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Ivan, welcome back to the show. [00:01:00] 

Hey, Matt, what’s going on? Thanks for having me. 

Yeah, thanks, thanks for 

coming on. Good time to talk. 

Yes, it is. So for everybody listening, I’m gonna give a quick intro here. You probably know this is Ivan Balabanov. If you don’t know who he is, I recommend… We’ve- Ivan’s been on the show before.

Go back. You can hear who he is. He’s got an amazing dog training journey he’s been on, so, you know, feel free to listen to that. Today, what we are talking about is there’s a lot of craziness in the dog training world, of course. Ivan, I think last week, put out an interesting video for just some things that he thinks the IACP should be doing and the dog training community should be doing in general, and I think it’s something that’s really interesting that should spark a conversation, so that’s what we’re doing here today.

And then just a couple kinda housekeeping things I wanna throw out is, you know, most of you listeners probably know I’m on the board of directors of the IACP. I run this podcast for the IACP. When… I try to be very careful to make it clear I’m never speaking on [00:02:00] behalf of the IACP. This is, you know, this is not my show.

I’m just hosting it for the IACP. Any strong opinion I give today, if Ivan asks me a question of my opinion on something, I’m gonna give my opinion, not the opinion of the board as a whole. If we wanna talk about board decisions, I’ll say whatever I can say based upon what, you know, what our conversations were.

Happy to do that. But if anyone listening ever wonders why I haven’t voiced an opinion on a certain matter, sometimes it’s because I feel like if something’s too sticky, I shouldn’t be wading into it, ’cause this is, to be clear, not my show. This is an IAP- IACP show, and I’m just hosting it. So Ivan is a longtime IACP member, and I think it’s gonna be amazing for us to hear his opinion today on a lot of stuff going on in the industry, and I would encourage members, comment, let us know what you’re thinking.

The whole goal of this is to spark conversation, so whether you agree or disagree with what’s said today, please drop comments and talk so we can figure out what direction should this organization be going. [00:03:00] So 

Ivan- Very well, Matt … welcome. Very well. Thank you. Um, yeah, I, I’ll double down on your last words because- Our conversation should only spark further conversations.

And, and hopefully that’s what happens after this one as well. Hopefully, um, you know, trainers go back into the IACP, uh, membership group on, on social media and, you know, share their thoughts. And we all have our own individual opinions on things. That’s, that’s humans, right? Uh, however, we need to also think as a collective, and we need to somehow give and take, and we need to decide what to give and what to take out of anything we do, and especially with IACP, [00:04:00] you know.

It’s like, it’s literally the last fort standing. And, and it is important that we have this conversation. And I– hats off to you that, um, you know, a- as you said, just a week ago or so, I, I published something on, on YouTube, and I got your message, and you’re like, “Dude, let’s talk. This is worth talking about.”

Um, so that, that’s, uh, you know, that, that’s really how I believe IACP needs to move forward, um, gather information, concerns, suggestions, then see how the membership feels and, and how we can Protect the, the position that the, the main reason IACP is for, right? [00:05:00] So, uh, very glad to be here. 

Absolutely. Um. Glad to have you for sure, and excited for this.

You know, there’s so many directions we can go with this conversation. Most of the listeners, I think, are probably familiar with what… Even though we haven’t said what we’re really talking about, they’re probably familiar with it. But we could tee it up at a high level just a couple things. You know, one is force free trainers have been trying to destroy balance trainers for quite some time.

That’s no secret, right? Destroy our methods, tools, terminology, many, many different things. There’s many of them that would like to outlaw most things a balance trainer does. So that’s, uh, I think all the listeners probably know that. One open question is, as balance trainers, how do we combat that? Do we… Is, or have- is having conversations with force free people a good thing?

Is it a bad thing? When is it a good thing and a bad thing? What are we doing that’s kinda harming [00:06:00] ourselves, what, even if we’re coming from a good place? And that at a high level, I think, is what your video w- the other day was about, Ivan. But if there’s, you know, if, if you wanna tweak that overarching statement, feel free.

And then there’s so many rabbit holes we could go into, you know, from that. 

Yeah. The… You’re, you’re right, man, that there is quite a few rabbit holes, and hopefully we have the time to go through some of them at least. 

Yeah. 

Um, but, but yeah, the, my, my main concern, and, and I still suggest that people watch that video if they haven’t.

But the main concern is

Like in the last months or year There is these attempts to somehow get together, build bridges 

[00:07:00] Talk as friends

Talking about the different camps, right? And this is all really, really– actually, I’m, I’m all for that kind of stuff. You know, there is no, no reason not, you know, if you choose to be friends with somebody, to decide not to be because someone else tells you or some… You know, that, that’s just ridiculous, really.

Um, the main problem or, or, oh, man, it’s so incorrect to even say the main problem, because as you said, there is quite a few things. But one is reciprocity. I, I find this very– like honestly, I find this very disturbing because nobody brings this up. And after I talk, I’ll have a question for you, um

What is it like in, in few days here, [00:08:00] there is that big conference, CANIS, that APDT and aggression, um, like Michael Shikashio and, and, you know, few of those, uh, force-free advocate organizations are put together. It looks big. There is a lot of speakers. There is a lot of different, you know… I mean, it, it’s 

very well put

However, and you know where I’m going with this, out of the long list of people, there is not one, even the most, how to say it, even the most cordial and balance trainer is not invited. Um, [00:09:00] 

and this kinda, you know The, this to me is a very big problem because IACP has been very proactive to invite people that are force-free advocates to IACP conferences, to podcasts, to, you know, um

And I wanna make a difference here because there is a– we, we need to distinguish between two things. There is a, to me at least, big difference between having somebody on your own podcast and just talking dogs and, and brainstorming ideas and, you know, praising each other, whatever. But it– there is very different obligation, if you want.

If organization invites somebody to speak [00:10:00] at their conference, that means that you’re giving certain kind of power, certain kind of authority credentials to that person, and we need to ask what are we getting back in return. And when we’re talking about cordiality and friendship and building bridges Like, I don’t see this as a issue.

However

if that person, whomever that is, I don’t care, like there is no need at least yet to mention names, whomever that person is, if they are really firmly and openly against the use of tools, if they cannot accept that there is place and time for positive punishment and negative reinforcement because, [00:11:00] and this is an important one, because there is actually they bring something to the table that the other alternatives do not.

So basically, if we invite somebody that is actively trying 

to take me out of business

but in a friendly way, by shaking hands, having beer, um, understanding each other and culture and, you know, traditions and whatever. But ultimately They will uh, uh, try to shut balance training down And that’s like [00:12:00] problem number one, and I am, uh I actually am glad that I’m talking to you and that, as I said, I have a question for you.

Um, and you can answer it as IACP board of director or your personal opinion. Either one is fine with me because I’m sure many other people are curious. But what, what is the The thinking behind building the bridges, so to speak, but actually n- really putting aside the most important thing that should be on the table.

Like, what, what are we trying to accomplish by inviting these people and giving them the microphone on our conferences? 

That’s a good question. So I, I would say two things. One is there are many members of the IACP, especially long-term [00:13:00] members, that would say, “We are not a balanced training organization.

We’re a dog training organization open to everybody.” Mm-hmm. And I understand the, the idea behind that. I would tell you myself personally, I don’t think that really works because anyone who’s purely positive doesn’t wanna be associated with someone who’s doing balanced training. So I don’t think it’s realistic to be a do- in this, in the industry to be a dog training organization that is open to, you know, anyone can join and be happy and fit in, ’cause that’s just not gonna work.

But I think there are, there are a lot of members who feel that way. So very often we do have people who reach out, members that reach out that say, “We want this person to speak.” And some… Now, I can tell you with force-free people that have spoken, uh, in the, the surveys after they speak, some have come back abysmal, and people have said, “They shouldn’t have been here.

They should never be back.” And some have come back really good, where people said, “Hey, I, I learned some stuff from that person I [00:14:00] could use, and I think it could be helpful.” So we do have members that want some of those people to come and to speak, and that’s where I think it’s important to have this conversation for members to speak up in, like, in large numbers, right?

Don’t let it be maybe, maybe we have 30 people that reach out that say they want someone, you know, so and so to speak, and we’re like, “Well, a lot of people want it,” but maybe, you know, 2,000 don’t want that person to speak. So my, my take is the members really need to be active in helping pick the speakers and be active in the members group of, “Here’s what we want.

Here’s where we would draw the line.” Because I think I would draw the line differently than, than a lot of members would, right? And, and, and that’s okay. And I, I think I would probably draw the line, I’m guessing, more similar to where you would, Ivan. I mean, I’m happy to dive into that if neede- or if you want me to.

No. 

But lot of different opinions, for sure. 

Yeah. Yeah. So the… [00:15:00] Yeah, that’s the That’s a teeter-totter. That’s a give and take of, you know, who gets to decide that, that I don’t wanna bring like actual real politics into this, but, you know, who gets to vote, like just, just for election for president, you know?

Like there, there is, uh, um, we can have a argument for both sides and, you know, we need the masses, we need everybody to vote, but then at the same time we need votes that are really understanding the pros and cons on each side and actually moving forward as we make those votes. And that’s, uh, that’s not easy to, to navigate between the two.

But I guess we need to… Well, I [00:16:00] need to, and I’m speaking as a member of IACP, um, you know, I mean, as you said, I, I’ve been a member for a while. Um, I was on the legislative commit- committee for a while. Um, I’m a Hall of Famer, which I wanna get to at, at some point. Um, uh, I, I guess really we need to, uh, like, like you put it very well, like what do- does IACP need to revisit their position statements, their mission statements?

Do we need to have a, a whole new meeting and fill out what the membership wants before we create so many divides that we actually make the organization eventually crumble? [00:17:00] Which is possible, and it will be a shame. Um, but yeah, probably I- IACP needs to start there because as I was saying on my, you know, solo podcast when I was talking about it I, I am, I have a very clear, uh, uh, vision and direction for myself, and that is to to keep training tools on the table.

And that’s not to say that, you know, we can, we can revisit what is abusive, what is, you know, like we can, we can go everywhere we want to go from there. But a priority for me is that training tools remain available for competent trainers to use. And as I say, competent trainers, we’re going to open a rabbit hole, as you said, and we’re going to talk about, well, what makes a competent trainer and who decides that that [00:18:00] trainer is competent and how do we resolve that problem?

That’s not an easy one. But that’s down the road. The first thing really is to sort out and, and really fill, fill out the membership and see what they want as far as, um, like is it okay that somebody is invited that they speak at IACP conference, but they are against you ultimately. That ultimately they go back to their camp and they work actively to remove balance training.

Is that okay with the organization? I think that’s a, in a way, simple and in a way difficult problem to be solved. But I think this is a good start [00:19:00] and And yeah, that conversation that we’re just starting, it’s probably a good beginning to at least bring some awareness and have people– I’m sure there are a lot of people that have very strong opinions either way, but I also believe that there are people in the middle that feel very lost of what’s happening and why things are happening, and where are we going with that.

So I think that’s a good first step. Um, you know, it’s different that we, you know, IACP can welcome different philosophies and, um, you know, Balance Trainers sure give, give Force Free speakers access to the audience. But I am surprised that there is this immediate question that 

comes right [00:20:00] behind. Is that openness reciprocal?

And if it’s not, should we care about it? And, and, you know I mean, 

if they do not, they meaning like the Force Free community, if they do not publicly recognize balance trainers as legitimate professionals, I have a very strong

opinion on that so strong that I would cancel my membership tomorrow with IACP. Because it’s, to me, and I believe for s- quite a few people, this is a deal breaker. It’s– I, I find it very unreasonable, and that’s kind of why I asked you what, [00:21:00] what is the idea behind, you know, to, to invite people that… And when we say, well, there is some membership members that would like to listen to them, there is plen– like I hear, and I, I constantly say this, like I watch all of their webinars.

I’ve, I’ve never been… Oh, no, I shouldn’t so say that. I was gonna say I’ve never been to a force-free event, but actually in the ’90s when I was living in California and, um, you know, it was the– it was where positive reinforcement force-free movement really started. So, um, in Napa Valley, there was a, uh, there still is a humane society in San Francisco and so on, and that’s where all the, the first big seminars and invitations from people all over the [00:22:00] States and UK started to come.

So I attended all those simply because it’s, I, I’m very interested in dog training, period. Um, but I do watch all of their events, or at least the events that I find worth watching. I do the, um, you know- Yeah, I mean, I mean really all of them. So I’m looking forward to watch the Cannes as well. Um, the reason I’m mentioning this is because if you– if anybody wants to, they can go to their events and really learn anything they want to learn.

This is not, um, you know That that’s there. You can go. You can– If you don’t want to go, you can do what I do, sign up for the stream, um, you can go to [00:23:00] workshop seminars with them. You can learn from Force Free trainers if you feel that there is something to learn. And I’m not saying, uh, that that’s a whole different topic and it’s not– it’s pointless to go there.

But if, if anybody feels that there is something to be learned from someone, there are many different channels than actually inviting. Like, like I really see it as a unbelievable contradiction and a big problem for the organization and the membership. Like if, if I’m gonna teach you something, but then the seminar is over or the workshop or the presentation, the conference is over, and they– I go back home and start talking about how to take you out, like literally how to take you out

I, I, [00:24:00] it’s a puzzle for me that this is the case Um And I don’t care. It’s not, it’s not about like I don’t require agreement. I, I require reciprocity. This is what matters, you know? Like, does, does IACP expect anything in return from people to whom it gives the platform? Or is it just, yes, you’re welcome because few people or, or even if it’s the majority of people, members of IACP want you to come and speak.

Is that all or, or do we have as an organization any expectation in return? 

So I, I would say there’s definitely no expectation in return. It’s just if the members want [00:25:00] to hear a person, you know, we, in theory, should have them speak. Now, I, I, I said this at, at conference, and I think we had never really announced it, that this spring at, at our board retreat, a couple of us pushed really hard to have all new speakers sign an agreement that says they will never advocate for the banning of tools or balanced training methods.

Obviously, that’s not truly legally binding. We can’t force them to do anything. Sure. But it makes it clear. They’re on the record saying that. So it would make them look e- you know, very shady, obviously, if they then a month later say they’re gonna, you know, try to bal- you know, ban balanced training. So I pushed really hard for that, and so, you know, others did as well, and so that, you know, that’s something we’ve, we’re doing go- you know, moving forward.

Uh, let me throw out my- 

How was that accepted? How was that accepted? I’m just curious, like. 

From the speakers? 

Well, when, when you, to whomever you [00:26:00] mentioned the idea, how, how did– what was– what kind of response did you get? 

So this was, uh, you know, a board conversation and n- you know, no significant pushback ’cause everyone, you know, the whole board was in agreement.

I think this is kind of an easy one, right- Right … to be in agreement here of if they’re trying to ban tools, we should not have them. So that, that wasn’t a tough conversation. I think the gray area becomes, you know, kind of past that. So let me tell you my thoughts on kind of what I’ve been pushing for since I’ve been on the board, and then feel free, obviously, I won’t be offended, pick it apart or, you know, tweak it or whatever.

There’s a big difference b- at least in my mind– So obviously, if someone’s trying to ban tools, they should not be speaking in, in my opinion. But let’s say they’re willing to sign that and they don’t wanna ban tools. There’s a big difference between, let’s say, someone who trains dogs for the movies, and they say, “I don’t use tools, I don’t really correct dogs, all food-based, and that’s how I [00:27:00] get dogs to do this really cool stuff for the movies.”

I think we can learn a lot from that person, and I think it’s interesting to have them there. To me, that’s very, very different from someone who says, “Hey, I don’t use tools or positive punishment, and I can fix every, every behavioral issue under the sun without it. Every le- every reactivity case I can fix without all four quadrants.”

That, to me, is clearly a lie, and I think we all know that’s a lie. So to have someone like that, I think is a whole different, whole different story. Mm. So I would draw the line at how the person sells themself, and if they’re saying, “I can do literally anything you can do, including take on every aggression case under the sun and fix it with no punishment ever,” I don’t find that to be truthful or honest, so I don’t think we should have them.

If they’re doing agility tricks, what– even, you know, pup- raising puppies, there’s a lot that can be done, obviously, where you might not need balanced training methods. I [00:28:00] think we could learn a ton from having a person like that there and think about, okay, you know, what could we implement into our training and, and what do we find silly?

Mm-hmm. 

So that’s at a kind of high level m- my personal overview. What are your thoughts on that? 

Yeah, good. I mean, it’s a good direction. Like, I broadly would agree with, with your take on it, for sure. Um, I, I, I would believe that, let’s say if we’re talking, if we invite, um-

I just kind of want to make it separated, really make it black and white. So I’ll give it just like a maybe a little off example. But let’s say if we invite a veterinarian to the conference that speaks about euthanasia and seizures and whatever, something that it’s not behavioral problems, it’s not that I don’t have a problem with somebody [00:29:00] speaking about different topics, but the moment we start talking about actual dog training or behavior rehabilitation Then at least in my head immediately, like I, I– it’s mind-boggling how, how I, I really wonder if it’s only me, honestly.

But the moment somebody starts to speak and I’m like, man The organization they promote and applaud, it’s very explicit, no aversive at any time, regardless of experience And then I have to look at that person And I think, um, this is, this is a problem. Um, and as I said, like if we have– [00:30:00] if there is somebody that is really, you know, talented in some area of dog training There is so many other places that you can go and learn what they do.

You can, mm, I mean, get all their, you know, whatever platforms and videos and lessons and webinars and, I mean, e-everybody does this now, so it’s not like a, you know, it’s very different than the ’90s as I was talking about, you know? There was, um, you know, again in, in Novato, Trish, she, she, she was so instrumental of inviting all sorts of people, for free people, and

There was no, no other option but to go, and [00:31:00] fortunately I was just an hour away, so I get to go and watch all of them. But today’s different. If you need the knowledge, there are ways to get it. But to intertwine and kind of s– i-i-it’s like sneaking in an enemy in your camp because they possibly have something interesting to offer

N- that’s interesting. It- if I’m hearing you right, one point you’re making is although there could, there is stuff you could learn from m- some people, you can learn at many other places rather than having them at IACP conference. That if you’re very intrigued- 

Yes … 

you know- 

Yes, Matt … 

pay 40 bucks for their- 

Yes, exactly

webinar 

or whatever 

Exactly. Because in, in finding somebody as a speaker, this is… You’re, you’re giving authority and credentials to [00:32:00] regardless who that person is. And I, I, I want to later on go a little deeper into that process as well. But i- if, um, if we invite 

somebody

Ja. Ehm

You know, the, the, uh, and I, I mentioned this on, on, I actually start to talk more openly about it and surprisingly I’m getting a lot of positive feedback on this one and, and that is balance trainers, uh, uh, uh, some part of balance trainers, they feel guilty that they had to use aversive today and they’re very proud to say [00:33:00] that for the most part I never need to but there is this one rare occasion that I have to This is, this kind of apology, um

It’s basically what, what, um, you know, can hurt balance training. It’s not about how often you use it. It’s not about how rare you use and what it is that you’re using. Ultimately, it’s about the clarity of your training. What are you accomplishing? What is the emotional state? What is the reliability? What is the response frequency?

What is the lasting effects? What, you know, like I can go on and on on this. However, as long as a balance trainer [00:34:00] is like, “Oh, I rarely use it.” It’s like, good. So what is your point? Maybe you ha- you don’t work with the type of dog that you need it. Maybe your criteria is different than another trainer. And yes, maybe some trainer overuse it.

That, that’s a topic on its own. But to feel guilty and to apologize to the whole dog training universe that you rarely use electric collar, for example, or that if you do it, it’s only this one time and you never had to use it again Is it marketing? Is it sucking up to the force-free community? Is it actual real accomplishments?

And what is your accomplishment when you train a dog? Is, is your goal really as a trainer [00:35:00] to judge how often you use aversive instead of how quickly and long-term you can bring clarity and make everything easier. Which one is more important? And, and as I said, I got a lot of messages and a lot of feedback from trainers kind of saying, “Well, dude, like you’re so right.

I, I also feel guilty on that one. I fell for this.” Um, and as Michael Chicashio, you know Like, like when he talks to people on the balance side, he’s very cordial, he’s very friendly, he’s super cool But ultimately his idea, and I, and I keep inviting him to correct me if I’m wrong, but ultimately his idea is that balance trainers just [00:36:00] don’t have the skill yet

Being luring, being differential reinforcement, being desensitization, dis- whatever. We can go on with all sorts of animal learning labels, but they are not there yet. And one of the, the– so the way he would say would be, “Well, I used to be that trainer, but I don’t use it today.” Now, if you really press him, would he use it?

Depending if he’s speaking to a balanced trainer, he’d probably say, “Well, I, I would use it, but I don’t have to. I, I never have to.” Why you don’t have to? “Because I know now better.” That argument is very flawed. As I said, we can learn many things through positive reinforcement and all the different [00:37:00] schedules and all the different…

What aversive bring to the table is something that the other alternatives can never do And a lot of us use aversive not because we are Neanderthals, not because we are on our way to enlightenment, not because, um… Yeah, it- we use it because it brings clarity, and there 

is really no other way to give certain message to a dog without aversive Um

So the, the, you know, I, I hope that at least the, the trainers on the balanced side that feel like, oh my God, I’m, you know, I’m– to be clear, I’m not [00:38:00] encouraging like just use the remote control like a, you know, like what you would do browsing through channels on your TV. That’s not what I’m saying. I need to be clear on that.

However, a trainer that is so preoccupied and apologetic that they had to use aversive, their, their priorities are not in the right place. Um Ja 

I wonder how much of that stems from… I mean, you and I both know, I mean, there’s still some people that do this, but years ago, many, many, many trainers taught with aversives, right?

As opposed to reinforced with an aversive. 

Mm-hmm. 

And clearly anyone skilled in the industry has gotten very far away from training all obedience commands or behaviors with an aversive, right? [00:39:00] And I wonder how much is kind of a pushback to that where trainers are trying to point out, “Hey, I’m not one of those,” right?

That train- Right … that only uses aversives. I’m actually balanced. And I wonder if they’ve gone, if, if maybe you’re seeing comments where people have gone too far trying to prove that either to themselves or to their audience. I have no idea. Uh, I would agree with you, that statement doesn’t sound helpful, right?

Yeah. If someone says, “I rarely have to use an aversive,” because once again, to me, that doesn’t sound believable that the, with the average 

dog- But even, even if it is, Matt, even if it is, even if it’s very true they didn’t have to use aversive or they had to use it very minimum

Ah. It’s part of the job. The– what a trainer should be proud about or should [00:40:00] evaluate if they’re skillful enough is what are the outcomes? The outcome is what really gives, uh, um, it gives it all. It’s like, yeah, you, you can accomplish this, but is it clear? Is it contingent? Is it lasting? Is it– is the dog happy and eager to do?

Like, like whatever. There, there is so many questions that we can ask on the final end product than focusing on how often or if at all you had to use an aversive. It, it’s painted like such a bad idea. And yeah, there is this almost– it’s a big tendency, kind of like a big push of like compet- competing against each other to see who uses less aversive [00:41:00] as a demonstration that you’re the better trainer than the one that used it.

So you used the aversive one time, and there was another trainer that used it five times, and because of the count, you’re the better trainer. That’s just– it doesn’t make no sense. That’s the last thing you wanna judge. Like I, I, I’ve been in dogs for so long, like I don’t care. Like I need to see the end, and I either gonna love it, or I can say that this is an average and it’s okay, or I gonna tell you that you need to stop training dogs, at least for a while.

But it’s the end result that counts. Um-

Y- you know what is like, like, that kind of leads me to something that I just thought of. [00:42:00] Um, it’s a question for you, but it’s a question for everybody really

How, how do we decide who is a good trainer? Who is a better trainer than the other one? What, what is it? How do we make this happen? You know? Is it really 

how much aversive you’re using? Is that the, the criteria of enlightenment as, as how the, the force free belief? Like, that, that’s dangerous. That should not be.

But then how do we decide? Is it the 30 years of experience? What is experience on its own? I mean, there is plenty people that do certain whatever their [00:43:00] job is or hobby for as long as they’re alive But is that enough? 

Is it the 100 or 1,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 dogs that were trained? Or is it how the dogs are trained and how they compare to something else?

Like, like how does the industry Like, like it’s really weird because the interest– uh, like I, I really feel that the, the industry avoids comparison in a very smart way. Like a very v– a, a large part of the professional dog training is never enters an environment where the training is independently compared against other trainers under a, some [00:44:00] standard.

Like, like we happily compare, like this is like we love to do this. Like, yeah, we can compare philosophies, certifications, followers, methods, education, year of experience, as I said But it really becomes weird. It becomes uncomfortable when we actually compare training performances? And is it even possible for the dog training industry to compare training performances?

So 

How do you and how does everybody else that’s listening decide which trainer is competent and 

more importantly, which trainer [00:45:00] is better than the other? Or are we all playing soccer that scoring doesn’t matter and every kid walks out with a trophy? Is that the game we are playing?

Well, I’ll give you my framework, kind of a, a rough one. So I get this question from clients a lot when they say, “Hey, my sister lives in Idaho. You know, do you have a trainer there?” And I say, “No.” They said, “They’re thinking about going to this person.” You know, I’m happy to give them an, any opinion I can, so I’ll say, “Send me, you know, video, if you have any videos that they’ve put on YouTube or whatever.”

But my criteria would be kind of a combo between how happy are their clients, how happy do the dogs appear to be, and how, you know, how good are the results along with the timing, because timing clearly matters, uh, at least to me, where if you say, “Hey, we fixed this r- leash reactivity issue over three [00:46:00] years,” I, I think that dog’s life sucked for three years, and so did the client’s that even if they end up happy, I don’t think that’s the mark of a great trainer.

So I, I try to balance those things because, I mean, you know this, Ivan, if you look at different trainers, I see some very focused, use a ton of food. Some use a lot more play. Some use a lot more praise. I mean, there’s many ways to train, and I feel like as soon as we get caught up in that, we’re going down the wrong path, right, of now just saying, “Well, that person’s different than me, so somehow they’re worse.”

So my framework would be hap- how happy is the dog? How happy is the client? What do the training results look like, and is it, are they timely? Do we get it done in a reasonable amount of time? And if they’ve done all of those things, even if they did it wildly different than me, sounds like they’re probably a pretty good trainer.

Interesting. Yeah. 

What are your thoughts? 

Yeah. 

Um, man, I have so many thoughts on this 

[00:47:00] one 

Let’s 

hear them This is… So, so, so listen. Um, just as you said, like if you train a dog for a client 

and it took you

three weeks to resolve the reactivity that the dog has. And there is a trainer that 

worked a different dog, and it took him a whole year to resolve the reactivity I don’t think that’s enough data for us to compare who is a better trainer. There, there is this like s- like I mean, you can see how I can go for an hour here to expose the differences of what one trainer’s facing and what the other trainer is facing regardless of the approach, and maybe the one doesn’t have confidence [00:48:00] and maybe is repeating things that they shouldn’t and whatever.

But, but we– it’s still to me impossible to put the two in comparison against each other and to say who is the better trainer because there are way too many components in the puzzle that will affect the duration and the effectiveness overall at the end. And 

that, that’s kinda my point that, you know, like that is not a sufficient evidence, you know, that, uh, you know…

And, and on top of that, who, who is the one that judges? To what standards, right? ‘Cause typically it’s the trainer and saying, “Yeah, I can do this with that dog for three weeks, [00:49:00] and that other trainer has been struggling for six months and cannot even come close.” But that’s my own standards, my own criterias, my own judgment, my own everything.

There is nothing external, you know. Like it– the- there is something super simple. Like you can make a claim, then provide the evidence, and then there should be some way of external evaluation, not what you think as a trainer, how good you are according to your standards and your selection and whatever, you know

And that’s what I’m saying, you know, like, yeah, I’ve rehabilitated 5,000 dogs. Great. So what’s the evidence? You know, you, you did before and after videos. 

You know, sure this is[00:50:00] 

This is okay to some extent, but you still 

selected the evidence yourself. You still twitch it the way you want it to, you know, to say I’m, I’m, yeah, I’m really good. To where like external outside evaluation, you know, there is someone, something independent evaluates performance against 

some predetermined criteria

what else comes to mind if we try to compare that trainer and that trainer? Because right now

Kind of leading back to, to what we were talking, Matt, about the, you know, some, some of the, [00:51:00] um, membership said, “Well, we need this trainer to, to be speaking at the conference

And then I’m like, “Okay Why? And I’m trying to really genuinely answer my own question, why do we want that person to speak? Like what– how, how are we comparing that person to somebody else or few other people? And how we decide that that person He, that they have something to, to give out, to contribute Is it, uh, 300 likes on social media?

Who evaluates? Who d- who, who makes that decision to say, “Well, this person…” Or is it really just, “Hey, let’s have that [00:52:00] person,” and everybody’s, “Sure, let’s have that person”? I think this is, uh, i- in some ways actually very unfair to, to trainers that are coming to this conference, paying a lot of money, taking away from their businesses Some of them literally go there to learn, not to have average conversations and tap each other on back, but to really learn something, walk home with something.

And

I think this is a, a, a serious problem that has to be at least discussed. We have to brainstorm and find a solution to that. It’s a, it’s a super important that we find that solution. How do we decide? Because again, it, it comes [00:53:00] down to comparison. It comes down to, and as I said, our industry just for some reason avoids comparison.

Um, is it because it’s impossible to compare? Is it because it’s beneficial to me not to compare? Or are we comparing the wrong things, the wrong credential? Are we confusing marketing with actual dog training skills? And if you’re really good at marketing, let’s invite that person about marketing, you know?

But we should be very careful how we confuse and, and, and, and I’m again, I

I’m concerned about the, the new trainers that spend money to come to the conferences and want to learn. I’m very genuinely [00:54:00] concerned that, uh, we can do way better job of having them go home, not just feeling accepted, not just feeling cordial, not just, you know, whatever words we’re gonna put and having the drinks and the good conversation, taking the pictures with the superstars.

But go home with some legit training knowledge that they couldn’t get anywhere else they had to come to the conference for. So my question again, I, I kinda wanna stay on this- 

Mm … 

and maybe go back and forth more, but how, how do we, how do we decide who c- who, who gets the mic? 

How do we say who is, you know– Like for sure if we’re talking basketball [00:55:00] and there is the opportunity to have Michael Jordan or me to speak, it’s a 

very easy decision But if you have me and some very famous influencer or I’m the famous in whatever, it can get very blurry and very confusing.

And what are we left with to make that sound decision so the people that join the organizations and come to the conferences actually benefit and learn and evolve instead of

Yeah. 

Well, I’ve got some, some thoughts on that, and I’ll… Let me walk you through how, how it’s currently decided who will be a speaker, and then I’ll tell you what, what I, what I personally think sh- should be done. I mean, I agree with you. For a young trainer, it’s expensive to take time off [00:56:00] from work and go to conference.

And if you have three speakers that they really get very little out of, th- that’s a problem, right? Yes. If it could’ve been three that they got a lot out of. So I think we’re, we’re in agreement there. The way speakers are currently decided is decided by the board, and it’s decided way ahead of time, as you can imagine, because of prior commitments and getting people locked down, and, you know, a lot of people are already busy for the following summer.

So a lot of times they’re determined, I mean, definitely more than a year in advance, probably close to two years sometimes. So it’s, you know, way ahead of time. I personally don’t think the board should be the ones determining who the speakers are. I think it should be the members, and I think we should come up with a f- Now, there’s challenges there, there’s hiccups, right?

Where just, like, let’s say members said, “We want this person.” Well, there’s no guarantee we can get them, right? They might say no. They might be- Yes … busy, whatever. 

Yes. 

But at the end of the day, I think it should be the [00:57:00] members who are voting on some group of here’s, you know, here’s 40 people that we want.

You know, someone go out and, you know, get whatever ones of this you can. And there’ll be some judgment calls, right? Someone has to decide, well, which of those 40 or 20 do we actually pursue first? So there’s still gonna be board involvement or committee involvement or whatever, but I think that’s how it should be done, where…

And, and maybe we would still see some forestry people on there. Maybe we wouldn’t. I, I have no idea. But at least then we know it’s not being decided by a small group of people, and it’s very clear, you know, h- you know, how it’s being done. And I, I think that would in- involve a lot of conversations on the members group, and I don’t know what that ex- exactly would look like, but some sort of member decision, I think, is what’s, is really what’s needed moving forward.

I, I, I was gonna say agree, but I probably partially agree with you, but it’s still [00:58:00] moving into the right direction. And the reason I would say partially agree is because, again-

There, there is, there are many dog trainers that are very confused right now navigating that whole landscape of the dog training industry. The marketing, the influencer, the really knowledgeable trainer in certain specific area, um, the knowledgeable scientist, the behavior specialist. Everything is just kind of put in a, like a, I don’t know, like a Chinese hot pot, you know?

Um, um, and somebody needs to start to think about how we can Slow down and separate and see how we start selecting and see– decide who is capable of selecting and what is [00:59:00] based on. Like, I would die, I’m telling you, like I would die to ask the board about all the people that got selected for the– this year’s conference.

And, and I’m not talking just this year, I’m just picking on this year ’cause it’s fresh right now. So, so no, no, nothing in mind specifically. But I would be so curious to, to see the– how the brainstorming, how, how these decisions came about. And I tend to speculate that 

very often

we get people that are just at the moment trendy, but they’re trendy not because of dog training skills[01:00:00] 

And 

like, a-again, like I, I would, I mean, like in a private conversation with the board, I maybe, maybe we do this as a, as a challenge, you know? Like, like my question would be like, okay, this person, what, what made you decide? Like what, what have you seen being in person, being in his or hers videos or reels or what have you seen that impressed you so much that you believe that that person has something different?

Not the common knowledge, but he has something or she has something different to contribute that everybody needs to get updated

Because I cannot find it

Your turn. I’m [01:01:00] talking 

too much. 

Yeah. 

I think if you were to ask the entire board that and say, “These people here,” think about the way the board works is when things are decided multiple years ahead of time sometimes, and board memberships, you know, people leaving, joining, terms expiring, you’re often gonna have speakers where you might talk to multiple board members and they’re like, “I wasn’t involved at all, not in the slightest.”

Right. “That’s just, you know, that was decided kind of before my, my time.” And that happens pretty frequently, especially if you were to just take the board today, take the speakers this year and say, “Walk me through your decision here,” you’d get a lot of, “Hey, I, I just wasn’t involved.” 

Right. 

I, I think you’re right.

It’s easy to fall into the trendy trap be- for a couple of reasons. One is we do have member surveys of: Who would you like to speak? And so there is some member input. M- my issue [01:02:00] is it’s private input, meaning someone says, “I would like this person to speak,” and the other members don’t know that that per- that, that maybe 20 people have suggested that person, so there’s no conversation.

So to me, it’s easier to fall into that trendy trap where you have people say, “Oh, I’ve seen this person on Instagram.” A bunch of people say the name, and the board’s like, “Well, people want so-and-so. Let’s go get ’em.” I think we have enough knowledgeable members if we’re doing that in the members group, you’re probably gonna have people jump in and say, “No, uh, y- uh, you’re suggesting this person.

They’ve got cute videos, but here’s 50 reasons not to bring them on.” And I would hope we’d have a good conversation there of back and forth and somehow figure out, okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe they are just really, really good at marketing and they make flashy stuff, and maybe they do come to speak about how to build your social media profile.

So- Which is important today. Sure. I’m not taking that away. I [01:03:00] mean, hats off But you know what, y- I mean, that, that was an interesting question, like who would you like to speak and why? That, that would be once you say who would you like to speak, then tell me why. I think that’s little sub-question- 

Mm-hmm

would put the brakes on most people to finally think behind the, the followers and the trend and the grandiose work and, and the presence and… But like, okay, w- that, I grant you that. Let’s talk dog training. Why do we need that person? What, what do they– What have you seen? Like, sh- give us some link. Let, let us enlighten.

Show us. And when, uh, let’s say out of the five people on the board, three of them go, [01:04:00] “Wow, this is interesting.” Not that it’s great, not that anything, but this is interesting. This is a different take. This is not another person talking about relationship and, um, structure and luring the dog to sit. We, we have enough of it.

We know how to do that, and if we don’t, YouTube is full with it

So I think something just like, as I said in the questionnaire, who do you like to speak? Then there has to be an immediate question why? Like what? Why? How come? Like what, what are you impressed with? In a good, in genuine way. Not– I’m not trying to put anybody down really Um I think this could be a, a interesting

[01:05:00] beginning of wakening 

for all of 

us And I think, yeah, and I think an important component, at least in my mind, is the semi-public aspect of it. And when I say semi-public, I mean that this would be on the members group presumably, or maybe a drive, then whatever- Right … but it’s for members. And so that when someone says their why, other people have a chance to push back.

Because in, otherwise we could have 20 people that are caught up by a video, the board watches it and you’re like, “That’s a really good video. That’s interesting.” And then if it had been a little more public, you might have a lot of people reach out and say, “Hey, I’ve seen other stuff from this person.

Don’t go with them. Here’s why.” So I, I do think there needs to be some sort of semi kind of public conversation with the members- 

Mm-hmm … 

so we can kinda check each other a little bit, right? 

Mm-hmm. 

To your point earlier, it’s very hard to determine who’s a good trainer and who’s not without spending a lot of time with them [01:06:00] 

Yeah, I would argue that even if you spend a lot of time with somebody, um, you still, you can make your own judgment how good they are

That’s your own judgment. Um, the real test is how can we compare that really good trainer that you spend a lot of time with to the trainer that you heard a little bit about well, this one has a podcast, has a book, has a behind the paywall course or whatever. I can talk about me in the same bucket, right?

But how do we compare to that other trainer and the other trainer and who gets to compare and on what terms? I think this is a $1 million question. And if [01:07:00] we find ways to resolve that, we can move the industry forward.

I, I, I don’t think it’s easy. And, you know, like I, I’m sure somebody already may think, okay, I’m, I’m hinting on some form of competition because I do competition. I know you, like from previous conversation we have talked about and, and you’re not really into dog sports and stuff, and I’m obsessed with dog sports along with all the rest of the dog training.

But the reason I would get obsessed with dog sports is because I get to see. I don’t, you know, I don’t just blow us some smoke in my ass. I get to see where do I stand. I can have a very big mouth. I can have [01:08:00] as many followers. I can make the best reels. But ultimately, there is a day and time when I will get compared by somebody else of which dog can heel better, which dog can s- sit faster, but not just faster, but willing without emotional baggage.

Um, and, and, and on and on and on. Um-

You know, like, like that, that’s, that’s a– again, it’s, uh, I don’t necessarily have a answer or solution to it, but, um A lot of times tr- people, people that don’t do competition sports would say, “Well, you’re doing it for your ego, and you will sacrifice and suppress the dog all the time.” Which again, like if you [01:09:00] familiarize yourself to certain, and yourself and talking to everybody here, to certain level with dog sports, you can see if the dog wants to or he’s made to.

You can see if it’s oppressed or if it’s very open and, and willing. You can see the responses, you can see the consistency, and then you can compare to the next one and the next one and the next one. And when you say, well, you, you… Like I get this so much. This is a ego. You know, you’re, you’re not there for the dog.

This is an ego. Okay, I will partially give you that. There is part of it that I’m doing it for myself. However, the dog does not give a shit about my ego. They either gonna say, “I’m dying to do this with you. Let’s go,” or they’re gonna be, [01:10:00] “Fuck, there is another day that I’m gonna be tortured.” You know? And, and so, so there is a…

You know, when we’re talking about pet training and we compare competition, it, you know… Man, I, I didn’t mean to go into competition and pet training, but here we are

You know, like you, kind of like we said, “Okay, well, this dog is reactive and we can fix this for this long. This one we, we need more time,” but we cannot really compare it. We, we agree on that, that it, it’s pretty close to impossible that there can be any reasonable comparison of the skills of the two trainers regardless of the outcome, because there are just too many factors that are at play.

Um, however, if we say, “Well, which trainer can heel, make a dog heel better than the other?” [01:11:00] And then we can start with, okay, this one can walk on loose leash for very long time. Well, the other one can do the same, but along many distractions. Well, but the other one can do that, but off leash. Well, but the other one can do that off leash and actually paying attention to you instead of this, and so on and so on.

And eventually what you see is competition, and the competition leads to, um, you know, sometimes to something artificial. M- like artificial meaning as a, as a pet trainer I can say, “Well, I don’t give a fuck about that. I don’t need that. Why… W- what is the point of that?” But, uh, like my point is that then offer me something better that we can compare who is who in the dog training industry as [01:12:00] far as, uh, uh, training skills.

Regar- I don’t care about methodology. I don’t care about, um, tools. Like they, you know… But I don’t care also about your own standards and your own judgment. It’s good to be confident, it’s good to have all that. But again, 

comparing Because if we, if we don’t

Then what’s, what– how, how do you go about it? The way we’ve been doing this for, for as long as I remember, um 

And again, I’m not like again really not implying that everybody should be doing IGP or Mondioring, you know. That there is plenty… I mean, take, take hunting dogs, you know. I mean, those are dogs with [01:13:00] hardwired instincts that need to be controlled.

But even then, when you think about, well, who is a good trainer? It’s not because of the likes on social media. It’s because they were confident and willing to put their skills to a test, to an evaluation, be compared against others by somebody else on the same terms And, you know, I mean, there, there is so many, so many things like this, you know?

But In our industry, we kinda, we almost

silent, silently transfer

achievement from one category to another. It’s kind of like, “Oh, [01:14:00] therefore he must be a good trainer or she must be a good trainer.” Um

I can bring names. I would love to bring names, but I don’t want the names to be taken their own name the, the wrong way because that’s really not my point But there are plenty of people or, or maybe not plenty, but there is quite a few of them that claim results and, and actually claim that their biggest claims is like they’re doing really good in competition and they’re very successful at what they do.

However, nobody cares about the receipts. Nobody actually– it, it’s so easy to say, “Well, what have you done?” Like what were– like there are actually statistics. It’s [01:15:00] easy to see. What– where is that big accomplishment that you are so proud of? Um, but yeah, I, I don’t know, Matt. That, that thing about, um, um, 

deciding somehow Which trainer?

You know, how does the dog training industry know who is actually good? This is like a million-dollar question because we– 

imagine having UFC or whatever and, and there is the guy that does no contact Tai Chi and goes pooh, and five or 20 people just crumble on the ground. And you can say, “Yeah, this is legit.

This is the greatest.” Why would I spend so much time doing some other [01:16:00] nonsense trying to, you know, beat one person up when I can just go like this and kill 20? But the beauty there is 

It’s… Somebody’s gonna say, “Show me. Let’s do it. Show me.” And we cannot, we don’t have that

I don’t know 

I think- 

Do you see that as a problem? 

I do. I’m not sure it’s very solvable because of some of the things you’ve already said. You know, one is we have such different criteria as trainers of what we want to achieve, so it’s very clear, you know, for you to say, “Hey, I’m better at training IGP dogs than all these people over here.”

That’s [01:17:00] pretty easy to prove or disprove, right? 

Right. 

There’s some things… So like you mentioned earlier, like I, I, you know, I focus on pet dogs, a lot of behavior work. So I worked with, my house call this morning before this was two pit mixes that they, one broke out and attacked another dog a few months back.

All they want is their dogs to walk without trying to fight dogs and to be able to stay on the front porch without trying to smash through the gate to attack dogs. So the obedience we’re doing, you would look at and say, “Well, that’s garbage obedience.” We’re not, you know, we’re not working on… It’s nothing very similar at all probably to what you’d be doing with a dog.

We’re working on loose leash walking, and we’re working on teaching the dog do not lunge at this, you know, on the front porch with the fence here. Do not try to break your way through and attack a dog, and we will achieve that. We’re pretty close already. The clients will be thrilled beyond belief. But then if another trainer were to come by later and say, “Hey, what did this trainer do with you?

Did they [01:18:00] teach your dog down?” “Nope.” “Did they teach him stay?” “Nope.” And like, “Well, that’s a pretty crappy- Yeah … trainer.” But we achieved exactly what the client wanted, and now they’re happy with their life. So that’s where I think it’s really, really hard to determine. And then some, I’ve seen some trainers who are amazing at obedience, and they do that.

They don’t cover the behavior work, and six months later, the client’s like, “Yeah, my dog’s phenomenal at class, really, really good.” Mm-hmm. “But you know, he still bites me if I try to take his bone.” Yes. So I, I just feel like there’s such a challenge of we all have such different goals, but maybe shifting a little bit, staying on this is I think a lot of people then say, well, that’s why dog trainers should be licensed.

Because if we have a proper licenser- One sec. Yeah. 

Give me, give me one sec. 

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Getting back into that, I, I think a, a lot of trainers or people say, “Well, that’s why dog trainers should be licensed, because if we have a good lice- licensor system, that solves that problem.” And- Yeah … I, I don’t believe in that, but we know we can…

I’m curious to hear your take and dive in there. And they would say this solves everything. If someone gets a license, we know they’re at a good level of competence, and we can trust them. And if someone’s not, well then they’re not good, and who cares if they’re the best? They’re good enough to get their license, so they’re, you know, good enough to work with, with clients’ dogs.

Yeah. What, what do you think about that? Dog, licensing dog trainers. Pro, con, on the fence? 

Yeah. Oof. I, [01:20:00] I, I wanna… I, I’ll answer this one, but I wanna go back to, to, uh- Yeah … your, your, um, um, you know example that you brought up with the, you know, teaching the, the bullies and, you know. That, that’s… This is again, as, as you said and I said, and we seem to agree on that, it’s the problem that how do we compare?

And sure, some, many trainers, and I’m sure actually many of those that do behavior will say, “Well, I do behavior medica- modification. I don’t care about obedience, and I most definitely don’t care about this high-end competitive obedience.” And yeah, I, I, I’m agreeing. There is no disagreement and, you know, these are different areas.

But if we try to distinguish them, you know, like

[01:21:00] Behavior modification may require additional expertise

Ultimately, we’re still changing behavior. So we need contingencies, we need stimulus control, we need reinforcement, we need inhibition control, we need generalization, we need reliability. We need possibly behavior under distraction and different arousal states, ability to transition the behavior, and I– and you’re right

Behavior modification may require knowledge beyond obedience. But it cannot require less fluency in actual, actually, uh, uh, changing the behavior. So like beautiful competition obedience doesn’t prove that somebody can rehabilitate aggression at [01:22:00] 100%. But saying, someone saying, “I specialize 

in aggression doesn’t prove that either, you know?

And

Obedience is about controlling behavior

Then We start to add to that at what cost? Are we sacrificing something as, I don’t know, w- welfare and, and, you know, uh, or are we adding something that’s benefiting So as I said, like we can teach a dog to heel and sit and [01:23:00] down And we can see dogs that look miserable. Regardless of the words, regardless of the slogans, regardless of methodology, you can see it, the dog is miserable.

And then you can see a dog that does it

Okay. 

And then you see it with a dog that’s really, really excelling. And by excelling, I’m- don’t mean a Malinois or a Border Collie. I can, you know, take whatever, Presa Canario, some mastiff dog that’s just not… Or some Caucasian Ovcharka, something that’s not meant to do obedience, but you still can see [01:24:00] the quality, the level of outcome So we can compare, like, like you can see I’m, I’m still trying to find a way to compare instead of s- just brushing it off and saying, “Yeah, I’m doing something very different than you.”

Well, where can we come together to compare some skill?

and see who can do that better. And you can still say, well, I’m very good at that area of dog training. And the other guy, I’m very good at that area of dog training. But we compare each other on something very basic because, again, as I said, I’m not going to repeat everything, but demonstrating obedience, and especially when we’re talking about not like an IACP obedience or, you know, you can argue [01:25:00] agility has behavior control in extreme arousal.

But it’s still very different than being able to control a dog during protection competition. Like there is very different emotions going through that dog’s head, especially when they like to. And then watching that dog, is it suppressed? Is it do everything with clarity?

You know, the same goes with many other trainings that we can see this. That’s just kind of what comes to me. But there’s got to be a way Because if

If somebody lacks that skill as a dog trainer to show [01:26:00] obedience training with clarity and, and desire and motivation and reliability under distractions and competing for and whatever. If somebody cannot show that

And can say, “Well, I’m, I’m doing behavior rehab. That’s my specialty.” It’s like, well, your specialty, you probably– that, that’s kind of m- one of my biggest issues with, uh, AVSAB, uh, people, you know? It’s like, what if you just tell the dog, “Don’t do that,” or tell him to do something else and find a way to do that without, you know, destroying them and breaking their spirit, actually guide and channels their instincts And what you think that was needed as behavior modification, really what– there was no need for that.

You know what I’m saying? Um [01:27:00] I don’t know. I talked a lot again, but back to the legis- the, the licensing- Well- Go ahead … 

you know, no, this is interesting. And just to throw out a few thoughts from my end- Yeah … is w- and without a doubt, you mentioned there’s obviously skills that are applicable in the sport dog world that are incredibly helpful in solving behavior issues at home.

Of course, obviously, right? So someone who’s really good in the sport world, of course, has a leg up without a doubt over the average person and now going to, you know, to work on behavior. W- what I think is interesting and hard about trying to compare trainers is, and you’ve hit on this, the scenarios are all so different.

Sometimes it’s the dog, right? You could have this dog who has no drive and isn’t interested in food, and you’re gonna have to somehow bu- you know, not somehow. You’re gonna have to build that drive, which takes a while with some dogs. But also in the pet world, you have some clients who don’t have a lot of money and a lot of time, and they’re like, “I just want this problem solved [01:28:00] right here.”

And then you… So then you might look at that person’s training in that scenario and say, like I’m a big believer, I wanna off-leash train every dog. So that’s my goal. Every client fully off leash. I use e collars when they’re fully off leash, if they’re not in a fenced-in yard. That’s my goal with every single dog, and I do that with most of my clients, but I have some who don’t have the money, time, or interest in that, and they’re like, “What do I need to do to get this dog so I can walk him and it’s fun again?

You give me that, and I’m happy.” And then we strike all this other stuff from it. But th- then you would look at the training for that dog and say, “Wow, that’s real sloppy.” That dog, he doesn’t look at you at all when he’s walking. Yeah, he’s kind of ahead. He’s distracted. And the client might say, “That took one lesson.

My dog no longer lunges for dogs. I’m as happy as I could possibly be.” So that to me is the struggle. Obviously, to your point, if you put two people in a room with similar dogs and said, you know, “Train this dog,” [01:29:00] and they each had a week to start making progress with the dog and you could watch them, very clearly you would start to see differentiation between good trainer and bad trainer.

I just don’t know how that’s ever set up- Right, 

right … 

in a realistic way. And 

even, even if the dogs… I, I wanna kind of actually add this to the conversation. Even if the dogs are not similar, let’s say we’re not talking about two border collies or two Malis or whatever anybody pictures, you know. We can, we can, we can really have a Lhasa Apso and a Malinois doing the same task, and we can still understand the limits of each breed, but we can still see the clarity and the motivation level and, and again, all these things that I, I keep saying in the two dogs, that there is still a lot that we can compare and, and [01:30:00] somebody to stand out.

And w- I, I give you with the pet owners, you’re, you’re absolutely 100% right. Um, you know, sometimes even just time is of essence. Sometimes they’re just not interested, sometimes they’re not capable, whatever. But we’re not talking about the pet owners. We’re talking about the actual dog trainers and how we compare the dog trainers.

The pet owner is the product. And, and my belief is that if we compare two dog trainers, and the one is better at accomplishing the same task in dog training, that means understanding how to control behavior without any fallouts and creating extreme desire and so on and so on, then I would put my money that that dog trainer will do better with the client.

Like, like

Think of, man, [01:31:00] like 

let’s, let’s take a, a, um, a Michelin chef

So let’s take something really simple. Everybody can pop, crack three eggs on a fry pan and make some, some kinda eggs, right?

But you have the 

Michelin chef He gets three eggs from the same package. He puts it in the same pot, pan. He puts the same ingredients. He puts them in the same stove And I don’t think there will be an argument that we’re gonna like the Michelin chef eggs better than if they’re mine And [01:32:00] what would that be?

Where is that difference? It’s not about who can fry them better or longer or whatever. It’s the, the quality altogether, right? So again, if we translate this to dogs, it’s like everybody can teach sit, down, heel, place, whatever. But What we can compare and should compare if we decide to put two trainers, you know, like if I, if I wanna compare myself to my friend, it’s like, well, let’s see speed of learning, clarity, precision, reliability, emotional state, motivation, efficiency, generalization, competing motivation.

There, there’s so many things that we will be able to compare. But [01:33:00] The question isn’t whether you– one trainer can teach a sit. The question is what quality of behavior can somebody produce under what conditions, in what emotional state, and with what kind of, uh, reliability? And, and I will argue that that’s where you start to see somebody taking over.

That’s where you start to see– I don’t wanna call it mastery, but you s– you, you really– that’s when competition starts to matter. It gives, uh, it gives something rare. It gives us that external evaluation, you know? Because as I was saying, the rules are not yours. You aren’t your own judge. You can edit 20 [01:34:00] times your reel.

Um-

Let me throw out a kind of contrary thought on the Michelin chef. I want to see what you think about this. Yes. So clearly- I 

would love it … 

clearly amazing chef, right? No question. You take that chef to a diner in rural Nebraska, and you say, “Hey, you’re gonna be the short order chef at this diner this morning.

Make the eggs for everybody.” And there’s a chance that it’s an epic fail. They make the eggs. They put some pars- parsnip, I don’t know, some fancy oregano, some fancy herbs on there. They poach a bunch of eggs, whatever, and they can’t keep up because they haven’t ever cooked a thousand… Whatever. They serve the eggs.

It’s not the preference of the people there, and they might say, “Wow, you suck. I wish Jim was here today, right, cooking eggs. He’s so much better.” Now, I would say the sh- the Michelin chef might have failed in that scenario. Clearly, he has the skills. If he puts his [01:35:00] mind to it and he says, “I wanna learn to run that short order place,” yes, spend a few days there, figure out what he needs to tweak, and clearly all of his Michelin skills are amazing, right, and are gonna help there without a doubt.

That’s what I see sometimes in the dog training world, where, to your point, you could have someone who’s won a championship with their own dog, amazing trainer, really good, has never spent time with clients really, tries it, and they would probably suck at it at first, but all of their skills are clearly applicable once they learn how to apply them properly, right?

Once they realize, “Okay, I’ve gotta shift this. I’ve gotta make all these differences to make this client happy.” 

Mm-hmm. 

So my take is clearly the skills you learn in sport obviously are helpful when applicable. Where I think it’s so hard to compare is you’re gonna have some people that are insanely good at sport but have never taken on pet dog clients, and so then to jud- we can’t judge them in a pet dog scenario.

And you’re gonna also have some pet dog [01:36:00] trainers who are very good at general obedience for the average person that have never worried about a focused heel. Right. So they’re probably not great at that skill set, and that’s where I think the challenge arises because you’re gonna have some trainers who are like, “I don’t wanna spend the time to learn that skill over there.

I’m happy here in my lane doing whatever,” right? “Whatever it is I’m doing.” And that’s where I do see a lot of attacks happening on social media where someone kind of craps on another trainer because of whatever it is they’re doing. It’s so different than they would do, but maybe they don’t know the why, right?

Why that person thinks what they’re doing is relevant. And I, I don’t know how we get past that as an industry to- Mm-hmm … accept that there’s many people with many different skill sets, and some are gonna be inferior in some ways at certain things, but they’re still really good at what they do, whatever it happens to be.

And so I think any testing as it get, if it gets too specific, then it [01:37:00] starts to become questionable how, how helpful it is. Now, clearly everyone should have a, a certain baseline. If you can’t teach a dog to perform commands and have them motivated and have them happy to work with you in a reasonable amount of time, clearly you’re a bad trainer, right?

Mm-hmm. 

But is a focused heel part of that? I don’t know. Right. To a lot of trainers, that’s not super useful in their day-to-day. To a lot of trainers, it is. 

Right. Yeah, so good to– I mean, legit, legit argument. Um, um, so, uh, again, that’s kind of why I was hesitant to bring competition like high-level sport, you know, because, um, I, I agree with you that, you know, you can be a very good, uh, trainer and you’ve never put your foot on sport competition.

That, that’s, you know, there, there are many 

trainers, you know, that, that is– I, um, I don’t argue that that’s, [01:38:00] that’s the path. Um- The, the path that I brought to you was like if you and I compare each other and you say I can make the dog heel better than you And then we can do it 

longer. We can do it when the distraction, we can do it off leash.

We can do it eventually, whatever. We’re gonna continue to add criterias that are not necessarily have any application in real world anymore, but they don’t simply because you and I have decided to compare which one’s gonna reach their limits first. And, uh, um, there are trainers that do obedience, competitions, protection, [01:39:00] whatever, because they like their dog and that’s what they’re interested in.

They don’t care about teaching other people pet obedience or anything. They’re just doing the thing that they do with their dog. Um 

I, I do dog training because of that, but I also do dog training because I want to see how, how I compare. 

Um, and, and it’s– I think the raining is here, right? Yeah. 

I was gonna 

say- Hopefully the Wi-Fi

it, it changed out of nowhere, the noise. 

Yeah. Like, it just goes crazy. Um, we, we can try to change something, but it normally- I think- … it, it’s in and out fast. 

I think it’ll, in editing, the audio cleanup, I think, will probably remove it. Yeah. I think 

it’s gonna be fine. Yeah, yeah. Plus, it’s a steady noise. Um, so but again, back to the, the [01:40:00] competition, it, it can be, it can be any, any competition.

Like, as long as we decide, because I don’t see a, a different way of comparing skill We have to do something that it’s we are doing the same thing under the same rules and, and somebody else decides. Um, I, I believe that that’s how ultimately competitions really evolved to get to that point. And then eventually, sure, there are people that now do competitions just because they like it and they wanna see how far they can go with their dog.

And the Michelin chef, man, I, I wouldn’t think that there is one Michelin chef that didn’t start from the lowest level possible, [01:41:00] working hours day and night sacrificing their whole lives just to make that one piece of food that your brain, not your just taste, but your brain just goes, “What the fuck?” That doesn’t happen just…

You, you don’t start from that level. You– This is something that you understand You understand pans and pots. You understand temperature. You understand spices. You understand, like I, okay, I’m not the Michelin chef, so I cannot give you all that. But you cannot be a Michelin chef unless you have these super basic skills ironed out, like to extreme, to where even if you don’t know anything about certain food, you can explain it to yourself, and [01:42:00] you can very quickly, quicker than most other chefs, adapt, and even on top of that, put your own flavor to it.

Um, yeah. I mean, it’s a really good conversation. And then again, I’m, I, I hope that, you know, somehow we come with some of these answers, and people start to… Because you can see how my… Again, I, I didn’t mean to go into the sport, but, but you can see how my point is we have a conference coming 2027. Who is to decide who comes who is to decide are, is their knowledge just, uh, uh, something common or is it like, uh, something contributing something else?

Um How do we learn? How [01:43:00] do we evolve? And to me, without comparison, we have a problem. Now, as I said, I still don’t have an answer how we can compare, but maybe there is a different way. But I would love because, you know, like, like deep inside all of us as dog trainers, we watch something on YouTube or with, or live or whatever, we are very quick to say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Below average. I can do it better.” We all do that. However, some comments are legit and some are not. But even if they are, unless we somehow do this, there is no answer to it You know another one, just kind of to switch the, the topic a little, like the, the [01:44:00] Hall of 

Fame I think it’s becoming

It’s becoming dangerous in some ways. Like there is a lot of Hall of Famers, and not that there is something wrong with that 

But kinda how I was asking, um, like we said we’re gonna ask who do you want to present at the conference, but then we’re gonna ask the sub-question why? What, what do you see? Show us why we need that person.

So the same here with the, with the Hall of Fame, you know? Like, what exactly does IACP Hall of Fame really mean? What it’s supposed to mean? Like, I think we need to urgently separate [01:45:00] somebody that gets awarded for exceptional dog training, somebody that gets awarded for advocacy, somebody because of their legislative contributions fighting on that front.

Like there is many reasons why somebody should or shouldn’t get that However, without saying why you got it, you’re once again giving this carte blanche to, to, “Guess what? I am a Hall of Famer, motherfuckers.” It’s, it, it cannot be more dangerous than that. And then you tr- I try to make sense, and I watch, and I’m like, “Well, man, 

this is really going sideways because I don’t understand why.”

What are your thoughts on that one? 

So yeah, it’s a good one. And [01:46:00] just to put a pin in that last conversation so I don’t get attacked in- Yeah … the comments- Yeah, yeah, yeah … to be clear, I was never making the argument that sport work, you know, is not relevant or is not, not helpful in dog training. Clearly it is.

So don’t, uh- Yeah, I 

think we both of us are like, again- Um- … we, we have to try to have the conversation Yeah … it’s very unpolished, it’s very rocky. So, so I, I understand you, and I’m sure you understand me. And I- Yeah … I bet you people will understand the, the deeper problem that we have, and we’re just trying to find some angles to see if that’s a possibility, I think.

Sure. So yeah, to your question about the Hall of Fame, you know, I don’t know what the right answer is. My personal belief is the Hall of Fame should be difficult to get into. And to anyone listening, I am not, like, whatever I say, I’m, I’m not, like, beating between the bush on any particular person that’s in there- Right

or beating around the bush or whatever the phrase is. So don’t, anyone, don’t think, like, I’m targeting you when I say this. So [01:47:00] I think it should be difficult. It should not be, “Hey, everyone likes you, so now you’re in the Hall of Fame.” So I think it should be difficult to get in there. You have an interesting point, I’ve never really thought about it, of the why they’re in there that others aren’t going to know.

Whereas you’re gonna have someone who’s in there presumably because of pure dog training skill, someone who’s in there because of what they’ve done for the organization, being a huge supporter for years- Yes … kept the organization afloat, kept it from falling apart, you know, whatever, you know? And they’re in there, and maybe they’re not nearly as good of a dog trainer as that person over there.

So to your point, from a marketing standpoint, how does the general public see that? Yeah, I d- I don’t know. So I, I do like the idea of a write-up being in there of here’s why they’re in the Hall of Fame. I don’t know if that really solves the problem that if you’re using it for your marketing, you’re not gonna say, “I was brought [01:48:00] in because I helped financially keep the organization afloat, and I helped, and I volunteered, or I did whatever.”

You’re just gonna say, “I’m a Hall of Famer,” and everyone’s gonna assume it’s because you’re a super good dog trainer. So I don’t know, I don’t know what the fix is there, but I do believe it should be challenging to get into, and I don’t think we should feel compelled for someone to get in every year. If we had a year or two with no one getting in, I think that’s really normal, and I, I don’t think that would be- Right

bad or unhealthy at all. And I, I like- Right … the concept of being really clear, here’s why this person was inducted. 

Yeah. And, and I don’t know, I mean, the… Well, like again, like all, all the stuff we’ve been talking for a while now and all those things, if all of us put our heads and thinking hats in it, chances are that we will at least to some of those problems find- Or, or, or at least [01:49:00] try some, some solutions and some– make, make some– take some risk and see if, you know, um…

Well, 

to your 

point right there, I mean- Going back to that Michelin thing, you know, it’s the– like, I don’t know why it just came back to me. The– like a Michelin chef, you know, like they don’t get r- the Michelin star for, uh, like a restaurant advocacy or lobbying or writing blog about a restaurant, right? So maybe, maybe there is a specific, a, a, a different prestige or whatever that somebody gets awarded as a dog trainer strictly, or we specify what the tro- the, the, the Hall of Fame is typically awarded for.

Like, I, I’ll tell you, like, [01:50:00] you know, I don’t do this m-m often now, but I used to, you know– And I go somewhere, and we do some seminars or competition, and next thing you know, of course, somebody takes a picture with me, which is, you know, it was super weird back in before. Now, now it’s very normal. I, you know…

And then you will have– you will see yourself in some website and with that person, and they’re really just trying to attach themself to, to something, which is this is humans. That’s what we do. Similar to podcasts, you know. We will have a, a guest on the podcast, and we will be like, “Yeah,” trying very hard that, “Yeah, I’m kinda like you.”

And I mean, it’s normal to some level. But Even, even with that granted, I think it, it makes sense that Hall of Fame, it’s like this is why you’re getting it. [01:51:00] Um, brings clarity, awareness and, and, and can people still get confused? Can it be promoted and advertised by that individual in different way? Of course, but they don’t need a Hall of Fame award.

They do it without it anyway

Amazing 

So to your, I, I wanna circle back up just a second. To your point about, you know, putting our heads together, I just want members to think about this. As a board, very often we’ll have to make a decision, and sometimes we’ll ask members and get very little feedback on what should be done or what people want.

And all I would say… And now, and some people would say, “Well, that’s the board’s job to make that decision,” but if you abdicate your right to speak on something, you can’t be mad about what’s decided, right? 

100%. 

So I would push, and this is not, I’m, I’m not an advocate for more power to the [01:52:00] board. You’ve probably all heard that this entire time.

I’m the opposite. I, so y- I agree with you, putting heads together. I would love people to put their heads together more and say, “These are things we want. These are things as members we think should be done,” and then push for it. And sometimes it’s just with a board, there’s only so many hours in the day.

Right. So if people said, “We want this Hall of Fame process to be better and different and more rigorous, and we want all these vote,” whatever, all this to happen, I think, and I can’t speak for everyone else on the board obviously, but I think the board would say, “That sounds really cool.” Come help us. “Who wants to be on that committee?”

Yeah. “And who wants to be on the committee for Hall of Fame Committee and run it? And let’s make it happen.” And there’s so many things that could be done if we can get more members involved. So I hope people hear this and then throw their hat in the ring, whether it’s to join the board, which I know there’s elections going on now of course, but just to be on committees and to volunteer and help.

There’s so many cool things that could be done. And I- Yes … I’m, I’m all for it. 

Yes. The [01:53:00] board, the board of director is the board of directors, but ideally any, every, every kind of organization such as IACP is the, the, the power behind it is within the committees. It really is. Um, so yeah. I, somebody said, “Well, why don’t you just go?”

Like, I’ve done it. I’ve, I’ve founded the Malinois Working Dog Association years ago. I was president for a long time. I did the legislative kind… Like, I’ve done my share of public contribution and It’s not like You know, like, like the, the people that think somebody else gonna step up and do…

It doesn’t work that way. [01:54:00] Like, like we, we really– A- as you said, then, then of course somebody steps up, and then you’re like, “Well, how come that person doesn’t know shit? How the– Well, where were you?” It’s still not too late. Come and join. Show that you want. We’ll find something. It, it’s not a problem. So yeah, uh, all of us getting active and, and contribution in whatever way.

Um, there is a lot, like there, there is– I, I feel that IACP has some really serious, uh, um, decisions and it’s under pressure, um, in many fronts. Um, and I, I wish that we

step up in the game. Uh, we cannot, you know[01:55:00] 

Yeah 

The biggest thing I know I would like, uh, myself as a, you know, as a member, but also as a board member right now, would be more people stepping up and saying, “Hey, we’d like to see change. Here’s what we’d like to see, and we’re willing to help.” Because you said this at the start, Ivan, there is no other organization.

It’s not like we have two balance training organizations and people are like, “Well, I don’t like what you’re doing, I’m gonna go to that one.” There simply isn’t another one. 

Yeah. 

And to be quite honest, I would welcome another one, and people might think that’s strange, but I think it’s healthy to have… I would love if we had three balance training organizations and, you know, survival of the fittest pe- you know, organizations kinda somewhat compete against each other, but all being on the same page.

I think that would be- Right, right … amazing. But without that happening, I don’t… It makes me sad when I see people that are like, “Let’s burn it down,” right? And wanna [01:56:00] destroy it because it’s not doing what they want. And what I would say is, if you’re not a member, join and push for th- there’s other… I’m sure there’s other people thinking what you are, and push for that change and say, “Instead of I wanna destroy this and I wanna burn it down, I wanna change it, and here’s what I wanna see happen.”

And I think that’s healthy and normal, and the, it’s gonna keep evolving. 10 years from now, the IACP’s gonna be different than today. Who knows what it’ll be like, but obviously it’d be different, and be part of that change. So it’s just a push, and instead of the burn it down mentality, you know, use your voice to affect that change, especially in the members group as much as possible.

And I bet you say something and you find out there’s a lot of other people that feel the same as you. 

Yeah. 

And I don’t mean that against, once again, certainly not you and no one in particular. I’m just saying in general, let’s- No, no, that’s- If you’re a balance trainer, I would say if you don’t like what’s going on at the IACP, uh, try to [01:57:00] change it rather than, you know, trying to hurt the organization or saying, “I’d like to see it go away.”

‘Cause if it does, who’s left? 

Yeah. No, that’s, I mean- Tool bands would have been even 10 years ago, every 

year would have had opportunity. And the only reason, or should I say the main reason there is some opportunity to throw a wrench in that wheel for them is IACP. That’s really what it is. So it will be shame that for the organization To, to get tricked into the force-free narrative.

That’s an– That’s, that’s subtle danger. 

Mm-hmm. 

You know? ‘Cause we are fighting the big frontal. We’re gonna go at that city, and we’re gonna present, and we’re gonna stand [01:58:00] up. But we’re, like, silently destroying our foundation underneath without realizing by, um, again, the way we interact with the force-free, uh, um, influential people.

And again, to be clear, just like you, as a guardrails for me, like I’m not advocating, I’m, I’m, you know, um, friendships. 

I mean, what is better than friendships, right? Have them But stay alert and awake and don’t sacrifice what’s 

important for, uh, cordial surface-level interactions. Uh, and if that’s what you want, then do it, but other people at least hopefully [01:59:00] wake up and, and we don’t allow this to happen.

So that’s- And again, my, my big one is if we say we’re gonna have that person, and it seems like even if it, even if it’s a majority that has voted, let’s have that person to speak. Okay, what do you want them to speak about and why? Like, like show us what, what made you guys… Like, what, where is the, what’s the secret sauce there, right?

And if it’s not there, then I think even the people that invite and suggest start to realize, well, we, we actually… Yeah, that makes sense. Like, I don’t know why. It’s just a name that I hear all the time, and, and everybody seems to be aligned, so it’s kind of that [02:00:00] social conformity that, uh, oh yeah, I’m gonna suggest that person, and I’m suggesting it hopefully that everybody’s gonna clap and approve-

on my suggestion, not because I have a clue why I want them suggested. It just- 

Yeah … 

right? I don’t know. 

It- That’s the exact reason I was advocating for public, is it gives people then a chance to say, “Defend your reason.” Right? 

Yeah. 

So let’s shift a little bit. So we talked most of the time about speakers, right?

But I think in your, in your recent video, you talked a little bit about of w- what balance trainers sometimes say, and that things we say can then become problematic, right? And I think you were saying maybe things like appeasing the force free community. So let me throw an example out for you that, that I find interesting.

I- and I’m just curious your thoughts on it because you, you mentioned earlier about not bragging about how few or how many [02:01:00] aversives you use, and I, I agree. But I often explain to clients when they say, “Tell me about training,” there’s, you know, many types of training. What I say is, if you took a good balanced trainer and a good purely positive trainer, and I’m saying good, not just some random person, in a room, and you give them a dog, the beginning of the training is gonna look incredibly similar.

You might even say 80 or 90% similar until you get to the point where you’re actually proofing the command, trying to stop a behavior, trying to get the dog to do this with consistency around distraction. Then you’re gonna see wild changes because at that point you’re gonna have the balanced trainer institute some sort of consequence, and the purely positive person is gonna do something different, right?

So I’ll often explain if people are good, very, very similar up until a certain point. Mm-hmm. Do you find that statement misleading, problematic? Mm. And if so- It’s a- … why? I’m very curious to 

hear. Yeah. [02:02:00] Damn. Matt, good one. Um, shit. Oh, man. So the

Like how do we know that it looks similar? And then also how do we like… It, it has to go back to comparison and it’s like, is it

even in the early stages 

of, you know, acquisition stage of whatever we’re teaching, right? Even there, there can be not just nuances and variations, there can be radically different strategies to accomplish it. And let’s just not care about what those strategies are and what they involve. Like, do they have aversives?

Is it only luring? Is it [02:03:00] capturing? Is it what- whatever? But they’re all in that bucket

The two trainer, regardless of the camps, even if they’re in the same camp or different camps, they can build that acquisition to fluency in a similar way, or they can be very different. What matters to me is which one brings clarity faster, which is very different than how the, you know, the label of quick fix, how supposedly it is a bad thing to fix something fast.

Um, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about who’s gonna bring clarity faster, who’s gonna– like, like[02:04:00] 

Okay, det er simpelthen I’ll, I’ll just get back to what I was saying ’cause that’s gonna really go s- somewhere. But 

What’s the emotional state? Is it understood? Is the dog ready for new material to be added or is it already burned from it and needs a little bit of a pause? Like, how are we getting from scratch in that acquisition stage to fluency?

I know that one’s gonna do better than the other no matter what And that’s the interesting part. And it’s not about, um, the methodology or, you know, of course methodology and, and your understanding and your opportunity to, to have access and [02:05:00] understanding and knowledge to, to a lot of things. Uh, of course it’s, it’s invaluable.

Uh, um, but I, I would be looking… That, that’s kind of how I would be looking at, even if they, you know, they’re from different camps or the same camps, it’s like, okay, yeah, you’re, both of you are taking a week when this can be done In 10 minutes. And I will give you a, a good explanation that I, I, I use, uh, all the time in my school, the TWC school Like, uh, I can, I can have…

Let’s imagine I have like three or four or, or 20 different cups. One has tea, one has coffee, one has milk, one has, [02:06:00] uh, hot chocolate. And I can tell you, “Matt, this one has milk.” And you have no idea what milk is, but I let you see, sniff, and I’ll put them, and I’ll mix them, and I’ll say, “Go and bring me the, the one with milk among all of them.”

And you will very easily do that because the instructions are clear, and because as humans we have that abstract way of communicating. And on top of that, I can give you you know, the consequences ahead of time if you do it right or if you do it wrong If I’m doing this with a dog, I will not be able to do that because they’re non-verbal.

I, I absolutely cannot do that. [02:07:00] I also cannot explain the consequences ahead of time. They have to– they learn from the experiencing the consequences. But 

what it will come down to is who is the trainer that comes as close as possible to how I would instruct 

you as a human, and I would instruct the dog And that doesn’t necessarily has a certain approach or a system or a method or a timeline.

Uh, um, yeah. So that’s how I would look when we’re talking about, you know, how, where you started. I think I took it way too far, but-

But these are the kind of things- Yeah … how I think and how I look at, at training, you know? 

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And what I was thinking is, you know, the average client, you know, the, just dog owner, is not gonna think about things all that deeply, right? And so most marketing should be focused on the client. I know some dog trainers market to each other, but generally it should be marketing, of course, to your clients if, if that’s your audience, right, if you’re a pet dog trainer especially.[02:09:00] 

And so things that are said are said to make clients book with you, right? Yes. That’s the goal. 

Of 

course. And sometimes I think those, those statements could be problematic, right? And that’s what I was seeing in, in one of your rec- I think it was the video that you posted last weekend on YouTube, but maybe it was a different one, of not liking certain things different balance trainers say.

And I, I feel like almost seeing it as, not a cop-out, but as in you’re saying it because you think it sounds good, but you’re actually harming the balance training community. Cool. 

Yes. Yes. 

So I would love to touch base on a couple of those, of things that you hear people say that they might be saying, maybe they’re a balance trainer through and through, and they’re saying it ’cause they think, “My clients like this,” or, “The industry likes-” Yes

it or whatever. I say it ’cause it’s a good way to describe it, I think, but maybe someone else hears it and they’re like, “Wow, I, I hate that.” Yeah. “Please quit saying that.” 

Yeah, so, um, [02:10:00] I had a conversation with couple of, you know, balance trainers, uh, recently, and we were having that discussion

And, and both of them were very, you know, it’s like, “No, no, I, I used to be that trainer, but now I know better.” Um, and the more you learn, the less you need aversives and so on. Um, and then the one took it a step further to say that, “Well, Ivan, you– I mean, yes, no, no question you’re one of the greatest in the sport world and whatever, and just I don’t know if it’s at sport world, whatever, but you’re, you know, one of the best trainers.[02:11:00] 

And of course, when you do sport training and you wanna maintain that level, you’re using aversive more than I need to.” And I just paused because I had to actually understand what, what’s been said And, and this is what we just talked about. It’s, it’s not about how often you use it and how much you use it and should be proud that you’re using it too much or too less.

It’s about when it’s needed to provide the most optimal training experience. So learning happens and, um, um So basically [02:12:00] my, my thoughts were like, man, okay, if you, you know, like you’re– the, the way you’re scoring, the way you’re evaluating and judging good and bad trainer is because of how much aversive you’re using.

This is literally brainwashing from somebody like Michael Shikashio that kind of tries to tell you that, okay, well, we have this culture differences. I’ve been talking like how he talks, like I’ve been in so many countries, and of course, yeah, cultural differences matter. Um, how you’re raised, how whatever, all that matters.

However, because of all those, you cannot tell me that that’s just not the bridge to, to kinda come to that conclusion that because of that, you don’t need to use aversive. No, I can be using aversive once [02:13:00] again because any other alternative does not provide the message that I need to give to that dog in order to excel, not in order to squash him and suppress him and, and, and whatever you want to put up more, but to actually make him excel sooner and faster than the other dog.

And if you are more concerned and have that guilty feeling that you’re use– “Yo, shit, I have to use it now, and I wish I didn’t

You’ve changed how you think about dog training. You’ve changed your priorities in dog training. Um, and also just the fact that you are mentioning this as the, you know, the, the, the ultimate moment of, of you as a dog trainer [02:14:00] is you’re focused on a very different… Yeah, uh, um, it’s not about dog training anymore.

And 

that, that’s where I started to really think about this because

The idea that 

some of the force-free trainers that actually, uh, um, you know, mingle with the balance training community, they would say, “Yeah, of course, I wa- I was you. I was you. Like, that’s how I started. Are you kidding me? But then I learned this, and I learned this, and whatever, and, and I had to use it less and less.”

And all of a sudden, the balance trainer’s talking back, and he’s like, “Oh, yeah, I agree. Um, I use it way less now than before.” [02:15:00] What are we talking about? Like, why, why is that the topic even? Why are we not comparing which dog learn better, which dog maintain proper emotional state, which dog, you know, like, like look at the dog, not– mmm, don’t count the clicks.

And then When, when a balance trainer start to talk like this, to, to your point where, where you want me to take it , is that any legislators start to look at the force free advocates, then start to listen also to the guilty balance trainers, and it’s like, okay, yeah, they seem to be on the way to enlightenment.

They’re not there yet. We’re gonna give them a little more time, but ultimately, clearly we need to take those [02:16:00] tools out. There is no reason for them because even the balance trainer community is demonstrating that they are growing out of this. That, that’s a insane proposition and very dangerous one 

Which makes perfect sense.

And I, I think the, the takeaway I get from that, or just my thought right now, is that I would think most trainers, the idea would be we want to use… We’re not gonna… We shouldn’t… We’re, no one’s counting aver- aversive events, right? Or I wouldn’t think so, but- Some are … the average trainer- 

I, I, uh- Yeah. No, no, no.

I- Okay … I promise you. Like, I, I talk- That’s- … to these people. Like, I talk to them. Okay. That, that’s, that’s what they, their pr- their pride is of, of that. 

So, so that’s, I mean, in my mind at least, very, very silly. Now, I would say the s- you know, [02:17:00] the least amount of aversives we could use and still get perfect results obviously is better if we could use less.

But, uh, what I think is clear is, and needs to be made clear, is that aversives can’t and should not go away ’cause, I mean, for many reasons, right? But I think we need to keep making that clear. Yes. A dog doesn’t know when something is off the table until it, as an option, until he’s been told, “This is not an option.”

Yes. 

And I don’t see how you would ever tell him this is not an option without some sort of aversive event to make it clear. If we’re always redirecting, he’s just choosing to go do something new, but he’s never been told option A is actually not an option that’s gonna be allowed. He’s just choosing B ’cause it sounds cool right now.

So to me, that’s where we need to be clear as balanced trainers is even if our marketing or whatever is making it clear we use the smallest amount of aversives possible, the idea is that they can never, ever go away. We need to teach the dogs some options are just [02:18:00] not good options that we’re not gonna tolerate.

Yeah. 

And I, I wonder how much of that is going away. Are, are people not having that conversation and making it clear their goal is not to eliminate aversives? 

Yeah. I, you know, it’s, it’s very I mean, it’s a skillful conversation to have. Like I, again, I like, you know, uh, somebody like Michael Shikashu and some balance trainers.

It’s very fast, I, I mean, and reasonable to find the common ground- 

Mm-hmm … 

that, okay, if you do shitty things to a dog, regardless how you do it, it’s a bad idea. So we can find these kind of common grounds very quickly, but then all that gets shifted into, well, let’s use less aversives Or somehow there is a [02:19:00] whole Like, like we miss something.

Like all of a sudden we bridged it into, “Well, yeah, let’s just use less aversives.” Because if we do it the wrong way, it’s, it’s horrible for the dog, and we, you, you and I agree to that, which we should. Um

That’s where, again, comparison comes to mind. And I want to see, you know, like I want to see, and sometimes I, I watch, uh, uh, as I keep saying, I, I watch almost everybody that, you know, I, I find that deserves my attention, you know? And on the force free side, there is trainers. There is also compare high, you know, well, they’re not high competitive trainers, but they present themselves [02:20:00] as very accomplished and very competitive in dog sports I’m like, “I haven’t seen you.”

“Why, why I haven’t seen you? Like, you’re, you’re saying that you’re doing IGP or that you’ve done, um, Schutzhund like from 20, 30 years ago. I also have, and I just don’t see you. Or you’ve done mondioring, or okay, well, where, where are you?” And we need to, you know, there is– we need to kind of keep things straight, so to speak.

Because Again, there are trainers out there that are like, “Yeah, I, I, I compete, I make, I, I accomplish, and I don’t use aversive.” So which one you gonna choose, the blue or the red pill? [02:21:00] And then if I’m in that conversation, I will like, “Well, but where is the accomplishment? Like, can you beat me or can you beat that person?”

And we’re not talking this one-hit song. We’re like, “Show me some consistency that you are competitive.” It’s not there, and it’s very easy to, to see, but nobody– Like we live in the surface level right now. It’s, uh, it’s sad. And then it’s like, oh, yeah, um, even Jesus Christ, even like the, the AIs, you know.

Like sometimes I will talk whatever dog training stuff and just wasting time and, and the AI will come up with certain [02:22:00] name. Oh, yeah, even in competition sports, this person’s really, you know, proven. And it’s like, okay, go. You find the proofs. Show me the accomplishments. Yeah, you’re right. There is none.

There is this accomplishment and this accomplishment. I’m like, but this is not accomplishment. That’s like, uh, you know, there is a big difference between getting a basic title versus actually competing. Like competing with everybody that has the highest level possible. Like you grow to that level and you, you, you’re it now, and there is, let’s say, hundred of you, and now we see which one is actually really the best It’s not hard, but we don’t know, like, like again, the industry doesn’t have the, [02:23:00] that feel to, to judge and select and, and not get influenced by influencer.

I start to understand the word influencer way better today than- Hmm … than before. Because, y- you know, it, it’s a definitely a good skill, and it makes people believe, like genuinely believe that they, they are that person. And the, the kind of back to the problem with how to select somebody for, as a speaker at IACP, and I don’t know.

I, I, I don’t think I actually even answered your question this time 

Well, a new little rabbit hole we could go down just real, real fast I wanna throw out- Sure, 

sure … 

just something I’ve seen. You mentioned AI, and I’ve done a lot of looking into AI, and I think the problem [02:24:00] I’ve seen with… I mean, clearly all search engines are moving to AI.

I mean, everything is, right? And I’m sure we’ve all seen it promotes purely positive training pretty much exclusively, and I think one of the reasons for that is AI just scans the internet, tries to get some sort of consensus. And think of it, for everyone listening, if you were AI and you’re doing that scanning, positive reinforcement is not controversial.

Positive reinforcement is really good obviously. Every dog trainer would agree positive reinforcement’s amazing. Now you say, let’s say positive punishment. Well, now you have a lot of trainers who say that’s terrible, horrible. You should never do it. So positive punishment is, by default, controversial, and positive reinforcement is not.

Every balanced trainer who’s not a psycho would of course say positive reinforcement’s great. That is problematic because that’s gonna train AI into seeing purely positive, not confrontat- or not controversial. This balanced [02:25:00] training stuff is. It’s, it’s highly questioned by, you know, industry experts.

What I think we need to do as balanced trainers is be clear and be on the attack, and I don’t- I’m not suggesting attack certain people. I’m not really into that. But to be clear, purely positive training kills dogs. It kills them every day. Right. And we need to retrain AI by being clear in our social media, being clear on Instagram, being clear on our blog posts, whatever, that purely positive training kills dogs every single day, and we need AI and we need the general public to realize that, right?

Yes. That it is, it’s extremely controversial, purely positive training. And w- so to me, that’s the path we really need to be going down, is hammering that- 

Yes … 

over and over and over. 

Y- yes. You know, like I, um- I had, um, that, that was actually, I don’t know if it was last year or whatever, but I, I had to go to, [02:26:00] uh, emergency hospital for I, I was playing barefoot soccer and one of my dogs kind of bit my toe and also got my bone.

So there was a serious danger of, of big infection. And two days later, I’m like, “This is not my normal usual bite.” And they’re like, “No, you’re staying here.” So anyway, I, I s- I’m like, “Okay, I guess I’m staying here tonight,” and there is nothing to do, so I’m, I just like, “Okay, let’s just fight with AIs on, on that same topic.”

And, and, and I was like, “Why do I need to fight with you every single time and convince you? And then eventually after I’m so tired just arguing with you, now we are at the point that we can have a, a, a good, uh, uh, you know, conversation.” And [02:27:00] I asked to create prompts so we can avoid this for the future.

And, you know, ever since, I have very different interactions with the AI. And it’s, it’s very easy actually because, uh, um, you know, it’s basically forcing the AI to analyze the mechanism and the outcomes first instead of allowing it to escape to the, you know, usual force free, more ethical, modern science-based, whatever rabbit hole.

And, and basically one of the prompts was something like, “Don’t, don’t assume that force free training is the ethical or scientific default.” It could be, but don’t just start there. Let’s get there. If it is, it is. But don’t, don’t just put a guardrail like that. [02:28:00] Do not assume that avers- the use of aversives is evidence of ignorance, poor skill, fear-based training, or inferior welfare So kinda, you know, still men if you want on both sides.

Then when discussing aversives, how did I do this one? When discussing, you know, using aversives, assume, like assume that we’re talking about competent use, meaning contingent, predictable, avoidable, controllable, correctly timed and effective intensity and so on unless the argument specifically concerns misuse So there, there is like a, you know, few of those really interesting prompts that [02:29:00] You don’t fight no more.

And it’s not like, just to be clear for anybody that can try it, it’s not that I am prompting to take my side and start to just, you know, again, glorify my ideas. That, that’s definitely also a prompt, like do not, and actually you have to do that very frequently because AIs like to, to kind of, you know- 

They suck up

elevate you. Yeah. 

Sure. 

So, so- 

I think what worries me there, though, is, like what you say makes perfect sense. My worry is obviously a legislator or a pet owner- Oh, 

yeah … 

is not doing that, of course, right? 

Correct. Correct. 

And they pull up AI, and if you’re a legislator and someone’s like, “We should ban e-collars,” and you’re like, “Well, let’s see,” you know- Yes

and you type it in, Ge- everyone goes to Google, Gemini, it’s gonna purely positive bent every single time. And that’s where I feel like we need to come together and figure out how do we as an indus- [02:30:00] and it takes a lot of people, right? Yeah. But how do we as an industry start creating- Yeah … that content to retrain AI- 

Yeah

that we don’t have to do what you did, right? And tell 

it- The answer is easy. Um, the answer, we have the answer because all, I mean, you just look at how, how the AIs, um, train themselves, you know. Where do they pull all that information? It’s not necessarily the direct hardware programming. They d- d- the searches- Right

and they go to the AVSAB, they go to this. And if we eventually decide to make blogs, make articles, make, make searchable information that counters the forced free arguments We have the answer 

100%. 

We have the answer. And this is, uh, you know, this actually, um, you know, I was talking to, uh, Jason, not this [02:31:00] conference I was on, but in the last conference.

And, and again, I mean, I know it’s, it’s not easy to do so many things, but it was one of my suggestions, like put on the, on the IACP website and on the social media, put the study with the electric collars that I did with Clive Wynne. Put, uh, um, Stuart Ziller’s presentation that he had done on aversive.

Put, um, you know, um, um, um, Melanie Udé. Uh, the, there is … The information is there and the credibility is there. But we need to make it searchable for the AIs. 

Correct. 

That’s 

the job. And the .org, the .org makes a difference. Mm-hmm. The, it’s given more weight, at least it- Mm-hmm … traditionally has been because they, they assume there’s more credibility there.

But we also have thousands of members that- Yeah … this isn’t the [02:32:00] kind of thing two or three of us can fix. Right. It’s members consistently coming up with some sort of messaging that may … And I say members, balance trainers, right? Yeah. Obviously doesn’t have to be an IACP member. But consistently messaging that if you’re afraid to use an or, or unwilling to use an aversive ever, you’re killing dogs, and here’s clear-cut examples of it happening.

Yeah. And even if we copy paste articles- Mm-hmm … but they are searchable on, on various places, the AI, again, it’s gonna be, “Okay, well, there is this article. Well, guess what? It’s cited that number of times.” Yeah. “It’s published. That’s a … It therefore, it, it, it there is some legitimacy to it.” Mm-hmm. So we, we really need to step up in that front.

You’re very, very correct. And I think this one is one of the easiest if- All of us decides to push on that- 

Mm-hmm … 

you know? Um- 

And to [02:33:00] your point, I agree that any r- you know, reputable study that supports balanced training should be put on the IACP website. 

Yes. 

And the more that’s… I’m without a doubt 100% agreed with you on that.

Yes. They’re, they’re… I mean, this, this, especially some of these things are quite easy to put together. Um, um, there was something else I, I thought of while, while we were talking. Um-

Yeah. 

Well, we have covered a lot of ground today. We might have– I know we’ve covered enough to give people stuff to chew on, for people to drop some comments and, you know, if you’re a member, get in that members group and make your opinion known. Right. And the more people that do that, the more change we’re gonna get.

Right. And again, feel free all of you to, to attack me and my ideas. I’m- … I’m fine with that. 

But, 

but let’s, [02:34:00] let’s change course, whatever, whatever that means. Uh, hopefully, yeah, between me and Matt, kinda gave some food for thought and, and we don’t stop there. Oh yeah, I, I just remembered which one- Yeah … was talking.

You know, like speaking of the websites and stuff, like I, I think IACP should, um, take an initiative. Somebody, again, who that is so easy to suggest something, but then where is the manpower? But, you know, like the American Working Dog Federation, the Police K9 United– Police K9 Association. Like the, like, like all these communities that we have the same interest, we don’t even need to go as deep to have some common unity of any sorts.

It’s just enough to [02:35:00] have each other websites and presentations like, like we exchange in our websites to where it’s like, okay, IACP is really not alone. 

Mm-hmm. 

Or American Working Dog Federation. No, we are not alone when it comes to legislations and, and how we view the, the, the current issues. We are not alone.

I think this is, this is also not hard to do. Um, think of– I mean, we have the model. I mean, the, the force free gave, gives the model, you know. You have whatever, let’s say, A, B, S, A, B, and somehow underneath there is Victoria Stilwell Academy, and then there is, uh, you know, Karen Pryor. Mm-hmm. And then there is like– and all of a sudden you see this collective power that all agrees on, and then IACP stands alone.

This is easily [02:36:00] changed. Easy to change. 

Mm-hmm. It’s a good idea. 

You know? 

Mm-hmm. 

Like we– there’s plenty of schools that do, uh, uh, the opposite of what force free schools do. Um, there is plenty of organizations that do the opposite of them. And yeah, let’s show it, you know? 

I like it. That’s a good idea, for sure.

Well, like you said a second ago, we gave people at least some things to chew on. You know, a lot of similar opinions, some different opinions as well, so a lot to think on and get out there, and, you know, we just need to keep making our voices heard over and over and over again. 

Yeah. Again, we’re closing in.

I’m, I’m assuming I wanna thank you, uh, uh, again, very, uh… Yeah, I mean, [02:37:00] really, really cool that, um, you saw that I had something to say, and you’re like, “Let’s, let’s just talk, and let’s, you know, even if we disagree and agree on something, let’s just talk.” And it’s the, the best thing that we can do. Like, absolutely the best thing that we can do is- 

Absolutely.

100%. 

So keep, keep it up, guys. 

Hey, thank you for taking the time and coming on, Ivan. I know it’s a big chunk of your day, and I appreciate it. 

Enjoyed it. Enjoyed it. Take care.