67: Dog Care When You Struggle (From Our Team of Experts)
What do dogs have to do with struggle care? If you had lived in my shoes, you would understand. What was I thinking? I decided to celebrate all of my kids finally being in school by getting a puppy! It has been a journey of figuring out why I have a dog when I have ADHD and chronic fatigue–but we love our dog! I reached out to four different trainers to talk about the idea that it’s okay to have pets, even if you have struggles in your life. Let’s take a closer look with Ash, Aaron, Steph, and Joel at dog ownership and dog training in a way that ensures a good and mutually fulfilling partnership between our dogs and ourselves. Join us!
Show Highlights:
● The fact is that life changes, and it doesn’t have to be perfect to give a dog a good life. The bare minimum is okay until you can do better.
● An emphasis on owner-focused training gives high-output results with low input; the small things count!
● An important factor to consider is energy level management because you can’t always rely on being able to manhandle (or pick up) the dog.
● How to approach dog ownership in regards to breed, size, temperament, habits, and maintenance
● Why a consistent 60% effort is better than an inconsistent pattern of 100% and nothing
● Why the same tips don’t work for every person and every dog
● Why the most important thing is to train your dog on how to handle their energy
● How we over moralize many aspects of dog ownership, like rescue dogs vs. breeder puppies
● How to approach physical exercise AND mental exercise with your dog
● How a dog’s needs can be met in ways that fit in with ANY lifestyle
● Training priorities for a dog living with an owner with a struggle care background
● How to know if your dog is happy
● Enrichment activities for dogs that don’t involve the owner
● Why dogs are community builders
Resources and Links:
Connect with Ash: Website,
Connect with Aaron: TikTok
Connect with Steph: TikTok,
Connect with Joel: TikTok,
and Instagram
Connect with KC: Website,
and Facebook
Get KC’s book, How to Keep
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KC 0:05
Hello, you sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to Struggle Care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And we're going to talk about dogs today what a dogs have to do with struggle care. Well, let me tell you, I decided to celebrate my kids finally all being in school by getting a puppy because I wasn't thinking, but we love our dog. And it's been such a journey. And it's definitely been a journey of figuring out how do I have a dog? When I have ADHD? When I have chronic fatigue? How do I raise this puppy to be a complimentary part of our household? And so I reached out to four different trainers to talk about dogs and struggling and this idea that, you know, it's okay to have pets, even if you have struggles in your life, and how can we look at dog ownership and dog training in a way that we can ensure that our dogs and ourselves have a good and mutually fulfilling partnership, even if we struggle, so enjoy the episode? Okay, I have with me right now, Ash Osbourne who is a another dog trainer that I follow online that I love. Who's you? I love your content. Thank you for being here.
Ash 1:17
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
KC 1:19
So tell me about your first dog.
Ash 1:22
My first dog. Okay, so my first dog is Cody. He's still with me. He's 16. And if I think too much about it, I cry. So I can't talk about now because he's too old. But I was 16 when I adopted him, I lived with my 20 Something boyfriend and he went and got a dog for me. I was in no way prepared to have a dog. But 0% prepared to have a dog definitely not prepared to have this dog. who if anyone knows anything about little terriers, they're not the easiest dogs. He ran away. The first day I brought him home, he ran away. I was running through the streets for hours. We lived in a house where people were in and out all the time, everybody you know, it was a big party house and he would slip the door. I kid you not probably three to four times a week, he ran away from home and was running around and everyone was chasing with St. He was having the time of his life. I'm sure he looks back on that very fondly. Me not so much.
KC 2:22
I love that story. Because one of the first things I asked him when we were talking before the recording was, you know, what do you say to people that are trying to think about like, you know, should I get a dog? Or like, am I giving a good enough life to my dog? Like, I think sometimes when people have an animal and they start to struggle, and they start to go, gosh, am I like doing a disservice to my animal. And I love that your first answer was like, listen, life changes. Yeah,
Ash 2:49
things change so much. And like I think about then, and I think about if I had let people get to me that no one really said to me, at that point, I wasn't surrounded by people who were like evangelical about dog ownership. Like nobody was like, You need to get rid of this dog. Everyone was like, yeah, he's kind of bad. Bad dog. My mom actually said to me, like, you know, he's lucky he has you because I don't think anybody else would want that mean, ugly little dog. I don't think anyone else would want him. And now you know, he's 16. We used to do barn hunt, which is a dog sport where you put your train rats to go in these little PVC tubes. And the dog goes and finds them in bales of hay. And so not only did my life change enough that I was spending the hundreds of dollars at cost to go enter these competitions where your dog gets to route around in hay for two minutes. When he got he had vestibular disease, like it's an idiopathic thing where he just has an issue with basically vertigo. And it's really bad in the car. So I bought him rats, so we could do it at home. So from the time that you know, I got him and was the world's most inexperienced didn't know what I was doing. Literally the nightmare dog owner whose dog is running loose in the street grant, I wasn't going he's friendly. I was going please catch him. Can you grab with tears streaming down my face to somebody who has these other these rats that now live their best life because then of course, now I have to invest hundreds and hundreds of dollars so that the rats can live their best lives as well so that he can play this game that he loves because he's 16 and can't be in the car anymore. Like your life can change so much so drastically, especially if you're really young when you get your first dog.
KC 4:38
You know, I love that that's your answer because one of the things that I wanted to ask you is, you know, if we're sitting and we're struggling, and we're looking at our animal, and we're looking at our dog in particular, like how do we know what is good enough for a dog, whether we're, I guess thinking about getting one or if we have one and we're wondering if we're doing them a disservice. Like what is good enough? Yeah,
Ash 4:58
I mean, I Think bare minimum is enough for now. And people get angry at me sometimes when I say that when I'm like, Are they fed? Are they watered? Did they are they not living in you know, filth that is a biohazard to them. That is good enough for now, if I can look to a month from now and say, you know, I'm having a health flare up right now the most I can do for you, is feed you water you keep you safe and clean. And that's the most I can do right now. Maybe in a month, I will be able to do more for you. And I think that when that drags on, and it's okay, now it's been a year, and there's no end in sight to this. And they're starting to be some adverse, like mental health effects on the dog, you're starting to get stir crazy, you're starting to show these anxiety behaviors in the house, then maybe we need to look at am I in a place to financially afford somebody to help me with this? You know, that's always an option. But I think if we can provide the bare minimum, and we can look forward and say maybe I can do better in the future, I think that that's an okay thing to have. It's okay to say right now, I'm doing what I can for you. And I will try to do better when I have that when I have the spoons to do that.
KC 6:13
Okay, so I'm here with Aaron Aang, who is a dog trainer that I follow on tick tock, I love your stuff. And I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. So the reason why I wanted you to come on and talk about dog care on a podcast about struggle care is because I really love your philosophy of training. And I feel like it is a really good philosophy for somebody who is coming to owning a dog from a place of hey, man, like life isn't perfect. And I really struggle sometimes. And I need a manageable way to train a dog. So tell me about your philosophy and training.
Aaron 6:50
So a big thing that I wanted to focus on, when I first started training kind of early on, I figured out that I wanted to have an owner focused training, something that I felt was missing from the industry, a lot of the people who train dogs are good at working with dogs and not as good at working with people, they kind of tend to put the dog first. And unfortunately, that's not real life, it would be nice if we all had time to take our dogs for three miles of hikes every day, but real life doesn't work that way. And so kind of coming up with a plan that focuses on making dog training easy for the owners coming up with ways where I put I say, like a high output for a very low input on our end is very important stuff like that. And also kind of stealing and like tempering the owner's expectations, especially when it comes to things with like puppies and stuff and saying, Hey, like, this is going to get tough in the future. It's nice. Now, you know, while the puppy is small and cute, but eventually they'll do some, it's going to make you very angry. And that's okay, and how do we deal with that and stuff like that. So that's kind of my focus and approach to dog training.
KC 7:53
One of the things that I think is interesting, because I now follow a ton of dog trainers since getting a dog is that you can definitely tell that there's like a type that becomes a dog trainer, who has really hyper focused on dogs and like, what a dog is and how a dog thinks and what and like, it's like their whole life is dogs. And their whole focus is dogs. And like, it's really like once you go down the rabbit trail of like really hyper focusing on what is like the best, most optimal way to understand a dog and the best, most optimal way to have a dog like live. Like it never ends. Like you could go and go and go and go right. And one example is just like, you know, when I want to decide like, Okay, what kind of dog food should I get? And I'm looking at the kibble, right, like, choose the kibble aisle, which kibble is best, but then you get into like actually distributing raw food and actually not even raw food, but this kind of raw food and actually it should be
Aaron 8:46
locally sourced organic, non GMO.
KC 8:50
Okay, but I think that what you do really well that I think some trainers struggle with is separating out dog as a hobby, and trainer as a job. Two different things for sure. Right. Like, I think it's great if you're that person who's going to serve, you know, I love the video where she's like, and then she's gonna get a chicken heart and an eyeball and you know, locally sourced Sam and I'm like, That's cool.
Aaron 9:16
That's yeah, I love that for you.
KC 9:18
Love that for you love that for your dog. I will not be doing that.
Aaron 9:21
Exactly. And yeah, I'm the same way I find that I get two types of clients. And one of them is the client that calls me in kind of treats me almost like, like a plumber or a repairman where it's like, Hey, I do not have time to deal with this. I don't have the skills. I don't have the wine. I just want you to come in and fix it. But then I also get the hobbyists that are like, Hey, I wake up and I walk my dog for three hours. And then I come home at lunch and I walk my dog for another three hours and I come home from work and just spend the rest of my day with my dog until I fall asleep on top of my dog like you know, I get those two different types of clients and they need to be treated differently. And I think that that's another thing that's often missed in my industry a lot.
KC 9:57
Yeah, and also like Being honest about what kind of dog owner you are or will be like. So we actually I joke on my channel about how getting my dog was really spontaneous. And it was, but we had been talking about getting a dog for a while getting a puppy for a while, and I knew I wanted a puppy. I've got little kids. And it was really important to me to kind of like shape and mold that puppies experience around children. And then I saw one on Facebook and I went got it. That part was spontaneous. My husband was like, Oh, I didn't realize this was going to be now. And what's funny is like, there are ways in which this dog has really been helpful to me and some of the things that I've struggled with. And I came into it thinking this is going to be hard. Like there are things that I struggle with with my ADHD, there are things that I struggle with chronic illness and fatigue and having little kids and being overstimulated and so like, obviously, like throwing a puppy into the mix, there are going to be challenges. But what was interesting was, I found that going outside, like I work from home, right, but taking these breaks to go outside a few times a day, I was like, wow, this is like helping,
Aaron 11:01
it's almost like a little reminder that you need to get up and get out a little bit. And it helped
KC 11:06
a lot with my fatigue, because like one of the things that's really aggravating about having chronic fatigue is that mild activity is really beneficial in lifting some of that for dinner, you can't overextend or overdo it. So I'm not like taking long walks or exercising but literally just standing in the backyard with my dog and throwing a ball or walking around and kind of like having something to do. It's been helpful with that it helps with my ADHD just because it's like fun to focus on the puppy and do new things and have new projects. And so I remember thinking like, wow, like this dogs really making my life better in a way that I didn't expect. And I
Aaron 11:44
loved hearing that. Because I imagine that like having chronic fatigue and ADHD together is a really rough thing to manage. Because you know, what reason do you have to get up and do just like a small amount of activity, right? Because I ADHD is like we need to be like efficient and get things done. When I feel like the when you just need to get up and do something small, that's very difficult. And dogs are really, really good at making sure that you get up and doing small things because they love it. They love it. And they take that small thing and they make it to them. It's like this huge thing. And it makes you feel really accomplished for like putting into such a small activity. And so that's one thing that I really love about dogs and always have. My name
Steph 12:19
I am Steph, I run a company called beta dog training, which is just north of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and I have been in professional doctrine for seven years now the company has been around for seven years. And I focus almost exclusively on behavior and also significant behavior issues. So most of my training, even when it comes to puppies is trained from the standpoint of like how they can best live their life and how they can deal with their life or behavioral problems, if that pops up from the dogs perspective, but also human perspective. And yet, we've been at it a while. And it's one of the things that I really like is the behavior niche. I prefer the behavior, niche over sports and tricks and things. We do do sports and tricks and things but the thing that we most focus on is the best way to work with the dog in front of you and the behavior they are showing and how they can work and adapt their life and how you can work and adapt with their life but also how you can train a dog to adapt to your life. So yeah, how's your foot by the way? Didn't I see you? Okay, I talked to you. And then I saw that Tik Tok like seven hours later, and I was like, Oh, how's your dog and you were like, you know, she's getting, you're getting real big. And then like six hours later,
you were like, my dog broke my foot.
KC 13:31
I gotta tell you like, I am so so grateful for going the route of like finding a trainer from day one, really leaning into teaching with a focus towards energy level management, like teaching relaxation, teach, like the fact that we use the play pet like all this stuff, because as I predicted, like she got big, so fast, and she went from Oh, if it's not working, you can just pick her up or you can just do this to like, you can't do that anymore. Like she is only six months old. And she's huge, and she's powerful. And like
Steph 14:08
any other part of that is like everybody kind of focuses on like, first off, I'll be able to manhandle my puppy so they focus all their training with that. So the other thing is they focus on the part of them being able to manhandle the dog and as soon as you do that, because nobody anticipates breaking a foot getting in a car accident anything and I'm like, Yes, right now you're like, Well, I can just pick her up to put her in the car. I can just pick her up to put her in a great and I'm like, but what happens if all of a sudden you get really hurt what all like my mother has had multiple spinal surgeries. So everything in my life has always been geared towards like, Okay, you physically you can do stuff right now. But by tomorrow, literally tomorrow, maybe you won't be able to
KC 14:47
life is changed. Like I was talking to another trainer we were talking about like, you know, how do you know when whether your lifestyle is right for a dog or if you have a dog, you know, how do I know if I'm providing right for it? And one of the things that she said that I really don't hear a lot I'm not trying to talk about she was like, I mean, the thing is, is like life is really long, like things might be hard or not ideal now, but like, you know, they could totally improve in the future, you could be in a different place in the future. But I think the opposite is also true where like, anyone can become disabled. And anyone could, you know, you could get a dog now and think, Oh, no big deal is just me and the dog, and then what have you of children in eight years, and the dog is still around, you know,
Steph 15:23
and people don't anticipate training for their life to change in any dramatic way. They anticipate maybe, and they always anticipated that it will be a move up, which is unfortunately just not how life goes. So people anticipate that they will be able to move to a house, that will be an acreage and the townhome they're in and in reality that might be back to an apartment. So they don't train with the anticipation of being like, well, one day I might have to be in an apartment one day, I might have kids one day, I might become disabled. One day, I might have roommates, like one day, my brother in law could pass away, they could be in a car accident, I might hurt his kids. Like, yeah, there people are like, well, I don't intend to have kids. So my dog doesn't need that. And I'm like, but you may come in contact with kids. And what bothers me is not when people are like, No, that won't happen, well, then I'll just I won't on the dock. And I'm like, I understand that. But what is your plan for if someone comes to visit, like I understand being like, my life will be A or B. But what happens if for a weekend someone is there, what is your management plan for a very temporary piece of time, and people don't have the temporary piece of time, and they don't anticipate that their life could in any way not be this state or this state and that it will always go up this way, it will never backtrack. So
KC 16:38
if someone has disabilities, whether their mental, physical, emotional, or they have mental health issues, and they're thinking about if they should get a dog, or you know, would a dog be helpful to them? Whether it's the service dog route, or just the pet route? What would you have someone think through both in choosing breed size, temperament, and then what would you have them focus on in training?
Steph 17:00
So I mean, yes, breed size, temperament, but the first thing I would do is make a list of the things in like humans that annoy you, you know, not everybody has lived with a dog, but so not everybody anticipates what things a dog may do that annoy you, but I'm like, Okay, let's say you've lived with roommates. Let's say you've lived with people what annoys you about people? Do you really hate mouth breathers? Do you hate when people make lots of noises? Do you hate when they like there's a small couch? You're sitting on the couch? And they're just all over the couch with you? Are they sitting on the other end? Like make a list of the things that in humans would annoy you? And then Yes, right. And it's like people that are just hyperactive, they went there. They want to talk to you 24/7 They want to look at you do you want to come home from work? You want to sit on the couch and vibe? And they're like, Hey, how was your day? What did you do? What do you want for dinner? Like,
go get a border collie?
Like what do you want out of a roommate? Because most people have an idea of what they want out of a roommate with a dog they're willing to cuz it's a dog in their head, they immediately forgive a lot of things. They're like, Oh, well, you know, my dog would never do that. Dogs don't eat loud. Dogs don't breathe loud. Dogs do things. And I'm like, first off, dogs only do things when you train them to do things. But Second off, let's pick a dog that naturally would do some of those things. Right? So yes, breed size, temperament, but a lot of those things also involve beyond that. What those habits are that you're like, Hey, I'm not interested in if you really don't like mouth breathing, chewing noises, all that stuff. brachii breeds for like brachiocephalic this moose faces like Pugs and like French reasons, they may not be for you. I got an excellent French Bulldog crush. She's adorable. She's lovely. It's staying with us right now. My God the noises she makes when she breeds she's the cutest loveliest socialist, like she's lovely. She's a lovely little dog. But when she's just walking around, she makes noises just breathing. She makes noises snoring, she makes a lot of interesting noises Well, eating and I'm like, those are some things where I'm like, that might not be a thing that people like when you're talking about shedding. It's not like Hey, first off, do you like short hair or long hair? Like with long hair, grime can build up in coats. So even if you like a long haired dog, maybe you only like them when they're well groomed. Have you pet a long haired dog that has not been well groomed? Is that something that you're willing to do? Because some people do not like bathing dogs and if you can't, can you hire a groom? If you like short haired dogs, that's super cool. But like again, they still have a bit of maintenance, but then also just the shedding. Like are you someone that is genuinely bothered you run or vacuum around your floor every day? Right? Like you like your house to be super neat and tidy. Oh my god drooling. So one of my super big I actually can't handle it. I'm a dog trainer. And I do deal with it at work.
KC 19:47
So I'm here with Joe Harrison, another dog trainer that I respect and follow and we're going to talk about tips for neurodivergent dog owners. Joel, thank you for being here.
Joe Harrison 19:58
Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate It's been a lot of fun watching you come into the world of the dog owners and be so visual with your journey. It's been fun. Thanks.
KC 20:06
So one of the things that you have said before that I feel like my audience would really benefit from is you talk about how so many times when you get into, especially the crowds, that are very pro dog, very into dogs, that there tends to be this message that it is morally good to value the dog over yourself, and how for a lot of people that learned that it tends to get us burnt out, and then we can't anymore. And you have said before, it's better to give your dog a consistent 60% effort than an inconsistent pattern of 100%, and then nothing and then 100% and then burning out and then feeling guilty. And then you know, doing all the things. And I'm curious if you can just talk a little bit about that things that you've seen in people and from your experience.
Joe Harrison 20:53
Yeah, so I find that we dogs are better than us, usually, right, they can hold themselves together, they're kinder, they're just, you know, overall, we kind of don't deserve them. And one of the things that I think that people that really understand their dogs and understand how great dogs can be as they want to give them the world, they want everything to be for them all the time. And they don't take any time for themselves. And if we pretend like so many of us neurodivergent do that tomorrow, we're just gonna wake up and be somebody completely different. And that we're going to get up early and do the meditation and go for the walk and the workout and you know, reduce the amount of our bad thing. And we're just going to knock it out of the park, right. And we're not realistic with that understanding. And so being more realistic and going, okay, I can dedicate to, you know, maybe not changing my time to get up two hours early. But maybe I can do 10 minutes to make sure that I give them that consistent time that they need to go run around before I have to leave, you know, it's very similar to making smaller changes consistently so that we'll actually do them. And then it kind of butts up against that idea of being kind to yourself as much as the dog as much as everybody else of like, it's okay to not be perfect, it's okay for your dog to want something and not get it right. It's okay to take
KC 22:31
my dog house in the background. I don't know if you hear that. She's literally howling from her crate downstairs because she doesn't want to be alone. And like,
Joe Harrison 22:39
that's okay. Sometimes we just have to go like, hey, I need a moment for me, I'm not going to be any better for you if I go down there and let your stress become my stress. So I'm going to finish my shower, getting ready my moment, whatever I need, and then I'll be with you in a moment. And that's okay.
KC 23:01
Have you ever had to tell? I feel like most of the time when people come to a dog trainer, the story is like, okay, the dog trainer needs to give all these exercises and all these things to do okay, you're not doing that for your dog, you got to take your dog out more. Have you ever had to tell someone? Hey, you're doing too much?
Joe Harrison 23:15
Oh, yeah. Because especially kind of bleeds into the way that I train where like, I want the dog to be more independent, and be able to go out and do their own thing. Right? And be able to make their own decision about what's happening in their environment. Instead of Oh, god, there's a dog coming, getting it down right now. Right? And so I am often telling people less. In fact, I think that one of the first things that I said that I commented on one of your videos, you were like, my puppy is 12 weeks old, and she can go boom, boom, boom, you know, do this and that, and this and that, and this and that. And this and that. And I was like, sounds like you're doing awesome. Are you remembering to have some fun?
KC 24:02
Well, I think it's so true of having ADHD that you hyper fixate, and you want to do all the things. And I also think that if you watch any content about dog training, it's just these tiny snippets of someone's day or routine that took them years to accomplish. And so it makes it seem like dog training is about, you know, the obedience drills and things like that. And there really is so much more to it. It's just not interesting. It's like it's boring stuff. And so people don't make videos about it. Yeah,
Joe Harrison 24:30
right. It's boring stuff. And then when we do make videos about it, you also get that well, I've had two dogs in my life, and I did this tiny little ancillary thing that didn't really matter that and like so I have the answer. So, you know, everybody has their own answers and everybody and dogs are awesome. So most of the time those little answers were, it's just using those one or two little off answers for everybody, you know, and it does make it those pieces of content, not very exciting, so they don't get made very often as we either get argumentative pushback, or like, you know, I know that if I didn't let my dog do that 30 days in a row, it would be better. But oh, man, that's a lot of work that takes me doing. Yeah.
KC 25:16
And you know, everybody has an opinion. And there are some things that can be kind of controversial. And you know, when we talk about being kind to your dog and being respectful of your dog, I think sometimes it's difficult to sort of see the long game like, you know, you talk about the importance of a dog being leash trained, kennel trained and tether trained. And I think for some of us, that can be hard because we think, oh, like confinement, like put them on a tether like, which if you don't know what that is tether is literally like a leash that's tied to something right, whether it's a stake in the yard, or something like that. And I was just watching Tik Tok yesterday, and this woman who had sled dogs was kind of explaining her setup. And each of her dogs, they all lived outside, they each had their own little dog house, and they were tethered on a chain. And people were kind of losing their minds about how mean it is that it's on a chain and how unfair it is. And she made this lengthy explanation of like, well, a, this is how I keep my dogs safe. It's the Alaskan wilderness be, they're fine. Like they have all their needs met with their sled dogs, they're working dogs, we go running for miles and miles. And I do think it's interesting that like, when you have a big heart for your dog, sometimes it's hard to understand how important and in the long run, how kind it is for your dog to be trained around those things. And I, you know, when we were talking before you said basically, like, you don't want to explode on your dog, because they don't have the ability to leave you alone, because you never taught them, you know, with those items, how they could be safe and confined, how they can go away from it, how they can turn off. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Joe Harrison 26:51
Yeah, I mean, I think so for me, I can boil almost all my training down to like one concise idea. And that's if my dog knows how to handle their energy, then they're always going to have a place to live, right? If I have a dog that understands when we go outside, we throw the ball. And that's where we get out of the energy. And then when we go inside, and I sit on the couch, you come up and you sit on the couch next to me, some dogs just get that naturally, right. And some dogs really, really, really need help through that process. One of the places where I see the biggest clash in owners and dogs consistently is that the owner will take the dog outside, throw the ball a little bit, and then the dog will come back inside. And the dog will be like, Hey, let's look let's play. Let's keep doing it. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. And it doesn't take very long for that dog to get annoying to that owner. And then that owner does stop it, you know and elevates themselves for that brief moment. And even if that is just a I'm disappointed rather than an Imad, it can still have a lot of impact on the relationship between the owner and the dog. And if instead, we took a little bit of time to go, Hey, sometimes, I'm not going to have the spoons for you. Sometimes I'm not going to be able to take you with me. Sometimes I just need you to be over there away from me, not on me, not on my guests, whatever. And if we don't teach our dogs that along the way, then when that moment finally comes along, they can't even handle it. And some folks are separating their dogs at a time where the dogs never get separated. And like I have friends over so you can't be jumping and nipping and acting like Yahoo to them. So I'm going to put you in the back room. Well that dogs never had the experience of separation or very seldom had the experience of separation for their owners. So this is a massive, massive event for the dog. When if we would have educated and trained the dog and gave them the tolerance for this all along the way. It would just be Tuesday. It's interesting
KC 29:11
that like, there's so much over moralizing of dog ownership, and I get it like there are people out there that are pieces of shit that like are not caring for their dogs, like dogs are sentient beings with feelings and emotions and needs and they deserve. You know, a happy life. And so like obviously mistreating a dog is a moral issue and not caring about your dog as a moral issue. But I feel like we over moralize all these other things. Like, you know, if somebody gets a puppy and they're six months in they're seven months and they're nine months in and they're going this is not getting better. This was maybe a mistake, but like they feel like there would be so much shaming if they were to be like I've made a mistake. I need to rehome my dog, right or you know Know if I think a lot about like the Adopt don't shop movement, like, people often get shamed for the idea of going and getting a dog from a breeder, like I'm not talking about like a pet store or a puppy mill. I'm talking about like a breeder, but how does that interplay with someone that has a disability? Like? Yeah, and like, what are the issues with like shelter dogs that we don't think about from a perspective of disability?
Ash 30:25
Yeah, I think a big part. So I have three rescues, my first three dogs were rescues. And I used to be militantly adopt don't shop, sometimes my Facebook memories will pop up. And it will be like, Oh, you want to buy a puppy while here choose which of these shelter dogs you want to kill? And I look at my dog that I bought from a breeder. And I'm like, which one did we kill pretzel? Which one, when I picked you out, which one of these dogs did I not bring home because of that, but like it was, I thought on it a lot. And I looked at rescue dogs, and I thought about it a ton. And for me, it was not even from a disability standpoint, it was from a standpoint, I'd already have this conflict within my house. One, I could not live through it again, I could not do it again. And two, I was looking into getting another large dog. And the conflict was between what my large dog and my small dogs, which was easier to manage, because small dogs are just generally easier to manage, they're smaller, you can pick them up, and fights between two large dogs could be a lot worse. And my small dogs didn't aggress back. So it was easy to like, stop those conflicts. So I decided to go to a breeder because I knew that if it didn't work, it would not be a thing for me to send that puppy back. If at any point still, it was not working with him, he would go back to a good place. And I know that and so if somebody you know, has a disability where it maybe it's progressive, maybe they don't know, they don't know if they're going to be able to continue to take care of this dog long term. And I know a lot of people would say, Oh, well then don't get the dog. If you're not 100% positive, there are no guarantees. You know, you could be perfectly able bodied you can I guarantee you're not going to get in a car accident tomorrow and possibly have to rehome your dog. So somebody has, you know, where the scales are tipped a little bit where possibly, they're not sure. Am I going to be okay for the full lifetime of this dog? Or is there going to be a point where I no longer will be able to care for them. Going to a breeder, a really good breeder is a really good bet that you're going to have a community to fall back on. Even if not just that breeder, other I talked to my puppy owner group chat. Two and a half years later, all of our puppies are no longer puppies. We talk like every single day. Right? Like if something happened to me, I know pretzels gonna be fine. He's got 20 People who love him just as much as I do. Right?
KC 32:56
I know that everybody knows that every ethical breeder that I've ever known, like, they have like a lifetime policy that they do not want that dog in the shelter. Like if anything happens if you die if you get sick. If you just decide you don't want the dog anymore, like they sometimes it's even contractual like you're required to bring the dog back to them so that they can rehome the dog with someone else. Yep, any ethical breeder will always take their dogs back. And then even in the rare event that
Steph 33:25
something does happen. So let's say that my breeder is an old man, you know, if something were to happen to him, then the breed community is there, especially if you have like I have a rare breed. So the breed community is a little bit smaller. But there's a whole it's very community based within the like ethical breeding world where there are a lot of people to support you. And it's everybody's job to keep our dogs out of shelters. And it's very collective of we are keeping our dogs, any dogs born into this community out of shelters.
KC 34:02
And you know, shelters are extremely traumatizing. And at on some level people know that because I think that's where some of the heartstrings get pulled about, like we need to rescue these dogs out of this traumatic environment. But where I don't think some people think, to Apply that truth is that you're not just like rescuing an animal from a traumatic environment. And then like we live happily ever after, like, you are rescuing an animal that has what amounts to post traumatic stress disorder, and you don't know to what degree that animal will be affected by that. And it might be that 75% of people out there, that's fine. Like they have the kind of lifestyle they have the kind of personality they have the kind of setup in their environment in their home that they can deal with a little bit of unknown factor, right, but I can think of so many situations where like it's really important to the health and safety of not only everyone in your family, but of that A dog that you know what its temperament is going to be, you know what its size is going to be. You know, like, if you have small children, I mean, if you have a child with a disability, if you have a disability, if you have even just like, you know, you live in an apartment, you live in a nine storey walk up or whatever, like, I just Yeah, I
Ash 35:18
was gonna say even you know how many people I know who were like college students, they live in an apartment, they have a limited income, they go and get a little lab puppy from the shelter. And in six months, it's a 90 pound bully mix. And now you have for the next 1516 years because those shelter bully mixes live forever, you are going to have a really hard time and I say this as someone who had a bully mix. When I was 19. And trying to rent trying to find a place to live, my life was so limited the things that I could do with my life were so limited. And now I had a life that I had dedicated to dogs, I had already decided that I wanted to do that when I got her. If I wanted to be a writer, if I wanted to go and move to LA and like go and do and had these bigger dreams, I would not have been able to do that
KC 36:20
with this stock because of all the breed restrictions that apartments usually have. And if you're already limited on apartments, whether by income or maybe criminal history, any of that, like Yeah, that's a big deal. I know like my husband and I went back and forth for a long time when we decided to get a dog where I insisted that we get some from a breeder and he was like, No, we have to rescue a shelter dog. And one of the things that I don't think people know is like the Adopt don't shop movement started as a movement against puppy mills were these companies would literally keep dogs in cages. And like some of the worst ones, they would literally like shit in the cage and it would just fall down to the dog underneath it. Like they run wire cages and they would pump these cute little puppies out into the stores right were sitting behind the class and charging $5,000 for it. And they weren't they often had health problems. The actual breeding dogs live miserable lives in cages like so we started saying don't shop literally don't shop as in don't go to pet shops, not don't pay money for a dog. And so somehow that got pushed into meaning adopt dogs from shelters don't buy them from breeders. But like none of the issues that we have with pet shops are issues that we have with ethical breeders that are typically like raising dogs in their homes and checking for temperament and checking for health and have these lifelong you know, bring back policies and so it's wild to me that this adopt don't shop is still this like shaming club that people use against people that want to make an informed decision to go to a breeder.
Ash 37:58
And it was also the slogan also came around at a very different time when the dogs in shelters were very different because we euthanized a lot more freely. So euthanasia rates have gone way down and part of that is that we are doing more people are adopting like just flat out more people are adopting dogs, but euthanasia rates have also gone way down. Also spay and more people are spaying and neutering their dogs. So we've got less stray dogs running around. But we've also gotten a lot more lenient about the behavior of the dogs that are getting adopted out there is significantly less euthanasia for which I think is a good thing that there is less euthanasia for minor behavior problems. I don't think that a dog that bark grouse lunges on a leash sometimes deserves to be euthanized. I think there can be a perfectly fine, there's very few dogs that don't do that, quite frankly. But because of that you walk into a shelter today versus even 20 years ago, you are going to see a lot of dogs that have behavior issues, you're going to see almost every single dog have no cat, no kids, no other dogs on their run carts. And that's
KC 39:14
if they're telling the truth. I've run into some like foster situations where people have such bleeding hearts for dogs that believe that no dog, every dog deserves a second chance that they will flat out lie about bite history attack history. It's really scary. And I do think like, it's not to say that, you know, I think there are ways to also like minimize your risk and choose the right dog if you want to go the shelter route. So I actually ended up getting a rescue dog but the reason that I was more comfortable with it is because it was a puppy that had been in a home so it had been fostered had never been in a shelter environment. She was what we thought at the time was like 50%, Rottweiler 50% Catahoula we now know that There's like some Coonhound and stuff, but she is 50%, Rottweiler. And then she's like Cata, hula, and cattle dog and like one other thing. But I will say that like, knowing what breeds I was dealing with, like, I could at least then go, like, look up, what kind of breeds those were, what kind of sizes? Those were. And it's not like I could get an exact answer for what I was gonna get temperament and size wise, but it was certainly more predictable than, you know, picking a random puppy that you have no idea what's going on there. And so I think those are also things people can think about is, you know, sometimes you can get a little bit, there's like, at least a dominant breed in there that maybe you can know more about, or you can go for, you know, one that's been fostered in a home, this one had been fostered in a home with children that were my children's age. And so I mean, I still had to risk that she was telling me the truth about the dog's behavior. But I also one time had a trainer say that, if you want to increase your odds of getting a dog that has a really like, sweet temperament, no aggression is, you know, whatever. They said, You've got to go shop at a high kill shelter. And it was very counterintuitive, because I was like, I thought we weren't like, we don't like them, you know, like, go away, we only patronize the, you know, no kill shelters. And he was like, Well, what you understand is that a high kill shelter is like the first dogs, they're going to euthanize or the dogs have behavior problems. So like, if a dog is still around, you know that there probably is a high probability that it has no aggression issues, because they are quick to put down dogs.
Ash 41:34
Yeah. And that's kind of along the lines of what I'm saying about how different it was people who have always adopted and I know, a lot of people who have always adopted who are like, it's way different out. I mean, even you know, 14 years ago, when I adopted my little dog, yeah, he had issues, and he actually does buy, or he did bite. But he's not like, you know, mauling people. He's not going to seriously injure you. He's just a little terrier. And they tend to be like that. But I've certainly seen dogs coming. And now I'm lucky to live near a shelter that has a good behavior program. So even though they are adopting out a lot of dogs with behavior issues, they are very honest about that. But yeah, there certainly are like, so
KC 42:19
if you're thinking about what a dog needs, I can tell you that as a just like regular dog owner, the messaging that trickles out to the average person is like dogs need exercise. That's really what like was my main thing is like, okay, is this dog need to walk every day? Is it a dog that needs to run? Like my only idea when you say like, pick a dog for your lifestyle is knowing that like, some dogs need a lot of exercise and other dogs don't. And in my head exercise was walking, like taking a walk or going to the park and running. And the more that I've learned about dogs, the more I realized, like, that's maybe too simplistic of a thought. So like, if I am a person out there, and I'm looking at my abilities, and I'm looking at my desires, like what do dogs need? And how do I think about whether I can do that, or want to do that?
Aaron 43:08
Yeah, there are two main categories that I like to break it up into. And that's physical exercise and mental exercise. So I can tell you right now that the whole exercise thing came from Cesar Millan because he was so popular in his big thing is like, Oh, I'm gonna like go rollerblading with my dog. And if you just rollerblade with your dog, that's a good way to get them to run and a tired dog is a good dog. But kind of as we evolved in dog training, what we're finding is that physical exercise isn't the only thing that matters. Some dogs prefer mental stimulation. And I would go so far as to saying like, I think that a lot of people think of German Shepherds as this high energy breed, they say, I'm doing like police work, military work. But my German Shepherd, if I give him a puzzle to solve, like a mental puzzle, they have things that are called Food puzzles, where you put some food in some kind of device, and then they have to slide some stuff around and get the food out. I let him do something like that for like an hour, and he's just wiped. Whereas if I take them out, and I do, you know, I could do two or three hours of just straight fetch with him, him running back and forth full speed at a full sprint, and he would just keep going all day, just nonstop. But what he really, really needed to get him in a, like healthy place was mental stimulation. And I think that's where a lot of people are missing the exercise portion. Because when you hear exercise, you think, hey, like we need to run or like we need to walk and walking is good, if that's what you have time for because walking does walking actually kind of covers both the mental and the physical. You do a little bit of walking, which is physical exercise. That's good. You're getting out you're stretching your legs, but the mental for them is sniffing. So make sure that if you do take your dog for a walk you are letting them sniff and stuff like that being able to sniff around is really really great mental enrichment for them. But what I will say about walks is there are typically better things to do because walks are are kind of like a general thing that covers everything. And so if your dog needs more mental stimulation, rather than physical stimulation, or your dog needs more physical stimulation that mental stimulation walks might not be the thing to do. Because like I said, they're only since it's kind of covering both things, it's not very, it doesn't accelerate at working either of those things. It just kind of generally covers them. So if that's what you have time for, that's a great thing to fall back on. But definitely think about doing things like playing fetch with your dog, getting a flirt pole to cover that physical energy, doing things that get them to run, and you're not to run is good. So that's why, you know, because for me, personally, I physically cannot run I have a physical disability that prevents me from running any sorts of long distances. So the way that I make up for that is I teach my games, my dogs a clean game of fetch, and I tend to work things like a football with them. And if you don't know what a flagpole is, if you've ever seen like a cat toy that has a toy hanging at the end of a stick, that's what a football is. Except it's dog sighs Yeah, it's huge. And I love them. Personally, I like people tag me and flirt pull videos all the time on tick tock, because I guess on the flip pole guy now, but flirt poles are great because they accelerate on low input from the human side, and high output from the dog side. And those are always the kinds of activities that I'm looking for to help people. So whether you have a physical disability, or you know, your disability extends beyond the physical, there is an activity out there for you that will probably fit your needs.
KC 46:26
That's so helpful that like, there's so many ways to meet a dog's needs that you can find one that works with your lifestyle, like so much of what I talk about, whether it's about doing your laundry, or self improvement, or whatever is like we tend to make plans based on like waking up being a completely different person tomorrow. What kind of training priorities should a person have? If they're coming from a struggle care background of I want to coexist peacefully with my dog? What do I need my dog to know how to do? Well, if I know I'm gonna have periods of struggle, so
Steph 47:03
we actually come at this from in my world, in my mind, everyone has a struggle care phase, whether they've hit it yet or not. So some people come in, and they're like, I don't need to know this, because I'm like, I just need to know sit him down, because my life is perfect. And I'm like, that's cool. One day, one day, it's gonna happen, there are people that show up that already know that they already know that there can be times where life is gonna get really out of control, or hard or not possible. So I train all dogs, you don't need to know anything about your dragon, I drain all dogs, when they come in with the background so that they have a training background of if your life completely falls apart, you have the ability to either have them adapt to change, deal with change, or be manageable in that scenario. So everything we do, we come at it from the beginning, when they're puppies, the first thing we we teach a lot of behaviors that focus on in like engagement and impulse control. So we focus a ton on impulse control. But more than anything, one of the things we do is we try and put those skills in when they're young, that mean that their life can be adapted. So stuff like crate training is right away. And I do crate training a little overboard. I want them to be able to create in a wire crate in an airline crate in a small room in a big room in your car in your garage. I want them to be able to create anywhere I moved my puppies crate every week, like you'll create over here and then you'll crate over there. And then you'll trade over there. And then you'll spend you will spend a night or two in the car in the summer because 100% I travel with my dogs I compete, we stay in the car sometimes. So like I make sure not only can you crate I send my dogs to other people's houses to crate for the night. And I go cool, stick this puppy in your room and just You're fine. Because they may have to go anywhere. I also make sure that they have a lot of place work, which is I think what your you call a behavioral down, which is just like they're on a tie back. I want my dogs to be super comfy with restraint on a tie back and people go well, I don't want my dog to go back. I'm like first off as a puppy. You do want your dog and tag second off. There are so many things through your life that you judge not even when your life goes bad. But through your life that you will need to just put your leash down and like run back to your car and grab something put your leash down and run in the Porta Potty at your kids soccer game. You know, tie your leash up to the post as you run in and get the mail that is stuff that the dog doesn't necessarily know how to do. Oh, you got real excited.
KC 49:15
Oh, I did because it's so funny, because I was just on Facebook yesterday. And there's this group that I'm in. It's like a neighborhood group and this mom put a Facebook post and it said, Hey, I know this is weird last minute but I'm out with my dog and I just got a phone call that my kid is sick at school and needs Imodium? Can I drop my dog at someone's house because I it was you know because hot down here it because she did not know how to be able to run into a store, get medication or be able to walk into the school drop off medication and what do I do with my dog? And I just thought of that I think it's so true. This idea that you know, you might think well I just need my dog to live in the backyard and be fine to be happy but like life is so different and so long, and we're actually preparing I'm going to travel, we're going to drive about four hours to my dad's house and stay with him. And I am so grateful that our dog is crate trained. Because I know that when we get there after she kind of sniffs around or whatever, like, I can put her in the crate, even just there in the living room, and she will be able to settle and go to sleep and have that break that stress break. And I want to be able to visit my in laws, but their house is a different kind of dog house than my dad's house, right? Like, there are lots of people there, there are older people, there's a pool for and she's not ready to go there. Because what we know is, that's the kind of house where you need to be able to go on a leash and lay down and chill, go outside of the bathroom, come back down, lay down and chill. Like that would be the appropriate behavior for interacting at that house. And it's so much cooler when you get to do those things with your dog. And even if you don't want to, like you know, this is obviously elective when you get a dog, but like, what if your parent dies, and you have to go to another city or whatever it is? Yes.
Steph 51:01
So the thing is like the crate training, tie back work, all that stuff I really liked because teaches your dog how to do all these things if your life changes, or if it doesn't, because you can utilize them in your own life. But the other thing it does is like if all of a sudden, I personally like dogs that are a lot. And a lot of the time that is the best thing in the world. And sometimes it is not. So the other thing is my dogs are very much velcro II, they are very large, they are very close to me. And there are some times where I'm like, Okay, no, like you just you cannot be on top of me right now, that's not a thing had the ability to put them in a crate the ability to put them on a tie back. Because yes, my older dogs that can just be like Go lay down, they will go way down when they are one they don't know that's not there. Like I'm super excited, you are finally home from work. That is not a concept, I'm even going to pretend to understand I am on top of you. And if that behavior is allowed to continue, it's going to frustrate you, it's going to frustrate them because they're really not doing anything bad or wrong. That's what you would do the other six days of the week. But that one day, you just can't do it. So do you set it up so that if they did something wrong and you get upset, or do you just go okay, cool. You're familiar with being on a timeout, you're familiar with being integrate here going to Craig? Right. The other thing is people go okay, so we also we do a bunch of skills when they're very young. That mean that yes, if your life changes, but also if your abilities change, you are okay. So stuff like treadmill training. So everybody goes, Okay, cool. I can't get out of bed this week. So there's a couple options. There are a couple options where you can pay your way out of that as long as you've set it up in advance. The other way, though, is like you don't have that much money. You can train your way out of it. You can treadmill train your dog, right and you know, does it replace a walk? No, but for the week that you can't function? Absolutely. Okay,
KC 52:50
Steph, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate your contribution. Where can people find you if they want to follow you online? Where can they look up your company to you know, give us a little plug. So
Steph 53:01
on Tik Tok, I believe I'm beta dog training on Instagram. I'm pretty sure I'm beta trains. We are beta dog training on Facebook. And we have a podcast where we talk about dog training stuff called make it weird dog stuff and occasional nonsense. I
KC 53:13
love that. So here's my here's my last question for you. I expect that there's probably a lot of people out there that already have a dog. And maybe they're going through a hard time. And they're thinking to themselves, like, is my dog happy? Like, am I doing enough for my dog? Like, how do we know if our dogs are happy? Okay,
Aaron 53:31
I've been thinking actually about this a lot, there's one thing that you can do is if you go online, and you look up, there's something called a dog's emotional cup. And if you Google that, and you go to the Image section, it'll show you an infographic that says, Hey, these are signs that your dog's cup may be running empty. This is how you can fill your dog's cup, those kinds of things. And that's a pretty good indicator on whether your dog's happy. But when it comes to that, I say this the type of people who are concerned about whether or not their dog is happy, or the people that do not need to be concerned that their dog is happy, because bad pet parents aren't asking if their dog is happy. And that's kind of the bottom line. Right? The bad pet parents aren't ever wondering, Am I doing enough for my dog? Right? And so if you care enough to be asking that question, I can almost guarantee you with 100% certainty that your dog is happy.
KC 54:17
Well, those are all of my questions. Okay, good. I
Aaron 54:20
were they satisfactorily answered. They were
KC 54:23
lovely. Yeah, I think it was a great conversation. Good. I'm glad if people want to follow you on Tik Tok. Where can they find you?
Aaron 54:31
You can find the app inside out dog training.
KC 54:33
I love it. Well, Aaron, thank you so much. And this has been a great conversation. I
Aaron 54:38
loved it. Thanks for having me. I had a really great time. You had some really interesting questions. So I like talking about dog training from this perspective. Let's
KC 54:46
The last thing I want to talk about is this idea of enrichment, which is something that like a word that I feel like I didn't hear what it was related to dogs 10 years ago, maybe it was but it just wasn't I think trickling out to like the average dog owner. And this was Like, this really saved my bacon when we got a dog because, you know, I wanted her to learn to be okay in her playpen by herself, while we're kind of around doing things, but it wasn't, and I'm okay with her being a little distressed, but it was like, Okay, but what is she supposed to do in there? Like he was supposed to just sit? Here's a toy, she doesn't know how to play with those without me. So talk to me about the place for enrichment, specifically, like enrichment that doesn't involve my involvement. So
Joe Harrison 55:31
like, first of all, yes, it is okay for your dog to be in another room in their kennel somewhere else, with nothing to do. And in fact, the reason that that is such a scary idea for us to put the dog in the kennel and leave them in the kennel, excuse me is because that sounds terrifying to us. Right? Like, I've spent a lot of time in the mental health field for people, right. And one of the quotes I always fall back on is like, all of man's problems could be solved by simply sitting quietly alone in a dark room. And like, I think for most people, like here's a chair, I'm going to turn off the light, and I'm gonna leave the room and you're gonna sit there and there's no radio, there's no phone, there's no TV, just you and your thoughts. And that sounds terrifying, right. And so but so that that's why I think that's so difficult for us. And I think it's a lot harder for us than it is for the dogs. Now, of course, the more high energy the dog has, the less they're going to want to sit still. And yes, in through the learning process, we want to help them out. And that's where you're on the right path where enrichments come in. And the other thing that enrichments do is like, give me the ability to go put the dog over there while I go take 10 minutes, right? Like, there's so many people that bring the dog in the bathroom with them, they say can't take a shower without the dog in the bathroom. And I'm like that is on my list in no ways. Like this, my peaceful spot can't come in here and jumping on me. Right, I'm going in the bathroom. And so like if I have a dog that enjoys food most often, more often, if not our enrichments are going to be food based. But I can take a they make lots of little, almost like treat dispensers that you can leave with your dogs and I think a lot of people are familiar with like the classic Kong so little, telic, three little notches on it and make lots of sizes. Black ones are the ones for the dogs that can't ever, you know, stop chewing, although my dogs can destroy the black ones. But most people have like a car and they give it to the dog and they're like, Here you go. I don't really get it. Right, it's supposed to be great. If they miss the fact that you can take some peanut butter or pumpkin or dog food or pretty much anything that is acceptable for your dog and you can put it inside that item, take it a step further and freeze that item. Now I have frozen soft dog food inside this toy that is very difficult to destroy. And I can then put that in my kennel with my dog and they can go to town on that for 20 minutes or so give or take. More often than not the process of me leaving is the process that brings up the discomfort in the dog. So hey, Here, eat this frozen dog food for 20 minutes while I go put on my shoes, my coat, grab my keys, leave the house, jump in the car and leave. And by that time I'm gone. The dog has been dedicated to this idea for 20 minutes. They're actually a little tired now they're in the kennel. There's not much else to do. Cool. They'll move forward into take that now. Yeah, we
KC 58:44
do. So Luna now gets a treat every time she goes into her kennel. And there's usually a little bully stick on a holder for her. But one of the things that we did when we first got her was that we got one of those I don't think it was called brand but it was like that and we had treat dispensers. And we had snuffle mats. We had things like that, but we had this one specific one that we put peanut butter in and the only time she got that one was in the kennel. And it was the exact same thing like it gave her something to do to preoccupy her, but she also began to associate like when I go in this kennel, I get this great thing and this is the only place like this must be a great place if this is where the peanut butter comes out. And I think we did that for like two or three months until she would it was easier for her to settle and now you know it's like a treat she can eat as soon as she gets in and she's got a little usually like a bully stick or something in there. But that was really helpful to like have one designated one. That was like the real high priority one because like you said, she goes in and she not only has something to do, but she's got this really amazing food that's like spiking that dopamine and is associating with the kennel and then she kind of tires herself out and then you're right nothing to do falls asleep. And now we put her in the kennel and she almost immediately falls asleep. yeah
Joe Harrison 1:00:00
beautiful and it is that history of reward of going in there and getting that every time that is going to make going to the kennel with which isn't the whole shebang on kennel training but going in is usually the hardest part. And if I can get you excited about going in and because you know you're gonna get something you know it's going to be high value then you're absolutely in the right direction there. Awesome.
KC 1:00:27
Well, Joel, I can't thank you enough for coming in and talking about dog stuff with me. Can you tell people where they can find you online if they want to follow you if they want to look you up? Yeah,
Joe Harrison 1:00:37
I mean, tick tock is the easiest place just at scoop and I, which sounds like scoop Andy. But it's not good bandwidth scoop and i Seo b a n d, I, you can also find me on Facebook and Instagram. If that's where you are. I just spend all of my time on tick tock. It's a lot of people out there seem to be a little bit nicer, if you can believe it.
KC 1:00:59
Awesome. Well, have a great day. And thank you so much.
Joe Harrison 1:01:02
Thank you, KC, appreciate it.
Ash 1:01:03
I think that's one of the coolest things about dogs is that they are a good community builder. Like my community is all dog people. And they a lot of dog people are very community focused. So that is the cool thing about it is a lot of people are willing to like reach out and bridge that gap when dogs are involved. that otherwise wouldn't be because they can act as kind of that or that bridge.
KC 1:01:29
Well ash thank you so much. Can you tell people where they can find you on social media if they want to follow you? Yeah,
Ash 1:01:34
if you want to follow me on social media, I am ash dot and the positive pups on Tiktok and Instagram and that's positive P AWS. You can also find me on my website positive pups academy.com If you want to work with me, I have like a membership. I have online classes, stuff like that. Again, that's positive P, AWS and then pubs P ups. Awesome.
KC 1:01:57
Thank you so much. Thank you and to you at home. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this was helpful episode to you and give you a little teaser that I'm also going to release a bonus episode this week with my personal dog trainer. We're going to talk about emotionally intelligent dog training. I picked my dog trainer because I had known him a long time and I really appreciated that his approach to training dogs felt very similar to some of my thoughts about parenting honestly, so keep an eye out for that. I will drop that later this week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai