Podcasts

dog training podcast

Annie & her dog, Amos.

On School For The Dogs Podcast our co-founder Annie Grossman answers training questions, geeks out on animal behavior, discusses pet trends and interviews industry experts.

Listen to the Podcast on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Have a question you'd like answered on the podcast? Visit AnnieGrossman.com/Ask or leave a voicemail at 917-414-2625.

   

All Episodes
Episode 177 | Bonus: Regarding Blippi, Duo Lingo’s training of humans, Travis Barker’s True Romance obsession, Nabokov’s letters, the key to getting good at anything, and… a deathaversary

Annie's life has two speeds right now. You'll find her physically trapped underneath her two young daughters using a suite of remote treat dispensers to train her dog, or she's at a local co-working space in a tiny room alone, talking to herself. In this bonus episode, on the one-year anniversary of her beloved dog Amos passing, she is in the latter mode, recording a kind of phone call to her late father, who she thinks would've enjoyed learning what she's learned about the Youtube star Blippi, aka Stevin John, fka Steven or "Steezy" Grossman (no relation). A line of thought about loving those who are no longer alive leads her to discuss the nature of pet love as something that exists inside of us and how the expression and feeling of that love is, in many ways, projection of something that doesn't go away when someone gone. She somehow relates this both to Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian's recent public display of their love of the movie True Romance and the way in which Nabokov's letters to his wife and to his mistress were sort of fungible. Also: She talks about how the app Duo Lingo is manipulating our behavior in a good way and she reveals the not-so-secret key to getting better at anything, which she only really understood after she became a dog trainer.

Want to use a remote trainer to train YOUR dog while your kids are climbing on you? Get a Treat and Train at schoolforthedogs.com/TT.

Episode 176 | Ilana Alderman talks to the animals–all of them: Training and enriching the lives of fish, mice, squirrels, dogs and toddlers, too.

Dog trainer Ilana Alderman, one of Annie's closest friends, has a reputation at School For The Dogs for being a kind of Disney Princess: She looks sort of like Snow White, and seems to titter with birds and befriend fish like Cinderella or Ariel. For nearly a decade, Ilana has focused on training (and enriching the lives of) pretty much every animal she's come across. She has taught fish to play basketball, helped ring tail lemurs learn to step onto scales, taught goats to enjoy being milked, built tiny amusement parks for mice, and even trained the squirrels in her yard to ring a doorbell. She also has helped Annie organize her closet, and feels this is a kind of animal training too. Ilana has never owned a dog, but she has helped many dog owners, and is the architect of the School For The Dogs Professional Course and its open source free online text book, Born To Behave. She and Annie discuss her journey into the world of behavior and the latest animal who is benefiting from being her presence: Her son.

Find Born to Behave at schoolforthedogs.com/courses

For more from Ilana, see this summer’s bonus episode: Annie reads animal trainer Ilana Alderman's 14 tips on getting a toddler to brush his teeth

Find Ilana on Instagram @baby_enrichment and on the web at Childcooperativecare.com

Episode 175 | Why you shouldn’t dress up your dog. Also: Dog training with “Buy Nothing,” Tooth Fairy tales & more

Annie talks about why she is generally against costumes for dogs and suggests some alternatives to dressing up your dog on Halloween. She also discusses some feedback she got about last week’s episode, which featured an interview with the lawyer representing the woman who was mauled by Cesar Millan’s dog. Lastly, she shares two anecdotes: one about how she is using a Buy Nothing group on Facebook to get neighbors to help her train her dog (unbeknownst to them) and the other about how her attempt to use negative reinforcement to get her daughter to brush her teeth ultimately back fired (in a sort of hilarious way). Like this episode? Leave a review on iTunes! Follow us on Instagram: @schoolforthedogs @annie.grossman

Episode 174 | Suing Cesar: Meet the lawyer of teen mauled by Dog Whisperer’s dog. And: How to train 2 dogs at once

In the summer of 2017, Lidia Matiss, then a high schooler, went to visit her mom at her workplace and, inside the office, was brutally attacked by an off-leash dog. Her mother worked for Cesar's Way, which belongs to Cesar Millan, aka The Dog Whisperer; the dog was Millan's late pit bull, Junior. Annie interviews LA-based lawyer Brian Adesman, who is representing the victim in a suit against Millan, and learns some of the surprising details about the case, including Millan's blaming of the victim and how Queen Latifah's dead dog fits into the picture. Also, Annie answers a question from a longtime client who wants to know how to go about training a new dog, and her old dog at the same time. She mentions the Revol crate, the Treat and Train, and the Good Dog Training course, all available at StoreForTheDogs.com.

For a limited time, we're offering a 30-minute virtual private session when you purchase our Good Dog Training course. Learn more when you do our free and useful 1-hour master class at anniegrossman.com/masterclass.

Have a training question you'd like answered? Submit it at schoolforthedogs.com/qanda. Learn more about Brian Adesman at www.qureshi.law/brian-adesman. Like this podcast? Please leave a five-star rating and a review on iTunes!

Episode 173 | Dog Training Q and A! 10/7/2021: Are small dogs harder to train? Also: Dogs who have issues going in the yard, a Chihuahua who turns into “Cujo” on leash & puppies who jump (FT: Marigold Pedicone)

This is a recording of a live Q and A done on Instagram, @schoolforthedogs. Annie had no childcare while doing this episode and hoped her infant would stay asleep the whole time, but...she didn't!

Annie answer's listener's questions about...

-An older Cheweenie who has stopped peeing/pooping in the yard ever since a younger, smaller dog came to live with them.

-A dog who will only go in the yard when the owner is there with him.

-A newly-adopted senior Chihuahua who is goes bonkers when seeing other dogs on the street

and

-A Bernedoodle who is jumping on people.

Get alerted about the next one or ask a question in advance at schoolforthedogs.com/qanda.

Episode 172 | Where should you deliver a treat? The (easily forgotten) importance of treat placement during training

If you want to get the best work out of employees, do you send them on a scavenger hunt each week when it's time for them to get paid, or do you put the money directly into their bank account? When it comes to dog training, it's equally important to think about where you're delivering "payment." Annie suggests where you might want to put a treat, depending on the circumstances, why this is an important thing to think about, and talks about how she once witnessed a dog training miracle that involved nothing but a paper plate.

Are you in NYC? Apply to School Yard, our members-only off leash service, at schoolforthedogs.com/application.

Learn more about all our services at schoolforthedogs.com/services

Have a dog training question? Annie will try to answer it during next week's Q and A! Ask away at anniegrossman.com/ask.

Episode 171 | My friend has puppy problems: Advice on resource guarding, enrichment, e-collars & more

One of Annie’s best friends from high school got a puppy and called Annie to get some advice on managing a puppy in a household with four kids (and a husband who isn’t totally in favor of keeping the dog…). Annie gives her friend some helpful tips.

Episode 170 | Nutso men, a cranky kid & a self-appointed guard dog develops PTSD: Scenes from a dog trainer’s life

Annie shares two recent anecdotes from her life, both involving humans behaving in extreme ways and young animals she loves (her toddler and her dog Poppy) having meltdowns. These two events made her think about punishment, fear, socialization, behavioral expectations, generalizations, and the way in which people treat animals (dogs or humans) who are emotional, for whatever reason. The episode talks about counter conditioning, using punishment on animals who are experiencing fear, and looks at the weird ways in which different people react to scared dogs: from bellowing at them to getting down on all fours.

Episode 169 | The mainstream media is confused about dog training: Two journalists-turned-trainers discuss a misguided WSJ op-ed & more (featuring Kiki Yablon)

Last month, the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece about how positive-reinforcement dog training is too much trouble, concluding that punishment-based training is faster and, overall, underrated. Quite a few dog trainers wrote to the Wall Street Journal, angry that such a major publication would run something with such spurious facts and no sources. Annie called up her long time friend Kiki Yablon to talk about why so much "journalism" about dog training goes wrong. Kiki, who is a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member and trains dogs in Chicago, was an editor for many years, and turned to a career in dog training around the same time as Annie quit the field of journalism as well. In this casual chat, the two discuss the errors reporters frequently make when writing about dogs, the traditional media's dismissiveness of pets as a serious subject, the general public's misunderstandings about behavior as a science, and the flubs they both made themselves when attempting to write about dog training before they set out to become trainers.

Episode 168 | How to house train a dog (Rebroadcast)

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 3, which originally aired on 3/18/18.

Training a dog where to pee and poop is a major priority for most new dog owners. But there is a lot of misinformation on how to do it -- we don't even have a term for it that make sense! Are we training the house? Is it still "house breaking" if you live in an apartment? Annie breaks down how to take on this task in a way that can be easy and error-free using smart management tools, good timing, and well-thought out rewards.

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