The Walks That Broke Us\n

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This dog is going to either lose I'm going to lose sanity or I'm going to lose her. And that would cause loss of sanity as well. Like she's either going to hurt herself, kill herself, or break my heart by doing any of the above because she was unhinged on a walk. Like the level of like nuts was too much. 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. So we're talking naughty dogs, particularly one naughty dog, and that is Skittle. And I suppose the realization that even as a dog trainer, you can have a really naughty dog. And actually it can be pretty difficult. And I know Karen, you said you quite fancied interviewing me a little bit on it. I'm really open to that because I think she even shocked me as to how naughty she was.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

And naughty in what sense? Because we've, I mean, people who have seen Schizzle online, watched her on Facebook, seen some of your agility stuff. She's an amazingly skilled dog and she's she's very quick, she's very tuned into you. I saw you at an agility show a couple of weeks ago,

Smart Dogs Find Trouble Fast\n

SPEAKER_00 1:30

and I was impressed not just by her run, but just by how skilled she was outside of that. She was chilled in the setting, she was ignoring other dogs, she was kind of hanging out with you without any prompting. So all of those things which people would love to have in a dog, I'm sure. And yet I know that you still had a lot of challenges with her when she was younger.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I think even today you can have challenges with her because she's so sharp and smart. And so when you have a smart dog or a dog who pairs really quickly and pairs really fast, they're always thinking like five steps ahead of you. And so you're like thinking, okay, I'm gonna move that and put that away because I'm tidying up, and then there she is unpacking it and removing it and rolling in it, or killing it, or eating it, or flipping it, or she's grabbed the frog, or this morning, like I mean, you wouldn't believe it, the stuff that happens here. There was a mouse and it was in the shoe. And so Skittles is the first one to find a shoe with the mouse, and now her and the mouse are playing. Well, it looks like playing, but I'm not sure it was playing, and and then suddenly the cat's involved, and like no other dog would have all of those senses so quick. Like she's quick, and so she's like quick as a whip. So she's like bang, bang, bang. So you're always thinking like 10 steps ahead of her. And say you're what you're on a walk and you're thinking, I'm gonna put her back on lead, she's already run off because she knows you're gonna put her back on lead, or you're coming around the corner because you know there's a massive bog puddle, but she's already legged it because she knew the massive bog puddles there before you even thought about putting her on lead. Or say, for example, there's horse poo, she walks past it, she walks with you, and then you look in ahead and you're talking away and you think, Where's Skittle? And she's back there, like gulping the horse poo down. You see her like have this little glint in her eye, and she looks at you, and it's not that your dog's trying to be devious, it's just they've worked out pairings, and she's worked out in the past she's not been allowed to do something. And so again, you walk past, she's got the glinting around, you're like, You're up to no good. Like, what are you up to? You're literally downright naughty, and there she is doing that proper like fox poo role as you turn your back on her, and you're like, Oh my god, I gave her like 30 seconds and she's already done it. Or Matt's cooking, and there's three of whatever he's cooking on the side, he chats and he looks up and the other one's gone. Like, she's quick, and or you've got food in your hands and she bashes it out of your hands, like no other dog does it, like she does it. Blink was very similar, but with better intentions. Skittle is out for herself, and because she's out for herself, like I've never had a dog on a walk that is seven kilos and can pull my arm out of my socket, and like to the point she can pull you over, like she's relentless. I I've never owned a malanoir. She is a malanoir, like she is a mini malenoir, and then you get like little crafty who's like sort of Tim Nice but dim, really, and she's just a real lovely dog, but there's not much going on up there, and she's a sweetheart, like she's an absolute sweetheart, like she's got no bad intention. Um, if she did anything wrong, it's because she didn't realise, or she hasn't thought about it in that way. She's just a sweet, sweet dog. My friend said the other day, why is she never naughty? I'm like, she wouldn't think to be. Like, naughty isn't really in her wet repertoire. Skittle is is just much more up for everything, out for everything, trying to take everything, trying to grab life, and she's trying to grab life at 110 miles an hour. She's fun. I I can't say I don't absolutely love it, but the challenge that comes with it, flip, I wouldn't want to own her in retirement. I don't know that I'd want to own her as my pet dog. Like she is a sports dog who happens to also be my pet. But if I wasn't doing sport and I didn't have like intentions of being like at the top of my game in sport, would I want to own her? Yes, in my 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s,

When Pulling Turns Painful\n

SPEAKER_01 5:00

maybe in my 70s, absolutely no. Like, that is retirement hell. Like she would hurt, like, she would like give me headaches, she would make me sleepless. Like, yeah, there's a lot to say.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

So skilled and very determined and pulling on walks. One of the biggest struggles on walks, pulling, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Oh, pulling was horrible. Like, pulling was horrible. And I didn't really realise how horrible until see, she was always off lead, so off lead was fine. And then she started to put up pheasants when she was about, I don't know, two years old, 18 months to two years old, maybe. So she found a few pheasants, she found a few rabbits. We had to get her back on lead because she was about to rehearse bogging off. And so to stop her bogging off, I put her back on lead and restricted her. And at the point of putting her back on lead in certain places, that's when I noticed how bad the pulling got. So the pulling combined with the pheasants was just a bad combo. I hadn't practiced enough lead walking. Why? Because I don't need to, because we've got small holding, living the dream, really. There's so many lovely things here. She didn't chase chickens, so they weren't a problem. We've got chickens. She was good with our sheep, so she was off lead. She was good with our other dogs, she's great with our cats. So there's a lot of good going for her. But having a dog that you can't lay off on walks is a nightmare. But having a dog that pulls and toes your arm out of its socket, and she doesn't just pull, she does the jolt. And so you're like walking, and suddenly she goes that way, and she doesn't like there is nothing. The jolt that must go through her body has also got to be equally bad. But she seems to not notice at all. Like she she seems to have no care in the world that she just jolted her neck out of place or like pulled her spine out of alignment. Like she can pull my neck and spine out of alignment. So what she does to her own body, I do not know.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

So you're talking there about how she's kind of a few steps ahead of you all the time, and she knows what she's she's kind of up for and she knows what's remember stuff. Yeah, I definitely know that. Um, I got caught out with that one today with Rupert as well. One of the things I always notice about you is that you are always several steps ahead of everybody else. So if she was ahead of me again, so it was ahead of me again that you've got, then that's definitely something that somebody else would struggle with.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

She was she was really ahead of me. And I'm like, my God, I'm ahead, and you're really ahead. And then worse than that, Karen, the fact that sometimes, like, there are lots of other questions and things flying at you, like life. You cannot be preoccupied with a dog like that. Like you're better off not walking her. But I find that hard because there's so much to fit in day to day that sometimes I might be on a work call and I'll be walking and I'll be like, I'm gonna take a work call and walk. No, can't do that. Or I might think, I'm gonna train a boundaries and I'm gonna, I don't know, grab dinner. No, she'd have had something off the table. Or I'd think to myself, I'm gonna put two dogs on the bed together. She'd be jumping on their head and like landing on them. Or I'd think, you know what, I'm gonna take her for a nice walk and I'm gonna have a bit of a meeting with Matt. No, she'd be yanking my head and my heart arm and my neck like this way and that way. And you honestly, it's like you're going on some sort of like Olton Towers ride. Like there's no predictability to it. There is no predictability other than she's gonna do it. Um, and and the jolting is nuts. Honestly, the level of pull I have I've only seen it in one other dog, and his name was Sparky. Easy had it, but we trained it early and it didn't get there. Easy had it. Sparky, my friend's male dog, he was really like it. And he could tow in a head collar, even which couldn't have been comfortable, and he could really just put his head down and gone. Like you think of it like a like a sled dog, like a dog who's like she would act like a husky.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So I'm thinking that people who are listening to this are probably gonna think, well, Lauren is a hugely skilled dog trainer, and yet she's still having that problem. I've got that problem. Am I doomed? Which is not the case at all, I'm sure. And I'm sure you're gonna tell us what you did to kind of rectify this and address it in a minute. But if somebody's kind of struggling with that, those same things

The Mistakes That Made It Worse\n

SPEAKER_00 8:55

that you're describing, there is there hope for them?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

I think the two things that went really wrong for me. One, I allowed rehearsal without really having a serious talking to myself. Do not allow this dog to rehearse this. Whether, I mean, she was with a puppy walker as a young dog, so she was allowed to do it. So that for me was rehearsal, was practice. I just think that if you don't want a dog to pull like that, then you don't do it. So, number one, don't allow rehearsal. So, number one, or if you do notice it, acknowledge it straight away. What you're thinking is true, stop it. Like, don't like lull yourself into a false sense of security. Oh, it's just because it's a Wednesday, or it's because mum came over, or it's because his best friend's here, or it's because he's sad, or it's because he's not been well. No, get on top of it. Second one is for me, double down on the thing that you want. So double down on it. So I was kind of working on agility and I was working on training her to weave and training her to do all the fun things, and actually being a moron in life was a problem, and that was going to cause me more trouble because I was building all this drive and training and agility and high energy and sort of all the fun stuff, but actually I hadn't double down on the pro double, double like downed on the problem, and I needed to double down on that problem first, which for me was relationship. So actually, there was a fundamental relationship issue, which was I adored her to the point that I allowed her to get away with murder, and I loved her so much, and I love her so much that I allowed her to be a bit of a brat. And I think you sometimes have to acknowledge that. I'd been through a hard couple of years. I'd had social media annihilation, I'd had my lost my dad, I'd lost my gorgeous dog Tokyo in in a horrible accident where effectively he had water intoxication. I'd lost Easy, she'd had a tumour on her chest, seven. Like it'd just been bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And I think there was like this little security blank here, which for me was a Skittle, and this lovely little energy creature that just was like sprightly and bouncy, and I just indulged her at every level and loved her really hard. But sometimes when we love a dog like that, I think that that in itself can do a bit of damage because you allow everything. I see it even with Eliza. Like sometimes I'm like, I allow a lot here. I need to just acknowledge that and give her the look. Like, this is not okay. And and that for Skittle, I think, really, really important. That I had to kind of um rein it back a little and just remind myself and her that she was a dog and that there are boundaries that were there that would also help to keep her alive, really. Uh, things like running off and hunting on a walk is not safe for anyone, it's not safe for other walkers, it's not safe for the animals, it's not safe for vehicles, it's not safe for Skittle, it's not safe for me and my heart. Like it doesn't work. So hunting is not a thing. If you guys go hunting, you put on a back on lead and we work on relationship. So fundamentally, relationship was a bit screwed up. And we can all have that moment in our relationship with a dog where we wobble. And I was definitely in a wobbly couple of years, I would say. I had just a lot of emotional turmoil.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

So I guess a lot of people would be able to identify with that, not necessarily with the specifics that you're talking about there, but maybe they've let the dog get away with something that they probably shouldn't have done, and that might not even be walks, it might be in the house, it might be a dog that does something that they're not that keen on in the house, or we sometimes just love them a lot, like we just love them, and we sometimes don't want to be strict or don't want to be like we just want to love them.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, life's hard, we just want to love them, like we're lovers, not fighters or haters. Like, uh yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

And then then the realization, I guess, is the point at which the thing that you're you're meant to enjoy, which in

Resetting With An Eight-Week Pause\n

SPEAKER_00 12:30

this scenario is walking your dog became not very enjoyable at all.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

So the point that I didn't want to walk her, but actually that was probably the good thing. I I stopped walking her, so she stopped going on walks, and probably for eight weeks. So for people out there thinking that's really cruel, well, she has the best freedom now, she has the best life. I'm talking eight weeks of her very eight weeks is a very small part of a dog's full life, and she's off lead in every situation. There is not a situation I wouldn't let her off lead him. So there's not a situation I wouldn't let her off lead. I'd let her off in I mean, not near a road, but that's just safety. But that there is not a space I would feel worried about letting her off lead him.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

So I know that you and Jamie kind of attacked.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

We came up with a blueprint. We came up with a blueprint, and we came up with a blueprint that basically was this dog is going to either lose I'm gonna lose sanity or I'm gonna lose her, and that would cause loss of sanity as well. Like, she's either gonna hurt herself, kill herself, or break my heart by doing any of the above because she was unhinged on a walk, like the level of like nuts was too much. Like her eyes were on stalks, she was like like Scooby-Doo on drugs, like just not okay. And I can't even explain how bad. Like, it has gone like completely from that. It's like night and day, it's changed so much, Karen. Like, so much. And and I'm looking now, and like she's the I mean, she'll probably get up because I'm gonna move, but she's like the sleepiest, most chilled dog in like everyday life now, other than when you go to work her, I would say. She's actually a very nice house pet. So it's actually helped her house pet level. I'd say she's house pet level. Matt would disagree, but I'd say probably level eight out of ten. She still likes to run between like breaks, but she's a she's a nice pet. She doesn't bark at people, she doesn't bark at dogs. She settles in the house, she sleeps very well, she doesn't bark at visitors, she doesn't jump all over guests, uh, she likes to carry something most of the time, but she's a spaniel, it's cute. So yeah, it's helped in every it's helped in every way. So Jamie and I basically came up with a blueprint, and the blueprint really, really changed her night and day.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

And how how focused did you have to be in the period that you said you'd start walking it for eight weeks? It was that an intense eight weeks of two two things, two things.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

One is what you don't allow them to do. That for me is actually quite easy. It doesn't take you much time, but it takes you a lot of discipline. Because when you're going out with your other dogs and you're leaving her at home, that's sometimes quite hard. Especially because she's a sports dog, so I want to keep her fit. So I actually had to write off the idea of sport for a bit. Had to say no more sport for a minute. A bit like Eliza, Eliza hasn't got mobile phone anymore. We removed it. No more mobile phone. She walks around hilarious with a laptop because she can sometimes get a laptop, she actually takes a laptop with her. But I'm just like, you're not having a permanent attachment of this when you're on a horse or whatever else. We're out with you, you don't need it. So it's the same thing for Skittle. You're not having the permanent opportunity of hunting or pulling or yanking or doing the thing we don't want you to do. So we actually removed it. And when she was walking, she was always on a harness, collar, lead scenario, sometimes a head collar. So she was not allowed to rehearse what we didn't want. So two things one is no rehearsal of what you don't want, and two is dedicated time to what you do want. And sometimes my dedicated time would be three, three minutes

Misfit Dogs And Realistic Homes\n

SPEAKER_01 16:35

a day, and sometimes my dedicated time would be three, half an hour a day. Sometimes I, for those people who are like, yeah, but but you don't work. No, you know what? I do work. I work really, really hard. So tonight my night finishes at half past nine. My day started at four. I love it. I'm definitely no victim in that. However, I don't have short days. And so for me, I would consider the fact that she's asleep with her legs against the wall on the boundary as part of my as part of my what would I call it? Like boundary training. That's boundary, that's life training. She's earning and learning a life skill. That in itself is a life skill. No, just because I'm on a call, don't go lunatic, don't go hopping on and off, don't go being a moron, don't go doing all the things I don't want you to do.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

And that's the magic of concepts, really, isn't it? That it's something they learn in one aspect. Like it's pleasant.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

It's pleasant. Like I was off this weekend and I have 10 dogs to look after. I have 10 dogs for those people that think I'm nuts. I am and I love it. I love my life. But you're constantly thinking about who's where and what they're doing. But they're actually very easy, 10 dogs. Whereas you put 10 Rupert's or 10 Katie's together, that's actually a really difficult scenario, I would say, on the whole. Not so much now you've got games. Like Katie's actually quite easy now. You've got games, and I know Rupert the same. But without that learning behind it, flipping hell, they're hard. And even with it, they're still hard to a degree. I don't want to like say to people that you're like Skittles is definitely not for a personally, I don't think she's for my mother. Like I would worry. I lost a friend a few weeks ago, really, really traumatic, really horrendous. And they were asking what to do with her dogs and where they would go, and with the parents have them. And I was like, it would ruin my mum's life to have Skittle. It would ruin her life. And there's one of these kittens, my mum's got kittens at the moment. There's one of these kittens, and she loves him. She thinks he's the best kitten ever. And you go to stroke him, and he's like when he's over food. And I'm like, oh my lord, that is not your kitten, mum. That is out of interest, Karen. Which kitten do you like? The strifey one. That's him. Um, and so that's what I'm telling you. I knew you'd pick the wrong one, and that's why you don't pick your next dog. And so, um, so for me, that's the kitten, and I've got a video of him, I'll send it to you. And he's like over food. And I've never seen a resource-guarding cat before. He is a resource-guarding five-week-old kitten, like seriously, and no one's ever taken anything off him. Like, he's not even had anyone remove anything. I just literally was feeding them the other day. He popped some chicken down and off he went with. And I was like, wow, that's a lot. I suppose what I'm saying to you is rehearsal is one thing, personality is another thing, and and like genetic makeup. And then to a degree, like the environment that they find themselves in. Like, like there's there's Skittle in this scenario is is really pick happy. Like, she's got a good life. Skittle in my mum's scenario, horrible for her. Living in a town, living in a townhouse, having like lead walks, going to the park, like those things would all be wrong for that type of dog. Yeah, the park's not big enough for Skittle, if that makes sense. And so this is where I suppose we have the misfit that what we probably need to do is help people with dogs who are in that misfit scenario. Because there are probably quite a lot. I speak to people day in, day out, and the people that I speak to day in, day out are ringing us about reactive dogs and ringing us about reactive dog training. We've got a reactive dog um ad out there, and they ring me day to day and speak to me day to day about these like dog dog issues. And a lot of what we're talking about is a mismatch in. I mean, you wouldn't believe how many cockpoos, cockapoos, Romanian rescues, like 10, like 15, 20 a day. Like absolutely nuts. I spend a lot of my day doing this, and I ring and I speak to them, and there's got to be a genetic base to it. 100% has to be genetic genetic base, and then the scenarios they find themselves in and the types of homes they have. So those those things all all sound quite similar, like me when I'm speaking to people, remain in rescue is the same. The scenarios that they've been put in, just hard, really hard, and what we're expecting of them as dogs. Um, but yeah, no, the blueprint for me uh for me Skittle is a entirely different dog, Karen.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

So practically, for somebody listening and thinking, okay, you're talking blueprint, you're talking environments, you're talking dogs that don't fit. I know that there's one game that you and Jamie came up with called Skittles Game. Brilliant game for her.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Tell us about it. So Skittles likes to yank on lead. All of her value is forwards. So everything about her is forwards, but she's also a dog who really likes to sniff, and she's a dog who really likes to hunt, and she's a dog who loves her food. So if you haven't already, ditch the bowl because when you've got reinforcement, you've got at least a part of the scenario covered. So for me, what they rehearse, they become, and trainability is susceptibility to reinforcement. Both of those quotes really stand out. And for me, I don't want her to rehearse Yanking, and

Skittles Game To Beat Pulling\n

SPEAKER_01 21:24

I do want her to get reinforcement in the right ways and from us. So those things all matter. So for me, what I do with Skittles game is she'll be walking and I throw or place food behind me, and I do it multiple times, multiplications. So effectively, I'm slowing her down and I'm yo-yoing her behind me. So I've kind of got it behind there and I'm yo-yoing her. And she doesn't know when it might happen. And I try not to make it too dull. And a lot of people say, Well, I can't throw it because I don't want to excite them. I kind of had to throw it because if I didn't excite her backwards, she'd excite herself forwards. So if I was to place it at first, that wouldn't have mattered. Like she wouldn't have wanted to play it because sometimes she doesn't want to eat what I'm throwing, it's just that she likes the throwing in the catching game. So, for example, if I throw cauliflower stalks and broccoli heads and blueberries, I mean we've had brilliant strawberries here lately, like the most amazing strawberries, like little strawberries. And we'll buy a whole tray and we'll chop all the heads off them. Skittle has all the heads, all 40, 50, 60 heads. She'll have all of them. She doesn't really know what she's eating. She's just playing a game. She's hungry for life. Like she'll eat it anyway. She's greedy for every experience she can get. Give me all the experiences. Like that's the you're dealing with something that's keen for life. If a Skittle, you could throw anything back there. For my friend's Papillon, you're not going to throw anything back there. He's going to look at you like you're a mentalist. If you throw like a strawberry head or brave, she'd be like, You can keep that. Thanks, lady. So with her, I'd have to throw maybe something like cheese or sausage or something high value or what are Michelle's treats, something like that. But for for Skittle, you can throw anything.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I've played this game a bit with Rupert, actually, and the premise of it is so straightforward. Where you want it instead of where the dog is trying to put it, but I've played it a lot with him when I've got him out of the car. So if I drive him somewhere for a walk, he gets him out of the car and he likes to jump out of the car and then immediately tug forwards.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

And he's walking, he's lead walking actually most of the time once he's setting up. But that first bit is always a bit of a nightmare. So even in just maybe two, three, four walks, get him out of the car and do two or three pieces back, yes and set off. And it really he doesn't even set off walking when we get out of the car. No, he just stands and waits. Yeah. Really has made a massive difference.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

So important, so key, so interesting, isn't it? So interesting. I I agree. It's like the way you set your walk off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Yes. If we start off pulling, then pulling is 10 tends to be the way it carries on. But if you set the tone of it right to start with, whether that's from the car or the house or wherever else you might be setting off from, it definitely makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

That's my that's my thinking. Like that's my thinking is that actually the way you start the walk really matters. The way you start it really matters. If you start it and you allow that dog to just get out and tow, then you are reinforced forwing at every level. And you're saying, cool, let's tow. Like Eliza sometimes so so we have holiday cottages here. I'm sure that lots of the listeners know holiday cottages are gorgeous. Eliza said this morning, what do I get paid for cleaning holiday cottages? And I'm like, it's contribution, Liz. It's contribution. So we pay for your school fees, we pay for all of your horse gear, we pay for you've got a new pony set up there. I'm like, yeah, he's sat in the field. There he is. That's your cottage cleaning. Like, I just believe that you you lay out what you your expectation is. And then I paid her friend to clean. So Liza didn't get paid and her friend got paid. It it might sound hard, but I just believe she values that more. And she's off to Alton Towers with Matt now. So they're off to Alton Towers until tomorrow. I hate things like that, so they're off there. But yeah, I think that's really, really valuable. The other thing I would say, and I think this is really important, is Jamie and I really teamed up on it, but Matt didn't play a part, and neither did Liza. So I think as long as they don't do the wrong thing, I don't think everyone has to be involved. But I do think that the people involved should be consistent. So Jamie and I were really consistent and we were talking on it. So it was almost like Jamie and I, our relationship, not anyone else. Matt doesn't really walk her, Liza doesn't really walk her, I walk her with Matt, or Jamie will exercise arenas and pools and treadmills and things like that here. So she could do all of those things. She could do the arena, she could do the treadmill, she could do the cavaletti, but the rules came into all of it. And the other thing is, it didn't even matter whether she was going out for a wee or anything else. If she was going to tow and yank me, we stopped, we interrupted it, and we restarted it. So even if we're going for a wee, no, you don't yank me. So, for example, on that scenario, if I could, I'd put her in the garden for a wee rather than take her out for a walk on a wee because then I didn't have to practice the rehearsing on lead, or I'd have popped her in a car and taken her somewhere if I was in that scenario. Whereas for me, what I didn't want to do is put her on a lead and still let her yank for a week, because she will still yank for a wee. And the other one that she's really naughty to yank for, she she's she's very interesting. She won't wait for anything.

Consistency And Stopping Rehearsal\n

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Like I can see myself in her. Like it, if she wants something, she wants it now. There is zero patience there. So I came in earlier and I was really hungry for lunch and I was like, Pat, help, I need it all now. I'm really hungry. Um she's the same. If she really wants a drink, she's like scrabbling for a drink. She's not like wait waiting politely or crafty would like rather like die of thirst than ask. Skittles is like, I like trying to pull to the drink. Doesn't matter, even if it's a drink she needs, do not let her toe you there.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

It's it's interesting, isn't it? All the things, if you start thinking about all the ways that they can rehearse the things you don't want without you even realizing. So different scenario, nothing to do with walking particularly, but with Rupert, his his choice would be hurl out of the back dark door, scream his way to the bottom of the garden, do some crazy whirly lap. I call him a furry tornado or something similar, and then maybe remember that he went out for a wee. And in some ways, there's no harm in that. He can't do any damage apart from if he heals himself into something. He's rehearsing arousal up, arousal down, but right up and right down and no middle bits, and he's light switch and orbits and craziness, and the guards on his space of high arousal. Whereas if I take the time to put him on lead and take him out for a wee, which is a pain in the bum when he wants to go out for a wee multiple times a day, but it makes such a big difference to everything else going on.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Agreed, agreed, like such a huge difference. For me, it's a massive difference. Like, and the more they sit in that space, the more they become that space. And like I promise you, on a walk now, Skittle is probably one of the only dogs I can have off for the whole walk. Like, she she's so straightforward on a walk. And at dog shows and all of the games that we played, we just put together such a great medley of games. And between all those skill sets, you've built a dog. You've built a dog. And some of them are new, some of them are sort of good old, like tried and tested, and we know the value. But we like meddlied them in such a way that it's like this recipe for success. With Skittle, I really couldn't go wrong as long as I followed the recipe. And you said relationship was a big part of the problem. Oh, relationship was massive. The course, I hand on heart think the course is the best course we've done outright. And that's because I was solving a blooming problem. And that problem was one that I've seen so many people go through, and I just never thought it would hit me. I was like, I'll never have a dog that does that. Like Easy had that personality, but she never got to do it. But I had Easy as a tiny puppy, whereas I didn't have Skittle until she was like 10 months. So she'd already had 10 months of being a dipstick, and it just was too much, like she was too much dipstick. Like she was a hard work to live with and own and and walk. Just I think the biggest thing that got me is how much it hurt, Karen.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

It hurt like I felt like I was being injured on every walk. Yeah, and they don't seem to have any kind of awareness of what they're doing to you or to themselves, do they? And it's not okay. It's not okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

And I think the thing that really makes it really not okay is how that's gonna go on for 15, 16 years. Yeah. That's that's gonna be the way that dog is. Like dog walkers, family, like no one can walk them. Your walks aren't fun. I was listening to something the other day, and it said something like, if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong. And then it said something else, and it said, like, life is a bit

What Walks Look Like Now\n

SPEAKER_01 30:19

of a game, and and to work out the game, you need to work out how you have fun first. Like, and and if you if you can't, the whole purpose of owning a dog for me is to be able to walk them. So whether you own a reactive dog, whether you own a dog like Skittle who pulls it like your arm out of its socket, whether you own a dog that barks at people, barks at dogs, lunges at bicycles, generally is hard work to walk. That is an amazing course. So that is an amazing course. Like, and like I I cannot imagine a better course for building your relationship with your dog. Partly, I think, because mine was so painful at the time. So because mine was so painful, like I loved her so much, but I also hated her. Like, I was like, I really don't like you, like you're too much for me. But I also loved her so intensely that I would have forgiven her anything. Yeah, like a weird place to be in because the love is really intense, but the pain is also like enough to fill your bucket to ruin your day. That that's nuts, isn't it? That you're hinging your whole good day or bad day on like a seven kilo brown lump of spaniel. But you would like I would. I'd be like, if she'd had a bad walk, it would ruin my day. And I'm sure loads of people feel like that.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

I'm sure they do, and I'm sure loads of people also kind of appreciate hearing that you have felt like that, unless it's it's not something that is kind of just them or just the people who are not professional dog trainers, that everybody can feel that and experience. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Oh, it's horrible, it's absolutely horrible. Like, really, no part of me enjoyed that. No part of me enjoyed that. And I think the biggest thing that I don't enjoy, I don't know about you, but biggest thing I don't enjoy is when I don't know what to do. So I'm way better if I have a plan. I woke Mac Matt up really early this morning. I was like, hello, we need a plan. We need a plan. Like, I'm if I've got a plan, I'm fine. If I haven't got a plan, he's like, We should have done it last night. I'm like, we should have said last night, but we're now this morning. Like, I love a plan.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

If you're if you're lost in the middle of something and you just don't know how to get out of it or how to fix it, it's tricky, isn't it? Whereas if somebody says, well, it's just this, this, and this, and that will work and do this. Absolutely. Absolutely, then it actually works, then that's magic.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

For me, this one is a recipe that just cannot go wrong. If you do it and if you follow it, it will go right. And so tell us what a walk's like now with Schizzle. I always start on lead. I just think it's good warm-up, good physical. So I always start on lead, which I would never have started on lead before because I didn't want to put her on lead. I didn't like leads because it hurt. And so I always start on lead. She stands really nicely to have a harness put on, so I don't have to try and capture her. She doesn't have to wriggle and like kind of like want to playbite you, which I think seriously, she actually might like to nip you, but she was playbiting. She doesn't do any of that now. She stands really nicely to have a harness put on. I always spray her in the morning with our bug spray because we have loads of ticks here. So she has bug canine. I spray her, she stands still to be sprayed, which is unheard of. She sometimes has to wear a tick suit because we live in heavy tick areas, so that's annoying. So she wears a smurf suit. Hers is smurf coloured, and then I spray it again, so she has to sit for another round of spraying. The harness on, lead on, walking. I normally let her out with five or six others. When I was letting her out in the past, she'd be lunging, squealing, and trying to nip at them. There's none of that at all. There's just standing and waiting her turn or up in my arms, depending on if I need spare hands or whatever else, or if they're going to be excitable. So the other dogs, that is not her. So I'll sometimes pick her out of the way of like a collie that might walk on her. Then we get onto the bridal path. She probably does 10 minutes on lead. Her on lead is relaxed. Um, she normally goes to the toilet on lead because I think that's for me easier because then I haven't got to try and find it in a bush. She goes on to the toilet on cue. I then tend to take off one of her clips and see that she's still responding to me, play a couple of games, check that she's with me, check that she's also not too interested in hunting. So I assess where her hunting is because she's a strong hunt drive dog. So she'd be a very good hunting dog. I mean, they're bred for hunting, so she'd be a fantastic hunting dog. And then in terms of off lead, might do 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, depends how long I go for. And in between that time, I'll be putting her on and off lead, not because I have to, because I just think it's really good manners on her part. And then for the last 10 minutes, I put her back on lead again and we go back home. I actually don't do very much treating at all. If I see a person, a cyclist, a dog, I always call them in, I always feed them. I do whether it's a bit of a scatter recall, whether I do some hand targeting, nose targeting, whether I do paint the town red, whether I do some typically magic hand, or when you've got multi-dogs, the scatter is really nice. She was quite resource guardian for scattering, she's not anymore. We've worked through that and we talked through all things like that as well. It's pleasant, Karen. It's pleasant. Like, I don't, I genuinely hand on heart, I like my walks. Like they for me are my therapy. I didn't get a dog because I wanted therapy. I got a dog because I wanted therapy. Yeah, like what I'm saying is I didn't want to go into having therapy because my dog was stressing me out so much. I wanted a nice stroll and an enjoyable walk, and I've got that again. So I've got that again. And I had years of not having it with Poppy. Poppy was reactive to dogs. We got through that, and Naughty but Nice courses taught us a lot of that. I'd never had someone such strong pulling as Skittle, and I felt like I was thrown right back into it. But, and this is the important but all of the games that we play for a really strong pulling dog are the same games that I'd play for a really reactive dog, are the same games I'd play for a really scared dog. You'd adapt them slightly, and we talk about adaptations, but actually the fundamental core is good. Same as if you're riding horses, you'd do a lot of trotting poles or you'd do a lot of like walking poles or in hand poles, but the games are fundamentally the same games. So I think that's really important to acknowledge. So actually, a lot of the games are good fundamental games that we tweak for the learning and we talk through for the learning. I think that's really important. And the biggest part is none of the games take a long time, they just take understanding how to adapt them for the scenario, and that was probably a big, a big part of it.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Yes. So I would play a lot of the similar games with Reaper, and he's not massively a pulley dog, but he's definitely a reactive dog and a dog that would not want to be going into another dog's space. And the same kind of learning and the same value absolutely makes a difference for him. Yeah. And I guess you've you've talked a little bit about food, not a lot actually, but I think one pe one thing that people kind of maybe slightly worry about sometimes is that if they're working on a on any kind of learning like this where we use food because we do use food, that they then get stuck and that the dog will only walk nicely if you've

Food Without Becoming Dependent\n

SPEAKER_00 36:49

got a company.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

I rarely feed her, I rarely feed her on a walk. I often do have a pocket full of food, but it's there in case I need it. And and the only time I really need it is when I see people. And I don't actually need it for her. I would hate for a bike to run her over, or I'd hate for someone's dog to run at her, or I'd hate for a scenario to go wrong because I'd let her go up to it. So I do it actually so that you give you can't control what they do, but you can control what you do. So for me, I call her back in. And I'm quite strict now with people. You like they won't want to meet me when I'm like that. Like a bicep a bicycle came past yesterday the other day before, and I was like, Can you hold there? I'm just gonna bring my dogs in. Give me one minute. But I'm very definite, like, give me one minute. Don't you dare. Like, I want them to hold while I move my dogs out of the path because we're sharing, it's a public bridle way. We're sharing a space: horses, dogs, people, bikes. Be kind to each other. If you ask me, can I give you a minute? I can give you a minute. Who can't give someone a minute? So, so yeah, give them a minute.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

So, somebody listening to this who either has a dog that pulls like a nutter or is reactive, or has poor recall or anything else that might be making walks utterly miserable just now. What do you want them to kind of know? What would be their biggest takeaway from listening to it?

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Well, that there is massive, massive hope. The quicker we can change it, the better. The more we can interrupt it, the better. The more that we prevent rehearsal, the better. Do the blueprint. If there is a chance to do the blueprint, if the blueprint becomes available, I don't know what stage it's at. But if the blueprint is there, absolutely take it. It's an amazing life-changing opportunity. And in addition to that, you've got us like coaching you and we've got your backs. Like that for me is mega and huge. I don't believe after 25 years of of training dogs, running companies like this, in terms of like my my first company is Devon Dogs, our second company is Absolute Dogs. Before that, we had another online venture with dog training. Like, we've had lots of different great dog training opportunities. For me, I've owned dogs all my life, and I've never come across one as much as her. She's just a lot. And now I've learned to embrace a lot and enjoy it. And and actually to the point I don't want one that isn't a lot anymore. I want one that is a lot. Do it, do it, do it, do it. Interrupt rehearsal, grab the blueprint, have us on your side and and be with us and sit on the shoulder of giants and and kind of know that there's someone out there who's done it before and seen it before. And we're not scared. We're not scared to tackle whatever big problem it is. Sooner you can tackle it, the better. Don't leave it, jump in.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Brilliant advice. I think the support actually makes all the difference as well. It's all very well being told, do this, do that, do that. But being part of a community of people that then can support you through it and help you kind of tweak it and try to make such a difference. Massive.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Like absolutely massive. And the best part is, and this really

Hope, Blueprint, And Community Support

SPEAKER_01 39:44

is the best part for me, is that that community isn't just there for like a day or a week. That community is there forever, as long as you want it. And equally, if you don't want it, know when there's pressuring. So it's just a nice space. I I don't I've been really fortunate, and and we don't have to be in dog training. Like we're in it because we want to be, we're in it because we want to be. And the big thing that keeps us in dog training is how much we love the dogs and how much we love the people. And I would actually say I am not saying everyone that I work with, I would say they're equal for me. I like the people and the dogs. I really like both. I really like both. Feel very, very lucky and fortunate to work with the people that we work with and the dogs. So so for me, the blueprint's an excellent space because you've got backup from people like me who really get the dog training and also really love people, and you've also got all of the learning at your fingertips, whether you live in Australia, New Zealand, or I don't know, Singapore, it is all there for you wherever you are. It's there and it's waiting. So if you sat there waiting, if you're thinking, my dog is a complete whatever you want to fill that with, I know that there's help out there. I know that we can make a difference. I absolutely know at every level, if I've dealt with Skittle that you can deal with whatever you're dealing with, I promise you she is a malinoir. She's a malanoir of the most malanoir versions that I've I've seen. Most of all, contact us, touch base, get in touch. Karen, if someone wants to jump into Blueprint, how do they do it? Or when can they do it? Or what's the plan?

SPEAKER_00 41:02

I would say at this point, if you're listening to this podcast when it's fresh out, keep an eye out for opportunities to join a masterclass because we will be giving you some free learning opportunities. And then I'm sure the blueprint will be available after that.

unknown 41:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

It's new, it's brand spanking new. We can't wait.