Speaker 1: 0:31

Juliana DeWillems. I own JW Dog Training and Behavior Consulting and we serve pretty much anyone who has a dog specifically in Northern Virginia, anybody in Springfield and Alexandria who has a dog that we do offer virtual training worldwide. We also specialize in people who have dogs with more complex challenges. So while we are happy to help everyone, that's kind of our target audience Amazing.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Now take me back. What kind of drew you to the world of dog training and behavior consulting? Give me a quick overview of your journey from the start.

Speaker 1: 1:03

When I was in college which I know everybody's like when I grew up okay, you don't have to go for that far back, but it is relevant I went to college for animal science and then I started working at an animal shelter and everyone thought, oh great, you're doing what you learned in college.

Speaker 1: 1:18

However, at the animal shelter I was doing event planning and fundraising development, and so it wasn't anything that I learned in my animal science degree. But it was a very small organization, so I sat right next to the foster desk and the foster desk. Of course I'm hearing them all day long Can you take this dog, can you take this dog? So then I started fostering dogs at the ripe age of 21 years old in my parents' house, bringing home these like young crazy shelter dogs, and these young crazy shelter dogs needed help becoming more adoptable. So I started to learn about training and very quickly got swept up into the world of training. I tried to do my my nine to five nonprofit desk job for a little longer. I think I lasted about three more years after that until I finally made the plunge fully into dog training.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Oh, wow, yeah, that's fascinating. So you've built your career around positive reinforcement. So you've built your career around positive reinforcement. Why do you believe this method is not only effective for dogs, but also transformative for the human-dog?

Speaker 1: 2:22

relationship. Yeah, when you are bringing a living being into your home, there can be a lot of stress, challenges and frustration. And when you think about training and trying to communicate to them, coming at it from a positive perspective and a positive way, is what's going to help you strengthen your bond, versus if you're trying to constantly correct or getting angry at them or trying to say, no, you know, don't do that, don't do that. That can be so frustrating. So we really like to encourage people to look for the good, to look for the positive behaviors that their dogs do, Even when you have a challenging problem behavior, coming at it from the perspective of okay, well, I don't want that, but what do I want instead? So I find that it's just so effective. It gets us to our goal more quickly and it just totally strengthens the bond and helps your dog learn to trust you and enjoy you and not fear you or be worried about your next move.

Speaker 2: 3:19

Yeah, absolutely, and I'm sure that you know the dogs pick up on that frustration as well Of course I mean.

Speaker 1: 3:27

It's like you get frustrated and, by the way, the dogs get frustrated too. They think you know I'm trying to just be a dog in this human world and it's hard and the behaviors that come very naturally to me get me in trouble. And I'm just doing my best and you know my human keeps getting frustrated with me. So, yes, there can be a lot of friction in a relationship when there's so much frustration.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Yeah, no, that makes sense. What are some of the biggest misconceptions people still have about dog training today?

Speaker 1: 4:17

do this with my dog, then suddenly they'll never do the behavior again, and this kind of idea that it shouldn't take a lot of effort and it shouldn't the human shouldn't have to change their behavior. But it takes. It takes effort, it's, it's similar to changing any behavior. I mean, think about humans trying to change our behavior and we know we want to change our behavior. You know our dogs have no idea we're trying to change their behavior. So it takes time, it takes consistency and it takes a mindset shift of like. I'm trying to work with my dog to help them learn other behaviors, learn new habits, and it takes time. There's rarely like an end. Ok, we're done training and my dog has learned everything they need to learn and never have to brush up or practice ever again. That's. That's not usually how it goes therapy or something like that.

Speaker 2: 5:16

You're never really fully finished. There's always things you can dig into and there's always kind of ways you can hold yourself accountable to whatever your mindset may be, or things like that. So it definitely makes sense.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Therapy, exercise, any habit that we're trying to maintain but that maybe doesn't come so naturally to us. It takes effort to continue. So you're absolutely right, humans, there's a lot of parallels between our life and our behaviors and our dogs and the way they behave, and so that's part of my job as a trainer is to help people see where they can empathize with their dog more. They can understand their dog better, have more compassion for their dog, because they can relate to how their dog is feeling or what their dog is doing.

Speaker 2: 6:02

Oh, I love that, so they're able to kind of address some things within themselves too.

Speaker 1: 6:07

I bet, yeah, dog training and specifically positive reinforcement training can be very transformative, because it really does change your mindset and and it can remove a lot of the. As humans, I think we're very good at being harsh on ourselves and being like I shouldn't be doing that or I should be doing this differently, and when you start to give your dog grace, that same grace can start to extend to yourself and also the. By the way, the people in your life partners, children, co-workers like oh, maybe I should not focus so much on what I don't want from them and instead start to reinforce and emphasize the behaviors that they are doing. That I really like.

Speaker 2: 6:48

Oh yeah, that's so beautiful. I love that. I kind of wanted to touch on kind of social media and TV along the lines of like misconceptions, because I feel like I'm on TikTok and I see like oh gosh, this with your dog.

Speaker 1: 7:02

it will change them forever and I'm like I don't think I would do that.

Speaker 2: 7:06

But how does dog training rooted in science differ from more traditional methods that people might see on TV or social media or like those kind of trends that pop up?

Speaker 1: 7:16

Gosh, you know TV, like cable TV and TV shows, those were a hurdle for dog training, because the bottom line is that things that are dramatic and sensationalized, that's what gets views. Now, unfortunately, the same exact thing is happening with social media. People see that these dramatic before and afters or these you know, really intense behaviors that people claim to solve in one hour, that's what gets clicks and views and eyes and that's what drives people's behavior to what I was saying before, where there aren't quick fixes. It requires consistency, it requires being really committed to it and in addition to that, a lot of old school training was rooted in what's called alpha theory.

Speaker 1: 8:06

So essentially, once upon a time somebody was studying captive wolves and they said wolves have a hierarchy, you know, there's the alpha and then there's everybody else is under them, and that's how we should be treating our dogs. And then very quickly we realized that's not actually the case. One, wolves are not dogs. Yes, they are distant descendants, but they are not dogs. And two, this study was based on just a very small sample size and the person who did the study came out and said okay, wait a second, nevermind, take that all back. I didn't mean it. Stop thinking that you have to be alpha over your dog.

Speaker 1: 8:45

So essentially we've learned that, pretty much generally speaking, dogs do not have this like very strict hierarchy that we once thought. As humans, we certainly don't need to be the ones trying to exert dominance over them. That can be very harmful for your relationship. And, more importantly, when you just assume your dog is being dominant and you try to take that approach with changing their behavior, you miss what might actually be causing or driving the behavior. Oh, my dog's being dominant? Well, no, actually your dog needs more exercise and they are just pent up and are being a dog. And so if you only assume dominance or alpha, then you're missing the real reason and you could solve your problem a lot quicker if you had a clearer picture of what's going on with your dog.

Speaker 2: 9:37

Yeah, that's really eye-opening because I don't have a dog but I've been around dogs. I fostered dogs when I was in high school and I kind of always had that same thing in my mind, like kind of that alpha hierarchy, because that's all I ever heard about Totally.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Yes, and I too have went down that road. I wrote a whole paper in my animal science college, getting that degree, about dominance theory, which now I look back and I'm like this whole thing was wrong. It's totally wrong. So, yes, we don't know what we don't know. And then, once you learn better, you can change your approach and change your understanding.

Speaker 1: 10:11

I have a crazy story. My aunt had a dog who I now know had severe separation anxiety, which is a panic disorder where dogs panic when they're left alone. And at the time this is like I don't know, 15 years ago she was like yeah, I heard again, you're always regurgitating what you've heard somebody else say. I heard that she panics when I'm gone because she's alpha and she isn't used to her subordinates coming and going. And I was like, oh, that makes total sense.

Speaker 1: 10:39

The dog jumped out of a second story window when we left to go to a concert. So like again, severe behavior challenge. The dog was extremely suffering and we had this total wrong idea of what the root of the problem was and the dog ended up living a happy, wonderful life. But if that was somebody who was trying to help their dog feel better and not panic when left alone and they went down the alpha route. That would add significantly more trauma and stress to the relationship versus getting the help that dog really needed to deal with that panic disorder. All that to say, I've been there even as a professional dog trainer. I started where most of society started, back in the 2010s, thinking all this alpha stuff, and I have now since unlearned all of it.

Speaker 2: 11:28

Yeah, well, that's great that you're able to recognize that and kind of learn better and do better, and when people hear you speak about that and the fact that you learned better and did better, they're more open to kind of changing their mindset around it wants to feel judged or feel bad.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Especially the worst thing is when you start to learn a new way of approaching dog behavior or training a dog and seeing a dog's behavior and you realize kind of how you used to treat your dogs or what you've done in the past, that can be really hard to reconcile with. I never quite did that with dogs, but I did that with horses growing up. I realized, looking back, like I did so much to these horses that I loved but that was really really harmful in the name of training and changing their behavior and so that's like a really hard thing to reconcile with as somebody who loves these animals and the best thing we can do moving forward is change our behavior and learn more. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 12:28

I wanted to ask what's one of the most rewarding transformations you've witnessed in a dog-human partnership through your programs?

Speaker 1: 12:35

left alone, dogs who can't have their nails trimmed, dogs who are afraid of strangers and might be a bite risk. These are all really emotional, challenging issues to live with, both for the dog and the human, and so by the time people come to us, they are often exhausted. In many cases, they have spent money on this already and they're just wondering if they can have a better life with their dog, if they can live a life that is less stressful. And the answer is yes, absolutely. So I'm trying to think of one specifically. It's hard to think of a specific story, because the general outcome is that, yes, everybody, while you might not completely solve a problem, dogs are living beings who have their own temperaments and personalities. Life gets so much better when you start working with a qualified professional.

Speaker 2: 13:39

Yeah, I bet Sounds like it. Why is helping people understand their dogs just as important as teaching dogs new skills?

Speaker 1: 13:48

Because you are living with another living being and the best thing you can do with them is have a two-way conversation where, yes, you might be communicating with them, but if you don't know what they're communicating back to you, that's where so much friction lies with the human-canine bond, where your dog is trying to communicate either either I'm struggling or I'm bored, or I need something and you can't pick up on that communication and you're frustrated. It goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning how frustration can just be, can really fracture the human canine bond. So to be able to understand your dog better and think, so to be able to understand your dog better and think, oh, you're behaving like this, probably because of this, so let me do this that can solve the problem and not go down that road of frustration and turmoil for the both of you.

Speaker 2: 14:43

Yeah, that makes sense. You've built I wanted to touch briefly on like kind of your team culture too, but you've built JW Dog Training into a team of top certified trainers. What would you say are the values that you prioritize when growing?

Speaker 1: 14:58

your team. It has been such a joy to grow my team and such a huge part of building my business over the last five years. I myself do not see clients anymore because I'm so busy with everything else, and so to have a team that I not only trust but I think are best of the best is like. I'm so grateful because it's my brand that these trainers are going out and representing and they are also putting their trust in me to take care of them as the business owner. So it's been a really interesting wild ride.

Speaker 1: 15:33

I take trainers who are top of the line with both training dogs and training people, so I have very high standards for my trainers. As a team, I would say we value trust. That's going to be trust between trainer and family, family and dog. We value transparency making sure that the family is completely understanding of the process, the expectations, our prognosis for outcome. We value stress reduction, so making sure that we are using training that reduces everyone's stress dog stress and family stress. And yeah, I would say it's so like cheesy, but positivity is also huge, like between our training methods and the way we try to approach our communication.

Speaker 1: 16:22

And you know, we really act as cheerleaders for our clients. Again, these behavior challenges could be very heavy to live with, and so for them to know that they have a professional on their side who's rooting for them and taking care of them is very valuable and important. So we act as cheerleaders just as much as we act as dog trainers.

Speaker 2: 16:41

Yeah, I love that. That's not cheesy at all. I think positivity is so important and people need to feel like they have someone to lean on, and that really sees that great outcome Totally so. That's awesome. Sees that great outcome Totally so. That's awesome. You've been featured in National Geographic, forbes and WTOP, and you created your own app too, dog Training Plus. What role does innovation play in expanding your impact beyond one-on-one clients?

Speaker 1: 17:10

I feel like everything I do at this point is innovation in the sense that I am trying to figure out a way to be a dog trainer. But that's not the traditional model of seeing clients all day, every day, all week. I did that for six years before opening my business. I saw dozens of clients a week and I got so burnt out. So between that and then starting my business, like I just realized I don't.

Speaker 1: 17:38

That lifestyle doesn't fit my life right now and my priorities of living a low stress life. So I'm like OK, how else can I do this? How can I both make a living for myself and help more people? And what does that look like? Do I kind of follow the grain and see what other people have been doing? Which, like yes, of course, I think it's very valuable to see what other people have done that's worked and what can I do that's potentially a little bit different. That might help me stand out. So everything has been innovation. What can I do here? What works here? How do I tweak this? And it's been really cool. I kind of all of a sudden looked around and said, okay, this looks quite different than I thought it would, but I'm grateful. I'm so grateful for my, I think, almost tenacity to continue to figure it out, and I'm curious where it will go.

Speaker 2: 18:32

Yeah, absolutely tenacity not almost tenacity.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Thank you, you're awesome.

Speaker 2: 18:37

You also wrote Manage it Hacks for Improving your Dog's Behavior, and I wanted to ask how it's influenced your audience's approach to training.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Yeah, my book Manage it Hacks for Improving your Dog's Behavior is a book about a topic called management, which is something we know really well in the dog world but is not very well known in the average person with a dog world. Management is essentially preventing challenging and problem behaviors by changing the environment. So, for example, if your dog barks out the window putting up at the UPS person that walks by just putting up some window film so they can't see the UPS person and it solves your problem. They stop barking. Have they learned not to bark at the UPS person? No, but they no longer bark at the UPS person and that's the solution and that's solved your problem.

Speaker 1: 19:28

So I feel really strongly about that kind of technique and concept because I think the majority of people don't want to become dog trainers. They love their dog. They have a few challenges with their dog. They would love to improve those challenges. There's a crazy statistic that, like, less than 10% of guardians with dogs seek out professional training. The other 90%, you know they're either DIYing it at home or they're not addressing the issue. So management is a very accessible, easy concept to understand and that's what my book is all about is like here are these solutions that, for the most part, don't have much training involved. They're very easy, they can solve your problems and it's a new concept that you probably haven't heard about. Ideally, it's giving people a lot of the average person, a lot more ideas and ways to live an easier, less frustrating, more harmonious life with their dog.

Speaker 2: 20:22

Oh, wow, I love that. And you're right. I mean, not everyone wants to go full fully into like taking on that trainer role for themselves. So this is a great option for people, but that statistic is also crazy.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Isn't that so interesting? And especially, you know, as a dog trainer and being in the dog training industry, all we do all day long me, my colleagues, my friends, everybody we're training people's dogs. So we think it's everyone, but then when you zoom out and you see it's less than 10 percent. I think the statistic is 8 percent of people seek out professional dog training and, by the way, from a business perspective that means we've got a lot more audience to reach, which is helpful when you start to think well, wait a second, you know, are there going to be enough dogs to go around with all these trainers out there? Yes, there are. There is an abundance of dog guardians to work with.

Speaker 2: 21:10

Awesome. You train trainers as part of the Karen Pryor Academy. What is the Ori mindset shift you wish every new trainer would adopt early in their career?

Speaker 1: 21:23

yeah, I am a faculty member for the Karen Pryor Academy, which is a certification program for dog trainers, and it I work with everyone from seasoned dog trainers who wanted to get more formal education to people who are just starting their careers and wanted to get into a school right away. The mindset shift that I think all dog trainers would benefit from is understanding that their dog is doing the best they can with the information they have. Meaning, if your dog is not responding the way that you think they should be responding, it is something with your communication. It requires a lot of humility and realizing okay, maybe my training isn't quite as clear as I thought that it was, but the sooner you can get ego out of the way and take your dog's behavior as information and their errors as information, the sooner you can get on the path to cleaning up your own training, learning how to be a better trainer and honestly, getting better training results.

Speaker 2: 22:22

Awesome, yeah, I just realized. I said Ori mindset shift. I meant to say one. It's just, I had a capitalized vaccine.

Speaker 1: 22:29

I was wondering what you said, but that's okay, everyone does record that.

Speaker 2: 22:34

But no, that's awesome If you could leave dog owners with one message about living with and training their dogs.

Speaker 1: 22:44

What would that be If I could leave dog guardians and families with dogs with one message? It's similar to what I just said your dog is doing their best. Dogs are not designed for the human world. They bark, they chew, they dig, they scratch All of those behaviors are 100% normal for them. Their DNA has those behaviors in them and we put them in these worlds, in high-rise apartments, in pristine houses, and we say don't do any of those behaviors. And no wonder we get the head-butting with the human-canine bond where there's just so much friction and there's frustration. So I would just say really try to approach your dog's behavior with curiosity instead of trying to jump straight to corrections. See why they might be doing it. Learn about what is normal for dogs, learn about what dogs need, and that approach is going to help you understand your dog better, enjoy them more and just have a long, wonderful life together.

Speaker 2: 23:48

Absolutely Kind of just coming at it with more curiosity Definitely Other than like sticking so firmly on what you may have believed in the past or what you saw on social media yeah, you know, and that curiosity leads you to a road of how can I help you?

Speaker 1: 24:06

how can I help you be successful? What do you need? Here and again? That's just so much more. It's just such a less stressful approach and less friction and less fracture of the relationship than coming out of like you're being bad, you're being spiteful, you know you're being dominant. All that just leads you down a path of not understanding your dog more and continuing to feel frustrated with them, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Well, is there anything else I didn't touch on that you'd like to share with us today?

Speaker 1: 24:38

No, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about JW Dog Training and my app, dog Training Plus. And yeah, everybody just come find me on social media. I'm very active on Instagram and TikTok, jw Dog Training, but other than that, no, I think you asked some great questions, thank you.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Yeah much, juliana, for coming in and making the time to talk to us about JW dog training and your app and everything and your journey. This has been an incredible conversation and I know our audience is going to love this episode and learn a lot as well. Thank you so much.