In this episode of the Pet Biz Experts Podcast, host Lianne Shinton sits down with Brandon Hadwin, owner of Eastern Florida Dog Training. Brandon shares his journey from working as a Game Warden in the K9 division to becoming a passionate dog trainer dedicated to helping families with their pups.

Discover his unique approach to training through play, how his programs work, and what sets Eastern Florida Dog Training apart. Brandon’s story is both inspiring and insightful—don’t miss it!

🔗 Connect with Brandon: https://easternfloridadogtraining.com/

Watch Now!

Transcript of Podcast:

Lianne Shinton (00:00)

hi everyone. I'm Lianne Shinton and I'm so excited because today we're interviewing Brandon Hadwin from Eastern Florida Dog Training And I've spoken with Brandon before and he's just so passionate about training dogs, helping people with their dogs. So I'm so excited to take a deeper dive into your life, hear about the game warden stuff.

So welcome, Brandon. How are you today?

Brandon Hadwin (00:29)

Thank you. I'm great. I'm excited for this and looking forward to it. It's the first podcast that I'm actually joining. So it's an exciting time, right? But yeah, I'm just looking forward to getting into it and chatting with you a little bit.

Lianne Shinton (00:42)

Yeah, I think it's a great way to get your story out there and let people hear about this great story. again, like your passion for this industry, because I'm a dog trainer myself and been doing this a long time. So it's just so wonderful to hear from people who are like so like all in with their business and their family, which we'll talk about too, is like how you integrate things with your family and the dogs. Okay, so, but let's...

Back up, let's start with, tell us a little bit about yourself. Like what inspired you to specialize in dog training? How did you get here? How did this journey begin for you?

Brandon Hadwin (01:19)

So, know, growing up as a young kid, obviously I had multiple dogs. Looking back now, we didn't really handle them like we should. You know, some of the knowledge that I have now definitely didn't do that with my pet dogs growing up. My mom and dad didn't have any knowledge, right, with, you know, the proper ways to train a dog and stuff like that. But overall, they were great dogs and I just enjoyed spending time with them. Fast forward, spent some time in military, got...

I got out of the military and joined Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. When I got on with them, I did about three years with them, just working the field and working the river, running air boats, ATVs, all that fun stuff, chasing poachers at night, all that fun stuff that you sign up for. And then at that three-year mark, I got the opportunity to put in for a canine position. With canine and FWC, it's very hard to come by.

There's less than 20 traditional K-9 units that work in the field throughout the state of So it might come around one time in a career sometimes where you could even have the opportunity to apply for it, right? Because typically once a handler gets a position, they're not going to let it go, right? It's just one of those positions. So the stars aligned and everything just kind of worked out. Big man's plan upstairs, just kind of lined it all out and let it happen.

put in for the position and was lucky enough to be selected for it. So that's kind of where it all really kicked off.

Lianne Shinton (02:52)

I had...

like want to know more like I, you know, worked my dog with police officers and done some bite work and cool stuff like that and search and rescue and things. But what does a canine in the Florida fish and wildlife do? Like what's the job?

Brandon Hadwin (03:12)

Good question.

a higher amount of our deployments are tracking related. So we might have a subject that parks on the side of a highway or something like that and jumps a fence to go poach somebody's property. Our dogs are going to track right to their tree stand or if they're if they're just hunting on foot, they're going to go right to them, right? Article searches, know, Sheriff's Office, a lot of a lot of county dogs and city dogs, they don't train their dogs to find guns. We do. And we're really good at it. So

homicides, different crimes that happen where a weapon gets thrown or ditched. We get our dogs out. A lot of people, once they find out that our dogs do that, they start blowing us up and we bring our dogs out there and find really important pieces of evidence for those crimes that are being committed. And then the last one is everybody thinks with dogs drug work, right? Finding drugs, right? Same exact ideas, same training for the most part, but wildlife, right?

Lianne Shinton (04:05)

Yeah.

Brandon Hadwin (04:11)

venison, deer meat, ducks, turkey, gator, you name it, if we're training the dog on it, it's the same exact idea. If you have deer meat cut up and put into a cooler and it's in a Yeti in the back of your truck and our dog works the outside, they're gonna hit on it just like it was if it was marijuana.

Lianne Shinton (04:31)

Wow, that is cool. So they're not trained in bite work, but.

Brandon Hadwin (04:35)

No, no, no bite

work, no bite work. It's pretty much all of our dogs for the most part, or I say are, like I'm still with them, but all of the dogs for the most part are lab sport dogs, right? So labs, a lot of labs, Goldens, just for the most part, labs.

Lianne Shinton (04:52)

So I could see where you're really like super hyper focused on the scent work. So I could see where the main department would reach out to you because your dogs have to set like super hyper training like on the scent work. And I've seen on your Facebook page for Eastern Florida dog training videos and pictures of you working these dogs. So you're actively still involved.

Brandon Hadwin (04:57)

For sure.

See you.

yeah. Yeah, it's a huge passion, right? Like, the pet dog side is a massive passion, but I still connected to that, that that network, right? I'm lucky enough that my other trainer that works through the business, Dwayne North, he is one of the head trainers for the agency. So he's kind of continuing what I wanted to do with the program before I decided to go full time with this on this side of the house. So it's really cool to be able to still be part of that network and still

have my phone ring from these guys asking me questions and hey, what should I do with this? This is what I'm seeing in my dog. How can I work around that? And just give them different ideas. So it's pretty awesome. It's a cool experience.

Lianne Shinton (06:00)

And then tell us a little bit about your canine partner that did you get assigned to the dog or did you how did that work? Is it as a female or as a male dog?

Brandon Hadwin (06:05)

Yes.

So female, female, yeah, her name is Blue. Also goes by Boo Boo She's a

female Weim a Weimaraner When I first met her, it was at a public outreach event. And my trainer at the time had her there for the outreach and he had just gotten his hands on her. So as we approached, my family approached, I knew this dog would, if I was selected for the position, she would be my partner, right? That's all.

It wasn't my position yet or anything like that. So as we approached, she was highly reactive. And at the time, I just told my kids, my wife to kind of stay back and I went up and greeted her and stuff. But yeah, that's where it all started. And then I got the position and she they brought her to my house and they said some stories that I thought were jokes at the time, but she was just a lot of dog. Right. She had zero boundaries. She was

the family that had her basically had her chained up in the backyard. And she had gotten to out two times from their property and got a hold of some small dogs and just.

She just didn't have any structure and any boundaries. She was just extremely, especially for a first time handler, right? So they give me some guidelines and some boundaries and stuff for myself and her and just to build the bond and all that and prep for our academy. Because with FWC, how they do it is they select the dog and they select it. If it's a new handler, they select a new handler and then you both go up to the academy together, right? So you're both learning while you're going through that process. The dog's learning and they.

Lianne Shinton (07:23)

Sounds very challenging. Yes.

Yes.

Brandon Hadwin (07:50)

which is pretty cool. Pretty cool experience.

Lianne Shinton (07:53)

Absolutely, so exciting. And you had to work on obedience and integrating her with your family, teaching her to be calm, and also the work, which probably helped channel all of that energy for her.

Brandon Hadwin (08:02)

Yes.

For

sure, for sure. Yeah, it was a, I really struggled with her in the field or even in the academy or honestly without sugarcoating anything. We had a hard time. She took the tracking pretty well. She just naturally enjoyed it. She could open up and use her nose. She would blow a turn by 50 or 60 yards and then give a negative and I'd have to work her back and circle her and just cause she really wanted to go. But she really enjoyed that work.

Article detection and resource detection, it was definitely not her strong place. that's ultimately that part of the story is why I'm where I am today, right? That struggle with her and not knowing what to do, like not getting the guidance that I felt I needed and continuing to try the same things over and over and not getting results, which I know how many of our pet clients.

can relate to that, right? They've been trying, they've been pulling back on the leash to get the dog to come back for a heel and the dog just shoots back forward, right? Over and over and over again, same exact experience. But because of that, I found a network of guys that really opened my eyes to things. And once that started happening and I started seeing it, I was addicted to it. I couldn't get enough of it. And that's just, that's kind of where everything from there just took off.

Lianne Shinton (09:04)

frustrating.

That's amazing. And yeah,

that you were open enough at that time to really see that journey because some people might miss it. You know, there's a big setback there and frustration. And is this dog, should we just get a different dog for this job? And I'm sure you guys went through all that. then, you know, just wow, what a journey. And that your eyes were open to then evolve into this. So like amazing. So.

Brandon Hadwin (09:38)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. yeah, for sure.

Yeah, that's really

cool.

Lianne Shinton (09:57)

You started into pet dog training. Did you work with another trainer?

Brandon Hadwin (10:02)

Yeah. So when I, when I first got into this, the first guy that really started opening my eyes to everything was Mike Lilly. He runs Ridgeside K9 in Tennessee now. And also his business is MLK9. So they're kind of combined. does a lot of law enforcement training with dogs under MLK9, his actual facility that he's running is Ridgeside. So it started through Mike and his group that he was with, K9 United, Jay Nix,

Carlos Marirez, there's a ton of amazing, amazing dog trainers that are just truly good people, right? There's some phenomenal people out there that train dogs, but they don't have that relationship. They don't have that opening, welcoming touch to people. And that's really important to me, right? So they just opened us, you know, opened their arms up wide open for me and Dwayne to come and be a part of one of their seminars. And our heads were just like,

my gosh, know, like this stuff makes so much sense. So after this seminar and working with Blue and getting some of these results in the field with her, Mike was like, hey Brandon, you you and Dwayne, if you guys want to train some dog, do some pet dogs, just obedience, you know, let me know and we'll get it started. And me and Dwayne were looking at each other like, we can train tracking and articles and detection and all this stuff, you know, but I don't know about this whole

pet dog training thing, you know? So he, you know, mentioned it a few other times and after another seminar, we're like, well, if we're gonna do it, let's go up and shadow Mike and his business up in Tennessee and let's see what this thing's about. So we went up there and we spent a full week grinding all, you know, basically sun ups and sun down and soaking up this lifestyle of being a full-time dog trainer, pet dog trainer. we just, as soon as we left,

We're like, are doing this 100%. So yeah, that kind of got the ball rolling, but it wasn't through the business. I created this business for tax purposes pretty much, right? Because I was working through Mike through his business. He was covering ad costs and all that stuff down here to send us dogs. And it was just way for him to pay me pretty much is what it came down to.

Lianne Shinton (12:02)

Awesome.

Brandon Hadwin (12:25)

Of course, know, a couple of dogs in the neighborhood, local friends want their dogs trained and yada, yada, yada. Next thing you know, I trained five or six dogs and my phone starts ringing. And the rest is just history. It just started ramping up from there. And it really got to a point where it was it was stressful because I had to keep telling people like, I'm sorry, I can't, you know, I can't take your dog. I'm working.

Lianne Shinton (12:51)

Wow.

Brandon Hadwin (12:51)

My

dog at work, I'm working board and train in the morning, a board and train dog in the evening time, and I just couldn't take the dog. ultimately when it got busy enough like that, my wife and I just started praying about it. And it just, it seemed like every sign was pushing for us to go this way, right? So we just took a leap of faith and jumped. And if it wasn't for Mike and his hand and support during all this, Mike Lilly.

probably no chance that I would ever even had the courage to make the jump But man, am I glad I did. I mean, don't get me wrong, I miss working with FWC. I miss the job. I just made a post about it the other day, but on my personal page. ultimately, besides marrying my wife, this is definitely the best decision that I've ever made in my life.

Lianne Shinton (13:26)

Yeah.

Wow, it's so cool that the journey has taken you there. I mean, even if, you know, Mike, I'm sure he's offered other folks like, hey, come shadow me. And I've seen people in schools for dog trainers and at seminars and, you know, I see they're on their phone. They're just not excited. And you're just like,

Brandon Hadwin (14:01)

Yep, that's it.

Lianne Shinton (14:05)

chosen for that. yeah, edge of your seat, like absorbing everything. Like how do I learn more? I'm that person too. And also you have a lot of ambition too, to be starting your own business and evolving into that. So that's awesome. Maybe tell us a little bit about Eastern Florida dog trading, where you're located for like local clients, just anything you can tell us about your business.

Brandon Hadwin (14:17)

shit.

Yeah.

So we're in Rockledge, Florida is where I'm from. It's out of my house, which is in Brevard County. We pretty much have, we've taken dogs from, you know, Lake County and few counties outside, but for the most part, most of the dogs that were working in Brevard, Volusia and Orange County, majority of them. Go ahead.

Lianne Shinton (14:48)

Can you

tell me more like Eastern Florida? So, okay, I'm on Western Florida and I'm visiting. So don't laugh at me that I don't know where everything is, but I know like St. Augustine down like where about like

Brandon Hadwin (14:53)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So

like everybody's familiar with Cocoa Beach, right? So Cocoa Beach is in Brevard County. It's basically directly east of me. So I'm just on the on the other side of two rivers from Cocoa Beach basically and also directly east of Orlando. So everybody's pretty familiar with that as well. Yes, exactly.

Lianne Shinton (15:13)

Okay.

Yes, definitely Disney.

Perfect. Okay. And then how do you guys typically get started with new clients? Like what's the initial like touch point where they call, they set up maybe a meeting with you? How does that, what does that look like? So people know where to, how to reach you and how to get started.

Brandon Hadwin (15:42)

Yeah,

so ours is right now we're not paying for any advertisement or anything like that. We're kind of old school word of mouth. So we tend to do a lot of board and trains with family style dogs, Young kids, younger family, hyper energetic doodle, know, things like that, right? So typically, you know, somebody sees that a dog's trained pretty well and they're like, holy cow, how'd you get your dog to do that? And then they...

they want to get my number and call me, right? So some of that happens. And then also through the website. And then we just, if my phone rings and I'm available to answer, I'll sit there and talk to a client. And I don't care if it takes an hour, right? Like whatever, every client's different, every situation's different. And I take my time with them and make sure that, you know, board and train's not for everybody and it's not necessary for everybody, right? And there's...

plenty of options and plenty of times that a client is wanting a private lesson and it's not really going to maybe not be the best bet for this specific dog, right? So yeah, that's kind of how I handle that is kind of case by case, depending on how the client ends up reaching out to me.

Lianne Shinton (16:55)

So they reach out to you, maybe set up a discovery call or a chat with you, and then go from there. I'm sure you have a lot of questions to help them figure out how you can best help them and their dog. And I know one of the reasons I wanted to chat with you today was I heard you were explaining to me about your board and train program. It seems like it's very fun and very family.

Brandon Hadwin (17:09)

Absolutely.

you

Lianne Shinton (17:24)

And it's a lot different from the, you know, typical maybe kennel environment, things like that. So I'd love to learn more about what that experience is like for the dogs while they're with you and your family.

Brandon Hadwin (17:30)

Yeah.

Yeah, so what we do is it's, you know, we find that it works. The training translates really good because they're coming from an environment with kids in a house and dinner time and cooking and all these things that can be stressors for families at home with dogs, right? So as they're with us throughout our board and train, we're incorporating that into their training, right? So they're around little kids, they're around craziness, they're around loud noises, they're around neighborhoods. Like it's not,

Nothing against training facilities. Like I know some amazing training facilities, right? But we really like that home touch to it. On top of that, your dog's pretty much treated like a family pet, right? Almost every single day, at least once a day, just with my daughter alone, I'm out there with all the dogs we're playing. We're playing tug, we're playing fetch. We're just enjoying our time with the dogs, right? So it's not this...

regiment, know, crazy, strict boundaries on everything. There's a lot of freedom where they just get to be dogs, which I think is important

Lianne Shinton (18:43)

Yeah, and I think to the play that you do with them, you know, if you play with them and then maybe slide a sit command in there or something, they hardly know that they're working.

Brandon Hadwin (18:50)

Oh, 100%. 100%. Are

you in training? Yeah, 100%. That happens. it's even on the times where I'm like, I'm just going to go get a play session in with the dogs. I have breakthroughs with these dogs a lot of times during the play sessions, right? Like, you're not even looking to jump a hurdle and it just happens because it just does. Like they're just in the right headspace and then things get accepted and they do really good with it. So you're 100 % right on with that.

Lianne Shinton (19:18)

Fantastic. you do take, obviously, you had with Blue more difficult situations on, more challenging, maybe reactivity, separation anxiety, common things that a lot of folks are facing with their dogs. So you can help with all of that, I'm sure.

Brandon Hadwin (19:28)

Yeah.

For sure.

For sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm not taking anything crazy aggression wise. Now a lot of people what they call aggression isn't real aggression, right? There's a there's a big misunderstanding of what true aggression is. But at the same time, what the business represents right now is the family setting. And I can't have that around my little kids. I can't have that around my wife, right. And I can't have that around other clients dogs right now.

Lianne Shinton (19:44)

Yes.

Brandon Hadwin (20:03)

So it's just not structured up for me to actually work true aggression stuff. And that's probably my weakest area as far as experience. am not, I don't sugar coat anything as far as experience for myself and what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. I'm an open book, I'll tell you. So the aggression stuff's probably my weakest area. I do have a little 16 week old Mali right now, Malinois

that thinks she's a baddie, but she's not. She's a sweetheart. And I just started with her about a little less than a week ago, and we've already really connected good. At the beginning, it wasn't so good, but yeah, she's really coming around, so yeah.

Lianne Shinton (20:46)

That's awesome. And what age do you typically look if someone has a baby puppy? What maybe they're even they don't have their puppy yet. They're like, I don't know what breed to get. Would that be good for them to reach out to you to chat with you?

Brandon Hadwin (20:50)

Thanks.

Yeah.

Absolutely. So I do, have a perfect puppy program and without getting into too much of the details, it's basically really good communication on the front end before the puppy comes in. So we have a little bit of structure and guidelines to go by as soon as you get the puppy. And then there's a lesson that's right after you get the puppy or just shortly after you get the puppy. And then ultimately that winds up being where the dog comes back.

to me for a board and train, right? But what's great about that program is the puppy is already using the system that I'm gonna be using in the board and train. And so there's a really good foundation that's already in place when they come to me for the board and train. Those dogs that come to me, I'm about to pick one up in the next couple of days, Ginger, a golden retriever. It's amazing. The owners don't realize it, but I see the difference, right? And I can tell,

big time, even if they're only doing some of the stuff that I'm suggesting for them as puppies, there's a big difference. So I'm able to get more out of the dog during the boarding train, which is obviously better for them.

Lianne Shinton (22:05)

Yeah, I mean, this stuff that you're saying is so critical. It's gold for people thinking about getting a puppy, like start off right, because you are observing that this is a night and day difference. Things are moving in such a forward direction and you're not set up to fail. So I find commonly with like us, we would typically get dogs at like around one, two, three years of age and people are hoping the dog would just grow out of it.

Brandon Hadwin (22:14)

Thank you.

It is. It's huge.

Correct.

Lianne Shinton (22:35)

And

they kind of grew into it. And now it was becoming like a real problem where they were getting kind of worried. Like, can we even keep this dog? So it sounds like definitely getting started with you with a new puppy in your puppy program. What was the name of it? Perfect. There you go. The perfect puppy. Because it sounds like you're you're with the owner and the puppy as they grow and develop so that they're going to have success.

Brandon Hadwin (22:51)

Perfect puppy program. Yep. That's it.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's not just that initial conversation or that initial private lesson. You know, you're going to have questions and I'm here for you. You know, we really do try to treat people like family. So, you know, if somebody is thinking about finding a dog trainer, look and find and see if you can talk to anybody that's gone through me. I guarantee you, you're going to hear that same thing from them.

Lianne Shinton (23:26)

Yeah, and even thinking about like, should I get a Weimaraner or should I get a Malinois Like it might be better to reach out to Brandon first. Because yeah.

Brandon Hadwin (23:32)

Yeah, we can we can cover that on the podcast. Yeah, you definitely need

your research. I literally just had a call two days ago. I think it's probably the first time I've gotten this call. And she's like, I don't really need training right now. I'm just considering this breed of dog for my family. And I don't know if it's a good choice. I almost dropped my phone. I was like, holy cow. People are actually thinking and doing the research behind what dog that they get for their family, right? Because we we hear it all the time about

selection of breeds and you probably shouldn't have selected a Malinois for a 78 year old lady that lives on the second floor of her apartment. It's probably not going to work out very well for the dog or the person. So yeah, it was pretty cool to get that phone call.

Lianne Shinton (24:10)

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, with new puppies too, I think a lot of times people want to just get two of them. And yeah, you can probably share on what advice you would give.

Brandon Hadwin (24:31)

yeah.

Yeah, just,

yeah, even, even take it even a step further. So I just had a black lab that finished up a board and train with me and I was bringing her home for a go home session two nights ago. And the client was like, Hey, you know, we're actually thinking about getting another one from this breeder. Great dog, great breeder out of Alabama. I was really impressed with her. And he's like, how soon and

I told him, said, listen, you want to be at a very good place with her before you get to that point of making that decision. I said, give it six months. Just really be at a good place with your initial dog before you go adding a second one, right? Because two's not easier just because you have the other one there. Yeah, they can play together and stuff, but I promise you everything else is not gonna be easier as far as training.

Lianne Shinton (25:27)

Yeah, and I think like when you spoke on how much you play with the dogs that are there, you are playing with that dog. You're building the relationship individually between you and that dog. And people need to consider if you have the two and they're playing all the time, you're going to lose some of that relationship that you have with your dog.

Brandon Hadwin (25:48)

100%. Yeah. And that's probably another topic when I am working with clients that have two dogs, especially younger dogs or dogs that are near the same age. They have a hard time accepting that they should be doing some training individually, right? One-on-one with each dog, right? Yeah, we can do some stuff together, but that one-on-one relationship is very important

Lianne Shinton (26:05)

Yes.

Yes, I have multiple dogs, my two dogs right now, and they barely exist to each other. It's more about us. And I love that because that's why we have our dogs is for our companionship. And I think a lot of times people are like, well, he needs a friend and he needs to go to the dog park and make other friends. But the most important relationship is the relationship we have with our dogs. That's why we got them in the first place.

Brandon Hadwin (26:19)

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Absolutely,

100%.

Lianne Shinton (26:42)

Awesome. And then just back to your business and your career as a dog trainer. I wanted to ask you, what do you believe are the most important qualities or skills for a successful dog trainer to possess?

Brandon Hadwin (26:57)

That's a good one. Good question. You know, I really think at the top end of that list is the passion and the drive behind it, right? And so you have to have the passion for it to train at all. You have to have, you know, the knowledge base and stuff, but you really have to care about people

We get the same questions every day, right? You get the same stuff and it gets just repetitive, right? But it's a different person asking you that question, right? And they need to hear it like the first time you answered it, right? Because if you start taking that caring feeling out of that response and they really don't feel that connection between you and your response, they're not going to do it, right? Like...

The only way we can be successful as dog trainers is if we get, it's not about the dog, it's about the person. I mean, a lot of people have heard that, but it is so true, right? Like I can keep your dog for two years and a two year board and train. If you don't do anything with it, or if you don't work on the things that we talk about, it's going to come unraveled, right? Like there's so much importance to that. So I really, I think it's about the relationship and being able to open, to figure out.

creative ways of how you need to say what you need to say, right? So that person takes it. My message to a 65 or 70 year old lady might be completely different to somebody that's 25, right? But it could be the same exact topics, but I'm gonna say that message completely different, right? So I think that's really important. I also think it's really, it's vital that you have good mentorship.

Lianne Shinton (28:37)

Yes.

Brandon Hadwin (28:38)

Dog training

is one of those things that you could probably get pretty good, okay, by yourself. If you're in the books, in books and reading and watching videos and trying to learn through all the technology that we have today, but there are things that you are just not going to learn. Those paths are not going to cross until you find somebody that can really open up the ropes.

So yeah, for me, that was Mike, know, and Jay, all these guys that we've learned from, those are the guys that kind of put those pieces of the puzzle together for us and really, really helped us out. So I think that's a big part of it as well, is the mentorship.

Lianne Shinton (29:19)

Yeah. And back to what you saying about your connection with your client, the human part of that leash. I think that's so critical too for clients to hear how critical that is to you, how important that they are to you and that they are in the process. Because like you said, you can have a dog for two years, you can hand it off to the owner and everything can quickly unravel. So the owner is so important in this process that they learn from you.

Brandon Hadwin (29:36)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (29:49)

and get that consistency and maybe implementing like some structure in the beginning, but in the long run, you're going to have more freedom. Your dog's going to have more freedom because you've laid such a good foundation while you're training with you.

Brandon Hadwin (30:02)

For sure. I got, I'm steal, I'm stealing this from my partner, head coach from my son's baseball team. But one thing he tells the boys that are at our practices is, what does he say? He says, good instruction. It's a feedback loop. It just keeps happening. Good instruction, repetitions, and then feedback. And then it goes back to the beginning, right? So after the feedback, you get good instruction, you get more repetitions and you get feedback. Key to success. If you do that with a dog trainer, whether it's me or not, long as that loop's happening.

You guys are going to be successful.

Lianne Shinton (30:34)

Yes. And definitely too, when you have a really challenging dog and everybody's getting really frustrated with knowledge, you get rid of that frustration. You just don't know what's going on and what to do and you're ignorant to it. But once you have the knowledge, then you can grow and have, you know, good things come. it, you know, it's a learning experience. We all go through it with all sorts of different things in our lives, but definitely like for owners, like go all in with Brandon and

Brandon Hadwin (30:46)

100%.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (31:03)

and get the help and be invested and be consistent and follow the instructions so that you're going to get those lasting results that gives your dog and you much more freedom and better relationship.

Brandon Hadwin (31:13)

You know,

absolutely. I agree with that so much. So much that I'm going to tell you, I'm going to mention this. When I'm on the phone with a lot of clients, I tell them, hey, if you haven't reached out and talked to other dog trainers, call them, right? Because ultimately, if you don't trust and have faith in the trainer that you're using and really believe in that, you're not, your success isn't going to be as good, right? I don't care who it is that you're going to. If you really put every bit of what they say, what they tell you to do and the guidance that they give you, if you really do that,

you are going to get results, right? But for me, it's about that relationship. What I find is that the clients that fight to come back to me, even after I've encouraged them to go talk to other people, and there have been some that have gone with other business, that is completely fine. And I tell them, I'm not going to be mad at you, right? I want you to feel comfortable and trust who you're training with, with your dog, because it's a very important decision.

Lianne Shinton (31:45)

Yes.

Definitely. Thank you for that advice for people. That is excellent, excellent advice. So one question I wanted to kind of ask you is could you share like a heartwarming success story or particularly memorable transformation with one of your canine clients?

Brandon Hadwin (32:25)

Yeah, so I'll go with Nora. So Nora is a, well, she's probably got seven or eight different breeds in her, but Malinois . .. is one of them. Really funny story. we, this, her mom's Jennifer, she calls me one day and she's like, hi, you know, I got, I got this dog and I've got some issues that we've been trying to work out and we haven't had any success. And I'm like, okay, you know, what's going on? She's like, well, her jumping is really bad.

I was like jumping on people. She's like, yeah, it's like, it's really bad. And I'm like, okay. So what have you guys done? And so she tells me that she's worked through a few trainers. They've come over and haven't had any success or anything. we scheduled a private lesson and it was as bad as she said. Most of the time it's not right. Like most of the time the client thinks it's so bad, but then you get there and you're like,

Lianne Shinton (33:17)

Yeah.

Brandon Hadwin (33:23)

This is nothing, we're good, don't worry. It was bad, like I was, I let it all happen because I wanted to see what was up and I mean both of my forearms were bleeding. It was bad, within like a minute and a half, right? So we fixed that pretty quickly and she was blown away and tickled to death. We did a few more sessions together.

Lianne Shinton (33:34)

Wow.

Brandon Hadwin (33:43)

And total all in all, we did four sessions. The last session was just tracking and detection work. She got interested in doing extra stuff. So we did some tracking and detection. They since have moved out of state, but I stay in contact with them and I see videos that they post online and she's fully off-leash trained, full recall. I mean, just phenomenal. But that is a client that literally listened to every single thing I said and put in the time with the dog, which wasn't a lot, right?

but she did probably three, five to 10 minute sessions a day. Two is great, right? You're gonna get some results with two. But yeah, that was, I still hear from them and she still raves about everything and is thankful. One of her family members actually reached out the other day like, we know what you did with Nora. So we know how crazy she was. If you can work that dog and help that dog, you can help this one. But yeah, she was a good success story for sure.

Lianne Shinton (34:40)

That's awesome. Sometimes it's you wish you could video that first meeting again, because you just like this. can't be that bad. But yeah, what you described, I've never had, you know, that particular experience.

Brandon Hadwin (34:44)

my goodness.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm telling you,

I was like, kind of shocked. I came prepared for it. But man, I she like she was behind a baby gate. And she was like, Do you want me to let her out? And I'm like, for real? Like, she's like, it's all excitement. Like, there's no great I'm like, Yeah, let her out. Let me see what's up. Yeah. I mean, I was sliced up. Yeah, she basically was just grabbing and rapping and. yeah. yeah. Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (35:19)

those dewclaws, yeah.

Brandon Hadwin (35:22)

Yep, yep, stuff. So, hi Nora, hi Jim.

Lianne Shinton (35:24)

That's fun. And

finally, if you could just share a little bit about where our listeners can find out more information, your website, Facebook page. I know you actively post photos and videos there, anywhere where they can find you.

Brandon Hadwin (35:42)

Yeah.

Yeah. So we're on Facebook and our website, www.easternfloridogtraining.com and all their contact information and chat information is going to be on the website. If you guys are, anybody's out there that's listening to this, if you're planning on getting a puppy or you have a dog, have a puppy now or have planning on rescuing a dog or something like that, even if you don't have the dog yet, feel free to reach out. There's no, I'm not the,

the pushy kind, right? I'm not the, you better do this now. Like that's not me. So even if it's something that you just want some more information about and just chat with somebody, give me a call. Let's talk.

Lianne Shinton (36:23)

Awesome. Thank you so much, Brandon. That was a lot of great information. And thanks, thanks everybody for listening again. I'm Lianne Shinton and thank you Brandon from Eastern Florida Dog Training.

Brandon Hadwin (36:26)

You're welcome. Awesome.

You're welcome. Thank you.