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, Therese.
I can't, I'm like super excited to have you back here.
Therese: I can tell, I'm thrilled.
Yes, we connected around dogs.
So how, how apropos that here we are celebrating this new baby of yours, right?
I
Anke: know, I know, I know.
It's just like, couldn't be more perfect.
And you couldn't be the more perfect person to come on, on this, right?
Because We've had the conversation and I know that you have a real special
connection with, with, with your dog and, you know, let people know, you
know, like where you're based, who's Therese and you know, who's your dog?
Therese: So I'm, I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Um, I'm, I call myself the intuitive business mentor.
So basically I work with business women.
You know, their lives and their businesses, but my real
job is being Murphy's dog mom.
And so, um, let me tell you about Murphy.
So we got him.
He was called a cattle dog.
Uh, that's the breed cattle dog.
He's very unique looking.
I don't know if we have pictures, but we could do, we will do pictures, whatever.
He's gorgeous.
And he, he was brought in as a dog for our, for our first dog.
And sadly, that dog got killed, and so then I inherited this dog that
never really connected with us.
He was Finley's dog, like, she was so needy and wild and like,
anxious and kind of a mess.
So he was like, whatever, okay.
And when she got killed, because they had been, they got, they escaped from
the yard, and she got hit by a car.
So he witnessed that, and it was, so it was very bad.
So I inherited this dog, I think for a month or two, he didn't even
come out of the bedroom, Anke.
He was so depressed.
didn't really have anything to do with us.
He was just like, you know, he's traumatized.
He was anxious.
So that's where we started.
Wow.
So after Finley died, I was like, okay, I gotta give Murphy a better life.
And I didn't, I did what a lot of consumers do.
I went on Instagram and I started trying to learn, right?
And so I followed all these dog trainers, right?
And I, and I was, I was committed.
And part of my grief was like, okay, Finley, I'll give
your brother a better life.
Like I was like, I have to do this for Finley.
Cause you know, truthfully, this was the, and I, I feel.
Horrible to say this, when Finley was killed, it was like the wrong dog died,
and I felt horrible because she was like the soulmate dog, and he was just
kind of, he was like the background dude that never really was, he wasn't
affectionate, you couldn't pet him, he was, so I get this dog is a mess, right?
So go on Instagram, and I had a very bad dog accent after about a year of training,
just kind of walking with him and trying to do things, he was still super reactive.
So at one point, Anke, I was, I was sitting in a park, had a leash in my
hand, he was sitting behind me, and I guess there was probably a scary
homeless man or something that walked behind me, and Murphy just took off.
He'd never done that before.
Ripped the leash out of my hand, and then I had, like, I'd have
a screw in my fingers today.
I had a massive injury.
Because of his reactivity.
So in my world, like, I got to do something else.
This is the, it's not safe, you know, he'd never done that before,
but I probably he was protecting me because the guy was kind of weird.
So, fast forward, the next year, I went on a vacation and for the first time ever.
I did a board and train, and I put him with a local trainer.
It's called, um, Bouncing Paws Dog Trainer.
The man is named Yoni.
Fabulous!
So, so I am a wreck, because my dog has lunged, like, he was so reactive and wild.
And so I leave him with Yoni for two weeks, and then I
come back, and I'm like...
What have you, wait, who are you, what, I'll never forget, like, like,
here's, here's the difference with the psychology, the dog psychology, right?
I feel like the mistakes I made with both Finley and Murphy, I think
sometimes being loving is actually feeding their anxiety, right?
So when I dropped Murphy off at the board and train, I had met with Yoni beforehand
and now I was going to drop Murphy, so I have the leash, he, Yoni says to me.
You are going to give me the leash.
You're not going to talk to Murphy.
You're not going to say goodbye to Murphy.
You're going to walk away.
And I'm like,
he goes, because if you get all emotional, that's going to be a
problem for me when you leave him here.
And I'm like, okay, oh God.
And so then, then after two and a half weeks, I come back
and I'm going to pick him up.
I literally just got off a plane from Ireland.
I'm exhausted.
I'm going to go get the dog.
And he's like, Hey, there's a, there's a group class.
You want to do a group class?
I was like, okay, part of the group classes.
You serpentine your dog through through a trail of all the other dogs.
I'm ready to throw up.
I'm just like, oh, there's going to be raping and pillaging.
Like, it's just going to be a bloody mess.
And what he says to me is.
Relax your mind and trust your dog.
Because what I have learned, thanks to Yoni, is what we do is we
project all our stuff onto our dog.
I had stories.
I started with the story of Murphy.
Oh, he was reactive.
Oh, he had grief.
Oh, he had...
And it's much like the work I do with my clients, right?
That's funny.
We have stories about, well, because of his history, oh,
that's not going to happen.
Or because he came from there, well, he has all these issues.
And yet Yoni showed me neutrality.
If you just be a strong leader and, and just trust your dog.
So what I ended up doing is I put a bunch of work in.
Now I will say I'm a big fan of the tools because with my other reactive
dog, Finley, I tried trainers and they didn't work because they, in my
estimation, this is my belief, they were not using the appropriate tools.
So Yoni had Murphy on a prong collar and he had him on an E collar.
And I know there are people like, oh, no, no, it's like, it's a buzz.
That's all it is.
It's literally a state change.
It's no different from a clicker.
It's just a little reminder.
And so that one tool we, I went literally from, I was terrified to take Murphy out
because he was lunging at all the things.
To now we have a little dog group in the neighborhood.
Now he, he has dog friends.
I take him.
We walk on the bike path, and if there's a bike approaching, I say, sit, and
he just sits, and people are like...
What a good dog he is.
He's off leash all the time.
He's a joy because I got out of my own way and I, I took him to an expert and
then I listened and I did the work.
So that's, that's the work.
I
Anke: love it.
I love it.
And so do you know anything about like how, what he did to achieve that?
And also you doing the work, what did that actually mean?
Therese: Doing the work, well, so what he did is he, he took the emotionality
out of, you know, and, and it really is, you have to be a strong leader.
So what I did after that for about six months, I went to a weekly dog
class with him, a group pack walk, you know, pack classes, and I would see.
Because I would be like, you know, we do a lot of going in and out of people and
put them like, put them on place and then recall them, but it's in a group, right?
And that was my greatest nightmare because he was lunging all over, you
know, and what I would see is new people come in and, and the dog moms would
be like, they're all tense and Yoni would be like, relax your arms, you
know, and, and stop talking to them.
Stop looking at them.
Like you have to take a confident, like, I'm in charge.
And you're fine and they have to listen to you and I, I know it'd be like, come
here, you're gonna come here, you're gonna be like, oh, you're so good, and
it's not that you can't talk to your dog, but you, oh, here's another thing I did.
I pushed him into places where he previously didn't have
confidence because before it's like, oh, you're afraid of that.
Oh, don't do that.
That'd be scary.
That's the completely wrong thing to do.
So like at the parks, they have those like sewer grates, you know, I don't
know if you guys have a, so, so there's the grates, I would make him walk on
the grates initially, he's thinking he's going to alligators, right?
And I forced him just to go, like, so it was little activities
that was like, I could do it!
Oh my!
Right?
And just like anything,
as And so, so he...
Because he had built in anxiety from his early life and from Finley and my
bad handling, and so I just kept pushing him into the new thing and the new thing
and the new thing and the new thing.
And so it was a lot of me having to change how I viewed him and
having to take a stronger stance, like, nope, this is what we do now.
Yeah,
Anke: I think that that piece of, of, like the other, like, so I don't know, Mrs.
Lindsey the other day was, read something that goes like, oh, like, it's always
about the other end of the leash, like.
us, you know, so
100%.
And I think that it's, it's a tricky one in a bit, in a sense, because it reminds
me a little bit of Leo who got bitten, you know, and he was like, when he was
little, like he was about a year old.
And he was like, Oh, you know what, just like when he When the puppy
critted was kind of running out and other dogs were no longer, you know,
and he was like, Oh my God, I'm cute.
And you know it.
And so this other dog just basically went for him and it was an ugly situation
because it was in the middle of the night and the owner wasn't there.
There was no owner.
It was this big dog off leash on his own, you know, and all
I could do was like screech.
And I'm like, that's not helping.
I know, but it was like, it was a bit terrifying.
Absolutely.
I mean, and, and.
It's really noticeable, like, okay, you know, like 19, 20 years later, and all
the dogs later, it's like, I see that, I'm like a pit bull, like, I'm standing
there, I've got you behind me, and I'm trolling you, you know, and it's like,
it's really, and you can tell how the dog behind me relaxes, because then
yeah, she'll be alright, yeah, she'll handle it, you know, Leo probably
took his trauma, not so much from what the dog did, but from my reaction.
You know, like, oh my God, like, she's worse than me, but I think it's
kind of what you know at the time, you know, and I think when he would
kind of launch at other dogs, it's like, yeah, you know, you can tell
me relax your shoulders all you want.
I know that he's going to, he's going to take off now, you know, he's going
to wipe me off my feet if I relax.
Right.
I think it is.
There needs to be that switch, you know, like somebody like his, this
guy who kind of comes in and actually shows the dog, like, actually,
yeah, this isn't the only way this
Therese: can work, right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
That's, that's,
Anke: that's fabulous.
And I think it's so, it's so beautiful because when you think about it, you
know, I think people like you and me would go and say, well, whatever it takes.
You know, I will do whatever it takes to make, you know, to, to make it work.
But I think so many people, and I, you know, especially in Spain, you see all
the time, you know, it's like, oh, I can't handle the dog, must get rid of the dog.
You know, and I think that's where this becomes so important,
you know, that the dog.
can live with us in a way that, you know, where nobody feels unsafe and
nobody feels like too much because then, you know, yeah, I love, I love,
I love hearing stories like that.
So, thank you.
Thank you
Therese: for sharing it.
This is great.
Yeah,
Anke: we'll pop the link, you know, to your website, to
Murphy's Instagram account.
And, you know, and if you have the link to My trainer?
To the trainer, if you want to give him a plug, then, then we can
Therese: put that link there as well.
Yeah, it's been, it's been life saving because like I said, I had
had hired multiple trainers for two.
I had, I said a history of reactive dogs.
A, sometimes I, I always get rescues, and so sometimes you're
getting, you don't know, right?
They've been traumatized.
And I hired trainers, but they were so reactive and these
trainers didn't use the e caller.
And so it just kept getting worse.
And I would be so frustrated.
Like one, one trainer, I literally had to spend 20 minutes in the driveway.
She was a pit bull mix.
She had such prey drive and she was so jacked up.
20 minutes making circles in the driveway before I could even leave.
And I'm like, screw this.
It's too much work.
Whereas when Yoni was like, just use an e caller.
Boom.
It's so, I know people get afraid of the tools, but don't be afraid of the tools
because I, it's not for not trying, right.
I went out of my way, but I didn't have the proper tools and I didn't have,
you know, to me, the board and the train, and it is a privileged thing.
It's very expensive oftentimes to get a board and train thing happening,
but gosh, if you can do that, it is, it is just, you set it up right
from the beginning with success.
So big plug for those trainers.
Anke: Awesome.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you.
I
Therese: shall talk to you soon.
Okay.
Lots of love.
Thanks so much for listening.
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That's A N k E at Soul touched by dogs.com.