Professional dog trainers are really mad at each other! Also: Book Launch, Miniconference, and... New Co-Host!

Meet Anamarie Johnson! She was one of my first hires at School For The Dogs nearly a decade ago. She recently got her PhD, and she'd coming on to join me as a co-host!

Me= Annie Grossman, dog trainer, business owner, human. I started this podcast in 2018. I had to take a little time off, mostly because... I was working on a book! It comes out next week! Learn more at the book.

It's called How To Train Your Dog With Love + Science and much of it stems from conversations that started on this podcast.

In this episode, we talked about some of the crazy drama that's been going on, most of it having to do with positive-reinforcement pros and those trainers are positive-reinforcement adjacent going at each other online. Characters include Michael Shikashio, Zak George, Ivan Balabanov, Behavior Vets, Eileen Anderson, and Jo-Rosie Haffenden, among others.

Anamarie and I come to the conclusion that a lot of the pros don't know how to interpret science, and are basically just talking to each other since the majority of dog owners have no idea that dog training has anything to do with science to begin with.

I recently renamed the podcast to match the book's title: How To Train Your Dog With Love + Science.

I think it is fitting for the new format because Anamarie can be the science and I can be... the love? Or something.

Along with the new title came an amazing new theme song, by Sam Swinnerton, who recently KILLED IT on The Tonight Show! See here.

See you next week!

Annie

Transcript

This transcript was made automatically from the audio, so it may contain small errors.

Hey everyone, it's been a little while, but I'm back, and I just wanted to make a couple of quick announcements before I share today's episode. Here's a big one. My book is coming out September 10th. It's called How To Train Your Dog With Love and Science being published by Sourcebooks. If you like this podcast, I think you're really going to like this book.

You can pre-order your copy wherever you buy books. You can learn more at schoolforthedogs.com slash book. Pre-orders make a really big difference in how the publisher pushes the book. So please buy many, many copies. And if you buy a book and upload your receipt right now, I will send you a sticker that says, don't be a dick to your dog, which I feel like sums up so much of my thoughts on how we should treat dogs.

Who needs a podcast when you have a sticker? I also wanted to mention that on September 7th... Sarah Matters of Training Matters Training in Vermont with School For The Dogs is hosting a mini conference at School For The Dogs in New York City and online. It's called Training With Love and Science, Essentials of Applied Behavior Analysis for Dog Professionals. It's going to be 9 a.m.

to 6 p.m. We have some really great talks happening from people such as Mary Hunter of the University of North Texas, Kiki Yablon, who's Karen Pryor Academy. Faculty and a trainer in Chicago and a longtime friend of mine and a previous guest on this podcast. And Debbie Jacobs of the Facebook group Fearful Dogs and author of the wonderful book A Guide to Living Within Training a Fearful Dog. Big fan of Debbie Jacobs.

I will also be doing a little history of the dog training clicker. I'm so excited about this program and hope that you will join. You can get CEUs for the IABC, KPA, or the CCPDT. You can learn more at schoolforthedogs.com slash event. And I think that's about it.

I think I can share the episode with you now. I'm going to play what I think might be the coolest ever podcast intro written by Sam Swinnerton, who, believe it or not, recently was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where he won a really hilarious songwriting competition. You can learn more if you look up Tonight Show and Sam Swinnerton. I'll also put it in the show notes. Here is the incredibly awesome intro that he wrote for this podcast.

Let's live with dogs in harmony. Good dog training is the key. You don't need to cosplay. Train your dog with love and science. Hello, podcast listeners, humans, and dogs who may be within earshot.

Annie Grossman here. And it's been a little while, but I am back now today with a new co-host. She has been on the podcast before. Her name is Anamarie Johnson. I knew her right back when.

She was School For The Dogs's, I think, fourth employee back in 2015. And since then, she has gone on to become a doctor. Not the medical variety. I can't help you with your cold. But still, yeah, I recently got my PhD technically in psychology.

And then within that, it was in the area of behavioral neuroscience and comparative psychology at ASU. My advisor is Dr. Clive Nguyen. And he always laughed because a bunch of his former students who have now gone on to create kind of their own canine labs. Have all subsequently been placed in animal sciences departments while he had always historically been in psychology.

The subject headers that we use are arbitrary in most cases. Sure. And I have a friend who technically got her degree in social psychology, but she hates describing herself as, to the layman, quote unquote, you can't do my ear quotes, to the listeners. She never says that she does psychology because everyone's like, whoa, you study humans or about human problems and let's do therapy. I definitely do not do that.

I just say I got my degree in dog behavior because that just makes life a hell of a lot easier. What's so interesting though specifically about your research is that I feel like there are more and more people researching dogs and dog behavior and thank God for that and dog learning. I think it's a really good thing but some of the topics are pretty esoteric I would say and the things that you have been studying seem very like Meat and potatoes. Of course people should be studying this. Do you know what I mean?

And everything you're doing relates to, I feel like, tools and problems that people have. Yeah, and really the motivation of what I tell people is jumped in and out of school between work and all that. Really the actual motivation for me to go back to school after. So I was in New York when I was working for School For The Dogs. I was in New York because I was getting my master's and my background was in shelter behavior.

And I thought, oh, I had reached the pinnacle. I had my certificate. Education, in dog training, I had my master's, and I was like, oh, I'm pretty much set in the shelter role. But I would be like seeing things that people had come in or commented, adopters, staff members, and they would be like asking me questions about behavior or doing things that didn't make much sense to me. And I was just like, I need more answers to like why people are doing this.

So that was actually the foundation for my research question. As I mentioned, my advisor, Clive, he does a lot of his research. He has had graduate students that have done, you know, wolf and fox cognition and comparing that to dogs. But he does a lot of kind of the questions from the human-animal, human-dog interaction side point. A lot of, a couple of his grad students and my friend who recently graduated, did a lot of the formative shelter work.

Dog, which is great and fine and definitely warranted. I wanted to get more into like how the dog situates ourselves within the human and more specifically in relation to this ultimate question of training, why people choose certain training methods and whatnot. I think the question about for better or for worse of how we interact and talk to dogs and engage with dogs has a lot to say about it. How we are as people and how we view animals and view ourselves. And I don't think anyone will ever get the answers to that, unfortunately.

But it's a matter of at least asking the questions to attempt to find some answers. And to do it using the scientific method. I feel like I'm asking those questions aloud to myself. Mm-hmm. Or in my writing, but I feel like you're actually going out there and doing studies and reading the literature.

And I think that's why we might make good co-hosts. I agree. So I want to catch up with you just on what a weird world of dog training it was this last week. I feel like within the world of positive reinforcement dog training, there are some interesting conversations happening, let's say. Yeah.

So I want to talk a little bit about that. But first, I just wanted to give some quick updates about me. My book, How To Train Your Dog With Love and Science is coming out September... I am so excited. Anyway, I'm having a book party September 6th at School For The Dogs in New York City.

If you are a fan of this podcast and you want to come by at 630, love to see you there. Yeah, the last couple of years just between writing the book and doing the business and dealing with having two little kids has sadly not left me much time for podcasting, but I would really like to get back. to it and and I'm looking to see if there's anyone out there who might be interested in buying School For The Dogs actually because I would really love to be turning my attention to more content related stuff and also being a mom I've poured so much heart and soul into this business for so long and I think it's so good in so many ways and I would love to find it a new human. Anyway, I'm in the early stages of trying to figure this out, but it seemed like a good thing to mention here. I feel a little vulnerable, I gotta say, but so it goes.

My email is Annie at SchoolForTheDogs.com. Book information is at SchoolForTheDogs.com slash book, or you can just look it up on Amazon. Okay, weird week in the world of dog training. Weird couple weeks. Where should we begin?

So Michael Shikashio is a pretty prominent dog trainer in the non-aversative positive reinforcement world. God, I went to him and Trish McMillan's first aggressive dog seminar. Way back when, 2016. It was literally the harsh one. And he's made a name for himself in the world of dog training and conferences, of working with, namely, aggressive dogs using positive reinforcement desensitization techniques.

And I believe his background was in he considers himself a crossover trainer. And so I think part of that background is that he is more open, let's say, than other trainers in trying to, I'm going to say the dirty word of bridging the gap. The dirty word of bridging the gap between the wide chasm that is between non-aversive trainers, non-aversive positive reinforcement trainers, and those that do use aversive training methods. Some people just say balanced, some people don't identify as balanced, but those that are willing to use prong collars, shock collars, maybe leash pressure, any of those kinds of things. to do that.

So he got into, I would say, a little, a lot of hot water in 2023 last year when he went on Ivan Balabanov's podcast. Ivan is a trainer that is based in Florida. He has a wide storied history within something that I was not familiar with, IGP, which is a type of like protection dog sport. It's if you envision like a police dog or someone in those muscle suits taking down It's a series of different kind of harder, more difficult agility events if you want to give a very basic breakdown. I believe he's won championship with his dogs at least twice.

He does use diversive methods. He does use shot callers and prong callers, and he has his own certification program that certifies trainers. And so he's a pretty big name and he has his own podcast and he's a fairly vocal advocate for aversive methods and the discussing of what the science says. People might also know Ivan from Zak George and him had a little bit of a social media tiff last year as well. Many people saw Michael joining the podcast as him saying, A-OK, these methods are great.

So basically, Michael and other trainers have come under fire again. So he is willing, so Michael is willing to, there's another of these conversations. Ivan will be participating. What was the first of these conversations? So the first of these conversations was a couple trainers from England and they were having these conversations about, I don't even know, I think it was like two or three months ago and it went under the radar in part because one, it was in the UK and two, the names were not as well known.

The goal of these conversations seemingly to have reasonable conversations about non-aversive versus aversive training methods and meet in the middle. I don't see a lot of optimism in that in the sense that most of these trainers have their own methodology that they subscribe to beyond just general non-aversive. Some of them have like proprietary either certifications or books out. So I can't see any of them going, oh, you've solved the problem. I believe you now.

And so I don't really see a benefit to it. I don't think we're going to get really deep conversation. These conversations, do they have a name? Does this group have a name? Oh God, I don't know.

I don't even remember what the name of it is. I just know that it got all this hot water and people have been making memes because the post for it was people wearing superhero costumes. God, where is it? I think that the main organizer and now Michael is taking part in this and he was getting criticized. Is that it?

Or the conversations were being criticized because they were including him? Yeah. He is getting criticized for engaging in these conversations again. Some of the participants, it's this, and I have no idea who she is, Jo Rosie from, who I believe advocates for some aversive news. She's from the UK, Ivan.

And anyway, so non-aversive community is very angry because he is supporting them. And what this all really comes down to is this idea that there is a consensus in the scientific community, which I have some opinions on, which I will get to right now. And that there is a consensus or? Yes. That we can reach a consensus.

That there is a consensus. So the non-aversive community, Zak George is a big proponent of this, that there is no point in engaging with or trying to convince the other side that, so there's no point in engaging with the other community because they are the other side, meaning non-aversive or meaning aversive trainers, because they are so wholly wrong. Because we have proven, and that really is what it comes down to, that is how it's been interpreted, I think, by the general dog training public. What I can tell you is dog owners are not aware of this going on, that we have, quote unquote, proven in the science that non-aversive is the only way to go and all these other people are being dumb. If I'm going to break it down to its simplest form.

So what does that mean? And I think how it's interpreted by dog trainers who are very vocal in this conversation is that because we have proven it, There is no question without a doubt. And that's not science. Sorry to break it down to you, but that's not science. Science is always evolving.

And if we have scientific questions, we should pursue for lack of a better way to break it down. Now, do I advocate for aversive training? No. And there's reasons for that. I see the kind of whole discussion as a funnel in the sense of when we're really talking about dog training, dog trainers, as my research has shown, and others, I'm not just tooting my own horn.

Dog trainers... From the actual practicing form that we have, whether non-aversive or aversive, are a very minor segment of the population of who is actually touching and interacting with the dog on a regular basis. So within the, I'm strictly talking about the United States population because we don't have any legislation for dog trainers. And on top of that, there are no requirements or limitations on what is being sold in stores or on Amazon.

89 to 90 percent of the dogs in the United States are not getting practice dog training and dog owners don't have an awareness of behavior. So having aversive training methods available to them or easily searchable on online platforms where it can go any which way is problematic. So I do not advocate. Exactly, right? So that's 100% problematic, right?

So that's the major funnel in which we're working for. So when we're talking about ethics and we're talking about dog welfare, you have to think about it from the broader perspective. Dog owners have no idea about this infighting that is happening. They don't know that trainers can actually have legislation. Or licensing or regulation.

And they have no concept of the fact of what is actually happening when their dog is being shocked or on a prong collar or food deprived because some person told them that's how they're going to get compliance from their dog on something, right? They have no concept of that. And that is not at a fault for dog owners. It's at a fault for practicing dog trainers to that. We don't get that information.

out to them correctly or in a good fashion. There's only this very small slice of the larger pie of people out there who understand that dog training is a technology of the science of behavior. And are informed enough to have even some kind of conversation about whether or not methods that rely heavily on things that are not positive reinforcement should be taught. The rest of the world is operating, I think, in a total cloud that could be cleared up by just a very minor... Education in the science, which is not a science that's hard to understand, at least enough to equip them with the ability to make their own calls about this.

And that the elite should be... People like you who are actually testing the different methods and trying to figure out what works. But the problem is so much greater. And I think it's within the science-based dog training community or whatever you want to call it, there's this argument happening when I think the real dissection is between the people who think dog training involves having good energy and being a leader and sure you've got to use both care and whip and just take all of these things for granted. Because that's a problem I'm trying to solve.

And I feel lucky that I've decided that's my problem because it seems a lot more obvious to me than like all these gray areas that these people are getting involved in as to when punishment. Basically, when is it okay and when isn't okay? Yeah. So going back to this like funnel terminology. So I think on a whole, non-aversives are the best general recommendation that I would have for...

Organizations or whether it's shelters, whether it's national animal welfare organizations, the American Society of Veterinary Behaviors. I think how it's been clouded and interpreted is where we're really seeing this problem within the non-aversive trainers and aversive trainers who are aware the literature. So this is where that problem comes. For example, Zak George is a well-known non-aversive positive reinforcement trainer. He has a number of books.

He has YouTube videos for basic dog training. I would say he has been very vocal in the last year or so. As I mentioned, he had his own little beef with video social media argument with Ivan. Zak George's knee-jerk reaction, which I think is what a lot of... Non-Aversive Trainers is going back to this idea of this golden paradigm of we have proven it.

And we being scientists in the scientific literature have proven that non-aversive is far superior than anything else. And the current literature that we have, there is a general recommendation that non-aversive, given the potential risks of aversives, that is all, for my feelings, clouded within the idea that, as I mentioned, at the top of the funnel are people that don't know anything about behavior. And contingencies and timing and all that. It would be foolhardy for any of these organizations, given that there is a smattering of literature that says, we don't know, but this is what our recommendation is. What has been interpreted by vocal dog trainers and as we have proven it, there's no conversation.

We need to move on and everyone should follow non-aversive and this is stupid, right? Everyone else is dumb or silly or whatever, right? And I think that's problematic. I think in a number of sense, I think you have a lot of novel dog trainers in the non-aversive world that are coming up with the idea that I am a science-based trainer. And because I am a science-based trainer, I follow the science and science has proven it.

And not necessarily that they need to read the science or understand it. Again, this comes to this issue of who's actually licensing and regulating and whatever. It's not just the problems on the aversive side. There's also problems on the non-aversive side. And I think viewing the science as a black box is problematic.

And this is why Annie and I are launching this podcast is to get at those... To take the black box out, because I understand science can be very beyond the physical of not being able to access lots of papers because of paywall. Interpreting it, seeing the scientific, seeing the actual scientific data, understanding what that means is hard. And you have, again, at level one, dog owners not having... Any awareness that there is even a science and then some dog trainers either not some dog trainers themselves not being aware of the science or at another level being aware of the science and thinking that it has proven it.

Yes. Making a choice based on that. You can make a choice based on what you think you understand about the science, which could be wrong. You can spew out the studies, but that doesn't mean the studies are actually necessarily worth looking at. Or you could make a choice based on your own ethics and feelings, which doesn't have to do necessarily with efficacy.

Correct. That's really where I think people have to be well-informed and then make their own choices while the 1% over here tries to figure out what the optimal amount of punishment versus reinforcement is or where the line is. Correct. Yeah, and I think the problem that we are facing right now and kind of the crux that maybe it has is not well defined in this whole kind of chasm that is non-immersive versus aversive is that the vocal, and I'll say I've had many personal conversations with aversive and non-aversive trainers and they understand why I did the research I did for my dissertation, which I will briefly allude to in a second. But I think the ones that are the vocal on both sides are the ones that have this idea of it being black box and proven.

So you have one side of the non-aversive group that says we've proven the consensus. There is no need. Anyone who thinks that people like Michael, right? Anyone who thinks that there might be in the tiniest wiggle room or conversation is ridiculous. And you're ruining training.

The problem is on the other side and they have it. I, and maybe I'm wrong, I would assume that most of these people take these consensus that are being projected and go, oh yeah, this person said it, this organization said it, whatever. All these people on my social media have agreed that the science is proven. I don't need to investigate it, right? Evolution is real, which I know is still debated by some people.

Like I've proven evolution. I don't need to investigate what evolution actually means. On the other side are aversive trainers that are aware. And again, this, I think in both populations, there are very small segments that have actually taken a look at the literature on both sides. And they take it as, and this is what Ivan's platform has been, is that he has looked.

At the literature and on his side of things, he sees the potential problems. And for him, he sees those potential problems as, all right, you non-aversive trainers on the other side, you clearly are cherry picking your data. I'm, as Eileen Anderson very nicely put in her recent blog post. I am also looking at this data and I don't see the same proving as you do. And therefore, you guys are idiots and I know the correct answer.

And then there's also, of course, there's also plenty of trainers who are using aversives who do anything to have the science. Correct. And probably some of them, though, look at probably some of them not being as informed as Ivan might be and are saying, this guy says that. No, 100%. And I think that's the exact same thing that's happened on the non-aversive side.

I say aversive very generally. It's easier than saying balanced. Balance is also a euphemism. Sure. So I say aversive knowing that these people are probably also using...

Positive reinforcement and negative. You can't not use positive reinforcement some of the time if you're training a dog, I would say. Correct. Very hard. You have to really try.

Yes. We're going to positively reinforce anything ever. Aversive trainers who are aware of the science or those that are believers, on both sides, there's big advocates that is then, I think, raining down. And I think... Some of my goals in the dissertation, my first paper was basically looking at like licensing, right?

And noting, all right, we talk about how we need to like talk about trainers and looking at trainers and oh, spoiler alert, like really no one has any training background or certification and yet they're highly rated. That's a big problem. Second was using survey data and asking people how... They interact with their dogs and what they use to tackle problems. Spoiler alert, no one is going to a trainer.

And when they have problems with their dogs, they're getting their recommendations from friends or family members, right? So we have twofold problems there in the sense that we have information. Which is why you want your friends and family members to read my book. Exactly. All the plugs.

And then my follow-up information for the dissertation, and the dissertation is long, so you guys can just wait for the publications to come out, was as a scientist and as a dog trainer, and tying this into this kind of whole idea of there being consensus, there are a lot of non-aversive trainers that say we are science-based. And because we are science-based, we do not use tools like prong collars. Fun fact, there are no scientific studies that look at prong collars. So I think this is what was the motivating factor for my dissertation. If as non-aversive trainers, you truly want to stand by your idea of science and that science is proving something, we need to do more than what is currently out there than just the guesswork.

Because if... Do you want to stand on your pulpit and say that we have proven something? You need something to back it up for the quote-unquote other side that does recognize the holes. And being in a black box on both sides of saying we've proven it or we haven't proven it and that's why we continue to do it is ridiculous. It's not helping anyone.

And there's a big difference between saying prong collars are ineffective because they look scary and bad and they cause a dog pain. And here's the study about prong collars and here's the results. A question about your study is how do you measure the unintended consequences or the fallout of punishment in a study that only lasts, what, like a few days? You can't. And that, I think, is a key thing, too, that is this long, what is really, there's many things dealing with this, but I think that is a key thing that is motivating and continuing to perpetuate this chasm is you have the side that is the non-reversive trainers that have seen And if colloquial called fallout, we're talking about problematic behaviors that have come as a result of using aversive methods.

So on the non-aversive side of things, you have many trainers that either have heard stories or have seen it happen with dogs that they are working with or have come across that... Oh, look at this dog. His owner was using a prong in a shop and the timing was off, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now the dog is scared of warning signal beeping on the microwave and bites people 12 times a day, right? You have that side of things.

On the other side, you have the aversive traders that, again, we're only talking about the vocal ones. You have aversive trainers that say, I've been training dogs for 30 years. I have never seen fallout. You guys are full of crap. And that's why I don't believe anything you've said.

There is no study that has looked at long-term fallout. How would you conduct such a study? Well, it would be real, real hard. And that's the problem, right? That's the problem.

I think what you would have to do, you would have to recruit dogs for six months or a year. This is very common in longitudinal studies are very common in the human health literature, right? Where you take a sample of the population and you give them, oh, I sampled this population. They've smoked for seven years. What are the ramifications for the following five years?

And then you take another sample of the population. They also smoke for seven years and then they stop. What happened to their ramifications, right? Very common in the human health literature, harder on, for understandably reasons, right? It's harder in the dog training world because there's...

IACUC, which is the overarching ethics welfare board. Can you get the welfare? Can you say it's ethical to train a dog with X amount of aversive training for a year? Again, that's the bubble that is science because we know 90% of the dog owners that don't have any awareness of training might be giving their dog aversive consequences. So you would be following dogs for a year.

You would have to randomly sample. Half the population would be experiencing X amount of whatever condition for you would have to do the same behavior, same exercise that you were working on. And the other half is experiencing a burst of training. And then you have to look at the behavior. Mind you, that doesn't take into effect genetics or any of that.

Dogs predisposition, their coping skills, all that. But that would be really how you have to do it. Because the problem that we are operating on now from a scientific perspective and what is increasing the chasm is the two sides of anecdotes. There are some correlational studies, but as the correlational studies correctly, always actually in their text note, which is not often how it is interpreted to the general public or amongst dog trainers, is that when they have sampled people... Again, this is self-report data.

This is not experimental data. So general dog owners are filling out a survey. Oh, does your dog have X amount of problems? What training methods have you done? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And there have been some indication in these studies that people that reported that they used aversive training methods. Did have increased aggression or they did see there's one study where they described it as something like confrontational methods versus our direct confrontational. So that's people that are like growling in their dog's face and dogs would react to that. The problem with these studies is that we don't have a direct pathway, right? Are people using aversive methods and the aversive methods cause the aggressive behavior or What is just as likely?

Are people having dogs that have aggressive tendencies and using aversive methods in order to try to mitigate and control those behaviors, right? You can't figure out what is actually the same old cliche, correlation of not causation. We can't figure out the pathway in which those, as dog trainers in the non-aversive community would describe, those anecdotes of dogs having aversive tendency. What if you had three identical triplets and you put them... Sure.

Three different families. Did you see that movie? Three identical strangers. That was super interesting. That's genetics.

Three identical brothers, put them in different families, one heart, one non-heart, one in between. And then just see what happens. Just give it 30 years. No, exactly. And that's exactly what we need to do.

Who's that movie? It was so interesting. It was so interesting. For those that don't know, it's basically these, it again, talks to a larger societal issue where people were dividing up just triplets and twins into different households without letting people know that they actually had siblings. Basically, these three triplets ended up coming, finding each other randomly.

Yeah. But yes, exactly. That is the type of study that we need to do, right? Take a litter of, take multiple litters so you would have the same type of prenatal environment and expose them to different types of training and getting to that idea of that is the direct cause, right? Because everything right now is just based on essentially word of mouth when I'm talking about anecdotes.

And you have different sides that are seen that... I've never seen that, thus it must not be true, and you guys are crazy. And the other side said, I've seen it, and you guys are crazy. So this leads to, wait, which dramas have we addressed? We address Michael.

Michael? Yeah. And then Zach George and the consensus. Right. And then how about, I think Eileen Anderson would be a good, Eileen Anderson, Zak George, plus Ivan.

Can you explain that love triangle? So Eileen Anderson is like a very well-known trainer and writer and writer. Yeah. And she gave me a beautiful blurb for my book. Oh, how lovely.

So she wrote a very thought out discussion in regards to a video that was posted to Ivan Balabanov that was posted last year, which at that time led to the tiff between Zak George and Ivan. And in Ivan's video, he discusses the critiques that he has with these kind of black box studies that have been taken as the proven paradigm of the basis for non-immersive trainers. As we've proven it, we don't need to do anything. And then on top of that, he adds to the, and he correctly identifies it, but the literature that does indicate things for punishment. Eileen does a really good job of basically then tackling the tidbits that Ivan had put in his video from the scientific research that he took as proving his side, right?

In a very lengthy conversation. And part of it, this idea of, let me find the definition of Gish Gallop. I'm clicking on it. It got just posted to me. So Gish Gallop, as Eileen writes in her text, is a fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal on the whole argument collection without great effort.

So she then goes through Ivan's video, which again was, I think, posted February 2023, something like that, where he, as Eileen argues, throws a bunch of different citations and texts that talk about punishment and how punishment can be useful and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's trying, as Eileen argues... Trying to then persuade the aversive or non-aversive, I guess if you're trying to persuade people, that punishment does have benefits and that he has science on his side to support him. I think Eileen does a really great job in breaking this down, but... If I'm going to make an argument, I think the same could be said, again, as I've been referring to, it's black box and non-aversive.

Not to say that I don't agree with any of the studies that have been out there that advocate for non-aversive training, but I think if you're taking it from a scientific perspective, scientific studies are only one aspect, and they look at a small portion of the population. And I think importantly, again, going back to this top tier of the funnel or however, whatever, the biggest part of the funnel, we have yet to scratch the surface in any of our scientific studies to truly understand the impacts of the... Range of random techniques from non-aversive and aversive training that are actually happening in the real world. We have really no true concept of efficacy and the studies give an inkling of efficacy potentially, but as Ivan did... Arguments sake, rightfully say in the punishment papers, those punishment papers that you've talked about, ABA, Applied Behavior Analysis, has been studying punishment for years.

And as Eileen notes, they do not advocate, generally speaking, for punishment, but punishment does work, right? And non-versive trainers are not. Part of, I think, the problem of calling yourself a science-based trainer is problematic. Yes. Look, you could be using punishment, and that's under the subject heading of science.

100%. All trainers are using, you can't not use science. You might not claim you're using science. Or you might not know you're using science. Or you might not know you're using science.

But there's a difference. But to be clear, there's a difference between technology and science. Technology brings us the airplane. Science brings us aerophysics. So it's really what technology is most efficacious with those little thoughts.

Sure, sure, sure. Yes. And I think, again, going back to it is we have barely scratched the surface in science from the perspective of truly understanding what methods people are actually using out there to understand what is truly... And what is truly ethical in welfare. And that doesn't necessarily mean to say that I'm advocating for people to go out and start shocking dogs and testing them.

I'm definitely not advocating for that. But I think it takes both sides of this argument need to take a look at themselves and think about the technique that could be using in front of them. And you're like, why am I using this? Who told me to use it? But again, and then again, to tie this in, because Zak George also in this past week or past couple of weeks interviewed Eddie Fernandez, who's a well-known welfare scientist, has a background in zoos.

He's based out of Australia now. And he published what he was aiming to do as a replacement for Lima. So for those that don't know, this is another whole discussion in the dog training world of Lima. Which is Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive. And it came to being by a man named Stephen Lindsay a number of years ago.

And the idea which has been taken as you go from... Positive. You use all the techniques prior to using something that can cause pain or aversive. So you would look at it and Susan Friedman brought it down to the humane hierarchy and she has a highway. It's a very great infographic where all the dogs presented a new problem.

OK, have you gone to the vet? Have you ruled out medical? Have you ruled out pain? And then from there, you can look at different management strategies. And then from there, you can actually do operant conditioning with positive reinforcement and then down the line.

So what are people's issues with? So the issues with Lima, and this was what was happening a couple weeks ago, the issues that people have with Lima is the idea that it gives people an out to use Lima. Positive punishment. Well, I tried X, Y, and Z and that didn't work. I tried X, Y, and Z. And so people worry that having that even as an option is problematic.

Again, we're going to this black box idea that this punishment shouldn't even be in... And so the argument that Eddie had with his updated model, which he called LIPE, which is least intrusive, functionally effective, was that we need to look at the function of what a behavior is doing and try to tackle it from that perspective. And I'm giving a very, like, reduction argument there. My apologies, Eddie. But again...

I think this, and I would argue Lima does this as well, it puts a lot of onus that we have trainers and or owners that have an awareness of what we actually mean when we talk about behavior. This is why I'm so excited about my book is because I, not to bring it back to myself, but because I do feel like, I feel like that's what I'm trying to do in this book, I guess on this podcast too, but let's reach more people to give them some idea of what this stuff is all about. Yeah, and I think, yeah, again, I think issue... In a way that makes sense, and that's not... Yeah, and I think issue one, like we've talked a lot about dog trainers today, and hopefully I haven't dissuaded dog owners seeking dog training.

I do think you should go to a dog trainer if you have a problem. But again, the reality that we need to face as both dog trainers and people that are talking about the welfare of dogs is that we need to be aware that... There are severe barriers to access to dog trainers, not even to get to the second tier of that where dog trainers that actually know behavior, right? You're talking about a large portion of the population that either does not have the finances to pay for dog training or and or a large portion of the population that doesn't know where to look, doesn't know what to look for. They look online and what they see is Cesar Millan or Tim Davis or Jeff Gelman and they're like, this is what dog training is.

This is just what it is. And this is what dog training is. Yeah. And I can't find a trainer because I live in a small town or any of that. I think...

The first hurdle, and I've talked a lot about science and I've talked a lot about what I hope for, specifically in terms of dog training, but I think if I'm going to make a real big argument, I think dog trainers need to stop infighting. And we need to find better ways to actually educate people. We need to be reaching more people. We need to stop infighting and turn our attention towards not making other people experts, just making people like slightly better consumers. Yes.

And I think there's a lot of... And dog training is a business, right? I totally understand that. Dog training is a business. You want to try to prove yourself that you're better than the others.

And a lot of that, unfortunately, now goes into social media and having a certain... Niche or cachet or whatever you want to call it. And I don't think we're doing a very good job of reaching out to the actual people that we claim that we're trying to help. I think this whole discussion about whatever conversations that they're having, it's going to just be the same group of people that are arguing, listening, whatever, and going from there. And that's where I aim with the science too.

Say that we need to understand more about what's actually happening in people's homes. Because again, people are implementing whatever kind of random techniques they think. And of course, if you're doing it from science, you have to frame it within experimental bounds and all that kind of stuff. But we have to understand why people are using e-callers for go-to-bed or place. Is that any better than something like just using positive reinforcement?

And the skin in the game of using an e-collar is maybe not as important as maybe stopping chase behavior or any of that kind of thing if a dog's going to die. But the reality is people are still using it. And that's the issue. Can you summarize the Denise Fenzie, Zak George drama? I think Denise, yes, the Denise Fenzie Zak George is a similar thing.

I think Denise Fenzie got angry at someone for critiquing a aversive trainer for using positive reinforcement, which again, I suspect that they're doing all the time because no one really in reality is just using punishment and the same can be going for non-aversive trainers. Spoiler alert, a leash can be aversive to a dog. And so then your couch could be aversive to a dog. Your couch could be aversive to a dog. Exactly.

Not my dog. I think that was a key thing that, so my background is in shelters and we had a dog that was a very shut down, hated humans, absolutely hated humans. And I had to have a strict talking to my volunteers when I was at the shelter because there's a very human need where you're like, oh my God, he just needs my love and he'll be cured. And I would be like, your touch is the most harmful thing you could be for riding your dog. It is not what you're interpreting it as.

You have to interpret it as what the dog is desiring and he hates people. He does not want you kissing him or touching him. Please stop. That worked. That was fun.

So I think that Denise Fenzie, again, that was like, this happened most recently and I got freaked out in that conversation. But I think Denise Fenzie was basically critiquing... The very vocal non-aversive trainers that, and Denise Fenzie, for those that don't know, is a very well-known sports dog. She runs the Fenzie, what Fenzie Dog Sport, FDSA, FD, I can't remember the abbreviation. And she has come out, I think generally speaking, she would identify as using non-aversive positive reinforcement, but I think she is falling more into the middle ground now, which is...

Why people are getting angry at her. And so she basically got mad at, or I think Zak George particularly, for critiquing an aversive trainer for using positive reinforcement methods. And she basically made the same argument that many other aversive trainers say is, oh, you use positive reinforcement methods with dogs, humans. And yeah, and then Zak George got mad. But again, this happened most recently, so I'm a little burnt out about that.

I didn't really engage. Well, it seemed to me like part of it was each one of them was saying, or she was saying you shouldn't talk bad about people, basically. Correct. And he was saying, now you're talking bad about others for talking bad about you. And that's where my brain turned off.

Correct. Okay, now let's do the last bit of drama. Let's touch on... on ADHD and dogs. There has been a recent discussion in the dog training world about the idea of dogs being potentially neurodivergent and displaying ADHD.

So we haven't diagnosed it necessarily as ADHD. And the discussion to that. And there's been a bunch of kind of pushback on that from multiple sides. Sides being that one, the science is really... Just starting, if not fully fleshed out.

And a bunch of neurodivergent individuals disliking the appropriation of these terms when we don't have necessarily all of this fleshed out. And I will say from a scientific perspective, there have been a few studies, but it's all tempered within the idea that dog behavior likes something like hyperactivity or impulsivity. It matches on to similar trends in ADHD of hyperactivity and impulsivity, right? And the idea that if you were using it from a treatment perspective, you could use it as what is called a natural model. There's a long history in the scientific world, particularly with rats.

Where you basically either insert or remove genes to create a model that is an Alzheimer's model, an autism model, whatever. And those models then subsequently display X behaviors. Those aren't called natural because we're obviously doing some genetic modification to it, which has its limitations, right? Because you're not taking it from a normal population. So the idea with some of these papers that have come out looking at kind of these similarities of behavior is that we could use them as potentially naturally occurring models for treatment, interventions, all that kind of stuff.

Not to say that we're using dogs as lab subjects. That's not the discussion. There is a long history of laboratory dogs that still exist, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about dogs that are living in homes that are displaying the suite of behaviors and that they're doing treatment. But understandably, there's some pushback in terms of labeling this.

And from my perspective, I think, again... Whether for again, we're talking about this for what is being presented to the general dog owning population. And we know that the general dog owning population in general does not understand anything about the science of behavior. And also humans like to put human characteristics onto dogs. And so I think that this is why Bluey is so successful.

Not by Bluey is so successful. Exactly. I still have yet to ever watch a bluey. I've heard it's very good. Whenever we meet a dog now on the street, Magnolian says to the person like, your dog looks a lot like muffins and bluey.

I'm like, are they actually, is she actually coming across like healers or is she just generalizing? Oh, yeah. Oh, she, we met some healers. Oh, so she's identifying it correctly. No, no, no, but other breeds.

It's not just about healers, Anamarie. Oh. I've never watched. So anyway, so I think there's, so there's some pushback from those in the neurodivergent community. And again, I, this is not my forte research wise or wise.

Yeah. There's some pushback of ascribing them, these human labels, even if we've added something like, from my perspective, I think it's potentially problematic that I think humans, general dog owners are so... Teen to understand that they knee jerk into something. And so I think, and this is where the neurodigerent population is coming from, that it's so easy to potentially grasp the idea of a dog being ADHD or a dog being autistic that the... Basic information that we have and or the fact that the actual the presenters are saying this describing it as ADHD like it's going to get misinterpreted.

And I think that's very true. I constantly have people come up to me and they're like. Have you ever come across autism? Before these conversations happen, have you ever come across an autistic dog? Do dogs have autism?

I think my dog's autistic. I think my dog's have this. And now there's no science on autism. Do I think their potential is there? Sure.

Dogs have the same, very similar neurochemicals. They're living in very social locations. But we're definitely not there. And I think there's already a predisposition for dog owners to think their dogs are angry, guilty, sad, autistic. It's a very slippery slope.

Dog trainers on Facebook were not happy. But again, the vocal trainers that we saw are the ones that potentially are more aware of the scientific literature. I would say that on a whole, just like dog owners, most dog trainers wouldn't have been aware of that and would probably say, yeah, that makes sense. Which... In a very basic term, you can all understand that we all have brains.

So yeah, it does make sense. We just don't have necessarily a whole lot of science to potentially make claims that are going to be misinterpreted by the general public, which is who the audience is for. And one of the presenters, this is like the second round, one of our presenters did pull out because... Unfortunately, she was getting some negative feedback from people because, again, there are some people in our both sides that are very critical. And I myself am eagerly anticipating the comments and criticisms that will be coming with my forthcoming papers.

But it's science. Maybe you could talk a little bit about your forthcoming papers if you're comfortable. The dissertation work, I basically looked at our prong collars for what most people use prong collars for. Any better on pulling than other types of equipment. And they really weren't.

But they also didn't necessarily show for the types of behaviors I was looking for. And in the short terms, I was walking these dogs, which was five minutes. Didn't show any negative welfare effects. But again, does this study prove one way or another? No, I wouldn't argue that.

And that is how it is written and how it will be presented. And no one should interpret this study as proving one way or another because it doesn't. And most studies don't. And then my second study did look at e-collar use. And its ability to inhibit chase.

But the key was really elucidating in the protocol in which the dogs completed. And I think that's the lack that a lot of these previous studies have had is that we don't understand the conditions beyond the very general methodology and how dogs are actually trained in terms of timing and contingency, which we know. We being people that are actually aware of the science of behavior and operating conditioning, contingency and timing, and when they're delivered and how often they're delivered is very key in understanding how a protocol is effective. At the end of the day, it's really difficult to say... Non-aversive training is, for any of these papers that are out, is ineffective or cause welfare effects if we don't know how many times the dogs were actually receiving shock stimulations, right?

They could have received it once, and then you see terrible welfare effects that's potentially concerning and should be investigated. Or the dogs were shocked 25 times over the span of three seconds. Or three days and they should know welfare facts. There's very, there's nuances that I think haven't been previously provided. And that was one of the aims for that study that will be coming out, which, again, I do not think proves anything.

So why don't you talk a little bit about the kind of work that you're doing now? Tying into this kind of what we've really discussed at is that it's hard to get good behavior advice, primarily for the general public. And my background is in shelters. And as some of you might be aware, shelters are struggling lately. And part of that is financial and dog training, as I've also alluded earlier in this podcast, has always been expensive.

Expensive habit and not everyone can access it. So I have created a shelter behavior consulting company with the aim of being relatively low cost. I still need to make a little bit of money to live on. Unfortunately. But the idea is really to try to get solid behavior information to shelters, given that shelters, given the problems that we've already talked about.

And on top of that is a lot of shelters don't have the either finances to fund locations. And a lot of times recommendations are made to shelters. Oh, you should find a certified trainer in the area. A lot of these shelters in small local communities that might not have a dog trainer in general, let alone a certified dog trainer. So the idea is that most of the work would be virtual.

I'm trying to hit as many people as I can. And that also keeps costs relatively low. So it's helping shelters however they need. So if they need consultation on a specific problematic dog in their shelter or cat. And then if they need just, we've never had non-aversive policies in our organization, or we haven't had behavior in general in our organization, helping them troubleshoot that.

And my thought process is that we're starting at a very basic level. Shelters are a touchpoint for communities. And if they have a baseline and foundation for... Training and understanding behavior for themselves and their staff, that they can then translate that to their community members and also have some level of support and understanding in helping tackle behavior problems that might come in for adopters so that people are not feeling the need or the struggle to return their animals. And then overarching, making sure that we're placing safe animals in the communities for the best fits and all that.

We have so much to talk about. We have so much to talk about. We can talk about it more next week, but long story short, a big change at School For The Dogs has been that it is now a collective. I am working to try and sand the edges off the hard part of running a dog training business for dog trainers so that they can focus on the thing they do best. And inviting trainers to apply to join our collective through which they can be on the School For The Dogs site.

They can take advantage of School For The Dogs resources, the School For The Dogs curriculum, and we've even created a report builder to help trainers submit their reports as easily as possible. I know that's a point for trainers, so you can learn more at schoolforthedogs.com slash collective. Anamarie is part of the collective, so you can find her at schoolforthedogs.com slash collective. Anamarie. And you can book a free consult, whether you are a dog trainer looking for a little help or a shelter owner or a shelter employee looking for help with animals that you're working with.

Cats and dogs. Am I right? Yep. Multi-species experts. Thank you, everybody, for listening.

Thank you, Anamarie, for agreeing to put up with my craziness. And we'll be back next week. Sounds good. Bye.