If I Had A Reactive German Shepherd, This Is What I'd Do (FULL BLUEPRINT)

So we've just had Ollie dropped off. Ollie's a 2.5-year-old German Shepherd that does this when he sees other dogs. Ollie's a classic case of his behaviour has got so bad his walks are very short, if not non-existent. This cycle may sound very familiar to you. You see some reactivity in your dog, you take them out, you're scanning for other dogs. Walks become very stressful. They become anxiety-inducing and you dread walking your dog and your dog doesn't fulfill the role that you had planned for them when you first picked them up. And you know, from their point of view, they're not leading the fulfilling life that they probably need. Then what happens, of course, when their exercise demands are not being met through the lack of walking? As we know, their behavior's gonna get worse too and we get stuck in this cycle. So we're gonna document the 4-week process of Ollie spending time with myself and our training team and show you very simple solutions, by the way, to these problems. We're not gonna overcomplicate it. As a dog trainer, you actually only need to be phenomenal with speaking with people, and the dog is actually a simple part of the puzzle. So we're gonna document the step-by-step process of how we took Ollie from this to this in just 30 days, which in the grand scheme of things is a minuscule amount of time. So buckle up, get ready, here comes Ollie.

So Owen, you've just had Ollie dropped off. He's German Shepherd, right?

Yeah, 2.5-year-old German Shepherd. Big Baz is his owner. Very reactive towards other dogs.

Okay.

Um, we've done a bit of a dog test already, has pretty large feelings about other dogs. Barry's been struggling for some time.

And you know roughly how long he's been showing these signs of reactivity?

I think it's been pretty consistent Really? He's quite a struggle to walk now. He's actually injured Barry's hand on occasion where he's pulled the leash and hurt Barry.

Any other issues he's got, or is he a good boy generally? I just kind of met him in passing. He seemed pretty social with people.

Yeah, he seems very social with people. I've had him out around multiple people and he's been absolutely fine. There was obviously one incident where you kind of walked out the door of the office, surprised him a bit, and he barked, but that might just be down to environment.

He was a bit—

yeah, early days, isn't it? Probably a little bit out of his comfort zone, maybe. Give us a quick outline. I know obviously things will change day to day and be fairly fluid and organic, but in terms of in the picture in your head what's the 4-week outline going to be roughly like?

Yeah, so I'm of course going to look to make a bit of a relationship with him. I've never met him before. Today's the first day I've actually met him, so I'll spend some time with him, some quality time just on his own without triggers present or anybody else present. Work on building his food motivation, just get him out eating out of my hand. Once I've had a few consistent meals and he's eating regularly, I'll start to charge his marker. After I've got his marker, the world's our oyster really. I'll probably go about training a recall. Okay, Barry's really keen to get him e-collar conditioned.

Yep.

So I'll do that, um, get him off leash. That gives us some power. Um, after we've kind of completed that and I'm fully convinced he's going to come back to me, I'll look to probably develop a bit of a no marker.

Okay.

So that I can stop certain undesirable behaviors and then look to start introducing him to other triggers. Once I've done a bit of that on leash, I'll probably look to do some of off-leash work. We've already spoken about how important it is to then probably re-socialize him before he goes back to Barry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably not enough to wear him just for new with this dog.

Yeah, he's not, he's not had much dog-to-dog interaction. It's quite clear he doesn't know how to interact given his reaction. So look to do lots of that and then just look to do, um, like lead manners and general obedience, which will just help Barry out. Barry's ultimate goal, um, that he's let us know about is he just wants to be able to take Ollie to a pub or a cafe and enjoy.

Okay, fair enough.

That's kind of the ambition.

Yeah, exactly.

So I'm just going to look to make that as easy for Barry as possible so that it's as capable for Ollie as possible.

Beautiful. What about play? Is he a player like a lot of Shepherds, or is he a little bit off it?

Yeah, I think he's a little bit off it. Had a toy out with him earlier, didn't seem interested. Might just be kind of new environment, new me.

Sure.

But didn't seem very enthusiastic about it. And of course, it's going to be a really powerful outlet and reward system for him, and it will help us create a bit of boundaries. So look to do a bit of that. Nice.

Okay, awesome. Look forward to the 4 weeks. Look forward to the updates. So you've had Ollie here for 13 days now, Owen. Yeah, it's probably been about time for a catch-up of where he's at, what he's been up to, what you've been up to with him. Give us like a bit of a rundown the first 2 or 3 days, what did that look like?

Yeah, so initially when we got Ollie, he wasn't incredibly food motivated.

Was he as cuddly as this?

He was a little bit cuddly after day 2, I think. We got along well. He's quite a friendly boy, very social.

With people, right?

Yeah, with people. When we first brought him in, he was quite keen to come and see everybody.

Yep.

As you saw when we first got him, not so social with other dogs.

Yeah. So we've got a pretty good before— I believe it was with Blue, actually, was it?

Yeah, it was with Blue, and I think with Stark as well.

Okay.

Yeah, we kind of tested him in front of those two. Had quite big feelings about other dogs, but those first kind of 2 or 3 days, just tried to settle him in as much as possible.

Okay.

Um, get some food down his neck.

Did the owner manage to condition a mark before he came, or was it okay? Did he have an understanding?

Not really. His marker wasn't great, didn't have great food motivation. Also, it obviously takes him a bit of time to acclimatize.

Sure, yeah, yeah.

A new environment, new people. So had to try to get him to eat and then spent a bit of time also conditioning his, his terminal marker.

So after that first kind of test with the dogs, yeah, we assume you probably weren't showing him too many at that point because he didn't have a marker and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, exactly. So Tried to keep him away from dogs as much as possible. Lots of management in place just to prevent the rehearsal. So we just spent a lot of time together in the absence of other dogs, utilizing here at the center, um, at home. Obviously got the luxury of having like a private driveway and some private areas and a private paddock, so leveraged a lot of areas there to kind of avoid other dogs at that point in time until I had my toolbox.

Perfect. Did you have to condition the marker? Did he be understanding of it, or did you just kind of like make his motivation for it a little higher?

Yeah, so definitely had to condition one and didn't really have an understanding of Y-E-S, so we just built that. So from, from day one, I just moved straight on to hand feeding.

Yep.

So we were just feeding them out of hand. I wasn't asking him for anything in particular, I was just getting him to eat from me.

This dog's got hiccups.

Um, to kind of build his trust a bit more.

Yeah. Okay, cool.

Um, and then once he was comfortably eating out of my hand every meal, that's when I then started to condition his marker. So Beautiful. I'm sure people can find out how to do that via our Behavior Bible or one of our training services.

You can click the link in the description and join our Behavior Bible, which is a free community program and weekly coaching. Believe it or not, uh, Kirkie goes live once a week and answers all your questions within that program. It's completely free. Um, we will, once you sign up, look to ascend you into one of our paid programs. Full transparency, uh, if it's not for you though, you can just block us and move on with your life.

Lovely, lovely, for sure. All right, okay, so once you had a marker, what— where did you head next? This was a dog that he went mental at, and he's not now, so obviously there's been something going on. So where did you go after the marker?

So after I had his marker, my first, like, priority was try and get him off leash. Um, Barry, his owner, hasn't really had him off leash yet since he became reactive. His recall's obviously also not great, so the first thing that I started to do was overlay his e-collar and utilizing his marker to create the association. Once I'd done that and I was quite comfortable getting him out, getting him freedom, getting him fulfilled, that's then when I kind of started to work with dogs at a distance. Yeah, cool. So beyond threshold. So that was literally just using his yes marker, um, to do a bit of counter conditioning.

All right. I don't know if we've got a bit of footage of this, but when he saw Shadow when he first came up, his threshold distance was a long way.

Massive.

Was it still as far as that once you'd conditioned your marker, or could you bring it in a bit?

Yeah, I could bring it in a bit because I had the ability to interrupt and gain his attention back to me. Whereas initially when he saw Shadow, I think that was what, the start of day 2? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so I had no real ability to kind of gain his attention.

Yeah, looking for something to do and didn't yet have something else to do.

Exactly, hadn't created any new preferential behaviours yet.

All right, fine.

Yeah.

Any toolage, anything else you've done? Obviously that's probably taken us up to about 8, 9, 10 days, is it? But obviously we're on 13. I know he's met one of your big fellas, we'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah, but in terms of when you were teaching the redirect and all that kind of stuff, giving him a different job to do, yeah, any tools you've used?

Yeah, so I changed them out into a 2.25 prong. So Ollie has previously been on a prong with another trainer. Okay, don't believe it was conditioned that well, he was on a 3.25. Not to slate other trainers, no, no, not at all, um, but didn't really mind pulling into it. So either the consistency from the handler wasn't great, fine, or the education from the trainer wasn't great.

Okay, nice.

Um, so change the tool slightly, put him out onto a 2.25-prong, so a bit more acute pressure.

Yep.

Um, and just started to add in some negative reinforcement alongside his marker. So make his marker a bit more powerful. Yep. Remove other options and bring his value back to me and away from other things that might be, to his opinion, higher value, whether that be cats. Found out he really likes cats.

Yeah, they do that, don't they?

Um, or, or other dogs. So it just gave me a bit more power steering, for lack of better words, with him. It is cute.

He is cute. For like, for people watching the video, obviously you've used— you've turned like negative reinforcement, but essentially all you mean is pressure to change perception of the dog, right?

It's like, yeah, exactly.

If we try and simplify it a little bit. He's very cute, isn't he?

He's very cute.

Okay, fine.

Yeah.

And then on top of that, obviously you've done a bit of conditioning of a kind of— maybe don't do that— discipline marker.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Because obviously you, you're still at a fair bit of distance with dogs and you managed to keep them under reaction threshold. I hate the word fucking threshold, but yeah, you were able to keep them under that if you use your marker really frequently. But yeah, needed a little bit more assistance, right?

Yeah, the frequency had to be quite high. And, and to be completely honest, still to this Ollie's food motivation isn't like as high maybe as it could be. Okay, potentially. Yeah. Um, and that's mainly just down to the food that he's on.

Um, how's his cuddle motivation?

His cuddle motivation is pretty strong, as you can see. Um, so like you say, we didn't really have the ability to teach Ollie not to bark at other dogs.

Yeah.

So he, as we kind of discussed when he first came in, that was kind of one of the things in which we needed to do also. So we also had a boot camp in last week. Yeah, it's quite helpful. Yeah, yeah, that I used Ollie as the demo. So we conditioned, um, a no marker. Yep. To kind of tell him you can't do that, but you can do whatever else you want to do, to give him again as much freedom as possible. Got you. Um, so we did that, we did some conditioning of that with some non-emotional things, and then once I knew he had an understanding of that marker, as he did our yes marker, I then started to put him in front of other dogs and say don't bark at that other dog.

Cool. Yeah, I saw that all week at boot camp. It was really good, it was impressive, impressive work. Yeah, it is. And then, um, I'm gonna make you tell the story because it's valid, right? Yeah, we make errors and we fix those errors. 100%. Obviously you took him to meet the big fella at the weekend, your big Rottweiler Thor. Yeah. Which is a fucking brilliant idea in terms of like resocializing him and getting him actually interacting with dogs. Like, hands off, hats off to you. But they didn't go quite as smooth as maybe could have.

No.

But was absolutely fine, right? Because you had something in place to fix it.

Yeah, exactly. With both dogs as well. So yeah, obviously took him to go and see my Rottie on the weekend, which was going to be quite a hard test for him.

Yep.

Um, given that, as you know, my Rottie can be quite pushy.

Yeah, and scary. Good word.

A typical, typical scary Rottweiler. Um, so the first thing that I did on the Saturday when they met for the first time, because I thought Ollie might have a bit of a problem with him, maybe just given his stare and his tendencies— the Rottweiler, that is. Um, Thor, for those of you that don't know. Introduce the two of them on the Saturday. And did a bit of a resocialization drill with them both, lovely, to get them comfortable in each other's company, which actually went really, really positively.

Nice.

No animosity between the two that I could see anyway. So then from that point on, both boys had had a walk, both boys had had their kind of exercise for the day, so I didn't really see the point in taking that together at that time. But then on the Sunday morning, I'd already done some e-collar conditioning with Ollie, so that was part of his recall, overlaying that. And I thought, actually, let's take them both out together. So I took Ollie and Thor out together. I even sent you a video of the first 2 minutes of the walk. It was going really, really smoothly.

Yeah.

Both of the boys didn't really have an interest in each other, um, to be quite frank.

Give like the setting for that, because obviously like it wasn't like a meeting like, hey, here's my dog.

No, no.

Yeah, I know they're both in Cani All Dogs at that point, but in terms of like the environment you did it, yeah, it's quite important. So just give like the setting, set the stage.

Um, so I was on a local recreational ground to my house. I got both dogs out of the van. I had a friend assist me. They walked ahead of me with Thor. I took Ollie in behind, um, kind of didn't do a face-to-face greeting. That's where a lot of people obviously make mistakes with on-leash greetings, but I wanted to have a leash on both of them just to have them both in a controlled manner, in a controlled setting. My Rottie is pretty low energy, as you know anyway, which is a good dog to introduce Ollie to first off. Not that we hadn't introduced him to some dogs already here, so he kind of already knew the process.

Yep.

Um, but took them in behind each other, let them have a sniff of each other. Then once Ollie had got comfortable sniffing Thor, moved Thor in behind. Ollie was a bit more intimidated by that setting.

Yeah, probably.

I just positively reinforced him for kind of being calm in the moment, gave them both a leave it command, which was taught in the moment. Thor already had one, but gave one to a bit more to Ollie, and then kind of just had them be in each other's presence. So kind of what Ollie and Blue are doing now, just lounging about near each other, existing, being neutral. Then on the following day, took them out together. So the main thing for me is I wanted to keep moving, didn't want to go stationary, didn't want to build any tensions, any friction. So kitted both the boys up in the van, opened the van doors, got them both out of their crates, and just went and just started moving straight away. It was a bit more of a woodland walk that opened up into a bit more of a few open fields. We were coming up to a corner. Ollie was in my vicinity hadn't really gone far from me yet, just kind of working out what the criteria was for the walk. Thor was doing his own thing up ahead. We were about to turn a corner. In hindsight, I should have put Thor into a down stay because he has a down stay, but I recalled Thor instead. Head-on passes, obviously quite conflicting for dogs. It's something that Ollie struggles very much so with, and Thor came bounding towards Ollie, coming towards me.

Yeah, yeah, but in Ollie's perception—

yeah, in Ollie's perception Thor was coming towards him, so immediately, uh, Ollie lunged at Thor.

All right, gave a bit of something to say about it.

Yeah, had a bit of something to say about it. Thor barked back, and at that point, obviously, I thought I might have had a bit of a scrap on my hands. But luckily, both dogs have a solid no marker.

Yep.

So I kind of shouted out my no marker because I was 5 meters away. There was a recipe for that to go really wrong, could have gone. Um, but gave my no marker and both dogs stopped in their tracks, stopped kind of eyeballing each other, barking at each other, and then went back about their business. And for the rest of the walk, ideal, fine.

So you mean it's almost like the stuff you've done has worked?

Yeah, I think so.

Well, that's good, isn't it? Then yeah, all right, maybe that's a little tiny error from you, but it represents a real-world scenario, right? It could have been another dog that ran past instead, and it's fine. Um, all right, perfect. So what's the plan next? Cuddling. The plan is cuddle.

He's like, I'm bored now.

What's the plan next? Obviously you got a couple of weeks left. What's the— what's— how do you see it panning out?

Yeah, obviously we'll do another update soon, but yeah, so I want to get Ollie's e-collar pitch perfect. Yep. So I want to ensure that that's good also around all sorts of prey animals. So I need to do a bit more kind of real-world application of that. Cats, most definitely, to give his owner a bit more confidence. Also, Ollie's owner Barry is really keen to be able to take him everywhere with him, wants to make his world really big and his own world really big.

Nice.

At the moment he's good man.

Yeah, exactly.

And his world's become small because of his penchant for shouting at dogs.

Yeah, exactly. So I have to walk him in secluded areas, do the typical early morning, late evening walks, whereas really he wants to be able to take him to cafes, pubs, and enjoy the local area of which he's got, whereas he's not getting to enjoy that local area at the moment.

Okay.

So what I really want to do with Ollie is do exactly that, get him out to some cafes and pubs, do some real-world application of all of the training.

Jump on the boot camp Friday?

Yeah, I'm going to jump on the boot camp with him Friday, show everybody what it's all about, aren't we, Ollie? And then also re-socialise him with as many dogs as possible.

Yep.

Because I think the real problem for Ollie is he hasn't got many mates. Yeah, I'm like you.

Yeah, fair enough. I don't know if I've got any, so yeah, he's probably beating me already. I think it's just me.

So yeah, exactly. Yeah, um, hasn't got many mates and doesn't know how to interact.

Yep, same. I can, uh, yeah, I get it.

So, and that became very clear when we were doing the resocialization drills with some of our stooge dogs last year and Thor.

Yeah.

So the more the more normal I can make that for Ollie, the better life his life is going to be.

Get his average experience up, eh?

Yeah, exactly.

Whilst maintaining a bit of control.

Yeah.

And we don't run into any other type of problems.

Yeah, play as well is a big one. I want to get Ollie to a really good point with play. As a German Shepherd, of course, he needs that. As you saw then, he likes to jump up a lot. So what I also aim to do is kind of put more of the jumping up on a cue and have a bit more of an enough. And play is going to help me to teach that and ensure that plays more focused around toys.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

All right, wonderful. I look forward to seeing the end result.

Yeah.

Kudos to you, sir. Going well so far. Keep us updated.

Perfect.

Give us an update on the big fellow then. We have commenced the fourth week of training, and obviously you've done again a very similar process, uh, what we do on TWI. Or a boot camp, but obviously in that kind of middle ground of 4 weeks.

So he's been an interesting project, and he's been, he's been really fun. He's a good lad, very people, social. Yeah, loves a cuddle, but did not like other dogs.

Oh yeah, yeah.

So yeah, it took a very similar process to TWI in that respect.

You love him? What?

Yeah, man, he's cool.

If fucking Baz turned around and said, you know what, mate, I don't really know if I want him back, would you say go on then?

I'd look after him. Yeah, like I'd foster him in that.

Fostering's good, mate.

I know, but you end up with keeping them.

It's not really fostering if you keep them, it's called adopting.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, but I've enjoyed him and he's been fun and we've had a good journey together, I think.

And he was definitely— he kind of— he was very cuddly from day dot. Yeah, but still very unsure.

Yeah, yeah.

Wouldn't really play in, in certain cases, in certain circumstances.

Yeah.

But now, like, we're just having a great time. Like going out on walks, seeing other dogs. I've of course resocialized him with your pack and Alicia's pack and some other guys here too, and taking him out on some kind of walks with the boot campers that we've been going on, which has been really good. And I'm using him as a stooge as well, which has been quite helpful.

Yeah, nice. So now he's like a shining light, shining beacon. Yeah, man, doggy hope.

And yeah, and he even helped the other day, um, we had an assessment for another shepherd very similar to Ollie in regards to his dog reactivity, but also like reactive to a few other things. And it was really helpful just to literally say to them, because they themselves were like, oh, they were saying, we don't know if he's fixable. They were really, really concerned. And I said, show you footage of him from when he first came in. I got Ollie out and I got Ollie out with Blue.

Yeah.

And I said, look, this is what— they were just chilling next to each other. And I showed them videos of when Ollie first came in, which hopefully these guys would have already seen by now. And they're like, oh wow, and they were really excited and they were like, yeah, let's definitely do that. So it gave them, like you say, like a beacon of hope to think that their dog wasn't a lost cause.

All right, cool. What's next then?

Ollie's training has kind of been more or less wrapped up.

Cool.

What's—

I think it was wrapped up a little bit ago, wasn't it?

But you've just been kind of like getting him out there now, just building on it, doing like as much resocialization as I can, getting him out as much as possible around as many dogs as possible and as very environmental factors as possible as well. And it's more so about like making it as easy for Baza.

Yeah, for sure, as possible.

Yeah, nice.

In regards to obviously next week's handover, um, but also is the more training I can do now and like fine-tuning I can do to make things really clean, just the easier it's going to be long term.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice. And you're gonna see if he can meet up with some dogs down there?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that'd be cool.

I've texted him just to ask, like you said the other day, if he's got any mates or family or friends with sociable dogs. I'm gonna be all right. And then I can obviously show him what Ollie's like and what cues and markers we've been using. Yeah, just, yeah, make that transition into real world with Barry as good as possible.

Yeah, class. All right, so he's gonna be great then. Yeah, he's gonna live a jolly old life. How old is he?

Ollie? Uh, it's just over 2, I believe.

Oh nice. Yeah, it's hopefully a good decade of— yeah, man, solid life for him.

Loads of time.

That's nice. Right, Cocknose, so we're at day 30-ish, or coming up to day 30 with Ollie, and he's doing incredibly well. And so I just wanted to maybe talk through in chronological order as best we can, like, what did we do in order to get there? Obviously we follow same practices here at the YCA as as we do have a, a kind of system with our training. And I think for the viewers at home, seeing like the incredible transformation in quite a condensed period of time could sometimes like be unbelievable to people. So I just thought I'd ask you, like, what have we done in the last 30 days to get us to the point where Ollie was looking something like this, and now you're able to walk him both on leash, off a leash, looking like that? What have we been up to?

The first thing I kind of started with is Ollie came to us with little to no food motivation. So started off just by building that, gave us something to do, but also an opportunity for me to build a bit more of a bond with him. Charged a marker first and foremost, and that way I could kind of start changing his big feelings about other dogs, but also give me a powerful tool in order to reward better behaviors or behaviors in which we wanted to create. So the next thing that we started on from marker charging, after he kind of grasped that and had his food motivation, started to work on e-collar recall. That way I can then start letting him off leash, get him out give him his freedom of fulfillment, run his energy down, that sort of thing. I also worked on a solid no, so in regards to punishment. So he kind of knew what to do, but he was also still kicking off in some circumstances, some scenarios. So taught him a solid no as well. And as soon as I had that, started to re-socialize, get him out around other dogs, but also work on his play. Big German Shepherd, didn't really know how to play, didn't really want to, but it also gave me an opportunity to build boundaries with him, teach him stuff. But also build a bond between us two.

Perfect. Sounds pretty textbook to me, Owain. And, uh, congratulations on your YouTube debut, sir. How many times are you gonna watch this back? I'm not. And every time you bring a new girl over, you're gonna play it for them, aren't you?

No.

Have you seen the canine?

Yeah, yeah. Owain's single nowadays, ladies and gentlemen. If, like, you're into guys with big noses, good beards, and, and, uh, decent at training dogs, So no, I joke. Yeah, you've done a great job with this dog. I'm actually going to take him out this afternoon and put his training to the test. A bit of a high-stakes element to this video. And then yeah, we'll see how we get on. But yeah, sounds good to me. We'll get him out, we'll get cracking. And his handover is when? Thursday. Thursday. So you're taking him down south, back home?

Yeah, taking him down south.

Where's he from?

Milton Keynes.

He's from Milton Keynes. So Ollie's gonna head back to Milton Keynes. Oh, I'm gonna do the handover, which will get some footage of, and we'll get some updates from Mum and Dad, I'm sure. Or Dad.

Dad.

Barry. Baz. Big Baz. Get some updates from Big Baz, our good friend Big Baz. All right, good job, cocknose. So we're going to the park. Here's Susie, by the way. She's on the other side of YouTube today because we've got these handheldy devices. So there's two things Ollie's dad wants out of this training, and it's to be able to walk past dogs without him going fucking crazy. So we're gonna put that to the test now. I'm gonna handle Ollie even though I've not handled him during his stay. I've left it entirely over to Cocknose here. And the second thing he wants to do is take him to the pub. So once we've done our walkies, we're gonna go to the pub and see how he fares there. Uh, again, fresh handler, not worked with the dog yet. Let's see how he gets on. That's lovely.

Oh no, it's not here.

Good boy. Oh wow, this brings back memories. I think we should throw back to a younger J-Rod here also venturing this car park, except for there weren't tents here last time, with a young German Shepherd. And I believe— Susie, what was his name?

Do you remember?

I'm pretty sure that's the first YouTube video I ever watched.

There you go. We're concentrating on not barking at dogs today. Hey, heel. Good. We have overlaid the e-collar on top of his loose lead walking, or heel work, wherever the fuck you want to go. Boy, hi handsome! Could just do with finding maybe a dog or two. Thing is, with people in the UK, they only like walking their dog when the sun comes out. Unfortunately, that's only 4 or 5 times a year. Therefore, we have a lot of problem dogs. Good boy. Some dog's making a noise over there.

There is a dog over there. We spotted a dog.

Good boy. Nice. We're going to do some sticky leg stuff, cuz you can't kick the fuck off while you're stuck to my leg. Hey, Ollie. I have not handled him yet, not done any training with him. I am purely acting as if he's— what the fuck is going on here? This is a pretty good test. I'm going to put my shoulders back. We've got an Italian Greyhound No, he was like, curious. Yeah, there you go. Curious at best. I didn't even want to correct him for that. He didn't seem like he gave two fucks at all. Good boy. Good boy, Ollie. That was a hard test because they were— I don't know. Hi, you're handsome. You use our Italian Greyhound again, although I think the novelty might have worn off. It's actually the second park we've been to today. The first park, they want a dog in sight, just vans. And the reason we liaise in car parks, if you're new to this channel, is because you're going to bump into more dogs. Through experience, what's happened in the past is you go to the park, you walk around the park, perhaps clockwise, anti-clockwise. If you're going with the current, you don't see a single dog and you can waste hours of your life. So your best chances of seeing more dogs if you're working with a reactive dog, because if, you know, that's the whole point— let's show you some dogs and make sure you don't kick off. If I have a dog here, we're going to try and see as many as possible. We don't want a once in a blue moon type thing. Anyway, I digress. Yeah, we're basically waiting in the car park to increase the likelihood of us seeing dogs. We've got to pay for parking here nowadays. Again, last YouTube video we're here, parking was free. Look how the world has changed since. You know, same, same though, really. I just got more tattoos now and maybe a little bit fatter. And more employees with big fucking noses. It's okay, we're both rugby lads, we don't mind a bit of banter. Okay, now we have a regular-sized greyhound, if not a deerhound. So we're going to give ourselves a bit of a run-up so we Pass as organically as we can. I believe that's a Border Terrier bark. You'll have to correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like a little Border Terrier. We're gonna put our shoulders back, and again, I don't want to throw him in a very compromising situation, but You going that way? Oh, after you. Oh good. Oh, he really doesn't care. Good boy. And here's the beauty of good training, ladies and gentlemen. Didn't ask him to sit, I didn't ask him to down, I didn't ask him to stay. He decided to go and sniff some piss. That is way better. A good dog is a dog that makes good choices in the absence of instruction. Right. And that was, uh, perfectly demonstrated there by Ollie. We have an ongoing rule that he's not allowed to pull on the lead. Um, but again, as you know, if you've spent a lot of time on this channel, I'm not a major like advocate for a lot of obedience because of, you know, when a dog isn't told what to do, or should I drop that leash, you know, as I have done. Um, he's gotta still be expected to make great choices because of like sometimes management fails. And of course our obedience fails. Ollie, here. Good boy. Ollie's not really giving two fucks about dogs. We've seen an emotional change in his response to dogs, which is a really important thing. Like me, like cranking him into a lot of obedience, stopping him from reacting, but him still wanting to react. For me, that's not dog training. Like that's not true behavior change. Anyway, we're gonna, yes, let's go to the pub. So since we have like this crazy alcohol culture in the UK, A lot of people ask us when we help them out with their dogs if we can habituate their dog to the pub, which is great for our staff because they get to spend a lot of time in wonderful Americanized franchise establishments like Hickory's. That might sound horrendous to you, but it's actually a great place and they always look after us. So shout out to Hickory's when we, when we go in in a second. Um, so yeah, we're going to take Ollie. Uh, again, I've not handled him in any sort of setting besides what you've just seen, especially not Hickory. So we're going to go get in, we're going to go get a cold pop because we do not drink when we are responsible for other people's animals. Fuck it, we're just going to go for it. Just coming in with a dog, is that all right? Down. Oh boy, you like Uncle Owen, don't you? This one can just be a bit of a knob around other dogs, especially male dogs.

All right, lay down.

Good boy. You're a very good boy. Hey, that was a good test, Ollie. Again, curious, which is great. What we saw from his body language there, without like boring you all to fucking death, is, uh, oh hey, like, are you cool? Comparatively to what we saw 3 weeks ago, 4 weeks ago, I'm gonna fucking end you, motherfucker. So I'm proud of Ollie. Don't let Owen ever watch back this video and, and allow him to hear this, but I'm proud of Owen too. They've done a good, a good team effort together. The, the fact that me, as a stranger to Ollie— although like I can handle a dog— um, as a stranger to Ollie, is able to handle him, pass a bunch of dogs, sit at the pub, lie him down under like first command. Like, not perfect, he's not going to be as good for me as he is like Owen, and conversely his dad, but like we've not done a true handover process. I've just taken the fucking dog from him and, you know, started walking him along. Hi, mate. Oh, stunning. Thank you. Thanks very much. Some brisket for the boy, and I don't mean Owen. Thanks, mate.

Happy days.

Pop, Ollie, can Ollie have some brisket? Yeah, yeah, down. Good boy. Who's that nice? Oh, down in one, Ollie. Nice. He's lovely, isn't he? You're nice. You've got nice ears. You've got lovely ears. I've met a lot of German Shepherds I don't like. I've never met a trained German Shepherd that I dislike, though. Key point there: German Shepherd, probably the greatest dog on the planet, so long as they're trained to a good standard. A German Shepherd that is not trained can be a fucking asshole and not a nice dog to live with. A German Shepherd that is trained like Ollie here, for example, this is one of the greatest assets you'll ever have in your life. This dog will now go on to be his, his dad's best friend, you know, till his time comes. And yeah, the difference between a trained dog and an untrained dog can make a significant impact on your quality of life. But further to that, their quality of life as well, which again, we can do nice things like sit in the pub and share brisket together. If he stops fucking trying to chin dogs, basically, you know. There's no other way to put it, really.

Cheers, team.

Cheers. Cheers to Ollie. To Ollie and cocknose. To blokes with big noses.

You and me are one of the same, aren't we, Olls?

Loads of hair, very vocal.

I'm actually quite hairless from the neck down, you know.

Nah, you've got a hairy back.

I genuinely haven't.

Get it out. Oh shit, no you don't. That's so smooth. That's insane. Hey, cookie's the same though. Here's the thing with German Shepherds. If you don't dry them thoroughly, they end up even more stinky than when you started. Hence why you need those big blowy dryer things. Or like, you know, you do like a car drive-through car wash, I think is what I'm trying to say. And they have the— you could do one of them for a dog, for German Shepherd. We'll take you to the car wash tomorrow, Ollie. You was a naughty boy a few weeks ago. Okay, we're gonna go for the hands-free down. Hands-free. You don't want to fuck any people up, does he? No, no, that's all right then. You're a good boy. He's like, yeah, I ignored him. You're gonna give me a bicky? That can't go on forever, Ollie. We can't pay you every time you're not a knob. Well, in that case, I shall return to being a knob. Oh, you could keep him easy, couldn't you? He's got a great face. I think you spend long enough with a German Shepherd, like, nothing really beats it.

I like kind of the big chunky breeds.

Like Pablo Shadow. That's a sick dog, to be fair.

Yeah, I do like Shadow. I like Kev.

Yeah, Kev's a lot though, but yeah, he's a sick dog.

Chewie's pretty sick.

Yeah, yeah, I do like those breeds as well, to be fair.

I like Dennis. Dennis is pretty cool.

Chode.

The Chode.

Chode himself. Here's how you tell if a dog is a massive whopper. Sit. Right, there's only one test you ever need to do, right? Right, I'll show you. Ready? Paw. Yeah, whopper. Whopper. Whopper.

I just want to stipulate I did not teach him that.

And for the record, you can train a dog to a good level without them being a robot and losing all their personality, right? Sit down. Sit. Yeah, fuck it. Oh no, you can't just— what a good boy. Oh, big stretch, big stretch. He is good. So that wraps up, um, one of the final chapters of Ollie's journey. We're gonna send Owen down south with some sort of recording device, a wire, and Yeah, we'll get a picture of Baz. Get a picture of Baz so you can put a face to the name, the man behind the legend that is Baz, that gets to live with a great German Shepherd, splendid one. You going to miss Ollie? Yeah, I am. Oh no, he's stuck on my face. Oh, it's all about me. No, he doesn't want me to share the limelight.

Yeah, gonna miss the lad. He's been very sweet. He's been Thor's best mate for the best part of 3 weeks now.

How was it when you first introduced Ollie to Thor, given they're both large males?

Yeah, it was, it was actually all right. I thought it was going to be quite prickly. It wasn't. It was really good. Uh, Kirkie and I spoke in his 7-week, uh, 7-week, 7-day check-in how their first off-leash walk went together.

That was fun.

Yeah, but otherwise they've been, they've been pretty good together. Thor's been very tolerant, always been a good lad.

All right, now we're just about to drive into the back of someone. Oh well, so whether we make it out, be like a black box. Let's just find this recording, the last known footage. Yeah, they're gonna play this, this video at our funeral. Oh, there's a hearse! That's crazy, it's getting weird. It's a hearse, a bus. He's getting fucking weird, he's getting a bit cryptic. Gotta go. So like I said, a transformation like that with your dog is probably a lot closer than you think. And, uh, if you want to see how we've done that, not only for dogs like Ollie but for other dogs and their owners across the world without even ever meeting them, click this video right here and you'll see exactly what I mean.