두려움에서 마스터로: 세계 수준의 K9 트레이너가 되기까지 니노의 숨겨진 여정

So in a way I was, I was afraid, but I was also intrigued. Like, what is, what is this? It's crazy. And yeah, she had a bunch of dogs. I think at that time, she had like four of those big ones, very intimidating because you know, when I was like eight, nine, I wasn't that tall, of course. So these dogs are quite big. They look extremely big. And, um, you know, I was sitting there and then it was like, at some point, I'll never forget that I was sitting in the couch and I couldn't stop looking at them because they were beautiful. And, but they told me don't look them in the eye. So I'm trying to look at them without looking in the eye, but one of them is looking at me. So I look at this dog and I feel it looking back. I was like, Oh, Oh shit. I probably, and they're like, and then I heard this growl of this dog. And they're like, panic themselves. Like, Oh, he's growling. We got to put them up now. We got to put them. Yeah. Just hold on a second. Okay. Don't move. I was like, Oh my God. Like, did I, did I just escape an attack or something? But anyways, why does this stick to my memory? Because it's almost like 40 years ago. How come I have this vivid memory of this happening? It's quite impactful of this event taking place. And then when we visit again, like you remember last time, you know, don't look them in the eye to the whole thing again. So sit still, like completely freeze up almost because obviously you get more and more cautious about this and you take this with you. But there's one thing that stuck with me is I was, I was intrigued by dogs. Like, why is this like, why are they so dangerous? Or why can't I look them in the eye? So, and I then asked my mom, like, would it ever be possible that we get a dog? Like, not of course, one of those, but like a little small one, maybe, but not, that was out of the question. They didn't like dogs. So that was out of the question. But I think it probably, because I have to analyze myself, like, how do I ever end up in this position? Because I probably then start obsessing about it subconsciously. That's the thing. It was like a little seed probably in my head, obsessing about these dogs subconsciously. So then when, at some point we live in an apartment and right next door, our neighbors, well, across the, across the, our apartment, they had a young Malinois. And I remember the same, like, oh, I want to see it like, but it's probably dangerous. So I have to back up, but I still remember, like, I'm intrigued by it. So at some point I asked him, would I be able to walk with you guys, like,

with together with you in this Malinois? And like, yeah, sure. Why not? Like, come and walk with, and there was a female. And it was actually a very kind one. Now, of course, I didn't hold the leash, but I did get a little bit more confidence, but I was still afraid of dogs, period. Like, if that dog would bark at me or stare at me, I would feel that same core fear, you know? But long story short, and this is the most crazy part about it. So I ended up being intrigued. Like, I thought I got a little more, more confident about dogs, but as soon as they bark or they look at me, I still feel like I'm very afraid of them. Now, at some point, I was like 21, 22. I literally wake up, because I was living with my girlfriend back in the day at 5 a.m. I woke up and I thought, I got to go. I think I'm going to go to the K-9 unit. Like, the most crazy idea ever. Crazy idea. Like, what? How do you even come up with that? Like, are you having a bad dream or something? But it was like, I went downstairs. I started like opening the computer, looking up things. And from then on, I couldn't get it out of my mind. Although it was the most insane idea ever, because I was like, you know, I like to talk a lot to the colleagues and stuff. I was just like, I was at the police. Actually, I missed the age. I was like, I wasn't 21. I was older already. I was like, 27. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm 27. You see how much gap there is between? Yeah. So anyways, I want to finish the story, which was, I literally woke up. I was like, okay, I want to go to the K-9 unit. And I tell my colleagues, and this is a unit department with 2,500-ish people. And I'm in a unit, like city intervention, like, you know, we're doing the emergency calls and, you know, all that stuff. And I tell them, I said, hey guys, I've been thinking, you know, I think I'm going to go apply for the K-9 unit. At that point, there's only four people in the entire department looking at me like, what do you mean? I said, yeah, like, I think I'm going to apply for the K-9 unit. What do you guys think? Like, what, do you have a dog or something? No. I was like, do you know somebody who has a dog then, or at the K-9 unit that asked you to come? I said, no, I don't know anybody who has a K-9, you know, at the K-9 unit. I'm just thinking about this, like, all right, but you know about dogs and you're an expert or what? No, I'm not an expert. And I said, do you even know anything about dogs? Well, not really. So they all started laughing so hard, like, ha, you know, it was like,

so what are you thinking? Because sometimes, you know, young people have these crazy ideas. I'm going to go to special units, you know, everybody's been in that situation. And then the person saying that is like a little bit overweight or like not trained at all. It's like, sure, man. I kind of felt the same. I mean, I was talking about the K-9 unit, a lot of laughter. This obviously didn't take me seriously, but I was, I was serious. But then I was facing the biggest problem of my life is now I said I was going to do it. I'm intrigued. I'm obsessed. I want it so bad, but I'm still afraid of dogs. So I get this crazy idea of like, okay, what if I start researching? What if I do talk to some police people who have a dog? I start researching YouTube, Google it. I became like an expert almost just by reading about them and, you know, obsessed completely in obsession mode. So at some point I do find a contact of an ex-police K-9 handler. Okay. But he did have a dog and I called him, you know, how it goes back. And you call people, no texting, no messaging, didn't exist. You call, you actually call people still like, Hey man, I did this, I mean, you don't know, you know, from a police department in Antwerp. Um, can you, can you help me? I'm looking for this easy. Oh, well, it's, I guess, it's your lucky day then, because he said, I happen to have a dog that might be suitable for you. If you want to purchase that, you know, K-9 unit dream or whatever it is. I said, all right. So I like, can I come over? He said, yeah, man, come over tonight and get in the car, drive there. And he says, uh, here's the deal, man. He says, you just take the dog with you. It's going to be X amount. I'm not going to disclose the amount, but, uh, you can pay me tomorrow, whatever, with a wire bank transfer, take the dog with you. This, this dog is going to like set you up for success. If you want to purchase that dream. I like, okay, great. And I'm looking at this dog already start to feel uncomfortable. It's an adult dog. I've never handled dog, Nate. I never had a dog in my life, like handling them, training them zero. It's like, what am I getting myself into? So you kind of now start feeling this was a bad idea. Now it really hit me. It was the worst idea ever when I was sitting in my car. So he put him into my backseat. I want to give you the whole story of his explanations, what was going to happen and so on. But I'm looking in my back mirror. It wasn't in a crate. There's no crate. Just in my backseat. And I'm looking at him and

he's staring back at me. Remember the stare? Don't look the dog in the eye. It's like, I can't look in the back, in the rear mirror. So I come home. I already start feeling really nervous now. And, uh, my girlfriend's waiting for me like, okay, uh, because I obviously had to tell the whole story, you know, that's a story on its own. She was going to leave me by the way, but if I was going to bring a dog home, I get in the kitchen with this dog and the dog looks at me and then it hit me. I was like, I can't do it. It's like, what do you mean you can't do it? I said, no, I'm afraid of this dog. I said, there's no way I can't. And I'm not even going to give him food. Like the way he looks at me is just too scary. I got to bring him back. It's like, bring him back. You just got him. Like, so I got to find like, what am I going to tell this guy? And what if this guy then tells the real canine unit that I came for a dog completely, you know, pissed my pants. I was like, okay, I got to tell the story. I just tell him that my girlfriend's afraid of it. You know, I can't do it. So anyways, I drive back, I hand this dog over. He wasn't amused by it. Obviously, you know, he spent a lot of time and like, okay, do this and that. And then I knew I said, like, okay, I got to completely forget about this dream that I'm going to buy an adult dog, train this dog. It's just not going to happen. No chances. The only chance I have now is if I start with a puppy. But guess what? Even puppies with pointy ears were scary. Really? Man, I'm not kidding. So what I had to do is there was a place where they had multiple breeds. It's like one of those, how do you call it in the States, breeders that have multiple breeds for commercial purposes? They call it a... I'm not sure. There's some places out here that still sell puppies. There's a name for it. Yeah. They're not very popular now, you know? So anyways, but this guy has a bunch of breeds, a bunch of dogs. It was like, that's a place where I should find some confidence. That was my first step. It was like, I'm not looking for a dog right now. I first have to get confidence. This place will allow me to get him for free because there's a lot of people coming in and out. So it's like free entrance. You can just watch. It's like going into a store. But they had all these outdoor kennels where you can reach out because they're like this high and you can actually pet a puppy. So then I was looking for dogs with pointy ears to try to pet them. That was my initial way to go around. I have to find confidence to pet them. And then there was

a small one and I started petting and it's like, oh, look at my hand. And then I want to bite your hand for playing. Then obviously get afraid immediately because I thought maybe he wants to bite me. So that's my process. And that's where I went. So at some point, okay, I got the guts to then find a working Malinois breeder. And then that's how I got my first dog. And the rest is literally the history of then training this dog day one. What do I do? And I mean, I wasn't comfortable at all, but the puppy, at least I overcame the fear of handling a puppy. And that's from there on, it only went up. And, uh, you know, it makes me, it makes me think about this book that I read years ago that had a massive impact on my life. And you can get the whole book pretty much from the title. The title was feel the fear and do it anyways. And often I think as humans, we're attracted to things that we're afraid of. I'm terrified of sharks, but I'm also fascinated by them. So it's not a coincidence. This is actually for fun. I think so. Wow. But I think it is very fascinating. The level you were able to take it. Like I'm interested in sharks, but I'm not a shark expert. I'm not going to go swim in the ocean with sharks. That fear is enough for me to educate myself on it because I find it very interesting, but not to the level that you've taken it. And one thing that I thought was very curious when you were talking, as far as trying to become part of the canine unit, how difficult is it to become part of the canine unit? Because here in the States, one of my friends who I trained with, he reached out to me and asked me if I could vouch for him because he's a police officer and he wants to be in the canine unit. And he was recently accepted, but it was a three-year process. I think of him trying to get to that position, having people that vouch for him where I said, yes, he's done a lot of training. We've done bite work together. He can handle the dog. He was certified somewhere else and he needed all those things in order to get and be part of the canine unit. Is it similar to the unit you were in? And if so, how did you manage with no training experience? Was it just that obsession? Yeah, it was. How long did it take? It was like, they were then opening up a few spots. I think it was like 2006 that they did selection testing, right? Or 2000. I can't remember. It was 2005 because I remember in 2007, yes, in 2007, I was actually already a canine unit. So it must be between 2005. I know, 2005, I got my first dog.

Yeah, my first Malinois. So it was in 2005 that I immediately started looking into what is it actually they're expecting from us. So there's an interview. And back then, so it's very different than in the US. Because back then, you needed to have a dog. They wanted you to already be training with dogs, right? So you had to prepare basically the police dog you were applying with. You can't just come there and say, I don't have a dog. I don't have anything. But you're going to buy it for me, okay? So I'm going to just do this interview. No, no, no way. So that's why I already went in finding a dog. You see, that's why I was recruiting a dog because I knew that's what it's going to take. And this obviously will take the amount of people interested. Let's say there's 2,500 people in the department. Let's say 100 people want to do it. But when you tell them, hey, you got to invest up front. You got to have a dog. You got to be already active with this dog. I think out of these 100, probably 50, 60 already going to go now. Probably not then, you see? So that does trim down to the people who are really already active. Now, of course, there's a lot of competition because there's only four spots. I only wanted four people. And there's only like two or three selection rounds. So when it takes each time six months before they hire another two, and then they were going to cap it off. I think they wanted ultimately 10 or 12 people. There are already four people. So you see, there's not that many spots. And I remember going in the first time completely. I mean, I passed the exam because I had answers to the questions they had. They knew I had a dog. So I did meet some of the criteria, but I didn't make it because obviously there was way more better people than me who were qualified, who were already seasoned handlers and other departments from other cities. And they also have the right to go above you. It was like automatically they would classify above you because they already have like a license, a certification. So yeah, I would always drop down, drop down, drop down. So at some point I did think like, I'm probably not going to get it. But at that time, they did start to know me because like, this guy's always showing up. I was obsessed also. And I, then the dog was also getting older because of the selection. So at the time, 14, 15 months, my dog did actually a whole lot of things, actually ready to go in. And one of the chiefs there knew that because I was always calling him. I did know at that point, they already told me, if you're not

going to show who you are, there is no way. So I had to actually come like at some times when I knew he was like late at the station, I had to come and talk. Like, I know this election's coming. Like, you know, I want to just talk to you what I'm doing now. And so they would know at least who you are. And this guy, Reggie was his name. He ultimately probably decided without telling me like, I'm going to give this young guy a shot because he seems to be very extremely eager about this. Like he can't stop. Like he's showing up, he's training, he's showing good stuff with his Malinois because I showed him some stuff that I was doing. And ultimately the last interview they were going to do to hire these people, I got the last spot. So basically I, the class was like classified last in the rankings. So I got the last spot to get in and yeah, that's how it started. But yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't like granted for sure. Not there was like the dream could have stopped there right then. Then of course you can just continue and, and try other departments in different cities. But yeah, that, that was, so not only did you have to prove it, but you also had to show it as well. So they wanted to see proof that you can do the things that you talked about. So it took what, roughly two years from when you decided you wanted to be in the canine unit to actually getting into the canine unit? Well, probably a little bit longer because when the idea popped in my head, obviously I did all the research by the time then I actually got to that breeder back and forth. I mean, that's also probably a few months. So I would say roughly a good two years before actually waking that up, that day of waking up and then actually going into the canine unit. And by the way, I was living in a rental place that literally said no dogs allowed. And I still, I still did it. I knew they were going to kick me out. So what I did was I wrote them a letter and I said, I'm hired for the canine. I wasn't, it's like, well, we'll just tell them I'm hired. I'm working at the police. They hired me at the canine unit. Do you mind if I have my police dog, you know, trained police dog here? And they actually allowed me to do it temporarily until I found a different place. So I did go through some, you know, there's, there was nothing in front of me that said, come on in. Yeah. You got everything lined up. You have a house, a big house. You're allowed to have dogs. You have experience. No, none of that. So it was a complete underdog position. And that's why still today

I have a huge affection and love for either people that are underdogs. They told everybody to stop doing what you're doing, or they told this dog was absolutely garbage. I'm so still attracted to it because it always reminds me of the people laughing at me. Like, who's going to believe in you, man? You don't even know nothing about dogs. How are you going to get in the canine unit and have a working dog? And like, oh, you crazy. Just stop it. Stop. It's not even funny anymore at some point. So it's impressive. And even the dog that you ended up having, you did end up training that dog from beginning. Yeah. And that, that, that became a legendary dog. He did the most deployments in the history of that department. And that's the biggest, yeah, that's the biggest department in the entire country. He did the most deployments that most, the most, yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off there. I wanted to say, I think a big lesson to take away from this is having a very clearly defined goal. Yes. So there is someone who's starting and they want to become a dog trainer or they want to follow your path and become a handler in a canine unit. Having a very clear path and a clear goal is going to help set someone up for success. Did you continue to work with a mentor while you were training that puppy or were you reading books and just trying to figure it out on your own? How did you train that puppy to be the dog that you became? You're not going to believe this really. You're not, I don't, I don't even know if I ever told this story because you're literally asking me what you did. And I think usually people stop in the story like, okay, what now, why do you do? That's the thing. I went into a Belgian ring club. And then what I, what I saw is the people were like willing to help me. You know, Belgian ring is like a traditional protection sport. It's, it has extreme dogs, extreme animals, only mountain was allowed. You couldn't just come in walking with a dutchie that we see today or a German shepherd. No, it was like a club, only Belgian shepherds. Why? Because that's the only dog that could ever even compete and, and win possibly in one of those trials. So they were only Malinois. So that was one thing I had. Uh, it wasn't too far. These people were willing to help me. But then what I saw was like, this looks, that's a pretty old school, you know, way of going. And, uh, I was like, I mean, I need some more information than just what they're offering me. I said, that's not going to cut it. So what I did is I ordered Lierberg DVDs.

I ordered Lierberg DVDs from the United States. Listen, being in Belgium, where there's so many clubs, we have legendary trainers for decades and decades. We want so many things in competition. And yet I bought a bunch of DVDs, uh, from Lierberg because that, that was the only thing that I could literally put in a DVD and then get the information that I was looking for based on the topics. Because as, as much as you can just walk into a club, you can't just steal somebody's time and say, I want to know everything about healing, or I want to know everything about drive, or I want to know everything about IGP. What is this actually even? So I had to educate myself and I bought these DVDs and, um, they were, they were like not applicable in a way like, okay, you watch this stuff. And this is why I also never wanted to make DVDs so many decades later. I was like, okay, well, this is cool, but it's not working for me. And I'll tell you why. Well, first of all, this person has a complete different dog than mine because his was in the DVD. Usually they're trained dogs, right? Mine was not trained or I'm starting to train it. So the responses are different, but the person, the people there have skills that they're already applying. And that's how I also came up with, with my methodology is like, but you can't see them. They're using them subconsciously, even themselves. They're combining a bunch of skills. You're just focused on the dog the whole time. You have no clue what skill was actually implemented because it's all about the, how to train the dogs. I'm looking at the dog the whole time. And I didn't get the information that I needed back in the day, 20 years ago because of that. So I was like, okay, DVDs is great, but at the back, there's not a number. You can just call and say, look, man, I watched this. This is good information. But when I applied, it looks different. So I got like a little bit stuck. So what I had to do is go in myself and start trying stuff. And here where my other background comes in, because the whole story starts making sense because you'll say, okay, who the hell comes from nowhere and then does what I do today. But I'd also had to do because one of my real mentors when I was young, between the age of 13 and 2021, was a European champion in track and field, an Olympian. He was a sprinter. And this person showed me, taught me that the only way to get something to the level where he was at was extreme efforts, was extreme obsession, extreme efforts. Like his diet was nuts. And I also did it,

by the way, because you know, as a young kid, you want to emulate who you look up to. And I started doing that stuff also like extreme diet, extreme training, extreme. So I was used to doing extreme things and not having an outcome even because he ran super fast and I still ran slow. Although I kind of looked like an athlete, but I didn't have the outcome, you know? So I did know, I didn't understand that you have to put in extreme efforts sometimes. So I was on my own, but I knew like, I wasn't going to stop. I wanted to see who, who was who in this world, in this industry. So I started Googling and stuff. And that's how I also came with Liederberg back in there was pre Michael Ellis, even so long ago. And then, then I saw somebody, I was mainly IGP back then that the influence was from, but I wasn't an IGP, but I did get some good things. Like for example, the healing, you know, the, the focused healing in IGP was something to look up to because in Belgian ring, they sure as hell didn't have focus healing, you know, it was rigid walk, like come close. Yeah. And then the dog just had to come close in some parameter, not run off. So completely different style, completely different setup. Very interesting how all of that information just gets a space in your head. And then later on is, is used to build your own imagination because I think the most underestimated skill of people in general, when it comes to the creation of their own skill is imagination. If you can't see it, it's so hard to start doing it. And I refer to the track and field story, you know, Nate, how many times I closed my eyes and I thought I was running a running trial. Like I was doing it in my mind. I was doing it. I had people cheering. I had everything in my mind. I went every weight that I lifted. I could see this in my mind. It was like so strong. And then I started developing the same thing with the dogs. Although my dog couldn't do anything. I had in my mind, this dog has to be good, has to be precise, has to have all these things, but the skill was lacking. So you can have the vision, but if you don't have the skill, well, then you're still going to be stuck. So, so that's why I started, you know, also critiquing a lot of things, which was obviously not the way to make friends in this industry, especially my own unit. When you start questioning people and I am a person, where does that come from? Well, I'll also give you a little background. My mom questions literally everything. Everyone who comes up with a rule, she'll ask you, why is this? And if you're going to come up with an answer that

she likes, she will just not do it. So I was also used to that. So I wasn't just taking answers because you have to, because it's a police dog, because it's, you see, so I was critical. I was an extremely hard worker, uh, obsessed. I had a vision, had a lot of imagination. And I also did the, the grind work looking where, where can I find information and anybody's information for me at that point was good. Was it IGP? I was not discriminating. IGP was actually, I started to like it also. I loved French ring. I loved so many things. And that's how I started thinking about putting things together. And, um, and you did Mondio ring too, right? Yes, I did. I was then also a certified monitoring. I did trials, trialed as a decoy. I trialed with the police doc. Everybody told me, don't, don't trial with the police doc. They said, you shouldn't do that because it's sports. You have a real street dog. Street dog shouldn't do sport because they need to buy the equipment. You know, all these biased, uh, you know, things that people tell you always, always what to do, what to do, what box you belong in. And I remember my first trial, it was, it was kind of funny because that's when I knew like, Oh, I actually suck more than I thought because at the police, I was doing really well. And then I did the trial and then in the trial, I had no control over the doc in the master defense because the master defense is where you're challenged in your control because they'll try to lure your dog to make mistakes, to buy too early. Yeah. And that's what happened exactly. And that, but that was great. These are great lessons because then I knew, Oh, this control I thought I had actually on that level, it's not even great. You know? So at some point, you see me too. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I'm just saying like at that point, you start realizing this. It's, there's always levels because you think, Oh, you're doing good. You're getting praised at the police because I was like a very good student slash new, uh, canine handler, extremely motivated. So you get praise. You think, Oh, my dog is doing so good. Then you go to sports and the level of this doc wasn't even enough to win the first category or even end up in the top five. So yeah, it's that, it's that old saying, big fish in a little pond. Yeah. I think that's a great expression. And so some of the struggles that you had early on, it sounds like you took a lot of those experiences and you've used that to develop the system that you now teach where you were saying,

really focusing on handler skills. And that's something that I've taken from your system where, when I teach people, I'm often telling them now, like, we need to focus on your skills as the handler. Now we have the skills of the handler. We also have the skills of the dog. We have the environmental influence and what that can do. And you break all that down in your course. And you came up with what you call the S flow. Can you talk a little bit about the S flow? Yeah. So the S flow, that was, that was something really crazy because I was, uh, always into mechanics. When I went to go see, you know, great trainers or title trainers, I wanted to see, because remember, I came from a track and field background, looking at Olympian level and then looking in the mirror and say, okay, what is it that I have to do is going to even remotely look like this guy. You know, the gap was so big, but in dog training, that gap wasn't so big. And I'll tell you why, because I was looking at them from not a dog trainer perspective. I was looking at it from a mechanical motor skill perspective. It's like, what's going on here that this person is doing that. I will never be able to do because I know how that feels. And there was nothing. So, but that was a good, that was a good news. That was like, Hey, wait a second here. This footwork, this is nothing that I haven't like, I've been trying footwork with running. That was like extremely hard. So, okay. That's not the point. What's he doing with the hand feed coordination? What am I seeing motor skills, technical aspects, like fast analysis on what's happening? Like, but I wasn't like that. And that's when I started believing like, Hey, wait a second here. There is something here that it's not even, that's not even relevant because I'm thinking, okay, dog trainers at a high level, probably extremely like good in certain things that are, okay, I got to replicate this. Good luck to you. And that's when I start finding, because I like movement. I'm somebody that can't sit still too much. So when I have my dog, I want to move to, I want to move a lot. Right. So I was already using my hands. I'm a mechanic. So subconsciously, I didn't even consider that as, Oh, these are mechanics. I need to put into this place. It was just more intuitive, organic. And, and I don't do it more and more. And people start making fun of it. It's like, yeah, what are you always doing? Like luring this dog and stuff like that. And in the beginning I took offense of that. I was like, okay, I guess

that's probably not a good thing because you're young. You're, you know, you, you are influenced. And then I thought, okay, probably not then. But then I was seeing like, Hey, but if I, if I look at them, that's not what I want either. So why am I even listening to them? I'm just going to keep doing this because it's fun. But this, I'm just going to do it behind closed doors. Just do home, go home and do this stuff. And then there was like, this is it. My dog was getting better and better technically. And technically, I mean, he could move smoother. His steps were cleaner, more precise. I was like, is I'm onto something here because everything they're laughing with is actually what's making my dog look way better than theirs. So I was like, yeah, just let them laugh. But the only difference is now, well, I can't be lured in my whole life, of course, because that would look also a little bit silly. Like, look at me, but I always need a piece of food to make my dog do all these things. So then comes the fading skill. And the fading skill is where you actually do not use your motor skills and your mechanics. You use your analytics and your decision-making abilities. Because fading is basically, you're going to do less. The dog's going to still do the same thing, just as good. It's more about decision-making. When am I going to help? When am I going to use this movement? How am I going to use this movement? How much am I? When is it time to not help? And how long can I stop this help? And when do I go back in? You see, so now we start processing, again, more on a subconscious level, because we're not talking course now development. But I was already getting into now technical obsession modes. So if you would have asked me then, so how do you get to do this? I would probably take you to the movement and the lure. But I wouldn't be able to give you a full plan because a lot of that was going on in my subconscious still. But I already knew at that point very early after watching some of the big names that, okay, there's nothing here that cannot be done. And I'm just now talking not with disrespect, but from a technical perspective, and from a just, is this possible for somebody who's never trained a dog? Can you become a great dog trainer? Because I had no background. And for me, the answer was, yes, if there is one thing that I'm probably going to master in relation to what I didn't master was the track and field, because I looked good, I'll tell you that. Like everybody thought I was an athlete, but I wasn't. So I was living my own dream.

But I thought the dog training, that's a different story here, because they're overlooking things, because they're just not simply paying attention to it. And if there's one thing, man, if you're a little bit into sports for a dog, he's your athlete now. So if I can mold this athlete into a specimen of athleticism, of speed and precision combined, that sounds just what I wanted to do when I was doing track and field, but I was too slow. But what if I can help my dog do this? You know, now it gets interesting. And this is this is part of the S flow, because then I started creating like movement, like how does how would this risk work? So in my imagination, again, I'm seeing if I had this dog in front of me, how would I move? And how do I balance myself? Because you also can't like move only the hand, but then your body doesn't move. Well, you're unstable then. And especially with big dogs, you or small dogs, you have to like squat a little bit. So you actually do need some coordination, some core stability yourself to to adapt to the little dog in front of you. And that's how I created a motion, a flow, a sequence of motions, that gonna give you the ultimate obedience. That is now what we see the extreme obedience like super fast clean, like, you know, it's almost like robotic. Now they also give critique, but this looks too much like a robot. But the dogs for the dog, it's a fun thing. Because if there's one thing a dog loves, it's energy, man, energy all day. I don't. Yeah. And I don't like when people say like, Oh, the dog looks robotic. Because in my head, what I'm thinking is like what the dog looks too precise. They move too well. Is that what you're telling me? Is that a bad thing? And with your your S flow and the movement, how important is it for someone who's learning dog training, or someone who's been training, but they're going to practice perhaps your system like me, I've been training dogs 13 years now. And I started learning your system a few years ago, I'm still getting through because it's a big course. And I don't have as much time anymore with the two little kids and running a business and everything. But it's an amazing course. And moving and practicing these things without the dog, I think is incredibly important. Yeah, I you know, what are the differences that you've seen when you had when you started having your students practice without the dog and getting those mechanics down and understanding the muscle memory or developing rather that muscle memory? So here's the thing, like you could be the

best S flowing person in the world and transcend it to your dog even, it's never going to give you an outcome that is even remotely practical for you if you do not combine it with other skills. So like you said, a muscle memory and having those mechanics, that's a great foundation to have. But if you really want to excel, you're going to have to add a leash, maybe, you know, food at that point, also the dog's going to be involved, which has its own way of moving and mechanics. Some of them are stiff, some of them are a little bit more agile, some of them are slow, some of them are fast, some of them bark, some of them, you know, lunch, add to food, you know that. So there's always other parameters here. So that brings me to another skill, we're looking now into profiling handler skills, it's not just about your movement, it's also about your ability cognitively to understand what your plan is and then to analyze and execute it, which brings us to a whole different skill level. Okay, then there's also dexterity with the fingers, how you hold stuff, how you communicate, how you assess and then what do you do in the moment because decision making in your training is probably one of the also like latent skills, decision making, you don't see when I make a decision, because you're seeing what I do, right. But the fact that I made a different decision just in a split second because of what I saw, you will never know, you see. So if you can't go into the depths of what handling profile actually means in terms of, okay, let us profile somebody who's like won multiple world titles, extremely good and dog training proven over and over and over again, that they have this skill. We can't just go with like, what bloodline was this dog? What food do you give him? What ball is this? No, you really have to start questioning like, what makes this person win each and every time regardless of what dog he's using because he's done about multiple dogs. So you have to find a pattern and a profile of their skills that's going to help you to then define it and then put it into segments, modules, so people can master them individually and then later start combining them. Because the definition of talent, this is a very important one, Nate, the definition of talent is not like I'm naturally good at this stuff so it just all came to me. No, the pure definition, scientific definition is your unique combination of skills that you can access and combine simultaneously with so it allows you to do things better, faster, more efficient,

with less effort and energy drain than somebody else and still have a better outcome. That is what talent means. So if you define this, it did say a unique combination of skills because everybody's skill is unique. The way you move and I move is never going to be 100% the same. So it's always going to be uniqueness to it and especially when you start combining with the other skills. So it's about the combination, your ability to combine multiple skills simultaneously. So you need to define what they are. So that's how we change the game by defining what they are and focusing on these, you become conscious first. Now when you master them, they become subconscious. That's why I can train three dogs at the same time. I've had reels with three dogs at the same time. Why? How is that even possible? I can have one dog here and literally be on a phone call and train this dog extremely accurately. Why? Because my subconscious knows this move. I don't even need to look anymore. I know where he is. I know where I'm. I master this so I can add another skill and another and another and another and the more skills you combine in your subconscious and then access them at any moment even in stressful conditions. That's your definition. That's your talent passport. And by the same goes for the dog. You see so we're looking at handler profile. We're looking at dog profile and only that combination is the symbiosis. So if you're extremely good in the five main skills that I have defined but your dog cannot even move in one circle then all of that is is nullify what you have. But you will need all these skills to elevate the dog first. You know? So that's the thing. But usually people ask me where do you get this dog? Because they want the elevation of the dog skills to help them you know go go up in in abilities. But it's not like that. It's not because I seriously when we're talking about Rocky was like you know and my other dogs I'm so attached to them to the core that I you know sometimes it's hard to even talk about them because the symbiosis is real it's a real thing and people think they want this dog and I'm sure this dog and them would be so unhappy if they met each other because if you really look at the core of what are the one of those dogs needs they don't need your corrections they don't need to be blasted with e-callers the whole time. They don't want clarity or understanding they have a lot of dry they have a lot of natural things that would go for them like food drive or ball drive but all of

that would be useless if you wouldn't have a strategy to extract this but one thing also at a time. And what we see Nate and this is a true reality we see people going in first day with either working dog or whatever and they are and moving because you have to move you have to do something they're holding a leash they're holding a marker they're talking to a dog they're praising the dog they're making decisions they're doing so many things at the same time that would be that would literally mean the same thing as oh you want to be a track and field runner okay get the spikes here's some hurdles uh we'll get you in the blocks all right let's get the gun out shoot boom we're going and and people and doc and the dog industry think that sure I just got this dog obviously I need to train it now let's just do everything at the same time and literally that's where the thing goes wrong I mean you're in business man when you people reach out when things go south I mean that's yep that's exactly right that's what happens so and do you think it's better when someone's starting out to practice one skill at a time and then to add the skills on top of each other you think that's one of the common mistakes yeah a lot of us make in the early stages is we are trying and we may just not be aware of it like you said it's I'm having to focus on the dog I'm having to focus on how I'm going to lure the dog when am I going to deliver the reward how is my body in sync and it's all these different things that we're trying to do from day one when we haven't even established any sort of not perfection necessarily but a higher level of understanding and application of one skill before adding all the other ones yeah and but here's the thing when we're talking dog training skills lucky for us these are not olympic traits that means you don't need to go in 10 years 20 years to master how to move this we're talking one two weeks maybe three weeks for you with my ages my god i have to do this for two weeks because we're all used to getting instant gratification i got my dog where's my result the next day even right i got people today asking me my dog is seven months is it too late and i have to always read it twice did he really ask me did he mean seven years or did he even that wouldn't be too late but he literally said seven months a melon was seven months is it too late you see but i'm going with this so that's the point like in their minds it's like it's got to happen now or it's too late so they're going to do everything to make it happen right then right now which brings

us to a whole other level which is you have defined all the profiles but now you know what's really really really important studied way more than dog training science is human psychology human psychology people have been studying people way more than they've been studying dogs okay so when you go into human psychology you find there's behavioral patterns that lead to poor decision making and understanding these will help you also to understand why people cannot develop talent as they actually should because they do have the potential you see there's the one thing to have potential and there's a whole other thing to actually be able to use it just because your behavioral pattern has stopped you probably for many many years we can get into that also in the depths of why that is and but understanding this is way more groundbreaking than understanding the marker for example you see where we have like shifts in in approach okay i want everything about the marker okay that's great we can talk about the marker what it could do for you and what it can't do for you etc etc but when you want to know how you also develop skills and talent just aside from the dog even if you're talking about any skill wouldn't you be interested in that that human psychology is validated science nate that is not just something like came out of nino's brain this is validated science and to just not use that knowing that your your your job is to coach people to help them develop skills and not knowing this but knowing everything about science-based dog training i would feel like a huge gap as for me as a coach because as a coach as you know it's not just a dog you're training you just you just mentioned you got to train the person but how do you how do i understand the person i have to understand the psychology of why people do the things they do because you can say like that's weird it's always stagnating or going backwards with these people what is it that makes them always get to the tipping point they start correcting they don't have any patience anymore they they start like then trying other stuff at the same time why is this poor decision making reoccurring if you can't find the answer to that you can coach your whole life and go like i don't know what's wrong with these people i know what's not wrong with these people you have to know one to you have to be one to know one and i'm a person too so when i was studying the psychology part of it i was like this is mind-blowing this is going to change this is going to impact not my dog training career my dog anything is going to impact my life

you know i completely i'm a different person after i studied this i'm a different person that doesn't mean like all your dog trainers have to go study psychology but when i teach the mvp there is a part of that psychology in there because i feel i have to share it i would feel guilty not sharing this because it helped me so much now it can help you isn't that what coaching is about is you have expertise okay great for you have expertise but as a coach you not just want to tell people okay i told you what to do then now do it you want to understand them you also want them to succeed you want to see them grow maybe even bigger than you that's totally fine that's what a coach supposed to do why else you want to be a coach so understanding coaching meant well i have to understand myself i have to understand people i have to understand how i can go outside this expertise and help them how i can you know go outside my own uh realm of dog training and understand why what these people actually dealing with on a different layer has nothing to do with their dog but is affecting everything to do with their dog and it sounds like you sorry it sounds like you invested a lot of time in learning not just the dog training side but learning how to be an effect an effective instructor or teacher sounds very similar when i was talking to michael ellis it seems like a lot of the great instructors and teachers out there like yourself have invested a lot of time in the art of teaching you know we are dog trainers but we are also teachers and this is a quote i'm stealing from the legendary michael ellis but but we're teachers and our subject is dog training and something i noticed even before before i started studying your work i wouldn't focus as much on the initial skills that the handler had and i would often say things like you know if you have an athletic background you played sports if you did dance or something like that you're gonna pick up this stuff usually much faster than someone who does it and i think that's part of the development of the hand-eye coordination now when you're working with a new student and you're trying to get them to a certain level what's your initial assessment on them or do you have everyone start at the same spot or if somebody does have some skills from being an athlete from playing sports doing martial arts that okay you're probably going to progress through this more quickly but we're still going to start from the beginning do you adjust according to each student in that way uh well i used to

because remember we all start small and back in the day we had a very progressive what i called it the talent scan we had a literally a talent scan so it was a a bunch of questions which would tie into um the professor's uh ip which was a algorithm he developed for his talent assessments on a professional basis had nothing to do with dog training so we developed this scan together and by taking these questions it was it was mind-blowing i could literally give you this talent scan and without ever seeing you and your dog i would know exactly if you would answer honestly of course because else it's useless right but if you would assess it and answer honestly i literally would know how you would look with your dog and where you guys were at nuts absolutely nuts and then we went into okay let's now start with what you say maybe sometimes their own perception of the level they have wasn't correct so that's one thing so you go into uh you know talking about this but then we always did came to the point like you really can't move guys i'm sorry like when it comes to you really want to master this and you want to add more layers to your uh potential and to your dog training skills you're really going to have to master some things that you don't even think is needed but i believe it is i would get some a little bit out of the comfort zone and and now this is like a um we do an onboarding so we do talk to people live and we talk about like literally like we do we explain the system live also and for them to understand look dog training is not linear but your progress is also not linear so that means some people gravitate more towards developing a certain skill let's say protection work let's say you love that kind of stuff so you're going to be less involved in obedience movement but you gravitate towards understanding the mechanics of but because that's also very technical by the way understanding how the dog needs to bite how what you need to do and stuff like this so you can't dictate to people and you shouldn't what they should be interested in the most of the course all i can do in the beginning is explain to them it's an open uh mvp master course is open for you to explore visuals for example anything has to do with uh healing uh and and visual control over the dog but the human side is everything has to do with analysis why visual imagination remember observation imitation you see we all put that also in that handler skill so by explaining them in depth what all these things mean give them more confidence to go oh okay so this is not linear

because look how easy we wouldn't even have a job if dog training was linear we could literally say guys everybody here watch this take this food put it in your hand now close this hand turn your wrist this lesson one you see well half the people probably go like okay i already got stuck here thing was falling put too much food you see troubleshooting on that half of them would go like what the hell is this we're already we're already healing guys like can we just skip this you know what i mean but then even then because sorry you just said healing and i kind of want to talk a little bit about healing yeah because you have such beautiful healing not just with one dog but with multiple dogs there's videos of you walking with a dog in the left heel position and the right heel position both of them healing beautifully a lot of students have really nice healing and so i want to ask looking back what was the moment you realized you were on to something different from traditional healing in dog training yeah so it's great because you know what you have to do at the police if you are a canine handler you have to patrol with this dog what are you doing if you're patrolling are you focus healing through the street no way you see no way okay so can i ask you then what actually is this healing if it's not focus healing how would you define then this heel you're walking on the street this is a patrol heel what am i supposed to imagine with this your dog is like would you be teaching the contact heel no because a contact heel is based on an external source a target that's when the dog makes contact and puts his eyes on the target you see these are these are all things that i even not even invented like contact here was something they had in protection sports also there's the helper watch him stay close and start moving but that wasn't it either okay so now you have focus healing it's not it a contact healing i'm sorry but it's not it so you have like this sweet heel then what is this street heel there was no definition no interpretation of it even so i had to develop a street heel now not just based on oh let me let me pop this dog because he's forging now healing literally means if let's just define it for for people's understanding and sake what healing is is you guys have aligned your speed you synchronized with the same pace that is literally what healing means that could be in contact focus and in street healing so you have three styles i came up with the third one focus healing already existed then you have contact healing and i had to define street heal myself

the cool thing is you can do all three but all three are very different also but um where's that where is that going with this i wanted to make a point um so yeah well anyways you got to start with um you know one or three styles or you can start simultaneously with these styles but it depends on what also your goal is and in street healing you just want your dog to also stay connected with you have the freedom to look and and just do whatever he wants to do but also synchronize speed that's what i was talking so it's an alignment exercise once you understand it's alignment the question is not anymore how do i stop him from forging how do i make him not pull the question is just how do you align speed by synchronizing the question is how do you synchronize by using movement remember movement oh nobody cares about movement you synchronize through movement how do you synchronize through movement by having something that the dog wants so there's something to align there's an incentive for the dog to align with you before there was none then there is there's an incentive with you and you're going to move with them one step forth and back it's like you know a little waltz a little dance you know forth back and forth back and forth what it does is you're creating a foundation for this dog where the dog truly believes oh this is this is interesting because subconsciously a dog is always looking for references you agree with me he's watching the whole world looking for a reference so what he can recognize and then anticipate on it so if your reference is synchronization we're back and forth back and forth two steps back two forth now your dog starts to make a reference out of you how good is that so instead of like oh like popping the leash breaking the collars out you know pushing buttons or whatever like you know putting pressure on the chest to come backwards we have we need two people now here to hold them back for forging no all you guys need to do is synchronize but here's the bad part synchronization does not come in one two three sessions synchronization becomes habitual after let's just say 12 weeks 16 weeks if you have synchronized for four months straight oh now we're talking you see because now the little dog was two months old you add four months or six months eight nine months oh now we're talking you see now we're looking at strategy to have the dog sweet heal focus heal and contact heal all of those three you can also do at left at right in the middle and reverse okay you could start making the count right that's six times three

that's 18 types of healing and most people are struggling with one style which is they want on the left is focus healing for whatever reason they don't understand alignment they don't understand synchronicity they don't understand source focus they don't understand anything about how to align with the dog all they can think about is just stop just start the course you know my first question is how do i make my dog pull stop pulling okay no problem how old's your dog dog 16 weeks do you have any thing any nate in your imagination where a 16 week old dog would synchronize completely with you and heal like a boss like the patrol walk the street walk or do even a focus healing remotely for five ten minutes wait i don't know of such dog i literally do not know of such dog so this person's asking me i'm asking you something like to solve a problem which nobody in the world has ever done and no dog has ever performed a street or a contact heal without blasting him of course you can you can always stop a dog from pulling we all know that right you all know the you know he's going that way let's pull the pull him the other way okay you you do not want to train a dog from resentment or fear you want to train from a connection remember we're going on that path so if you're with me on this there's no dog in the world that could do this so because if you want a connection trust synchronicity alignment all these great things to have okay sounds a little bit holistic for you if you're into dog training but this is what's going to give you the best stuff ever because once a dog starts synchronizing this it's going to go to insanity you're going to have a ball there then he starts synchronizing with you because he thinks that's going to get me the ball and all these things of synchronization i've i've never met anyone that said after my course nino we got to stop the synchronization this is too much synchronization here this is like they've got to stop i can't get rid of him anymore they actually send me videos nate i just somebody somebody from israel who bought uh the class also and he's training a mix hushky a beautiful dog it's a puppy as a puppy and he's showing me videos and he's literally writing down nino you got to see this i can't get rid of him anymore on the street so he's he's now doing off leash on the street in a busy area with his dog synchronizing with him non-stop and he's like free and dog takes a few steps right come back synchronize it's like you have to see it to believe it and how is how is street healing different from

what most people would consider loose leash walking because it sounds like when you're getting the dog to um move in sync with the handler are you starting that with a lot of luring in the heel position or what's the foundation and are you taking three four months sorry go ahead the foundation is the contact heel that's your foundation of street heel that's where you use an active source in front of the dog to help you synchronize to pivot to do all these things so this process this is your foundation so basically what street heel is it's contact heel without the source that's literally what it is so if you've ever seen those videos where the dog is like contact healing to you know to get to the point where he needs to be and protection work whatever it's that without the protection work and without the source and without anything and the dog keeps the alignment you ditch the source you keep the alignment and you go left and right and you slow down and you run and it's like glue with that and here's the best part without corrections boom this is where that's blowing people mind how is this dog that's now eight months old doing focus heel contact heel street heel looking like an adult dog and you've not even corrected this dog nope and then on top of that you set this dog free you say all right go do something he doesn't even want to go anymore okay so your side effect of doing this is your dog's now addicted to alignment and to synchronization i've never read a book in my life nate that was talking about synchronization with dogs i've never read that but it's a real thing so yeah and actually leads me to my next question where uh you have a book on healing and in it you talk about healing as a path to freedom so what does freedom mean to you in the context of dog training and why is it so important healing is how can you have a dog and not have healing that would mean you're not going outside literally you would have just a little chihuahua that just spends his day on the couch and in your backyard and that's it and then you obviously don't need healing if you want to take your dog out the last thing you want is to feel oh okay i'm gonna need a back massage after this because the dog's gonna pull i'm gonna pull back break out the tools guys we're going out for a walk it's gonna be it's gonna be pretty intense you know because we need now now double hands you know to to get things no you want to go out you want to be free look i'm gonna give you an example of the best time ever last weekend just saturday and i was posting stories all the time i was taking out my malinois

uh to the city and we were sweet healing content we had the most fun ever with the family with the kid going shopping that's the ultimate outcome but if you do this if you go out with the family and you're not having a trained dog yet to do all this you know stuff of healing you truly believe your family is going to enjoy this trip with your dog no because you're always going to shout to this dog you're going to pull this dog back you're going to be like oh frustrated with this dog you can only enjoy when you've put in the work right and then you go out and after a year it's going to be beautiful but look what program would sell if i tell you yeah it's going to take you six to 12 months yeah but i don't even i don't even want you to take it if you believe it's going to be six days just don't do it don't buy my program guys if you want six day fixes it's not for it's not meant for that it is really for development for having all the good things after you put in the work because then literally you still have 10 years it may be let's hope even more 15 years even who knows that's when you can enjoy and you always use your same reference your dog is now um indoctrinated with a reference that is actually enjoyable i i look when i set my dog free on at the seaside last time he didn't even want to go swim he didn't want to go in the water i he could have i told him like just go man he didn't want to but i'll take that side effect over anything else i don't mind that he wants to stay with me i'll go in the water together you see so i have different type of relationships with my dog and i think that is what is most intriguing for people who see us and they think like how many hours you trained five ten minutes a day well how is that possible because we use a combination of skills which allows us to do things better faster more efficient and have a better outcome than you unfortunately who trains two hours a day you see but that's not i mean that's not to call out people it's just like the quality of your training and the decisions you make are going to have an impact for the rest of this dog's life so there better be good decisions and the time i'm going to put in better be qualified skills that i've earned and mastered because i knew what they consist of i know it's not impossible because it's dog training guys it's not olympics and you just put in the work and you get what you want or you you get what you put in so and that's something that i noticed too from all the different dog trainers that i've either worked with or trained with that each dog that we

end up getting that we train for higher higher level obedience we end up getting those results faster with each dog and so to go off what you're saying where you have five ten minutes a day but that's not how it started in the very beginning it took you much longer to build those skills but now that you have them in place if you invest those five minutes those five minutes are way more valuable than someone who hasn't developed the skills and then the dog enjoys the training because you built such a strong connection to the dog and i i actually i want to touch base on something that you mentioned earlier and i wanted to ask about it but then i forgot where you said you received an email and someone was asking if they could train the dog and the dog's seven months of age i get questions like that all the time my dog's three or my dog's five is it true you can't teach an old dog new tricks why do you think people believe that and what are some of the myths surrounding that popular saying of you can't teach an old dog new tricks i think it also has to do with the the information you get i mean probably people if you go on youtube they're not likely to bump into me with this story and they're probably not likely to watch even this whole podcast if they're just looking for answers so they're looking for answers they're looking for logic and something tells them that it's logical that an old dog who has bad habits is like all right no dog's a dog is not that smart so we can tell them what to do differently but he's still going to do the old stuff so it's been traditionally passed on from people other people who say look man i trained this dog for three years messed him up like that's it i had to restart with a new dog so it's like this is a story we've been told so at some point like you know these myths they they become real remember look i don't even know if that is in your case when i was young you know how they said you need to potty train if they're doing their business inside the home you got to take their nose shove it in their in their business and then take them outside and we believed it we believed it it's like yeah and i would tell my kids that you know if i would know better like yeah for sure even if i didn't train a dog but i do know one thing if they do that in the house this is how you fix it guys you see so subconsciously we have been exposed to all this type of information that at some point yeah oh old dog never mind you got to get a new one anyways so can i start your program

my dog's six months already yeah that's a puppy actually you know four months ago we still drinking milk at the breeder's place so oh how can it be too old but you see then it becomes like excessive almost people feel already screwed up in four months so that's i think that's actually why they ask is it too old did that i already screw up because okay what's the problem why you think it's can't cannot be trained at six months because then they'll tell you he's reactive yeah he's also um barking a whole lot at people uh he's doing it see then they come with a list of problems so they only see the problems and they have no clue how to even get to any type of solution so therefore six months probably too old right look we got all this problem going on yeah so i i do understand where it kind of comes from but of course it's it's unfortunate that people think this way but i i kind of understand where it comes from there's definitely some benefits to starting when they're young during that imprinting stage and you're trying to build the dog's food drive or their prey drive and you're trying to minimize any sort of behaviors that will become behavioral issues what i tell clients when they reach out and they ask similar questions i say there is a little bit of truth and the truth is the longer a dog has been practicing an unwanted behavior if i have an eight-year-old dog and that dog lived with someone who let's say was a hoarder and the house was packed with stuff and they would never leave and the dog just relieved themselves inside the house for eight years and now we're trying to potty train the dog that's going to be a little bit more difficult than the brand new puppy but it doesn't mean we can't teach that dog obedience based on the dog's own physical limitations some of the dogs probably aren't going to be able to move as beautifully as some of the dogs that you have that are healing because they're just not physically built for that that's right would you agree not not entirely because um what you just said um what was the beginning of your story again so you were saying yeah so how a lot of people reach out and they're saying you know my dog's five or six is it too late to train them and people are often thinking about that saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks and what i usually tell people it's not so much teaching the dog things it's breaking bad habits so if the dog's been practicing something for five years that could be a little bit more difficult to break than if you had a brand new dog they tried for the

first time and you prevented the first time so let's simplify it let's use dog logic with a dog problem okay simplify the problem you're looking at a reference why is a dog of x y h always doing the same thing because he's creating a reference remember my reference is alignment is synchronization is like you're creating references that the dog is anticipating on so the dog is anticipating continuously on references that he's been given without you even paying attention to it that are going to lead to that outcome so dogs are predictable extremely predictable in behavior i'm going to like turn this script around when i get a puppy should i predict that this puppy probably going to bite my hands at some point or my clothes yeah probably if it's a little energetic breed yeah is it probably going to happen that is not going to pull a leash if i pull it put a leash on it randomly probably going to happen right so you already know a lot of things are probably going to happen so then if you take it to the simplicity then and break it down like okay what is causing this pattern that's really the question what is this reference for the dog to go i know what's happening here so the thing is you gotta then not look at the outcome you gotta look at the triggers that actually cause certain things to happen because the dog always thinks he's doing the good thing i don't i never met a dog who regrets things so they just think we're living in the moment here this is great what we're doing these are great decisions like you see dog can attack another dog die he probably didn't think he was going to die so that's what i mean so if you look at then dog training instead of like going in with complex things look at this way any behavioral specialist at this point maybe even watching this could say look i studied a lot of years i can't come with solutions about xyz yeah but you'll never come with the synchronization solution with you and i'll tell you why because you just don't have that skill yet so therefore it's not in your arsenal your brain is not going to that place you're going to find different things that might be even way more complex than taking it to literally a synchronization stage now i keep saying this about synchronization because it's something that people never talk about it's always a correction or it's also a new association stopping from doing this and i know stopping a dog with aversives has immediate impact radical changes in behavior but it doesn't mean it's your best option and in dog trainer we also always should look at what are the options here so if you only get one type

of option well then it's going to be tempting to do that but if you have multiple options and then you can outweigh okay before we actually get started with this perhaps if we're going to stop the dog from pulling here's what happens when you stop him from pulling he's not going to enjoy his walks anymore too much why because there's too much pressure on the dog that he can't understand and he doesn't know what to do with and therefore gets a little bit more submissive or even confused or whatever you see so okay but i still want him to stop pulling that's totally fine and i have the tool to do it yeah and you have a youtube video to stop and pulling i get all of that but do you still want it if there would be a single chance that this dog is gonna not enjoy being with you because he knows you're handling what he really dislikes that's also part of negative reinforcement is if you're the creator of the discomfort it's you man like at some point dog is gonna know it's you i actually don't want to be associated with that you see i don't want to be part of it what i want to be part of is fun so if i'm going out with a little puppy i know nowhere in my book is going to happen that i'm not fun unless there is behavior that has nothing to do with development i'm going to give you example i pick up the puppy and the puppy literally bites me in the face and wants to rip it off that's not something like oh you little what you're doing now no of course but this is nothing to do with development when i go in i'm going to teach my dog to heal going to teach my dog disobedience teach him to recall teach him to hold things to out things to look at things this is all development when you're looking at the other side of my dogs like eating rocks the whole time stop him please do you see i don't want i want i don't want this to get out of context where nino said never stop your dog stop him by all means rocks are not part of his development he shouldn't eat them he shouldn't swallow them he shouldn't even chew them gonna break his teeth so this you got to stop how do you stop by then doing the thing that you try to avoid with also not pulling him back but that's a different story because if he sees you as a bad guy when he wants to eat a rock that's a good thing actually but i don't want to see him so i want the dog to see me as a bad guy when i'm going out on a walk and heal with him you see so you got to pick the battles here the of course dog training is going to be in a natural way always a little bit balanced where you go i'm gonna i'm gonna take some freedom

of you here but i'm gonna give you a lot of things here so it is like a natural balance of things so balance training is like a title that i don't like like oh you're balancing a positive only trainer again boxes you see i don't like boxes to begin with but it does take you to the reality of things is okay you have your behavior all the things that can go wrong and then you have skills all the things i need to develop so for example reactivity is also one of those big things you know i'm sure you get emails every day too dogs reactive what do we do well okay list me all his problems okay i got it now let's counter with all the things you could use in ideal circumstances if you would develop certain skills now name me the skills okay now we're countering with zero skills and five big problems how do you think that's going to end the energy has to go somewhere so the dog's going to use it and things that you don't like but how do you counter it countering with corrections okay maybe you'll get an outcome but maybe also not and maybe he'll also you're gonna make you pay the price for this you see so you always want to combat with skills too so it's not like uh and this or well you could do an ant story you can still have you can still work with great behaviorists that are going to help you but if you have an arsenal of skills and the dog has to because remember it's two different developments the dog skills dog and the handler well that obviously is going to open a new world of options and if there's something that i like to have in life it's options why people work so hard to earn money because they'll have options to maybe refuse a job they don't want to do isn't that the most beautiful thing of having money to begin with it's not necessarily owning a car that you're not going to drive because you're too busy working maybe but it's actually when somebody says i want you to do that and you say you know what i guess i'm not and that's the same thing with dog training you go to a club and you're qualified as in you have expertise and knowledge and skills to do this with your dog i don't think so actually told somebody today was talking about i went to a ring club talking a little bit about what we did and he says oh i can fix that for you it's in bite work because a little bit more technical so i can do that with this tool and i said no you're not he's like oh i said no i said i wouldn't be comfortable with that not ethically that's not something i want to go i can say that and he respects that because i know then well i can do

other things to help him in this problem i don't need to do that i have options you see because of my knowledge because of my my idea my imagination of even because if i if i would fix the problem it's in bite work made the dog going a little bit out of the center and stuff like that and if i if i knew it then i would have done it already so i asked for his opinion i don't like his answer as in this is not something i want to do with the dog so immediately i blocked that you know how many people do things because somebody told them and they actually know deep down they don't want to do it oh oh my god you know how many people go to a club stressed out to a dog school or their coach telling them do this and they're like oh i don't actually don't want to do this but they do it anyways also has to do with behavioral patterns somebody who has for example uh strong connection with people please others as a main driver control mechanism they're going to be prone to doing what they're told not because they want to do what they're told because they don't want to damage the relationship and for some people individuals that relationship is more important than trying to beef over this i'm not going to do this because of this and this and that you see and which is leading to the core of the problem then is it's a human now thing it's you should be able to say no at this point because you know it's going to go south you just know it i for example i don't need to practice a recall with uh 40 meter yard leashes and then send my dog away and recall him full speed i feel in my imagination this is a bad idea don't you agree i don't need the expertise of actually doing this my imagination tells me hmm no no thank you yeah but if that's the case why are you doing it oh because this person told you i've seen that at the police happened so many times that the hierarchy at the police is very vertical you agree it's like somebody on top gonna tell you what to do it doesn't matter if you it doesn't matter if you agree yeah the chain of command so it's the same thing canine handling instructor is the instructor is going to tell you what to do what are you going to do debate it like hey wait a second here no no no no come sit down here let's just talk about it this is not a democracy here guys this is like you're going to tell you what to do you're just going to do it now that is i'm talking vertical hierarchy like you said but it happens in clubs where people go voluntarily it also happens there i told you what to do why you did not doing it and and that doesn't mean this

person wants to do bad things for you and your dog it's just his idea or her idea being put to you and you're like thank you thank you for this i'm going to do this it is so hard social pressure even if you don't have that main driver for somebody who comes in new and people tell them do this it's extremely likely they're going to do it yeah and there's that could be a big problem too it's called the authority bias and i had some issues just like you took some of the lessons that you learned early on and realized that there could be a better approach and how you created the s flow and breaking down the different skills certain things that i've had as a student or learning one of which was the authority bias i was told certain things to do and just like you said i didn't feel good about it but i did it anyways and then i still didn't feel good about it and so when i work with students now or i work with clients i always try to make it very clear to them if you don't feel comfortable doing something if you don't want to do a leash pop and give your dog a correction if you don't feel comfortable using a remote training collar don't do it because then you're going to end up buying the collar you're not going to use it it's going to sit on the sideline anyways and if the trainer shows up now you're throwing it on you're going to be causing issues with the dog so i couldn't agree more and i also think that it's very important that dog training should be seen as a team effort and something you said a few times was it being fun you want your dog to enjoy working with you you want your dog to come out and be excited about the learning experience which is a big part of engagement the more they want to learn the more interested they are the faster they're going to learn and the better the results are going to be so i i do sorry go ahead you had something to add you just said the most important thing the desperation we get i think we're i'm sure we both get it every day people who contact you are in desperation mode and how they come from buying a dog of their dreams because they have the breed they want it they had everything set up and how did this dream turn into desperation in literally just a few weeks or months the it's crazy it is non-stop ongoing every day people are buying a dog today and in four or five months it's going to be a nightmare or even the next day so that that's the crazy part so for the fun for them what is fun what are you talking about fun like there's nothing fun about this you know i got this and this and this

problem can you please help me with this what are you talking fun this is not the circus you know where we're having all fun watching the show no this isn't this is serious okay you see we're already in that state of mind we're not talking like i just got a puppy let's have fun the minority the huge minority says i'm gonna go get a puppy and you know how would you advise me how how should i go about this but you you think you get emails like that that is like one out of a hundred like somebody who's like proactively looking for uh you know coaching you know searching for uh development already before they get into these uh these issues uh but so yeah i think it's it's so unfortunate that people are not having fun with their dogs that's yeah most of the time you're right people wait till they have the problem and ironically enough i literally just had a lesson right before this practice where they had written out an entire game plan and we went over the entire game plan made some adjustments and some changes but you're right we don't see that too often if people are coming to us often they're coming to us when they already have a problem and i want to ask something about your um your healing system and a lot of your obedience training in general where some people will describe it as as well as very flashy you said robotic earlier i think it looks amazing but i am curious are there any particular breeds or what we were talking about earlier ages or types of dogs that do especially well or dogs that have special challenges within your system yeah so you would obviously think who would be good at that type of stuff because you're talking more of a performance right it's like all energy and then doing things fast and clean must be a working dog right it's your own logic tells you it's a working dog and then i told you i have a love for the younger dog i told you so then there's somebody in the program for example with a little pinch for seven years old eight years old so okay already started like way past their uh development time remember and then they outwork and outclass the working breeds that it's almost like it there's something fishy about this you probably had this as a puppy you've probably documented this as a no do you actually that get that start training at seven eight years old and it does look better if you don't mind i'd like to pull up a video of this and if you can um break down what we're seeing in this video yeah absolutely so okay this is that fast obedience that we're looking for okay the fast reflexes boom based on energy source focus i love it and now what

she's going to do is look leash skills which is also part of my program fading skills you see she's fading the reward and intermediate rewarding boom you see now she's going to adjust the position you see okay everybody would be happy with this position look at this little dog nice position so here fading actively passive because now we're going to fade out the food you see it's gone yeah and now we're going to adjust still the position yeah so we can get a dog to do this and they're just going to enjoy it just as much so you can do your whole sloppy routine whatever or you could do this and this is equally fun you know so if you had a choice all right you could do obedience in 25 minutes and you'll end up sloppy and with slow obedience and you know crooked all that kind of stuff or you could just have it clean and precise and actually look energized then i'm choosing the last so i'm choosing this yeah and that dog looks like he's having a great time and clearly that handler has put in a lot of practice i mean she moves very well as you said they're very much in sync how long uh has she been in your program uh she's a graduate actually so she's been in the program for i think about a year a year yeah a little bit over a year and because she actually started with this dog this was a dog she used for the program and she started getting so much confidence in her abilities that then she purchased a working dog and now she's now she's doing like i have a little reel on her like both because then they both do the same thing they're both doing the positions so so then now they're synced together also with the handler one little pincher one malinois and she's doing this type of stuff it's it's really fun it's that's cool and we have people with a 14 year old dog also crazy i didn't send you that video but somebody with a 14 year old dog you can barely see even doing like source focus boom then just contact the dog goes into contact does a pivot then comes to the other side into a focus heel yeah and then gets a release to the reward and like that lady is so happy like that the dog is doing this this dog at 14 years old like if he's physically capable why should this dog not have fun doing this type of stuff you could see like this ties in into their natural instinct this is not like for our pleasure uh dog do some uh uh you know circles uh may may go on your back paws and do sit pretty you know no this is actually functional stuff that they enjoy because they find gratification in getting that reward doing the

stuff being connected there's no pressure so yeah and that's really important because i mean when someone comes to a dog trainer and they need help usually it's either a the dog's not doing something they want the dog to do so we're talking about obedience issues or it's b the dog's doing things that they don't want the dog to do so at that point we're talking about behavioral issues and i often say you know if you can communicate with a dog at that level and then if we also think about motivation well we know that dogs do things based on motivation access something pleasant prevents something unpleasant or the behavior itself is fun if we're talking about those intrinsic and extrinsic motivators when you see the dogs working within this system a lot of times it seems as if these behaviors have been developed to a point where they're now almost if not intrinsic meaning they enjoy doing the movement and again if we're talking about motivation and also considering the fact that dogs can't multitask so if i have a dog that loves doing this work loves being with me loves engaging with me then what are the odds of me dealing with a dog that's going to be reactive what are the odds of me dealing with a dog that has these behavioral issues they're significantly lower because of that relationship and because of the communication that has been built would you agree 100 if a dog by choice can react to the bike or remember what he did with you and see this as a huge bigger incentive for him to engage with then the bike mission accomplished because look if a dog and sometimes at eight weeks old you could see oh this little dog is like he wants to go after things he's not happy about other dogs you could some breeds just are not happy about seeing other dogs and if you believe that for one second you're just going to talk to this dog and change his mind about this it's embedded you already know then this dog probably for you know if if you would just not worry about this at all it's going to develop into this remember predicting the future of your puppy so if you know that's going to happen but you build so many assets of the dog connecting to you the chances are big you might not even know you might like he's not even going there he's like he's because my i have actually i had a reactive pup and when the dog sees bikes and like he he going into like it's almost like he's choosing then to let me do this let me do something else with you so he doesn't want to engage not because he's been corrected for it it's because he understood at a young age when i saw that he was going to do this

i was proactive because i'm ready when i have a young dog i'm ready i'm not like i said i'm not doing the family trips and be completely unprepared i'm ready with training gear with rewards with like i'm going into the city with preparations you see so they're not getting me getting me off guard so i know i see you you could predict the behavior something is coming boom and you do something else and the dog finds again a reference of this i see this dog and it reminds me of doing stuff with you that's the type of connection you want so the dog sees the dog now as a reference oh we're gonna do some fun stuff now that's what you want instead of like right yeah oh whoa whoa we got a problem you see that's what happens when you're not prepared although you could have predicted your dog was gonna pull your dog was probably gonna bark at other dogs your dog is gonna do all this stuff you went on a family trip you didn't have anything with you now you're here with this leash and this dog and his dog's like too too heavy to pick up now because if it's five six months you're not just gonna pick up a five six month old big breed and just all right let's slap him over the shoulder and we're going home no you're like oh damn we got a problem yeah and this problem now the dog's like ah you see because he got away with the dog was walking off now i mean people not gonna do dog fights you know so the dog's like ah so that strengthens that behavior you know well next time this this is fun dog has nothing else to think about he's not going on his field trips is you thinking like yeah we could do all this stuff right now they're going on field trips what's that here let me see which dog wants a piece of me you know that's the mindset these dogs are going out and people also go by the way he's reactive he can't go anywhere oh come on that was the best part you going out with your dog is the best part of having the dog and now you're saying you're leaving the dog home you guys are all going alone as dogs just have to wait it's like you see the whole vision imploded nothing was left you wanted the dog for protection work you never got there why not because you didn't follow the strategy now you have no other problems now protection work is like the least of your problems but i have reactive problems having pulling problems having the resource guarding problems not protection work like let's just forget about that it was a bad idea to begin with because it's going to install more aggression which is totally not true but you know that's what happens the the plan changes immediately everything implodes

as soon as the problems start stacking up there's no strategy there's no skill there's no program there's no coaching like uh yeah yeah what do we do yeah what do we do i don't know yeah and then they're usually reaching out for help five months after the dog's been practicing it for these five months now it's going to be even more difficult than if they had been proactive or started working on it right from the very beginning i want to ask one last question what's one thing you wish every dog owner or trainer in the world understood about the process of owning a dog that owning a dog is probably the easiest part because there's no regulations to own it unless you live in crazy countries probably where they where you can't buy dogs but for us in the west you can buy a dog anybody can own a dog dogs are appreciated supported like it's it's it's a privilege to have a dog you know but the problem is that people go in under prepared because they don't know they don't see it as oh well it's a skill well no they see it as just like i'm on basic stuff where does that come from that idea of basic is because it has been taught to us that basic obedience is your dog is going to come he's going to wait and he's going to heal with you it's basic i understand why they say it because it's basic needs for us to to have this type of control it is absolutely not basic for the dog so you're starting off with an idea of basic and actually if you're asking a recall you're asking one of the hardest exercises of all time why we're not talking about the kitchen recall okay can we agree we're not talking about i got your food bowl uh bobby yeah of course he's gonna come hopping around we're talking about he was about to get killed going chasing a squirrel to the highway i recall him and now he needs to come back can we agree that is a top level exercise you're changing the dog's drive changing his visuals because he's switching to you then completing the movement to go into a finished position so you can actually then get a hold of him we're talking high-end skills so if you see that as basic and then the worst part is you're not even hitting basic because you want basic but we just got we just didn't quite make it to basic so we we stayed mediocre so now you got mediocrity you got a dog in the city going loose or you want to give them freedom remember freedom the path of freedom but you can't because simply there is no chance in the world your dog's ever going to come back or even heal with you none of

that so your dream became disparity and i think for anybody who owns a dog and who wants to do wants to have these things who truly thinks to themselves like what do i actually want to do with this dog i want to take my my family i want to heal with him because obviously you need to move from a to b so you have so many preparations to do and we're all going in under prepared so even me like we've all been guilty of that all been guilty yes i did some research on breeds i did research on police work i did research on training but i i didn't i didn't actually train a skill so i was in the same position i got to panic what do i do what do i do these clubs not helping me i need a different answer for this you see so i was also backtracking so if there's one thing that i could tell people who are about to start who have a young dog or who want to start fresh out whatever your reason is or however i can help you is the plan having the master plan is creating the vision for you creating solutions for you proactively it's like yeah this is how modern policies also go for law enforcement is back in the day you wait until trouble starts and then we all start fighting you know now they know they know oh the the rival team is going to come so instead of having them fight and we break them up why don't we build a corridor why don't we do this so you see you are like oh you're setting yourself up for success so you don't have to make the same mistake and i think if it's one thing in dog training we all do still is make the same mistakes because how am i getting the same question from somebody in alaska and then literally five minutes later somebody in australia is texting me the exact same thing and these people don't know each other so that means you guys are showing patterns also and this pattern is underprepared no idea of skills no strategy no plan nothing so we you and i nate so that's our responsibility because we post we try to educate people with free resources and so on it's our job to help you guys and that doesn't mean you need to like my style some people go like this is too energetic this is not totally fine go with something you like but at least have a plan don't take it as uh this is a basic man i'm just gonna train this dog a little bit i ask people every day nate one of my first questions what do you want from them and they they then it's a border collie it's like an intelligent breed like for sure not like a small pocket dog but even they are intelligent for sure and they literally say he just needs to stay and uh come when i call him that's it that's it okay now ask

him again you sure that's it now you can say anything think big now that's pretty much it okay so you have an intelligent dog with so much potential and all you want him to do is sit and come when you want hmm okay it's so you don't have to be a genius to understand there are going to be some problems here down the road you have a you have a german shepherd okay even if it's a show line doesn't matter it's still a very smart dog and all you want to do is sit and come with you we need to we need to help people understand that this is first of all not a great decision for the dog to only do this type of stuff and even that you ask is also going to require skills that is something i'm on a mission here wasn't that just like oh all right let me do this because i love it myself i put my own dogs away so i can help other people and i don't need to i don't need to i don't need to because if you're online you can literally not do that i do it because i feel responsible for doing it because i want to do it because i want to help people i want my uh students to be even better than me i want them to thrive i want them to excel i want i want this this is what gives me satisfaction and you know and people grow in stages we're a little bit older not super old but in the beginning i was only it was only a about what i could do with my dog i didn't care about anybody else then i started caring about other people i became an instructor i wanted to help then i became an instructor and i thought hmm i'm i'm all i i apparently i only want to help the people who wanted the most or who was the best in there in this you see so i was like picking the piece of people i like to train also not good you see so now i enjoy really people from the bottom like if if there's like one story i can share one story that i think is the biggest honor somebody imagine this somebody lives in iran yeah iran is not dog friendly man that's not just a place you buy a dog and you're like you're supported no first of all also they don't have money to afford anything this person has a severe addiction with alcohol all right so he stays up he wants this he's inspired by whatever that is same as me you wake up one day you're inspired he takes all his saving does this thing comes from a very bad position where you know it's not great if you are having addiction and on top of that your community doesn't support anything you actually don't have anything to work with and we we we brought him up to absolute insane level he changed his life he quit the alcohol he got purpose he he got incredible training he's respected now in

this country also a lot of jealousy of course because that's also what happens if you get good so this is what we were able to do through an online program was able to reach somebody in iran change his entire life his family's life his anything his status you can i mean now people asking him he got followers himself he didn't have followers who's gonna follow him he's got followers himself what what an insane story that is how you can help people remotely by just giving them hope and giving them a method that they can work with and grow and you grow with them i see i had a dog when he was a puppy now he's showing demos like you would say hey what are you doing in iran no it's not me it's the guy wow like i can i can literally any he's so grateful about this he writes me almost every day like man thanks to you thanks to you and like man it's also thanks to you you wanted this you chose to do this you gave your savings to take this class not even knowing what the outcome was going to be i think people choosing that from that type of position that type of situation and then turning that into something incredible i think in the west we have a lot to learn also we have all the options we can go to anybody anywhere look if you you you spend some money of course doesn't work for you ah forget about the money for these people they do something it's do or die it's like no no no no no this is like it has to work i'm gonna quit the alcohol why i told you the program wasn't just about dog training it was about psychology it's about discipline it's about so many things that or other trades that people can value and yeah and we have a few of those stories we also have you know matt falcon with you know two million youtube followers like starting from scratch i remember back then i did youtube's not youtube's i'm sorry um uh like zooms one-on-one i didn't have an online platform you just literally book a call with me one-on-one i would explain you he would send me videos and like what is that what are you doing now he had a german shepherd like all right man we got to change a lot of things he said yeah i like it but i like your dog so much and i remember he asked me can i buy a dog from you and i literally said nate there is no way you're buying a dog from me i said there's no way no way you're going to buy a dog for me and he's like why not i said look man this skill what you're showing right now it's not going to be a match it's not there's nothing in my mind that tells me that i would ever consider you buying a dog of my little or no it's not going to happen but anyways you know what

he's like i'm going to prove him that i'm worth it and he did and then he bought a dog and he he was entitled to it because he did earn the skill and he bought another one and he started you know telling his story and and boom guy exposed he i remember he had 94 followers now he has what 4.7 tick tock million uh nearly two million on youtube that's also crazy right these people like they found inspiration they found a career some people find a solution for the dog some people find a new life some people find relationships even on the community it's like so many great stuff has happened since then i cannot imagine doing anything else but this like i could talk about this all day i could do this all day i never sleep man i don't know but i never sleep i sleep five six hours i wake up immediately boom we got to help some people here we got to inspire people because if it's i'm not helping i'm trying to make a video that hey you see what's possible we got videos now with puppies that insane like attacking vacuums two weeks later you saw that video two weeks later that puppy's laser focused not even moving he's watching that vacuum you know the robot come near his paws almost just watching it yeah all in tune that's what we do transformations 100 and i'm sure if they wouldn't have met me oh that dog still be eating vacuum cleaners and that type of satisfaction is indescribable for me that's like being a coach is a privilege is an honor it's something i want to do i'm going to pass this on if i'm too old to coach i'm already helping somebody coach other people i said look if something happens to me i want you to take over i want you to help these people i want you to to coach them like we did put so many years in this program to develop i this this needs more than than just a quick fix and like we're helping people uh just try this we want transformations and that's what gives me the most satisfaction so everything my biggest fear in life was not being able to to do anything significantly and my parents would think i'm some kind of loser right that was a big fear of me because i saw somebody who was successful and talented and and had all the accolades and i didn't and i always try to but like i can try but that doesn't mean i can make it but you know what at some point you will find out if you if you master your own mind you could do a whole lot more it's something it's uh i don't want to i don't want to like sound cheesy or something but hey the mind has as a certain ways you know like you said nobody gave me a dime that i was going to be a

canine handler let alone i would do this zero zero chance zero well it's it's been really excellent and i think something you said which was very important how you said you feel like it's a it's a privilege for you to be able to teach and you certainly found your purpose i mean watching you work with dogs it's like this was his calling for sure and i think that's something that also really resonated with me when you said it was when people are getting their dogs they should also see that as a privilege and if we see it as a privilege it means we're going to have more gratitude so this has really been excellent and i appreciate you taking the time today and every good session builds anticipation for the next one so where can our listeners go to find more of your wisdom until the next time i thank you so much nate for having me on your show i really enjoy your mind also into this so i appreciate that opportunity and if you guys want to know more about me it's sts canine you can find me on instagram on facebook on tick tock even on youtube and uh if you want to want the website it's stsk9.com it's going to lead you to my program free resources if you want to do a free class program whatever free book ebook we got everything for you so uh and you're always uh welcome to reach out and send me a dm because you'll be talking directly to me no bots for me i'm old school man no bots that does mean i might not respond within the two minute window it can take a few hours sometimes a day but i will respond to you personally that's me if you're talking it's me so that i like that that that does create a lot of um limits for me to talk to everybody but at least you're talking to me i don't want no bots i don't like bots myself and i will put all the links that you just mentioned in the description and for everybody else stay calm stay consistent and stay curious we'll see you next time thank you