The Deal With Animals with Marika S. Bell
Humans interact with animals every day of our lives: diet, wildlife, clothes and even medicines, are all intersections we often don’t think about.
This is a podcast about the interactions and connections between humans and non-human animals.
Our mission is to make research more accessible to the public while sharing the voices and lived experience of our human connection with animals.
The Deal With Animals with Marika S. Bell
76: Staying Curious: Empowerment and Change in the Dog Training Community with Grisha Stewart and Laurie C. Williams (Special Episode!)
September Special Episode! With Grisha Stewart, best know for her book Ahimsa Dog Training, BAT, and The Grisha Stewart Academy, as well as the remarkable, Laurie C. Williams (The Dog Diva), who has seen it all in her 35 years of dog training.
There has been dramatic transformations the dog training industry over the past few decades, from the use of aversives to the kinder and more empowering positive reinforcement methods. Eager to learn how trainers have navigated this shift and still manage to communicate effectively with dogs? You're in the right place.
This episode is a sneak preview to September 20th's virtual rendezvous of renowned dog trainers and behavior experts like Chirag Patel, Debbie McMullen, Jordan Shelley, Laurie Williams, and Michael Shikashio, all gathered for a candid and captivating canine confab.
Join in on September 20th at 10 am Pacific Time in Zoom at the Grisha Stewart Academy for this invaluable discussion.
Don't miss out; fetch your spot at http://school.grishastewart.com/courses/shift today!
Book Recommendations: Transformation Through Intimacy, Revised Edition: The Journey toward Awakened Monogamy by Robert Augustus Masters and
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things by Robert Fulghum
Other Links:
E6: Dog Bites: The Fallout and Emotional Toll wit…
E13: Conservation Detection Dogs with Kayl…
E27: Summer Special! with Clive Wynne Its al…
36: Aggression in Dogs Con Mini-Series: wit…
Read the Blog! (Guest profiles, book recommendations, trailers and more!)
What to start your own podcast in he Animal Advocacy or Animal Welfare Space? Check out my Podcast Mentoring Services!
You're not going to be perfect, but force free is the goal. That's what I always tell people. It's the goal. It's something that I'm always going to shoot for.
Speaker 2:The experience of positive training is wonderful and it's something that if we invite people to be part of it, rather than saying like you're excluded because you're doing the wrong thing, it's more like, hey, come over to this party, it's great over here. I think we'll get a lot more people, maybe a little bit more curious.
Speaker 3:This is the deal with animals. I'm Marika Bell, anthrozoologist, cptt, dog trainer and an animal myself. This is a podcast about the connection and interaction between humans and other animals. This is a special episode, so we're going to jump right in. But before we do, I'll just quickly remind you that, as of today September 15th, 2023, there is still time to register for the why we shifted to empowerment and reinforcement dog training discussion panel in just a few days, on September 20th, with some real big hitters in the dog training world Michael Shikashio, chirag Patel, debbie McMullen, jordan Shelley and Lori Williams will all be talking about their experiences shifting their approaches as they learned kinder, effective ways to train dogs. You can register for this event at grishastewartcom, at the Grisha Stuart Academy. Welcome to the podcast. Would you please introduce yourself and share your pronouns?
Speaker 2:My name is Grisha Stuart. I run the Grisha Stuart Academy for dog training, for continuing education, for professional dog trainers as well as the curious public. I'm the author of behavior adjustment training and the HEMSET dog training manual, and I have a passion for people and dogs. And pronouns you prefer oh yes she her.
Speaker 3:Thank you Great, Thank you very much. And this is a roundtable discussion today, so we also have I'm Lori C Williams.
Speaker 1:I am the owner and training director of Pup and Iron Canine Enrichment Center in Fredericksburg, virginia. My facility has been open for the past 18 years. However, I've been a dog trainer for a little over 35 years. I started when I was two years old. I always add that, if you wish, yeah, I train all levels of dogs, starting at puppy and all the way through adult, and we also do competitive forts therapy dog training, service dog training. So we're the one stop shop for people to grow their relationships with their dogs. My pronoun pronouns are she, her.
Speaker 3:Great. Thank you very much, my nar as well. So we've done them little introductions. Now let's do a little bit more about why we're actually here today. Because this is going to be a special episode. It's not going to release at the normal schedule of all the other ones. Because I heard about this panel discussion that you were creating, grisha, and I wanted to talk with you about it, because it's just a fascinating subject and always one of those issues in dog training that comes up that really does need more discussion. Why don't you tell us about this panel discussion that you've organized and why, sure?
Speaker 2:So the panel discussion.
Speaker 2:First of all, it's just called why I shifted to empowerment and reinforcement, and the idea for this panel discussion came from the idea that there's so much tension around why we train the way we train and there are people putting a lot of pressure on each other, and I'm a huge fan of positive reinforcement and empowerment and I want everyone to see the magic of it and for dogs to experience the safety and security of that and for them to get their needs met.
Speaker 2:And for dogs for people to get their needs met. And what I think is most convincing for people is to hear stories of what possible, because it seems like there's always got some sort of reason why it doesn't seem tenable for people who are still using corrections. So it's either it's too difficult, or clients won't buy it, or I have to do it this way, or this is not painful, or all these other things, and so we make the story really about them and the obstacles. And what's most convincing, or what's most likely to reach our brains and our hearts, is the fact that it's totally possible. And here are five examples of people who have gone through that shift of having experienced professionally training with aversives and then making a switch away from that, and so I'm also personally just really curious about what everybody's stories are, how that has gone and how that. How does that influence their own lives outside of dog training as well as what has it done for them professionally?
Speaker 3:It really is a fantastic question and a good time to be asking it, because we have so much access to each other. Right now we're seeing so much social media, people jumping down each other's throats and it's been going on for quite a long time. Before social media was very popular but it didn't feel maybe as personal and now it really gets very personal and it's a very personal and careers can be damaged by what is going on online sometimes, and that's funny because, as positive dog trainers, that's not how we like to treat dogs and sometimes humans are being treated that way, whether they are positive dog trainers or maybe using more aversive methods. Those are crossing over, let's say, into the interactions with other humans as well, which is sometimes problematic. So, lori, how did you, how did you get involved with this panel, that you're talking about this panel discussion, and what's your background in this area?
Speaker 1:I'm just imagining that she knew that anyone who has trained in excess of 20 years is likely a crossover trainer.
Speaker 1:So I am very open about how long I have been training, not to age myself, but I want people to know that I have come the full journey I have started when there was only one kind of dog trainer Dog trainer period, but it was, and I've watched the industry go through all of the changes that it has in the last, as I said, 35 years, which are profound changes. It's like really pretty amazing. I mean, when I started there was no profession, really a career, as a dog trainer. It was more or less something that you did in your backyard or you did as part of a kennel club, but it wasn't a career, whereas now there are people making full careers, very, sometimes very lucrative careers, from the profession. So I've just seen the whole gamut and I'm like I said I imagine that was why she asked me and I could give that perspective and that a lot of people can. A lot of people came into it midway or are new, so they don't have that full perspective that I can offer.
Speaker 3:What made you want to participate, then?
Speaker 1:I'm always happy to talk about this. I have very strong feelings about it and I'm always happy to talk to people about why it is important to have a bridge. And I try to explain what having a bridge is, because, unfortunately, a lot of people misconstrue that as meaning that we are condoning aversive and physical punishments and corrections, whereas that is not the case. It's more or less for us to be the educators, and you really can't educate someone without first having a bridge and communicating with them. If you right away put up a wall, they're not going to listen and therefore you lose them. So if our objective is to get more people to understand that there is another way and a successful way, then we have to communicate, we have to have a bridge. There's really no other way to do it.
Speaker 1:That's the way I was ushered into more educated dog training. I was ushered in that exact same way. I have a very interesting story of how that happened, so I do like to share that story and it pretty much says it all. Had it not been for the bridge that I was given Now I'm not going to say I wouldn't be where I am today, because I happened to be someone who does like education and I imagine I would have found it on my own.
Speaker 1:However, maybe not a single and it 20 plus years ago. I don't know that I would have found it then, so yeah, so I like to share that and that's why I'm very happy to be in the discussion.
Speaker 3:One thing that always reminds me of something you said, which was definitions. So that was because you said a bridge and I went okay, what kind of bridge is she talking about now? Are we talking about bridges to help people move across to a new area? Are we talking about bridges in actual dog training? Because clickers and bridges and things like that and it just made me think definition of words that we're using can be so important to having any kind of discussion with people about what they're talking about, cause I know some of the discussions online have been about what is aversive, right? So is aversive something you're adding to the situation with an animal, or is aversive something that is just the animals perspective on what they don't like, right? So there's different definitions and some people would say the world is aversive, so it's okay for us to use aversives because we live in the real world. Would any of you like to speak to that sort of mentality?
Speaker 1:Because aversive in the definition is whatever the dog perceives as yes, something they don't like, whatever they perceive and absolutely there's going to be a lot of things that dogs don't like in life as people but the applying of physical aversives and punishments or it could go into emotional as well, but applying it that's more of what my definition is. And also I think the distinction needs to be made in when we're talking about the training of dogs, because what happens a lot that I've found is particularly the use of the term force free, which I don't love. I don't like the labels. I have never been a label person, so I don't like labels. And you guys maybe it's like you guys might find this funny I did not even, I had not even heard of the labels until I got on social media. Now I do tend to live in my own little orb. Of course I go to workshops and education and all that, but as far as I don't do a lot of the ba ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ba, and I do it a little bit more on social media, unfortunately, than I ever have in my life. I've been kind of drug into it and you have to for business and networking today you have to. But that's not really who I am. I'm a pretty private person and I don't do a lot of talking back and forth. So I had not heard the label. So these the labels are fairly new to me, I'd say maybe within the last four or five years. I don't love the label force free because what a lot of people do come back and say there has to be some force for this, that and the other.
Speaker 1:They'll find ways to pick apart the words, which is true. There's going to be some things that by virtue of an example, which is the example that I sometimes draw from. I don't like physical corrections and punishments. If I'm teaching loose leash walking, I'm not going to be doing the leash popping and I don't teach my students that way. However, if we're walking across the street and my dog darts into the street and they're on leash, guess what Laurie is going to do? She's going to pull him back as best I can because I don't want my dog to get hit by a car.
Speaker 1:So when you talk, in the literal sense of the words, force free, there are many ways that people will pick it apart. But, as I said, however, I'm not going to teach my dog in that way. If there comes a time when to save my dog's life or for their health or safety or whatever, that some force has to be applied to save them, then of course we're going to do it. Any sane person who loves their dog is going to do that. That does not mean that you're going to train them how to do things by doing that, and I think that's what a key difference is when people are discussing would you do this, would you do that? Because that's what they're trying to get. They're trying to get got your mom. So they'll ask you what would you do with such and such? What would you do with such and such? You can't pick things apart like that. We're human and also there's safety. We all practice cooperative care or we try to, but if your dog has some type of injury that you do have to hold them to keep them safe, you are going to do it. It's just.
Speaker 1:I just hate when people take things so literal, and that's where I think a lot. We get into trouble a lot where when we say, oh, force free and you should never. You know this and that and you never, never, never, never, never. And then they come back and say what about this, what about that? So we have to find a reasonable way for people to understand this, and I think when we focus on teaching and how the dog learns, that's where the clarity comes, because if you talk about management and everyday life, you can pick that apart. And nobody there's nobody that never raised their voice or never whenever insert whatever.
Speaker 1:And that's where I think we positive reinforcement traders get into trouble sometimes, because we may come across that's what we're saying when I'll speak for myself. That is not what I'm saying, and I understand that there are going to be times that you're not going to be perfect, but Force three is the goal. That's what I always tell people. It's the goal. It's something that I'm always gonna shoot for, particularly when I'm trying to train a certain behavior or scale. But we're human. Sometimes we're gonna fall short, either by lack of our own ability or because of the environment, or because of stuff happens. We have to be forgiving. Maybe that's the word I'm using with that and then me even just saying that I already will lose a whole segment.
Speaker 1:Force and I'll lose them and I have been unfollowed our social media because of things that I've said, where I'm Similar to what I'm saying now, because that doesn't follow some people's philosophy. It's almost like a religion. There's gonna be things that you, we're gonna all be individual to a certain extent and that's where forgiving yourself and then also having Honest common, being honest and having honest conversations with other people. So I Know I answered the original question because I'm not sure I think you gave us a really good context there.
Speaker 3:Of course, what would you have to say to all of that? I?
Speaker 2:Was gonna add in that I think that's where, if we're using, if we're using shame to Keep us within this bubble of positive reinforcement or force-free or empowerment or whatever we call it Then whenever we stray from that in any way oh my god, the dogs headed into the street and I'm gonna I'm not gonna leash pop, but I'm gonna stop them. If I've missed it, obviously, if I'm gonna see it coming into advance of the street, we're gonna stop in a gentle way. But let's say, some emergency happens, if I've shamed myself into being this kind of trainer, then there's a huge punishment then applied to myself for missing the mark. And Instead of thinking it that way, thinking of is like we are, this is like this is our North Star. I'm not gonna be up in space close to the North Star. There's no air out there. But this is the intention that I have is to Maximally empower the dog to live the life that they are meant to live, to be comfortable, and for the human to do that as well. So there's agency, meaning that they have control over the experiences in their life as much as possible, and same again for the caregiver and my.
Speaker 2:My career has definitely shifted. At the beginning, it was all about. There was a tiny piece at the beginning in which I was taking a class and I used a prong collar for about a week, and I'll tell more about that in the webinar. But even at the beginning, as I shifted out of that, it was still about control, about me controlling the dog to do what I wanted, and Over time it's been a huge shift into shared Control, right because the dog is another being in my household. It is not, it's not a robot that then I do an on switch, for it is a is a living, breathing being with their own values and their own concerns and things, and so I like the. So, similar to Lori, I don't like labels. I'm not a huge fan of them, because there's always like some other way to define it than I define it, and so it doesn't quite fit me, or it seems like it fits. But then I learned something new. The next week or month or whatever, I'm always changing. I have recently shifted the Lima definition so least intrusive, minimally aversive I actually like saying it as least intrusive, maximally advantageous to all parties. So anyway, but also minimally aversive applies as well, because that's a flip side of Advantages. But I think there's a little nuance there. As well as that work, I'm thinking of the overall well-being of the animal. Not just Am I applying that's something that's Positive, but they're also then addicted to staring at me all the time and no longer a dog.
Speaker 2:I, my work, is really all about helping dogs be dogs. And and also just circling back to Lori, I invited Lori for many reasons and I love like the way that you are on social media. I I also. I've been watching following the new puppy experience or the Dalmatian puppy, and just the way that you speak to people. The did seem very fair and not like my way of the highway that you are building bridges and we need that.
Speaker 2:If we, if I'm working with a dog who has reactivity issues, I'm not going to surround that dog by humans and not give them a path out, otherwise there will be a bite.
Speaker 2:And Similarly with a person I if we surround them with arguments that say you are a bad person if you're doing what you're doing and there's nobody there to say, hey, I, I think you might actually be a good person, but you're doing this thing that's Damaging to dogs. If we don't have the path out, then what happens is just okay, everybody is wrong. That's what cognitive dissonance does, is we come up with our own Ways to make this make sense, and so the only way that it can make sense for a lot of people is to say that we're full of BS, right, and we aren't. This is there's heavy science on this. It's fantastic. The experience of positive training is wonderful, and it's something that, if we invite people to be part of it and rather than saying like you're excluded because you're doing the wrong thing, it's more like hey, come over to this party, it's great over here, I think we'll get a lot more people, maybe a little bit more curious.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just thinking. Social media is not the best place for nuance and and.
Speaker 3:I've experienced that myself, where I said something and, oh, this is, as a general rule, this is the case, and I had so many people jump down my throat because it wasn't right, it wasn't totally accurate, but in general it was a fair statement, I felt and and it's hard to be nuanced in social media I'm not great at it. You guys are both much better than me at that and at creating those bridges for people Because I tend to just shut down. If someone jumps down my throat, I'm like, oh, disengage, like that's what I do. I, I want to pull back, I don't want to get involved in that because I don't feel like it's good for my mental health and that's more important to me than being right on social media. So I tend to just back off and let things play out by themselves or talk to people, message them directly, because it always seems to me like people are much more human to you when you're not in the public space and having that conversation where other people are gonna hear them, and it can be more nuanced.
Speaker 3:But I really like what you're both saying and I feel like with the conversations that I have had with people around this subject, we all kind of agree like even people who are still using more versus methods, sort of agree in principle to everything both of you were saying, but and in particular the part where they don't like labels right, they don't want to be labeled force-free, they don't want to be labeled a positive reinforcement because they know that in certain circumstances they might need to use an aversive in their opinion, and so they. They don't want someone jumping down their throat when they do it, or they don't want to feel bad, as you were saying, grisha, they don't want to box themselves into this, this, this wall where they're gonna feel bad about themselves if they've resorted to something they didn't think that they should have to do, even in an emergency situation. So it seems to me that if people come to this Panel discussion that you've organized, that they're not going to feel attacked, that they might actually find quite a lot that they Would agree with.
Speaker 2:Even if they don't necessarily or aren't Interested in changing their methods at the moment, they might actually still find something useful in the conversation that's what I'm hoping for, and If I were to state my best case scenario is that there are two kind of sets of people that would be showing up to the webinar, and one would be the people who are still using Some portion of E-caller or prom call or what have you in their practices which I don't use, and being able to say, okay, grisha's here or these people are here and I'm here, but it's a continuum. There isn't just like a split and a divide over which their humanity stops being a thing, and that if they're curious about how to use a little less Shock or like in this scenario in which they would use an E-caller, what would I do? I would love to then have those conversations be possible and so they can reach out to me or panelists or whatever, or that even better, that they would feel like oh, I feel comfortable now knowing that there are some people that if I go to a conference, I can talk to them, because I went to, I was Invited to to teach at a balanced dog trainers conference once and I was terrified, first of all, that I would be sort of boot off the stage because I'm not a balanced trainer. I'm all positive if I were to label it and so I was like they're gonna. I'm all stressed and I actually scheduled a separate webinar seminar in the same town that day because I was like I need my people around me. Which was funny because when I got there and I gave the talk all about bad and how to do my way of doing reactivity training Several men came up to me after, first of all, balanced dog training conferences mostly men, very weird compared to my experience with positive drug training, anyway and so all these guys come up to me and said we were so terrified like individually right, we were so terrified that you would shame us and we're so glad you're here because we're afraid to go to the APDT conference, we're afraid to go to the PPG conference and that broke my heart, that we have all this education that's available to shift people and yet they don't feel safe enough to take part in that Because of how we are online, because in person we're not gonna be like beating each other up and attacking each other in the ways that we do as keyboard warriors.
Speaker 2:So that's one thing. Plus, there's also a whole set of us that are willing to have those conversations and and try to shift things rather than I am a positive trainer through and through. It doesn't matter the species, and I'm gonna be completely unapologetic about that.
Speaker 3:Laurie, have you attended any of the other conferences besides APDT?
Speaker 1:Well, as I said, I've been doing this for a long time. Yes, that's the only Congress that there were when I first started going to conferences. But also, in addition to that, I've been a competitive dog sport persons I've been around. I call it traditional training, I don't call it balanced training. I've been around traditional training my whole training life in the people that I started out with, the people that I competed with, the people that I Often beat, the people that beat me there. You know, my lot of them are traditional and yeah, I've been to many conferences by some of the top competitive dog obedience People out there through the years.
Speaker 1:No one ever bothered me. No one ever, like I said, this is all. This whole thing on social media is all fairly new to me. Everybody has known that I was a positive reinforcement trainer for like the last 20, one, two years and they knew that. Then I was on a TV show where I basically Talked about the whole time. I don't know if you know. A lot of people do still remember that show back in 2008 that I was on what was that Is greatest American dog.
Speaker 1:It was on CBS. It was a reality show with dogs and their owners, but anyway I had. I talked about positive reinforcement training then, so everybody's known that about me and nobody has ever bothered me. Now I will say this. I will say that I'm not gonna Deny that there may have been a person or two who it that were hoping that I would fail under their breath, like when I was competing to show. That didn't work, doesn't work For competition. I have to be a person or two that did that, but they never said it to my face.
Speaker 1:And then, on the times that we did not get good scores, there were also times when I beat them. It was I had their respect, I guess, I would say, and I never shamed them, so there would have been no reason for them to shame me. As I said, all this shaming business is fairly new and I must say and because I'm looking to see, I'm hoping I'm with women of a particular age it seems to be the younger group of people that are doing more of that, then age group and up that are doing it because, like I said, we started that some of these people are my friends. Why would I mean that they were my friends before it, and why would they shame me? Why would I shame them? They train differently than me, and you know what, though, a lot of them have gotten better or excuse me, I won't use that word They've gotten more educated through the years. They're using positive reinforcement now way more than ever before. I started when it was not unusual for somebody to smack a dog In public.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, like I remember seeing that as well.
Speaker 1:They've come a long way. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone, even in the competitive dog obedience world, that does not use positive reinforcement heavily, and I would venture to say they probably lean mostly to positive reinforcement, but they still, they have that little. They haven't crossed to not using corrections and punishments at all. But, man, they've come a long way and so I gotta be happy about that. And they attend so a lot of times.
Speaker 1:We're at the same seminars now. They're at the seminars of more positive reinforcement trainers and motivational trainers and they'll go to a workshop or seminar that someone who still uses a Versa. But you know what? They're not relying on the inverses 100% like they may have years ago where every dog had on a choke chain. You rarely see that anymore. Well, choke chains are like not really even used much at all anymore, but every dog's not in there. If you're a competitive sports trainer, not every dog's not in there on a prong collar, in fact, most aren't. This is not to say that they don't use them in training, but that's not what at the workshop and seminar.
Speaker 3:It's interesting, cause I'm wondering if much of that filters into public life too and people who just have their pet dog trainers, because I see I feel like a lot more choke chains and prong collars on someone's pets than. I do in any kind of formal obedience or agility or any of those have really gotten away from that because I think they have found that it tends to work better to motivate someone through fun and positive associations than it does to fear and shut them down. But that really hasn't filtered to the general public.
Speaker 1:No, no. The general public is unfortunately still lagging in education. That's the key. Education is the key. That's where I have a theory that the more educated you become, the less you rely on aversives, the less you're going to rely on corrections and punishments. The unfortunate part is, as you guys know, the dog training industry is unregulated. So therefore, I would venture to say probably the majority of working dog trainers in the United States in particular are not educated formally in learning theory behavior. They're not formally educated. In that I was speaking of social media. I talked to a gentleman online and I asked him what seminar he had. I'm going to say he had several hundred thousand followers, he had a big following. And I asked him oh, actually, I didn't ask just him, I put out on my page. I said what was the last workshop or seminar you attended, just to see what? And I said this is the dog trainers. And he very proudly said he's never been to a workshop or seminar.
Speaker 2:He was proud of it too, Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am self-taught Me too. Yeah, self-taught people. Or I learned from my trainer and that's all I ever needed. And, yeah, yeah, it's almost afraid of education.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, because they're going to find that you know what it's like. Ignorance is bliss, and I don't mean ignorant in a negative way, or I'm not trying to diss anybody. It's just if you don't know something, you are ignorant to it. Ignorance is bliss, and sometimes educating yourself. People are fearful because then they'll find out that they don't want it. They want to stay doing what they're doing. They don't want anything that's going to tell them otherwise, because then they will almost have to change. Because you can't unlearn something Once you've learned it. It's pretty much there. Now you can ignore it, but you can't unlearn it. Yeah, so they will shun it and they're a little bit afraid of it.
Speaker 2:And I find that also, once we learn something about learning, the more we know about how learning works, that we actually learn better ourselves. So the irony is that they're blocking their own learning and their own growth by not learning as much as you can about learning. It's a beautiful thing. I also have this pet theory that we tend to treat our dogs the way we treat our inner child or other people in our lives, and so it's the more kindness we can bring to dogs, the more empowered we are ourselves.
Speaker 2:I think there's a certain set of restrictions that sort of culturally, have been put on, say, the emotionality of men. There's restrictions on ways people can be in the world, and I see those restrictions then being put on dogs, and the more we allow dogs to be dogs, the more we allow ourselves to be our full selves, and so there's a lot of joy that really comes from, really that final flipping of the switch to hey, actually I'm not going to go into punishment, because who am I to do that to a dog? To say, actually I know better than you. And yeah, there's certain safety situations that we can train, but we can train those without needing to use aversives.
Speaker 3:My background. I had a dog growing up and we never had a prom collar, we had the choke chain growing up and my parents did not have any formal dog training at all, so it was all about rolled up newspapers and shoving their nose in it and that sort of thing. My dog was not well-behaved in terms of knowing what the family wanted and then doing it, because he never really got any of that training. But I loved him so much and I wanted to be able to train him and communicate with him. That's what I wanted. It wasn't about the training, it was about the communication. I wanted to have that relationship with him and I couldn't have put it into words when I was a kid, but I really liked having a connection to animals. I felt like there was a connection and I wanted a way to have a better connection with animals and my whole life. That's what I was looking for.
Speaker 3:I was fascinated by big cats and I decided I was going to go into zoology and be a zookeeper so that I could work with big cats, because in my mind that was the only way I could work with big cats was to become a zookeeper, which I did and I think interestingly enough, when I started working with tigers and a cougar, I was actually assigned a cougar and we were taught clickers and I had never been introduced to clickers before. And one of the reasons we were taught clickers is because you were not in the habitat with the animal. You were actually training them outside the bars. There was literally no way to apply an aversive because you had the bars between you. And even for some of the animals that we did go in with some of the tigers one of the lions just try it right. Just try to use an aversive on a tiger and see where that gets you it was not an option.
Speaker 2:There were several stories about where that gets people. Yeah.
Speaker 3:People do try it. But typically if you want a cat to do something for you, you ask them very nicely and you make it worth their while. And when I went into dog training after I worked with big cats, it made sense to me to use the same methods Because if I didn't need to use a big stick for a cat, for a tiger, then I didn't need to use it for even aggressive dog, right, Even a dog who could hurt me. They couldn't do any worse to me than one of the tigers could have and I could easily train that dog if I needed to behind a fence, just like I did with the tigers. I didn't ever I pretty much always train dogs the rest of us do without a kennel in the way. But it just didn't make any sense to me that I would need to use any kind of aversives with a dog if I didn't need to use them with big cats. And that's a mentality I brought to training.
Speaker 3:When I first started working with people, although I didn't have much experience training dogs, I found that I was given a lot of clients that had aggressive dogs, that had dogs with behavioral issues, because the other trainers weren't sure how to approach it. They were either being told that they couldn't use positive reinforcement because that dog wouldn't respond to it, or they were being told that, or they had used punishment training in the past because they were told that they needed to and then the dog had become aggressive. A lot of the fallout from this sort of military or traditional style dog training is that some dogs respond to it and they become trained dogs in a way that you talked about, almost like a machine. Some dogs respond to it and completely shut down and turn off, and some dogs become really aggressive.
Speaker 3:And a lot of the dogs that turn off or become aggressive in the past were considered untrainable, so they were then euthanized and the only dogs that were left were the ones that were trained with these methods, which became the sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, I think of. You have to train dogs like this and oh, if they're an untrainable dog, then you can't train them anyway. And that's really what positive reinforcement brought, I think, to dog training is that these dogs that could not handle this military style method of dog training suddenly were trainable and they didn't have to be euthanized anymore. But there is still this sort of traditional military mentality to dog training, to traditional dog training that if you can't do it one way, then that's it. Those dogs aren't worth training, and I think the same is true with people. There's this the if you can't do it positively, then you shouldn't be doing it at all.
Speaker 1:Here's a thing that I do try to remind people of. First of all and you mentioned, the pet trainers, or pet dogs the majority of dogs aren't trained, period in this. That's right, this is a great period 8% is the last dat that I read 8% of people, 8. Like any formal training at all you utilize any type of professional dog training services. Right, you probably do whatever they do at home, but 8%.
Speaker 2:We need more positive TV shows 8%.
Speaker 1:So, first off, let's start there. Most dogs aren't trained at all, of any kind. So it's not really that all of these dogs are being. All of them have on prong collars and e-collars. It's like most dogs don't get trained at all. I think that it's again. Everything is magnified on social media. I can't even tell you If I'm on the bout, which is not a lot, but if when I'm out and about in the streets or whatever OK, let's say, every now and again I go to the mall in DC around the Capitol and all that, I take my dog there and it's really fun and tons of people and tons of dogs Can't even tell you when I saw a dog with a prong collar on and definitely haven't seen a dog with an e-collar on, and these are dogs walking amongst all these people and bikes and scooters whizzing by them, and probably most of them haven't been to a training class either. If I'm being honest, I don't know, maybe they have, but going by the stats I just said, chances are they weren't. So my point is that for the most part, I think dogs are the people that keep their dogs at least we know the whole dogs that end up in shelter and that's a whole, separate issue in a whole, another podcast for another day. But the people who are devoted to their dogs and keep their dogs, whether they formally train them or not. I think most dogs are OK in this world. I think that social media gives the impression that there's all of these dogs, all of these terrible problems and all of this terrible stuff being done. I really don't think that's the case. My facility services 98% of the people that can even I do all competitive dog obedience and agility. I offer all those programs.
Speaker 1:Majority of pet people who just want their dog to not yank their arm out of their socket and listen to them a little bit and come back one call. They want very simple things. So the majority of people that come through that's what they want and the majority of dogs that come through positive reinforcement works beautifully for them Once their guardians commit to doing it. There might be 1% and I'm just throwing out percentages. I've never done any really study on it but there's percentage that actually need private and like me just teaching a group class on what positive reinforcement techniques to use and nine times out of 10 using food, they're fine. That small percentage OK.
Speaker 1:We need to do some more things, not adversives, but dig a little bit deeper and pull them out and go one on one and you know what. We might have to use toys. We might have to use some other motivational things. We might have to use some classical conditioning. We might have to oh, here's a good one that a lot of people would shake their head at when I tell them I have used scent as the reinforcement. That's like I said, maybe 1% If that has to be pulled out, and OK, let's, we have to do something different with your dog. Again, that's the point when people go to adversives. That's the point when people go to the prong collar. That's the point when people would go to the E-collar because they don't know and they don't know where else to go.
Speaker 1:I always try to say and this is where I think, where a lot of the dissension comes because in a sense, depending on how we put that, we are essentially telling people who are using versives and corrections and punishments in their programs.
Speaker 1:We're telling them you don't know how, you don't know what else to do Now, so we got to make sure that's not the way we're saying it, but we need to encourage them to become more educated, because then they will learn more things that they can do and they will be less likely to resort to punishment and physical corrections. To each the dog, certain behaviors. Yeah, we just have to watch. That's why we do need to watch what we say. Words do matter. We need to watch how we say it, what we say, and that's part of the bridge that I was talking about Earlier. You have to be able to communicate with people in a way that doesn't right away slam, put up a wall and slam the door on their face, or they're never going to change Right when we yeah, I think that's a really excellent point that it is that the crux is that positive reinforcement at one level of education does most of the work and there's more.
Speaker 2:And I think that I've talked to so many people who call themselves balance trainers Again a phrase that I would prefer to reclaim that, because balance means something totally different and much more positive to me.
Speaker 2:But anyway, people who are still using the versives are they're like what you think, we don't know positive reinforcement and I'm like I can see that you're using it and I've theoretically said I'm open to maybe using a versive for the last 20 years but I've never needed them because I have a wall that says this is a big deal to cross this line for me, and so I'm going to keep digging deeper. And that's where BAT came from, that's where going to conferences, going to seminars, so that I do have the tools for, okay, this didn't work, but what else is there. And that's where colleagues come in. And I think when people are maybe educated through a smattering of intro videos on social media, that they think that's all.
Speaker 2:Positive reinforcement is, but it's like there's a whole other depth to it and I have a master's degree in mathematics and it's if people are like I can't solve that with my seventh grade mathematics, so mathematics must not be able to solve this problem. I'm like there's like a lot more. And that tone is probably not the right tone, which is to say there's more right, there's more out there and there are there's opportunities for you to yes, you've specialized in this other way of doing things and that works for you and that's nice to have in your back pocket. And do you know about control and lease? Do you know about BAT? Do you know about play way and just even the nuances of positive reinforcement itself? Do you know about all of those ways to do things?
Speaker 3:I always consider myself a good clicker trainer, like good positive reinforcement. I really leaned into clicker training when I started training dogs and then I went to a conference where Kay Lawrence was speaking. I don't know if either of you ever listened to Kay I had never even heard of Kay at that point this is fairly early on and she was the keynote speaker. So I was like, okay, well, like this'll be good, like it's a clicker class, so maybe I'll learn something new. I don't know and you know, but I went to that seminar and, oh my God, my mind was blown. I was like, holy crap, there's a whole, like there are so many more layers to it that I even realized and I will never be so good she she just opened my eyes to, to the depth of connection and communication you can get using doesn't have to be a clicker, but using that bridge different kind of bridge than we were talking about before to create a communication, a two-way communication between you and the animal. And, again, in ways that I had not even fathomed, that I thought I was a good clicker trainer and I'm not bad, but I had no idea it was just mind blowing.
Speaker 3:So even those of us who consider ourselves positive reinforcement trainers and would definitely avoid aversives. Wow, like there, there is so much more, even for us. So I think it's always good to remember that too, that there's so much more out there for all of us, not just. You can always tweak what you're doing and maybe get a little bit better. Even if you're not going to aspire to be K Lawrence, which I can't even imagine, you can aspire to be a slightly better version of yourself, whether whatever you see as better, not what somebody else sees as better, but improve your skills, like in any way you can. I think that's always a really great starting point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and sometimes from a conference or a seminar. There's one gem I've been training for 20 years, lori like 37, 35. It's yeah, we know most of it Right, and what we think is most of it, and sometimes it's I'm blown away entirely, and sometimes it's ooh, that turn of phrase I never thought of, or that timing, or I never thought of putting the treat here, and it's the nuance that makes a difference. And so it's the difference between box cake and a master chef making a cake. It's like when I watch Cherig Patel train, I'm always in awe, for example, and so it's yeah, there's anytime I watch another professional work. Actually, there's always some aspect of what they do that I'm like, ooh, there's something there, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love those moments. I also it's validation, because it's funny. I've been to seminars where the speaker will say something and I'm like, yeah, I do that. I've been doing that. I didn't know that's why I was to connect the dots, but I've been doing that because that just felt right to me, and then they just validate it. That's pretty cool and that's something that I think would be really great moments for some of the more traditional trainers to get, because they might they're gonna just like you already said, they're gonna find moments that, oh well, I agree with that, yeah.
Speaker 1:They're gonna find a lot of moments like that, yeah, and that's very validating and hopefully would make them feel good, right, not trying to make them feel worse. Education should not make you feel worse. It's to make you feel better and more empowered. That's what we hope they will come out. And one thing I did want to say real quick is that, unfortunately, in addition to educating the trainers and I know that's what our focus is for today and also for our webinar that we'll be doing, grisha but we got to educate the public too, because a lot of the pressure that a lot of these trainers have is coming from the public that want this fixed right now. Here, I'm gonna throw all this money at you. I need you to fix this in three weeks, whatever. Fill in the blank and not to say that I get it, why some of them might feel like, okay, I gotta do this because this owner has paid me such and such money to stop this, and in three weeks, or you think you might have to save the dog's life, right?
Speaker 3:If you don't stop this immediately, the dog is gonna go.
Speaker 1:And that is what is used very often. We're saving dogs' lives. We're saving dogs from being euthanized. That's what is set. That is the justification for using various different aversive tools. If not for this, that dog would have been euthanized. So it's hard to combat that and that's because of the general public is not educated enough to understand that the long-term success could be and I feel will be. But I'll say, could the long-term success could be greatly enhanced by using positive reinforcement, this whole notion that training is a sentence with a period at the end where you take your dog for training period, whereas I like to view training as a journey, it's a continual thing.
Speaker 1:When I To a relationship and you're talking about the zoo, experience was brilliant, because I say that a lot to people where we beat dogs up because we can, we can beat them up Even the most aggressive dog. If we put Lock them down with Hannibal Lecter, his stuff on their face and whatever they can be beaten, they would a whole MMA fight. We've seen it because recently, with videos and things that are going on, that's exactly what he does. That's an MMA. That's MMA. There's no other way to put it. You guys know what MMA is right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big commercial arts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what that is okay. So people look at it and some people are entertained by it, Some people are awed by it.
Speaker 2:Some people feel like, oh, I finally have power.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't do that to a cougar, like you just said. You can't do that to a gorilla. And yet we can train them. Yet we can. There are brilliant animal trainers who can get them to do incredible things. I have one friend that worked with some of the sea mammals and getting a humpback whale to turn on his side to allow for it to be given an inoculation. Now you can't beat him up to get him to do that.
Speaker 3:One of the best tricks in the world is getting something not to eat you as a human. If you can get away with not being eaten or bitten by a dog, I think that makes you an excellent trainer. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And people always say, well, what would you do different? And I said I've almost been answered it. I said I show you what I do. It's just not exciting to you, right? You know what would I do if I had one of those dogs with one of those aggressive, big, scary breeds that people think need to be treated that way? You know what? You might not even see me on camera because I'd be sitting maybe about 15 feet away tossing treats for weeks, months maybe, until that dog comes a little bit closer and is more willing to be open to me.
Speaker 2:People don't want to watch that and that's some end case right that it takes that long. Of course, it's generally not the time scale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, educating the public is also needed. I think that would help greatly because then they wouldn't be putting pressure so much on a lot of dog trainers to fix things in a finite period of time.
Speaker 3:So I did have a really quick question for both of you about that situation of okay, let's talk about shelters, shelters, use that a lot.
Speaker 3:There are some shelters out there that are definitely only about the positive reinforcement training with a dot dot dot instead of a period, and helping their adopters really work with the dog as they go. But there are a lot of shelters out there that are like no, we have to use these more versive methods because it's going to save more dogs' lives. I was in a seminar recently where somebody asked that question and they were completely shut down. They're like what else can we do? And she was asking, very from her heart I want a different solution. What can we do when our shelters are full, when the dogs are behaving in a way that is not getting them adopted and we don't want to have to euthanize them, what do we do? And she was completely shut down in that seminar and told she just couldn't do X and it was really frustrating for her and it was frustrating for me too, because I've been on both sides of that in terms of being at shelters where we were euthanizing really lovely animals that had behavior issues that people just wanted fixed.
Speaker 1:Now For me, it would depend on what is the behavior issue that needs to stop right now. That would keep a dog from being adopted, because all the things I can think of would be aggression.
Speaker 3:But barking would be a big one that people get frustrated by and so the dog doesn't stop barking. Then they bark a lot in the shelter, or dog reactivity on leash is another big one that shelters have a lot going on with. That aren't quick fixes, they really aren't. Barking is something, of course, dog bark. But being able to keep a dog from barking in a way that is not working with the family or being reactive to other dogs so they can be walked, are two big issues that do come up a lot in shelters.
Speaker 2:So my answer would be we want to look at the more systemic zoom out, because if we're just looking at one dog at a time, then you have this false deadline of it has to happen in this certain way.
Speaker 2:And so the question is, first of all, if you just zoom out from that a little bit, is it really true that the caregivers are not willing to have this dog as part of an outpatient kind of class or whatever, so that they adopt the dog and then the shelter is offering the service to them via zoom or via some other way? So that's the first question is it true that they really aren't being adopted for that reason? Then the other is time scale. So obviously fosters are hard to come by, but can there be an outreach for more fosters? Can there be? If you were to look at zooming super out, can you fundraise for a bigger, like some space, like curtains, enrichment there's all these things that are often like just systemically not put into place that can calm the dogs down so that their baseline stress level is lower. Looking at diet, looking at walking them using bat style walking versus like they have to be healing, doing ace enrichment work those things can make a huge difference, even though they feel small.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Well, I was just going to say dogs aren't perfect. Going to however you get your dog, if you're getting them thinking that they're going to be perfect, then that's an issue right there. I feel like if a person is adopting a dog, let's use barking. If they're going to put a bark collar, a bark shop collar, on the dog, well, the dog stopped barking for a time, sure, but is that a way for that dog to live? Is that really an expectation that someone should be given a dog that, okay, this dog we're going to make livable for you and you have to put this on your dog and keep it on your dog all the time? First off, that's not realistic. They're not going to do it. There's going to be times when the batteries are on the thought or something happens, that bark collar is not on the dog, and then the dog becomes a dog again. And now what are they going to do? I feel like when they have, when aversives and particularly aversive tools have to be used to keep a dog in check, that's going to fail at some point and it's not something that you can maintain and it's also not something that the average person would be able to maintain. So I just think it's unrealistic premise to begin with. If people really want a dog, they really have to accept the dog as is and then work with the dog.
Speaker 1:A lot of people get a project dog. That's what a lot of dogs are and they were. A lot of my clients have a project dog. They had, they adopted a dog, they fell in love with them and the dog has issues and so they're working on it. Then they didn't get the dog, expecting the dog to be perfect, that or the shelter to make them perfect. Before they got the shelter was upfront about what the dog's issues were and the people loved the dog and got them anyway. And then they're working with the dog. So I think that's the best way to get the dog as is and then work with them. I just think it's unrealistic to try to change the dog to make them more palatable for a person who otherwise wouldn't want them. That's the way I feel and, like I said, I know a lot of people probably don't like that.
Speaker 3:I actually really like that answer. I think that changing our expectations of what we expect a dog to behave. They're so disnified for our culture, our expectations of a dog. The dog I just adopted, for instance, snapped at my daughter and for a lot of people that would be a red line. Oh, you snapped at a child, then you're out of here. She actually caused less damage to that, my daughter, by snapping at her, than my cat did literally the day before by scratching her, and very few people would consider giving up a cat for a cat scratch right, like my daughter was too rough with the cat and she scratched her and she was crying.
Speaker 3:She was really upset by it. So you were playing with her very rough, and I think she was telling you that, and then, when the dog snapped at her, the look on her face was horrified. That dog could have really hurt me, yes, but she didn't. She barely touched you and she was giving you some really good information that you should learn from Don't try to take her toys away when she's playing with them, and that's something that I'll work on the dog with as well, now that I know that this is an issue. But I was even myself.
Speaker 3:I found myself initially going, oh my God, she snapped at my daughter Like this could be a problem, and then, when I really thought about it, I was like, yeah, but there's nothing. She didn't escalate. My daughter has been rude to her quite a few times since we adopted her and which again working on, but she has been very clear with my daughter what her expectations are as for their relationship, and my daughter was not listening. I think it was actually perfectly reasonable for her to snap at her in terms of their relationship and that communication needing to flow Because my daughter might go up to another dog someday that isn't going to give her such communication and really get hurt. So I'm actually thankful for this dog in terms of her snapping at my daughter in a very productive way, I hope, and that she will learn from that, because I think that it is actually a much better scenario than what it could be later on, and dogs are just trying to express their needs.
Speaker 2:They're just trying to meet their needs in some way, and that's what behavior is for. And so if we just suppress their behavior, then we're not meeting their needs. And who are we to say that our needs are the ones that are important and theirs are not?
Speaker 3:Lori, let me ask you if you would quickly share a early childhood memory of your first connection with animals. Why do you feel this connection with animals? What happened?
Speaker 1:Wow. So here's, I guess you could call it an animal. Oh boy, now you guys are probably really curious what I mean by that. Actually, my earliest connection was, I can remember, when I was about two my mother tells me I was two. So this was in Philadelphia, in my kitchen, and I was riding on a little white toy that was a poodle, a white poodle and I named her Fifi, and I was scooting in the kitchen. I remember that and I remember that because that's the moment I fell in love with dogs. It wasn't a real dog but my Fifi toy, and I can picture it right now Me scooting along.
Speaker 1:From then on, my mother said everywhere we went, if there was a dog there, I was fixated. I was riding in the stroller, fixated on dogs. So I have been fixated and it's primarily dogs. I like cats a lot too, but it's primarily dogs. I love all animals, but I feel the connection with dogs. From that moment on I was connected to dogs and I can't remember a time in my life I wasn't. I was the person you guys have probably seen that meme of if you're at a party and the host has a dog. I was the one in the corner playing with a dog. Now I'm very social with people as well, but I gravitated to any dog that I could. I don't remember any other first moment other than a Fifi in the kids. Ever since then, dogs have been the focal point for me since then.
Speaker 3:I had a giant stuffed lion that I found at a garage sale and his name was Barney. He was real. He was so real to me. There you go.
Speaker 2:I have a golden or silver name, Barney actually Before Barney was so I remember. So this is my earliest dog memory is in my family there are more dogs than people. Generally, if you look at our history together, there's more dogs than people. At one point there was actually 20 dogs on the land that we were on. Most of those were puppies, though, but this memory basically I'm being babysat by my older siblings. I was the youngest at the time. I was probably four, three or four. Somebody was painting the bathroom and with blue paint, and somehow all of the puppies ended up being very blue.
Speaker 2:I don't remember exactly how, but I'm pretty sure that was all on purpose. So mom and dad came home, or mom and my sister came home and all the puppies were blue.
Speaker 1:That's my other memory.
Speaker 2:I have a less positive other memory. If I want to share, hear one, but that's all.
Speaker 3:I could just leave it with that I would hear it if you want to share it.
Speaker 2:These first memories are not always positive, I have found when I ask these questions, and so there was another memory later, probably I was seven, I want to say seven or eight and there was one of our dogs was sleeping, and this was when my mom had gotten together with my stepdad and they had drama, and I went too close to the sleeping dog they say let the sleeping dogs lie and she reached out and bit me in the face and so I must have been pretty close. I think I fell on her anyway, and then my stepdad killed her. We were in the country, so that was not done by a vet and also he was not a nice man and it was in anger, to just make a point to us as well, and that lasted a very long time.
Speaker 2:So, yeah and so it's been probably part of my mission as to why I care so much about seeing both sides of the story and when. To save a lot of dogs. So that's what I do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those early memories, I find, really do connect people with what they're doing today.
Speaker 1:often they really do the mission they end up having in life.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing, Grisha. Let's start with you for this one. If there was a book that you could gift to all of the listeners, what would that book be?
Speaker 2:There's so many. I'm like a portable librarian. It's one of my favorite things in the world to recommend books to people, but I would say probably right now it's a toss up between a grief book and this one, and so I'm just going to say this one, which is transformation through intimacy, and it's about using relationship as a crucible for our own work, and just the joys of having conflict in relationship and being like, yes, we found another one, because this means that either I've got something to heal or you've got something to heal, and so we have an opportunity again to work on something, and so it's very specific. It's a relationship like an intimate relationship about awakened to monogamy, and so, fun fact, this is me coming out to the world, so I'm post poly, so polyamory means having more than one partner, and so at one point in my life I was like poly for life. I'm going to need, I'm like a multi partner person. And then later I realized you know what I was just running from myself. Awakened monogamy is basically.
Speaker 3:It seems like a lot of work too, it is like a full time job.
Speaker 2:So awakened monogamy is the applying all of the notion of we are here by choice to a monogamous relationship, and so it is a book I found several years ago and I just love it.
Speaker 3:So that seems like a really interesting read. Yeah, I definitely want to get that one. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, Laurie, how about you? If there was a book that you could gift to everyone listening right now? What would that book be?
Speaker 1:Well, I really it's been a while since I read it, but I really loved the book.
Speaker 1:All I really needed to know I learned in kindergarten and one of the reasons because it's very like we get bogged down with so many things and stuff that really, if we all live by simple premise of being caring, being caring, sharing with each other yeah, we just live by simple rules of life like that, the world would be a much better place.
Speaker 1:Number one I think it definitely falls in line with dog training, what we've been talking about today, and how we treat each other, how we treat dogs and animals. Unfortunately, I know that early on, grisha did mention about hoping that it trickles down, but it's sometimes it doesn't seem to, because I do know a lot of people who are actually very kind to animals but not kind to and I think you, marika, also mentioned this early on too they're not always kind to humans. So we need to extend that to all beings and I think I love the concept of what we were like in kindergarten when we were children and open to learning, open to the newness of life and learning and getting to know people, and we lose that over time as we age. But anyway, that's probably the book that I would give to someone if they haven't read it. A lot of people did read it. It's not the best seller for a long time.
Speaker 2:And I think Charles Swindle might be the author of that, who also-. I think, it's Fulgrim, fulgrim, yeah, oh, okay, then I'm thinking of somebody else, never mind.
Speaker 1:It's really a collection of they're like a bunch of essays, but I think other people there's been other books that have been similar or have drawn from that because that was a long time ago. I don't even know what year, but it's been a while.
Speaker 3:So for this last question, I generally ask people what's the deal with animals? But because this is a special episode, I will give you the option you can answer what's the deal with animals, or you can answer what's the deal with dog training.
Speaker 2:So dog training is a particular way of being with dogs that evolved from the way that the military was with dogs, and I think if we widen the lens and look at how to live with dogs in community, then the question of whether to use versives becomes different, because if you're trying to make behavior happen there and that is the only goal you can absolutely still use positive reinforcement for that, and there are times in which it seems like aversives are the quicker way, and if you are really looking to live in community with dogs, it makes it really clear that's not the way. So I'm going to leave it at that.
Speaker 3:Thank, you for that. I think that is a really good perspective because you're right, for at least in the Western civilization, our relationship with dog training has stemmed from military style training and there was actually dog training and being with dogs in the home, in the farm, in the fields. That was very different from military style dog training. But it changed in the last what 60 or 70 years is, when that sort of military style training really started taking hold and it changed our whole relationship with dogs. So maybe we do need to widen our memories.
Speaker 2:come back to reclaim some of that past relationships.
Speaker 3:Lori, are you ready?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So my sort of building on that dog training is a relationship, a partnership, and where you, as the human part, are helping your dog to live safely in this world. And it's a journey, it's ongoing. It begins the moment you bring the dog into your life and, just like any other relationship, it is give and take, no longer expecting the dog to be the one that makes all of the changes, meeting each other's needs and, in particular, the human. There's mostly the responsibility to meet the dog's needs because we're able to. They're not able to do the things that we can do, but, you know, treating them like a partner. How would your partner, how would you want your partner to treat you If you were in any type of relationship, a partner that was certainly abusive, whether emotionally or physically, or was constantly correcting and punishing you, being unforgiven.
Speaker 1:More than likely, that relationship would not last very long or it would be a very toxic one. Unfortunately, a dog cannot walk away from the relationship there in it, so I think we owe it to them to make sure we are always keeping ourselves in check. I like to end things at force. Free is a goal. That is what should always be the goal, whether it's with humans, other humans or whether it's with animals. That should be the goal and that's something that we should strive for as best we can and do our best. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing both of those answers and I really appreciate your time today. I can't wait for the webinar panel. Looking forward to it, and is there anything else? I know we want to let people know about your new podcast coming out as well, grisha.
Speaker 2:When you've already started. It's called the Lesson Is Love, and it's about applying the ideas that we are here as humans to maybe learn how to love better. And so it is me sharing some of the wisdom that I've gained as a dog trainer to people who are compassionate, caring, loving people and experts in their field. So change makers, who, ironically, haven't always applied the compassion that they could to dogs. And then also, this is about getting the dog world to broaden our lens and look at compassion in other ways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that sounds like a really fantastic podcast, and when is the panel? Let's let people know about that and how they can sign up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's September 20th. After that it will be available on demand. But the Q&A, if you want to participate in that is on September 20th from 10 am to, I think, noon Pacific time, and it can be found at schoolgrishastewardcom. Excellent.
Speaker 3:And Laurie, why don't you give us how people can get into contact with you? If they want to, they can hit me up on my socials.
Speaker 1:Same name on TikTok and Instagram theK9diva that's all spelled out K9diva, and I try to keep pretty good content coming pretty regularly on it. That's what I have going on right now. I actually have a podcast in the works and I'm also working on a book, but if they're not near the, these are just little teasers. They're things that will be coming, probably by the latter part of 2024 or by then anyway. So that's what I'm working on. But, like I said, they can hit me up on my socials. I'm there now and full of fit.
Speaker 2:As Laurie was mentioning the 2024, I'm like, oh, I have some things, so I have a bat 3.0 book that's in the works. Also, laurie, we might want to do some accountability writing together to get this done. And then I'm also going to be starting doing some grief experiences Weekend retreats for grief work, allowing people to basically cry together about dogs, so focusing on the dog folks, because I think actually a lot of the cruelty that we apply to each other is because there are ungraved losses and ungraved harms we have done to dogs. So, anyway, I think hopefully that will add to making the world a better place. There's so much grief in the world on a large and small scale.
Speaker 3:I think more dog trainers need their own podcasts because there is just some information that needs to get out to the wider public and podcasts are a super accessible way for people to get that information. You know, they maybe don't think they can afford having a private dog trainer or have the time to take classes to continue the training with their dog, but everybody can listen to a podcast in their car on the way to work or school or whatever it is, and we can get that information out there. That's my main goal for the next year or two is to help people start getting their podcasts out there. So I can't wait to hear your podcast. Lori and Grisha, thank you both for joining me today and thank you everyone for listening and helping us answer the question.
Speaker 3:What's the deal with animals? I'm your host, marika Bell. I'd like to thank Kai Straskov for the theme music and Natasha Matzart for sharing her skills to help grow the podcast. You can see links to the guest book recommendations, as well as their websites and affiliated organizations, in the show notes and at thedealwithanimalscom. This podcast was produced on both historical tribal land of the Snoqualmie and Kunal Indian nations. The deal with animals is part of the Iroar Animal Podcast Network.
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