Episode 12 – Why is Dom wearing a Fez? What is the Tommy Cooper School of Dog Training? And how can you be more dog? These are all questions answered on today’s episode of the Superhero Dog Owners Show.
Timestamps [1.04] What is Dom wearing on his head? [1.50] Dom’s favourite Tommy Cooper jokes [3.00] Which Tommy Cooper joke can help you train your dog? [3.37] Dom’s dining experience [4.40] What are you doing with your dog that is stressing him out? [5.30] What is the Superhero Dog Owners Inner Circle? [6.10] Why people like my book? [7.25] How you can enjoy your dog more [8.07] Where you can buy the book [9.36] Meet Rico the Italian Spinone [10.18] How you can use toys to be more dog [11.15] How I use toys to play with Rico [12.05] How to quickly exercise your dog [13.36] How to avoid telling your dog off all the time [13.59] Why your dog only needs one friend [14.33] Your homework this weekend…
Mentioned in this week episode
To buy Dom’s book www.mydogsuperhero.com/get-copy
To join the Inner Circle www.mydogssuperhero.com/innercircle
Full Transcript
Alex: What is that?
Dominic: What is what?
Alex: On your head.
Dominic: I went to the doctor’s, and I said, “Doctor, can you give me something for my liver?” And he give me a pound of onions.
It’s amazing how many things we do with our dogs where they stress us out, or they cause us pain in some way, it’s amazing how many things like this, as pet dog owners, we do and we just keep on doing it over and over and over again.
Dominic: Hello me bonnie bairns and welcome to another episode of the Superhero Dog Owners Show. I’m Dom Hodgson, your host, almost forgot my name there. We’re at Ryhope Dene I’m joined by Alex the video guy.
Alex: Hello.
Dominic: Today we are going to be talking about.
Alex: Hang on. What is that?
Dominic: What is what?
Alex: On your head.
Dominic: This, Alex?
Alex: Is that a fez?
Dominic: This is my fez, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beth got this when she went to Turkey once. She brought it back for me because she knew I liked silly hats. Famous fez wearers? Are you too young to remember the great comedian Tommy Cooper?
Alex: Heard of him, not of my time though.
Dominic: Ah, well. Tommy Cooper, he was before my time as well, but …
Alex: Oh, sorry.
Dominic: No, thank you. When I was growing up, obviously, there were less channels on the television, so they used to play repeats, and they used to play Tommy Cooper repeats. I used to love watching Tommy Cooper. Some people don’t like him, but I used to think he was brilliant. The humor is very silly, is very stupid, very me. He used to tell jokes like … I went to the doctor’s and I said, “Doctor, can you give me something for my liver?” And he give me a pound of onions. So it’s like it’s stupid stuff like that. The guy’s sitting in a restaurant and he orders the chicken, the waiter brings him a chicken, and the guy says, “Hang on a minute, this chicken’s only got one leg.” The waiter says, “Well, he’s been in a fight.” The guy says, “Well, give me the winner.” It’s very, very, silly silly humor. Which I really liked when I was growing up, and I still like to watch Tommy now if he’s on the telly.
One of the jokes, which I think will help our dog owning friends out there, who are watching the podcast, is when the guy goes to the doctor’s and he says to the doctor, “Doctor, it hurts me when I do that.” The doctor says, “Well, don’t do it.”
Again, very, very stupid. Very stupid, but very very sound advice. If something’s hurting you why would you do it? If something that you’re doing with your dog is hurting you maybe she’s pulling, lunging on the lead to get to something or maybe he’s … Maybe it’s hurting you in a different way. Maybe your dog is constantly running away from you in the park and it’s causing you to be afraid that he’s not going to come back. Or it’s making you frightened and stressed out because you think he’s going to run off and get bitten by another dog or he’s going to get lost or stolen or something like that.
These are all things that if you think about it you would be better off avoiding doing.
We recently moved house, Alex, that’s why we’re at Ryhope dene today because we moved along the road. We went to our local pub which was a lovely meal we had the other night. Definitely we’ll be going back there again. The Albion. That was a fantastic experience. We went. We didn’t know what to expect, but the food was delicious and we’ll definitely be going back again. Hopefully this week if I can get Mrs. Pack to let me spend some more money.
Imagine if I went to the local pub and the service was awful. The barman was rude and stuff. I wouldn’t go back, would I?
Alex: You wouldn’t.
Dominic: You wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. I personally wouldn’t. You know I don’t like going out that much that I’m prepared to put up with bad service and stuff.
If I went into the pub and the barman punched me in the face, then I would definitely wouldn’t go back. It would be nailed on that I would not do that.
It’s amazing how many things we do with our dogs where they stress us out or they cause us pain in some way and the dog be getting stressed out as well. It won’t be very pleasant for the dog. To me it’s things like this as pet dog owners we do and we keep on doing it over and over again. We don’t think about an alternative. What the easiest alternative is as you know to me is just to avoid the situation. Then you want to think about teaching your dog something new to do as well. Instead of running away from you, in my opinion, you want to be teaching him to stay with you and play with you and basically have a good time with you.
These are all things that I think are very very easy for pet dog owners to do. Much like Tommy Cooper when he went to the doctor’s, “Doctor, hurts when I do this.” Don’t do it. You don’t have to keep going to the place that is stressing your dog out or the park.
This is one of the reasons why I have recently launched the Superhero Dog Owners Inner Circle. I’ve been trailing it for a couple of months now. We’ve got tons of members on board already. It’s gone fantastically well. Way better than I thought it was going to be. The Superhero Dog Owner’s Inner Circle came about because of we wrote the book and I got loads of positive feedback from people who read the book. Even really experienced dog owners, Alex, who maybe who have done dog training courses before or they have done activities with their dogs as well. One lady said she had been stuff for forty years, read loads of dog training books, but my book was the one that made it sound really easy and she understood it a lot better.
I think that’s what I’ve been able to do. It’s certainly not a technical dog training book for dog trainers. I wrote it specifically for dog trainers and if you read it, it sounds unfortunately just like what I sound now when I’m sitting talking to you here. Which is maybe one of the reasons why people like it as well.
Alex: Well exactly. It’s like you said, it’s not a course. That’s not what it is.
Dominic: No, exactly not. People wanted more. People were asking for … “I’m playing with my dog more now. Now what do I do?” I thought the best way to do that, because we did some online dog training programs in the past and they worked really well. It’s amazing what you can teach people even though you’re not seeing them in person with demonstration videos and stuff like that.
That’s where the Superhero Dog Owners Inner Circle came about. It’s open now. It consists of a membership, an online membership area where we’ve got tons of videos that will help you play with your dog, have more fun with your dog, learn how to teach your dog tricks. It’s not like an instructional course like teach your dog how to do a sit or a down … although we do teach those things as well … It’s more about how you can really enjoy your dog when you take them to the park. How you can enjoy your life with your dog more. Not just when he’s at home cuddling on the couch, but everywhere when you’re taking him out. You might want to take your dog on holiday, but you can’t because you worry about his behavior and stuff. This is what the inner circle is for. It’s to help pet dog owners have more fun and less stress with their pet dogs.
You get a monthly newsletter. We have a private Facebook group as well where people ask questions. We have accountability.
It’s all going absolutely swimmingly. The feedback has been fantastic.
You shouldn’t really, I’m not going to put a link up for that, the first thing you should probably do if you’re interested in learning more about that would be to buy the book. You can get the book on Amazon, on Kindle. You can get it on Audible too. We had a lot of fun making the audio version, didn’t we.
Alex: Yes. It means I’ve read the book twice I think. Technically. It’s very very good.
Dominic: Or you can go to www.mydogssuperhero.com and you can buy a copy of the book. I’ll sign it. I’ll send it out to you and I’ll put in a little free gift in there as well. You can have that in a couple day’s time. I’ll send that anywhere in the world. That’s 19.97 if you want a signed paper copy.
That’s definitely where you should start with that because I want people to have more fun with their dogs. My life was changed and my business was changed and it’s continued to be changing because I was taught by dog trainers … the best dog trainers I think. Dave Davies. John Rogerson. People like this taught me how to have more fun with my dog. That’s the message that I’ve took and practiced it with our dogs that we take on our daily adventures and with my own dogs and with my clients dogs. This is life changing. You can have more fun with your dog than what you’re having now. You just need to be shown how to do it, I guess, which is exactly what I did.
You don’t have the knowledge. Then you’ve got the knowledge. It’s about putting it into practice.
That’s what we’re all about.
To show you a little more about what I’m talking about, we’ve got a little video to finish up the podcast. This is a video with Rico, the Italian Spinoni, who is a very good friend of mine. Who we look after and he comes out on the adventures with us as well. This is me and Rico. I originally titled the video “Be more dog”, didn’t we, Alex? Because the be more dog tagline … What was it ’02 did they print it …
Alex: I think so.
Dominic: They used it.
Alex: Other mobile networks are available. Yes.
Dominic: Still haven’t got a show sponsor. Maybe one of those people might want to dive in.
Alex: Yes. We keep dropping them and everything.
Dominic: They used “Be more dog” and it became a thing. I was thinking how can you be more dog? How can I show you guys how you can be more dog so you can be as interesting to your dog as that other dog that your dog finds interesting. I’m saying dog too many times now. I’m just going to wrap up. It’s time to roll the video.
Roll the video, Alex.
Today I’m going to be teaching you guys how you can be more dog with your dogs to make your dogs more interested in you.
We do that by using toys.
Here, dog. Good boy. Come on. What’s this? Good boy. Good boy. Come on.
When a dog meets another dog in the park and they do that little thing where if they like each other they go face to face, then they stand very very still, then one of them does a little skip and away they go, off they go and play. Obviously I can’t get on the floor with Rico and simulate that, can I? I wouldn’t want to either really, because you’d probably you’d probably knock me flying bless him, but I can do a similar thing by using toys.
I can use something that I know Rico likes and I can tease him with it. I can show him it. I can make him move around.
That’s a good boy.
Then I can play with him with it. I can get him to retrieve it.
That’s right. I’ve built up the drive. I’m getting good eye contact. And away he goes.
Yes, good boy.
Good boy. There’s a clever lad. What’s a good boy? What’s a good lad?
I make sure that once I’ve chucked the toy for him and he eventually picks it up, I make sure that I get the toy back and I get the attention back on me again.
Good. Good boy. Come on buddy. Good boy. There’s a good lad.
Why aren’t I at the beach today with Rico? Why aren’t we out somewhere having an adventure? You don’t always have time to take your dogs for an adventure. If you work or you have kids that you have to take to school and after school clubs and things like that. Or you have shopping to do and bills to pay, you don’t always have time on a regular day during the week to take your dog to all the places that you would really like to take them.
If you have a dog who likes playing a game and you can be more dog with your own dog, then you can just enjoy playing with him anywhere. In your garden. In the back lane like we are now. You don’t need an area much bigger than the size of a tennis court to be able to exercise your dog, wear him out so that he sleeps and rest until you come home from work.
Sit. Sit. Good boy. There’s a clever lad. No rush. Come on. Rico. Good lad. Good boy. Good boy.
Playing games like this is well. It’s good fun for me too. I’m running around. I’m enjoying myself. I’m getting an opportunity to tell my dog what a good boy he is all the time.
Sit. There’s a good boy. There’s a good boy.
It keeps the focus on me. I’m not … Sometimes if you take your dog to the park, he’s interested in other things, and you feel like you have to tell him off all the time. “Come back. Come back. Stop pulling. Do this.” Find a nice quiet area near where you live. Get a toy out. You can spend ten minutes wearing him out, telling him what a good boy he is, and being your dog’s superhero.
Can’t you? Yeah. Come on then. Go and get it.
Despite what people might tell you, you’re dog doesn’t need any other friends except you. You can be your dog’s best friend. You should be a dog’s best friend. He will love you more. He’ll be easier to exercise and entertain and you’ll have a fantastic relationship.
Won’t we?
Play with your dog. Be more dog and use the toys.
Come on, buddy boy. Rico, come on.
That was me and Rico having a bit of fun in the back yard. You don’t need necessarily to take your dog to a big open space, field to have fun. Although that is nice. You can wear him out and give him everything he needs in an area no bigger than a tennis court. Try … a little bit of homework for you this week … Try and be more dog. Try and find your dog’s kryptonite, that’s the thing that he loves playing with, and then use it to play with him and get him more interested in you. Then you can wear him out and you can get him to chase you around and generally be your dog’s superhero. Be the thing that he wants to be with.
That’s the message for today.
If you want to find out more about the Inner Circle and my book you should go to www dot my dogs super hero dot come forward slash dog days. That will put you on my email list. I’ll send you a dog training email, tip, hint, story, every single day, three hundred and sixty four or five days a year. You can have some free dog training advice. All the same type of stuff we’ve been talking about on the podcast as well.
That is it from the Tommy Cooper school of dog training. I hope you enjoyed that, Alex.
Alex: I had fun. I learned a lot.
Dominic: Hope you’re watching Tommy Cooper this weekend as well. It’s on YouTube I’m sure.
Thanks again to Alex. Thanks to Rico. That’s it from us. If we don’t see you through the week then we’ll see you through the window.
