What We've Learned... and Forgotten with Dr. Ian Dunbar

Dog training has a short memory, and that’s a problem when the best solutions are often the oldest ones. I’m joined by Dr. Ian Dunbar, veterinarian, animal behaviorist, and one of the key forces behind reward-based training and off-leash puppy socialization, to walk through how the profession got built, what we got right, and where we’ve drifted. If you’ve ever wondered why puppy classes feel optional while aggression and reactivity consults feel “advanced,” this conversation flips that story on its head.

We go back to Ian’s early years with off-leash dogs, his first shock at watching leash-correction culture, and the practical roots of lure reward training before it even had a name. From there, we unpack the rise of off-leash puppy classes, and the early conferences that helped professionalize dog training. Ian shares what those “glory years” felt like and why openness and community mattered as much as technique.

Then we get into the messy middle: ideology, the meaning of “aversive,” the social media dynamics that punish nuance, and why many trainers are scared to show real training on video. We also talk about prevention at a skill level, not a slogan: early socialization, play and enrichment as reinforcement, bite inhibition, and fast ways to change behavior so the dog’s emotional response can change too. Ian makes a strong case for using simple metrics and real-world testing so “science-based dog training” means measurable improvement, not just theory.

If you’re ready to rebuild your foundation with puppies, prevention, and practical training you can see and track, you’ll get a lot out of this one. 


ABOUT IAN:

Dr. Ian Dunbar is one of the world's most respected experts on dog training and behavior. 

He grew up on a farm in the English countryside training cows, chickens and yes, dogs using time-honored lure reward training techniques learned from his family. 

He went on to receive his veterinary degree from the Royal Veterinary College at London University and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. 

In 1982, he designed and taught the world's very first off-leash puppy socialization and training classes – SIRIUS® Puppy Training. These puppy classes would go on to become immensely popular and imitated all around the world. 

The success and popularity of these classes ultimately revolutionized the world of dog training by putting a much needed focus on puppyhood and easy, enjoyable, and effective methods, at a time when most training was boring and unpleasant.

Subsequently, Ian went on to create and develop the San Francisco SPCA's Animal Behavior Department, he started the American Kennel Club's Gazette "Behavior" column, which he wrote for seven years, and he designed and organized the K9 GAMES®. 

In 1993, he founded the Association of Professional Dog Trainers. With over 5000 members in 48 countries, the APDT has grown to be the world's largest association of dog trainers.

He has authored numerous books and videos, including five seasons of Dogs with Dunbar, a popular television program in the UK. He has given over one thousand seminars and workshops around the world and has been instrumental in the rise of reward-based, fun and games, scientifically sound dog training methods.

https://www.dunbaracademy.com/

Barking Up the Right Tree book:
https://www.dunbaracademy.com/pages/barking-up-the-right-tree

Learn more about options for help for dogs with aggression here:
AggressiveDog.com

Learn more about the CANIS Conference here:
CANIS Conference

Subscribe to the bonus episodes available here:
The Bitey End of the Dog Bonus Episodes

Check out all of our webinars, courses, and educational content here:
Webinars, courses, and more! 

Transcript

Why Dog Training History Matters

SPEAKER_03 0:01

In this episode of The Bite End of the Dog, I'm joined by one of the most influential figures in modern dog training, Dr. Ian Dunbar. Ian has been shaping the dog training profession for more than five decades, and in this conversation, we explore the history of the industry, how training philosophies have evolved, and the moments that helped shape the field as we know it today. Together, we discuss Ian's early experiences growing up with dogs, the origins of off-leash puppy classes, the founding of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, now known as the Association of Professional Dog Trainers International, and how shifts in ideology and social pressure have influenced the profession over the years. We also talk about the critical role of early puppy socialization, the importance of play and enrichment, and why Ian believes prevention, especially through puppy training, remains the most powerful tool we have for reducing fear, aggression, and behavior problems later in life.

unknown 1:05

Dr.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Ian Dunbar is a veterinarian, animal behaviorist, and founder of Serious Dog Training and Dunbar Academy. He pioneered off-leash puppy socialization classes and helped establish the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, which played a major role in professionalizing the dog training industry worldwide. His books, lectures, and educational programs have influenced generations of trainers and helped shift the field toward reward-based training and early socialization.

Resources For Aggression Help

SPEAKER_03 1:34

And before we jump into today's episode, a quick heads up. If you're looking to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, head on over to aggressivedog.com. For pet professionals, there's the Aggression and Dogs Master Course, which is the most comprehensive program available on aggression, packed with expert insights and continuing education credits. For dog guardians, check out Real Life Solutions, which is a practical course covering everyday challenges like leash reactivity and dog-to-dog aggression. You can also join the Ultimate Access membership for just $29 per month, which gives you access to expert webinars, live mentor sessions, and exclusive discounts. And don't forget to check out the Canis Conference happening this October in Schaumburg, Illinois, which is going to be the world's largest conference dedicated to dog behavior, training, science, veterinary care, dog sports, scent work, and shelter and rescue. Now let's jump into the conversation with Ian.

Farm Dogs And Early Lessons

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Bitey End of the Dog. This week I have a very, very special guest. Dr. Ian Dunbar is here to join us, someone that's been influential in my career as well as the career of thousands and thousands of other trainers across the world. And I'm so excited to be talking to Ian. So welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Mike. Thank you for calling me special. Special indeed. I I think um you've been training for longer than I've been alive, I think. So tell us, tell just for anybody, we have some new listeners and people that are new to the field. So I think some people actually may not know just how impactful and all the things you've done in your career. But take us back. I want because I want this to be a show about the history of our industry a little bit. Because we could talk about training all day, but you and I have done that in many other places. So we don't get the opportunity you and I to talk much, though. And I think one of the things we should talk about is the history of training and the industry and how things have evolved, and of course, your influence in all of this. So take us back to the start of your career. You know, I don't think you often talk about actually what got you into dogs. No, I don't.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I mean, I was very lucky, I had a charm. We'll go back to the 50s. I grew up on a farm, and my mum worked because my dad decided he didn't want to, so I was left at home and I would spend my day in the fields with three dogs. And they were off-leash, and I'd call them and signal them to sit, and that was it. I was gone for eight hours. Then I had to check in at the farmhouse at 5 p.m., so I had a watch. And all the techniques that I'd learned from my dad and my grandfather, I later found when I was in the American Camel Club in the late 80s, I think. All these techniques existed back then: lure reward training, puppy training, off-leash puppy lure reward training, shaping, weight and reward training. They were all done back then, and I found them in these beautiful old books published in the 1700s, 1800s. So we then move into the 60s. I was at the Royal Veterinary College in London because London was the place to be. I, on my application form, you had to apply for six universities. I applied for London, London, London, London, London, and London, you know. Anyway, my first, I think, uh, you know, look at what was called dog training was the that lady, what was her name now? Sit! Good doggie. I can't remember her name, but we we used to watch it in London, in the pubs, and I honestly thought it was a comedy show. I didn't realize that this is how people actually train dogs on leash in a line, like, you know, giving them leash corrections non-stop.

Lure Reward Training Meets Resistance

SPEAKER_00 5:23

So then I came to the States, '71, and in my first year, quite by chance, because the first place I visited was a vet clinic where friends of mine from the VEC College were working, the a lady from the University Extension went to the clinic, said, Do you know anyone who can teach a 10-week course on dog behavior? And they said, Oh, well, actually, Dr. Ian Dunbar, he's researching dog behavior, you know, in Dr. Beach's study. So I got this gig and I loved it. Because when you teach at the university, the number one question is, is that on the midterm? You know, and you just want to smack them. They they they they aren't engaging and like finding the magic in this. But dog owners did. It changed my whole approach to training. They needed this stuff, they found it fascinating. And I was eight weeks through, and they said, Are you going to do anything on training? And I said, Well, well, no. It was builder's behavior and temperament, but if you want, they said, Oh, please do. So I went back and gave it a thought. And there weren't back then any books on lure award training. There wasn't even the name. So I thought, well, this is what my dad did and my grandpa, and I put it together. And the audience sort of divided into two. The veterinarians and owners loved what I was saying. And the breeders and trainers said, no, no, no, this is rubbish. This won't work. You can't train puppies off-leash. And so the last week I said, Well, bring in your own dogs, you know, puppies, I'll round up some from campus. And we did this little workshop, and it like, it was so much fun.

The Birth Of Off-Leash Puppy Class

SPEAKER_00 7:02

And so we then come to a seminal moment in my life in the 80s when my wife, Mimi, um, she had a great job. So I was rewiring, re-plumbing the house. And she said, Ian, tell me how you're going to bring money into this relationship. And I thought, oh God. So I went, I remember I sat on a rock in Bodega Bay smoking a cigar. And I thought, well, it's got to be to do with animals and dogs and cows and my favorites. So I tossed a coin, came down dogs. Second time I'd done that. And um I thought, it's got to be with puppies or development, because that's what I've just studied for 10 years. Then I thought, I know I'm gonna teach off-leash puppy classes. And we set them up. And a little known fact is the first class was taught at Marin Humane Society. That serious puppy training was the second class, but I taught the one at Marin Humane Society. And it like took off. Vets loved it. Because back in the 70s, 80s, we had a lot of aggression, dogs biting people, a lot of it. And I had a special clinic dealing with bite cases, you know, like you do now. And a lot of anxiety, a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, not as much as now, but it was the aggression was the thing. Why? Because dogs were out there more, so they were more socialized to other dogs, didn't get the reactivity, they weren't scared of the environment, but they were coming in contact with people and biting them. And so vets loved it because now they had dogs they could handle. And you see, even a wriggly dog doubles the time for your veterinary procedures, let alone a fearful one when you have to go very slowly, like all this fear-free handling stuff now. And so instead, we just prevented anxiety, fear, aggression in these silly little off-leash puppy classes. And being a developmental psychologist, week one, I could see incipient signs of fear, anxiety, reactivity, and aggression. We saw them, we nipped them in the butt. Like the little videos I've been putting up on Facebook lately, and it upset so many people. Like that's flooding. I said, of course it's flooding. They're puppies. You must flood them. You can't do damage to a puppy by flooding it, it just falls asleep. You know? And they but they say that's flooding, and that's the end of the discussion, rather than saying, no, you don't flood an adult fearful dog abruptly. You know, you do it gently.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

So then we So this was in the this was in the 80s that they were saying this.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah. Wow. And so puppy classes took off, and I lectured, I started 86 uh lecturing around the country because I did extension stuff, but they took all the money. And I thought, I'm getting 100 people at my lectures, and they're each paying, you know, 60 to 100. I'm only getting three to five hundred a day. So I started the Center for Applied Animal Behavior, and the first year, 86, I arranged 24 lectures in different cities in the US and Canada. And a lot of people came up, say, we don't believe you do this, Ian. And then it was Joel Walton and said, Ian, why don't you teach a puppy training workshop? So we did the first one in Maryland in 89, and it was a stunner. And the word just spread in the obedience community. And so now the workshops, you know, I called them games and reliability workshops, they were all off-leash.

From APT To APDT

SPEAKER_00 10:32

And um, I was meeting people in every city saying, we're teaching your off-leash puppy classes now, Ian. So it was 93. I thought, you know, it'd be cool to get these people together, because it was like one or two in New York, you know, three in Seattle, and things like that. So I arranged this conference called, this is a little known fact, an APT conference. That was the acronym. And I never ever, until quite recently, told people what it meant. And it stood for Association of Puppy Trainers. And I'm very proud of that name, more so recently, because it's totally missing in training now. Anyway, in 93, I did the first conference, San Mateo. 70 people came. One from Australia, you know, a couple from England. And then in 94, we did the, it was the sixth APT conference. Because each year, 93-94, I did two in Canada first, uh, two in England, or rather, I tried to. They just went arse upward straight away. I mean, the arguments. And they boycotted me, and they told all my lecturers I'd got from England that they couldn't lecture. If they lectured, they were thrown at one of the seven associations in England then.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

What was what was the pushback for that?

SPEAKER_00 11:54

There were so many dog training associations, and they quibbled amongst each other, but they were exclusionary from the outset. And so in 93, I had to bring over lecturers from the US. I think I did a lecture, Kelly did a lecture, a guy called George did a lecture. We had no UK lecturers. They were told they couldn't do it. So I just said, this is gonna be a chat in the bar. We've changed it from this room to the bar, and we chatted. So in 94, I said, same thing. I'm gonna have a big room, you come along, it's free, we chat about this. And right after that, I was talking for the APBC group. It was a group of four dog trainers, but they had sponsored conferences. So they had 500 people coming to the conference. And I just told them what I was doing in Canada, the US, and there's an association specially for dog trainers, not sort of behavior counselors or behavior consultants or veterinarians, a dog trainer, who's doing it. I changing the dog's behavior and quantifying how quickly. Because back then most trainers competed in obedience. And um they all said, Oh, we want it, we want it in the UK. And two guys on the post, you know, that what do you call it? I was in a group talk on the panel with me, stood up, said, No, no, no. And I said, I will give you my list of 550 people who want to be members. You run it. So, no, 700 members, that was it. The first thing they did was throw out 630, which left 70 of which, seven of which refused to join an association that threw out the majority of members on the start. So that's England, it's always been sort of exclusionary, you know. But the APDT happened at the end of the sixth APT conference in Orlando, 307 people, and we then got people. I said, we need, I don't want to run this. I said, I don't want it to be Ian's thing. We need a board, and we got people, and they said, Well, could we change the name to the Association of Pet Dog Trainers? I said, Yeah, I love it. So in my closing uh lecture, I said, this association is now the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, and its first conference will be in Chicago. So Sirius, my puppy training company, funded the APDT for the first um seven conferences. Wow. And I like I paid each year for 10 people to fly in from the UK and put them up in a but the hotels then were 25 bucks a night at this hotel in Orlando, and expensive ones were $85. And it was truly international. We had a lot of people from Australia, then the Japanese started coming. And so when the APDT says, oh, it's the 25th anniversary, I sort of said, Well, actually, it's your 24th, but whatever. Um and so the APDT, it was the glory years were 94. That was a magical conference. And we had skits from the outset. The Canadians did a skit to uh mush your malamutes, and they all dressed up, they were the twinkling stars in the sky, you know. And um it became tradition then that we always had skits and somewhat impromptu until eventually it was a whole evening. You can probably remember it now. It's stupid. I mean, it was just silly, but it was togetherness, but the key of the APDTs, which I subsequently helped set up in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Chile, you know. Um, we set we I I set up the best starter conference ever in Chile. I mean, we brought three of us, and I got Spanish speakers too, you know, Gina in uh Mexico, and that was a fun conference, man.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Um, but the key is it was open to everyone. This was an educational conference, it's not a certification organization. And that's why we started the CPDT, because in professions you go to, say, medical school or veterinary school, but then you have to take your boards. You can't have your teachers certifying you for two reasons. Either they certify people they shouldn't, because they like them, or they don't certify people they should, because they're good truck trainers, but they don't like them. So but then it started to change that I'm not going to do this because we're being recorded, but if I listed the names of, say, 20 people who were least jerk trainers, dog hanging trainers, you know, traditional dog training. That's all there was until 82. It was AKC classes, either Kennel club classes, or obedience training clubs. And a few breeds had their own training clubs, like German Shepherds, because they're they're always different, German Shepherd people. So you had these German Shepherd dog training clubs, Labrador training clubs, you know, and what have you. And so it was meant to be open for everyone. And the CPDT was for certification, and it was meant to be certifying a video, a half-hour video, but they never got really to doing that. It was certifying on theory, which doesn't really help you train a dog. You know, if you're backed in a corner by a growling Akita, you know, knowing a quadrant won't help you at all. You know, you've got to immediately throw a few treats away from you, you know, and then get a door between the two of you. But I saw at start on the board that there became these people I converted

The Profession Splits Into Camps

SPEAKER_00 17:52

became religious converts. And we had a name for them within the APDT, was PPP. And I can't remember the first P, but it was purely positive. And they became intolerant of anyone who used a leash of any kind, let alone a shock collar. And it split the whole profession into two. To now, it's written everywhere. I mean, they do things if you read it, they ban punishment, positive punishment, and they ban negative reinforcement. You can't do that! How are you gonna deal with the dog that's barking or won't come when called? You know, what it shouldn't be is aversive. Instead of opening their eyes, and and I totally blame Skinner for this. What he did to learning theory was criminal. He, you know, so Thorndike starts off learning theory, fantastic, you know, cats in escape rooms and all this stuff. And he realized that reinforcement came from the environment. But Skinner wants to put the animal in a box. So how can he get this little computer or first these mechanical things to say, good dog, or bad doggy, or good brat rather, bad raddy. So he brought shock onto the scene. He put shock on the same stage as food rewards. This was the end of learning theory. Because you're dealing with a human knee-jerk reaction to punish. Ignore the good, punish the bad. That's the way we are, you know, all our social relationships in our own life. You know, we get fed up, oh my God, I've been diagnosed with this. Yeah, well, for 70 years you hadn't. What do you do with those 70 years? And it's not like you're going to die right away. You got another good 10, 20 years in you, you know? And people just went punishment crazy. And then people went punishment intolerant because they'd lost the creativity. And that stemmed from the laboratory. And because I asked a simple question, I actually in 2015 called up all the famous learning theory people in dogs in the world, you know, like my heroes, and said, How can we punish a dog without causing fear or pain? And all but two said, Ian, it's impossible. Don't be silly. All of the dog trainers said it's impossible. Horse trainer said, The only two people who said you could do it, one was my Mimi, cognitive psychologist. You know, she grew up with my malamute, but that's all she knew about dogs. And the other was a child psychologist. She was a primatologist, and she's the wife of uh my co-inventor of the you know, uh AutoShaper. And she said, it's what every teacher does in kindergarten classes. You can't shock a kid or slap them, you know, because they used to in Victorian times. And so that kind of, you know, is my last book I wrote about completely non-aversive, not minimally aversive, that's a cop-out. And what that says to me is you don't know how to do it. You don't know how to teach a dog to shush, you don't know how to stop a dog being reactive using non-aversive means. So I I I renamed it Tina. Totally invasive in the sense of being engaging and empathic, getting inside the dog's head, seeing it from the dog's point of view, but non-aversive.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

I want to back up just a moment to uh when you saw this big split. When was that? What year, or around what year did you start to see this really?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I saw it at the end of so it was all great up to 99, the biggest conference ever, that was San Diego, 1,500 dog trainers. Wow. And we joined up with the Marines. That was my idea. Because we wouldn't no 80% women in the Marines, like 95% men. So I talked to the, you know, like the guy in charge said, Do you want to come to our dance? It was a riot until one Marine started stripping off. Okay, it's in uniform. Anyway, so in the early two thousands, and I tried to stay away from the board, I said, I'm there. If you want any advice, because and there were a number of us, I said, the board has to have a board advisory committee, because you keep coming up with doing things, but we did them and they didn't work. We know that stuff. People like Sue Pearson or Alan Bauman, you know, they were the pulse of the APDT. And of course, it was under attack so many times, you know, different story. But in the early aughts, I was actually asked to come back to the board. And I did, I couldn't believe it. It was split down the middle. Three really sage people, and then four, total zealots, and all of them were converts. I converted them for jerking and hanging dogs, and now they were totally intolerant of people doing exactly what they did until they stayed up till three in the morning with a bar with me. And I I said, You're not going to bed till I've convinced you. I said, if you like, I can use a human analogy of stand up. And I said, sit down, like that. I said, Yeah, it's unpleasant, right? How about this? Sit. I pulled out a 50. You know, the power of off-leash, you know, reward training, instead of jerking or smacking or shokans and that stuff. But the converted people became really intolerant. And I and for me, it was sad. I think they ruined. I haven't gotten back. I I tell them every year, I'll come and do anything you want at the conference, but they haven't asked since um Memphis. And they asked me to come to Memphis and then didn't ask me to do anything. So I was just standing around like an idiot. Um and so now it's intolerant and it's written there. The things you mustn't do. And, you know, I've never used a shock collar in my life, never would. But do I go to shock collar conferences to speak to them? Yeah, because I understand how to make it more efficient. What does that mean? That they only have to shock once or twice instead of keep doing it 50 or 60 times. Because you see, everyone says, oh, that's aversive punishment. It's not, by definition. I mean, look to your definitions. About 40% of the definitions of punishment in the behavioral sciences don't mention the word aversive. They say a punishment is a stimulus that causes the immediately preceding behavior to decrease in frequency and be more likely to occur in the future. So something pleasant can be a punishment. Like, for example, your dog's going apeshit or jumping up or running away. You say, Rover, sit. One simple word is now acting like a punishment. Where something like a nasty, you know, something ugly can reinforce behaviors, like your dog's running off, and you say, Come here, you son of a bitch. And the dog increases the running off speed. So we we just took this learning theory like it was a Bible or a little red book or something. And we they never questioned anything. It's crazy now. And now it's in lieu of training.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

How how do you do how do you, as Ian, define aversive?

Aversives, Ethics, And “Flooding”

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Because that's a word that gets used a lot. And it's equated with everything from just a benign irritation all the way up to abuse in the in the eyes of some when they they use the word aversive. So how do you think?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Well, when it came out with you know, scat maps and then shock collars, um, they said, Ian, is this aversive? And I say, yes. And they say, Why? I said, Because Ian doesn't like it. Okay. Now, as you say, it could be benign. I I get frustrated with people and have to take a deep breath when they aren't getting it quickly. You know, I'm blessed with a creative brain that sees 100 answers to this problem. But sometimes teaching people, I get a little frustrated. In a puppy class, I never get frustrated with people. They keep saying, Why how do you keep so calm, Ian? I mean, these people haven't got a clue. I said, because it's the puppet's life. You know, I can change this puppet's life now if I can get the people to do it. I was doing it last night. I'm back teaching puppy classes again. I love it, man. There was this ho, two hopeless people. One came in, the puppy two, with an out of control eight-month-old um thingy, Malinois. Oh my God. And I got it sitting and lying down. Then I got her to do it, the mum. But then I showed her son, he got it right away. 20-year-old guy, really calm. He got this doctor. Come, sit off leash, mind you. The other doctor, you know, right in the middle of it. And so my first definition was, I don't like it. Now we have to make a big leap here. How do animals feel pain? And there's a lot of stuff about that. Um the best book for people to read if they want research is is uh Michael Fox, Integrated Development of Brain and Behavior in the Dog. When people say, Is there a study on that? I said, Yeah, Michael Fox did it in the 60s. But he did question, you know, the the the um conductivity in dogs was thought to be greater than in England's uh higher sort of, you know, I can't remember it now. So we don't know what animals feel any more than we know what a spouse is thinking or feeling. But I make the assumption if I don't like it, then I'm gonna assume no other animal would like it either, irrelevant of their neurology, even if they just have one neuron running from the cell body all the way down to the end of its body, like the large neuron in the great African land snail, Arcacatina. And so that's my definition. More uh behavioristic definitions, anything that a dog moves away from, avoids, or anything a dog doesn't approach. Like every child and every man when it's a puppy. Here we have all this aversiveness in dog training, and trainers won't do anything about it. Shyness, anxiety, you've got to solve it that day. I mean, that dog's hurting. We we wrote a little thing about a reactive dog. It was a dialogue, and we got AP Chat APT, is it chat P T, I don't know, my son and I, and it was lovely. And then when the dog sent the dog, you know, he like goes out. I mean it's on Facebook, it's a lovely little story, and then he says, if the dog, oh my brain is fireworks, my brain's fireworks, like and that's the panic this dog is going through. Every single day it has to beat its meet its biggest nightmare, but the owners, the trainers won't resolve it quickly. And why? You cannot, if you're using a single quantum food treat. You know, forget the single quantum click. Behavior is there's never something they talk about the behavior. What behavior? You know, this single behavior like you're looking for this mythical beast, you know, Loch Ness monster. You've seen a behavior. What I see is ongoing behavior that changes three times a second. So the whole learning theory never addressed long-duration behaviors like watches, stays, and shushes. And that that's when you realize if you're using a clicker, you're lost.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Yeah, and it it doesn't it does it it misses a lot of the big picture the discussions we need to have, you know, ethics and welfare, and you know, not just looking at these singular moments. Yes, they're important, but they're not looking often the arguments you see and the division you see is is driven out of these the squadrants or good or bad, you know, and it's it misses a lot of the big picture. And so so this happened, so you start to see this kind of great divide already happening. I mean, we've we've had divides in the dog training industry forever, but you saw a significant shift. How much do you think it's the social pressure or our cultural pressures to say, I'm virtuous here because I only believe in you know positive reinforcement only and all the other stuff needs to go. And then the other side's like, no, well, we have this and we're gonna use these tools, and then you have these camps form, and then if you're not part of that camp, then you get looked at as suspicion or you have to wear that team shirt and yell at the other side. And so you had also mentioned bringing in these experts on learning theory, some of whom are probably hesitant to do so. I wonder how much like the quote-unquote political pressure of the industry puts it.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

I think that's a very lovely thought, Mike. I I wish it were that way, that we have people that think they're virtuous and then therefore act virtuously. I think it's the other way around. I think the the biggest foible that destroys human lives and human interactions, we take the good for granted and we bitch a moan at the bad. I think what we have, and if you look at the comments and when I post on Facebook, the comments, like I mean, they are so rude. They are because I met a veterinarian a long time ago who who believed in it was a book written by an Indian. The who is the Indian who ran the marathon with no shoes? It real, US.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

Oh, yes, yes. It got me into the tongue. But I know who you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

That if you're having a disagreement, just take a breath and listen. Where are they coming from? You know, and if someone's rude to you, you know, in a store, who knows what's happened that day. A husband could have died. You know, she could have terrible ongoing back pain, you know. But what do they have to offer you? And I've always approached people that way. That a lot of people know me like this. So if this weren't a podcast, if this were my seminar, my longest seminar, by the way, was six days in a row. I just talk.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

They don't realize I can listen. I'm a brilliant listener, especially in bars. I've got a beer, I can listen and come out with a nice calm one-liner, like uh Dr. Phil. And how's that working for you? What are you trying to teach the dog here? Why don't you teach him to sit or to shush or to come when called? You know, and they're like, well, because he can't. He's off leash, he's not there. Well, you start in the kitchen, obviously, you know. So I've now got to teach this person who's at a child level. And I'm talking many dog trainers as well. So I think the biggest human foible is to moan and bitch at the bad and make negative comments about what other people are doing. They can't stop it online, especially when it's impersonal. See, if they were in my seminar, I'd call them out right away and say, Oh, come up here and show me how you do it. Here's the dog. Because I always like to train Roddies, Malamutes, Akitas, you know, Malanois. I like big dogs, okay? I'll tail occasionally do border collies because they're quick and fast. And then we have my favorite breeds like Bernie's and Springers, you know. But I like a lot of the breeds that people think, well, he's a Malamute. I say, yeah, so easy to train. Rottweiler, so easy to socialize. All the pits, easiest dog in the world to socialize. Yet they're the one who gets the rat. But I think it's because um people just make a one, it's not a one sentence, it's a one-phrase comment with no punctuation, and then leave. Like saying, but poppycock, stupid. Oh, another one was I'll give you one, I read it yesterday. Well, watching this video, I thought uh Ian Dunbar would know better, but it sure makes my imposter syndrome make me feel a lot better now. I mean, that was quite a complicated one. Usually it's rubbish, or a lot of swear words in it. About adjectives with me as the noun. And so, but regardless, it cleaved the profession. So, what we're gonna do?

Why Puppy Class Prevents Aggression

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Well, here's what Ian's gonna do because now dog training is back to where it was in 1982, January. Puppy classes didn't exist. So I've contacted all the puppy trainers I can find in the world. We're gonna form the APT again. I'm gonna train them all up for free. I'm gonna give them all of the serious um schedules and syllabus and what have you, because there's no competition. Because if you survey, I did a big survey of demographics of dog trainers, and I picked um oh god, it was about a hundred trainers from the US, hundred from Australia, and a hundred from the UK from trainer databases. 15% only teach classes. Of those classes, less than 3-5% are off-leash, and less than 3 to 5% are off-leash puppy classes. So, what are 85% of trainers doing? Well, largely uh behavior consults, so they don't train anymore, it's behavior consultations, mainly by Zoom, about anxiety, stress, reactivity, aggression, the four big temporal problems that ruin an adult dog's life, all of which were prevented in puppyhood. So the puppy trainers now have no competition. I'm gonna get them up and running properly, and it's why I've got back again to see the problem. And the problem is, even in my puppy classes, in my company, they're not learning what they should. So I go and sub for people, I think, my God, they've still got food in their hand. They've still got a bait bag. Don't they realize the rewards are all around them? The other dogs, playing games with people, tug, fetch, all off leash. That's the reward. You know, you integrate training interludes into anything the dog likes, anything the opposite of aversive, and you keep stopping it. And then you say, fetch, tug, go play. So, like this, I would say this this Malinois last night, I would say he hasn't played with anyone. And there was only a beagle off-leash at the end. I said, Do you want to have a play session? Unlike everyone there, froze. I said, They're both cool. I've been watching his tiny little sign saying, I want to play, but I dare. And oh man, we let him do it for 15 minutes. You couldn't separate them. And people are scared of letting dogs off-leash. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

Yeah. Yeah. There's so many points I want to talk about. Uh that you you brought up so many. But I'm enjoying this. Yes, there's so many things. So uh let's let's take a break for a word from our sponsors, and we'll come right back.

unknown 37:30

Okay.

Sponsor Message Rugged Dog Chews

SPEAKER_03 37:35

I've tried a lot of products that dogs can chew on over the years, and one of the things I'm always looking for is a chew that I feel comfortable giving my own dog. I'm also very selective about the products I recommend, and I only endorse products that I've personally tested myself or that I've given to my own dog because I want my recommendations to reflect real experience and not marketing claims. Castania, my own dog, absolutely loved the rugged dog bully sticks from the moment I handed her one. Just one kept her happily occupied to close to an hour, which is impressive for an enthusiastic chewer. What really stood out to me was the quality. They're 100% natural, fully digestible, raw hide-free, and ethically sourced from South America. One of the reasons I felt so comfortable giving these to Castagna is that she's not very experienced with bully sticks, and I wanted something I could trust and rugged dog delivered. The thickness of these bully sticks gave me additional confidence, and I could simply relax while she enjoyed chewing. And with the additional bully stick holder, which is a genius product by the way, it allowed for an additional layer of safety for a dog that likes to, you know, sometimes swallow things whole. And beyond the bully sticks, I was impressed by Rugged Dog's entire lineup. They offer an outstanding variety of durable, thoughtfully selected chew products, making it easy to find options that suit different dogs' chewing styles and experience levels. And of course, given the work I do helping dogs with aggression, I know how valuable appropriate enrichment can be. Providing dogs with safe, engaging outlets for natural chewing behavior is an important part of supporting their overall well-being. And Rugged Dog offers some of the best enrichment products I've come across. And if you're looking for long-lasting high-quality chews that you can feel good about giving your own dog, I can honestly recommend Rugged Dog. They become one of Castagna's favorites, and they've certainly earned my trust. And for listeners of the podcast, I have a special offer. Spend $65 and get a free territory treat lock bully stick and yakchu holder. That's that cool device I used so that Castagna wouldn't swallow the bully stick. So be sure to add the treat holder to your cart when you go to the checkout and enter the code aggressive dog free holder as your coupon code to get that free treat holder.

COVID, Zoom Classes, Dunbar Academy

SPEAKER_03 40:13

Alright, we're back here with Dr. Ian Dunbar, and we were talking about puppies just before we took that break, but it had me thinking, it's so true. I I think while there are a lot of trainers teaching puppy classes, definitely I've seen a drop-off. And it's what's interesting is created this industry for folks like me. Right. So I'm coming in and kind of I guess for lack of a better term, sweeping up the mess. But a lot of times the aggression issues because of lack of socialization and fear, and and you know, you know, there's of course arguments for the other reasons why our dogs are having behavior issues or developing behavior issues, you know, where we're getting dogs from and health issues, all those things. But, you know, it's interesting that that's also become with our social media presence and and people getting on social media. It seems like the barometer now for, you know, quote unquote great trainers is being able to deal with aggression or separation anxiety or major behavior issues, which we don't want. I I want myself to be out of a job. I keep I say that all the time. Like, I'd rather not have to do what I have. I'd much rather play with puppies, right? Isn't that gonna be a lot easier of a job for me? And so I think somehow the narrative's gotten lost in saying, okay, we've, you know, great trainers got to do all this kind of fancy, you know, let's see you work with the highest level aggression case. Well, I'd rather not, you know. We should be saying who's doing the best job of preventing these issues from happening in the first place. Who's having the puppy classes? Who are the best breeders? Who are we getting the dogs from? Um, you know, let's look at how we're breeding dogs and the health issues and all these things that can impact it. So, yeah, I I think that's why I love having this chat. It's because we're looking at the history of dog training and how we're uh from a broad perspective, right? So we kind of left off at around 2015, and this is a good segue into like the last decade or so of what you've seen. So, talk more about that. You were kind of talking about that with social media, and I kind of touched upon it on how we're getting sideways and what we're focusing on.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

But what are some of other insights you might have over the last decade and the two big things that have happened, I think, that I decided to take a break from the company and left Kelly and and Jamie running it. I was down in San Diego a lot, and I was actually training assistant dogs for veterans. And um then COVID hit, and we closed down 24 puppy training locations overnight. And Kelly moved really quickly. She got Zoom classes up to about 70% of in-person capacity.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

So we were still making we we made nothing for the first three weeks. So she had Zoom classes and they were fantastic because the people were from all over the world. You'd have someone from Australia, someone from England, someone from Japan, and someone from New York, you know, as well as Californians in classes. So, you know, they're really cool. And then Jamie had been building um Dunbar Academy. You know, we had Dogstar Daily, which is a totally free website, which I loved. But um it was the the operating system I picked called Drupal because you can make the home page different every time they look at it. So if they log on, it recognizes them. Now they're looking at six different videos on the home page. And um I like that, but oh, it's a bitch to make changes. So we started Dogstar Daily, and it was Jamie's idea. He said, Why don't I follow you around? This is 2013, 14, and 15, and just um video all. Your seminars. So we had this and and workshops. Oh soda did that. And Diane Robinson, you know, who who trained the killer whale, Willie, you know, when he was in Mexico, is a Malamute owner. And I finance fencing a compound because one of them got loose and got ran over. She, I said, come and film my seminars. So these are on film and workshops, I mean. I just want the workshops. And she did it for about 10 years, and it's on film. And she actually drove down and gave them all to me the other day. And I said, and you can sell them to finance buying pig fencing. So Jamie came and filmed all this stuff, and that's how we then, and then we added in, I think, just four of my books, or maybe five of them, and videos. I mean, well, 12, 20 videos, I don't know. So we started off with hundreds and hundreds of very practical, you know, video. The theory's there as well. I'm talking about the stuff, and I'm glad because I don't want it to go away. And in 20 years' time, they'll say, no, go back to Dr. Dumbo. Didn't he die? Yeah, he's been dead 20 years. But um, it'll all be there still. And that makes me feel good because it was fun, it was fascinating. That I mean, the 90s, I can't explain a dog training conference. It was everyone's event in the calendar for their year, and they would bring their family, and and because we always did it in great places like San Diego, Orlando, you know, and going and occasionally Chicago. Anyway, Jamie expanded Dunbar Academy by 300%. It was already a big company in two months. Wow. Right at the start of COVID. So we sailed through COVID and managed to keep all our employees on board. Opening up, I'm going to get to in a moment, couldn't do it. In that short time, three years, um, we had lost the word of mouth. We lost eight locations that went out of business that we rented, and we lost eight trainers who just wanted to move out of the state or stay at home. And I couldn't find dog trainers from anywhere. We asked online, and I'd interview them, and I'd talk about off-leash puppy classes, and they looked at me like. Then I'd say, Well, have you ever taught classes? No. I said, Do you know? And I had a few had at the uh Humane Society, but now they're all on leash again. It's terrible. Kelly had opened up a lot of humane societies in England with open poor. The dogs lived off-leash. Remember, we designed a center like a pie, you know, slices of a pie, and the feeding area was in the center. And they all bunched to the little bits slice of the pizza, say, you know, to be fed, all off-leash.

Why Trainers Stopped Teaching Off-Leash

SPEAKER_03 47:04

Why why do you think that's changed so much?

SPEAKER_00 47:06

That feedback. I think there's no, you see, you will never learn what it needs to be a puppy trainer from a dog training association. I mean, let's look at the major associations. At one of them last year, year before, not this year before last, there was one speaker on training, Amanda Ganton, talking about puppy training. They aren't talking about training. They aren't insisting that all the speakers bring a demo dog, have dogs on stage, or show videos of it. And like back when we were reconnected in COVID, remember these people in Australia asked, well, they aren't in Australia. You know, that each of the five staff members are in different countries in Southeast Asia. But we did this summit on dog training. I said, I will do it if I can find 12 people who would do a presentation where at least 30 minutes is video of them doing what they're going to talk about. I couldn't find them. So I had to double up, you know? And really famous dog trainers I would have thought better of. And I understand a lot of people don't do it because they think we don't want to do a summit where everyone else gets my ideas for free. They don't understand that. If you get 20 well-known dog trainers coming to this and giving them their own email addresses, you're getting millions, this is going out to millions and millions of people. And if you've if you've got a big, if you've got a million-dollar following, you're going to double it after you've showcased your face, you know, and be asked to lecture all over the place. It was like Dogstar Daily. We had a blog started, I think, 2007, and it runs continuously. It's still going, it's coming up to its 20th year. And it became so popular because we were getting advice from the technicals, people who are so famous now, like um, and I forget their name. I have a terrible problem with me. The guy who started Amazon, the guy who started Facebook. Oh, Jeff Bissos. Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg, yeah. Mark Zuckerberg said to me, he said, Ian, an overnight success takes seven years in the making. Because they were at the same conference, you see, and we stood out because we were the dog trainers, giving presentations about changing behavior, you know. And um, and so everyone wanted to know us because they all had their own dog questions, like Jeff Bezos, you know, and so you know, whatever. So Dog Star Daily ranked in the top 220,000 largest websites worldwide. That's massive. Yeah, look at the list now, who's up there? That's amazing. And so we told people this and said, if you would like to join our blog, we ended up with 54 bloggers. Oh, you know, loads of people. You the names that you all go to listen at seminars, but then one by one they dropped out. They didn't see that this exposure for good for them until it was down to like Kelly and I and a couple of others. But puppy trainers. It's not being taught now in conferences. Off-leash dog training is not being taught, period. Dog training classes aren't being taught off-leash or on, and I think people are just scared of it. I now look for puppy trainers. I don't want any training experience at all. I don't want them to know what a quadrant is or a clicker. And so I go to places like Zoom Room, these massive or pet topia. I want someone who has good handling skills with a large group of adult dogs off-leash. So last night um I started a trainer. She watched the old trainer once for three hours. She watched me last week for three hours. I said, You're ready to go. She said, What? I said, Yeah. And she said, Well, what do I do? Syllabus. I said, Well, I've got a nice little syllabus for you. It's nine topics, and I have arrows, but and in red is what I want you to do a lot of. You choose it, do whatever you like. If ever you're worried about anything, you say, Everyone, grab your dogs and settle down and handle them. You know, handle all the subliminal bite stimuli. So we desensitize them all so we don't get nailed when they're adults and great big jaws, you know. And um, she had two of the most difficult classes. There were nine puppies in the first class with two beginners. So we do rolling enrollment. So we have weeks one to five, and so we have a huge size and age differential. And then a puppy two class with only three dogs in it. So you need special exercises when you have a, say, more than six dogs. And when you've only got one or two, it's more like multiple individual consults, you know. And she handled the first class really well. And I said, the next class guy said, Why don't I take the Malinoir? Even though that's her breed. But she so she taught the other couple of dogs in the puppy two class. And I said, uh, good. I said, this wasn't a good tester class for you because of the nine dogs and three dogs. So I'll come back next week. But why? She's so cool about the dogs off-leash, but most people are scared, they don't like it, so they act defensively. So you scroll back through Facebook. So this is not my personal Facebook page, it's maxed out years ago. You know, they won't let you invite more than was it 5,000 or something? Anyway, the Dunbar Academy Facebook page. And just go back the last year, and when I've posted anything from Puppy Class, it dogs off-leash. Even when I'm training a dog, like uh a sort of a reactive dog, I was training him to sit at a distance, and this is Jambo. But all you want to do now is to hump. So I train him to not hump at a distance while I'm filming. You know, it's the only time I can multitask when filming and training a dog. And the comments are outrageous, it's disgusting. It's too stressful for the dogs, there's far too many dogs off leash. It's chaos. So I just told the truth a little two days ago in a recent comment. I said, of course it's chaos. We're trying to expose the young puppets' brains to chaos, to as many stimuli as possible. I said, so we flood them. Otherwise, all their brain cells are going to be gone before they're three to six months old. The apoptosis is enormous in youngsters. And I have written this down and made it simple for people who want to know the neurophysiology and neuroanatomy. It's in two places, I think. In at Dunbar Academy, we have the free course collection, and I have a free course for each dog profession. So it's in the breeders one. So breeders, half is sex and half is behavior and development, and it's in the veterinary one. And it's what happens to brains. And I was lucky to be involved in this research that I came to Berkeley for two reasons.

Enrichment, Social Play, Brain Growth

SPEAKER_00 54:30

To work with Frank Beach on his 30-year-long ongoing dog study from Yale, and to work with Marion Diamond in neuroanatomy. And I said, I don't want to take your courses because I've done them all three times before, but I'd like to be involved in your study. And she said, Really? And she asked me a few questions, and so I asked her one back. I said, Okay, what's the nerve urigentist? And she burst out laughing. It's an in-joke when you study neurology, but there we go. And she said, Yeah, if you want to, I can't pay you. She proved her group, her and uh Mark Rosenzweig and someone Bennett, I can't remember his name, I didn't know him very well. They showed that enriched environments change brain anatomy, gross anatomy, within three weeks. Measurable thickness of the cortex. When you look at the microanatomy, it's all different. The cell bodies get bigger, number of dendrites and dendritic spines, the axons get longer, the number of synapses increases enormously. And they work with rats, so they just put toys in the cage. Then they said this reverses in three weeks. Think of this analogy for humans as you get older. That's why the other day I thought I'm gonna write down the names of all the people whose names I keep forgetting. I'm gonna read them through every day, because I shouldn't be forgetting those people's names. They were good friends, but I don't know, it's just gone. I never forget the dog stuff, but people's names and movie names and actors, whatever. So then they did another experiment. What was the most potent enrichment stimulus, you think? They put in a cage with a rat had the biggest effect on the brain of anything. Another rat. Wow, it it's like, I'm sorry, I did I want to cry when I hear that. These poor rats in these cages, you know, and you put in just a buddy, and all of a sudden they have proper brains, you know? And so we now take that analogy to puppies. You have to flood puppies. Why? Because you can. The way they're set up is once they're flooded, they fall asleep. Then they wake up and they're ready to go again.

SPEAKER_03 56:55

What what do you think the pushback on that is just from that term alone? I mean, because flooding is like a four-letter word in some circles of the dog training world. And actually, I think I think the pushback might come from I think it might come from, you know, they're worried about giving license to people that says, oh, well, Ian Dunbar says flooding is okay, so now I'm gonna go do that as a with particular type of trainers. Yeah. And that's the issue I think people might say, oh, now people are gonna extrapolate that and use that for anything. Do you think that's that's shaped so much by the ideology that's like a lot of people?

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Well, of course they take every sentence I say, and then like the dog bite scale, they apply it to dogs fighting. No. And we have dogs in the UK, which is used in the court system now that are being euthanized because of that. You know, because oh, the dog nicked the skin, you know, it's only level three, but it doesn't even apply. We look at we have a totally different scale for that. And so, yeah, now how do we teach a puppy class? The trainers on the alert all the time for incipient signs of aggression and fear. Fear in the family. Because the number one cause of dog bites is when a family member reaches quickly for their dog's collar. And so we notice that when the father reaches for the dog, he backs off. There you go. Dad's gonna be bitten at eight months when the dog's had enough of it. Dog runs from the little boy. Or when the little boy ran across class last night, the um the big old Malanoir alerted and barks. There you go. You know, this stuff is not rocket science, but you've got to solve it immediately. Now, the thing that really upsets people, though, I'm always for me, it's people preventing dog bites, number one. Therefore, teaching them deep bite inhibition, too. So if they do bite because a kid kicks it, say, or pokes it with a stick, we know the bite will not puncture the skin. And like if you came to me and you wanted advice from me, heaven knows why. But my advice to you is, Michael, I would teach puppy classes. Why? You can now ensure every dog plays and develops bite inhibition, and you go through the bite inhibition stuff with the people. They're still going to have problems with it when it grows up, but these are problems in a dog that has bite inhibition. So you can do what you like, you know. But what people are actually scared of is when they think one dog is bullying another. So you had to be sensitive for that. As soon as you sense, and you see it anyway, a dog jumps on a dog once. If that happens twice, everyone's going to come down on that dog's owner. So you say, Everyone, grab your dogs, okay, and nestle them, you know, on their backs with the heads up here, hold their little elbows so you can rub their tummy, one finger on the elbows, and then rub their little tummy like this. Then I say, okay, um, let me have last night it was Morticia, and I hold Morticia, and what happens to the dog that's being bullied? He comes running back and says, I want to play. Come on, Morty, come on, get out of it. I want to play. And we call it the bully test. You basically tether one animal, you hold one animal, the one that's being accused of horrible stuff. Um, occasionally I do it the other way around, too. And so you can, when you do these preference tests or these tether tests, you can look inside a dog's head. Or another thing we do with shy dogs, which really brings them out quickly. I say, everyone, grab your dogs by the collar, put your hand behind the legs from the front, hold the collar, pull his head through your legs, close your legs. So now we have a line

Shy Puppies, Bully Tests, Bite Safety

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

of people, and all the dogs' butts are out here. Then we let the shy dog sniff each butt. It's unbelievable how that gives so much confidence and increases now their their desire to play. So, yeah, you don't let them off leash and do nothing, even with puppies. That said, if you did, and I know a number of people who who do this, they will resolve it on their own. If they have bite inhibition, if they did grow up with free access to other dogs, um, then not going to injure another dog. But what we've got is in society, loads of adult dogs that were never socialized as puppies. Right. They wouldn't do it with those. I like to see if I can when we teach uh we still teach adult dog classes, although I want to stop. I try to get them off-leash if I can. But if there's one dog that I'm not sure about, no, then the other dogs can't be off-leash either. And then it's a very boring class because it's on-leash training. So they are scared of dogs off-leash. And um, I'm seeing it now even in some of my trainers, and they're especially scared of big dogs again. So I'm now soliciting people out of these massive corporate daycare places. Why? Because I know the person's free in the evenings. I only I only teach puppy classes uh Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evenings, won't work on Monday, won't work on Friday, doesn't work on Sunday, Saturday is the day to go for. And so I can say, would you like to teach puppy class one evening a week? And I tell them what they're going to earn, and they're like, Wow. You mean one evening, in one evening I earn more than I'm earning in a week? Broom zoom groom. Um, but it's their dog handling skills I'm looking for, and not being scared of dogs off leash. Because every video I've put up of puppy things, simple stuff, and I'm trying to demonstrate something like, did you see how in the second time I handled this dog 15 minutes into class, I totally phase out food lures, and I'm now using verbal commands and hand signals. To me, that is magical. To this day, every time I do that, I think it's magic.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

This training works, man, and I don't believe it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

It's like, yeah, I have imposter syndrome too, but I don't I'm never gonna give up with a dog. I'm gonna work on it until it does. And they and now now looking at dogs in the background. Well, that dog's stressed. And you yeah, every dog that comes into class is friggin' stressed. Why? Because you didn't tell the owners what to do. So that's why this year I'm starting a new program, and hopefully your listeners will join in with me. As you're probably aware, we've been giving away free books since 2007. Okay, and these were free paper books, and we gave them away to every humane society and every vetery clinic, participating vetery clinic in the Greater Bay Area. So as far north as Napa, as far south as Carmel, and as far east as Sacramento. And um, I used to deliver them, and then it got too much time. And so we we shipped them, and then we found out that shipping was costing three times more than the cost of the books. Because, you know, my publishing company published them all. The book only costs a dollar, shipping costs $350. And so that was the time when we then went digital, and we were really at the front of the wave. So now we had. I went to a group in China called DigiBooks. Unbelievable how far advanced they were. Um, because libraries are a problem because the country is so big. So you sign on to DigiBooks and you have rows and rows of bookcases, and you touch one and it slides out of the bookcase and opens up. It was fantastic. And I went to the children's unit, and I would say 90% of the employees were under 10, testing the books and giving the comment. This is too complicated to get this little book out. You know, fascinating stuff. And so then it became easy to distribute these books online, telling vets, download them, put them on your own website for free download. Trainers, now I'm really going to publicize this to every vet clinic in the English-speaking world. Because trainers don't get it. They're not interested in this silly prevention stuff, even though I train adult dogs the same way. And they love it, you know, because they realize I'm not going to put them on leash, I'm not going to jerk them, I'm not going to shout at them, make friends of them. I'm going to give about 20 treats in the first, you know, five minutes. And then now I'm getting 20 behaviors for one treat. So yeah, it's it's lack of training. And and a lot of it, you see, because people really want to, their hearts. Want to help shy dogs and fearful dogs, but they don't have the tools because the main tools they're using is classical conditioning to change the dog's perceptions, to change the dog's behavior, which is the

Change Behavior To Change Feelings

SPEAKER_00 1:06:14

thing that's upsetting the owner. Ten times quicker is doing it the other way around. Change the dog's behavior, then that will change the dog's attitude and perceptions of other dogs and people, which makes the owners happy. And so we use a standard routine for both dog reactive dogs and dog bites. You take two steps back, say come sit, which means come, turn your body round. So now your rectum is facing the thing you're scared of, and sit, stay, watch. And you keep the dog there, and we practice this every 25 yards on a walk, so they get to do it, so it stands a remote chance of starting. And I've seen it work in one session. My neighbor down the street, 70-year-old guy, God, you know, I say that like it's really old, but I'm much older than that. Yeah, I was surprised he got it so fast because he's 70, but then I thought, no, his teacher's much older and teaching him. I explained it to what I was going to do to him as we were walking to try and get his dog lunging on his stupid flexi leash, you know, unless you've got the problem on camera, no one believes a solution. And of course, because I was there, the dog was perfect. So, anyway, the next day we go and film, and first dog that comes, Jamie's right in on this dog, this old guy, he backs up, the dog sits, stays, watches. In all for 40 seconds, he tried to turn his head once, like that. And the the guy reacted, but he couldn't, he just went, and the dog looking at him again, then good dog. He knew that. So this man kept his dog sit, staying and watching him while the other dog passed by behind him. That means he said the words good dog probably once every two seconds and gave probably 10 food treats. You know, and you've only got to do that five or six times, and now the dog says, There's another dog coming, Dad. I'm sitting, I'm looking at you like this, you know. And so when we reverse the order, it's much quicker. So I get the fact that their hearts go out to these dogs and they want to help them, and I want to show them, give them the tools to help them quicker. But they everybody is scared of putting a video of them training online. So you answer me. Why do you think that is? Why do you think you were one of few who dared, because of the people I've eventually chose, a couple of them had very short videos, didn't they? Like two or three minutes. And that's what people want to see, and they want to see like the mistakes Michael makes and how you get over it quickly, because you're dealing with bitey dogs. Yeah. You know? And whoops, that's pushing that dog too far too quickly.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:09

The pressure, right? The pressure puts so from social media and the potential criticism shuts so many people down. And it's a shame because there's, you know, I say it a lot, there's a lot of talented trainers out there that have lots of good material. They just don't put it out there because they're too afraid of the criticism from the community.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:27

You know, when I was when social media started, I was at the the first tech conference, social tech conference, and what was it called? It was about making money, tech econ, that was it. Tech economics. And there was an English guy there. I wish I could remember his name. And because I can't find, this was so long ago, I can't find the even the website listing the names of the people who spoke. And he said, it's gonna be a disaster if we don't have video editors and we don't have book editors, it's gonna be vindictive dross. And oh man, was he right? But I wasn't. I thought this is the educational tool that everyone wants. It fails miserably every time I do it. So even with like our own, you know, Stan Bar Academy is essentially a um subscription site. But I should give you a link so people can get on for free and download these books for free before I go. So even our subscribers, and we call them the top dogs, I'll say, I'm willing to do a QA, and we have loads of subscribers, for oh, a couple of ads, one day a week, if you like. There's no discussion. I'm lucky if I get 50 people, sometimes 80. People don't want to talk about the stuff and learn. Instead, they're asking me the same old question about their dog's reactive, or he barks, or you know, he's not house-trained. I say, well, read the books, watch our courses. You know, this is brilliant to educate people. You'll get far more attentiveness from people in different countries, but they just don't. They want it short and quick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:17

So yeah, the attention span, you know, is it's that's that's what social media has created for sure. It's very short attention spans, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

So what I'm doing making now is it's a new course, and it's it's like two sentences and a short video. And in all, I've got about 140 videos up already, and I've done a quarter of the chapters. So it'll probably be about 500 very short videos, and each one makes point. And then I'll talk about all the other things they're going to mention afterwards. Snide comments about. Yes, she does have a bag of slippery chicken in her hand. And that was lovely because that's her dog she can't control. I'm teaching the dog to do a nine-second sit-stay and look at me beside him. And she's fiddling with the bag all the time. So quite a big distraction, right? That's high-level training when you use food as a distraction and an occasional reward. Yeah. So I know all the comments they're going to make to moan, even though the video is to illustrate one single point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:19

Um, but it's a shame because I I love chatting about this stuff. It it's still, when I go through it with anyone, I always come out with a new idea. You know, as I'm talking about it, that's where my brain's the most creative. And it's why I never use notes. And um I don't know what the lecture's gonna be about, but it's gonna be funny probably if people allow me to be funny.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:47

So we've kind of recapped the last decade now and and obviously the the need for puppy classes and how important that is. But let's uh let's kind of like get back to this historical lens for the last few minutes here. And just uh I I think a good question to ask you within the last five more than five decades of experience. What's the most memorable moment in your career or just something you've experienced? That's a big question, I know, but oh God.

The Glory Years Of Conferences

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

Well, aside from personal things like teaching my son to ski, I mean, to in the world of dogs, I would say collectively, the 90s APT and APDT conferences, everyone was an absolute blast, and for me, a high point in training. Yeah, we were bankrupt serious as bankrolling it, but a great kudos goes to Kathleen Chin. She owned a puppy training company called uh Puppy Works, which is now bought out by someone else. They do seminars. And there were three puppy trainers. Once I've been going for three years, there were three people teaching puppy class in the Bay Area. So I said, hey guys, why don't we work together? I had worked out that we have less than 3% of the market share. Why don't we promote together? Well, she then didn't want to do puppy works and um puppy classes, and she came in and helped me out in the 94 conference that I suddenly got cold feet and thought, oh my God, I personally have 60 grand on the line. If this fails, so she helped me by getting the exhibitors, and we got um 39. I wanted 50, so I made other booths, like the APDT members meeting booth. That was two of them, you know, and uh Ian Dunbar's favorite books booth. And so we made it up to 50. That was just a glorious time in training. And it wasn't just what we were giving to dogs, it was the people. We were together then. We were a unit. We wanted to make things better for dogs, and we did it by showing people a better and quicker way. We had a standard joke, bet you 50 bucks. That's what I always did. If I had someone who contradicted me, I said, you know, you think that I know this. There's a big difference. Why do I know? Because I've done it a thousand times and I've quantified what percentage of times it works within a time criterion or what have you. See, numbers, this is the silly thing.

Measuring Training With Real Data

SPEAKER_00 1:15:33

People keep saying, we're science-based. No, you're not. You have read a little learning theory, which is a hundred years old. It's so out of date and lame. It's lame. I mean, go through the various reinforcement schedules. They are all stupid and lame. Why? One, they cause all sorts of problems that don't work. Or two, they're brilliant, like variable or random schedules. Yeah, but no one can compute them. I can. I do it on stage actually, as a mathematic trip. I can give you a sort of an algorithm for, say, a VR5 and run off ten trials, the numbers. Basically, I'm giving you ten numbers that average out at five. But you could not many people can do that, but I couldn't do that and train the dog at the same time. So no one can use a variable schedule. You know, there are only two schedules that ever to use, totally random. Beautiful! Humans can do that. Why? Humans are not consistent. When are we gonna you have to be, you see, that came from the laboratory. You've got to be freaking consistent if you're using that horrible shock. But no, you can be totally inconsistent when you are reward training only, but you want to generate numbers. So we come out with two very powerful indexes: a response reward ratio. So you count the number of treats in your hand or in your pocket or on the bench, yeah, sorry, on a shelf. When you're training, you video, and then you look at how many of those five treats did you give and how many behaviors did you get, or how many seconds of long duration behaviors did you get. So it's just, you know, an index. And a puppy, first week in puppy class, for four to one. Forty to one, sorry, a golden retriever doing puppy push-ups, downsets, downset, downset. They do 20 of them. That's 40 to 1. So why are you shoveling food in the dog's mouth? What you're doing is decreasing its reinforcing power. And then the other reinschedule would be a differential reinforcement. So I say, um, reward at random, change your mind at the last moment. That adds reinforcing power. You've got to add the expectation, the intrigue, and the disappointment when they don't get it. They work harder, you know, motivating them. But you've got to have some degree of quality control. And either you can do it, become like a judge on America's Got Talent, and you say, sit, holy cow, wow. Treat, treat, treat, kiss, go play. Because what you saw was that couldn't be quantified. And it's the one way where our brain is so different from AI. We see in a glance the first time, and we can say that was amazing. Incroyable, it was in terrible, it was magical, it was lyrical, it was so fast, you know. And um, that's the learning theory I want people to learn now, which uses our skills at inconsistency. So I wrote, sat down and wrote the book, and I which I'm it's the only book that I ever promote when I'm speaking. It's so different. There's nothing like it. It's been, you know, barking up the right tree. It's all the same old training stuff as hundreds of dog trainers had written, you know, or it's learning theory stuff based on hundred-year-old laboratory study of computers training rats. So we create our own applied science, you see, and that's why I founded the APDT Foundation. But I stepped back and it changed to giving grants to people doing behavior on like surveys of shelter stuff or very complicated science of cognition in laboratories, which means the university takes half the money. And we don't know whether the study's ever going to be done. No, I wanted the money for trainers for research studies that they have done. And what do I mean by research study? They take six dogs and they teach them each to go sit, down, sit, stand, down, stand, hand signals only, three repetitions, hand signals only, and then verbal requests only. The amount of data you've got there, but here's the best thing about it. When you look at these data, because I know people are scared of statistics, I only use a very powerful statistical measure which is called the um the interocular trauma test, which just involves you looking at the data. So what you do is you test before you train, you test be after you tame. And what you're looking at now are the response reliability percentages. Well, before you train, they know nothing. See, this is the beauty of a dog training study. It's about training change. That's what dog training is changing behavior. So the p-values are going to get are going to be so teeny, meaning these values are so statistical. So we plotted out the various exercises. Like if you like, response reliability percentage for each position change. Sit, down, sit, stand, down, stand, before and after. And then you print it out on an 8x10 bit of paper and you put it across a room 10 feet away. You glance at that and you say, yep, passes the test. But what does it mean? That the difference between these two curves are separated by white space. There is no overlap at all between individuals in the pretest and the post-test. The intraocular trauma test, the difference hits you between the eyes. So this is a real published study in statistics, which I always have to reference to because I always forget the name of the guy. And that's all they need to do. They generate the data, they plot it visually. So now all people need to do is look at it. Oh, pre-test, post-test. Wow. And what's this? Why are these two sits different? Well, the first is a sit from the stand, this is sit up from the down, which is more difficult for bigger dogs. Oh, what about these two downs? Why should they be? Well, this is down from the sit, easy peasy. But this is down from the stand, much more difficult, especially for little lead dogs, right? Yeah. And it's all there graphically for them to see. Well, that's a huge difference. And you perform this test, how long did it take you? 30 minutes. A publishable study in any scientific journal I know about behavior. And you don't have to run any statistics at all, because they pass this test. And so people don't create data these days. So I would say dog training is now no longer a science. It's people's propositions, their ideas, it's their thoughts, their perceptions. None to do with science. When I started, it was a pure science. Why we started where nearly everyone who came to my seminars competed in obedience. There's your test, man. What happens if your dog lays down in a sit stay? A zero, which means what? You failed the whole test. Now, and I used to always in my lectures say, just as you can zero out in an obedience trial, you can zero out in life. Front door open, doctor on the street, oh God, he's dead. You could have said sit. If here you had that emergency, sit, which is the one thing I try to teach people in puppy class, we could have saved his life. So a lot of trainers now, they have lots of theory, lots of the wrong theory. They don't have the applied theory, they don't know how to generate their own data from the behavioral science, the applied behavioral science that I talk about embarking up the right tree, which applies so much to all animals, horses, one of the most abused species on this planet. Horses, humans, and elephants, the three most abused species there are. It applies so well to humans. There's no need to raise your voice with a child. If you're frustrated, yeah, we have outlets for that. What you don't is is shout at your child or in their face. If you don't know how to do it, watch the kindergarten teacher in action. Watch a really good high school teacher in action. There's no threats. They're gonna seduce their subjects into learning, which is exactly what we do as puppies. And for me, the high point was the interactions with people.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:44

I remember actually someone else asked me a question very similar to one you asked. And my answer was it was all about the people. They said, Why do you teach puppy classes? And I could have said, Oh, for the good for puppy kind, you know. I said, you know, it is my surrogate for an English pub. I said, in England, usually once a day you go to the pub. And yeah, we're not total alcoholics. Sometimes I'll go to a pub and drink sparkling water, or sometimes just one pint of beer. But I found in America two things. People don't greet you on the streets, very different from England in like Cotney London or rural England, in Spain, in Italy. Everyone says, Bonjour, comment ça va, oui? Hello, bon. And in America, they just walk by, unless you have a dog, and they don't welcome you unattended, come into your home. They said, Oh, yeah, drop by any time, Ian. And my first year it was really embarrassing. I would drop by any time, and people stood by the door. What are you doing here? And then I'd wander off. And I said, Well, you said drop by any. Oh, well, we're just leaving now. They wouldn't let me in. Yet in puppy class, I chatted to eight families in a class. And I loved it. And how many times was I asked the question, will this work with my kids? I say, yeah. And your husband too. True. That is the biggest joy that I hope, I don't think we'll get this done while I'm on this planet, but I know my son will do it afterwards, is writing Barking Up the Right Tree for People. Because I wrote 50,000, 500,000 words in COVID. And the publisher says we only want 130. So I took all the human stuff. But that's one of my son and his mum's speciality company, psychology. So it's all about people.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:47

And here, these dog trainers who are so, oh, I'm purely positive with dogs. Yeah, but you're so bloody nasty to people, especially people in your own profession. What's going on here? And so the sadness, the togetherness that was such joy, it's it's not there anymore. Yeah. It's a shame.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:08

It is a shame. And and you know, I'm so glad you referenced, you know, the most memorable moments. Is I agree. It's getting people together in the same room to just have conversations without all the nastiness and criticism, because you're not going to say things to people, usually to their face that people write online. And it just and so yeah, I I think that's a good good way to bring this whole historical conversation

Karaoke Nights And Puppy Class Chaos

SPEAKER_03 1:27:32

full circle. But let's one one last question for fun is I think maybe the funniest moment in your career. I'll start I'll I'll start with one of mine. It's definitely in my memory. And the reason why is because we were talking about the older ABDT conferences. And so I this is one of the first times I think, I can't remember how many years ago. This is at least 10 years ago, but I was uh, and I can't remember the city. We might have been in Portland or Seattle. I feel I feel like it was in the West Coast somewhere, but Um, anyways, uh here I am. I think I was a speaker, and it was one of my first years speaking, and I was still trying to be all professional, and and I was going out to dinner with a couple of the speakers, and it was uh Ken McCourt, who I think you know, and then um and then Dr. Simone Gadbois. And so I'm thinking, okay, we're gonna I'm gonna go have a professional conversation with these two. We're gonna go sit down and talk about neuroscience. And we did, so we got to this restaurant and it was a sushi bar, and this was Halloween, too. This the conference is on Halloween, and and it just happened to be on Halloween, karaoke night, and it was a gay bar. And so all these things happening while I'm sitting there thinking this is gonna be like some quiet dinner with talking about neuroscience, and Simone, if you guys know Simone Scadvois, he's pretty uh uh great guy. It just um, you know, he puts out a professional demeanor. And same thing with Ken. Once you get to know both guys, they're they're very funny and they're just easygoing. But I'm sitting there first time, you know, like, oh my gosh. And then all these people coming in in drag costumes and and all this loudness, and then in comes you. So Ian walks into the bar and the karaoke's already going, and and you got up there and you just started singing. All the the some of the attendees were there, but they were just like partying and having like this such a great time. And uh, and I looked at Simone and Ken, I'm like trying to get their thoughts, seeing all of this going on around us, and they were totally fine with it. They settle in, but it it just it's just a pleasant memory because here I am kind of nervous and just uptight about things, and just you came in and brought a whole different energy that made everybody just feel so relaxed and at home. So, yeah, that probably would have been an old end. Good story.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:41

Because they had a sushi bar. That's why I used that hotel about five times over. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I can't sing. I mean, that's so I that I can't remember. I must have had a couple of beers or something. I often would get up with, say, um Mel Barsi or Sue Pearson who have really good voices and sing with them. But yes, Mel's great. I would have been so scared if I were on a karaoke stage and I had the mic. Um, but no, there were glory years, and oh, I wish we could just be together again. It's like when I look back on my career, I think what's happened in the last 15 years, it makes you want to take ice shards and stick them in my eyes. That what was so wonderful and so much fun, and how we helped each other. But there you go. Anyway, my funniest things, I've had a couple of funny things happen in seminars because there are some seriously hilarious people in the world of dogs. Uh, Marty Becker, if you ever met him. Yes. Oh my god. I I can't tell one story, it's so rude. But um I two seminars I remember. Um, and uh I'm giving the seminar, and of course you're scanning the audience, and this person starts to nod. And I sort of say their name, and their eyes come open, and then they go out, they fall asleep. I said, Oh Jesus, it's after lunch. And then I look, and someone else has fallen asleep. And one by one, until we got 30 people asleep in the room. I said, Come on, you guys. They all laugh, you know. But they did a similar thing after lunch, an hour after lunch, um, and Joel Walton started it. He got up and he just said, and he's going to the bathroom, right? And then someone else got up. What I didn't know was they're getting up one by one, and then some women, and they're going in the hallway and coming out behind me, behind the podium, all standing there. And of course, no one's laughing. Um, but the funniest thing was the real-time funniest thing is in puppy classes several years ago, and um, I'm teaching a puppy class, I get down there at six o'clock, so it's puppy one, so it's the first class of the evening. And this guy turns up and he's there, and I chat to him. I said, Well, you're early. He says, Yeah, yeah. I, you know, I walked. So, and we're chatting away, and then another person comes in, and a third and a fourth, you know, and all the puppies. And I always wait to the exact moment on time I start. I always have. None of this, let's wait for more people. No, they insulted me by being late. So now we're gonna. And I would always tell them in lectures, I say, all right, everyone who's here now, in the middle of the lecture, I'm gonna say, What's this for? I want you all to burst out laughing like it's the funniest thing you've ever heard, right? And I usually do it when there's a thin partition, so someone else is lecturing next door who's really famous, and it's ape shit. And then the other people afterwards say, What's the joke? Oh, it was earlier, you missed it. So for anyone who comes in late, they miss this thing. And then these will say, What were you talking about, Ian? I mean, it was just non-stop laughter, and it's a good thing to do to keep Eagle away. Anyway, back to the puppy class. So now we've got eight puppies, okay. There's one missing, so I shut the door, it's unlocked, and they know to open it and peep. And um, I said, Right, let your puppies off leash. And this guy says, Oh, shh, like this. I said, What's wrong? It's like he'd hurt himself. He said, Damn, damn, and he's swearing away and batted himself on the knees. I said, What's that? What's that? He says, I've forgotten my puppy.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:28

He has walked there early. He's been sitting in the puppy training class waiting to start for 15 minutes. All these puppets come in and he left his puppy at home. So that I mean, I just couldn't get over that. Too funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:42

But there you go. I I said, Well, actually, you also forgot your brain, obviously.

Community, Aging Brains, Where To Find Ian

SPEAKER_00 1:33:50

No, we we gotta. I I I think um I'm determined to bring it back within the next year because um I think the human race needs getting together again in person. So I'm gonna do uh little lives, ostensibly about dogs, but it's just chatting. And we don't have a permanent facility at the moment. When we do, I'm gonna open it up and serve coffee and see if we can give free wine and beer, I don't know, whatever, but lots of food. And it'll be for the puppets families, but they're invited back for the rest of their lives. Every, you know, once a month or something. And it's a community center. If you've ever been to an alcoholic anonymous, I uh tag along with a friend once, and I just can believe it. And I had to introduce myself too. And I said, Um, you know, my name's Ian. I I'm not an alcoholic, I don't think, but we'll probably have second opinions on that. Um, because you have to say, My name is John, I'm an alcoholic. And they everyone says, Welcome, John. And everyone said, Welcome, Ian. And I thought, wow, wouldn't it be great if we had an organization like that in every city? It's like travelers anonymous. Well, not limited to travelers, residents and travelers anonymous. You're in a town, or you just want to explore another part of the city, and you go into one of these clubs, and then you all have to stop and say, My name's Ian, I'm uh doggy behaviorist, oh I'm so-and-so, I'm a dog owner. And you just sit and chat to normal people without seeing people through your damn well, this is worse, thing in the ear. I hate that. And um, I like this. If we have to chat from a distance, if I can see their face, I can do it because you can signal me, like once you wanted me to shut up, I could was reading you and then sort of slowed down a bit. But I can't see you, I can't judge what's going on. And so this to me is how we should use you know social media. Social meetings, um, we just get back to chatting again and make connections in the world, they are very important. And um the brain thing, when you get to, oh, say being 70, you are losing neurons so fast you can't believe it. And so now you you've got to take on at least four new hobbies regularly, or you gotta meet up with people regularly.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:38

And uh or else you're just losing it. And you know, I love my my mum. She lived to be 97, her brother lived to be 101, they were sharp as a wit. The last day, and both of them, they walked in hospital and then were dead. My mother said, I'm not gonna drink, so I'll be dead in three days. And um wonderful to talk to someone. It's so sad that you see your granny, and it looks like granny, but there's nothing there. Yeah. Because they weren't challenged in their job, they did the same thing every day, probably didn't read enough novels, you know, to you know, to to make the synapses. So it's all about making synapses now. Anyway. Yeah. It's been wonderful, this. How long have we been talking? Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:28

We've done nearly two hours. Uh it's amazing how time flies. Yeah. But before we wrap up, where's where can people find you and then uh announce that book one more time of yours?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:38

The the best place to contact me is um at dunbaracademy.com and just write to info at uh dunbaracademy.com or to Jess. He's going to answer most emails. Um if you're interested in teaching puppy classes and want to learn how to do it, then write to Jamie at DunbarAcademy.com. But one thing they can do, um we do this because I'm eager to get people intrigued, you know, by dog behavior and training. It to I as I say, I find it magic to this day. The first time a dog sits to a verbal request, just like this, Rover, sit, and it does it. Yesterday I was walking Mars and I just stopped and he sat. I don't believe it. You know, amazing. So we give a lot of books, four books you can download from, and then also you can sign up for subscription if you want to, but you can get one month's free subscription. And so this is a bitly link, and it is info dot dunbar slash backslash free pup books.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:00

And I'll put those in the show notes so people can find those links, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:04

So they can download the books, and the best one to look at is the good old dog book. Of course, there's loads of pictures in it. So I I always when I was a kid, you know, there was this um Rupert Baer, and he it was a a cartoon, four drawings with five one-liners and then five paragraphs. And I when I got older, I thought this is so cool, because as a three-year-old, I could enjoy this. And then as a five-year-old, I would read the one-liner, and then when I was a six-year-old, I could read the whole paragraph. So I've always written my dog training books like that. The pictures are really important, and then the little words underneath the picture, I've forgotten what they're called now. You know what I mean. Um captions. And you can pretty much read the book. Oh, captions, yeah. Picture, caption, picture, caption. And there's a lot of sequential pictures, so you see how to do stuff where you're moving. For which I used my malamute. And I one of my biggest disappointments in life, I always wanted Dorling Kindersley to ask me to do a book on dog training. The closest I got was they did a book on dog training, and they used all the people I taught, all English dog trainers. But I don't like busy backgrounds. So I bought these roll-down screens, you know, to take pictures in the living room of training, a little black and white dog we had. And then I went out and got the Killerwale trainer again, uh, Diana, to take photos of me. I found this slope in the park. So if you focus on me, it's a green background. So I took these pictures showing how to teach healing and recalls and position changes with my Malamute. Well, we roll on about um seven years, and as a favor to the editors, a good friend of mine, I said, I'll edit these breed books for a famous bookhouse, a famous dog bookhouse. And so I read, oh, 45 different breed books. And I said, Well, you can't publish these. I said, the articles on veterinary science are just incorrect and downright dangerous, and the training articles are ridiculous. It's like they're training 1903, you know. And so, oh God, what do we can do? I said, Well, use my training article, because I'd written a training article, and I thought just throw in a few, oh, and we had to use the the only chapters that were good were the breed articles, the history of the breed and how the breed is different. We kept those. The nutritional articles, I think, came from Spaniels, the veterinary article came from veterinarians, and and and every book was the same, apart from the two breed items.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:07

The cover and the training chapter was identical, and they kept the Malamute pictures. So insanity.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:17

Don't you think you would have put a few Rottweiler pictures in the training chapter? But you see, they were so beautiful because I had these pictures, like the biggest number was six, twelve in a row. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. And it was a sequence. Three pictures for to sit from the stand, three pictures for down for the sit, and so on. And so to replicate those would take a trainer like me to get the dogs to do it. And they were so cheap, they wouldn't send the photographer out to my house or round up the breeds. They say, Oh, we can't afford the photographer. So these books, all of which I said should not be published, it's dangerous information, are still on the market. You can find them, especially if you go to Amazon if you know what to ask for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:06

Well. I'll I'll get one and you can sign it for me. It's like an antique, right? Ian, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. I can't thank you enough for for sharing your your stories and everything you've done for the industry. So, from me personally, I thank you. And um, I hope to see you again in the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:26

I hope so. Yeah, I think you'll see a lot of me uh uh getting these puppy classes up and running again. I see it as an opportunity, no competition.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:36

Fantastic. It was such an honor sitting down with Ian and reflecting on the history of the dog training profession. Few people have had the kind of impact he's had on how we think about puppy development, socialization, and reward-based training. His stories and perspective offer an important reminder that many of the challenges we face in our field today are part of a much longer journey in how we understand dogs and how we work with them. And if you're ready to go deeper into understanding and helping dogs with aggression, visit aggressivedog.com. Whether you're a professional or a dedicated dog guarding, you'll find everything from the Aggression and Dogs Master Course to expert-led webinars, informative articles, and details about the Canis Conference happening this October in Schomburg, Illinois, with both in-person and virtual options available.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:28

Thanks for listening in, and it's always, it's always it's always it's always always always stay well, my friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:00

Why did that happen? What happened? Oh, God. That's my son. I didn't know how to turn that into the stringing. He checks in every day to check, I'm still alive, I guess. No problem. Oh, I think it's so funny when things like that go off. Anyway, I know your producer won't.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:22

Sound people think that is the worst thing that could have happened into my recording.