19 NovEpisode 180 | On being a dog run snob! Also: The case for spending money on pets, and how to help your dog have a good Thanksgiving (Hint: Be your dog’s advocate!)
A bunch of media outlets have recently done stories about private dog runs in NYC, and have mentioned School For The Dogs' School Yard sessions, which are playtimes for dogs. School Yard is members-only, by-appointment and trainer-supervised. Annie talks about why the service is so special, and also why it's so expensive. She addresses some of the negative feedback she's gotten to the articles. She also discusses how she plans to train with her dog, Poppy, while visiting family, and suggests ways in which people can approach training a timid dog in new places or with new people over the holidays.
Follow School For The Dogs on Instagram
Follow Annie on Instagram
Subscribe: iTunes
Want to donate to help a rescue dog owner in need access free private training? Learn more about our Scholarship Fund.
Mentioned in this episode:
Learn more about School Yard here
Products mentioned in this episode are all available Storeforthedogs.com! Also come shop with us at our storefront in Manhattan at 92 E. 7th Street.
Diggs Revol Double Door Collapsible Wire Dog Crate
The New York Times: Does Your Dog Deserve a Private Park?
New York Post: Pledging for pooches: VIP clubs where NYC’s doggie 1 percent hangs out
The Wall Street Journal: Dogs Rule at These New York City Spots—For a Price
Related episodes:
Episode 33 | How to shape your dog to go to a mat (and to be a polite Thanksgiving guest)
Transcript:
Annie:
Hello, Annie Grossman here. I am the host of School for the Dogs Podcast and the owner and co-founder of School for the Dogs in New York City on East 7th Street and 1st Avenue. Make sure you come on by when you're doing your shopping this holiday season. You can also shop with us at storeforthedogs.com.
We specialize in selling toys that are meant to engage your dog’s brain and mouth at meal times. Of course, we also have an awesome selection of treats. We have our own house brand of Lamb Lung training tools. Everything we sell, we sell because we use these things ourselves. We use them with our dogs. It's just, yeah, just great stuff. So make sure you do shop with us this holiday season. We put a lot of love and effort into our shop and make sure to follow us on Instagram @SchoolfortheDogs, because we do product giveaways every Friday.
And on the topic of the holidays, I wanted to talk pretty briefly actually today about Thanksgiving and your dog. At first, I was thinking what could I do, which is something I guess I've done in the past. Like what behavior can we talk about for Thanksgiving that will help your dog be a welcome guest in anyone's house?
Then I thought, you know, I think I would prefer to talk about what I'm thinking about this Thanksgiving, which is how I can make my dog feel good about all the new experiences she is going to have. This is our first Thanksgiving with Poppy who is a sweet, wonderful, loving, cuddly, sensitive girl. And I have been way more honed in on thinking about how she feels in new situations than I have been thinking about what kinds of behaviors she can engage in or perform in a new situation.
That does not mean I have given no thought to her behaviors, because classical conditioning and operant conditioning are happening all the time. So whenever I am rewarding her in any way, be it with food or attention I may be positively reinforcing some other behavior. So I do think about her behaviors. But if you have to focus on one or the other, the classical conditioning or the operant and conditioning, in my opinion, when you're working with a young dog or a very sensitive dog, you really kind of have to start at what I call criteria zero.
I very much think it's like sending a kid to school, and actually just the other day — I wished I had recorded it. My daughter who is two and I guess three, three quarters-ish has just started nursery school. She was asking about Poppy going to school. And she said, you know, mommy, I go to school and Poppy goes to school. And I said, yes, what do you do at school? And she said, I run around and play with my friends.
And I said, what do you think Poppy does at school? And she said, she runs around and plays with her friends. And I thought, you know what? That should be what school is both for these tiny little kids and for a dog, certainly a dog like Poppy.
I have often said to clients, you know, you send your kid to kindergarten, they come home with a crayon drawing. You're gonna look at that crayon drawing with your eyes closed and tell them that it's the best thing that you ever saw, right? It doesn't even matter. You're not assessing the quality of the work at this point. You are just trying to make them feel good about the experience of going to school at all.
And this is something you, as you go to your Thanksgiving dinners, friends-giving dinners, as you socialize with other people, you may find that you need to explain this training. You may need to explain the difference between training a dog to feel good in new situations and rewarding the dog for specific behaviors and why perhaps you are focusing on the former rather than the latter.
You also need to just be a voice for your dog. Speaking to each other. It's a super power that we have that we can use to help our dogs feel better in the world where we are asking them to live.
Just yesterday, I was with Poppy at the studio and a reporter was there actually shooting about our schoolyard, which I am going to talk more about in a second. Anyway, Poppy was there and the reporter who was quite lovely said, ask Poppy to sit and she sat and then she, I gave her a treat to give to Poppy and she said you know, like give paw. And I said, just tell her to be cute. Give her the treat. She was like, oh, well she's a dog trainer's dog. I thought she would know give paw. And I said, I'm not training her on give paw right now. I'm just training her to feel good about being around new people like you, which is not necessarily easy for Poppy.
So feel free to steal my “tell her to be cute” trick when you have a relative who is wanting to get your dog to do a repertoire of tricks. Which, by the way, your dog may have, and your dog may be more than happy to do those tricks. My last dog Amos was a super confident guy, loved showing off his silly tricks.
Although, another dog training tip I have is if people are doing tricks with your dog, assuming that you have trained your dog using marker word, clicker, something to separate the reinforcer from the behavior using that conditioned or secondary reinforcer, like a clicker you know, that you do not want to have the food visible. If you're using food, you don't wanna have the food visible and present and right in front of your dog face.
That can — not only is it just kind of distracting to the dog, but you should not need the food there to lure the dog if you have really worked on shaping and refining behaviors you're working on. If that is not possible in that moment, you should be lowering your criteria to reward the dog, certainly in a new environment, for something that they really are able and comfortable doing.
But the other thing is, if you're using a food reward and you have it visible while you're asking the dog to do something you will very soon find that you do not have a dog who is paying much attention to the clicker. They're just looking for food and that can lead to a dog who's like, I'm only gonna do it if I see that you have food, which is not great. We got to that point with Jason, whenever Jason was training Amos, where Amos was like, I will do the things for him if I see the treat present. So train people to hide that food until you use that clicker or marker word, if you're using that.
But again your dog does not have to do anything other than exist and be cute if you have a scaredy dog like my sweet, sensitive, lovely Poppy. Also, don't be afraid to tell people what your dog needs. ‘Hey, my dog does not like being pet by toddlers.’ You can always phrase it so that it's your issue, your dog's issue. Since we get labeled with our dog's issues, sometimes people always say ‘They get it from the human,’ which I don't believe in [laughs].
I think humans who are dealing with dogs who have issues are humans who are very good people who do not necessarily have the same issues themselves, but that is a common misperception that you may have to deal with, as silly and crazy as that seems. Like Poppy is not scared of men with walkers coming down the street because I'm scared of men with walkers coming down the street, for example.
But yeah, you may need to explain to people how to interact with your dog. You may need to physically create some space between people and your dog. One reason that I am such a fan of a good dog, a crate that your dog enjoys being in where your dog feels comfortable something that you can bring with you, product plug. I love the Revol crate by Diggs, which we carry now available in three sizes.
I think it really is the best crate on the market because it can be open on two sides and on the top. And it can also be fully closed. It folds down like a dream. Actually just got a second one because we live up two flights of stairs, and as convenient as it is to bring it to places, it is not that convenient to go up and downstairs. They haven't figured out how to make a crate that climbs its own stairs.
So we got one to keep in the car, but I love traveling with it cause it folds up incredibly easily. And it has the Snooz bed that is super comfy and Poppy loves. So I have this portable home for Poppy which we are going to bring with us when we go visit our family for the holidays. And I am not afraid of having her be in the crate sometimes for a couple hours cause I know she's comfortable doing that. I've worked on that.
And it’s a good reason to work on crate training, is because if you are going to be in a home where there's a lot of things going on and a lot of people around and you have a dog who maybe can't handle that necessarily that comfortably, if you are not ready to be there really working with your dog, as I imagine chasing after my toddler and holding my infant, I am not necessarily going to have the bandwidth to be working on doing counterconditioning with Poppy the whole time that I am with my family.
So I expect she will be spending some time in the crate, which is not a bad thing, especially if I have her in there with some food toys, right, or a bully stick and a bully stick holder, or something else that she likes, keep her occupied. Giving her a crossword puzzle to do. I'll give her her food in a Toppl or in a slow food bowl. Isn't it funny that there's the slow food movement and slow food bowls and they have nothing to do with each other? And uh, isn't also impressive how I have worked in all of these product recommendations, which you can go by at storeforthedogs.com? And I have done it completely naturally.
Alright. I think that was all of the stuff I really wanted to say about Thanksgiving. Think about how your dog is feeling and advocate for your dog as needed, because dogs are not our slaves. Most of us have dogs in the modern world, if we have them, as pets, not because they are doing some kind of job for us, but because it is a hobby for us and we love them and we love taking care of them and we love giving them good things in life.
And I believe if we focus on behaviors before we focus on making sure that dogs are comfortable as possible in the world that we're asking them to live in, in our human worlds. I believe if we used any aversive methods when not necessary, when we are thinking about behaviors before we're thinking about the way the dog is feeling, we're doing them a disservice.
All of this actually sort of ties into the other thing I wanted to talk about today, which is some press that we've gotten for our School Yard service over the last few months. All of these articles. There was one first in the Wall Street Journal and then one in the New York Post. And yesterday one in the New York Times. All of them have been roundups of private dog runs in the city, in the different boroughs.
Each one I think has had a slightly different selection, and each of them has mentioned our School Yard, which is a little confusing, cause it's actually a service that we offer. It's not just like a park with a key that you come to. Owners have to apply by going through a short exam on our site to make sure that they understand the rules and regulations. They have to share footage of their dog and playing
And if it seems like it's something that we think would be right for that dog, they're invited in for an evaluation. And if that goes well, and we think that School Yard is right for them, they're invited to become members and even then they have to sign up in advance for the sessions that they want to go to.
So in my opinion, it's a little bit of a stretch to call it a dog park, but it is a kind of dog park, I guess you could say. At least in New York City where we are, if you think about a place where dogs can be off leash with their owners and play with each other or just sniff each other you think of a dog park. And so in that way, it is that. But we work to be very thoughtful about our dog park, and not only of course want to make sure that it is a very clean place. We also want to make sure it's a very safe place.
We of course feel that dogs need to spend a lot of their time off-leash, with or without other dogs. But socialization is not something that ends when your dog leaves puppyhood. Many dogs benefit in many ways from getting the opportunity to hang out with other dogs. And I think it's probably more fun for those dogs when they're showing up and they get to be with other dogs that are literally their friends, rather than what so often happens at dog parks which is that you kind of may not know who's going to be there when you show up.
And also in your typical dog park, no one is in charge, and people there might all have very different ideas about how a dog should be treated, how dogs should be trained, what is and isn't okay at a dog park. It can be confusing. A lot of play can look like fighting, but not all arousal is necessarily bad.
So we provide a service that is unique and also is something that I see as being a place where dog owners can learn about dogs and learn to be better owners. And when they do then take their dogs to the dog park, if they choose to go to the dog park, they're going to be entering the dog park as very informed, smarter dog owners.
You can learn a lot by watching dogs, of course. But you can also learn a lot, thanks to the fact that a hundred percent of the time when we have School Yard at our studio, there is a trainer there the whole time to kind of narrate what's going on, make sure that the play that's happening is good play. The trainer is in charge and is bringing their considerable expertise to that session.
Now it's worth noting that this is not an inexpensive service. And in each of these articles, I would say the general bent of the article has been sort of, wow, the elite people of New York City sure do spend a lot on these possibly unnecessarily fancy things for their dogs, which is not a surprise to me because I feel like so much of the writing out there about dogs is kind of like that.
So I wanted to just talk about the money stuff, just be really upfront about it, and also how it relates to, I think, the way people spend money on pets in general. First of all, well, I guess I should just state the cost. It is $200 a month. Right now that gets you five visits for the month. You can also pay by the year in which case it's $2200. Basically you get one month free if you pay for the year. If you are a member, of course there are a couple other parks. You get a 5% off on all retail and a discount on services. But yeah, it's $200 a month which breaks down to $40 per visit.
Now, in New York City, at least in central Manhattan, where I work and live, $40 is probably about the cost of taking a Pilates class or getting a pedicure or going out for a couple of glasses of wine. Those are all leisure activities that take about the same amount of time. [baby sneezing] That was a five month old sneeze attack. Those are all services that take about the same amount of time, and you know, what you're paying to occupy space in a business in New York City, let alone occupied space with someone who is giving you their expertise during that time.
And I'm saying all of this just to be clear, it's a service that honestly, overall, since we've been offering it, which has been about seven or eight years has actually, I think only really ever at best broken even. There are so many hidden costs that the customer never probably even thinks about when they enter a business. There are significant costs associated with every service we provide to have someone there and have the lights on and to have batteries in the clock and keys that fit the door, and business insurance and paid vacation days.
So what we charge, as expensive as it is, is really, basically only covering the costs of running the service and we offer it nevertheless because it's something we believe is so important for dogs in general and certainly urban dogs in particular. And if we could offer it for free, we would.
So if someone's listening to this and wants to start a nonprofit and endow a low cost private supervised New York City dog run where a professional dog trainer could be paid to be there and vet the dogs before they show up and make sure that everybody's playing well with each other and give people a little bit of an education on dog behavior… In the meantime, reach out! Let me know.
I wish it were a service we could offer at a much, much lower cost to many more people, because I think it is so effin fantastic. I think it's the way all dogs should be playing, but the fact is we have priced it as low as possible given the overhead of running a business in downtown Manhattan.
You can apply to School Yard at schoolforthedogs.com/application. And if you're not in New York and you're interested in School Yard, you can kind of make your own. Contact a dog trainer in your area. See if they know any other dogs who might be a good match play wise or just off-leash wise, we should say, with your dog, age wise, size wise.
And see if you have a space in your home, or I don't know, someone's yard or a church basement somewhere where your dogs can meet up on the regular and play together and have that trainer there. Split the cost four ways or however many dogs you're going to have, and have that trainer be there to kind of coach you guys and make sure that the dogs are playing well and help train the dogs to play and take breaks and do all the things we do.
The article is called, “Does your dog deserve a private park?” Interesting and not surprising title right there, as if dogs are a lower creature and it is offensive to give them anything luxurious, even if it's a luxury that's going to improve their lives and make us happy too.
They mention a couple other dog parks. I thought one part was interesting. Most of these parks, it doesn't talk about behavior. There's no specific behavior test that's going on to get the dogs into the park. Although one place, the west village D O G Run on Little West 12th street, they say that they only allowed dogs in who have proof of vaccination and are friendly with good manners. And I read that and I thought, what is well, who's deciding what's friendly? What are good manners?
Anyway, this is what it says about us:
When she became disillusioned with the public dog parks, Annie Grossman founded the School for the Dogs, which offers training programs and according to its website, New York City's only trainer-supervised dog run, where member dogs can romp with their friends or simply enjoy off-leash time with their favorite person at our indoor/outdoor facility. ‘People sit on the perimeter in public runs and look at their phones. It's like the Wild West,’ Ms. Grossman said. ‘No one is in charge. It can be quite dangerous.
Located in the East Village, the School Yard as the dog run service is called is ideal for dogs who require a lot of attention and maybe a little extra supervision. No more than five dogs carefully matched by size and temperament are allowed in each 45 minute play yard. This is a big advantage for owners like Stephanie Higgs whose seven year old Papillon Moo gets overwhelmed in public parks.
Adam Davis, who supervises some of the classes has 10 years of dog experience and keeps close watch on Moo, Bobby, Tacey, Lola and other dog yard regulars, awarding treats when appropriate and firmly calling break when the dogs get scrappy or aggressive.
With its hefty membership fee, which covers five visits per month, the yard isn't for everyone, including dogs who like to run. The small outdoor space covered with pet specific fake grass isn't exactly a leafy meadow, but sessions here train dogs and new owners alike to better understand dog play and ideally better navigate other dog runs.
Now, as the owner of a business that offers this service, I can tell you that there are plenty of people in this world who will think that anyone is batshit crazy to pay what amounts to $40 for their dog to go to this highly curated, highly customized, private dog run in Manhattan's East Village. People like April, who emailed us this morning after reading the New York Times article. From her area code, it looks like she is in South Carolina.
She wrote, “What's with the puppy parents crap? People own dogs. It's dog owner, you buffoons. $2,000 plus for membership? New York City dog owners are the most idiotic snobs on earth. Dogs are so boring. Why all the fuss over these butt sniffing scavenger animals anyway?” So thank you April for this message. I wanted to address several parts of it.
So first of all, puppy parent is a term that actually isn't used in the article. And I usually do refer to a dog's owner as their owner. Dogs are legally considered property at School for the Dogs. We sometimes refer to the dog's owner as the dog's human, since it's really a relationship between two different species, one, a human and one, a dog. But anyway, I don't get too lost personally, in the nomenclature of it all. If you want to call yourself your dog's parent, that really doesn't bother me
But I think what bothers April about the term and I'm guessing here is that it suggests we're treating our dogs as we would treat children. And I get that, but I also think it's not that crazy. I mean, if you want to spend a lot of money on your dog, as you may want to spend a lot of money on your child, that's your prerogative if you have the money to spend.
I don't think most of our clients are choosing whether or not to come to School Yard or come to any of our other expensive services or what other to put food on the table that night. These are people who have dogs as a hobby. They have dogs to enrich their lives. The modern dog owners that we work with at School for the Dogs are not getting dogs as guard dogs. They are not getting dogs to tend the flock. They are not getting dogs to herd cattle.
Our clients at School for the Dogs are getting dogs because they want to spend time with their dogs and watch their dogs enjoy life. And as a hobby that people are going to put money into, I personally don't judge that. I mean, not anymore than I would judge the person spending $2,000 a year on, I don't know, golf clubs. Or, you know, the person who's spending 90, a hundred grand to on a new car, or $500 on a bottle of wine, or running shoes or whatever it is that supports whatever it is that you're into during your non-working hours.
And if one of your leisure activities is spending time with your dog and enjoying life with your dog, watching your dog enjoy life, certainly there are many things you can do together that will cost no money at all, but there are other things that you may pay for to, I don't know, help, I guess you could say elevate your lives together. And I think that is what we offer at School for the Dogs in lots of different forms.
And like I said, we are a business. That does not mean we are trying to become wealthy people, but business has to charge money in order to keep itself going and keep itself healthy so that it can continue offering the kinds of awesome services that we provide to animals who we frankly are in some cases treating like children. And like I said, you don't have to agree with me. You might judge that, but I don't think it's beyond understandable.
Dogs can be a hobby, and think about the amount of money people spend on other animals as a hobby. Say, you know, horses. And it's interesting to compare that and the judgment around that compared to money that people put into other kinds of hobbies if they have the money to spend.
Think about the money people sink into cars alone. In most cases, you, the person making the purchase, you acquiring this car, you are the person benefiting from the money that you're putting in. You can't point to another life that is necessarily better because of this luxury purchase you've made. However, if the luxury purchase is something that you're doing to actually improve the life of a being that you have brought into your home and your world, I think that is pretty cool. I don't know, makes sense to me.
But it is also something I wish we could offer at a lower price point, which is true about all of our services. And by the way, is why we created our on-demand courses, which you can see at schoolforthedogs.com/courses. It is why, in part, we do this podcast to give people free information.
It is why we have our scholarship fund, SchoolfortheDogs.com/fund, where people can apply to get free private training with us. It's meant for rescue dog owners who are trying to do training so that they can keep a dog in their home, behavior issues being one of the major issues that dogs are returned to shelters. Anyway, we do what we can to offset the price that we do charge a lot of money for our services.
I think a lot of the biases that people have when it comes to people spending money on their dog has to do with what I think of as a largely old-fashioned notion that we all have dogs purely for reasons like doing work on our farms, or eating our scraps, or protecting us. There are more subtle reasons why we have dogs in our home now.
And then the other thing, what else did she say? Oh, she says that we're snobs. And yeah, I don't know. I guess I am a snob about — [laughs] I'm a dog park snob. I have strong feelings about what we should be asking dogs, how we should be asking them the things that we need from them, and how we can set them up for success, how we can keep them safe.
I have strong opinions about how I want other people interacting with my dogs. I have feelings about how I want other dogs to be interacting with my dogs. Yes, I have elite opinions as I think many people who work at School for the Dogs do, and many of our clients do, about something that maybe seems super basic like a dog park. And if that makes me a snob, so be it.
[music and outro]
