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Speaker 2: He saw Potty Von dad Ward with another episode of Ologies.
Speaker 2: Hi Tally word so quick question, who doesn't love a dog?
Speaker 2: If you were like me, then just go shoot, go on,
Speaker 2: get it.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: This episode is all about the beasts that live on
Speaker 2: your couch. You're just drooling, very very hairy, best friend.
Speaker 2: I love dogs so much. I've cried about it. I've
Speaker 2: cried about it probably so have you. So before we
Speaker 2: get really into it, I just want to say a
Speaker 2: quick thanks to all the folks on Patreon who support
Speaker 2: the show Patreon dot com slash ologies. Also to all
Speaker 2: the folks who cover their bods with t shirts and such,
Speaker 2: all available at ologiesmerch dot com. You all support the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for zero dollars supporting just by reviewing on
Speaker 2: iTunes or Stitcher.
Speaker 3: So as I write.
Speaker 2: This on holiday weekend, Hey Ologies is number fifteen in
Speaker 2: the Apple Podcast Science Charts, which is huge and crazy
Speaker 2: and wonderful. Also, you know, like a dog tearing through
Speaker 2: your bathroom garbage and eating things. I read all your
Speaker 2: reviews like fucking creep, and just to prove I read them,
Speaker 2: I read you one every week. This week's Rich the
Speaker 2: Beach says this is fast becoming one of my favorite podcasts.
Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine that you can get so into
Speaker 2: a podcast about trees or bees, but this gets me
Speaker 2: every time I look at this subject and I'm like,
Speaker 2: trees dendrology, Okay, that sounds boring, and then an hour
Speaker 2: later I'm riveted to the seat and listening intently. Thanks
Speaker 2: rich the Beach. I love it when people are like,
Speaker 2: am I gonna like this topic?
Speaker 3: And then they're like, I love this topic.
Speaker 2: That's why I make this show. Okay, let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Dogs dogs to dogs, dogs dogs, so real quick. The
Speaker 2: words sinology it comes from the Greek for sinos, which
Speaker 2: means dog boom. It's pretty rare to hear sinology in English.
Speaker 2: People don't use it much, but it is a real
Speaker 2: word and it usually means a canine specialist from a
Speaker 2: breeder to maybe a show judge or a professional dog handler.
Speaker 2: So it checks out. And a dog, by the way,
Speaker 2: if you're like, what exactly is a dog? Species? Canis familiaris,
Speaker 2: which I find to be adorable families right in the
Speaker 2: name dogs share a common ancestor with wolves. Some historians
Speaker 2: think dogs were domesticated from this common ancestor over thirty
Speaker 2: five thousand years ago, So us and dogs we go
Speaker 2: way back.
Speaker 3: Now. I've known this ologist's work for so.
Speaker 2: Many years, and I've watched his TV show about dog training,
Speaker 2: and we both work on Saturday morning educational TV shows.
Speaker 2: So shout out to Innovation Nation and Lucky Dog. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry for swearing already, which I don't do on your show.
Speaker 2: So I've been a fan for years, and this year
Speaker 2: we were at the Daytime Emmys and he was nominated,
Speaker 2: and we were sitting next to each other, and his
Speaker 2: category was literally the last to be announced in a
Speaker 2: four hour ceremony. All of our feet hurt, everyone was hungry,
Speaker 2: but we were all stuck it out and he won.
Speaker 2: It was his third Emmy. We were all so excited.
Speaker 2: He gave a heartfelt speech dedicating it to the shelter
Speaker 2: dogs who didn't make it out and everyone almost cried
Speaker 2: their mascara off. I was like, come on, dude, I
Speaker 2: moren fake lashes.
Speaker 3: What are you doing to me?
Speaker 2: And then at the after party I cornered him and
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, Sinology, what do you think Please
Speaker 2: be on my podcast?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 2: He was like sure and I was like yes. So
Speaker 2: Wikipedia has called him dog Trainer to the Stars. Having
Speaker 2: calmed down and charm schooled the pups of Ellen DeGeneres
Speaker 2: and Don Cheatle and Kate Hudson and Ronda Rousi and
Speaker 2: our mutual pal Chris Hardwick, who loves him. This ologist
Speaker 2: lives and works on a huge ranch full of dogs.
Speaker 2: It is my heaven. So he invited me up to
Speaker 2: the ranch to record, and y'all, it was like Charlie
Speaker 2: about to go meet Willy Wonka.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh god, huh. I arrived.
Speaker 2: I met his personal tiny dog Lulu and Utah, who
Speaker 2: appears to be a small werewolf, as well as a
Speaker 2: bunch of dogs getting rehabbed, and one skittish, emaciated and
Speaker 2: kind of droopy faced foxhound named Betsy who had just
Speaker 2: been sprung from the shelter the day before. By the way,
Speaker 2: This ologist is super tall, well over six feet tall,
Speaker 2: very tan from being outdoors, and is great with both
Speaker 2: big dogs and super tiny ones, which was really adorable
Speaker 2: to watch. Now, I thought this episode would be like
Speaker 2: aren't dogs goofballs? But in tone, I'll be honest, this
Speaker 2: interview is kind of less clown whistles and giggles and
Speaker 2: slightly more cocktail party mixed with Sarah McLaughlin SBCA commercial,
Speaker 2: So you'll learn about his own fascinating like are you
Speaker 2: kidding me? Backstory, and where dogs come from and why
Speaker 2: they love us, and how to calm down your anxious pup,
Speaker 2: more about emotional service animals, and of course the rescue
Speaker 2: versus breeder debate. So please sit stay for a man
Speaker 2: you know as animal Brandon online. He is a field
Speaker 2: behaviorist and thus a sinologist. Brandon McMillan.
Speaker 4: Too one too.
Speaker 3: All right, you're you're rolling, but.
Speaker 4: We're actually on Well yeah, but where I got to
Speaker 4: turn on the filter.
Speaker 2: This is where you stop confessing to murders and swearing
Speaker 2: exactly JK. I was discussed already, I said the effort,
Speaker 2: So sorry, mom, okay, let's get right into it. So
Speaker 2: you are technically a sinologist, but you specialize in animal
Speaker 2: behavior across the board.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, yeah, sinology. I guess you can call myself that.
Speaker 4: I just call myself an animal behaviorist. There's a there's
Speaker 4: a believe it or not in the animal world. There's
Speaker 4: there's two kinds of experts. Okay, you have what we
Speaker 4: call the book smart experts. These are the people that
Speaker 4: went to school, they studied in books, and this is
Speaker 4: why you go to a university and you get a degree.
Speaker 4: And the other half of the field that I'm in,
Speaker 4: the other the other half of the expert is the
Speaker 4: we call them the field experts, and these are the
Speaker 4: people that actually go out and they work with animals
Speaker 4: all day. So I grew up in the circus. My
Speaker 4: parents were both wild in my entire family were all
Speaker 4: wild animal trainers. So I never read a book on
Speaker 4: animals my entire life. So if you read a book
Speaker 4: about animal science from like the nineteen thirties, right, it's
Speaker 4: all been debunked in debunked in the nineteen fifties, and
Speaker 4: then the ones in the nineteen fifties have been debunked
Speaker 4: in the seventies and the seventies, the nine you know,
Speaker 4: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So Apparently dog science is subject to trends and tweaks,
Speaker 2: not unlike your uncle's mustache and the rise and fall
Speaker 2: of denim crotches. But I checked into this, and Brandon
Speaker 2: knows this stuff. It's been all over the place. Like
Speaker 2: In eighteen forty eight, a dude named W. N. Hutchinson
Speaker 2: published a book with a quick and snappy title. It
Speaker 2: was called quote dog Breaking, the most expeditious, certain and
Speaker 2: easy method, whether great excellence or only mediocrity, be required
Speaker 2: with odds and ends for those who love the dog
Speaker 2: and the gun. How eighteen forty eight is that also
Speaker 2: dog breaking? Get bent? W? N.
Speaker 3: Hutchinson?
Speaker 2: So fast forward to the eighteen forties when dog trainer
Speaker 2: Blanche Sanders, a cool kind of Catherine Hepburn betrousered Gal,
Speaker 2: was known for her catchphrase command, jerk, praise, and I
Speaker 2: unearthed this nineteen forty six YouTube time capsule called training
Speaker 2: You to Train your Dog to.
Speaker 4: Be blunt about it.
Speaker 1: Then you'll get top drawer information in this series, not
Speaker 1: just some nonsense dreamed up by a self styled expert
Speaker 1: who gets giddy about every little dog in a window.
Speaker 2: Leash jerks and throat chains kind of stayed the norm
Speaker 2: and then in the nineteen seventies there was a group
Speaker 2: of monks in upstate New York who had a best
Speaker 2: selling book about establishing dominance over your dog. It was
Speaker 2: based on the theory that wolves live in packs, so
Speaker 2: you have to be alpha.
Speaker 3: But studies have.
Speaker 2: Since shown that wild wolves actually have a way more
Speaker 2: chill family existence with like the mom and the dad
Speaker 2: wolf sharing leadership, way fewer power struggles, which is sad
Speaker 2: and crazy when you're like man, I wish our.
Speaker 3: Culture where is civilized as wild wolves.
Speaker 2: Anyway, beating your dog into submission, as it turns out,
Speaker 2: monks can make them dangerously aggressive, probably pretty emo. They're
Speaker 2: probably on Tumblr being like my dad sucks. So in
Speaker 2: contrast to say Blanche Sanders command jerk praise, Brandon's go
Speaker 2: to is control train treat. But he never got certified
Speaker 2: with that. He just developed it from working with animals
Speaker 2: from the time he was but a wee pop.
Speaker 4: So, especially this day and age, you have there's a
Speaker 4: big misconception. A lot of people think that to be
Speaker 4: a dog trainer that you have to be what's called
Speaker 4: a certified dog trainer. Certified dog training just became a
Speaker 4: big thing in the past, like ten twelve years. Certified
Speaker 4: dog trainer was never a thing when I was growing up.
Speaker 4: Certified dog training became a thing when the Internet really exploded.
Speaker 4: And the people that created these certifications they're not even
Speaker 4: dog trainers, they're just businessmen. But all the old school
Speaker 4: dog trainers were refused to become certified because I will
Speaker 4: never take a certification course from somebody who, does you know,
Speaker 4: is not a top expert in their field themselves.
Speaker 2: So I looked into this and there are approximately one
Speaker 2: bazillion schools offering dog training certificates, crossing up to six
Speaker 2: grand for some courses. So odds are that some trainers
Speaker 2: of trainers are less experienced and in it for the money.
Speaker 2: So do your own research if this is a field
Speaker 2: you're considering. Now, how did Brandon learn all of this
Speaker 2: stuff by growing up with a totally normal, not unusual
Speaker 2: childhood at all, totally run of the mill, nothing to
Speaker 2: see here. Well, so you know you grew up around
Speaker 2: the circus and I've seen pictures. You posted a picture
Speaker 2: around Mother's Day. I think your mom holding like a
Speaker 2: tiger cub. Like, what was that? Like? How did your
Speaker 2: parents get into it? And what were some of your
Speaker 2: early memories working with animals.
Speaker 4: My father got into it. So my I'm first generation
Speaker 4: American on my father's side and he's from the UK,
Speaker 4: and this is post World War two. Times were tough
Speaker 4: in England. It was not like the modern day England
Speaker 4: we see. It's just you know, booming economy and technology
Speaker 4: after World War Two, especially up in the north of
Speaker 4: my family's from. We're from a town called Workington, which
Speaker 4: is about ten miles south of the Scottish border, and
Speaker 4: it was very poor. It was so poor back after
Speaker 4: post war that basically people were a lot of crime
Speaker 4: in the streets, a lot of stealing, a lot of
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of begging, and so what was
Speaker 4: happening is people my father was actually he was debating
Speaker 4: what did he do should he should he go to
Speaker 4: the military or should he do something else. The circus
Speaker 4: happened to be in town and he went to the circus.
Speaker 4: He was mesmerized by the lion trainer. His name was
Speaker 4: Gunther Gable Williams, who was the most famous lion tamer
Speaker 4: from the nineteen fifties into about the nineteen seventies into
Speaker 4: the eighties. And my father was so mesmerized by him,
Speaker 4: he jumped on the train and became an apprentice for him.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I'm fifteen years old.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, he's like Bie, yeah exactly. I was like,
Speaker 2: maybe I should see what this guy look like, and
Speaker 2: so I pictured someone in a mustache wearing like a
Speaker 2: wool three piece suit and a monocle incorrect. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Oh my god. Oh the Majesty so
Speaker 2: gunther Gable Williams image search returns are deeply gratifying photos
Speaker 2: of just a lemon juice blonde, sun kissed Demi God
Speaker 2: wearing bespangled, flared spandex pants and a matching vest. Hold
Speaker 2: the shirt not needed here. He looks like a wholesome,
Speaker 2: sexy Billie Idol, but with a cheetah draped around his neck.
Speaker 2: And if there's one thing you can learn from looking
Speaker 2: at him, dude could get some tail. And I'm not
Speaker 2: just talking about elephants. So if this dude swung through
Speaker 2: my post war town, I would hop onto a circus
Speaker 2: wagon so hard I would break it. So Brandon's dad
Speaker 2: was like, this dude is cool.
Speaker 3: I'm in. This is my new career Workington, I'm out.
Speaker 4: Well, there's nothing going on in Northern England. At that time,
Speaker 4: He's like, I'm either going to grow up here and
Speaker 4: become nothing, or I want to see the world. So,
Speaker 4: you know, my father always said the same thing that
Speaker 4: I said when I cause I ran away from home
Speaker 4: at fifteen, and I say, I wasn't running away from something,
Speaker 4: I was running to something. And so my father basically
Speaker 4: after about seven to ten years of apprenticing with him,
Speaker 4: he became a tiger trainer himself and Ringling Brothers. This
Speaker 4: is back in the late sixties early seventies. Ringling Brothers
Speaker 4: recruited him for his own act.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: And by the way, this is before the circus was controversial.
Speaker 4: In fact, the circus was cool back then.
Speaker 2: As so, when you ran away at fifteen, were you
Speaker 2: running away from the circus?
Speaker 3: Innocent?
Speaker 4: No? No, we were Actually my family was out of
Speaker 4: the circus by them. No, I ran away. I wasn't
Speaker 4: meant to be at home. I'm like that. I'm like
Speaker 4: that cage bird. The second you left the cage open,
Speaker 4: I was out of there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it wasn't a bad thing. I lived in
Speaker 4: Hawaii for almost four years. That's a great place to
Speaker 4: live when you don't have a home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very Yeah it's great.
Speaker 2: So side note, I thought I would find some cute
Speaker 2: statistics and just like pop them in here on a
Speaker 2: maybe like a Van Dweller's subreddit about surfers who live
Speaker 2: in VW's on the North Shore and have a better
Speaker 2: life expectancy than more traditional American lifestyles. But then, to
Speaker 2: the contrary, I fell down a rabbit hole reading about
Speaker 2: Hawaii's homelessness epidemic and a build a classify homelessness as
Speaker 2: a medical condition, and one man saying I don't have
Speaker 2: a house, but I'm not homeless. This island is my home,
Speaker 2: and this public land should serve the people. Everyone here
Speaker 2: has a home. It's Hawaii. And then I started crying
Speaker 2: reading that. But anyway, Brandon said that Hawaiian's taught him
Speaker 2: everything he needed to know, including had a shark dive.
Speaker 2: You may have also seen Brandon on Shark Week and
Speaker 2: in essence, Brandon's story of liberation went from feeling like
Speaker 2: a bird fleeing captivity in adolescence at fifteen to an
Speaker 2: adulthood of being dangled in a steel cage confronting great
Speaker 2: white sharks. Super normcore sequence of events one through line
Speaker 2: in his life clearly animals. So when you started training animals,
Speaker 2: how old were you were you doing that? You did
Speaker 2: that before you left for home Hawaii, before you kind
Speaker 2: of went off on your own.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, No, I used to prep the animals for
Speaker 4: my father's act. So I grew up with tigers in
Speaker 4: our backyard. We had lions, we had grizzly bears, we
Speaker 4: had elephants, we had primeates, we had some hoof stock,
Speaker 4: we had some reptiles. So we were true animal trainers.
Speaker 4: And so by the time I was, you know, fifteen
Speaker 4: years old, I already had more experience than half the
Speaker 4: trainers in the industry that were, you know, forty and
Speaker 4: fifty and so. So after I ran away when I
Speaker 4: was nineteen, my uncle found me in Hawaii. He brought
Speaker 4: me back to California. He had one of the biggest
Speaker 4: companies out here. They were called Hollywood Animals. They did
Speaker 4: a lot of animals from movies over the years.
Speaker 3: Remember the tiger from the Hangover filter.
Speaker 4: You're not going to the bathroom filter, there is a
Speaker 4: tiger in the bathroom. What's going on? There's a juggle
Speaker 4: kind of bathroom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was Hollywood Animals.
Speaker 4: So by the time I was nineteen. Look me, gave
Speaker 4: me an option. He goes, listen, you're joining the military,
Speaker 4: or you're coming to India with me, because we're doing
Speaker 4: a movie over there right now. And I was actually
Speaker 4: thinking about going to the military because my grandfather was
Speaker 4: World War Two veteran, and so he actually like I
Speaker 4: was literally, you know, signing the paperwork, and he like
Speaker 4: stopped the pen right there. He's like, oh my god.
Speaker 4: He was like, I was trying to hint to you,
Speaker 4: you little. He was like, you're coming to India with me.
Speaker 4: We're doing We're doing a movie. So it took me
Speaker 4: about three months to learn his animals. He had. He
Speaker 4: had a pride of lions. He had a few tigers,
Speaker 4: he had some leopards, he had some grizzly bears, he
Speaker 4: had elephants, he had some zebra. So it took me
Speaker 4: about three or four months to learn his animals. I
Speaker 4: had to slowly but surely, like acclimate myself to them
Speaker 4: so they wouldn't keep coming after me. You have to
Speaker 4: enter each of the cages, and eventually they don't look
Speaker 4: at you as prey. They look at you as one
Speaker 4: of their own.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. So do you do it a little bit,
Speaker 3: little by little, like, Hi, guys, me good.
Speaker 4: You know, believe it or not. When it comes to
Speaker 4: wild animals, they're all the same. It's it's not what
Speaker 4: you It's not what you do that's gonna help you survive.
Speaker 4: It's what you don't do.
Speaker 3: Okay, you know.
Speaker 4: So when you're dealing with predators, for example, the worst
Speaker 4: thing you can do is turn your back. If a
Speaker 4: predator is actually facing you and running towards you, believe
Speaker 4: it or not, the best thing you can do is
Speaker 4: run towards.
Speaker 3: It, an act and look big.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Yes, predators are not used to getting stocked themselves.
Speaker 2: Do you take any of this knowledge and wisdom with
Speaker 2: animal behavior and apply it to your own life? Yes,
Speaker 2: Like when you're in a business meeting and someone's trying
Speaker 2: to score you over, you're like, oh, I'm not.
Speaker 4: Going to back down one hundred percent. I do with
Speaker 4: I do it with people. I do it because you
Speaker 4: have to remember everyone you're talking to in the world,
Speaker 4: they're they're just like you. You know, whether they're smarter
Speaker 4: than they're in my opinion, they're no smarter than you,
Speaker 4: they're no better than you. So everyone is a human
Speaker 4: we all bleed, we all have emotion, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I apply the exact same theories to humans too.
Speaker 2: So at what point did you go from training tigers
Speaker 2: for movies and being in India and you've traveled all
Speaker 2: over the world, like you you are trained in how
Speaker 2: to survive in the bush, Like, at what point did
Speaker 2: you say dogs rescuing dogs?
Speaker 3: That's going to be my deal?
Speaker 4: It was. It was a slow process. I can't say
Speaker 4: this one moment that changed it all. It was basic evolution.
Speaker 4: Look when I when I joined my uncle's company, Hollywood Animals,
Speaker 4: he had every animal. And when you have a wild
Speaker 4: animal company, you always have a pack of dogs. And
Speaker 4: the reason why is because every commercial, every movie, every
Speaker 4: you know, advertisement on whether it's a magazine, there's always dogs.
Speaker 4: Not every movie has a tiger, right, you know.
Speaker 2: I just want you to know that there is an
Speaker 2: entire Wikipedia page called films about tigers, which would lead
Speaker 2: you to believe that there are a lot, but there's
Speaker 2: only twenty seven entries. Maybe someone started this and was like,
Speaker 2: who's every.
Speaker 3: Going to look at this page?
Speaker 2: And then just gave up too soon. Though the answer
Speaker 2: is me, I'm looking at it and I love it.
Speaker 4: That's what his company was known for. But believe it
Speaker 4: or not, the dogs were working way more than the
Speaker 4: tigers ever were. Oh I bet, yeah, yeah, and so
Speaker 4: so we were always working. I forget exactly what year
Speaker 4: it was. I believe I was in my early twenties.
Speaker 4: I must have been like maybe twenty one twenty two.
Speaker 4: And with any dog pack you always have, we call
Speaker 4: it our you know, our basics. In other words, we
Speaker 4: have our goldens, our labs or retrievers. Our shepherds are roddis.
Speaker 4: And these are the most common dogs you'll ever see
Speaker 4: in like a movie or commercial. And as time goes on,
Speaker 4: of course, dogs unfortunately don't live forever. So next thing,
Speaker 4: you know, a Rottweiler she hit fourteen, and you know,
Speaker 4: she passed away on us. And my uncle was old school.
Speaker 4: He said, we got to go to the breeder and
Speaker 4: get a new one. And I said, at the time,
Speaker 4: I was living in an apartment and it was right
Speaker 4: in West Los Angeles, and I was about a block
Speaker 4: away from the shelter, and I could hear these dogs
Speaker 4: just sparking all day and all night. And I went
Speaker 4: in there a couple of times just out of curiosity
Speaker 4: because I, you know, I was old school too back then,
Speaker 4: and so I found the shelters to be a place
Speaker 4: that you know, we were lied to. We were lied
Speaker 4: to from the nineteen fifties. People always told us that
Speaker 4: the shelter dogs are damaged goods. Shelter dogs have only
Speaker 4: the worst or the worse, you know. And and suddenly
Speaker 4: you walk in there and you're surrounded by, you know,
Speaker 4: all these dogs that you were, you know, taught to
Speaker 4: be afraid your entire life, and suddenly they walk up
Speaker 4: to your face and kiss you. So I found a
Speaker 4: rottweiler in there. Her name was Raven. And I went
Speaker 4: to my uncle and I said, why are we going
Speaker 4: to go to a breeder? When I said, we can
Speaker 4: get this female that she's great, she's about a year
Speaker 4: and a half. I said, I promise you, I won't
Speaker 4: let you down. Let me just rescue her. He's like,
Speaker 4: shelter dogs are damage goods. You know, they're the worst
Speaker 4: of the worst. He was old school, and I said, okay,
Speaker 4: I put my job in the line. I know I
Speaker 4: wasn't get fired.
Speaker 3: Like literal nepotism.
Speaker 2: Nepotism side note is derived from the Italian for nephew
Speaker 2: because popes and bishops were like, well, shoot, I'm not
Speaker 2: allowed to procreate and have sons, so I'll give this
Speaker 2: cool thing to a different younger male, such as, for example,
Speaker 2: my nephew. So despite his uncle being dubious, Brandon went
Speaker 2: back to the shelter.
Speaker 4: I rescued her and he was telling me not to.
Speaker 4: I just went in and pulled her. I'm like, there,
Speaker 4: there's a new dog for the company. And it took
Speaker 4: me about two three months a trainer, and she went
Speaker 4: on to become one of our best Rottweilers of the company.
Speaker 4: So I changed his mind right there and from there,
Speaker 4: as the years went on, you know, other dogs were
Speaker 4: passing away and we replaced. We replaced our goldens and
Speaker 4: our labs, and our shepherds and our jack Russell's next thing,
Speaker 4: you know, we had a full pack of dogs that
Speaker 4: were all from the shelter. And as in this process,
Speaker 4: I started reading about the statistics of shelter dogs just
Speaker 4: in America alone. You know we're talking. You know, back
Speaker 4: in those days, it was more like, you know, two
Speaker 4: million dogs a year were euthanized because they couldn't find
Speaker 4: homes in the shelter systems. Thankfully, that number has dropped
Speaker 4: in this day and age, Yeah, but it's still it's
Speaker 4: still we're pushing. Pushing a million is debatable too, because
Speaker 4: shelters are not required to keep a number on the
Speaker 4: on the euthanizations, so it's all on average.
Speaker 3: Oh I thought that they would have to have spreadsheets.
Speaker 4: No, no, not the euthanizations, because because some shelters they
Speaker 4: actually euthanize so fast. But there's some shelters, I mean,
Speaker 4: they will euthanize the dog the second and comes in.
Speaker 4: If they see that any aggression, they won't even give
Speaker 4: it a chance, so that dog won't even be on
Speaker 4: the record, they won't even be on the books.
Speaker 3: Us go, yes, God, that's so sad. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that this episode will be such a
Speaker 2: heart tugger and desipated.
Speaker 4: So when I started reading about these statistics, I'm thinking
Speaker 4: to myself, we have an epidemic here in America that
Speaker 4: most people don't even know about. So it's become this
Speaker 4: underground you know, warrior club of us that basically have
Speaker 4: to fight behind the scenes, and we don't get a
Speaker 4: lot of recognition for it. I lucked out. I got
Speaker 4: recognition for it. For being you know, a lone ranger.
Speaker 4: You know, I got a show from it. I'm one
Speaker 4: in a million.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know you mentioned that your uncle didn't have
Speaker 3: a lot of faith in this rottweiler.
Speaker 2: Like, what do you think about shelter dog's being damaged goods?
Speaker 2: And what have you noticed in trying to train them
Speaker 2: or in looking at the behavior versus you know, breeder
Speaker 2: puppies that you get, you know, as soon as they're weaned.
Speaker 2: What challenges do shelter dogs have and what advantages do
Speaker 2: they have?
Speaker 4: Well, look, you have to understand a shelter dog is
Speaker 4: basically someone's it's someone's trash in you know, I'm using
Speaker 4: that metaphorically. It's basically someone threw them out. They screwed
Speaker 4: this animal up as much as they possibly could, and
Speaker 4: then finally the last straw was getting that shelter get
Speaker 4: out of my life. So you have to remember you're
Speaker 4: dealing with a lot of residue from the past from
Speaker 4: someone else's irresponsible you know behavior or just I basically
Speaker 4: call it uneducated you know behavior, because you know, a
Speaker 4: lot of people don't realize how easy dogs are to train.
Speaker 4: They might be you know, high energy, or they might
Speaker 4: you know, have different personality traits. But dogs are actually
Speaker 4: very easy to train. Now they're the biggest drawbacks of
Speaker 4: a shelter dog. I will say this, They're not a
Speaker 4: blank slate like a puppy. A puppy is a blank slate. Okay,
Speaker 4: that is a great thing to have training wise, but
Speaker 4: you have to remember, most shelter dogs you're gonna get,
Speaker 4: they're going to be past the destructive point, past the chewing,
Speaker 4: past that that age where it's like it's it's a
Speaker 4: lot of work. So a lot of shelter dogs, you know,
Speaker 4: you're talking, there's very few that are going to be
Speaker 4: like under a year. We're talking, you know, most of
Speaker 4: them are going to be a year, two years, three years.
Speaker 4: And believe it or not, it's a lot easier to
Speaker 4: deal with a dog after they've hit you know, that
Speaker 4: year mark. Because a puppy, when you're talking about a
Speaker 4: six to eight week old puppy, you're talking, it's like
Speaker 4: twenty four hour care. You're not going to sleep for
Speaker 4: the first you know, a week or two, I promise you.
Speaker 4: You know. Because everyone has this idea, like this fantasy
Speaker 4: land of like just rolling in this green grass of
Speaker 4: puppies all over them. I'm like, yeah, until you bring
Speaker 4: it back to your house. It's chewing everything. It is
Speaker 4: just releasing all of its body fluids everywhere in your head. Yeah,
Speaker 4: say goodbye to your Grandma's rug. You know, your favorite
Speaker 4: chair is going to look like, you know, a Nila
Speaker 4: bone on the side. So there's a lot of there's
Speaker 4: a lot of drawbacks to having, you know, a puppy
Speaker 4: from a breeder. You know so, and look, the bottom
Speaker 4: line is there's any any dog's gonna be work. That's
Speaker 4: where the lines come together. So you have, you know
Speaker 4: your pros and cons of both. But regardless, you're gonna
Speaker 4: have to train both. You're gonna have to train a puppy.
Speaker 4: And by the way, you're gonna make mistakes with a puppy.
Speaker 4: Everybody always has this idea, Oh, it's a puppy, so
Speaker 4: it doesn't have any any history. Well, you never guaranteed,
Speaker 4: because there's there's there's two basic laws when it comes
Speaker 4: to animal behavior. You have you have it's called the
Speaker 4: nature versus nurture. Well, as we all that's that's a
Speaker 4: common phrase we all understand, and that means there's some
Speaker 4: things that are that are that we that we teach
Speaker 4: the animal, and there's some things the animal automatically has
Speaker 4: in its personality traits kind of wrapped up in their DNA.
Speaker 2: I read a bunch of canine biology articles and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna boil it down for you. So yes, it is
Speaker 2: nature and nurture, genetics, and experience that contribute to a
Speaker 2: dog's personality and abilities, which has led dogs to different
Speaker 2: jobs like stubby legged Doxies used to charge into badger
Speaker 2: holes like bitches, watch out, and they were so good
Speaker 2: at that. And your keys were bred to be tiny
Speaker 2: and accompany miners in small places to eat the rats.
Speaker 2: Poodles were bog dogs. They were good at navigating the
Speaker 2: water to pick up hunters dead ducks, and even the
Speaker 2: Queen's Corgies once had the job of herding geese, hence
Speaker 2: they are very short. So today we rely on apps
Speaker 2: and robots judicia for us. But back then it was like,
Speaker 2: I need an animal with a gangly face and no
Speaker 2: tail and boat arms for the purpose of finding and
Speaker 2: biting the village witches.
Speaker 3: And they were like, cool, here you go, we bred
Speaker 3: you a new dog for that.
Speaker 4: Now here's the best part of a shelter. Dog, most
Speaker 4: shelter dogs. Most are some sort of mix. When you
Speaker 4: have a mix, you're creating new genetics. New genetics is
Speaker 4: much healthier than a purebread. Purebreads are very expensive. Purebreads,
Speaker 4: especially the more pure the dog, especially the more popular
Speaker 4: of the purebread. So, for example, a lot of your shepherds,
Speaker 4: a lot of your goldens, a lot of your labs,
Speaker 4: they come with a longer list of health problems. And
Speaker 4: the reason why is because it is such high demand
Speaker 4: for these for these breeds, especially this day and age.
Speaker 4: You have the French bulldogs are very popular, and the
Speaker 4: more popular the dog, the more of the demand the
Speaker 4: breeders are going to be out there, you know, breeding
Speaker 4: these dogs like you know, we call them. I call
Speaker 4: them pez dispensers. That's what I call the females that
Speaker 4: are actually I call them that because that's exactly what
Speaker 4: these females are doing. You know, these breeders are literally
Speaker 4: turning these females into a pezzes. They're just that their
Speaker 4: only job is to produce babies, produced puppies, you know,
Speaker 4: and it's sad. Now you have an entire litter of
Speaker 4: dogs with a lot of health problems because you're not.
Speaker 4: You're not taking you know, you know, you're not taking
Speaker 4: brand new genetics and and and mixing. You're kind of
Speaker 4: taken the same dogs, you know, in the same region
Speaker 4: of the of the state, and you're breeding those same
Speaker 4: dogs together, and they're all like distant, distant cousins. This
Speaker 4: is why hypdasplacia is so prominent in German shepherds this
Speaker 4: this day and age. This is why French bulldogs have
Speaker 4: every health problem you know under the sun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, frenchy problems include, but are not limited to, deafness,
Speaker 2: laryngeal collapse, hairy eyelids, screwtails, and heat stress. They also
Speaker 2: commonly have giant heads and narrow birth canals, so they
Speaker 2: have to be delivered by c section. They are deeply,
Speaker 2: ridiculously cute. But that salad of selected pure bread genetics
Speaker 2: isn't always the healthiest.
Speaker 4: Now shelter dogs, because they're not. Even when you see
Speaker 4: like a pure shelter dog, a lot of times it's
Speaker 4: got a little bit of a mix in that that
Speaker 4: little bit of a mix makes it ten times healthier.
Speaker 4: That right there saves you a fortune in a long run,
Speaker 4: dog lives a happier, healthy life.
Speaker 2: I thought about it in those economics that you're going
Speaker 2: to be going to the vet last.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, because a lot of people they have this
Speaker 4: idea pure bread, it's beautiful this and not. I said, well,
Speaker 4: you know, it's not beautiful your credit card at the
Speaker 4: end of the month because you're taking that thing to
Speaker 4: the vet constantly. Allergies. Oh yeah, it's very common.
Speaker 2: Well okay, now you said training a dog is very easy.
Speaker 2: It's definitely very easy for you because you grew up
Speaker 2: in in like a crazy idyllic circus life where you
Speaker 2: got to learn a lot of this stuff. When you're
Speaker 2: trying to explain it to someone who is not as say,
Speaker 2: master follows you, when what do you think is the
Speaker 2: easiest thing about trackin dog? Do you what are the fundamentals?
Speaker 4: Okay, so I tell people dog training is just like
Speaker 4: martial arts for anyone who's ever done martial arts, even
Speaker 4: if you haven't done martial arts, I have not done
Speaker 4: martial arts. Martial arts is a very simple theory of
Speaker 4: technique and conditioning. That's it. As I've been I've been
Speaker 4: a student of several martial arts my entire life, and
Speaker 4: it wasn't until I was older that I understood how
Speaker 4: easy martial arts really is that I that I that
Speaker 4: I started applying it to my animal training techniques. So
Speaker 4: if you were to join I don't know if you
Speaker 4: know kickboxing, but if you don't, I do not. Okay,
Speaker 4: if you were to go into a kickboxing class right now,
Speaker 4: it would only take that instructor an hour or two
Speaker 4: to teach you the theory of here's how you punch.
Speaker 4: After the class, you now have the technique. I get it.
Speaker 4: Conditioning takes weeks and months, if not years. Okay, that's
Speaker 4: what gets you fast at it, and that's what gets
Speaker 4: you in in you know, in combat mode where you
Speaker 4: can actually use it in a practical, you know, a
Speaker 4: real life situation. There's no difference between martial arts and
Speaker 4: dog training. Dog training is the same thing. I can
Speaker 4: teach anybody a technique on how to teach a dog
Speaker 4: to lie down. So, whether I'm teaching a human or
Speaker 4: whether I'm teaching a dog. If I'm I'm teaching a
Speaker 4: dog to lie down, all I do is I teach
Speaker 4: the dog to lie down it only it only takes
Speaker 4: the dog about an hour to truly understand. Oh, I
Speaker 4: get it. You want me to lie down now? I'm
Speaker 4: not saying the dog's going to be great at it,
Speaker 4: and you could say it twenty times, the dog might
Speaker 4: only do it, like, you know, one or two times.
Speaker 4: But guess what the technique is in there in their
Speaker 4: their their arsenal you know of training. Now, the conditioning,
Speaker 4: that's where that's where most people fail because you have
Speaker 4: to understand people. They have this idea. Oh, they'll just
Speaker 4: go to like a dog trainer, and the dog trainer says, okay,
Speaker 4: we're gonna get your dog to stay. So after that
Speaker 4: one hour, the family of the dog, they're like, this
Speaker 4: is amazing, I taught my dog to stay. But that's
Speaker 4: where they end it right there. They don't condition the dog.
Speaker 4: If you don't condition your animal, your dog is barely
Speaker 4: going to be trained. Okay, there's trained, and there's well trained.
Speaker 4: Conditioning is what makes the animal well trained. So you
Speaker 4: want you to teach your dog that stay every day,
Speaker 4: three times a day, just for five minutes. It's like
Speaker 4: muscle memory. Remember the karate kid, I do remember wax
Speaker 4: on wax off.
Speaker 2: Sure do, wax on, wax on, wax on wax So why.
Speaker 4: Did he do that?
Speaker 2: He got so good at it without even realizing.
Speaker 4: It he was. He was teaching his body muscle memory.
Speaker 4: You know that. Whenever he actually started teaching him the theory,
Speaker 4: I think it was was he teaching karate? I think
Speaker 4: so karate kid, right, karate? That's all he wanted to do.
Speaker 4: He wanted to teach him muscle memory. And it's exact
Speaker 4: same thing with with animal training. It's just conditioning. I'm
Speaker 4: going to teach your dog a sit. Now your dog
Speaker 4: has the technique. You have to condition your animal. Okay,
Speaker 4: So I, as a trainer can teach your dog the sit.
Speaker 4: But I can't move into your house for the next
Speaker 4: six months and keep teaching the sit.
Speaker 3: That's a higher fee.
Speaker 4: Yes, I imagine exactly.
Speaker 2: So when you're doing your show, how long does it
Speaker 2: take for you to train certain dogs? By the way,
Speaker 2: during parts of this interview, there was a tiny Chihuahua
Speaker 2: in my lap and I loved it.
Speaker 4: Hi you Lulu, Lulu? Am I going to have to
Speaker 4: kick you out of here?
Speaker 1: Mute?
Speaker 2: How long would you say it takes you to train
Speaker 2: a dog from shelter to like you can?
Speaker 3: You are now home ready?
Speaker 2: You know where to go potty, you know what furniture
Speaker 2: to go on, which ones you should stay off.
Speaker 3: Like how long is that? How long should that process take?
Speaker 4: It depends on the dog. Yeah, you know, dogs are
Speaker 4: just like humans. You have your A students, and you
Speaker 4: have your average students. Every once in a while you
Speaker 4: have your D students unfortunately, which we try to edge
Speaker 4: them up to a C plus. But every dog is different.
Speaker 4: So I always say this, here's the here's the best
Speaker 4: way I can always describe. People are always under the
Speaker 4: mindset they say there's certain dogs that are just smarter
Speaker 4: than others. I say, that's that's completely false. And here's
Speaker 4: why I say that. It's not that any dog is
Speaker 4: smarter than the next. I say, there's response time. Response
Speaker 4: time is really what you're what you're seeing. So for example,
Speaker 4: you have your you have your your main dogs that
Speaker 4: we always think of, like, you know, our most intelligent
Speaker 4: breeds are Border Collies, Aussi Shepherds, German Shepherds, labradors. What
Speaker 4: else is the smart poodles are very smart. Yeah, there's
Speaker 4: a lot that I'm missing here, but all you all
Speaker 4: you're seeing is response time because in reality, a loss
Speaker 4: of apso or a Pikinese, which are not known to
Speaker 4: be the most you know, I don't want to throw
Speaker 4: any breezes into the bus. I know there's a lot
Speaker 4: of people listening right now. They're not playing chess, but
Speaker 4: of hunters of breeds, there's like the top ten. The
Speaker 4: Pekinese generally is not making in the top ten, or
Speaker 4: remember the top fifty. But it doesn't mean that a
Speaker 4: Pikinese cannot learn everything a German shepherd or a border
Speaker 4: calling can learn. It just means the response time is
Speaker 4: not as quick. So think about a computer. You have
Speaker 4: a twenty eighteen MacBook and a two thousand and three MacBook.
Speaker 4: They both kind of do the same thing. Gase type
Speaker 4: of the letter the same and they both kind of
Speaker 4: do the same thing, but this one's a little slower.
Speaker 4: But it does not mean they're not as intelligent. It
Speaker 4: just means response time. That's all we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Do you have a favorite breed? Do people ask you
Speaker 3: that a lot?
Speaker 4: The one you're petting right now, lug Yet I have
Speaker 4: my top I have my top five that I like
Speaker 4: to train, And it's mainly because of what we were
Speaker 4: just talking about, response time, Because I like I like
Speaker 4: training dogs for not only a purpose, but I like
Speaker 4: training them for like a job. I love. I love
Speaker 4: seeing dogs work, especially when they're working in the original
Speaker 4: jobs that they were originally bred for. So like, for example,
Speaker 4: you know you saw outside I had that bloodhound mix. Yes,
Speaker 4: I just got her yesterday, but I'll probably do some
Speaker 4: nosework with her. And nosework means, you know, you're teaching
Speaker 4: the dog to use their no and you're teaching them
Speaker 4: actual scent like kind of games, fun stuff they can
Speaker 4: do with their nose. So if you can actually work
Speaker 4: an animal and identify what they are originally bred for,
Speaker 4: those are the kind of dogs I like working. So
Speaker 4: for example, like the Golden retrievers, the laboratory retrievers, I
Speaker 4: love teaching them service dog techniques because retrievers they like
Speaker 4: picking things up off the ground and handing it to people,
Speaker 4: you know, so I train them for people in wheelchairs.
Speaker 2: So Brandon, alongside a military dog trainer named Mike Hurstick,
Speaker 2: started Angus Service Dogs and it's a nonprofit that trains
Speaker 2: service animals for disabled veterans, many of whom were hit
Speaker 2: by improvised explosive devices and are just learning to walk
Speaker 2: on prosthetics. And yes, I watched some videos about how
Speaker 2: these dogs brought independence and true joy back to veterans'
Speaker 2: lives and yes, I cried again.
Speaker 4: Okay, Now, when you have prosthetics, it's very difficult to
Speaker 4: reach down to the ground and pick up your keys,
Speaker 4: or your sunglasses or your hat. These dogs are trying
Speaker 4: to pick up the objects for them, and so good
Speaker 4: at that.
Speaker 3: They're bread for that.
Speaker 4: I prefer the retrievers because now I'm teaching a dog
Speaker 4: to use their natural instincts. That's why it's called the retriever.
Speaker 4: They were originally bred to assist a hunter when they
Speaker 4: shoot the.
Speaker 3: Waterfowl, right and go grab that duck yep.
Speaker 4: And furthermore, and the reason why the retrievers were were
Speaker 4: the ideal dog is because goldens and labs, they're known
Speaker 4: to have a very soft grip.
Speaker 3: Is that what the egg test is? Yes, so google.
Speaker 2: Dogs plus egg test highly recommended. Although I do need
Speaker 2: to have a word with people who attempted this with
Speaker 2: a raw egg in their carpeted rumpist rooms, like, no,
Speaker 2: don't don't do that.
Speaker 4: So you can teach any dog to retrieve, Okay, you
Speaker 4: can do it with pit bulls, you can do it
Speaker 4: with rotwilers. The problem is you try it with a
Speaker 4: rotwiler with your with your sunglasses. You might not want
Speaker 4: to try your expensive sunglasses because they're gonna retrieve it
Speaker 4: for you to bring it back to you, but they
Speaker 4: might clamp down on it too hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Oh, don't think I'm a baby.
Speaker 4: Exactly. You know, same with I find. I find the
Speaker 4: same way with the pit bulls. I find the same
Speaker 4: way with a lot of the like like a mastiff
Speaker 4: for example, they just they can't help it, you know.
Speaker 4: But the retrievers, they were that's what their original job was,
Speaker 4: so they would they would have these retrievers go out
Speaker 4: and bring the water fowl back because they would literally
Speaker 4: it's almost like like a four year old just grabbing
Speaker 4: your hand. Come this way. Yeah, these are natural talents
Speaker 4: the dog has, so same with the you know, same
Speaker 4: with the shepherds. The shepherds are working dogs. Same with
Speaker 4: the border collies. You know, even though they're a herder,
Speaker 4: they're a working dog. They need a job. So I
Speaker 4: love breeds like that. I love German Shepherds, I love
Speaker 4: Border Collies, I love Jack Russell's. You know, these are
Speaker 4: dogs that were meant to work. They're meant to to
Speaker 4: thrive on a job and if you don't give them
Speaker 4: a job. That's where the behavior problems come in.
Speaker 3: Right, they need something to do.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, I'll give you the best example of the
Speaker 4: modern day working dog. There's very few breeds out there
Speaker 4: left in the world that are bred specifically for work,
Speaker 4: because we have technology that does all the jobs they
Speaker 4: did in the past.
Speaker 3: Right we got robots.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, we have exterminators. That's why we don't need
Speaker 4: Jack Russell's anymore. That's why the skipper key below you
Speaker 4: right now, they are outdated because we now have termin
Speaker 4: x coming to our house to get ridding our rats.
Speaker 4: You know, I prefer a skipper key. But yeah, but
Speaker 4: you have what's called the Belgian melinwah. You ever heard
Speaker 4: of that bran?
Speaker 3: No, that sounds like a sooux fle It's a.
Speaker 4: Okay, so the Belgian melinwall will just give you one
Speaker 4: guess where it's from.
Speaker 2: I did some research on this and it turns out
Speaker 2: it's Belgium.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a military police dog. This is when
Speaker 4: you see the canine units. Huh. It looks like a
Speaker 4: like a copper Brownish German shepherd with a black face. Oh,
Speaker 4: people think it's a German shepherd. It's actually a Belgian shepherd.
Speaker 4: And so what they did was they capitalized on this
Speaker 4: dog's high energy and they found out this dog is
Speaker 4: so high energy. All it wants to do is is
Speaker 4: have a ball. That's all it wants, like I need
Speaker 4: that ball. I need that like almost like an addiction.
Speaker 4: And so what what the what these military and law
Speaker 4: enforcement trainers figured out years ago, they said, this dog
Speaker 4: basically it doesn't work for food. It works for one thing,
Speaker 4: it's favorite ball. So now what they do is they say,
Speaker 4: they take the ball and they hide it, and now
Speaker 4: they train the dog to become like explosive detection, contraband detection.
Speaker 4: This is why these dogs are trained so well because
Speaker 4: the dog, it all it thinks about all day is
Speaker 4: that ball. It's just wants that ball. And this is
Speaker 4: why they're a working dog because basically they're so like
Speaker 4: just they want that ball so bad, whatever toy it is,
Speaker 4: they're kind of fixed on, you know, they're addicted to. Basically,
Speaker 4: that's why they are such good workers. So so cute
Speaker 4: dog's noses are much more reliable than any machine out
Speaker 4: there in the world, like scent hounds, like a bloodhound. Yeah,
Speaker 4: oh yeah, it'll put like a Belgian melonwater shame.
Speaker 2: That's so crazy. That must be so confusing for them
Speaker 2: all the time. It must be like.
Speaker 3: Hearing ten different playlists going all the time because you're
Speaker 3: smelling everything.
Speaker 4: Well, that's why hounds are very difficult to train.
Speaker 3: Because they're so distracted.
Speaker 4: Yes, So for example, people always call me with how
Speaker 4: like bloodhounds or like a beagle that fascinatings? Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: and they say my dog doesn't listen to me, and
Speaker 4: so I say, okay, bring it over. They bring it over,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh, well, that's why you could have
Speaker 4: told me that over the phone. Your dog is a hound.
Speaker 4: So their sense of smell is literally I don't know
Speaker 4: exactly what the numbers are. Maybe you could find this
Speaker 4: you're good at that house.
Speaker 2: So a little cursory research revealed that humans have about
Speaker 2: five million scent receptors, but bloodhounds have three hundred million.
Speaker 2: And the long ears and that chin wattle, the blue gee,
Speaker 2: blue blue blue bo that's called a do lap, and
Speaker 2: they help sweep scents toward the nose. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of reasons to be happy you don't have a
Speaker 2: flappy neck, but smelling bus farts would be the main one.
Speaker 4: It's crazy how how much more powerful their sense of smell,
Speaker 4: which is why they're the number one dog for homicide
Speaker 4: protection because they can find a body out in the
Speaker 4: woods miles away. I mean, once you get a little,
Speaker 4: just a trickle of a scent of what they're actually
Speaker 4: looking for, they can track it for miles.
Speaker 3: Is that how you're gonna train Betsy. You're like, I
Speaker 3: hated body for you to find it.
Speaker 4: Well, you won't see that, unlucky dog. I don't think
Speaker 4: we'll find a dead body, but we'll figure something out.
Speaker 2: Do not hold your breath for that spin off and
Speaker 2: stupid question. But with all the species he's trained to
Speaker 2: get to his current career, are dogs his favorite animal?
Speaker 2: Or is there a sneaky one he likes more?
Speaker 4: Dogs have stolen my heart but that way, yeah, dogs have.
Speaker 4: They've They've made me a better person. They've taught me
Speaker 4: a lot about myself. They taught me a lot about,
Speaker 4: you know, just human nature. There's there's a there's a
Speaker 4: ying and the yang of human nature. They teach me
Speaker 4: on how just vicious human beings can be. Because I
Speaker 4: see this in the shelter, I have to pick these
Speaker 4: dogs up from the rubble. You know, I have to
Speaker 4: pick these dogs up from the rubble. They're physically defeated,
Speaker 4: they're mentally defeated, they're psychologically defeated. There's nothing that they
Speaker 4: collapse when they get to the ranch here. And but
Speaker 4: there's the other side of the ying and the yang.
Speaker 4: Then it also tells me there's you know, there's there's
Speaker 4: hope for humanity because there's also an army of people
Speaker 4: out there that are trying to help these dogs that
Speaker 4: right there, there's no other animal in the world that
Speaker 4: I can think of that really does that to you,
Speaker 4: like a dog that basically they look and they stare
Speaker 4: out of your soul and they're like help me, you know.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean, I mean, you got Lulu on
Speaker 4: your lap right now. Was she was pretty much you know,
Speaker 4: she was like the template the foundation of the show.
Speaker 2: So just FYI, thirteen year old Lulu still in my lap.
Speaker 2: But it's easy to forget because she weighs about as
Speaker 2: much as a mango.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Brandon saw her in around twenty eleven, and she was
Speaker 2: already a little older for an adoptable dog, like four
Speaker 2: or five back then, which is a lot in dog ears,
Speaker 2: and then you know even more when you multiply it
Speaker 2: by la years.
Speaker 4: She was in a shelter, and she was I saw
Speaker 4: her there every day when I was going, and she
Speaker 4: was there for probably about three or four months. She's
Speaker 4: at Chihuahua.
Speaker 3: So side note.
Speaker 2: I used to think the most fun way of pronouncing
Speaker 2: this breed was Chihuahua, But after hearing New Jersey born
Speaker 2: Brandon pronounce it, I have determined that his is the
Speaker 2: best and the most endearing.
Speaker 4: Chiuas are very common in the shelters get they get overlooked,
Speaker 4: very very often. So finally it was down to her
Speaker 4: last day and I said, what's going on with that Chihuahua.
Speaker 4: She seems so sweet, she seems so cute this and
Speaker 4: now they're like, no one has any interest, you know.
Speaker 4: So I rescued her, thinking, actually I was sorry. I
Speaker 4: drove about you know, probably about a mile away, and
Speaker 4: I was in rush hour traffic and I was thinking
Speaker 4: about her, and I made a U turn went back
Speaker 4: and I got her. And you know, a little dog
Speaker 4: like this, who'd have thought that, you know, here's me,
Speaker 4: I'm six foot three. You think I would have like
Speaker 4: the rott Wilders of the pitbulls and the chihuahua is
Speaker 4: what you know I roll with, So yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: dogs do that to humans. You know, there's so many
Speaker 4: stories of that. You hear of an animal helping a
Speaker 4: human out. There's so many stories of you know, people
Speaker 4: just going through cancer, whether they or not, they said,
Speaker 4: the dog was there with me the entire time. You know,
Speaker 4: that doesn't happen with crocodile. You know what I'm saying that.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: My pet rooster exactly so much.
Speaker 2: I'm sure once or twice. I just want to say,
Speaker 2: I researched and there have been many emotional support roosters
Speaker 2: as well as peacocks, podbillied pigs, therapy turkeys, some spiders.
Speaker 2: Not all of those species care. However, if you're like
Speaker 2: going through a breakup, they're like, I'm a turkey, are you?
Speaker 3: Why are you hugging me?
Speaker 4: Dogs understand human emotion. They understand especially the more they
Speaker 4: hang around us, and this comes with a mix of
Speaker 4: their sense of smell. They understand there's chemical changes going
Speaker 4: on our body, which is why they can They can
Speaker 4: detect diabetes, They can detect a blood sugar drop, they
Speaker 4: can detect cancer. They can detect a seizure about to happen.
Speaker 4: You know, they can detect pretty much anything in our
Speaker 4: bodies that our noses, our weak little human noses cannot detect.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, We don't even know we
Speaker 4: have you know, diabetes, are about to have a seizure,
Speaker 4: and suddenly the dog starts changing its behavior ten minutes
Speaker 4: before a seizure. And next thing you know, you have
Speaker 4: a seizure and people say your dog is actually identifying,
Speaker 4: it's indicating on you. You know, I don't know of
Speaker 4: another animal that does this, right, Yeah, and I've worked
Speaker 4: with them all. You know.
Speaker 2: Does it change the way you look at yourself as like,
Speaker 2: do you have to see yourself as the alpha of
Speaker 2: this pack?
Speaker 3: And do you do you.
Speaker 2: See alpha behaviors and beta behaviors in groups and apply
Speaker 2: that to humans at all?
Speaker 4: Not? Really, I'm not believe it or not. I'm not
Speaker 4: that egotistical to be the alpha male in a group. Honestly,
Speaker 4: you know, the loudest one in the room is the
Speaker 4: weakest in my opinion. Ah, you know hear that now,
Speaker 4: I'm usually honestly, I'm I'm pretty much I'm a loner.
Speaker 1: I'm a loner, Doddy Rebel.
Speaker 4: I like, yeah, I don't like hanging out big groups
Speaker 4: of people. I don't like you know, so I'm kind
Speaker 4: of a lone ranger in life.
Speaker 2: And also you have ten friends on the proper right now.
Speaker 2: They're all very hairy and small. But do you do
Speaker 2: you think that the dogs are important for people who
Speaker 2: who have introversion or who are who are lonelier. That's
Speaker 2: one thing about dogs. I feel like there are so
Speaker 2: valued for because a lot of times in life we
Speaker 2: don't get unconditional love the way that we get it
Speaker 2: from a dog.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Your dog does not care what kind of cards you drive,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, you know there's people are seeing the there's
Speaker 4: you know, the emotional support dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 4: that became very popular in the past ten years now.
Speaker 4: Emotional support dogs have been around for thousands of years.
Speaker 4: You know, this is where the you know, original lap
Speaker 4: dogs came from, right, like a Maltese for example, that
Speaker 4: was like one of the true original lap dogs. And
Speaker 4: so it was it was to provide you know, comfort
Speaker 4: and emotional support to somebody you know who has just
Speaker 4: you know, needed a companion. And in the past ten
Speaker 4: twelve years, emotional support animals have also just had a resurgence,
Speaker 4: you know, and everyone's like this a new new word
Speaker 4: of the decade, and I'm like, well, that's just actually
Speaker 4: an old world that's been around from you know, since
Speaker 4: the biblical times. Yeah, and the reason why it's become
Speaker 4: very popular is because people are seeing more and more.
Speaker 4: I see it all the time with for example, autistic kids.
Speaker 4: I work a lot with autistic kids, train a lot
Speaker 4: of service dogs for them, and we train these dogs
Speaker 4: to do kind of all kinds of tasks whatever. But
Speaker 4: the most important thing that these dogs offer these kids
Speaker 4: are emotional support. Because a lot of these kids, whether
Speaker 4: they're you know, whether they're autistic or whether they just
Speaker 4: have anxiety or they're just very shy and they just
Speaker 4: can't you know, open up to the world. The dog
Speaker 4: does not see them with a disability or a condition.
Speaker 4: They don't see you as as any as as any
Speaker 4: different than anybody else. They're seeing, you know, everything but
Speaker 4: the but the surface. You know, dogs are they're they're
Speaker 4: they're like the ultimate poker player. They can read tells,
Speaker 4: they know what you're thinking.
Speaker 3: So, yes, dogs have evolved to care.
Speaker 2: Even chimpanzees don't follow a human gaze or pointing like
Speaker 2: domesticated dogs do. So the whites of human eyes they're
Speaker 2: called sclera, and they were adapted and evolved to communicate
Speaker 2: with other humans. So we have these non pigmented sclera
Speaker 2: and small irises in our eyes, so we can tell
Speaker 2: where each other's eyeballs are moving and if we're averting
Speaker 2: a gaze because we're shady, and dogs are capable of
Speaker 2: following that in ways that even chimps can't. So evolutionary speaking,
Speaker 2: this helps dogs predict like, Okay, you're looking at a microwave.
Speaker 2: That must mean you're about to pick up the hot pocket.
Speaker 2: Some steamy ham may soon drop on the floor. I'm
Speaker 2: watching what you're doing.
Speaker 4: I got this.
Speaker 2: Now on the topic of hot things dropping, let's get
Speaker 2: to your questions. But before we take questions from you,
Speaker 2: our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break
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Speaker 3: Sponsors. Why sponsors?
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Speaker 1: Imagine the place where you can escape for a day,
Speaker 1: get immersed in a world of rooms, inspiration, and expertise,
Speaker 1: where you can lay in luxury, accommodation and kids cam
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Speaker 2: Okay, your questions one question and I got a lot
Speaker 2: of questions from the Patreon page.
Speaker 3: I FI, are you ready for a rapid fire a round?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Go?
Speaker 2: Okay, patrons are got to be easy to answer. Laura
Speaker 2: Mulligan wants to know wired dogs always ready.
Speaker 4: To just party, party like what in your house?
Speaker 3: Or just hang? Just why are dogs always so down
Speaker 3: to hang?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 4: I mean they're dogs. Dogs are very dogs are very
Speaker 4: social creatures. I'm as well put it this way. Here's
Speaker 4: what I cannot answer. And this is a million dollar
Speaker 4: question I have for anybody, right, why do dogs love
Speaker 4: to play underneath your feet?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: There's a so I you know, I have a massive
Speaker 4: ranch here, I have a big training yard. They can
Speaker 4: run around there all day. But when I go down there,
Speaker 4: they choose to play right underneath my feet, you know, feet.
Speaker 3: I'll look into that.
Speaker 4: I don't know why they love to party, but dogs
Speaker 4: know they're they're party animals.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I started looking into the origin of party animal, and
Speaker 2: it seems to have sprung up in the late nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies on Saturday Night Live. But predating that is a
Speaker 2: usage in the nineteen twenties, when people who loved to
Speaker 2: drink and just carouse around were called, quite aptly party hounds.
Speaker 2: The dogs Toefer Mendoza, Michael Shay, and Anthony Stole all
Speaker 2: the same question. Why do puppies or puppy paws smell
Speaker 2: so good like corn chips or free dos? Have you
Speaker 2: ever smelled dog feet?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I don't know. There's certain odors. Well, first of all,
Speaker 4: believe it or not, dogs sweat through their paws. Oh
Speaker 4: they do, yes, so that might be one of the theories.
Speaker 3: That's their boh yeah, okay, yeah, so that could be.
Speaker 2: It seems like, okay, well, if a dog eats grain,
Speaker 2: it's gonna sweat out free doo do. But actually it's
Speaker 2: due to paw dwelling yeast that happens to smell like corn.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't make it any less delicious. Well maybe
Speaker 2: it does, but it's still cute. Michael saidam Bouga wants
Speaker 2: to know can an old dog really learn new tricks?
Speaker 2: And then his follow up question, along with Evan Simkowitz,
Speaker 2: was does my dog really love me as much as
Speaker 2: I love them? So?
Speaker 3: Can they learn new tricks? And do they love us?
Speaker 4: Can an old dog learn nu tricks? Yes? Absolutely. There's
Speaker 4: a big misconception. They always say, you know, you can't
Speaker 4: teach an old dog nu tricks. I would one disagree,
Speaker 4: And the reason why I disagree is because I train
Speaker 4: old dogs here at the ranch all the time. From
Speaker 4: the shelters. You just can't teach them as fast. Think
Speaker 4: about a sponge. You have a dry sponge and a
Speaker 4: wet sponge. The dry sponge is a puppy Okay, I'll
Speaker 4: talk to your terms. Okay, about two computers, sure, think
Speaker 4: about two hard drives. You have a brand new hard
Speaker 4: drive empty, and you have an old hard drive that
Speaker 4: is full of information that you need to kind of
Speaker 4: like move things around, eliminate a few things.
Speaker 3: Here in defragment.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: Now, the new hard drive, it retains information very quickly
Speaker 4: and you can just load it up quick the old
Speaker 4: hard drive, Yes, you can still put information on there,
Speaker 4: it's just not as fast.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And do dogs love us?
Speaker 4: Of course? Okay, just check out what ask that.
Speaker 3: I think we doubt it.
Speaker 2: There's no way my dog can love me as much
Speaker 2: as it seems like it loves me, is what a
Speaker 2: lot of people think. And maybe people just need to
Speaker 2: come to terms with how lovable they are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you have to remember our form of love and
Speaker 4: dog's form of love is much different. We require love
Speaker 4: for you know, out of like a out of like
Speaker 4: a want. Dogs require love out of.
Speaker 3: Need because they're dependent on us.
Speaker 4: And so of course, of course we've domesticated these animals
Speaker 4: to the point where they are dependent on you know what,
Speaker 4: everything they must survive with, and love is one of
Speaker 4: those one of those actual you know survival skills. That's
Speaker 4: I'm a firm believer of that.
Speaker 3: I love that though.
Speaker 4: Well it's true. It's true because you know, look, if
Speaker 4: you just give your dog the basic needs, the basic necessities,
Speaker 4: and you don't ever, you know, pet it and love it,
Speaker 4: it's going to have social problems.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, So you gotta love your dog and they
Speaker 3: gotta love you back.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's part of the basics that it needs.
Speaker 2: So go pet your dang dog right now. Or if
Speaker 2: you're like me, you can pet someone else's dog, even
Speaker 2: if you don't know the people and they're just at
Speaker 2: the next table over a brunch and you're like, look,
Speaker 2: it's a friendly dog. It's not my fault that it's
Speaker 2: cute and in public, that's on you. Jacob Qughle wants
Speaker 2: to know. Am I ruining my nine month old puppy
Speaker 2: by letting her sleep in the bed with me?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Not, Okay, absolutely, let I let all my dogs
Speaker 4: sleep in the bed. The only the only time I
Speaker 4: ever have an issue with that, and this is just me,
Speaker 4: And the only time I ever have an issue with
Speaker 4: a dog sleeping in the bed or getting on the
Speaker 4: couch is that they get possessive of over it. Okay,
Speaker 4: you tell them get off, and now the growling at you,
Speaker 4: that's where the buck ends.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But as far as dogs sleeping in the bed
Speaker 4: and you kidding me, you got nine dogs in the
Speaker 4: bed here, you know, I find myself sleeping in like
Speaker 4: the fetal position up near like the pillow.
Speaker 2: Area, because there really are nine that there were ten
Speaker 2: dogs in the property.
Speaker 3: And then you have that's just what you saw, right,
Speaker 3: You're so lucky.
Speaker 2: Dustin Mills wants to know do dogs enjoy hugs. I'm
Speaker 2: going to guess that's a yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's it's different, not like a hug. Put
Speaker 4: it this way, I would not agree with a dog
Speaker 4: liking a hug like we like to hug where you're
Speaker 4: talking chest to chests. That might make a dog feel
Speaker 4: a little bit uncomfortable because it's a very unorthodox. But
Speaker 4: as far as like a like a like a side
Speaker 4: saddle hug or something like that, they like more petting. Now,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of bait whether they like being pet
Speaker 4: in the head, But there is one thing you can't deny.
Speaker 4: Dogs like a nice, long, firm stroke, So they don't
Speaker 4: like a a trickle touch. That's almost like annoying. They
Speaker 4: like a firm, long stroke from you know, shoulders all
Speaker 4: the way to tail.
Speaker 2: Oh, like a firm paint brush all the way down
Speaker 2: making a skunk strike.
Speaker 4: And there's also been a lot of a lot of
Speaker 4: scientific evidence that not only petting a dog lowers their
Speaker 4: stress and lowers their anxiety, but it also lowers ours. Ugh,
Speaker 4: So petting a dog is actually a win win for everybody.
Speaker 3: I need a dog yesterday. So why this may be?
Speaker 2: Some studies suggest that a bonding hormone called oxytocin is
Speaker 2: released when you snug a pup. Now, this is the
Speaker 2: same chemical that your body pumps out after you nut,
Speaker 2: that's scientific term, or when you have a newborn baby.
Speaker 2: And evidently it has a lot of physiological and psychological benefits.
Speaker 2: And now I'm just dreaming of a world where doctors
Speaker 2: prescribed MutS and health insurance covered chew toys.
Speaker 3: That's weird.
Speaker 2: Wants to know what do dogs dream about when they're
Speaker 2: making those cute little wines in their.
Speaker 4: Sleep chasing rabbits?
Speaker 2: Yeah, stroke career wants to know why do some dogs
Speaker 2: kick their leg really fast when you itch a certain
Speaker 2: part of their body.
Speaker 4: We all have our spots. We all have our spots.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'll tell you a little secret of me
Speaker 4: right now when I because I love getting massages because
Speaker 4: I'm tall and I'm very athletic, and my back always
Speaker 4: takes a beating, like I have Hernietta diss salt in
Speaker 4: my back and I'm always in pain. And so there's
Speaker 4: one spot right at the top of the butt where
Speaker 4: it meets it back. You could dig your elbows in
Speaker 4: there so hard, and I swear I would start kicking
Speaker 4: my leg like a dog just for some reason. It's
Speaker 4: my spot. And I think it's because of the spot
Speaker 4: that I can't get myself. I just can't get any
Speaker 4: leverage for it, you know. And so yeah, it's sometimes
Speaker 4: it's the areas they really can't touch.
Speaker 2: I think that's them saying, oh, that's the stuff, Mara Spencer.
Speaker 2: He wants to know what breed is best for cat
Speaker 2: people aka low maintenance and very lazy dogs. What's the
Speaker 2: best kind of dog for someone who's used to having cats? Like,
Speaker 2: what is a dog that's like the most similar to
Speaker 2: a cat?
Speaker 4: I would say the sheba e Oh really? Oh yeahbody
Speaker 4: who has a sheet of you know, anyone listening right now.
Speaker 4: Uh huh, I promise you just tell them to tell
Speaker 4: them to tweet you and they will. They will. We
Speaker 4: call those the cat the cat.
Speaker 3: Dog really oh yeah, and they look like foxes.
Speaker 4: Also, oh they're gorgeous. Yeah. Very difficult to train. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: very different, very feral, very cat like.
Speaker 3: Do they knock stuff off of shelves? Uh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, probably. They're known for not listening. A lot of
Speaker 4: people think they're they're when they have a sheep at Uni.
Speaker 4: If they're not experienced with the breathe, they think that
Speaker 4: the dog is deaf.
Speaker 2: Okay, oh my god, it's that much like talk to
Speaker 2: the pot like you don't even look at me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's hilarious.
Speaker 4: Dog trainers, you know, they make a lot of money
Speaker 4: off those dogs because you're constantly calling them back.
Speaker 2: Jamie Gibbon wants to know what's the strangest cross breed
Speaker 2: you've ever seen.
Speaker 4: I saw, Okay, years ago, I saw a Corgie and
Speaker 4: a I want to say it was a kind of corso,
Speaker 4: which is a large, very large pitbull type breed. Oh Jesus,
Speaker 4: we're talking. We're talking like eighty ninety pounds. But then
Speaker 4: it was mixed with a CORKI. So it had these
Speaker 4: it had these legs that were I want to say
Speaker 4: these things were probably four inches tall, and they bowed
Speaker 4: out almost like a sea lion, you know, and it
Speaker 4: walked me a sea lion. So it had this long
Speaker 4: body with these four inch legs, and it had this giant,
Speaker 4: giant shoulders and head. I mean it looked like just
Speaker 4: something out of like you know this, Uh, it looked
Speaker 4: like you you something out of beetlejuice, like you just
Speaker 4: combined these two animals. Yeah. I've seen some pretty cool
Speaker 4: mixes out there, but yeah, that was definitely the weirdest one.
Speaker 4: And he was sweet as could be.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, people looked at him. If you if you
Speaker 4: just saw a headshot, you're thinking of yourself. Man, that's
Speaker 4: a big pit bull, and all of a sudden you
Speaker 4: see the whole body. You're like, what happened?
Speaker 3: What was its name? Do you remember?
Speaker 4: I forget his nick but I did train him.
Speaker 3: Man, it has an Instagram coount. You better let me know.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in trying to track down an Instagram account,
Speaker 2: I failed. I straight it failed. But I did end
Speaker 2: up scrolling through a lot of core pit pit g
Speaker 2: corbul hashtags, and I can say twelve out of ten
Speaker 2: would waste precious many minutes of my life doing that again.
Speaker 2: Mad's Clement, Jen Durbin, and Dave Miller all wanted to
Speaker 2: know a little bit about emotional support dogs, whether or not,
Speaker 2: what your thoughts are and people registering them, if whether
Speaker 2: or not that privilege is being abused, and what the
Speaker 2: best dog if you are looking for an emotional support dog,
Speaker 2: what the best kind of dog would be.
Speaker 4: Okay, So, emotional support animal, there's there's three. A lot
Speaker 4: of people they get emotional support animals confused with service dogs.
Speaker 4: Now let me let me just explain to you. There's
Speaker 4: three categories of technically service dogs. So you have emotional support,
Speaker 4: you have therapy dog, and you have service dog. Okay,
Speaker 4: Now there's a massive difference between each one. Emotional support
Speaker 4: animals they require no training zero. Okay. Now this is
Speaker 4: where the problem lies. This is where I put my
Speaker 4: foot down, because the biggest problem is they can go
Speaker 4: into areas that you you can have like service service
Speaker 4: dogs or other animals. So, for example, emotional support animals
Speaker 4: or ESA as we call them, they're allowed to go
Speaker 4: into planes and fly with This is why you see
Speaker 4: a lot of dogs on planes, those are most of
Speaker 4: them are not service dogs, are emotional support animals. The
Speaker 4: biggest problem is all you have to do is you
Speaker 4: have you have to get a note from your doctor.
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm not discrediting. These people are denying the
Speaker 4: fact that they need this this animal because they don't
Speaker 4: want to take drugs. That's good, that's a great thing.
Speaker 4: But I think there should be there should be strict
Speaker 4: guidelines that these people should have to train their dogs,
Speaker 4: at least some sort of basic standards, basic obedience, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, a good good canine citizen tests something that
Speaker 4: says this dog is qualified to go into public places
Speaker 4: and you know be with me around other dogs and
Speaker 4: safely around children and stuff like that. The biggest problem
Speaker 4: is you have everybody registering their dogs and then they
Speaker 4: bring them into you know, planes, and now we're seeing
Speaker 4: a lot more problems. We're seeing a lot of these
Speaker 4: emotional support animals that are you know, they're biting people,
Speaker 4: they're attacking of the dogs.
Speaker 2: So last year a Southwest passenger was bitten by another
Speaker 2: passengers support dog. And Delta Airlines has also recently cracked
Speaker 2: down and they require ESA animal owners to sign a voucher,
Speaker 2: essentially saying, my support animal won't fuck anyone up. But
Speaker 2: I think we can all agree that the problems are
Speaker 2: somewhat rare, and when there's an animal on a flight,
Speaker 2: everyone gets so stoked. Like take for example, Daniel urduck
Speaker 2: in stinker Butt, who recently accompanied his owner, a PTSD sufferer,
Speaker 2: on a flight. By the way, he's a duck. Everyone
Speaker 2: loved it. Daniel turduck in stinker Butt. The duck was
Speaker 2: decked out in tiny red flappy shoes, was wearing a
Speaker 2: Captain America diaper. Honestly, I feel that airlines should charge
Speaker 2: more for flights with diapered waterfowl on them do it
Speaker 2: on their first in line. But not all emotional support
Speaker 2: dogs or service animals. Those are kind of leveled up.
Speaker 4: So that is the difference between the emotional support dog
Speaker 4: and the service dog. The service dog there they come
Speaker 4: with I mean high level training. We're talking six months
Speaker 4: to a year to even two years sometimes and the
Speaker 4: service dog. That's part of our testing we do. We
Speaker 4: test it around other dogs, test it around kids, We
Speaker 4: test it around all kinds of all kinds of environments
Speaker 4: to make sure this dog will never buy a kid,
Speaker 4: he'll never buite another animal, won't cause a problem. So yes,
Speaker 4: do I think people are abusing it this day and age. Absolutely? Okay,
Speaker 4: And this is the hard part. It's hard to it's
Speaker 4: hard to filter out Okay, this is one of the
Speaker 4: good guys, it's one of the bad guys. This this
Speaker 4: woman's doing it right, and this one's abusing it. So
Speaker 4: there needs to be some sort of standardized tests to
Speaker 4: say this is a this is emo emotional support animal,
Speaker 4: and it has to pass these guidelines.
Speaker 2: I had a ton of patrons on Patreon ask me
Speaker 2: what to do if their dog has anxiety? And are
Speaker 2: we just more aware of dog anxiety or is it
Speaker 2: becoming more prevalent? But what do you do if your
Speaker 2: dog it seems like an anxious part.
Speaker 4: I don't think. I think anxiety is the same today
Speaker 4: as it was, you know, thirty forty years ago. It's
Speaker 4: just it's just people where yeah, we are identifying it now.
Speaker 4: You got to remember. I think the reason why it's
Speaker 4: it's become such a big thing nowadays because you have
Speaker 4: dogs are much they're part of the family. There's an
Speaker 4: old saying that we say in the in the dog world.
Speaker 4: Dogs went from the farm to the backyard, to the house,
Speaker 4: to the couch to the bed. This is the chronological
Speaker 4: order of events that this is how the dog has
Speaker 4: evolved in our families. So yeah, sure, back in the
Speaker 4: nineteen fifties, dogs had anxiety, but we didn't notice because
Speaker 4: they were stuck in the backyard in the doghouse, so
Speaker 4: we didn't notice. It hasn't been, you know, until recent
Speaker 4: times that we've started seeing there the dogs with heavy
Speaker 4: anxiety because now they're just living in our homes, on
Speaker 4: our couches, in our beds, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So I think the anxiety is the same nowadays as
Speaker 4: it always was. Now there are ways to help it.
Speaker 4: You're never going to eliminate it, but there are always
Speaker 4: a hell. I actually use this product now, it's called Soloquin,
Speaker 4: And there's also something called Calm. It's a supplement and
Speaker 4: stuff like that works. There's also these what's called the
Speaker 4: compression shirts. Those are a big help sometimes. There's also
Speaker 4: there's also music boxes. These music boxes what they do
Speaker 4: is they they've I guess they've found out. I haven't
Speaker 4: read the exact science behind it, but I have them
Speaker 4: here I've tested them out and probably about five hundred
Speaker 4: dogs over the years, and I'm actually a fan. Really,
Speaker 4: I'd say yeah, I'd say, let's say, of one hundred
Speaker 4: dogs it works on about I'd say twenty five of them,
Speaker 4: which is a good number, right, because you got to
Speaker 4: remember you're not going to ever get one.
Speaker 2: So when Brandon said music boxes, I thought he meant this,
Speaker 2: which is tinny and kind of creepy, and it seems
Speaker 2: annoying if your ears pick up like everything. But I
Speaker 2: did all the digging and it's more like a Bluetooth
Speaker 2: speaker with spa jams like this sample from Relax my
Speaker 2: Dog on YouTube, which has over a mi million plays.
Speaker 3: So either a few.
Speaker 2: Dog owners use it a lot, or it's not uncommon
Speaker 2: for dogs to need just a little bit of help
Speaker 2: chilling out anxiety.
Speaker 4: Is it's it's inside them. There's something going on inside them.
Speaker 4: The reason why they have anxiety is just like humans.
Speaker 4: And so there's all kinds of stuff on the market
Speaker 4: that can help their dog. Now here's what I will
Speaker 4: say about helping your dog with anxiety. There's something I
Speaker 4: do all the time on the show, and I do
Speaker 4: it in training videos. I don't stop at one product.
Speaker 4: So in other words, if I try one product and
Speaker 4: I say, oh, it's not working, I don't eliminate that
Speaker 4: product and try something else, and eliminate that product and
Speaker 4: try something else, and so on and so forth. What
Speaker 4: I do is I call I call the layered layered system,
Speaker 4: the layered training system. If I don't see results of
Speaker 4: that one product, I keep I keep them on that product,
Speaker 4: and I layer another one on, and I keep stacking
Speaker 4: things on until I find the combination of what works. Because,
Speaker 4: believe it or not, you can try one product and
Speaker 4: eliminate it and you might strike out. But sometimes you
Speaker 4: have the combination of three or four of those things
Speaker 4: and it works.
Speaker 2: Really so like maybe melatonins involved or magnesium or things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Depends.
Speaker 4: It could be. It could be a music box and
Speaker 4: a thundershirt, you know what I'm saying. It could be
Speaker 4: the combination of both that actually you see the best results. Okay,
Speaker 4: So I always say it's it's called the layered the
Speaker 4: layered approach, almost like a Rubik's cube. Oh there we go.
Speaker 4: I found the formula with these two combined or these
Speaker 4: four combined.
Speaker 2: And just unlock it. And you know what, summer's coming up.
Speaker 2: What do you do for fireworks? I know that there's
Speaker 2: so many dogs in shelters after fireworks because they freak out.
Speaker 4: I wish I had the magic you know, code for that.
Speaker 4: I Look, fireworks, it's just like it's just like thunder's
Speaker 4: it's a very it's it's scary. Look, it's scary to
Speaker 4: wild animals. And you have to remember, domesticated domestic dogs
Speaker 4: they're just they're one step away from a wild animal.
Speaker 4: Everything we see our domestic dogs do, it's the traits
Speaker 4: came from the wild animal. So wolves are just as
Speaker 4: scared of fireworks and just as scared of thunder as
Speaker 4: domesticated dogs. It's an instinct.
Speaker 3: Oh man.
Speaker 2: Just thinking about a bunch of scared raccoons clinging to
Speaker 2: trees on the fourth of July.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I'm gonna cry again.
Speaker 1: Oh shit.
Speaker 2: But you should keep your dog somewhere safe during firework season.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, now, believe it or not. There's two days
Speaker 4: of the year where the shelters are the most populated,
Speaker 4: and I'm not talking about human populas. I'm talking about
Speaker 4: dog populated. And that is the fifth of July and
Speaker 4: the first of January and the reason why is because
Speaker 4: a lot of people they go out to whatever the
Speaker 4: fireworks show and they just leave their dog in the backyard.
Speaker 4: The dog starts freaking out when they hear the booms everywhere,
Speaker 4: and the dog will do anything to save its own life.
Speaker 4: It will dig under the fence or jump over a
Speaker 4: six foot fence. It's amazing what they can actually do
Speaker 4: when they're scared. And so the fifth July, everyone is
Speaker 4: out there looking for their dog.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like in the summer, I see those
Speaker 2: icy posts more on social media, see a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I always try to remind people of that,
Speaker 4: you know, especially when you get around that week or
Speaker 4: the fourth July. Look, just if you have to, even
Speaker 4: if you have to create your dog, you know, just
Speaker 4: keep it safe. I'm usingly not a big you know,
Speaker 4: fan of of Crates. Typically I do. I use crates
Speaker 4: for for create training. As far as like you know,
Speaker 4: house breaking, that's kind of where it ends. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: then that's about it. But if we're talking about saving
Speaker 4: a dog's life, yeah, or I'm saying creating for the
Speaker 4: fourth of July, right, so maybe dog won't hate you, don't.
Speaker 2: Worry your dog's like never again, will I trust you exactly.
Speaker 3: Okay, So last two questions.
Speaker 2: I ask every ologist, what do you dislike about your
Speaker 2: job or your work as a sinologist? What's the most
Speaker 2: annoying thing? Is it picking up poop?
Speaker 3: Is it lint rolling? Is it scheduling? Is it billing?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 4: I guess the most annoying thing about my job is
Speaker 4: whenever I'm done training an animal. Believe it or not,
Speaker 4: you know, no news is good news. I like the
Speaker 4: idea of no news is good news because that means
Speaker 4: everything's working. What irks me the most, and it ticks
Speaker 4: me off more than anything, is when I spend all
Speaker 4: this time training an animal. I put all this time
Speaker 4: and energy, you know, and I donate a lot of
Speaker 4: training to people that can't afford it. And the only
Speaker 4: thing I ask is make sure it sticks. I don't
Speaker 4: want to see you here, but I don't want to
Speaker 4: see you back here. And if they didn't take the
Speaker 4: time to do it, you know what I'm saying, Oh,
Speaker 4: I was busy, I didn't you know. Listen, here's the reality.
Speaker 4: Dog training is just like it's just like a daily diet.
Speaker 4: You know. You can get the gym membership, but you
Speaker 4: have to actually go to the gym. You know a
Speaker 4: lot of people they they when they get an animal,
Speaker 4: then they start having problems with that. All they want
Speaker 4: to do is they want to pay a dog trainer
Speaker 4: to take care of their problems. Like, that's not how
Speaker 4: it works. You are paying me, And I'm showing you,
Speaker 4: you know, because if you if you're not going to
Speaker 4: put the time or the effort into your own animal,
Speaker 4: I am I'm not going to call you back, right,
Speaker 4: And so I make sure people know that. And you
Speaker 4: know a lot of people believe it or not. They
Speaker 4: get pissed off when I say, you know, look, I
Speaker 4: want you to buy this, buy my book, and they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's all about the money, huh. And I say, okay,
Speaker 4: let me tell you something. You have an animal, Okay,
Speaker 4: it's going to live the next thirteen to fifteen years.
Speaker 4: If you can't spend it seventeen dollars, okay, where you
Speaker 4: can have a reference book and say, oh, let me
Speaker 4: see here, Oh this is how you teach a dog
Speaker 4: to stop counter surfing this and that. It's a reference
Speaker 4: book if you can't sit there and spend a week
Speaker 4: year life reading it and spend seventeen ninety nine. You know,
Speaker 4: when you just paid two thousand dollars for this pure
Speaker 4: bread dog. You know what I'm saying. You bought it
Speaker 4: a three hundred dollars bed. You bought it some little
Speaker 4: jacket that I probably won't wear with it a South
Speaker 4: of California. But you're not going to invest seventeen dollars
Speaker 4: and spend a week reading that book. You do not
Speaker 4: deserve that animal, period, you know, textbook, yes, forgot yestake.
Speaker 4: It's just like having a kid, you know, if you're
Speaker 4: not going to, you know, read up on how to
Speaker 4: raise a child, read up on how to you know,
Speaker 4: how to teach your child a few things, you do
Speaker 4: not deserve that kid. You know. This is basic parenting,
Speaker 4: whether it's a kid or it's a dog. And so
Speaker 4: this is why I always tell people education is very important.
Speaker 4: Whether you read my book or someone else's book, read
Speaker 4: something that will give you the basic information if you
Speaker 4: if you're the kind of person that just says, oh,
Speaker 4: I want to just pay someone for my problems, just
Speaker 4: go ahead, and you know, find another home for your
Speaker 4: dog right now. Get about dog exactly.
Speaker 3: Okay, So what is the best thing about dogs? What
Speaker 3: is your favorite? What what do you love the most
Speaker 3: about your work.
Speaker 4: Not only saving the dog's life, but I see it
Speaker 4: all the time. You know, people say you saved my
Speaker 4: life too, So my job as a as a trainer
Speaker 4: and a rescuer. I love seeing. I love seeing that
Speaker 4: both sides of the coin. I love seeing the dog's
Speaker 4: life change. I love seeing, you know, how they came
Speaker 4: out of their shell, like, for example, that that bloodhound
Speaker 4: mix you saw it side, this is this is day
Speaker 4: one for her. Technically she came last night, but this
Speaker 4: is true day one for her. You're seeing she's a
Speaker 4: little timid or tails tuck. She want to know part
Speaker 4: of it. Come back here in a month, you're going
Speaker 4: to see her do a full one eighties. She'll be
Speaker 4: the most popular dog here at the ranch, you know.
Speaker 4: And that's what we do. We changed lives. So I love,
Speaker 4: I love, you know, changing the dog's life. But then
Speaker 4: there's another side to that. You know, the woman that
Speaker 4: she's going to that I have in mind that I
Speaker 4: think she's going to. Oh, she's just she's over the moon,
Speaker 4: you know, she's over the moon about it, and it's
Speaker 4: going to change her life. You know a lot of
Speaker 4: these people that I that I trained dogs for they've
Speaker 4: lost something, you know, whether it's a whether they've lost
Speaker 4: a dog, or they've lost a family member, or they've
Speaker 4: lost a part of their life that they're not going
Speaker 4: to get back. These dogs are almost like a new
Speaker 4: chapter for them. It's a new, you know, only chapter
Speaker 4: of life. They're going to look back and say, that
Speaker 4: was the best period of my life. You know, that
Speaker 4: Golden Retriever I had, that that Bloodhound, that Jack Russell,
Speaker 4: that little Chihuahua that I had. It was the best
Speaker 4: dog I ever had. And that's what I say about
Speaker 4: every dog I've ever had my entire life. That was
Speaker 4: the best dog I ever had. And I keeps saying it. Honestly,
Speaker 4: they're all the best. Yeah, there's that saying. I love saying.
Speaker 4: You know, who has the best dog in the world?
Speaker 4: We all do.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so sweet.
Speaker 2: Uh, just heads up here, Maybe I might be talking
Speaker 2: about myself in this next question. What if you're so
Speaker 2: into dogs you're afraid that you're not going to be
Speaker 2: a good enough owner.
Speaker 3: Well, does that ever happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, look, that's that's a hard one to answer.
Speaker 4: That's that's the that's a million dollar question, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm I'll just to be honest, I don't know
Speaker 4: if i'd be a good father for human, you know,
Speaker 4: like I don't know if i'd if I ever have
Speaker 4: a kid. I always ask myself that I've had a
Speaker 4: million people to be like, no, you'd be a great dad,
Speaker 4: because well, see you sound like everybody else. I don't
Speaker 4: know the answer to that, you know, going back to
Speaker 4: going back to the dog, I don't know the answer to. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know what what if they're you know what if
Speaker 4: they're not going to be a good dog parent? Look,
Speaker 4: you you don't know? Do you try? But the thing
Speaker 4: is what I what I will say is I wouldn't.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't get the dog unless you are, you know,
Speaker 4: dedicated to I'm going to give this thing every single
Speaker 4: thing it needs. I'm gonna give this animal all the love,
Speaker 4: all the all the you know, all the training, all
Speaker 4: the education, everything it needs in life.
Speaker 2: So perhaps one day you'll see old dad Ward on
Speaker 2: Lucky Dog, and yes, I will start sobbing when Brandon
Speaker 2: changes the dog's collar from a red in training one
Speaker 2: to a green one, meaning this dog is yours.
Speaker 3: Oh man, ho water works.
Speaker 4: See this is why we got to get You on
Speaker 4: season seven.
Speaker 2: I know seriously, so thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2: So to learn more about Brandon McMillan, you can go
Speaker 2: to Canineminded dot com and there are links to his
Speaker 2: Facebook and Twitter. He's Animal Brandon on Instagram and his
Speaker 2: book once again is called Lucky Dog Lessons. I purchased
Speaker 2: it even though I don't have a dog, So if
Speaker 2: you have a dog, it's worth it even more.
Speaker 3: Go get it.
Speaker 2: Lucky Dog is on Saturday mornings on CBS. You can
Speaker 2: check your local listings. And as long as we're talking
Speaker 2: about it, so is my science show, The Henry Ford
Speaker 2: Innovation Nation with Morocca.
Speaker 3: It's a long.
Speaker 2: Title, it's a great show, no swear words. Ologies is
Speaker 2: on Twitter and Instagram at Ologies. I'm on Twitter and
Speaker 2: Instagram at Ali Ward with one L and for shirts
Speaker 2: and dad hats and pins and tots and baby clothes,
Speaker 2: you can head to ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you Shannon
Speaker 2: Feltus and Bonnie Dutch for running that, and you can
Speaker 2: join the Facebook Ologies group. Thank you Aaron Talbert and
Speaker 2: Hannah Lippo for admitting that. Thank you to the patrons
Speaker 2: who keep the podcast going. You can join that for
Speaker 2: as little as twenty five per cents an episode, and
Speaker 2: you get to hear what episodes are coming up next,
Speaker 2: and you can submit your questions. And you also allow
Speaker 2: me to pay the incredible Stephen Ray Morris to help
Speaker 2: me edit all this together.
Speaker 3: He is the best.
Speaker 2: I owe him a basket of puppies and by puppies
Speaker 2: I probably mean cats or dinosaurs. Let's be honest. He
Speaker 2: knows this brand. The theme song was written and performed
Speaker 2: by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands, which is a
Speaker 2: very good band in case you want to check them out. Now,
Speaker 2: if you stick around to the end the show, you
Speaker 2: know I tell you a little secret to say thanks
Speaker 2: for sticking through the credits. And this week I'm gonna
Speaker 2: tell you a secret. I don't have a dog. Clearly,
Speaker 2: all I want is a dog, and my family and
Speaker 2: friends know how much I want a dog. That this
Speaker 2: past Christmas, my parents were cruising past a thrift store
Speaker 2: and saw a mechanical robot dog named Biscuit and purchased
Speaker 2: it for me for Christmas.
Speaker 3: That is Biscuit. Biscuit.
Speaker 2: It's the size of a normal dog, and it's mechanical,
Speaker 2: and it's covered in fur, and you can hug it
Speaker 2: like a normal dog.
Speaker 3: It's Westworld as hell.
Speaker 2: And my secret is the a that I own Biscuit,
Speaker 2: who responds to you when you pet him.
Speaker 3: And also can you even you guys? It was the
Speaker 3: best Birches ever.
Speaker 2: And I hug Biscuit and Biscuit has been sitting next
Speaker 2: to me this whole time I recorded this episode. When
Speaker 2: my parents bought it, They're like, our daughter would love this.
Speaker 2: It's all she wants as a dog. And I think
Speaker 2: the owners of the Snowline Hospice thrift store near my
Speaker 2: parents' home were like, oh, hell, hold your daughter.
Speaker 3: And they had to be.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, she's in She's in her thirties, She's a
Speaker 2: grown ass woman.
Speaker 3: So I own Biscuit. He loves me. Okay. Continue to
Speaker 3: ask smart people stupid questions.
Speaker 2: By Bye Pacadermathology, hobbiology, doo zoology, lithology and technology, meteorology, paology, ethology.
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