Welcome to the Soul Touched by Dogs Podcast, the show for dog lovers who
see dogs not as toys or tools, but wise souls worth our respect and care.
I'm an Herrmann, and I'm your host.
I talk to poor some humans, people who do great work for dogs and their people.
So come and join us for today's conversation.
Anke: Hello and welcome, Mark.
I always love starting out on a bit of a giggle.
I'm really excited to have you here.
So, you know, let people know where in this lovely world you're
based and good old question, what's your business with dogs?
Mark: Okay, well, I mean, perhaps we should have
recorded the first bit of that.
That was quite fun.
Um, but maybe not to do it.
It wasn't to do with dogs, so it's okay.
Uh, I'm Mark Bridger Pescott.
I'm based in the UK in West Sussex.
My company is called Bone Canis, which is Latin for good dog.
And I've been running that for, for quite a long years, quite a few years now.
And I have a team of exceptionally good people that work with me.
Uh, so I have, uh, Lucy Patterson, who's a canine behaviorist and a trainer.
I have, uh, Holly Dormer, who's a trainer and also a search and
rescue person with her dog, Ivy.
And I have Kate Roxburgh, who is a canine behaviorist and a
canine physiotherapist as well.
We've got a little team of people, um, we cover most of Sussex, most of
Surrey, so quite a big area, but I've, personally, I've helped people all
over the world with this wonderful thing called Zoom, which is great.
So I've actually helped people in Australia, Germany,
Austria, those kind of places.
It's quite nice to be able to have this Zoom thing nowadays.
Um, although I do prefer to, if I can, to go to where the dog is, because
at that point I get a cuddle with the dog, which is always a good thing.
That's my only reason for going there, to have a cuddle with the dog.
Um, but also we, we kind of help with behavioral issues
mainly, but we also run classes.
We do three types of classes.
Now we do a first steps puppy class, which is, um, Specifically for those very, very
first few weeks that are so important.
So we'll have different experiences for the dogs, different, um,
substrates, things to see, different socialization aspects of it.
We then do a follow on puppy plus class, which is for your general, this
is what your pup's going to do to you.
And then we have a next steps, which is just general training
from six months onwards for any dog from six months onwards.
But at that point, we've got.
We do recall sessions, we do scent work, we do, um, trip training, we do, uh,
training walks, which are very popular.
Do those good, quite a few of those.
But our fundamental aim really is to help people to, to understand dogs better.
So they don't get into that aspect of, oh my goodness, my dog is
doing XYZ because it hates me.
Um, which of course is not the thing.
We all like to think it.
And we ought to sit there and think he's doing that on purpose now.
He really is, but of course they're not.
So we do offer quite a few services spread across the south of England.
Anke: I love that.
I love that you're going there for the cuddle.
Like, yeah, can totally relate to that.
So what would you say is the, if there is such a thing, like a most
common issue you find or most common misunderstanding, like what's something
you find if people just understood that?
Yeah.
Mark: Well, I think the, the main thing really is just body language.
Mm.
You know, we, we bring these wonderful creatures into our homes.
They have no choice of which home they go to.
They just get taken.
So they have no control over anything at the moment, and we expect them
to understand us instantly, and yet we don't spend the time to look.
The little nuances of body language, the little signals that a dog's not happy.
Yeah, it's one of those little things that you, you go and see a client,
and they go, oh look, so and so does this, and you're sitting there
going, he doesn't like that, stop it.
So it's, it's a, it's a thing for me where if people took the time, and
there's plenty of things out there you can look online to tell you.
Generically, this is what your dog's possibly thinking if they display
this particular stance or, you know, the whites of the eyes, the yawn, the
lick of the lips, the stance, the, the tense, all that kind of stuff.
If your dog's displaying that, take a step back, have a little look.
If they just did that, a lot of problems would go away very, very quickly.
Anke: I bet.
Do you find
the information people can find on body language is Let's say it congruent.
And the reason I give you a bit of context for the question to make sense.
One of the reasons I actually got so obsessed with even immersing
myself in that whole topic leading to Soul Touched by Docs eventually,
uh, was that when I first You know, they're all from the street, right?
So there wasn't like, oh, I'm going to get a dog and now I'm going to plan it.
It was like, oh, I have a dog.
What are we going to do now, right?
So it was more like this.
And I found a lot of the information conflicting, you know, where
there was one saying this, the next thing says the opposite.
Neither of the two options really make sense to me.
So.
What's this like specifically around body language?
Are the experts in agreement or are there different camps that, and what would you
recommend where somebody would go if I say, well, yeah, that makes sense to me.
I want to go, I want to start learning about that.
Mark: I think, um, I think generally most Behaviorist trainers would say the same
thing about body language in general.
You also get some that just like to be, no, that's not right because I said so.
Um, but of course the majority kind of go, well, yes, if, if the dog is licking
their lips and it's out of context, i.
e.
there's no food around, well then there's probably a sign of stress.
I think most people will agree on that, but you are quite right.
Trying to find a.
Good, qualified, ethical trainer or behaviorist is a bit of a minefield
because even some of the ones that call themselves ethical turn out
to not be ethical and you kind of go, well, actually, you know,
you're being a bit fraudulent there.
So I think online there's, there's lots of places you can
go and get good information.
So I'm, I'm the vice chair of an organization called
the Association of Into Dogs.
Uh, and that's a collection of, um, ethical behaviorists and
trainers all around the world.
Well, the globe basically that, um, promotes the, the welfare
and both mentally and physically of the dogs that we look after.
So organizations like that are generally the best places to go to find either
someone local to you that can come and help or for directions on, okay, I'm
looking at this behavior in my dog.
What do I do?
Oh, that's great.
With, um, with the IntuDogs Association at the moment, we've actually got
what's called an, uh, an intro group.
Um, and all that is, it's, we kind of figured that there's so much
information out there and not everyone can afford a behaviorist or a trainer.
And that's no, no one's fault apart from the government.
So that's fine.
Um, Oh, another podcast.
Let's get political.
Um, That's good.
That's good.
So we've done this thing where it's generally 30 a year to join this
group, and you can ask behaviourists anything you want to ask, so
you can get good information.
And for the month of February, because it's Valentine's, it's 14.
So great deal.
So if people are going to have a look at that, it's a great place to go because
you have access to basically all of our behaviourists, all of our trainers, and
if you've got questions to ask, well then we're there for 30 a year, I think
there's a Fantastically good value.
Okay, you don't get the home visit, however, if we can help you get a
little bit further forward so you can live in harmony, well, brilliant,
and it's well worth the money.
Anke: Awesome, and we're definitely going to pop that link in the
show notes for sure, for sure.
Is there a particular kind of problem or behavior problem that
you find happens more often, or is that also changing over the years?
Like, what's the thing that you see most often?
Mark: It's definitely changing now.
I think over the last few years for me, I would say the last probably
five years or so, something like that would have to be anxiety.
Anke: I'm
Mark: seeing more and more anxious dogs, nervous dogs,
ones that aren't very confident.
They don't know anything, you know, it's, and that can be
for a whole number of reasons.
It could be genetics, you know, my dog is, um, it's from a sort of
bad lineage, if you like, you know, puppy farms, that kind of stuff.
Or someone's gone out and got a working breed of dog and hasn't
worked the dog's brain, so the dog's just a little bit of feral.
Or the dog's a rescuer, it's come from a bad background.
More and more often nowadays, I'll go and see a dog that Somebody might
say to me, Oh, my dog barks too much, or they, they, um, they rush at the
door and you go there and within the first few seconds, you know, that
dog's nervous and they're anxious.
And you kind of go, well, that's actually a problem.
Your dog is really kind of unsure about who they are, where they are, what
they're supposed to be doing in this particular, uh, particular family unit.
And more often than not, once we get down to start working the dog's brains
and giving them a bit more confidence.
You see this lovely dog come out.
I saw one the other day.
I saw the first about six weeks ago.
Cracking little rescue dog.
God knows what's in this dog.
It's just a whole ton of stuff rammed in.
Um, and I went there and he wouldn't come near me.
He was so nervous.
He was, he kept staring at different places in the house as his way of
kind of blocking everything out.
Um, very, very vocal, very, very unsure.
And I went back last week, um, six weeks later, And he rushed
at me when I first went in, but now he's taking treats from me.
And he ended up sitting on the settee next to me having a stroke.
And it was just, I saw the real dog.
And I saw this little man sort of come out and go, actually, you know, maybe
you're not so scary after all, and you do have some tasty food on you.
Maybe you're okay.
And it's just so nice.
The sad thing is, when you, from a client's point of view, when you're living
with that 24 7, you can't see the changes.
It's It's not apparent to you, but I go back and go, Wow, that
is such a great achievement.
Look at the progress.
They go, Really?
He's still barking.
And they've just not seen it.
Anke: Yeah.
Mark: He barks at dogs on the telly.
So we put a YouTube thing up of dogs.
Within five minutes, he's ignoring that.
Can't be bothered and it's just relaxing.
It's so, these are the bits for me that I, that really keep me going.
You see that change and you go, yeah, that's it.
So
Anke: what did they do in those six
Mark: weeks?
It's working the dog's brain, giving him what to do.
So from it's like, um, he would bark, he would bark at the door.
So if we practice on the door and he barks and we say thank you and give him
a little treat, very very soon he stops barking at the door for long periods.
We never want to stop a dog barking completely because
that's their job, you know.
I mean if somebody comes to my door while we're doing this you're going to hear what
my two do and it's chaos and I like that.
Um, but if we teach the dog that actually yes thank you for that, thank you for
letting me know there's someone there.
But now I've got it.
It's fine.
And it gives the dog a little bit of confidence.
It helps them out.
Work in their brains with doing things like contra freeloading,
so feeding dogs in different ways that doesn't involve the dog bowl.
Yeah.
Let them work out how to get some food out.
Little brain games like teaching them the English language.
You know, teaching them how to read.
It's things like that, that's such fun, fun things to do.
Wait, little brain games like, did you make this
Anke: like, what?
Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's, it's fun.
The thing is, most people are already doing it without knowing it.
You know, we've all said to our dogs, go get your ball.
And they go and get their ball.
They know what a ball is.
Yeah.
Go to your, go to your bed.
I know what a bed is.
So if you're out walking and you said, you know, there's a tree.
There's a park bench.
There's a signpost.
There's a lamppost.
Your dog will learn what these words are.
You must have heard of Chaser the Border Collie.
Anke: Yes.
Yes.
I've had, I've had, um, on the show.
Yep.
I've had Pilly on the show.
Mark: Yep.
Yeah, well, we, we interviewed her as well, um, on the Interdogs
thing a little while ago.
Lovely, lovely lady, but it just goes to show her dad, I mean, wow!
1, 200 words this time.
Incredible.
Amazing.
And of course, when we then, we go and see clients and they say, well, My
dog won't do that, he's a bit thick.
And you go, this is what dogs can do.
This is kind of like your, your upper benchmark, you know.
Um, but I personally like getting dogs to read.
And I do that with families that have perhaps young kids as well in the house,
because it's such a fun thing to do.
So how do I, how would that work?
Well, the dog needs to know a few cues that elicit an action.
So let's just say the dog already knows very well, sit
down, paw, for argument's sake.
Well, all you would do at that point is on bits of A5 card, you write those words
in nice thick letters, you show the dog the word sit, you say sit, they sit, you
give them a treat, and you repeat, repeat, repeat until you can just show the card.
Now, At this point, they're doing it for two reasons.
One, they have recognized the word, but secondly, it's like
a hand signal with the card.
Then go to the word down, then the word pull, and then start
building your vocabulary.
I've got loads of clients that are doing it, and A, it's so much
fun, because you cannot help but laugh when your dog starts to read.
It's, it blows you away.
I know, it's just like, it's mind blowing, like And then of course, then, when,
when people come around your house Oh!
It's like the best party trick ever.
If people go, you know, and with the kids I like to do it because I get them
to kind of do it over a school holiday.
Because when you go back to school, your teacher's going to go, what
did you do over the holidays?
And you're going to say, I taught my dog how to read.
They're all going to laugh at you.
And then you bring your phone out and go, there you go.
And you, you've got all the kudos in the world because you've trained
your neck out to read something.
It's brilliant.
It's just, it's something a little bit different that isn't
your boring sit down stay stuff.
People kind of get a little bored of and a little bit like, I don't want to
do that because, you know, whatever.
You're still doing the sit down stay and the rest of it, but
you're doing it by teaching them what the words actually look like.
That's amazing.
That's so much fun.
I like to say, just talking to Billie, well, I mean, it's
just, she knows her stuff too.
Anke: That's incredible.
Actually, it reminds me of an Instagram account that I followed.
Um, I haven't seen them for a while, but anyway, but basically
they had a dog and The guy says, Oh yeah, no, the dog actually pays
the rent, which was quite funny.
And all they did was they did monetize the Instagram account, but all the day, like
all the posts were always the same, right?
They basically had one of those.
Keyboard thingies on the floor, right?
Where the dog would just kind of go and, and, and basically, hey, I want
food and I want this and I'm thirsty and shut up, whatever it was, right?
And they seem to really quite enjoy it.
And I was always wonder, wondering how conscious or arbitrary that is.
Are they just kind of hitting somewhere or do they really know
that, hey, I'm thirsty, this is the button I need to press?
Mark: They really know, because at that point with the, with the words
that are on there, you've taught the dogs what the word actually means.
And of course then you You go and do it.
I mean, when you think about what these dogs could actually do, you
know, sniff out leukemia, sniff out cancer, COVID, drugs, money, all the
rest of the stuff, you know, when we're asking them to sit or lay down,
it's just like, it's such a low level.
It is kind of asking adults to cover a book, you know, it's, it's that simplistic
thing that you, you can go and do.
So, you know, I, I used to be this guy that would go out and see people and
I'd kind of get a little bit annoyed because I know what dogs are capable of.
And I was kind of going, well, look, you can do this, you can do this.
And I was so enthusiastic.
And then you kind of go, actually, what people want is the dog not to attack
anything or to come back when called, or, you know, don't eat my slippers.
It's, it's that, and they're happy with that.
But that's where I'm trying to get them to do stuff that maybe is a little bit
different to what they've been doing.
So if I'm going to say, if you take your dog for a walk, don't just go for
a walk, do some things on the walk.
And that could be anything.
You could hide some food somewhere, throw a ball into long grass, you
know, make them work a little bit.
Because it's going to be fun.
If it's fun, I hear your dog comes back quicker, because you're fun.
But secondly, they're going to become exceptionally tired,
which has got to be a good thing.
Anke: Yeah, no, that makes that makes that makes sense, right?
It's, it's, um,
it's kind of almost like a way to build up their confidence, right?
If they kind of have these, you know, Moments of success and
moments of achieving things.
I mean, it kind of makes sense to me that the dog would become more, well,
I don't know whether assertive, but like less nervous, less skittish.
Mark: Yeah, I think it's a confidence thing.
So once, it's no different to us really.
If you, if you know something well, then you're confident about it and
you can talk about it all day long.
But if you then put, if you put me there into a situation where I'm talking about
something I know nothing about, then you're going to get lots of stammering
and lots of, uh, oof, yeah, um, oof.
And it's the same thing, but once you've done that thing for
a while, you get better at it.
I've always been one of these people that I like to say yes to things and
then work out how to do it later.
It either goes horribly wrong or actually you get a new skill
set and I quite like that.
Um, so it's quite nice to immerse yourself sometimes in something that is out of your
comfort zone, but dogs are no different.
Once they know how to do something, Generally, if it's been fun and it's been
exciting and it's been rewarding, they're going to do it over and over again.
Because as we all know, in the dog world, dogs only do
behaviors that work for the dog.
So if they get a treat for doing something, they're going to do it
again, much like we would, you know.
Anke: Can I ask you something?
Because, you know, this idea, like, you know, we're like Mrs.
Guard Dog here.
So when there's somebody at the gate, she'll bark, right?
And, um, so I've You know, Dundee, hey, I go out, I've got it, you know,
and she's not barking excessively, you know, but then I will get, yeah, but
you're giving her a treat for barking.
Mark: Am I doing
Anke: something wrong?
Is there a point to that?
Mark: What's your take?
So my take is that your dog barking at the gate is doing a fantastically good job.
Whether they're barking or they stop barking, they still do a really good job.
That benefits some kind of reward, whether it's food based,
toy based, verbal, affection, whatever, it doesn't really matter.
The way I like to do it is, uh, someone comes to the door, The
dogs bark, I say thank you, they stop barking, I give them a treat.
I'm giving them a treat now for them stopping barking.
Anke: Yeah.
Mark: Because if we think about dogs only do what works for the
dog, on the flip side you only ever reward the last thing a dog does.
And that can be really tricky.
So your dog's barking at the gate.
Brilliant.
Thanks, guys.
Well done.
If they stop, couple of treats.
You've done a brilliant job.
Thanks for letting me know.
It also tells people that maybe they shouldn't break into your house.
Well, that's the thing.
Like, I don't really want them to stop entirely.
I'm
Anke: so
Mark: sure not.
Exactly.
Right.
Yeah.
No, it's just rewarding that behavior.
So from a dog that jumps up, Some people don't like that.
I understand why.
So, but if you They're jumping up to get your attention.
And of course, if you say get down, they've got your attention.
It's worked.
I'll do it again and again and again.
If you turn slightly and the second their paws hit the floor, yes, good dog.
Well done.
They're going to stay on the floor more often because that's
where the reward comes from.
So it's very tricky because it can be, especially that in public, if
your dog barks at somebody, your brain will go, I need to punish.
The person that's been barked at goes, you better tell your dog off.
But I'm there going, thank you mate, it's okay, have a treat.
Now of course everyone's thinking I'm rewarding the barking, but I'm really not.
And it's all too easy to then go, oi, pack it in.
If I, if I tell my dog off for barking at somebody, What's guaranteed is
they're going to bark at that person more and more and more because each
time I see that person, God, I hate that person because he keeps telling me off.
Yeah.
And it's also like,
Anke: Hey, I've been telling you like, and you're not listening.
I need to tell you more.
Mark: It's the same thing with, uh, you know, barking in the house,
you know, the dog barks, we shout, the dog barks more, we shout more.
It's, it's just a competition, you know, it's ridiculous, really.
So I kind of.
It's very tricky sometimes to explain to people that we only
reward the last thing a dog does.
And if you do that, and they get rewarded for all the good stuff that they do,
they're going to do that stuff more often.
That's a very generic way of saying it, because there are other issues
that we need to look at that will take longer and not quite as simplistic.
But, in general, that's a much easier way of thinking about things.
Anke: Yeah, makes so much sense.
So where can people go out and go and find out more about you?
Because obviously they don't have to necessarily live next door.
That will give you a cuddle.
Where can people
Mark: get in touch?
My wife will get really upset.
So, um, so, uh, where, uh, my Online presence though, the website is www.
bonecanis.
com, you can find me on there, and obviously Bonecanis on Facebook as well.
I am on X and Instagram, but I have no idea how to use them,
so it's very quiet on those two.
I'm too old, I can just about handle Facebook, and that does me.
Um, but like I say, we've got this wonderful technology now of Zoom, doesn't
matter where you live, you know, we, we can kind of help you wherever you are.
But I'm also very good at, um, if I don't think it's right to be an online session,
I will try and find someone closer to you that is ethical that can probably help.
But have a look on, on my website, you'll see, you'll see some lovely dogs on
there, you'll see all my, my colleagues on there as well, they're all lovely too.
Um, yeah, so.
www.
bodychemist.
com.
Anke: Awesome.
Well, thank you so much.
This was exceptional amount of fun.
So thank you for coming and very, um, helpful and educational and entertaining.
Oh, it's been
Mark: lovely.
Thank you for having me.
Is this the kind of interview that I actually like doing, where it's just like
having a cup of tea and having a chat rather than question, question, question.
This is much, much nicer, much more fun, and I think much more engaging as well.
So thank you for having me along.
Well, thank you.
Thanks so much for listening.
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That's A N k E at Soul touched by dogs.com.