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Well, what were your big takeaways today, Jason? There are a lot. I’ll be, I’ll be honest with you, um, I apologize, but I feel like I capitalized on the question asking on this one. I had a lot of them, so, uh, and he, he gave us some really, really good answers too. I think some pretty thorough, um, answers and some, some things to think about, particularly when dealing with, with dog aggression and, you know, clients with aggressive dogs.

And that’s, you know, something a lot of, a lot of trainers struggle with sometimes. So. Yeah, I mean, of course a lot struggle from lack of experience, lack of confidence without a doubt. And I, I do think it was nice there was, I think that this conversation, there was a nice balance between big picture of just how to maybe structure your career, how to think about aggression along with some granular stuff that would actually help you when you’re dealing with an aggression case.

So I think there was a good balance there that someone with zero experience and someone with 20 years of experience can still get something out of the talk, which I, I think will be nice. Yeah, I thought we weren’t using balanced anymore. I thought that word was off the list. Did I say that? Yeah. Twice. I thought we agreed on that.

Just now or in the, uh, yeah, just now. Just now. I’m not sure. We’ll find out during editing. I, oh, a nice balance. Okay. I’m with you now. There’s all kinds of taboo words we can’t use. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was, like I said, I think as you mentioned, whether you’ve been doing this 20 years or you’ve been doing it for two months, there’s definitely something in here, uh, that you can take away and use, because again, dealing with those type of cases are so dynamic and they’re, they can be, they can be a real challenge without a doubt.

And I think everyone will be interested to hear overall how the conversation went, because I know some people think it’s interesting that we talk to someone that doesn’t share our exact worldview. And you know, Mike does feel different about training than you and I do, but I think when people listen you’ll see that we agree on a lot of things and it’s a good conversation and it doesn’t have to there we agree on way more than we disagree on and you can have a good conversation on the stuff we overlap on.

Yeah, and I mentioned it during the episode and truly I’d, I’d love, uh, love a another opportunity to sit down ’cause I had a lot more questions so it’s really good to have him coming to the conference so I’m sure people will get questions answered there and he’s presenting, sounds like he’s got a really, really cool, uh, presentation lined up for everybody.

Yeah, and we, I mean we can’t share what we just talked about offline with them, but obviously it’s, you know, dog and dog aggression and I think it’s gonna be something that people are gonna learn a lot from. So if you can come to conference this year, gonna add a lot of value. We all see dog and dog aggression and we all know there’s a million variables and any extra tool in your tool toolbox you can have will be helpful.

Absolutely. This is a fun episode. Alright, well enjoy everybody. Today’s guest is probably a familiar name for everybody. Michael cio, a dog trainer and consultant who focuses on aggression cases and you actually own, I think maybe the most badass domain name I’ve ever seen. Aggressive dog.com. We could probably spend some time talking about how you were able to come up with that one and lock that down.

And on top of that, your podcast, the by the end of the dog, another pretty awesome name. It’s hard to not love that one. And on top of that, Michael offers online courses and also speaks at conferences all over the world, including Shameless plug, the upcoming IACP conference this summer. We’re excited to have you there.

So with all of that being said, welcome Michael. We are excited to chat. Thanks so much for having me. I’m, I’m looking forward to this chat. Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. Well, do you wanna start by just giving us a little bit of your background? Uh, I know you’ve got a long history in the dog training field, so kinda explain to everyone where you’re coming from and what you’re all about.

Yeah, yeah. I’m, I’m, I start out in like the rescue fostering world, so, you know, I was actually working a totally different job at that stage. This is going back about 25 years ago now, but I was working at a casino, so I was taking care of all the high rollers and celebrities coming in. And at the, at that time I was doing a lot of fostering dogs and I wasn’t like looking to be a professional trainer at that point or anything.

So, uh, but you know, as, as it goes with rescue, they start sending you more and more difficult dogs because you become more experienced foster homes. So I had like over a hundred dogs come through the home, a lot of the larger, like lab doberman sized dogs. And, you know, a, I saw a lot of the issues that these dogs were being surrendered or given up on, or worse is that it was because of behavior.

And that’s one of the most common reason dogs are surrendered to shelters or rescues. So. I thought, what, what a better way to help these dogs than learn to learn a little bit about training. And so I started, you know, dabbling with different things and you, you know, not taking anything like to a professional level at that stage, but just starting to learn how to train dogs and, you know, reading books and attending different seminars and things like that.

And, uh, and I thought, yeah, you know, I actually really like this. I, I like helping the dogs with the behavior issues. I, you know, I enjoy watching things like agility and watching people do obedience work and things like that. But for me it was more behavior like the dogs with behavior issues, whether destructive behaviors, anxiety or aggression.

So, um, and then I started really leaning towards aggression. ’cause I felt like that was what I, you know, liked working with the most I liked. And, and you get a, it really is rewarding to see that happen when you see a dog stay in their home that had aggression issues because you were able to help that dog.

So I got hooked and uh, I started training clients on the side a little bit. And as most trainers start out, they start out part-time and maybe they work in another job. And that snowballed kind of quickly. It took me about a year before I was like, you know what? I don’t need to work at the casino anymore.

So, left that job, which was tough. That was tough because I had a family, you know, you know how it is, you have the medical insurance, you have all those things that are, you know, uh, stable and then you’re gonna leave all that to be like an entrepreneur on your own. So that was a big jump, but it all worked out, you know, so, you know, here I am today being lucky to do what I really enjoy doing.

That’s awesome. It took me years to convince people I wasn’t a dog walker for a career. ’cause like, you know, family members and older people in the family, like, no, it’s like, this is an actual job. People train dogs for a living. Yeah. Yeah. And we were just talking about that too. Like, you know, when you first start out, people think, oh, so you work with puppies all day?

I’m like, not quite, you know, but, and then you, you start out thinking that’s what you’re gonna do. Like, oh, I just wanna work with dogs because I’m, I’m getting sick of people. I’m getting tired of working with brown people. And then you realize that’s all you’re gonna be doing is working with people, especially with behavior cases, you know, it’s all about the people.

It’s the dogs start to become the same thing over and over. It’s just, it’s the people you work with. So if you had asked me that, or have told me that actually, hey, you, someday you’re gonna be really dealing with some difficult people, some difficult cases, some difficult decisions, uh, navigating social media, you know, hiring attorneys to protect yourself like from all the other trainers.

It’s like wild how things evolve in your career. But yeah, it’s, uh, yeah, started out kind of just wanting to work with dogs, but that’s changed. It sure does. Snowball, like we were talking about before we even jumped on, on the air here, was a lot of our job is dealing with clients, right. And sometimes feeling like that counselor, that therapist to either settle disputes or make them, you know, feel better about the situation and what, you know, the task at hand.

It’s, it’s amazing what our job is actually like. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It, it’s, especially in aggression cases, you gotta like working with people. ’cause that’s really what it’s all about. It’s, you know, you can do some things on your own, like say you’re doing boarding training or day training or different formats of training.

But, um, it really does boil down back to the people with aggression cases because there’s so much of it is in their environment, you know, so you can take a dog and do really well at your home or your facility, but then once it goes back to their home environment, if they’re just doing the same things that are, you know, perpetuating that behavior, it’s just gonna come right back.

So we’ve gotta work a lot on the human side of things. Right? Absolutely. It’s kind of funny what you, sorry, kind of funny what you said about the shelter. Uh, I, I, I think that seems to be everybody’s experience, the better job you do with those dogs, you’re generally rewarded with a lot more of those dogs.

So. Yeah. Yeah. And I tell trainers that are just starting out all the time, you know, if you wanna get good experience, good hands-on experience handling a lot of dogs, just go volunteer to shelter. Like you’re not gonna get really, other than that is fostering dogs in your home with your own dogs and your family and your kids.

You know, that’s another great way to get experience about managing things in the home. But yeah, I mean the, unfortunately there’s a lot of lack of that is the hands-on stuff. ’cause there’s lot of online learning, which is great. It’s good to have that information out there, but it’s, yeah, the hands-on stuff, you know, if you want to get your training chops, shelter or fostering top two ways.

Yeah, that’s, that’s definitely something we brought up in, uh, oh my man. Probably a couple. I. Couple of earlier episodes, you know, recommending to young trainers, new trainers, um, you wanna get that hands on shelter’s a place to do it. So yeah. Could you bring that up again? Yeah. Yep. Another good option is doggy daycare.

Even if you don’t Yeah. Care for it as a business model. There’s obviously pros and cons, but mm-hmm. You get to see a lot of aggression, break up a lot of fights, and learn a lot of lessons the hard way working in a daycare. Yeah, definitely. And, and just learning about dog dog communication. ’cause you’re just watching it all day.

I mean, those, some of the, the best eyes I’ve seen are folks that have worked in daycares for a long time. They just have a real knack for seeing what’s gonna happen and that’s, and these subtle interactions between dogs, so Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s an easy way to burn out. I spent years full-time in daycares training dogs there, and you, you learn a lot, but it’s a hard life.

But you also get to see 60 dogs a day. Right. Interacting with each other and like you said, watching a pack of dogs. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years now and, um, professionally and to this day, I still cannot wrap my head around how people do that. I know they do it. They do it every day.

Yeah. Yeah. But I, it’s, it, to me it seems like mission impossible. I know it’s not because it’s, they make it very possible every day, but to me, I’m like, how in the world would you even start with that? It’s physically taxing too. You know, you’re on your feet all day, you’re like, you know, so us older guys, it’s, we’re not lined up for doing that as much as we want.

Yeah. And unless you’re lucky at like the best daycare ever, you’re on concrete most of the day, and most of them are windowless warehouses. And it, yeah. It can kind of suck your soul a little bit. Yeah. I mean, inside in a windowless warehouse, cleaning up after dogs all day and breaking up fights and hearing them bark.

Mm-hmm. But you learn a lot. But then again, shelters have a lot of those same challenges. Right. Yeah. It’s not an easy place, you know, shelter playgroups too, you know, it’s, yeah. It’s, it, it’s a physically demanding, low paying kind of, you know, career. And it’s tough to, to make it long, long term in those things.

So I always give my hats off to people working in those environments. ’cause it is not easy. Mm-hmm. Someone’s gotta do it. Yep. So, just to jump off outta curiosity, how much of your work now is aggression based? Is it a hundred percent or some, some lower percentage? Yeah. So in, in terms of my focus, a hundred percent aggression, I don’t, uh, take on any ca other types of cases.

And I, you know, and now my, my business model is really shifted more towards just teaching other trainers and doing workshops. Uh, but I will take a case from time to time. Uh, it’s usually a trainer, uh, sort of like they need a second set of eyes on a case, they’ll reach out to me. Uh, ’cause I wanna keep my skills sharp.

I don’t wanna just be like, oh, I’m just gonna teach now. I’ll never put my hands on a dog again. That’s, it’s, I think, important to keep, keep your skills sharp. So, you know, I just did that. I was at a shelter in Seattle, uh, last month and working with some really tough dogs there. Uh, so it’s good to know that I still have my muscle memory, but you know, it’s also, those are the kind of things I’ll do now.

Um, so yeah, but it is all aggression focused. Everything I do is, you know, looking at aggression or, or, or topics that would impact, uh, an aggression case, you know, so not, you know, so like canine physiology or, or movement, those kind of things can of course, impact aggression issues. So, um, I like to host guests, uh, that specialize in those topics or host guests that do webinars on those topics.

So yeah, it’s, um, it’s definitely shifted much more towards the educational role though now. Okay. So all aggression focus, but most of your time is now spent. Working with your, the, your, uh, online courses and things of that nature? Yes. Yeah, a lot of travel, uh, which I’m being kind of picky about ’cause it’s just, it gets to be a lot, you know, and, and I, I never want to complain.

I’m very grateful for the life I have and, and the opportunities that have been given to me. But, uh, it can get, you know, to be a lot, you know, on the road, 20 to 30 conferences or workshops a year. And, and I’ve shifted to pretty much doing only, uh, overseas events, uh, with the exception of the IACP conference in my conference coming up this year.

Um, almost everything is overseas just ’cause I, I like to travel too, so I always take that advantage of, like, if I, if I’m out in like Switzerland, I’m gonna take a few extra days while I’m there after the workshop to just explore and sight see. So it takes up a lot of time, but it’s, um, uh, you know, you, it’s, it’s as, as wonderful as the lifestyle that is.

It also you kind of miss home sometimes. And you know, like, like right now I don’t even, I don’t even have my own dog per se. Um, my wife brought her dog, but you know, I haven’t had like, you know, you have, you, you have your own dog. Uh, I haven’t had one in a couple years since my doman passed away. Just ’cause of the travel.

It just wouldn’t be fair to the dog. The dog would be like, probably like, who are you? And I got home, you know, dog would probably be like with the pets that are more of anything. So, so yeah, that’s, uh, that’s where I’m at now. It’s just a lot of, um, teaching. Okay. Is it, you had mentioned travel and tiring and it made me think of just of burnout in general, which a lot of dog trainers suffer from.

I don’t know why we have that. It seems like more than some other industries, but especially trainers that work with a lot of aggression. I’m sure all three of us have seen that multiple times. What are, what are your thoughts on that? What’s causing that? And on top of that, maybe what could people do to prevent some of that burnout?

Yeah. Uh, because there’s a lot of pressure to solve problems, right? We, you know, we get hired to work with somebody’s dog with aggression issues, and any trainer that’s been doing it a long time knows that you’re not going to solve every case because there’s just so many variables involved. There’s the, the people side of things, the dog of course, and, you know, we can often help many of these dogs and it’s a lot of that burnout comes from if you know, your mind goes to, if this dog was in my home, the dog would probably be okay because I’d be able to.

Do the things that need to be in place, but this person over here is struggling. My client’s struggling because maybe they don’t have the same, uh, time that I can put into it, or the same knowledge or resources or skills. And even though we try to teach them as much as we can, there’s limitations to that.

And that can lead to compassion, fatigue and burnout because we’re like, well, this dog will be okay with me, but now they’re considering something like euthanasia or rehoming or returning the dog. So, um, that’s a big part of it because there’s a tremendous pressure from our colleagues and what we see on social media and everybody putting out like these before and after videos that are, you know, highly edited and it looks perfect and you just tend to like compare yourself to those people.

And there’s a lot of pressure of like, you know, you can’t even talk about it publicly, right? Be like, ah, this case has been giving me a hard time. And then you have always some new, new trainers chiming in, oh, if I had the dog I would do this. And they don’t know any of the variables of the case. And that can make it additionally hard for that trainer because let’s face it, training’s a kind of a lonely profession, you know, where sometimes floating on our own islands in our, you know, local areas and we don’t have a lot of other trainers maybe we’re talking to, might have a few colleagues or something in the area, but most of it’s online.

So we don’t get a lot of face-to-face time in person time to kind of talk through these challenges. So there’s, there’s kind of a lack of support from our peers, in our colleagues in a lot of space. And in fact, you guys know, there’s a lot of the opposite, unfortunately, where we’re getting attacked or there’s constantly fighting and bickering.

So that also leads to the burnout. But especially in aggression cases, what happens is, like, I have, like some of my students, they love it. They, they’re, they’re first like, oh, this is amazing. They’re seeing great results, they’re learning new techniques and they’re getting super busy. ’cause let’s face it, there’s no shortage of aggression cases, right?

So they get super busy, they’re like, oh, this is amazing. I’m making all this money. I’m gonna, you know, they, and nine times outta 10, about the one year mark, I get a message from them, Mike, I’m getting really burnt out. I don’t know what to do. I need to change something. But I am exhausted and I, I’ll tell everybody, I’m like you.

It’s gonna seem amazing at first because you’re gonna help a lot of people. You’re gonna be super busy, you’re gonna be making a ton of money, but you need to schedule accordingly for that. So you could take, some people can take a year of puppy cases, no problem. Right? But, and maybe they’re doing puppy socially, you know, socials or whatever.

And those are gonna be not as taxing of a case ’cause. You’re gonna see success in most of the time if you’re doing things right. Aggression cases though, you’re going to hit some roadblocks, some speed bumps along the way, and you need to book yourself time off, right? To kind of refuel your own tank, refuel your own, sort of like emotional bank account, right?

If, because, um, if not, you’d never get a chance to recharge. So I tell the trainers like, like, schedule yourself a 10 month, year, like, make sure what you’re making in 10 months of your year is enough to sustain you for the year to meet your goals. So that way you have at least two full months, like wherever, space it out.

It can be summer off, it can be a week here, week there, you know, days off here, whatever. But it has to be a lot of recharge time in, in order to avoid that burnout and mix. In some other cases, don’t just do strictly aggression cases, like take a puppy case once in a while, you know, be able to touch a dog.

You know, sometimes you can go a week without even getting close to a dog if you get enough dog to human aggression cases. So, um, yeah, so really important for the, that’s the message I wanna put out there is, you know, schedule accordingly and give yourself time to take breaks, to recharge, to, to kind of think through your processes.

Uh, take time to think about how your consults and your conversations go with your clients, how you might change those things and improve them in the future because all of that matters to avoiding burnout and, and it just happens way too much in our industry. So. So a lot of, a lot of the younger trainers who are starting out, newer trainers mm-hmm.

Uh, in the industry, uh, generally are not getting involved in aggression cases, so mm-hmm. You know, they are dealing with puppies and, and training, uh, things that are, you know, pulling on a leash and that sort of stuff. So, uh, I guess my question is, if somebody’s in that position and they’re looking to sort of move into dealing with more problematic dogs, right?

They’re gonna, they’re gonna tackle some of these more serious, um, behavior cases, is there sort of a, a, a checklist that you would provide ’em of, Hey, these are the things that you need to understand and appreciate before you decide that this is a leap you want to take? Yeah, that’s a great question, Jason.

I think, um, I think every trainer before they start getting into like the more behavior cases like separation anxiety, aggression, uh, should have the foundational aspects down. You know, they should be able to get behavior on a dog, teach, you know, the fundamental skills we all know how to teach, like loose leash, walking, sit down, stay all that, recall, all of that.

Um, and. Th that’s first and foremost. But then they have to learn about some of the other things that can impact aggression, sort of like health and biology, um, you know, ethics and training. They should have, um, a good knowledge of the laws and, you know, so have some experience under your belt first. So you kind of know how to navigate these things.

And, and really the most important part is the, the, the human side of things, like being able to talk to people, being able to be empathetic in these cases is a skill, right? It’s a skill just like we do with timing, with dog training. That, that, that part, if you’re gonna get into behavior cases, you have to have that down too before you start getting into it.

So once you have all those things down, then I recommend people. You know, it’s just, it’s taking kind of low level aggression cases and, and we should define what low level means because usually when people think severe aggression cases, they’re thinking like a dog with a high bite level, right? The dog’s been like a level four, like damaging some, put somebody in a hospital kind of bite.

Um, and that’s important of course to consider. You know, I don’t recommend somebody just start out with that kind of case, but that’s not the only thing that dictates severity for me. Because you could have a, a dog that’s biting at a very low level, maybe it’s a level two, just some minor skin scrapes.

Nothing major. Nobody’s gonna the hospital. But if you start to layer in other variables, you know, we can say, oh, hey, hey, I’ve got your first aggression case for you. It’s a golden retriever, lovely golden retriever. It’s been, you know, level two, but nobody’s in the hospital and nobody’s been getting injured.

But what if that golden retriever has some health issues con contributing to the behavior problem? And then they also live in a house with six children and the dog is biting children, and they also have people. Bringing their kids over to visit all the time. And the, the, it’s a single parent with, you know, a full-time job and you know, a very small home.

And so you start layering all these other variables that make it that particular case much more severe. And let’s say it’s that level of, you know, that, that really high, deep, high level biting dog. But that one was like, you know, just, um, uh, picked up when it got injured and it’s the only time it bit anybody in its entire life.

And it’s been lovely with people. It was just in pain and just turned around and happened to connect. So that’s a much different kind of case. So, uh, I think when, when trainers are first starting out, get the details and see if that sits right with, with the knowledge you have on how to navigate those things.

Do you know, like really deeply about golden retriever health and medical issues that can contribute to behavior problems? You know, are you good at navigating conversations with somebody that has six kids and a full-time job and is worried about their kids and they’re kind of all over the place with, you know, what they wanna do next?

So, um, that’s I think, the best way to think about, am I ready to take aggression cases yet? Kind of think through those, those other variables first, and that’ll give you the answer. Yeah, good insight. An aggressive golden, what is this? Never happens. Never, never happens. None of those. And none, none guarding anything with a food bowl.

That’s, that’s about the only aggression I see outta goldens is, is the resources. These that are male, male, dog, dog aggression is another common one. If I get a contact forms and I see golden retriever, I’m like, okay, is it resource guarding or is it a male that’s having issues, sort of males. Typically what I’ve seen, like when you get called to the home of someone with a bloodhound and you’re like, so he is guarding food from your other animals.

They’re like, how did you know? Because every bloodhound ever born has done that. Yeah. Yeah. So on that note, how, how much do you talk about breed when you are either talking with new trainers? I mean, to me it’s very relevant and sometimes I eat a little shit for this, for some of the things I say, but I like all breeds, I don’t, there’s none I dislike, but Jason, but if a rot or a pit bite, someone, the odds of it being catastrophic are higher than a golden Right.

Or a chihuahua. Like we have to recognize that. Uh, I’m just curious, how do you, how do you think about breed and when you’re dealing with new trainers, what’s some advice you give them? Oh, I think it’s really important. You know, I think there’s, uh, like, like it’s kind of a misconception floating around for a while, and I think it’s changed a bit over the last few years, but early, uh, you know, 20, I’m thinking like 2015 to 2020, it’s, there was this, when, when opera and conditioning and behaviorism really became, uh, mainstream in the dog training space is that it was all about how you raise them and you can get any behavior on any dog if you just set the procedures correctly.

Um, which doesn’t take into account a lot of other things. Now, of course, anybody who is using opera conditioning and, and, and has a behaviorism lens, now of course they’re understanding the other stuff and looking at it, all the other dynamics that can play a role in behavior. Uh, but I think breed is so important to recognize in what, you know, humans have selected for and, and breeding practices for decades or even centuries in some cases.

Uh, because it matters. And you know, of course we always look at the individual dog just ’cause you have a, you know, Baer, Maland doesn’t necessarily mean they’re just gonna start biting whatever’s you put in front of their face first. Um, but a lot of them will, right? And we see it, as you can see in plenty of videos out there, you know, litters of puppies.

You know, they’re not training those. Belgians to hang off somebody’s leg. They’re doing it naturally. ’cause that’s a breed specific tendency in which we might see. So I do, I do think it’s very important that new trainers, even if they don’t know the breed going into it, at least research, you know, ’cause let’s face it, there’s lots of breeds out there and you may not have worked with some breeds or maybe it’s been a while since you worked with a certain breed.

So just go on and, you know, research, what have that that dog has been bred for in terms of behavioral characteristics and the work, especially the work. So whether it’s herding, tracking, biting, whatever, you know, behaviors we’ve selected for, we should know that because that’s going to dictate how much we have to focus on that in our, in our training plans, in our behavior plans, as well as educating the client in what they have.

Sometimes they get a dog, they’re like, you know, I had a, just recently, well not recently, but in a case I was just talking about recently was a, a Connie Corso case. And, uh, the client had no idea that just they liked the look of a big dog, but they had no idea about the, you know, the tendencies. So. It definitely important to talk about, but um, it also, I think, shouldn’t go too far into your dog’s definitely gonna do this because they’re this breed, right?

You see that sometimes too. So I think it’s important to put into our considerations in our conversations, but, um, uh, you know, and then recognize how much we’re gonna be able to change certain behaviors depending on what we selected for as humans in a claim situation, you wanna be sure you have the right coverage.

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So quick, quick follow up to that. And this is not. It sort of plays into breed, but more so size. Um, Matt, you’re in Tennessee. You’re in up in New England. Um, I just wanna make sure I’m not the only one that experiences this, but it, it seems as though there’s this very distinct correlation between the actual size of the dog and the number of times it act actually gets to bite somebody before the owner picks up the phone and says, I need professional help.

The bigger the dog, the less strikes they get. I’ve, I’ve literally had, um, I’ve literally had smaller dogs, Yorkie silkies, 25 bites under their belt. Yeah. Breaking skin before that owner says, Hmm, we may have a problem and we may need professional intervention. Yeah. It, it, it very, very common. In fact, the vast majority of my clients have been the, the big dogs, right?

So you get some small dog clients. I mean, it’s usually at the point where they have like 25 people or kids, you know, and stuff. So yeah, it’s, I think that that. That notion that little dogs get away with a lot more, which they technically do in a lot of cases. But here’s an interesting side fact too, is that the, because of the way the jaw structure is with some smaller dogs like a chihuahua, they’re actually better biters or, or more efficient at doing damage than some of the larger breeds because, so think you’re brachycephalic breeds because of how their jaw is set and their teeth is set inside their jaw.

Again, through many years of us tinkering with breeding and things like that. But so, you know, some small dogs can actually do a good amount of damage and people sometimes forget that, even trainers, I say, oh, it’s just a chihuahua. Well, some chihuahuas can bite pretty badly and I’ve seen some really damaging bites from small dogs as well.

So, um, but sure, yes. So larger dog’s gonna have much more power behind it, but their bite may not be as efficient as some of those little guys. Good thing. I know. You gotta respect the dachshund for sure. Yeah. Ask me how I know that. Good, good thing that chihuahuas don’t have a propensity to bike people.

So if you say so, chase,

so what about maybe spending some time talking management and what it is like when you’re creating a plan for somebody. And I’d be curious if we could even tie this into what we were just talking about. Where, to me, management plans sometimes are modified based upon the breed. Right. You know, we, we have to be a lot more careful with a dog that could kill somebody or kill another dog versus one that just could injure them.

Um, but I’ll let you take that wherever you want. What are some go-to things you do with management, whether it’s muzzles, educating the client on what to do with their dog? What are your, what are some go-tos for you? Yeah, I, that’s such a great question. I think it’s first looking at the environment to the dogs in so, and seeing what’s the, the client can actually follow through with and do in their home and their environment set up.

Um, you know, we, we have to be firm sometimes too, because we have to consider the safety and the risks for the public. So, you know, I’m more direct typically and, and insisting on certain things, especially when it comes to muzzles and in the public for, for a dog that has a bite history in the public. Uh, so, uh, yeah, very much environmentally specific, but the next thing I’m gonna consider is the welfare of the dog, because we can put in management.

Procedures and things in the home that can really impact the quality of life. And let’s face it, many a dog, many dogs that have aggression issues already have an impacted quality of life because they are being managed. So they’re getting less walks or maybe they’re getting put away when people come over so that their world has gotten much smaller so already.

And so what we do could make their world even smaller. So we have to be careful what we say. ’cause I can say, you know, just put your dog in a crate when people come over and then you find out that people are over there eight hours a day, so the dog’s like stuck in a crate. That’s not good welfare for that dog.

So I like to try to get creative on management scenarios and spaces. Let’s say it is Uncle Bob coming over for an hour to visit and we, we haven’t done enough work with the dog yet where we’re ready to do that intro. We might say, do you have a space where your dog could be in and it’s comfortable, but it has, is not stuffed in a crate and we can give it some fun activities and enrichment toys, whatever in that space when Uncle Bob comes over as a management step.

So now we’re doing things to hopefully improve the quality of life for the dog, while also creating a positive association when people come over. Um, and you know, you, you really, you really gotta focus on that because if not, I see management overdone because let’s face it, it’s reinforcing for the client.

They’re like, okay, now I don’t have to worry about dog bite because my dog’s in a crate or downstairs or something like that. So, um, I find, uh, you know, giving the dog as much agency or, you know, ability to. To be free in their environment without biting the person or other dog is, is crucial. So, um, you know, I’ve done, I’ve done all kinds of different management.

There’s, there’s really an infinite number of combinations you can do. Uh, so if it’s like a dog to human aggression case to like a dog that has issues with strangers that has a bite history, I’m using two layers of safety. Meaning there’s two things in between the dog and the person when that person comes over or there’s any kind of potential interaction.

So whether it’s a leash and a muzzle, a fenced in area with a muzzle, a back tie with a muzzle, a back tie with a fence, a baby gate, double baby gates, whatever. Like some combination of those two. And then I determine what’s best for the dog because we have seen dogs with barrier aggression issues, right?

And so the barrier can create the issue if you put a fence in between the dog and a human. So that may not be the best setup for that particular dog. We might say, okay, fences are bad, baby gates are bad. So maybe we should look at a back tie so we don’t have to Barry in front of the dog back tie with a muzzle, uh, back tie with second leash handling.

You know, there’s, there’s again, lots and lots of different setups. So, um, yeah. Uh, so yeah, back ties, crates, gates, I rarely use crates. Um, baby gates, uh, fences, muzzles, uh, you name it. And I’ve kind of used them all and I’ve seen some really creative ones too. I’ll tell you a quick story. Um, I have a, I had a client in New Zealand and the dog had.

Really generalized resource guarding issues. Like, like one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen. You know, the poor woman couldn’t, could literally like lean down to touch the mouse on her computer and so her shoulder shift would go down and the dog would come over and attack her because the dog from a previous owner learned that, hey, this person is about to reach towards my stuff.

Just that little subtle cue of reaching like towards the mouse was enough to trigger this dog. So the poor dog like was, and a woman too was just like, it was this constant state of conflict anywhere in the home and she literally had to like was walking on eggshells the whole time. So, uh, one of the issues with this dog was that he guarded the boot of the car.

So like, you open up, the dog would be in the back. He, he’d try to open the back of the car to let the dog out and the dog would attack her, you know, and, and nothing crazy. Like we’re talking like level two, sometimes level three bites, nothing super damaging, but still scary enough, right? So she’s like, how am I gonna get my dog outta the car?

Like, how am I gonna manage this? And she came up with this on her own. She, um, she got a long line and she put like a pulley system in the back of her car so that way she could open the boot, but she would have the long line. So she’d have that like, coming out of the back door of the car. She, so she’d open that back door and she would like step away and she was able to let the dog out.

Once the dog was out of the car, there’s nothing to guard, so he wouldn’t guard the car anymore once he jumped out. So that’s the way of getting the dog out of the car, uh, in a really unique case. So, uh, yeah, management can, you can get creative with management even in those kind of scenarios. And, and that dog, she did such a great job with that dog because actually I had worked with him completely online, you know, so I’d done, you know, she’s in New Zealand.

I’m over here in Connecticut. It’s not exactly, I can go in person to that one. But, uh, I had a workshop in New Zealand and I go to the workshop. And, uh, she’s there. She’s like, oh, I wanted to attend your workshop. Oh, that’s so nice. And she’s like, oh, you wanna meet Scout the dog? And I, I’m like, he’s here.

And she’s like, yeah. So she goes over to the boot of the car, and this is before I had known she had done all this work, and she goes to open the door. I’m like, like, what? What am I expecting here to jump out at me? She opens, the daughter dog jumps out. She had done a ton of work in his dog condition and just like being okay with people approaching the budha car.

And the dog was lovely with me, like just super social, as long as they don’t touch his stuff. But, um, super social, just a lovely dog. And, you know, that, that kind of stuff is just so great to see. Uh, but yeah, creative management really helped her out. I got a, Mike, I’ve got a really important question real quick.

Did you grow up in Australia or England? Nope. Nope. Boop. He said boo. Yeah. Oh yeah. I, I adopt some language. Yeah. It’s funny, like, like I’ve learned to say Laurie, and depending on where I’m traveling to, I’m starting to like learn the local language, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, the first time I heard someone say that, it was like, what are you talking about?

And you have to, yeah, that’s what they call, I think that’s what they call it there. That could also be a uk No, I’ve, I’ve met some Australians that for Sharp call it a boot. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got an Aussie that works for me. And that’s, that’s where I learned it from. Yeah. Um, I got a somewhat related, I think, follow up question to that.

So it’s been sort of been my experience that people’s habits and people’s lifestyle can oftentimes be sort of aggravating factors to some of these behavioral issues within their home. I guess sort of two questions. One, has that been your experience? And number two, um, do you find it often challenging to, to sort of convince people to make long-term habit and lifestyle changes Yeah.

To, to sort of mitigate some of these things? Definitely, definitely. It’s, um, you know what’s, I think people talk about relationships with dogs, but I don’t think it’s talked about enough and to a deep level of like really seeing how that dynamic can, can impact the dog’s behavior, especially in aggression cases.

And one thing that happens is sometimes people can have a distrust of their dog or like that sort of human animal bond is fractured because of the aggression. Whether, especially in cases where the dogs bit the, the owner, it’s um, those are really tough to navigate sometimes. ’cause they’re feeling pretty lousy about their dog and they sometimes are already thinking about, you know, other decisions besides training and working on the case.

So, um, so I think first it’s approaching it with empathy and understanding that’s the secret to it. ’cause once you do that, once you open the door for somebody be like, ah. I am having problems here and this is why. And they start to admit things that might be happening behind the scenes that they might not admit.

You know? So like I’m, you know, I, I hit him or I yelled at him and I didn’t mean to, but that’s the only thing I could do. And if I come off judging, I’m like, don’t do that. That’s terrible. Then I’ve lost them. They’re gonna immediately put up a wall and I’m not gonna have usually a lot of ways to get into helping them.

So I try to just be empathetic and understanding. I don’t judge, you know, and I’ve heard some really tough things that people do to their dogs. Um, and then I, and then I work to find a, uh, some mutual activity that they can, I know that they can do together to bring back some of that relationship, that enjoyment, but also building into the training.

So if it’s what, you know, just going for a hike with your dog in a location. You don’t have to worry about other humans or dogs. Or is it playing a certain game? Is it learning how to play fetch or tug or, you know, so finding some mutual activity that I know they both can enjoy. ’cause I could be like, oh, I’ll go do this activity.

And if they’re like, you know, not the outdoorsy type or they, you know, they don’t like that they, it’s gonna fail because I’m asking too much, right? So try to find, you know, I get what their interests are, what do they wanna do with their dog? What, what, what do they get their dog for in the first place?

And try to build on that to help repair the relationship. Uh, because then I’m gonna be able to impact, you know, the lifestyle changes, you know, that you mentioned Jason, like what can we do to, to shift that? Because let’s face it. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never had an owner completely like, oh yeah, I’m gonna be like, just like you, like I’m gonna relate to my dog like a trainer, and I’m gonna be able to do all the right things and understand body language and communication overnight.

It just, it never happens. So, you know, we have to be efficient and we have to determine what’s gonna be best for that particular client and their dog to help to, to hopefully move them in the right direction while also understanding we’re only gonna be able to make so much change. And it may be a combination of me and you and, and a bunch of other people working with this person over years sometimes, but each one plants a little seed, right?

And, and it can continue to, to go in that way. And that’s important for us to recognize as trainers, because if not, what sneaks up on us, right? The burnout, the compassion fatigue, because we’re not seeing the changes we would like to see in their lifestyle. But I rest easy knowing that I’m gonna do my best going in there and I’m hoped to make a little change and the positive direction.

I may not see that relationship to the point where I would like to see it, but I know that I’m doing something to plant a seed to make some small changes. And then, you know, it’s, it’s on them at that point, right? Because I’ve done the best I could with the information I have and, you know, I, I, I can’t beat myself up af by leaving that consult and being like, oh, I wish they would’ve done this, or I wish, you know, this would change with them because that, that just sets you, sets you up for disappointment.

So, yeah. Mike, how would you define success in an aggression case? And it just made me think of that when you were talking about, you know, sometimes we’re just looking for that little bit of change in that moment and that might be enough for Right then. Uh, I know that’s a big picture question, but take it how you will.

Yeah, that’s a good question because, you know, you know, when you first start out, people define success as like the before and after. Like my dog was reactive on leash, is no longer reactive on leash success, right? So like, yeah, sure we can look at that particular component, but we have to look at other variables.

You know, is it, is it just the person seeing a path forward with their dog and understanding this may be a lifelong management, uh, case? Is it them understanding their dog more? Is it them understanding a little bit more about themselves? You know, is it just a better relationship between the dog in person?

Um, so, you know, I’m typically looking at quality of life. You know, we’re seeing an improved quality of life for both the dog and person. So not just looking at behavior, but because that’s often the barometer trainers used to measure against each other, right? Like, you didn’t do this, or if I had this case, I would be able to do that.

Well, nobody really knows, right? And that’s why it drives me crazy to see those arguments like, you know, you know, if I did this or use this tool or did whatever, I would’ve fixed that, but. The, you know, there’s, there’s just so many variables that impact a case, not just one little segment like that. So, um, success for me, yeah, it’s all about improving quality of life, you know, for, for the dog, for the owner, for the people around them, for their family, for their friends, anybody, uh, that might interact with that dog in person.

And, and, and it may be in some cases, this doesn’t get talked enough about, it’s that some people have already made the decision to euthanize their dog or to give their dog back, and they’re just looking for a professional opinion on that. They, they, they’ve already made up their mind. You’re not gonna change their mind.

And if you don’t recognize that, of course a trainer doesn’t recognize that that is, think about the burnout there. Like, and, and you not, if you’re like, oh, I dunno, what did I say? Did I do something wrong? What did I do? You, you end up second guessing yourself. So in, in a very small percentage of the cases at work that they, they’ve already made up their mind.

There’s no changing their mind. They just wanna hear it for me. Like, yeah, you have either a dangerous dog or, you know, this dog is really suffering from a health issue. Or, you know, they just want to hear it. But from a professional, that is success when you think about it because you are helping them rest better with their decision because now you’ve given them more objective viewpoint versus a subjective one that they’re having and all the information they’re getting from everywhere, from Google and friends and family, their minds often all over the place.

So success for us can be just solidifying and helping them, uh, navigate that, uh, that decision. You know, and having less turmoil with it. So, um, and that’s, that’s a tough one too, because, you know, sometimes behavioral euthanasia is looked at as a failure in, in some circles, and I don’t believe so. I think there’s, there’s certainly worse things than death, and that can be long-term suffering for a dog that’s just confined every day without any freedom because of management and the client’s afraid.

And it’s just, yeah. And then the dogs have severe bite risk and those kind of cases can come up once in a while. So, um, yeah, I think our community needs to talk about that more. Yeah. I’m glad you said that, that last point, because I’ve had to have that conversation a lot with clients that too much management is just not fair and you either need to do the work and try it.

Mm-hmm. Or give up. You’ve gotta choose one. And I’m thinking of Multid dog households where the dogs are fighting, someone’s up all the time, the dog’s never going out in public. And you look at the life and you’re like, this is not a good life by any manner, any method of evaluating it whatsoever. And you either need to try really hard to fix it or make a big change here.

Yeah. Yeah. It, it’s, uh, I like to remind people, you know, if you just look at the vast majority of dogs on the planet, you know. The vast majority of dogs on the planet are not contained or confined. And it’s one of the reasons we’re seeing so many behavior issues is this over management, over confinement, our lifestyle, and especially in big cities, it’s just not natural to what dogs have lived for thousands of years.

They’re just having freedom. So suddenly now they’re finding themselves in these small apartments or livestock, guardian dog. Right. And a small apartment in New York City is, you can kind of assume what’s gonna happen there, right? Because it’s just a lack of freedom, lack of space, lack of all of the things that we’ve gone as humans selecting for this dog, protecting large areas.

And then now we’re asking them not to do that in a small apartment, and then we blame the dog, right? It’s, it’s terribly unfair. So I like to try to educate clients about, you know, we, we wanna give your, get your dog out. We want to get them the fresh air and the ability to smell different things and, and go back to being what a dog is, is in its essence, right?

And, and, uh, and try to get them to understand that from their dog’s point of view. Um, and oftentimes that can solve so many of the behavior issues. Right? Yeah. You brought up the word freedom a couple times and, um, I, I just had this discussion with my class this week and there was this, this conversation that sort of led to the word freedom and.

It’s, well, the, the conversation started with the word control and, and, and my position there is, um, you know, a lot of people wanna make sure that they can control their dogs. They wanna make sure that they can properly manage and control the dog. But it’s my belief, and I guess I’m curious what your opinion is.

It’s my belief that we will never be able to effectively control a dog if they don’t have ample freedom, because that dog’s gonna almost always, almost con, I’ve seen dogs constantly seek out opportunities for freedom. Uh, and if we’re not giving them that and we’re not managing that, then you know, that’s always going to be a problem for us.

So, you know, we, we could never really sort of have any type of control, in my opinion, if this dog doesn’t, doesn’t get that fulfillment from having that freedom in their life. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a, that’s a really interesting point because, you know, it’s like this vicious cycle, you know, the, the more confinement.

The more likely they’re going to seek out those, those opportunities for choice and freedom. You know, if we’re gonna put that, the, the, the term into finding as like just the options to have choice in your environment, uh, it’s like somebody getting outta solitary confinement and I’m just, and as soon as they get out and see the sun and I’m like, Hey, come here and sit down.

And like, you know, you know, the, the, what are the chances of them listening because they’ve just suddenly experienced this option for, for doing whatever they want for the first time in a long time, you know? Yeah. You can imagine it’s gonna be very difficult to get them to, to, to listen to you if, if any, if they even hear you.

So, uh, much can happen with our dogs now again, you know, sometimes people are like, you’re just saying let all the dogs loose on the streets. I’m like, no, of course not. But uh, you know, it’s, it, we do need to think about just how much humans have changed the, the life of dogs in just the last 50 years. Even, even 50 years ago, you still had people letting their dogs out or, you know, the dog would go out and come back in the evening, maybe 60 years ago now.

But, um, you know, back in the day there, there was much more freedom and then less urban environments and dogs being kept in these tight spaces, you know? And, um, I. And it’s, it’s still you, you still see that truth. If you just travel around the world, you go to any place where there’s a lot of street dogs, you, it is just night and day difference in behavior.

And, you know, you, there’s just an absence of behavior problems in those dogs that have access to just come and go as they please. Uh, there’s no reactivity, there’s no barking and lunging. I mean, you, you see some of course natural stuff like protection of territory and things like that, but it is, you do not see the overt stuff that you see in more, uh, industrialized places like the US or the uk or, you know, um, is that the right term?

Or like, uh, I guess where dogs are not given the opportunity to, free roam is probably the better word, but, um, yeah, it’s, so yeah, I think, I think we have to think, we have to really put that out there. It’s just giving the dogs much more opportunity to, to experience life. Right. And, and outside of the home.

Yeah. If, if I can just, um, kind of go back, I talked, we talked a little bit and, uh, asked you about people’s habits and lifestyle and that impact. Um, this is something I’ve seen. I’m just kind of curious to get your thoughts on it, and that’s people’s emotion and beliefs and how that impacts their dog’s behavior.

And I’ve seen it. Impact their dog’s behavior in a very positive way. And I’ve also seen it go the other way. Yeah. And I’m just kinda curious what your thoughts are on that. Oh yeah. You know, that saying that dogs are a mirror, kind of that that’s, uh, you know, I believe there’s some truth to that. Uh, it, it’s, it is definitely something I’ve seen impact to dog’s behavior, especially in aggression cases.

Um, it’s, it’s often a communication issue too. Like if, especially if the person’s very unpredictable, meaning sometimes they’re yelling at the dog and sometimes they’re, you know, teasing the dog and you know, you know, and you see this sometimes with teenagers and stuff that the interaction with a teenager, ’cause it’s teenagers being a teenager.

So, um, yeah, I think, and dogs are so, you know, when you think about it, they’re communicating with us by reading our body language. Um, seeing our facial expressions, they’re very in tune. Just like I was talking about with the, the woman that just a shoulder shift was enough of a signal in the environment to say, this is a potentially problem, this is a potential problematic situation.

So I need to respond to that. So, um, so this, I think we, there’s, uh, many of our clients they don’t see realize just how much, whatever they do with their facial expressions or they’re getting angry at something, even if it’s not at the dog, that can really impact that dog’s day. So you might have somebody that’s, uh, maybe going through a hard time in their own life and they’re screaming on the phone to their partner, or they’re slamming things or breaking things.

And the dog’s seeing all this and like. They don’t know they’re going through a breakup or whatever. And, and it’s very confusing for the dog. And so the dog can get really impacted. And that’s, you know, the stressors are stacking up there. Um, the dog’s having a tougher time, you know, maybe the dog’s even losing sleep, which can impact some behavior as well.

So all these variables start to come up, which the client doesn’t notice because they’re busy focusing on their issues. And then suddenly the dog goes and bites somebody and it just seems like it happened out of the blue, or they don’t understand why. But it’s because of that, that the dog’s having a tough time in the relationship with the person.

’cause especially for dogs that are, you know, let’s just say it’s a person that they don’t have a lot of visitors, they don’t have another dog in the home. Maybe it’s, there’s a single person. That person is the dog’s universe, you know, think about it. And so they’re, that dog is looking at every little detail, every movement, every word that comes outta that person’s mouth is the dog is hyperfocused on, because that’s gonna dictate what happens next.

Typically, are you gonna feed me? Are we gonna go for a walk? Are you gonna pet me? Or what’s next? What are we doing? And, um, and if that, if something the client does, then pre predicts a, an aversive experience. So whether it’s the person yelling at them or yelling at somebody else, or doing something, uh, to the dog, or, or even if it’s, it’s not directly related to the dog.

The dog’s gonna associate that very quickly. Like last time I saw them make that look on their face, this happened. And so then in the future we get called and be like, the dog growled at me when I was like smiling or doing whatever. And, and we have to figure out those, those pieces. So it is some deep conversations and that’s why I go back to that empathy point is I’m not gonna get that information out of a client unless they really trust me.

If they don’t feel safe with me, they’re not gonna tell me those things and I’m not gonna recognize them and, and we’ll just be spinning our wheels if we don’t look at the relationship part of it too. So, you know, when you take a look, you take a step back and look at the whole picture of these things.

Sure. We focus on the behaviors. Like we don’t want the dog to bite Uncle Bob, but that’s like the easy stuff. It’s looking at the person’s relationship with their dog, how they might be impacting that behavior, health issues, enrichment or lack of enrichment, which we often see in these cases. Excessive management.

All of those things need to be looked at first because if we don’t address those things, you actually could do all the training you want around fighting Uncle Bob. You might solve it for a little bit, but it’s usually gonna come back because we haven’t addressed the core issues going on. So yeah, one of the, one of the things that I find challenging, um, at times with clients, and I’m sure you and Matt both have run across this at least once, and that’s the.

The client’s nervous that the dog is going to react a certain way, and that sort of becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy. Mm-hmm. That the dog ends up reacting a certain way because the client has this anxiety about the dog reacting or responding a certain way, given a certain environment. And that, um, I, I’ve had some success with it, but that one can oftentimes be very challenging to, to try to convince somebody to behave or to believe differently Yeah.

When they put their dogs in certain situations. So definitely, um, I, I think a lot of it has to do with what the client does. So going back to the communications piece, good example is, um, a dog that’s lunging at other dogs on walks, right? Mm-hmm. So the client’s out there walking their dog, but they start giving little signals that start to predict that negative event.

So it could be like, I’ve had it clients like holding their breath for just a brief moment. We may not see it when we’re watching the client, but the dog does. They’re definitely seeing that. Or it could be them reaching towards their treat pouch subtly, or they’re holding the leash a little bit tighter.

You know, they do the wrap the leash around the hand kind of thing, and they start gaining more tense, and the dog’s like, oh boy, here we go again. Uh, I see they’re doing all those things that something bad’s about to happen, so no, I’m gonna get ready. And it’s all these precursors for these signals to, to accuse the dog into something negative.

So, uh, yes, I think the dogs can, you know, I don’t think dogs are mind readers like that, but I do think they are able to pick up on the cues that we give that signal a certain emotion as well as how we’re feeling and predictive of what’s gonna happen next. Right? So, uh, that’s why I always recommend videoing stuff too.

Like, because you, you will start to catch these little things, especially in the case of that you’re kind of getting stuck on. You’re like, huh, seems like we’re doing the right things, but Doug’s still having problems here or there, what is it? And sometimes it’s just those, those cues that the client has taught the dog to respond to.

So, uh, video will often unravel that because it’s hard to see that in real time. You know, video, if you watch it back, you’re like, oh, okay, there’s your shoulder going again, and that’s when your dog’s, you know. So, uh, just a little side tip for any of the new trainers out there. Get things on video, get your client’s permission, but then yeah, get in on video.

I think that’s one of the, the challenges. You know, with you training, uh, doing a lot online and consults, I can see the challenges there. What, what I’m thinking, and to back to Jason’s point is when I have a client like that, that’s really struggling, I show them like, I’ll just take the dog, which is not always the best choice, right?

But I’ll train the dog until it’s no longer doing it. And like, look, see, the dog can do it. And that’s a way to build some confidence. They still have to get the confidence themselves, but I can imagine how hard that is through a video consult when you’re like, just trust me. Yeah, just do that. It’s gonna get better.

I find that def definitely the cases where, um, like online consults can get stuck is where Yeah, they need, they need somebody there. So what I do recommend is, is usually find a trainer that’s in the area, and they may not have like a ton of experience with aggression cases, but they can, they go work with the dog or can help the client, and you kind of, of course have to vet that trainer and make sure they’re, they’re okay doing that stuff and capable of doing those things.

But I find that sometimes that can be a good, uh, like a relationship, meaning I can give direction on the behavior plan, um, and kind of tell ’em what steps to take next, but that trainer’s there in person with that client. But yeah, Matt, I totally agree that the, you know, if you can sh if you can safely.

Start handling that dog and the dog’s okay with it. A hundred percent. It’s just shows, gives the client hope. ’cause a lot of times you guys don’t like the, the client hasn’t had the person, the dog, around a person in a long time. So you’re the first person maybe in a year or two or even longer to actually get near the dog.

And when they see that, that is one of the best things you can do is like, like instant hope. In lot of cases you’re like, oh my gosh, amazing. Now I know there’s, there’s a path forward. So if you can do that safely, then I always recommend it. Um, there’s no rule though. I also say this to the new trainers come up.

There’s no rule that says you have to handle the dog if you’re not feeling safe. You know, we need trainers to stay safe as well and not get bitten and, and or worse, like some, some trainers get bitten badly and then they end up leaving the field altogether because they just, uh, have a, a real traumatic response to that.

So, uh, be safe. There’s no rule that says you have to handle a dog, but if you can, it’s kind of often speed things up for you. So that, I think we could segue back to the word empathy for a second. ’cause you made me think of that with trainers getting hurt and a lot making, you know, kind of poor decisions.

I think too much empathy. You know, people mistake a lot of times empathy with either being passive or weak, and of course they’re very different things. Mm-hmm. But I see when people focus sometimes too much on empathy, they’re too focused on doing what the client wants rather than doing what the client needs.

And I’m sure everyone has their own phrases. I often will tell a client, my job is not to be your friend. My job is to tell you what you need to hear. And I’ll always say it nicely, but if you need to hear something, I’m gonna say it. That, you know, that’s my role is to fix these issues between you and your dog.

And you can do that with empathy. Of course. I’ve seen a lot of new TR trainers struggle where their empathy gets in the way, where there’s too much of it and it’s like, yes, let’s do this with the dog. Even though in their heart they know this is probably a dumb decision right here, but the client really wants it.

What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, that’s, that’s such a great question. It’s like the, it’s just like a therapy show now. Uh, yeah. You, that’s what we’re known for. That’s true. The, um, you know, definitely here what you’re saying there, because what can happen is when you’re, when somebody’s like a people pleaser on top of that, then you’re going to run into problems.

’cause the people person like, well, maybe I don’t want to use a muzzle. And then you’re like, well, I can understand you don’t want to use a muzzle because it looks ominous on your dog, so yeah, let’s, let’s not use it today. That’s where it can run into problems. Right. So, you know, I think empathy though, just, you know, it’s actually the opposite of weakness.

It really just shows your strength to be able to sit there. And listen with intent and understanding to client’s issues without judging and them giving them a path forward, uh, you know, that requires, you know, that requires effort and strength on our part because it’s, you know, ’cause you could just go in and be like, just do what I say and bark orders at people.

But that actually often doesn’t enact a lot of change with people. So, um, I think empathy is, it’s important, but we still have to be sure we’re checking ourselves, meaning we still wanna be firm. Especially if it’s something where you’re worried about risk or there’s a danger involved or children are involved, or other dogs or animals.

We really wanna make sure the client’s understanding. But, uh, to get to that point where they’re more likely to listen to us, it starts with empathy. And once you have that relationship, once you’re like you’re meeting eye to eye with them, they are much more likely to say, oh, okay, yeah, I should use this muzzle.

Even if it’s ominous looking. I trust Mike and that he thinks it’s the most safe option here. And I’m, he spelled out for me why we need to use it. And, and, uh, yeah, but again, just ’cause they felt understood. Right. I got a sort of a quick question. Um, so working with aggression cases, we do quite a few of ’em here and, and one of the things that we sort of start with, with every one of ’em is just the why, right.

Why is this dog engaging in these behaviors? Yeah. Um, so I guess I’m curious if, if you have something you start with and, and if you would be willing to kind of share with, with folks sort of what is the process of discovering. You know, what you’re looking for in these initial evals to be able to give the best information to those clients.

Yeah. Yeah. Another great question, I think, especially for newer trainers listening in now, is to think about your flow of your consult. Meaning what are you gonna ask and when, because I, you know, you have some clients that you’re like literally showing up at the front door. They’re already like vomiting out every little bit of information about the dog bites.

And then you have other clients they need time to like, ’cause that’s a, you know, sometimes a very emotional thing to talk about. And so if I don’t have that trust with ’em, I’m like literally walking in the front door and, and I start asking like, so tell me about what you doing your dog bit. That is, they may not be ready to tell me all the information they know, they don’t feel like they can trust me yet, or they don’t feel safe telling me about those things.

So I actually have a flow, like I get into. So tell me about your dog’s breed. Where’d you get it from? Age, name, you know, all those typical things. Uh, tell me a little bit about, you know, your home and life and, you know, so I get into the basic details and in that time I’m trying to establish as much of a rapport or relationship with the clients.

So I’ll joke with them or like, you know, start saying, oh yeah, that’s great. You know, the, you know, you know, acknowledging the points that they’re making. Uh, and then I’ll get into a little bit of the health history and the environment and the training. And then I finally will get into the bite history once I feel like, okay, I’ve got some, like a, some relationship going with this client.

And um, that’s when I will get into talking about the causes, right? And getting to the root cause because that’s the most important part. In aggression cases, there’s so much different than, you know, dog that jumping up and counter surfing or jumping up on guests ’cause they’re just happy to see them.

Those are, we’re not so worried about the underlying causes. We, it’s typically the dog’s just motivated to get that Turkey sandwich or to say hello to grandma. And so we’re not worried about like, negative balanced emotions or health issues typically. So, uh, with aggression cases though, it is almost always about the root cause.

So it’s just like the symptoms we see, barking, lunging, growling, biting, snapping, those are symptoms of an underlying cause. Just like if somebody’s, you know, got a skin rash or something like that, we might treat the symptom, but what’s causing it? Is it some food allergy, is it some something environmental?

Same thing for dog behavior, we have to get to that cause and with aggression cases there’s always something like pain or underlying fear or association with something that’s causing the barking lunge and growling, snapping, biting behaviors. So then that’s when I get into it with the clients and, and try to really help them understand it from their dog’s point of view.

’cause once they get it from their dog’s point of view, they will then be more empathetic to their dog. Especially if they’re doing things like, my dog must, must stop barking or must stop biting. Sure. We want that to happen, but why is your dog barking or biting in, in those contexts? Get them to understand that.

And then that’s gonna also help us with our behavior plan, because then they’ll be like, oh, I don’t have to necessarily worry about stopping biting. I have to address what’s causing the biting in the first place. Is it the pain? Is it fear? What’s, what’s going on underneath that that needs to be addressed?

So, um, yeah, so I, I, 99.9% of the time have that conversation with clients, I think is so important. But I do wait though to like really get some sort of connection going so that way it’s, it’s, I’m gonna get more truthful information that, or just have their kids sit at the same table because the kids, the kids will always tell, oh, that’s funny.

So how long do you spend Mike on your initial consults? And the reason I ask is I tell all the trainers on my team when you’re dealing with aggression, if you can’t play the scenario in your head like a movie, then you haven’t asked the right questions. And I think we’ve all probably been down that path where you think you know what’s going on and then f later on you find out, oh, I was completely wrong.

I thought this is what happened, but I asked the wrong question. Or you described it in an odd way. So I, I, you know, tell my team, you need to be at a plate in your head like a movie. Was the dog that attacked him? Was he laying down? Was he standing up? Where was he? Was he looking at the other dog? Did he have a bone?

I mean, there’s, I like that so much to ask. Yeah. How much time do you spend on a consult trying to dig into that? Or do you do that later once you’ve started the training process? Yeah, no, I, I like that. I like how you do that, create that picture. Like you should be able to create that picture of what it looks like.

Uh, that’s a great exercise. Um, I, my initial consults typically are about two hours. I, uh, you know, depending if it’s online or in person, in person’s like two hours. ’cause you tend to work with the dog as well during that session. Online consults, the initial is more like 90 minutes ’cause you’re not necessarily training or working with the dog in that first session.

So, um, the, the thing I, I try to get. Trainers to the, the newer trainers to think about is like, think of yourself like a detective. So we’re not gonna like ask to, you know, I never ask the client, show me what it looks like. You know, rare exceptions, you might see it like on leash reactivity cases, you’re probably gonna see it anyways, right?

But if it’s like stranger danger, somebody coming into the home, I don’t need to see what it looks like. You know, you guys have seen enough dogs probably bark and lunging at you when you, you know, appear on property. You kind of know what it looks like. But you know, just like a good detective, they’re not gonna be like, oh, can you go murder somebody else again?

So I can see what you do. It’s gonna be you, you need to kind of know how to profile the case in a way. And it’s gonna be based on your experience in similar cases. And the more you do it, the more you start seeing the same thing over and over and over again. It’s just, you know, you can, you can look at the sort of scene of the crimes and you look at maybe a bite happened at the front doorway and your eyes immediately, you know, two hour white, what’s near here?

Is there leashes? Is there treat bags hanging? Is there toys by the door? Is it a tight space? Is a, you know, slippery floors, maybe some pain issues. You start to play out all the typical things you would see in that kind of case, or you’ve seen a million times and then you assess that that’s what’s happening in this case.

And again, the way you do that is just like interviewing witnesses. So like, who saw it? That’s usually the guardian or the owner or visitors or, so you start to. Ask questions of those folks, what you saw, and it’s gonna start to again, paint. Like I love that, that paint, that sort of picture of what it looks like.

Uh, and then you’re gonna know exactly what happened. And typically, that’s actually one of my favorite things to do is like, people send me videos, a lot of like what happened here and they’re really interesting behaviors in case some cases, some really gnarly dog bites and things like that. And like, what do you think happened here?

I love doing that because you can actually, if once you do this again enough, you start to see how this is exactly what happened. It was because of the angle of your body. It was what was in the environment. It was because the dog was turned this way, it was the dog was startled, whatever. And um, so yeah, I think painting that picture is, to take your words is, is really important for the client also so they understand what happened and so they understand that aggression is very contextual ’cause they’re worried about the dog, like killing them in their sleep sometimes, right?

So we wanna kind of alleviate that concern and be like, this is exactly why it happened. Here’s, you know, the, the. The layout and the environment. This is the context. Then if we recreate that, your dog might bite again. So think of similar context, we’re gonna avoid those for now. Uh, so in that, that doesn’t need, it does, it’s taking me less and less time.

Um, sometimes I have to check myself ’cause I get to the, to problem so quickly like it, and sometimes one minute I’m like, okay, here’s what happened. Especially if they have video. ’cause so many people have security footage these days. So if they have video, usually like in the one time watching you like, okay, this is what happened, but I gotta check myself.

’cause sometimes other things pop up, you miss like a, like a resource hidden underneath a dog bed or something like that. So, um, yeah, but, so that doesn’t take a long chunk of my consult. It’s really just all the questions I ask about it. Then making the assessment of what happens doesn’t take long. But again, if you, if you do enough of the same cases, it’s like, and another quick tip too is a lot of people have their consult forms or their intake forms and have a bunch of questions.

So trainers will be like, all right, I need to ask these questions. Do that, like have a really thorough one at first when you’re first starting out so you don’t miss any questions. And it can kind of help guide you through the assessment piece. Um, but try to trim that down and, and, and kind of think about what questions are really relevant for future cases.

So if it’s like a dog guarding their food bowl, I may not, I probably don’t need to know what the dog’s like out on leash. Maybe some cases I would, but most of them you’re gonna be like, okay, we’re just gonna ask questions around the food bowl. So your, your intake form as you go along can just be, you know, where I’ve gone to where I.

People ask me for my intake form, I’m like, it’s not really gonna help. ’cause it’s basically just a long black sheet of paper at this point. ’cause you, you know what questions to ask. You know, a dog bit, somebody when they walked by the dog bed. Okay, is there any pain issues? Maybe the dog just needs to rest and is in pain.

Uh, maybe the dog’s guarding their bed. Maybe there’s been a negative incident where somebody’s tripped over the dog in that area. What else is in that area? Any other resources? What’s your dog like with people in general? So you start to ask those questions that are really relevant and, um, then you can shorten the, the intake process as well.

’cause it, I think it’s also really important to be efficient. Like, I don’t know how, how long you guys do a consult for, but I find two hours just kind of max before people start, like eyes glazing over, check it out. And they’re like, they, they’re just not with you anymore. So I, I try to be super efficient.

You know, if you, if you shadow me on a consult, I do not waste a second. Like, it is, we are on point on business the whole time because I need to leave that client with something tangible to start working on and to start seeing results right away. Or else if I leave them, because I’ve gone on talking about the four quadrants of upper and conditioning or something like that.

You know, I’m, I’m, I’ve lost a lot of valuable time and that’s going to impact what I’m gonna leave them with. And I, I need to leave them with something tangible that they feel like, okay, I’ve got a plan for it. Or else you’re not gonna get called back for the second consult. You’re not gonna go back for that follow up a lot of times.

So. Um, so in that 90 minutes to two hours, just another skill is just to get people back on track when they start talking about other things. Right. And, you know, there’s room for that. You know, we wanna let that happen, but it’s, you gotta be efficient or else you’re gonna lose the, the valuable time. Yeah.

It seems like there’s an expectation from a lot of clients that they, when you come and do that initial consult, that they get an answer as to Yeah. What their problem is before you leave. Right? Yeah. And if you’re not able to provide that, um, they’re, they’re, they’re gonna disconnect as you put. Yeah. Uh, and it seems like that timeframe that we have seems over the years seems like it’s starting to get shorter and shorter with people’s attention span.

Yeah, definitely. Like, Hey, so what’s the, what’s the problem here? Yeah. What’s going on? Yeah, yeah. What’s wrong with my dog? Yeah. And, and that’s a, that’s a skill we have to develop as trainers and consultants is, is learning how to assess what’s going on in a case. So, um, yeah. And it takes practice, it takes, just like anything else we do in training, it takes time.

But, um, the more cases you work, the, the easier it is to identify what’s going on. So, and it’s so much, so much the same thing you see over and over and over. So, and that’s why I like about specializing too. Like I encourage trainers, you know, get. Get the foundational stuff down, know how to get behaviors on dogs, know how to solve some basic problems, but then choose like which, which lane you wanna go?

Do you wanna specialize in like aggression or is it, uh, you wanna work on more just foundational skills or do you wanna do agility or separation anxiety? Because you gotta get good really quickly. If you focus on one thing, it decides that’s your niche and then everybody’s gonna just refer to you for that particular thing.

And now what I love seeing is I’m this, like some of my students are focusing on segments of aggression. So like some only take resource guarding cases or they only do leash reactivity. I mean that is getting really niched down. But that it’s, they, I find that they are some of the best at what they do because that’s all they see over and over and over.

So they see every kind of case and every kind of dynamic. They know how to solve most of those quirky problems that we may not see if we’re taking a huge variety of cases. So, um, and it’s a good business model too, I think like when people know you specialize, especially in this modern day of online training as well available and people.

Knowing they can learn just about anything online. I think it’s a, it’s a great business model because people will remember you and start focusing on sending you those cases if they don’t want to take ’em. And not a lot of trainers wanna take aggression cases. So, uh, leads me to my next thing. We had an earlier guest, uh, on the podcast who mentioned that dealing with aggression cases is really not for everybody.

Yeah. Um, so kind of curious what your thoughts are on that and, you know, how would I know as a young trainer or a newer trainer, how would I know? Yeah, that’s probably not in my wheelhouse. Yeah. I would say, well there’s actually, that’s another great question. ’cause there’s a few layers to it, I think. Well, we talked about the people.

You gotta love working with people ’cause that’s all you’re gonna work with. You, you’re gonna have times where you don’t even get to see the dog. In fact, I’ve had consults where I didn’t even see the dog. I don’t even know what the dog looks like for the first session because we’re talking about the variables of the case.

Like, I don’t need to see the dog sometimes because if you just ask the right questions, you’re gonna know what’s going on in the case. So that’s, that’s a big one. Um, it’s important to note, I think some of those people are crying, so you gotta be able to deal with crying people too sometimes. Exactly, yeah.

Being able to, you have to be comfortable with people’s emotions, you know? Um. Mm-hmm. If you’re not comfortable with like, navigating difficult conversations, hearing about somebody, you know, beating their dog or wanting to euthanize their dog and navigating that conversation, um, people breaking down in tears in front of you, like you said, it’s, it’s, then it’s not the kind of work for you.

’cause that guaranteed can happen probably in your first handful of cases, right? Um, so, so that’s part of it. The other thing is, um, you know, some people can be afraid of dogs. Like some trainers I know got into training because they were afraid of dogs that were bitten or attacked as a child. And so they’re carrying that, that trauma later on.

And it can be difficult for them to work with dogs that are, you know, you’re showing up and you know, as safely as contained as you ask them to be. They’re still barking and lunging and growling at you as the trainer in the home. Uh, so that takes a little bit of either desensitization without being stupid, you know, and, and, uh, you know, you have to acclimate to that and, and be okay with dogs because let’s face it, the dogs also know when they’re like, ha ha ha, I got this person’s number.

I can see that they’re worried about me and I’m, I’m able to maybe push them a little bit more than this other trainer over here. So that’s a big part of it. Um. And then again, the work, the, the energy it takes, the, the emotional energy it takes. And the, I always say to people, you know, people like, oh man, I can make all this money if I just do four consults a day, five days a week, I can just fill my schedule.

I’m gonna be a millionaire. Like, sure, you could do that maybe for six months, maybe a year. But you’re, i, I recommend no more than two initial consults and like one follow-up kind of consult per day. Even two is a lot. So you should be charging accordingly. Like your aggression cases require so much more effort that your pricing should reflect that.

Uh, you know, there’s nothing where someone, I see somebody charging the exact same for like a puppy class as like an aggression consult. It’s too, you know, you’re spending so much more energy and it’s riskier. Let’s face it, you know, you’re putting yourself at risk. And especially if you’re working, if you’re only doing aggression cases, you’re automatically exposing yourself to a population of dogs that are much more likely.

You’re, it’s much more likely for you to get bitten. So that’s another part of it. The physically demanding aspect too. Right? It’s different than, you know, it’s like working two different types of construction jobs. One’s super dangerous and one’s like not so dangerous. So the stuff we’re doing with aggression cases.

It can be, can be much more risky. So, um, and that can take its toll on people. So just, those are the considerations. I think if somebody’s gonna just focus on aggression cases, just think things true. If, if there’s, if you, and most people I find that’s do this with longevity for the long term. They just love it.

They love the work, they love helping people. They feel comfortable around dogs. They’re not fearful of like a barking lunging dog. You know, those things all add up to somebody being able to do this long term and being in the game for a long time. Guys, we just want to give a quick shout out to one of our long time ICP sponsors, uh, blue Nine Pet Products.

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And I know we sell a lot of them. We use ’em in group classes, shelter programs, lots of different ways we implement the climbs and with exclusive wholesale pricing, there’s never a better time to get started. Visit Blue nine.com to apply today and start building a better training business. Yeah, it seems like people have to, just based on my experience, they have to really sort of enjoy the.

Um, as you sort of alluded to or said before the investigative side of getting to those root causes of behavioral issues, you know? Yeah. Because that’s, you know, unless it’s my belief that unless you can clearly identify the root cause of root causes of the behavior, you’re, you’re gonna really struggle in having any type of plan that’s gonna be successful long term.

So, you know, you really gotta have to drill down sometimes. And clients can be, they can be a little dodgy, sometimes unintentionally. Even unintentionally. They can give, give us bad information. And I think you really have to enjoy being able to, uh, be a bit of a investigator to Yeah. To resolve some of this stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and well you can say the same thing about people too. You know, you see the same dynamics and we see the dogs, right? And we see the same kind of thing. We were talking about golden retrievers earlier, right? We’re all probably garden the food ball or something. But, uh, same thing with people actually.

You start to see the same dynamics with people and how they like partners arguing over the dog or how they’re talking to you about how they’re feeling about their dog. You start to see that over and over too. So you tend to get better at navigating conversations. And um, you know, I have this whole bag of analogies that I use, I use a lot of human analogies to help people understand their dog.

But, you know, it’s like I see, I find myself saying the same thing over and over, you know, based on the client. ’cause I know what kind of client I have in front of me typically. ’cause, uh, you know, it’s people are, you know, more complex than dogs, but you tend to see the same thing, same patterns, yeah. To touching back on, uh, root cause as you brought up symptoms of the behavior and the root cause of the behavior.

Um, so we generally teach people to go way past those symptoms to get to that root cause. And, and I, you know, I tell people, and I, I don’t know what your thoughts on this, but you know, a lot of the symptoms overlap. When we start looking at the different root causes, a lot of the symptoms overlap. So we can’t just simply say, this dog’s showing its teeth, this dog’s growling, this dog’s doing this.

So it has to be this problem. Right. I think a lot of people make a mistake of, of improperly diagnosing some of these root cause is simply because they’re focused way too much on the symptoms and not looking at the totality of circumstances. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Like I actually, for my students, I show this video, it’s a doberman on a sofa with an egg.

It’s like a stuffed eggplant toy, uh, there, and the puppy comes up and the, the adult doberman starts like showing teeth and growling towards the puppy. So we could, we have to be careful how we assess that. Is the dog guarding the eggplant toy? Is the dog guarding the couch? Is the dog just trying to discipline or correct the puppy?

Or is it afraid of the puppy? So those are all questions we need to like, ’cause ’cause if I determine, oh, the dog’s just guarding the eggplant toy and I start treating resource guarding of the eggplant toy, what’s gonna happen when the dog’s on the couch without that eggplant toy next time? And it’s actually that.

So misdiagnosis is, is it’s, it’s easy to do if we don’t ask the right question. So, yeah. Um, I like to make sure I’m playing out the scenario and other places. So like Matt talking about the sort of painting that picture, that video’s, like, let’s put that somewhere else with different variables, just to be sure.

And let’s ask those questions. We don’t need to see the dog there, but let’s just ask questions that, you know, like, like with the, we were talking about breed before too. Uh, so like a working line malis or something like that. I’ve got the dog barking and lunging on, on leash at people that approach its handler.

Well, what’s going on there? It could be something, maybe the dog’s doing just Belgium malis stuff. And you know what we selected for maybe the dog’s actually afraid of people. Maybe the had a negative association, it’s been on leash and like trapped with the client and the client pulled it really close and it got scared by somebody up just trying to come up to pet it.

Uh, maybe it’s resource guarding the person and not truly protecting the person. Um, maybe it’s a pain issue that it’s associated with people approaching and it’s just, you know, uh, got a joint issue or neck issue or something like that. So digging into the details is really important because all of those would have slightly different treatment plans or behavior plans, right?

So yeah, it’s, we do a lot of digging, but again, you start to see the same things over and over and it’s, it’s, it’s often once you do that, it’s, it’s not so difficult to make that assessment anymore. Just gotta ask the right questions as you said. You know, I’ll tell you a quick story. This is my easiest aggression case ever.

And unfortunately this was before cell phones where you could, well, video cell phones. This was probably 2008 and I still had a flip phone and had a silver lab dropped off with me for training. It was aggression case and had been recommended for euthanasia. They had kids showing teeth, all these issues with the kids.

So I get the dog, have it for, you know, a few hours. It’s in a cage. I go to get it out. And it’s showing its teeth, but tail low, wagging its tail. Very submissive, you know, showing of the teeth. Yeah. I look at it, I’m like, look, this can’t be what they were talking about. Right. So I, you know, I reach in, I get the dog out and call the owner.

I’m like, tell me more. And as they tell me more, they’re like, it’s when the dog’s laying down, it shows the teeth. I’m like, what’s the tail doing? And they described the wagon. I’m like, you should probably come back and get your dog. And they came in, we worked with it and the dog was absolutely fine, but it’s, you know, this was long before the, you know, people could send a quick video, but it was one of those cases of misdiagnosis.

He was, yeah. Dog was showing teeth at the kid every time the kid would go to pet it. It’s pretty easy to call that aggression if you haven’t seen it with your own eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta, ma you gotta think like how often that’s actually happened over this Yeah. Years. It’s sad when you think about it.

Yeah. And how tragic that can be for some dogs. Just ’cause they’re submissive, grinning, you know, and it’s, uh, yeah, it’s videos. I’m so that, that’s the nice thing about video these days. Like, like so many people have video now and they’re just getting used to taking video. And this home security, like I said, the home security footage is so helpful.

I’ve got some really interesting videos that were caught on home security and it’s, if without that, sometimes it’d be really difficult to, to be sure. And, and, and speaking along those lines too, like when we’re assessing for a certain issue, sometimes we don’t actually have enough information to tell us exactly what’s going on.

So what I do in those cases is I, I, uh, approach the behavior plan. Like it could be any of those issues. So let’s say I had no more information about like that doberman on the couch. I would, I would treat it as like, okay, it could be the eggplant toys, let’s work on that anyways, it could be the couch. So let’s work on that anyways.

Could be the dog having issues with the puppies. Let’s just work on that anyways, so we don’t miss anything, right? ’cause sometimes we actually, it’s like a one-time incident. Maybe a little kid was the only witness. So we don’t have a ton of information. So we’ll treat it as it could be all of these issues.

That way you don’t miss anything. And fortunately, a lot of the concepts are very similar. You know, like say we’re using counter conditioning or something, that the concept’s very similar and it’s usually gonna work for eggplant toy or a couch. It’s the same process, right? So, um, that’s the nice thing is that even if we don’t know for sure, it’s gonna be very similar and it’s gonna be very familiar to the client.

So, so we touched on sim, um, we touched on misdiagnosis and how that can sort of be detrimental, right? To, to where we’re trying to get with this. One of the other things that I really caution people on, um, and it’s not misdiagnosis, it’s you probably diagnosed or maybe you hadn’t even diagnosed the root cause, but people’s, and I’m not saying everybody, but it seems like there’s still some folks in the industry who really sort of focus on symptoms, what I call symptom suppression, right?

The dog shows its teeth when presented with a stimuli. Well, we’ll just get it to quit showing its teeth without really focusing on the underlying root cause. And, you know. The dog will later sort of present differently with that stimuli. But in my opinion, that root cause has never been resolved. So we still have this risk of, of this aggression coming right back.

And I’m just kind of curious what Yeah, it’s, you know, and it’s not to say that doesn’t work sometimes, you know, ’cause, you know, suppressing a behavior or even punishing it. So we, we decrease the likelihood or the frequency of the behavior. It can look like it works and sometimes it does. Maybe it’s, um, you know, a Belgium mal well that is from working lines and, and we, we, you know, punish a behavior of barking or something.

We, we might see a decrease and we, the dog’s like, okay, I get it. And nothing detrimental comes out of it. Uh, but the cases that it can become problematic, of course, is where we suppress behavior that is, there’s some underlying cause that is not going to change how that dog feels, nor is it going to be good for their quality of life.

Because let’s say it’s a pain issue and you know, we’re, we’re correcting the dog or doing something that is trying to suppress that growl or that, you know, the dog expressing that it’s uncomfortable and we don’t recognize the pain, that’s where it becomes problematic. So, um, again, diagnosis, proper diagnosis or identifying the cause is so crucial.

Um, and, and that’s the issue we see is that. Um, it’s for me just a lack of, uh, understanding those components. So I never fault the trainer. I’m, you know, I’m not saying, you know, people that don’t see that are, they’re bad or doing bad things, it’s just that they may not have the education yet. Un recognizing something like the gate issues being off or the, the natural movement of a dog and looking at those subtleties or the tension between the ears that’s showing possible pain at a certain location, like coat color changes and discrepancies.

Like those little nuances that, you know, it takes time to learn. Um, and if, if, if we miss that then, and we’re just trying to suppress behaviors, it can look like it works. And that unfortunately is reinforcing for the trainer because like, well, it worked, now the dog’s not growling. But then when it comes back six months or three months later, maybe because the dog’s in more pain, then it can be, you know, obviously a problem.

Because now we can sometimes make things worse. ’cause the dog’s like, I’m, I’m in pain, I’m growling, iss not working. So I guess I’ll just have to bite, uh, to get this to stop. So, yeah. Um, so I’m careful. And that can be even said from, you know, reinforcing alternative behaviors, right? So instead of growling, just look at the thing and I’ll mark and reinforce that, right?

So we could, it doesn’t have to be an aversive event. It could be replacing the behavior with something positive. Still doesn’t address the pain though, does it? So it can, it’s, it can happen anywhere at, in any format of training. It’s just the experience level of recognizing those, those subtle details. So, um, you know, that’s what it’s all about, just putting this information out there.

So more and more people aware of like looking for those causes versus just always looking at the symptoms. Right. Yeah. Is there a particular case that you’d be willing to share that you felt like you really, really had to kind of dig to get to that root? Cause? It didn’t, didn’t present itself very easily and you had to sort of dive in?

Uh, yeah, let me think. I obvious cases that were missed by other trainers or, or the client. I’m trying to think of some that, uh, lemme think of a unique one. Um, sometimes like actually it could be like the separation anxiety cases. So I’ve had a few, and I, this is one thing weird. One summer I had wheat and terrier summer, it’s like three wheat and terries that I don’t see too often.

They’re not super popular up in here in New England. There’s a few, but, um, and all of them had separation anxiety of some sort. And uh, they also had aggression issues and I, they all presented with, I’m going to bite my guardian, or, or in two of the cases, the third one was more just blocking the door. But as they’re trying to leave, so, um, the aggression was happening different.

Different owners. Different owners. And I was like, I was like actually asking like, where did you get your dog from? I’m like, this, this dogs all have to be from the same breeders. It’s got something weird genetic going on. And they were from. Three different breeders. So I don’t know, I don’t know what was going on.

Like some something in the universe saying, oh, Wheatons must do this weird behavior. So, uh, but yeah, they had resorted to using aggression to keep the person home, which is such a rare type of aggression case that is not common. You see some dogs, they just don’t want to be, they don’t want the person leaving as like, because they have the treats or um, you see all the different reasons for dogs biting as people leave the home.

But these were all separation anxiety based cases. So, um, and it’s not so obvious to, to the person. So you have to dig deep into that. And, and, and, and sometimes they’re not even aware of separation anxiety. You know, they don’t know the dog’s having a hard time ’cause they’re leaving the home, they don’t see what the dog does and the dog’s not necessarily destructive.

Maybe they’re just vocalizing, right? Uh, and so there’s not a very clear cut case of separation anxiety for that person ’cause they don’t know what’s happening ’cause they’re out of the home. So you have to make that assessment properly first. And that usually involves cameras and seeing exactly what the dog does when a person leaves.

Not just relying on what the neighbor’s here ’cause it could be other things. It could be confinement, anxiety or other different reasons for that. Uh, so determining if it’s true separation anxiety and then working on that first ’cause that’s the root cause. ’cause I can teach management and be like, teach your dog to place, or let’s get a baby gate up or whatever, some management activity to prevent the dog from biting lines leave, which is a big part of it.

But if you don’t address the separation anxiety. Dog’s gonna be like, I hate it when you leave. That’s an aversive event and I hate it. So every time you pick up your keys now or go get your jacket on, I’m coming after you to try to get you to stop. So, um, yeah, I don’t know if that’s the most, uh, unique kind of situation, but just, I always go back to that one.

It’s just a weird summer of weens and, uh, well, hey, they do seem to come in cycles. They do. And I was just gonna note, I think we made it an hour and 27 minutes before the word aversive was thrown out, so that’s pretty good.

Yeah. That, that term itself needs definition. I, I, you know, I think the dog training world throws that one around a little. Well, too much the wrong way was actually, yeah. Actually a question I wanted to ask you. Not the word aversive, choose your own, is there a word that bugs you in the dog training world that you think is overused, not descriptive enough, causes more issues than it fixes?

Is there a word you don’t like? I think the labeling of trainers is, you know, whether force free or balanced or compulsive, traditional, whatever is, uh, it’s not only divisive, but it’s misleading. You know, I. F I’ve been labeled a fourth free trainer. I’ve been labeled a balance trainer. Like, so what am I, I don’t, I don’t know.

I just call myself a trainer. You, you know, and, uh, and people can decide what they wanna call me based on the work. I mean, I put all my work out there. So it’s, it’s no secret. I’m not how holding anything back. I’m very public about it. I talk about it on podcasts and the guests I talk about it with. So it’s very, I’m very transparent.

But, but those, those labels create problems for our industry because it just puts people in a box. You’re either team this or team that. And if you’re not team this, then you are the enemy. And that’s a huge problem because the wild thing is that’s, so many people could fit into either of those categories.

If you just go watch their training, just spend some time with them, and you, you discover that the vast majority of trainers on this planet, not just in the US but on this planet, are very similar. You know, where a lot of us are doing much of the same thing. You know, some will choose certain tools and some choose not to.

But if you look at it’s, it’s so much more than just tools. It’s, you know, you could have somebody that’s like, oh, I hate all those tools, but they are doing other things that they don’t realize are significantly impacting the quality of life. And that’s why I keep going back to, it’s about quality of life and, you know, relationships with the dogs.

Because, you know, if you, again, just travel and go to places where all those tools might be banned, for instance, you know, there’s no, there’s no. Particular tools that would fall under their, you know, typical aversive category of tools. And yet you still see people resorting to punishment in other, sometimes much more nefarious ways.

They’re hitting the dogs, they’re doing things like throwing things at the dogs in the name of training. So, um, so yeah, there’s, I think it, it, the larger discussion needs to be around animal welfare, quality of life for the dogs, what impacts that. Yeah, the tool conversation’s gonna be here forever, but what gets missed is just, you know, and then, then we get labeled into these camps.

So, to answer your question, Matt, it’s just that, that I think labeling trainers into certain, you know, camps or ideologies is a, is a huge problem because it stifles all the conversation like we’re having, right? Mm-hmm. Good conversation around dogs and, and aggression cases. Um, and yeah, so I could see two words go away, be balanced and force free.

You’d just be like, everyone’s a trainer who happens to, you know, be learning about quality of life and tools and aversives and the real science behind stuff, and not just politics. So, yeah, seems like, uh, the conversation was you’re either this way or you’re that way. And now it seems like. The conversation’s getting so granular that it’s, are you this way enough or are you that way enough?

Yeah. You know, and it’s just, yeah, seems like there’s no end to it sometimes. Exactly. And it’s unfortunate ’cause the, with social media, there’s a lot of new trainers observing, you know, the, the statements, comments, behavior of more seasoned trainers or, or big influencer accounts that maybe not even trainers, you know, and they just happen to have a, a charismatic way or they just have a loud voice.

And, and so the, the younger trainers are coming up and seeing all this and they’re emulating that. And it’s, it’s, I think that’s something that also doesn’t get talked about is like the example we’re setting. What’s, what kind of legacy are we leaving if we’re just gonna leave a, a minefield behind that’s just decimated through all this battling back and forth?

Or are we gonna leave something where we’re planting seeds so that way we can look back and see the forest behind us again. So, um, yeah, it’s, I think, I think we have to kind of think through that a little bit more and hopefully conversations will change, but it’s, it’s tough. The social media landscape makes it really difficult for these new trainers.

You know, it’s a bit of a wasteland. Yeah. Yeah. So kind of tag on to Matt’s question about words and definitions. I had this question posed to me this week by my student, so I’m just curious what your response would be to sort of the same question. You know, a lot of people talk about relationship that was brought up earlier in the conversation, and you know, a lot of people tell you that you need to have a good relationship with your dog.

Um, a lot of people don’t tell you what that looks like or how to go about it. So the question that was posed to me this week was something like, you know, what is your definition? What does it look like for a person to have Yeah. A good relationship? What are the components of that? Yeah, that, that’s a deep question, right?

Because it’s, it’s really difficult to define because it’s so subjective. It’s like the word love, like when somebody says, oh, you love that person, or You’re in love with your wife, or something like that. It’s, you know, and then well, tell me what that looks like. What does that mean to you? And it’s gonna be different for every person.

And so it’s the same thing we have when we talk about relationships with our dogs. You know, you can go to the extremes where somebody like eats dogs, like that’s their relationship with dogs in some parts of the world. Or you have like somebody that the dog’s just a utility. It’s not a pet, it’s a working.

Animal that they happen to have like on their farm or something. The dog’s not allowed in the home. It’s just like another animal on the farm. So you have those kind of relationships and then you have some that are really on the other end, you know? So in some places, you know, just, I was just in Japan and seeing how the dogs, a lot of the, especially small dogs, you know, they’re dressed up like little children they have, and they’re pushed around in strollers.

Um, you know, these dogs are getting manicures and pedicures, like spa days, you know, so you have that kind of relationship more as, um, it’s almost like a fashion accessory. Not, not all the dogs of course, just, but I saw some of that in, in, in Japan. So any rhino pedicures? We talked about that in the episode before this one.

Yeah. Um, so I, yeah, I think relationship’s so subjective, you know, it’s, I think it should be built on the trust. Of course, the dog trusting you, you feeling you can trust the dog. Um, you obviously get the dog. We get our dogs as pet dogs as part of our, to be part of our lives. But you kinda have to look at what does that look like for you?

Is it just being dog that cuddles up to you, or is it one you have to, do you want to do activities with? Is it one, you have one as a hiking partner? Uh, so much in the relationship. We would choose with our own partners, our human partners. We kind of get the dogs in the same way. We have to decide like what’s, and we have to think that way too.

It’s like, what is my dog actually like? Like, right. So I could be like, yeah, you know, honey, I love playing poker. And let’s go to the casino. And she doesn’t care about poker, she hates it. Like Right. She’s not gonna wanna do that. It’s the same thing like, Hey Fido, let’s go do this. And you don’t like it. So, um, just, you know, you kinda have to think about what the dog’s needs are and what their likes are if you’re going to establish a healthy relationship, you know?

Um, and so I think that’s how we kind of look at it. It’s, it’s, it’s so subjective to the person. Uh, it depends on their cultural, you know, viewpoint. It depends on, on what kind of dog they’re getting. It depends on the environment they’re in. There’s so many variables. So I always ask the, I always just throw the question back, like, what’s the relationship for you with your dog?

And that’ll give you like their viewpoint. I’m glad you mentioned that about dogs liking different things. ’cause I think a lot of people they miss out on that point. Some dog, I mean, there’s so many examples. Some dogs love hugs, right? And some don’t. Even if they’ll tolerate it, they don’t really love it.

Some dogs like to play fetch like a retriever, but I also see clients that have a dog that has no interest in playing fetch and they wanna put all this effort into getting the dog to play fetch and like, is it worth it with this particular dog versus finding something that he actually likes to do and why don’t we go down that road with something the dog likes to do?

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and when you think about it, a little deeper layer to that is in aggression cases, the disappointment someone can experience because they can’t go do that activity that they wanna do with their dog. Whether the dog likes it or not, right? So, you know, that’s another point of the human side of communication.

And we sometimes have to help them see that, hey, you know, this may not be the right activity for you now. Maybe it’s not the right activity for your dog right now. Can we replace that with something else? So again, our job as trainers and consultants is to have other suggestions, you know, of things, activities that they can do to build the relationship, to maintain the relationship with their dog that, uh, we can sometimes show them.

So, you know, stepping outside, just working on the aggression, we might have to show ’em, Hey, listen, is your dog likes to sniff? Do you wanna go for a hike with your dog where it goes to sniff and you’re not doing like this strict, you know, walking next to you kind of thing. It’s like, let’s see if that’s gonna be beneficial for both of you to go out.

Is that something you like to do? And, um, so, but in aggression cases, again, he is a excessive management. And sometimes that dog’s world’s gone smaller or the person’s got like these expectations that like, I got a dog because I want to go do this or that, and the dog’s not ready for it yet. And so we have to temper their, the human’s expectations as well and know how to do that without, you know.

’cause once you do that, you’re like, sorry, you gotta stop the walks or something like that for now. You know, it can imagine like the, the saha of some clients might feel and when that’s their one reason they got their dog is to go for those hikes together or something like that. But that’s a huge problem for the dog.

And we’re like, all right, it’s a good idea to just hold off on those walks. We not, we’ll get there, but let’s, we gotta back up. And really, I. Incrementally work on this. So, yeah. Um, lots of considerations for, for aggression cases. Um, quick question, if, so you’re being presented a lot of aggression cases. Do you have any sort of unwritten, personal policies about anything you just absolutely won’t work with, whether it be dog or person or some combination or, yeah.

Um, well, dogs that have killed people just, um, had one case where somebody was looking for that. But, um, and then, uh, dogs with, uh, any kind of high level bite risks towards children, um, with some except rare exceptions, you know, if it’s a very self-explanatory and the dog got injured and the child was just trying to help and the dog’s lovely with the child all the other times, then that might be a different kind of case.

But yeah, if there’s a significant risk of injury to, um, another animal in the home or, or other animals in general, or the, the humans in the home, because sometimes it’s you, you, you have to help people understand the severity they’re seeing. I had one case where. The dog had severely, I mean, sent this person to the hospital twice with mauling injuries, like torn calf muscle, like really horrific stuff.

And she was just like, no, no, we wanna work on it. We wanna keep the dog. And, and it just was not safe for this person. So I said, this is very, very dangerous, uh, considering level of injury. I know you’re very committed to this dog, but you also have to consider the risk to your own safety. And I’m very concerned here for you.

So, um, you know, sometimes you get those kind of cases where, you know, but that again, going back to, you know, that could be your success in that you are helping them make the right decision, right? Steering them into a safer, much more rational decision. Because sometimes they’re blinded by all the emotions, right?

So yeah. So there’s, yeah, there’s handfuls of cases where it’s just, it’s the, it’s, the option is you can’t work with them safely or you have to rehome the dog, or you, you have to talk about behavioral euthanasia just ’cause of the potential severe risk. But those, fortunately, those are far and few between those cases.

Um, usually when a dog injures somebody to that degree or, or another animal or kills another animal, they’re, they, they’ve already made the decision before they even call you. So it’s rare that I get those kind of cases. But yeah, I’ve had them over the years. And, uh, one question, you know, so this is a question I get from trainers a lot is, what do you.

How do you, how do you know when you should take a case or continue working with a case? The good question to ask yourself is, eh, would I be okay with this dog living next door to me? So living next door to my dogs, my kids, my family? And if the answer is no, you should be kind of thinking about that. You know, say like, this person, the client is there living next door with their, you know, are they able to manage it well?

Is it a severe risk? If the answer is no, that should give you pause for like saying, is it ethical for me to keep working with this case? Because if I’m not staying safe, why would I do that to the, to their neighbor or to their, that kid that lives next door? So, um, it’s kind of a good checkpoint to, to think about.

So Mike, just a follow up there, because I’ve struggled with that exact question a lot over the years. I work with a lot of dogs that I would not want living next door to me. And I think one of the challenges is I think through, well, if I don’t work with them, who’s going to, are they going to, what are they gonna do?

Are they gonna get rid of the dog? Are they gonna euthanize or are they gonna live with the status quo? And I think that’s a hard balancing act. I’m just curious your thoughts there. Definitely, yeah. You know, you always wanna give people the opportunity, right? So unless it’s something very straightforward, you know, dog, again, living with kids and it’s attacking the kids at a high level.

But if, if it’s, if, if. If you feel like you can to, there’s potential for change and there’s potential for management. I give the client that opportunity. Uh, but I will be straightforward with them. I’ll say, let’s, let’s work on this. But I do want you to understand the risks involved. And I walk them through all the, the, the potential legal ramifications as well.

Depending on where you live, you should know what the dog bite laws are, what happens when a dog bites, what happens if a dog bites at a certain level and who gets involved and all those things. So, so they become aware of the risks. And then if they are, and we’ve had that frank conversation, then I will continue to work with them.

Um, a lot of it, of course, is on safety and management at first to make sure that they are, can keep everybody else safe. And then we, and I will let them know, like, we’re gonna kind of see how this goes in a way. Just we’re gonna take it step by step, uh, with the potential that we might have to rev revisit other options.

So I do give them the opportunity. ’cause some clients will surprise you. Like, you know, I’ve had clients that yell like, oh gosh, this is not gonna work out well. But then they end up turning into like, the best clients. They manage things well, they’re committed. They, they keep the dog safe. They do everything you ask them to do.

So, um, so I, I don’t want, I don’t like to, I don’t wanna give the impression to stop. Like if it’s the dog I feel is risky, I’m just not gonna take the case. Sometimes I’m giving that opportunity for that client to show me they are. Um, ’cause again, it goes back to the people. If the, if they show me they can do it as the, the dog’s guardians, then we can move forward If they’re not, you know, ’cause you can take the same dog, put in two different homes.

Then you’re gonna have two totally different cases. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. And we get presented with, not a lot, but occasionally we get presented with Wolf hybrids and those, we don’t, we don’t, I just don’t feel like, I don’t feel comfortable. I don’t know if y’all, either of you ever get those presented to you, but those are not ones that we deal with.

Yeah. You know, again, it’s, those are heavy management cases. It’s like if somebody’s like, I got a pet alligator, or, or you know, this is my bo constricted you, you gotta take certain safety measures over like a, another, you know, standard kind of case. And the wolf dogs, they never tell you what it is. Right.

You get the call and they’re like, it’s a German Shepherd mix. Then you start asking ’em and they’re like, well the dad might have been half wolf. You’re like, well yeah. And so was the mom and I, as you find out this thing’s for sure Half Wolf and now we got dire wolf doodles coming in the next year or two.

We talked about that one earlier episode. What are they gonna call those oodles? I’m not sure. We don’t know, but they’re gonna be expensive. So Mike, I’m curious, this question’s been burning a hole in my brain. You’ve mentioned pain a lot throughout the episode. How many of your aggression cases do you feel like pain is a relevant factor?

Oh, that’s a good question. Um, I actually should look, I keep, I’ve had all of my case files for every single dog I’ve ever worked with, and I should look. Um, but y you know, one of the recent studies done by Daniel Mills looking at veterinary practices, the veterinary behavior practices saw as many as 80% of the behavior cases had some underlying pain component.

Um, you know, now they’re getting a certain population of dogs ’cause it’s veterinary behavior. But I would say, you know, in probably 30 to 40% range, there’s some underlying pain issue, either directly, you know, causing like ear infections, somebody touching the ear or something that’s chronic that is impacting the dog’s stress and, uh, quality of life.

So just like people, if you, you know, if you’ve got this chronic condition that’s, uh, zapping your energy all day, it’s making you more sensitive to touch, um, movement. Getting up out of a dog bed that may not necessarily be the direct relationship when somebody’s reaching, but it can be certainly exacerbating the issue.

It can make it much more likely that dog’s gonna snap at another dog that just happens to come over and sniff its rear end or something, or, um, person walking by at the wrong time. So, uh, pain can be a, not only a direct cause, but it can be a catalyst to adding more fuel to potential situation. So, um, you know, and it’s, and it’s not always old dogs.

People think it’s just old dogs, senior dogs for arthritis kind of things, but it can be young dogs too. So, and. We’re just seeing more and more of it because of the breeding, poor breeding practices in, in many areas of the US and, and putting out dogs that it’s just for looks and not health or behavior.

So it’s just continuing to escalate, I think, as we’re seeing these anomalies and these, you know, this physical health of the dogs deteriorate in some breeds. So, um, it’s important. I mean, it’s so important and it, and it’s, it’s one that often is so underdiagnosed again because, um, you know, it’s labeled as something else.

Oh, your dog’s just trying to be dominant over, you know, with the couch just wants to be the couch on the couch, you know, so they’re just trying to, you know, take over the couch or whatever and, um, they don’t recognize the dog’s just trying to relax. It’s just like, went to dog da And that’s the other thing, like, dog went to dog daycare all day, it’s gotta be fine.

Or we just went to the dog park, it’s totally fine. You know, guys like Les, we go to the gym and you know, we’re warmed up and we can do that. But when we get home you are like, oh God, tendonitis is acting up. Right? So we need our downtime too. And they don’t, they don’t recognize that. And so. Um, like a tragic case was like, when you hear retired racing greyhounds, what’s the first thing that should come to your head?

Like, and, you know, that’s showing aggression. You know, like the first thing should be health, like retired racing Greyhound. Okay. It’s retired for a reason and it’s probably, if it’s young, two, 2-year-old or something like that. 3-year-old, probably some injuries. And this particular client I worked with, retired racing Greyhound.

Guess what? The dog’s issues were growling and snapping at people that tried to move it off its dog bed or walked by while it’s on his dog bed. I mean, it doesn’t get more straightforward than that, but unfortunately their previous trainer said those exact words. I think he’s just trying to dominate the you and, and keep control of access of this bed.

So what you need to do is pull ’em off of there, put a leash on, and pull ’em off and like pin ’em down and tell ’em, you know, this is yours. So obviously terrible advice, but of course it escalated things because the dog’s in pain. It’s, it’s like having, it had hip issues, some spinal issues too, so the dog’s being put in more pain under the name of training.

So, um, and so tragic case because then that dog also saw their general veterinarian, the general veterinarian that looks at the dog like, oh, your dog’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. So it’s, it’s problematic in many different areas because even in the veterinary community, yes they know how to look for pain, but it’s not always obvious.

And um, they may not. Have a background in behavior. So they’re just looking at, okay, is there some muscle issue or some obvious thing. Am I able to poke around and feel anything? And sometimes they can’t even do that ’cause the dog’s snapping at them. Uh, and then so the dog actually never gets help. The cause that we’ve been talking about has actually never been addressed, even when the dogs seem multiple professionals, right?

So that, for me, those are tragic cases because the poor clients are spending all this money, they’re not getting any problem solved. And the poor dogs, of course, suffering through all this. So, um, so think one of the best things trainers can do is just learn what good movement looks like, learn about different breeds and structure and gait and typical health issues for that particular breed.

Uh, looking at subtle changes and, and how the dog’s coat is or how they move. So that way you can then be like, okay, I think your dog. It’d be a good idea to get your dog to the vet. So we’re not diagnosing anything like, unless you are a veterinarian. But I think it’s a good idea if your dog goes to the vet, because this is what I’m seeing because a lot of dogs will not show the same thing in the vet’s office.

’cause they’re either there’s not enough room to move or it’s they’re scared there, so they’re not showing the same thing we would see or the client would see at home. Like the dog getting up more slowly from the dog bed. Right. Great sign of potential underlying issues. So, um, so yeah, trainers and consultants working with aggression cases, I highly, highly recommend just learning all you can about recognizing pain or discomfort or structural issues in a dog.

So could we dive just a little deeper here? You know, the greyhound on the bed seems like a, for the average or for a good trainer, pretty obvious, right? Yeah. The, the, the ear infection, right? And you touch the ear or like a heart paw. I would like to think any pretty experienced trainer would pick up on all of those.

What is the most common time you see pain causing the aggression that you think is probably not so obvious to even a pretty decent trainer? Hmm. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s can be endocrine base, it can be things like Cushings or Addisons, um, those things that are not necessarily pain related, but they’re more, uh, I guess sort of like irritability is probably the best label I could put on what the dog might be experiencing.

Um. Thyroid issues on rare occasions. That’s way overdiagnosed by the way. So huge push on like hypothyroidism back in 10 years ago. But it’s, it’s not even close to as many cases as people make out to that we can blame behavior changes on. Um, I would say arthritis is another one because at minor levels it’s the dog is going to look like they’re moving pretty well, especially when they’re warmed up and loose.

Um, so you gotta look for those subtle things, getting up more slowly, walking a little bit more stiffly, things like that. Um, so, uh, a joint and structural issues is another big one, especially in our breeding practices because of the way we’ve shaped and changed dogs’, skulls and body and, and, uh, hips and so many, so many joint and problem, you know, structural imbalances.

It’s like wild when you start really looking at all the dogs and how much we’ve changed their shapes and things. So I would say that’s probably the biggest one is some joint discomfort because of what we’ve done to them structurally. Uh, that often goes missing the most. I was just picturing Frenchies that whole time when you were talking about heads and hips and Yeah.

Frenchies, German Shepherd Cavaliers. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, uh, English bulldogs of course. So, um, yeah, English bulldogs. Another classic example. Somebody calls me for an English bulldog. It’s like. When’s the last time you were at the vet and what did you get done there? ’cause that’s somewhere we’re gonna be diving much deeper into in, I would say 95% of my English bill dog cases, there was some pain or medical issue.

I mean, most of them have something going on anyways, unfortunately. But, um, yeah, always explore that with, with certain breathes. Yeah. Cherry eye allergies and what else? Joint issues, you know, breathing issues, sleep issues, skin issues, yeah. Mm-hmm. Like sleep is, sleep is a big one. I’m glad people are talking more about the importance of sleep, but you know, a lot of dogs aren’t getting enough sleep because they can’t breathe or they’re, you know, they have a lot of disruptions in their daily routine, uh, or pain issues that are impacting their sleep.

And of course, just like humans, if we’re lacking sleep, they’re much more likely we are to be irritable, have less cognitive decision making abilities, uh, have chronic stress issues, which then creates more health issues. So it’s a big vicious cycle with dogs not getting enough sleep. And if you look at like the classic shelter dogs where it’s a very busy and active shelter environment and they are not getting enough sleep, they are definitely sleep deprived in so many scenarios.

So, um, yeah, make sure the dogs get enough sleep and don’t just ask the client, you don’t get enough sleep because they’re thinking, oh yeah, eight hours a night with me, not enough. So they gotta know what’s going on during the day too. Absolutely. Jason, what have we not covered? Uh, I mean, probably a lot of things, but, oh God.

Yeah. I think we could turn around and do this one again if you so at some other point. Um, I’ve, I’ve enjoyed it. Yeah. Uh, we have not talked about, um, Michael teaching at conference. We hadn’t got into detail there. Um, so you got a class coming up at our annual educational conference. We’re, we’re excited about it.

Yeah. Uh, you wanna give people a bit of a preview? Sure, sure. Yeah. I’m looking forward to it. It’s gonna be on dog dog aggression. So intra household aggression focused really. So of dogs fighting in the home, uh, and kind of how to treat that, how to assess for it, what to look for, safety and management. So kind of a soup to nuts, um, overview of working with dog, dog aggression.

Cool. I know a lot of, I know a lot of folks deal with that from time to time, get calls about it, so that’s, I’m sure gonna be one of the, one of the classes that people are super interested in, so definitely looking forward to it. Um, where do pe you’ve got a conference coming up here in our er, neck of the woods, right?

Yeah. Charlotte, September 26th to 28th. It’s the annual Aggression in Dogs conference. And, uh, yeah, three days jam packed with all things aggression. Uh, different topics on safety handling. Uh, we have veterinary behavior, we have sheltering, we have defensive handling, so, uh, we cover quite a bit in three days.

And it’s a, it’s a real good time too, like cocktail party, real fun time there too. And so it’s a great, uh, networking event, but it’s also, there’s an online option if you can’t attend in person in Charlotte. So yeah. Where do people find out about that? Uh, aggressive dog.com. It’s the easiest way to remember how to get to me.

Does your, does your con I, I may be mistaken, but does your conference move locations? It does, yeah. We from Scottsdale last year, so we kind of jumped around coast to coast. Okay, awesome. Coming to the Queen City. Awesome. Um, we’ll plug your socials in in, um, show notes. Um, but again, aggressive dog.com is where people find you.

Yeah. Easy way to find everything. Awesome. Well, we’re looking forward to having you at the conference. Um, I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Um, and again, maybe we’ll uh, reserve the right to have you back on if you’re willing to. I would love to do that at some point. So yeah, we can do a lightning round of our leftover questions and just, yeah.

Awesome. Well thank you Mike. Appreciate you taking all the time. It’s been a fun couple hours. Thank you guys. It’s been a pleasure. Alright, thanks for listening everybody.