What to listen for: "There’s immediate applicability of what you're learning in a chicken workshop. You might think it’s pretty basic. But it is transformational for your training." Our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, welcome Bob Deeds back to debrief the first-ever chicken workshop hosted at Robin's farm. Bob, drawing on the legacy of Keller and Marian Breland and Bob Bailey, the operant conditioning pioneers behind Animal Behavior Enterprises and the IQ Zoo, explain

What to listen for: "Unless you have a dog who is engaged with you, you can't build that relationship. And you can't get through distractions. It's impossible.” Today, our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, are talking relationships. Specifically, what it actually means to have one with your dog when the pressure is on. They argue that a real relationship isn't Kumbaya, it's the thing that keeps a dog still on a medic's table and calm on a tailgate in Texas! Robin descri

What to listen for: “The first thing that you have to ask is, ‘Why?’ And if you can ask the why… that leads us to a training plan.” Our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, break down why "opting out" has become a buzzword that may obscure more than it reveals. While the term sounds empowering (giving dogs agency and choice), they argue it can become a label that prevents handlers from addressing underlying training gaps. Robin shares the story of 15-year-old Rae, who "opt

What to listen for: “My pet project has always been to take what you guys as professionals see in dogs, and your ability to accurately assess them, and write it down and put it into numbers and words.” Our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, sit down with canine cognition researcher Dr. Jennifer Essler. She unpacks her journey from coding Capuchin monkey videos in a windowless lab to studying fairness in wolves and dogs. Starting with music studies before discovering comp

What to listen for: “If you want to try to get the best performance possible, you've got to consider all of those pieces (drive, motivation, arousal, focus) together.” Our hosts, Robin Greubel and Stacy Barnett, are tackling the interplay between drive, arousal, motivation, and focus! While many trainers treat these as isolated concepts, our hosts argue that harmonious performance requires understanding how all four components work together as an integrated system. Using an e

What to listen for: "Get a dog, take the dog you have, start training, do it yourself. Yes, the client dogs will come, the other pieces...

What to listen for: "When I softened, my training, my dog got stronger. And I think people would say, ‘oh, you know, you're just being...

What to listen for: “Distraction Camp and Intentional Handling and Hide Setting are always one of my small joys on being able to see...

What to listen for: “We’re always inspired by the students and all the hard work that goes on. It blows my mind every single year.”...

What to listen for: “I don’t just pet them, I go, ‘this is why you train the way you train, remember that’” Today, two-thirds of the...

What to listen for: “The dogs are so good at what they do, it’s brain-boggling.” Today, 2/3 of our hosts, Robin Greubel and Crystal Wing,...

What to listen for: Training your dog to adhere to your criteria consistently is not a cut-and-dry process. It’s one of the trickiest...

What to listen for: “Are we setting up hides in a way that our dog is becoming better and we're finding holes, or are we setting up hides...

What to listen for: "If we're a really confusing trainer, then our dogs have to be really damn confident because they’ve got to put up...

What to listen for: “It takes a dutiful trainer to show up and train in those sorts of situations all of the time. For search and rescue,...

What to listen for: “Even if you don't give them a cookie, you don't play, the dog has been reinforced. [It’s] just the way their brain...

What to listen for: “When you're with your dog, you're working with the dog, and when he's resting, he's resting, and don't ask him to...

What to listen for: "You need to give the dog a bit more space, release the pressure, so that then the dog has the option of leaving the...

What to listen for: “My job as a coach is not to identify your destination, but your goal, and to help you identify and remove roadblocks...

What to listen for: “I have a nice-looking lab that wants to come up and be friendly with you and if all of a sudden he sits next to you...