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Speaker Key
SG Susan Garrett
Transcript
00:00:00
Imagine if one of the best dog trainers in the world told you, your dog training could exponentially improve if you just owned this one thing. There's a very good chance if that dog trainer is somebody you believed in, you would run out and get that very one thing, correct?
Like, let's say if that very one thing was like under $50. Like, why not, right? Why not? Yet in Shaped by Dog episode number 133, I shared this one thing that would exponentially improve every single person's dog training. And I've come to find out, not many of you have gone out and got it.
00:00:52
Hi, I'm Susan Garrett. Welcome to Shaped by Dog. In Shaped by Dog episode number 133, I talked about the value of videoing your dog training. My mentor Dr. Bob Bailey said in his lifetime of animal training, which started when he was a child, when I asked him, “What do you believe led to the biggest leap in the science of animal training?”
And he said, “There’s no doubt in my mind it was the advent of video.” That when they first got their first video camera, it was like hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it was a great investment. Today, I'd be willing to bet if you have the ability to listen to this podcast, you have in your pocket something that could create a video for you.
00:01:38
Most smartphones, most phones that people have, have that ability. And if you don't have a smartphone and you're listening to this podcast, maybe in the library, then I bet you could get a GoPro and you could be videoing your training that way.
So, last week I wondered how many people actually video their dog training. So, my team put up a survey on social media asking that question. And the four categories were, “I video my training almost a hundred percent of the time.” And I said not a hundred percent of the time because I didn't want anyone to lie.
00:02:11
But let's just say you make an effort. You make an effort, you see the value, you make an effort. The next category was “greater than 50%.” The next category was “less than 50%.” And the bottom category was, “I just don't, I don't do it.”
And when I thought about this poll, I thought, well, I bet you'll be like 25% or less that would do it a hundred percent of the time. But I'd be willing to guess like 50 to 70% of the people will do it at least 50% of the time.
00:02:40
That was what my hallucination was. Boy was I wrong. Now I'm going to preface this by reminding you that every moment of the day that you are interacting with a dog, other than when that dog is sleeping, you are training the dog. So, it's kind of a bit of a trick question because, you know, unless you have like closed circuit TV on you all the time, then none of us are really videoing our dog training that much.
00:03:03
But I'm talking about formal training. When you set up to, ‘Okay, I've planned my session. I'm going to go train my dog.’ What percentage of that time would you record what you're doing? And here's a shocker. Like I was literally taken aback. 88% that answered this survey said they video their training less than 50% of the time.
That meant, well let's do math, only 12% of you said you video your training greater than 50% of the time. 63% said, ‘I never video my training.’ Kaboom! We have millions and millions of downloads of the Shaped by Dog podcast. Millions of downloads of people who see value in this podcast, see value in learning about how to train your dog, but you're not taking advantage of a simple and really effective training tool.
00:04:01
Like it's inexpensive because you've got it. In Shaped by Dog episode 133, where I share in great detail how to video your training, how to review the results of that, and what to do with the information that you get. It's all in that episode. And I even shared that you know, ideally you have a tripod, but I detailed how to make one out of a toilet paper roll, an empty toilet paper roll.
So, I was absolutely like, I'm glad I didn't bet anyone money on this one because man, I would have lost big time. That 63% of people who listened to this podcast and took the poll do not video any, they have never videoed their dog training.
00:04:45
So, I thought, well, there's got to be some reasons. So, I brainstormed, well, ChatGPT and I, we brainstormed together and grain of salt, never take anything ChatGPT says as gospel, but it's a great way to kind of stimulate your own thought processes.
And of all the suggested reasons ChatGPT had for me why people might not be videoing the training. I categorize them into three groupings, and I think I'm only going to have time to get through two of them on this episode, but I'm coming back around because I want to reverse those statistics. My goal is for it to be 88% of you video your training greater than 50% of the time.
00:05:28
There, I've stated it. My goal for 2025. So, of the three groupings that I mentioned, I think probably the most impactful would be, mindset and awareness. In that, within that category would be value. Like you're not going to do something that you don't see value in doing. Who's going to do that, right? And so, have I explained the value?
Dog training is a mechanical skill, meaning our dog's abilities are 100 percent at the mercies of our abilities. There is no dog that's ever been better than their dog trainer. Now you can say, “Oh, Susan, I've had some great dogs and I'm not a great dog trainer.” I'm not denying there are great dogs.
00:06:14
Actually, I think all dogs are great dogs, but there's no dog that's ever going to be better at a skill than you are at teaching that skill.
And because it's a mechanical skill, the only way you're going to get better is by having somebody watch you and say, “Oh, do you see where you moved your hand before you actually marked the behavior for your dog?” or whatever little nuances that are going to help you be better at dog training.
00:06:42
You don't get better unless you have eyes on you. Now, you might say, “Well, I go to class. Uh, I go to class once a week. That's where my eyes are on.” How many people are training dogs in that class? Let's say it's between six and 20. So, you have maybe if it's a big class you might have a few other people.
Now, how good are those people at picking up the nuances in real time? Because it's very, very different picking up a nuance or a mistake or mechanical error on video that you can scrub at any speed you want versus being in a room with a lot of dogs that you're trying to you know, keep everyone moving and keep everyone learning, but you've got to watch so that there's no, you know, arguments.
00:07:27
You've got to watch that you know, people aren't making these gross mistakes. Are you going to pick up on those nuances? Highly unlikely. Plus, once a week, in a classroom for an hour, how much of that time is spent sitting and listening? Let's say that's a minimum of what, 30 to 50% of that time. So, now we have 30 minutes and that's divided between how many other dogs?
So, let's say you actually get eyes on you for three to five minutes. How much is going to be picked up in that, three to five minutes, versus what if you had somebody watching you every single time you trained your dog. It's a mechanical skill. The reason baseball hitters get better is because they are videoed.
00:08:14
That people are caring. I've talked to my friends; I have a friend who's been a world champion of judo. I have another friend who is an MMA fighter. And I tell them, if you're not videoing your students, you're doing a great disservice to them because you actually have an elevated opinion of how good you are at catching things in real time.
Nothing, but nothing can compare to the ability to scrub through a video and repeat and double check, is that what you're really seeing? I'll give you a perfect example. I've been training a running dog walk with my young dog, Prophet. Occasionally, he splits his back legs and occasionally he puts his back legs together.
00:08:52
When his back legs are together, I notice on video, he doesn't hit in the position that I want to. Then I further investigated and found out when a dog was turning to the left, I want them to be on their left lead. Meaning the left leg is further out in front of the right leg as they're coming down the dog walk.
Well, Prophet, when he was turning to the right, wanted to be on his left lead. And that when he was on the wrong lead, that's when his feet would come together on the back. When he's on his correct lead, his feet would be nicely split. I would have never known any of that had I not been a student of my own dog training.
00:09:30
I constantly am evaluating what I'm seeing. It doesn't take any time at all. But honestly, episode number 133 has got it all in there for you.
So, the value of do you see value in having somebody coach you versus you never have anybody looking at what you're doing?
00:09:49
You could take something that might take you 10 minutes of really good dog training. It might take you 10 minutes spread out over three weeks. It might be 30 seconds a day, three or four times a week. And in 10 minutes, you've got an amazing skill.
That same skill might take you five years if you are doing it incorrectly. And you might believe your dog is stupid. You might believe this training method is stupid. Whatever your teacher is telling you is stupid. Maybe you might believe that you just aren't cut out for dog training because you can't seem to teach this basic skill.
00:10:26
It's a basic skill that if you use video would exponentially change how fast it could be taught. Kim's young puppy Waffles. She said, “I'm struggling getting this puppy to retrieve for me.” I took Waffles into the bathroom, set up a video camera, two sessions later, perfect retrieve. Yes, I have an understanding a little bit higher than Kim does, but Kim's a great dog trainer.
And I would ask her, “Did you video your sessions?” “Well, not all of them.” So, just putting up that camera and looking at what you do— yes, I told stories about Kim today, I apologize for that. But I needed her as an example to a skill that she struggled to get her puppy to learn could be taught in two very brief sessions by me using the tool of video.
00:11:12
And it's not like I trained for 10 minutes and then looked at the video. I would stop after a one minute if I wasn't getting the results I thought I should be getting. And I would look at what I just did. “Oh, okay. I can change these two things.”
And so, I can give you example after example of my own students who, when they came into our Recallers program or our Handing 360 program or our Home School the Dog program, they never videoed in their life.
00:11:38
But when they finally came around and did video, exponential growth. Exponential! Their dog suddenly became far more brilliant. So, first category being mindset and awareness. Are you aware of the value? I hope now I've convinced you that of the great value. It could also be that you know what, ‘I'm just living for the now.’
‘I'm just doing what I can do right now. And that's my dog training. And that's all there is to it.’ It also could be the mindset of your dog training is getting your dog to stop. ‘Don't, no, stop, no, don't, no, stop.’
00:12:11
Well, maybe you don't want to set up a camera for that, but it's highly unlikely if that's the way you train your dog that you are a regular listener here on Shaped by Dog. And so, I'm going to discount that. So, mindset and awareness. It's ‘Do you see the value?’ Can you move beyond just getting immediate results?
But I think also some people think, “Well, I'm not good enough to set up a video. I'm not a professional. I'm just like a pet owner.” And videos are not for pros guys. Videos might be at one time when my mentors Bob and Marian Bailey were training animals, yeah.
00:12:44
Hundreds of thousands of dollars for one camera. That's not the case anymore. You likely have a camera in your phone, and you likely have an empty toilet paper somewhere around your house. You can set up a video for your next training session. Just try, just try one.
Now, if it's not mindset and awareness, maybe it's practicality. There's practicality reasons for you not videoing. And I think the big one that people might throw to me on this one is ‘I just don't have the time.’ “I barely have time to train my dogs. I don't have time to set up a video and then look at the video and then write down what I've learned from that video. I just don't have the time, Susan.”
00:13:25
So, let's just talk about your time because we all do things that is time wasting. Let's just call it time spending because wasting is too negative. So, we do things that spend our time, and then we do things that are an investment in our time.
So, spending time might be like doom scrolling. It might be binge watching something. It might be anything that involves excessive amounts of alcohol. That is just time spending. That is not time investing in any way, shape, or form. So, there's a lot of things that we could be that are just— and you know I don't have to be here telling you, you know the things you do that are time spending versus time investing.
00:14:05
Time investing is anytime you are deepening a relationship with somebody or let's say a dog. So, that's an investment. Anytime you're learning something, you're reading and learning something, you're watching something that is educational, a Shaped by Dog video on YouTube. Those are investments.
So, I want you to be present to how you say, ‘I don't have the time.’ What are the time spending activities in your life that you could curtail to give you a little bit more time investing?
00:14:38
Because I promise you that videoing your dog training session is an investment that pays for itself far more than some of the best investments you've ever made. So, under this practicality heading, I might also put, ‘I'm not great with technology and that's just technology and I'm just, uh, I'm out there.’
So, there might be a learning curve while you're learning the technology. That's an investment of your time to learn technology. There'll be a learning curve. While you learn to set up the camera. You learn, “Well, geez, my butt was in the way the whole time.” So, you need, “Well, I didn't place the camera correctly.”
00:15:11
And so yes there is, at first, a learning curve where you're not going to have like the best payouts of your investment of time of videoing, but I promise you any videoing other than when the big black moon of your butt covers the entire camera for the whole session, okay, that's not going to give you much investment return.
But anytime you document your training with a video, and you look at it and you can see one thing. So, some of you may be able to look at you training anything and be able to pick out five ways you can improve. If you're brand new to dog training, what you might need is a video like one of the four or five hundred that we have on our YouTube channel of somebody like, myself training a skill.
00:15:55
And then you look at your training on your video of what you did and watch to see how I held things, how I tugged with the dog, how long I trained. So, you're comparing those. Those of you who are in our classrooms, we have coaches to help you look at your video and compare it. And then if you're still having questions, post your video for us to help coach you through.
So, the practicality, I get it. You think that ‘I just don't have the time,’ but when you invest in something that's worthwhile, it actually gives you time back. In that the skill that might take you 10 minutes that you've struggled with for five months, could be absolutely turned around by videoing your next session.
00:16:42
Now, in our next Shaped by Dog episode, I'm going to talk about the next category. And I think it's a big reason why people aren't videoing their training. And that has to do with emotional barriers. And maybe it's a bit of a deeper topic we'll get into next time.
But in the meantime, please jump over to our YouTube channel, jump onto this video, and in the comments section, please share with me, are you one of those people who have never videoed your training?
00:17:10
And if not, why do you think that is? I'd love to get that feedback. If you're one of the people who have only occasionally videoed, please let me know if you're willing to step up and help me reach my goal of flipping that statistic on its head so we get 88% of the people videoing their training at least 50% of the time or more. Let me know, I'd love to know. I'll see you next time right here on Shaped by Dog.
