에피소드 17: Susan Garrett

um before i i i came over to this side of that that line that line that divides us all um i i started in the sport of dog obedience was passionate about because before that i came from the world of dressage and horses and i competed in dressage and i loved the nuance of working on something for six months and then you know the thing that most people hate about dressage is what i loved about it and then to get it and and so obedience to me was like that but a lot easier because you got success a lot faster and um i worked with a school that had success in competition obedience here in canada and then i looked around and said i i want to go to the best of the best so i looked around the united states and i narrowed it down to two or three trainers that were brilliant at the handling because i wasn't very good at the handling and um so i was using i've used chain collars and then i went on to use pinch collars and i got perfect scores in obedience with my jackass or terriers and my border collie and i won many many high-end trials also i was on a fly ball team that set multiple world records in the sport of fly ball at the same time and agility was my third love because it was such a boring sport because agility was such a new sport in the late 80s early 90s and um so so i had success at at the highest level for for this level for this for the for those sports yes and um and then um there was an evolution for me and i think people who follow me follow me because they uh they resonate with my core values and core beliefs the same with people who follow you ivan they resonate with your core values and core beliefs but i would love the reason i i i'm sitting here is because i'd love to shine a light on our core beliefs create stories that we tell ourselves every day that support thinking that maybe is old and maybe needs to be re-evaluated and so um you know i'm not delusional to think this conversation is going to change the world but i'm slightly delusional in that i think there's a possibility and uh so that's why i'm sitting here today and and yes i i'm my uh book in 2005 was named dog training book of the year by the dog writers association of america um a book that i had previous to that rough love very very popular with all venues and sides of dog training and i would love to share my thoughts on that book now because i wrote that book more than 25 years ago so um i don't know do you want to know a little bit about my history about this is yes this is exactly kind of what i wanted to

i just didn't want to interrupt you but definitely yeah we want to put some timeline in in everything yeah okay yeah definitely definitely so um i i started in dogs in the confirmation ring with my sister as a teenager and i think even a backstory to that is i um i was i was raised by two parents who absolutely loved each other and um in a home where it was basic i have nine brothers and sisters but um i never ever heard my father raise his voice my entire life my father um would tell us how much he loved us and would tell us to you know love one another arguing is in the way so i think potentially my philosophy of how i train dogs initiated from seeing two loving people raise a family of children i was never spanked i was never punished i was never grounded and i i was a straight a student who never took drugs and you know ended up by you know the world's terms i guess successful but very very happy and so um being i was dyslexic so therefore didn't learn the same in an era where nobody knew what dyslexia was and um you know i i've talked very openly about that on the podcast and hope of inspiring children who maybe have some learning disabled disabilities what people have called learning disabilities i call dyslexia my superpower because it forced me because i couldn't really read it forced me to become brilliant at the powers of observation and as a child that's how i learned i was the world's greatest mimic because i didn't want anyone to know that i couldn't understand what was being taught or or i couldn't read the same way other kids could read so then i got into dogs in the confirmation ring and i used to look at competition obedience like it was magic whenever i had a break from handling dogs as a kid i would like that is voodoo whoever can do that they're magical unicorn kind of people and um and then i got into horses and of course when you have a horse you have to have either an australian shepherd or jack russell terrier depending on which way you rode i rode english so it was jack russell terrier and um and when i started i went to a a an obedient school in puppy class when she was 10 weeks old and six weeks after that they said would you be one of our teachers because you know i i had this understanding i wanted a chow chow in the worst way as a as a 15 year old so i read all the books on how to raise and train your chow chow and i learned about how to be a compulsion-based trainer as a teenager practicing on my stuffed animals and i i i even used my sister's she showed

salukis and sky terriers and i would practice on them and they put up with it until um when i put myself through university i was milking cows and uh every farmer i worked for they said oh train the puppy and i came up against a rough collie who wouldn't be trained with that kind of methodology and that was the first thing was like well i knew i could train my pet poodle tricks what if i just trained everything like i did a trick so that was my first kind of you know thinking about that i went on and got my um degree in animal science where i got introduced to animal behavior and um but you know it never all clicked for me and it was the dog that taught me really so um i remember showing my border collie um my late husband was a very well-respected obedience uh judge he he judged all over the united states and many countries and um i remember saying to him one time you know i don't i could i have i have about 200 tricks my my border collie could do so many tricks limp with this paw limp with that paw i mean everything you could imagine and i said if i walked into your ring and you just pulled tricks out of a hat i would nail them every time she would never get one wrong one cue so why am i using compulsion to get obedience like i don't i don't get that so when i went to this trainer who i was working with in the states and she said well they have to know that there's no choice and i'm like well why so that was the first thing then i got a jack russell that i trained for nine months he has no choice tell me just for a second yes uh the it has no choice um kind of well the example that she gave me is what if what if you threw a dumbbell and it landed a pool of urine would your dog go get it okay and i i said well i hope the judge would give me a rethrow like i don't think that like i could train her to go get it but i think the judge would let me throw the the dumbbell again yes um but for me it was um this little jack russell terry named specky that i i'd had um for um a little over nine months i used to have this exercise that i did with all my dogs and i'd had you know a jack russell an older jack russell border collie and now this young jack russell i'd throw a frisbee down a hill you get 10 throws you lie down the next dog goes you move before no pop pop you stay there everyone knew the rules specky was not going to live by those rules and i learned there is no correction strong enough to stop the will of a jack russell terrier and it hurt my heart to keep escalating my punishment and so i i thought well what else

could i do it brought me back to all the tricks that i trained and so i just used reinforcement a different way of looking at reinforcement because unfortunately when we talk about reinforcement most people think cookie oh my jack russell is not going to stay for a cookie no a reinforcement based dog trainer understands a cookie is like one percent of our dog training and i think that's that's the the the big aha that i that i'm i'm unsure that the rest of the world who criticize us really gets like i'm not going to stop my bulldog from chasing deer if i say mommy's got a cookie i don't care right now i want the deer so reinforcement dog training is not food if you say that like i know i know a lot of people that are listening would would wish to just jump into our conversation and say what do you mean that you cannot stop the jack russell and not to be able to suppress it by using an aversive um oh wait you could i could i could suppress it but i couldn't stop it because suppression means it's only going to stop for a little while then you have to follow it up with more corrections so maybe i could get her to stop for a bit but it would always come back as opposed to if you can get a jack russell to think what you want them to do is your idea they will walk through fire carrying a gasoline can for you and that's all i had to do and then there was nothing my my jack russells were every bit as accurate in their obedience work as my border collies when i made that switch yes so would you say that um i know we're going to keep going with the story but that's an interesting uh we stay for a moment here um yeah would you would you say that it was the the the easier approach just because you had control of the environment and you can use very well negative punishment and positive reinforcement and when when that's possible it's it's very easy for any jack russell or any dog to say you know what even if i try to go it doesn't go anywhere it doesn't lead to anything so the only way that i can get it is by listening to mom and doing the things that she asked me to do because that's the way am i on the right track or unfortunately she did get she get did get reinforcement because she learned not to go when i was throwing she learned to go once i'd let go and so she got to chase the border collie and bite at her face which is all that she wanted to do okay and so and so um i had to come up with a strategy of reinforcement that helped her to understand that she could get something equally as reinforcing just finding out

what is that equally as reinforcing for that dog that's so driven and you know almost feral because once a dog goes into drive it's harder and like you said all of this has to has to be taught in an environment that you can control right so um reinforcement based dog training like if i go walking with my dogs and i have 28 acres here and we have a lot of wildlife coyotes deer um all kinds of raccoons you name it we've got them so when i go walking in the morning it's not unheard of to wake up a deer and a lot of times my dogs will go oh did you see that now these are driven high crazy dogs who because i controlled access to reinforcement when they were younger right built up through strategies of reinforcement they don't care right they care more about me than about them and what people you know um as you know i went on a thread last week to find out more about where people feel they need to use punishment and i'm like huh well there's just different strategies of reinforcement that i would use to get those same things so um so that was for for specky and specky was i i thought if there's ever a dog who was autistic i thought she was because back then i my dogs rode loose in the back of my sedan and if i went 58 miles an hour or higher she would she always used to like curl up in the back you know the the hat rack at the back of the car the sedan we all had one at one point right terrible terrible terrible did we love those dogs what were we thinking and um but as soon as i got 58 miles an hour she would jump off there and dive under my seat so she was stimulated by things moving fast like she was not a normal dog she didn't learn in a normal way and you know my other jack russell i could get her to submit and she would go yep no problem i'll do what you want i'm never going to question your authority again but no so i guess so so that when you when you were going uh uh with with this and i think this is um because like i i don't consider myself let me let me start here i really don't consider myself uh i just i'm a dog trainer i'm open to any training so it's not a like as as i told you in previous conversations i've read your book i i know who you are i know what you do i know i know pretty much everybody that it's worth that i consider that i need to know on any side of the extremes it doesn't matter to me but what i'm gonna say is that um especially this especially goes for so-called balanced trainers trainers yes not all of them but quite a few of them they they focus on the the suppression of

things and unfortunately don't focus on they they pick up the the worst battle the the moment when the dog is really like at the highest peak of his commitment the motivation to do the thing they want to do and they're like okay now we got him let's do that and not realizing that all this can happen in a very different place with a very lower lower arousal and you learn and teach a concept and then move that concept to where it needs to go and um that that's kind of where you were going i'm assuming with uh with uh your dog right right i mean this was uh back in um 1991 and so what i know about reinforcement-based dog training in 1991 you know could fill a thimble compared to what i know now um but i knew i had to try something different so i did and um and it was it worked just with reinforcement but back then there would have been a lot of negative punishment as well as reinforcement and now i mean i if i'm using negative reinforcement i know i failed somewhere along the negative punishment i've no i know i failed somewhere along the way so um so then you're looking much more into uh uh like errorless type of learning is that it i hate labels i really do because if you say that you don't can we just say that right right right but if we say that we are not using any form of uh punishment meaning no not really suppressing you're not stopping then you have to focus on so things being you know there's there's so many there's so many splitting hairs of terminology so what is negative punishment like i said my game it's your choice technically some people would say that that's negative punishment but if i have a dog engaged who's in a high state of arousal who can see the opportunity to learn reinforcement and i close my hand on that reinforcement and is that really taking the dog's joy which is what is my driver of behavior is the dog engaged in a way and so that's that's so benign um you know people don't even realize the negative the the the negative reinforcement that they use every day at the park when they take a leash off when a dog's barking and screaming and clawing because they want to go into the the pond so you know we say never use neg you know negative reinforcement well guess what you do it every time your dog wants to go and say hello to the neighbor and you open the back gate so you know right right error errorless learning um do i try to minimize or eliminate mistakes mistakes i try to minimize and eliminate mistakes in a learning phase once my dog understands the game then i like to use mistakes because i think that helps them to have clarity of what is correct

so if i never use mistakes then that puts pressure on me never to be human i i love if i'm an agility if i'm an agility handler and my dog has never experienced going to the wrong obstacle that means i am never going to make a mistake as a handler and my dog needs to understand that perseverance is so important um i think in any dog not just sport dogs so um my my bulldog rescue who was a part um pug and part bulldog and part uh boston terrier and um he's 50 is it the superman behind you here on the photo that's superman and um you know he was a rescue dog because he he was i mean he was just really badly behaved because he was so there was just so many problems in the way he was raised and but if i don't know if you've ever been tried to like cut the nails of a pug for example they scream like humans and he has that oh my god and so little things like that like how am i going to get this dog who clearly at 15 months have a history of somebody trying to cut his nails and he used his head as a weapon to go from like we can either have them tolerating having their nails done liking their nails done or loving their nails done hating their nails done isn't an option with a brachiocephalic breed because i can't put him under i can't take him to the vet and put him under to get his nails done tolerating isn't even it because i can't hold him i can't force him to get his nails done i have to move him to loving his nails done it's like a recall now if he knows somebody's getting their nails done he's like no me first no me me so you know all the things that people think can't be done with reinforcement can be done with reinforcement but here's the thing ivan i've been doing this for now more than 25 years so guess what i'm really really really good at and that is the use of reinforcement if you've been doing something for 25 years and you live it and you breathe it and you sleep and you wake up and you dream about it there's no part of my my dreaming or planning that involves punishment so all i can do is focus on reinforcement so i get really really good at it so when you're splitting your attention sorry go ahead no i i just because i like there is so many things that i have to catch up and then i forget my thought it's just a lot of interesting stuff you know interrupt me i get on a roll if we go yeah but i love it i just i i i gotta try to follow um just so i don't forget so um back to the you basically what you said just a a little while back is probably the the the more logical opportunity to to teach and to learn and interact is to trial and

error basically instead of the error that's running and i think that's why you have those trophies behind you and i think that's why i have my trophies behind and and i believe it's a very it's not even matter of scientific facts or no it's just a hands-on practical training and and proven practical training that um there is point in time where error trial and error it makes things very clear correct and you can move on into a very okay this is this this doesn't lead but this is what i need to do am i am am i right with that or or did i yeah i think it it also depends on what happens during that error um so my my goal is when my dog didn't want to trap you i didn't work more keen yeah when i when i say trial and error more excited i didn't want me to like trap you to where it's okay error so therefore let's finish it it's just it's just very simple trial and sometimes sometimes well pretty much every time like here's an example that i use um the difference between a world champion agility handler and a novice agility handler like as with your sport there's just so many places you can make mistakes um and just not even with the dog training just the handling alone there's so many places you can make mistake so if you if you if a world champion has a new dog and they set them on the start line to practice a sequence of six obstacles i can practice that sequence 10 times and likely my dog will get to the end and get a reinforcement 10 times where a novice person would start the sequence and the dog would break the start line so that's one trial zero reward so they bring them back and then they would get to the second obstacle and the handler would take their eyes off the dog and the dog would go off course and so then they'd bring them back that's two trials and zero reinforcements so you know there's a potential for people people who aren't as experienced or skilled but want to train with reinforcement-based dog training to have a dog that's very unmotivated because they're not getting the reinforcement rate that my dog is but what i do for those students is well number one hopefully i never put them in a situation where they'd attempt to do that without a really solid understanding so that the flaws are likely unlikely to happen but number two if the dog makes a mistake we we give them a reinforcement not for making the mistake like my dog breaks the start line i don't say oh here's a toy no i say you get back in here you heal and then i'll do a heal pattern boom boom get back in i'll reinforce you for getting in back into into location so the dog doesn't pay

the price because maybe i didn't set up my contingency properly or the uh the student isn't as experienced to get reinforcement so if my dog is going for example i was doing some discriminations with my puppy the other day and when she made a mistake i had her hop it up into what i call a hot zone a dog bed and she got cookies for that while i went with the next dog to do this discriminations and and then everyone got their turn she got the same level of same number of cookies as if she got 10 right so i did 10 10 um rehearsals this is a specific point that we've been having a hurdle we couldn't get over she still got 10 reinforcements just not for what she was expecting to get them for so trial and error i would never set them up to test them unless i was pretty confident that they were going to get it right and then when i've i've gotten to that level i push them so i might push the criteria to see if they how brilliant they are and sometimes they go yeah i got this or they'll make a mistake and often the mistake causes me to laugh so what do i do when my dog makes a mistake in training nine times out of ten i laugh at them so that's very very interesting stuff um i i will add to this like i in my experience because i i played a little bit with agility i i i've done almost everything to some level just because either because somebody came and needed help or because it was interesting to me so um early 90s it was the time where i played a little bit but much later on there was quite a few people that you know from the agility circuit came for help thinking that i will do something uh that i will do some form of aversive but i will do it very intelligently and specifically like the biggest problems in agility breaking the start and being vocal during the being vocal during during the the run right and in either one i had to use aversives because it was easy to to to actually get the point across and it almost every time that this happened um people were like okay they they come with the expectation that they're coming to me because this is the approach i'm gonna take and and there is not always one approach and it doesn't necessarily need to be okay i'm really good at this but if if i see a dog breaking a line it's it's it's a not that hard a solution as you know i mean one of the things is just just reward them for being there not not expect them to go all the time you know just put it on a little random schedule it it can make a big change and it became a very very popular very big sport i think it's also um under pressure from from

animal rights group for at least in europe uh it's becoming i don't know how it is in the states really with this now but i i think everything in dogs is under uh pita's eye that's for sure yeah i started putting your dog in a kennel is under pita's eye yes right yes and this is something um in the when i um so i transitioned to what i could could know as reinforcement-based dog training in that early 90s period you're talking about so i started agility in 1989 and um i transitioned to i wanted to do anything without any kind of positive punishment verbal corrections or um you know verbal markers to stop a dog and um so i started that in 92 i got i went to a a karen prior and gary wilkes seminar i think it was 91 or 90 and then i i went to ted turner whale killer whale trainer went to his seminar and anyway so that started my because of all those things experiences had built up in the back of my mind so then but here's the thing people thought i was crazy because i was starting to get known as a good dog trainer and started to get invited for places to teach seminars and now i'm going to leave everything i've known and go and do something completely different and it was a massive risk and i remember when i brought um my red border collie buzzy out in he was born in 1996 he was trained entirely with uh i love your dog's names by the way oh thank you well buzz certainly he he lived up to his name his registered name was high on emotion and um he's uh you know i look at some dogs in my world as sacrificial lambs and buzzy was the sacrificial lamb for my evolution because he got way too many timeouts and way too much negative punishment and i believe that contribute to him being so high and so frantic and so crazy and um but i learned so much through him and he was a dog that you could have he would have he would have happily lived with a balanced trainer and got any kind of training because he just that was just who he was and he just came to me at the right time in my life and so he's you know i think a lot of people started following what i did because of him however when i first came out i have a videotape i don't even know you know the big vhs remember you take those and you take the vhs tapes and you i just had to go video your runs i just had to pull one of those and i have this combo player that still i can still play them we just watched one of those last right oh well the the very first time i brought buzzy out and uh he was crazy he must have knocked five bars and was screaming and just frantic and in the videotape and behind somebody said well this

will teach her she can't do that clicker shit with every dog i'm sorry i'm allowed to say shit on your podcast no no you you can you can say anything goes here we're dog trainers so so that was what you know and that was the voice that i heard from everybody because when i would write on these forums back then we had yahoo forums and it was like all of the best of the best trainers were on those forums right they shared everything and um people would say like really established people that were on the u.s world team you know they would tell people dogs need punishment and agility for coming out of the weave poles especially high drive border collies they won't understand they need a physical correction on a choke collar or they are on a pinch collar and dogs need punishment for knocking bars and i would say yeah i don't think so and then the story moved away from susan's wrong susan's going to learn to when susan kept winning then the story changed to well that will work for susan because she's a good dog trainer but it's not going to work for anybody else yes and now i think the sport of agility is just you know they've they keep evolving and and learning more and more and more about how brilliant reinforcement could be so i mean that's a challenge because what you what you just said is very much the same uh with me and i think it's very much the same with every successful trainer like i in in my training with igp and and you know i also breed malinois i've been breeding them since 1989 um yeah so i breed and i train my own dogs in my own way and i win world championships and guess what there is still the people that will say well he can only train his dog he can only do it with there there is never you cannot satisfy and i know exactly what you're saying and and i've given up on this at some point it's like i do my thing and of course you have something to say you're always gonna have something to say but anyway that was very uh like you just said something that happens to top competitors across the board it's called moving the goal posts it's moving the goal posts so people will say okay reinforcement based dog trainer will work with training will work with a border collie because they're so easy to train yes but it won't work with a terrier yes well you just keep moving the goal posts now it won't work with a bulldog or a rescue dog or keep moving the goal post because we all have our own beliefs we have a story that we keep telling ourself and if if if what they're saying isn't true and if what i'm saying is true then they are have to do what i did back in

the 90s and step away from everything they believe about dog training and go in a different path and that is a huge risk and there's very few people that don't have a fixed mindset about dog training and if you have a fixed mindset you're not going to look for growth opportunities and i've always had a growth mindset about everything i do and i and my mindset back in the 90s was well i know how to get a top obedience dog i know how to get a top agility dog with this but i don't know if i can get it with that i'm willing to take a risk because i can always go back to that if i'm wrong and i and you know once because nobody was doing what i was going to do and and so i was willing to take that chance and now of course the evolution so every sport in the world has got people doing what i did and and it's you know it's flawed thinking i believe but again it goes back to what resonates for you and your core beliefs and i told you my upbringing um i i never yes i was never punished as a kid that that that influenced me going in the direction that i did so it might be harder to believe if you were raised with more punishment in your life it might be harder to believe that that an animal will do what you want unless they know there's no other choice but like i i just haven't found a behavior well i've got one ivan when i was doing competition obedience and this is where i got a video for you that i want to share when i was doing competition obedience you know if people could say you could teach this but could you stop that so teaching with reinforcement but could you stop a behavior that an animal has already started and in and in competition obedience one of those behaviors that kept coming up was mouthing dumbbells i don't know in your sport is that a problem yeah of course yes of course and and is there a a a a accepted methodology to get a dog to stop mouthing the dumbbell you know like in in in my sport i think um and i i really guys have wooden dumbbells i really want to yes we do wooden dumbbells and they're so even more different sizes and we do with jumping yes and and chewing is especially as you go to the highest level chewing is a problem chewing is actually lose marks for that yes but chewing is almost the the the least of problems uh we need what we look in our sport is we we we need the dog to be stress-free we we don't like a dog that's very fast but it's suppressed that that's leading to a disaster that's never never never encouraged so we want speed we want precision we want a nice hold and then we need a nice uh uh nice out to where it's not it's not uh

there is no hesitation to out but there is also uh that presentation it's not like okay i let go and now what is next it's just a very yeah it's it's almost too too crazy to accomplish to perfection right so with my my boy buzzy he liked him out and when i asked people what to do i was told spray bitter apple um put an elastic band around the dumbbell and snap it in his face uh keep telling him no bite no i mean there was a lip that's a litany of things that i'm like no no no no i took an oath when i took this puppy i was going to try training in a certain way so none of those things are going to be an option like and so i'm going to show a video of i hadn't introduced a dumbbell because i knew innately that he wanted to mouth everything so i'll show a video of me just doing some retrieves now this was like 1998 i love it um i'm just doing some retrieves with him if i can is it all right if i share my screen yeah definitely definitely let's go okay so i'll start this is just me and some of it is fast forward because it's just him out throwing different uh toys for him now take this toy oh sorry i jumped it here now take this toy this come on throw it out so mouth mouth mouth you roll it over in his feet everything you want to retrieve this is how we did it i think he was a little under two mm-hmm okay this one this one this one okay this one so my goal was that i want the same enthusiasm for the toy i don't want to lose that and um i don't want him like being worried i want him i want him oh i like that one and it's still going to be a game and because nobody had a way to fix it then i had to figure out how to fix it myself and so i'll show you then this is just i just cut the the video in half so that i could explain it i'm just as excited sure so when i would approach a dumbbell with one hand that meant we could play a game but two hands thank you get it so when people people keep moving the goalposts i'm like okay there is nothing i'm i'm confident there is no reason that i would need um to use punishment in you know positive punishment in my training and um you know well what about this dog that's broke or what about this behavior what about it's established like in that on that thread so where i was let me interrupt yeah so when you when you how how did you accomplish when he was chewing what was the how did you how did he understood

chewing chewing is not a beneficial thing to me holding it nicely and firmly is the way to do how how did that how did you got that message to him because i've studied i've does nothing but study reinforcement so i i knew i had to find a way to bring reinforcement to him i yeah not not mouthing and so all i did was i i would never do it within the context of reinforcement so i did it within can i teach you to hold i just use um i could use a pen but i used a piece of pvc can i teach you i'll put this i actually put it on a string put it between my legs and i would sit down and shape him to can you just do that can you do that can you do that now let's now can you do it and now can i smack you and play games with you while you're just holding that bring value for just doing that behavior yeah rather than trying to get him to stop something right in the midst like you talked about the dog's high you're going to suppress a behavior you're going to you're going to ruin your relationship or definitely have a divot in your relationship with that dog even if you fix that you're going to bring more unnecessary baggage in exactly so how did you handle it when of course there were times where he said okay maybe even even if consciously he didn't want to but maybe he did did you what how did you handle it when he actually you know clearly when he's good so he so then we're talking errorless or you or he never tried to no i i would that's why i taught him you could do you see how he chewed when i brought my one hand right oh my god yeah chew on chew chew chew chew chew two hands okay never touch never touch yes but one yeah yeah yeah yeah but there has to be a transition somewhere that he understood that two hands and as he comes to you and the presentation and the two hands it means not chew that means that somewhere along the way you had to explain that right how did he figure it out possibly in the in the game with the little dowel on on a string but because before it was ever brought to a dumbbell it was just never and never something ever did and so that's in that video that's why i purposely revved him up excitedly the way i did with all the toys don't you want to chew and what you know what's really really funny as he got older instead of taking the chewing on the toys and starting to chew his dumbbell he actually stopped chewing on his toys for the retrieve so when i do this when i used to do this demo at obedience seminars i had to put the chewing on cue so that i could get him to chew because he actually stopped doing it because this got so much reinforcement from me

that that part went away like it was crazy because that is innately what he wanted to do right so would it be fair to say that you basically if there was some slight chewing you just kind of didn't pay attention to it and you focused on rewarding the the the good the good try so i mean this was because i cannot be convinced that he never never did well we could draw we could we could bring in a quarter of my peers who knew buzzy back then and who saw that demo over and over okay okay so let's say let's say he never did would you would you say that what do you let's just say he did yeah right exactly so if he did i would follow my mentor bob bailey's philosophy number one i would find a a sharp edge in my kitchen to bang my head on because clearly i didn't reinforce enough the strategies that i put in place so that he really would never want to do that because i always look at not just me people like me behavior is information behavior is feedback on how good a job i am doing on my training behavior is like i think sometimes and i don't know but if if i was a person that used reinforcement or used punishment and honestly that one of the biggest reasons i went away from punishment is since i'm too bloody competitive i love freaking winning and that is a dangerous thing when you involve another living creature because i don't want to ever lose what i have in the house for what i can get on a podium and i know that about myself so punishment had to be out of the question for me because in the heat of the moment in the need to win who knows what potentially i might have done i've never done anything because i left that world so long ago and so for me i think that that is um that is a big a big thing for for all of us like it i'm not unique now there's so many people out there i love that that the young people are doing it that are they're they're like and this is what i think as as humanity you know what ivan no disrespect to you you're not a youngster anymore tell me about that kids the kids coming up they have a higher level of consciousness than i ever had when i was in my teens and 20s and i know and i said this in a podcast i don't know if it's 20 years 50 years or 100 years that punishment in animal training will be just a notation in a history book it will be gone so i can only keep my fingers crossed on this this will be this will be ultimately the best thing but but it's got to be people who say i'll take up that challenge susan garrett i will believe what i know like i i mentioned debbie zapia did when she came here to train with me wait wait wait let's get let's

hold on hold on because i'm gonna forget all of my thoughts here we'll get to this hold on this is this is very interesting so so oh my god so uh um one one thing i want to make sure be let me just get back to this this statement because it's really really important yes behavior i believe if punishment is an option then behavior is is a statement that dog's being stubborn and he's saying not today susan i'm not doing it but i never look at behavior that way i look at behavior as feedback on how good a job i've done and helping you to understand what i need from you behavior could be a symptom of oh my god i've got an upset stomach or i have a thorn in my foot behavior could be communication of i'm not clear what your boundaries are for me right now but behavior is never a statement and i my hallucination is that if i was using punishment behavior would be me interpreting a statement for my dog and that's when people i believe turn to punishment when they really shouldn't be right right yeah so i know like i i know we're gonna get to punishment i know we're gonna we're gonna have to talk about difficult topics but not yet uh what i want to make sure and and this is um i hear it quite a bit from the force free community when i have somebody on a podcast they feel that i am trying to kind of lead them into somewhere so i can trap them and they can admit to something and i well you know i'm a pretty independent woman so that's not gonna happen good because this i want to make sure that you you understand that when when it's time for me to ask something very directly or have a or have a disagreement we will have the disagreement and and i think we can have a intelligence disagreements and it's it that's not the um but um in in for right now like if we stay with a hold example let's assume i am some you know we we are back in the 70s or the 80s and all i know is pinching ears and doing all these things that i don't even want to talk about and but i want to learn from you and you tell me there is this way and i am asking you the question so what do i do when he does chew how how do we go from a dog that's not chewing to a dog having always perfect holds because again i'm also two times world champion in a very difficult sport i'm 15 or 16 or i don't know how many times national i'm very very very good dog trainer all of my dogs will make a mistake and sometimes they will be chew and i believe that every dog it's it's somewhere in the repertoire even if it's put aside for a very long time it's not that unlikely

to happen so my question to you is what is your advice to me at that moment um i would ask you to look at your training videos which of course you video every training session you do with a dog which i do we are we are crazy i'm sure we are crazy your camera's always on so when did you first see the first mouth or and and my hallucination is it would probably be uh as a re-grip just before they release and that re-grip that re-grip um might lead to then a a chew while they're holding so you you've got to be able to pinpoint when it happened what was going on go back and look at your history reinforcement and is there another layer of understanding that needs to be added to that dog that um you know all of it it could be superstitious to me the fact that i gave him the permission to when he could chew on the dumbbell and when he couldn't is that part of it i don't know because i've not done it without it's not a good thing i did that with my terriers as well yeah and then this way i am very very good with allowing like my dogs even even with the dumbbell they can destroy they can actually like totally destroy it but in the context of an exercise there is a very clear understanding that this is what we do now and and well i haven't been that generous i've never let him destroy a dumbbell other than he can when i put one hand he can play a game with me that's it so that he he he would never have access to to play with the dumbbell do anything with a dumbbell other than in an interaction with me so so let's say i know like i mean i i can argue that i i i would i'm very quick to i'm really really very self-aware and i can break down i can train three days in a row and i can break down every single session to the smallest details and i can tell you when the chewing happens i'm sure you can do the same thing so yeah so let's say we know when it happens how how do i go about not letting it happen do i try to avoid the that moment of when the chewing is coming is that something that we're trying to know to control anti-sendence no no no we we we want the dog to do exactly what he wants to do i just want to know what what created that and i use this example like any other example i could have used chasing wildlife as my video example i could have used anything people would say i'm going to use punishment for so it is what what is the strategy of reinforcement that that give that dog the drive to not to do not and and you can't think in terms of not chew because that i don't think that's what buzz

learned buzz buzz learned to hold he didn't learn to not chew okay the difference okay and yeah i mean it's like he also learned a perfect front he also learned a perfect heel position yes he didn't learn right like and i believe i i mean obviously i cannot not believe or argue with that because clearly i'm looking behind you and i know that you can right there is i'm not doubting that my my thing is and and if we don't get it it's no big deal of course but my thing is i guess where i'm going with this is that if if some so-called balance trainer or something say well what do i do in that situation and and we cannot give him um the the secret sauce or the recipe how to handle this like i can tell you what i do if my dog would be if if if he choose i would just say hey this is don't do that and then he will stop and they will go oh that's my boy and and that it's enough communication and i believe the dogs you know like we can we i i know we're gonna go there but it's not about this right now it's not about do you say no to your dog do you know whatever i i do because i believe in trial and error i believe that that my dog recognizes my emotions my dog knows when i i really like this it's like no no no no don't oh this would be like if you ask me how to resolve it i will most likely guide you in somewhere in that space and but i wouldn't right and that's where i i'm so genuinely interested to know how you know where i go so i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you this little story um i shared a video last week about my nine-month-old puppy who is uh staffordshire bull terrier crossed with border collie and papillon oh wow and she's super intense very much she makes she makes buzzy look calm she makes buzzy she i have never had a dog so high so intense in my life and um so i showed a video nine months old here are all the things that i've done and in the video um you know there's a bit there's um me cutting her nails she's just lying on her side it's not me it's kim cutting her nails there's me um doing come into to heel position on this side that side and she just comes in on her own and then i i throw a cookie and she quivers and i tell her get it she dives on it i get her back in the heel position i throw cookie again she goes to dive on it i tell her sit she sits boom at the very very end of the video there is a little clip of her wrestling with tater salad and they are like like they're right into it right and then i just say believe boom she comes over so i get a private message can you tell me how how to do

that did you my dog won't do that my dog won't come my way from being playing with another dog but will your dog lay down and have his nails cut will your dog sit when you throw a cookie will your dog so buz holding a dumbbell isn't a tool in my toolbox it's thousands of layers of learning of manipulating reinforcement not just cookies but his drive to chase his drive for this toy is all of these manipulations into layers so if i had a student who said i have a problem with the dumbbell i would say join recallers you get those layers and then then you have a better understanding of how to manipulate reinforcement and how to create a cooperative arrangement with your dog so that that you can now do that so no unfortunately if you are you come to me as as without that you've come from a foundation where a cookie means a lure my dogs have never seen a cookie as a lure so they don't learn sit that way they learn that that is something that they earn that i can throw cookies on the floor and we're working and then and then maybe you can get to earn some so it isn't like a tool i can say here's the magic sauce ivan it's not a gimmick it is it is a crescendo of layers does that make sense honestly it's a very hard to to get to to agree on this just because of of all the years of training i know that that i i will have like no matter how perfect the plan and the execution of that plan is and and that gradual like i i know exactly what you're saying the the point that i have a that i'm not getting is i am not convinced that the dog just because of that perfect plan and perfect execution will never make a a a mistake or or do the the thing that we don't want him to do i i well i'm this is very hard for me to to i do have examples i can give where my dog will make a mistake for example a running contact where i have to get them to put their feet in the yellow and in that learning situation as they get faster and faster there will come a time where they will like sail over that but in the concept of holding because i mean i just find joy in getting my dogs to hold different things like for pictures and if i you know back in the day when i would lay on the couch and watch football games and the remote would be on the other side of the room get that dog to hold the remote don't push down on it and change the channels like so they learn to put things in their mouth and hold and never ever touch them so the whole example it it's it just works but there are times when my dogs don't do what i expect and i just go back to how can i create a different layer that isn't there

already so that you understand okay so so probably and and i don't want to put words in your mouth but probably when when let's say there was that little chore or there was what you know in any situation and the dog makes the mistake you're letting it slide and you're focusing on the right stuff am i correct or no i'll give you the example of the the running contact because what i did um first of all we all laughed and then i got the video camera and took a screen cap of the moment she did this massive mistake and i put it on social media because it was hysterical so behavior is information behavior isn't isn't good or bad it's feedback on your training and so by looking at it like that i go there's so much we don't know and and like i i i've used this example before you know training in a in a balanced way or even like balanced trainers use a lot of great reinforcement so even going you know a more militant way of dog training that kind of dog training is hundreds of years old it's like the game of golf the game of golf doesn't really change that much reinforcement based dog training is like freaking pickleball it's brand new on the scene so what we know now is nothing compared to what we're going to know in 10 years in 20 years and 50 years which is why i keep saying if you're using punishment get ahead of it because like it's exciting to me how fast reinforcement based dog training is changing because there's so many minds now especially in the sport world like i just i and that's why when you first asked me to come on your podcast ivan what was the first thing i said to you i said let's train together yes you know very true you invited me you know that's the that's the right thing to do no question come up here bring a dog let's do some dog training because um there's there's just so many opportunities if you're willing to let go of what you knew yesterday and that's the hard thing for people um because they have a belief about the role of the dog in their life or the role of them in their dog's life and i'm still i'm still on this you know i've been doing this a lot i've been competing for a lot of years and it's still exciting to me because i'm still on this journey of learn i i feel i learn i know that much about reinforcement based on training compared to what i'm going to know and so it's super exciting to me there's so many amazing brilliant people that are doing some really cool things and it's it's got to be i always look at it is from is this my ego that's preventing me

from learning from somebody who is not you know as experienced than that's me no i'm not because i like to train i always tell and i've talked about this in a podcast as i i train from a place of my soul that i want to align my myself with my dog and if i'm trained if my dog doesn't do something and i'm triggered by that that's my ego that is not my soul i only want to be training from the place of my soul again that's a little out there maybe but that's honestly how i approached my life with my dogs no i i love it i love it um i will i'm gonna try one more time and then we're gonna move on um yeah it just kind of i i really trying to get this and and i think some some of the people that listen probably will too and like if if i come to you and i say well i have a dog that's chewing and again it's not about the chewing it's just a uh one example somehow we picked on but i i'm coming to you the dog has a little problem and we put him on a plan and i understand the plan and i understand the training and i follow it religiously and i call and say susan um he he kind of a little crunching there a little what do i do what would you tell me would you say i would i would yeah i would say what haven't we tried a step i didn't and i would say yeah well i i think i follow the steps well i would get i like i would get my my students they'd send me videos i'd see what they're doing i'd give them feedback then right and we would put you know i think one of the things that a lot of people miss out is putting arousal in the training very early because especially for dogs that are driven like border collies or mouths that they need that arousal they need to be able to be thoughtful and drive and that that if we don't if we try to train them in a sterile environment where we're burning candles and incense and humming then that's not what where the behavior needs to be reproduced and you know i think i love some of your analogies yeah and i mean i know very little about bite sports but i do know that biting um for a lot of dogs is so reinforcing so that would be the challenge and i believe that that you know we know so little about how we can use the the drives of the dogs for their reunions i'll i'll have to say that you just moved the goalpost i like this one i've never used it but but that's a good one i love it so let's say i i have a border collie and i do the sport you do and and i send you the video and you see my making the mistake and you say okay well this is what needs to change and i say i got it and then i

ask you but what do i do was it okay that he chewed and i didn't say anything or should i've done something this is really where i'm going at no um i i i i'm not going to do anything because the dog okay okay that's that was it i'm going to take the dumbbell out of their mouth and i'll probably throw them a frisbee go chew that if you want to chew something and then i'll come up with an um another layer there's another layer of learning that needs to be added for that dog to completely understand yes um and i probably ivan i probably wouldn't let that dog have a dumbbell for like a month because i want to then put in more drive more games more understanding that this is never meant to be got it touched with your teeth got it and that's that that's that's that's where i was going so and we don't need to label it 40 minutes to give you that answer yeah and we don't need to label it what exactly that is or or or not you know that that's that's that's really answers um you know and and so we to to go further with that one i was gonna say but i think we're gonna really just kind of keep going in circles here but i'll just as quick one like i i know i'm trying to give you a straight answer no no i'm not trying to blow you off i just don't i'm not sure that it's it's and i love the questioning because um i i'm i'm i'm in conversations with people that think at least similarly to me even if they're thinking similarly in a different sport i love talking to people who are doing what i'm doing in different sports um but to talk to somebody that doesn't necessarily think similarly it you know it is um it's you know i i'm trying to be clear but i don't feel like i am because you keep coming around to the same question yeah and i'm like but no you you just answered that you mentioned something in the beginning that i kind of want to get back to it and and i don't know if i got it right or not but it sounds like you you're not that fond of negative punishment um i am not fond of the overuse of negative punishment and it's a transition it's a transition period so when i wrote this book um rough love it was um it was in 2000 uh 2000 that i started writing it i think it was probably published in 2002 or something and it's funny because um somebody texted me or sent me a dm behind the scenes of this conversation last week and said you know you you say you don't like punishment but isn't rough love got a lot of punishment in it and um that that is the transition so you you're you've got one foot in the on the dock and one foot in the boat and you've

got to make that transition to go all in on reinforcement but oh my gosh i've had so much success i don't want to take that foot off the off the dock so i think the transition between punishment and going to a reinforcement base is the use of negative punishment because it seems it almost seems more benign in your brain right even though i think it's it's it can be the overuse of punishment i don't care if it's negative or positive is emotionally taxing on a dog i mean it's just been that's been proven so um so that's i think that's a natural transition for people that they they give more time out but um i'm constantly questioning what i do and if i withhold reinforcement from my dog then i've got to question my role in why that reinforcement wasn't earned and and it and it's never that the dog just didn't do it because i know if i've done my job as a trainer my dogs will never not do it when people say i you know i need punishment for when my dog won't lie down when i tell them that's never going to happen if i ask my dogs to lie down they're going to lie down because of the way i've trained them that and if they chose to i would say there's something like they're not feeling well or they're they're terrified of something those would be the only like they're in pain or they're terrified would be two reasons my dogs wouldn't lie down and i would expect them not to lie down anyway that's communication i want you to keep that communication open with me you're not going to lie down because his dog's charging at you you're afraid that behavior of not lying down when i asked is communication so all scan is something coming that i don't see ah okay i see why you didn't lie down that's communication so um um yeah no no this is good i'm i'm following i'm i i totally like what we're talking here um what what i was thinking as you're speaking and i don't think i don't know you tell me but it sounds like to accomplish what you're saying and i'm not doubting that it's impossible i have doubts that sometimes you will say something and the dog will blow you off i think that's that's very hard to to convince me as from a trainer perspective but if that's possible that means that you have done some amazing job from from the very beginning which uh like amazing job but also very tasking job very like consuming you to where it's like every time you say lay down you have to make sure that you don't just throw random commands that you're not gonna follow up on um to where i have with my dog and and i think most people like i can call my dog five times and he's like i'm peeing and he's not

peeing but he decides to be just because i'm calling him and i will give him slack at the same time i know that i can say dude you're coming back now and then he says okay i come back now so i think in your uh um training and this is what i'm interested to find out how much slack do you give to your dogs i don't right i mean if they're peeing and i go oh my bad and then i'll give them the cue to pee because a lot of my dogs would continue to pee and then walk while they're peeing over in front of me so that that's how ingrained it is to come and a call right but i feel bad oh my god you were peeing but um a tater salad move would be you called me i'm gonna pee that's not gonna happen so then i am going to and i'm not going to like you know go yeah bad i told you what i'm gonna do is okay note to self i'm gonna start calling him and at times just before he starts sniffing so that and i'm gonna gradually get closer to the time when he wants to pee so that he knows that you know you don't don't pee when i call you if you're not peeing come if you're not you don't have to pee so but like all the training i do is a game right and so my dogs love to be part part of it and i know that you do a lot of games in your training as well but so so that um but if i say something i look at my a conversation with my dog is like a conversation with my my friends i'm not going to say something and not mean it to my friends so why would i say something and not mean it to my dogs right yeah so this is good this is very good because that's kind of you know makes makes me understand um as i said like i i would call my dog and he wouldn't come and i'm like okay whatever or i would be walking him on my flexi leash in town going to get a drink or you know and it's like okay come walk next to me then he walks next to me for two steps and then he's like okay i'm walking again and i don't mind it and the reason i don't mind it is because i know that when i say hey this now means we're really like now we are making that so do you have a different word when you really mean it yeah some people so i don't see that as very inconsistent no no like my dog my dogs let me explain my dogs know that that that they can count on me being consistent right in every part of their life right so i i believe that um a lot of trainers would have a different commands like you would say lay down or relax versus whatever the competition the the you know that the command that you don't refuse that it's 100 reliable um i um i don't

don't do that because i believe in in in context in in like if if i say hey susan let's go play hockey and i meet you at the arena we both gonna wear the hockey outfits or at least they're gonna be in the bags right we're not gonna come with us with a football outfits and and i believe that if i take my dog tracking it's a context it's like no we are driving to the fields i'm wearing my boots there is the long line like we we're clearly here not to do protection or or or anything else so i i'm you know i find that um um but again that's kind of me since you asked how how i would do um sure so the way i look at it is that it's a very like it's like for me this will be who my my brain's gonna i i think i'm not gonna be able to to be so uh conscious about every time i ask my dog to do something like i i can be on a computer he's barking and i'm like dude shut up and then she stops for a second and then of course he starts again and i let him go again that's that's me you know and i think yeah most people actually are like that and if i am consistent in everything i trust what you're saying but that's gonna be so tasking on me but okay there are things that i there's things we manage and there's things we train my dogs when when you come to my house are going to bark and probably they're going to jump on you too tater salad for sure is going to jump on you those are things i don't care about right if i cared about them then i would fix them but the dog going for a walk and then going to go sniff that is reinforcement i have to be brilliant at what reinforces my dog because i only want to use reinforcement in my training i don't want to use punishment so i have to recognize like my my two-year-old border collie loves to run so in order to get a lot of the skills that i have with her she had to give me perfect heel position in the field and then i would give her a cue to to run so you know pre-macking what is of massive value to her so knowing that sniffing um i want my dogs when i go out for a walk they can sniff they don't have to walk beside me that but if i say with me then you're walking beside me and you're not going to sniff so if i was like passing somebody with another dog or something i just want to everybody just come on in here and you're with me and then when they pass then i would just give them you know a release that they can go and do what they want they can sniff they can hang out they don't want if they hang out they might get reinforcement but they don't have to right but to

to to to just recognize what is of reinforcement to my dog so that i can use it in my training and so that i guess is a um you say most people won't do that or don't do that i agree they don't which is why most people end up yelling at their dogs and i i just i don't want that i don't want that i don't want that stress for me right if if um and you know it it's like anything you you keep reinforcing it and you just get these amazing dogs that just love being part of what you do for their entire life but yeah it's a different kind of work it's work that i love because i love figuring out what they love i i'm laughing because like i really i just put myself walking on the street and asking them to heal and and then give him and then i like i probably will just say you know what i'm not gonna even bother asking you to heal and we're gonna just pull each other i mean yeah i'm not gonna let you drag me around but we're gonna just kind of pull each other because if i ask you to heal now i'm gonna be stuck of making sure that this happens and on top of that it happens making sure that there is the consequences and i was about to go and do something else and all of a sudden it becomes about you and i healing on the sidewalk right so that's that's i guess a little bit uh difference between you and i and and not just you and i i think a lot of the trainers oh i learned a lot of this from like buzzy taught me so much and he was obsessed with water the first time i let him go in a pond i timed him he was just like a 10-month-old puppy he wouldn't come out so i i'm like it was it was like 40 minutes and he was still like swimming and barking and being crazy so i got him out and then i we have a pond on the property here so i i needed my because i have friends whose dogs died in their own ponds so as soon as i learned how much he loved the water i started to teach him you're never allowed in the water unless i tell you to go right and so so i would let him go in call him out and then then you know he would do a sitter down then you get to go back in and what i learned the dog who would swim for an hour now he would swim for a lap and then get out and get really excited like actually he learned he liked going in more than he liked to swim just because i did so many recalls and i would never call him out after i learned that he would he would give me a reliable recall in the water but he loved it so i'm like okay i just used that to reinforce something else and that back in 1997 got my wheels turning to use it for more other things however yes i remember once being dressed ready

to go to church and he decided he was going for a swim and i had to go and jump in the water after him all dressed in my i don't know where but i i've listened to you that story yeah yeah um and and i don't know that i would do that now i i i'm not as obsessive because it's punishing to the dog to jump on them and grab them out of the water and pull them out but what i would do is go more layers needed and i would be able to go off to church put the dog up and then go and um put in more layers when he's hot when he's more aroused when he's whatever it is yes and and again this is this is all like i thought i i get it now uh and um it just uh it's it's it's tasking it changes you know i mean having a dog and i i'm saying different right i don't call i don't think it's taxing i think it's fun right i love figuring out what every dog is different what every dog loves what is it like for tater salad he loves the games on walks and that's you know he used to when when we got him we have a 200 acre golf course and when we first got tater salad i got to go visit the golfers every single one of them must meet me and so it was like there was a lot of management and and then like i think he's now five and we've had him for three and a half years so maybe year two he would only visit and every golfer that he would go visit they'd let him get in their cart with him right so that you get reinforced and um but so yeah all of that is figuring out what is it that he loves and using it i had a student with a golden retriever and this is the only dog that i suggested an e-collar for she was also a very good friend of mine and one of my instructors and the dog would work brilliantly in agility actually was on the canadian world team eventually but not at this point and um and then it would like a switch would flip and it would be gone it would go it would run and it would be gone it'd be a speck like and you would never see outside the the just yeah that we don't have any fences here and um so one time i was teaching in california and i phoned home to see how everything was my husband said talk to linda linda's crying the dog was in standing heat had been gone for an hour and a half they ended up finding her playing with some ducks in the pond at the golf course so not much reinforcement there for field bread golden right exactly and so now now we've had so many repetitions of this behavior i said linda i think we've got to find somebody who really understands an e-collar because i think she's going to die because she's going across highways and this is dangerous and

she said this was back in the 90s or yeah the night she said susan i i know there's an answer we just don't know it so i would prefer we work through this with reinforcement bob bailey just happened to be up the next summer uh and we talked to the next week and we talked to him about it and she actually did it with him did a seesaw got reinforcement did a jump did a dog walk we went to reinforce her and the switch went and she was gone into the woods and bob said i've never seen anything like that but we figured it out nice and we used reinforcement to fix it the dog went on to be brilliant had a brilliant recall um we went back and looked at videos i'm so curious to hear it i'm dying to to to hear what how did we do what we the the strategy was when she was a puppy in class um i would go around to the groups and that puppy would come up and like she was one of those goldens that wiggled and jump up to your head to say hello right like she's just crazy and she would leave work go and do this and then linda would go spirit and she'd come running back and get lots of fun tug and then we would work out in the agility field and she would do the same thing till she got to the fence and then she would be called and she'd come back and what we weren't realizing she was just going till she couldn't go anymore until the day she got to go and there was no boundaries and then she was gone so it had been a rehearsed behavior growing up that got reinforced when she came back so then we add all the reinforcement she got for the running and so um then linda i mean she talked to a bunch of field trainers what would it what would you do of course most field trainers back then did use electric collars and we just came up with a strategy of um putting it on cue so we had cues for people for dogs who love people that's the big reinforcement you get to go see and then a cue to go get lost and not care and when we saw a glimpse of her we would call her and then she'd get reinforced and then working on other things that built value for doing things with linda and gradually that re that recall was instant and you know i'm kind of going through that with my little puppy right now the nine month old because she loves to chase the border collies and so she won't come back she'll come back in the house but not in the field so i play with that all the time so how quick or you know i'll get this recall this recall and i've got like 90 recall it's not good enough for me i want 100 right so how much into drive can you be and me call you and you say i

can't come like i know varying levels of drive like any really really driven work working breed like once they get to over this level will they listen and that's what i want for my agility dogs yes because we want them to do bite work or agility without thought because if they think about things then they're not going to be as good we need them to be without thought in their work but still be responsive to what we say and so you know that that's i love that challenge of very high drive dogs and being able to accomplish that with just using what reinforces that dog and it's not going to be a cookie i mean it's for for a working dog it is it's almost unheard of and my my my um history with working with high drive dogs i can get them to the point where they'll work for cookies but when they're at that stage when we start um the cookie isn't going to be the thing that that is going to be their reinforcement yeah eventually it will be i get it it's about i and i transferring the value of the drive yep um yeah there is a um um yeah it's totally totally get this um but so the golden goes into the pond with the ducks that one time and you just go and take her back or or yes i was i was in california but yes they went and they i think they got ahead to get a canoe she was just having a great time and um okay yeah get her back and um and that wasn't the last time it happened like i think she got we were in florida one time and that's when she went across a highway and that's when i said this has got to stop she's going to be killed and um so yeah the the strategy and and again everything in dog training that's successful has got to be distilled down to a process that can be shared so um that's that's how what i've done like i've had success and then i'm like if i'm going to train this to pet owners which is what i do now we have 10 000 students in our classes right now we've trained tens of thousands of dog owners online pet owners with rescue dogs that are biting them that are creating all these problems the ones that get success are the ones that that are patient to follow the process and and in six months they have a different dog than they did when they started and then a year they'll have like the most amazing family pet up they possible and then they keep staying with us and they keep getting more and more and more but it it only comes when people like you and me can systematize what has brought us success and then continue to question is this the easiest way for pet owners to achieve the same success because pet

owners aren't going to work through problems the way i will and so the the students that we put through our programs we started in 2008 with our online programs the students that we put through like in the first five years unfortunately don't have near the success the students that we've had in the last five and we're going to continue to evolve both the systems of how we teach dogs and more importantly the systems and how we can engage people to want to teach dogs because that's the kicker it doesn't matter how good we are uh training dogs if we can't train people in a way that engages them and shows them hope for themselves and give teaches them to give themselves grace while they're in this learning phase that they're not going to be susan garrett right out of the gate but that doesn't mean they're not going to move forward from where they are today yeah no this is all yeah brilliantly said um yeah i have a question it it's always goes around and it's uh it's like a label and i always try to understand exactly what what what does that mean and you may may not have the answer but what is what is a punishment based trainer you know that that's very commonly used terminology i can give you an example but um i think in the united states you have this and we have it in canada there's there's an annual of the top obedience dogs in the country the top agility dogs and the canadian kennel club puts out this and everybody who's the top dog gets to have an ad in the dog's annual and many many years ago this this fellow with his golden who was the top obedience dog in the world in in canada that year and his dog worked as you mentioned dogs must work with drive and enthusiasm in in your sport well this dog did not work with drive or enthusiasm and in his ad he put proudly trained without the use of food or toys and i thought wow up to now only your dog knew what a jerk you were and now you've just let us all know so that is what i would call a punishment based trainer is somebody who and i i don't think they really exist anymore i don't know i could be naive i could be naive but dogs will work the absence of the absence of punishment is reinforcement in that for that dog and dogs will work to that level because i don't think it's a coincidence that dog is god spelled backwards dogs are just gifts from heaven that they will they will do these things in spite of what we're doing and not always because of what we're doing but unfortunately humans believe and get reinforced for the bs that they do in this case

the punishment based training and and not using reinforcement other than the absence of punishment and um it just proves that dogs will put up with anything and keep being amazing for you because they're just gifts that that i you know i don't know if you've ever seen my video the journey but i i believe god the dogs are here to help us to evolve to be our highest self and um but we have to be open to the lessons that they're sharing with us to help us get to that place and i know i'm a long way from it but i'm gonna know that i'm a long way from where i was yeah i think i mean i agree with that and that's we we no matter what approach where is it we have to evolve and we need to get better and there is room to get better no matter what and who knows as you said in 10 or 20 years where we're gonna be and maybe there is the day that even in society we don't have cops to give you tickets who knows that there might be you know um but back to the punishment based trainer like what i always say it's just that the the the line the phrase is flowed and the reason is because you cannot use punishment to make a dog do something you can use punishment only to stop dog from doing something and when you i i think it's a misleading just to put more dramatic to to kind of amplify um i i don't know if you agree with me or disagree but um if it's punishment based training i don't see how you i think you can i think that fellow that put that ad is a punishment based trainer because the reinforcement is the absence of punishment i think you can do it but i don't i don't think in today's day and age there are many people trying at least i'd like to hope there aren't but you have to be able to teach the dog to do something right you can teach otherwise if you're just stopping you can teach a dog you can teach a dog with punishment to stay in heel position if they move out of heel position they get punished the absence of that punishment tells them that's reinforcing this is where you should be so in that situation you're using negative reinforcement you're you're still reinforcing them punishing yeah anyway i it's it's a something with that phrase that um i i think yeah and it's like like you said terminologies of uh of um force free i mean i i call myself a reinforcement based dog trainer i don't call myself force free and i don't know um but it's not like i use force but i i actually i use reinforcement so i think that better defines me than force free because that's saying what i'm not it's not saying what i am yes yes yeah yeah i i agree um

and i you know here's here's i think that as we evolve and as i said reinforcement based dog training is just i mean it's it's not like it's new right the baileys and and the bralens were doing this back in the 50s with great great great success the things that bob and marion and and um and uh braylon were able to do with all species animals is mind boggling so it's not like using reinforcement is new however in the world of dog sports it's very very new you know in the last 30 years so we are evolving but the evolving for me has been like when i'm in a dialogue with people about dog training i would like people to be able to tell what kind of dog trainer i am by the kind of dialogue i'm having with them and i think that if i truly am a reinforcement based person that the respect i extend to my dog is the respect i extend to humans and i think that needs to be more obvious and i think when i like when i jump into this conversation with people who don't have the same uh philosophy of a dog training like i got i got a lot of crap throwing at me when i was in that little conversation i got called a liar by somebody who didn't even know me so is that how you show up to your dogs that that violent you are different therefore you don't belong here like i just think people should reflect on that who i show up to to my dogs is who i want to show up to everyone in this world like that you know and there'll be a lot of reinforcement based people who will be critical of me having this conversation with you ivan and because they they are of the the thinking that you people who want to use punishment have had ample opportunity to learn what we've learned now we're not going to extend the the rose uh or the the the olive branch anymore yes and you know to me it's you know if i can i can make one person one podcast listener on your podcast curious about what we do curious about potentially leaving punishment it's a win for me it's a win so i think it's it's worth it i remember my my grandfather was a missionary in northern ontario he lived in the indian reservations and when i was in university he would write me letters and one day he wrote he said i hope you're only associating with christians i'm like how are the rest of the world going to learn how good christians are yes good christians can't associate with them yes i love it yeah and and so i i kind of look at it the same way that um and and that's what i told you know what i said i'll be i'll be on your podcast but we have to have a little conversation first yes because i am an independently strong woman and i don't

you know somebody in this conversation last week said do you know how to condition an e-caller and i i don't i also don't know how to juggle chainsaws or throw hand grenades there are things in my life i know that i don't need so if i was going to use an e-caller i would be calling my friend ivan right i i don't you know to this stage in the last 30 years there's nothing that i've said oh man i wish i had an e-caller and i think and sometimes it would be kinder if i did use an e-caller you know why ivan like tater salad for example he didn't get the freedom he would have got on this property if i put in if i was somebody who used an e-caller so he's another sacrificial lamb by going to an e-caller i wouldn't have learned all those layers of reinforcement that i can now share with other people struggling with rescue dogs that don't want to use punishment so unfortunately tater had to suffer not getting as much freedom now he's i mean he's never on leash but because of that i learn new games i learn new ways if reinforce if if a e-caller was one of my tools i wouldn't learn all of that so it it it allows me to continue to grow and evolve so i can help other dogs and other people in similar situations are you ready for my next question i think it's an interesting one and wait these are questions that we kind of play games with actually with with my friends and you know like and i i feel like i can talk like is there alcohol involved ivan questions and friends yes some some gin and tonic like you know we have we have to right um but do you think and this this actually twofold question here the the first part would be do you think you can tell if a dog is trained with some some form of aversives at some point only if the dog trainer was poor if it was a really good dog trainer no you can't tell the difference i really because i think a good dog trainer at you and i what what makes us good dog trainers isn't the tools it's our timing our criteria and our our reinforcement that's what makes us good dog trainer so if it is a good dog trainer absolutely not if it is a bad dog trainer 100 yes and that's my problem with um you know i i made a comment that if i had to vote today to ban electric collars i would and my problem isn't although i think it stunts your ability to grow and learn if that's a tool in your toolbox like i just mentioned with with tater my problem is the fact there's there's got to be upwards of a hundred thousand to five hundred thousand electric collars sold every year in america yes maybe what one percent are being used properly that's my problem i feel for those dogs

that somebody's going to your big box store and buying a collar that doesn't even have a vibration setting or something kind at the bottom end and just saying listen you yeah yeah yeah you know that's that's that's why i that's why that my vote would be happening it's a good argument um so my my sub question would you confuse a situation where a dog is trained purely positive that make the assumption that he's he or she being trained with aversives is that possible well i think if i put that video out of buzzy mouthing every toy and then showed him not mouthing a dumbbell how many people would think i'm lying how many people would not believe that was trained without the use of punishment yeah but that right right but that's that's not uh what i'm asking i'm asking you know like you can say you we can like i have a lot of times i would have i do i i think we do a lot of similar things we we're we're competitors but we're also teachers and we we constantly i think our biggest contribution is actually teaching people how to love and be doing the right things to their dogs and i get videos sometimes to where somebody's super proud that it's never the dog's never been you know on a prone collar or any form of a verse if whatever it is and then the dog is on a any command being downstate being heel being something and when you look at the dog you clearly see that the dog is not in a happy place it's uncomfortable but there and we're going back to the emotional side effects of of negative punishment if you use any where i'm going with this is you any training can be good or bad and i i i also see i see very bad training with electricals very bad training with prone collars i don't see as much on the other spectrum but i do see and and and the thing there is that i see trainers that are really believing that they are doing the right thing simply because they're not using aversive but somehow failing to recognize that the dog is not feeling good you know you know what i'm saying yeah um yeah there's and that for me i see people that go through our program and they that's the number one thing the dogs are joyful the dogs are having a great time and um but there's a lot of different ways people approach reinforcement based dog training i believe unless you're doing it as a game it's harder to engage the dog because dogs love motion dogs love excitement and i i also think it's harder to engage the human because like what human isn't going to sign up to play a game every day with their dog versus you will do these exercises ten times and put your hand here and do this like

they're going to give up they're not really going to follow through with it because it's boring and so there's so many ways to approach dog training but i see that evolution happening ivan that you're going to see fewer and fewer of those um dogs that just want to throw themselves on a sword because the reinforcement based dog training was applied wrong but yeah i've seen them i i know exactly what you're talking about and i think it's great that they're proud because that's that's the first step now let's let's help them see the emotional state of their dog and and that's something that i talk about in my podcast a lot is the dog will tell you when your training is right yes yes um i i like that now i remember reinforcement based dog training it's like pickleball we're brand new we're just we're and so the people who are trying to teach it they're maybe not the best teachers and they're maybe flawed in their methodology um but they know they don't want to use punishment so maybe the the end result of what they're putting out there isn't great but i have a lot of people that come through like our recallers programs and then they start teaching that in their backyard and that so there's more and more and more really good dog trainers out there that are are using reinforcement based strategies and getting happy dogs because that should be the guideline for all dog training i think is let's get happy dogs i think yeah happy dogs is is the priority and the yeah there there is um just just as you said there um you agree that um you know like when when training is done right it's impossible to tell what somebody has been doing and my my approach to this is i really like what you're doing like i not just like it i'm obsessedly in love with what you're doing and i need to know how you're making this happen and whatever you're doing i don't care what it is but please teach me that's my strategy right um somehow this is kind of where we're gonna get a little bit probably in in difficult waters um we always point to the worst case scenario when it comes to aversives even with the studies when studies are done and i told you we're doing a study like we're actually just setting up the field the next two days here comparing positive reinforcement and and punishment on the lure course and it will be interesting to see because i'm genuinely interested to see but uh the the worst case scenarios in in a lot of the studies they admit that when it's done right it it's not just okay it's actually perfectly fine but there is

the worst case scenario and therefore and the worst case scenario is very simple the one is contingent the other one is non-contingent use of aversives and it's almost no need to make a study like any any dog trainer that is above certain level can tell you that that's gonna lead to a disaster um but somehow we get stuck on pointing always the bad the worst case scenario to the point that if i and i am now trying to think as i'm talking but to the point that if if i tell you well you know positive reinforcement using using treats i don't think it's a good idea because if we start giving the dog chicken wings cooked chicken wings it's gonna end up in an emergency room at best right because of the the bones that are cooked the sharp bones and so on and and you're gonna laugh at me you're gonna say you you're a lunatic who would do that right and i wish that somehow we think and we talk not in such an extreme way and always pick on the worst case scenario and i will tell you but i gave you the example of the best case the why i i would prefer that the best dog trainers in the world that are using an electric collar why it's detrimental to them is it stunting their growth that they they don't grow in how to use reinforcement because they have the crutch of punishment if i take away that crutch you have to learn to fly a different way and that was the challenge that i said that it's possible every if everything you're doing is possible without punishment and if i said that to you would you still choose to use punishment right so there is the there is the cost and benefit right and punishment again like i let's try to supplement the word punishment because it's it's really wait you didn't answer my question if you could do everything you're doing right now with reinforcement would you choose to use punishment i would 100 percent not do it i would okay absolutely i move for two months or half a year with you but you have to give me a good reason like i i really believe that if uh if there is a way that we are not using aversives and which and and we are just as successful and we are accomplishing what we need to do but we choose to use aversives i i don't see how in the world why would you do that unless aversives and and that's kind of what i wanted to say like when we say punishment it's just it's not the right terminology um and it's important to make a note that it's not the right terminology because we can use aversive we can use something unpleasant something mildly discomfort something extremely

discomfort something mildly painful something extremely pale there is in aversive there is levels right in and i don't know if you saw that um presentation that i did a few days ago about the yeah but you you if you think of playing hot hands two kids playing hot hands there is discomfort but there is a game and you're willingly you're willing to play that game and partially you're willing to play the game because of that element of discomfort and it doesn't matter what we want to call it but this is negative reinforcement and so we can use aversives to suppress something or you can use an aversive to encourage something that that's the difference between punishment negative reinforcement so it's all it's totally wrong to put everything into the word punishment because negative reinforcement can be just as fun and sometimes i can argue that can be even more fun when done correctly as a game when we look at two dogs playing when we look at two dogs interacting in any way they're mostly in that spectrum of interaction between and we can argue well but you're not a dog you're not the mom and so on but they're really in that spectrum of playing through use of a little bit of discomfort and sometimes the play case is too rough and the one says no more right so if i was if you were sending your child to grade one and i was the teacher and um we we learned simple math and then i was going to test your child and i said what was one plus one and she said three and i said ah and gave her a light slap on the hands and asked her again and and she got it wrong and gave her light slap on the hand i'm not hurting her that that i've taught her what the one plus one is or would you prefer me to play make a game out of it and where she can learn it in the con without the punishment absolutely like wouldn't you choose to not have your child be punished 100 so to so but that's flawed argument the belief the belief loop that we all have is our belief so my belief is that our dogs are always doing the best they can with the education i've given them in the environment i put them in so if they make a mistake they chew their dumbbell it's either the environment i put them in is too hot for the education i've given them or there's some missing elements in my education if your belief is that there comes a point where the dogs are going to say i don't want to and i have to use my punishment then that's going to change your thoughts when you see your dog do something if i see my dog do something i i'll say oh my god is there

something wrong with my dog instead of why are you blowing me off i've never used the word blowing me off in reference to my dogs and i have a bulldog right like i don't that's not the terminology so our beliefs create our thoughts our thoughts create our emotions if you truly believe your dog's blowing you off you're going to be pissed and then our emotions create our actions you're going to hunt that dog down and you're going to say listen you little bastard don't do that again and then your outcome that that action creates the outcome and the outcome is your dog's going to learn sometimes you're a jerk to them right but that's going to keep feeding your beliefs so our beliefs are what create our actions in dog training if we want to keep keep like i know every year i'm evaluating if i use negative punishment in a session immediately i or if my dog doesn't do what i expect i immediately go where did i go wrong where was my training flawed i never go i need to put an electric collar on my dog right because that's my beliefs so i'm just challenging everybody that listens to this podcast challenge your own beliefs and if you're a fixed mindset you're not going to do anything different than what you did yesterday but i love that old line if we always do what we always did we'll always get what we've always got so let's try something different and you know bob bailey i just love him but he's got this great line in that um dog training fails because people expect way too much of their dog and way too little of themselves and i always want to show up for my dog and expecting the most of me and not of them yeah i love i i mean i cannot there is nothing that i would disagree with the um um um it's just that where we were with hot hands you really went that wasn't an education that was you went very yes you went very far to two plus two because we're talking about yeah sorry we we we took it to a very different place and yes two plus two equals four should not be there is there is no room for slapping that's not that's not education there is i i there is no thing to disagree or or even to be talked about but do we not let kids play hot hands do we not get let kids play play almost any game that we can think of well not any game but hockey but i would say 50 50 of the games include negative reinforcement i think it's a it's we're building it's in our dna it's baked we are there and a big difference that i you see i i got a little hot here because it frustrates me when uh i just envision people listening and and these are very good examples when we start comparing

kids and humans and and i don't mind that but we all need to somehow calm down and understand that huge difference between dogs and humans is that humans can get instruction they can think abstract if you can explain mathematics and art and whatever dogs language so that doesn't doesn't that mean it should be easier for us to use punishment with humans than it is with dogs because we can explain it to the humans i'm just going to give you this little smack doesn't mean i don't love you we can't explain that to the dogs wouldn't it make it easier to use punishment with our training no quite the opposite quite the opposite that's that's that's the that's the beauty you it's it's exactly the opposite um we can we can tell i believe that i can have that you have to you have to do something and you will get your playstation or you will not get your playstation or whatever you know like we can talk and we can we have length we are humans we're we are a species on our own on our planet this is but i have the language with my dogs and i i have a conversation with them and they have a conversation with me so my conversation is so are you saying that you can teach your dog mathematics i probably could if it was important to me sure to to what level because of course we can teach a tricks there is the famous horse hands right i mean we can we can do things we know and it's not that it hasn't been tried hans was hans really didn't know math right but we know that it's been tried i mean ken ramirez recently tried to do something i mean and i am not against it we should try it we should try it it's it's beautiful that we are starving to to push that envelope we should and maybe one day we break it but but my my point isn't about math my point is about the conversation you say we can have with children we're having them with dogs except their their language is their behavior but we have to be open to take their feedback their conversation the conversation shouldn't be one way i am teaching you and you will do what i'm saying like it should be a two-way conversation 100 percent 100 percent um yeah i mean i just had to interrupt that idea of teaching a kid mathematics and being slapped because it just um that there is no room for that and what we are talking is um there is not no you know it's apple as apples and oranges there is just not uh and and again we have to the way i was raised was the way i trade my dogs although the nine nine of us kids were all raised the way my i mean i think my parents

used more negative punishment back back then for example they would call us down for supper we'd be watching disney what would they do what would most parents do we wouldn't come because we're watching disney so i i again like i agree with a lot of what you're saying where my disagreements are um um dogs language dogs interactions is highly based on using some form of aversives this is all they do this is the animal kingdom and it's fun sometimes we we use aversives when we play i mean they use aversives when we play with each other but if one dog gets serious then that ends correct so when i'm playing and i'm smacking my dog in the ribs that if somebody can you could say she's physically hitting her dog but that isn't a game that the dog knows i'm not using it to create a behavior i'm using it as a part of a reinforcement the dogs are not like dogs punishment to dogs isn't about learning punishment to dogs is about survival and life with us shouldn't be about survival it should just be about learning but again like i we we have to make a distinction i think it's time to to make a distinction when we say punishment and negative reinforcement two very different things one stops one encourages behavior so if you're saying punishment i always think of something okay we're trying to stop the dog from doing something and then there is the other option which is we're making the dog do something and we're using something some discomfort something unpleasant something whatever um but we're something something the dog doesn't like something that don't doesn't like something yeah something something the dog doesn't like and then we're going to stop doing what the dog doesn't like and that's reinforcing but what right do we have to do something the dog doesn't like when there's an opportunity to do what they do like that's what i'm trying to say the dog actually so i'll give you an example i use i use i'll give you an example that will that will be a trigger for you i use a head halter on my puppies head halters like oh my god that's horrible but i don't i use a head halter in a way that i condition the dog to want it on if they don't want it on i don't use it and when they want it on then i i've been given the right to use it so and you know the only time i use i would use it is if i if i'm going out in public and they see other dogs then i i have control to turn their head away yes that but i would i probably use i probably spend the first three or four months of a puppy's life getting playing games with a head halter turning their head in tug with it

before i will ever use it and when i use it the very first time i ever use it my goal is to never use it again and so i i think belief has never even had one on and she's nine months old but she's been conditioned she'll let me put it on but i've never used it with her but i spend a lot of time with my puppies conditioning them to have it on but i don't ever slap it on like i've mentioned rough love the conditioning process and it's only there to help them be aware of their environment and be aware of their surroundings so that i can set them up for reinforcement because i think puppies out in public on a flat collar get more punishment from their owners than they do reinforcement puppies on a head halter get more reinforcement from their owners because we can set them up to be reinforced so that's one that most people hate when i it's a trigger to so many people when i say the word head halter but they have no idea that um how how we're conditioning it and how little like every time i put it on i'm like am i moving forward to never using it again so like my two-year-old i don't know she she had some fear aggression with dogs so i used it for that let's go let me let me pause you uh um um because we were i mean there's so many things we need to talk about yeah um going back to negative reinforcement use of aversives and being the dog language most certainly we can have a lot of fun and kids have fun and dogs have fun playing negative reinforcement and punishment when it gets to worst case scenario it's a disaster nobody argues that just like as i said you eat cooked chicken you give 20 hot chicken wings to a dog things will be bad uh we we should know better not to do that and there is education for that when we talk about halter and let's say we talk about i can like we can absolutely 100 percent replace the word halter gentle leader any of those head colors to with a prone collar and we can argue that we can do it exactly the same way that you said and we will have the exact same results as you said no you won't because you can't turn the dog's head that's the only reason i use it i use it to help them realize there's a dog over there i help them to realize that there's reinforcement this way i don't ever but correct them on it where a pinch collar doesn't work to affect behavior until you apply pressure to hurt the dog regardless i don't want to say hurt to cause discomfort i don't want to be because i know i know i'm talking a lot i know you can condition any kind of punishment to be more benign for a dog that it is like that right the example of the video i have

on my youtube channel with the actual conditioning punishment to be benign would be a very bad idea because then you have to go to some extreme levels to be successful but when you use a halter to change the dog's direction of you know not looking at the dog or not wanting to go somewhere but to do something else this is a um i mean it could be either negative or negative reinforcement or positive punishment we're clearly using something aversive to change behavior and this is the analogy that i said that we can use the prone collar for the same reason now they both work in a different way but ultimately they are designed with the same idea to use some level of discomfort and that's at the discretion of the owner to change behavior can we agree to that no tell me why because it isn't causing discomfort because i would never put a head halter on a puppy unless they have brilliant heel position and i wouldn't put a head halter on a puppy unless they would willingly put it on themselves right and that when i when i wiggle that head halter then they're going to turn towards me like they're so it's i'm not and i just use it so infrequently and i realize when i do use it i'm only using it as because i don't know how to get what i want without it and eventually i will so the amount i use the head halter on buzzy for example way more than i use one on my two-year-old and i said my nine-month-old she's been conditioned to it but i've never taken her out in public on it but susan we can argue that you're extremely well accomplished dog trainer that we are not arguing that that part but we can argue that you have absolutely zero reason to put even a gentle leader on your dog because you can make it in hundred different ways correct the reason the head colors are on the market is not the what you're describing agreed the reason agreed they are on the market is to prevent dogs from negative reinforcement correct correct yes okay we will agree with that okay um now i i say that almost all the time when we go back to banning electric colors if we ban the electric color we have to look at the we we really have to look what happens in europe because we have now almost 20 years of a a sample a study it's really like we we know what what happened there and what do you mean by that what happened there yeah so you know the the the electrical or the prone color all those are in many countries yes absolutely yes because they inflict pain right now the reality is very unfortunate because this is already 20 years

it's not like a few months or two years this is we're talking at least 20 years in some of the countries yes trainers dog owners that have used that in the past and that have not used that in the past continue to buy them if they continue to buy them they're not just hanging them on on some wall they're used they are hidden and if we ban electric colors like as they are banned in europe there is two choices some of the people that use electric color will say oh you know what i cannot do that it's against the law and i'm a citizen that obeys the laws of the country many people will do that but then they don't get the answer they don't get the solution of whatever their problem is and now they're put in another fork now it's like okay i cannot use electric color but i can use slingshot paintball two by four i can kick i can do anything still aversive but in a much more harmful way because i have no other option i have no solution i don't i haven't found susan garrett or susan garrett didn't help me even though she offers solution now i know you're not gonna like that but hold on let me finish um the other option and all those three options are very real because i i go every month like i i'm from europe i i know what happens in every single country i follow all the legislations i follow like religiously this a passion of mine for some reason the other option is people are heartbroken giving up on their dogs because they're abiding citizens in their countries and i would get a call and these are real people like i i can tell you the names of the people um i have a dog from switzerland that i got called and it's like hey do you want that dog she's two years old i'm not allowed to put bark collar on her i'm not allowed to have prone collar i went to two trainers i sent the dog to germany to another big school people it came back they promised that it's going to be good this is all with verifiable information okay so when you do two three times and you do the best you can and you're failing a two-year-old dog that basically is a malinois i got the dog i paid for the shipping i got the dog it's in one of my best female in my breeding program this is one example i have four or five just to make the story short the the problem with legislations that ban things is that they make you feel good that make you feel that you're successful but unless we can give that next step of this is what you can do and it works if not better just as equally successful if we're failing that part banning does not work now i think they banning is like if we it's like

using punishment on people which is the irony is it's reinforcement based people that want to ban things for people who use punishment but if you're really a reinforcement based person wouldn't it be better to help the people who are using the tools you don't like to so but can you imagine and again we're going to go back to human uh examples which sometimes we can do and sometimes not but i i personally cannot imagine human i personally cannot imagine human society at present time without punishment without you know like there are those people that just simply need to be stopped there is there is um i mean they can be you know even dangerous to themselves and we're just trying to take their eyes out or or rape somebody or or whatever and yes some some are sick some are whatever there is of course there is so many different arguments and we can go go into different places but if somebody continues to drive drunk he has to be punished eventually if somebody goes and steals my money he has to be punished eventually um when when we're assuming that that's that's where we are um with those examples that i gave you if the bands are clearly not working this this is where i was going with this they're clearly not working it is way better not to have a band have everything open and continue to do the best you can to teach to teach and educate and help everybody to leave it alone but i think i think that's what people are trying to do i don't know i i know when i taught in uh sweden maybe 15 years ago um they reinforcement-based dog training people group they were miles behind they were not very effective dog trainers at all today i think they're amongst the best so is that because their tools have been banned i don't think so i think that they're just curious people who who want to train in a specific way so you know i i do know that that um there's more and more brilliant dog trainers in europe and reinforcement-based dog trainers and i go back to um um i go back to as long as you have that tool you'll just use that tool it does you're not going to look for solutions that are reinforcement based because you have that tool and there's always flawed people who just want to be mean to dogs and they'll throw paintballs and all those horrible things that you said yeah and so those people unfortunately they're always going to be in our society i don't think there's anything we can do about that right um but i don't think we should make it easier for those people to torture dogs and i and i and i and i said before like i mean that's extreme examples i know

99.9 of the people who have an e-collar are not going to torture a dog because i would i think 99 of the people who own a dog love dogs and the only reason that they would use any form of punishment is either they have no other solution or they think that is the best solution for that problem with that dog and i don't know why in the era of of the internet where answers are so prevalent why there's such this massive divide between the camps of dog trainers right and i think i i this is my personal opinion because it's always something that i just as you say i am very it's a big question it's a big why always in my head why is this happening and i always try to search for different answers to that um and i always ask even in my podcast or dog friends or um i i i most certainly have very very um good all force free trainers or balance trainers or whatever like you know um um i to me the answer is not that complicated i think if we have a better option kind of how i was giving that analogy with the flip phones flip phones and the smartphones on that my video presentation with the of our sifts the market is a very good barometer of what goes on like if you and i agree that there is always like we as you asked me i very clearly told you 500 percent i will not do it if there is a better way now in the same token if you watch me train a dog and you see that the dog is clearly absolutely enjoying what's going on just as it can be enjoying how two dogs play that's a very different difficult argument and conversation to have but if if if we have um um if the market if if people continue to buy those tools somehow we are failing to show them another better or at least equally important option and just because there is a study and says that there is a better way that's not enough we need to know just like how we got stuck on that situation with that hold an hour ago i'm like susan tell me exactly what do i do i think that's a very important piece that it's missing like uh you mentioned uh debbie zapia you think it's possible it's missing because i have to be curious you don't have to be curious i have to be curious because i don't have any other tool other than reinforcement you don't have to be too curious because you have other tools so is that why and i and it's for me it's it's just who i am as a person like no i don't want to you i absolutely admire you for that and no i i sincerely mean that um so is that what is that why this is such a mystery because there's

always tools you can go to when you are stuck when i'm stuck i have to sit in a quiet room and meditate what are some other options that i haven't thought of what are other possibilities that i haven't come up with and i don't i don't think it's going to be this hard forever it's this hard now because we're playing pickleball this is a new way in the last 25 30 40 years that it's slowly evolving to not use punishment so it is hard for those of us who are willing to make those changes and for some people they're gonna like i'm not willing to make changes i'll stick with my punishment until you get that figured out that that'll come in and do it when you've proven without a doubt that it can be done but it's been you know there's just so many people doing it and i just think getting ahead of it is it's just i i love the newness of it i love and that's why i love speaking to people in other dog sports that are doing this and yes again like i i i i'm i i agree with what you're saying the reason why this is happening i i really believe it's that you know um i mean you're presenting interesting argument maybe yes i have a flip i have a smartphone why would i go to something else when this works very well especially especially if there is no side effects there is nothing it doesn't come loaded up with i'm not gonna just drop it and oh i just got electrocuted by my phone i have all the answers right but at the same time that phone can do so much for me um and and again but there is side effects with all punishment you can't say there's no side effects i can't let that one go we know that there's fallout with all punishment even with the best dog trainers in the world there will be there is fallout there's emotional fallout for for the dog i mean it's been there has been many many studies that have shown that right i know you mentioned some older studies but studies in the last 20 years that have that have compared the difference between positive reinforcement and and the use of punishment i mean i don't want to go into the science because there's always was it susan garrett training one set of dogs and was it you know i've been training the other the other set of dogs i mean we there's there's there's but we do know that there is always fallout we can't always predict what it is yeah but there's there's always follow and yeah so again i i i this is this is the argument that we we just certainly not gonna agree and this is the problem we we all as a community dog training community but the argument is you already said if you knew it could

be done without the punishment you wouldn't be doing it so well here here is the thing we are going back to the exercise with the hold yeah like you said that you're gonna take a very methodical approach and you're gonna if something goes not as you want you're gonna evaluate what went wrong and then you're gonna start to build the blocks and and make sure that it happens again and what i would do is i would say hey don't do that and i would move on like i would move on like my training will be extremely faster comparing to what you're proposing and i promise you there will be zero side effects and and emotional damage never have to say hey don't do that ever again and you would never get another bite i doubt that because you wouldn't be asking me so many questions about it say was it like by using the punishment to stop the biting the implication you have is you'll never have to go back to punishment again and your dog for the rest of their career will never mouth the dumbbell again i'm telling you my dog never mouth the dumbbell so i wouldn't have to say hey don't do that but you're saying just one little punishment without any layers of reinforcement one little punishment hey don't do that they're never going to mouth i just worked with a lot of driven dogs i work with a lot of driven dogs that that's all they want to do is bite so you know back to my jack russell terrier if she wanted to mouth and i didn't want her to mouth there was no punishment that i was going to stop her from out right so so you you kind of you you assume and speculate that i will just say no and it's aversive and it's punishing and i would not do any of the things that you do and that's not what i do i i would no i know i know you use a lot of games and reinforcement i would use everything that you do i would just go hey don't do that and we move on that's it now in positive reinforcement world you would call this a quick fix and quick fix somehow means a bad idea and i don't see it as a bad idea i think sometimes it's always a good idea right if it works but it doesn't like a i have yet to see one that works and even um i was looking at um because in one of the conversations that i was having on that thread somebody said when you they use an electric collar to stop problem behaviors and it never comes back again ever ever ever the rest of the dog's life and then i'm so then i'm like i gotta learn about electric collars then so i went to um ed fraley at leerberg he had the 10 rules of using an electric collar rule number i think nine was don't ever get fooled that the behavior is learned

because you used it that you'll have to wear the electric collar for the rest of the dog's life and i'm like okay well here's some pretty arguments within the community that are using electric color yes and and and and and that's that's the that's another big problem that we have is because when i'm talking to you about the electric collar and you're giving me an example from some conversation on facebook and something um on on some other platform we we it's a wrong it's really a a wrong thing to put everything on the same pot this is the idea we have to we have to recognize but i believe in behavior drift right and behavior drift i do too all the behavior goes back to what is natural sure you know for a malinois biting is natural for swag for buzzy chewing chomping mouthing was natural so um punishment applied once no matter how hard if it if it's natural for the dog the behavior is never staying static so if i teach buzzy that game but never reinforced it i think it would probably go back to what's natural chewing or not chewing is they are both natural they're both natural you you will have a mom that's gonna pick up a puppy and it's gonna be super gentle and will never just destroy the puppy you know like not chewing and chewing are just absolutely normal behaviors right for for that dog there will be some dogs that will be easy to get not to mouth versus other dogs it's in you know that dog in their nature love to mouth or it may be even not who they genetically are the environment that we've trained them in so buzzy is a product of all the negative reinforcement that i was using in his dog training so potentially it was that that created the frantic need to bite everything correct and and again like i hope i hope that you and the people that listen to this conversation understand my point and and my point is that that we can accomplish very very well like nice training we can explain things very well or we can fail and we can do some horrible things and what we need to focus on is on the trainers and the methods that are so extremely successful regardless of what's going on and educate and educate and educate also that this is a bad idea and this is a bad idea but when you clearly as you said like okay you cannot tell that this dog is trained this way or this dog is trained this way like i as i mentioned early i would be genuinely interested i'm like what are you doing because i don't care how you got there this is like the ultimate picture you have a dog that's so in tune with you and it's just so flawless and

i'm out of words i please show me and i don't care what you're doing because whatever it is it's a different level that i'm not familiar with so if they said they were injecting cocaine in the dog's veins is that okay like you say you just want to know again you you this is like the example of hot hands and and two plus two with the slap um no i probably would not be okay with that because clearly there is a lot of money it's not just the money there is the cost and benefit of doing that right that that's a that's a different conversation um i would i would i would hope though that it isn't just the outcome that makes me want to know what people are doing i love talking dogs and i love talking dog training but um an outcome to me isn't worth taking a different direction to what i more believe is right for me in my life with dogs so here is a here is interesting one can we train the dogs in the army that really have to do certain things and have the control in these moments of mad aggression in a fight trying to stop five terrorists from killing a baby and that dog is ready to go and damage do serious damage he's not playing around this is not playing around this is i have a mission to hurt you and stop you because that's what i'm trained to do are you going to feel comfortable that without that control of using aversive you can stop that dog from going to the woman and redirect them to the guy that actually wants to kill the woman so is the question would i be comfortable with the dog without being trained with a versa right right would it be possible would you not not would it be possible but would you be disconfident like can i i'm going to share a story to answer that question i don't know if i told you this story when we were talking so um bob bailey um told me that they were assigned a project from the military to train dogs to find the dogs no dogs to to to find trip mines buried in the ground so they used only reinforcement and the dog would go along and prevent the man or the woman from going near the trip mine and then they'd go off and find the next one the head of the army i don't know what whatever um said they wanted the dogs punished and uh the billy said there's no need and they um they said a person's life is at risk so we can't have those dogs not be punished so they did it in layers because they couldn't get those dogs to make a mistake so the first layer was they put bacon fat on the trip wire and the handler would have ear protection and if the dog sniffed or licked the bacon fat a c4 explosion would go off so powerful it would make the handler's nose bleed

because they believed if you're going to use punishment the dog needs to think their life is over there's no sense putting a little bit of punishment in punishment is only effective if it is don't ever do that so then no no no as you can imagine i have to stop it that's not true that's but that if you say it this way that means that you park the car in the wrong spot and they just blow up your car every time you do that that the punishment you'll never park the car in the wrong spot exactly exactly but that's the beauty of punishment it has it reaches a level of consequence enough to convince you not to do something but it doesn't right but if you start low there's a lot of animals that will just get used to the punishment yeah and escalate just as bad let me finish my story so then a lot of those dogs were then disqualified because they no longer would work in this environment after that punishment so then the dogs that were still left they then starved them for three days and then put bacon fat on them the trip wires and there was still the odd one that would still sniff and then the third thing they did is they then took the dogs and tried to push them into the trip wires so there were dogs that didn't need any of that that they could not get even pushing them in they could not get them to make a mistake so do i think reinforcement based dog training could get a dog in the heat of the moment to not bite the woman but to bite the man yes i do i do okay because i just hold on i i i've not have i ever i've trained some police dog trainers who have come here have i you know because other people come to me for ideas but there are people who've been thinking about this for 30 years have been thinking about ways to use reinforcement in dogs like simon prince and the who who works for the belgian police force the things that he's done with uh scent detection for these dogs is is beyond i mean it but it requires people thinking that's why i said maybe it's 20 years or 50 years before we will convince the world that now would you agree that a dog that's trained to detection and a dog that's trained in comprehension use very different emotions and are you moving the goalposts again no absolutely no i am no why would i be i i was talking to you about a dog that's sent in a room to neutralize a terrorist and you move the goalposts to a detection dog no so we are staying in the same situation right okay so is it the two are the two dogs working in the same mood in the same emotion frame so are you are you suggesting then that reinforcement based dog training will work for dogs in some

emotional state but not in others is that the what you're suggesting no i i just really asked you a question about the dog um the dog the only the only reference that i can answer that with is agility because i've never been in the military right i haven't trained military dogs right but i have trained dogs that i have very little control of outside of the ring at a world championship because they're so excited as you know they get when there's a big crowd and um right they think they perform their job flawlessly yeah yeah yeah i am yeah for sure um what what in your opinion is the difference between agility obedience fly ball and the protection sports well i i i guess i've never done the protection sports i've just helped people train in the protection sports i would think that agility is probably more similar but there are some key differences for example in protection sports the dog has to go over a jump and i've listened to people talk about how they use punishment to make sure that dog doesn't touch that bar in agility if you use punishment to try and help a dog to learn to not to punch touch the bar the fallout will be and there's people that have used electric bars there are people that have used all kinds of different punishment you can't get a dog to run absolutely as fast as they can and worry about doing something wrong and so in agility we need them to be as feral as possible as feral as possible so you can run as physiologically fast as you can and still listen to every word and body cue that comes out of my body in a millisecond because you've never run this course before this is all new so they're different but there but there's a lot of similarities and we're dealing with very very driven dogs because because there's only like half a second between first and in tenth less than that often right and so and i think that the for me it isn't that i've i've gotten one dog to that level i'm 61 years old in a sport dominated at the highest level by 20 and 30 year olds and every single dog i've ever owned has competed at that level it's not like oh i couldn't get this one there every single dog yes were they all the same no some were jack russell some were mutts some were border collies did they all train the same absolutely not i all every dog gave me new lessons i could share with new people yes so so yeah there's a lot of differences but guess what there's not many people who can say that they've never failed with a dog every single dog to the highest level of the sport yeah and that's every single dog has won one of the

every one of my dogs has been on a podium except for my youngest or my my my like tater salad obviously not the puppy not i have a two-year-old who's never been at an international competition but beyond that they've all been on world teams they've all been on podiums yeah and then that's again admirable there's no question like i hope you don't take this as like my question as uh disrespectful no and i'm not saying that to brag or to flex no but it's important i'm saying that to say that like it's unusual for a 61 year old to be that competitive still and the world is catching up are you offending me now no no but but the fact is i'm joking there's more possibilities what i think that the similarities between all our sports is it doesn't matter if you're a gifted dog trainer it matters if you're a gifted dog trainer and a gifted handler because there's a lot of good dog trainers that don't have the the presence of mind under the pressure of a big event to be at their best so there's so many things that come into play to do well at that kind of a level dog training is just one of them you still have to be a really really good handler and have a great mental game as well i i'm loving the conversation hopefully you too yeah yeah yeah me too so if we if we talk about again let's take not all protection sports just let's just focus on igp since you're a little more familiar igp and agility what is different we go back to that question because it's important question i will take you on a on a certain path with that question yeah well obviously the different skills so the the the main component is no i think there's two there's two okay you go what do you think go ahead i think that the the different skills and the fact that you think that as a handler i'm running as fast as i can so i've got to do this breathless so that puts even more strain on the dog to to be flawless right think about i i want you to really think of the emotions and the mood of agility dog and a dog that's doing protection a person that's doing figure skating and a person that is fighting in a ring with somebody what kind of emotional states they're in do you think agility is figure skating no i mean it's i'm not saying figure skating in a bad way i just came up with something you know i think agility dogs just like protection dogs it's easy for them to redline because you're flirting with that line of their compliance in drive versus going over drive of course but the biggest difference is that the one dog is angry is aggressive and it's trying to stop a man

and this is a whole different set of feelings emotions adrenaline can we agree to that i i would have to if you say so yes yeah i mean i mean clearly when you have somebody in you know do you know for sure that a dog is angry when they're doing bite work maybe they're laughing and thinking it's hysterical right right right so i think you should trust me on that one because i've been doing that since 1983 let's say and i'm very successful it's not possible that it's a big game to them too yes it's very possible so that's kind of where i'm going it is possible we can make it a game or we can keep it as it's intended and the difference there is there's few interesting components and and and you're a dog trainer so you you will understand what i'm where i'm going with this we can create it's still any anything that we train in control environment can be we can get creative and we can avoid certain ways and we can focus on different approaches to teach and and and reinforce and so on but the protection sports have it's almost unfair to even call them sports because they have another very important purpose and this is to be able to select to breed select and produce dogs that have that confidence to go in a fight and protect our city our country and so on they actually have that important thing to wear but do you think the dog knows that they're supposed to be protecting the country and the city no no okay good but i think that what about the sheepdog who's but what i'm locked is that the same um it's not the same uh it depends if it's the herding dog or if it's the the anatolian shepherd because of the anatolian shepherd's gonna sleep all day long and then it's gonna kill five wolves if they come around i've i've spent that's kind of one other passion that i have it's these dogs um so so even there they are two different mindsets right and in a sport we can teach and and just like how there is quite a few successful trainers in the sports of igb that are force-free and they're very talented they're very good reinforcement based very very good reinforce yes let's let's do that i i should try to i don't know i i i i'll i'll change that one says who we aren't one says who we are good yeah i'll i'll i'll take a note um but where i was going with until that trainer comes on the field and beats the shit out of everybody there is no reason for us to to pay attention to that trainer regardless of i would admire it that they are so good and there's you know nothing wrong to be i want to train this way because that's who i am and that's my that's what i do

you know what i've been i think if i felt that way that agility would be still in the dark ages i i didn't need anyone to prove anything to me i wanted to be the one to be the proof and until until somebody because we've already discussed being successful at a world championship you have to be a great dog trainer which these people may be but you also have to be an excellent handler which they may not be quite as good and then you have to have a stable mental game which they may be neophytes yes so you can't say the way they train their dog is the reason why they're not winning world championships and to say i'm not going to change until you beat me like i like i said the sport of dog agility would still be in you know 10 years behind don't wait but it's not you see the guiding light don't wait for a guiding light and trust me you're the you've got the experience you've got the mental game you've got the handling ability come on i'm gonna challenge you ivan and do it i try one i try every day i try every day and i i am so open and so proactive in searching advices like it's for example i had in this last month here i had the the one of the top igb obedience trainers two-time world champion is he reinforcement based um for the most part i think for the most part what what i what i want you to do is get a gathering of all the protection sport people who are just reinforcement based get them together and have a great discussion with yes and we there's a lot of people doing it um but like i said do they have those three things that you have or that that's allowed you to earn your world championships yes but that's the point that i try to make is that and i i believe i started the conversation with that i am not stuck i will never be stuck i am probably the most open-minded trainer i would but are you growth-minded are you are you growth-minded no that's what i'm saying like again like we um every time i do something i am always looking for the optimal way i am always experiment i am always experimenting i never i i would i would go into something else i i would start some different hobby if i stop playing around with ideas as a trainer and i am not stuck as most trainers are in one way or another i am an open book i promise you i know all the in my sport and i know a lot of in other sports force free trainers or or reinforcement based trainers do i take suggestions do i see something it's like yeah i'm taking that yeah no that not so much uh that's that's what i do and and and again like if we if we try to change

we need to continue to search and when somebody finds that it needs to share it anytime there is something that happens like for example i will tell you again this uh her name is mia scotters he's from philand two-time world champion she had a hundred points out of hundred points in obedience in igp which on a world champion is never done this how big that is she has never had any score less than excellent in obedience in a world championship well she was here for a whole month wow to exchange ideas i am very attracted to to new and interesting ways and better ways and especially ethical ways well that's good but we need to show we need this is this is where we need to like we need to show it and tell me the story with debbie zapia and and for everybody that doesn't know she's a very very well known igp trainer she was vice champion and she was later on a world champion with a german shepherd so um i should have looked up in my downstairs there's some a guest book so i was teaching at cornell university that sounds makes me sound very posh and and everything but it was just a dog training workshop held at cornell university but to say i was teaching at cornell university i instantly have more authority than i deserve so i like to say that and um debbie was in the audience and a week or two later this was 20 years or more ago um i got an email from her that said i have a dog who i purchased who is already uh schutzen three and um but he was he was tossed away he has amazing bloodlines but that the previous owner um with the methodology could not get any kind of good work from him he just got his bare scores the bare minimum scores to to qualify but i'm interested in um doing more with this dog and so i'm i'm willing to take the risk and train him differently and i was wondering if he would do private lessons with me so first of all she had my instant respect anyone who has already achieved so much and is willing to say i'm going to walk away from that and do something different now it was with a dog that had no nobody had any expectations with because it had already done so poorly um but she would come up every two weeks and she would ask me questions like you know i have a is your heel pattern like nine minutes long or something like that it's super long not the healing pattern but the obedience yeah the obedience phase of the so we have tracking obedience and protection and they are separate uh yes you know so it's about nine ten minutes long though the whole obedience so she would she would she would explain the behaviors she needed and then

we would troubleshoot how to get them with this dog more it was always about more drive more animation and then um laid in the heel the dog would lose uh some attention and and she would be like okay so where i would just stem him now i'm going to do these things before that and um and it was a great dialogue back and forth and um she did not only go on to get better scores with that dog she became vice champion of the world with the dog and um i don't i think that was the dog she either got vice champion or world champion i think i don't know yeah i don't know i think she did one time vice and one time world but for i'm certain that she won and then he went on to become this great sire she had like ice i actually had some of her puppies come up and take uh some sessions with me that um he became this prolific sire because he was really a nice dog um but that he was maybe too soft for some of the methodology that was being used on him originally so um i don't i mean i haven't kept in touch with debbie and knowing i was having this podcast i should have reached out and said you know where has that evolved to i'm not saying she has gone to be a reinforcement based dog trainer but i do know she uses a lot more than she ever did before um but it takes the willingness to let go of what you already know and to take a risk like some people are risk aversive some people have a scarcity mindset that they don't want to lose um i always you know take that foot off the dock jump in the boat you can always go back to the dock and do what you were doing last year try it you know try it and see what you get but you can't try it it's got to be a buy-in of belief because it's easy to say i tried that it didn't work and this is why now i got to keep going back to my e-collar you know again it's um i just think it's exciting and new and to to learn different ways to take a dog that is at that level of drive and get them to be thoughtful in drive because that's what like that's that that's what we need from agility dogs to teach them to jump and there's so many different elements to why a bar would fall why did the bar fall if you punish the bar falling why did they fall did they stumble back here on takeoff did they misread the takeoff distance did they not rock back on their like there's so many things what are you punishing and if you're just punishing the bar falling now the dog that you know the problem was back here there was a lack of education you didn't give them so i want the dog to be able to do all those things

automatically without thinking and to keep the bar up and go as fast as their body can go and so you know those answers aren't always easy and i think it's um even in the sport of dog agility there's still a lot of things we don't know but the really cool thing is 99 of the elite level people at the the people at the world championship level are all doing what i'm doing so the sport is evolving so fast when there's just a handful of people doing what you're doing you're going to be a little slower evolving into a world where um there's no need to go back to an electric collar to get the behaviors that you want i and i just think it's brilliant that dogs have put up with what they put up with i mean i remember growing up as a kid and the dog was not allowed out of the kitchen and they lived their whole life in the kitchen i'm like how is that even yeah what kind of a life was that for the dog i mean we took her for walks and everything but my my mom didn't want a dog in the house so you know 60 years ago a lot of dogs weren't allowed in the house right right yes that was um i used to bring homeless dogs daily and i wake up and my mom is like no he wanted to go home and then i get another one i mean that's bulgaria eastern europe there's homeless dogs all around that's actually a very very interesting environment to to watch homeless dogs all day long but i would bring them home and try even harder with the next one and guess what he also wanted to go on the street every dog that i brought no matter how much i tried they all wanted to go back to the street that was my mom's strategy and now i have a kennel and and i think i think if that was not to happen who knows i probably would have not been that insanely crazy upset about dogs anymore right yeah yeah to go back to debbie's case just so so um yeah for everybody that listens she speaks highly of you she says hello because i i wanted to check with her fact check on you on me of course thank you of course um and the you know like um she's a very complete dog trainer as you know she's very smart she she's you know very intuitive the fact that she came to you for anything to brainstorm and get something i'm totally not surprised i would do the same i as i said i would search for any help and i will take anything that is and if something overrides something i will keep and i'm sure she used and she's still using a lot of what you showed her at the time at the same time she is still using electric color and and and and and and anything else um in our sport what is very interesting that it's different from almost

all protection sports and probably all dog sports including akc obedience or agility the igp sport is on a on a different level of extreme in the last 10 years and it's getting progressively more and more insanely difficult and this is that how the dog performs speed precision are very important but if speed and precision comes together with some form of pressure stress and avoidance that dog is pushed in a very low ratings and that training is really not encouraged what we want to see is a dog that enjoys understands and you cannot see you know worried about its shadow and and pinning the ears down and all that stuff and i really don't know of any sport that it's so obsessed about the emotion of the dog when they perform and i think this is a very good thing because it it forces the trainers like any trainer that does anything oh i can make him go faster but guess what he's like this he has no chance and it's beautiful sport because nobody will go to take lessons from that person because he does not he's not accomplished he's he's just not successful we we we learn from the people that are successful people that come to you for agility they come to you because they know that you have something to offer that is different and it works as i said the reason i have anytime i invite somebody here and believe me i'm considered one of the top trainers in the world for quite some time in my game but i am so open i invite people all the time and and i think this is where we need to go and what i want to do is maybe off the record later if not today tomorrow we talk about inviting you to come for a couple of days or three days seminar with us we have a very nice group and we are i promise you you will have a great time and we're very open-minded and i know that we're gonna take something out of it i know and i hope that you know we can have that conversation later on very very grateful that we did this and and and and for a change it wasn't me approaching you you actually it was like ivan when when i was tagged into the i i don't get on social media to see all the conversations so when one of my students tagged me in and said this is going on with zach george and ivan and all these people you should reach out and so um i reached out and said let's train if you really want to learn about this let's train so i appreciate that you your openness and willingness to have the conversation and your openness to say i will uh if if if i knew that i could train only with reinforcement i would do it so that is my foot in the door and

uh so and anybody listening to this now if they're curious to learn um you know there's opportunities i have so tell us very videos no tell us tell us i'm gonna list on the on the subscri description you know your your ways to find you but very quickly about the podcast the school and so on so the website is dogs that.com and from there you can get to everywhere the podcast is called shaped by dog and we put our episodes on youtube with um demonstrations of how to do the things that we're talking about and i believe in you know that you cannot give god so i share everything i do yes you can join our online programs and for people who are listening to this if you want to be a part of my online program just send my team uh um an email at wag like wag the dog at dogs that.com and um just say i'm curious win the title and and we'll send you a link to get into one of our programs at a very very discounted rate because this is you being the first time so um but the podcast if you're curious but you're not willing to take that big of a risk go to my youtube channel there are so many demonstrations of what i do and um so that you can learn and grow from there for sure beautiful susan thank you it was pleasure talking to you like sincerely absolutely ivan uh thank you for sitting down with me and letting me ramble on and on and on about how awesome life is i'm gonna get you to florida okay thank you my friend this is how we end all of our our zoom calls um here at dogs that for our team i like we always end with hearts so i appreciate you and i i'm happy to know i'll go to bed with a smile on my face knowing ivan said he'd be willing to do all reinforcement if he could still get good great great great results i promise you thank you so so