Today’s guest is Ivan Balabanov. Ivan is a world renowned dog trainer. I think you probably all already know him. He’s an absolute legend in the dog sport world. He’s got two national championships, I’m sorry, two world Championships. I don’t even know how many National champ. 14, 16, 18. I don’t know a ton.

Ivan has branded his training process and it is called Training Without Conflict. If you haven’t checked it out, I recommend you do. He’s also a well-known mal wob breeder, and he travels around the world talking about dog training and I. I think he’s about to leave the country right after this interview.

So Ivan, welcome to the show, man. I appreciate you taking the time out to be here. 

Thanks Matt. Um, yeah, we tried to do this for some time now, and finally there is a little bit of an opening that we can do it. So glad to be, uh, on your platform for sure. 

Yeah, I mean the, you know, IACP, our members are obviously huge Ivan fans, so people have been asking for a long time for us to get you on here, and here you are.

We’ve got so much to talk about. But before we dive into that, I want everyone to know, in case they don’t know you’re gonna be speaking this summer at the IACP European Summit in Poland, which is going to be absolutely amazing. You know, I don’t want you to give anything away. You don’t need to get into your whole presentation, but can you at least tell people just what’s the topic of your presentation this summer?

Yeah, this, this, this was a little bit of a challenge for me ’cause I’m really looking forward to that event. I think it’s a very important event and I’m very glad that you guys are finally trying to reach into the European community of dog trainers because, um, because of what we doing and who we are and, and, and because we can at least talk openly about what options are available and prioritize and so on, which is something that Europeans kind of put themselves into a box and, uh, it’s very difficult for them.

So I’m, I’m very excited about this. Um, as far as the topic again, um, yeah, there was few things in my mind and there is still a long time. Hopefully I don’t change my mind too much, but I believe one of the interesting things that I. Always find problematic with, with dog trainers, um, is what actually drives behavior.

And as generic as this may sound, if we don’t understand this, we are gonna end up banging our head up against the wall or create a training plan that’s basically not gonna work and, and so on. So, um, I, I generally, when I talk to trainers, I find that there is a big gaps, big holes when, uh, uh, as far as understanding what actually drives behavior.

So, uh, um, I, I believe my topic’s gonna go around that and I hope that I deliver something new and insightful for trainers to consider and, and. Have something to think about weeks and months from after the presentations, hopefully. 

Well, that’s an amazing topic. Everyone needs to know what drives their dog’s behavior and their client’s dog’s behavior.

So I think that will be a hit. And I would definitely encourage everyone, you know, if you’re in Europe or you’re able to travel there, you know, go to the conference, it’s gonna be amazing. There’ll be other amazing speakers as well, and it’s, I think it’s gonna be a really cool thing. It’s in a beautiful city, so should be an absolute blast.

Yes. And it’s not that far out now, 

it’s, it is coming up quick. So there are so many things we can talk about today. Ivan and I I think, I guess I’ll flag for everyone listening, we’re not gonna jump into a lot of Ivan’s history ’cause he’s been on every single major dog training podcast. And if you want to hear more of that, you know, certainly you can, you can find all of that elsewhere.

But I know everyone wants to hear your thoughts, Ivan, on just dog training in general. So I think, you know, we’ll spend the, the whole episode every second we’ve got with you. We’re gonna focus on that. I’m curious, just jumping off, you’re known of course for a lot you, to a lot of people as a sport dog trainer, but you also do a lot in the pet dog world.

So I’m curious, could you just walk us through how your system applies to pet dogs and just, I guess, the messiness of real world behavior? 

Hmm. Um, yeah, it, it’s, uh, like for, for me and, and for, for anybody that I teach, I try to. Emphasize that sport and pet training companion dogs, it’s so, they’re different.

They have their own nuances and different goals and objectives of course. However, again, understanding the core principles of animal learning are the same. And sports training can isolate something and you can really work on it. Come up with some idea, test it, see how it applies, and so on. Um, um, as far as, um,

ask, ask me the question again. 

So really just thinking through how does your system apply to pet dogs? Yeah. And, and I use the phrase messy real world behavior, but I could narrow that down a little bit. Just let’s throw out an example. In the sport dog world, you’re probably gonna have a dog with genetics that you’re reasonably happy with.

It’s gonna have maybe the drive you want or you’re gonna start at a young age. Obviously in the pet dog world, we often get dogs who don’t seem to have much motivation, right? Right. Maybe they don’t have drive for toys or food and you’re having to build that. Right? So, to me, the pet dog world can be really messy ’cause you’re picking up with a 4-year-old dog who might have sketchy genetics and has had, who knows what, like a, you know, a huge lack of clarity, you know, in those first four years.

Yeah. That’s a, that’s actually a, a good, good prompt and good, good topic to, to go in. Um,

I guess the, the probably priorities are. Understanding, understanding what comes, what is, what is the drug the dog genetically predisposition to? Then what is what learning can do and cannot do? Can, it really goes against genetics or not. Uh, ultimately with every dog, regardless if it’s a service dog, sport dog, pet dog, um, confidence is always a big thing.

Confidence. Um, and then again, I don’t wanna go into using cliche

lines of, you know, we need relationship and engagement and, and stuff like that. Um, but with pet dogs.

We, I, I guess again, that, that’s kind of what, what it comes down to. Like if we, if we understand that the doc comes with instincts, you know, certain systems are built in, they’re kind of baked into the DNA, then there is the learning that’s happening. And then of course there is the brain state, the, the, the emotional state that plays a big part in the, in everything.

And if we understand how to work with all this tree, then, then we can focus on the behavior itself. Um, I find that most trainers just start with, okay, this is the behavior that’s problem and let’s see what we can do about it. Uh, and that, um. Kind of creates a tunnel vision and, and restricts to, to really understand where the roots are, what’s the past history, what’s the level?

Because we always have levels. And this is, um, I find it a big kind of, it’s a complicated topic because, um, you know, when we talk about for free trainers, balanced trainers, and, and we always can say, well, I can, I can fix that, or I can know how to deal with that, then you don’t need to go this way because this works.

And, um, it’s, um, it’s not quite like that. You know, it’s there, there are different levels of variety of issues that we deal with when we talk about pet dogs and. If we understand that there are levels of intensity, how, how pronounced that behavior, how stubborn that behavior, where it’s coming from, then, then we can create, uh, a sound plan of action.

And that’s, that’s probably the, the most important part when we try to work with clients and dogs that have issues, is to really get the right information, make the proper evaluation before we jump into this is what we’re gonna do. Um, and, and

there is, you know, there, there is problems that can be completely fixed and sometimes they can be fixed very fast. Um, I am all. For quick fixes, if that is an option. But, um,

sometimes there is, there is a lot of different systems at play and it gets very interesting. Um, so making this kind of training plans is, is, uh, probably one of the things that I’m always very interested in finding out the, the core problem and then narrowing down a few different paths of action. But, um, yeah, sometimes, uh, as you mentioned it, it’s, uh, it’s common

that, uh, uh, some somebody will say, well, in, in sport dogs you deal with the best of the best as far as genetic, uh, um. What is genetically available to you. Um, and that’s not always the true, um, that there is a lot of problems also with dogs in sports that we can find a ways to bring them up to flourish and enjoy or not depending again, on, on what we are working with.

And so, um, with pet dogs, you know, we can say, well, the dog is very, very shy, and now we can attach a very long story of why that is being in a rescue changed five owners, um, and so on. Right?

Then there are, you know, as a trainer, there are options and different paths to take. And sometime you can intertwine them sometime. You really need to make a conscious choice what is to be accomplished. So to give you an example of, of something, um, let’s say the dog maybe is fearful, right? We, we deal a lot is like, especially, uh, some dog trainers are really just trying to drag every single problem into fear based for some reason.

And if we go that route, typically everything’s gonna be fear, I mean really everything or, or nothing. And so fear is an interesting one. If it’s through fear and then. As I said, the different paths to this, for me, one will be to try to bring some comfort and safety and say there is nothing to be afraid of.

And we will structure a whole program. Um, like, like sometimes again, there might be even medication and SSRIs involved, which, uh, I, I’m not necessarily fond of. I haven’t seen the, the results that I, that are claimed out there. Um, but so the one way is to, to try to bring comfort and to basically baby the dog, right?

And the other part is to show them a way how they can overcome the fear. And for me, this is. Quite more, uh, um, important and beneficial because all of a sudden you can change perception of whatever that trigger, whatever that fear is of something that, okay, I’m afraid of to okay, I have a way to deal with it.

And when they learn how to deal with their own fears and their own demons, they come out of this kind of experiences. They grow, their confidence level changes, how they interact with outside world changes. Like, um, um, it really, the, the, the change that I see, it’s, it’s extremely, uh, um, obvious. It, it, it blinds you to where the dog that is comforted.

We always have to kind of tiptoe around and, and manage and, and find ways. And even when that happens, the dog never really just grows and say, well, you know what? I, I can face the world. I, I can deal with things now. And I think that’s, um, probably in a nutshell one of the important things that, that I focus on.

So first off, I’ll just note, it sounds a lot like raising successful children and having them grow into adults as far as teaching them. Uh, my big takeaway and the last thing you said was teaching them to be able to handle some things on their own without needing comfort constantly. 

Yes, very much so.

Very much so. I think, um, uh, and your analogy, spot on as well. Um. That happens with kids very much, and that happens with dogs just as much. Um, um, 

well, why don’t we, uh, dive into an example here I think could be interesting and you can pick 

mm-hmm. 

Whatever you want. You know, since we’re on the topic of fear and kind of getting over that, I mean, we, I think we all see a lot of dogs who are fearful of other dogs.

So you get a dog into your program or you’re working with a client, dog is terrified of other dogs. What are some things you are working on to help them through that process, and as you mentioned earlier, to kind of help them conquer their own demons? Mm-hmm.

Um,

yeah. So this, this is where it gets tricky for me to talk about, because we all find a picture certain, even, even if I describe a case, it’s gonna be. Something different for, for everybody that’s listening on, but a dog that is not confident with other dogs,

we can again, go that route to say, well, you know, I’m gonna protect you. You don’t need to worry about the dogs. We gonna do, so differential reinforcement, we’re gonna play with distance, we’re gonna do some desensitization protocols, and, you know, that will be the route. However, um, you know, when, when we talk about desensitization, then sensitization, I can never say it all the way.

Um, it’s a, it’s a very interesting way of dealing with

triggers. Um, and that’s what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to de you. By gradual exposure, playing with distance and so on. Um, however, the synthesization works only in certain cases, like with fear specifically can work with predation, for example. It will not work because once that predation system is activated, this is an innate system that will isolate all external influences and will become tunnel vision.

Um, however, even when we do the sens, the sensitization on fear reaction, ultimately what will happen is again, it’s gonna, we’re gonna bring some comfort and we’re gonna end up habituating. If you want the dog kind of neutralize, it’s like, okay, um, but it’s not gonna necessarily change. Perception. So the the process is, you know, I mean it’s, I don’t know if I can even go to, to detail that.

It’s gonna make sense on, on a podcast of, of what I do. Um, but, um, here is, here is one of the things that twc um, um, like the school that I have for doc trainers, we, we pay attention to, um, you have, you have a behavior. So let’s say the doc response in a certain way towards another doc

and. As I was saying, like fixating on the behavior itself, it’s very narrow minded and it’s extremely limited. That’s what we’re gonna do, and most of the time, very unsuccessful. So what we, I, I suggest that we need to do is we need to look at the perception, how the doc perceives it and why the doctor perceives it in such way.

And one of the downsides of, of that I see when, when a trainer approaches, um, again, stay with the fear, um, not realizing that their perception and the doc perception looking at the same thing, it’s not the same. And that’s a very important start to begin with. Just because I see something, in a way I see it, the dog is not necessarily seeing it this way.

Now the next question is, do I want to try to make the dog see it my way or do I try to adjust what the dog sees and go with where the dog is instead of uh, uh, really trying to, uh, um, be it my way, so to speak. Um, so perception is important, um, and, and changing perception. There, there is many things. Um, I mean, modern neuroscience, you know, has been extremely helpful in understanding what influences behavior, um, and how we can.

Manipulate the brain to, to, to get what we want and to basically, if we need to even rewrite something in the brain and present a different idea, um, we need to see how we can change the state. And so when we are talking,

you know, like just the fact, like if you, if you haven’t slept or you have really upset stomach or some skin allergy or you know, any, anything that your brain’s gonna be preoccupied with right now as we’re having the podcast, you will. You will find, or maybe you will not find, but people that are listening to us will find that something is a little off.

And it’s a little off simply because how the brain works, what happens inside us is far more important about what happens outside. And if, um, you know, we have to deal with something internally, big part of the brain focuses on that. However, if it’s unpleasant, then we’re an touching, unpleasant, uh, uh, properties to whatever we’re doing.

For example, even if we’re talking to, to each other right now. So if you don’t feel well, you might really look at me in, in like maybe a. Okay. When he’s maybe upset or angry or, you know, you will attach certain, uh, um, qualities, traits to me. And that’s simply because how you perceive me. If you, if your day was going very well, you know, and you look at me, you will attach very different properties.

You’ll be like, well, Ivan, so calm, quiet, having a good conversation. We can do a lot of cool things. So this is, um, kind of where I, where my energy focuses on. That’s kind of where my, um, you know, as you know and everybody knows, I

am very much about play. Uh, I very rarely use food for training and I know that, um. Kind of gets very controversial when I say this. I don’t say that nobody should ever, never use food in dog shining. Um, probably there, there are places for it. Um, but play does different things and engages this different systems in our brains than food.

And sometimes people say, well, why don’t we present food as a plan? We toss it left and right, and, and of course being left, we can, we can create play with food. Um, but we’re still, the, the, I mean, we know from Pavlov that when food is present, like it or not, the digestive system is activated. Once the digestive system is activated, there is a lot of the brain starts to think of a food.

Repertoire of behaviors more so play. Um, the, the cool thing about play is that, you know, games change energy. Like if you, if you start to play something, your internal state changes because you get activated. And once you get activated, uh, a a lot of interesting things follow, so when, when games kind of change the, the energy, then the energy changes physiology.

So what that means, you, you get a, you know, your heart rate goes up, your breathing changes your hormones. Um, the whole nervous system kind of shift. And there’s like, if you want this, all of a sudden a bubble bath in your brain of good chemicals. And this affects what happens. Physiology ultimately changes emotional state.

Um, and depending what kind of emotional state you want to be, what would be the, the optimal emotional state. But you know, like with dogs, we, we talk about affect and, uh, you have higher arousal, uh, calm, pleasant, and unpleasant. And so if you have a dog that is highly aroused and in a unpleasant state, this is definitely not a place where you will be productive.

If you have a dog that is calm and unpleasant, that’s leading more to, I don’t know, like depression kind of. It’s still definitely not a good place to be in. So if we want to do something active, we can create that dog to, to be in a highly aroused but pleasant state. If we want to do something quietly and calmly, then we need the dog low, but still in a pleasant, a pleasant state.

So this is kind of, you know, what, what is important and, and, um, again, I don’t wanna go through all the dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins and gaba and like, that’s not the conversation really that needs to be had right now. Um, however, that’s, that’s really, um, where my energy will go. Trying to, to introduce the dog.

Whatever triggers are and present the situation in a different way and basically rewrite what the brain thinks of it. So like if you, if you think, um, it’s crazy how, what, what the brain does and you know, it, it always tries to predict 

mm-hmm. 

That, that’s like the, like the moment we’re born until we go out, the brain never stops.

Trying to predict what to do instead of constantly react to something, reacting to, to, to staff is very tasking. And, and it, you know, ultimately if the brain cannot predict most of the time, it’ll lead to, to a kind of nervous breakdowns. Um. Now

when, when, um,

when we understand that the docs really wanting to predict what the outcomes are, there is a very interesting formula that it’s just, um, I mean it’s well known and it’s, um, um, proven through, through scientific research and, and, and everything as far as how we, how present, past and future interact with each other.

So one of the big things that I would emphasize, anybody that’s listening, is that what happens today will get saved in a file in a brain, and will become

in the future. When the brain wants to make a decision about something, it’s gonna try to predict and the way it’ll predict it’s gonna go into the past and it’s gonna pick out of thousands of options, one or two, and see which one is appropriate. But it’s, the past experience will be highly, extremely influential of what decision you will make in the future.

However you are building that decision based on how you will react at present. So it can go into the past, so it can be used in the future. I don’t know if that’s too confusing or not, but, but these are really, uh, um, the way I look at at training. And when, when I think about such ways then it’s almost, um, not as important, uh, um, what specific techniques I will be using because the techniques themself, they can vary greatly from dog to dog, again, based on their, uh, uh, genetics, what they have as past history, what we need to accomplish and so on.

So, um, yeah, I don’t know if that helps to answer the question because I know I’m not giving you, uh, exact. Step by step manual of how to deal with, because I don’t think that’s the right way to do it. Um, I, to me it’s much deeper. And you know, like when I, I know everybody pays attention to social media and there is always conversations and, and somebody throws a problem.

And then of course some trainer’s gonna jump in right away and write a prescription just based on two sentences of, okay, my dog is six months old and he is afraid of plastic bags on the sidewalk when we go on, you know? And the trainer will just go, well, this is what you need to do. Not taking an absolutely not under any consideration the most important parts that I think that should be taken care of.

And, and to me, these kind of conversations become very dangerous when, when, especially when something more important is at stake, right? 

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Yeah, and I think you covered a lot of. Really interesting things there. So I wanna tie a couple of them together and then I’m gonna put in my own words and then if you wanna completely, I, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but you mentioned you feel like fear is, uh, kind of overplayed right now and I, I see the same and a lot of people attribute many things to fear.

Then you started talking about desensitization and you mentioned predation. Along with that, and I’ve seen firsthand, and I’m sure you have as well, sometimes people will only focus on calming a dog down on leash. When a dog has predatory instincts and wants to kill another dog or another animal, you obviously aren’t gonna desensitize them to that.

Right. You know, can you know all this exposure, even if the dog learns to be calm, as soon as it gets close enough, it’s still going to attack. Of course is. Now I have my own thoughts about how that should be handled, but everyone of course wants to hear yours. Is that one of the benefits you think of?

Like of to, to using play because now the dog is able to be around that other animal, that other creature in a, in a heightened state and learn to be around them in a heightened state, not just in a suppressed state from a heel command or whatever else the, the trainer’s doing. 

Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, so how we, we started the conversation early, um, um, and I mentioned that there are levels of, of intensity, of the problems.

And, and this is a, a prime example of that. Trainers can say, well, I can offer food and look, my dog’s coming off of a rabbit. However, the dog never looked at the rabbit with the intention to actually. Kill it. This is the, the predation sequence that, uh, that we’re talking about. Then the next option will be, well, we can, uh, play and play in some ways.

Of course, there is the catch and the, the case and, and there are there elements so we can just kind of deflect and do some differential reinforcement and do that. However, again, if the dog is genetically this, this system is very strong and they, this is the interesting part. They don’t even have to yet kill a rabbit ever in their life.

That doesn’t mean that they don’t want to. Some, some do and some don’t. I’ve had a dog, like I had one of my malino when I used to work at the. San Francisco, PCA early nineties, he would come with me to work. And in my office back at the time, there would be all sorts of creatures. I mean from, uh, birds to rabbits, to cats, dogs.

Um, and I would leave him there along with everybody. And, you know, he was that kind of dog that he would see them not as something that he had to kill in, at least in this uh, environment. Um, but when we have a dog that has this desire, and as I said, they don’t have to have that experience in the past, like, like for example, um, you know, speaking, now that the rabbit is in my head a rabbit.

Doesn’t learn through practice to avoid foxes. You know, it’s not that the fox has to kind of bite them and luckily maybe he’s not dead and therefore now he learns to avoid foxes. This is, this is built in, it’s kind of like you, we, we need to really accept, like we can look at it as a computer and the computer basically comes with certain software and then of course, environment starts to play an effect, but we cannot disregard that that computer comes with built in software, some basic stuff.

So when, um, you know, there, there is, there are programs and, and I have looked very much into as far as how much, what is possible and. When it comes to true predation and that predation sequence has to, in the dog’s mind end with a kill, this is very different than anything else. The levels below it like very different.

And it’s proven time and time again that no external, uh, um, nothing externally will affect the dog, including me saying, Hey dude, I have a rabbit in my hand. Why don’t you just take this one? Once that system is activated, once that dog is locked into that rabbit that just took off, this is it. And so.

Unfortunately, the only thing that has been proven to work very effectively is to suppress, to use some form of a, to be able to suppress. Now, from there on, you can take it to many different places. Um, one, one of the mistakes and one of the, um, you know, like I can give credit to some extent to the first three people, um, that suppression, depending if, if it’s contingent upon something or not.

And, and again, how the doc understands why, why it came and what to do. It can become what I would call universal suppression to where they’re like, they don’t even wanna get out of the car. To go on the field to run at this point because they tied it all into this one big bucket of this is just a a no-go zone period.

And, and these are the dangers when, you know, when it’s not used properly. Um, but

being able to interrupt that system by anything else has proven to be ineffective. Like there is no, like, you can, you can look at any research or any, uh, um, anything that’s beyond anecdotal stuff. And again, thinking. And understanding that their levels and we’re talking about that level, that the intention is very clear there.

It’s not, I’m hoping to play Butterfly with you. Like I have my little, um, Iraqi, it is a little, uh, um, chihuahua mix that we rescued, and he’s been now with us forever. He’s not going nowhere. He would, all my other dogs, you know, they, they’re too big. He’s very stealthy. Like, and somehow he sneaks upon squirrels and he’s master, he, he’s learned how to, however he gets right here at the squirrel.

And then he, he’s like, I don’t know what to do. So the, that predation sequence has a, a, a clear dead end that doesn’t end with that intention. And when, when you look at some demonstration of how other. Approach may work. You can say, well, he’s chasing it.

Again, it can chase it for many different reasons. And, um, but anyway, my, my kind of, not to drag it too much, but what, where, what I’m going at is that with through predation, the only way that we know that can, can work and it does work and it does not, when applied properly, does not have any of the fallouts that, uh, um, some doc trainers would love to try to attach to.

Um, there is, there is no such thing. And

yeah, that’s, that’s kind of how I see it. So, um, once that’s done. Of course we can allow the dog an outlet, we can allow, um, the dog to have some satisfaction of, of the, of that system. Uh, but we cannot really substitute to begin with. I I, I have played with this for as long as I’ve been training dogs, and it’s been very clear to me.

And very quickly it becomes clear that when that dog is in a true predation mode, things are different. 

I mean, I’m, I’m with you a hundred percent and I think anyone who doesn’t realize that is pud. An animal’s life at risk, whether it’s the, the dog they’re training or the dog that’s, or the animal that’s going to get attacked.

And you can use fancy lang, you know, people can use fancy language and all these things, but if you don’t understand that you’re gonna, as soon as you let the dog go there, there, if it truly has an a strong prey drive, you’re going to see an issue. Right. And that issue is gonna be the end of someone’s life.

Yeah. 

Yeah. Very true. And this is kind of where the sensitization protocols are, can be so misleading. And you know, it works until it doesn’t, basically, you can play with the distance. You can, you know, you can go step 1, 2, 3, whatever, but there is that break point. There is this really line in the sand where dog says, now I’m activated.

Now I changed my heart rate. Now my eyes are locked. Now I have a very, very single mind task and nothing else matters. And what will happen with the sensitization protocol, especially if you are really, really against using any form of aversive to help yourself as a trainer, you would say, well, let’s blame the trainer or the program and say that we pushed it too fast too soon.

Because look, we just take it one or two steps back and everything is in place. The dog is not triggered. We have control. We can deflect them, we can do things. Um, so we can say, well. You, you are going too fast, you’re rushing, or you didn’t do it right and kind of really, uh, put blame on the owner or, or whatever.

Um, some somebody’s gonna be at fault because even if, even if the trainer blames themselves like, oh, I, I just went too far, too soon. Um, because that feeling of, okay, we, we step back and it’s working. So there is no way it wouldn’t work if we are more methodical and more systematic and, and, um, you know, we twitch it a little bit and, and this is a danger.

And as you said, um, dogs end up in a bad places. Um, and yeah, the outcomes are not, not good simply because, um. Lack of understanding. One is the lack of understanding what’s possible. And I’m not saying that, again, I’m not gonna throw out the Synthesization protocols. They definitely have their place. Um, however, it, it’s a horrible strategy to use for a dog that has very strong instincts to kill.

And, um,

I’m always paying attention, always curious to, to see what, what, you know, what is out there. Um, but yeah, there is no, there is not, no, no, no other solution. Um, and it, this is not a bad solution at all because one of the things that we need to, I, I keep saying this lately for some reason about welfare and.

We need to attach welfare to the outcome, not to what is happening in that moment. Not to just take this snapshot of, okay, this is a very, this is doesn’t look good. Why would you do that? It’s like, okay, if you have a better option, let’s play around with it. But eventually we need to change the outcome. We cannot just fool each other in this state.

And the sooner we change the outcome, what happens? The welfare skyrockets. And ultimately that’s how we should look at it. Uh, but, uh, it doesn’t, it’s not quite like that right now. 

I, I love that outlook. The idea that welfare’s about the, the final outcome and the dog’s life, right? As opposed to the dog in that moment of stress.

And I can tell you, at least in my experience, I’ve seen some of the most dangerous dogs created where people have been afraid to punish predatory behavior. And because of that, they’ve te, they’ve basically taught the dog how to be calm in the scenario. They put them in trying to desensitize the dog, but the dog is never close enough to really act.

Right. But now you have a dog who looks like they’re, they’re pretty good, right? He’s, you know, they’re, they’re not, they’re not barking, they’re not lunging. But as soon as they get the chance, we know it’s still there. And I think that’s where a lot of trainers have done people a disservice as they’ve created a dog that arguably, at least in my opinion, is more dangerous because they’ve taught it how to be calm at what some threshold or some distance, but they’ve never once actually punished the predatory behavior.

And we all know it’s gonna happen when they get closer one day. And that’s certainly, to your point, that’s not creating good welfare for the dog. Maybe they’ve never gotten any actual punishment, but eventually life is gonna punish them, right? Yeah. When they get too close and something bad happens. 

Yeah.

I don’t, I really, it’s a, it’s a interesting, it’s, it’s puzzling why we got stuck in looking at a moment instead of an outcome. And you know, how we, we, like we, we were talking, we started with me being a sport trainer and pet trainer and all this, like, I, I’ve trained, I mean, I, I, I worked for five years at the SPC as an animal behaviorist at the time.

I did guide Dogs for the Blind, was instructor for five years. Um, I’ve done competition. I’ve had pet dog training business since I think it’s 2000. Um, and

the.

I’m just kind, lost my thought here. Um, what, what did you just say? 

I think I just circling back to your point about, you know, the idea that welfare is not in the moment and that if you avoid, if you avoid difficult moments, you’re not actually focusing on the true welfare. Right? Because eventually, I, I think I used the phrase, life 

is gonna 

punish.

Okay. Yeah. I, I, so I, I got kind of where I wanted to go with this. Thank you. Um, with, um, you know, me, me being sport trainer and pet trainer and how we, we, you know, sometimes we throw this notice is very different. I’m a behaviorist and I have gone through whatever and I know how to do this, and you’re a sport trainer or you know, there is always trying to kind of split them and divide and, and say, you, you know your thing, but you are very limited in there.

Um, the same, the same thing is with sport training. You know, you can train a dog for the sake of training that’s gonna look insanely cool, precise, dynamic, emotional state, everything. However, you go to a competition and for some reason it doesn’t carry over. And then you start to kind of make excuses.

Your brain starts to be like, oh yeah, I was nervous, or, oh, I did whatever. Or the dog something. And ultimately your training was un geared for that outcome. And it’s very much the same with if we’re training pet dogs, yes, we can train certain things, but is that really important for where we are going, what we’re trying to resolve?

Sometimes, of course the dog can generalize, uh, um, you know, you can say, okay, they don’t think in abstract ways the way we do. So they kind of see it more in pictures and patterns and they say, well, okay, what is happening here? My behavior works here, I see similarities. This, so my behavior probably will work here.

And that’s kind of how it works. However, we, you know, there, there is sometimes it’s, uh,

this genetic part of, well let’s teach ’em place. It’s like, okay, we can teach in place, but how does the dog knowing place help us with what we’re trying to really work on? And it may, it may not. However, there is, uh, uh, doc trainers just kind of is almost, we doubt a question just going through the things that this is what we do.

And there are times when, when none of this, like you can, if you start to think this way, you can just really put aside a lot of things that you’re doing and address and, and resolve an issue on its own. Um, sometimes right. 

I think that’s interesting for sure. And I mean, I think we’ve hit on that a few times in this conversation overall that it’s, it’s very easy to either identify the wrong problem or not even identify a problem and, and you know, and really try to figure out what the cause is and just go through your routine.

Right. You’re at least training. You mentioned place. Absolutely. 

Very true. Very true. 

So you 

mentioned, that’s why it’s interesting, that’s really what the DOC training like when, when we start looking at this and don’t stay always in this box, it becomes interesting. Actually, this is why I, I mean I have my people that train the pet dogs and everything, but every once in a while I will take a dog that is difficult and interesting simply because of this, you know, the mind game about trainer.

And it never quits being interesting ’cause they’re always different. 

Yes. 

So you mentioned earlier that you feel like fear has been kind of overplayed and it just, you know, made me think, I mean, there’s so many dog training, just like everything goes in these waves or circles, right? Where everything is something and then two years later or five years later, everything is something different.

Are you interested in talking about the idea of dominance? And the reason I ask is, 10 years ago, literally everything was dominance, right? Maybe it’s 15 years ago now, but whatever. In the past everything was ascribed to dominance and now that’s become a like a dirty word for a lot of people, where even mentioning that word to some people is awful.

What are your thoughts on that? Do you think it’s an interesting topic to 

dive into? Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely. It’s something that, um. It should be talked about. Um, whenever we talk about DOC training, this, this, something that should be talked about and understood. Um, yeah, there was, there were times when we really thought that the dogs are always there to assert themselves at any cost at all time.

And that kind of, you, you, you put the wrong foot forward with the, the moment you start to think about, uh, uh, this way about dogs. So it, it’s definitely wrong and things change. However, the pendulum kind of went to another extreme. And again, the, the, like the, the forestry community simply because there, there’s so much.

For whatever reason against any use of aversives, um, kind of twisted everything and put words in every trainer’s mouth. Um, how, how bad dominance is and what really means kind of like, uh, you know, when you, in certain circles, when you say, well punishment

and you just need to do that, you don’t need to just pause, just say it and just pause. And then here we go. There is, there is a certain conclusions, conclusions that are going to be made about you as a doc trainer, regardless of what you understanding is and what their understanding is of the actual work.

And dominance is very similar to that. Um, David Mack was, you know, he, he, they, they took him so out of context and. I don’t know how many years ago, but I did have the, I did have him on a podcast and he clearly said that it’s just taken out of context. Um, um, you know, and he’s not like as much as, uh, important figure he’s in, in the Wolf community.

Um, the, the, what, what he observes and what he does with Wolfs is not necessarily all practical and helps understand the dog and the dynamics in a family that lives with dogs. So it’s, uh, you know, um, like, like if I, if I see how I can put this, like if I, if I think of dominance, it’s. To me, it’s simply, simply, we can narrow it down to a, a priority access and control over resources in a given moment.

And I think that’s the most important part in a given moment. It’s not universal, it’s not for, um, and dominance is not a,

it’s not a, like a personality trait. Uh, everybody asserts themself at some point, even the, the most peaceful human being, or a dog, there would be a time when something is at stake. They may not succeed asserting themselves, but they would make at least an attempt. So. It is a momentary relationship. I hate to use relationship, but here we are over, over resources.

You know, like who controls the toy, who controls the space, who controls movement, if you want, who controls outcome? That that’s really what it’s about. And

there’s no questions that that dominance exist, but, but it’s not a, not, not as a personality or a motive. It just, it really comes down to who controls the resource in that moment. And I don’t know if, if we strictly just kind of focus on dominance, we might be missing the point of, um, you know. Controlling our outcome and what behaviors follow?

Um, there is room, not room. There is need for the moment. We don’t know who is who in a family or a park or whatever words we want to use that would be suitable for talking today about dominance. You know, because we can say alpha, we can say leader, we can say the, the parent, um, that’s in charge. Like changing that wording doesn’t really changes the meaning that there has to be somebody that drives the car, that stays behind the wheel.

And if we all trying to grab the wheel, this is dangerous. And it stays dangerous until somebody gets a good hold of the will. Right. 

I like that analogy a lot. 

Yeah. It’s a, we, we cannot disregard the importance of, I imagine if, if all parents drops, drop the kids in a kindergarten and there is no teacher in there,

eventually, my guess is that somehow order will happen, but it’s gonna have to go through a, some crazy process and, and many kids will get hurt, uh, physically, emotionally, and so on, and it’s not. Uh, um, it’s, it’s not a good outcome. Maybe, maybe that’s not the best analogy because, uh, you know, generally, I, I hate bringing kids and humans into the dog conversation simply because, uh, you know, of the, the, the slogans of what would you do this to a kid?

Or, you know, it’s like, well, what are we talking about? Like kids and dogs, like we, you know, with kids, you, you have the ability. Kids, humans, the, the beauty is we, we think in abstract, I can tell you what the outcome will be. If you do this or if you do this, you already are preloaded with what’s gonna happen.

Dogs cannot be instructed in such way. They will have to go through the experience and they learn. About that behavior after they have done the behavior. Because of that, what consequences followed? That’s just the only way The instruction stays the same, that the objective of the instruction, but the way we can explain it to a kid versus the way we can explain it to a dog is radically different now.

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So you had mentioned me, and that’s awesome you had him on your podcast.

I’ll have to dig up that episode and, and give it a listen. So I’m gonna, uh, I’m gonna outline a couple of my thoughts real quick on David Meck and some of this stuff, and then I’m curious to hear you respond. And if you disagree with me completely, that’s great and definitely need to say that. So what I find so interesting is when you read the studies, basically he said, my understanding is at first.

Hey, he was studying captive wolves. You know, there’s dominance and you’re gonna have the dominant one assert himself constantly and he is gonna be in charge of everything. Then he started studying wild wolves and noticed that wasn’t the case. So then now people have run with that and said, okay, dominance doesn’t exist.

But when he studied the wild wolves, he noted that there was still a male and female that controlled the pack. They just didn’t control it with, uh, crazy violence out of nowhere. But they, they still controlled the pack. And to your point earlier of someone, you know, someone has to hold the steering wheel.

So, as I read even the contract, you know, you know, the, the pullback of, Hey, I was wrong about dominance originally. The follow up I think is more relevant for day-to-day life because it’s saying, Hey, there’s still someone in charge that, you know, the, the, the male and female are wolf are gonna run, you know, the, the, the younger members of the pack.

And I would say, at least my view, I’m curious yours. I can’t think of anything that you can’t let your dog do because of dominance. Whether they’re eating first or above you or somehow, you know, on your lap or even standing on something above you or whatever, going through a door first. My take, what I explain to my clients is, that’s all your decision.

And as long as you are making the decision and you can tell the dog to do the opposite, you’re good. As long as you can tell ’em, get off my couch, or don’t go through the door first, or don’t eat that food right now. So I can’t think of anything I would say is never allowed, you know, certainly just about because of dominance or control.

What are your thoughts, um, on all of that? 

Oh boy. There is a lot here. 

Yeah. 

Um, so the, the, yeah, the way, the way, and again, um, I have been. It’s kind of one of my sidekicks and passion. I do go anytime I have opportunity, I do go up in the mountains in Eastern Europe and, um, hang out with shepherds and the guard dogs there, you know, like the, and Italian Shepherds Caucasian and so on.

Um, but of course there are wolves. This is, you know, they’re really there and they, they come and they take ship and they take livestock and, and there is all sorts of dynamics there. And anyway, um, one, one of the things that, you know, even, even between the wolves in the park, there will be tensions and there always will be tensions.

And part of the, the job of being the, the mom or the dad of the, the family is. To keep staying in their head that if their tensions, they will prevail if needed, if confrontation, actual physical confrontation arises. So they kind of prevent that by working very hard

behind the scenes, so to say that they remain authority in, in, and, and ultimately they, they have a handle of, of the family. Sometimes, you know, the young teenager, just like with humans, will say, stop my food. And it’s like, from today on, I say, when I’m gonna go out, I say what I’m gonna watch on social media and so on.

Right. Now these are the moments, these are the kind of the interesting moments, and it can take quite a few directions. The, the

parent may say, okay, I can control you. Sit down and, and behave. The same can happen with the wolves. Sometimes there will be a fight and the fight can be ritualistic, but after few ritualistic fights, it’s very likely that there will be a more serious fight. And what happens? It’s not, it’s actually very easy to, even if you’ve never been around it, it’s very easy to understand.

And the the cool thing about wolves in the wild is that there is times. ComCom that a wolf has to leave, they just have to check out. Which, like, think of a, a, I don’t know, a family and the parents are not getting along and the kids are there and, and nobody’s living. And we are stuck for like years and years in this kind of dynamic that, uh, is just very, very unhealthy, simply because living is not an option and there is no distance.

You cannot, the, the best you can do is just go to your room, but your room is next to their room and ultimately you will go in the living room and you’re gonna stay together. So you’re not really able to resolve this kind of dynamics. And, um, so, so with.

Like we know the, again, the, the, the first thing that came about is, as you said, the wolves that they paid attention to. And I can’t think of the name of that guy ’cause I’m horrible with names. Uh, most people know that, um, that, you know, basically was the, the kind of the kindergarten example that I gave you.

Bunch of wolves were thrown in an enclosure. They had no choice to check out and they had to work it out. The chaos had to become in more structured based, uh, um, relationship toward each other. Um. So one, one of the things that David was saying that it’s like, well, that’s not kind of how it happens in the wild, and that’s not how it happens because there is, they wolves just, just don’t, random wolves get together and say, let’s just see what happens.

They do that when it’s a matter of territory or mating or something, and then two different wolf packs can just totally go to, to try to destroy and kill each other. Um, there, there, there is no question about other is, I mean, this is just everyday normal situations. That’s, you know, that’s why they have their spaces.

There was a very cool, um,

uh, um, like a map that I saw a few years back about. They were studying and I don’t know, was it in in Europe or here or Canada, but the different wolf packs and they were all with the tracking colors and everything and so they colored their territories, I mean, where they were roaming. And you can see the blue, you can see the green, you can see the red, and you can see the problems when they encounter and how space changes at times, depending who is younger, who is older, how many are in this family versus this family and so on.

But this is constant. The internal conflicts are still there. Um, but again, they use just like how intelligent people will use a very intelligent mind games mind control that. Ultimately doesn’t lead, doesn’t need to lead to hurting each other because again, we know, and this is, um, you know, it’s an obvious thing.

You don’t want to, to really injure any of your family because ultimately we all need to go and hunt and eat. And we would rather fight over a stick and see who wins the stick and maybe decide that way, who is who, this kind of one side kick of the benefits of play in nature. Um, so yeah, I, I, um, I, it’s not that I believe or don’t believe, I’ve seen wolves really within their family, going very hard at each other.

It’s not because they’re captive, it’s not, it’s, it just, the time has come that maturity kicks in and that wolf is not the puppy anymore. It’s actually starts to understand that when there is a female in heat, what that means. It starts to understand that, well, I always seem to be kind of in a back burner.

What if I try to eat the better part of the, the ca the kill and, and so on, you know? So this, this is just constant dynamics that are tamed until they cannot be. And when they cannot be, then they split or somebody dies. Um,

but yeah, it’s a, you know, it’s interesting how we. We like the wolf comparisons and analogies when we wanna use them to fit our, what we want to bring in. And then at the same conversation, we can completely say, well, wolfs are wolves. And dogs are dogs because they’ve been split for so many years and they have nothing similar from this point on.

And they do, I mean, genetically it’s the same thing. They, they can reproduce, you know, uh, um, like, like pretty much everything is there. The differences are, of course there are differences. You cannot say that there are no differences. But the biggest difference is that they live free and they have option.

Um, just like stray dogs, there is different types of stray dogs and, and this, that’s kind of how I got into dogs because my parents didn’t want me to have a dog. And as a kid, uh, growing up in, in Bulgaria, in Sofia, um, the street dogs were plenty. And, you know, even a, a 10-year-old kid can make sense of what’s happening and who likes who and who doesn’t like, and how they go about it.

And, and, and, you know, what happens at nighttime and how they try to fight or work together for resources and so on. Um, so the, the, uh, to, to me the, the biggest difference is the freedom, uh, between. Wolves and, and dogs. They, they, you know, I mean, even, even when we talk about problems, like, I just had a, I just had a graduation, a three day, like my students came to do a written test and we were talking about something like this to where, um, sorry, I, I just get to lose my thoughts frequently here.

Yeah. 

And we could shift gears a, a hair, and then if it, if it comes, we can circle back. So I’d love to pick your brain a little bit on raising puppies specifically. You know, people just raising, like raising puppies as a pet. I think we could tie this into our previous conversation. You know, people used to use dominance to say, here’s all these things you can never, ever do because of dominance.

Mm-hmm. Are there any things that you think should be off limits with a young puppy now? And I don’t mean crazy things, right? Like clearly you shouldn’t beat the dog or starve them or any of these things, but are there things people do with a dog that you think they shouldn’t be and they’re gonna regret it later on?

Um hmm.

This one’s interesting to talk about. It’s just a little bit too generic and it can go in so many ways. So let me mm-hmm. We can, we can kind of cover a few different, uh, um, types of situations and what, you know, um, since we were talking about space. Space is one of the things that, um. It’s very important when we start, like I’ve been, I’ve been breeding since, I mean, I, I had a couple of leaders with a colleague, ’cause that’s kind of how I started way early eighties and whatever.

But I’ve been breeding malino since 1989. This is like a long time. Like I have, uh, I mean there is like, I don’t want to mention how many combinations and how many puppies. Um, and it’s been very, very cool learning for, for everything, again, from, from the genetics and the selection component to, uh, nurture versus nature to, uh, dominance or authority or, and so on.

Um, and space can be. So, so we can say that mom is very important of how puppies are raised and who they become.

If the mom is not good with the puppies, some puppies that are very strong and resilient, they, they will come out just as a, somebody that has grown up in a really, the, the shittiest neighborhood there is. And they will come out and they will prove to the world that there is things that you can make choices about.

And you can, you can overcome a lot just as you are. However, always show that this is not how everybody does. There is this individuals that are capable of this. Um. I, I kind of consider myself one of them because I grew up like that. And on top of being, growing up like that, there was also a communism.

And there was, you know, from, from everything that I grew up in, my, my path was kind of predetermined and I chose to change that, and I did. Um, but to go back to the space, like I would have, mom has to be good, but even when mom is good, you have the well pin box, whatever the breed is, whatever the dimension it is.

Um, eventually as they get to two and a half weeks old, three weeks old, their senses are working now. They kind of, they see, they smell, they kind of ble at each other and. If the box is too small and they constantly end up bumping at each other, not when they want to stay warm, but just at any other time, even at that age, it starts to bring and build some, some tension

if you keep them long enough and they grow up to be four weeks, not even five weeks, but four weeks most breeds. Now, again, this highly depends on, on selection and, and breed probably, but you will see that they will start to get in actual fights. And the fights almost when you look, when you, when you pay attention and you observe, they don’t really make sense.

It’s like, why are you guys, we just. Started to feel like why that there, there is no reason, but there is a reason. And the reason is space. Um, I can tie this later if you want to. All the, you know, the scientific experiments that were done all the way back from whenever we had a box and a lever and a shock, you know, you get certain outcomes, but the problem is that you have restricted space.

And the moment you have space, things can dramatically change. And on top of that, all the studies were, and even today, most of them are food is your reinforcer. Electric shock is your aversive and. As I was saying, food creates food related repertoire of behaviors and you cannot get, you know, you cannot account for sociability, for connection, for play, for, for many things on top of distance.

So, so a lot of the conclusions at that time were not necessarily the best. I’m not saying throw the baby out with the water, I’m just kind of, uh, uh, having people think of something. So, back to the lit box, you know, like what I would do is I would pay attention and I would from, there is a certain moment and it’s not really age related.

There is a moment that you start to see uneasiness between the puppies and hopefully you catch it before that and you get rid of the box and give them more space. And then give them more space and then give them more space to where they have option to interact or not. You don’t want a puppy to try to go in a corner and sleep because it’s just exhausted.

Maybe play so much and then have to punch right on top of it, just completely going crazy and, and, and, you know, things like that. Um, then the, I can talk about puppies forever. Um, but, but that’s kind of where it starts. Really. The same thing is with housebreaking. You know, if they didn’t have space. All you need to do is give puppy space and clean, and they will pick a place even if you don’t make the effort.

I, I have a whole system of how I would house break them. And by the time they’re going home, they’re, they’re absolutely fully housebroken. But besides that, they’re extremely clean in their environment because of all that, uh, uh, upbringing. Um, but if there is no space, and if the mom at a young age doesn’t keep clean and then the breeder doesn’t keep clean, then we can end up with very serious housebreaking problems.

Um, that some are almost irreversible. And quite often dogs end up in a shelter because of housebreaking as, as crazy as it seems, or. The family starts to look at them. They’re, they’re not this loving, cute little thing anymore. This the, the, the, the thing that I always have to clean and wash and bait and, and, you know, and then you, again, you touch a certain emotional state and that affects, um, so with puppies, of course, from there on, you know, you can, if there is something to select for and kind of condition, because let’s say the puppy’s gonna be doing detection or it’s gonna be a pet dog or whatever, of course you can, you can help.

Um, but even when you are helping, I’m gonna go off topic here, I just knew it. But even when they’re, when, when you are helping, you know, like, um, um. Let’s say I mentioned detection dogs. And let’s say you kind of do these cool things to maybe put the order in a toy and you play with the toy, maybe put the order under the food dish, and they eat and they make this, um, trainer actually will call this imprinting, which is very, uh, misrepresentation of what imprinting really is because, uh, what they’re doing is it’s very pure classical conditioning.

It’s like associations and predictability and imprinting. It’s a very, very different thing. And it happens in a very specific times and just, just very different. But anyway, that’s, again, that’s even going off more than I should. Um,

at early age it’s good. It’s nothing wrong to. Make those association and those prediction and they can help. However, we know of excellent detection dogs that never went through this kind of, uh, conditioning. And you know, it, it, it depends on selection and genetic predisposition and is your training sound at the end of the day, what are you, what are you selecting for which behaviors are paying off and which are not?

Um, that, that’s really what good doc training is about. Um, so when you,

like, if any dog has to be, you know, people will say, well, this is a. Chow or sap, or, I’m trying to think of breeds that typically people will think, well, this is not, not trainable or, or very limited or, um, even then it’s very important for the doctor to be healthy and to have interactions that benefit the development.

You know, utilize natural instincts. Try to make the, the, you know, the dog stay for longer than they can focus on, on a certain, the same task. Um, have mental and physical endurance and they kind of, you know, if the one is not there, the other one would not be there. Um, having outlets. Any, uh, uh, important outlets, uh, where sometimes it’s common to, uh, think of enriching the environment and this kind of stuff, and you can never substitute by enriching environment with interaction being with a person or being with another dog.

And I, I am very big on interaction with both. Um,

well, on 

that note, there is times when there is, there is really times also again that, uh, you, you totally, uh, can, you know, some, some times you can say, well, you, you cannot punish. Unless the dog knows what to do, that there is this kind of very interesting slogans that somehow stick, there’s so many I have, I have a folder with this kind of stuff on my computer.

And of course you can simply just say, this is something I don’t want you to do, and you pick whatever else you wanna do, but this you do not do. Um, but there, there is definitely, you know, times when you have to start to say, well there, there will be some rules, there will be some consequences for us to be able to coexist.

And that doesn’t mean, again, that you are gonna be universally suppressed, but we kind of accept what our rules are. Our rules in the house are sound enough that we are not, you know, some golden retriever puppy. It’s like in Navy Seal six, you know, it’s like, no, it doesn’t need this kind of training. Maybe doesn’t even need to know how to down.

Um, but what we think of obedience training is also very interesting and how we go about it. Because,

you know how I was talking overcoming fear or comforting this, this is another fork, like this, like obedience. We can have it to be very entertaining and a lot of fun for the dog, or we can have it, uh, to where it’s reliable and it’s no, no, that you, you have to do. And they both very important actually. Uh, it’s very uh, um.

Narrow mind that if you try to disregard one or the other, it’s important that you can control behavior. And ultimately, when you do obedience training, this is one of the important goals. It’s not about the sit and down and come and place and whatever your basic training includes, it, it’s more so about can you control behavior overall.

Because if you can control behavior, life becomes easier. And it’s a whole different topic. And I’m not gonna go there how you control behavior, because that can lead to positive and negative outcomes, of course. Um, so control behavior is a, is a very big one. And.

Let’s say, let’s say muzzle training. Some, some will say, well, you don’t need to train muzzle. But sometimes it’s good for a dog to have muzz simply because you can go to the vet and they can muzzle it because they have to, because your dog is not gonna be sound. And maybe it’s in pain, maybe it’s sound in any other time, but not right now.

And putting a muscle in that highly frustrated and stressed out dog, um, for a first time while five vet techs are jumping on him, it’s clearly not gonna be a good, good idea. But it happens. So muscle training, you can, you can say, well, we can shape it. You look at the muzzle, click and treat, you touch, click, and treat.

Now you are just, I say muzzle and you’re just banging your face hard into the muzzle and you can put it on and so on. Sure, you can do that. Or you can use the opportunity to say, I’m gonna put the myself on you. You’re probably not gonna like it. You may resist it, but I’m gonna share. I’m not trying to kill you.

If you flip out like a horse, it’s like, okay, you can flip out. I’ll let you, and then we’re gonna try again. But I will convince you to go along with me so I can put the muscle and see that the outcome is not, uh, by no means horrific.

There is a certain. Element of trust that comes from approaching it this way, but also the fact that sometimes you simply have to assert yourself and say, you just have to go along with me instead of always having the dog. Well, what’s next? What do I get now? Is it worth, let me see the process. It’s like, um, there are dogs that can live their life like this.

Like again, like going back to my little rocky, he does not know one command like you. Have you ever seen a dog that doesn’t know how to sit because it comes as in the software program. He doesn’t know even how to sit on command. He doesn’t have to like, absolutely. There is no reason for me to do anything for him.

And that’s kind of where we, as a trainers, we kind of say, well my dog, oh, but it’s your dog. Like, that guy needs a chemotherapy. And I don’t, like, it’s just not the same. Right. Anyway, I’m just talking. 

No, but I, I think, I mean that, that’s a huge point that people tend to forget is that every dog is completely different without a doubt.

And the things some dogs might need are things that other dogs, it’s irrelevant for. 

Yeah. 

But you know, circling back just a moment, you mentioned interactions between dogs and, you know, dogs and other dogs and dogs and people. So if we stay in the, kind of the, the puppy topic here. Mm-hmm. Socialization, obviously a huge topic.

We could talk for hours on that. But one specific question for you is, I see nowadays there’s much more talk about over socializing dogs. It used to just be, make sure you socialize them. Super important. Now it’s very popular to talk about not, you know, the risks of over socializing. What are your thoughts on that term or that concept?

Well, yeah. Um,

so we kind of tend to put everything in the same bucket. Environmental exposure and interaction with humans, or interaction with other animals. It’s all under the umbrella of socialization.

Like, like as soon as we put it in that pot, we are already making a mistake. I think. Um, I see trainers and and owners going out and so we’re gonna socialize and they grab this big, you know, the, the, what do you call them? The pouch with the dog food and whatever else you have. And you go out and you’re basically just dispensing treats nonstop and focusing the dog to interact mostly with you than anything else out there.

Or even if they interact with something, you’re kind of making them come back and interact with you. Like you’re always part of the interaction. And when we are exposing or we are. Creating interaction. Uh, a lot of times it’s, you know, you have to allow it play out. You have to allow that puppy to be like, okay, I, I don’t know about this, but do I go or do I not go?

Do I step away? Can I even step away? Um, giving these options and then understanding that sometimes when a puppy start to act in a certain way, a little bit unsure, and we try to focus it on and really go out of our way to be like, oh, don’t be afraid. Look at this, and whatever. You’re just pinpointing more and more on something that typically it would resolve itself with a little time on its own.

So this is one of the, to me, very interesting things. Um. I will give you and, and everybody here a interesting food for thought. So like we, when we test puppies, we don’t really have a, a day that we gonna throw the key chain on the ground or open the umbrella and make notes about the purple color versus the red color.

Um, I, I’ve done that and I was fortunate to, to be in Guide Dogs for the Blind and they had a very, very nice breeding program. They had a very, a lot of volunteers that they would do all this kind of stuff with puppies. And the reason they were doing it is because of this, um.

His name was Klar Berg. He came with this basically, uh, selection and he was, his idea was that if, you know, they improved the, the success rate of dogs going through the training program as guide dogs from 50% to 80% because of this kind of selection and, and testing and so on. And it was exciting for me to read it until 20 years later because he wrote that book much earlier.

I went to work there and it was still 50, 50% success rate regardless of what they were doing. Um, which is quite normal, um, that there is just too many factors at play. You can, you can help, but, but there are too many factors at play. So anyway, we kind of. I have abandoned, I have done everything from the Super Puppy program with tickling them and flipping them to, to anything, um, to where, you know, I would split a leader or I would do like, really pretty serious research.

Actually, it’s just unfortunate that at the time I wasn’t making any, uh, like more, more precise data collection, but none of this made any difference whatsoever. Back to what I wanted to really tell you. So let’s say they, we kind of evaluate them from one point. Typically that is about seven weeks old.

Until then, nobody has colors on. I don’t care who was the first to come out of the lit box. I don’t care who is the one that’s always in your face. Um. We try to look at them as a pack, then we’ll bring them to a new environment. So like, actually, like here where I am, it’s my training building and it’s pretty, you know, it’s like whatever, hundred by 40 feet.

It’s pretty big size and there is a lot of stuff around, there is shelves, there is, there are different hideaways for little puppies especially. So you would have a puppy that will go and hide.

That’s the initial way of what the one puppy will do. It’s like, I’m just gonna pretend that nobody would see me and hopefully really nobody sees me. And, um,

what would happen? In most case scenarios, the trainer or breeder or pet owner will try to make sure that that puppy has the confidence to come out and, and show him how many cool things and how safe and comfort and so on. However, the puppy is not ready for that and you are really forcing it note on his terms.

But if you allow the puppy to say, you know, this new place, I don’t know about it. When you really think about from evolutionary psychology perspective, and this is a very safe choice, nothing wrong with saying, Hey, you know, I’m gonna take my time. And then basically that puppy has chosen a very specific strategy, how to work with the problem that it’s facing.

So it will come up and will pick from the. Corner and then it will hide. Then it will come and make five steps out and then come back. But just the fact that it can go in and out, it has the option to explore. But also to go back now on its own is starting to expand confidence instead of being forcefully guided into, oh, this is nothing to be afraid of.

And it doesn’t mean that you will, you can totally create more problems by forcing a puppy not to have that strategy because you’re just really throwing them out in a, oh, let me show you nothing to be afraid of. And it’s like, no, I’m not ready. You will have another puppy that will come out and maybe a little more bity, you know, like.

Maybe come around behind you and grab you, but not, not, uh, just to hang around but really unsure and like, and you say, well, this is really bad. It’s like, yes, it’s bad, but you gotta look at to why. And you gotta look at it again. In, in, in evolutionary perspective. What, why is that and why truth is that strategy.

And um, it could be that it comes out of lack of confidence, but the strategy is to impress and kind of set the ground and then he is all good. And then you give it a little more time and you realize that he’s no longer doing this, but he’s no longer doing this because he kind of. Found out now who he is, if you wanna think of it that way.

Um, it’s like, okay, I, I can just come and say hello now. And you know, you can say right away, well we are gonna either punish this or we’re gonna make him super social and he’s gonna eat only from people at that moment on. And you know, we’re gonna prescribe something. And I’m not saying that all the times this is wrong or right.

I’m just trying to make people think that sometimes dogs choose a strategy that it’s probably the best one that works for them with the idea not to stay in that moment, but to actually move on in a better way to deal with that. But it’s on their space, if that makes sense. 

Yeah, and I think a, a, a takeaway there, I mean, I’ll, I’ll rephrase it and tell me if you agree with it or not, but is that a lot of socialization should be more organic and less forced.

Yes. Less forced on leash in public, but try to create more real life situations where the dog has a sense of agency. 

Yes. Yeah. It’s a, you know, like you have to,

you have to allow the dog, like part of the experiences are that things go bad, being with the environment, being with the interaction. Then if it’s interaction problem, let’s say that the two dogs playing and was kind of nailed a little.

Do they have the skill or do they need to build the skill, how to get back? Or do we interfere and now we, you know, we work for them and if we don’t allow them to learn that skill, they’re really gonna be handicapped. Um, um, you know, how, what, what does, what are your,

is it called resolution skills or, or something like this? You know, like, okay, let’s, let’s say we, we get in an argument and it gets pretty hot and whatever. Do we, you and I have the skill to actually reset or not, and that can happen on its own because.

There is a need for that. Maybe there is sometimes need of some help and guidance, but not to completely just, just go in. And again, like if it’s an environmental stuff, it’s like, okay, the puppy just puts a hard stop. Let it, you know, let it watch, let it decide when he wants to go in, or if he wants to go away.

But if he wants to go away, let it go away. Then you can come three days later and he most likely would be okay. What? And you’re like, oh, you were scared of this thing three days ago. Why are you not right now? Well, because of perception, because of who, again, there is a lot of factors at play. But even if it’s still of keys on whatever he was afraid of allowing it, that first experience that he has the option to go away, that opens up the opportunity for exploration on its own.

Now he’s like, I can come even closer, but I know that I can go away if I decide versus being trapped by me saying, Hey dude, look, this is okay. I’m not afraid. Right. So there’s stuff like that that, um, yeah.

I think that’s all, all great advice. So I know you’ve got a lot of other things going today, so I’ll throw one more question at you real quick. What advice would you give to trainers who feel stuck or just plateaued in their, their training journey?

Um, wow. 

Um,

I think, uh, uh, sometimes and it’s, it’s not necessarily uh, a beginner trainer. It can be an experienced trainer, but sometimes you feel that you have to take on a case that you are just not ready to take on just because everybody else is de dealing with those. And you also want to do the before and after videos and, you know, you kind of wanna be in the group.

Um, so one, one of the things that I always advise is start with things that you can do.

And even the things that you can do, they will present their own challenges. Learn how to deal with those first before you take on something that it’s way beyond what, what your understanding or capabilities are. This is probably one of the biggest mistakes. Another one is,

and, and this is not, uh, by no means, uh, uh, any kind of promo for my school, uh, that, that I just need to have this clarification here. Disclaimer. But you, if you’re learning from somebody and you feel that you don’t have the answers, you cannot really apply everything that you’re learning. It just somehow.

Keep bouncing off. Um, you gotta, you gotta look, you gotta become more aware of what, what else is out there and what you can do to improve. Um, the, to me, the, the most times that a trainer will have a burnout is either they try to run before they can walk or they were made to believe that they have the tools and skills and understanding of what learning is, and now they’re starting to realize that it’s there is like, even if it’s some, some little things missing, but there is something that just doesn’t align all together.

And instead of giving up. I just become more aware and, and resourceful and, and, you know,

yeah, this, this is really my, my best advice for, for trainers when they get stuck, getting stuck to some extent. I mean, I get stuck probably once a week and I kind of live for it because the moment I’m stuck, I’m like, my brain, there, there is nothing else. It’s like, okay, how, what? I need to solve that puzzle.

This is a very interesting for me, where I am in, in my stage in, in, as a dog trainer, but for somebody that is, you know, not confident and it happens frequently, this is not a good place to be. So, um. Take a step back, get some easy dogs, have have fun with that and, and challenge yourself in a smaller increments.

You know, that’s kind of my advice, really. 

I think that is great advice. That is hopefully gonna resonate with people. Well, Ivan, thank you for taking the time. I, I know how busy you are and we’ve been at it a couple hours. Appreciate it. And I think this is gonna be one of our, our top episodes. Like I said, people have been asking for a while and they’re gonna be happy when they see this episode drop.

Cool. Matt, see you in Poland in, 

I hope to be there soon. 

Yeah, I, I know you, I, I’ve been hearing convince, convince the, the wife. Let’s make it work. 

Sounds good. Thanks 

Ivan. All right, man. Take care.