Transcript
Yes, yes, yes, and yes, we are back with the Make Your Dog Epic Podcast. I am joined here today by a guy I consider my friend. I don’t know if he would consider the same about me, but he is awesome. He has such an incredible life story, and he has been training dogs and all other animals for a long time now. I had a chance to meet him at a training for film and TV course where they train people on how to train dogs for movies and TV shows, commercials, still pictures, stuff like that. And I learned so much because how they train it’s so it’s so logical but it’s so
counterintuitive to how a lot of people train. So you just learn so much and then you get to see the behind the scenes of the how to train in that specific area on set, how to manage those people, how to have a second trainer, I didn’t even know that was a thing, how to have a third trainer, or how to get paid, stuff like that, which is important.
So I have been working, reading his book, I have learned a bunch about him, and I just want to welcome on to the Make Your Dog Epic podcast, Brian Winfro, how are you sir?
Very well, how are you?
I am doing awesome. So tell us a little bit about your backstory, a little bit about how you got into dog training, stuff like that.
Well, I don’t know how far you want to go back, but…
Wherever.
Well, let’s just start with Vietnam. in 68, 69 and after that I was allowed to, they had to give me my old job back because I was drafted and I got into a motorcycle accident, lost my job and my uncle who owned the show at Universal Studios And he allowed me to come and clean cages for 15 bucks a week. And at the same time, I was getting $35 a week unemployment. So I was making a whopping 50 bucks a week. And, you know, at that time, I was happy. And I just started working there and started learning how to watching other trainers and
learning how to train. No, that is awesome.
That’s how you got into dog training. When you were there, what animals were you training and how did you learn to train them?
The very first animal that I trained was a green winged macaw parrot. The reason I did that, after cleaning cages for a while and watching people train, I asked my uncle if there was something I could train, or I could train something, you know. And he pointed to a bird over there, and I looked at it, and I said, what’s his name? He said, his name is Tuffy. And I said, why? And he says, because he eats everybody up, so nobody will work him. So that was my challenge in the very first thing I taught him was to walk up my arm and put his head on my chest.
And that was a behavior we call show me how you love me. And I had no idea what I was doing, but I was trying it. And I’ll never forget, I was sitting out on the stage in between shows. And I had Tuffy, and I asked him to do that, and he did it. And I started to cry. Because until that point in my life, I had no direction. I had no idea where I was going.
I mean, the only thing I knew how to do was break down an M16. And that was my job skill. And when Tuffy did his, you showed me how you love me, I knew I could do this training thing And I knew I was gonna have a career and I’ve been doing it ever since
That’s great, and I’m gonna
Show this other screen really quick so I can because there’s pictures on you and just to clarify you can see this right Oh, yeah, cool, and so this is this is you right or is this Joel? I know that it’s That’s me when I had hair. And this is, I mean this is, this is, this stuff is so, that’s Joel. That’s Joel, that’s me. Oh yeah, look, oh man you were jacked! How often were you going to the gym?
I was, it depends, a lot of times I worked out at home. Okay. So, you know, I’ve been working at home for a long time. That is awesome.
Well, these are, these are such cool photos. Well, I’ll get back to the interview instead of looking at photos of you all day, which I would love to do, but we’ll get back on topic. So who was the… When you made that transition, because you’ve worked on set a lot, did you go to… Was it stuntman first, or was it training animals, or which one happened first?
Animal training. Okay, and what was it? I just wanted to say, it’s funny because my father, he was born in 1892, he was 53 when I was born, he became an animal trainer and did a lot of film work in the business. I just kind of started in the opposite direction. I started training animals first and then moved into stunts.
That’s sick.
So, who was that? So, you did animal training first. What was the job or what was the role or what did you do?
Well, my very first animal training, the very first movie I ever worked on was a thing called Snow Goose with Richard Harris and Jenny Agrita. That was around 1971, 1972.
Got it. You trained Bingey, right? You worked with Bingey on the, it was called Bingey the Hunted or did you do all the Bingey movies, or how did that work?
No, actually, I had a TV series in 1980 called Here’s Boomer, and the dog did the whole show. He was, they had, there wasn’t a particular actor, every actor was different on the different episodes, but he was the main character. who owns and trained Benji was a big fan of Here’s Boomer. So, when this movie came up, Benji the Hunted, he called me and asked me if I would train Benji for the movie because he was quite a bit overweight and in his 70s, and it was all going to be done in the forest
and all these different places, which would be hard to get to. And of course, I was like, wow, yeah, you’re asking me to, you know, that’s like Spielberg asking some commercial director to direct his next feature film.
Yeah.
That’s great. And then in this, in Bingey the Hunted, there was a ton of different animals on set, right? So you had, I think you were saying you worked with cougars and stuff as well?
We, there were, yes, a gentleman named Steve Martin was working wildlife. He brought his crew up there and we had cougars, we had wolves, we had a Kodiak bear, we had an eagle and a bunch of other little animals that were in the forest. So, we probably had more animal trainers in that particular production than we did the regular crew. There was a lot of trainers on the show.
That’s great. And so, with that, what is your favorite, you trained a bunch of different animals, what is your favorite animal to train?
Boy, that’s hard to say because they’re all different. But I was, my dogs, of course, I’ve had quite a few of them and they’re all very, very special to me. and Eagle was very, we were very, very close. And I did some really good work with her. And it’s really hard to pick one, but I used to like lay my head on my eagle’s perch and she would just kind of pick up my hair and touch my head and stuff. And it was, you know, I mean, if she wanted to, she could crush my head.
But she was just the sweetest. And I don’t know, maybe that was one of my favorites. Okay, cool.
That’s great.
And then as far as like, okay, so now the opposite end, least favorite. And can we get into that story? I don’t want to get into it if you don’t want to, but I genuinely love the story. Which story?
About the orangutan.
Oh, orangutan.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that story is, I told a couple of people here that I work with, and their minds, like, mind was, when I first heard that story, it’s just blown. But I didn’t know if we, I forgot to bring it up before.
What story are you talking about?
The one in the, when the orangutan challenged you.
That one.
Oh, oh, oh, that. Yeah, that’s, primates at some point will challenge you. And if you ever want to work them, you’re going to have to deal with it. If they challenge you and you walk away from it, they won and you will never work them again because they will come on to you, you know an orangutan is challenging you? They’ll come right up to the fence and start rattling it and making noises and
you can tell. Yeah, and now for people who are listening or watching, orangutans, they’re typically like they’re, you would say, waist level. Like, they’re not massive, but when you look up the stats, they’re as strong as like five or 10 grown men.
Believe me, I have seen orangutans, like the one they used on the Clint Eastwood movies. I think that was the first one, first or second one that they used. He was bigger than a linebacker for the Green. I mean, you know, this thing was, his wrists were as big as my thighs.
He was scary.
He was really, really scary. So, I went in, you know, to have a little talk with this orangutan. And he right away swept me off my feet, put me on the ground, and was on top of me eating me. So we had a fight that lasted, seemed like it lasted for about an hour, but it was probably only about a minute or two. And I got him to finally submit.
And with those primates, it’s a head deal. It’s, you know, they have to know that you’re on top of them, they will come after you if they think that they can. So you’re going to have to put them down, put their feet down and start giving them commands and let them know that you’re not in charge, I’m in charge and this is what you would say an argument. We have this behavior where we tell the orangutan to give me a kiss. And when he does that, the orangutan puts his big mitt behind your head and pulls your face into his face.
And now this orangutan has just been trying to eat me. So when I made her, made her, made him sit down and told him, did you need a kiss? And he did that. And then I walked
out and my legs were a bit weak. That’s got to be insane because this, this orangutan just got done trying to eat you, and now you’re asking it to put its face right next to your face. I would have been like this the whole time. I would have been shaking the whole time.
I was when I walked out.
That’s so funny.
So one of the chapters in your book, it’s titled, Walking with a Lion or Hey Monty, Need a Rattlesnake. So, you were doing a commercial for Kodiak cameras and you talk about an animal trainer, Monty Cox, that was there with you and he asked you to go feed his alligators with you while his four year old lion walked with you guys. Walk me through that, because you’re going to feed
his pet alligators while his pet lion walks by? Tell me about that.
Well, they had a Monty Cox, who is also a top stunt man also. He had this, he had a lion that was, he was four years old and just the sweetest thing in the world. You know, I mean, you could walk right alongside of them. So we said, okay, he said, hey, we’re going to walk the lion down there. I said, okay, sure. And I stood there and he let the lion out. And, you know, we’re walking along and down, you know, I don’t know, three or four hundred yards to where the alligators and Monty was feeding them and I noticed that I turned to, well, actually what happened was the lion let out a roar, which, you know, rattles
your brain. And I was like, whoa! And I turned around and the lion was about 10 feet in the air. And what had happened, he had sat down by a rattlesnake. And the rattlesnake started rattling, and the lion let out a roar and jumped up. And so I went over there and picked up the rattlesnake and said, hey, Monty, you need a rattlesnake? And he said, yeah, I got a job next week for rattlesnake.
Thanks.
That is hilarious. And then I want to show this just so people can see this, but this is from the book. And this is a picture. So it’s not like it’s a it’s a small lion like it’s four years old it’s a it’s a massive lion so I know during that story when my pants would have went from white to brown is when you’re facing this way and you hear the lion just roar beside because one I don’t even know if I could walk with a lion you know but then you just hear it randomly roar super loud and you
turn around and it’s ten feet in the air, immediately my pants would have turned brown. But you, instead, just walk over and you’re like, hey, rattlesnake, here it is. That’s so interesting. How did you get so comfortable with all these different animals? Is it just over time or how does that happen?
contributor is being young and thinking you’re invincible. It’s not until you get into your 70s that you realize, yeah, I’m not so young and I’m not so invincible. But no, you just, you know, you work with them and sometimes actually, like on the Benji with these exotics and you you tend to get a little complacent and You have to be careful about that Because you don’t want to do something
Wrong and get bit or get somebody else bit is a it’s kind of like what happened in Vietnam we we didn’t Get into gunfights every single mission. So, after a mission or two and nothing happens, you get a little complacent, and boom, that’s when it happens.
Yeah.
Well, what advice would you have for a new animal trainer or dog trainer who’s just starting out, they want to either get into dog training or they want to get into doing a film or TV or stuff like that, what advice would you have for somebody just starting out?
Take our course.
Hey, that’s perfect. I’m actually going to share the course. You know, honestly, really, you know, we teach not just the dog training, but we teach everything about film. So, even if you’ve never been on a film set before, but you’ve taken our course, you’re going to walk into a film set and it’s not going to be so foreign to you and scary. You know, you’ll know all about it. Yeah. So, yeah, I would suggest, you know, taking our course. And, you know, and really if you want to do dogs, you know, if you want to get
into the film business with animals, then dogs or cats are the way to go. You don’t want to get into exotics or anything like that really, because there’s enough companies doing that and they’re all over the place. I would, you know, obviously take our course and learn how to train a dog, and that’s how I would do it.
Yeah, and that’s really the next one.
You said what?
I said there really isn’t any other way other than to work for a company who does that or volunteer for a company who does that. Yeah, and what I think is great about, well, one, the next one is coming up is Dallas,
Texas. Joel just told me you guys have a couple spots left, so that’s April 22nd and 26th. That’s here in a couple weeks. I learned so much from being there with you guys because the thing about it is you can either learn from mistakes or you can learn from people who’ve been through it. And you guys have been on so many different shows,
you’ve been on different movies, you’ve done it, and you’ve made mistakes, which is what I wanted to learn from, right? Because you can learn some from successes, but you can learn more from other people’s mistakes. That way you don’t have to do the same, at least as my output on life. So that’s why I was so interested to learn this course.
I learned a lot about dog training, but more so I learned about the behind the scenes and how to carry yourself with confidence there because when you don’t know what’s gonna happen, it’s hard to carry yourself with confidence and it’s kind of like a blind confidence. But if you know, hey, this is how the pay works, this is how reading a script works, this is how you talk to the director, or this is you don’t talk to the director and this is who you talk
to or this is who you need to become friends with. And there’s just so many different layers of it that you don’t get without experience unless you pay someone to teach you. And I learned so much, even if you’re not planning to train dogs specifically for film or TV, I learned so much from how you guys talk with dogs. Because you guys are so intentional about when training, because the obedience training world, which I’m in, and the TV or movie training world that you’re in,
there’s similarities, but they’re also so, so different. Because with you guys, you have to – and this was actually my next point I was going to bring up, but you don’t always have time to train the animal. So sometimes you’re doing it on the spot, right? Or the director’s like, hey, actually, I know you’ve trained this way for four months. However, I want this take this way. And then now you have to switch it. So in your book, on page 253, you write, the point is that at times we have to train the behavior right there on set, right on the spot. Sometimes the behavior is something in the animal’s wheelhouse or a trick or behavior they may already know the core of
and the new gag is just a variation. So walk me through that, just what you mean by that of, because Joel talks about it too, that tricks are just, you have the foundation and then it’s just little steps to get to the end picture. But walk me through that a little bit.
Well, I’ll tell you a little story on Little House on the Prairie when I had the orangutan on there. There was a scene where Victor French, one of the main actors on the show, and the orangutan. And he falls asleep. But the, yeah, that’s Victor French there. He falls asleep. So Michael wanted the orangutan to blow out the candle that was lighting the bedroom area.
And it was right next to the bed. And I was like, okay. I never taught her that. And I’m going, I’ve never taught anything to blow out a candle. So I’m going, okay, how do I do that? One of the things, one of the behaviors that I did train was to do the raspberry, which is that kind of thing. So I started to, as they were lighting the set, I’m working with Strawberry,
what’s the name of the orangutan, I’m working with her on the raspberry. And I’m trying to transfer that into blowing the candle out. So I would do that, she would do that, and then I’d blow the candle out. And then I’d have her do that again and blow the candle out. And then I’d have her do that again and blow the candle out. Then I’d have her do that again, but I didn’t blow the candle out. And now she’s starting to think,
what’s going on here? I’m not getting a reward, nothing’s going on. So she would do the raspberry again. And then she went, and when she did that, it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just gave her, here, here, here you go, here you go. Next time she goes, it blows the candle out. And I was like, yeah, we got it, Mike, thanks.
That is so cool to me. Because the transition, I mean, it’s such a rewarding feeling like when you first trained the, I forget which bird it was, but the very first animal you trained, once they do it for that first time, with any train, once you see it click in their mind, where they’re like, oh, this is what you’re asking, it’s such a rewarding feeling.
It feels like, there’s not many better feelings because you’re like, ah, yes, I communicated, they get it, now it’s just about doing it on camera. And at the right time, oh, and now the other distraction’s going on. But that’s a great one.
It really is cool. You know, it’s like my border collie. He has to put his toys in a Tupperware container when we finish. So like when I’m playing ball with him, or I’ve got a long rope that has a bunch of knots in it, and we play with that. So he has to put it into a container when we finish.
And he loves to chew on it. So after we play, I’ll let him chew on it a little bit while I get his reward. But once I get his reward, you know, I’ll just kind of stand there and kind of tap the reward a little bit. And he’ll pick up the toy, and he’ll go put it in the box. But it doesn’t always go in there. Because one end will, one or two ends will be out.
So, I just sit there and watch him. And he has to think. And he’ll put one in, and then he’ll pick up the other, and he’ll start to leave. And then he’ll see the other one is out, he’ll pick that up and put it in and then I give him the reward. And that is, you can actually see him thinking on how to do this. And to me that is, you know, it just brings a smile and it’s like, yeah, that’s so cool.
Yeah, right. Well, and then where, with that, when you talk to trainers and animal trainers or dog trainers, where do you think most get it wrong? So, where do you think most of them struggle at or they get caught up or where do you think you would disagree with?
I think a lot of people try to move too fast. One of the things that Joel and I constantly preach is the basics. They have to have the basics. Don’t try to move too fast. And especially like when we train the work away, which means the dog works completely away from you, you stand behind the dog and give it commands. And the dog does all the commands not looking at you.
So they really, before you can ever start training that, they really have to know the commands. And what I do is I train on a big table, like about four by four, and carpeted. And I will stand back with my hands folded and just say, sit, stand, lie down. I’ll give all the commands and then I’ll bring down on the floor and I’ll start doing the commands and back up and crawl. And once they know that on vocal commands, then I can go ahead and start training the work away.
But I think most people kind of fall flat on trying to progress too quickly and they won’t regress. If something’s not working and you’re trying to progress too quickly, back up a little bit, go back and train a little bit, fix it, and then move on. But don’t move too fast. Yeah.
And that’s a big one. That’s one of the, I’m going to find this real quick. But that’s one of the things, so I’m writing a new, I’m writing a dog training book. And that’s one of the big things that I talk about. I’m glad you brought that up. But it’s taking a step back to go forward. Because a lot of people, they get,
they’re trying to get the dog to do something. No matter, doesn’t matter what it is, but they’re trying to get the dog to do something, and they feel themselves getting frustrated. A pro tip to anyone, if you’re training an animal and you feel yourself getting frustrated, chances are the animal’s frustrated too, right? So, because they don’t get it. So, what you have to do is instead of just trying to plow through that, just take a step
back, do something the dog understands, and work your way back to it, or else you can keep pounding away, pounding away, but you’re gonna get there and the dog’s gonna be frustrated, you’re gonna be frustrated, where it would have just been so much easier just to take a step back and move through it.
Yeah, absolutely.
I’m glad you brought that up. And then if somebody wants to order one of your books, where should they go to get that?
Oh, just on Amazon.
Nice, so Amazon, and then I’ll bring this up again because I want to make sure people know where to find you guys. So if you, they go to joelsilverman.net and they can click on the workshops and then the film and TV course. This is the one they have coming up April 22nd through 26th. And you learn so much.
Here you guys are. And I genuinely, I can’t express enough how much I learned from you guys there. Okay, it just changes perspective. And you guys do so much differently than other people do. And your IMDB is just, it goes on forever, literally forever. I was looking at it, I was looking at it the other day,
and when you click this see all, it just, it never stops. It takes long to load, you know, you have to scroll down forever because you’ve been in so much stuff. It’s so cool to me. My finger gets tired scrolling through all those, but that’s what you guys got going on. I generally would suggest anyone thinking about it to get out there, meet you guys,
learn a lot. I’ll leave the last word up to you and we’ll sign off here.
Thank you so much for having me and for having Joel. We love what we’re doing. Neither one of us have an ego. So we’re more than happy to explain and tell you everything we’ve done, give you all of it. Like I said, we don’t have egos, so we’re not worried about that. Some other trainers would probably not tell you some of the things that we We lay it all out there on the line. If people who come to our course actually get into the film business and do stuff like some of the people already have, that is so rewarding to us because that means we’re doing our job and we’re teaching people and we just love it.
That little dog that you saw in between Joel and I on that last picture. That’s my new dog. That’s Joey.
Is it? Yeah.
Yeah, I brought him. I love Joey.
The last course that we did. Yeah, I did not get to see Joey, but that’s Joey right there. That’s who you’re saying? Yeah, yeah. Oh, Joey. Well, I would, yeah, I mean, that’s huge. That was one of the first thing I noticed from you guys is when you start talking to these different dog trainers, because I’ve went through a bunch of different, not only courses, but I’ve paid people to go out and learn right from them.
And a lot of these dog trainers, they have massive egos. I mean, it’s the reason why I don’t want to own, a dream of mine used to be to own a basketball gym and have different basketball gyms and have trainers, but the dog training world is so similar where if you talk to a basketball trainer, they’re so stuck that their way is the best and only way to do it.
And if you try to like, even if it’s like a try, like ask a question and try to understand, they’re like mad because you don’t understand it. You know, and they’re so unhelpful. And so I really appreciated that with you guys because you’re not only patient with dogs, you’re patient with people because you’re training both dogs and people.
And I’d love to have you on again and stay in contact. Absolutely. Maybe I’ll have you and Joel on at the same time, but I appreciate you and I’ll talk to you soon.
You got it, thank you.
See ya, bye.
Okay, bye.
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