Lianne Shinton (00:02)

All right, hi everybody so i'm lian shinton from automation dogs, we are a software CRM for dog trainers and i'm so excited because Chelsea Welsh Chelsea Welsh welcome Chelsea let me start again I sound stupid.

Chelsea Walsh (00:14)

you

No problem. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (00:20)

Okay,

starting. Has it happened to me lately every time? Okay. All right, three, two, one. Hi everybody and welcome. I'm Leanne Shinton from Automation Dogs. Welcome to my podcast, the Automation Dogs podcast, and I also run a software CRM for dog trainers. And today I'm gonna be speaking with Chelsea Walsh from Rocket and Rover. Welcome, Chelsea. Hello. And this podcast is going to be

Chelsea Walsh (00:43)

Hello.

Lianne Shinton (00:49)

for dog trainers because I'm so wowed by how you speak and explain things. So let's maybe dig into a little bit about your background so folks understand kind of where, you know, this way that you coach your dog training clients, way you speak and explain things, where that came from. So maybe share a little bit about you and your background.

Chelsea Walsh (00:58)

Thank you.

Sure, yeah. So my educational background took a lot of twists and turns and ⁓ I think that in a lot of ways, unexpected ways, that's really helped me be a better dog trainer. I originally, I went to undergrad and I wanted to be a veterinarian and part way through I decided I could just have pets. I don't need to be a veterinarian. I can just have pets at my house and get all the animal time I want. ⁓

without all that college debt. And so I went that route and made a few different ⁓ changes of mind in my degree and eventually I landed on biology. All of them were always science options. Science is my favorite subject. And then eventually I ended up deciding I wanted to be a teacher because I was asked to be a TA for chemistry when I was an undergrad and I just loved.

explaining things to people and seeing sort of that moment when people are like, I get it, you know? ⁓ And so then I found that like when you're teacher, you get paid more if you have a master's degree, but a master's degree costs a lot of money unless I ended up doing a master's degree in both plant science and soil science where I was a research assistant and a teaching assistant.

So I did research and I also taught at the college level, undergraduate level. So I got more teaching experience there. And then eventually I ended up being a middle school science teacher. Yeah, so I went through a lot of different iterations. I've got two master's degrees and things totally unrelated to both what I taught and what I'm doing now. ⁓ But having that hands-on science

Lianne Shinton (02:53)

Wow.

Chelsea Walsh (03:12)

experience made me understand the process of science better. And that's helped me in everything I've done since because it's really helpful to solidly understand what science is when you're trying to teach 12 year olds what science is. And in the same way, really understanding the scientific process has made it so much easier for me to look at research into dog training and things like that and really understand

Lianne Shinton (03:21)

Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (03:39)

and be able to interpret for myself what's going on. So even though it feels sort of like a bit of a left turn, it actually ended up being helpful. And I taught at middle school science for seven years, I think. And then when my kids are getting to be teenagers, I decided to take some time off from teaching so I could focus on my own kids a little bit more. And along that...

process, we got a dog, we got a new dog. And he is wonderful, but he is not easy. And so we got him as a puppy, and he ended up having some resource guarding issues. And then he also has a lot of big feelings about bodily autonomy and veterinary procedures. And so to help him integrate into our house and like

navigate the human world, he needed a lot of training. Training to help counteract that resource guarding so I didn't have to worry about like him stealing someone's stuff and then like scaring them when they tried to take it back, you know? And then also having him be able to have even like simple veterinary procedures done without hurting himself or veterinary care people. So...

Lianne Shinton (05:06)

Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (05:07)

In the process of learning to work with him, I realized it's amazing doing dog training. You know, you've got the science, you've got the behavioral science, which is fascinating. And then you have the animals. And then ⁓ if you do it professionally, you get the teaching, you get the explaining side of things that I love so much. so dog training has really been just like the best possible career choice for me. Cause I get to have all the things I like, know, animals.

Lianne Shinton (05:36)

Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (05:37)

behavioral science, teaching, all of that stuff. ⁓ And also being able to help people and seeing how helping people communicate better with their dog makes just everyone's life better. So it's been really rewarding, ⁓ sort of circuitous, but really rewarding career path for me to end up here.

Lianne Shinton (06:00)

Yeah, it's like almost full circle because you're initially like thinking I'm going to be in veterinary, want to work with animals and then all of that journey to end up working with animals. But in a kind of much more fun for you profession where you're dealing with like the psychology, the science, and also I love the way you speak and explain. Like when you said the words, he has big feelings. That is just great.

Chelsea Walsh (06:04)

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (06:29)

and it makes people smile

and it's a nice way to say like, know, it's a fun and it's a nice way to say something that could be said in a very sciencey or, you know, technical way.

Chelsea Walsh (06:45)

Yeah,

you know, because there's lots of ways I could say he has big feelings. could say he attacks people when they try and take stuff away from him. I could say, you all these different ways, you know, but I part of teaching science was learning to explain things and put them in a way that ⁓ was approachable for kids and fun for kids, but didn't lose any accuracy, right? Because it's so easy when we're simplifying things to also make them

Lianne Shinton (06:53)

Hehehehe

Chelsea Walsh (07:15)

little bit wrong. And so as a middle school teacher I got a lot of practice figuring out how to simplify things, make them approachable, but... ⁓

Lianne Shinton (07:26)

He's having some big feelings right now.

Okay, go ahead. Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (07:48)

There we go, it was important work out there. Yeah, my house is not very big, so it's a short walk anywhere. Yeah, so what was I talking about? Oh.

Lianne Shinton (07:50)

That was fast. Okay.

We were talking

about big feelings and kind of making something sound cute, memorable. At least that's my kind of take on it, but also not changing what you're trying to really say too and going down the

Chelsea Walsh (08:16)

Right, right, yeah. So ⁓ teaching middle school, I learned to frame things in a way like that that's approachable, that's fun, but still accurate. ⁓ Something I see a lot is in kids' of science is that things have been simplified, but also to the point where they're really not quite right anymore. And most people would never know it, but it bugs me. So I got a lot of practice.

doing that and I like to make things fun and approachable too just because I think that the way we explain things and the way we frame them can affect people's mindset as they approach it, right? If you say your dog has big feelings, it puts you in a position to empathize with your dog and see that this behavior that's maybe very stressful and scary for me is also stressful and scary for him, you know, and that's why

these behaviors are happening. It's not something he's doing to me, right? It's something that's happening to him and we have to work through together. so, And so,

I already fed you.

Lianne Shinton (09:35)

That's why I fed mine before we started so that they weren't like circling. Okay. Okay. He forgot that he ate.

Chelsea Walsh (09:38)

Okay, I'm gonna put his bowl away then he knows he doesn't eat food.

Yeah, did you forget about the eating?

And of course I just taught them that if he barks at me, I'll go give him more food. that's good. ⁓ Always learning. Always learning. We'll see if that satisfies them. What do you think, handsome?

Lianne Shinton (10:13)

Yeah

Chelsea Walsh (10:24)

he's considering it. ⁓ So what was I saying again?

Lianne Shinton (10:26)

Okay, good, good.

So I think it was very powerful where you were going and talking about big feelings, but it also gives people perspective that the dog's just not mad at me being angry at me, but he's got some emotions going on. And we need to consider that and learn why. And that's

Chelsea Walsh (10:37)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. So I like to find ways to explain dog behavior to people in a way that helps sort of promote the mindset of looking at it from the dog's point of view also. ⁓ Because a few reasons, one, it's kinder to the dog when people are approaching it that way, but also it's kinder to the human because if I...

approach this from this is something my dog's having trouble with, I'm not as upset as if I'm like, why is my dog behaving like this way? This is really stressful and scary for me. I just want them to stop. You know, if I have this understanding and this empathy with my dog, it's still stressful, but it's no longer something where me and my dog are in an adversarial relationship. ⁓ And so putting it so that

Lianne Shinton (11:46)

Hmm.

Chelsea Walsh (11:50)

you know, people are on the same team as their dog, I think is really helpful for moving that forward. ⁓ So yeah, so that's why I use things like, you know, your dog has big feelings when this happens or, you know, they have bodily autonomy, right? Or they, you know, with resource guarding, they, you know, it's a very natural behavior where a dog wants to protect what it has, you know, there's,

Lianne Shinton (12:16)

Yes.

Chelsea Walsh (12:20)

We could do the same thing. If someone came up to you and kept stealing your stuff, pretty soon you'd get grumpy. You know, it's definitely happened for me with like my kids, you know. I've got some sort of snack I'm eating right and they just come and keep eating out of my bowl and after a while I'm starting to snap at them when they come to take, you know, more tortilla chips out of my bowl because, you know, that's my resource and I went and put it in the bowl. They can get their own crackers, you know, so.

Lianne Shinton (12:24)

I don't like it.

That's a great example though, because I'm not a sharer and yeah, like no, don't touch my food. So I think that that is something you, know, a conversation to have with a client with resource gardening. So they can put it in a bit of perspective to have a bit of respect for it. My dog's not completely broken. We just need to have some good understanding and you know, and also respect for what's happening too.

Chelsea Walsh (13:15)

Yeah,

absolutely, perfectly normal behavior. So then it's not a, how do I make my dog stop this? How do I make them learn to put up with it when I take stuff away from them? Instead, it's teaching them that it's only good when I walk towards them when they have the resource.

you know, have that positive association. when they have their resource, I'm not coming to take it, I'm coming to add something good or I'm coming to rate them. And I think it just also sort of understanding that sort of background level thing allows people in the moment when things don't follow the script to improvise because they understand the nuts and bolts of it more. At least that's how I work.

Lianne Shinton (13:47)

Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (14:07)

I struggle so much to follow a list of steps if I don't understand why those steps are there. Once I understand why the steps are there, then when inevitably my dog does something different that's not on the steps, it's so much easier for me to improvise and work with that because I know kind of what's going on, if that makes sense.

Lianne Shinton (14:34)

Absolutely, yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (14:36)

The I always try to give my clients is not just like, here's how you teach a dog to hand target. But here's why we're doing these steps so that when maybe your dog refuses to touch your hand with their nose, you kind of know what are the things you can try next to troubleshoot that without getting stuck.

Lianne Shinton (15:00)

Makes sense. Now, one thing I wanted to share is my mom, she's a teacher, she's retired teacher now, but that is one hard job. So more power to you. She ⁓ came home crying many times. It is a very hard job.

Chelsea Walsh (15:20)

Me too.

Yes.

Lianne Shinton (15:24)

And I hear this from dog trainers quite often. They say things like, I'll ask them, well, who is your ideal client? And they'll say, my ideal client is someone who is motivated and wants to put in the work with their dog. And I'm like, okay, but it's your job as their coach, as their trainer to help them get there. It's just like me going to the gym by myself versus me going to the gym with a...

Chelsea Walsh (15:46)

Hmm.

Lianne Shinton (15:52)

okay motivating coach versus someone who's really going to train me and motivate me and tell me what to eat and all of that stuff. that's something that it is our job to coach the people. And a lot of dog trainers get into this because we love dogs and we only love dogs, but there's a huge part of training people. Now, if I had to do it all over again, I've, you know, 17 year old dog trainer going out there, I was like, dogs, dogs, dogs. I want to learn all about dogs and behavior, but I really wish that I

in more effort to learn how to coach people. That came over time, but I'm no Chelsea, so that's why we have you here today. So I'd just love to get your thoughts on that about that it is our job to coach the people and they shouldn't really come to us ready to be coached. We have to help them along.

Chelsea Walsh (16:30)

Ha

Yeah, absolutely. And ⁓ that's one thing I've loved about becoming a dog trainer. And I did my certification through the Karen Pryor Academy. ⁓ doing that, I learned so much about behavioral science and ⁓ positive reinforcement training. And what I loved about it was learning that made me better understand

why some things work in teaching and others don't. And it really helped me see these connections between teaching humans and teaching dogs, in that anytime I think that you add another species to your repertoire that you're teaching, you become a better teacher. Because I think for me it's incredibly valuable when I'm thinking about motivating my human learners. And I think one, helps to think of them, have my dog learners, my canine learners, and I have my human learners.

I don't have dogs I'm training and humans who are paying me. I have dogs I'm training and humans I'm training. ⁓ And it's to remember that say I have a dog who's just not getting it. I'm not going to say, why isn't this dog working harder? Why don't they just do what I say? What is this dog doing wrong? Because you can think that, but it's not very productive when you're training a dog.

And if you think instead, know, ⁓ maybe what's the dog not understanding? What about this is too hard for the dog? What maybe skills are they missing that they need before they can move on to this one? If I think about all of those things, ⁓ which you, think most dog trainers are regularly thinking about, right? If you apply those to your home and students, hi sir.

If you apply those things to your human students also, then you can think, okay, what maybe are they not understanding? What skills maybe do they need? You know, maybe their timing isn't there yet and I need to go back and they need to practice their timing and that's why they're not progressing with this dog training. Or what are they not understanding? You've got to be kidding me. ⁓ Why you make this so hard?

I don't even know what happens at this point. ⁓ he's going outside. We might have a reprieve. Yep, there he goes.

Lianne Shinton (19:15)

That's very powerful though because you just made an amazing analogy and helped me see it with a different perspective to look at the human like we would look at the dog. We wouldn't just be like, why are they doing it? This is so frustrating. We would try to help the dog to learn and we would try different things. Wow, is look at the

Chelsea Walsh (19:34)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (19:44)

you're coaching the person, it's the same thing. Great analogy.

Chelsea Walsh (19:48)

Yeah, learners are learners. mean, we are mammals, they're mammals. Obviously, there's plenty of differences and humans should be much easier because we have a shared language. We have more developed brains. We have a hopefully more active frontal cortex, right? We have all these things going for us that dogs don't. But we can negate some of those things when we act like they should just know how

do it, right? So, you know, making sure that our human learners are getting the same level of support. ⁓ So, and some of that comes in with like being a teacher is I don't just go and talk to clients and be like, okay, I'll see you next week. You know, I'm leaving them. You've got to be kidding me. I'm leaving. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (20:40)

I don't think he's kidding. Nope.

⁓

Chelsea Walsh (20:57)

Let's see if that works, probably not. So I'm leaving them with like a handout because I'm not expecting them to have remembered everything I've said. And I'm maybe leaving them with a checklist and I'm maybe checking in on them because I maybe have worked with them before and I know that people get stuck on this a lot. And so I'm going to check in and see this or, you know, like I'm thinking how can I support my human learner?

Like if I'm showing up and it seems like they haven't made any progress, I'm thinking, what's the problem? Is it they don't have time? How can I make them find time? You know, I tell every client, you know, and don't worry, this isn't gonna take 30, 40 minutes, an hour a day. The most effective training is just for short bursts now and then, you know?

and I'm helping them learn how to make those trainings a habit, right? So, hey, when you feed your dog, take out some of that food and use it for a quick training session because now you're pairing a habit they already have with a new habit you want to build. so, you know, finding those ways to help people build in training and integrate it into their lives ⁓ rather than just being like, well, I told them to work on this.

Why didn't they do it?

Lianne Shinton (22:21)

Right.

No, you mentioned a couple of things that I think would be very actionable for people that they could do right now. And that's sending a checklist and giving them homework, it sounds like. Also, I think checking in with them, like back to like the gym and, you know, I've had fitness trainers that I'm working with and, you know, they'll text me midweek, how's it going? And I, that,

Chelsea Walsh (22:38)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (22:50)

How's it going? Means, what are you eating right now? So it's motivating, it reminds me to motivate me to stay with the plan. So I think that would be something actionable that trainers could be doing right now, especially after the first lesson, when they're not really got their rhythm. And just like with dogs, we have to get repetitions in. Like this is their first week, it's been a few days, they don't have enough repetitions.

Chelsea Walsh (22:54)

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (23:17)

to really have the muscle memory and whatnot down. So just sending a quick text after a boarding train, first go home lesson, send a quick text the next day, check in, few days later, check in. Could you share a little bit about maybe an easy way that trainers could possibly implement like a quick homework they could shoot over to the client or a handout they could have ready?

Chelsea Walsh (23:21)

Hmm.

Yeah. So the way I do it is I have made up handouts for all those things that like I use over and over, right? and the first time I go to visit someone, I have four of them. So the ones that for me feel like the best for to start a person who's totally new to dog training with. So I give them a hand target. I give them the name game for building value in the dog's name.

⁓ I give them ⁓ nose work 101 ⁓ and then I give them treat magnet for those ones who are working on those loose leash walking skills, right? And so I give them and almost everyone's working on loose leash walking. I have those four printed out and ready to go to give them on my first visit unless coming in I know it's something different. ⁓

And so I have those ready to go and those have, you know, the basic steps. They have sort of the tips and tricks, know, the common pitfalls ⁓ on there already. And so I give those to people. So now I have those ready to go and, ⁓ you know, and I say, just, you know, work on at least one of these every day for five minutes, right? And, you know, you're not sure what to do. Just grab one of the sheets of paper randomly and work on it.

And so I have those and way more sort of basic behaviors as handouts ready to go that I can just print off or I can email to people. So if I'm talking to them and I mentioned something else and I say, you know, it really helped this particular thing would help with your dog. I'll email you a handout so you don't have to remember all the stuff I just explained to you. And I'll email that to them. And so that's one way I automate it.

You can also automate it by having a template that you use for the homework so that all you're doing is plugging in. And you can even have it as a printout where you do it there. You write their name, you write the list, the skills they need to work on and, you know, have just a template and then you're not spending any time on it really more than, you know, five minutes because you've got the handouts and explanations already to ready to go and you've got a template so you're not typing up a whole thing.

and then you can just either email it to them or have it on paper and do it while you're there, ⁓ whatever your workflow is like. So that's kind of how one way I take some of the time away from supporting people with information.

Lianne Shinton (26:21)

That's fantastic.

Chelsea Walsh (26:23)

I also have, made a whole packet that explains the basics of how I train. So it's sort of like, you you take a dog training book and you give them the Cliff's Notes version. And then they also have that for reference that has just a lot of the reminders, you know, it has a little section on enrichment and how to provide some enrichment for your dog. It's got ⁓ one on, you know, making sure your dog has enough sleep.

and they're getting enough exercise but not too much exercise and all of these things that need to come so that the dog's ready to learn. And so I provide them with all of that the first time too. that it's there as a reference for them. I'll talk about it too and I will not say, I gave you that packet, why don't you know this? Instead I'll say, ⁓ I don't know if we've talked about it but.

Lianne Shinton (26:59)

Mm-hmm.

smart.

Chelsea Walsh (27:22)

you know, in that packet I gave you, there's a page about it and here's why it connects to what we're doing right now. And so it's never about like, I gave it to you. It's not like a gotcha. It's not like I sent you this homework. So now I expect you to have done it. Instead, it's more of I'm sending you this homework because I want to increase the chances that you do it. I'm setting up that antecedent for the behavior. so, and then the nice thing is that when they make

Lianne Shinton (27:44)

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Walsh (27:50)

progress with dog training, that's reinforcing, right? I don't need to reinforce them. Making progress with your dog is so reinforcing in and of itself that as long as you set it up,

Lianne Shinton (28:01)

Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (28:05)

the behaviors, their behavior is going to be reinforced and be more likely in the future. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (28:10)

Yeah, I think with my homework that I provide, it's just very mechanical. And it's like, okay, well, this is what place means, and this is why we use it. But when I think about all the conversations that I've had about why I feed a certain type of food to my dog, and I swear I talk about that same story with every client, maybe that would be something I could put down as a handout.

because I obviously feel it's impactful because I talk about it a lot. And it might be about calming techniques. might be about, you you'd mentioned something about like, don't play with your dog too much to where you're creating a dog that's in a hyperactive state of mind all the time. So having a handout on that about like, for me, you know, if clients are like, don't want them to be so crazy, parkouring all over around the house, stop playing tug of war and ball with them in the house.

Chelsea Walsh (28:57)

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (29:10)

keep that for the backyard and maybe having a handout on those types of things that I'm like, maybe it doesn't apply to everybody because maybe their dog's just a lump, but maybe if their dog is really wound up in the house, I could have a handout on that, speak on it as well, but also have the handout there to help reinforce that. So I like that.

Chelsea Walsh (29:16)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, because we're throwing a lot at them. Especially my first time I'm there, I'm throwing a lot at them. ⁓ Because I personally feel there's so much that it's helpful to at least have heard before you get started. ⁓ Sometimes maybe I overwhelm people too much. don't know. Still working to find the right balance on that. But generally speaking,

Lianne Shinton (29:34)

Yes.

Chelsea Walsh (29:59)

Most of my clients are happy to have gotten all this background knowledge because it puts it all in perspective. ⁓ And so yeah, let's see, I include ⁓ sort of an introduction and what to do, some resources for like, you know, like, hey, if you're reading this and you're stuck, call it, call a dog trainer. Like that's a great way to like get past a stuck point. ⁓ Meeting your dog's needs, enrichment, management, you know.

I had one client who was really tough because when he would take his dog outside when his wife wasn't home, the dog was much more attached to his wife, the dog wouldn't come back inside until his wife came home. He would sometimes have to call his wife home from work to get the dog back in the house. I was like, what if you fence in part of your backyard so that

You can let the dog out to use the bathroom, but they don't have, cause he had a very large property, right? That the dog was free roaming on. So the dog would go off in the woods and would not come back. And you know, teaching that recall isn't like an instant process. And so I said, what if you, know, fence in a small area and then you can, you know, ⁓ get your dog back without your wife having to come home from work. And he's like, I hadn't even thought of that as an option. And so sometimes

Lianne Shinton (31:05)

Mm.

You

Chelsea Walsh (31:27)

that management doesn't even occur to people. And so I throw that in there because so many things can be, you can get sort of like some instant relief with a little bit of management, a little prevention goes a long way. So I throw that in there. And also, you know, I'm positive reinforcement trainer, so treats play a pretty big role in training. And so I also give people tips for like, what kind of treats, how do you stop dog from getting fat, you know?

Lianne Shinton (31:54)

Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (31:57)

and also that reassurance that just because you're training with treats now doesn't mean you'll have to be a treat dispenser for the rest of your dog's life.

Lianne Shinton (32:05)

Yeah, that's a good handout because yeah, I use treats as well and they'll, you know, commonly ask, well, I'm going to have to use the treats or tools too. Am going have to use tools for us? Maybe having a handout explaining, you know, that. yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (32:20)

Yeah,

so I include some of those things, those common things that sometimes people even don't think to ask. And so I might not talk with them about that first day. And so I throw all of that in there. I throw all of that at them and then I know that they have all this and I can refer to it. I find that it really,

helps people put things in perspective. And I get lot of frustration.

Lianne Shinton (32:53)

I think what is really cool too is like we can always as doc trainers enhance our packages by adding homework and say, okay, great. Now I can charge an extra $200 for this package because it includes written and video homework. But with the way you're describing it, it's customized homework specific to their docs. You're not just sending off one generic.

email that is just everybody's homework, you're going to be giving them handouts specific to their situation. So I think that has a lot of impact for a dog trainer to be able to say like that, hey, my programs include custom homework that's specific to your situation, what's going on now.

Chelsea Walsh (33:22)

No.

Right.

Yeah, it's and yeah, so I think that that I know would be frustrating for me if I ask you to come because really I'm worried about my dog not being able to have veterinary procedures done. And then you give me a handout. My homework is loose leash walking. That's not going to leave me feeling like you really hurt me and my needs. So, and it allows me to provide that customization that

Lianne Shinton (34:00)

Hmm.

Chelsea Walsh (34:11)

⁓ other word that means it's specific for the person and without tons of extra work for me either because I have those handouts already done I may give them like right on there or provide like a little like okay and in your situation we're going to tweak it a little because of a specific thing with your dog right but ⁓ it's really once you get them made it's not a lot

Lianne Shinton (34:38)

And ChatGPT can help create them. probably knocked those out in one night. ⁓ Just maybe I would suggest if someone is taking this advice that we're kind of coming up with here is prompt ChatGPT say, ⁓ you are a persuasive writer, copywriter, and you specifically write copy for dog owners that are learning from a dog trainer. Like prompt it so it puts on that cap and it's

it's writing in that way. Just like you could tell Chachipati, hey, I want to write a motivating handout for my client. I want you to sound like Tony Robbins. Hopefully everybody knows who Tony Robbins is. Because sometimes I ask and they're like, who's Tony Robbins?

Chelsea Walsh (35:17)

Hahaha

Yeah, I have an idea of who he is. Yeah. So, I mean, didn't use GPT for mine, but I have used it for some things. try to avoid it mostly because ⁓ sometimes I don't then check it to make sure it makes sense. And a lot of times it throws in some things that do not apply to me, right? ⁓ It makes things plural a lot, you know, but it's just me. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (35:25)

Hahaha!

Yeah, you gotta check it.

think it's because

maybe you're a teacher.

Chelsea Walsh (35:54)

Yeah, yeah,

it's and I and I love making these sorts of things too. So for me, you're just taking the fun part away, you know, so ⁓ but I can understand that like for especially if you have a lot of things you want to be able to hand out, absolutely finding a way to sort of make it a yeah, I thought you know, you want to remove barriers and you want to like

Lianne Shinton (36:01)

Yeah.

If you're not a writer, yeah, like me, I get writer's block.

Chelsea Walsh (36:24)

meet them where they're at, right? So, ⁓ absolutely. Yeah, so the handouts go over well. ⁓ And then in terms of following up, for me, what I usually do is ⁓ I sort of have a sort of list of reminders of like to text these people in these days and I can copy and paste the text depending on what it is. ⁓ And I use that or for some people an email is better. It really depends on the...

Some of my clients are older and not super into the texting. So I use emails.

Lianne Shinton (37:04)

Yeah, I think maybe adding it to the calendar, saying, all right, Wednesday, check in about this. So, because it's hard to remember everything and that way you're like, oh yeah. And then the client's like, oh wow, they really are paying attention to me and what's going on with me. This is so great and specific, they really care. So maybe just add it to like the top of your calendar where it won't.

Chelsea Walsh (37:07)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (37:32)

bog down your calendar as an appointment and it's going to get in the way and show conflict where you could be booking appointments. But just like at the top or something at 3 a.m. throw it on there so you remember that that day you have to check in with the client.

Chelsea Walsh (37:45)

Yeah, and usually I send out a quick email that sort of summarizes the training session where I say, we talked about these things, you have handouts for them. And then the nice thing is if you're doing it via email, you can snooze the email, right? And then the email pops back up in your inbox, you know, again. And then you're like, that's right. I snoozed it because I want to follow up. So it's another I use to do it. ⁓ So yeah, that's

Lianne Shinton (38:08)

Yes.

Chelsea Walsh (38:16)

think that's how I use handouts to support people in their dog training. And I try and keep them pretty short. They're not supposed to stand alone. It's not, I think I, at first I had these really extensive handouts that were like, I could give someone who I'd never talked to before and they might be able to teach their dog this. But I realized that that's not how I'm using them. I'm giving to people who I already talked to. I already showed them. I've worked with them. They just need these reminders.

for later on. And it makes much more visible. If you read text, I'm maybe not going to read it.

Lianne Shinton (38:47)

like bite-sized pieces. more Yeah. Skimmable, yeah.

Yeah, like,

and you want with text, you want to keep it to like under 160 characters, something like that. But yeah, email to maybe bite sized pieces. With me, obviously we use the CRM. So we have tasks. So it'll pop up and say, okay, it's Wednesday, you have to do this. It'll click right through to the client and you can just send the snippet or the template that's already prewritten. But we're just, it's good. We're just talking through. If you don't have a CRM, there's still ways to figure this out. And

Chelsea Walsh (39:19)

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (39:27)

Provide amazing customer service for your clients.

Chelsea Walsh (39:30)

Yeah, yeah. It was the same thing for my middle school students, so.

Lianne Shinton (39:32)

No, I wanted to-

Yeah,

and that's why we're talking because yeah, it's training our clients. I wanted to pick your brain on, let's say someone comes in for their lesson, you go to the house for the lesson. you say the usual, how did the week go? Tell me something good. How's it going? And they say, like all the time, I didn't have any time to practice.

Chelsea Walsh (39:39)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (40:04)

You'd mentioned earlier about helping them to find little ways, like when they're feeding the dog, but what would that discussion kind of look like? Would you just be like, okay, great, we're repeating the lesson, or would you talk to them about how they can kind of work that out?

Chelsea Walsh (40:22)

Yeah.

So I think then if you need to learn more about sort of their schedule, what does it look like if they're gone at work all day? Okay. So now you're working with weekends and probably in the evenings, not in the morning, but some people get up early and take their dog for a walk. And so usually what I do is I try to find something they're already doing with their pet that you can piggyback the training onto.

Lianne Shinton (40:29)

Mm.

Chelsea Walsh (40:51)

So piggyback it onto a meal, but maybe that person isn't the one that feed the dogs, the kids feed the dog, right? Or piggyback it on with a walk. Be like, hey, right now, training is really tiring for dogs, right? So why don't we take 15 minutes off your walk and set it aside for training with your dog?

So that's one way I do it. Another way is just remind people you can set a reminder on your phone, right? You can ⁓ use that behavioral science yourself and be like, whenever you finish your dog training, you get a treat. It's incredibly effective actually to be like, I do my dog training and then I get some chocolate.

Lianne Shinton (41:34)

That sounds fun, yeah.

I like it.

Chelsea Walsh (41:45)

I don't get to sit down with my beer in the evening until after I do the dog training. You use that, right? You use the high likelihood behavior to reinforce the lower likelihood behavior. I just pull out all those dog training things. think about what's the environment, what are the antecedents?

Lianne Shinton (41:53)

That's your reward though to sit down and have your beer.

Chelsea Walsh (42:14)

Do they need to have their treat bags sitting out on the table? Does the treat bag hang with the leash? Is the clicker sitting on top of this? How can we add in these reminders in the environment to help them remember? ⁓ So lots of little tips and tricks. ⁓ I have a lot of ADHD in my family and so I've also had a lot of practice figuring out how do we build habits when you're working

Lianne Shinton (42:17)

Mm-hmm, yep.

Yes, habits.

Chelsea Walsh (42:44)

with brains that actively resist forming habits. And so that's kind of been a boot camp too and learning how to help people build new habits and dog training is just another new habit. And ⁓ I also remind them that the training should be fun. It should be fun for you. It should be fun for your dog. And so sometimes that's the problem is the training doesn't feel fun to them. And so then you need to find a way to

help them pass that, figure out what's in the way. Because if it's not going well, it's not fun, you don't want to do it. And so maybe the problem isn't them not wanting to do it or not having time, it's that the training itself is a punishment. And so you need to change it. You need to change the training to be a reward. And I know that I've gone through periods with my dog when we're training a behavior that for whatever reason is hard for him. ⁓

and he's just not getting it. And so he's not really having fun. I'm not really having fun. And so it's time to take a break. And I say, okay, well maybe we're just gonna train a fun little, you know, trick for a while. Or maybe training time is just gonna be working on nose work. Or maybe we're not gonna train at all and I'm just gonna set aside this time to play with him, you know. ⁓

and do that for a few days, refresh. This comes from when I was teaching and sometimes when you're teaching middle school, you get to these points where like just no one's having fun in your classroom. The kids won't stop talking. You just want them to listen to you. It feels like a fight every day. And one year I learned that a lot of times what you want to do is you want to buckle down, you want to double down and you want to like, you want to punish, you want to say, okay.

If they keep talking, then we're not going to do anything fun. ⁓ But what's way more effective is that when I got to those points with my middle school students, then I would say, tomorrow we're doing a STEM challenge. Tomorrow we're going to do something that's just fun. Seeing who can be the biggest tower with paper. Because then they're having fun, I'm having fun.

Lianne Shinton (44:40)

Hmm.

Chelsea Walsh (45:04)

And we all remember, like I remember why I like them, why I like my job, right? And so I'm having fun and they're like, my gosh, I went to science, it was fun. And now I've got more positive feelings about science class again. ⁓ And so do the same thing if your client's having trouble with training and the problem is that it's frustrating and hard for them, change it up. Maybe the dog really, their goals are loosely shwocking and it's going really bad, right?

And you say, okay, just take a couple days break and I want you to train your dog to shake instead, you know, and just do that. And it's going to be fun. It's a fun trick you can do with your dog, you know, and then also your dog starts learning again, like, ⁓ when we're doing training, it's fun. And so now when you're back to training that hearted behavior, you have a little bit more of foundation of your dog being excited to train that you're

Lianne Shinton (45:39)

Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (46:01)

building off of instead of training just being something where you don't let them do what they want to do. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (46:06)

Right.

I think too, like when you said for the person to reward by going and having a piece of chocolate or something like that, when we have an emotional experience that is fun or it could even be negative, it's more memorable for us. we can easily, if we were alive during 9-11, we can remember.

Chelsea Walsh (46:29)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (46:33)

exactly where we were, what we were doing when we heard the news. Now that's an example of like something very negative, but maybe on your wedding day you remember something like the shoes you were wearing or something and I don't even know what shoes I'm wearing right now, but it was a memorable day because of the emotion of it. So I guess what I'm getting at is adding a little bit of fun or a game or a challenge for the dog is going to help them remember what the learning is.

Chelsea Walsh (46:37)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (47:02)

but also for the person too, so they don't just go through the motions and then get in their car and drive home and they're already forgotten everything that you just went over. So you're kind of set up to fail. And then they're like, yeah, I didn't practice. don't know, what was it again? And then we come at it like, ⁓ I guess we'll just repeat the lesson. you know, we're kind of, ⁓ and the clients sense that. So if we can talk with them, them questions about how

Chelsea Walsh (47:11)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (47:32)

we can help them to fit the training into their everyday life and have a good conversation about that instead of just, all right, let's just go and repeat the training.

Chelsea Walsh (47:42)

Yeah, yeah, because I mean when I taught, sometimes ⁓ we'd get the test and everyone would do really bad, right? You know, the average on the test is 50, you know, no one got above a 70, right? And at that point when it's, you have to stop and think, where did I mess up teaching this? Because no one got it. And it's not, it's,

far more likely that I messed up somewhere, right? Then every single one of those kids decided they just didn't care about school anymore and didn't try. ⁓ And so the same thing with dog training. You have to think, okay, well, they're, I mean, they're paying for us to be there. They should be pretty motivated, right? So is it more likely that they just don't want this or is it that for whatever reason, my usual teaching style explanation didn't hit right with them?

or even going back to how I would look at it with a dog, maybe I don't realize it, but the last training session, they had a really stressful day at work, they had a fight with their teenager, you know, they had all this other things going on. And so their brains weren't in a place to learn the last time we talked. And so it's going back, troubleshooting and figuring out where that learning process broke down for our human or where they're doing great, but it's not

Lianne Shinton (48:55)

Hmm.

Chelsea Walsh (49:11)

working for their dog because every dog's an individual. So I guess the diagnostic process is really like, okay, well, you know, show me how it's going. And then I can see if, okay, they seem to be doing everything right and it's just not working or they're doing everything right and it's working, but maybe they're just not finding time for it. There's just so many things that can go wrong. And I feel like the least likely one is that they don't want to be successful. And so they're not trying.

Right? So finding the explanation that's more likely that, you know, they didn't understand or the dog isn't understanding, you know, I have a friend whose dog, my dog loves sniffing for stuff. It's his favorite thing in the world. He'll, you know, he, he's still resource guard sometimes, but he'll give up anything to play, find it. Right? Cause it's the best thing in the world to him. ⁓ but my friend's dog, you know, he did, he was hard for him.

So the normal way I would teach a dog to play find it wasn't working for him because he just, his head was not in the game, right? You you'd drop a treat in front of them, be like find it, and he'd be like, I don't know where it went. You know? You had a really baby step at for him because for whatever reason, he just wasn't getting it, you know? And so it's a lot of, a lot of diagnosis rather than blame, I guess.

Lianne Shinton (50:23)

Yep, I've seen those.

Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (50:39)

I just shift my mindset to like, what are they doing wrong? To like, what's the problem in our learning process? I didn't do anything wrong, it's not my fault, right? I did my best. They didn't do anything wrong, right? So just how can we work together to fix the problem?

Lianne Shinton (50:58)

Excellent. Yeah, it's given a new perspective, I think, too, just like considering, hey, the dog's not learning. And we always look at that. But yeah, the person isn't learning. We've got to figure a way around that. Now, in the beginning, or throughout this conversation, you've shared about some analogies. Would you be able to share a little bit about some common questions maybe that people ask you about, like, hey, my dog is

Chelsea Walsh (51:07)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (51:28)

hyper or my dog is reactive, my dog isn't listening. What would be some responses that you would commonly have to help connect with people and help them understand a little bit of what you're trying to tell them so they absorb it?

Chelsea Walsh (51:35)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I love analogies. I use them a lot teaching science. They're great for complex ⁓ concepts. ⁓ And so one that I just used recently was someone who, you know, their dog knows sit, right? And so, but then when they go outside, their dog just doesn't listen to them, right? And so I said, well, it's kind of like, you know how to do algebra, right? When you're in the classroom,

The teacher gives you an algebra problem, no problem, you can do it, right? But then, now you're at a pep assembly with a pizza party, right? And now they're asking you to do algebra. And that algebra, somehow you can't do it now, right? Because the situation has changed and it's like that for our dogs, right? When we teach them in our living room where it's nice and quiet and there's not so many distractions, they do awesome.

And then we take them outside and now there's distractions and smells and sounds. And our dogs also aren't learning to speak English, right? They're not learning that sit means to sit, right? I always kind of try to explain it to people that when we're teaching cues, it's like we're forming patterns for our dog, right? And so they learn that when they're human makes the sound sit.

If they then put their butt down, that predicts that they might get a treat for it. Right? And so they're learning this pattern. Hear the, hear the sound, do this thing, get a consequence they like. But they may not realize that like, for them, it could be as specific as I hear this sound when I'm facing my mom in the living room and I sit and I get a treat. They might not realize that they can do the same thing outside and it'll work. Right?

because they can be such specific learners. so, ⁓ sort of use this, get people in the mindset of cues or patterns, kind of use that analogy to help them understand why, you know, if our dog's not listening, it could be that the pattern's not matching, right? Or it could be that the environment is too distracting, right? Now they're at the party and you're asking them to do calculus and they're really not ready for that. Or just this idea of like,

We break it into baby steps. We don't teach kids calculus. We teach them to count and we teach them addition and subtraction and we teach them multiplication and division and we keep moving up through these steps and we gradually make it harder. We don't just skip to the end. And so it's the same thing when they're teaching the dogs. They should think about how do I make it really easy for them and then gradually make it more difficult. ⁓ Just like human learning math.

Lianne Shinton (54:44)

Yeah, that's a good analogy. ⁓ Yeah, kind of like skipping all the grades, just going from kindergarten to university.

Chelsea Walsh (54:53)

Yeah, doesn't work. You wouldn't, you wouldn't do it. Right. And so helping them giving analogies to that, they would hopefully have had experience within their own learning, you know, ⁓ you're right. That's not a realistic expectation, you know? And so, you know, putting them in that, that sort of analogy is a common one. I'm trying to think, I use analogies a lot when I'm talking about like,

counter conditioning or talking about teaching someone. ⁓ Like I may not like country music, right? But if every time I heard a country song, someone gave me a hundred dollars, I'm going to start really looking forward to country music coming on the radio. I still may not really like it, but I'm going to be happy that country song is playing, right? Good.

Lianne Shinton (55:48)

Hahaha

Chelsea Walsh (55:51)

And so that's what you're trying to do with counter conditioning. You're trying to teach them that this thing that they're maybe not sure about, maybe they don't like it, but it predicts something good is gonna happen. So.

Lianne Shinton (56:04)

Excellent, that's an excellent one. Do you have any other analogies that you could share?

Chelsea Walsh (56:09)

Hmm, I mean probably they're like my favorite thing, but do you have an example of something that you get?

Lianne Shinton (56:18)

I think like reactivity. ⁓

not listening. Those are like some common things that people say.

Chelsea Walsh (56:30)

Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah, so like with reactivity, a lot of times people feel like if you give your dog treats like during reactivity, you're rewarding them for the reaction. And so I use the analogy that if you take your kid to get their flu shot, right, and they're really sad and it's really scary for them.

And so they're crying and they're fighting and their stuff like this. And then afterwards you give them like a sticker or they get a lollipop, right? Do you think your kid's going to be more likely to scream and cry when they're scared? No, you're trying to change how they feel about it. And so when you use treats in reactivity, we're using them to try and change how our dog feels. And you can't, you can't reward an emotion. You can reward an action, but not the emotion.

⁓ And that kind of helps people understand because we always teach them like if you reinforce it, if you reward it, your dog's going to repeat it, right? What gets reinforced gets repeated. So it would make sense that if I reinforce their reaction, they're going to be more likely to react in the future. But helping people see that reactivity isn't a behavior as much as it is an emotional reaction, you know, helps them understand that that's

not how it works. ⁓ And then stubborn is another word that people like dogs. ⁓ I mean, I've used it too, right? Because it just feels right, know, especially when you're talking about like say maybe like a husky or something, like, those dogs are so stubborn, right? ⁓ But you know, I always try and explain to people that stubborn isn't really a dog thing. Dogs don't do stubborn.

Lianne Shinton (58:05)

yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (58:26)

Right? That's a very human, that's a complex emotional behavior that dogs don't really do. Sort of like, right? Dogs don't do respect. Respect is a very complicated human emotion. So your dog isn't disrespecting you, right? There's something else going on. Your dog isn't being stubborn. You know, if I asked you to go clean up all the dog poop in my backyard right now, and I told you I'd give you a $5 for it,

Lianne Shinton (58:32)

100%.

Chelsea Walsh (58:56)

And you said, no, I'm not going to do that. Are you being stubborn? No, you're just the not, you're just insufficiently motivated. Right. And sometimes our dogs are also insufficiently motivated. Right. ⁓ Or they're distracted. Right. If my kids in the middle of playing a video game, they've got their headphones on and I go and I'm like, Hey, take out the trash.

Lianne Shinton (59:07)

Right.

Right. Yep.

Yep.

Chelsea Walsh (59:25)

and they don't take out the trash, I don't assume they're being stubborn. I assume they're distracted. And when your dog is stubborn, it's because either they're under motivated, right? Or there's something that makes it hard. They're distracted, whatever it might be. And so you need to either figure out how to up that motivation or train them

Lianne Shinton (59:31)

They're distracted. Excellent. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Walsh (59:55)

more so that pattern is strong enough to overwhelm distractions, right? So add more training, add more practice so that then when those distractions are there, that pattern is stronger and it can kind of override the distractions. So I try and move people away from words like stubborn or they need to respect me or things like that and help them see that that's not really how dogs work.

Lianne Shinton (1:00:21)

Yeah, and I like the analogy too of the kids playing video games and you're trying to talk to them. ⁓ If I asked you to go pick up the poop in the backyard, those are great analogies that people can relate to. ⁓ You were speaking about habits earlier. Have you read Atomic Habits by James Clear?

Chelsea Walsh (1:00:34)

Mm-hmm.

You know I may have, but it was a while ago.

Lianne Shinton (1:00:44)

It's like my favorite book. I've read it twice. I don't read. I listen to it twice. But yeah, that book would be one that I would recommend to help us create better habits for our life so that we're taking more action in ourselves and our businesses and things like that. But I might read it again and try to think from the client's perspective of how I can help them and motivate them.

to incorporate these new habits. I like the tip you gave of like put the treat pouch out on the counter or hang it with the leash. I do that with my vitamins or my nighttime tea and I'm like, make sure I drink that every night. I put it on the counter and it's just in front of you. So trying to retrain or create these habits, that might be a good book to lean into a little bit, see if it could help.

Chelsea Walsh (1:01:21)

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, yeah, I will definitely, I think, I don't think I've read it, so I'll definitely have to look that up because helpful and I think there's a lot of books like that where you can think it's a good exercise to say, okay, think about this as me, as my personal life, think about it as my human learners, but then also think about it for my dog learners. How do I help them build habits, right? That's what we're doing in training is we're teaching them habits, we're teaching them muscle memory.

Lianne Shinton (1:01:43)

Really good.

Chelsea Walsh (1:02:08)

We're teaching them new patterns for behavior. And so kind of is great mental exercise too. Or I don't know if you've read the book, Don't Shoot the Dog. Yeah, I love it. And I read it and I was like, oh, I wish I had read this before I had children, you know? Like, it's not a parenting book.

Lianne Shinton (1:02:18)

Yes.

Yep.

but there's a lot of similarities with housebreaking and raising puppies and to raising children. So yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (1:02:32)

gonna take a fall.

⁓

Yeah, especially if you have, you know, your kids are stubborn, right? Like, is your kid really stubborn or are they struggling? Right? You know, my kid was diagnosed with ADHD and it made everything make so much more sense. You know? So, you know, where, where's the struggle coming from rather than assuming worst intentions, I guess it's assuming best intentions and then supporting people.

Lianne Shinton (1:03:11)

Well, I think we're almost at an hour here. Is there anything else that you'd like to share?

Chelsea Walsh (1:03:18)

Hmm. And now we talked about so many good things. I'm always so excited to talk about the connections between teaching humans, teaching dogs. And I think my biggest thing that I wish ⁓ we could all get better at is shifting the mindset. Because I think shifting our mindset to one where

We're thinking about how do we support, where is the struggle and making it about the learning process. It just removes so much stress from everybody's life. So it's not just, you know, about being a better trainer or being more supportive. It's just, it's so much easier to be happy when you show up and they didn't do anything. Whole last week.

your client has done no training. And I can either be grumpy and be like, they just don't care, right? Or what's wrong with people, right? Which I see unfortunately a lot on like Facebook dog training groups, you know? And I can understand where it comes from. So I'm not trying to like judge people who feel that way because it's a really natural way to feel, but it's just so much less stressful to think not.

what's wrong with them, they don't care why they're wasting my time instead to say, okay, this is good to know. We're going to need to adjust our learning so that we can be successful. And then it's, then it's just a fun puzzle, right? I get to solve this puzzle of how do I help this person learn rather than feeling like my time isn't being valued. And so I think people would find that if they can shift to that perspective, that mindset,

They can just be happier in their job because people are sometimes not going to do their homework. There's no magic bullet.

Lianne Shinton (1:05:19)

Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. And maybe something to get motivated about if you're a dog trainer and you're like, okay, I'll try and learn about this, teaching humans, coaching humans, human psychology. Think about sales. There's so much science that goes into car sales and R sales. So maybe just leaning into coaching.

Chelsea Walsh (1:05:41)

Hmm?

Lianne Shinton (1:05:47)

persuading humans may help you with your sales, which will move the needle and help you make more money, but also help you with the back end when you're trying to coach the clients to make sure that they're happy. They're getting the results. You get the good reviews. huge, huge part of it. And I wish, like I said, like if I was starting over again, that I put like 25 % effort into learning how to coach people.

Chelsea Walsh (1:05:50)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (1:06:15)

I learned it along the way, but it really wasn't something I learned in dog training school. I learned how to train dogs there.

Chelsea Walsh (1:06:26)

Yeah, there's a book by Terry Ryan called Coaching People to Train Their Dogs. Yeah. And so I don't know who Terry Ryan is. She's amazing. She was my instructor for my ⁓ certification program, but she has some really fun books for helping people from that sort of teaching humans perspective. so Coaching People to Train Their Dogs is one of her books. And I think another one is like, if you're teaching group classes,

Lianne Shinton (1:06:32)

What?

Chelsea Walsh (1:06:56)

adding sort of games into your teaching, make the learning fun. She has another book about that. ⁓ So not just games for the dogs, but also games for the humans.

Lianne Shinton (1:06:58)

Mm-hmm.

And games

until the instructor doesn't get bored too. Yeah, I like that.

Chelsea Walsh (1:07:08)

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, coaching

dogs is a is a great reference if you're like, I do want to, you know, dive into this. ⁓ And I think there's another book called Tag Don't Nag. It's something like that if you search. But it kind of teaches you how to apply sort of positive reinforcement principles to coaching people. And even to kind of like, basically, how would you

Lianne Shinton (1:07:22)

That sounds like a good one, yeah.

Chelsea Walsh (1:07:37)

clicker train people, right? And they use it with a lot of, they use it for like coaching like gymnastics, or they even used it to teach surgeons to tie off knots, right? And it just kind of focuses on focusing on one part of your human learner's behavior at a time, and then just marking when they're doing it right. So there's no like,

negative feedback, you take kind of the emotion about it and you're just letting them focus on one part of their training at a time. So those are both good if you want to want to level up your human teaching skills. Tag Don't Nag and Coaching People to Train Their Dogs are both great books.

Lianne Shinton (1:08:18)

I'm going to look at all of those. Thank you. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. I hope they're on audible so I can listen to them.

Chelsea Walsh (1:08:26)

Yeah,

Probably tag Don't Nag I don't know about coaching people to train their dogs.

Lianne Shinton (1:08:32)

I'll figure it out. Yeah, I like to listen while I'm moving around. I find that I absorb the information better. Yeah, well, I'm going for a dog walk. So

Chelsea Walsh (1:08:39)

Sorry.

I read lot of books by listening.

Lianne Shinton (1:08:46)

Yeah. So thank you, Chelsea. This has been such a great conversation. I hope that folks have gotten a few good takeaways. I know I have with the homework, the checking in, and just all around. I've already known this, but it's our job to coach and to help them. And that's what we're doing. We're serving these families and we have to teach them how to...

train their dog. It's not just us training the dog. So teaching them how to train the dog is something that we need to learn how to be the best at that we can to teach them.

Chelsea Walsh (1:09:26)

Yeah, I don't do board and train, so I actually don't do a lot of dog training, you know, because they're in their house helping them learn how to do it themselves. So at most I'm maybe giving some examples or getting them started, but really my clients are doing most of the training.

Lianne Shinton (1:09:34)

Yeah.

Yeah, and even with the board and trains, they go home and you still have to train the owner and explaining things because they think, hey, I brought the dog home and it's going to be a perfect robot now. And it's like, my goodness. yes, ⁓ maybe you'll have an analogy for that one.

Chelsea Walsh (1:09:50)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I could come up with one. I had one client who she's like, she said something and then I gave her an analogy. She's like, you're just so good at explaining stuff. I was like, sorry, I can't turn it off. just.

Lianne Shinton (1:10:19)

Yeah.

Yeah

Well, thank you, Chelsea, so much. If folks want to check out your website, it's Rockit and Rover, and you're up in Washington, right?

Chelsea Walsh (1:10:35)

Yep, Washington, just near Seattle.

Lianne Shinton (1:10:39)

cool, okay, Grey's Anatomy. Okay. All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. ⁓ again, I'm Leanne Shinton from Automation Docs and thank you for listening.

Chelsea Walsh (1:10:41)

Mm-hmm. Yep. That's

Thank you for having me.