Training Without Conflict® 팟캐스트 에피소드 49: Dave Kroyer

I'm at a point in my life where I don't really like to talk about myself much anymore. I don't know why. No, I get it. I feel the same way sometimes, you know. There's times that I have to kind of point out to certain people that, you know, we're not quite on the same level. But that's very rarely. But, man, like you... Oh, for sure. Right. Because you have some, you know, and I remember me being the same way when I was young, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm the best. But it takes some time, and you and I know what it really takes. And what is really interesting between you and me? Like, I mean, we've shared so many competitions together. We've been to world competitions together. We've been... Yeah. But besides that, like, our interest in various different aspects of dog training intertwine in a really interesting way. Like, we both are fanatics when it comes to protection dog sports. Like, like all the ring sports, all the IGP stuff. But on top of that, well-versed in AKC obedience, agility, all nuances of different branches of dog training systems, methodology, if you want. But then the judging, I mean, being an IGP judge, speaking of you, I'm only IGP judge, and I don't want to even talk about. But you were a manduring judge for a little, which is kind of a shame, and, you know, you can choose to talk about this or no. But then, I mean, you won another championship. And, I mean, it's just like we really have a lot of very interesting contact points in our career. And every once in a while we get to meet. And the last time, I think it was the AWMA, and I was like, man, I need to get a... I'm really getting crazy about Mondiorin again. And that's where I pulled you over, and I'm like, Dave, you just got into the judging. You got into the decoy stuff. I need some people to give me some ideas. And, yeah. So, for right now, where are you at? Where is your head? What's going on in Dave's world today? You know, that is a really good question, because sometimes I wake up every morning, and I'm not really sure. It is interesting, because I've done so many things as far as within the dog world. You know, when I got into dog training, a lot of people don't know this, but I was a high-level agility competitor before I even did the bite sport stuff. And then I was doing AKC obedience. I'm also a nose work judge. It's funny, because in my life, I find everything coming a little bit kind of full circle right now, where I'm finding... Of course, I still love dog sports. I'm very involved. I have a relatively young German Shepherd that I'm still competing with.

But I find myself, on a daily basis, just wanting to spend time with my dogs, not even, you know, training or doing that thing. More like if we go back 30 years ago, where I just go for a walk in the woods with the dog and enjoy being with a dog like that. Of course, I still train my dog every day. Of course, I still go tracking. Of course, I do lessons in the morning, and I teach my virtual classes and have to keep my website updated. But everything's kind of come really full circle, where I just like hanging around with my dogs and maybe doing nothing with them. And the other funny thing is, in my life, it's come full circle, is I'm back in the music industry, which is kind of interesting, because I never thought in my life, when I left that, that I would come back to it. But that's kind of what's in my life. I'm, you know, a lot of people, and you know this because you've probably had these times in your life. If you're in between dogs or you're getting a new dog ready and you're not at competitions, people think you're done. Where's Ivan? We haven't seen him for a while. Or where's Dave? We've not seen him for a while. We're always still here. We're the old guys that never have gone away. It's just sometimes maybe we step back or we're preparing a new dog or we're not. And I've really backed off of social media a lot in the last probably two years. And people will wonder, well, is Dave still training? Of course I'm still training. Of course I still have a dog. There was a point around 2017, I think, after I went to the FCI with my German Shepherd Anton, the FCI World Championship, that I took two years off. But it wasn't – it was two years off from IGP. Why? Because I was concentrating on my Malinois and ring. And I told myself, well, he was on the back burner for a while when I was training Anton, so I'm going to – he's going to be at the front now. And that's when I started doing more than the French ring thing and won NARA championships and stuff like that. So, you know, we're never gone. You're never gone. If somebody doesn't see your name on the list at a championship, that doesn't mean you're gone, right? To sometimes there's little breaks where we're preparing new dogs or stuff like that. Or, like myself, I kind of am stepping back a little bit from the social media thing. That's crazy about the social media. But I'm still here, 100%. I know, I know. We are addicts. You know, we can step back for a moment, but then we're back in it. That's for sure. I remember you surprised the hell out of me. And I remember that time for some reason because we – I don't know why we were there.

But we were in somebody, and I think it was some friend of yours. We were in St. Louis in somebody's house. And that's when you told me that you were all into the music and playing and DJing. I mean, I was like – I remember it like today. This is an incredible story. Right? Like, here's a – this is a very funny story because, first of all, we were at my friend's house. We were down in – it was my friend, Matt, and I used to live in the French Quarter. But if you remember why we were there – No, I don't. I mean, you were both doing some show dog stuff, which was probably – Well, the funniest thing was me and you doing show dog stuff. Okay, I guess. And you had a dog. I remember it was raining. You were supposed to show us. And it was raining and thundering. And the show dog was hiding under the van. And me and you were trying to get the dog. Holy, that's a dog. Well, ridiculous. Did you at any time actually train simultaneously ring and IGP? Because I think you did at some point. Oh, God, yeah. Right? How was that? You know, it's a story – yeah. There's a story that I bring up to a lot of people that, you know, you know that going to a world championship is difficult. It was probably around 2015. I'd have to look the date up. But I was on an FCI team with one of my German Shepherds. I flew back home from Hungary. I don't think you were on that team. Maybe. I can't remember. But I got home on a Monday from Hungary from the FCI. And I left two days later Wednesday to the Mondial Ring World Championship with my Malinois. And that was just insane. So there was a long time that I did both at the same time. Like, every morning, get the ring dog out, then get the IGP dog out, and that type of thing. And switching gears completely. Like, the languages were never – you know, you could do a dog in French and German or whatever easily. But remembering the rules and going – switching back and forth. Like, that can be very tricky. Yeah, for sure. For that sprinting mentality of stop and go crazy in IGP to the level pace of ring sport. Just that on its own, it's not easy to switch to. I am stuck right now. I am – I don't know how I got myself in this, but here I am. I have my three-year-old IGP dog that just got his IGP-3 with the crazy hurricanes and everything at the nationals. He went a little gangster. Like, I never expected him to – like, he just decided that he's on autopilot. But in protection, there was no – like, I thought I'm going to just lose him. And, of course, I had a bunch of extra outside transports. He – I mean, it was all on his terms, you know. And in some ways, it's cool to see that your dog is a badass.

But then what really surprised me was that I didn't think that he can totally just scratch me off and go on autopilot. You know, I really just didn't expect it. So – but these are the moments where I think training gets so cool and you're kind of excited to get back and do what has to be done. But so I have the IGP dog. I have the – Yeah. The Mondioring dog that I was telling you that we talked about, the female. Now I got her sister. She came back because the people didn't have time. And now I'm stuck with two IGP dogs and one Mondioring dog in exactly the same age. So it's like everything – and I don't know if I can even handle this. Do you think you would do this again if circumstances come along to where you have another cool ring dog? Or – I mean, for me, it's really – I don't want to be in that place, but somehow I get stuck in this. Like if you remember way back, way, way back, I had Kenyan jungle and, you know, and it's just – but where are you with this? I think – I think, like, will I do it again? 100% I will do it again. I mean, like where it becomes tricky, I think if the dogs are not – if they're at the same level of training when they're young, that can be tough because you have to put a lot of energy into building the dog, teaching everything. But like in my situation right now, I don't even own a Malinois. Unfortunately, my Malinois passed away last week from the Chagas disease. Are you familiar with Chagas disease? Was that some mosquito thing? The kissing bug. Yeah, yeah, some bug. Yeah, yeah. Something from Brazil or something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I – yeah, yeah, yeah. Both of my Malinois had it and he ended up dying. My current German Shepherd has it, but he has low levels and we're treating him for it. But – so my German Shepherd right now is five. He is in the maintenance stage of his competition life. I could get another Malinois right now and be building him because my Shepherd doesn't take that much time from me. I could do nothing with my Shepherd for months and in six weeks have him ready for a championship. So that would permit me the time to build a Malinois for ring. But if you have two younger ones or that you're trying to build all at the same time, yeah, it's tricky. Can you do it? Yeah. Like 15 years ago, 10 years ago, maybe I had a little more energy to do it, right? But you're in the position where if you have two IGP dogs and the Mondial ring dog, it can get really tricky. And you know yourself, Mondial ring, because we've talked about this stuff before, setting up the field, all the scenarios. Like that gets really tricky.

And I don't – like I'm kind of a clean freak. I don't like a lot of stuff on my field. I like it to look like an IGP field. So if I'm working on Mondial ring stuff, I got to take everything out of the shed and put it out there, right? And then clean it up. So, yeah, you know that that can be tricky. Very true. Man, the Mondial, this – That's like anything else. Yeah. I try to do the same with the Mondial stuff. I bring it out and then I have to put it back in somewhere. I have to move it away because this is just all this, you know, like a yard sale. Like it's just crazy. Right. The – Menu, obviously. So when we talk with the ring sparks, you have to deal with like the decoy, right? So you have to – a lot of it you can do yourself. Like I do all the foundation stuff myself on the dogs. But it gets to a point. I mean, maybe your bones are better than mine. But I know last time we talked, we're both broken. We can only do so much. Then we have to prepare our dogs for higher level decoys and that whole thing. Yeah, yeah. This is a – The French ring has a whole special place in all of dog training, you know. But I so wish – And I think it's simply because I'm so accustomed to like international world kind of community and events and competition. Yeah. That in one way, I totally respect them that they are keeping it for their own because nobody can tell them what to do with it. Besides the dynamics in the country, you know, and their animal rights and so on. But you take IGP, every single country and every board member can decide, oh, let's take the stick kits off or let's change the A-frame to whatever. And, you know, like to some level, all these too many opinions coming from different angles and sometimes from people that really shouldn't have an opinion in my world. But – And so anyway, the ring sport, the French ring, I really like that they keep it together. And I hated that they keep it together because I would play. I would die to play it in a world level, you know. Yeah. I think that it's a really good point. Like a lot of people that know I do multiple sports and even have judged different sports, you know, they say, well, why are you always drawn back to IGP? And I always say, but the theater, the theater is very big. Like I'm drawn to the world theater, the world stage, right? But if you really ask me in private over a beer, I actually kind of prefer French ring. Right. But there's no world stage, right? The French used to invite one American to the cup. Now they don't say, no, we don't even care about that.

We do have our – the Cup of Americas, Canada, Mexico, and United States every other year. But that's still – it's a fun – it's a great trial, and I love doing it. You do have to qualify for it, but that's not like going to the world championship. So I do wish it was a bigger world type of theater, international theater for French ring. But guess what? That's why they still have stick hits, because they're keeping everything – hey, man, we're just going to sit here and run under the radar so nobody, you know, really sees what we're doing. And people think that French ring – and this has nothing – this is not a slam against PSA, but people think French ring is just like some street ring. There is a lot of history, a lot of history behind French ring. If I'm not mistaken, it may be as old as Schochung. I mean, we can dig up old, old video of French ring. You know, Mario ring is the newer sport, but I'm right with you. Like, I wish it was more of an international thing, but that being said, nobody really can tell them what to do until it gets internal, and then the green people – you know, that's going to happen to everybody anyway. You think so, huh? I'm optimistic. I think we will be able to preserve in the States the dog sports. I really believe that. I don't know about Europe. Europe is – like, I'm very puzzled of what happens just overall in Europe. Forget about dog sports. But going back to the rings, I remember, man, like, I was in Belgium. I was living in Belgium, and I didn't know much at the time, but I have no idea even how I ended up in that very first – or I think it was one of the very first meetings. And they had demonstration. It was in Tournay in Belgium, the French part. And they had the – that was the time when the mondioring was going to be put together. And you had the hardcore French and Belgian and KMPV and very few Schutzhund people at the time, but they were very welcome as well. And I remember the Belgians and the French constantly trying to, like, really argue and fight. And I'm, like, not getting what about because I just didn't know enough. But, you know, like, trying to put more elements of the French program because of this and this and this. And the Belgian was like, no, but what about the environmental – and they both – now looking back at it, they both are so right. But it is – I don't know what – I want to hear your take on this, but I think it would have been extremely difficult program if we – because it is possible to really combine both and take the best elements of both. But who's going to play it? And do we even have this kind of dogs?

Yeah, I think that – that's a tough one because when we get into – obviously, you know – you're a Malinois guy and you know bloodlines better than anybody. I actually – I only know bloodlines a little bit. I just go, okay, that's a good dog. I'm going to work with it. But, you know, if you look at NVBK, Belgian ring, and French ring, they're all ring sports. Completely different. Yes. Completely different, right? And even down to the – even down to the bloodlines that you're breeding for them, it's – I mean, I always want a dog with a good grip. I'm not even having a dog with a bad grip. But the NVBK and the Belgian ring was designed for good gripping dogs. The French ring was not really for good gripping dogs. It was more for dogs that were perhaps more agile, more quick, that type of thing. So you have, you know, literally – and you and I know this – there are almost two different types of Malinois, right? For 100%. And, of course, through the years, right? Now, since the borders came down in the EU nation, we're seeing a lot of cross between the two. Like my last dog that just passed away was half French and half Belgian line. A very cool mix of both. You get the best of both worlds. But that could also, you know, not work out with a breeding. But if you say, okay, let's incorporate more of the NVBK type of Belgian ring thing into Mondial Ring, well, we have to have better dog – or a higher quality of dog then, for sure. You know, when I – I judged Mondial Ring for five years. And this is not a blast against the sport because I like the sport. But as I watched the sport and judged these dogs, I would say 75% of the dogs that I judged, I would not work myself. Right. I know what you're saying. That they could pass. That – because, okay, the grip behavior wasn't really – you know, here's another thing that – it's an interesting topic. IGP is the only sport that has a TSB. That's interesting, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The TSB? Like, the ring sports don't have that. Yeah, when – when we take it seriously. Right, when it – right, of course. When it's taken seriously. And a lot of times, it's not. But there are a lot of dogs that I judged in Mondial Ring that were very questionable. Yes. But because how the points work out – I – okay, well, yeah, the dog did this, the dog did that. But he stayed on the bite for this many seconds. He gets this many points and blah, blah, blah. Right? I don't get to say as an IGP, okay, that dog is getting verhunden today or something. Right? I just go, well, here are the points. I guess you passed. I don't know how. I'm going to triple check that. Yeah, you passed.

Yeah, it's very, very good point. So I do – so to have the sports, like, if it was harder – now, I mean, like, here's one problem that I saw in Mondial Ring, and I'm going to say for the United States. For some reason, within the judging and everything within USMRA, they were always under the opinion that in Europe, at the Mondial Ring, regular club trials, they were making it very difficult. So we have to do that in the United States. And I was trying to assure them, no, at a club trial, it's going to be honest work, but they're not making it like the world championship. For example, for a level one in Mondial Ring, nowhere does it say for the defensive handler that you have to have two decoys for a level one defensive handler. Yes. It doesn't say you have to. Matter of fact, at one world championship, they only used one decoy. Anyway, I was always under the opinion it's a level one dog. What I want to see a level one dog do is some control, some easy control for maybe 50 seconds to a minute of healing, and then take the aggression, bite nice out, right? They don't need to see a level one dog with two decoys, three decoys, having to go here, pick that up, put that down there, try to trick the dog. Because that type of training for a level one dog I never thought was appropriate. Like, that would, unfortunately, you're putting more stress on a young dog. So I was always under the opinion, hey, we need to be level one appropriate. But a lot of the judges in USMRA at that time were saying, no, in Europe, they're doing two decoys at the club trials. They're doing this. I said, I assure you, they're not. You may think they are. Or if they have, like, maybe they have two decoys on the field. One decoy is not even doing anything. But you can make things too hard also from that environmental standpoint, right? I would rather see, personally, let's maybe look at a little tougher decoy work and maybe start looking at judging grips. But who am I to say anything? I'm nobody, right? I'm just this guy. Like, I shouldn't have an opinion, but what does it mean? It means nothing, right? I mean, it's almost everybody's individual opinion. Like, if you look at it that way, we all are irrelevant. But we actually have opinions that matter. Like, I know exactly what you're saying with Mondio. And I've talked about it with quite a few people. And I hope that things kind of get reversed a little bit. Because it's, I mean, first of all, like, the whole idea that you brought up with level one, level two. Level one. Level one in any dog sport is about, is that dog a prospect? Does he have a promise? Right.

Is it worth it? And that's really where we should focus on. And, but Mondio overall, I think it's just going way overboard with impossible scenarios to where you are forced as a handler to start to cheat and to do things that are not really based on training. But you start to invent cues that nobody else would know. So you can help your dog because those scenarios become so ridiculously impossible. Not difficult, but impossible. And that's where the appreciation for the other ring sports in my book, it's higher. And again, I don't want to trash Mondio ring because that's my game now. I'm going to play it, you know. But I wish that we. And I'm still, I'm with you. I love the sport. Right. I think, check this out, Ivan. If you go back and watch world championships from, we can go back 10 years. This is what I tell any, if I have a client or if I have a colleague, if they're going to the world championship for Mondio ring, like ring three, I say, here are the two things you need to get. You must get these. The search and escort. How many dogs never make the find, right? Because they have the decoy sitting in a tower. And I get it. Okay. There were 50 dogs entered and two found it. But, you know, we're making it so crazy that it's not even a matter of training. It could be a matter of luck then. Right. Like, did the dog find it? And you need to get the send away. If you get those two, you're looking probably pretty good. I even know that my dog at one of the world championships, who was incredible, you know, it was the dog that you, the Joe Farm dog, who was an incredible dog. Like, actually, one of my favorite, hardest biting dogs I've ever owned. I never even got to see him do the search at one of the Mondio ring world championships because he never found it. Right. Right. And here's a funny little story about that. I had got information earlier in the year that the hide, this is secret information that some friends were giving me. I had people on the inside in France. Right. They said, Dave, they're going to be blowing fog out of the find. You know, like fog from. Yeah. From. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be coming out of the find. Smoke. Right. So I went out and bought us a little fog machine. And that whole summer I trained with the fog machine and we get there and they do the dog in white and they use the fog machine. And I'm like, oh, this is going to be awesome. My dog's going to see that fog and go right there. The dog in white dog never found it. They have a meeting. Ten minutes later, they say, we're not going to use the fog now. Yeah. Yeah. Which is.

I'm still going to get the fog machine sitting in my building. Which in some ways, it's actually, that's what Mondiu is about, right? To be able to play steady. And, I mean, the whole game is about generalization, discrimination. We know that. But, but, a huge disadvantage if you're showing your dog at the world championship the first day, while somebody else has that day to see the routine, see what's being used, and practice it. And show up next day, or even skip a day and show the Sunday. And that makes it extremely unfair. Right. Were you aware, do you know how they draw, though, at the Mondial Ring Worlds? Were you aware of how they do the draw? To some extent, I don't know. Tell me. Tell me. I'm sure some people need to hear. Yeah. Okay. You don't know when you go. You have to literally sit in the stadium. They will call three in a row. So, you have to stay in that stadium from opening to closing that day. And if there's time, and if it's dark, you know, usually it's dark, they're going to end at 6, 7 o'clock. Then, if you've got time, and of course, I did it, you know, because I'm like, okay, they didn't call me today. I'm going to go back to the hotel, and I'm going to get the leaf blower and do guard the other day with my dog. But you don't get a lot of time to go practice this stuff. Because, okay, it's Friday. I don't go. But I have to sit because they may call me. And if they call me, that means I'm probably in an hour or two. Okay? They didn't call me today. I have to come here and be here all day tomorrow. So, that's kind of nerve-wracking. Actually, you have no idea. So, by doing that, you don't get to go to somewhere and practice the whole scenario. You can maybe get some things in, like practice the retrieve at night at the hotel or something. You saw the decoy make a move. You can work on that. But that part is tricky. But I think they just have to be careful about making it so unobtainable to even pass. And I do know recently PSA is kind of getting there, too. They've recently had some meetings with the judges and say, go harder. Make it harder. Make it harder. What I would rather see is let's judge the dog stronger in the fight work than making the title less obtainable. Like, let's look at the dog more than, okay, can we train the dog to find the decoy hiding 50 feet up in a silo? But that's just me. Like, you know, once again, what's my opinion? I like to see more of a test of the dog. And so, in French Ring, if you ask me today, and I will blatantly say this out in front of anybody, which is the most bigger test on the dog as far as protection work?

To me, it's French Ring at the highest level. The highest level where things are getting sketchy with the decoys, where they're coming after your dog. I mean, you've met Bambino, right? Like, he's a character. You don't want to see him in a championship. I've gone against him in a championship, and we're very good friends. But he's tough, man, in a championship. And it's hard to even prepare for that stuff, what he's going to do. And you really get to see which dogs are weeded out at that point. I'd like to see perhaps a little more of that in the Mondial Ring. But I get it. Mondial Ring is against the environment. It's a different thing. It's a totally different thing. So I can have my opinion, but in the end, you know, like, it doesn't matter. I can have my opinion. And, I mean, clearly we have appreciations for all of the sports. There is no question about it. If we didn't, we wouldn't be involved and we wouldn't pay attention, you know, but we do. French Ring, I cannot agree more. I mean, if I, any, and I feel strongly about this. And it's not to put a certain dog down because the dog doesn't have the courage. But any dog, this is my belief, that doesn't have the knowledge, like at least some fundamental knowledge of French Ring, you need an average decoy. You don't need a top level decoy. You need an average French Ring decoy with a baton. Right. To keep that dog away all day long. Right? 100%. And so this is the crazy part about the dog sport. Like, so we have the KMPVA. And, of course, I'm sure you are on the same page with me. We love, like, like you see this freaking dog taking off from, from like 15 feet. He's airborne. And, and it's not one dog. It's a consistent. It's like, it's in the programs. It's in the selection. Like, you like it. Well, we cannot have that in French Ring. That's like the worst, that's like the worst nightmare for a handler. That's the worst. I mean, that dog is going to stay away every, every attempt to bite. He's not going to be able to do anything. And that's why the French Ring, as you said, has the smaller, the agile, the fast changing angle dogs that they can function in that. So, and then you have the, the Belgian dogs that are kind of, for, like, I still remember, like, French Ring people. They're like, man, this is a fucking lazy big dog. Yeah. But that lazy big dog, when he bites you, and I don't give a fuck how many gauntlets and what you have on your leg. Like, it's like a fucking vice and your bones are crushing. And, and. Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting point.

If you, if we talk about exactly what you're saying, and this, and this isn't even talking about how different Malinois are. The, the Joe Farm dog that I had from you. Like I said, one of the hardest biting dogs. And I know because I worked him. I mean, and he was the nicest, sweetest dog in the world, but it hurt. But when he would bite, and this is hard to explain to the, the people who may be watching or listening that aren't familiar with Ring. If the decoy, if the dog was escorting and the decoy escaped forward, that dog who was in line, like straight Belgian line, he would have to recoil like a snake to bite. Because he was a little slow, but he wasn't so quick and reactive, but the bite was insane. Now, my last dog that just passed away, who was very fried, he was actually half turve also. If he was escorting and the decoy start to move away, all that dog did turn his head immediately. Just turn the head and bite. No recoil. Totally two different type, two totally different type of dogs, both really good, but very different. Like I couldn't, you know, like, yeah, they're both Malinois, but they could almost be different breeds. For sure. For sure. And, and, and then you have the, I don't, like me as a breeder, I don't, I always pay attention. Like for me, it's a kind of big priority. It wasn't, but I've learned from, from just from breeding and experience the, the, to appreciate dog's endurance. Not so much the, how you train to try to teach them how to pace. They either have the endurance, or they are kind of like a marathon runner, a sprinter, and somebody that does running in between. And, and that's where IGP dogs can kind of, especially talking Malis, they can have this very short fuse and they can show you some extreme stuff. But then it's over. They, they just don't have physical. Right. Or, or even mental endurance anymore. And the ring sports select for that. Even, even though probably, I don't know, some, some young trainers and breeders, they probably don't even understand that. But I know the, the old school, everybody that's been around, they're like, well, no, no. I take under consideration how hot it is right now. How many, is it five minutes or is it 35 minutes that we're on the field? How is my dog handling? Is he coherent? Even are the receptors shut? Right. And it's a, such an important trait for dogs. Yeah. I think that for sure that younger breeders won't understand that at all. Unless you've done this, right. You, you have to have done it. You've had to have been in the ring for 55 minutes. 55 minutes is a fricking long time. Right.

And you've had to have done this for enough dogs, enough years to go, okay, this dog, we're 30 minutes in. His brain is still there. He's not like going overboard. He's still thinking physically. He's still all there with me where I've seen other dogs. I'm like, well, yeah, he was cool for five minutes, but now he's lost. Now it's gone. Even the brain's not working. And so that, that's a whole thing, the breeding thing in itself, breeding for that, a dog that can go out there for 45, 50, 60 minutes and, and work. Yes. And keep their head together and physically stay together. Yes. And, and, and I think, of course, part of it is training. But bigger part is just selection. Right. I think from a training standpoint, this is kind of funny because if I think about, okay, how long have I been doing French ring? I don't, it's hard, you know, at least 15 years. I know that, but probably more around, I don't know, dude. I think that everything me and you did was five years ago, right? Forget it's like 25 years ago. But I just go, wow. I think I only started to really figure out French ring six or seven years ago. It took me that long to really understand it and go, well, why are the French doing it that way? Aha. I understand why the French are doing it that way. Interesting things. You know, I originally learned French ring in Mexico, which is really next to France, second in the, in the world. Well, there's only probably, you know, a few nations that do it, but that's where I learned literally in Mexico city. I spent a lot of time down there. And I hear, this is a stupid, funny little story with my first ring dog, the Joe farm dog. I loved his big grip. I never wanted to destroy the grip. So I never taught him to have a fast out. Well, that caught up to me in the end with that dog, right? It took me so long to learn. Okay. French ring is an out game. Yes. It's a totally an out game. And when I learned deeper and talk to people, my friends in France and, you know, had, had got to speak to some top level trainers in France and found out like when they're preparing for a championship, they send the dog to bite. And maybe that dog's only allowed to bite for four seconds before they pulled the dog off. If you said that to me 15 to 20 years ago, I would have said that's insane. And I think for me, understanding, I will never say I'm a master of any sport, right? But I have a very good understanding of a lot of sports. Knowing all these different sports has really turned me into the trainer that I am today.

I really believe that having done all these sports have affected how I train each sport because I cross over ideas constantly. Yes. Yes. That's that. I was going to talk about this and I was going to bring it up. And since we are on it, I think it's a super, like, like, I know people like us are in a, like, we have this almost unfair advantage of understanding different programs and different types of dogs. And being able to mix and match when needed in a way that somebody that is stuck in one program simply cannot come up with this idea that has been run and run and run for like 20 years in a different sport. You know, I had, I know you have been involved in personal protection training your whole career. I had been involved in, I don't do so much of it anymore, but I've been heavily involved in training police dogs. I'm a consultant for the Department of the Defense, procured dogs for Homeland Security, Border Patrol. So I know that side too. You know that side also, right? So like, just, it's crazy. You know, the, I never say, oh, I'm a great trainer. All I say is, man, I've seen a lot of shit and I have a lot of experience and I can apply that to my training. And it's almost, I would recommend that everybody gets, but then it's not enough to watch videos. It's not enough to go to one seminar. As you said, like it takes you a bunch of years to really fully start to grasp the basic concepts. Why we're doing this and not doing it a different way? Because there is a different way, right? Right. Yep. What do you, like if you are to pick from the sports that you know very well and that you are actually practicing, what are the elements in each one that you really, really appreciate? I know that's going to take some thinking and some time. No, I can rattle that off because I get this asked every second other day of my life. Okay. If we talk about IGP, it's real simple. I love to track. It never ends. There is no secret to tracking. Everyone wants to think there's some internet guru of the tracking answer. There is not. I have come full circle in my life to understand. I don't know shit about tracking. I just go every day. Normally something happens in the trial, right? Of course I know something. Okay. In IGP, the obedience. I love the obedience. What it was and what it's become and that whole thing. That's what draws me to it. The structure and what that represents from a sporting standpoint. Of course I love the protection work, but I'm not. When I was telling somebody the other day, I go, you know what? In all the sports, protection is not my favorite. You want to know why? That's not me.

That's my dog. Right. Of course I'm the conduit to training the dog, but that's really the dog showing himself. So obedience is me showing me and the dog, but I'm doing, I'm the training, the tracking. That's a lot on me also. But then if we talk about French ring, okay, the obedience is quite boring. There's not much. It's goal oriented. It is just goal oriented. Obviously the jumps are very cool. They're extreme jumps, but the protection work now in French ring, because you know what's funny? You've been to enough IGP trials championships where it's time for the helper tryout. Ooh, the helper tryout. Oh, did you see that helper? His sleeve was a little rough. Decoys trying to destroy my dog every given second. I don't care about the GP. His sleeve was a little rough or something like that. I don't even go to helper tryouts and watch that anymore. In French ring, you need to learn the decoy you're going against and really try to duplicate what you think he's going to do because he is there to take points from you. Whereas an IGP, a helper is there to present the performance to the judge. In French ring, the decoy is there to take the points from you and the dog. So it becomes a very technical game. It's almost a chess game, like, you know, parts of defense and football and stuff like that in the protection work in French ring. And then in Mondial ring, you've got the environment, which is, I think is super cool as long as they don't go crazy with it, where it's not obtainable. It must have been, you and I had said that I swear it might've been you about Mondial ring. I like it. And I also want to know sometimes a little of what I'm going against. It may not have been you. It may have just been me saying that. I like the environmental stuff. I think that's really cool. I just want to make sure it's obtainable. I want to make sure it's obtainable. When things become not obtainable, I don't know. It's hard to give your whole soul and the training and the dog and the money to when they take the decoy and put them in something that my dog's never going to find in a million years for the search and escort. Right. But all the sports are cool. I mean, I love nose work. I love, I mean, shit, I love dock diving. You know, I love, you know, maybe soon I might get a border collie and go back to agility or a little female Malinois. I might do that too. I have no idea. Everything is day to day for me right now. That's beautiful though. I mean, that's very cool. But, you know, like I'll take you back to what you were saying with the protection, comparing the protection in different sports.

When somebody has the eye to evaluate a dog's performance in protection, I, like I feel very capable to decide to kind of make up my mind about the character of a dog, regardless of which protection sports I'm watching. And regardless, like I can totally take the training away, take the sport away, strip it down to what is your genetic predisposition. Who are you? And I think when you have the eye, you can pick up who is who, right? But also there is a difference. Like I may like a certain type and you may like a different type and he and she may like a totally different type. But depending on what game they are playing, right? But French ring, again, like to me, because I like going, you know, there was a point in my life to where I was either going to do martial arts or I was on the dog training and smart enough I decided to do dog training because now I'm old enough and I can still do dog training. If I was to go the other path, who the hell knows what I am. But, but French ring is really. You would be doing a podcast with somebody doing martial arts. French ring is really like, it is the purest form of dog martial arts, like Jiu Jitsu. Like, like, you know, it's just like from one move to another move and you just keep rolling to the next thing. And you know, when the dog is just not prepared, it's not that the character or the, you know, it's not there. It just, he's not prepared. He's like, I've never seen this, you know, just like how you would get somebody super strong and super good in some fighting. And within 30 seconds, they're tapping out just because they don't know. And this is to me the beauty of French ring when it comes to, again, like when you, when you talk about any, any more serious type of protection training. French ring is by far the, in my opinion, the fundamentals of, hey, no, that arm may not stay right here. It's actually, I'm just baiting you, you know, what are you going to do next? And then what are you going to do next and next? What about the, since now, again, like, like we go way back. We, we go so far back in IGP, IPO, Schutzhund and whatever else it was called to where we know what it was and what it is today. There is, in my opinion, a lot of enthusiasm and very, very talented, young, new blood of trainers. But are we missing something from the old days? And where is the program going? Dude, that is such an incredibly great question because I still have to go do, I, I don't travel as much anymore for seminars, but I still do them. And I meet lots of young people.

What's even more interesting, PSA clubs are bringing me in to do seminars because they know I've seen enough and I know enough PSA that I can help them. But I'm seeing these young trainers and they're really talented. It's not like 10 years ago, 15 years ago when you and I were doing seminars, we're going, oh, my God, what is that? I'm seeing very talented young trainers, right? But I also go, wow, you're missing one little thing here or, and I'm going to tell you like what my opinion is still missing. Understanding how to make drive, how to understanding how to make unbridled power out of the dogs. We're getting very good at watching the YouTube and the TikTok videos of, you know, make the healing like this, say yes, give the reward, click, do that, click, do that. But, okay, what do we do when that retrieve is really slow and boring because you just did it in your hallway? And they, and I go, well, let's make some drive. And they're like, well, what do you mean? I go, well, hold the collar of the dog, throw the dumbbell and get him excited. Things like that are missing, I think, with the younger people. You know, probably when you started IGP, once again, I think somewhere between seven to 10 years before I did, I learned IGP from a Belgian background with Franz Hannes and people from there. I, you know, I was brought up, you know, with the ball around your body, making the drive and all the drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive. Of course, we've gotten a little away from that. I would never do that. But I still have that in my toolbox if I have to make some power for the dog or, you know, help him get through a stressful situation that we had to make some pressure for something. And then I go, well, I know how to bring him back and make drive with the dog. Like that little piece is missing or pieces, you know, back from 20 years ago that maybe I don't use, but I know if I need them, it's in my toolbox and I can go there and grab them. Like that, I still see pieces of, of training missing with the younger people, but the training is getting pretty good. Oh, it's insanely good. Still missing some pieces though. Yeah. Like, like the, yeah, technical parts. I mean, it's a whole different level and it's, it's, it's progressing. I mean, it's like, like the next month it's already better. But, but, but yeah, I, I feel kind of similar what we, what you were saying with there's, there's some fundamental things that I don't even know how, how, where to go. Cause this, this can take us really derail the conversation, you know, but. Yeah. It could totally.

I mean, it's all about with everything. There's a history. Right. And, you know, outside of few of us stay very progressive with our training. I'm always learning and trying to add in, you know, and with, with my training, it's always evolving and growing. But also I'm a student of the history of it. Right. And you're a student of the history. And we were there. We, you know, we saw it. I mean, it even goes way further back that you want to talk about history. You had a podcast with Dean, talk to Dean for a while, you know, but then to have, have, have people that are maybe still progressing and pushing the limits like yourself or I with the training, being very progressive with it. And then we're going to die and then it's gone. Right. And hopefully there are still the younger generation have that history of, Hey, that's still really cool to you. Like I've got some thing, videos that I made that are on my website. And I straight tell everybody that's from, I learned that from Fritz Buehler. Right. Like this is something I took from Fritz Buehler. It was some cool things, making drive with the retrieve or whatever. And if you've never been to Fritz Buehler's place, that that's a whole laboratory in itself. And I'm always the first to give credit where credit's due. I think on one of my reward based out instructional videos, I tell you, but this is not me. This is, this is actually Ivan from Ivan. And with every, it was, I was thinking of you the other day. Some, I had some clients that are new with competitive obedience. They've seen all the TikTok videos, see all the YouTube videos. I'm like, you need to make some drive with that dog. It can't be so robotic, especially because the dog needed a little, it wasn't like a really driven dog. It was a nice dog. But I had to kind of show them how to play with a toy. And I go, you know what you need to do? You need to find these DVDs by Ivan that I don't even know, like if my old DVDs are the one that called the game. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like that was such a revolution. That was such a revolutionary thing that like, no, the younger people probably have never seen it. It's probably not available. I don't know if you're still, I'm sure you've expanded on that with your current stuff. Yeah. But it's like, well, you need to know how to play with a tug with your dog, you know, like how to interact and just play tug. Just don't, don't ask it to do anything. Does it understand some game around your body that's fluid, whether it's with a ball, with a, I don't care what you use, some kind of a game.

Like that's missing with some younger people too, or newer people. Yes. Which is kind of interesting. I'm like, yeah, I feel, I, I, I agree with you. This interesting conversation, like really, this is like a, like I can have that one with not too many people. And the, the kind of the modern, if that's what we want to call it, type of sport dog training, it almost shifted to, to an extreme focusing on creating the behavior, whatever the behavior is. But that behavior is not goal oriented anymore. Like there is no purpose anymore. Like the dog is doing, and if they could speak and you ask him, why are you doing this? He's just doing something. Right. Right. And, and, and I think there are attempts, I think at least in the IGP world, there are attempts to try to bring that to the attention of the, the, the training community. But I'm not sure if we're successful or not. Um, because at this point we know that there is so many ways that we can create the behavior. But the question is, is like, at least my question always is, and, and when you have the eye and especially like somebody like you with, with the, the incredible experience in all different sports and being a judge in all different, like you can see if that dog does something with a purpose or it just does it because it's thought to do it as a, a, a, like a isolated behavior. Right. Right. And, and this is, I think a dangerous place where we are that somehow I feel we need to come back a little bit. I, I a hundred percent agree. Like I've been actually struggling as of late. I'm, I'm teaching, um, right now I'm doing a virtual class with some kind of, we'll call them new people. New, they, they're new to competitive obedience, new to the dog sports. And, you know, they make their, they have their homework and they send me the videos and I'm like, okay, I, I, I get that you're making the heel position or whatever with the luring. And, but I go, we need to all stop and have a discussion. What is this? What is competitive obedience? Right. Like it, it has to be this thing. The dog, first of all, enjoys. It's not robotic. It has to be, it's more than sitting in your living room and luring the dog to the left, to the right and in between the legs. Like, and I'm going, how am I, how do I explain? You know, I can get technical terms and say play predictability and this and that and make drive. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm missing or what we're missing.

Or as I guess the older generation, I mean, there's people older than us, but like, I just want to sometimes bring back your DVD, the game or bring back or me make some dumb videos of how I started 27 years ago. And IGP making drive raw power, you know, and that type of thing. But it's a tough one because you're right. There's a difference between, well, I can train a behavior. I don't even care how you make the behavior. There's a million ways to make the behavior, but now capturing it all. And why is the dog even doing, doing this stuff? And I struggle with that. I'm trying to, as a teacher or instructor or influencer, whatever you want to call me, a coach, convey this to the young people. And I'm not 100% sure I'm doing a great job because sometimes I forget to talk about it. You know, I'll watch. I'm like, well, you need to, you know, like, it's easy. I just go, dude, you need to make some drive. And they're like, what does that even mean? Right. Which we have to, I mean, that's a whole other place where, again, we kind of get connected with teaching. And, you know, I guess we're at that place in our lifetime where we feel that we can contribute and actually help and teach. And this is a whole other topic that I definitely need to get to. But as I was listening to you, one of the things that I, for, for, I mean, it's been in my mind for a while, but in the last year, it really just starts to really just bother me almost to the point. And I don't think the, like, like, as much as good has come from the force-free movement. I think there is a big chunk of incredible, valuable training that the young people don't understand. And particularly negative reinforcement. This becomes an art that not many even understand. And many, actually, when they hear the word, they're cringing. They think this is, like, something insanely horrible that we're talking about. But negative reinforcement. I mean, okay, we weren't masters 30 years ago. But where it is today, the people don't understand it. And that you understand the value of it and how to inject it in your other training. What do you think? I mean, of course, for now, we're going down a whole different rabbit hole of that topic. But, you know, here's what I, with this virtual class that I'm teaching, it's eight weeks long. Here's what I told them from day one. I said, I'm going to teach you the laws of applied behavior. These are the laws. In the end, you can choose and not choose to do what you want. I can give you feedback and give you, tell you what I would do.

But my goal, my goal as a teacher, if I'm teaching you, Ivan, I want to teach you so you never have to ask me for help again. Right? Of course, that could put us out of business. But that's my goal. Here are the laws of learning. If not everybody abides by the laws of learning, I can't help that. I can suggest. I can show proof. You and I can show proof all day long. Right? Of that these laws of learning actually work. Like, of course, I want to teach it and I want to explain it. Here's my problem that I deal with mentally in my head. As much as the pure force. I've never even had. I don't even have this discussion with anybody with people. I stay out of it. Don't care. I've got my life to live. But there's as many dangerous force free people. Are there people that make. Stupid pressure. Right? Like, there's both sides. Oh, my God. That are dangerous. I think. I see. I see people like that. The dog daddy guy or whatever. I don't even. I don't even. Like, sometimes people say, oh, did you hear about so and so? And I'm like, who's that person? I don't follow this stuff. But is it. It's a weird time, I think, in our history. Because we're even. It's getting to the point. That. You know, there's a culture. There are people who say. Well, don't. You can't even tell your dog no. Or don't even. He cannot even be in a crate. Or he just needs to roam free. And who cares if he gets run over by a car? Like, that's a whole different thing. A culture. I don't know. I don't have the energy to fight that culture. I wish I did have the energy to fight that culture. But all I can do is stand my ground and go. You can say whatever you want to say. Blah, blah, blah. But I've got the video. I've got the performance. I've got this to prove that what I say is true. And we're such a rabbit hole we're going down. I know. I know. When we talk about, quote, the force-free culture or people, the trainers, I always remember back early 2000s when I actually would go to websites and, you know, would be excited to go to Ivan's website and see what he's doing. And it could still be there. I don't know. I've not been to your website in a trillion years. But you had something like how to pick a dog trainer or something. And it was really cool. It was something that I always wanted to write or say my whole life. Well, there's a thing that we, if you want to see who's a dog trainer, we have things called competitions. And you can train your dog and step into this arena with us all. And we can, you know, half this out who's a good dog trainer or not a good dog trainer. You're a two-time world champion winner.

How am I going to dispute, even as much as I know about dog training, I'm never going to dispute anything you do in your training because you've proven it. You put it on the field versus a social media influencer who has quadrupled the number of followers you have, quadrupled the number of followers that I have. But I've never seen him train an animal in his life. I've never seen him train an animal. Like, you can't show me you've trained an animal. Not to mention argue with me about what is this and what's that. So it's become this thing where how can I even have this conversation with so-and-so-and-so? That would be like if you wanted to have a conversation with me about Marshall, I don't know shit about it. So I'm not going to talk about it with you, right? So I don't know how you want me to respond to your initial question. It's a strange culture and world we're living in right now. And I just stay in my little lane and do my thing. No, I think that's probably the healthier way. Like sometimes I get too deep into it. And eventually I come back to where I need to be just as you, you know. Right. I wish I can stay out of social media the way. I have no idea how you do that because that to me it's as hard as any quitting cigarettes or anything, you know, like that. It's just it's not easy at this point. But with the like. Even when studies comes out, you know, it's like, OK, well, let's say you make a study. Great. I got to kind of understand how you do studies and what it takes for in the last three years. Although I spent a lot of time prior to it, you know, collecting and reading and learning how to even read them. And but what is a study worth when you have three people that are not dog trainers? And they do an experiment with 20 dogs or 30 dogs or 60 dogs. How does that compare to a competition, as you said, that's been going on for the last 30 years? And if if you write like like as you said, you don't know much with the martial arts, but I'm sure you still. You cannot avoid it not to know, but, you know, the moment there is a new move in martial arts or a new like like I remember when UFC started in the early 90s and jujitsu got introduced and all of a sudden what the fuck is this? Like big people are just losing fights within less than a minute. Everybody wanted to learn it. I think it's exactly the same with dog sports. We are hungry the more we are competition drives you to be better. And if there is something better, you want to know it and you find it and you test it. And so when the study says something. But it doesn't come.

It cannot apply, cannot prove that this actually happens because we have like I always look at the competition as. The most realistic. The most realistic. The most realistic. Laboratory. Because that's where you test what you can come up with an idea and you can train it and you can go there and test it against the best of the best in the world. Right. But anyway, my point was that something. About negative reinforcement just. You know, it has become. It has become. Like in some places, if I say negative reinforcement, I will be an abuser. I mean, straight out like, you know, like an ethical trainer that. You know, like you bring up a few times now and I do want to. Kind of. Even for my own curiosity, I think everybody that listens to the channel here. Tell me a little bit about your classes and what's going on in there, because that's interesting for me. From again, just from my own perspective, because we both are teachers and coaches at this point in our lives. Right. So. So give me some. I know you like it, because if if we don't like it, we would not be doing it. Sure. I wouldn't. I wouldn't do it. Make one little comment. You know, I'm looking at your book shelf back here and you have I can see it because my glasses are on. If I'm not mistaken, it's Animal Behavior by the Breelands. Right. Yeah. The by Marion and the Breelands. Yeah. OK. Right. I have that book actually signed by Bob Bailey, who is the only living person left. Like he goes back to he was married to Marion Breeland and was when they were still understudies to BF Skinner and all this stuff. OK, that's the book. If there has been new information since BF Skinner or Pavlov that has been groundbreaking and changed, I would love to know it. Someone please let let me know some of the new information. But there's the book. That's all I need to have is that book right behind you. So my whole life, even when I got into this, was to try to teach people about applied theory. What's in that book. Right. So it's if you're looking for it, I believe it's behind your right shoulder. I'm pointing at it doesn't matter because you can't see what I'm pointing at. Thank you. I kind of want to show it. And I can't. Yeah, that's it. Animal behavior on this side. OK, I know other side. Go to the other side. Just put your hand on some books and I'll tell you. I need to go to your right there. Animal. Does that say animal? Your hand is right there. Is that it? Yes, that's it. Yeah. Kellerman and Marion Breeland. Like if you want to learn about it, read that. Like the laws have not changed. If they have, send me the new book. OK, because I've not seen it yet.

And I have that book. Signed by Bob Bailey. Bob Bailey out of nowhere, two, three years, three years ago, four years ago, emailed me. He goes, hey, Dave, you don't know me. My name is Bob Bailey. I've heard about a lot of the work you do in the working dog community. I'd love to come down to your house and meet you. I'm going, holy fuck. Bob Bailey wants to come to my house. Right. So he came down for two days. We went out to dinner. Spent time. He watched me training. My ring dog. And he had never seen any shit like that. You know? And Ivan, we had some very, you want to talk. Like that's the man you want to have this conversation with. What you want me to talk about? You should have this conversation with him. I know, man. I actually have tried, but I don't think he's doing. He is still alive. So if you can catch him. He's still alive, but I think that he had some. I've tried recently to get a hold of him, but I think he's kind of having some pretty serious health problems. You know? He's having some. Yeah, he's having health problems. That's amazing, man. Oh, yeah. Like the questions that you ask me are, you know, it was funny. He would go, Dave, where do you think the industry is going? I'm like, why the fuck are you asking me? You're Bob Bailey. But he had some very interesting things to say to me about Karen Pryor, about Pamela Reed, and these people, right? And without getting into them, it was very eye-opening to me. And, you know, Bob Bailey, for a long time, is this cult figure of horse. First of all, Bob will be the first to tell you he's not a dog trainer. Not really a dog trainer at all. He's an animal trainer, right? And, you know, he was amazed watching me do the ring stuff. He was like a kid in a candy shop with his iPhone, watching my dog go over the Palisade and all this stuff. But he was interested in the way that I was training stronger character dogs, still using pieces of operant conditioning, leaning more. I hate to say not force-free. I'm a very reward-based trainer. But still, I use pressure. And he's like, well, of course you've got to use pressure. And here's a very interesting story. Check this out, Ivan. We're at dinner down at the barbecue place in Hutto. And he's telling me a story. He goes, Dave, you know, when I was in the military and we were training landmine detection dogs or tripwire detection dogs. You know what a tripwire is? You might as well explain. The dog is supposed to tell you that it's there. Right? And he goes, of course, we used a heck of a lot of positive reinforcement for that training.

But in the end, we walked those dogs up to the tripwire and we said, don't touch that. That's right. Right. Right? He goes, I'm not stupid. These are the laws of learning, right? Like, of course, we don't want to use, if we're training a beautiful performance, we don't want to use pressure in the showing teaching phase to damage the integrity of the behavior. No shit, Sherlock. We've learned that from the people in the 70s and 80s. But to go, to sit here and have Bob Bailey say to me, yeah, I think it's getting a little dangerous with this force-free movement. Yeah. It was very interesting. That's why, you know, like, I can have this conversation with you, but, like, if you could get a Bob Bailey to have a conversation with you, he's the last living person associated to that book. But to go back to the classes that I'm doing, of course, I have my website, right, DaveCroyer.com. And both you and I were under the same production company for DVDs back 15, 20, 25 years ago. Okay. We were both with Forest Productions. Outside of some other issues, one issue that I had with the company is my training was changing at a very rapid pace back then. And DVDs weren't coming out soon enough. And I kept thinking that once I felt when I put this information on a DVD, it's dead. It dies right there. One month later, I may have already changed the way I was doing. Is that information still relevant on that DVD? Yes, but I've already moved. So I can't have two years between DVDs. So I was like, I need to do something where I can go, here's my information, why I made my website. If you go, Dave, how do you train a sit in motion? Go to my website, punch and sit motion. I'll give you 10 ways. 10. And maybe tomorrow I'm going to have an 11th way. It's possible. And I say this, I go, yeah, I have a couple different ways. They're all relevant. But my training is changing and still evolving today. So we have my website. And then I have now virtual classes because it's 2024. Who doesn't, right? But the main thing that I'm teaching and that I've always taught. And if I go to a seminar, no one wants to hear this shit because it's boring and not sexy is what's in that book right behind you of animal behavior. And I tell everybody, if you, if I give you the knowledge, you are dangerous. But if you don't want to, if you're, if you're rejecting the knowledge of what has come before us, then I can't help you. That's where it ends. Super points. Yeah. So my classes are just virtual classes of people that want to learn. And sometimes even with my virtual class, I go like last night lecture or no. Yeah.

Last I go, hey guys, try to drink coffee and stay awake. This is hard reading, but I'm going to go through this with you and we're going to go through it. And I'm going to keep waking you up and we're going to understand the different ways or the different stages of learning. We're going to understand all of this and we're going to have a Q&A and we're going to talk about it. My goal is at the end of the week, eight weeks, I go, now you have information that you hopefully never need me again. If you're struggling with a problem, you go, aha, I know why that problem's happening. I know what was wrong in my training. Of course, we all need each other, but that's what I try to give back to the dog training community. Now, if you want to see what I personally do with my dogs, that's a wholly different thing. Go ahead and look on my website and I can give you the 10 ways to do a sit in motion, the five ways to train healing. You know, we all know there's tons of ways to train healing. First, define what you want it to look like and blah, blah, blah. But that's my goal. You know, when I die and leave that earth, I hope I'm known more as an educator of that book behind you. That's what I'm trying to preach, right? And that whole thing. And not to reject what's in that stuff. And once again, if there's some new book out there, yeah, of course, sometimes I see some stuff, studies suggesting that BF Skinner bullshit. That's not like I can read through that study and bullshit immediately. Or the study of classical conditioning of Pavlov or Thorndyke. Or how far do we want to go with we can go on forever, right? Very true. Man, that's brilliant. Okay. I got that off my chest. No, no, no. This is a good, this is, I mean, it's important. And I, you know, like I just had, like, I feel every word you're saying when you talk about your students. Because when I, I just had a back-to-back two days of Zoom calls, one with my current class and one with my graduate students. And last night we, we would spend like five hours on this fucking Zoom call. And they're like, can we have a break? And I'm like, shit, we, I'm sorry, we definitely need a break. Because you, you guys cannot function no more. Right. We definitely need a break. But I know we, we enjoy to, to, to give something back, especially for the people that want it, you know. And, and that's, that's amazing because you and I didn't have that when we started. Well, like, like, I mean, recall. No, not at all. Recall what we needed to do to get some knowledge, some, some, some silly things, you know. Now, now, now it's almost the opposite.

Now you have too much information to where you don't know which one is a valuable and which one is just, you know, not worth your time. And, but going back to Bob Bailey, David Mitch, you know, I, I, I don't know how the force free community hijacked them and just picked whatever they wanted to pick and just twisted it in the way they wanted to twist it. Right. To where a lot of dog trainers at the moment, they have a very different view of, of what, what they actually really say in those books. And, and, and, and, you know, like talking about David Mitch and, and his, well, is there alpha dog? Is it the family? Is it like a wolf? Is it, it's like, no, you're just driving a point that the ideology really, really needs it. But, but, but there is no, no, no substance to it. And you're putting somebody's name, somebody that is very well versed and, and educated and, and spent their life in this. And I, I, I, I don't even know how I would feel if I was in their shoes, you know, when, when you kind of hear how it gets twisted and it's like, ah, that, that's going to bother me. But Ivan, you know, you know, you, you've met Ian Dunbar. Of course. Right. Have you had conversation with Ian? Of course. I was, I mean, we, we, you know, there's just a backstory. I, when I started in San Francisco SBCA, he was just coming out of there. So he wasn't even having this whole serious thing. You know, like I knew Ian from a very different, like from a very different angle. He had a girlfriend that was doing Schutzhund and he had Rottweilers. And so, so young Dunbar actually outside the cameras and everything. He, he understands dog training to, you know, of course he does. And it was the same thing. How did the, the cult made him this thing? He, you know, I, here's a story that I openly tell about Ian Dunbar back in the early 2000s when I worked at Triple Crown. And, you know, they were sponsored by Purina. And I would travel all these shows, you know, dog and pony shows, all these conferences. And I remember, cause I worked for Tritronics too. I had to give a demonstration about electronic collar training, right? It was at some big thing. I don't know, Detroit, Chicago. And there were many speakers and here's my dumb ass. Remember I had dreadlocks and everything. And I'm going to give a demonstration about electronic collar. And remember, you know, it went good. I don't know if it went good. I was 33 years old at that time. And I'm like, fuck, I walked right out of the conference room, went straight to the bar and said, give me a double of Jameson.

Here comes Ian walking by and he goes, hey man, I heard your lecture. And he goes, that was really good. And we sat down for 10 minutes and just talked openly about shit. It's like, he knew exactly what the fuck. Don't think you don't understand what's in that book behind you and that those are the laws of learning. But then this cult and culture and community and society picked and chose what they wanted to hear from him. And then it's like, okay, Ian Dunbar is this. Well, okay, maybe they made him that. And maybe he gives that persona now in public. But if you don't think he knows that that book behind you is the Bible, he knows that book is the Bible behind you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's just such an interesting conversation. So, dude, if we want to have this talk, how am I, and once again, I'm no master, but I've had a lot of experience and a lot of education. And I have, if you want to say, well, how do we know if you're good? How do we know if I've been good? We proved it for 25 years with multiple dogs in an arena that says we're good or not good, right? And you want me to talk to a 28-year-old force-free kid that's got 300,000 followers on social media? No, fuck that. He don't get to even talk to me. That's not, he's, my name should not be brought in a conversation with somebody like that. Yeah, in some ways. And I will not, that's, I, no, like, that's not, I don't even want to know anyone's name. That's not in my interest. That's not what I do. And if those people want to leave their mark on the world saying I have 100 trillion followers on TikTok, good for you. My, what I leave with the world may not be that, but it'll be something that has maybe some more substance. Hopefully, who knows? I don't know. Yeah, because the, again, I mean, being a, creating followers and likes and, you know, just manipulating algorithms and stuff. This is definitely, I want to say it's a science, but it's definitely a skill. And anybody that understands that can learn how to do it and become very good at it. But it has no value in what we do unless somebody that can do both decides to go that route. But going back to, like, Jan Dunbar, and another name that comes to mind, and I did have him in my podcast, in my early, early podcast, Roger Abrantes, ethologist. I mean, a big, big name in the dog world back in the early 90s when the APDT and all this was really starting. And eventually he pulled away because they just went overboard. They really just went overboard. And it's like, this is like, no, that there's, I cannot go against what the natural laws of learning tells us.

Like, I cannot pretend that they don't exist. I think Jan, he kind of, even now he, he, he adapts and he's, you know, making what he needs to make. I mean, everybody has their choices and it's all good. But I'm glad to hear that, yeah, I'm in the same thing. I know from, from the time way back, he, he, he understands, he knows. And it's a, I don't know, like, I mean, we can lie to each other for a while, but eventually it's going to have to come back to common sense. Like, it has to, like, I just cannot see it not to. Or we have to stop training dogs, which is. You know, and I think, so this can even get, Ivan, this gets a lot deeper at. Okay. Okay. We know just, let's not, let's not talk about dogs. And I'm not going to, this isn't white one way or another, but politics. Are we going to be editing something from the video? I hope not. Chris. No, no, no, no, no. I just have to remember my wife said, don't start talking about politics when you go in there. Here's the thing about politics. It's polarized. Yes. Why is it polarized? I think at this point in society, everybody needs to feel like they're on a team. They want to be on a team. I'm not saying whatever team you want to be on, but it makes them feel like something. Regardless, if the team is 100% like shit team. And not portraying truth or whatever, they just need to feel part of a team. Because maybe one piece of their brain aligned with one thing somebody said at some point in their life. It's the same thing with the dogs. It's the training is polarized, right? Right. Like, if something stands out with so-and-so that leads, you know, in my thoughts of force-free, now that's my team. And I'm going to live and die by my team. Blah, blah, blah. But, okay, that, I mean, I get it. I'm not on a team, man. I just follow that book behind you and do my thing. And make sure that the integrity of my animals is always intact and first and foremost, right? And then, okay, if we want to throw down and fight about it, meet me at this trial, whatever. And then we can hash it out there. And that's where it's going to end. But it's the same thing in this culture right now. And, you know, you asked, how is it that I can step back from social media? Dude, it has hurt my business because I have a virtual business. You called this out 15 years ago. We had the discussion. We said, this is where it's all going, right? But I pulled back knowing darn well it's going to damage my business. And I was like, okay, I don't need to have one gazillion followers on Facebook because, first of all, I'm not making a team.

I need to make enough money that's appropriate to support my animals, my family, my property, whatever that means, and keep my sanity. And I will not argue with people. If you want to fight me, let's fight on a trial field. But until you're there, I don't even know your name. Your name means nothing to me. That's beautiful. And I won't even let that stuff filter into my life. Right? Yeah. That's the difference between dog stuff and politics. Like, politics can get super weird. And there is no meeting point. In dog industry, we can have extremes. We can have, but ultimately, thankfully, we have competition. We can compare. We can directly compare. Right. What works and what doesn't work and what works better. And what I mean by what works, I'm accounting for effectiveness, for ethical training, for welfare, for time that you spend to accomplish an objective. And there is, like, I truly believe that we are so fortunate that we do have competitions. And that's why I call, you know, like, my field, it's my science lab. That's what it is. I play around. I experiment. It's the laboratory. It's the laboratory. And then I can apply it. And I'm like, okay, that was off. That didn't go well. Why didn't go well? And there will be no question if somebody comes up with anything beyond the obvious content, the social media, it's full of obvious content. It's like, okay, I'm going to do healing with a three-month-old puppy. And, oh, I'm going to do the same healing with a six-month-old puppy. Okay, we've seen that. We've seen it from people that don't know anything. We've seen it with people that are world champions. We've seen it's, at this point, this is obvious content. Right? We need something that adds more value. Right. And how we decided what adds more value is the competition. Thankfully that we have it. Like, I'm so glad that we have that. And this is, I think, this is why it's easy for you. I don't, it's not, I wish it's as easy for me. I get trapped in those debates. I know that there is no ever going to be an outcome of that. I get trapped. But I, to some extent, I do believe that your way is way better, much healthier for your sanity. Because, like how when I did the podcast with him, it's like, no, show me. Proof is in the pudding. Like, I don't care about nothing else. Just, I, come to the competition and don't be the one hit song. Because there is a big difference of this band that makes this one song. Show me over 10, 15, 20, 30 years. Two dogs, three dogs, four dogs, five dogs, six dogs. Keep doing it over and over. But I don't think in this dog training culture we have, they don't. Find value in that.

They really don't. There's no value. I mean, it's a shame that, like, of course, my name and your name, they're well known in the, quote, dog sport community. Outside of that, your name is probably much more known outside of the dog training community than mine. Nobody knows who I am. I don't know. I guess I could make them know who I am. But that would require me. I don't know if that's good for my head. You know, like, you're getting into the dangerous, toxic thing that, that I, like, if you want to have an open discussion like we have in this podcast. And that, I'm open for that. But really, if we want to argue about it, meet me at the trial. So, that's where we're going to. But so, like, competition is what has driven me this whole time in this journey of what this is. You know, it's part competition, part competitive, and part that I do view what I do. It's a weird way to think of it as an artist. When every time I get a dog and I'm training it, I'm going to paint my picture. And I define what my picture is going to look like. And it's changing, of course, as I'm painting. It's like, well, that's going to be a little different color than I thought it was going to be. But I approach it that way. And I don't know. I found a very, very peaceful place in my life. You asked me early in the podcast, what is your day to, what are you doing nowadays? And I go, I don't know. I'm trying to find peace and maintain peace right now and educate people how I can educate people and leave that. No, I love when I see those pictures and videos of you behind the drums. And you can see you're in a zone completely having a blast. And that's what dog training also brings when you do it the right way. And when I'm training, you know, I say it's like painting an artistic thing for me. And you said, yeah, the field is the laboratory. Do you know how, I mean, it's the same for you. How many hours I've spent at night alone on that field? Maybe I had a drink or two to loosen up. And I experiment with things. And most of the time, I will say all the time when I'm experimenting, I'm experimenting normally with reward-based training. Because especially if I had a drink, I'm not going to screw anything up by giving a cookie the wrong way or a toy the wrong way. And I will never damage the integrity of the animal. But I'll video it. And I'll go to bed going, wow, that was really awesome shit. But I've got the video and I look at it again in the morning and go, yeah, that was shit. That ain't going to work. I'm going to keep that in the library in case I can use something from that, you know.

Or I look again and go, oh, yeah, that was some good shit. You know, we're going to take that and continue with that. Yeah, I have. I mean, I think we're not different in that regard. I mean, there's times it would be five o'clock. I mean, five in the morning. And I will just pop up. I'm like, and Natalia is like, what's going on? I'm like, I'm going out with the dog. I think I'm thinking of something. I think, well, in that way, I think we're fortunate because we have chosen this to be our way of living. I think people like us are extremely fortunate, actually, because it's very different than creating social media likes and followers. But actually, truly being able to contribute and give something of value. And then the reason I'm saying we're fortunate is because I can do that. I can wake up at five o'clock without any alarm. And I'm like, OK, I'm literally just putting, getting a coffee and taking my dog out. And I'm messing around with something that I come up with. If I had a different, if I chose to have a different job for living, that can be very difficult. And so we have this, like there is the good and the bad of being a professional dog trainer and a teacher and a competitor. Like these three things take an insane effort and commitment. Like, I don't think we can explain to people that are not in our shoes what that really means. I think we are absolutely insanely crazy. But we have that opportunity that a lot of people don't. At the same time, we, like, we did it the right way. We didn't start it with, let's make everybody like us. And then let's learn now what I'm going to teach. And then go the path backwards. We actually went the, what I would think is the proper way. We learned, we spent time, we did, and we keep doing. And eventually, people started to come and ask. And eventually, it's like, wow, I have too many people asking. I don't need to do anything else. But I have something to offer that it's not available on YouTube. Right? And I know exactly what you, when you talk about this kind of stuff, you know. But I always ask myself, is that a, do we have an easy life or not? I don't even know if that's a good question. Because I'm extremely happy of what I do. And I don't see myself, like, people talk about retirement. I don't know, like, what would I do? Like, literally, what would I do? Sit in front of a TV and eat Doritos? Or, like, what am I going to do?

Oh, but having said that, we also work our asses off. We never know training dogs, right? But we work our asses off. I mean, there is no hours. Like, do you know when it's Sunday and when it's Thursday? No. The other day, it was yesterday. Somebody came here. Fabian just came back from the IFR, the Rottweiler Championship. And I go, what is Monday? You just got back. And he goes, no, Dave, it's Wednesday. I'm like, I don't even fucking know what day. It doesn't matter to me what day it is, right? They're all the same. I know the weekend's now because I'm playing drums on the weekend. But, like, you know, yeah, we work hard. We, I know me and you have both destroyed our bodies. We've destroyed, like, my body has been destroyed from dog training. I've done a couple other things to help it, right, with my BMS. You most definitely have. In the end, right? But, I mean, French ring is hard on your body working in the suit, right? And I did that until I was 50. You know, still going to seminars and putting suits on and working. The weaker dogs were tougher on my body than the good dogs, right? Good dogs are just going to bite and I don't have to do anything. The weaker dogs, they're moving around and twisting my knees and everything. And now my shoulders, you know, they've been destroyed. Your shoulders have been destroyed. Now my new thing is my back. I have degenerative spine disease and stenosis from dogs learning to pull for 25 years or not even pulling. You know, I'm not a big guy just taking a dog and being able to drive them. So we have paid our price. But in the end, you know, like I said earlier, people are like, well, what do you, are you still trained? Yeah, I'm still training. Maybe I don't talk about it so much on social media. If you want to find me, you know how to find me. I'm still here. And I'm still training and I've got a dog that's in the prime of his competition. And then I'll be looking for another Malinois soon. And I'm always here. It don't stop. And I don't, you know, until I'm in a wheelchair, it probably is not stopping. Which could be tomorrow. Yeah, you, I mean, Ben, you have those moments where you just go totally off the rails and you get hurt. And I understand that. I mean, it's a, it's a thrill. Like you, like I totally get it. Like I just can't do it. Like I am afraid to, to, to the moment I think, well, I still have to catch that dog on a bungee and a 50 meters long line on a, on a face attack. Like, you know, let's, let's switch a little bit. The topic being an IGP judge. Now, knowing the sport from when we used to have the read stick and we had the courage test.

When you run this way and you come back and you had the attack out of line, all this stuff. We have the new rule changes that are coming in, in January. Have you had a chance to look at those? And what, what, how, what, what's your take on, on the new, the new stuff, the new, the new ideas that are coming into place now? Yeah. Um, yeah, I've, you know, I've get asked about them daily. We will still have probably some formal meeting. I've read them. You know, I, I may perhaps myself have a couple of questions. I want to hear out of the man's mouth exactly something. But if you're asking my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I, I'm interested in. Yeah. We've been, we've been continually, we've been continually watering it down. Am I still here? Am I still playing? 100%. I'm going to still be here and I'm still playing. There was a brief second when they removed the stick hits. I said, I don't know if I'm playing anymore. That was a game changer. Can I, you know, I go, I can go do friend. That, that one for a brief minute. I'm like, Oh, I need to think about this because I've got French ring right behind me. That still, we're still testing the dogs. And I said, you know, I still enjoy the sport of IGP. The stick thing. It, it does create a problem. Um, we, we know that the sport in itself. I don't believe the true, the true breed test that it was 100 years ago. And we, in, if you're asking me why I think it's happening is because we're appeasing the, the confirmation crowd in, in Germany and in Europe. And we're fighting against the green people. If you know what I mean by green people, I say that in the United States, we should call them PETA, but I always say green people. Cause that's what you say in Europe. Um, but yeah, of course the sports getting water down. Do I still play it? I'm still here. I'm still doing it. But the stick hits was a game changer because even from a competitive, yeah, we're not testing the dogs true character as much anymore. But from a competitive standpoint, you can show me two identical dogs without the stick hits. The weaker dog can get the same score as my stronger character dog without the stick hits with the stick hits. You can expose something with the weaker dog. So now does that, from a competitive standpoint that bothers me? Yeah. Right. Like, um, but I'm still here and I'm still playing. And so I can't. On top of the, the selection and, and, and, and I think the stick hit changes. The way training, like, like you, how do I say?

I, I know, I know you understand what I'm saying without even starting to talk about it, but, but the whole way you train a dog that doesn't have their blood pressure going. And it's, and it's not twitch to where it's like, oh, you're, let's go. When you have that kind of dog, the training is very different. And it's, it's a very different art. Right. Versus, uh, a, a training that becomes, um, more and more, um, I don't know, in the, the agility or, or, you know, like, uh, there is not, you're not. But the, the, the dominance and aggression, even these two words that I just said, that would flip people, people would be like, what are you talking about? We, we don't do this. This is not the, the IGP is not about that. No, the, the, the training, the way we train dogs can totally change and it is changing. Um, but we're losing, I think we're losing the, the, uh, a very important part of training that can control in a very intelligent way. And convince a dog that is full of himself to work as a team with you because he's challenged. Sure. And now when the dog is not challenged anymore, the training is, in my opinion, as you said, very watered down, even, even the training itself. And, and, and, and that bothers me, um, another thing is with, I don't know how they come up with, like, why do you think we are trying? Are we, is that really the narrative? Are we trying to make the sport more popular and that's why we're watering down the rules? Or, or what is the, what are the reasons behind? Why are we trying to make it so simple? Because in my opinion, IGP is not supposed to be simple. This is not a sport for, you can play it recreationally. Of course you can. And I encourage everybody. And when you don't have the right dog, still go ahead and do it because it's a lot of fun. But when we get to these levels, it's not an easy sport. And. And it shouldn't be. Right. Because like, like. At the high levels, it should not be easy. When you have some, something like, okay, well let's make. Like, like they're on level one, some of the new additions, they're incompatible. They, they actually sidetrack you from where you want to go in IGP two and IGP three. Talking about like, okay, we're going to put them on the city in the, on the other side of the wall. And we're going to call them over. It's like, when, when are you going to do that? What are we preparing for? You need to train for that. And then you need to train for something else. Now. The wall's going to be even lower. What do you think about that? Like, why do you think this is happening? And no retrieve over the jump either. Right.

I, I, you know, I, I've seen the verbiage of making it more accessible to people. Okay. I get it, but I don't get it. Like. But here's, here's, this is, here's the selfish part of me. And, and I'm being selfish. I am an IGP judge. I still play the game of IGP. But if this was all taken away from me, I got French ring right in my back pocket. Right. Like I always have that in my back pocket. That I can feel like, okay, I've still got something that I feel very strong about. But I don't, you know, the, the changes I think are in conflict to the progression of where the dog's supposed to go. Okay, great. You put in the blind again. And I think that that's a good idea, but now we're saying only one retrieve for IGP one. And. I think that's a conflict to where the dog's supposed to go. You had it. You already took out one. Now you're taking out two. You're making the BH where there's no off leash. I mean, there should be some training. It shouldn't be that anybody off the street that just did the canine good a citizen with their AKC dog can come do a BH now. Right. Right. Yeah. Like, like even, even, even the gunshots. I mean, if. I, I, I have no idea. Like, it's, it's frustrating. Like, I understand. Like, if, if somebody, like I, I've had dogs that were gun shy. Like, I, when I worked at guide dogs way back, way, way back in, in San Rafael, the first thing we would do when the dogs come for training after they're with their 4H homes and all that. The very first thing, day one, is we just bring them all and kind of spread them out. And there is somebody kind of in the distance, go bam, bam. And he just says, okay, you guys go back to your 4H homes as dogs and you guys stay and we continue on. And like, if the, the idea of the BH was to present, okay, what, who are the prospects? Who are the promising dogs that we can take into that sport? Now, the BH became really nothing. In my opinion. Like, like, I mean, I, I, I will sidestep for a moment. Like, I have Tarzan, my IGP dog, and I have Kimba, my Mondiorin dog. I would get to my training building, whatever. I will start to get ready to go out on the field to train. I'll put Tarzan on a down. Then I will get a phone call or a message or whatever, and I'll forget. And here he is in my face, like, what are we doing? And then there is the Mondiorin dog that I forgot about, that it's already an hour, and she's still on a fucking down there. You know exactly what I'm saying. And so, so, but again, okay, this is the differences of the programs and what we are looking for and so on.

But if, if the reason, in my opinion, we have the lower levels is so we can start to take off the dogs that are not capable. So, if you cannot jump, you cannot jump. If you are noise sensitive, if you're noise sensitive, those are things that we can find out right away. And we can still include, if we want to, we can still include, like, you know, any golden retriever still to participate. But have a different, call it something, I don't know, I don't know. Well, they have the, you can still do the obedience portions, right? Like, I actually did, two years ago, I took a dog to IGP-3, obedience only. It was a golden retriever, really nice, beautiful healing dog. I got, like, 96 in obedience and beat all the shepherds and the Malinois with them. So, they do have that option to do. But, like, I mean, once, and don't forget, with USCA and AWDF, they still do have the titles. Which stick hits give people to choose them? Unfortunately, that's not, it's not the big theater that you and I want to go to. We're going to the big theater, right, the world championship, where there are no stick hits, where it can affect the competition, the standings. But, it bothers me a lot. I think that in 10 years, I don't think bike sports in Europe, maybe 15 years will be gone. I think they'll still be here by the time you and I die. But I think there's going to be a struggle with it. Because of the whole culture of everything. And I don't know which way that's going. But for the right at this moment, and here's the selfish part of me, and I hate saying this because I am an IGP judge. If this all went to hell tomorrow, I go play French ring. Yeah. Yeah. And the good thing is I know the sport. No, I would switch. So, that's the selfish part of me saying. It's the selfish. I'm saying, I guess if we all want to have a conversation, I'd be happy to be part of a conversation about this. But if you take it away from me, do I cry? No, I go. I still have another sport with hopefully that one doesn't get watered down. I think the changes they made in French ring in the last five years were changes for the positive. The changing of the Palisade now that it's double. I love that because, listen, you have to train the Palisade. It's not great on the shoulders of the dog on the return. And then I like the breaking obedience and protection into two if it's over 80 degrees. Yeah. Just for the welfare of the dog. Because it's tricky. I know that the dogs did it for this long in the heat. But for the welfare of the dog. I don't think it really. We talked early about dogs being able to work long. And that hardly ever happens. Right?

Like, I've never even part of a trial yet where we've split the obedience and the protection. But at least that option is there if it does become 90 degrees. Right? Because that can affect the welfare of the animal. Yeah, for sure. You know what? I'm kind of lately thinking, considering, again, going back to politics, which we shouldn't. But all the wars going on. I think this is as bad as wars are and as bad as. But that's just humans. We just don't know how to get along. And there is, you know, whatever. But to the point of dog sports and especially protection sports, I think all this kind of unrest and global wars and stuff, there could be a possibility to reset and say, hey, we need dogs that can do certain things. Let's let's get realistic and let's come back a little bit and do that. I think that's probably the only thing. But it's a it's a it just sucks to rely on on on wars and people dying for dog sports to try. War for that. Right. Right. It's just like the wrong approach. But I can see how that can reverse things a little bit. Just like you have, you know, like so what you know, like I'm just going back to some studies and some bans and whatever. And like Germany, for example, was like, OK, well, we banned electric colors, but. Army and police can use it in deployment. It's like, what does that mean? Right. If it were if if you have a better solution, why would you do that? And who needs it in deployment? We need it in training. We don't need it in deployment. Right. Right. The same thing in England. It's too late. If that dog's no good, the climate's too late. Right. Right. We need to see it in the training and we have to get back to what the fall was in the beginning. We're testing dogs to see if they can go to that. But that's a funny way to think about this. With England is the same thing. Like last year, like I was reading very carefully their whole proposition for the ban of electric colors and stuff. And then there is two lines where the military is exempt. And then there is a need. It's like, okay. So, so you. You. You. You. You. You. You. for the right to bear arms but i'm not 100 for the right to bear um assault weapons but i am 100 for the right to bear arms okay so do i question some of the political views of the nra in in my political my wife is going to kill me for getting into this i i'm not i'm not the hugest nra fan but you know who will the only one that can go fight against pita when the comes to shove about e-collars nra 100 and our ways the only one with they're the only one with the firepower you know

no pun intended but financially that could none of us can with our little petitions and our will feel good things and sign this if you want no nra is the only one that's got the power to come in here and go hey no we're gonna do it this way so once we have politics involved everything kind of goes out the window and me and you step back and go wow i hope somebody this goes in the right direction because it is truly out of our hands i wish it wasn't but it is out of our hands to a point me and you can preach and michael can preach and we can all preach till the the cows come home but in the end uh preaching isn't the only thing now we're talking about finances money and politics where none of us are you know have our foot in that and then we have to hope that nra can put their foot in and go no no no no we're good we're not banning e-collars in the united states or or whatever and that's where i'm not talking anymore about politics german shepherds malinois break them down the differences the pros and cons for you as a trainer um you you know like it's almost unfair for me to go oh it's very black and white but it is almost very black and white which is kind of weird um and i do have them both and and i've had them both for years but i i guess people this is another question i get every day i got asked it monday i think um dave why do you do shepherds for igp and why do you do malinois for ring sport okay let's just start with ring sport the sport was designed for a malinois that that it was like and the jumps are extreme you know i'm and so people will say dave are you telling me a german shepherd can't do ring no it can and a german shepherd won the french cup a few years back but not many right like the malinois was for ring sport was designed for the malinois the um igp was it designed for the german shepherd or was it designed for what they called back in the day a schaefer her wound or a herding dog which was half malinois and half this or half that i'm not sure but to make the answer kind of black and white i always my first goal is to go to the w usb yeah if i can't make that w usb or because because of um scheduling or something then i then i go to the fci but because my first goal is go to the w sb that's why i have a german shepherd um but i think there's some interest there are differences um in the two but until you have them both i you can't even explain them to somebody correct i could make a vague statement and say the malinois is more of a machine working machine type of thing that's a weird vague

statement right like um the shepherd has more subtle things that you play i don't know you know like but that's all i can say if you ask me why do you do a malinois for this what okay a malinois is more physically agile than a german shepherd that is factual are there some shepherds that are as agile as a malinois of course but in general it's a more agile animal um i think they were designed and hopefully we're going to keep the breeding although breeding has gone to hell because now even you know dude there are people breeding malinois up three blocks away from me i don't even know who they are right is that crazy is that insane 20 years ago there there were no like wow you have a malinois that's exotic people are i go where'd you get this mountain a breeder in austin i go there's a malinois breeder in austin how is that possible you know but yeah um but the malinois is a more hardier i think for the elements of being able to be longer out in the working field they were the the malinois never went really down the road of the dog fancier which the german shepherd did and of course there are show lines of malinois now but i think you know the preservation of the work has been a little bit better with the malinois only i think it was because nobody knew and it was exotic but ask me again in 20 years from now malinois could have gone the same route as the german it already is right yes actually we have to preserve everything at this point it's going worse i mean across the country the shelters are the the you know the spcas and the animal shelters they're half and half now bullies and malis i know this is this is the the the sad part and and and knowing what the malinois is about and you stick it in a shelter type of in my environment there is no promise this is like a that is how do you come out of there being a malinois you lose your mind like like it's a sad thing a a a very very sad thing and it was a little bit of a tricky question i mean i wouldn't say a tricky question mali and shepherd because it is a valley valid that there is distinctions and there is traits of both breeds and that's why sometimes especially the dutch would mess around and and do combos but one of the reasons right that i ask you this is because where we are today you would have talking in a in a general scope of the dog industry and force-free imbalance and extreme whatever whatever and and often somebody will be so wow that's so strongly opinionated it's like well it works with my dog dude what kind of dog do you have a golden retriever

or a visla or how how does that compare to a malinois and even within the malinos you you cannot like i i i just and it's mind-boggling that people think this way and i want to ask you why do you think that is that oh my dog doesn't need electric collar or my dog is walking around and it's not killing squirrels and but that's your dog good for you you you looked out and you picked the the breed that you you know you you got the right breed and and it's okay oh and at the same time as you say malinois is becoming more and more fashionable and somehow i want malinois i mean it's like a i mean if you're a pet trainer today and you don't have a malinois you feel like the other pet trainers will be like you're not as good as i am because having a malinois it's already this is a big statement i am a pro like you have no idea but what do you think about this comparison always that comes up to where somebody says well you don't need this because i never needed it i you know i okay so sometimes i'll have a client who has a new pup or a five month old we'll call it whatever it doesn't have to be a malinois but it could be a very active dog that's a little crazy that needs some kind of training needs to learn boundaries and they'll say to me you know our last dog or when i was growing up we didn't need any training on it okay there's a couple things to think about do you remember 20 years ago because i don't always remember 20 years ago right did you really need training or did you forget you needed training did you forget that first six months was a pain in the ass and then what kind of dog was it some dogs need no feedback right they need nothing the dog could just easily coincide in listen i when i grew up in in milwaukee we had a german shepherd listen nobody in my house trained anything on that german shepherd he just hung around the property never got into any trouble it was just that dog and for whatever reason right um but now you have this dog and it's different and because not all dogs are created equal and it you know what are your expectations with the dog and maybe uh you know we could always go into though you've got the wrong dog for the household the wrong breed and the one thing but um unfortunately you have these people that are are getting on social media and saying well i don't want to do that i don't want to do that i don't even want to say no and all we can do is try to educate them and hope that they don't pick teams or feel influenced from their peers their neighbors you know this i don't remember 20 years ago when i got into the industry somebody would say to me

oh i'm gonna have to use this prong collar now i'm gonna have to be worried about what my neighbors think of me i'm like when did that become a thing that we give a about what our neighbors think or maybe just that's been me i never really obviously didn't care what anyone thought about me my whole life you know but um it's a different culture we live into in now and um i once again all i can do is help educate people and uh you in the days of me to your your normal client pulling up with a v slow that's out of control i'm not going to pull that book out that's behind you and go through that because that's they don't even know what that means that's just i'm educating dog trainers about that book and saying here is your your outline of how dogs work right but to my normal client if 20 years ago i used to spit that information to them i don't anymore i try to make it very black and white and go well here are our options right and another thing that i do throw at people right now when they come to me with a problem dog i say well before we talk about training or the price or what my methods are because i don't talk about my methods you're either going to train with me or not it doesn't matter to me um i say in the end are you keeping this dog no matter what because tell me right now if there's a chance you're going to get rid of this dog just get rid of them now then i love because you're we're not what why then you know but if you say if you're there's no way you're going to get rid of this dog let's go let's train but if there's even a 10 that you're going to get rid of this dog you can leave and just go put them and do whatever you're going to do because you're not you're not mentally with me and i don't want to see this i don't want to be with a dog and meet him and go wow man now i've met this cool dog and you're going to get rid of him like i can't i don't want to do that anymore in my life i know it's out there even to the point where a few years back i've told my wife because she deals with bringing in clients and fielding the calls and i told her i said i don't know how many more people i want to deal with with a pet malinois that live in downtown austin in a studio apartment and want me to fix it that hurts me a lot like i don't like what if they bring me this beautiful six-month-old dog that's i'm going man this character is good he's strong it's a cool malinois he just can't be in that apartment with these people right and i'm like well i can't fix that and i'm not going to try

to suppress the drives that's not the right thing to do and there's not enough cookies in the world that are going to fix that it's just the wrong thing and i then i go oh man this sucks now i met a cool dog and i can't help the situation like i try i'm in such avoidance of things that hurt my feelings now i'm like i because i'm such for the dog you know no very true that's that's like uh this is why where they would take the dog to animal veterinary behaviors or even the regular vet and just give him some psychotropic meds and and and numb him out right and and all the dog needs is some outlet to just go and run and play and it and exactly like i i feel this is very painful and and but that's brilliant point of like what you just was saying like are you gonna keep it or are you not gonna keep it and it's a starting point i i love it another one that's where i start i don't know where i how i thought of this but uh there was a i don't know maybe a year or two or three i don't know when it was but you made this one very quick brief snippet video about the resource guardian and and it was like just leave the dog alone let him eat stop poking in his dish like really like why why right it's just because we want to be trainers and we want to counter condition behavior more just let the dog eat it it's all good like just leave it alone that is one of my favorite videos that i'm very proud of especially with the cartoons i put in it and i built it up then i got the solution that's going to take care of it and then all i do is put the dog in the crate close the door and let him eat but but that's the real solution and life is fine every everybody is cool no it was just one of those things i i think i made that video because i saw an argument on facebook about resource guarding and i'm like no i have to make a video about this and you know even though like i had to do it from a comical standpoint because it was comical just leave the dog alone it's very simple um and you know that video did get a you know a lot of views um but then it was funny because some comment people are like oh now you're just avoiding the situation instead of really training okay that's cool that's fine you know my dogs are all my dogs are happy they love being here that's all i here that's all i could tell you so however you want to deal with it you can deal with it yeah another like like staying within the same topic here you know like i i had a i a very very influential person that i just cannot even say his name right now because we we talked for a long time

then we made a podcast and then he decided not to publish the podcast and it's and i have to respect that but a a very you know somebody that knows their shit you know but we got into this little thing and i think that's what kind of made him decide not to make the podcast but like some dogs the predation instinct it's just not it's there but it's not awakened to the extent that some dogs see some life animal and they're like i'm going i don't know if i'm gonna kill it eat it or just kill it but i'm i'm i'm 100 percent drawn in it and i'm focused and it's the nature call and and there is nobody do you that's what i do you know what i'm saying and then there is another dog that you can have squirrels and rabbits and anything around and they are not seeing them in the same way and it's such a big mistake to compare both of them because of well i've done this in my training and you fail to do it where you completely don't take under consideration that innate predation instinct that it's way more pronounced in one dog versus another dog but you're trying to blame the way it's raised or the way it's trained because one doesn't care about squirrels and pigeons and whatever and the other one just goes and the heart skips a beat at this point right they're just not in the same ballpark yeah it's none of like unless we're to ivan you probably had i've so many dogs that you've had your hands on over 30 years that you've bred that you've seen i've seen a million with what i've done traveling the world and with the police dogs and the sport until you've seen this many there's no one has even an opinion no one should even have this opinion on this right like i've i've had dogs in and out they all live the same life and some i have two dogs that act very different in from when we're talking about predatory drift or predatory response or whatever we want to call it training's the same environment's the same the house is the same they see the same animals and the same one i gotta keep an eye on that and then and maybe you've had to in my training make sure that i keep my small animals safe because we have um livestock here and feral cats everywhere and i feed the chickens and all that and then enough one of my other dogs who you would think dude my malinois that just died you would think he loved every animal in the world when i say love he plays with the cats he plays with the horse he plays with the chickens he loves to see all the small caps and all the animals and you would think that dog would have some massive predatory thing i yeah i guess in theory he's a malinois right but

now my shepherd i gotta keep an eye on him right like he sees something in the eyes just dilate and it's a different thing now it's not been i've seen him chase some animals he's never caught anything he needs never said he's never finished the cycle and said oh this leads me to this which satisfies my drive state of predatory killing and and and capturing he's never had that but believe me it's in his eyes i can see that you could see that in one second if you saw him you know yes yeah it's a i don't know why we cannot make that a distinction and come to some agreement like i you know like with jungle i mean this was early 90s and i used to work at spca in san francisco and i would go to my office in the morning and i would have no idea what kind of animals there will be because somehow whenever something got accepted in the spca there would be like a a literally like a hamster and a rabbit and uh uh and i would let him and i would just go in my office off leash and he just goes and he mingles with whatever animals are there and he does not see he sees them as as buddies and then there is this other dog just as you said like your shepherd is like dude i don't i i mean really i don't know if i'm gonna eat you i don't know exactly because i i haven't had that experience but i'm locked on target and and i think it's the same also when we talk about like like where i'm going with this is just sometimes we go way overboard and that's why i brought the the resource guarding but it's the same with so many aspects in dog training just because we think oh we're good dog trainers let's hit it let's fix it it's like a dog doesn't like it just really has a high suspicious level of people it's like okay you walked in my training room right now who the are you and then there is the other dog is like hey what are we gonna do so why do we need why why is the urge to try to fix something that is very like it when you think in the first place why people had dogs i would think is because especially big dogs is to protect to alert to to to you know you feel some sort of safety because you have that kind of dog and where i live i'm i'd like to have this dog it's like hey who are you walking in here but in the pet world these dogs immediately have to go through therapy right right what's wrong with them instead of appreciating people are even right it's what we me and you may appreciate as a um a good thing with the animal they're making it a bad thing but i i i don't i this all becomes i've been it becomes a study of people almost over dogs it's really a

study of people right like what why why are you people sometimes like to create problems with their dogs and then create the problem because then they feel well now i created this dog problem my dog needs me to fix the problem now i've got to fix a problem right and i'm going to feel good about fixing the problem or in other terms rescuing the dog from its reactiveness uh no he just barked a couple times because he said he didn't want somebody doing whatever to him and dude unfortunately think about this we have this conversation this morning about sometime the vet checks at our world championships can get me my stomach a little queasy you know the vet tag like i everyone you know for me the first thing i kind of pass is about boosting down the field sometimes with my dogs but i get a little concerned about that because we're asking this dog to be now not no muscle before we could put a ball in their mouth now they're getting very intrusive on the dog he can't show any signs of something but then you're going to tell me in my critique i'd like to see more aggression in the blind right well okay i you can't have both like the two don't go together really you know no that is brilliant that's brilliant like is the vet check to check the dog's health or are you checking the temperament because the temperament is checked in in in a competition environment and i know exactly what you're talking especially like if you go to i don't know some of the countries in europe they the veterinarian is temperament testing your dog labeling it as a vet check it's like dude what are you doing yeah this is just like yeah he's here at the world championship i think that's the temperament test he's here already man we talked for a while i think is super cool i think we gotta do this one more time because i i i have a lot more to talk i'm sure you do as well um um to end the conversation just just where i'm gonna put some links for your your things but uh briefly just kind of give give some rundown on on where people can find you and what they can find oh sure um so i mean i you know facebook is relatively useless nowadays but i i have a personal page dave croyer i have my business page dk atv and uh do i have another i have a private page but like if you're interested in my type of training you can go to davecroyer.com and i i have a subscription service plenty of free information for everybody on that site too i mean i've i used to do the free video fridays there's probably two three hundred free video fridays

there's blog posts rules blah blah blah there's you can see competition videos um and then my instagram is uh dave croyer and then if you want to watch me my drumming journey it's uh dave croyer drums atx i think but who cares about that i'll keep that private away from the dog people oh i gotta get that one myself because i i kind of i i totally enjoy seeing you going back into the music man um dave that was cool i don't know like i i mean it's a zoom call but technology makes it like i i just haven't talked to in in such a long time the way we're talking right now that i feel like i missed that you know we probably never had this con any conversations like this somebody recently said to me oh i would love to be on a fly a fly on the wall to hear you and ivan talk i'm like a lot of times when we're together like last time me and you were i was showing you how to do pt for your shoulder right i mean when you're talking about the dog i'm like so we've never really had these discussions conversations we've trained together you know it's like whatever is nothing oh we're behind blowing maybe it wasn't maybe it wasn't but we've never talked like this yeah we definitely have trained together we've been one of the coolest things about the dog sports is yes it's the training as the the passion that we share but being in a big competition together and handling the pressure together as a team and as a partners and and functioning there versus being in some hotel room as we were talking and just whatever but you're right it's always been like i i agree with you we have we haven't had this kind of conversation i'm super happy that we did and i i really truly think we need to do this again yeah i think there's a lot we still haven't talked about yes but this is almost three hours so you may have you're gonna have to probably cut this and edit it a little bit but thank you for having me and anytime and i love doing it so pleasure and i'm sure soon i'm gonna have you come come over because you gotta practice your judging anyway oh yeah for sure i'm an easy judge too just give me a couple beers and and a bed to sleep on it's all good all right my man thank you for this this was a like truly enjoyable conversation dave Thank you.