Welcome to Dog Pro Radio. We have Robin McFarland on the show today. Robin is a dog trainer with a ton of experience. She provides in-person training at her location in Iowa. She sells online courses that I recommend everybody check out, and she also does seminars and workshops around the country. I also want to note Robin is a previous director of the IACP and has been an influential member of the organization pretty much for its entire life.

So obviously we all appreciate everything you’ve done over the years and continue to do for the IACP Robin. It’s much appreciated. But welcome to the show. We’re excited to have you here. 

Thank you. Thank you guys. I’m, I’m super excited to talk this morning and, uh, to dig in. I think we’re gonna have a good one.

Absolutely. We’ve got a lot we could talk about for sure. Why don’t, why don’t we just start, could you just give everyone, maybe I would assume most people listening know you, but let’s pretend they don’t. Could you give us just a quick rundown of who you are and kind of sum up your dog training journey?

Yep. I’m happy to. I wish lots of people knew me, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore, Matt, this, I’ve been around a long time, so a lot of it’s been great to actually watch, uh, what’s going on with IACP and the growth and the new people coming in. So for all of the folks that don’t have any idea who I am, um, I, here’s the, here’s the, I’m gonna give you the two minute version.

Like many kids grew up thinking I wanna work with animals. I wanted to be a veterinarian. Um, and that was my path. I got into college a as a pre-vet student. Um, and then I discovered very quickly in the Midwest that that meant doing things that I had no interest in doing and putting my arms in places that I did not want to put them in the Midwest, right?

We’re talking dairy, cattle, and swine. So I opted out. I didn’t know what I was gonna do. I, um, finished my curriculum. I moved to the West Coast. Uh, I wanted, I got into several schools actually for a master’s program, and I chose one on the West coast because. I really wanted to get into marine mammal behavior.

Well, who didn’t? You grow up in the Midwest, you wanna work with dolphins? Doesn’t that sound great when you’re, you know, 20 years old, 22. Anyway, I went broke, uh, very quickly, paying out-of-state tuition for a master’s program. Took a part-time job in a vet clinic that was dedicated entirely to small animal work.

And so once I got that exposure and kind of got reintegrated into what my original, original dream was, I was on that path for just about 10 years. And that is what exposed me to the amount of behavior problems that are out there and the amount of struggles that pet owners are having with their dogs.

And it inspired me to self-study. I did that for a few years. I was training part-time and actually it might surprise people to hear that all of my early influences were very much along what you would consider the all positive. Genre. You know, I was studying all of, uh, the Ian Dunbar’s work, all of the Patricia McConnell’s work, all of those kind of things.

And, and that’s what I was doing in my part-time business. Well then I had a life-changing moment. I had a big accident. I spent some time in a wheelchair. I spent, uh, about eight months rehabbing actually had to learn how to walk again. That was fun times. Um, and when you go through that stuff, you think about what do you really wanna do the rest of your life?

And I decided I was done with the medical piece and I was going to devote myself to just training. Um, because the thing that I liked the most about it is the impact it had on individual lives, the human lives. I mean, not only was I helping dogs, obviously, but the impact and the emotional impact that it had on people because.

They didn’t have to get rid of their dog. That was what I saw on the, on the work that I was doing in the vet clinic, is people were literally coming in making end of life decisions. And I was the one holding the dog and handing out tissues. And that piece was so fulfilling to me. That’s when I decided, you know what?

I’m gonna, I’m really gonna go down this path and I’m gonna learn everything I can about doing the best that I can for pet owners. And, um, I think I got lucky in many respects. I met Martin and Pat way back in 1999 and that’s when I got involved with ISCP. And that introduced me to this world of people.

And the more I got into it, the more hungry I was just to, just to take in every bit of education that I could so that I could help any case the best that I could that crossed my path. And I got lucky, I think. Um. ’cause of that exposure and have then been able to teach other dog trainers. And so here I am 30 years later, you know, reaping the rewards of all of those connections that I made.

Well, I’m sorry to hear about your accident, but I’m glad it brought you into the dog training world. Isn’t it funny how that kind of thing works? 

Uh, 

what a change 

in 

your 

life. Best thing, best thing that ever happened to me, honestly, it really was, it made me take my life seriously and figure out what do I wanna do?

And I got real focused and real driven after that.

So. Your name in the dog training industry. When you hear Robin McFarland, I think most dog trainers right away think about ecos. And I’m curious if you like that association. If you don’t, if you’re like, Hey, I’m much more than that. But that, I think that’s a common association. I would love to hear your thoughts on that, but also just to open with talking about ecos are polarizing, you know, we all know that, right?

But why do you like them? What are your thoughts on them and what are your thoughts on being known for ecos? So why don’t we just start there? 

Well, first of all, Matt, thank you for asking me that question. No one has ever asked me if I like that designation or not. And not really. I really don’t particularly, I mean, I appreciate that people respect the work that I’ve done in that space, but it, it’s a bit frustrating because it’s almost as if no one can see the other pieces that I do.

You know, no one sees that I use a clicker. No one sees how much food I use. You know, no one sees all the various people that I’ve studied with to try to influence the approach that I take to my work. So it’s that double-edged sword. Um, it has certainly brought me a lot of opportunity, but I don’t like the idea of being pigeonholed.

I, I personally don’t like labels very much. I wish we could just look at one another and say, they’re a, they’re a up and coming dog trainer. They’re a good dog trainer. They’re a starting out dog trainer. They’re a phenomenal dog trainer. They’re a dog trainer that mentors other people as opposed to pigeonholing according to, uh, methodology or tool.

I think that would bring us a long way. But, um, anyway, that was a long-winded answer to your question, but thank you for asking. No, 

that, that was great. 

So what, what, I can tell you what brought me to it. Such vigor. Why did I dig into it so hard? And I mentioned that Pets PET training was my passion from the get go.

I just wanted to help the average person who was struggling with their pet, and I wanted to see that dog stay in their home. Right. And I was doing a lot of things. Like I said, I started kind of on this all positive thing. And what I found is, and then I added in some prong callers, I added in some other work.

As I went along, I added in corrections. And that helped, uh, it helped to expedite results for people, right? But what I found is a, people will opt out if they don’t get a pretty. Quick turnaround. Most people will, unless they are truly into dogs and they just are into training, they’re not gonna have the passion for it that we have.

So we’ve got to give them some sort of outcome that they can see, oh yeah, things are changing. That’s what gives ’em hope to stay on track. When I started getting into ecos, not only did I see that piece happening, but the, the big piece that I discovered as far as the dogs were concerned is if I can teach a recall first, one of the very first things that I teach, forget about some of these underlying things that are going on with the dogs, and let’s just get a recall on this dog so this dog can have some freedom.

So many other things simply went away that we never even had to address. It was just so much pent up, frustration, so much lack of fulfillment, so much inability for people to give dogs some sort of. Appropriate outlet for them to be a dog in a safe way. And that’s what was causing the vast majority of the problems.

And, and once I recognized that and I saw those two pieces come together, that the dogs were getting it, the dog’s problems were melting away, and it was actually building, it was really increasing people’s desire. Like, this is fun. What else can we do? It made ’em more hungry for training. I was like, that’s it.

I’m on board. I’m gonna use ECOS in as many cases as I possibly can. And that’s why I became such a big advocate for incorporating that tool into a training program for people. 

Awesome. I think, you know, our listeners are going to understand that right away, right? Our listeners are, are dog trainers, so I don’t think we need to try to sell people on the fact that eco, like they obviously offer freedom, right?

Uh, and so I think you summed that up pretty well and that’s, I’m intrigued to jump into methods and I love, you had told me when we spoke last summer that you start with come and I think that’s really interesting ’cause that’s contrary to what I would say most trainers probably do. So I think we should dive into that at some point.

But kind of nitty gritty, before we even get into your methods, could we just talk about how you start with an eco, what you think about fit? You know, contact obviously matters and I think any dog trainer, if they say they’ve never struggled with contact, has probably never used an eco uh, that obviously comes up.

So do you use extensions or uh, wing tip contact points to use bungee straps? Is there anything you do with the collar to make sure it’s working well for you? 

Um, so yes to all of the above, it’s very much gonna depend on obviously the, the dog, the coat, that kind of thing. I don’t use wings a lot. I use them when I feel it’s appropriate for the coat that I need.

I do switch contact points frequently, and I will tell you that I’ve become a hoarder of full stainless steel contact points as opposed to the ones that are now, most of them are covered in plastic at the base, and then they just leave a little stainless at the tip. And I understand the reasoning was, you know, because the retriever folks and the people that are working dogs in water, they need that, uh, more direct, they need that because, you know, we know that water leaks away the contact, so to speak, or the, the stimulation.

And so the, I know that’s why they did it, but from a standpoint of pets, to have the full stainless so that even if things tip a little bit and it’s not just touching the plastic contact there, I hoard those things in whenever I can get ahold of them. So I love them and I switch accordingly, right? I want the different sizes and yes, I use, I tend to use, um, some sort of bungee.

Um, or I will, like if I, if somebody wants to keep the original collar strap, I prefer that they have a bungee because I do think when the dog is, is, um, working and breathing heavily, I wanna see that expansion. Not only does it help good fit, but I wanna see the dog be able to, uh, expand, you know, the, the neck muscles and, and be able to take in a full breath a little bit more easily.

But if they wanna keep that, I make sure that I mark the notch because the biggest mistake most people make, and we all know this, is they put it on too loose. That has to be one of the number one things as a trainer getting into ecos that you learn to check all the time when people say they’re having problems is make sure the fits proper.

Yeah. When I get. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Jason. 

Or they, or they forget to turn it on. I deal with that one all the time 

too. Oh my gosh. Isn’t it amazing? It’s amazing. Or forget to charge it. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

It’s amazing. 

We only sell dog trip products and 99% of the time that our clients have an issue with it, it’s either they didn’t turn it off when it was done and it just stayed on, or it’s fit.

It’s always one of those two things. 

Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. Yeah. We use DTRA a lot too. Not to make this an ad for dtra, but I was thinking of what Robin just said about hoarding contact points. I’m like, yep. And then DTRA just put the switcher rule on us and gave us, gave us anys instead of Audi. So all the ones we ordered up are no good anymore, so we gotta start over our quest to hoard those things up.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So, Robin, how often are you using the con, the extensions, the longer contact points? Um.

So I’ll go, like I said, when I try to hoard and I still have pretty good supply of the three quarters, granted. Now here’s the thing, I’m not doing a tremendous amount of training right now. Right? I have, I do some, I take limited number of clients. But let’s look at when I was, you know, at the peak and we were doing 300 or so dogs a year.

Um, and this is just an, off the top of my head, probably 20%, 20 to 25%. I was put in a longer contact point. 

Okay? 

Yeah. 

And the reason I ask is I think that could be helpful for some of the trainers listening. If they hear someone, a lot of experience has done it 25% of the time and they’re never doing it, maybe it’s something they should be thinking about.

Well, and I, I think too, I think there’s a, there is a part of like, what, what area of the country are we working in, right? I mean, around here we do have a fair amount of. Because we’re in a colder climate. We have a fair amount of huskies and shepherds and those longer coated dogs that you’re just, it’s a necessity.

If you’re in an area where you’re seeing a lot of smooth coats and pit mixes and that kind of thing, you’re probably gonna have less need for those kind of changes. 

Agreed. I’ve gone to about, probably half my clients are using a comfort pad or a wing tip of some sort. So as we talk about contact and fit, any tips for people on how to get a good fit as far as is the dog standing, sitting?

What are you doing when you’re look, when you’re evaluating fit and trying to make sure it’s appropriate? 

A I do, I do prefer to have them standing and b, abandon ship on this two finger concept because people don’t know, what way am I putting the fingers? What and whose fingers? Like my dad has a finger that’s the size of two of mine, right?

So his two fingers is gonna be like that. Um, I just tell them when you take your hand, I want you to try to get your hand under the contact points. You should be able to slide a finger under the contact point, but it should take a bit of work. You’re gonna need to slightly depress the skin to get under.

If you can just easily slide under there, then we don’t have good fit. If you calf, if you have to kind of work a little and go, okay, I can get under there. We’re not gonna be so tight where we’re. Really restricting blood flow and expediting pressure, pressure necrosis. But we’re gonna be snug enough where it’s not freely moving around.

And, and, um, ’cause we all know when it comes down, down here to the thinner part of the neck, we tend to lose contact if it’s not snug enough. And gravity is gonna pull that way, even though ideally we want it on that flat muscle if we can. 

Okay. I would hope all of our listeners understand about leaving an eco on too long or too snug and what you mentioned about necrosis.

But could you give a really brief overview of what you mean by that? 

Well, yeah, I have personal experience with pressure necrosis because when I broke both my legs, I was in a hospital bed with both legs up in, you know, whatever those are called, hanging from the ceiling. And so they didn’t move me often enough.

And what happens is when you have pressure in a spot. Without relieving that pressure, you restrict blood flow to the skin and when you re restrict blood flow, you’re gonna cause the, you’re gonna cause the skin to essentially start to die. And so that’s what necrosis is. Dead skin, it’s starting to die, and then it starts to slough and of course it’s going to become itchy.

It’s gonna become uncomfortable. A dog is going to take their, generally gonna take their back foot, they’re gonna start scratching. They start to not only create more abrasions along that area that the skin is already dying, but now they introduce bacteria from the nail bed of those feet. And you can have literally in 24 hours, you can have what might have been a small little tip of your finger type of irritation, low up across the whole neck.

And it’s simply from. Poor, poor wear time, and sometimes too snug and water. Introducing water and not letting skin get dry after you run the dog. Swim the dog in water. 

Uh, if I can jump in real quick, Robin, with necrosis, I mean, I, I know we, we can see that if we’re not careful. Um, but a lot of people, um, talk about how that’s, you know, caused by heat and, and those sorts of things.

What, um, what is your way of explaining that, that other trainers might be able to use if they’re, uh, approached or, you know, uh, might, might be fighting on the internet with somebody? I know that rarely happens, but in the event that it does, you know, what is your way of sort of, you know, describing or explaining that in a way that makes it really understandable to people 

and it, it is tough because you are fighting.

We’re, we’re fighting the history of being afraid of electricity, right? And we understand that not all of it is, is, uh, alike. So it depends, and I am not an engineer, but it depends on how much knowledge people have. You can explain amperage and voltage and that there’s a difference. Amperage is what’s dangerous.

Amperage is what burns, et cetera. But that can go right over the top of a lot of people’s head. So, one thing I could do, and it’s, it’s kind of silly, but I do think for some people silly analogies resonate. I can say, look, let’s take this collar and let’s put it on this piece of, of tissue paper and let’s see if I can light it on fire.

So I’m gonna run this thing full on as high as it could go on this tissue paper for as long as we can, and let’s see if we can get it to smoke and burn through. It’s impossible. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t generate heat, but people have to. Have some way to prove that to themselves, to visualize it?

I think so. Again, it’s kind of a silly analogy, but if it generated heat, I’d be able to start a fire with it.

I like, I like that explanation of the, the tissue. Unfortunately, pretty much every picture you see online showing issues with ecos are from people leaving ’em on for too long, especially when the dog is swimming and it’s been on for eight or 10 hours after swimming all day and then really tight and then they have an issue.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a picture showing anything besides that. 

And, and one thing I will use to help people understand that, ’cause if, if somebody does give me pushback and they’re like, well, why do I see these pictures? And I will say to them, have you ever gotten a, a pair of new shoes that were a bit snug?

And you go walking and you get a blister. Everybody’s had that experience, right? That’s what, it’s too much friction. Too much pressure in one spot over and over and over and over, and you’re gonna start to cause some problem with the the skin tissue. It’s just inevitable. So we have to use intelligence when we’re using a remote collar and how long we leave it on and making sure that the fit is proper.

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Alright, well, why don’t we dive into methods. So I’d be intrigued to hear how do you go about introducing an eco, everyone’s got a different way of doing it.

You have a new dog, you’re training starting today. What does your introduction look like? 

Oh my gosh. Um, so this is a tough thing, right? And this is why I have a, a little bit of a tough time saying I have a method because it’s not the same for every dog. The dog determines what I’m gonna do, how I’m going to approach them, right?

For one thing. And, and we said that I start with a recall. I techn technically not true. Well, I start with movement toward the handler, right? We’re looking at three actions to have a completely what I’m gonna consider. And most of us consider a well call or conditioned dog movement toward the handler, away from the handler and stationary behavior.

And this goes all the way back. To, to Rex Carr, Jim Dobbs, uh, you know, those folks that set the stage for us. So I start with movement toward the handler because for, for several reasons. One, if somebody has to stop training early in the game, they, they will end up with a recall. And that’s an important piece for giving the dog that freedom.

Two, if I have a dog that is a bit standoffish, this is why I like ecos for dogs that are a little apprehensive, a little bit nervous, I can build, gradually build them, that they are gonna get in closer and closer proximity. A dog that is fearful of me and nervous about me is gonna work on a longer line than a dog that is a bit spicy.

I’m gonna put them on a shorter line. I’m not gonna give them as much opportunity. I’m gonna take away a few of those choices. If they’re a truly a more spicy type of dog, the dog that’s fearful, I’m gonna work on a longer line. And basically what I’m doing is I’m using pressure. When the dog is away and getting and, and releasing pressure.

And, and I tend to use, it depends. I’ll use sometimes continuous, sometimes momentary. And again, it depends on how the dog is responding to it. But I’m using pressure to influence the dog. And what I want the dog to discover quickly is every time you move toward me, pressure goes away. But also I wanna add in something good is gonna happen for you, whether that is food, if they’re gonna take it, whether that is initiating play, whether it, that is, you can have more freedom to move away again, but I am going to teach them how to respond to pressure and that it, that they can control it.

That’s one of the very, very, um, immediate things we want dogs to learn is you have control over this by your behavior. Some dogs, obviously, they’re very bid, they’re very quick. You can get ’em to come all the way in right from the get go. Some dogs, you get them to take two steps in. Right. And you’re like, Hey, that’s progress.

And I’m gonna give them that in the session. You take a couple steps court toward me. Maybe I went from working this dog that’s on a 15 foot line that is circling, circling, circling, that just wants to get away from me. And by the end of a session, maybe I’ve got him where he will work 10 feet from me, right?

And then the next session, maybe I’ve got him where he’ll work five feet from me. But I can reduce that proximity and build trust with him and show him in what, it’s just one of many ways, obviously, that I can show him I’m trustworthy. Also, with those dogs, I’m very careful about whether I’m frontal or whether I’m, they’re seeing a side view of me, because I’m not gonna put a lot of, um, you know, direct eye contact.

I’m not gonna put any spatial pressure on them. I’m not gonna move toward them. I’m constantly gonna move away from them and encourage them to move toward me.

So point taken for sure, what you mentioned about every dog is different, of course, right? And the way you train a fearful dog versus a spicy dog, you know, very different. So for listeners who are maybe haven’t used ecos or use them in a much different method, think let’s just talk about like, let’s say a six month old lab, just your average dog.

Not particularly crazy, not particularly nervous. You mentioned using pressure. What, what exactly is pressure for someone who’s never used an eco for that? And then what is teaching the dog to want to come to you? How are you, how are you making ’em want to come? 

As a general rule, the way that I’m influencing the dog is moving away, right?

Do we know that dogs, dogs follow anything? They gen they, they’re gonna be inspired to move toward things that are moving away, right? Herding dogs herd, and this is why dogs are predator, they chase, et cetera. So I move away from the dog and I think this is a way we’re gonna go down some rabbit holes here, right?

Because I don’t make it mandatory that the dogs are pre-trained in NOAA behavior before I add an eco. I have no problem with people that do that. I’m gonna say that again, just for anybody that’s freaking out, I have no problem for people that wanna do that. The reason that I’ll skip that step, and the reason I did so long ago is because pet owners wanted something relatively quickly, and if I could find a way.

To make it easy on them and easy on the dog. Then why don’t I combine these two techniques? Because if I’m gonna teach a dog to move toward me on a line, I’m still gonna teach that person take some steps backwards, walk away, bend down, clap your hands. I’m still gonna teach them all those pieces of the puzzle to help influence the dog to move toward the handler, right?

I personally don’t think the average pet owner, at least not the ones that I worked with, are too darn stupid to be able to do that. Plus tap a button when I tell them if I’m coaching them, I don’t think they’re incapable. I’m sorry, but I’m working with attorneys and surgeons and mothers that are wrangling three children.

These people can handle how to do things If you people wanna take the time to teach everything first, again, more power to ’em, have no problem with it. But I didn’t go that route. So how am I getting a dog to come towards somebody is gonna be all of the typical things that any of us would do. I do rely more on body language than anything else.

I rely on body language more than pressure on the, on the line. And that’s why I tend to like a line, uh, a longer line because I would prefer if the dog takes some steps toward me before they feel the tension on the line, et cetera. Um, it’s why I turn away from the dog. If they’re feeling the pressure of coming toward me frontal, they can come toward me from behind.

I don’t care. It’s all about getting them to the point where they are understanding that that weird sensation went away when they moved toward me.

So it cut out a little bit. When you were talking there, did you mention food at all? And is that a part of this initial process for you? 

Absolutely. Food is a part of the process as long as they take it. So some dogs, again, there, there are some dogs that I’m working, I’ll only work, you know, they’re maybe two or three feet away and I may lure them.

If that’s what I need to do, that’s what I will do. Otherwise, the food is going to be the, you know, the reward, the consequence for getting close enough to me, right? The good thing is gonna happen over here. Does that make sense? So yes, I will lure, I am, I am not proud in any way, shape, or form. I will do whatever I need to do to help a dog understand.

Okay. So you’re starting with teaching the dog to come to you. How do you, before you even get to that, how do you determine a working level for a dog? What does that process look like? 

So that’s another phraseology that I have a little trouble with, right? Working. Because levels change levels are extremely fluid, especially on the front end.

As you work a dog and you get farther down the progression with them, they do tend to settle in and we’re gonna start to learn each individual dog, like what works in this situation versus a high prey situation, et cetera. But in the beginning, what I have to do and what I have to teach my clients to do is watch the dog’s body language.

When is the dog noticing something is different? Something is a little weird, something is a little bit odd. Um, and, and that is a level that the dog is noticing in the very beginning. I need it to simply be a level that is noticing the dog’s noticing and just. Slightly enough that they’re like, what is that?

It has to be able it, it has to be directing their attention towards sensation just ever so slightly. Otherwise it’s really not doing me a lot of good. So I, I don’t know if that answers your question, but it’s about watching the body language for those signals. 

A hundred percent agreed on that. And I guess the reason I ask, ’cause I’ve seen some very, I guess, inelegant ways of trying to figure out what level to start with.

So whether we say working level, the initial level you’re using, whatever. I’ve seen people say, well, like, well generally I’m at a 10, so I’m gonna start at a 10. Obviously that’s very inelegant. I’m curious, how do you start, so if it’s someone dog who’s never had a collar on before, are you starting at zero and working up by one number at a time?

Are you working up by twos? 

So I always, I absolutely always start at zero. I make zero assumptions about what that dog is going to feel. It does not matter what breed they are, what hair coat they have, how old they are, what gender they are. Zero assumptions. We cannot make assumptions about physical sensitivity based on any of those things.

Just like we can’t with you and I. Right. It makes no sense. We were talking before we started recording about the weather, right? And we were talking about the cold and Jason was saying, I think it’s hit maybe about 20 out there. And I said, well, that’s sweatshirt weather here for me, right? Versus you guys might be like, I’m not going outside in that.

Right. Physical sensitivity is different for all of us, and so that is a key thing for people to understand. You cannot make any assumptions. So I start at zero. As far as dialing up, that’s gonna depend on what unit that I’m using, right? Because they’re, they’re different. I tend to work Resat callers. Uh, I do use Dog Ultra as the vast majority, uh, of my, of my collar use.

Um, and so I will go up. The thing is, I don’t know, I honestly don’t know how many numbers I’m going up because I don’t look at the remote. And this is one of the things that people need to learn. My eyes are glued to that dog all the time, and this is one of the reasons that I’m a stickler about transmitters.

Do not give me a transmitter that I can operate with one hand without looking at it, because that’s a piece of, um, something I don’t wanna use.

I need to be able to operate it with one hand without looking at it, okay? Because my eyes are on the dog all the time. Because if I’m at a number and suddenly the dog gives me a physical indication, like, what was that? What, and I miss it. And I’m gonna keep going up. That’s on me for making a mistake. So that’s a, that’s a key thing.

Um, one of the things that I know with the REOs stat dials that I tend to use is I know that about a quarter inch turn gives me a five to seven point increase. As a general rule, I’m probably going less than a quarter inch turn when I’m first introducing the collar. 

Okay. And let, let’s stick with pretending someone’s never used an eco before.

When you say you’re looking for the cues in the dog, what exactly are you looking for? 

Um, so depends on, and this is why I do prefer to be in a. Somewhat non-distracting area, right? You don’t want other dogs around. You don’t want a lot of arousal. Um, but it’s not so sterile that the dog is just standing there looking at me.

So I am allowing a dog to be at liberty. He’s on the end of the long line. He’s maybe sniffing, he’s maybe moving out, he’s just wandering or whatever. I’m gonna look for things like, he kind of stops and takes a momentary pause, but then you’d probably go back to what he’s doing because I’d stop tapping the button because I’m trying to identify right what I’m, what I’m seeing.

Um, he might be sniffing and he might, there’s a, there’s some good footage on some of my videos where you can see the dog’s nose to the ground. You can see him sniffing and then they suck up momentarily That. What was that? And then they go back to snipping. But when I see those kind of things, some dogs are, are obvious, some dogs might give you a, they might start to scratch, right?

That’s like the most obvious signal we could see. Or they might give you a little head twitch. That’s probably actually slightly higher level than I need for the first time that I’m working with the dog for the first time, right? Um, so those are some of the things that I’m gonna look for. If I’m getting full on like freezing and stuff like that.

If I’m getting a startle response, then I missed something early on. And again, that’s on me.

So obviously level depends on the dog and none of us can give a level that we think a certain dog would be at. But once again, I think this could be helpful for someone who doesn’t use ECOS a lot. Ballpark it with the average lab. When you are starting, you know, with a dog truck, let’s say it’s a zero to 1 27 unit, what would you guess is a common level you’re using with the average lab?

I think this could be really helpful for people to hear, even if plus or minus, you know, five or 10. 

Well, and let me, let me put this out there first. I would say about 15% of the dogs I’ve worked with over my career end up needing, because there’s, when we say zero to 127, we have, we have low to medium power and we have low to high power callers, right?

I’d say 10 to 10, somewhere between 10 and 15% of the dogs are really, really, um. Physically sensitive, and they’re that way for a reason. Certain, certain characteristics, certain genetics, or they’re built for a certain job, right? And so they’re going to end up a bit higher on that dial, even at a starting level, right?

Um, I’d say the most, most dogs that I’ve worked with over my career are going to be in the, gosh, I hate saying this stuff because then people pigeonhole you. You know? Um, 

no one, we’re not gonna let anyone pigeonhole you here. They, they’ll hear 

all my questions here. What? Here’s what I’ll tell you. Here’s what I will tell you When I’m online and I keep my mouth shut.

Now I generally don’t bother to, to get in these sprays, but when I see people say, well, he works on four, I really wanna know what collar they’re on, because on the doctor collar on four, I’m like, that’s a rarity. That’s a rarity. It’s not impossible, but I mean, I’m, you’re talking to somebody who’s worked.

The last time we count, it was shortly before it, I sold my business and we were, I was over 15,000 dogs that we’d put on ecos at that time. So when we say something like a four, that is a rarity. Again, not impossible, a lot of dogs work in the, the mid to upper teens, the low twenties. That’s a pretty common range.

If I have a dog, and again, I’m talking specifically about a dog tr low to medium powered unit, if I have a dog that I’m starting on that and he gets above 30 on his first session and he’s still behaving, oblivious to sensation, don’t care, that’s a dog that I’m likely to put on a stronger collar long-term, because I know if he goes into drive, he will overcome.

He will overcome that, he will power through. Right. And it’s not that, it’s not, it’s, when I say this, when people are listening, I’m not saying that this is something intentional that the dog is like thinking about this. This is what the dog’s built for, this is what they do. It’s the same dog that’s going to dive into the icy pond and go through a Rose Bush to get there.

Right? So that’s what people have to have to think about when they’re, when they’re deciding on what kind of units that they are putting in the hands of their client. And that’s why personally, I like to help people pick the right product.

And Robin, the reason for those questions was certainly not to pigeonhole you. I think it’s useful for trainers to hear, because I, I’m sure you’ve seen this as well. People that see a collar that goes to a hundred and they’re like, I don’t know, I guess I’ll start at a 20. It’s pretty low on the grand scheme of things, but that’s a recipe for disaster as o obviously, you know, and every dog is so different.

So I think it’s helpful for people to hear kind of specifically what is a reasonable level you’re working at, because they might assume if they’ve never used one, maybe it’s 80 is the normal level that everyone’s at. And obviously if you put this on a dog and turn it to 80, you’re gonna terrify the dog.

It’s gonna be a huge setback with 99% of dogs. 

You, you’re right, Matt. I’m, I’m glad you’re asking it because I do think there a lot of, um. Here’s another thing that I kind of struggle with the wording and I get where people are coming from, but when people talk about low level, low level training, I don’t like that phraseology at all.

I wanna say I use the word just right. I’ve been using that for a long time. Just right. Just right has got to influence a change of behavior. Right. It has gotta influence a change of behavior. If I’m too low, it’s completely, it’s not doing anything for the dog. And if I’m too high, it’s overwhelming the dog.

And that’s not doing anything either, just right. Has to influence behavior. A lot of dogs for just right is in that teens, upper teens, lower twenties. But I have had dogs that just Right is in the seventies and the eighties. It’s insane. It to me seems insane. But that’s the dog. Again, those are rarities.

Those are rarities. But they’re out there. When you work enough dogs, you will find this, and there are the dogs that are on a three or a four, or there are dogs that freak out on a three or a four, and you have to put a diffuser on there to bring the level down. If you wanna use a collar for these guys, it’s a matter of knowing what you are seeing and knowing then what do I gotta do to fix the situation?

I, I like your phrase that you’re using the, the just right level. 

It’s like the, it’s like the three bears, right? And the porridge. 

Yeah. So I hear low stem. I mean, I’ve started hearing that a lot more over the last few years. Low stem or low level. And obviously that tells us very little ’cause everyone could, you know, consider a different level to be low.

But could you walk through, that almost always goes hand in hand with using the collar as negative reinforcement, at least in, in my experience. Could you walk us through what that actually means to use a collar as negative reinforcement? 

Well, negative reinforcement obviously is just teaching the dog that he can, he can, it’s like, so here’s one of the analogies when I talk to people, because I, my primary, my primary consumer is pet owners, right?

And I wanna use language that they understand. And when we start talking about quadrants and it freaks people out, I say negative reinforcement is part of your life. Everyday life all the time. Let’s understand this. It is not harmful in sense of, it doesn’t have to be painful. It doesn’t, it doesn’t make you afraid of things, but it gives you the ability to control your situation and make it better.

So, for instance, if I am going to go outside, it is, I don’t know, I, it’s, it’s, it might be above zero today, but it maybe is eight degrees. Somewhere around there. I’m gonna put on a jacket because it’s going to, in the, the temperature itself is going to influence me to change my circumstance, to get more comfortable.

If I am in the summertime, going to walk down to get my mail, I have this gravel lane. We’ve got these gigantic pieces of gravel we put in. You don’t walk across that without shoes on. I am going to either, if I start to walk out barefoot, I’m either going to change my trajectory and I’m gonna go across the grass.

Or I’m gonna come back in the house, I’m gonna put shoes on to improve the comfort. It is. Does that mean that it is something that I’m afraid of or anything else? No, but it is just uncomfortable enough that it creates a behavioral change in me to get more comfortable. So when we’re working with the dog, it has to be just enough or just right that they figure out and they don’t figure it out on their own.

We help them figure out, here’s what you do to change your situation and make that go away. Right. We’re talking about escape and avoidance training when we’re talking about negative reinforcement. Right. Weird sensation goes away when you do this. So if the dog feels pressure. And I, he moves toward me and pressure goes away.

He has learned movement toward the handler, made the weird and sensation go away. And then when I follow it up with something good, like, oh, I threw the ball for you. When you move toward me, I gave you a cookie. When you, when you move toward me, or maybe with my dog that’s already trained, I did give you the freedom.

I do this a lot. I wanna build in, um, reinforcers that are more, uh, what’s the word that I’m looking for? I’m at a loss this morning, but for instance, my little terrier, one step critter constantly, right? And he’s a natural born killer, and he is really good at it. There are things I don’t want him to kill, so I have to be able to call him off.

There are other opportunities where I’ve been able to allow him, so I will test him, come to me. That’s very good. Okay, you can go chase the squirrel. He can treat a squirrel. I can give him those opportunities. If he listens, he learns, follow the command. He’s learned how to turn off pressure and one of the rewards is something that’s extremely high value to him and that is the opportunity to go back and chase just like we would do that.

Obviously, you know, I don’t do detect, I don’t do protection dogs, that kind of stuff. I’ve watched enough of it. Um, done a little bit of it, but you can teach the dog you call off and then you’ll get an opportunity to go bite that guy. Right? We wanna use these very high value things. Um, sorry, I know I’m going down a rabbit hole here, but I want No, this 

is great.

Keep going. Be extremely clear that it is not just about the negative reinforcement and the pressure, it is teaching the dog to control the pressure. And when you do the right thing to control it, not only does it go away. But it has presented you the opportunity to get something that’s incredible, that is beneficial to you.

And I want dogs to understand that about me as their handler, and I want them to understand that as, uh, with their owners, I wanna teach their owners exactly the same thing. This isn’t just come just because I told you to. Yes, there are times that that’s a necessity, but this has come because I might have something really good waiting for you.

Yeah, I think that that rabbit hole was, was great. So go down as many of those. As you want. I think overall the goal here is that we get some actionable things for either trainers that haven’t used eColors much and are looking to learn, or are looking to be able to explain things to clients because clients don’t know what pressure means until you explain it to ’em.

They certainly don’t know what negative reinforcement actually means until you explain it to ’em. And obviously as trainers, that’s our job to be able to explain it in a way that kind of meet them in the middle and be able to explain it to ’em in a way that makes sense to them. 

You want me quick? 

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry. I just wanted to go back to, um, you, earlier you were talking about the initial color conditioner and teaching the dog. Um, and I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but, uh, sort of coming to you as a default behavior in the beginning to clarify you are or are not using some verbal stimulus in that.

Part of the training in that initial conditioning. 

Oh, excellent. Uh, thank you for, thank you actually for asking that, Jason. ’cause I do think it’s important that people hear, at least my take. I like to clarify my take on it in the very, very beginning. And I don’t know how many minutes it takes. I don’t say, I don’t give any commands to the dog.

Okay. Um, I generally wanna remain pretty silent. I will use a little influence if I need it. Like, if I need to help orient the dog toward me, I might, you know, smooching noise, that kind of thing, if I need to help them. But generally speaking, I’m not going to use any commands at that time because here’s the problem.

What if the dog comes to me? Based on the verbal, he’s heard it before, somebody has done some work with him. How do I know whether or not I have found a level that is just right that is influencing the dog? So I don’t wanna get a false positive when I’m trying to figure out the levels of collar. As soon as I have some, um, reasonable, um, I’m getting, I’m getting good results.

I’ve done six or seven or eight, and I’m like, okay. I definitely, I feel confident that I have dialed in this dog. There is some fluency of behavior here. Now I overlay the words I, and I’m generally gonna use a follow me, which is let’s go, or something like that. Or if I’m having the dog come frontal, if they’re ready for it, then it’s gonna become, or here, but both behaviors, whether they’re coming to the side, coming behind me or coming frontal, are all movement toward the handler.

Yeah, I just wanted you to clarify ’cause I think it’s important for people to understand that during that initial color condition, you can achieve an incredible amount without ever saying a word. 

Yep. Well, and one of the things Absolutely, Jason, I think it’s super important you brought this up because people get super caught up in the words, right, and dogs.

What we know as dog trainers is that actually the body language is something that they’re more proficient at understanding, and therefore it’s easier for them to learn. Our humans, pet owners wanna say the words all the time. If we taught them, and I’ll do this with a lot of my clients that talk too much and they create a problem, is I say, here’s what we’re gonna do for the next 72 hours, you’re gonna pretend your dog is completely death.

You’re not going to use any words. And the reason that I will do that for these some, some people is because I need to create more proficiency in how they use their body language and the fact that they help their dog do the right thing. Because in their mind they’re thinking, why is he not sitting? Why is he not coming?

It’s like, ’cause he doesn’t understand yet. I need you to guide him. I need you to help him. I need him to show him. I need you to use the body language. So for three days you pretend he’s completely deaf, he cannot hear a word you say. And what I’m, what I’m doing then is I’m forcing people to develop other skills to assist their dog.

I’ve kind of done the inverse of that with our students here. From time to time, I’ll make them spend an entire 24 hour period of time and every time they say a word to their dog or give them a command, they have to write it down. And most of them quit after about an hour or two. Because they’re just, they’re like, this is insane.

I didn’t know I talked to my dog this much. 

I like that. I like that you, we, we have to discover creative ways to make people aware. We do. And, and I was going to comment, Matt, ’cause you said, um, you said something, and I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but you said something about teaching our clients about negative reinforcement and I would challenge dog trainers to quit speaking dog trainer, speak to their clients.

Agreed. 

We need to teach our client how to do something and how to do it well and do it proficiently. I will honestly tell you, I don’t give a hoot if clients understand the why. If they wanna know, I’m happy to teach them. But what I am really concerned about is that they do things in a fair, humane, and effective manner.

A hundred percent agreed. And no, you definitely we’re not putting words in my mouth. And I, and I’m with you there, that I think it’s our job to explain how these things work regardless of what phrases we’re using. And the phrases should be something that the client understands with, without a doubt. So more the concept of if you’re using it for negative reinforcement, it’s that the collar feels different and uncomfortable and as they start doing what you want, the uncomfortable thing stops and it goes away.

Yes, 

yep. 

And there’s nothing wrong with saying that is there, and don’t you guys think, I’m sorry, I’m not, I’m gonna ask you questions now. Don’t you guys think the reason we’ve gone down this rabbit hole, the industry’s gone down this rabbit hole about saying low level so frequently, is they’re like trying to protect themselves.

Like, I’m not abusing dogs. It’s low level. We, you know, everybody’s gotten so over-concerned about making sure that they articulate it’s just low level, but. It, it does feel just a little uncomfortable. And there’s nothing wrong with utilizing that to teach the dog what to do. 

Yeah. I think people work too hard to minimize what they’re doing in a way that it, it probably creates more conflict and confusion for people.

Um, and, and, and really in some sense takes away their understanding of the tools and how they should be used. 

Yeah. 

So to that point, you know, I certainly don’t wanna name names, but I, I’ve had a client, a new client come to me that had watched a lot of videos on eco work. You know, video after video, after video, and everything was low stem.

They had that word drilled into their brain. What they weren’t understanding was, what do I do when that does, what if the dog actually runs away from me, what do I do? And none of the videos they had watched actually explained that everything was this low level or low stem, and it was never really talked about, well, what if the dog sees a squirrel and is sprinting the other direction?

Because all the videos were very, um, feel good of like, Hey, it’s this low stem, look how happy the dog is, which is great. And that’s obviously how, you know, how the person’s teaching, but they never got into what do I do when I really need it? Do we wanna tackle that for a minute? Robin, do you wanna talk a little bit about what that should look like for someone?

Well, and that’s why I. When I teach, that’s why I really have gotten, you know, I’ve done this for years, I’ve always said we’re just right. If, if you were to come to one of my workshops, and people do this a lot, they come to the workshop, I’m working the dog, I’m demonstrating the dog, and I’m doing the thing, and the dog’s responding well.

And a lot of people will say, what number are you on? What number are you on? And I go, just right. And I say that over and over, and I’m not trying to just be, you know, smarty pants, but I’m trying to drill into people. It doesn’t matter what the number says. It matters how the dog is responding. And regardless of situation, low distraction, moderate distraction, high distraction, I need the dog to respond to just right.

And that number is going to change. Just like, well, here’s one of the analogies that we’ll give. You’re driving down the street, you’re listening to a radio program, you’re listening to a podcast, whatever, and you’re really intent on it and you like it. Now you come to a red light and that car pulls up behind you.

This is summertime. You got the windows down, that car pulls up behind you, that’s got the base, and you’re like, you can’t hear. So what do you do? You turn the volume up, right? Because you wanna hear your radio show. You wanna be able to pay attention, maintain attention. And so you’re listening to your radio show.

Now you pull away. Suddenly that level that was just right a few minutes ago, a few seconds ago, is now too low. So, or I’m sorry, is now too high. So now you gotta come back down to what is just right in the moment. I want people to understand, to utilize their transmitter in the same fashion. They should be able to be fluid, turning the dial to match the moment and their dog’s, um, attention.

If the dog, you know, their, their ability to gain, regain the dog’s attention. 

So it sounds like the just right level could change dramatically very quickly and then change back. 

Yeah, 

and I think that’s the key that some people are missing from some of the videos they watch is they get caught up on the low stem and have no idea what that actually means and aren’t comfortable with the idea that it could change pretty quickly and, uh, a, a, a pretty large change in the numbers.

It can be a very large change. I think it’s important to, to that we tell people. Again, I appreciate you guys asking these, these questions. I’ll give you a for example, I’ve talked about my little terrier. Um, he is 18 pounds. He, he’s like, literally, I got him from a shelter for 35 bucks and he’s got like 12 types of terri in him, right?

He’s incredible. He will take on anything that he thinks he can. When I was working his recall, his typical level with. No major distractions. We’re just out in the yard. Goofing around is gonna be around 20 if a rabbit comes through. When I was teaching him, I looked at the dial one day after I got a successful recall and I was on 80.

That’s a 60 point jump, but that is exactly the, the fuse that goes off in him right then that rabbit comes through. That fuse is lit and he is shot out of a canon. And so to overcome that, and I am not, he did not vocalize, he didn’t anything. He was just like, oh yeah, she’s talking to me now. Once he gets back to me, that ad is no longer gonna be appropriate because all of a sudden he’s tuned into me.

I’ve got his attention back. The cool thing about doing that successfully with a few, a few successful repetitions, this actually happened this summer. We were, um, I know you, you guys know I was living in a, basically a barn as we were building our house and it’s early morning. Our living conditions are less than ideal.

And I get up, it’s early morning, I go outside, I’m gonna let the dogs go potty. I hadn’t had a coffee yet. I didn’t put their collars on. We’ve got 11 acres, no big deal. He takes off like a rocket and I’m like, oh man. I had to take like two steps around the building. There’s a, a young groundhog sitting there like, baby, I’m assuming my dog was probably three feet from it, no collar on.

I says, Loki come. He hit the brakes. He stopped for a minute. He looked at the guy. He turned around and he came to me. Honestly, I was so celebratory that morning, it put me in the best mood because the work has stood up. It has stood up. It’s not a he. He’s not dependent on the collar. I don’t have to have the collar on him.

But the work that I did when I knew how to adjust the levels appropriately to teach him, when you hear the word come, this is the behavior that you must do has stood up. And so my cute little ground groundhog still lives in our backyard.

Sounds like there’s an opportunity for us to create a grassroots organization to put pressure on eco manufacturers, to have them get rid of all numeric values on their transmitter. 

You know what’ll happen, Jason? People are still gonna look at it and they’re gonna go, but I’m already on the tulip. Do I actually have to turn it up to the unicorn?

Oh man. Yeah. I hate those numbers. And then, and then what do they do? They come out with LCD screens and make it even easier for people to get hung up on a number. 

Yeah, I’ve had a few people I put tape over ’em if I have 

1. One thing I wanna bounce back to if I can, uh, that I think’s important too, and full transparency here.

I’ve had the luxury of, of hearing Robin teach, uh, long, long time ago. And, and hijacked much of the system that she describes because after I heard her talk about it, I was convinced there was value, uh, brought it home and have seen tremendous results with it. So thank you for that, Robin, first and foremost.

But secondly, I wanna talk about this initial color conditioning. Going back to that, and, um, one of the things that I saw from that after you explained it that first time and we began to implement it, was two things. Um, one was. The safety that we can can gain from training that way initially, pretty early on.

And number two, the focus that we develop almost unintentionally from the dog because of that, which in my opinion, makes it much easier to teach all the other things that we want to teach.

You’re absolutely right. I mean, I can’t even add to that, Jason, because That’s right. It makes everything else fall into place. That’s what I was saying too. What I, one of the things that I discovered as, as an outcome of starting people on an eco fairly quickly as I trained with them, is they got this success simply with the dog, following them, coming toward them, moving with them.

Suddenly the dog’s like, Hey, it’s cool being with you. Everything else happens so quickly. It’s just like a domino effect. How much quicker all of the pieces will come together. So I, I have found nothing but positives about incorporating ecos into people’s training and into pet owners training. And I haven’t found, I haven’t found people to be abusive of it.

I can tell you all those number of people that I’ve trained over the years, there was one person that I said, you know, this might not be the best tool, but that person’s temperament was honestly not suited to having a dog. Period. Bad things were gonna happen regardless of what tool That gentleman had 

definitely agreed with you that I think most people that are searching on a dog trainer are not looking to be abusive.

Right. And they’re gonna use the tool properly, you know? I see that we have a lot of responsibility as dog trainers obviously, and being, you know, whatever we wanna call ourselves, trainers that love doing off-leash training, putting dogs in real life scenarios. There’s risk that comes with that now.

Obviously the benefits are the dog gets a good life, right? Like every dog needs to run like it’s a horrible life. Not to the reason I was asking you the questions about what do you do if, like, how do you turn it up when needed is I find that when you hide from that sort of stuff and you’re encouraging people to have their dog actually running, that’s a big risk.

And at that point, you’re playing with a dog’s life, right? Where the client has to be well enough trained and understand how to use this thing and understand what to do in every scenario that you can’t beat around the bush, right? And still have that client let their dog fully off leash. And I’ve seen some trainers, I don’t wanna say fail on that, but somewhat fail on that, right?

Where they’re not explaining it clearly enough. And I worry people are being sold on, you know, unicorns and lollipops, right? And they’re not understanding that you have to have a plan for when everything goes wrong. Otherwise you have potentially a lost or dead dog, which is a huge deal. 

Not only do you need a plan for it, in my opinion, you had best take your dog or or your clients through those scenarios.

I get to the point in programs with my folks as we get to the late stage lessons and I say, today you’re paying me to be a pain in your butt because I’m gonna set you up with some you and your dog for, for some hard challenges and I’m gonna see if you can think through them. I will help you if you can’t.

I’m going to take them through a progression the same. I take my clients through a progression, the same way I take clients through a progression. There’s a lot of upfront teaching, there’s a lot of help. Then I start to step back and start to see accountability with a dog. I start to see accountability with my client, and then I need to create them, uh, hopefully an autonomous team that can function together.

So if I’m not putting them through those lessons where we’re gonna go somewhere, or I’m gonna set up something that’s gonna be really distracting and a real challenge for that dog and they can’t be successful, they can’t get through it successfully, then we got more work to do because it is, uh, it’s a discredit just to let people have an illusion that they have an awful leash trained dog.

Mm-hmm. I, I always say a dog who’s 95% trained is the most dangerous because then you’re, you’re trusting him when you shouldn’t. Could you give us some examples of I. Of exactly what you were just discussing. So you’ve got a dog who’s doing pretty well dogging client and you’re looking to really challenge them.

What are some examples of what that could look like? 

It’s gonna depend, obviously on the dog. I mean, if I have a dog that’s high prey type of dog, then we’re gonna go to one of the, maybe one of the lakes that has a lot of geese on the perimeter, right? We’re gonna do something like that. Um, if I have a dog that’s just really social, real playful, we have to be able to call him out of play for one thing.

Um, I can typically set up something where we can call them off of a chase, right? They should be able to call if we got a retriever that loves to retrieve whatever, if you can’t call your dog off of a retrieve, right? That’s gonna be a problem. You’re not gonna be able to call ’em off of anything. And again, we have to be able to call off of the dead rabbit and live rabbit or dead ball, live ball, right?

We have to be able to set those scenarios for people and show them the different situations that could potentially be challenging for them. So those would be some of the, the things, if I have a dog. Oh gosh. I gotta think about some of the stuff we’ve done. I had a dog that would, I had a dog years ago that I helped that was just so nuts about swimming, about going in the water.

I mean, that was his absolute, like that was his kryptonite. He came completely, came unglued, and I’m like, we have to be able to call him away when he’s in full pursuit to go charge into that pond. We have to be able to get him to turn around. It was like the hardest recall that that dog could ever possibly have been asked to do.

So I, what I wanna do is I wanna try to find out from, and I get to know the dogs, but we wanna try to find out what are the things that are big challenges for your dog, and then we wanna do our best to recreate them. 

So you have some online courses where you go through this stuff that are for sale, right?

I do. 

I do. Could you walk us through a little bit of kind of what your current offerings look like for someone who’s interested in, in your methods? 

So I do have, um, an eco piece. Um, I, I have a video that, uh, my friends from Gun Dog Supply, Steve Snell and Rob Snell, um, they connected with me years ago and, and the biggest reason that they connected with me, interestingly, um, it was a business decision for them because they said, you know what, it is eating up a lot of our customer service time to try to answer people’s questions because there isn’t good material out there from the manufacturers or from anybody.

There just isn’t a lot, especially for the pet world. There wasn’t a lot of stuff, right. There was retriever stuff and that kind of thing, and they said, we need some pieces. That we can provide for people to just give them the basics because they were finding that a segment of pet owners were buying, uh, buying products from ’em.

So initially we did just a short, um, it’s like a 45 minute video, and we just went through some very basic pieces with them. Well, it proved to be pretty popular, so I said, uh, if we wanna do something bigger, I said, let’s, let’s make this, um, let’s pull back the veil more. And so what we did is I personally adopted three dogs of varying personalities from different shelters, and I kept them.

I went down to down to Mississippi and stayed down there, and they, they basically videoed me every day for three weeks as I took the dogs through the same progression that I would do with a three week board and train. And so we had three different dogs, three weeks of content. And what we did is put that into a, you know, it’s a series of five DVDs if you buy actually hard DVDs anymore, but that’s what it amounted to.

Um, and it said, here’s, here’s the progression when you start, and, and it is digital, by the way. We’re not that old school. It is digital now. Um, but here’s the progression. Here’s how you start, here’s what it looks like. Here’s an intermediate phase, and here’s what you get to in three weeks time. Um. You know, as kind of an end goal.

This is what she wanted to look at, an end goal. And it was what was what I’d considered a basic pet course, right? This is gonna be for pets, and we showed the good and the bad. There are some, there’s some footage in there. Man, I struggled with one of those dogs to get that dog to pay attention. Uh, she was, she was a challenge.

Um, and, and that was very important to me because when I worked with the smells, I said one of the things, and they felt the same way. One of the things is we need to be very authentic. I don’t need to look perfect. That’s not my concern. My concern is showing people this is what it looks like. Some days go, well, some days not so well, but here’s how you work through it to get to your end goal.

Here’s how you stay the course and you trust the process to work through it, to get, to be able to have your dog off leash. So that’s what that, um, video, uh, series is about. Um. I think, I think that it is like anything that you do, I, I like it. It’s very well done. Are there pieces in hindsight, I’m like, oh, I probably could have maybe extrapolated a little bit more on that.

Um, so now one of the things that I do for people that wanna dig deeper is I do a couple times a year offer a guided course where that is included, but then we dig deeper into it and it’s seven weeks long and I am their instructor over the course of those seven weeks. So I have people that do it that way too.

And how does that work, Robin? You are doing like, uh, video calls together once a week or something, or is in person? 

We do video calls. Yeah. No, we do video calls once a week. Um. This is a, for people that are around the country or, uh, that wanna train with me, that obviously can’t come and work in person. So yeah, their video calls, but they, what they have to do is they have to submit video footage to me every week.

So I give them, they have a homework assignment every week, here’s what I need to see, because if, if you’re not at this level, you can’t progress to week two homework. Right? So basically I’m guiding them all the way through. And then if they can’t progress because something ha, life happens, or because their dog has some struggles that are just gonna take longer, then that’s okay.

But what I’m gonna do is I’m going to alter their progression in their homework to suit what’s going to work for them. Uh, it’s really important to me that I’m providing people with the progression and the sequence that is appropriate for their dog. 

And you’re, you’re still doing some in-person stuff as well throughout the year?

Is that. 

In person is my absolute favorite. Jason, I came into virtual training, screaming and kicking. They had to drag me there. I, I really like working in person with people. 

Yeah. To that, to that point. Um, so historically, Robin is one of the people that I have sort of propped up in the inner circle of Jedi when it comes to ecos.

And, and I say that not, not because of, I mean, don’t take this the wrong way. It’s not because what you can do with an eco, it’s because of the way that you can articulate its use and application to other people. Other, so what advice would you give trainers, particularly younger folks who are getting into.

Using ECOS for the first time, or maybe they’re just not as comfortable, what, what advice would you give them in improving how they can convey information to pet owners and others to get results? 

Hmm. Well, first off, thank you for, um, a very kind compliment. Um, I appreciate that. Uh, I really appreciate that.

I think that I’m a decent dog trainer. I do think that I’m a pretty exceptional teacher and that happened intentionally. I think that’s one of the important thing that I would like to tell anybody that’s struggling with their working with people is it happened intentionally. It wasn’t like just easy and I was just born this way when it was, when I was made aware that my ability to teach humans was mediocre at best.

It was a mission to get better because ultimately I wanna be able to help people. So I went down a path. I think it’s important to realize the skill of being a dog trainer is dramatically different than the skill, the skill of being an instructor to humans. And that is something that I think is overlooked in our profession.

Um, so I did a lot of, I’ve spent a lot of time reading. I’ve spent a lot of time paying mentors to teach me how to teach and how to articulate things better. Um, one of the things that I did early on, um, and most people are not gonna like to hear this, but somebody said to me, uh, somebody I trusted, they said, if you wanna be a better teacher, you have to write, sit down and write out everything that you do.

Because if you can articulate it in the written word, you will then be able to explain it when you’re speaking. And it is a excruciating, um, process to write. It was one of the best things that I did, and that’s what led to all of my blogging. And the ability to articulate it in the written word is what then gave me the ability, like in the moment to be much more effective as a teacher.

Uh, I also studied with some NLP coaches earlier in my career. That helped me a lot. Um, so there are a lot of things that I’ve put into it. A lot of very intentional effort. So for anybody that is struggling, I will say you have to dedicate time to it, just like you would dedicate time to learning how to train dogs.

Hey, Robin, what was the acronym you just used? What kind of coach? 

NLP Neurolinguistic Programming. 

What do I have No idea what that means? Could you. This one’s not for the audience. This question’s for me, 

neurolinguistic programming is, I mean, it, it’s, so there’s different ways that it can be used.

Obviously you’re gonna find therapists that, that understand NLP, um, if I had to explain it, maybe in a way, anybody That’s a good, um, hypnotist understands NLP, it is a way to be able to get into the mind of the person receiving information. It is a way to shift mindset. Um, one of the, just if I, if I make a simple, um, so here’s a simple thing to think about.

If you are feeling conflict with a, a client resistance, they’re starting to be like. Really resistant. You see them cross your arms and you can tell they’re like tuning you out, and they’re no longer receptive to whatever it is you’re trying to convince ’em to do. Right? You want ’em to use a crate. There’s a simple one, and they’re like adamant.

So, and you see them cross the arms. One of the things I’m gonna do is I’m gonna cross my arms. So this is just simple modeling and mirroring, mirroring behavior. So I’m gonna cross my arms and I’m gonna say something like, I know it’s, it’s hard to, it’s hard to, to wanna put the dog or to put our dogs in a crate.

It’s a struggle. I don’t, I know that we feel uncomfortable about it. I used to feel uncomfortable about it, blah, blah, blah. Right? It feels like a jail. And then I will shift intentionally and I’ll say, but, and I open my body language. But one of the things that I did learn is much like, I like to have my private time and go to my room and, and be able to close the door and kind of tune the world out.

I did realize that dogs appreciate that as well. They appreciate not having to worry about everything. So once we can help little Fido get a little bit more comfortable in here and we can shift their emotional feelings, I can show you how to do that. But I need you to shift your emotional feeling, first of all, and get you thinking in terms of this being a bedroom rather than a jail cell.

So there are different things that I’m gonna do when I’m going through that conversation. One, I’m gonna lean back ’cause I’m gonna take pressure off of them because they showed me they didn’t wanna hear about prank training. So I’m gonna lean back. I’m gonna mirror their body language, so I’m gonna cross my arms as well.

I’m gonna loosen my body language by opening my, my arms and starting to make these gestures. And as I feel as I see them when they loosen their arms, I’m going to lean in and I’m gonna start to talk a little bit more. Now I know that I’ve got their mind receptive to what I am saying. I have to get them receptive before I can even spoon feed them any of the information of how we’re gonna crate train the dog.

That’s part of shifting the mindset. 

So what seems clear to me is next time I have a client who won’t put their dog in a crate, I should just call you, get you on FaceTime, and you could just, you can solve it for me a lot better than I could. I appreciate that. 

Or you could visit me. I’m actually gonna do the first ever full two-day workshop on this topic, on, on coaching in April.

So I’m unveiling something new. Oh, yeah. 

Where, where is that gonna be? 

Um, it’s in Martinsburg, West Virginia. 

Hey. 

Pretty close. 

Well, mm-hmm. 

That’s awesome. 

I’m super 

excited. And Robin, before, before I forget, if you could, you know, send over links to any of your up, you know, upcoming events you have going on, and of course, links to your course.

We’ll make sure we have those in the video description. 

Okay. I will. 

Jason, do you still wanna dive into a little bit of eco bands and the state of the industry? 

Yeah, I think, I think Robin’s perspective on that, and again, the way she articulates some of that is, is useful for, for folks in the industry.

’cause I know there’s a lot of people out there who, uh, again, at work to diminish right, the, the, the collar and what the collar is capable of because, um, they’re really kind of afraid to. I hate to put it this way, but sort of defend their position to use an eco, because there seems to be so much backlash and you know, that sort of thing.

So I mean, yeah. If you didn’t mind Robin, taking a minute to kind of talk about that. 

So just to make sure I understand, so are you asking me, Jason, to kind of give advice on how to, to encourage people to be involved in the process? 

Well, yeah. Do you have Yeah. That and, and are there certain points that you always bring up when, when you’re involved in those types of discussions to make people understand, um, you know, a little better the, I guess, usefulness of the collar, the, the reasons why we should retain our ability to use a collar properly, humanely and ethically 

so.

The big, so one thing I can tell you is if people are, we certainly have people in the industry and we have people obviously on the internet who make their whole living creating conflict, right? I don’t bother with those people. I, I just don’t, uh, and that’s, that’s me. I’m not saying that for the people that wanna engage them, but you will never change their mind because I personally do not believe they are doing it because they believe that strongly in their own opinion.

I believe they’re doing it because drama and anger and chaos creates following. And I believe that’s the number one reason they do that. So those of people I will not engage with if I. If I am encountering somebody and they say, you know, oh, those ecos, and that’s, will I have a conversation with them a hundred percent.

I will, uh, I will be happy to have them feel it. For one thing. I will do a, a brief demonstration if they’re willing to watch that. Um, if they are, I’ve had people attack some of my videos, and interestingly, like I did, uh, one, I put one up on Facebook a while back and I had somebody who was just vehemently attacking me.

And yet when I said, can you please pinpoint the moment on this video that’s upsetting you? Show me, show me where it’s, they couldn’t, and they specifically said, well, I don’t see anything in this video, but what you’re doing is, you know, cruel and da da da. But then, and I, one of the things that I will do in a situation like that is simply repeat my question.

Over and over and over to the person that’s attacking me because I’m not gonna allow them to spin me out of my zone. I am going to keep asking exactly the same question over and over, and I will remain silent. Please refer me to the moment of the video that is so offending to you. Well, you da, I understand you’re upset overall about e colors, but in this particular circumstance, please refer me to this because they’re gonna have to see that the lack of logic.

Hopefully they’ll see the lack of logic and they’ll go away. So that’s one of the strategies that I will use. Um, obviously in-person conversations are way more effective than anything that we’re gonna do in these arguments on the internet. I don’t think anybody’s ever been convinced in an argument.

People are very inclined to dig in. So I personally believe that any person, any trainer out there. Has the opportunity to help sway and shift opinions about ecos. Not only can they do it individually, but they can encourage their clients to do it. My clients have become huge advocates and they’re more than happy to talk to people because I’ve armed them with simple talking points, right?

One of the simple talking points is if, if people attack me, I’m out with my dog and they see an eco on my dog, and I’ve had this happen more than once. Oh, what is that you have on your dog? Is that an eco? Well, it is a remote collar, da da da. And I’ll say, do you have a dog? Yes, I do. And I go, where is he?

Well, he’s at home. I go, yeah, my dog’s here at the park having fun.

So I will be kind of a in your face about things like that. But again, I’m simply going to point out the hypocrisy of some of the nonsense that is getting said. I think I understand that not everybody is game for conflict. I don’t mind conflict, I don’t go looking for it, but I’m not, um, opposed to standing up to it if it comes at me.

So for trainers that are like, I don’t wanna get out there, I don’t wanna create conflict, you don’t have to ever engage in any of these conversations online. You can simply continue to show video after video of Happy Dogs being trained and they can, don’t cover up the callers. You don’t have to do that.

Just let it on and don’t respond. People that are attacking you, there is a lot to be said about negative punishment. Do not respond, do not feed that nonsense that they’re giving. So that’s one of the things that people can do. The other thing you can do is if you’re a trainer and you are in the community doing any kind of, um, public, you know, I used to speak to Kiwanis and you know, the different clubs and that kind of thing.

Leave the collar on your dog. You don’t even have to talk about it, but people will visually see it. If somebody does question it, you say, oh yes, I use remote callers for a lot of my training. It’s an invisible leash. It’s one of the ways that I’m able to allow freedom for my dog. But I want everybody to understand it’s not magic.

You don’t just go buy one of these. It’s like every other tool that’s on the market. So I if that, if I have, um, surgeons or somebody in the nurses in the audience, I’ll say, you know, you guys get it, or Veterinarians are perfect. You guys get it right. Not everybody should go out and buy a scalpel and figure out how to just do surgery on their dog.

It takes some training. Same thing with this tool, but it does allow me to have a lot of freedom with my dog. But what they’re doing is they’re simply seeing a visual example of a very calm, happy, well-behaved dog with this tool on. So I, I guess what I’m trying to say is I believe there’s a place for every trainer who is pro tool.

To help move us forward in the prevention of tool bans. You are powerful and there are a number of ways to do it. You do not have to get into conflict. In fact, I would say those who are too adamant name calling conflict is not helpful. Finger pointing conflict is not helpful. Trying, if you can’t keep a cool, calm, collected, um, attitude when you’re engaging, you might just wanna not say anything at that moment in time.

I will, I will tell you this, this is one that I’ve told my clients too because some clients are like, there’s no way I could ever stand up to anybody. What am I going to say if they, if they come at me? And I have done this too, so I’m gonna grab a remote, I’ll show you this and that. If somebody goes, is that a shock color you have on your dog?

You go, oh no, my dog is hard of hearing. It’s a speaker. Fido sit

and they just hold the transmitter up to their mouth and then people like, people are so gullible, unfortunately. They go, oh my gosh. That’s amazing. 

Yeah, I just, like I said, I think I see sometimes people do, people who do good work and have the ability to do good work, but they seem to, you know, again, work to diminish it or hide it, because again, they don’t want to put themselves out there because they’re using ecos and they’re afraid of the backlash that’s coming from it.

You know, Jason, I think there’s a lot of people that don’t realize how prevalent ecos are. Um, 

yeah. 

Sometimes in the pet industry, you know, because it has become more prominent in the pet industry. I, I think that, that sometimes the pet industry gets a little bit of tunnel vision and they think this is only in the pet industry.

I mean, let’s, let’s be real. The gun dog folks have been using Ecos forever, right? And they’re the ones who taught us all how to do this and how to integrate them into training programs. There’s so many ecos being used every day all over this country. If abuse was as rampant as people said, you would see it on every street corner.

So people literally just need to put away this abuse concept. I’m not saying it never happens, I’m saying it is tremendously, tremendously less than people make it out to be. 

Yeah. And when it does happen, I think treat people work really hard to sensation sensationalize that single incident. And then, you know, like some of the, y’all talking earlier about the pictures on the internet of the necrosis and, and, and there’s a couple pictures of necrosis from, um.

You know, prong collars too to throw them in there. Um, but you know, you always see the exact same photos rotating. And, and to your point, if this was happening at such an alarming rate, why are these groups and individuals still using some of those, I hate to call ’em this, but flagship photos that they’ve been using for 20 years to demonstrate how, you know, how this continues to go on and it’s just, ’cause it doesn’t, and that stuff doesn’t exist.

Not at the rate that they’re trying to, trying to put out there. Really. 

I, I think you just nailed it. I honestly think you did Jason. They’re using the flagship photos because there isn’t, there is not, that people are so much more aware. There is not that level of incident that it’s happening. 

Absolutely.

Well I said something to this effect earlier, but the people that are looking to abuse a dog are not going out and buying. A nice e collar and are not training their dogs. So people that wanna abuse their dogs are abusing them at home and are not walking them, certainly aren’t taking them off leash to train, go to the park and spend time in public.

You’re absolutely right. And even the person that inadvertently, let’s say they got a collar, they tried themselves, they inadvertently went too high, and they got a startle response. Do you know how quickly they put that thing in the cabinet and they never pick it up again? They’re afraid of it. People are not intentionally buying this to harm or hurt their dog or scare their dog.

Absolutely. 

Well, the thing both of you mentioned was the happy dogs, right? I think you mentioned it earlier and then Robin brought it up and, you know, I, I, I think about that. Yeah, we train a lot of happy dogs, but, you know, why are they happy? Is it because they have an eco on? Um, I, you know, I, I would argue that they’re happy because they have a lot more clarity and communication and they have a lot more control of their world and their environment, and that’s what makes ’em happy.

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Well, as we start wrapping up, Robin, last question for you. What would you like to see change over the next few years or any period of time you’d like to choose? Just what would you like to see change in the dog training industry?

I, I don’t know how we make it happen, but I really would like to see. I would like dog trainers from all sides of the spectrum to realize we are all on the same team. We need a, we need a peace summit. What is happening with the division in our industry is not helping anybody’s end goal. It is not helping the dogs.

It is not helping the people. It’s not helping dogs stay in their home. I on, I just had a, I just had a meeting with somebody from a local shelter. She’s been in charge of it for a long time, and she said that the intake numbers are gone through the roof and she said there isn’t any time anymore to help.

The really difficult cases, they have to go immediately because we are so overwhelmed with even easy cases. So dogs are losing their home in enormous numbers. None of us, that anybody that’s beating a drum about tools and arguing methodologies, we need to be working together to help more people and dogs and, and help them coexist and get over ourselves with this fighting and this nonsense.

Well, I think that is a, a great note to wrap up on, that we need to come together and remember we’re all here to help dogs. Well Robin, thank you for taking so much time to come on the show today. Appreciate it. 

Thank you. This was great. You guys are, you guys are intense. This was awesome. Good questions.

Well, thanks for watching everybody.