In this episode of the Pet Biz Podcast, Lianne Shinton chats with Tyler Muto, a renowned dog trainer and the founder of Consider The Dog and TylerMuto.com. Tyler specializes in helping professional dog trainers achieve better results, increase their income, and regain control of their time and energy.

Tyler will guide you on how to pinpoint your specific career or business goals and collaborate with you to achieve real, measurable outcomes without wasting time.

Don't miss Tyler's upcoming seminar in Arkansas from October 4-6, 2024. Learn more here: Joint Forces K9 - Tyler Muto Seminar

Visit Tyler's websites for more information:
https://tylermuto.com
https://www.considerthedog.com

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Transcript of Podcast:

Lianne Shinton (00:14)

Welcome everybody. I am Leanne Shinton, the host and also the owner of Pet Biz Experts, a software company for pet professionals like dog trainers. And today we are interviewing Tyler Muto and we're going to talk about an upcoming seminar that he has going on. And also you're coaching for dog trainers. And I just want to add too that as a coach for dog trainers,

I think you're unique because of your strong background in dog training. You were the president and vice president at one time too for the International Association of Canine Professionals, which is amazing. And also, you you coach on dog training and how to make your programs better, like from a real dog trainer experience. So I just think there's going to be so much great stuff we'll talk about today.

and we'll learn about this upcoming seminar. But first, Tyler, would you mind introducing yourself and share a little bit about how you began your journey as a dog trainer? We'd love to hear some of your early experiences and key accomplishments that have shaped your career.

Tyler Muto (01:27)

Yeah, thank you. And thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. So as far as how I got started in dog training, think, you know, as somebody who works with a lot of dog trainers nowadays, the most common avenues I hear about people getting into dog training are either they had a dog of their own that they struggled with, and then they sought out training and then got really into it. That's a big one for people. Others got into it first on the sort

sport or competitive end, perhaps they even did like 4 -H as a child. And then sort of like the third category would be honestly people that started as dog walkers and then became dog trainers. That's like a really big one. My venture into dog training was slightly different. I had just finished my undergraduate for philosophy and psychology and I was considering grads. Well, I was planning on going to grad school.

considering between psychology programs and philosophy programs. sort of in that time period, learned about dog training. I landed myself in apprenticeship as a dog trainer. And I became very fascinated with it because from the psychology standpoint, was like, I had no idea prior to this that dog trainers helped people so much.

I always just thought dog training was about the dogs, but this was around the time that Cesar Milan was getting popularized and it was being televised more. And I was working for a gentleman where one of my jobs was to take his dog to a kennel and it was owned by a dog trainer. And I was just fascinated. This woman had this beautiful property and beautiful business. And I just had questions every time I went in. And so as I learned that dog training was actually...

an avenue to work with people and to improve people's lives. That was really appealing to me. And then from the philosophy standpoint, know, philosophy is the love of learning. And I think anybody who has gotten into dog training knows it is like an endless well that you can never get to the bottom of. And there's always more to learn. But unlike so much, I think in both the fields of philosophy and psychology, where there's a lot that's sort of intangible, right? Dog training is very tangible.

You can have ideas, but ultimately you put those ideas to the test and you see right in front of you in real time the effects of the concepts that you're working with and dogs don't lie, so it just was this really cool sort of melding of worlds for me and being a dog lover, it just instantly appealed to me and so I had an apprenticeship and then my now wife who was then my fiancee, her and I were both applying to grad

Within this apprenticeship, decided I was done. I was doing dog training and she got into law school here in Buffalo. And so we were moving and moved to Buffalo and ultimately started my business and it grew really fast. And here I am today.

Lianne Shinton (04:29)

That's awesome. That's awesome. Cause I, I loved dogs and then I started to love psychology, but you had, you know, been, you're draw, drawn towards the psychology and it was so interesting about philosophy, the love of learning and my gosh, that's perfect for dog traders. Cause for me it was kind of just starting with dogs and evolving into loving learning about how they learn and how people learn too. Cause we have to work with people so much.

and help families and change their lives. And then your personal dogs, did you have like any dogs you wanted to share about with anything that you experienced in your life?

Tyler Muto (05:11)

Well, I mean, tying to that same period when I was a philosophy student, I was a typical philosophy student. I was very much a hermit. I had a long beard. And I had a dog. I adopted my first dog on my own when I was 19, when I got my first apartment. I was in community college at that point. then actually that first dog ended up passing away very young. He had a seizure and then I adopted another one. And when I went to university,

My dog was just with me all the time. was walking around campus with her all the time. And I would actually say that at least as many people, if not more people knew her name than knew mine. Like I would walk through campus and people would say hi to her, but not me. Her name was Lila. But people knew me as that guy with the dog. Like I would hear people be like, yeah, you know, Tyler, you know, that guy with the dog, right? So, you know, I've always loved dogs. As a kid, the dogs always slept in my bedroom.

My family, didn't like train our dogs formally. I think my parents did a really good job of raising our dogs. They had some books around. But I also think my parents did a very good job of selecting dogs that were really good for our family. And I think that actually influenced a lot of my thinking, especially later in my career as a dog trainer about the importance of dog selection. yeah, dogs have always played a very central role in my life.

And so Lila was the dog I had when I was in college and then when I first got into dog training. And of course, as every dog trainer, I've had a lot of dogs since then. Currently, I only have one. His name is Charlie. He's a little old man. He's a terrier mix kind of rescue guy. We don't know exactly how old he is. He's somewhere in the ballpark of like 17 -ish. And he's like my heart and soul. If I could just have copies of him forever, that would be

Lianne Shinton (07:09)

He sounds awesome. Yeah, your parents did a much better job. Sorry, mom, but I was raised with chow chows. So my family selection of dogs wasn't that great. It's tough, you know, when we see, we call them BKs, baby killers, and you know, we see them in dog training and it's really challenging when you've got a dog like that in a family and you're trying to help

Tyler Muto (07:18)

Yeah.

Yeah, I do have one incident where I got bit in the face by my family dog. But I think even that really influenced my dog training in a positive way because the story was, I was, think in like second grade and we had this little dog, Oliver, he was a scraggly little terrier mix. looked, he was the weirdest looking dog I've ever seen, I swear to God. But we loved him. He did have a bit of resource guarding, food aggression.

Especially just around his dinner and it was never really an issue like we could walk around the kitchen while he was eating You just didn't mess with him while he was eating and we just sort of knew that One day I decided I was gonna teach Oliver to give me kisses and I was going to do so by taking a milk bone and putting it behind my back and sticking my face in his face until he gave me a kiss and then I could give him the milk bone and He bit me in the face

I have a scar. I have one dimple right here. I have a dimple on one side. but what, what, what I remember about that situation was my parents didn't make it this huge thing about like, my God, like this dog is problematic and blah, blah, blah. They kind of, was more just like a lesson learned for me. They were like, yeah, like don't do that. You know, I mean, I was fine. Ultimately had some swelling and some bleeding, but you know, it was

He's a dog and he's gonna do things that dogs do and you need to be respectful of that. Like you need to respect him as an animal. And that was the way we treated like his food aggression even, you know, it was just sort of like, yeah, like just he's an animal. Like just don't mess with them, feed them, leave them alone. And one, I think as a dog trainer, not as a dog trainer coach, my, my like actual dog training hat back on, I think one of the biggest problems we have today in the dog world

is the expectations that we have for our dogs. in many ways, the inclusiveness of dogs in our life is a good thing. But in some ways, I think it gets pushed too far or they become expectations that are not necessarily the most fair to the dog. So I think that experience with Oliver, when I reflect back on that, think it put a lot,

shaped me to have that perspective, I

Lianne Shinton (09:58)

Yeah, and the name of your business, Consider the Dog, that actually says a lot right there. Thanks to Oliver.

Tyler Muto (10:06)

Yeah, I put a lot of thought into that business name and it was very much about that. It was sort of a play on words of, know, if you are, hey, consider this, right? Like think about this, you know, I think people that love dogs, we like to think about dogs, we like to think about dog behavior, but it was also, you know, be considerate of, like try to see the world through their lens. Because one of my core philosophies as a dog trainer was always the...

especially solving behavior problems, which was my sort of the core of what I did is that generally the better we can kind of put ourselves in that dog's vantage point, the easier it is to see what the solution is. Like usually the solutions are not terribly complex, but we're always trying to look at it from a human vantage point. And we need to kind of see it from the dog's perspective a little bit better. And sometimes we get a lot more clarity that

Lianne Shinton (10:58)

And I've definitely had cases where, I wish the family would consider the dog more. And it's like you want to call child services and you want to remove the dog and the children. So, yeah, it's it's sometimes it's a it's a tough thing, but it all teaches us to do better. So let's talk a little bit about your seminar that you have coming up. Is that in Arkansas? Awesome.

Tyler Muto (11:20)

Yes. Yep. So yeah, it's the I've not done a seminar in a six or so years been since about 2018. And that was a deliberate decision. I stopped doing seminars and also shadow programs where trainers would come to my training center and spend, you know, usually about five days there. I stopped doing all that around 2018, which we can kind of talk more about but

I've said no to a lot of seminars and this year I said yes to this one. I think it's gonna be really cool. It's hopefully gonna be very different from most of the other seminars. I can't say all, I haven't been to all of them, but most of the other seminars that are out there today. The focus is really for the professional. think enthusiasts and dog owners can still get a lot out of it because there's going to be a lot

that just pertains to like actual training and behavior and technique and training plans and so on and so forth. But the reason it's kind of geared for the professionals because one thing I've learned as a coach for dog trainers, I've been coaching other dog trainers since 2009, but it's been more of my full -time or my sole focus since 2022 when I sold my actual dog training business. one thing that I've learned very much in that time period is

huge portion of the change that can take place in somebody's outcomes a dog trainers outcomes the the success of their customers Actually has nothing to do with how they're training the dog from like a technique or method standpoint And so in many cases when I work with trainers We're not changing their methods in some cases. We are because they want that they're looking for new techniques But I've worked with a lot of trainers that are very confident

in the way that they handle dogs, but they're still struggling to see the success they want. Not monetarily necessarily, but in the results. And a lot of times it has to do with, like they might be great with all the techniques they know, they might be applying the wrong techniques at the wrong time. Or they aren't allocating their time in the training program well, they're spending too much time on things that aren't actually gonna make a big difference. And they're not, they're

planning out the training properly. Oftentimes, it can be as simple as goal setting. I cannot tell you how often both in my training center, I had a staff of 10 to 12 at any given point in time, four to five of which were full -time dog trainers. one of the things, if you were to ask any trainer that worked for me, like what's one thing that Tyler would say a lot, probably clear across the board, they would say, he would walk in and say, what's your goal?

Because anytime I would see one of them working a dog, my role there primarily was to coach them. I wasn't doing the day -to -day stuff. So I'd walk in and I'd say, what's your goal? And I want them to articulate very clearly what they're intending to do with the dog in that session. And it would have to be very specific. So for instance, a lot of dog trainers would say, well, I'm working on place command. My trainers would know that that's not a sufficient answer, because working on place command isn't a goal.

There's so many things that we could be improving about the Plays command. So what specifically is your goal? And then the follow up would be what's your plan? And then the follow up from that would be what's your timeline that you expect to see the effects of what you're doing? And so at what point would you consider if you need to make a change? So I focused a lot with my team on those types of things because they may not train exactly the way I do, but what I want to know is whatever they're deciding to

Do they, have they really thought about why they're doing what they're doing? Does that plan actually make sense to achieve their goals? And we look at goals in a, almost like a tiered way. So we have the long -term outcome goal for the dog and client. We might have weekly goals if it's like a board and train type thing, or lesson goals and private lessons. And then in a board and train, it could be session per session goals. In a lesson, we might have like a lot of times an hour long lesson you have to

little breaks in between. You're not going to just work a dog straight through nonstop for an hour. So we might have several different like sections of that lesson where we may have individual goals. But then even down to every individual exercise that we're doing with that dog within that session. Why are we doing this exercise? What is the expected outcome? What's the timeline for that outcome? Those types of things. So again, all of that just to say that a big part of the seminar is going to

about these sort of non -technique related things that make really, really big differences in the overall outcome that trainers have. I think it's really undervalued and it's something that I think most of the big dog training schools just don't really teach. They're focused on the step -by -step how to train a dog. But when it comes to behavior problems, especially, there's some big voids in the education.

And so it's gonna be interesting. So what we're doing that's gonna facilitate this is rather than have like a whole bunch of random like working spots that we sell and kind of random dogs come in, we're gonna be focusing on the dogs that are in kennel in the board and train program at Joint Forces K9 where the seminar is being hosted. And the staff there is gonna be sort of my initial guinea pigs. And...

Essentially, we're going to be looking at each one of these dogs that are in training. Where is the dog at in this training? How much longer does it have here? What are our goals for the owner? And, you know, it's going to allow us to select the dogs that can be the most interesting and the most educational and really sort of break down start to finish, not just like, here's how we train heel, but like legitimately everything. So this is what our game plan is going to be start to finish with the dog. This is how we think about session per session goals.

This is how we're going to approach the lessons that we're doing with the owner. How many lessons are we going to do? How are we going to allocate that time in those lessons? What other communication might need to take place with the owner? Or is there other information that we need to gather even prior to those dogs going home? And a big part of it's on time allocation. And then of course, because we are going to be working the dogs as that's how this whole thing is coming together, there is going to be a lot as far as optimizing the actual technique and method.

So one thing that I'm really big on is when I work with trainers and this started with my own staff. don't have like a training system that I try to like, you're gonna come to my seminar and you're gonna learn the Tyler Muto training system and it's the best training system and yada yada. Like that doesn't work. Dog training is way too personal for that. Everybody relates to dogs differently, relates to their clients differently. And so what I learned training my staff was when I first started,

managing a team, I used to micromanage them and try to make them clones of myself. And we got great results, but they weren't as good as they could be. It was only when I kind of learned to let go of all that and let them train how they want to train and just help them to be kind of the best version of themselves and help to kind of steer them in the right direction. That's when my trainers became independently great. So when I work with professionals, that's sort of my approach. not, I'm an open book.

I will absolutely tell you every detail of how I would approach it if that's what the trainer wants to hear. But I don't care if they do it the exact way I do it, because the way I do it may not be the best way for them. so what I, my job, which is, I think kind of like a unique role to play. My job is to basically look at any trainer, particularly in the pet dog world. And they could be the most amazing trainer you've seen, but my job is still to go, I think.

you might be losing some efficiency in your program here, or I think you might get a better result. So I've had to kind of train my brain and my eyes, you know, again, starting with my own team through working with other professionals to essentially like diagnose and dissect other people's training in a constructive way, not in a like, you're not a good trainer way. Cause again, it's not, I don't think I'm the best trainer in the world. Like I don't think that the way I train a dog is the be all end all. I'm confident with what I do,

I'm actually more confident in my ability to help other professionals improve what they

Lianne Shinton (20:08)

So it sounds like the best candidates for the seminar would be pet dog trainers, but I love the unity that you know it's any method that they're using come and learn.

Tyler Muto (20:23)

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, even I've got trainers that I've worked with that are mostly on the reward -based end of things. I've got trainers that everything they do is with a remote collar. And I've got essentially everything in between. Because again, there's of what's holding dog trainers back. It's not because they haven't found the secret method. It's about the way they're approaching the problem and thinking about the problems.

There's a lot that goes into being a successful dog trainer beyond method and technique.

Lianne Shinton (20:56)

And could you share a little bit about, like, maybe we can kind of think of like a case of like how you would tackle a dog that's running out the front door. Maybe don't get into the nitty gritty details, but just stepping back and maybe having these trainers look at it from a different perspective of how they can really help folks with that particular situation, because that's why they've called. He's bolting out the front door.

and how your typical trainer maybe kind of tackles that versus what you would suggest.

Tyler Muto (21:29)

Sure. If it's okay with you, let's take a slightly different example, because I think it'll be just an easier one to illustrate, a sort of general concept here. So rather than bolting out the front door, let's take the example of the dog who charges the front door, barking when somebody's outside, when the doorbell rings or somebody knocks, cetera. And so, okay.

Lianne Shinton (21:37)

Yeah, absolutely.

Tyler Muto (21:55)

Obviously, this isn't gonna be everybody. There are gonna be many people who listen to this and be like, well, that's not how I do it. I do it the exact way you say. But there are a lot of trainers, I could tell you this, because my job is to work with dog trainers. A lot of trainers have been taught to approach this problem first through like, let's teach the dog some form of obedience. So for some trainers, it'll be like, I'm gonna use a come command. And so when they start running towards the door, I'm gonna call them to me. Some trainers would focus first on maybe a place

and they'd build a really strong, when the doorbell rings, I'm gonna send you to place. It could be a sit, it could be a down, it could be any variation of this. And so then they use that as, I guess, a version of what some folks might consider like differential reinforcement, right? If you're sitting on a place, you can't simultaneously be running at the door. So if I can get you on place, great, like problem solved. The issue I have with that

It doesn't work that well. Like, I guess that's the main issue. It doesn't actually work that well. It can work. But here's what I see happening a lot of times. So A, we see dogs that do the place command, but they're still barking, they're trembling, they're vibrating with energy. So we didn't really solve the problem. We just sort of boxed it in. We see other cases where the dog's struggling to hold that place because every ounce of their being still wants to lunge towards that door.

And so we can keep them there, but it's just like, we've got to correct 35 times on the remote collar just to keep them there. And again, the dog's frustrated and agitated, right? And then overall, it's just not often a very good long -term solution because what if the dog's not on place? What if you don't have a place? What if you're at a friend's house? And I think if you were to ask the dog owner, and this is a, I think sort of like, sort of

Key point number one is like, also want to think about this from the like, consider the owner kind of thing, right? Look at this from the owner's perspective. That was a play on consider the dog for those that didn't catch it. So if we consider the owner's perspective, if we were to ask most owners like, hey, so is your dream that when the doorbell rings, you can make your dog stay on place? Or would you prefer if when the doorbell rang, it didn't really matter what your dog did as long as they're not lunging at the

And I think most dog owners would say, well, yeah, like if my dog wasn't lunging at the door, I wouldn't care if he was on place. Right. And I think that's, that's again, sort of like key thing. Number one, right. Do we actually want the dog on place or are we using place as a surrogate for something else that we actually want, but we're failing to actually train the thing that we want. The thing that we want is when the doorbell rings,

regulate your intensity. Like let's try to do things that can build the dog's capacity for controlling arousal. And I say build capacity because some of it's not a choice on the dog's part, right? Some of this is physiological and needs to be developed. And then also hang back. If you are not crowding the door and your energy is lower, most people...

could really care less if the dog was on place or sitting. Like if the doorbell rang and the dog was chewing a bone and the dog just kept chewing a bone, most people would not make the dog go to place, right? So we're training something that we don't actually care about because we haven't found a good solution to the thing that we do care about. And then the other problem with this is we're not really being honest with the dog. if this were, like I used to tell people all the time,

I'm more of a relationship counselor sometimes than a dog trainer. Okay. And if this were an issue between a husband and wife or two roommates or two best friends, and this was the way we were handling this conflict, Hey, this person does something that makes you feel a certain way and it's causing stress in your life. And it's interfering maybe with your ability to have guests over. But instead of telling the person that what they're doing is problematic, you're just trying to divert them and distract them to something else.

most relationship counselors would say like, hey, you need to have a more direct conversation about this. And that's the way I look at this situation with dogs is, you this isn't about, I'm your master, need to obey everything that we say. This is about like, we need to live together. And if we're going to live together, there is just certain ground rules and certain things that we each have to respect about each other, right? It's two ways. There are things we need to respect about the dogs and some owners need to learn a touch of that as well. And then there are things that the dogs need to learn to respect about us as humans.

And so without going into like absolute like step by step, you know, my approach to that is very much look at that core problem. Look at the core thing that people want. And if we can find and develop exercises, which is something that I've done a lot of over the past six years or so that are not focused around physical position, but are focused around arousal, because I think people will say things like, I work on low arousal by making the dogs hold place commands. But the problem with that is

When you have multiple goals, you're diluting your learning down, right? So when the dog gets a reward or a correction, was that because they were physically in the right spot or because their heart rate was low and their breathing was low? You see what I mean? It's harder for the dog. And they've actually studied this. They've actually studied what happens when you have sometimes goals that could be conflicting with each other and what that does to learning. And so I'm a huge fan. This goes back to me asking my trainers, like, what's your goal all

I'm a really big fan of having singular and well -defined goals for an exercise. And so the problem with the whole, like, I'm working on calmness by making the dog do place is it's not well -defined for the dog. And you have two different goals going on that may at times be in conflict. There may be times where the dog is perfectly calm. I'm making balloons with my fingers. That's weird on Zoom. Sorry, I have another window with my camera up here. Okay. There may be times when...

The dog is perfectly calm, but shifts off place. And if we're working on place, you know, especially the owners might feel the need to then correct the dog. But if this is in the context of the doorway and what we ultimately really want is just that calmness and the dog not moving towards the door, the dog might actually still be in the realm of like beautiful behavior for us, but we told them place. So now we kind of have to enforce that thing. Right. And there may be other times where the dog's doing place really well, but they're vibrating.

And so if we reward them, what are we rewarding? How does the dog know the difference? It creates a lot of problems when we have that. So what I spent a lot of time on and part of when I stopped doing seminars was that I was spending time on these ideas was what are the different ways that we can build exercises where the sole focus is something like arousal. And I say like arousal because it's not the only thing that's like a non obedience type goal that's worth building exercises around.

And then the other thing would be exercises around, hey, when something makes you feel this way, that makes you want to launch yourself forward, can we develop patterns of staying back? And where else in the dog's life do we see those patterns that we can generalize this so that by the time we get to the doorway, the dog goes like, yeah, I've seen that. I know every time I feel this way, you ask the same thing of me. And it becomes very easy for the dog. And so we're trying to just simplify down the messaging.

to the dog and what that ultimately does is simplify our training quite a bit. The way that I solve behavior problems now has actually like way fewer steps than the way I was solving them earlier in my career. And my success rate is through the roof compared to early in my career, which is part of what kind of led me down these rabbit holes. does that kind of answer your question there about like, how might we be thinking

problems in a different way versus some of the more traditional approaches to these things.

Lianne Shinton (30:11)

Absolutely. It sounds like you're kind of focused on getting a solution for what the owner wants, which makes your clients happier, makes the trainer happier, makes things more efficient. And it sounds like you would be a fantastic dog trainer coach in the sense that you can help folks accomplish that. Because most, most dog owners reach out to us because they have a specific issue or two. And a lot of dog trainers, we have our programs.

Tyler Muto (30:20)

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lianne Shinton (30:41)

where we teach sit, come, down and what not. And I think that your approach, it's something we might want to dive into a little bit and unpack a little bit without giving away too much, but that might

Tyler Muto (30:53)

Yeah. Well, I think you, you you mentioned something right there about how like a lot of dog trainers kind of have their programs, right? So dog comes in. And so the first thing they do is they teach blah, blah, blah, right? Everybody's might be slightly different. and one thing that I've, again, just having worked with so many dog trainers, and I don't mean this as like an insult to anybody, but every dog trainer, I know every dog trainer I know as part of their sales and marketing, has something about

they individualize the training for every dog. Maybe with the exception of group classes, but when it comes to private lessons and board and train, it's a big piece of sales and marketing. We customize training to suit your needs and to suit your dog's temperament. The truth is, I would venture to say the vast majority of dog trainers really don't customize the training that much. mean, it's maybe somewhat customized. Like every dog obviously is gonna be a little different. You might find that if it makes minor adjustments to the way that you're teaching something,

You know, one dog might be more food motivated. One dog might be, you know, just works better for leash pressure and praise or whatever it is. But the program itself, again, the time allocation, the goal setting, all that is virtually the same for every dog. And dog trainers are actually doing themselves a massive disservice in a lot of ways because you're actually creating much more work for yourself. So. Especially when it comes to behavior problems,

in particular when we're talking about, well, I'm sorry, especially when it comes to behavior problems, but even more generally about obedience

The way people live with dogs these days is just so different. And so a lot of dog owners will come to us dog trainers and as you said, they'll have a very specific goal. You know, they have a, what we would call a pain point from a sales standpoint, right? So we talk a lot about, about sales with the trainers that I coach because whether you like it or not, if you're a dog trainer, you always have to be a good sales person too. In fact, your ex -husband was a big influence on me as far as, you know, my ability to, to sell my, myself and to sell my programs.

But so people come to us and they have this pain point. They say, hey, it's driving me nuts. I'm embarrassed to walk my dog. My dog lunges every time he sees another dog, for instance. Or it could be the doorbell issue that we discussed already. And so they go to the dog trainer and the dog trainer sits down or they're on the phone. They say, OK, cool. So like what I recommend is my four week Ford and train. And we're definitely going to get your dog to walk nicely past those other dogs. And we're also.

going to teach them full off leash obedience. Right. And to us, we're like, yeah, like this is a great, it's like selling point, right? Like I'm giving you everything and the kitchen sink kind of thing. But there are quite a few problems with this that I think most dog trainers have never thought about. And it's something that I feel like I only started to realize because not just working with my own team, but as I was working with the IACP and having this

kind of weird bird's eye view of the industry. And then also, I mean, I've coached literally thousands of professional trainers between 2009, 2010, and now it's 2014, so 15 year time span.

You know, we think we're giving people extra, but a couple of things happen. Here are the downsides of what happens. So one.

From a sales standpoint, okay, I always use this example because I'm in Buffalo, New York for those that don't know. So let's say Leanne that you came to visit Buffalo, New York and you were like, hey, I'm in Buffalo, I wanna get chicken wings, right? And so you go down to Elmwood Avenue where there's lots of bars and restaurants and you walk into the first one you see and you say, hey, can I get some chicken wings? And they go, yeah, we've got chicken wings. Not only that, we're gonna give you this whole party platter and it's got chicken wings and mozzarella sticks and pizza logs and onion rings and fried mushrooms and all these other things,

One of the first things through your mind is going to be, I wonder if the place next door can give me just chicken wings for like a fraction of what I'm paying. Cause I don't even want all these other things. Right? So you're already having that thought of like, am I overpaying here? Because all I really want is my dog to stop lunging. Okay. The other thing that happens, I can tell you again, working with so many dog trainers, one of the biggest struggles of dog trainers is owner compliance. Right? I mean, we all know

owner compliance, how do get my owners to follow through to practice more? Well, here's the thing,

If their dog is struggling with lunging on a leash, like doing a down stay, really doesn't have much to do with that. And yes, a dog trainer may argue that the down stay like builds impulse control, but there are 101 ways to work on impulse control that directly relate to the leash issue that the owner is going to see the connection more. And so when we give homework to people that doesn't actually relate to their pain point or doing that homework, they can do it for two weeks.

and their quality of life doesn't improve, where's their reinforcement, right? From a behavior standpoint, that's what we would call learned helplessness. They did all the things we asked them to do and they're still under stress. That would be like if I was conditioning a remote collar and I pressed a button down on a level that the dog was annoyed by and I asked them to come to me and they did, still holding the button. Do it down, they did, still holding, like sooner or later the dog's gonna go.

I'm just going to lay here because it doesn't matter what I do. It doesn't matter if I listen to you, my situation doesn't improve. So, you know, we see this with dog training all the time. Dog trainers bring a client in and lesson one, two, three, 70 % of what they're teaching that client doesn't directly relate to the client's pain. And then they wonder why the client's not motivated to do their homework. You see what I mean? And then the other issue is just, I see trainers all the time that are burned out.

Lianne Shinton (36:50)

Absolutely.

Tyler Muto (36:56)

They're getting dogs in these programs or doing a four week board and train and they're trying to solve this problem. And it's like kind of solved, but they're also trying to do all these other things. And it's, if we just eliminated some of the things that they were doing that were of less importance and put that time into exercises that are going to make a big impact on the owner's pain point, you're going to have way less pressure on

way less stress, you're probably not gonna work over, most dog trainers end up with a lot of these difficult behavior problems, actually working the dogs more than what they're being paid for, because they over -promised. They'll charge the same, many dog trainers will charge the same for a four -week board and train to just do off leash obedience as they would for a four -week board and train, and now you've gotta solve the dog's aggression, but you also promised off leash obedience. Same amount of time, same amount of money, but not only are you doing off leash obedience, you're also gonna solve

actually like very complicated behavior issue if you want to solve it well and not just like stifle the dog and like, okay, the dog's not biting people because he's doing two hours on place every time a guest comes over. Like that's not really a solution. It's management, but it's not like a great solution, right? And just imagine what would happen if we, you know, again, double or triple the amount of repetitions that we're doing on the exercises that actually mattered because we trimmed the fat.

And we can do that because we never promised the client all those things. And you'd be surprised that so many clients, when you quote them, whatever you're charging, let's just say $4 ,000 for a four week board and train. If you're just confidently gonna say, yep, I'm gonna work on your dog's aggression issue. I'm gonna work on this leash reactivity. I'm gonna put every bit of time I have into solving this problem for you and not waste any time on anything else. Here's the cost, owner is just as likely to say, this sounds

As if you said, and I'm going to do off leash obedience for you. Like they weren't expecting the off leash obedience. They never asked for it. We just, we just threw it out there. Right. And so we ended up getting not as good results as we could, which affects our reputation, the number of referrals we get, so on and so forth. I mean a lot, because when you get really exceptional results, we had over a dozen veterinarians in Buffalo that routinely referred business to most of whom I've never spoken

just because they kept seeing what we were doing with our clients, right? I did not, I never spent money on Google ads and social media ads or anything like that. So when you get really exceptional results, your bottom line improves. You have those happier customers. And when you can do so by actually creating less work for yourself, right? That's the holy grail as far as being a dog trainer, right? Like better results, less work, happier client, more money.

I mean, if we could all do that, we'd be thrilled. And so much of that, like I said, a lot of what I just described about getting better results can be achieved with the exact techniques that you are currently using just by approaching the problem and the overall program differently, if that makes sense. Technique doesn't matter. There are some times where I look at what a trainer's doing and be like, let me teach you a couple of new tricks that I think will really help you.

Lianne Shinton (39:52)

Yeah, that sounds amazing.

Tyler Muto (40:18)

I would say it's 50 -50. And the seminar that's upcoming is going to be like 50 -50 of those things.

Lianne Shinton (40:26)

Yeah, I love that. Lots of great information there, but not enough. So I think you need to talk a little bit about like if I'm a dog trainer and I want to maybe revise my programs in the way I'm doing things so I can make happier clients, make more money, take, you know, some of my staff and make their lives a little easier. How would I get started with you? What does that look like? Do I call? Is there a form on your website and where does that go?

Tyler Muto (40:54)

Yeah, so a couple things. So A, for people that just want to dip their toes in, I have a tremendous amount of recorded material on training and behavior, like the dog end of it, on considerthedog .com, which is my educational platform. And it's not just my own content. I have 10 other instructors that I work with on there, Blake Rodriguez, Brian Agnew, Brett Bailey.

Sarah Bruce ski, Sarah Dixon, Sherry Lucas. So we have a lot of instructors on there. That was important to me when I developed that platform. I didn't want it to be about me because as I said earlier, I don't think that I'm the gatekeeper to the one and only true way of training dogs. And it's really inexpensive. I mean, thousands of hours of content is hosted there. So that's, that would be like the dip your toes in. For those who are more serious and want like more

mentorship or want to go beyond just the training end because on consider the dog our demographic is about 50 50 dog owners and dog trainer. So I don't talk about the things that pertain kind of only to professionals on there. I don't get into lesson planning. I don't get into pricing models and program structure and dealing with challenging customers and all those kinds of things. So I do a lot of one on one coaching, which is mostly virtual these days. I do at times fly out and do in person things which are sort of the

The model of how I do those in -person coaching is what we're kind of basing this seminar off. And then I also have a community that's professionals only, that is where we can dive a lot deeper into some of those things that affect professionals only. Even in so far, we have a section on the forum all about self -care because it's a stressful job. This is a much more stressful job than often people think. And I think it's really important.

You know, as a business coach and a training coach that when I'm helping people grow their businesses, I want to build their business around their lifestyle goals. I don't want them living to feed their business. I want their business feeding their life. And it's important to be able to strike that balance. That was a big focus of mine in my career. I kind of got to a point where the finances were great and I was being encouraged to expand and do multiple locations. And I said, no, what I'm going to do is put my energy instead of trying to make more money.

I'm gonna see, can I make the same amount of money but work a lot less? And I put a lot of energy into the efficiency of my business and kind of turning my business into a machine that ran on its own. And that's what allowed me, like the last few years of running the training center, I probably was involved like on the floor of the training center less than five hours a week, I would say. So all of those kinds of things, they can go to tylermutto .com.

And there's a contact form there. But there's also, I do a free like initial discovery call for professional trainers who are interested to see if we're a good fit together. Because I'm super honest, like if somebody has goals that are outside of my wheelhouse, I'm going to tell you, it's very important to me that the people I work with, like they see like real tangible ROI on our time together, that actual change has taken place in themselves or in their businesses or whatever it may be.

And I get people that need everything. I have people that contact me for help with like a specific case that they have, and they just want help walking through this case, because it's a really challenging one. I have people that only want to focus on the business end. I have startups that contact me to help them. They haven't even made their business public yet. They just want to be able to get going with speed. I have folks that it's all just about their programs. I've had people that have helped them restructure their group classes

do financial planning to expand into facilities, for instance. I mean, it runs the gamut because my experience covers all of that. And that's part of why I chose to focus more on working with professionals these days, because I felt underutilized just doing the end user, like dog owner, end of it. I had all these experiences that I felt were valuable that were just being unused at that point.

So that's tylermutto .com and then the best thing would be the discovery call would be the best thing to set up and that's free. Usually takes about an hour. And then lastly, I do have the seminar coming up, which is in the beginning of October. I don't have the exact dates in front of me, but it is on jointforcesk9 .com. There is an events page and all the information as well as enrollment for the seminar can be found

Lianne Shinton (45:38)

I love the multiple trainers that you have on the... is it considered the dog .com? Okay, yeah. I love that. It's like dip your toes in and you know, learning from different trainers, which we've all done and you just pick up these things that fit with you or they may not. And just trying to figure out your way in the world of dog training and having somebody to follow and I

Tyler Muto (45:43)

Yep. Yep.

Lianne Shinton (46:04)

that you have a multitude of trainers that maybe people can connect with. So that's a really good starting point.

Tyler Muto (46:10)

Yeah, it's a great platform because we have the recorded content, but we also have a private Facebook group that we're very active in. So people ask questions and post videos that they want feedback on. But we also do twice a month what we call live group coaching. So each time it's a different one of our instructors. Sometimes it's just me answering questions in real time from our members about their personal dogs or if they're professionals, maybe about a dog that they're training.

So it's not just the recorded content. There's actually quite a bit of engagement and interaction. And I'm honestly always surprised nowadays, like just how much we're able to help people virtually, you know, without even being hands -on. Sometimes I feel like it's even easier. I'm able to do more virtually because, you know, the dog is in their natural setting. There's not a strange person there. You're seeing more of the reality of the owner's life.

Yeah, it's pretty wild. It's pretty wild.

Lianne Shinton (47:07)

And my next question is, advice would you give to an aspiring dog trainer who's just starting their career and wants to implement your training?

Tyler Muto (47:17)

so from like a behavior standpoint advice or like a business standpoint advice.

Lianne Shinton (47:23)

I guess, I guess both. But like a brand new person that's just, I want to be a dog trainer. Help me.

Tyler Muto (47:34)

Okay, so from a training standpoint, I'm gonna say two things. So the first one is before you put your hands on that leash, think about what your goal is for that session. Think about what your plan is to accomplish that goal and make sure it makes sense. And think about, again, like how much time do you wanna give it? And I say that because for instance, if I'm doing something like counter conditioning, I'm gonna give that a lot of time.

before a lot of repetition before I expect to see changes. Whereas if I'm using something involving punishment, I want to see change very fast or I'm going to start to rethink my plan. You know what I mean? I'm willing to throw treats at a dog for a long time. I'm not willing to punish a dog or do something that is uncomfortable for the dog without seeing pretty quickly that it's going to work. And it should work if you're doing it right. mean, that's a big thing.

Actually, one of the bigger behavioral components that will probably come up a lot in the seminar is around the use of punishment because I think there's been a lot of miseducation, misuse, and misunderstanding around the topic of punishment, and it really is a vital tool and in many cases, the most ethical approach if you're doing it properly and in a way that's fair and thoughtful because nobody wants to punish dogs.

without getting too much on a tangent there. So that's number one is think about your goal, your goal, your plan and the timeline at which you expect to see change. And just be prepared to then reassess if you're not seeing what you expect to see. And that should be every time you get the dog out. And then the other piece of it that's kind of related is with every case you

Front and center in your mind should always be why was this person motivated to spend this much money to train their dog? Because most us dog trainers, unless you're doing like just a group class, if you're doing one -on -one, if you're doing board and train, it's a lot of money. Like it's not anything to shake a stick at. And there's a reason that people are that motivated. So keep that in the center of your mind. And then when you're thinking about how you're gonna train this

from either lesson one or day one of a board and train.

I want people to learn to reverse engineer, right? So we start with that end goal and we think about what's like, okay, let's just say, for instance, I'm gonna try to make this simple and short. So I wanna run out. I don't even know what we're at time -wise, but let's just say that the owner's main pain point was that when they're out and about or in their home and somebody approaches them and their dog to say hi,

That that dog might lunge at a person right so The last piece of training right the last exercise that we do is has to look like that Right. So the very first time that we take this owner in this dog we put him in that scenario Okay, you're gonna stand here with your dog and I'm gonna have this person who your dogs never met before walk up to you What are we what are we gonna do?

We don't expect the first time that we do that in training that the dog is going to do a perfect, right? Usually we're going to say, okay, and if the dog does blah, blah, blah, I want you to do X. If the dog does this other thing, I want you to do Y. What is that final exercise going to look like? And what are those instructions that you're going to give the owner about what they're supposed to do? Right? If it's a leash reactive, okay, we're going to pass by dogs.

If your dog looks at the other dog, do this. If your dog lunges at the dog, do this. What are all those instructions? And then from there, you just reverse engineering. What are the foundational skills that the dog needs to have in order to be able to follow those instructions well? What are the foundational skills that the owner needs to have in order to be able to execute those instructions? And 80 % or more of your training from day one should be focused only

on the skills that are going to allow them to tackle that final exercise. Anything else is what I call satellite behaviors. And I'm always thinking in almost everything, whether it's training or business about the Pareto principle, the 80 -20, right? There's always going to be 20 % or less of your effort or input that yields 80 % or more of your output. And

That's what I want to focus on from day one. If we can narrow it down to those few things, you'll find that it's probably 20 % or less of what most dog trainers are currently focusing on in their lessons. And when you put all of your energy into that, and then only if you're like, okay, I think we've done enough healing for today. We've got a little extra time. Maybe we'll work on something maybe unrelated, but still kind of useful, like a place command, right? And I think you'll find that your results improve really, really dramatically. So that would be...

I'll just kind of keep it at that, I guess, because I think even that from a business standpoint, it's going to make a big difference. I there are obviously other pieces of advice I can give from a business standpoint, but I think the only other thing that I would say from a business standpoint is don't compare yourself to your peers. And probably it's really actually a good idea, I think, to not follow on social media your peers, follow the people you look up to and that you aspire to, but don't follow your peers because it leads to a lot of self -doubt.

You're not seeing the full picture of what your peers, what's happening behind the scenes, and everybody puts their best foot forward and it's always gonna make you feel like you're not as good or that you should be doing more. Almost no good comes with it. So unless it's like a close friend of yours that you just follow because they're a close friend, but otherwise, like I follow very few dog trainers on social media. I'm not interested. And I think that the trainers I know that are happiest and have the most confidence in their own ability as a trainer,

actually are relatively out of the loop. They actually don't follow on social media many other dog trainers. They might only follow a few that they highly respect and look up to. And that would be for a new dog trainer. I would be very selective about who you follow on social media.

Lianne Shinton (53:58)

That is great advice and surrounding yourself with the people that are better than you that that's a great recommendation. And finally, can you share like a memorable experience that you've had, whether it be with like a dog that you were training or maybe a dog trainer that you were coaching, just something that stands out to you that's memorable, maybe funny. Any stories like

Tyler Muto (54:26)

man, that's gonna be a tough one. I might have to think on that. I've had a long career with a lot of weird experiences. A memorable experience. I mean, I have a lot of clients that stand out to me. honestly, I think some of the most memorable clients are the ones that were the hardest and

the expected outcome was going to be limited right out of the gate. And so I think this might be another like little piece of advice for those who are getting started in this industry.

Some of the people that turned out to be my favorite clients and my favorite dogs were dogs that honestly the prognosis was not good from the beginning. And I knew that. And when I would do the initial consultation, I would be upfront. I would say, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how this is gonna go. Here's what I'm gonna try. I can't promise you that it's gonna work. I can promise you I'll give it my best. From a business standpoint,

across the board, like probably 98 % of people that I've had that kind of a conversation with ended up enrolling in like my biggest, most expensive program because there's trust now, right? There's a certain level of rapport that's there. But one of those cases in particular, the owner is still a friend of mine now and we became friends through this. had, his name is Josh. He's a professional musician and a professional

and has another like I think a normal job as well, but Him and his girlfriend at the time brought their dog to me. His name was Loki. He was a little miniature dachshund long -haired dog and Loki they at the time they they had him neutered it was at like a veterinary school that's nearby here in Buffalo and Loki actually like died on the table. He had an issue with the anesthesia

And his heart stopped for a period of time and then they were able to revive him, but he was never the same. He very clearly had some brain damage. He walked in a kind of wonky way. You would bump into things. His depth perception was off. And as you can imagine, and probably partly due to his breed as well and the way that breed may handle living in a world that's, you know, upside down, developed quite a bit of aggression. Like when they first brought him to me, he was in a carrier with a blanket over it. And it was like something out of a

I don't know, it like an Ace Ventura movie. Like Inside the Carrier was like, the carrier was just going crazy and the dog was going crazy in there. And it was one of those conversations, but Josh and Christine, like, I've just never seen two people that were so committed, right? Like they knew the challenge that was in front of them and they accepted it. And at the time I was doing packages where it was,

a certain number of private lessons. And then I had follow -up group classes that you could do that we did in like three month membership blocks. And I mean, these guys never missed. Like they were there every week and their dog came to socialization. It was able to start interacting with other dogs. And it was always a challenge. They could, it was very difficult for them to even travel because they couldn't, like most of their friends and family couldn't even watch the dog. I mean, he was just a challenging, challenging dog his whole life. And

At a certain point, I just remember being so taken aback by their commitment to this dog that I told them, I can't charge you anymore. Like, want you to keep coming, but like, I'm not. I can't take your money. Like, this is, you've paid enough. Like, just keep coming. And I think, you know, like you and I spoke a little bit earlier, not on this recording, but just about the, you know, the challenges of being a dog trainer, right? It's a stressful gig.

you can feel burned out at times. And I think it's really important sometimes we get those kinds of clients and like it can make up for all of that. Like it can make up for all the stress. It can make up for the heartache that we sometimes see as dog trainers. It can make up for the clients that frustrate us. When you see that kind of person who takes this dog who's just at an extreme disadvantage and just gives that dog the absolute best life possible.

and is committed to training, even though sometimes it felt like painting a picture with disappearing ink, you know what I mean? Because he had a brain injury and you'd make improvement one day and the next day it would seem like you're right back where you started. Those cases stand out to me always. I think as a pet dog trainer, like those are what makes it worth it, you know? So Loki, shout out to Loki. He's no longer with us, but I still do talk to Josh from time to time.

He was a good dog.

Lianne Shinton (59:32)

Yeah, that's a great story. Well, thank you so much, Tyler. We're getting to the end of the hour here. And just want to recap that folks can reach out to you at tylermutto .com. So the last name is -U -T -O. ConsidertheDog .com. And then what was the website to sign up for the seminar in October?

Tyler Muto (59:54)

seminar will be at Joint Forces K9.

Lianne Shinton (59:57)

Perfect. Awesome. Was there anything else you'd like to add today?

Tyler Muto (1:00:02)

No, really appreciate you having me on. I'd be happy to work with and help any trainers out there that are listening that are just looking to either take their business to that next level or really like dial in their training or a little bit of both. I really love working with professional trainers and I love seeing the changes that we can make. So I hope to see some of the listeners either virtually or in person.

Lianne Shinton (1:00:28)

Fantastic. So thanks everyone for listening. Thank you Tyler. And again, I'm Leanne the host and owner of Pet Piz Experts, software for pet professionals and dog trainers. And thanks for listening.

Tyler Muto (1:00:43)

Thank you.