The Everyday Trainer Podcast
The Dog Training World in 2024; the In's & Out's
As I meandered through the golden hues of a Californian sunrise with my trusty companions Zoe, Lucy, and Minka I was struck by an epiphany about the synchronicity between nature's clock and our well-being - a revelation that I'm eager to share with you. Our journey through dog training in 2024 begins with a reflection on how the morning sun doesn't just herald a new day for us, but affects our hormones and how they synchronize our body to the outside world.
I unravel the art of communication with our canine partners, suggesting that sometimes silence speaks louder than any command. We explore the virtues of patience, from waiting for a calm start to the morning routines to the meditative pace of a mindful walk, all aimed at fostering a deeper bond and understanding with our dogs. These moments of shared stillness have the power to transform our daily interactions, creating an oasis of peace in a world that often spins too fast.
Steering the conversation towards the often-overlooked yet pivotal aspect of diet, we question the norms of canine nutrition and its effects on our dogs' anxiety and health. Drawing from personal battles with stress, I share insights on the mirroring effect between our lifestyles and our pets, and the profound impact that natural diets and stress management techniques can have for both species. As we wrap up, we look ahead to the exciting developments in our e-collar training and shadow programs, all tailored to enrich the lives of dog trainers and owners as we embark on this year's journey of growth and companionship.
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As I meandered through the golden hues of a Californian sunrise with my trusty companions Zoe, Lucy, and Minka I was struck by an epiphany about the synchronicity between nature's clock and our well-being - a revelation that I'm eager to share with you. Our journey through dog training in 2024 begins with a reflection on how the morning sun doesn't just herald a new day for us, but affects our hormones and how they synchronize our body to the outside world.
I unravel the art of communication with our canine partners, suggesting that sometimes silence speaks louder than any command. We explore the virtues of patience, from waiting for a calm start to the morning routines to the meditative pace of a mindful walk, all aimed at fostering a deeper bond and understanding with our dogs. These moments of shared stillness have the power to transform our daily interactions, creating an oasis of peace in a world that often spins too fast.
Steering the conversation towards the often-overlooked yet pivotal aspect of diet, we question the norms of canine nutrition and its effects on our dogs' anxiety and health. Drawing from personal battles with stress, I share insights on the mirroring effect between our lifestyles and our pets, and the profound impact that natural diets and stress management techniques can have for both species. As we wrap up, we look ahead to the exciting developments in our e-collar training and shadow programs, all tailored to enrich the lives of dog trainers and owners as we embark on this year's journey of growth and companionship.
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Hello and welcome back to the Everyday Trainer podcast. My name is Meg and I am a dog trainer, so we are starting the year off right, it is 2024. Welcome to the new year, y'all. I am so excited for everything that's happening this year and I hope you all are too. So today's episode we are going to cover the ins and outs for dog training in 2024. We're going to talk about the important things, like some morning sunlight, not judging ourselves all that stuff. You know the drill have yourself a tasty drink and I'll meet you back here. Hello, hello, welcome back. We are in January of 2024.
Speaker 1:I'm recording this podcast episode from inside the house. It's been a really, really long time since I recorded an episode in here, so you might hear, you know, the usual dog noises in the background. I've got Zoe and Lucy hanging out with me. Zoe's on the floor, lucy's on the bed and I've got a cup of coffee. It's my second cup of coffee and I know that I recently mentioned that I was going to cut back on the coffee, but it just hasn't happened yet. We have a bunch of dogs in the house, so we're doing a lot of work all the time. You know, you just need the caffeine to kind of keep you going. So that's kind of where I'm at. So I thought that this would be a good check in with everybody. A lot of my episodes recently have been from my California trip, which was so much fun. So much fun and I got to meet with so many amazing dog trainers Like people that I only dreamed of having on my podcast I got to meet and talk with. So I hope you all really enjoyed those episodes. Those trainers are awesome. If you don't already, go and follow them, listen to those episodes. There's some good info in there. So I really wanted to do an episode that was just kind of me and you. It's been a while since we have had one of those. I think the last one was me having a mental breakdown in the episode which y'all know. I appreciate you being here and putting up with me and this podcast kind of being like my personal diary.
Speaker 1:Everything that I do is really focused around what I wish I had when I was struggling with my dog or growing in my business. So that's what I tried to be for you all and kind of give you a peek behind the curtain of what it's actually like. I think there's a lot of content out there that shows the very surface level of what it's like to be a dog trainer or own a dog training business or even just be a dog owner. But you know, life isn't all sunshine and rainbows. So I share both sides of this journey with you and I hope that you all appreciate it.
Speaker 1:So today I want to talk about our 2024 ins and outs for dog training. A lot of my episodes recently have kind of been focused on dog trainers specifically, but I want to touch on my owner. So, whether you're a dog trainer or a new owner, these are kind of my little nuggets of wisdom for you, and it's not really just applicable to your dog, it's really applicable to you too. And that's kind of the foundation of everything that I do is, you know, if we focus on bettering ourselves, getting into better routines and habits with ourselves, it really is such a reflection of our dogs. Our dogs are our mirrors. And if we're anxious, if we're in fight or flight and we're running around and we're stressed out all the time, guess what Our dogs are going to be the same way.
Speaker 1:And I do get a lot of heat from people on the internet and I get a good amount of comments from people kind of saying like, oh, she's just an internet dog trainer. But I don't think y'all understand how many dogs and owners I see in my day to day. And so when I, you know, share these little nuggets of wisdom, it's not coming from a place of like, oh, this is just what works with me and my dogs, or this is just what I see with some owners that I know. It's a lot of people. I have a pretty big sample size, so our ins and outs are kind of plucked from that of. You know, the advice that I give my owners when we're doing go home sessions, when I'm doing lessons with people, what I see people doing and how it affects our dogs. It's all coming from a good place of hey, we're all kind of doing these things and it's creating these behaviors in our dog. If we, you know, stop doing those things or maybe switch up our routine a little bit, we can see, you know, a change in our dog's behavior for the better. And that's my goal as a dog trainer is obviously to help you and your dog live a better life.
Speaker 1:So let's get into it. First things, first, our ins. We're going to start with our ins and then we'll cover our outs. So our first in is morning sunlight, and if you follow me on Instagram, I talk about this all the time. My daylight routine is very, very important for me, and one of the things that really kind of solidified this is actually traveling in the van with my dogs. So four years ago I took my first road trip out to California with my dogs I just had Zoe and Lucy at the time.
Speaker 1:But one thing that I learned kind of living out of my van is we would go with the routine of sunrise to sunset, and not only did I notice a huge difference in my behavior, I was sleeping significantly better, I just had more energy. I just felt so much better when I was waking up with the sun and going to bed at sunset. You kind of have to do that because you're camping and there's like not a whole lot to do after the sun goes down. So even though it was super early, we would start to kind of slow down. We would just hang out in the van and chill out, and then the rest of the time we would spend outside, right Cause we're not just going to like sit in my van all day. So we would go hiking. We would just, you know, hang out, find a field, find like a place to chill, and that's what we would do for the day, and I felt so amazing, going to bed and slowing down as the sun sets and then being up and outside all day.
Speaker 1:And this is something that I see owners are not really doing enough of is they spend a lot of time inside with their dogs, and even dog training is really focused on, like you know, obedience sessions inside and lick mats and all of this stuff. But we need to realize that all of those things are just a replacement for what our dogs naturally need. So anytime I do anything in dog training, I want to think back of like okay, what need does this fulfill? Am I living my life in a way that is conducive to my dog's natural way of being? So getting morning sunlight in is so important for your dog's hormones. For your hormones, it's how our body like regulates itself, and if we don't get outside first thing in the morning, we're not releasing all of the like daytime hormones. And so, basically, the suggestion for people is, you know, get sunlight first thing in the morning, while the sun is rising. We don't want that like direct sunlight. So sunrise in the morning, sunset in the evening, there are all of these different colors, spectrums of light throughout the day and so, depending on the you know, quantity of red light versus blue light versus orange light determines what hormones we see for that day.
Speaker 1:I did a horrible job of explaining it. I promise I'm not an idiot. But if you want to look a little bit more into this, andrew Huberman is kind of like the spokesperson for circadian rhythm and the importance that that plays on our bodies and our hormones and our mood and just everything. So I've found that when I get out first thing in the morning as the sun is rising, with all of the dogs, it really just makes our day so much better. They have the most energy in the morning, so that's the time when I let them out in the backyard or I'll drive down the road and there's a big field by my house. I take my dogs to go run around there, I'll sit and kind of bask in the sunshine like lizard mode and it just really sets the tone for my day and I found that it really does the same for the dogs. So sunlight first thing in the morning. Again, I did a horrible job of explaining that, but there are far smarter people out there who can talk a little bit more on it.
Speaker 1:I actually was in a circadian rhythm lab when I was in college and so each week we would read research articles on basically the importance of sunlight and artificial light and how it affected us, and most of these studies were done on rats. But it was so extreme that basically, if they put these rats on like the schedule of like a shift worker, so somebody who would like sleep during the day and then work at night, like these rats were depressed. They were literally dying. Like it was crazy, and it's one of those things that I just cannot unsee. Like I've learned too much that I know like, oh shit, it's so important for us to be outside and get that morning sunlight. Even if you can't hang outside, you know, during the day let's say you work in an office or you know you work in a store where there's not windows just get that morning light in. Take your dog for a long walk in the morning. It's really going to make you and your dog feel so much better. So the next thing on our list is taking our time, one thing that I see with a lot of the owners that I work with is they're constantly rushing from one thing to a next. They can't fit all the things that they want to fit in in their day, and so we're kind of teaching our dogs to like live in this constant like rush, rush, rush.
Speaker 1:One place that I like to emphasize slowness is again in the morning when I first wake up. I wake up, my dogs are amped up, right, if you have dogs, if they sleep in the room with you or sleep in bed with you, they're like yes, it's morning time, like let's go, let's start our day. This is where I really like to slow down. So I teach my dogs that just because I'm up and awake doesn't mean I'm immediately catering to you, and people get very upset when I talk about this. But it's really, really relevant, because everything that I do in dog training is about slowing down and waiting for our dogs to give us the mindset that we want. So if my dogs are amped up in the morning and I immediately go and I feed them and I let them out and I'm just kind of like reinforcing that excited, like okay, now, now, now we're going now. Instead, what I want to do is I want to take space in between everything that I do, right? So let's say, first thing in the morning you take your dog for a walk, wake up, get out of bed, you know walk around, make your coffee and then, once your dog has kind of settled, then you can take them out for a walk.
Speaker 1:But when we just rush from one thing to a next, we're just reinforcing this like super rushed, excited state of mind and most people don't need help with that. Most dogs don't need help getting into that state of mind. Most people want their dogs to be a little bit calmer, a little bit more settled, and it starts with us and our routine. So first thing in the morning when I wake up, I wake up, I have a room full of dogs over there that we have to go and take care of. But what happens is if I wake up and immediately go into the room and start working, all of the dogs are barking. They're all, like you know, jumping around. They know what's coming next. If I don't wait for calm, that's how they're going to be. All day long is barking, demanding, really pushy. But if I wake up and I make my coffee and I go to the bathroom and I wash my face and then I walk into the dog room. The dogs are settled and that's the state of mind that I want to reinforce with, you know, freedom and food and training and all the good things and starting our day. So I really do encourage you to slow down in moments throughout your day. Maybe you can't do it in the morning, but, you know, maybe slow down before you take your dog for a walk. Grab the leash, go and sit down, wait for your dog to settle a little bit, you know, take a few deep breaths and then go for your walk. You'll be very surprised how much like your calm state of mind and your like slowness can carry over into your dogs.
Speaker 1:Next, long walks. Long walks are in. I love a long walk. It's so important for us and our dogs.
Speaker 1:Again, though, for me the walk is really like the foundation of our training. That is where one we can get out, get outside, expose ourselves to, you know, the sun and the wind and all the things in our natural world that we seem to kind of separate ourselves from. That's really the time for me to, you know, think about my day, think about how it's going, what I need to do all of that stuff while keeping my body busy. So I'm naturally like a go, go, go, like my mind is moving at 1000 miles per minute type of person and anytime I find myself like getting really anxious or like the thought train is just like rolling through my brain, I'm like you know what, I'm gonna go for a walk. I go for a walk. The you know movement gets some of that anxious energy out and I really get to like think and sit with my thoughts and I like to think that my dogs do the same thing.
Speaker 1:So I kind of talked to people about, you know, the structured walk is kind of like walking meditation for our dogs. It's a little bit boring, but that's okay. I think there's a lot of value in that, especially when in today's society with our dogs, we're so focused on doing more, more, more and constantly entertaining our dogs. I really like the slowness of a long walk. I really like how boring it is. I think that boringness is really really important for ourselves and our dogs. So for me, I walk for a couple hours every day, but that's kind of my job. You know. I'm walking dogs. That's how we do a lot of our training.
Speaker 1:If I were to just walk my personal dogs, I would go for probably a 30 minute to an hour long walk in the morning. But do whatever you can, and I think that's one thing that I see my owners kind of get hung up on is they'll be like, well, I can't go for a 30 minute walk in the morning and I say that's okay, go for a 10 minute walk, you know, just do something, even if you can't do it every day. Just, you know, taking the time to slow down, to get outside in nature, to get the sun on your face is going to make a huge impact, and the more that you can integrate that into your schedule, the better it's going to be for both of you. Next, intentional communication this is.
Speaker 1:This is a touchy subject for a lot of people, but I would love love for this to become a little bit more popular and a little bit more common is so many owners are constantly talking to their dogs and one thing that I do, that I have kind of always done and I've never really like labeled it because it's just always been how I interacted with animals and the you know, dogs around me is I don't do a lot of verbal communication. I'm not talking to my dogs in full sentences, I'm not walking around the house talking to them. And one thing that I find with my owners is when I work with a really anxious dog, I am gonna say 95% of the time that owner is constantly talking to their dog. They're whining at their dog, they're talking to them like this, or their dog starts whining go, it's okay, you're gonna be okay, it's okay. And I will never do that because I always want to act how I want the dogs to act and also, dogs aren't verbally communicating with each other, so that's not like their dominant mode of communication with us or with each other. So it's not gonna be my dominant communication with them.
Speaker 1:I'm very intentional about the words that I use with my dogs. I joke with my owners that I know five words. My language skills have just completely dropped by being a dog trainer because I don't do a lot of verbal communication. I'm not talking to the dogs all day long. I'm trying to keep that verbal communication as simple as possible and I find that two things.
Speaker 1:One, the more that we communicate with our dogs, the more anxious they tend to be, and I'm not just pulling this out of thin air. I work with a lot of owners, a lot of people. I see a lot of people every day and every week, and I've been doing this for six years, so I'm not just like pulling this out my ass. The most anxious dogs have the most anxious owners and they're constantly communicating with them, constantly, to the point where the dog's not even listening to them anymore because their words have just become so meaningless. So I really encourage you to be a little more intentional about your verbal communication. When it comes to that sort of communication, less is really more. The less that you communicate, the more value your words are going to be.
Speaker 1:And that was kind of my second point. There is that you know, not only is it kind of amping our dogs up when we're talking to them all the time, but our words don't mean anything. So when you go to recall your dog or grab your dog's attention, why would they choose to pay attention to you when you know, 99% of the time when you're talking to them, they don't really have to pay attention to you because you're not really telling them any anything valuable. You're just kind of talking to them like a person. So I encourage you to be very intentional with your verbal communication with your dog, because it's really going to improve your relationship and it's going to improve your dog's state of mind. The focus around you know, everything that I do is our dogs have, you know, behavioral issues and struggle with anxiety and you know separation, anxiety and reactivity because of their state of mind and genetics plays a huge, a massive role in that. But it doesn't mean that there's not things that we can implement and do to help our dogs state of mind and to kind of help them chill out. One thing that you know you won't really see on the internet with me because it's kind of, you know, revolved around me talking and even like the podcast, it's literally just me talking. But when I work with people in person, one of the things that they say to me is like you really don't talk, like you're not doing a lot of talking. Even when I'm instructing my clients on like their handling skills, I don't do a lot of verbal communication. I find that less is really really like so much more. So be intentional about your verbal communication with your dog.
Speaker 1:Next, our next in is nutritious food. Nutritious food for ourselves and for our dogs. I am really big on taking care of yourself so that you don't pour from an empty cup. I am no stranger to burnout, if you've been following along in my journey. I have many mental breakdowns. I have many, many burnouts. That's just kind of, you know, been part of my journey in dog training. It's a 24 seven job and in the times when I do get burnout it is directly related to me not taking care of myself and part of that is eating healthy, nutritious foods, and it's the same thing for our dogs. I've gotten to the point now where I can literally guess what type of food a dog is on based on how they look, how the owner describes like their eating habits and their behaviors. So some big foods that I don't like that.
Speaker 1:I see a lot of anxious dogs on, dogs with skin issues. Royal Canaan and Purina pro plan. Now, if you feed these, I'm not like kibble shaming you by any means. We all do what we can. Real Canaan is very expensive for what it is. If you read the bag, it's literally just a bunch of corn. So, like, budget aside, don't feed Royal Canaan if you don't have to. But you know, I'm kind of a firm believer of like if you put garbage in, you're gonna get garbage out. So these really anxious dogs with inflammation, they have itchy skin, they have trouble settling.
Speaker 1:I believe, and I hope, that research starts to kind of catch up with this and I think it has I believe that there is a direct correlation between the type of food that we have and, kind of like, the levels of anxiety that our dogs feel. And think about it for yourself as well. Like if you eat a bunch of candy and you eat a bunch of processed foods, like you don't feel great. You don't feel great physically, you don't feel great mentally. So if we're out here trying to help our dogs be their best and be in their best state of mind, food is a huge component of that, and I'm a firm believer that, like, I want to eat as natural as possible, so limiting processed foods for myself.
Speaker 1:I just, you know, walk around the perimeter of the grocery store. I really don't do a lot of shopping in those middle aisles, because that's where all of the processed food is. I eat grass fed beef, I eat eggs, I eat bacon, I drink milk. I am the type of person that, like, I don't shy away from eating meats or whole foods or fatty things. I go through literally like a stick of butter a week. But what I do avoid is that super highly processed stuff like cookies and crackers and breads and pastas and stuff like that. I find that the more of that I eat, the worse I feel, the more anxious I feel, the more like stressed out I feel, like skin rashes, like it's not great, and I've always kind of been like sensitive with food. So I've always been very intentional about what I put into my body.
Speaker 1:But I think the same rules apply for our dogs. When I'm feeding my dogs I don't want to like kibble shame anybody, because I feed both kibble and raw, and I know that you know. Ideally I would love to see everybody feed their dogs raw, but not everybody can financially, like it costs a lot of money. There's a certain privilege to being able to feed your dog raw and feed your dog like a really high quality food. So I totally get that, you know. But there's always things that we can do to add whole food sources to our dogs that are budget friendly but still give them, you know, just a little bit more of what they need biologically fulfilling their biological needs. So some quick little add ins kind of gross but super cheap.
Speaker 1:If you go to like an Asian supermarket chicken feet, they are great for your dogs. It's a kind of it's like a meaty bone. You give them raw. We never want to give our dogs cooked bones, so we give them raw. It's great for cleaning their teeth as well. So if you find that you're constantly having to brush your dog's teeth, I recommend chicken feet. It's like little toothbrushes. It's soft, so it kind of like scrapes all of the plaque off of them and dogs love them.
Speaker 1:I used to when I first started feeding my dogs raw. That like really just grossed me out so I would have to like throw it in their crate and then like walk out of the room because I couldn't stand the crunching. Now I don't really care, I just hand it to them. But chicken feet is a great option Anytime. You can feed your dog whole raw meat. That would be better. So think like a chicken leg. You know they're getting that bone, they're getting the meat. You can even add things like blueberries and fruits and veggies. Do your research, make sure that it's dog safe, of course. But I I don't want to say I stay away from like all of the supplements, but I'm kind of in the camp of whole foods are always going to be the best option. If you, you know, can't add whole foods to your dog's kibble or your dog's diet, then go for those like powder supplements, those green supplements, stuff like that. That's obviously going to be better. There's also a lot of really good brands out there that are doing like freeze, dried rabbit feet or rabbit ears and things like that. I love that.
Speaker 1:The fur, all of that is so good for your dog. So everything that I put into my dogs, I think, like you know, where would they get this in nature, like if, if they were, you know, wild animals which I know that they aren't, but you know they are animals and the closer that we can get to the biologically appropriate food for them, the better. You know. But I just kind of think about, like, what would they be eating? Well, they would be catching a whole rabbits, you know. So they're getting the fur, they're getting the bones, they're getting the organ meats. We want to make sure that if we are giving our dogs raw, we're giving all of those things to make sure their meals are nice and balanced, so eating good, nutritious food for ourselves and our dogs. All right, let's get into the outs Now. These are things that I am guilty of and they are things that I see a lot of with my owners and kind of just like around the culture of dog training, which I would love to see go in 2024.
Speaker 1:So the first thing is being in fight or flight I am speaking from a place of experience I've kind of been operating from fight or flight like survivor mode for probably the past couple years and it doesn't make me feel great. It has really like taken a toll on my body and on my health. So I've started being very intentional in my mornings. Like I said, we get out first thing in the morning, get into this, you know, sun, but I also take a few moments to breathe. You know, take a deep breath. When you slow down and pay attention to how your body feels, you kind of feel that anxiety. And one thing with me is I have a rather stressful job. Like it's not like just a regular job, like it's kind of high risk. We're working with live animals. I always want to make sure that everybody is like taken care of.
Speaker 1:I wake up and a wall of anxiety just like hits my chest and if I jump right into things in the morning. That is the state that I will be in all day, which is that fight or flight response, and it's not good for our bodies to stay there. So I've started really taking a few minutes to myself every morning. I do a little bit of reading, I do a little bit of journaling and I do a little bit of meditation and breathing. Now one thing about me is I am kind of an all or nothing person. So anytime I start a new habit, I'm like all in crazy person. I'm like I'm meditating for 30 minutes every day, I'm journaling for 30 minutes and I'm reading for 30 minutes, and then some days I'll be like, oh, I don't really have an hour and a half to do all of this, so I'm just not going to do it. So one thing that I've been better at, I would say probably the past year, is just doing what I can do, what you can, to get out of that stressed place.
Speaker 1:To you know, check in with yourself, to check in with your thoughts, check in with your body. How are you feeling? So that journaling for me is really the opportunity to check in with my thoughts. I just write. I'm not writing anything. In particular, some days I can't write anything and I literally write. I cannot write anything. I don't know why, but here's my journal entry for the day and that's it. That's all I can do. But you know what I did it.
Speaker 1:And then that meditation that you know, pausing and breathing, for me is checking in with my body. What does the anxiety feel like? Do I feel it in my chest? Do I feel it in my stomach? Is it that like tingly sensation that you get all throughout your body and then I start to breathe into it? I don't, you know, force it to go away. I just try to bring some intention to it of like, okay, I feel it, this is what it feels like. And then you realize, as you're kind of breathing in and out, you realize like, oh, that feeling doesn't stay, like it's not permanent, and oftentimes we're usually perpetuating that anxious feeling with our thoughts. So I like to do a combination of both journaling and breathing in the morning, because I find that it really balances me and gets me out of that fight or flight response.
Speaker 1:And how this carries over to our dogs is our dogs are this way too. So many dogs are reactive and just on edge all the time or, you know, barking at every little noise, and I am real big on like, leading by example. I want us to act how we want our dogs to act and it's unfair, in my opinion, for us to ask our dogs to settle when we can't even sit down for 10 minutes and sit with ourselves. Like how unfair is it to ask our dogs to go on to place for 30 minutes to an hour when, if I asked you to do the same thing, you would give me the middle finger and tell me to fuck off? And I know because I say this to people in lessons and I talk about this on social media all the time of you know, go meditate, go breathe. I don't even care if you meditate or know what meditation is. Literally just go sit with yourself, go sit with your thoughts, talk to me about how difficult that is, and then you'll have a little bit more empathy whenever you're putting your dog on place and asking them to do the same thing. It's really a difficult thing to do and that kind of touches on like the conversation that I'm always having around.
Speaker 1:Like you know, we're doing too much with our dogs, which is my next out doing too much. The hard part of training is doing nothing. The easy part of training and the fun part of training and the part of training that looks nice on social media is the active training, where we're getting our dogs working for their food and we're teaching them obedience skills and we're running them through all of these fun little training sessions or we're doing lick mats with them or puzzle feeders or sniff games. I love all of those things. Don't get me wrong. I think all of those things are valuable. I think all of those things have a time and place, but they are not going to solve your behavioral issues and they're not really helping your dog that much, because a lot of the owners that I work with are really really good at that. They're really good at doing all of those things.
Speaker 1:Where they struggle is doing nothing, and we really have to look at our lives ourselves. We can't even do nothing. I am a bit of a crazy person and I don't have a TV in my house. I don't watch TV. I don't really consume media. I just cannot. It's, it's just too much for me. But I mean, just kind of think about, like the average person, how much time we spend with like a screen in front of us, whether it's watching TV or YouTube or podcasts. Like we're constantly just like filling our brain with things and that's what we're doing to our dogs. Like we're literally creating little iPad kids with our dogs and it's not helpful for them.
Speaker 1:And again, going back to kind of you know, my goal with dog training is to always get them back to the most natural state possible. We have to think that these lick mats and puzzle feeders like are there to replace that, but the best thing that we can do for our dogs is to provide them with the things that they naturally need time outside to sniff. Take your dog on a hike, take them to a field, let them run around and sniff. Like you don't need a sniffy mat or whatever Snuffle I don't even know what they're called. Like you don't have to do all these sniff games Like those are just replacements for the real thing. And think of, you know, animals and zoos. Like we do all of these enrichment activities for them because we've taken them out of that natural state and so this is kind of like their supplementation.
Speaker 1:I like to look at it as like eating whole nutritious foods versus taking a vitamin every day. Like you can't tell me that taking the vitamin every day is better for you than getting your nutrients from the whole food. So a lot of my owners are doing way too much with their dogs and I wish they would just kind of reel it in. You know, do these things every now and again, but your dog doesn't need six activities every day. They don't need three training sessions and two lick mats and two sniff walks and two structured walks and like they don't need that. You're doing way too much and the reason is because you can't sit still and you can't sit with your thoughts. And if you disagree with me, come find me and I will happily sit down in meditation with you. We can put that to the test. But that's just something that I see so often, and especially like in today's current dog culture, is we are doing way too much with our dogs. We are creating these like super athlete, ipad kids that cannot sit with themselves, they cannot sit still, they cannot do nothing. But it's all about balance and reaching our dogs natural needs Next, and this kind of goes into you know what I was talking about earlier, which is intentional communication, but out talking too much.
Speaker 1:I won't go too deep into this. But again. This is one of those things that I wish I could scream from the rooftops of. You know, let's talk less to our dogs. It's going to make us so much more meaningful to them. And I find that I talk to my dogs more when other people are around. When other people aren't there, I like don't talk to my dogs, like we do not talk. They follow me around. They're with me literally 24 seven. I take them everywhere with me but I'm not like just blabbing to them about stuff. And this is just kind of how I am as a person, like I've never been a chatty person. I've always been really quiet. But I think that's why I found my strength with them. And I found my strength with dogs and with animals is because I don't need that verbal communication with them and we can have a perfectly, you know, cohesive relationship without that verbal communication aspect. My favorite thing to do is to like hang out with my favorite person and not talk Like just exists, exist together, so it's kind of the same thing with our dogs. So out is talking too much to our dogs. I would love to see y'all talk with less.
Speaker 1:Next and this is a big one not setting boundaries. I love boundaries and I don't love boundaries because I've always been good at setting boundaries. I love boundaries because I haven't been good at setting boundaries and I've learned the hard way what happens when we don't set boundaries with the people in our lives and our dogs. So I have notoriously been the person that has no boundaries. I, you know, overshare my entire life on the internet. If somebody asks me about you know, like how things are going, I will tell them everything. I'm an overshare. I let people in too quickly, I trust people too quickly and boy have I been burned. So I've kind of shifted my perspective on what boundaries look like and what their benefits are for me.
Speaker 1:You know, anytime I found myself getting frustrated with somebody doing something, I'm like, oh, I can't believe she did that, or I can't believe. You know, one of my trainers thought that this was okay, or I can't believe whatever. Anytime I would find myself getting upset by somebody else's actions. I would just kind of pause and be like, okay, I'm upset because somebody is crossing a boundary of mine, and it's not necessarily their fault, it's my. I don't want to say fault, but it's my responsibility to communicate those boundaries to someone, and that's something that I've become really good at in the past year with a majority of people.
Speaker 1:I still have a couple of people that slip by, kind of crossing my boundaries, that I'm not super firm with, but we're learning and we're growing. But a good example of this is like client communication for me. I used to communicate with my clients like 24 seven and it was getting to the point where I was like so frustrated I was like I hate this. I hate that people message me at seven am. I hate that people are, you know, messaging me at 10 pm or Sunday mornings Like don't they know that I have a life and I have other owners. So when one person messages me, I have like 27 other people messaging me. I used to get really, really frustrated by that, but I learned like I can't get frustrated because they're just crossing a boundary that is in my head. Like I haven't communicated that boundary to anybody. And so you know, even in my business, like when things happen that I don't want to happen, or trainers do something that I don't want them to do, I have to kind of reel myself in and go, okay, this made me upset because this person crossed a boundary. You know, what do I need to communicate here so that that doesn't happen again, because it's not necessarily their fault and it's the same thing with dogs Like a lot of times we get really frustrated with our dogs but it's because we haven't set clear boundaries with them.
Speaker 1:We haven't clearly communicated our expectations and I explained to my owners that you know, as a dog trainer, my job is to create clear communication in a clear language for your dog that you too can use to communicate expectations. So you know, when a dog comes and trains with us, I don't say you know the dog's going to be perfect by the end of training. I say your dog is going to have a really solid understanding of our language and from there, whatever comes up, you're going to be able to communicate your expectations to your dogs and problem solve. Why you're not able to do that now is because you don't have that clear language and you're not able to set those clear boundaries. So boundaries with our dogs look a little bit different. They're a little more like physical, less, you know, verbal communication, but still kind of the same.
Speaker 1:For example, a good boundary that we can have with our dogs is not sleeping in the bed with them. Now I sleep in bed with my dogs, but I don't sleep in bed with all of my dogs. Gretchen is not a dog that will ever be able to sleep in bed with me. She can't handle it. She can't handle that. So I have to set a boundary with her. You can't get on the furniture. You cannot, you know, get in my face. You're not the type of dog that can handle this, because if you cross that boundary, you start to claim ownership over me, you start to be pushy, you don't respect me as much. So I know that I have to set that boundary with her. Zoe is never really going to be a dog. That's going to be something that I have to worry about, or worry about her crossing my boundaries. So I do get to sleep in bed with her.
Speaker 1:Now, if we ever got to the point where she stopped listening to me let's say she stopped recalling she was, you know, getting in the trash, doing a lot of things I would set that boundary with her. I'd be like all right, girl, I've given you a lot of freedom and you're showing me that you can't handle that freedom. So I have to set boundaries with you. So boundaries with people and dogs look a little bit different, but it's the same kind of like basis. It's you looking out for yourself, you looking out for your space so that you don't get frustrated and you're not pouring from an empty cup. If you're giving yourself to everybody and you're allowing everybody to kind of walk all over you and do whatever they want and you're just kind of allowing it to happen, you're allowing your dog to do behaviors in front of you that you don't like, you are allowing that because you're the one not setting those firm boundaries. So boundaries are super, super important and that's something that I've just learned along the way. I'm 30 years old now. I feel old and wise, so this is just kind of me sharing that with you.
Speaker 1:And I had a girl reach out to me on one of my Monday Q&As and ask how do you set boundaries in your life? And I was. I was taken aback. I was like, oh my gosh, what a good question. And I ended up messaging her and I asked are you referencing in people or with dogs? And she was like in personal, like in your personal life, like how do you set boundaries? And I was like, oh shit.
Speaker 1:And one thing that's kind of changed about me, I would say, just in the past year is I don't do things that I don't want to do anymore, and I used to be the person that would kind of say yes to everything, and I think that's great. I think that's opened a lot of doors for me. I've met a lot of wonderful and also horrible people that way. But now I've really gotten to the point where if I don't want to do something, I literally just tell people no and I don't really give them a reason. I just say no, I don't want to go, I don't want to do that thing, whereas before I would be like, yeah, for sure I'll go, and then I would be pissed and I would be like regretting it the whole day leading up to it and I would like not enjoy myself. I'm like well, that's just because that's like a boundary that I didn't set with myself. I can't really be mad at this person making me do this thing that I want to do when I allowed them, you know, to take me here, go and do this thing with me. So now I'm very firm on like I don't want to do that thing, so I'm not going to do it. And people are like okay, but I think that comes with like age and maybe being a little bit burnt out, but that's okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Our next thing judging ourselves and others and this is our last one this is our out judging ourselves and others. If you're on the internet at all which I'm sure a lot of you are you can see that a lot of us are just kind of like talking about what everybody else is doing. You know, whether it's in dog training or personal, or you know this person uses this tool or this person does things this way. We got to stop that and that's one thing that you'll hear me harp on is you'll never hear me bash another trainer. You'll never hear me judge people.
Speaker 1:I recently was like dragged on tick talk because I made a post. This girl was trying to teach her dog to relax and I didn't really look into it at all. I watched like the one tick talk. I didn't know who the girl was or anything, but I was like this is what I'm seeing in my clients. Like what this person is doing with their dog is what all of my clients are doing and this is why I'm getting all of these dogs in. So essentially, it was her trying to teach her dog to settle and she was following this like settling protocol and basically it kind of goes back to like our owners are, my owners are doing too much, like way too much, and it's creating these dogs that like cannot settle. They're literally iPad kids.
Speaker 1:So I made a post about that and the girl and her community ended up taking it very personally which I take full responsibility for the things that I say and how I come off but I ended up deleting that video because I think it did end up hurting her feelings, because I guess I was coming off as like condescending when it really wasn't coming from that. It was coming from a place of like oh okay, this is what we're all doing, here's what I want you to do instead. And basically I was just getting dragged and people were calling me names and telling me that I'm a mean girl and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I took the video down because I never want anybody to feel like I'm bullying them or I'm attacking them. So I was like, oh shit, I obviously didn't get the message that I wanted to get across. It was never my intention to be like mean towards any individual and you know, the same thing applies for dog trainers or anybody out there who's trying, like, I never want anybody to feel like I'm judging them or feel any sort of way about what they do. You'll never see me bash another dog trainer.
Speaker 1:I get a lot of questions from people about like, oh, what do you think about this person or what do you think about this person, and I always just kind of like to live in a way that, you know, the only thing that I have real control over is myself and how I communicate and how I perceive things. So that's what I'm going to control. I think that's what we should all aim for is to just do our best, be our best and worry about ourselves, because that's really all that we have control over. We don't have control over how anybody else trains a dog or how anybody else shows up on the internet. The only thing that we truly have control over is what we do and how we perceive others. So you know, I never take anything personally. Because why would I? Why would I choose to take anything personally? What? So I can sit around and mope about it all day? No, I just have to think yeah, that person is coming from this place and you know, that's why they don't agree with me and that's totally okay. I can exist over here and they can exist over there. So that kind of is, you know, judging others.
Speaker 1:But I think another big component of that is judging ourselves. We're very judgmental for ourselves and this also plays into us doing too much. I think us doing too much just comes from a place of guilt. We always feel like we're not doing enough and we're not enough. We're not, you know, good enough for our dogs. Our dogs aren't as well behaved as they should be and as I've kind of grown as a trainer, I've learned to really appreciate dogs for where they're at, instead of saying like, oh, I wish this dog was better. So, for example, like when I would do go home sessions, like, uh, I don't know, probably like three years ago, I would always be so nervous because I would be like, uh, I wish the dog was so much better or so much further along, like you always wish you had more time with a dog, always. I don't feel that way anymore because I've learned to really appreciate the dogs for who they are and where they are at when they come to me and I look at it as like, okay, if this dog is here for three weeks. We're going to do as much as we can in those three weeks, but this dog is starting here and that's okay, and we're going to get as far as we can in three weeks. But the three weeks for this dog is not going to look the same as the three weeks for this dog, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:Even with my personal dogs I have five dogs that are under my care right now. All of them act differently. All of them have been trained the exact same way. They've been trained by me. There's really not any other factors, but they all have their own personalities. Uh, you know, they all have their quirks. They all have their motivators. Lucy is always going to try me. This girl is seven and she is always pushing my buttons every day.
Speaker 1:Zoe is never going to be like that. But you know, I could look at Lucy and be like, oh, why can't you be like Zoe? She's never going to be like Zoe and I don't have those expectations for her because she's her own individual. She brings so much to the table and I really like love, for I love who she is, for who she is, for her quirks, for those times when she runs away and I have to go and chase her and all of that Like I love her exactly where she is and I wish more people would be like that with their dogs. You know, and I understand that you know, my role as a dog trainer is people come to me and say I want my dog to be better.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be like your dog is perfect Just how they are, but I do want people to have real realistic expectations for their dogs and drop so much of the judgment of oh, I feel guilty for having a dog that's reactive, or I feel guilty for having a dog that's not, like, perfectly trained. You don't need to feel guilty. You don't need to judge yourself. You don't need to judge your dog. Everybody is different. Everybody has their own personalities. Everybody has different experiences. Never judge yourself for where somebody else is at. That is like the quickest way to be unhappy in your life. So give yourself a little bit of grace. Love your dog for who they are, but also work each day at being just a little bit better, and the same goes for yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of the goal chaser. I am the person who's like. You know it's never enough. I want more, I want a bigger business, I want this and all of this, but I've learned to really like sit down and be grateful for where I'm at and everything that I have currently, because I know that if I'm appreciative for what I have now, that's only going to invite more to come into my life. Why would more come into my life if I'm not even grateful for what I have? So be grateful for yourself, be grateful for where you're at in your training journey and trying to judge yourself too much. Be nice, just be nicer to yourself. That's what we're going to be doing in 2024 is just being nicer to ourselves and each other. I would love that. I would love that I feel like the feminine energy kind of coming in this year. It just it just feels like this year is going to be a good year. So hopefully this episode has been helpful for you, kind of setting the tone for how our year should go, how it can go, the things that we want to do more of, the things that we want to do less of. And, as always, I'm super grateful that you are here and listening and have been a part of my journey. I hope that you all you know, learn so much along the way. It means the world to me to have this podcast and business and life, and I wouldn't have that without any of you. So thank you so much for that.
Speaker 1:Before I leave you, I want to touch on a few little housekeeping things. I probably should put these at the beginning of the podcast, but you know, whatever I have my e-color course out. So few things. We have a community page. The community page is free right now. It's free. It's not always going to be like that. I'm going to tell you that right now just because I want to be able to like talk about things a little bit more in depth and I really want people who are like in it. In it it's not going to be much. It'll be like the cost of a coffee, but it's free for now. So if you'd like, go join our community page If you're not on there, you can always check out the link in our show notes to go that, but it's communitytheeverydaytrainercom. And what's next? Oh, our e-color course. So our e-color course is in that community page. It is a paid course. You have to pay to get access to it, but it worked very hard on creating some videos and resources for you.
Speaker 1:If you're interested in e-color, training your dog on your own. Like I said, this is, you know, one of those things where I always want to provide the resources that I wish I had when I was trading my dogs, and at the time, six years ago, there weren't a lot of resources out there for e-color conditioning and e-color training and I didn't really know what I was doing and I didn't feel super comfortable and confident with it. So I wanted to create something that was super simple and easy for you to follow along and I teach you exactly how I condition the e-color and how I can use it in our training For me. I am big on low level e-color conditioning and I'll, you know, definitely talk more about that in another podcast. I already have an e-color podcast where I touch on kind of the basics of it, but I'll do a more in depth one, especially now that I've become a little bit more experienced. But if you're interested in e-color training and you don't want to go to a trainer and you want to learn on your own, I definitely recommend checking out our e-color course. I walk you through everything. It's over, I believe, an hour and a half of video content of me demonstrating on different dogs who are on different levels of the e-color process.
Speaker 1:The next thing our shadow program my first shadow program ever starts this weekend, which is wild and I'm so excited. So we have five people coming from all over the place to come and stay for two full weeks. So I am essentially immersing them in our dog training environment and we are fully operational. Like I really wanted people to have a peek behind the curtain. That was again one of those things that I really wanted at the beginning of my dog training journey is I was like I just want to see what we're doing. Like how are we structuring our day? How are we communicating with owners? How do we, you know, answer phone calls? How are we setting up consultations, like all that sort of stuff? I really wanted to show people exactly what it is that we do. So we're going to be fully operational throughout this shadow program and I'm basically just going to take these people around with us day to day, help us work the dogs and we're also going to cover the business side of things. So that is closed.
Speaker 1:Obviously, you know we're full for this first shadow program in January, but if you're interested, we are planning on doing another in person shadow program in most likely March. That one is going to be out in California. I'm also planning another one in Salt Lake City, Utah, here. So very soon I will post all of those dates for our shadow program. This is more focused around dog training business as a whole. So we're obviously going to cover like the training components of it and how I train dogs. But just from my experience, a lot of people are really good at that side of things. Where they, you know, might struggle a little bit is integrating that into like a business or kind of like your day to day routine. And you know, just if you want to train dogs as your job, that's kind of what this is for. I have made every possible mistake that you can make in a business, so I'm here to kind of teach you how to not make those same mistakes. So we have that.
Speaker 1:And then another really exciting thing that I will hopefully announce within the next week is our virtual shadow program. So everything that I've created for in person shadow program you will have access to through one of our courses. So it's going to be a 30 day kind of virtual shadow program. Each week we're going to be doing a live Q&A with everybody in the program. You'll get a one on one consultation with me where we can talk training, we can talk business, whatever you want to talk about, and then you'll also get the videos from our in person shadow program. So if you weren't able to make it out to Florida and you're like, dang it, I really wish I could be there to kind of learn all of this stuff, no worries, I'm going to be recording the whole thing and uploading it into a course so you'll get all of the course content that my in person people are getting. But you'll just get it online and then you'll also get those videos. So I'm really excited for that.
Speaker 1:Honestly, and that's kind of my jam is like the business side of things. I love dog training, but there's so much information out there as far as dog training goes. I think like where a lot of the info is kind of missing is how we integrate that into a business. So that's what I'm here to kind of teach you. So stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:We've got leashes in our store If you want to purchase leashes. We also have 15 foot long lines in all of the colors. Now we used to only have a black and I don't remember what colors we had before. But anyways, we have all the colors now. So if you want to check out our 15 foot leads, those are in the store and we have fanny packs coming very soon. So we're going to be adding some more things to the store and, yeah, I won't bore you too much about what's going on in the business and, yeah, all of that. So, thank you all so much for listening and for being here. I am so incredibly grateful and so excited for 2024 and I hope you all are too. I'll see you next week Music playing.