Trick Training: The Benefits for Physical & Mental Health for You AND Your Dog

I hope everyone's year is off to a fantastic start.!This is Krista with episode #144 on the Wag Out Loud pawdcast.

Most of us know that chocolate is poisonous to dogs. But did you know that the type and color of chocolate that they eat is super important? Well, the rule of thumb is the darker and the more bitter, the more dangerous it is to our dogs. So take baking chocolate or gourmet dark chocolate. They contain significantly more theobromine, which is the chemical that is similar to caffeine, but it can't be metabolized by our dogs, so it puts them at risk for actual poisoning. So it's more dangerous than milk chocolate, and white chocolate hardly has any. So to put it in perspective, a healthy 50 pound dog could be poisoned by just one ounce of dark chocolate, but it would have to ingest nine ounces of milk chocolate to experience the same serious problems. If your dog displays any signs of poisoning, which could be vomiting, diarrhea, increased thirst, racing, heart rate, excessive urination, please take them to the vet immediately.

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.

Trick Training: The Benefits for Physical & Mental Health for You AND Your Dog

 Chrissy Joy is a 2021 International Trick Dog Champion, former National Stunt Dog Champion, has appeared on America's Got Talent, is a passionate canine studio trainer - avid hiker and vanlife! She is Dog Mom and Momager to The Joy Crew - canine celebrities as seen on Paramount Pictures, Chewy, LIONSGATE, and so much more.

Well, hello dog lovers! Chrissy joy is our guest today and she has a few tricks up her sleeve. Chrissy, thanks so much for being with us today. I would love it if you could introduce yourself and tell us how you got into the world of trick training.

Hi, everyone. So yes, thank you for that really warm welcome. My name is Chrissy Joy and I am a professional dog trainer. But my specialty is trick training. And that's kind of something that I'm really passionate about that has kind of immersed into my career as well. I currently own the International Trick Dog Champion. We won that award earlier this year. And we do all sorts of things for live shows, film, television, demos, workshops, things like that as well. So you could call me Dog Crazy. I think that's a pretty accurate title for me. And I would say that, you know, when I began training over at a facility called BFF Pet Services really, really wonderful facility. I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go. And I just wanted to have a well behaved dog kind of like everybody's initial start with their dog and I have a rescue named Beasley. I just wanted to have, you know, just like a good obedience and don't jump on the counter and don’t jump on people, you know, that kind of thing. But I quickly learned about the world of dog training as far as trick training goes. And so it really opened doors to kind of, you know, work with your dog in a new way. That is very, very possible and very fun and easy, but also a great mental challenge for you and your dog. And that's something that I really enjoyed. It kind of opened up the doors for us to kind of have a bond that was a little bit different from you know, just your general leash, obedience based training. And so we really dove into trick training and now we do all sorts of crazy things with tricks.

That is so cool. And what kind of dog is Beasley?

Beasley is one of three of the Joy Crew and Beasley is a 60 pound mutt. We don't know exactly, but we think he’s a Collie, maybe some Shepherd, wicked smart, probably the smartest of the three and the work he does is is unparalleled.

BENEFITS OF TRICK TRAINING BOTH MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY

That's so cool. Well, Chrissy, you're here to talk to us about the benefits for physical and mental health for you and your dog when it comes to trick training. So if it's okay with you, I was going to start with just naming a benefit. And then I would love for you to unpack each one for us, if you could do that.

Sure. So I would say one, one of the first benefits I think of for trick training for dogs that people aren't intending on doing live shows but I just want to try something new. Is it is very big for confidence building. So confidence building is is a big thing that we see in many dogs, especially dogs coming out of COVID. Puppies that are, you know, been adopted or through breeders, you know, and they didn’t get proper exposure. trick training allows a lot of confidence building, because what you're doing is you're asking your dog to work with different props, maybe interact with different props, things that make noises, you know, and you're kind of, you're giving the dog a chance to build confidence in an arena that's very positive based, so lots of treat rewards or toy rewards. And so that and also it includes you physically touching your dog, you know in different ways that that you don't typically do when you're walking in a heel in class, you're asking for their paw, you're asking him to spin in a circle, you're doing a rollover, you know, all these types of things, you're getting the dog to have more body awareness, and through physical tasks, which also makes them more confident when working with you. Because I know, I think we all know a dog where you try to touch their foot, they're like, nope, no, don’t touch me, right? No, I don't want to touch my foot. That means you’re gonna trim my nails, right. And so we desensitize a lot of that through different elements of trick training.

That's a great point. Because, you know, of course, you can teach your dog tricks at home. But maybe you have a dog that's a little timid. And if you enroll them in a tricks class, I think that would be a confidence booster as well, because they're in a room with other dogs doing tricks, and might just gain confidence just by watching the other dogs, right?

That's right. And honestly, being in a room full of other dogs is a great way to teach your dog to be comfortable around other dogs while still learning to focus on you. And still learning to focus on the task at hand. And sometimes obedience can be a little bit, it can just be a little bit overwhelming for a dog, whereas we start very ground level with tricks. We’ll say, you know, like, simple touching the nose to your hand and giving a treat, you really break it down so that the smallest thing that your dog can do for you will be rewarded. And it really helps them kind of learn how to thrive in a, in a stressful environment by doing something very simple and being rewarded for it. Whereas, you know, with obedience it’s sit, stay, heel, you know, these are big things we're asking for our dogs to be able to do in a busy environment. Whereas a nose touch, or a spin can be a lot more easy going on the dog to kind of interact with you and be close with you without the pressures of having to be in a perfect heel and things like that.

Okay, well, what about trick training for developing patience?

That's a great one. So impulse control is gigantic for trick training, you know, there's a lot of things that I do for that work as well, where we have a trick the dog needs to perform, but there may be elements to it, as far as it can't happen until something else happens, which we call a change behavior. So, for example, you know, in order for the dog to get the reward, they learn not only do they have to open the fridge, they have to get the drink out of the fridge. And your dog has to learn impulse control to do one before the other. But also there's there's elements of duration, you know, we ask our dogs to hold an item, you know, for an extended period of time. And that can be a great trick to hold the basket or hold, you know, a sign or whatever it may be. And so they have to learn duration, which is also an element of patience. And something that we always we I say as BFF because I do train through BFF. But something that I always instill upon any dog I train is that quiet feet, quiet mind. So you know, I want the dog to be able to, to not be tap dancing around and I want them to be quiet feet so we can have a quiet mind. So we can do this type of work that's going to require them to be patient, and to be focused.

Yep. And you don't want them to get frustrated. So when you're talking about patience, I'm sure that there is a certain time limit, like you don't want to do this for hours and repetitively. And they're going to get frustrated, they're going to get bored, they're going to get tired. So what are your suggestions? As far as how long when you're teaching a brand new trick?

That's a great question I get a lot of people always ask me, or say you must do an hours a day. And I'm like, Well, the truth of the matter is I really don't. I do like two 15 minute sessions, and then I do a lot of cardio for their exercise. That's their physical simulation and their mental is those 15 minute sessions. You know, I compare it to as if you had a big test, you know, coming up in a month. There's the people who are going to cram the night before and don't get me wrong. You may do okay on the day of the test. But if I asked you a year later, you probably can't remember any of that information. But if you did it in little bits and pieces, and you just absorb the information, a chapter at a time. Then when it came test time, you're going to retain a lot more when you need to do this, do this test or this exam and pass it and do a good job while not being stressed out, exhausted, you know, and now you're less likely to want to study for the next test because it was so stressful to cram the night before. You know what I mean? So I kind of relate it to that because I do very small sessions and there's tricks that we pick up right away. And there's, there's tricks that take me over a year to get correct. And so what I always say is very small sessions, break up that trick into many pieces, right, so don't try to just get the whole trick on the first day, unless it's something they can do easily like spin. But if you're doing something more complicated, break it down into many pieces, you may not have a good session, the first time just learning the first ways to do a trick. I always suggest, if you're not getting it at all, finish the session with something your dog does know how to do. So at least they end on a really positive note. And then always leave the session leaving the dog wanting more, don't burn them out. And then say, Okay, we're done. You know, always leave while the dog is still feeling good and has energy and is eager to work. I always go all done. Because then when I go to work next time, the dog. is like, I really want to do that again, right versus Oh, I don't want to do three hours of this exhausting thing that is too stressful for me. And I never got anything out of it where I felt confident. So, short and sweet. Have the right motivators, as far as treats, varieties of treats. I always feed a little less if I intend on training a lot one day because I don't want their stomach to be overwhelmed. You got to think about how much you put in during a training session as well. And so, yeah, that that's kind of my mantra is keep it short and sweet. Do it over a long period of time, break it down into small pieces and always end on a high note.

Okay, well, you briefly mentioned earlier that trick training involves getting your dog not only physical exercise, but of course, they're doing a lot of mental exercise from doing tricks as well. What are your thoughts about that? Because we're giving treats. So people might think, how much is too much? What kind of treats should I give? Because we don't want to overload them with calories? Of course, I guess I'm, I'm asking a lot of questions in this. But why don't you just tell us about how trick training impacts physical and mental exercise?

Of course, and I always say if you can I'm, I will proudly say I am very stingy. And people like oh, that sounds terrible. But actually, I'll take any treats that I'm going to give and I break it into a lot of pieces, right? Because it's not so much like, wow, I got a whole cookie for doing that. It's just about I got a reward, I got something telling me I did it right. So I break something down into lots of little pieces. Zukes even has low calorie treats, which are awesome. And then my higher value… because you always want to have a higher value. Because you don't want to train with the Cheerios, you want to train with the filet mignon. When you're in those more stressful environments. I use Rogue Pet Science, they have a great line of jerky that are like you could eat it practically. But besides the treat wise, what I like to do is focus on two different kinds of trick training. So I do the physical aspects where I use a lot of like fitness equipment, and teaching the dog to back their legs up on fitness equipment teaching them about proprioception, which is just a knowledge of their body. And so we do lots of stretches we do backing their feet up almost like doing a handstand, which my dogs do walking handstands, at least two of them do. But you want to make sure they're physically fit to do something like that. You don't just throw your dog into an action like that. Like you couldn't ask me today to go do a handstand, I would hurt myself, right? You have to you have to physically build them up to that. But by doing that you're actually teaching them tricks as well. You know, we do leg stretches, things like that. You can do bow or spin. Those are great stretches to offer. And so that helps them with that physical fitness aspect. And of course, if you want to count in frisbee or other things like agility running through a tunnel, if you want to call those things tricks, which in some element, they are considered tricks, that's a great outlet for your dog to have, you know their physical needs met. On the mental side, I love puzzle toys. That's the most independent play you could offer them as far as like putting a toy down that they have to work out the food for. I love doing breakfast in puzzle toys because it makes the dog think versus just eating out of a bowl. But also then there's there's there's higher elements like to the extreme sense Beasley plays memory. So if you flip the cards face down, he can match them as far as which ones which once he sees them, but on a smaller sense you can do what's called the Cup game or the Shell game where you put you know, one toy under one cup and there's three cups and you move the cups around and the dog has to remember or sniff out where that toy is or whatever. It's just a fun mental game for your dog. So there's these two elements that your dogs need. Some people say, Well, I run my dog five miles a day, but they’re still running around the house. Well, probably because his physical needs are being met. But mentally, he's not exhausted, he needs something else to do, he needs a job, right? And that's where you find if you don't satisfy them, even on the most simple level of a puzzle toy, they will create their own job which could create their own problem.

True. Well, this is a good place for us to take a pause while we do a quick sponsor break, so we will be right back.

ANIMALBIOME SPONSOR AD

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And we are back with our special guest Chrissy joy, who is the 2021 International Trick Dog Champion. And we're chatting about trick training and all of the benefits that trick training does for our dogs. So Chrissy, we're going to continue here, why don't we talk about how tricks help with your dog's excess energy because we just talked about the physical and the mental benefits. But we all know that a bored dog is going to find other ways to let out their energy like chewing or barking or what have you. So how does trick training rein them in?

Well, one thing that it does is that your dog has natural physical and mental needs to be satisfied by so you know, some dogs are from working minds. And while people love the look of Border Collies and how loyal and sweet they are, you know, they are working dogs that were bred to run miles day. So you need to be able to, you know, satisfy those needs in order for your dog to be in a situation where they can rest and relax and kind of be, you know, a wonderful dog at home. So understanding the type of dog you do have even before you choose to get one. And understanding what you're getting into is what's really going to help you kind of know, to what extent you're going to need to do this type of work. For example, my one dog Beasley is a mutt 60 pounds, I would say he's average activity level, he would sleep all day, if I let him. He loves to play, but he doesn't need much walk, one or two miles a day, he'd be fine. I have a border collie in the other room right now that I can hear throwing his toy around incessantly, because he must stay busy all day long. Only around nine or 10 o'clock at night, will he finally conk out. So you know right after this, we're going to go and do a lot of physical activity to kind of satisfy those needs to help him burn off that energy. And so so what I like to say is that if you can create that balance and every dog is different, you’ll really have a dog that's not going to pick up bad habits are not going to be bored enough to do that type of behavior, or for dealing with things like anxiety or crate anxiety, you may even lessen that, if you have them tired out where they are satisfied in those ways. And you'll actually find that your dog's habits or maybe barking or you know, excitability will actually calm down because a lot of those nerves can be good or bad. But that does come up from this pent up I need a job or you know, I need to burn out some energy. And so I actually had a recent person, friend call me and say, you know, my dog just jumps on us, won’t stop barking, you know, barking around the house at everything, you know, just getting into trouble everywhere. And she said, you know, and I do feel bad. I have a really I have a full time job. And so, you know, he has to be created most of the day. And I said, the first thing you could do is hire a dog walker, get somebody to come in the middle of the day, and walk your dog and give them some exercise because it’s manifesting in all these other things that you're starting to see. Not because the dog is sad, but because he simply just doesn't have an outlet.

Right. Well, just from what you said, I would have to imagine that doing trick training pretty much would improve their overall obedience and their manners. Is that true?

It does it creates a better communication line between you and your dog. You know I can with just, you know a hand gesture without even touching my dog, I can get my dog to like, move to the left or to the right or backup or, you know, like you and you work together, we do a lot of doggy dancing, as well. So that's where the dog actually works with you, and does a lot of moves. You know, weaving through your legs, jumping off your back, you know, like, you know, a little more showy things. But I have such a better communication line with my dogs doing trick training has opened up the doors to build that bond, on a one on one level, I'm not so much just telling my dog what to do as far as what you may see, and like, you know, sit, stay, come heel, you know, be good stay in this box, right? Because you think of obedience, like a box, sometimes like stay in this box, I need you to stay here and do these things. Trick training is a lot more creative outlet, and, you know, asking your dog to interact with things in different ways, with their paw, with their nose, maybe they're rolling, rolling a blanket around, around themselves, you're asking them to interact in different ways. And I think through having that one on one time with them, you learn a lot about their personality, for example, I can't give something soft and squishy to one dog, because he'll just puncture it and it'll be a mess. Whereas my other dog is very, very delicate with prop.s The other one's really bold. So I have all these understandings about their personalities that I may not have picked up on had I not tried to do some different things with my dogs.

STRENGTHEN YOUR BOND WITH YOUR DOG

I'm blown away by this is just so simple, it sounds like but so much fun. And in the end, it sounds like the best reward of all in trick training, is that it just strengthens the bond between you and your dog. So can all dogs do trick training?

Yeah, so that's the beauty of it is all dogs can do trick training. You know, there are dogs that I know, that are, you know, a handful of pounds that are doing the same trick that your fancy Border Collies are doing. And I love my work, I have two of them myself, but you know, there's a there's an element of well, I guess my dog has to be smart, you know, the smart breed or whatever they say. And that's not necessarily true any dog can do it can do all sorts of tricks. In fact, some tricks are even, you know, people cross over to do service, dog tasks you know, it's the same element, but the dog has a much more structured lifestyle, because it's to be a service dog. But a lot of those things can pass over picking up items, you know, opening doors, closing doors, things like that. And so that's the beauty of it is I always like to tell people, it's not just any dog, it's any age. So dogs with disabilities are doing trick training, there really is no limitation, you just may have limitations in what types of props your dog can work with. And that's a whole other discussion of figuring out, you know, is this the right size prop? Is it too big for my dog, you know, a lot of times we work on set for TV and film, they want our dogs to work with something like a prop, we always say, Well, let me see it first. Because you know, maybe it has to be a certain size or texture, you know, so the dog was able to finagle the door open or hold that shoe, you know, it can't be a heavy military boot, it has to be more like a loafer. So it's about understanding what works well for your dog to set them up for success. But I do love to say, and I hope I inspire everyone, when I do say is just try it. You know, just give it a shot, teach your dog something new, you may never have to use it. But it's fun to have. And it's something different. And it also is a great way to distract your dog. If they're overly stimulated by something, you can quickly bring them into your world and do a couple of tricks with them to kind of help reset them and bring them back to focusing on you.

HOW TO USE TRICK TRAINING WITH YOUR DOG

Right. Well, you mentioned setting them up for success with trick training. How do you recommend starting with, I would have to assume you start with a certain trick. And then you build from that trick, you don't just throw a complicated trick at them. You want to build up to that, is that right?

That's right. And you know, when I start my sessions, I actually funny enough, I take a bunch of treats, and I just start tossing them around the floor. Just encouraging my dog to be happy to go chase the treat and just being interested in doing work with me. I rarely ever, like bring them into a room and make them sit and get them right to work. You know, I let them like kind of choose to work with me by tossing treats and keeping it real low stress. And they generally are like, Oh, this is fun. Okay, what's next? You know, and then I'll then I'll start to go from there. And yes, I do say if you are doing complicated tricks, like I said a little bit earlier, is break it down into very, very edible pieces. If I'm going to get my dog to open up a fridge door, the first day, I may just have them be touching their nose to the let's say dish towel that they're eventually going to pull. So I just have them touch it. No big deal. touch touch. We're good. Some dogs will leap right into it like Darby is gonna run up to it and he's going to yank on it. Well, that's even better if my dog but I'm just gonna keep it Real simple, and I’ll probably finish with them doing some tricks they know really well, to just kind of put the bow on the gift there and really like seal the deal. As far as it being like that was a great session, right? And I keep it that simple. Now there are some days where I'm like, Okay, we have to push it today. And it's gonna be hard. But I only do a few repetitions. And I always end, if I've got, I try to go for two to three, I'm getting two to three. Okay, we've moved forward a little bit action, like, Okay, I'm seeing a progression here. If I can get it two to three times, I'll stop immediately, I won't go for 5,6,7,8 times, I want to get a high rate of success. And then I'm going to stop early, because they are going to retain that. And the next time we come back to it. Yeah, they may forget a little bit, but they'll go right back to that as soon as they figure out when the reward’s happening and when it's not.

Yep. And do you always use verbal cues as well as physical cues?

That's great. So I do I, so there's three elements there. I do free shaping, where free shaping is where you really have the dog start to interact with something without you giving them any, any feedback, as far as, Hey, do this now. So like, for example, if there's a box on the floor, and I want the dog to go in a box, every time he sticks his nose in the box, I'm going to reward just if he randomly sticks his nose in the box, I'm going to reward it and then he'll and then I'll stop rewarding when he does that. And I bet you he's going to offer me more to say, Okay, why isn't that working anymore? What else do I have to do. And eventually, they'll put their paw in the box, right? And then you know, we reward from there. So I like free shaping, because I don't like to always just lire my dog like, Hey, here's the treat, follow it and do this. I think the dog thinks a lot less when you do stuff like that, he's not really thinking. It's just kind of like going on cruise control. And I really want the dog to be thinking. So it's a little bit more of an advanced approach, but it's what I like to do. But as far as the other ways, physical and verbal 100% I use both. But I try to separate how I do it. For example, I'll say, spin, and then I'll motion with the hand. So like, I try to put them on two different train tracks, pulling into the same station. So by doing spin, and then using my hand, I'm not doing it at the same time, which means at some point, I can do either or, and the dog should be able to know what it means. But if I always layer it together, then the dog doesn't see it as anything different. Right? So if I'm on set, I can't yell spin when the actress is talking. But I could use my hand motion, and he's gonna understand, you know, it's either A or B, it has the same has the same solution.

WHERE TO LEARN TRICK TRAINING

How do you suggest that we learn because I know there's books on dog tricks? I know there's classes, there's probably courses, what do you suggest the best way to learn how to do fun tricks?

Oh, it there's so many great outlets, I would say what I call kind of like the couch to 5K and I say that with a loving heart. Because I think it's a great program is the Do More With Your Dog program. I think it's the most at home friendly, really nice, attractive books that come out. Like there's one called 101 Dog Tricks on Amazon. But do more with your dog. It's great for people who have like, I've never done this before. And online, there's like super cool groups you can join. And people are always trying to help each other. And it's just a really nice little community. So I love that. Also, if you want to take any of my online trick based stuff, you can check out BFF Pet Services, and there's some online courses there. If you live in the Maryland area, we'd love to see you. But you can there's some great ones that on there as far as doing some more of the trickier tricks, I guess you could say. And then I say you know, just honestly, it's all about if I were to be brutally honest, is you know, get in get into a training facility so you can understand what it's like to when to when should you reward your dog and how does that work and your basic obedience class will be so useful to you. But it's a lot of trial and error. You know, I have to be very honest, when I taught tricks myself. Like when I taught tricks, I just trial and errored the entire way through, I had a guideline of what tricks I wanted to do. And then I just said, Okay, we're just gonna, we're just gonna see how this works. We're gonna figure it out together. Now not everyone can do that. That's fine. Definitely hook up to a positive reinforcement training facility that can help you. And a lot of those places do have trick classes. And it might be helpful to have that one on one experience with a trainer. A lot of it is trial and error. And before you know it, you start to learn how your dog learns, and a lot of the stuff you can start to do on your own.

Great, great advice. Wow, I'm so excited. I Well, Winston used to be a therapy dog. So we went into assisted living places. And the people just loved watching him do tricks. And it forced me to teach him a new one before we went back, because of course, that's the first question, What trick can he do now? So that is right, so much fun. But I have to say, when Winston knows we're gonna do tricks, he'll do all of them back to back saying, Oh, which one does she want? I'm gonna do them all. Kind of funny.

And so they and it's funny, dogs will start to kind of create their own movement they think is what you want. And if it's something you like, you can capture it, and then it becomes its own trick. So we've got a few things like my dog will sneeze, and then I'll reward and now it's, it's now it's a trick that he sneezes on command. I know. And so there's, there's all, there's all sorts of… your dog can also like help you you might go, I never thought of doing it that way. But I love that he does it that way. Like that's a much cooler way than I would have trained. And that's how he likes to do it. That's his style. And you can reward that. And that's kind of the fun part of trick training too, is that like, there's no limit. There's tricks that people have never done, but it's just because, you know, no one's thought of it yet. And so you see a lot of them and there's a film out if anybody wants to watch it. It's called Agent Toby Barks with my dog Beasley, he's a spy dog. He's the lead in the movie, the principal actor, and he does every single trick himself. There was no stunt double. There was no fake paws, nothing like that. So if you want to see a lot of tricks in a very creative cinematic sense, that's a really cool film to look at all the different props we worked with, in order to get the film done.

How cool. Well, I will definitely put all these links in the show notes of everything that you mentioned. So as we are about to sign off here, Chrissy where can everyone find out more information about you?

Yes, please. I'm very available on Instagram and Facebook and even Tik Tok? Yes, I'm there as well. You can follow @thechrissyjoy and also @thejoycrew. So @thejoycrew are all the dogs @thechrissyjoy is more of the training. And, you know, my personal adventures and things like that as well. We love to go hiking and backpacking. If anybody's into that as well, there’s tons of content that we do van life and things that we do every year. But we'd love to have you guys follow us and reach out and I’'m always available. And yeah, I hope I hope you guys enjoyed what I had to share today. But I always leave everyone with the note that I please I hope that you can always be inspired to do something more with your dog. And also, you know, take them on your adventures because it's just it's memories that will last a lifetime.

Social Media URLs or Tags

         Instagram: @thechrissyjoy  @thejoycrew 

         Facebook: @thechrissyjoy @thejoycrew 

         LinkedIn: ChrissyJoy

website URL www.chrissyjoy.com

I totally agree. Well, Chrissy, thank you so much. This has been so much fun. And I can't wait. You know, please tag both Chrissy and I @thechrissyjoy and @wagoutloud with any fun tricks that you teach your dog. We would love to see videos. So there's just so many benefits. And Chrissy thanks for being here today and sharing all of them.

Yes, of course. And hopefully we'll be talking again and we can talk about more fun things to come.

Sounds good.

Thanks again to the team at AnimalBiome for sponsoring this episode.  Learn more by going to animalbiome.com and be sure to use the discount code WOL-20 for 20% off.  Your dog will thank you!

Thanks for listening. You'll find some helpful links in the show notes and if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. And please, please share your feedback. Visit WagOutLoud.com for great product recommendations with discounts, amazing online events and fantastic resources. That's also where to visit our Bark About It page where you can suggest topics, guests or products. Be advised that this show offers health and nutritional information and is designed for educational purposes only. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as a substitute for nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your dog's health, you should always consult a veterinarian or a nutrition expert. Have a tail wagging day and we'll catch you next time.

Hey Winston was that another tail wagging episode?