For Reactive Dog Owners Who Dread Every Walk | LIVE Q&A

Hello everybody, hope you're doing well. Sorry about that, I had to run off. Let's wait for a few people to jump on, um, and we are going to get started. I'm just going to move my camera down. All right everyone, if you have any questions, don't be afraid to drop it in the chat. So if you don't know about why I'm here, what we're doing, basically going to answer some questions about your reactive dog, find out what you're struggling with, and basically give you some free advice, find out what's going wrong in your training at the moment, whether you're— you have a reactive dog, you have a dog that pulls you down the street, whether you have bad recall, whether you want to use an e-collar and don't know what we use them for. Just any questions, use this as an opportunity to find out, um, how to fix your dog's issues. So tell me what you're struggling with, or just drop in the chat and tell me where you're from, what dog you have, and what's going on at the moment. Everyone likes to get a bit shy at the start of the lives and not be the first person to ask the question, but I'm I'm here for an hour, here to answer any questions that you might have. So please shoot away, ask me anything that you want. Ah, here we go. Awesome. So Susie's actually got a bunch of questions that people have already asked before jumping on this call. So that's great. So let's see if we can get Susie shooting some of those over and I'll get them all answered for you. Let's see, we— let's have our first one, Susie. Who have we got here? Okay, um, someone from Canada. My dog Buddy is a shepherd mix that struggles with bikes and other dogs. When you say that your buddy struggles with bikes and other dogs, what does he struggle with? Is he like, is he being quite reactive and forward and lunging at them? Give me a bit more information about, um, yeah, what's going on. My dog is fine with people but completely fixates on other dogs the moment he spots one. I can't get his attention back at all. Where do I even start? So whoever asked this question, it's a great question, and that's one thing that we like to do straight away with our dogs is be able to motivate them and also redirect them back to us and keep their attention on us. So a really easy way to do that is by building really good food motivation. So A lot of people will say to us, Adam, my dog isn't food motivated. They don't like food. Probably one of the most common things that we hear, right? And I know this sounds sarcastic, and I know I may sound like a little bit of an asshole here, but your dog is food motivated because if they weren't, they would be dead. You would have a dead dog. So what we want to do is cultivate our dog's motivation through using our food at certain points during the day and maybe even only hand-feeding them or giving our dogs food for a certain time period. So it might be that your dog doesn't like food, but you leave the bowl out all day. So what we might want to do is just put our bowl down for a set period of time, and let's say 3 minutes. After those 3 minutes, we pick that bowl up and we put it away. And that's their only opportunity to eat for the day. We could be nice and we could do this twice in a day as well, breakfast and dinner, and we're going to find that our dog is a lot more food motivated. We could then move on to feeding by hand, and then we're going to condition a marker, a reward marker, which in short just basically means when you hear this sound or this word, you need to turn around and come back to me. We predominantly use the word yes. Yes will mean come back to me because something good is happening. We can even use the leash to help us. Some people, their dogs get really fixated, and it's hard to even break their dog's fixation when you use your yes marker or your reward marker. Um, and that's where a leash can help you out. But in regards to fixation, a great way to, uh, help with this initially is going to be really good food motivation, a marker system, and a leash to also redirect your dog. Rail 1266, my 2 and a half year old Sprotty has really bad FOMO, especially when in a group of our friends and their dogs. If anyone leaves the group, for example to buy a drink, my dog will whine and pull. What should I do? So does your dog struggle to be away from you? Is it anyone? So if you have a bunch of friends over and you're all sitting around a table and one person leaves, then suddenly your dog starts to pull and lunge towards that person to go and get to them? Um, or is it just you? When you say yes, Rael, do you mean just you, or is everyone— like, any person, even a random person, um, could leave the room? Especially me, but anyone, anyone who leaves, he will try. So you could simply tether your dog, get used to tethering your dog. So what I mean by that is tying them to a certain point in the house, um, and getting them used to people walking away, even yourself, members of your family, for short periods of time. Um, they're going to bark and whine initially and get a bit antsy, um, but we want to be able to put them through that, put them through a little bit of stress to say it's okay, it's okay if someone leaves the room. Um, put them through that and eventually they will calm down. And we do this on a regular basis throughout, um, a few days to a week to 2 weeks. Our dog's going to get used to different people leaving the room at different times. After that, when you put the effort in and your dog is continuing to, let's say, like if they're on a leash, pull you over, then you might want to have something called like a punishment marker, the opposite to a reward marker, to tell your dog that, hey, that's naughty, I don't like that. Um, so if every time that they get up they drag you and pull you in opposite direction, you might want to find a way to communicate with them that that behavior isn't good, I don't like it. Um, and that will stop that altogether. But first, you might want to get your dog accustomed to people leaving. Tie them up, walk away. Tie them up, walk away. Tie them up, someone else walks away. Um, get them accustomed to it. And then if it continues, saying, hey, that's not good, don't do that. Anyway, they understand. Good idea if out and about, Tevo. Okay, but putting him through the stress, should I try and distract him through play? Play will— play will probably arouse him more, so we don't want to push our dog into a higher state of arousal. We want to teach our dog to be at a lowest, like, not be aroused when that happens, and to create— make it normal for people to leave, um, so that it's just an everyday thing. Somebody getting up from the table and going to get a fork from the kitchen isn't a reason for you just to, ah, lose your mind. So exposing your dog to do that, exposing your dog to that on a regular basis is going to help. But maybe even using a little bit of punishment to say, Hey, you actually can't do that as well. Rosie Walker: My dog hates people that he didn't meet when he was younger come into the house, barking, nipping, and lunging, and is also reactive towards the dogs, some kids, and some people. All right, Rosie, so it seems like you have a lot of issues with reactivity. Um, there's lots of things that I guess we can talk about when it comes to why your dog might be, might be reactive. Give me an idea about like what dog you have what breed, what age, and what do you do with your dog on a day-to-day basis? Um, do they get out every day? Are they regularly exercised? Do you like— what do you do with them? What age are they and what breed are they? Tell me that. Question about structured play: my dog has lots of play in him, but as soon as I put a lead on him, he gets thrown off and no longer wants to engage. So we're struggling to learn off, learn off and okay. So you might want to normalize the lead a little bit more. Um, let him have the lead on in the house, let him get used to having the lead on, um, and see how that goes. Because the, the lead might push him into like— when he's not used to having the lead on during play, he might associate the, the, the lead of going for a walk, doing something different. He's like, hey, I'm not really interested in this right now, this new game. Because I have my fun going and doing that thing. When the leash goes on, I go and do that thing. I go for a walk. So normalizing the leash a little bit more, um, so it doesn't automatically associate that with going for a walk. Um, and then you could then introduce that through play. Where are we? Rael, I think I need to be a bit more strict. I think I'm a bit too soft with him. Thank you for your helpful advice. No worries, Rael. Um, yeah, let me know. By the way, guys, if you are struggling, like really, really struggling with a reactive dog, if you go into the description, you can just book a call with me. So obviously I'm doing this now and I'm talking to all of you, but it's hard to give you like very in-depth advice. But I literally just do free calls with people, um, they go for half an hour. So you can literally go into the description, book a call with me is completely free, um, and I can talk to you for half an hour about your dog. So if you want to do that, jump up, jump in the description, it should all be there for you. Rosie, he's 8 years old, Mini Schnauzer. Oh, spicy, nice. I love Mini Schnauzers. We walk every afternoon, do training in the morning, snuffle mat and Kong in the day as well. We try and take him out to cafes or Bunnings on the weekend as well. Rosie, Bunnings, where are you from? Whereabouts in Australia you're from? You're from Perth? Are you from the eastern states? Whereabouts are you? Um, so it seems like you're a very committed owner. It seems like you put the work in and you're really like trying to do as much as you can with your dog. With your Schnauzers, let's try to, um, focus on a bit of play. Um, let's get him— make sure he's nice and fulfilled, possibly work on getting him towards being off the leash. So ticking two boxes, being like, hey, I know you love to play genetically. I know you love to play, and I know like every dog you love being off the leash. So I'm going to tick those two boxes. I'm going to make sure that you're having the best time ever. And then once I know that those two boxes have been ticked, then it's fair for you to give him clear feedback. So punishing him for bad behavior, introducing, um, a word which means that he's done the wrong thing, but then also on the flip side of that, making sure that you have a word which means he's done the right thing. All of this needs to be done before you go and try and deal with the issue at hand, if that makes sense. So before you can then just go out and try and deal with it in the moment, that's probably not a great idea. But building these things away from that reactive moment, sharpening the axe as such before you cut down the tree, um, is very important. So making sure you have a good foundation, and then when you actually go and try and deal with these issues, it's gonna be very easy. Um, I hope that makes sense. Oh, you're in Perth, Rosie? Sick. Well, if you're in Perth, do one of the— do one of the calls with me. We're, we're in Bibra Lake. So in the description, Rosie, there's a way that you can book a call. It's literally 30 minutes with me. It's free. We don't charge for it. Um, and yeah, I can give you like more advice, find out what you've tried before, what you're doing wrong, and stuff like that. My, my dog is reactive some days and absolutely fine the next. I can't figure out the pattern. Is this a threshold thing or something else? I would say this is down to more inconsistency within your communication, but could also be down to what you're doing with your dog on a regular basis. Are you cooping them up some days and not giving them the outlet that they need? Some days you're giving them more outlet than others. And are you consistent in your rules and boundaries every day? Do some days On some days do you allow your dog to drag you down the street? On other days are you like, no, you must walk next to me? Um, inconsistency in your communication could be a reason that this is happening, but also maybe the outlet which your dog might have as well. An example of this is my dog Floyd was very sick. He's a German Shepherd. Is he? Where's that little picture? It's opposite. There he is. It's my German Shepherd Floyd. And if you can see that, here we are, here he is. Oh, that— what— there we are, this way. Recently he got a bit sick. He had, um, well, not even— now he's getting better. And he was in a cone for nearly a month, in and out of a cone. During this time as well, he wasn't allowed to eat certain things, right? So even on walks, I had to like muzzle him or have him in his cone. And because of that, I was really struggling to give him the outlet which he needed. I could play with him in our center, but Floyd loves to play. But the bigger thing that really ticks his box is being off the leash every day. And because I couldn't trust what he was doing and what he was putting his mouth into, which could make him more sick, I couldn't give him the outlet, and he became an asshole again. He was whining, he was antsy, he was doing bad things in the house. Um, so it even just confirmed in my head once again stuff I already know, right? But my God, you can really see how this affects him when he doesn't get that, um, the outlet every day. Yep, Rosie, like I said, book a call. That's great that you're going to. Just go for the description, book a call, book a time that suits you, we can have a chat. Wonderland, hello mate again. What's going on? Any success? Any, any— how's the recall going? I'm pretty sure you've got two Malis. A.B., question about exercise. We walk around, we walk for around an hour in the morning when there are less people, but if this is a trigger and reacts, is it actually not beneficial? There aren't many places that are empty. I— can you ask that question again, please? Question about exercise: we walk for around an hour in the morning when there are less people, but if he sees a trigger and reacts, is it actually not beneficial? So I'll answer this question the best I can. Um, it's great that you're walking your dog for an hour in the morning. Or half an hour. It's great that you're getting them out. It's definitely not beneficial if your dog reacts, even if they're getting exercise, because I don't quite know the question. But at no point is it good if your dog is reacting. It's not beneficial. Wonderland, hello again. May, um, we are recall— we are struggling a bit, but the leash pulling has stopped. All right, Wonderland. You, you've been here for the past 3 weeks. What I've told you on multiple occasions, I can help you out with that. Just literally message me on social media, on Instagram, and we'll go through more of a detailed way to break your recall down. So you can literally go onto Instagram, um, Perth K9 Academy, give me a message, and I will give you advice on how we can make it better for you. In order to exercise him, we walk really early, but it's hard to avoid triggers, so I'm not sure how— oh right, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So you don't know if it's beneficial walking him and exercising him because when you are doing that, you're seeing triggers which you think is making you backtrack. So absolutely, It can be— it— this is a tricky one, right? And I like to say that if you can't avoid triggers and you don't know how to stop behaviors, then going for a walk around the block on a leash, so like an actual leash walk, um, is not going to be very beneficial for your dog. They're not getting much out of it. You probably don't like it because it's stressful for you. So you should be focusing more on play rather than exposing your dog to stuff which they're going to inevitably become more addicted to, being the reactivity. What I would say is you need to reach out to somebody who can help you lay foundations to help you stop that reactivity when it occurs, and then it won't be counterproductive to take your dog for that walk. You need to have a foundation there before you can go and attack the reactivity, but play is a great way of doing so. There's a lot of messages that have popped up, so I'm going to try and make sure that I'm answering these. Is an e-collar only suitable for larger dogs? I've got a 25-pound terrier mix who completely ignores high-value treats the second he's distracted. No, an e-collar is for every single dog. We have Chihuahuas that come to our boot camps. Uh, we had an Italian Greyhound the other day, um, who was teeny teeny tiny, probably this big, tiny skinny neck. Um, we have— there's multiple different e-collars that you can use. They're called Micro Educators. They're very small. They can even be turned to run the other way. Like, if your dog's obviously got a really small neck, it can run upwards instead of side. Um, so it's very easy to find any collar that fits every dog. I've messaged but no reply. Really? Are you lying to me, Wonderland? Wonderland, give me— if you don't mind pushing it on the site, on the— throughout YouTube, what's your Instagram name? And I will check for you right now on this live, and I will make sure I reply to you. But I like being in here anyways, lots of good advice. There is, that's true. Zig Zig's back again. You were, um, yeah, I was about to say I saw in your message then, but you were down at the at the South Coast boot camp. Hey, well done, Strong in the Dark Wonderland. You like to write a couple letters. I feel like you're shouting at me in the— yeah, I can't find you, Strong in the Dark. There's nothing there. Maybe why don't you message me right now? Message me right now on Instagram and it will pop up and I can make sure I reply to you. Remember everyone, we are— or I am here— say we, I'm the only one here. I'm here giving out a bunch of advice to help you with your reactive dogs. I'll be honest, we aren't cheap with our dog training. We offer amazing, amazing services. We literally transform reactive dogs every day. I had 9 dogs in the boot camp this week who were all crazy dogs. They are all off the leash and non-reactive. They were all at the pub today. You can go on our Instagram story and have a look at that, um, but I'm just giving here, giving you free advice, so let's make the most of it. If you have any, um, questions— reactivity, leash pulling, aggression, bad manners in the home— ask questions and I can help you. Turn it off, Pen Wonderland. Cheeky. Um, who, where, who's next? I keep reading that you should let a rescue dog decompress for weeks before training, but my dog's behavior is getting worse, not better. How long, how long is too long to wait? So yes, I guess it is good to let a dog settle into your home and let them decompress. A few weeks should be more than enough. Um, but as well as that, that doesn't mean that you can't start training and building foundations straight away. Um, there's nothing wrong with building a— or building a really good relationship, or cultivating a really good relationship through play straight away, building good food motivation, a marker system. And then once your dog is more comfortable with you, they're settled into environment, then you could start— go out, start to go out exploring the— exploring the world, getting out there, going on your walks, um, and yeah, doing some training. But a little bit of time to decompress, a few weeks. Whilst you do it, whilst that decompression time is coming in, laying some basic foundations— play, marker system, food motivation— so when you do get out there, it's nice and easy. You can even practice recall in your back garden, right? Um, fun stuff, fun stuff to make that relationship with your dog even stronger. We had an amazing transformation this week. His name is Loki. He is a hectic, hectic Kelpie who is extremely spicy. Um, And this dog was literally off the leash on Wednesday morning. We started the boot camp on the Monday. Wednesday morning, he's off the leash. He used to chase other dogs' balls and try and lunge and stalk other dogs. By Wednesday morning, we had him completely off the leash. His owner was throwing his ball. I was throwing another ball across to my dog at the same time, and he was running straight to his ball and ignoring everything. Um, so if you're struggling with this kind of stuff and you're in Perth, or even if you're anywhere in Australia, um, we can get these same kind of results for you. Never name a dog Loki. YCA has lots of dogs called Loki. I— yep, I trained Loki. The— well, not I, we, we all trained Loki. I spent a lot of time with Loki though in the UK. I've got a full YouTube video with Loki, the German Shepherd. Um, he's, uh, a lovely boy but was a bit spicy. What dogs do you have? Were they ever reactive? Absolutely, absolutely they were. This, like I said before, old mate here, this guy is Floyd. He is my 6-year-old, or nearly 7-year-old, German Shepherd, um, and he is the reason that I got into dog training. I saw dog trainers in Perth because of him and I lost a lot of money and a lot of time with these people. I spent about $6,000 on dog training because nobody could fix my reactive dog's behavior, my reactive German Shepherd. So I went out and just did it myself. I fixed his behavior. Maybe looking back on it now, it wasn't how I train now. It probably wasn't the most efficient way of doing it, right? But it was a lot better than these so-called dog trainers. And that's what made me become a dog trainer. I also ran my own business for a long time fixing only reactive and aggressive dogs. Um, then I teamed up with the guys from the UK, being the Yorkshire Canine Academy, and now we're literally going global, just helping reactive and aggressive dogs worldwide. Wonderland, you have not messaged, mate. I'm on it right now. You haven't messaged. There's no message from you. On the Perth K9 Academy phone, so I don't know whether you're a bot, but I can't see you. Cannot see you. Are there any Japanese Akita-specific dog training tips? I'm— and mate, mate, M, let's call you mate. This happens with a lot of people. They like to think of their dog situation as the very specific issues. This only happens for my breed, but it's simply not true. Dogs learn the exact same way. We might need to change a little, a small amount of things in regards to how we, uh, fulfill certain dogs, manipulate play slightly differently, focus on more off-leash time for certain dogs. But in regards to like actual communication and training in general. Um, I wouldn't change anything for your Akita. It learns the same way as any other dog. Um, we have dogs come through this center. For example, this week we had Labradors, German Shepherds, Dachshunds, um, a Kelpie. We had a Mastiff. We had two— a Kelpie mix. What else was there? I can't remember. There was lots of different dogs. They all learned the same way and they all had the same amazing results. We just manipulated a little bit differently through play. Where are we? Wait, the YCAPSA page. Wonderland, I'm going to help you out again. Type in this on Instagram, that on Instagram. When you go on there, you will see me, videos of my head. Message, say, hey, it's Wonderland, and I'll message you back and we'll have a good old chat. Is the free phone call to discuss my dog's behavior available for UK residents, please? Absolutely, it is. You can go through the description and there should be a call to book for yourself, um, for the UK team. If there's not, book a call with us and I will direct you to the UK team so we can help you out. Who else we got? Have I missed anything? What did you have? Message. Like I said, everyone, I'm here. How long we've been on? I've only been here— I've only been here 27 minutes, so you still got a whole another half an hour with me. Um, so let's just ask any questions that you might have. Are you unsure about how to train your dog when it comes to reactivity, obedience, leash pulling, recall. Are you skeptical of the e-collar? Does the e-collar go, oh, I've heard bad things about the e-collar, or I've heard good things about the e-collar but I don't know where to start? What is an e-collar used for? What is a prong collar used for? Adam, why does YCA and PCA and the South Coast, why do you use these tools? Why do we have such success with using these things? Awesome questions, and let me answer those tough questions that you might always have always been wondering in your head. Having a reactive dog. I've had a reactive dog for a year. The reactivity went away gradually due to training and lots of walks. With the heat wave, we couldn't walk so much anymore. Dog— your dog became more reactive again. It's a Ridgeback. Okay, so, um, LumenCraft, the stuff that you learn through training If you implement that same thing that you did the first time, you should have the same result. It might be down to a little bit of inconsistency on your part. I might be wrong. Um, did you see— did you see a trainer or did you do training yourself? I've got two react— I've got two Pomeranians. One is reactive to other dogs, the other isn't. Do I train them together or separately? You train them separately. If you have two dogs, um, you want to train them separately. It's going to be very hard to train them together. I have two dogs. The last thing I wanted to do when I had them was do any training with them together. It's too hard. Once I have both to a decent standard, I'm then going to bring them together. Until I have good— until I have both of them good on their own with leash manners, I'm not going to walk them both on the leash. Until I have them both amazing off the leash, I'm not going to have them together off the leash. Um, I hope that makes sense. Wonderland, what about house training, jumping on the couch, tables? Wonderland, do you want these behaviors to happen again? Do you, do you mind? Do you mind if your dog jumps on the, jumps on the couch or jumps on the table? If you don't want it to happen again, you might want to go through a good punishment process, um, to tell your dog in a clear and fair way that, hey, jumping on the couch isn't allowed. I've got my nice new cream couch, you're not allowed on it. She hates walking in the heat. Yeah, so do I. So we stopped walking so much. That was the inconsistencies. LumenCraft, I want to be a bit, um, upfront, I guess, with you. I live— I don't know where do you live, LumenCraft, but I live in Perth, Western Australia. In the summer it is fucking hot here. Anywhere from— you're in Germany, okay, now I can give you a little bit of shit because you live in Germany. In Perth, average is 38 degrees here, 37, 38 degrees here in the summertime. Even when we move away from summer, it still gets bloody hot. Some days it's like 43 degrees. We still walk our dogs. But do you know what the difference is? We get up early. We set our alarm a little bit earlier and we get out of bed, or we wait until later at night when it cools down and then we go for a walk. So I might sound rude. I don't want to sound rude. Get up earlier, set your alarm, get out of bed, walk your dog, um, and be consistent. And that consistency— your dog's behavior through your consistency will get back to where you want it to go. Because if you already have clear communication and the only reason that your dog became reactive again was through a lack of fulfillment because you weren't walking them, get up earlier and walk them. I hope this is helpful because I probably sound like a bit of an asshole. I don't want to be an asshole, I just want to give you my true opinion, and I hope that helps. I was told a gentle leader would calm my dog down on walks. It made things worse. Why does this keep happening? What creates clear— and what creates a calm dog and a dog that has clarity in the way that they think is clear and fair communication. A dog that has never been told no is like a Labrador we had this week. Her name was Lucy. Called Lucy for the first day a crackhead because that's what she was. She was a crackhead. She, in her brain, it was like she had 50 YouTube tabs open at once and they were all on full volume. It was going crazy. That's all, that's all that I could think about when I looked at her. She couldn't even think about— she couldn't think. Her brain was going crazy. Do you know what cleared her brain up and was— and what enabled her to be calm and be happy throughout the week and go off the leash and listen to her owner? It was clear communication. And it wasn't so much the yes, it wasn't the well done, that's a good job. It was the opposite of that. It was the, hey, that thing that you're doing, it's not too good, don't do that. And for the first time in her brain, when she's so just scattered, she was able to take a step back and go, oh, wait a minute, so when I'm jumping and lunging at the end of the leash to everything in sight, for the first time in my life I got told I can't do that. And it enabled her to step back and think for a second, to which she was then rewarded, right? And this spread across multiple different areas to where she was able to actually think for the first time and live a really good life. That's what I did. Also, the night walk was done, the noon walk was missing. You don't need to walk your dog twice a day if you don't want to. My— a lot of my dog, uh, my dog owners, a lot of my clients with their dogs walk their dog once a day. The thing that you might be missing is like a play session. Um, do you have a good no? Do you have a good yes? AB, you can do both. You can create a more positive association if your dog hates the leash. Leash, food, leash, food, leash, food. You can let your dog drag it around, um, you can tether her to the leash, um, you could, you could, if you really were obsessed with play and you really wanted to get play going, because play is so beneficial and can give your dog such an outlet. You could cultivate the desire to play through a bit of deprivation. So cultivate motivation through deprivation of being able to go for a walk. So make— basically make your dog bored. Say you're not going for a walk, the only outlet you get is play. The leash goes on. Here's my play cue. Do you want to play? No? Cool. Then I'm going to go and put you away. I'm going to bring you back out and put your leash on and we're going to play. Don't want to play? Cool. We're going to go away. And we're going to do this until your dog goes, you know what, fuck it, let's play, let's have a great time. Um, but that's if it's really, really important to you, which it sounds like it is. Um, but also, again, away from that, you could just make it a very normal thing. Put it on in the house, then drag it around. It becomes a very normal thing for your dog. Every trainer I've spoken to has said my dog is the worst they've ever seen, bro. Yeah, does that put him outside the reach of a boot camp? On multiple— pretty much on every boot camp, we have multiple people that believe their dog is the worst of the worst. I don't know if you have these across Australia, um, across Australia or across the world. We have, in Western Australia, we have something called the Dangerous Dog List where dogs have to wear bright collars and muzzles, and they're muzzled permanently, and they're on the leash permanently for certain stuff which has happened. We have these dogs that come in throughout our boot camps. We had one this boot camp, we had two on the last. Pretty much every boot camp will have like one dangerous dog, and we turn these dogs around very easily. The one in the boot camp this week, Angel. Do you know what happened? It never ever in its life been told no. Never. It never understood that it wasn't allowed to try and bite dogs and bite people. It was a German Shepherd, and it thought that it was just allowed to bite dogs because no one had ever told the dog no, right? In its head, it had been shouted at, voices would have been raised, there was tension on the leash maybe, but in a way that the dog understood— her name was Shiva— in a way that Shiva— and the owner never told her in a way that Shiva understood that her behavior was bad. And for the first time in her life, on Tuesday, she got told to knock it off and stuff wasn't good. Not through being abusive and through being harsh on the dog, just doing it in a very clear manner. It once again, like the Labrador Lucy opened up her world for the first time and she went, oh my God, right, you don't want me to do that. Ah, I won't do that. That's— let's do something else. Yeah, cool, let's move on with life. And the results that you see from that are genuinely fucking life-changing, not only for the dog but for the owner as well. We have owners cry throughout the whole boot camp because they just can't believe it. We had someone cry today. She was hugging me and I was like I'm so happy for you. And I was, because she'd been getting dragged around by her dog for the past few years. She thought that her dog was unfixable, that no one lives a life like she lives with her dog. But like I said to them at the start of the boot camp, I was like, we see dogs like this every week. You're not alone. But what is not readily available is the right way to fix these dogs. And I'm— it's not cocky of me to say that we know how to do this because it's what we do every day, right? Um, and we have the results to show it. We, we genuinely have the results to show that we're fucking changing people's lives. I always say, right, I'm not a— I'm a pretty small skinny guy, not the biggest bloke in the world. If I wanted to go to a PT and get really, really jacked, right, get really muscular and I said to the guy, I'm like, right, I want to work with you, but can you just show me some like results and before and afters or evidence that you have helped skinny small blokes like me get really muscular? And if he's like, oh no, no, I've never done that before, or yeah, I do it all the time, but I just have no evidence of me doing it, I would definitely second-guess working with that person, or I just wouldn't work with them altogether. And this goes across any industry. Right, this goes across if I wanted to build a really nice house and I went to the builder and I said, this is what I want, have you done it before, can you show me evidence that you can do it? And if they say no, then I'm not going to go with them. But it seems like in the dog training world, we just— well, clients that I've worked with have previously just put money into these people that show them no evidence so they can fix these issues. And that's why we just put so many videos out there. You could go onto YouTube tonight and just watch hours, like literally hours upon hours of videos of myself, Kirkie, Jacob Morgan, um, fixing reactive and aggressive dogs. Like, watch us do it in the moment, and then there's tons of before and afters as well. So find somebody who can help you with your issues. That was a big rant, but I'm, I'm passionate about this, guys. This is what's so crazy to me is that you guys are all here struggling, right? And it's really not a hard issue to fix when it comes to your reactive dog. So if you do have questions and you want brutal, honest answers, then ask me because I will tell you exactly how to fix it and, um, where you're going wrong. So let's do it. We've got— I'm here for another 20 minutes and then I'm gonna go home. The fights are on tonight. Watching, uh, one of the boys fight over in Sydney in the Muay Thai class. I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna have a beer. But before I have that beer and I watch the fights, drop me a bunch of questions in. Let me know what you're struggling with, um, and let me help you. And if you don't want to ask the question here, I do a 30-minute free call. You're all here looking for answers, right? Go in the description, go on Perth K9 Academy, book a call with me and talk to me. For 30 minutes. It's completely free and I can help you. A free call with a trainer, great, can fix all your issues. Sorry, doorbell rang. Yes, she listens to yes and no quite well. I want to, uh, be— I want to confront you about that and say, would you disagree with me if I said that your dog didn't understand no because it's reactive? If it understood no, then it wouldn't do it again, right? Let me know about that, LumenCraft. If your dog understood no properly, then it wouldn't do that behavior again. So does your dog really understand no? I panic when an off-leaf— off-leaf— an off-lead dog runs up to my dog, or even if I just see an off-leaf dog. Why am I saying leaf? Leash. Off leash. Bit of a tongue twister there. I don't know where you'd have an off-leaf dog, um, in the distance. What should I do? I think she likes dogs, but I'm not sure. I panic when an off-leash dog runs up to us. I mean, have you had bad experiences in the past? Tell me about that. What, what's your dog's behavior like? I could give you many answers for this. Um, if I'm dating with a really— if I'm dating with a genuinely aggressive dog, my answer's going to be different. If I'm dating with a fearfully reactive dog, my answer's going to be different. Um, if it's just a frustration-based dog, it might the answer might be different. Tell me what your dog is like. What breed is it? What's his training history? Like I said, guys, don't be shy. I'm here for an hour answering your questions. Wonderland. Ah, I did. I got you. You went in. Say you are— you went into the— you went into the request. Let's have a look at you. I'm gonna have a snoop, Wonderland. Oh, here he is. Oh, you got some nice dogs, mate. Very nice dogs, everyone. This is his dog. I'm not going to show his name. Very pretty dog. She gets a bit frustrated on the lead. Just an Aussie Shepherd, fine off the lead. Um, so if she's genuinely social, uh, and you know those other dogs, you know it's gonna be a positive interaction, then I wouldn't stress about the off-leash dogs, right? I personally don't take my dogs to random areas where I'm gonna have, um, interactions with dogs who I don't know and don't trust, purely because people don't have control of their dogs. People don't put the training in. I'm like, a lot of people in Perth have literally genuinely aggressive dogs and they let them off the leash. So it— I am unsure sometimes if you're trying to deal with it in the moment. This is where a good, like, redirect can really help you. If it's just a very happy-go-lucky dog, then that interaction might be managed by you having a good redirect, having a good positive marker, so a reward marker, having a good punishment marker, so you can communicate with your dog in that moment when the friendly dog comes over and wants to say hello. If your dog has a great interaction with that dog, you can reward it. But if it snaps at the dog for no reason, you can also tell it off, right? Um, I hope that helps. Simple. Keep it simple. The KISS rule, right? Keep it simple, stupid, or keep it simple, silly, however you say it. I'm here for 15 more minutes, guys. Drop me some messages. In the chat. Is it recall? Is it reactivity? Is it aggression? Is it e-collars, prong collars? Is your dog digging in the house? Does your dog fucking not constantly bark at the front door? Tell me a little bit more about the situation. Susie, we got any more questions or those pre-preloaded questions that people wanted to ask? We get a lot of requests for these lives or people dropping in who can't actually attend and they go and watch it back to ask the questions. Bull Arab make dog. Bull Arab was fine up until 1 year old, lots of socialization. Something flipped around the 12-month mark, started being reactive. With now 5 and reactivity is worse. Um, Atul, your dog— is your dog— was your dog friendly with other dogs? It sounds like you might be dealing with a lot of frustration because you've over-socialized your dog. So your dog was able at a young age to be hyper-social and see every dog and have the best time ever and then at some point you put that dog on a leash and showed them a dog that they were usually able to go and play with. They cannot get to that dog, so they become frustrated. That frustration turns into vocalization, it turns into lunging and pulling towards the dog. It looks nasty when your dog probably would get there. I might be wrong. When your dog would get there, they're just going to say hello. So that's where the over-socialization can be counterintuitive to having a well-behaved dog because they're just obsessed with other dogs. They want to go and say hello to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that's out on the walk. And that usually looks like pulling into the harness, pulling into the leash, lunging and barking. I'm not saying that is your case. You might genuinely have a bit of a fear-based dog now, maybe for something that might have happened. Your dog might be apprehensive, um, when you get to them. It might not be a happy-go-lucky dog. It might— that frustration might turn into aggression. The interaction with the random dog might not be— they might not vibe it, and it might not go very well. One might be very defensive and turn around and snap. Um, but it sounds like if you did loads of socialization and it was happy for a long time, then suddenly became reactive on the leash, um, you might be dealing with a frustration-based dog, which is an easy one to fix. Wonderland, can you catch your Mali digging the holes in the garden? Can you catch her do it? Can you sit, um, can you sit in the window and watch your dog do it? Why is the boot camp better than residential training? I like the idea of my dog being trained by a pro trainer. So if you imagine doing like residential training your dog is going to be away for, let's say— and if you don't understand what residential means, guys, over here in Australia that is what's known as like a board and train. In the UK or other parts, I think in America as well, it's known as a residential. Um, that's when the dog goes away and they stay with a trainer for a certain period of time. Any board and train that's gonna be mildly successful for proper behavior modification needs to be at minimum, at minimum, 3 weeks. When we used to do them, YCA used to do them, Yorkshire Canine Academy, myself, we'd be doing them at least 5 weeks long. The— what can happen is that there's not enough time to give decent handovers to the trainer. If you imagine how many hours upon hours we've spent with that dog, working alongside the dog over those 5 weeks. We then have to teach you everything that we've worked with and done with that dog over that 5-week period. Most trainers, even if that's not what we used to do, but most trainers will offer 2 handovers. So a handover session is you get the dog back and they go, right, I'm going to spend an hour with you and hand over the information to you so you can continue this training on. Is that enough? 2 hours of your, of your time to know how to keep up leash manners, reactivity, a positive marker, how to punish your dog, how to control an e-collar, how to use a leash, how to stay calm in certain scenarios? It's very, very difficult to do that. And that's why board and trains get an amazing success and then a massive decline. The dog goes back to how they were. Because it's just not beneficial. The difference in the boot camps is we run 10 till 4, right? Monday to Friday, 6 hours, 6 hours of you training with us per day. And you do the training, we don't do the training. We teach you how to train your dog. We don't touch the leash. I didn't touch a leash once this week with the— my boot campers. I just taught them how to do it. I taught them how to do it. I showed them, should I say, how to do it. Let's do the maths on that, guys. 6, 12, 18, 24, 30. 30 hours in a week of you training your own dog. That's why we get such crazy, crazy results, is because we teach you over the course of a week for 30 hours of how to train your dog, and you get absolutely life-changing results. So board and train, the trainer does it for you. Amazing results because obviously a dog trainer is training your dog. They give you the dog back, you have fucking no idea what to do. Your dog goes like this. Boot camps, what we run, pretty much the only place that does this in the world, we train you for 5 days straight, for 30 hours, of how to train your dog. You are then the dog trainer. You have trained your dog so you can go away and live a happy life forever with your dog. You are Perth-based. Any chance you might visit Brisbane or have any affiliation here of good trainers for reactive dogs, or any plans for boot camps here in Brisbane? I told— we run, um, programs all around the world, so we have a boot camp, but I train dogs in Brizzy, Darwin, Melbourne, um, Adelaide. I don't think Townsville, anywhere else. Kununara, which is not in Perth, but it's in the middle of bumfuck. Um, so we train dogs, and not only in Australia but all across the world, through a virtual program. So people get the same results as our boot campers through working with us virtually. So I train loads of people on the East Coast. They get their dogs off the leash, non-reactive, good on the leash, good in the home, all through a virtual program. And if you want to find out more, you can literally just click the link in the description, um, book a call. Like I said earlier to people, it's free. It's just us. You can chat to me for half an hour, um, ask any questions about the program or just how to fix your dog, um, and we just have a yarn for like half an hour. So it's in the link, you can book a call, um, and I can tell you all about that and we can fix your dog for you. Yes, I'm always outside with him and catch him. Wonderland, then what you can do is you can go through punishment with your dog. You need to find somebody who can do this properly, um, who can teach you how to go through punishment effectively to stop those behaviors. Anything that we want to stop, to a degree, to a degree, guys, most of the time, if you want to reduce a behavior, we want to go through some kind of punishment. That is the technical term. Sometimes people get a bit yucky— we use— I know Kirkie does, and I like it as well. I like to use the term how to stop a behavior, or stopping a behavior. We also then, on the flip side of that, have reinforcement, right? Or everyone knows the term positive reinforcement, to reward a dog. But if we want to stop something, especially something like digging, we're not going to try and reward our dog or redirect our dog away. We're going to say, hey, that thing, not good. Don't do that thing. So it's very clear in the dog's brain. So you'd want to go through some kind of punishment. If you can't catch your dog doing the thing, you cannot punish them for it. Has to be in the moment. You can't come home after your dog pisses or shits in the house. You can't come home after your dog dug the hole or tore up your mattress and try and tell them off. If you do this— so if you come home right now, your dog destroys your house Okay, I'm gonna sound like an asshole here. It's whose fault is it? Is it the dog's fault or is it your fault? Tell me in the comments. Somebody tell me, take the words out of my mouth. If your dog destroys stuff in your house, is it your dog's fault or is it your fault? Or is everyone too afraid? Never the dog's fault. What a fantastic answer. It's not the dog's fault. It's your fault. A lack of management, a lack of communication. So we want to manage our dog's ability to be able to do that bad thing, and then we want to be able to put them in that situation when we can see them and can catch them to give them clear feedback that that thing is not okay. Or on the flip side of that, we want to be able to give them clear communication the moment that what they are doing is really good. If you can't catch a dog doing something right in the moment, you can't reward them. And if you can't catch them doing something wrong, you can't tell them off. On walks, I'm not sure how to address the initial fixation on the other dogs in the area. Correct or redirect? Trying to get in front of the escalation before it gets too high. Yes, so you want to— we want to redirect, um, but too much redirection can sometimes be— I sound a bit old school here, but I'm not, I promise. I'm just kind of telling you how it is. Too much redirection and never allowing your dog to just do the thing is a Band-Aid. We want to try to redirect and create a positive association with the thing that they might be a bit worried or apprehensive positive about. But if we're just constantly— here's, here's my bottle, right? Every— I'm scared of the bottle, or I'm trying to attack the bottle. If every time I look at it someone gives me $50, $50, $50, $50, $50, I might like the $50, but I might also really want to attack this bottle. Okay, so I enjoy the money, I like getting paid $50 every time I look at that, it's pretty good. 'But I really, really like doing this.' So this might be a good Band-Aid for a while, and you might stop your dog doing it, a yo-yo. But eventually we need to be— we need to say to our dog, 'Oh, you want to do that? Then okay, go and do that. But when you do that, I'm going to tell you that that's not good.' And you might spend so much time trying to redirect your dog away from the thing and never have true success because all you needed to do in the first place was to say, hey, that thing you trying to attack the dog or me trying to slap my water bottle, unacceptable. You're not allowed to do it. And that might, like it did with— does all the time in our boot camps, like it did multiple times this week— clear the dog's brain up to go, oh, is that bad? Okay, I won't do that. I'll just walk nicely. It's that simple. If we do it correctly. But yes, redirect your dog, create that good association, um, it will allow you to get closer and closer over a little bit of time. But when your dog does do that thing, we can't allow them to just commit the crime. We need to give them feedback. I can't just flog it past a speeding camera and be like, ho ho, okay, I don't care, I'm going to go past the speeding camera, because you know what's going to happen? I'm going to get flogged in the mail. There's going to be a big speeding ticket for me and also some demerit points. So we need to give your dog an adequate speeding fine sometimes. The— the internet is full of trainers saying you should never use the word no dog. What do you think about that? So 2 things of that. The word no is mishjumbo for our dogs, right? It's nonsense. So they don't understand English. It's like if, if someone— if a trainer was to say to me, you shouldn't say no to your dog, maybe I shouldn't say bananas, maybe I shouldn't say apples, maybe I shouldn't say a singular word. My dog doesn't understand the word anyway. So simply being able to say a word— not being able to say a word to a dog is crazy. But the idea that we should never give our dogs boundaries and never give them clear communication about what is right and what is wrong— let's just use common sense. In what, in what world does that exist? Human beings, animals— watch, watch two dogs communicate with one another. Watch animals communicate with one another. Watch human beings communicate with one another. What do we do in our relationships? Me and my wife, we create boundaries. We know what we like, we know what we don't like, we know right from wrong. We— that's what happens in society. We are given rules to follow. We are told what is acceptable in our society. You can do this, you can't do this. When you look at two dogs communicate one another, they do the same thing. Hey, I like this. Look at me, call my belly, let's play, play bow. I don't like that, that was too rough. Correction. The idea that we should never tell our dogs no is one of the most concerning things that is happening in the dog training industry. It is the reason that we have an epidemic of reactive dogs. It is the reason that I am so busy, but it's also great because it allows me to show that that is simply not true. Because the amazing results that not only I get, but that all the team get at YCA, that the team get at South Coast, because we literally fucking change people's lives. So the idea that you can't say no to your dog, I would just invite those people to come down and watch us train some dogs and watch how much we change their lives. All right. Let's get a few more questions in because we're about to go over the hour. So once those questions are in, I'm going to cut it off there. German Spitz keeps randomly mouthing me but does to anyone else— doesn't— he mouths you but not anyone else. You've tried multiple negative responses but nothing. What have you done, Skyline? What have you— what, what have you done so far? I would also recommend to play with your dog, give them adequate outlet for that, the desire for them to do that. So lots of play, but then also once again creating boundaries. Do it now. Hey, we can do this now. You can play with me. Don't play— don't mouth me though. This is the time you bite. You don't bite elsewhere. You don't bite out of that moment. So we're a really good start and finish cue are important in play. Are you ready? Are you ready? And we play. Then done. Whatever word you want to use. Clear communication. We're ready to play. We're done playing. And then if you have that as well as strict boundaries of, hey, don't fucking do that to me, your life will be very easy if your dog mouths you. No more questions. All right guys, well that's it from me. Before I go, I'm just going to give you one more, um, give you a bit of awareness about what we do. We run 5-day boot camps. It's here in Perth, UK. There's 2 locations in the UK. I don't know if I can— I don't know if this has been announced, but there's one opening somewhere else as well, and we can change your life in 5 days. Okay, 5 days. If your dog is reactive, your dog is aggressive, they've never been off the leash, they pull you on the leash, they're bad in the car, they bark at your neighbors, we can fix this all for you in 5 days. If you live in a location where you can't access these boot camps, you can do an 8-week program with us. So you can come to us via in-person training and then a mixture of online if you can't attend the boot camps, or you can do a completely virtual program as well. Um, and we can help you from there. If you want to know more about that, literally go on to our website or go into the description right now, click on our website, and you can book a call. Again, the call is completely free. It's a half an hour chat with me. Um, talking about dog training, how we can help your dogs. Cool. Wonderland, I'm gonna message you on Instagram. There is a dog trainer in Brisbane, it's called Adam Hope from the Perth K9 Academy. We can do it virtually and I can help you with your dog. On that, have a great night everyone. I'm gonna go watch the fights, I'm gonna have a beer, and I hope you all have an amazing weekend. Take care, um, and I'll see you soon. Catch you later.