of some some form of certification certification is a difficult one but i i still want to go back to the countries in europe that have this bands for good 20 years 15 years 10 years five years they the what has happened is people are on their ground yes but what about pet owners ivan right right right what about the person that was just going into the pet shop and picking off the rack that's a different audience no no it's not no it's not it's not it's it's again like i i will tell you i have a a and again i'm not gonna mention country i'm not gonna mention names because i cannot just do this on a podcast it's just not not this is this is where we are at the point that we cannot talk openly and this is a big problem because the moment it goes underground we cannot educate everything happens behind

doors and education immediately suffers the pet owners that do need electric collar will go to the trainer that is a force-free trainer because it has to be force-free trainer in that country they will have a conversation and they will make a decision would can i trust that pet owner to go this route or no i have taken dogs from other countries that are there is nothing really just just very very nice dogs i've brought them here because the people were following the the the rules they're good citizens so they follow the okay no i cannot do that i understand that i've heard you you tell that story before but it's not a single story you know it's really not but we're talking about the minority again aren't we we're talking about the the you know i the small number of cases where you can you can justify this in a pet context you know again there are there are so many people that are effective without using this in the pet dog training world and i know that from first-hand experience and i know that people love to say that positive trainers can't work with aggressive dogs and all the rest of it but i i know i've done it personally i know other people that are doing it michael shakashio is doing it there are hundreds of trainers that do it every day and they just don't make a big deal of it so i i know personally that that it is you know if there is a use case in the pet world it's rare you know it's very rare so again we're talking about about you know we spend so much energy talking about these extremely rare cases as if they're coming up all the time so let's leave the rare cases aside for a moment electric color can be used in in in in in a lot of places without damaging physically the dog emotionally there is nothing there is really nothing nothing nothing lasting yeah but by who ivan by who you know by you most by the random person on the right so i think again and from what i see most people the majority of people bad people they are not eager to strap a collar and start shocking dogs and as i said i i people would buy a collar and would be maybe very quick to buy a collar but to actually use the collar they most people are not comfortable just doing it most people are looking for advice and help how to do it if if they have to do it like this is on my side what i see this is this is where we we kind of disconnect of of what you picture and what i picture is that just because there is electric collar there has to be damage that's that's really our argument throughout the podcast and i am saying that it it's not about an experienced high level magical trainer

to to to to be able to to know what is like after all it's your dog like you you know your dog is like well you know like why why would you want to do that um it it doesn't there is no reason to go where most people are picturing it's gonna go and if it goes there i will be the first one to say that this is absolutely wrong like this has to stop um but i see it as a matter of education not as a matter of taking it away because again i see taking it away is not working in europe and you think it's working because you you're not in the circles we're talking about different circles i think that's the problem right right right on this because you're you're talking about the uh the the police dog trainers the igp trainers the people that are uh you know that that have invested so much time in this and i'm talking more about the pet audience uh picking them up at shops without the the level of knowledge but i i i do think ivan were going around in circles yeah yeah yeah you're right you're right we've probably made made at least enough of an argument that people can can have a think about it right right also i as we kind of i do need to come to an end ivan i know you you're eager to keep talking sure sure sure no it's light for you yeah no and i'm and um if you ever want to do this again i i'll be really up for it like i i really enjoy talking to you and also i i just wish that and i know i said this earlier i just wish that we could speak about things that weren't just ecolors um but i know it's super topical um and and also obviously um i i guess uh i want to make sure one thing that kind of uh frustrated me when i did a similar podcast to this before was i felt like it everyone it didn't really change anything you know like you know we the label thing still caused an issue back then where it's like well i'm balanced so i'm going to agree with everything that ivan says and and i'm positive so i'm going to agree with everything that nick says and depending on which page you you clicked on the podcast on completely different conversations going on in the bottom and i think that's really sad um because like i said i kind of want to do away with that i just want i i just want to talk dog trainer to dog trainer and i hope that we can kind of get a little bit more of that in the community as i said i think a really sensible way forwards for everyone would be some kind of basic certification um where people can have like a minimum standard uh that that works for everyone i i know it's not the end goal

the positive trainers would like but at least you know at least people would have some minimum skill level and for balanced trainers um at least you're going to see less fall out from people that don't know what they're doing that are just uh you know that are bad for for the uh but just you know a bad look for you guys too so i i think everyone wins in that situation and whether that's the end goal or not you know depends on your your viewpoint but i definitely think it's a step in the in the right direction yeah i i i i agree with you um what if anything else i think conversations will get like how we got into a loop and and um my opinion is that if we are talking the very next thing that needs to happen is we need to start to interact on the field like actually training dogs and see each other training dogs and ask questions there instead of making the assumption i think only when this happens we can be very productive because because we are stuck in a loop because we cannot convince each other and the moment we see we can either agree or don't agree with something very clearly and then we can talk about it much much more effectively and and i if anything on my side of things i would encourage people from both sides to find ways to start to train together yes i agree i agree so much and this is one of the things that frustrated me about the conversation previously uh that was being had online was people and i think it goes on on both sides but people saying they have nothing to learn from people of the other camp and i think that's that's really terrible i think both of us have learned a lot from people that identified under a different label than than we have um you know i've learned so much from um like michael ellis who you mentioned earlier like learned so much from from watching his instructionals um learned so much from um the bite work world in general just in terms of the use of toys and more recently i'm learning from balance trainers about like scent work stuff which i just think is incredible um and i i just think there's so much to be learned and then also i think that a lot of balance trainers could learn a hell of a lot um about uh reinforcement strategies and and stuff like and certainly the use of food as well i know that people like you ivan will make good use of food but i still hear stories of balance trainers that um you know uh that that really don't like using food and i think that there are some really there's some really great training with food that goes on so uh yeah so i i agree i totally agree with you

i think that'll be brilliant i think that'd be a really good step in the in the right direction maybe maybe really i think this is this is what needs to happen we need to start inviting each other to have opportunities um to train together this is really the only the only way and it's very different when you train together you you know like you talk one way on the internet but then you have a person in front of you and things change because now you have a real person in front of you and you don't want to go in a fight for no reason with the person there's uh things really can be very productive that way and it on my way and to to kind of you know like when i say that i follow everybody i really my goal is not to follow everybody so i can have ammunition how to go against it that could be a small part of it but my quest is to be better at what i do with every day that comes ahead of me and it will be like i i hope that the trainers that want to learn are open and don't get stuck to to whomever on whatever side the guru is that says this is a bad idea and they have not been even exposed to the a better option of it and again this goes for both sides of the table um but yeah maybe there will be times where we can make uh um this kind of trainings and and maybe other people will take on this and and start to you know be more open i um my my hope really is about the the people in the middle that really are not so um yeah right they're not not in the extreme they they neither one just like you said with being food being play like i particularly one of the things is like i am not that big on food training i'm much much bigger on play because play to me is a far more um interesting way to train dogs um involves far more cooperation and and um um there is just it's it's um you know having food it's in in some way it's still very controlling because um yeah but this is a different maybe maybe we have that conversation some other time the differences of this because i think that's the more interesting conversation yeah this will be a a very good conversation but yeah i i am a very much uh place play based trainer and this is a you know it's not that i don't understand how to use food i rarely have to use food i i believe much more in in play as far as the the a lot of people don't even understand that play on its own is a primary reinforcer and the reason dogs and humans are probably one of the very few mammals that maintain the desire to play past being kids and puppies almost all mammals have play in them as they are young but it goes away humans play

and dogs play and and it's there and it's a primary reinforcer and in fact like we as humans we can have an infinite no we we can come up with infinite numbers of games we can play we can never have an end to our imagination of games this is how important and how um beneficial play is to us like um you know after when you're meeting all the primary needs of sleep and eat and and all that then it comes down to let's have fun and yeah it's unfortunate that pretty much every time I talk on my podcast lately it has been about electric color and what was it full out yeah fallout I'm surprised I thought that was a common term I think it's my English too I mean it's second language or third language or whatever you know Nick it's been pleasure it was something I really looked for for a couple of years to do with you and yeah here we are I hope it's not the last time either because like I said I think we have a lot more conversations to have not about the electric color yeah yeah we should we should leave it we definitely can leave it for to rest for a little bit and but it really did make me think about what is next because we can have this kind of conversations for so long before it wears out and it really stays in a loop and there is nothing that we can do like the only reasonable thing to do is to start inviting each other to different conferences and have the you know there is no way APDT will ever invite me in their conference let me ask you one last question over as someone that has just recently got a working line shepherd puppy what would you say is the biggest mistake that people make when they when they get up a working line shepherd dog or or a dog of that nature is there any advice that you would give me sure it depends what your end goal is like if you if you're thinking to go and do some high level sports people typically push puppies too far too soon it almost starts to be like how parents will kill a talent of a kid that likes to play tennis by just forcing them to play tennis so this is a big danger not not recognizing that puppy is a puppy no matter how much the genetics are wanting to wake up and no matter how much the puppy says let's go full in there has to be some restraint because there is a lot of time and there is understanding how to prioritize what is most important stuff and the most important stuff is to have a very sound and and again this is I hate when we start to talk about the relationship and engagement because these are words that are so misused but I want my dog to want to do things with

me and I want my puppy to know that I'm fair and that we have a cooperation and that it's not about who's gonna win the toy but the toy is about as an object between you and me to have fun and have a goal and learn how to go further with that and having said all that if you don't have anything in mind to like a competition my advice to anybody that has a puppy is to find some purpose to give some purpose some meaning into life for this puppy eating and walking around the block on a leash is the worst thing that we do to dogs that's my very strong opinion and probably most of the problems that come is because people don't understand that these animals want to have a purpose a meaning in life and it's very easy to do but yeah I can talk a lot about this I really appreciate that that's really that's thank you for that and thanks for having me on the podcast that's that was that was great that was a really good conversation appreciate it my friend thank you you you