In this exciting episode of the Pet Biz Podcast, host Lianne Shinton sits down with the incredible Manny Guerra, owner of K9 Parent Training! 🐶 Dive into how K9 Parent Training addresses all your dog training needs. Manny breaks down his unique approach to training puppies, adult dogs, and explains the difference between obedience and behavioral problem-solving.

He also shares an inspiring success story about a family with two dogs that were dominating and fighting with each other – a must-hear for anyone facing similar challenges! Known for his relatable analogies and knack for helping dog owners learn, Manny provides powerful insights to help you build a stronger bond with your family dog. Don't miss this engaging and informative conversation!

Connect with Manny here: https://www.k9parenttraining.com

Watch Now!

Transcript of Podcast:

Lianne Shinton (00:00)

Welcome everybody. I'm Leanne, the host and also the owner of Pet Biz Experts, a software company for pet professionals like dog trainers. And today we're speaking with Manny Guerra from K9 Parent Training. Welcome Manny. I'm very good, thank you. How about yourself?

Manny Guerra (00:15)

Hi, how are

I'm doing well, I appreciate you having me on today.

Lianne Shinton (00:23)

Awesome. I'm excited to learn more about K9 parent training, some of the services you offer. Maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to specialize in dog training and how did your journey in this field begin?

Manny Guerra (00:37)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first, normally I ask, I let folks know my background is not in dogs. My background is in people. For about 20 years or so, I have been an instructor or coach in various athletic and performance art backgrounds. I've done everything from martial arts to gymnastics to circus, theater, dance. And in each of those disciplines, I've always been a teacher.

And it wasn't until about 2011 or so, I started volunteering at the local animal shelter via my wife, actually. She got me in at five in the morning feeding neonatal kittens. a few months after that, I applied for a job at the shelter. It was a transitional period where our local shelter was moving from fully a city -operated facility to a nonprofit taking over. And so at the time they had four full -time positions for Kennel Tech and I got one of those positions. I started scooping poop basically and after a while I noticed that...

unbeknownst to me, dogs were responding positively and I didn't really know why they were interacting with me in different ways that they would interact with other folks, especially some of the harder dogs. And now I attribute it to what I think is my martial arts background and just the presence that I had in front of the dogs, the nonverbal communication

Once I caught onto that there was something there between the dogs and I, remember having dinner with my wife, we were sitting at the table and I said, you know what, I think I want to train dogs. because most of my life before that point, I had been a trainer for people. I taught anywhere from mommy and me classes all the way up to teenager and adult classes, private lessons, events, and all of those things.

And I realized there is this intersection between my background and teaching people and now teaching people about all the things I had been learning with dogs. And so I decided to really dive off the deep end there. I enrolled myself in an entry level kind of basic certification course through the animal behavior college. It was a bunch of book work. And then I had a mentor trainer that I had to complete a certain amount of hours with.

At the time, the animal shelter did not have a behavior department or a training position or anything like that. And I essentially was created a position to move out of kennel tech and start training dogs at the animal shelter because I had gone to school. From there, the rest is history. I committed to continuing education. I went on a lot of seminar.

Or went to a lot of seminars rather one of the most memorable ones was a mentorship in Longmont, Colorado for dogs playing for life. We hosted them at our local shelter and then a little while later I found myself transporting dogs up there and staying for a mentorship. Things just sort of cascaded from there, you know, I found myself.

helping volunteers with their dogs after work. And I started creating YouTube videos of me working with dogs. And I found that my teaching background sort of created a niche for me where I had seen success in troubleshooting behavior and helping folks with their dogs because I had a way to get through through the person, especially in the shelter rescue world. find it really odd that a lot of folks in

world don't like people. And the problem with that is that you need more people to help more dogs. And because my, love dogs, I love them a lot, but my passion is people. And because of that, I sort of carved my own space in the dog training community. And now here we are speaking together over a decade later.

Lianne Shinton (05:01)

What a fantastic journey. And the name K9 parent training kind of fits. Yeah. How did you come up with that name?

Manny Guerra (05:08)

Right. Well, just speaking on that, you know, the the idea behind K9 parent training is I wanted to emphasize my background in people. Now I can say that I have a good background in dog training because of all the education that I've had in the last 11 years. But in the beginning, I was focusing mostly on

portraying my background in people. so I would tell people, still to this day, I tell people upfront, hey, my background's not in dogs, but I know people. And my education in dogs is a little bit newer, but I'm pretty sure I have the skills to coach you to figure out what's wrong and to help you troubleshoot your problems. And so once it started growing, it took on a few different meanings. My background in dogs,

but also focusing on the human side of the leash. I'll back up, my background in dogs started to help, but focusing on the human side of the leash and making sure that I was coming from that direction because I didn't want to sound like this new dog trainer who was trying to help everybody and solve everything and sound like I was Mr. Fix -It with.

Dogs and so I would tell people hey I don't know if we can fix this but I know I can coach you and that's kind of how it grew from there nowadays It seems that at least in my area folks have have found us because we've we found a niche for troubleshooting common household behavior issues and the way that I do that is I relate the

way we live with our dogs and interact with our dogs to parenting. And so even though there are really major differences between children and dogs, what I found is that there is a lot of parallels between parenting and dog training and raising your dogs, particularly in how we deal with behavior issues. Communication is different and all of that stuff, but if I can convince a lot of dog folks,

to start viewing their relationship as if they were parenting their dog and not just befriending their dog. I think that there's a lot of potential behavior problems that would just go away because of how folks are relating to their dogs. so those are kind of the two reasons why K9 parent training or K9 PT for short was born.

Lianne Shinton (07:56)

I love how you're bringing firsthand experience, having your own kiddos, learning, know, managing the kids and then the dogs together too. You can probably bring a lot of insight, you know, compared to dog trainers that don't have, you know, kids and they haven't dealt with that. So that's probably a biggie because you probably train a lot of families.

Manny Guerra (08:17)

Yeah, absolutely. know, the major difference that, or excuse me, the major similarity that I see is just like, you know, with children, we say that they're always learning whether or not we're teaching them, right? Every moment of every day, they're watching and absorbing and they're testing boundaries and they're seeing what kind of reactions they could get, even if we're not necessarily teaching them, right? And it's the same with our dogs.

I try to tell folks all the time human examples to help them understand what I mean when we're talking about dogs with my kids. I love them to death, but I would pull my hair out if I had to have a sit down organized activity every moment of every day. It's just not possible, right? So sometimes we're sitting reading a book, sometimes we're doing an assignment or whatever it is, an activity,

Even when we're not doing those things, I'm still inadvertently teaching them things based off of how our daily routine is going. Right. And so it's the same with our dogs. you're in general, you, a person, will not have success in fixing behavior. If you're looking at dog training, like, it's, it's two o 'clock. have to, I have to train my dog. Right. It's, I like to say training is a little bit at a time all the

You know, it never stops. It's a quick interaction here, a couple minutes there, you know, and it helps more with the folks that have kids. But usually when I explain just how much they need to practice to create noticeable change, because there's a difference between obedience training and behavior training, right? And so usually I'll tell folks, especially if they have kids, how many repetitions did it take to teach your kid how to stand up and

You know, you don't know, right? There's, you just practice all the time until they can do it. And then I go, that's it, right? It's a little bit all the time and you're going to have way more success compared to setting aside an hour in the afternoon to train your

Lianne Shinton (10:28)

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Training as you live. that great advice. And where is K9 parent training located?

Manny Guerra (10:31)

Exactly.

We're located in Southern California in Palm Springs. Right now, please don't come visit. It's miserable outside and it's too hot. But for most of the year, we're a destination location and folks come from all around the world. A big segment of my clientele are snowbirding families who leave to other countries while it's hot here.

Someday I would love to do that and maybe go train dogs in the cool weather and leave for the summer. But for now, we're in Pop Springs year round.

Lianne Shinton (11:15)

Awesome, so a lot of those Canadian snowbirds probably head that way.

Manny Guerra (11:17)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes it a little hard in the summertime, we always have to adjust our programming and stuff like that. But yeah, we sure do appreciate those seasonal clients.

Lianne Shinton (11:29)

Awesome. And how do folks get started with you guys if they have a puppy or they have a dog that maybe needs some training? What does that look like? How should they reach out? And what is that first starting point look like for K9 parent training?

Manny Guerra (11:44)

So we try to make the onboarding process as easy as possible so clients can engage with us or potential clients rather can engage with us for free before they commit to anything. Whether they submit a form online or call in, we get folks booked for a free discovery call and then after that a free consultation if they would like to move forward.

Those two things are just to make sure that the clients can express all of their goals and concerns for training or whatever they're dealing with and make sure that they feel like we're a good match for them. Once we've had those discussions, short discussions, I try my best to present pros and cons on all of our different services that we offer and then help the family best decide what's a good match for them. I try not to sell.

you know, just the biggest board and train program because that's the money that I'm trying to make regardless of if that's what the client needs. And so I always try to tell folks each service has benefits and limitations. Let's decide together what is a good fit for your family. And that's our tagline is dog training is for the whole family. And so we want to make sure that the person understands or knows, you

what level of commitment are they looking for? Do they have other humans in the house that need education as well? What's their budget? Because that kind of dictates what can they commit to. And so for that reason, we have multiple tiers of services. have, just like most companies, we have the top tier overnight training, 24 -hour care kind of service. And then our kind of first tier service, our private lessons and group classes.

And then right in the middle, the middle tier, which is by a mile, our most popular program is our day training program. We call it the day trainer. It's like dropping your dog off at school. And then I like to call them parent teacher conferences are scheduled kind of before, during, and after a dog's program. And so depending on what a family wants, we'll make that happen for

So we try to really cater to each individual family.

Lianne Shinton (14:02)

That day train model sounds fantastic. are the dogs coming in like Monday to Friday, like, or once a week?

Manny Guerra (14:09)

So the schedule that we keep is a Monday through Thursday school week and we use Fridays for makeup days. We also run a rec program Monday through Friday and so some training families can add on a Friday if they want an extra fun day per week. But the reason why we ask for a Monday through Thursday is so we can have four consecutive days to build on routines. We can't have a drop -in style training program because

we wouldn't be able to build those exercises. We have two packages. We have a foundation package, which is four weeks. It's 16 days of training. And then we have a foundation plus package, which is a 10 week package. It bumps it up to 40 days of training. And then also they get more private lessons and things like that. Typically the longer program is for foundational skills plus.

dog socialization, implementing distance, distraction, duration, difficulty level, all of that stuff. And so depending on what kind of challenges families are dealing with, we might guide them in one direction or the other.

Lianne Shinton (15:24)

And it sounds like private lessons are included with the day train.

Manny Guerra (15:29)

Yep, absolutely. I tell folks, whether they're doing exclusively private lessons or something like the day trainer or even board and training, those programs come with private lessons. I always tell folks, regardless of how comprehensive or not the program is, there's no skipping the parent training. Right. And so it's just a matter of where does the family want their training. Some families want their dog to get fast tracked and to learn everything first. And then we kind of plug them

with their private lessons and then other families, whether it's preference or what they're able to commit to, other families just do private lessons and their dog and themselves are learning at the same time, at the same pace. But there's no skipping the work.

Lianne Shinton (16:17)

And it's great too, because it sounds like they're home with their dog on the weekend, gives them time to practice and enjoy their dog. Their dog is with them overnight too, because I know my baby, I want her home and sleeping and comfortable with me. But that sounds fantastic. Take her during the day and do her training and include me as needed. That sounds perfect. And what are some common issues that folks reach out to you to get help

Manny Guerra (16:42)

Well, I would say the trend usually is Most folks come to me not because they need help with playing with their dog or doing the fun things. Most folks come to me when their dog chooses not to prioritize what they're asking.

And so we got a lot of families whose dogs are trained already. You know, they've hired two or three other companies in the past. The dog knows how to sit and lay down and go to place and leave it, but they're still misbehaving or they're still biting people, which I guess is misbehaving. And so, like I said earlier, there's a difference between obedience training and behavior training. And so most of what we're helping folks

nowadays is teaching dogs how to do nothing and how to be, I like to say, in the peanut gallery and just watch and be silent observers, be a wallflower, right? And just take in what's happening around them without just impulsively acting, whether that's being overly friendly. In our area, we have a lot of retirement age folks with thin skin and mobility issues.

And we, and for some reason, a lot of them have big, powerful dogs. And so we have to teach them how to more safely interact with their dogs, how to get their dog to just hang out and do nothing. and so that's a major part of, what we see nowadays is folks are already coming in with their dogs, knowing how to do obedience, but the missing piece is implementation.

and getting the dog to perform when they need or do nothing. Like I said, the majority of our behavior cases now is teaching dogs how to be still and how to watch and how to be calm.

Lianne Shinton (18:43)

Yeah. And that sounds like kind of peaceful for the dog to you to implement some of those calming techniques so that they're not always like in that high reactive anxiety mode. This sounds like it's more therapeutic for the pups too.

Manny Guerra (18:57)

Yeah, it's just like kids, you I always relate it back to, know, what if a human were doing this? That's an easy way to change the perception from the client. Even if they don't have kids, a lot of times they'll have cousins or nieces or nephews or things like that, somebody else they know with a kid. And I always ask, what if a human was doing this in your house? What would you do? How would you handle it? And most of the time it's easier for them to understand, you know, I'll say something like, you

if my son just had free time all day, he would run himself into the ground and then he would be kind of mean at the end of the day because he's overtired, you know, and there's, there's not enough, know, stimulation and structure throughout the day. And so it would just be chaos. Now I have more than one kid. And so a lot of folks have more than one dog and they're, they're not, they're giving their dog too much freedom. And then we multiply that by multiple dogs.

And all of a sudden we have under -simulated, overtired monsters. And so I always say like, gosh, know, it would probably be really stressful for my son to be that worked up that many times, that many days in a row, you know? And sometimes I'll have to say, hey, you know, you don't have to take a nap right now, but it's quiet time. You you gotta go chill and read a book or quietly play with toys

or sleep if you want, doesn't matter. right now we're not being crazy, we're not running around. It's like, creating these windows of opportunity, right? We seem to understand it with people more, but same thing with dogs. Dogs need like a beginning and an end to each activity. For the most part, it's a generalization and there's always exceptions. It's, you know, the, the lassie dogs that, you know, don't need any structure or training. They're just good. but for the most part, there should be a clear

You know, this is playtime, this is downtime, this is food time, this is inside time, outside time, instead of just letting the day happen for the dog. know, that's the trend that I see is just most folks need to add a little bit more, you know, human structure to their dog's day.

Lianne Shinton (21:15)

And what do you find age -wise are the dogs that are coming to you? We'll talk about puppies in a minute, baby puppies, but like are you commonly seeing folks where their dog might be a year, two years old and they're like, I thought he'd grow out of it, but it's worse.

Manny Guerra (21:28)

Yeah. yeah. You hit the nail on the head. The majority of our clientele are dogs like four months to two and a half years old or something like that. We do see adult dogs with challenges and things like that that come in. But for the most part, we're seeing one to three year olds with a lot of, you

puppy behavior that lasted too long and now they're bigger and stronger and more independent and willful. To me, it's kind of like the kid that didn't have any rules growing up and now they're in their late teens or early 20s and they're a leech on the household and they don't have a job and they're coming and going as they please and they're mistreating their parents and there's all this stuff stacking and stacking and stacking.

you know that's what a lot of dogs are doing in in that there and their household you know it and so i always tell folks like hey you know don't gotta kick your kid out but you gotta make them participate you know they've they've got a get a job or do chores or help or contribute to the household in some way it would be different if that kid didn't have any behavior issues and that kid was a perfect angel well sure then keep doing what you're doing

Right. So it's the same with dogs. If the dog doesn't have any problems, none of this matters. But if you have issues, the first thing that we look at is, you know, what kind of allowances does the dog get? What kind of free access does the dog get? What are these privileges that the dog is not earning? Just like with kids, right? If the kids start not holding up their end of the bargain, for the most part, we start not

allowing them as many privileges until that behavior changes.

Lianne Shinton (23:24)

That is such a fantastic comparison or analogy. Like I have never heard it quite put that way that that was great. And I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that.

Manny Guerra (23:31)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, of course, there's, you know, training the dog, you know, in the way that the dog needs to be trained, whether that's food and toys or, or, you know, affection or things like that. But again, basic training is not necessarily going to

modify the dog's behavior if there are challenges. There's going to be relationship interactions and routine and downtime and basic training.

Lianne Shinton (24:05)

And let's talk a little bit about puppies. So would you recommend if someone's thinking about getting a puppy, maybe they reach out to you, you could give them maybe some breed advice. What age would they start training with you? What does that look like for someone with a thinking of getting a new puppy or has a baby new puppy?

Manny Guerra (24:24)

Yeah, my first recommendation is don't get two puppies. That's not great. There's all sorts of different challenges that come from getting litter mates. The reason why I bring this up is because just within the last three months, I've had multiple cases of litter mates come in. There was a family that had litter mates who are now five years old.

And there was another family that had much younger litter mates who were newer in the house. And inevitably there are major challenges with having two puppies at the same time. Just like it is, you know, I would imagine it's much harder to have twin babies than it is to have one baby. So that's the first step is, is if you can help it, you don't get two puppies. Then the next thing is make sure

you do a little bit of research in what kind of dog you're getting before you get the dog. A lot of families pick based off of looks and that is not necessarily indicative of what the personality is going to be like and how intense that dog is going to be. see a lot of families that come in with issues that are more lifestyle issues. They should be driving a Vespa.

and they got a Lamborghini. just doesn't, training isn't gonna help that. The dog needs to be in a more ideal home, a better match. And so a lot of my conversations with families, if I get to them early enough, is trying to get them to see, I know you got this dog, but maybe the dog would be better in a different household. And some families are responsive to that. Some families wanna try training first. I'm willing to

you know, with whatever goal they're looking for as long as we're realistic about, you know, what those goals are moving forward. And then lastly, don't wait to train your puppy. You know, a lot of folks will tell me, you know, I heard, you know, we shouldn't be doing training until the dog is six months old or things like that. Sure, there are things that are not age appropriate for your young puppy, especially with, you know, taking them out and into the world and stuff,

Training can start the day you bring your puppy home. Some kind of education can happen, whether you're establishing routine or spending quality time with your dog or hand feeding or whatever it is, something should be happening from the very moment you bring your puppy

Lianne Shinton (27:06)

Yeah. And thank you for the tips too, that you're kind of providing. And it seems like you're very transparent, very honest, and it's just wonderful how you help your clients kind of going through their goals, but also based on what they have genetically. And yeah, and it's, it's not always that the puppies are litter mates too. can be like, had a, I have a step sister when we grew up, you know, we were wild, you know, like sisters.

Manny Guerra (27:35)

Yeah, but you're the same age,

Lianne Shinton (27:35)

So going, yeah, going through adolescence together as a human or as a puppy, it doesn't really matter if you're blood related or not. That can definitely cause some problems. And one of the common things I've seen with litter mates or two pups that grow up and go through adolescence together is they'll actually start fighting. So there is definitely something to be said about same sex aggression or two puppies going through adolescence or being siblings together. Unfortunately,

Manny Guerra (27:53)

Mm -hmm.

Lianne Shinton (28:04)

it sometimes can have real problems.

Manny Guerra (28:07)

A lot of times it happens. I tell folks all the time, you're not raising a puppy, you're raising a dog. And eventually those puppies are gonna have some, you know, big kid feelings and they're gonna start taking it out on each other, you know, and whether that's, you know, minor things or major things. At this point, it's been 11 years and I've

Everything under the Sun as far as issues that happen when you have dogs that are close in age whether they're related or not You know then again there are exceptions to the rule I've also seen it work out and there not be any big challenges Usually there's shenanigans no matter what but for the most part. I've seen more issues than not with having that second really young dog or sometimes it's not

a young dog, right now we're talking about puppies, but sometimes folks who just stick with one dog and not have that second dog. And then also sometimes that second dog works out and it's great and there's no issues. And then that's the hard part, I always tell folks that we don't, aside from the two puppy thing, whether it's adding a second dog or not, it's hard to tell.

Lianne Shinton (29:25)

Yeah, it sounds like it might be advantageous if they reach out to you first, set up a discovery call and talk to you just to make sure that they're not setting their current dog up to fail or themselves up to fail and get some feedback from you on breeds and how to integrate the new dog. Probably you can help too with integrating a new baby to the family, things like

Manny Guerra (29:45)

yeah. I have been lucky enough to have a few families come to me before those major life changes happened. Two in recent memory over the last couple of months are families that scheduled consultations with us before they even brought the dog home, which is wonderful. And then also recently we've had a few families come to us because either they just became pregnant.

or human, with a human, or they were looking to start a family and they knew they had a project on their hands and wanted a little bit of guidance before moving forward. And so it's just really cool to interact with some of those folks that, you know, have a little bit of forethought before making those big life decisions. You would be surprised, maybe not, because we're in a similar industry,

you'd be surprised how many folks bring a dog home. They've never even read a book about a dog. And I guess maybe the same is true about making human babies. Some folks have not read about raising kids before having them. So, it really is similar, isn't it?

Lianne Shinton (31:00)

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely advantageous to reach out to you first to get you part of that, you know, that journey with them so they can get a support from a coach and expert. And would you be able to share like a heartwarming success story or a particularly memorable transformation with one of your K9 clients?

Manny Guerra (31:21)

Well, actually, one that's still in progress a little bit while we're on the subject of litter mates. I have a private lesson family who's almost done with their first package of private lessons. And they have a pair of litter mate five -year -old dogs. They're terrier mix little 20 -pound dogs. And all of the challenges that we just spoke about, they were experiencing.

They didn't know what they were getting when they got the dogs and they're now older. And what happened is that the dogs over bonded onto each other and then started becoming incredibly anxious and defensive whenever there was a change in the environment. The mom could not walk the dogs. Also, just like you mentioned, when the dogs started reacting on each other, Cooper, the one dog, started attacking Max, the other dog.

dominating over him. And the sort of like an abusive human relationship was as bad of an analogy as that is. Max would keep coming back and following Cooper even though Cooper just attacked him. And it was this vicious cycle. And it turned into a situation where, you know, it hard for the family to leave. It's hard for the family to have guests. It's hard for them to take the dogs out. It's just the world kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

And we're still working, but I have some videos up on our social media. Both parents can walk each dog individually now. They can keep the dogs under control if they start to react. Instead of having a big episode, they can settle it down much faster. Things are, the mom said that she feels like she could breathe now, right? And so to

even though they've got a long road to go still, the fact that we could create such big change in such a short amount of time with giving the humans the right parent training that they needed to make sure that their dogs could succeed has been phenomenal. That's one of those cases where the dogs were so nervous I couldn't even really demonstrate.

And so I had to use my background in coaching and do a hands -off approach and show them exactly what to do and how to do it and their timing and all of that. After a couple sessions, the dogs were letting me handle them, but I'm incredibly happy with what kind of changes that family has made in such a short amount of time with litter mate dogs to boot. So that's the most memorable

Lianne Shinton (34:08)

Yeah. And it sounds great that you pointed them in the direction of the private lesson package versus a board and train that, you know, you're able to recommend the best fit for not only the owner, but for the dogs as well.

Manny Guerra (34:21)

Yeah, I like to tell families, I'm pretty sure I could train your dog, but that does not solve your problem. Dogs know who's holding the leash and who's asking something. And so that's why we try to focus specifically on the human side of the leash and give quality coaching to the family. I can't tell you how many clients we've had that paid for another program and came out of

in the same situation because they didn't get adequate coaching on how to implement the training. Granted, there are some folks who didn't do any of the training suggestions from the previous company, and I usually find that out. But I'd say there are just as many families who just didn't get the coaching and the person just trained the dog and said, here you go. And so I will do board and trains and longer, you know,

more comprehensive programs, but if I can help it, I try my best to not, or I should say it this way, I try my best to get the dog back into the family's hands as soon as possible because they could know how to do things, but if they're not performing for their own humans, then that's kind of a relationship issue. And I find that, know, board and trains are great, but sometimes they're not the best match for what that family ultimately needs.

Lianne Shinton (35:46)

Excellent advice. And maybe just lastly, if you could share where listeners can find more information about K9 parent training and maybe that social media page where you have the videos of Max and Cooper and other things up there for people to check

Manny Guerra (36:03)

Yeah, absolutely. I'm really impressed that you remembered their names because it took me a while to remember them. Yeah, so folks can go to k9parenttraining .com forward slash links. So that's a letter K, number nine, parenttraining .com forward slash links. It's a landing page where we have

all of our company information from our social media pages to services and information about our facility and all of that stuff. And so you can go there. A quick shout out to our social media pages at K9 Parent Training. Again, letter K, number nine, Parent Training. We're on Instagram and Facebook and

We like to post a lot of our behind the scenes things as well as regular training activities that are happening.

Lianne Shinton (37:07)

And if someone wanted a discovery call, would that be on the K9 Parent Training website? Can they book there on the site or do they reach out to you first?

Manny Guerra (37:15)

Yeah, absolutely. They can go to k9parenttraining .com or they can go to that links page that I just mentioned. Right at the top there's a button that says book a free discovery call and the folks can get started having a conversation without any hoops to jump through.

Lianne Shinton (37:37)

Excellent. Well, is there anything else, Manny, that you'd like to add or share today?

Manny Guerra (37:43)

Well, I would say, going back to our tagline, dog training is for the whole family. And so I would encourage anybody that lives with more than one human and has a dog to get everyone involved in the dog's education, just as it is important for small humans to learn from many adults.

It's very, very helpful for dogs if they can learn from more than one human. And that way it makes it a little bit easier for the dog to generalize what's being asked of them. One of the biggest challenges that I have in a lot of households is that the dog will listen to one person in the family but not the other. And so just like it's important for parents to present a united front to the children in the house, it's important for K9 parents.

to be a united front and do the same things and act the same and interact the same with their dog. We can have individual relationships with our dogs, but when it comes to parenting and troubleshooting behavior, it's important that both guardians are doing the same thing so their dog can see that they should listen to both parents.

Lianne Shinton (39:00)

Fantastic advice. Thank you so much for joining us today, Manny. And again, I'm Lianne from Pet Biz Experts, a software company for pet professionals. And thank you so much for joining us and everyone have a terrific day.

Manny Guerra (39:15)

Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.