April 29, 2019 • 10 mins
Dog trainer Laurie Williams on how we and the Obamas should choose the right breed of dog. Many factors should be considered when choosing the right breed of dog for your family or personal situation. Dog trainer Laurie Williams, perhaps best known for her role on the CBS reality show "Greatest American Dog", talks about everything from shedding to the need for exercise that set some breeds apart. On this historic presidential inauguration day, we focus on the dogs that the Obamas are considering as well as the issues that should be considered when selected a breed. We also talk about what it's like to be on a Survivor-style television series with a tiny Chihuahua.We really appreciate your feedback and value your opinion. Could you please let others know what you think of the Good Dog podcast by writing a review in iTunes?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Smarter Podcasts dot Com delivering sound advice. Joining me today is dog trainer Laurie
Williams from the Commonwealth of Virginia.One of Laurie's many claims to fame is
that she and one of her pupsone second place in the CBS reality show
(00:23):
contest Greatest American Dog. Welcome,Laurie, Hi, I'm so happy to
be here today. Excellent. Isit your sense that choosing the right breed
of dog is really important? It'sabsolutely important for all of us. When
choosing a hypo allergenic dog, you'relooking for dogs that don't shed as much?
(00:44):
Is that the basic issue? Yeah, Actually you aren't. You're looking
for a dog that doesn't shed asmuch, and also looking for a dog
that tends to shed less dander becausevery often it's the dander that people are
allergic to more so than the furor the hair. So um, you
know, there are a few breedsthat fall into that category, you know,
(01:07):
of all different sizes. So whatother kinds of questions should people be
asking when they're looking at what breedis going to work best for their lifestyle?
Well, you certainly want to,you know, the age of the
children is a definitely a big concernand something that should be considered. You
definitely want to take the age ofthe children, children, real real small
young children, UM, real activechildren. You know, you probably don't
(01:32):
want to select a real small dog, a tiny dog, a toy breed.
UM. You need a dog thatcan withstand children, you know,
kind of poking and prodding as theydo. And you also want to look
at how active your lifestyle is.If you live a more sedentary lifestyle,
then you certainly want to pick adog that is going to be less active
(01:52):
or have less exercise requirements than adog that it was bred to hunt and
you know, run the field andswim all day. You know that that
type of dog is not going tobe best for a family that likes to
sit around, you know, thefireplace all the time. So you know,
those are definitely some two specifics thatpeople need to consider. So generally
(02:13):
speaking, if you're looking for adog that's a good family dog, you
know that's gonna want to run,play, but not necessarily need to be
run on a daily basis. Arethere certain dogs that you tend to steer
people to. Well, you know, I have to be honest to say
that I'm not a breedist, youknow, as I like to call it.
I actually, you know, mostbreeds will fit in well with a
(02:36):
family provided that the you know,the dog gets the proper type of training
and um, you know, theproper outlets for their um you know,
kind of their what they need forstimulation. And that's more of what I
do. Um you know, Itry to really get people to interact with
their dogs and form a relationship.Because even the dog that tends to be
(02:58):
less active, um you know,if they or a dog that tends to
be less active, if you getthe right type of training and you bond
with them, they may want todo fun stuff with you, and vice
versa. If you have a dogthat's you know, tends to have a
lot of energy, if that dogis well trained, you can channel that
energy in positive ways. Get them, you know, maybe doing some dog
(03:19):
sports or other types of activities thatwhere they can release that energy. What
about mutts, Those are some ofmy favorite dogs, you know, and
mutts are great. You know.I started out with mixed breeds, um
you know, that was the onlytypes of dogs that I, you know,
ever had for a long time.However, with the Obama's um you
know, in particular, they hadthose you know, that allergy concern and
(03:43):
they really need it to know thelineage of the dog bringing they're bringing into
their home. One of the things, you know, when you do rescue
a dog or you give a doga home, you want that dog to
be in your home for the duration. You don't want to get a dog
and then have to give that dogup because of allergies. And that does
happen quite a bit. I youknow, I've run into a lot of
(04:03):
many of my clients who needed assistanceplacing their dogs because the children were severely
allergic. I've talked about it alot over the years on Good Dog that
all of my dogs have been poodlemixes of one sort or another. We
have some allergies, but really morethan that, it's just not wanting to
deal with the shedding. So we'vehad a sheetsu Poodle terrier who didn't shed,
(04:26):
followed by a cocka poo whose faceyou see on the Good Dog logo
that's far full, followed by nowLulu, who is a pika poo.
Okay, now, none of thisis an act is an exact science.
As you well know, you know, you get a mixture. In effect,
you're getting a mud. I mean, we may call them designer dogs
or hybrid dogs or this, thatand the other exactly. So even if
(04:47):
you get a labradoodle, you mightget a shedding labradoodle, right well,
yeah, especially in this country andthis country, labordoodles are still fairly new
in Australia, which is where theyou know, the breed and I actually
I kind of use that term loosely. I don't really like calling them a
breed because we have not in thiscountry really perfected the breed. It takes
(05:08):
many, many generations in a lotof years to come up with a specific
standard where when you breed that dog, you're going to have, you know,
you're going to know the exact typecoat of coat, they're going to
have, this size, and that'syou know basically what you know, what
you're you know, alluding to withthe labordoodles that you kind of see in
our country. You know, it'ssometimes you know, lab a bread to
(05:30):
poodle bee. It's like one generationand you're you absolutely do not know how
much that dog is going to shed. However, in Australia they've been doing
it for about twenty years, Ibelieve, and they have it, they
have a standard, they have itdown. You know, if you get
a dog through those channels of alabordoodle, through those channels, you can
pretty much predict what that dog's coatis going to be. And they are
(05:50):
hypoallergenic. Excellent. All right,time to talk about your experience on Greatest
American Dog. For those of uswho missed it and don't even know what
this reality show is about, tellus what the deal is. Well,
you know, it was a littleshow which it was twelve dogs and they're
humans teamed up and we competed inweekly challenges and ultimately they chose a winner.
(06:17):
And it was supposed to be basedon the owner and dog relationship.
However, I think it had moreto do with um, which dog could
withstand all that craziness that was goingon? In fact, torture? Right,
yeah, basically basically yeah, that'sall right. What was the worst
thing that your dog had to endure? Well, you know what I have
(06:38):
to say. And I kind ofpat myself on the back about this.
You know, Andrew, he didpretty well. He was one of the
less stressed dogs there. Because Imade sure that I got him out of
the fray every chance I got.Victoria stillwell was always telling me that I
was overmothering him, and I waskind of like, no, I'm actually
trying to keep my dog stressed,low stress, and try to keep him
(07:00):
safe. I would make sure hegot sleep when he you know, when
cameras weren't rolling, Andrew was asleep. A lot of the other dogs were
out running and ripping and playing andknowing good and well, we were probably
going to be up until midnight orone in the morning doing challenges. I
know, I removed Andrew. Ihad him resting every chance I got,
so I really can't say it traumatizedhim in any way, shape or form.
(07:23):
He was he was good to go. However, there were some crazy
challenges, you know, from jumpingtelling dogs to jump off forty foot high
scaffolds, to sitting in front ofan elephant on a stay to you know,
just Andrew being the smallest dog he'she's about eight inches tall and weighs
about eight pounds, and you know, they made him do everything. They
(07:44):
really did very few modifications, sohe was competing with dogs three and four
times his size and being expected tojump just as far and climb just as
high, so you know, soit was pretty grueling. So were there
times during it where as a dogadvocate, as a professional train you wondered
whether they were really going over theline, crossing the line on what was
appropriate. Absolutely, I was thebiggest pain on the set. Matter of
(08:09):
fact, Oh absolutely. I stuckit to them every chance I got.
And you know, I actually wasshocked every week that I wasn't eliminated,
because I thought I would be eliminatedjust based on that. But no,
I um oh. I was alwaysgiving my input and letting them and you
know, quite a few times Itold them, you know what, this
is not going to play very wellon television. I will say probably one
(08:31):
of them I mentioned the elephant.You know, that elephant was raised around
dogs and actually was very very safe. Susie loved Andrew, and dogs communicate
with each other, and I believethat's why he didn't get up. You
know, they took the camera anglesat certain ways to make it look like,
you know, Andrew was afraid.You know, all the you know,
some of the dogs were because someof the dogs have a higher prey
(08:52):
drive. Andrew doesn't have a preydrive. Bless his sweetheart. He was
fine. He looked at me andsaid, hey, mommy, you know
there's an elephant coming well, hedidn't know what it is. He said,
there's a big, big thing comingdown. And I like, you're
fine, it's fine. And hesat there and when Susie got up to
him, she took her little trunkor I should say trunk, and she
kind of sniffed around him, andshe loved him. And I really believe
he felt that he did not feelin danger at all, and that's why
(09:15):
he didn't, you know, thatwould help with him not getting up.
So so that didn't play well ontelevision, but in all actuality, that
was actually quite safe. So you'renot thinking there's a big future in reality
shows about dogs, No, Ireally don't. I get a lot of
people asking me, you know,if I you know when the next season
is going to be and if Ifeel there will be another season, and
actually, be honest with you,I would be shocked if there were was.
(09:37):
You know, they there's a lotof kinks they need to work out,
and and you know, what's what'sthis that they always say that you
know, never work with children andanimals. It's it was hard and I
believe that the production company probably wasblindsided a little bit and didn't really you
know, bank on everything that youknow can happen. Dogs are very unpredictable
(09:58):
and it's one of the reasons Ilove them so much. So, you
know, there's some things to workout. You know, maybe in the
future they might, but I'm notthinking it's gonna be anytime soon. All
right, Well, Laurie, thanksso much for sharing both the information about
breeds and also a little bit aboutyour experience on Greatest American Dog. Laurie
runs Pup and Iron Canine Fitness andLearning Center. It's located between Stafford and
(10:22):
Fredericksburg, Virginia. You can findher on the web at pup and Iron
dot com. That's pup n IR O N dgster dot com. Again,
Laurie, thanks so much for joiningme today on Good Dog. Thank
you so much for having me.Above all, I want to thank you
for your continued support and for sharingmy love and appreciation for dogs. They
(10:45):
don't ask for much and they enhanceour lives in so many ways, particularly
during tough times. I'm Joey AnneGreen for Smarter Podcasts dot com.
Smarter Podcasts dot Com delivering sound advice. Joining me today is dog trainer Laurie
Williams from the Commonwealth of Virginia.One of Laurie's many claims to fame is
that she and one of her pupsone second place in the CBS reality show
(00:23):
contest Greatest American Dog. Welcome,Laurie, Hi, I'm so happy to
be here today. Excellent. Isit your sense that choosing the right breed
of dog is really important? It'sabsolutely important for all of us. When
choosing a hypo allergenic dog, you'relooking for dogs that don't shed as much?
(00:44):
Is that the basic issue? Yeah, Actually you aren't. You're looking
for a dog that doesn't shed asmuch, and also looking for a dog
that tends to shed less dander becausevery often it's the dander that people are
allergic to more so than the furor the hair. So um, you
know, there are a few breedsthat fall into that category, you know,
(01:07):
of all different sizes. So whatother kinds of questions should people be
asking when they're looking at what breedis going to work best for their lifestyle?
Well, you certainly want to,you know, the age of the
children is a definitely a big concernand something that should be considered. You
definitely want to take the age ofthe children, children, real real small
young children, UM, real activechildren. You know, you probably don't
(01:32):
want to select a real small dog, a tiny dog, a toy breed.
UM. You need a dog thatcan withstand children, you know,
kind of poking and prodding as theydo. And you also want to look
at how active your lifestyle is.If you live a more sedentary lifestyle,
then you certainly want to pick adog that is going to be less active
(01:52):
or have less exercise requirements than adog that it was bred to hunt and
you know, run the field andswim all day. You know that that
type of dog is not going tobe best for a family that likes to
sit around, you know, thefireplace all the time. So you know,
those are definitely some two specifics thatpeople need to consider. So generally
(02:13):
speaking, if you're looking for adog that's a good family dog, you
know that's gonna want to run,play, but not necessarily need to be
run on a daily basis. Arethere certain dogs that you tend to steer
people to. Well, you know, I have to be honest to say
that I'm not a breedist, youknow, as I like to call it.
I actually, you know, mostbreeds will fit in well with a
(02:36):
family provided that the you know,the dog gets the proper type of training
and um, you know, theproper outlets for their um you know,
kind of their what they need forstimulation. And that's more of what I
do. Um you know, Itry to really get people to interact with
their dogs and form a relationship.Because even the dog that tends to be
(02:58):
less active, um you know,if they or a dog that tends to
be less active, if you getthe right type of training and you bond
with them, they may want todo fun stuff with you, and vice
versa. If you have a dogthat's you know, tends to have a
lot of energy, if that dogis well trained, you can channel that
energy in positive ways. Get them, you know, maybe doing some dog
(03:19):
sports or other types of activities thatwhere they can release that energy. What
about mutts, Those are some ofmy favorite dogs, you know, and
mutts are great. You know.I started out with mixed breeds, um
you know, that was the onlytypes of dogs that I, you know,
ever had for a long time.However, with the Obama's um you
know, in particular, they hadthose you know, that allergy concern and
(03:43):
they really need it to know thelineage of the dog bringing they're bringing into
their home. One of the things, you know, when you do rescue
a dog or you give a doga home, you want that dog to
be in your home for the duration. You don't want to get a dog
and then have to give that dogup because of allergies. And that does
happen quite a bit. I youknow, I've run into a lot of
(04:03):
many of my clients who needed assistanceplacing their dogs because the children were severely
allergic. I've talked about it alot over the years on Good Dog that
all of my dogs have been poodlemixes of one sort or another. We
have some allergies, but really morethan that, it's just not wanting to
deal with the shedding. So we'vehad a sheetsu Poodle terrier who didn't shed,
(04:26):
followed by a cocka poo whose faceyou see on the Good Dog logo
that's far full, followed by nowLulu, who is a pika poo.
Okay, now, none of thisis an act is an exact science.
As you well know, you know, you get a mixture. In effect,
you're getting a mud. I mean, we may call them designer dogs
or hybrid dogs or this, thatand the other exactly. So even if
(04:47):
you get a labradoodle, you mightget a shedding labradoodle, right well,
yeah, especially in this country andthis country, labordoodles are still fairly new
in Australia, which is where theyou know, the breed and I actually
I kind of use that term loosely. I don't really like calling them a
breed because we have not in thiscountry really perfected the breed. It takes
(05:08):
many, many generations in a lotof years to come up with a specific
standard where when you breed that dog, you're going to have, you know,
you're going to know the exact typecoat of coat, they're going to
have, this size, and that'syou know basically what you know, what
you're you know, alluding to withthe labordoodles that you kind of see in
our country. You know, it'ssometimes you know, lab a bread to
(05:30):
poodle bee. It's like one generationand you're you absolutely do not know how
much that dog is going to shed. However, in Australia they've been doing
it for about twenty years, Ibelieve, and they have it, they
have a standard, they have itdown. You know, if you get
a dog through those channels of alabordoodle, through those channels, you can
pretty much predict what that dog's coatis going to be. And they are
(05:50):
hypoallergenic. Excellent. All right,time to talk about your experience on Greatest
American Dog. For those of uswho missed it and don't even know what
this reality show is about, tellus what the deal is. Well,
you know, it was a littleshow which it was twelve dogs and they're
humans teamed up and we competed inweekly challenges and ultimately they chose a winner.
(06:17):
And it was supposed to be basedon the owner and dog relationship.
However, I think it had moreto do with um, which dog could
withstand all that craziness that was goingon? In fact, torture? Right,
yeah, basically basically yeah, that'sall right. What was the worst
thing that your dog had to endure? Well, you know what I have
(06:38):
to say. And I kind ofpat myself on the back about this.
You know, Andrew, he didpretty well. He was one of the
less stressed dogs there. Because Imade sure that I got him out of
the fray every chance I got.Victoria stillwell was always telling me that I
was overmothering him, and I waskind of like, no, I'm actually
trying to keep my dog stressed,low stress, and try to keep him
(07:00):
safe. I would make sure hegot sleep when he you know, when
cameras weren't rolling, Andrew was asleep. A lot of the other dogs were
out running and ripping and playing andknowing good and well, we were probably
going to be up until midnight orone in the morning doing challenges. I
know, I removed Andrew. Ihad him resting every chance I got,
so I really can't say it traumatizedhim in any way, shape or form.
(07:23):
He was he was good to go. However, there were some crazy
challenges, you know, from jumpingtelling dogs to jump off forty foot high
scaffolds, to sitting in front ofan elephant on a stay to you know,
just Andrew being the smallest dog he'she's about eight inches tall and weighs
about eight pounds, and you know, they made him do everything. They
(07:44):
really did very few modifications, sohe was competing with dogs three and four
times his size and being expected tojump just as far and climb just as
high, so you know, soit was pretty grueling. So were there
times during it where as a dogadvocate, as a professional train you wondered
whether they were really going over theline, crossing the line on what was
appropriate. Absolutely, I was thebiggest pain on the set. Matter of
(08:09):
fact, Oh absolutely. I stuckit to them every chance I got.
And you know, I actually wasshocked every week that I wasn't eliminated,
because I thought I would be eliminatedjust based on that. But no,
I um oh. I was alwaysgiving my input and letting them and you
know, quite a few times Itold them, you know what, this
is not going to play very wellon television. I will say probably one
(08:31):
of them I mentioned the elephant.You know, that elephant was raised around
dogs and actually was very very safe. Susie loved Andrew, and dogs communicate
with each other, and I believethat's why he didn't get up. You
know, they took the camera anglesat certain ways to make it look like,
you know, Andrew was afraid.You know, all the you know,
some of the dogs were because someof the dogs have a higher prey
(08:52):
drive. Andrew doesn't have a preydrive. Bless his sweetheart. He was
fine. He looked at me andsaid, hey, mommy, you know
there's an elephant coming well, hedidn't know what it is. He said,
there's a big, big thing comingdown. And I like, you're
fine, it's fine. And hesat there and when Susie got up to
him, she took her little trunkor I should say trunk, and she
kind of sniffed around him, andshe loved him. And I really believe
he felt that he did not feelin danger at all, and that's why
(09:15):
he didn't, you know, thatwould help with him not getting up.
So so that didn't play well ontelevision, but in all actuality, that
was actually quite safe. So you'renot thinking there's a big future in reality
shows about dogs, No, Ireally don't. I get a lot of
people asking me, you know,if I you know when the next season
is going to be and if Ifeel there will be another season, and
actually, be honest with you,I would be shocked if there were was.
(09:37):
You know, they there's a lotof kinks they need to work out,
and and you know, what's what'sthis that they always say that you
know, never work with children andanimals. It's it was hard and I
believe that the production company probably wasblindsided a little bit and didn't really you
know, bank on everything that youknow can happen. Dogs are very unpredictable
(09:58):
and it's one of the reasons Ilove them so much. So, you
know, there's some things to workout. You know, maybe in the
future they might, but I'm notthinking it's gonna be anytime soon. All
right, Well, Laurie, thanksso much for sharing both the information about
breeds and also a little bit aboutyour experience on Greatest American Dog. Laurie
runs Pup and Iron Canine Fitness andLearning Center. It's located between Stafford and
(10:22):
Fredericksburg, Virginia. You can findher on the web at pup and Iron
dot com. That's pup n IR O N dgster dot com. Again,
Laurie, thanks so much for joiningme today on Good Dog. Thank
you so much for having me.Above all, I want to thank you
for your continued support and for sharingmy love and appreciation for dogs. They
(10:45):
don't ask for much and they enhanceour lives in so many ways, particularly
during tough times. I'm Joey AnneGreen for Smarter Podcasts dot com.
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