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 Drayton.
I'm excited to have you here.
Drayton: Thanks.
I'm excited to be here.
I appreciate it.
Anke: Well before we Uh get started let people know where in this
lovely world are you based and what's your business for dogs?
Drayton: You got it.
I'm in Red Bank, New Jersey, which is about 50 miles from New York
City and 50 miles from Philadelphia.
So I'm kind of like right in the middle of New Jersey.
And I've been training and working with dogs for about 24 years.
Started in 2000 as a dog walker in New York City, went to the Academy
for Dog Trainers, got certified, uh, took the fabulous course by Dr.
Susan Friedman, Living and Learning with Animals.
Uh, I work with roughly 400 dogs a year, uh, typically I have anywhere from three
to four puppy classes a week, and you know, I do private sessions, um, anything
people need help with, uh, it doesn't really matter as long as they want to do
it in a positive, force free, humane way.
That's how I train.
Then, uh, I'd be happy to work with them.
Uh, I don't have any dogs of my own at the moment, but I've had three dogs,
uh, in my lifetime, all Pit Bulls.
And uh, back in 2009, I was the first person to put out a documentary
about Pit Bulls called The Pit Bull Hoax, which you can find on YouTube.
And I've also been in the movie Beyond the Myth, which was another
great movie about read specific legislation and the effects of that.
And uh, I have a very active YouTube channel where I put out
videos on a regular basis about positive reward based training.
Anke: I love that.
I love that.
So now you've got me with the pities, right?
So it's such a discussion all the time, you know?
So what pulled you towards that breed?
Drayton: Well, when I first got a dog, um, I didn't know anything.
This was back in, uh, I think it was like, what, 98?
You know, I just started to notice there were people who I had known
in my life who were afraid of my dog and I couldn't understand why.
So, as time went on, I just found more and more information about, you know,
the culture of hating these dogs and banning them and I said, Wow, there's
really something has to be done and the best way to do that is to have
some sort of media presentation.
At the time, my ex wife was a professional trainer and she had
access to some pretty legendary people in the training and behavior world.
So I contacted them and said, Hey, I'm making this documentary and
I'd like to know if you'd like to speak about pitfalls and behavior.
So there had been, you know, a decent amount of people advocating
for pitfalls at that point.
This is around 2012.
but nobody had really come into the advocacy for Pitbull's with
behavior and discussing behavior.
I then discovered Dr.
I'm not doctor I'm sorry.
I discovered Karen Delese.
Who's an author, she wrote a fabulous book called The Pit Bull Placebo,
and she basically studied dog bite incidences for about 150 years, and
found that there was a criteria that always repeats in part or total.
And that criteria is dogs kept for guarding or protecting, they're not family
members, multiple dogs, dogs not spayed or neutered, children left alone with dogs,
domestic violence, dogs running free, and dogs chained or housed all the time.
If you look at any of the fatal or lethal dog bite incidents, no matter
where they happen in the world, some or all of that criteria is present.
There's never been a dog who's been well trained, well cared for in a loving
family that's killed anybody, or, you know, hurt someone from biting them.
And, you know, at the end of the day, that's kind of what sparked
my interest in making the Pitbull hoax, and just went on from there.
You know, I inspired another gentleman to make a film called Guilty Till
Proven Innocent, and I was in the film Beyond the Myth, which ended up being
coming on Netflix back in the day.
So, you know, there's been a lot of movement towards helping Pitbulls and
Pitbull type dogs, but unfortunately, uh, that stigma and that hate and
that prejudice seems to persist.
Anke: It certainly does, you know, so I'm wondering do you have, do you have some
theory around that or like, you know, you keep hearing this Um, you know, but
the doors really lock and whatever, you know, so it's like are these people You
know attack their owner in the bedroom or whatever, you know, like what?
There's these stories and you never know whether they're true anyway,
but do you have a theory of why that?
There's a couple
Drayton: of Yeah, there's a couple of things we can definitely,
uh, look at as truisms.
Number one, jaws don't lock.
That's been proven, you know, Through anatomical research by veterinarians
that just what happens is is, you know, if it is an actual pit bull dog They
do have very strong jaws and they you know, they were bred to grab cattle
and hold them right their catch dogs Initially pit bulls were created to do
farm work and hunting the fighting came later And my theory on that is people
were bored back in the 1600s Right?
My joke is if we had video games back then, maybe dog fighting
would have never happened.
But, you know, people are cruel and they don't really think about
things in a humane way all the time.
They just have their own agenda.
As far as why the hate and the prejudice continues, there's
always going to be people who hate dogs and don't understand them.
And a lot of it is just knee jerk panic policy.
Um, when you look at breed specific legislation in America, every place
that it's been implemented, dog bites haven't decreased, and obviously if
you have education over legislation you can have your community much safer.
The problem is they would rather just ban dogs, kill a bunch of innocent
dogs who've never done anything wrong, they just look a certain way.
So my, my attitude towards it is the more you educate, Then you don't have to
legislate, and breed specific legislation doesn't solve anything anyway, right?
It's the over inclusive, under inclusive theory, right?
You're gonna include a lot of dogs in that band who will never bite anyone,
and you're gonna get a lot of dogs who don't look like pit bulls, who may
be in danger of biting someone, and they're not gonna be included because
They're a lab, or they're a shepherd.
So, you know, it always boils down to this.
Behavior is in the environment, and humans are the variable.
So, if the human is doing things correctly, and they're responsible,
there's a really great chance that the dog's never going to
get into any serious trouble.
And, you know, you mentioned, you know, You know, a dog guardian being bitten
by their own dog, you know, or mauled.
Well, all I can say is number one, what have you been doing with that dog?
Like, how are you treating this dog?
And then number two, are you working with anybody that considers
themselves a professional and what are they telling you to do?
So, sure, you know, dogs can bite because they have teeth, right?
That's why they bite.
And fear is rooted, and aggression is rooted in fear.
Fear is the underlying cause for aggression.
So, you know, uh, when you look at it logically, and you remove the
emotion, right, and you have some empathy, dogs have the cognition
of three year old kids for life.
By the time they're about two.
So they're not up to no good.
They're doing things that dogs do.
Right?
And if a dog is in a really bad situation, they may end
up doing something really bad.
Anke: Yeah, I mean, the breed specific legislation just reminds
me that just recently there was something going on in the UK as well.
So it's not even just dogs.
So it happens, it happens everywhere.
And there's, you know, people fighting for their dogs, right?
Because there's a lot of, you have, this dog is the biggest fluffball, you know,
cuddle bug, but just, he looks like this, so he's going to be, so it's, it's.
Well, the other
Drayton: thing is, the other thing, and I'm going to be making some media
about this because, you know, October is Pitbull Awareness Month here in America.
I'm sure it extends around the world, but, you know, one of the things that
I'm going to start reminding people is that the media likes to create
monsters because when the media creates a monster, they make money.
And, you know, you should never trust the media about anything they say because they
lie, because they don't have credibility.
Any agenda for the truth.
They have an agenda to make money and to create division because when they
create division, they make money, right?
And that's how the media works.
Um, you know, in America, we have a publication called Sports Illustrated
and back in the eighties, they put a pit bull on the cover of an issue and
said, beware of this dog, but then fast forward to The Michael Vick incident.
Now they have the dog on the cover and they're saying these are wonderful dogs.
It's about the people.
So it took, you know, almost 20 years for them to come around.
But the reason why they came around isn't because all of a
sudden the media loves dogs.
No, they came around because the zeitgeist, right?
The whole population was like, Hey, Don't blame these dogs
at the Michael Vick kennel.
It's the people, you know, that only lasted about five years and
then it all went back to, you know, Oh, they're dangerous dogs.
So that's the message to the general public is do not trust the media
about whatever they say, whether they say it about dogs, they say
it about people, whatever they're telling you, there's an agenda.
Anke: Yep.
Sound advice that one.
So now I'm curious, actually, the thing that pops to mind is that, um, Since
I've started this show and this whole project and really looking into, you
know, like groups and dog professionals, there's a shit fight going on, right?
So between the, you know, balanced and tough dogs need a tough hand and people
who say, well, no, that's crap, right?
So do you find you get a lot of pushback, especially, you know, coming at you with
like, oh, well, pitbulls, you can't.
You know, you can't train pitbulls with teeth.
Well, here's
Drayton: the thing.
I was also coming into dog culture with Advocating for pitbulls and advocating
for positive reward based training without the use of fear and pain.
I was doing it concurrently.
So I was one of the first people who was really screaming from my lungs
saying, hey, stop hurting dogs, stop causing them fear and pain, stop
shocking them, stop choking them.
Look at history.
Humans and dogs have been working alongside each other since 20,
000 years before agriculture.
So before humans figured out, hey, let's put seeds in the ground,
we had dogs helping us, right?
We had dogs working with us.
Before molded metal and before electricity, dogs were
a partner in our evolution.
So why is it now?
We need to choke them and shock them and blame them.
Dogs are innocent.
I don't want to get into the weeds, but there is an area of mammal brains called
the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex.
And this job that the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex does is
it does the right wrong assessment.
Dogs don't really know right from wrong.
They know what's reinforcing, what's not reinforcing.
Okay.
Again, as I said earlier, they have the cognition of three year old kids for life.
So they're not doing things with a moral imperative, and if anybody believes that,
then they are believing a falsehood, okay?
Do I get pushback?
Not really, I mean, I have, but, you know, most people don't really mess with me.
Maybe it's just my vibe, they're like, and I don't really care.
And, you know, I will tell people, well, you know, at the end of the day, you
know, thank you for letting me know that you want to cause dogs fear and pain.
Thank you for telling me that.
Now I know who you are.
Me?
I don't need to?
The other thing is, when you look at actual legitimate animal trainers
who train animals that will kill you, they don't use fear and pain.
So, you know, some positive trainers have a saying, if you
wouldn't train a lion that way, don't train a dog that way, right?
If you wouldn't, if you wouldn't do it to a three year old,
don't do it to a dog, okay?
Fear is the underlying cause for aggression.
So why do you want to create fear, which could create aggression?
Secondly, if you have a dog who already has a predisposition to being afraid,
whether it's from their genetics, so if you have a guard dog breed like
a Rottweiler, a Chow Chow, a German Shepherd, a Doberman, and let's say
they have a little bit more fear in there, Why do you want to increase it?
Right?
You don't want to do that.
So I work with people and their dogs.
And in order for me to sleep well at night, I have to go into situations no
matter where the people are and teaching them how to be safe behaviorally and how
to be safe just in a general management, pragmatic, everyday life with your dog.
Let's be safe.
Because then I know the dog is going to stay sound, right?
Now, a lot of these trainers who You know, use shock and
choke and they blame the dog.
My question to them would be, why do you need to do it if
you can get it done without it?
Because I can, I can train dogs without making them afraid, right?
Because all the legitimate behavior people will agree, sure, you can
change behavior with shock and choke.
We're not saying you can't change behavior, but what's left in its
place, what's left in its place is an overly generalized fear.
And again, I don't even know if half these pain trainers understand this, right?
That's the reason why it, quote, works, because the dog has a
generalized fear to this chain.
The dog has a generalized fear to this beep, because the beep
predicts here comes the shock.
Right?
See, I understand operant and classical conditioning, inside and out.
I am not confused about the science of animal behavior or behavior analysis.
I get it.
I wonder if they do because I think that they're just choking and shocking
dogs, hoping the dog stops doing something so the client will be happy.
But it's been proven.
You can look at a lot of studies.
Behavior stays in place and is much more solid when there is positive
reinforcement and kind consequences.
I'm not saying I don't give dogs a consequence to teach them, it's just kind.
So what I always tell my clients is, if you get a parking
ticket, you're bummed out.
But what if the consequence was they popped all of your tires?
What if you got there and your tires were, that's pain, that's misery.
Now you got to have, you've got to go get your car retreaded, right?
You got to get new tires.
So I will bum dogs out.
I will disappoint a dog, but I won't, but I won't cause them fear and pain.
Anke: Yeah.
I mean, that makes, that makes so much sense.
And it's, it's that, um, that part of like, it's just like humans, you
know, like you can intimidate anybody into submission, but that pent up
fear didn't come out somewhere else.
Drayton: Well, you can't intimidate everybody and dogs are the same way.
There's some dogs who are like, you know what, screw this.
I'm biting you and I'm biting the next person.
So, you know, you know what those trainers, those pain trainers
do, they say, Oh, there's something wrong with that dog.
And they don't, they don't go back.
They quit, they quit.
Or if the client has been choking their dog for a month and all of a sudden
it bites their kid and they call the trainer, you know what the trainer does?
Oh, I'm not coming back.
Oh, I can't work.
Anke: The dog isn't trainable, so the dog gets killed basically.
'cause I've
Drayton: had clients who've been in those positions and then they contact me and
I'm like, well, you know, that tells you about the character of that person.
You know, if I have a client call me back six months later and say,
Hey, you know the dog's doing X, Y, Z, I'm like, okay, great.
Let's get in there.
Let's retool the plan, gimme some history, what's been going
on and let's give you some help.
Right?
But I don't have clients calling me, telling me, Hey, you told me
to do this, so now my dog is worse.
Anke: Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, that's the thing that winds me up when these like TV personalities
and there's that there's a Spanish mini me version of of a famous one and it's
that you can see well they just kind of Stun the dog, shock the dog in the
moment, and I'm like, I don't really want to know what happens when he's gone.
And the person's back alone with their dog, you know, and I think
it, it makes it, it makes it worse.
Yeah, you're absolutely,
Drayton: you're absolutely right.
First of all, you wouldn't want to take parenting advice from reality shows, and
you wouldn't want to, you wouldn't want to take dog training advice from TV shows.
Anke: But people do, that's the thing.
I know, I
Drayton: went to Animal Planet twice.
to get a show, okay?
And I talked to no fewer than nine different producers over the
course of 10 years to get a show.
Here's what I'll tell you about people in entertainment.
They don't care about dogs.
They don't give one crap about dogs.
The welfare of dogs.
They don't care about educating the general public.
All the people in entertainment care about is, will I make money?
That's all they care about.
Because if they actually cared about dogs, they would put out a number of
shows that could really help people.
And the first woman I met with at Animal Planet, she was dead in the eyes.
Dead in the eyes, right?
Usually when I talk to people about dogs, you get some sort of emotion.
Joy, sadness, interest, something.
She was just blank.
The next time I went up to Animal Planet, I went with Jon Stewart.
Yes, that Jon Stewart.
Because I worked with him and his family for about eight months.
And he brought me in.
And they still didn't give me a show.
But they had a little change over in the, uh, You know, they had a little
changeover in the, uh, management at Animal Planet, but the bottom line
is, if they really wanted to do it, right, they could, but they don't care.
Right?
And they just don't.
That's why they keep putting on training shows, and I use that word loosely,
but they keep putting shows out where people are causing dogs fear and
pain, because they don't care at all.
And nobody can convince me they do care.
Anke: Well, I couldn't agree more.
Drayton: Actions speak louder than words.
Anke: I do agree, I do agree.
So, do you work with people locally, or can people get hold of you online, or
what's the easiest way to get in touch?
Oh,
Drayton: yeah.
I mean, I work with people here in New Jersey, but I've done a fair
number of Uh, remote consults.
I actually did a remote consult with a woman in Russia about nine
years ago and was very successful.
But yeah, people can get a hold of me through ModernDogTraining.
com and if they want to do a remote consult, we can do that.
Anke: Awesome.
So, but that doesn't, like, you don't have to have a pitbull,
like, you know, as you said in the beginning, it doesn't really matter.
I work
Drayton: with every, every kind of, every kind of dog that people have, you know,
I love all dogs and I want to help people no matter what kind of dog they have.
Anke: Awesome.
Awesome.
Well, thank you so much.
Welcome.
Can I plug my
Drayton: new book?
Can I plug my new book?
Anke: Oh, hell yes, please.
Alright, so, um,
Drayton: I just put out a book.
It's called The Puppy Parent's Handbook.
It's really short.
You could probably read it in an hour.
Um, it's, uh, got everything you need to help raise your puppy from house training
to general training to leash walking to counter conditioning to help your puppy
with fears or stress or frustration.
So, uh, you know, it's moderately priced.
You can get it online wherever they sell books.
It's available all around the world.
You can get it on Amazon.
You can get it on Kindle.
You can go to IngramSpark and that will help you if you need
to get the book from overseas.
So check it out.
It's good stuff.
Anke: Awesome.
We're going to definitely, you know, like do a big plug in the
show notes and then you slide to us.
Oh, for sure, for sure.
It goes on the bookshelf.
So definitely.
Cause I guess, you know, when somebody is lucky enough that most, yeah,
most of mine have been puppies.
Yeah, there won't be any kind of puppies when they came,
but, uh, it's kind of a tie.
It's the, if you get the chance to have a dog as a puppy, I think it's that
beautiful opportunity to, to get in some, you know, some education early.
Drayton: Yeah.
You put your imprint on the dog, which is great.
But one of the things I talk about in the book right away
is should you even get a puppy?
Because there's a lot of leg work, right?
There's a lot of little extra work that you have to do when
you get a dog who's eight weeks.
There's two fear periods during the critical development period.
Some puppies are really mouthy.
Some puppies have some separation issues.
There's the leg work for house training.
But if you're willing to do the work, it's a great experience.
And I encourage people to get a puppy.
One of the things that is kind of, you know, I don't know, I don't want to say
controversial, but some people feel like, you know, you should never buy a dog.
And my attitude is It doesn't matter where the dog comes from, as long as the
people are committed and they love the dog, they do the work, they stand by the
dog, they're helping the dog every day.
There's plenty of dogs who cost thousands of dollars and they wind up in a shelter.
And there's plenty of dogs who were found on the street.
And they find their way into a great home.
So again, it always goes back to the people.
Are the people doing what they need to do?
Are they getting the right information?
Is that information based in humane training?
And if that's the case, then every puppy, every dog is a rescued dog.
Anke: Oh, I love that.
I love that so much.
Thank you so much.
This is absolutely delightful.
And, um, yeah, let's provide different programs for puppies.
Drayton: Okay.
Sounds great.
Thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Anke: Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening.
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That's A N k E at Soul touched by dogs.com.