Navigating Halloween Safely With Your Dog

We spent some time talking through how to handle Halloween with your dog. We discussed costumes, decorations and all the various ways your dog may become scared or aggressive. Please share this episode with anyone you think may need it!

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
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(00:33):
Shouldn't any of you let off with like, Happy Halloween or
something? If it's a Halloween episode,
don't you have to like, jump into it?
Where's the excitement for Halloween?
Should I have my mask like all the way down to so that that way
it makes more sense? I mean it, you know.
Well, I will say this, it makes sense.
Covey's not excited about because he doesn't have a
costume. Because I was lied to, you know?

(00:54):
Hey, can you even hear me? Does this help?
My so much. That's incredibly so much.
My mic was like 4 feet away. Do we need to redo that intro?
Yeah. Or are we just good?
I think we're probably good. OK, so here's the thing though.
You lied to me about what we were doing.
You can't just tell someone you have no costumes and you're not

(01:15):
sure that you're going to be able to find one and then show
up with costumes. I was not consulted in any of
this. That's true.
If Loss was the liar. You weren't.
You weren't. I didn't lie.
I said that I wasn't sure if I had anything that would
constitute a costume. You told me not to go to the
store and get one. But I ran the Dollar General

(01:37):
real quick in between when we talked and now, and I got a
dollar pair of vampire teeth andthat, yeah, I'm a vampire dog
trainer. That shit's full of.
That's pretty good. For sure you're sucking on lead.
There's not even any reason for lead to be in that white teeth,
but it's in there. They just.
I can't talk with them in so I have to keep taking them out.

(01:58):
Otherwise it's all slurred. So it wasn't really a good
choice for a podcast episode. You're slurred because of the
lead poisoning. That's a symptom.
What was, what were the fumes that people used to be worried
about? Was it like, I don't know,
arsenic or something like that on the masks that would drive
people crazy or something? I don't know anything about that

(02:19):
old. Thing in the 90s that I
remember. Feeling like fumes would be a
worry, but what do I know? I said what I am, Nelson, you
have to tell everybody what you are.
I am Jack Skellington and that Ipulled the hood down a little
further and it's Jack's head. There you go.
Nellie's got a full on costume like his.

(02:40):
Probably cost like 20 bucks. Mine was a dollar.
I think it was about 20 bucks. So that's a good call.
Good on you quick. Question.
We've only got 45 minutes today,so we've got a cruise.
But Jack Skellington, who is this character?
What's he from? Jack Skellington is the main I
guess at the end you can call him a protagonist of Nightmare

(03:02):
Before Christmas. Is that the same as K pop demon
hunters? That's a good question.
Hey that's going to be in theaters net Netflix special for
Halloween. This isn't a plug but I just
heard it so. I I don't know what that is.
K pop demon hunters dude it's all the rage.
I've even I've even watched it. K pop is like the Korean music,

(03:26):
right? Yeah.
Now they hunt music. Yeah.
I mean, that's pretty good. You know what I mean?
That's a. That's a good transition right
there. Yeah, Kara was opposed to the
kids watching it. And I was like, why don't you
watch it first? But also remember they're
hunting demons. Like, isn't that a good thing?
Like to kill demons? But well, it does get sort of

(03:47):
twisted because one of them is sort of a demon, right?
So. You've seen this.
Yeah, I've watched it. I've seen the whole thing.
OK, which is delete an episode. On it isn't that isn't that
crazy. The one without kids is the one
who has seen the popular kid movie.
You're also the one with a ton of stuffed animals on your
couch, so you've got it all going on.

(04:10):
See that? I don't see any stuffed animals
back there. No, Joy's niece.
I just don't see it. Joy's niece was here and we
watched it with her so. All right, well, let's dive in.
Halloween, Halloween, Getting your dog ready for Halloween,
How to get through Halloween. We're going to talk about it.
All right. Can I just start with I feel
like of the holidays, Halloween is like a forgotten holiday with

(04:35):
dog training. And it really shouldn't be like
we do a big plug around the 4th of July because it's the the
holiday where most dogs run away, right?
And it's, you know, the loud noise of the fireworks and all
of that stuff. I feel like Halloween, while it
probably doesn't have as many dogs run away, it's probably a
more problematic holiday. And I would just think, sure,

(04:58):
the number of bites during Halloween has to just be through
the roof. Do we have data on that?
Does somebody? I don't data on that, but
anecdotally I would agree that that has to have a ton of bites,
probably owners getting bit by their own dogs, trying to stop
their dogs from biting other people, you know, escapes tons

(05:19):
of that kind of stuff. So.
Well I guess here's what I wouldopen with as a dog trainer.
My advice pretty much always just fix issues right?
Like a dress it head on and fix it.
Don't hide from them. But something like Halloween if
you haven't done the prep work Iwould absolutely hide from it.
So if you have a dog who you think is gonna perf, just do

(05:42):
poorly with trick or treaters coming by the house, I would
100% put them up in a bedroom with music on with good bones
for them to chew, shut the door and there you go.
And that's and that's the evening.
It's like a couple hours, right?And then you get him out again
afterwards. So I think forcing your dog
through this and forcing yourself through it if you're

(06:03):
not ready is not a smart decision.
And I would just avoid it completely.
And I preface that by saying I'dlove to see you fix it, but I
wouldn't start this if if it's if you have a problematic dog
for Halloween and you're starting tonight, it's probably
a little bit late. So that was I was going to ask a
point. Can you define not ready?

(06:24):
Because if somebody's in training and they've actively
been working on things, should they avoid it or should they use
it as a training opportunity? So define not ready.
I would partly comes down to thedogs personality and partly
comes down to training skill level.
So if you have an average dog who's not like doesn't have fear
or aggression issues, they're just the average dog and they're

(06:47):
in training and you have some measure like of leash control
and you can heal them, you can do something with them to calm
them down, then yeah, I think ifyou want to go for it, you're
probably ready. If your dog has fear issues or
aggression issues, then you're training it.
Skills need to be way higher to attempt this.
But I also think just starting on Halloween is probably not a

(07:10):
good idea if your dog has fear or aggression issues.
There's ways you could start this in the days or weeks
leading up to it where you can control the scenario where you
can have the person on the costume stay for as long as
needed. You can have it be you family
member, whatever. As opposed to kids ring the
bell. You try to do something to the
dog, dog freaks out, person leaves.

(07:30):
And that's pretty fulfilling forthe dog where they're like, OK,
I did it, I got rid of. Them I did it, it was awesome.
Crushed it, did the thing, got rid.
Of it funny enough, I, I, I typically say two things right
one I I certainly agree. This is definitely not the the
day to start anything, but you know, no holiday is, but this is

(07:53):
definitely a holiday that will make or break your training if
you don't just put your trainingon pause, right?
And so a lot of the times if you're ready to kind of handle
it and you have someone else running the actual door and
you're just there working with the dog, you can make a ton of
progress. I've had a lot of clients do so

(08:14):
because you, you this is the most someone's ever going to
come to your door. You're going to get a ton of
practice. The problem, though, is that if
you're not kind of ready to handle that situation, this is
the most someone's going to ringyour doorbell.
And it could very easily teach your dog kind of worse habit.
It's like what Covey was talkingabout, where the dog actually

(08:34):
feels good about its role in barking and jumping and looking
scary and shooing things away. Usually what I tell clients is,
you know, if if you feel like you could get a handle on your
dog and calm them down before a trick or treater would leave,
you're you're definitely ready, definitely go for it.

(08:58):
Sometimes what can happen though, is that it's just not
enough time. Covey, you were kind of alluding
to this where someone in a costume could actually stay
there for however long it takes.You know, like every time that
the doorbell rings, the dog justgets more animated and more
animated and, and really starts to get pretty crazy pretty
quickly. So usually that's kind of my cut

(09:19):
off of don't train. Don't train if you can't calm
your dog down in a reasonable amount of time.
So I think Nelson just hit on some of the points that I
thought were like the better place to start of, well, why are
we saying Halloween is such a difficult holiday for dogs,
right? So you mentioned how you have

(09:40):
tons of people coming to the to your door, which generally
doesn't happen. The thing that you haven't
really touched on is they're wearing crazy outfits and a lot
of dogs don't take kindly to things that are different,
right? So you have a lot of dogs that
have fear issues that just when somebody's wearing a baseball
hat is an issue for them. On Halloween, people are wearing

(10:03):
a whole lot more than baseball mat.
You know, you got full on masks,you got blood, you got ghost
costumes, all sorts of stuff. And the dogs are costumes,
right? The dogs, like, if you put
themselves in their mindset, they're like, what in the hell
is happening here, right? Like nobody's explained to them
what Halloween is. So to me, that's where it made

(10:25):
sense to start is to talk about just what a a difficult holiday
it must be for them and why. And I think those are some of
the big reasons. Yeah, for sure.
And one thing you know, as a starting point to find out how
your dog may or may not handle the situation is walking past
all the decorations. You know, everybody's typically

(10:46):
has October, you know, their house is decorated.
You can walk past some of the scarecrows, some of the
decorations, see how your dog handles that stuff all on its
own. It's also a really good place to
kind of get started just to see how long will it take me to
actually calm my dogs down. But if they have a, a severe
reaction to blow up anything or,or even like the scarecrows or

(11:11):
anything like that, I mean, now you know, there's a, there's a
ton of work to be done there, especially at the door because,
Oh my. Gosh, I forgot all the zombies.
Are coming at the door. I forgot all about decorations.
I live in the country now. Right, Like you're not walking
on a sidewalk through a neighborhood where I live and
there's not decorations out by the street.

(11:32):
But when I lived in a neighborhood like that was a
huge part of dog training was Halloween decorations where you
walk by and there's like a zombie that like yells at you as
you're walking by or there's a fog machine that goes off as you
walk through. Like you're right, decorations
is a huge one. Side note, I saw a video of a

(11:52):
possum on someone's ring camera,like smelling on the front porch
and this thing moves and the possum flips and plays dead.
I must have watched that a dozentimes trying to like First off
to see if it was real because when that thing plays dead, holy
smokes does it play dead. It like flips over claws

(12:13):
extended like is wild. And I just kept watching and
watching, so that's amazing. It was hilarious, and I don't
know if you should laugh at something like that, but I did.
Nelson, you saw that one, too. I saw I, I think I saw the same
video, but it was, it was an impossible and he just like
those those goats that freeze, right?

(12:34):
Like he, he went frozen and thenfell backwards off the table.
It was wild. It was crazy.
So a couple pieces of advice here. 1 is any of your initial
training should be done during the day until you've established
the dogs doing well? That needs to be your baseline.
Time is so much harder to start during the day.

(12:56):
Going to neighborhoods is great,but also you can go to Home
Depot. They always have huge setups of
stuff going on. It's a great place to work.
Keep in mind you're not forcing your dog up to it.
You're and so much of this depends on your dog.
If if you know it's going to be an absolute fiasco, then you
need to be at a long distance and maybe you're just asking
your dog like coexist, even though you know that thing is

(13:20):
over there as opposed to like hold a sit, stay 5 feet away.
Some dogs that's weeks and weeksand weeks of work to achieve
that. If you have a lot of fear and if
you don't have that time, I justwouldn't even bother.
But maybe just the dog hears it from an aisle away and can see
it way in the distance and you're just like asking him to
coexist with you. But daytime for sure.

(13:43):
That has to be your baseline. One piece of advice, or I guess
something I want everyone to think about is dogs.
I care a lot about silhouettes. And I know you guys have both
seen this. You know, you can have like a,
if it's a realistic silhouette of a dog.
And I used to have them on a vehicle I drove and you'd see
dogs you'd drive by and they'd freak out barking because of the
dog silhouettes on. There, the boxer on the side,

(14:06):
Yeah. Yeah, where they're like, the
first time it happened, I'm like, is this seriously
happening? And then it would happen more
and more and they would target those silhouettes because it
looks enough like an animal and,you know, they need to be able
to see at dusk and you see a silhouette of an animal.
Like that's pretty important forsurvival for dogs.
But that also comes into play with costumes.
You mess with a person's silhouette and you're messing

(14:28):
with their, the dog's perceptionof them, and you have no idea
how they're going to react untilyou figure out how your dog's
going to react. So masks obviously are scary,
but anything that messes with their silhouette, Nelson, you
said the dinosaur costume, you put something like that on, even
if they can see the human face, you mess with the silhouette.
Some dogs are going to go into predator mode right away.

(14:51):
So you have to be really aware of any changes of silhouette.
And to me, that's why sweatshirts cause so many
issues. Hats, you know, people always
say it's because they, you know,make the dog not be able to see
their eyes. I don't really buy that.
I think it's a silhouette thing.Anything you're doing that's
changing the shape of the human is potentially problematic.

(15:11):
So beards are another popular one.
People say, does that change my silhouette?
Like, can you see? Can you see?
My beard silhouette, but it's scary.
It is scary. I think Nelson's facial hair is
scarier than my beard, and that's not a beard.
I think they're scared because it doesn't grow improperly and
they're like, Oh my goodness, that's not a real thing.

(15:33):
That's a fake beard right there.You know what I and I guess I'll
look for what you guys think, but I don't see the scared of
hats thing nearly as much. But I, I also think it's just
because men are wearing hats waymore.
You know, just like a baseball hat is extremely common.

(15:58):
Agreed. So you think hat wearing is on
an uptick right now? I think it's been a long trend
of an uptick for sure. You know who always wears hats?
Does he also have two thumbs? Is not a person, no chicks from
California. So we live in outside of
Nashville and there's so many people moving here from

(16:19):
California. All the women between like,
let's say 20 and 50 baseball caps.
It's not crazy. Really, I'm just picturing with
the ponytail out the back. Yeah, OK.
Yeah, but it's not like a sloppy, it's like hair is done
with a baseball cap, makeup is done with a baseball cap.
And so we, my wife and I feel like we can pick someone out

(16:40):
instantly, like, oh, she's from California.
And anytime we've asked, it's been correct.
Like their recent transplants from California.
That's profiling. That's profiling for sure, but
that's. Profiling.
So wrong. I mean, I don't think so
personally, but you know, whenever there's debates.
One is also not racial profiling.
This is state profiling. Gender, I guess.

(17:03):
Who knows? Gender maybe?
Sure. So hats on an upswing, agreed
with that. Less dog issues with hats.
So let's get into what do you doand we shouldn't spend too much
time, I don't think, walking through what heel means or any
of that. Anyone who's listening, if you
don't know, go back to previous episodes.
We've got a ton you can scroll through talking about heel, but

(17:26):
obviously heel was a big component.
One of you guys want to take this.
What would your advice be? You've got a client, they've
already done this stuff with thedecorations they've got.
Maybe they've gone to Home Depot, they've walked up and
down the street. What do you do for costumes with
some of your advice? Can I take it to something
before that though? Yeah, no, there's no sense in

(17:48):
paying attention. I'll take it to something before
that you want. To talk about.
I'll take it to something beforethat and then let let Nelson
answer your question. So I was just going to say, you
know, when I trained bored and trains heavily, I think a big
part of what I would do is just so much weird stuff in the 1st
place while training that something like costumes isn't

(18:08):
really going to be that big of adeal.
And I know that sounds weird, but I would do so many weird and
crazy distractions. I mean, I think Nelson had been
there a few times for this, but I would roll on a keg up and
down my driveway while dogs werein a down stay.
I mean, just random weird stuff.And the more weird stuff you do

(18:29):
like that, the less likely dogs are going to be to get upset by
things like decorations and stuff like that, right?
So it's sort of goes to your question, but to me it's a much
bigger picture of before you ever get.
Hi everyone. This is Jason Ferguson and I'm
the President of the International Association of
Canine Professionals. Our organization is focused on

(18:51):
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.
We also offer certification so the 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

(19:13):
clients that they work with. Join the ICP today for yourself
and to protect the industry. Our friends on the Balanced Dog
Training podcast support the ICPand we hope you will as well.
So I, I think that that's terrible advice for the day
before Halloween, but I think it's super solid advice in
general. And, and you know, obviously I,

(19:34):
I trained under both of you guys, right?
So there was a lot of that stuffin the beginning that we used to
do all the time. You know, the, the motto or
mantra used to be like, if your dog is scared of something, then
we should focus on that and makethat less scary.
Covey. I remember one of the Australian
shepherds that you were trainingwas scared of, was it like a

(19:58):
tarp or something that was in your yard?
And so then you'd spent, you know, like half an hour, hour or
whatever it was kind of walking around with the tarp until the
dog could walk next to it and didn't care about it anymore and
then sniffed in, you know, all that stuff lost.
I remember we were at at a storeand the dog was scared of one of
the workers had. But the carts in the cart

(20:19):
corral. And so then we like we worked on
that a ton. And, and I do agree with you
when you constantly go after thethings that any dog is scared
of, I mean, it, it takes a lot, a lot more than just a goofy
costume to kind of get them going after that.
So I, I do think that that is really good advice.

(20:41):
But the other thing too is, you know, you can break it down to
kind of multiple things. So in this question that Covey
posed, we'd already gone to HomeDepot, we'd already taught the
dog heel, we've already got him good with the decorations.
But that's only half the problem, right?
The other half of the problem isthe arousal of the door in the

(21:01):
1st place. So I would definitely spend a
decent amount of time in plainclothes even going up and
just working on the door, getting the dog to understand
what's the protocol, what is it that we're looking for?
And calming them down to the fact that someone's coming over.
And I've done this a million times where after we've done

(21:22):
that a couple of times, then I'll put a mask on or a helmet
on or something goofy and start to run it.
Not necessarily when the dog is fresh, but after we've run it a
couple of times and we're havingsuccess.
Well then we change one thing, which is again the silhouette or
my face, whatever it is, and slowly start introducing it to

(21:43):
the fact that it's it's not always me at the door.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of good stuff there.
You didn't say this specifically, but you touched on
it earlier and I meant to flag it. 2 handlers is almost
essential if you're trying to doHalloween with.
I mean, if your dog's legit and you feel good about it, that's
fine. One handler's fine.
But for most people you need 2 handlers because if you've got

(22:05):
the dog up by the door and there's a reaction, how are you
going to heal and calm them downSouth?
And give candy at the. Same.
And give candy. Yeah, I would give one ground
rule here. I wouldn't let either.
I have two dogs. I wouldn't let either of them be
petted by someone wearing a mask.
I just, I just wouldn't. And like, could they handle it?

(22:28):
Probably. But I'm just not going to put
them in that situation because that's so out of the norm of
real life and to me it's just not worth it.
Why do I care if someone in a mask can pet my dog in?
It's just not not relevant. And there's just so much risk,
right? Like, Kate, they can't see the
face. And are they first looking at

(22:50):
the hand, everything's cool. Then they look up, they see the
mask. What is the dog going to do?
I just, I wouldn't put them in that scenario.
And for people listening, like, could I?
Yeah, for sure. Like I, I think the odds of
inviting are slim to none, but Ialso don't want to put them in
that scenario where even if theyjump back out of fear, well, now
your dogs just had a confusing weird fear response with the

(23:13):
smell of a human. Is that something you want to
put in their brain? Probably not.
So I just wouldn't bother. And you know, I would have some
ground rules there. I would no mask.
And then like if it's the big dinosaur thing with the kids
face visible, I know my dogs would just would have no issue
with that whatsoever because I've seen that exact scenario
before. But it's key to look for some of

(23:35):
this stuff and set it up. And that can be hard.
So if we tell you go out and tryto do some introductions with
kids or people wearing costumes.Nelson, you, you spoke to some
like ways you could do it yourself, right?
Putting a mask on, putting a, you know, baseball cap or I
mean, a, what'd you say? Helmet, helmet, putting helmet

(23:57):
on, that stuff's great. And you you need to do something
with other people as well, like your kids, neighbor kids,
whatever to practice around if you want to achieve this once
again, during the day when you have time and treats can
absolutely be involved. Of course, heal as a calming
technique. And then you need something to
make the dog happy and excited and treats can certainly be that

(24:19):
if you feel like they need some some confidence.
So another thing Nelson mentioned that I think's really
important is just day before andday of, I would start ringing
the doorbell way before kids arecoming, right?
So I usually start the day before when I was doing this and
I would just like ring the doorbell like 50 times that day

(24:42):
before. So now the dogs don't think it's
nearly as big of a deal. And then the day of, within two
hours of when trick or treating was supposed to start, I would
start doing the same thing, juststart ringing the doorbell
randomly. And that way the dogs aren't,
you know, super excited the first time the doorbell rings
and there's actual kids there. Another thing that you just sort

(25:04):
of touched on that I think is really important and leading up
to Halloween is the whole idea of if you have kids and they're
going to be wearing costumes, have them put the costumes on
ahead of time where you're readyto train the dogs.
So that if there's a negative reaction and one of them is
afraid of your kids costume, youhave the time to work on it when
you're not trying to get the kids out the door to go trick or

(25:25):
treating or that type of thing. So I think those are, there's
some great points that you've sort of mentioned, but just
wanted to put them out there very clearly for everybody.
Yeah, so I, I think that that's good, especially because one of
the things that I, I tell peopleis, you know, it's, it's not
always going to make sense to you what your dog is reacting
to. You know, you might think that,
hey, it's the face, but really it's the noise that it makes,

(25:48):
right? Or like with that dinosaur
costume when they turn around. I mean, that's a weird noise of
the, of the plastic rubbing the plastic, you know, so a lot of
people kind of overlook or, or are overconfident in a situation
simply because, you know, they just, they don't know what they
don't know, right? They don't know what it is that
their dog is actually paying attention to.

(26:09):
So sometimes using just a a little more caution than you
typically would kind of makes sense because we we don't have
the time to fix it now. And using, I like that phrase,
using more caution than you normally would and, and what you
opened with as well, where you don't know what your dog's going
to be reactive to and your prep work is going to help.

(26:30):
But there's no guarantee you, you address the right thing
because of exactly what you justsaid there, Nelson.
And I can tell you like, so I mentioned masks earlier, We have
a decent, well, I've got 3 kids with a decent number of masks in
the household. We have like little gorilla
suits like all these things and the kids put them on fairly
frequently. They'll have.
Friends over, find a costume forthis.

(26:51):
Yeah, because I was lied to. It's very hard to over to
overcome lies and deceit. We got masks and gorilla suits
and all. Sorts of stuff I.
Couldn't come up with anything. So and what I would say is my
kids and their friends put thoseon and they run around.
Our dogs are completely like oblivious to that.
It's like normal life, but they know who it is.

(27:15):
So they know it's the kids or the kids friends.
They're not coming in, right? And they try to sneak around and
like knock on the door and like,you know, like, see what the
dogs will do, like how much they're going to guard.
They always know who it is in those scenarios.
You know, is that making them better if you're trying to work
on Halloween? Absolutely.
But is it saying that there's going to be no issue?
Not a chance because they know it's like that's a member of

(27:39):
their family with a mask on, they can see their body like you
know the way they're walking, they know the smell as opposed
to your walking down a street after dark and there's a crazy
silhouette coming out them. That is not anything the same as
you're in the house with your family.
So be aware of that. That's, that's funny.
Actually, that's something not, I don't bring it up because of

(28:01):
Halloween, but I bring it up whenever we're working on dogs
being reactive at the door. And I'm always telling people
like, Hey, just practice this amongst yourselves, but
understand that you're going to plateau right?
As soon as you open the door, the dog is going to know that
it's you and the reactions are not going to be the same.
So you can, you could be crushing it.

(28:22):
The dog is doing great with the doorbell as the initial
reaction, you know, and then they see you, they, they
instantly melt because now they're excited that you're
there. And then you have a pizza guy,
for example, and the doorbell goes well, but then the second
they see the pizza guy, it turnsinto kind of full blown
reactions. And a lot of that really does
come down to, yes, working on the doorbell was really, really

(28:44):
helpful. It's going to, you know, help
you in those real situations, but you still have to realize
that the dogs have a decent ideaof what's going on the 2nd that
you open that door. Agreed, Nelson, if I'm your
client and I say hey can I've been doing this stuff you said,
can I take my dog trick or treating, what's your answer?
If your dog is nervous at all, Iwould say no.

(29:08):
And, and again, there's a lot ofthings that you don't know that
you don't know, you know. So I've, I see a lot of dogs and
typically they're goldens, they're softer dogs.
You know, I do see dogs going trick or treating.
If I wanted to, my golden would be perfect.
She would go with us and have noproblem.
My bulldog on the other hand, she's much more, I don't want to

(29:32):
say untrusting, she likes people, but if she hears a noise
that she doesn't know what it is, she'll run over there
barking. And that's kind of why we have
her. So like again, as soon as it
gets dark or if there's another reactive dog or a lot of the
decorations these days and, and people's houses move and that
that changes everything. It's not just a static statue

(29:54):
there that you have to walk pastnow, it's actually following you
and watching you and stuff. So I would say don't do it.
I was actually going to bring up, you know, use caution when
you're letting the dogs out to go to the bathroom even, you
know, this might be a time whereI'd take my dog out to the
backyard on a leash. If they can see trick or

(30:14):
treaters all along the fence or something like that, I'm
probably going to take the dog out on a leash so that they can
go to the bathroom and then comeback in and not be going to the
bathroom. A group of trick or treaters
come and they run, hit the door or hit the fence and you know,
like everybody scares everybody.So not only would I maybe not go
trick or treating, but I had also be using caution in the

(30:36):
backyard as well. That that's good advice.
People wouldn't think of the yard.
So a couple of things to throw out there.
Everyone sees this differently. Like for me, my dogs have an
amazing life. They do so many things.
They're busy, they're well takencare of.
They do so much on Halloween. I don't have any interest in

(30:58):
bringing them with like to me, Iwanted to spend time being in
the moment with the kids. I don't want to have to watch
like is someone sneaking up behind me in some crazy outfit.
It's just like to me, what's thepoint?
I just don't, I don't see the, the fun or excitement of
bringing my dogs on, you know, trick or treating if you're dead
set on it. And this is advice for all the

(31:18):
all the trainers listening as well.
You have to, especially if you don't have kids, you have to
recognize that different neighborhoods for trick or
treating are completely different.
And I'm sure you've seen that. Nelson, where you I've been to
some with our kids where like where we used to live in Texas,
we'd go with like 20 neighborhood kids and I think I
brought my dog a couple times atthat time because there's like

(31:41):
20 kids. There were no surprises.
Like we went out. We all like had fun like you
know, adults had drinks, kids had snacks, whatever before we
went and then we went together and it was like a neighborhood
of like 50 houses. I went trick or treating with
friends last year. Got a neighborhood in Nashville.
Holy cow was it. It was crazy.
People had like all these golf carts, like 6 seater golf carts

(32:05):
with like music playing. There were like the little
people had like hayride set up behind their pickup truck and it
was like Taste of Chicago. There's nuts.
They were like you were elbow toelbow.
Putting a dog through that is insane in my opinion.
I cannot, if I showed up with a dog, I don't care how well
trained they are, how friendly they are, I would not put a dog

(32:26):
through that. I think that's an it's kind of
like doing that with a 2 year old holding their hand while
there's all the scary stuff above their head.
That's just stupid in my opinion.
So know the neighborhood and recognize that they're
completely and utterly different.
And some are madhouses. Good.
Advice no in the neighborhood for sure I mean we even map out
like what neighborhoods we mightwant to go to like, you know one

(32:49):
year we'll go to this these neighborhoods another year we'll
go to those neighborhoods, that kind of stuff.
But even more so, and and I recognize fully that I'm extra
paranoid and not the norm when it comes to this kind of stuff.
But due to the nature of the jobtoo, I'm also not fully trusting

(33:10):
of the fact that people make good decisions, especially about
things that they don't know thatthey don't know.
And so also another big. Reason why I don't like to.
Take my dogs is because I'm constantly watching other
people's dogs interact with my kids too, and also making sure
that my kids aren't doing anything stupid to dogs that
they don't know. Because I believe we see that
it's not. There's constantly dogs barking

(33:33):
and charging at the door or they're out and about to jump
over the the railing of their patios and stuff like that.
I mean, we see a lot of mismanaged dogs on Halloween at
at the people's houses that I don't want to have to drop my
dog to go chase off another dog getting too close to my kid.

(33:56):
I'd rather just be there ready to chase off a dog if I have to.
Those sound like solid points. Those sound like good points.
Given me the feeling that neither one of you are the type
that would dress up your dog. I mean, dog costume should be a
huge part of Halloween, right? It's funny, when I went to

(34:17):
Dollar General, the section for Halloween stuff was maybe a
total of 10 things. Like there was barely anything
there, right? One of the.
Things that was there. Though dog Halloween costumes,
dog costumes. So they had a single rack of
probably, I don't know, three different sizes and probably 6
costumes. And that's one of the 10 things

(34:40):
that was there. So it's the absolute best one.
Is the little cowboy that that sits on your dog's back.
I think that that is hilarious. But one of the costumes?
Was just like a shirt, a dog sized shirt.
That said, I ate my other costume that was pretty good.

(35:00):
Classic my dogs just end up getting.
Dressed up by the kids in variations of human costumes,
like little ballerina skirts or tutus, whatever you call them,
Things like that. That's pretty funny.
All right, last thing that I personally wanted to bring up is
again another one that it it's definitely dog related, but it

(35:24):
can go either way. Either you're at your house
giving candy or you took your kids to someone else's house.
Trick or treating. I had this client who had a
little daughter, a little daughter I want to say was like
around, I don't know, 3 ish, 4:00-ish, some, you know,
5:00-ish, maybe somewhere aroundthere.
I'm kind of bad with ages. Super sweet, super sweet little

(35:44):
girl. But she was infatuated with
dogs. And we're like, we were talking
and on Halloween, the little girl, you know, went trick or
treating, rang the doorbell, gotthe candy, saw the dog and ran
into these people's houses to gohug that dog.
And the reason I. Always like it.

(36:05):
Comes to mind yeah, I've been paranoid about that beforehand,
but it really kind of drives me crazy too is because, you know,
you have to be so careful with your dog doing something crazy
or or dumb with other dogs. And I said, you know, on
Halloween, I'm watching my kids all the time, but also, I doubt

(36:25):
that that person was going to expect to have to field a 5 year
old away from their dog. But that's a, a horrible
situation to put a a dog into, especially if they're just not
ready to handle that kind of thing.
Right. A stranger in the costume not
only ring my doorbell, but then ran at me to come hug me around

(36:45):
the neck. And I mean, there's just,
there's trouble at every step ofthat.
So I do always like to throw that out there to people of, you
know, pay attention to the people and and their dogs or
your dogs, You know, like there's just there are a lot of
goofy things that happen on Halloween that makes it very,
very tough owning. I think what you also touch on

(37:08):
there. Is something that I feel like
Covey is really passionate aboutthough, is that parents need to
teach their kids the proper waysto interact with dogs, Right.
And you shouldn't be running into a house to hug a random dog
for sure. I mean, again, we used to teach
kids all the time. We were going to the schools of

(37:28):
about not even doing that to your friend's dog, let alone a
stranger's dog, right? So there's a there's a lot of
danger right there. That's all you got is?
I thought you'd jump all over that topic.
Yeah, that was like, I'm not sure how much.
It's worth expanding on because I think you'd covered it well.
I mean, I I agree. You've what do you want me to?

(37:52):
I don't know. I thought, I thought.
I was teeing you up. I thought you were just going to
like go to town there. I mean, we could talk on that
for. A long time, but I think you
guys covered it well. Don't let your kid in a costume
go up to a strange dog, and alsodon't let your kid.
Go into a stranger's house just full stop right there, Boo.

(38:13):
Regardless of if it's a dog. Or not, right?
Yep. Well.
One thing we haven't talked about is specifically what to do
and I don't think we can should spend a ton of time on this, but
I would encourage people that we've got so many episodes
talking about dog training. But you say, OK, I went by, you
know, the the decorations and I had neighbor kids and I

(38:35):
introduced the dog to them and that went pretty well.
I want to try having my dog in the house, you know, out of the
cake, out of the crate while trick or treaters come.
What I would say is one person'sanswering the door, the other
person I would, you know, I already have the dog on leash.
I would not let them run to the door barking, even if it's a
friendly bark and then have to calm them down because when your

(38:56):
dog has excitement, all of theirreactions are amplified good or
bad. So I don't want them excited
because it's could amplify the bad.
So I'm going to have them on leash.
I would have them a good distance from the door.
I would, you know, open the door.
Depending on the dog, I might just stand 10 feet away and let
the dog look and not do anythingand just watch and see what the
dog does. If if the dog has been pretty

(39:17):
good and if the dog is just watching and wagging their tail
and they seem curious, I might not do a thing.
If the dog is staring and seems like I see their mouth shut
their tail change. Any of the things we talked
about this in our body language episode, any of that stuff, I'm
probably gonna tell him. He'll walk them until they chill
out. But don't feel like you have to
be doing something. Just the dog hanging out on

(39:40):
leash 10 or 15 feet away and notbeing bad is enough.
And then after a couple people coming, choose your, you know,
your group carefully, but you might have someone that is some
that don't have crazy masks on and a lot of decorations aren't.
And the costumes aren't scary. It's a little girl in a Princess
dress, right? It's not very hard for a dog to
handle. And maybe you'd then go to the

(40:01):
door with some treats and say, hey, would you mind throwing a
couple treats to the dog? You have the dog on leash, she
throws a few treats over. That's great.
And then maybe you tried the same later on with some harder
costumes. I would stick to my rule of if
you can't see the person's face I would not let them bet the
dog. I just think it's a a stupid
risk and just not worth taking. But that'd be my short synopsis

(40:22):
for what to do. And if you say when do I know
that he's ready to do it off leash?
I don't see a point in having your dog off leash while you're
opening the door with costumes. I just think I, I don't, I just
don't see why you would want to do that.
You know, if your dog is that amazing and you can control
them, then OK, you know, go for it.
But for the average person, I don't think that's a goal that's

(40:42):
worth chasing for sure. Also place.
Command works out very well. You know, this is a, an easy
one. I, I, I'm glad that you doubled
back and, and said that you'd be10 feet away from the door so
that the dog can see because oneof the things I was going to add
is, you know, be somewhere wherethe dog can see what's going on.
You know, like out of sight, outof mind is certainly a, a real

(41:04):
thing. So if you're in the backroom,
you know, like it's, that's not a, that might be false positives
or something like that. And all of a sudden you, you
think your dog is better than itactually is.
Or some dogs are, are worse because they can't see what's
going on, right? So, you know, be somewhere where
they can see the door and then you can just calm them down from
there 1. Thing we haven't talked about is

(41:28):
candy. This sounds obvious but to a lot
of people it isn't. We we have rules in our
household. No food upstairs where the kids
bedrooms are. There's just no sense in them
taking food up there. But you have kids with Halloween
getting all this candy candy's going to get all over the house.
If you're new, this is your, as a parent, your first Halloween

(41:50):
with a dog, I would think carefully about that because
maybe there's never food in the basement or in the whatever
room, and now all of a sudden there's a huge bag of candy
that's left all over the place. So I'd be very careful there and
just think through your dog and your kids and make sure you know
where the candy is so you don't find out the hard way when your

(42:10):
dog eats 50 pieces of chocolate and is having diarrhea all over
the house. And having to poop out the
wrappers and everything. So yeah, that's definitely a big
thing to think about, for sure. Did your guys's parents ever?
Check your candy for like syringes and needles and stuff.

(42:31):
No, we would. Hear about it as kids but they'd
never never checked. I vaguely remember when
something. Like that happened in our town
and then like I think the, the year of it or the year after.
Like I remember looking through candy and making sure it was OK,
but you still had people giving out like homemade candy apples

(42:54):
and stuff back then too, right? So like it's, I mean, you're
checking that your wrappers are closed on a candy bar, but you
also got a popcorn ball from some 70 year old lady who, you
know, probably, I don't know, left poisoned and all sorts of
stuff. In there poisoned apple for
sure. Well, I remember even as a kid,

(43:16):
just thinking to check this stuff well enough, you'd have to
open, like, everything for, like, to actually check.
Like if someone's injecting poison with a, like, they're not
throwing like a giant chunk of glass, right?
Like right on top of me, like, oh, I see glass sticking out of
the wrapper. Like if they're actually going
to do something, it'd be pretty hard to find.

(43:37):
Was there like a? Like a?
Certain year that that became a thing, or I mean, I've, I just
grew up hearing about it every Halloween, so I remember.
It just like Vloss said, it was like a few years of being a
thing. I would guess it was like the
late 80s and it was just this time period where like, and I
remember my parents would check the candy and just like, and I

(43:59):
was probably like 8, I don't know, and like checking the
candy. And I remember just thinking,
like, what are we even checking for here?
Like this seems like a tough, tough order to figure out if any
of it's poisoned. You guys are so old.
That's crazy. We are old, we are old.
We were one time hearing about apark that had razors attached to

(44:21):
the monkey bars and sure enough they were there.
What are you guys? What are?
You guys giving away? I feel like Covey's probably
like a whole candy bar type of guy.
We don't have trick or treaters so.
Neither do we or I can't. Right.
I can't comment either. So Nelson, what are you giving
away? No one's going to be at the.
House the lights going to be offbecause we go to a further

(44:43):
neighborhood that typically gives good candy and has a It's
not quite like Taste of Chicago like Covey was describing, but
it's certainly much more neighborhood focused, which I
like. So hey, Speaking of.
Giveaway, big news. I think Velos, you knew I was

(45:04):
talking to him about it, but Dogtra wants to start sponsoring
the podcast and they're going tobe giving away once a month in E
collar. So we will be running giveaways
to everyone listening. We will be doing a monthly
giveaway and you can enter and win an E collar every month.
Super legit we should have. Started with something about

(45:25):
people having to wear costumes while listening to the episode
and that would there you go giveaway.
Although how would we know a picture?
I like. That picture in the comments,
You know what I. Have I got to figure out how to
like drop 16 different entries into that because I need a new E
collar. My doctor the ark is pretty

(45:49):
pretty decrepit at this point. I use a lot and I drop it a lot.
So the the remotes kind of seen better days and whatnot.
Well, enter I. Think we're starting with 200
Iqs. He can't win.
I can't. Win.
He can't. Well, let me.
Know when it's going to be the the Arc X Can Taylor probably be

(46:10):
there? Oh yeah, there you go.
Family members can't win. Like Jamie won, I don't know
what. To tell you and Nelson.
He'll be like I'll divorce her for a short period of time for
the caller if that's what it takes.
She's an ex-wife, she won and we'll just get remarried no big
deal. Like this is just.
You know, we can finally go on ahoneymoon.
Like now. It's legit.

(46:34):
It'll be fun. Well, enjoy your honeymoon and
your new collar and the new collar.
It's a. It's a package deal.
Though I'm like, you know what? If you don't even win me the
collar, all of this is legit. That's good.
Well, I. Hope, I hope it goes well.
All right. Well, thanks for listening.
Everybody. Yeah.
Halloween, hopefully. Your dogs do well.

(47:06):
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