How to Introduce an E Collar

In this episode, the hosts discuss the intricacies of e-collar training for dogs, emphasizing the importance of proper introduction and mechanics. They explore the differences between positive punishment and negative reinforcement, and how to effectively use e-collars for commands and behavioral corrections. The conversation also highlights common mistakes trainers make and the significance of client education in ensuring successful training outcomes. We also added a new game where we randomly call one of our trainers live on the show and put them on the spot!

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Sit, stay, press plan. Let's begin.
Welcome to the pack you are officially in.
Treats, leashes, shaping the game.
Mark your right, it's never the same.
Big dogs, small dogs, every kind.
If you love canines, tuning, rewind, laugh and learn level of
your game Suburban canine, remember the name.

(00:33):
I just let the the coffee machine make it.
Well, my goodness, another one. So we're live on the air.
Just so you guys know, I figuredwe'd never be able to record if
I didn't push the button. So finish your coffee because
this is riveting. I could sit here all day.
Listen to your coffee blends. It is pretty exciting to talk
about coffee first thing in the morning.

(00:54):
It's not even first thing in themorning and you guys have been
at this for 45 minutes if I didn't push play.
It never would have happened the.
End of the day. Well, I mean, much unlike
Nelson, you know, I'm not blooming my coffee or anything
crazy like that, so. You see, you're missing out.
You need to you need to start that.
You guys need to, I mean, at least Covey's doing a pour over,

(01:15):
but you're just pouring the water over without letting it,
you know, open up or anything crazy.
I could not be more bored by this.
Coffee talk, coffee talk. Let's get into it.
So First off, welcome to balanced Training with Suburban
Canine. How are you guys?

(01:37):
Who are you? You asking the audience or me
and boss? I'm asking the audience, but
then I realized like, I'll neverget an answer, and that's good.
Until we do like an actual live episode.
Yeah, so sure, that'll be super exciting.
Today's going to be good. We're going to talk about
introducing E collars, but we'realso going to introduce a new
game. It's actually a throwback to a

(01:57):
previous game with an amazing twist.
Is that a good description? I think that's a better
description than a new game. OK, it's a throwback to a
previous game with an amazing twist.
I'm pretty excited about that. It might be the best part of the
episode, but we're not ready to play yet, right?
We have to do some some actual work first.
That's probably. Going to give people more.

(02:17):
You're just going to tell them that much for now, yeah.
Because they're going to find out in like 15 minutes when the
time hits. Yeah, they're going to.
Oh. We're doing it right at the
time, we're not going to do it when it actually comes up.
So there's a timer on this. I guess I didn't know there's I
don't there's questions I have. Let me fix this mic.
So you have a question for the game that tied to a like a

(02:40):
relevant part of our conversation today.
What was that? Was that like a chair pushing
back? I moved my mic and that was a
crazy noise that I didn't expectto put through.
That was Nelson. That was me it.
Distracted me. Now I don't even know what
Covey's question is. My question was, I mean, do we
like that your question for thisgame, does it tie to a relevant

(03:04):
part of our conversation today? Like you want to ask it when it
comes up naturally. I mean, it does tie to your
conversation to some extent. Like I tried to find a question
that goes with the topic at hand, but I don't think, no, I
don't think we're going to like be like, oh, this is this is
where it's going to go, I think.We'll just pick a.
Time where we feel like asking the question.

(03:25):
OK, it's going to be 15 minutes.Let's just do that 12/15.
Is the time. We don't want to put a timer on
it. It's not that time we lied.
This fine vlogs. You tell us when you're ready.
We'll just do our episode, and when you decide the time has
come, you give us a signal and we'll do it.
Check. Done.
OK, boom. Today, how to introduce an E

(03:47):
collar. A lot of people suck at this, so
we want to prevent that. That's the goal here, right?
And. Realistically, I mean,
introducing it is the most important part, right?
I mean it's for sure where most people will set their dog up for
failure almost immediately. And I think we've talked about
this on the podcast before. It sucks when you show up to a

(04:10):
new like a client's house and they're like, don't worry, I've
got an E collar and I already started on it.
Like that's not a good feeling as a trainer.
And that's not because E collarsare bad or whatever, But if you
don't know how to use it, it's easy to make the dog nervous for
no good reason, including from the vibrations.
There's a lot to talk about here.
And if you do it wrong from the start, you just made your job

(04:31):
harder for sure. That's fine.
All right, Nelson, I mean, there's so many ways we could go
with this. Where how do you want to handle
this? I mean, we need to talk about
what do we start with? Vibration, stem tone, Something
else? Do you want to start with
mechanics of how to use it or like how would you decide to do

(04:56):
E collar training with your dog,right?
I mean like, do you want to get like theory wise with it or just
how do we actually, you've already decided, here's your
dog, let's get started. So have we done an episode where
we talked through why we don't use it as negative reinforcement
and we use it as positive punishment instead?

(05:17):
So when you suggested this topic, I went back and I looked
through all of our episodes because I thought that this was
going to be a highly repetitive topic.
There isn't one about intro to this.
I I feel like we've talked aboutwhat you're suggesting in
multiple episodes, but there isn't an episode dedicated to

(05:37):
this subject. So that's how I really think.
I think you should start at the beginning and talk about like
when does an E collar even make sense before you even get into
introducing it. That's my opinion.
OK, so we could do that. I think.
Let me just clarify a little bitof what I just said about using
it as positive punishment. We'll get into what that means,
the difference between that and negative reinforcement.

(05:58):
But I was specifically talking about the stem function.
E collars can be used for positive reinforcement.
You could use it as dog does something right, you push the
tone that becomes a reward marker.
So any collar, if you choose, could be a positive
reinforcement tool. The vibration, the pager.
I would call neither. It's not positive reinforcement,

(06:20):
negative reinforcement, it's notpunishment.
Generally we're using the pager just as like their name.
Just catch classical conditioning.
Well, I mean, it could be used for that, but also just like
their name, right? It becomes it's the same as
saying Ralph, right? I guess that's fair now, but the
point being there's a lot of ways to use an E collar and we

(06:41):
don't always use it the same. So it's but sometimes people ask
like, you know, E collar, is there a way to use it without a
lot of punishment? And yeah, and 1st off, if you're
using it well, there shouldn't be a lot of punishment and you
could also use it with 0 punishment.
So there's many different ways. All right.
So Vloss, your question was whendo you decide to use an E
collar? I feel like that's a good place

(07:03):
to start, right? Yeah, Nelson, you wanna take
this? You want me to?
You go ahead. Well, there's many times.
So I feel like today we'll probably focus on using it for
the come command recall. I mean, that's where we use it
the most. We don't train, we layer it on
top of obedience that's already there.
So some trainers teach all obedience with an E collar.

(07:25):
Some of those trainers are good,some suck and are way too hard
on the dogs, then everything in between.
So if your trainer uses it to teach everything, I wouldn't say
that's a red flag, but I would say you need to watch carefully
and make sure they have a methodthat it's not that they're
teaching and that it doesn't seem too hard on the dog.
So I'm always a little hesitant,but I know there's some trainers
that do a good job with that. So it's not how we train.

(07:47):
So we're not teaching commands, generally speaking, with an E
collar. We're using it for commands.
They know you could use it for behavioral work, and in theory
you could use it before training.
What are you grinning about, Nelson?
Voss is looking creepy stirring into the camera.
I don't know if that's true. Everyone's going to rush to the

(08:08):
video right now for sure. So you can use it for behavioral
work in a variety of ways. You could use it with no
obedience training at all. That's uncommon that we do that.
But if you had a dog who literally the only issue is they
dig under your fence and it's a huge problem.
Could you put the E collar on and when the dog starts to dig,
tell them no and correct them? Or try to create a kind of, I

(08:31):
guess, a superstitious behavior where you push it and they start
to associate the digging with something bad happens.
And there's, there's ways you could use that.
Generally speaking, though, we're using it as a part of a
full training program. So we train the dog, we teach
them what it means. And then now you can use it for
behavioral work like, you know, barking out the window or
whatever. Many leash reactivity, there's a

(08:51):
lot of stuff you could use it for.
But almost always we're teachingthe dog what the E collar is
first. We're acclimating them to it.
We're making them understand what it what we're trying to
communicate and then using it. So it's pretty rare we're doing
it differently than that. For sure.
Anything you want to expand on there, Nelson?
I guess one of the things that Itypically tell clients is

(09:18):
because I as the trainer, I'm going to go through the whole
gambit of E collar training withtheir dog if they choose to go
that route. It has to make sense, I guess.
So let's take like the fence thing.
And then that was what came to mind for me as well.
As if you didn't want to teach your dog anything, but you had

(09:38):
this crazy situation where your dog jumps the fence or digs
under the fence or even just touches it, right.
You know, we would, you could correct it pretty firmly with
the E collar and it would be beneficial because you're not
there to influence the dog. You're actually seeing the
behavior happen and can correct it instantly.
But aside from something like that, you know, a lot of the

(10:00):
times I'll ask people, you know,like, are you actually going to
go to a park, you know, do off leash stuff, you know, in an
appropriate area to use your yard super big since, you know,
like that, all of a sudden E collar stuff starts to make a
ton of sense. Because sometimes we've had,
I've had conversations with people that are just trying to

(10:22):
fix a little bit of recall and some minor issues, that kind of
stuff. And the mindset is, well, we'll
use the E collar. We'll, we'll fix the problem and
then kind of never use it ever again.
And sometimes I'll tell those people like it's maybe it's not
worth the cost of the E collar then.
And it, you know, we just need to get more creative in how we
set it up. Or maybe we go to a long line.

(10:44):
You know, there are other ways to fix things with other than an
E collar. But that being said, what I tell
people is if you're also planning on, hey, we have these
things to fix, I'd love to get areally, really solid, safe,
reliable recall. And I would love to take them to
these parks and stuff. All of a sudden it makes a ton

(11:04):
of sense. Kind of a no brainer at that
point. Yeah, I think my conversation
with clients normally is it comes down to budget.
If you have a high budget and you're training your dog, it's
silly not to. I just can't say why you
wouldn't because then you have adog you can take literally
anywhere and know they're going to listen to you.
Well, and but if someone is on avery tight budget, then to your

(11:25):
point Nelson, maybe another couple lessons is more useful to
them than an E collar. Right.
All right, so we've got a client.
We're going to train them on an E collar.
And if we're thinking about the come command in like our normal
scenario, not some random weird scenario, but come command and
then we can, you know, use it for other things as well if

(11:45):
needed. First, we're going to train the
dog, right? We're going to teach them,
generally speaking, all their obedience commands.
He'll sit, sit, stay down, down,stay and come.
We're going to work on come withsome level of distraction
already and some level of correction if they don't listen.
So a long line most likely, and we're working on come.
If they don't listen, we tell them no.

(12:06):
We go get them. We make a lot of progress there
and make sure the dog understands what this, what come
means and that there's a penaltyfor no let you know for not
listening. Once they understand it, then we
start the E collar. All right, Lesson 1.
Where? Where do you start, Nelson?
Vibration, tone, stem. What's first?
I almost always start with STEM,you know, with that, with the

(12:30):
actual static correction. And I will work on a heel walk
and then sometimes like a secondary command kind of
depending on how far we get in in a lesson.
But I like to be able to work with those low kind of stem
numbers and get the dog used to the fact that the collar is on.

(12:55):
It is creating a certain feeling.
Get them to understand that you know it, it's a thing and that
I'm responsible for the thing. One of the bigger issues, I
guess, you know, the, the hurdleto overcome is when you start
with vibration, the at least forthe collars that we're using,
which is Dogtra, the stimulationis or the, the vibrate is what

(13:19):
it is. You know, we don't have any
control to be able to make it more or less intense than what,
what the factory setting is. And so some there's always that
hurdle that you have to get the dogs used to the vibration and
it Spooks them because they've never felt anything on their
neck like that before where static, because I can start low
and slowly kind of build up, always seems to be a little bit

(13:40):
smoother. Typically I'm not running into
the same kind of panic modes that some dogs will get
themselves into over the vibrate.
Yeah, that's a good spot to spend a little bit of time.
And I'm, I would assume I've said this on the podcast before,
but aversive is in the eye of the dog, not in your mind is

(14:01):
what's important. So, and what I mean by that is
you would say if you'd learn a little bit about an E collar,
you're like, OK, the stem is meant to be aversive, the
vibration is not. That's a recall.
Well, the dog doesn't know that,right?
You can't communicate that to the dog verbally.
You can only communicate that tothem through time.
And Nelson's point was you startwith vibration and a lot of dogs

(14:23):
are really fearful of that vibration more so than the stem.
Reason being the stem can be in a level 1, which no one can
feel. And then you can go to level 2,
which still no one can feel and you can get to the lowest level
they can feel. The vibration is what it is and
it's pretty intense, but not intense.
Like it's certainly not painful,but they don't understand what
it is. I so I agree with you and all of

(14:45):
that for sure, Nelson. What I would say is I've
changed. I don't know, maybe like 4.
I'm just going to make up a number.
Let's say four years ago I started introducing to the E
collar the vibration with a ton of treats and food.
And you know, and I'm not a big,like I always say, if I can
train a dog with praise instead of treats, that's a no brainer.

(15:07):
I'm going to do that, but with Ecollars, I've really switched on
the vibration and I have found that the the fear like since
I've really started doing that, I don't see any dogs become
nervous of the vibration. And we've got videos on this for
anyone who wants to watch. But when I start the vibration,
it's collar is on super loose, like barely on the dog.
Well, a lot of times it's on theground and I put treats in in

(15:29):
between it and let the dog eat the treats.
Then I push the button and they hear that thing vibrate and
they're like that was weird. And then they go back to eating
the treats. Then I'll put it on the dog's
neck really, really loose and I'll give them treats as I'm
pushing the vibration a couple times.
Then I'll start calling them andthen I'll eventually snug it up.
And this could be a 5 minute process or it could be a 30
minute process. But by the end of that, I don't

(15:52):
think I've ever had a dog with fear issues of vibration when we
do it that way. And it just, it feels silly
sometimes because there's times where the dog wouldn't have had
fear anyways. You spend 30 minutes, but I have
just found that, you know, sometimes it becomes 5 minutes
so you can move through it really quickly.
Then we just don't have that fear issue.

(16:13):
And the dog likes the vibration from the get go.
But if if I was talking to a trainer and they said which way
should I do it, Nelson's way or your way, I could really care
less. So I start with vibration now,
but you could start with STEM and it's certainly not going to
be be bad whilst you're looking like you want to say something.
I was just going to ask you, Sir, are you doing that with

(16:34):
every single dog or are you varying it based off of the
dog's level of confidence? Like if you have a dog that
seems really confident and isn'tfearful of much, would you just
not do that and skip that step? Or are you every single dog no
matter what? I don't.
Think I've started a dog. I I think I've used the
vibration every time to start over the last few years if I

(16:58):
planned on teaching the dog withthe vibration means.
So there's been times when we'renot teaching the vibration and
if that's the case, then obviously I don't start with it.
But if I plan on using vibrationand stem, I start with the
vibration every time. You want to hear something
crazy? Yes.
I still never use the tone I I leave the tone simply for a

(17:22):
device for me to be able to findmy dog as opposed to teaching it
any significance to the dog whatsoever.
I don't think that's crazy because for the average dog,
what more do you need? If you can page them to you and
you can correct them as needed. I like it as a feature, but how
often do you have a client who'slike, I really want my dog to

(17:42):
learn to drop to a down from 100yards and you're like perfect,
we'll pair tone with down and you got it.
Like no one's asking for that soI get it, but.
You were super. You were super excited about the
fact that the new collars came with tone.
Well, I am because of how many people struggle with vibration,

(18:03):
Sure. So I think there'd be a lot of
people who would use tone instead of vibration and never
use the vibration again. Or at least I could see.
That I could see that for sure, especially someone that tried it
on their own, no question. Yep, I like the vibration
because it's you know it's goingto get their attention.
Right. And the tone, I mean it gets

(18:25):
their attention, but I'm a little less trusting of it.
OK, so we start, I said I'll start with vibration and I
basically outlined how I do it. And we've got a full video on
that. And for anyone listening, even
if you say hey I'm not a huge treat based trainer, I would
recommend use a ton of treats for that process because you're
think of it as you're overcomingfear.

(18:46):
So you might say I don't use treats when I'm teaching come I
use lots of praise and lots of excitement.
OK, but what about a dog who's terrified of walking across
linoleum? Would you put treats down for
that? Or like would you use treats to
help overcome fear? If your answer is yes, then I
don't see why you wouldn't use aton of treats for the vibration.
I think that there is not an argument but a point to be made.

(19:08):
There a stupid. Point.
I don't think so. Unless you're agreeing with.
Me. That's a good point where you
don't have to use treats, it's just going to make the situation
smoother. Same thing with the linoleum,
right? You don't have to use treats.
It will just make the whole situation smoother to handle.

(19:28):
Same thing with stairs. And the reason I point that out
is because I've had some dogs that I've trained that have to
be on the like specialized hydrolyzed protein diets and
stuff and they can't have any treats.
So like, you people aren't screwed by any means.
It's just not the smoothest way to do it.
You know, to kind of have to getyourself as exciting as that

(19:52):
treat might have been to your dog or, you know, vice versa,
kind of getting, getting throughthe scary situation.
Same similar kind of concept. That's a good point Nelson lost.
You want to say something there?Cover You're really dating
yourself by using the term linoleum.
Nobody has linoleum at this point.
It's all LVP, right? Premium LVP.

(20:15):
It's hilarious too is cuz he covers the one that told me
about LVP. He's acting like it's the 90s
people are rolling out linoleum in.
Places. You roll it out, you glue it
down, you're good to go. Nobody's nobody.
So Nelson, your point was a goodpoint.
I take back my preemptive insult.

(20:37):
I'll a couple things on top of that.
One is I generally don't use treats.
I keep saying treats. I use the dog's food almost
always. Sure, you know, if the dog is
terrified beyond belief and theydon't like their food much, well
then that's different. But most dogs, their food's a
good enough motivator. And yes, to your point, you can
do this without any food at all.And I did it that way for years.

(20:57):
Just recognize that if you're a trainer in doing this, you
probably already recognize that some percentage of dogs are
going to be scared by the vibration.
And then you're going to have tospend a lot of time overcoming
that. And by a lot of time, we're not
talking like 6 months, obviously.
But now all of a sudden you're telling the client like OK, for
the next week or two. You're just trying to make this

(21:17):
not scary when instead if we spend 1/2 hour at in the 1st
place, we never have to do that.Yeah.
Or if you are doing a boarding train, right, I mean, you might
waste three days on that vibratewith a certain dog that's just a
little bit more skittish. Yeah, there's no doubt about
that, that you would be going super slow introducing that

(21:39):
vibrate. And I've never had pushback from
a client on this if they were tosay, like, do we need to do it
this way? Like no one's ever asked that.
But what I would tell them is, yeah, this is going to chew up a
little bit more of your trainingtime, but the odds of your dog
getting stressed out or nervous here are like approaching 0.
And if we do it the other way, maybe it's 10 to 20%.

(22:00):
To me, it's kind of a no brainer.
Like, why would we not want thisto be easier on your dog if
we're talking about using 30 minutes versus 5 minutes?
For sure. Okay, so Stem, you alluded to
the fact that you introduced this on the walk, correct?
Yes. OK, tell us about this.
I will put the collar on the dunk and I will make sure that

(22:24):
it's a really, really good fit because that's the number one
troubleshooting tip that anyone could ever give you is that the
fit of the collar and the actualcontact is the most important
thing. So I'll make sure that the fit
is good and I will start findinga level that the dog can feel,
not one that they're scared of, not necessarily one that

(22:47):
they're, you know, panicked over.
So it's not like I'm like, ah, let's just skip to 10 and see
what happens. Then we'll skip to 20 and see
what happens. Usually I'm kind of climbing up
and just waiting for the dog. A lot of times you'll see them
kind of give an itch or something like that.
And knowing full well that, OK, I found this number here.
But as soon as I actually start walking or go outside or there's

(23:10):
any smells like you're probably going to have to go up in
numbers. And that's totally fine.
And I typically don't find much issue with that.
But I will go somewhere where they are generally very
comfortable. Their own neighborhood always
works out perfect. I certainly wouldn't do this
like in public or crazy busy forest preserve or anything like

(23:31):
that. Typically I'm trying to go
somewhere really, really low keyand and calm.
Then what I start to do is I will change the way that I start
correcting for heel and IA. Lot of the times, to be honest
with you, actually, I'll put thecollar on and it will be also

(23:52):
with whatever collar we're using.
So whether it's a martingale or a prong collar or the normal
collar, that collar will also beon.
And that's what the leash is attached to.
And I start off with just putting the collar on and then
using the other collar to correct with for a little bit
just so that the dog is used to the fact that collar is on.
And then I will actually start doing a combo of where I'm

(24:14):
tapping the button and then using the leash pressure to get
them back to my heel before. And we're talking generally
super quick. Again, another 15 to 20 minutes
maybe of a session where I'm just tapping the button saying
heal. And the dogs are already
starting to slow down and get back to my side because this is

(24:35):
already a command that we've worked on with all of these
dogs. Again, we're not teaching these
commands with the collar. We're rather just layering a new
kind of correction on top of it.OK, are we done?
We introduced stamp freeze. Challenge.
What? It's like like wherever they

(24:59):
used to be, like a one of the shorts where you'd like pan your
phone around to wherever you were and everyone was frozen in
whatever position they were in. You're still muted, buddy.
It looked to me like Covey was actually frozen.
Yeah, maybe. What?
I don't know. It looked like both of you hit

(25:20):
the. Same.
I don't know, I just never moved.
It is super hot in this room, soI think I'm sitting still to try
to not build up any more body heat.
All right, so I agree with what you said.
I don't know how much time we need to spend more on those
mechanics right now. I think that was pretty
self-explanatory. Let's just think through some

(25:41):
big picture stuff. There's many ways to introduce
it. So some people introduce the
stem where the dog is sitting still and they slowly turn it up
until they catch the dogs attention.
Some people have the dog off leash when they do it.
The goal is, in my opinion, you you need some sort of control
while you do. This is important.

(26:02):
If your dog is excitable, you'regoing to need a much higher
level to get their attention. And when they're no longer
excitable then that, yeah, they're not going to notice it
until it's pretty high and then it can make them nervous.
So I would not suggest having your dog pretty aroused when
you're starting this. That's to me a problem with many
dogs. Things to think about are the

(26:25):
stem is supposed to be not pleasant to the dog, but it's
not supposed to be painful. But through time, we want the
dog to learn this is punishment,right?
And that's a word that people hide from.
But to us, that's what it is. It's meant to be discipline.
It's meant to say no, what you did was wrong.
But we have to introduce that slowly.

(26:45):
So, you know, I, I agree with you, Nelson, starting on the
leash is great and the time you take depends on on the dog, of
course, right. And you know, and it, some dogs
pick up on it pretty quickly andyou can move through the numbers
pretty quickly and you get whereyou need to be.
One thing I would throw out though, is I always start by
having the client put the E collar on their arm and feel
different levels for two reasons.

(27:07):
I mean, one is most people are very nervous of the collar.
So I want them to see like a 12.You might not even feel.
And now we're working at a 14. It's not very intense.
But I also want them to know what it feels like because you
do get some people that are likeI basically said, I really want
to correct my dog because he's frustrating me with whatever.
Like, well, I want you to know what your dog is going to feel.

(27:28):
So we're going to put it on him and let them feel that before
they ever do that with the dog. So I think that whole process is
pretty important. Now, what do you think about
backing up for a second and talking about theory and why we
use it as positive punishment versus negative reinforcement?
I would love to hear you kind ofexplain it's, it's been a while

(27:50):
since I've heard your explanation against the negative
reinforcement, right. And one of the big reasons that
there there are actually a decent amount of trainers that
introduce and really do teach a lot of the commands in that
style with the E collar. Yeah.

(28:12):
So the first thing I would say is you don't confuse your dog.
So if you're working with a trainer who recommends that you
use it as negative reinforcement, I'm not trying to
convince you otherwise. So I'm not saying like switching
in the middle is a problem. I mean, it's not that you can't
do it, but you need to have a you need to really think it
through. So please don't switch mid
training based upon my opinion. There's a lot of good trainers

(28:35):
out there that use it as negative reinforcement.
There's also a lot of shitty trainers that, but there's also
same with positive punishment. There's a lot to do it in a
terrible way. So I don't have this like big
feeling that if you do it differently than me that you're
necessarily wrong. It's just, but I'll walk you
through why I don't like it. So first is understanding the
difference. Positive punishment means you're

(28:56):
adding something to the situation to punish your
behavior and make it less likelyto happen.
So that's how I use the stem. Dog doesn't listen to come.
We say no and then we tell them to come.
We're we're punishing the the lack of the ignoring the come
command. We're punishing running away
from us. We want to make that behavior
less likely to happen. Negative reinforcement would, it

(29:18):
means you're taking something away to reinforce the behavior.
So what that looks like is they'll have the stem hopefully
on a very low level and they'll push it as they call the dog.
So they'll say, you know, Ralph come as they're pushing the stem
and when the dog starts to come,they take it away.
So it's actually kind of the exact opposite of what we're
doing. And when they do that, the, you

(29:41):
know, they use it to get the dogs attention and the dog
realizes like, hey, this is a little uncomfortable.
But when I come to my owner, theuncomfortable thing stops.
And now, you know, now I come tothem and they tell me I'm great
and they praise me. I don't like that for a couple
reasons. 1 is in my experience, I see a lot more dogs get collar
wise when you do it that way that people.

(30:01):
And I hear a lot of trainers that do negative reinforcement
where they basically tell their client like the dog should
always have the E collar lifelong when you're in public.
And that's not like the end of the world.
But I don't want my dog to become collar wise.
I'd rather them get tuned into my voice.
A similar thing to that is when we use the word no along with

(30:24):
the stem, they're pairing no with stem.
In their mind, they're going to become one in the same.
So now when your dog doesn't have the collar in and you give
that stern no, they're going to feel exactly the way they do
when they get the stem in the correction.
And they're way more likely to when you don't have the collar
on, you say no to stop and come to you and then you praise them

(30:45):
for doing it and they realize they should always come to you.
So those are the main reasons I like it a lot better and one of
the other, and I would love to hear maybe we should have
someone on the podcast who does negative reinforcement with the
E collar because I'm always a little fuzzy and they talk about
as a communication tool and it'slike the vibrate, you know, the
stem is not that big of a deal. I'm on a low level.

(31:08):
Well, when do you get to a correction?
You're obviously using one at some point.
The like the dog is not coming to you all the time because they
want to and you're at a low level.
Let's make up a number. It's a 13, let's say, and the
dog comes, well, what's your consequential like what happens
when a dog like blows you off? You're at 13 and they see

(31:30):
another dog and they bolt after that dog.
Obviously you're going to turn up the collar.
And then what do you do when youturn up the collar?
Are you telling them no? And now are you using it as
positive punishment? I think the answer is yes.
I would assume so. And if the answer is yes, we're
pretty close on how we're training where that's it's a
pretty small difference at that point.
So I'd be curious to unpack thata little bit deeper with

(31:52):
somebody. It would be very interesting to
find out, you know, what are some of the markers?
What is it that you're looking for as a sign of success to know
unclear to now start making the transition to positive
punishment could because I agreewith you, everybody ends there.
I don't think that there's many,many people using an E collar

(32:12):
that don't end in positive punishment land right, because
that's that's what the collar isfor.
It's that insurance planner or that invisible leash.
Yeah, and we know we keep sayingpunishment and I said earlier
it's a loaded word, right? And some people see it as such a
bad thing, but you need to get comfortable that first.

(32:33):
I have a feeling everyone listening to our podcast is and
understand punishment is not code word for being super harsh
or screaming or being mean to the dog.
If you believe in a life withoutpunishment for humans or dogs,
you're living in a fairy tale, an absolute fairy tale.
It's the more nuanced, like relevant conversation is what
punishments appropriate, not is punishment appropriate.

(32:56):
Like if there has to be some sort of punishment or the dog's
not going to stop doing something if they want to do it.
So to me, it's just figuring out, are you comfortable with an
E collar? That's why I like clients to put
it on their arm. And when they feel like, whoa,
that's what a 13 feels like. And that's getting my dog's
attention. OK, yeah, that's that works at
that level. That's great to wait.
Safer than a long line. And, you know, I don't know how

(33:17):
much we want to dwell on that, but like a long line, the dog
could get really hurt. They're running full speed and
they wrap it around a tree and go in a circle and bolt the
other way. They could get seriously injured
regardless of what it's attachedto, regardless of collar type.
With an E collar injury is basically impossible.
You know, you could leave it on too long and get contact sores.
They can swim all day with it tight and the oil and the water

(33:39):
can, you know, rub their skin a little bit raw.
That's just user error and not paying attention to it.
But from actually like pushing the button and training them.
You mean you cannot hurt your dog with an E collar?
That is something that I always tell everybody is, you know,
the, the doctor collars, most ofthem go up to 127 and then

(33:59):
everybody gasps right and like, Oh my goodness, I what would you
ever need that that number for? And it's, you know, and I tell
people is this collar is 1, their weaker collar just just to
kind of start off with this, their basic model.
But also it's not that this collar gets any stronger than

(34:21):
any of the other normal basic models, simply the fact that I
have way more control over it. And then you pair that with the
fact that if anyone ever did hurt their dog because they were
corrected at 1:27, you know, like lawsuits would be
inevitable, right? And the fact that they're still
in business probably means that no dog is gotten hurt from the

(34:44):
stem. For sure, and I I think you were
alluding to this, but there's cheap color, some not even cheap
ones, sometimes callers that go from 1:00 to 10:00 that have the
same power as Dogtrat 127. So you have to know your levels
and Dogtra just gives you more options.
You can fine tune it a little better.
Watch. Are we ready for our game?
Your eyes say we're ready for the game.

(35:07):
I don't know that this is the greatest place for it.
I mean in terms of your whole trying to match it with what
you're talking. About no, that's not my goal.
I wanted to start with it, so that's not my goal at all.
But like if, if you want to do it just from a timing
perspective of where we're at inthe lesson, I think it's a great
time to do it. OK, a lesson.

(35:28):
This isn't a pod, This is a lesson.
I like that. I'm getting my phone off
airplane mode. Are we going to explain the game
now to the listeners? Who's explaining?
You. Me, Nelson.
I can explain it So what we're doing.
We're saying back a game, sell them, give them excitement, sell
them on it. All right, then you explain it.
No, I want to explain. No.
Here's your radio. No, you just blew it.

(35:51):
You want me to use my announcer voice?
Yeah, I have a pretty good announcer voice, but I'm not
gonna do it. No, I'm not going to.
We're bringing back an old game,which is 62nd answers.
So we propose a question and then you get 60 seconds to give
your answer to that question. There is a little bit of a
different flair to it. This time, though, instead of

(36:12):
cover your Nelson answering the questions, we're going to be
randomly calling one of our suburban canine trainers and
having them answer it. They have no idea that we're
going to call them. It's just out of the blue.
Phone call question, 60 seconds to answer.
Hopefully when I end up getting like nothing but ringtones.

(36:35):
I don't know. I think they're going to be
pretty good. I think they're going to pick
up, but if they don't, we have multiple like I have multiple
numbers ready to go. And to be clear, they don't know
we're calling people. Some people know this is a thing
we might try out at some point in time, but they certainly
don't know we're calling today or that it's happening.
So we doing it now. Yeah, let's do it.

(36:55):
Who am I calling? Nick.
So we're calling our Chicago N Territory manager, Nick Smoots.
And I don't know that, so I don't know if I'm going to need
the question. I might because I don't know if
he's going to be able to hear. So I'm going to hold my phone up
to the mic. He should be able to hear.
But can you tell me the questionin case he can't?

(37:16):
It's in the dock. It's long.
OK. Well, I guess we'll ask him if
he can hear and if he can't, yousay a sentence.
Then I'll say it to him, and yousay another and I'll say it to
him. Whoa.
Or fine. I'll find the dock.
How do I get there? It's.
Called Podcast Topics. It's pretty easy.
Oh, that dock. OK, I love that.
We're half an hour in and he's like, how do I get to the dock?

(37:40):
I didn't know we were using a dock for this today, but OK.
Are obedience pods actually important?
No. Bottom it's.
Not it. Bottom OK, you arrive at a house
call. OK, Vloss, is this gonna steal
your Thunder if I read it to him?
No, I mean I was planning on calling him and reading it, but

(38:02):
you got it then. No, do it.
Nope. Nope.
I didn't realize you were going to call.
That's way easier. You're in charge now.
I don't want to be in charge. Because I want.
To hear you get a calm service voice to your Yeti there.
I want to hear your announcer voice where you're all excited
and welcome him live to the show.
I think you're going to do that better than me, so I say do it.
All right, let's make it happen.It's like playing rock, paper,

(38:25):
scissors so you don't have to order the pizza.
Hi everyone. This is Jason Ferguson and I'm
the president of the International Association of
Canine Professionals. Our organization is focused on
three pillars, education, certification, and legislation.
What that means is we help educate our members to ensure
that they're the best dog trainers they can be.

(38:47):
We also offer certification so that clients know that the
trainers are true professional. Our legislative efforts are
focused on ensuring that trainers have the freedom to
choose the tools and techniques that work best for the dogs and
clients that they work with. Join the ICP today for yourself
and to protect the industry. Our friends on the Balanced Dog

(39:07):
Training podcast support the ICPand we hope you will as well.
Hey. What's going?
On Nick Smoots, you are live on the Suburban K9 Podcast.
Welcome to the show, Nick. Could you hear Vloss?
He said. Hi.
I heard it vaguely a little bit.How are you today?

(39:27):
Fantastic. How are you?
Good. Do you have 60 seconds for me?
I. Absolutely.
Do. OK, Vloss, I think I'll have to
read the question because I think it's hard for him to hear
you. So Nick, I'm going to read you a
six a question and then you're going to have 60 seconds to give
us an answer for what that client should be doing.
Let's do it. OK.

(39:50):
Do we have a timer going? I have the timer ready.
OK, I need to move this. When you finish the question.
No, he's not going to see it though.
Right, he's not going to be able.
To agree, you're just like you, just like you guys couldn't see
it when you used to do this. All right Nick, you arrive at a
first house call with a 2 year old lab.
The client had worked with a previous trainer who utilized a

(40:13):
Mini Educator E collar to train the dog.
It has been about one year sincetraining took place.
The dog does not respond to cum in the yard but does inside the
home. They think there might be an
issue with the collar. You check the collar, it's
working correctly in 60 seconds.How would you go about helping
this customer get on the right track?

(40:36):
So the first thing I would do ismake sure all their obedience
prior is solid. I would test out, sit, sit,
stay, down, down, stay, just to make sure the dog is listening
well. Then once that's happening, I'm
gonna make sure the handling is good with client.
Then I'm going to find out how often they're using that E
collar. If they're not using it often

(40:56):
enough, I'm going to go ahead and reacclimate.
And this could take a couple of lessons to reacclimate, but I'm
going to see about reacclimatingto outside use for the E collar.
And then going from there, see the working number for that dog
and find out if it's going to work well or not.
Because the dog might be referencing negatively

(41:18):
negatively to the the E collar outside as a as a fear
mechanism. So then we're going to find out
a more positive way for that dogto see the E collar and it works
through it that way. How much time is left for us?
You've got 8 seconds. You've got 8 seconds, 4.
Scooby Dooby dooby doobie. That's pretty good.
Thumbs up. OK, so now based off of that

(41:41):
Covey Nelson, anything you want to add to his answer change from
his answer. He was talking super.
Fast. That was super fast.
That's the name of the game right there.
Nelson. Can you hear?
Can you hear Nelson talk, Nick? Can you hear me when I say
things into this microphone? I can hear it now.
I turned up my I turned. I'm in my car.

(42:02):
Hey buddy, how are you? What's up buddy?
OK, so I think the only thing I would have made sure to do some
recall with the E collar inside the house and this would have
been after you re acclimated everything.
I think all of that was definitely a good idea, but if
the dog is successful inside, I would kind of be banking on that

(42:26):
and just starting to use the vibrate and everything all over
again. But aside from that, it's
actually exactly what you said. It's just getting the dog to see
it in a in a positive way again and then getting outside and
getting to it. Yeah, and I would agree.
I like your answer, Nick. I like the the reacclimation
versus let's just get outside and train because and you didn't

(42:50):
have time to say this, but we have no idea what the other
trainer did. Maybe they were amazing, maybe
they sucked. We have no clue.
When you, you know, spend some time acclimating the dog to it,
you get to figure out where the dog's AT and you'd cover this in
reacclimation. We know that Kyler was working,
but what we don't know is fit because we all know very often

(43:11):
that they're putting the collar on that dog and it's not making
contact. And you solve that and problem
solved. Yes, 100% you know, obviously
62nd, you know, doesn't take into equation the you know the
little the minute things that the dog is going through.
They also, you know, the other train might have been just using

(43:33):
a pure negative reinforcement, like, like, I'm gonna hold this
button until you do what I do. And the dog may not have liked
that at all outside, but inside,the dog's more calm.
And it's gonna be, you know, referring to those commands just
off muscle memory alone, withoutthe cower.
Well, Nick, you'll like when you.

(43:54):
Nick was watching this this. I was gonna say, yeah, we were
talking negative reinforcement versus positive punishment
seconds before we called you. So when you listen to this whole
episode, you'll laugh. Well.
I'm going to plug right now because I'm listening to your
dog pro radio in the car while you called me.
Which episode the. Newest 1 you just dropped?

(44:14):
Who is it? Do you know?
I think it's the positive reinforcement trainer.
Hang on. Michael Chicaccio.
Yeah, that's him. That's him.
Cool. Well, enjoy all.
Right. All right.
Bye, Nick. Thanks buddy.
Thank you. I think that went pretty well.
What do we think of the new version?

(44:35):
Do we like it better than the old?
I like it as much as the old. Just as much not better.
I'm curious to hear what people think about it, how the audio
quality is since I'm just holding the phone up.
I tested it last night and it seemed to work well.
I think it'll become fun. Especially I really like the

(44:56):
fact that it's new people, right?
Different people. Yeah, I think it's going to be
interesting and a little bit crazy.
Putting them on the spot is always tricky, right?
For sure one thing to put you 2 on the spot, but just some
random trainer. Hey, we should put Nelson on the
spot right now. How would you go about, I'm

(45:18):
asking for a friend. If you had to shoot a video this
afternoon of a dog that doesn't jump into a crate in the car at
all, and you need to get that dog to jump into the crate, and
you had to shoot a YouTube videofor the Suburban K9 page, how
would you do that? I would set up two phones. 1 is

(45:38):
going to be add like a zoomed kind of lens, right?
I'd be either at that two or that 5, whatever it is.
And then make sure that it that is only looking at the crate
inside the car or just the back if you, you know, steps before
you get to the crate. And then I would have another

(46:00):
phone and that's the one that I'm actually talking to.
And that way you don't, you don't have to really worry about
camera angles too much because you have two that would be able
to cover the situation well. So you're not your first step
wouldn't be something about pouring your coffee and like a
bloom or whatever you were talking about earlier, like, oh,

(46:20):
you got a bloom for 30 seconds. So then you have plenty of
energy and a nice sustained caffeinated buzz.
No, see, because I would be pastthat point.
I would be at the time where thebuzz has taken effect and now we
can shoot this video. OK.
I find it interesting. The two camera angles you talked
about, I think it would be 1 inside the car that's facing

(46:42):
outward, right? Is your 1 camera angle.
I thought about that one. Depends on the crate.
I don't know, I think that'd be because that's your money shot.
Them jumping up into the into the car and into the crate,
that's your money shot. You want that like.
Can you say that? If you have a wire, I don't know
I was I was a little taken back too, but but if it's a wire

(47:03):
crate, I agree with you that's the best shot no question.
But if it's. Appropriate comment.
It could be taken that way for sure.
Here's what I find interesting. Both of this is a dog training
podcast. Both of you are like talking
about camera angles the whole time.
What about dog training? I got to get this dog to do it.

(47:26):
How do we do that? That's why I said it's, you
know, like you'll have that angle whether that crate is
there or not because you're probably going to have to get
the dog to jump into the car andbefore you can get it to jump
into the crate. It's funny, I was going to go
from there into talking about editing and how if it takes a
long time to get the dog to jumpin there, that you should
probably put it on four times speed while you're working with

(47:48):
it back and forth and how it would be, you know, cool with a
little bit of music. I was going to go there.
I definitely wasn't going to talk about how to do it.
Wow. So we're, our heads are in very
different places. I hadn't even thought about how
to film it. I was thinking about how I want
to talk about the intersection of motivation and control and
explain if you don't have control, you've got to go so

(48:09):
heavy on motivation. And if you don't have
motivation, you have to go so heavy on control and that you're
trying to find the right balancefor the dog.
Yes, vastly different head spaces for sure.
I'll throw out there, I don't feel like control works a ton.
I feel like it's motivation for me.
I do it like 100%. It's like 100%.

(48:30):
So you're going to no leash, no collar, you're outside,
literally no control, and you'rejust going to motivate.
Pure motivation. You took it way too far, clearly
right, but I feel like motivation is the biggest factor
for me when I'm when. I'm well, for sure, it's
important. My point was going to be people
try it with no control. How often and like do you try to

(48:50):
get your dog walking across linoleum or even LVP?
I don't know, some sort of new floor?
And they won't do it if you're some, if they're not very
scared, sure, just motivations enough.
But if they're scared, you're going to need motivation and
some sort of control. Definitely agreed.
And when you again, when you take it to the extreme that
you're talking about, I'm definitely within that control

(49:13):
frame. I was talking leash, collar,
heel, but using lots of motivation within that
framework. So if the dog is terrified of
the car, then you put the crate on the couch and get him to jump
into it there before putting it in the car.
See, this is the kind of stuff Ineed for my video.
That's not camera angles. I'm just going to put a camera

(49:34):
on a tripod. It's going to be a pretty
garbage angle, so people are going to have to really like the
advice. So you didn't want camera angle
advice? Editing advice.
I'm going to have one camera with me and I'm not going to
have another person, so there's not really many options there.
I feel like you can. You can make a lot of cool stuff

(49:55):
happen. Yeah, you could definitely make
a lot of cool stuff. Oh, it's going to be cool.
I mean, this thing's going to bean amazing video.
So you guys take? You take some of our advice.
You were both talking, Nelson said.
Be in the lookout, Vloss said. What now?
I said hopefully you take some of our advice when filming and

(50:15):
editing. I'm going to try.
I'm going to use one camera, so I'm just going to shoot B roll
and lie and be like, Oh my gosh,did you see that?
That was amazing. And then like then I'll have to
like get footage that pitch thatand then someone will edit it
together. Someone will say that out.
Loud and then I'll I'll even be like a crowd and be like, did
you guys see that dog trainer over there?

(50:37):
That dog started off really bad and by the end he was really
good. He was really good.
It's going to be in 60 seconds. All right.
Introducing e-commerce, what have we not?
What have we not covered? We talked about positive
punishment, negative reinforcement.
We talked about how to introduceSTEM and vibration.

(50:59):
What else? We didn't talk about
troubleshooting and things that can commonly go wrong and to be
on the lookout for. OK.
You want to give us a little bitof that?
Sure. Well, so one we talked about
fit, that is generally going to be your, your biggest worry is

(51:20):
the fit of the collar. Is it tight enough and is it
contacting skin, not just hair. When the contact points are just
touching hair or skin and hair, sometimes it'll weaken the
correction so your numbers are off or they don't feel it at
all. The worry there being that

(51:41):
you're going higher in stimulation levels and then the
dog actually can feel it and gets a way bigger correction
than than what they were supposed to get.
So that's generally a big concern.
But the other one, you know, like you had mentioned for the
fence, right, the fact that we might create a superstitious

(52:03):
behavior where the dogs are nervous about getting too close
to the fence because it gets hotwhen when the dog gets over
there, stopping them from digging underneath it or jumping
over it, you know, that kind of stuff.
But those superstitious behaviors can occur anywhere.
And it's definitely something worth noting that if you, let's

(52:24):
say you, you make it past some of the steps of E collar
training and you're actually trying to positively punish.
And so you hit a correction level stem, whatever that ends
up being for your dog cuz that obviously every dog is different
and they immediately start looking for the ground or

(52:45):
looking at a tree or looking at a couch that they were sitting
next to. You want to make sure that they
understand that the collar was what they felt and not the fact
that the couch or the tree bit them and that they're just
scared of that thing. What I would say to that is that
anyone listening, if you're doing the introduction

(53:05):
correctly, both vibration and stem, the odds of ever
accidentally creating superstitious behavior are
insanely low. Because like, think about what
Nelson described earlier. You're talking about healing the
dog, working with them, introducing it slowly so they're
feeling the stem many times and getting used to it.

(53:29):
So the most likely scenario of accidentally creating
superstitious behavior is if yougo too fast and you have the dog
loose and you push the button and they're smelling a tree at
that point or whatever. But if you acclimate the way
Nelson, you know, told you to earlier, that's not going to
happen. It's almost 0 percent chance of
happening. I, I threw out the word

(53:53):
consequential earlier. And there's trainers call this
different things. Obviously I don't care what
words anyone uses, but you need like a working level.
So we call it a working level and a consequential level.
Working level is dogged, is not listening.
You push the stem, you tell themno, you call them again and
they're like, Oh yeah, I was supposed to come and they run
over. The consequential level is

(54:14):
something more than that for when the working level is not
enough. What you can't do is figure out
your working level on the fly ina non fenced in area.
That's dangerous. So this is no longer introducing
an E collar, but it's worth thinking about that you find out
your working levels of 15 and you're working in the yard and

(54:36):
everything's great. They don't listen.
You tell them no. If they don't listen with a 15
and then they come to you, well,that's working in that yard.
But what if another dog goes by,or a squirrel or whatever?
You want to see that happen withsome measure of control before
you know, before you so you can figure out what your
consequential level is. Because you simply don't know.

(54:58):
And the risk is if you go too high you could terrify the dog.
If you don't go high enough theycould run away and get hit by a
car and die. So you've got 2 shitty options
if you try to figure this out onthe fly.
What I would say is doing a fenced in yard or with a long
line on. So you could have 100 foot lead
on or a 200 foot lead if you're at a big park.
Or you could do this in a yard, create your own distraction if

(55:19):
you can. That's what we do as trainers.
So if I was in a yard and I really want to find out what the
dog will do if they're bolting after another dog, I'm going to
have someone walk a dog by the other side of a fence and let
him bolt and then call him off of that.
And then we can figure out the the consequential level that
way. And if you need to do it in a
long line in public, that's fine.
Make sure you've got a long enough line.
And what I would tell a client is that line needs to be at

(55:41):
least twice as long as whatever distance you're going to let the
dog get from you. And the reason for that is a 50
foot line sounds super long until you have a dog 50 feet
away from you and they start running.
And then you realize a 50 foot line is not that long and 50
feet's not that far. So if I'm going to let that dog
50 feet from me, I want 100 footline.
So I know if they go to bolt, I can mess up.

(56:04):
I could slip a little bit, I could step on the line and try
to and miss. And I'm still going to have
plenty of time to to get the in that line and make sure they're
safe. Definitely.
Thoughts on what I just said there?
I think one big thing kind of comes to mind for sure.
I would be creating, you know, asituation to see what the dog is

(56:26):
likely going to do. But then also there are collars
that are really good about that and have a boost function, you
know, so you can get used to instead of panicking and trying
to twist the knob and seeing where the number is already
knowing, hey, this boost function is 15 over whatever I'm
whatever my working number is, right?

(56:47):
It just adds an additional 15 for those types of situations.
So like the 280X, the 1900 XI believe has a similar function.
It's the same layout over something like a Doctor Arc that
doesn't have a boost function and you would just be twisting
the knob on on that one. Boost is nice.

(57:09):
And to give people an idea, I mean, Nelson, what's your
number? If you were just if you had to
give a number right now for the average dog, what's the
difference between working? If their working levels at 18,
what do you think their consequential level would be?
If their working number is 18, Iwould be somewhere around 30.

(57:34):
OK, so we're close there. I was going to say 10.
It would, you know, adding 10 isa good number.
Things you want to think about is the dog.
If your dog is a very nervous dog and they're at a 12 and
they're pretty sensitive to a 12, you're not going to want to
boost it by 10. And then, and I'm obviously not
saying you were wrong now. So I'm just saying like for

(57:55):
people to think about some context and if your dog's at a
30 and they're they don't, they pay attention, but they don't
pay that much attention, 10 might not be even be that big of
a difference to them. You have to know your dog.
And that's why, I mean, you weresaying, Nelson, you want to set
this up because you want time tofigure it out.
And what I would encourage all the trainers listening to do is,

(58:17):
and I've been guilty of the opposite of this, where I work
too fast with a client and give them too much homework.
So they have to do less lessons to be good, not nice to the
client, right? To save them money.
So often you make it harder in the long run by doing it that
way. So what I would say is, you
know, advocate for the dog and tell people you should do a good
number of lessons on the E collar.

(58:39):
Could I throw a bunch of knowledge at you and give you a
crazy amount of homework? And we could get this done maybe
in one lesson and you have the homework to, you know, add stuff
on later. Like, I mean, technically it's
possible, but it's not the best for the dog.
And if we stretch this out and we do three lessons or so, you
know, together and work on this,everything's going to be
amazing. And if we do one or two, there's

(59:02):
a chance it's not. And for how important this is
for lifelong safety and the value you get for your dog being
able to run off leash for the rest of their life, I think it's
crazy to do less than three sessions focused on the E color.
I think that leads to something interesting, or at least I've
been thinking about something interesting.
A lot of this, this podcast, you've really talked about

(59:25):
introducing the E collar to the dog.
But using the E collar, just like any tool is really a skill.
And a lot of it needs to be the the client being prepared and
ready to use it properly in different situations.
Like when you were talking aboutusing the boost function, you
know, if a client's never been put in a situation where they
have to boost to then have to think about that in the heat of

(59:48):
a moment when something's going wrong.
It's really complicated. So are there any other tips that
we should really be throwing outthere for for the client?
And I get that like just by using it, a lot of that is just
going to happen, the skills going to build.
But is there anything we missed by spinning it in that different
perspective? So I think that that's actually
a really, really good .1 of the things that I would say though

(01:00:13):
is understanding like what your dog actually needs is different
from you getting good at the remote, which is you know, like
your point. And depending on which collar
you have, there's again couple of things that I would
recommend. I personally, I really like the

(01:00:34):
280X remote. And one of the big reasons is
that boost function because I dothink that in the heat of a
moment, someone pressing a different button is going to be
way more likely than someone twisting a knob, getting to an
appropriate level and then pressing a button.
There's just more steps there. But before, before the new

(01:00:58):
collar, or rather before the newremote, that wasn't an option.
And So what I would have people work on is having the remote
collar not on the dog. This is specifically for the
owner to get used to muscle memory handling the the remote.
So you're just watching TV, you put it down to 0 and you give it

(01:01:19):
a quick little twist on the knobjust to see how much am I
jumping up to every time I do one of these quick little
twists. And that way you can have a
reference in your mind of, hey, every twist that I do is about
10 or about 15, which typically is what I've seen out of most
people is that when they twistedsomewhere around 12.

(01:01:40):
But I can do that really, reallywell in my head of like, hey,
every time I twist, I'm typically jumping about 10 to
know relatively where is my dog at as far as numbers go when a
situation like that occurs. But fiddling around with that
remote and getting really good and mapping it out in your head
is definitely a smart idea, especially dependent on how you

(01:02:04):
actually wear it. So the most annoying thing about
E collars is the fact that you have to have the remote
somewhere on you. I absolutely hate the lanyard,
but some people really like it. And so your muscle memory has to
be hitting your chest and pressing the button and knowing,
am I using my pointer finger or am I using my thumb, right?

(01:02:25):
For me, I use a pocket clip and it hangs on the outside of my
pockets. And so I have to know again
which finger is going to hit thecorrection button.
And I practice that kind of stuff.
Kind of alluding to your point of getting used to the muscle
memory it's going to take to build that skill.

(01:02:46):
So my answer, we should edit this in at the start so I sound
really smart when we were talking about why I do vibration
first. Another reason is it gives, I
like to have the the stem set to0 for that first week while
people are working on vibration because they get some time to
play with it. But I mean, I encourage them to
do exactly what Nelson is talking about.

(01:03:07):
Play with it, just practice. And then I'll quiz them.
And I'm sure you do the same. Nelson, while we're in the yard,
I'm quizzing them on when you call them, what are you pushing?
And they're like this button right here.
And what if they don't listen? What do you do?
Like I say no when I push this one, like, you know, we talk
through all of that and what if they don't listen?
I'm doing this. But then to your point, Nelson,
yeah, they need the actual muscle memory too, though, of

(01:03:29):
turning that dial. But I do like the first week
where they do the vibration and the stems on 0 because they're
the worst case scenario is not very bad, right?
For sure. They can't make the dog nervous
accidentally. I mean I turn it to 0 no matter
what, even if it is the second thing that I work on.
But yes I agree completely, it'sdefinitely a good tip.

(01:03:51):
Oh, and I meant because then it's 0 for that first week, you
know, because they're because they're not doing stem at all.
They're just they've got a week of experience with the collar
doing vibration. Got it.
And that's why I'm going to editthat to the start and it's going
to be seamless. When Nelson talked about having
it on his belt clip, was anybodyelse picturing like the long
chain hanging from his jeans? And he's like pulling it out

(01:04:14):
when she's. Walking.
See, that's OK. So Janko's and I can with the
wallet that has the chain on it.Yeah, See, Big Brother had that.
I mean, we're aging herself again.
Most there's probably a lot of listeners that are like Jenko
Jeans, no Jenko. Jeans came back.
Oh, they're back. Do they really?
That's crazy. So then I'm aging myself by

(01:04:35):
saying people don't know about it dude.
Doc Martins are back. Jenko's are back.
It's all back. Doc Martins are shoes.
Yeah, yeah. I was talking to someone
recently, I can't remember who, and Doc Martins are like a big
thing now. And I had old Doc Martins that
Kara finally made me throw away because they were from like high

(01:04:56):
school or college. She finally made me donate them
and get rid of them like a couple years ago.
And now I threw it in her face. I'm like, we could be rich if it
wasn't they'd. Have been rich right now.
They were collector's items. You know what sucks too is like
when I was growing up and I worechampion shirts and champion
clothes and stuff like that, like that was the identifier to

(01:05:18):
other people that I was poor. And.
Now now it's cool and like now all the all the cool kids are
wearing it and everything. Like what the hell, man?
Champions cool right now. Yeah, is car.
Part out again yet? Or is it still in?
I remember they had that boycottfor 2020, but I don't know if

(01:05:40):
anyone's really mad at them at the moment.
Carhartt's always been in for people that do work.
Right, but it's in for non working people, right?
Look. At that, I didn't know.
Or at least it was like it was abig thing for a little bit there
like 2 years ago, maybe last year.
I don't know. I'm just wondering if it's gone
again. Dickey's will never go out of

(01:06:00):
out of style. But Dickey's are more working
people I feel like. Again, like much like people.
Gangsters, skaters, you know, just.
You ever have a pair of pumps? No.
You know what they are. Isn't that's a Nike product
right? I couldn't.
I don't. Nike stuff.
I can't remember they they were shoes that pumped up and got

(01:06:22):
tighter. You'd pump them up so you could
like before you play some basketball.
Did you have shoes? The Nike Air or something like
that is what I thought it was. Oh, this is I feel like I feel
like this. Way before that.
Wow. OK, did you have those Covey?
I finally got a pair but my mom wouldn't give them to me for
years because she was afraid they might like hurt your feet

(01:06:43):
because who knows if you're going to pump them up too tight
and deform your feet. I would have never guessed you
had docks or those. You must have been way cooler
than I was. I didn't have any of that stuff.
I had a pair of docks. They were chemical resistant oil
proof. Remember the soles had all those
like signs in the bottom tellingyou what they did.

(01:07:04):
Because that's important when you're walking through the halls
of your high school is that yourshoes are chemical resistant.
That's for sure. All right, well, are we done
here? Loss accuses us of always
talking a long time. He did say that.
He did say I talked for six hours.
Everyone listening, if anyone's going to be at the Working Dog
conference in Nashville in a couple weeks, I will be there.
So come say hi. I'll be wearing a suburban

(01:07:26):
canine shirt and I'll be around somewhere.
Should we do a podcast there? All three of us go, We can.
We can try to figure it out. Yeah, let's do it, Cocktail.
Party three of us there. And then stuff on Wednesday and
Thursday. You mean mocktail party Tuesday
night? Cocktail for some people,

(01:07:48):
mocktails for others. All right, well, hey, everybody,
let us know what you think of the new game.
And we're going to keep doing itno matter what, but hopefully
you like it. But at least we'll know what you
feel. Yeah.
All right. Thanks for listening everybody.

(01:08:13):
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