August 9, 2024 • 34 mins
This week, my guest, Jean Donaldson, chats with us about how to be a smart dog training consumer.
We delve into both practical and ethical questions when it comes to finding a puppy class, and Jean shares the answers to her three questions you should ask any dog trainer:
- What exactly will happen if my dog gets it right?
- What exactly will happen if my dog gets it wrong?
- Are there less invasive/aversive alternatives to what you propose?
Visit our website, madcapradio.com for further reading.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
welcome to Madcap Radio.
Today it is my extreme pleasure
to be joined by Jean Donaldson.
Hi, Jean. How are you?
(00:22):
Hi, Jane. I'm very pleased to be here.
Long time no see. Long time no see.
Most of my followersare going to be familiar with you
from Puppy Culture, from the resourceguarding section,
which I have to say to this day,I feel that one section alone
has probably made a bigger differencein more lives of more puppies
(00:44):
than any other single sectionof that course.
So thank you for that.
I love everything about Puppy Cultureand I felt really honored to be part of it
and I'm just so excitedthat the people who watch it
are going to be doing anti resourceguarding prevention on their puppies.
It's great.
(01:05):
We're going to talka little bit more about that.
But I just want to introduce you,
your other side to peoplethat might not already know, the famous
Jane Donaldson, because she's a prolificwriter and teacher.
She is the founder of the Academyfor Dog Trainers
25 years now, and she's teaching coursesnow at Great
Courses, Dog Training 101she has up there, which I did take a peek.
(01:30):
And boy, it has gotten great reviews.
And now she's launching
short formcourses in the academy for dog trainers.
I want to just, that out of the waybecause that's your sort of bona
fides, right?
I want to add a personal noteto who you are and why
I love you so much. You
(01:54):
have a quality of staying above the fraywhen it comes
to the dog training blogosphere,which I appreciate very much.
And you also have an abilityto cut to the chase
incredibly efficiently.
Which brings us to why I invited you
to be with us today.
(02:15):
I'm working on a bookletto help puppy owners
find a good puppy course or a safepuppy course.
More to the point
and I came across, I'm working with LiliChin, and I came across this
infographic that you done with her, whichI just thought was absolutely brilliant
(02:35):
and I'm going to read it andthen you are going to talk to me about it
and it says; Be a smart
dog training consumer.
Ask what exactly
will happen to my dog if he gets it right?
What exactly will happen to
(02:56):
my dog if he gets it wrong?
Are there less invasive or aversive
alternatives to what you propose?
Really in three questions.
I'd like you to talk to our listenersabout
what kind of possible answersthey could hear to those questions
(03:18):
and what the significanceof those answers are.
Really importantbecause it is still the case
that dog training is not regulated.
It's not regulated in this country.
And there are many other jurisdictionsworldwide where
there is not any regulation.
Anybody can hang out a shingle
and do anything, call themselvesa dog trainer, take money for hire.
(03:39):
And that is a really alarming stateof affairs.
Now, you talked about sort of therebeing rather a fray in the blogosphere.
There's also a fray among dog trainingprofessionals, people who offering
courses and behavior servicesinsofar as their websites
may not be crystal clearabout exactly how they're going to train.
(04:00):
They may use all kinds of kind ofobfuscating language.
You know, we're going to use leadership
and pack dynamics and and energyand all this kind of stuff.
And then if you're somebody who's tryingto figure out, is this a good fit for me,
it's not very concrete, is itwhat do you mean energy?
What do you mean, leadership?
You know whatexactly is going to happen here?
(04:21):
And so what we encouragepeople to get is concrete answers.
What's going to happen to your dogin the physical world?
What literally is going to happen to himwhen he gets it right.
So is he going to get praised?
Is he going to just be told he's good?Is it going to get padded?
Is he going to get food?Is it going to get toys?
What combination of thoseis he going to get exactly?
(04:43):
Second, when he gets it wrongand this is where the kind of,
you know, the watershed is.
So if the dog gets a wrong response,what's going to happen to him?
Is it justthat he's not going to be rewarded?
Is he going to have a timeout?
Is he going to lose,
you know, access to something or somethingphysical going to happen to him?
Is he going to get corrected?
And if so,how is he going to have his ear cut off?
(05:06):
Is he going to have a little chain,you know,
that, you know, grabbed on his his neck?
Is there going to beelectric shock involved?
Are they going to call it something else?
You want to find out in really kindof granular detail in the physical world
what exactly is going to happenand then ask the person
if they're saying somethinglike, well, he's
going to get just,you know, through e-collar stimulation.
(05:26):
What exactly dig a little deeper,you know, an electric shock,
you know, in others.
So what what is in the situation out thereis that people who are still using
these kinds of devices to traindogs are increasingly aware
that the demand for that is falling,that people are increasingly aware
that you can train
entirely with rewards and reward removal,and that it works like a charm.
(05:49):
It's totally effective.
Big, big stack of research papersgrowing every year
that this is the way to doit doesn't have the side effect profile.
And so those trainerswho elect to train with electric shock
and with prong collarsand with any kind of special collar
or with poking dogs and kicking dogsor intimidating dogs,
they're awarethat their market share is in jeopardy.
(06:10):
And so they ‘ve, they've relied
and they've resorted to increasinglyobfuscating language and kind of trying to
sugarcoat what it is.
They don't want to saythey don't want to call a spade a spade.
And so for consumerswho don't want to train this way,
the onus is on the smart shopperto ask the questions and dig.
And if they say, well I am,I use these e-collar stimulation,
(06:31):
then ask the question, is there anythingless invasive, alternative wise
and they and if that person answersno, this is the only way
that can be done and the only waythat's going to work, walk away.
Because what they're sayingis just not true.
Would you not say
that if someone
says we use e-collar stimulation,
(06:54):
I mean, would you even really go toquestion three?
Would you be like, oh, have a nice day,I'll see you?
That's a good point.
Like, Yeah, if it were me,I would certainly counsel people,
given what we now know, thatthat's not a good answer.
And it probably would be grounds toto leave right away,
but you could sort of,you know, certainly,
(07:15):
you know, ask them and see if they come upwith, you know, just for curiosity sake,
do they think this didthey know that this is invasive?
And because that's sort of an extra strikeagainst him, if they're not even aware
that this is invasive, that they say,well, it's not invasive at all.
So what basically they're saying to youis that electric shock
is not an invasive wayto teach a living being.
(07:36):
Mmmm.
You know, it's interesting.
I think of it as sort of
like a cascade, right?
It's almost like,and there's some questions like one.
Okay.
There are some answers that I think ofas being sort of equivocal, like, okay,
tell me a little more like
if the dog doesn't get it right,we're going to show him.
(08:00):
What do you mean by show him?
Like that could be we're going to lure
which to me, I'm not a big lurer,but it's not going to hurt the dog.
Or it could meanwe're going to give him a correction.
We're going to compel him.We're going to push on his rear end.
And then these things,you know, that we don't think
of as mean, you know, punishing.
(08:23):
But, you know, they're aversive.
And it shows also a weakness in the skillset of the trainer.
So these are the kinds of,
if you had to listsome of these sort of code words
that are kind of like what youwhat I would call yellow words,
that you're like, okay,tell me a little bit more about that.
Like what would besome of those kinds of words?
(08:44):
I love how you framed that,and I love that you brought up
that particular one,which is showing the dog, right?
What do you mean, showing the dog?
Another one would be correct.
What do you mean by correcting the dog?
What happens in the physical world?
How are you going to correct himexactly with your body
or with some toolor with some some physical event?
(09:05):
Another one would be energy.
Beware the word energy.
Beware anything to dowith invoking pack dynamics,
anything to do with dogs as pack animals,and then they need leadership
and they need, you know, a desperateor they need direction.
That is all.
Not only is it antiquated,
but as you say,it could be code for something very harsh.
(09:29):
It could be code for strangulation
or, you know, kicking the dogor scaring the dog or shocking the dog.
That's another word to be careful of.
Anything that talks about natural,you know, in this day and age,
if you want to sell anything to anybody,the word natural is a word to bring in.
But in dog training, usually it'ssort of it's a bit murky, isn't it?
(09:50):
What exactly do you mean?
You're going to do somethingthat is natural.
Words like clear.
We're going to be clear to the dog.
Now. Are you going to be clear to the dog?
So whatever they come up with,if it doesn't describe physical events,
dig, keep digging.
And I love how you use the wordyellow language.
I mean, there are sort of a lot of wordslike that.
(10:14):
Right?
I think, you know,that's the difficult part.
And it's interestingbecause we have not compared notes
before having this conversation.
But I'm telling you,we're on the same page with this where
I'm a dog breeder. Okay.
So I'm sending these people outinto the world with their little puppy
and I do help them find a trainer.
(10:36):
But sometimes, you know, life is long.
They can get another trainerand not ask me or think,
Oh, wow, I couldn't get in that class.
I'll just this one sounds good.
And when I look
at these dog trainers websites,I see what you see, which is that
they figured outthat corrections, shock collars,
all these things are not, you know,punishment like people don't want that.
(10:59):
They want positive, they want light.
And even,I mean, some well-known chains that are
heavy correction,
you know, like dog training franchises,they have all over
the front of their website,We don't we never punish dogs.
We don't do any of that.
Like, my goodness, that's all you do.
(11:20):
So I think, you know,
the yellow words are the important onesthat you want to keep digging.
So let's see,what do we have so far if if you ask them
what will happen if my dog what was was itget it gets it right.
Right.
And what would be some of the thingsthat we definitely would be like, okay,
you know, I'm good with that.
(11:40):
Give me three things.
I'm okay with that. Food.
And really generous
and liberal use of foodand training is a flag of a good trainer.
It is a very strong universal motivator
with an entirely positive side effectprofile.
Works on virtuallyany being that's not sick or dead
(12:04):
and ispowerful and is very easy to dispense.
So it's a really good, so anybody who says
that that'sa very much a check in their favor.
If they talk about praise and patting,I always say that's
kind of neither here nor there.
Some dogs like praise,some dogs don't care.
Patting some dogs like it,some dogs don't.
(12:25):
So that's onethat is probably neither here nor there.
And then toys and play toys and play,I think are really useful in training.
And for certain breeds of dog,some of your drivey
dogs, your border collies in your,
you know, certain terriersand some of your Malinois was it's one
they're going to work all daylong for toys
but the dogs who won't it's not sort ofyou know, it's
(12:45):
not a flaw in their characterif they don't work for toys.
So really what we want to dois we want to use what works
and that the dog will work for,
the dog finds intrinsically valuable.
And so, you know, I hear I don't knowif I can come up with a third.
I mean, it really issort of both of the big three,
(13:07):
if anybody sort of tries to say that,you know, we're using ...
I saw a dog trainer websitethey were talking
about basically electric shockand talking about it being reinforcing.
And it was really kind of scary,the kind of Orwellian doublespeak
that they were doing, but that somehowthey're using it in a positive manner.
You know, it really defies belief.
But people will fall for this stuff.
(13:30):
Okay, Agreed.
So now let's go to yellow words.
I mean, showing was one of them.
You know, we're going to show the dogwhat to do.
You got to know what they mean by show,because show could be lure, which is fine.
And for people that don't know,that would mean like
if you want to get the dog to sit you,
you take a cookieand you put it in from the dog's nose
(13:52):
and you lift it upand you lure the dog into a sit.
But it could also meanI'm going to take the leash
and jerk it tight on the neck,straight up and slam
my hand on the dog's buttand make it sick.
I mean, those are bothcould be show, obviously.
The second one being one.
We don't want to go to that dog trainerin the first one we do.
(14:14):
So that's one.
Let's can we think of two more yellows?Yeah.
Yes. Showingthe dog is definitely a red flag.
Showing the dog tends to
be vague, like yousay, could be good news.
It could bethat we're going to help the dog
get it rightnext time in a noninvasive manner.
Or it could be that we're going to be kindof, you know, pushing him around
(14:36):
or jerking him up or pulling up ona collar, cutting off his ear and so on.
Anything to do with the word correction or
correct,correction or correcting the dog, or.
Wouldn'tyou say that would be more of a red?
I mean, if we're going to go green,yellow, red.
Really I think that it could be just thatwe're going to say to the dog, you know,
(14:57):
I know, try again.
You know, that that was we're just like,you know, occasionally
it's a it's language.
It you still see it is one of those sortof, you know, weasel words
that generally speaking, you and I,because we're in the business,
we know that correction tendsto mean leash correction
or some means of intimidatingor hurting the dog
(15:19):
to show him that he was wrong.
But but be careful because, you know, itis it's a word
that you'll still see out therea fair amount.
You'll see words in front of it.
So you might see a modifierin front of it,
something like appropriate correctionsor gentle correction.
Oh, yeah. Natural corrections.
You know, you'll see words like thatwhich it, has soften it up a little bit.
(15:42):
But beware, ask what do you meanwhat physically is going to happen
if you see that?
And then the third thingI would be really careful about
is anything to do with energy leadership,
pack dynamics.
We're going to be the leader of the pack.
We're going to, you know, make surehe understands dogs feel most confident
(16:03):
and they feel most secure when they knowtheir place in the hierarchy.
This kind of gobbledygook language,which not only is inaccurate
from a scientific point of view,it's inaccurate,
but it usually is code for the waywe're going to show the dog.
What his place in the hierarchy is,is by scaring the crap out of him.
If he does something we don't like. Right.
(16:25):
But it also, you know, interestingly,I have seen a leadership
pack in some positive dog trainers also
because it's not you know,
it's something that the puppy ownersometimes, I think they feel the puppy
owners can understand it, like thatyou're going to I'm going to teach you
to be your puppies leader and leader.
(16:46):
I mean.
They may very well understandif I say, you know, your puppy is a is a
you know, a matrix dot printer,you know, but it's inaccurate.
It's not true.
It's not true.
But I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't
it's not a red wordlike code red for me is correction.
If they say correction, No, I mean ...
That's why I would put, you know, energyleadership in packs in yellow
(17:09):
where you want to check
is somebody just throwing on that languagebecause they don't know any better.
And in fact, they're going to trainusing food and using play
and they're going to do so competently.
If so, all is well.
But if they're talking about, you know,pack dynamics and leadership and so on,
and what they mean by that
is they're going to hammer the dog,going to scare the dog.
(17:31):
They're going to, you know,
cut off his ear electrically, shock him,big prongs in his neck and so on.
Then run.
Okay.
So is but I have another question for you.
But before we moveon, would you say that sort of covers it
for puppy owners as far as
what if the dog gets it right?
(17:51):
What if it gets it wrong? Yeah.
The other thing I would just addin, this may be too far outside the bounds
of what we're trying to talk about,but if they're hunting for puppy classes
to find puppy classesthat allow free play,
that's somethingthat's terrifically important.
There was a trend a couple of years agowhere just somebody in a,
you know, kind of clickbaitfashion were trying to say, we know what
(18:15):
in puppy classeswe should be teaching puppies to calm
and do down stays and lie downand be calm and control.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Rather than engaging in speciesnormal interactions and learning
to become social.
And I think that luckilythat fad has passed and it flies
in the face of everything we knowabout sensitive periods and socialization.
(18:37):
So I would, I would caution people awayfrom puppy classes that say free play
is somehow dangerous.
Or it teaches dogs to be excited orteachers don't speak over, socialize, etc.
There's just no such thing.
I mean that that is dangerous malpractice.
Interesting I have not seen that.
But that's a good point.
What I would add to that, though, is that,
(19:01):
a flag for me is when you have
a puppy classwhere they let five month old puppies
into a puppy group, To me, freeplay is for up to 12 weeks, right?
Maybe 14 for some, 16for some very neotenous breeds.
But, and I believe in playgroups for dogsbut it should really be a dyad, right?
(19:25):
Once they get over
12 weeks old, it should be two puppiesthat are well-suited to each other.
They're justthat's the possibility of real aggression.
That’s a really good point,that in puppy classes you want to have
age, you want to have peer to peer play.
There's a huge difference between athree month old and a five month old dog.
And so, yes, you want to make surethat that the puppy class
(19:47):
is puppies that are in the same age group.
Right. And the free play is through.
Among age mates. Yes.
So them.
Okay.
So then we get to,is there a less invasive way,
the question three
which you know,by the time you get to question three,
(20:09):
I mean you've eliminated a lot of people,right?
That's a true fact. You know, it is.
You have it's just that, you know,when you're trying to shop for anything.
So if you're you know,you've been offered your options
for cancer treatment, you're being offeredyour options for a surgery.
You know, you always want to just ask,you know, what are the alternatives?
What else can I do?
(20:30):
Is there any other alternative to this?
And so if somebody offers youa training intervention
and look at somethingthat's a little bit ambiguous
so they talk about rather than, you know,talking about electrically shocking
your puppy, they're talking about,you know, pushing down on his rear
or, you know, holding him gently in placeand so on.
You know,I think that question can then bring out,
(20:53):
you know, so they say
whether the trainers competentthey think, well, yeah, well we can also,
you know, lure him in a positionor wait for him to do what we want
or help him in this mannerto get it right.
That can sometimes, you know,prompt the trainer away from you
if they have more thingsin their bag of tricks.
Now that does beg the question, as youpoint out, that if the trainer has those
(21:14):
available to them, why are they not usingthat as their first line of defense?
Why are they not doing the leastinvasive thing right out of the gate?
And so I take your point.
It's well,it's interesting because you and I did
have this conversation offline earlierwhere I had raised
this question in the Puppy Culturediscussion group.
(21:35):
And a lot of people, surprisingly,or maybe not so surprisingly,
gave me a little bit of pushback about itand said, well, listen, I mean, some dog
some dog trainers that use shock collars
like on their competitiondogs are really better puppy trainers.
You know,they don't use shock collars on on puppies
and they're better puppy trainersthan a lot of pure positive.
(21:57):
And, you know, my answer is yes,I do believe that.
I mean, just because you use aversivedoes not make you an incompetent
doesn't mean that you couldn't be greatwith a clicker and and food.
The difference for meas a breeder is when I send my puppy owner
out into the world, if they go to someonewho has that on the table, you know,
(22:19):
the shock collar is on the table,the pinch collar is on the table.
There is a possibility that that will
at some pointbe suggested to my puppy owner.
If I go to a pet professional, it'syou know, which there
if anything I mean ideologically extremelythe other way.
(22:39):
I know that nothingis going to happen to my puppy.
I mean, if I send themto one of Jean's trainers,
I know that nothing is going to be thatthat's not on the table for my puppy.
So it's not even a question of competency.
It's a questionof keeping your puppy safe.
Which brings me to my next question,which is why does it matter so much?
(23:00):
Why does it matterso much that we find these trainers
that are pure positive, that don't useany aversive or punishment on puppies?
The great question, what's one thatwe don't we sort of take for granted
that we know the answerbecause we do, right?
I mean, the answers really twofold.
One is basically basic ethics,which is, you know, animal welfare wise,
(23:24):
if you can achieve an outcome
without scaring and hurting your your
what you call your best friend,you're you're morally obligated to do so.
And the second has to dowith the side effect profile.
So even if you don't careabout the welfare of your dog,
if you elect aversive methods,
(23:46):
they're well documentedto carry the side effect of fear.
There are a lot of things in dog trainingthat we, you know, we you know, that
we despise and we we don't like itwhen dogs, you know, run in the track.
We don't want dogs to bark.
We don't want dogs to pee in the house andso on in terms of ease of modification.
So how readily we can fix a problem.
(24:09):
Those things for a competent dogtrainer are a piece of cake.
Fear, on the other hand, is
there's a saying in animal behaviorwhich is fear is the easiest thing
to install and the hardest thingto get rid of so term.
And so if you by your very
training intervention, install fear.
(24:30):
So let's say you were tryingto get the puppy to lie down or stay
or come on called or whateverif you've traded
not say you achieve that and you've tradedthat off for a fear disorder.
Now the puppy's a little bit
more anxious than he was and he grows upand now he's got an anxiety issue
that is pretty frank malpractice.
You, you've it's a very poor tradeoff.
(24:52):
And so because of the risk of fear,
which is, you know,
if you think about it,it's pretty intuitive that if you
you know, if you hurt and scare animals,they're going to become afraid.
And it does happen.
It happens more oftenthan we'd like to admit
that that is somethingwhich we want to be very sober about.
(25:13):
And so as getting back to your competence
question, for sure, there are incompetent
trainerson both sides of the philosophical divide.
There are some trainers
who are completely positive,but they're not very competent.
There's some trainerswho are very harsh in their methods
who may be competent or incompetent.
(25:34):
And certainly, you know, competenciesare very valid discussion to have.
However, that doesn't make itokay to electrically shock your dog.
You know, it's just, you know,it makes you wonder.
I mean, I do I mean, you know,I wonder about a lot of things.
One thing that keeps me up at night
is why on earth these people,why on earth are they shocking their dog?
(25:55):
They think it's.But do they think it's benign?
Do they know it's not benign,but do it anyway?
And either way you think about that,they think it's okay to do that.
They think it you know, it's fine
or they think it's not harmful.
It's, you know,whether they do it with good timing
or not is kind of,you know, beside the point, you know.
(26:17):
Well, it's interesting.
Why would they do that?
My listeners are probably tired
of hearing about this study,but I'm just going to quote it again.
There was a study of guide dogs
and they found a high correlation
between dog and human aggression
(26:37):
and the dog being frightened
by another dog or a person
in the first year of its life.
So it you know,it doesn't take brain surgery to realize
if you're if you are taking your dogto a class where there is any possibility
that any kind of aversive or frighteningthing is going to be done to the dog,
(27:02):
you know, you could be trading offdog and human aggression down the line
and no pet owner ever returned a dog
or sent it to the shelterbecause it didn't know how to sit.
But they do it every day because it'shuman aggressive or dog aggressive.
So there's your answer.
(27:23):
Training is overrated, frankly.
I mean, it's important becauseit allows you to take your dog for a walk.
It's leash run.
But when it comes to owner satisfaction,
lack of fear, lack
of aggression,those are your determinative factors
and your positive trainer,an incompetent, positive trainer.
(27:44):
The worst thing that's going to happen
is your dog doesn'tlearn how to walk on leash.
An incompetent or heavy handed
or even just a good
punishment trainer who puts a shock collaror a pinch collar on a puppy
and that puppy is sensitiveand has a frightening experience.
I mean, there's just no question.
(28:07):
I mean, and again,I'm not trying to jump in the ethical fray
because I feel like when
you know, as a breeder,I don't even need to get there.
I just need to keep my puppy safe.
And, you know, whether it'sethical or not, listen, you do you it's
you are in a different place, right,Because you're a professional dog
trainer by trade. That's what you do.
(28:28):
Number one, you're out to change the worldand God bless you.
But I you know, I'mjust trying to keep my puppy safe here.
I mean, at least that's the hatthat I'm wearing here. Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, Entirely.
Yes. I could not agree more.
I mean, I think me competence standardsworry me a great deal.
(28:51):
Electrically shocking puppiesis, you think it would be so obvious,
you know, I mean,if you found out that the zoo in your city
was electrically shocking baby giraffes.
Can you imagine the picket line?
Imagine that.
The scandal on the news therewould you know,
it would be just like thatwould be a scandal, the century.
And yet we do it to dogs.
(29:12):
Yeah, but not at the baby giraffewas in their backyard eating their tree.
They'd be like,Oh, shock the baby giraffe.
I mean people.
Yeah, yeah.
People, peopleI think are inordinately, well, okay,
now we're getting onto another topic,which I but
I think people are very concernedwith quote results unquote.
Right. And the problem is that the
(29:36):
the shock collar crew let's just saythe the
that sort of franchise
dog training, punish them,teach them to stay on a platform,
impress people, board and train,you know, all those people.
They're winning in a sense,because they've written the rules
and they've said, here's your results.
Your results are that you can walk the dogoff leash next to a five lane highway.
(30:00):
And it's like,no, that is not the result that you want.
The result you want is a dogthat is not aggressive and not fearful.
Right. And we can deliver that.
We can.
Your dog does not needto stay on a platform for an hour.
You know, and I think that sort of resultsat all costs.
You know, and look at thisand control, control.
Sort of in other words,the yardstick of a good outcome was
(30:24):
I've got control of this dog.
It's very kind of mid-century,you know, 19, forties, fifties, whereas,
you know,
you know, we got control of the dog andthat is the mark of a responsible owner.
I think now, I mean, the publication,you know, Zazie Todd, she’s
an Academy grad and a
really good writer.
She's written a few books.
(30:46):
One of them is called Wag.
That was her first book.
It was basically all the science ofof keeping dogs
happy and welfare and so on.
And the mark of a good title,is a bestseller.
You know, I you know,I think in 1950 or even 1970,
if you said to somebody, you know what,what's the mark of a good dog owner,
(31:09):
a good dog guardian would have said,you know, that
they've got control of their dogand the dog does, as he's told and so on.
Dog is obedient.
Now, I think in the 21st centuryit would be, are you doing a good job?
You being good steward?
I mean, is your doghappy? Is your dog feeling safe?
Is he sort of is he fitting inwell to human society and so on
that that is more the yardstick now,and less this sort of kind of throwback
(31:33):
control control stuff,that that might be partly why
these trainers are losing marketshare and will continue to do
so, that the world is changing,that, you know, every year that goes by
somebody from,you know, the nine those days is dying
and then somebody who's youngerand has been brought up in a different way
is now,you know, among the pet owning public.
(31:54):
And so I think that thisthis trend is going
to continue, that people people care aboutwhether their dogs are happy.
They care aboutwhether the dogs are afraid.
Nobody wants their dogto be afraid anymore.
Yeah,I think it used to be sort of the price
that you paidthat there are these to call it respect.
Now it's like if you said,
I just want my dog to respect me, say,well, the way you get your dog
(32:14):
respect is to be kind rather than thatyou're going to, you know, threaten him.
Well, this is great.
Listen, I want to closeand I want to thank you very much.
And I want to thank you reallyfor everything over the years, because
when I was making Puppy Culture,
I found out that there are two kindsof people in this world.
(32:37):
There are the resource guardersand there are the collaborators,
and you are definitely not a resource
guarder, you’re a collaborator.
And, you know,I just appreciate the generosity
of your time and your helpand appearing in Puppy Culture.
You've helped thousands, thousandsand thousands of people.
(32:59):
I would do anything for you.
I would take a bullet for you. Jane.You know.
You're sweet.
Okay, So again, Academy for Dog Trainers,we're excited.
There's going to beif you want to become a dog trainer,
people ask me all the timeand I do recommend your academy if people
are interested in a certificationand now exciting short courses.
If you want to dip your toe in and getaddicted to Jean and then sign up for her,
(33:24):
her full course.
And tell me again the website.
It's master classes.
Yeah, the Great Courses.
So the great.
Courses. They have like courses on
everything, historyand geography and space and whatever.
Now they've got a course on dog training.
So if somebody is doesn'twant to become a professional dog trainer,
but they want a kind of a little deeper
dive into dog training than they will getat a class, the dog training
(33:47):
101 is at the Great Coursesand it goes on sale.
I mean, the Great Courses, they tendto be fantastically expensive, but,
but they go on saleregularly with really deep discounts.
So if people wait for a sale, don'tget one right.
Well, thanks again, Jean.
You're very welcome.
If you like this podcast, you'll loveour new Be Your Puppies Advocate
(34:10):
booklet, teaching puppy ownershow to know what's
right and stand up for it.
Available at puppyculture.com.
Well, that's all for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
welcome to Madcap Radio.
Today it is my extreme pleasure
to be joined by Jean Donaldson.
Hi, Jean. How are you?
(00:22):
Hi, Jane. I'm very pleased to be here.
Long time no see. Long time no see.
Most of my followersare going to be familiar with you
from Puppy Culture, from the resourceguarding section,
which I have to say to this day,I feel that one section alone
has probably made a bigger differencein more lives of more puppies
(00:44):
than any other single sectionof that course.
So thank you for that.
I love everything about Puppy Cultureand I felt really honored to be part of it
and I'm just so excitedthat the people who watch it
are going to be doing anti resourceguarding prevention on their puppies.
It's great.
(01:05):
We're going to talka little bit more about that.
But I just want to introduce you,
your other side to peoplethat might not already know, the famous
Jane Donaldson, because she's a prolificwriter and teacher.
She is the founder of the Academyfor Dog Trainers
25 years now, and she's teaching coursesnow at Great
Courses, Dog Training 101she has up there, which I did take a peek.
(01:30):
And boy, it has gotten great reviews.
And now she's launching
short formcourses in the academy for dog trainers.
I want to just, that out of the waybecause that's your sort of bona
fides, right?
I want to add a personal noteto who you are and why
I love you so much. You
(01:54):
have a quality of staying above the fraywhen it comes
to the dog training blogosphere,which I appreciate very much.
And you also have an abilityto cut to the chase
incredibly efficiently.
Which brings us to why I invited you
to be with us today.
(02:15):
I'm working on a bookletto help puppy owners
find a good puppy course or a safepuppy course.
More to the point
and I came across, I'm working with LiliChin, and I came across this
infographic that you done with her, whichI just thought was absolutely brilliant
(02:35):
and I'm going to read it andthen you are going to talk to me about it
and it says; Be a smart
dog training consumer.
Ask what exactly
will happen to my dog if he gets it right?
What exactly will happen to
(02:56):
my dog if he gets it wrong?
Are there less invasive or aversive
alternatives to what you propose?
Really in three questions.
I'd like you to talk to our listenersabout
what kind of possible answersthey could hear to those questions
(03:18):
and what the significanceof those answers are.
Really importantbecause it is still the case
that dog training is not regulated.
It's not regulated in this country.
And there are many other jurisdictionsworldwide where
there is not any regulation.
Anybody can hang out a shingle
and do anything, call themselvesa dog trainer, take money for hire.
(03:39):
And that is a really alarming stateof affairs.
Now, you talked about sort of therebeing rather a fray in the blogosphere.
There's also a fray among dog trainingprofessionals, people who offering
courses and behavior servicesinsofar as their websites
may not be crystal clearabout exactly how they're going to train.
(04:00):
They may use all kinds of kind ofobfuscating language.
You know, we're going to use leadership
and pack dynamics and and energyand all this kind of stuff.
And then if you're somebody who's tryingto figure out, is this a good fit for me,
it's not very concrete, is itwhat do you mean energy?
What do you mean, leadership?
You know whatexactly is going to happen here?
(04:21):
And so what we encouragepeople to get is concrete answers.
What's going to happen to your dogin the physical world?
What literally is going to happen to himwhen he gets it right.
So is he going to get praised?
Is he going to just be told he's good?Is it going to get padded?
Is he going to get food?Is it going to get toys?
What combination of thoseis he going to get exactly?
(04:43):
Second, when he gets it wrongand this is where the kind of,
you know, the watershed is.
So if the dog gets a wrong response,what's going to happen to him?
Is it justthat he's not going to be rewarded?
Is he going to have a timeout?
Is he going to lose,
you know, access to something or somethingphysical going to happen to him?
Is he going to get corrected?
And if so,how is he going to have his ear cut off?
(05:06):
Is he going to have a little chain,you know,
that, you know, grabbed on his his neck?
Is there going to beelectric shock involved?
Are they going to call it something else?
You want to find out in really kindof granular detail in the physical world
what exactly is going to happenand then ask the person
if they're saying somethinglike, well, he's
going to get just,you know, through e-collar stimulation.
(05:26):
What exactly dig a little deeper,you know, an electric shock,
you know, in others.
So what what is in the situation out thereis that people who are still using
these kinds of devices to traindogs are increasingly aware
that the demand for that is falling,that people are increasingly aware
that you can train
entirely with rewards and reward removal,and that it works like a charm.
(05:49):
It's totally effective.
Big, big stack of research papersgrowing every year
that this is the way to doit doesn't have the side effect profile.
And so those trainerswho elect to train with electric shock
and with prong collarsand with any kind of special collar
or with poking dogs and kicking dogsor intimidating dogs,
they're awarethat their market share is in jeopardy.
(06:10):
And so they ‘ve, they've relied
and they've resorted to increasinglyobfuscating language and kind of trying to
sugarcoat what it is.
They don't want to saythey don't want to call a spade a spade.
And so for consumerswho don't want to train this way,
the onus is on the smart shopperto ask the questions and dig.
And if they say, well I am,I use these e-collar stimulation,
(06:31):
then ask the question, is there anythingless invasive, alternative wise
and they and if that person answersno, this is the only way
that can be done and the only waythat's going to work, walk away.
Because what they're sayingis just not true.
Would you not say
that if someone
says we use e-collar stimulation,
(06:54):
I mean, would you even really go toquestion three?
Would you be like, oh, have a nice day,I'll see you?
That's a good point.
Like, Yeah, if it were me,I would certainly counsel people,
given what we now know, thatthat's not a good answer.
And it probably would be grounds toto leave right away,
but you could sort of,you know, certainly,
(07:15):
you know, ask them and see if they come upwith, you know, just for curiosity sake,
do they think this didthey know that this is invasive?
And because that's sort of an extra strikeagainst him, if they're not even aware
that this is invasive, that they say,well, it's not invasive at all.
So what basically they're saying to youis that electric shock
is not an invasive wayto teach a living being.
(07:36):
Mmmm.
You know, it's interesting.
I think of it as sort of
like a cascade, right?
It's almost like,and there's some questions like one.
Okay.
There are some answers that I think ofas being sort of equivocal, like, okay,
tell me a little more like
if the dog doesn't get it right,we're going to show him.
(08:00):
What do you mean by show him?
Like that could be we're going to lure
which to me, I'm not a big lurer,but it's not going to hurt the dog.
Or it could meanwe're going to give him a correction.
We're going to compel him.We're going to push on his rear end.
And then these things,you know, that we don't think
of as mean, you know, punishing.
(08:23):
But, you know, they're aversive.
And it shows also a weakness in the skillset of the trainer.
So these are the kinds of,
if you had to listsome of these sort of code words
that are kind of like what youwhat I would call yellow words,
that you're like, okay,tell me a little bit more about that.
Like what would besome of those kinds of words?
(08:44):
I love how you framed that,and I love that you brought up
that particular one,which is showing the dog, right?
What do you mean, showing the dog?
Another one would be correct.
What do you mean by correcting the dog?
What happens in the physical world?
How are you going to correct himexactly with your body
or with some toolor with some some physical event?
(09:05):
Another one would be energy.
Beware the word energy.
Beware anything to dowith invoking pack dynamics,
anything to do with dogs as pack animals,and then they need leadership
and they need, you know, a desperateor they need direction.
That is all.
Not only is it antiquated,
but as you say,it could be code for something very harsh.
(09:29):
It could be code for strangulation
or, you know, kicking the dogor scaring the dog or shocking the dog.
That's another word to be careful of.
Anything that talks about natural,you know, in this day and age,
if you want to sell anything to anybody,the word natural is a word to bring in.
But in dog training, usually it'ssort of it's a bit murky, isn't it?
(09:50):
What exactly do you mean?
You're going to do somethingthat is natural.
Words like clear.
We're going to be clear to the dog.
Now. Are you going to be clear to the dog?
So whatever they come up with,if it doesn't describe physical events,
dig, keep digging.
And I love how you use the wordyellow language.
I mean, there are sort of a lot of wordslike that.
(10:14):
Right?
I think, you know,that's the difficult part.
And it's interestingbecause we have not compared notes
before having this conversation.
But I'm telling you,we're on the same page with this where
I'm a dog breeder. Okay.
So I'm sending these people outinto the world with their little puppy
and I do help them find a trainer.
(10:36):
But sometimes, you know, life is long.
They can get another trainerand not ask me or think,
Oh, wow, I couldn't get in that class.
I'll just this one sounds good.
And when I look
at these dog trainers websites,I see what you see, which is that
they figured outthat corrections, shock collars,
all these things are not, you know,punishment like people don't want that.
(10:59):
They want positive, they want light.
And even,I mean, some well-known chains that are
heavy correction,
you know, like dog training franchises,they have all over
the front of their website,We don't we never punish dogs.
We don't do any of that.
Like, my goodness, that's all you do.
(11:20):
So I think, you know,
the yellow words are the important onesthat you want to keep digging.
So let's see,what do we have so far if if you ask them
what will happen if my dog what was was itget it gets it right.
Right.
And what would be some of the thingsthat we definitely would be like, okay,
you know, I'm good with that.
(11:40):
Give me three things.
I'm okay with that. Food.
And really generous
and liberal use of foodand training is a flag of a good trainer.
It is a very strong universal motivator
with an entirely positive side effectprofile.
Works on virtuallyany being that's not sick or dead
(12:04):
and ispowerful and is very easy to dispense.
So it's a really good, so anybody who says
that that'sa very much a check in their favor.
If they talk about praise and patting,I always say that's
kind of neither here nor there.
Some dogs like praise,some dogs don't care.
Patting some dogs like it,some dogs don't.
(12:25):
So that's onethat is probably neither here nor there.
And then toys and play toys and play,I think are really useful in training.
And for certain breeds of dog,some of your drivey
dogs, your border collies in your,
you know, certain terriersand some of your Malinois was it's one
they're going to work all daylong for toys
but the dogs who won't it's not sort ofyou know, it's
(12:45):
not a flaw in their characterif they don't work for toys.
So really what we want to dois we want to use what works
and that the dog will work for,
the dog finds intrinsically valuable.
And so, you know, I hear I don't knowif I can come up with a third.
I mean, it really issort of both of the big three,
(13:07):
if anybody sort of tries to say that,you know, we're using ...
I saw a dog trainer websitethey were talking
about basically electric shockand talking about it being reinforcing.
And it was really kind of scary,the kind of Orwellian doublespeak
that they were doing, but that somehowthey're using it in a positive manner.
You know, it really defies belief.
But people will fall for this stuff.
(13:30):
Okay, Agreed.
So now let's go to yellow words.
I mean, showing was one of them.
You know, we're going to show the dogwhat to do.
You got to know what they mean by show,because show could be lure, which is fine.
And for people that don't know,that would mean like
if you want to get the dog to sit you,
you take a cookieand you put it in from the dog's nose
(13:52):
and you lift it upand you lure the dog into a sit.
But it could also meanI'm going to take the leash
and jerk it tight on the neck,straight up and slam
my hand on the dog's buttand make it sick.
I mean, those are bothcould be show, obviously.
The second one being one.
We don't want to go to that dog trainerin the first one we do.
(14:14):
So that's one.
Let's can we think of two more yellows?Yeah.
Yes. Showingthe dog is definitely a red flag.
Showing the dog tends to
be vague, like yousay, could be good news.
It could bethat we're going to help the dog
get it rightnext time in a noninvasive manner.
Or it could be that we're going to be kindof, you know, pushing him around
(14:36):
or jerking him up or pulling up ona collar, cutting off his ear and so on.
Anything to do with the word correction or
correct,correction or correcting the dog, or.
Wouldn'tyou say that would be more of a red?
I mean, if we're going to go green,yellow, red.
Really I think that it could be just thatwe're going to say to the dog, you know,
(14:57):
I know, try again.
You know, that that was we're just like,you know, occasionally
it's a it's language.
It you still see it is one of those sortof, you know, weasel words
that generally speaking, you and I,because we're in the business,
we know that correction tendsto mean leash correction
or some means of intimidatingor hurting the dog
(15:19):
to show him that he was wrong.
But but be careful because, you know, itis it's a word
that you'll still see out therea fair amount.
You'll see words in front of it.
So you might see a modifierin front of it,
something like appropriate correctionsor gentle correction.
Oh, yeah. Natural corrections.
You know, you'll see words like thatwhich it, has soften it up a little bit.
(15:42):
But beware, ask what do you meanwhat physically is going to happen
if you see that?
And then the third thingI would be really careful about
is anything to do with energy leadership,
pack dynamics.
We're going to be the leader of the pack.
We're going to, you know, make surehe understands dogs feel most confident
(16:03):
and they feel most secure when they knowtheir place in the hierarchy.
This kind of gobbledygook language,which not only is inaccurate
from a scientific point of view,it's inaccurate,
but it usually is code for the waywe're going to show the dog.
What his place in the hierarchy is,is by scaring the crap out of him.
If he does something we don't like. Right.
(16:25):
But it also, you know, interestingly,I have seen a leadership
pack in some positive dog trainers also
because it's not you know,
it's something that the puppy ownersometimes, I think they feel the puppy
owners can understand it, like thatyou're going to I'm going to teach you
to be your puppies leader and leader.
(16:46):
I mean.
They may very well understandif I say, you know, your puppy is a is a
you know, a matrix dot printer,you know, but it's inaccurate.
It's not true.
It's not true.
But I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't
it's not a red wordlike code red for me is correction.
If they say correction, No, I mean ...
That's why I would put, you know, energyleadership in packs in yellow
(17:09):
where you want to check
is somebody just throwing on that languagebecause they don't know any better.
And in fact, they're going to trainusing food and using play
and they're going to do so competently.
If so, all is well.
But if they're talking about, you know,pack dynamics and leadership and so on,
and what they mean by that
is they're going to hammer the dog,going to scare the dog.
(17:31):
They're going to, you know,
cut off his ear electrically, shock him,big prongs in his neck and so on.
Then run.
Okay.
So is but I have another question for you.
But before we moveon, would you say that sort of covers it
for puppy owners as far as
what if the dog gets it right?
(17:51):
What if it gets it wrong? Yeah.
The other thing I would just addin, this may be too far outside the bounds
of what we're trying to talk about,but if they're hunting for puppy classes
to find puppy classesthat allow free play,
that's somethingthat's terrifically important.
There was a trend a couple of years agowhere just somebody in a,
you know, kind of clickbaitfashion were trying to say, we know what
(18:15):
in puppy classeswe should be teaching puppies to calm
and do down stays and lie downand be calm and control.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Rather than engaging in speciesnormal interactions and learning
to become social.
And I think that luckilythat fad has passed and it flies
in the face of everything we knowabout sensitive periods and socialization.
(18:37):
So I would, I would caution people awayfrom puppy classes that say free play
is somehow dangerous.
Or it teaches dogs to be excited orteachers don't speak over, socialize, etc.
There's just no such thing.
I mean that that is dangerous malpractice.
Interesting I have not seen that.
But that's a good point.
What I would add to that, though, is that,
(19:01):
a flag for me is when you have
a puppy classwhere they let five month old puppies
into a puppy group, To me, freeplay is for up to 12 weeks, right?
Maybe 14 for some, 16for some very neotenous breeds.
But, and I believe in playgroups for dogsbut it should really be a dyad, right?
(19:25):
Once they get over
12 weeks old, it should be two puppiesthat are well-suited to each other.
They're justthat's the possibility of real aggression.
That’s a really good point,that in puppy classes you want to have
age, you want to have peer to peer play.
There's a huge difference between athree month old and a five month old dog.
And so, yes, you want to make surethat that the puppy class
(19:47):
is puppies that are in the same age group.
Right. And the free play is through.
Among age mates. Yes.
So them.
Okay.
So then we get to,is there a less invasive way,
the question three
which you know,by the time you get to question three,
(20:09):
I mean you've eliminated a lot of people,right?
That's a true fact. You know, it is.
You have it's just that, you know,when you're trying to shop for anything.
So if you're you know,you've been offered your options
for cancer treatment, you're being offeredyour options for a surgery.
You know, you always want to just ask,you know, what are the alternatives?
What else can I do?
(20:30):
Is there any other alternative to this?
And so if somebody offers youa training intervention
and look at somethingthat's a little bit ambiguous
so they talk about rather than, you know,talking about electrically shocking
your puppy, they're talking about,you know, pushing down on his rear
or, you know, holding him gently in placeand so on.
You know,I think that question can then bring out,
(20:53):
you know, so they say
whether the trainers competentthey think, well, yeah, well we can also,
you know, lure him in a positionor wait for him to do what we want
or help him in this mannerto get it right.
That can sometimes, you know,prompt the trainer away from you
if they have more thingsin their bag of tricks.
Now that does beg the question, as youpoint out, that if the trainer has those
(21:14):
available to them, why are they not usingthat as their first line of defense?
Why are they not doing the leastinvasive thing right out of the gate?
And so I take your point.
It's well,it's interesting because you and I did
have this conversation offline earlierwhere I had raised
this question in the Puppy Culturediscussion group.
(21:35):
And a lot of people, surprisingly,or maybe not so surprisingly,
gave me a little bit of pushback about itand said, well, listen, I mean, some dog
some dog trainers that use shock collars
like on their competitiondogs are really better puppy trainers.
You know,they don't use shock collars on on puppies
and they're better puppy trainersthan a lot of pure positive.
(21:57):
And, you know, my answer is yes,I do believe that.
I mean, just because you use aversivedoes not make you an incompetent
doesn't mean that you couldn't be greatwith a clicker and and food.
The difference for meas a breeder is when I send my puppy owner
out into the world, if they go to someonewho has that on the table, you know,
(22:19):
the shock collar is on the table,the pinch collar is on the table.
There is a possibility that that will
at some pointbe suggested to my puppy owner.
If I go to a pet professional, it'syou know, which there
if anything I mean ideologically extremelythe other way.
(22:39):
I know that nothingis going to happen to my puppy.
I mean, if I send themto one of Jean's trainers,
I know that nothing is going to be thatthat's not on the table for my puppy.
So it's not even a question of competency.
It's a questionof keeping your puppy safe.
Which brings me to my next question,which is why does it matter so much?
(23:00):
Why does it matterso much that we find these trainers
that are pure positive, that don't useany aversive or punishment on puppies?
The great question, what's one thatwe don't we sort of take for granted
that we know the answerbecause we do, right?
I mean, the answers really twofold.
One is basically basic ethics,which is, you know, animal welfare wise,
(23:24):
if you can achieve an outcome
without scaring and hurting your your
what you call your best friend,you're you're morally obligated to do so.
And the second has to dowith the side effect profile.
So even if you don't careabout the welfare of your dog,
if you elect aversive methods,
(23:46):
they're well documentedto carry the side effect of fear.
There are a lot of things in dog trainingthat we, you know, we you know, that
we despise and we we don't like itwhen dogs, you know, run in the track.
We don't want dogs to bark.
We don't want dogs to pee in the house andso on in terms of ease of modification.
So how readily we can fix a problem.
(24:09):
Those things for a competent dogtrainer are a piece of cake.
Fear, on the other hand, is
there's a saying in animal behaviorwhich is fear is the easiest thing
to install and the hardest thingto get rid of so term.
And so if you by your very
training intervention, install fear.
(24:30):
So let's say you were tryingto get the puppy to lie down or stay
or come on called or whateverif you've traded
not say you achieve that and you've tradedthat off for a fear disorder.
Now the puppy's a little bit
more anxious than he was and he grows upand now he's got an anxiety issue
that is pretty frank malpractice.
You, you've it's a very poor tradeoff.
(24:52):
And so because of the risk of fear,
which is, you know,
if you think about it,it's pretty intuitive that if you
you know, if you hurt and scare animals,they're going to become afraid.
And it does happen.
It happens more oftenthan we'd like to admit
that that is somethingwhich we want to be very sober about.
(25:13):
And so as getting back to your competence
question, for sure, there are incompetent
trainerson both sides of the philosophical divide.
There are some trainers
who are completely positive,but they're not very competent.
There's some trainerswho are very harsh in their methods
who may be competent or incompetent.
(25:34):
And certainly, you know, competenciesare very valid discussion to have.
However, that doesn't make itokay to electrically shock your dog.
You know, it's just, you know,it makes you wonder.
I mean, I do I mean, you know,I wonder about a lot of things.
One thing that keeps me up at night
is why on earth these people,why on earth are they shocking their dog?
(25:55):
They think it's.But do they think it's benign?
Do they know it's not benign,but do it anyway?
And either way you think about that,they think it's okay to do that.
They think it you know, it's fine
or they think it's not harmful.
It's, you know,whether they do it with good timing
or not is kind of,you know, beside the point, you know.
(26:17):
Well, it's interesting.
Why would they do that?
My listeners are probably tired
of hearing about this study,but I'm just going to quote it again.
There was a study of guide dogs
and they found a high correlation
between dog and human aggression
(26:37):
and the dog being frightened
by another dog or a person
in the first year of its life.
So it you know,it doesn't take brain surgery to realize
if you're if you are taking your dogto a class where there is any possibility
that any kind of aversive or frighteningthing is going to be done to the dog,
(27:02):
you know, you could be trading offdog and human aggression down the line
and no pet owner ever returned a dog
or sent it to the shelterbecause it didn't know how to sit.
But they do it every day because it'shuman aggressive or dog aggressive.
So there's your answer.
(27:23):
Training is overrated, frankly.
I mean, it's important becauseit allows you to take your dog for a walk.
It's leash run.
But when it comes to owner satisfaction,
lack of fear, lack
of aggression,those are your determinative factors
and your positive trainer,an incompetent, positive trainer.
(27:44):
The worst thing that's going to happen
is your dog doesn'tlearn how to walk on leash.
An incompetent or heavy handed
or even just a good
punishment trainer who puts a shock collaror a pinch collar on a puppy
and that puppy is sensitiveand has a frightening experience.
I mean, there's just no question.
(28:07):
I mean, and again,I'm not trying to jump in the ethical fray
because I feel like when
you know, as a breeder,I don't even need to get there.
I just need to keep my puppy safe.
And, you know, whether it'sethical or not, listen, you do you it's
you are in a different place, right,Because you're a professional dog
trainer by trade. That's what you do.
(28:28):
Number one, you're out to change the worldand God bless you.
But I you know, I'mjust trying to keep my puppy safe here.
I mean, at least that's the hatthat I'm wearing here. Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, Entirely.
Yes. I could not agree more.
I mean, I think me competence standardsworry me a great deal.
(28:51):
Electrically shocking puppiesis, you think it would be so obvious,
you know, I mean,if you found out that the zoo in your city
was electrically shocking baby giraffes.
Can you imagine the picket line?
Imagine that.
The scandal on the news therewould you know,
it would be just like thatwould be a scandal, the century.
And yet we do it to dogs.
(29:12):
Yeah, but not at the baby giraffewas in their backyard eating their tree.
They'd be like,Oh, shock the baby giraffe.
I mean people.
Yeah, yeah.
People, peopleI think are inordinately, well, okay,
now we're getting onto another topic,which I but
I think people are very concernedwith quote results unquote.
Right. And the problem is that the
(29:36):
the shock collar crew let's just saythe the
that sort of franchise
dog training, punish them,teach them to stay on a platform,
impress people, board and train,you know, all those people.
They're winning in a sense,because they've written the rules
and they've said, here's your results.
Your results are that you can walk the dogoff leash next to a five lane highway.
(30:00):
And it's like,no, that is not the result that you want.
The result you want is a dogthat is not aggressive and not fearful.
Right. And we can deliver that.
We can.
Your dog does not needto stay on a platform for an hour.
You know, and I think that sort of resultsat all costs.
You know, and look at thisand control, control.
Sort of in other words,the yardstick of a good outcome was
(30:24):
I've got control of this dog.
It's very kind of mid-century,you know, 19, forties, fifties, whereas,
you know,
you know, we got control of the dog andthat is the mark of a responsible owner.
I think now, I mean, the publication,you know, Zazie Todd, she’s
an Academy grad and a
really good writer.
She's written a few books.
(30:46):
One of them is called Wag.
That was her first book.
It was basically all the science ofof keeping dogs
happy and welfare and so on.
And the mark of a good title,is a bestseller.
You know, I you know,I think in 1950 or even 1970,
if you said to somebody, you know what,what's the mark of a good dog owner,
(31:09):
a good dog guardian would have said,you know, that
they've got control of their dogand the dog does, as he's told and so on.
Dog is obedient.
Now, I think in the 21st centuryit would be, are you doing a good job?
You being good steward?
I mean, is your doghappy? Is your dog feeling safe?
Is he sort of is he fitting inwell to human society and so on
that that is more the yardstick now,and less this sort of kind of throwback
(31:33):
control control stuff,that that might be partly why
these trainers are losing marketshare and will continue to do
so, that the world is changing,that, you know, every year that goes by
somebody from,you know, the nine those days is dying
and then somebody who's youngerand has been brought up in a different way
is now,you know, among the pet owning public.
(31:54):
And so I think that thisthis trend is going
to continue, that people people care aboutwhether their dogs are happy.
They care aboutwhether the dogs are afraid.
Nobody wants their dogto be afraid anymore.
Yeah,I think it used to be sort of the price
that you paidthat there are these to call it respect.
Now it's like if you said,
I just want my dog to respect me, say,well, the way you get your dog
(32:14):
respect is to be kind rather than thatyou're going to, you know, threaten him.
Well, this is great.
Listen, I want to closeand I want to thank you very much.
And I want to thank you reallyfor everything over the years, because
when I was making Puppy Culture,
I found out that there are two kindsof people in this world.
(32:37):
There are the resource guardersand there are the collaborators,
and you are definitely not a resource
guarder, you’re a collaborator.
And, you know,I just appreciate the generosity
of your time and your helpand appearing in Puppy Culture.
You've helped thousands, thousandsand thousands of people.
(32:59):
I would do anything for you.
I would take a bullet for you. Jane.You know.
You're sweet.
Okay, So again, Academy for Dog Trainers,we're excited.
There's going to beif you want to become a dog trainer,
people ask me all the timeand I do recommend your academy if people
are interested in a certificationand now exciting short courses.
If you want to dip your toe in and getaddicted to Jean and then sign up for her,
(33:24):
her full course.
And tell me again the website.
It's master classes.
Yeah, the Great Courses.
So the great.
Courses. They have like courses on
everything, historyand geography and space and whatever.
Now they've got a course on dog training.
So if somebody is doesn'twant to become a professional dog trainer,
but they want a kind of a little deeper
dive into dog training than they will getat a class, the dog training
(33:47):
101 is at the Great Coursesand it goes on sale.
I mean, the Great Courses, they tendto be fantastically expensive, but,
but they go on saleregularly with really deep discounts.
So if people wait for a sale, don'tget one right.
Well, thanks again, Jean.
You're very welcome.
If you like this podcast, you'll loveour new Be Your Puppies Advocate
(34:10):
booklet, teaching puppy ownershow to know what's
right and stand up for it.
Available at puppyculture.com.
Well, that's all for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
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