Why Obedience Training Alone Won’t Fix Your Dog’s Anxiety or Reactivity

Tried all the protocols, bought every tool, and your dog’s still not improving?

If you're stuck in a cycle of reactivity, barking, or anxiety despite following expert advice, it might be time to rethink the way you're approaching your dog’s behavior. This episode flips the script on traditional training with a skill few talk about: curiosity.

In this episode:

• ​Discover how curiosity (not control) unlocks lasting change in dogs
• ​Learn the top 3 red flags when choosing a trainer—and how to spot them early
• ​Hear how Josh’s background in corporate investigations reshaped his entire approach to working with reactive dogs

Press play to explore a new, empowering perspective on training that builds trust, not tension—and finally helps you move forward with your big-feeling dog.

Straight Up Dog Talk Extras:

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This podcast explores real-life dog behavior and training through the lens of a canine nutritionist, dog coach, and retired vet tech—diving into reactivity, dog obedience, dog health, dog food, dog habits, dog lifestyle, canine enrichment, pet enrichment, dog myths, and what it actually takes to support reactive dogs safely and calmly. Whether you’re a dog mom navigating reactivity, building the human–dog bond, choosing dog products, or just trying to create a calmer dog life with your canine, you’ll find grounded strategies to build trust, improve dog behavior, and help your dog feel safe, understood, and supported.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
He spent 17 years catching criminals and 1 unexpected love
story turned him into a dog trainer.
Welcome to Straight Up Dog Talk,the podcast helping burned out
pet parents who feel stuck with their pup.
Finally let go of the guilt. Learn to communicate and build
the bond you've always dreamed of through a partnership based
approach that combines training,nutrition and enrichment instead

(00:23):
of chasing the quick fixes that don't actually work.
I'm Em. And in this episode, you'll
learn why curiosity fuels bettertraining and how digging for the
real lie in behavior can completely change your results.
How to spot red flags in dog training online so that you can
find real support instead of more confusion.

(00:45):
And what no one talks about withhard cases, including behavioral
euthanasia. And why asking for help sooner
can save lives. Because sometimes the path that
saves you is the one that you never plan to take.
Josh doesn't know know it yet. He's in for a little bit of
surprise. We're going to talk about dog
training, but what I really wantto talk about is how you got

(01:06):
into dog training. I don't think I've ever heard
that story before. So tell us what brought you here
today. Goodness gracious, never
expected to get into dog training.
Long career of 17 years in a complete separate field and was
happy and content. And then I met the woman of my
dreams and ever since I've met her, everything has changed
dramatically and I have no control over it and I'm just

(01:28):
along for the ride at this point.
I think that's OK. I think that's OK you.
Think it'll be a love story? Did you that surprised you,
Curveball? I mean, I knew that you had met
Natalie and that that had changed your life, so I kind of
figured that had something to dowith it, but I didn't know that
that was the whole reason. That's pretty awesome, because
you don't hear that kind of thing very often, honestly.

(01:49):
No, it's typically. I had dogs as a child and I
really connected with dogs and dogs, dogs, dogs, but I've
always loved dogs. But honestly, life sort of
completely changed when you meetsomebody who sees you and gives
you the confidence to more or less manifest things that you
didn't think were possible. So that's definitely our origin
story. That's.

(02:09):
Very cool. Let's get into that a little
bit. How did you meet Natalie?
I was a corporate investigator, so my job for 17 years was
investigating organized crime and catching people stealing,
both people coming into companies stealing as well as
employees stealing. Like a long career in that
worked for several headquarters in different organizations.
And I was hired for Natalie. In my interview process, I was

(02:34):
sat down and they were very upfront with me and said we're
looking for someone to be able to match a particular district
manager that we have who are burning through loss prevention
leadership. She's very difficult to handle.
She's a pistol. And through the interview
process, they felt like I was a good match to be able to keep up
with her because she was very much a freight in her line of

(02:56):
work. And if her business partners
didn't keep up or they were slouching or they were lazy or
they were a net or anything, shecould smell it and she they
would tap. And so I was, I guess you could
say, hand selected to be her business partner, which is
really strange. And then through the course of
being her business partner, we fell in love and I left the
organization and left the career.

(03:18):
A lot of dog trainers entered the industry during the
pandemic. It was just a time when I think
if her buddy went, what now, it was like the global reset.
Everybody that locked away and started thinking about their
life and what they actually wantto do and are they happy.
And although I was really happy in my career and I worked really
hard to be successful in that career and had a reputation, it
took a hard look at maybe getting back into dog training,

(03:42):
which is something that I had learned in the Marine Corps a
long, long time ago. The first time that I learned to
train dogs, I was stationed in the Marine Corps base in Hawaii
and I was hanging out with some Air Force friends.
Camp Smith and I saw a dog trainer training an officers
Pitbull to protect the pickup truck.
She was on base doing protectiontraining.

(04:02):
We were all sitting back and just watching her agitate this
Pitbull in a pickup truck. And so I struck up a
conversation with her and asked if she would teach me.
And she said, if you come out and you clean my kennels, I'll
think about it. And so I spent my weekends going
out across the island in Waimanalo.
She had a dog training company called Aloha Dog Training.

(04:23):
I can't find her. So if you're out there, reach
out, look for like everywhere. And I can't find her anymore.
But I trained, I cleaned her kennels for a very long time.
She taught me to train dogs in my, I guess my graduation
ceremony for training dogs to actually start working and
training dogs with her. It was, she found a feral dog in
Waimanalo that was eating chickens and she said if you can

(04:45):
teach this dog not to eat chickens and we can get it
fostered out, then I'll have youcome out and just start training
my dogs as opposed to cleaning my kennel.
So I worked that dog for better part of six weeks and we got it
to stop eating chickens and we adopted it out to an affluent
family. And that's how I learned to
train dogs. So when I got out of training
dogs or got out of the Marine Corps, I started training dogs

(05:06):
for probably a year and a half. Just a little bit of behavior
work, a lot of compulsion stuff.And two, people foot the bill on
dogs that I was owed money with,and I missed rent.
And so I ran into a company and applied that day because I was
missing rent. And that's what started my 17
years in loss prevention. So when I took a hard look at
what I want to do for the rest of my life, I realized that dog

(05:28):
training was something that I really wanted to get into.
And I kind of remiss the fact that I didn't continue.
And so I used a pandemic. I worked for a dog trainer in
the Bay Area for some time, got my feet wet, and then
transitioned into starting CanonOptima.
That's an incredible journey he went through there.
Like I said, I'd never heard thewhole story before.

(05:48):
It's really interesting. I kind of did the same thing.
I stepped away from my passion for a while and then came back
to it. It's it's almost like that
coming home feeling. It settles in and you're like,
yeah, this is exactly what was missing from my life.
Actually, there's a lot of overlap with skill set.
In my previous field, what made me proficient was speaking and

(06:09):
teaching people and getting people excited about what I was
talking about, like a very dry material motivating them.
And then the investigative frontwas very much problem solving.
It was sifting through big data building queries, trying to find
people that are stealing, building PowerPoint
presentations and presenting it to district attorneys to incite
them to help us detain organizedcrime in the area.

(06:31):
So it was a lot of people, it was a lot of speaking, it was a
lot of problem solving. So when I got into behavior
work, I found very much behaviorwork is a problem solving
business, like getting to the heart of what's going on.
Why is it happening before we can start getting to the falls?
So did you ever work with dogs for the Marines or just this
kind of like that little side thing with the kennels?

(06:51):
I was a grunt. Yeah, I was.
I was actually. So I took the ASVAB and I scored
off the charts with every with the exception of mechanics.
They Lily told me you could haveany job in the Marine Corps with
the exception of putting anything together or taking it
apart, which stands to be true today when I put IKEA furniture
together. I think everyone feels that way.
So I got military intelligence, I got my top secret clearance,

(07:14):
and then I happen to be taking aclass on law enforcement.
It was a college credit class. And I was talking to the teacher
and they were like, you know, most of our SLED task force are
former infantry. And I was like, really?
And at that moment, I was reading a book about the 5th
Marine Raiders and infantry unit, famous infantry unit, and
the Marines and Rambo week came on and I called my military

(07:36):
recruiter and I said I want to change my MOS two weeks before
boot camp. He's like, that's kind of dodgy,
what do you want? I was like, infantry.
And he's like, don't do bad. I'm like, yes, I wanted ram.
I understand. And my, but my brother flew in
from Tennessee. He was, he was airborne.
And my family tried to convince me don't do it.
And I said I'm gonna do it. And so I changed my MOS to

(07:57):
infantry. So I was just a grunt.
OK, tell me the hardest thing about being in the military and
your favorite thing about being in the military.
A man probably drinking religiously on the weekend and
then waking up at 5:00 AM on Monday and running 8 miles.
No, thank you. Yeah.
And then the best thing is probably the the people like,

(08:17):
like the people that you meet your brothers, it's like a
family. And in that time in your life,
you're looking for something. And the people that you meet,
the people that you train with along the way, they become
really close. Do you still have friends that
are in the military or out of itnow as well?
Yeah. Yep.
Still keep in contact. Our age demographic, they're
only on Facebook, so I reach outto them on Facebook from time to

(08:38):
time. Yeah.
Facebook, it's like my least favorite platform of the social
medias. But yes, there are so many
people in that age group that are still on there.
Tell me now you've you've, you've got married, you've moved
and with your wife and you have,you have kids, right?
You have a bunch of kids. And how did that change your
life? Man, so I, I married into four

(09:00):
kids and I'd always wanted kids.My late mother kind of tested
this. I, I very much always wanted
kids. Wasn't in the cards for me
fertility wise. So marrying into four kids was,
I don't know, my grandfather married into eight kids and he
was probably the greatest man that I've ever known.
He worked day and night and put food on the table for eight kids

(09:21):
and I always looked up to him. Marrying into four kids almost
felt like full circle. I was really just honored to be
a part of these kids lives and all my friends that who had
kids. I was always like, let me take
your kids out. It was that uncle kind of friend
that would pick in the playground and was just super
invested because I definitely felt like that that part was
missing in my life. It was a little later.

(09:42):
I was 38 at that point, something that I, I really
wanted. So meeting Natalie and getting
to be a part of the boys life was everything to me.
It was meeting these 4 personalities and they're all
different, getting to know them and their interests and it was a
crash course in parenthood. It really was.
And then the inevitable, they all turned it to teenagers.
So they went from sprightly, charismatic kids, they want to

(10:04):
play football and they're joking, to video games and girls
and leave me alone, get out of my room.
So it was short lived to say theleast.
But at that time, my wife wantedto start a fertility process,
something I've been told would just not happen for me.
And she actually started the process without my knowledge,

(10:25):
went like searched out a fertility Dr. like the literal
world's leading fertility Dr. named Doctor Tork and called me
and said I've started this process.
And I'm like, holy crap. Like, OK, that's the most
amazing thing that you've ever done, but never do that again.
And she started it because my mom was dying of cancer.
So she wanted to give me a child.
And craziest part is we started fertility process.

(10:47):
We did the impossible. We have a wonderful, wonderful
toddler named Bo Debbie, but my mom held out until she was born.
So yeah, my mom died. I love that.
She died three weeks after she was.
Oh my. Gosh, what an amazing story.
Yeah, so if Natalie hadn't jumped the gun, whatever LED her
to do that, it felt so crazy at the time, like my I was total

(11:09):
whiplash. But if she hadn't have done it,
then my mom ever would have experienced that.
So. And what a beautiful we're we're
actually going to South Carolinain a week, and my dad gets to
meet Bo Debbie for the first time.
That's incredible. That's so wonderful.
Yeah, so that that's just another example of just life
completely alter. It goes beyond changing a career

(11:31):
and being so happy with your career, feeling like you're
truly yourself, but just everything that altered from the
family life that we have to havea baby girl and this, the life
that we live, the stuff that we do together.
It's incredible how when someonesees you and you see them and
it's who you're supposed to be with that magically you just
start living the life that you're supposed to live as well.

(11:52):
And that all brought you into this whole world of canine
Optima and really changing your life and her life for the
better. And you guys have really built
something incredible. You really have.
It's crazy. What do you think was the
hardest part about that? Social media.
I agree with that. Yeah, are getting yourself
through social media. It's a gift and it's a curse.

(12:13):
So it definitely helped me to compete against some huge
pillars. Every big name that you could
imagine in the dog training industry is in the Bay Area for
Michael Ellis to Denise Finzi. So it it helped me to establish
the business a lot faster. But once you mark yourself
through social media, you're somewhat handcuffed to it.
You've got to maintain that presence.

(12:34):
I say that's probably the the one most difficult thing.
Yeah, I agree. And it's and it's so different
even between platforms. I mean you have a very large
platform on TikTok, but not as large of a platform on
Instagram. Do you find that it's the same
people following you over on Instagram from TikTok?
Or do you think you have two totally different audiences?
Two totally different audiences.I was.

(12:55):
I actually it was really dull. I did not use Instagram.
I was successful on TikTok. I stayed on TikTok.
I never attempted Instagram. And then when I found out that
TikTok was potentially going to go bye bye, I went full court
press and started becoming extremely active on Instagram.
And I went from maybe 3000 followers.
So I think we're like 53,000 followers in a short amount of

(13:18):
time. In that time, I think I've built
mostly dog trainers. I can tell by the comments that
I get when I talk a little bit more in the dog training realm,
the behavior realm, and talking about the industry, and that
seems to do extremely well on Instagram.
So I feel like there's a ton of dog trainers following on
Instagram versus Tick tock. It's been a long road of rescue

(13:39):
efforts and family stuff and dogtraining stuff and skits and
comedy. And so I think I've just got a
hodgepodge of like so many different people that follow me
for different reasons. And so definitely less
diversified on Instagram. Feel like that's what happens on
Instagram. I feel like a lot of other
trainers and there's some dog parents that follow me, but I
feel feel like it's other dog trainers and other people who

(14:01):
are just looking for advice and A and a safe place to have
conversations like this because we're more than just dog
trainers. There's so much more to us.
That's fine. Like that's the space that I'm
trying to create, but I'm also trying to create that space for
dog parents too. So it is really hard to find
that balance because they do want you to niche down so hard
on social media. It's it's really difficult.

(14:22):
It's almost like you need like 7different accounts to cover
everything that you're just trying to cover with one job.
Yeah, yeah, It causes a lot of confusion when you try to do
different things. With TikTok, it's like a lottery
system. But one of my rescue videos goes
viral, then I grab on to the rescue crowd.
If a comedy sketch goes viral, Igrab on to a larger crowd.

(14:46):
So my platform now feeds larger people.
But with Instagram, it's not a lottery system.
It's a slow burn. It's like an IV drip of success.
With the algorithms, you kind ofhave to stay narrow and build a
more more secular crowd, otherwise you're just going to
cause confusion or you're not going to be successful in
tapping into all these differentcrowds just based on the way
their algorithm promotes videos.Yeah, it's it's funny because I

(15:09):
do look at, you know, your accounts over on TikTok versus
your accounts on Instagram. And there is definitely a
difference between the two. So you really have figured out
how to speak to your audience. I personally love your comedy.
That's what I show up for. Is this the skits and just the
funny things that you do? You've really done a really good
job curating your audience and making sure that you're

(15:30):
providing what they want on eachplatforms.
That's really good because I still struggle with that.
I don't ever know what I'm doing.
I just throw it up there and hope that it does our it's.
I also am not funny like you so that that I think hurts.
The humor is actually, it's kindof my therapy.
I don't script things out. I don't think of like things to
say. Whenever I do those scripts.

(15:51):
It's literally just I have a while here and I do it right
there and I post it. And then in the past, I've had
series go viral like the hi, I'myour series went viral on TikTok
and it was the worst thing that's ever happened to me
because people could ask you different dogs.
And I have such ADD that I can'tit's like, don't let me in a
box. I can't do this.

(16:12):
And so the 27 videos I pumped out for that series was the
worst experience ever because myhumor is very much just, I want
to do this. I think this is funny and I'll
say it and then I'll move on. You know, there's no editing or
scripting that goes into it. I think most of my social media
has been that, whether you love it or hate it, I've never been

(16:33):
one to be strategic in my socialmedia.
I've always just wanted to be myself.
That way I didn't have to be anything other than myself.
And I see a lot of dog trainers and they put that persona out
there and everything is very contrived and all the work goes
into it. I feel for them because you may
like it now, even if you're successful and you're gaining a
larger platform, that you've gotto be that persona for a very

(16:54):
long time. You have to show up like that.
And in essence, you're almost like clocking in.
I have tried very hard to be very honest and very who I am.
Kind of always been that way, though I'm not very much, I
don't fit in with the popular kids kind of person, you know
what I mean? I just have always done my own
thing and been totally fine withit.

(17:14):
I feel like that's what I try todo on social media.
I try to be very honest about mental health and depression and
anxiety, things like that. I'm also legally disabled.
So sharing those things with people and talking about, like
you said earlier about life, right?
Life changes and you don't have to be this thing that society
says, oh, you're, you fit in this mold or you fit in this

(17:36):
category. Don't have to be that.
You can be whoever you want to be if you show up as whoever you
want to be and if you're flexible about it, people see
that. That's my whole thing.
Show the journey, show the learning journey, show the
process. Show I'm in this with you guys.
This isn't just you. It's me too.
My dog fits. He's a reactive guy.
I don't just I teach people how to do it.

(17:58):
I live it. I live it with you guys.
This is I'm here with you. I have the same setbacks.
I have the same fears. I have the same anxieties.
I cry at 2:00 in the morning because we had a bad day.
And I think that that's really important to be transparent and
honest because there is so much showboating going on out there

(18:19):
and there has been so much. You've been a part of it.
My Jerry, Denise, everybody's kind of been a part of the dog
trainer attacks and dog trainer wars that have been happening.
And it's just been really kind of disheartening to me because
we should be finding ways to work together and lift each
other up instead of tearing eachother down and setting off our

(18:40):
mobs of people on each other. It's, it's just to me has just
been the most crazy thing to watch.
Just like I have no idea what's happening most of the time
because I am just so shocked that people can be so mean to
each other and not know anythingabout each other.
It's wild to me. So it's been really cool to see
the group of people kind of in the middle stick up for each

(19:02):
other, stand up for each other, become friends because of it,
and really just create this whole group of safety for their
trainers because online bullyingis a thing that is really
upsetting. That's something that I've
experienced personally. I've obviously watched several
other people experience. And so to know that there are
other people that are willing tosupport, laugh about it, but

(19:25):
still be like, hey, I got you onthis.
It's just been really, really neat to watch.
But it is just sad that some of these people with larger
platforms can come in and just say these awful things about
people and potentially ruin their careers and not even care
about it. It's been, it's been really
upsetting. Think when social media is your
income, when your mortgage is paid off, the backs of

(19:48):
successful videos and you're basically making an income from
your social media, the monetization, whether it be
YouTube or whatever, that's where things get really murky.
You're saying things for a fact.You're dreaming up scandals.
You're trying to position thingsin a way that it's going to make
as much noise as possible. And to your point, when you
bring in other people's livelihood, when you bring in

(20:09):
other people's. To Emily, even it's scary.
You have to be very careful withwhat you say on social media
because everybody's listening and you don't know who they who
is listening. Can't tell you how many death
threats I've had on every other month basis.
Because when somebody says something about a person and
people go, yeah, millions upon millions of people listening to
what you say, there's some crazies in there.

(20:31):
You know, you have to be very careful.
You have to be mindful of the fact that if you don't control
what you say, you have less of achance to control what people do
based on what you say. And so I think that's a hard
lesson that I've burned over theyears.
I've certainly cleaned up. I think when I first came on the
scene, I took social media really seriously.
I was wearing wigs and kids and talking trash about everybody.

(20:52):
And then I think everybody servelearns chore through social
media. You get over that like immature.
I'm making a lot of noise and everybody's paying attention on
my accounts growing. You make mistakes, pump your
head. No.
And you wanted to grow up. And then, yeah, even though
you've grown up, years later, you're still watching the same
thing, the cyclical cycle of people coming in and doing the
same thing that you did over andover and over.

(21:13):
And it's just never going to endin Torch, you know?
No, and I think that your point there about like the death
threats, there are some really extreme things that happen
online and it is unfortunate that people think that they need
to go that far because bullying is bad enough.
But that's like next level. But you threaten somebody's

(21:35):
livelihood, that's bad, but you threaten their life.
That's that's little too far forme.
I don't understand where this whole judge and jury thing came
from with social media. They just are like, we see you
as not within the community guidelines of what we believe
and so you're done. We're going to ruin you and now

(21:55):
we're going to threaten your life on top of it.
That's too far. There should definitely be, I
feel like a little bit more policing on social media than
there is, especially for social media platforms that say they're
anti bullying and then you report somebody for bullying and
they don't do anything or they tell you that it's not bullying.
I think their parameters are toothin, and it's really

(22:16):
unfortunate because now we're not helping dogs and we're not
helping people on top of it. It's really getting kind of out
of control in my opinion. Yeah, I think the recently, I
think the only good thing to come from some semblance of
unity was probably the Zach George debacle.
I think as much as Zach tried tomake noise and tried to get his

(22:37):
crowd very riled up and hate this person, now, hate this
person, now hate this person andnow I hate this organization,
hate this organization. I think that what I saw was that
the dog training industry unitedthe first time I saw him going
after real dog trainers and I stepped in to defend them, I saw
more people doing more of that. And that led to obviously the
chat where industry dog trainerstried to get together and talk

(23:00):
about what are our differences, what can we agree on?
And I think there was a lot of good dialogue to come from that.
So I think he had a complete counterintuitive effect.
Now people like Jacob from Yorkshire, I'm good friends with
Joe Rosie, who's incredible, thefact that I can call her and ask
her for help with the case studythat I've got going on.
Denise, dog trainers that care about the industry and care

(23:22):
about putting out good information and care about
supporting each other and not just laying wasted them because
of the choices that they make interms of tools or no tools.
I think he we drew a hard line in the sand on what's acceptable
and what's not acceptable. And so for that, I think he's
done a lot of good unintentional.
Yeah, unintentionally for sure. It's still still happening.
Unfortunately, he's still on hisplight or whatever.

(23:45):
But I do think that you are right.
It's kind of pushed us all together away from the negative,
which is great. But I know that a few people are
still kind of suffering under the weight of that, which is
unfortunate. But as soon as he moves on from
that, it's going to be somebody else.
And so I think as long as we continue to show up and say,
hey, come over here, this whole group of people over here

(24:06):
understands what you're going through and we will support you.
It makes it a lot easier for those who are going through it
now versus those who had to go through it in the initial phases
of it because it would think it was pretty rough and for the
people initially because you didn't feel like you had any
support. So it's good to know that there
are groups of people out there now that that are supporting
each other. And Joe, Rosie, Jacob, Denise,

(24:28):
Jerry, all of those people are phenomenal people and they're so
intelligent and it's really incredible, I think, to learn
from lots of different people because dog training is so
individualized, right? Dogs are unique individuals just
like humans. And in order to have a correct
plan of attack for training, thebest thing you can do is pull

(24:49):
from multiple sources to fit those pieces for each individual
dog. It's super important to learn
from multiple people and that's why I enjoy learning from you.
I like listening to your podcastbecause it's more fact based,
science based than mine is. And I learn a lot from you.
Every time you guys drop episodes, I'm like, yes, this is
so exciting because I always learn something and there's

(25:11):
several episodes that I go back to because I just like to hear
the stories like Denise Fenzie, become friends with her as well.
I just love her. But listening to that episode
where you really kind of dive inwith her and get her background
story, it's just really neat to,to hear those things about
people. And that's kind of what I wanted
to do with you today, because you always do that for other

(25:32):
people. You always give space and room
for other people. But I, I haven't seen anybody do
it for you yet. So here we are.
We're doing it for you. So tell everybody a little bit
about your training methods, your training programs, and what
you guys offer. We are mostly behavior work for
significant portions of the yearwill actually remove the

(25:52):
obedience services because we'reinundated with so much behavior
that it's hard to get to everybody.
So we we have to stay nimble. So essentially it's mostly just
behavior and that that kind of spawned from my social media and
putting a lot of work up and I got right, wrong or indifferent
inundated very early on with behavior before I knew what I
was doing and worked really hardto try to catch up so that I

(26:13):
could support the dogs. And obviously in the beginning,
I refused to do at least leash corrections or anything like
that because of the company thatI work for and some of the
heinous things that I saw. I just refused to do that.
And so I decided I'm not going to perform a single solitary
leash correction. And that also put me in a very
precarious spot, being in a day with some reactive dogs and
trying to figure out how to woo saw them without effective

(26:35):
handling. But that also led to some
creativity and what else can I do?
And it also led me to looking into the bigger picture around
science and not just some of thestuff that people really get
excited about, like Pure View studies, which I couldn't read
to save my life. I just focused on like big
picture science, like what's going on in the brain, what's
going on in the body? What's actually happening to the

(26:55):
dog? What are the chemical changes,
right? What is genetics have to say?
And that kind of led me down theroad to meeting a lot of the
podcast guests that I, I featured, like Kim Brophy, who
totally peeled my scalp back, Joe Rosie, who I took her canine
science course for a year and a half.
And that completely changed everything for me as well.
And so I tried to borrow from, try to use science as a means of

(27:17):
perspective and also patience inunderstanding what the dog is
dealing with. And so I just started working a
ton of reactivity. I developed a assessment process
where I use five different helper dogs.
They all do different things. They're meant to, by process of
elimination, bring out certain types of reactivity in the dog
so that before we start working on the game plans, we know this

(27:39):
is the driver, This is why your dog was doing it.
And then that gives us the acutegame plan to work more
efficiently and successfully with the dog.
And so almost five years later, we've worked close to 7000,
probably more than 7000 dogs. I've got an online community
where I'm actively posting my case studies as well as
webinars. So we're probably approaching

(28:00):
200 case studies posted on the community and more than 100
webinars just breaking down whatI'm doing, which has always been
a really cool thing to kind of flesh out.
This is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it.
Here are the mistakes that I made.
Watch this. And so it's been a really cool
thing to have a community that'sa part of my journey and just a
part of me learning and getting better and making mistakes and
overcoming those mistakes, whichled as of a year and a half ago,

(28:24):
to me starting a book, which I never thought I would do.
We're in the final stages, the book it's going to copy edit and
a week and then it will go to formatter and then we're going
to self publish a book called The Infinite Approach, Polyvagal
Insights and Modern Dog Training, which is essentially
just everything I know around reactivity and why it happens
and all the different game plansthat we deploy.

(28:46):
So really that's taken unfortunately.
That's why the podcast took a hiatus for the last year,
because I've been really focusing on trying to finish
this book. And so with any luck, we'll have
it out soon and then I can get back to talking to trainers
because I really, really, reallylove the podcast.
I love talking to trainers just like this and just having
stations of getting to know people.

(29:07):
So that's been a big regret of mine that we put it on ice, but
hopefully in the next three or four months I can get back to it
and be done with the book. That's exciting.
I didn't know you were writing abook.
I'm really excited about that. I can't wait to read it.
I think that that's incredible. That's one of my favorite things
to do is read the books and learn from other people.

(29:28):
Kim Brophy was a big light bulb,lot of light bulbs for me too.
I loved her course. Also took Michael Chicaccio's
Aggressive dog course and a lot of light bulb moments there too.
It's so wild how much stuff is out there that really applies to
our dogs that we don't even, we don't even realize is out there.
Kim Brophy's Meet Your Dog book,that was just such an incredible

(29:50):
journey for me to read that bookand make so many connections, be
able to go, yeah, Yep. Well, totally understand that
now and just really kind of lookback at things in my life with
dogs that happened and and be able to see things a little bit
more clearly. I remember in one of your
podcast episodes, you said something about how your old job

(30:11):
where you were doing criminal investigations related really
well to dog training because of how well you could see the the
dilated pupil or you could tell that someone was lying because
of the way that they moved theirbody or an eye twitch or
something happened. And that really to me was a very
pivotal moment because I was like, we are just as telling in

(30:32):
our facial expressions as dogs are.
And if we just paid a little bitmore attention or taught people
how to pay attention, it would be so much easier for the dogs
because the dog sees us in our head, look sideways at the
doorway or even, or to raise ourhand or something.
A dog knows what's going to happen next because they've

(30:55):
gotten into that pattern of seeing those things from us.
If we spent half as much time paying attention to our dogs as
they spent paying attention to us, it would be game changer for
so many people. So many people.
Yeah, I used to interrogate people for a living, and that
led to advanced certifications. And that's actually where I
first ran across the autonomic nervous system and signs of

(31:18):
deception, signs of stress. And so it became very natural
when I got into dog training to research the same thing.
And that more or less led to me allowing dogs to go over in my
session, although I created a lot of backlash when I first
started doing it. A force for community lit
torches and he's flooding dogs. He's flooding dogs.

(31:39):
And for me it was, I need to seewhat the dog is doing.
What's the body language? Can a dog regulate?
Is it out of control and super dynamic like they're letting off
steam or is it pinpointed? Is there a focal point?
Is it more pursuit driven? Have maintained that process for
my entire journey and it's helped me understand what I'm
doing. The craziest thing in the dog

(32:01):
training world is there are a lot of dog trainers out there
that work dogs for a living, fixdogs for a living.
And they've never really taken the opportunity to thoroughly
assess the dog to determine if this protocol or this effective
handling or this technique is really what the dog needs.
I've listened to dog trainers time and time again on podcast
say I don't need to see it to fix it.

(32:22):
And I just feel like that's so counterintuitive.
And the fact that it's taboo to allow a dog to go over in a
safe, controlled fashion in yourassessment is strange to me.
And it just doesn't feel like it's a fight that I need to
fight. I feel like most people should
really, if you're taking this seriously and behavior where
it's really important to you, you have to know what it is.

(32:43):
You have to see the dog, you have to understand, understand
what's going on with the dog to really get a sense for all
right, based on what I'm seeing here is what's going on here is
why it's happening. And then, and only then, can you
take your first step to creatinga game plan for the dog.
I agree with you. I always tell my clients if you
catch it, videotape it and send it to me because that is going

(33:04):
to show me what the build up was.
That's going to show me why the redirect happened.
That's going to show me what happened after that and how long
did it stress your dog out afterwards.
And all of those little things are so important.
And for us to not talk about those things or for it to be
taboo for us to, I don't, I wantto say capitalize, but that's
really what we're doing is we'recapitalizing on those behaviors

(33:26):
so that we can say, OK, now we have a list.
We know exactly what's going to happen.
We know why it happened and we know how to prevent it now.
And some dogs can spin right outof situations like that and be
fine afterwards. And then other dogs don't.
And if you don't know what happens afterwards, how do you
prepare for that? You can.
So I find your approach really interesting.

(33:48):
And like I said, I've learned somuch from you.
One of my goals is to start being in your community and
watching your webinars and all of that stuff because I think
that it's so important to look through other people's eyes.
And I don't think that you can fully understand what dogs are
doing unless you're willing to kind of look through their eyes
and take a look at how they're thinking.

(34:09):
And I think a lot of people try to repress so much of what their
dogs are doing or control so much of what their dogs are
doing that they don't think about the why.
They just think about this is what I want and this is how it's
going to be. And so now we have this like
tight knit little compartment that the dog's ability and mind
and thoughts and everything has to stay in, but they don't think

(34:31):
about the bigger picture and what that could potentially lead
them to. It's really important to break
it down. And I think that you advocating
for the dog's mental space is super important because we
obviously don't want them to topoff all the time, but knowing
what that looks like is a huge step in prevention in my
opinion. So I fully agree with you on
that. Yeah, If you don't know the

(34:52):
problem, you can't successfully step him up as success with the
solution. Like if you got a dog that you
know, you haven't determined that they're sound sensitive, if
that you know some real anxiety issues, If you haven't figured
that out, then how can you possibly safeguard them in the
future? I'm in the right environments to
start the therapeutic process. To me, it's always been about

(35:16):
understanding it, wanting to understand it.
That's been my, my whole journeyand building this like
qualitative database on my brainaround like these are the things
that dogs do and this is what's different.
And this is what's the same has helped me to understand what I'm
doing. And now it's gotten to the place
where I'm just so obsessed with it.
When I get a weird dog that doessomething weird, my brain

(35:37):
immediately it's like, what is that?
I'm, it just immediately knows you've never seen this before.
And I get so excited like this is different.
Why is this different? And it very much comes goes back
to a lot of stuff that I did with investigations and big data
and whatnot. Just problem solving.
And I think what makes a really passionate dog trainer is 1, you
got to have a passion for dogs, of course, and I think we all

(35:59):
do, but two, you got to have a passion for problem solving that
really is going to propel you tounderstand the dog.
We always talk about meeting thedog or training the dog in front
of you, but really understandingthe dog in front of you, getting
to know them holistically, not just their hang ups or their
stressors or their triggers, butlike everything like what makes
them tick and then afterwards some tick, what makes them tick,

(36:21):
tick, boom, like that. That, in essence, is what should
get you excited about behavior. Curiosity is a huge part of it,
and if you can't ask the questions you're not going to
get anywhere with it. If you're not ready to dig in
deep and and go the next level, you're just not going to get
very far. So with that being said, what do
you think was your hardest 1V with a difficult dog?

(36:43):
It's hard to say. Hardest one, There's there's
been a lot of the dogs that havehelped me that have had me
question things. There have been the dogs that
were learning moments for me, the dogs that I wasn't ready
for, the dogs that had severe neurological disorders.
The dogs that pushed me to reachout to people and ask questions,

(37:04):
to gain partnerships, to start working with that behaviorists
and tandems that I can better understand what I'm seeing.
There hasn't been difficult dog per se.
Well, I'll tell you what actually a difficult dog, not
probably in the the light that you're talking about, but some
of the dogs that I still think about today.
I had someone call me like 3 years ago and a panic because

(37:25):
her bulldog had bit her husband for the 7th time and they were
thinking about they were going to put the dog down.
And I told him, have you seen a trainer before?
And she said no. I said well we owe at least an
assessment before you do that sobring the dog in.
So we did an emergency assessment.
I was working the dog and saw that the dog was super driven
for food and I started, you know, stimulating the dog to see

(37:48):
if they had a stimulation issue that maybe they would go over
while the food was president. Just that classic like I lose
control about, you know, food and stimulation.
And I found that the dog was incredibly in control no matter
how or how hard I tried to stimulate the dog, like tons of
focus. I could calm the dog, I could
cap the dog, I crank the dog. It was beautiful.
And which is kind of a rarity with some of the bully breeds

(38:10):
too. They have typically have a
problem keeping the lights on when they become stimulated.
And so when I brought the dog out, he definitely went Cujo
and, you know, showed all the signs that he's shown some of
the dogs and the husband in the home for aggression.
But I was able to just throw a lure right in front of his face
and just lure him into his sit. And as soon as I brought food
into the equation, he was like, yes.

(38:31):
And he had such food drive that it just changed his priorities
instantaneously. And he could listen and he could
calm for the food. And it was so rare compared to a
lot of the dogs that I work in that exact circumstance.
He just had a gift of being ableto pump the brakes and listen
and calm and you could get a message in.
And so I was telling him, you'regoing to be OK.

(38:51):
Like this dog is going to be OK.There's totally a road map here
expressed to them that we can absolutely fix this.
And I reached out to them the next day to see they want to get
started and they said that they had, unbeknownst to me, they had
already scheduled the euthanasia.
And so he was euthanized that next day.
And in my mind, it taught me that I needed to slow down and
make sure that I'm delivering a message in a way that lands with

(39:16):
the owners. Not just saying we've got a path
here, but just making sure that I'm having an open dialogue and
that I'm fielding, you know, more in the moment conversation
with them about where's your head at?
Where are you going to take things?
How can I help? I feel like if I had done that a
better job of that, that he probably wouldn't have been
euthanized, That my failure in that session was not slowing
down and make sure that I was a part of their thought process

(39:37):
and, and making sure that we could turn the ship right then
and there before they made that decision.
So there's been like lots of those scenarios where I've
learned big lessons. For me, those are the most
difficult ones. When a dog walks in, they you
haven't seen that yet. One of the biggest things about
dog training is your capacity. It comes down to the dogs you've
met and what you've done in the past.
That's what builds your capability.

(39:58):
And so when you meet new challenges and new issues that
you haven't met before, like those are the hard moments where
you don't have all the answers. You're quiet, you're not just
speaking out of the side of yourmouth with the owner and kind of
working the dog. Like you're asking yourself more
questions and you're asking them.
And so those are always the moments.
Where I thrive, I realize I'm learning, but when the dog is in

(40:19):
a hard place or the dog is up against euthanasia or
potentially being surrendered orrehomed, it adds a completely
different component to it. And so that is why I have gained
so many different friends in theindustry that in those moments
where I go, I don't think I haveall the answers here.
Let's call, let's make a phone call, let's reach out.
And I've literally in the middleof a session called Joe Rosie

(40:40):
Facetimeber on IG and went, thisis what I'm seeing.
What do you think? And Joe Rosie with her
experiences like this is what itis sight hounds do this, this,
this, this, this, this. And so that has been one of the
most special things about my career is that now I can call
dog trainers and ask them, hey, this is what I'm seeing.
And because all my sessions are recorded, I can send them
session to him. Like what?
What do you see? And that's been such a cool

(41:02):
thing to learn through people that know so much and also feel
like you're not alone. It's not just between you, the
dog and euthanasia that you've got a lifeline yourself, because
if you don't have a lifeline, the dog doesn't have one in
those particular scenarios. That's really awesome.
I love that you're open to to talking about that and saying
that you don't have all the answers because I feel like

(41:22):
sometimes, unfortunately, that'swhere a lot of the training
industry is. They get so focused on.
I have all the answers, I can fix your problem and I'm just
like, Nope, let me send you to somebody else because I don't
specialize in this. I've got names for you.
I can help you move on in a different direction with
somebody that has maybe a littlebit better understanding and
experience with this. I think that that's really

(41:43):
important to what our limits are.
I actually told Michael Chicaccio that I I don't think
that I'll be specializing in aggressive dogs.
I have past trauma with aggressive dogs.
I lost a dog because she was aggressive, had to behaviorally
euthanize her. And so now every time I get one
that's a little spicy, I'm like hard breaks, you got to go to
somebody else. And I love knowing that I have
multiple people that I can send them to because not everybody's

(42:06):
going to be the right fit for everybody.
And so having that variety of people to refer to is really,
really important. And not having that big ego
where I'm just like, no, you must stay with me.
That's I think it's so importantbecause you're not benefiting
yourself, the dog or the people if you're, if you're not
actually trying to help them in the way that is effective for

(42:26):
them. Behavioral euthanasia.
Let's chat about this for a minute.
Is another taboo topic for us totalk about today.
Being a vet tech, being a dog trainer, I've seen both sides of
that spectrum, right? I understand where people are
when they come in for those situations.
But as a trainer, I see where wecould maybe work on things.
And is my personal belief that the the gap between the two is

(42:48):
very narrow. You can save them or you can't.
And there are just some dogs that are just unfortunately not
meant for this world. And we're going to run into
them. But we have to be honest when we
run into them. But there are a lot of dogs that
we can do a lot of things for. And sometimes maybe with the
correct training and the proper rehabilitation, they can stay in

(43:08):
the home or maybe rehoming them to a better situation is is an
option. Unfortunately, with the shelter
crisis and everything that's happening, that's just
unfortunately not an option the way that it was previously.
So tell me about your stance on behavioral euthanasia.
It's a probability, it's a numbers game, it's a formula.
When you're talking to somebody and you're too in the intake and

(43:30):
you hear their circumstance and you hear what they're up against
and you go to assess the dog andyou're determining this is
probably the game plan is going to look like, this is probably
how long it's going to take. This is the emphasis is going to
take. This is the likelihood of a bite
in those time frame. What's the family's ability to
keep themselves safe while we'retrying to work through this game
plan? Sometimes it's the conditions
are right. I've taken dogs that have killed
dogs and we've rehabilitated them and they've been rehomed,

(43:54):
and I get videos of the dog frolicking on a beach in Oregon.
You hear these things at face value and you think these are
terrible things. This dog has bitten a child in
the face. This dog attacked a small
daughter because a jar of spaghetti shattered in the
garage and they try to stop the dog from walking on it.
All of these dogs have stories. They're typically really intense
scenarios. But when you're talking about

(44:16):
the dog's options, it does come down to your ability to keep the
family safe and the viability ofyour training plan, being able
to write size side dogs issues. When I have the uh oh in the
back of my mind when I'm workinga dog, it typically comes down
to an inability to regulate. And where that might be a dog
that has generalized anxiety that's not trying to hurt

(44:38):
anybody, but can't regulate and it's just shivering in the
corner and, you know, turning into a dog skin rug.
On the antithesis of that, on the opposite in the spectrum,
you have the dogs that can't regulate that are for
aggressive. They will bite at the drop of a
hat. That's where things can get very
precarious. So as you start to slide the
pendulum that direction and you realize that we're in trouble
like you, you've got a real problem here.

(44:58):
I have real concerns about you being able to maintain safe
home. That's where you're starting to
weigh all the options. Is a viability for rehoming?
Probably not. This dog would have to live with
the trainer for a very long time.
Is a viability for a sanctuary, Maybe some of the sanctuaries in
the area that do take on some pretty extreme dogs?
Or is behavioral euthanasia an option?
And so your job is to factor everything in and talk through

(45:21):
the options and empower the owners with the best decision.
You can't make that decision forthem.
Your job is to say here is what your dog's issues are.
This is just the concerns I have.
This is what the safety management protocol looks like.
This has to be ironclad is your fall back safety management
protocol. And this is what our process
looks like. And through those conversations,
the owners will typically come to terms with what's best for

(45:44):
them. But oftentimes in these
conversations, they've come off the heel of something really
devastating, like a horrendous attack where a child needed
reconstructive surgery. And that just adds so much
intensity to it, where they cometo you with I'm at the end of my
rope, either fix it now or, you know, we're not going to move
forward. And as you know, typically, in
some cases, it's not necessarilythat the dog is so extreme.

(46:07):
In some cases, it's that we waited too long, we've had
issues and the issues have led to a complete boil over and
something terrible happened and now the dog cannot be in that
home environment. And now the dog has rehearsed
something incredibly unfortunateand it can feel really
devastating to the family. And it's a tough topic, but it
does come down to probability. It cures the likelihood of

(46:30):
success in here is the likelihood of a reoccurrence in
the process as well. Do you think if people felt more
comfortable talking about the struggles they're having with
their dogs that we would catch some of these scenarios before
it was too late? I think people don't quite
understand when a dog is presenting true aggression like
purpose. I'm trying to bite the thing,

(46:51):
I'm trying to get at the thing, and there's no wasted energy.
There's no solar flare like dog going crazy and bellowing
everywhere where the dog is trying to get after a person or
a thing. I think they don't quite
understand the severity of that situation, Whether it be a
larger dog that has the capacityto really hurt something or kill
something or a dog that's bred to, you know, clamp and

(47:13):
dispatch. They can cause real damage.
I think oftentimes people don't see the tragedy coming and they
try to manage it as best they can.
They lock their dog away becausethey feel like the dog is
unsafe, but they aren't realizing that in the best case
scenario, you're trying to lock that dog away.
It's not an if, it's a win that management fails when that dog
blows past the door, gets out ofwhat?

(47:35):
Hops over a baby gate or slips acollar.
And so really I think it comes down to making sure that we're
seeing professionals sooner. And it also comes down to where
people waste a lot of money and a lot of time with a
professional that isn't quite atthe level to work.
Those extreme cases where a lot of my clients, I'm like the

(47:56):
third or fourth trainer and how wonderful that they have the
resources and the finances and the time to invest in that.
Many trainers that just threw noodles at the refrigerator and
hope they stuck. That also plays a big problem in
the whole scheme of things. I definitely think that that's a
problem because that's the same thing that happens to me and I'm
not big behavior like you are. I'm minor modification stuff and

(48:19):
still people come to me and I'm the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th trainer
that they've seen. And I've been through that.
I've been through the situation where I've been through two or
three trainers before I finally landed on one that helped me.
And it's hard because it was time in between.
So then you can't fix the problem because you had to save
for a year and a half before youcould go to the next trainer.
And I think that resources are ahuge problem when it comes to

(48:41):
that kind of stuff, which is whyI fully believe that some of the
stuff that's available online that gets misused and is maybe
not necessarily 100% right when it comes to helping people fix
their problems become such a crutch for people is because
it's free and it's available andit's it's helping, but it's also
just kind of putting a, a Band-Aid over the damage.

(49:03):
It's not really doing anything. I think social media has made it
even worse. So I think before social media,
when you had something terrible happened, you googled and you
found the people that were most active around you.
Right, wrong or indifferent, whatever their kill sets were,
whatever their approaches were, maybe they're doing Hand of God,
maybe they, you know, we're doing something else.

(49:24):
But they had the experience. So they had the 300 Yelp reviews
and 500 Google reviews and they had a lot of dogs.
And you have a better chance with somebody who's touched a
lot of dogs. And nowadays you just showcase
yourself with a knob out of control dog on social media and
you blow up and you cut ahead ofthe line and now people see you

(49:45):
on social media and you've got no clients under your belt, not
done any certifications. You don't have the experience.
And people are bringing their out of control aggressive dog to
that person. And then they're showcasing that
out of control dog to continue to perpetuate their own
marketing. I'm guilty of it.
When I first started, I showed alot of out of control dogs.
I couldn't calm the dog down. The reason that my videos were

(50:08):
so successful, the 1st 100,000 followers on TikTok, is because
all the dogs were reactive and Iwas doing all the wrong things
and they were snapping at me andgoing nuts at me and that made
my social media blow up. It was not being able to do it
correctly that helped me to ascend to successful business.
That's the unfortunate thing about social media.

(50:29):
Whereas nowadays you're hard pressed to see a dog do anything
in my, because I know how to like, OK, let's keep this stuff.
I know what not to be. Let's keep you under control.
And so now my social media is boring as shit, You know, like
I'm not followers at all. But it's a symptom of like,
I've, I've done all the wrong things.
I've made all the mistakes. I've almost been bitten all the
times because of all those mistakes.

(50:50):
I've wasted so many sessions doing the wrong things.
And now I know some things and Ican do some things, but it's not
good for social media. And you won't gain the
followership from mindful strategic approach in session.
That's the unfortunate dark sideof it all.
But it is true. And that's the kind of the
disgusting part about it. People want to see the bad stuff

(51:10):
happening. They don't want to see the good
stuff happening. They want to see the bad stuff
happening, which is why things like dog fights and chicken
fights and things like that still happen because people want
to witness those terrible things.
And it's, it's heartbreaking that humanity is like that.
I have a quick question for you before I ask you one more
question and then we'll wrap up.But do you have any
certifications? This is something I don't know

(51:32):
about you. No, I took.
Meat there, so I'm not judging. No, when I started animal
behavior college and when they sent me those black and white
binders, this stick, I was like,what the hell is this?
And literally like sent it back and said give me my money back
and then give me half my money because it was just such a like,
are you fucking kidding me? And so that kind of turned me
off to throwing $8000 at something that was just

(51:54):
introductory and read from a black and white binder.
So I did pick and choose the webinars that I felt
interesting. I did attend all the
conferences. I've always got it remotely and
always watched all the videos. I'd say that I've probably seen
hundreds upon hundreds of webinars.

(52:16):
And then I did enroll in Joe, Rosie, Nando and Dean's Canine
Science Online, which was supposed to be a Canine Science
certification. It's since disbanded, but they
finished, I want to say a year and a half worth of it.
They were rolling it out for like 3 year cycle to achieve a
certification and it was gnarly.It was no joke.

(52:36):
They were not messing around. Joe Rosie's putting curriculums
together and giving homework fora year and a half.
I was working at it. And the cool part about that
particular format, although you didn't receive a certification
at the end because they disbanded everything was based
on peer reviewed studies to the extent that you would take a
curriculum and Joe Rosie would throw 15 peer reviewed studies
at you. And like this is what the

(52:57):
studies say. This is what's accomplished.
These are the studies that have revoked this.
It was one of the most intense things I've ever experienced in
my life, but it definitely helped me to root myself more.
And what does science actually have to say?
What works, what doesn't work, but no formal certifications at
this point, most of the certifications, if not all the
certifications are all introductory.
It's few months of reading stuff, regurgitating stuff.

(53:19):
Nothing is based off of qualifying that you have touched
these dogs and you can do these things.
Most of it at most is logging that you've done 300 hours and
having a vet sign off on that, something to that extent.
So it wouldn't really benefit meto do the certifications now,
but I absolutely believe in them, especially as we talked
about the social media stuff that you just have to at least

(53:41):
know that they've cracked open abook and that there's some
bigger picture framework involved.
And so I absolutely encourage owners to search out people that
have gotten a certification so that at least we know they're
dealing with some inkling of understanding and learning
theory and science and ecology. Something just because a lot of

(54:01):
people just sort of start out and it's a lot of trial and
error and they're failing a lot of dogs as they learn to become
a better dog trainer. And I just don't want any
clients to get caught up in thatand waste a lot of money,
especially with really intense circumstances where they're
dealing with a really out of control dog.
So for sure or the PSA is find somebody that that has some
certifications for sure. Yeah, yeah.
I don't have certifications either, but I'm very much like

(54:24):
you. I I continue to take the
continuing education courses andreally look for things that I
feel like I'm lacking in or I need to learn about.
Jerry told me last year that I needed to stop and take a break
because I had taken like 32 continuing credit.
And she's like, you need to stop.
You've taken more than anybody Iknow this year.
So just stop, take a four month break and then you can take some

(54:47):
more classes. She said you need to just let it
sit in. And she's right, you do need to
let it sit in and go over it again and apply it and all the
things. But when you constantly have
your hands on dogs, it's kind oflike, I have a question and then
now all of a sudden I've looked up a course that can answer that
question. Now I'm taking that course.
So I'm because I'm very curious and I'm very hands on and I like

(55:08):
to learn things so that I can apply them.
And that's kind of, you know, what led me down this road
because I just, I want to help people so badly.
I want to help dogs so badly. And I agree, I think the
certifications are important, but I also feel like there's a
range of us that have been doingit for so long before the
certifications really became a necessary thing that for us to

(55:31):
get it now is kind of counterproductive.
But I do think that the new people in the industry should be
working towards certifications just to help identify that they
have opened a book because it isimportant.
And then the other, the thing I was gonna ask you for is 3 red
flags for a trainer. If you're on the Internet,
especially social media, and you're looking for a trainer,

(55:52):
what are three things? If you see, you would say
absolutely not. If they are 100% confident they
are, you know, saying everythingwith their chest and everything
is a broad brush and everything is a black and white statement,
stay away. I encourage people to look for
client reviews as we talked about in, you know, the middle
of the podcast, like anybody cansay there anything and they can

(56:14):
make things look like anything. But I found a lot of value in
using ChatGPT to look for people's client reviews.
You can actually just say ChatGPT find so and so's Yelp
and Google reviews and they willjust pull it for you.
And you'd be surprised at the amount of people that are on
social media that have like two reviews and their business has
not been solidified yet. They don't yet have the

(56:36):
experience. And so you have to make sure
that you're working with somebody who has experience
because that's what helps us with our capabilities at the end
of the day. And then if you're talking to a
dog trainer, ask what will they do if you're calling up a dog
trainer and trying to figure outif it's a good fit and you give
them the here's what my dog is doing.
What what do you think? What are some things that you
might deploy? Have them say what they're going

(56:58):
to do and then say no, What if that doesn't work?
And if can't answer that, then it might be a red flag as well.
But that's really important to qualify who you're going to
entrust your dog's safety to, especially considering that
whatever they do to that dog could have really significant
consequences and could create more issues versus solutions.
That's excellent advice. I like that last little.

(57:18):
And what if that doesn't work? That's that's a really good one
because yeah, sometimes they cangive a paper cut.
This is this is the answer. I read it off my sheet and and
now you have your answer. And what if you don't have some
kind of backup plan? That's that's not a great way to
go. Well, Josh, it was amazing
chatting with you today and I look forward to seeing what we

(57:38):
can do together in the future and watching you and your
business grow along with your little family.
What would you like to leave thelisteners with today?
I guess be the most fun your doghas in a day, don't worry about
the how to do things, don't go out and purchase the
subscription services and don't endlessly research all the
YouTube videos. Just be your dog's favorite

(57:59):
thing to happen. That be the one of the other
reasons that your dog's heart rate went through the roof and
respiratory system went through the roof.
And just have a fucking blast your dog and have a little drink
before you do as well. Don't do it sober.
Just maybe a little bit of bourbon or maybe a glass of wine
and a flirt pole and a tennis ball.
But if you can have a lot of funwith your dog, you'd be
surprised at the difference thatmakes and whatever you're trying

(58:22):
to accomplish. That's an excellent message.
So remember, as always, guys, bekind, love your dogs and be the
best part of the day. And we will see you guys next
week on Straight Up Dog Talk. Thank you for listening to
Straight Up Dog Talk. If your dog is bouncing off the
walls, no matter how much you walk them, it can feel like
nothing is ever enough. The truth is, most dogs don't

(58:43):
need more exercise. They need the right kind of
enrichment to settle their brains and their bodies.
That's why I put together a freeenrichment resource packed with
easy, fun ideas that you can tryright away.
The link is in the show notes. And remember, new episodes drop
every Monday and Wednesday. I'll see you next time.