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It's 2026 and the dog training 
industry still isn't regulated. 

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Right now, anyone can call 
themselves a dog trainer, charge

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you for it and use methods that 
cause your dog real and lasting 

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harm. 
There's no qualification 

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required, no oversight and no 
accountability. 

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And the consequences of getting 
it wrong go further than most 

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people realise. 
Behaviour problems are one of 

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the leading reasons that dogs 
are surrendered to shelters, and

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dogs given up for behavioural 
reasons are the hardest to 

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rehome and the most likely to be
euthanized. 

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Better understanding of training
and behaviour can actually 

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change that. 
But for years the assumption has

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been that fixing this means 
waiting for governments to step 

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in and introduce legislation or 
oversight, or letting the dog 

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training world sort itself out. 
My guest this week has spent 

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more than 25 years proving that 
there's actually another way. 

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Nikki Touch is the founder of 
the Pet Professional Guild 

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Diagnostics Career Centre and 
the Dogsmith. 

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When she sees something is 
broken, she doesn't wait for 

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someone else to fix it, she 
builds the thing that's missing 

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and gets the community to hold 
itself to a higher and kind of 

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standard. 
I came out of this conversation 

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feeling genuinely hopeful 
because Nikki has the data and 

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it says that the industry is 
shifting and it's not because of

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new regulations or the industry 
fighting with itself. 

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It is because of the people 
living with dogs everyday. 

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People like you asking better 
questions and choosing 

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differently. 
I'm Nadine and this is just a 

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dog podcast. 
Let's begin. 

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I grew up in a household of two 
professional parents and a 

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brother who was seriously 
asthmatic, so we did not have 

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any pets at all because our 
house was sealed from allergens.

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So it wasn't until I was I think
21 that I got my first pet, 

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which was a cat, funnily enough.
Oh OK, so when did your journey 

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with dogs begin? 
In 2000, I am, I had cats. 

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Well, I grew up with cats 
probably until I was 3 and then 

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my parents realised my brother 
was seriously asthmatic and that

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was what was triggering it. 
So we then didn't have any pets 

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at all. 
And when I left home, the first 

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thing I did when I left home was
got myself 2 cats and they 

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travelled everywhere and I moved
to London and they lived in 

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London with me. 
And then when I was 24, I think 

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I was transferred from a job 
that I had in London and went to

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work at the Sandy Lane Hotel and
Barbados, which was my first 

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international job. 
And then years after that was 

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still travelling. 
So could never have animals. 

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It wasn't fair to have animals. 
And then I spent four years in 

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Egypt. 
And in my second year in Egypt, 

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I was walking down the High 
Street in Cairo and somebody was

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walking along the High Street 
with this Persian cat just 

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sitting on top of their 
shoulder. 

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And I was like, Oh my goodness, 
because the Cairo is a crazy 

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city. 
I mean, that was just just 

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looking at that was just 
unbelievable. 

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And I stopped them and they were
actually walking, bring his cat 

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to a pet store. 
They wanted to sell it. 

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And I was like, it's mine. 
So I escorted them to the pet 

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store and I bought this Persian.
And this Persian then travelled 

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all over Africa with me in first
class on a plane and went to 

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Nigeria, then went to South 
Africa and then ended up with me

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and in the States. 
And then I actually lost her 23 

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years later. 
So had her for many, many years.

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She travelled all over the world
with me. 

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How how difficult was that in 
our cats allowed on right? 

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Yeah, yeah. 
She would sit and my company 

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always flew me first class or 
business class and she would sit

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in a little carrier on the seat 
next to me. 

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How lovely. 
Wonderful. 

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Yeah. 
So you worked, you started your 

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career, your working life in 
hospitality. 

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Is that correct? 
No. 

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Oh, right. 
I have had. 

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I have reinvented myself 
multiple times. 

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I left school at 16. 
Initially, both my parents were 

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university professors and so you
can imagine growing, growing up 

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in our household, everything was
about education, education, 

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education. 
And I just pushed back against 

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it significantly. 
Didn't enjoy school other than 

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the athletic side of school, 
didn't enjoy studying. 

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My brother went on to her PhD in
nuclear physics, so he went the 

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same route as my parents. 
And it wasn't until I was about 

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22 that I actually went back to 
school and did my O levels and A

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levels and then went back to 
university part time and then in

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2000, went back and did my 
master's degree through Oxford. 

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So many, many years before that,
I just flitted around doing all 

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kinds of things, just enjoying 
life. 

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I left at home when I was 16 
1/2, got on a train and moved 

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down to London and that was the 
end of that. 

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So I was always very independent
and I always wanted to travel. 

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Travel was always a surreal 
priority for me and hotels open 

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that door for me because I could
go all over the world and most 

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of my assignments were two year 
assignments, which is why I got 

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so much exposure to so many 
different countries because 

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literally you would fly in, do a
job and then move on elsewhere. 

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What? 
What was? 

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What were those assignments? 
What were you doing? 

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And I was actually a regional 
director of training and 

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development for management. 
So which is why transitioning 

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into the dog industry was so 
easy for me because it wasn't 

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until I met my husband in 
Nigeria, he was working with the

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US Department in the state. 
He then moved to South Africa. 

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I followed him a year later and 
we got married a year after 

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that. 
And then he retired at 40. 

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And when he retired, he had to 
come back to the US as part of 

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his exit that the US government 
insists that you come back and 

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do an exit and exit from your 
career. 

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So I came back with him and was 
offered a position in Hawaii, 

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which is, was the very first job
I had in the US. 

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And yeah, I mean, it just, it 
sort of all just came from that 

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and, and it wasn't. 
And then I got my first dog in 

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2000. 
I was like, whoa, OK, I'm here. 

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I'm not going anywhere. 
We're not travelling anymore. 

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So I'm going to get myself a dog
and got a puppy with no 

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understanding or expectations. 
And literally it was the only 

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thing my husband and I have ever
almost divorced over because he 

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did not want animals. 
And I did. 

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And I just went, well, I'm 
getting one. 

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And he said, well, I don't want 
1. 

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And I said, well, I do. 
So I just went out and got a 

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puppy, which was in hindsight 
was actually quite selfish 

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because I work 16 hour days and 
he was at home. 

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So after about a month, this dog
was just crazy, crazy, crazy, 

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crazy because we had no 
understanding of expectations or

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anything, did everything wrong. 
And I phoned a dog trainer and 

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said, you need to come here 
immediately. 

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I've got this aggressive puppy 
on my hands. 

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I don't know what I'm going to 
do. 

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And even though it was giving us
all kinds of problems, I've 

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always been a big believer that 
once you accept your 

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responsibility, you deal with 
it. 

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You don't just, you know, 
abdicate that responsibility to 

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somebody else. 
So there was never a question of

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rehoming or anything. 
It was always going to be, we're

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going to figure this out when 
the puppy wasn't unruly, the 

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puppy was just being a normal 
puppy, right? 

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So I phoned a dog trainer and 
she, she came up and I literally

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said, you have to come tonight. 
It doesn't matter what it costs,

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just get here. 
And she turned up and she just 

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started laughing. 
She goes, you've got a lovely 

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eight week old puppy, what's the
problem? 

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And I said, well, it's biting me
and it's peeing everywhere and 

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it's chewing on things. 
And, and funnily enough, this 

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individual dog trainer is now a 
member of the pet Professional 

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Guild and when I met was a hotel
executive and she was a dog 

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trainer in Hawaii. 
And it's funny because what is 

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that like 25 years later, we 
sort of came back in contact 

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again when we started PPG. 
So yeah, that was when I 

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realised that there were so many
similarities between training 

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and developing people and 
working with animals. 

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Because the learning theory, the
psychology, the is all the same.

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The underlying learning theory 
is exactly the same. 

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You mentioned a couple of things
that I think many dog guardians 

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or first time dog owners kind of
fall into. 

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First, the impulsiveness, the 
secondly, potentially, not 

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necessarily considering the time
and dedication that it takes. 

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And then also the expectation of
kind of quick turnarounds, quick

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fixes. 
Yeah, I find that really 

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interesting because I think all 
of us kind of have these 

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ingrained ideas. 
And I'm also curious about kind 

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of where those things came from.
What was your knowledge of dogs 

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before you got the puppy? 
And how did that change after 

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you started taking care of it? 
I have 00 knowledge and I 

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remember coming home from work 
and I'd been I'd said to my 

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husband I wanted a puppy and he 
was like oh God. 

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And I found a puppy in the 
newspaper $50 she cost me. 

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She actually cost me about 
150,000 after we'd finished with

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new houses and farms and 
training centres because she was

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the catalyst for everything 
else. 

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And I literally got in my car 
and drove to Waimea and picked 

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this dog up from the someone's 
backyard, paid $50, pick this 

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dog up, put her on my lap and 
drove home. 

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No food, no crate, nothing. 
I mean jokes aside, people do 

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this on a daily basis with 
animals and I remember my 

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husband looking at me and said I
can't believe you've done this 

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because I'm quite a strategic 
control type person. 

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I don't need to do things 
impulsively like that without 

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putting a lot of thought behind 
what I'm doing. 

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And I mean, you know, preparing 
the battlefield, so to speak. 

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And he said to me and said, I 
can't believe you've done this. 

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You've brought a sentient being 
into our house that could 

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potentially live 20 years. 
And you've spent less time 

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thinking about this than you 
have planning a family vacation.

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And years later, that actually 
became the the title of a blog 

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that I did because I thought, 
you know what? 

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I'm not unusual. 
This is how a lot of people get 

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puppies. 
They go to backyard breeders, 

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they pay for dogs. 
They've no idea what they're 

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buying. 
They've no expectation. 

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They don't know what equipment. 
They just think. 

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And I'd grown up in the UK where
everybody I knew had dogs. 

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And as a child, you don't think 
about everything that goes. 

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You just see the finished 
product and think, what a lovely

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family pet. 
Yeah. 

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And in the UK growing up, you 
know, animals were everywhere. 

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I mean, we would be sitting in 
our home in Poinson, and the 

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neighbour dog would walk past 
the window, and my dad would go 

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there, scruffy, and my mom would
go. 

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He's off to meet his mom, who 
was a local school teacher. 

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The dog would, you know, drop 
off down to the school and walk 

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back with mom because we were 
not a litigious society. 

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And dogs were not, did not. 
We didn't have the sort of 

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problems that people have 
imposed on dogs that we have 

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now. 
And it wasn't until I moved to 

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Hawaii that I realised that not 
everybody I know treated animals

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like that. 
And I was very surprised when I 

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got to the US because the 
culture was quite different 

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about dogs. 
I mean, there was a, an 

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expectation when I spoke to 
people at work about my puppy 

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that I would just pop a shot 
collar on her or just, you know,

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punish her. 
And I was like, we don't do that

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in England. 
We don't punish our pets because

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we didn't, I mean, we, you know,
you wouldn't think about 

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physically or emotionally 
harming an animal. 

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And I remember saying to my 
husband, if we just have to live

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with this, we're gonna have to 
live with it. 

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This is our responsibility. 
Now. 

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We've got this puppy. 
We're not throwing her away or 

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giving her to rescue. 
We're just gonna have to deal 

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with it. 
And at the time, my husband, 

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being an engineer, went on to 
Amazon and bought all three 

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books on on raising a puppy. 
There were three books on 

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raising a puppy. 
There was the Monks of New 

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Skeet, which is still around to 
this day that still discusses 

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the dominance myth and, you 
know, the ridiculousness of 

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that. 
And then there was Bran 

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Killamore, who was very much a 
punitive trainer. 

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And then there was, I remember 
her name, the English Lady 

228
00:10:45,560 --> 00:10:47,320
Walkies. 
What was her name? 

229
00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:50,640
Barbara Woodhouse. 
Barbara Woodhouse Yeah. 

230
00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:53,760
And they were the only three 
books back in 2000 that you 

231
00:10:53,760 --> 00:10:56,760
could buy on puppy training. 
And they were all punishment 

232
00:10:57,040 --> 00:10:59,440
based dot books. 
And I read them and just went, 

233
00:10:59,440 --> 00:11:01,560
no, I'm not doing this. 
And I didn't know enough. 

234
00:11:01,560 --> 00:11:03,840
I didn't know anything about the
ethology of animals or the 

235
00:11:03,840 --> 00:11:06,600
neuroscience, all about biology 
of learning. 

236
00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:10,240
I knew the science of learning 
theory and operant conditioning 

237
00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:13,640
and Pavlovian conditioning. 
But knowing that academically 

238
00:11:13,640 --> 00:11:16,840
and then and then implementing 
that in a punitive manner just 

239
00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:18,680
didn't sit well with me. 
I was like, no, I'm not. 

240
00:11:18,840 --> 00:11:21,440
We're not doing this. 
This does not sound right. 

241
00:11:21,640 --> 00:11:25,040
So when we finally met Tammy, 
who was the dog trainer that I'd

242
00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:28,400
called over there, this puppy 
was a kelpie, which was the 

243
00:11:28,400 --> 00:11:31,440
other ridiculous thing about it 
because I literally went out and

244
00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:34,200
bought the worst dog. 
I mean, this is a dog that is 

245
00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:36,840
bred to work independently, 
travel hundreds of miles in 

246
00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:39,000
Australia. 
This is like the the border 

247
00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,720
collie on cocaine. 
I mean, this is not a dog that 

248
00:11:41,720 --> 00:11:44,240
you keep in your house. 
And the only reason we survived 

249
00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:46,640
with this dog is that both my 
husband and I are ultra runners.

250
00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:49,680
So this dog got a lot of 
exercise because we were going 

251
00:11:49,680 --> 00:11:52,000
out for for an hour, 2 hours 
every day on the trails with her

252
00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:54,360
because, and if we hadn't have 
had that, I don't know what 

253
00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:57,320
would have happened because she 
was at least getting an in an 

254
00:11:57,320 --> 00:12:00,640
outlet for the physical 
requirements in the enrichment, 

255
00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:02,840
even though there was nothing 
else sort of in place. 

256
00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:06,000
So now did I purchase a dog from
a backyard breeder? 

257
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:09,760
But I bought a dog that was 
designed to, you know, travel 

258
00:12:09,760 --> 00:12:12,240
many, many miles each day 
herding livestock. 

259
00:12:12,360 --> 00:12:14,400
And then I sort of looked at 
this dog and thought, well, why,

260
00:12:14,400 --> 00:12:16,720
Why are you, Why are you not 
assimilating into my home after 

261
00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:19,840
two days? 
You know what's going on? 

262
00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:22,120
What are you doing? 
So yeah, we, we made every, 

263
00:12:22,160 --> 00:12:25,400
every, every mistake in the book
we made with that puppy, which 

264
00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:28,200
is bizarre because that puppy 
started everything. 

265
00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:31,320
It was probably about a year 
later that I started doing 

266
00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:33,600
agility with her and just loved 
it. 

267
00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:36,880
And the woman that I was doing 
agility with had a dog club. 

268
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:40,600
So I started teaching with her. 
And I just became obsessed with 

269
00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:43,360
animal behaviour, absolutely 
obsessed with it. 

270
00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:45,840
And then my husband had been out
sailing one day. 

271
00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:47,840
He was actually set. 
He was bringing a boat from 

272
00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:50,160
Honolulu over to the Big Island 
where we live with with some 

273
00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:52,480
friends of his. 
So he was gone all day and half 

274
00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:53,920
the night. 
And he got home that night about

275
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,400
11:00. 
And I went, don't hate me, but I

276
00:12:56,400 --> 00:12:58,840
bought a house in Hawaii, in 
Florida. 

277
00:12:58,840 --> 00:13:01,080
I said, we're moving to Florida.
And he's like, what? 

278
00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:03,600
And I said, yeah, because for 
about a year I've been thinking 

279
00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:06,640
about the fact that ever since 
I've got this dog and we started

280
00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:09,960
working with dogs and sort of a 
training her, that just became, 

281
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:12,560
I suddenly realised that that 
was where I was enjoying myself.

282
00:13:12,560 --> 00:13:14,160
That was where I felt most 
fulfilled. 

283
00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:17,640
That was where I, that was where
I wanted to spend all my time. 

284
00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:19,840
And I just finished my master's 
degree, actually. 

285
00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:21,680
And my husband was like, hang on
a minute, what's going on? 

286
00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:23,760
You just finished a masters 
degree and now you want to just 

287
00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:25,920
get out of the industry? 
And I said, yeah, I'm, I'm done.

288
00:13:25,960 --> 00:13:27,840
I want to, I want, I said what I
want to do. 

289
00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:30,920
I want to work with animals. 
So I was online that day and 

290
00:13:30,920 --> 00:13:33,440
found this house in her in 
Florida and the Florida 

291
00:13:33,440 --> 00:13:35,920
Panhandle. 
It was on an auction and I 

292
00:13:35,920 --> 00:13:38,400
thought, oh, I'm buying that was
not expensive and back because 

293
00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:41,080
Hawaii was very expensive. 
So in comparison it was it was 

294
00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:42,840
nothing. 
So we bought the house and about

295
00:13:42,840 --> 00:13:46,960
three months later we moved, 
moved the dog and everybody over

296
00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:48,800
to Flora. 
For a person who's quite 

297
00:13:48,800 --> 00:13:51,400
controlled and calculated 
strategic. 

298
00:13:51,480 --> 00:13:55,280
Yeah, and I said that dog Dobie,
that was how it all started. 

299
00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:57,920
Yeah, that was how it all 
started. 

300
00:13:57,920 --> 00:14:00,040
So I have my first business and 
off off we went. 

301
00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:04,240
So dobie dobie, like so you 
started doing agility with your 

302
00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:07,680
Kelpie and then you discovered 
that you really, really enjoy 

303
00:14:07,680 --> 00:14:10,040
it. 
At what point was there? 

304
00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:12,760
Was there a point in that 
journey where you started 

305
00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:15,200
looking at the dog as more than 
a pet? 

306
00:14:15,240 --> 00:14:18,440
I think I always had, because 
she, she was always my running 

307
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:20,600
partner. 
So she was always more than just

308
00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:23,360
a pet. 
And she went everywhere with us.

309
00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:25,640
So I mean, I mean, you say just 
a pet. 

310
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:28,600
A pet for me has a very special 
role. 

311
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:31,280
And my husband and I with, with 
our running club this morning 

312
00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:33,760
and somebody looked at me and 
said, you have dogs, don't you? 

313
00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:36,320
And I said, yeah, I have 4 kids.
And they just sort of looked at 

314
00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:39,600
me and, and I said, what you 
just said no, I said skin kids. 

315
00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:42,000
And they were like, yeah, but 
they sort of looked at me as if 

316
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:44,480
to say, well, and I said, no, 
they're my kids. 

317
00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:45,800
I mean, these are my kids, 
right? 

318
00:14:45,800 --> 00:14:48,880
I mean, I spend all day with 
them and I, we train and we run 

319
00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:51,240
together and we do agility and 
we do scent work. 

320
00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:53,200
I mean, they're a really 
important part of my life. 

321
00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:56,320
And I don't have children. 
And I think I always recognised 

322
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:59,000
emotionally many, many years ago
that they were always an outlet 

323
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:01,760
for that sort of nurturing, 
caring side of our personality. 

324
00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:04,080
So so yeah, you know, we can say
they're just pets. 

325
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,960
But for me, pets are still 
family members. 

326
00:15:06,960 --> 00:15:09,360
I mean, they're sentient beings.
And, and it's one of those other

327
00:15:09,360 --> 00:15:12,960
concepts that we struggle with 
in the US is the terminology, 

328
00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:14,840
you know, are we guardians? 
Are we owners? 

329
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:18,440
Are we parents? 
Because legally they are objects

330
00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:22,080
and have no more legal rights 
than this cup of coffee, which 

331
00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:25,000
is actually not a bad thing. 
And a lot of people sort of want

332
00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:27,720
to argue for giving pets rights.
And I think it's, I think we've 

333
00:15:27,720 --> 00:15:30,120
got to be careful what we ask 
for because the minute we do 

334
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:33,600
that, then the liability issues 
become more complicated and the 

335
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:36,520
ownership issues become more 
complicated. 

336
00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:39,600
My business partner, Diagnostics
lives in Spain, Louise, and 

337
00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:42,360
Spain has just recognised them 
as being family members. 

338
00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:45,120
So they're already having all 
kinds of complexities in divorce

339
00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:46,960
cases. 
And, you know, because they're 

340
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:51,200
no longer a legal object, they 
are considered, you know, to 

341
00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:53,400
have their own sort of rights 
and feelings, which of course 

342
00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:55,520
they do. 
But how does that materialise or

343
00:15:55,520 --> 00:15:58,440
how does that manifest legally? 
It's it's quite a complicated 

344
00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:00,600
question. 
It is, yeah. 

345
00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:03,320
But it could potentially change 
the approach, right. 

346
00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:07,480
So also in Spain, for example, 
Galgo, so my foster dog is from 

347
00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:09,720
Spain. 
She's considered a tool. 

348
00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:12,240
She's part of the agricultural 
department. 

349
00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:15,400
You know, there's no that 
there's no rights for her at 

350
00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:17,360
all. 
So yeah, that kind of informs 

351
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:21,000
how how how they are treated 
overall. 

352
00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:25,520
What was it that made you decide
that you wanted to dedicate your

353
00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:28,520
all your time, all your life to 
working with dogs? 

354
00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:31,960
Elena, who I was working with, 
who had a, had a dog club, she 

355
00:16:31,960 --> 00:16:33,640
had a dog club, but it was very 
casual. 

356
00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:37,760
And then my job, my role was the
development of training 

357
00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:39,880
programmes and leadership 
development. 

358
00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:42,720
So I, I came from a sort of an 
institutionalised educational 

359
00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:45,400
background. 
So when I met with her, I said, 

360
00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:47,360
OK, let, why don't we formalise 
this a bit more. 

361
00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:49,400
Let's, let's get a bit more 
strategic and what we're doing 

362
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:50,520
here. 
So we started rolling out 

363
00:16:50,520 --> 00:16:52,960
workshops and we did pro 
programmes and a lot of them 

364
00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:56,320
were at the weekend because 
obviously I had a full time job.

365
00:16:56,640 --> 00:16:59,200
And I remember one weekend we 
did an introduction to job 

366
00:16:59,200 --> 00:17:01,800
agility and we had about 15 
people there. 

367
00:17:02,280 --> 00:17:05,800
And I remember we were doing 
sort of group exercises and I 

368
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:07,960
remember standing there talking 
to a group of people. 

369
00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:10,520
We sort of introduced this 
academic concept and then we 

370
00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:13,240
were showing them one at a time 
and they were demonstrating. 

371
00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:15,280
And I remember standing there 
thinking, God, this is so much 

372
00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:19,200
more fun than being in a stuffy 
Ritz Carlton, you know, ballroom

373
00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:22,040
teaching 300 people about 
leadership traits. 

374
00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:23,560
And I just, I had this pinnacle 
moment. 

375
00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:27,000
I just thought, if I'm going to 
work in sort of education, how 

376
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:30,000
much more fun is this being out 
on a dirty, muddy, wet field 

377
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,080
than being in a five star hotel 
where. 

378
00:17:32,360 --> 00:17:35,760
And I always felt, I always felt
with my job that I was masking 

379
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:37,720
because I had, I was very 
athletic. 

380
00:17:37,720 --> 00:17:40,520
I was a real tomboy. 
And yet in the work environment,

381
00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:43,080
I used to put 6 inch heels on a 
makeup and lipstick and put 

382
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:45,200
these designer suits on a 
trollopoff to work. 

383
00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:47,760
And as soon as I got home, they 
got ripped off and jeans and 

384
00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:51,320
T-shirt suits went back on. 
And I remember once in Hawaii, 

385
00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:55,600
the management played a softball
game with the staff and I turned

386
00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:59,200
up in my sort of sports gear. 
And then so many people came up 

387
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:02,240
to me and went, Oh my God, 
because they'd only ever seen me

388
00:18:02,240 --> 00:18:05,880
in this sort of very formal hair
and a bun type environment. 

389
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:07,840
And I don't. 
And I was like, this is the real

390
00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:09,160
me. 
This is who I am. 

391
00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:11,520
You know, I always felt like 
going to work was putting a 

392
00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:13,960
costume on. 
So when I was when I was working

393
00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:16,760
with dogs and was out training, 
I actually felt I was wearing 

394
00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:19,040
the clothes that I would have 
been wearing if I was if I was 

395
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:21,440
just on my own time. 
So I actually felt like this was

396
00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:26,720
real, real me rather than this 
very formal corporate character 

397
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:29,240
that had to evolve every single 
day. 

398
00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:31,880
So I think that was when I, I 
sort of really thought about it.

399
00:18:31,880 --> 00:18:35,560
And my husband had just retired 
from a really good career with 

400
00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:38,960
this US State Department. 
And I remember and hit. 

401
00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:42,200
So our move to Hawaii was the 
1st place we'd lived where he 

402
00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:44,560
was not working. 
And I used to go off to work 

403
00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:47,320
every day thinking, God, this is
really unfair because, you know,

404
00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:49,400
I work long hours. 
It was high pressured 

405
00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:52,120
environment. 
And I suddenly realised that if 

406
00:18:52,120 --> 00:18:55,360
I'd continued on in that career,
it was going to be very, very 

407
00:18:55,440 --> 00:18:58,440
difficult for us to do vacations
and holidays because my time was

408
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:01,880
so absorbed in the hotel that I 
think I realised that if I work 

409
00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:05,120
for myself, that I was going to 
have a lot more flexibility of 

410
00:19:05,120 --> 00:19:07,840
my schedule, which was really 
beneficial. 

411
00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:10,720
Because my husband was only 40. 
It wasn't like he was a 75 year 

412
00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:12,280
old that didn't really want to 
do anything. 

413
00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:15,840
We were still both very much in 
sort of the peak of our lives. 

414
00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:19,640
It was a practical consideration
in terms of working hours 

415
00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:22,800
pressure, but it was also this 
is what I want to do from just 

416
00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:24,720
an absolute enjoyment 
perspective. 

417
00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:28,000
Just really enjoyed it. 
And so when you started working 

418
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,160
with dogs within this kind of 
training industry, what were 

419
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:34,320
some some of your observations 
in terms of how people 

420
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:36,640
approached? 
It, I think when I first 

421
00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:39,920
started, I mean, obviously I was
English and I came from the Uki 

422
00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:43,040
not had my own pets before, 
other than a couple of cats. 

423
00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,040
And in Hawaii, the dog training 
that I was exposed to was quite 

424
00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:49,800
progressive because Tammy, who 
was the dog trainer that helped 

425
00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:53,640
me, had come from the marine 
park in Honolulu where all of it

426
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:56,680
was operant conditioning, 
positive reinforcement, because 

427
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:59,960
you can't get into a pool and 
physically coerce a dolphin or a

428
00:19:59,960 --> 00:20:03,320
whale to do something. 
And it wasn't until I moved to 

429
00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:06,640
Florida that I was exposed to 
this very hard. 

430
00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:11,200
Cruel side of our industry where
dogs were chained up outside and

431
00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:14,280
we used as functional tools for 
hunting and they weren't cared 

432
00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:16,840
for and they that, you know, 
there was no enrichment, there 

433
00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:19,400
was no empathy. 
So it wasn't until I got to 

434
00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:22,120
Florida that I realised, Oh my 
goodness, there is a whole other

435
00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:24,760
side of this industry that I 
haven't been exposed to that I 

436
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:27,640
really didn't like. 
And I had also heard we were 

437
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:30,440
living in quite a rural area of 
Northwest Florida. 

438
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:34,440
So a lot of backyard dogs, a lot
of hunting dogs and I and I and 

439
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:36,440
I think that's when I sort of 
recognised that there was this 

440
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:40,040
massive culture clash for want 
of a better expression to steal 

441
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:41,920
from Jean Donaldson's book over 
that. 

442
00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:44,920
That's very different 
approaches, very, very different

443
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:47,720
approaches to animals. 
There was the the sort of my 

444
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,520
type of approach that was this 
is a family member and we care 

445
00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:53,280
about it and we recognise that 
these are captive animals. 

446
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:55,840
Therefore, we have a 
responsibility to make sure that

447
00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:59,080
all their needs and their 
welfare needs are met versus the

448
00:20:59,080 --> 00:21:02,800
functionality of it's just a dog
in the backyard and by God, it 

449
00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:05,320
will do what I want it to do. 
And that was when I realised 

450
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:08,120
that those two worlds didn't 
just just clash on a pet 

451
00:21:08,120 --> 00:21:11,560
ownership level, but also clash 
significantly from a 

452
00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:14,360
professional perspective. 
That professionals tended to sit

453
00:21:14,360 --> 00:21:16,520
on one side of that line or the 
other. 

454
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:20,320
And it wasn't until several 
years later that I became more 

455
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:23,000
engrossed in the industry in the
US where I realised how harsh it

456
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,320
was that I just thought we, we 
have to try and do something 

457
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:27,600
about this. 
I'm not OK just accepting that 

458
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:32,760
I'm part of an industry where a 
significant number of my peers 

459
00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:35,360
are harming dogs on a daily 
basis, you know, under the name 

460
00:21:35,360 --> 00:21:37,560
of training. 
What do you think is influencing

461
00:21:37,560 --> 00:21:40,960
those choices based on your 
conversations and experiences 

462
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:42,760
that? 
Is such a loaded question and 

463
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:44,080
it's such a complicated 
question. 

464
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:47,520
And the Pet Professional Guild, 
last year we actually invested 

465
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:51,240
$35,000 into a research project 
on this very topic. 

466
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:53,880
And Jamie Delarue who did the 
research for us, we're just 

467
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:56,480
waiting now for the paper to be 
published in a journal. 

468
00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:59,160
I think some of the results 
actually quite surprised us 

469
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:01,720
because all the professionals 
that were interviewed were all 

470
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:04,920
chosen from directories where we
were fairly sure that they were 

471
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,040
balanced trainers. 
They weren't using positive 

472
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:09,080
reinforcement. 
I understand my side of the 

473
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:10,320
industry. 
I deal with people. 

474
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:12,280
I'm, you know, I manage 
organisations that have 

475
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:14,920
thousands of members in them 
that are using positive 

476
00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:17,680
reinforcement based protocols. 
And I think one of the most 

477
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:20,840
surprising things to me is that 
there's always been a hypothesis

478
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:23,560
that if you use harmful training
methods that you're an ass and 

479
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:25,560
that you don't care about dogs 
and you don't care about them, 

480
00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:28,040
the sentient beings. 
And that's actually not true. 

481
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:33,080
Many of them did, did quite 
categorically vocalised through 

482
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:34,640
many different types of 
questioning. 

483
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:37,520
So they weren't, you know, 
manipulated that they really do 

484
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:39,800
care about dogs and they care 
about them and they have a lot 

485
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:42,520
of empathy for them. 
So I don't know. 

486
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:45,840
I mean, I, I sometimes wonder if
it's a white privilege in our 

487
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:50,560
access to the education, to the 
culture of you know, I mean, I, 

488
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:52,640
you know, I talk about the 
culture I came from with 

489
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:54,200
animals. 
When everybody comes from that 

490
00:22:54,200 --> 00:22:58,400
culture where animals are just 
brought into a house as a pet 

491
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:00,360
and I'm just going to die. 
Digress a minute to give you a 

492
00:23:00,360 --> 00:23:03,280
good example. 
When I lived in Hawaii, we had 

493
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:06,600
neighbours that had a Catahoula 
and he was an outdoor dog. 

494
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:08,760
And when he wasn't with his 
owner, he was chained. 

495
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,880
And, and when we, when we first 
moved into the house, I was 

496
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:14,360
quite judge mental about, about 
our neighbours and thought, 

497
00:23:14,360 --> 00:23:16,960
well, probably not very nice 
people don't really want to get 

498
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,360
to know them that poor dogs 
outside chained. 

499
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:22,440
And then as I sort of got to 
know them and I observed them, 

500
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:25,440
the dog went out with Hannah 
every day to work. 

501
00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:29,760
He worked as a utility man for 
the state, and the dog got lots 

502
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,400
of exercise. 
And he was with Hannah for, you 

503
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:36,800
know, 16 hours a day. 
And it wasn't until the dog died

504
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:38,680
that I realised. 
I mean, I came home from work 

505
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,640
one day to find my neighbour, 
who was this massive, macho 

506
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:46,440
Hawaiian man lying on his 
driveway in floods of tears 

507
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:48,920
because he's just had to 
euthanize his dog. 

508
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:51,880
And I remember sort of taking a 
second look and thinking, well, 

509
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:53,880
you can't be that emotionally 
connected. 

510
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:55,480
The dog didn't even live in your
house. 

511
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:58,080
You know, I always the judgement
was that this was a, you know, a

512
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:00,200
tool. 
It was a dog that he haunted 

513
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:02,200
with. 
It was a dog that, yes, he 

514
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:06,200
exercised it well, but he didn't
train it necessarily. 

515
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:08,080
It wasn't in the home. 
It wasn't, you know, enjoying 

516
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:11,360
family time. 
But when the dog died, he was as

517
00:24:11,360 --> 00:24:15,240
devastated as I would have been 
if my dog had died. 

518
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:18,320
So that was when I realised that
there are different cultures and

519
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:21,360
different expectations and 
different conditioning about 

520
00:24:21,360 --> 00:24:23,360
what role animals play in our 
life. 

521
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,040
And it doesn't mean that 
somebody else values that dog 

522
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:28,400
any less than I do. 
It just means that they have a 

523
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,520
different cultural expectation 
as to the role that dog plays. 

524
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:33,960
I mean, he used to laugh at me 
because on a Sunday, I would 

525
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,880
throw my dog, not literally, but
we'd both jump in my little 

526
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,280
rave, and off we'd go to 
training. 

527
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:41,600
And he'd go, oh, you're going to
go in training? 

528
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,080
And I'd be like, yeah. 
And I could. 

529
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:44,880
And he was, like, mocking me. 
I could. 

530
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:47,400
I could sense it in his voice. 
And as I pulled out of my 

531
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,160
driveway with my dog sitting in 
the front seat with a seat belt 

532
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:53,720
on, I'm sure he thought, oh, 
bloody howly, you know, white 

533
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:55,520
English woman. 
How ridiculous. 

534
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:57,760
And so there was judgement on 
both sides. 

535
00:24:57,760 --> 00:24:59,480
But it didn't. 
It didn't, didn't impact the 

536
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,120
fact or change the fact that we 
both loved our dogs and both had

537
00:25:02,120 --> 00:25:05,120
very strong relationships with 
our dogs and spent a lot of time

538
00:25:05,120 --> 00:25:06,400
with our dogs. 
It's just that it was a 

539
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,400
different relationship. 
Oh, I mean, and, and you also 

540
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:12,680
look at dog sports people. 
I mean, I know people who do dog

541
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,000
sports. 
I have 8 or 9 dogs and they live

542
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,400
in their house and they're 
rotated through crates because 

543
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:19,560
they can't have 8 border collies
running around the house. 

544
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:21,360
And they say they're family 
pets. 

545
00:25:21,360 --> 00:25:23,840
But I look at that and think, 
well, that's not how, that's not

546
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:26,720
how my dogs live. 
I mean, my dogs live free in my 

547
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,920
house and they do whatever they 
want because they don't damage 

548
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:32,000
things that they're trusted in 
the house. 

549
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,440
You know, there's been a lot of 
investment in, in training to 

550
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,680
make sure that they can enjoy 
the, the home in the same way 

551
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:39,440
that we do. 
So we, we sort of look at 

552
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,760
certain cultures and certain 
types of dog and we think, well,

553
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:46,400
that's not right. 
But I know family pets that live

554
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:50,160
awful, miserable lives that 
never leave their postage 

555
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:53,040
stamped backyard and don't have 
any training or any enrichment 

556
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,800
or any attention. 
So I think sometimes we sort of 

557
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:59,400
look at, you know, working dogs 
or sports dog and think, well, 

558
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:01,480
they're not, you know, it's not 
the same as my dog, but there's 

559
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,040
a lot of pet dogs that are not 
living good lives as well. 

560
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,320
You know, it's, it's, it's a 
tough question And why, why do 

561
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:10,880
people do that? 
I don't know. 

562
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:14,240
I've always believed from a 
professional perspective that 

563
00:26:14,360 --> 00:26:17,920
there's sort of a myopia there, 
that professionals that are 

564
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:22,640
harsh with dogs possibly don't 
understand canine communication 

565
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:24,760
and social behaviour to the 
level they should. 

566
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:29,720
Because I I find it really 
difficult to comprehend why 

567
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:32,680
somebody would continue with an 
intervention or continue 

568
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,760
training a dog if the dog is, 
even in the mildest or most 

569
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,760
moderate ways, communicating 
that they're not OK with what's 

570
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,600
being done. 
So surely a professional that 

571
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,000
does care about an animal would 
stop and go, this isn't good. 

572
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:46,960
Maybe I need some more 
education. 

573
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:49,640
Doesn't always happen. 
But so I don't know. 

574
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:51,520
It's it's it's a really 
difficult question. 

575
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:53,440
If I had the answer for that 
question, then I would solve 

576
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:55,800
this industry in a few days. 
But yeah. 

577
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,560
Yeah, well, it's an exploration 
more than anything because it's 

578
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,960
such a, it can be such a 
polarising topic, but at the end

579
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:04,520
of the day, there's loads of 
factors that influence and 

580
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:06,560
contribute to people taking 
actions. 

581
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,880
You know, for some it's control,
and control means love, control 

582
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,120
means safety. 
There's also misogyny in there. 

583
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,160
There's so many historical 
things that shapes the 

584
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,160
perception of how end up 
treating animals, But that's not

585
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:22,080
to say that we don't love them. 
Like I spoke with a balance 

586
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,200
trainer earlier on in the 
podcast and he was, you know, 

587
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:29,000
he, he loves his dog and he 
believes it's his duty to be a 

588
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,360
partner to his dog. 
And as part of that partnership 

589
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,960
is to tell the dog when it's 
crossing a boundary and the way 

590
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:38,560
that he does that. 
Well, he mentioned a couple of 

591
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:42,760
ways, but for me, I immediately 
felt something and I said, oh, 

592
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,840
I'm feeling things over here 
like that doesn't sit well with 

593
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:47,800
me. 
But to him, he he didn't 

594
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,960
hesitate because in his mind, it
was framed as his duty. 

595
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:52,960
Yeah. 
And there's, there's this strong

596
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:58,200
argument that in one of the this
is a topic that we constantly 

597
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,560
talk about in our industry is 
some of the myths that are 

598
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,440
circulate and the balance dog 
trainers that say, well, dogs 

599
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:05,280
are being euthanized all the 
time because positive 

600
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:07,040
reinforcement doesn't work. 
Well, first of all, let's 

601
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:09,320
reframe that because positive 
reinforcement is a scientific 

602
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,640
concept, it works. 
What might not work is the way 

603
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,960
it's being applied or the way 
it's being practised or the 

604
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:16,600
skill level of the person that's
doing it. 

605
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:20,040
But if positive reinforcement is
executed properly using 

606
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,640
differential reinforcement or 
counter conditioning, you, you, 

607
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:26,440
you don't need to physically or 
emotionally harm an animal. 

608
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:28,960
I mean, we see it every day in 
the zoological world. 

609
00:28:29,120 --> 00:28:32,920
We see lions, you know, offering
paws for blood draws. 

610
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,600
I mean, if we can do that with a
lion, we don't need to wrangle 

611
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:39,840
and harm a dog to, to teach it 
to sit down, stay calm. 

612
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,360
I mean, we just don't. 
There's a passionate argument if

613
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,680
dogs that if if you're too 
permissive with dogs and they 

614
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,800
sort of go past those boundaries
and they may be euthanized. 

615
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,280
But in a positive doesn't mean 
permissive. 

616
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,560
I was raised in a family where 
my parents never raised a hand, 

617
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:57,400
which back in the 60s was 
actually quite progressive 

618
00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:59,880
because most kids got spanked at
some point, right? 

619
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:05,880
My parents never raised a hand. 
We had discussion moments where 

620
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,720
if you were behaving like an 
ass, you were sat down and there

621
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,120
was a discussion. 
Now you know there's a cognitive

622
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,120
process to that which you can't 
do with animals. 

623
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:18,520
But from a modification of 
behaviour, we know that 

624
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:23,000
punishment, harsh punishment has
lots of unintended consequences.

625
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,640
And often trying to solve 1 
issue, you end up creating a 

626
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,680
whole bunch of additional issues
that can be, can be worse to the

627
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,840
animal and to you than the 
initial issue that you're trying

628
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,720
to resolve. 
So the science is very clear in 

629
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,000
terms of how we should be 
approaching behaviour 

630
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,000
modification and training. 
So I don't know, because I'm 

631
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:45,720
not, it's really difficult for 
me because I also, I'm not a big

632
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,160
believer in massive government 
oversight either. 

633
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,320
Umm, not in areas where 
government is, where it's not 

634
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,400
their speciality. 
So I do think our industry needs

635
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,960
oversight, but I think it needs 
professional oversight from 

636
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,600
within the industry, not from 
external factors. 

637
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,040
Because licencing, particularly 
in the US, is never going to be 

638
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:04,720
a federal issue. 
It's always going to be done by 

639
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,600
state and the states are never 
going to agree on what that 

640
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,400
looks like. 
And often licencing is just 

641
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,480
about money and, and therefore 
everybody's grandfathered in. 

642
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:17,640
So all you then do is legitimise
the really bad trainers because 

643
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,760
now they've got a licence, they 
are now considered legitimate. 

644
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:24,200
So it is, it's, it's, it's a 
really tough question. 

645
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:26,800
And I mean, you know, a lot of 
people start to feel a bit 

646
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:28,800
helpless. 
I I feel really positive about 

647
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:33,560
our industry because we started 
PPG in 2011 and at the time it 

648
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:37,240
was the only organisation that 
had guiding principles that 

649
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:41,440
categorically stated that no 
aversive equipment is used in 

650
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:43,360
the training or behaviour 
modification of a pet. 

651
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,400
And when we started it, we had 
so much pushback from the 

652
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,880
industry about how ridiculously 
we were and how extreme we were 

653
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,720
and how it would never work. 
Well, over the last 10 years we 

654
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,280
have watched all the other 
organisations move their 

655
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,680
position statements and now 
they're almost where where ours 

656
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,080
is. 
So, you know, the industry is 

657
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,080
moving, that there is a lot of 
pressure. 

658
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,960
And from a client perspective, 
you have a much more educated 

659
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,160
consumer now. 
I mean, 10 years ago I didn't 

660
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:12,720
get people calling me saying I'm
looking for a positive 

661
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:14,760
reinforcement trainer. 
They called you because you 

662
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:18,160
happen to be close by. 
Now, customers are doing their 

663
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:20,600
own due diligence. 
They don't know what they want, 

664
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:23,640
but they know academically what 
they do not want. 

665
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,360
And most educated consumers do 
not want their pets being 

666
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:29,160
harmed. 
That's not you don't get a dog 

667
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,000
or a cat to harm it. 
You don't. 

668
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,120
No, absolutely not. 
Yeah, but but they're not. 

669
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,440
There's also a perception of 
what harm looks like, right? 

670
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,960
An ex colleague of mine recently
sent their dog away. 

671
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:44,720
Is this Newfoundland puppy who 
lives in New York, as in New 

672
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,800
York, NY, in an apartment. 
And they send the dog off for 

673
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,240
training for a week. 
And apparently the dog came back

674
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,400
and like, different, different 
dog. 

675
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:57,280
And that scares the hell out of 
me because, you know, they're, 

676
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,560
they are thinking they did the 
right thing. 

677
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,840
I had a look because they tagged
the trainers in and I saw shock 

678
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:06,520
collars. 
My heart hurt because these are 

679
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:11,200
really well educated, very 
cultured, well travelled 

680
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,280
individuals. 
How could they not know? 

681
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:17,200
I think, I think what I tend to 
see is that as much as I like to

682
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:21,160
believe that people are making 
more informed decisions, in my 

683
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,880
immediate world, I'm not 
actually seeing the evidence of 

684
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,200
that. 
Maybe because I don't work with 

685
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:30,040
dogs directly and I don't have 
exposure to people who care to 

686
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:32,400
that degree. 
But I think the average person, 

687
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,040
they, they're not aware of these
things. 

688
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,720
At least I'm not seeing it. 
I don't, I mean, I, I know I, I 

689
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:41,200
have a lot of very good friends 
and all my friends are actually 

690
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:44,720
still in the UK and I, most of 
them are pet owners and I've 

691
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,840
watched them move positions over
the last few years. 

692
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,160
But I don't think the UK was 
ever quite as extreme as the US 

693
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,040
either. 
Because you don't have, there's 

694
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,480
not a prevalence. 
I mean when I, I mean I spend 3 

695
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,960
weeks in the UK every year. 
Last year I was there running, 

696
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,520
my husband and I ran the full 
length of the Thames River from 

697
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,120
the source to the barriers, and 
I journaled all the dogs I met 

698
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:07,040
along the way way. 
It was a lovely way of sort of, 

699
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:08,560
you know, meeting, greeting 
people. 

700
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,920
It was lovely for me because 
over the space of 14 days, I saw

701
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,960
two dogs on choke collars. 
Everyone else was on a harness. 

702
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:18,000
And that for me was lovely 
because if that, if I'd have 

703
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:20,240
done that same journey in the 
US, it would that would have 

704
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:21,680
been the absolute opposite. 
Wow. 

705
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:23,400
Yeah. 
The dogs would have been on 

706
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:25,160
shock collars, brown collars, 
choke collars. 

707
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:29,360
So, and my girlfriend, who I 
grew up with, who went to school

708
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,680
with, we owned an apartment in 
Richmond for years and years and

709
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:34,480
Richmond Park was where we used 
to walk. 

710
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,000
And whenever I go back there, 
we, well, that's what's where we

711
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,240
still walk her dog. 
And whenever I'm in Richmond 

712
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,480
Park, I'm always overjoyed by 
the number of animals I see off 

713
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:44,440
leash, how well behaved they 
are, how well they're 

714
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,240
interacting together, because 
I've never seen that in the US. 

715
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:49,480
And Richmond Park is full of 
deer as well. 

716
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,600
There are wild animals roaming 
freely, Yeah. 

717
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:56,840
And there's bicycles and runners
and groups of school kids. 

718
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:58,840
I mean, it's not, you know, it's
not a part where you're not 

719
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:00,680
going to see anybody. 
I mean, if you go there in the 

720
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,640
morning, especially if you go to
Roehampton or Richmond that are 

721
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:06,040
around the housing areas, 
there's hundreds of people in 

722
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,679
there enjoying the parks. 
So what are you some of your 

723
00:34:09,679 --> 00:34:13,560
observations, I mean UKUKUS, so 
visually you've made some 

724
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:16,520
observations, but culturally, 
what have you noticed in terms 

725
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:20,080
of the differences when it comes
to dogs specifically? 

726
00:34:20,199 --> 00:34:22,400
The UK is a lot more dog 
friendly in terms of where you 

727
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:24,520
can take your animals. 
I mean, there's nothing nicer 

728
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:26,480
than going into a country pub 
and there's half a dozen dogs 

729
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:29,480
just roaming around, right? 
And in the in the bare gardens 

730
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:31,560
or in the actually inside the 
building. 

731
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,239
You don't see that in the USI 
mean more so now. 

732
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:39,320
I lived in Panama City in 
Florida in 2008 when they when 

733
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:42,960
they first started allowing dogs
into, not into restaurants, but 

734
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,440
outside of restaurants on 
seating areas because we 

735
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,719
immediately started filling up 
all our workshops for doggy 

736
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:51,040
dining. 
You know, come and learn how 

737
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:52,600
your dog can behave in 
restaurants. 

738
00:34:52,639 --> 00:34:55,840
That was very popular because up
until that point, dogs just were

739
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,600
not allowed in public spaces. 
I work work with an organisation

740
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:03,800
that got the first dog beach in 
on the Emerald Coast opened and 

741
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,880
one of the first dog parks. 
And that was between 2000 and 

742
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,680
eight, 2010. 
Well, in in that era, going back

743
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:14,160
to the UK, that type of thing 
was already in the UK, not, not 

744
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:16,920
so much dog parks because dogs 
were allowed to go to most 

745
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,360
public parks anyway, but not in 
the US. 

746
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,200
There was an expectation and I 
don't know whether it was 

747
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:24,440
because culturally Americans are
different. 

748
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,040
I think it was probably more to 
do with the litigious side of 

749
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,840
the society here that if you 
know, if your dog bites 

750
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:32,320
somebody, there's a huge level 
of responsibility ability. 

751
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:34,560
Where in the UK, you know, there
wasn't a lot of, lot of 

752
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:37,400
consequences other than, you 
know, animal control maybe 

753
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:39,840
knocking on your door. 
But dogs I think were better 

754
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,120
socialised in the UK because 
they grew up with access to 

755
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:46,080
those types of outlets. 
Whereas in the, I remember in 

756
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,400
the US when we opened a dog park
on the Emerald Coast in Florida 

757
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:53,360
and I was on the board of the 
organisation that opened this 

758
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,160
dog park. 
And now I'd not, I'd only been 

759
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:58,120
involved in the dog industry 
about five years and so didn't 

760
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:00,440
know what I didn't know. 
I knew more than the other board

761
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:01,880
members, but I wouldn't have 
said that. 

762
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:03,720
I I was a highly experienced 
practitioner. 

763
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,360
And we sat at this board meeting
and we were talking about the 

764
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,160
grand opening and they were 
talking about inviting several 

765
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,200
100 people to bring their dogs 
for this dog dog park opening. 

766
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:14,600
It was only 5 acres. 
And I remember sitting there 

767
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,800
thinking this is not good. 
This is not a good situation at 

768
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:20,720
all. 
And I, and I voiced my opinion 

769
00:36:20,720 --> 00:36:24,960
and was voted down because what 
would be a dog park when 

770
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,040
normally you'd have, I don't 
know, 10 or 15 dogs are there in

771
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:30,560
there at any given time. 
Suddenly you were going to have 

772
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,200
a couple of 100 dogs charging 
around with the owners. 

773
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,640
And we, we went to the grand 
opening and I actually hovered 

774
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:38,880
on the outside of it. 
And then I spend the whole hour 

775
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,800
like this, like, Oh my God. 
Because you literally have 

776
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:43,720
hundreds of people coming out 
with their dogs. 

777
00:36:43,720 --> 00:36:46,880
Dogs that hadn't, were not 
socialised, probably hadn't seen

778
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:50,120
another dog for years, didn't 
even get daily walks. 

779
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:52,680
And suddenly the owners were 
taking them out of the cars and 

780
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:55,520
just tossing him into this five 
acre piece of field with a bunch

781
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,000
of other dogs and just saying 
off you go, be free. 

782
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:01,080
And I just thought, Oh my God, 
this is a recipe for disaster. 

783
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:03,960
Was it? 
There are a couple of issues. 

784
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:07,440
It wasn't as bad as I'd 
anticipated because I think dogs

785
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,480
often do that. 
They surprise us, don't they? 

786
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:11,480
And how resilient and how smart 
they are. 

787
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:13,600
But I remember, and my husband 
and I just stood there going, 

788
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,600
oh, my God. 
Because the owners were all 

789
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,240
sitting on benches drinking 
coffee, smoking cigarettes. 

790
00:37:19,240 --> 00:37:21,640
Some people have cans of beer 
there and not even didn't even 

791
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:22,840
know where their dogs were, 
right. 

792
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:25,920
I mean, this is 5 acres. 
This isn't, you know, someone's 

793
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,680
backyard. 
This is quite a large piece of 

794
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,320
land that had landscaping and 
trees and a little forested 

795
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:32,000
area. 
So once you were in there, you 

796
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:33,840
could lose sight of your dogs 
very quickly. 

797
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,160
And I just remember, and the 
president of the organisation 

798
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:38,080
was walking around and I 
remember saying, Pat, are you 

799
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:39,440
not worried she goes out? 
I'd be fine. 

800
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:43,400
And I was just like, you know, 
when you work with animals, you 

801
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:45,440
know what can go wrong? 
And when it goes wrong, it can 

802
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,160
go wrong pretty quickly and it 
can go wrong pretty 

803
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:50,320
dramatically. 
Let me, let me put it like this.

804
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:52,040
I didn't take my dogs that 
night. 

805
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,760
My dogs were at home. 
Probably a good idea you were so

806
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:57,840
nervous and worried about all 
the other ones. 

807
00:37:57,840 --> 00:37:59,520
I'm sure they would have picked 
up on that. 

808
00:38:00,240 --> 00:38:02,160
But I wouldn't have, I mean, I 
wouldn't have put my dogs with a

809
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,760
bunch of unsocialized dogs. 
I mean 11 incident can spend you

810
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,360
can spend years rehabilitating 
your dog from it. 

811
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:10,840
Hi, sorry to interrupt. 
You're listening. 

812
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,640
I wanted to ask you, please, 
while you're here, can you 

813
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:17,440
subscribe? 
Can you follow? 

814
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,000
Can you share this podcast with 
a friend? 

815
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,800
I would really appreciate it 
because he keeps the podcast 

816
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:27,480
growing. 
Momentum is always good, and it 

817
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:30,400
helps me to book better guests 
so we can have more 

818
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:31,840
conversations. 
Really. 

819
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:34,040
So, yeah, I'd really appreciate 
it if you could. 

820
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:37,120
Thank you. 
Brian, back to the show, I read 

821
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:40,960
somewhere that you spent some 
time in Africa doing welfare 

822
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:43,960
work. 
I would love to know a bit more 

823
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,840
about that and then also I guess
how that informed your work with

824
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,560
dogs now. 
When my husband went to South 

825
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:53,200
Africa, I was in Nigeria running
a hotel in Nigeria and I had a 

826
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,040
three-year contract. 
So I I followed him. 

827
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,240
A year later in Nigeria, I 
managed a hotel that was 

828
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,800
completely independent. 
It was a Hilton International, 

829
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,080
but it was on 300 acres. 
We had our own because it was in

830
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:09,480
the middle of Nigeria in Abuja, 
which was a brand new town that 

831
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:12,320
they, they'd actually developed 
it as the capital because it was

832
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:14,160
geographically right in the 
middle of the country. 

833
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:17,320
So it wasn't influenced by 
Christians or Muslim. 

834
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:19,360
They felt it was sort of a 
neutral environment. 

835
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,560
So a lot of the embassies moved 
in first. 

836
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:23,520
And because of that, there was 
some big hotels there. 

837
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,760
We had our own security 
department, had their own 

838
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:28,760
Alsatian German Shepherd 
breeding programme. 

839
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,160
Everything was very, it was all 
done in house because you 

840
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:32,800
couldn't just pick up a phone 
and order something. 

841
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:36,400
And I remember about a month 
after I'd moved in with Rick, I 

842
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:39,200
came home one night carrying a 
little German Shepherd puppy. 

843
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:41,160
I was like, oh, we've got a dog.
And he's like, no, I don't think

844
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:44,200
so. 
Take it back because he already 

845
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:48,760
had a dog which had been a 
German shepherd police dog that 

846
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,960
had failed, failed its final 
graduations, which we did have a

847
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,160
German shepherd dog there. 
And I remember at the time being

848
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:55,640
quite horrified. 
And the reason I brought this 

849
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:57,520
puppy home is because I was 
horrified by the way it was 

850
00:39:57,520 --> 00:39:59,520
living because they were all 
living in these really dirty 

851
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,920
dingy kennels, you know, right 
at the back of the property. 

852
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:05,040
But then when I got South 
Africa, I got involved with 

853
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:08,160
doing some business consulting 
for some game lodges. 

854
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:11,560
So as part of that got involved 
in in welfare. 

855
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,360
But most of my. 
My welfare work with animals was

856
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,720
actually through fauna and 
flora, which was done in Nigeria

857
00:40:17,720 --> 00:40:20,160
because I have to be careful 
what I say now because I'm not 

858
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:21,840
sure Hilton would want this 
going public. 

859
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:24,600
When I first got to the hotel, 
we had a children's zoo at the 

860
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:28,240
hotel and the children's zoo had
in it chimpanzees, monkeys, 

861
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,800
crocodiles, deer, and a lot of 
the animals in there have been 

862
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:33,960
poached. 
That was how the hotel had them 

863
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,400
and I got, I was assigned to the
job from our corporate office. 

864
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:39,120
I'd actually come down from 
Egypt. 

865
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:43,040
I was at hotel in Egypt and when
I was talking to my boss was at 

866
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:46,400
head office in London and I told
him he was like you are joking, 

867
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:49,600
this is a PR nightmare. 
You know, this beautiful hotel 

868
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:52,160
in the middle of Africa has got 
this kids petting zoo. 

869
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:57,200
And I just met Rick and through 
Rick, I'd met some people from 

870
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:00,760
the Peace Corps who were with us
in Nigeria, but we're going back

871
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:05,080
and forth to Cameroon, to the 
Jane Goodall Chimpanzee Centre, 

872
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:07,000
funnily enough. 
And he said to me said, why 

873
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:08,960
don't you talk to them? 
They might, they might be able 

874
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:10,640
to help me to get these animals 
rehomed. 

875
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:12,760
And I said to my boss that we 
got to close. 

876
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:14,240
This is ridiculous. 
It's got closed. 

877
00:41:14,240 --> 00:41:16,840
We can't have this open if the 
wrong person, in fact, I mean, 

878
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:19,600
ethically it wasn't right, but 
if the wrong person finds out, 

879
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:23,640
this could be APR disaster. 
So my boss in London said get 

880
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:27,120
rid of them, close it. 
So Paul and Susan, their names 

881
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,240
were, who actually years later 
got married and I live in Texas.

882
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:32,720
Paul was Nigerian and Susan was 
at the Peace Corps and he was 

883
00:41:32,720 --> 00:41:34,720
there with as a local 
representative from Vorna and 

884
00:41:34,720 --> 00:41:36,360
Flora. 
So we actually shipped these 

885
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,440
chimpanzees down to the Cameroon
border where they went into a 

886
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:42,120
Cameroon, A chimpanzee 
rehabilitation camp. 

887
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,360
So that was how I got involved 
with welfare because we had to 

888
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,240
find homes for all these animals
and we had to work with a lot of

889
00:41:48,240 --> 00:41:50,040
organisations to sort of ship 
them out. 

890
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:53,600
So I've always loved animals. 
I mean, I recognise as a child 

891
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,120
my parents always loved animals.
When I first moved to Florida, 

892
00:41:57,240 --> 00:42:00,240
we had a pet cow. 
We had horses, donkeys, ducks, 

893
00:42:00,240 --> 00:42:02,520
geese, Peter FIFA with a massive
menagerie. 

894
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,880
And the first time my parents 
came over, I remember looking at

895
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:07,440
my dad. 
And my dad stood in the middle 

896
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:09,840
of this field with a red bucket 
picking up cow dung. 

897
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,040
And I remember looking at him 
going, oh, my God, he's in his 

898
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:13,880
element. 
And I remember walking over to 

899
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:15,120
him saying, are you OK? 
And he's that. 

900
00:42:15,240 --> 00:42:18,280
Oh, I'd love to live like this. 
They look like the little 

901
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:20,560
British farm or there's little 
tweed cap on in his Wellington 

902
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,160
boots. 
And that's when I first realised

903
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,680
that my father was a massive 
animal advocate. 

904
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,400
We just never had them because 
we couldn't have them because of

905
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:29,520
my brother. 
Yeah. 

906
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,680
But was massively into animals. 
I mean, just lost them. 

907
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,120
I mean, I would look out the 
kitchen window and he'd be out 

908
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,360
there in the past. 
You just rubbing on Blackie's 

909
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:39,960
head, this bit, this big black 
Angus cow that came with the 

910
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:41,600
property. 
So there was obviously something

911
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:44,160
in my DNA. 
The entire family loves animals.

912
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:45,480
And my brother loves animals as 
well. 

913
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:47,000
He just can't spend any time 
with them. 

914
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:49,720
So I know as I got older and I 
started get being exposed to 

915
00:42:49,720 --> 00:42:51,480
them more and more, I realised 
that, yeah. 

916
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:53,840
And probably, you know, knowing 
what I know now, if I had my 

917
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:57,440
time again, I probably would go 
into zoological biology or 

918
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,280
something, or I would definitely
do something working with 

919
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,560
animals, not domestic or, you 
know, with wild animals. 

920
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:06,320
I'd do something. 
My husband and I often talk now 

921
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,800
about just packing it all in and
going off and working with Peace

922
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:12,880
Corps and going and counting 
puffins, you know, and polar 

923
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:15,800
bear somewhere. 
I think what I'm noticing here 

924
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:20,160
is there's a common thread in 
terms of the business acumen, 

925
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,040
the training and the teaching 
and then the advocacy or the 

926
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,320
welfare work and then also the 
dog training side of things. 

927
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:31,440
Those, those skills transferred 
quite nicely over into the pet 

928
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:35,160
professional Guild, right? 
I would like to understand what 

929
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:40,600
the Pet Professional Guild is, 
kind of how it came about and 

930
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,200
what you saw in the industry 
that made this necessary. 

931
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:47,040
First of all, to get to PPG, we 
have to talk about the dog 

932
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:51,040
Smith, because when we moved to 
Florida, I opened up my own dog 

933
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:53,800
training facility and it grew 
really quickly. 

934
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,480
And it didn't grow because of my
brilliant dog training skills. 

935
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:58,560
It grew because I had a business
background and knew what I was 

936
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,200
doing with running a business. 
And I came from a very 

937
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,240
corporate. 
I used to work in Six Sigma, so 

938
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:07,000
I came from a very statistical 
analysis quality control area 

939
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,000
and I just operationalized 
everything. 

940
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,240
I had like 15 manuals written 
for every aspect of my business 

941
00:44:12,240 --> 00:44:13,520
because that was just what I 
did. 

942
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,720
And I was talking to a friend of
mine one day from Chicago and he

943
00:44:16,720 --> 00:44:18,240
said to me, why don't you 
franchise it? 

944
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:20,600
And I said, why? 
I said, what do you mean? 

945
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,720
He said, we, you've systemat, 
you've operationalized it all, 

946
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:25,840
franchise it. 
So we did. 

947
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,360
So we franchised the Dog Smith 
and for five years we franchised

948
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:32,040
it. 
And we actually grew too big for

949
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:34,640
where we were living. 
So we had to relocate to Oxford,

950
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:38,520
Ms, and we bought an Animal 
Hospital and a veterinary, an 

951
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:41,400
Animal Hospital and veterinary 
facility and a boarding facility

952
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:43,720
and dog park on 10 acres of 
land. 

953
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,760
And we moved, the whole family 
moved down there as the Dogsmith

954
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,920
headquarters. 
And that was when PPG was 

955
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:54,840
founded because on Saturday, I 
had to run into PetSmart to pick

956
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,120
up some supplies. 
The resort had run out of a few 

957
00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:00,320
things, and we wouldn't normally
have gone to PetSmart to buy our

958
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:02,520
operational equipment, but we 
had to. 

959
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:06,520
And when I went in there, I 
heard a dog screaming and I sort

960
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:09,280
of immediately, like my ears 
went up and I just got this 

961
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:12,560
visceral like, Oh my God. 
And as I walked around the 

962
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,720
store, like looking, I realised 
that there was a training 

963
00:45:15,720 --> 00:45:18,880
session taking place down one of
the aisles. 

964
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:20,720
And there was a what? 
There were three people with 

965
00:45:20,720 --> 00:45:23,800
dogs and a woman teaching these 
people that if your dog reacts 

966
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,800
towards the other dog, hang them
and hold them in the air only. 

967
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:30,720
And I looked at that and this 
dog was screaming. 

968
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,320
And I immediately went racing to
the front of the store and asked

969
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,120
to speak to the manager because 
I didn't know a lot about 

970
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:39,360
PetSmart. 
But I did know that their 

971
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:42,680
training curriculum did not 
include that because one of our 

972
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:45,760
dogsmiths had come from PetSmart
training and I had read the 

973
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,400
PetSmart training curriculum for
dog trainers. 

974
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:52,200
And the manager came over and I 
said to him, and we could hear 

975
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:54,240
this dog. 
And I said, can somebody explain

976
00:45:54,240 --> 00:45:55,920
what the Hell's going on over 
there? 

977
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:58,840
This is cruelty. 
And he said, well, I don't know.

978
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:00,840
It's not one of our sanctioned 
classes. 

979
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:03,680
It's one of our trainers who's 
doing some private work here. 

980
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:05,640
And I said, well, I don't. 
Quite frankly, I don't give a 

981
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:08,920
shit who it is or how you know 
them, but this is happening in 

982
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:12,520
your facility and that these 
dogs are in pain. 

983
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:14,400
And he immediately looked at me 
and said, I don't know what to 

984
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:15,920
tell you. 
So I said, well, I suggest you 

985
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,040
go there and stop here. 
And he said, well, I can't do 

986
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:19,160
that. 
She's on her own time. 

987
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:20,600
I said, but she's in your 
facility. 

988
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:24,080
This is your facility, your 
manager, and he wouldn't do 

989
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:26,080
anything. 
And I remember I had this 

990
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:30,000
massive shopping cart pile full 
of dog food and toys and all 

991
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:32,680
kinds of stuff. 
And I literally just dumped it 

992
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,040
and walked out. 
And my husband was parked 

993
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:39,080
outside in our work truck. 
And as I locked eyes with him, I

994
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:41,720
just burst into absolute floods 
of tea. 

995
00:46:41,720 --> 00:46:43,240
And it makes me cry just 
thinking about it now. 

996
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:45,800
I just burst into floods of 
tears. 

997
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:47,840
And he got out the car and came 
running over and said what 

998
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:49,520
happened? 
He thought somebody had like 

999
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:53,040
sexually abused me or something 
because I was just in, you know,

1000
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:56,640
lots of tears and he could hear 
and I said just listen and he 

1001
00:46:56,640 --> 00:46:59,280
could hear these dogs that 
reacting one minute and then 

1002
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:00,960
screaming the next. 
And he said what? 

1003
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:02,680
I said I have to go, have to go,
have to go. 

1004
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,120
We got in the car, we left and I
got back and I phoned PetSmart 

1005
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:07,000
corporate office and of course 
it was on a Saturday. 

1006
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:08,800
Nobody answered. 
I called him again on the 

1007
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:11,200
Monday, never got a phone back 
call back. 

1008
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,480
I emailed them, never got a 
response. 

1009
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:16,560
And I remember one night and 
we'd only been there about 3 

1010
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,600
months and I remember sitting 
down talking to Rick one night 

1011
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:21,880
and I said, this is I said, this
is absolute bullshit. 

1012
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,880
I can't, I just can't believe 
that the largest pet store in 

1013
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:29,720
the US is OK with that. 
I just, I can't get my mind 

1014
00:47:29,720 --> 00:47:31,800
around how that can possibly be 
OK. 

1015
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:36,000
And at the same time, as a dog 
trainer, I had joined the 

1016
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,240
Association of Pet Dog Trainers 
in the US and had left it 

1017
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:42,800
because when I went and looked 
at my listing on their website, 

1018
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,200
it was surrounded by shock 
collar trainers and punitive 

1019
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:47,880
trainers. 
And I just went not interested 

1020
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:49,600
in being around people like 
that. 

1021
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:52,920
And I wasn't on at the time, the
industry had a lot of message 

1022
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,640
boards in Yahoo groups and I 
didn't participate in them 

1023
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:57,480
because I just didn't see the, I
didn't see the point. 

1024
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:00,440
If that was like the 1990s 
version of social media, right 

1025
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:02,800
where you went on there, you 
rancid, you got angry, someone 

1026
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:05,120
got angry at you, you all slam 
the door and off you wet. 

1027
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:07,320
And then the next day you went 
back and did rinse and repeat. 

1028
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:10,200
And that for me was asinine. 
I was like, I live a real life. 

1029
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:12,560
I don't need to live like that. 
Rick said to me one night, he 

1030
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:16,080
said, just the industry, right? 
He said, look at the APDT. 

1031
00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:18,000
And I said, yeah, you're right. 
And he said, you start and why 

1032
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:20,640
don't you start an association 
and do something about it. 

1033
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:24,080
And I and I sort of looked at 
him and said, well, yeah, I get,

1034
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,200
I mean, why not? 
And he literally got his cheque 

1035
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:28,080
book out, wrote a cheque, handed
it to me and said, there's your 

1036
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,520
saved money, Off you go. 
And that was that was that was 

1037
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:33,160
the beginning of PPG. 
Makes me cry when thinking about

1038
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:36,120
it. 
That is still reeling from from 

1039
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:38,160
the story, like the beginning of
this story. 

1040
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:40,760
Like I think I would commit 
murder if I saw something like 

1041
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:42,640
that. 
I genuinely believe that I 

1042
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:44,400
would. 
And you know what, I told that 

1043
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,160
story for years and I never, 
ever said the name of the pet 

1044
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:49,400
store. 
And then about 7 or 8 years ago 

1045
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:51,840
I thought, you know what, Yeah, 
I am going to because I think 

1046
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:54,800
everyone needs to know. 
And I don't attack people. 

1047
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:57,960
I'm not the kind of person I 
don't, I don't judge people. 

1048
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:01,240
I look at things factually and 
I'll functionally analyse what 

1049
00:49:01,240 --> 00:49:04,320
you're doing and then I'm able 
to categorically, factually say 

1050
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:06,960
this is what's happening, this 
is what the science says, this 

1051
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:10,360
is what the ethics say, you 
know, summary of this not 

1052
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:13,680
acceptable. 
So, so we started PPG and it's 

1053
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:16,320
funny because Rebecca King, who 
is our operations director now, 

1054
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:18,680
Rebecca was our general manager 
at the resort. 

1055
00:49:18,720 --> 00:49:21,680
And I went into work on the 
Monday and said I walked into 

1056
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,160
the lobby at the, it was quite a
fancy pet resort. 

1057
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,320
It was one of those sort of very
high end places where the dogs 

1058
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:29,320
had their own individual rooms 
and it was all very foofy, 

1059
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:31,480
foofy. 
And I went into the lobby and 

1060
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:33,440
Rebecca was sitting at the front
desk and she was actually 

1061
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:35,400
covering the front desk for the 
exception is to have gone to 

1062
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:36,720
lunch. 
And I said are you guys busy? 

1063
00:49:36,720 --> 00:49:39,680
She goes no, not really. 
And I said look, I said I'm 

1064
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,600
about to start a new endeavour. 
I said would you be available to

1065
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:45,000
do a couple of hours work every 
day to help me and obviously 

1066
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:47,000
we'll pay you. 
And she said yeah, sure. 

1067
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:48,800
So I said, well the first thing 
we're going to do. 

1068
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:50,400
And I explained to her what we 
were going to do. 

1069
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:52,560
I said, we're just going to 
throw up a really quick website,

1070
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,400
put up a manual application form
and we'll just see what we get. 

1071
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:58,680
So day one, we had like 5 forms 
and I went in and she's 

1072
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,560
downloading them and we'd 
already established our guiding 

1073
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:04,400
principles and the fact that 
this was not going to be a pay 

1074
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:05,880
and play. 
There had to be eligibility 

1075
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:09,640
criteria, you had to adhere to a
set of ethical standards, blah, 

1076
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:11,840
blah, blah. 
So every application took 

1077
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:13,400
someone half an hour to go 
through it. 

1078
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,240
Check websites, check social 
media, make sure that they were 

1079
00:50:16,240 --> 00:50:17,720
who they said they were 
approved. 

1080
00:50:17,720 --> 00:50:20,240
Now you can be listed. 
And I think it was in like the 

1081
00:50:20,240 --> 00:50:24,240
second week, I went in one 
morning and Rebecca, the front 

1082
00:50:24,240 --> 00:50:26,840
desk was quite high because it 
was designed to stand behind. 

1083
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:29,200
And I went but, and sometimes I 
could just see the top of her 

1084
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:31,120
head over it as I walked into 
the lobby. 

1085
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:33,160
And I walked into the lobby and 
there was this big pile of 

1086
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:36,000
paperwork on the desk and I 
couldn't see her behind it. 

1087
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,600
And I went Becky there and she 
went, I'm here. 

1088
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:40,680
And I said, what you doing? 
She goes, these are all the 

1089
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:42,880
applications that came through 
the website. 

1090
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:44,920
And I was like, you're joking, 
You're joking. 

1091
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:46,440
She goes, I can't get through 
all these. 

1092
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:48,760
It's because everyone took like 
20 minutes, half an hour. 

1093
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:51,560
I was like, Oh my God. 
So we very quickly had to invest

1094
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,400
more money and get an electronic
system set up because this 

1095
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,760
manual downloading forms, it was
just crazy. 

1096
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:01,000
And I think by the end of the 
first year, we had like 1000 

1097
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:02,360
members. 
I mean, it was, it was 

1098
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:04,920
ridiculous. 
So it gave me a they're real 

1099
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:07,560
warm and fuzzy because it told 
me that there are a lot of other

1100
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:11,360
people like me that were in the 
industry felt the same way and 

1101
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:13,840
didn't feel they had a home. 
They didn't necessarily want to 

1102
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:16,520
be part of other organisations, 
but they did want to be part of 

1103
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,680
a group for networking and 
professional development. 

1104
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:23,120
But they didn't want to be 
associated with people that were

1105
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:26,920
sort of loosey goosey with their
ethics or didn't want to, you 

1106
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,600
know, use sort of ethical 
approaches or the right 

1107
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:31,760
philosophy. 
So it was, it was a really nice 

1108
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:33,240
feeling. 
And that was how PPG got 

1109
00:51:33,240 --> 00:51:35,520
started. 
And that was back in 2012, 

1110
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:38,360
January 2012. 
So congratulations. 

1111
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:38,560
Yeah. 
I. 

1112
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:41,760
Just think that's incredible and
what a what an incredible 

1113
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,960
partner you've got to have 
written you a cheque and just be

1114
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:47,800
like fly. 
And he's always been really, 

1115
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:51,280
really supportive of any of my 
our little endeavours along the 

1116
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:52,080
way. 
Yeah. 

1117
00:51:52,240 --> 00:51:55,440
Yeah, well, there's a leap of 
faith, but also very much a 

1118
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,080
trust there in you and what 
you're capable of, and that's 

1119
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:02,520
really wonderful. 
So the PPG, the Pet Professional

1120
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:04,440
Guild, how many members have you
got now? 

1121
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:07,200
That's a really difficult 
question to answer and I'll 

1122
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:11,400
explain why. 
So as we grew, then we developed

1123
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:14,360
several programmes that became 
sort of standalone programmes. 

1124
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:17,400
So we had Pet Dog Ambassador and
then we had the Shock Free 

1125
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:20,440
Coalition. 
And then in 2016, we launched 

1126
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:22,520
the Pet Professional 
Accreditation Board that's an 

1127
00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:25,240
independent organisation for air
credentialing. 

1128
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:29,640
And then I took the role as the 
President of Doggone Safe, which

1129
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,320
was a separate nonprofit. 
And then gradually over the 

1130
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:34,240
years, we've merged them all 
together. 

1131
00:52:34,240 --> 00:52:37,240
So between the four 
organisations and the seven 

1132
00:52:37,240 --> 00:52:39,920
different programmes, I think we
have about 20,000 people that 

1133
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:42,640
are in some way involved, 
involved with the organisation 

1134
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:45,840
and so it's a lot of people. 
What would you say the mission 

1135
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:48,520
is overall? 
What actually before before the 

1136
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:51,120
business side of things for the 
pet Professional guilt? 

1137
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:54,360
What would you say is your 
personal mission in all of this?

1138
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,720
What drives you forward? 
My personal mission is I think 

1139
00:52:57,720 --> 00:53:01,000
every pet deserves a loving home
where all then all their needs 

1140
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:03,560
are met, physical, emotional, 
environmental and that they and 

1141
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,280
they live happily. 
That's that's my mission and 

1142
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:08,720
that's the all every pet has. 
I don't know where my dogs are 

1143
00:53:08,720 --> 00:53:10,560
right now, but lives like my 
dogs do. 

1144
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:13,760
Yeah, and that's synonymous with
the Pet Professional Guild. 

1145
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:15,840
Or is it slightly? 
Is there a different focus? 

1146
00:53:16,240 --> 00:53:18,240
Exactly the same obviously at 
PPG. 

1147
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:21,240
So I, I'm part of three 
organisations, the Dog Smith, 

1148
00:53:21,240 --> 00:53:24,160
which is now our licencing dog 
training company. 

1149
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:27,200
And, and then when we stopped 
franchising that and moved it 

1150
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:30,080
into a licence, we pulled away 
all the educational side of it. 

1151
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:33,160
So all the education moved to a 
new company called Diagnostics, 

1152
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:35,360
which is what Louise and I and a
few with, I think there's like 

1153
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:36,880
seven of us now that work on 
that. 

1154
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:39,720
So we provide education for pet 
professionals and pet owners. 

1155
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:43,480
So the Dog Smith is my sort of 
network of trainers that work 

1156
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:46,360
with me that I mentor and help. 
From a business perspective, 

1157
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:49,800
Diagnostics is the educational 
side of the industry in terms of

1158
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:53,440
animal behaviour and welfare. 
And then PPG is the nonprofit 

1159
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:55,320
except for pet professionals 
professionals. 

1160
00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:58,320
So even though they all have 
very different roles, they all 

1161
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:00,960
vision, mission and values are 
almost the same of each of them,

1162
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:02,280
right? 
It's just that ones addressing 

1163
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:04,360
pet owners, ones dressing 
professionals and ones an 

1164
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:07,000
association. 
But you know, it's all about 

1165
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:10,240
animals being animals, animals 
being recognised as sentient 

1166
00:54:10,240 --> 00:54:13,800
beings and being able to fulfil 
their lives and without fair 

1167
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:16,960
pain or force, and where we look
after them from an emotional 

1168
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:18,560
perspective as well as a 
physical. 

1169
00:54:18,720 --> 00:54:21,760
Rightly so. 
Have you seen any trends over 

1170
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,560
the last couple of years in 
terms of the types of trainers 

1171
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:26,960
out there and what, what demand 
is available? 

1172
00:54:27,240 --> 00:54:28,800
What do you mean? 
Do you mean in terms of? 

1173
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:31,160
From pet owners, What are they 
looking for? 

1174
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:35,120
Are more people looking for the 
kind of positive reinforcement? 

1175
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:36,960
Absolutely. 
And it's funny because every 

1176
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:39,880
year at PPG in November, we do 
our strategic planning for the 

1177
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:42,560
next year. 
So we do a peso analysis and a 

1178
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:44,960
SWOT analysis and we go out into
the marketplace and look at 

1179
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:47,080
what's going on. 
And I, I really enjoy doing 

1180
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:48,400
that. 
It's something I always did when

1181
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:49,840
I manage other people's 
businesses. 

1182
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:52,320
And I, and even though we're a 
pet industry at, we still, we 

1183
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:54,000
still approach it like a 
business, right? 

1184
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:56,880
I mean, one of my fundamental 
responsibilities as the 

1185
00:54:56,880 --> 00:54:59,800
president of PPG is making sure 
that the organisation has 

1186
00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:02,160
longevity and that we're 
financially sound and that we're

1187
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:05,160
able to fulfil our mission. 
So we do treat it like a 

1188
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:06,840
business. 
Now we're not, we're not doing 

1189
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:09,400
everything to make profit. 
And most of the things we do for

1190
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:12,200
our members, we do at break even
because we're not designed. 

1191
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:14,960
So we don't, we don't need to 
make profit, but we do need to 

1192
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:18,240
generate income because we need 
to create those programmes and 

1193
00:55:18,240 --> 00:55:22,760
policies for our membership. 
So this November, and I actually

1194
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:25,720
spent quite a lot of time doing 
this and we have access to sort 

1195
00:55:25,720 --> 00:55:28,360
of organisations where we pay to
get access to information. 

1196
00:55:28,720 --> 00:55:31,560
And I, and I am actually doing a
presentation to our membership 

1197
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:34,440
in January on my findings. 
And I did a presentation to our 

1198
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:37,080
board of directors and steering 
committee a couple of weeks ago.

1199
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:41,400
And it actually left me feeling 
really, really good because all 

1200
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:46,040
the research I did informed me 
that pet owners to see force 

1201
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:49,440
free trainers as luxury and 
they're prepared to pay for it, 

1202
00:55:49,440 --> 00:55:51,800
which is absolutely contrary to 
what a lot of force free 

1203
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:55,400
trainers believe. 
The advocacy has to be driven 

1204
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:58,400
via the pet owner, which I've 
always believed when people have

1205
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:00,720
asked me over the years, do you 
believe in licencing? 

1206
00:56:00,720 --> 00:56:04,200
I've always said I believe the 
best oversight in our industry 

1207
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:07,360
is demands from the consumer. 
If we can educate consumers and 

1208
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:10,080
they make the right demands, 
then anyone that's not training 

1209
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:11,840
appropriately is going to go out
of business. 

1210
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:15,360
That for me is far more powerful
than this sort of mandatory 

1211
00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:19,320
artificial facade of government 
overseeing our industry. 

1212
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:22,200
So although everything that came
back basically spoke about, and 

1213
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:25,480
it's one of the reasons why next
year, next year, entire mission 

1214
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:29,080
at PPG is going to be advocacy, 
advocating to pet owners to help

1215
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:30,960
educate them. 
So they put pressure on the 

1216
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:34,320
industry and advocating to pet 
professionals and providing them

1217
00:56:34,360 --> 00:56:37,680
the tools and resources so that 
they can apply that second level

1218
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:40,960
of pressure on the industry. 
Because I, I, I don't think in 

1219
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:44,400
my lifetime, we are going to get
the industry where I would like 

1220
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:46,880
to see it. 
But I do think we're not far off

1221
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:49,760
from a tipping point because 
there's so much happening in the

1222
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:52,440
industry right now. 
There's so many key players that

1223
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:56,120
are being pressured into making 
decisions that they're probably 

1224
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:59,400
not very comfortable or wouldn't
choose to be making, but they're

1225
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:02,040
making the right decisions 
because I think they realise 

1226
00:57:02,040 --> 00:57:04,280
that they need to be on the 
right side of history here and 

1227
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:06,520
that this is the way the 
industry starting to move. 

1228
00:57:06,720 --> 00:57:10,120
So and when I and I presented to
our steering committee, they all

1229
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:11,560
were like, wow, this is really 
good. 

1230
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:13,560
Because I think when you're in 
the trenches, you don't 

1231
00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:15,560
necessarily see the impact 
you're having until you step 

1232
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,840
back and say what's happened 
over the last year in terms of 

1233
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:21,040
the industry, you know, and 
what's happening with. 

1234
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:23,680
When you just look at where 
consumers, consumers now are 

1235
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:26,280
spending money on enrichment, 
They're spending more money on 

1236
00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:29,560
training, they're buying 
enrichment type of toys, they're

1237
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:32,480
investing in sort of daycare 
facilities. 

1238
00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:36,400
So the consumer is looking at 
their animals sentient being and

1239
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:39,080
saying, yes, there's an 
emotional side of this animal 

1240
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:42,480
that we need to look after as 
importantly as the physical, if 

1241
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:44,680
not more. 
And that's now where the 

1242
00:57:44,680 --> 00:57:47,600
purchasing power is, which says 
that you've got an educated pet 

1243
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:49,320
owner. 
I mean, millions of dollars 

1244
00:57:49,320 --> 00:57:52,080
being spent on snuffle mats and 
enrichment toys. 

1245
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:54,400
I mean, five years ago we 
wouldn't have seen that, right? 

1246
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:57,560
The types of dog food that are 
now being purchased, the types 

1247
00:57:57,560 --> 00:57:59,840
of facilities that are opening 
that are becoming very 

1248
00:57:59,840 --> 00:58:03,120
successful, says that pet owners
are becoming more discerning 

1249
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:05,320
about where they're putting 
their money because they look at

1250
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:08,040
the these animals and these 
animals are family members and 

1251
00:58:08,040 --> 00:58:09,760
they deserve it and they want 
it. 

1252
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:13,560
So that gives me a really nice 
warm and fuzzy feeling because I

1253
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:16,080
think that's the block that is 
going to really impact our 

1254
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:18,240
industry, not the professionals,
the pet owners are going to 

1255
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:20,040
impact the industry. 
Absolutely. 

1256
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:23,160
Social pressure is so important.
I was just speaking with Marissa

1257
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:28,240
Heath yesterday, who is a 
politician and she was saying 

1258
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:31,600
that they are also bypassing 
government and going taking the 

1259
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:34,960
social pressure route because it
will be most effective. 

1260
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:37,400
I think. 
I think there's definitely a 

1261
00:58:37,400 --> 00:58:40,240
long way to go from where I'm 
sitting. 

1262
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:45,000
But what I, what I would love to
see is more kind of a smarter, 

1263
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:48,120
more integrated interspecies 
living. 

1264
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:51,800
Like you were saying earlier, 
there was a difference in the UK

1265
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:55,440
versus the US with regards to 
how many dogs you might see in 

1266
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:59,280
a, in a cafe or a pub or, you 
know, a bar type of thing. 

1267
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:02,480
But within that, I personally 
would like to take it a step 

1268
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:06,520
further and accommodate the dogs
rather than them having to be an

1269
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:09,760
afterthought. 
Be on your lead, sit under the 

1270
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:11,800
table, be quiet, don't make a 
noise. 

1271
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:14,000
Because that's not right either 
surely. 

1272
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:16,160
But everything in steps and 
stages. 

1273
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:18,680
Shifting the collective 
consciousness, I guess is the 

1274
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:22,040
primary priority, and then 
applying that pressure so people

1275
00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:25,160
can make change. 
I mean, here's an example. 

1276
00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:27,920
About six years ago, I was 
interviewing someone on a 

1277
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:30,960
podcast and we were talking 
about enrichment and we were 

1278
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:33,320
talking about it in line with 
sort of pet sitting and pet 

1279
00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:35,360
care. 
And I said to the person that 

1280
00:59:35,520 --> 00:59:37,800
one of the things that I thought
we'd done a really good job at 

1281
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:41,160
the Dog Smith is that we didn't 
do 15 or 20 minute pet care 

1282
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:43,600
visits that were just throwing 
food and water down. 

1283
00:59:43,600 --> 00:59:47,080
We actually went into the home 
and integrated other activities 

1284
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:50,720
into that visit like snuffle 
mats, like Kongs, like dog 

1285
00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:53,800
walks, like scent work, 
recognising that pet care there 

1286
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:55,560
is more than just feeding and 
watering a dog. 

1287
00:59:55,800 --> 00:59:59,840
We also always had a sort of 
double ended control system. 

1288
00:59:59,840 --> 01:00:03,320
So when the animal was first 
met, we did a very much a sort 

1289
01:00:03,320 --> 01:00:06,800
of observational ethogram of the
animal so that we knew what this

1290
01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:09,120
animal looked like when the 
animal was relaxed and happy. 

1291
01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:12,240
So that when the owner goes away
and you then go into the, the 

1292
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:15,520
the the pet's home, you have a 
baseline to measure again. 

1293
01:00:15,520 --> 01:00:17,840
So you can say, yeah, the pet's 
OK, their demeanour the same. 

1294
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:21,600
You can because you can't look 
after someone's pet unless you 

1295
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:23,600
are observing and monitoring 
and. 

1296
01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:26,320
And you have a baseline of which
to observe and monitor from. 

1297
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:27,800
And we were talking about 
enrichment. 

1298
01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:30,680
And at the end of this podcast, 
I thought we need to completely 

1299
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:33,000
rethink about how we do these 
pet sitting visits. 

1300
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:35,040
They shouldn't be pet sitting 
visits should be enrichment 

1301
01:00:35,040 --> 01:00:37,160
visits. 
People should be trained to go 

1302
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:39,360
in and do enrichment visits with
pets. 

1303
01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:42,760
So we put together this Louise 
and I put together this K9 

1304
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:46,200
enrichment technician programme 
which it covers. 

1305
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:49,440
It covers about 64 enrichment 
exercises across the seven 

1306
01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:52,880
categories, cognitive, physical,
auditory, visual, etcetera. 

1307
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:55,680
It teaches the trainer the 
fundamental skills they need to 

1308
01:00:55,680 --> 01:00:57,320
do that. 
So leash handling skills, 

1309
01:00:57,320 --> 01:01:01,640
scenting skills, etcetera. 
And then the very last module is

1310
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:04,760
about enrichment assessment. 
It provides all the forms and 

1311
01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:08,360
the training so that a trainer 
or an enrichment technician can 

1312
01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:12,720
go into a home and the views, 
the the garden, the access, the,

1313
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:16,040
you know, the safety, the 
welfare can assess the pet and 

1314
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:18,680
assess the owner. 
So that from that you can make a

1315
01:01:18,680 --> 01:01:21,760
determination as to what we can 
best implement into this pest, 

1316
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:23,840
into this pet's life. 
And then we provide the 

1317
01:01:23,840 --> 01:01:25,760
training. 
So the technician can either do 

1318
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:28,960
the training or they can train 
the owner to do the training so 

1319
01:01:28,960 --> 01:01:31,880
that pets are living much more 
enriched, fulfil lives. 

1320
01:01:32,080 --> 01:01:34,720
And we developed this thinking 
that wouldn't it be great if we 

1321
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:37,640
could sell a few of these and 
people would completely refrain 

1322
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:39,360
this whole. 
So rather than being a pet's, 

1323
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:41,800
instead of you're a canine 
enrichment technician and that's

1324
01:01:41,800 --> 01:01:44,840
what you do. 
We have sold more of those 

1325
01:01:44,840 --> 01:01:49,120
courses than any other course, 
probably more than 1000. 

1326
01:01:49,280 --> 01:01:52,560
People just love it. 
And it's, it's probably about 60

1327
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:55,200
hours of training. 
And it's designed so that if 

1328
01:01:55,200 --> 01:01:58,840
you're not a dog trainer, you 
can do it and pass and have the 

1329
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:01,520
skills where you can then. 
So if you're a dog Walker or a 

1330
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:04,960
pet sitter, you can then sort of
put another, you know, another 

1331
01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:08,000
skill to your tool kit. 
And I love it because I think 

1332
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:12,640
the days I mean as a as a as a 
pet parent and I tell the story 

1333
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:15,640
all the time to our team when I 
first moved to the house we're 

1334
01:02:15,640 --> 01:02:17,480
in now, which was about a year 
and a half ago. 

1335
01:02:17,520 --> 01:02:20,760
My brother-in-law has always 
looked after our animals for the

1336
01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:23,400
last 35 years and he died last 
year. 

1337
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:26,600
And selfishly, I had this 
massive panic. 

1338
01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:29,480
I was like, who's going to look 
after my animals? 

1339
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:30,960
I don't trust them with anybody 
else. 

1340
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:35,200
So I phoned 9 pet sitters in my 
area and I invited them all to 

1341
01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:37,000
come and I interviewed them all 
1 by 1. 

1342
01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:41,240
Not one of them had any formal 
education, any formal skills, no

1343
01:02:41,240 --> 01:02:44,000
business insurance. 
And I was, I was horrified, 

1344
01:02:44,040 --> 01:02:47,520
absolutely horrified. 
And these people were all 

1345
01:02:47,520 --> 01:02:49,600
successful business people in 
this area. 

1346
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:54,120
So I whittled it down to three 
that were my favourite in terms 

1347
01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:58,520
of appearance, demeanour, 
professionalism, articulation 

1348
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:02,320
and how I thought they would 
naturally interact with animals.

1349
01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:06,240
And I then said to all three of 
them, I will pay to train you, I

1350
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:09,240
will pay you to train you. 
And I'll give you access to some

1351
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:11,440
of our programmes at 
diagnostics, our pet first aid 

1352
01:03:11,440 --> 01:03:13,640
programme, our pen and 
enrichment technician programme,

1353
01:03:13,640 --> 01:03:15,480
our pet care certification 
programme. 

1354
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:17,080
One of them said, no thanks, not
interested. 

1355
01:03:17,080 --> 01:03:19,560
I was like, OK, and the other 
two both did them. 

1356
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:21,760
And then I chose. 
And so I've got 1 as a primary 

1357
01:03:21,760 --> 01:03:25,160
and the other one as a backup. 
And that's what I had to do to 

1358
01:03:25,160 --> 01:03:29,120
skill up and train somebody that
I was now I'm now comfortable 

1359
01:03:29,120 --> 01:03:31,680
saying you can come into my home
and look after my pets. 

1360
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:34,000
And I just thought, how do other
people manage? 

1361
01:03:34,000 --> 01:03:35,720
What do they do? 
And they don't have, I mean, I 

1362
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:37,840
have access to all these 
resources that I can just say 

1363
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:40,480
here you go do this, do this. 
And then I paid them. 

1364
01:03:40,480 --> 01:03:42,520
I think they did someone like 6 
visits each. 

1365
01:03:42,520 --> 01:03:45,800
They came to the house 6 times 
with me and I took them through 

1366
01:03:46,040 --> 01:03:49,080
house orientation, pet 
orientation, pet profile forms, 

1367
01:03:49,080 --> 01:03:54,320
pet first day feeding schedules,
Kong stuffing, enrichment maps, 

1368
01:03:54,880 --> 01:03:57,160
walking around our property 
because we live on land. 

1369
01:03:57,360 --> 01:03:59,440
And I just thought, you know, 
that's the level of care that 

1370
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:01,520
everybody should get when 
they're when they, when they go 

1371
01:04:01,520 --> 01:04:04,320
on vacation, they leave their 
pets with a professional. 

1372
01:04:04,360 --> 01:04:06,360
It shouldn't be that. 
It shouldn't be the kid from 

1373
01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:09,080
next door that's now graduated 
to working at the supermarket 

1374
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:11,560
that's doing it on the weekends 
but doesn't have any training. 

1375
01:04:11,720 --> 01:04:15,360
Yes, 100% agree with you. 
Do you know what I really. 

1376
01:04:15,360 --> 01:04:17,520
Really love about this. 
I mean, obviously there will be 

1377
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:20,880
costs associated with that and 
you know very much in the UK 

1378
01:04:20,880 --> 01:04:23,360
it's cost of living crisis. 
There's a lot of factors. 

1379
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:26,360
I'm sure people will listen to 
this and be like, oh, that's 

1380
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:28,960
going to cost me a pretty penny.
I've got other priorities. 

1381
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:32,800
But what I absolutely love about
what you achieved with the the 

1382
01:04:32,800 --> 01:04:36,800
canine technician, sorry, 
enrichment canine enrichment 

1383
01:04:36,800 --> 01:04:39,960
technician programme. 
That's not just marketing, 

1384
01:04:39,960 --> 01:04:43,080
that's not just rebranding 
something to make it sound more 

1385
01:04:43,080 --> 01:04:46,080
interesting. 
That's actually solving a real 

1386
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:50,040
problem. 
But right reframing in the. 

1387
01:04:50,120 --> 01:04:53,080
Consumers. 
Brain that yes you're solving 

1388
01:04:53,080 --> 01:04:57,200
the problem but you get them to 
care yes exactly I think that's 

1389
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:01,760
genius genuinely genius and we 
could do a lot more things with 

1390
01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:06,320
that perspective to try and 
shift the you know yeah and you 

1391
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:07,960
see and and that for me is one 
of. 

1392
01:05:07,960 --> 01:05:11,360
Those sort of things that you do
that you say we've got to stop 

1393
01:05:11,360 --> 01:05:15,560
looking at pet carers, the kid 
next door or even the adult next

1394
01:05:15,560 --> 01:05:18,960
door that doesn't have any 
training right I mean at a 

1395
01:05:18,960 --> 01:05:22,240
minimum anyone working with 
animals should have should 

1396
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:25,400
understand the language they 
should understand what the 

1397
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:28,480
animal is communicating is the 
animal stressed are they happy 

1398
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:31,400
are they faithful fearful. 
The minimum, at a minimum, 

1399
01:05:31,440 --> 01:05:35,480
everyone should have pet first 
aid at an absolute minimum that 

1400
01:05:35,480 --> 01:05:37,560
that is the minimum. 
And you know, if you look at 

1401
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:40,640
diagnostics as an example, 
Arcanine Enrichment technician 

1402
01:05:40,640 --> 01:05:44,080
programme is $100. 
We deliberately left it at that 

1403
01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:47,120
price because we want it 
saturating the marketplace. 

1404
01:05:47,240 --> 01:05:50,680
So as a professional, if you 
take that and the pet first aid,

1405
01:05:50,680 --> 01:05:53,400
which is going to cost $60.00, 
you have then got the minimum 

1406
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:55,640
requirements to go and work with
animals. 

1407
01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:58,480
I think the UK probably 
government. 

1408
01:05:58,480 --> 01:06:01,920
Level need to introduce some 
kind of licence where those are 

1409
01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:06,440
two prerequisites potentially or
something similar to get people 

1410
01:06:06,600 --> 01:06:08,600
you know. 
No, you don't need a licence, 

1411
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:11,160
you know, as in like an annual 
licence or anything like that. 

1412
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:13,800
But like you want to own a pet, 
Show me that you've done these 

1413
01:06:13,800 --> 01:06:17,080
qualifications that would solve 
so many problems. 

1414
01:06:17,120 --> 01:06:19,960
And those people who are just 
impulsive for the sake of 

1415
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:23,560
wanting that Instagram photo or 
whatever, they will thankfully, 

1416
01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:27,520
hopefully think twice before 
making such huge life changing 

1417
01:06:27,520 --> 01:06:29,200
decisions for another living 
being. 

1418
01:06:29,240 --> 01:06:30,800
I mean, I remember when I first 
started. 

1419
01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:34,920
I mean, yeah, I had the theory. 
Of learning theory and all that.

1420
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:37,240
All the sort of funky, you know,
geeky stuff. 

1421
01:06:37,240 --> 01:06:40,640
But I mean, at the time I was 
living in Florida, I put myself 

1422
01:06:40,640 --> 01:06:42,720
through a distance learning 
course with a woman called 

1423
01:06:42,800 --> 01:06:46,200
Deborah Bragg who lived in 
Cumbria in England because it 

1424
01:06:46,200 --> 01:06:48,680
was the only course that was 
available at the time. 

1425
01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:50,120
I still have the binder 
somewhere. 

1426
01:06:50,120 --> 01:06:53,000
I keep them on my shelf as a 
reminder of years gone by. 

1427
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:56,280
And that was like 27 years ago. 
And then after that, I remember 

1428
01:06:56,280 --> 01:07:00,560
doing a pen foster online course
through some university in the 

1429
01:07:01,040 --> 01:07:03,640
US. 
And I did vet tech and groomer 

1430
01:07:03,640 --> 01:07:06,640
and dog trainer and veterinary 
assistant because I was just 

1431
01:07:06,640 --> 01:07:10,360
looking at grabbing everything I
could because for me as a 

1432
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:14,160
professional in an industry, you
would couldn't even contemplate 

1433
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:17,440
opening up a business in another
industry without at least having

1434
01:07:17,440 --> 01:07:20,400
some education and skills. 
I mean, that would be, of 

1435
01:07:20,400 --> 01:07:22,840
course, you wouldn't do that. 
Well, you know, millions of 

1436
01:07:22,840 --> 01:07:24,720
thousands of people do do that. 
Yeah. 

1437
01:07:25,040 --> 01:07:27,600
It's a real issue. 
Yeah, and it's amazing. 

1438
01:07:27,600 --> 01:07:29,400
Because most people would not 
just hand their. 

1439
01:07:29,400 --> 01:07:32,560
Child over to somebody but they 
quite happy to just hand like 

1440
01:07:32,680 --> 01:07:35,880
your friend in New York that 
handed that dog over yeah what's

1441
01:07:35,880 --> 01:07:38,000
really interesting here is how 
perceptions have. 

1442
01:07:38,000 --> 01:07:41,280
Changed over time, I think 
historically someone says I'm a 

1443
01:07:41,280 --> 01:07:43,760
hairdresser, you would assume 
they're qualified to be a 

1444
01:07:43,760 --> 01:07:46,160
hairdresser, right? 
They know how to cut hair. 

1445
01:07:46,360 --> 01:07:49,200
And so if someone says oh I'm a 
dog trainer, you would assume 

1446
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:51,160
that they are qualified to be a 
dog trainer. 

1447
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:54,560
But so many people are not, and 
it's not regulated. 

1448
01:07:54,560 --> 01:07:58,200
There's no oversight on it. 
So it creates consequences. 

1449
01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:02,440
And also it creates, it creates 
this kind of mistrust where 

1450
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:06,200
people just don't know who to 
trust or who to believe these 

1451
01:08:06,200 --> 01:08:07,920
days. 
And there's definitely something

1452
01:08:07,920 --> 01:08:10,680
missing. 
There's I, I really, I commend 

1453
01:08:10,680 --> 01:08:12,480
you for creating the pet 
Professional Guild. 

1454
01:08:12,480 --> 01:08:15,520
I just think it's wonderful. 
And then also diagnostics, I'm 

1455
01:08:15,520 --> 01:08:20,359
going to be taking that course 
myself because I think as not, 

1456
01:08:20,359 --> 01:08:23,560
I'm not a pet professional, but 
even as a, as a, as a dog 

1457
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:28,279
guardian, those are yeah, like I
cannot satisfy. 

1458
01:08:28,279 --> 01:08:31,600
My gal girl like. 
Literally she goes on 2 1/2 

1459
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:35,680
walks, three walks a day, long 
sniffs, free everything. 

1460
01:08:35,720 --> 01:08:38,800
You know, we do loads of 
enrichment and still most of the

1461
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:41,640
day I'm working and she's just 
looking at me waiting for me to 

1462
01:08:41,640 --> 01:08:43,279
finish. 
So there must be other more 

1463
01:08:43,279 --> 01:08:46,479
creative ways to, to provide her
with the stimulation that she 

1464
01:08:46,479 --> 01:08:48,359
needs. 
And it's great to know that this

1465
01:08:48,359 --> 01:08:50,000
solution is out there. 
Absolutely. 

1466
01:08:50,000 --> 01:08:52,279
And just, you know, just 
teachings, just teaching people 

1467
01:08:52,279 --> 01:08:53,479
basic. 
Scenting skills. 

1468
01:08:53,479 --> 01:08:55,359
I mean, I don't know. 
I should know this because 

1469
01:08:55,359 --> 01:08:57,760
Robert Hewings is a very good 
and Karen are good friends of 

1470
01:08:57,760 --> 01:09:01,160
mine who are in the UK who are 
probably the best scent 

1471
01:09:01,160 --> 01:09:02,840
instructors that I've ever come 
across. 

1472
01:09:02,920 --> 01:09:06,080
I think something like 75% of 
the dog's brain is controlled 

1473
01:09:06,080 --> 01:09:08,439
through the nose. 
And I remember when I did, I 

1474
01:09:08,439 --> 01:09:10,120
brought them into that. 
I brought them out to the US 

1475
01:09:10,120 --> 01:09:12,600
about 8 years ago to do a 
workshop at my training facility

1476
01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:15,479
and just became absolutely 
obsessed with scent work and my 

1477
01:09:15,479 --> 01:09:18,399
Aussie and I haven't done scent 
work with either of my dogs for 

1478
01:09:18,399 --> 01:09:20,319
a long time. 
And then last Sunday, funnily 

1479
01:09:20,319 --> 01:09:22,560
enough, I had a scent workshop 
here and after everybody had 

1480
01:09:22,560 --> 01:09:25,160
gone and I don't do a lot of 
plant training anymore because 

1481
01:09:25,160 --> 01:09:28,720
I'm busy with Diagnostic 6 and 
PPG, but I do, I always have 5 

1482
01:09:28,720 --> 01:09:31,080
clients on my roster because I 
like to keep my hand in. 

1483
01:09:31,279 --> 01:09:34,359
And I somehow I end up with all 
these border collie owners who 

1484
01:09:34,359 --> 01:09:36,680
want to do agility and they've 
got behavioural problems. 

1485
01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:38,640
So I've had the same clients for
years. 

1486
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:41,000
And we did it, we did some scent
stuff a couple of Sundays ago. 

1487
01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:43,399
And after they'd gone, my 
husband let my dogs out and they

1488
01:09:43,399 --> 01:09:45,680
came charging down to the 
training facility and the scent 

1489
01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:47,520
stuff was already out. 
And I thought, oh, you know, 

1490
01:09:47,520 --> 01:09:49,399
while I've got it out I'll do 
some stuff with them. 

1491
01:09:49,399 --> 01:09:52,359
And I hadn't done some work with
Doogie for Who's My Aussie for 

1492
01:09:52,359 --> 01:09:53,800
probably, I don't know, two 
years. 

1493
01:09:53,960 --> 01:09:56,400
And he hadn't forgotten any of 
it, ran it through a couple 

1494
01:09:56,480 --> 01:09:58,840
percent courses. 
And then about an hour later, my

1495
01:09:58,840 --> 01:10:00,280
husband said, what, Junta 
dookie. 

1496
01:10:00,280 --> 01:10:03,320
She's absolutely crashed out. 
And I said, yeah, I always. 

1497
01:10:03,320 --> 01:10:06,640
I have to remind myself how 
exhausted they get. 

1498
01:10:06,680 --> 01:10:08,880
She used to run with me. 
I could run a 10 miles and she'd

1499
01:10:08,880 --> 01:10:10,400
get home and be like, what's 
next? 

1500
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:12,760
I do half an hour, said work 
with her, and she's lying on the

1501
01:10:12,760 --> 01:10:14,400
back upside down with her feet 
in the air. 

1502
01:10:14,440 --> 01:10:16,080
That's wonderful. 
Yeah. 

1503
01:10:16,080 --> 01:10:17,320
Yeah. 
And a lot of people don't 

1504
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:19,320
actually. 
Know that OK I need to walk my 

1505
01:10:19,320 --> 01:10:22,960
dog twice a day maybe if they're
lucky and then tick that's it 

1506
01:10:22,960 --> 01:10:26,960
done yeah so scent work is 
definitely another thing to go 

1507
01:10:26,960 --> 01:10:29,720
research but even walking 
there's walking and there's 

1508
01:10:29,720 --> 01:10:32,960
walking right I mean when I. 
I have land, so I don't take my 

1509
01:10:32,960 --> 01:10:36,480
dogs out and leashes very often,
but when I do, we literally go 

1510
01:10:36,480 --> 01:10:39,920
out for a designated period of 
time and the dogs do whatever 

1511
01:10:39,920 --> 01:10:41,760
they want. 
And if they only want to go 20 

1512
01:10:41,760 --> 01:10:44,400
minutes down the road but that 
takes an hour because they're so

1513
01:10:44,400 --> 01:10:47,640
engrossed in smells, I'm fine 
with that because it's not about

1514
01:10:47,640 --> 01:10:50,600
a road round the block. 
Let's go for a walk. 

1515
01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:52,560
It's about this is your 
experience. 

1516
01:10:52,560 --> 01:10:54,320
Do with it what you want. 
Yeah. 

1517
01:10:54,600 --> 01:10:56,920
Even if it's on a lead, you 
know, like just. 

1518
01:10:56,920 --> 01:11:00,040
Being yeah, this is this is you 
know, if I take them off the 

1519
01:11:00,040 --> 01:11:02,000
property, I. 
Take them on leashes, but I 

1520
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:03,840
literally just say, OK, whatever
you want. 

1521
01:11:03,840 --> 01:11:06,200
And if they want to sort of go 
gung ho, they're great. 

1522
01:11:06,200 --> 01:11:08,440
And if they don't, if we only 
get to the end of the road 

1523
01:11:08,440 --> 01:11:10,680
because there's so much 
enrichment in the smells and 

1524
01:11:10,680 --> 01:11:12,320
that's fine too. 
And that's fine. 

1525
01:11:12,640 --> 01:11:14,200
Exactly. 
They just want to be out 

1526
01:11:14,200 --> 01:11:15,120
enjoying. 
Themselves. 

1527
01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:17,960
Exactly. 
Unsniffed the female you were 

1528
01:11:17,960 --> 01:11:19,320
saying? 
At the beginning and that you're

1529
01:11:19,320 --> 01:11:23,360
actually really excited about 
the future and hopeful up until 

1530
01:11:23,360 --> 01:11:26,720
this point, I haven't actually 
felt that elsewhere from, you 

1531
01:11:26,720 --> 01:11:30,040
know, kind of it feels a little 
bit like there's a ever so 

1532
01:11:30,040 --> 01:11:34,160
slightly dark cloud looming over
us because you know, world 

1533
01:11:34,320 --> 01:11:37,640
issues, loads of crises, the 
cost of living. 

1534
01:11:37,640 --> 01:11:40,400
It feels sometimes like life is 
just kind of like getting 

1535
01:11:40,400 --> 01:11:43,560
heavier and heavier and heavier.
And of course dogs suffer as a 

1536
01:11:43,560 --> 01:11:45,880
consequence, dogs and other 
animals. 

1537
01:11:46,120 --> 01:11:48,440
But you're very optimistic and 
very positive. 

1538
01:11:48,560 --> 01:11:51,760
What would you say is one of the
main factors driving that? 

1539
01:11:51,960 --> 01:11:54,840
I think it's the research that I
did last month and the fact 

1540
01:11:54,840 --> 01:11:56,840
that. 
All the purchasing trends in the

1541
01:11:56,840 --> 01:12:02,040
industry all point towards 
informed pet owners making 

1542
01:12:02,040 --> 01:12:06,600
educated decisions, buying the 
right supply is the right type 

1543
01:12:06,600 --> 01:12:09,920
of food, the right type of 
services, which makes me feel 

1544
01:12:09,920 --> 01:12:12,560
really, really good from the pet
owner perspective. 

1545
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:14,880
And then from the pet in from 
the pet professional 

1546
01:12:14,880 --> 01:12:17,080
perspective. 
Over the last month, we've had 

1547
01:12:17,080 --> 01:12:19,920
three of the largest 
organisations all dropping Lima 

1548
01:12:20,200 --> 01:12:23,800
and all choosing and new models 
to move towards which are almost

1549
01:12:23,800 --> 01:12:26,480
aligned with our guiding 
principles and our best practise

1550
01:12:26,480 --> 01:12:28,240
model. 
And I've watched those 3 

1551
01:12:28,240 --> 01:12:31,160
organisations over the last 
seven years sort of gradually 

1552
01:12:31,200 --> 01:12:34,960
etching slowly forwards towards 
that line where I think there's 

1553
01:12:34,960 --> 01:12:36,920
sort of where the ethical line 
is. 

1554
01:12:37,080 --> 01:12:39,320
And they're doing it because of 
pressure from the industry, 

1555
01:12:39,320 --> 01:12:41,880
whether that's pressure from 
PPG, whether it's pressure from 

1556
01:12:41,880 --> 01:12:44,160
pet professionals saying I'm a 
member and you guys need to 

1557
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:46,680
rethink what we're doing. 
So I think that is really, 

1558
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:48,560
really promising. 
I mean, look, you know, if you 

1559
01:12:48,560 --> 01:12:51,280
look at the world in general, we
could all get doom and gloom 

1560
01:12:51,280 --> 01:12:54,920
between the politics and the, 
and the wars and God knows what 

1561
01:12:54,920 --> 01:12:57,200
else is going on. 
But if you actually look at the 

1562
01:12:57,200 --> 01:13:01,320
research, there is a general 
move back towards the middle. 

1563
01:13:01,320 --> 01:13:04,000
I mean, I think as humans, we 
just tend to focus on the 

1564
01:13:04,000 --> 01:13:05,680
negative, don't we? 
Because that's, that's our 

1565
01:13:05,800 --> 01:13:08,880
survival mechanism is to watch 
out and be alerted to anything 

1566
01:13:08,880 --> 01:13:11,760
that could be on the horizon. 
But in our industry, there are a

1567
01:13:11,760 --> 01:13:14,480
lot of really strong indicators 
just with some of the technology

1568
01:13:14,480 --> 01:13:17,200
that's now selling and the AI 
that's becoming popular in the 

1569
01:13:17,200 --> 01:13:19,720
industry. 
I just felt really good about 

1570
01:13:19,720 --> 01:13:21,920
what I was seeing to the point 
where I put together a 

1571
01:13:21,920 --> 01:13:23,760
PowerPoint presentation. 
I was like, so excited. 

1572
01:13:23,760 --> 01:13:26,000
I was like, Oh my God. 
Normally I would just do a sort 

1573
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:27,480
of A2 page document. 
This is what we're doing. 

1574
01:13:27,480 --> 01:13:29,560
Bah, Bah, Bah, Bah. 
This is where the marketplace 

1575
01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:31,280
is. 
What do you guys want to do next

1576
01:13:31,280 --> 01:13:33,600
year? 
And this year I was like, OK, 

1577
01:13:33,720 --> 01:13:36,560
this is telling us where we need
to be going next year. 

1578
01:13:36,560 --> 01:13:40,360
We need to be leveraging the 
fact that the, the, the pet 

1579
01:13:40,360 --> 01:13:42,680
owners more educated, they're, 
they're making the right 

1580
01:13:42,680 --> 01:13:44,480
decisions. 
There's a tip we're near a 

1581
01:13:44,480 --> 01:13:46,960
tipping point. 
Some of the techno technological

1582
01:13:46,960 --> 01:13:49,400
advancements that are coming in 
our industry, which are moving 

1583
01:13:49,400 --> 01:13:51,720
away from sort of the technology
of shock collars to the 

1584
01:13:51,720 --> 01:13:55,640
technology of enrichment devices
and all that kind of fun stuff. 

1585
01:13:55,640 --> 01:13:58,600
So I, I just felt really good. 
And I, and I did talk to a lot 

1586
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:01,320
of dog trainers as well. 
And I talk to a lot of consumers

1587
01:14:01,320 --> 01:14:04,480
because of my role at PPG. 
And often I talk to dog trainers

1588
01:14:04,480 --> 01:14:07,280
that are in isolated areas that 
go, God, Nikki, I don't know 

1589
01:14:07,280 --> 01:14:08,920
what to do. 
I'm thinking about closing and 

1590
01:14:08,920 --> 01:14:11,680
I'm like, no, no, this is a time
when we push forwards because 

1591
01:14:11,920 --> 01:14:13,200
we're almost at the tipping 
point. 

1592
01:14:13,200 --> 01:14:14,240
And they go, I just don't see 
it. 

1593
01:14:14,240 --> 01:14:16,360
I see it. 
I talk to trainers all over the 

1594
01:14:16,360 --> 01:14:19,800
world, literally, who are 
telling me that phone calls are 

1595
01:14:19,800 --> 01:14:23,400
now up in terms of pet owners 
asking for specific types of 

1596
01:14:23,400 --> 01:14:25,960
training, which they never 
experienced before. 

1597
01:14:25,960 --> 01:14:29,160
Pet owners say, you know, having
thrown a trainer in the gut 

1598
01:14:29,240 --> 01:14:31,920
because they're like, no, I'm 
not doing that with my dog. 

1599
01:14:31,920 --> 01:14:33,880
I'm sorry. 
I'm going to go find someone 

1600
01:14:33,880 --> 01:14:36,520
that can help me. 
And that that for me is very, 

1601
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:39,080
very positive because we, we, we
just haven't seen that in the 

1602
01:14:39,080 --> 01:14:41,040
past. 
That's super positive. 

1603
01:14:41,040 --> 01:14:44,440
That gives me a load of hope. 
Really, because this podcast 

1604
01:14:44,440 --> 01:14:47,960
exists because of things I've 
observed and realised like we 

1605
01:14:48,000 --> 01:14:49,880
need, we need, I mean, we need 
to do something. 

1606
01:14:50,040 --> 01:14:51,440
I mean the shot caller law. 
So in. 

1607
01:14:51,440 --> 01:14:53,000
California. 
That PPG was I. 

1608
01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:54,360
Don't know if you're familiar 
with that. 

1609
01:14:54,600 --> 01:14:57,200
There was a class action lawsuit
that they just had to pay out 

1610
01:14:57,200 --> 01:14:59,760
almost $2,000,000. 
And a lot of people don't know 

1611
01:14:59,760 --> 01:15:01,840
this, but we were very 
instrumental in that. 

1612
01:15:01,840 --> 01:15:04,560
About four, three or four years 
ago, we had, we got a phone call

1613
01:15:04,560 --> 01:15:07,720
from a lawyer in Atlanta who had
come across. 

1614
01:15:07,720 --> 01:15:10,600
I don't know how, I don't and I 
don't remember how this came 

1615
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:12,880
about. 
But she literally was a young 

1616
01:15:12,880 --> 01:15:16,520
lawyer who just got her first 
job, having passed the bar. 

1617
01:15:16,520 --> 01:15:20,760
And somehow shape or form had 
become educated about shock 

1618
01:15:20,760 --> 01:15:24,160
collars and how damaging they 
were and wanted to do something.

1619
01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:28,000
So she decided that they she 
was, she spoke to her boss who's

1620
01:15:28,040 --> 01:15:31,120
and said, can I do a pro bono? 
And her boss said if you can 

1621
01:15:31,120 --> 01:15:34,240
find somebody that's got teeth 
in the game, Yeah. 

1622
01:15:34,440 --> 01:15:38,240
So she found, well, she 
approached somebody else who 

1623
01:15:38,240 --> 01:15:41,560
said get hold of Nikki at PPG. 
So I got this e-mail offer and 

1624
01:15:41,560 --> 01:15:44,320
when I first read it, I thought 
that's probably spam, it's not 

1625
01:15:44,320 --> 01:15:47,960
real, but you know, your phone 
just to be on the safe side. 

1626
01:15:47,960 --> 01:15:52,280
And sure enough, she was looking
for a pet owner in California 

1627
01:15:52,480 --> 01:15:54,280
whose dog had been harmed by 
shot collar. 

1628
01:15:54,400 --> 01:15:56,320
And I said, well, I can find you
hundreds of professionals. 

1629
01:15:56,320 --> 01:15:58,960
She goes, no, has to be a pet 
owner because pet professionals 

1630
01:15:58,960 --> 01:16:01,920
should know better. 
We need a pet owner that has 

1631
01:16:01,920 --> 01:16:05,600
bought a shot collar unknowingly
and has got their dogs been 

1632
01:16:05,880 --> 01:16:08,600
harmed. 
So we found a gentleman, 

1633
01:16:08,600 --> 01:16:12,360
Hernandez in California, whose 
dog had had its neck burnt 

1634
01:16:12,360 --> 01:16:15,640
through a shot collar, made the 
connection and the lawsuit went 

1635
01:16:15,640 --> 01:16:18,280
ahead. 
We were a witness and had to do 

1636
01:16:18,280 --> 01:16:21,520
depositions and through a 
colleague of mine, Doctor Zazie 

1637
01:16:21,520 --> 01:16:23,920
Todd, who's lovely as he's 
adorable. 

1638
01:16:23,920 --> 01:16:26,880
You will love her. 
She's she's awesome. 

1639
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:31,040
One night our lawyer phoned me 
and said we need to collate all 

1640
01:16:31,040 --> 01:16:33,800
the research papers we can about
positive reinforcement training.

1641
01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:36,960
And I said, OK, because we were 
putting together discovery for 

1642
01:16:36,960 --> 01:16:39,160
the lawsuit. 
And I said, well, we've got a 

1643
01:16:39,160 --> 01:16:41,760
lot of PPG because all 
opposition statements have been 

1644
01:16:41,880 --> 01:16:44,280
well sighted. 
I said, but I know somebody who 

1645
01:16:44,280 --> 01:16:47,200
has a really good collection. 
And I emailed Zazzy and within 

1646
01:16:47,200 --> 01:16:49,920
about two hours they all came 
flying over. 

1647
01:16:49,920 --> 01:16:54,120
So we sent the lawyer this 
massive discovery package of all

1648
01:16:54,120 --> 01:16:57,000
opposition statements and every 
scientific study that's been 

1649
01:16:57,000 --> 01:16:59,920
done on training and not just 
training, but the ethics, 

1650
01:16:59,960 --> 01:17:02,480
everything. 
So we were actually named PPG 

1651
01:17:02,480 --> 01:17:05,200
was named in the lawsuit, which 
I was so proud of. 

1652
01:17:05,440 --> 01:17:07,960
And then about 8 months ago, our
lawyer phoned us and said you're

1653
01:17:07,960 --> 01:17:09,640
going to have to fly to 
California to do debt 

1654
01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:10,800
depositions. 
Is that fine? 

1655
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:13,480
That's fine. 
Done depositions before and 

1656
01:17:13,480 --> 01:17:16,720
understand the process and then 
heard nothing and nothing, 

1657
01:17:17,200 --> 01:17:21,120
nothing and a year nothing. 
And I'm thinking of shoot, this 

1658
01:17:21,120 --> 01:17:23,840
is going to get thrown out. 
And then our lawyer Jim how 

1659
01:17:24,000 --> 01:17:26,960
emailed one day and said judges 
settling it is going it's going 

1660
01:17:26,960 --> 01:17:28,320
to class action. 
I was like, yeah. 

1661
01:17:28,880 --> 01:17:31,400
And of course. 
And at the time and I wanted to 

1662
01:17:31,400 --> 01:17:34,040
go out and scream and shout and 
he's like, don't say anything 

1663
01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:36,600
because we don't want to alert 
the other side. 

1664
01:17:36,600 --> 01:17:40,400
We don't want to create this 
massive movement of anti 

1665
01:17:40,520 --> 01:17:43,600
lawsuit. 
And the IACP is very strong on 

1666
01:17:43,600 --> 01:17:45,520
advocacy. 
That's the association that 

1667
01:17:45,520 --> 01:17:48,200
believes that every tool is 
available to drug trainers. 

1668
01:17:48,280 --> 01:17:50,480
And then about three months ago,
I got an e-mail off our lawyer 

1669
01:17:50,480 --> 01:17:52,840
saying the class action lawsuits
been approved. 

1670
01:17:52,840 --> 01:17:55,400
And this is, well, this is how. 
And then it got got handed down 

1671
01:17:55,400 --> 01:17:58,320
like a month ago. 
So that's another really good 

1672
01:17:58,320 --> 01:18:02,640
sign because some of our members
got a little bit frustrated with

1673
01:18:02,640 --> 01:18:05,600
us a few months ago because we 
didn't jump very quickly onto 

1674
01:18:05,600 --> 01:18:08,480
the New Jersey legislation to 
licenced dog trainers. 

1675
01:18:08,800 --> 01:18:10,320
And we didn't for several 
reasons. 

1676
01:18:10,320 --> 01:18:13,440
One, because we I didn't think 
it was ever going to get out of 

1677
01:18:13,440 --> 01:18:17,440
the house. 2, we're not 
constituents in New Jersey and 

1678
01:18:17,440 --> 01:18:20,320
most, most lawmakers are not 
interested in talking to you 

1679
01:18:20,320 --> 01:18:23,400
unless you're a constituent. 
And three, we have limited 

1680
01:18:23,400 --> 01:18:26,400
resources and limited time. 
And all our time and resources 

1681
01:18:26,400 --> 01:18:28,640
was going behind the shock 
collar lawsuit. 

1682
01:18:28,640 --> 01:18:33,320
Because now that it's passed, we
can now categorically go into 

1683
01:18:33,320 --> 01:18:38,120
the marketplace and say radio 
systems had to pay $2,000,000 

1684
01:18:38,320 --> 01:18:41,960
and had to publicly apologise 
and admit that their shock 

1685
01:18:41,960 --> 01:18:45,440
collars are dangerous to dogs. 
And that for me, from an 

1686
01:18:45,440 --> 01:18:49,360
advocacy perspective, was be 
more powerful than one state 

1687
01:18:49,360 --> 01:18:52,600
potentially licencing dog 
trainers and grandfathering all 

1688
01:18:52,600 --> 01:18:54,640
the shot collar trainers in, 
which is exactly what the 

1689
01:18:54,640 --> 01:18:57,000
congressman told me would happen
when I spoke to him. 

1690
01:18:57,120 --> 01:19:00,160
So that's another sign in our 
industry that things are 

1691
01:19:00,160 --> 01:19:02,880
starting to happen because five 
years ago that wouldn't have 

1692
01:19:02,880 --> 01:19:05,800
even got off the ground. 
And that's massive because now 

1693
01:19:05,800 --> 01:19:08,400
you're going to have legal 
precedent set and now there's 

1694
01:19:08,400 --> 01:19:10,080
going to be a map. 
Now it's going to open the 

1695
01:19:10,080 --> 01:19:13,120
floodgates to all kinds of other
lawsuits, yes. 

1696
01:19:13,320 --> 01:19:15,280
Fingers and toes crossed, 
however. 

1697
01:19:15,560 --> 01:19:18,680
Slight caveat, in many cases 
those are just going to be 

1698
01:19:18,680 --> 01:19:21,800
rebranded. 
Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely,

1699
01:19:21,840 --> 01:19:22,840
yeah. 
But the. 

1700
01:19:22,920 --> 01:19:26,040
Fact that they had to come out 
publicly and say yes, these 

1701
01:19:26,120 --> 01:19:29,080
these tools are dangerous and 
they can cause harm and I don't 

1702
01:19:29,080 --> 01:19:31,000
I don't remember off the top of 
my head how many people in the 

1703
01:19:31,000 --> 01:19:33,320
class action lawsuit, but there 
was a significant number. 

1704
01:19:33,480 --> 01:19:36,480
So I mean, that for me is great 
because that now, you know, now 

1705
01:19:36,480 --> 01:19:38,840
wait, that puts us in a much 
stronger position to advocate to

1706
01:19:38,840 --> 01:19:41,160
pet owners because we can 
because now it's not just us 

1707
01:19:41,160 --> 01:19:44,240
saying it, right. 
The law has said the company who

1708
01:19:44,240 --> 01:19:46,880
makes them has said, yes, 
they're dangerous. 

1709
01:19:47,000 --> 01:19:49,920
And I was always amazed that 
we're because I have all the 

1710
01:19:49,920 --> 01:19:52,920
guides, I've got the instruction
guides on all these shot collars

1711
01:19:52,920 --> 01:19:56,080
and they all say in there at 
some point can cause this, this,

1712
01:19:56,080 --> 01:19:58,560
this, this and this. 
But who reads an instruction 

1713
01:19:58,560 --> 01:20:00,880
manual? 
No one, especially a desperate 

1714
01:20:00,880 --> 01:20:02,160
dog owner. 
You know where they. 

1715
01:20:02,160 --> 01:20:04,720
Look for a quick solution and 
then all of a sudden is like, 

1716
01:20:04,880 --> 01:20:07,000
oh, you know, I need to figure 
out how to use this tool. 

1717
01:20:07,000 --> 01:20:09,760
And in figuring out how to use 
the tool, there's going to be 

1718
01:20:09,760 --> 01:20:12,200
trial and error. 
And who's going to suffer? 

1719
01:20:12,400 --> 01:20:14,840
The dog and you. 
And we also have to realise as 

1720
01:20:14,840 --> 01:20:18,080
well that some pet. 
Owners do get themselves in very

1721
01:20:18,080 --> 01:20:19,720
difficult situations with 
animals. 

1722
01:20:19,720 --> 01:20:23,320
And by the time they get to us, 
they are angry, they're 

1723
01:20:23,320 --> 01:20:27,560
frustrated, they're embarrassed.
They are it's impacted their 

1724
01:20:27,560 --> 01:20:29,640
family life. 
It's maybe they can no longer 

1725
01:20:29,640 --> 01:20:32,560
have visitors in their home. 
They've had to move their entire

1726
01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:35,400
life round to accommodate a 
dog's schedule. 

1727
01:20:35,560 --> 01:20:38,520
So, you know, I'm not suggesting
in any way that it's OK to shock

1728
01:20:38,520 --> 01:20:40,720
a dog. 
But then when you make a phone 

1729
01:20:40,720 --> 01:20:44,800
call and a professional says I 
can fix this for you, pet owners

1730
01:20:44,800 --> 01:20:47,560
that do not know and any other 
or do not know better are going 

1731
01:20:47,560 --> 01:20:51,760
to say help now come in the same
way that I did in Hawaii. 

1732
01:20:51,760 --> 01:20:55,440
And when I said help come now, I
was lucky that the person that 

1733
01:20:55,440 --> 01:20:58,240
came was a positive 
reinforcement dog trainer. 

1734
01:20:58,240 --> 01:21:01,000
Now, I don't think for a minute 
if it'd been a shock collar 

1735
01:21:01,000 --> 01:21:02,960
trainer that I would have said, 
Yep, give me that and put it on 

1736
01:21:02,960 --> 01:21:05,440
my dog. 
But a lot of people would have 

1737
01:21:05,440 --> 01:21:08,560
done because the problems that 
were being faced at home were 

1738
01:21:08,560 --> 01:21:10,840
insurmountable and were 
overwhelming. 

1739
01:21:10,920 --> 01:21:14,680
So some trainers say pet should 
know better in this day and age.

1740
01:21:14,760 --> 01:21:17,000
You know, there's it, we've been
in a positive reinforcements, 

1741
01:21:17,000 --> 01:21:19,480
been around for long enough. 
And I think that's really unfair

1742
01:21:19,680 --> 01:21:21,840
because there are still people 
that smoke. 

1743
01:21:21,840 --> 01:21:25,120
There are still people that, you
know, as humans, we have this 

1744
01:21:25,120 --> 01:21:28,080
amazing ability to know that we 
should do something but don't 

1745
01:21:28,080 --> 01:21:30,760
have the ability or the 
motivation to actually do it. 

1746
01:21:30,960 --> 01:21:33,480
Because these topics can be very
complex. 

1747
01:21:33,480 --> 01:21:37,320
And then cognitive bias and all 
kinds of other paradigms come 

1748
01:21:37,320 --> 01:21:39,640
into play. 
You know the two self theory of,

1749
01:21:39,880 --> 01:21:41,640
you know, the short term and the
long term self. 

1750
01:21:41,640 --> 01:21:44,360
There are a lot of reasons why 
it's the reason why the the 

1751
01:21:44,400 --> 01:21:46,640
health industries are on the 
biggest industries in the world,

1752
01:21:46,640 --> 01:21:48,400
right? 
People are overweight and 

1753
01:21:48,400 --> 01:21:50,640
they're unhealthy and they know 
that they could it could have 

1754
01:21:50,720 --> 01:21:52,920
serious consequences, but they 
still don't get up in the 

1755
01:21:52,920 --> 01:21:56,240
morning and go for a run. 
It's very complicated for 

1756
01:21:56,240 --> 01:21:57,800
people. 
It's not a simple case of 

1757
01:21:57,800 --> 01:21:59,880
willpower or intent or 
motivation. 

1758
01:21:59,880 --> 01:22:01,280
There's a lot of other things at
play. 

1759
01:22:01,520 --> 01:22:03,880
So I don't blame the pet owners 
because there are a lot of 

1760
01:22:03,880 --> 01:22:06,200
people that are living in 
environments where they don't 

1761
01:22:06,200 --> 01:22:08,240
have access to positive 
reinforcement training. 

1762
01:22:08,240 --> 01:22:10,720
They maybe haven't read the book
or seen the TV show. 

1763
01:22:10,840 --> 01:22:13,800
For me, it's on the professional
to would not be offering that 

1764
01:22:13,800 --> 01:22:17,840
type of advice given that we 
know all the all the side 

1765
01:22:17,840 --> 01:22:21,200
effects and the impacts. 
There are dog owners, dog 

1766
01:22:21,200 --> 01:22:23,920
guardians. 
Who also listen to this podcast 

1767
01:22:23,920 --> 01:22:26,160
and I'm wondering if you can 
give them some guidance 

1768
01:22:26,160 --> 01:22:29,520
specifically in the US, more so 
because that's where you're 

1769
01:22:29,520 --> 01:22:34,680
based, but do they define the 
right trainer for their dogs? 

1770
01:22:34,840 --> 01:22:38,720
Do they specifically look for 
accreditation as in Pet Pet 

1771
01:22:38,720 --> 01:22:40,480
Professional Guild 
accreditation? 

1772
01:22:40,480 --> 01:22:43,360
What are some of the signs? 
I know that you said that some 

1773
01:22:43,360 --> 01:22:47,480
people will already say positive
reinforcement, but I guess on 

1774
01:22:47,480 --> 01:22:49,880
the off chance that somebody 
who's never been doesn't know 

1775
01:22:49,880 --> 01:22:52,600
what that means, what do they 
look for? 

1776
01:22:52,600 --> 01:22:53,680
They're looking for a dog 
trainer. 

1777
01:22:53,680 --> 01:22:55,840
What do they look for? 
Well, I think, I think you have 

1778
01:22:55,840 --> 01:22:57,120
to. 
First of all, you have to rely 

1779
01:22:57,120 --> 01:22:59,400
on going to the right. 
Locations to find a dog trainer.

1780
01:22:59,400 --> 01:23:02,920
So the pet professional Guild, 
you know, Karen Pryor Academy, 

1781
01:23:02,920 --> 01:23:06,280
Gene Donaldson's Academy, Pat 
Miller's Academy, there are a 

1782
01:23:06,280 --> 01:23:09,200
lot of organisations that you 
can go to where the, where 

1783
01:23:09,200 --> 01:23:11,680
you're going to be finding 
professionals that have red 

1784
01:23:11,680 --> 01:23:14,240
herring to code of conduct or an
ethical statement. 

1785
01:23:14,360 --> 01:23:16,720
But then you have to compound 
that with the fact that there 

1786
01:23:16,720 --> 01:23:18,840
are some people that. 
So as an example, there are 

1787
01:23:18,840 --> 01:23:20,840
members of the pet professional 
Guild that don't necessarily 

1788
01:23:20,840 --> 01:23:23,680
have a formal credential, but, 
and they might be really good 

1789
01:23:23,680 --> 01:23:25,720
dog trainers because they might 
have mentored under the right 

1790
01:23:25,720 --> 01:23:28,720
people or done self study. 
But then you also have a lot of 

1791
01:23:28,720 --> 01:23:31,800
dog trainers that have paid for 
good education and gone to good 

1792
01:23:31,800 --> 01:23:34,680
schools, but maybe don't agree 
or conform to the ethics. 

1793
01:23:34,720 --> 01:23:37,320
So you're looking at it, you 
know, it's sort of a Gordian 

1794
01:23:37,320 --> 01:23:38,640
knot. 
You're looking at it that the 

1795
01:23:38,640 --> 01:23:41,640
ethics have got to be in place. 
So I would, I would be, I would 

1796
01:23:41,640 --> 01:23:44,880
be advising pet owners, you have
to find dog trainers that not 

1797
01:23:44,880 --> 01:23:47,720
only believe in doing no harm, 
but they also believe in doing 

1798
01:23:47,720 --> 01:23:49,600
good. 
You have to find a dog trainer 

1799
01:23:49,600 --> 01:23:52,200
that will categorically explain 
to you how they are going to 

1800
01:23:52,200 --> 01:23:54,680
train your dog. 
And you have to be able to ask 

1801
01:23:54,680 --> 01:23:57,120
them, if my dog does something 
that you don't like, how are you

1802
01:23:57,120 --> 01:23:59,120
going to respond? 
What are you going to do? 

1803
01:23:59,560 --> 01:24:02,000
And if a dog trainer says that 
they're going to use any type of

1804
01:24:02,000 --> 01:24:05,280
scary punishment or equipment, 
then run, run fast and go find 

1805
01:24:05,280 --> 01:24:08,760
somebody who's not going to. 
So there are some good landing 

1806
01:24:08,760 --> 01:24:12,520
places where you can start, but 
you know, it's a, it's a 

1807
01:24:12,520 --> 01:24:15,520
combination of ethics and 
knowledge and skills. 

1808
01:24:15,520 --> 01:24:18,360
There are a lot of people that 
are credentialed academically 

1809
01:24:18,360 --> 01:24:20,240
only. 
Well, dog training is a 

1810
01:24:20,240 --> 01:24:23,560
procedural job and declarative 
knowledge is not enough. 

1811
01:24:23,560 --> 01:24:26,600
You've got our procedural skills
and some schools and 

1812
01:24:26,600 --> 01:24:28,720
accreditations don't test for 
those. 

1813
01:24:28,760 --> 01:24:31,520
So This is why it's a problem 
for pet owners, right? 

1814
01:24:31,520 --> 01:24:34,120
I mean, it's already taking me 
way longer than it should to 

1815
01:24:34,120 --> 01:24:37,320
articulate how you find a dog 
trainer because I should be able

1816
01:24:37,320 --> 01:24:40,160
to say go here and you will find
someone that is good. 

1817
01:24:41,600 --> 01:24:43,720
And it's not that simple. 
It's not that simple. 

1818
01:24:43,920 --> 01:24:46,320
So you've got organisations like
the Pet Professional Guild that 

1819
01:24:46,320 --> 01:24:50,160
we have a on our website, on our
directory page, we actually have

1820
01:24:50,200 --> 01:24:52,680
a form that you can fill out if 
you're looking for somebody, we 

1821
01:24:52,680 --> 01:24:54,440
will help you find somebody in 
your area. 

1822
01:24:54,640 --> 01:24:57,560
So if you don't find somebody in
our directory because you can't 

1823
01:24:57,560 --> 01:25:00,640
find someone proximity fill out 
the form and we'll get back to 

1824
01:25:00,640 --> 01:25:03,160
you within 24 hours. 
Because so many dog trainers now

1825
01:25:03,160 --> 01:25:06,680
are working virtually as well. 
That doesn't matter where you 

1826
01:25:06,680 --> 01:25:08,520
live anymore. 
You can access some of the best 

1827
01:25:08,520 --> 01:25:11,200
dog trainers in the world just 
by jumping on Zoom, and it can 

1828
01:25:11,200 --> 01:25:13,680
be just as is effective. 
Look how many of those trainers 

1829
01:25:13,680 --> 01:25:18,280
actually train the human. 
It's funny you say that because 

1830
01:25:18,280 --> 01:25:20,960
I rolled out a course about. 
Six months ago. 

1831
01:25:21,040 --> 01:25:25,120
My background is people training
and I always recognise that all 

1832
01:25:25,120 --> 01:25:27,840
the schools and prep, with the 
exception of diagnostics, I 

1833
01:25:27,840 --> 01:25:31,240
think this is accurate. 
We are the only school that 

1834
01:25:31,240 --> 01:25:34,440
teaches people training as well 
as dog training and it's all 

1835
01:25:34,440 --> 01:25:37,200
part of the curriculum. 
And we teach experiential 

1836
01:25:37,200 --> 01:25:40,880
learning, we teach motivational 
interviewing, we teach project 

1837
01:25:40,880 --> 01:25:43,200
management, we teach change 
management. 

1838
01:25:43,200 --> 01:25:47,600
We teach all the aspects that 
somebody needs to be working 

1839
01:25:47,600 --> 01:25:50,720
with and teaching people because
at the end of the day, most of 

1840
01:25:50,720 --> 01:25:53,200
us don't train dogs. 
We train people to train dogs 

1841
01:25:53,400 --> 01:25:56,360
and that is a very different 
skill set than training dogs. 

1842
01:25:57,320 --> 01:25:59,840
And it's why when I'm trying to 
say I don't like working with 

1843
01:25:59,840 --> 01:26:02,360
people, you think, well, maybe 
you should go work, work in 

1844
01:26:02,360 --> 01:26:04,800
another industry. 
Because I've I've yet to come 

1845
01:26:04,800 --> 01:26:07,520
across a dog that arrives at my 
facility driving its own vehicle

1846
01:26:07,520 --> 01:26:09,120
and banishing its own credit 
card. 

1847
01:26:09,120 --> 01:26:10,360
I mean, that does not the way it
works. 

1848
01:26:10,360 --> 01:26:12,480
People, they come with humans, 
right? 

1849
01:26:12,520 --> 01:26:15,480
And we can't impact the dog 
without impacting the human. 

1850
01:26:15,520 --> 01:26:18,560
From a dog trainers perspective,
how would you? 

1851
01:26:18,560 --> 01:26:24,080
Recommend they assess or make 
the make choices or stay ethical

1852
01:26:24,080 --> 01:26:27,240
considering that they are 
potentially turning people away,

1853
01:26:27,480 --> 01:26:29,880
knowing that people are looking 
for quick fixes and the only 

1854
01:26:29,880 --> 01:26:33,280
real way to get that quick fix 
resolved is through using 

1855
01:26:33,280 --> 01:26:35,200
aversive tools, you know what I 
mean? 

1856
01:26:35,400 --> 01:26:38,160
So you've got like, OK, I've got
to turn this client away. 

1857
01:26:38,160 --> 01:26:40,800
That's potential money in my 
pocket, you know what I mean? 

1858
01:26:40,800 --> 01:26:44,080
Like how do people make that 
choice when it comes to 

1859
01:26:44,200 --> 01:26:47,200
surviving as a business and 
making sure that they eat and 

1860
01:26:47,200 --> 01:26:49,440
pay their bills etcetera, 
etcetera because I think that 

1861
01:26:49,440 --> 01:26:51,240
there's a tension that exists 
there. 

1862
01:26:51,240 --> 01:26:54,200
You know what's wrong? 
Yeah, there's lots of solutions 

1863
01:26:54,200 --> 01:26:55,440
for it. 
First of all, most dog. 

1864
01:26:55,440 --> 01:26:58,320
Trainers don't try and don't 
charge what they're worth and 

1865
01:26:58,320 --> 01:27:00,920
they sell by the hour, which 
makes them a tradesman rather 

1866
01:27:00,920 --> 01:27:04,000
than selling by the programme, 
which makes them an expert where

1867
01:27:04,000 --> 01:27:07,040
you can charge more. 
And there's also this concept of

1868
01:27:07,040 --> 01:27:09,960
yield management that is quite 
new in our industry. 

1869
01:27:09,960 --> 01:27:12,680
We, we teach at diagnostics that
you can have different tier 

1870
01:27:12,680 --> 01:27:15,680
pricing based on demand, which 
is a model that I brought from 

1871
01:27:15,680 --> 01:27:18,200
the hotel industry. 
So revenue management, which is 

1872
01:27:18,200 --> 01:27:21,320
really important and I love 
revenue management because if 

1873
01:27:21,320 --> 01:27:24,200
you have premium slots in the 
evening and at the weekend where

1874
01:27:24,200 --> 01:27:27,240
you can charge premium rates, 
then that opens up other slots 

1875
01:27:27,400 --> 01:27:29,880
during the week where you can 
help people that don't have as 

1876
01:27:29,880 --> 01:27:32,880
much money because you're able 
to offer services at a lower 

1877
01:27:32,880 --> 01:27:34,480
price. 
A standardised, more sort of 

1878
01:27:34,480 --> 01:27:36,800
economical service. 
Because most people that get 

1879
01:27:36,800 --> 01:27:39,480
into dog training do so because 
of their love of animals and 

1880
01:27:39,480 --> 01:27:41,440
they don't want to turn clients 
away. 

1881
01:27:41,600 --> 01:27:44,840
But ultimately it is a business 
and we have to put food on our 

1882
01:27:44,840 --> 01:27:48,320
own table, right. 
So there is a model where you 

1883
01:27:48,320 --> 01:27:50,600
can be selective about the 
clients you work with. 

1884
01:27:50,600 --> 01:27:53,640
I mean, I even though I only 
have a few clients, we, we have 

1885
01:27:53,640 --> 01:27:56,080
a programme at diagnostics 
called Business Smarts, which is

1886
01:27:56,080 --> 01:27:59,960
a six month mentoring programme,
which includes everything from, 

1887
01:28:00,040 --> 01:28:03,360
you know, pricing and marketing 
and selling ethically. 

1888
01:28:03,600 --> 01:28:06,480
And one of the things that we 
talk about is that you can't 

1889
01:28:06,480 --> 01:28:09,400
service every client. 
So choose the clients you want 

1890
01:28:09,400 --> 01:28:12,560
to work with. 
You only have probably 20 or 25 

1891
01:28:12,760 --> 01:28:15,360
perishable hours a week on your 
schedule. 

1892
01:28:15,520 --> 01:28:18,800
So if you go go for low hanging 
fruit, you're going to be the 

1893
01:28:18,800 --> 01:28:20,560
first business going out of 
business. 

1894
01:28:20,680 --> 01:28:24,120
So develop your services based 
on your target market and based 

1895
01:28:24,120 --> 01:28:26,720
on their needs, based on their 
pets, right? 

1896
01:28:26,840 --> 01:28:30,400
Price it accordingly and put 
some yield management in place 

1897
01:28:30,400 --> 01:28:34,520
so that you maximise your 
revenue while also being 

1898
01:28:34,520 --> 01:28:36,600
empowered enough to be able to 
help people that can't 

1899
01:28:36,600 --> 01:28:39,760
necessarily afford it. 
So I keep a couple of slots a 

1900
01:28:39,760 --> 01:28:41,640
week. 
Fridays is a good example for 

1901
01:28:41,640 --> 01:28:43,080
me. 
On Fridays I do, I work with a 

1902
01:28:43,080 --> 01:28:45,960
couple of rescue organisations 
and on Friday I only take rescue

1903
01:28:45,960 --> 01:28:47,280
clients and I don't charge 
charge them. 

1904
01:28:47,520 --> 01:28:51,200
And I'm able to do that because 
I'm financially comfortable and 

1905
01:28:51,200 --> 01:28:54,520
I run a profitable business. 
So I don't have to be busting my

1906
01:28:54,520 --> 01:28:56,800
gut five days a week to bring 
money in. 

1907
01:28:56,880 --> 01:29:00,000
But if I don't sustain a 
business, I can't offer those 

1908
01:29:00,000 --> 01:29:02,000
rescue people that period, 
right. 

1909
01:29:02,280 --> 01:29:05,480
So a lot of the pushback we get 
normally do business consulting 

1910
01:29:05,480 --> 01:29:07,920
is, but I don't want to charge 
too much, I want to help people.

1911
01:29:08,120 --> 01:29:11,640
Well, if you charge the right 
amount for your services in your

1912
01:29:11,640 --> 01:29:15,280
premium hours, you can help more
people that can't afford it 

1913
01:29:15,280 --> 01:29:17,120
because you've already covered 
your own needs needs. 

1914
01:29:17,360 --> 01:29:20,200
If you try to do everything for 
cheap, you're going to be able 

1915
01:29:20,200 --> 01:29:22,360
to help less people and you're 
probably going to be out of 

1916
01:29:22,360 --> 01:29:24,920
business and going back to a 
full time job working in a bank.

1917
01:29:25,040 --> 01:29:28,400
So there is a way to do it. 
It's like a, it's a business, 

1918
01:29:28,400 --> 01:29:30,560
right? 
It's a business and you have to 

1919
01:29:30,560 --> 01:29:33,440
create your products and price 
them appropriately and sell them

1920
01:29:33,440 --> 01:29:35,720
appropriately so that you can 
help as many people as you can 

1921
01:29:35,720 --> 01:29:37,600
help. 
But you also shouldn't be afraid

1922
01:29:37,600 --> 01:29:39,880
to turn people down because 
they're not your kind of people.

1923
01:29:40,160 --> 01:29:43,080
I mean, I do even with only my 5
clients. 

1924
01:29:43,080 --> 01:29:47,320
I do a free 15 minute zoom 
intake with any client and, and 

1925
01:29:47,320 --> 01:29:49,960
they know when they get on that 
Zoom that I'm interviewing you 

1926
01:29:49,960 --> 01:29:52,640
to decide if you can come onto 
my training roster because I 

1927
01:29:52,640 --> 01:29:55,320
can't take very many clients. 
I'm not going to work with 

1928
01:29:55,320 --> 01:29:58,360
people that philosophically and 
not on board because as soon as 

1929
01:29:58,360 --> 01:30:01,840
I touch your, your dog, I'm 
emotionally invested and I'm not

1930
01:30:01,840 --> 01:30:04,080
going to be heartbroken in four 
weeks when you tell me that you 

1931
01:30:04,080 --> 01:30:06,800
put a short collar on your dog. 
So that doesn't mean that you 

1932
01:30:06,800 --> 01:30:09,560
have to be fully on board with 
my methods right from day one, 

1933
01:30:09,840 --> 01:30:12,560
but you have to be open to the 
possibilities and the 

1934
01:30:12,560 --> 01:30:15,240
opportunities of it. 
And if you're the kind of person

1935
01:30:15,240 --> 01:30:18,320
that I believe is going to be 
fully on board and you've got 

1936
01:30:18,320 --> 01:30:21,680
your dog's best intentions at 
heart, then let's do this. 

1937
01:30:21,680 --> 01:30:23,480
Let's let. 
But if you come to that first 

1938
01:30:23,480 --> 01:30:26,600
meeting and categorically are 
absolutely fine with screaming 

1939
01:30:26,600 --> 01:30:28,840
and shouting at your dog or 
grabbing them by the scruff of 

1940
01:30:28,840 --> 01:30:32,120
the neck and anything that I say
in opposition to that gets a 

1941
01:30:32,120 --> 01:30:34,840
year. 
But then we're not a good, we're

1942
01:30:34,840 --> 01:30:36,800
not a good match. 
I'm not going to work with you. 

1943
01:30:37,520 --> 01:30:39,480
There's only I only have so many
hours in the day and I want to 

1944
01:30:39,480 --> 01:30:42,040
work with the kind of people 
that I feel I can most impact. 

1945
01:30:42,240 --> 01:30:44,840
And that's not people that are 
going to argue with me every 

1946
01:30:44,840 --> 01:30:47,800
lesson because they don't agree 
with the system or the OR the 

1947
01:30:47,800 --> 01:30:49,360
approach. 
Did that answer your question? 

1948
01:30:49,520 --> 01:30:52,520
It did Yes, it did. 
I think that it's like I said, 

1949
01:30:52,520 --> 01:30:54,080
there's. 
That tension that exists, I 

1950
01:30:54,080 --> 01:30:57,600
think a lot of people know in 
their heart of hearts that 

1951
01:30:57,840 --> 01:31:01,840
balance training is not the 
best, the optimal solution for 

1952
01:31:01,840 --> 01:31:04,040
their for the dogs or their 
clients. 

1953
01:31:04,120 --> 01:31:07,640
But I feel like from the 
feedback I received, they that 

1954
01:31:07,640 --> 01:31:11,480
they're forced to make a choice 
as in take on the client and do 

1955
01:31:11,480 --> 01:31:14,560
things that way, not because the
client wants it, but because the

1956
01:31:14,560 --> 01:31:18,400
client wants results quickly. 
And that just happens to be the 

1957
01:31:18,760 --> 01:31:21,520
solution because they don't want
the clients don't want to wait 

1958
01:31:21,520 --> 01:31:24,480
for positive reinforcement 
because it takes longer. 

1959
01:31:25,360 --> 01:31:27,200
Well, actually, you know what 
the research doesn't show? 

1960
01:31:27,200 --> 01:31:29,640
That the research shows. 
That it's just as efficient as 

1961
01:31:29,640 --> 01:31:31,640
punitive training. 
And I think what you have to do 

1962
01:31:31,640 --> 01:31:34,240
is you have to be very careful 
about defining training right. 

1963
01:31:34,440 --> 01:31:37,920
Because if I put a shot, call on
a dog and ZAP them so they no 

1964
01:31:37,920 --> 01:31:40,320
longer bark, that's not actually
training. 

1965
01:31:40,320 --> 01:31:41,880
That's that's behaviour 
suppression. 

1966
01:31:41,920 --> 01:31:45,480
And I think the other caveat to 
this as well is that I don't 

1967
01:31:45,480 --> 01:31:49,960
think every client can afford to
either fiscally or time go 

1968
01:31:49,960 --> 01:31:52,360
through an extensive behaviour 
modification programme. 

1969
01:31:52,360 --> 01:31:55,760
I and often when I do an intake 
with clients and I've sort of 

1970
01:31:55,760 --> 01:31:58,720
functionally assess what's going
on and I'm able to create a 

1971
01:31:58,720 --> 01:32:01,320
hypothesis about what I believe 
we need to be doing and then I 

1972
01:32:01,320 --> 01:32:04,640
can talk to them about options. 
There's always two options and 

1973
01:32:04,640 --> 01:32:07,400
option one is management 
antecedent control, which is, 

1974
01:32:07,400 --> 01:32:09,880
you know, no exposure to the 
problematic stimulus. 

1975
01:32:10,080 --> 01:32:14,200
An option is a full behaviour 
modification programme and often

1976
01:32:14,200 --> 01:32:17,520
management is enough because it 
resolves the issue and it's more

1977
01:32:17,520 --> 01:32:19,320
affordable and it happens more 
quickly. 

1978
01:32:19,480 --> 01:32:22,240
And a lot of clients are more 
than happy to do that, to put 

1979
01:32:22,240 --> 01:32:24,840
some management in place. 
And if the behaviour is no 

1980
01:32:24,840 --> 01:32:26,560
longer true, they're fine with 
that. 

1981
01:32:27,720 --> 01:32:30,000
So the management is down to the
dog or the human. 

1982
01:32:30,000 --> 01:32:31,000
It's the human. 
Isn't it? 

1983
01:32:31,080 --> 01:32:32,680
It's human. 
I mean, you know, an example 

1984
01:32:32,680 --> 01:32:34,400
would be, you know, just a 
really. 

1985
01:32:34,400 --> 01:32:37,800
Basic example would be a dog 
that a dog that barks at certain

1986
01:32:37,800 --> 01:32:40,440
times of the day. 
Well, yes, I mean you can do a 

1987
01:32:40,440 --> 01:32:43,600
fancy training programme and you
can you can change stimulus 

1988
01:32:43,600 --> 01:32:46,800
control so that the doorbell 
going no longer elicits the 

1989
01:32:46,800 --> 01:32:48,360
bark. 
It teaches the dog to go run to 

1990
01:32:48,360 --> 01:32:49,640
the crate. 
We can do that. 

1991
01:32:49,640 --> 01:32:51,960
That's easy. 
But it's only easy if the clan 

1992
01:32:51,960 --> 01:32:54,720
wants to do two or three lessons
and work on setups. 

1993
01:32:54,920 --> 01:32:58,120
Or the other, other alternative 
is to relocate the crate and 

1994
01:32:58,120 --> 01:33:00,760
during problem times of the day,
put the dog in the crate with 

1995
01:33:00,760 --> 01:33:03,040
the Kong or put the dog in a 
situation where it's got 

1996
01:33:03,040 --> 01:33:06,280
enrichment or take away the 
emotional need for the dog to 

1997
01:33:06,280 --> 01:33:07,960
bark. 
I mean, these are all very quick

1998
01:33:07,960 --> 01:33:09,720
solutions that can be put in 
place. 

1999
01:33:09,800 --> 01:33:12,680
So you're managing, you're 
preventing exposure to the 

2000
01:33:12,680 --> 01:33:15,720
problematic antecedum. 
And there's so many ways that we

2001
01:33:15,720 --> 01:33:18,760
can do that, that we can manage 
behaviour as opposed to actually

2002
01:33:18,760 --> 01:33:21,960
change behaviour, which is a lot
more affordable for people and, 

2003
01:33:22,080 --> 01:33:24,720
and, and it makes them also more
responsible in that. 

2004
01:33:24,720 --> 01:33:26,600
Process. 
It's it's 5050, isn't it? 

2005
01:33:26,800 --> 01:33:28,320
Yeah. 
I really like that. 

2006
01:33:28,320 --> 01:33:31,320
I really, I really love the way 
that you've come at this, the 

2007
01:33:31,320 --> 01:33:34,880
way you thought about things, 
the systemization of things like

2008
01:33:34,880 --> 01:33:37,600
just it's really refreshing. 
And I can understand why you're 

2009
01:33:37,600 --> 01:33:39,400
so highly regarded in the 
industry. 

2010
01:33:39,400 --> 01:33:40,720
Well, thank you. 
Yeah. 

2011
01:33:40,760 --> 01:33:43,240
What a what a privilege to have 
spoken with you today. 

2012
01:33:43,240 --> 01:33:45,680
Thank you so much for your time.
You're very welcome. 

2013
01:33:45,680 --> 01:33:46,440
It's been a pleasure.