Do you ever wonder if there was more you can do to keep your dog healthy? Should you clean his teeth and how to do it? Dom answers this and more when he talks to Superhero Vet Nurse and Dog Behaviourist Rachel Bean. Rachel has an interesting and varied career which takes her from Vets surgeries all over the UK to the Soi Dog Foundation in Thailand. What is the Soi Dog Foundation and how can you get your puppy used to the Vets? Find out those things and much more by watching this episode.
TimeStamps
[0.44] Welcome to episode 14 [1.14] What has Alex the video guy been up to? [2.08] Why does Dom do daily emails [3.06] How to be consistent with your dog training [3.20] How can you use your dogs food better [4.25] How to use a Kong toy [6.50] What does Rachel Bean do? [8.11] A Visla in the woods or a Beagle at the beach [9.09] Rachel’s embarrassing dog training moment [10.51] Who inspired Rachel to work with dogs? [12.00] Fat dogs! [14.23] How to clean your dogs teeth [16.45] How to make sure your dog isn’t scared of the vets [16.48] Why you need to take your puppy to the vets, even when he ISN’T poorly [18.55] What was Rachel doing in Thailand? [20.33] What is the dog culture like in Thailand [22.14] Why are they teaching dogs to swim [23.20] Why you should attend Rachel Beans Canine First Aid course and no one elses!! [24.17] Where to find out more about Rachel [25.00] What is Dom’s Inner Circle [27.30] Special Offer to join the Inner Circle [28.00] Buy Dom’s book on Kindle
Mentioned in this episode
Join Dom’s Inner Circle www.mydogssuperhero.com/innercircle/offer
Buy Dom’s book on Amazon
Rachel Bean’s website www.rachelbean.co.uk
Dom’s daily dog training emails www.mydogssuperhero.com/free-chapter-and-tips/
Alex the Video guys daily emails www.artifactmedia.co.uk/join
Soi Dog Foundation www.soidog.org
Full Transcript
Dominic Hodgson: (opening music). Rachel, to me you have one of the most interesting jobs out of all my doggy friends. One minute you’re giving a first aid seminar, the next week you’re appearing in court as an expert canine witness. The next week you’re in Thailand helping out with the Soi Dog Foundation. How did you manage to swing that gig?
(theme music).
Hello me bonny bairns and welcome to Episode Fourteen.
Alex: Fourteen.
Dominic Hodgson: Of the Superhero Dog Owners Show. You had a little bonus episode on Monday because we wanted to tell you a story about what had happened with Barry, and I want to thank everybody who got in touch and sent me a nice message about Barry passing away. That was really nice of you. We really appreciate it.
We’re here, we’re back on the bank of the River [inaudible 00:01:03], Alex. It’s only mid afternoon but the clouds have come over, it looks like about eight o’clock at night.
Alex: It does. It does, it’ll be dark soon. We need to hurry up.
Dominic Hodgson: Let’s get a wiggle on. What have you been up to, Alex, since I saw you last?
Alex: Quite a bit. I’ve started doing daily emails as part of my branching out and trying to reach out to some of the people who might need some video doing in the world. People who don’t really know where to start with the big world that is video, so that’s good. Challenging, definitely.
Dominic Hodgson: Who’s been egging you on to do daily emails?
Alex: Oh, I can’t. I can’t think of his name. Some guy. He’s got a-
Dominic Hodgson: It’s me, everyone! (laughs).
Alex: It was. It was Dom. Very good advice. I enjoy writing them, people enjoy reading them. I don’t have a million subscribers yet, but people are applying and saying, “This is really helpful.” It’s a nice way to tell stories and connect with more people. I really enjoy it.
Dominic Hodgson: Yeah, good stuff.
Alex: It’s all going well.
Dominic Hodgson: Good lad, good lad, yeah. I’ve been doing them for about eighteen months now. Not daily, I would have been daily for a couple of months, I think. But the people who are on my list, you get a dog training tip or a dog training story every single day. They make people laugh and they help people with their dogs and they help sort of bring people into my world. I think you have to, you can’t just say, “I’m going to build a business,” and then just expect it to happen. You need to take little steps.
Alex: Definitely.
Dominic Hodgson: Each day you do it, it’ll help to you move closer to your goals.
Alex: That’s right, yeah. I say exactly the same thing applies to video as well. You know obviously. We’ve been filming stuff for two years now and it’s all just about doing a little bit every day to build up this sort of online presence, as it were.
Dominic Hodgson: Exactly.
Alex: So that when someone does happen across your stuff, they say, “Oh, this thing and thing, bloody hell. This guy or this girl’s an expert, knows what they’re talking about.”
Dominic Hodgson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hopefully anyway. (laughs). But exactly the same thing applies to dog training as regards you’re far better off training your dog for five minutes or for ten minutes every single day than doing a big session maybe once a week or once a fortnight or something like that. If you can do something really small with your dog, and one way you could do that would be to try and use your dog’s food a little bit more productively, I think.
I always talk about playing and I talk abut playing a lot with your dog in my book as well, but food is a very precious resource for lots of dogs. It’s something that you’re going to give the dog everyday anyway, hopefully a couple of times a day, but there’s so much more you can do with food. We’ll probably talk about this in another episode in the future, but if you could start thinking about more creative ways that you can use your dog’s food. Either teaching him some tricks or maybe you could chuck some food into your garden and let him use his nose to find it, or maybe you could stick it in a Kong. There’s many many things that you can do with your dog’s food rather than just shove it in a bowl, stick it on the floor, and then watching it disappear within like sixty seconds.
Alex: I can vouch for those as well with Otis, our part time dog. We only just recently bought him a Kong. I think he’s had one before but hasn’t used it too much, as is usually the way. Everyone’s got a Kong in a cupboard somewhere. At first he was a bit, “What’s this,” kind of thing, and I was putting like pate and cheese and all kinds of stuff in. It got to a point where he was so good at it and he was dropping it and the dry food was falling out and stuff, he would kind of bring it over to me and be chucking it around and be like, “There’s nothing coming out. I’m doing it right. Where’s the food?” He loved it. It was so stimulating for him.
Dominic Hodgson: No, they’re great things Kongs, definitely, yeah. Other treat dispensers are available-
Alex: Yes, we should mention .
Dominic Hodgson: But Kongs are probably the most common one you can get. Get your food, stick it in a Kong, yeah? If it fits in a Kong, stick it in a Kong. That’s just the food I’m talking about there by the way, okay? Nobody, no rude jokes. Anyway, we need to crack on Alex because today we’re having an interview with a very good friend of mine. Somebody I’ve known for a couple of years now. She has been up. We have hosted canine first aid courses that she runs. She’s a vet nurse, a royal registered vet nurse. I can’t remember the proper title. Rachel will tell us what it is when we see her in the interview.
I thought it would be nice to get a … We’ll have something different. We’re going to be talking about your dog’s health. Things that you can do to try and keep your dog in the best condition. We just lost Barry recently and if there’s anything you can do to try and help your dog live a little bit longer so you can enjoy the time that you’ve got with him even more, then you should do it. I thought it would be good to talk to Rachel for a change from just talking to dog trainers, although Rachel is a fully qualified behaviourist as well. She’s super knowledgeable, but I just thought it would be good. We all want our pets to live as long as they can. We’ve just lost Barry recently and I don’t think we could have done anything to keep him alive any longer, but if there’s anything you can do to keep your dog alive for the time that you’re with him, then you’re going to want to be doing it.
I thought it would be good to get to Rachel. Rachel actually came up. We spent a bit of time together, we had a bit of coffee, and we recorded this interview that we’re going to show you right now. Roll the tape, Alex.
Everybody and welcome to this week’s interview and I’m joined by my very good friend, Rachel Bane. Hello, Rachel.
Rachel: Hello.
Dom: Rachel is joining me this week on the settee. We’re here. I’m normally speaking to people on Skype, but we’re speaking to Rachel live in person, which is fantastic. I’ve known Rachel for a number of years. She is a …
Rachel: Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Qualified Registered Veterinary Nurse.
Dominic: There you go, so that’s why I got Rachel to say that. She’s also a dog behaviorist as well.
Rachel: Yes, yeah.
Dominic: Trainer. Rachel, to me you have one of the most interesting jobs out of all my doggy friends because you kind of do lots of different things.
Rachel: lots of things yeah.
Dominic: You do. One minute you’re giving a first aid seminar. The next week you’re appearing in court as an expert canine witness. The next week you’re in Thailand helping out with the Soi Dog Foundation. How did you manage to swing that gig?
Rachel: Well, after about sixteen, seventeen years in full time practice I just decided to just go full time self employed, really. I did it gradually over six months. I dropped my days down to three days and two days and then I worked Fridays just in a veterinary practice. I still pick up work from the friends that I worked with in the past. I probably work about eight to ten days still in practice. I still am a practicing veterinary nurse. I just wanted to do something different, really.
Dominic: Yeah, you definitely do that. Before we find out more about what you do, we need to do the quick fire round, yeah? People expect us to do the quick fire round. This a round where we get to know you a little bit better and don’t expect the questions to be … Well, they’re easy, but don’t expect to know all the answers. Here we go. Are you ready to start?
Rachel Bane: I am.
Dominic Hodgson: Do you prefer red or white wine?
Rachel Bane: Red.
Dominic Hodgson: Good answer. We’ll have one in a minute. Tea or coffee?
Rachel Bane: Tea definitely.
Dominic Hodgson: Indian or Chinese food?
Rachel Bane: Indian.
Dominic Hodgson: Are you an early bird or a night owl?
Rachel Bane: Night owl.
Dominic Hodgson: Okay. The curtains are closed more. We’ll not be having a [natural day 00:08:07]. Would you prefer to walk a Vizsla in the woods or a Beagle at the beach?
Rachel Bane: Vizsla in the woods, I think.
Dominic Hodgson: All right then, okay. The gun dog, was it the woods that did it?
Rachel: Yes, the gun dogs, yeah.
Dominic: Okay, all right then. Nice. Good answers, Rachel. Who’s your favourite superhero?
Rachel: Superhero … I wouldn’t like to say hero, but idols. I’m into rock music. Aerosmith’s like my top band, so that could be idols.
Dominic: Yeah, nice one, all right. We’ll go with that. Good answers, Rachel, I like that. This show is for pet dog owners and I like to let them know that despite the fact that we’re dog trainers, we still make a lot of mistakes with dogs. We get a lot of things wrong. We’re always learning and everything that people are suffering with, their problems that they might think they’ve got, everybody else has usually had them as well.
Rachel: Yeah, sure.
Dominic: Can you tell us about something? Maybe something embarrassing or maybe there’s a behaviour consult that didn’t quite go the way that you wanted it, where you cocked up?
Rachel: Probably the one I can remember is a resource guarding Cocker Spaniel. It wasn’t normal resource guarding, it was guarding fresh air. It was guarding its bed area, its food, anything that anybody put down on the floor like cups and things like that. Even though you question really thoroughly the owners, some things it’s just impossible to ask. We put it on a lead and as I passed the lead to the owner she dropped it. And then said oh yeah it guards its lead. As soon as the lead hit the floor it was just this raging dog, but nobody could get ahold of it. Then it was thinking on your feet very quickly and being able to problem solve that. Luckily it was quite a long lead, it wasn’t the average kind of short lead. What we did, they were in a flat so the stairs were very near the living room. I just got a tennis ball and threw a tennis ball down the stairs. As it went to get the ball I just stood on it and then we picked up the lead.
Dominic: Yeah, nice one, yeah.
Rachel: Nobody got savaged.
Dominic: Easy thing to miss isn’t it? Yeah, you wouldn’t think about resource guarding a lead. Before you were Rachel the vet nurse and the first aid trainer, you were going out into [inaudible 00:10:18], we’re going to talk about that in a minute. Where did it all start with you with dogs and your relationship with dogs?
Rachel: Childhood really, as it often is. My dad had gun dogs, still has guns dogs. He’s just got two at the moment. It’s just rough shooting so it’s been around. Living rurally is when you are around working dogs, so Collies and Terriers.
Dominic: Was there anybody who sort of inspired you to want to work with dogs? What was the moment when you went from just being a dog owner to knowing that you wanted to work with dogs full time?
Rachel: There was a guy in the village who was the local gamekeeper actually. Yeah, Brian Brown and his wife Pat Brown. Don’t know if you heard of her. She’s a top Flying Feet Agility Instructor. As a kid I used to follow him around with his dogs. He had about eight Labradors. I would follow around after him when I was very young, so probably that started it, I think.
Dominic: Where did you go first? Was it the nursing?
Rachel: I was actually assistant kennel manager at the Dog’s Trust when they opened, so that’s, oh, twenty years ago now? I think they’ve just had their anniversary. Might be twenty-one years ago, twenty-two years ago. I applied for both kennel assistant job and assistant manager thinking, “Oh, I won’t get assistant manager,” and I did. I got the assistant manager’s job. It’s like shock horror. I had to leave home and what have you. I worked there for two years, just short of two years. It was very good. I got a lot of early experience, especially dog handling and what have you. I just wanted to go the next level up, if you like. Get a qualification because there’s no real qualifications in kennel management.
I actually applied for within 100 mile radius of a vet nurse training place, because you have to have a job in a vet’s to get the nursing place. That’s why it’s difficult to get into vet nursing. The first practice to offer me a job was in Lees , which is just outside Oldham and in Lancashire. I’ve been down there ever since. Qualified and I was moved on to another practice once qualified and I was there for thirteen years and head nurse for six.
Dominic: What would you say would be the most common things that … I know there’s a range of different injuries and stuff, what do you think would be the most common things that people would come in with their dogs, specifically their dogs, that could be prevented?
Rachel: It’s a massive range. Probably obesity.
Dominic: Really? Yeah, big one.
Rachel: Lot of fat dogs. It’s very difficult to convince people that their dogs are overweight. You have to do it very delicately sometimes so people are not offended.
Dominic: Sensitive, yeah.
Rachel: Yeah, people are really sensitive.
Dominic: What are the problems then of having an overweight dog?
Rachel: Same as humans. There’s a lot of medical things that are attributed to humans being overweight. It’s exactly the same with dogs. Arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart issues, breathing difficulties. Everything’s exactly the same.
Dominic: Do they not live as long as well? Do they shorten their life expectancy?
Rachel: Yeah, short life. Yeah, arthritis.
Dominic: And so easily preventable I suppose, isn’t it? Because most dogs obviously they shouldn’t have access to the fridge or the freezer. You are in control of what you feed your dog, aren’t you?
Rachel: I think we as owners, or pet owners, tend to think it’s making the dog happy giving it lots of food. Sometimes it’s more cruel for the dog to be overweight, just as cruel to be underweight.
Dominic: Is there anything else people could do to stop them from having to go to the vet’s as much and to keep their dog healthier?
Rachel: I think another one that’s overlooked actually is dental hygiene. People forget or don’t realize how painful dental conditions can be. As soon as we get dental pain we’re straight at the dentist. If you’ve had dental pain yourself it is really painful.
Dominic: Yeah, it is horrible.
Rachel: We see dogs and cats, but we see dogs in with horrific dental disease. Teeth hanging out, they’re rotten. People just don’t … Even though-
Dominic: Is that because dogs, we don’t look enough?
Rachel: We don’t look.
Dominic: We just don’t look enough, yeah.
Rachel Bane: Yeah.
Dominic: I’m probably guilty of that as well mine, with my dogs.
Rachel Bane: We’ve got dogs as pets now. We don’t actually feed them as they’re originally designed to do. The food as well. It’s not cleaning the teeth, so the carnassials at the back, the canines at the front are the ones that tend to get the tarter and then the plaque and then the dental disease. We should be cleaning them.
Dominic: With a brush?
Rachel: Yeah, you can use a brush. You don’t really have to spend lots of money on fancy toothpaste and things like that.
Dominic Hodgson: Same as humans.
Rachel: You can just use … What I use if I need to clean Wisp’s teeth is just some cotton wool that’s dampened down , just dip it in some bicarbonate of soda. That’s the abrasion that’s in toothpaste anyway. You actually just rub the teeth.
Dominic: Just gently rub the teeth.
Rachel: That’ll take the plaque off.
Dominic : How often would you do something like that?
Rachel: Every few days. Maybe do it on a rotation. Every few days do a quarter of the mouth, quarter of the dentition so you’re not annoying the dog really.
Dominic: It’s part of your dog’s daily health check, yeah.
Rachel: Yeah, I guess it should be, yeah.
Dominic: I think that’s awesome. I’ll start doing that tomorrow.
Rachel: It’s actually one of the things that people tend to refuse to do. They’ll come in for a health check and we’ll just point out, “Ooh, that tooth, you know. If we don’t do anything with it now maybe in six months time it’s going to need to come out.” Maybe we get them in a quick sedation or aesthetic and clean them, then we don’t see them. People just don’t realize what it can lead to.
Dominic: I find dogs have quite high pain tolerance towards a lot of things.
Rachel: They do.
Dominic: They don’t moan as much as we do.
Rachel: That’s it. That’s a survival instinct, isn’t it? If you’re injured then you’d be quiet about it.
Dominic: Yeah, definitely, so it’s up to us to be proactive, isn’t it?
Rachel: Yes it is. Quite often they will slowly deteriorate. It’s not like one day to the next the dog suddenly stops eating. The owner doesn’t tend to see this. Then over maybe two or three months the dog’s gradually slowed down or it’s eating one side. They just don’t notice.
Dominic: It pays to be observant, I guess, as well when your dog’s eating and stuff.
Rachel: Yeah.
Dominic: Talking about going to the vet’s … My first dog, Flo, she was … We’re going back twenty years now. We did a lot of things wrong with her. Socializing, things like that, and she was very afraid of the vet’s, going to the vet’s. How can people get in a situation where that isn’t the case? Where the dog’s happier to go to the vet and it’s not a … Obviously we don’t want to go to the vet’s ever, do we, but we know sometimes we’re going to have to go. How can they make that experience more pleasurable?
Rachel: It is habituation. Socialization, habituation, however you label it, it all means the same thing really, is as soon as you get a puppy is taking it not just for its vaccines, not just for worming, just go in for a social visit. Let the nurses play with the puppy and the vet’s receptionist. It’s frequent visits, it’s not once a month. Even every day, because then they get to know that the vet’s is just another room. It’s just another place that we go. It’s not something that something horrible happens all the time. You’ve also got to rely on the veterinary staff as well. I hear horror stories of how dogs are handled and it’s valid. There is a push now towards what we call kind, positive handling. The problem is that some vets are just on such a time frame appointment wise it’s just, “Get a muzzle, get it in.” Every time that dog experiences that it’s negative association.
Dominic: Definitely. I guess as an owner, if people are watching this and they did have a puppy, one of the first things you could do would be to go at the vet and say, “I want to habituate my dog to get him used to coming here. Is that okay if I come once a week?” If they don’t like that idea then go somewhere else. There’s lots of vets out there, isn’t there? You want someone who’s going to-
Rachel: Encourage that.
Dominic: Care for the dog as much as you do. Yeah, and encourage that kind of thing.
Rachel: There’s nothing worse than an aggressive dog coming in when it’s an adult if it’s a big dog.
Dominic: It’s distressing, isn’t it?
Rachel: It’s not nice for everybody. It’s not nice for the dog.
Dominic: No, especially not, yeah. What about … We talked about puppies. What about if you just got a rescue dog? Say eighteen months old, twenty-four months old. Would you do a similar kind of thing with that?
Rachel: Similar thing, yeah. Nice and slowly. Maybe give the dog some space. I used to encourage a lot of treatments outside in the car park so the dog has got that feeling of escape. Even thought it’s on lead it reduces under threshold for fight or flight. The vets take their coats off and their normal uniform is off and things like that. Just to do things very very quietly.
Dominic: Yeah, good advice. Brilliant advice. I’m sure people are watching. Even if, it doesn’t have to be a rescue dog or a puppy, if it’s just your dog who is enough for you … These are things that you can do now this week to help your dog, because unfortunately you’re probably going to have to go to the vet’s at some time. He’s going to get older and need a little bit more treatment. Yeah, that’s brilliant advice. Thanks for that, Rachel. So Rach, you’ve recently got back from Thailand.
Rachel: Yeah, about a month ago.
Dominic: You weren’t partying, but you were there kind of on a working business holiday, weren’t you? Tell us about what you were doing over there.
Rachel: That was my third visit. My first visit was just short of two years ago. One of my really good friends is a vet nurse, a Hungarian vet nurse I used to work with in Manchester. She left and I was the shelter manager, so that was my contact really. Had been pestering me for a handful of years to go over to her, and eventually I did knowing what would happen. Got to stay away. My role when I was there the first time was to do some staff training. First aid and things like that. A lot of the stuff in Burma is Thai stuff and Burmese, so the language thing was interesting. Showed them some emergency bandaging techniques, so body bandages, foot bandages, ear bandages, and things like that. You can imagine the amount of dogs that do sometimes have fights and things like that, so they’ve got to deal with it very quickly.
The other thing I did was a mobile clinic, which basically we’ll pack the trucks up with loads of aesthetic gear and all the theatre, it’s like a mobile theatre. We go out and neuter street dogs. The dog catchers come bring the dogs in and we neuter between thirty or forty dogs a day and there’ll be forty or fifty cats. It’s three or four vets working back to back, so that’s interesting. My job was really just to keep the tables running and anaesthetics and things like that.
Dominic: What’s the dog situation like over there? What’s the culture like and stuff?
Rachel: The Soi Dog Foundation Shelter is located on Phuket Island, so their main focus is Phuket Island. They’ve actually made Phuket Island now rabies free through vaccinations with mission rabies. The other thing is neutering, so it’s a capture/release. The captured street dogs usually release. The ones that aren’t able to go back in, they keep at the shelter and re-home them across the world. It’s carefully selected who’s going to be their owners. It’s quite a lot of commitment involved. There’s about four hundred dogs there at the moment, all in different runs.
Dominic: Brilliant. What else do you do over there then?
Rachel: My last visit-
Dominic: I saw lots of dogs in the water this time.
Rachel: I’ve just come back. I’ve been back just short of a month now. They’ve just built a brand new hospital and bought a hydrotherapy treadmill. It’s an expensive piece of kit, but it’s very specific as well. Then I got drafted in to teach the staff, so actually I was very kindly given a lot of free tuition by some hydrotherapist friends of mine and Wear Referrals up in Sedgefield is it?
Dominic: Right, yeah.
Rachel: So they very kindly lent me their treadmill to learn. Once you get your head around the concepts it’s actually quite a simple procedure. Especially with the injuries that happen in Thailand. It’s mostly road traffic accidents so the injuries tend to be very samey from a medical point of view. Femoral head excisions, fractured pelvises, broken legs, things like that because they’re all hit by cars unfortunately. The hydro was three weeks just back to back every day swimming dogs, treadmilling dogs. Yeah, not swimming, treadmilling.
Dominic: Yeah, we’ve got a couple of videos of that actually as well. People can see them, what they … What was one of the dogs, she improved really quickly, didn’t she? The white one …
Rachel: Yeah, the creamy white one. Nuran. Yeah, she came in as a puppy paralyzed. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with her. It looks like the Achilles tendon is not growing as her legs are growing, so therefore her legs kind of extend so she bunny hops. Somebody put a video up on her in the puppy room this week and the improvement is just marked.
Dominic: It’s well worth the investment then, isn’t it?
Rachel: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Dominic: Coming back to the UK then. We first met because you came and … You’ve done a few now, hosted some. I hosted you teaching some of the people in the north east at your canine first aid course, which I highly recommend everyone does. We were talking before about trying to make the vet’s a pleasant place to go. Sometime you can avoid going to the vet’s altogether with little things like cut paws. Just putting into practice the lessons that you teach because it’s all practical hands on stuff. Anyway, so if anybody wants a recommendation to go on a canine first aid course, I would highly recommend Rachel’s. She deals with dogs all the time. I know there’s a lot of companies out there that are just kind of human first aid courses, but Rachel’s specifically, obviously you deal with dogs and other animals all the time.
Rachel: That’s right. If I was teaching a subject I’d want the tutor to actually be experienced in that subject. If somebody asks me as a canine CPR tutor, “How many dogs have you attempted resuscitation?” I can confidently say hundreds over twenty years, which a lot of tutors can’t say.
Dominic: No, no, definitely not. No, it’s important.
Rachel: I know what it sounds like. I know what it looks like.
Dominic: Even something as basic as putting a bandage on. There’s a big difference putting a bandage on a dog who has teeth than there is putting it on a human.
Rachel: A stuffed dog as well, which is quite commonly used.
Dominic: Barry’s been a stooge dog along with Wisp and we’ve had a few dogs up there. I’ll put some notes up in the link, Rachel, up into your site. If you can tell us what the site is now if people want to book on a course. I know you travel around the country, don’t you, as well?
Rachel: Yeah, I do.
Dominic: What’s the website?
Rachel: My website is www.rachelbean.co.uk.
Dominic: Brilliant. We’ll put that up and if people are interested in finding out more about what Rachel does, more about the Soi Dog Foundation and more about if you want to book on a canine first aid course as well then you should click on the link below and get yourself booked on. I highly recommend it. It’s really excellent. I’ve done them three, four times, I’m still not bored. I’m still learning every time I go. I’m still getting the answers wrong, so I’ll probably do the next one as well when you come. Thanks for joining me today, Rachel.
Rachel: You’re quite welcome. You’re welcome.
Dominic: I really, really appreciate it and we’ll get you again on the show sometime.
Rachel: Excellent.
Dominic: Thank you very much.
Rachel Bane: Thank you.
Dominic : So how awesome was that?
Alex: That was pretty awesome.
Dominic: She’s a really cool girl, is Rachel. She’s going to come back again and talk to us in the future and she’s also, Alex, she’s going to be giving one of the guest master class lectures inside of my Inner Circle as well.
Alex: Ooh, very exciting.
Dominic: Which leads me quite nicely on to my Inner Circle, which we launched just last week. The Inner Circle is for anybody who has bought my book and enjoyed my book and they want to have more fun with their dog. They want to learn a bit more how they can become their dog’s superhero. In the Inner Circle, it’s kind of a dog training club unlike anything that I’ve ever done before, Alex. Unlike anything I think’s even out there really. It’s a mixture of online and offline learning. If you sign up you get a twelve page newsletter through the door once a month. You get access to a load of dog training videos that I’ve got in the online area.
Alex: Oh, who’s made them?
Dominic: You know who. There’s all kinds of videos in there that’ll help you to connect with your dog, help you to stop your dog pulling on the lead. Show you how to play games with your dog, teach your dog tricks. Everything that I think you need to increase that bond and have a really good connection with your dog so that you can enjoy your walks more with him and just your life in general. We’ve also got a private Facebook group that you get immediate access to, and in there you can ask me any questions. People are always emailing me questions, but now I’m just telling them, “You know you’ve got to join the Inner Circle because these people are paying money to ask me stuff in there.” It’s really nice. It’s got a great vibe. It’s like a little family really.
They also, when you join up, Alex, you get a welcome pack which contains my book and it’s got a DVD mini course in there. How To Be Your Dog’s Superhero, a mini course that we did. It’s got some CD audio training as well. Just generally sort of lots of goodies. The welcome pack alone is worth like fifty quid if you were going to buy them individually.
Alex: Bargain
Dominic: But what I’ve got is, for my podcast peeps, I’ve got a special offer for you until the end of the month, so The Inner Circle costs 39.99 per month for your subscription to get all those wonderful goodies. For this month only until the end of this month, you can join and you can just pay seven pound to join for your first month and then the subscription will go up to 39.99. You can test drive it, you can see what you think, you can see if it’s for you. If you like it, obviously you’ll … I think you’ll like it enough that they’ll be hanging onto their subscription for dear life. That’s a special deal that I’ve got and you can claim that deal if you would like to join by going to www.mydogssuperhero.com/innercircle/offer. That’s just until the end of the month though, so I wanted to tell the peeps that if you want to join, get yourself in there quick. Or if you know somebody who’s having problems with their dog and you think that I can help them, then get them inside the Inner Circle. So that’s that. Also, for this week only, this weekend, we’re doing a special deal on the book on Kindle.
Alex: I can’t keep up.
Dominic: It’s going to be reduced, I know. It’s offer from today. The book, it’s on special offer this weekend over Kindle, so if you’re watching this video in two months time forget it. You have to pay full price, but if you’re watching it this weekend then get yourself on the Kindle or buy it for a friend or whatever. Next week we’re going to be having another interview of an awesome, awesome dog trainer from America.
Alex: Ooh.
Dominic: We’re going to be talking to Meagan Karnes next month. Next week, sorry. Meagan authors the Collared Scholar Blog. She’s a brilliant dog trainer and I think people are going to get a lot of value from that next week. So that’s a wrap from us, Alex.
Alex: It is indeed.
Dominic: Thank you for your time.
Alex: No problem.
Dominic: If we don’t see you through the week, we’ll see you through the window.
