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The Everyday Trainer Podcast
The Everyday Trainer Podcast
Into the Wild with Your Dog
We share the keys to finding and enjoying outdoor adventures with your dogs, challenging the urban lifestyle that keeps our canine companions disconnected from their natural state.
• Living on the road with dogs has shown us the immense benefits of nature exposure for dog behavior and wellbeing
• Urban environments disrupt dogs' natural circadian rhythms while nature helps reset their biological clocks
• Dogs have innate needs to explore, forage, and connect with natural environments that can't be met in city settings
• Microbiome development through exposure to diverse bacteria in soil and natural water sources strengthens dogs' immune systems
• Finding less-populated outdoor spaces using apps like iOverlander can provide safe off-leash experiences
• BLM land and state forests offer excellent opportunities for dogs to explore without encountering crowds
• Using long lines or flexi-leashes for dogs new to off-leash experiences builds confidence while maintaining control
• Establishing a daily routine that includes morning sunlight, midday training, and designated downtime helps dogs regulate
• Avoid micromanaging your dog with constant commands; instead, trust them to check in naturally
• Essential gear includes water jugs, a good cooler for raw food, freeze-dried treats, and reliable leash options
Virtual shadow program next round starts May 26th - visit our website and schedule a call if you're interested in becoming a dog trainer.
Hello, hello and welcome back to the Everyday Trainer podcast. My name is Meg and I am a dog trainer. We are back. It's been a little bit, but today's episode is going to be like our outdoors episode. So everybody talks to us and asks us questions about what it's like living on the road with a whole bunch of dogs and how we find trails and all the tips and tricks for hitting the road with your dogs. So we're going to go over that, give you some life updates and some practical tips for how you can integrate more nature time into your dog's life. You know the drill grab yourself a tasty drink and meet us back here. Yourself a tasty drink and meet us back here. Hello, hello.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:Toma is here with us for this episode. That was a tough intro to record. My podcast equipment is acting a little bit funky and there's all of these buttons that have noises and when I hit one of the buttons it makes all of them go off. So there was like clapping and all all of this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:But anyways, we figured it out we figured it out and we are back. It has been a little bit probably like three weeks since I've recorded a podcast episode. I'm so sorry about that y'all, but it has been wild for us. So if you've been keeping up with us on social media, you've probably saw that me and toma were just in florida. That was for a very exciting thing. Do you want to share?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we got a spontaneous or unexpected message that we had to quickly return to Florida for my immigration interview and that was basically to grant me a green card so yes, so it was a little stressful, but in the end it went super well and I now have a green card.
Speaker 1:Yeah, toma got his green card Yay.
Speaker 1:Now we need the clapping noise. Now we need the noise. Yeah, so Toma got his green card. It's kind of like a crazy process. We've been doing paperwork for about a year now and we hired a lawyer and it's like this whole big thing. If you don't know, toma is Canadian and he came into the US. You can't just like stay in the US. So we had to get him paperwork so that he is actually allowed to be here, so that he was actually allowed to be here. The limit for him was six months, and anything past that like we had to have our like ducks in a row, all of your applications in. So we did everything how we were supposed to, got all of the stuff in, and I feel like that helped us out a lot. But we're obviously not in Florida currently. We're traveling, traveling. And so we got a letter sent to our house and our lawyer is like, hey, just so you know, like you have your like immigration meeting on this date, like do not miss it.
Speaker 2:And we're like, uh, I had to figure out how to, like you know, get the dogs like dispersed amongst friends, like who's gonna watch our dogs?
Speaker 1:yeah, uh, we're literally traveling like in another state and she was like okay, well, you cannot reschedule this, like this is a very important meeting, like you guys need to make it happen. So we're like okay, so kind of last minute, we had to like disperse all of the dogs amongst people. It's not like we have just like regular chill dogs. You know, like I think I was most worried. I have, obviously a malinois puppy. Like a malinois puppy cannot just go to anybody. I have minka, who is like minka is a cupcake, but also like she is a malinois and she's a little intense. Same thing with hawk, same thing with walter. And then I had like the golden girls. So we we gave those to our friend cassidy. I was like you get the goldens and she's like, oh, thank god. But honestly I feel like zoe was probably the most difficult out of all of them yeah, she thought she had the easy ones I know, know, but like poor Zoe has so much separation anxiety from me.
Speaker 1:So I think like the first day she was like okay, we have to put an e-collar on you, because Zoe's like used to just doing whatever she wants whenever she wants. She's my oldest and she's kind of getting to that age where she's just like she's literally an old lady, like she doesn't listen to us, she just like does whatever she wants. We were out at our campsite last night and so he just like wanders into the forest and I'm like girl, like what? It's pitch black, like where are you going, you know? But she just gives those vibes of like I'm an old lady and I do literally whatever I want. So I feel like she was the most difficult.
Speaker 1:So Zoe and Lucy went with Cassidy and then Danielle took the Malinois. So Danielle is in San Diego, cassidy is in LA, so we had to drop the Goldens off in LA, go to San Diego, take my dogs to San Diego. And then our other friend, claire, watched toma's dogs and she's in ramona, which is like 45 minutes outside of san diego. So we had to like go to ramona and leave them there and it was just.
Speaker 2:It's been a lot, also prepping for the meeting yeah, you had to like actually get all the paperwork that we had previously like submitted, but then actually like find it again whilst living out of a van um on short notice and then, you know, fly out to florida yeah, it was a lot yeah but hey, I mean was a quick fun week, successful yeah it was a successful interview and it was like it went very smoothly.
Speaker 1:It was very good, and then we got to see everybody in florida. We visited everybody that we could have possibly visited in that time it was a jam-packed week jam-packed, like so slammed, just seeing everybody. I got to see all of my friends and some of our clients from Orlando and that was just really great. I will say that one I didn't like not having our dogs with us. Like living the regular people. Life is kind of crazy, just like having a car and then.
Speaker 1:Missing the dogs they gave us going to a house, yeah, and also it made me appreciate the van life that much more, because it's like you know, I feel like people would assume that if we went from like living in vans to like staying at a house for a week, that we would be like, oh my gosh, this is so nice, but it was yeah, it was a, don't you think? Yeah?
Speaker 1:I mean I think it was nice because we were like staying with you know friends and it's like good to see them, but other than that, just like the whole house thing is like we have everything we need in the van.
Speaker 1:You know, at the end of the day, it's a roof over your head, it's a place to sleep yeah, but also, like you know, when we're out you can literally just go park somewhere and like go to sleep and like we had to like drive back to a house, yeah, you know sounds silly, but it's a hassle yeah, like that's, that's definitely a thing now my fun fact fact of Florida is stepping off the plane right into the wall of humidity is like oh, this is brutal versus like you're like, oh my skin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't like the dry. The dry, my skin is still recovering. I feel like I've been crusty since we've been out here in September. So I don't know, I like Florida, like I. I genuinely florida, obviously, for four months out of the year it's hell and you can't even leave your house because it's so hot, like that sucks, you know. But I think that there are other places like that as well. But florida, florida, winters are wonderful, you know, and it's just, it's just so different from california like orlando especially just feels so small town compared to where we've been out here that it's like kind of nice. It's kind of nice, but then also it takes forever to drive anywhere. It takes so long to drive anywhere like la people complain about traffic like you don't even know, you don't even know orlando is so bad everything's like 30 minutes from anywhere yeah, it's like you want to drive three miles 30 minutes, like always.
Speaker 1:There's no just like quick highway that you can just like hop on. You know like the only highway is like i-4 and you're just gonna sit in traffic forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah sure I don't miss that.
Speaker 1:Don't miss that. Don't miss that at all. So we've been spending a lot of time in San Diego. We took a little trip up north for Primal's 12-year anniversary and that was very cool. We got to see everybody. I like being up there, but the weather just kills me.
Speaker 2:It's too cold for you.
Speaker 1:It's too cold and also it's very hard for us to find places to stay there, don't you think? Yeah, I think like if we're not at primal, there's not much around like where we could park yeah, like southern california, even though it's difficult sometimes it like we know where we can park and we know where like we're not going to be able to, you know yeah, definitely more options yeah, so we've been in san diego.
Speaker 1:I just hired a trainer there, danielle, so she was on my one of the previous episodes with the animal pad. She was the one who got the malinois and tied him up to a tree. She's the crazy Malinois girl, yeah, so we just hired her. She's going to be taking clients here very soon in San Diego, so I've been spending a lot of time with her kind of getting her ready and prepped to take on dogs, make sure that we have all our stuff together, and San Diego has just been a nice place for all of my training people, you know nice little group class there no, it's fun.
Speaker 2:It's funny, I think we've we've been spending a lot more time in San Diego and it's kind of become our, our home base recently yeah, I really like san diego, but it is starting to get too hot.
Speaker 1:So we actually reached out to a van build company and I've reached out to quite a few van build companies just because my van is not built like is. It's starting to drive me crazy. I just have four rufflins stacked in like the middle part, and then I have a bed in the back and that's really it it does. It's not like a house, it's. I can't like sit in it and hang out. It's just like the bed is back there for anytime. I'm not with Toma and I like have somewhere to sleep, basically.
Speaker 1:So his van has been the one that's built out and that we're kind of living in. It has like a kitchen and a fridge and a stove, all of the things, but it's getting too hot. So we either have to leave and go up north which is why we're up north now part of it or and or I need to put a fan in my van. I feel like insulated with a fan, it'll be fine. You know, we'll be good in places like San Diego, la. I don't think so. I think it'll be a little too hot, but like by the coast, it stays. Pretty cool. I feel like we'll be good, but my van doesn't have like a fan or anything.
Speaker 1:So I've reached out to quite a few van build companies and everybody kind of offers something different. We reach out to one person originally and they just have like things that are already built. You don't like customize it at all, which is an option, but we still have to put it together and I was like okay. And then I reached out to like a full build person and that again not very customizable. You know like they wanted me to get a new van yeah, because you got the factory ac.
Speaker 2:They're like oh, we don't like to work with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, which like I get, if you can be selective, like why would you want to work with somebody who you don't like the van for or don't like have stuff already set up for that van, whatever? So I just kind of like gave up on building out the van and I was like, all right, we'll just get to it when we get to it.
Speaker 1:And then randomly you were on facebook marketplace, which is all literally all toma does is he just sits on facebook marketplace and barters with people. So if you've ever come across Toma, I'm sorry, I'm that guy. He's definitely lowballed you on something in Facebook Marketplace, but it turns out. But it turns out.
Speaker 2:I might have found you someone who can at least get you fan install floor ceiling walls. That'd be the starting point for your van build, and then that includes insulation, obviously as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and he said that he would help me with like a render, and I asked him if, like, we could get cabinets and stuff like that and he was like yeah, for sure yeah, he has access to like a cnc machine so he can literally cut out.
Speaker 1:You know all the furniture that we need, which should be amazing nice, just like little puzzle pieces and then we'll kind of put everything together. But I already have a lot of uh van stuff. I have like a water tank, a fridge, uh like a small electrical system I would probably get like a bigger one. So I, I have insulation, I have like a decent amount of things uh, but we have to put that, put it together yeah, it takes.
Speaker 2:I don't really want to build a van so I'm gonna make you do it yeah, I figured it's kind of funny because even this one that we're in my van at the moment, um, we've literally built pretty much entirely while being on the road. So, yeah, it's doable. I don't recommend doing it that way, but at the end of the day, it's about actually getting out on the road and enjoying it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and two, I think, like I wrote on here and like the notes, like you don't need anything fancy, we're gonna kind of get into some like tips to get outdoors with your dog.
Speaker 2:But the reason why we live in bands and like have this lifestyle in the first place is because we understand the importance of one us getting out in nature, but also for our dogs yeah, for sure, these are like basically very expensive dog houses, like it ascends yeah, yeah, but it gives us the freedom and the lifestyle to be able to prioritize that yeah, no, I feel like on this drive up, especially like drive it up to Mammoth, I was like just kind of soaking it all in, like grateful for the lifestyle, but also, like you said, it's definitely like a very conscious choice yeah, definitely I.
Speaker 1:It sucks. It definitely sucks sometimes, but like now is one of the parts where it's like very cool, you know, being in a city sucks, being in a city sucks. But I like this kind of goes back to like the moral of this episode, which is being in a city being in a city sucks for your dogs too.
Speaker 2:No it's definitely important to like, take the time to prioritize, like things that matter to us and, like you know, I think nature is like a huge, huge part of our lives. It brings us all joy and for the last couple months, we've been like hyper or I've been hyper focused on training for PSA, because they were like trials and whatever, and now we're taking a step back and actually enjoying nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I am still a sport girl, Hater Through and through the I, I how do I say this? In BPC? I enjoy doing it for fun, but no one wants to train with you. If you just want to do it for fun, you know, I get it, I get it. I definitely get it. You know, because this is like this is your thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, people in the sport world are definitely very intense.
Speaker 1:I just don't take anything that seriously, Like it's just, it's never that serious.
Speaker 1:Like I'm not a competitive person, I'm not a sports girlie at all Like we were talking to Danielle about this and Danielle like comes from like she's played softball her whole life and she's like, oh my God, I love dog sports. You know, like I would love to train consistently and have a group that like really cares and I'm like, oh man, you would love you would love it way more than I do. Like I really like having all of the dogs out and letting them just like run around in the forest and be like feral little rats, you know.
Speaker 2:I know you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I think you also like did enjoy the time like you know training, and I think you also like did enjoy the time like you know training, and I think you also did learn a lot.
Speaker 1:oh, for sure, for sure, but it's. I don't think training that much is sustainable for me I agree, I mean, I see it.
Speaker 2:Um, I definitely think we need to find a way to get out in nature a little more and even like for myself, I think it would also be one thing if it was like we didn't have to be in a city for it yeah, that's the hard part. It's not just like committing to dog training, it's like because of the van life. It's a whole like other set of problems of, like you know, struggling with street parking and all that yeah, it would be different.
Speaker 1:If you know, we had a house and just like drove 10 minutes to go train. But then before, like even when I did live in a house, I struggled to be consistent with sports stuff because I had a house full of training dogs that I was like I can't be gone all day long, like I like I could never do that. It doesn't matter if it's for dog sports or whatever you know. So, yeah, and that kind of that's why I walked away from my training business in orlando ultimately is because it didn't allow me the freedom to take time off and travel with my dogs.
Speaker 2:Just take any time off the whole time we were in florida. You're talking to me about going to the springs and we literally never had the opportunity to do so because we had a house full of dogs.
Speaker 1:So we could never go. That's one of the things it was so sad during this one week in florida, which was nice it started getting like really depressing, because I think it affects me a lot too.
Speaker 1:Like I've always been an outside person, I always enjoy, like you know, going for hikes and backpacking and going on trips, and the life that I was living with the dog training business out of the house was just so depressing for me because I was never, never, able to feel fulfilled in that way and I think it might just be a little bit of, you know, putting that on my dogs, but I think it's the same for our dogs. I think that they are a nice little reminder for us of the fact that we are animals. You know, like we are all connected to nature. We should all prioritize getting outside, whatever that looks like, whether it's, you know, changing your entire life and living in a van and traveling across the country and you know doing that or just taking a weekend and going car camping with a friend and bringing a dog with you. You know like you will have so much fun.
Speaker 1:It does not have to be anything crazy, you do not have to quit your whole life. You could just prioritize a day a week. So even when I was in Orlando, every Saturday for me would be group hikes If I had board and train dogs, I would take them with me. I would take my dogs. We would wake up super, super early, you know, wake up at sunrise, go hike with the dogs, because that's all I could do, but it was still something that I would do every single week because I know how important it is for me and them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think it's super important, even like funny enough, like sport dog people. You know they spend so much time on a on a field training but at the end of the day, like your dog, would enjoy just free roaming in the woods yeah, yeah, they love it, or even just like letting them be with other dogs yeah, I mean you know, like when we were at the trial in arizona and like all of us had our dogs out and shane was like I never do this, you know, I was like, oh my gosh yeah, no, that was cool.
Speaker 1:They were all kind of like swimming um by the lake or whatever, and yeah, it was a good time yeah, like all of our dogs are trained, they're all well behaved and we were able just let them run around and play in the water and they were having literally so much fun. Like it's tough, it's tough for me to see the dogs in that state and then be like, okay, yeah, let's go train for sport where well, we're just crating rotating dogs all day long and like that's the other thing.
Speaker 2:Then it's like you know hawk comes out, walter comes out, minka comes out, and then the goldens kind of just wait until the training day is over to then.
Speaker 1:And then we can let them out. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It just the pack stuff is really cool.
Speaker 1:This is going to get me in trouble. No one's going to want to trade with me. No, I like it, like I like doing it and I'm also bad at it and I feel like it's good for me to do something that I'm bad at. That like pushes me because it's very different. You know, it's very precise.
Speaker 2:It's very like fast paced whenever you're training for sports, like it's very different than just like letting your dog exist in nature and run around but then on the flip side, I mean, I think you're very good at like reading dogs in group settings and that's why, like you know, you can do that as much as you do, because even like I don't know, just like watching hawk, you're like oh, if you would have like postured up for like two more seconds, I would have like interfered, whatever. So that's a whole different skill. Like you know, maybe you're not the sport dog expert, but you got a whole different um set of skills yeah, I was actually thinking about that today as we were driving.
Speaker 1:I was like, imagine if all the people in our club that we trained with, if I made them go on like a pack hike and you know how, like they all tell me what to do, I would tell them what to do like they would be so bad they would hate it they would hate it.
Speaker 1:They would be so bad at going on a pack hike and I would be like you know, sit there, don't put your dog in command. We're just gonna wait for them to be calm and then we're gonna do our walking drills like they would all be so bad at it and well, like it would be hilarious.
Speaker 2:Your dogs venture off like far and I'm like recalling them and stuff you're like stop micromanaging them, like, just like, let them, you know, rip yeah, um, thoma does micromanage the dogs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need to work on that, just like you have to trust them and trust your ability to like read any situation right, so like, for example, we are out in the middle of nowhere, we're on like a back road, like a logging road by mammoth, and we can see all of the dogs you don't have to.
Speaker 2:We're literally not gonna you don't have to recall them yeah, we're not. We're not gonna run into anybody.
Speaker 1:There's no one else there yeah yeah, for sure but you like needed to call lucy back and then she like came back and she was like, yeah, like what? You know, good girl, but like I don't know. I say that a lot. I say that a lot with people and their dogs. They're just like constantly like talking to their dogs and telling them what to do, and I think we need to be able to like trust in our dogs and just sit back and kind of watch them and give them the opportunity to like think through things. You know so like a good example of this was today when we pulled off on the road with all of the snow and you were still at the bottom of the hill and I was walking up. I could have recalled muffin and what lucy that were sitting by you, but instead I just walked up to the car and then eventually they all like followed my lead.
Speaker 1:You know so like yes, I can recall them and they will come back, or I can just teach them to like stick around to just follow me without me having to say anything, because I think when we micromanage our dogs too much, they're just relying on that, like they're just relying on somebody telling them what to do 24-7, so they're not going to use their brain.
Speaker 2:But for me it's like okay, well, if you decide to wander off, like I'm leaving you, I'm not actually going to leave them, but like it's your job to stick around me for sure, you know which I mean I understand 100, but I I guess, like with walter, like he's like kind of like my shadow, like he he follows me, so I don't really worry about that. But then like lucy, she does tend to like venture off a little more than like I'm comfortable with. So I'm like recalling her a bunch yeah, but she does always come back she does she has yet to not come back, but yeah, she does.
Speaker 1:Lucy does not make the best decisions, but I still don't try to micromanage her. I just like set her up for success. So, like today, I knew that if I let her out of the van off leash, there's a small creek. She's gonna go straight to that creek. You know, I might as well let her enjoy that moment of her, just like sprinting from the van to the creek, because I know that's where she's gonna go. I know she's not gonna like run into the road or run away. I know exactly what she's going to do. So I'm going to let her rip go to the creek and then I'm going to walk to the creek and I'm going to put a leash on her.
Speaker 2:These are also very specific instances where we're really out in the middle of nowhere because obviously, when you're in a city you should leash your dog.
Speaker 1:No mean, but we don't let the dogs off leash. No, no, literally ever in the city, in the city.
Speaker 2:They're on leash, but I just felt the need to like clarify because in la there have been quite a lot of dogs off leash, so I just wanted to like underline that yeah, we hate that.
Speaker 1:We do not really like. I don't let my dogs off leash anywhere I think, maybe the, the fields that we train at.
Speaker 1:Like very briefly, but not not at all, and that is another thing. That kind of sucks about cities, um, and questions like what words? I get the question a lot of where do you find good places to like let your dogs off leash? And I don't really think that in la, just from my experience of like working with folks, or even in like san diego, I don't really think that it's responsible to let your dog off leash in the city. I think if that's something that you want, then you have to prioritize a weekend and drive three hours to the BLM land in the desert. You know what I'm saying. Like it sucks, like that sucks, but also it's not something that has to be done all the time. Like it sucks that you have to drive that far, but make something of it. You know. Like have a fun weekend.
Speaker 1:That's something that I do want to do is maybe like host little outdoorsy weekend training weekends with people yeah, that'd be awesome yeah because, I know it's also intimidating, like we're very used to just pulling up it to strange places and sleeping there, you know but, I think for a lot of people that would really stress people out not knowing for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know, maybe people don't even have to like drive that far, but I think like the off-leash answer is definitely not like you know, the popular park, or like even like when it comes to like going somewhere, like we don't go to like the busy trailhead where, like everyone hikes, like we go to like the random, like forest, so where?
Speaker 1:power lines are? I don't know like you know how under power lines is always like trimmed and you can like.
Speaker 2:It's like a big pathway like stuff like that exists in the city as well. You know, like a field that's not like made for dogs, like or not, you know super busy, like that's the kind of like yeah, we do not go.
Speaker 1:We don't go to on popular trails or popular parks like. We literally avoid them like the plague. The only time we're at a busy park is for group class yeah that's literally it a random thought.
Speaker 2:I I feel like, for whatever reason, next to hotels there's always a random overgrown field. You know, Like that's the kind of like place that we like seek out.
Speaker 1:Yes, and they love it. They literally love it. Like you could find some abandoned like field and let the dogs go and they would. They would be like this is the best thing ever, like they don't know that it's just an abandoned field on the side of a hotel, you know it's really cool to like see the dogs truly having a blast, just like running around digging the dirt like pretty much run wild, being feral yeah, and we don't really have to worry about them.
Speaker 1:So some benefits of getting outside and this is something that, like, I live and die by. Because, I don't know, I feel like I physically am very sensitive if I do not get enough sleep. I feel like I'm a mess if I stay, stay up late, I feel terrible If I don't eat properly, like it affects me. We stopped drinking alcohol because it just makes you feel like crap. I don't know. I don't know if there's something wrong with me, but I've always been very sensitive to like as soon as the sun sets, I start to get tired. I do not want big lights on, I'm going to wake up early with the sun rise, I'm going to go outside. Like that is what I've found to be successful for my mental health and well-being, our dogs. So it's very exaggerated when we're out in places like we are right now, where it gets dark, like I don't know what time is it 7.50?, it's almost 8. Like it's starting to get dark right now and the dogs don't want to go out when it's dark, you know. But if you're in a city, like everything is so well lit, dogs get cranked up around like 10 pm, you know, and that is I kind of. I kind of think it's like unnatural, because we just have just so much artificial shit in our lives like we have artificial lights on that are on all the time. People have big TVs that have tons of blue light. Like we stayed at a friend's house a few weeks ago and they have a big flat screen TV and I literally I could not watch our show on the TV because it was so bright and I knew that if we watched it at like it was at like 930, I would not be able to sleep. Like the blue light from the TV would make it so that I could not sleep that night. So we watched the show on my laptop with like the red screen. Things like that I'm like very sensitive to. But I think I'm only sensitive because that's how we're actually supposed to be and we've just been kind of like ignoring it. And then people are like oh, why am I, you know, depressed? Why do I have anxiety? Why am I having problems sleeping? You know? Like I think it goes back to we've gotten so far away from how we're naturally supposed to live and I think a big party. Part of that is our circadian rhythm and the same thing for our dogs.
Speaker 1:So my goal in everything that I do with the dogs is to always get back to nature Like I want to get back to as natural as possible a lifestyle food, like everything for the dogs, because I find that that creates the most synergy. They do the best, they're the happiest, they're the calmest, they're not struggling with neurotic behaviors, they're not struggling with anxiety. When we follow a sunrise-sunset schedule, we follow a sunrise sunset schedule. We make sure that we're feeding our dogs balanced, nutritious food. We feed raw and minimal processed kibble. The kibble is just for convenience for us, but any chance that we can get, we're going to try to add whole foods. I love raw milk for the dogs. We give them raw bones, we give them raw meat, trying to get them back to what they're bred to eat and what is biologically appropriate, like the most primal state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, bread to eat and what is biologically appropriate like the most primal state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and part of that too is getting them outside in nature, not just for the circadian rhythm and you know that sunset, sunrise schedule, but also, I think, a huge part is our dog's microbiome.
Speaker 1:If we're not getting them out in dirt and soil, they do not have the same type of microbiome. And what is very popular is not socializing your puppy until they have all of their vaccines, and I think that that is so damaging, not only for, like, their mental health we're not mentally, you know, prepping them for the worlds that they're going to live in, because they don't touch grass until they're four or five months old but also they're not being exposed to bacteria that is healthy for them to be exposed to at a young age. So a lot of the dogs that we get that are very coddled. They're very prone to allergies and getting sick and they're constantly in the vet's office and there's always a skin rash or something wrong meanwhile you have like muffet and minka rolling in the mud yeah, and I'm drinking out of the creek and you know I've knock on wood never.
Speaker 1:I've never, never had to take my dogs to the vet for an illness like they've never been sick, you know, and I think part of that is due to the fact that ever since they were babies, I've been taking them as many places as possible, not necessarily like people busy places or dog busy places, but like out in nature. I let them roll around in soil and drink probably questionable water, you know, but like I'm all for it.
Speaker 2:My dog's same thing, yeah like my dogs can literally drink anything.
Speaker 1:Where I feel like people and this kind of goes back to the micromanaging thing like a lot of people are like oh my gosh, like I would never let my dog drink that water, and I'm like obviously, if the water is not moving and it's like green, I'm not gonna let my dogs drink from it but we're talking about like streams stream from, like you know the, the snow melt, yeah, or like a little like pond, or you know like I'm not going to be dumb, but I think like we have to recognize that dogs are animals and I think so many of us struggle with our dogs because we're expecting them to not be animals, because we've like anthropomorphized them so much.
Speaker 1:But I think we've done that to ourselves too. You know, yeah, Like we are disgusting. What do you mean? We also live like dirty dogs we're super clean.
Speaker 2:We go to the gym, take showers there regularly we do.
Speaker 1:We do shower regularly. I will say that. But we also get very dirty and we're like I could use a shower right now. We're, like you know, getting rained on and like we're just constantly covered in like wet dog, you know oh, for sure but I don't think that we were meant to be super like sterile yeah I don't know, that's just my take or like wash your hands before you eat, like hold anything in your mouth oh yeah, we definitely don't do that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Also, we never get sick, and we just got sick because we got on a plane.
Speaker 2:This is true. It's other people.
Speaker 1:It's the city.
Speaker 2:It's a small, tight, very congested space.
Speaker 1:Okay, so enough yapping about us and my rant about. You know how we're living with our dogs. I want to give you guys some practical tips for prioritizing some outdoor time and getting out in nature with your dog. Do you want to talk about what a typical day in the life looks like for us?
Speaker 2:when we're out in the middle of nowhere or on average day, because I mean today I got up at six, open the door and I like let the whole pack run wild yeah, I think having some sort of routine.
Speaker 1:it doesn't have to be the same thing every day, but things that we prioritize in our every day is getting outside first thing in the morning. That is when the dogs have the most energy and again it goes back to I want to get them out in that morning light. That is going to set the tone for the rest of the day. So our circadian rhythm kind of controls everything, but it controls our sleep-wake hormones and a lot of our other hormones, like our feel-good hormones. I'm not smart enough to go into detail about that, but someone that I really enjoy listening to is Andrew Huberman, and he speaks about this all the time. If you can get through one of his podcasts, I highly, highly recommend listening to it. It will teach you all about the circadian rhythm and the importance of getting morning sunlight, how it affects our mental health, just like all that jazz. So first thing in the morning, that's what we prioritize. Morning, that's what we prioritize. After the dogs run around, you know, get time out in nature, lay in the sun a little bit.
Speaker 1:I like to practice some downtime. So they've gotten all of that physical energy out. Now it's time to practice some downtime. So we'll typically bring the dogs back into the van, back into the crate, and when we're doing downtime I'm always going to give the dogs something like water, or if I'm giving them breakfast that day, I'll give them breakfast at that time in their crates. They'll eat, they'll drink and then they'll lay down.
Speaker 1:So the crate for our dogs and even when we lived in a house we did the same sort of routine is giving them that designated downtime that a lot of dogs need help with Our dogs because our lives and routines are so go, go, go. I find that our dogs are trying to mimic our lifestyle and so we want to make sure that we recognize they are dogs. They do need more rest than us. Designating that downtime during the day is going to help them regulate themselves. So we do some downtime in the crate, let them relax. Midday we'll take them out again. This usually will be when we do if we're doing training sessions, we'll do training sessions. Midday we'll go for structured walks.
Speaker 1:so that's time for us to work on our dog's mental state or like fulfillment right, getting them using their brain, so our time in the morning, I'm not necessarily asking too much of them. That's their, that's their feral time yeah, or in the city.
Speaker 2:It would look like that's like your morning kind of structured walk, but it's, like you know, pretty basic yeah, just uh, going for a nice long walk, just physical, meeting their physical needs.
Speaker 1:Midday is when I'll do our active training sessions that is what you guys are also familiar with where you know we're teaching our dogs skills. We're teaching them, you know, sit down, stay, place, recall, practicing our marker words, playing, tug with them Maybe that looks like bite work with them. Once we've done a training session like that, our dogs will go back into the crate. We'll do some downtime, they'll chill out in the vans. We'll usually get some work done or we'll go and grab food, you know, kind of let them settle. It's super important to let our dogs settle after a active session because that's going to help them retain the information. So, back into downtime and then we'll do, you know, similar outings. You know, once around dinner time, give them dinner in the crates afterwards and then a final, you know, run around before bedtime. This is typically going to happen before the sun sets. What we found is that the dogs really like you can see, especially when we're in, like the forest, they're like I'm not going to go out at night. You know like they stick around very close. They're like why are we, why are we out? Like it's literally pitch black out, and I feel like that's something that we can mimic in our homes, even if you do live in a city is kind of going into that like bedtime mode whenever the sun starts to set, dimming our lights, making sure that we're setting the tone for bed, we're not getting our dogs super hyped up and, you know, playing tug with them in the house and letting them run around and go crazy, like we're kind of starting to slow down as the sun sets in our day. So there are ways for us to prioritize getting outside and meeting our dog's natural needs on just a regular day to day like that. So, finding some sort of routine that works for you. If you can, you know, go to a nearby hiking trail and maybe your morning walk and your morning outing is at a local trail. If you live, you know, deep in the city and you don't have that, go for a structured walk. You know, just getting outside first thing in the morning is going to help your dog feel amazing and it's going to help you feel amazing.
Speaker 1:Now, let's say you want to start prioritizing, you know, taking these trips, really giving your dog that like full wild off leash experience. Where do you start, how do you find a place? How do you you know, like, how do you make it happen? We do it all the time. So I feel like we know how to find the good spots. But if you're not used to this, you probably don't know.
Speaker 1:So, first of all, it does not have to be the fanciest place. Like I said, we're not going to popular areas, like if it's popular we're not going, we don't want to see other people, we don't want to see other dogs. Like that is not what I want. I want to find places that like I'm going to be so far away from people or I'm going to be able to see when people are coming our way, right. So one of my favorite spots and I'm not going to share too specific, but I can be general with y'all One of my favorite spots is BLM land by Joshua Tree. So if you don't know what BLM land is, blm stands for Bureau of Land Management and, to be like quite honest, it's just kind of lawless. Like there are some rules and regulations, but I don't know. People are like hunting out there. They're shooting guns. Some people have like completely set up camp you know like I don't like established there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like there's a like a 14 day maximum stay, but nobody's really enforcing it, and it's a great place to let your dogs off leash and literally just let them rip. I love the desert, especially as like a beginner place, because you can see so far like you don't have to worry about like losing your dog or you know somebody walking up on you, like you can see somebody coming from literally miles away, you know, and I feel like that is really helpful, especially if you're new to you know going out and camping and like letting your dog off leash and just kind of roam around. Another great place that we like to go to is like state land. It's not necessarily like state parks, but it's, I don't know. There's just like logging roads and there's just like state land. A lot of the places are like ATV roads yeah, like, what does it say?
Speaker 2:there's like dirt bikes and four-wheelers, and those places usually have roads that you can drive on and, like some of them, you need a four-wheel drive vehicle, but some of them aren't like honestly, like logging roads are pretty flat, like it's pretty straightforward, like I feel like any car can drive on that, and then you just kind of pull over the side and it's very rare that you even see someone never see anybody, and that's kind of where we're at right now is we're on state land question mark I don't know are my favorite app for just finding like random places where I know I'm not gonna run into anybody else.
Speaker 1:Is I overlander? That is like the van life app. That's how I find camping spots and places to sleep and people will like leave little notes on there to be like, hey, don't stay here. I had like the cops knock on us. You know stuff like that, so that is super helpful for finding hiking trails. I use the the app all trails. I personally don't use that that much because it's just popular trails, you know. So I used that more so when I was in florida and wanted to just find trails to go on, you know, which would be great for you if you're in a more urban area and just want to like find a nice trail that you can go on, I wouldn't necessarily recommend letting your dog off leash in those places. If you want your dog to run around and have a little bit more freedom, get a super long flexi lead.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's one of our favorite tools, Like when we let the dogs out of the vans, they're on flexis. If we're somewhere where you know it is a big field but we don't really want to let them run off leash flexi and our flexi is like 30 feet long, like it's huge. So we love our Flexi leashes for more popular areas or, you know, busy trails, that sort of thing. And then also, just to you know, make it easy for you. I'll just look on a map and there's usually like green space and I just zoom in on a green space and I'll be like, oh, this looks like a big empty area, I wonder what this is.
Speaker 2:And we'll just drive there and sometimes, sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't, you know like even just to get to the spot where we're at today, like we actually stopped pretty much every fork in the road until we found like something that we were, you know, pleased with.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, just a lot of trial and error. But see, that's kind of something that I feel like would send people over the edge, is like not knowing what is open and what's not. So we're we're south of Tahoe currently and a lot of the roads are closed.
Speaker 2:But it's just being like okay with that as well, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:But I imagine if you're like living in the city and you're trying to plan something and you only have two days to go like explore with your dog, it would really suck if you're just like spent driving around going to all of these closed roads. Yeah, but that's part of it, that's part of the adventure yeah, just being okay with it.
Speaker 2:I feel like some people like really like to like plan everything to the t and that maybe just doesn't work yeah, no micromanaging you just gotta go. I don't plan nothing, you just gotta go with the flow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a a big part of it is just kind of trial and error. Uh, today we literally tried so many spots and a lot of the roads were closed and nowhere is it gonna tell you that those roads are closed until you get to them and it's like, hey, this road is closed, you know, and you're like, uh, okay, but also like if we wouldn't have um been recording the podcast tonight, we probably wouldn't have even like thought about it twice or even, like you know, spoken about it again, like it's just like part of our routine, you know oh yeah, all of the roads being closed and like even, even even when we're in the city, us driving around, finding parking.
Speaker 1:you know we can't always. We'll like pull up to a spot and then it's like right in front of somebody's house and I'm like, okay, nevermind, I don't think we should.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think we should do this. So, yeah, you do have to be kind of if you are trying to go out into the middle of nowhere and really live that adventure life with your dogs, which I highly recommend. Even if it's a crazy wild weekend, it'll still be so much fun, and part of it is just trial and error. You have to find good places by you.
Speaker 2:You're not going to know until you just go out there and start driving around and looking for places yeah, even even like in the city, like I have a friend who just got a dog and he's in a big city and initially he was going to a busy park. He's like you know what my dog is like, being super reactive, like I can't go there. And then all of a sudden you're finding spots where less people like I can't go there. And then all of a sudden you're finding spots where less people are because, like out of necessity, right, and like he sent me a video. He's like oh, I found this like big open patch of land, like right by the train tracks, you know. So you just keep going to spots until you find what works for you yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And even when I was in orlando, people would be like how do you find all of these places? And I'm like, if I can find property in orlando that is not populated by people, you can do it too, you know for sure I will say la is tough. I feel for my la people, but you gotta leave.
Speaker 1:You gotta leave la la people don't like to leave la nope, they don't like to drive I know, but if you want to get outside and like, let your dog rip off leash, I highly recommend. You have so many amazing places in california to go to yeah, now california is wild.
Speaker 2:It's so cool, like from desert to mountains so vast, uh, some gear that we like.
Speaker 1:Obviously, tomas van has a full setup. We have everything, but we pretty much live out of jugs of water yeah, the dogs need to drink a lot. The dogs need to drink a lot pretty much every time we go to a grocery store we get like six gallons of water.
Speaker 1:You need a ton of water, yeah, if you're going to be spending like a lot of dogs, but yes, yeah, or if you are road tripping with dogs like you, just I would go buy a bunch of jugs of water. It's kind of the easiest. Toma does have a water tank, but we really just use the water tank. It's not like filtered or anything Like. I am not going to drink the water that's in your.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just comes from, like you know, hoses, yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, so we just get like six jugs of spring water. I have a cooler. I love my yeti cooler. Uh, that holds our raw. It holds raw for probably like three days and then it starts to really defrost very quickly. So we buy raw probably like twice a week and some of it will go in Toma's freezer. So we've got our jugs of water. Our cooler definitely have some freeze dried raw on you. That's what we use for rewards.
Speaker 1:Every single time the dogs recall back to me like if we're going for a little hike and I need everybody to rally on back to me, I give everybody a little piece of freeze-dried raw. They love it. It's high value. I'll throw a piece when they go into the crate. Every single time they go into the crate, I give them something, I give them water, I give them a bone, I give them a little piece of freeze-dried raw like whatever. It is Highly recommend having that Snacks for yourself. You got to go to a grocery store and get all the snacks because when you go out into the middle of nowhere there are no bougie coffee stores, so you need to make sure that you have all of your, all of the tasty drinks and snacks that you need, or you're not going to enjoy your time and you're going to be like man. I really wish I had a coffee or something.
Speaker 2:You know we want to avoid that.
Speaker 1:Our favorite dog training tools are our Flexi. We love our Flexi leash. We have like four of them. E-collar obviously, we will always have an e-collar on hawk. I should always have an e-collar on minka, but I struggle to keep that charged. So don't be like me and have your things charged. I have a little mobile battery in my van. It's called what a yeti it's a goal zero.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeti's the cooler oh different box.
Speaker 1:Oh my, gosh, it's a goal zero, and other expensive outdoorsy thing, you know, yeah, yeah goal zero charges, all of my things amazing.
Speaker 1:It's really nice to have in case you're out and your phone dies and you need to charge it and you can't turn your car on or you want to charge little camp lights, charge your podcast equipment, like whatever you need.
Speaker 1:Having a little mobile battery is one of my favorite things. I've had it for about two years now and then last and this is kind of unnecessary but if you're like fully committing to either like van life or the outdoorsy life and you need internet, I need internet because I still have to do a lot of work, even when we're on the road. I use Starlink and I'm not going to hype Starlink up because I don't like the person who owns it. But I do get internet in the middle of nowhere and I really do appreciate that. But recently we talked to one of our friends who is in tech and he said that 5G is way faster and if you have 5G, just use a mobile hotspot. So that could probably get you pretty far, unless you're like truly out in the middle of nowhere like we are. But Starlink has saved us.
Speaker 2:It's been good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes, when we're out in the middle of nowhere and we have no service, we have to pull over and set up our little satellite dish to be able to get maps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, literally it's coming in handy more than once yeah.
Speaker 1:Are there any other gear things that you recommend? Poop bags you need so many poop bags.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I feel like it's hard for us because like our day-to-day, but I mean, yeah, a long line flexi, you call we never use a long line yeah, well, just because I feel like the flexis are like more convenient because it like ravels up on itself.
Speaker 2:But what could be cool with a long line is you can let it drag. You know, I think that's like the maybe in-between step if you're wanting to let your dog off-leash, but you need to. Maybe you're like more stressed out and you want something to like hold him back, like have the long line drag could be useful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, I don't use a long line no, I mean if anything, I just use my slip leads, you know and let those just let those drag if we ever need to like recall the dogs or you know anything like that no, the flexi.
Speaker 2:The fact that it rolls up on itself is like super convenient yeah, definitely anything else.
Speaker 1:Any other tips and tricks for the people?
Speaker 2:I mean, once they get out there and they got all the tools, what do they do? Do you just open the door and let the dogs run wild, or that's what we do let's say, let's say, let's say you've never done this. Your laptop, let's say you've never done this before like how do you ease into it? Do you initially leave the dogs on leash? What's your, what's your, what's your advice?
Speaker 1:I would say if you've never had your dogs off leash before, you should definitely have them on a flexi or a long line. If you have like a solid recall with your dog, I would say a long line. If you have like a solid recall with your dog, I would say a long line or, like you know, our 10 foot or 15 foot leash that you let drag but you're not holding on to it. If you've never had your dog off leash before, I would go with a Flexi, because your dog is going to get the same like feeling like they're off leash but you can still recall them a hundred percent of the time. You know, I think that's kind of where most people are.
Speaker 1:But if you have a good relationship with your dog, I think you should lean into trusting your dog a little bit, especially if you're not anywhere. That's super busy, you know. You know that there's not. You're not going to just like come up on another person or come up on another dog. Trust your dog a little bit and don't freak out if they run, Just like. Stay calm and we always want to move away from them. So when we're recalling our dogs, we want to pull them towards us. If you are chasing your dog or you know like, moving towards them, you're pushing them away, so it becomes a game.
Speaker 1:It becomes a game and, just like I was saying earlier, where I could have like recalled all of my dogs, I didn't. I just kept walking. And so when I'm working with people on this, what I see them do a lot is they're like hey, hey, come here, come here, come here, come here. And it's like just don't say anything. You know, just don't say anything, just keep walking. I guarantee your dog is gonna just walk with you. Like it's very instinctual for our dogs to walk with us, like as a group, as a pack, and if we're constantly like micromanaging them through verbal commands, they're like ah well, don't worry, she's definitely going to tell me what to do. So I'm not even going to worry about where she's at or checking in with her, because, like, she's just constantly micromanaging me, you know yeah, and I think, like, if you want your dogs to, like, truly enjoy their experience, like, try not to micromanage them.
Speaker 1:We want to be, you know, safe, obviously, but that just goes into setting them up for success. So, if you've never had them off leash before, have them on a flexi first. If they do great and you can recall them with a flexi, then you can go to a long line that drags, and then if they're doing great with that, then you can, you know, go off leash or, you know you might not ever ever get there, and that's totally fine. You just have your dogs always on leash and they're always like dragging it, you know.
Speaker 1:So there are definitely stages to it, but I just I really do want to encourage people to think of their dogs as a part of nature and not separate from it. I think it's very cutesy to baby our dogs and give them these like human personalities, but I think it's so unfair to them and who they are and what they have to offer. You know, like I think dogs are a gateway to getting us closer to nature, which I think is kind of you know, a big problem with people as well, as we've kind of lost that where we need to touch grass more. We've lost. We've lost our relationship with nature, literally at all.
Speaker 2:No, it's super cool to see them like forage. I'd say we kind of do like a couple mile loop and then we come back and we just like hang out around the van, whatever, like set up camp and then just even. And we just like hang out around the van, whatever, like set up camp, and then just even like watch them, like hang out like around us, just in the in the dirt. It's cool yeah, they love it they're just like bunching on a stick or something digging holes and just being dogs yeah it's the best.
Speaker 1:So I encourage you to go out there, whatever that may look like. Maybe it's just a morning walk, maybe you plan a weekend trip to the BLM land in the desert, maybe you head out. Where were we Around Mammoth? That was a great place. That was a great place to car camp.
Speaker 2:That was super cool.
Speaker 1:There's so many great places. You just have to do a little bit of digging. So I hope that this episode was helpful. I'm so glad to be back. Y'all missed it, but we'll get back into our routine. We're back in california training dogs and happy to be here you know?
Speaker 1:oh and last thing, last little housekeeping notes virtual shadow program next round starts may 26th. So if you're wanting to be a dog trainer or get serious about your dog training business, join us. You can visit the website and schedule a call with me. All right, that's it. That's all I got. Get out there.
Speaker 2:Out there and enjoy your dog.
Speaker 1:Enjoy your dog. We'll see you next time. Bye guys.