15 JulEpisode 214 | We’re just “snowflakes” who don’t use “bonkers”: A frank conversation with dog trainer Beth Berkobien of Rehab Your Rescue of Dallas, TX

 

Transcript:

Annie:

Hello, Beth. Thank you for being here. Maybe you can just go ahead and introduce yourself ‘cause I'm worried I'm gonna say your last name wrong. And tell me the name of your business and where you're located.

Beth Berkobien:

Absolutely. Yeah, everybody worries about saying my last name. I am Beth Berkobien of Rehab Your Rescue. We're located in Dallas, Texas, but I do sessions virtually all over the world. I have some clients in South Africa, in London, in Seattle, so we are very accessible. I have a master's degree in animal behavior from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I'm certified in separation anxiety and I have over 25 years experience. And then I have three members on my team that just do basics, cooperative care and reactivity and such like that. But I specialize in aggression and the aggressive dog, specifically the rescue dog that has problems.

Annie:

And, which leads to the name of your business.

Beth:

That is actually, I was supporting a rescue and when I decided to go full time again, after a like eight year break, I was like, oh, I need a new business name. And I'm like, well, alls I do is rescue. So I was like, oh, Rehab Your Rescue. And it stuck. And it's kind of driven me along the rescue world. So it's really nice.

Annie:

So tell me how you got started in this world.

Beth:

So I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. We had Simmental cattle, quarter horses, and my dad actually trained field trial Labradors. And he used aversives. And we'd bring out these bouncy labs and they were so fun. And at the beginning of our sessions, it was just such a joy to work with them. But then I'd always notice at the end of the sessions, we'd have these shut down kids who were like slinking back to their kennels. And I was like that just, it felt wrong being a 12 year old, that just didn't feel right.

Annie:

You explain a little bit what the aversives were that were being used?

Beth:

Yeah, so this was in the 1980s, so like we had one of those leather collars that actually had nails in them, like three little nails. And if the dogs did something they didn't like, my dad would make a big leash correction. We used e-collars which of course in the 1980s weren't great. He used a bonker, so just like Jeff Gelman, he would be whacking on these dogs like if they wouldn't release.

Annie:

Oh my God. I just discovered, I just discovered Jeff Gelman

Beth:

Oh, I'm so, so sorry that you've gone all this time without knowing who he was!

Annie:

No, I'm glad I went all this time.

Beth:

I know, I know. And now you do know, go back to the darkness.

Annie:

Well, maybe we could talk about him, but anyway, what is a Bonker?

Beth:

So a Bonker is a, something like a rolled up towel, or my dad would use a retrieving dummy and essentially would just whack the dog with it when they didn't do what was expected of them. And a lot of the compulsion trainers will use it if a dog is overreacting or aggressing or being reactive, and they'll throw it at them to hit in the head or on the hips. It's supposed to break the mindset. Really all it does is shut the dog down and causes the dog to be fearful of the handler, ‘cause they know for sure who it's coming from.

Annie:

Mm-hmm.

Beth:

And so, you know, if they weren't fetching correctly or they wouldn't release a bird, they'd get a bonk on the head or hip. Yeah. It made ‘em drop the bird or made ‘em drop the retrieval, but it didn't teach them anything. Right. It just taught them that we were unpredictable. And now we're scared of you.

Annie:

So how did you go from thinking, mm, this makes me a little uncomfortable to where you are now?

Beth:

I decided that I should, I wanted to be a veterinarian as a kid, which I think most kids that are really animal crazy are like, Ooh, I wanna be a veterinarian.

Annie:

Yeah, I did too, except I think I knew I couldn't deal with the dead dogs and also not good at science and felt also like, if you like animals, the only job out there is being a vet.

Beth:

Right? Yeah. Especially in like the 1980s. I didn't know anything about dog training. And there wasn't pet dog training, it seems, like it is now.

Annie:

Right.

Beth:

So I went to school, and we did this day where you could go into surgeries and you could watch surgeries happening. And I promptly passed out.

Annie:

Was this what? In vet school?

Beth:

Yeah. Before. So right when I joined for my undergrad, you could go and watch like surgeries happening and they kind of had this open house day.

Annie:

Oh, so you were like pre-vet or pre-med.

Beth:

Yes, yep. Was gonna be prevet and yep. Nope. Passed right out. [laughs] So I was like, okay, well I can't deal with blood guts, which was interesting. Cause I grew up on a farm and had dealt with, you know, doctoring animals my whole life, but yet seeing the insides of an animal is completely different. And I just, I passed out. So I was like, yeah, we're not doing that.

So I changed tracks and I was like, well I think I'll be a human psychologist. So I started taking – or I got my undergrad in behavioral psych for people. And at the end of my undergrad, and I was gonna move on to getting a master's in psych for people, it just didn't feel right. And I wasn't, I was very young and I was very bold and I was very opinionated. And so I would get very frustrated with people when they wouldn't put their behavior plan in place when I was doing my clinicals.

So a professor very gently steered me towards zoology. And so I got a master's degree in zoology with an emphasis in animal behavior. Yeah. I'd be less frustrated with animals then if I went towards an animal track. I wasn't very skilled with dealing with people and I would get very impatient with them. Which as you know, now that I'm in my forties, this entire job is people.

So, but I spent the first 10 years of my career just doing board and trains for a company. And so I was very isolated from them because I think they did understand, I didn't have very good people skills. So I had to learn how to ‘people,’ because I wasn't very good at it. And I was one of those people who was like, I hate people! and now I don't think that's a badge of honor.

Annie:

Yeah. That's interesting. And it's certainly a stereotype about people who work with dogs, right?

Beth:

Yes. For sure. I heard that all the time. Like I really don't like people, so I'm gonna be a dog trainer and I'll be like, well, then go where you never have to talk to a person, because that's all I do all day long is talk to people and empathize with them and feel with them. And I have to have this level of understanding of how they're feeling, because especially in behavior, it's a journey that we're taking together where they're going to feel so terribly isolated and so terribly alone. And I have to be their guide and I have to be the one who is taking them on this journey. And if I'm not supportive of them, who is going to be? So I learned that, but it took me 40 years to do that. [laughs]

Annie:

Well, I find there's, I mean business owner to business owner, I can tell you that I find working in a service business to be such a trial by fire as far as working with people goes, that working in my previous career, in school, in life, and relationships in general, I never had to deal with so many people wanting so many things both on the client and on the employee end.

Beth:

Yes.

Annie:

And it definitely teaches you. I mean, I feel like it's been quite an education in psychology, both mine and others.

Beth:

Yes. For sure.

Annie:

I think some people probably could go their whole life without having – if you live a, I guess a more cloistered life, or even don't go into the service business because, it's just the volume of people that you are dealing with on both sides becomes huge. And you start to see, I don't know, like behavioral tendencies and, I don't know, like personality types. And I mean, one thing I've learned, and I love working with clients and I love working with trainers, but it's certainly not easy. 

Beth:

Not at all.

Annie:

And I've talked a little bit on the podcast about this before, like trying to figure out how to run a business based on what I've learned about behavior from dog –  like working with the realm of dog. Like sure, there are a lot of things that overlap as far as why people do what they do or don't do what they don't do and what motivates people, but it's like a whole different skill set.

Beth:

Right. For sure

Annie:

That I appreciate the world of human relations in a way that I never did before becoming a dog trainer. Anyway, sorry to go down that. It's interesting to me that you were like you went into the world of working with animals because you were not so interested in working with the people, but now you're saying you're working with the people. Do you think that what you learned about animal training first as a zoologist helped inform how you work with people?

Beth:

Yes. And I think also having that behavior psych degree helps. So it all kind of feeds together, because it's all linked, it's all behavior, it's all functional. So we always have to look at what is the function of that behavior that either a human or an animal is doing, and why are they doing it? And then once you dig into that, you can find your empathy and you can find the way to address it in a non-confrontational or non aversive way.

It did take me, as I think it does most people, time to develop skills to deal with people appropriately. And I also have an MBA in finance and spent 15 years as a corporate controller in corporate America. So that also lent me and – I worked for the fire service side for five years. And so working with firefighters and corporate America, that taught me quite a bit as well of how to really learn how to listen to people and not be reactive because I was a very reactive youngster.

So it really taught me quite a bit coming up. And then I put a pause in 2008, I put a pause on my dog training career because of the economy and, you know, I just wasn't in the right place in my life. And then in 2020, well, in 2017, I started back into the dog training world with supporting rescues and, you know, really that's all I did for a few years, just support rescues. As their behavior consultant, I'd take cases that they were having problems with, but I wouldn't really see the outside client.

And then in 2020 when COVID hit and I was working in oil and gas, I was absolutely miserable and I hated my job. I hated what I was doing, but I was working part-time as a behavior consultant. And I was seeing probably 20 clients a week on top of my corporate job. And then one day I just woke up and I went, looked at my husband and said, I think I'm gonna quit my job on Monday. And he's like, okay, what are you gonna do? And I'm like, I'm gonna go back to dog training full time. And he was like, okay…? In the middle of COVID.

And he is a retired firefighter paramedic. And he was working the pandemic in an emergency department. And I was like, I just, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to be in corporate America. I feel awful. I'm miserable, I'm depressed. I just don't want to, and he's like, okay, well we all let's give it a college try for three to six months. And if you aren't successful, you can always just go back to corporate America, sound like a deal. And I was like, sounds like a plan. 

And now two year two and a half years later, we are thriving and growing my team. And it's just, it's been an exceptional ride in the last two and a half years since I've gone back full time, it's been quite the exceptional ride.

Annie:

So just chronologically, you were training full time, and then you left.

Beth:

2001 to 2008, I was training full time.

Annie:

And was that with your own business or a board and train business?

Beth:

No, the board and train business in Wisconsin. And that was aversive based. So it was prong collars, and not as heavy handed as like what my dad was doing, and it was right as I had graduated college. And so actually it was before that, it was before I graduated from college because when I graduated from college, I shifted to positive reinforcement 1.0.

You know, where when positive reinforcement first kind of came out, everybody was still kind of using mild aversives like shaker cans and squirt bottles. And so I still use those types of things. And every once in a while, the prong collar would appear. But mostly from 2001 or two on, I stopped with the majority of the aversives, at least the prong collars, e collars, choke chains. But the first company I worked for was very much a compulsive slash balanced company. When I left them after I got my degree, cause I was working part-time while I was getting my education, I started working for another company that alls I did was board and trains.

Annie:

How did you, how did you come to feel that the balanced method was not the direction you wanted to go in?

Beth:

Oh, that's a really good question. I wrecked one of my own dogs. So I just told the story on TikTok the other day. I was trying to get a UDX, a utility dog excellence, on my rottweiler and he was really lagging in his heel. Like his heel, just his off-leash heel was not polished enough. And I kept de cueing in the heeling portions. And the judges just kept telling me that I needed to firm up the heel. It needed to be more polished. It wasn't crisp enough.

And so I had a friend and colleague talk me into trying her trainer and that we should try an e collar. And I was like, okay, let's do it. And she showed me her dog that he had polished up. And it was this goofy lab who was still a goofy lab because labs are resilient. And she was doing amazing with this dog. And I was like, okay, it'll work for Elmo. Let's try it on Elmo. And we took, I think we took about three to six months to get the dog conditioned to the E collar. And we moved really slowly. And then we started working in the training center on rubber mats with – go ahead?

Annie:

Was this after that, after 2008?

Beth:

So I came out of the program and was starting to make my transition away from using tools. And I had really never used any collar in the program. I was working with the first company I worked for. We just used prong collars and choke chains. We didn't use an e collar. And I got convinced that this was the way to go by a friend because she showed me her dog. And I was like, well, okay.

And we started working him in the training facility, which had rubber floors. And it took about 30 minutes. And all of a sudden I started to notice that he was just shutting down and shutting down and shutting down. So he was like, he came into the training facility, this really happy goofy guy. And he was a really exuberant, outgoing dude. And he all also started like tucking his little nubbin, and then his ears were plastered against his head. And he had low slinky body language.

And when I would ask him to heel, he would plaster himself against my thigh, which was exactly what I wanted, but not in the way that looked like a polished heel. He was slammed against me with, you know, low slinky body language, wide eyes, panting mouth. And I can remember distinctly the way he looked. And I was like, that doesn't look great. And they kept telling me, like, I was like, Hey, this doesn't look like it's doing what I want it to do. He looks unhappy. And the trainer and my friend were like, oh, no, no, no, just the first time's always a little rough. It'll get better. It'll get better.

So we left after that session and I came back and like two weeks later, and the second he stepped on the rubber mats, he pissed and shit and himself. And he started shaking and he just was like, he started slinking to the ground and he started belly crawling. And I was like, oh, well, that's not great. And he's like, just put the E collar on. We have to work through this. And I'm like, yeah, I don't, that doesn't feel good in my stomach. Like, I don't think that's right.

And so I took him outside. I didn't put the collar on and I took him outside and I got him all jazzed up and ed up. And, he recovered probably about 80%. And I was like, okay, let's do this. And we walked back into the training center, and his feet hit the rubber mat and he went Uh-uh and he shut right back down again, peed himself again. And I was like, Oh no. And both my friend and the trainer were like, this is normal. And I'm like, is it though? And I, then that's when I was like, this is not normal. And I have wrecked my dog and this is not great. And I could never get him back onto rubber mats again. We tried to counter condition it and desensitize it back and I could never get him to walk rubber mats again.

I could get him into training facilities and tool around, but if there were rubber mats, he wasn't, he wasn't having it. He could play on them, but if I tried to put him to work, he would shut down. And I took about five years to try to get him together, and unfortunately I wasn't able to recover that from him.

So, I made a very stupid mistake. I was still very young. I was 25, 26, and I just really wanted this title. And I was very competitive. I showed at the top of the quarter horse circuit and, you know, won some big prizes there. And I was a very competitive young girl. And I was just more about winning the prize than I was about the wellbeing of my dog. And that is what taught me to worry more about my dog and less about myself. And that's when I took tools off and I stopped using them from that moment forward. And I've never picked up an e collar again.

Annie:

How did you go from there to also sort of doing away with things that people might consider less severe, like coins in a can?

Beth:

Yeah, that took a little bit longer. Yeah. That took a little bit longer because that was still very much the norm in the early nineties, early two thousands. Like that was how quote unquote, how we were training. Right. And so I remember when I got my first English setter puppy, I used a shaker can on him and it shut him – and I think it was for barking. And it just like, he hit the deck and belly crawled away from me and I was like, oh, that's not great. And I think that was the first time I had seen that. And I was like, okay. And so we stopped.

I think, my poor dogs have been, I think for most of us, have been experiments in what not to do. And so I think I've tried things on my own dogs and then gone, Ooh, that's not great. Let's not do it on your dog either. And then it was, then I started, you know, taking continuing education and learning and reading Don't Shoot the Dog. And of course, continuing to read Dr. McConnell's books and you just keep educating yourself.

And I just kept seeing things would be like, you'd be in a class and there'd be dogs barking and you'd squirt one and they would hit the deck and be like, oh, and you'd be like, well, that's not the response I want. I don't want the dogs to be afraid of me. We want the dogs to figure out how to act instead, instead of being just terrified all the time. So I think a lot of it's trial by fire for most of us. Even with educations, we have to figure out what works and what doesn't work. And like, with my new setter puppy, it's about figuring out what works for him and what doesn't work.

But yeah, it took a long time to come away from aversives. I would say when I ended, so probably about 2005 is when I really set all of them down when I was like, Okay, there's a better way. I had, you know, continued to learn, continued to go to seminars and such, and was like, okay, there's a better way that we can just redirect and we can ask dogs to do something else instead of trying to scare them into submission.

Annie:

Here's a question: I have family that uses a shock collar, or they've used several kinds of shock collars on their dogs and continue to, and their rationale of why it's okay, is that the dog only ever got shocked once. And it wasn't that bad. So if it means that the dog can have free roam of their yard, it was worth it. What would you, I'm not putting you on the spot. How would you respond to that?

Beth:

Yeah. And I get that a lot, right? Yeah. And I think we get that a lot for. Well, one, we don't get to decide what's that bad, right? Just because you as a human think, oh, it's not that bad. And I think the biggest flaw we have with the E collar is that all trainers will have you try it on the heel of your hand. That is the most callous part of your body. And they won't tell you that human skin is 14 to 18 cells thick and dog skin is four to eight cells thick. So we're not comparing apples to apples. Right?

And so what I've said to clients lately, cause I get a lot of clients that come in on E collars and I'll be like, okay, I wanna give you a challenge, go home with no shoes on. I want you to strap it to your inner thigh and just wander around and give it to your partner or a friend or child and have them Stim you when you least expect it. And then tell me if it's painful, and then tell me if it made you jump. Because the reason the E collars work is because it's aversive, ‘cause it's painful.

And what they learn is that when that collar is on, like, I have one client who I have not pulled the E collar off of yet because it's a very big, very big, very strong, very reactive German shepherd. And I want her to have tools before I take her other tools away, we will take them away. And I've told her, I said, you can, you can wear it. ‘Cause the dog is what we call collar wise. So the dog knows when that collar's on, there is a chance that I'm gonna get stimmed. Even if he's only been stimmed once, there is a chance, they know, they're very smart.

And so for that, this particular dog, I'm like, just leave the collar on. I know you never use the box. Let's not hit the button. And then we'll, we'll move away from that E collar. And so really it's more about the learning history that the dog has been through and that single learning events are very real. So if that dog was booking towards the road and you stimmed them and they hit the brakes and came back, you're like, yep. That worked. And I've never had to hit it again. They're like, yeah, cuz they don't wanna get hurt again. And they've learned that that collar is painful.

And I think the good balanced trainers will tell you, yeah, it works ‘cause it's painful. It's not a tickle. It's not an interrupter. It's not a communication device. It's aversive and it's painful. And I think as long as we're honest with ourselves, if you are okay with causing a sentient being pain so that you have control over them, then go for it. But let's be honest with ourselves about what we're doing to our animals. Not that, oh, it's just so they can have freedom. They have no more freedom on that E collar than they would on the long line.

Annie:

So what do you say when someone says, well, it just snaps them out of it.=?

Beth:

Yeah. It doesn't though. It causes pain and then they associate that pain with whatever's happening. So if we use it for aggression and I always like to bring up this point, I always tell my clients too, go home, open your owner's manual and read the very first page and tell me what it says. And then they'll always come back the next day or the next time I see them and say, it says not to use for aggression! And I'm like, I know, crazy! That's why I wanted you to look there. Don't use for aggression and don't use for punishment. So then if we're not using it for aggression, we're not using it for punishment, what should we be using these tools for? And, you –

Annie:

You're not using it for punishment. You're not using it for aggression. You should be using it on humans who are into S and M.

Beth:

Yes, there we go. Right. 

Annie:

Find some animal for whom this is gonna be something that's positively reinforcing.

Beth:

And can consent to it. Right? So that if I can consent to having a violet wand used on me then, which is the electric device that is used in S and M, um, not that I know anything about that. Oh boy, did we just go down a path? [laughs] So if I can consent to a violet wand, that's completely different. That's me saying, yes, please use that. And then I can also say, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's too much and tap out. Right? Whereas we don't give dogs and they don't have the ability to tap out.

And I've even seen trainers that have fried dogs on E collars and they are screaming and they're holding that button down and saying, well, when they stop screaming, I'll let it up. Essentially, that dog is saying, you've gone too far, stop, and we're still not listening. So if we're gonna use those devices, we have to listen carefully to what the dog is saying, and watch for that consent.

Annie:

I try and make the point that we don't know what associations the dog is making. So.

Beth:

Right.

Annie:

Your dog gets shocked while running towards that UPS truck. And for all we know the UPS truck is the thing that's been associated with the pain.

Beth:

Right. Or I had a dog that had separation anxiety, went off to a board and train. They put the dog in an impact kennel. And every time she barked, they fried her on the E collar until she stopped barking and started screaming. When the dog came home, and the dog was a lovely sociable dog. And when the dog came home, she was now human aggressive. So she associated that stim with people that were not her family. And so she – we've been, I think we're nine months into a program now trying to work through the human aggression, but she is very suspicious of humans and will bark, lunge, growl, show big displays of aggression towards humans that are not her family. And it has been a long road to counter condition that, yep.

Annie:

Are you familiar with the Monks of New Skete?

Beth:

Oh yes. Who isn't. Well I guess if you didn't know Jeff Gelman, then maybe.

Annie:

Well the Monks of New Skete have been around since I was a little kid and their latest book is about using a shock collar. And uh, if I had it nearby, I would read to you from it. But I do recall one of the things they talk about is that the vibration is actually more disturbing and painful to the dog than the shock. Which I don't know how–

Beth:

I don't think we get to decide that. We don't get to decide that.

Annie:

Right. And I don't know, maybe, I wonder if there have been studies that have been done on that. I don't know, but then they also talk about testing it on yourself and the different levels of what's painful and how it's like might like one level might be more painful for one person than another. Which made me ask myself, well, if you could say that then how can you also say that it's not that bad on the dog? Like you don't, if you don't know how, if I don't know how my spouse feels wearing this thing, how can I expect to guess what it feels like to the dog?

Beth:

Right. And, and that's exactly it. Like, why do you get to say, you don't get to tell me what I find unpleasant. So why do you get to tell me what my dog finds or doesn't find unpleasant, and what one dog may find unpleasant, another dog isn't going to. And so I do a lot of deaf and blind dogs. I've had several of my own deaf and blind dogs and I have used the vibe collar very sparingly and only if the dog can tolerate it.

And the way I start a vibe collar is, I'll put it near them and vibrate it, and if the dog has a big response to that, then clearly that's gonna be aversive to them, and we're not gonna be able to use that on them. So the dog gets to decide. So yeah, if I put a vibe collar on the dog and the dog has a, Oh, holy crap response, then we're not gonna use it. And just like with the stim. So it should be the same way with the stim that if we put it on and we're why do we have to find a working level? Shouldn't it just be that if we put the collar on and we stim the dog and the dog comes apart, we go, oh, okay. We're not using that collar then.

Annie:

If you wanna use a, a remote tool, why not use something that makes a sound? That if you're, it's really, if it's really about breaking your dog's attention, or I forget the other ways people put it, but

Beth:

Communicating.

Annie:

If it's really about communicating or just getting their attention, why not just use a collar that can make a simple sound, right? So I – Go ahead.

Beth:

Sorry. I was just gonna add one thing to that. And what drives me crazy about this whole argument about e collars is that, and really e collars, prong collars, choke chains, and the comparison to “positive only,” or force free or, or R plus – which, positive only isn't a thing – is that, well, we don't wanna use treats all the time. I, I don't wanna have to carry treats. I don't want treats in my pockets. I don't wanna have to use treats.

But you're okay with leaving that device on a hundred percent of the time and telling your client never take that collar off, but yet you're not okay with them using treats because you don't wanna have that be a crutch. Isn't your tool, the same thing. Isn't your tool a crutch? Because in my line of work, we fade treats like we get to a point where we're not feeding every repetition. So I want that same thing. I want to be away from the tools. And I eventually want, if I have the dog on a head halter or a harness, I want the dog away from that and on a flat collar at some point. So we should be striving to be fading everything away and not being like we can't use treats, but that collar, that's gold and you can leave that on all the time. And so I think it's such an interesting dichotomy, the argument that we have.

Annie:

Would you mind going into about Jeff Gellman with me? Cause I really just discovered him like a week ago. And can you explain who he is or how you came to know about him and when, because I guess my ire has so long been focused on Cesars Millan that I did not know about this this person – who by the way is not as influential overall Cesar Millan, but, and nefarious, although I would say maybe differently nefarious, but you go ahead.

Beth:

Yeah. I think he has a different reach. He's not on national television, which is a blessing. So I think the good part about Jeff is that we don't have, he's not on national TV. Jeff is, I think I heard about him probably about 10 years ago and for his famous bonking method. Which is where he takes a rolled up newspaper, and if the dog is doing something aggressive, he whacks them with it, whether that's over the head or on the hips. It's usually over the head and then he's like, see it stopped it. And I'm like, yeah, ‘cause if you hit me in the face with something too, I'd stop.

And he says that he takes really aggressive code red dogs in and fixes them, which I think is problematic because, A, we shouldn't be seeking to fix a dog. We should be seeking to repair their behaviors. And some dogs are not fixable. So I think that becomes very problematic in another conversation. But he's not just –

Annie:

Or, sorry, sorry – I would, I think if I were, I would say, not to edit you, but I would say, it's less about being fixable as far as like some dogs just aren't ever gonna be right for the environment that we're asking them to be in.

Beth:

Right. Yes, yes.

Annie:

Without great accommodations, but yeah, go ahead.

Beth:

Correct. Correct. Yeah. Like, you know, that's why we have mental facilities yeah. And prisons. So I think Jeff is – go ahead.

Annie:

No, yeah. He's a compulsion trainer.

Beth:

Oh yeah. He's compulsive a hundred percent. And he doesn't just use aversives he uses abusive methods. Like he is hitting dogs to get them to stop what they're doing. I've watched, I will go down these rabbit holes sometimes for emotional cutting and to be like, Oh, thank God. I don't do that. And to make myself mad. And I've watched quite a few of his videos and it just boggles my mind.

Like how do you not understand basic learning theory? And that this is not how dogs learn and that when a dog is in distress, you're not gonna get them out of it by hitting them with something and shutting them down. Sure. It snaps 'em out of it. Absolutely. But it doesn't, it's not teaching them anything. Just like if your kid was drawing on the wall right now with a permanent marker and I threw a book at him, he's not gonna learn not to draw on the wall. He's gonna turn around and go, woo. That Beth is scary and I don't want her in my house. And the next time I come over, he's gonna be like, mom, why is Beth here? Because I'm now unpredictable.

Annie:

So, I got to Jeff Gellman because I'm actually writing a book right now about good dog training. And it's not at all a memoir, but I was writing a little bit about sort of how I first – I was writing a little bit about what dog training was to me when I was a kid. And a lot of what I learned from my dad as a kid were methods that I think he learned from Barbara Woodhouse, who was on the BBC in the early eighties.

She was like this very matronly, stern old lady who was going around yanking dogs, leashes, and stepping on their leashes to get them to lie down and just doing a lot of but she also suggested things a lot of the time that were just kind of I don't know, just like weird things that I remember my dad doing. I didn't make this connection until after my dad died, so I can't talk to him about it, unfortunately.

But I remember he would say like What a good girl, that it was really important to use that w sound to communicate with dogs. And subsequently, I saw that on her show on, you know, reruns of her show. Like that's something she suggests. So, and my dad, I also remember, used to say that, if the dog was bad, I should bite the dog's ear.

Beth:

[laughing]

Annie:

And I was like, oh, I wonder if he got that from Barbara Woodhouse. So I Googled, and it's kind of hard to find clips of Barbara Woodhouse’s show, but, or, you know, certainly searchable clips, but I guess I Googled like ‘Barbara Woodhouse bite dog ear,’ or something like that. Maybe there was some clip of her doing that and that's how my dad learned about dog training. I mean, part of the irony of it all is my dad was an extremely gentle, kind, generous person, so that he believed that all of this was fine says something about how much people will believe about gobbledy gook

Beth:

Right, right. Absolutely.

Annie:

Dog training and snake oil. He was also a really smart man. Anyway. So I got to this blog post on a website called Animal Rights and Wrongs UK. And it was called “Just when you thought the Woodhouse days were over.” And it's a very interesting blog post by this guy, John Brooklyn, about how we got from the 1980s, 1970s Barbara Woodhouse days to this guy Jeff Gelman. And then he shows this video, which I was just like, Whoa. Can I share it with you?

Beth:

Yeah, absolutely.

Woman:

Oh, back to the Brittany that grabs kids, kids could just be sitting on chair and we'll walk by and bite feet.

Annie:

I think it's like a Q and A, of some kind.

Jeff Gellman:

What you need to do is you get power on that dog. That dog walks by kids and tries to bite, bite their feet. You, you let that dog know that's not acceptable. We're not living like this.

Annie:

Oh, sorry. Just to pause it. So like Googling him a little bit. It looks like I couldn't figure out any education that he has. None, any certification, all the only previous experience I could find was that he ran a sex shop at some point? [laughs]

Beth:

Oh, awesome. I think that is very, means you should be a dog trainer.

Annie:

Yeah. And then I looked at the people working for him, hoping that they would have some sort of experience or certification or something. And also couldn't anyway, I'll continue playing this. I think it's excellent Q and A. It's him and a woman.

Beth:

I think his wife.

Annie:

Okay. With a bunch of dog paintings behind them. He's this kind of nerdy looking guy with glasses and a receding hairline and long hair draped over his shoulders, trying to give a visual description. Button down shirt kind of, I mean, almost kind of like a young, a young, possibly less attractive Bernie Sanders with long hair. That's what I would describe.

Beth:

Yes. Yep.

 

Jeff Gellman:

That's what you do. Thank you for giving, put it into context. So that's what you do. And some people would be like, “Oh my God, it's gonna think kids…” It's gonna think kids are what? It's gonna think kids are hot? I hope so. I hope when it sees kids, kids feet, it moves away. That's what I hope it does. But a lot of people are gonna say, “Oh, then it'll have a negative association with children.” And what, bite them? It's already biting them. I don't create bad behaviors. I fix them. I know that sounds a little bit corny, but I think it's really, really important. ‘Cause a lot of people come in after the fact and say, ‘No, that'll make the dog–’ I'm like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, Boston mommy called me up on the phone and said, Hey Jeff, I'm having a problem with my dog.

Hey Boston mommy. What's going on? My dog goes by kids and bites their feet. Okay, wonderful. Have I ever met the dog before? No you haven't, Jeff. Have we ever talked on the phone before? No you haven't, Jeff. Have you ever done any of my advice before? Nope. Jeff, I haven't. Great. And the dog is still doing the bad behavior. I had nothing to do with it.

I think it's so important that people understand the sequence of a dog's bad behavior. That dog trainers like myself aren't creating them at all. But there's a whole segment of the marketplace out there that are trying to convince you that no, punishment makes all these dogs behave bad. We show up after the scene, at the scene of the crime, got it? We show up at the scene of the crime.

All we do is stop behaviors all day long. Once the dog has done them. It's so important that people understand that and that they stop getting sucked into this punishment makes dogs lose trust in the own– Boston Mommy, if that was my dog, I already don't trust my dog. I don't trust if my dog was biting kids' feet, there already is a lack of trust. That's already done. This is so important that people understand these concepts. This is simple, common sense. But as soon as you start talking about punishment, everybody crumbles and falls apart and screams abuse.

Abuse? Give me a fucking break. How about those kids that are getting bit? It's incredible. The way that we've gotten in this country, you have to fucking be kidding me. That dog is biting children's feet. What would you like to do? What should we do? Drop kibble on the fuckin floor? Oh yeah. Every time that Brittany walks by the kids, drop kibble on the floor so it'll think the kids' feet are nice. Yeah. Let's also wash the kids' feet with like essential oils and tea tree oil and put flowers in their fucking toes so the dog feels that it's a loving fucking place. And maybe it'll sit there and kumbaya too.

Gimme a fucking break. The dog's biting the kids' feet. It's gonna be told right now this second, how unacceptable this is. That's why dogs are dying. That's why dogs are being re-homed. That's why children are getting bit. Because we've turned into a society of a bunch of snowflakes who refuse to accept reality.

And on that note, Linda's done with a show. That's why she keeps squeezing my arm. Is that what you meant?

Linda:

No, I was trying to make you calm down. Like calm your shit down, dude.

Jeff:

Oh. I'm not mad either. I'm not angry.

Linda:

He's just passionate.

Jeff:

I'm fucking passionate. All right. I'm not mad at all. I love life. I'm having a great time, but boy, am I sick and tired of people making all these excuses. And this isn't Boston Mommy and Boston Mommy knows that because she's been on this show. These are just like to, to you, to all of you, maybe not the people sitting here, but to like to people out there that are struggling, I mean, it's really getting bad out there and it's getting worse. We have too many snowflakes. We're gonna have a snowstorm. We got a snowstorm. We're gonna be shoveling shit for a long time guys. I mean, that's gonna be the bodies of dead dogs.

Beth:

Oh my God. It's the, for me, it's the fear mongering. It's the, well, your dog's gonna die if you don't use an e collar, your dog's gonna die if you don't use an e collar. Okay. Stop that. So I have a client that is having severe separation anxiety, severe activity, and has been to five balanced trainers. And it's not getting better. It's just, it's getting worse. And we were supposed to start a program, and the dog bit another dog and did some damage. And so she has to remove the dog from her house. The apartment's kicking the dog out.

So I, she goes, so she calls me and we do a session and she says, well, I'm gonna go to this trainer. And I'm like, again, it's a balanced trainer that's gonna use the same methods. And she's like, yep. She told me it was gonna, it was gonna be the same thing. And I was like, great.

Well then I talked to this trainer and I was like, yeah, it's the same methods because they make these promises. And they're so passionate, like, like Jeff is. And I'm assuming, because you're recording him with F bombs, you're okay with us using F bombs. It's like, its fucking bullshit! It's basic learning theory. Like, yes. So if you stim a dog or you punish a dog around that kid, he's just gonna be like, oh my God, that kid's so unpredictable. And now I just want to keep distance. I want to create more distance from the kid. Because what is aggression? It's a distance creating behavior. So like, ahhh!

And what did he say it was, wait, did he say the dog was an Aussie? No, Brittany. So Brittanies, like, if it was an Aussie, I'd be like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like kids, we just need to fulfill the dog's biological needs of herding. And that's why he's fighting the heels and ankles is because it it's, that's his behavior. That's what he does. A Brittany. If a Brittany is biting a child — and my specialty is the bird dog. Like that's my jam. That's what I do. I have two setters in my home right now. I have probably 30 bird dogs of varying breeds in my program. GSPs, Brittanies, German wirehaired pointers, Vizslas. I love the bird dog.

Brittanies are such sensitive animals. So if a Brittany is biting a child, I wanna find out the function. WTF. And not “what the fuck”– What The Function? Why is the dog biting that child's feet? What has happened to cause that dog biting the feet and let's put some management in place. So if the dog is biting the kids' feet, the dog doesn't go near the kids until we can start a program. And not a punishment based one, because you're just gonna make that kid or that dog think that kids are unpredictable and scary.

And it's not gonna just be going after your child. It's gonna start going after everyone else's kids. And it's going to be a death sentence. Absolutely right, Jeff. You're gonna put that dog to death because you are the one that's telling people to punish when it comes to kids. And does suppression work? Sometimes. Does it backfire? Most of the time. Most of the time, if we try suppression – see he was fired up and now I'm fired up. [laughing]

Annie:

Oh, no. And you can't not be fired up. I mean, I think I go, I go towards the, my brain just goes to management first. Like, if you have a dog who's biting a kid's feet, we control so much about our dogs' lives. You know, it's like this dollhouse version of the world where we're controlling so many of the inputs and the physical environment. Where the dog is spending his or her time. And if we have that much control, you know, whether it's with a leash or a gate, a fence, a muzzle, or just, you know, Hey, don't bring your kids over. I mean, if we have all so much control, why should a dog be biting the kids' feet to begin with?

But you know, what also strikes me is that the sort of like where I think ‘the way things are going in this country’ attitude of it like sent a shiver through my spine, ‘causeI felt like it's this you know, liberals versus conservatives kind of, you know, red state, blue state caricature of the world, as seen through what to many people seems like a super niche area dog training, right?

Beth:

Yeah. It's so interesting that if we wanna address dogs' behavior with empathy and compassion and management, and not punishment, then we're snowflakes. And we're positive-only cupcakes that don't understand that dogs have real life consequences. No we understand. We just choose not to use punishment. We choose to use science based methods that work. So, yeah, you're right. I'm not gonna put an e collar on a dog and jack him to high heaven until he is afraid of children. I'm going to get to the core of what is happening. I'm gonna address the emotion, not the behavior.

Fuck the behavior. Let's work on the emotion first and see what we get then. And when we get the emotion, the behavior follows. Yeah. I don't like growling either, but I'm not gonna shut it down, because I want my dog to tell me what they're feeling, especially towards a child! Like why? Oh, ugh. Yeah. I love that. We're snowflakes because we don't wanna use punishment, but let's be real, positive reinforcement isn't permissive. We just find a way to work through the behavior without punishing it.

It doesn't mean that we're not gonna let a dog run into traffic. It doesn't mean that if dogs are getting into fights, we're going to let him just duke it out until one's dead. It means that we are going to do what we need to do to get those dogs apart and to keep them safe. But we are not going to intentionally inflict pain in a behavior program.

Annie:

I was just reading a book by Donna Haraway.  It's called, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. And in it, she writes pretty extensively and in a very interesting way about Susan Garrett who is certainly a hero of many positive reinforcement dog trainers and especially in the agility world. And she talks about Susan Garrett's training style, she describes it as positive bondage. And it made me think also of how Walden Two, BF Skinner's novel, which is kind of like as if dog trainers ran the world, a dog trainer's utopia of how government should be, was described as fascism without tears.

Goes back to, though, this idea of like, just because we believe we should be working in the quadrant of positive reinforcement doesn't mean that anything goes.

Well, this has been a super interesting conversation and yeah. And I think with the Gellman stuff, my first thought was like, what about management? My second thought was have you ever read anything about operant conditioning and classical conditioning? [laughs]

Beth:

Right. I mean, that might be helpful. Like there's a big guy here who, his degree is in marketing. And one day he quit his job and became a dog trainer and his rates are, he's proud of himself. Like I am just stunned. And because, now we could probably go up in another tangent. He's a handsome man. And so everybody believes him. And I will get, I've gotten so many clients from him that are like, well, we tried him because he was just so charismatic. And I'm like, how'd that work out for you?

Like, how can – I hate that we are an unregulated industry. There isn't another industry that I can think of. Cars, hair, makeup, law, restaurants, everyone has to have a license, and we don't! We're not regulated. And we have sentient beings, living animals lives in our hands, and anybody could –

Annie:

But living animals that could, that could kill.

Beth:

Yes, yes.

Annie:

And maim, and do.

Beth:

Yep.

Annie:

I think where Gelman and Cesar Millan differ in my brain is…like, I kind of feel like there's what I call good dog training. And then there's sort of all the other stuff, which is, you know, aversive training, e collar training, balanced training, dog whisperers type training. But the Dog Whisperer circle in that Venn diagram, it's not only just kind of poorly educated on punishment and conditioning. It's also filled with all this, what I generally think of as snake oil. And also, you know, sort of what you might call myths about pack theory and dominance, which touches into other areas of bad dog training, too.

But it's, but what really drives me crazy about the Dog Whisperer is the, I don't know, like the, the last episode I saw of the last, this most recent season, like the woman was holding her dog with her hand over the dog's back, like this little dog. And he was like, well, clearly that's your issue. The hand should be held under the dog, not over the dog, ‘cause – I can't even remember his rationale. But it was like, it's like huh? Saying the issue is like your dog has a blue collar on rather than a black collar. Like it just…

Beth:

Yes. And, and the rationale of like so many of these balanced trainers are like, well, it's your energy that is causing it. Uh-uh, uh-uh.I know plenty of people that have reactive dogs and that are calm, cool as cucumbers standing out there while their dog is lunging, barking and reacting like fools on the end of the leash. And their energy is, the human’s energy is perfectly fine. We do not cause behavior problems. Humans do not cause behavior problems. Can we just, can we just agree that that is a thing.

Annie:

Yeah. And, and what's interesting about blaming the human is that I think it relates to some of the, you know, in that, in that video he talks about like rub essential oils on your feet. Like he's seeing snake oil as, you know, the reductive practice of dropping kibble at a dog while they're, you know, going after a kid's foot or something.

Beth:

Right.

Annie:

Where I see it in these other ways, get the dog to, never let the dog walk through the door before you. Feed your dog, eat your dog's food before you feed your own dog or whatever.  Like I see all of that stuff as the woo and I think there's a lot of that though in the –

Actually I just listened to this podcast called The Dream and the first season is about MLMs, like multi-level marketing. And the second season is about the whole world of wellness. And one thing that both of those – one thing these two seasons of this podcast made me think about was how often people are blamed for failure that is in a situation where they're set up to fail, like in multi-level marketing. You know, chances are, you are going to fail. But if you do, you're told, you know, you didn't try hard enough. You don't have a winner's mindset. And similarly with a lot of things in the world of wellness.

Beth:

Yeah, it's so common. Like I'll, I will get people that are coming from balance trainers, you know, and I've gotten people that have come from other force free or R plus or LIMA trainers who they're like, eh, they didn't jive or they just didn't work out. You know, it's, there's multiple reasons why people leave trainers.

But a lot of the reasons I'll get is like I got one the other day who was like, my dog is aggressing it at humans. And so we put an e collar on and we stim when he, when he's working at humans and it's not working anymore. It worked for a while, but it's not working anymore. So then I called the trainer and I said, Hey, it's not working. Can we come do a session that came out? Did a session said, well, you're not doing it right. It's how you're doing it. It's your fault.

And I'm like, well, maybe. Like sometimes it's implementation of the plan. Right. But whenever I, I often hear, I get told that it was my fault that I wasn't calm enough. I didn't do enough exercise. I didn't turn it up high enough. I didn't do it correctly. So I think we often, and I think it is very much our society, is that well, if it doesn't work, we'll just blame someone else because it didn't work. Or we'll blame the client because it didn't work.

Well, no, we have to figure out why it didn't work or why it's not working and how we can adjust that. Because if it has stopped working, then we have to find something else to do because the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results.

Annie:

Well, thanks so much for taking the time to talk. What an interesting conversation.

Beth:

I know it took quite a different path, I think, than we intended it to go, but that's ok.

Annie:

I know. Well thank you for hate watching Jeff Gellman with me.

Beth:

You’re welcome!

Annie:

It was easier than doing it on my own. Do I need to watch more or do you think I've had enough?

Beth:

I think you've had enough. I don't think you need to watch anymore. [laughs]

Annie:

We're just the, the pretty snowflakes

Beth:

That's right. And I'm okay with that. I'm good with being a snowflake. [laughs]

[music]

Annie:

You can learn more about Beth at RehabYourRescue.com. She's also on Instagram @rehabyourrescue. Shortly after talking to Beth, I was thumbing through a book called The Koehler Method of Dog Training by William Kohler. He was a popular trainer. This book was written in 1977, and he doesn't talk about shock collars, but he does suggest some pretty extreme forms of punishment.

For example, if a dog chews some siding off of your house, he suggests taking a big piece of siding, putting it in your dog's mouth, and then taping the dog's mouth closed until he has learned his lesson.

“If you come home and find your dog has dug a hole, he says, fill the hole brim full of water with the training collar and leash, bring the dog to the hole and shove his nose into the water, hold him there until he is sure he's drowning. If your dog is of any size, you may get all of the action of a cowboy bulldogging a steer. Stay with it. I've had elderly ladies who'd had their fill of ruined flower beds dunk some mighty big dogs.

“A great many dogs will associate this horrible experience with the hole they dug. However, to make sure of a permanent impression, fill the hole with water and repeat the experience the next day, whether the dog digs anymore or not. On the third day, let him watch you dig a hole and prepare it for a dunking. Class surveys have shown that more than 70% of the dogs who experience this correction for as many as six consecutive days, swear off hole digging.

“If the master takes the first sign of repentance as a permanent change and stops the dunking after only a couple of days, failure is generally the result.”

Anyway the thing that I noted more than, uh, his interesting methods, was the way he echoes this idea of people being snowflakes. If they're not willing to use punitive methods, he calls them ‘wincers.’ This is from lesson one, fables and foibles, of his book Dog Training. It's a section where he's talking about dealing with people who think your methods might be too harsh:

“Because you, in influencing your dog to be happy, composed, and well-behaved in public places must do some of your final polishing and distracting situations open to scrutiny. It is inevitable that you be bothered by overly sensitive spectators. It is important that you be equipped to deal with these eyebrow archers and deal with them. You must, lest you be confused by their protests and weakened in your purpose of thoroughly training your dog.

The super sensitive observers are “kindly” people, most of whom take after a kindly parent or an aunt who had a dog that was almost human and understood every word that was said without being trained. They range over most of the civilized worlds. Generally one or more will be found close to where dogs are being worked. They often operate individually, but inflict their greatest cruelties when amalgamated into societies.

They easily recognize each other by their smiles, which are as dried syrup on yesterday's pancakes. Their most noticeable habits are wincing when dogs are effectually corrected and smiling approvingly at each other when it does an ineffective correction seem only to fire a dog's maniacal attempts to hurl his anatomy within reach of another dog that could maim him in one brief skirmish. Their common calls are, “I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. And oh my, oh my.” They have no mating call. This is easily understood.

When bothered by such critical observations, you will find the most effective counter irritant to be a proffered leash and allowed invitation such as, Here, show me. If the dog appears a bit formidable, the wincer is certain to hurry away.

Better still let's use the initiative of a good general and hit the source of the misinformation, which they would use to discredit your efforts. Take a look at some of the things that have been written in books and magazines. A really good look. This experience not only will prepare you for evaluating the comments and suggestions that come from the sidelines, but also will give you confidence of action necessary for training a dog.

Magazines have dignified the prattle of quote unquote dog psychologists, who would rob the dog of a birthright that he has in common with all of God's creatures, the right to the consequences of his own action. There will always be more emphasis and clarity to be had in the contrast between punishment and reward than from the technique of quote unquote only good. And if they obey quote unquote still more good. And there is more meaning and awareness of living in a life that knows the consequences of both favorable and unfavorable action. So let's not deprive the dog of his privilege of experiencing the consequences of both right and wrong.