Transcript
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. We are back with the Make Your Dog Epic Podcast and I’m joined here today by a guy named Joel Silverman. Actually, I met him at a dog training course that he put on that’s for film and TV. So it teaches you how to train dogs and how to do it on set, which is much different than just training dogs in general. I’ve also, I’ve read multiple of his books. I have his rituals book.
I have his What Color is Your Dog book. He’s done commercials. He’s been on movies. He’s done a ton of stuff. I’ll let him introduce himself. Joel Silverman, welcome to the Make Your Dog Epic Podcast. How are you, sir?
I’m doing good. Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah. Well, I am super pumped to have you. And basically, what I really want to cover is, first, how did you get into, tell me about your history and how did you get into dog training and where did you kind of start?
So basically what happened was, I had a dog when I was like about 12, 13 years old, her name is Shadow, that I trained. I just trained her on my own as a kid, you know, and stuff. And at the same time, my parents, I grew up in Southern California, my parents were both teachers, so during the summer we were off. So we would always go to SeaWorld every summer. So, you know, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, every, you know. But I came through at 12, 13 years old when I trained this dog.
I started being very interested in watching, looking at the, I was looking at the killer whale trainers and the dolphin trainers and stuff. And I was just really fascinated by what they did. And so, just kind of, you know, 12, 13, 14, and I also became 15 years old, and I realized I kind of wanted to be a trainer. And so I went there and I told, you know, they said they’re like at the time, they hired people right in the park.
So people were hired from the park operations department, the people that picked up trash, people that were food and beverage. I mean, those were people that got hired as trainers. It wasn’t a lot schoolier, and like it was just about having your foot in the door. So I got my foot in the door. I moved down there, you know, worked, picked up trash,
got to know the trainers and stuff like that. I was a little young. I was about 16, 17 years old. They sent me back up to a college called Moorpark College. They have a wild animal training programs and it’s like an East Sydney Valley area. And so I got, and it was, it’s very, very tough to get into. It’s like 30 openings and it’s called exotic animal training and management. So I got into that, you know, program, went through that program.
And as I went through that program, I started meeting some people as I was getting ready to graduate that were doing the one of the guys that had left I graduated went to do the show at Universal Studios to the animal show at the time. They had a dad dogs birds cats a chimp a chimpanzee as well and so I guess a lot of animal work a little bit work our college as well So I was there for a short period of time But I still have this, you know dream of SeaWorld and stuff and I’d been at SeaWorld You know worked there for you know, three four years prior. They hired me.
I went to work at Universal for a short period of time. They hired me. I went to work at SeaWorld. I was there for, I think, for about three or four years. At that time, I spent a lot of time working with marine mammals, killer whales and stuff. You see the pictures in the back of me with the killer whales and stuff. And now they kind of wore off. I was making $6.25 an hour for doing that for, you know, it’s very, very, it could be risky, you know.
And so I left, went back to Universal, started doing the animal show, right? This is about 84, 85. But before I did that, I was, I think I was there. And then once I was there, I went back to work with Marine Mammals just for about two years. I worked for the company that we contracted all the dolphin shows, the Six Flags Park was all the United States. And at the time there were like, I think we had 12 contracts.
And I was one of the trainers that would fly around and do a lot of coordination and stuff like that. So, it was kind of fun. And we transported dolphins and things like that. And then at the time, I was also, I had done this, I put the dolphin show in the Nassau Prairie Farm. And that’s where I won this Behavior of the Year award with these, with the dolphin shooting out of the water and stuff like that.
So, in 1986. And so, once I left there, went back to training animals, movies and commercials, it was about like 86, 87 probably. And that’s what I started doing, you know, movie and TV work and stuff and TV series. Empty Nest was like a big credit of mine in the late 80s actually. And then we were a spin-off of Golden Girls. A lot of people don’t know that. And then at the time that I was doing Empty Nest, because of my experience performing
in front of people, we shot in front of a live audience, like 300 people. And a lot of times there were wardrobe changes and they needed to fill in the time. They had a guy there that was a comedian that was always like kind of talking to the audience, but they had me work the dog. So I’d work the dog in between. And I would talk to people.
When it was somebody that was there, one year I was there, they were like, hey, listen, we want to do a video and we want you to come out to Salt Lake City, we want to go to Provo, Utah and do this video because we do an incident and commercial and we want you to be, you know, be a long story short. So it was called the Hollywood Dog Training Program.
So if people Google that, you’ll see that video. But we had shot that video, it was shot in 1989, I believe. And they still sell it on eBay and stuff like that. So that’s my very first video that I did. And then 10 years later, so what happened was I left Empty Nest and started kind of going off my own. I really wanted to do a lot of stuff on camera. So, you went through ups and downs in the 2000s probably,
but in the mid 2000s, I started writing books. My first book was, What Color Is Your Dog? Then I did a followup called, More What Color Is Your Dog? Which we’ll talk a little bit about probably. And then I did a book called, Take Two Training Solutions for Rescue Dogs as well. Those books really dealt with the training. And then I got into another book which is called,
Bond with Your Heart, Train with Your Brain. It’s really a self-help book for parents, teachers, managers, and supervisors. It talks about the similarities between really, really good trainers and really, really good parents and good managers because it’s all a lot of empathy and putting yourself in other people’s position, whether it’s a dog’s position or another person’s position. It’s like golden rule, basically. But it’s a pretty cool book.
My last one was Rituals, which came out about three years ago as well. So, got no got to do any books and then I think about really what happened was I can I would say night And anyways from from 2000 from 1997 to 2014 You know, we all fall into different categories doing movie works and movie work and commercials So during this entire time, I’ve always been a movie animal trainer, but I am say called me up To do a come I did a thing a commercial for them in 1997. And I had a relationship, I developed a relationship with the agency and that agency would call me directly for 17 years.
I mean for 17 years I did like all of, almost all of the Heim’s commercial, national commercials for him. I was, a lot of stuff for Japan and England and stuff like that. So that was a really, really good run. I probably would still be doing it, but they got bought by Pedigree. They got bought out by Mars, I’m sorry, in 2014. So and then about seven years ago I launched these dog trainer certification courses. And I really kind of kick myself
because I really wish I would have done that a long time ago because I really enjoy teaching people. But I’ve certified about 450 people. We do a basic and we also have an advanced course. And then about four years ago, I did a launch this dog training workshop tour with Larry Crone and Jay Jack, two guys, really, really awesome trainers.
And so I kind of created that whole thing and I met them at a national conference I was speaking at. And so we go out about six times a year. That keeps me pretty busy with those guys. And then about two years ago, that’s where I met you, we launched a film and TV course, my buddy Brian Renfrow, who actually I don’t have a trained dog, so I’m going to go.
We launched that course a couple of years ago. And it’s been going really, really good. And we’ll talk a little about that as well. And so right now, as of right now, I’m 65 years old. I pretty much, I live in Florida. I make my money really being on the road, you know, so six times a year with Larry and Jay and then probably three to four times a year with Brian doing the film and TV courses.
No, that’s awesome. Yeah. And you’re super busy. And I’ll show this real quick because this is where I met you is at the dog training for film and TV course. And just for people who want to sign up, that website is jillsilverman.net, and that’s where you want people to go.
And then they can, and then you can go to workshops, and you click the film and TV course, and you have one coming up in Dallas, April 22nd and 26th.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re gonna be there in like two and a half weeks, basically.
Oh, that’s awesome. And you still have, you have a couple spots open?
We have two spots open, yeah, we actually have two spots open. Love to fill the two spots. We’re looking for people that just basically, hey, if you’re trained dogs, even if you’re not a professional dog trainer, but you train dogs, you have a trained dog, and you’re looking to be a movie and TV animal trainer. The whole point is we’re going to places other than LA, because the bottom line is there are production companies all over the world, all over the United States, and all the different
cities. And we show people how to set up their own business, and most importantly, do a lot of practical training. Because a lot of the training that people do with their dogs is just very different than what we do as Movie Animal Training. You went through our course and everything we do is very horizontal. A lot of things that people do is very vertical and stuff like that. So it’s really just a lot of fun.
So I appreciate you promoting it there.
Yeah, well there’s a ton of differences because I come from the dog obedience world. But that world, even though it’s still dog training, I would say it’s so different. Because you have to, on the spot sometimes, teach a new behavior right then. So you don’t always have weeks or months or years or whatever to prepare with this animal. And sometimes it’s not even yours. And you’ve also worked with not just dogs, you’ve worked with multiple different animals. Tell me about that. How many different animals have you worked with?
And what would be your favorite?
Well, I’ve worked with a lot of different types of birds. I tell people all the time, it’s not just one bird. I mean, I’ve worked with pigeons. At the time that I was, there’s a company I was working with called Birds and Animals Unlimited. When I first started in the 80, after I left, the guy that I learned from at Universal Studios name is Ray Berwick.
And what happened was there was a guy named Gary Giro, that worked for Ray in the 70s, late 70s. Gary went off on his own to build a company called Birbs and Animals Unlimited, which is one of the largest filament TV suppliers and trainers in the business. They have really good trainers. And I worked for Gary.
So Gary did Homeward Bound. He does a lot of Disney movies and stuff like that. Really good guy. I’m sorry, I said the question, guys, I went off on a tangent. So the question was, how many different types of animals? So Gary, working for Gary, which kind of got me into it, is that Gary’s a really good bird trainer,
and we’ve supplied birds. We had pigeons, okay, these different colored pigeons, like black, we trained pigeons to fly from point A to point B groups. We had the only pigeons at the time. These pigeons were working all the time. I mean, they were constantly working. And we were down in Orange County,
we had an area down in Orange County. He has a really nice facility down there. I mean, we have the pigeons down there. So, but we would go in the, I mean, the pigeons just alone would work a lot, but we had ravens. Ravens are incredibly smart. We had ravens as well. The ravens worked all the time as well. Seagulls, we would, you know, seagulls are something you can literally catch at the dump
in the morning and work in the afternoon. If you’re working on a line or a modifilament, you can actually train the dog from flight at point A to point B. But a lot of, you know, with dove work, worked with eagles, worked with hawks and things like that. So a lot of birds, a lot of different types of birds, worked with a lot of cats as well.
But all these animals have different personalities. You know, they’re all really, really very, very different. I have worked with chimps and orangs early on in my career as well. I’ve handled wolves and mountain lions and things like that that were trained for movies and commercials too. I wouldn’t consider myself a really, really great trainer of those animals and stuff like that, but I’ve handled them. But then of course, marine mammals. You have dolphin sea lions, a lot of different types
of sea lions, California sea lions primarily, and then North American river otters and then river otters. This is at SeaWorld. Those are the animals that normally in those shows, and work with penguins. We had actually penguins over for Gary. We also had penguins, Gary, we also had some penguins as well. And then, of course, killer whales. So, you know, and dolphins, and the different types of dolphins, Pacific white-sided dolphins, which are smaller ones, which are kind of like black on top and white on the bottom, and they have like a blunt nose.
They’re considered a porpoise, really. So and then Pacific and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, and then Pacific white-sided dolphins. But the killer whales are for sure my favorite animal of all the animals. I just want to throw out all the animals out there. But killer whales are for sure, because they’re so powerful. And when you have a relationship,
we talk about in dog training, people just don’t realize that unless you get to know one of these animals, that when you can have a relationship with them, too. I know there’s some people that are just like, I mean, is there in captivity and things like that. But people need to realize that whether they’re, you know, you can all agree or disagree whether they should be in a captivity or not.
But the bottom line is I always tell people, the animals I was around and the way I had a relationship with them, they loved doing what they did. They loved the relationship, they liked to work, and they would just lay on their backs and stuff like that and just rub their stomachs, rub under their pectoral flippers where it joins right back, almost like their armpit. They loved that area too as well. It was a very, very cool thing. There’s a lot of stuff that you just don’t see.
So I always like to explain to people that, because we spent five or six hours a day in the water with these animals when I was there.
Yeah, and I have a clip ready to show of you training a orca, which this clip, it genuinely blows my mind. It’s like, I’m so fascinated by it, because I’ve only ever trained dogs, but you’ve been training since, when did you start training, when you were like 13 years old?
12, 13, yeah, I started training it for my very first dog.
Yes, and you’ve been training forever, and so, but orcas are your favorite. I want to show this, because this video is so cool to me. So the volume’s down low, but I kind of want you to walk through what’s going on while we’re watching this, because this is you over here on the left.
Yeah, I’m not seeing anything yet. I’m not seeing what you’re seeing. Oh, you’re not seeing it? No. Let’s see here. Oh, there we go. Now we got a cool. Yeah So this is you on the left the fence side. Yeah. Yeah, that’s me. And that’s that’s a Killer was gonna do a backflip right there. We did backflip, which is basically I think was like the only backflipping killer
Well, I think at the time and so that was pretty cool. That is so cool Yeah, it’s pretty neat. And then what’s gonna happen is I’m gonna go in and We put a harness on it, it’s like a hoop. It only goes to a certain area on the whale. So, and then I go under, well, here we go, okay, cool. Put it in the water, get on top of the whale. You gotta take a breath, because you’re gonna go all the way down to the bottom.
It’s gonna take you 33 feet down in about two seconds. Two seconds, I’m gonna be down 33 feet.
Oh, they go all the way down?
All the way to the bottom, and she slows down, and you wrap your feet around her dorsal fin so you don’t flop over. So my feet are wrapped around the dorsal fin.
Oh, I see that now.
And you got to hold, kind of like, use your arms as a shock absorber a little bit there. And then you come down, she’s going to go along the bottom. Your back almost goes along the bottom there, rubs your back almost along the bottom as she comes back. You got to hold your breath a long time, that last one there.
And there you go, that’s cool.
That is so cool. It was neat, man. That was a great show, that was a solid show. That was a great, there were some great whales. That was a great, that whale’s name is Kandu. That was the, one of the best, one of the smartest animals I’ve ever worked with in my entire life. She was an incredible, incredible animal.
That’s got to be such a cool feeling going that fast. Because you said she’s going 33 feet down in like two seconds.
Well, two seconds. And the problem is a lot of guys have sinus problems because even though you breathe out of your nose, you feel this cracking. So what happens is you’re breathing out of your nose, but water is filling up your sinuses. And so, and then in the evening, like you’ll lean over, all this water would just come out of your nose. It would just be like, you know,
after dinner and stuff constantly. And some people got some sinus infections too, yeah. Cause nobody could ever like explain, like if you go to a doctor, like cause nobody ever has been on the back of a killer whale that will take you down 33 feet, like in two seconds like that, you know what I mean? Especially when you take your first breath
and you go back down. I mean, you’re on the bottom in like a half a second. It’s like, boom, you know? So, and they’re so strong. I mean, you just feel, I was gonna tell people that, you know, people, when you go under, it’s really cool because, you know, we have the audience, that stadium holds like 4,000 people, 5,000.
And so what happened was, there’s this lot of crowd. And then as soon as, you know, it’s a summer day, you know, we get in like six or seven of these shows a day. And it’s just really weird because when you take a breath and you go down, you feel the glass plane, the panes of glass kind of going up, you know, you just take a breath. Because I always open my eyes underwater anyways. But it’s just this really kind of peaceful feeling because you’re just away from the crowd and away from everything.
And then she goes to the bottom and she stops. She like stops on the bottom for like about half a second. And then it’s like, boom, boom. And then they fluke. Like to feel the power of a fluke, that flukes. Nobody will ever know, very few people that are living have done what I’ve done, you know what I mean? And to feel that power is amazing, absolutely incredible.
It’s so cool to me. I’m genuinely fascinated. I could talk to you the whole day about killer whales, but I’m going to show one more clip about them.
And then because this is a dog podcast, I’ll switch back to dogs.
Yeah, yeah.
But I could, I genuinely, I’m so fascinated by your life story, the killer whales, because you have, you’ve done so much. And so let me show this, are you seeing it this time?
Yeah, yeah. Awesome, got it. Yeah, this is a part of the show that these guys created that, you know, I would love to say I trained this stuff, but this stuff was all pretty much done when I was there. So I was just, you know, trying to work the whale, kept the behaviors up. But this is stuff where you go in the water and the whale just kind of mimics a lot of what you’re doing and things like that. And it was really, really cool.
But this whale’s name was Kandu, and she was a really, really great, really, really great animal and really, really cool. just had no… I liked her because she had just a great working attitude and stuff. This behavior here is the hardest thing to do because you got to stay between the blowhole and the pectoral flippers. And yeah, it’s like really, really, you got to be really,
really super careful. That is so cool.
Yeah. Or I’m sorry, blowhole and the dorsal fin, I’m sorry. But you just, yeah, it’s, yeah.
Oh, that is so cool.
Yeah, you fall off. I mean, you know, they’re not, I mean, killer whales are funny because they’re like, especially it’s not their fault. Sometimes they do have a little bit of an attitude, you know, and they get pissed off if you fall. So you gotta be careful, you know. If you, because they know it’s not their fault, you know.
This is pretty cool. This is neat. Yeah, I just, you know, her feet and her fluke. Then get back, my feet are on her pectoral flippers now. I just pat three pats on her head goes fast. So three pats, she’ll go fast. Watch this, three pats, one, two, three, boom. She goes really fast.
That’s it, and then I go down here, put my feet in the air, and then she’ll follow that with your feet, do your flukes. Then you come back. So cool.
This is a behavior change.
So now you’re back on your back. So she just knows to pick you up. She’ll slide, she’ll turn over, pick you up.
And now you’re good.
Now she’s there. She’s gonna go to that part of the pool now. You lean over Wave did a little waving thing always weak with that her weak one left his left one weakly you lean over shield So that’s that’s on your cube put your head down there. She’ll spray you and then we If you do I do my feet and then she does her flukes actually don’t really see her periods just look at there Yeah, you shake your face shake her tongue. Yep. They’re cool We go off and we go down here and as soon as now, as soon as I touch her nose, now she’s going to go parallel. I put my head in my mouth, that’s right, crazy. And then now we go down
here and now you just put her, you just kind of sit on her nose and she goes, goes up. The audience would love that stuff. The audience thought that was hilarious. That is hilarious. That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s like funny, yeah. So, anyways, they give her a cue, then she takes off now. So, I cue that she’s going to do a sighting bow in that corner, which you don’t see. She has a little biting, so she sees where I am. She’ll jump out of the water, and now she’ll come back down. I’ll hit the water.
Boom, she’ll jump over me. Comes back down, and she’ll do another Siding Vowel in another corner. She’ll jump out of the water again, so she can see where I am. That gives her a chance to see where I am. So, she doesn’t land on me. And then we go back one more time. Boom. And now she’s going to go pick me up.
It’s pretty cool. Watch her come. Look at it. You can see, like, she comes and just, boom, just comes and picks you up right there and
take you right back. That’s it. That is so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. So how I mean that’s got to be a crazy I mean the one earlier I used to say whenever I watched the first time and this might be a rational fear or irrational fear when you are holding on, so you put the harness type thing on and then she goes down, are you ever scared she’s not going to come back up or how does that?
Yeah, I don’t know. You know, like I tell people, people always ask me about that. They always say, when you got the water, you’re just going to… I think that, you know, what happens is you develop a relationship with them and it’s just like any animal. I mean, like you develop a relationship with them and it’s just, it’s a good relationship and you’re not thinking in terms of, oh, what if this happens, what if this happens?
It’s like, hey, you know, it’s just, I mean, that’s what’s interesting about it, I think, and they have faith. But, because I think they do feed on, you know, especially being a dominant animal in the wild like that, I mean, if you’re fearful or if you’re afraid or you’re not confident in yourself, I think they’re going to probably cherry pick that a little bit, you know, and stuff. Sure. That stuff, they’re smart.
They’re really smart.
Yeah. Dolphins too. Dolphins could be that same way too. And they could be, dolphins could be aggressive. I mean, we’ve had some dolphins in the sea world that were, I think they did more damage
than other animals to people. That’s hilarious. Well, now as it relates to dog training or training in general, where do you think most people get it wrong? Where do you think people’s biggest hiccups when it comes to dog training or any animal training? Where do you think they get it wrong? I know I have my thoughts, but I’m curious.
Oh yeah, oh totally, absolutely.
I mean, I’ve said it over, I say it in my books all the time. The similarities between marine mammal training and dog training are about the bond and relationship. Every animal that I work with, even if it’s a bird or a cat, something that’s primarily food motivated, I still develop a relationship with them. When you have a social animal like a marine mammal or a dog that you can develop a relationship with and develop a love and a bond with, it drives your training. It helps your training, okay?
Understanding that, if you don’t know the animal and you start training the animal before you have a relationship, number one is there is no relationship, okay? And you’re missing on the most important thing But the other thing is you don’t know the animal you need to know to know the animals like especially if you’re training a dog And people get a dog in the shelter and they put a collar on the dog just a regular You know call it a training collar like mine or something like that on the dog and they handled it
Yeah
you know the dog is like really weird about the neck because somebody Or the dog is really soft when you do Correct lightly dog is just all of a sudden just hits the ground or something like that. I mean, those are things that you don’t want to learn. You don’t want to learn when you’re training the dog, you want to learn before you’re training the dog. You need to understand all these different things. So what people get wrong is going into training before the relationship is established.
Develop the bond, develop the relationship, get the dog to want to please you, wants to make you happy. If the dog wants to please you and wants to make you happy, training is going to be 100% easier. And you’re a perfect example because you brought your dog, your Malinois, which I’ve told a lot of people, you have this incredible dog. And I’m sure you probably, you’re not the type of guy that’s going to tell people, so I’m going to tell people. But he had this incredible dog, and really one of the best Malinois, I said over and
over again. But when you watch that dog work, it’s only because of the relationship that you built with this dog. That’s what, not only, but you also had great, great training. But you built a bond, you laid that foundation, and that dog is just always wanting to please you. And that’s what dog training is all about. And people miss the most important part
because they don’t have the time, they don’t want to take the time to develop that relationship and do that stuff that sometimes it’s not the prettiest part of it, or the most fun part.
Yeah, yeah, and I think that the other big thing that you guys do well also is you slow everything down. Not only for the dog, but also when you’re teaching people. So I learned a lot there because I got to see you, because at these workshops you’re training dogs, you’re also kind of training people.
Oh yes, we are.
And you’re training them on all like little things, like hey, you’re diluting the word good because you’ve overused it and you keep using it and now the dog actually has no idea what the word good means because you used it to release the dog, you used it to say it was doing good, you used it when it got off and then got back on or stuff like this. And so I think that’s really good what you guys do there. An excerpt from your book, Rituals, that people can buy on, it’s on Amazon, it’s on your website. But on page 26 you say, every complete behavior is nothing more than a series of small steps and the earlier steps are the most important.
Talk to me a little bit about that. You know, Jordan, it’s really cool you wrote that because actually that is one of the most important things in that book that you just talked about. And I said it before, everybody wants to go way too quickly. You saw at the event that we do. So whether it’s movie, you know, whether it’s my course that I do for, you know, my certification courses, the basic and advanced courses, or whether it’s the film and TV, or whether it’s an event with Larry J., what I see so many times is people want to, they don’t want to
spend the time with those early steps. They don’t understand that we break a behavior down into small steps. We work one behavior at a time, part of it at a time. When it’s complete, we move on to the next one. You have to know when to move on to the next one. You have to know when to, if your dog is having issues, regress to the last one, or you have to know when to maintain and just build that level and just have that good consistent level
before you go to the next level as well. And people get it wrong and people just go and they want to move too fast. And a lot of people don’t realize, the reason I talk about that as well, is that the reason we talk about it is people want to go to these next levels, these early, early stages, the foundations are the most important part.
I tell people all the time, if you’re training your dog to stay, your dog is in an elevated area, and you train your dog to sit and watch you on that elevated area, we’ve already got, okay, he’s great, he’s all good for 20 seconds, he’s watching you, and you start stepping back.
When you start stepping back, when you take that first step back, it’s like, it’s when you take that first step back and that dog wants to come to you, and you start going back even further and further, your dog didn’t jump off because you went further and further, your dog jumped off because you took that first step back. So the point is, if you can rock back and teach a dog, and desensitize a dog to do rocking back on that first step, the truth is, you probably can go back probably five or ten feet, probably pretty good. But it’s that first part of the behavior, it’s that first movement. And that’s what people don’t understand.
And that’s what people get out of the events that we do, is just understanding it’s like, okay, I got to build that foundation, I got to build that first part of the behavior first, and then we’ll take our time when we move on to the next one.
Yeah, absolutely. I like to think about it like when I’m training trainers, I like to tell them, imagine what the dog’s seeing. So, because dogs seeing pictures, right? So if you’re, especially with the word good, I’m glad, I mean you talked about that a lot at the event and other stuff, but if you’re, let’s take place, like you’re talking about it.
If you place the dog and somebody’s walking back and they’re constantly, they’ve used good over and over and over to break the dog and now they’re saying good, good, good while they’re doing that or they’re like stay, stay. You’re revving the dog up and you are, you and Brian Renfro, you guys do such a good job but you’re so intentional about your tone and the words you use. What would you say about that as one of the last things and then I’ll wrap it up for you.
Okay, yeah. The one thing I would say is that I just help you make a statement out of question, make a statement out of question. And it’s exactly what you just said. If you go to agility place, I tell people in all my courses, I say it over and over again.
If you go to agility places, everything is ready, ready, ready. And that’s what they do because they want to build up that drive. They want to be, and even if you’re training it out for PSA and things like that, that’s what you want to do.
What we do is totally opposite, okay? So the last thing we want to do is we don’t want to go ready because we want the dog to understand it’s like I want the dog to become natural not the dog to get all excited. So that so we do the opposite. Yeah and then we do the opposite. Yeah anyway and that’s the second part that you were saying that the second question you were asking about. I was just the intentionality about your tone and the words you use. Okay, okay yeah exactly and so what we want to do is we want to keep everything neutral. That’s the word I want everyone mentioned. Yeah, everything is neutral. It’s like sit stay just in the same tone of voice sit
Yeah, I down head down and if you need to put a little bit pressure, it’s like put your head down That’s all we’re doing. It’s like we’re just basically head down. It doesn’t present head down. It’s like whoa, it means something again We’re not yelling at the dog We’re just basically and that’s what people and then the other thing you said real quickly, I use the word… I’m going to work… I’m actually going to… I’m working on a six book as well. And anyways, and one of the things we talk about is knowing when to progress and regress and stay neutral and things like that. And I think that’s what is really, really super important. People want to be really careful about not diluting
things. And you do a really good job of talking about the good. And if you’re saying good, you want good to mean something. It doesn’t mean anything if it’s said over and over and over again, you know? And the other thing too is the fact there’s a lot of people that use what’s called the implied stay and they say, well, it’s implied. Well, like, I’m like, I still don’t get that. I’m like, a lot of people use the implied stay,
I think, because they were with people that either screamed at a dog saying stay or they used stay as a drug and they never got off the stay. They never got off the stay. But the truth is, if you can use stay as a crutch early on and help the dog, it’s something that could fall back every once in a while with some of these other behaviors. So you saw what we do.
Even training a dog to stay, we said we may have used it a lot in the first three or four days. Well, we don’t say it very much anymore, but we used it as a crutch. It’s like a drug, okay? But when you have that foundation, now when you’re training your dog to put his head down and stay, dog’s like, okay, cool, I got to stay.
I know what this word is. You know, on your side, stay, head down, stay, head up, stay, stand, stay, bow, stay. You could start doing those things and laying those in there because in that state, the truth is, and Jay Jack actually told me that state really becomes almost like a good, it really becomes a kind of like an intermittent marker, you know?
And so that’s something to remember too. Yeah, and what I want to show is because this is the, I’m going to show your Chase commercial and because this is essentially what you’re teaching at these conferences, right, is how to teach people how to get on set, do these commands, how to deal with the film directors, how to deal with the pay, how to deal with finding people, how to build connections. I mean, you cover so much in that week-long thing, but I want to show this real quick. So I’m going to share this screen. And this is a commercial you did for Chase. Yeah, it was Chase back in 2015 or 16, I think. Gotcha. Well, I’m going to play this here so people can see. Because I think this commercial
is just awesome. Yeah. They want to show kind of like the training of the dogs initially, how they’re training, and then of course the finished product. So we’re showing the train now, but now we got a little distance and stuff. And now all of a sudden, you know.
Yeah. That was cool. That was a great, it was a shot that New York City,
but they’re right there, right there in New York. So that’s my dog, Duchess, that’s her. And she’s no longer with us, but yeah, that was a great, it was a great, great, great thing. Yeah, I’ll show that one.
And I’m gonna pull your website back up. So if people want to go to your conferences, and, cause this podcast will be on a website forever, so you’ll, but you keep doing these, and you also have other conferences, and you’re coming out.
Yeah, we’re doing actually, to be honest, and people listening to different areas, we’re actually, we just finished Maryland, this is our second one in Maryland, we’re gonna be back in Maryland next year, we’re already gonna do that. This is for the film and TV. We’re going to be in Ohio. I believe it’s going to be either later on this summer
or fall. We’re going to be in Ohio. Okay, we’re going to be in Dayton area probably. We’re going to be back to where you saw us in San Jose probably later on this year as well. And then so we know for sure those three places between now and March of next year, we’re gonna be back in, you know, in Southern Ohio, we’re gonna be back in, it’ll be Southern Ohio, it will be Maryland, and it’s gonna be San Jose.
That is awesome.
So I suggest people, generally- After this one, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, well-
Yeah, I really appreciate you, but anybody that’s interested, and if anybody has any questions, you know, go to my website, send me a message, whatever, if you’re, there’s a contact link right there and just fill out the form and you can, any questions you guys have, then just ask us before you sign up
and see if it’s right for you.
Awesome, well I appreciate you sir for coming on the Make Your Dog Epic podcast. I’d love to have you on again soon. I do. Yes. I get so much knowledge every time I talk to you and your life is so interesting. Because we could, there’s so much that you’ve done and it’s all, it’s in each animal I’m interested in
because I really like, they’re so different but they’re so similar in different ways. Just based on, obviously I’ve never trained a toucan or a killer whale or an orangutan, but based on what I’ve heard from you, there’s similarities for how these animals learn and it’s so interesting because once you see it, it’s kind of like a pattern.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and you start seeing how these animals learn. And then it just progresses your training in all animals as far as what I’ve learned from you.
Is that accurate?
Would that be accurate?
Yeah, absolutely. That’s totally accurate, 100%. 100%. But yeah, so yeah, I’d love to come back and stuff like that. So, but I really appreciate you. Really appreciate you letting me come on and promote this thing.
I’ll post this actually on my Facebook page as well. Awesome, well I appreciate you sir
and I’ll talk to you soon.
All right, Jordan, take care.
Thank you, bye. Okay, bye-bye.
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