Kodak
Who Kodak is
Breed
On film
he's a pit mix i guess he's a pit mix of some kind but who knows what that means
bullies, kitties, love doing that. where they like to ignore um they like to ignore um the command and they do this
Age
Stated
Contradictorily, once, by the owners.
On film
he's gotten so tall i think he's gotten taller but that's because how old is he uh he's a year
april 1st was his birthday right is it april yeah i think april april 1st april fools over a year and a half
As the trainers describe him
A flight risk who wants to bolt and does not trust the handler at all. This is the first thing said about him on his first outing, and it is said within two minutes of the collar going on.
On film
yeah he could run off really easily
and he does not trust me very much yet at all fascinating come here bud come here buddy
yeah he could get panicked and like try to yeah he's gonna pull out of it he's gonna try come on
and I don't always do this with all the dogs anymore, but I'm going to do it with Kodak for sure because of the flightiness and the kind of fearfulness he's showing me right now he could easily panic
Wary of everything and everyone, including the trainer. The case type is named before the dog is.
On film
like kodak obviously is you can see how where he is of anything and anybody even of me
flight risk scared of sounds freaked out by people flighty well we do a mixture of things
Hypervigilant, and it is treated as the working material rather than as the problem to remove first. 'As scared a cat as ever' opens the second walk.
On film
all right out here with mr. Kodak the Kodak moment
and he's as scared a cat as ever but that's okay
we can work with that with that hyper vigilance we're
and uh what uh Finn's tendency was was to just completely like wall off um but Kodak has a little bit more of a tendency to get actually get defensive especially with other dogs and especially with Rocco
The family's most vivid statement of what the fear costs him: by their account he would sooner run into the street than walk through an automatic door.
On film
he'll like run into the street and he loves it before he'd walk through an automatic door
He backs out of collars, which is why he is double-attached. The slip lead is recommended to the family for the same reason at the owner lesson, and was fitted on the first walk within four minutes.
On film
collar has a regular collar i'm using on him has a slip collar backup and the slip lead backup will make it such that if he tries to pull out of the other collar he will still have a slip lead on
glad I put that backup slip on him because like he was like just a few levels away from really panicking back there and when dogs really panic like that that's when they when they pull out of their collar and slip their collar and that's how you end up with a runaway dog
put them on long line even if they're fresh because as long as you have a backup slip on them they're not going anywhere right
Praise and touch were aversive to him early. The trainer says so, argues it at length, and then demonstrates it by praising loudly and frightening him on camera.
On film
I love you I know you don't feel that way right now and me trying to show that to you by touching you would be aversive to you actually
doing a loud noise lots of oh my god praising him look at that scared the fudge out of him right good job he doesn't like that he's scared of me right now right so um that's not useful um and if i try to approach him and love on him He would panic,
I had a strong temptation to reach out and touch him and praise him. And yet, that would have been strongly counterproductive.
Play and food were both unavailable to him at first. Play in particular is called panic-inducing - which is the line the later sessions overturn.
On film
sometimes with dogs like this, like if I tried to play with him right now, oh, oh, that would be panic inducing for Kodak. He would be scared to death if I tried to play with him right now
he might take it but he's not gonna be looking cheerful right he's gonna be still scared of me the whole time
The first month of training is summarised by the trainer, to a stranger, as telling him nothing.
On film
just a frightened boy it's okay he's in training mode yeah he's in training yeah the training so far has consisted of me walking and telling him nothing
you've noticed I haven't given him any commands the only thing I've done is is tugged on the leash just a little bit
Hypervigilant without a ball, and the most confident thing in the room with one. This is the sentence the whole case turns on, and the trainer says it to the owners.
On film
the whole time unless you give him a ball and then all of a sudden he's the most confident thing in the room
He likes the freedom thing like Rocco does there is he likes ball way more or not even close
five times as much as he likes freedom. Yeah, freedom's cool and whatever But ball
he's just staring the ball down waiting for me to throw it he doesn't care that it's hot he doesn't care that i'm weird to him uh you know because like i'm just some guy that's been out with him a few times he doesn't care about any of that all he cares about is the ball
His escape route under pressure is passive, not defiant. He goes to the ground and waits to see whether he will be let off. The same pattern is named in a different dog at the start of the same session, so it is a recognised category rather than a one-off read.
On film
I know your option that you're taking there is just to lay down and see if i let you do it okay little boy we'll come out better for it
The things that Chunks was doing though, like that was a good thing. like avoid by going down and then if i keep walking from like fish out of water
bullies, kitties, love doing that. where they like to ignore um they like to ignore um the command and they do this
Under sustained pressure the evasions escalate in a fixed order: stall, jump up, run, grab the leash - and all of it is classified as pressure-escape rather than misbehaviour.
On film
for him that was like okay let me resist the pressure by jumping up on him um let me try other things see if i can get out of this
in this case like it doesn't have to be personal like he didn't do anything horrifying he didn't do anything bad he wasn't trying to be mean to me or hurt me or do anything he should he was just trying to get out of the pressure
Very sensitive to the e-collar. He is worked at 10 and 15 out of 100 on the first walk, and on the pack walk his level is found at 20 and dropped to 10.
On film
like like the the presses i used for him um i had it on a 10 and then i used it on a 15. um and that's out of 100 so it's very very low
Yeah, he's, uh, was that, it was probably still on the 20. Yeah. Yeah, put it on like a 10. He's very cincy.
that was on a very low level um relative to the dogs i work with right that's on a 15
Fast, and smart. The trainer's verdict at the end of the down session is that the capability was never in question, and at the owner lesson he puts a date on the change.
On film
smart show smart you just need proper motivation you can do anything
um however like i said i have great news um it's fresh it's only the last few sessions i unlocked his brain
he's actually learning really fast now
He takes cues meant for the other dog and pauses to check whether they were his - an observation nobody follows up, but a real one about a dog living in a bundled program.
On film
yeah yeah he pauses he doesn't always stop yeah he pauses and checks to see if it's for him yeah yeah i guess it's not the worst habit to have
With other dogs his problem is being crowded, not dogs as such. He tolerates a dog that leaves him alone and will not tolerate one that comes in face first - and he tells it off rather than freezing.
On film
But Kodak his thing is like, all right What I've noticed is he has a thing where he gets nervous, right
so then maybe yeah then maybe it wasn't a mistake because then maybe i'm just augmenting what kodak already did which was like hey like don't go face first like that and kind of like be in that dog's face right because kodak doesn't like it
Indoors, before the ball, place was his one strong command and everything off the cot collapsed. He is told he is ten out of ten on place in the same session in which he will not sit off it.
On film
Love it, perfect.
10 out of 10, you're killing it.
I was like, because he's off-cut, it's trash.
try to bring him this way he's gonna sit he's gonna lay down and he'll go on place he doesn't mind that but anywhere else he's
He was not frightened of the place cot when it was introduced, which the handler found unusual.
On film
Okay, you're not scared of this.
He'll get better at that shit. At some small party, he must realize that we're... He didn't resist it too much until that shit. I'm pretty surprised they're not about to act like they're gonna kill him. If they step a little on that cot.
Okay, this is a play spot. It's very nice. Interesting stepping on it. There we go. Good. Okay. You're not scared of it.
Compared by the trainer to Finn, a previous fear case with his own playlist. The comparison is drawn to separate them: Finn walled off, Kodak gets defensive.
On film
If you are watching this and you are Rocco and Kodak's owners, I recommend that you check out the playlist that we have on our channel called Finn the Deer
Finn's tendency was was to just completely like wall off um but Kodak has a little bit more of a tendency to get actually get defensive especially with other dogs and especially with Rocco um I think that's because of Rocco's temperament because Rocco's so forward and so ramped
He attacked his kennel when he was first dropped off, and the trainer says on camera that he has not yet had to repair it. Boredom and FOMO in the crate are named in the same breath.
On film
Yeah, he gets bored. And he's got major
but he when we were creating like even kodak and i know like when we first dropped him off he was like attach attract like attacking the kennel yeah he like so i haven't had that repair yet
Doorways and gates are the one fear nobody has worked. The gate does it too, on the very walk where it is being discussed, and the trainer's own read is that pressure is what triggers the panic.
On film
it's opening oh my god oh my god it's opening i don't know what to do he like darts back and forth he's a weirdo
yeah panic yeah pressure makes him panic yeah
i don't know if it's going back and forth and like freaking out something from his shelter life yeah i don't know
As his family describe him
They found his early videos hard to watch - harder than Rocko's - because of how he looked in them. Staff felt the same, and one of them asked for a clip not to be posted.
On film
watched like i have not watched kodak as much as rocco for some reason it's easier for me to watch rocco than it is for kodak
that's because kodak looks like freaking like he's like horrifying the whole
came to us one day and was like he looks so scared like can we just go get him he looks sad
no i won't lie like actually like uh like claudia and him only like hey like maybe don't post that like he looked really sad the whole time
The door problem is the family's, and they raise it. He loves being inside a pet shop and picks his own toy out of the bins - but the doors have to be got through first.
On film
it's not that he does it randomly like like you like go to walk through a door have you noticed that yes yes what the hell like i don't know what it
okay thanks for telling me that i'm gonna work on that like when we brought him to pet smart he like full-on like walk his mind
when he'd love to go to pet smart and go in and he'll go in into the bins like when he'd grab his own toy and he will be completely excited to be there but you have to get him through those doors first
The ball facts come from them, and they are the most specific things anyone says about him: he remembers where he left one for three weeks, and he destroys them, so they are kept out of his bed and his crate.
On film
um he loves his balls
life is all about balls. I threw a ball for him earlier this week and was like, oh. He will remember where he left that ball for three weeks and still find that ball again.
He's not allowed to bring the balls into bed with him or in the cage because he tears them apart.
chew chew chew good boy yeah chew on that ball he loves to chew on the toys in the crate um or in his kennel we leave a toy in them for him and he just does that with him he tries to destroy him
He did not used to bring the ball back to them. He does now. That, and the fact that he now gives a ball up on the word, mattered far more to the family than the trainer had realised - and he says so on camera.
On film
Have you guys played fetch? Yeah, but he doesn't bring it back to us. He does now. Does he? Really?
he would never give it back to me. Like, I always just have to tease him. Like, give me your ball!
uh, apparently, which I did not realize this, is, uh, is a much bigger deal than I initially thought it was, that he's letting go of the ball.
the other thing that apparently was a huge like kind of deal to them was that um that he knows the out command right um because he wouldn't let go of the ball ever for them
How completely he destroyed balls, in a number: they could not keep one for longer than half an hour on the drive home from the pet store.
On film
he's not destroying the ball, which apparently he was just destroying balls before. like they they couldn't keep it for longer than like 30 minutes all the way home from the pet store like he would kill the ball like actually the grip it shreds
The Petsmart story, relayed second-hand through a colleague: they could not get a ball out of his mouth at the till.
On film
they were telling Hema a story about when they went to the, I think it was, like, PetSmart or something like that, and they went to get three balls,
He refuses his food while holding out for something better, which the owners offer as their own example during the trainer's argument against treat training.
On film
like he gets weird too like if because he'll only like really train because like we only have ever really trained him with treats and now like if he doesn't like certain things like he won't eat because he knows that there's a tray of bacon in the fridge so when we put his food down he'll walk over to the fridge
He backs out of everything. The owners know it, name it as escaping, and connect it to the doorways themselves.
On film
he likes to try to escape like out of his collar and stuff like that like the backing out
like he'll back right out of everything so avoid that's why doorways
Their read on the two dogs together is that each fed off the other's energy, and that their own anxiety was part of it. That is the owners diagnosing themselves, unprompted, and it is the most useful thing they say.
On film
each other? Is that going to be cool? It's like such high energy, I feel like is the problem, that they were like feeding off of each other, that anxious. And then I think it didn't help that we were so anxious about it, too,
and I wonder about how much of that was kind of like from our energy.
They live two and a half hours away, broke down halfway to this lesson, and came anyway.
On film
yeah we're two and a half hours
so we made it literally halfway and we were like well crap now do we just try to get home do we try what do we do
well i'm glad we ended up being able to do it
Before the program he would not let go of a ball for the family and destroyed balls within the drive home; the family's own account, relayed by the trainer.
On film
and then um uh the other thing that apparently was a huge like kind of deal to them was that um that he knows the out command right um because he wouldn't let go of the ball ever for them
His recall at home did not exist without a ball, by the owners' account at the second lesson; the trainer's own word for it was 'atrocious'.
On film
And he wants like no part of us unless ball.
Andrea had caught Rocko, so the dogs themselves never made contact. The owners' account, not seen on film.
On film
basically what happened was he charged up at him he ran because he freaked and panicked but when he freaked and panicked he tangled himself up in the gate
he was in a cone and then he got his cone off and two days later he went in to get neutered
The program, stage by stage
Added to somebody else's program
Early-to-mid August 2026, undated. No filmed intake for Kodak.
The family sent Rocko for dog reactivity. About a week in, they decided to send Kodak too, and the two plans were folded into one bundle with a shared end. Kodak is therefore the second dog in a program designed around the first, and his own program has a deliverable that is not his: the two of them living together. Kodak's is not on film at all.
On film
we had Rocco for a week first and then they decided to bring Kodak and send him to us as well
he was like a post program start for Rocco he was an addition to Rocco's program so we folded their two plans into a bundle which we often do if the same owner wants to do two dogs
And then when it comes to the videos, too, it's important that every family member watches it and it's because we want him to not only listen to you but listen to everyone.
The indoor block: place installed, everything else stuck to the cot
August, undated (watch, watch)
Two staff work Kodak indoors with a television on. Place is introduced from scratch and he takes to it - he is not frightened of the cot. Later he is ten out of ten on place and nothing else. Off the cot the sit collapses: he scoots and spreads out, and one handler says she has got a sit off the cot only once or twice, and only very low. The diagnosis they reach in the room is right and nobody follows it up: the cot is doing the work the word is supposed to do. This is the material the owners later say they found hard to watch, and it is what watch is referring to when it says home-context training was not working.
On film
All right, may I introduce you to a really cool concept. No, that's not your area. Okay, this thing. And we call this the place. Because when we say place, this is where you go.
10 out of 10, you're killing it.
He knows how to sit, right? Yeah, like I said, he does it on the cot, no problem. Off the cot,
This is the first day he's done this though he's never sold quite as hard before
so if we're going to do another session we should probably put him in a kennel and we'll have to do that and see if
The first public outing: half an hour of asking nothingTurning point
Late August 2026 (watch, re-cut as watch)
Kodak's first time off the property, on 26 feet of unlocked flexi with a slip lead under the working collar because he can pull out of it. While walking he lays out the three-prong approach to camera: environmental exploration with room to retreat, negative reinforcement always followed immediately by release back into freedom, and movement at a jogging pace. He rules out play, food, praise and touch one by one as currently unusable, and argues at length that comforting a dog who does not trust you is itself an aversive - then proves it by praising loudly and frightening him. Bicycles plus a noise plus his own restraint produce a frantic sprint, which he attributes partly to himself. Only in the last twenty minutes does he ask for anything.
On film
I have not been drilling commands I haven't given any commands right I haven't required anything of it
if i were to go hard on him right now for obedience this would not be useful right um could i get obedience out of it yeah sure i could teach him obedience but how would it look it would look gross
negative reinforcement is clarifying to dogs um it makes their world predictable it makes it structured right
see like the result there for him was big-time fear, right? He's sprinting away now frantically And it wasn't just the bicycles that did that. It was also me like Like, holding him back close to me like that and then the loud noise, it sent him into, like, a panic,
so often people think okay well you need to teach them to be right next to you if they're flight risk and if they um you know are super flighty and scared and you actually need to open up room for them to to do other things and explore instead
The first hard sit, and the mandatory resetTurning point
The last twenty minutes of the same walk (watch 53:36)
Having asked nothing for half an hour, the trainer now runs recalls that end in immediate release, discovers mid-session that he has over-loosened the e-collar for the dog's comfort and it is not making contact, and finishes on a single sit that takes verbal, then the conditioned punisher, then about forty seconds of physical manipulation and leash pressure. The instant Kodak sits, everything stops: 'okay', encouragement, all pressure gone. Then a reset period with nothing asked, which he names as a rule - you cannot go straight back to pressure. The debrief is the session's claim and the channel's chosen hook: the pressure did not frighten him, it made him predictable, and the dog is now walking close by choice. Two smaller things happen in the same stretch and are worth keeping: a recall comes back with different body language and the trainer ventures a pet on the head, and at the very end he calls Kodak over socially, is declined, and accepts the answer.
On film
Right now. Do you think that was stressful for kodak yeah almost certainly that was stressful for kodak right um but um it was in the correct order right so verbal first sit right and then i use the conversion punisher
another extremely important piece of this puzzle is that when you do that um you cannot go immediately back to pressure again if i did it right now that would would scare the absolute heck out of him right so no instead of that um i allow him time to reset he has to reset
you can see like that did not make him afraid of me it actually seems to have made him more receptive to me look at him walking close to me now um not because uh you know he's afraid to go out there because i might do something to him but because look he's not so worried about me anymore i'm predictable
the answer to that question is no right and that's okay right uh that's another thing i'm accepting that answer in this case right i'm accepting that answer because there's no need for me to push that
The second walk: more pressure, still no reward but freedom
Between the first outing and 2026-09-01 (watch, re-cut as watch)
Same dog, same approach, one change announced at the top: more negative reinforcement. The e-collar is refitted on camera - it had been put on too loose and slid to the bottom of his neck - and then used at 15 on recall, escalating by taps to about 30 on the sit. Kodak stalls, jumps up, tries to run, grabs the leash, and complies. The teaching in this session is the densest in the set: the reset ratio with a number on it, the difference between an informal 'come here' and a formal 'come' you are then obliged to enforce, the extinction burst and the instruction not to quit at it, the traffic-ticket argument for why a contingent consequence produces control rather than fear, and the claim that pressure plus big relief plus immediate liberty lowers a nervous dog's nervousness rather than raising it. The good sign the trainer names is not obedience but sniffing. The plan stated here is sit now, down next, heel after - which is exactly the order the next three sessions follow, by a completely different method.
On film
so, um, giving him a little bit of negative reinforcement, and, like, putting a little pressure on it, and then relieving that pressure in a big way, clarifies things for him, obligates the command, and also, uh, counterintuitively for many, actually reduces his nervousness,
early on a lot of times it's really really sparse throughout the session sometimes um 90 percent of the session is just walking and 10 percent of the session is commands
if you give the actual command, you must reinforce it. You must negatively reinforce it. It is not optional.
this is what um rehabilitates dogs is when they get to do that and you mix that with negative reinforcement so they learn that they can cope with the stress
and then i am going to work on sit a few more times here and then either towards the end of this session depending on how he's feeling at that point or at worst at the uh during the next session that we do together i'm going to start working on the down command
i'll introduce the heel command and the heel entry
The ball: the plan abandoned mid-sessionTurning point
2026-09-01 13:51 (watch)
The trainer goes out with a long line intending freedom, recall practice, and a look at whether Kodak has any interest in play at all. Within four minutes he has his answer, calls it the secret code, and abandons the plan on the spot: all they will do today is throw a ball. He explicitly refuses to fold any obedience into it, because the play is building the relationship and obedience would spend it. Kodak retrieves voluntarily, chews the ball, and is more engaged with the trainer than at any prior point - and stops caring that it is hot or that the trainer is a stranger. Out of it come two general statements: always take the toys and actually try them rather than deciding in advance that a fearful dog will not play; and a four-stage case framework in which authority is built inside the cooperative relationship rather than instead of it. A thirteen-minute session with no panic episode and no bolt attempt, which is itself new.
On film
I think I found a secret code it's the secret code for Kodak
all we're gonna actually do today um based on what i'm seeing now we are literally literally just gonna we're just gonna play ball
This is why you should always take some stuff with you and try it, right? Because it can totally change your approach. Try tug, try ball, try stuff.
what I don't want to do is start right now at this moment I don't want to start immediately integrating like too much obedience into the play because of his like super crazy nerve starting point
you're going to start developing authority and you want to develop that authority within the cooperation mode right so you're going to want to be in a cooperation um like relationship first that you build
The down, through chase and catchTurning point
2026-09-03 18:19 (watch)
A single-purpose session: teach the down using the ball. Roughly ten repetitions spaced between throws, each down paid with a release and a throw, physical help reduced round by round. The trainer says on camera that he does not expect verbal-only today and probably will not get it - and then gets it on the next repetition and says he was wrong rather than cutting the prediction. Seventeen minutes on the clock, about fifteen of them on the down, from nothing to a verbal-only rep with no touching. He does one more and stops, on the grounds that that is enough physical and cognitive load for one session. Same evening, twenty-six minutes later, Rocko's play assessment is filmed in the same park.
On film
all right we're about 15 minutes and he's losing a little bit of gas
we might not get it verbal only in this session but maybe maybe something close enough so we'll see
okay good boy well i was wrong i was very wrong we did in fact we didn't in fact get it that was that was a lot of fat I didn't expect the next rep to be there the time he got it
uh we didn't even work on the down for the first for the first two or three minutes so that's 15 minutes from no knowledge of down at all uh to a full down using uh chase and catch
He learns so much faster. He's so much more cooperative. It builds a lot of trust. And it really fits within the paradigm that we train in.
The owner lesson: the frameworks, and the ball taught as a method
2026-09-04 18:10 (watch)
Ninety-three minutes, both dogs, one continuous recording. Rocko gets the first fifty-five minutes, most of which is the two conceptual frameworks - the four quadrants taught in household terms, then windows theory with calm liberty named as most of the reason the trainer has a job. Kodak's half is entirely about the ball. The trainer reports the verbal-only down with its limit attached in the same breath, demonstrates a down with no ball present, and then teaches play as a curriculum: what makes a game bad, cooperative versus possession games, never one command per throw, keep 'out' neutral, sometimes let him keep it. The thesis is stated in one sentence - a dog who panics under pressure can accept that same pressure inside a game, and what he learns there transfers out. Kodak's door panic, his backing out of collars, his kennel attack and the outstanding integration are all discussed openly, and the family are told the truth about each.
On film
a dog like Kodak who doesn't normally tolerate pressure that well, he panics, can suddenly learn from pressure if it's part of the game. So then I'm able to teach him those things and then I can transition if he learns those well in in that context then I can transition that into every
either yesterday or the day before, I taught him to down in 15 minutes. Really? Yeah, verbal only.
Now, I don't know if he'd do that right at this moment. Right, with all the distractions. Yeah, because I still need to proof it, right? But I got a verbal only rep, right?
Kodak, Kodak, down, down. Okay. Good boy, I wanted to see if you'd do it without the ball.
the other the other good thing about play is that if you get them to listen to commands during games you get authority while the engine's running so to speak
Heel begins, off site, on a family visit
2026-09-05 19:24 (watch)
The trainer takes Kodak with him to Durham for the night and trains him on the evening walk. Roughly ten heel entries on the long line, each released with a ball throw, with the leash brought in to clarify position. By 17:25 Kodak holds position and stops when the handler stops. The plan is stated aloud: keep milking ball and fetch, keep the walk low pressure, start the heel, and build confidence around doorways and environmental noise - all of it aimed at being able to integrate him with Rocko. He stops the heel work deliberately rather than pushing it on the walk home, spelling the commands aloud so the dog does not hear them, because more heel there would poison it. One down on the walk home with no ball in hand, so the word is the only cue present.
On film
and then i'm going to start building his heel um teaching him heel
you stopped when i stopped that time beautiful job kodak
because if i can get him to be a more confident dog who ignores things in the environment it doesn't get overwhelmed or panic then i can use that as well um when i need to try to integrate him with rocco
Just need to make sure that it generalizes so that he can do it Even if you know, you don't have a ball in your hand
I'm not going to go for any more A-T-E-L because I'm going to start recapping that and pushing that again in another play session, not here on the walk. That'll probably just poison it for him.
Two sessions in one day: heel entries, the three Ds, and no-showing a scare
2026-09-06 09:48 (watch) and 2026-09-06 21:55 (watch)
In the morning, a thirty-eight-minute walk with the ball on a flexi: three or four heel entries, the three Ds added to the down, and one heel rep that falls apart because dogs bark at him. The trainer refuses to read that as lost training, calls it a nervous-system event, and then says the most important thing anyone says about this case - that obedience is the easy part and he would send Kodak home knowing no heel and no down, as long as he can hear dogs bark without panicking. He also demonstrates his policy for a startle: no reassurance, no resistance, no reaction at all. In the evening, a short session on a tripod in a field, mostly silent. Kodak's escape route shows up - lying down to see whether he will be let off - and then the milestone: he holds a heel through a turn where he has to travel round the outside, without panicking and without quitting, and the session is packed up immediately to end on it. The same recording quietly contains loud enthusiastic praise and repeated 'I love you buddy', which he takes without alarm. On the first outing that praise had frightened him.
On film
i'd rather him go home doesn't know lick a heel doesn't know lick it down right has to know recall um but i'd rather him go home and not know those things at all if he's capable of coping with those dogs barking without
the reason that that repetition was so much worse than the one prior isn't because he forgot how to heal right
it's because those dogs barked at him
instead of me like oh it's okay it's okay i just let him i just let him do what he's
i'm just gonna keep going and no show it
he did it he did a full turn he didn't panic he didn't freak out he stayed with it yes mmm that makes me so happy
we're going to pack him up because i want to end on that really really high note
Good job Kodak! Good job Kodak! Good boy! I love you! I love you buddy! I love you! Good job Kodak!
The pack walk: Rocko and Kodak, parallel and indifferentTurning point
2026-09-09 16:36 (watch), on a decision taken the night before (watch, 2026-09-08 21:02)
The night before, the trainer walks Rocko through downtown Angier, watches him see other working dogs and not react, takes stock across the board and decides he is ready to start being integrated with Kodak. The next afternoon they do it: one handler per dog, walking in parallel, deliberately not asking for interaction, with a stop line held at nose-to-nose. It goes better than either handler expected. Rocko does not fixate; Kodak gives a tail wag and one butt sniff; for most of the walk they are simply indifferent to each other. The one incident is Rocko going in face first and Kodak telling him off, after which the trainer works out loud whether he corrected the right dog. The success criterion is stated as what did not happen - no lunging, no reactivity, no whale eyes, no fixation, neither tense - and the goal is named as what the owners were already told: peaceful coexistence required, friendship optional. The plan at the end is three more walks like this, then indoors, where there is no retreat.
On film
He's made so much progress all the way across the board He saw dogs. He didn't react.
I'm pretty much Gonna start integrating him in Kodak now
so we're taking them on our surf walkies together as a pair. And this is our first attempt at just doing like a kind of little walk together so that they start getting more comfortable with each other. This is how we can start integrating.
they like said hi to each other and there wasn't any problems yet i think that was neutral getting any real eyes no no whale eyes and fixation from either of them
This walk is going good. It is, yeah. They're not, I mean. They're not interacting, but they're not acknowledging each other. No, they're not even like fixating or like jumping back and forth between not interacting. I'm like, they're not even avoiding or anything like that. Not like heavy. Yeah, they're just indifferent.
and then i want to try inside yeah because like where it's at right now i don't want to jump straight there because inside is normally higher tension yeah because there's no they can't really get away from each other
Proofing: the down held while the ball is thrown
2026-09-11 19:26 (watch), the last dated working session before the second owner lesson
An evening session run until the light goes. The trainer proofs the down against the hardest distraction this dog has - the ball itself, thrown, while Kodak holds position - and it holds after a few repetitions. Heel comes back retained from the previous lessons: the best entry needs only leash clarification, no e-collar, and the ball is kept in the pocket on the far side of his body so that it cannot be doing the work the cue should do. Kodak stops when the handler stops and looks up to ask whether he got it right. One heel entry falls apart and takes several minutes of honest work to resolve. The session ends on his best heel yet, and on the trainer reading the end off the dog: he keeps leaving his ball out there now, which he was not doing before.
On film
All right, we're going to really test his down. We're going to go for the hard one. We're going to throw a ball while he's in the down. see if he stays. Down,
the next thing that I'm happy about it with is that he was able to scale up so quickly to having a down with that big of a distraction with the ball going it only took a few reps for him to figure it out
uh didn't use the ball as a lure or anything like that it was in my pocket um uh on the opposite side of my body so if he was looking for the ball he would have come across my body
and when i stopped he stopped and looked up at me like am i doing it right and i confirmed with an okay and tossed the ball for him
I think my guy Kodak's about done because he keeps leaving his ball out there now, which he was not doing before.
The second owner lesson: at home, the owner on the line, and the dogs indoors togetherTurning point
2026-09-15, 19:30 to 21:19 (watch, watch, watch), at the owners' home
Nothing is filmed between 09-11 and this evening. The lesson is held at the owners' home, not at the facility. It opens as a parallel walk in the yard, the trainer with Rocko and Natalia with Kodak on the 26-foot line - the first time on film that anyone in the family handles Kodak. The trainer's read is that Kodak mostly wants nothing to do with Rocko while Rocko is interested but no longer fixated, and he states what he hopes for from the indoor attempt: either it goes well or any problem is unmistakable, because an ambiguous incident is the hardest to judge. Inside, Toby is caged so only two dogs are variables, Kodak goes in first, and the trainer re-runs the conditions of the dogs' bad first meeting - Kodak crated, Rocko loose - to see whether Rocko charges the crate. The owners say it is the first time all three dogs have been in one room, and tell the full story of the gate injury. The trainer reads Kodak's reprimand on the pack walk as boundary protection, not a wish to fight, and names Kodak's last priority: recall, which he calls atrocious. About fifty minutes are then unrecorded; in that gap, by the trainer's later account, the dogs got excited when Toby came out and he corrected Kodak for his response, off camera because his camera had died. The closing part reports that the dogs went nose to nose, sets the owners' homework - say the interrupter and back it up - and takes the dogs back for a few more days.
On film
If, Natalia, could you come grab Kodak for me real quick?
kind of remaining task is to kind of like get it as fully integrated as possible which is having them loose loose yeah in the same area yeah that's the hard part yeah
And what I mostly wanna see is like, does he charge a cage? Does he do any dumb? Cause that's just useful information for us.
get away from me right because the other thing like if you if you watch that video closely like Kodak was not trying to um he didn't want to get fired right he was just kind of protecting his boundary it was like a get away from me
there's one actual the the final big thing that i'm still pooping with kodak that i care about is um his recall was atrocious yeah it was so bad it just like this didn't exist
they were full nose to nose
The last test: Rocko neutral, Kodak shut down, and the moving-dog check
2026-09-18 15:45 (watch), a fenced yard at the facility
Six hours before go-home the trainer runs a final check, alone, with e-collars on both dogs held in reserve. Loose together, Rocko leaves Kodak completely alone and Kodak is 'pretty shut down', lying in a corner. Rocko sniffs Kodak's face and walks away and Kodak lets him. Because calm around a stationary dog proves little, the trainer puts Rocko on place, gets Kodak up with the ball, and then walks Kodak on a leash to see whether Kodak moving sets Rocko off; it does not. Last, both dogs are walked together, Kodak on a flexi and Rocko on a six-foot lead, and later loaded into the truck one after the other without incident. The standard he states is coexistence: he does not know whether they will ever be best buds. What he says Kodak has to learn now is that Rocko is no longer trying to do anything to him, and he expects most of Kodak's change to come after they go home.
On film
Okay, so what I'm seeing so far is that Rocco is actually leaving Kodak completely alone.
But Kodak is pretty shut down, doesn't want anything to do with Rocco.
want to see if Rocco does anything if Kodak's walking around and make sure that it's not like okay like Kodak is stationary so Rocco doesn't care but if Rocco is seeing Kodak move around then there's problems
So the primary thing that I'm trying to teach Kodak here and just let him kind of see and get used to is that Rocco's not trying to do anything to him anymore, right?
Um, Kodak isn't really having it yet. Um, but, uh, I'm, I'm hoping to see a little bit of progress in that area. Um, and I think a lot of it will happen after they go home.
Go-home: three dogs loose in a small house, and the problem flipsTurning point
2026-09-18, 21:25 to 22:58 (watch, watch, watch, watch), at the owners' home
The trainer tells the family that Rocko's side of the problem is now largely handled and that it has flipped: Kodak is the uncomfortable one, and he objects when Rocko gets excited. The rule for the evening is that Kodak may do what he likes - lie down, play with Toby - except go after Rocko. Kodak goes into the house first this time, because he hangs back where Rocko would rush the door, and the trainer welcomes the hectic moment when all three dogs pile in: a quiet training room proves little about an ordinary evening in a small house. Rocko is a little pushy and leaves when called off; Kodak does not react. Later Kodak holds a longer face-off with his tail straight up and is redirected with 'leave it', which the trainer says was not a punishment. The owners are taught what to watch for (a hard freeze face to face, one dog not leaving the other alone), told the interrupter is the pass-or-fail item and must always be backed up, told to feed in crates, and told to interrupt early rather than late. While the trainer steps outside, an owner reports Kodak sniffing Rocko several times and climbing onto her lap beside him without needing a redirect, and trainer and owners agree the dogs are avoiding each other a little while respecting each other's boundaries - 'what we needed'. The trainer declares both dogs graduated, fits an e-collar to teach placement and fit, approves a slip collar as Kodak's backup, and gives his handover read: Rocko's recall is great, Kodak's is good except when he panics. The family's own collars and flexi leads have not yet arrived.
On film
okay go after Rocco like that's not okay um because what I'm seeing now is it's kind of flipped yeah where now Kodak feels uncomfortable and Rocco gets excited
own what I was really happy to see there is that like Rocco was a little pushy yeah but when I just called him off he left right and Kodak didn't react
i didn't hit them with like a big huge ah yeah right right that wasn't a punishment just a redirect
it. And then Kodak came to this side and he jumped up on my lap while Rocco was like right here. And he did lean into me harder, but also was able to just walk it off. So no redirecting needed.
Yeah. They're kind of looking at each other, but they're also kind of like, even just like right there like they're probably avoiding each other a little bit but that's okay they're trying to respect each other's boundaries yes yeah that's what we needed
Yeah, they're graduated. That's pretty much it.
is great come on with me good job yeah rocco's recall is great kodak um his recall is good but
if he panics that's the hard part
And then the record stops
After 2026-09-18
Nothing after the go-home lesson is on film. An owner planned a family pack walk for the next morning and the trainer endorsed it; follow-up questions were to go by text; the family's own e-collars and flexi leads were due at the start of the following week. The doorways, raised as the family's complaint at the first owner lesson, are never worked on camera. The off-cot sit is never returned to. Everything this case says about life after 2026-09-18 would be inference.
Skills
Leash yielding - no tension on the line
How it was taught
A 26-foot flexi, unlocked. No commands. A small tug to bring him off the pressure when he loads the line, deliberately classified as not a correction, later paired with a marker sound he already knew from home-context work and kennel care. He is never reeled in for passers-by; the trainer only keeps him from jamming the other person up. The reasoning is that freedom is the working medium for a fearful dog, so the one boundary has to be narrow enough not to cost him the freedom.
On film
so first like you've noticed I haven't given him any commands the only thing I've done is is tugged on the leash just a little bit given a little leash pressure right so that he comes off of it because he needs to respect leash pressure right don't brace up just like give into it and go
but i want to leave him with options where he can he can retreat he can sniff things but i'm just keeping that leash pressure boundary and keeping this guy from being jammed up by the leash
That wasn't just popping back on the leash really like slightly, right? I would not even classify that as a leash correction. direction. That is just me kind of, um, kind of gently tugging him off of the leash pressure.
he's also learning like the end of the leash is a no-no right
was much better on the leaf pressure he felt the end of the leash and came right off of it which is a good sign that what I've been doing in that case is working
Yeah, he'll fight the leash, yeah, he'll start doing it from the end.
Recall - informal and formal
How it was taught
Call, and release with 'okay' the instant he arrives, then let him go straight back out to whatever distance he wants. Nothing is done to him on arrival. The rep is explicitly not about the recall - it is a controlled, survivable dose of pressure that ends in freedom. When he refused it, the collar was checked for contact and used at 10 to 15 out of 100. Later reps add a sit before the release, so that being asked for something on arrival still ends well. The informal/formal distinction is then taught as a rule: 'come here' costs nothing and obliges nothing; 'come' obliges enforcement the moment it leaves your mouth, so you use the weak one when you are not prepared to enforce.
On film
because like that makes it predictable like hey like he can come all the way up to me right almost all the way up to me like within like a couple feet of me and nothing bad happens and i immediately say okay right which he's starting to learn the meaning of okay um which is our release marker
good job another really good rep of the recall there again he's learning the same thing i can put pressure on him and he can cope with that pressure and survive it and he's going to get released back into freedom
A command that is crucial. It's the most important one. That, if you have a great recall and you have a conditioned punisher, uh that takes care of like 60 to 80 of problems depending on your dog
so again there i used um the e-collar to start to negatively reinforce the recall because he is at the stage where i need to start doing that he needs to learn he has to come back right in order for me to get him off leash in order for his life to be well ordered and in order for his nervousness to calm down a little bit
that was an informal recall right so i said not come right those are different
now an example of a formal recall would be kodak come and see now that i've said that i'm obligated to reinforce it if he doesn't come all the way to me
and you can see like that was really good too right i said kodak come he came and flipped right back around and came to me he's still doing a little bit of circle and i can straighten it out later
so we're also getting a little bit of practice there for the recall as well
has to know recall
there's one actual the the final big thing that i'm still pooping with kodak that i care about is um his recall was atrocious yeah it was so bad it just like this didn't exist
if he panics that's the hard part
Down, and then the three Ds
How it was taught
Inside the ball game. Run fetch; between throws ask for the down, help physically at first and hold the criterion ('all the way'), release with 'okay' and throw the ball the instant he is down, and reduce the help each round until the word alone does it. Rest when he tires. Then generalise it off the ball - ask for it with nothing in your hand, so the word is the only cue present. Then proof it against the ball, which is the hardest distraction this dog has. The trainer notes as a general pattern that a down taught with a ball produces an easy distance down.
On film
I did it the first couple of times and then I went on.
yeah they were they what they couldn't he wouldn't do anything i think he sat in place if she stood over place and held his leash and held him in there.
because this is the first time we've worked with him on it at all so you you can see how through play, you can go from zero times to 15 minutes later getting your first verbal only down. It's very, very powerful.
and that my my friends that was a verbal only down yeah verbal only down let's see how many minutes it took
Just need to make sure that it generalizes so that he can do it Even if you know, you don't have a ball in your hand Just like they have to be able to do it. Even if you don't have a treat in your hand, right? It needs to be something reliable That's off any other kind of cues. It's only verbal cue
So I'm starting to correct a few small things that he does. like backing up really far when he is asked to do a command for specifically full set or Or starting to add the three D's this inspiration distraction to his his down as an example
his down is perfect. It's really reliable, really nice. Even from a little bit of a distance now,
which I've noticed anytime I train a dog to down with a ball, they always seem to get a distance down really easily.
Yeah, no leash pressure yet. Just, eh-eh. Down.
How do you lay down now?
Sit - and the off-cot problem that was never solved on camera
How it was taught
Outdoors: verbal first, then the conditioned punisher, then physical manipulation and leash pressure, in that order and never reversed. The instant he sits, everything stops - 'okay', encouragement, all pressure gone - followed by a mandatory reset. In the second walk the level starts at 15, taps escalate to about 30, and leash pressure is shown alongside because he already knows the command, so the work is obligating rather than teaching. Indoors, by contrast, the answer was to relax the criterion and then to stop the session entirely.
On film
but he just keeps scooting
I was like, because he's off-cut, it's trash.
Off the cot, he's not doing none of it.
recall him and then ask him to sit for me and then release him to freedom so that he gets that same thing like hey just because I make you do something when you get to me doesn't mean that anything
Might panic a little bit now
I did introduce a little bit of negative reinforcement there for the sit because he does tend to stall out. So I used the e-collar there, and I ended up going from a 15, and then I kind of used it like a couple of taps here and there. I ended up turning it up to about a 30
Okay. Good boy, Kodak, good job. He did not like it. it's okay though sometimes they don't they still have to have to do it you got to reinforce it
Heel
How it was taught
Cue 'heel', walk, let him find the left-side position, clarify with the leash when he cannot, and the instant he reaches position the ball comes out as fast as possible and is thrown. 'Go ahead' sends him back out between reps. Three or four entries spread across a thirty-eight-minute walk rather than drilled. The work is stopped for the day rather than pushed on a walk home, on the grounds that pushing it there would poison it. Later the ball is deliberately carried in the pocket on the far side of the handler's body, so that if he were coming to the position for the ball he would have to cross the handler to find it - a self-check that the cue and not the object is doing the work.
On film
So as soon as he gets to that left side position next to me, boom, off to the races he goes, right? All right, get the ball out as soon as you can.
i can see he's starting to figure it out now
So you did pretty good there Much better than yesterday with the deal when we first started he's starting to get it
but i can really see that his understanding of that command is it's improving rapidly
if you look at that rep compared to the last one we did this this one was not my favorite right it was ugly um he fought it uh he fought the pressure pretty hard he didn't like feeling the e-collar he didn't like feeling the leash pressure he grabbed the leash right
he finally he stayed with me in the heel and he stayed through that left turn that i took or maybe it was a right turn it was a right turn he he like where he had to go on the far side he stayed with me in it um and it was just it was beautiful
it looks like he really retained the last couple of lessons that we did with heel um because that was that was a wonderful heel uh he fell into it he was a little unsure it's first and then um i just kind of did like a little bit of clarification with the leash i didn't use the e-collar at all for that uh no need
But he did great on that last rep of heel. That was his best one yet for sure.
Place
How it was taught
Show him the cot, name it, let him step on it, then ask him onto it with the word. The house method for duration is visible in the Rocko sessions filmed in the same room - put the dog up, be deliberately boring, never let him release himself, wait for him to settle and release on that - but none of that is shown being done with Kodak.
On film
Okay, you're not scared of this.
this thing. And we call this the place. Because when we say place, this is where you go.
He'll get better at that shit. At some small party, he must realize that we're... He didn't resist it too much until that shit. I'm pretty surprised they're not about to act like they're gonna kill him. If they step a little on that cot.
he'll go on place he doesn't mind that but anywhere else he's
if necessary you can use places. So if you want one of them to like chill, like say one of them is super damp, grab them and stick them on place for a second.
Okay, this is a play spot. It's very nice. Interesting stepping on it. There we go. Good. Okay. You're not scared of it.
Out, and the ball game
How it was taught
Say 'out' to get the ball dropped, back it with a little leash while it is being learned, and keep the word emotionally neutral - it is information that the round ended, not a rebuke. Sometimes let him keep the ball and chew it rather than taking it every time, so returning is not always a loss. Obedience is folded into the game at an unpredictable ratio - never one command per throw - because a predictable ratio makes a dog stop wanting to bring the ball back. A larger ball is used to slow his jaw down.
On film
he's gonna run away with it or no no he's coming back to me Kodak come on come here bud good boy
Good job. Out.
out the boy so the the word out is what I say to get him to drop the ball
and I'm still reinforcing it because we've only played it I think two times now where we've had two sessions where we've gotten to play and he's you can see he's starting to get it but I still use the leash a little bit
the out is not punishment yeah it's just information
one thing to avoid is doing something like this I throw the ball he brings it back I make can do a command i say okay i throw the ball rinse wash repeat 100 times in a row
that he's letting go of the ball. Um, because, like, you can see, I mean, he, like, he lets go of it nice and easy if I just try to take it from him. Um, he just gives it to me because he knows he's going to get it back and it's going to be fun.
No. This man made me walk all the way out there because he didn't bring the ball back. And he thought, he really thought that when I went and got it, that I was going to throw it back this way for him. I'm not doing that.
So, you can see he's learned an out command.
Coping with a scare - no-showing it
How it was taught
Do not say 'it's okay'. Do not resist the avoidance. Do not stop. Give the event no reaction at all, on the theory that the handler's non-reaction is what the dog copies. Separately, do not comfort with praise and touch, because for a dog who does not trust you those are aversive in the technical sense - the thing he wants to get away from. And do not read a bad repetition after a scare as lost training; read it as a report on the environment.
On film
instead of me like oh it's okay it's okay i just let him i just let him do what he's gonna do like it didn't matter right so if he chooses to do that like a little bit of a weird avoid a thing i'm not gonna like resist it i'm just gonna keep going and no show it
no show it and by me no showing it well he's gonna start no showing it
the reason that that repetition was so much worse than the one prior isn't because he forgot how to heal right isn't because he forgot the like progress he's made on the heel even though we haven't done it that much right it's because those dogs barked at him
but it is a breakthrough for him mentally to learn that if he can push through that and figure out the right thing to do if he does the the the thing that like is the solution to that puzzle the the pressure from both things completely melts away because i whip out a ball
teaches him a lesson that is far beyond obedience and more important than obedience and that's that he can cope with stress and things can be awesome pretty quickly if he does
it's the noise coming from the bridge um that's what happened last time i think too um not that first time that was the kids but i think it's the noise from the bridge just now that kind of freaked him out
he is coping with a real difficulty there right so instead of just immediately fixing the the whole problem for him and chasing him around, I let him cope with that issue and figure out how to get unstuck.
Flight containment - a handler skill, not a dog skill
How it was taught
Regular collar as the working attachment with a thin slip lead underneath, arranged so the slip only engages if the first collar comes off - so a single failure cannot free the dog. Plus two handling rules: never drop an unlocked flexi with a dog like this, because the handle would clatter and chase him; and on a long line, keep a hand on it and lay it out untangled, because a tangled fifty-foot line becomes a ten-foot line at exactly the moment the dog is running.
On film
collar has a regular collar i'm using on him has a slip collar backup and the slip lead backup will make it such that if he tries to pull out of the other collar he will still have a slip lead on
glad I put that backup slip on him because like he was like just a few levels away from really panicking back there and when dogs really panic like that that's when they when they pull out of their collar and slip their collar and that's how you end up with a runaway dog
if i just dropped this flexi on the ground while i was unlocked it would be horrifying not because he has Doesn't have a very good recall yet. That's not why at least not the only reason Reason is because it's flexi Would scare him to death you'd make loud sounds and it would drag behind him like it was chasing him
it'll bunch up like this and then suddenly you have a much much uh shorter line no longer lives up to its name it's supposed to be a 50 foot long line all of a sudden you have a 10 foot long line and you have a dog desperately running away from it and away from you
so i recommend for him specifically get one of those just in case if he's on a leash that way he can't back out
like the other one doesn't engage unless the other one slips off
put them on long line even if they're fresh because as long as you have a backup slip on them they're not going anywhere right
why are we putting also we have this slip tie collar would this be good to keep on kodak
as the secondary okay yep you can use that as a backup it's a good idea
Coexisting with Rocko in the house
How it was taught
In stages across four events: parallel walking with one handler per dog (09-09); a yard walk with an owner on Kodak and a re-run of the crated first meeting indoors (09-15); a same-day test loose, then with Kodak moving on a leash, then both on leads (09-18 afternoon); and all three dogs loose in the house with the owners coached live (09-18 evening). Kodak keeps the option to retreat, interaction is never forced, and each dog is corrected for its own part - Rocko for charging, Kodak for objecting to Rocko's ordinary excitement.
On film
and so then we just need some time to pass and to allow them opportunities to interact. act but to never force the interaction to allow Kodak to retreat if necessary
Rocco bully him so like if he tries to charge him or jump on him then we punish him for that but if Kodak doesn't like that Rocco's having fun with Toby or that Rocco is excited then we punish Kodak for that right he's not allowed to do that
but if rocco allows kodak to kind of sniff i think that that's how they're going to end up being comfortable eventually like more comfortable than they are now it has to be kodak let kodak engage right
How the method adapted
Order of operations rather than a different toolkit. Nothing was taken off the table for Kodak; the sequence was changed, and the trainer says so in the same breath as the softest thing he says.
So that the method's defenders and its critics both stop misreading the first month as leniency. Boundaries and penalties still apply; other things have to happen first.
On film
That does not mean that we don't use negative reinforcement or we don't require them to do things, or that we don't create boundaries or penalize things, it just means that there's an order of operations. There's other things that need to happen first.
That does not mean that we don't use negative reinforcement or we don't require them to do things or that we don't create boundaries or penalize things. It just means that there's an order of operations.
A half-hour of asking nothing at all, at the start of the only outing that mattered. Not a warm-up - the stated content of the session.
Stress is named as the barrier to everything else, and it is read off the face, the mouth, the tail carriage and the looks back rather than off behaviour.
On film
you've noticed I haven't given him any commands the only thing I've done is is tugged on the leash just a little bit
if you look at his face um for a good portion of this walk um he has not been sniffing right his mouth has been kind of open um not because he's hot or panting right because it's not that bad out here but uh because he's he's stressed right
so that stress is a barrier
i want to see a more open tail carry right a little bit bigger gap in between the base of his tail and his butt um less you know like urgency and like running around and being weird right less uh desperate looks back at me like oh god fearful looks back at me like i'm a threat
Comfort withheld on purpose, and the usual justification for withholding it rejected. The trainer does not say comfort rewards fear; he says comfort is an aversive to a dog who does not trust you, which is a different argument with a different consequence.
An aversive is defined as whatever the animal wants to get away from. For Kodak at that point, loud praise and being touched were exactly that - and the trainer demonstrates it on camera rather than asserting it.
On film
super often when you're like doing these kinds of rehabilitations like you have it you you might have this temptation to like love on them and tell them it's okay and look like i'm not one of those trainers gonna tell you like oh like you're rewarding the nervousness that is bull shark bull shark it's false
it doesn't make sense behaviorally because it's actually an aversive right so the the definition of something that's aversive is something that you know like it is it is punishing to you right it makes you want to to get away from that thing
I had a strong temptation to reach out and touch him and praise him. And yet, that would have been strongly counterproductive.
The reward had to be found before anything could be asked, and for the first month the only reward that existed was distance from the handler. Play, food, praise and touch were each examined and ruled out.
Negative reinforcement is only useful when the relief is followed by something major, and with this dog the only major thing available was getting away.
On film
one last note about the second one which is negative reinforcement is that the negative reinforcement is best utilized when followed by major positive reinforcement. Now, what would be like what's an extremely positive reinforcement like event for Kodak as an example? Getting the hell away from me. That's one. Right?
and like treats, um, you know, he might like food, right. But that's only going to be marginally useful here in this occasion, right. That's not going to teach him, um, to trust me
With a flight risk, more room rather than less - and then deliberate pressure inside that room. The intuitive move is named and refused.
Confidence is not native; it is built by surviving artificial, dosed pressure that you control the size of. Keeping a frightened dog close removes both the retreat and the opportunity.
On film
so often people think okay well you need to teach them to be right next to you if they're flight risk and if they um you know are super flighty and scared and you actually need to open up room for them to to do other things and explore instead
you need to actually put pressure on them right but show them that they can cope with that pressure
it's born out through experience that's where it comes from when you learn that you can do it and so it's the same thing for the dog but you have to do it in a controlled way which means that you need to set up scenarios where there is like artificial pressure created by you so that you can control how big the pressure is
A dosing rule with a number on it: ninety per cent walking to ten per cent commands early, sometimes ninety-five to five, moving toward eighty-twenty, with seventy-thirty as an intense ceiling.
Without a real reset the freedom stops functioning as a reward and the dog is on a recall simulator. The reset is what makes the next repetition start from neutral.
On film
early on a lot of times it's really really sparse throughout the session sometimes um 90 percent of the session is just walking and 10 percent of the session is commands um uh and then um or honestly less it sometimes can
so you always need to allow enough time for them to reset return to baseline and actually be rewarded by the freedom that you give them and not just like okay i'm on a recall simulator and i go right back to it every time
A mandatory reset after any hard repetition, stated as an absolute rather than as good practice.
Going back to pressure immediately after a big release would undo the lesson the release just taught, and would frighten him.
On film
another extremely important piece of this puzzle is that when you do that um you cannot go immediately back to pressure again if i did it right now that would would scare the absolute heck out of him right so no instead of that um i allow him time to reset he has to reset
The whole method was replaced mid-session when the ball turned out to work. The plan for that day was abandoned on the spot, and every later session is built on the new one.
The dog in front of you, not the label on him. The trainer states this as stage one of a four-stage framework and then acts on it within four minutes.
On film
all we're gonna actually do today um based on what i'm seeing now we are literally literally just gonna we're just gonna play ball
you have to assess the dog in front of you their context their behavior not their labels right don't label them and then work only based off those labels
Don't just assume that, oh, well, you know, they're kind of like fearful or they're kind of nervous so they won't do it. You don't know that. They might do it.
Obedience deliberately kept out of the play at first, then folded in at an unpredictable ratio.
Play is building the relationship the authority will later sit on, and spending it too early would cost both. Once it is folded in, a predictable command-per-throw ratio would make the dog stop wanting to bring the ball back.
On film
what I don't want to do is start right now at this moment I don't want to start immediately integrating like too much obedience into the play because of his like super crazy nerve starting point I want to go ahead and like build up the play first build up a good relationship through the play build that cooperation
but if it's like play play play play command okay boom play play play command boom play play play command boom play command and then play again for three minutes four minutes five six throws but you're making it very it's very yeah varying wildly
Pressure delivered inside the game rather than instead of it. This is the case's actual finding and the trainer states it as a general principle.
A dog who panics under pressure applied cold will accept the same pressure while he is playing, and what he learns there transfers out of the game.
On film
a dog like Kodak who doesn't normally tolerate pressure that well, he panics, can suddenly learn from pressure if it's part of the game. So then I'm able to teach him those things and then I can transition if he learns those well in in that context then I can transition that into every
which is the reason that I'm able to teach him fast with the play because he tolerates pressure much better if you incorporate it within a game
i was a chair coach for nine years and i had to teach games in order to get the kids to do anything i wanted to teach them
if it's part of a game they're willing to undergo physical punishment they don't care hair right like American football like dude they will beat the fudge out of each other but nobody's mad
Levels kept very low and re-checked. He is worked at 10 and 15 out of 100, at 15 rising to 30 for a stalling sit, and found on 20 and dropped to 10 on the pack walk because he is 'very cincy'.
The number is not a scale. High and low are relative to the dog, the context and the day, and the only thing that matters is the dog's reaction. The same walk that keeps Kodak very low has Rocko taking a much harder correction.
On film
for some dogs that might be a high level for the e-collar might be a 30 for others it might be an 80 so all depends on the dog and the context
don't don't get hung up on numbers because uh all that matters is the reaction of the dog not the numbers
Yeah, he's, uh, was that, it was probably still on the 20. Yeah. Yeah, put it on like a 10. He's very cincy.
it's always relative either to like averages in terms of what dogs i work with
So loafer, the total average across dogs, just perfect for him.
Fit before level. The e-collar is refitted on camera mid-session twice - once because it was too loose and had slid down his neck, once because it had been over-loosened for his comfort and was not making contact when a cue failed.
Not argued. Treated as a precondition, and both times the trainer says out loud that it was his own error.
On film
I'm gonna have to adjust his e-collar because when I was originally putting it on, it was hard to see like how tight it was or wasn't. And it turns out it's a little bit loose. So I'm gonna have to tighten that up just a little bit. It's floated down to the bottom of his neck and it's obviously hanging.
that is e-collar i made it a little lit too loose because i wanted to make sure it was comfortable for him and it slid around the bottom and it's not making contact like it should
The environment treated as a variable in its own right: a natural place rather than a busy city for the first outing, shaded half-paths on a hot day, a session ended when the light goes, a route planned so the dog stays off hot asphalt.
Biological state caps a session the same way psychological state does; heat shortens what you can get, and shade buys you more of it.
On film
This kind of environment is perfect for it right not a busy city, but just like this kind of environment right where you're out in nature plenty of stuff to sniff plenty of stuff to see
it's funny you really have to think about their biological um status like like and and like how their psychological status is affecting their biological status but also how the environment is affecting it as an example if they are overwhelmed or scared or anxious that can shorten training sessions right
Sessions ended on the repetition worth keeping, not on the clock - and on evidence from the dog rather than a timer.
So the last thing the dog did is the thing that gets stored. The trainer does not re-test the milestone rep.
On film
we're going to pack him up because i want to end on that really really high note
so I'll probably just do one more and that's it because that's plenty of physical activity for him and also plenty of of learning in one session for him
I think my guy Kodak's about done because he keeps leaving his ball out there now, which he was not doing before.
A skill stopped for the day rather than pushed, and the commands spelled aloud so that discussing the plan does not cue the dog.
More heel on the walk home would poison it; the recap belongs in a play session.
On film
I'm not going to go for any more A-T-E-L because I'm going to start recapping that and pushing that again in another play session, not here on the walk. That'll probably just poison it for him.
The dog's own refusal of a purely social invitation accepted rather than overridden.
Pushing it would serve the handler and not the dog, and there is no training purpose in it.
On film
the answer to that question is no right and that's okay right
i'm accepting that answer because there's no need for me to push that what would be the purpose of it what would accomplish well it makes me feel good who cares honestly who cares I want to make him feel good
Indoors, when he shut down, the answer was to lower the criterion, stop the session, kennel him and re-check later rather than to push through.
Stated only as practice, by different staff, in a different room.
On film
they do that like there's a point in the train that it just
they do that like there's a point in the train that it just that happened to me in the dumper
so if we're going to do another session we should probably put him in a kennel and we'll have to do that and see if
it's important that you don't give up at that point or think that you're hurting him or or that, you know, you're scarring him or something like that because really all you're doing is clarifying it by adding a little bit of additional pressure.
The target was named as coping, not obedience, and the trainer put a price on it: he would give up every command except recall to get it.
The family's functional problem is a dog who panics, not a dog who does not heel.
On film
it is not uh the uh commands that he needs to learn he's gonna learn those i mean that's that's not a big deal it's easy it's really really easy for me to teach commands
i'd rather him go home doesn't know lick a heel doesn't know lick it down right has to know recall um but i'd rather him go home and not know those things at all if he's capable of coping with those dogs barking without panic because that's way more of a functionality problem for for for for kodak's people for that for for his family
The cost said out loud, in an owner-facing video: a case like this takes far more patience and time and can cost more than a standard obedience program.
Prospective clients are told the price of the approach before they buy it.
On film
yeah there's a lot of patience needed and a lot of time involvement for a case like this which is why sometimes it can be more expensive if you do have a dog like this
The pair
Marked
SEPARATE TREATMENT. Rocko is not Kodak.
Rockos case in brief
Rocko is the dog the family actually sent, and his problem is dog reactivity that he was not born with. His owner gives the history at intake, unprompted: he lived with other dogs and his own mother until he was two, was fine in a household with four dogs, five cats and birds, and then was attacked three times in his own yard - neighbouring dogs coming in and fighting, a neighbour who let a dog into his pen while intoxicated, and about two months before intake a dog that came through the fence and got him by the cheek. He is now reactive to every dog except the household's older one, and will not tolerate the dog they acquired most recently. He was also renamed: the family use his old name for the state they do not want and his current name for the dog they know, and the staff adopt that device on the spot. He arrived with no obedience in public, a huge appetite for freedom, and physical strength that two other staff struggled with. He is easy to reward - freedom is the whole currency - and by the trainer's account the easiest kind of dog to train, because reactivity does not make a dog hard, having no findable motivation does.
On film
the family that we were nannying for had four dogs, five cats and three birds or something like that. And he was okay with all of it, but then there was these two bijons that lived next door and the bijons had coming into the yard and fighting the dogs.
other dog, including his mom, until he was two. When we got him, we lived in a house with four dogs, and it was fine. He was good with our oldest dog. It was when he got bit that he stopped making good dog friends.
His brother is safe, and everyone else is like we're super reactive about.
because when we got him, his name was Meach, and he was a crazy dog. So, like whenever he does anything crazy, I'm like, "You better be Rocco and not be Meach." Like he has two personalities.
Well, he's easy to reward because all he wants is freedom easy to reward all i gotta say is okay and let him go
That's the easiest dog for me to train.
reactive or not, to me it does not make a difference. If they're reactive, but they got lots of energy to go do stuff,
Rockos arc in brief
- Intake, history taken, three weeks quoted (watch).
- Indoor place, sit, back-up and duration work, much of it with a television running (watch, watch, watch + watch, watch).
- First outdoor work and first dog contact - the trainer's own household dog, met ambiently on a shared walk with nothing required (watch). Down from fought-for to unassisted in three repetitions.
- A university street at the start of term, repeated downs, heel introduced (watch).
- Late August: two strange dogs passed cleanly at Beach Bluff Park, and the heel curriculum stated in four phases. The integration is scoped as a gated procedure (watch).
- 2026-09-03: a late play assessment. Ball enjoyed, flirt pole rejected, tug adopted - specifically the fight for possession, established by making him miss and watching arousal fail to climb (watch).
- 2026-09-04: shown to his owners at the lesson, passing a small dog with nothing but a look. About eighty per cent there (watch).
- 2026-09-06: tug and downs, drive trained for the look of the obedience (watch).
- 2026-09-08: downtown Angier, other working dogs seen and ignored, and the decision that he is ready (watch).
- 2026-09-09: the pack walk. One hard correction on a passing boxer that does not stop him searching (watch).
- 2026-09-15: at the owners' home, walked past and held near Kodak; loose indoors around a crated Kodak without charging (watch, watch).
- 2026-09-18: neutral with Kodak loose, with Kodak moving, and on leads together; pushy once at the house door and called off; recall 'great' at handover (watch, watch, watch).
How the two were handled together
One bundled program with a staggered start and a shared end, which is why Kodak's timeline is not his own.
The failure is asymmetric, and naming it that way is the case's best single insight about the pair: the same encounter produces fear in one dog and arousal in the other, and each makes the other worse.
On film
that's one of the main issues that he and kodak are having is the reason they haven't integrated them yet is because kodak is really uh uh you know like freaked out and rocco gets really ramped up
Kodak has a little bit more of a tendency to get actually get defensive especially with other dogs and especially with Rocco um I think that's because of Rocco's temperament because Rocco's so forward and so ramped
I don't know if we have footage of it but that's what he and Kodak did or he and Rocco did when when we first brought Kodak to the facility
Integration was treated as a gated procedure with named preconditions rather than as a moment, and the gates were counted off out loud before any attempt was made.
On film
um honestly at this point to fully integrate them i need uh three things right so the first thing is um i need to get uh a couple more punishments from like punishment events
it's a few more uh one to one to three more um like relatively strong punishment events where he makes a bad choice right and i penalize him for it um will create better choices
He's made so much progress all the way across the board He saw dogs. He didn't react.
I'm pretty much Gonna start integrating him in Kodak now
The standard was set as coexistence, not friendship, and the owners were told so before the first attempt.
On film
best friends maybe who knows doesn't need to happen yeah peaceful coexistence required yeah required they need to be able to be around each other peacefully and not do that kind of stuff because that that's when you get something that escalates
i see that uh that worst case scenario is obviously possible it's definitely going to happen um and then the best case scenario i don't really have that much control over um but i can definitely set up the best possible chance for it
one option is it's always possible they could end up being best friends i don't know right um or it could be that they tolerate each other like as long as they leave each other alone
Parallel walking before contact: one handler per dog, walking near each other, deliberately not interacting, with a stop line held at nose-to-nose. Being near each other is the exercise.
On film
so maybe what we can do is like walk off that way and just like take like a maybe like 10-15 minute walk like into the thing and back and just have them walk near each other so that we're just kind of walking in a group that way they can have more experience as like a pair a pair of pack walk where they're out together even if they're not touching each other
Not nose to nose yet. No nose to nose. Not there yet. Not nose to nose. Rocco. We'll get there.
The dangerous first meeting was staged deliberately, away from home, with two professionals present - because the same event at home is a disaster nobody can contain.
On film
I'm always happy like I want that to happen with us not at home yes you have to do it you have to try it because if it happens at home could be a big disaster if it happens here we can mitigate the disaster and make sure it's not not a big problem
But that's why we came here today. Is because, one, test it out, right? See what we're working with. see what's going good and what like kind of responses we want
and then just getting them used to each other because they've never interacted before ever other than through the gate and those never went good
Difficulty is raised along the axis of available escape, not distance. Indoors is scheduled last precisely because a room removes the retreat and adds everyone else's tension.
On film
and then i want to try inside yeah because like where it's at right now i don't want to jump straight there because inside is normally higher tension yeah because there's no they can't really get away from each other yeah there's no real there's no real retreat option there's just tension from anyone else in the room as well yeah they need to be able to handle tension amongst each other
What actually happened on the first pack walk, stated as a list of things that did not occur. One incident: Rocko went in face first and Kodak told him off, after which the trainer works out loud whether he corrected the right dog and does not settle it.
On film
they like said hi to each other and there wasn't any problems yet i think that was neutral getting any real eyes no no whale eyes and fixation from either of them
so then maybe yeah then maybe it wasn't a mistake because then maybe i'm just augmenting what kodak already did which was like hey like don't go face first like that and kind of like be in that dog's face right because kodak doesn't like it
rocco doesn't do like he he hasn't learned yet to be like hey like yeah like you need to like have a little bit more of a boundary there and not be crazy right
And to be honest, look at Rocco. All right, now look at Kodak. Kodak don't want that smoke. Don't start that. Rocco would eat him.
Kodak's own dog problem is diagnosed on that walk as proximity, not dogs: he tolerates a dog that leaves him alone and refuses one that crowds him, and he tells it off rather than freezing. That is a change from the description three weeks earlier, where he 'gets defensive'.
On film
But Kodak his thing is like, all right What I've noticed is he has a thing where he gets nervous, right
because he didn't like Kodak didn't get all over the other dog he just kind of was like whatever and just didn't really care about the other dog
The third dog in the household is the encouraging sign and the one the whole plan leans on: both dogs are individually fine with him, which is why coexistence is thought possible at all.
On film
And they're fine with Toby, right? So it's like, okay, they can be around a dog and be okay.
So then the question is like, well, what about each other?
because both of them are relatively young dogs and they've shown that they're able to get along with other dogs um i just need to teach them how to treat each other um and then integrate them
The older-brother relationship is probably not Kodak's. At intake the owner says Rocko is reactive to everyone except his older brother, and that a dog acquired about two months earlier is the one he will not tolerate. Both later sessions name a third household dog - Toby, 'the owners' older dog' - as the one both are fine with. On that reading Toby is the older brother and Kodak is the newer dog Rocko would not accept, which is exactly the problem the program exists to solve.
On film
And so, now he just gets really reactive. And so, we got He But he has an older brother that we've had all along. And then about 2 months ago, we thought, "It'll be okay." We got a puppy. He does not like the puppy. He does not want anything to do with other dogs.
His brother is safe, and everyone else is like we're super reactive about.
Like he will kind of like with their older dog dog he'll be all around that other dog right
this last time they were really happy because he didn't because they brought their older dog
were you a rescue codec i believe he was Yeah, him and his brother both
never met his housemate um whose name is rocco
A third dog was in play the whole time. Reba, from a rescue the trainer says they started themselves, was to be placed with this family and integrated as well.
On film
I'm hoping we'll successfully place a second dog with Rocco and Kodak's owners. They seemed to really like her when they met her. Kodak, come! Her name is Reba. So you'll see me integrate the three of them actually, is what I'm hoping for.
of rocco and kodak and then we'll need to then add reba into the mix
What the pair work is ultimately for, in the trainer's own framing, is the family rather than the dogs.
On film
like once I'm finished doing it like that full package and then have the skills even to improve it I'm hoping that that will be life-changing in a positive way for for their family
Integration was finished in the house where the dogs must live, and it began by re-running the conditions of the original bad meeting - Kodak crated, Rocko loose - as a simple test of whether anything had changed. The third dog was caged so only two dogs were variables.
On film
freaking out yeah so that's one like simple test we can do I just want to see
I'm trying to do is set it up such that in your house there's some kind of precedent um where they can be in the same area and not bother each other
Rocko's persistence was re-diagnosed rather than simply out-escalated: he repeated a punished behaviour six to eight times where most dogs stop after one or two, and the trainer reads that as an impulse-control problem rather than a penalty he failed to register.
On film
And I think it's less a, didn't register the penalty, and more a impulse control penalty.
Calm around a stationary dog was not accepted as proof. On the last afternoon the trainer set Kodak moving - with a ball, then on a leash - to see whether movement triggered Rocko.
On film
want to see if Rocco does anything if Kodak's walking around and make sure that it's not like okay like Kodak is stationary so Rocco doesn't care but if Rocco is seeing Kodak move around then there's problems
Once Rocko stopped charging, the rule moved to Kodak. The household rule is two-sided: whichever dog starts it gets the consequence, and Kodak may not punish Rocko for ordinary excitement or for playing with Toby.
On film
okay go after Rocco like that's not okay um because what I'm seeing now is it's kind of flipped yeah where now Kodak feels uncomfortable and Rocco gets excited
The trainer tested whether the peace depended on him by leaving - the room on 09-15, the house on 09-18 - and let the family report what happened.
On film
All right, I will head back out there for a second so I can see you can see how they do
What the family was told
Use the ball, and understand what it is worth to him
five times as much as he likes freedom. Yeah, freedom's cool and whatever But ball
so yeah balls life for kodak and so i think you guys should use it for that regularly
the ball can be a thing where it's not just about the ball it's about me and you right we're cooperating to play a game that's fun for you right
but then like in his case it's like dude he wants the ball he wants it that's all that's that's his thing that's what he cares about so like use the ball right use the ball
How to fold obedience into the game without ruining the game
one thing to avoid is doing something like this I throw the ball he brings it back I make can do a command i say okay i throw the ball rinse wash repeat 100 times in a row
they're gonna start to not want to play that game anymore because they're like dude every time
but if it's like play play play play command okay boom play play play command boom play play play command boom play command and then play again for three minutes four minutes five six throws but you're making it very it's very yeah varying wildly right so it's like it's it's more difficult for them to predict
chew on it for a second let him keep it for a bit right let him chew on it for a second give him a little break say good boy that way he doesn't think every time he comes over yeah she just come and drop it right away
one of the tricks that I've learned to being good at playing with dogs is to actually like, like make the game interesting for yourself like get into it
What 'out' is, and what it must never become
out the boy so the the word out is what I say to get him to drop the ball
the out is not punishment yeah it's just information
if you're like boxing and how do they signify hey like all right no more hitting each other ding ding ding right you hear the book you hear the bell nobody's like oh stupid bell guy
it's the same thing with the out the out shouldn't have any bad feelings behind it
What makes a game bad - offered as a diagnostic for a dog that 'doesn't play'
one thing that can make a game suck is if you never win it's impossible if you never win that's not a fun game
um what are some things you can think of that make a game suck
and that's true whether it is a cooperative game which is the one koda likes best he likes ball ball is a cooperative game for the most part
so unlike a possession game like tug where you guys are fighting you're competing for possession of the item
Kodak specifically: get a slip lead, because he backs out of everything
if you notice yeah he's got a slip lead on too
so i recommend for him specifically get one of those just in case if he's on a leash that way he can't back out
because then if he did back out of his collar it's fine because the other one tightens okay that one tightens and he can't get out of it
like the other one doesn't engage unless the other one slips off
What the down is worth right now, said with the limit attached in the same breath
either yesterday or the day before, I taught him to down in 15 minutes. Really? Yeah, verbal only. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Like I don't have to use the leash or anything else.
Now, I don't know if he'd do that right at this moment. Right, with all the distractions. Yeah, because I still need to proof it, right? But I got a verbal only rep, right?
and i tell him down and then i throw the ball if he'll stay in the down when i throw the ball he'll definitely listen
On the e-collar level: there is no number, and the trainer volunteers his own errors
people always are like well so like what level should you use it on with him I don't know
you can preset it based on like what you're doing okay then it might be completely different depending on the day and the thing that you're asking
you put 10k on the ground and say if you go get that 10k if you can get to it and pick it up it's yours you could like triple box me you could put three e-collars on me turn them all the way up and like all of them down i'm still getting the 10k
like there's been a couple of times where like i tapped the e-caliber rocket and i was like that was like higher than it needed to be yeah yeah right but it's like hard to know
The rule that separates a correction from trauma
they have to be contingent on things we control yeah otherwise it just creates psychological trauma right if we don't know why it happened and we can't avoid it
What the owners' own job is after the dogs come home
and normally in this lesson like we do two things like the first priority is for you guys to see them right again and then the second priority is for me to go over like some conceptual frameworks um that will help you uh the most when it comes to like maintaining their integration once I get that fully done and then maintaining their training
one thing to think about is like when does dog training happen any guesses
probably all the time right yeah yeah they're always learning something maybe not the thing you want to learn
if he does make bad decisions one let him
no show it do nothing just walk don't like tighten the leash up don't do anything and if he just is watching it's okay to look
And then when it comes to the videos, too, it's important that every family member watches it and it's because we want him to not only listen to you but listen to everyone.
And that's why the training is set up in a way where there's there's like four or five trainers. So every trainer, you know, gets a chance to train with him. So he has to listen to everyone.
What the program will and will not promise about the two dogs living together
best friends maybe who knows doesn't need to happen yeah peaceful coexistence required yeah required they need to be able to be around each other peacefully
one option is it's always possible they could end up being best friends i don't know right um or it could be that they tolerate each other like as long as they leave each other alone
i see that uh that worst case scenario is obviously possible it's definitely going to happen um and then the best case scenario i don't really have that much control over um but i can definitely set up the best possible chance for it
the the remaining part of the program like the process that i have left over to do is gonna be um in like there's two like phases left over right
The case against treats, made at length and unprompted
yeah bump that i don't care about treats they suck my personal opinion they have like some use cases
i don't do it anymore it's um it creates like a weird relationship with the dog i don't like it
i don't like that look that i see on a dog's face when you turn up treats and they come up to you and you're like hey like kodak and they're like yeah and they're just like they're not even looking at me yeah they're just looking for the food
Household expectations, set at Rocko's intake and applying to both dogs
he looks a little chunky right now. He'll probably lose a little bit of weight just because of the stress.
It's the stress and all of that that's going to probably have him lose some weight. Um which is pretty normal when a dog comes into the kennel. The first few days they don't want to interact. Um and then after a while they'll come out of their shell again.
And then we work with certain dogs that have like issues with like either certain other dogs or something like that, but that's towards the end. And so we introduce them here sometimes.
The first week the videos were a little slow just because we were all trying to get to know the dogs and then like our our video editor is also one of our trainers right now so he's juggling between training and holding and editing but like once I say the second week you'll get tons of videos that I promise you.
Told to the owners through the videos rather than to their faces
If you are watching this and you are Rocco and Kodak's owners, I recommend that you check out the playlist that we have on our channel called Finn the Deer
because i I want this to be as educational as possible for you, the owners, and also for anybody else watching.
yeah there's a lot of patience needed and a lot of time involvement for a case like this which is why sometimes it can be more expensive if you do have a dog like this
originally it was supposed to be just four weeks for rocco but in order for us to integrate them safely all together. I know we've added one week. We may need to add one additional week, but don't quote me on that.
Homework after the second lesson: say the interrupter and back it up
Because they're doing really good. And so we just want to keep it that way. And so I think that the major one is going to be saying that and then backing it up.
i think the homework i gave was uh to work on the ah yeah yeah that is probably going to be item number one that will be a pass or fail for this
the other thing is if the e-collars are not there you must do something yeah to back it up
Reading the two dogs, and when to step in
i mean that's like the big one is if they freeze up really bad and they're like face to face like that yeah that's normally a precursor of something bad happen
just won't leave the other one alone that can be problematic and like the other one seems uncomfortable right then just step in and be like hey leave them alone
If you don't feel that, then just err on the side of caution, right?
do that is to realize that you have a way to put a stop to it immediately before anything bad happens and that's important
The e-collar and a fight: before, never during
They associate it to them they're like he did that I'm gonna grab him
I have actually done that once and I was like dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb
House rules for three dogs
and food and food and crates yeah food and crates i'll let them eat there uh so they can't get each other's food because that causes fighting fight all the time
i mean if the temperature is really high in the house so to speak like they're really like both really amped up that's always gonna be more likely to have a problem
as long as one, you, you don't like amp the pressure up, so you don't create tension. And then number two, as long as, um, you know, like you don't let either one of them do anything that they shouldn't and that you, you punish them, um, in a way that's clear and effective to them.
Commands at home: say it once or twice, then follow through
commands like yeah um like just like once maybe maybe two uh us right um but then like what you
if you're gonna say it if you're gonna say it mean it don't go instigate yeah so don't just like say random commands if you don't actually care
Fitting the e-collar
that's really important is that these e-collars do nothing if it's not tight okay okay yeah this
i put it on the left side because they feel on the left so it pushes them towards me instead of
yeah that's why taking it off at night is so important
In the family's own words
The presenting problem in one image, from the owner who watched it happen.
On film
I tried to read his body language when introducing the puppy, and he was super excited just by seeing that he wanted to play. And then they got like No, and that was it. Like it just snapped. That tail stopped wagging, and he was no longer Rocco.
What management had already cost the household, described without the vocabulary for it.
On film
But then when we moved, we moved into a house with two aggressive pitbulls. So, my dogs had a rotating schedule for going outside.
Usually we would have got the squeal and everything. Yeah, he would have been, I would have been dragged across the field. A year ago, we would have been across the field. He would have yanked you over there? Uh-huh. Probably,
one of the daughters she's describing me what she used to have to do she would literally be like on the ground like a like a rowboat mm-hmm trying to like brace with all her weight both legs both arms and hold him like back from going
The escalation they lived through, and their fear that anything they did would make it worse.
On film
so hard because we knew that he was such a good dog and it was just like we had to get it was a slow progressing thing as well like it started with just the screaming and then the charging and then he'd get to them wouldn't really care and then
On Kodak specifically, the family's contributions are almost all about the ball and the doors. Between them they are the best description of him anyone gives.
On film
life is all about balls. I threw a ball for him earlier this week and was like, oh. He will remember where he left that ball for three weeks and still find that ball again.
when we brought him to pet smart he like full-on like walk his mind
he'd love to go to pet smart and go in and he'll go in into the bins like when he'd grab his own toy and he will be completely excited to be there but you have to get him through those doors first
like he'll back right out of everything so avoid that's why doorways
They could not watch his early videos, and they said so to his trainer's face.
On film
watched like i have not watched kodak as much as rocco for some reason it's easier for me to watch rocco than it is for kodak
that's because kodak looks like freaking like he's like horrifying the whole
They diagnose themselves, unprompted, as part of the two-dog problem.
On film
each other? Is that going to be cool? It's like such high energy, I feel like is the problem, that they were like feeding off of each other, that anxious. And then I think it didn't help that we were so anxious about it, too,
and I wonder about how much of that was kind of like from our energy.
Their own training history, which is why the argument against treats lands where it does.
On film
like he gets weird too like if because he'll only like really train because like we only have ever really trained him with treats and now like if he doesn't like certain things like he won't eat because he knows that there's a tray of bacon in the fridge
What they had already given the dog before he arrived: a self-settling toy, and no sentimental attachment to anything.
On film
And then I gave you one of his toys as well because I find that sometimes he just gets really overwhelmed from all the noise. Like if he hears a dog barking in the neighborhood, he'll start like running to the windows and I'm like, "No, redirect here. Here's your toy."
He only has like one possession in life. He doesn't have anything that he's like sentimentally attached to which is wonderful in my opinion.
How much it cost them to be there.
On film
yeah we're two and a half hours
so we made it literally halfway and we were like well crap now do we just try to get home do we try what do we do
well i'm glad we ended up being able to do it
An owner says the change in Rocko leaves her speechless, after describing years of squealing at any dog, even from the car.
On film
So what he was doing was, he was squealing when he saw another dog.
An owner says the hardest thing to get used to will be the change in words.
On film
I kind of figured that was going to be my hardest thing to get used to is the change in words too.
While the trainer was outside at go-home, an owner reports Kodak sniffing Rocko and settling on her lap beside him.
On film
Rocco was laying eggs to me and Kodak came up a few times and sniffed him and Rocco didn't give a shit
Outcomes
What the trainers reported
A verbal-only down from nothing in about fifteen minutes, taught through fetch. Reported with its limit attached: unproofed, and he does not know whether it would hold in distraction.
The trainer, to the owners, 2026-09-04
On film
either yesterday or the day before, I taught him to down in 15 minutes. Really? Yeah, verbal only.
Now, I don't know if he'd do that right at this moment. Right, with all the distractions. Yeah, because I still need to proof it, right?
so that's 15 minutes from no knowledge of down at all uh to a full down using uh chase and catch
'I unlocked his brain' - a change dated by the trainer to the last few sessions, and described as fast learning now.
The trainer, to the owners
On film
um however like i said i have great news um it's fresh it's only the last few sessions i unlocked his brain
he's actually learning really fast now
Much more confident, opening up, and panicking much less on walks than he used to.
The trainer, to camera, 2026-09-05 and 2026-09-06
On film
he's already he's becoming so much more confident than he was he's really opening up and makes me so happy to see his progress
making it where we have really chill walks together really nice a lot less panicking
Mr. Kodak is starting to get way more comfy going on the walkies he's exploring more he's not looking quite so panicking desperate for no reason
he's already much much much better than he was like the first time i took him out on the walk and uh he's only going to continue improving from there
He stopped treating the handler as a threat, and now walks close by choice because the handler is predictable. This is the session's closing line and the one the channel used for the hook.
The trainer, to camera, end of the first public outing
On film
you can see like that did not make him afraid of me it actually seems to have made him more receptive to me look at him walking close to me now um not because uh you know he's afraid to go out there because i might do something to him but because look he's not so worried about me anymore i'm predictable
He gives up a ball on the word and no longer destroys balls - the two changes the family cared about most, which the trainer says he had underestimated.
The trainer, relaying the family's reaction via a colleague
On film
uh, apparently, which I did not realize this, is, uh, is a much bigger deal than I initially thought it was, that he's letting go of the ball.
he's not destroying the ball, which apparently he was just destroying balls before. like they they couldn't keep it for longer than like 30 minutes all the way home from the pet store
The heel was retained across sessions, and by the last dated session needs neither the e-collar nor the ball as a lure.
The trainer, to camera, 2026-09-11
On film
it looks like he really retained the last couple of lessons that we did with heel um because that was that was a wonderful heel
i didn't use the e-collar at all for that uh no need
But he did great on that last rep of heel. That was his best one yet for sure.
Two people can now walk these two dogs together, in a neighbourhood or a park, within conversational distance, without being on high alert.
The two handlers, on the pack walk
On film
at least this shows i mean they can go on a walk if if if they are like you know if there's two people they can go and walk together without without any kind of issues at all because Rocco's not fixating Kodak doesn't care Kodak wants to be left alone
This walk is going good. It is, yeah. They're not, I mean. They're not interacting, but they're not acknowledging each other. No, they're not even like fixating or like jumping back and forth between not interacting. I'm like, they're not even avoiding or anything like that. Not like heavy. Yeah, they're just indifferent.
Both dogs will now make rapid progress, and the integration will probably go well.
The trainer, to the owners at the end of the lesson
On film
but yeah i mean they're doing great and um yeah i'm i'm seeing that like they're both gonna make progress really fast now especially this one
i'm really optimistic that they'll be able to integrate great pretty well
Both dogs graduated.
The trainer, at go-home, 2026-09-18
On film
Yeah, they're graduated. That's pretty much it.
Rocko and Kodak can coexist, and possibly walk together.
The trainer, to camera, on the afternoon of go-home
On film
so i think that they are genuinely capable of coexisting and even going on a walk together potentially
Kodak's recall is good except when he panics.
The trainer, at handover
On film
if he panics that's the hard part
What the footage shows
A verbal-only down with no ball present, asked for in front of the owners, twenty-two minutes after the trainer had told them he could not promise it would hold. It is the single cleanest piece of filmed evidence in the case, and it is unassisted.
On film
Kodak, Kodak, down, down. Okay. Good boy, I wanted to see if you'd do it without the ball.
A down held while the ball is thrown, after a few repetitions, on the last dated session. The honest test of the command is to run the dog's own reward past him, and he passes it.
On film
All right, we're going to really test his down. We're going to go for the hard one. We're going to throw a ball while he's in the down. see if he stays. Down,
he was able to scale up so quickly to having a down with that big of a distraction with the ball going it only took a few reps for him to figure it out
A full heel turn held to the end, on the outside, without panicking and without quitting - and the session ended on it immediately rather than tested again.
On film
he did it he did a full turn he didn't panic he didn't freak out he stayed with it yes mmm that makes me so happy
he finally he stayed with me in the heel and he stayed through that left turn that i took or maybe it was a right turn it was a right turn he he like where he had to go on the far side he stayed with me in it
A heel entry with no e-collar, and the ball deliberately in the pocket on the far side of the handler's body, followed by a look up to ask whether he got it right. That check is the difference between a dog who understands and a dog who is being lured.
On film
uh didn't use the ball as a lure or anything like that it was in my pocket um uh on the opposite side of my body so if he was looking for the ball he would have come across my body
and when i stopped he stopped and looked up at me like am i doing it right and i confirmed with an okay and tossed the ball for him
Within a single hour on the first outing: a recall answered with a tail wag, an arrival within a couple of feet, eye contact, and a pet on the head accepted. Earlier in the same hour, praise had frightened him.
On film
and I ventured a a pet on the head there because his body language was much different this time when he came back to me
you saw like when he came up to me that last time he was noticeably calmer and that's why i ventured to give him a pet he had a tail wag he came up close to me and looked at me
doing a loud noise lots of oh my god praising him look at that scared the fudge out of him right good job he doesn't like that
Loud, enthusiastic, repeated praise accepted without alarm two weeks later - 'Good job Kodak! Good boy! I love you!
On film
Good job Kodak! Good job Kodak! Good boy! I love you! I love you buddy! I love you! Good job Kodak!
I love you I know you don't feel that way right now and me trying to show that to you by touching you would be aversive to you actually
Play at all. On the first outing play was ruled out as panic-inducing; three weeks later the trainer stops a working block because the dog has earned a few rounds of ball, and the dog chases, catches, carries and kicks out after it.
On film
if I tried to play with him right now, oh, oh, that would be panic inducing for Kodak. He would be scared to death if I tried to play with him right now
let's just play ball for a few rounds huh i've worked you enough i've worked him enough he needs he needs just to play some ball now
The pack walk itself: a tail wag, one butt sniff, one reprimand when crowded, and mutual indifference for the rest of an hour, with the criteria run out loud as a checklist of things that did not happen.
On film
i mean that was not too bad yeah got some snippies i was like kodak's not loving it but oh there we go he's opening up a little bit yeah i mean he seems relatively chilled out about it good dogs compared to the first time
i mean kodak just gave a little tail wag
That was very neutral. Kodak went for a butt sniff too.
they like said hi to each other and there wasn't any problems yet i think that was neutral getting any real eyes no no whale eyes and fixation from either of them
Sniffing. The trainer names it as the read that matters for this dog - not compliance - and by the middle of the second walk he is sniffing trees and the ground and no longer attending to the handler.
On film
right there that was a really good sign like what did he do well he went and sniffed the trees right he stopped and sniffed trees um he stopped and walked along the ground and sniff the ground right i want to see him looking calm comfortable
this is what um rehabilitates dogs is when they get to do that and you mix that with negative reinforcement so they learn that they can cope with the stress
An owner handling Kodak: Natalia takes him on the long line in the yard at the second owner lesson and is coached through the ball, down and 'out'.
On film
If, Natalia, could you come grab Kodak for me real quick?
Uh, and then try, uh, having him come down and then out him.
All three dogs loose in the owners' house with no fight, one pushy moment called off, one face-off redirected - as narrated live by the trainer.
On film
Oh, see, like, that's an okay reaction.
face-to-face for that long you see Kodak's tail so Kodak's tail was up
The ideas Kodak's case runs on
- 'Let's go' is not 'Come' - and the recall has an ending
- A life that gets smaller, and the bargain
- Aggression read as insecurity
- Assess before you ask
- Attitude is the leading indicator
- Breed is a checklist, not a verdict
- Build the handler's timing while it is easy
- Clarity is the kindness
- Close the other door: the escape hatch
- Contingent, avoidable, and the right size
- Dates for obedience, no dates for drive
- Don't poison the command
- Evaluate, cooperate, socialise, fulfil - then authority
- False reps: the dog reads the chain, not the word
- Food facilitates calm, it cannot create it
- Freedom is given in measured steps
- Freeze, flee or fight
- Generalisation is the whole job
- Go and look at the scary thing
- He has to be allowed to get it wrong
- Heat is a stop sign
- Heel entry versus heel in motion
- Hidden help
- Honest limits, and reliability is not permission
- Integration is a gated procedure
- Internal emotional change, not repression
- Look like a dog, not a deer
- Meaningful release
- Neutrality is the goal, friendship is optional
- Nobody is at fault; it isn't personal
- Pick the place for what it contains - life is the training ground
- Play becomes the reward - and play is a contest
- Play is a capacity you can grow
- Pressure, release, reward
- Proof it against his own currency
- Quit on the good rep
- Space to retreat, obligation to return
- Start with freedom
- Stop before you shut him down
- Teach the move, then the word
- The board, the scenes and the grades - and every trainer works every dog
- The correction that did not work
- The dog tells you the reward
- The dose of a session
- The flight-risk protocol, and the one command that matters
- The four windows, and calm liberty
- The handler is the first suspect
- The level is not a number
- The lifetime pressure budget
- The method the case can afford
- The pair is the unit of training
- The settle criterion
- The three Ds, and the variables nobody counts
- The three stress reducers
- Thinking is what makes it better
- Two events, not one - and what the handler does in between
- You have to be able to reward him at all
Rocko
Rocko's own sessions
A staff conversation places Rocko in a first-week cohort worked in the room by Claudia, who keeps notes each session. The earliest dated evidence of Rocko in the program.
published 2026-08-10
A walk with the trainer's own household dog. The owner texts through Rocko's history mid-walk.
Indoor place, sit and down with a television running. Eight of twelve minutes are the television.
published 2026-08-08
Place duration, one session in two uploads. The settle criterion, the kid-on-timeout analogy, proofing against food.
published 2026-08-11
Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, with Zuri-chan. Repeated downs. The e-collar defended on transfer grounds.
undated; 'I got him for another two weeks' (14:52)
Beach Bluff Park. The integration checklist, the punishment-event budget, heel in phases, and the fullest statement anywhere about Kodak.
published 2026-08-30
Play assessment: ball, flirt pole, tug. The prey-cycle menu. Twenty-six minutes after Kodak's down session in the same park.
titled 2026-09-03 18:45
Evening walk on Hillsborough Street with Zuri-chan as helper dog. 'Completely fresh' because no park first this time; pace changes in heel; a down that was a fight; a deliberate break because street walking asks so much; and passing dogs better than 'either of the ones in the park', coming off it every time. The source of the breaks cut watch.
Down and recall on a leash, then long-line freedom and a dog-distraction test with Connor holding Luna at a distance: Rocko fixates and stares but does nothing, and recalls with a little line pressure.
published 2026-08-30
The heel curriculum passages of watch, re-edited as a teaching piece. Counted with its source.
undated; a cut of 7_ZqvaivpPU
Four minutes out of the kennel: Rocko goes toward something and the handler finds the e-collar was not switched on, so the planned 'punishment event' was only the conditioned punisher.
undated
Second owner lesson at the home. Rocko walked by the trainer; punished earlier that evening for running at Kodak; persisted through six to eight penalties on some earlier occasion, which the trainer reads as impulse control; walks loose around a crated Kodak without charging.
2026-09-15
Neutral with Kodak in the yard and in the house; pushy once at the door and called off; handed over with a 'great' recall.
2026-09-18
The ideas Rocko's case runs on
- Aggression read as insecurity
- Assess before you ask
- Attitude is the leading indicator
- Build the handler's timing while it is easy
- Control is not obedience
- Eating the correction, and avoidance as a tactic
- False reps: the dog reads the chain, not the word
- Food facilitates calm, it cannot create it
- Freedom is given in measured steps
- Heel entry versus heel in motion
- Integration is a gated procedure
- Meaningful release
- Neutrality is the goal, friendship is optional
- Nobody is at fault; it isn't personal
- Proof it against his own currency
- Start with freedom
- The correction that did not work
- The dog tells you the reward
- The leash is a prop
- The lifetime pressure budget
- The settle criterion
- The three Ds, and the variables nobody counts
- Two events, not one - and what the handler does in between