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The Everyday Trainer Podcast
The Everyday Trainer Podcast
Change doesn't happen without a little discomfort
This week we're getting uncomfy for the sake of growth. So many of our dogs struggle because we never put them through moments of discomfort but for me, this is where success lies. Think of a favorite coach of yours. They most likely pushed you through a grueling practice or two. Maybe you've got a teacher who sees your potential and isn't afraid to ask more of you. This is what I hope we can be for our dogs.
In a world of over-coddled, spoiled fur babies I beleive it's important we teach our dogs the valuable skill of overcoming the difficult. Those tough moments of fear or doubt that prevent them from living life to the fullest. Who knows, we might learn something about ourselves along the way.
In this episode, I touch on how we can work our dogs through those moments, the issues I see in dog ownership today, and what I'm doing in my personal life to work through the uncomfy to come out better on the other side.
You know the drill, grab yourself a tasty drink and meet me back here.
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Hello and welcome back to the Everyday Trainer podcast. My name is Meg and I am a dog trainer. It's been a while since I've been here. I believe the last time we chatted was during my shadow program. I've been taking a bit of hiatus from the podcast so you have to forgive me if I'm a little sloppy with my words. It's one of those things that if you don't use it, you lose it. We're back and we're going to talk all about growth and how putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations leads to that growth, which I think is very important, especially when it comes to training our dogs as well, because that's really a big part of the training process is we have to put our dogs in sometimes some uncomfortable situations in order for us to work through behavioral issues or for us to grow as handlers and trainers and to teach our dogs how to grow. Just to give you a few little life updates. I say little updates, but it's not exactly little. So I have taken some time away to really reflect on my business and kind of how things were going. I think the last time that I've kind of chatted about my business I was talking about scaling things and I have a team of trainers and staff and everything.
Speaker 1:Well, I made the very difficult decision of kind of downsizing everything. So, as of right now, the everyday trainer is just myself, which is a really crazy, crazy thing because I have had trainers and staff for almost the entirety of my business. I've had my business around six years now and I made my first hire about a year or maybe even less than a year in. I hired my first trainers and kind of staffed everybody from there. So this is a huge, huge, massive transition for me and also for everybody who's worked with me. I have to give all of my trainers and everyone such a huge shout out because I don't obviously come to this decision very lightly. Everything that I've kind of done and every decision that I've made over the past six years has been for my people, has been for my trainers and everybody who has helped me get to where I am today. So I'm very appreciative of everyone, whether they were with me up until the last month or maybe worked for me for six months three years ago. Everybody who has worked with me has shaped who I am today and for that I'm incredibly grateful. So I had to make the really difficult decision of downsizing and kind of the reason where this has come from is I'm just burnt out and I've talked to people about this obviously before I have a podcast episode talking about burnout. But it's one of those things where I just came to the conclusion where I had to choose myself. I was kind of putting everybody else before myself and it felt like my business was so chaotic and as the business owner I take responsibility for that and it just started affecting everybody else. It's like you can't pour from an empty cup, and my cup has been very much empty for a significant time now. So all of my trainers are kind of off doing their own things. Some of them have moved out of Florida, some have moved on from dog training, some are still doing dog training. Everybody's kind of in their own place. But I'm super, super grateful for everyone for my trainers, my staff, everybody. They literally made me who I am today and I wouldn't be where I am. So, with all of that being said, I'm very excited for what the future holds for the everyday trainer and myself.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of in this awkward limbo transition period where I still have dogs at my house and I am obviously not taking on nearly as many dogs as we had before, because I had a staff of times around six trainers and I had an online assistant and all of that. So it's been a big transition for me and kind of switching hats as business owner, going back into my roots and what I got started with. It's been really good, honestly, and it's given me a different perspective that I haven't had in quite some time. Like I'm really talking with owners and it really inspires me to help more people out there through resources like this, like the podcast and online, because I'm working hands on hand what Hands on Words with owners and really seeing what people are struggling with and what they need help with.
Speaker 1:But also, just in this transition period for me, I can kind of see the parallels of like you know, this is uncomfortable for me. Like it was very uncomfortable for me to make that decision, to decide like, hey, guys, I'm you know, we're not going to be operating at the same level that we have been over the past however many months that you've been with me and you know, eventually kind of fading out to all right, you know, it's just going to be me. It's uncomfy, that's really uncomfy. But I know that if I don't kind of like, sit in that uncomfortableness and work through it. I'm never going to grow. And that's kind of the topic of today's episode is we grow in the uncomfortable. So I kind of jumped right into things. But you know, you always got to have a tasty drink. Here I have an ollie pop. I have been obsessed with ollie pops. I have all of the flavors. That's like my dream podcast sponsor. But yeah, I've like already made myself nervous, so you'll probably hear me take like a few sips here and there because my mouth is dry, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the last time we chatted was for the shadow program. The shadow program was absolutely amazing. I was so impressed by how much the girls grow over those two weeks that they were with me. It was a lot. I put them through it, these poor girls. I essentially walked them through a board and train, and how I structure my board and train is, you know, in the beginning of the training, before the dogs have any skills, I physically work them, I take them on really long walks, I take them on long hikes, I make them walk through mud and I did the exact same thing to my girls. So, getting back to kind of like we grow in the uncomfortable. I made them very uncomfy, but in that uncomfortableness by the end they came out as like little butterflies. I was so just proud of them and impressed and just literally awestruck, like the shadow program was one of the most rewarding things that I ever could have done and have done in my career.
Speaker 1:Getting to, you know, meet these girls. None of us knew each other. We were all super awkward in the beginning. I was like, oh my God, they hate me. Like I'm kind of an intense person and I was like they just met this girl on social media and now they're here, they hate me. And by the end of it they were just like so grateful and I was so appreciative and I was like, wow, okay, I'm not going to listen to those thoughts.
Speaker 1:So they came from all over the country to Orlando to do a two week program with me and I essentially walked them through a board and train program. So how I do a board and train program? Like I said before, we have the skills. I'm working you physically. I made these girls hike through mud. We got a little bit lost in the woods. We did a few extra circles. You know slight panic from them, but it was all a little bit planned out on my part. I wanted to scare them just slightly, to make them a little bit uncomfortable, and we worked through it together. So at the beginning of the shadow program we did that. We did lots of hikes with them and all of our dogs and the cool thing was that we had board and trains at the time, so they got to really see the progress of these dogs over, you know, those two weeks and I got to see the progress of them.
Speaker 1:So my biggest takeaway from that as far as like their skills as trainers go, is one they weren't super confident in the knowledge that they already had, and I see this all the time with new trainers or even experienced trainers. They just have so much knowledge that they don't think that they know anything. And I'm kind of in the place where I'm like you know so much more than you think you do, especially if your goal is to help owners. It makes you so relatable as a new trainer to be able to help owners through, you know, whenever they're struggling, because when you're struggling with your dog's behavior, it feels so isolating and you feel so helpless and it feels like there's nothing that you can do and you're messing everything up and you don't know what's going on or what you need to be doing, and to have somebody come in and be like, hey, I, you know I was right here. You know I was struggling with my dog not too long ago and now we're on the other side and it's amazing.
Speaker 1:So these girls came in with a ton of knowledge. It was really just kind of like fine tuning things and bringing out their confidence to be able to help people. And that's kind of what you know they talked to me about is they had the skills it's not necessarily that you know, I have these like magic tricks of the trade that I'm spilling all of the trade secrets. It's really just kind of validating, like everything that they were already doing and everything that they knew and how to structure it in a way to help owners. They were, you know, super skilled.
Speaker 1:They all came from different backgrounds. I had one of the students. She works at a shelter. Another one is starting her own dog training business but she focuses on nutrition. Another one came from like a force free background, so she was very new to, you know, e-collars and they were all new to e-collars and kind of hesitant.
Speaker 1:And you know, by the end of it they're like, wow, these tools are amazing, like we're definitely going to be using these, and so the biggest thing that I kind of saw with them was, you know, just that lack of confidence in themselves, but also not wanting to put the dogs in any sort of uncomfortable situation, and that I totally get, especially when you're kind of consumed in, you know, dog trainer social media or you're like consuming dog trainer media all the time. You know it's very scary to talk about using tools like prom collars and e-collars because there is that camp that will come after you, right, and nobody wants to be that person. That is like doing things that's upsetting other people. I totally get that as somebody who is like constantly getting a lot of hate on the internet for the things that I talk about. But you know the things that I talk about are coming from a place of. You know this is what I'm telling actual owners. This is what people out in the world really need help with.
Speaker 1:I don't talk about crates and correcting dogs all the time because that's all I do. I talk about that so much because those are the missing pieces for so many owners, and so that was kind of one thing that I was seeing with my shadow students is, you know, they're very new to the industry. They didn't know how to structure a board and train program and they didn't know how to safely push a dog through that level of uncomfortable to be able to come out on the other side. And the thing about a board and train program is we're getting dogs with behavioral issues. So I remember specifically, we had, you know, one dog there that I had trained this dog since it was a puppy. We did, you know, daily lessons with the owner, shaped all of the behaviors, but that was, you know, five or six years ago. And so what happens when you don't kind of keep up with that structure and the training in the house, especially when you have, like a more behavioral dog, those behavioral issues, sort of, you know, come back. So we had an.
Speaker 1:The owner had an issue with the dog resource guarding with her son and he actually like put his mouth on the son and she was super worried about, like the safety of everybody in their family and they were considering rehoming the dog because she was like, hey, this dog, you know, bit my kid. We either got to do some training or I'm going to have to rehome him. And if you can't help me get him to a good place like unfortunately you know, I'm going to have to rehome him, I'm going to have to take him somewhere, like I can't have a dog in my house that is biting my kids and that's, you know, very understandable. But I think that's the side of dog training that you don't always see, you know. And so one thing that I was kind of teaching these girls is I was like, look, we have, you know, four weeks with this dog. This dog already has a foundation of obedience. This dog is already E-Color conditioned. This dog is just pushy and he's used to getting whatever he wants. So we have to make it a little bit uncomfortable for him. We have to make him resource guarding uncomfortable. We have to make, you know, him dragging you down the street uncomfortable, because those little things matter and this is his last hope. This is truly his last hope.
Speaker 1:And I remember talking to one of the girls I kind of had to like have a come to Jesus moment because you know they were new to the E-Colors and when you tell somebody to correct a dog on an E-Color at a high level, they're like what I don't want to right, because we're mostly, you know, on talking about low level work with E-Colors and that's kind of all of the information that you get but we don't ever get into. Like well, what happens if my dog is biting somebody? Like how do I stop these behaviors? How do I stop these like you know, pretty dangerous behaviors? We have to put our dogs in an uncomfortable situation, like we can't allow them to do it because in their case it really is life or death. So I had a bit of a come to Jesus moment with one of the shadow students saying, you know, you got to kind of be the bad guy in this situation and I know it doesn't feel good. Like nobody wants to correct a dog at a high level, nobody wants to pop a dog on a prom collar, nobody wants to do those things, but unfortunately, like if we don't tell this dog, no, he's not going to have a home to go back to, and that reality for her really like clicked, like she was like, oh shit, you know, like this, this is real life.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of what I showed them in this program is like yes, we get dogs working for food and we layer the E E caller over everything, with low levels and all of that stuff, and we try to make the training as fun as possible and in a way that the dog wants to work with us. But at the end of the day, the dogs that we're getting have behavioral issues and we have to stop these behavioral issues for this. So we have to stop these behavioral issues for the safety of the owners and everybody around them. And it's our job as the dog trainers to be professional and, you know, put these dogs in an uncomfortable situation to teach them that that behavior is not okay, so that they can come out on the other side. And that's what's missing from so many owners, especially when I do virtual lessons with people. They're not super dedicated owners. They spend, you know, months conditioning the E caller and they're still struggling with their dog's behavior.
Speaker 1:And I always say, hey, you know we have to make these moments where your dog is literally dragging you down the street, that should be uncomfortable to your dog. Like that should be a moment where you have to be firm and you have to tell your dog no, like this is not okay. You have to correct your dog in those moments. And you know there are other trainers out there who don't correct dogs and that's totally fine. Like I am very much in the camp of like, do what works for you. If you want to train a dog, force free, by all means. Like, train the dog force free.
Speaker 1:But a lot of times, like we're working with people who are fairly desperate, right, or like the other dog that we had for a board and train was dog-aggressive, he was dangerous around other dogs. The owner was scared that he was gonna kill another dog. He had been in situations where this dog was, you know, lunging and snapping at dogs that were walking by. So we do all of that foundational work, but we do also have to work in those moments where we're putting the dog in slightly uncomfortable Positions but they come out on the other side better than ever because they know, they know between Right and wrong. They know that you know I can be uncomfortable for a Second or two and I'm gonna be okay, especially when we're, you know, properly conditioning everything beforehand, of course.
Speaker 1:But even the same thing with the girls, you know. So one of the girls this was her first time flying on her own and she told me she's like I almost had my mom come and fly with me. But I, you know, I kind of sucked it up and I was like no, I'm gonna do this on my own. And she was super quiet at first and by the end she like really came out of her shell and she was talking to everybody and she was like I'm so glad that I did this. Like just the whole experience was so good for me, and it was because she put herself in that uncomfortable situation In something that she didn't really want to do. Right. And then I had another girl who was like I almost emailed Tori. Tori was my assistant. I almost emailed Tori and told her that like I couldn't do it, I got sick and canceled last minute. You know, like these girls were uncomfortable at first. They were nervous, they were nervous about there being like drama with the other girls or Me or you know whatever. But they put themselves in that uncomfortable situation and because of it they were just rewarded on the other side with so much knowledge and confidence.
Speaker 1:And so that's what I want from our dogs is the training is hard. I'm going to walk you very far. We're going to. You know, go on, hikes, I'm going to ask you to do things that you don't really want to do, that's okay, because you're gonna come out on the other side of it. And when we teach dogs to work through that, when they come out on the other side, they're confident and they know how to navigate those situations. And this is something that I see with a lot of my owners is they're so hesitant to ever put their dog in any sort of uncomfortable situation. A big example of this is on the walk.
Speaker 1:So when we're walking our dogs, a lot of times they'll test us, they'll put on the brakes, right. They'll say I want to stop here. What do we normally do? We stop, we give into their leash pressure. We say what do you want? Come on, let's go. We try to coax them a little bit, right, and the dogs like no, I don't want to, or maybe they're scared of something they don't want to walk past, something that they're scared of. So In those moments, if we were to give into that, we oh, it's okay, it's okay, pet the dog, the dogs being nervous we're just Reinforcing this insecure, fearful state of mind where instead in those situations, no, we're gonna keep walking, leash pressure is gonna go on, I'm just gonna continue walking forward. If you want to hang back there. That's fine. Leash pressure is gonna stay on until we keep walking. Eventually that dogs gonna be like Okay, I guess we're walking, I guess I'm following this lady. And then what happens? As we, let's say, walk past the scary thing. I have dogs that are like scared of these boulders that are in my neighborhood, just some big rocks. We walk past the scary, walks rocks, guess what? They're? Okay, we overcame that. We did something that the dog didn't want to do, but we did it anyways, because we know that we're not putting that dog in Any situation where they actually have to worry about their safety. Right, that's our job as the dog's designated owner to worry about their safety. I'm never gonna put a dog in a situation that puts them at risk. Okay, but I am going to push a dog through moments like that.
Speaker 1:Another good example one of the shadow students brought her own dog for training during the program and Her dog was super, super fearful. She hadn't had the dog on a slip lead or a prong before, so it was our first time doing that. So first things first, we go outside, we do walking drills. I have her toggle between a slip lead and a prong. I do this a lot with newer dogs that Haven't felt the prong collar before. Sometimes the prong collar can be a little I don't want to say like intense, but it's just a foreign sensation, right. So it's very different than just having like a flat buckle collar or a regular leash attached to your neck. So what I do with our leashes, we have like the slip lead end and the snap end. I have the snap end on the prong collar and then we put the slip lead over the dog and We'll do like slip pressure with a little bit of prong collar pressure, slip pressure, a little bit of prong collar and kind of ease that prong Color in. So we did that walking drills out in the front yard.
Speaker 1:The dog was doing good, but one thing that he was doing he was constantly sitting down and breaking and I had her just keep walking. Hey, in those moments I want you just keep walking. I know that he doesn't want to keep doing it, but we need to show him that it's okay that you can keep walking. Even when you're uncomfortable, even when you don't want to do the thing, you can keep moving. So we intro the leash that way and then she brought the dog back inside and there were stairs inside the house. Well, she was able to get the dog up the stairs but was not able to bring her dog back down. So that was a huge, huge moment for her, because I got to kind of help her in a sense. But Seeing her work through that situation with her dog was so rewarding for me, because it's something that I see so many owners go through.
Speaker 1:So, basically, she's upstairs, her dog is like I am not going down those stairs, like there is Nothing that you can give me that's gonna get me to go down those stairs. She's bringing up ham, we've got cheese, we've got freeze-dried raw, we've got all the high value treats. We cannot lure this dog down the stairs. She was like well, basically, my only option is to like carry him and he's like a big boy. And I was like no, this is a perfect opportunity to teach your dog that it's okay, he's gonna be okay, but we're not gonna allow him to give into this fear and to give in this, into this level of Uncomfortability. Right, this dog is uncomfortable, he does not like being here, he does not like being on these stairs. However, we are not putting him in a life or death situation. There is no real threat here.
Speaker 1:So what happens? When we give into our dogs irrational fears, we validate those fears. So a typical owner in this situation their dog doesn't want to go down the stairs what do they do? It's okay, it's okay, come on, come on, it's okay. We walk over, we pet them, we soothe them. And In dog world, what does that mean? We're just validating this fearful, insecure dog. We're saying, oh, it's okay, like those stairs are scary, you don't have to do anything. I'm not gonna push you right, but really we want to look at this situation as they're just stairs, this is just a part of life, like there is nothing to fear here. I'm gonna work you through this and I'm gonna show you that there is no reason to be scared. So we used our prong collar, we used our leash pressure and guided him down the stairs.
Speaker 1:So at first she was having a lot of difficulty just because she didn't want to put that much pressure on the dog. Right, he's a big dog. It required a lot of leash just to get to him to move forward at all. So I went up, I grabbed the leash. I kind of demonstrated what she should do, which is Apply pressure. Don't release that pressure until he gives into it. When he gives into it, good job, buddy, good job. We're gonna encourage him for moving forward. We're not gonna encourage him for being fearful. We're encouraging him when he takes one tiny baby step down those stairs.
Speaker 1:Right, she was getting really frustrated, she was really nervous, she was getting shut down, because I know that she was having her doubts of you know whether or not she could be a trainer, because that's a difficult moment there where your dog really does not want to do something and you have to kind of force them to do it. She didn't want to put her dog in any sort of uncomfortable situation, so I demonstrated what I would do. Hey, I'm, I would just apply leash pressure until he keeps moving forward, Like you just got to do that. You know that there's no real threat here and you need to be the one To show him that and to show him that he can trust you and can trust your guidance, and that you're not ever gonna put him in a situation where he actually is being threatened by something.
Speaker 1:So I hung out with her for a little bit and then I went back downstairs because I wanted to give her her space to be able to do that on her own without the pressure of me, kind of like standing over her. So then I walked back downstairs and I remember walking up to all of the other girls and I said she's gonna be a really good dog trainer. She's gonna be a really good dog trainer because she's patient and she cares, and she wanted so badly to do the right thing in that moment. Meanwhile, apparently and this they told me this afterwards she was thinking that I was judging her for being this horrible dog trainer because she couldn't get her dog to go down the stairs, when, in Contrary, I was thinking the exact opposite. I was like, wow, you know, she's doing something really difficult. She's, you know, asking her dog to do something really difficult. She's taking the skills that she's learned here and is applying it to this very real situation of getting her dog down the stairs. And eventually she came down the stairs with her dog and she was able to go up and down the stairs freely with her dog. And now I watch her on Instagram and she's doing the same thing with all of these other Fosters and dogs that are in her care. She's doing our walking drills, she's teaching the dogs how to follow her lead and she's just become such a strong leader for these dogs.
Speaker 1:But that didn't happen without her being in that uncomfortable situation. And it's not just about the dog being in the uncomfortable situation. It's about you, as the owner and as your dog's handler, working with them through those moments, because nobody likes To put their dog in a situation that they don't like. Right? We all want to be our dog's best friend. We all want them to love us all the time. But I want you to think about a good coach that you've had. That coach probably didn't really care about being your best friend. What that coach cared about was seeing you improve and seeing you become the best version of yourself.
Speaker 1:And, quite frankly, we do not become the best version of ourselves without a little pressure and Without a little bit of discomfort. That is just life. And think about all of those moments in which you've grown the most. It's probably not when things are going great and you know foods being served to you on a silver platter, right. It's usually when Shit hits the fan and you got to pull up your bootstraps and get to work and work through that discomfort.
Speaker 1:So it's the same with our dogs and, quite frankly, we cuddle our dogs way too much and this is the biggest issue that I see in dog ownership today is Just coddling our dogs, never working them through that discomfort, never telling them no, we we spoil them with the wrong things. We have baskets and baskets of toys for our dogs, but we're feeding them you know garbage food and corn. Get into that out another episode and you can go into our nutrition episode with April if you want to get into the nitty gritty of dog Nutrition. But that's just kind of. You know my two cents on that. But we coddle our dogs in a way that's not beneficial to them and this is kind of like the culture of dog ownership today and it's something that I really hope Changes.
Speaker 1:I hope that we get to see our dogs for what they truly are, which is dogs and not humans in dog costumes. But we're we're coddling them and they make every decision in their life. They decide when they want to go outside, they decide when they want to be fed, they decide where they want to be pulled or where they want to pull us on the walk. They decide who to bark at, who to greet at the door, who to bark out at the window. They're making all of these decisions in a very human world and it's creating these really anxious, insecure, kind of like bratty dogs, and so many people are really struggling with their dogs, but it's because we never put them through those those moments of discomfort, those those periods of growth for them. We never ask the dogs to not bark out the window or to not, you know, bark at us when they want their food. We just kind of, you know, mindlessly, follow their lead, and so what I would really love to see is more boundaries with our dogs, more More good pressure. Right, I want to take a dog on a long walk. I want to take a dog on a long walk and show them that they can work through that uncomfortable Dis I keep saying like uncomfortableness, but I don't think that that's even a word. I want to show them that they can work through this discomfort.
Speaker 1:A lot of the new dogs that I get in for training always lay down on the walk, always and to be fair, I'm not going on like crazy long walks. I say long walk but it's literally like a 40 minute walk, like your dog should be able to walk for 40 minutes, but they just can't, and so they stop and lay down and then typically owners will be like, oh okay, you're done, but we can push them through that. You push yourself in exercise or no, at least you should. We push ourselves in so many areas of our lives and I think too, that's kind of the reason why we spoil our dogs so much is. We're kind of like Projecting on our dogs, right. We're like, oh, I want treats all day and I want to be coddled and lay on a comfy bed and blah, blah, blah and do all of this stuff. So I'm gonna provide that for my dog. And I'm not anti these things, I'm just kind of like I think it's all about a balance, right, like I sleep in bed with my dogs, but they can also go and sleep in the crates and be totally fine.
Speaker 1:I Take my dogs on road trips like I literally want, on a road trip with all four of my dogs and you know we had a great time. I took them everywhere. But also I can leave the house and my dog still knows their mind. I don't have a basket of toys for my dogs. I have like a couple tugs and I take one out at a time and I play with my dog and I engage with my dog and then I put it away. They don't have these like endless options of toys and treats and you know outlets all day long.
Speaker 1:And Also, I ask my dogs to do uncomfortable things. I make them run on the treadmill for a long time. They're very conditioned. I make them walk with me in hot weather. I make them walk with me in snow.
Speaker 1:I you know like I push them and because of that I have really strong, confident dogs that I don't really have to worry about. They make good decisions. They're very stable. They're not Anxious. They're not pacing around my house, they're not. You know. They don't have behavioral issues or health issues. And that's another big thing is you know a lot of these, these really anxious dogs that I get they. They don't want to exist like that, like that's so unfair that your dog has a nervous breakdown every time you walk out of the room because you haven't, you know, taught it to be okay with some separation. You haven't taught it how to be, you know, secure when you're out of sight. That's a lot of what I see today is people are not leaving their homes at all because they're scared to leave their dogs at home by themselves. But that's a valuable life skill that our dogs need and I want us to just kind of reflect on, you know, maybe our parents generation versus our generation and you know the dogs that we grew up with versus the dogs that we have now. And obviously I'm a dog trainer. So I kind of see like the worst of the worst. I get, you know, the behavioral cases, the a Little bit of the outliers, but you know, I'm getting the general trends of kind of like where dog behavior is shifting and people really aren't leaving their homes.
Speaker 1:And I kind of think back on my childhood and Everybody that I knew had a well-behaved dog. Like I didn't even know being a dog trainer was a career option. I had never met anybody that like went to a dog trainer. I never even like heard of a dog trainer. I didn't even think when I had my first dog like oh, I'm gonna reach out to a dog trainer or like research dog trainers, you know, to make sure that I do things right with this dog. Like that was not even on my radar at all.
Speaker 1:But you know, now these resources are so readily available to us and I'm kind of seeing the trend of almost people are doing a little bit too much with their dogs. They're scared to leave their dogs alone. They're doing like a million training sessions a day. They're creating these really neurotic, insecure dogs where I would love to see us just kind of, you know, take a step back and Push our dogs through the uncomfortable stuff like going for longer walks and, you know, pushing through those moments where the dog wants to lay down. And obviously we're not gonna ignore any sort of like health risks, like if you have a Frenchie, you shouldn't be walking your Frenchie in 85 degree weather.
Speaker 1:I don't think I really have to say that, but you never know Things like that. I'm talking, you know, the average dog. We can push them a little bit. We can work through those moments of discomfort. We can, you know, guide them down the stairs if they don't wanna walk down the stairs. That is surprisingly like such a huge thing that I get from a lot of my clients is they say they need help teaching their dogs how to go down stairs and I'm like just walk them down the stairs, like just keep walking. My dog stops, just keep walking, like they're gonna walk with you. Just use your leash, you know.
Speaker 1:So it just kind of goes back to, like us, coddling our dogs and never wanting to be them to be uncomfortable, but with that we're really missing out on those crucial moments of growth. So it's totally okay for your dog to go through discomfort to teach them how to come out on the other side, and it's the same for us. You know, I'm gonna kind of circle back to my current situation. This is un-comfy for me. This is this, you know, shifting my business to just me. It's not comfy. I can tell you that I have had quite a few mental breakdowns over this one. But I know where I wanna go and I know that in this, discomfort is going to bring me the growth that I need to reach my goals and get me to where I want to go. So, with all of that being said, if you are kind of in this camp of you have a dog who's nervous or fearful, I really just encourage you to go out and do something, maybe a little bit out of the ordinary. Maybe take your dog for a little bit of a longer hike. Maybe it's a long hike for you, maybe it's just a long walk, maybe it's walking through a busier area. Put yourself and your dog in those uncomfortable situations, to not only show your dog that they can come out on the other side, but to show you that you as a handler can handle that as well and you know far more than you give yourself credit for.
Speaker 1:So to wrap up this episode, I do have a few little kind of housekeeping things. If you've been keeping up with me, I have spoken a little bit about a virtual shadow program. So starting April 9th, I am offering a virtual shadow program. So essentially this is a three week online program for either dedicated dog owners or new dog trainers or people who are looking to get into dog training, and I'm gonna walk you through the dog training basics so that first week we're really gonna cover dog training foundations, how we structure our training programs, how we work a dog through things, how we teach things like leash pressure and marker words and layer the E-caller over it. I keep things very simple as far as training goes, because I found that that is the best approach for my owners. It's the best way for the training to stick. The simplest approach is usually the one that lasts the longest and the one that people are able to keep up with. So I structure my training around that, so I'll show you how I structure my training, how I teach my owners. Second week we're gonna kind of tailor it to you, so I'm gonna cover all of the different types of programs that you can do as a dog trainer or even if you're just running your own dog through a program, whether it's just daily lessons, or you're gonna wanna kind of do like the boot camp mode, the board and train style training, and then in that final week we're gonna cover the business stuff. So how to start an LLC, how to get paid, how to show up on Google, how to get your first clients we're gonna go over all of that.
Speaker 1:I've had my business for around six years now and I've trained thousands of dogs. By this point I've worked with thousands of owners. It's pretty wild the amount of people that I've worked with. I was actually just recently going through my list of people and I was like holy cow. So I don't wanna say I've seen it all, because there are obviously people out there who are like far more experienced than me, but I did start my business from the ground up and I've made every possible mistake that you could make in dog training and in running a dog training business. So everything that I do is to help you not make those same mistakes that I once made early on and honestly continue to make. That's just kind of how I learn is. Well, we're just gonna throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, but this is something that I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1:I wanted to have a shadow program for people who couldn't take off work. I totally get that. It's hard to drop your life for two weeks straight. So, yeah, that's starting April 9th. If you would like to be a part of that, you can check out the link in the show notes. I'll include that in there, and then also you can check out the link in the bio of my Instagram. You can apply for the shadow program there as well. We'll set up a phone call, talk about your goals, make sure that it's a good fit for you and kind of go from there.
Speaker 1:And then, also happening this year, I'm gonna offer two more in-person shadow programs, so I'm thinking one on the West Coast and one back here in Florida, probably closer to winter time, once it kind of cools back down again. So stay tuned for those. I'll be announcing those dates here very shortly. Of course, our leashes are in stock and on the website. So if you want to go and get one of our hands-free leashes, I'll also include that in the show notes, and I think that's probably all that I have for you all today. Thank you so much for always being here. I appreciate it way more than you think. This is truly like one of my favorite things ever. So thank you so much for being here and I'll see you next week.