Tools That Change Everything

The loudest voices online love to turn dog training into a purity test, but real life with real dogs is messier and more urgent. We asked you to send in balanced training success stories, and what came back was the same theme over and over: clarity creates freedom. When owners learn how to communicate cleanly, dogs get more off-leash time, safer public outings, and less conflict at the end of the leash. 

We break down what balanced dog training actually is using the four quadrants of operant conditioning, then get practical about why timing matters so much. I talk about predictable versus random punishment, how sloppy marker use can confuse a dog just as much as sloppy corrections, and why cheap “Amazon shock collars” are a recipe for fallout. If you’ve ever worried that tools will “ruin the relationship,” we unpack what makes tool use fair, humane, and easy for a dog to understand. 

Then we get into the stories: huskies who can trail run and still recall, terriers who finally “click” in high-distraction environments, reactive dogs who can relax on walks, and prey-driven pups who can run without owners wrecking a shoulder on a long line. We also talk about muzzles as an underrated safety tool that can actually expand a dog’s world when conditioned properly. I share my own turning point with Lucy, and why teaching both “yes” and “no” is often the kindest, clearest way to build confidence and reliability. 

If you want to go deeper, I share how to train with me inside my online community (live calls every Thursday at 2 p.m., Q&As, and new videos), plus details on the Virtual Shadow Program for aspiring trainers. Subscribe, share this with a friend stuck in training limbo, and leave a review so more owners can find a clearer path.

Visit us on the website here to see what we've got going on and how you can join our pack of good dogs and owners.

Transcript

Who To Trust In Training

Balanced Training Explained Simply

Predictable Corrections And Clean Timing

The Problem With Cheap E-Collars

Lucy And The Turning Point

Listener Success Stories Begin

Off-Leash Freedom With Accountability

Reactivity Relief And Safer Walks

Muzzles As Safety And Freedom

No More Regret With Rescue Dogs

Tone Recall Training That Sticks

Prong Collar Clarity For Lunging

Building Dogs Beyond Tool Debates

Prey Drive, Confidence, And Boundaries

Clear Communication Is More Humane

Train Together In The Online Community

Virtual Shadow Program Details

Final Takeaways And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello and welcome back to the Everyday Trainer Podcast. My name is Meg and I am a dog trainer. Today's episode, I had you guys help me out. You sent in your balanced training success stories. So we're gonna read those this episode. We're gonna talk about balanced training and how tools might actually be the secret to your success. You know the drill? Grab yourself a tasty drink and meet us back here. Hi guys, welcome back. Long time no see. I had to take a little bit of a break from the podcast. I've had a lot of training dogs recently, which has been really good for me. I feel like when I don't have training dogs, I get a little bit out of touch. But don't you worry, all day, every day, I have been training dogs. So I feel very relevant to everything that's going on in the world right now. And I think that also brings up an important topic. We should be taking advice from people that are actually working with dogs day in and day out, who run dog training businesses. I feel like there's a lot going on in the industry. There's a lot of people who seem like experts who don't necessarily have the experience to back it up. And even sometimes I'll go online and I'm like, what is this person talking about? But they're so confident about it. So just be mindful of that. And that has kind of been a topic that's been bouncing around my mind a lot, is I have kind of gotten to the point where I see what people are talking about when they say that the industry is a little bit oversaturated. There's a lot of dog trainers out there, and it's really hard to figure out what information is useful and what information might actually be harmful to your dog and your training journey. So I'm gonna help you kind of decipher what is out there, and then we'll get into your guys' stories. So the reason I had you guys submit balance training success stories is because it feels like the other side of the aisle is so, so loud, especially online. And I see this a lot with the owners that I work with. They come in and they're scared of the tools, they don't want to use e-callers, you know, they don't want to punish their dogs, make their dogs uncomfortable, ruin their relationship. Totally valid. But a lot of the fear-mongering has come from social media and force-free dog training. So, what is balanced dog training? What does that actually mean? So it just without getting too nitty-gritty, basically there's quadrants in conditioning behavior. There's four quadrants. Uh, you know, one of them is uh positive punishment, the addition of a punishment a push oh my gosh, I cannot speak, a punishing uh marker thing, a punishment to shape behavior. Another one is uh, you know, uh negative reinforcement, taking away pressure, releasing pressure to motivate behavior. There's uh rewards, right? So that would be positive reinforcement. We are adding a reward instead of adding a punisher. So balanced training takes into account all four quadrants of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is essentially teaching the dog in front of us how to be the operator. They are operating the training session based on their behavior. So a dog does something that we like, we reward that behavior. A dog does something that we don't want, we can punish that behavior. Now the other side of the aisle is the force free community. And I typically stay pretty far away from ever even talking about that side of training. And the reason is I want to speak highly of balanced training and the success that we have with balance training to, you know, educate people and bring them on to quote our side of dog training, instead of feeling the need to bring down another group of training. Because I think dog trainers can take a lot from force-free training and also balanced training. And some of the best dog trainers I know, you know, follow dog trainers on both sides of that camp. However, with that being said, I think that as a general statement for me and my opinion, I think force-free trainers are doing so much damage to dogs and dogs' well-being because of all of this fear-mongering around punishment. However, I believe, as a balanced trainer, that punishment is a very important piece of the puzzle in not only stopping behaviors, but motivating dogs to do the right ones. And we say punishment all the time in our own lives, right? I constantly use the analogy that I would love to drive 95 down the highway, but what's stopping me? I don't want to get pulled over and get a fat ticket. I don't run through stop signs because there's a punishment. Now, where we see fallout from punishment is in training is when the punishment is not predictable. So we know that if we speed, a punishment could follow. Not always, but there's the chance that we could get punished. And we know the behavior that is causing that punishment. Where we see a lot of fallout with tools like prong collars, e-collars, is the punishment is not predictable because a lot of times the people who are misusing these tools don't have a rhyme or reason. They don't know what they're marking, they don't know what they're punishing, or they're punishing all sorts of behaviors at once. And the dog doesn't know why they're being punished. So it's super important that if we are going to use tools in our training and use punishment in our training, that we need to be really clear on the behavior that we are punishing. And to get good practice at that, I love to get my owners really good and really clear at understanding and marking behaviors that they're rewarding. We see a little less fallout with a misuse of our timing with positive reinforcement. And that is why I think the camp of positive reinforcement only dog trainers lean that way, right? Is because there's not as much visible fallout with the misuse of rewards as there are with punishment. And I could just be throwing this out there. Not to say that bad positive reinforcement training can add in a ton of confusion. Something that I see all the time, especially even from dog trainers, I would say, is people don't know the behaviors that they're rewarding. They're just marking everything, yesing everything. So what I see a lot of when people come to us for training, we're like, all right, take your dog out, like show us what you guys are working on. Do you have a marker word? Yeah, I have a marker word. Amazing. What's your marker word? Yes. Okay, perfect. What does that mean? It means a reward is coming. Okay, we can make it even clearer, but you know, yes, reward, perfect. They take their dog out and they're yesing everything. So when we do that, when we reward everything, we are diminishing the value of our markers and our rewards. We're confusing the dog. The dog doesn't really know what they're doing to get rewarded. And it's just limiting the progress that we're going to be able to make with that dog. Because a dog that is always rewarded is never rewarded. So, how do I really reinforce the behaviors that I want to see a lot of? So, you guys have probably heard the term yes work before. I see that a lot in the yes work camp of training. So we use the marker word yes, and I am going to refrain from going down my rabbit hole of marker words. But that is just half of the equation, is being able to mark a behavior followed up by a meaningful reward. That is just half of it. But in learning how to properly reward behaviors, we get much better at properly punishing behaviors. So where I feel fallout or where I see fallout with tools like let's say an e-collar, is a client comes to me, they say, Hey, I bought this tool off of Amazon. It's typically a$55 e-collar with a big orange button on the remote. And trust me when I say those are hot and they are actually correcting your dog. Like it is a shock, a genuine shock collar. So we don't go the cheap option. We'll we'll get to that in just a second. But they go, oh, well, my dog is doing all these things. He's jumping up on the counter, he's biting us, he's chewing on our shoes. So I just start pressing. I just start correcting my dog when my dog does these things. Now, I will tell you, I typically don't get a lot of people who are misusing tools. I almost see more of the opposite. I see people who are scared to use tools and they've avoided them like the plague because they're scared that they're gonna mess up their dog by using these tools. So I very, very rarely see people misusing tools, overusing tools, I will say. Okay. I would say once a year I get somebody like that with, you know, the thousands of people that I work with. So that is where we see fallout from tools, right? And why is that? Because the punishment isn't predictable. We're not correcting one behavior at a time, we're not teaching the dog what we want them to do first, we're not teaching them that we don't want them to do certain behaviors, we're not marking certain behaviors with a no or a punishment marker. The dog is just randomly getting zapped and they don't really know what behavior is causing that punishment. So that is where we see dogs that are shut down, that are scared to make decisions because they don't know what the right decision is. And an argument against balanced training is that it's lazy, but it could not be further from the truth because so many positive reinforcement trainers struggle using positive reinforcement. The very thing that they preach, they struggle using efficiently because they're not, they're not very timely with their markers. They're marking the wrong behavior. You have to be very, very precise and go in with a game plan and know what behaviors you want to mark and reward in order to be a good positive reinforcement only trainer, especially. But to be a good balanced trainer, not only do you need to be able to positively reinforce timely and efficiently, you need to also have the same timeliness and be able to read the dog and understand what e-color level they need to be at, and to have a dog that understands the tool, know where it's coming from, know how to turn it off. There is so much more that goes into balance training than force-free training. So I'll I'll clear the air there. Balance training is far, far more complicated and nuanced than just positive reinforcement. It is definitely not the lazy route. Okay. Now I got so many responses from you guys. I love this. And the reason specifically why I wanted to hear from you is because I felt that, you know, just scrolling online, the positive reinforcement people leaving really nasty negative comments on my page, on, you know, my clients' page, across the internet, was it just felt so loud. So I really wanted to give an outlet for people to share their success stories, who some of which were on that side, they were in that camp of training. They were completely against tools, and they found a lot of success through these tools. Now, if you guys have listened to previous episodes of mine, you know that I have a very similar story. I got into dog training like so many other dog trainers because I had a really difficult dog. And looking back, Lucy wasn't necessarily that difficult. She just wasn't aligned with my expectations of what a dog should be. So I grew up with dogs my entire life. I had a golden retriever growing up who was literally my soulmate. Her name was Sadie. She was my best friend. She passed away when I was 14 from cancer. Later, we got a Newfoundland. This Newfoundland was very attached to my mom, but she taught me a lot about raising a dog. My mom actually made me read a dog training book when we went to go pick her up so that everybody in the household was on the same page with this dog. So when I was in, you know, 14 years old, I was reading The Monks of New Skeet, The Art of Raising a Puppy. We had it on our shelf by our fireplace at my home in Missouri. And everybody in the family would read that book. So we're all on the same page of what we needed to do to raise this dog. Now, even though I didn't have the relationship that I may have wanted with this dog, this dog was super attached to my mom, and honestly, she could kind of care less about us, which led me to getting Zoe. I was like, I need a needy dog. I need a dog that follows me around everywhere. And that is exactly what I got. But Bella or Newfoundland taught me a lot about training. Stuff that Sadie couldn't teach me. And, you know, I was young, we were the same age, Sadie and I. So obviously I didn't see the beginning stages of training, but she was just such an easy, good dog. And Bella or Newfoundland was a little more stubborn. She required, you know, a different approach to training. So I really got to watch my mom raise this dog. Then I got Zoe. I got Zoe when I was 19 years old after my freshman year of college. I told everybody, as soon as I move out of the dorms, I'm getting a dog. Enter Zoe. Zoe is the perfect cuppy cake dog. I never had her on a leash. I would take her everywhere with me. She would go to college parties. She would go to work with me. Everywhere I went, Zoe went. And that was kind of the understanding. Now, at this point in my life, I thought that I was the best dog trainer in the world because I had Zoe. And everybody knew me as the golden retriever girl. She, I'm telling you, she was literally my shadow, and she still is, I might add. So I had this expectation that, oh, well, if I just train all my dogs like Zoe, they're all gonna turn out like Zoe. So in my, I believe I got Lucy my senior year. So six, five, four, how many years later? Four years later, because I was in college for, I was in my undergrad for five years. So four years later, I got Lucy. Now I got Zoe from a breeder. I personally did not get her. My dad got her for me. So I wasn't a part of that sourcing. Lucy came from a backyard breeding. I didn't really know anything about backyard bred dogs. My friend was on Craigslist and he's like, let's go look at these golden retriever puppies. I was like, okay. I get$700 out of my bank account. We go over, I get Lucy. Right away, I noticed they were very different dogs. I had just raised Zoe, and even though we got through a few sticky stages of puppy training, Lucy was completely different, and I had no idea what I was doing with her. I could not leave her alone for two seconds. If I brought her into the bathroom with me and turned around, she would be shredding the toilet paper roll. She would be getting into the bathtub, chewing on whatever she could get a hold of. I struggled potty training her. Any chance she would get, she would run away from me. And I'm talking runaway. She would be miles away from me. When I was raising her, I lived in Kentucky in an apartment by myself. And behind this apartment was a row of trees, kind of like a forest, that backed up to a creek. Now, Lucy loves water. And after one dip in that creek, that was the end-all be-all thing. And anytime somebody would walk into my apartment and Lucy was out, she would slip out the door and go run to this creek, and we would have to chase her down. So this was probably when she was three to seven months old. And at the time, I was in grad school dying. I was literally dying. My course load was insane. I had a full-time job and I had this crazy ass puppy. Now, what I didn't know at the time was that Lucy is not the same type of golden retriever that Zoe is. Zoe is a shown line golden retriever. She is that cream color. She has a wider head. Lucy is my spicy girl. She's my red golden. She's smaller. She's lean. She has a short coat. Now I know that she's a field line golden, which is basically a working line golden. She has the energy to have a job all the time, and I didn't have a job for her. I cried over this dog every single day. I thought she hated me. Zoe hated her. Zoe would put herself in the crate to hide from her. We were all over Lucy. And I had to come to the decision of staying in grad school or keeping this dog and quitting grad school. At the time, I wasn't in love with, I was a graduate assistant at the gym. So I was the personal training graduate assistant. I was working full-time at that job and I didn't love that job. I just don't think that the environment was a great fit for me. If you've ever been in an environment where you're like, ooh, these are not my people. That's kind of how I felt. I will say, like, my staff, my trainers, I love you guys. Um, but it, it's, it was Kentucky. It was a little bit old school. Going from Orlando to Kentucky was a big adjustment for me, for sure. So I wasn't in love with my working position. I wasn't doing great in school. I was overwhelmed with everything. And I remember I met with one of my professors and I was talking to him about this because at the time I really wanted to be a biology professor. I wanted to do research. And in order to do that, you basically have to be in school forever. You have to go get your master's, and then you have to get a PhD, and sometimes you have to get a postdoc. And then, like, maybe you can get a professor position somewhere. So it's a long road, and it's definitely not an easy one. So I was talking to one of my professors, telling him all of my woes of my difficult dog and you know, being alone, not really having a great community here, being in school, struggling with school, and he was like, you know what? School is always going to be here. You can come back to it anytime. Why don't you leave, go back to Florida, take care of yourself, and then if you want to get back into it, get back into it. So that led me into dropping out of grad school. Quitting my job and moving back to Orlando to try and figure out how to freaking train this crazy dog. While I was in college struggling with Lucy, I started to do a little bit of research on e-collars. And I've never been against anything. I just simply wasn't educated. I had no idea that dog training was even a career. I didn't know that. Oh, hear all my loud dogs. I didn't know that e-collars were a thing. I didn't know that prong collars were a thing. We definitely corrected our dogs, but we had um choke chains, like uh, you know, a chain slip lead collar, basically, and we would pop the leash with that. Or if we had a puppy, we would like roll up a towel and hit the outside of the crate if they were like whining. Um, the monks of New Skeet are very old school, but I think also that is why a lot of our dogs were very well behaved, you know, is because we did implement that and it was very clear the dogs understood where the punishment was coming, all of that stuff. Anyways, I was not savvy on the world of modern dog training. So I don't think, I think in uh college I got my first Instagram account. I was not on Instagram at all. That's how old I am. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna get on Instagram. I'm gonna see what is out there, what people are doing as far as dog training goes. And that's where I started following dog trainers and I started seeing all of this e-color stuff. And people were like, this is how I take my dogs off leash. This is, you know, I can correct them if they run away. It's not, it's not a pun, it's not this shock collar. It's it's just a you know, stim. Now I will say I was very, I was at my wits' end with Lucy, and I I would be down to correct her. I was like, yeah, like I will definitely correct her. We are there. I'm just gonna buy an e-collar and we're just gonna slap this thing on. I'm gonna correct her when she runs away. But I got the cheap Amazon e-collar, obviously, because I was poor at the time, and I was like, you know what? I don't feel great about this. I feel like I need to do a little bit more research on how to use this tool and what the heck this thing is. So before I ever put it on Lucy, I learned that, okay, Juan, that is not the e-collar that we should be using. And I learned what a dog trainer was and that they use these tools on dogs. One of the first dog trainers that I found in Orlando was Bethany with walking dog training. And I'm very fortunate that she kind of showed me these tools. I was so poor, I had no job, mind you. I was just starting to get my dog walking business going, but I was, I did not have money to spend on an e-collar. And thankfully, she let me borrow an e-collar and try it out. So I started playing around with this tool and realized, okay, this is really opening the door up for me. Like I'm gonna be able to do a lot with Lucy, especially because I put a really solid foundation on her. I did all the training that I could do with positive reinforcement, with the leashes that I was using before I ever decided to use an e-collar. So by the time I got the e-collar and learned how to condition it, um, I learned e-collar conditioning from Larry Crone and his resources. He really helped me. And honestly, by just doing, by just training my dogs and kind of playing around. I'm not in the camp of people that have to over-prepare before they do things. I really have to, you know, get my hands in there and try it. And that's exactly what I did. And I had two dogs that I could try this out with. Now it changed my life. I was finally able to walk Lucy down the street. She would pull so much that I hated walking her. I couldn't do anything with her. She would drag everywhere that we would go. And then if I had her on a long line or off lease, she would be gone. She would take off. I remember in the beginning stages of training, me and uh my partner, my boyfriend at the time, we were taking all of the dogs for a hike, and I was practicing recall with Lucy. This was before e-caller, and I was like, Oh, I'm gonna have her on a long line and then, you know, mark and reward. So I said, break or okay, whatever my release word at the time was. This girl ran as fast as she possibly could and hit the end of the leash. It was literally like a cartoon where they're like watching the rope come out of their hands. That's exactly what I stood there and I look at my boyfriend and I was like, oh shit. I get yanked into the air. I'm literally perpendicular to the ground. Perpendicular, parallel. I'm literally parallel to the ground in the air. She hit the end of that leash so bad. And I was like, okay, it's time. It's time to invest in an e-collar. So we got into that and it changed, it changed the game for me. And now me and Lucy have a much better relationship. And I might also add, I don't necessarily have to have the e-collar on her all the time. It just added a lot more clarity and meaning to my words. So it added a little oomph to my no. And that's a common thing that I ask my clients. How does your dog know the word no? Is it followed up by something? Is it followed up by a punishment? I typically don't start with punishment whenever I'm teaching the e-caller, but eventually we do get there. I think teaching a dog no is super, super valuable. So these tools have genuinely changed my life and you know, hopefully changed yours because you're here because of Lucy and because she was so bad, and because I learned all of you know this dog training that was eight and a half years ago. So in that time, I've trained thousands of dogs on these tools, and you know, I get so many happy comments from owners that are like, I wouldn't have been able to keep this dog, or you know, you you saved our lives. This dog would have been put down if it weren't for the e-collar. We would never be able to go for hikes or off leash or anything if it weren't for this tool. So that's my success story. Now let's get into yours. The first one. I'm a friend of Toma back in Quebec. We have exchanged about this. I was first against, then I've tried it. Need to say, I have a very sensible dog. I've started with a sport dog, so high level. Uh sport dog is a uh stronger e-caller. She didn't want to leave my side anymore. She's an Alaskan husky, so she enjoys to explore and run. I then took a break from the tool, then two years later found another trainer who recommended Mini Educator low levels and it changed our lives. I can trail run with my dog. She enjoys her life. She knows she needs to come back to her recall. And she recently forgot she could not step on the counter when there was cheese, so I made sure she remembers now. I love her so much. She is my dream dog now. But without e-caller, she would not have this much liberty, and me neither. I love Susan Garrett, but I feel there's something missing that she doesn't get real life. And I think that's so important to emphasize that. I think in a perfect bubble, we can be force-free, right? But there's so many factors that we don't control. And especially in the US, if you live in a city, we want to be able to give our dogs freedom, but it's so irresponsible to give our dogs freedom if we know that we cannot recall them or we cannot control them when they are off-leash. I was just at a park last night letting all of the dogs out, and I was chased down by an off-leash husky, and the owner was yelling at her dog to come back. And obviously the dog's not trained and was not listening to her, and she had no way to recall the dog. So I just walked away. And eventually the dog was like, oh, okay, and like went back to the owner. But that is just it happens all the time. And imagine a world where people had control over their dogs off-leash, right? Because we want our dogs to have freedom, but it's not really safe unless we have control over them. So next one, and we've gotten a lot, a lot of these stories about the off-leash stuff. I think that is the the biggest advantage to this. They've given our dogs off-leash freedom, a chance to be out, a chance to be a dog out in nature, a clear way of communication. First trainer we got was force-free and shamed me when I told him I had used a prong, even though it provided the best walks up until that point. We did everything possible force-free, but not until we incorporated tools, prong and e-collar, were we able to go to public places more. And more importantly, give them freedom to run off-leash and be a dog. From then on, I vowed to always defend the use of tools and fight anyone who shames people for using them. I think that's so important. And that's why I don't like to bash like the other camp of training, is because I don't want to talk about how great my camp my my group of dog training is or my camp or whatever you want to call it. I don't I don't think I need to bash anybody else in order to do that, right? I think it comes from stories like these. All right, next one. I have a four-year-old miniature schnauzer, and like many miniature schnauzer terriers, the stubbornness and independence is strong in her. I love hiking and running trails, and she loves it as well. But I've really struggled with developing good recall. I've tried all the tips using long leashes and treats and rewarding with recall, but honestly, it still just felt like her mind was disconnected from me. I started using an e-collar around six months ago, and almost immediately it felt like we finally clicked and we're able to communicate when we're out in a stimulating environment. She rarely has a stimulation that is above a 10, and even when she does have the e-collar on anymore, sorry, and even when she doesn't have the e-collar on anymore, I feel like she has learned to be more attentive to what I'm asking her and cut through that hyper-independent terrier mentality. And we're able to run and recall on trails without any issue. Genuinely changed our lives because we both ex a wow, I cannot, I cannot speak because we both love exploring the woods, and now we're able to confidently and safely do so together. I love that. This next one. E-collar equals freedom. With the e-collar, we can go off leash basically anywhere, and I can still have communication with my dog. The e-collar lets my dog be a dog. She can do whatever she wants in a space in a way that would not be possible if she was on leash. The e-collar has completely changed our lives, in that I would never feel confident doing off-leash activities without it. So many positive stories of people being able to give their dogs more freedom. And that's really what it's about. When I get dogs in with behavioral issues, we really have to dial back on the amount of freedom that we give the dogs. And even after a board and train, when the dog goes home, I'm really structured with the owner on what that dog's life needs to look like. And while it might just be a couple weeks back home or a month, I always tell people at least like the first 30 days need to be pretty structured. It feels like forever in the moment, but you have a dog with you for, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15 years. A month of structure after training is really not that long to give your dog more freedom because they listen to you and respect you and are well balanced members of society. All right. Next one. Love, love, love the e-collar. Allows off-leash freedom with peace of mind for our previously highly reactive dog, a seven-year-old Kane Corso lab mix with multiple returns to rescues. Probably not the most stable genetics either, as backyard bread, as well as our 11-month-old pup. We know without a doubt that if anything crazy were to happen, they'd stop in their tracks and instantly come back to us at just the sound of the tone or when feeling the stim. It allows us to let them be dogs, go run in fields and hunt gophers, squirrels, birds, etc., because we know we can stop them at any point if needed. We used to always have to be switched on with our reactive guy, anticipating everything, bracing for pulling, for getting pulled if anything went by that he wanted to go towards, and now it's a breeze, hands-free walks, and if he's on leash, knowing that if something startled him, with just a little tap on the e-collar will remind him to keep it together. After seeing the relief it gave to us and him, the clarity, the freedom, we began layering it on our pup from a fairly young age. She's been reliably keyword here, off leash since about eight months old. The clarity and freedom it's given her compared to her litter mates, who we also fostered and now still sometimes go for walks with, is night and day. We'll rave about your slip leashes to anyone that listens. Friends of ours have had great success with prong collars for the reactive dogs too. We just really liked the off-leash communication the e-collar gives us and chose to pair that with the slip and found it to be a great combination and haven't had the need to move up to a prong for our reactive guy. I think tools are greatly misunderstood and improperly used a lot, unfortunately. But when used correctly, seem far more humane than letting a dog choke itself out on a flat collar and be in such a frantic state of mind constantly. Our guy is so much more relaxed now. I love that. We also use muzzles for them if we don't want them killing anything on their hunts. I thought this was interesting. Like when we know the area has been baited for certain species, as we really don't want our dogs poisoned. By getting them comfortable with the muzzle and having it generally mean good things coming, running, exploring, hunting, etc., they're far more comfortable wearing them if we go to the vet or somewhere a bite may accidentally occur. Muzzles have a bad rep, but it really just allows even more freedom and safety, especially if there's a chance a bite could happen. Way easier tossing a muzzle on if unsure of how a dog will handle an unknown situation than to have a bite. They said, love your content, by the way, and your methods. Keep doing you, but please stop sharing all the cute puppy updates. It's making me want one so bad. I'm not in the face to get a redneck Malinois, as you call him. I love that. I love that. Yeah, I think that brings up a great point of the muzzle. Muzzles are amazing. And especially with behavioral dogs, put a muzzle on your dog. Like they might be reactive, but at least they're not putting anybody in harm or other dogs. So that's another great tool that we love. I was a pretty intense, positive, only girl for most of my life. When my wife and I moved in with each other, she bought a huge reactive dog, sorry, brought a huge reactive dog with her. We worked our butts off for her and she would have good days and bad. But ultimately, she was a huge dog and became a risk to take places. She lived a less than life because we had to avoid dogs and prey animals at all cost. She passed away at an old age, very loved, but I always wish she had more of a life. It's my biggest regret. I ended up adopting a dog that turned into be extremely reactive. I cried myself to sleep for like a week and finally decided I would not have him live the same life as our other dog had. I learned about balanced training and tools. I watched courses and it literally changed my life and the life of my dog. We were able to eventually adopt a second dog who had been overlooked at the shelter for a year for behavioral stuff. We all live a life full of adventure, not avoiding anything, just actually living to the fullest. My border collie passed away after four years with us from a bladder mass. Getting to say goodbye to him without any regrets was a huge healing moment for me. I hear the people who are afraid of tools. I was those people, but I know how it is to live with a half-empty toolbox. I know the weight of that regret. I wish I could show everyone my lived experiences, but tools literally brought joy back into having dogs for me, and they opened up a whole wide world for my rescued behavioral dogs. Literally in tears. And I think it's so so important for people to hear. I get to live these super fulfilled, the super fulfilled life with my dogs. And all of my dogs get to go adventuring and run around and roll in the mud and be dogs because they're trained. That's why we're doing this. And to get a dog, especially a cattle dog, a malinois, you know, a dog that wasn't necessarily bred to just be a companion and sit in a house all day and limit their life because you don't want to train them is really sad. So learn from this person, right? And you know, I'm not here to convince anybody of anything, but I think it's really, really important to hear stories like this of not living with regret because we, you know, avoided using tools that gave our dogs more freedom. Next one. Using an e-collar allowed me to train my dog off leash with near 100% recall. She recalls off of chasing birds, squirrels, etc., with the use of the tone feature on the e-collar. We started small inside the house and associated getting a treat with the tone, eventually expanded to outdoors with a long line, and eventually uh sorry, eventually off leash with a lot of reps. It's now automatic for her to recall back to me with the tone. While training, I also use the stim to reinforce anytime she decided maybe she didn't want to respond to the tone. And now, because of that, I rarely, if ever, have to use the stim for her to respond off leash. With a dog that loves to sniff and explore more than anything, the e-caller has been extremely helpful in communicating with her. She knows she is free to explore unless I call her back. And as soon as someone doesn't have a loud voice and doesn't want to um, I I'm so sorry guys. I literally cannot read. And as somebody who doesn't have a loud voice and don't doesn't want to have doesn't want to oh my gosh, doesn't want to have to just hope she hears me when I call. That was a tough sentence to get out. The tone has been awesome. Love it. STEM feature has also helped a lot in training her heel position to communicate clearly what I want from her. Love it. Next one. I have a year and a half old American Akita that had started to develop a serious leash reactivity around five to six months. We did positive reinforcement only until eight months, but he still didn't understand what not to do. Still lunged and tried to always say hi to dogs. He pulled so much that he sprained my wrist and fingers multiple times. Imagine a 80 to 90 pound puppy. Introduced the prong caller and corrected his lunging behavior, and it was a major improvement since he gained clarity on what he was not allowed to do. Yes, snaps. We can be happy to be around dogs, but lunging, pulling, over excitement are not okay. This clarity carried over incredibly in our relationship as well, since neither of us was super frustrated trying to communicate anymore. Introducing the e-collar over the past few months has been the biggest game changer. He is fully reliable, off-leash, understands not to go up to people or dogs without mutual permission. He has clarity in healthy play with dogs and other obedience in all settings. He is solid. He literally goes everywhere with us and has truly and has a truly happy and fulfilled life. This type of breed craves freedom and independence. I am so happy to have the tools, especially the e collar, to give him that in a way that is safe and reliable. Yes. Genuinely incredible tools. I could imagine being where we are today with his progress without the help of them, paired with consistent. Training. Emphasis on that right there, paired with consistent training. All right. I've got quite the history with training, so I'll keep it as short as possible. I'll keep it simple and say that I've learned more about reward timing marker systems and canine welfare through balanced trainers more than I ever did when I was force-free and positive only. R plus only. It's not even just the tools that made the difference. All I was taught about reactivity training during my time as R Plus only was that you need to change your dog's mindset and never let them go over threshold. The philosophy of balance training alone is what made a massive difference in my dog's confidence, their motivation, their food and toy drive. Balance training taught me how to build and shape a dog, not just manage them. Thanks to the prong, e-collar, and balance training in general. Their motivation is higher. They're confident and curious. I don't have to worry about them being a hazard to the people and other animals around us. I'm doing things with them that I never thought was possible. I'm even participating in obedience and other sports with my husky. They're living the best and happiest lives, and I couldn't be happier. Oh, I love that. The e-collar adds so, so much clarity, guys. I'm telling you, if it's done correctly, it's amazing. I adopted my dog two years ago, not expecting her to be as high energy as she is. Since she's only 16 pounds, but I will never underestimate a little dog again. She loves to run and is ridiculously fast. Trying to use a long liner with her almost destroyed my shoulder. She also has very high prey drive, and there's no way I would have been able to get her off leash as quick as I did without an e-collar. I don't care what anyone claims, I will never be as interesting to her as a chipmunk, unfortunately, no matter how much cheese I throw at her. And seriously, she would be a terror to live with if she couldn't run off leash basically every day. Love her so much though. It's been amazing to watch her confidence grow, and all of that is because she gets to make her own choices and fully understands what the boundaries are. Rather than me only being able to tell her what she can do, the e-caller let me very easily communicate what she couldn't do, which means now she gets to enjoy maximum freedom and I can trust her to make a good decision around distractions. I was so nervous to use high numbers at first, and I definitely got stuck in the quote nagging stage for too long. But I'm glad I found you and now I haven't even needed to use it for a long time. Still, though, having it on her when she's off-leash gives me the confidence to know I can communicate with her if I need to in an emergency. So, all in all, her life is pretty great because of e-collar training, and I get to live with an awesome, fulfilled dog. Love that. All right, last one that I'm sharing. Hi from Australia. I have a spicy red healer mix who is dog reactive and strong herding urge and high prey drive. The e-collar allows me to comfortably and responsibly have her off lead in situations that I otherwise couldn't. We don't have a hundred percent recall when he drive kicks in. With the e-collar, we've been able to work on not chasing kangaroos, which is so funny to me. I know that that's just like such an American thing to think that's funny, but not chasing kangaroos, wombats, deer, and sheep. With the e-collar, we've also been able to go off lead in certain dog situations for play, and I can use it to snap her out when her drive in the play turns a bit too intense. Love that. With the e-collar, we're able to go hiking, mountain biking, off-lead, and do what we love most, which is exploring outdoors. Basically, to have the backup and reinforceable recall if required is amazing. She wears it every day, but honestly, I probably only use it a couple times a month. It's been life-changing for us. And I think that's the thing too, is one of the first questions that people always ask when I'm covering tools is does my dog have to wear this forever? And if you have a dog like uh Minka, my Malinois, she should have an e-collar on her all the time. Hawk, Toma's Malinois, he should have an e-collar on him all the time. But if you're not getting high-drive dogs like that, Malinois, then no, not really. Lucy doesn't have an e-collar all the time. Does she listen to me 100% of the time? And should I probably have an e-collar on? Yeah, probably. I probably should, just for those moments to hold her accountable. But for the most part, she listens really well. The e-color has added a ton of value just to my verbal commands and also my no. When she starts to run away and say no, she goes, Oh, okay, come back, you know, and it's very much a conditioned response. So I hope that these stories opened your eyes a little bit to how much these tools can provide you and your dog. And you don't have to stay in struggle and frustration just because you're scared of telling your dog no or correcting them. I feel like a big part of my life is giving people permission to do that. And the only reason is because people are really, really good at teaching behaviors, but teaching behavior and stopping unwanted behaviors are two different things. And e-callers, prong callers, even a firm no can be enough to stop problem behaviors and just communicate to your dog. I have had friendships in the past where they don't communicate with me if I have done something wrong, and you're just kind of left guessing, and you're like, okay, well, this person's being a little weird with me. I don't really know what I did wrong. And you sit in that, you sit in that confusion. Did I do something wrong? You're just kind of waiting to hear from them. That's an uncomfy place to be, and there's no need for that. I, if you know me in person, I am a pretty direct communicator. I tell you how I feel. I ask questions to clarify how you feel. And clear communication is one of the things that I really valuable in my relationships, not just in my relationships with my dog, but in everybody that I communicate with. I always tell people, you know, I've had people that are like, are you mad at me? And I'm like, no, I one, don't really get mad at people, but also I would tell you, you know, I'm not gonna let you sit in a space of like, oh my gosh, did I do something wrong? Is Megan upset with me? Blah, blah, blah, blah. No, there's no reason to not have uncomfy conversations with people. So why can't we do that with our dogs? And I will add that my goal as a dog trainer is to always communicate with the dogs in a way that is as natural to them as possible. And I've spent a lot of time watching dogs communicate amongst each other, and they are not gentle about it. They are, you know, tackling each other to the ground, and a lot of times that's just in play. That's not even in, you know, setting boundaries. I'm sure you've seen a dog correct a dog before. It is not gentle, right? So I feel that the clearest, most humane thing we can do is communicate both sides, teach our dogs what we want them to do, and also teach them what we don't want them to do. So I hope you guys are inspired. If you've been kind of on the fence about this, I always recommend finding a trainer. I'm gonna plug my online community. We're gonna do some e-collar conditioning in the online community. I do a call every Thursday at 2 p.m. We got an awesome group in there. We do live training sessions, we do QAs, and I try to post a video, a new video every week in the community so that you guys can learn. But I got an awesome online space for you if you want to get into e-color training or you know, even just using a slip lead. We got courses for that on there too. And that's really the space to work with me as close as possible in our small little group of dog trainers. Dog trainers, in quotes, because a lot of my owners, even if you're not a professional dog trainer, my goal is to turn you into a little dog trainer. Okay. Now, leading into my next little piece is virtual shadow program. Virtual shadow program has been announced. If you are on the wait list, check your emails. You guys are the first to know about the virtual shadow program. But if you are listening this, you're listening to this on the day that it came out. Next week I'm announcing it to the public and we'll open the doors to the public. So if you guys are on my wait list, sign up now. Next virtual shadow program starts May 11th. If you're like, what the heck is the virtual shadow program? It is a four-week online shadow program. If you want to become a dog trainer, we cover everything from learning theory to how to get your first client. And I have a ton of successful people who are now quit their jobs and doing dog training full-time and are killing it and are successful and have, you know, 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 months, which I know it's not about money, but I think that is an important topic of conversation as well, is making sure that you're getting paid. This is your job. You want to be able to live sustainably, and part of that is making sure that you're charging enough. But, anyways, we're not gonna get into that. Just wanted to make my little announcement. Virtual shadow program registration is open, especially for my waitlist people, open to the public next week, guys. So I would love for you to join. And I think that's all I got for you this week. Thanks so much for being here, guys. I really appreciate you, and we'll see you next week.