Dog Tricks Save Lives!
Hello everyone, this is Krista with Episode #139 on the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. Because I'm going to be expanding my Wag Out Loud business with exciting things in store, I wanted to let you know that as of January 2022, I will go from releasing weekly episodes to bi monthly episodes. Putting this show on is super important to me, but to do it right, and all on my own, I've decided to bring you the same awesome guests and content, but just with a lesser frequency. So that will give me more time to work on other fantastic projects in the canine health and wellness space. So stay tuned for some exciting future announcements.
Did you know this? Dogs recognize that when you leave, your home is full of your scent. And the longer you are gone, the more your smell dissipates. So if you have a regular routine, your dog will learn that at a certain scent level, you will return home. How amazing is that?
Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall wellbeing. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode.
Larry Kay is a best-selling dog author and award-winning dog filmmaker with two million Facebook fans at Positively Woof. Larry's keynote speeches, workshops, and Dog Hugs video podcast emphasize his passion for dog tricks, positive dog training, animal rescue, and celebrating our human-animal bond.
Welcome dog lovers to a another amazing episode of the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. I have no doubt that today's guest is going to teach us a few new tricks. We have Larry Kay with us who is a best selling and award winning dog author and dog filmmaker. Yay! Larry, thanks again for being on the show. Would you please introduce yourself and tell us how you got into trick training and filmmaking with shelter dogs?
Krista, thanks so much for having me on your show. Yeah, the way I would typically introduce myself is I am Larry Kay, best selling dog author and award winning dog filmmaker with 2 million Facebook fans at Positively Woof. And, you know, as I thought about getting ready to come on your show today, and I know you like to have your guests introduce themselves. I think what would really give context to my background and how I got here is to say that I was at a crossroads in my career in media. I've always been a writer and producer of Creative Media. And I was mostly known in children's media. That's where I had really developed a reputation throughout the 1990s. And working with Disney and the Muppets. I wrote TV cartoons for the Pink Panther. I was trained at Hanna Barbera. And in fact, the late Bill Hanna was one of my mentors. Wow. So I and I taught filmmaking also at NYU and have a graduate degree in television and from Syracuse University. So I was at this crossroads since like, what's next I'm kind of done with the kids thing I was my my marriage of my long term marriage had broken up and my passion had drained out of my career, which was just as scary as being alone. And it was time to reinvent myself. And so I first did a project created a children's DVD that remember those things? that would teach the little ones, preschoolers how to be safe and successful around dogs. And it has puppetry and animation and original songs and good lessons, all these kinds of things that I got good at in the children's space and did it in the dog space. And at the end of the project, which ended up it's called Animal Wow. it's out of print. You can't even find it anymore. Yeah, I'll probably release it at some point in this thing called the cloud. And I loved the dog thing so much. It's like, I gotta do more of that. How can I do it? So I think I want to, I brought to the space, my background in filmmaking and long form writing and was fortunate enough to be able to do some excellent books. And given that filmmaker’s bend, I really knew that there was a way to bring filmmaking to the dogs and bring dogs to filmmaking not that other people haven't done before. But what's the place where I can make a contribution? Sure. And I got really passionate about shelter dogs. And so, um, you know, we've heard the conversation that shelter dogs, homeless dogs, used dogs, as I like to call them, you know, are somehow less than, and I like to take a seeming liability and flip it around. So that where's the hidden asset? How might they be really cool? in a special way that non shelter dogs are cool. So what is inside of every homeless dog? There's this undiscovered movie star. Then just thinking of this project, Dog Rescue Stars, trick training and filmmaking with homeless dogs. In order to get Yeah, in order to get them the best kind of stardom. A loving home forever.
Oh Larry! I am so excited to dive into this. So you are going to cover dog tricks save lives. Yeah. And Larry, is it true that the most common reason that owners abandon their dogs is for behavioral issues?
Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, I call it lack of training. And you're right, it's behavioral issues and they're correctable, two biggest ones are for people giving up on dogs are soiling the house. And chewing and barking. Those are the biggest reasons, all of which are correctable.
Right. It's just these people didn't give them a chance.
Yeah. And I get it. It's, you know, sometimes it's really hard. I've had my butt kicked by shelter dogs more than once, where, where I'm ready to give up. But I just know that it's like, okay, what can I do? And I just keep working at it. And suddenly it clicks. It's like, wow, got another one.
Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about this Dog Rescue Stars program from start to finish? What does that look like?
Sure. What is it a workshop. It was supposed to start last year before the pandemic. And, yeah, I've been designing it for a number of years. And it's basically trick training and moviemaking with shelter dogs, you know, I'm developing also the workshop for pet dogs. And we'll be piloting it here in Los Angeles. And my sweet spot is to is going into shelters to do this with dogs who are needing a home. So the full workshop is two and a half days. And I also do a single day workshop as well. And it attracts volunteers to take the workshop, trainers and filmmakers. And what shelter wouldn't want to have volunteer trainers and volunteer artists come in and volunteer at their shelter? Sure. So by showing those categories of folks this pretty cool and in some ways very easy way to train dogs and get them rescued, get them hopefully homes, it becomes not a burden on the shelter or local rescue organization. But instead it increases the pool of resources brings in fresh blood, more trainers, more artists and in the products that they create ie the films and other social media. It attracts more adopters and more resources. Plus it not only gets the dogs adopted, it helps the local rescue organization, but it also adds to the conversation, transforms the conversation of how cool rescue dogs are. How inside of every rescue dog is this undiscovered star. And it's our job as the talent agents, we’re the detectives to figure out this puzzle.
It's a win, win for all really.
Yeah, well the dog too.
Well, exactly. the volunteers this is all live going on live, or is this a pre recorded workshop?
It's a live in person workshop. And I've been developing it for some five plus years, I started this project before I wrote The Big Book of Tricks for the Best Dog Ever. And it was what inspired me to write that book and bring on Chris Perondi, who's a master stunt dog performer, as a co author. And from Chris, I learned all kinds of stuff about trick trading.
We're gonna get into some tricks too here today. So everybody stay tuned for that. Larry, did you tell me before that you have had 80 shelter dogs go through this program that were successfully adopted already?
Yeah. Including one very unruly Australian Cattle Dog, who when he first came to the set, you could barely touch him. He was scary. And this dog had a history. He’d been adopted twice and given up on twice. And this Australian Cattle Dog, you know, was basically on death row, and it might have been three strikes and you’re out. But fortunately, this shelter Pet Orphans here in Van Nuys, a part of Los Angeles pulled this dog off of death row and gave him the perfect name for a scary dog. Spider. Well, when Spider and 11 other dogs were presented to my film set, and we began making the film, you know, Spider could just barely sit still for five seconds. I mean, you just couldn't touch him. And so while the most of the other dogs, you know, they could sit and stay and even learned a few tricks. Naturally, almost all those dogs got adopted later. But a month later, nobody had come for Spider. So I began to volunteer to walk him. And little by little, he began to open up to me. So he looked at me instead of avoiding eye contact. So when he looked at me, I began to shake with some hand signals. And I introduced him to the agility course, which he loved. And he smiled. So I decided I was up for a really big challenge Krista. I brought Spider home forever. He now knows more than 50 dog tricks.
That's amazing.
When I first adopted Spider, our veterinarian needed three vet techs, just to examine him. Now, we perform dog tricks in the waiting room. I love it. And and she says he's a completely different dog. You know, so trick training transformed Spider’s life. You know, it made him sociable. And it certainly built our bond. And I believe that trick training can do that for every dog that there is a trick or tricks for just about every dog.
Okay, well, Larry, we are going to take a quick commercial break, and we are going to come back and get into trick training. And maybe you can even teach us a few tricks. So, we'll be right back.
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Welcome back everybody. We are in a wonderful conversation with Larry Kay on dog tricks do save lives. So Larry, you are doing some amazing work with shelter dogs and who doesn't love watching a dog doing tricks because they actually love to think and work. So why don't we unpack that a bit? Why don't you talk about how do tricks actually create enrichment with our dogs?
Oh, beautiful question. dog tricks and all kinds of training create enrichment. One of the causes of what we call bad behavior, chewing and doing these kinds of things is boredom. So involving a dog with tricks, and other forms of training and enrichment, keeps dogs from being bored. And little by little, the bad behaviors extinguish. So, I like to start with some tricks with every shelter dog, that just seems, I have not found a shelter dog who can't do this first trick. And it's called getting on a platform, you know, this raised surface, that once the dog is on this platform, the dog realizes it's a special place something different is happening here. And the dog’s focus increases, automatically. And I've seen this with really unruly dogs, as well as with any kind of pet dog. So I use platforms, I don't know, if you've seen them from Blue-9, they're called the KLIMB platform. And they love my projects so much that they've been working with me to, in some cases actually even be able to donate a few platforms. That's great. So that's really been a wonderful relationship there. Plus, you can make your own platform or even at home, you know, using if you're comfortable with your dog getting on the furniture, and you have an ottoman that you could use that as a platform, or any kind of raised surface. Spider, I've trained him to get on certain chairs. And then he can even do tricks from those chairs. One of the tricks now that he does from a spinning chair is spin around in it. And he loves that because every time the chair goes around, he gets a treat. So like a carousel and grabbing the brass ring.
That's great. So what do you actually do on the platform? Once you have your dog comfortable on a platform? I assume you want them to sit and stay?
Yeah, yeah, that's those are great behaviors from there. First getting on the platform itself. You know, we start with luring the dog up using positive dog training. And little by little, we can shape that into a hand signal and a verbal cue. And then as you as you said, from that platform dogs are supposed to stay there, while we back away for just one step for one second, and eventually building up to one step for two seconds, it's and so forth. And little by little increasing our distance, and increasing our duration. Meaning our distance from the platform and the duration, how long the dog stays on the platform. Once the dog can stay there, then we can begin to shape a sit and a down. I find also that from that. We can also teach the dog to get on the platform with only two paws, which is called a perch or a paws up. And that now using those as building blocks, and we can even think of the platform as a literal building block is that the dog now can learn all kinds of things. So I like to introduce a second platform and have the dog go from one platform to another platform. And then as I back away, shaping this little by little, the dog begins to learn a hand cue of go to that and go away from me. teaching a dog to go to go away from can be very challenging for a dog. Having a dog come to is also challenging and You know that that's a little bit easier. And then also to go away from, that becomes pretty hard. I find with platforms, it speeds up the training a lot, very quickly. So we move the platforms away from each other. And from that, we can then introduce a second handler, who is at that second platform it because it's, it's, it's all fine and good, I can go into a shelter. And I can teach these dogs to do tricks for me. But the point of this is to get the dog adopted. And then we'll introduce a second handler at the second platform. So now the dog learns to shuttle from me at one platform to another handler, or from another handler, to me. And then I'll introduce a third handler, sometimes at a third platform, or I'll back myself out of the out of the game. And the dog is then shuttling between these two strangers, because it's all fine and good that the dog can do these tricks with me, point of this is for me to transfer those behaviors on to other people. And what this does is it quickly helps socialize the dog, making the dog ready to be adopted. So these simple games, this game of come and go from platform to platform and introducing a third platform and a fourth platform. And third and fourth person, then these tricks also are socialization, and they it truly gets the dog ready to be adopted.
And it builds trust. I mean, you're putting them in different situations with different people. So the only constant really is the command and the hand signal, right?
Bingo.
Yep, that's brilliant.
I really love that. And what I find in training is that by introducing early on these different kinds of stations and people it again, speeds training, I find that it's easier to teach a dog a second trick, once we have a first trick. And so I start with getting on the platform as the first trick, because when I'm teaching a second trick, it takes a while for a dog to get it. And I prefer not to just continue the reps over and over and over again until the dog gets it. Because that burns out the dog a little quickly. And instead you know, I can I can understand where the dog’s limit in understanding is right now, or maybe some idiosyncrasy that the dog understands that I need to adjust to. And then I can also go back to what the dog has already proven, getting on a platform. So we can always go back to getting on a platform, getting off of a platform.
And with the platforms, because especially for small dogs, if they're jumping off surfaces that are too high, of course, that impacts their joints and what not. What it what is the height of an appropriate platform for a small dog versus a large?
Yes, excellent point. I use a platform on the ground with no legs on it for small dogs. Okay. First, if a dog is still growing, generally under 18 months, then we want to have a jumping height, no higher than the dog’s knee. And, you know, and in some cases when the when it's just a puppy, you know that no more than ankle height. Okay, so, excellent point. And then once the dog is fully grown, ie, you know, 18-24 months, then decide what's an appropriate height for a dog. If the dog does have any kind of known health issues, you know, or you just observed something that, you know, might be a joint issue, for example, then we, you know, we don't want to have a high platform.
Right. That makes sense.
So I'm really glad you mentioned that.
And Larry, what would be a really cool trick that maybe we have not seen? And how do we teach it?
Oh, great. Footsies. Where a dog stands between your legs and puts his or her feet on top of your feet. And then you go walking around with your dog's front paws perched on top of your feet.
Okay. Are they facing you?
They are facing in the same direction. Okay, so between your legs with their back in the same direction as your back between your legs, front paws up on your feet.
Okay, and how does this come about?
So that's considered an advanced trick. And it's a wonderful trick in doggy dancing, for example. And the way I like to teach that is by starting with a beginner trick. And that is simply to have a dog walk through your legs, from back to front, and stop from back to front. And one way of teaching that trick is called peekaboo.
Oh, yeah, I do that one.
So peekaboo is where you stand with the dog behind you. And your your legs together. And you open up your legs, bend down and lure the dog to come through your legs from back to front. So there's even a building block to get to peekaboo. And that is dropping treats around your around your feet. Now if your dog isn’t treat motivated, but is touch motivated and doesn't have any touch triggers, IE doesn't freak out. When the dog touches or reacts when you when you touch the dog, then that kind of touch reward could be safe. A dog may be toy motivated, in which case, you can use a toy lure around your legs to begin to shape that behavior. Okay, so let's say we're at the stage of we've successfully done peekaboo. And now our dog is standing between our legs, and could hold that stand already for five whole seconds. Okay, now lure your dog around from the back to front, your legs are closed. Now open up your legs as you're bending down with the lure, but don't open them so far, just open a little bit and do a pigeon toe thing, meaning keep the tips of your toes together. But move your ankles out and lure your dog forward. And so your feet, your pigeon toed feet are now a barrier that your dog can't get past without touching your toes. Right, reward your dog for any touch on your toes at first. And little by little you can shape that into into rewarding the dog for getting on both of your feet with both paws. But you know, go slow, cuz that's kind of weird for a dog. So once your dog successfully can put both feet so you know the right foot on the right paw and your right foot and the left paw on your left foot. And successfully, you can begin to slightly wiggle your toes. And I like to do that with a new dog. While I'm you know treating rewarding, you know in some way giving the dog some positive reinforcement while I am wiggling my toes. So the dog is focused on the reward and not on the weird feeling of the wiggling my wiggling feet.. And then once the dog can do that, and I can withdraw that reward not reward quite so much. You can begin to take tiny little baby steps or simply even moving my feet up, up and down. And little by little you take your first step. You go back and you maybe do the hokey pokey. And, and you know now, Spider loves this trick so much it becomes default. You know, it's like he'll know, instead of sometimes instead of standing at my left side or sitting at my left side in the ready position. If he sees my legs are slightly apart, he’ll just you know, take a walk between my legs and put his feet up on my feet. Yeah. And so in that we'll start doing footsies from there.
Okay, well, everybody, I want to see some video from all of our listeners on the footsies that they have completed that the dog is doing it. I would just love to see that. So let's put a little challenge out there, Larry.
That would be great. If you'd also like to post those videos, folks, of your dog doing footsies, on the Positively Woof Facebook page, make sure to flag those as well. I would love to feature you on you doing footsies on our dog video podcast called Dog Hugs.
Yes, you have over 150 episodes of your Dog Hugs podcast. So for everything that you do, Larry, which is a lot, we will definitely put all of these links in the show notes. So, as we are wrapping up, what would you like to leave us with when it comes to dog tricks do save lives?
Well, in a practical note, at the Positively Woof website, you can certainly download, you know, a wonderful 40 page ebook and training logs and trick training logs. You can go to DogHugs.tv, to watch some of the dog shows. And I would say that for each individual, each relationship, there's going to be some uniqueness to your bond that makes your experience special. And you will find tricks that work for your dog you don't have to have the most athletic dog. I believe that together you will find an enriching experience through doing dog tricks. That is just fun. And, and more than fun. It is it adds to life. That's what I've found.
Well, I totally agree. And I can't thank you enough for all that you do. Again, everybody, all of these links for Larry's books for he is a public speaker. So if you're interested in having Larry speak to a group, I'm going to put the Facebook page and then the e book that Larry mentioned, it's 40 pages, and it has dog training logs as well, that is FREE. So all sorts of goodies. And so where's the one place that you think that we can find out about all of your offerings? Should they just go to PositivelyWoof.com?
Yeah. Okay, probably the simplest way and then just do a search on Larry Kay. And a new web site is being released with all of my projects at Larrykay.com. I think it'll be released in time for this show, Krista. That's where we'll be able to see everything.
Wonderful. Well, Larry, thank you again, for all that you do. And for realizing that you were at a crossroads with your life. It sounds like you picked the right direction. So we just appreciate this. And again, everybody tag myself @wagoutloud. And Larry as well @positivelywoof, we want to see your footsies with your pups.
Thank you, Krista so much for having me. And yes, I would really delight in seeing any of those successes or even attempts with your dogs.
Great. Thanks, Larry.
Download Larry Kay's free 40-page eBook and dog training logs:
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https://positivelywoof.com/book-shop/
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https://www.facebook.com/PositivelyWoof/
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Hey Winston was that another tail wagging episode?