Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Cooper City
Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
EP #312: Blas Cardenas with 5starK9Trainer
Ever wondered why your beloved four-legged friend seems to understand everything except your commands? Blas Cardenas, owner of Five Star Canine Trainer, reveals the surprising truth: we’re speaking the wrong language.
With nearly 30 years of experience transforming dog behavior across South Florida, Blas introduces a powerful concept—your dog isn’t a furry human.
“One of the most common mistakes dog owners make is humanizing their dogs,” he explains. Whether it’s a tiny Chihuahua or a towering Great Dane, your dog is essentially a domesticated wolf with specific communication needs that humans often miss.
🐕 In This Episode:
• Why emotional goodbyes can create dependency
• How greetings can unintentionally teach dogs to jump
• The danger of misreading cute behavior as obedience
• Tools and techniques for leash pulling, doorbell excitement, and more
• Why consistency beats intensity when it comes to training
• How to build respect and trust without force
Blas's approach is proactive, practical, and rooted in respect for the dog’s true nature. His insights can help transform even the most challenging behavior into a path toward a calm, obedient, and happy companion.
🏡 "A well-trained dog is a happy, happy home indeed."
📞 Contact Blas Cardenas – Five Star Canine Trainer
Website: www.5stark9trainer.com
Phone: (954) 305-5177
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, friends, family, wonderful community. Welcome back to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Yeah, I know a lot of you out there, myself included, have little furry friends, our little best friends. I got Charlie with me here, my little guy, and we have a really cool guest for you today. I'm here with Blas Cardenas. Did I get that right? Blas Cardenas? Yep, blas Cardenas Yep, you got it. Okay. Close enough, close enough for comfort. And Blas joins us from Five Star Canine Trainer. So we got a real life canine trainer and I've been trying my best to train my little pooches and I've had some success, but I've never actually spoken with a trainer before. So I am super excited to get into this. A lot to learn today. Blas, thanks for joining us, brother.
Speaker 3:Hey, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity of being here with you.
Speaker 2:Of course it's our pleasure. We love featuring local businesses. I'm not sure exactly. Would you live around the area here in Cooper City?
Speaker 3:Yes, I do. I live actually around the corner from Cooper City. I'm in Davie, in Forest Ridge, so I can literally throw a stone from my doorstep and hit Cooper City.
Speaker 2:Excellent, excellent, cool, all right. So without further ado, let's get into this. Why don't we start? Tell me a little bit about the business Obviously, everybody knows what a canine trainer or dog trainer does but tell us a little bit about your business, what you do specifically, and then we'll kind of get into the backstory behind it.
Speaker 3:Excellent. So you know, like we said earlier, my name is blast cardenas. I'm the owner, a five-star uh k9 trainer. Um, I've been working with dogs going on three decades now and basically what I do is because I am completely aware, and, um, one of the things that I like to do with my clients is we all love dogs. Do we properly understand them, canine companions, their family, pack members, so that the line of communication between them and their dog opens up?
Speaker 2:It's like a canine psychologist right Pretty much yep.
Speaker 3:Pretty much. Yep, I love chihuahuas.
Speaker 2:I love them all, of course, all of them. Yeah, dogs are just the best. I don't have anything else to say other than that.
Speaker 3:I cannot agree with you more. I love them to death.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I always thought that I mean, whatever business I was in was the wrong business. I needed to do something with dogs because I'm just unbelievably in love with them. I wanted to ask you what's a common mistake that dog owners make, without even realizing it, like what's the most common thing you see?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. I'm glad you're asking that. Well, one of the most common mistakes that dog owners make is humanizing their dogs, and it's called the word is called anthropomorphobia or anthropomorphobic, which is the attribution of human characteristics to a dog when they're not humans. They're not four-legged humans. So, again, that's where I like to help my clients to understand how to properly communicate with the dog, because humanizing them obviously is not the way to go.
Speaker 2:And we are all guilty of that because we are obviously humans at least most of us and we love our dogs as if they're humans in some cases more than humans. So naturally, that behavior is just going to extend over to them without us even realizing it. So important to learn about that. So when you say humanizing the dog, could you give me some examples, some behaviors that people attribute to dogs? One that I could think of is, I guess, feeding off the table. That kind of thing would probably not be good. What are some things that you see in the business?
Speaker 3:Feeding the dog off the table is a very common one, but one that it's super common is, for example, one. But one that it's super common is, for example, let's say, you're gonna leave your house and one of the main things that you have to realize is you have to. Here's the deal dogs are domesticated wolves. That's what they are, right? So from the smallest of Chihuahuas, like the one you got in your hand, to the biggest of Great Danes, in trait and in characteristics, they are a wolf that has been domesticated. So if I'm going to leave my house, I teach my clients don't generate excitement to the dog. Don't tell the dog oh goodbye, fido, I'll be back later, I'll see you later. Just leave, correct, grab your keys.
Speaker 3:If you have a crate, and I encourage to crate train the right way. There's a right way to crate train and there's a wrong way to crate train. So, obviously, do not generate any type of excitement when you're going to leave and do not generate any type of excitement when you're going to leave and do not generate any type of excitement when you get back. Now it's obvious we are as happy to see them as they are as happy to see us, but the problem with that is you create a dependency of excitement.
Speaker 3:Now, remember this I can do two things with a fire I can turn it off or I can make it worse. I can do two things with a fire I can turn it off or I can make it worse. So what you're doing is you are setting up the dog for failure, because now, anytime someone comes in that door, whether it be your cousin, your brother, a family member or a friend and the dog sees them, they're going to be excited. And you know, think about this for a moment. You know you want a well-behaved, well-mannered dog and it's kind of, you know, bad to have a family member come in the house and the dog's jumping all over them and acting radically. It's not the way you want to go, you know. And that's what part of humanizing does. It creates that wrong dependency on affection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm thinking about my little guys. They are guilty of that. But people the thing is with mine they're so tiny and they're so lovable that when they jump on people and they come, everybody seems to love it. They sit on the couch and they come up and sit on their lap and people just adore them. I think it's okay if you have, maybe if you have like little tiny dogs, but bigger dogs maybe not so much.
Speaker 3:Well, keep this in mind. And you're not nobody's doing it because they're mean or they're, you know they love their dogs. Again, like I said earlier, we all love our dogs. Do we properly understand them? Because that's when our line of communication improves. And, trust me, there's a saying in my business a well-trained dog is a happy, happy home indeed, what?
Speaker 2:what would be the best way? Just give some little advice out to folks out there that are struggling with their pets. What would be the best way to correct a bad, bad behavior like, let's say, for instance, the example that you gave. Uh, somebody comes over the dogs this happens all the time with me. Somebody knocks on the door, the dogs start barking like crazy. What's the best way to start correcting for that behavior, because it seems like a very, very arduous task. I've tried so many different things and I can't seem to nail that. What's one thing that I can do to start course, correcting for that and putting things in the right direction.
Speaker 3:That's a very good question. Well, here's the deal. Every job that we're going to do or we're going to get done requires tools, and not only tools, but the proper knowledge on using the tools. Just to give you a quick example if I hand you a guitar, it doesn't make you a musician, correct it doesn't. Or if I hand you a big, fat butcher's knife and a slab of meat, it doesn't make you a butcher it dog. You're following your dog. There's no neutral zone there. It's through that very um um, um, the positive use of a leash and knowing how to correct the dog the right way, because there's a right way to correct and there's a wrong way to correct. So you want to make sure that you educate yourself properly on how to properly correct the dog.
Speaker 2:So how does that, how does that? The leash play into while I'm in the house and the dog goes crazy. So let's just, let's play this through. I'm sitting here, my son's friend knocks on the door and then I get my other one, coco. He always goes crazy and the other one follows. What do I do in that moment? Are you saying that I should? I should leash them in that moment and have them like what, what? What should be the interaction? What should be the first, um, the first thing I do to start to try to curb that behavior?
Speaker 3:So I do encourage my uh, my clients, cause what I do with my clients is I give them knowledge and I give them tools, I teach them, I coached them on how to use these tools correctly. So let me just say this to give you a quick example, and I'm going to answer that question so every time you get in your car and you start your car, you're going to drive away. What do you do? You put your seat belt on right, because, because you're not going to gamble with the notion that you're going to have that three second to put it on before you get into an accident. And what is that called? It's called being proactive, correct, indeed. So let's say you're going to jump out of an airplane, what are you going to need? A parachute, because if you don't, you might ask, you know God, for forgiveness all the way down, but when you hit the pavement you're going to splatter.
Speaker 3:What's that called being proactive? So if I know I have people coming home or somebody's coming to my house to visit me, a friend, just like you, asked what I want to do is I want to be able to properly control my dog. So a leash would give me the ability to be proactive and control my dog so that he doesn't dart towards the person walking in the door. I'm able to control him, I'm able to correct him and teach him the proper manners so that he doesn't jump on the person walking in the door my, my, my family member, my friend, whatever it is and at the same time, I try to tell the people hey, I'm trying to teach my dogs some proper manners. Do me a favor, don't engage the dog until he's in a calm, cool, collective state of mind, because again, when the dog's excited, I address that I'm making it worse, not better. Okay, I like that.
Speaker 2:So let making it worse, not better. Okay, I like that, so let me just play this back for you.
Speaker 2:So if you have a planned visit, you know somebody's coming that's the opportunity to put the dog on the leash and control that behavior in that moment. And then again let the guest know. And then, obviously, if you have an unexpected random knock, you can't do that. An unexpected random knock, you can't do that. But if you do that enough when you have expected visits, hopefully that behavior will start to translate over and eventually you won't need the leash and they'll get trained correct, correct, I'm learning today.
Speaker 3:You got it takes, it takes it takes. Remember this consistency is the mother of skills, dogs. Dogs learn by repetitious activity and they learn by consistency, not how long you work with them. So the more repetitious you are and the more consistent you are with your dog, the more they're going to learn. But not only a leash. There's other tools that I provide. There's other tools that I provide, like, for example, the crate.
Speaker 3:When crate trained the right way, is a perfect and excellent tool to use. Now it could be used the wrong way. And so is another exercise called spot place training, where I can put my dog and have my dog relax there until I've given my dog the proper command or the proper release. Until now it's okay, we can engage. But in other words, is that getting that dog under that proper mental control? In other words, I like a calm, submissive and obedient dog? Yeah, and it takes work and it takes dedication, but the results are awesome, man, when you have a well-mannered, well-behaved dog, like some of my clients, when when they're walking their dogs outside and they see other dogs on a leash pulling uh, being reactive to distractions, and here you are walking your dog like you own the block, there there's a certain sense of accomplishment, but that's the work that you've put in to get your dog there. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's another one that I have issues with. My other dog, coco. When he goes out on the leash something about being outside on the leash he just pulls all the time and we've tried so many different things to pull back that behavior. And when he sees other dogs he just you know, I'm that guy in the neighborhood where my dogs are pulling. They're sweethearts. But if they see other dogs and a lot of times it's it's not all the dogs it's crazy how the energy that different dogs have there's some dogs that give off different energies and they make them go crazy and I've been unable to curb that behavior. Any tips or tricks for me in that realm?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely Learning how to properly master and use a leash, because, again, a leash is a tool. If you don't know how to use it the right way, the dog's gonna pull, the dog's going to want to control the walk instead of you controlling the dog and the walk. Does that make sense? So it's very important. You know, one of the things that I just that I don't encourage my clients is to walk dogs on a harness, because when you click that, when you have a dog on a harness, the dog controls you. You don't control the dog and then if the dog sees a squirrel or a cat or any distraction and you're not having that proper control, guess what the dog's gonna do? He's gonna be reactive and he's gonna control you. So, yeah, learning how to use the leash the right way is key to, uh, getting the dog under control on the walks hold that thought for a second.
Speaker 2:I want to on that. On that, uh-oh, they got excited because I went to get a leash. They think I'm digging them out. I stopped the harness. My wife started looking into it.
Speaker 3:Do you know what that means? Do you know what that means? What's that? So you just said that the dog got excited when you got the leash right. Yeah, dogs learn by association, so they associate the leash with a walk, of course. And guess what they do? They get excited.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, my wife. She started looking into training and she's done quite a bit with the dogs and gotten them to a good place with many of the behaviors. Um, we ditched the harness a while ago and got one of these leashes instead.
Speaker 2:That's flip not great yes, you're right, it does. When you use it properly and and control properly with it, it works. But the problem that I have sometimes is that it it slips down the neck and sometimes he pulls so hard it's, or it feels like he's choking him and it gives me cause for concern. It creates like more anxiety to me because I don't want to get hurt.
Speaker 3:Obviously, or maybe I'm just not using it correctly yeah, I, I, uh, you know, for for extreme pullers, I encourage um. Now let me say this some of the the tools that I use for dogs, um, there's misconceptions with them. For example, I have a belgian malinois. I don't know if you're familiar with the breed. It's, it's not a breed for everyone, it's the breed used by police and by the military and um, I use.
Speaker 3:When I first started working with them and up to this date, I use a prong collar. Now, the only thing wrong with a prong collar is the way it looks. It looks like something out of a medieval torture device. It looks like a torture device, correct, correct. But when you learn, when you learn how to use it the right way because it's all about knowledge right, right way, because it's all about knowledge right when you learn how to use it the right way in conjunction with a leash, it produces a phenomenal result where the dog walks with you the right way under any and all distractions and under any and all circumstances. But again, the key is learning how to use the tools the right way. I could be the best car mechanic in the world. You bring your car to me and I don't have the proper tools. I can't fix your car, or I have the best tools that money can buy, but I have no idea how to use them. The job ain't getting done. So when you combine knowledge with proper tools, the results are awesome, with long term results.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is really useful stuff. I know our listeners are going to get a lot of positive tips out of this and I wish we had more time to go through this, but I did want to inquire a little bit. I was checking out your website website and I saw that you are the official trainer for the dog trainer for the Miami Heat. Did I see something like that?
Speaker 3:Correct. I have worked with a lot of the Miami Heat dancers. I have worked with some like I've worked with I got the guy's name in the tip of my mouth Bruzinski from the Miami Dolphins. I've worked with Mouth of the South, jimmy Hart. He was Hulk Hogan's manager for quite a while. So you know I've been in this business a while man. I don't consider this a job. I love what I do, and if you love what you do, you don't work've been in this business a while man. I don't consider this a job. I love what I do, and if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life. I'm passionate, I'm consistent, I'm thorough and you know I don't want to seem arrogant or cocky, but I see myself as the best dog trainer in South Florida. Because conventional look everything has evolved. Everything. Conventional dog training is out the door. There's new methods to teach and train your dog that produce a phenomenal result, and that's what I do with my clients.
Speaker 2:Speaking of clients, obviously you live here, right by my area. Where do you typically service? Like how far will you go? Anybody's listening to this.
Speaker 3:I cover three major counties Miami, dade, broward and Palm Beach. Right now I'm at about easy to say, about a month and a half wait list. I have a prop oh yeah, I'm super busy. It's just me, and you know I'm going to when the time is right. I want to hire the right person, but it has to be the right person, man, because not everybody is cut out, cut cut out to do this job. You know, um, especially, you know you deal. Look, not every client is going to be the same and not every dog is going to be the same. So you have to learn how to identify the particular needs and want of that client to produce the right result that they're looking for, without going outside I guess you could say, the norms of your training system, and that's super important to produce the right result. But yeah, I cover three major counties.
Speaker 2:And how can we learn more, more? What's the best way to connect with you?
Speaker 3:maybe share your, your website and your contact information without you can you can go to my website, um, or you know, you can call me, uh. My number, you know my number 954-305-5177. Um. I have. I have done a lot of work with uh, with people around cooper city. As a matter of fact, there was um, um an event that cooper city had involving uh. I'm not sure if he's still the mayor or not, but the guy's last name was ross something okay.
Speaker 3:Well, when he was, I was the only trainer that um he invited. It was at some park over here by um 90th avenue and I attended the event and I got to meet a lot of great people. Man and I love cooper city. I love cooper city, I love davey yeah, truly a wonderful community.
Speaker 2:so we will of course, drop a link in the description to all of your contact information so folks out there can connect with you. Bless, this was fun See that.
Speaker 1:Unexpected noise outside.
Speaker 2:Right on cue, they're mowing the lawn out there. So before we go, that just happened. What do I do now? Assuming we're not on the podcast, they hear a noise outside and they start barking and run to the door. That just happened, what? What do I do now? Right, like, assuming we're not on the podcast, like they, they hear. They hear a noise outside and they start barking and run to the door.
Speaker 3:So you hear that craziness.
Speaker 3:That's a behavior that obviously, that's a behavior that you'd like, you'd want to correct, obviously. But you have to correct the brain. You can't correct the ears because, remember, when you talk to a dog like give you a quick example you tell a dog to sit three or four times after the first time that you told the dog to sit and the dog didn't sit, you gave them another three or four times to ignore you. They're not human. So you're talking to the ear. You need to talk to the brain so that the dog can comprehend hey, this is what my my master wants me to do. He wants me to do, he wants me to shut up because they're barking out there and I'm making noise. And, trust me, there's a proper way to do that. There's the proper tools, proper knowledge. The results are amazing. Man, I'd love to help anyone and anybody that has any questions. Feel free to give me a call. I always tell people, whether you hire me or or not, I'm always going to point you in the right direction love it.
Speaker 2:This, this conversation will will not end here. I'm going to be reaching out to you.
Speaker 3:I I anytime as many times as you want. Man, I, I, I. I'm awesome to meet great people like you.
Speaker 2:All right, man. Well, it was a pleasure. Thanks, as always, to our listeners for tuning in. I hope you got something useful out of this. Let us know in the comments what's your biggest takeaway. Is there something that was useful and who knows like? If you like this and you want more, let us know some more questions. Maybe we'll have Bloss back on the podcast to answer some more questions for us in the future.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. I appreciate it. It. I appreciate it. It was an honor to be here.
Speaker 2:All right, man Take care. Have a good day. God bless you. Thank you, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Cooper City. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to GNPCooperCitycom. That's GNPCooperCitycom, or call 954-231-3170.