We Couldn't Fix This Rottweiler Until We Did THIS.

Imagine living in a house with 3 dogs, but you can only ever have 2 of them in the room at the same time. Imagine having to send one of your dogs to live with your parents on a rotating schedule just to stop them from killing each other in your kitchen. Imagine walking your dog through your own town, terrified that if a neighbor stops to say hello, your dog will launch at them. Not growl, not bark, launch. That was Natalie and Adam's reality with Bodhi. Bodhi is a Rottweiler. He's powerful, he's intense, and he had a bite. History. He had bitten Natalie in redirection. He had bitten Adam's dad. They had tried everything. They had done the puppy classes. They had done socialisation. They had done the management. Nothing had worked. They were at the point where rehoming him or worse was the only option left on the table. They came to us as an absolute last resort. What you're about to watch is the reality of what it takes to turn around a dog like that. It's not always pretty. It's not always easy. But it is necessary. This is Bodhi's week at boot camp. Okay, so we're just going to do a quick video on what we did with Bodhi on the boot camp. There's a tiny little twist difference to how we'd maybe approach the majority of dogs on a boot camp, but essentially all the components are exactly the same. They're just slightly shuffled in the order. So when we're looking at helping dogs with reactivity, we have a triangle of things that we might apply. We've got differential reinforcement, i.e., giving them a different job to do. We can also add into that a bit of counter conditioning because we're using that marker. And trying to make the dog feel slightly different about the trigger that they see. We've got habituation, desensitization, i.e., spending some time around triggers that maybe they haven't been able to before so they can get accustomed and used to those things. And then we've got the scary one, we've got contingent punishment, i.e., stopping behaviors proactively. In addition to that, we've also got the really big players of fulfillment We've got play and we've got off-lead freedom. So normally when we get dogs on boot camp, we assess their food drive, we assess their markers, we make sure everyone's done their homework, and Bodhi's owners have done that really, really well. The problem that we ran into was that he was quite explosive in the way that he reacted, and it was really cutting into the time that we're going to be able to do these things. Normally we like to start with this so that we've got a front-loaded behavior that even if we do start using some punishment with, the dog's more likely to drop into that because that's what they've got a good history of reinforcement for. There was no way we could just have him around people and dogs because his reactivity was too much and we wouldn't be able to get any effective habituation, desensitization. So we actually did start with contingent punishment. It was introduced through play, and the good thing was that Bodhi's owners had done loads of great homework. They'd done loads of good work before him. So much respect for these two owners, but that's a different story. They've done loads of really good playwork, so he really wanted to play, but within the play he would cheat and he'd take cheap shots. So what we did was introduce contingent punishment to keep him accountable to those rules. Once we've got that nailed down, we started using some other little bits of setup work. So we use a little bit of food on the floor, a little bit of setup stuff in that sense, and we made sure that— excuse me— he had a really good idea of what this new word meant, because we use a marker system with our punishment, before we showed him any dogs or people. We then used play prior to any session. We gave him a nice outlet. We set him up to win. He also did fail, but what that did was give him a real good understanding of all these rules and boundaries that we've got set in place. Once he'd got punishment nailed down, we could stop the behavior— yes, suppression if you will. What it gave us a chance to do is to start using his marker and his food drive, which was really, really good, but we didn't have an opportunity to use it because he was too busy kicking off. And then we could counter-condition and we could desensitize. We then added more and more and more volume of people and dogs throughout the week. There's plenty of footage of him going to parks and even sitting in a pub with dogs by the end of the week, and also some footage of him going absolutely crazy at the start of the week. So by the end of play on Friday, we'd front-loaded Bodhi with a new skill set. So what people aren't very good at is teaching a no. He had a good yes already. He had good food drive. We taught him a no. That was super important. He was already good at play. We e-collar trained him so that he could have off-lead freedom, which is also another form of— that's weird— also another form of fulfillment. He already also had great obedience, to be fair to the lad, so he could already walk on a fairly loose lead and do all his downs and all that kind of stuff. And then we had the opportunity to help him learn chill. So these are the 6 pillars that we teach and want to nail so that you can enjoy your dog and they can enjoy their lives. This— these 2 here give the clarity. Structure isn't clarity. Using your crate isn't clarity. Yes, it's a really good tool for management, but it doesn't stop behaviors. It just prevents them. So giving them a really good rule set in life. Yep. Do that again, please. No, don't do that again, please. Liberates your dog, gives them the freedom that they deserve as a dog, and hopefully makes sure that you can enjoy them as much as they enjoy you. Click the link in the description if you want to know a little bit more about these 6 pillars and how we apply them. The Behaviour Bible is a free resource. It's really, really good. I'd argue it might be too good.

Natalie, obviously I did your consult, but we'll kind of do a bit of a repeat. Just give me a bit of context and background.

He was an Asbo, fairly fairly reactive dog, wasn't he? So classic scenario, walking around town, close proximity, somebody'd walk past us with another dog, he'd kick off. Redirect in the, in the early stages on Natalie, hence why we got the muzzle. But yeah, that was an issue. Somebody that we knew would come up to us, want to chat, Bodie wouldn't give us that opportunity. Yeah, he'd want to just attack. We, we do have another dog, Frenchie. They got on at one stage, but something just clicked. They no longer get on, so we have to separate them. So there's, there's been a few significant issues, aren't there? Yeah, we've had to deal with, um, a few bruises, a few scars.

Yeah, he's had a biting spree.

Yeah, he has.

How did you kind of navigate those issues previously? Like, what was the management structure you had to put in place to obviously keep him safe and you guys and everybody else?

If people come around the house We've got kennel at the garden, so he'd get separated or he'd be put in the cage. And then out on walks, you get to the point where you start using avoidance. We live in a market town, so my day-to-day walks when I walk him at lunchtime is generally around the town. So there was— we were constantly bumping into other dogs. But I got to the point where you kind of stop walking him in those places.

It's not pleasurable, is it? Walking around town becomes almost a chore, and that's not fair on the dog. Dog. It's not fair on us, but you come a bit anxious. Nobody about, it's fine. We do a lot of walks up in the Peak District, try and get out of everybody's way. As soon as you see somebody coming towards us with a dog, you're like straight away back on the lead, and yeah, which is the responsible thing to do, but you're just a bit anxious. He's tested us both. Yeah, he's tested us both, and it's, it's— we've got to ultimately put him first and what sort of quality of life he's going to have. Um, and we want to keep him. We want to keep him. Um, he's great. But this, this week we have seen such a huge change in him. And, uh, we was only saying this morning that our affection towards him has just been—

I just feel like our relationship's improved already. I was always closer to him than what you were, probably from an emotional perspective. Yeah. But even, even though I spend more time with him, I feel like already, like, our relationships just feel like he's got more respect.

Yeah, nice.

Yeah, so no, you can't have him.

Damn, missed the point.

How much?

Yeah, nice. When you arrived on Monday, we, we did do a dog test. We did our dog test. He had his muzzle on and he did redirect quite heavily onto you, Natalie. Yeah, he spent the first couple of days with Kirky. Obviously he's a bit more other dogs that needed a bit more TLC and had complex needs, given his prior history. And you'd already tried lots of training with him, right?

Yeah.

And just give me a rundown before I kind of move on to the next one. Like, what had you previously tried?

We haven't actually used any other official trainers. Um, it was more trying techniques that you watch online. We've tried various things. Um, But it's like I say, it was just— I don't think any of it was working.

Obviously it's now Friday, we reintegrated you back into the group. How's that gone? When did he lose his muzzle?

It was Wednesday, wasn't it?

Yeah, um, I had it on when we were doing the loose lead walking in the arena, but to be honest, he didn't need it at that point.

It wasn't an option early in the week to take his muzzle off. However, with the yes scenario, Newton's Cradle, that you know, which you gave us homework before we started the course, that's helped. And I think what's immensely helped is the e-collar. So we felt confident enough, um, come sort of Wednesday that it's not really— yeah, it's not going to redirect, and the muzzle can come off.

He's not in that angry state of mind that he was previously in.

He's a much more relaxed boy. Yeah, came in Monday and he came in very puffed chest, tail all the way up, acting the biggun, ready for a fight essentially.

And now Yeah.

He's mummy's sweet boy again, isn't he?

I think he is.

I think that's very true.

Mummy's boy.

You've hit the nail on the head. Yes.

Oh, that was perfect.

He is a naughty boy. So you felt safe enough to take the muzzle off Wednesday?

Yes.

He hasn't had his muzzle on since.

Nope.

You've obviously been on some walks at the Airbnb that you guys are staying at.

How's that all going? All really good. Um, took him out last night off lead, actually didn't encounter any other dogs unfortunately, but even, um, you know, just his recall was better. This morning I took him out for a quick wee, there was two dogs walking up the path towards us and he had a look, but he was good as gold.

So my final question, would you do it all again? Definitely.

Absolutely.

Absolute definitely.

Can I stay another week?

If you want to, yeah.

In all honesty, this has become something over a week ago that I was like, the amount of money it's going to cost, and then I'm self-employed and losing time off work. We've not had a holiday for, you know, a couple of months, whatever it is. But as soon as we got here and then where we are staying, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it's almost become a holiday. The first day on Monday, I'm going to be completely honest with you, I didn't want it to end. I was so happy. I was just like, this is, this is great. This really is great. I would do it all again next week.

Wow. Yeah, I do feel a little bit sad to be going home today, to be honest.

Yeah, yeah, it's well worth it. We are— was talking about it this morning. We're thinking, you know, at some point coming up on like a Friday night, staying in the same place, and then early Saturday come to you. We bring our Frenchie. Yeah. And then we know that we've got to— what we've learned this week, we've got to apply that to our Frenchie to give him a good head start. And then in time bring them to you guys so you can work your magic with them. So ultimately we can have him back. Yeah, then they all get on. So yeah, yeah, very happy, very happy.

Bodhi's happy, aren't you? He's enjoyed his week.

Don't lick your spoon.

Yeah, yeah, distracted.

Brilliant.

So Bodhi was reactive to mostly dogs but also people when they come close or try and interact with him. So we've got a French Bulldog and Spaniel at home as well, and unfortunately him and the French Bulldog are real disliking to each other.

Is it male French?

It is a male French. He's aged.

He looks very similar to Mr. Bumble.

Yeah, he does look like Mr. Bumble.

Yeah, he does.

Same color. And they started fighting, so we've had to separate them at home. So Archie now spends a few weeks with my mum and dad, and then we have to dog share. So Brodie goes to mum and dad We swapped.

Swap.

That's massively inconvenient, isn't it?

Yeah.

And then it just became a problem to just walking around town and walk past people with dogs, redirect initially on you.

Yeah.

Hence why we had to get a muzzle. Become not pleasant walking him, was it?

Just wasn't enjoyable anymore. Just full of anxiety walking down the street. You see a dog, it's like, oh God.

Can't really socialize. Um, couldn't really, apart from your mum and dad. We couldn't really have people around the house unless we put him away in the kennels. It's a real nightmare, really, really tested my patience, and I don't have a lot of patience. So it was, uh, it was up for adoption many times. But jokes aside, it's been a real pain, and yeah, um, not, not, not fun. Not fun for him, not fun for us.

You tried a couple of bits and bobs in terms of like e-collar and prong collar before, right?

Yeah.

And obviously we've used the e-collar specifically this week. Why do you feel like that didn't work before? Just like your experience with that, I'm just genuinely curious.

Probably just because we probably weren't using it correctly, um, or in the right situations.

All right.

Um, I think with prong, if anything, it was probably making him angrier when he was just riling him up.

Yeah.

And because he, when he kicks off, he flies in the air.

Yeah.

Oh yeah. And then he gets angry angry at me for stopping him. And then he, you know, to be honest, this slip lead, I've never thought of using one of these. No, that's been more effective than the prong. Yeah, well, actually, I've got quite a bit of control with that.

And again, just genuinely kind of curious, and I'm asking all three of you to be fair because I know you've worked together, uh, day one and two. What, what was your— where were your breakthrough moments? Because from what I was seeing Monday, I think it was, we were struggling to get through to him, right? He was just like riding through pretty much all, each and every level of feedback we were trying to give him.

Introduce an e-collar as a bit of a rule setter in play. All right, so his revs were high but for a different reason, and we just overlaid it on out enough things like that to be like, okay, well, there's rules, but his level of arousal or the objective motivation was very, very different. But he picked it up fucking fast. Like, I was like, what did you do? Well, they already knew out. Yeah, it was a little chompy.

All right.

And you just— I was just like, don't be chompy. When we say enough, enough is enough. We introduced some punishment stuff at super low level, like food stuff, but he picked it up super quick, like a lot quicker than I thought. The play thing was the biggest thing. All right, because his revs were like— he's good at play, to be fair. His revs are comparative when he plays as to when he's a little bit maybe antisocial, but for a very different reason. Yeah, so it gave us a good idea of what levels might be appropriate for cutting through mist at certain points. So it was good. Yeah, but just from me, like, in terms of working with people, you can't argue with, like, your commitment. From the perspective of, like, they would just try anything, like, not particularly, like, started off the training and just had a pair of metaphorical bollocks.

Yeah, we like to say.

Yeah, basically. Yeah. So like, kudos, because obviously I'll help anyone so long as they're willing to buy into what we do, and they just attacked it. I thought it would take longer than it did, but because of the commitment of them two, then it just went way smoother than maybe even expected.

Yeah, to be fair, in the beginning of the week I even said to Kirkie, and I said this like, I don't know if you're gonna get through to that dog this week, or I, I think how I said it was more like, you're gonna have to do a great job in order to get through to this dog. And that was no Uh, you weren't a contributing factor to that rationale. As people, it was purely the intensity of the dog is a hell of a lot. Yeah, I even text my friend saying like, yeah, there's this Rottweiler in this week. I don't know whether like we're gonna touch the sides with him. So yeah, kudos to all involved.

I recall when you'd seen it, you turned to these, I went, good luck with that one, boys, and then walked off.

I'll leave that one with you.

Sipping on a Cortado. No, I have a lot of faith in these lot. I see them turn around left, right and centre.

It was just a lot.

It was just fireworks. I'm not sat here surprised either though, to be fair. I'm not sat here surprised, but perhaps a lesser owner probably wouldn't have made the strides that you probably have in this time. So again, just a pat on the back, probably. If my perception would be like, yeah, maybe you're just an average owner that probably, you know, hasn't got the metaphorical bollocks to deal with this, but evidently I'm was wrong and you won't really hear me say that.

No, yeah, can we put that on a loop?

Stick it on a loop, play it 10 to 12 times minimum.

Yeah, that's good.

All right, what have you been up to this week then? Like, what were your highlights of the week and like, you know, what have you enjoyed about it?

Or Wednesday onwards, surely, when you started doing some proper stuff.

I've got to be honest, from day one I've enjoyed it. When Monday ended, I didn't want it to end. Do it all this again.

Oh really? I really would.

Oh, sound. Can you give me a job? Not that we need to, but yeah, I would say, I would say probably from the Wednesday point, um, we felt comfortable enough to, um, don't want to tempt fate here, but remove his muzzle. Um, what we'd learned with the Newton's Cradle, the homework obviously that was set out to us before we even started the camp, was very beneficial to Bodhi and us. So it gives, it gives us a good start, didn't we? And then, um, like I said, I know you guys, obedience it's not your top priority, but it, it has helped to a degree. Um, it has helped Bodhi. So like with the outs and, you know, everything else, it, it picks it up relatively quick.

I think for me, getting face to face, how close me and Owen got with our— with Thor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. His 65-kilo Rottweiler.

Yeah, it's 55-inch neck Rottweiler. He's been using—

we're gonna run a joke because he used to say that Thor was 65 kilos. And then we had a couple of dogs on boot camp that were genuinely 65 kilos, and he looked like small next to them. I'm like, mate, there's no way your dog's 65 kilos. We weighed him one day and he was like 48, 49.

He might have been big, but big bones.

65 kilos, that's some fucking body dysmor— dog dysmorphia. Yeah, outstanding.

But yeah, that was a turning point for me because when I walk him, he doesn't allow me to talk to people. If the neighbor wants to stop and have a chat, he doesn't allow it. Really? What happens? He just kicks off, he fires off at them. So for me to be able to get that close, face to face, have a conversation with someone that has got a dog was, was a big turning point.

A 65-kilo Rottweiler, no less.

And you've been off-site and stuff like that?

Yeah, yeah.

We've just bared witness to him in the pub. Yeah, which is great.

It's not really enjoyable because we used to do it when he was younger. Yeah, the reactivity started, we stopped doing all those things.

When did that start? About 10, 10, 12 months, around that mark.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can't really take him to any pubs. I haven't been And so today's—

he just chilled out and was just chilling, right? That's crazy.

Even walking around, around Hay Park this morning was just like great to see. He was just in so close proximity with the other dogs.

His whole demeanor's changed.

Yeah, he looks way more like just chilled.

We were saying as well, more relaxed. Our affection and respect for him has changed through this week. Really has. Really has helped immensely.

Hard to love when he was Yeah, you find it genuine.

You'll develop a genuine, like, level of resentment almost that you're so constricted by your dog's behavior in life. They're obviously a massive factor, massive part of our life, and we do love them unconditionally. But when you have that element of unconditional love but, like, pragmatic limitations through their behavior limitations, you have a real internal conflict, which is a very difficult place to live for a sustained amount of time as you have. So you've probably felt a level of relief this week that, yeah, that is probably allowed you to have a slightly different perspective on, on, on, on Bodhi, right?

Yeah, I almost say future of where we're, where we're going, whereas before I was questioning what is the future, is this dog going to be with us?

Yeah, yeah, shit, isn't it? Really sucky.

It's hard to give up such a key part of the family, so we weren't really an option. Yeah, you guys was the last resort.

So let's talk like plan of action when we go home. What are we doing?

We are going to go through all the list of walks that we do. Yeah. And basically go out and go out there and start putting it into place.

From what we've learned, we've got to start to apply it to our Frenchie.

Yeah.

Because it's not fair to sort of put all the blame on to Bodhi as to why those two don't get on when it's actually the Frenchie, Archie, who starts it. So he wouldn't—

if you nail the first 3 days, you'll enjoy the rest of his life. What I would go and do, I'd take him early somewhere where you know he's gonna at least test the rules, and as soon as you see him step the line from new rules back into old rules, administer your punishment protocol with your e-collar and put a very clear line in the sand of like, nope, We're gonna— we're— we— the rules are here now. Because there'll be one or two moments when you return home where he'll go, are the rules the same? And if you permiss that period of time and say like, you get— if you give him benefit of the doubt is one of the worst things you can do in that point. But if you say no and you just nip it in the bud, you'll just— you'll just see him like soften and go like, oh, okay, we're still doing the same thing. All right, so if you just again nail the first 3 days, take him where somewhere where he's rehearsed a lot, and as soon as you see that little bit of shift in him, well, you know exactly what to do now. And then all the other— everything else will just fall in place nicely. But, you know, you got any questions or anything?

No, just a lot of respect.

Yeah, kudos. Yeah, thank you for joining us on the podcast. And thank you, thank you, thank you to you all this week.

It's just, you know, game changer, really has.

Thanks so much. Hope you enjoyed the tiramisu.

Go home, nail it, buy a tiramisu from M&S.

Yeah, celebrate, celebrate with a hazelnut.

Somebody does want some.

From a dog that couldn't be in the same room as his own family to a dog sitting calmly in a pub. This is what happens when you stop playing games, stop treating symptoms, and start giving a dog absolute clarity. Natalie and Adam got their lives back because they were willing to do the hard work. They didn't make excuses. They just executed. If you're watching this and you're struggling to get these kinds of results, if you're stuck dealing with reactivity and getting nowhere, we can teach you exactly how we do this. Click the link in the description to apply to work with us. We'll have a conversation, see where you're at, and we'll see if we can help you transform your dog like this. Link is below. I'll see you in the next one.