Duke Ferguson. Yeah, we are live. Thanks for coming on the show. 

Hey 

man. How you doing buddy? 

You know, I say we’re live, but we’re not live. We’re recording. This will go out in like three weeks, but 

we’re 

live. We’re alive, baby. It’s alive on the date, 30th 

or whatever. Live sounds so much better than we are.

We’re recording right now, right? 

I know. And what 

is Live? Live 

in person or live far away. 

Yeah, we’re we’re something 

Happy to be at live. 

Hey, so I didn’t tell you yet, but this is the first episode of season two of Dog Pro Radio. So yes, this is going live on 

there. Yeah. 

Awesome. In the new year. Yeah, you are number one and super excited to have you on and this has been a long time coming.

We should have had you on last year. It was a crazy year and kind of got away from us and the schedule was nuts, but super excited for this. I think this is gonna be a really fun episode. I think people are really gonna like it. 

Yeah, well that’s one of, I love to have fun in the episodes. We 

don’t 

do 

too 

many, but I’m on this little island running around, you know, like doing my thing.

Trying to share more and more. That’s the hard thing. You know, most, a lot of trainers I see, they’re good at it. I’m not usually on there as much. I try to, in 2025, making a little bit more presentation back online. I had to get away from it for quite a while. Just for, just for health As a coach, growing and learning, having a DHD as a trainer, don’t know any of those.

That’s one of the things I did against some of the w the, the, um, guidance of some coaches. They’re like, dude, I wouldn’t do that. I’m like, I need to right now. Like I really do. So you, ’cause I had to look, I had to care for me. Didn’t matter how successful I was, what was going on, everything there, that was, that just happened, you know, it happened to, but what happened to me and on the way was different.

So I had to get that help and say, wait a minute, where am I going here? Didn’t have really that clarity. I kind of felt it from my gut. But if you don’t actually sit down and think about it, pray about it, and have something, and you just start saying Yes, yes, yes, yes. That can be pretty cool. You can have a lot of opportunities and, and a fun ride.

But you can get to the top of some ladders and realize wrong ladder for who I really am. And as we change, wrong 

ladder. I like 

that. Yeah. Wrong ladder, wrong mountain. And I’ve climbed it a few times and said, wait a minute, it’s pretty cool up here. I like the view, but it, this one’s not, it’s not me. I, I didn’t realize I’d, I’d be here.

Where do we go from here? You know what I mean? And that starts young. I’ve been in this industry, ooh, young. I started, uh, with gun dogs at 12 years old. But I literally started dogs. Dogs kept me alive. Like literally, I always tell people wherever I go, you wanna know anything about Duke, uh, hunting, fishing, dogs, and God, I say that everywhere.

But there was a point where it was just hunting, fishing, and dogs. And dogs were the main part because life is tough. Life comes at you. It’s been coming at me since you were like four. Four, right? So I, you see in my online. On the website, little pictures, you know, me and stuff like that in a dog house.

Cute little kid in a dog house. That dog house and that dog, those dogs kind of kept me alive due to a lot of just trauma, a lot of abuse, you know, with, I kind of lived in that lifestyle. Um, I love to share those stories. What I’ve been trying to do now. I got a podcast I started, it wasn’t supposed to be, it’s called The Weekly Recall.

It was supposed to be just a five minute kind of jack you up thing and you can, and put it to your email and stuff every week. But I, I talk a lot, so, and when you’re by yourself quite a bit, it was hard, but once I get going, it started to be like 18 or 20 minutes and I was like, people like it. And uh, that kind of slowed the hunting, fishing, dogs and God podcast or thing down yet I’m still in that works.

But Matt, I started my whole life has been outdoors. I’m an outdoors enthusiast, like right from the get go, right from little kid. In the woods out with the dogs. Always had a dog by my side. I spent a lot of time alone, per se, because I was a military brat. So at the age of five or six, I actually am from Prince Rhode Island, was born here.

I started school in British Columbia and I’ve been in nine schools at a 12. So you get to meet a lot of people. You get to see how dangerous the world can be when you’re into the new kid in school all the time. But you know what, I’ve learned a ton over that. What I’ve taken all those things in, in, in life is I look at it, it’s like this is what I’ve been doing.

I’ve been working with animals. It wasn’t dogs as always. I didn’t know you could make a living train dogs when I was young. 16, 1820s. I had no clue. And, uh, I thought I was gonna be a, a professional duck hunter when I was 12. First it was a pharmacist with my dad ’cause he was a pharmacist and, uh. I was just outdoors with, with dogs so much and not with a lot of people all the time.

So it was like just that passion. And I, I used to watch the ducks come right in swimming by me on the riverside and I always got to see how close I could get to them, right? Like being super quiet, super still, it was a challenge for me as a kid and I got real good at it. Like I’ve caught coyotes, barehanded, but I went through as a wildlife tech first, not a dog trainer.

And as a wildlife tech biology, I was with hunt the ducks and the geese and the salmon inland fisheries, not so much out in the ocean. And uh, that was awesome. That was like kind of a dream job. ’cause I’m not hunting and fishing guy, but I’m more of the outdoors and the relationship builder and the, you know, the peacemaker instead of law enforcement guy that wants to go catching people.

Mind you, I don’t like when people are, you know, at it. Uh, predominantly that’s what they do most. So I came from a family of poachers, my whole family background, so like hunting and surviving and, you know, but. When I was in law enforcement, they helped me out quite a bit. So it was pretty cool. Short-lived, 1998, I was with a canine unit and I thought, man, I’m only 20, 20 years old.

We got it going on young. That’s what I thought I would do. Go full-time with canine provincial, running around the woods with dogs. And, uh, that was short-lived. And my, my, the government turfed their program and my dad had passed away and he was the pharmacist. So I had to go. I tell people I went from Nova Scotia over there, back home to PEI to run a pharmacy, which is kind of interesting because I was just a kid.

I didn’t, I’m an outdoors dog guy, you know, hunting fish and dog guy then, and now I’m, now I got a pharmacy. I’m in the pharmacy world, boom. Magic. And I’m like three quarters of a million dollars of debt and my house burned down a few months later. So it’s like that country song goes and it was rough, dude.

I, I not, and I won’t discount any of that. That was rough. And I was in a really, I. Real dark place. You, you can get hit so hard, you don’t have to go away and have, you know, different countries drop bombs on you to, to be hit hard. Everybody knows that we’re all real if we’re truthful. So I had to do a lot of stuff.

And when people are doing things like, you know, in business in the, like I’m 21, I don’t know anything about pharmaceutical business at the time. I knew a little bit. I mean, it was in it, I know how to deal with people and I had to talk to people whether I’m scared or not, you know what I mean? It’s like courageous.

I had to do that to live, to survive and, and thrive. So here I’m in the drug industry dealing with, I’m an owner. So what helped me is I got into the, the, uh, a company, uh, you call it a franchise, I guess ownership of Pharma Save. And they were the pharmacists. It was run by pharmacy. I’m the only one of the only pharmacy owners in Canada who wasn’t a pharmacist.

And I’m just a kid, couldn’t even read a financial statement to saved my life. So with coaches, I learned all that and I was up against Walmart Superstore, like the, the grocery chains. This, if you look back in 98 when there was no pharmacies in Walmarts or, I mean you’re in the States and Canada, it’s the same stuff though.

And when they went to war at each other, this little dude who was in a hot mess ended up head to head with these guys. How do you go up against Walmart when you’re a 21-year-old kid that just loves to hunt fish? And you got, you know, coaches and you need to be like a fricking Malmo. You can’t be saying you want stuff and not actually going for it.

And so many people in the industry, when I talk to, to pet owners, when we do consultations, you know, they’re like, oh, I want this. I want this. When you’re asking them and they get clear, why do you want it? They don’t really know. There’s a little tip out there. Trainers, don’t sell training. Sell transformation to people’s pains in their life through the gifts that you were given as a dog trainer.

And then get to know how to work with the people. I just happened to survive the industry long enough. 

Duke, let’s, 

dogs are the easy part. 

Let’s make sure we get back to that statement. Yeah. About building the transformation. And I think, you know, let’s, we can continue going through your story, which I think is great.

Well, let’s not lose sight of that. ’cause I think that’s a, a really interesting point for most dog trainers 

I used when I, so what brought me into this industry, because I was with, it wasn’t that pharmacy, I was working like a maniac to make it work up against all these, these guy, this companies and stuff.

I could have went, just could have said, free, forget, go bankrupt and start young and go, right. But I didn’t. I’m just like a maniac. I just wanted to serve and I wanted to see what, what can I do? Like, it was terrifying to see, but I’m just like, one thing, it’s a powerful statement. Somebody gave it to me years ago and then years ago, and then I lost that statement.

But when you can give yourself permission to be curious and say to yourself, I have no idea. But I know I have faith that I’m gonna figure it out. You need to know in order to continue to figure that out. ’cause you’re gonna hit roadblocks, you’re gonna get frustrations, you’re gonna get all frustrated.

We’re all hot mess. I’ve never seen more people in planet Earth angrier than it is 20, 25, 20 24. I’m with a lot of the high performance coaches. We’re talking, I’m seeing it. It’s like, but you know what? I don’t have to. You go on Facebook, you go on the internet, you look at our industry, you look at the professional pages, I sit back and it makes me sad.

’cause there’s really amazing, amazing trainers, amazing people, and they’re all fighting each other because of hurts and egos and, and, and just beliefs. False beliefs, good beliefs. There’s a lot of great trainers out there, but we can get out of our heads and get our own way. And that’s where I say. One of the things as a co that’s why I became a coach for trainers in this industry.

I just happened to, you know, survive it long enough. But I mean, I’ve had quite a role. It’s pretty good at different locations. Canada, United States learned that ladder. I was like, not for me. We, we, we switch it. You start on your own a little bit to grow it again. I’m still figuring it out after 20 so years.

Right? Student of the game. But there’s a big reason why. So I’m, I’m all into let’s try it. Let’s go and see what can happen. Even if it’s a complete stink fail, well just do it. You gotta show up and try, right. Certain things. So I’ve actually done that in the last year, big time. And just even over Christmas, I did my first, first ever free live zooms for trainers just to open coaching.

And literally, um, the first one I was like, oh, could I do the PowerPoint stuff? I’m not that guy like I am, but I’m not. Right? So I did it, it was okay, but I’m just like, I need to throw this stuff and go freeze stuff. Right? So the other day, was it Friday night? The other night I went, it was a short thing and I shared this because it’s, it’s a, it’s not a fail.

’cause I showed up and I did it, so I was stoked for the second one. I was gonna make it a little better. Well, there was less people, you know, no problem. Well, I, I was just gonna coach Rah, we’re gonna show up. We’re just gonna, but I need you guys to communicate back to me. Right. What happened? It was like, blank screens.

Some of them probably watch this blank screens. There’s no, I’m asking questions. Why are you here? What do you wanna learn? What do you wanna coach? Nothing. Nothing, nothing. I’m like, I’m in it. Right? So it’s like, what do you do? I’m not prepared. So I’m like, I’m gonna figure it out. What would you do? What would anybody listening?

What would you do? You just start this pot. You’ve never done it before. It’s assume it’s free and nobody’s, and you’re like, uh. Some of us would back out and say, okay guys, you know, if there’s nobody gonna talk, see you later. Me, no. I’m like, I’m gonna have fun with this. I tried, I really tried, and then just people did stark.

Very, very tough. But I came out of that and I didn’t get the, the, the result, the things that I was looking for in my mind, but it’s like, no problem. I left it and I felt like a million bucks, even though it was technically like the hardest zoom I’ve ever done in my life. Your biggest fear is like, what if nobody shows up or what if, you know?

The other thing is like, what if nobody engages? But now I know if this happens again, I know the things that I can do to turn it on to get engagement. And have fun doing it in a extremely situ, stressful situation. But it’s not the first time I’ve been in that scenario, right? So it’s like, it sounds easy.

It is not. I was like, I was ready to be like, I don’t wanna do this. I don’t wanna, oh, I’m gonna do it. And ding, ding. People start showing up. You’re like, oh, thank God. But then when nobody says nothing, you’re like, right, you gotta, so here’s the powerful thing that I was taught that helped me. Duke, you showed up.

You’re here. You need to become the thermostat on that wall. I can’t even see their faces. I don’t know who I’m talking to, but I know I have that gift. Just do it. Why am I here? So I had to ask myself, why am I here? Who am I here for? No matter, just rattle. Let a roll. So I did, and I had a, I’m super stoked even two days later from just doing the hardest.

I didn’t wanna do that for years. I’m like, I’m not that type of just, you know. But now I love it. And I’m like, Ooh, I have ideas now. That podcast. 

Well, why don’t we, let’s dive in a little bit to what it is you do overall. So you’ve, I mean, you’ve talked some about your coaching. 

Yeah. 

So, and I think that’s really interesting because our listeners are dog trainers.

I don’t know the percentage, but the vast majority of the listeners are dog trainers. So walk us through a little bit what it is you do to help trainers kind of on a, you know, just on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. 

It’s pretty, it’s, I, it’s pretty unique because I do to trainers now what I needed to search for with other people.

There was no certified high performance coach in the dog training world. I went to some different coaches in their canine industry, some, some pretty good advice, and then someone’s not right. It’s like, ooh, there’s no actual trained coaching there. When you find a curriculum that’s extremely powerful, you get it paid for it.

So I sat in the sidelines for a little while. I was like, went in all the way, and it changed my life. It transformed me so much. When I think that everybody thinks you, oh, that guy’s successful, let’s this, that you can be a hot mess. Nobody knows what’s going on in your head right now. Matt or me, we’re like actors, right?

There’s only one dude knows the truth, sees through it us. The only way is when we can actually show off and be authentic. And that’s so hard in this industry when everybody’s shooting at each other, in a sense, right? With emotion. So you look up why are, like, I went into the industry, the, the, the dog training industry from that, the, uh, conservation and stuff, because of a couple of things.

I knew I wanted to train animals. I knew I wanted to work with dogs. That the people thing was a, that was a scary thing for me, really. And that’s why I went in policing. I think originally just because I am more of an authority place that you’re less gonna fight. I didn’t realize that that’s a different ball game.

I grew up with a lot of domestics in my childhood and then being in policing, you’re helping people with that. So it’s kind of nice. And I fell in love with helping people, even though it’s terrifying running into an armed standup of a, that’s not the issue. It’s trying to deal with some people that are really intense and they don’t understand and they need that help and there’s stuff going.

So I love that. Dogs became easy for me. My whole life was dogs trying to explain to people, dogs and what they need. That was the challenge to block. And early on, I think I say I survived long enough because I was pretty good at it and got better and got better and got better. And I mean, I mean, I’ve had people in, in, in lessons cry and giving me hugs and high fiving because now the way I can have it land.

And, and you made a lot of mistakes, upset a lot of people along the way, but they forgive me ’cause I’m authentic and I cared and I never showed up with a stinky attitude. The, the, the defensive attitude. A lot of times I used to be way back, the old Duke, oh, passive aggressive. I didn’t even know what that word was.

But I used to tr that was how I would come back to, you know, being a little bit stinky that way. And I see it all the time in our industry. ’cause when, when I changed me and I started to see and understand some of those things, I see it now as clear as a coach. But that’s why I became a coach. I was told, um, with, I had 12 some years experience and, and I used say experience.

I mean gun dogs, police dogs, you know, search and rescue dogs. Not a professional trainer. I never went to any school back then at that time. That’s my whole life as dogs. Right. From three started at 12 DVDs, books and that stuff. Right. And the only gun dog world. And that’s old. That was old stuff. Right.

Everything’s changing now. Like, but I was told, so I was struggling with a dog that I was training for search and rescue. I was trying to pave a way to, to break open that industry here. There was never one, never a civilian dog. I actually started the first group while I was running the pharmacy, a hundred hours work week, joined the federal police, auxiliary, volunteered, uh, for 20 years, a police officer.

Um, they got paid. I was good for nothing. They were armed. I was running around with no gun. So that’s why I, I use sticks and knives. People see me in the videos. What the hell are you doing? Beating up those things for, that’s, we’re in Canada, man. We, I’ll hunt, right? I don’t want guns to be controversial. I wanna keep my frigging guns to survive and eat and hey, I don’t need them, right?

Unless somebody, but nobody’s got ’em here. I, I digress. I got into the dog training pet world. I didn’t think that was a thing, right? I knew the canines, I knew gun dog stuff. I’m gonna be a hunting guy for my life. So that’s, that’s gonna be a thing. And when I started training dogs. All of the behavior problems, them running away, getting hit by cars, the aggression, the reactivity, the, all that stuff.

I was one of those pet owners in the pa or pet families that moved around that had, you know, stuff going on. That drives me crazy, that lifestyle. ’cause the dogs get, the dogs are pets. They’re, they’re loved, but that’s it. There’s nothing, you know, then they run, there’s no training, there’s nothing there.

And it’s, it could be way better. Right? I’ve been bit by so many dogs when I’m young and now like, oh, we should put ’em down. No, because that was me. I was in the dog house hugging the little monster, right? So I understand dogs from my lifestyle and all the mistakes that I make, kinda like relationships with people, learning how to explain that as a pro, wasn’t there back in the day.

Right? What brought me into Pet World was. I had resource guarding with a chocolate lab that I was training with search and rescue. And he was great dog, a frigging machine. And I was training him like more of a working dog than a pet dog back then. So there was a difference. I didn’t know that back then.

Uh, all I knew is this dog is going to rip you apart and he’s a chocolate lab if you give him anything like a bone or anything. So I was cutting the grass, had a great search session. He was kind of being a, a Turkey, you know, that eight month age full intact wouldn’t come when he was called. All that stuff, you know, uh, pulling because I, I was just, he was a machine for search and rescue.

’cause I was wanting to prove to everybody who was like, no, you can’t do that. Can’t do that. Yeah, well watch this. I’ll show you. That’s kind of how I grew up. And I did do a lot of crazy cool stuff with that mentality, but it is not a very healthy mentality. Uh, by, by times. So I was told by enamel behaviors ’cause that’s where I actually went to.

Believe it or not, I went to my vet ’cause I got bit by this dog. I gave him a bone. I went in and he nailed and I was like, okay, no good. Tried a few things, you know, got pretty firm called the canine units. So I’m like, I don’t know, but I’m, I’m very open. I’ve been around and I went down to the vet and I said to the vet, and I’m like, what do you think of this?

Now we have a very powerful big vet college in the province and they happen to have an animal behaviorist. Well they still do, but I’m talking like a hundred years ago. So they’ve gone through one or two, but the information’s very similar. So what I found is they gave me a pamphlet and said, this is written by an animal behaviorist and this is, this will help your resource guarding.

And I was told the pamphlet straight out, said like, do not say no, there’s no aggression here. Like literally it’s not aggression. I’m like, freak, you know, like I didn’t, what’s your definition of aggression? He freaking bit my ass. And that’s my book is is that not aggression? It’s a defensive, it’s a form of like, tell me.

And then when you overstep your boundaries, they’ll commit or they won’t. So he would, so I’m like, hmm, I’m confused. And this is not this, this is what I was reading from an animal behaviorist and it said, here’s the protocol. Don’t say no, don’t use inhumane methods. Now I want to point this out.

Everybody’s go methods don’t use inhumane methods. And I actually agreed with that. I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then the, the meth, the, the stopped saying about methods and it started saying such as shock callers, choke chains, you know, pinch collar. And I’m like, I didn’t even know what a pinch collar was back then, to be honest with you.

That was a long time ago. I’m like, looking at this pamphlet. Don’t say no, this is written by a veterinarian. I’m like, I don’t know what I don’t know. I’m paving away. Try and get a star dog going. I’m not gonna have this star dog. He’s biting me, so what I’m going for it. And it was all positive stuff. So I’m like, okay, I never did that before I came from the old world gun dogs, right?

So what does stuff they’re explaining to me, oh yeah, you shouldn’t do this. You shouldn’t do that. It’s gonna cause this relationship problem. I’m like, I never had that experience. I could see that I’ve made some mistakes in the past big time. When you’re a kid, you got the old ecos, the old tris, the, the, the plugs.

You know, you plug it in. I’ve been using electronical collar since I’ve been 12, right? I’m 50 every day of my life. I get a lot of experience there. Made a lot of mistakes in the past. But you know, I’ve never seen, and I’ve seen other places make in the world, I’ve seen a lot of people make a lot of mistakes, some real.

Videos and stuff you see is pretty nasty. But you know the outcome. I’ve met some of those dogs. I have not seen the cases that the people that really put the fear into the anti of these tools. I’ve never seen those cases. Not, and I, and the tools folks, you gotta understand methods and tools are not the same.

Educate, watch for when people are bashing stuff, right? I run from that anyway ’cause it’s a closed mind. It’s like, okay, if you have four pieces of the puzzle, there’s one great, but they’re gonna bash the other three and they don’t use it run. That’s not someone I want to be around. It’s too, too toxic of smoke.

But I want to educate to how to raise everyone. ’cause they do have valuable parts. People we’re in this industry, whether you like the person who’s. Fighting, whether you or not, get over it. They breathe, they bleed. We all want the same stuff. How do you become the role model that you wanna see in the wor industry when you’re triggered and you’re gonna give someone some strategic information through the keyboards or through your, you know, some of us are pretty more confident right into face-to-face, but I’m gonna challenge you to be better at doing it.

How do you do it so that you raise the bar and then everyone wins, not just yourself and some people that follow us, right? We have to sell, as I go back to, we’re dog trainers. Everybody’s thinking about dogs, behaviors get their attention. We’re selling dog training to people. That’s not what they need.

And that’s why if you’re struggling as a trainer, you’re probably trying to sell training. Don’t do it. Life is training. Think about that. Whether you’re thinking about it or not, life’s coming at you. Something in life. So in in coaching, right? If we can narrow down and talk about areas, where are you getting hit?

Finances. Where are you getting hit your health? I have, I have Crohn’s. My wife near died a few years ago. Cancer, I’ve been burned out, spit on, shot at shot, been into debts, been up against Walmarts, everybody in being, look, it’s, that’s a lot. I talk to trainers now. I’m like, Hmm, there’s some trainers if it to do more stuff.

I’ve been an armed standup, never to shoot a person in my life, thank God. But I know friends of mine that do have had to, that affects us all. I don’t care who you’re, how you show up, God knows you’re hurt. We’re all in pain. When I look at the internet, everybody’s hurting at some point and they show it. I do.

I showed it. I watched some of my old videos ’cause I went from 300 pounds ’cause of a, I was hurting, drinking to cope, partying with the trainers, staying up two, three in the morning. I, I’ve showed up at my best self and my worst self. ’cause I didn’t have a coat. I was a hot mess. Just being me, being authentic, being true, do it.

Can be a hot mess. People will follow you. People will love you. The people that you are born to attract, what’s your gifts? Right? There’s people listening to this be like hate you, that other people’s attract to it. So 

Matt, I wanna, I wanna hear all this coaching stuff, but real quick finish. What happened to your chocolate lab?

So you had ’em at the behaviorist. 

Crazy. Matt, you’re a 

good 

man. Yeah. Really guys? This guy’s good. Everyone’s at 

home thinking like, what is the 

last what? Yeah, good job. So basically I was told by the animal behaviorist, death before discomfort, click or train it or kill it. So I did the food protocol for three months, nothing else.

And there’s stuff I really liked. And was I any good with food? No, I, that was my first time. I was like bashed death threats from clicker trainers. So I’m like, so I wouldn’t use a clicker back then. It wasn’t until I flew to Belgium and had lived there for three weeks. That that was awesome experience.

Bart got me back into the clicker bar and Michael, but at first I was like, I used to have a verse of feeling to hearing that clicker ’cause of. Just the shit that goes on in this, excuse my French, but in this industry is like, gosh, and it’s not supposed to be this dog, right? He bit me. So I was doing stuff.

After a while I’m like, let’s see. Wham. I’m like, no way. Right? So I went to the different province. I even took, that’s where I actually took a course, my very first course, right? Animal behavior, people went through that. It was a good course actually too. The problem that I found out was the mentor trainers that they were choosing were the same mindset as the behaviors.

Don’t say no. One of them wouldn’t even like evaluate me on corrections. So that, that was fine. Um, I learned a lot. I went to see another behaviorist in different province and they said the same thing. If clicker training doesn’t work, your dog is a chocolate lab. He has a red gene and you can’t fix that and you should euthanize that dog.

He’ll never, and I’m like. I’m out. There’s something weird going on here. I, I was never in the pet world, right? I was never around all the people. I was always just out hunting, fishing, and dogs. Nobody has that emotional baggage for the most part. Not in, not to the dogs, not when I came into this world, man.

I’m like, wooey. It’s emotion. It’s like high school. Everybody’s stuck at seven years old. And we’re trying to coach humans that are going through pain and emotion, and they have dogs to help them. They’ll sleep in their beds and some can and some can’t, right? So we have to have some sort of, why do you have the dog?

Why are you training dogs, right? Well, I didn’t kill this dog. In fact, I’m not death before discomfort. Are you kidding me? And I literally was like, okay. I am gonna go to a different country, different coast. I’m in Prince Edward Island’s, Atlantic Canada. So I went, called California and I tell people, uh, it was back then it was what South Bay canine, which Adam Katz, big marketer ear.

He actually one sentence in an email. There was no social media back then or nothing folks. It was just, you know, it was Google maybe or something previous. But I just found a company that used tools and did stuff and I asked and they’re like, Hey, if you like, how do I get ’em not pulling on the leash like a freaking maniac?

Like I didn’t do that back then like I did earlier with other dogs. And he was just eight months outta control. And that’s where he said, go get a pinch collar and get rid. So I used, I went, I try, I used a long line and the choke, that was what I was gonna do. The o killer method, you know, walk. And then the dog goes, I turn, go the other way.

And back then there was no finesse for me. It was just like gonna go turn around. Well this dog hit the, hit the frigging long line trying to take off on the trail to, ’cause he was trained for search and rescue. I never did any obedience. Of course do right back then. But you, you’re a canine. You’re young.

You train dogs for 12 years. You have an ego, like you can’t hardly ask for help. And you went into a vet and they said, clicker trainer to kill it. And so I reached out one sentence in an email, one sentence, change my life. Get rid of the long line. Get rid of the choke. Find yourself a pinch car in a six foot leash.

Ease up. Try that. That was it. And I’m like, okay, what’s that? So I’m like, look. And I go into Canadian Tire and I seen, I found one, it was the biggest one you could find. It was like, look, and I’m a conservation officer back trade. So I’m like, trappers, right? Bear traffics. I was like, God. And I remember putting this pinch on my dog, which I loved him and hated him.

You know what I mean? Like your little bad you’re gonna get. So all of a sudden I’m feeling bad for the dog. Emotionally I am. I’m, I’ll admit it ’cause I’m a human being. Well, what do you think your clients are feeling even though they’re listening to you and trust you? Well, you better be there to do your best.

Show up at your best. Not just to do a quick fix. ’cause there’s a great tool, but you can make it look bad. And then, then others have to kind of convince people or, or say like, it’s not that way, not to be. But I remember putting on them and I was shaking, I was felt bad for them. And I was like, you know, death before, well if this doesn’t work, what am I gonna kill you over?

Resource guarding. Now I wasn’t told to use medication back then. You know why there was none. Oh, the pharmacy guy. I know this shit. And, uh, and we can get into pharmaceutical industry, how powerful that is. In another way, the influencing the, the, the vets, the colleges, the foods. They’re powerful. Gang man, I tell you.

But this dog, I say seven minutes, it was less, it was probably like two, two and a half, five minutes. I didn’t know folks. There was no leash handling ninja back then. I was just like, I grabbed the two, you know, the thumb in the handle and you just put your hand here and you just walk with your hands there.

And I started walking six foot leash, pinch. So he didn’t get to run. And as soon as he tried to leave, I just did an about turn. He hit the pinch, he said, Hey, and he flew. But here’s the thing, this is what was really blowing my mind. I’m just walking all stressed. Oh, tight. You know, like, ’cause I thought I, this is gonna suck for him.

Right? But that was my mentality of how I’m showing up and how I anticipated tool, but I’m still using it ’cause I freaking needed help. I’m not gonna kill my dog. And that’s stupid. So I did that. Guess what my thoughts, what was gonna happen didn’t happen. Everything that I thought, what happened didn’t happen.

The opposite happened and it was better because, and this is true, I did a lot of positive training for three months prior. Never did that before in my life. So I knew what I was anticipating with a in my mind. So I figured he would be like, okay, I’m sorry I’m, and then comply. I’d be good, whatever. Sure enough, I thought he was happy he hit that pinch.

He knew exactly what that was. ’cause he, we did it previous with the slip stuff, right? He, he just turned, and I did this about turn and he flew into heel and tried to pass me that second time, I literally didn’t walk more than six feet. Eight feet and I’m looking down and bang, he hits it. I did an about turn, it was just a little hip check.

It wasn’t a big act, big correction or nothing. And he said, Hey. And he was a powerful, and he came in to my side when I did that second about turn and you could hear it, ha ha ha. Just like achus and pr. And I’m like looking at, ’cause I never did that stuff back then. Nothing, never tried, didn’t know any, and I’m like looking at him and he’s all happy and jacked like prancing.

And I thought, this is a sick dog. Like this dog loves pain. Or I just was like, I don’t know. But that was, that was the story then back then. So I, I saw a massive shift, massive just with that one two minute healing session with a pinch, like I’m talking attitude shift. He was better in certain things. Uh, he was using them more long lines and just gen, it was easier.

Oh my gosh. Not all that pressure for a big hard dog. ’cause I had a tool that was working. I didn’t use electric then ’cause I didn’t know what I know now. And I was like, nah, I’m kind of scared to ruin him because I was told that. This is how green I was. I had 12 years experience. Not in the canine world, professional pet world I’ll say, but the other canine professional worlds.

I was in there, right? But there was none of this emotion. So I didn’t know what to expect. I come in here and it was uh, attack ish like, you know, cops get attack all the time, but did not to personally emo like this was different and I found it tricky ’cause you get a lot of different feedback and I’m like, who the hell are you?

You don’t know my me or where I came from and what I’ve been through and why I do what I do. I didn’t even know why I did back then consciously probably. So I didn’t kill that dog. He transformed amazing. And I went to share that with those who said death before discomfort. And this is what upset me.

This is really what brought me in industry. They didn’t care. Once they knew I used the tool, they were in on it to gimme advice until I broke the law of. Being the inhumane SOB using a pinch car and told I wanted to share with them that in two and a half minutes, instead of three months of of that, it changed.

And when you bring it together, it created a freaking happy dog. I didn’t know that right away. I had to learn. That took me a few years to learn why he was happy. I didn’t know right then. But that’s the learning experience. So any new trainers, I mean if you’ve done positive training and you’re struggling Yeah.

You know why you’re struggling. ’cause you don’t have the full picture, you don’t have the full motivational aspect. Open up growth mind, you know, use the tools and don’t be scared. There’s so many videos and so many people show us every day. That’s why I’m not feeling compelled Matt to post stuff. I need to post more I guess.

But I’ve been training my like I don’t have to prove, I don’t feel I gotta do that. Educate I think is more important. But what brought me into it is dogs are, after this many years and making that many mistakes and seeing it being with them, they be, dogs are easy. They, they, they are. It just time and just spending time with it and being, know and being, get rid of your motion.

And dogs are like therapy when you do it right. I play with music, even the hardest cases. I just, I want to get into it. That’s, that’s my whole dream. So what does Duke on a daily, I do work with dogs every day. My own dogs have been, I don’t work with a lot of pet client dogs as much. I have trainers that do do that, but that’s my, that’s my love.

Um, I sold everything I owned because the behaviorist said if this clicker training doesn’t work for the dog death before discomfort. And I said no. So I did go on and I sold everything. I owned, I sold that pharmacy and, and by the way, with coaches, with the power of coaches in my corner and a work ethic that nobody’s gonna stop.

I doubled business in five years, not knowing what the heck I was doing against Walmart. So, and all these groceries changed and sold everything I owned and was completely debt free. And went all dogs and I never looked back and professionally, so I went like career wise, all dogs, and that was 21 years ago now, but I did it and I went Pet world because veterinarians should not be telling people death before discomfort.

Now, fast forward from then to now, right? 

Let’s take a quick break to talk about our friends from the National Canine School for Dog Trainers. They have been a proud sponsor and supporter of the IECP for over 20 years now. National Canine is located in Columbus, Ohio, and they offer professional certifications and educational opportunities for dog trainers since 1981, over 2,500 individuals have completed in-person instruction and received their certification at the National Canine School for dog trainers.

National Can nine graduates have created profitable and rewarding careers in all 50 states and in more than 50 countries and territories around the world. We invite you to explore what National Canine has to offer. Please visit www.nknine.com for more information. And now back to the show. 

If you, if you’re gonna get a prescription for a dog, folks, you’re not gonna get one.

You’re probably gonna get two. Okay. I know this industry, so for, and it just, this is, I’m not gonna go too long here ’cause I can go crazy, but if you’re told death before discomfort run, this world is not that way. In fact, you want to go and get a rose for someone, you gotta go through the thorns first.

God put ’em there. I’m know. It’s not preaching my opinion. That’s the truth. If you wanna grow muscle or lose weight, you gotta go and put your body under some tension and time and you’re gonna get benefits if it’s in that way. But that’s hard. If you want to overcome, uh, sickness and disease, you’ve gotta work.

You’ve gotta research, you gotta learn, but you have a reason why, ’cause you’re gonna live. I had a reason why I went into Pet World. I’m not gonna kill my dog. ’cause this person said death before discomfort. That’s extreme. Pretty extreme. I wasn’t even a faithful guy that way. I don’t know extremism in the industry, but now I understand that.

Wow. Right? So, uh, that extremism is kind of the, that’s the ISIS of the world. That’s what I say. It’s like hooey. We don’t want, I don’t like it. It’s, it’s, it’s just death before discomfort. Matt, the best thing ever happens to me is like a discipline when I was a kid, being a little punk, you know, 

and they’ve gotten a little more clever in what they say now, right?

Where now you don’t hear that as much as they’ll talk about suppression. So I think now what they’d say to you is, duke, you’ve just suppressed it and now you’ve got a ticking time bomb. So now, sure, the dog’s not as aggressive today. But it’s still there. It’s suppressed and it’s gonna come roaring back.

And that’s a lot harder to argue with. 

Hmm. But if you look at when we can get emotion out of those things, like it’s true where it’s, and a lot of trainers will actually go do that aspect, right? So let’s say we’re just, let’s be real though. If I am dealing with an individual, let’s go crazy here. The extreme cases I’ve seen, I’ve had my nose frigging bit off by a hundred some bull, massive.

And I’ve, I’ve coached people, clients telling p years ago, you shouldn’t have this dog, right? Like, there is ca there’s times where you need to get rid of dogs. Like just people can’t have, certain people can’t have certain dogs. They shouldn’t. That’s, I shouldn’t say can’t, but I’ve called it out and I’ve had the experience to say that because I said like, if you’re gonna own this dog, and there’s people that come to us to say, I have this dog and I’m in love with him.

He’s my baby. And I was told by four of the trainers, I should get rid of him. I’m like, okay, I don’t. Go there right away. ’cause it could be enamel, behaviorist and all that. Crazy, stupid. So I listened to them and I looked at the dog. I’m like, dude, God. And there’s a couple times in my career where I really, really stressed that.

I think you should remove one of those big time right now. Safety and sanity. And if you’re gonna own that dog, it’s like handled and muzzled 24 like outta there in there, like safety wise, they’re dead now. They don’t listen to protocol. They’re dead. Like phone call. It doesn’t matter. People aren’t always gonna follow through.

People say they want things. I say they get to know the reason why. Why do you want your dog trained? Nevermind fixing stuff. What? What’s wrong with this situation in your life? So I’m gonna make all these dog trainers listen to life coaches. But it you should be. You should be, because it’s someone’s life.

And look at my life back before I even knew with 12 years experience, I had an animal behaviors tell me, kill it. And I was on the fence, you know? And I know a lot of people who did. The dogs don’t make it to us or you guys. People are telling you stupidly put it on medication or kill it. And I’m seeing this now, so it hasn’t.

I do have footage that we will put together. I have some case studies that I’ve collected over 2025, uh, phasing some dogs off the drug stuff. It’s stuff is, it’s, I’m not an anti-drug guy folks, by any means. I mean, I’ve ran a pharmacy and I, I have Crohn’s disease and stuff, but I’m really anti compared to what people would think compared to a lot of others.

You shouldn’t run to a pill first. I’ve done, I’ve watched my, I’ve watched my family, I’ve watched my, I say this from deep experience, I’ve done it. Sometimes it helps short term things, right, when it’s under supervision from an actual profession or a doctor. But a lot of people are self-medicating in a sense.

We all do. And when we’re hurting and pain, whether it’s alcohol, whether it’s from addiction, gambling, whether it’s whatever, it doesn’t matter whether it’s just overworking, you’re avoiding something. I was that way for a lot of stuff. I mean, who works a hundred hour work week? And still volunteers, right?

When I take that stuff, our dysregulation, our dysfunction dogs are getting it. It’s just passed down. And, and, and a lot of us don’t even know dogs, like pet people don’t know dogs. I was a pet. I was a trainer for 12 years. I didn’t know. You’re never stopped learning. If you’re in it. If you ever arrive and you’re ever there, and you’re like, that’s, that’s sad.

Now I wanna know all pencil. Well, 

you started to say something a second a few minutes ago that I think was a good segue back to the beginning where I, I flagged when a trainer is talking to a client, you are basically saying, you’re not selling training, you’re selling a transformation. 

Right. 

Let’s, let’s spend a little time because I think that’s powerful and I think that’s gonna resonate with a lot of trainers.

What did you mean by that? And could you expand some? 

Yeah, no, that’s good. And, and tr if you, if someone’s a coach here that does a lot of coaching or versus the training, we wanna put it on the same kind of structure. All right. So people will come in the, in the pet where they come in, we do a consultation.

You know, you fill out information, what the dog does and age and all those things and the issues. So what I do is I’m gonna sit down and say like, so you know, what inspired you to be here? Why are we here? I understand some of these things. Tell me more about these problems that are, or they’re like the dog.

The dog, the dog. Or then they, they dump on the dog. How many ever hear this? They dump on the dog a little bit. Okay, okay. Okay. But he’s really a good dog. ’cause they feel bad now ’cause they just threw him under the bus. Okay. Right there. That’s an emotional thing that we need to have them comfortable.

Realize it. We’re not judgment. Right? I’m not here judge you, but when we’re a hot mess and we’re showing up online and the canine industry Facebook page is not this, but you know what I mean? Like, people are not stupid now they see and they’re nervous. People come in, they’re nervous to tell me they use an ecar.

I’m like, yeah. You gotta ask questions as if you don’t know. Even if it’s a question you think is a stupid question, they’re like, I want my dog to stop pulling on a leash. Okay, why is that important for you? Not just, why is it important? ’cause it could be for you. Like, why do you want that? Why is that important for you?

’cause somebody else over here don’t care. Right? But now they’re thinking, ’cause who asked you that? Why do you want your dog to come when he’s called? I freaking know all the reasons why I’ve had a dog hit by a car. I got lots of stories I can share and tell you right in front of me too, back, my first dog when I was with Shelly crush me.

So I got these experiences and my whole life is this industry, right? So I’m gonna sit here. That’s why life coach trainers, but people need this. Why? What’s causing the real problem? What’s the real problem? Why is this, you know? And I, I asked him, do you feed the dog and do things? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why is it important?

And once they start talking and when you’re actually listening to what is it that they’re saying? And you read between the lines, ’cause you focus on caring for them. Not, oh, I wanna sign I’m up and make money. If you’re in it for money, you’re always gonna be miserable. But if you’re in it to help people and you’re get good at that, you wanna be better trainer, man.

When people are all in, the dogs are way better. How do you get that? Because I used to have trainers tell me all the time, you know, if you ever said, I’ve told them this 16 times. I told them to do it, told ’em to it. Tell your time and tell ’em he just won’t do it. Your approach, why are you telling ’em what to do?

They already know. Ask them what do they want? What do you want? I want my dog to do this and this. I want, okay, why? It sounds stupid. Because, yeah, obviously we know why, but why? Why for them they never thought of it. Now they’re like, why do I want him come? And every answer, even when you guys answer my forms, it’s vague.

Oh my God. It’s vague. And for me, having a coach, I never knew how to communicate properly. I used to be crying half the time with CHPC coaches. It was wrecked with a professional coach. So now I’ve been, uh, chiseled and chipped and I’m still, you know, going through it and learn, but it’s like, wait, I can hold that space and listen.

And that’s something I’ve really, that’s kept me excited over all these years is like, man, I’m learning and growing in me. That’s a hot mess mastery process. And if I’m able to help other trainers as human beings to live life, to live this industry full despite all the hot mess and the thorns and all the egos, that what, how do we show up and really raise this industry as leaders when year might not be, well, maybe you’re only two, two years in it, we are in it, right?

Maybe you’re 20 years into it and you’re still as insecure as I could be at sometimes. So folks, we just have to be honest, right? Honest and, and vulnerable. Just show up for those. You focus on them, the people who need you. So when they’re saying, I want this, I want this, I’m like, Hmm. Why is that important for you?

And how does it feel right now? You can see they come to you. Anybody I have, your humans are emotionally having a hard time with their dog. This, they may have to kill their dog. They’re told by a behavior they can kill their dog. They’re in a hot mess. ’cause if there’s crappy relationship, maybe the dog’s, they’re scared, they can’t have friends over.

They’re actually lonely. They’re lonely for six months. They’re begging, but that’s their only thing they have is this dog who’s a, a menace to society. Because you know, like whatever it is, prepare, show up, hold space for the people. And if you’re not sure, and that stresses you to ask deep questions and get a coach and get over your own stuff, like I had to.

So when you say, so you, you know, mentioned asking deep questions and finding out what makes the person tick and why they want this. Then back to your phrase of sell them on the transformation. Yeah. As opposed to just the training. What does that mean to you? 

So if you’re saying to me that you want your dog to come when called.

Okay, why? So I can have him off in the field, so why go deeper? So I’m gonna get things like emotional, like health wise, really compelling reasons why, you know, why I want the owner to get a, a compelling why? Like I want the owner to come to a reason why of when I let my dog go, I realize the actual fact that he may get killed, he may not come back.

So. Why is that important to me? Because I care about the dog and when I’m able to let him go, he can run and burn off energy. We get to go places that I’ve never been able to go before and people are safe, and I’m less stressed as a human because I have that ability to get my dog to come back when he is called.

And most of all, I want ’em to be happy. So how important, I always ask people how, on a scale of one to 10, here’s the thing, when you find out what do they want, why is that important to the owner? Nevermind the doc, right? Dog will transform to the best we can do. Find out why the owners want it, and the biggest thing is, and then ask them, okay?

And if you know as a trainer, I know I can serve this, this is my jam, right? What I asked them is this, how committed are you to your vision and goals? What you shared with me, what you want and why it’s important to you? How committed. Are you to that process on a scale of one to 10? And if they’re like, I’m a nine, then I won’t enroll anyone.

I can’t. Because if you’re not fully committed to your vision, your goals, you’re just talking about it, opportunity takes work. Not a lot of work. If you’ve got good trainers and you have a lot of, it’s productivity is pretty awesome. I can do a lot of stuff with dogs. That’s one thing trainers always say is like, how do you get all it done in that short period of time?

38 years of screwing everything else up and trying to get behind you figure it out. What the coolest, some people are like nine. I’m like, what would it do to get you to a 10 to commit to your vision that you just shared to me? Usually they’re like, well, I just don’t know how. I’m like, that’s what I’m for.

But if you knew it and you knew how, and you have the guidance and the tools, how committed are you? Trainers, you, you gotta, you gotta do this because then when you’re in the sessions and they’re struggling and they get frustrated. You can just stop and hold space and say, you know, let’s take a breath.

Let’s breathe a little bit just, and point out the things that they were doing right? ’cause they’re humans and you’re a coach to that human as you’re a trainer. Blood trainers don’t realize the best trainers are the best coaches I’ve ever found. Really? The ones that didn’t know that stuff to the mess.

They struggle lots. They could be amazing trainers, but if you can’t talk to people or coach people or, or train the humans or deal with emotion, you’re not in the pet world. I just have, that’s a gift of mine. I, I, it, it is. I, I always geeked out, but it’s a, it wasn’t something I was like eager to jump into the canine world.

It’s a compelling reason why people are killing dogs. I’m in this policing area. I don’t really want to be in the policing. I love the wildlife. I just wanna deal with animals and help people. I love this pharmacy aspect. And then I’m just like, wait a minute. I’m going in all dog and I’m gonna learn everything I can learn until the day I die and I’m not gonna do anything else.

But I’ve been in it long enough to know dogs are easy. We’re the hard part, we’re the hot mess. We’re the ones that are frigging it all up and we’re all, we wanna be better, right? So selling transformation. ’cause if you don’t get it as a trainer, like if you could coach, I didn’t get this, folks, I’m preaching to you.

And I’m like, I didn’t know until I started to learn that. What do you want? Why is it important? Are you committed to this process? And if they’re like, yes, then I can stand for you on lesson than two, three, whatever. I can stand for you as your trainer and coach when you’re struggling to stand for yourself and your dog permission granite, bang.

’cause you’re fully committed. You told me you wanted these things. I can help you. We get your dog to come when called. We’re gonna do this, this, and this. How’s that sound to you? Sounds perfect. Great. How’s it gonna feel in three weeks when you actually get that? I want you to be that next testimonial. So money’s not gonna fix your dog.

And I ain’t cheap. I literally tell people. But if you want that transformation and if what you’re saying is truthful that you really want it and you’re willing to commit 10 outta 10, I help you. No problem. And I’ll commit 10 outta 10 my heart and soul. ’cause that’s what I give and that’s what I charge for because I got 38 years of, of hell experience.

You know that people don’t understand that. You could write books on it. People don’t care. That’s huge. Discounted. I don’t even preach it like, but there’s a lot of people here. I have had, I’ve, I’ve spoke to some brand new trainers. It’s so funny. Ask questions, getting clarity, feedback, just getting their perspective.

And you know what, I’ve been in this industry, like I said a long time, and I’ve talked to some new trainers that are like, they’re just diff different perspective, different mind and just one little word they’ll say. I’m like, hmm, that helps me. And I’ve been doing this a long time ’cause I’m still in it.

Really. I want to grow, I wanna learn, I want to get better in that aspect. But do you know the challenges, the humans? So I kind of geeked out in the last eight years of trying to, because of deaths and diseases and all that type of stuff. I always sit back and do an evaluation and I’m like, hmm, I need to fix me and I need to get better here at communicating with those people.

I, that’s my whole life, man. Like, I, I, I like life. People has different world perspectives, right? It’s a beautiful world. It’s a beautiful world. I’m an outdoors guy. Hunting, fishing, and dogs gut. Before, uh, before that aspect, it was just dogs that helped me through it until I hit my twenties or I got pretty miserable and reactive.

Um, I was gonna hurt people, believe it or not. Matt Rewind, uh, the pharmacy days wanting to help people. When you want to help people, but you’re in a position where life’s coming at you with stuff and there’s other outside people, forces, maybe it’s lawyers, real estate, you name it, family, God, that’s, that’s even the most painful.

Whatcha you gonna do? How are you gonna get up and rock at your best when there’s a lot of pain that’s going on, right? So therapy, obviously different things. And that’s actually, coaching for me was like the, the best therapy ever because it was clarity, it was getting me clear on who, who do I wanna show up as?

I actually have words that define that, and I’ll change those words as I change, and am I those words? I might write a word down. I’m not that word yet, but folks, how do you want the dog to become, you’re all dog trainers. We’re, we’re shaping the behaviors of the dogs, right? We’re all geeked out about the dogs, but then we’re, we’re not.

At our best selves, we’re not happy as we could be. We’re not doing what we need to do. We’re not living the, the way that, uh, the creator put us in. Some of us should be doing malis stuff, should be doing lab stuff, you know what I mean? Like me, I’ve tasted a lot of this industry. I’ve been in a long time, right?

Policing, service dogs, bed bugs, scent detection with drugs and bombs, those things, those aspects. Um, gun dogs, hunting stuff, like that’s my passion. Uh, service dogs obviously coals phenomenal, right? Just retrieval is, is once I learned how to train dogs, my life changed because dogs became an asset at 12 years old and they got to live longer.

Life was less stressful because they understood communication with me. The only thing I had to do is get my emotion and all that ego stuff outta the way and train the dogs and learn and see the screw up and be like, okay, that didn’t work, but not feel like, ah. How do I get this better? How do I get this better?

How do I make this better? And 

so why don’t we get really specific some things that, you know, that might help trainers. So I know you’ve said, you’ve mentioned breath work a couple times. I know you’re, you know, very into that. I mean, just give us some examples. Yeah, you showed me the shirt earlier. Let’s see it.

So what I’ve done this year, there’s a statement I’m always using and as a, as a breath coach too. A part of coaching is calming your nervous system, right? And one of the things I always say is, Hey, breathe, breathe. Just take a breath. Don’t bark. Could be to a dog, you know? And he is like, Hey, he’s, he is like, Hey, whoa, easy.

Give him a little pressure. He calms down. Say, okay, breathe, don’t bark. So we put this slogan, this is our new merch. Breathe. Don’t bark. Right. Got a little canna flag on there. So 

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Had to just sum that up like one sentence. Yeah. For a trainer listening, what does that even mean?

How would they use breathing? I love it. That’s a good one. Just big picture. One sentence. What? What would that look like? 

Be slow to speak. Shut your mouth and breathe and listen. Be quick to listen and just hold a long pause. Don’t be, don’t be too quick to to, to speak back. Don’t be too quick to type back.

Don’t be too quick to text back even. Why even bother sometimes? Is it worth your energy when, if you’re gonna take a half an hour to clarify something, you don’t need to where that other person needs your help or you, you could be doing something for your life. I don’t waste my time with that stuff, per se.

And trust me, you can get attacked all the time. People call you, they wanna challenge you to things on the internet. You know the best way. If you are that person, it’s easy. For me, I’m like, number one is I, I graduated from high school years ago, so I’m not into that stuff. Number two is, there’s obviously an issue here.

You don’t know me, I’m someday, but what I’ll do right now is I’m quite busy. I’m gonna pray for, for you and move on. That’s what I do to people that want a chirp and go on. I just, that’s the best way I find deal with it. ’cause that either stops them from ever message you. ’cause you’re one of those guys prays me or they’re in it.

They’re like, oh wait. And it puts them in check. Maybe they’re saying that’s who they are too, but they’re not acting that way. ’cause there’s a lot of times we don’t show up the way we should. We don’t represent who we’re representing always. I don’t, I try. That’s the thing, you gotta get the right people around you.

That’s what I love about canine. The, the the, this organization, right. A canine Professionals is like, it’s it. When I went there the first time I had a bag. I was ready, I was, I didn’t know if I’d be a trainer again. And I went to conference and I was in the lobby, you know, every 15 minutes dumping an ostomy bag, meeting all these people that you see, all you know.

And the craziest thing was they knew who I was and I didn’t, that didn’t hurt, you know, that they knew me. ’cause I had stuff, they had a video course and they need some YouTubes. But I’m just a guy from PII train alone a lot. There was no other eco trainers here. We got a couple of clients that kind of went off and did some stuff.

It’s a small little province, you know, there’s only a couple hundred thousand people. Beautiful place. That’s why I bring trainers here. Because when I went away to ICP, it opened my eyes and I met tons of people and they’re like, Hey Duke. Hey Duke. Hey. And they talked to me and stuff. I was like, you know, that was cool.

And then when I saw, kind of opened my eyes where what I could bring to the table, I was really excited. So I was like, wow, you know? So then, then I grew and grew and grew from there. But now it’s just, it’s us folks. Like the we need skills, we need that. But give yourself permission to just try. Gary is screw it up, right?

Like train people first. If you’re worried about hurting the messing up with the dog, like, but I don’t know. I have never seen all these horror stories like people do say when you really want something, I’ve seen innocent. The innocent we have to the innocent misuse where clients go out. They buy an eco at a store, at a pet to pet store, and then they try it and you know, level one can be too high on those collars.

So now they see something that’s not good. The dog has their first impression, you know, Hey, there’s the Stinky Co. And now they take it back. So in all fairness, that’s their impression. And then they go see some vet that’s anti, you know, medication. Now they’re on two and three different medications. If you have a medium drive dog and you’re a first dog owner and he’s not socialized, so there’s a, they can do what fight or flight.

So let’s say they get a little bit rally and instead of running away, they come out. That’s just that dog’s nature tempera what he is learned. So we put him on. So they put ’em on and I say to you guys, you’re gonna go to animal behaviors to, to expect more than one. You’re probably gonna get two prescriptions if it’s anti-anxiety like Gabapentin and Trazodone and all that stuff.

Tranquilizer, like literally sometimes three. I won’t take dogs in our programs. I do board and train like that. I’m like, okay, no problem. We’re phasing down. I’m a month, so I have time. They’re gonna start the process and they’re gonna contact that animal behavior and veterinarian to know that shit’s getting real.

Pills are going away. We’re talking about exercise. We’re talking about changing your diet. We’re talking about, you know, getting you to work for a living instead of getting it given to you for free all the time. ’cause when you shift back, let’s, 

let’s pause there for one second. Are you saying that you have them phase out the medicine before they even start the board and train?

Sometimes it depends. Okay. But during the process, when they are here, I can continue the process of phasing. So I have phased dogs down. Um, I don’t see a problem with it. I actually see a beautiful, once they’re off it, after a little, like, especially the last couple weeks, I know the dog. Like I can see the dog, I can see the, the glow, I can see the’s emotion.

I can feel it. You know what I mean? Like, you can’t, when they’re on drugs, you can’t, I don’t care who, who, who says you could. I, I, I haven’t not experienced, not when they’re off, not when they’re fired up. When they want something, right. They know exactly how to get, you have that relationship. You’ve built it over a few weeks and now this is like your dog, your own personal.

That’s what I do. We, my board and trains, I keep them a month. I don’t do anything less, right? Because it pays good. And I get to, so you take 2, 2, 3 dogs max. You’re not overloaded with tons of dogs. You’re not stressed out. I don’t have cattle facilities. I throw them in the truck, we go to the beach, we’re downtown, we go to the facility.

Heck, if I wanna go on vacation to the IACP, I’ll bring a board and train. You know what I mean? It’s a beautiful life. This is phenomenal. A lot of trainers don’t see that I’ve lived that on the island, right? But I kind of got away from something. You reel me into. 

I’ve got a few things I’d like to circle back to.

So I, yeah, I was just asking about the drugs, but even circling farther back to where you were starting, we were, you know, we were talking about breath work for a minute, and you mentioned earlier something about taking a breath even during the session, I think when the dog was performing poorly on whatever.

Let, let’s dig into that a little bit. 

Sure. So, 

so what did you mean by that 

in the session with an owner? 

Yeah, so what I took it to mean was you’re working with an owner, dog’s not doing well, I think you’re talking about recall, but it obviously could be anything. And you said, let’s just stop and take a breath.

What does that mean and what does that actually look like? You know, obviously. 

Yeah, no, it’s, it, it looks like, so when you are, let’s say anybody’s ever experienced, you are coaching a, a person, whether it’s a trainer, whether it’s just a pet on, it doesn’t matter. They’re, they’re training their dog and you can see that they’re tense.

You could read your, read the Humans. If you, if you haven’t learned to read humans, we’re busy reading dogs. Keep that up. ’cause that’s, that’s a, that’s a discipline. That’s a beautiful thing. That should always be, but reading humans. Holy God. ’cause we’re fake, eh? Like if you can read emotion, you can get into, dogs are honest.

They are, they, they don’t lie with their body language and all that stuff of how they feel and what they’re gonna do. They don’t, humans, man, you know, this craziest stuff. We’re usually got chemicals and stuff. So I like, okay, take a deep breath. When someone is getting overwhelmed or anxious or they’re just, you know, they could be just going a little too fast ’cause maybe we’re coaching, do it, do it again.

Do it again. And it could be just our energy of how it’s landing on them and we’re trying to show up and be a, you know, we’re good. But somebody just said something and somebody in your family did something. So you’re coming into this lesson and you’re dragging that into you try not to. So it’s gonna get in the way.

It’s always gonna smoke, always if you’re smoker or somebody’s always gonna smell it. So, so when I’m out by the bonfires, you know, and I go to church and I got blood in my shoes. ’cause I was out shooting geese early in the morning and you know, like I love my church. They’re just like, love Duke. They know me.

There’s no judgment. That’s what I like with that and that’s what I let organizations to don’t. But we need to learn to breathe first. I mean, literally take a breath. If I’m going to explain something to somebody, the first thing I’ll do, just one breath one, leave it in the belly and I’m gonna do a check-in.

How is my breath before I even show up in that. So outside of a room, if I’m outside the training room and I’m feeling like you ever get tired, you’re just like, oh, okay, one more, one more. Like, gotta do this. Gotta show up at your best. Some people don’t care, they just go in. But I care. Like I want to be, I used to take medicine and all that before breath work and your freaking kill blew up my heart.

So I’ll tell you that story someday. That’s why Breath work’s good. But I’ll be outside that doing um, some, so just, even just like. And moving my body. And then just do that. We’ll do it together for once we calm down here and you’re gonna feel it. I already feel it, like I’m jacked up. I used to drink a lot of espressos.

Not anymore. No, it’s true. I used to do the coffee trip every all day. Seminars. Workshops, extra large three, three shots of espresso in a Tim Horton’s coffee or, or that, that was me. Now one day, are you 

off caffeine completely now? 

No. I love morning coffee, my one in the morning, but it’s a lot lower. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Breath work is huge. So when I see someone who’s stressed, even the dogs, the dogs get all, like you say, whoa, calm the dog. So one of the things whoa calm down is I use Slip Lees or you know, dominant dog collar, funniest name for a collar, shoestring. It’s literally use a shoestring. That’s what I used when I was a kid.

No pain, just a little discomfort. But they calm down. We can’t fear that. That’s reality. If I’m at the table and excited talking and I talk quick, some. So I go to the bathroom, what’s on my mind? One thing, nothing else could be talking about the world. AI is gonna take over whatever. I’m in there looking for one thing only.

So when I know how that’s good. That’s scary. When you can’t. So when you know how and somebody goes, ding, ding, whatever it is, you know how to get your best feelings. There you go. Then you, you got it made. When you feel like you’re in control, we’re not in control. We like to be right. So what I tell people is when they’re foot, I’m like, just take a breath.

You don’t have to worry about this. You don’t. You just let go. Let the dog he wants to control, let him think he’s in control. We’re just gonna change how we are so that he can control it. But you’re actually in control at the end of the day, but you have to control your breath first. So let’s just focus on me for a minute.

So I just have them stop. I say, stop, stop. Look at me for a minute. Put your hand right here. And I start matching my breath. I, I have to change my energy and I’m, I’m with them. So I can come right up really high, boom. ’cause I practiced that and I can come right down and come there with them and be there and say, okay, where’s that coming from?

Maybe I just take a breath for a minute. And sometimes they have to just go and cry ’cause there’s an emotional, so, so where does this come from? I, for example, you could be training a lady that has a dog and she just lost her husband and that’s the dog that he gave that dog to her and she didn’t come and see you for months and months and months and months.

And the dog is really, really overweight and she’s just so emotionally messed up and lonely. And you’re gonna help that. That’s what I love about my job. I get to spend time in a room with a person like that and no matter what the dog is, the dog brought us together and I’m gonna connect with that person and help that person.

And if they can let something go, just walking around training dogs or a high five, what I’m trying to pick out. Is, let’s honor the things that you’re doing that are working. First, you gotta do that because we’re too hard on ourself. We want the next thing. We want, the next trainers aren’t even sitting it down between lessons.

They’re just, I used to, I don’t know. But when you can actually schedule, let’s say you do work a dog and then you transfer over to the next session, you could be dealing with a maniac, high drive, reactive, you know, uh, and then you got this overweight, nervous, fearful adult. You get switching. That’s two opposite things, and you just came from the intense one.

Maybe your energy’s gonna be there, maybe it’s the other one. So what I do is I make damn sure that there’s at least two minutes or a minute as best I can transition from one to the other. And that has to include, sit down and close your eyes. You have to close your eyes. I’ll calm myself down as I’m calming.

It’s just with nose belly breathing. 4, 2 6 method is my favorite for that aspect. And I, it could only take five to 10 breaths and I’m calm and I’m thinking about what I just did and let it go. And notes are taken. Um, then I’m looking forward. So I flip, how am I right now on a scale of one to 10? Are you ready to rock and roll for this next lesson?

What’s this one? This one is a lady that needs you go through the notes. When you open your eyes, you’re okay. Got it. 3, 2, 1. Let’s rock this. And I walk in there and I want my energy. I want them to feel a good energy and I want them to have, even if it’s not gonna be a massive breakthrough lesson, because I charge for results.

I’m not cheap. I don’t charge per hour. I charge a certain fee. And usually they’re structured into very efficient productivity. Like, you know, for two privates. If somebody has two privates, they don’t need six and eight, 10 privates. Guys and gals come on. Like they have to start, we start with some videos at home, then some private lessons to get it, get some to, and then semi-private and then group classes.

And I have a program that gives them one year. I don’t do anything else for say we have a couple more, but that’s, that is like the most joyful because if they’re struggling and I wanna do another private, I’m gonna say, let’s do another private. It’s only three privates for God’s sakes. They’re in, it’s deficient.

You’re killing birds with stone. Like it’s a, you got all these people, you know what I mean? Group. But I don’t start with group. I always thought that’s a hot mess. You try to train someone who doesn’t know anything in this room with 10 people. They’re all like, look what the dogs are acting up and distracted.

So the person’s getting about 50% of what you’re saying and the dog’s getting it. But 50% of what they got in a, in a brand new crappy way, how are you gonna get it through? And we can work compulsion, you know, pressure that’s, or they’re real hungry and they’re gonna treats train. Right. One or the other.

What I do is I, that’s not a good way. I never could learn that way that well as an A DHD kid, right? I always get my ass kicked to try and try harder or smarten up and focus. So you’d learn forced focus. Right now I’ve been in the industry long enough too. They didn’t fire meds at me and we moved around a lot, but they did it.

My daughter at one point and that’s why I pulled her outta school and homeschooled ’cause I was frustrated with the system. Drugs, personal development first. I didn’t have that back then. I really wish I did. Like, man, it’s powerful. Um, I know it’s crazy. Sounds all in as a trainer, but you know, you do it long enough.

Dogs, and, and when you’re better, when you show up with a different mindset with less judgment, judge less feel better. I come in there, right? Somebody’s saying, oh, I know I did this wrong, or I don’t tell people what they’re doing wrong As a good coach, like I, I’ve been told so many times, you’re doing this wrong.

That wrong. Every trainer and planet is gonna tell you what you’re doing wrong. You already know. You don’t need to be told that that’s not good coaching, that’s not gonna be pick you up, right? What do you want? What’s your goal for this? Okay, so now, is what you’re doing right now accomplishing, getting you closer to the goal?

Is it working? Is it getting you farther from the goal? That habit, that application, that method. That tool. What is it? Is it working? Is it, yeah, it is. Okay, so what’s the concern? Well, you know, it’s an e color and people think, okay, so it’s a self thing. It’s a, it’s a from the world for us. Nevermind that. We gotta work through that aspect.

Dog needs you. You need someone else. If you can’t do it for you and you’re struggling to get out there and do that, then who can you do it for? Because you’re here and I’m here for you. And there’s a struggle. So there’s, when I have them calm down and breathe, that’s sometimes a conversation. And then I always revisit it.

Well, don’t stress, don’t, don’t stress. We’re here. Is this really seriously, truly something that you really want? I always revisit that. And they’re like, yeah, okay, good. Because folks, sometimes they’re in it and three weeks, four weeks goes by and they get a little frustrated and they realize I’m gonna settle for less.

’cause that’s a lot of work. That’s a human being in society today. That’s like soon, you know, it’s gonna be January 1st here and in a month or the gyms are full and then three months they’re not. But we’re so hard on those other people and we’re so hard on ourselves when the. That’s how we sometimes show up too.

So when we’re not showing up that way, when our mindset changes, when we’re seeing things differently, it’s, and we’re able to go through really hard crap in life no matter what. Right? Not with a fake smile and not with crap fake joy. That’s not true. You gotta be your authentic self. Like there’s times in breathwork sessions where I have people that come in private and we’re doing trauma release, and I’m not a therapist.

I won’t ever tell anybody, a therapist. I can give a lot of therapy maybe, but life is that way. Life is shaping you. Life is training you. I made that statement a while ago, but whether you know it or not, like it or not, somebody pulls in the driveway, we’re on an interview, the dog barks or something happens, or life is shaping you.

It’s how you’re showing up in life and the decisions that choices you’re making. And I always look rewinding to the owners, okay, you want this, this, this, and this. It’s not, folks, you’re not selling the dog training of just about the, the monkey drills that that’s part of the equation. But I think when we are focused on that, I think the statement one where you can’t fix a, uh, behavior, problems with obedience.

That’s terms very popular around. But why not? What, what is obedience to you? What is that to me? What is our mindsets? Because if we can’t get that even on the same page, then we’re already gonna fight about that. Like, what is obedience to me, when you’re told by something so to, to be obedient, stop at the stop sign.

If you don’t, there’s consequences. But I have to know those rules. ’cause if I’m in China right now, I, I don’t know how to speak Chinese. I’m not in their culture. So we need some education, first prep work, you know, like little things. Why do I want to go to China? What’s it gonna be like when I go there?

What are the tools? What a little bit you gotta prep and then have a coach when you go there. So people aren’t gonna scream at you in Chinese. I did that before. I say that analogy one time. I was in a, in the police car, it’s three in the morning. This guy’s doing like 20, like super slow. It’s like three in the morning.

And PEI zero people around. It was like the only car. He wouldn’t stop. So he put the lights on and uh, he stops in the middle of an intersection, but there’s no car, there’s nothing. And he gets out and starts coming to the car, can’t speak English. I’m freaking, I’m like, oh. So I’m out the car like, sh your hands shut.

I was freaking out at this guy and he’s, he never had a panic attack. My energy shot across there. He didn’t understand English. So, so we can’t even communicate. And, and, and even those is us that can speak English. We already get triggered and we’re all focusing on dogs and this and what I know. But if you’re triggered, I want you to stop and say, wait, if I’m triggered, that’s an open wound right there.

Where’s that coming from? That’s an opportunity for you to close your mouth and breathe instead of reacting. Be like, wait, that triggered me. Why did you ever ask that? Why is that triggering you? What happened to get that? Why? 

You know, so, you know, breath work obviously is a, is a big topic, right? And hard to do justice in a little conversation like this.

I think this would be a good plug. So you’re gonna be doing a webinar hopefully in the near future through the IACP. Right on. I want, 

so I, when I was at conference, I wanted to do, do that to the group, but it was, it just wasn’t set up that way. 

And, uh, yeah. Could you walk us through just briefly what would that look like?

So listeners can kind of keep an eye out for that session? 

Yeah, a hundred percent. Let’s do it. You wanna do breath work? 

Well, I mean, we can do some breath work. I guess first gimme an overview. So if someone jumps on that, that zoom call, what would they expect? Just real brief, just kind of a, 

the one that I just, so I did two free Zoom coaching calls.

I changed them up 

because, and then hopefully you’re gonna be doing another four IACP members. Right. 

That’ll be specific breath work for ICP coaching for 

them. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, what would that be? Can you just give a quick synopsis of what, what that would look like? 

Yeah, a hundred percent. That will be just breath work.

So I’m not gonna bother with coaching. I could do both, but we’ll stick with one because a breath work session, I’ll probably look at keeping a TA shorter 1 25 minutes or less. It would look like me teaching them a little bit about their nervous system. Just very basic introduc, why did I do breath work?

So 15 minutes or less. And then they have to get a headset, all right. And they will sign up and then there’s a little video, they gets automated and I show them how to change their Zoom settings. It is on Zoom because, uh, and hopefully we can do it through Zoom because they have certain settings that they can change to give you the best effect for the nine D stuff.

That’s powerful. 90. If you just go to my page, I won’t get into it, but there’s nine different dimensions or nine different things. So you got guided coaching, you’ve got the surround sound, you’ve got the echoing, you’ve got your sub liable frequencies, binary beats, and it’s embedded into 520 some megahertz.

So it’s pretty, it’ll shift your, your whole, your brain state, whether you’re breathing or not, in an aspect of, and there’s no right or wrong. That’s what I like about it. Or I tell people with that, like, everybody’s different, right? And if you have been, if you’re really, really tight in the chest or you’re upper breather a lot, and you, and then your diaphragm, if you haven’t breathed into your belly and forced to, to the air to go into your lower diaphragm and bring as much air into your lungs as you can, but don’t let it up into the higher part, that’s tough.

And a lot of people. Have a hard time doing it. I’ve had done breath work sessions. When I do coaching, like our one-on-one coaching to trainers, sometimes we’ll just do breathing together on top of the CHPC to help them regulate their nervous system through, through that. So there’s different ways, there’s different things that I’ll do with different people when I’m dealing with a big group that I don’t know, it’s always downregulation.

So everybody’s usually got something going on in the nervous system, right? And it’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s kind of gets stuck. So if you picture your nervous system, right, the yin yang thing, you ever hear the story with the dogs and the wolves? Which one? I feed more a good one, not good one. I don’t do good or not good.

It’s like cause and effect. What are your goals? Is this gonna get you closer to there? And that way you’re helping people not feel judged, moving forward. They’re breathing and if they’re anxious, right? I just say, let’s stop for a minute, right? Just put your hand on your heart and I do that first. And let’s just bring it down.

I want you to just breathe in through your nose. Just put it in your belly, doesn’t, I Don’t even tell ’em what to breathe. Just breathe in, breathe normal. Close your eyes and they close your eyes. How do you feel right now just breathing in and out. Just how are you feeling? Where’s that tension coming from, do you feel?

And then I just stop talking. That’s the craziest, hardest thing I ever learned to shut up and breathe. So I’m like there and I, and I wait, and I wait and I wait. Folks, the long pause is the most powerful thing. All of a sudden, they’re gonna ask the client a question, just hold the space. And it’s how it lands on them with, with good emotional, how does that feel right now?

And just if they feel safe, they’re gonna talk to you. And all of a sudden you’d be like, okay, don’t give them advice. I don’t, I’m not gonna give them advice on that. I’m, I’m, I can just say, well, how do you wanna feel? And what’s another way we could try and what’s something we could do to shift our mindset?

Or what could we do to, I wanna get them to try on their own thinking, what do I do with it? ’cause you’re empowering them then telling them what to do when they’re stressed. They’re not gonna listen anyways. So just get them to breathe because that actually works. It, you can’t not, you know, it’s like, turn the lights on, there’s light, it’s dark.

Now you got light. So you want dark. Shut it off. If you want to calm down and close your mouth, close your eyes. Start breathing into the belly and not into the upper chest. That’s the biggest thing when I tell people for, for that. Right. And it’s helped me so much with really with Crohn’s disease, with inflammation, like just inflammation, um, downregulation.

So we’ll do belly breathing and you can even just shift that and just like, I’ll feel the experience if you guys wanna do it right now, five breaths. Sure. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

So let’s do it. So if everybody’s here. Yeah. So everybody who’s here right now. What I want you to do is just close your eyes, okay? And you can put your hand on, on your heart if you want to, and, and the other one on your belly just to feel if it’s going up or down.

But even just by taking your hand and putting on your heart and close your eyes, put your hand on your heart as I feel right now, and then breathe in through your nose. Just breathe normal and just do a check-in. But keep your eyes closed, folks, because that’s stopping a lot of stimulation coming in.

Okay? So now how do you feel? Right? Maybe you got a sore butt. We’ve been sitting for a while talking or maybe pain in your shoulder. Where’s your breath? Is it in your upper chest? Is it in your belly? Is it shallow? Just awareness. And I encourage you to do this every day, many times a day. Set triggers to help you go into self-awareness.

So if triggers for me, door thresholds, seeing someone’s whites of their eyes, I trigger a response. What I’ll say. Uh, transitioning from a car or when I’m in a lineup at a stoplight or in a grocery store, if I’m sitting there in a lineup, right? Who loves that? I’ll do this self-awareness check-in, and how’s my energy?

And how am I right now on a scale of one to 10? I’m a four. Mm-hmm. Okay. There’s three people ahead of me in the lineup. There’s the grocery store person. Ding, ding, ding. You know? I’m like, how can I raise my energy level to a level five? Nevermind a 10. If you’re at four, and geez, you’re having a rough time there today.

What, what do I do to eat a five? How can I get it to a seven? Instantly do something scary and hard. Like what? Talk to somebody right in front of you. There’s like three people in the grocery store. Seriously. You know, so I’m always looking for something when I’m there and it says, I’m like, uh, tattoos, right?

I’m like, there’s a tattoo. The person there. Hi, how you doing? I don’t stare. I’m giving ’em eye contact. They look at me, I’m like, hi, how are you? Great. Not creepy like you, but just, and then I’m always saying, yeah, ’cause it’s, it is, it’s like, how do I say this or do this without landing? Creepy. And then, and if I’m like, not really sure, I’m gonna be like, Hey, listen, in a cool way not to be creepy or anything.

It’s just, I, I what, instead of saying, I really like your tattoo. It’s safer to say, it’s interesting. I noticed it. Does it, can you show like, what does it mean? Does it mean anything? Does it have any meaning? Boom. They’ll share. They open up if they want to. That’s cool. And then, you know what, normally you’re smiling and I’m smiling when I leave and they’re smiling when I leave.

I, I wish I could say that I always done that and that people were always smiling when I left. More I grow. The more I get better at it. That that’s usually a, it’s not, it’s an intention. It’s something, well, I mean, that’s how we should it. Right? You leave on a good smile on an ending. It’s like, geez, you know, I met Duke at the store going through a lot of shit, but man, he’s got, got going pretty good, right?

Yeah, there’s pain. We have to, but you gotta let it go. That’s where breath work helps let it go because we’re holding on to everything we’re holding on to. You ever cry and you’re sorry, sorry, what are you apologizing for? Your body’s trying to let something go and you’re hanging on apologizing, suppressing it down at a cellular level and I think it, it’s my first breath work session.

I know Matt, that I share that with you. The big one, like a big full on somatic. Why I got into it like big time in CHPC, we do breath work. Very powerful. But then there’s 90 and that’s all they do. That’s just that breathwork kind of a icing on a cake. Very transformational, very powerful. And there is therapy for that is a medical, and when I got into it, I started studying it.

I’m like, man, I learned a lot about trauma informed and, and then PTSD more about me for my own stuff. I was like, this is the best right. Then all the coaches are there and then those who’ve never dealt with first responders and people with PTSD, they’re all like, Hey, like there’s a lot of education and they really wanna do it right?

And I’m like, Hey, I’m one of those. Here’s what, don’t be scared. I did my very first somatic breathwork session a couple years ago driving a lawn tractor around. I was listening to the, the, the trailer. And before I go on, if anybody’s interested, now before we breathe and stuff, go to duke ferguson.com and there is a nine D tab click that you can get, two free sessions that’s going to actually help you.

And there are only five minute sessions. One is a energy focused, gets you kind of jacked up and ready to rock and roll, and one is calm the freak down. Right? Woo. So we got five minute sessions for each. You just go to my site, download it, it’s free. And then when I do zooms, people can, 

yeah, I was gonna ask.

Should, would you recommend that people go listen, download and listen to those before the zoom? 

Yeah, big time. ’cause when you do it, there’s an eight minute trailer and if you just, you know what I tell you to do, just sit there and listen to the trailer, get comfortable. I was driving a lawn tractor, so I wasn’t doing any breath work.

It’s not, it’s just like, here’s the trailer of what this is. But it’s an actual experience. Like it’s really freaking cool. Like it’s got cars driving by your head, you’re just like, wow. But you know exactly what you’re getting into and you feel safe. And that’s important. That’s important for clients, that’s important for dogs, you know, they don’t know what they’re getting into, but as long as they’re just like, okay, they can go with it.

People need that too. So we have to have a hold, a safe space. And they come in, they get a headset on, so you’ll be on home. You don’t do it, and you just listen to the trailer and it’ll explain to you and then it’ll roll over to an actual, okay, we’re gonna do change the buying every, everything changes.

And then they’re gonna give you a. A relaxation one so that you can calm and de-stress every single day. Take it with you every day’s, five minutes, right? And then there’s an energizing one’s five minutes. And you know what? If you just do two minutes, in fact, what we’re gonna do here is I’m gonna show you the difference in five breaths.

Just five. I’m gonna do that. 

Yeah. And then I think, why don’t we do this and then we’ll start wrapping up. We don’t wanna give people everything. So this would be a little taste of what’s gonna happen on the Zoom, right? 

Yeah. So on the Zoom, what I wanna do for the IACP is an actual breath work session.

You guys can vote. Say you want an hour long, hour and 15 minutes, like an actual trauma, let’s do a lower one first. And if you love it, that’s what the zooms are for. But I’m, I’m open to do this to, to let you guys experience it ’cause. That’s why I’m doing it. I did my first breath work session. My wife was in chemotherapy after the, the, the day after.

And I’m like, freaking, you know, it was bad. It was pretty nasty stuff. And uh, I’m not thinking I’m gonna have anybody around in, in time. I really was having a rough time. And this trailer come on, and it was called Transcending Fear, was the first breath work session I ever did in that aspect. It was an hour and 20 minutes of hard on wide open.

I’m like, okay, I’m doing it. I didn’t care. I’m like, and I was nervous. I actually was, I was a little nervous, but I’m like, screw it. And I went in and I didn’t have to talk to anybody and I was alone. And in one hour and 20 minutes I got more trauma released out of my body, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, at the cellular level in an hour than I did in 10 years of therapy.

And I remember lying there on the ground, like feeling like the most amazing thing just happened. And all I did was breathe through this whole scenario. And it was crazy. It was like. I was laughing at one point, I was crying at one point. There’s breath holds. Those holds are freaking powerful ’cause it’s where your body’s just releasing all the, their hormones.

So there’s, you know, and you can go way too wide open and get tetanus, but I teach that like I, I teach everybody’s safe. So if you wanna put the pedal down and slay dragons, let’s do it. But when somebody’s never done breath work before and you’re really into this spiritual state, it’s kinda like if anybody’s ever done mushrooms or ayahuasca, like I’ve never done that so I can’t explain it.

Um, it’s like that only there’s no drugs. And when you’re finished and you wanna slow down the breathing, you slow down the breathing. In actuality, when I was in Texas, I was gonna do a full on day released with another 90 breath work coach who does have thera. So if anybody’s in Texas and wants that stuff, um, Marley’s Ledbetter, she has, uh, she teams up with psychologists and stuff, they’ll do a full on medicated breath work day for you.

It’s. You know, powerful stuff. So let’s do the, let’s do some breathing. Just experience five breaths. What want everybody to do is close your eyes, do this with your eyes closed. Gotta do that. We’re just gonna do, now you, if you wanna, we’re gonna calm the nervous system a little bit, okay? We’re gonna shift everything from in here, or even a balance just down to the lower.

Okay? Let’s just try five breaths and it’s gonna be, now don’t get too, too vent at a shape with numbers, because everybody’s lungs are different. Everybody’s different. But a general term is breathing in all right? Is when that, when you breathe in, that’s going to kind of escalate things, get your heart rate up things.

So if I was to jump outta the woods and go, right, and you go, right, right. It freaking, yeah. And then you’re like, oh, it’s Duke. And then you’re like, Ugh. So the, that release is that calm or ugh, rest and digest. The more oxygen you come in and out, uh, faster or or harder is gonna give you that more, you know, euphoria.

More punch, more drive. So we want to calm down. We don’t want that. So if you wanna just close your eyes, put your hand on your chest. Anybody just in your belly, try and put the breath in the belly, not the chest. All right, so this is where I say try if you can. 4, 2, 6. This is what we’re gonna do into the nose is less.

Oxygen into the mouth is the most oxygen. So if you’re trying to really calm things and keep the least amount, use your nose so you can breathe into your nose and out through your nose. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna breathe into your nose and out through the mouth so you have just a little bit more release faster there, whatever, not just faster, but just, just good release.

But we’re gonna do it through purse lips. That’s just how I am. Most people can get nasally and if you’re in and out the nose, you know, calming stuff’s not bad, but euphoric stuff. And why would you do your four stuff with through the nose if you have heart issues, asthma, or if you’re pregnant, you can’t do somatic sessions.

You can go into labor first trimester. So, but you can do calming ones. So I always do calming ones with the group. That’s what to expect. So let’s close our eyes, okay? And we’re gonna just breathe in nice and slow through the nose for four seconds. 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold it for two, one. And just let it go for 6, 

5, 4, 2, 1, into the nose, 1, 2, 3, 4, out to the mount.

No out for the mouth. 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. In for 4, 2, 3, 4 out for six. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. In for, four,

out for 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 at five. Now just stay still everyone. How do you feel right now compared to five breaths ago? You just turned your nervous system down. You control it if you practice this. Now we’re all mellow. We could do more 

and more. Let’s do this now. Super simple. Stand straight, open your eyes, straighten up.

And if you can do two quick little breaths in the nose and now through the mouth. It looks like this. So you’re doing belly, chest. Try that. Five or six, 10 of those. Go for it, Matt. Suck it up. Mel. That flower you’re trying to really, 

I feel good. 

So that’ll bring you up a little. That’s just the nose and the mouth.

You could do full on like, but, but don’t stand up and don’t do that 10 times you fall over ’cause it’s a lot more try it. Like, unless you guys have any issues then don’t raise that right away. I’ll go into, when we start a a session, I’ll go into some counter contraindications things to be look forward to.

You gotta sign a waiver. It is safe. It, it is really safe. They did a study of like, I think it was like 10,000 or so of like really, um, people that really struggled a lot with psychology and they were on medication and they did, uh, a lot of heavy duty breath work sessions with them. No recorded. These are like two and three hour long sessions of pretty intense stuff.

I’ve never even done that yet at three hours. Right. And there’s no, uh, no bad effects that have like. All kinds of people and it is deemed as an actual medicine. But think of it, if you can control your nervous system on command, just like you can kind of take a slip and say, we’ll, calm down, doggy that knows exactly how to deal with it.

You know, you got a tool to do that. And actually who’s, there’s other people in the industry now. It’s pretty cool. They’re doing somatic sort of with dogs. 

Well, I’m thinking we don’t want to give everybody everything we need to, we need to keep ’em wanting to get on this zoom with you. Yeah, I think after that breathing, I mean, I can tell you I feel the, the breathing is calming and I, I, I’ll, I mean, I’ll jump on the zoom for sure.

I excited to see how that goes. What we’ll do is, in the description of this video, we’re gonna put obviously all your links, duke. So send ev everything over to me, you know, kind of whatever you wanna see in the description of this. Then I would say, everyone listening, watch the IECP uh Facebook page.

’cause that’s where you’re gonna hear about Duke’s upcoming, the Zoom call. I think that’ll be phenomenal. You know, we’ll have that advertised ahead of time. Hopefully we can get that done in the next few months while it’s still fresh in everyone’s brain. And you said that’ll be a long call. People will learn a lot from it and you’ll have links an i’ll plan ahead of time for them to go to your website, correct?

Yeah. An hour, an hour and two minutes. Like I go there, it’s structured, so there’s like 15 minutes introductory breath work. Here’s what the session is. I’m gonna do down reg because of the factor. So I mean they go through it, adjust the audios on the Zoom, we’ll put all that stuff out, sign the waiver.

It’s all automated. And if they go over to Duke, Ferguson, I’ll give the links. They can sign up for that free stuff, which if you use that perfect, like use it today, use it every day. It’s five minutes. Like to change your whole life, which is gonna help change other people. Man, I can’t stress that one enough.

Just breathe. Don’t bark. 

Alright, duke, appreciate it very much. This was awesome and I hope to see everybody on Duke Zoom call. We need a good turnout for that. 

Yeah, you don’t have to put your camera on. If you wanna feel safe, shut her out. We’ll suck some air together 

and 

you’ll love it. 

All right, take care Duke.

Thanks Matt.