Almost Final Copy

The speaker discusses the idea of starting over and evolving ideas. They mention the importance of learning together and adapting to new circumstances. They also explain their use of "we" and "us" to represent a collective mindset. The speaker expresses their intention to be helpful and open to feedback in their podcast. They talk about the significance of clear messaging and setting boundaries in pet training. They suggest focusing on positive reinforcement and using the pet's name for praise. Family side of that care and that has been ultra interesting and I'll definitely share My experiences with you guys when that opportunity presents itself But yeah your idea caused my idea is really just a statement for me from me That we have to find ourselves starting at the beginning over and over again So all of those ideas that I used to have they might not be as relevant anymore So we are just going to have to learn going through all of this chaos together and Build on our ideas because I don't believe that idea should ever be the end of something Ideas are always evolving and they are not permanent and they are fluid So I love taking ideas and setting them down as foundations and then to build and change them as needed With more information or better Intel, etc so your idea caused my idea will be not only that side of things but kind of on the human side of things in day to day and in the days of our lives and all of this crazy new way of living that we are All trying to figure out without taking on too many bruises Because getting up over and over again after all of these hits is a challenge for sure. So I hope I Hope you guys don't mind saying your idea caused my idea for a title We can change it later as things will hopefully change or maybe even get better So yeah, I love this name and Adrian wasn't sure about it But I think after a few kind of rollovers, he was like, you know what? It's kind of a weird name. I Guess I should also say That I use we and us a lot and I know that can rub some people the wrong way But I've been doing it for as long as I remember and I think it's because one my EMTJ personality type Really feels like it has a duty to work for a collective so my decisions are often based on what I think is going to be best for the group or the collective around me and The second reason is kind of gross I like to use we because of the millions if not the billions of microorganisms who make me who I am So I never feel alone. So I always represent myself as a we I guess I can be a little bit nuanced They're weird for some people but please don't don't dig into it too much. It's just how I feel comfortable expressing myself So you can use whatever you want But I just wanted to quickly explain the we we we behind me me me and I think it's a beautiful thing So if you want to use we I don't think it's a bad thing I think it's a beautiful thing because we are a collective in this podcast You're going to hear me talk a lot about stewardship Especially things like antibiotic stewardship and I always like to say sick ecosystems are going to be way more impactful way more detrimental than a sick individual and we have to kind of keep that perspective in mind because We're all on this ship together This planet ship, so please don't hit on me for saying or using we or us all the time I also wanted to say I'll do my best to be helpful first and foremost The motivation behind this podcast is not to only connect reconnect with my pet families But also try to serve you guys in some way. So my intention will always be to be helpful I will definitely get things wrong But I'm open to feedback and we'll pivot back and alter The things that I have to do as we go. Like I said, we're going to go through so many firsts together So, please be patient and kind with me I will definitely be patient and kind with you So if you have anything that you would love for me to kind of tease apart or talk about on here I would love to hear those things on the Facebook collective group That would be a good place to put down anything that you would like me to cover So I guess I'm trying to say that my ideas are not something that are untouchable They are totally modifiable as more information comes in. So please don't take anything I say as permanent our ideas and our actions behind those ideas will continue to evolve Like I said, it's never the end. It's just the beginning people So buckle up and get outside. Please listen to this podcast when you're out doing something I would love to be your companion on a nature walk. I love doing those every day. But yeah, definitely clean the house I don't know do some dishes put on some earbuds and Tackle some crazy shit together I'm going to start with a topic that is near and dear to so many pet families. In fact, I Inquired to my AI bot. What is the number one thing pet families love to discuss many of you know I'm a big fan of using an AI bot, especially with all the space junk on the internet It's really difficult to find any good quality Information it's probably out there, but it's just diluted out with so much garbage And that even searching something on Google can be really relentless and Tiring and then you're kind of stuck there for a lot longer than you wanted to be without getting some good information Okay, my lovely pet families out there I want to discuss pet behavior and training because I feel like if we do not get off on to a Good start or off on the right foot with training our dogs We can be stuck with lifelong or long-term Doggy behavioral issues that will work against us. So I'm a big big big big fan of setting boundaries and Really what I mean by boundaries is clear messaging. We have to understand what that means Inside out or we're not going to get anywhere with the doggy training if we are giving our cats and dogs Horses birds, you know at all these domestic animals that we can definitely train Mixed messaging. We're going to become frustrated. Our training sessions are going to be long-winded and We're not really advancing the human animal bond because our pets are getting frustrated, too So what I mean by clear messaging is say what you mean and mean what you say and when you can say it only once I've definitely seen Pet families, you know Asking for the same fit over and over and over again I am 100% guilty as charged for that one But I have to remind myself to ask once and then when I don't get the response that I'm looking for actually you walk away And that is a clear message in and of itself You've heard me talk about this multiple times that when it comes to puppies Or maybe a new pet that you're just you're starting to feel each other out It is so Important that we are not giving them attention when they are behaving badly I always joke puppies are like celebrities good attention and bad attention It doesn't matter all of it. All of it is good for business and they'll take it So when you are feeling upset or you're at your wits end and you feel like you have to scream I do it as well. Don't judge yourself We all have we all have times when we just can't handle it anymore and we want to stop our feet jump up and down Or yell at the top of our legs Those are times that we should be with our companion pets and we probably need to go for a nature walk in my opinion because Training when you're upset or training when you're frustrated or even training when you're kind of down and out or even just tired Will not work. It's incredible How receptive our animals our companion animals are and they're gonna use Every nerve and sinew that you have left against you So abort medicine definitely go for a nature walk or you know Take a little break breaks are wonderful people and then come back to the training in a way that you're gonna be respectful You're not gonna raise your voice You're only gonna ask for something once and then be willing to walk away when you don't get what you want I always tell young pet families. So people with new dogs and puppies, especially if you just focused 100% of your training on Promoting the good habits that your pet just voluntarily shows you throughout the day for example When your puppy is played out and lays down in the middle of the living room and just clonks out if you can come in and give high praise on that moment, and I'm talking high praise like Like happy and squealing see Benito just looked up, you know, just something that's really quite squealy and loud and Big smile on your face and if you come and pet them for maybe three to five seconds and then go back to what you were doing that in and Of itself will set you up for success in my opinion. This has worked exceptionally well for me With pet families that I've trained as well So yeah, if you have nothing no time to train and you're just you know exhausted Try to focus on the positives. You're gonna find that if you're able to catch those sets So say you're kind of standing around washing the dishes your dogs in the kitchen next to you trying to get your attention Tried some whining you ignored it. Well done put yourself on the back and then you know, they're kind of like well That didn't work try something else. We'll go get a toy bring it, you know Why not you still ignore them and then they might take a set out of desperation They're just trying all the tricks in their trick box and you notice that and you say whoa way to go So I now have a new Dog member in our life Benito Bonito for the record But for the first I would say two to three weeks while we were training I never even used his name and now to this day Now that we've gotten through a lot of the training. I actually only use his name for high praise So he loves to hear his name and he kind of melts when we we go Benito Bonito And I make that face every single time. I have to say that name it works. It's quite effective so I guess the takeaways that I'm trying to get across here is Focus on the good ignore the bad and try to only use your pet's name when they are doing something good It's kind of funny It makes me chuckle when I'm at the dog park or you know walking down the street and I hear a pet owner Losing it on their dog yelling, you know, come here or pulling on their leash and the dog is terrified and thinking no way I don't want to come here and using their name over and over again So I'm not a big fan of using the word. No, although I do use it in a very different way So when I was training Benito, I used no, no, no, no, no, no No, which actually stole from my dad because that's how he trained his cat But I had to come up with a new word to guide him That wasn't already the word that I used for my other dog who we also still have now as no Juno. She's Spectacular. She is just the love of my life. She is my best friend, but her no command is not for doggy So when we first got her and she would go into places sniff around and I kind of wanted to guide her direction I would use not for doggy and she would be like, okay I guess I can't do that and she would bumble around to the next thing. I wouldn't say anything She's like, oh, this seems like a safe bet. She went somewhere. I didn't want her not for doggy So you can use these other words or phrases to kind of really represent what you're trying to do And that's what ultimately guide them I do have friends and pet families who train their pets in a way that they are super sophisticated Extremely skilled and very controlled. So think about police dogs that type of training That's kind of not what I'm talking about because I'm such a big fan of animals and companion animals and really utilizing them to Enrich our lives and in return that 100% means we need to enrich their lives So I pitch over and over again that it's not about what our pets for most of our pet families But our pets have to offer us it's about what we have to offer them So it's a huge responsibility to take care of these guys and I definitely don't take it lightly You heard me definitely complain about pet families that are maybe too big Where I feel like there's just not enough capacity or time investment available for the different members of that pet family because you want to make sure you're not just inviting a whole bunch of Companion animals into your house to sit around and lay on the couch all day in my opinion That's not going to be a really incredible life I want our pets to have a life really worth living and That means I want our pet families to be living a life worth living. I want to live a life worth living So I'm constantly trying to engage in my environment and take my pets with me to do that So you might have already noticed I travel a ton with my pets including my cat So this didn't just come out of nowhere Obviously, this was something that we conditioned for over many years many months many days to get them comfortable with having so many daily adventures But now I feel like I'm on that side of the training camp where I have guided my dogs The best I can away from what I don't want the problem stuff that I want them to stay away from But I also really wanted to encourage their self-esteem and in doing that for them to really express themselves I really really really love when you get to meet your pets and get to know them in a way that is so special because when they are in a safe environment and when They have the opportunity to grow and try new things and express themselves in the process You get to witness all of that beautiful Stuff so police dog training very different where you know, that has to be methodical and there's no room for error So the training is quite strict that's one way of training our pets I don't necessarily apply that to my training because it's not the goal that I'm looking for. I really want my Companion animals and friends and family members, you know to really be who they are They are one of a kind in so many ways and I feel like it's a shame when we don't let them Express themselves because I really want everybody to feel safe and feel good in their own skin and that applies to our pets Okay, so back to training and socialization training is great when you're able to just find a couple of basic terms or phrases or Vocabulary that is going to help guide your pet So something for notes stay away from that and something high praise my best friend Kelty. She uses yes And I stole that from her. So Benito, he knows that no, no, no, no, no and So those are the two ways that I went with him I can't remember what the positive one was for Juno But like I said, it was not for doggy to guide her away from stuff. And oh, I know it was well done I think is what I did for Juno. So Benito also knows both positive So and you know, obviously knows the yes, but when I'm telling Benito He can't do something and Juno's clearly not doing it. It wasn't fair to use the no command that I used for Juno So I hope that makes sense. I can definitely tease that apart a little bit more if needed But yeah, so really important that we send clear clear clear clear messaging it's so important that our pets are understanding what we're asking of them because when they don't Everybody's just gonna be frustrated and it's gonna bruise the human-animal bond and potentially make things more difficult in the future So we need to get this right right out of the start gate Understanding body language. This one's super cool And when I first started talking about consent training five or so years ago People thought I was insane and I don't blame them I do sound like an insane person all of the time that being said fast forward There are so many conversations around this topic now It has different names But the short and sweet of it is when we ask something from our pets So when we come in with a clear message, we're looking at their body response So obviously they're not going to consent verbally, but we're looking for body language that would help support consent So when a pet is coming towards you, for example, that is good I would say yeah, you have the okay to continue on the opposite of that is going to be if your pet is moving away From you you're gonna have to abort mission, you know, take a break Reconsider the training aspects and start again because you really want the consent The consent is going to help your pet become self-assured Self-esteem is so important just as it is in our kids and our friends and our family members It's going to apply to our dogs, especially our horses, too So that sense of self-esteem like I can express myself I can be where I want to be and do what I want to do will help facilitate training So you're always kind of looking for that sweet spot where you're not pushing Too hard to cross that threshold where you're making your pet uncomfortable in the training process So I really love to dance delicately on that threshold where I'm making sure that I have the permission to proceed with the next Step of training this applies for things like nail trims. I'm gonna say oh my gosh, like there are so many Battles going on every day all over the world. I mean, this is a global problem Cutting our dogs and cats nails. Holy crap It is not easy, but that speaks to our training more than anything else So it is possible to get consent from our pets to have their nails trimmed, but we have to start at the basics so I'm a big fan of consent or cooperative training and that kind of ties back into The very clear messaging yelling at your dogs is not going to work, you know hitting your dogs is not going to work and unfortunately, that's really just Representational of us the trainer losing control and it's easy to lose control these days in the world at large Things are quite pressurized and then when we're stuck in a situation where we really want a certain response from our pets And they're not delivering we can boil over But like I said, that's the time when we just need to take a break because training your dog while you're mad will never work Never never never never work. So just put the tombstone there, you know, like you just there's no point So I hope to take away from this is clear messaging try to look for that consent training focus on the positives Just come in on high praise when your dog is doing a sit a lay down Leaving you alone when you're working in the office take a 10-second break from whatever you're doing and go into your dog High praise way to go belly rub, you know, shake down. Whatever is there going to be their ultimate skin treat? So when I say skin treat, I mean it's something from you. It's praise. It's a clap. It's a pet It's not going to be a treat. I get a lot of Shade for not using treats for training. I think there's a time and place for everything So, of course treats are going to be super beneficial for training in situations where they apply but because I like challenges I try to Start at the end. So with the most desired outcome and then reverse engineer that I don't carry treats with me all the time I have tons of friends who do and oh my gosh, thank you for that They've saved my butt so many times But yeah I don't really use the treats when training and the reason for that is I am on the go with my pets all the time so I really need them to Watch and understand me and kind of already make their conclusions about what is going to happen next Especially with more than one pet. It's not always easy to give that clear messaging or ask for what you want so this is more high level where I Hopefully have a good emotional connection with my pets so that they are Receptive to my needs in that moment and I have to say over the last week which has been oh my gosh Such an insane week for me Ruby got really sick. I had two people visiting Juno had a lump removed It was just terrible timing for everything. I thought so much and emotional intelligence come from And that just was such a relief because in my time of need He was kind of aware and he kind of knew what to do for a couple of reasons one the training that we had Already worked on and two he had Juno to set a really good example So thankfully I have a dog that has been with us for over five years now But I was able to really utilize in training the new dog who is eight months old So you want to use the tools that you have so treats can definitely be a plus or a perk and then Having another dog kind of guide the way we had a pet family that we saw last week Where she's a large breed dog really severe anxiety Loves to you know be outside and around other dogs But terrified of going into a vehicle and we talked to this doggies mom about you know Luna loves other dogs like recruit other dogs and show her other dogs getting into a vehicle So she'll just follow their lead and I always joke monkey see monkey do and it is so true and that also ties back to The message of clear messaging because they see what you do, too So if you're asking them to do something that you're unwilling to kind of follow up with they notice our dogs 100% and our cats do because I'm pretty sure they're smarter than dogs at this point But our dogs understand when you are unfair and they will hold it against you So don't think you can get away with anything I know I've had partners in the past who don't believe that dogs are Like these sentient creatures that they have personality types or that they can understand and resolve complex Problems and I disagree. I think there's so much sentience around us and Intelligence is everywhere So I believe intelligence is defined by a level of complexity and anyone who's going to tell me a dog or cat isn't complex Come over to my house. I have some pretty complex characters here, and I think they're super intelligent So hopefully you're not stuck with some pretty serious and greedy Because we've had to train some dogs that were pretty inbred and they can be really dumb so try not to purchase pets because You just don't want to motivate backyard breeders or breeders who don't know what they're doing to select the gene population of the future so sometimes when we are Purchasing pets we can inadvertently Go that direction, especially I was just talking to Eva about this a couple of days ago about the polydactyl cats You know they were such a trend a few years ago and it was such a sad trend because I Would always consider, you know, if there's a mutation that we can see on the outside so if you know to pick mutation what on earth is going on the inside that we can't see because I would highly doubt that there was just one mutation in That body or in that embryonic process So food for thought when we are looking for new companions I think there are a lot of options out there But there's probably some things that we would want to stay away from and inbreeding is way up there Please let's take care of our future populations And this is the stewardship stuff that I love to talk about and kind of tease apart and we'll definitely discuss more on these podcasts Okay, so we talked about understanding body language. Hopefully looking for something that looks like consent Training techniques. I always want to recommend that we go in calm Positive and If you're having a bad day Abort mission if you feel like you're really irritable and you have to yell at your dog or you want to smack your dog Abort mission you need to do some work on yourself. Leave your pet alone and work on you go for a nature walk I swear that's my go-to. Okay behavioral issues. What are Behavioral issues I guess kind of like how I use those positive and negative Guiding phrases for my dogs. That's really to guide behavioral issues You want to create this environment and space around your dog so that they don't have to be reactive I would always have to debate with kale about how he would play with Juno when we first got her Because he would always look for a reaction He would try to get her to bark or get her to You know be confused hiding her toys like trying to get some sort of reaction Hiding of the toys is great mental stimulation. Don't get me wrong There's a time and place for everything But I don't want us to encourage a behavior that we don't want our dog or cat to do Every day for the next 20 years so roughhousing playing inside barking inside You know going through the garbage getting on the countertop, you know, maybe you have boundaries in your house So you have an office space where you don't want your pets to be in bedroom You don't want your pets to be in second floor You don't want your pets to be in these are the things that are really important to be consistent on so when it comes to our Training techniques being really consistent is also going to be key and the challenges Even if you just ignore them and focused on the positives Like I said, you will make a lot of headway with just those basics when it comes to Socialization and what I call experiences and just thriving in general This is more of that high level where your dogs are experiencing your day-to-day with you I'm lucky and so fortunate and incredibly privileged to be able to spend most of my days with my pets So we go on adventure after adventure and it's such a beautiful companionship but the enrichment for my pets and the mental and physical stimulation for them is really up there and I have made that a focus over the years It wasn't easy at the beginning, especially when you're working, you know, 70 80 hours a week Why did we do that? I don't know why people do that. So if you're doing that, please stop it is just not sustainable At all. So protect yourself Please don't work like a mad person because it is bonkers and I wouldn't do it again if I had the choice So now that I'm older and wiser, I'm just going to put that out there Please don't work insane hours a week because you're not living your life You're not able to thrive in your environment and you want to engage in your environment This is the whole point of living in my opinion. So that socialization or those daily adventures are really going to just focus on Interactions interactions with different environments different floor substrates, you know different personality types That could be wild animals that could be and I'm talking about like squirrels and birds I'm not talking about bears or anything like that, please for people who are Really out there with their adventure pets never ever ever ever ever let your dog off leash and always protect yourself from Wildlife don't feed the wildlife ever I will actually probably get a big stick and hit someone if I hear that you are feeding any wildlife But yes back to socialization experiences as many interactions as you can create for your pet the more enriched Living they're going to have and I will be a very happy vet Do have quite a few pet families that have already nailed this So I have lots of examples in my example bag of other families and things that they have done and I will definitely share those in future podcasts Okay, so I think I'm going to wrap up our first podcast episode Thank you so much for tuning in and please let me know if there are any topics that you would like me to cover on Our next podcast, but I'll be sharing kind of what happened to me that week And the takeaways that apply to our our pet families as we go I hope this will serve you guys. I look forward to hearing from you Have a wonderful rest of your week and stay active and I sure appreciate you guys. Take care out there. Bye. Bye