Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome to the Absolute Dog Sex in a Squirrel podcast. I'm Lauren Langman. I'm one of the world's leading dog trainers, and it's my mission to help owners become their dog's top priority. In each episode, you'll discover how to gain trust and communicate with your dog like never before, creating unbreakable bonds that make you the most exciting part of their world. Now, sometimes, bad things happen, and Amanda and I today are going to be talking about how to defend our dogs, because we know that, whilst we might not be able to control everything that leads up to an event, actually we can control what we do with it in the future, and we can also control how we prepare our dogs. Welcome, amanda, and I'm excited to talk to you about this. It's empowering for owners and therefore empowering for our dogs too, right.

Speaker 2: 0:55

Oh, absolutely Absolutely. And thank you, lauren. I always love sharing my experiences. There's always so much learning that's out there in the world.

Speaker 2: 1:02

And you know, with the defend your dog idea here, this was born out of a really nasty incident that I experienced with my young spaniel. You know, you build optimism, you want your dog to look at the world as a wonderful place. And then you're, you know you're on the trails and all of a sudden dogs come after your dog. You don't understand why, but you have to think quickly in the moment. And the specific situation that actually triggered this was I had just had a wonderful training session with Harley. He's training as a gun dog and of course we're using lots and lots of games for this and have really worked to build up his optimism. So he's absolutely wonderful to work with.

Speaker 2: 1:41

And at the end of our little session we were working on a you know it's a public area but not a public area. So you know we there weren't a lot of dogs around and at the end of that we just went for a little walk on the trails and I've been down these trails often and I often take my terrier down it, so you know down them. So I'm, you know they're fairly safe to me. So I thought, because as we were turning around to come back, these two dogs appeared out of nowhere and they launched on him. Now, fortunately, harley has a pretty much you never want to say a hundred percent, but a 99.9% recall. So he's really very good and that's required If he's going to be a gun dog. He has to be able to disengage and come back to me. But these other two dogs just came down on him and there was no one to be seen, no owner in sight, and they cornered him, flipped him over in a ditch which was full of water and the only thing sticking out was his nose. And of course I just thought you know they say don't scream, but I'm screaming because I don't know where this person is. There's got to be an owner attached to these dogs and if I don't sound panicked, they're not going to respond. And so I did that and, you know, managed to get him. The owner finally showed up and took the dogs. Now it was horrific, as you can imagine, and it actually took me a week before I could walk down those trails again, because I was traumatized, let alone my dog. Now what I want to talk about here is, first of all, what I learned in terms of how I can protect him in the future with this. But, even more important, what did I do afterwards? Because this is an event that traumatized both of us and how we respond in the end is massive both of us, and how we respond in the end is massive.

Speaker 2: 3:26

So immediately after the incident, you know, I managed to speak to the owner of the dog and I felt badly for her and it's really important that we recognize that not all owners are going to blow you off and say there's a problem with your dog. This individual was really shocked and horrified by her dog's behaviors, and so we managed to have a conversation and I did something that I didn't. I would never recommend doing this, but in the end I'm glad I did, and the reason why is because the owner didn't see what happened. But when she said, well, let's see if there'll be friends. So she took one of the two dogs and I'm going. This is a bad idea. So I just held on to Harley and her dog just went after him. They were on leashes, so there was no contact. I managed to step back, play that wonderful game called Rewind. Have Harley come back to me, pick him up and get out of there. But what turned out to be important in that case was she saw what happened. To be important in that case was she saw what happened. Because what I didn't expect was that this situation would actually come back not not at me, but would come back in a really weird way because it turns out this individual was teaching puppy classes at our local club and taking those dogs to the puppy classes, and one of those dogs is apparently a certified service dog. So horrific, nasty situation with all kinds of interesting repercussions.

Speaker 2: 4:51

Now I have a choice at this point, and that is I can choose to let that haunt me or I can choose to do something about it. I chose to do something about it. I made the decision. I'm going to learn from this experience. I'm going to share what I learn. This is why I love the Absolute Dogs environment and you, lauren, because it is an opportunity for people to learn from our experiences. Right, we can share, and you know where do we go from there.

Speaker 2: 5:17

So after that happened, the first thing I did with Harley was I got him away from there and we immediately played games all the way out of there. So he was playing orientation games, we were playing weather games, all these great games that he knows. That build his optimism. And the hardest part was disengaging my emotions from the situation, because if I walk away there huffed and upset and worried, he's going to pick that up, huffed and upset and worried, he's going to pick that up. But the result of this is we have some odd concerns. You know he's a little bit more pessimistic about some things, but he doesn't have a fear of dogs. And that was the big thing and that was massive, because can you imagine? You know you have a couple of thugs who mug you in an alleyway. You're going to be a lot more cautious.

Speaker 1: 6:03

And, if I think about this, amanda, huge testament to his genetics and his temperament, because I know with my dogs that Blink or Skittle are resilient enough for that.

Speaker 1: 6:15

But I also know that Venture is not. And actually, given a situation she had, which again defends your dog situation, she was at a dog training class of mine. I left her on a start line, I went out and another dog from class just piled in on her. That dog didn't really hurt her, but emotionally she was hurt right. Emotionally she was damaged and the owner of the dog said yeah, but he didn't do anything and I'm like it didn't matter the fact that she couldn't see him and he piled in on her from behind. That's enough for her. And it probably took me and this sounds silly, but it probably took me, amanda about a year to be able to run her in that arena confidently again, because she ran looking over her shoulder most of the time. Now, it didn't just put her off in the arena at home, it put her off anywhere I competed and she a few times would leave the ring and go and see Matt. And that for me is such an odd scenario to be in because typically my dogs are very bolshie, confident, almost obnoxiously so and so to have this little like shrinking wallflower who didn't like it. If anyone said boo and if another dog barkeds she'd leave the ring. And these things happen because you're in agility, so they're going to happen.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Now, what did it teach me? Like you defend your dog, I actually would just take her in my arena and when another dog was outside the arena I'd always shut the gate. So I would take more caution than I used to. I don't always shut gates when I train. Why? Because we train in open arenas where we train in fields with 20 rings with no ropes, like that in the uk. It's not ringed and fenced, it's open and we we rely on our dog training skills. However, I would shut them because I didn't want to.

Speaker 1: 7:54

I realize she's not a dog. She pairs way too quick and her genetics are not resilient and robust. And because she had so quick, I knew I couldn't. And the second thing, amanda, just very quickly. Then definitely the I realized I had to do a lot of not agility and just down, get your food down, get your food down, get your food down, get your food. And I would bowl things and I had to get her moving. So where is your saying Harley's temperament? And and he's actually he because of his, I think his genetics, his temperament and his background on games all three empowering with her. I had her at 12 months. She's from a gundog kennel. She's not got good history with other dogs, like she's scared of other dogs, and then she was piled in by a dog and she didn't start playing games until she was about a year old. So for me there's so much that is going against her on a bad experience that when she had that bad experience it was hard to overcome and I would say we're there now, but it's taken a while.

Speaker 2: 8:49

But that is massive. That is massive Because, as you know, harley lives in a household with a dog-dog, reactive terrier and you know we've had a battle and we continue to have a battle with that because Murphy, my little terrier, he's small but mighty but he's pessimistic, he is my absolute dog's dog, he's the one who brought me into the absolute dog's world because he was such a struggle. But you know this whole thing about learning history and the training and I see this as kind of like a balance. So if you've got good learning history right, your training is going to go easy. But if you have, you know, a fractured learning history, that training is a lot more difficult.

Speaker 2: 9:27

And that's the struggle we have with Harley, with Murphy. So Harley already came from a world where he knew about reactive dogs but it was all that foundation that he had in the beginning because they didn't actually interact significantly for like the first six months of his life and the following six months it was very limited and even now it's very managed, because the critical thing to remember is one bad experience if it's significant enough think about post-traumatic stress disorder and dogs do get it that can be significant enough to alter the behavior for the rest of their lives, just like it can for us. Harley picked up some really weird things like we happened to have a vet appointment afterwards, which was a good thing, so we had him checked over. He was physically okay. The next time we went into the vet he growled. So that's something we need to work on so it's enough, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 10:20

so it's those little things that you go. Actually, that's enough for me to pay attention to here, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:07

Yeah, and you want to get on that as soon as possible and I have a fabulous vet. We can go down there anytime and we can go play games in the vet clinic and with the techs there. They're fantastic and these are really important components. It may not sound like it's immediately related to how we defend our dogs, but it is 100% relevant, because optimism is the key to so much. If we can build that in our dogs and, like with Venture at 12 months, it's never too late. It's really important to remember that you will have a foundation there, but you can still do a lot to help impact that.

Speaker 2: 11:45

When I think about puppy brains, I've actually given to think of. You know, you've got a jar and you've got balloons in there and the early learning is like that expanded balloon and then you're stuffing more little balloons in there. But that early learning has a huge impact on what happens later. It's why those first, you know, those first six months, are so critical, because the brain is forming at a horrific rate I should say that in a more positive way, but at a tremendous rate making those connections, and those connections tend to stick with them for a long time. So, anyways, after this experience, I thought, okay, I'm going to go investigate this. I reached out to my friends and I have some amazing friends out there in the dog training world from a whole array of different disciplines. Some train in ways that I wouldn't, but I learned from them still because there's always tidbits of information. So I had responses from my friends for using Pet Corrector, which is basically a can of air right, so it just makes a hissing noise to pepper spray, and I'm going to talk about pepper spray in a second because, well, I may as well talk about it now.

Speaker 2: 12:49

Pepper spray is hugely problematic because if the dog is hurt or injured using it, you're liable for that, and in a dog-dog conflict like this, it's your word against the other person's or in my case, it's my word only which can be problematic, and you studied law. You know how this goes. So we want to try and do something that's fairly benign. Some people will use spray bottles of water. Some people even put vinegar in that.

Speaker 2: 13:17

People will use walking sticks. People will throw things at other dogs. Even taking a handful of food and throwing it towards the other dog can be problematic. I mean, if you've got a resource guard or involved, now, you've got something that is desirable. So let's stop for one second and think about what the whole dog dog interaction is all about. You know, it is a process where the dog sees another dog, it visually engages with that other dog, they approach one another, they sniff nose to nose, they turn around and sniff nose to butt and then one of a number of things can happen. Interestingly, the predator-prey sequence actually starts the same way, and I say this because with these two dogs they were actually acting in sort of a pack mentality. They were going after him like a community, tribal community going after an enemy.

Speaker 1: 14:07

I definitely experienced that, like like prey prey, the way they go out and the way they go after, and that that, I think, is very, very scary. I just wanted to also acknowledge, like you know, the dog, dog interaction space. I particularly love it and I'm not sure whether I'm not even sure how this, this pays in here, but I particularly love it that my dogs have a sea dog, acknowledged dog, walk on by really well conditioned, really well conditioned and to the point that with Tokyo and he was probably my best dog at this, however, I think Skittles is getting there. Bray is very, very good at this, some naturally, some taught. I think they have that level of acknowledgement, they know all of that is in play, but they walk on by and for me, I wish we could make this more out there shareable.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Well, there's one really important game in games club which is really valuable. For this. All I have to do is shift my weight back and harley turns and it comes with me. That's the rewind game.

Speaker 1: 15:14

That is yeah, and then, and then we could just try to walk whatever direction the other game for me that is probably really hugely influential here from the skill point of view is is disengagement pattern and disengagement games on every level and the orientation game, because it's out in, out in, so even if you do take a step, they then tend to trot back in and I remember thinking, if I think back to all of the lovely skills that Tokyo had, because he was a very skilled dog and he was a dog that was was born playing games like he.

Speaker 1: 15:42

He was born and then every game carried on really through his, his early life and he was a very sensitive dog. But for him, the ability to trot out and then just lift his head and go, enough, I'll disengage and I'll go back to here, like that's a beautiful skill in a dog. That is something I I struggle when I see an older dog that I like for, like I see a lot of older dogs that people offer us for work or for the training or for, like, police dog input or like whatever, like, depending on the training they want. For me, I struggle to take an on an older dog because of those early learning stages that we put on so quickly and they're, they're so um, this is the. It's massive, it's so, it's so tuned in.

Speaker 2: 16:23

Yeah, it's massive, those it's so tuned in. Yeah, it's massive. Those early learning skills are massive. But when you're in a situation where you have dogs coming at you and this was like the big light bulb it doesn't matter what my dog's skills are, because these dogs are coming at you. But the reason why I talk about you know the dog-dog interaction skills and the predator-prey skills is they both start with that one thing called see other dog right, or see prey, see whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 16:51

So I spoke to animal control after this incident, not to report the person because she was sufficiently horrified I thought I felt she was going to deal with this herself but to ask them what their recommendations are. And that's where they informed me that pepper spray in Canada is actually illegal. You're not allowed to carry it even, or you're not supposed to carry it, unless you're in the backwoods, because of the risk of using it against another person. It's okay to use it against you know a coyote or you know a cougar or something that's coming after you. However, it's highly restricted here. But all these other things that I've mentioned already are problematic, because now you are creating a problem for the other dog. But back to this visual thing.

Speaker 1: 17:38

think about something that blocks that visual sequence, because you'll notice often and I mean you work with so many dogs, lauren as soon as you break that visual, it changes the picture, it removes a lot of the stress, and so what can we carry that is really easy to block that visual umbrella for sure, an umbrella exactly and and I also love the other one that always helps eliza when she's out is a stick, sometimes like a walking stick or a riding stick when she's got ponies, because she sometimes will actually push a dog off and you've had to push a dog off and that's right around dog. But for me the umbrella makes complete sense because you've got two uses to it. You actually have the purpose and let's put it out there. No one out here wants to spray any dog or hurt any dog or do anything of damage to any dog, but this is preventative. You are trying your very best to look after your own dog's interests, as well as any other animal in that environment, to prevent anything like this occurring.

Speaker 2: 18:37

Exactly, exactly. And when you have the umbrella opened up in front of you, it serves two purposes. And when you have the umbrella opened up in front of you, it serves two purposes. One is it provides that break in the visual and second of all, it actually puts a physical barrier between the two dogs. And so what I am teaching and this is all absolute dog stuff it's all in Games Club. You can find it there.

Speaker 2: 18:58

I teach a really, really strong middle. So I ask Harley to come in between my legs and stay there, and I build that up in every environment that I can. I make it like a default behavior. If you've got that, recall becomes easy, right, because you just call them to middle and they love that position so much that they come running. Then I start doing middle on the move, so I start pivoting around and your dog, easy, was amazing to watch for this because she would respond to every little weight shift. And that's what I want, because if I have to turn, I want him to follow me Exactly.

Speaker 2: 19:35

And then I condition opening up the umbrella and then I can hold the umbrella in front of me and have him pivot with me, and that now puts him in a safe position with a barrier and if you really want to push it, you can actually use recall your dog as a cue. Instead of calling your dog to middle, you can condition your dog to come to middle and prepare for the umbrella in that process, and that's what I've been doing with Harley. So we're out in the boat and it's quite. It's really quite fun when you build it with games well, think about um I was thinking about.

Speaker 1: 20:08

If you think about the schutzen or sports ipo or all of the different versions of those dogs will do all very similar versions of this, in middle, without the umbrella maybe, but they'll all do that where they'll. I mean even to the point they'll turn and face the person or the predator that's behind you where you're walking in the other direction, and that dog's got watch on what's behind you. So it's the same thing. Effectively, we're teaching great body targeting, and then you're teaching the right body targeting and adding in a tool. So effectively we've added in like a dancing tool. Now, the interesting thing, though, is if you were to think about this in like heel works, music, that would just be another prop. Right, it's just another prop. So the umbrella is just another conditioned prop that the dog learns to enjoy, but the big thing is, the umbrella is not for my dog.

Speaker 1: 20:56

The umbrella is for the untrained dog that's coming at me, but you know what it is and I would say and over, but I think and the umbrella also looks after your dog at the same time. So it's there to. It's there to break the visual contact of the other dog and as an interrupter, but it's also and it's also there to look after my dog and safeguard my dog and help me advocate for my dog. So I think it has a lovely like multi-prong attack. So just talk us through what you've trained and how you've trained it.

Speaker 2: 21:29

Okay Well, so I mean, Harley already has a very good recall. But, as I say, middle can be used as recall. You just build that up. So we start by rewarding them in position and we start building up the value of coming into that position. Reward heavily, make it fun, keep sessions short so important because we don't want to make it boring. It's got to be something that's special.

Speaker 2: 21:51

We gradually increase distance, we gradually increase distractions. So distance I do at home, I'll start working in the backyard and then I take it out and about. So you know, Harley comes with me everywhere. He's in my car, in a crate in my car, and we will jump out of the car and we will do it in the parking lot, we will go out to a field and we will practice this everywhere. So it's so strong that he wants to be there.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Now one thing we have to be very careful not to step on our dogs because that can damage that. So we need to be a little bit aware. Our footwork can matter as we're training this up. But again, if we have enough positive learning experience, it becomes very, very solid. For training the umbrella, I just start with the umbrella on the ground and scatter feeding. Now a lot of people may not be aware that scatter feeding, which is basically taking food and putting it on the ground for the dog to snorkel around and find, some dogs actually need to be taught how to scatter feed. They don't necessarily come by it naturally, so you start with just a couple pieces and over time you add a few more pieces, and this is a great way of giving your dog breakfast.

Speaker 1: 22:56

Just to interrupt for two seconds. The thing I find with scatter feeding like you said, some dogs don't actually know how to scatter feed. Some dogs have absolutely no tenacity or resilience with it, and other dogs get so frantic about it that they actually lose their head. So carry on, amanda, because this is lovely.

Speaker 2: 23:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, and it's important because I didn't think about the importance of actually teaching it until you know I got Harley who was that frantic one. You know you throw some food down and then he'd go nuts, and then later on he decided that you know he would eat five pieces, and then he'd look at me like what next? Well, there's more pieces down there. So start with just a few pieces and and, and, as they're working it, add more. Not when they look up at you as they're working it. You want to add more because you want them to to realize that having their head down snorkeling means that more food comes. So I put down the umbrella and I start to scatter feed around it. I don't scatter feed on it, I want to make sure that there's no pressure and that he just becomes aware of this thing in the environment. And then I'll open it and then bring him back in. So I'll open it while he's not there, then bring him back in and scatter feed in and around it. So he's used to having the open umbrella and then the open umbrella, and then I'll scatter feed and I'll open and close it, watching them carefully, because if they cringe a little bit. We don't want to build that. We want to go back a step, do some more scatter feeding, step away and open it away from him and continue to scatter feed and then, through that process, we build it up to them being in middle and being able to open and close it. Then the next thing and this is the third component of the umbrella that we haven't spoken about is I'll start opening and closing it quickly. I'll gradually bring up the speed because, again, if you've got a dog that's charging at you, a static umbrella may not catch their attention, but as soon as you start flapping it by opening and closing it in front of you, that dog's going to go. Whoa, what is this? And I used to actually use this for wolf control on Cortez Island, where I used to live.

Speaker 2: 24:49

I was boat access only off grid, and my Labrador retriever was totally solid. He was an awesome dog. But wolves there like to eat dogs and it's a horrific thought. But they learned that dogs are nice and tasty and so one would go for walks. I always had my umbrella and I would always get salty to go in into middle and I'd start flapping the umbrella if I was concerned about the wolves approaching. Fortunately, that was enough for them. They didn't really want to deal with us and they would avoid us. But yeah, yeah, it's, it's a multi-pronged um.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Yeah, yeah, it's um, it's a multi-pronged uh. I. I just thought lovely, lovely, um, and I love the salty dog dog moments. I just thought what about the proofing levels? Because this really is going to require some proofing, right, like we are going to want to prove this, and when I'm thinking about it, like easy had such brilliant proofed behaviors and I'm pretty sure that this would be approved at that level because of the layers that I proved. But I want to hear it from you. I want to hear what you think.

Speaker 2: 25:46

I want to stop you for one moment, um, because we have a very diverse audience out there. When you say proofing, what do you mean by proofing?

Speaker 1: 25:55

so I mean that this dog is able to and wants to, and actively seeks out that position, no matter what's happening in the environment. So whether you're flapping the umbrella around, whether you're in panic and you're racing around like a lunatic, whether it's hammering down with rain or whether you're beaming in sunshine, your dog is comfortable in that middle position, no matter what is happening in the environment at the time. You ask them to do it and it's not actively like just being told and they're doing it. They 100% want to do it, they love to do it, they live to do it. In fact, they see it as a joy to behold, because you're not even going to be able to be constant feeding, potentially during this episode happening when it gets there.

Speaker 1: 26:34

So is it pushed past, like needing a treat every however many seconds minutes? Is it proofed past the fact that another person might be involved? Is it proofed past you screaming? And I'm thinking about an incident with or not an incident a training session with me and my dog, brave, and we were searching a building and they were knocking over dogs filing cabinets. They were like slamming like things on a bath and she had to still go in and get the pad and the man in the pad, even though she was quite noise sensitive. And these things are falling behind her like rubble falling. They're in a derelict house. It was great fun and I love doing it. I absolutely. It's funny. I pretend like where's like video games. I pretend I'm in a video game. When I'm there I'm like running around and knocking things with them.

Speaker 2: 27:16

I suppose at that level yeah so proofing, proofing is the everyday, so proofing is. You know, there's a lot of misconception about dog training out there and back. When I started dog training, way back in the dark ages, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, um, and I was competing in obedience, it was. You trained your dog for hours on end and blah, blah, blah, blah. We know that doesn't work because they only have an attention span that's so long. So what you want to do is like what I did this morning.

Speaker 2: 27:44

I'll give you an example of my morning with Harley, my husband. I have to, he can't drive, so I take him to his exercise classes three times a week, and three times a week Harley comes with me and we hop out and we go and we do something. Now we're talking about a very busy place. This is a recreation center. Now, this is Canada, hockey is a big thing, and so people are walking around with hockey equipment, with sticks, dragging roller bags, with noisy wheels on the pavement. I'll have him searching for articles, because we do some tracking work, so I'll have him going and searching for some articles, which is something that he loves. It's high value. Or I'll scatter feed him, or we'll just sit there and park, so he'll park with me in front of the doorway where they come in and out.

Speaker 2: 28:32

Now, we didn't start that way. It all started with he'd come out for a couple minutes, he'd hop out of the car, we'd play an orientation game, check me out, circle game, weather games back in the car. That would take maybe five minutes at most. I might take him out maybe twice, maybe three times in that hour that my husband is in for his exercise class. But I do that three times a week and so through that period of learning, experience a little bit. You should have seen him today. I had him doing tracking work with people walking all over the place. I had him doing steady work, so basically sit and stay while people are walking by wanting to pet him. He'll work more like a you know, a gun dog, be near me, work all through the parking lot. The zamboni came out, you know, and he's just looking at the zamboni like okay, you know, it's just another thing, it's all a zamboni please clarify what on earth is a zamboni.

Speaker 2: 29:31

Okay, a zamboni is basically like a big. It's almost like a car. It's very specialized and it's used for cleaning the ice. So they resurface the ice with this thing. So it uses um hot water and it scrapes off the upper layer so that all the gouges from all the skating and the ice are flattened out. So it's a nice smooth surface for people to skate on um.

Speaker 2: 29:53

And yeah, yeah, we had a bit of a conversation in the circle group about what the heck is a zamboni all the canadians anyway. And if you've ever seen a zamboni, I mean it's a big box on wheels, basically, and it's steamy and it's noisy and they've got studs on the wheels. So it's driving through the parking lot going click, click, click, click, click. So he learned that just by little bits of conditioning. This is the whole. You know how you get to fully proofing a dog to a situation. We're talking about exposure to things that are similar, but not necessarily what the thing is. So you know, for proofing the umbrella, it starts out in small steps and that's getting to know what the umbrella is, getting familiar with it, knowing that it's nothing that's a threat, and then, when I combine it with middle, I'll start. He already knows what the umbrella is. He knows what it's like to have it open and closed. It's already kind of a non event. Call him into middle and I slowly and gradually introduce it.

Speaker 2: 30:53

The key thing is don't do it a lot, because that's one of the big mistakes. We think that. You know, we think more is better. When you're proofing something, more is not always better. What we want to do is only work on it when your dog is in a good headspace. We don't want to write an exam when we're stressing because our mother's sick, right? So we want to make sure that the dog is already warmed up into good headspace. This is where the conversation starters are really important. We start with games and I've already said it many times. We start with orientation game, weather game, check me out, circle games. Those are games that he loves, we have fun with. Sometimes we get a bit crazy with, but it creates that good headspace. Then we move on to proofing work, because proofing work can have the opposite effect if we're not careful. So we, you know the key is being aware of your dog, knowing your dog. Nobody knows your dog like you do.

Speaker 1: 31:43

And I would also absolutely second that by saying so many people do too much of the proofing, which for me is a bit like the testing, rather than consider really how we're building all the time, because you're always building for that moment, you're building for the opportunity moment. You're building for the opportunity, you're building for the, for the need. I think about the search work, trainers, the, the guys that go out there and look for like bombs and they're building, they're building, they're building, but they're not putting their dogs necessarily into the test situation.

Speaker 2: 32:11

They're actually building regularly, regularly, regularly, and they want to build and grow and this is the cool thing about games based concept training and this is what I really love cool thing about games-based concept training and this is what I really love about it. Because when I look at training, I see it in sort of two ways. I mean, I'm also certified in another group, which is behavior training. It's based on behaviorism BF Skinner, very, very valuable for building behaviors. But I see dog training as two elements. You have behaviors, so you want your dog to sit, stay, you know instant down and all this. But we also and those are cued behaviors, those are behaviors that we're involved in. But then there's the concepts which I also consider skills. These are the un-cued behaviors. These are Tokyo's ability to disengage. You're not cuing him to disengage, he's choosing, it's his choice.

Speaker 1: 33:00

It's like having the dog that makes all the right decisions every single time. Like, honestly beautiful. He'd sit in the car park off lead and just watch the world go by, dog after dog, aggressive dog, dog trying to interact with him, dog trying to flirt with him. The only ones that would now and again tempt him would be the odd lady and he'd be like, and I'd be like. Now and again, tempt him would be the odd lady and he'd be like, and I'd be like get over here, lie back down and be like can you blame him?

Speaker 2: 33:27

I mean, he was a good looking boy, you know, amazing dog. He was amazing Anyways. Yeah, so skills are really based on on neuroscience, so it's how the brain is formed. And this comes back to puppies and developing those early puppy skills is we want them to, we want to set them up to be able to make those good choices, you know, with puppies it's building that relationship with you and I love, I love watching the videos of you and Skittles building Skittles, you know, relationship with you. I mean, she is so charged to work with you enough to bite you on the bum. I love it. I just I love her.

Speaker 2: 33:59

And then, of course, you want to make sure you get that optimism in as soon as possible. And then the one that we all struggle with, and it's definitely our struggle, and that is that ability to calm. If you can get a dog to calm in most spaces, you have a dog that really is resilient, you know, and that leads on to to my other project, which is, you know, disaster preparedness with dogs resilient, you know, and that leads on to to my other project, which is, you know, disaster preparedness with dogs, cause you know it's, if you have a dog that has that skill to be able to settle down in the face of all kinds of things, you have a dog that can reset, you know, and that's you know, back to defend your dog. That's that's really valuable for being able to get over an event Like what happened to Harley. If I was unable to get him into a safe space where he could calm down and just settle and reframe his mind, then he'd end up like my terrier, right Dog-dog reactive. He'd be worried about things Again after that event.

Speaker 2: 34:55

Just to reiterate after an event like that happens, the best thing we can do is have those go-to games that are joyful for our dogs, where it switches them into a really positive mindset. Get them home, make sure that they're well cared for and make sure that they have a space to settle down and to reset themselves, Because we want them to try and forget that event, just like we want to forget that event. I mean, what are we going to do? We're going to go and do something to make ourselves feel better. We want to help our dogs to be able to do something to help them feel better.

Speaker 1: 35:28

Amanda, it's been amazing, it's been immense, and I know there are so many people out there that are going to know so much more when it comes to defending our dogs. It's absolutely got to be a game that comes to Games Club very soon, if it's not already there. I think it's going to get there pretty quickly. Well done you, and I thank you so much for joining us for this podcast.

Speaker 2: 35:50

Anytime. I absolutely love being here, Lauren, and I absolutely love chatting with you.

Speaker 1: 35:55

Amazing, amazing stuff. So that was this episode. Defend your dog, do it well. Share this episode. Please share it worldwide. Friends, father, sister, mother, brother, long lost lover, share it. Share it. Share it because we know that's how the ripple continues.