You're now listening to Vices and Vultures, a podcast on cultures. What's going on everybody? This is A2 and on Fridays we'll feature regular guests who will share the cultures that they're passionate about. I'll let our first guest introduce herself and today's episode topic.
Hey everyone, I'm Anna Rose. I'm a certified professional dog trainer and we're about to play back an earlier conversation that gives more information about me, what I do and how I got to this point in my career with dogs. So just give us an overview first of how you got into your love for dogs and just take us to the beginning. Alright, so I mean, I pretty much was born with my love for dogs.
There wasn't really a time where I just remember where I started, it just was. And then I mean, I started, I didn't own, I didn't have my own dog, like family dog until I was 13. So in an attempt to fill that like need for dogs, I started pet sitting and dog walking and all that when I was 12. I was homeschooled so I was able to just kind of like go around my neighborhood and just walk dogs throughout the day.
So that was cool. That's awesome. And yeah, just kind of just kept building from there. Right.
So when did you see it as a career? Because you have it as a career now? Yeah. So that was a little bit more like high school.
I didn't even really realize it was a career option for the longest time. Like I really just thought that being a vet was like option one, only option as far as animal careers go. And then I started, I didn't internship at a vet and I just kind of decided that it wasn't for me. And then went on to look into different careers with animals.
And I just kept getting like, just going back to dog training because it just like kept drawing my attention and how dogs can just help people and how they're really such a part of our lives overall. Right. And they have been such a big part of your life as well. So when you started to see that it was a Bible cover option, what was the next step after that?
The next step after that was finding how I could get like the best education I could. And so I started looking into different schools and I found a couple of online schools and just different options and everything. But I kept like going back to again, the Tom Rose school. And I just then was like, all right, I'm going to go there.
I was determined to go and it's in high-range Missouri. So being from New York, that was a switch up. But I actually worked at Pekko for two and a half years and I was a dog trainer there and a manager and I just saved money to go to Tom Rose school. Awesome.
So how long were you at the Tom Rose school? I, the school program itself, so actually in classes and everything, the professional program was 15 weeks and then the master program was another 10 weeks. And then I wound up working at the school for about six months. So all told all that particular.
I think I wound up being a year I was hanging around that place. But yeah, I mean the professional program and master program, I learned everything from basically being into computational beatings to agility, to protection dogs, search and rescue, tracking, kind of like you name it and we touched on it in some way, shape, or form like any kind of dog training. We were exposed to it and we started to learn something about it. And then when I was working at the school, I was doing some of the business side of stuff too, which I really love business as well.
So that was cool to be kind of more involved in that and then also working with some of the more advanced dogs and kind of both sides of the business because they had the board and train side of the business that was kind of separate from the school. So I worked with the students, but I also worked with the dogs that like from the public for people that people brought in to just be trained in obedience and stuff. Okay, so what would the difference between the advanced dog and less advanced? Well, for that, so for when I was actually in school, we did work with the clients dogs that like that they brought them into the dog house was the name of the train board and train facility.
So the students would work with those dogs, but the some dogs would come in with like aggression issues or just like they're just like tough dogs like a lot of dogs that would meet. Yeah, exactly. So they would need kind of more a more experienced trainer or someone who wanted to do protection work with their dog or they wanted to do competition work with their dog or something like that, then you know how to work with those dogs. So how many years would it take for a dog trainer who was enrolled in the school such as the time of the school to be qualified to take care of these advanced dogs?
It's not even really about an amount of time. It's really about experience like about how many dogs you work with and observe and kind of just the more dogs you work with the more you're going to learn. Like I'm just and it's one of the things I love about dog training is you're going to keep I will continue learning and growing and just like for the rest of my life with training like I there will never be a point in time where I know everything about dogs that there is to know and training. So that's awesome.
So once you finish that time of school and you're working there, what was the experience that you got after that brought you back here to New York? Yeah so so after the school I worked at a board and train facility that did a lot of just boarding for just people pets that just learned on vacation and that kind of stuff and then also did board and train and private lessons, group classes, all that kind of dog training stuff. So I did for this particular facility we took the trainers took the dogs home with them so that we were like 24 seven training with the dogs. It was really awesome.
I think it was a really effective way to train and then we also did like the group classes in at the facility. So I would stand up in front of the whole group and kind of coordinate the group classes and also the private lessons one on one with clients and their dogs and that kind of stuff. So when there's a group session, is the group session with owners and their dogs? Yes.
Okay gotcha. So after I worked at that board and train facility, I went on to work for another board and train facility that was half obedience training and then also half bird dog training. So I really enjoyed that because I got another aspect of training that I hadn't worked in as much. I mean I was the head obedience trainer there so I did primarily most of the obedience but I did the obedience for the hunting dogs as well so it's a little bit more intensive.
I need super solid stake mens and just like different kind of different obedience than just basic pet obedience and then solid retrieve, solid recall, just a lot of that and teaching them to keep a bird in the mouth. It's a whole different whole different whole thing. Oh for a dog. Yeah.
Okay. Duck retrieving, goose retrieving, all that kind of stuff. Working with it. Right we're getting into the dog jargon.
So I'm going to make sure that everybody's listening. They just, you know, we have it for the every man and every woman. So that's awesome. Is there any other experience that you had prior to coming back to New York?
And this was all in the Midwest, correct? Yes. It was a little bit of bouncing back between Missouri and Illinois. But yeah, that was pretty much it after the bird dog trainer I came back to New York and came back to Long Island and just started kind of building up on my own business here just so far, basic obedience and private lessons but big plans for a lot.
What brought you back beside just, you know, obviously New York is where you're from, the family and things like that but what brought you back as far as like, I want to start training career here because you had been established at that point in the Midwest for quite some time. So what brought you back? It was kind of a combination of things. I mean, overall, I kind of just have always been an entrepreneur and I knew that I was like meant to start my own business and it kind of just made sense to come home to do that.
You just felt like the safe is doing that, like where your roots were? Yeah. And my parents had their own business for 20 years, me growing up and they really like wanted to want to be involved in it as well. So starting kind of with them.
Okay. So when you came back here, it was just like from the jump like starting with mom and dad. Yeah. And are they still involved?
Yeah, definitely. But eventually, yeah, it would be ideal if it's a family business. Awesome. So jumping into are there any rules that you establish as far as sitting clients down and saying these are some of the main things that we're going to go over between client and dog and dog?
Yeah, absolutely. Quite a few, honestly. I really like, feel like dogs are kind of misunderstood. There's this, we're starting to treat them more like people than like dogs.
So I do a lot of educating people and then training dogs and then just building a relationship in the bond and everything. Things are, with dogs are not even necessarily behavioral and they're more so relational. So we need to like just, everything's case by case. So I go in and I just kind of evaluate and just take everything, take everything in and then say, okay, here's where we're going to begin.
And there are like main principles that I work with that are I learned from school. And those are timing, motivation and consistency. And with timing, we actually have 1.3 seconds to correct a dog after they act out behavior. Really just catching the act of what they're doing.
Like there's no after the fact punishment that they're not going to understand that they're not going to understand like time out for something. We can't sit them down and explain like, hey, this is what you did wrong. Do you understand the consequence? They don't begin.
Right. Exactly. So they need to be caught in the act of what they're doing. That goes for positive and negative motivation.
So like if they're getting into the trash, then catching the act of it or if they're doing the right thing, then reward them in the moment as well. Right. So 1.3 seconds. Yeah.
1.2. Exactly. It's a bit scientific fact. Wow.
So I'm going to take their motivation and utilize that to teach them the behaviors that I'm looking for. And then once they understand what I've taught them, then when they choose to not comply, that's when I'm going to bring in negative motivation to reinforce the behaviors that they've learned. So then consistency being, last but not least at all, dogs need their rules to be always or never. Again, because they don't speak English, so we can't say like, hey, don't get on the couch when you're muddy, but you can get on the couch when you're clean and just have that.
That's fine. It's, you know, you're allowed on the couch and you're not. And that goes for everything. So they need that kind of clear communication from us.
Right. And something that you said at the beginning of explaining timing, motivation, consistency is along the lines of dogs are not people or how is it that you said it again? We have a tendency to humanize or anthropomorphize dogs. Right.
Yeah. So along those lines, I thought that was very interesting because, and it goes into what we've been talking about since then with regards to dogs that speak and dogs don't understand English and making sure we bridge the gap of understanding and like eliminating and misunderstanding with that. And you talk a little bit more about why you're, you of course are very passionate about it, but for those listening, they'll see dog and they'll listen to it, which is great, but it's deeper than that. And I feel like this is a great time to educate.
So can you go with a little bit more in depth on just the humanization aspect of like why you believe we should believe. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of it affects dogs in a lot of ways. When, when dogs don't have, you know, they're always looking for hierarchy.
They're always looking for pack structure, their pack animals. So they need to know where they fall in the hierarchy of light of their lives. Right. So they're always looking for that balance, that structure.
And if they don't have it, they become anxious and stressed. And they're looking to somebody to tell them what to do. Where's my place? What do I do now?
What should I do with this? What should I do here? And if they don't have a solid pack leader, then they might try to be the pack leader, but they can't be a human pack leader. So then that's stressful as well for them because they can't tell us what to do.
They can't get us to follow them. Okay. So where do I fall? What do I do?
So they really thrive off with structure and discipline and just having like solid, a solid idea of where they stand and what's expected of them. I mean, I always say that the dogs deserve training because they really do. They really just thrive when we give them what they need, what they're created instinctually to understand. Right.
Right. I think that's very powerful. And so much of the relationship between not only like dogs themselves, but dogs and humans is, you know, very prevalent in Western culture, America here where we are right now. And so in some other places as well, going a little bit more in depth with the relationship between dogs and humans.
Is there anything that you have found to like really speak to you in your personal experience and your professional experience with dogs? Definitely. However, that I work with dogs, the more that I see what the relationship with them can teach us about a relationship with God. The relationship we can have with dogs is so unique.
You know, there's not really anything quite like it. So I think that they're just like a really cool gift that we can learn from in so many ways and a good kind of example, just one example that I've thought of is my dog, Inara. She's a little more fearful, a little more timid and unsure of new scenarios. And you know, when she's, I mean, I've had her for almost three years now, but when I got her, she was about 13 weeks old and she would have just lived like in a backyard.
So she just hadn't been socialized. She just hadn't experienced a lot of things. So she, anything new, she was afraid of. And that's very typical of dogs.
It's like that I haven't seen before. So it's my instinct to just run away from it because maybe it'll hurt me. So it's very irrational. It's like, okay, that's just a fire hydrant.
Or like, that's just like a garbage can lid. Like, that's just the wind. There's just, you know, random things that she might be afraid of. But it's my job to be like, hey, Inara, this is how you respond.
I'm here and I've got you. Just be calm. It's not going to hurt you. And to just guide her through that and be her kind of constant in that scenario through her fear.
And I mean, that's just a, I think a beautiful illustration of what God asks of us. To just rely on him and not to feed into our fears, but to sit with him and allow him to just steal our anxieties. Thank you for tuning into this episode. My goal is to simply educate.
And this is the first of many feature Fridays that will allow me to share what I've learned and what I am learning about dogs. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of Vices and Vultures and considering being a supporter of this project. Even leaving a review on your preferred podcast platform goes a long way for us. There's more information about this episode as well as who we are in the show notes.
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