Episode 1 Why dogs are so selfish?
Why does your dog pull on the lead, jump up at people, bark at the neighbours, run off at the dog park and do all the other annoying things they do? You can find out in this week’s episode when Dom shares a little known dog training fact that once you learn will make training and controlling your dog much easier. And that is, dog are selfish! Yes dogs are the best thing in the world. They are cute and loving and make our lives better but did you know that your dog was also very selfish too, just like us humans.
[0.29] Meet Dom’s special guest Stuey the Pug [0.52] Why dogs are selfish [2.10] Why control is important [3.00] How I lost control of the dogs I was looking after [5.00] How too much of what they can be bad for your dog [7.10] How I felt like a failure as a dog walker [7.46] Do you wish you could let your dog off lead? [8.05] Why you need to make yourself the centre of your dog’s world [8.22]Why I wrote the book How to Be Your Dogs Superhero [ 9.47] How we control our pack of dogs at the beach [11.12] The first thing we do on a dog adventure [12.13] Playing a find it game [12.55] How we play find the treats [14.25] What finding the Kryptonite is and why we will be talking about it in the next episode [14.57]Where to get my free daily dog training emails
Mentioned in this episode The Dog Vinci Code by John Rogerson www.johnrogerson.com
Buy Dom’s book on Amazon
Click here to get the kindle or paperback version of How to Be Your Dog’s Superhero.
Click here to get the Kindle or paperback version of Dom’s new book Worry Free Walks
Click here to get the kindle or paperback version of the dog walkers business bible Walk Yourself Wealthy
Get the audio book here http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Health-Personal-Development/How-to-Be-Your-Dogs-Superhero-Audiobook/B01L2FBFAK
Full transcript
Dominic: Hello me bonny bairns and welcome to The Superhero Dog Owner’s Show. I’m joined today by a very special guest. This is my good friend Stuart the pug. Say hello, Stuey. As always, we have Alex the video guy here.
Alex: Hello.
Dominic: I want to thank you very much for subscribing. This is the Superhero Dog Owner’s Show. This is episode one and this is the show that is going to help you have more fun and less stress with your pet dog. In today’s episode we’re going to be talking about dogs, obviously, and why dog’s are selfish. Make no mistake about it, dogs are selfish. I don’t mean that they are selfish in the way that they want to make us sleep in the yard and leave the house and they want to take over the world.
I don’t mean like that. I just mean that dogs like doing stuff that they like doing. In that sense they’re very, very similar to us humans. All dogs have different things that they like. We, me and you Alex, we’re exactly the same and the people at home too. For example, my brother, yeah, my brother we both, we grew up together. We were exposed to very, very similar things. We like completely different things now in our day to day lives.
TV programs for example. He’s always coming round, “Have you seen this? Have you seen that?” I try it for half an hour and it’s rubbish. Then I prefer Sopranos, Breaking Bad, West Wing, that kind of thing. I suggest those things to him and he watches them and he thinks they’re rubbish. Also we all just like what we like and it’s the same with restaurants. You might like Chinese food, I might like Indian food. Our dogs are very, very similar to this.
A lot of pet dog owners can unintentionally get themselves in a situation where their dog is interested in things that they just can’t control. This issue of control is really, really important because more dogs end up in rescue all across the UK, and I’m guessing all over the world, because pet dog owners can’t control their dogs. They’ve got themselves in a situation where the can’t control the dog either at home or the dog is out of control when they leave it and they have to go to work or they can’t control their dog in the park. They can’t let the dog off the lead. Their dog then has a build up of energy and he ends up manifesting itself in all kinds of different problems, behavioural problems that the dog might have.
This issue of control is really, really important and part of what we’re going to be doing in the show is trying to get you to regain the control that you have over your dog in a way that is fun for you and for the dog as well. This problem of control, this was something that happened to me as well when I first started my dog adventure business. What happened was about five years ago I decided I didn’t want to be a sales rep and sell cigarettes anymore, so I certainly didn’t want to do it for another thirty years anyway.
I quit my job and I sat around for a while and I thought about what I wanted to do and I thought I would start my own business. You know, people always say that when you start your own business you should do something that you love. I at the time, I was spending quite a bit of time at my local dog rescue center helping out, walking the dogs who were waiting to be adopted, and I knew I wanted to work outdoors. I thought oh, why don’t you put those two things together and start a dog walking business? A dog adventure business?
That was what I did. We started the dog adventure business and Stuie, this is one of our clients as well. Stuie. It all started off quite well. I was picking up some clients. We would pick the dogs up in the van and head off to a different location everyday. We would go the beach or the park or the woods. We would spend a good hour and half trumping around and trying to wear the dogs out so they would sleep by the time their owners came home from work after I dropped them off again.
What happened was I would be walking with the dogs for like five, six miles and then I would want to have a little breather, let the dogs of lead so they could have a wee and a drink, stuff like that. Then the dogs, they started to play together. At first I didn’t mind this because I was having a breather as well. I was quite tired obviously after trumping all that way with the dogs.
The dogs started to play and they seemed to really enjoy it. Then they started to play more and more and then the play became a bit more boisterous and more energetic. They definitely started to enjoy it even more. They were kind of, they weren’t listening to me as much. Before I knew where I was I was in a situation where the dogs, they didn’t listen to me at all. I had virtually no control over these dogs when they were off-lead because they were having far too much fun together playing, having fun.
Obviously this situation couldn’t continue, so what I did was I ended up enrolling in a John Rogerson course. I’m sure a lot of people have heard of John Rogerson, author of the Dog Vinci Code. Dog Vinci Code. Thanks for that kiss, Stuie. World renowned dog trainer. Went on one of his courses. Completely had my eyes opened to what I should be doing with my dogs, which was playing and having fun with them and then from that week on that was what I did. That was really the start of my doggie education
Anyway, the point of the story was the situation that I found myself in where I was standing in a field with all of these dogs who were running around having a great time enjoying themselves, but not taking any notice of me, that’s kind of a similar situation to what a lot of pet dog owners find themselves in where they can quickly and unintentionally allow their dogs to enjoy doing things that don’t involve the owner.
When that happens then you have no control over the dog. Before you know it your dog becomes very dog reactive and he’s constantly looking for other dogs when he’s on lead. Sometimes they can get aggressive as well. A big part of what I want to do within the whole show is show pet dog owners how easy it is for them to be a bit more dog and have a bit more fun with their own dogs so their dog is less interested in birds, rabbits and other dogs and is more interested in being with the owner.
Because if the dog is more interested in you, then you can enjoy taking him for long walks in the countryside or the beach or the park or the woods or wherever it is that you want to go with him and your dog will stick to you like glue. He will follow you around like the Pied Piper and you will have stress-free exercise with your dog. That’s one of the reasons I think why we all got a dog, didn’t we, Alex? Nobody gets a dog because they want to be chasing it around the park.
Alex: No. Definitely not.
Dominic: Hopefully not anyway. Some people may do, you never know. I certainly didn’t anyway. I felt bad. I felt like a bit of a failure as a dog walker and I felt like I had no control. It’s not a nice feeling to not be in control of a dog and to know that he could run away from you at any time.
Once I started to interact and play it wasn’t that difficult either. Just finding out a couple of things that the dogs enjoy playing with and before I knew it, bingo, their focus had gone from each other over to me. Yeah, then I was the top dog, the number one guy in their life. Since then things have got better and better. That’s the message that we’re trying to get across now.
If this sounds like something that maybe you experience with your own dog and you wish you could let your dog off-lead, you wish that you could enjoy walking him, exercising your dog, you wish that he loved you as much in the park as he did when you were curled up on the couch sniffing his paws, then you should stay tuned because we’ve got some cool tips coming up that are going to help you have a bit more fun with your dog.
The key thing is really is to start thinking about making yourself the center of your dog’s world so that your dog looks to you for all the fun and entertainment and excitement and pleasure in his life really because you can be all things to your dog. You can be your dog’s superhero. That was why I wrote the book. I wrote the book because I was able to go from a hapless, stupid dog walker who didn’t know anything about dogs to just somebody who can easily control eight, nine, ten dogs along with my son Alex who helps me out with the business.
You can do the same thing too with your own dog, yeah? Obviously if you’re happy with your dog playing with other dogs, chasing every package of crisps, running after rabbits, things like that, then that’s fine. If you’re happy with that, I’m happy with that. If you’re not happy with that, if you wish that your dog looked to you for more fun, then this is the show for you and we’re going to show you how you can have more fun with your dog. Yeah, you too can be as happy as Stuie after you’ve been on a dog adventure.
What I’m going to do now is we’re going to show you a little short which is a little video that we took just recently when we went to the beach. This is me and Alex my son and Alex the video guy behind the camera and we have a little trip to the beach. I want you guys to see how I was able to turn things around and how I was able to use toys, treats, affection, games, fun to make myself the most interesting thing to the dogs that we walk on our daily adventures because it can be done. Yeah, I’m not just saying, this isn’t just talk. This is something that we do, we put into practice every single day and in the next video you’re going to see exactly how we do it.
Come on guys. We’re here at Costa del Hendon. This is one of our favourite places. We’ve got our treats, our chickeny treats that we have at the start. Even though today we’re going to have a bit more of an adventure today. We’re going to do a lot of walking over the rocks, the dogs can practice a little bit of wild agility, but we still like to get the dogs interested in the treats and show them that we’ve got some things that they like playing with before we set off on the walk.
What’s this? Come see. Sit. Good boy. Alex. Come on, Max. We show them the chicken, we show them what we’ve got. Then we show them the tennis balls as well. Yeah, and then we know we’ve got the dogs’ attention now when we go and set off on the walk. It’s going to give us more control using the things that we know the dogs like. Yeah? Shall we go? Shall we? Come on then. Come on then.
The first thing we like to do when we come somewhere is like I said before, let the dogs know that we’ve got some stuff and because the dogs would have been at home and their owners would have been at work since this morning, yeah, so they’ve got a lot of energy. We like to take the edge off the dogs and we do that with some toys. We’re going to play some treat games in a minute. First of all we’ll start off playing some retrieve games. Come on boys. Come on. Max, come on.
Max likes to cheat. He likes to stay at the back so he can get the ball first. We trick him and we try to throw it the other way. Come on cheater, in. Come on. Down. Down. Down. Sit. Sit. Good boy. Good boy. Good boy, Max. Good boy. We’re going to play a little finder’s game now as well now that we’ve took the edge off the dogs. Come on. Once we’ve taken the edge off the dogs we can play some more games.
We like to provide a bit of a challenge for them. They’re getting to use their nose and using their brain. Down. Down. Stay. We’re going to play a little finder’s game and I’m going to hide the toy for the dogs to find. Sit. Stay. Stay there.
Alex: Stay.
Dominic: Down now.
Alex: Lily. Lily. Lily.
Dominic: Stay there. Thanks for waiting. Good boy, Alex. Yeah. Clever lad. Good boy. Well done. We’ve come to the end of our adventure for the day. We’ve had a nice walk along the beach. The dogs have played some games, played some nose games, some retrieve games, some of the dogs have had a swim. Now to use up the last of the treats Alex is hiding them on the rocks over there. Then we’ll set the dogs off so they can go and find all the treats. That will use up all the treats for us and it will give the dogs a nice opportunity to have a nice reward before we go back to the van as well and get them using their noses too. Yeah, you made it.
Alex: Dry land.
Dominic: You made it. Hurray.
Alex: No camera crew were harmed during the filming.
Dominic: Or dogs!
That was us on a trip to the beach. I hope you enjoyed that. Did you enjoy it, Stuie? Yeah, we’ve got lots more videos coming up like that as well. It can be really hard being a pet dog owner sometimes. I’m not saying that it’s easy to be the most interesting thing to your dog, okay? But it can be done and if you want to do it then you should definitely think about playing with your dog a little bit more, interacting with him and finding out exactly what it is that your dog likes.
I call that finding the kryptonite. We’re going to be talking about finding the kryptonite in the next episode. That’s something for you to look forward to. I think for this episode, Alex, I think that’s a wrap. Do you agree?
Alex: I think that’s it.
Dominic: Yeah, that’s a wrap for today. From me, from Stuey, from Alex the video guy, we want to say thank you very much for watching. Please subscribe to the show and if you want even more dog training advice then you can also sign up to my daily and free dog training emails. This is where I send you a daily email, it goes into your inbox every day. It gives you a little tip, tells you a little story, helps you get a little bit better bond with your dog every single day so you can have more fun on the walks that you take your dog on. You can sign up for the emails at www.mydogssuperhero.com/dogdays. That’s the thing, yeah. Alex will put that in the show notes too and we’ll see you in the next show.
Buy Dom’s book on Amazon
Click here to get the kindle or paperback version of How to Be Your Dog’s Superhero.
Click here to get the Kindle or paperback version of Dom’s new book Worry Free Walks
Click here to get the kindle or paperback version of the dog walkers business bible Walk Yourself Wealthy
Get the audio book here http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Health-Personal-Development/How-to-Be-Your-Dogs-Superhero-Audiobook/B01L2FBFAK
