AN OPEN-MINDED PODCAST.
Ep. 27 Transcript
Episode 27: The Open Minded Approach
​
Mattison: [00:00:00] this episode is definitely a long time coming, three years, four years,
Jerri: bro. I can't even handle it. We were just we were just talking for 30 full minutes before this, like passionately, like we were standing at a seminar and there were people around and it
Mattison: was just me and you. I know. I feel like we had to get that out though our.
Emotional word, vomit. So we can coherently talk about this. I know. Because it's something we care about. Oh my gosh. It's everything. It's everything in what we do. When people ask us, what is it about the way that you train? What is it that makes it different. This is the answer.
It's the open-minded approach. And so I guess that's probably a good place to start. We're gonna be unpacking the open-minded approach today. Not just what it is, but how it got started, what it means in practice, and why we are so obsessed with it, and why it's at the core of everything that we do.
So Jerry, I know I primed you with this question maybe last week sometime, but if you could describe the open-minded [00:01:00] approach in one sentence. What would it be?
Jerri: I like what we decided and what you prompted me. Can I read it? Yeah. Because that's a what, what I'm about to say is a lot of years of me mulling over this.
Thinking about the most concise way to say it but I like this. It's a way of living and working with dogs where dogs, humans, and society all matter individually and collectively. Yeah. Now that may sound like a little hooty who. WWW to people. If you were to just ask me without that, to me it's a way of working with dogs where humans, dogs, and society all matter, is what I would've probably said simply.
But what does that mean? What does all matter? We matter collectively and we matter individually, and it's a cost benefit analysis on why we make some of the decisions that we make a lot of times. And I really wanna stress. That the open-minded approach puts a [00:02:00] heavy emphasis on cost benefit. It's really important to weigh the cost of something against what you're gonna gain from it.
Because if the cost is too great, and that, think about it, everybody knows that concept, that can resonate with every person. That if the cost of something is too high and you're not willing to pay that price for what you're gonna get, you really gotta think about what you're doing 'cause you're walking into a mistake somewhere and it's gonna hurt somebody.
It might be your dog, it might be a human being. It might be just society in general because we collectively make so many yucky decisions that now we're all hurting.
Mattison: I think it's also worth. Mentioning here that Jerry and I are both values led people, and so this is not about sacrificing your values for the sake of compromise.
We actually believe in being values led all the time. However, there's a fine line because. Your values, your ideals, they matter. But we live in the real world. So being an idealist is not practical and is [00:03:00] not actually gonna yield any results in your life with your dog. We have to be realistic. We have to look at the actual situation for what it is and understand that unless you are living alone off grid somewhere, which is totally possible, then society is a part of the conversation and we need to be talking about that.
And we need to be living in reality.
Jerri: To do that, you'd have to have somebody that's lived in reality. The reason that there is controversy over ideology. Dog training at its core is simple to me. If I were to explain that, I would say when people that have not had a walk around the world, a walk in the world, amo, a walk among people, start making protocol, not protocols, but.
Help me, Madison. They start making policy based decisions. Policy, thank you. Policy
Mattison: informing decisions.
Jerri: Yep. When people who have had little strife in life and would even argue with you about the strife that [00:04:00] they've had, because they're completely and totally unaware. Something like having a hard time in college is very relative to some other things that some of us have endured, right?
So when people like that start making policy-based decisions, especially those that affect the community, you can be sure, you can be sure that it is not going to include multiple different perspectives that are. Existing commonly among people and dogs. You can just be sure when you get one type of lens, one type of group of people.
And I'm not having it anymore. I'm not having it. And I would also like to say, I would also like to take this opportunity to say, and you can back me up on this if you want to, or you can stay silent on this. The open-minded approach is positive reinforcement based. And the insinuation that it is.
Anything other than that by anyone that is a bold faced lie, the open-minded
Mattison: approach. It is an unwillingness. To [00:05:00] use aversive tactics on humans.
Jerri: Yeah. I will not do it and I also will not shun people. I there, there's a reason why in AA, the requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Yeah. It is not.
You have stopped drinking because you know why? Because everyone would be dead. That's why everyone would be fucking dead. And what good are we gonna do there? So it's, do you have a desire? I can't tell you I've been drunker than a drunk drunker than Kuda Brown in meetings and they had to put up with that shit.
But you know what? I came back and I wasn't drunk because you had a desire. And I remembered that even in my, in some of my worst, most disgusting moments. My most horrible choices. Those people had compassion for me. Those people had compassion for me and remembered what it was like to be like that.
And to not be able to even understand what you're doing or why you're doing it. You only know what you [00:06:00] know. It's not that much. You're trying to cope, you're trying to they knew I didn't even have to say anything to 'em, ever. I could go in a meeting. And be quietly crying and sit down. And it wouldn't even matter what I said.
They all knew exactly how I felt, exactly how I felt. So that is what is missing because dog training has either become very academia driven, clinical sterile. Or because, especially in the
Mattison: behavior side,
Jerri: absolutely. And there's some great people in canine behavior. I wanna say that there's some great people Oh, yeah.
Who are incredibly educated and many of them very experienced. So I don't wanna say that they're not there. I'm glad that they're there, and I would encourage them to please stay. But the barrier to entry is low for dog training. And so what that also attracts is the other extreme. So a, at the end of the spectrum where you have on one end, clinicalize sterile without diversity as the as [00:07:00] the main lens. Then on the other side you have really just pure ignorance. Ignorance, irresponsibility true ignorance. About the overall impact of what you're doing? Reckless, I'm not ignorance.
Yeah, reckless ignorance, that return,
Mattison: right
Jerri: yeah. I think most of the people that work with dogs. For whatever reason have a special place for dogs in their heart. To say that the man backyard breeds that I love dogs more than him and I can prove it.
That's I don't know what's in his heart. I don't know what he's gone through, and I don't know why he's made that decision to continue to breed dogs. It may be the only thing that he has in life, and he has no idea of the overall impact of what that is. And the only time that he does care about anything is from angry groups of white women screaming about backyard breeding.
Yeah. And he just, which doesn't anything, he doesn't listen to that. Doesn't anything, yeah, he doesn't listen to that. Because, why would you, I don't listen to that either. So it's a, it's just a [00:08:00] very, you have to have been around so many different kinds of people. And I think also more, more than that, you have to have been many people.
You have to have really been a lot of people. That's why I try to show people that I'm not just flippant and be, and doing all these different things and be that I am all these people. They are all me. And I hope that in seeing that you have permission or you feel permission now as the saying goes.
For Marion Williamson, for you to do what you wanna do and you to shine your little weirdo ass light like I'm shining mind over here. That just all what? It's really hit home
Mattison: for me. That was really beautiful.
Jerri: I feel like you've been many people too. I feel like Denise F's been, many people
Mattison: resonated with that.
I'm ready to be
Jerri: a new
Mattison: person every day. I'm a Scorpio every day
Jerri: baby. Every day. I'll look at something I said six months ago and I'm like, you're so dumb. Jerry, why did you say that shit, God, because I'm new. I'm new all the time and keeps [00:09:00] you humble. One of us are. It does and it does. That's and it's so funny.
So it's fun. It's so funny. It can be fun. I just love not taking myself seriously. Now watch out. I can make fun of myself all I want, but if you make fun of me, we gotta be really close. What
Mattison: I wanna talk about, if I can ask you about this concept that you and I have been kicking around a little bit, and it ties into this of the dog training industry.
Versus viewing dog training as a profession and kind of viewing it as this commodity and sort of the issue there in not seeing it as the craft that it is and what was the impact and how that hit you and also helped inform the open-minded approach.
Jerri: First of all, I wanna give credit to that, where that came from when I said it, and that was Daphne Mendoza, who is one of the.
Most wonderful.
Mattison: We're gonna be having her on for episode. Valuable Okay. To talk about unpacking
Jerri: community, valuable community. Yeah.
Mattison: Yep.
Jerri: Yeah. She's a real community leader. [00:10:00] That's what, she's a real community leader with a real experience. And if we are not listening to people like that, we're failing as species.
We're failing in this profession. We're, if we don't uplift them and hear what they're saying and put their suggestions into action that we agree upon that are okay, we like that. Let's go, let's try that. Then we're failing. We're failing in this profession. So that's where that came from.
But I sat on it and I thought about that and that's why industry never felt right to me. But I wasn't really sure what language. To use. And so when she said that it just stuck out, like the open-minded approach is not about the open-minded approach is my penicillin.
Mattison: Yeah,
Jerri: I don't need a, I don't need a patent for it.
I don't need a copyright for it. I don't need to, oh, I did this and now I'm gonna make money off of it. It's like the open-minded approach is my humble gift to the world. I don't know how to explain [00:11:00] that. It's my piece of art. It's my, it's not for sale. It's not to buy. It's not that anybody can learn about it.
Mattison: That's why we're teaching it right now. Please, anybody can learn about that. Come and watch and you're gonna learn about it.
Jerri: Yeah. Now if you wanna work with me one-on-one and have me mentor you in this, but that's totally different. But all of it is available to learn and understand.
Literally for free on the internet. If you put all the pieces together, I'm sure you could get every single thing for free. 'cause this is my thing is I know how stuff gets changed. Certain people know how things get changed in policy.
I know how things get changed on the streets. I know how things get changed in pop culture and in practice. Yeah. So that's where that okay, if I listen to my mentor and friend that is a community leader saying to me, I'm gonna change the language of me saying something and here's why. It's my job with the platform, with the [00:12:00] biggest reach with this concept.
It's my job to take that and put it out there now and to speak like that and to make sure that I'm disciplined in that way and that I catch myself and make sure that I say the right thing because she's right and it will only help the community, but it will also help me communicate the open-minded approach like this is my profession.
These are, this is the moral code inside, which I'm practicing and the lens in which I'm looking out of. It's not an industry where I have a thing that I'm selling.
Mattison: So now it's time to get into the five pillars of the open-minded approach, which this wasn't a framework that we created these five pillars and then put them into practice. This was years of putting the open-minded approach into practice, and then Jerry and I locking ourselves in a room. In Wichita, Rose Hill, Kansas.
To actually sticky note a giant murder. Yeah. Yeah. We called it the murder board. The murder board. And we, [00:13:00] because we felt
Jerri: like
Mattison: detectives. Yeah. It felt like only murders in the building. And we were really piecing some things together. We redid it about. 50 times that day I think, and moved things around, but the patterns that came through and the through lines were really clear, really apparent, and it actually wasn't difficult for these five things to just rise to the surface of all the day-to-day of what we do. And those five pillars are transparency, accountability, community accessibility, and transformation. And I do wanna get into the specifics of these here, right? So what does transparency really mean for you in practice, Jerry? There's a lot of facets to this.
This is not just one thing. I'm glad, I'm
Jerri: so glad we prepared for this podcast episode. Everyone listening,
Mattison: we had to, this is, we really did we a culmination of everything from the last three and a half. I'm so happy.
Jerri: Yeah. I'm just so happy to have thoughtful answers to this that we put time and effort into.
I [00:14:00] hope that everyone receives it that way. Just makes me happy. So transparency started because of the board and train problem. The whole concept, I think any of us could agree. Regardless of whether we do board and trains or not, is that it is a environment and a setup to a situation that is ripe for misuse and abuse by people that either don't know what they're doing or
I don't want to make this about demonizing other trainers, so it led me down the road of what is it about that situation? That for some trainers goes really well and for some goes, goes really poorly. And some of the things that I came up with were a lot of the trainers that do board and trains well, they have cameras, 'cause there are
Mattison: ethical board and trains
Jerri: yeah. They have a lot of contact with the family. They're just your basic. Obvious green flags of, Hey, I have your dog, and I said that I was gonna train it. Just the things you would wanna see you'll see that really from them. But I think that [00:15:00] some of the things we put into place.
That help build transparency. Absolutely. Documenting, yeah. Documentation more negotiable. Just yeah. Yeah. And I may I make jokes about it that I was a vet tech for a long time. You don't have to talk. I will document, you should see me put in some medical notes.
Mattison: During my 10 week curriculum to be a dog trainer, we were taught the 10 unbreakable rules of dog training.
I only remember one of them, which is that you have to document everything. Yeah. Because it's important. And it is for your safety. It is for the dog safety. It is for progress. It is for so many reasons that it just needs to be non-optional, non-negotiable.
Jerri: Yeah. I agree. I think also a big thing that we have done to contribute to lack of transparency is that we've made it impossible for people to share what is going wrong and what they are struggling with or where they're plateauing.[00:16:00]
For fear of, the crucible army, here they come. To put you on the, put you on the stake and burn you. And you need to admit heretic, you need to admit that you're a witch and you've done these evil things. It's bizarre. And so it's made people afraid to be honest.
It's made people afraid. And you guys, I just wanna stress, stress this. However bad it has gotten for you on social media and however, whatever that little situation was that was hard for you, please hear me when I say I know what you're talking about, times that by about a million.
Mattison: And then
Jerri: times that by five years. And that's how it feels to be, I don't know how it feels to be like an influencer or whatever in the other world, but that's what it feels like to have a large platform as in dog journey, especially as a black woman.
You just attract a lot of people saying a lot of really weird stuff to you. That's why I push so much. The, that piece that the open-minded approach is about a [00:17:00] non-judgmental environment come as you are. Yeah, because I don't, I am not interested in helping people that are perfect. I'm not interested in helping people that have it all together.
You need to go over there and live your life. Not, that's not what I'm doing, and I'm happy for you. Yay. High kick. I'm looking for the people that are desperate. I'm looking for the people that are confused and scared. I'm looking for the people that are curious. So please, if you take nothing else away about what is the human aspect of it, it really is that.
Mattison: Yeah. There's also an element of using video for a lot of different things. Specifically video is a massive way that we push transparency, right? Visibility. To prevent the abuse in board and trains as a. Just normal way to show up with your dog because there is a lot of training that if you learn to [00:18:00] watch it back, you will become a master at this.
You will absolutely become a master at this. Oh my gosh. There's
Jerri: nothing like game film. If
Mattison: the game film, listen, film yourself, watch it back. You'll advance your own skills as a handler. As somebody working with that specific dog at an exponential rate. We also.
Are not big fans of gatekeeping, so we really like to be able to have really great examples to be able to teach and show others and not feel like there has to be this exclusive club. The open-minded approach is far from that. Far from the opposite of that, in fact. Yeah.
Jerri: Come on, riffraff. Get in here with us.
Mattison: So the next pillar is accountability. And I do think that accountability maybe can get a little bit complicated, but may, maybe not. Maybe at the end of the day it's very simple, but it's not maybe just as simple as you show up and train your dog. It goes beyond that. So what would you say are some of the most important layers to this?
[00:19:00] Because the. Transparency piece is really about us as professionals, and this accountability piece is really for the pet parents. And we do ask our clients, you and me, Jerry and Madison, we ask them to come to the table with a high level of accountability. Otherwise it's probably not gonna be a great fit because this process, while incredibly effective, it requires accountability.
So what is the most important piece of that, and then what are the other layers underneath of it?
Jerri: The number one most important part is not living in. Delusional land. Not living in delusional land about your dog storylines. Don't want a Labrador life with a healer.
Like those kinds of things. So what type of genetics does your dog have? That, that, if you're not thinking about that, you're not living in reality, do you have small children that run around your home? And is that acceptable in your home? It might be. It might be acceptable. For a lot of people to come in and out of your house, you might not have a house like that.
You [00:20:00] might, if you wanna go and get a great nees, I would suggest that you not. Live in a busy house where random small children or adults walk into your house at any hour of the day. You know that a lot of people have houses like that. I have a house like that. Yeah. Just people just walking in and that's the way that I want my house to be.
So you have a dog, but I have a dog is comfortable with that. Yeah. The dog that's very friendly, generally very friendly people. Yep. Yeah. Bullies are great for that. If you teach 'em what's going on and you take the time they're actually really great because they like people once they Very social.
Yeah. Once they know somebody, they're, they may not, depending on your dog's personality, but it's not the same as if you have a German Shepherd and you want random people to be able to come in. That's not, so I see a lot of that. I know you see a lot of that too. Just don't delude yourself about something and think that just that you're gonna figure it out or your virtue is gonna solve the problem.
It's not. And a lot of the things that we make [00:21:00] mistakes about are because of extreme incompatibility. Yeah. But then we acknowledge it, we're aware of it. But we don't take the action steps to change it. We just learn to our expectations live with the Yeah. Or our expectations, and we learn to live with the incompatibility.
And a lot of times our lives and our dogs lives ion smaller. Smaller, yeah. A lot of resentment, a lot of frustration. It's hard to have a healthy relationship when you're totally incompatible and you don't know how to close that gap any at all. It can be done. Yeah. I, there's lots of room for compromise with
Mattison: incompatibility.
That's true.
Jerri: There. I would say it's I heard someone say once that compromise means that both parties have to give something up. Yeah. So she said workability. Is there, workability there? Meaning is this something that can budge and change a little or is this something not, this is something fixed.
We can't change it no matter what. Like something fixed in Enzo is the tally mouse [00:22:00] problem. That's, it's not it's a little workable, meaning I can do things like learning how to manage arousal, prevent things from happening, but it's a fixed thing. You can't teach them to not care about qui.
Yeah. It just is. So I think that, it's important to know that. So you said something, you said it's not just about showing up every day. Consistency has, it's certainly part of a lot of components to it. Yeah. I think honesty is the biggest part of accountability. Actually. I agree.
To the listeners, the hardest thing a human being will ever do is be honest with themselves. To be honest with themselves and to forgive themselves as a person Among other people it, some people are not even aware that they need to do any either of those things and it's so painful for them to be honest with themselves.
They'll hang on to behaviors that don't serve them and that don't serve their family. Don't serve their dog all out of not wanting to be honest with themselves. It is such an infamous condition in human beings that there's a phrase [00:23:00] in AA about it in the big book about it. It's shocking to me. Rarely have we seen a person fail that has thoroughly followed our path.
Those who do not cannot or will not be honest with themselves and seem to be. Something I'm paraphrasing now, but seem to be like constitutionally incapable of doing so, like to the point of where they'll die. Yeah. So I know that it's not just drunks that do that. It's human beings that do that. And so the biggest part of accountability is just, it's okay to be honest with yourself.
It's okay if you, if even the answers that you find are like,
Mattison: yeah,
Jerri: big deal that happens.
Mattison: That happens
Jerri: a lot. Big deal. Big deal. It just, it allows you to take responsibility without feeling shame for yourself. You don't need to feel that. That's the other thing. You don't need to feel ashamed of yourself for working on something.
Working on something doesn't mean you're going to be perfect.
Mattison: I think that this is one of the core, core elements of trying [00:24:00] to dismantle how deeply woven in the savior complex is. Within our, yeah. God. I just wanna bash my head into a brick wall. People have unfortunately bought into the lie that they are not enough for their dogs.
And you are like, everyone is. I am not special. I've learned a lot and I've practiced a lot. And you can learn a lot and practice a lot too, and get there with your dog, everybody can. And that's what this is all about, is everybody being welcome and being welcome as they are, as long as you're willing to take accountability.
Jerri: Yeah. Yeah. The savior complex is a deep topic. It's a deep topic
Mattison: and a real problem.
Jerri: And a real problem. And it's such a problem that a lot of the things that I have to say about it are so controversial that it'll probably take another I'm gonna have to say 'em, and then it's probably gonna take another year for people to be like, they'll start saying it, and then I'll have one of those moments.
I'm where I'm like, I said this a year ago, and everybody was rude to be about it. It's like I was just [00:25:00] starting the savior complex is a construct. Of Western society, and that's what I'll say about that. If you wanna know more about that, I would encourage you to just do, look for yourself and look for where the origins of that are.
And think on that how might this apply to the dog world in particular? To rescues. Can I see any comparisons here? Use your own critical thinking skills and see what you think about it, but the savior complex and saving something and rescuing something that your nobility stops there.
If that's what's happening there. If and for whatever reason. And I love people to rescue dogs, please keep rescuing dogs. They need you. I'm a rescue dog myself. Little rat of tat from down in Georgia. Snatched me up. I was running around on the streets. I wasn't, my parents adopted me though, and as a baby before I could run or I would've been out there causing problems and wreaking havoc.
But it, the decision how, however you end up with your dog is how you end up with your dog. [00:26:00] And then the playing field is once again, even everything's cleared out. Everybody's all on the same level ground because we all have a responsibility after acquiring the animal in whichever way we did, to help it.
To help it not only domesticate to society, because that's what we have to do, lame, build a relationship and to learn what it's like to. The way I think about it is commune with an animal and make that animal wanna be with you. Wanna spend time with you. How fucking cool.
I look at Enzo he's like a big giant tiger and every time we're walking in public and he's just right beside me and he, I just feel so cool. It's not because I'm like. I think it makes me look tough. It's not because of that, it's because of Princess Jasmine, and that's a problem that we all have.
Which leads me to my next point. The Disney
Mattison: Princess.
Jerri: The Disney Princess Syndrome. We the millennials and the older Gen Zers. Listen, we got a real bad deal. Okay. We got a bad deal. With Walt Disney [00:27:00] and the princesses and the damn animals, like it's not real unavoidable. We can't do that. We've all got it.
We've all got it though. We've all got the syndrome. We can't. We can't.
Mattison: Can we all wanna do a and have the birds come in and help us get ready in the morning and clean up after? That's right. That's right.
Jerri: Oh, it just sounds so nice even hearing you say it, doesn't it, but. We can come close to it, we can aim to have little snapshots of Disney Princess experiences.
But I'm here to tell you, I'm here to tell you as a certified Disney princess myself, but it takes if somebody's making it look easy, they've been putting a lot of practice into something. And so if that's something that. Sounds good to you, which it does to me. Disney Princessing sounds awesome to me.
I just wanna make sure that I've earned that title and that it's be those moments happen because I, it's not a delusion I support my dog. Yeah. It's not a delusion. I support the de only delusion I have for the world is in, in my own self-confidence and it's all used up. [00:28:00] I don't have delusion for other situations 'cause I've injected it right into my self-confidence.
But that's all I mean by that is be careful of Disney Princess syndrome. Be careful of save your complex and if you do wanna do a magic carpet, ride with your tiger, make sure you're prepared. And that everybody's safe. ,
Mattison: so all we ask is a little bit of preparation and safety.
That's right. So now let's get into community. Which is a pillar that I believe was borrowed from the recovery model.
Jerri: Yeah. So Fellowship, self-sustaining communities which I had to build. So that's where Dogs Anonymous comes in. And we are going to do an entire episode on that. At some point. Let you guys look forward to that.
I don't wanna, I don't wanna talk about that too much right now, but that's part of it is the open-minded approach is again, like my gift, my, my little. Crafted offering put together. Yeah like at first it was just a bunch of Popsicle sticks [00:29:00] mashed together with hot glue. Myself birdhouse myself.
I burned myself. I burned myself. It was terrible. I cried. Yeah. Yeah. It's like my little craft that I've been working so hard on to get into the world. But that is what it is it's the gift of how do we turn this boat towards community? How do we write this ship that is so big and so heavy and it's so hard to turn?
We need a plan. We need a plan, and that plan has to include immunity solutions. Whether everybody likes it or not. I am a positive reinforcement based trainer, ma Madison. It's a positive reinforcement based trainer. We are so happy when we see people doing what we do. We're so happy when we just see people out with their dogs.
Period. Let's start there. Yeah. Yep. But community has to involve harm reduction. There have to be harm reduction solutions because if there are not, we all know what happens [00:30:00] and it's not good. It's not, and dogs fall
Mattison: through the cracks,
Jerri: fall through the cracks. They
Mattison: don't find the rise miracle of black markets.
Jerri: Yeah. They, it. They don't find their miracle. And it also increases. Shady shit. Shady shit. That's a great way of saying it. And that was exactly what I was looking for. The reason comm community is so important. The number one reason is that because when you're of service, you get outside yourself. And when we're inside ourselves all the time, you guys, we will create shit that worlds that don't even exist. For our own suffering.
For our own suffering, our own heads. And so when you are of service to someone else, especially something that's meaningful to you, you get outside of yourself and that helps you see that there are a lot more people out there than just you. And everything is not about the centering of our feelings and the, and what's going on in our ahead.
Those are things that are happening, there's a lot of stakeholders out there, humans, dogs, society. We can't just be dog focused. We can't [00:31:00] just be human focused. We can't just be fuck all the dogs. There's no more dogs allowed, ban everything. So society is safe. We can't be just society focused.
It's a complicated, layered thing. But it doesn't have to be. It just takes the minds, the right minds getting together to come up with some solutions. The this type of stuff is rooted in a way in many ways in recovery because there it's principles before personalities. So you learn that a lot of stuff that you have in your head is like you just taking things personal and you just not liking something that somebody's doing or saying.
So now all of a sudden throw the baby out with the bath water. Now all of a sudden it's all shit. It's no, because that person just has a different personality and they're just gonna do stuff a little differently than you say things a little differently than you because of their life experience.
But the principles that we're here for remain. So the way that applies to the open-minded approaches, [00:32:00] that person may be doing something that you would never do, that you would never that, or that you used to do, that you don't do, or that you haven't done yet, or whatever it is. The principle is the prevailing thing, meaning if someone has come for help, if someone has come seeking, if someone has, and I just said it earlier, the desire, then that is the prevailing thing.
If someone has the desire because their mind is open, their mind is open, and that's when change can happen. Change does not happen when we browbeat members of the community. And threaten bans and say, this is the only way forward. And then to make matters worse, we have absolutely no plan to move forward outside of taking everything away from everyone.
That's not community driven, that's policy driven. That's bureaucracy. And when you let that stuff inside of dog training, especially in America, [00:33:00] it's going to, it's gonna leave people out. It's gonna leave people out marginalized. I don't want that marginalized every time.
Yeah. It's gonna, it's gonna marginalize people. Yeah.
Mattison: Yeah. I think that actually leads perfectly into the next pillar of accessibility, right? Yeah. And to me, this is four. Everyone. And when we say that this is for everyone, we really wanna mean that. And some of that was intentional and some of that was a wonderful consequence of us.
Developing this delivery format over the last couple of years. But talk to me about how this format got started and we don't have, days, which is what we would need to go into this too much in terms of like we don't have time to talk deeply about the Daily Method, but if you can talk about the birth of asynchronous training as your model.
Jerri: Yeah. I was spending a great deal of time in Italy and for weeks at a time I would be there and then. [00:34:00] There would be months at a time that I wasn't there and I was going back and forth and I had to figure out how to communicate with people that I was close with, even though the time zones were different.
So that, that was really how I learned about, okay, there's this asynchronous way to talk to people. Many people are like, oh yeah, WhatsApp does that, or such and such, or, but I mean there are many apps that have done this. This isn't, that wasn't revolutionary necessarily at the time, but it was COVID. Yeah.
Things were wild back then. So I discovered Marco Polo, which was great in the beginning for me to use with clients because it was it was just an easy to use app. I think anybody could have used it. But as the business grew and as I started doing more complicated things over virtual platforms, virtual coaching platforms that term started coming into Yeah, the asynchronous into yeah.
That, because coaching platforms really weren't that popular prior to 2020. There [00:35:00] were a few, but there weren't there weren't a lot. And so Marco Polo was really. Geared towards friends and family, but then an app came out called Volley that was geared towards the professionals in asynchronous coaching.
I had the really, the pleasure. I think it was, this is such a cool learning experience to work closely with the creators of the app. Talking their team was great how I was using it. Yeah, their team was really cool talking about how I was using it and other trainers like me, which at the time were just Madison and of course the Tulsa pack trainers.
But outside of my business. So that was really cool. But it was a startup and they ran outta capital, I think that they are back. But they would have to be around for several new ownership before I would, yeah, before I would switch back. But a great app and nothing but nice things to say about them.
So I moved to Slack and was really pleased to find out how many people out of my clients especially, were like, oh yeah, I use that for work. I already know how to use that, the familiarity. So that was really cool. Yeah. [00:36:00] Removes a real barrier for a lot of people I think. Yeah, it does. It does. And. Also, and we know it's gonna stick around.
It's just, yeah, we know it's gonna stick around. It's free. It's totally free. You don't have to have the pro, you don't need to be unless you want to save those videos forever. But you can download them wink, so I, but I do love it and I encourage people to check it out if they have more questions about it.
But that's how it was born. And along the way we realized that. Wow. I could train dogs all over the world and the time zone makes no difference as long as we both check the sap once every 24 hours and we work together. Every 24 hour, we're both just here and at the time, that's convenient for us.
And so I've had clients all over the world because of it. Yep. From Australia to. Berlin to, Saudi Arabia to I just everywhere you can think of, which is Ireland and Malaysia,
Mattison: where it's like almost exactly, 11, 12 hour difference.
Jerri: Yeah. It's grown me as a trainer and I, [00:37:00] that's been a gift that I didn't see coming.
I didn't see that coming. And I like that. I also noticed along the way that the people that followed me in the deaf community were like, your stuff's really accessible to us. You caption everything. Your apps all come captioned. It just, it was really nice to hear that, that, something of my own ignorance, of my own, just not paying attention.
And not thinking about others that may be in my community, but I figured it out and they brought a lot of things to my attention and really helped me with that. There's millions of people in the deaf community, so they need to have access to things too.
Mattison: We were talking earlier about, the moment you remember when I came to you and said, I'm not gonna be training dogs in person anymore.
I'm only working virtually, and it's this. Real shift in the way that I deliver training. And it's been years now at this point, and it's not that in-person training doesn't happen. It does happen in certain contexts, but it's not the [00:38:00] standard every day to day because it actually doesn't mimic life. It's very performative and info dumpy and wasn't super effective in the long run, versus having this daily asynchronous virtual touchpoint and knowing that, traditional training models leave people out.
We've constantly referred back to the single mom in the city with a puppy. So what's she gonna do? Get a babysitter, get on a city bus with her puppy and go to her local pet store to do classes. That's not practical in the slightest.
It's not meeting people where they are and. On top of being able to meet people in a better way, we're also able to, I think, serve certain challenging behaviors in a really beautiful hybrid format. And I think of stranger danger dogs, right? Of how many dogs have been not even flooded, but triggered at their first session because they weren't ready.
And this allows us to get dogs ready for the work of behavior modification in a way that we never could if our mere presence. [00:39:00] Was gonna send them into a state where they could no longer learn. Dogs we're not learning. And we can find ways for those dogs that are easily overstimulated to learn at a very fast rate, and at the same time be building trust and partnership with their person as opposed to stress on both ends.
Jerri: I think it's revolutionary. I think it's, I still, and I rarely think that things that I do and say years ago are revolutionary. I normally am like, Ooh. 'cause I've grown and I, no, this is different. Like we've always. Been like, oh my God, this is like gonna change everything because you can just help so many more dogs at once.
And you also in the most strange, paradoxical way, build closer relationships with their owners. But you have to not wanna be hiding from yourself. And a lot of dog trainers wanna hide from themselves. If you wanna hide from yourself, and it's hard for you to talk to people, this is not the, this is not the approach for you.
You're welcome here. I hope [00:40:00] that you come and learn you know why? Because I don't wanna exclude anybody. But takes showing it'll be struggle for you. Up a means, dean. This is, yeah. Privately, this is where we're working
Mattison: in a one-to-one private channel, and nothing has to be shared publicly.
Both of us have, the utmost respect for privacy, but part of showing up is being willing to be seen. Yeah.
Jerri: And we work really hard to create a safe space for that. Yeah. I think it also, because we do create that safe space I'll show people just the other day. Client was apologizing for something in her house, and I walked right over to the biggest stand on my floor that's covered up with a rug and flipped it back off the thing and was like, and this is here because there's a giant stand on my floor.
I don't care about any of that. I don't care about judging you. I don't care about any of that. If I see something that's real wacky trust, I'll say something, but it's not about that.
Mattison: Yeah. Non-judgmental. Yeah. So let's get into the last pillar, [00:41:00] which is big, massive. This is something that I think we're both just deeply connected to the concept of transformation, right?
Always ready to become a new person. Addicted. Addicted. Yeah. Obsessed. Obsessed with transformation. Obsessed. Yeah. But not through traditional obedience training that's related to dogs. Generally, we see a different path to transformation that does not rely on traditional obedience, that doesn't rely on punishment, physical punishment.
Jerri: I think that a lot of working with a dog is actually animal husbandry and everybody wants every moment with their dog to be so fucking magical. And it's not, it's just not sometimes this is the dark
Mattison: side of the Disney princess syndrome. Yeah,
Jerri: that's right.
Sometimes when I'm out on a walk with Enzo, I'm doing husbandry. I don't wanna be out there. I have 15 million other things to do. But in that moment, I'm doing really great animal husbandry. I'm making sure that his needs are met and that he's taken care of and he has what he needs, and then [00:42:00] I can move on with whatever.
That's a lot of it. Is that, can we get back to that? Can we get back to, I said I was gonna keep this creature and I was gonna look out for him or her, and I was gonna do right by them and I was gonna make sure that they're good. Not just in whatever delusional land that I live in, where merely my presence is enough, but to actually really find out who is this?
Little creature. Who is this little creature and what does he need for me to take care of them? It's hard for people to see it with dogs, but when you have horses or livestock, when you have an animal that isn't designed to wanna be just your companion or to work so closely with you is, as we do with dogs, you start to see that a lot of the stuff that you do with them and a lot of the way that you build a bond with them has nothing to do with when you're riding them or when you're working with them.
It's the little quiet decisions. It's those little moments where you bring your grooming bucket out, and you set it down and you choose to go over to your horse and stand really quietly and [00:43:00] pet them. It's where they, it's where they get to learn about who you are. Who are you? Yeah,
Mattison: but
Jerri: we don't think about it like that.
We think about it like, I need to transform this dog. I need to fix this dog. I need to make this dog. And it's that's not really what's going on. It's it's, it really isn't, is you're learning how to care for the thing that you promised you would care for. And there's a lot of stuff involved in that, but I would just really like to see us get back to putting animal husbandry at the center because I think it would make the process of letting go of that.
Old fallacy that obedience is the way to things. Yeah. And it would open the door for more people that felt that they weren't competent in that area, that they didn't have a lot of experience with obedience. It would allow room for them, to feel like they could come into and learn some things.
Mattison: And I know that you've said on multiple occasions that is just a really important quality for people to come in with, is the curiosity, the, again, the word desire. [00:44:00] The desire to learn, to really. Already acknowledge that there are things, there's information that exists out there that you don't yet have that could change everything.
And being curious, but then also looking at your dog with this wonder, right? With this curiosity and all and wonder of this creature that I'm like an animal that I'm literally living my life with and there's. There's a reverence there that maybe maybe we could go back to a little bit more.
Yeah. It'd be nice. It'd be nice to see. And the daily method at its heart is not about more work necessarily, but this is about the, I forgot the way that you said it. This was years ago at this point. The difference between weekly and daily? If you work something weekly, you're gonna get weekly results.
If you work something daily, you're gonna get daily results. And it's that 1%. It's that 1% better every day.
Jerri: Yeah. I think that comes down to standards. People have different standards and some people are wanting the standard of someone that works daily. They [00:45:00] want those results, and they're really not holding that standard.
They're doing a weekly standard. They're doing the, it's important like you're gonna get out what you put in and it's much easier. If you put in a little bit every day that you're sure you're gonna do that, you're sure you're gonna get, most of the time, 80 to 90% of the time, you can have bad days, but whatever.
It's so much easier you guys to make changes. Yeah. Hear me? People measured steps much easier to make changes. That's our theme this year. Measured steps. Little small. Small measured steps will get you there.
Mattison: So now let's zoom out. That was a lot of details. If you could sum up in a couple of sentences what it actually looks like to be in the day-to-day of a client who is working through the open-minded approach.
Could you describe what that looks like? Like a person in rehab? Or person that's new to recovery. So much with a sponsor that they're talking to every day with a sponsor that they're talking to every day. I'm not a big fan of rehab. I'm a much bigger fan of, [00:46:00] but I think people get sober how they get sober.
Jerri: So I don't wanna, but it's very much like immersion, like learning a new language. So you'd have to be immersed in it learning a sport. Need, you'd need a reasonable degree of immersion where you're doing it every single day.
Mattison: And intensive. Yeah. Yeah.
Jerri: So that's what it feels like. Like a recovery
Mattison: intensive.
Yeah. Yeah. With a lot of support,
Jerri: like Yeah, with a lot of support. It's the same as me dragging my trash bag full of items into the detox. Here we are. I can't do this anymore. I need help. I cannot live like this anymore. I need things to change. I need to change. That's what it's like to work with me.
That you are at that, you're at that threshold. Now, I love people to come to me before they get to that desperate points, right? But I also know how people are. I'm a people and we don't do that. A lot of times. We wait until we are worse for wear and we're at some kind of rock bottom, and then the gift of [00:47:00] desperation comes upon us and we're willing to step out and say, I need some help.
So that's where people find themselves. What it's like to work with me on a day-to-day basis, I hope is like learning a new language. I hope that it's a little challenging. I hope that it's fun. I hope that you're inspired to go out and speak it. I hope that you wanna learn more when we're done with our time together.
I hope you feel relief that you made the right decision and you picked the right person to help you. And I hope you feel hopeful that, and hopeful and confident to move forward with those skills. That's what it's like to work with me. That's the reflections that I have received from people.
Mattison: Yeah, the open-minded approach.
It's not some theory, right? It's not something that we wanna talk about. We want people to hear about it, and that's it. It's a living framework, and if you want to come and learn how to live the open-minded approach, we are ready for you. And there is a [00:48:00] space for you here now for pet professionals. We are doing our first ever deep dive on this topic.
You can spend two days with us learning exactly how we train and what makes it so different from the traditional pet dog training, and also what makes it so incredibly effective. You can join us on October 18th and 19th in Cork Ireland. Tickets are on sale now with payment plans available. Click the link in the show notes