From Control to Connection The New Way to Lead Dogs

What if the dogs we struggle with most… are the ones meant to wake us up?

In this powerful episode, Em sits down with renowned dog behaviorist Matt Beisner (Dog: Impossible, The Zen Dog) to talk about the emotional truths behind reactive dogs, the failure of dominant training models, and how our relationships with animals are mirrors of our healing journeys.

Whether you're working through reactivity, trauma, or the desire to show up better for your dog, this conversation will shift how you see everything—from behavior challenges to what true leadership really means.

🎙 You’ll hear:

• How fear and trauma manifest in dogs—and people

• The flaws in force-based training and why domination isn’t leadership

• What it looks like to build real trust with a dog who doesn’t feel safe

  
  

Get ready to question everything you thought you knew—and walk away more compassionate, connected, and curious than ever.

#reactivedog #dogbehavior #forcefreetraining #dogtrainingtips #dogpodcast

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Dogs look at us so differently than humans do.
They love us, no matter how dumbor how weak or how stupid or how
silly or how funny we are. They think we're great no matter
what we do, which is so healing and so validating and so
incredibly helpful when we're trying to dig ourselves out of
the squishy feelings. Before we get into today's

(00:28):
episode, I want to share something really special,
especially if you're someone whohas big feeling dogs or just
wants to do better by your dog. The Dog people Evolution
conference is virtual event hosted by Matt Weisner.
Yep, the one from today's episode.
And it's all about emotional awareness, mutual respect, and
helping dogs without control or shame.
You'll get Ceus real conversations and community that

(00:51):
actually gets it. I'll be attending and if you're
listening to this podcast, I know it'll speak to you too.
Head to Dog evolution.com to grab your spot.
Welcome to Straight Up Doc Talk,the podcast where no topic is
off limits and no pet parent feels alone.
This episode is a heart centeredconversation about what it
really means to love dogs, not just through training, but

(01:12):
through emotional growth and self-awareness.
I'm joined by Matt Beisner, dog behavior specialist and the
founder of the Dog People Evolution conference.
We're digging into the deeper layers of how our mental health
and healing shape the way we show up for our dogs, and why
that matters more now than ever.If you've ever felt changed by
your dog or questioned the stories you've been told about

(01:33):
what dogs should be, this episode will stay with you.
Let's get into it. Some of you may know him from
his Netflix series, and some of you just might know him from
Instagram. Either way, he's here with us
today. And how are you doing?
I'm good. I'm grateful, glad to be here in
a lot of the circles that I workand we do check in.
So like at the start of every with my business team, we start

(01:56):
our meetings with check in. So so I'm Matt Beisner.
I am currently in Dripping Springs, TX and I'm feeling
grateful. Always name three emotions
because we've got to make space for the feelings.
I'm feeling grateful, I'm feeling curious and I'm feeling
a little bit squishy. And with that I am in.
OK, OK, explain squishy to me. Yeah, there's there's something

(02:18):
that I got introduced to years ago called the wheel of Emotions
because I had a pad and have a very rich emotional life, but I
have learned to actually make space for it.
So one example of that is I've been able to be clean and sober
with a lot of support for a while now.
And and another example of that is that when I when I focus on
what the dogs emotional state might be, it really changes and

(02:38):
informs the way that I provide training support.
But I realized having gone from a lot of feelings, but not
knowing how to name any of them to the wheel of emotions, which
I think is a it's a spectrum that has about 140 emotions on
it. But then I have to include
things like color. I have two young kids and so we
have a book that says some days I'm feeling blue and some days

(03:00):
it's brown and some days it's yellow and some days they're all
in between. And then we got another awesome
book called Tiger Days. Some days I'm like a tiger and
some days I'm like a hippo and some days I'm like a bear.
And that gave me a way to accessthe emotional experience and in
other ways that I hadn't before.So on this on this growing list

(03:20):
of feelings, hangry is definitely a feeling that sports
certified. Feeling tired is not a feeling,
but tired is usually the result of a lot of unexpressed
feelings. So I've learned that one too.
And then, and then the weather is another way that through my
ECPR, my emotional CPR training,and I've learned to consider the
weather as a, as a parallel for my feelings.

(03:42):
So I'm feeling a little bit cloudy and kind of stormy with
some sunshine out there. And then the the visceral, but
that's my my pity is back behindme, stretching your legs out.
She's and she just had this sweet exhale.
So squishy. So I guess I'm not even exactly
sure what the squishy feeling is.

(04:03):
I just know when I check in withmy body and you ask the question
that I'm feeling squishies. And to any of your listeners, my
intros are usually like this long.
So welcome to it and I'm sorry. No, we're here for it.
I mean, that's that's why peopleshow up, right?
Because they want to get to knowthe real side of the person
behind the Instagram account. That's why I started this,

(04:24):
because Instagram is this candy coated perfection.
Look at how wonderful my life with my dog is.
Look at all these beautiful things we can do with our dogs.
Awesome. But they don't ever show the
messy side of it. And I think that the messy side
is so important because that's the side that I think most of us
relate to the best. So when you say squishy, I feel

(04:47):
like in my feelings, I feel not quite certain about how the day
is going to go and I feel just like I don't really know what my
feeling is. So it's just kind of like those
stress ball things, right? You're just constantly changing
and taking on the pressure, but it's also letting it go at the
same time and malleable to the situation currently.

(05:09):
That's how I feel when you say that.
That's actually that. That's a pretty good read.
I'll have to next time I'm feeling squishy.
I have to ask you what I'm feeling.
That's a pretty good read. And I think part of what I hear
and what you're saying too, thatis true for where I'm at is I'm
in a, I'm in a technically life is always unknown.
I'm aware of feeling myself in a, in a state of unknowing that

(05:31):
is potentially terrifying and potentially invigorating at the
same time, you know. And so I think I think that your
breakdown of squishy tracks withthat have to make space for the
movement of the feelings and theenergy and also learning what
I've learned about how to care for myself.
And coming from a childhood of chaos, I'm also aware that the

(05:53):
feeling of squishy has a touch of fear to it because it I feel
vulnerable because the the idea is that I don't have my
boundaries. If I have this feeling, it must
mean I don't have my boundaries and I don't make really good
decisions. And it's not true.
It's not true that I'm not safe,but sometimes I don't feel safe.
Yeah. So I guess that is that's true.

(06:13):
That's important in its own way.I got to be careful about making
decisions based on the need for relief.
And I have to be careful about making decisions when the answer
seems to be that I need to control this.
Those are those are two problematic ways to make
decisions. Yeah, absolutely.
I feel like that's another thingthat's kind of a common thread
in the dog human world. A lot of us who work with

(06:36):
animals, whether we're trainers,vet techs, doctors, whatever,
the mental health and addiction spectrum, the crossover is so
huge. It's unbelievable how many of us
have some kind of mental health or addiction or both in some
cases. But then we've turned to the

(06:58):
animals, and it has almost helped us.
I don't even know what the rightway to say it is, but it's
helped us come back to who we are.
And it's helped us focus and accept who we are because dogs
look at us so differently than humans do.
Yeah. And they love us no matter how
dumb or how weak or how stupid or how silly or how funny we

(07:18):
are. They just think we're great no
matter what we do. Which is so healing and so
validating and so incredibly helpful when we're trying to dig
ourselves out of the squishy feelings.
Yeah, yeah, or even give myself space to be in it.
OK, this is how I'm feelings when we go on a walk.
My dog is going to have this Nefari.

(07:39):
This is not a time for me to handle my feelings with putting
my walk in a hard heel for the entire time.
Just it's just not how it's going to go.
I haven't done that for a long time anyway.
But yeah, the parallel there. I didn't realize I got out of
jail for a DUI. I had pretty tough time making
sober decisions for a while and I got out of jail for a DUII

(08:01):
could barely put a sentence together.
Literally I could barely complete a sentence.
That's how mushy my my thinking,my brain had got.
And I moved in with somebody whofor some reason wanted to be my
girlfriend at the time. And she had a 7-8 month old
terrier that she had just adopted named Kingston.
Just an extraordinary, extraordinary being.
And she would go work and I was detoxing at her place.

(08:22):
Living off of her is kind of theway I rolled at that time.
And but the the dog needed to gooutside.
But he was a terrier. He was a rescue terrier with a
lot of big feelings who was eight months old.
Oh, and if I had to mention thatI was afraid of dogs at that
time, I got bit when I was a kidon Halloween and I grew up
afraid of dogs. So there was an adulthood, full
adulthood out of jail, crashing at my then girlfriend's place

(08:43):
with this dog who we would have back then called aggressive.
Now I would say it's unmet needsand unheard feelings.
And that's how I got sober, which I don't recommend.
That was a detox formula for anybody.
But to your point, I had to takehim outside to go to the
bathroom. So my practice of caring for him
was the antidote to isolation. There's quite a bit of

(09:05):
compelling evidence to suggest that the the opposite of
addiction is not necessarily recovery or sobriety.
The opposite of addiction is connection, and the predictor to
addiction is isolation. So dogs give us that chance to
connect and then we connect withother people.
And then along the way, if we'refortunate, I've been really
fortunate. I was fortunate once I got out

(09:27):
of jail to learn that, you know,saying I don't know is actually
a that's a really powerful placeto start asking for help.
The little things that I just didn't know how to do or didn't
do. And then along the way, I began
to, after several years in with working with dogs, really as a
hack, mostly copying stuff I sawon TVI begin to see parallels

(09:48):
with the dogs and myself. And then I begin to see people
differently. That was the beginning of an
extraordinary journey. That's actually brought me to
one of the reasons why I appreciated the timing of our
talk today is that after 2 1/2 years of heavy lifting, myself
and a couple of Co founders are launching the Dog People
Evolution Conference. And it's an inaugural conference

(10:10):
that is about supporting humans.Because if for us as the
founders, if we want to help more dogs, we have to help more
humans, period. You talk about the mental health
matter, there's not a single school in the West that I know
of, single certifying organization or school that has
a mental health component built in.
And one of my colleagues, Annie Phoenix, who's a speaker at DPE,

(10:34):
she has made a concerted effort and has contacted, I think
including in Europe, every Western school and organization,
including one in Europe, including some in Europe and one
in Europe got back to her expressing interest and only one
organization even responded to her e-mail and all of the rest
of the schools and you all know who you are, did not even reply.

(10:56):
And Annie's not a slouch. She's a best selling author.
She's a 25 year veteran of dog training.
So why don't we have mental health as A at least adjacent,
if not primary factor of consideration before we go out
and serve people and their dogs?It's wild to me because I

(11:16):
recently had a video that I remixed about a dog that was
resource guarding a watermelon and.
I saw that one. My gosh the comment section you
guys is so terrible. The number of people that want
to have physical dominant control over something else is

(11:36):
absolutely unbelievable to me. It makes me feel like the
situation for dogs is dire. People saying they would beat
the dogs, people saying they would get the belt out, people
saying to throw the dog down. This stairs to put the dog down.
Mental health just screaming in that comment section.
I understand that people have bad childhoods, bad experiences,

(12:00):
not great relationships with their parents.
Some people still, even though the stigma now is to not beat
your children, it still happens.There are abusive relationships
with parents, especially people who have parents who are
actively Alcoholics, drug addicts, things like that.
Anger issues that are too macho or too proud to ask for help, to

(12:23):
reach out and say that mental health is a thing and that we
need help. It is unbelievable to me that it
is 2025 and people still don't understand that mental health is
a huge, huge part of what we do.I know that you know, Jess from
Handlers and Humans, she's been on the podcast before and I'm in

(12:44):
her community. I have a reactive dog and having
that kind of support and hearingother people talk about their
experiences and really being able to say, hey, this isn't
just me. It is valid for me to be upset
about this, but it's also valid for my dog to have feelings
because a dog is a living sentient being that has emotions

(13:08):
and that is normal because it's a living being.
And the number of people that don't know that it's OK for your
dog to have feelings or that your dog has feelings is
unbelievable to me. I just don't understand it.
It's like it's disposable. It should follow every one of my
wants, needs, and orders, and itshould do exactly what I say

(13:29):
when I want it to, where I want it to, and how I want it to
without question. It's a freaking dog, man.
Like what? Yeah.
It's disturbing you. Basically just described
colonialism. It's a sad, sad situation that
we are in, unfortunately. Yeah, one of the one of the
really neat things about hearingfrom these speakers of DPE is

(13:51):
that we made a conscious decision to not make this a dog
training conference because there's plenty of those and
there's plenty of awesome stuff out there to receive.
But I, I know from my own lived experience that that the way I
need, I needed help and reached out to dog trainers and, and I
was helped rather than judged and supported rather than
shamed, which is fundamental learning principles.

(14:12):
The not necessarily cultural principles, but you know,
fundamental learning principles.When I, when I had that
experience, that was, that was revelatory for me that A, people
would do that because that was not the social media messaging
and B, that more that most people wouldn't do that.
That was also eye opening. So I asked our speakers to talk
about their significant experiences in their

(14:34):
transformation, in their evolution as dog people because
I wanted to give myself and anybody that's going to attend
the virtuals, the pods as we call them, they're like podcast
style 2 speakers. They each speak for 20 to 30
minutes, then we open the floor.Really, there's really
fascinating these conversations and I just wanted to create
something that was relatable or create a platform that gave dog

(14:58):
people, dog professionals, dog people around the world access
to the human experience in that dog relationship.
Because like you said, we don't talk about it.
And with this, that for whateverreason, I have to control you,
justified or not, with that mindset, it's really hard to as

(15:18):
a dog person to feel like there's somebody out there you
can relate to. It really is.
And it's, it's wild, like I said, because there are so many
of us who have been through the same thing, who experience the
same issues mentally, emotionally, health wise, all of
the things. And yet, as a culture, we're so
deterred from asking for help, which is exactly why I started

(15:39):
the podcast, because I asked forhelp.
I asked for help, and I asked for help and I asked for help.
And I still was running into, especially because of where I
live in the United States, right.
In Iowa. Yeah, we have farm dog culture
here. And people don't understand farm
dog culture because you understand that.
I lived in Texas, too. We have farm dog culture.

(16:02):
The in Texas, those ranchers are.
There's no joking when it comes to that.
Yeah. And people don't understand that
dogs are used as a tool. They are part of the farming
equipment. They are not assigned emotional
well-being or attention at all. They live in a barn, they sleep

(16:23):
on a Bale of hay, they have foodand water out there and they do
not come into the house. They do not interact with the
humans. They work all day long and that
is their purpose. And when they are no longer of
use, the shotgun comes out and it's awful and it's
heartbreaking and it's so sad. And I saw this on Instagram the
other day too. Somebody said, why isn't this

(16:44):
illegal? Dogs in the back of truck beds.
That's all part of farm culture.And even though I don't agree
with it, I understand that sometimes we just can't move the
culture forward in some areas because it's been that way for
so many years. And until somebody comes along
and wants to make it different, it's not going to be different.
And I kind of feel like that's where we're at with things like

(17:05):
dog people, evolution and straight up dog talk because
we're here to say, hey, we're not here to judge you.
We're not here to shame you. We're not here to make you feel
guilty about what we're doing. But can you give us just a few
minutes to help you make a little bit of space and talk
about this and maybe you'll feeldifferently about it afterwards.
And I think that that is so important that we're starting to

(17:27):
accumulate spaces like that. Instead of people doing what I
did, which was go through a bunch of trainers who wanted to
put an E collar and a shock collar on my dog, not try to
help me understand him at all. And then go down the black hole
of Google and become even more confused.
And then by the grace of God, stumble onto somebody like
Jerry, Sailor Jerry, and finallybe able to be like, I get it.

(17:51):
I have a dog that is mostly border collie.
He has too much energy. He's also got some other working
breeds in him. He's not an idiot.
He just doesn't know what to do with himself because he's too
smart and he's supposed to be herding sheep.
OK, we can fix that. And the Kim Brophy's program, I
went through her family dog mediation program and that was
life changing, life changing. I've had dogs all my life.

(18:15):
And I hate that when people say that now because I've had dogs
all my life too. And I still in my late 30s,
didn't know what I was doing because I got a dog that acted
differently than every other dogI had ever had.
And I, I made mistakes and I still make mistakes.
But the beauty of it is, is thatwe're willing to ask questions

(18:35):
and learn and lean on other people.
And that's where the real changecomes in.
That's where the growth comes in.
Yeah, yeah, that idea, like I'vehad dogs all my life.
That's like, that's like me saying I, I I've been driving
for a long time. Well, you've been a shite
driver, like most of that time. So what have you been
practicing? Shite driving?

(18:56):
Well, yeah, and then let's add texting and driving into that
too, because I've been driving all my people.
Somebody compared texting and driving to like changing CDs out
in your car and then these. And I was like no, not the.
Same but that no, not the same. But I think in eyesight, I think
that was the gateway like. It probably was.
Especially when the CD got stuckin there and you're like, you're

(19:19):
like pounding on it, which whichoccasionally it was such a
random reinforcer, sometimes it would come back out.
My gosh. Yes, we're just gonna punch the
CD player. Glad that I didn't live in the
era where they had tape decks because the tapes messing up and
unspooling and all that. That could have been pretty
chaotic too I feel like. I remember that in my mom's car.

(19:41):
Yeah. Kick decks and 8 tracks and
yeah, all of that. Yeah.
There's something there's something to them about the you
know, when you're talking about people not asking for help or
wherever a particular aspect of the dog culture is.
I realized for myself as I continue to just try to stay
open and behind me is a is my 12year old pity mix who knows pity
mixed Asia blue and she and I met at I guess 10 weeks old.

(20:05):
So she's you're about 12, right?She's about 12.
I don't know. It's our best guess, but my
point is that she's what we would probably now call a highly
sensitive dog, which is they're probably all are.
I think we're just becoming moresensitive to that, to how
sensitive they are. But with Deja, what I'm learning
is a whole other level of how toengage with the dog because her

(20:29):
she's so subtle and and so sensitive to changes in the
environment that I really have to manage myself when I'm in her
space. I have to be mindful.
That's a better word manages that.
There's been troll aspect that Igot to be mindful with her in a
way that I didn't with my terrier, for example, or my or

(20:50):
my Husky wolf always had me on point, you know, and so it's
changing me again, it's changingme.
And what I'm getting at is that there's a moment where as I'm as
I'm working with Deja and just spending time with Deja, we
don't really do a whole lot of training.
I just practice living together.Well with dogs, like more than
anything, that's the way I look at it.
I think if people followed me around, they'd be surprised at

(21:12):
how little dog training I actually do and how much
relationship building I'm tryingto support.
So with Deja, she's changing me in ways that I hadn't
anticipated. And the point that I'm
prolonging here is the reckoningof what I didn't do is hard to
swallow. And I suspect I am not suspect.
I know for a fact that I'm not alone in that.

(21:33):
And sometimes, whether it's a conscious recognition or an
underlying fear, the fear of that kind of personal
transparency, it can be enough for somebody to not change.
It can be. Certainly see it in our systems.
In before we even launch DPE we put a poll out to about 30,000
people in social media and 74% of the people said that they

(21:56):
struggled most with isolation and the hierarchy. 74% of dog
people said that. That's sad.
That's so sad. Brutal.
It breaks my heart that people struggle in their daily lives
with their daily relationships and then instead of trying to
find a healthy outlet for their anger, for their distress, for

(22:20):
their sorrow, they come home andthey take it out in a negative
way on their dog or their children or their neighbor,
whatever. And it's just, it's, it's so sad
to me that we have gotten to that point in just humanity in
general, that we think that it'sOK to just unload like that on
someone else because it makes usfeel better in the moment and it

(22:45):
does. We don't think about the, the
context of what we are doing andhow it affects others.
We just worry about ourselves inthose moments.
And I'm not saying that I don't do it because I'm sure that I
do. I know that I do.
But if I make a mistake one day,I come home and I'm not in the
best mood and Fitz is hurting medown the stairs with his ball
and he's so excited because he just wants to play.

(23:05):
Because I've been gone all day and I'm grouchy.
And then I get out in the yard and I'm like, oh wait, wait a
second, I've been gone all day. Take a breath.
He's just excited to see you. He just wants to play.
And then by the time we're done,I feel a whole lot better
because I've kind of just let everything else go around me
instead of stomping around the backyard and being a jerk

(23:27):
because he wants to play. Oh.
Gosh, totally. Yeah.
I I've flinched and appreciate when people call it what it is,
that our dogs are basically modern day captives.
I I have to wait for you to let me outside.
I have to wait to pee. I have to wait to eat.
I have to wait to explore. I have to, it's a lot.
And you know that one of the, I guess maybe to a fault.

(23:48):
They're so resilient. One of the magical things is
that when I, when I am willing to make a few changes, even if
it's just stop doing something like stop coming into the room,
you know, we have a lively household.
I got two young kids. Everything's a musical with a
bunch of bad jokes in it. And that's not Deja's style.
So Deja Blue's going to go upstairs and she's going to opt

(24:10):
out. So sometimes it's stopped doing
things, but sometimes it's, it'sremarkably simple.
Like, you know what, Deja, I'm just not going to pet you.
I'm going to sit near you, but I'm not going to touch you
because you're pretty sensitive to touch.
And those little things can go along way.
I mean, I know from a human experience feeling, I guess I
don't have any other experience than the human experience.

(24:30):
And for anybody I'm looking, I'mlooking at my at my window on
our screen for anybody that's listening and not watching, my
daughter's 5 foot tall stuffed giraffe is behind me over my
shoulder. So the visual is I'm talking to
em. And then there's just this
giraffe that. The peanut gallery.
Hasn't moved like so. Still, it's really impressive.

(24:52):
Just doesn't want to be noticed,but it doesn't take much.
It's really something and you know, like you think about the
the grind and trying to support dogs and the challenges and
their people and all of that. And then there are these moments
that that probably proportionally they're so small,
like the winds proportionally are so small.
But in terms of impact, they're so significant.

(25:12):
That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here, because it
almost brings me to tears every time.
The privilege of being in that where you see a dog, see the
world or themself differently. The best feeling in the world.
Well, you got me all emotional too.
Geez. Yeah.
What do you think is your hardest one victory in that

(25:34):
aspect? One of my favorites I've worked
the the divine irony is that I went from loving dogs and then
being bit as a kid and then and then being afraid.
And then I ended up specializingin aggression and reactivity and
high risk, high risk aggression cases.
And sidebar, I don't give bit anymore.
That was a really important thing I heard.

(25:55):
I just, I want to come to your question, but I want to make
sure I say this. I went to a conference and PDT
conference in, in 20, 16 or something like that.
It was up in Washington state, and I heard a speaker say that,
that he had only been, he'd onlybeen bit once.
I think it was Ken McCourt. Yeah, he'd only been bit once in

(26:16):
30 years. And I was like how is that
possible? Only been what bit once in 30
years? See, like, so for, for the
listeners, like here's the difference between a responsible
human being and this guy I had because so much of how I came up
into the dog training world, there was so much of my own ego
involved that I thought that being bit was actually a sign of

(26:40):
how brave I was. I had no idea the impact it was
having on the dog, including thefact that that I let it get to
that point. But aggression is really costly
emotionally. I'm not talking about for me,
for the dog emotionally, socially, biologically.
So even with all of that, one ofthe most impactful dogs I got to
work with is a dog named Finnegan. 4 year old double

(27:01):
moral Aussie, 70 lbs, a visual impaired and deaf, straight up
deaf. And he did not play like he he
did not play because of because of his physical limitations.
He'd been in a shelter for I think three years and he would
have a visitor, an Angel named John would show up and work with
him and care for him. But fitting and didn't get any

(27:21):
access to regular social experiences.
And one of the best things I ever did was not work with him
until I was ready. And I, I understood because I'd
learned some things the hard waywhen we were running our
facility in LA that I needed to tap out what we started to see.
We created a debrief process whenever there was an incident.

(27:44):
Remarkably, there were actually very few incidents considering
we were working with a high riskgroup, 50 to 60 dogs a day, 15
people on the staff, a lot of action.
We rarely had incidents, but every time we had an incident,
what we started to do is make sure the dog was OK and make
sure the person was OK. Take 10 minutes and then let's
reconvene. And then the first question once
after we checked in was what would you have done differently?

(28:06):
And I think I got that from my recovery.
I don't know, like I got that idea in my head from somebody
else because I wasn't much on self reflection, self obsession,
yes, but not self reflection. And when, when we started to
break it down, what we found is there was always a moment where
somebody said I had a feeling orI saw this.
It never came out of the blue. So when I heard Ken McCourt say

(28:27):
I'd only been bit once in 30 years and I was like, oh man,
I've been on an ego trip. No more.
I'm putting it on the calendar like my, like my sober date.
I am not getting bit anymore. And I had a couple of slips
after that, not drinking, but with getting bit because I had
to unlearn some behaviors. But I waited two years, two
years of consistent work with mystaff and I and I waited two
years to actually walk Finnegan on a leash myself.

(28:50):
And I was and he and he looked up and he smiled and we walked
and I was feeling nervous. That was a huge win for me.
And I just sat my busy self out and just kept waiting and
waiting and waiting till he was ready for me to be ready.
Love that dog. It's such an incredible feeling
when you're working with a dog like that who doesn't trust

(29:12):
anybody, who won't let anybody get near them, who has bitten
everyone else around. And the next thing you know,
that dog is your best bud. And everybody is going, what did
you do? What what just happened here?
Why is this? What is?
And that was when I was a vet tech.
It's still that way now. But when I was a vet tech, that
was me. Yeah.
That's why I was the head vet tech, because I was the one that

(29:35):
was able to sit down and go through things.
A crazy experience, I think thatI ever had.
We had this little dog that would come in, this little white
terrier mix and it had seizures and it would come in and it
would be snarling and seizing. And it was just, it was one of
the most awful things I ever hadto experience.

(29:56):
But I would take her and I wouldtake her into the very back.
We had this area that was supposed to be for dogs who were
in recovery. So it was in the very, very
back. And I would just go in the back
with her and I would turn the light off and I would set her
down on the floor. We would sit in the middle of
all the kennels. And she would kind of like rage
out over in the corner for a minute.
And then I would just talk to her very quietly, very softly

(30:20):
until she stopped. And she would kind of just walk
herself out of her seat and thenshe would walk over and she
would lay down in my lap and go to sleep.
And then we would be able to give her her medication and give
her something for pain. And I would take her back to her
parents. And everyone was always like, I
don't understand. I'm like, you guys are trying to
do all of this stuff to her. You're putting so much pressure

(30:42):
on her. And she already doesn't know
what's happening to her body. She has no control in this
situation. And you guys are trying to just
pin her down to the table. And of course, she's going to
bite somebody. Just give her a minute here,
like let's just, let's just relax a little bit.
But again, that people trying tocontrol the situation.
Yes, they were trying to help her, but they were trying to
force her, which was making the seizures worse, which was making

(31:05):
her reaction harder. And it was just, it was too
much. It was too much for her and she
couldn't handle it. She eventually did have to be
put down because the seizures became too frequent.
It was just not fair to her. But it was one of the most
miraculous things that I've everexperienced because that dog
trusted me. They would come into the
hospital and they would put her in my arms.

(31:25):
Her name was Maggie. They would put her in my arms
and I would just take Baggie back to the back and we would
just go do our thing and she immediately would just like
relax the second she was in my arms.
It was just such a cool experience.
I. I'm having a visceral response
and I'm sure a lot of people arejust listening to it.
Even when you talk about her coming into your arms and

(31:45):
relaxing, I just felt my shoulders drop and my breathing
change thinking about Finnegan. I wanna give a special shout out
to Kelly and Maureen, a couple of friends of mine who were his
humans. And that was also a really
valuable part of my lesson because these women were so
committed to Finnegan's well-being.
They were Uber responsible and Ilearned a lot from them.

(32:07):
And part, a big part of my learning was, well, you're
already really proactive about this.
And I'm not at this time qualified to work with Finn the
way that you need it. But I have other people on my
team are. So I kept learning from them
what works for Finnegan. And that was just a great it's
just a great experience. I'm grateful to finish since
past we're friends to this day. And I think that's another

(32:30):
important thing to bring in whenwe think about the coming back
to this poll and 74% of people feeling isolation in the
hierarchy, this framework that we've set up in this multi multi
billion dollar dog industry thatthat is predicated on you
consumer just don't know, you just don't know.

(32:50):
So we're just going to tell you what to do and as long as your
dog does XYZ, you'll be happy and here's what you got to buy.
But it totally dismisses the ownwisdom of that individual, of
that human being. I bet there's a bunch of people
that are listening out here thatare kick ass dog people.
They make great choices and theycare deeply and they make
sacrifices and they make health choices for themselves.

(33:13):
I mean, there's so much that is so easily dismissed because it
didn't come from the hallowed halls of something that is the
gay Sayer. You know what I mean?
It's just garbage. It's a garbage mindset.
I happen to have benefited from it and I recognize white male
television show. There's no way around the fact
that I got access to things thatother people won't ever have

(33:35):
access to. But the further and I never
thought I'd be glad to say I wasquite my show got cancelled
because it I got a real steep learning curve there and then I
had the freedom to go explore other things and that's been a
real gift. So I just want to give.
I want to pause and credit and praise to all you that are
listening or watching that are making great choices every day.

(33:55):
You may not feel like it. You may not think you are.
Somebody else may not only not be telling you, they may be
telling you the opposite. But I am sure that you're doing
better than you're giving creditfor.
What would you tell somebody whowas starting to to feel like
they were maybe ready to change the way that they interact with
dogs and they're ready to move forward emotionally and connect

(34:20):
with their dogs in a different way as well as with themselves,
and maybe recover from some of the harsher side of treatment
that we have normalized in our culture?
Where would you tell them to start?
Well, you know what I learned from from my friend and mentor,
Doctor Chris Parkl? Veterinary behaviors, something
at Portland area. And he was, it was one of the

(34:40):
early people I reached out to who was just so gracious.
One of the things I love about Chris's story is that he credits
his people skills with the fact that his mentor was a social
worker, so he brought that into his practice.
He's just an exceptional human being.
I learned from Chris what he calls coaching the principal.
In fact, it took me some time before I realized he was

(35:01):
coaching me to principal. But coaching the principal in
essence means I have, I have oneprincipal here.
So mine is I'm here to help takepressure off everybody in this
house. That's it.
So anything I do technically, training wise, logistically,
management wise, anything I do is about taking pressure off.
And people more or less, a lot of us are starting with the same

(35:21):
thing. But when we get to that moment
where people, and it's a pretty easy, I mean, just to like big
Crass, it's an easy sell becausenobody's going to say I would
like more pressure, that they will act with more pressure.
But I've never met anybody said I'd really like more pressure in
this relationship with my dog. So once we have that common
ground, neither of us want to have more pressure with our dog,

(35:43):
then technically it gets pretty easy.
Let me show you a couple of waysthat might be easier for you.
And to couple that with just enough awareness around the
dog's body language so that theycan see a shift, then then the
buy in, again, to be crass aboutit, then the buy in is a lot
easier. So that's really where I start.

(36:04):
Tell me where the pressure is and then and then we'll go from
there. There's a lot of tears in our
sessions. Do you feel like people come to
you who still struggle with feeling like dogs are worthy of
better? Yeah.
Yeah, I, I have it in my own family and I haven't shared
about this publicly and I don't think that I don't think my
family is going to listen to this, so I'll roll with it.

(36:25):
But I've got some family members.
I will note that my family neverasks me for help with their dogs
and they don't listen to to how I want them to take care of my
dog either. Same.
For better, for worse, it wasn'tuntil they saw me on TV where
they actually thought I was a legitimate dog trainer.
Which is ironic because TV is TV.
It takes us 80 hours to film a 44 minute episode and it's all

(36:48):
about numbers. The network can say animals
first is our motto, but animals aren't first if the dollars
aren't coming in. So in my family there is a dog,
a purebred golden that was brought in that it was just
labeled as the therapy dog had no therapy training.
My judgement didn't have therapytemperament, but people do that
a lot. That's just the therapy dog.

(37:09):
That's the helper dog. If you live in a multi sibling
house, those labels can be pretty challenging.
And I started to see a lot of stress between that dog and a
senior dog who was sick and and on the road to dying.
But the dynamics in the home were pretty.
There were a lot of human dynamics there that that were
put into the dog's relationships.

(37:30):
So the short of it is that the the helper dog attacked the
senior pug and I said in the best way that I thought they
might be able to hear. That was the first time they
really sincerely asked me for help.
And I said here's things to watch for and here are some
simple things that can be done. Trigger warning regarding a dog
attack. And they didn't listen.

(37:51):
And therapy dog attacked that pug and soon after the pug
passed and I had never said anything to them about it since
beyond what they are comfortabletalking about.
And they have had to frame that and shape that in their minds to
look a certain way. And I know I understand why

(38:12):
people do that. And then I come into the house
soon after for a holiday and thedogs have a shock collars on.
Just curious. And I don't even ask, they just
volunteer. I think in part because they
might feel a little bit strange when the dog trainer comes over,
look at it and they immediately it's just it's an understandable
justification. They taught us them when they're
up on the couch. So I just walk around and see

(38:33):
how many members got the got thebutton hanging around their
neck. And those dogs in their
estimation are well managed. And no surprise because fallout
is fallout. The dogs are increasingly
stressed and I would argue that they listen worse than ever.
They're now counter surfing and running out of the house,
etcetera, etcetera. That is literally in my in, not

(38:56):
in my home I live in, but that is in my immediate family.
That's what's happening. I had a similar thing happened
to me. I have family members that are
the same way and I had a dog that was almost killed by one of
my other dogs. I had to put my German Shepherd
Izzy down because she became increasingly aggressive.

(39:16):
I tried everything. I worked with trainers.
I did behavior modification. And granted, this was 14 years
ago, so things were a little bitdifferent back then and I often
wonder if it was today if thingswould be different.
And I feel bad about it. But I also know that there was
something not quite right about Izzy.
And I don't know that even todayshe would have been helped.

(39:37):
But Fiona lived. After Izzy got put down, Fiona
lived. She had the repair.
She was fine with my dog Cajun, But other dogs I didn't let be
around her because she was triggered, because they would
bark at her, lunge at her. She would have that that trauma,
that flashback. And I went through a divorce and
I moved back to Iowa and I was living with my parents and they

(39:57):
had four small dogs, OK. And Fiona was 120.
Pound, best guess, German shepherd, mastiff mix.
She was huge. My parents had four small
dachshunds and I said do not putyour dogs outside when my dogs
are outside because you have little dogs.
They're not well mannered, they don't listen.
They're going to bark at her andsomething bad is going to happen

(40:18):
because 120 to 20 is a big difference.
And I was there for about a weekand I was outside with my dogs
and my mom opened the door and Isaid don't do that.
And she said it'll be fine. Her £20 dog charged my 120 LB
dog and two dogs died the next day.
So it's, it's sad and it's awful.
And I can only bring Fitz, my medium sized dog over there with

(40:43):
advanced notice so that they canput their dogs up because she
won't ever say it out loud. But I know that she's afraid
that he's going to do the same thing.
He won't, But because that happened and we never talked
about it, that stigma just staysand hangs there in the air.
Yeah. And it it sucks.
My little dog is welcome anytime.

(41:04):
They'll watch Toby anytime. But the second fix comes over,
everybody else has got to be putaway.
My sister and I are not allowed to bring our dogs over at the
same time. Like it's.
It's a whole thing. Yeah.
Family dynamics make everything even more complex.
Yeah. It's so hard.
Yeah, my son taught me a really great lesson to.
I have tried to still respect not hammer home, try to kind of

(41:27):
get away from the old hammer home and double down and get all
of that. I tried to instill just basic
awareness like when a dog's headturns away.
No, no, no pet, no play, little things like that.
But maybe through, you know, I'msure I got some parenting
responsibility that sometimes ifhe wants to do something, he
just wants to do something. He's 8.
But also he keeps going over thetop of dogs heads and he got

(41:52):
corrected once. It was a small one but he got
bit. I think he learned from that.
But the the thing I want to share is that he was outside
recently. Dog got loose and he came
running in because he was reallyupset.
He'd fallen and hurt his arm pretty badly.
He was running from the dog because he thought the dog was
going to attack him. It was probably like a third 30

(42:13):
LB. I would guess a healer,
Chihuahua mix, something like that.
And I went out to see where the dog was.
It must have belonged to the neighbors up the street because
it was underneath the car there.And when I approached it had big
feelings. But when we went to some other
family member's house, they havedogs.
Once we got into the house, we couldn't find him.

(42:33):
And then ultimately I found him and he was hiding in the office
closet because he had been so traumatized by the experience of
this small dog knocking him overthat all of a sudden going to
the family member's house where there were dogs was terrifying
for him. And I found him in the closet
crying and not able to talk. And I'm really grateful that I

(42:55):
have learned how to support him in moments like that.
Two things that stood out to me.One was it hadn't occurred to me
that he would have trauma that would carry over like that
because we're just going to a family member's house with dogs
you already know. But a really scary thing
happened with the dog. And the president was
established that when I see dogs, in spite of all of his
learned history, when I see a dog, something dangerous might

(43:17):
happen. So I was really grateful to have
that blind spot shown to me. And then I was also just
grateful because I I get great parenting support from my wife
and a bunch of other people thatI was able to be there with him
and bug and hold him. And I'm so sorry because that
that's, that's not my experiencecoming up.
And then it was able to pass. So yeah, we just don't know how

(43:38):
these things impact. It's great, though, that you
recognize that that's not what you received as a child and that
you're willing to give it to your child and your dogs.
That's kind of beautiful becausethat shows the evolution right
there. Yeah, it's really something.
It's not easy to receive. I've talked with a lot of people
and probably on this, this particular topic of receiving, I

(44:00):
talked with a lot of people, thousands of people over the
last decade because I started tofocus on my own inability or
unwillingness or even allergy toreceive love, care, support,
kindness, healing. And I thought, that's so
strange. Like on paper, logically, which
usually gets me almost nowhere, but it's functional.
Why wouldn't I want to receive? And then I realized when I broke

(44:22):
down in the experience of receiving, well, in order for me
to receive something which is different than taking and it is
different than getting, receiving is a different
experience. In order for me to receive, I am
in a place of vulnerability, transparency, humility, usually
tenderness, relationship. There's an emotional intimacy
with actually receiving something, reflection.

(44:44):
Then I realized it's no wonder that I have trouble receiving
because I don't like all, all ofthose things that I just
described that are feelings and aspects of the experience are
far very foreign, if not just like, really uncomfortable.
Yeah. So to be in a place to receive
help, to your point about my ownevolution, to be in a place to
receive help, it's really extraordinary when I hear and
observe a lot of people trashingother people the way that it's

(45:06):
just become common to do, especially in social media,
especially if it's one group versus another.
And in DPE, one of the things that we're looking at very
closely, racism, classism, sexism, how so many of these
show up and how they're inherentand how we treat each other and
how we treat our dogs. And when we look at that, the
one question that that never fails is, OK, if you think

(45:29):
you've got it so bad, I'm going to be honest, in a room full of
white people, OK, white people, if you think you've got it so
bad, then how many of you want to trade places with black folks
in the industry right now? And I've never seen anybody
raise their hand. Never.
Somebody might say I trade places with Jerry because she's
got a bomb ass life. They might say that.
But you know, if we call it whatit is, so receiving it takes a

(45:52):
lot of takes a lot of support toeven get to that place.
It really does. I'm really bad at receiving,
too. I'm really good at giving.
I'm really good at supporting. I'm really good at being the
secret keeper or the confidant or the person that supports
other people. I'm really, really, really good
at that. But when somebody tries to turn
it around on me, I'm like, I don't know, Am I OK with this?

(46:14):
Am I good? Like, I don't.
I don't know. So even, like, taking a
compliment is really often very difficult for me.
Yeah. Yeah, it takes practice for sure
sometimes, one of one of my mentors said.
Matt, this is this is just when you say thank you, that's all.
It's funny because Jerry, she ismy mentor and I love Jerry

(46:34):
because Jerry will be so blunt about it.
She'll be like, hey, pay attention.
Listen to what I'm saying to you.
You did that right? That was amazing.
And I'm like, OK, yeah, thank you.
You know, but Jerry, that's the thing that I love about her is
she's so drop dead honest that you can't get around what she's
saying to you. So if she's telling you you

(46:56):
fucked that up, you definitely fucked it up, right?
Jerry doesn't play. So I listen when Jerry speaks
because even though she and I have very similar histories as
far as working in the vet tech background and now into dog
training and stuff, she, she's ahead of me and where I am in my
dog training journey. And I'm going to listen to her

(47:16):
because her experience is different than mine.
And I think that that's the mostimportant thing is that if
people would just realize that listening to people who have
different, similar, varied backgrounds, we would learn so
much more, so much faster because we're taking into
account that every situation is different and not trying to,

(47:40):
with the whole background of dogtraining and the whole dog
industry and everything, this isnot a cookie cutter situation.
We can't just cut and paste and apply and say this dog and this
dog and this because they're not.
They're just as unique as you and I are from each other.
Yeah, I I was reflecting back. Spent the last five months

(48:01):
working with an amazing coach. Big shout out in props to Nikki
Black and IKKIELAK amazing humanbeing and I was saying to her in
my reflection as we wrapped up this week.
It's it's occurred to me that like the work never stops, never
ends. But that's different than the
kind of workaholic life I was living Like I've made a lot of

(48:23):
really, really strong and firm and prosperous family life
quality decisions. If I'm gonna lose my business,
I'll lose it, but I'm not willing to not be there for my
kids dinner time like I made, I made.
I had to be clear about my priorities.
But I said to Nikki the other day, I just just realized that
that the work is never done. It's not.

(48:43):
And then she said yes, but you can change how you carry the
load. Yikes.
You sure can. I'm gonna have to spin on that
one this week. Because how you carry the load
and how you show up, that's pivotal to how how successful
you are and sustainable how you can.
Yeah, and sustainable how how you how you move forward, how
you act as a human. Was there a dog that had the

(49:06):
biggest impact on you, that madeeverything just kind of fall
into place for you? Yeah, Ringgate.
Yeah, my Korean Jindo best friend.
Best friend. I love my humans, but I'm clear
now that he was my best friend. And I met him at 4 1/2 years
old, back in the days when I would go to the shelter, when
you shouldn't be going to the shelter because you're going to

(49:27):
come home with a dog. Yeah.
And I had I had gone to the shelter just because I'm just
passing through and I saw him and all the other dogs, they
were just so stressed and they were yelling and screaming and
all of those things. I walked path past his kennel
and he's just leaning against the side.
It's not really doing anything or just so I think my take was

(49:47):
composed. And I asked the handler shout
out to Charlotte's amazing animal person who was the the
lead volunteer there. And I said, can I meet him?
And she said sure. I watched her bring him out on
leash, talk about leash skills. I didn't have squat at the time.
And I watched her bring him out on leash and he climbed that
leash like a savage shark. And I watched her handling and

(50:11):
her handling and she didn't get bit.
And she didn't put intentional pressure on him to behave a
certain way. And she just let it drop.
And so I went home. I didn't tell my girlfriend at
the time, the girlfriend that I actually initially moved in
with. We were still together at that
time. When I met Louis Kingston, I
started my journey. I didn't tell her that I'd gone
to see this dog. And I didn't tell her in part

(50:31):
because she and her daughter hadgone to see the dog earlier in
the week. And they came home and they said
to me, we need to get another dog.
And I said, I'm not getting another dog unless I'm making
more money. Something silly like, and my
team wins the World Series like things I knew just weren't
possible at that stage in my life.
But I went to go see him withouttelling them.

(50:51):
And I came home and I couldn't stop thinking about it.
And I was in a meditation. And in the meditation, I heard
very clearly, this is your dog and he will save your life
someday. So I went back to visit him and
went out to the big play yard this time with him and tried to
play fetch, but I didn't know hehad some resource guarding
tendencies. So when I reached the ball, he

(51:12):
just about punctured me. He was like a bite level 4, bite
level 5 dog. And Charlotte at the shelter,
she said I don't know why he's still here.
She said he's been adopted in return and he's got this serious
bite history. I don't know why he's still
here. So ultimately he came home and
he was a most diligent and predictable and noble teacher.

(51:32):
And part of what that looked like is every time he went for
socks that were under the bed and I reached for them, he bit
me because I wasn't smart enoughto change the arrangement.
And ultimately I started to listen to him.
And ultimately what I learned isthat he was a deeply sensitive,
really kind, deeply loyal dog. And it took my son 4 1/2 years

(51:56):
from the time my son was born, Iwas so careful with, with Renge
and our son. It took him 4 1/2 years to touch
him. And I remember it because bless
my son. He was so patient.
And Renge came out and, and like, pushed his little hip
against my son. And I said, I said, I think
that's a sign that Renge wants you to pet him and my son pet
him. And then Renge laid down and

(52:17):
gave him a belly, which was very, very rare.
And then my son pet him for like20 minutes.
And then Renge sneezed. That was always his cue that
he's done. He sneezed and got up and
chuffed and shook off and then walked away.
He was everything I needed in a teacher that, gosh, I can't wait
to see him. And when her daughter was very
young and Renge was in his finalstages, he was already not

(52:38):
because he was dying. He had already softened so much
that she would come in, I'd be in the room and watch it, and
she'd come in and he had the softest ears ever.
And she would pet him and he would just push his head into
her hand. And that's who he was.
We had unpacked so much that that's really who he was.
Yeah, I don't want to go anytimesoon, but I sure do want to see.

(52:59):
Him well, let me tell you what Ibelieve about dogs I believe
that they come back I don't believe that they leave us I
mean, obviously I believe that they stay with us throughout our
whole life because they live here in our heart right.
I'm going to get emotional so you can get emotional too.
I see it. I see it coming.
Yeah. But I believe that our dogs come
back to us and I, I believe thatwe don't realize it until we

(53:21):
need to realize it because that dog outside fits.
That dog is Cajun. But he's also my first dog,
Vince. And he comes back every 10 ish
years in a different form with adifferent lesson and a different
message and a whole bunch of different pal.
OK, so Renge is going to come back.

(53:41):
And when he does, I want you to call me or e-mail me or message
me on Instagram and I want you to say, God damn it Emily, you
were right. And here he is.
And this is going to be a whole different journey with him.
Yeah, gosh, yeah. Yeah, because it will happen and
it will hit you and you will be like, because he's the same dog,

(54:02):
but he's just a little bit different.
And that personality, like I said, there's something about
it. Like I just, I just know that
it's him. Yeah.
Because that, that it's like a part of my soul has been missing
and now it's back again. So I feel like full as a person
again. Because twin flames are a thing,
right? And that dog right there, that

(54:24):
dog is my twin flame. He is, and Renke will come back.
Just give him some time because he only will come when you
absolutely need that lesson. When that big change needs to
push through your brain. He'll be there.
He'll be there. Yeah, yeah, I'll definitely.
Let you know they're a wild, wonderful experience and they

(54:45):
are messy and they are terrifying and they are
heartbreaking, but I would not change it for any other
experience in this life. Yeah, they've literally, they've
changed my life and they've, they've literally shown me the
world. Tell me your absolute favorite
thing about dogs. First 3 words Heart

(55:05):
perspicacity. Do you know this word?
No. Now I got to look it up so.
I know lots of words and I don'tknow that one I.
Have to look it up because I don't want to just be that guy
when I patience everybody. This might surprise nobody.
The quality of having a ready insight into things.
The quality of having a ready insight into things.

(55:26):
Which means you are a perspicacious person.
So the reason, the only reason why I know that word is because
many years ago I studied musicaltheater in college.
It was awesome. Awesome.
I heard from my one of the best things I ever heard, singing is
what we do when speaking will nolonger suffice.
So there was a song that I learned that had the word

(55:47):
perspicacity in it. And I just hung onto that
because they're like pretending.I know big words.
I'll make them up if I can. But right there, that's, that's
how, that's the thing, joy, loveand perspicacity that they have
an ability. I don't want to go back to
looking up the definition on thescreen because I don't want to
drop the screen again. But whatever I just said, that's

(56:09):
what they have. Those are the three things that
come to mind. Dogs do though, they have this
innate ability to read us and see us for who we are.
And honestly, back to your pointabout being bit, I think that
one is a form of communication. They're saying no, I'm not going
to let you do that or no, I don't like that.
I think that that's a lot of whyI didn't get bit because when

(56:33):
you approach with the intention of I am here to help you, you
tell me if you're comfortable, let me speak to you kind of
thing, right? I fully believe that dogs
understand us and our intentionson a way deeper level than we
understand them because they cansmell things like fear and our
heart palpitations and our anxiety and all those things,

(56:55):
right? They sense all of that stuff.
So their understanding, their language with us is so much more
complex than we give them creditfor and they understand us on a
way deeper level than we even understand ourselves sometimes.
So being respectful and approaching with respect and
laying yourself bare literally for a dog is like the best thing

(57:17):
that you can do when it comes tothat relationship building and
those trust exercises because the dog, again, is not going to
judge you. The dog is then going to trust
you and be in that circle with you, just like with your
daughter. It took a minute with your son,
but because she had that experience, that learned
experience with your son and that trust in you, your daughter

(57:39):
was that much more easier to accept and be like, this is
something I enjoy and this is something that I like and I
trust that he won't let anythingbad happen to me.
So that's a huge example of how we can build those relationships
and how we can show those relationships to other people
just by leading by example. And I think that you do such a

(57:59):
beautiful job of that. The fact that you're so raw and
you're so humble about your experience is so refreshing
because let me just say, for youto come forward and be like, my
ego was this, my emotions were this, my addiction was this, and
that was all trash. And here's where we are now as a
woman, that is so refreshing because there are so many men

(58:21):
out there that they don't just want to control dogs, they want
to control women. They want to control children.
They want to control the world around them.
And a lot of it is because they are insecure human beings.
So it says a lot about you as a person that you are willing to
come out here and be friends with someone like me and have an

(58:42):
open conversation like this in front of however many hundreds
of thousands of listeners and just be like, be a better person
and be better to dogs. And it's OK to make mistakes as
long as you're willing to learn from them.
And that is, it's just beautifuland I just appreciate that you
do that on a weekly basis. I learned something from you and

(59:05):
you rebuild my faith in humanity.
Thank you so much for that. In the spirit of receiving, I'm
just gonna. Yeah, that went like right to
the right to the heart chakra. Thank you.
Well, you're welcome. You are.
You are truly an inspiration, and I truly value your opinion
and your knowledge. And I just think that it's just

(59:26):
so wonderful to make these connections.
And it's so crazy that somethinglike Instagram has forged all of
these wild connections between people.
Yeah. And I can't wait until we get
the RV and we get on the road and I'll come visit you and we
can just make something really amazing together.
Yeah, yeah, so true. Instagram's like that, that
party that's super popular, but you get through you like this

(59:47):
party sucks, let's go, let's go somewhere else.
Like let's go to. So we got to thank the party and
the people that own the party and all of their all their
shittiness. But yeah, I respect there are
cases like ours and like gratefully, like a number of
others where the social aspect of social media actually has
yielded something. Yeah, yeah.

(01:00:08):
Appreciate that. It'll be really, really fun to
see in person. And I, I just so appreciate your
content, how you talk about things, how you show up.
I learn a lot and I'm inspired by watching the stuff that you
do too. And that's, that's the stuff,
the ball or stuff like, oh, yeah, yeah, OK, I got to
incorporate that. I really like that perspective
on that. And just to keep downloading and

(01:00:29):
bringing. And pretty sure that nobody woke
up this morning and said, you know, like we really need Matt
Pfizer to take charge of things,pretty sure.
So I'm going to just stay in my lane as best I can.
Same, same. But I feel like building this
community that a lot of us are trying to build and a lot of us
are working together and creating stuff like this for

(01:00:51):
everyone to learn from, I think is just so important.
And it is going to make change. And I think that if we are just
persistent it it really will be.I cannot wait to continue to
grow our friendship and create wonderful things with you.
And in the spirit of that, what would you like to leave our
listeners with today? Hope, Hope, Hope, Hope stands

(01:01:12):
for Hear other people's experience.
And that is exactly what we do here guys.
So I hope that you enjoyed this episode with Matt.
You guys can reach him on Instagram, you can find him on
YouTube, you can find him on Netflix, you can find him
everywhere. And if you can't find him on
your own, reach out to me and I will connect you and we will see
you guys next week on Straight Up Dog Talk.

(01:01:42):
If Matt's words hit home for youtoday, I hope you'll check out
the Dog People Evolution Conference.
It's virtual, CEU approved, and filled with honest conversations
about how we show up for our dogs and ourselves.
This isn't your typical dog training event.
It's emotional, thoughtful, and rooted in community.
I'll be there too, and I'd love to see you join us.
Just head over to dogpeoplevolution.com to learn

(01:02:05):
more.