E23: 카말 페르난데스(Kamal Fernandez) - "동기부여와 통제"

And my Malinois and my older Border Collie, they both do obedience. I'm sort of shifting my sort of goals, as it were, to new disciplines. I've sort of done obedience for so long, I just want to have a little bit of a change. And I think for an instructor and the teacher, it's really good to keep fresh and to teach your dog new things and also be on the recipient of being a student as well. I think that's really healthy. So you're pushing into agility? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I mean, I've just started. My Spitz does agility. He's up to, I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in the US, but he's at grade five level now. And my Border Collie bitch is just starting her competitive career. So they're both doing really, really pleased with them. I've only, my time's a little bit, I mean, obviously I have a young child now, a baby. So my time's a little bit limited, which is always a constant battle. Bless their hearts. They seem to be carrying me a little bit at the moment, to be honest, but that's down to good foundation. So yeah, no, they're great. They do all doing really, really well. That's awesome. How did you, I know you mentioned you started out in obedience. So how did you first get into that? How did you start out in dog sports? So I actually, I was always obsessed with dogs. And I was fanatical about the prospect of owning one. And I badgered my parents for years and years and years about getting a dog. And they eventually succumbed. And they buckled into me to get a dog. And that dog was absolutely, every single behavioral issue you could probably ever encounter that one dog had. And it was largely down to pet dog owners, you know, just like naive people thinking, you know, I tell it sit, why doesn't it sit? Oh, you know, I let it off the lead. Why doesn't it come back? We just didn't understand the concept of training dog. We just, you know, like most, a lot of people, we just assumed the dog came hardwired to do it. And she was watching agility on television. And it was, there was a guy there called Greg Derrick, who anybody knows about agility. He's one of the top competitors and trainers in the world. And he was, Greg's a little bit older than me. And he was there competing at Crufts in the junior competition. And I always thought, well, you know, if he can do it as a junior, and I think he won that year. I thought, well, it must be achievable. I must be able to do it. So I tried to contact the local agility club. And at that point, they said, oh, no, you can't start bringing a dog to do agility until you've gone to obedience training. She wasn't a puppy puppy.

She must have been sort of six to 10 months old. They said, oh, no, you can't start with her until she's a lot, well over a year. So I thought, oh, God, what am I going to do for this time? Anyway, they said, I'll take her to obedience training. And I took her to obedience training. And it was just domestic pet training, very, very, very old school, you know, check chain, walking around the hole, checking the dog, you know, which at the time, you know, this was 26 years ago, wasn't unusual to be honest in this country. And it just so happened that I stayed on one evening to watch the more advanced people train their dogs. And there was somebody doing competitive obedience. And it just really, really inspired me because of the level of control she had of her dog. I remember she left it at one hand on a stage that's at the hall, actually where I now teach. And she went there and she did sort of six position changes. And I was just blown away by the fact that she could, there's my dog that I can't even let off the lead. And she can leave her dog the other side of the room and give it positions, which appeared to be on, you know, the dog seemed to be on some sort of like magic slash electronic remote control. I don't know what I was just blown away by it. So it just made me really go, wow, I want to do that. But and it just really, my career just went in that path. I sort of got more and more interested in it. I saw her train numerous dogs to do heel work. And I just got addicted to that as a concept, really. And I never really followed up the whole agility thing. And it's ironic that now, 26 years later, I'm finally getting into agility. I'm a bit of a slow learner, but there you go. They're like the nevers, they say. Hey, you got there. You just took your time. So you mentioned that you started out choke chains, traditional training, all that stuff. How would you describe your training philosophy today? I talked recently at a conference and was speaking about my personal journey in dog training and how it's really taken, you know, a really, really diverse route in that we started like, I think a lot of people that have been training dogs for, you know, 20 plus years in more compulsion based dog training and dominance based theories to training dogs. You know, you had to be the boss, you had to be the pack leader. And, you know, it was very much rote learning with them. The dog didn't, you know, the dog's thoughts, feelings, emotions were never considered, really. It was just make the dog do it, you know. But, you know, I always instinctively felt that there was a better way out there.

And it didn't sit with me as an individual as, oh, I thought, oh, I'm not a forceful person. I'm determined. I'm, you know, I'm very goal orientated, but I'm not one for force. If, you know, I wouldn't force somebody to do something, I wouldn't force my dogs. It just didn't quite align with who I was. And then I gravitated to more to more motivational methodology, which was slightly more show and what I would call show and tell. So you'd show the dog what you wanted to do. You'd reward the dog. And if the dog didn't do it, you'd show it again. If the dog didn't do it again after that, you'd probably correct it and then reward it. So there was more reinforcement being used, but still that element of compulsion in there. And I was never extreme in my use of other than the check chain scenario, which was, you know, just sheer ignorance. I was always somebody that wanted to interact with my dogs. I wanted to, you know, my, I mean, I used to take my dog, the dog that I first had, you know, she was like my little, my friend more than anything. You know, I used to take her out, you know, we used to go out for the whole day. And we used to go play over the, what we call the dumps and stuff. So it was, you know, she was my little friend. So there was a real conflict between what I was doing in training and how I was with her in general. So I gravitated to more what you would now perceive as reinforcement-based dog training. And then I sort of started to clicker training became more prominent. I would say probably about in this country, probably 15 years ago, something like that, 15, 20 years ago. And initially the reaction was, oh gosh, this is, you know, a lot of rubbish. But, you know, I was inquisitive about it. And, you know, I was skeptical and I was like, oh, there's, and the more in the way I watched it, I thought there's something to this, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Again, it's amazing how life takes you on this journey, isn't it? I did psychology when I was at college. And I did it as later on as part of, I studied, started a degree and I did an element of it was psychology, which talked about learning theory and operant conditioning, classical conditioning and so forth and so forth. It then sort of all fell into place and it made more sense. So then I started to dwell with the dog that I had into clicker training. And initial, my initial reaction was, oh, well, this is, you know, I tried it. I pressed the clicker. I gave him the reward and the dog didn't miraculously do it really, which I knew wasn't.

By that point, I was a little bit more astute, but I thought I'm missing something. I'm missing something. You know, this isn't, you know, I just can't work this all out. Anyway, it was niggling away from me. And with that dog, I sort of tried it and I thought, okay, this doesn't work. Chuck the clicker, chuck my teddies out the pram and flounced my skirt. And I thought, right, that doesn't work. I'm going to go back to what I did. And I did, I trained that dog more, I'd say traditionally, slash with a bit of more like clickery training interspersed there. And he, he was a, it wasn't what I would say was a straightforward, easy dog, but he actually, the, the, there was a couple of key things that made me realize, do you know what? I have to change what I'm doing because the, the things that I clicker trained was so, the responses and the reaction and the, and the, the dog's understanding was so more salient than what I taught him in vert commas traditionally. And that's not to bash traditional training. It could be my application. It could be my understanding. It could be a thousand and one things. So with my subsequent dogs, I made a commitment to say, that's it. I'm going to do this or die. Basically, if I don't create, if I don't, I'm going to clicker train these dogs from the get go. And if I don't clicker train them, I'm not going to train them at all. That was like, I had that in my head. And so I, I really sort of held a gun to my own head and said, you're going to do this. And it, and it was the making of my dogs and my career and, and how I perceive dog training. And I now, you know, my, my philosophy in dog training is about reinforcement, find a way to reinforce the dog and minimize the use of, you know, punishment. And, you know, even just withholding reinforcement, find a way to reinforce the dog and create the dog being correct and successful and be strategic in your use of, um, uh, withholding reinforcement, et cetera. Um, and it's brought me in a sort of a real, a place from a dog training point of view that I feel really, really comfortable with. I feel, uh, morally, ethically, you know, even to be, you know, it sounds a bit, um, grand, but even spiritually, I, I like the way that I train my dogs. Now I feel comfortable in it. It sits with me on a personal level. It sits with me in terms of the relationship I want with my dogs. Um, they make choices. If they don't want to work, they don't train. It's not a problem. I don't force them. I don't push them. I convinced them that what I want them to do is kind of interesting and enjoyable and actually really, really fun.

Um, so the relationship I have with them is the relationship I have with my dogs. Now they're not waiting for the Jack and Jack and Hyde split personality. It's like, you know, I was always very much about interacting with them, but occasionally I'd suddenly be this person that would say, Hey, now you're going to do this. And it, and on some level, I always felt there was that element of, um, they were waiting for that person to turn up. Um, and now I don't have that with my relationship with my dogs and I haven't done for, you know, for more dogs I've trained with reinforcement based methodology. They're not. Um, and I was just fortunate that the dogs I had that I trained alternatively were just very, very forgiving. Um, so yeah, my, my training philosophy is, um, it's about, you know, reinforcement is the key. It builds behavior. If you know, if you learn nothing else about operant conditioning and clicker training, reinforcement will save the day, so to speak. So I did, um, some Googling of you before this call, you know, I kind of mentioned in your intro that you teach seminars, uh, internationally and they seem to be on a wide variety of topics, everything from foundations to extreme proofing. So I wanted to ask kind of what you enjoy teaching, what your favorite thing to teach is and you know, why? That's a really easy one. My, my actual favorite topic is foundations, uh, foundations for any dog sport. That is by far my favorite topic because that's where all the good stuff happens. Um, you know, that's where you really lay your, your, well, your foundations for a successful, um, career in any dog discipline. And, um, I think the irony is, is that people always want to move on to what I would qualify as the sexy stuff. But the irony is, is that the sexy stuff is actually easy if your foundations are laid solidly and firmly. And I think I've had more aha moments when I teach foundation to people, um, than I have anything else. I also, I mean, I have to say I like behavioral issues. Um, and I, um, I, you can make great impact and, and literally change somebody's life and their dog's life or save somebody's life with behavioral work and giving them a new take on how they deal with their dog at present, you know? Um, but I would say, um, really, really extreme behavioral cases are really, really, um, juicy to get involved in and do some fun. Um, and dogs that, you know, people say they've, they're on the cusp of writing the dog off and the dog can, is so phobic or aggressive or dog reactive or whatever the case may be.

And you can literally turn that dog and that person's relationship around. That's really rewarding and enjoyable to work with. Um, but I would say as a bog standard seminar foundation by far, um, it's just, you know, because you've got young green dogs, you can see the light bulbs going off for the dogs. You can see the pieces being strung, strung together that are going to ultimately lead to the dog, um, being this amazing competitive dog. And you can see it literally unfold before your eyes. Right, right. And I mean, with the behavioral thing, I mean, a lot of people just think of that as a challenge. I think it's, it takes a certain type of personality to be like, no, this is actually really cool. Yeah, absolutely. I think you have to be a little bit, a little bit odd to enjoy it by far. But, you know, I think, um, you know, we've seen so many changes in terms of dog training. And I think that there is a massive lack of, um, knowledge on behavioral, um, behavior and how to deal with the behavior so that the dog can actually function in the real world. And also, I think there's more a sway towards behavior management versus actually helping the dog and dealing with the actual cause of the issue, which is where I like to, you know, I'm all about management. I think that's great to have skills to manage your dog and have knowledge and awareness, et cetera. But what I really want to do is actually let's, let's, let's deal with the core issue. The core issue is this. The dog is, I don't know, frightened, scared, apprehensive, whatever. Let's whittle it back and deal with that and help this dog be a confident, well-adjusted member of the society. Focus on the emotions and not just the behavior. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, I think that, um, uh, that stripping it back to the real core of what's making this dog. And the beauty is you can do, it's all done with reinforcement. It's all by just focusing on what you want the dog to do versus by dealing with the, oh, you know, um, the symptoms of let's, let's actually get down to the real nuts and bolts of it and help this dog, you know, and, um, as opposed to managing it, you know? Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So I want to switch topics a little bit and dive into healing since that's kind of your, uh, kind of the thing you're most well-known for. At FCSA, I know that's mostly also kind of your focus. So since you're in the UK and you do FCI style healing, and I'm sure you get this question all the time, but can you share some of the differences between the English FCI and North American styles of healing? Like what, what is that? Yes.

So, um, there is even in FCI obedience to UK obedience to AKC obedience, there's, there's slight, there's changes. The basic principle of how I approach teaching it is all the same stuff. I just make minor little adjustments depending on the, the, um, code that you subscribe to. So, um, FCI obedience in the UK, we, the general gist of it is that we allow contact with our dogs in heel work, that our dog can be very, very close to the leg. Um, whereas in FCI obedience and AKC or CKC or even Australian obedience, they, the dogs are ideally, they should be, uh, a gap or a freeness between the leg and the, um, the dog. Um, so that's the biggest, um, core visual difference. There is technical differences between, um, FCI obedience and say AKC in that there's a, a different requirement of the test. Um, in the UK we have, we allowed, our test is probably a lot longer than I'd say American healing and that it can go up to five or six minutes of healing. Um, you can do, um, yeah, you can do patterns, you can do weaving, you can do circles, you can, you do changes of pace and you do positions in motion. Um, so our healing is probably more complex in a lot of ways than AKC healing. The FCI healing test is actually, there's quite a lot to it because they do changes of pace. They do positions in motion. Um, they do, um, sidestep healing. They do, um, all different little intricate moves. So there's complexities to FCI healing, um, which, um, again, it just makes it interesting. Anybody that's a heal work or healing junkie, um, I think that they, they appreciate that, you know, healing is quite a complex exercise. There's so many entities to it. There's so many layers to it. Um, and anybody that really is into detail into the, um, fanatical little details of dog training would love healing and the way in which I teach it. So talking about how you teach it, how do you approach teaching heal work? How do you start or how do you approach the bigger picture and break it all down? Yeah. So I, I, I, everything is a component trained. It's like all my training. Everything is broken down into tiny, tiny little pieces of a puzzle. And the pieces in the puzzle probably looks nothing like the greater exercise or the greater, um, goal. But what it does is it allows me to fast track the process of teaching my dog healing. Um, and what actually looks like a very complex exercise for the dog is actually very simple because it's broken down into tiny little sections. Um, I use a combination of shaping the dog and I will use lures, but I fade the lure very, very quickly.

Um, I minimize the use of a lure, but I use it very, very specifically. And I'm very aware of the amount of times that I would use a lure. Um, I'm, I'm looking for the dog to, um, perform healing with both not only drive and enthusiasm, but also accuracy and have a really comprehensive knowledge of its, um, body, where the body should be, where its feet placement should be, where every single part of its, um, position is. Um, so it's quite a detailed process. Um, and I say for people that really like the details of dog training, it's definitely one of the exercises that they would gravitate to in this methodology. I also, I appreciate that it's not this methodology and this approach isn't for everybody because it's quite, um, uh, quite intense, um, and quite, um, intricate in some of the maneuvers and handling, but once you have trained it, the way in which I explain it to people, it's like you're, you've got a dressage horse, which has, you know, the ability to react to a slight little adjustment of movement, you know, and they understand the tiniest little detail. Um, and it, it gives you, uh, um, for me, it gives the dog a greater level of knowledge and confidence and understanding. And also the end picture to me is, um, far more, um, appealing. Mm-hmm. So you mentioned in there that you kind of break it down sometimes even to pieces that don't necessarily look like heel work. Do you have an example of that just so that we can kind of wrap our brains around what you're talking about there? Yes. So, I mean, one of the things I would teach is a, um, a hand target, um, and I use the hand target as a means to teach the dog to, then I transfer the hand target to a heel work position and then I transfer the heel, the hand target on my leg and I fade that out of the equation. So that would be one example. Another example, I teach the dog to do a foot target where the dog has to position its foot in a very specific place, um, next to my, the instep of my left foot. Um, so again, that little detail looks nothing particularly like the dog's greater picture of your dog moving and being in motion. But those two simple exercises, a hand target and a foot target are core entities of how I teach healing. So in your bio, I mentioned that you like to use games and play to create motivation and control. And those two things, I mean, they can often seem like total polar opposites when you're actually training. So how do you walk that line? How do you accomplish both? And in some semblance of balance, you know, this stuff that we ask our dogs to do is largely, um, uh, you know, mundane and boring.

And unless there's an element within the dog that finds the behavior self rewarding, like tracking or, um, herding can be, um, intrinsically rewarding for some dogs. But the stuff certainly for obedience for a lot of dogs can be very mundane and very, um, monotonous. And, you know, there's a lot of repetition in it, which for a lot of dogs, especially the other breeders, they're not going to relish the thought. So for me, the baseline commitment is I have to make the dog and not make the dog. I have to create the dog wanting to do this, this mundane, boring stuff, because at the end of the day, it's just about my ego and my, my goals. If the dog doesn't really care, he'd be quite happy going for a really good walk and having a fun time chasing, you know, little furry things. Um, so for me, I make that commitment to motivate my dogs and ensure that the dog wants to engage in every part of their training. So in doing so, obviously the, I need to create motivation. I need to build drive, but I'm always balancing that with self-control around the reinforcement. And I would do that again in my foundation. So, um, there's foundation games that I play with my dogs and I, I strongly advise anybody in dog sports to make sure you have these skills. Um, but there's also a lot of listening and there's a lot of, um, uh, thinking whilst in a high state of arousal that I implement via those games. So when I then move that on to actually take teaching an exercise, the dog already has the ability to have self-control, have impulse control, um, understands the concept of proofing or, um, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, it's the two things to me, um, although they're polar opposites, they're both, they're both striving for the same thing. You know, to have a dog that's got loads and loads of enthusiasm, but as largely out of control to me is displeasing to the eye to have a dog that has a lot of accuracy if you want, um, or technical correctness, but has no spirit and soul to me again, is unpleasing to the eye. So it's about having both ends. And the reason I love obedience so much is because the sport in itself is a, it's almost like a conflict of, um, both those things. You need absolute drive and accuracy. And it's so hard to get both. And that to me is the appeal. Um, I would say that the most skillful trainers in the world that I've seen are, um, obedience from an obedience background and they have a strong, um, obedience background and, and the ability to create drive, but also ultimate accuracy, which, um, I think to me is, is, um, the absolute pinnacle of dog training.

Kind of understanding those two and creating the balance and, and having a dog that exhibits both of them so clearly. Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's always a battle. I mean, when you get one, you create drive, you lose accuracy. When you create accuracy, you lose drive. And the two things are, as I say, it's all about just tipping the scale and the, you know, I can count on one hand how many times I've gone in there and competitively and I've gone, wow, my dog, absolutely. You know, it's always like you get one thing and you lose another. Uh, that's, you're striving for, it's a bit like winning the lottery, that one day when the, everything goes in your favor and all the years of training, um, a climate, uh, culminates in, uh, in that, that magic moment, so to speak. So it sounds like you're saying is it's almost a constant process. You're training one and then you're training the other and then you're training one. It's constantly in play. But to me, that's the joy of it, really. You know, you never stop training, you never stop learning, you never stop growing, really. Well, it's time for us to get to the last three questions that I ask everybody who comes on the show. So first, what's the dog-related accomplishment that you're proudest of? There's so many things and not necessarily capacity-related that I'm very proud of. Um, I would say, um, I'm, I'm proud of, um, the first dog I ever trained competitively. Um, he became an obedience champion and that was a bit of a personal journey as well as a dog training journey. So that was something that I'm immensely proud of. Um, and the other thing that I'm also proud of in terms of dog, uh, dog-related, um, was, um, being involved with, um, Dogs Might Fly, a project where we took rescue dogs and we taught them to, um, fly a plane as part of a project on television. But the proudest moment in that is that those dogs were largely just discarded as written they were rescue dogs. And they, we, you know, the, the work that in the impact that all those dogs found homes with largely with, uh, members of the, um, uh, production crew, actually like the makeup artist had one, the cameraman had another, a couple of the trainers took dogs on. Um, and it was such a, um, a great, everybody was so for the dogs in that project and it was all about the dogs and, um, and showing what can be achieved with dog training, good dog training, and also that rescue dogs are capable of such great things. So I'd say that was something I'm very proud of to be involved with something that had such a positive outcome. So wait a minute, back up. You taught them to fly a plane?

Yeah, yeah. It was a project I did, oh God, it's got to be about two years ago now. Um, we took 12 rescue dogs and we were with them for, it was probably about, oh gosh, it was all the summer. So it must've been nearly probably six, eight, about six months. And we took these 12 dogs and they were literally sourced across the country. Um, all rescue dogs, like due to one of them was due to be put to sleep the next day. Another one was, um, you know, discard, you know, loads of different background stories. And we were involved with rehabbing them from whatever issues they had and teaching them basic skills. And then the end goal, three of the dogs from the 12 were selected to go on to be trained to control and fly a plane. Um, it was, um, on, it was on Sky Television. I don't know if you have that in the States, but it was, um, a really, really great project to be involved with. Um, Victoria Stilwell was involved with it. A guy called Mark Vetti who was involved with the driving dogs. I don't know if you've ever seen that on YouTube. I haven't, but now I'm going to have to go look it up. Yes. Driving dogs for Mark Vetti. So that was, it was his brainchild and we, I was one of the trainers involved for doing it. Um, so that was a really, really rewarding project. So when, when you say fly a plane, like what exactly were they, were they doing? Like what was the behavior that they were? The dog was, they had to control the plane so that it's, um, it was on a rig. The dog was, um, had to, the plane was got up by, um, a pilot up till it was literally obviously because they couldn't do it to land and to take off. But once the plane didn't fly, the dog was then had to control the plane and perform a figure of eight in the air. Um, and, um, were they, were they ended up with three dogs? Um, one of, actually I saw one this, uh, yesterday, uh, Thursday and Friday, a friend of mine now owns him. Um, and they took three dogs, um, and they float, yeah, they flew a plane. If you Google it, um, dogs might fly. You'll see all the information about it. That's really interesting. Yeah. And one of the dogs that I, that I trained, he, cause what happened was there was two phases. There was the initial phase where they had the 12 dogs and then they selected out the 12 dogs, the three dogs, and then they were then passed on to, um, three trainers to work intensively on. And, um, I, I initially, so all, there was four trainers that were given, um, three dogs each, and then they were whittled down to three dogs. And then they took three trainers on. And, um, one of the dogs that I worked with closely, his name was Reggie.

He was a golden, sorry, a Labrador German shepherd cross. He went on to be one of the dogs that flew the plane. That's awesome. So that's rewarding. And yeah, he was, and he's now lives in New Zealand. And when I went back to New Zealand recently, I went and met him and he gave me the most amazing welcome. Um, and I put it on Instagram and what have you, just amazing dog. Yeah, I will, uh, for our listeners, I will try and find the links to those videos and I will share them in the show notes so that you guys don't have to go Google a ton. They will be right there for you. This is usually my favorite question, although you think you might've beat it with the last one. What's the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? The best piece of training advice I think is a Bob Bailey ism. And I think this is well versed in dog training, animal training fields. Just think, plan, do, review. So think what you want to train, plan your training sessions, and then go and do it. And then go and review your training sessions. That's one thing. And the other thing is, um, use, um, video recording devices to record your training sessions. It's like, it's absolutely revolutionized my own personal training. It's like, I have my own instructor that's with me 24 seven. Um, whenever I want him to, he can turn up and give me feedback about my dog training. Um, if nothing else, I would suggest that everybody do both, which is what the Fensi, um, sport, dog sport Academy is so great for using the medium of the internet and videoing to facilitate great learning. And I think it just encapsulates how powerful that resource can be if used effectively. And I know people are a little bit self-conscious and a bit, um, paranoid about watching themselves, but by gosh, you will glean the benefits tenfold over. So I'd say those two bits of advice, um, think, plan, do, and review your training. So be, be a mindful dog trainer as opposed to a reactive or responsive dog trainer. Be, be thoughtful, be efficient in your, the use of your time and also video your training sessions. And then finally, who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? First person that really influenced my, um, training was somebody called Sylvia Bishop, who is, uh, she lives actually down the road from me now. Um, but she was, um, a pioneer in the concept of play equals work equals play. And, uh, Sylvia, um, trains a lot in the States and our training is differed a little bit. And now quite a bit, now we're not, we don't necessarily follow the same approach to training dogs.

But what I would say about Sylvia is Sylvia was the first person that talked through the concept or brought to my attention, the concept of breaking exercises down into component parts and also making your training a game. Um, and she was, you know, so far ahead of her time when she was around and she's been training dogs for God, it's got to be 40, probably 50 years now. Um, and when she first came onto this, uh, into dogs or obedience, it was very, very, very compulsory based. And she was one of the first people that, you know, openly used toys and play, et cetera, as a medium to train dogs. So she's somebody that was a massive influence. Um, although, as I say, our parts have, um, uh, differ now and that's absolutely fine. Um, I have the utmost respect for her in terms of, um, what she had, the influence she had on me. The second person I would say, um, or, um, several people is a really close friend of mine, somebody called Susan Jaffa, who's, um, a British obedience trainer and working trials trainer. And she trains Australian shepherds and she's one people that really, really influenced my, um, my changeover to clicker training. And she was again, one of the first people that, or one of the people that made that was very, very successful clicker training. There was somebody else who now lives in Canada, a friend of mine called Kathy Murphy. Um, they were the people that really was like vocal about, we're going to clicker train our dogs and we're going to do it, um, and be successful at it. Um, other person, which I'm sure numerous people will quote is Susan Garrett. Um, you know, anybody that knows me knows that I'm a massive, massive Susan Garrett fan. I think she's, um, phenomenal in what she, she does. I think being a bit cynical, you know, the internet and good marketing, an illusion of somebody being a good dog trainer, but having been in Susan's presence when she's trained her dogs, she's a phenomenal, phenomenal, her timing. And I would say all those people have what I call dog training hands. You can tell if somebody has dog training hands just by watching them, you know, the way in which they move, they interact. Um, you know, and she has a very comprehensive knowledge of science and, and the, the science behind what she does, but her ability to interact, read and, and the relationship she has with her dogs. Um, there's nothing put on or fake about it. You know, what you see is very much what you get. Um, but yeah, those, those are the people that for me, I look up to admire and I constantly,

you know, if I was ever going to look for, um, and I, I look at, I look at the weird and most weird and wonderful places for, um, inspiration and, and ideas for my own training, but those would most definitely be, and the other person is Bob Bailey. Um, you know, Bob Bailey, world animal trainer, um, a constant reminder of what is effective dog training or animal training, good mechanics, reinforcement placement, et cetera. The endless list of pearls of wisdom that Bob gives out. Um, so yeah, um, those are the ones that have really influenced me or that I look up to, I should say. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. Uh, we'll be back next week with Melissa Chandler to discuss nose work, parkour, and problem solving for soft dogs. If you haven't already subscribe to our podcast and iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fensie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fensie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Music. Music. Thank you.