Dog Pro Radio – Episode 1

Jason: All right, ready to roll?

Fabian: Yeah, we’re good.

Hey guys, I’m Jason Perguson, president of the IACP, and I want to welcome you to our flagship episode of Dog Pro Radio. 

Yo, turn it up. Let’s go. Welcome to Dog Pro Radio.

Welcome to Dog Pro Radio. 

Fabian: Want to take a minute, welcome my co hosts. I’ll start with Fabian.

Hey guys, how’s it going? This is Fabian. I am located in Chicago and I’m vice president of the board. And our next co host is Matt.

Matt Covey: Hey, everybody, Matt Covey. I am also on the board of directors. I’m not nearly as important as these other two guys. I don’t have a title. just there. So was introduced third. 

Jason: Every person is important to the board. [00:01:00] Speaking of the board, the board recently decided. Dip its toes in the podcasting space. So here we are with dog pro radio. You know, what, what is our vision for dog pro radio? I think. We’ve all kind of agreed that this is gonna be all things dog.

I mean, nothing’s kind of, nothing’s kind of off limits here. Everything that pertains to our profession and our industry is something that we want to discuss. This is a new venture, but I will say we have been incredibly fortunate in that we already have an absolutely incredible lineup of folks who’ve agreed to to come on.

Don’t want to spoil anything, but we’ve got some, we’ve got some pretty heavy hitters in the industry who have agreed to, agreed to work with us, sit down, have a conversation about dogs and dog things. So, I’m super excited about it and I know I know everybody else is. 

Matt Covey: Fabian, do we want to [00:02:00] spend even two minutes each or something explaining what we each have a different specialty in training, right? The three very different jobs. We want to spend a minute that

Fabian: Yeah.

Matt Covey: because I think people might like to know. We’ll start with the big shot.

Hmm, hmm,

Jason: And military working dog space. got a handler school going on right now, actually um, got a good group, a good group of handlers getting some dogs there on week two. So pretty excited about that. We also do service dogs. We’ve been doing service dogs since 2009. We do a variety of service dogs, but we, we do sort of specialize in, in service dogs with people with autism spectrum disorders. And then we’ve got our Our pet dog division, as well, dealing with a lot of behavior mod pet dog stuff, group classes, private lessons, boarding trains [00:03:00] the sort of typical things you’re going to find on the pet dog side, so.

Fabian: Wow, that’s, that’s cool. Well, similar to Jason there’s a couple of we have a couple of different businesses here in Chicago different entities. One of them is Mojo Dogco, which is actually a platinum sponsor of the ICP this year motivated by Jason Perguson and, you know

Long

training equipment for trainers. And that now we’re starting to do some, you know, manufacturing development there with our in house stuff. Our main business is Found Chicago Boarding and Training Center.

That’s a facility we’ve had here since 2011. So it’s like I don’t know. 15 years, 14.

for a long time. So we do we’re known for is a behavioral cases. So that is like the place where, you know, if you have a challenging dog or behavior case, that’s the facility. We staff about 30 people. You know, [00:04:00] we and in the entire company.

And then we have Pupstart, which is Pupstart is our puppy development program. So we take puppies here at eight weeks old, and we put them through a training process all the way to two years of age. So that’s two years is the cutoff. And so we do have people that graduate the program. And, and you know, it’s basically, if you want a perfect dog, that’s what we aim for.

It’s like, we’re going to take your eight week old puppy, and we’re going to make sure you’re able to. You know, have the, what we call like the dream goal with your dog over the scopes of time. And then the last one it’s, it’s we’re opening the dog tribe Academy for trainers here in Chicago.

So that’s been our, our latest project. Mainly cause you know, when we talk about education, I think that’s a huge component and often missing in, in, in the dog community. Right. So that’s our, our new adventure that, that is our primary focus.

Matt Covey: Wow, you guys sound a lot busier than me. going to be short, so I focus on behavior modification. That’s been my passion. We don’t do any working dogs. I don’t do dog [00:05:00] sports. I don’t compete anything and I don’t really have an interest in it. When people do, that’s awesome. Love seeing people follow their passion.

My passion is just helping people live better lives with their dogs. So that’s all we do is, we used to basically only do aggression and fear cases, and then. As time went on, we realized, like, why are we always trying to chase the problem and fix it afterwards? So we changed our marketing to really try to get a lot more puppies in the door and help people prevent these issues and talk to shelters about when you adopt that young dog out please give them our information.

And that’s helped a lot because it’s also rewarding to help raise a puppy. So is no food aggression, there is no dog aggression or whatever, but it’s still, it’s really rewarding to, obviously, know to. Take a situation where the dog’s not happy, client’s not happy, and to give them a better life together.

And I think there’s, to me, there’s nothing more rewarding for a dog than to be able to run off leash. And a lot of people can’t do that, right? Maybe their dog bites people, maybe it’s just as ill mannered, who knows what. But [00:06:00] that’s my goal with every client is let’s get your dog to where he can run off leash and play and be a dog.

And you do that and all of a sudden so many of the stressors melt away and life is just so much better. That is my main focus, every client, is how can we get your dog to be your house, and how do him to the point to where you can go to the park, and you can kick him loose, and just, he can be a dog, and you can enjoy each other. 

Fabian: Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I think overall the podcast is well reduced for an organization that is, you know, international and is that as active as we are. I feel like historically, every trainer is You know, trying to build a personal brand and there isn’t really an organization out there that is being very vocal about you know, what we stand for the education, you know, the training tools, honestly, you know, the reasons why the ICP exists.

So I’m excited about the podcast because I mean, as a board member, this is my third year on the board and now, you know, vice president, I’m excited to be. more vocal, you know, about the beliefs of the board and the [00:07:00] organization and honestly what it stands for. So I think it’s well overdue. 

Jason: Yeah, and as, as you know, as most people know, one of the big components. Of the organization, it’s certification, legislation, education, education being a huge component. I think this is a great platform for, for the industry because again, we have such a a breadth of knowledge in this industry that we have an opportunity to capitalize on, which can be, you know, super beneficial to young trainers starting off as well as those people who’ve been doing it for a really long time.

Fabian: Yeah.

Matt Covey: agreed. And one thing I’m excited about guest list, you can already see who we have coming on that. industry, it’s so polarized sometimes, and in my opinion, it really shouldn’t be, right? There’s so much fighting in this industry, and everyone listening knows there’s, it’s turned into two camps of dog trainers, right?

Are you force free? Are you balanced? And often, I think we have in common than we think we do, [00:08:00] right? And who says I can’t learn from a dog trainer who isn’t exactly like me is an idiot, right? You can learn from absolutely any qualified dog trainer out there. So I’m so excited that you need to have those connections with people that might train differently than we do and figure out where’s our common ground because we know we have it.

When you’re talking to a good force free trainer or a good balance trainer, I think we’re 90 percent and have a, 10 percent we disagree on. So I think that’ll be a lot of fun for people to hear and it’ll be some great education. 

Fabian: So I guess segueing a little bit into what the ICP does for those members that, members or, or listeners that are new, the ICP International Association of Canine Professionals actually has a quite a couple of different branches. I mean, we have the our primary goals is obviously education, certification, and legislation.

That’s our overall, like, our primary focus is but there’s a lot of stuff going on in there. So, I handle the education committee Jason what are the different committees in the organization?

Jason: We’ve got a number of committees Matt is [00:09:00] director of oversight for ethics. You know, the ethics committee not to, not to steal your thunder, Matt, but you know, it,

Matt Covey: Ha, go ahead.

Jason: it is responsible for ensuring. That our membership is working with not only dogs, but clients ethically, right?

And, and it’s a way for us to really kind of police ourselves and make sure that we don’t have bad actors in our organization. We’ve got a variety of other committees, Fabian’s with education you know, Marlene and that group, man, they do a tremendous job

Fabian: a hundred percent.

Jason: Right now is is, is prime time for them.

It seems like there’s a. Legislative stuff coming to my email or my inbox every, almost every week we’re getting something new. I just saw an email the other day that had I think 30 proposed,

Fabian: Thirty, wow.

Jason: Yeah, it was 30 or more. Yeah, so, you know, this seems to be sparring season for legislative committees.

It seems like they’re, they’re super busy, [00:10:00] super active right now. I guess a lot of Legislators are in session. So they do a really really bang up job of staying in front of that stuff You know ensuring that we’re supporting Bills, you know, we’re just not sitting here trying to oppose everything but they their bills that they support Because they You know, they know that that’s what’s best for dogs customers and the industry is as a whole But again, there’s a lot of stuff that comes through there that I read it and I’m like man who? Whose idea was this? I mean, it, it, it’s, it’s mind boggling sometimes, I’ll be honest with

Matt Covey: Like that bill out of New Jersey a few weeks ago. That was pretty wild. Talk about extreme. On its face, it reads okay, and you actually think about it, and insanely extreme.

Jason: Yeah, I saw one the other day that, that she sent over and it was just, you know, a lot of these things are just incredibly ambiguous and, and because of that, it leaves so much room for [00:11:00] people to interpret it this way or that way. And you know, if you’ve been in this industry for any period of time, you, you probably have a pretty good idea that when these things get interpreted, it’s not going to be in our favor. Know, why leave, why leave that opportunity, when you don’t, when you, when you know you’re, it’s probably not in your best interest, so,

We’ve got a service dog committee, we’ve got a therapy dog committee, they’re doing some really exciting things right now that we’re hoping to announce around conference coming up in July, you know, in addition to that, we’ve got our European members committee that group works to raise awareness, and, you know Help on that legislative side as well Europe.

Those folks over there are being affected by legislation. I was having a conversation with Dom and Finn the other day and you know, really Europe is sort of does fall into one of two camps. You’ve either been affected by legislation or

have the foothold in

Matt Covey: I’m going to talk to [00:12:00] you a little bit about what’s going on. 

Fabian: Why this podcast should exist, right? 

Segwaying a little bit into like the history of the ICP, that’s one of the reasons I joined the organization, right, was because

Matt Covey: Okay. 

Fabian: where there was only one training methodology. Now I would say over the years, it’s actually shifted quite a bit and, and more. Training approaches are welcome, but [00:13:00] I do feel that comes down to being active, educating owners, educating trainers and, and having that a long term effect on the community because you, you did the work of communicating and educating people

Matt Covey: I 100 percent agree with you, Fabian, and that’s what brought me to the organization. You guys have both been part of the IACP longer than I have, of course. And brought me here was legislation and seeing that. And like you said, we don’t stand up and say something, who will write Jason’s point earlier, so many of these bills are ambiguous and on its face, you might read it and it seems reasonable and sometimes people need a dog trainer to really walk them through what it means.

And if it says like the New Jersey bill said something about. Basically any time a dog is stressed through training could be illegal. That could be withholding treats and food. would stress a dog out, right?

Fabian: mean, that’s

sometimes.

Matt Covey: you’re right. It was so insanely ambiguous. And that’s what brought me here.

And for years I did the opposite. And I, my, [00:14:00] my thought was, I’m head down. I’m going to grow our business. I’m going to train dogs. I’m going to make clients happy. I’m wacky people on the internet. It’s not fun to me. I’m just going to, train dogs and do my thing.

And years went by and our company grew and that was all good. And then I woke up one day and I was like, I’ve got to do something right. looked for who’s out there actually doing something already. And obviously the IACP. For me, it was a very clear fit once I finally woke up and realized that if I don’t step in and say something I can’t rely on other people to do it for me.

We’ve all got to be doing this stuff

Fabian: I do have a question. Has there been a like a triggering event that just caused you to be more involved or cause any of you guys to be more involved with the organization or say, Hey, I want to be part of this thing? What was it? What was it for? Because I mean, this is a very passion driven thing, right?

I mean, we have like, You know, this is charity work, so no one here is being paid, right? I mean, that’s the reality of being on the board of directors. So no one here is getting paid and so we’re doing because we’re passionate [00:15:00] about it and then We’re not getting paid. I don’t know If we are I haven’t gotten my check

Jason: I was still waiting.

Fabian: He’s waiting the big the big payday But what what was it? What were the what is the experience that has caused people to be so passionate to them be saying? Hey, you know what? I’m going to join the organization. I’m going to be part of their board. And then I’m going to start, you know, I’m going to participate in the podcast and educate people through this content.

You know, it’s all over the world. 

Jason: My

Fabian: want to hear it, because I think, yeah,

Jason: a long one, man.

Fabian: I 

Matt Covey: hear it

Fabian: let’s it, man. Mm hmm.

Jason: I joined primarily for the legislative stuff. To be a part of something in the industry, number one, number two that, that value and what I felt like was a voice in the industry. And [00:16:00] again, particularly with the legislative stuff. Over the years, we got a little more involved, I honestly didn’t do a tremendous amount, but we consistently have sponsored the organization on some level, usually at a platinum level, some years it was, it was gold and that we’ve done for quite a long time.

So we were. Not only members, I’ve got a ton of folks in my organization who are members my wife and I have been members for a long time and we’ve, we’ve sponsored the organization and we stood the mission of the IACP. It was incredibly important to us

as sponsors . I’ll be honest with you. And I got incredibly frustrated and,

Matt Covey: Silence. [00:17:00] Silence.

Jason: not here, but knows we, she and I had a lot of conversations and, I’m sure every time her phone rang and it was my number, she probably

because I was the guy who

unhappy every single time I called. You know, I’m, I’m the, I’m the

Matt Covey: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Jason: we either need to stop what we’re doing with IACP try to stand up another organization that’s, You know, a better widget for like a better way to put it or we gotta, we gotta go full in on this thing.

And you know, as, as you two know, starting a new [00:18:00] organization is just so

Matt Covey: Okay. Okay. 

Jason: Because again, I’m, I’m pretty sure my number was probably on the blocked list as many times as I called to complain about sponsorships and other

Matt Covey: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Jason: I

Fabian: that was

Jason: our secretary stepping away.

She’s got things, you know, other things she’s going to do, other things she’s going to pursue. We need a secretary. Do you mind doing it? And I’m thinking I’m the new guy I just started here, know, I

Matt Covey: [00:19:00] I think that’s all.

Jason: there were a number of conversations and I ended up taking on that role in July of last year, first of July last year. So, yeah, I went from member to sponsor to disgruntled

Matt Covey: I’m gonna go ahead and introduce our panel and then I’m 

Fabian: Wow. No, that’s it. I, you know what? I didn’t think about it. Cause I feel like last year we did so many things. You had the Chicago move. You had everything happening. Then we had a conference in. September, which, you know, turned great.

really happy about it. And so that’s incredible that it’s only been one year given everything from like relaunching CDT and some of the knowledge [00:20:00] assessments and now just a year, just a year in. And now we have another conference coming up in, you know, I don’t know, 90 days. Oh, I hate to even put it that way. Right? Like 90 days or so.

Jason: got

Fabian: No time. Yeah.

Jason: wish our time away Fabian. We got four

Fabian: Yeah, no, no, not, not at all. Four months. And then we have you know, we already have some thoughts for the 2026 conference. So this is great. I mean I’ve been on the board for about three years and I joined the ICP in 2017. That’s the first, thing I signed up for and it was just being a member of an organization. It’s a matter of like acronyms, you know, or wanting to collect

Matt Covey: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Fabian: That was asked to me in my, in my interview for the board because I was recruited by a friend of someone that’s worked for me, had been on the board and they said, Fabian, I think this would be a great fit for you. And at the time I was like, are you[00:21:00] 

Because you know, I’m, certain way, you know, I’m like, I like to just move things through and do things. And so yeah, like. Yep. We’d like to recommend you. And I joined the the board of directors at the time. And one of the questions they asked me was why why did you not renew your membership? Right. So they, they asked me, why did you not renew your membership after you had, you know signed up in 2017? And I really said I was confused about what there was to gain. Speaking frankly, right? Like what there was to gain about the organization and it’s not that it wasn’t useful because I remember there’s an education portal and there were other things going on and what caused me to be more vocal about how I felt about training and joined the organizations and really trying to represent what I believed in was, it was, it’s actually a TikTok story, you know, so

brace for this one. So I think it was early COVID or right before COVID. I don’t, I don’t know if it was TikTok still or it was something else, but someone made a a video and they put it up on social media and they tagged my business. [00:22:00] And at the time we were very like,

Matt Covey: And it’s a the, it’s a a, it’s a transcription. very much.

Fabian: or another facility here in Chicago. And they basically tagged us about their bad experience and how bad the care was for the animals. And I commented on their, Hey, that’s not our place. Like we’re a completely different business. And and then they took it down. They apologize. But in my mind was. I don’t really have a social media presence at the time, you know, I didn’t have a lot going on with my business.

We were just, you know, a Chicago business operating and trying to do good with by the dogs and providing a service. And in that moment, I said, like, if I don’t represent myself, and I don’t represent my business, and I don’t represent the things that I believe in, other people will do it for me. And you know, you then that was kind of my journey in terms of like getting into more active [00:23:00] role in the organization, but honestly what I believed in.

So it’s like the ICP matches kind of hand in hand what I stand for in training you know, and then also ethics that we try to promote within the organization but that, that was, that was my reasoning. So but Matt, tell us a bit about yours.

Matt Covey: Yeah, so some similarities and some differences for sure. So I started training full time in 2006 and like I said, I kept my head and my focus was growing our company, treating dogs well, making clients happy. That’s all I thought about it went well, right? The company grew and all of that was good.

And I saw my role as. If what I’m doing doesn’t benefit my team, why am I doing it? And it would, but I had a very narrow focus, right? So everything I was doing needs to benefit my team, right? It needs to make them better trainers, help them get paid more, increase their benefits, whatever. I saw everything through that lens.

And then maybe a year and a half ago, like we didn’t even do YouTube videos. We did none of [00:24:00] that stuff. And I was always resistant. People on my team were like, hey, we’ve got to do this. And I would say, no, it’s just not worth it. I don’t want to fight with people. Like you said, Fabian, I don’t want. We’ve got a prong on a dog and I don’t care how happy the dog looks you’re gonna have some haters on it I just I didn’t want to bother we’re busy enough.

What’s the point? And then, finally I came around I was it took him a long time to convince me There are a lot of people on the team pushing hard and finally I said fine And I started to realize like we could create a youtube channel and we could show that balanced trainers aren’t scary there’s this idea that and a lot of people picture a balanced trainer as like Big dude, scary looking, tattoos, huge muscles, really intimidating.

And that, if you’re watching this video, you can see that’s not me, right? That’s just, that’s not me at all. was like, you know cool. Make a channel showing demystifying balanced training. And what you said, Fabian, I don’t want someone else to tell everyone what Matt Covey is about or what Suburban K9 is about.

I want to tell them, right? [00:25:00] I don’t want someone else to tell the world how I use an e collar. I want to tell them. I want to show them how I use it. We made our channel, and it went well. It was fun. It was hard. You think you’re going to be at making a video and then you do it and it’s terrible.

And you learn from there. But about a year went by and I was working on a project with Dogtra and I was talking to Lorraine. And she was asking what are you all about? And I was telling her I’m opposed to legislation, trying to ban tools. I’m trying to build some social media stuff and explaining what I was all about.

And she’s you have to talk to Jason and Fabian. And I was like, all right, who are those guys? I’ll talk to them. the IACP. So IACP, of course. And I was like yeah, of course I’ll talk to them. I would love to. And we set up some intro phone calls and I was like, man.

These guys are about what I’m about, which is treating dogs. Helping trainers and of course, getting out there. What it is we do and making sure tools don’t get banned because we all know it’s the trainer, not the tool, right? Anyone can use something poorly and create issues with it. I don’t care what tool I [00:26:00] don’t care if it’s a harness, right?

Someone can suck with a harness and scare a dog or cause an issue. That’s not the harness’s That’s the user’s fault. And I know you guys feel the same way about all of this stuff, that we just need to get out there, educate people, show them what it is, what balance training actually is, not what it’s characterized as sometimes.

And that’s, to me, that’s my passion right now. So that’s been a lot of fun. dovetails with my mission of doing everything I can to help my team. Because as the industry grows and as we protect the industry, that obviously helps my team. If tools are banned or if a dog training and we could operate without tools, of course, I know you guys could as well, but that’s not good for dogs the more things we can have to help dogs, the better, and that’s going to make it better for clients and for trainers, of course.

Fabian: limit something that that is beneficial?

Matt Covey: Yeah. Lorraine’s pretty awesome.

Fabian: I’m not sure. Did I, did I know that? I think Jason’s like, Hey, call, call this guy. I think you’ll like him. Call this guy. I think he’s a cool dude. this is kind of refreshing because obviously the organization has [00:27:00] seen a lot of changes over the last what is 25th year?

I think it was the document said,

Jason: 99,

Fabian: so this is their 26th year.

Jason: 1999. Yeah. It’s when the ICP was founded. Yeah. 99. 

Fabian: It was founded, but not filed into 2000. I don’t know. There’s like, there’s like different dates on there, but this could potentially be their 20, the 25th year of the organization. And I know there’s a lot of the growth there. And then their founder, the founder passed away. 2019, Jason, 2019.

Jason: Don’t quote me.

Fabian: But obviously the organization has seen a lot of transitions from board members, just like it naturally would, right? When something like that happens, and I feel like now, 2025, we’re, we’re maybe not ahead. But like on time, which is really cool in terms of like our efforts, how we’re, you know, working with the organization.

I mean, just this podcast in itself is, is super cool because the members and other people get to know us, through the podcast, we’re going to be [00:28:00] rotating it to different board members and different hosts so that you guys will get to know a little bit about everyone. But what’s nice is that you get to meet us and, and get to know us versus being confused about the decisions that are made, right? I think this podcast really allows us an opportunity to share the thoughts behind some of the progress and honestly, some of the more public decisions that we get to make for the organization. What do you guys think are some personal goals for the podcast that you guys have as, as board members and officers?

Jason: Biggest thing for me. Biggest. Objective, I guess, with the podcast is, is education. Not only do we want to reach our membership, I mean, that’s incredibly important to us, to be able to reach our membership, but I think it’s important for us to even have a wider audience. Reaching pet owners, reaching people who may be curious about things like, how do I get into this space? How do I become a dog trainer? What is, what is balanced dog training? What does this [00:29:00] mean? These terms are, or can be incredibly confusing for people who are, who are not. You know, in the industry haven’t been in this space. So,

Fabian: Yeah.

Jason: our position is and, you know, like, like I said, telling our own story, this, this podcast really gives us an opportunity to do that. And it also gives us an opportunity to talk to some really cool people. So

Matt Covey: I’m with you on that. Like I said earlier, I’m excited about the education component and showing people and for people to see that we’re all closer than we think we are. And we know there’s extremists on both ends. There are balanced trainers that are not good trainers, and I wouldn’t call them balanced, right?

There’s extremists for sure that should not be operating anymore. And there’s, force free folks that are pretty extreme [00:30:00] that, we don’t have much in common with. But the vast majority We do. And I want people to see that to be able to learn from everybody and to realize that many times we’re doing the same things.

The whole idea of balanced training is that we have a lot of tools in our toolbox, right? And when someone says I’m a positive reinforcement trainer balanced trainers, if they’re any good, are using positive reinforcement constantly. That’s the first tool in our toolbox always is positive reinforcement.

so I’m excited to have some of those conversations so people can see. Okay, this purely positive person, this force free, whatever they call themselves, and this person calls himself balanced, they agree on all of this stuff, and they differ right there at the end on something else, and I think that would be a good way for us all to learn, and I always say that I think if a, a force free trainer came with me on a house call, they would be, if they don’t know much about balanced training, they would be shocked, like by what they saw, where I think a lot of them, I’ll give you an example.

I did a first house call last night. Won’t bore you with all the details, but like 40 pound [00:31:00] dog bit the owner multiple times pretty bad can’t be walked so it can’t go to the vet. They can’t get a harness or collar on it That’s what it bit him for the last time They don’t have a fenced in yard, which means this outside of the house It’s going to the bathroom on potty pads in the house so I went there to work with them and I think a lot of you know force free trainers if they don’t know balance trainers personally might say I bet he, put a prong on the dog or he’s using an e collar and he’s going to suppress behavior and all of these things.

And that’s not the case at all, right? We spent 30 minutes using treats to get the dog comfortable with seeing a slip lead, right? Until I could finally get him to put his head through the slip lead on his own accord. We took our time, got it on, walked the dog around the house for a while, until he, was very comfortable using me and then When he was calm, we took the slip off and then we tried that again.

lesson, we’d had the slip lead on and off a bunch of times. We never said the word no. There’s no discipline, so to speak, or at all. It was really just getting him comfortable [00:32:00] with that. And I think from the other side, a lot of balance trainers will say, Hey, these force free people, they don’t know what they’re doing.

And then you watch a good force free trainer. you’re like, they know a lot, right? They’re making some good progress with this. And we need to figure, we need to learn from each other is my main point and realize that we’re way closer than we think we are.

Fabian: Yeah, for sure. I mean I, I think if I can add something on the education side, which it sounds like you know, education legislation are big for me, obviously somebody from the Education Committee or Marlene. We’ll up getting on here at the podcast at some point because there are stories to tell and a lot of information to share in terms of how legislation works, because I think that in itself is something that people need help with. But I’m also really interested in the blending of the worlds. So like the blending of like pet owners or people in the dog community listen to the podcast and in understanding the canine profession. Right. I think that that’s really interesting to me or having episodes that you can refer to owners and saying, Hey, [00:33:00] this will be really helpful.

There’s so much to put out there. At the end of the day to your point, Matt, I feel like anyone that, Owns the dogs like you just described, like they understand the value of proper training, right? And I just, you know, I don’t like to call it balance or I don’t like to call it positive only, but I would say proper training that meets the goals

because ultimately the training objectives is something that are unique to that individual. And that’s what the owners are hiring people for, right? It’s for the training objectives or to receive the help they need. I’m interested to share more of those experiences that just brings some deeper understanding of the industry and being able to do it here at the dog pro radio is really exciting.

Yeah, and labels often do us a disservice, Because it doesn’t give you that deeper understanding like you just You hear a label and you right away pigeonhole somebody or something to whatever you think about that label without getting that deeper understanding. I think we’ve got a cool opportunity here to dig a lot deeper. 

Jason, what are some of the other things that people can expect out of the podcast? Or I don’t know if you want to disclose [00:34:00] upcoming speakers or upcoming ideas

Jason: stay tuned, stay tuned to uh, stay tuned to our Facebook members group and our public page. We’ll, we’ll have announcements. We’ll, we’ll have teasers. We, got some really cool folks lined up. We’ve got we’ve got a variety of, of people lined up, which I think is important as well.

So,

Fabian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason: it doesn’t count. So we’ll, we’ll keep it under wraps.

Matt Covey: Jason, even as I’m putting these on my calendar, I’m putting for the guest and like, even I think my team could look at these initials and know who it is. Maybe I need to be a little secretive here. And

Fabian: For sure. When I saw the emails, I was like, Oh my God, there’s an overwhelming amount of people. So right after this episode we’re going to knock out some dates to just get that stuff taken care of. But yeah, it sounds like we got the next couple of months planned out. So that’s exciting. 

Jason: Hey, real, real quick, a couple things. You said this is my closing part here, Fabian, so as you two know, we just wrapped up a [00:35:00] four and a half day board retreat in Savannah, Georgia.

Matt Covey: Man, it felt like seven, four?

Jason: whoo, it was, 

Fabian: That’s what my wife said.

Jason: was four. Yeah. We got a ton of stuff done. And,

first and foremost, secondly, man, what a location.

So, you know, if you’re, if you’re on the fence about conference, get your tickets today. If you’re on the fence about staying at the hotel, I’ll tell you that room block is filling quick. So, get your tickets, get them through the website, you’re going to get the group rate if you go through the website. That is a, such a, such a cool, cool place. We had a really good time. We got a ton of work done. You know, Fabian kept us in that, in that conference room probably 14, 16 hours a day and wouldn’t

Matt Covey: He did.

Jason: wouldn’t even let us have dinner one night. So, you know,

Fabian: Another six at the bar, too

Jason: we got, we got, we got tons of stuff done.

With that being said, don’t know about you guys, but I am super excited about some of the plans we have for the organization this [00:36:00] year. We got some, we got some cool stuff coming everybody’s way. Also quick shameless plug, got merch, lots of cool merch. So check out our store at IACPDogs.

org. These sweatshirts are super comfortable. I ordered quite a few of them

Matt Covey: Love it. Conference is gonna be amazing. Marlene did job picking locations. That hotel is gonna be awesome.

Fabian: Yeah, I was i’m

Jason: speaker lineup too. Tremendous speaker lineup this year.

Fabian: Yeah, it set out to be an amazing conference i’m a little worried for for some of the people that like to have a lot of fun because it’s it’s gonna be real easy To have a lot of fun there. so You know, so no, I look forward to seeing everybody but thanks for listening then 

Jason: till next time. Stay tuned. We got some cool stuff coming your way.

Matt Covey: Good to see you guys.

Fabian: guys. Peace out [00:37:00]