EP 71: Answering Your Toughest Reactive Dog Questions

As a dog trainer, there's a few common questions that come up over and over again, whether it's on Instagram, YouTube, email, or even my mum texting me on WhatsApp. So what we decided to do is take all those common questions, have the audience ask them and answer them during this podcast you're about to hear. So if you've got a reactive dog, some of the points I'm making this will be hyper relevant to you, especially if they're a high energy or work in breed hook. Hope you enjoy, See you there. Hey guys, how are we doing?

Good.

Catherine, are you there?

Yeah, good.

Where you all from?

I'm near Stockport.

Okay.

I'm from fin, I'm in Finland. From uk, but in Finland.

All right, cool. Tell me about your dogs, what you got?

Go on Catherine, you go first.

I've got a three quarter border collie and she's got a bit of lab in there as well. But I do training so I've just been finding your content so useful recently, so.

Oh, nice. Your dog trainer, Catherine.

Yeah, yeah, but I, I, I'm trying to like build up and get going. So yeah, I'm, I'm doing all right, but not, I don't know, I need to, to build up. So it's like a bit of a confidence thing and, and then a bit of a business strategy thing. There's a lot of things, but that's what I'm doing part time.

Yeah, gotcha. Cool. How well you doing another job as well?

Yeah, I'm doing it in between doing like a kids club, like a before and after school club. I've come out of teaching so it leaves like a window in the day, but it's really quite short, so it's a bit of a juggling act.

Gotcha, gotcha. Chris, tell me about your dog.

German shepherd, nearly 4 years old, Effie, reactive. Two other dogs, other dogs, but she's a great dog, she's good in the house, we've got kids, she's great with family, great with people. I've learned basics, she knows the basics. But now I'm really working on some of the stuff I've seen online with you guys. So I'm at that point, you know, I've tried and tried lots of things like you say on, on your YouTube that, you know, trying everything on YouTube, you get so confused backwards and forwards and I've got gaps to fill. Do you know what I mean? The dog? Yeah. Doesn't quite know what I'm asking. I think it gets, you know, I'M the bad teacher bit, basically.

Yeah. Gotcha. What's she doing when she's seeing other

dogs pulling, Pulling drastically and barking? Yeah, we have to, we go with the directions, for example. But now I've come to the point, now I'm going to pass. It's the way it is. But I generally I'm lucky. I've got a forest nearby which I kind of just go in the woods with the dog, not off the lid. It's illegal here. She, she does react to wildlife and she'll chase rabbits, you know, all that kind of thing. She'll pull birds especially as well. She wrecks the birds. Yeah, basically that's it. But we, we've, we've, we, we've tried a halty. We have a halty, we have a harness. But I've just gone, we, we use a cho chain. My wife did go and see a friend of the family who's taught army dogs in the past and he suggest, he suggested a cho chain.

Yeah.

Bron collars also banned in Finland, same as the E Colar. So.

Yeah, gotcha. So I'm going to talk about reactivity a little bit. It's core reactivity is a displacement of energy where we don't want it to go. Right. We get a dog. Why we see a lot of reactive shepherds and Maloirs border collies. Lots of working breeds of dogs is they've got like an internal itch in their brain, the need satiated and that itch is developed so, you know, intentionally. So they are good at fulfilling their initial working role. Yeah. You know, if a German shepherd and Malinois border collie didn't have some sort of desire for conflict, they wouldn't be very good at their job. Right. So what happens is we take them into pet homes and we suppress that desire for conflict. But like trying to keep them calm all the time and not giving them outlets for that, that, for that state of higher drive. So I've got six dogs, two sausage dogs, two Malinois, two crossbreeds, all of which have propensity to conflict. Right. That can be constructive or it can be non, like unconstructive. So constructive example would be them playing with each other. Non constructive example would be like barking and trying to chase the postman out, out of the house. Right. And out of the garden. Now when it comes to change in rehabbing behavior, there's an element of suppression that does need to occur. Now we can do this in different ways. Suppression is a bit of like a tabooed naughty word when it comes to dog training. But it just means to not allow a behavior to happen. And we can do that via punishment, we can do that via obedience and incompatible behaviors, and we can do that via management. So not giving our dog the opportunity to do so. Now, suppression only works if it coincides with expression. If we do not give adequate outlet for that expressive state, we'll end up playing what I refer to as behavior whack a mole. We stop one thing, it just starts elsewhere because our dog has the propensity and desire to, to itch that conflict switch. Does that make sense so far?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I've got some slides I think helps illustrate my point. But at the same time, like, I'll just be very transparent and clear. Like how we train dogs is we motivate them to, to do what we want them to do. And we start that internally. Maybe a hand feeding process, maybe a bit of a how we look at generating desire to play in that dog as well. You start showing them like there are other hobbies out there they might want to get hooked on, right? Because, you know, dogs are reactive because they're hooked on the reaction, even if it initially come from a place of anxiety, you know, that reaction allows them to the relief the, of the trigger that is inducing anxiety. And so like the reaction itself is still reinforcing. If it wasn't, they wouldn't do it. Like, right. It's just probably coming from a place of negative reinforcement as opposed to positive. So still reinforcing. So we have to stop the reinforcement. So we create opportunity to start generating alternate reinforcing behaviors and hobbies through creating motivation. And then through the means of management, obedience and in some instances, punishment. We start saying to the dog, hey, you're not allowed to do that old hobby anymore. And then we coincide that with cultivating healthier hobbies in the dog. Now a lot of the time our dog's behavior or their obedience isn't good enough to allow them the liberty to start picking up constructive hobbies, right? Because like, we can't let the dog off leash because they're going to chase things they shouldn't. We can't like essentially just can't meet the dog's needs because of, you know, they're hoofing off at every single dog and it just becomes like really difficult. There's lots of points of friction throughout our life where we can't like fulfill them to the degree they, they should be fulfilled. So sometimes we need obedience first and then afterwards we fulfill or Vice versa. But really important, what I want you guys to take away is suppressing behaviors without any like, alternate forms of expression. Like, it will only last so long. So, you know, my two Malinois, for example, they're both very fiery dogs, both very incredibly high drive dogs, especially Stark. You know, he's bred from certain lines that are absolutely off the scale. And obviously we recently went to Australia on a, on a tour, so I compete in protection sports with him. We had a break from bite work and probably for about six weeks. You know, we just, you know, we're just on sabbatical for a little while and, and truth be told, like, the dog's demeanor changed entirely. He was getting a little bit more rowdy around the house. He started barking in the house. He never barked in the house in his life. He started like pissing my other dogs off to try and like constantly instigate play. And that's because that itch wasn't being satiated. Now do we need to go and do protection sports to satiate our dog's desire? Absolutely not. Can we do it through like playing with our dog correctly and appropriately? I think in 99 of cases, absolutely. But if I were just to take, you know, the hammer to the behaviors I was seeing in Stark, eg, like stop around with your brother and sisters, stop barking in the house without appropriate expression coinciding with that, chances are I'm just going to displace those behaviors and he'll start looking for different hobbies. Like the whole point of, of that suppression is be like to the dog, hey, you need to find other hobbies. And if, unless I show them that hobbies, it might just result in, um, it might just result in him choosing another unconstructive hobby, if that makes sense. And so that's what a lot of owners get trapped in. They figure out ways to stop behaviors to, to some degree, some, sometimes they never do and the, the behavior just starts displacing and like they start chasing around. And so we stop the barking at dogs and they start barking at cars or they stop barking at people, but they start fence fighting in the house with the neighbor's dog and so on and so forth. But alongside that, what I want to be really explicit in saying is the more often than not when behaviors are developed, these unwanted behaviors are developed fulfillment and alone won't see them go away. We need then control to coincide as well. So like, it really is a two pronged approach in terms of we have to say to our dog, hey, you're not allowed to do that, but also like, you should feel like you shouldn't need to either because of like, you've had adequate outlets elsewhere. So, you know, we're really big on getting dogs off leash as soon as possible to pick up those good habits and hobbies. We're really big on like, cultivating play desire in dogs and, and playing with conflict, like controlled conflict, not just games of fetch. Like, that's not going to touch a side with certain breeds of dogs especially. And then also, of course, like, there's the control element there too, but they have to happen in tandem with each other because one without an, one without another will either be unsuccessful, eg, just trying to like satiate out of the dog with fulfillment and no control or suppression to some degree. And then the other one will be just displacing issues left, right and center. And we see that again, stark, very good example of kind of those behaviors starting to creep in and then literally give him a blowout on the weekend to go and, you know, have a couple of bites and stuff and have a good romp and you know, saw a different dog the day after, the day after that. But I can't imagine that effect compounding over the span of six months to a year. Right. Like, that would have really compounded to the point where like, it would have been really difficult to rein him back in. Impossible. No. And then in that time as well would be where like he starts thinking, oh, okay, I get my fulfillment, I get my kick out of like pissing the other dogs off, barking in the house and so on and so forth. And so that's why I really want to just stress to, to other dog trainers, to, to owners and so on and so forth like that true long term behavior change will only occur with those two things. And I see a lot of dog trainers neglecting one or the other. And I see a lot of dog owners just like not being aware of that concept in the first instance too. And like, I think that is the core like, thing you need to understand if we want to take our dog past management. Like, I see a lot of people working to their dog to the point of like, the, the behavior is better, but we still feel like we're kind of managing him forever and we're kind of like hoping that other dog doesn't come around the corner, we're hoping we're going to see the other dog before our dog does, and so on and so forth. Obedience can achieve that point, but it really is considering like all of the above, if we want the, the, the dog where we can walk and like truly relax. Because when I walk my dogs, I can relax, I can chill, like no matter what's going to come out the corner because I know what makes them kick, I know I've got control of them at the same time. And I know when they see another dog, a little fluffy dog or whatever, they're not going to think, they're not going to go into any sort of predatory state or whatever because of their, their bucket essentially has been emptied prior to that point. With puppies, we just make sure from the get go they have a good understanding of where to send that higher, that higher drive. So we can think about in like gears of a car, you know, fifth gear would be in full like barking, lunging, biting and so on and so forth. Like a state of fighting, essentially, whether that is like real fighting or just like play fighting. Bottom gear is like parked, which is going to be where the dog is asleep and then we've got gears in between. And we want to be able our dog to operate in each one of those gears from awakened, stationary to awaken, moving to sniffing, then it's chasing, then it's like trying to catch something and then it's fighting something. So we could align that to the predatory sequence too. But essentially if we don't give our dog an outlet for each one of those steps. Now people are pretty good at giving outlets for the lower gears, right, because they happen organically. But if we don't give an outlet for the upper gears, our dog, we look for things in the environment that they can practice going into those upper gears on. And then obviously that's where, that's where behavioral issues are created. And, and so yeah, back to puppies, we just make sure with puppies we can, we're able to operate in each and every gear. So from a young age with, with Stark especially, you know, we're gonna play a couple of times a day, make sure he's absolutely being able to empty that tank. And, and please don't confuse this with like energy expenditure. It's way more than energy expenditure. It's more about like the satiation of innate drives and desires which is built into our dog. And I think a lot of the time human beings, they struggle to like empathize with that side of the dog because in a nutshell, we don't have those same desires. Like we're conscious maybe if our dog is tired because we have that, we have that itch to sleep, we're conscious of, maybe our dog might be Hungry. We're conscious of our dog may be thirsty. We're conscious of our dog maybe needing social contact because of like, we experience all of those emotions and feelings too. Whereas like, we don't see a squirrel and think like, oh, I need to go and chase that. And so we struggle to empathize that maybe our dog needs that as an outlet too. And again, we do that by a place. So I'm like very. It's like I've almost got like a fifth like further desires pre programmed into my brain. Not that I want to chase squirrels, but it just allows me to be a little bit more conscious of my dog's expressionative states and making sure we're tapping into that each and every day. So those expressionative states aren't being or we're not seeing those expressionative states at the wrong moment. Right. That makes sense.

Yeah.

Hope it does. You guys got any questions on that or anything you want to talk about? Discuss.

So there's one that a dog that I walk and I'm actually training with the owner now, and he's a male, massive vizsla. And he's entire and he's reactive, super reactive. Uh, and we've gone a long way down the line with it. It's been a long, drawn out process. Cause his owner, who's my friend, she's had like a family loss and hasn't had much time to put into the training. Um, so it's got to the point where I'm e collar training now, but his reactivity is a lot better. And it's just trying to get to the point. I suppose it might. Even though you can't do e collar training, Chris, it might be helpful in some ways this, but like, because he's got all these different fluctuations in hormones. So he's really, he's quite obsessed with the smell of other dogs and he'll like lick grass where they've been. So if you were to think of his internal systems like that adrenaline going up and all the things pumping through him, he's got like the high from smelling where other dogs have been and whether the male or the female. And then he's got the thigh from like prey drive from squirrels. Now that seems to have come to the fore. And I'm wondering whether. Cause he's not reacting as much at dogs, he's looking for a kick out of something else because that never used to be there. So you've got the fluctuations like that. When he sees squirrels now and then you've got the fluctuations where he Might see another dog because he still looks down at a person's hands when we go around the corner to see if they've got a dog. And I feel like I'm riding the crest of these waves of these hormones inside. And in terms of trying to find what's a meaningful level on the E collar. So we're getting so far down the line, but sometimes depending on how he is, like if we're up at like 17, 18 and he's. And that normally works. And then I'm just riding up the numbers and I don't want to get to punishment level yet because I still want to be at working level. But he will sometimes blow off a recall because you cannot predict what's going on inside of these waves of things. And it might be just that he's just smelt some grass and a female was there and I don't know, but he's just completely blown me off in his head. But he just looks passive and he's sniffing and I'm finding that really tricky.

Yeah. So you answered your own question within your question. You're sticking too long at the working levels. At some point you have to go to the aversive level that trumps all. You know, we start at low level conditioning. Then we. When we go to more like working levels where that traditionally described as negative reinforcement. And then at some point we have to proof the recall to the point that when the dog hears the cue, whether that be verbal or whistle, for example, he knows that ignoring that cue is then like, there could be a chance of like that aversive level happening. We have to practice that in setups a bunch of times first. I say a bunch of times in as little as like two to three repetitions. But it sounds like so long as the dog has the understanding that that stimulation means come back to the handler, you're ready to essentially kick on to the proofing stage. You have to do some proofing sessions and then you'll have to do then a live run where the dog's on a line, they see the trigger, and then you'll. You'll have to. I won't say the word, unfortunately, but the fact of the matter is you'll have to. He'll have to experience a level which he would preferentially avo, not just like maybe ride through.

Yeah, yeah, because. And one time, like the squirrel things really surprised me. But it was last week and I was running with him just on a sort of a short like six foot lead. And we weren't really training Because I walk him as well. So we just went out for a run and he just saw a squirrel and yanked the lead out my hand actually. But we were in like a little woodland and I thought, I'll try it then because he's, he's been proved so well on the lead coming back and we've got the leaders back up for recall. And I actually dialed up and said no and pressed it and then said come. And he just like twitched his head and didn't come. And I just thought, oh, there's a missing piece now with the him understanding how to turn that off because he just kind of almost froze and twitched his head and. And that was really deflating because on the Lee on a long line or a flexi, he looks so good. And I just thought, oh, what is the missing, you know.

Yeah. So you, you, you take the dog out, you put, you have a setup of the trigger as best you possibly can. We even like use a, like a lure coursing machine for this final stage. Right. And we might put that even like behind a fence or something. We still have a trail line on the dog really light, but we don't use it at all. We just let it trail and it's just like there's a backup plan. We do that final stage of the E collar. If the dog then gets sticky or gets stuck or like freezes up, we can then add a little bit of guidance. But essentially like you, you have to make sure that situation whereby the dog has to experience the avoidance level is. Has been pre rehearsed before, like real life needs to happen.

Yeah. So essentially it was just slightly early and unfortunate that. And it was his top, one of his top triggers where we've not practiced it enough with a lesser trigger.

Yeah, yeah. Like the difficulty as a dog trainer is like knowing the higher level without having to use like where we first expose the dog to the higher level. We expose it to the dog in a situation where we wouldn't need the higher level to rehearse.

If you throw food or something like that, and it's quite low stakes, but you would go in fairly high to make that differential.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ex. Exactly. Exactly Right. But you know it. A lot of people get stuck on the mid levels because they only need the mid level for their setups and lower stakes stuff. But then we need to rehearse for like the real life, our pants scenario where the dog, you know, pulls the leash out of her hands and so on and so forth. And unfortunately that means administering that aversive Level, even in a situation where the working level will probably just do the job.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

So. So almost unreasonably aversive to make the point that this is the threat that that could happen if you. Because they won't be that aroused. So it's gonna have more of an impact. Yeah, I think I.

Correct.

Tickle around a little bit too much and. Yeah, yeah.

A lot of the dog trainers I work with and coach, like, they get stuck on them that working level for too long, and it. It is a stepping stone for the final result. It is not something that is to be stuck around on. We want to get to the point where we don't use the collar at all. So the sport in which I compete in with Stark, for example, you are not allowed tools or reward on your person or on the dog during competition. Right. So that means he needs to be responsive to my voice. That means I need to get to the point where the voice means the aversive level may come and it becomes reinforcing to avoid that. And so when I strip the dog of the tools, he's still going to be super responsive and not be reliant on, like, hearing the command, feeling the stem and then going, oh, yeah, okay, I have to come. He has to hear the command and go like, oh, shit, I need to get back to avoid what may happen. And we start that in lower stakes.

Yes.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yes, it does. Thank you.

Well, good. Chris, you got any. You got any questions on the back end of that or any questions at all about your dog?

It's all interesting. I'm just blasting through all your videos and it's just eye opening. I realized I've been looking so much now. I've just started this week. This isn't like my first week. I've got tidbits. I never thought she was into tidbits. And we decided to get some raw meat cooked. I've got some dear heart, which she loves, so I've got something she likes, which is something I didn't think she would be into. I didn't think she's great at toys, but she's. She's learning from doing the methods that you've. You've Talked about the 10 minutes, the 15 minutes, and building it up.

Yeah, nice. Yeah, yeah, nice. It's tying it all together, what we typically do.

Jake, the problem. I've got a bit of a. Obviously, I haven't invested in any of the schooling yet, so I'm kind of doing bits from bobs and Videos jump backwards and forwards when you get given them on YouTube. So like I'm still doing my garden training, but then once I go out in the real world, down the street before I get them off the forest, for example, I will probably come across two dogs. So then my dog's going to get that reactivity, that adrenaline that you know, and that's. How can I fill that bit too? Or do I just have to keep going? Just let it happen and don't. No punishment. Just, just get past and.

Yeah. So what we do is we like, and you might have seen this in the videos, but we, we build the obviously the yes first for our redirect drill, showing the dog what they should do instead, which you've probably seen. And then we build the no as well. Like, hey, you're not allowed to do that. We typically start with a yes and then. And then overlay the no when we have a, a seven step punishment protocol, which I do not put on YouTube because I think people are going to abuse that. So I, I've got a. I'm in an ethical dilemma constantly with content in terms of like how much is going to be helpful to people. But then when does. People are going to like start making mistakes and stuff. So yeah, you'll, you'll notice I don't put any e colar how to's on on our free content and I don't put any punishment on our free content or like aggression cases on our free content either because of, I think those people, those instances. You need your handheld. And so yeah, our seven step punishment protocol is the. How we condition the punishment marker, but which is incredibly effective, exceptionally effective. Way less aversive than people might anticipate too. See a lot of people just like hammering their dog into obedience especially and that's going to create issues. And so a well prepared punishment marker in that moment, which is essentially just saying like, hey, you can't do that and just blocking that behavioral avenue off. These need to be prepared in, in controlled situations first. Same with the E collar as I was talking to Catherine about before. We expect them to work in real life. And unfortunately it is the case whereby until we have the adequate tools in our arsenal, and I don't mean literal tools, I mean like behavioral tools in our arsenal for our dog. We should be limiting like their exposure to rehearse that reactivity.

Yeah.

So that might be a choice point of like where we take our dog while we're developing those tools. So for example, if I take one of these case study dogs, I Work with severe reactivity or aggression. First things first, I like, I build the food motivation. We go through the, the, the food building steps to make sure they're going to take my fingers off like a piece of kibble just in the house. Because if I know, I know for a fact if I can only like in the house, get them interested in, in the liver treat or whatever. Once it gets to the point where I'm exposed to another dog out and about something more high value and it has a higher draw to my dog, like the beef liver isn't going to cut it, then if, if you know, I've not built the motivation like from the ground up. So for like my dogs for example, or all the dogs I case study with, if I get them like working their ass off for the kibble, and the kibble started at a value of like 0.5 and now has a value of 6. Like on the top end of things, when I present beef liver to them, like nothing else in the world will matter. But if like that, if the beef liver is like my starting point when the environment gets more difficult, then I'm going to struggle like trying to captivate my dog's attention with food. So just be conscious on that point. So we have like a really stringent food building motivation process that we go through with each dog. Sometimes that takes like two days, sometimes it takes two weeks, truth be told. But a mentor once told me, like you cannot cook spaghetti without boiling water. You put spaghetti and non boiling water, it's just gonna like eventually turn to mush. And I think that's where, that's where people fall short on their training. Like full transparency in our training programs. Whether it's one of our online programs, the, the twi, or if it's, I'm taking a dog and training it hands on. The first part of that training process is incredibly boring. And it's just like pretty regimented. Like in terms of I'm not gonna bore, I'm not gonna like make the dog's life a misery, but like nothing exciting is happening for the first few weeks while I just like cook the dog, as I say in terms of making sure he's motivated for food and toys before I then start overlaying behaviors and exercises and drills that are gonna be handy when I do face the trigger eventually. And that's where a lot of people make the mistake in progress is they just rush the initial stages, but I'll just take my time. You know, I've had board and trained dogs in the past where like we've done nothing for two weeks other than like learn how to play, couple of play sessions a day and then learn how to start like taking food in different environments. Like, I'm not ready to kick things on until I have that. Once I have that though, everything becomes easier after that. One of my catch cries you might have heard on YouTube is like, you give me five hours to chop down a tree, I'm going to spend four and a half hours sharpening my axe. So the job is eventually a lot easier. But people don't sharpen their ax, they, they look for shortcuts, try expose to their dog to the trigger a little bit too early. They don't have the, the arsenal of behavioral tools in their back pocket and inevitably we just get caught in a little bit of a cycle. And the solution to that cycle is to strip it back and, and start from the ground up in the first, which we should have done in the first instance anyway. And so like slow is smooth and smooth is fast is what I always say. So that's that. That another one of my catch cries. Does that make sense?

Definitely, definitely. And I think that's the problem when, when I, I've had a dog before this, a German shepherd, which was a few years back and then taken on the second dog. It wasn't trained the last dog, but it was a good pet. It's my first dog but obviously when we decided to take a second dog, I really thought this is going to be my challenge, this is my thing, you know, and four years down the line I'm disappointed myself. But obviously you make mistakes if you don't follow, you know, if you don't learn from stage one, it's not good going. Stage one, stage four, stage seven, stage 12. And I don't realize that now. And I see the dog is a great dog, it wants to learn. It's just doing this week the things that you've showed. She's absolutely knackered now. She's in a box. She's just gone through a box. We've done been out for an hour this morning and done some training and she's loving it. But she gets good work anyway. She gets an hour's good exercise in the woods every day. But now I'm actually introducing schooling and something on the lead or something. My question, Jake the TWI was offered to me, the calls and being an online course to me I was a little obviously thought how much to invest initially and then being then offered another course which is the focus for four, is it Focus four or something. Would that give me the basics that to just to see how I get on as an online someone who taking a service from yourselves. That's what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The focus involved like is, is for puppies and like younger dogs and Right. Like it is step one. It is certainly step one of maybe like a 12 step process.

Right. But it doesn't have the, the bad behavior training or you know, the seven, what was it seven fundamentals of.

So focusing four does not include the, the punishment markers. So the focusing floor is like a show you whereas like the training with instinct is a, is a done with you program. So yeah, you get one to ones as part of that program. You get daily support sessions that are, that are a little bit like this which Kirk and I run and you get. Well, I'm just about to launch a new one so you can get, you're going to get my cell phone number as well so you can message me and ask me any questions you want at any one time. The focus in four is like truth be told, it's like our lower ticket thing is to show people. Step one is to show people how to get off the starting blocks and then hopefully like, you know, if you want to carry on the next steps, you can do that with our team. Yeah, I don't, like I said, we don't offer any programs where we offer E color condition, E color conditioning like the punishment protocol and so on and so forth without the of our team because I feel like that's where people make mistakes and can like push themselves backwards. So just that's, that's my like word of caution, I guess. But yeah, okay, okay.

Yeah, fair. Fair enough.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

But a couple of other people joined in a little bit later. I don't know whether anyone, Denise and Denisa or Emily, if you got any questions or you want to talk about anything.

Hi. Yeah, sorry. I was joining a bit lately. So interesting what Chris said, you know, in terms of the treats and you know like your dog has to be like food motivated. Mine is. So when I was training him before he got reactive, he was really food motivated until to that point that without offering him food he wouldn't even move his ass, which sounds ridiculous and you know, I, I, I really banned that and then I stopped giving him treats. So my main worry is that if I'm gonna start doing that again then you know, he will just sit down and being stubborn and not moving without you know, offering anything for him because he got so he's been attacked many times, and I really lost my confidence to walk him in general. And we have a park pretty close. But even just get to the park, for me, it's like a struggle and a half because when I walk him, you know, he's. He's looking for being. And I've, you know, being reactive, and I think I'll fit him with that one as well. But I don't, you know, I don't want him to lure him with a treat. And obviously I have to get to the yes and no part first because I just recently been on your webinar on Sunday, and I was like, okay, I really have to start from step one, but I don't want to make that mistake, you know, to offer the treat. And then he's not focused on anything but the treats, you know? You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we condition a reward marker so we can create behaviors. And we might do that with a little bit of pressure, like the leash, and then reward the behaviors. If we get into the trap of creating behaviors with food, the behavior becomes contingent on the presence of food or conditional on the presence of food. So essentially the dog will go, like, until you show me the treat first or until I know you've got the thing, I'm not going to do the behavior.

Yeah.

And then that's where things get sticky. Yeah. And so we ask for the behavior, you know, and it's as simple as, like, we stick a line on the dog in the garden, we say come, we move away, we guide the dog with a leash, and then when they start committing to the behavior, we give our reward marker, we present the food as opposed to, like, here's the food. Don't you want to come here? Eventually that becomes a condition to the behavior, and we get a dog that we. We can inadvertently build, like stubbornness in the dog, too.

Okay.

Yeah. Thank you.

Emily, you got any questions or anything you want to talk about? I don't have anywhere to be, guys. So if anyone else has any other questions, happy to talk, happy to chat. Thank you.

I've got. I've got another. A bit of dilemma which also relates to the dog. We have a fenced off yard, which is a big yard, but there's a road that runs in front, not a busy road where people walk past with the dogs. The dog, obviously, I said is reactive. Is it the same reactivity when she's there along the fence, jumping and barking at the people passing or the dogs passing? If I get rid of the reactivity on the road, Is that another behavior problem I've got to sort out?

Potentially, yeah. So, so, so long as that is, if, like, she has opportunity to do that by hook or by crook, that could fuel the fire. And teacher, like, that's still an option to react and. And receive those. Those big feelings that we mentioned earlier on in that way. And so some. That's definitely something we want to limit access to by one way or another. This is where that punishment marker comes in. So I tell this story in my content a lot, but I'll tell you again now. A year. Well, a couple of years ago, I moved into a house. And when I viewed it, big garden for the dogs, you know, three fences, short fences though, and just fields the other side. And I was like, cool, this is perfect. And so month later we moved in. And then on the day I moved in, there were sheep in each one of those fields, you know, so I was like, huh. And each one of my dogs, the dogs that I had at the time, which I've still got, I've just got more now, they could have easily cleared that fence. But because we had a very good punishment marker, right. And system to me to communicate to the dogs, hey, you're not allowed to do that particular thing very, very quickly. Like day one, I took them into the garden as they even went to like, go over there. I give the word which is B a D. I'm not going to say it because my dog's in the room. And they were like, okay, we're not allowed to do that. No tools, nothing. The, you know, but that's because it was conditioned and they know what it means. And this is like the power of conditioning. We. We want to work to the point where we're just able to use our words to clearly and concisely communicate to our dog, hey, you're not allowed to do that. And those dogs never cleared that fence once and. And never bothered those sheep once, whether I was present or not. Wasn't. Didn't utilize the E collar. So we conditioned the punishment marker, usually inside the home with a leash and collar. You know, so a lot of the countries where we work with on the TWI where they're not allowed to use tools. So that doesn't mean we can't condition that. That marker very well. Even in the absence of something like the E collar, it just might take a couple more repetitions.

I have seen online the E colors that don't give a shock that. What's your opinion on those that like Is it like shake or kind of vibrate or give it.

Yeah, they vibe, they vibrate or they can make noises, they typically don't work. And that's for. There's two like down major downsides to these types of colors. One, you can't adjust the levels on the vibration collar the same. You can like a stem collar. And so many a dog, you know, when we condition the E collar we want to get them comfortable with it in terms of like understanding it. And the, the like efficacy of the E collar is like they understand the stimulation, how to turn it off. And we're not willy nilly just like pressing buttons to stop our dog doing. I want to be nice and clear in saying that whereas like the vibration collar, a lot of the dogs when they feel that vibration for the first time because it's like quite intense versus like an E collar which is when we start is a little tiny tingle, it freaks dogs out and shuts them down. And we can't cultivate a relationship with our tool where it's like creates strong behaviors where. And the second thing, if the dog doesn't give a about it, like they just blow through, they just realize, oh, this is just a buzzy thing on my neck. I don't give a. And you know, every dog trainer I train have as experienced that because if they've all had the owners that are like, I'd prefer to use the vibrate, one or two things is going to happen is either going to freak the dog out or it's just going to not work and the dog's going to blow through. Neither of which end up like being constructive to the goals. Right.

Okay.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay, just open my eyes a little bit more.

Hi there. I've got my microphone working now. It was having a problem.

How's it going, Emily? Okay.

Yeah, yeah, it's all good. So I've just started looking at your. The fate. The free online videos and things. I'm basically saving up at the moment to be able to get to your. Your week intensitivity course because I'm down in Cornwall.

Yeah.

Traveling up and so on a regular basis isn't necessarily going to be sort of financially able. So that the week long was going to be better. So I'm just trying to start off with your very, very basics. I've got a rescue dog basically. And it's just that it's the whole focus thing in the house. Absolutely fine. The moment I go out of the house, it's a, it's a battle. So I started with your. The.

The reward.

With the reward marker and doing your yeses and throwing the bits of kibble into one side and then to another side. And then if he comes to me, he gets more. Yeah. So I've started doing that, which again, works perfectly fine in the house. The moment I go into the garden or just anywhere else, even with a sort of a leash on him and trying to entice him, he's not bothered. He'll just. He'll just sit there and just sort of. He's like, no, whatever. I'm not so bothered by it at all. And we want to smell, you know, or smell other things, but if it gave him the option, he would just sit and just look and watch. So I'm just really struggling to get through that at the moment.

What dog is he?

So we. We don't know. He's a rescue from. From sort of abroad. So he's a complete mix of all sorts of. I'm just waiting for DNA test to come back so I can better understand what he's got in him to. To sort of take. But he's very. It looks like he's very sort of sound and visual, sort of orientated and smells. I don't know if it's an over. An over stimulation. I'm not sure.

So very, very simple solution to this one. You just withhold all of that reinforcement unless you're outside. So if, if, if we teach the dog, like, inside, where there's nothing else of value, really. Like, it's a environment, like, it's easy to gain access to this reinforcement. And then I take you outside where you've got loads of competition against you. You'll be like, no, I'm all good, man. I'll just wait till we're inside before I have fun with you again. So at some point, we need to graduate to the point where we go, like, okay, we're not gonna have fun inside anymore. Like, inside's gonna be on leash. Chill out time. We can cuddle. Like, we can do all of that stuff. But if we're going to do food games and play especially, that's going to be withheld to the point the dog goes like, okay, I'm getting a little bit Peck. Let's do some work, right? And we graduate the difficulty of the job as opposed to trying outside. And then the worst thing we can do is, like, all right, well, let's go back inside. That didn't work. And we'll. We'll go and play the game again like this evening or whatever. And he's like, okay. And it validates the dog's response to ignore you, essentially, because he was just like, well, great, you're just going to give it to me later. Right now I'm thinking there could be a bird or another dog or so on and so forth over there. That makes sense. Yeah.

So you're just hinted to not to withhold it and do. And just do it outside or in that the next level. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So when I deal with the tricky dogs, they're super nervous and like these, these bad dogs, I will start them just three feeding from a bowl. Just like, if you. I just, I just want to check you're comfortable eating food in my home. Like, that's where I start. And then from there I'm going to graduate to hand feeding inside the house. But I never go back a step. So, like, once I've graduated for hand to hand feeding inside the house, you're not going to get it from a bowl until we've pretty much finished training or I've got, like, my behaviors proved. Then I graduate to outside the house. And once I graduate to outside of the house, I don't go backwards again. But I'm just going to stick in the garden for now and just make sure you're, like, used to taking food and so on and so forth. And then when I graduate outside the four walls of my garden again, I don't go back again because, like, going back in difficulty for the dog will only require you to either increase, like, the value of reward. And then we've talked about earlier how that can create a bit of a false positive and a bit of a trap that's gonna. Is gonna bite us later on down the line at, like, step seven or eight. And that process takes as long as it takes. I typically wait for, like, four consistent meals taken, like, smoothly before I graduate in difficulty. And so long as I make the grad, like the difficulty incremental, like, I'm not suddenly like these super fearful dogs I work with. I'm not going to be like, oh, you have to eat in front of the. In front of another dog. All right, I'm gonna starve you. I'm not saying that's the case whatsoever. I just gradually make it incrementally more difficult to attain that food each and every day. So the transition from, like, the garden to outside of the garden is a little bit more smoother than like, from a bowl to then outside on a walk or whatever. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah.

And then, like, I said earlier, like, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Like, that slow beginning process is often the solution to like a quicker ending of the process. We get dogs come up, brought up to us here and they'll be on a prong collar, they'll be on an E collar. The owner will have a pocket full of high value treats and a toy or whatever. And the dog is so hit and miss with their reward system. Like, we're never capturing the behaviors we want. And so like I strip everyone back to the beginning anyway. Because if I know, like my dog trainer magic ball comes out and I go, like, that's what we're gonna eventually have to do because of like, we didn't sharpen that ax essentially. And it all comes down to that analogy I like to give. We sharpen the ax and then chopping down the tree is easy. And again, these dogs I work with, I've had them for six weeks and made some serious, like, change. I'll spend four of those weeks, four of those weeks cultivating motivation and building my marker system. And then two of the weeks tackling the problem, or as a lot of people, like, they want to tackle the problem head on. And it creates a lot of friction in that process, which inevitably will result in us having to go back to scratch anyway.

So how do you find the, the motivation in, in the dog? So access? Never. That I'm just struggling with. It's like I can't work out what, like what's actually motivating him because when I think I've got it, it just, we just sort of switches off and it just sort of stops. It's no longer sort of motivated by it. So it's like, yeah, she's trying to find how you figure out how a dog's motivated.

Well, all dogs obviously have the innate desire to eat to survive. And so I use that. Okay, so I use the dogs, what we call essential food or existential food to train them because of if I go and look for different types of reward and different values of reward, but then the dog still gets to go home and eat from a bowl or whatever and get their kibble, it's not going to be enough motivation to get them to work potentially around the triggers, unfortunately, they'll just be like, yeah, the cheese is good, but I don't want need it. And so when the going gets tough, they'll just switch off from it. And then we'll fall into the trap of trying to find the next best high value thing. And that cycle just goes on forever. And Ever and ever. Whereas these dogs I work with, like, we, if, if we want to eat, we train. But I do make it like incrementally more difficult. Like I don't make it really hard for them. And momentum is key in that process. And so any dog that suffering some, any sort of reactivity and we want to use reward in that process, which we most certainly do for reasons I mentioned earlier in this call. We always use essential food, definitely in the initial, in the initial phases and build the motivation from the baseline up as opposed to like from the top looking for different foods because of that high value. Food is only high value because it's novel. Once the novelty wears out, it's no longer high value, it doesn't work anymore and we lost the ability to reward our dog. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do we go good quality kibble the right amount. And we're going to just train for that every day and I'm going to make it harder for you to attain every day till it has a very high value, even in the presence of something else that is high value. Any other questions for me, guys?

Just me, sorry. So what if. Because, for example, I do not have a garden, so we live in a flat and around us there is, apart from the part, there is not any greenery. So obviously I would like to avoid the trigger even just going to the part. But how can I, you know, make these fundamental basics if at home he, he would do it because I know he's very full motivated. But once I'm, I'm going outside, you know, like I need that step in between and I don't know how I could achieve it if, you know, we don't have that, don't want to call it luxury, but in Edinburgh it's a bit of luxury to have a garden. So how I can achieve it, you know, to train outside without putting him into. Right into a trigger because, you know, sometimes I feel like once he has a reactivity after, it's just gained worse and worse and worse. So I don't want to, you know, put him into the situation.

Do you have a vehicle?

I do, I don't drive. My partner does. And we try to go roughly once a week because we work in answer quite a lot once a week to a dog park and we have three dogs. So, you know, each of them has their own issue, but mine's reactivity as the most restrictive one in terms of where we can go and where we cannot go. So we go into close fields for an hour and I was Thinking that probably we should start, you know, training them there as well, rather than just let them, you know, play with each other and, you know, just run and then just get tired of that. So, yeah, I'm a bit of a difficult one in this case because I don't drive if you don't have a garden, which is quite a shame.

Yeah. So if I was in that situation, I would be utilizing play a lot and then, like, developing a really good controlled game of play. I've got a couple of examples on YouTube. Obviously, there's more extensive examples in our programs, but I'd be looking for a lot of control through play. So the dog can. That. One of the benefits of play is to be able to recover from being in a high arousal state. So I get the dog amped and I throw in some behaviors in there to, like, essentially. So the game looks like this.

Yeah.

And that will help with the recovery process and the. The mitigate the compounding effect of, like, him reacting and then, like, you being able to have a good session after that. And the second thing, and thought, like, it might be the case that, like, all right, I need to introduce my punishment marker sooner if I'm inevitably going to bump into another dog. I rehearse that in the house. I condition that in the house around sterile environments, I make that word very important to the dog. And it might be a case of, like, taking it off the menu for the dog and saying, like, hey, you're not allowed to react towards the other dog. And when we have limiting environments such as yourself, it sometimes means, like, that punishment marker just comes in a little bit earlier to buy us time to start, like, getting some good training in.

Okay. Because it's quite interesting because, you know, we have three dogs, and obviously they have a hierarchy, and he's a boy, and then we have two girls and he's on the bottom. He's, you know, he's not dominant whatsoever. Usually, you know, when he's pushing his boundaries because he's a bull terrier, so he can be a bit of, you know, when he's a bit of. Not out of control, but when there is the play, you know, he can go a bit rough and then just losing his control. So he gets put in place and then he. He responds so well. But when, you know, outside other dogs, especially those he doesn't know, he's like, he. So we had a trainer. He said he's very active, which, you know, for me, I was. I felt a bit relieved in a way, rather than fear reactivity. Than aggression. But it's interesting because with them he never ever been, you know, reactive whatsoever or like outside he is. So even when they play on the field or inside or at home, there is no issue with his reactivity whatsoever.

When he's playing with your other dogs, he's not reactive or.

No, no, not at all. So with them he's absolutely fine with other dogs, you know, when he just sees them, even just across the road, he is reactive, which is interesting.

Yeah, that's quite normal though. Like a dog can have a friendship group and be like, absolutely fine with them and then just hate every other dog on the planet. Okay, but I want to touch on something you said. He's. When he gets too rough with them and over hours in play, like they correct him and bring him back down. Is that right?

Yeah.

When you play with him, how does that look?

So let's say when, you know, all of them a bit aroused and obvious, when I. Not even, I'm not shouting, but you know, when I tell them to stop, they actually stop. They can all get to that point and they are a bit rough to each other, but because one is a stuffy and then he's a bull terrier and then we have a red fox lab who's a bit mental as well. You know, they don't really mind the rough play, but sometimes men won't cross the line. Then obviously they stop. Yeah, so it's, it's quite interesting. But like outside obviously, because they, they running all over the place. You know, they have more room to run rather than obviously within a flare. It doesn't really go into any, any roughness whatsoever. They just like chasing each other.

Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Okay, so I'll ask my question again though. When you play with him.

Yeah.

And a toy, what's he like then?

So I, I try to, you know, teach him. Like he has to drop it. He has to drop the toy. He, he loves playing toggle 4. And obviously kind of every now and then I let him win, but once we, I don't know, he drops it and then I throw it like after like five back and forth. He's at that point when he can actually drop it when I tell him to drop. But like in the first, when he is very aroused, he wouldn't. But he never goes too far with me either, so.

So that's your starting point then? To be able to have him compose himself wearing that higher. Like you literally just said when he's too aroused, he can't listen to me. And yeah, recipe for reactivity. So the solution is there. That's where you need to target.

Okay.

Okay. Because he's telling you, mom, when I lose my. My ear turn off.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So, like, when he sees another dog and he loses his, what chance have we got him to listen to? So you can literally rehearse how to deal with his reactive outbursts via play without ever leaving the house. So, like, yeah, we've stripped it back a bit there. And that's where my, like, focus would be for a dog like that.

Okay. Okay.

He's told you inadvertently that that's the initial answer.

And how can I achieve that? Like, what would you recommend for them? Like, if it doesn't listen, I just stop the play on my own terms

and we put a leash on the dog and start adding in control mechanisms to the game.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

All good? All good. So, yeah, we always start play with a leash. Without the leash. The dog is gonna, like, really just. He's gonna choreograph that good game, and it becomes very unconstructive. So we go leash on the dog and we can start adding in control elements to the game. There's like two different types of dogs, dogs that won't play. And we have methods to build desire to play. And then we got dogs that really want to play but can't compose themselves. And so the solution of playing with each one of those dogs is a little bit different. And so if we got a dog that really intense for playing, loves to play, then that's our cue to start adding in control. And again, when I'm working with the. The more difficult dogs, you know, I do a lot through play. I've. I've worked with the. The dogs in the past where, you know, crazy reactive for all intents and purposes, absolutely losing their mind. And I always get Flack on YouTube and stuff for this, but I play with the dog. I teach the dog a lot through play. I teach him an out. I keep. Teach him like a. A weight, and I throw the toy and so on and so forth. And that's all just really basic impulse control where they're in a really heightened state, and then I'll expose them to a dog. It doesn't have to be like, straight after. It could be the day after. I have a similar, like, setup. I have the toy in my back pocket. They go to react and I say, hey, we're not doing that. And they go, oh, yeah, I got it. And then someone in the comments would be like, oh, this dog was never even reactive in the first place. Like, look, he didn't even care about the dog. And I'm like, I know that I created that because I told him he's not allowed to lose his at everything he sees. And so like, that can go a really long way. Being able to like really channel and control our dog's arousal and how they see things of value just through play can go a really, really, really long way.

Have you got videos on the online birth with that, that play? Because that's something also that I struggle with mine. It's like I can't find how to unlock him wanting to play with, with me. It's like, you'll play with my other dog absolutely fine. But then I'm just trying to get him to have that play with me. But he's sort of, he's just not sort of interested. Even if I put the other dog, you know, out of sight, out of the way and it's just me and him, he's sort of not, not sort of bothered. So it, yeah, it's just a few. You got videos online about how to start that play and how to sort of build a play.

So for you it might be a conceptual issue. So what I mean by that is it might not be how you're playing, but a little bit like the food. So long as your dog is getting the kick playing like elsewhere, he's got then no requirement to play with you. You know what I mean? So like dogs in multi dog households, dogs with like lots of bad habits around the house, even dogs that like steal tea towels and then run around and like the own chases them, we try and play with that dog, they're like, no, no, like I've already got my means to play. I really don't need to play because if I've like have that box ticked over, ticked over here. And then we're saying to the dog, like, hey, don't you want to come and like do it in a more constructive way? And they're like, no, I don't need to. So it. Sometimes we have to bore the dog out a little bit and let him be bored for a period of time that might be like a week by just limiting his opportunity and that when it comes to management, limiting his opportunity to have that outlet, to channel it into a more constructive outlet for us. Right. So if dog is fence fighting around with my other dogs in the house 24, seven, being a knob around the house or even just like reacting to other dogs, if they're getting that box ticked for fifth gear in all of those ways. Sometimes it requires me to stop that before I generate enough desire to start something else. If that makes sense. Yeah, a little bit like the food again, like why do I need to eat outside and engage with you and interact with you when I get it inside? Why do I need to play with you when I walk around with the other dog all day? And then like while that is fine for many a dog. Well, if we've got a dog with a behavioral issue that we want to use reward within our process of training, which we again we certainly do to cultivate like constructive addicting hobbies, sometimes we have to cut off the non constructive hobbies first in order to push him into that.

Yeah. Okay. So when he starts to. Yeah, yeah. So when he sort of starts to play with the other dog, sort of stop. Sort of stop that, intervene with that, stop that happening and then sort of replace that. He's still saying it's suggesting for if I like replace that with playing with me instead. That makes, makes sense because it's not. He doesn't play like it's not all the time. It's. It usually tends to be when they've just been out to go to the toilet and they've come back in or just before and they tend to have a play sort of together. So yeah. So if I not don't allow that to happen instead of channel that wanting to play, you know, with me instead. Okay, cool.

Yeah. So again the dogs I take on case studies like the first couple of weeks is boring and it's intentionally boring so I can start creating like healthy habits and hobbies.

Go on.

Chris, just obviously in your videos I've noticed you, you always talk about the, that you end the play before the dog ends the play. Now my dog is really active when we go, I show we're going outside to play. It's all up for it and we're having a good play and it's going really well. I thought it's not going to end. This is great. And then suddenly it ends and then I've missed the opportunity that you say is to you end the play.

Yeah.

What am I causing that the dog's finished in it? What, what, what does that create? That the dogs decided to finish the play?

Two, two solutions really. One solution is we stick the leash on the dog and don't let them check out. Like you know, if you're gonna go over there and. No, no, we're not doing that and we can redirect them back into the game.

Yeah.

Second solution is we just play it safer than sorry. And like, I've had clients that have come through, they're training with instinct, for example, and they'll play for. I'll literally instruct them to play for like 30 seconds with their dog and build up from there to the point of like a couple of weeks down the line. The dog will play for half an hour then if you ask it. But a safer than sorry on that

front, short and sweet, then.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Okay.

And maybe more frequently. But like quit while you're ahead essentially is like a good rule of thumb.

Does it, does it matter if there's another person, like my wife's outside and we play together with the dog. The dog loves it. It's a big thing. We can make the dog take the toy to the other person and then they play there and talk and then takes the other person. Is that okay? Having two people in the play without

going too deep on it. Like the way we play and like the way we structure sessions is the dog has a. We won the dog to have the propensity of like, get the toy, return to handler. Get the toy, return to handler. We, we have like a pivotal point of the game, which is you. Which will help when we start wanting to like utilize that as a tool or dog reactivity.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So keep it separate the, the two, the two of us playing with the dog. Don't. Don't use that as a teaching moment.

Yeah, I would. Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

Anyone got any other questions?

I've got one more if no one else asks.

Yeah, go on.

It's a bit personal though. It's towards the, the TWI course. Obviously I'm looking into it and I'm thinking seriously about it. And now the more we've talked today, it's obviously raised my awareness. It's an eight week course, I believe, but obviously it can take longer. You get the course and you can use it as long as. What's the best approach from your point? If you give me some instruction to take this, I'll take the course on which is my best approach? On a four year old dog who's pretty good at learning things quick. Does it go up and down in speed of the course or.

Let me, if I could like be just super transparent here with you and everyone else. Like once you give us money to train your dog, we do not stop until the job is done.

That's what I like to.

Yeah, that's our business model.

Yeah.

Like we are a very luxurious position where we have lots of people wanting to work with us, which is great. The business is doing great, which is great. Once my company takes your money for help, you either finish and you're, you're exactly where you want to be or they will give you their money back. And I hold each and every member of staff accountable for that.

Okay. Okay, that's fair enough. And I believe it's 91 success rate.

It's a 95.5% success rate.

It's gone up since last week.

Our refund rate is 4.7%.

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

So if they take your money and they don't get you to where you need to be, like, full transparency. We do not want to keep it.

Okay.

Like that is it. And we can account for that 5% of refunds because we've got plenty of great clients to work with and we're okay to do that. It's not going to like destroy our business. Business.

Okay.

Like so. And again, full transparency. Like my staff are commissioned on you being happy. At the end, at the end of your program, you'll get a call from our client success manager. She'll make sure you're happy. She'll ask you for a testimonial. When's that testimonial? We get that testimonial. My staff get commissioned on it. And so they have every intention to make sure you're successful. Like they do give a about it. It's not one of those things like, here's a login. See you later.

That's my worry. Online. Online something. It's a bit hit and miss I was thinking, but obviously having this kind of chat now is with yourself. Someone who you see, you know, every day when I'm watching the video. So it feels very personal already, which is good.

Yeah. So like if I have permission, I'm gonna just share my screen and just talk through like the program itself for anyone else that might be interested. So we've, we've just launched version 2.0. So basically Simo and Suzanne the last three weeks or so have been grinding over this. So we've, we've moved the platform to something called Mighty Networks, which is super user friendly. Essentially you get onboarded, you talk through all your problems that you got with your dog and then Kirky and Tony are going to write you like an eight week game plan. Again, it's based off 60 days, which is like an, it's an interactive, it's an interactive program like, kind of like this in a way. It's personalized towards you like Again transparently, we typically only take in reactive dogs. And so who we work with are people with reactive dogs. You get four one to one sessions, you get that roadmap, you get my personal mobile number, you get a 24, 7 support line if I'm ever busy, that's monitored by our staff, you get the vault access. So that is the login to Mighty Networks where we break everything down. We've obviously starts on motivation. There's a play module, there's a punishment module, there's E column module, there's real life application module. And then we do daily drop in support sessions which are framed exactly like this. So we do them every single day on a rotating calendar. So sometimes they're in the morning, sometimes they're in the afternoon. Based on where you are in the world, you can attend as many of them as you like or as little as them as you like. And they're, they're structured exactly like this where you can drop in, ask me or Kirk a question, making sure you've got that nice like consistent point of contacts. The reason we structure it like this as opposed to like waiting around for your one to ones is a lot can go right in that time, but also a lot can go wrong in that time if you're not like on track. And so like more frequent contact points allows us to make sure we're staying on course throughout the program. So yeah, you go through the assessment, so you'll have to fill in a long doc, they'll take that information. Then you do your onboarding session, you get delivered that ask about any questions, then you get booked onto your first one to one which is basically where you'll liaise with Kirky, Alicia or I and make sure you're hitting your like targets that they sent out for you. Because if this is version 2.0 you can have my number as well. So if you get any problems in the program, anyone's not getting back to you soon enough, you're not happy with your untoward, you're not happy with your progress, you message me and I'll make sure I put everything straight for you. Like I said, our business is at the point now where like we have to do all we can to protect our reputation. And that means making sure everyone that comes into the program gives us money are exceptionally happy when they get to the end of the program. If you've not seen all the reviews already, there's a reason they're all great after Christmas. I'm going to put this up to 3k currently right now I'm running out of 1995. I'll put it up to 3k to reduce how many people are coming in so we can keep that group lean. There's obviously your next steps. You might have received a doc like this already. And of course we do like payment plans and stuff like that if you need to spread that payment for you. Those of you in the uk, we obviously have a boot camp which is a five day intensive, very intense, requires you taking time off work and all the rest of it. So that might be suitable for you guys. If there's any questions on that, I'd be more than happy to answer. I'll stop sharing that for now. We're not going to come in and hard pitch you guys like there are options for you. You're in the uk, do a boot camp. If you're outside the uk, do training with instinct Principles apply to both. If you're not happy by the end, you're not like actually achieve your goals and able to walk your dog on leash, off leash and you don't feel like we've done a good enough job. You let Tony, our client success manager. No, so long as you've done the homework, like you can't just like get it and do nothing. And that means just like completing your one to ones and making sure you're attending one of these calls a week to make sure we're on track and, and documenting some of your progress some way somehow. But yeah, if you do all of that and you're not super happy with it, like I said, protecting my company's reputation is super important and so like I don't want anyone leaving upset you get your money back. We do refund people occasionally. In those instances, truth be told, more often than not my team have signed someone up that probably weren't a great for the program in the first instance.

So you know, can I just ask, will you. I know you do something for business development as well. Can you send me some information on that? After I tried to get on a free. I watched the webinar and I tried to get on a one to one after but the times didn't fit with my work and then there wasn't anything left in the calendar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem, no problem. What I'll do is I'm gonna. For those of you guys are here because there's not that many of us, there's only six or so. I'm gonna just put my number in the chat. Just hit me up on WhatsApp if you don't mind if you've got any questions about anything, like we spoke about today, or you want to get signed up, or you've got any further questions on. On signing up, Catherine, I'll send you over some details about the. The mentorship program. I'm on the move today a little bit with bits and bobs going on, but I'll get back to you by the end of the day if you need anything.

All right, that's great, thank you.

All good. Any other questions, team? Oh, cool, I've got one.

It depends if you've got time. You're supposed to be only on till 11, weren't you?

Yeah, you're all good, Catherine, go on.

It's just if the only thing I ever struggle with in my own dog is fear and being Bonfire Night, it's at the forefront of my mind at the minute and I've tried bits and bats with her, but it seems like quite bad this year and I thought we'd got through most of it, but I just put her in the crate and she shakes. But I don't think that. I think that's a management thing and it's not a great thing. And, like, when it's getting dark in the afternoon, she's quite conscious. It's getting dark at 3 o' clock and she's really bright. So. Yeah, I just. I just wondered what your thoughts were. I've done something before with her and I've put her on place and we've gone like cold turkey through the. She didn't like it when it's actually. My husband does iron in with the steam of the iron, but we've got through that by putting her on place and I just wondered whether to sweat it out on place through Bonfire Night. But I get a bit of a backlash from my family when she's there, drooling, panting and looking like she's dying.

But you kind of missed the mark for this year, I guess.

Oh, yeah, definitely, yeah.

But for future what. What I do is I. I use play and I'll even get those, like, little toy firecrackers and get, like, someone throwing them around me or a distance from me when I'm playing with the dog. Like, obviously our sport dogs for the sport, I compete and they've got to tolerate gunfire and all sorts and rockets going off around their head. So, like, we do this with puppyhood. So, like, when my dog hears a firework, he's just like, there's nothing. It's definitely going to be like, damage mitigation for you this Time around. And so make sure the dog is well and truly tired. Make sure I just put my dog in a crate. I might even, like, cheat a little bit, given that, you know, the God. God forbid I say a licky mat or something like that and just keep them occupied. Some dogs can do well off, like, being pushed into trying. Trying to tolerate the situation and just, like, hold a long stay or whatever and can get over it that way. It depends if the stress is, like, increasing or decreasing, though. If they're, like, acclimatizing to it a little bit and they're getting better and they're like, their hips go to the side, for example, then maybe that's a good sign. But, you know, I've got a Romanian street dog, and, yeah, she's not great around the fireworks. Like, she's okay. She's not, like, terrible. Like, it's not like DEFCON 1 or anything. So I'll just stick her in the crate. I'll just cover the crate, put some music on in that room, give her a licky mat, cuddle her on the sofa, whatever. Like, we just mitigate that. Oh, the other dogs, like, they don't give a. Because they've been, like, away from that picture, being acclimatized to bangs and crashes and all sorts. So. Yeah,

you've got the Romanian rescues. That's the. The two that I've got are both Romanian rescues.

Yeah, they're not easy, but.

Yeah, my first. My first one was a. A lot of hard work. For the first six weeks, I couldn't even touch him.

Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, they're. They can be difficult.

Yeah. And that's the. That's the other one that I've got is as well, that I was just saying about the food and things and everything and trying to get the focus. They're both. These are Romanian rescue.

Yeah.

As well. But, yeah, he's a. The first one's completely different dog now. Still very wary of being around people and he won't approach people. Fantastic guard dog, though, honestly. Absolutely brilliant. He gives it all mouth, but he'll never. There's no violence in him at all. It's all mouth and it's from a distance. And if they walk towards him, he still does the whole barky bark, but keeps a distance. So he'll go backwards and come away. And then if I tell him to stop, he stopped pretty much instantly.

My Romanians now is, like, seven or eight years old, and for, like, three years we made, like, some strides, but we, like, couldn't get her to like, go, like, still really wary of people. And then I kind of. You might have heard it on any of the podcasts or anything, but I completely changed. Like, how I started training dogs and I conditioned a positive marker for her and I, like, really put her through the mincer in terms of, like, building a food drive up. I didn't starve her or anything, but, like, I made it hard. I was putting food in a box of, like, balls and stuff in, so she had to, like, tolerate a little bit of pressure to get there. And then I conditioned her, my marker. And I used a clicker at the time with her, which I don't really use much anymore. And I. I taught her. I free shaped her, which there's probably YouTube videos on. I free shaped her to touch a chair. Just, like, put a paw on a chair and then put two paws on the chair. And like, we did that over and over again.

Yeah.

And then. And then I'd get a friend that she was like, semi familiar with and I'd get that person to sit on the chair. And then I taught her to free shape, like, touching them as well.

Okay, cool.

And then I graduated to people, like, she wasn't familiar with. And, like, within a month, we made more progress on her and people, which she's great with now, like, she's like, will go up to strangers in the boot camps and stuff like that and go and say hello and check their pockets for treats and, like, she'll extort them and, you know, which is way better than, like, running into the corner and shaking and. Yeah, within, like, two months. One month. Two months, we made more progress doing something like that for a real nervous dog, specifically around people, than we did in, like, literal years. Oh, that's cool. Maybe something like that wouldn't be a bad shout. I don't. I don't have any content on that specific thing, I'm afraid.

Yeah,

all good. Sound team. Message me if you need anything since there's. There's not that many, but. Yeah, I hope that was helpful. Hope you all have a wonderful day with your dog and. Yeah, speak to you soon, hopefully.

Thanks very much.

Bye, guys.

Thank you.