09 AprEpisode 140 | SFTD Trainer Mike Wolf on changing careers at 50, navigating urban dog parks and working with puppy owners
Longtime East Villager Mike Wolf wondered into School For The Dogs a few years ago and... never left. Mike started out as a walker with us, and now leads puppy playtimes, School Yards, does Day School sessions with us and also does Day Training sessions with our clients. He was one of our first apprentices, and is currently completing our Professional Course. Interested in becoming a professional dog trainer? Our next Professional Course will be held entirely online! Interested? Fill out an application at schoolforthedogs.com/professional-dog-training-course/.
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Transcript:
[intro and music]
Annie:
Glad to have you on School for the Dogs podcast, you have been a School for the Dogs employee and, et al, for a long time now.
Mike:
More than three years.
Annie:
Oh my goodness.
Mike:
I know. If we can still be measuring time, feels a little arbitrary, but.
Annie:
So, I know a little bit about how you came to us, but why don't you share a little bit about how you ended up at School for the Dogs, and then we can talk about like the stuff that you've been doing work-wise.
Mike:
Okay. Well, I don't consider it a very direct path. It's either a third or a fourth career for me, depending upon what you consider a career. But I worked in the music industry for like 25 years and that led to a job in music journalism as a writer and editor.
Annie:
You worked at record stores, didn’t you?
Mike:
Oh I worked at record stores, that was a bit more recently actually. But starting in the late nineties, I began writing professionally, which was a surprise to me because I had never gone to journalism school or anything like that. But I had a background in working in music. So I guess I just had a certain type of info or a certain type of a background.
Annie:
What were you doing in the world of music?
Mike:
In the world's music. Well, let's see, I started at college radio, which doesn't sound too unique, but it quickly led to an internship at a record label. This was all in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the indie eighties, by the way. And so the internship at a record label led to a job at the record label. That led to a part-time job at the record label next door, that led to also deejaying at a club downtown, that led to full-time work at one of the record labels, deejaying at a club. DJing at radio city.
Like I was doing, I was really lucky. I had a ton of really fun experiences in a fun, really fun music city, Minneapolis from like the mid eighties to the mid nineties. Then I had a two year detour in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, still doing music stuff, working for a record label that's based in New Zealand.
And then I made the move to New York and really tumbled into — like, I dunno, it's definitely a function of my privilege, but I've recently just kind of stumbled from one job to the other and from one career to the next.
I very suddenly with very little writing experience began working full-time at Time Out New York at the beginning of 2000. Which was really a really cool and overwhelming time to be involved in media in New York. And music was always kind of just like this overwhelming, engulfing experience. To be a big music fan and to get to work in the music industry, I was very lucky.
So I wound up working full time on staff at Time Out New York for almost nine years and got let go in the 2008 financial crash. And then really started improvising. That's when I started piecing together things like little bartending jobs and work at record stores, which I did do for a few years and it was like my first retail experience ever. So it wasn't as weird as it might have been for like a 40 something to just start working at stores. And I was also doing copy editing.
Annie:
Well, that was when I, like, the 2008 crisis. What do we even call that now? What did they call it?
Mike:
That was the recession before all the other stuff. The smaller recession.
Annie:
The 2008 recession.
Mike:
It was the first of many once in a lifetime financial collapses.
Annie:
[laughs] Well that was when I left journalism, also. I mean, I didn't get laid off or fired cause I was freelance. Which was actually its own thing, cause like I wasn't eligible for unemployment. But that was a crazy time. Like I, I couldn't get a job. I remember going to a cafe, and bringing my resume to a cafe. And like, there was just like a pile of resumes.
Mike:
[laughs] Yeah, exactly. Things came to look that way to me a little bit further on, in the, I guess the last decade now. So I was always piecing together like two or three part-time jobs. And I started getting some regular copy editing work at newspapers and magazines. Ones that are sold in grocery stores, like big ones, but really like kind of corporate work and not exciting work, but that's okay.
Annie:
You worked at the New York Post, right?
Mike:
I was at the Post for a few years which was kind of, it was difficult. Not on the news. I always have to point out I wasn't on the news side, I was copy editing entertainment and fashion and page six. So like, I don't think I would have been able to work on the news side. I just would've burnt out after an hour, I think. [laughs] But it was tough enough working at the Post, especially in light of the past few years of history, but we're not going to take that detour.
Annie:
Well, when I was there, I remember they would like ask, they would be like, can you use a smaller word in this spot? We don't have room for this larger word.
[laughing]
Oh, and one thing that I'm sure you know, as having worked there, every sentence, every paragraph has to be one sentence long.
Mike:
Okay. Yes. Yes. You're right. So many, one sentence paragraphs and so many end dashes. Watch this. This is my first time in this conversation. I have to say this. Dusty go lay down! When she hears me talking in the living room, that's her cue to come and get involved.
Annie:
When she hears you talking about right-wing media jobs, she has to come and intervene.
Mike:
Exactly. Watch it. Watch your tongue, watch your tongue, Buddy, this apartment may be bugged. So anyway. So I had a couple of well-paying copyediting jobs and gradually that work just started like, like hours started getting cut and things started getting, it was just the work started getting worse and worse.
Then I finally got my best editing job ever. And as these things go, it only lasted five months, but I worked as an editor at MTV news, which was something I got to do from home. They had a kind of short run of really high quality journalism with excellent writers. Excellent editors. Everybody was paid well. No one had to really struggle with overtime. No one really struggled with deadlines. It was kind of like a dream place for writers and editors. So naturally Viacom the parent company pulled the plug on it very quickly.
And then I was like, it was on the cusp of turning 50, which was weird enough on its own. And I'm like, have I really burned out like all of my options? I started looking for other editing jobs and they were like social media editor. You know, literally job descriptions were like, you should be well versed in current emojis and stuff like that. And I'm like, you know, I, I don't even know if I could fake that.
So it just felt like the nature of the work got different and a little bit more degraded. And I was looking around and I was like, not really, I actually, wasn't looking around. I was thinking very hard. Like, you know, I could be alive for another 30 or 40 years or something. I gotta find something productive to do.
And at the time I was — my second dog, Dusty, the one I referred to a minute ago was like five years old. And she was my second dog, and both dogs had just been these fantastic transcendental life experiences. First dog comment who I adopted in the nineties I didn't know, I knew bupkis about dog behavior, but she was just, I think she was an easy dog. And she was six months old when I rescued her and just had no problems. We brought her into a house where an adult dog was already well-established and they had no trouble.
Dusty, hi, came back into the room and is now staring at me. Dusty is a little different, also an amazing dog. I've had two female shepherd Husky mixes. And I kind of feel like if I can work it that way, then as long as I live, that's the kind of dog. Like, it's just a recipe that is — I'm two for two. Let's just say that. With what I consider to be special dogs.
Annie:
Where did you get Dusty and your other dog?
Mike:
Comet I adopted when I was living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and she came from a really kind of rugged shelter. The Orange County shelter, which was part like college town and part very rural area. And this was very much just like a dog dogs in a concrete pen type of thing, really dire.
And it was a kill shelter and the dog I picked was — the card on her cage said, as of today, this dog can be euthanized. And apparently she'd been adopted once before and brought back by the human, who said she couldn't be housebroken. I was like, Uh Oh, that's probably a bad sign to come across if you're looking to adopt a puppy.
But like a lot of people say, the dog really liked me. She came rushing at the door of her pen when I was standing there and just started sticking her paws through and licking, licking, licking. And I was like, I guess that's it. So it felt pretty lucky to pull her out of there when we did, when I did, I guess.
Dusty came from the ASPCA up on what is it, 91st or 92nd street. And I adopted her early in 2012. And she was very young. Comet my first dog was six months old when I got her. So there was a lot of, I mean, essentially I missed the entire puppy phase for real, but I didn't know it then. Dusty came home, she was nine weeks old and the size of a chicken nugget. And I got to see all the puppy stuff.
And you know what, she was a puppy in full, she was pure chaos. And also I was still working as an editor and working at record stores and stuff. And I'm like, man, this dog is a little bit more difficult than my first one. And Comet had made a seamless move to New York City from North Carolina with me. Loved the city, loved the smells, had no problems socially or anything like that.
Dusty, who I found in New York City kind of hates the city and always has. Especially since I've learned, you know, made the career change and learned a lot about behavior, I've been able to give her a much better life here. But I'm sure she'd be happy if we moved to the woods. I think she'd just be in hog heaven. But since she was about five or six years old and I started learning about the stuff. The stuff, can we refer to dog training from here on as the stuff?
But obviously I learned a lot about not just how to recognize a stressed dog. I knew the dog was stressed, but really my instincts were all wrong as to what she needed in those stressful moments, what I could doing. Which was trying to comfort her like she was, you know, more human, which doesn't really work. And, you know, if I, if I didn't know what to do, if I had really done some careful critical analysis, I'm going to be like, maybe that's not what she needs.
But you know, giving her distance from things, moving things along, having high value treats on hand all the time. Even now, even now at nine, all of her behaviors out on the street just feel so ritualized. All the way down to skateboards and a certain type of truck that really gets to her.
She's nine years old and we've been together for the whole time. So I feel really really in tune to the way she perceives the environment. And I'm now armed with the awareness of pretty much exactly what she needs at any given moment, which is great. It's really, it feels awesome.
Annie:
What made you feel like, okay, I think I should actually work towards becoming a professional dog trainer.
Mike:
You know what I honestly don't know. I felt at the time, like I said, one of the best jobs I'd ever had just sort of vanished under my feet. And I'm like, yeah, I really need something constructive to do. And I have a couple of friends in music who had become dog trainers. And I really didn't understand the extent to which they had moved into training and really just kept on moving.
And you know at least one of them. Kiki Avalon in Chicago, she was a music editor in the Chicago reader.
Annie:
Just a fabulous person.
Mike:
She's a great person, amazing trainer, a great guitarist, a really good writer. I mean, kind of hurts to think about somebody being good at so many things. But yeah, she's awesome. And she had been both in a band that I liked called The Dishes. And she was also a music editor at the Chicago Reader when I was pretty much doing the same job at Timeout in New York. So it's not like we were best friends, but we'd been in touch. We knew each other through directly first person and through many friends.
And I have another friend who is in a band called — the other trainer who I know who I'm still friends with is named Kate Bigger outside Boston. She's in a band I love called Major Stars. And I think both Kiki and Kate have more traditional stories about moving into dog training. I think they've adopted dogs who wound up with behavioral issues that weren't solved by things like shaking coins in a can and the, whatever the first wave of advice you get from, from old school unthinking training sources.
But so I think they began encountering these behavioral problems with their dogs and realizing like, Oh, I've got to figure out what's going on here. And as they began to move into it just became engrossed.
Meanwhile, my first dog, God bless her, gave me no trouble. At least none that I was aware of. Dusty has been, you know, her problems have been consistent, but not unmanageable. And I wish– I don't really wish this, but you know, if either one of my dogs had had an issue that I felt was actually affecting our lives, maybe I would have moved into it earlier. I kinda, I wish I had, I wish I had.
I moved into a really kind of intimidating new field at age 50, which I think was just barely under the wire. Like if I had waited any longer, I just don't think I had it in me. It's difficult, learning a really, really vast new thing like in your middle life.
And especially this field is like almost in a constant state of expansion. Like, it feels like the big bang was, you know, a few decades ago when positive reinforcement training sort of began moving toward the foreground of, you know, some levels of awareness.
But obviously as we know, it still hasn't permeated the culture as, as you would have wished for plain old science, actual factual based systems of behavior training to do. But yeah, it's been a, I mean, we can talk about this. I don't mind it, it's been a challenge. I love it. And it's been a challenge, both. Like a big challenge, no doubt about it.
Annie:
Well, so you knew Kiki was doing that. Kate was doing it like, were you like I could study to become a dog trainer or I could, I don't know, go…[laughs] be a programmer? Did you have like a list of things that you were considering?
Mike:
No, I had the list in my head had one entry and it was dog training. But it was after long phone conversations with both friends. Kiki recommended two places in New York, one of which just happened to be a 10 minute walk from where I've lived for 25 years, which is School for the Dogs. So that was the first place I visited, and I dropped in on a Saturday and a past employee named Addie was at the front desk.
And you remember Addie, she's like just this endless fountain of positive energy and encouragement and support. And so I kind of like poked my nose in the front door and I was like very much like, hi, what do y'all do here? I got a dog or blah, blah, blah. And before and before I knew it, we were signed up for a School Yard, I think later that day.
And I think, I, I think I bought like a one-month membership. And I just never, you know, I'd never seen anything like it, I'd never seen anything like it with my own eyes like that kind of training and that kind of community between dogs and people and human guardians and trainers.
So after a month of being a member and bringing Dusty to school yards at the older address on second street, I signed on for the apprenticeship program. Dove in, dove in backwards with my eyes closed. I started working in the walking program, which school sort of brought on from one of our, my other coworkers, Em, and still friends still in touch, now living on the West coast.
And so for awhile, I was like doing the apprenticeship and doing dog-walking and I'm like, Oh man, this is amazing. And I’m also like beating my body into the ground. Like I thought I was in shape and I'm walking, some days I'm walking 10 to 15 miles and stuff like that, but it was good.
And very, very gradually like I've had some, definitely had some trouble building up confidence to do some of this work in some contexts. But I began finding places where I was more comfortable or, you know, just felt like it was both a good learning environment for me in a place where, you know, my efforts counted and could help and everything else.
And I started working at Day School program and started doing school yards which is sort of a very — not manicured, it’s a managed off-leash kind of like kind of like a dog run, but for a very small number of dogs and everybody's paying attention and there’s a trainer there so better
Annie:
Yeah, I think it makes such a big difference having someone in charge. I mean, certainly having someone who's a trainer and who's knowledgeable. I almost think though that like if at any dog run, someone was just appointed to being in charge, things would probably still go better. Cause like nobody knows who to listen to
Mike:
Nobody knows who to listen to. Like, yeah, it's actually the first time anybody's like, I don't think I've even considered the idea that could it be like a lifeguard at a beach? You know, it's another place where animals are running wild. It's just that there are humans there.
But yeah, I think the best, that is sort of like the key aspect of the schoolyard program at School for the Dogs. Is that not only is there a trainer there, not only at the guardians there, but sort of the idea is we're all paying attention to the dogs and we're all talking about what the dogs are doing.
Annie:
And everybody's there looking out for the dog's best interest.
Mike:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, it's a whole way of approaching the idea of off-leash play. Like at any given point, we can be looking for good behaviors to be reinforcing. Obviously we're always looking out for behaviors we like less that we can discourage or preempt that kind of thing.
But yeah, it's a really fantastic environment. And from there I started doing puppy play times, which for whatever reason I have found, like it's kind of just like my zone right now, for whatever reason. I think maybe because the sessions are relatively short, it's just 30 minutes with four puppies. A lot of the humans are — not a lot of the humans. All of the human guardians are at different places in the relationship with the puppy.
They're either like I’m being driven into the ground, I have no idea what's going on with this cute little chaos agent with razor teeth. I don't know what to do. And then there are other people who've either had dogs before or done some training, or if they're doing puppy kindergarten concurrently with coming to the puppy playtime.
But it's a really great place to try to just show people kind of as a step one. What we're doing with our dogs is we're really paying attention. And I think that's one of the key differences. Just to take dog runs as the, as is the other extreme for off-leash stuff, you know? No, no one's paying attention. And if your dog is having an issue with another dog, you look for the other human to help to like work with you.
But often don't even know who the other human, who the other dogs human guardian is. It’s really the wild West and it's something that I've been observing close up because like I said, I live in the neighborhood, the East village. Very close to School for the Dogs, but when I'm really close to his Tompkins square park, which has I think the biggest in terms of just space, the biggest dog run in Manhattan. And I think it's also the first one, the first one that was officially made a dog run.
And it's probably one of the most frequently asked questions, especially because I do puppy play times, which is, people are just learning about their dogs and getting them like trying to build them up for really kind of high intensity life in New York City.
And people inevitably think, can I do the dog run? Can I go to the dog run? Can I be one of those people at the dog run with my coffee? And I'm in the community and the dogs, my dog is going to be one of those dogs, just great. It's always playing and having fun.
And the truth of it is it's just like, it's the frigging wild West there. Like, I see some stuff that just makes my hair turn white. And I'm with a dog who sort of grew up there and does well there. And it's one of her strong points. Dusty is just like very, very good socially.
She's great at greeting smaller, younger, or timid dogs. She's great with her body language and her signaling to other dogs when they're doing something that makes her uncomfortable. And like, she's never had a fight. Which is great because even though she is a big ish dog and it looks like a dog who could handle a scrap, not this one. She's definitely, definitely the kind of dog who has a scary bark and has nothing behind it.
So thank God she has all these well-developed social social skills that have just allowed us to evade any real trouble.
Annie:
I find when I go to dog parks I haven't actually brought Poppy yet to a dog park, but I went many times.
Mike:
Do you want me to tell you what I tell clients when they ask, what do you think about dog runs?
Annie:
Well, I was just going to say, I always find that like I, as a dog trainer, I feel frustrated because I feel like I know nobody wants to be told at a dog run like, Hey, can you — nobody wants to see someone like touching a dog that's not their own. Or interacting with the dog that's not their own or treating a dog that is not their own. And nobody is particularly open to someone coming up to them being like, Hey, you know, your dog is kind of like chasing it my dog in a way that I'm not into, like, you're just asking for like a fight.
Mike:
It's true. Everybody has…we're speaking in generalizations, but
Annie:
Tempers flare. And my favorite dog park experience, or my least favorite dog experience perhaps, was one time someone brought a ball to the dog park. But it was like a soccer ball and someone else was annoyed at them because I guess like only tennis balls are allowed and not soccer balls. But like, I mean, who’s…?
Mike:
I'd rather see a soccer ball than a tennis ball frankly.
Annie:
Right. Like it was a ridiculous argument that ended with the guy calling the woman, the C-word.
Mike:
Hey!
Annie:
And then the woman turned around and was like, I hope you go home and kill yourself.
[laughing]
Mike:
[laughs] Only in New York, friends, only in New York. Well, that's the thing. It's not only in New York. I think people, I mean, you alluded to it earlier, people are more sensitive in a way about what their dogs do than they would be about their young kids!
Annie:
And people talk to their dogs. Like they’re talking…
Mike:
Exactly. I think it really stems from, that sort of attitude about a dog that someone can have, it really stems from not understanding their dog's behavior. And somewhere they understand that they don't understand it and they're a little defensive about it. And I get it. Like, I was someone.
Annie:
Right. And then they talk to the dog, like, they're talking to each other, but they're talking to the dog, but actually like trying to talk to other people by talking to their dog, it's such a weird thing.
Mike:
Like when they say like, when they say, be nice, be nice. Like what, what? Does your dog really know what the words be nice mean? Like that to me just says, you've seen your dog frequently not be nice. And you're speaking to the other person here so that if or when something goes wrong, you can just sort of shrug and be like, I don't know what happened. I told the dog to be nice.
So you see some of the most absurd logic, some of the most absurd human logic being applied to dogs, but you're right. Like, people are not there for unsolicited advice. And there've been times where I'm like, I can get away with just biting my lip and not saying anything. And there are other times. I'm like, I can't even look at what's going on. Like you just see multiple things, multiple mishandling.
Like a year or two ago they stopped — or they took the rule off the posted rules that dogs above six months had to be spayed or had to be neutered, or, you know, female dogs couldn't be in heat. They took that away. So now they're just left that also to a human management. Like my unfixed male dog is fine. He's not causing the problems like, yeah, well, if you understood what's going on, you would understand that you're complicit in a lot of other dog's behavior here by bringing that dog.
One of the first line benefits of training your dog is to avoid worst case scenarios where your dog is going to become seriously injured, seriously injure somebody else, have to be rehomed have to go back to a shelter where they're likely to not be readopted. I mean, there's just several different levels of bad outcomes, that just don’t happen a lot when —
Annie:
You have to think three steps ahead.
Mike:
Yeah. And a lot of those things, like people train their dogs certainly encounter behavioral issues. It's just going to happen to some dogs. But you don't see a lot of worst possible outcomes when the humans are engaged with their dogs lives, taking some steps to understand their dog's behavior and what they need at different times. A little bit of effort toward understanding your dog goes a long way.
I think one question, like, pivoting off of our dog and conversations a lot, especially at puppy play times, people are like, what are your feelings, like they’ll ask it very vaguely. What do you think about dog runs? And sometimes I'm like, well, what specifically do you mean? Cause my answer is like, I generally advise against it, but I'm also someone whose dog has had a great, like, has made a great second space out of the dog run. This big dog run in Manhattan is a block and a half away from us.
But it's just not for everybody. So for people with young dogs, especially if I'm in a room with them and I'm talking about behavior and trying to narrate what I'm seeing from their own pups and what sort of different body language aspects of body language you can put together to try to get a fuller picture of how your dog is feeling in that moment and how that will affect their behavior.
You know, I tell them like, you really want to pay attention to their signs of stress. You really want to work on a lot of core behaviors, like recall, hand targeting, things that will bring your dog back to you and you don't practice them when you go to the dog run, you practice them in lower stress environments, which is almost anything for a dog in New York. Like you bring them into a dog run. It's like, Holy hell! I'm at this big yard with 35 other dogs, and there's a lot of hormones and there's a lot of barking. Dogs are jumping up.
But yeah, I just talk about the behaviors that I think they really have to have. And I also say, cause this is something I've done. Just because going back to, we were talking about some of the horrible things you can see at dog runs, especially in New York, just where things are more dense.
It’s — sorry. Briefly lost my train of thought, but I talk basically I talk about, you're going to the dog run. You're imagining this fun playtime for your dog. It's sunny out. People are chatting nicely. All the dogs are playing. But it's very often not that case. And you have to be prepared to approach the dog run, look inside, you see like three dogs who are wearing prong collars off-leash in the dog run. Let alone anywhere else, but there.
Maybe you see a couple of dogs who are unneutered, and they're playing at a very high clip. Maybe you see a lot of people not paying attention. Maybe it's just like, the vibe is wrong. Like you have to be prepared to go and decide against it or go in for literally 60 seconds or less and decide and be aware like this is not right for my dog right now, or possibly ever. And just turn around and leave, find something else to do.
But I think, I think too many people are just like,
Annie:
That’s such good advice.
Mike:
Yeah, but I think for too many people the idea for them is like maybe they've walked past the dog run a hundred times and they're like, man, I can just envision myself being part of that. And really just don't don't feel like they can find other options for their dogs. But, and admittedly it is tough in New York, but it's out there. There’s other things to do.
Annie:
Couple of things. Well, a couple of things you're making me think of. One is I mean, yeah, I think people have an idea even before they get their dog or know their dog, of like, I'm going to bring my dog to the dog park. Like it's an idea of what it means to be…
[inaudible] Yeah. And it's a nice idea of, you know, I'm going to wake up in the morning, we'll get a coffee and like go to the dog park, check my email. But, you might want that, but that might not be the right thing for your dog.
But two things, one I I've suggested to people like if it's really important to you to make sure that you have a dog who can go to the dog park, and that your dog is going to be safe and et cetera, et cetera. Go to the dog park some of the time, or at least start out going to the dog park by yourself.
Mike:
Yeah.
Annie:
Just to start kind of getting an idea of what you should be looking for, what you should be staying away from. Because once you're there with your dog, you should be paying attention most of all to your dog and not to the other dogs.
Mike:
So much other good behavior– or not good behavior. So much other behavior that we like, especially apartment dwellers in New York City can come out of a dog with a very healthy social life and good, and a good set of pro-social behaviors. Whether it's play or just coexisting with other dogs.
Annie:
Absolutely.
Mike:
If you do that and almost nothing else for your dog, I think you're going to have a good life with your dog. But you can have it so much better the more you do.
It's funny. The first thing you said, your first example was to advise people, go to the dog run first alone. It reminded me that when we talk about dog walking, which is another, I think, undervalued component of a dog's life. Especially in a dense urban environment.
It's almost impossible for people to really understand how much information their dog is taking in and processing and forming their own associations and feelings and thoughts about. Without them even noticing it. Like they're looking at their phone or sipping their coffee, or just not looking at what their dog is doing. And there's a lot going on down there.
But anyway, so at one point in discussing, how to plan a good dog walk, if you have a really reactive dog place, like New York City, like the East village, Lower East Side, where the streets are just packed with stuff. And the first step was plan out your route and walk it alone. Like walk it alone. Think about what it would feel like if you had your dog on a leash, but you don't.
But think about how is this going to feel when I turn this corner? What kinds of things do I see coming out of this doorway and that doorway? And you tell some people that, and it's like, it makes such good, common sense, and I wouldn't have thought of it.
And I think there's a great, appeal to it too. A lot of dog training tips that don't really rely on anything more than common sense, slowing it down. Really making your steps smaller, and really, yeah. Plotting it out in advance. How are things going to go? How things, how might things look? So I'm better prepared to handle it. New York is tough.
Annie:
It's interesting. I find people have to get over the hump of thinking that dog training is something that happens only when you're with your dog. Just yesterday, I suggested someone do the Good Dog Training course, one of our on-demand courses. and she was like, well, I'm not getting my dog till Sunday.
Mike:
What time Sunday? Cause in the moment you meet your dog, that dog has begun learning about you really fast!
[laughing]
Annie:
Exactly. And I was like, well, all the more reason why you should do the course now.
Mike:
And just as a quick aside another really under underutilized part of, one of the services we offer, and I think a lot of good dog trainers around the world offer is like, let's have a conversation before you get your dog. Before you go to the shelter. Like when you get to the shelter, you're already screwed. It's already too late.
You're going to have a puppy in your lap. You're not going to know where that puppy has come from. You're not going to know the right questions to ask about where that puppy is coming from. But that puppy is in your lap, and dollars to Dunkin donuts, you are taking that puppy home and that's your puppy. So let's talk about it beforehand. There's just so, there's so much to think about. There's plenty to think about. Anyway.
Annie:
[laughs]
How did you think about dog training that might surprise you — I'm not asking this question, right. [laughs]
Mike:
Are you asking, Did you underestimate what training was about when you made this career change?
Annie:
Or, did you have different ideas about what dog training was before you decided, Hey, maybe I should become a dog trainer.
Mike:
I'm sure I did, but just in the sense that they were underdeveloped. I mean, I've sort of, it's kind of true to say I've been overwhelmed with dog training since day one and I am every day. Like I just find it's just so deep. There's so much you could know, and because I'm doing the work, it's, there's so much that I ought to know.
And so I certainly do have moments where I'm like, man, I wish I was still like in my mid twenties and I had fallen into this, or made this decision. I'd be tearing it up. And you know, like you get to a certain age, you maybe have a little bit less gas in your tank or just your priorities are different.
So like, obviously I really want to learn, but you can only go as fast. You can only internalize and process and really understand like something like this that's really science-based… you know there's only so much you can do. Like someone like me, I can take in — I wish it was like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix where they check them into a thing. And in 30 seconds he knows Kung Fu. Yeah. Load me up with that stuff.
But the nature of the work is that there's endless novelty. There's always new things to see with every new puppy or every dog you haven’t met. Every new experience you have with a dog just spurs, all kinds of wild thinking and new ideas and, you know, panic sometimes if you're working with the dog in a training context. But it's certainly exciting.
Annie:
Well I mean, what I find one of the things I find so exciting about it is watching other people get excited about it.
Mike:
Yeah. That's the big, I think exactly. I'm glad you really honed in on that point, because that is the big — I mentioned like puppy play times or where, like, I feel really confident. I feel like I have good conversations and really getting through to the humans. And I think part of it is like, I love being able to reassure people, even with generalities. Because you can't assume about a dog's future life by looking at them at 12 weeks old bopping around in a little pen with other puppies.
But a lot of people who are either maybe first-time puppy guardians, or they just don't have a background in understanding dog behavior. You can see the panic and the fear in their eyes. And it's just like, most of them just want to know, is this normal? And I'm like, hell yeah, it's normal. There's billions of different versions of what normal can look like here.
Like, thank God, you know, I'm sure I'm sure it's going to happen at some point, some puppy is going to come in and they're going to have something behaviorally that's really unusual for pup their age. And I'll note it and have to figure out how to communicate that. But you know, by and large, all the shy ones, all the ones who don't move, all the ones who do move and just like never tire out, almost all of them are just normal. Normal as hell.
I really just try to encourage people to just continue taking steps into your dog's life. There's just more than I can tell you here and a half hour, but I try to leave people a little excited. Give them a little trivial tidbit. I think this is something you mentioned once that I try to mention every time. Like dogs greet at the face briefly, they're checking each other's first name. They go to the butts, they're getting each other's last name. It makes everybody laugh every time.
Annie:
[Laughing] I don’t think that was me, but I like it.
Mike:
I liked it too. Cause obviously I remembered it. I say it every time. But you can show people like, you know, just showing people like here's a more secure way to hold your dog in your lap or something like that. People are like, Oh wow, this guy might not be all dumb. Maybe this, some of this stuff makes sense. Maybe when he says, come check out our puppy K program, we should do that.
So it's really nice sort of being not a first point of contact, but sort of as a trainer. Maybe like the first trainer they get to talk to about their puppy. And to try to reassure them about what's going on, encourage them and tell them about how exciting it is.
And I always throw in like, I have this nine year old dog who was absolute hell as a puppy. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but she was work for sure. And you know, she's nine. And if it's a quiet moment at a puppy playtime, I'll show them a photo and be like, your dog can also be awesome at nine. Awesome at two. Awesome at three, four, five years.
But it is nice when people walk out being like, yeah, that was fun. My puppy got exhausted, you know, blah, blah, blah. Maybe they made a friend with another puppy.
Annie:
That's why I love, that's why I love working with puppies more than anything else is because I feel like when I'm with those puppy owners, even if it's only like a half hour puppy play time, like there's the possibility of making a difference in the way that they see their dog and they understand training that could impact the rest of their lives with that dog. That to me is like so, so rewarding.
Mike:
I think it's the biggest turn on in the work for sure.
Annie:
I'm going to use the first name, last name, but I refer to dogs checking their pee-mail. I don't think I made up, but it's another [laughing], another Fozzie bear style last line.
Mike:
And then they reply all on top of it.
Annie:
[Laughing] Thanks for taking the time, Mike.
Mike:
Yeah of course, this was a great conversation.
Annie:
I think so too. I'm excited to share it, and I will talk to you outside of podcast world soon, I'm sure.
Mike:
For sure. I will see you soon at work. Thanks Annie.
