#200: Susan Garrett -- Master Dog (and Human) Trainer

Susan Garrett (@susangarrett https://twitter.com/susangarrett) is an incredible dog trainer. She has a B. Sc. in animal science, and for more than two decades has been one of the most consistently successful competitors in the sport of dog agility. Susan has been on the podium of the world and national championship events more than 50 times, winning those events a total of 38 times. She was of great help to me when I first adopted Molly, my own pup, and her book Shaping Success (The Education of an Unlikely Champion) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000E1DDN6/offsitoftimfe-20 was selected as the 2005 dog training and behavior book of the year. Susan is a champ not only for her competitive track record, but for her ability to convey concrete tips and recommendations for: The most critical exercises for your dog The three types of reinforcement How to use crates properly What you should do in the first 24 hours of adopting a puppy How training a dog is like training an Olympic athlete And much, much more! We discuss every facet of behavioral modification and conditioning, which applies to much more than dog training. These are techniques that work on everyone from chickens to cats to irritating in-laws. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/tim. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga http://foursigmatic.com/tim. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now, this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim http://foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront https://wealthfront.com/tim. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it's all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams. Check out wealthfront.com/tim http://wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they'll show you for free the exact portfolio they'd put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Well worth a few minutes to explore: wealthfront.com/tim http://wealthfront.com/tim.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Now would be an inappropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these innovative Finnish entrepreneurs of all things because a very skilled acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which is a mushroom coffee made out of chaga mushroom, powerful antioxidant, considered a superfood. I was introduced to chaga by Laird Hamilton, of all people, and another mushroom called lion's mane, which is considered a nootropic or a smart drug. And I had half a packet, and let me put this in perspective, tasted just like coffee, just add to hot water, only 20mg in half a packet of caffeine. That's as little as 1/10 what you would find in a strong cup of coffee.

• 1:06Tim Ferriss?

  And I was on fire for the entire day. I probably got more done in that day than I got done in the three or four days prior to that. So I would highly recommend checking it out. It is very impressive. You will not see visuals, so you can use it for work. And you can check it out at foursigmatic.com/tim. That's four Sigmatic, S I G M A T I C dot com forward slash tim. And use the code TIM to get 20% off your first order. I highly encourage you to try it out.

• 1:42Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley, have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is, why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, et cetera. And I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim.

• 2:27Tim Ferriss?

  Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. And here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis, but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint, and little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, et

• 3:08Tim Ferriss?

  cetera, can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first $15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on this show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials, so I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast.

• 3:52Tim Ferriss?

  But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now, back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account. But just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast, it's free. There's no downside that I can think of.

• 4:23Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, cats and dogs, lemurs and squirrels. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another edition, another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers from all different trades, all different specialties, entertainment, military, sports, you name it. This episode is by request. Thousands of you have been asking for an episode on dog training, and I would expand that to human training. How do you condition other people or yourself to do what it is you want them or you yourself to do? This episode features Susan Garrett, who is an incredible, not only dog trainer, but competitor. She has a Bachelor's of Science in Animal Science.

• 5:05Tim Ferriss?

  She's one of the most consistently successful competitors in the sport of dog agility for now more than two decades. She's been on the podium of world and national championship, let me try English again, championship events more than 50 times, winning those events a total of 38 times. She was of great help to me when I first adopted Molly, my own pup, and her book, Shaping Success, was voted or selected as the 2005 Dog Training and Behavior Book of the Year. She is a champ, both for her competitive track record, but also in her ability to convey concrete tips and recommendations for, for instance, the most critical games and exercises to play with your dog,

• 5:50Tim Ferriss?

  the three types of reinforcement, how to use crates properly, what you should do in the first 24 hours of, say, adopting a puppy. And we talk about just about every facet of dog training, and really, the way you should think of this is behavioral modification and conditioning. So this applies to chickens, it applies to maybe irritating in-laws, the cat that won't stop sleeping on your kitchen table. I think I borrowed that from "Don't Shoot the Dog", but it's all the same thing. So there are principles in this that you can take away, even if you have no interest in training a dog, having a dog, or dogs in general. So... Let me then allow Susan to do the talking. You can find her on the Facebook and she has

• 6:34Tim Ferriss?

  a very active page, lots of great pics and videos. And that is very simply facebook.com/SusanGarrett, G-A-R-R-E-T-T, Susan Garrett Dog Agility. So facebook.com/SusanGarrettDogAgility, say hi to her. And I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

• 6:56Tim Ferriss?

  Susan, welcome to the show.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  Thanks, Tim. Really happy to be here.

• 6:59Tim Ferriss?

  I have wanted to get you on the show for quite a while now. After our first conversation, I knew that we would eventually meet again with recorded audio because my audience has been asking me for an episode on dog training and so on for ages since I got Molly. And you and I spoke very, very early on in that process for me, right when I was, I wouldn't say flatlining, but kind of before I hockey-sticked in my training education. And so I could think of no better person to have on. And part of what appealed to me was the fact that you have an

• 7:42Tim Ferriss?

  objective and verifiable record. And what I mean by that, and for those people who are wondering how I seek out experts, part of it is finding people who can be evaluated objectively. It's not their opinion, it's not someone else's qualitative opinion. You, now I'm just going to read a little bit of your bio, I won't go into a ton of it, but you're one of the most consistently successful competitors in the sport of dog agility over the past, I guess, at least two decades. You've been on the podium of world national championship events more than 50 times, winning those events a total of 38 times. I was hoping perhaps we could start, since most folks, well, I shouldn't say most, but many folks are not familiar with dog sports. What is...

• 8:27Tim Ferriss?

  Dog agility, what does that sport look like?

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Most people would have seen it, but maybe didn't know what it was. You know, we used to have an event on ESPN a lot every year. So it's a sport where the dogs go over the jumps and through the tunnels and they weave in and out of the poles. And it's a really fast, fast sport. It's really gotten to a place where it's, you know, it's tough to keep up unless you're in really great shape as a handler. But it's a lot of fun for both dog and handler.

• 8:55Tim Ferriss?

  And what are some of the ways in which that is scored? How is that scored? And I think we talked at one point, maybe you and I talked about this, false starts? Is that a big part of the, or is that a piece of the equation?

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Not in agility. It definitely is in fly ball, which is another sport I actually won world championships in as well, before I really got heavily involved in agility. Agility is scored, think of it like a, if you watch a horse jumping competition at the Olympics, time is number one, but it has to be time with a clean round. So there isn't style points, it's just, you know, getting around over all the obstacles as fast as you can without having a fault.

• 9:36Tim Ferriss?

  And what separates a good handler from a great handler? In, let's just say for now, talking about the sport component.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Well, like any sport, the number one thing that separates us is the mental game. And once you take, put that aside, it would be the handler's ability to train their dog, or, and you can put an and/or, the handler's ability to outrun their dog. And most of my competition are in their mid twenties and at the world championship level. So they are able to outrun their dog. In my mid fifties, I am not able to outrun any dog. So I rely more on the dog training aspect of it to be successful.

• 10:25Tim Ferriss?

  And what would you say differentiates your approach to training compared to others? For those people who have maybe only seen a handful of like network TV shows with celebrity dog trainers and so on?

• 10:41Speaker 03

  I train, you know, I train dogs very much the way they, they train marine mammals or, you know, exotic animals. It's, it's a reinforcement-based program. Think of it like a killer rail. You can't get in the tank and, and correct them and, you know, beat the crap out of them when they're wrong, right?

• 10:58Tim Ferriss?

  Can't hit it with a rolled-up newspaper?

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Exactly. So it's, it's choice-based dog training and, and with a focus on reinforcement. It's, um, it's incredibly successful. And that's why, you know, when I raise a dog, my focus is to have a phenomenal family pet first. And then I know that lays the foundation to be a world champion later. And, and it's all done through, you know, being intentional and purposeful with what I want and, and creating basically the dog of my dreams every time I get a new puppy.

• 11:30Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, when you say "choice-based," what, what does that mean? Choice-based training?

• 11:36Speaker 03

  There's basically, you know, if I, if I was gonna lump training into three categories, there would be punishment-based, which is more traditional because in the military, that's the way animals were often trained with, um, you know, you're the master and they will do it, they're, they're told. And there's really no, very little reinforcement. It's the absence of punishment that makes the dog keep working. And it's the brilliance of dogs that allows them to still have this great bond with us in spite of what went on, uh, with punishment-based training. And it still goes on because it's, it's certainly not gone. And then there's reinforcement-based training where people put a cookie on the dog's nose and lure them to do, to get what they want from them. And, uh, and that certainly

• 12:18Speaker 03

  is a step up from punishment in that you're, you're creating a relationship of fun and trust. Uh, it has its limitations on its success once that lure is gone. And, and then what we do is, is a different from that because we definitely use food and toys and, and anything the dog loves as a reinforcement. But it's only after the dog has made a choice. So they make a choice and the, you know, it's, it's like consequence. Basically, you know, I, I come from a family of, of nine kids. And so, and I never, ever heard my parents raise their voice. So how you have success with that, and this is really how I trained my first dog, is I, I just modeled my mother. And... If we were upstairs watching Disney and it was, you know, five to six and they called us for supper,

• 13:02Speaker 03

  they didn't yell and stamp their feet and, you know, carry on. They would give us a chance to make a choice. Are you coming for supper? And if you, if you choose not to come down for supper, then she would go into the basement, unscrew the fuse for the TV, and there'd be no TV for the rest of the night and for the next 24 hours. So you have the choice to either do as you're asked or not, and you live by the consequences of that choice. And it's pretty much, you know, how we raise the dogs. You create an environment rich in reinforcement so that the correct choice when you want them to make is the one they end up wanting to make. But if they choose something that isn't what you want, the environment controls the consequences so that you don't have to, you know, punish them or beat them up with a rolled up newspaper.

• 13:46Tim Ferriss?

  And what would be a good example of that in dog training? I mean, and the story of the TV brings to mind a video I watched of you actually, I believe it was helping to train a woman's dog with Leave It, and covering the food. I think you were covering the food with your hand. Could you explain, if that's a good example, I don't know if it is, but could you explain how that works?

• 14:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's one of our foundational games. So we have four games. We tell people, you know, you can rock it with your dog if you get these four games in. And the first one is the one you described. It's called It's Your Choice. And I, I've created my own word and it's just one word, It's Your Choice. And we want the dogs to know you're in control of all the good things that happen in your life. And, and it's just a response cost of me closing my hand around the food. So I, you know, you get a handful of really attractive treats and depending on the dog's food drive, like if it was, you know, a sight hound, a dog that doesn't have a ton of food drive, I might get like, you know, the, the top level value food. I could get steak and cheese and put that in my hand.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  And if it was a Chow hound, you know, like a Labrador, they just love food, or a Sheltie, you could put kibble in your hand. And the dog's gonna like paw and bite and bark and go crazy. They're gonna be on a leash so that they don't have access to just go find something else to do. But as soon as they stop all that, you open your hand. It's your choice. So your choice was to stop unwanted behavior, and my choice was to open my hand. And then the dog says, hey, party on, I'm gonna dive into the food. Well, I didn't like that choice, so I'm gonna close my hand. And this goes back and forth like a tennis match until the dog's choice is just to sit back and stare at the hand when it's open. And then I pick up a cookie and I feed them.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  And that's the first communication that's clear to that dog. I am in control of the good things in my life, because if I do what this person wants, good things happen. And that's the premise for absolutely everything we do, whether, you know, I have students who train animals at the Toronto Zoo. And it's exactly the same premise, that you you control access to the reinforcement, and then you reward good choices by giving access to reinforcement. And the thing is with dog owners, they don't realize, you know, when we think about reinforcement, they think, well, I gotta go cut up some cheese because I'm training my dog. But there's really, you know, there's, there's three

• 16:13Speaker 03

  really big reinforcements for our dogs. It's the food is obvious. Toys, you throw a ball or a frisbee, that's obvious. But it's the hidden ones, the ones that aren't so obvious, that are the ones that get people into trouble. So the, it's permission to do things. So if you're going to the park and your dog's pulling you on a leash, and they're chasing a squirrel, and you're, and you're like, okay, I gotta get rid of this, I'm gonna take the leash off. So, and the dog gets this massive reward of getting to chase a squirrel. But what you've just done with the permission, you've rewarded what?

• 16:44Tim Ferriss?

  The behavior you don't want.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Exactly, pulling on a leash. So that goes on all day long. And it's, and it's when you have an awakening to where's, we tell our students, where's the value? Where's the value for the dog right now? And if you have an unwanted behavior, like pulling on leash, you've got to say, okay, here's what I want. Let's just get clear. This is, be real intentional about, this is what I want, this is what it's gonna look like. This is what I've got. So what's between there is a gap of what I have to train. And the first thing to identify is where's the value for the dog? Because dogs, they just do what's reinforcing.

• 17:21Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  And you just identify where that reinforcement is and start to control it in a way that you give them permission for what they want. So when, if we go back to that dog pulling on a leash, you might stand still until the dog came in beside you and then praise them so that they connect. Oh, my action gave me the access to be free and chase.

• 17:41Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  So you make that connection that all the value comes through you and you become part of the process. Instead of the dog and the squirrel being the only two people in the process or two animals in the process.

• 17:53Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, you know, this is, I'm, it's, it's, it's been a little bit since I was digging really deep in a lot of these videos, uh, which were fantastic, but is that, uh, do you call, I think in this particular case, the sort of, um, common heel position, like the dog to your left, the reward zone, is that the right term?

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Exactly. Reinforcement zone or reward zone. And, and if that's what you, you think of it, that all good things in life happen right there. And again, pulling on leash is such a pain in the butt for so many people, but they don't realize that the dog's just seeking a position where we've built a lot of value for. Because we give our dogs their dinner and we bend down and put it in front of us. We give them a cookie, they might be, you know, standing in front of us or even jumping on us. We give them a cookie, we're sitting in a, on the, on the sofa and we go to pat the dog, they're in front of us. And if you become more intentional about all the good things you deliver happen from the reinforcement zone from your side, bam, you have a dog that wants to seek out that position.

• 18:53Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm. And, uh, you know, it's, you mentioned a couple of things that I want to underscore just because my, my fans have been asking me for my personal experience and I want you to feel free to jump in and be like, you know what? You made a mistake there doing X for this reason. But there were a few things that I, I think are worth underscoring. So when I was working on at one point, for instance, uh, recall. So for, for people who don't know that term, getting your call, your dog to come is the easiest way to think of it, I suppose. But just doing different types of recall and. Practice at different distances and different durations and with more distractions, etc. But at one point, I remember I was getting very frustrated, which doesn't help matters, as you know, but because Molly just wasn't responding, wasn't responding. And then I met with

• 19:36Tim Ferriss?

  this trainer and she looked at my treat bag and she goes, what is this? And I go, it's her favorite kibble. She goes, she said, dude, it's a crowded bar. You got to tip with 20s.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 19:50Tim Ferriss?

  And so I went and I got these much higher end, you know, origin fancy treats and like, problem solved. It was not a train. It was, it was not a technique issue. It was an incentive issue. And so that was embarrassingly obvious in retrospect. So I wanted to, to mention that. And then you talked about the three sort of reinforces, food, toys, and then this permission, right? And I guess the biggie, right? And I think, you know, one guy who came up when I was polling my audience for folks to pay attention to in the dog training world was Ian Dunbar. And I don't

• 20:30Tim Ferriss?

  know, I'd be curious to hear your, your thoughts on him, but he talks quite a lot about life rewards, I think is the way he puts it, but non-food based rewards. And I don't know where I got this from. Maybe it was from you, maybe it was from elsewhere. But I remember being told early on that I could have sit equal please. And I was like, okay, well, then let me practice having Molly say, sit before every type of feeding, sit before any type of exit through a door so that I can go out first and then bring her through the doorway. And just treating sit like please and then granting

• 21:11Tim Ferriss?

  that permission has worked out spectacularly well. It's, it's really been fantastic. The other thing that I'd be curious to hear about from you or to hear you elaborate on are kind of prerequisite skills that help all of the other skills. So you mentioned it's your choice. And one variation of that that I found really helpful, and I think it's a similar concept, but you could correct me, is training Molly to Give me, when in doubt, give me eye contact. And I did that with a clicker, which we'll talk about. But I would basically hold up a treat right in front of her nose when she was sitting down and then move it out to the side. She would look at it and then eventually glance back at me and I would click and give her the treat.

• 21:54Tim Ferriss?

  And over time, training her to do that so that I could release her out of a, out of a given position, say getting out of a car or something like that. She would always check in with her eyes and it's been hugely valuable, not to mention cute. And what are, what are some of the other, you mentioned critical games or prerequisite skills that, that help all of the other types of training?

• 22:21Speaker 03

  They're all games of where the dog can see that their choices leads to great reinforcement. So, you know, it's your choice for, for those of us in the sport world, you know, what you described with having the dog look at your face, that's something that we want the dog to look at work. So it might be a spot on my body rather than my face because I'm running agility and I have a dog who's drawn to want to look at my face. It would get complicated because I'd be tripping over the dog. So, so it, but it's, you know, for, for the expectations of a pet owner, there's no problem in that at all because you, you're building value for a place on your body rather than a value, value for scanning the horizon for something, right?

• 23:04Speaker 03

  So, so it starts with that choice game and we get to a point where when we're training a dog, we want, the, the ultimate goal of dog training is the value of what the dog wants most of all goes through you. So there is, in the end, there is nothing more valuable than you. So if, if you start with the hand opening, close, and then you put the cookies on the floor, then you could put like bowls of food on the floor and be training your dog and they wouldn't even think to go and look at the food on the floor because they know that they have to work to earn that. And that's what you want, you know, to be at, and it really takes no time at all if you're consistent with your expectations. And we move from there to crate games.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Which is really the foundation of everything we do and it doesn't matter if you if you never wanted to do a sport with your dog, if I never stepped into any ring again, Crate Games is the bomb for me because it sounds like it's just getting a dog to like their crate, but it's not. It's a model for so many things and it's giving the dog a comfort zone. If you're going to visit friends or family, you can bring that crate along. And today, they've got so many phenomenal pop-up crates that are soft-sided that are really convenient. I actually throw one in my luggage when I travel.

• 24:19Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any favorite brands or models of the pop-ups?

• 24:24Speaker 03

  I have so many of them. I'll get back to you on that one, Tim.

• 24:28Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, we'll do.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  There is one that I really like too when I'm going to Europe because it's so convenient. But I honestly have to make sure that they still make it before I give you the

• 24:37Tim Ferriss?

  No problem. I'll put it in the show notes, guys. You can check that afterwards. So I interrupted you though. Yeah, Crate Games, I'd love for you to elaborate on because this was a huge epiphany for me because I grew up with dogs, but they were effectively wild animals that lived in my house. I now realize, I mean, just zero training, probably even worse, just like confused savage animals who were loving but really confused the whole time. So the crate, Molly was the first pup that I had a chance to raise using a crate and it just changed everything. So I'd love for you to elaborate on why that's so helpful and so important.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, dogs are den animals and you're creating a spot for them anytime you want to chill. This is your spot. No one's going to come and bother you in there. So they're comfortable in there because basically, you know, it's our responsibility, number one, to keep our dogs safe at all costs. And number two, as pet owners, their next job is to build confidence in that dog. And I'd like to elaborate more on how when we fail them and that, it often leads to aggression. We'll go into that later. But so Crate Games, we can do both. We give them a place of safety and every time, think of a kid who's learning a new skill, the better they get, the more confident they feel and the more they want to learn. And that's exactly what happens with Crate Games because rather than

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Let's say you're trying to teach your dog to sit. In a traditional school, they may tell you, you know, either use corrections or food to get the dog into that position. And then if the dog moves, you have to go back with your collar and leash and reposition the dog and keep telling them, you know, no, stay, or whatever it is you do. But with crate games, all you do is you watch the dog and you, you go to give them a cookie and if, as you open the door, they get out of their sit, you just close the door. So there, it goes back to the fuse being unscrewed when we didn't make the right choice with the TV. That if the dog moved, the door just got closed. There was no yanking or pushing or yelling from, from us. It, I, I, you don't even have to say anything. You just have to close the door until eventually you can open that door and the dog stays in a sit and you can feed them. And then you grow that to be so many things.

• 26:49Speaker 03

  Like you said, sitting, as soon as I put my hand on the front door, all five of my dogs, boom, they just go into a sit because they know good things will happen if I do that. And, and it, and the touching of the door just becomes the cue to do the behavior. There's no need, you know, cue, people think cues in dogs are verbal sit, but cues can be obviously signals, but they can just be um, any kind of emotion like touching the door. That means, oh yeah, this is a good thing that's gonna happen next. So crate games is, you know, it's just so much, so many things to, to um, to your dog and you can grow layers of understanding from there. So i- if it's um, I don't want my dog to jump on my guests when they come in the house, bam.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  You, you, you, and you don't want a big crate in, in your living room. Once the dog understands they don't come out when you touch the door, you can then throw cookies and toys in front of the, the crate. And I've seen you do this with Molly, right, Tim?

• 27:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then, and Molly won't, will stay and then you can reward them and, and the permission, back to that big reinforcement, the permission to get out and chase the toys or the ball or the, the cookie that, that's on the floor, that, that's what builds value for the dog wanting to stay there. And then you just replace your, your crate with a nice dog bed, which I think my, my husband always gives me the gears because we have five dogs and about forty dog beds around this house.

• 28:09Tim Ferriss?

  You can do, good, good for your cross training in gymnastics, I guess.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Exactly. I I totally have an issue with, I see a nice dog bed and I have to, I brought two home from Spain when I was at the world championships last month. Oops. Anyway, I digress. So now you have a nice looking dog bed in your living room and then someone knocks on the door, you just touch the door and the dog goes flying into their dog bed. And you can open the door, your guests don't get jumped on, you can, you know, talk to the UPS guy, get your delivery, close the door, and then you throw your dog a handful of cookies because they're doing good things. So crate games is just the start where you put foundational, foundational layers for good choices and you keep growing it from there and and keep moving on. So that was the second game. The third one you've already made mention of, and that's restraint recalls. And you can't do those enough. You just, you know.

• 28:58Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm sorry, what was the name of the second exercise?

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Uh, the third one, or the second was crate games. The third one was restraint, restraint recalls. So, and when I was single, this was an awesome way to meet people. You'd go to the park and say, could you just hold my puppy while I run away and I'm gonna, so you get somebody to hold your puppy by the collar or the shoulders. You move out five feet, call the puppy's name and take off running, the dog chases you. Because dogs are prey animals and they love that chase. So we're, we're putting their name with, we're pairing their name with the condition to run as fast as they can towards us. And eventually, you make that distance bigger and eventually you don't run, you just stand still until they get partway to you and then you start running because we want to bleed off the, the big trigger of you running for them to come running.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  And, you know, because I don't always want to run when I call my dog's name, but if you build this in at first, you create a, like a knee jerk reaction that I hear my name, I run. And now I might be just standing at the front door and they're still gonna run because of all these restraint recalls that we've done. It's fun, you know what, you get a little exercise in there and the dog just love it. And you can do it in your backyard, you can, if you're by yourself, if you're really, you know, stuck, you just wrap your leash around a pole and, and you kind of move out a little bit and throw the leash when you call the dog's name and start running. And if you're a fast runner, it's a no brainer.

• 30:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's, that's what I ended up doing, uh, since there are no women in San Francisco, hence man Francisco.

• 30:28Tim Ferriss?

  Oops, oops, hashtag moving accident. But the, the device that I didn't, of course, as a, as a dog naive person, or a training naive person at the time, is I didn't realize you could get a training leash that's 30 feet long, or 40 feet long. Or, what is it called? A lead, maybe? I don't know. I remember the exact.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, leader leash, either one.

• 30:50Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, so, so I had a 30 foot, and I could just wrap it, like you said, wrap it around, I wrapped it around the kind of leg of a, of a fixed bench, in the park, and it worked out fantastically. It was perfect.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  That's great. You just want to make sure it's not one of those retractable ones.

• 31:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, not retractable, just a gigantic, like, lasso that I have to carry around. Yeah. So restraint recalls, and then what's, what's number four?

• 31:17Speaker 03

  And the fourth, the fourth one is the collar grab game, where anytime you're going to give your dog a cookie around the house, anytime you grab the collar first, and the dog, before you get, you know, you have the cookie in your hand, grab the collar and give the cookie. So, at the end of a restraint recall, if you're going to give your dog a cookie, the first thing you do is grab the collar, and then give the cookie. And we want to classically condition, like Pavlov, Ring the Bell, the dog would salivate, we want to condition in the dog, when I reach for your collar, good things are happening. And we want to do this for two reasons. Number one, if there's danger at any time, and you, and you're not yourself, and you're frantic, and you want a lunch for your dog, you want your dog to not be afraid, but say, hey, this is that game we play every day, all day,

• 32:00Speaker 03

  it's awesome. I just give him my collar. And number two, if you don't make a habit of that, your dogs, the most brilliant things about dogs, and the way that evolution has built them, is that they are far better at predicting events than we are. So they can predict reinforcement, and they can predict what they, what they decide is punishment. So let's say you're late for work. And your dog's in the backyard and you go to reach for them, they're going to dance about two feet outside of your reach. And that's, and that happens most when you're in the biggest hurry.

• 32:36Tim Ferriss?

  Of course.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  But if you've put in the value of the collar grab, as soon as your hand goes out, it just switches, it turns a switch in them. And oh yeah, that's my game where I put your, my, my, my collar in your hand and the things happen to me. So it's a game that it doesn't take any time at all to play. You, you know, if you have a dog, a 10 year old dog, you could start it today and just anytime you have a cookie or something the dog really values, just grab the collar and give it to them and just make sure though, that you don't have the food motioning towards them before you grab the collar. Because it's just like that Pavlov's bell thing. You know, Pavlov did the, the experiment where he rang the bell and presented the food. But when he tried it in reverse and presented the food and rang

• 33:18Speaker 03

  the bell, didn't work. So he, he, with, with every breed of dog, he found that within 25 repetitions, ring the bell, present the food, he got an expected response from any dog. But when he did it reverse, after 200 repetitions, dogs didn't even care. So really important that, you know, once they see the food, all bets are off and you're not conditioning anything. So don't move your hand with the food until you've got that collar. Then you move your hand in. That's a really simple, simple, yet incredibly powerful game. And when you really need it, you're going to say, wow, thanks, Tim Ferriss, that chick you had on that show, she taught me something and it really worked.

• 33:55Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, well, yeah, well, you're, you're, you're, this is going to be a very dense and actionable episode. So I'm, I'm stoked and I'm taking all these notes for things that I want to continue to practice with, with Molly. Also, the restraint recalls is, uh, call once. Uh, cause I remember, uh,

• 34:13Speaker 03

  Yes. Really important.

• 34:14Tim Ferriss?

  Cause I remember we were trading, I think it was texts at the time. And at some point I asked you a question and because I was going through a bunch of your, uh, different exercises and games. And you said, in the early days, you can work on more than one at a time. For example, no problem doing collar grab. It's your choice and call once all in the same session.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 34:30Tim Ferriss?

  If you can do three to four sessions a day of four to five minutes in length, you'll be golden. And I think the, we'll, we'll come back to the training session length. But is call once a relative of restraint recalls? Or is it a variation?

• 34:44Speaker 03

  It's actually a combination of restraint recalls and the collar grab. So you it's just a shorter distance and it's a more intensive. Um, you know, you can do it by yourself, but it's best if you have, especially if you have kids. This is something, you know, you want to bring your kids into the training of your dog. And so you just get a little semi circle and everybody's got a cookie in their hand. And somebody calls a dog's name. And when the dog's head turns, they grab the collar and give them the cookie. Then the next person calls the dog's name, grab the collar, give the cookie. And the dog is learning to give you that head whip response when they hear their name. And you're also building in the the grab of the collar. It's it's an awesome little thing to do with. Again, you can do it by yourself and I would just keep the dog on leash, call the name, grab the cookie. Grab the collar, sorry.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Um, but it's brilliant if you've got, if you want to, you know, maybe a spouse that really doesn't want to be involved with the dog. Well, this is a way that they can see um, something happening, which is really cool. And it makes and it helps them to become more of a part of that dog's life. And it helps the dog um, listen, you know, respond a little bit better to that other person in in the home.

• 35:50Tim Ferriss?

  And you you mentioned earlier with the restraint recalls uh, using the running initially. And then removing the running. And there's there's a progression in this training. Is that an example of what you would call shaping behavior? Or is there a better, is there perhaps a a different example that we'd use to explain this concept of of shaping behavior?

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, everything we do is some regardless of it's and and, you know, the underlying thing I tell people is. It's it's all behavior, whether we're doing it with people or we're doing it with dogs. And we're just shaping their behavior to have a better outcome for them. So whatever it is we're doing, when you're allowing the dog to make a choice, then you're shaping. So that's how I would define what's shaping. It's the dog makes a choice and they get a positive outcome. Um, when it could be a negative outcome too, you can shape them away from something as well, but we uh, don't go there. But it's the same thing. So that's really what shaping is.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  And so what we're doing with when with our restraint recalls, when we're uh, what we're doing is we're taking the reliance of the prey instinct away. And we're working on the dogs just responding to their name. And some people like to say the word come instead of their dog's name. I encourage them to pick one or the other word and um and make it a magic word. So again, if you've got kids in the house and you want them to be involved with this, you've got to tell the kids they've got to have the magic key in order to be allowed to say the dog's name. So anywhere around the house, they're not allowed to use the dog's name.

• 37:29Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Because that's how the the dogs just learn to to tune it out, right?

• 37:33Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  They they hear their name a hundred times and then they don't respond. If you want a dog to respond to their name every time you say it, again with the kids, tell them, you know, here's the the treat bowl and and you get a cookie and then you wait until the dog's not paying attention to you, say their name, and then you can give them a cookie. But that's the magic key is the cookie. And if you don't have a key, you can't say the name. And I tell them to give them another word like pup, pup, pup. You can help call the dog pup, pup, pup unless you have the magic cookie. And so, you know, that that's what what works to help build that behavior. And so when we get to the restraint recall, the dogs got an understanding of what the name is, and they're starting to chase you. But you might build up to maybe thirty or forty feet that you're away and and you just

• 38:16Speaker 03

  delay a little bit. You call the name, you you wait until the dogs maybe taking two strides and then you run. And then eventually you just ping pong that distance. You're you're unpredictable. The dog really doesn't know when you're going to run. So their their first response is always to chase because they want to catch you up.

• 38:34Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  That that go back into that prey drive.

• 38:37Tim Ferriss?

  And you mentioned, for instance, I think what is a at least a key component for people who view themselves as busy, which is the collar grab, as one example, doesn't take any additional time. It's it's something that you have the opportunity to do in the course of doing things you're already obligated to do, right? It is it is extremely easy. Uh, and I mentioned earlier that you'd recommended, you know, in an ideal world, three to four sessions of four to five minutes length, as opposed to trying to do a marathon sixty minute session with a three month old puppy or something.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 39:12Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, the uh, which just for those People wondering, doesn't work very well. Uh, the, uh, the other, the, I just wanted to share a personal experience. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. So I had, uh, along the same lines, thinking of things you're already doing, try to, using the time you're already going to allocate to your dog more intelligently. I recall at one point, I had to take a trip. I came back, this was pretty early on in having Molly and, uh, Molly stayed with my girlfriend at the time and I came back. I was working with a local trainer who was great, uh, on Long Island. And I came back and it felt like Molly didn't even know me. It was really interesting. She, she was no longer my dog is how I felt. And I was really worried about this.

• 39:54Tim Ferriss?

  I was like, my God, I think I've lost Molly. She doesn't know who I am. And I talked to the trainer. She said, you know, what you should try is, uh, feeding her by hand. Feed her her meals by hand. And I was like, huh, okay. Well, yeah, I'll give it a shot. And so I started, uh, at the time, I still use this and I don't know if you have any recommendations here related to food, but, uh, I, I was using Stella and Chewy's tend to use, yeah, the, the, the freeze dried patties. I tend to use the, the lamb or the rabbit. It's a little easier to break up. And, uh, so I started walking, I would take her outside and walk with her and I would keep her in the reward zone.

• 40:30Tim Ferriss?

  And feed her this kind of mush by hand. And it was just incredible because it's like the, the, the same, roughly the same amount of time. It really didn't take very long. I was able to develop two things. A, the bond between, uh, me and Molly would just skyrocketed. I mean, it was really, and, and the trainer was effectively said, he or she who feeds the dogs is the, is the dog's closest friend. I was like, okay, so I'm going to feed by hand and also made huge strides forward in getting her to, uh, come to that heel position, uh, which was fantastic. So anyway, just a, just a side note in something that really didn't take very much time at all. The other

• 41:12Tim Ferriss?

  combination that really helped me related to the crate and, uh, permission.

• 41:18Tim Ferriss?

  Was just like you said, the dog sits, you open. If it, if the dog stands up before being cued, you shut the door. Right. And you can train that behavior. What I, what I did from the very beginning with Molly is I would open up the crate, use my hand to get her to, uh, just as a kind of a, a stay.

• 41:39Tim Ferriss?

  Hand signal to sit until, and I would have the food sort of in front of her. And wait for her to make eye contact and gradually increase the duration of that eye contact. And then give her permission to, to eat the food. And before long, I mean, really within the span of probably a week, was able to, to stop using the hand signal because she knew she had to be seated. And then I could just use a release word to get her to, to eat the food. That I found extremely helpful, uh, and still find helpful. So we still practice that.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  A couple of things though, that you said, Tim, that I just want to point out. Number one, what happened with you and Molly when you came back was a great example of a transfer of value. And, and you made a comment that, that he who feeds the dog gets the respect and the response of the dog, which isn't the case because I never feed our dogs for, you know, John and I have been together for 20 years and he's the only one who ever feeds them. And they don't give him the time of day. And the reason, the reason is, is there's no transfer of value. He does nothing. He, they, they don't have to do anything to get that food.

• 42:46Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  They, they, they, you know, they can run around and be goofballs and the food still comes. So there is no transfer through him. Versus what you did was you had Molly in the reward zone and reinforced her there. And that's the magic. That's how you get the transfer of value is that it isn't just here's your food and don't you love me. It's, you know, you, you're, you don't give it away for free. You've got to make great value of it. I think there's some old folklore, your mother might've told you about that. It's the same holds true. It's, it's, they, it's gotta be earned. And that's when the magic starts happening. That's how you start to build a relationship. And you know what? It goes again with, with any animal.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  It, look at a kid, a kid who has absolutely everything. And it doesn't, you know, they, they, they don't necessarily want to go out and play catch with you versus the, the kid who has virtually nothing and really, really appreciates the opportunity to come out and play catch with you. Because it's value through you that helps create a better bond. And it's the same with dogs. Value coming through you that you don't just have, you know, a lot of people's homes, when I used to go and do one-on-one in people's homes, the number one mistake they would make is that the food was always on the floor.

• 44:01Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  So the, the food, it never, it had never had any association with you whatsoever. The dog didn't have to work for it. They didn't really need you at all. So that, that's a biggie.

• 44:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a super key point. I've never had food left out ever. Um, and, uh, so it's, it's an event. I mean, it's

• 44:21Tim Ferriss?

  and there's an exchange. Every time we do it, there's always an exchange.

• 44:26Speaker 03

  It's, it's because dog training with people is, um, I mean, dog training should be intentional, but most often it's either accidental or reactionary. And so it's accidental in that the dog learns how to tip over the garbage and get stuff out. Or it's reactionary in that you see something like the puppy chewing on the slipper or the, the puppy, you know, peeing on the floor or the puppy, it's a reaction. And that's, and, and if you are intentional, which you have been really good with Tim, being very intentional about what you want the outcome to be, then you don't tend to have the same problems. And, you know, I tell people in the whatever 30 years I've owned a dog, I've never had one chew a slipper or chew furniture or it just doesn't happen because I'm so intentional about what I want when I'm raising them.

• 45:10Tim Ferriss?

  So let's, let's talk about that and dig into it a little bit because I think it's, it's super important and I'd love to hear you uh, elaborate on it. The sort of do's and don'ts of say, getting a puppy or rescue dog. I adopted Molly uh, out on Long Island.

• 45:29Tim Ferriss?

  How to go about it, common mistakes, because I remember reading up on, there was a, I think it was a PDF from Ian Dunbar. It's kind of before you get a puppy and then right after getting a puppy. And one of the points I took away, and I think it was from his stuff, was it's your best bet is to not give the puppy an opportunity to make a mistake. It's a lot harder to correct the behavior than to simply prevent it in the first place. So bring Molly home, guess what? No shoes on the floor anywhere for her to chew on. This is just, the temptations are not there.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  But it's the same with, it's the same with us, right? Like I recently started, I was gonna do this kettlebell challenge. It's, I don't know if you've heard about this 10,000 swing kettlebell challenge?

• 46:18Tim Ferriss?

  So that's a lot. No, I know about kettlebells, but 10,000 reps.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  So there's this challenge going around and I'm not gonna do the 10,000. I might, I might get to 10,000, but they want you to do 10,000 in 28 days, which is not gonna happen. But I thought, I'm gonna do, I started with 100 swings a day and then I'm gonna go to 200 swings a day. But I decided, you know what? I wanna, I think I've got pretty good form, but I videoed myself, looked at my form, checked it out. And then I posted it in a Facebook group that I belong to. It's a kettlebell Facebook group. Dude, like, can you give me any input on my form? Because before you start, you know, you wanna make sure you're doing it right. Because if you do 10,000 repetitions of something, you're gonna be, you know, creating bad form. And it's the same with your puppy. You bring that, we get, we all get one chance to make a first impression with our dogs. When we first bring them home, whether it's a puppy or a rescue dog, you get one chance to make that first impression.

• 47:05Speaker 03

  And if they come in and go, wow, no rules, I'm here at Disneyland, let's go. Then you're in trouble because they learn to have bad form and they keep having bad form. And it's more difficult to correct bad form than it is to start with good form right from the beginning. And I see that as the number one problem with people with dog training is there's this mismatch of expectations with the people that and in my own my my parents they when we had our family dog you you kind of touched on it with your family dog they're almost feral because we just expect that they're gonna do what we say and you know it's crazy because there was never any actual you know reinforcement put into what we wanted it's just like dude what's wrong with you don't you understand English well no they don't so people people

• 47:50Speaker 03

  they just expect so much and they haven't really prepared the dogs and I I say this to all my students I've been saying this for twenty five years our dogs are a reflection of our ability to train so if there's areas that your dog isn't brilliant at if your dog doesn't bring the toy back if they don't come when they're called when they're maybe fifty feet away chasing a deer then that shows they're just a reflection and they're trying to help us be better dog trainers and you either take that information or you ignore it and I've got on my YouTube page I've got this um video called the journey it's probably one of my it's got like three hundred thousand hits on it and it's all about yeah and it's all about that that our dogs are here to teach us and if you don't

• 48:33Speaker 03

  open your eyes to that you're gonna miss these lessons and chances are your next dog is gonna try and teach you the same lessons it's it's not a coincidence and so our dogs just reflect what we're good at and you and you look at that and go okay well I'm gonna I'm gonna fix this you have a dog that you know goes to the bathroom on the floor all the time then is reflecting to you that you haven't made it clear that there shouldn't be options here and um so when when people get a new dog I tell people it's it the first twenty four hours are is critical and I would and I and I intending to put this on our website there's a free download of what you should be preparing for the first twenty four hours but you know the the obvious things is you should get a crate and you should get really

• 49:14Speaker 03

  good quality dog food and um educate education you know and and again be intentional find out what dog training resonates with your core beliefs with how you want um your animal to be raised and and you know somebody was telling me yesterday somebody I really respected was saying how you know he was getting his friend's dog he was training it by scaring it and I'm like dude you do that to a four year old kid like is that really how you want an animal to respond to you and to be terrified of you So there's just some things that you should be prepared with. A really good quality chewy for the dog, something that, you know, when they, if they did happen to chew on something you didn't want them to chew on, you would just replace it with

• 49:58Speaker 03

  what you do want them to chew, you know, and a toy, tug toy. So these are just all the things you should be preparing. Education being the number one thing and a crate, I would say, would be number two. And then for the first 24 hours, you know, I'll just go through, if you want, Tim, I'll go through what I do when I get a new puppy. Sure. The first 24 hours. So, you know, the first thing I do is I play tug with them. So I get a nice, long, fluffy tug and I create the first game of choice right there. So I'll tug and then I'll pull it out of their mouth and I'll put it a few inches away from them and they dive on it and they tug and I pull it out of their mouth and I put it maybe a little further and they dive on it and I'll do that a few times. And then the next time, I won't put it down, I'll put it up against my body and they'll

• 50:40Speaker 03

  bounce at my body and they'll bite at my body and as soon as they start, stop bouncing or biting, then I put it back down and tell them they can get it. And so we're building an interaction of choice, right, from the first moment they come into my home. And so we get that puppy played out, you know, obviously give them a drink of water, put them in their crate, let them sleep, and you go back between playing, feeding and sleeping before whatever sessions you have and we touched on, you know, three to five minutes. And then maybe two hours before you're going to go to bed, you would have your last one of these sessions and then they would get another drink and then they wouldn't get access to water again. And one of the important things that, you know, I have never had a puppy wake me up in the middle of the night past the first night. And some of them don't even do it that first night, but it just never happens.

• 51:23Speaker 03

  And I talk to people who, they have seven and eight month old puppies still waking them up in the middle of the night. And so, you know, this protocol that I have for the first 24 hours, you know, it really works well. One of the things that I do is I take a chair from our kitchen and I put the crate on the chair and I put the... Crate right beside my face on the bed. So I'm sleeping and my breath is blowing into that puppy's crate. You can even get these toys that create a heartbeat, like the mother's heartbeat. And I think those are are are great too, if you wanted to go that route and put it right in the crate with the puppy. If the puppy wakes me up, I s- this is the only time when a puppy tells me I need to go potty outside, that I don't make any kind of interaction with them.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  So I open the crate, there's no crate games, I just lift them out. I put the leash, I actually clip the leash right around their collar. And I don't care if you have a fenced in backyard, put the leash on the puppy. And I take the puppy out, they do their business. I say nothing to them, I pick them back up on my arms, take the leash off, put them back in the crate. So the mistake people make is they go, oh, the puppy's really energetic at two in the morning. So I'll just do a little bit to tire him out. Oh, hell no. Reinforcement builds behavior. And if you're telling the puppy, uh, play session at two AM happens every night. You're gonna get woke up at two AM every night. So any other time when I take that puppy outside, it's always on a leash. So that I can help to create, you know what, I don't want you to pee in my garden.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  I'd like you to pee in the back corner where the where the trees are. That's where your potty area and your dog's gonna just, you're you're gonna be able to clean up the same place all the time. Because the the dogs grow up learning, this is where they want me to do my business. So they're always on a leash. And the other thing about always on a leash is, let's say you end up going to a hotel, which I do. If your dog hasn't been raised to do their business on a leash, they're not gonna do their business on a leash. And so you're gonna be walking up and down in this hotel on that little strip of grass out in front, trying to get them to pee and they're not going to, because you haven't conditioned it from the time they were babies. So um, when you take them out, always you you're quiet until they start doing their business. And I'm personally, I like to give that a name.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Have you done that, Tim, with Molly? Give it a name when they do their business?

• 53:40Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, yeah, I said, uh, you mean, yeah, potty was my, was my, was my, was my go to.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Yep. So, and it's good because if you, again, are taking a puppy to visit family or friends, you want them to, you know, empty their bladder before they go into this house. So if you condition a word and it's, again, it's just like Pavlov, you wait until they start peeing and then you just say that word really quietly in a way that doesn't disturb them, right? So if it's potty, it's you just say, "potty, potty, potty", and you start to condition that word with an act of releasing their bladder. And it's, they get reinforcement because it feels better because they've released their bladder. But if you wanted to give them a little cookie for peeing outside after, that's cool too. But on leash, in, you know, in an area you want them to, to do their business in, and you just get into this routine of, of potty on leash and playing and feeding.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  And then you have a puppy that has, you know, we have a one time to make our first impression and our first impression is all good things come through you. And, um, you know, and when I, and I don't, I, I have this rule, don't wake the mama at night. Mama likes to sleep. Don't be waking the mama at night. And I, and I don't, I just don't get woke up. So it's awesome for me. I'm not cranky in the morning because my puppy woke me up. And certainly if, you know, if they are sick, that's fine. They have explosive diarrhea. They, they can wake me up and I will always get out with, get up with a dog who wants to get out. But I won't interact with them in any way. And that's a biggie. That you not make that reinforcement. Don't be reinforcing it.

• 55:09Tim Ferriss?

  So I also, with the potties, a couple of notes on this because I've had a lot of fans ask me about potty training, uh, which went very well with Molly. Uh, you know, she's probably like many dogs and many humans, uh, good at some things, not great at others. I take full accountability. But the, the potty training went very well. And this, I think, is also a good area in which to explain the downsides of negative reinforcement or yelling at your dog, putting its head in a mess if it goes to the bathroom in the house. Uh, but suffice to say, I, I used a clicker also. Uh, and I think we can, we can actually maybe just give a brief explanation of what that is.

• 55:52Tim Ferriss?

  Remember you once described it to me as an audio scalpel, which I thought was a really cool way to look at it. Uh, so I would... Say potty while she was going potty and then as soon as she finished, because I didn't want to interrupt her, as soon as she finished, like the millisecond she was done, click and then treat. And I became obsessed with clickers for many different things. Can you explain to people what a clicker is? And I was introduced to it, I think, first through, I want to say Karen Pryor and Don't Shoot the Dog, which, which I really enjoyed. Also, background in training dolphins and marine mammals. Could you explain to people what a clicker is and

• 56:35Tim Ferriss?

  what they are good for and what they're not good for?

• 56:40Speaker 03

  So it is a marker. In, in the marine mammal world, we call it a bridge. So a bridge between marking what we really like and when we can get that reward to the dog. So in a perfect world, when a dog did something we wanted, we could magically make food appear right in front of their face. But that isn't possible. So we need to bridge for the dog between the time of when they did something amazing and when we, we can get that food to their face. And I know a friend, a good friend of mine, Greg Luganis, who's won gold medals at the Olympics, he said, they have used it for divers as well, to mark when they're in their spin, that that was, okay, your arms were in the right spot, boom. So the diver

• 57:25Speaker 03

  can hear and start to know, you know, get that feedback, because it's really difficult to point, to pinpoint. So it's exactly the same thing as if you were, you know, clicking a dolphin for doing a spin in mid-air. It's like, that's the time that I like it. So-

• 57:39Tim Ferriss?

  Just a, just a quick interruption. I apologize. For those people who don't know, Greg Luganis' second act, he's a competitive dog trainer, right? He is a handler.

• 57:49Speaker 03

  And that's how we met. Greg was a student of mine for many, many years, and now we're great friends. And, and, you know, he's an awesome guy. And, and he still helps with US diving, too. So it's really cool. So he brings his, what he knows about dog training, and brings it into the diving world. So, so a clicker is a, is awesome, but it is a, a conditioned reinforcer. It's telling the dog, it's a promissory note that something is going to happen. That's amazing. And there's a lot of different things you can use, like you can, if you have a pen click, you can use the top of a pen clicking. You can even, you know, use a word. Yes is the word that I use most often. The difference between a clicker and the word yes is, yes can be judgmental. So it's not necessarily the best thing.

• 58:33Tim Ferriss?

  Meaning it's not, it's not as consistent, you mean, as?

• 58:36Speaker 03

  Right, because you can say, if the dog did something amazing, you might say, yes. And if the dog, you are like, um, it was okay, yeah, yeah, yes. So where clicker is a clicker and it doesn't have any judgment and it's just marking, that was good, you're gonna get a reward. And when I, but I still use the word yes, but yes isn't always followed up with food. A clicker is always followed up with a toy or something the dog really has high, high value for. And, um, and a clicker, basically it's using a classical conditioning. So it goes back to ring a bell, present the food. Instead of ringing a bell, we are clicking a clicker. And, and it's best for behaviors that are really, um, that you can, you wanna isolate

• 59:21Speaker 03

  a small, uh, slice of a behavior. So for example, a recall, it's harder to click for a recall unless you're gonna click the moment they give you the head turn. But you don't wanna just click that moment in time, or it becomes like musical chairs where the dog, uh, turns, but they don't move because they're waiting, the music might stop here because you always clicked right here. And so, you know, you, a clicker, as I said to you, is a scalpel. And there, you know, there's some great tools that sometimes you need a scalpel. Like if I'm teaching my dog to, to wave, put their hand, their paw up above their e, their ear, then I would use a clicker for that because I want the height of how high can you reach that paw? I'll click that.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  And sometimes, you know, if you, I use the example, if you're going to have brain surgery, you, you, you want your, your surgeon to use a, a laser. And that's what a clicker is. It's really pinpoints, but you wouldn't want that surgeon to use a melon baller. And sometimes a melon baller will do for us.

• 1:00:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  And that is the word yes. So there are times where you can just mark, yeah, that your, yes, that was good. Thanks for bringing that ball back. Yes. Good dog. Other times you really want something that gets the message across super clearly that this is a slice of the behavior that I love. And that's when you do use a clicker.

• 1:00:37Tim Ferriss?

  And how do you feel about using a clicker directionally? And what I mean by that is if a dog does something partially correctly, for instance, you're trying to get your dog to roll over, let's just say. And so you start with hypothetically, a treat and you kind of wind their nose back towards their tailbone to get them to roll over, but they only do it a quarter of the way. Would you click to encourage them to continue in that roll? Uh, or is that something that you would only reserve for the completed action?

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  No, I would definitely use it for part, um, to, to start create, create a behavior. I would do parts of it for sure. And, um, oftentimes I wouldn't, I, I don't use the cookie as a lure. Um, but I would, and, and not that I would have a problem with anybody doing it at all. Um, it, but if you, a lot of the times like that, say you were getting your dog to spin in a circle, you know, similar to rolling on the ground. But if, if they started turning one and they started going partway and you click that, they're likely going to carry on the rest of the way to get the cookie. Right? And so you're actually clicking, you're marking, that's what I like. And then they're coming around to get the cookie. So it finishes the spin and you get the spin a lot faster by using that clicker instead of just, you know, luring the spin all the way around. Same with if you were

• 1:01:57Speaker 03

  wanting to teach your dog to back up, we're going to get some good party tricks from people here. You could take like a, a, a piece of kibble on your kitchen floor. That's the best combination for teaching the dog to back up. And, you know, you would, you would wait that the dog like shifts their weight backwards. You would throw the cookie between the front paws. And then you, and then the dog would look down for the cookie and you could click that. And then guess what? They're gonna look down for another cookie and you click that and now you're clicking them for backing up and they you just wait till they back up even further and you just keep rolling the cookie. We call that about placement of reinforcement is just so powerful when you're trying to shape behaviors. It's you know, we want the behavior to be associated, the reinforcement to be associated with what the dog is doing. Therefore, if, for

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  example, if you're trying to teach your dog to lay down and they lay down and you click them and you gave them a cookie when they got up, they would still learn to lay down, but the placement of reinforcement is such that it delays that learning. It would take you longer. And if you got the cookie in while they're in the down, that would be much better.

• 1:02:59Tim Ferriss?

  Right. And this actually relates to what I'd mentioned earlier about potty training and why punishment can backfire. Because you have, and I'd love to hear you elaborate on this, but just based on my understanding, for instance, with Molly, I grew up in a house where it's like the dog went to the bathroom. It wouldn't be like shove the dog's face in the poo or anything like that, but it'd be like, bad dog, bad dog, right? And then put the dog out. The dog would have this shameful look and then hopefully they learn something. And of course, they didn't learn anything. I mean, eventually they ended up going to the bathroom outside because they just preferred to be outside. But the point being, as it was explained to me, you know, if, number one, you're probably not going to catch the dog in the act. So there's going to

• 1:03:42Tim Ferriss?

  be a temporal dislocation, right? There'll be, the dog may not put causality together. And number one. Number two, if you just terrify your dog, they're just gonna find a nice, quiet, secret corner to go to the bathroom in. And on top of that, you know, we were talking about getting a dog to back up. The benefit of the positive reinforcement, and you can see this, it's amazing to watch Molly, who's really the first dog I've trained ever, to offer behaviors, right? You want the dog to try to figure out the puzzle. And so sometimes when Molly knows I want something and she lights up, she enjoys training, and she'll try seven different things.

• 1:04:24Tim Ferriss?

  It's like, no, we're not doing paw. No, we're not doing spin. No, no, no. And she'll slowly try to figure it out. And you want your dog to do that so that you can then reward when the dog does the right thing, right? Or does something approximating the right thing in moving in the right direction? If you terrify your dog, they're just gonna opt out, right? I mean, they just, they don't offer the behaviors and then you have nothing to reward. So it becomes a lot harder to use a bridge or a marker to use any type of conditioning, classical or operant conditioning, to connect the dots for the dog. So the, the, and I remember reading this somewhere, it was from a, I think it was a police trainer, actually, who said, "I don't have anything against negative reinforcement

• 1:05:09Tim Ferriss?

  or punishment. If it were the most effective, I just haven't found it to be the most effective." And so the argument was not so much a moral one in that case, although you could make that argument, it was a practical one. And I don't know if you have any, anything else you'd like to add to that?

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  Since you brought up police officers, I have, you know, this great analogy with punishment and reinforcement. And it's being the punishment of being pulled over to get a police, a speeding ticket, which I'm sure you've never had a speeding ticket. And you're just far too nice a guy. But those of us who've actually had speeding tickets, that's a punishment, right? It's a little bit of cash out of the wallet and in, I don't know how it works in the States, but we get these demerit points. And if you get too many, you have to go in and get an interview and the whole nine yards. So it's a punishment, but it's, it's

• 1:05:56Tim Ferriss?

  Just for those people wondering, you're in Canada.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm in Canada. And so, does it, does it change the targeted behavior? The targeted behavior is, we don't want you to speed again. Well, clearly it doesn't, because there are some of us who do speed again. But punishment, all punishment has fallout. And the fallout is, it changes a different part of the behavior unrelated to the targeted one. So the fallout of getting a speeding ticket is, anytime you see a parked car on the side of the road, what do you do? You immediately assume it's an unmarked police car and you take your foot off the gas. Even if you're not speeding, you have a visceral response of this is the fallout of the punishment that I've earned. And if a police officer pulls in behind you and you're driving in the city, even if you're

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  not doing anything wrong, you know, what are your emotions? You know, you get a little tense, you get your perfect driver's ed, ten o'clock and two o'clock positioning on the wheel and you check your, and you start driving by donut shops in hopes that the police officer will go somewhere else. And you're, you're just, it's not a comfortable feeling.

• 1:07:00Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  And, and then, and then if you take that, so, so, so punishment, you know, can't alter behavior, but punishment can suppress it. So what it does is, when you know there's a police officer there, you will not speed. And that's the same with punishing a dog for getting on the couch or getting in the garbage or pooing in the wrong spot. You've suppressed that behavior to the point where they won't do it when you're around. Or they'll come when they know you can get them, but when you're outside of your arm's reach, they won't. Because punishment has suppressed the behavior of them being naughty when you can catch them, but not when you can't. So punishment, in order for punishment to work, it has to be catastrophic. It has to be life altering.

• 1:07:46Speaker 03

  So I use the example in, of, of, let's say you're, you're speeding and you get pulled over and, and you try to, you know, explain to the police officer, you try to get out of that ticket, oh, I was listening to the music and it was really cool. And they go, well, you were, you know, you're going ten kilometers over the speed limit, so, um, you have to be punished. And they open the back of your car and they take out your dog and they shoot and kill your dog. So it's catastrophic. And, um, if you, if you ever, like, once you got out of prison for killing the police officer, you know, you've got to think, would you ever drive again because of this punishment? Like, would you, and, and if you had to drive for work, would you drive with a dog in the car? And if you had to drive like the do- the dog to the vets, would you speed?

• 1:08:30Speaker 03

  There's just no way you would speed. You'd probably go like ten kilometers an hour down the road because you would be terrified. And you'd probably be sobbing the whole way because you're driving with a dog in the car and you don't want to get in trouble. And then what if a police officer pulls up beside you or behind you at the canal? You would just be enraged and you'd probably break into this histor- hysterical. You know, i- it would just be catastrophic punishment has catastrophic fallout. Mild punishment has mild fallout, but neither of them fix a targeted behavior. Now, let's say if you're driving and um you're driving the speed limit, a police officer pulls you over, the lights go on and and they go, hey, uh, we noticed you're going the speed limit and uh, you know, we're we're honoring model stu- uh, m- models uh, citizens this

• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  week and here's two thousand dollars. And they get back in their car and you go, wow, okay. And then a a week or two later, you get pulled over again. Hey, you noticed you stopped at a full stop at that stop sign, uh, here, four hundred dollars in your pocket. And this goes on and you get a couple more rewards and then do you speed again? You you if you knew you had to be at work at nine and it takes you fifteen minutes to get there, you don't leave at ten to nine anymore. You leave it like at seven thirty so you can, you know, tour around the streets and look for police officers to show them how good you are. And if a police officer pulled in behind you then, would you get all verklempt and and, you know, have this visceral? No, you'd be like, dude, hey, it's me.

• 1:09:57Speaker 03

  Like you'd have this amazing resp- response to seeing a police officer near you. And that's what reinforcement does for our dogs. And that's the the difference between it being effective and it not being effective. And and that's why I I tell people, no matter what it is you're trying to create, reinforcement is the answer. And if you have a problem that you can't fix, it's because there's some incidental reinforcement out of your control that's either happening in the environment where the dog is, you know, you're asking them to come and they don't come and they end up catching a jackrabbit instead. Massive kudos for them, big time reinforcement, right? So, you know, you that the the reinforcement is there when the dog isn't doing what they what you want them to do, it's just out of your control and you have to, you know, bring that back in.

• 1:10:42Speaker 03

  Which is why it's always better to do it right the first time and have a plan. But it doesn't matter how old the dog is, you know, they all, you know, can't teach a dog new tricks. That's crap. Um, you absolutely can start with a dog of any age. We had the oldest we've ever had in our class is 17. Somebody from Jersey brought their 17 year old dog up to learn how to, how to shape. And it was awesome and they absolutely can do it. So.

• 1:11:04Tim Ferriss?

  No, this is a great story and I want to tie it into perhaps a question that some people listening might ask, which is, okay, Ferris. Well, if you're not, uh, chastising your dog for taking a dump on your kitchen floor, what, what the hell are you doing? And, uh, number one is coming back to, and feel, feel free to interject at any point here. But number one is just like I removed the shoes, uh, so that my dog, my puppy at the time, wouldn't chew on the shoes and develop that as an incentive, right? A, a, uh, reinforcer. Uh, she was very confined in the beginning. Number one, we used, we, I used a crate all the time.

• 1:11:44Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, and I, I think a lot of people suffer, uh, they, they want to be extremely nice in, in their minds in the short term. And they, they, they sacrifice a lot of potential long-term rewards for the dog and for the family by not using, say, a crate early on. Uh, so number one, Molly was spending a lot of time in the crate, but she was also, when she was outside of the crate, always within eyesight and in, say, one room. She was not allowed to wander the house. And, uh, the, the, the times that I did, uh, find her, say, peeing on the floor, and it happened a few ti- happened a few times.

• 1:12:26Tim Ferriss?

  I would, I would immediately pick her up, walk her outside, pick her up, walk her outside, put her where I wanted her to pee and then click and reward. So it was, that's it. And it was really not giving her. Not being a bad teacher in the sense that I'm giving her a million and one opportunities to make a mistake. I just did not give her that many opportunities. And I don't know if this is a, is a, is an accurate rule of thumb, but in, someone had told me, you know, a puppy can hold his or her bladder for about an hour for every month of age. I don't know if that's true or not, but I just kept that in mind. So I was like, okay, I'm going to take her out every three hours, every four hours, every five, whatever it

• 1:13:10Tim Ferriss?

  might be. And that is when she knows it's time to pee because I've rewarded her and trained her to do that. And the other thing I did was very early on, and this took some finagling because I really wasn't experienced with any kind of shaping or clicker use at that point, but I, I bought bells that hung from the door so that she could paw or nose the bell and teach me that, or tell me that it was time to go outside. And I just began that process by every time we were going to go outside on the three hour mark or the four hour, the five hour, I would tap it myself and then open the door. And eventually she totally got it and started nudging it herself. And that was, that was a happy day.

• 1:13:55Speaker 03

  And you could, you could have even just shaped that behavior as a separate behavior, teaching them to paw at the bell, you know, that, and, and, and, and do, continue to do what you did, like ring the bell before you, before you went out. And, and I mean, it just would have been a fun game. There's a, there's a, I don't remember when it was, it was in San Diego Zoo, there was a, a drill. And it had, and it was like, it's one, drills are I guess like one of the most endangered species in the world. You know, the ones with the big, long canine teeth, the big three inch teeth?

• 1:14:30Tim Ferriss?

  Oh yeah, the mandrill baboons.

• 1:14:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yes. And it had diabetes, but it was the only male in the San Diego Zoo and one of the, you know, I think like handful of males left in the world. And it wasn't a diabetes that was genetic. So they wanted to, you know, give it these insulin shots. And It got to the point, like they're a powerful animal, so they would use a crowd gate to get them in a corner and give them a needle every day. Right? Well, it's just a big creature and a tiny little needle, but it was, you're trying to force me to do something. So it got to the point where he was injuring some of the zoo staff. And I think if you look up Gary Priest, I think was the trainer that I heard, you know, that that worked through this process. Um, when I was at a workshop.

• 1:15:09Tim Ferriss?

  Mandrills are scary, scary baboons.

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  Strong, strong.

• 1:15:12Tim Ferriss?

  Really scary.

• 1:15:13Speaker 03

  And so, so Gary, all that he did, and you know, similar to the bell thing. He, what he did was he created a, um, like a chute, a tube, a metal tube, attached it to the, to the, to the baboon's, um, crate cage, shaped him to put his arm through the tube for treats. And then they put a rod at the end of the, of the, of the tube. And so he would put his arm through the tube and hang on to that rod. And that flexed his arm. So when they wanted to take blood, they could take blood and they could give, in, in a ma- in a matter of weeks. You know, they have this baboon who's loving the game of giving blood and getting his insulin every day.

• 1:15:51Tim Ferriss?

  That's amazing.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  So, you know, you can, you can shape anything. It saved a baboon's life and, um, probably a couple of zoo workers' lives too. Um, shaping behavior is, is, is, it's just so, it's far more cooperative. And the other thing about it is it, it creates far more opportunities for the dog. Because when punishment doesn't work, which it won't long-term, you end up, that dog ends up living a life of restriction. So they don't get to go off-leash at the park. Uh, they don't get to have freedom of running, you know, living in the house. Um, and you know, when, when by the time, if you do what you did and have the dog in a, in a crate, the puppy in a crate or the dog when you first get them.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  And then what we do is we also, we call it the gated community. So you can get an X pen, they're called X pens. A lot of the confirmation show dog people use them. They're, they're like a little, um, three or four foot height. Uh, pen that you can put up in your kitchen. And when you're supervising the dog, but you say you're cooking supper. So you're supervising, but not really you can throw a couple of toys in there and you're cooking supper. And you can watch, and then if you have to leave the room or go outside, then the puppy can go back in the crate. So they're still in a, a, a smaller area. So they don't have access and people think, oh, I want them to be my family pet. Well, when you have a baby, you keep them in a playpen. You don't like, let them crawl all over the house.

• 1:17:14Tim Ferriss?

  Or you don't let them play, play with the silverware.

• 1:17:17Speaker 03

  Exactly. And it's about when the baby can make good decisions for themselves, then you don't have to confine them so much. And it's exactly the same for our dogs. Right? You, you set them up to make good choices and that gives them the opportunity to earn a life without restriction. And by not doing that, that dog doesn't live as full a life. And you are sentenced to management for the rest of that dog's life. When you go outside, you have to put the garbage on the, on the counter because the dog might get into the garbage. And you, you can't leave any, um, you know, food around. It'll rip into the food and they, you know, so it's a life of management. You, you have to make sure the latch is on the gate in the backyard because the dog, once they get out, they're gone down the street.

• 1:17:59Speaker 03

  And, and so life of management for you, which is a ton more work, which leads to a life of complete restriction for that dog. Which is sad because you know what? They deserve to have as much joy in their life as they can get because they're awesome.

• 1:18:12Tim Ferriss?

  Totally. And I get asked by some of my friends, for instance, because uh, from their vantage point, and this is not me saying this is true, uh, across the board, because you have a different, you have a different benchmark. Uh, as someone who's a professional trains, competition dogs and so on. But a lot of my friends who have basically had the types of dogs that I did growing up, animals who live in your house.

• 1:18:40Tim Ferriss?

  And maybe they sit and they probably don't go to the bathroom in the house anymore. But besides that, like all bets are off. So they see Molly and they're like, oh my God, that's the best trained dog I've ever seen. Because you can do some fun stuff, like I can have her go from heel and like through my legs and do a little spin around and kind of, you know, rotate different directions and she'll follow the heel and all this kind of stuff, the decorative stuff, right? And I just said, and I'd be curious to hear your opinion on this, but I said, you know, if I look back at what I did, it, all it took was about three months, maybe even less of doing two or three very short, like five to 10 minute sessions a day. That's it. That's all it, and doing the stuff that doesn't take any extra time.

• 1:19:25Tim Ferriss?

  Sit for pleas. Anytime Molly wants something to go out of the door, if it's especially for anything safety related, right? So she doesn't go charging out of a car or something. I always go through doors first, right? That was one of the protocols. And it's like, well, you're going to do that many times a day. So you're going to, and that's just in the course of your day. But it was, it was maybe two, two, three sessions a day. And I really feel like if you get it right in the first three months, you're kind of set. I mean, you can't just slack off, but it's, it's amazing. I guess my shameful confession is, you know, I'm not doing a ton of training with Molly anymore. But because I just set aside, and guess what, people, like you probably do need a couple

• 1:20:08Tim Ferriss?

  of five to 10 minute breaks yourself anyway. It was not that hard. And if people, if you can't afford to put in that time, you probably shouldn't get a dog, right? I mean, it's Absolutely. And that's, that's, that's been my experience. I wanted to ask a couple of questions. So the first is, one of the things that I experimented with, and ultimately the room was small enough that I could keep an eye on her without it. But instead of using an X pen, which is gated community you talked about, which a lot of people seem to have used very, very successfully, I experimented with tethering. So using a, say a short leash or some people use these, I suppose they're cords of sorts

• 1:20:52Tim Ferriss?

  to keep your dog attached to you as you walk around the house or whatever. What is your opinion of, of that approach?

• 1:20:58Speaker 03

  Not a fan because it's removing choice and I love to give the dogs choice. So, um, you know, it it's a difference between trying to create the bond because you become accustomed to being with me all the time. Or creating that bond because they're inspired to want to be beside you all the time. And and, you know, so that's the reason that I I'm not but a fan of that. Uh, the other thing is I, you know what, I I go to the bathroom, five dogs want to go to bathroom with me. My dogs follow me everywhere. And so that that relationship and that kind of, uh, you know, phenomenal bond is there with all of my dogs. And even like I have a seventeen year old and I have a one and a half year old and it it doesn't matter. It's still very, very strong.

• 1:21:43Speaker 03

  The other thing, I move so much, like it would, it would just, they'd be underfoot all the time. So, you know, the the the big reason though for me is it comes back to, I want to train my dog in environment based with choice. So that they have the choice to just hang out, um, with in their their X pen. And then I'll do things like I have, um, I'll have my X pen in my office and it's, there's a flight of stairs to go into the kitchen. And so I'll walk into, you know, take them, I'll wa- walk the puppy down into the kitchen and I get to a dog bed. And this is, this would be like a, you know, a three month old puppy. And I'll just stand there by the dog bed and I'll wait and the puppy will offer to go in. I'll throw cookies as, and I'll keep throwing cookies as I'm making my way across the kitchen to get my water.

• 1:22:25Speaker 03

  And then I'll throw, throw cookies all the way back and then I'll give them a release word, permission to leave and come with me again. So it's like, those are all choices that lead up to this phenomenal relationship that I have with my dog. That, um, it's not because you have to, it's because you want to. And, you know, anytime we have a choice in life, do we hear the alarm get off, go off at Monday morning at nine o'clock? And you have to go to work and suddenly you go, like, I think I have a sore throat, I might have a sore throat. But if the alarm goes off at six thirty in the morning because you have a hockey game on Saturday morning, boom, you're out of bed, done. Because one is you have to and one is you want to. And I want to inspire my dogs to always want to, no matter what it is.

• 1:23:06Speaker 03

  And and so I get dogs, like even my terriers, if they could be out chasing a squirrel, they might be within a mouthful of catching them and I'll just say, we're going this way and boom, they'll stop on a dime and come back. Because they've always had those choices in life and and those choices have been layered so that they always want to do what I want.

• 1:23:25Tim Ferriss?

  And a couple of other things that I'd love to get your take on. I feel like I found these things useful, but I'd like to get your take because I don't want to recommend them, but they seem to be useful for you. So one was not so much variable reinforcement schedule that we could get into that, but that might be a rabbit hole that is round two on the podcast.

• 1:23:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:23:48Tim Ferriss?

  But I did do particularly with recall practice, jackpotting, right? So like once or twice a day, just randomly, instead of getting one treat, it'd be like, boom, you're getting 10 treats or whatever it might be. And do you feel like that is a valuable practice at points? Or how?

• 1:24:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's something that I will do, but it is, science has proven it has zero value in training. And sometimes it will actually hurt your training. But you know what? It makes me feel good. And so even though I know that I will still do it. Like, if my dog does something exceptionally well, oh, hell, I'm all in. It's, you know what? I'm jackpotting that. But here's, here's what the science has proven. So there's a couple by the name of Bob and Marion Bailey, and they were my mentors. Marion passed away, and Bob's still an awesome friend. He just turned 80 today, actually. And they, they, they made a living. Instead of being scientists who, you know, were in a laboratory and playing

• 1:24:53Speaker 03

  with dolphins, their livelihood was based on training animals for the armed forces for espionage.

• 1:24:59Tim Ferriss?

  Remember this. Yeah. Like pigeons and cats.

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  Fascinating couple. Yeah. Every 1,500 different species of animals they trained. Phenomenal. We could do a whole podcast talking about.

• 1:25:11Tim Ferriss?

  What was the, what was the last, the last name of the couple again?

• 1:25:14Speaker 03

  Bailey. And actually Marion Bailey, she was a graduate student of BF Skinner.

• 1:25:21Tim Ferriss?

  And so. Yes, the Skinner box.

• 1:25:23Speaker 03

  Phenomenal. Yeah. Phenomenal work that they did. And so every, they're, you know, they're, they're putting food on the table was dependent upon getting the science right. And so many of the people that we would talk about as being, you know, founders and really having big influence in, in animal training were teaching at a university. These two.

• 1:25:45Speaker 03

  Were in the trenches, taking notes, like they, their livelihood, they, they had to do this right. And so, um, like their research is phenomenal on, on all different aspects of training. And, um, so they found that it actually absolutely did no value. And they tried it with all different animals, had no value in training. There was another, a woman, I, I don't know if she ever finished her PhD, but she was doing a PhD on jackpotting in dogs. And what she found, and you may find this, if you, you play around with this one, Tim, that it increases the variability of response. So let's say you were, uh, trying to teach your dog to back up. And you do what I did, suggested, and you throw the cookie between their legs, and you click for that, and you click for that. And then all of a sudden, you get like two or three really good steps, and you jackpot that. Well, what

• 1:26:30Speaker 03

  you will find is the dog won't go right back to backing up. They'll start throwing, waving, and, and, and it creates an, a, a, an over-arousal state with a dog. And so they won't go back to the thinking state of offering you the same behavior. Knowing all that, I still do it, but like, I just, I get excited and I, so I, you know, it's, it's more for me than it is for the dog and whatever.

• 1:26:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And, uh, Bob Bailey, I'm looking at some notes. I took a lot of notes the first time we got on the phone. Uh, and I really still want to do this. He does the, uh, chicken training classes.

• 1:27:03Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:27:04Tim Ferriss?

  Chicken camps. Now, can you explain why this is important? And I, I think there's a quote that I read, I'm blanking on this, is another trainer, they said, unless you've had to train a chicken, you shouldn't be allowed to have a child.

• 1:27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. I can't remember who said that, but that is definitely, I have heard that quote. Chicken camp is something that Bob and Marion, um, started up many years ago. And, uh, I went through some of their early programs when they were teaching it. It was amazing just to listen to Marion lecture. She was, so it, it was, you know, you did, it was five days, and you did a little bit of training and a little bit of lecture. And they pick the chicken because they're a phenomenal model of behavior. They're super easy to train and you can see responses immediately. Immediately, like it's very black and white with chickens and there's no emotional attachment.

• 1:27:57Speaker 03

  And you use a little measuring cup to deliver the reinforcements, just boom, boom. And it covers so many things. It covers the mechanics of training and you just think about training in a completely different way once you've been through chicken camp. And I was actually talking to Bob just two days ago. He told me, because he had stopped doing the chicken camps. He's going to be doing a cruise very soon and where he's going to be talking, doing lectures, and then he's going to open up another chicken camp. He pretty much retired, but he does work with one of the armed forces in one of the Scandinavian countries now. So fascinating, fascinating guy. He was up at our place for three weeks this summer and just, you know, he would just have

• 1:28:39Speaker 03

  anybody on my team, just, you know, god smack, because listening to his stories about what they were able to do with, you know, whether it be, you know, training a sea lion to swim under the US ships, looking for a diver that might want to be putting explosives on the bottom of a ship. And the sea lions would be swimming with a leg clamp. If there's any diver in the water, that sea lion, they could swim faster than the divers and they would have a leg clamp on the diver and the diver would be up on the deck. Like just little things that, amazing, amazing things, that they trained cats to go through airports. And back in the 50s, 60s, they had this project where they had the cats had a cochlear implant

• 1:29:24Speaker 03

  and they would, they would control where the cats would go with high frequency noises. And when there was a conversation they wanted to listen to, they would get the cats, turn right, turn left, sit, stay, and it would, you know, transmit this conversation. And it was just amazing, amazing stories of.

• 1:29:41Tim Ferriss?

  How is this?

• 1:29:42Speaker 03

  They taught a cockroach to turn out lights.

• 1:29:43Tim Ferriss?

  Wait, wait, hold on. I'll let you finish that and I have a question about, well, actually, the question is why has this not been made into a Hollywood movie yet? But wait, they trained cockroaches to do what?

• 1:29:53Speaker 03

  A cockroach to turn out a light. So the thought was if they needed somebody to go into a room that needed to be dark, they would put the cockroach in and it turned on. I think actually Marion did that as part of her PhD, if I'm not mistaken. But amazing, amazing.

• 1:30:11Tim Ferriss?

  Big cockroach. Uh, that's terrifying.

• 1:30:15Speaker 03

  He has a, he has a video you can grab, Tim, it's called Patient Like the Chipmunks. And it, and it's got a documentation of some of their experiments.

• 1:30:22Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, awesome. All right. Patient Like the Chipmunks. Uh, and the question about the, uh, the chicken training, is that, is it most valuable because you can't, because the chickens do not respond to negative reinforcement, it just doesn't work?

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  Right. You, you can't do anything. They'll fly away. You, you, you are at the mercy of pure behavior. You can observe behavior and if you get your mechanics wrong, you'll have a chicken in your face. Because if you are good about getting the food in and getting the food out, they will shape your behavior. And it, and it's, it's basically like dog behavior, but it's intensified. So with dogs, they'll do the same thing, but it might take you a month to figure out what's going on. And, and I always, I always tell people with any relationship with, with two animals, one is a trainer, one is a trainee. And with a chicken, they will be your trainee in a heartbeat, if you're not quick about what you're doing.

• 1:31:19Tim Ferriss?

  A trainer, they'll be, they'll be your trainer, you mean?

• 1:31:21Speaker 03

  They'll be your trainer. They'll train you to, you know, put the cookies, the, the food out faster for them. Like they, their, their responses will shape you. And it's the same with the dogs. You know, one of us is a trainer and one of us is a trainee. And if you aren't intentional about what you want, then you'll get a dog. People will say, oh, my dog is stupid or stubborn or, and it's, it's not. Your dog's just brilliant. And they actually have trained you in the way that they wanted. I mean, it was not like they're conniving and thinking up at night, looking in a book on what they can train you to do. But they, they recognize patterns of reinforcement so fast. That they will get what they want. And then they, then you, what you see is, oh, this dog is stubborn. Oh, hell no. This dog has figured out that they can shape you.

• 1:32:07Speaker 03

  And always one person's a trainer and one person's training. Let me give you an example. When John and I first moved in together, one of my Jack Russells had this routine that didn't bother me, but it drove him nuts. So when you're starting to feed dinner, she would run up your back making terrier noises.

• 1:32:27Speaker 03

  As you were putting out the food, right?

• 1:32:29Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds a little unnerving.

• 1:32:32Speaker 03

  I, I didn't even think about it. And so when John took over feeding the food, the dogs, it drove him crazy. He didn't want this terrier running up his back and making all these monkey noises. So I thought, I'm a clever person. I don't want to have to go back to doing that chore. So I have to stop this behavior in the dog. So I just shaped her, she was a little, you know, 10 pound dog. I shaped her to jump up on a kitchen chair whenever anyone went in the kitchen to eat a prepared human food or prepare dog food. And so that was her gig. You went in the kitchen, you could go in the kitchen, it was fine. But if you started preparing food, she'd jump on a chair. And at the time, we lived in this house with a pine floor. And so the floorboards were a little uneven. And so anytime I was cutting carrots or whatever, I'd throw her a cookie over on the chair.

• 1:33:16Speaker 03

  But if I was in a hurry and I didn't notice it, what she would do is she would walk around on the chair till she found the uneven spot. And then she'd go back and forth and rattle it. And that would make me notice that she was there. Oh, what a good girl. And I'd throw her cookies. And it took me months and months before I figured out, I'm being shaped. But I mean, I, I still did it for the rest of her life because it cracked me up that she was so freaking smart. But dogs are brilliant at figuring out patterns of reinforcement. And you know, you, you'll just look at, you find in your own dogs, they will, they will pick up. And that's why when you pick up a set of car keys, if a dog loves to go for a ride, they're the first ones at the door. And if they don't like the car, they'll be the first ones in the back bedroom hiding.

• 1:34:02Speaker 03

  So they, they just are brilliant at figuring out those patterns and going, how can I get the pattern I want faster? And the chickens are like the intense version of that. It's a lot of fun. Chicken camp's awesome.

• 1:34:13Tim Ferriss?

  I really wanted to chicken camp. So the couple more. So a few things that I was told that again, could be complete placebo effect, but some of which I think was helpful in the beginning, and I'd love to get your take, your BS meter on some of this. So I read at one point, and I think this was again, a canine officer in the police force somewhere. And he said, if the dog doesn't know that, if the dog cannot perform the behavior in 20 locations, the dog doesn't know the behavior. It was something along those lines. And the point being like, if you, if you haven't trained it in different contexts, and what

• 1:34:55Tim Ferriss?

  it seemed to me was different surfaces, in particular for, for Molly as a puppy, don't expect it to work. I mean, you, you have to really practice the behaviors that are most important. And I guess for me, I was trying to focus on not necessarily paw and things like that, but the, the behaviors that could save her life, right? The things that you, that you really want, like a remote sit stay, or recall, the leave it, these types of things, where you don't want your dog licking antifreeze, or whatever it might be. How do you, how do you think about, I guess, failure proofing behaviors to the extent possible? One thing that, another kind of heuristic that I found helpful to think about

• 1:35:40Tim Ferriss?

  were the, the three D's. And I mentioned it earlier in passing, but having a simple behavior, but then ratcheting up the distance you are from the dog, the duration of fill in the blank, and then the number of distractions, right? As you can kind of take them from white, white belt level to black belt in a given behavior.

• 1:36:01Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:36:02Tim Ferriss?

  How, how do you think about failure proofing the, some of the most important behaviors?

• 1:36:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And, and, you know, the three D's are, are, you know, they're, they are the ones that are going to build the brilliance. The thing is, what we do is we make sure that we introduce all of those things in crate games where you can control what the dog's doing. So any distractions you're going to use for your recall, any distractions you're, you're, you're going to use, you know, at the distance away, the duration, you could all do that in a crate where you can just close the door and it doesn't affect your relationship with your dog. And then, once they've got that, it's almost like, you know, they've got the first set of inoculations against distractions.

• 1:36:42Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:36:42Speaker 03

  And, and then, when you take them out to the real world to do that, you're just building in that second set so that you are really getting a killer immunity for the dog against any distractions that they may come in contact with.

• 1:36:54Tim Ferriss?

  How would you, you're talking about shaping and being shaped as a trainer. So we, we, why did Tim Ferriss stop using the bell on the door? I'll tell you why. And you can probably guess. So.

• 1:37:09Speaker 03

  I know where we're going.

• 1:37:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So Molly, bright pup that she is, figures out pretty quickly, oh, wait a second. If I kick this bell, I get to go outside. So she started kicking it all the time because she didn't have to pee. She just wanted, she was bored as hell watching me do whatever boring stuff I was doing in the house and she wanted to get outside. So I, and I, I was not sure how to correct it. And so at that point, I was like, all right, you know what? The only solution that I can see in front of me, and I'm probably missing something, was to remove the bell. And she was old enough at that point that I was like, all right, she's, she's not going to pee all over the house. But what would you do in a situation like that? Because this type of thing, I imagine, happens, can happen with all sorts of things, all sorts of behaviors.

• 1:37:49Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Yeah. So it's recognizing that you're being shaped, first of all. And so what I would do is I would make sure that the first bell ring, the dog gets to go out because, you know, maybe she does genuinely have to do something. And then you come back in, the second bell ring, she goes out on a leash. And if nothing's done, she goes in a crate.

• 1:38:11Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:38:12Speaker 03

  So it's like, you ask permission, but I'm confused because you didn't do what I expected. So then you must have been asking permission to go in your crate. I could put you in your crate, that's cool. Like, you know, I was confused what that bell ring was for. And so she would learn, bell ring, I have some action out there. That's cool, bell ring, I don't get some action out there. I get a consequence that I really didn't, wasn't expecting. And so, you know, because it's all going back to reinforcement and I'm going to decrease your access to reinforcement or I'm going to allow the reinforcement to carry on. You know, I had a student once who had a German Shepherd and a Jack Russell. And she said that the Jack Russell was a really, she wasn't, she was really energetic dog, but was running really slow in agility.

• 1:38:56Speaker 03

  And so I watched her and she had pretty good skills, but I said, tell me about your life around the house. And she said, well, she's a picky eater. So I put the food on top of the German Shepherd's crate so she can jump up there. And when she jumps up there, when she's there, we know she's hungry. So we put it down, she gets the mouth full and then we put it back up on the shelf so the German Shepherd can't get it. And when she wants us to play ball, she barks at the ball on the kitchen sink and we run outside and we play ball. And then, you know, if she's hungry, she goes back up on the crate. And I'm like, no wonder she runs slow in agility because that's the only time in her life that you actually try to tell her what to do.

• 1:39:32Speaker 03

  So you have to really just have an awareness of how it's all rolling out. Dogs are brilliant at figuring out patterns of reinforcement and they'll run with them, as you found out.

• 1:39:46Tim Ferriss?

  As I found out and continue to find out. Now, you gave me a piece of advice early on that was very helpful to me. But it seems like there is, as with anything, a right and a wrong way to do it. And these are some notes that I took down. Susan focuses on arousal state of dog to get them used to responding in high arousal states. Now, that's kind of part two. The part one, which was what immediately helped me was before all training, do some tugging or running to get their heart rates up. And this was Kind of a real phase shift in my training. I mean, an inflection point where things really improved, much like the, "Hey dude, it's a crowded bar. You gotta use 20s, not singles."

• 1:40:29Tim Ferriss?

  I would take Molly from inside where she's laying down for hours at a time and I'd be like, "Okay, time to train. Let's do training." And it would be productive, but it wasn't hyperproductive until I started adding in even just a minute of playing around, getting her running, getting her heart rate up. So what is the right way to do that and what are common mistakes that people make?

• 1:40:53Speaker 03

  It really depends on the dog. You know, you have a dog. Molly is a dog that likes the rough play and bouncing around. You might have like a, you know, a smaller dog that doesn't get into that kind of play. But the most important thing is you've got to get the heart rate up. Think of it, you know, the typical arousal curve of sport. When they're at the low end of arousal, they notice, you know, as an athlete or a dog, you notice in, you know, in significant things in your environment. So if you're stepping in the ring to compete and you're in a low state of arousal, then you're going to notice the crowd, you're going to notice people waving to you, and you're not going to have your head in the game. You won't be in the zone. You'll do a terrible job. And the same with the dogs. If they're in a low state of arousal, then they're going to notice, "Oh, look, there's a fly. Oh, there's something to sniff."

• 1:41:38Speaker 03

  There's, and you're, you might get some work, but it won't be productive. And so if you can get them into that higher state of arousal, and the, changing the physiology is the easiest way to create that. And with a, with a dog that maybe doesn't like to tug, you can, you know, do a recall where they chase you for a cookie. You can do things like rolling a cookie across the floor or hiding a cookie in the couch cushion so that they have to get engaged and find it. You know, you can get them to find it. So you're getting them into a hype, a more hyper-aware state where the distractions don't notice them. So when you're in the zone, when I step to the ring at the world championships and they say my name, I don't even notice that the speakers are on because I'm just focused on my task. And the same is true when my dog's training with me.

• 1:42:22Speaker 03

  If there's other dogs in the area, there's, it doesn't matter what's going on. They are completely in the zone with me and that's what we're doing when we're tugging or getting them moving around first.

• 1:42:32Tim Ferriss?

  How much is too much? And the reason I ask, and I guess my second question is, is there a way to calm your dog down if they're redlining? And, and I'll give you a very specific example. So Molly...

• 1:42:47Tim Ferriss?

  Unfortunately, she lacerated her foot on, I think, a piece of glass. So she was stitched up for a while. We didn't do any real training and she seemed to be in a more easily distracted state after a bunch of kind of lethargic sitting around. We went to a friend's house. There were tons of people around, new environment, big pool in the backyard. Molly loves pools, a bunch of kids petting her, playing with her, and like a crotchety old dog that just wanted to kill everything. That was super yappy and just like distracting to me and doubly distracting to Molly and people ordering pizza and cooking meat. There was just everything going on. And basic obedience, no problem. Sit down, remote, stay, whatever. That was

• 1:43:32Tim Ferriss?

  all fine. But my buddy had seen her do some pretty dramatic stuff, at least in his mind, and he wanted to see it. So I was like, okay, sure, no problem. So I go to do some of the fancier stuff and you could just see the beach ball. You could just see like the computer frozen. And she was just like getting it 80% right, but not quite figuring it out because the dog was freaking out. Everything's going nuts. In a situation like that, do you just kind of pack it in and say, hey, live to fight another day? Or are there things that you can do to get your dog to calm down?

• 1:44:05Speaker 03

  You know, failure is a great, great teacher and it's awesome to get a failure and then say, how are we going to work through this? Because then it makes the dog more resistant to that failure the next time. So, you know, depending on that, if she was a super young puppy, you might just say, let's pack it in. But, you know, assuming she's reasonable age, think of it like a dartboard with the heat zone being right in the middle. And so she's in the middle of all this activity. All that you would do is say, back away 10 feet and ask for the same behavior. And you're getting away from the heat zone to a less intense distraction area. And then if it doesn't work there, back away another 10 feet. So you might go from the backyard to the front yard where it's quiet. And then

• 1:44:48Speaker 03

  you would start with simple behaviors that she can respond to. And then, and then when you get the response you want in the front yard, go back to the backyard and then work your way. I wouldn't go right to the heat zone, but I would, you know, say, okay, we've had some success here. We're going to break it off here. And then the next time, you know, you do this a couple of times, she's going to learn, oh, I respond anytime, all the time. And that, you know, failure is never a bad thing. It's, it's just what you take from that failure and how you can respond to it.

• 1:45:12Tim Ferriss?

  So I want to be respectful of your time and I think there's a chance we may end up doing a round two on this because I love talking about this stuff. The, and I always learn so much when we're jamming, but you started a story before we hit record that I want to hear, which was your vacation to Ireland. Tell me about, tell me about what happened. Because I said, no, no, no, stop. I want to, I want to talk on the, about this during the podcast and I don't want to hear it twice. So let's, let's jump into it.

• 1:45:41Speaker 03

  My, my, my husband is from Britain and we were going for vacation, quote unquote, because I was lecturing over in Britain. I said, look, let's go to, he's always, he loved, wanted to go to Ireland. I said, we'll go to Ireland, have a non-doggy vacation. It'll be lots of fun. And I, I said, I'll order a, we'll get a B and B in Dublin because I'm vegan and it's easier to get good food in a big city. And he said, no, I don't want to be in a big city. So I'm, okay. So I found a, you know, it was on a, in a farm, a beautiful, they raised organic beef and 200 acres. And he said, yeah, that sounds perfect. So we pull in and there's 13 dogs.

• 1:46:17Tim Ferriss?

  So much for the dog-free vacation.

• 1:46:19Speaker 03

  He pulled, he looks at me, he said, did you know this? And I, and he loves dogs. He just wanted a vacation for you. I said, I had no idea because it wasn't in the advertisement. I showed him the advertisement. So they had 12 field springers and, no, they had 11 field springers aboard a colliery in a Great Dane. And they, as soon as you get out of the car, they all jump on you. And of course, I, it's just awesome. And they're so, very sweet couple. They're all apologetic. Oh, they're terrible. They jump on us. And, and I said, um, listen, I just, I just happen to have some more camera kit, equipment with me is, if you don't mind, if I video this, I can fix it for you tomorrow. And she's like, fix it tomorrow. Like, did you hear what she said? Fix it tomorrow. And I explained who I was and that I could do this. So, um, the next day we went out and we did a shoot and we

• 1:47:04Speaker 03

  fixed, we fixed it. And I explained, again, it's about reinforcement. And knowing if you, anytime you have a behavior, you look at, what do I want? I'd like people to, I'd like my dogs to greet people when they, when they see them. And, um, what do I have? I've got hooligans that jump all over. Well, where's the value? Cause there's reinforcement there somewhere. And so the value is, these dogs are incredible social creatures and they love to greet people. And so let's change that value. So what I did was I came out with, um, you know, we'd gone out for supper to a really nice restaurant. John ordered a, a ni- nice steak. I took half of it off so that I could use it for the dogs the next day. And, um, he's loving this.

• 1:47:49Speaker 03

  So then I, um, I go out there and, um, before they can jump on me, I just reward them for not jumping on me. I take the two, the two ones that are, they're real culprits and I just reward and reward for not jumping on me. And then, um, they get the idea that they, that whoa, you know, there's gonna be food on the ground. And so I wait till they sit and then I reward that. And then I want a failure because the greatest lessons happen through failure. So then I get them all excited, what good dogs are, should they jump on me? And when they jumped on me, I just turned my back because what they were seeking was that social attention. And I didn't give it to them. And then when they got off of me, I turned around again. And I did this two or three times until they made that connection. I've had lots of really good steak for sitting and I got a back turn for not sitting.

• 1:48:33Speaker 03

  And so then I couldn't get them to jump on me. And I said, you know, this is, they're not gonna jump on me anymore while I'm here. And if you just do this with a couple of friends and a couple of visitors, you're gonna create a new pattern for these dogs. And, and they're not gonna jump on people anymore. So, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's all about being, uh, present and purposeful with what, what you want from your dogs. And, and really anybody can train. It, it's not, you don't, you don't have to be a professional dog trainer. You just have to, have to seek out what you want. And the thing is, most people try to train from the world of don't. Don't jump on me, don't bite, don't bark, don't, dogs don't understand don't because don't is a concept. They understand do, they understand behavior.

• 1:49:15Speaker 03

  So what you have to do is look at what you don't want and create a behavior that you do want. So that the dog can be right and you're setting them up for reinforcement. And, and that makes for a much better relationship for you and your dog and anybody else that comes in contact with your dog.

• 1:49:30Tim Ferriss?

  And it's also, it's also very transferable to everything else, right? I mean, we're talking about not just a rat in a Skinner box. We're not just talking about a dog in an X pen or a dog in the backyard. We're talking about, as you said, you know, 1,500 different species, including human beings. So operant and classical conditioning. We are not exempt from, from, from those, from those rules. And if you look at, say, for instance, I interviewed a gent named Jason Niemer is the co-founder of AcroYoga. If you look at partner acrobatics, one of the core rules is don't tell the person what you don't want. Give them a simple command, which is more of what you do want.

• 1:50:11Tim Ferriss?

  And if you're going to coach someone effectively and perform at a high level, or even an effective level in that type of environment with a lot of variables, the rules are the same. And I love it. I love talking about this stuff.

• 1:50:27Speaker 03

  And the thing is, when you, if you are a person that looks for what's good in your dog and you're trying to create ways to set them up for success, you become a person who looks for all that's good in life and it, it changes you. You know, it makes you a better coworker, a better spouse, a better parent, a better, because you're always looking for how can I set this up for, for success? How can I create an environment that's reinforcement, reinforcing? And you know what? It's all the same. If whatever I'm, I'm, you know, sometimes I get asked to give marketing lectures and it's, I just take out the word dog and put in the word business and we run to the races and do the same thing, right? It's, it's the same thing.

• 1:51:08Tim Ferriss?

  And so I would love to wrap up with a couple of questions that I know people are going to want to ask, and then we'll talk about where people can find more about you and everything you're up to. So question number one is related to tools to bring home with your dog or get before you adopt a dog. Now, the, the recommendations that came up the most for me, when I polled my audience way back in the day, were get a crate, number one, with a partition, right? So you can make it larger as they get larger, but not give them too much space in the beginning. Second, get a Kong. Third, get a nature's miracle.

• 1:51:55Tim Ferriss?

  When they do something on the floor so they don't go back to the same spot, which is something I learned the hard way and it really does work. And get a clicker. Those were in effect, sort of, I would say, and I may be omitting something, but those were kind of the big four that come to mind. Is there anything, do you have anything to add to those or anything else that you would consider?

• 1:52:22Speaker 03

  You know, the obvious, a leash and collar and I like a buckle leash, not a pinch collar, not a chain collar, a buckle leash, you know, and if you need, if you have a really exuberant, say you're getting a rescue dog, I like a head halter and Gentle Leaders, a brand that I really like to use.

• 1:52:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the head halter is super, super interesting. You said, was it called Gentle Leader?

• 1:52:43Speaker 03

  Gentle Leader is the one that I like to use and really good quality dog food.

• 1:52:49Tim Ferriss?

  What type of dog food?

• 1:52:51Speaker 03

  I like to feed raw, so you know, the Chuy and Sola and Chuy is a phenomenal brand. That's when I'm in the States, that's what I buy and really high, good quality, you know, $20 bill treats. You need to have some lower value treats too, Tim, because you don't always want to tip with 20 or there's an expectation that you're the guy with the 20. So when you're at home and it's a less distracting, distracting environment and you're not asking for a lot, you might use low value like cut up carrots or mix that in with some high value rewards. So.

• 1:53:21Tim Ferriss?

  What type of rewards do you use? What, any particular brands or types of foods?

• 1:53:28Speaker 03

  I use all kinds of different things. I like to mix it up from low value, like Origin, just Origin kibble, like super good quality stuff that that's my lower value and I might, you know, pinch some of John's roast beef because there's no meat in my household. But so I'll mix, I'll mix that up and carrots, like raw carrots are another really good one, especially if a little dog that might put weight on really fast. So you want to be really conscious of that because they, the calories are, they add up fast when you're training a, training a dog, especially if it's a rescue dog that's already full grown, they're not really growing. So, and crate games. So that's a video that's, that we have that's going to help people, help people with the understanding of the crate. And I also have a.

• 1:54:15Speaker 03

  A step-by-step on It's Your Choice, an ebook that they can get from us. And the way they would get that is to go to dogs that listen and forward slash Tim, dogs that listen.com forward slash Tim. And you can get that there. That's something that's within our, we have a $500 course that we keep that within, but we're taking it out for people who are listening to this podcast.

• 1:54:38Tim Ferriss?

  Perfect. Yeah. And I'll put that in the show notes as well. It's just a few more and then, then we can both, well, at least speak for myself, get a bite to eat. The, so the question of trainers, so you said very early on, you're finding a method of training that resonates with you. Who are some of the trainers or thinkers in this world who you respect very highly? And who are the types of people, you could name specific people if you want, that you would recommend staying away from?

• 1:55:07Speaker 03

  Well, you know, the, the trainers, you, for myself personally, Bob and Marion Bailey are really the people that I've learned from and Bob still does have some educational opportunities for people. I'm really a big fan of learning online and when I remember when I first looked into this 10, you know, it was probably six or seven years ago, people told me, oh, it's a mechanical skill. People can't learn it online. But here's the thing, when you are learning something in a classroom, you have the distraction of all the other dogs and the people and the environment. And it is the worst place for a dog to learn something, the absolute worst. Because the environment is so out of your control.

• 1:55:52Speaker 03

  And if the instructor tells you to do something, you've got to try to remember that or write it down when you get to your, you know, back into the car. But when you're learning online, you can look at a video, you can pause it, you can try it, you can go back, you can replay it over and over again. So I'm a big fan of that. There's a ton of stuff you can get online for free. And, and the thing that I advise people to stay away from, anything, anything that a person tells you that you must be the boss of your dog, they must, you know, that's old school. And training should be Should not be physically punishing or mentally intimidating to your dog. And if it is, then you're doing it the wrong way. And there is absolutely, you can have the most phenomenal success.

• 1:56:35Speaker 03

  I don't care if you're trying to create a hunting dog that can work 200 meters away from you with with birds nearby. It doesn't matter what you're trying to to train. You can train it in a way that's creating a better relationship with your dog. Um, it, full stop. It just doesn't matter what it is.

• 1:56:51Tim Ferriss?

  I love it. And is there, are there any other places people can find you online? Or, uh, I was gonna say elsewhere. I'm not sure. Don't give out your, don't give out your home address. Uh, or your email. People have made that mistake on the podcast before. Uh, any other places online where people can, uh,

• 1:57:08Speaker 03

  We have, uh, my blog, my blog has got a ton of free resources and that's Susan Garrett, dogagility.com. But the articles that are in there, you know, there may be 30% of them are are related to dog agility. It's just really good dog training. And, um, you could Google me or on YouTube or on Facebook. Um, Susan Garrett, Dog Agility, it might be our business page and there's lots of good stuff that we post there. So I'm all about giving people free. Uh, there's tons of great valuable content on any of our sites. Dogs that listen.com is a place that I, I suggest to people that go to. And because, you know, the, that, that's my goal in life is to help dog owners better

• 1:57:53Speaker 03

  understand their dogs and help dogs to have the most joy and the best life possible. So that's what I'm out for. And, and I'm happy to say that we're changing the world one dog at a time here. And, and I thank you, Tim, for giving us this opportunity to share that information with the world.

• 1:58:09Tim Ferriss?

  My pleasure. I think it's, uh, it's also changing the world one human at a time. Uh, and I think these are extremely not only useful, but fascinating principles to explore because you start to learn about not just dog training, but behavioral modification. If you are a smoker and you know it's bad for you, you know, it's going to give you lung cancer or potentially kill you eventually. Why don't you stop if you want? This is a, this is a puzzle that is not that dissimilar from. Dog training at all. I mean, they're a common course. You want to lose weight, but you can't stop eating Oreo cookies. Well, maybe it's kind of like the shoes in the house where you allow the dog to develop bad behavior. Probably have to get those out of the house.

• 1:58:53Speaker 03

  Just keep asking yourself the same thing with the dogs. Where's the value? Where is the reinforcement coming from for the behavior that I want to change?

• 1:59:02Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly.

• 1:59:03Speaker 03

  And it doesn't matter what it is you're changing. And it's, you know, 24 hours a day, we've got to be considering that with our dogs. It's not just we're training for five minutes and then let them run and be hooligans for the rest. It's where is the value coming for all the behaviors that they're starting to develop?

• 1:59:17Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly. Well, this has been a blast. Susan, I really appreciate it. And thank you for taking the time, of course.

• 1:59:25Speaker 03

  My pleasure, Tim.

• 1:59:27Tim Ferriss?

  And to everyone listening, I will be adding all of the show notes, links to resources, all the URLs that Susan mentioned into the show notes. As per usual, you can find the show notes for this episode and every other episode at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast, all spelled out. And as always, and until next time, thank you for listening and be nice to your dog for God's sake and train intelligently. Thanks for listening, guys. Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy

• 2:00:09Tim Ferriss?

  getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com.

• 2:00:51Tim Ferriss?

  That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software

• 2:01:36Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:02:17Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:03:01Tim Ferriss?

  SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now, back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account. But just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast, it's free, there's no downside that I can think of. This episode is brought to you by 4Sigmatic.

• 2:03:40Tim Ferriss?

  I reached out to these innovative Finnish entrepreneurs of all things because a very skilled acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which is a mushroom coffee made out of chaga mushroom, powerful antioxidant, considered a superfood. I was introduced to chaga by Laird Hamilton, of all people, and another mushroom called lion's mane, which is considered a nootropic or a smart drug. And I had half a packet. Let me put this in perspective. Tasted just like coffee, just add to hot water, only 20mg in half a packet of caffeine. That's as little as 1/10th what you would find in a strong cup of coffee. And I was on fire for the entire day.

• 2:04:23Tim Ferriss?

  I probably got more done in that day than I got done in the three or four days prior to that. So I would highly recommend checking it out. It is very impressive. You will not see visuals, so you can use it for work. And you can check it out at 4sigmatic.com/tim. That's 4-sigmatic.com/tim. And use the code TIM to get 20% off your first order. I highly encourage you to try it out.