Today’s guest is Stephanie Vicki from Method K(. As I was kinda looking into this intro, I didn’t even know where to start though, Stephanie, because at first I was wanting to talk about all your social media stuff and how you kill it online, but then I was looking at, you know, you do board and trains and private training seminars and your dog trainer certification.

So I just had this whole list and I thought, you know what, I’ll just throw out a jumble and then I’ll introduce you and I will let you walk us through all the stuff you do, because it’s a lot. It’s, it’s basically everything. I think everything in dog training you’ve got on your list. Yeah. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I’m, I’m super happy to be here. I’m happy to walk people through it. Um, but yeah, we do, we do do a lot. 

Well, good. That’ll give us a lot to talk about today. Well, thank you for coming on the show. We’ve had a lot of people ask about having you on, and here you are. So thanks for coming on.

Thank you for having me. My goodness. It’s, it’s an honor. This is an organization that I’ve looked up to my entire career, so it’s very, very exciting and humbling to be here. 

Well, definitely appreciate you taking the time. So just to start, do you wanna walk us through who you are, your backstory, how you got to the position you’re in now, and we’ll kind of go from there?

Um, sure, yeah. Um, so I, I probably have a, a story that’s similar to lots of dog trainers out there and I probably have a story that’s very different. Um, but you know, it’s one of those, uh, situations where I came from nothing. Um, I started with nothing. I had nothing, you know, you know, we weren’t, uh, people with any kind of financial means.

I didn’t come from a family with anything like that. Um. I just had a, a very deep passion for dogs. And so the, you know, the beginning of my career I didn’t, you know, have the luxury to go to, you know, a, a big school that was far away, or, um, you know, to, to pay a lot of money for mentors and things like that.

I just, I just didn’t have that. And, um, you know, real early in my career, um, you know, I got pregnant with our first child and, you know, I, I went through pregnancy and then I had a newborn and stuff like that. And so, um. A lot of my knowledge was done through, you know, whatever, whatever trainer was coming through the area, like whatever seminar I could attend, you know, whatever certification I could get online, whatever, you know, courses, you know, anything that Michael Ellis dropped or, you know, anybody else, you know, I, I took advantage of all of that.

Um, so I didn’t have a lot of luxuries in that capacity. Of course, I had, you know, local trainers who mentored me and things like that. But, um, you know, to, to be able to study under, uh, people who are really well known, I didn’t, I didn’t have that luxury. Um, the luxury that I did have that I think some trainers miss out on is, um, I’ve been in the pet industry all, all my working life.

Um, and I had the, I was blessed enough to be able to be, you know, working in doggy daycare, working in the boarding facilities, working in the grooming, um, you know, working in the pet stores, working in, um. Uh, large companies that were doing protection work, that were doing service work, that were filling large contracts that were breeders and things like that.

So, I mean, I really got to see the entire industry, you know, from start to finish. And I got to work in these very big companies. I got to see how business was run. Um, and I, I had the blessing again of having hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dogs under my fingertips at all times, which I think is a, is incredibly important for any young trainer that’s developing skills and things like that is, you know, you only train 10 dogs a year.

It what you could learn from the dogs isn’t quite there, but having hundreds and hundreds of dogs pass under your hands was the most valuable to me. So I was working for large companies, eventually becoming head trainers for these large companies. And I was running board and trains. I was running group classes, I was running private sessions.

I was, you know, um. Uh, you know, fulfilling contracts for security dogs and, and, you know, working service dogs and things like that. And I had all of that under my belt. And then in my spare time I was working with local shelters and rescues, touching as many dogs as they would let me touch. And, um, truthfully, I, I have to owe a large amount of my education to the dogs and the ability to touch so many of them and be able to see so many patterns and understand their behavior.

Um, and that’s really where, where it started. And so, um, I had a. A strong foundation, I guess, that maybe not everybody gets, ’cause I have lots of people who come to me who want to be dog trainers. Um, they wanna start their own business and they’re going from loving dogs, training dogs under a mentor to going into starting their own business.

And I see how much value my process had because I got to see so many different styles of training. I got to see so many different types of services. Um, I got to see small operations in big operations, um, you know, and I got to see how businesses run. And I most importantly got to see how business should not be run.

And that, that really helped expedite my career, I think. So I’m, I’m very grateful for all the great experiences I had, and I’m very grateful for all the difficult experiences that I had because it kind of propelled me, um, quite quickly through, through dog training and, um. After that I started, uh, uh, you know, my husband and I started our own company.

Um, we’ve been going, we’ll be going on our ninth year now. Um, and it’s just been, you know, grit and determination and hard work and humility along the way. That’s kind of gotten us to the point that we’re at today. 

So you had to work hard for it. You didn’t just get a business that was running and successful?

No. 

No. Oh gosh, no. Um, for anybody out there who is, is currently working for an employer, you know, if you’re a dog trainer for an employer, um, there, there are a lot of benefits to that. Um, there, there, it’s not. It’s not a joke when they say, you know, when you trade in your nine to five to go become an entrepreneur, you’re trading in for a five to nine.

That’s absolutely true. But if you’re running board and trains, especially board and trains out of your house, it’s not a five to nine, either. It’s a 24 7. And, um, you have to be prepared for that, that swing that you are, you are working 24 7, your family is working 24 7, and it’s a huge commitment. There’s a lot of compromise.

Um, but if your family’s down and you’re down, you’ve got the work ethic, uh, you, you should be successful. 

So you had mentioned starting in a daycare and that’s, you know, I think a lot of trainers, at least these days start that way. Yeah, that’s, I started doing a lot of daycare work when I was really, you know, uh, fairly young and it was amazing experience.

Yeah. Yeah. Can we dig a little deeper on that? Like, it sounds like that was kind of for you, important to your journey. Why was working in a daycare helpful? 

You know, it’s, I. I worked in daycares that probably weren’t run the way that they should have been run. Um, a lot of overcrowding. So when I first started, um, you know, there were 70, 80 dogs in a pit with me, right?

And I am, my job is to keep those dogs safe and, you know, hopefully happy, um, by the end of the day, and then send them back home to their owners. And when you’re, you know, you’re 18, 19-year-old kid, and, and you know, you know what you know from the dogs that you’ve owned and from what people have told you and things like that.

But then you’re going in and you’re working. This, the learning curve is huge, um, to really understand dog behavior. And when you see fights break out and when you see dogs that are fearful or dogs that are more anxious or dogs that wanna play more and things like that, um. It really dawns on you that there’s a lot going on that if you’re not understanding can, can get away from you pretty quickly.

And so as far as like learning dog, body language, dog behavior, I think getting thrown into a daycare pit, um, makes for pretty quick learning because you are responsible for the wellbeing of each one of those dogs. And so you’re constantly like looking for signs like, is something gonna happen? ’cause I know this dog did something before and, and you know, you don’t necessarily get the training that you require, but being in there is, uh, of huge value, I think.

And, and I really tell the students that, that I’ve, um, that have been, uh, working with in our programs. You know, ’cause I’ve been teaching trainers for a long time. I always tell them that, you know. I don’t really approve of doggy daycare so much. Um, there are a lot of places that do it right I think and, and do do good by it, but there are a lot of places that are kind of just, you know, just thrown together in kind of a mess.

And I said, you know, go work in those places for a little while and you’re learning will just, you know, skyrocket. Um, being in a position like that because it’s kind of a dog eat dog world. We know that and you are the judge, the jury and, and everything else while you’re in there and you get very, very good at reading dog behavior because you wanna do well at your job.

And so I just think it’s an invaluable experience that probably everybody should go through, whether you plan on staying in that industry at all. It’s just gonna be highly valuable for understanding more about dogs. 

Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. There’s some things you just can’t learn by teaching group classes, 

right?

And I mean, it’s sad to say, but if you haven’t seen a dog fight before, you have no idea what it’s really like. You have no idea the warning signs. And I think to be a good trainer, especially doing behavioral work. You have to have seen some fights and see the stuff that leads up to it. So you can just feel it when it’s coming.

Right. And like you can just see it and feel it. 

Yeah. And, and I, I warn against that too with our students is that, um, don’t, don’t get in a rut of, all you ever do is private sessions, group classes, um, because you’re, you’re only seeing one perspective and you’re only seeing the dog for that one hour or you know, whatever it is.

And you’re not in the trenches. The owners are, you’re not in the trenches like the person in the daycare yard is. You’re not in the trenches. Um, sometimes even like the kennel techs and, and other, other people in the industry. You’re not in those same trenches. You get to come in and kind of dictate exactly how you want things to go for an hour and then send people on their way.

Um, I always recommend, you know, get in, get in the shelters and the rescues and, and work with these dogs. See what it’s like from start to finish. Do board and trains work in daycare, um, you know, work bareback with, with no safety equipment, no muzzles, no nothing. Learn how to do all of that because you’re gonna become an exponentially better trainer in a much shorter amount of time than somebody else who’s just kind of piecemealing what they see and what they do and what they learn through just constant private sessions.

Group classes. 

Are you a horse person as well? 

No. My goodness. No. I did not, uh, grow up that way. I, I have an interest in horses, but, um. Yeah. No, I’ve never, I’ve never dove into that. I have so much respect for those people. 

The, the phrase bareback, I feel like I hear that so much more. Well, 

I, I, I think of writing, you know, bareback ’cause you know, they, if they, they don’t have any equipment on.

Mm-hmm. And when I was hired as head trainers for a lot of different facilities, you know, um, you, some facilities that you get hired into the dollar is the most important thing to some of these places. So they don’t provide you with anything. They don’t provide you with training. You know, they, they, they hand you a leash and they’re like, go for it.

And we expect, you know, you to run 25 dogs, uh, board and train dogs a day and you’ve got two weeks with each dog. And I mean, like, like sometimes these expectations are highly unrealistic. And then they’re throwing. High aggression cases in there over and over and over again, and you’ve got your leash and you’re like, what do I do as a buck 25 trainer?

And, uh, you know, this a hundred pound dog and I’ve got a leash. That’s, that’s what I’ve got. Um, I I think it really teaches you to, to stay on your toes. And I tell my staff, I said, you know, if I was a poor employer, I would throw you in there with just a leash and I would make you figure it out and deal with it.

Um, but because I love you and I care about you, I’m gonna teach you how to muzzle condition the dog. And I’m gonna give you a muzzle as well, you know, and then put you in there and start working with the dogs. ’cause I do think we have to be fair and we have to be safe. But, um, I didn’t have that in my early stages of my career and, and it did help me a lot.

Um, and, and it helped me learn how to read dogs a lot better, a lot faster. I think that if I had gone a different direction. 

Hey, Jason, do you notice Stephanie’s camera makes ours look like crap? Like, look how nice our camera is, and the background’s amazing. There’s cages lined up perfectly, like everything’s great.

It’s, 

it’s like Fabian set it up for, 

no, that’s, that’s, that’s why. Amazing husband. He’s the, the, the tech genius. I’m actually just sitting in our, our training room. This is what, this is just what the training room looks like, but this is where my desk sits, my computer sits, so 

I, I guess I need a tech husband ’cause I don’t have one of those and it’s, it’s just me setting this up and it doesn’t go as well.

I like it side. It looks great. No, 

1. I like to pawn that all off. And I purposely, you know, you meet people who purposely remain ignorant on a subject so that they don’t have to do it. I purposely remain ignorant on tech so that I just don’t have to do this because he, he nails it every single time. He is just, it’s always perfect when he puts it together.

So I just, I just purposely don’t learn anything about it. 

That’s what I call, that’s awesome. Being smart enough to be stupid. 

They, Hey, I like that. I’m gonna make a shirt that says that. 

Gotta be smart enough to be stupid. 

I think we’ve all met some dogs like that. 

Yeah. Well, dogs, uh, they, they’re very, very good at finding the shortest distance between two places, you know, the straight line and, uh, whatever that requires, um, of them, they, they figure it out very, very quickly.

They’re, uh, much smarter than we give them credit for. 

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So I got a follow up question. Both sounds like both of you have, uh, you’ve done the, uh, dog of daycare thing. That’s something I’ve never done. I’ve seen a lot of ’em, been in quite a few, never done it. Um, don’t think I would ever want to do it, to be frankly honest with you.

Um, so what is the, I’m I’ve, I’ve been asking myself this for years. I’ve asked other people what is the, what’s the secret sauce? What’s the, what’s the magic trick? How do you, how do you keep it from just being complete and utter turmoil when you got 70, 80 dogs running around in a warehouse with like three people watching ’em?

I don’t get it. There’s gotta be some sort of trick that you’re not telling. 

Well, I mean, I think everybody who is in the doggy daycare business has their own system of way of dealing with things and sometimes it is absolutely a free for all. Um, you know, I worked in some places and this was when I was just a kennel tech and I wasn’t even in the daycare yards and, and just watching emergency vet.

Visit after visit, after visit, after visit. And I’m just like, oh, I never wanna be over there. Um, but I think that, you know, depending on what the daycare allows you to do, my daycare kind of just gave me free reign and said, just to make sure that the dogs are well behaved. And so, um, you know, my, my ticket was, is that each dog that comes in is gonna be taught the rules.

And so each new dog that comes in is on leash. They’re coached, they’re taught some markers. They’re taught what you can and cannot do with this leash. No, you’re not gonna mount anybody. No, you are not gonna charge anybody. No, you are not gonna bulldoze anybody or corn anybody. Um, so each new dog kind of learns that, and that’s kind of how I did it.

I had the dog on a leash, and then when the dog, you know, they’ve come to daycare for 3, 4, 5 days, then I start, you know, letting them off of a leash, giving them a little bit more, um, freedom and coaching them and things like that. And if they struggle again, guess what? We’re back on leash and you’re with Steph, your teacher’s pet for today.

And we’re gonna be kind of going throughout the daycare, um, throughout the day to kind of teach you the rules. Like we’re not resource guarding the water dish. That’s not a thing here. Right? And utilizing the leash to do that. And then after we’ve kind of had conversations, leash comes off, dog’s allowed to go back out in daycare.

And if I was ever at the point where I was overwhelmed, um, you know, I had five or six or 10 dogs who needed to be on leash, needed to be coached. Um, a lot of times I would. Put those dogs in, uh, we would have like, uh, kenneling areas that were near the, the, or or double fences depending on what business I was in, and I would put those dogs in there.

I’d be like, okay, you’re gonna chill while I work with this one dog and I kind of get him better, and then I’m gonna grab you and work with this dog and kind of get him integrated. And I would do it kind of one by one. And if they got carried away again, okay, you two are gonna sit over here for a hot second and integrate them because they need opportunities to learn.

It can’t just be, it’s a total free for all. You attack somebody and then you get kicked outta daycare. I mean, the owner doesn’t want that. I’m sure the, the business doesn’t want that. I’m sure if you’re, you know, you’re thinking about providing a service for somebody. Um, and I don’t want that. I don’t wanna deal with fights.

I don’t wanna bring any dogs to the emergency vet. So we’re gonna do it slowly and methodically and get the dogs learning, because more often than not, they’re, they’re gonna be there long term. You’re gonna see this dog a couple times a week or every week for a long period of time. So once the rules get established, they tend to do a lot better.

That’s a lot of good info on how to run a dog daycare properly. I think the, the only thing I would add that I’d like people to know is you don’t start with 70 dogs on day. Mm-hmm. Like 70 fresh dogs. And Stephanie Of course. I mean, you were pointing this out, that you’re building up to it, and most of those dogs are regulars.

So on a given day you now have three new dogs or one new dog, or maybe even none. And so when the, you know, hopefully if the daycare starts with, you know, five dogs or whatever, it’s first day. Yeah. You’ve got a small group, you have to get under control, then you keep adding. Yeah. And then when you have 70, you are like 50 of these.

I barely have to watch. And then there’s like 10 I have to watch kind of close, and then there’s like two, if a fight breaks out, I’m running to grab them first before I do literally anything else. Yeah, there’s any problems. Yeah, exactly. 

I know it was you. I don’t even have to turn my background. I know it was you.

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s, that’s really how it is. And I’ve been in daycares too that were just getting started and a lot of the dogs that are in there are staff dogs. Um, you know, so you already have a nice balance of fairly stable dogs, fairly well-trained dogs, and then a handful of client dogs coming in and you’re kind of, uh, building your pack, um, from there.

And yeah, it is, it’s a lot of focus on the new dogs and then how the old dogs respond to the new dogs like that. You, sometimes you have to set that tone again. It’s like, Hey, I know this new dog is. You know, totally, totally out, out of it. You know, his element. I know that he’s not sending a lot of good energy and stuff like that.

That doesn’t mean you have anything to do with it. Like, I need to remind you that I handle all of this kind of stuff. So sometimes you have to balance the scales again and, and get the dogs into a good spot. But, um, yeah, that’s, that’s what I did for a few years and, um, it was stressful in the beginning, but it was really fun towards the end of it.

So the staff dogs are like supposed to be trained and socially appropriate. 

Um, I found that, is that 

not what’s going on in my place? That’s for sure. Yeah. 

I found that a lot of the, the staff dogs were actually pretty, pretty well behaved. Um, I had my own dogs in there, you know, I would have, uh, two or three of my dogs in there and my dogs were well behaved and stuff like that.

And so those dogs I, I didn’t really have big issues with because they’re the dogs that are up in the front. They’re the super social ones that they, they’ve, you know, they’ve been the mascot of the business. Everybody comes in and pets ’em, the other dogs come in. Um, so they, they have a lot of that socialization under their belt and they’re not too triggered by being in this new place and stuff like that.

So they’re, they’re a little bit easier, um, to deal with. And, and they kind of show the other dogs like, so what? That the garage door opened, that’s not a big deal. So what that they call the dog’s name, that’s not a big deal. They do that all day long, you know, and so having that offset some of the new dogs who have bi bigger triggers with the newer things can be really helpful.

So getting back to kinda where you are now doing, you’re making a lot of content, right? And you, you produce a lot of things. Was that a strategy? Was that a plan? Is it something you just kind of fell into? You started making stuff and now here you are. Uh, I’m just curious about that journey. 

Um, I mean, it, it obviously is, is part of the business strategy because, you know, when I first started, um, aside from all of the rescues that I had worked with, nobody knew who I was because, you know, I don’t take clients from my, my previous employers.

I, I don’t pull from them. I don’t tell them where I’m going. So when I started my own business, you know, I’m kind of a brand, brand new person. So you go and you make connections with your vet offices and your pet stores and your, you know, um, you create that, that, um, kinda reciprocity within your community and stuff like that.

But. I think any dog trainer who is in the industry can tell you that sometimes your community doesn’t always. Uh, provide enough to pay your bills, you know, and sometimes we have to get our message out there to people that might be outside your community, the next state over the next city over. And social media can be a way of doing that for free.

And it’s essentially free advertising, so I don’t think that anyone should skip out on it. Um, you know, you, you could pay a whole bunch of advertising dollars or you could just get your face out there and, and put stuff out on social media. And so when I first started, um, I was just filming my training sessions and I was just, I was just putting them out there on social media and I was, you know, talking to people and answering their questions and helping people in any way that I could.

And then I, you know, the business just started spreading from there. And I would get clients from Seattle and I would get clients from Southern Idaho and I would get clients from Montana and, uh, I would get clients from Canada and stuff like that. And so when we realized that we’re like. F free advertising, I mean, is is free advertising.

If I’m gonna be training the dogs, why not just film me training the dogs and then clip pieces outta that and put it up there and remain consistent about it. And now we get clients from all over the world and, and a big part of that is social media. ’cause I don’t think those people would ever know we existed without that avenue.

So you mentioned earlier that, so you had a child early on in your training journey, right? Yep. Yep. So what I’m curious, a lot of trainers, a lot of young trainers don’t have children, at least, you know, I see that a lot in the industry. Yeah. And I do think that sometimes makes it harder for them to do intros with children and know how to, you know, inter, you know, introduce dogs to kids.

And I see a lot of them are much better at dog to dog intros ’cause they just don’t know children. And funny enough, the first time I heard about you, someone had said, you know, you should check this person out. So I looked at one of the videos, this was years ago, and it was introducing a dog, it was a brown dog, I can’t remember what it was, but to a kid threw a fence and they were like throwing a ball for him.

Yeah. 

And. It’s so simple. But I think a lot of people would never think about that because they’re used to doing dog intros, right. And they don’t have children. So I, I watched that. I was like, that’s very simple, very elegant. It seems very obvious, but to a lot of people it’s not. So, I recognize this is a long question, but how do you think being a parent has helped you in your training journey?

And like, and then especially as your kid gets older, how, how has that helped in your training? 

It’s, it’s probably one of the most important parts of, uh, you know, our, our methodology and our success and things like that is, is having a kid. And it, and it affects a lot of different things in a lot of different ways.

Um, one, you look at the dogs a little bit differently. You’re like, okay, maybe I was, maybe I was too hard on dogs for a while. Now that I’m raising a child, I’m like, yes, I can see what, what makes my child thrive and, and what doesn’t necessarily right. And I can see it from that perspective. Uh, but on top of that.

You know, having a child has really, really connected us to the humanity aspect of dog training, which I think gets lost a lot. Um, I tell my students all the time, you know, if you’re not a people person, you’re in the wrong industry. You’re absolutely in the wrong industry. Um, and if you don’t have a heart for people, you’re, you’re not gonna be as successful as you want to be because they are half of the equation.

And, uh, I might be one of the, the few dog trainers out there, but I put my clients above their dogs. Um, I put their children above their dogs. I love their dogs to pieces, but people come first to me and children come first to me. And so having a child of my own has really helped me connect with people.

Um, it’s definitely helped me connect with their kids. Um, I don’t care if they have two kids or 10 kids. I don’t care if they’re rowdy. I don’t care if they listen or they don’t listen. Um, I don’t care if you know mom’s got crying, baby, I’ll hold crying baby for you, mom, go ahead and work your dog. I got your kid.

Don’t worry about that. And I think that helps a lot of people feel very comfortable. And when they realize that you’re a trainer who is very connected to them on a human level, I think that helps ’em feel heard. Um, helps ’em feel understood, helps ’em feel like they’re in the right place. And, um, I know my staff is the same way.

Like, like the kids come in and we, we just light up. My, my office manager brings her three-year-old granddaughter and she’s ripping around in here with my dogs all the time. And it’s, it’s just a blessing and a joy. And I tell dog trainers like, trainer, you know, if you think having a child is going to dampen your career in some way and you’re choosing not to, um, don’t do that.

Ha have the kid. I mean, obviously you want, you need to, want to have the kid you need to, to, to do right by them. But if you’re sitting there and you’re saying, you know, I think a child might make my career too difficult. It won’t, it will open up so many avenues. Um, it’ll give you so much, um, personal growth, so much emotional growth, uh, and all that’s going to do is gonna make you a better dog trainer, a better communicator.

Um, and truthfully. Half the people that come to you need a therapist and a life coach and all those other things, it’s gonna make you so much more connected to humanity. And I, I just think it’s a wonderful, beautiful thing. Um, my kid is just, just an absolute blessing and I’m so thankful for her. 

So, we’re everyone listening.

If you don’t have kids, have ’em. 

Only if you are want them, and you’re actually gonna do right by them if you don’t, do not have them. Right. 

I agree with you. Totally. And my thought is it’s hard to have empathy when you don’t really understand what the other person’s going through. Right? Yeah. And you know, I started my training before I had kids and we, we have three kids now, and as you have them, and Jason, I know you’ve got, what, a couple dozen kids?

Something like that. Something like that. Yeah. You know, as you have them, then you know what people are going through, right? Yeah. And you know what kids are like. You’re able to understand better, but then you’re also able, at least for me, before I had kids, I didn’t really know how to interact with them all that well.

Yeah. And then as you learn and get them involved in the training. Yeah. And I’m circling back to the video I saw with you, having the kids throw the ball sounds so obvious, but if you don’t, if you see the kids as like, Hey, you stay over there and be quiet while you know your mom does the training or your dad does, you’re gonna miss out on that.

And then if you’re trying to do an introduction the way you would with two dogs, that’s a whole different thing. Yeah. So. I really do think having kid experience is a really powerful thing With what you know? Yeah. With what we do as pet dog trainers. 

Oh yeah. Well, I mean, at least half your clients are going to have kids in some capacity, and I would say half of those are gonna bring their kids with them in whatever service that you’re providing.

And so yes, it’s going to come up a lot more than you think it will throughout your career. 

Do you have any advice for getting kids involved in the training? 

Um. It depends on what kind of dog it is. Um, we, we deal with like a lot of the behavioral, um, dogs and so we always try to come up with, um, creative ways that the kids can get involved.

But things like, Hey, you’re gonna be giving the commands and you’re going to be holding the leash on the walk and stuff like that. That’s not stuff that we’re really pushing the kids towards just because of the complexity of the dogs that we’re working with. But, um, coming up with creative ways for the kids to play with the dogs because then we’re creating that, that positive association, um, creative ways for the kids to feed the dogs, uh, you know, provided that they’re not resource guarders and stuff like that, that that’s really what I’m looking for.

Um. Creative ways to teach kids how to rest with dogs, which can be a little bit harder ’cause kids are kind of always go, go, go. But uh, creative ways that we could, you know, have the dogs learn to settle with the children. So maybe it’s like it’s book time and this is where the dog hangs out on their place bed and then we read a story to the kids or the kids read a story to us and it’s like downtime and stuff like that.

That’s all training, that’s, that’s all part of coexistence and things like that. If I had happy, can we dig deeper 

on that for a second? You, you mentioned rest time. Can you expand on why you find that to be important and how you’re using it? 

Yeah. Um, so rest is probably a solid third of our training programs, regardless of whatever people are doing.

If it’s a private session or it’s board and train or something like that, uh, we call it decompression. But if, if you were to think of, you know, wolves in the wild or we were supposed to, we are going back to kind of that ancestry. Rest is a really big part of it and I. People understand that, you know, they’ll, they’ll come home from a long day or you know, the dog’s done a lot and they’ll put them on their place bed, or they’ll put them in their crate.

And you can see that people are understanding like, my dog needs some downtime, or maybe they’re just understanding I need downtime, so you’re gonna go over here for a little while. Um, but I think they’re understanding that. And if you have children, you definitely understand that rest is an important part of your day as well.

But we could capitalize on that significantly more by resting together rather than resting separately. And I, I think that. We do that with our families. We all cuddle up and we watch a movie or we all, we all rest and read a book together or, you know, we, we do that kind of stuff, but the dog is often isolated.

Right? But if we bring that dog in, especially with the children, maybe the children are, are something the dog struggles with. Maybe it’s a little nervous about the kids or something like that. If we incorporate the rest, that’s where the nervous system actually has an opportunity to reset to go into that parasympathetic state.

Around the children and start creating that association with the children. Um, so rest is a big thing that we, we teach, whether you have kids or not kids, or you have multiple dogs or whatever it is, that resting together will create a lot more connection within the group, the family group. It’ll create, um, the right responses from the nervous system towards the family group.

Um, and it’s something that should be practiced daily just as much as, you know, you’re practicing all of the other stuff that you do, you’re leash walking and all that other type of stuff. It, it’s something that I think is so critical and not done enough, and I always tell people is like some of the, the most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever seen in my life live with homeless people.

And you don’t see them out there. Like machine gunning treats in their mouth for sits and downs over and over and over again. They’re resting a lot, you know, they’re spending time together a lot. They’re sharing that companionship a lot in a lot of different circumstances with a lot of different exposures.

And I think that incorporating children into that is something that we can do very safely and it can be very effective for creating the right mindset in the dog and the right mindset in the children for the relationship. 

I mean, I’ve got so many questions I wanna ask, but Jason, I feel like I’ve been, you know, hugging the mic here.

Anything running through your brain you wanna ask? 

No, I do agree about the homeless people with dogs and the, and the homeless. People’s dogs are like the most well adapted. Socialized environmentally stable. Yeah. Dogs on the planet. Some of them. 

Yeah. That’s because the, the outside world is their living room.

Yeah. Our dogs, I mean, they’re so sheltered and closed off that every time they go outside it’s something novel. And then every time we take ’em outside, it’s like, we’re going to the park or we’re going swimming, or we’re going to the vet. And it’s always this like very heightened stimulated state. And so the dog learns that stimulation is, you know, the outside world where these homeless dogs are.

Like, I sleep here, I eat here. I, you know, I watch the world go by here. And they actually spend a lot more time in the outside world in a very calm, decompressed state than they do in an elevated state. And it’s just very polar opposite for, for the, the way that our dogs live. And, um, that’s actually kind of the basis for our entire training system, which is a little bit different, uh, than other trainers out there.

You know, we’re not heavily food based. We’re not, um. Doing a lot of that. It’s a lot of rest, it’s a lot of exposure, it’s a lot of massage work. It’s a lot of, um, you know, kind of getting back to that just basic, simple way of life and really turning on the parasympathetic nervous system to help these dogs be better at socializing, be better at handling conflict, be better at, you know, handling, uh, things that make them fearful or anxious or whatever it is.

And, um, you know, we draw inspiration from seeing those relationships that spend a lot of time doing that sort of stuff. 

How focused are you on, as you’re talking about all the rest? I think like in, in my training, I focus a lot on teaching clients how to create the behavior they want in the place that they want it.

And examples would be, I don’t, I don’t let my dogs run full speed through the house chasing each other. It’s just not something I enjoy. We go outside, we hike, they, they play a ton. They wrestle in the backyard. I don’t throw balls and toys in the house. We just, yeah, we just don’t. Uh, and the dogs very quickly learn.

The house is a place you hang out, you get petted. We do a lot of fun stuff together and then we go outside to play. But then I’m also big with my clients on spend time on the front porch. If your dog’s never on the front porch and the door opens. All they know about the front porch is wild and they’re gonna race off like a lunatic.

Yeah. The more you chill out there, train, whatever the calmer they’re gonna be. Yeah. Is that, is what I’m describing now dovetailing into what you’re saying? Or does that sound a lot different to you? 

Yeah, yeah. Um, I would say that we do a lot of that. Um, but the, the way that our system kind of works is that we, we like to teach the dogs that the handler calls time and place for whatever kind of mindset, uh, would be appropriate for that time and place.

So for instance, we will teach calmness, um, rest, relaxation, massage in every situation. So I’ll teach it in the house, I’ll teach it, you know, driving the kids to school. I’ll teach it. Um. When we’re out on the walk and stuff like that. But I’ll also teach it in situations where people usually think that the dog can cut loose.

Um, you know, we’ll go down to the waterfront where they normally swim and we’ll rest for three hours. We’ll massage for three hours, we’ll just hang out there. Um, we’ll go to the park or whatever, and maybe we’re not playing today, today, we’re just, we’re resting, we’re watching and things like that. And then vice versa in areas where we think that traditionally a dog should be calm here, uh, like the house, well, we’ll break out and play, or we’ll break out and play in the middle of the vet’s office, or we’ll break out and play, um, you know, wherever it is, you know, and show the dog that.

None of the things that you want to do are necessarily wrong. It’s just that we just have to find the right time and place to do those things. And then once they trust the handler, um, to make choices and decisions and, and have quality leadership, then the handler calls the time and place for those things.

Because there might be an appropriate time to play in the vet’s office. There might be an appropriate time to just chill and rest and, and sleep in the vet’s office. And we’d like the dogs to kind of have those, uh, behaviors patterned very well. And then we can essentially call the time and place for those pattern behaviors.

And are you using specific cues to tell them now, you know, is there a cue that always means you can play, or is it just you’re getting the rope out or whatever and, and you’re doing your thing? 

Yeah, yeah. We have specific cues and, and you know, obviously through conditioning the cue, you know, it, it changes, you know, uh, the physiology of the dog and it obviously changes their understanding of the time that they’re in.

And so we have specific cues that mean, hey, we’re chilling out. Um, we have specific cues that mean, okay, we’re, we’re moving now, but it’s a chill moving. Uh, we have specific cues. You know, you’re, you’re we’re playing now and stuff like that. And that kind of, uh, lets the dog know that we’re calling for a new, new state of life.

No different than, you know, again, if we kind of went back into that ancestry, you know, the whole, the whole pack of wolves is not calling what time it is. Right. There’s a handful of them that are. Kind of leading. And then there’s a handful of them that are more following. And so the the ones that are leading, they’re not really calling for things that are really out of place.

Right? If they’re calling for, Hey, we need to go hunt now, it’s because we need to go hunt now. And if they’re calling for defense, they’re not gonna call for, Hey, we need to be defensive now when nothing’s going on. Right? Um, they’re not gonna call for rest when we’ve been sleeping for three days. Why are we calling for rest now?

Right. And that’s kind of our job as the handler is to, yes, call what time it is, have the, the behaviors, very patterned, but also to do it in such a way that’s natural, right? Doing, not just pulling the trigger ’cause we can pull the trigger, but doing things in a very natural progression so that the dog says This makes total sense.

And I feel really good when I follow you.

If we wanna circle back a bit, I think a lot of people might be intrigued in, you know, hearing you talk about dogs and children or just maybe even specifically dogs with babies. Any input there, you know, this is a question I get as a trainer of course all the time. How do you introduce a dog to your baby?

You know, 

one of the first things that I do is we focus on coexistence. Coexistence needs to happen long before any type of introduction. And I, I teach that with dog on dog introductions. I teach it with, you know, your dog’s gonna meet a new person, whatever it is. Um, you know, we can’t bypass the coexistence stage where, where we just learn how to be and then we learn how to interact with one another.

Um, because if the dog’s never been introduced to a baby, there’s so many things that the dog. It doesn’t quite understand like the sounds, the smells, the movements. Movements are huge ones for dogs because babies and toddlers, they little drunk, odd people. Um, you know, and so coexistence, uh, is the opportunity to help prevent a fight or flight response.

Uh, help prevent the body from kicking into that sympathetic nervous system, helping the dog have opportunities to learn about sights, sounds, smells, movements, and things like that. And start learning to interpret what is, uh, threatening, what is not threatening. So I always teach my pe-people that coexistence is gonna be the most important thing and.

Because the baby really can’t move into like a dog’s space, and the baby is much more vulnerable than the dog. I teach my clients that the baby is sacred, um, until this coexistence has really taken place. So we’re really not letting the dog push in on the baby. We’re not letting the dog do a lot of those things for a while until the dog has really shown that if this baby were to break out and scream right now, or if this baby were to throw up right now, or if this baby were to make a weird herky jerky movement right now, that the dog has had an opportunity to learn what those things mean and handle them appropriately.

Um, after that, I usually tell my clients is that if we see, you know, calm curiosity from our dogs, we can start to entertain that and we can do it in a safe way where maybe the dogs gets to be a little bit more curious about the baby’s toys. About the baby’s blanket. Um, you know about. Whatever it is, the baby’s stroller, maybe they can kind of peek in in that way and such.

But whenever we allow that natural curiosity, I usually tell them the dog needs to be on a leash. Someone needs to actually be handling the leash so that if the dog needs coaching, whether it’s direction or correction in the moment that we’re right there, able to do that, we don’t just leave it up to the dog.

So like, you know, stick the baby’s face, like right up to the dog. And let’s see how it goes. I mean, what if it went badly? What would you do? And same thing with the baby’s feet. You stick the baby’s feet right up to the dog. What if it went badly and what would you do? You know, if we kind of have the, the, a lot of the preliminary conversations hashed out and then we have leash on.

We’re coaching, we’re watching body language. That’s a great way to introduce the dog. And then of course, once baby becomes toddler. We’re starting all over again. Once that baby starts becoming mobile, things start all over again. Baby goes back to being sacred, right? And we start kind of keeping a little bit of distance with the dog and letting them get used to, you know, how does this baby crawl and what noises does it make now?

And it’s a little drunk toddler with this drink coming down the hallway, and it’s not threatening. You have the ability to move away. You have the ability to watch and, and learn, right? Um, and allowing it to, to kind of grow like that. Usually by the time, you know, the kid is three or so, you don’t have to be quite as, uh, concerned about the dog.

If you were really diligent, uh, you know, during those few years, you don’t have to be quite as concerned about the dog. And then it’s a little bit more about. Teaching the child, okay, we’ve gotta respect the dog space. No, you don’t go on the bed. No. You don’t hit them with that. No. You don’t hug them, you don’t jump on them.

You know, doing a little bit more of that. But in the beginning it’s like, it’s kind of resetting the, the coexistence and then the interaction over and over again as the child goes through phases of growth. 

I like that you break that down into phases. ’cause a non-parent, I think if you’re a young person, you might have trouble thinking that through that babies do literally nothing.

Yeah. For a long period of time. Yeah. Right. Besides scream, go to the bathroom and get fed, and then all of a sudden it changes and it changes fast, 

it changes really fast. You kind of hit that 7, 8, 9 month mark and then you’ve. A little scooter around the house and within another month or two you’ve got a walker and now we’ve got this little drunk person that’s all over the house and you go through a lot of changes really quickly and all the training needs to completely backtrack.

Go back to kindergarten, start over. We can’t assume that a dog was, that was comfortable with the baby is gonna be comfortable with, you know, a toddler learning to crawl or learning to walk. That’s gonna be a big change. And then when they go from walking to then sprinting and bolting and, and stomping their feet and stuff like that, we’ve got a whole other change.

But by the time they’re three Yeah, a lot of those conversations and the growth of the child has been hashed out because the change between three and six isn’t that huge. Between three and 10 isn’t that huge. They just get a little bit bigger. 

So back to the start of that process, I’m, I’m curious your answer, how important do you think the old advice of bring a blanket home for the dog of smell like that smells like the baby.

How important do you think that is? 

I, I mean, the dog’s eventually gonna live alongside the child in a co-existent state for a long time. So, I mean, getting a jumpstart by letting the dog smell the blanket, I mean, it might make some, some difference, but you still have to go through, through all of the steps.

What I actually recommend my clients to do, if you know baby is coming, um, something that you could do to help prepare your dog is start getting the stroller out. You know, start playing baby crying sounds on your Alexa. You know, start having, making sure my Alexa doesn’t start playing stuff. Um, you know, uh, start, um.

Having the toys out, big noisy toys that are all over the place. Um, you know, uh, uh, start showing the dog, Hey, this is gonna be the baby’s room, or this is the baby’s crib. This is the baby’s bassinet. This is the baby’s swing. This is not your area. You know, the old, the old movie Turner and Hooch, did you guys ever grow up watching that?

Okay. Where he like, this is not your room, this is not your room. Like, I, I, you know, if you know you’re pregnant now, this is the time to start doing a lot of that stuff so that the dog already knows the rules of the house. The only new element is baby. So, I mean, if you wanted to introduce like smells and stuff, how quickly you can do that?

I don’t know. ’cause baby’s born and then you’re back home a couple of days later. You know how much time they have to smell a blanket or something like that. I don’t think it’s that much before baby’s actually home. 

I’m with you a hundred percent, but I’m assuming you get clients that ask you that pretty often and my advice to them usually is, it’s not worth you leaving the hospital dad or whoever to take the thing home for.

The dog is smell to come back for the little bit of maybe potential gain. It’s just not worth the answer. If that’s 

all we did. The dog is wildly unprepared. Like if we just brought the blanket home two days before, the dog is wildly unprepared. So I think having more concrete steps, um, would be really good.

I mean, teach your dog to walk with the stroller. Uh, you know, we, we have, uh, baby dolls and sometimes they creep us out, but we have like little baby dolls that scream and they cry and they walk and stuff like that. And we, we purposely put them, you know, if we have dogs that struggle with children or we know dog is going home from board and train to a baby or something like that, um, we have those things walking around, but you can get dolls.

That cry, that make noise, that move weird. You can put ’em in the stroller. You can, you know, uh, essentially try to recreate everything that the dog is gonna go through. Because when you come home with baby, you are zonked and baby is the 100% attention for quite a long time. And so the dog has to already kind of be on autopilot.

So you’ve got eight, nine months to really develop that with the dog so that you have more of that autopilot, and then you’re just kind of coaching the novelty of the baby at that point in time. And I think that’s a lot more concrete for people than, than just something that’s very abstract, like bringing a blanket home and letting the dog smell it.

So you have, I’m stuck on these dolls. You have dolls that walk around. That’s a thing. 

Yeah. Yeah. Um, they’re not super realistic looking. I mean, they look like dolls, uh, but they cry and they crawl. Um, and you know, I have ones that are like newborn size and I can hold them and they like move their arms and legs and they, they’ll make like crying sounds.

And then I have ones that are a little more like, like not, probably not the real size of a toddler, but you know, uh, a good, a foot and a half tall or so that walk. And they kind of have the, the little drunk person. They hold their little cup and they walk and they giggle and stuff like that. And, uh, I try to incorporate that anytime I know that dog is struggling with baby or baby’s on its way or anything like that.

We try to add a lot of that to our training here. 

Man, I want one of those walking ones. Turn that loose on my wife, like, sneak in the house and just send that thing after her. This, this 

is where they become really scary, is that they have motion sensors on them, and if you don’t shut them off, they just kind of have their, so when we first bought them, we had ’em for like a day and we didn’t know there was motion sensors on them.

And we put them in the, like the office on the far side, it’s all dark or whatever. And one of my employees was coming through to go lock the door. And this doll’s like, ha ha ha ha. Like, ’cause of the motion sensor in the dark just started coming towards her. That was the best. Um, but that’s wild. Yeah, they definitely, they catch you off guard sometimes if you don’t shut ’em off.

But they, I find they’re pretty valuable for the dog training. And then that’s another luxury of like being a dog trainer with kids. Like, get your kids in there. Like, get your, like my kid, she knows like, Leia, you’re gonna be bait today. Come on, come. Like, you’re gonna come work with this, uh, aggressive dog.

’cause we have a lot of systems that, that keep her totally safe. She knows the routine. Um, she’s very comfortable with it. She’s actually the kid in that video throwing the ball behind the gate. We have a dog who’s very aggressive towards children. Leia, get in here. We got a dog aggressive towards children and my staff will be like, can Leia come over after school?

Can Leia come in and do this with us? ’cause we’ve got this dog that needs to socialize with kids. She’ll come in and rest. She’ll bring her Nintendo switch, she’ll lay on the couch and we’ll have the dogs rest with her after they went on a nice long walk with her. She’ll throw the ball for them and stuff like that.

So having kids and obviously being smart about how you incorporate your kids into your training, but that’s also just, it’s like having a helper dog, but it’s a helper kid. It like, it’s so valuable. And then my husband is bait when the dogs are like male aggressive. It’s like, sweetie, come on. You gotta come be bait for this dog.

You know, that kind of thing. Um, so it’s nice to just have those things at your disposal. 

Does he also get a Nintendo Switch? 

Oh yeah, he has several. He has several. I think he would be totally thrilled to just sit down and, and play the Nintendo Switch and decompress with the dogs. You can’t be techie and not have a switch.

I just, you just can’t. 

The question is, does he have the switch too? 

He does. Okay. He does. We had that pre-ordered. He was down at GameStop, like we were, we were there. Same thing with the PS five. You know, we, we got that one right away too, so, yes. Uh, our, our house is, I’m learning how to be kind of like the gamer kind of person.

Um, but my, my kid, my husband, like, they’re definitely gamers and, uh, it’s, it’s cute to watch, you know, to watch the stories of the games and stuff like that. I just never grew up that way. Like I said, we had nothing, we had nothing, we didn’t grow up with like video games. We didn’t have a computer. We didn’t, we didn’t have any of that.

So it’s all very new to me, but, um, it’s cute to watch. Did you have dogs? I did have dogs growing up and we were the kind of family, and that’s part of what drove me to be more interested in dog training is we were the kind of family that dogs were outside animals and dogs did not leave your property.

Dogs did not go to the vet. We didn’t buy them dog food. They ate whatever was left over from table scraps and stuff like that. You know, that that’s what the dogs ate. We didn’t cut their nails, we didn’t clean their ears, we didn’t bathe. We never bathed them like they were filthy. They were disgusting. Um, and I loved dogs growing up.

Absolutely loved them. So. The only way I could hang out with my dogs is if I, I was stayed outside on our property with them, which I didn’t mind. Obviously. I loved hanging out with my dogs. I liked being out on our property. But as I became a teenager and I started doing more things, like, I was like, man, I, I wish I could take my dog out.

Um, I wish I could bring my dog with me, but our dogs, they were so reactive. They were like, if they saw another dog, like we had shepherds and stuff, like if they saw another dog, it was gonna be the end of the world. And I was like, I’m 13, I’m 14. I would love to take my dog, like walking with me and my friends to the park and stuff like that.

But I couldn’t do any of that. And so when I got a little bit older, uh, and I adopted my, my first dog, you know, of, of my own, you know, I was 18 years old. I adopted a dog from the Humane Society. I said, I want my dog to go absolutely everywhere with me. I wanna make sure that, that this dog can do everything with me.

I don’t want her to be a backyard dog. That, that doesn’t get to enjoy life and do all these things. And so that’s. Really what, what, you know, kind of started this whole thing. I was actually signed up and, and ready to go to, uh, school to be a veterinarian like that. Like I was in my first semester. That’s what I was doing.

And I, I remember googling, this is kind of back when YouTube was just getting started and like, like things were just not out there. And I, I remember googling like, how do you get a dog to walk on a leash? ’cause she just dragged me everywhere and it was very difficult to take her places. And videos started popping up of people, professional dog trainers, training dogs, and teaching you how to train your dogs.

And I said, are you kidding me right now? Like, I grew up so dirt poor. The concept of like, we’re going to pay someone to train our dog. I’m sorry. No, we’re not paying anything for the dog. Right. We’re probably not even paying anything for the kids either at that point. Um, so when I was like, people make money training dogs, like what in the world?

And so I had that in the back of my mind for a little while and um, I. You know, throughout my veterinary program, I started, you know, going in and, uh, like volunteering in in various different clinics and things like that. And I remember I saw a dog get hit by a car. This dog was just shattered, like, into a million pieces.

Like there, there’s no way this dog was gonna survive. And I saw the, the family bring the dog in and they were crying. And I’m just watching this dog that like ripped my heart out. And I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t have the stomach for this. Like, I cannot be a veterinarian. I could not look at that every day.

And so I started looking more at the videos, uh, like dog training, dog training. Like, I wanna work with dogs. Like I, I want to be with dogs all day, every day, and I wanna give them the freedom that I want my own dog to have. And it, it just turned into like a, just a downworld spiral. Like I didn’t look back after that.

So 

I feel like we’ve heard similar things from many dog trainers that they had dogs growing up that weren’t, that didn’t behave the way they wanted, or they, their first dog when they were 19. Was outta control and crazy. Yeah. And they made a vow of like, I’m never going through that again. And then it somehow turned into a job.

Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can totally see that. And, uh, what’s funny is, uh, it feels weird not to have a dog as a dog trainer. I, I had that dog, uh, for a while, but when I started becoming like, you know, a professional and getting very heavily into this and, and working full time at these facilities, I didn’t have a dog for a long time because I just hadn’t found the right dog for me.

And it’s so weird to go in and teach a group class or, or private sessions or something like that, and people are like, well, where’s your dog? What does your dog do? And I had to be like, well, I don’t actually have a dog. You know, I had like three years there where I didn’t have a dog, and I was like, I can’t do this anymore.

Like, I have to have a dog all the time, you know, even if it’s not the perfect dog for, you know, my business, I have to have a dog all the time. You know, it just, I felt naked for a while there, but, um. Yeah, it all started, all started with that dog and uh, I actually just put her down. Um, uh, last year. I lost three dogs last year.

Last year was rough, 

tough year. 

Yes. 

How many dogs do you have now? 

I just have my one, my main helper dog, Jen. Um, she’s about 10, so I’m on the market for gotta start training a new, new helper dog. So I’ve been, uh, doing a lot of work with the, all my dogs are from shelters and rescues, so I’ve been doing a lot of work with the shelters and rescues.

I’ve been doing a new show, little YouTube series that we’ve been filming, um, to try to give back to the rescues ’cause I feel bad when I’m there looking at their dogs and stuff like that, but trying to give back to them a little bit and showcase some of the dogs that they have. But, um, yeah, I’m looking, um.

You know, for my last helper dog, it took me probably two solid years of looking before I found the, the dog that I felt would be a good fit. So I’m in that process again. I, I’m really trying to do it before Jen gets too old. ’cause I really want her to help, help me teach this new dog how to do what she does.

But it’s gotta be the right dog. Otherwise, that dog then they can’t all do this work. Uh, it has to be, make sure that their quality of life is, is good and they enjoy doing what I do. 

So when you say helper dog, I’m assuming you’re using the dog for reactivity cases or aggression cases As a dog that can be under control and has a strong enough personality that it’s not gonna be terrified.

Yeah. Yeah. So they, they help with a lot of the socialization and things like that. Um, I used to have, you know, my three dogs, which was very helpful. I’d kind of have my little pack and then my, my staff has their helper dogs that we bring. So if we have this, you know, really aggressive dog that comes in that hates other dogs, we’ve got four or five nice stable dogs to, to, you know, walk with, to rest with, to play with, to learn socialization with.

And that just is a lot harder to do when you don’t have your own. Dogs that are very well trained, very well connected with you, it’s just a lot harder to do. Trying to use your board and train dogs that come through and, and create playgroups and stuff like that, it’s just a lot harder to do. So I always like to have, you know, two, three of my own dogs that are just there available to help in any way.

Um, ’cause without them, I just feel like I, I don’t deliver as good of a product for my clients. 

I can understand that, Jason. I still feel like I’m, I’m hogging the mic here. Capitalizing. 

What was that? Capitalizing. So I wanna, I wanna, uh, I’ll switch gears a little bit. I’m just curious, uh, so you, you train people, sounds like, um, tell us a little bit about that, if you will.

When you say train people, are you talking about like other dog trainers? 

Trainers? Yeah. 

Yeah. Um, well, I would say one of my gifts as. Just a person and a trainer is, um, I’m good at teaching. Um, I might even be better at teaching than I am at training. Um, but I, I have the gift of teaching and, um, I’ve been, you know, working with other trainers, uh, since 2019.

Um, my head trainer that works with me here, she was actually the very first shadow student that I took on, um, in the beginning of 2019. So, um, I’ve been teaching dog training for a long time, obviously to clients, but two other trainers for the last six years. And, um. You know, over time have really created a system and a program, uh, to help dog trainers learn and grow in the industry.

And because it’s been going so long, you know, we’ve had a lot of trial and error. What’s working, what’s, what’s clicking, what’s, what’s helping them progress, what’s helping them understand, uh, what’s the clearest way for me to explain things? What’s the best examples I can give? We’ve had a lot of opportunities for trial and error with all of that.

Um, and so we’ve been offering that service since, like I said, 2019. And each year I would open more seats for that particular program. And, you know, every year the moment I publish it, it’s full. And so the next year I open even more seats and the moment I publish it, it’s full and the next year. Right. Um, and so as of last year and the year before, I would say half of our business was teaching.

Other dog trainers and then teaching people who wanted to become dog trainers. So, um, it’s a, it’s a pretty refined system that we have now, and it’s, um, something that we’re very comfortable doing that, that we’ve grown into this. And, um, it’s, it’s pretty much the forefront of our business now is training people how to become dog trainers or training people who are already trainers, um, to be even better in the avenue of pet dogs, specifically behavioral pet dogs.

What do you feel like your biggest challenge is with teaching new people? Um, when it comes to, well, I guess specifically to behavior cases, I’ve got my own ideas about it. I do, we, we train people too, and, and behavior, behavior stuff seems to be, because of the complexities of it, it oftentimes seems to be one of the more challenging things, I think, to convey some.

Some parts of it to people. I think 

it, it can be really challenging because if we’re looking at things like obedience or we’re looking at dogs that are more stable or have better genetics and things like that, or, or dealing with much more minor problems, a lot of the problem solving is black and white, and it’s a lot easier to teach that to people, um, because they, they can just follow a formula fairly well and still have pretty good results when we get into behavior.

The po the problem solving is very gray. Um, so you have to be able to really think outside the box. You have to be able to challenge, uh, what you think, you know, you have to be able to challenge what you’ve been taught and you have to really, uh, zero in on the dog in front of you. So it, it requires a lot more complex problem solving to be able to do that.

And that’s hard to teach because. It isn’t a black and white blueprint, right? It’s not do A, B, C, and D and you will have e as a result. And so we have to come from a lot of different perspectives in order for people to understand how to thoroughly problem solve with behavioral dogs. And we try to do that in our programs.

We try to come from, um, you know, a lot of different lights to help people know when they should be pushing, when they should be laying off. Um, you know, when we should be thinking of something completely new, when we should just stick with the, the, the way of doing it because the system works and it eventually will work.

And I think the only way that we can do that is by having a, a, a teacher who has a fair amount of experience to be able to teach from those multiple different perspectives. Um, sometimes if you’re just, um, you know, if you’re, maybe you take an online course or you’re, um. You know, reading a book or something like that.

And then the, the author is, um, somebody who doesn’t really live in that field, right? Maybe they, they all, you know, all they do is this and, but they’re gonna go over here and talk about behavioral issues or they are gonna come talk about behavioral issues, but they don’t really train dogs themselves, right?

Um, sometimes we don’t get enough perspectives for the new student to truly grasp what it is that we’re trying to do. And then, of course, experience, uh, for the students is highly valuable too, which is why my number one advice is get out and touch as many dogs as you can possibly touch. You have to get comfortable in the gray in order to learn how to problem solve the gray.

Because if all you ever do is stay within the black and white, the gray is always gonna seem intimidating and stressful and overwhelming, and you’re not gonna have the success with your clients that you were hoping for. 

I feel like people, and I’ve been, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this, I guess, over the last six months, but you know, it seems like people struggle.

Not everybody, but we we’re, seems like I’m seeing more people come through the program who struggle with nuance and, you know, how, how do I better convey that? Because that seems to be one of the bigger challenges is again, the nuance of dog training and behavior problems. 

Yeah. And with our, with our programs that we offer, we, we were like, well, we’ll just, we’ll just offer one program and it’ll just be like this just heavy hitting program.

And then you’d see people go through it and you’re like, they get it, but they don’t get it. They, they caught the macro, but they didn’t catch the micro, right? And so you’re like, okay, well now I’m gonna split the program again and it’s gonna be part macro, part micro, and the next one’s part macro, part part micro.

And you’re like, they still don’t get it right? And so our programs had to kind of keep splitting and splitting and splitting. Um, so that we are essentially spoonfeeding these students the ability to problem solve, the ability to think outside the box, the ability to get comfortable in that gray zone so that when they do finally reach that final program and they are dealing with aggression cases, resource guarding, et cetera, they are pretty comfortable moving in between the black and white and the gray, right?

They’ve had that opportunity to have those aha moments and have that kind of spoonfed because when we tried to do it all at once, it. Half of it goes over their head and you know, the old saying is you don’t know what you don’t know. And they don’t know that half of it is going over their head. So we found that we got a lot more of those light bulb moments by spoonfeeding over time.

And I guess it’s like with, with any industry, with any skill, it’s gonna take time. You’re, you’re not gonna be able to go from, you know, student to master in a year or two years or something like that. It is a slow process of growth and understanding. And I tell my students is that, you know, we go through phases in, in dog training.

I know I did. And I, I’ve seen a lot of other, uh, trainers that have some years under their belt where in the beginning you were so focused on like. You know, uh, uh, following a checkbox like that, that was your thing. You were check boxing, and then you went into this phase where like you get really deep into theory, right?

And you’re like, you’re just so deep that when you’re talking to your clients, they’re like, what? Like, I didn’t sign up for that. And then you get to this stage where you’re like, dog training’s actually very simple, right? And if we go back to the simplicity of it, like for instance, like I’m, I tell my clients we’re gonna rest most of the day, and honestly, we’re gonna have more success resting most of the day than we would if we were like, you know, we’ve gotta dive into all of these theories and we’ve gotta do all of these things.

Like we kind of make this arc and we come back to this phase where it’s more simple than we make it out to be. But you wouldn’t get there unless you went through all of the other stuff. Like you wouldn’t get to that point where you’re just like, I can tread water in the gray all day. Like, I’m totally comfortable here.

I’m relaxed here. Like, if this dog is just completely losing its mind. Okay, well there’s a process that we go through, right? And it’s much easier to convey it to your clients, to convey it to the students and things like that. But I think people who actually wanna be in this industry, they’re gonna go through kind of a growth pattern and eventually get there.

But I think the knowledge, the skill, the experience is what gets you to that point where you’re like, this is so much simpler than we originally made it out to be. Does that make sense?

I think with new trainers in particular, and I think this maybe applies to everything, the human brain is very good at basically lying to you, right? Where you feel like you understand something, nothing’s real until it’s real. Yeah. Right. Whether it’s dog training, your first aid, a new job, whatever. You’re like, I can do this, this is fine.

And then all of a sudden when you actually do it, you’re like, oh crap, this is not fine. I have so many questions. 

Yeah. And 

I’ve seen that with train new trainers where they learn a lot about how to handle a reactivity case or whatever. Yeah. Then they get that dog on leash and they’re like, oh crap, this is real.

Yeah. What do I do? And, 

and, and that’s why I love, like, get out there, work as many, as many dogs as you possibly can, like, get out there and feel it under your fingertips and trial and error and find new things and, and. You know, uh, think constructively, think critically, right? We have a tendency to either blame the dog completely or blame ourselves completely.

Like there’s probably a mixture in there, right? And really starting to analyze what’s going on without letting your emotions take over. Um, you know, and then it, you’re gonna sidestep a lot of problems that other people go through, but without touching tons and tons and tons of dogs, you don’t know what you don’t know, right?

And, you know, you can hand someone a book on how to play the violin. Well, they can feel totally confident that they know how to play the violin after reading that book. And then you put the violin in their hands and they say, what is this thing? Like, I don’t even know what to do with this. Um, so I always, you know, again, tell my students, it’s like it’s good to be a perpetual student.

You’re always learning, you’re always growing, you’re always remaining humble, right? You’re always striving to, to deliver the next level to your clients and do better by the dogs. However, you can’t. Always be a perpetual student, right? We have to actually start executing even before we think we’re ready.

We actually have to start getting out there and executing because that’s where that true understanding is gonna start taking place. We can’t read the books forever. We can’t watch the videos forever. We can’t take the written test forever. You have to get out there and start applying and problem solving because every new dog that you touch teaches you something new and some of them absolutely put you in your place and put your foot in your mouth.

I’ll probably sign up a dog next week that’s gonna make me completely question everything I thought about dog training. And it happens, right? And that’s how we continue to grow and shape and, and, and do stuff. And every dog that does that to us adds another tool in our toolbox. So when a client comes to you and they say, okay.

You said do A, B, and C, but it’s not actually working. Like, what else can I do? And you can say, guess what? I’ve had 30 of those that have, we’ve had to come from this angle, or this angle, or this angle, or this angle, right? And you can really be that person with the information that they need and the skills that they need to navigate that gray area.

Stephanie, what you said right there, I think can only come from experience and confidence. The ability to tell a client, I don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen, especially with the behavioral case, right? I can’t tell you exactly what we’re gonna do through this entire process. I can give you overarching, you know, what we’re gonna do, but we’re gonna see what works.

We’re gonna tweak, we’re gonna, we’re gonna do a lot of different things and see what works best. I think that might be hard, or I know it’s hard for a lot of new trainers where then they feel like, well, if I change my plan, they’re gonna think I failed in that first one and I didn’t know what I was doing.

Yeah. I, I would say I had that problem in the beginning, you know, and that’s where sometimes our pride gets in the way. Um, and we think it’s, we already have to admit that we were wrong. But I think the more that you get into this, it’s, it’s, you know, no different than. You go to a doctor and you’re like, I have neck pain.

And they’re like, okay, well what about A, B, C, D, E, FG? And you’re like, yes to this, no to this, yes to this, no to this. Okay, well let’s start here. And you say, okay, here isn’t working. Okay, well let’s shift it and let’s move here. Okay, here isn’t working right? And then eventually you find the right path. And so when I deal with my clients now, I tell them.

You didn’t necessarily hire me to train your dog, and you didn’t necessarily hire me to train you, because that’s gonna be kind of a lifelong process, right? You guys are gonna continue to grow together. You’re gonna continue to learn together. Mostly what you hired me for was to find the roadmap that works best for both of you, and you hired me to problem solve along the way.

Now when you’re in my board and train, okay, that means I have to be the dumb one who has to get in front of the lunging dog over and over and over again to find the path so that you don’t necessarily have to do that. So you can just recreate what I’ve done. But that’s most of my job, is to create the roadmap where it says, this is how your dog learns best.

This is how you learn best. These are the things to avoid. These are the things to push on. Um. That’s what gives them the, the recipe that they repeat over and over and over again throughout that dog’s life because they learned what, what is working and what isn’t. And sometimes that’s our biggest job as the dog trainer is to problem solve and to, to find the easiest way of learning for both entities.

I’m with you on the problem solving. I feel like that’s 95% of most tough cases. 

It really is. It’s all problem solving. And if you’re not willing to put down your pride and say Everything I know is not working, I now have to reach outside of my comfort zone and, and try things that I’ve never done before.

If we’re not willing to do that, I think we. We put a lot of dogs’, lives at risk, um, a lot of families at risk. Um, so we have to just kind of have, constantly be seeking ways to get to the answer. And sometimes those ways are things that are completely out of, you know, your ballpark, and you have to start getting comfortable with those in order to deliver to your clients more effectively.

So how would you coach a new trainer on being able to explain that to a client? Because I think all of this is easier when you have a long track record, when you have a reputation where the person’s a referral or, or you trained their previous dog and they know that you know what you’re talking about, it’s a lot easier.

Right. To not worry about the pride. What would your advice be to a trainer who’s really new? How do they navigate those conversations where they don’t have that long track record? 

Yeah. Uh, maybe part of it is, uh, maybe not get yourself in that situation until you have a little bit of stuff under your belt.

You know, start with those easy dogs, get those reviews, you know, really perfect your communication skills. Um, get some of that word of mouth. And now we’re taking on the, the reactivity case. So when somebody says, okay, well. Why, why were the first three or four sessions, like, mostly like shifting things around and problem solving.

Like, why didn’t we get to the heart of the issue? They can say something like, well, we had to decide what was gonna work best for your dog, or something like that. And then the person who hired them was like, well, I, I see that you have good reviews. I see that you’ve been in business a little while. I’ve seen a lot of the dogs that you’ve trained the before and afters on social media.

My friend spoke really highly of you. My vet said something about you, so I’m gonna go ahead and trust there. Right? That, that’s one thing. Um, but another thing that I think young trainers have to be willing to do is under promise and over deliver, right? So don’t make it out in the beginning, like when you’re trying to sell somebody, don’t oversell yourself because then you have to backtrack and you have, uh, all of this, um, pressure on you, right?

Under deliver or, uh. Um, under promise and then over deliver. So be like, you know, just be honest before I even hire you. You know, the first three or four sessions might be a lot of problem solving, right? Because I don’t know what’s wrong with your dog, right? I can’t tell in a one hour evaluation everything that goes on with your dog.

No different than I can tell everything about you from a one hour conversations, right? We’re gonna share, you know, uh, preliminary shared experiences. We’re gonna share, you know, um, similar ideologies, but I don’t know your hopes and dreams. I don’t know your deepest, darkest secrets, and I won’t after an hour.

So the same thing with your dog. The more I get to know them, the easier I can kind of guide you on that way. If you sell it like that rather than one and done. If we don’t get perfect results after one session, your money back, right? And then you’re like. Then we’ve gotta deal with all of that. It’s okay to under promise and then work your butt off to over deliver, because that’s the five star review in the end.

Anybody that you over promise to and then you’re constantly scrambling to, to keep up with that, that’s your two star review at the end, or your one star review at the end. Um, you know, uh, uh, you can paint them the more bleak, uh, you know, more challenging concept first, and then build up and flourish into something much better, which is kind of the, the road that I’ve taken in my career.

It’s just, I always keep it very realistic and, and down to earth. And then I try to blow them out of the water, right? I try to far exceed any expectation that I set in their head to begin with. To try to really, really, one for business purposes is, is try to elevate my business and my reputation. 

Seems like That’s a good point.

’cause it seems like a lot, particularly with newer folks getting into the industry, that seems to be the one they struggle with. You know, it seems like, and I think I might have mentioned this on a previous episode with somebody else, but it seems like they’re oftentimes very uncomfortable about the potential of walking into someone’s home and not immediately having the answer.

Uh, and, and it, and it, I think for some, not all, but I think for some it, it paralyzes them. 

Yeah. 

In a, in a sense, because, you know, again, like I said, they’re just so afraid that they’re not gonna have this. Instant solution. And, you know, you said it, I’ll, I’ll phrase it a little different, but, uh, I mean, you said it earlier, there’s unfortunately, there’s no substitute for experience.

Yeah. You know, you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna get 10 years of experience in a, uh, 10 week class. You know, it’s gonna take 10 years. Yeah. And you know, I think another big takeaway, and it’s one that I’ve mentioned to a lot of people over the years, put your hands on as many dogs as you can. Mm-hmm. You know, if all your training’s golden retrievers, you can get really good at training golden retrievers.

Or, you know, in Matt’s case. French bulldogs and doodles. Right. You’re, you’re the Matt’s the king of, of the east characters. Yeah. But everyone’s different. 

Everyone is different French doodle, 

but, um, yeah, I mean, dealing with, um, dealing with shelties and dealing with corso or just two different ball games.

Yeah. Yeah. Totally different. And I, there, I don’t know if there’s a right kind of advice for young trainers is, you know, you’re gonna have to have a really nice mix of confidence and humility, um, when you’re, when you’re going through the whole process. And truthfully, it’s no different whether you’ve been training five days, five years, or 50 years.

Uh, a healthy balance of confidence and humility is truthfully what it takes to, to be successful in any of this. 

Yeah. And I think, uh, the ability to effectively communicate, I think is one that goes a long way. You know, and just being, just being honest with people and saying, Hey, look, you know. 

I 

think, I think that goes a long way to create trust from potential clients or new clients real early on.

Absolutely. And this, this jumps all the way back to the having kids and, and like really connecting with the humanity. I mean, it’s, it’s okay to talk to your clients like your people, right? It it, you’re not talking at your clients, you’re talking to your clients. Um, you know, there’s been a couple, there’s been cases in my career where I’m like, I don’t know.

Like, I don’t know. I don’t know the answers, but I know that I’m committed and I know that I’m not gonna give up, but I don’t have the answers right now. And I say, let’s work together. Let’s really try to, you know, dial things in and see what we can do. And it’s gonna take some trial and error, but I think more often than not, um.

People are going to connect with that rather than they’re gonna run away from it. Meaning like, your client isn’t just gonna run for the hills because you said you’re a little bit stumped on something, or that you’re gonna have to take time to figure something out. I, I don’t think that they’re like that.

I think sometimes that puts you both on the, the same level and they feel a little bit more common ground with you sometimes when you show a little bit of that vulnerability. So I don’t think that that’s a bad thing, and I think doing so will create emotional growth in you as a person and as a trainer.

Yep. Great point. 

And that’s right back to communication. Right. Being able to describe that and explain to them, I don’t know for sure why he bit your other dog last night. I wasn’t there. I can’t say with certainty and I like to explain to people. There’s times where I like to think about it a little bit.

Like I could give you an answer right now that would sound good, but let me dwell on it for a little while and really think about it to make sure that I’m not giving you the quick answer. And then people respect that, right? They, yeah. Why would you want the quick answer? You want the right answer? 

Yeah.

Could, could be totally wrong. Could be the totally wrong pathway that you start going down and mm-hmm. At the end of the day, your client is hiring you because they, they want to get back to a state of peace with their dogs, you know? And nobody wants to go in the wrong direction or pay to go in the wrong direction.

So, you know, having forethought I think is very valuable for any dog trainer. 

Absolutely. So right now, I mean, at least for me, I know my career, my interests have changed through times and they always do about like what gets me fired up on a given day, week, month right now. Like what is your most, like, what’s your favorite thing to do, like training wise, behavioral wise?

Like what gets you going, what makes you excited? 

You know, I, I feel like things are kind of coming full circle, uh, for me now. My early years of my career, it, it was very, very heavily, you know, being in the shelters and the rescues and as our business grew, I fell away from that a little bit because there was just so much, there was just so much to do here, you know, not not just being a trainer, but being the owner of the company.

There’s just so much to do. Um, I fell away from that and, you know, I got really heavy into aggression cases and really heavy into anxiety cases and, you know, really heavy into nutrition and stuff like that. Um, you know, now I’m, you know, coming back down and things are, uh, a little bit more autopilot for us now.

I don’t, I don’t have to micromanage as much now that the business is where it is. And, um, I find myself going back to the shelter and rescue dogs and, and really, you know, wanting to spend time there. Just the simplicity of it, connecting with these dogs, you know, working to help get them adopted. Um, working on helping the staff, uh, have better understanding of dog behavior, maybe helping them create some more systems and things like that.

Um, so that’s where my heart is being drawn right now is, is getting back to those, those roots. And, you know, that’s again, part of the little YouTube series that we’re creating. But, um, you know, for instance, not next week, but the week after that, um. There’s a shelter near us that wants to start, uh, creating playgroups, uh, for some of the long-term dogs that are there.

Uh, they’ve got a, a bunch and they, they want help, you know, evaluating temperaments and evaluating behaviors and finding what dogs might do well, socializing together and stuff like that so that, because dogs are social animals, you know, the longer that they stay there and the longer that they’re deprived of, you know, social components, the more that they struggle.

And so we’re going up there and we’re gonna help them establish their playgroups and, and work with the staff and work with the various dogs and stuff like that. And that’s where I feel being pulled right now. And, um, I’m really, really looking forward to now having more time to do that and, and really having more experience, a lot more experience now to, to be able to, uh, come in and, and much more effectively help these shelters and these rescues, so that, that’s where my path is leading right now.

That’s great. I mean, getting those dogs plain, of course, like you said, is gonna do wonders for getting them adopted. 

Yeah, yeah. And just their mindsets overall. 

Mm-hmm. It shelters have a tough gig trying to Oh my goodness, manage that many dogs and you have so little time for each dog, and then they don’t get nearly the exercise or stimulation they need.

And then you’re trying to adopt ’em out when Yeah. They’re pent up and frustrated 

people, people who volunteer or, or, you know, uh, work in shelters, um, above and beyond rescues. Like, rescues that a little bit different, right. We’ve got a lot of foster homes and stuff like that, but people are actually in a shelter where, you know, all the dogs are in kennels and right there, like, I mean, they are climbing an uphill battle all the time.

All the time. Mm-hmm. I just don’t think these workers get the credit that they deserve. Like, that is a tough, tough job, but they’re there every day. They give 110%. I just, I wanna be them when I grow up. I think that would be, I think that would be pretty cool. But, um, yeah, they think they, any way that we can give back to, uh, organizations like that I think is a good thing.

So I’m curious. I, you know, I do a lot of training in different parts of the country and I see different breeds are popular in different areas and I always find that so interesting. So I can’t find a rhyme or reason what’s popular. I’ve spent zero time in Idaho. So what breeds are popular there and what are your shelters full of?

Uh, shelters are lots of pits. Pits, uh, Husky mixes, shepherd mixes. That’s a, a lot of it, you, you have to think, uh, you know, up here, I would say what’s popular for people to own is probably longer haired dogs. Uh, it gets real cold here in the winter, so. I see lots and lots of shepherds, uh, doodles, huskies, stuff like that, um, up here.

And then we also have, you know, a lot of mixture of, you know, farmland and then, you know, more urban style stuff. And so, yeah, it, it’s a mixture here. Um, but like the shorter hair, dogs don’t do super well here, us, so the, the most shorthaired dogs we usually see are pits. They’re, they’re just all over the place.

Um, not necessarily owned by people, but in the shelters, just through the roof. But lots of, uh, shepherd mixes, lots of dobie mixes. Lots of husky mixes. I’d say that’s what a lot of people around here own. You get in the more bougie areas, you’re gonna see a lot of goldens and doodles and stuff like that.

But, uh, you know, just the common man, they’ve got a lot of, a lot of those types of dogs. 

So a lot of huskies, huh? 

Yeah, lot. Lots of huskies. Um, one of the rescues that we work very closely with, she actually provides the dogs for our certification programs when the students, uh, have to come in and work dogs.

She’s got like, she’s got like 80 dogs in her sanctuary and I would say probably like 30 or 40 of them are huskies. 

That’s a lot of huskies. Yeah. That’s Which is 

wild because all of her huskies are the most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’m like, I have, I have never dealt with a well-behaved husky, ever.

And you have like 40 of ’em out on your property. Like, what are you feeding them out here? ’cause I, I would like some of that. 

I think what I’ve seen, I’ve never once had a client who got a husky and really wanted a husky. They get ’em. ’cause they’re cute. I’ve never had one. Yeah, 

they’re, they’re pretty. Yeah.

I don’t know. This might offend like husky people, but does anybody really want the temperament of a husky when you go to like, look for a dog? Does anyone truly want the temperament of a husky? I don’t know. I don’t particularly want the temperament of a husky, but 

I don’t think people know it until they’ve had one I I or trained one or spent time with one.

I don’t think they know it. I think they never see past the fur. 

I, I guess so. Yeah. Huskies are their, are their own breed, uh, in and of themselves, like, you know, but truthfully, this is. Don’t know, maybe this just comes with training a lot of them, but I think that golden retrievers and huskies are just like one genetic component away from being the same dog, right?

We’ve got the super needy and then the more aloof. But aside from that, like everything else, like the worst resource garters I’ve ever seen, Huskies and goldens, the worst crate aggression I’ve ever seen. Huskies and goldens like, like when their genetics are off, they’re like the same mess. Uh, where, you know, uh, if I had a serious resource guarder, I’d rather deal with the serious resource guarding pit, um, over, you know, the, the serious resource guarding Husky, because they’re, they’re usually just very, very different when they present.

And I’m not talking about like. The learned resource garters, where you give ’em a handful of corrections and they’re like, oh, you don’t want me to do that? No, I don’t want you to do that. I’m talking about like the really deep seated, um, serious resource garters that have been that way since four weeks old.

You know? Um, I see so much similarities between huskies and, and goldens in there is just very interesting. And granted again, I get all the basket cases, like I don’t ever get to see like the well-rounded happy go-lucky ones. I get all the basket cases, but in those, you know, kind of broken dogs, I see a lot of similarities.

Similarities between the goldens and the Huskies. 

Goldens have behavioral issues.

I don’t know that we’ve ever talked about that on the podcast. 

Oh my gosh. 

Yeah. Um, I’d say a lot of golden issues are learned. Uh, they’re really, really pushy, demanding dogs and they get away with way too much ’cause they’re cute. So we got a lot of learned behavioral problems, but because they’re so wildly overbred.

The genetics are so terrible. You do get serious behavioral problems with goldens. You do get really, really nasty ones and, and people are like, I can’t believe a golden is, is that intense? They can be, yeah. Anything that’s so overbred and the genetics are so far from what they should be, we can get really, really intense dogs.

So it doesn’t have to be, you know, a Roddy or a Pit or you know, a Connie or something like that. It doesn’t have to be like, the golden can be just as intense as the Doby mix right next door if the genetics are, are truly skewed with which, which they are now just with Overbreeding, backyard breeding and all the other issues that we have.

Well, since you opened the door, it’s a golden bashing. Uh, nothing, nothing at all scientific about this, but I’m just kind of curious from either one of you what your take is on it or if you have an opinion, but we do a lot of goldens. Uh, I’ve been dealing with goldens for a super long time and, and it seems to be two different sort of breeds within the breed.

So I, I look at Border Collies the same way. Yeah. And it, it, it appears to me that we saw this frequency of behavioral issues rise with the, um, quest, I guess, to make these things bigger, stronger, and whiter. And it, and it just seems the wider they are, the worse, worse that the show. And that’s just my opinion.

Just the more 

the show line took over, the more behavioral issues we got. 

Yeah, my, my, my saying with goldens is the redder the better. 

Yeah. No, the, the, we’ve got, you know, English creams that come in constantly and as soon as someone says I have an English cream, I’m like, okay, we’re gonna have resource gardening.

We’re gonna have like, you just go down the list. Um, but yeah, like, and truthfully what they were bred for too, when you see true working field retrievers, um, coming from those lines as opposed to these dogs that are just, you know, very developed for show and they’re big and they’re clunky and stuff like that, you see a lot more of the behavioral issues over here.

You know, you can see frustration issues that, you know, kind of come down these other lines. Obviously they’re drier and stuff like that, but as far as deep genetic issues, they’re not there as much, you know? So I do agree with you. You get that dark red, golden, you’re probably gonna have learned behaviors, but not necessarily deep genetic behaviors.

And then we go all the way to the other spectrum. You got these English creams and. Yeah, we’re probably dealing with, uh, learned behaviors, but all be probably a strong genetic component too. We’ve weakened the lines just too much. 

You work with, um, Pyrenees, either of you work with Great Pyrenees Very much.

Yeah. Yeah. 

You ever see any resemblances between the Pyrenees and those big white golden retrievers? Not that anybody would mix that with a golden, I’m not saying that they did. I’m just saying it appears to me that they have some similarities in their behavior. 

Okay. I was gonna say, you’re talking about looks or behavior, but yeah, I do do see, uh, yeah.

Um. Yeah, well, uh, the, I brought up the resource guarding as I noticed that the, the lighter the breed, significantly more territorial they are, but coming from a territorial component or aspect from insecurity, right? You deal, you have territorialness and insecurity, and we’ve got this like, nasty, nasty combo.

Whereas a Pyrenees might be dealing with, you know, territorial behaviors, but coming from a state of more confidence, you mix it with the golden, and then you get kind of, I don’t know, these slinky, explosive, dangerous dogs. And, uh, yeah, it can be, it can be challenging. So I, when people are like, well, what breed do you recommend to someone who’s never owned a dog?

And they, they have a brand new family. I say, go to the rescue. Find the dog that’s been living in a foster home that has kids and cats and, and birthday parties and all these other types of things, and is thriving there. That’s the dog that you adopt. Well, what if it’s, what if it’s not the kind of dog that we want?

What if it’s not a golden retriever or something like that? You don’t want the golden retriever that’s gonna attack your kids over the bone and the food and everything else. Get the dog that already thrives in the lifestyle that you plan on living. 

Yep. Good advice. 

Going back to goldens or just breeds in particular?

I really do think there’s something to be said for where you live. And what I mean by that is there’s not that many breeders, right, of, of each particular breed. The English creams, I’m outside of Nashville, the English creams are amazing. I don’t ever see those for behavior cases, but our trainers and other, other, uh, cities and other and other states see it quite a bit.

Yeah, 

I see a lot of really messed up oodles and in the Nashville area, the oodles are getting crazier by the day and the smaller they are, the crazier the, the crazier they are. And that’s been a, a big change, but some places aren’t seeing that as much. And yeah, I really do feel like you have a mid-size city.

Maybe you have whatever, 10 breeders within, you know, a five hour drive where people are actually gonna get a dog from. If they’re all good breeders, you might be home free. Yeah. And if five of those are sketchy breeders, then you’re gonna have some crazy, whatever, pick your breed in your area. 

Yeah. Um, I don’t, I mean, I know we have a lot of backyard breeders.

We have small breeders, which got like a handful of quality breeders. Um, and when I say our area, I’m talking about like inland northwest, not just like my town. Um, but I don’t know, uh, like the quality of the dogs that come from them all that much because most of my clientele is coming from out of our area.

Actually only 20% of our clientele comes from like the inland Northwest area. We get lots of people from Canada, from California, you know, Florida, east coast area. So I, it would be harder for me to, to like see those patterns. Sure. Um, but I, I know we have a mixture here, but if I have a really, really quality breeder, um, that’s producing really quality lines and really quality genetics.

I don’t usually see any of those dogs ’cause we’re, this is the behavioral building. Like, you know, if this dog is just stable from the beginning, they’re not usually coming here. Right? Because that’s not our reputation. So we’re usually seeing more of the backyard breeders, the shelter rescue dogs, like we’re getting a lot of those in so we don’t see, you know, those really, really nice lines come through here.

’cause they don’t, you don’t usually have deep issues. So. 

Yeah, that makes sense. If you’re focused on all behavioral cases, you’re not gonna see the easy ones. 

Yeah, that’s true. And, and sometimes that skews how I see certain breeds because I only see, I only see the broken ones, you know what I mean? And, and so when I go out to that rescue that’s, that’s by me and they’ve got like few 40 amazing Husky, husky mixes that are like the calmest, sweetest, like most social dogs.

I’m just blown away by it. ’cause I don’t see any of those. You know, we went out there just a couple of months ago and just spent the day out there and I was like, these dogs are amazing. I wanna take every one of them home. But I don’t think I can handle that level of hair so much hair. 

My shepherds are bad.

What you said. That’s how I. That’s how I feel about Chows. I’ve never met a nice chow. I’m sure they exist, but the only ones I get calls on have bit their owner every single time. 

You know, truthfully, that’s kind of how I feel about Bulldogs. Uh, not like Frenchies, but actually, you know, English bulldogs is, I don’t ever meet nice ones.

Like I always meet nasty ones. And then I see the hilarious videos of like the nice ones online. And then you see like, you know, um, uh, one of the, the basketball teams near us is Gonzaga. I don’t know if you guys watch college basketball, uh, but their mascot is like a bulldog and he’s awesome, or she’s awesome ’cause it’s, it’s changed over the years.

So social and stuff like that. And I’m like, why don’t I ever get to meet those ones? Like they’re always going for my, like, trying to rip the artery out of my inner thigh. You know what I mean? I don’t get to see those ones very often. 

Yeah, we don’t see the bulldogs that like to skateboard. We see the bulldogs that are trying to attack the skateboard of the Yeah, they wanna kill the skateboard.

I 

know, I know. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, it’s nice to be able to hang around stable dogs when you can. ’cause um, sometimes you forget that they’re out there. 

Random question, ’cause I’ve seen your logo on social and you got it on your shirt. Why, why doman? 

You know, it wasn’t, uh, the breed specifically when we first came up with this kind of polygonal look.

It had, you know, AI and all these other things has made it so much easier now. But when we came up with this many, many years ago, and we, you know, the idea of our logo is we’re rebuilding the dog. So we’re kind of, here’s like the, the scaffolding and the restructuring, we’re rebuilding the dog. Um, we went through a million different breeds, like, you know, and stuff like that.

And. Anything that had more rounded ears or down ears. The down ears, it looked like a blob on your shirt. The more rounded up ears, like even more of a shepherding type look, it, it looked like a teddy bear kind of. And we’re like, like, we want something that’s crisp and clean, that’s really captivating, that really showcases what our business does.

Um, and we pulled the doberman up with the cropped ears and we’re like, like that pops, that pops the way that we wanted it to. So I really wanted more of a shepherding look ’cause my dogs are shepherds and stuff like that. But it just, it just kept coming out looking like a teddy bear more, more so. So I was like, we’re just gonna have to go with the really crisp, clean doberman look.

So it’s not that we’re like, you know, diehard dobies or anything like that. I love dobies just as much as the next person. But, um, you know, it was more for the look than it was the breed.

Gotta choose something. I know we’ve seen that with, when we do marketing and people are like, on the team, we’re like, that’s too shepherd. Yeah. So you switch and they’re like, that’s too cuddly. 

Yeah. Yeah. It, you can’t win. It took, it took a while. It’s hard. But now, now with, you know, some of the, the new, uh, you know, editing programs and some AI and stuff like that, we’ve, uh, we’re gonna, we’re gonna start launching some more merch with different dogs on it.

But man, they look so cool now and you can definitely see like, that is a husky. Like that is a shepherd and you can really, really see it. Um, but as far as our official logo, it’ll probably always just stay the doberman. That’s 

Matt. You need to redo your, uh, wicker your logo. Put the mini bernedoodle in it.

I need to. You know, Stephanie, Jason was saying that earlier about Frenchies. I see so many now it’s they’ve, they’ve become so popular in my area. It’s like I laugh, I’m like a Frenchy trainer. It’s ludicrous how many I see. They pay the bills. 

Yeah. Whatever. Pays the bills. I mean that’s, that’s what it comes down to is part of why we get in the industry.

Mm-hmm. And there’s something really nice about working with, I used to work all behavior cases, and then you start working with more puppies and you’re like, this is really refreshing. And it’s just, I can go home 

and sleep at night. Like my body is not destroyed. My mind is not destroyed. Yeah. I hear you.

And you’re not, like, you’re worried when you’re worried about your client. You’re like, I hope they’re watching the dog and he doesn’t pee on the rug. I know that would annoy them as opposed to, I hope they’re watching their dogs and making sure they don’t kill each other or bite their kid or whatever.

Yes, yes. And, and that’s actually a a, a very sobering talk that I have to have with students and, and things like that is to remind them that. You probably don’t want to do behavioral all day every day. Right? It, it is, it’s just a massive toll. Like you, you, if you love behavioral, great. Make it a third of your business.

Um, but beyond that, it, it can become so taxing that you lose your passion. And so, yeah, that, that’s something that young trainers can sometimes have a hard time understanding ’cause they’re so fresh and new and they’ve got so much vitality to them that it’s like, but if you wanna do this for the longevity of your career, have a mixture, have a nice mixture at at least, you know, half and half.

Otherwise, you’re, you’re gonna get burned out. Your staff is gonna get burned out. It, it’s a lot. 

Well, do we wanna pivot into your current offerings? I know you explained a little bit of what you do, but anything new coming out, anything you’re really excited about that you’d like others to hear about? 

Uh, I don’t have anything new, um, coming out ’cause we just, we just started the, the, like that’s the logo.

We just started the Method Canine Institute, um, which is a school and, um, you know, we launched it, uh, for the average dog owner a couple years ago and then we launched it, um, the section for actual people who wanna become dog trainers or trainers who want to learn more. Um, and so that only launched in January.

So our focus right now is, is on that school, is on our students, um, is really refining that system. Um, so that we’re offering a really quality education to anybody who, um. Is looking to get into this industry and, um, just making sure that us as their, you know, alma mater is, is a very strong support system for them throughout their certification process.

And then afterwards when they start going into their careers, uh, we wanna be able to be that, that point of contact. Um, every month, every time that they, they have a new client they’re struggling with new dog that they’re struggling with, new, uh, where they’re having trouble problem solving with something, we wanna be able to be that soundboard and, um, you know, that, that counsel for them so that they can continue to grow through their careers and remain successful.

That is certainly enough to keep you busy. 

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, um, it’s fun. It’s fun. Um, you know. I like breathing life into people. I like, um, breathing inspiration into people and motivating people. And, uh, with the school, I just feel like I get to do that, that so much more than, than, you know, just my clients, which I, I obviously try to do that to them.

I try to build hope in them and motivation in them, but getting to do that for people all around the world from different walks of life, um, different countries, different languages and stuff like that. It’s, it’s just, it’s a huge blessing on me and my family. So I’m, I’m very excited to continue this endeavor.

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Alright, well I guess we can wrap up. Stephanie, thank you very much for taking the time and I wish you hadn’t showed us up with your fancy camera. Maybe next time we have you on, you could like film from your old one or something like that?

I, I can, I can try. I, I’m pretty good at using my like smudged up cell phone with like dog nose prints on it. I can do that. Uh, perfect. I just let my husband know about it because he will, he will not have that. 

We need that. ’cause as the hosts, we should have the better cameras. Right, Jason? 

Oh my goodness.

Yeah. Yeah. 

We’ll send you a, we’ll send you like an old, I got an old iPhone six or something laying around the drawer. We’ll send it out. I 

I’m okay doing that. It’s okay. 

Yeah, 

just don’t update it. If you update it, it’s done. All right. Well thanks for listening everybody. 

Thank you. Welcome to to Pro Radio.