221 – Her life revolves around dogs: Tom interviews Nicole Hubert

Episode 221 – Nicole Hubert
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode two hundred and twenty one of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Nicole Ηubert. Nicole is a professional dog trainer. She's competed at the national level with her personal dogs and she continues to train and compete in the various dog sports and her personal pack, which I am somewhat intimate with since they lived here at my house for a while. So she's got, along with her husband, has a very successful pet dog training company. And I got to tell you more about this stuff because she's trained my protection dogs and bomb dogs and all kinds of stuff. I'll tell you about that later. And also, it's very cool. She can do anywhere you happen to be. She can do consultations and actually look at your dog through zoom or Skype and do it anywhere around the world. So that's very cool. All right. Hope you didn't miss Episode 220, which is tied to episode 217. Those are my Monday training sessions. And that was a two part series on getting more people to show up at your webinars. It's easy to get people to register, but to get them to actually show up. This gives you all the details. Now, I hope you grabbed a copy of our freebie for listening to the show. It's my automation e-book and just one of the tips in this book has saved me seven and a half million keystrokes. And I am not exaggerating, somebody thought I was exaggerating. No, I'm not. That was just one of the tips in this book. So you can grab a copy of that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're over at screw the commute, you might as well pick up a copy of our podcast app. It's now in the app store and you can go to screwthecommute.com/app. We have complete instructions and screenshots to show you how to use all the fancy functions so you can take us with you on the road. All right. Our sponsor's the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. It's a Distance Learning School, which teaches legitimate techniques to make a great living, either working for somebody else or starting your own online business or both. And I've been living this lifestyle since 1994. Best business I ever been in, tell you that. You can check it out at IMTCVA.org and everything we have will be in the show notes this is episode 221. So if you want to find out or go directly to this episode, you put screwthecommute.com/221 and all Nicole's stuff will be here and all the other links we tell you about.

[00:03:02] All right. Let's get to the main event. Nicole Hubert has been training dogs professionally and competitively for over 15 years. She attended the world renowned Tom Rose School just after high school, which gave her the foundation for competitive dog training, pet training and police dog training, which is how I found her. She was primarily responsible for helping me with Rubix, who's in doggie heaven now and now with my bad ass dog Tuck that drives her and me crazy. He won't shut up. She's trained, bred, sold and handled hundreds of dogs for police, private security and personal protection, as well as train thousands of pet dogs around the country. Nicole, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:03:52] I think so. We'll see.

[00:03:55] I know she has screwed the commute in the past or at least screwed because I happen to be the godfather to little Ellie and she lived with me from 9 months old to 18 months. And I'll have to tell you something, a funny story, Nicole. You know, when you put the little tablets. So Ellie could watch the YouTube videos? Did you ever hear what happened to me about that? So so this is for everybody else. I saw this from nine months old, 18 months old. I see. Little Ellie was just enamored with these YouTube videos. She's in the car in her car seat. And everywhere, she's watching these YouTube videos. So I had put some ads in video ads in Google. The ones you can click the skip button. Right. So I had put in a bunch of stuff into Google on what videos I wanted my ad to play on top of, you know, all these business videos. Well, somehow Google lost the list. And instead of just cancelling the ad, they ran the ad randomly. And I get up the next morning, 32000 views on this video and they show you where they played. Well, I don't know if you know this Nicole, one of the places was doo doo bee nursery rhymes. So little kids around the world are in their car seat in here. And we say, hey, if you want to start your own business, you know. Yeah.

[00:05:28] So. So we totally saw your ad in the car. And Abby's like, look, it's Tom in Ellie's video.

[00:05:38] Yeah. And Abby's the 12 year old. You know that. But the little kids around the world are now starting businesses because of me before they get out of their car seat.

[00:05:46] And now the question is, did those ads cost you money because you can't hit skip from the front seat?

[00:05:52] That's true. Well, Google, thank God they gave me my money back because it was their mistake. But I can imagine parents driving the older ones to school and the little they hear and this stuff coming from the back seat.

[00:06:05] So I've seen I've seen worse. I've definitely seen worst commercials overlaid on those videos.

[00:06:11] So. So tell everybody what you're doing now and then we'll take you back and bring you up through the ranks and through the business of this. You know, because dog training is a business, but it's you know, you just are, you know, totally in love with animals your whole life.

[00:06:25] Oh, yes. Yes, I have I have done all kinds of different animals and various hobby forms. Very few of them have been lucrative.

[00:06:35] You're talking about the praying mantis. Yes, she is a nut. And if you talk about a nut for animals, there's like praying mantises all over the front seat of her car one day.

[00:06:47] Yes, I've owned it just about everything. You know, I've trained anything. Almost anything that eats can be trained. So I trained all kinds of critters but dog training is definitely my most lucrative endeavor. And we've been back full time into pet dogs for about the last almost full year. Coming up on a year and a half. And our pet business really took off in the Hampton Roads area, which we're really excited about. So that's that's been fun.

[00:07:14] Yeah. And the way we met was through Rubix, my protection dog. You know, you were working him for a long time and and Rubix is more laid back. And then we got this this other dog, Tuck, who's like a jet fighter with no brakes.

[00:07:33] Rubix was like your introduction to protection, he was your Mustang and now you've got a Ferrari. Now step up.

[00:07:41] Yeah. So. So tell us about how it goes. You do a lot of things called board and train, right?

[00:07:47] Yes. Yes. That's the bulk of our business.

[00:07:49] And a lot of people resist that. They just don't want to give up their little fuffy for a month or so. But it could take forever to train a dog like once a week, I imagine.

[00:07:59] Yes. Yeah. So that's a big part of what we try to explain during our free consultations is that what I can accomplish in three weeks takes me a minimum of three months of coaching. And I always use the analogy if my brakes go out on my car, I am not car savvy. Let me just say I am not technical. I am not mechanical. So my brakes go out and I try to fix those suckers through YouTube and somebody talking to me over it. You know, 30 minutes. I will be lucky if I finish it. I probably won't finish it. It won't be done properly. Or I can take it to the mechanic and they can do it in a fraction of the time. So I liken myself to the canine mechanic. And we do do a lot of board and train. And I think people realize that they just don't have the time to put in to put a really, really good foundation on their dog. So it's really a better way to spend their time and their money.

[00:08:42] Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with people doing it themselves. But if they're competent and they're persistent and consistent with it. That's the big thing, even with me. I want to do it really well. And I'm still so freakin busy. And and there's this little matter called timing that you give me heck about a home, about the timing. I'm like the one and a half second rule, I guess.

[00:09:07] Timing is so critical when it comes to dog training, especially when it comes to squashing bad behavior. You know, you have a one and a half second window of opportunity to reward the good and discipline the bad. And if you get beyond that, that window, you've really lost the moment. And very few people innately have good timing.

[00:09:26] Well, not only have you lost the moment, you have reinforced the bad behavior, like like you gave me this crap for this all the time when you're trying to teach me. OK, I was late in correcting what I wanted. And so the dog went on to something else. And that's when I finally figured out to give him some treat. And then, boom, I reinforced what I didn't want him to do.

[00:09:48] Absolutely, absolutely especially. Yeah. That's a very good point. I was thinking rewarding bad behavior as. And you didn't correct it. You're absolutely right. If you do, go ahead and then I get that a lot. Or I'll say, oh yeah, treat your dog. And the dog starts breaking a stay and they still give him the treat and like, oh well you missed the moment to reward that stable stay. Now you rewarded a premature break. Yes. So that and that just makes the process take exponentially longer. When their timing is just off.

[00:10:16] A lot of these families, you know, everybody has to be on the same page, I imagine, because, you know, if one person only is consistent and everybody else lets the dog get away with murder, you got trouble.

[00:10:28] Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of times where we come into homes. It's a lot like marriage counseling more than dog training.

[00:10:41] Steph He's a guy from France who from a little kid he was training police dogs for when he was 13 years old.

[00:10:49] And his dad his dad was into the working dogs over in France. But yeah, he out he was doing a follow up lesson for a board and train we did over the summer. And it was these two mastiffs, one of them being a Boerboel. It's a very well-preserved breed. They actually imported it from Africa. And we did the training when he was four months old, a very reactive, defensive, aggressive dog. And my husband goes in there, you know, because the husband of the dogs calls me and says, hey, the dog is bit our kids. You know, my wife won't control it. She won't let me take it to work with me, which is why they bought the dogs so he could travel. He owns his own business as well and wanted to travel with the dog. So I tell Steph. Why don't you go in there and see what's up? And he gets in there and he said he didn't touch the dog one time. He spent two hours mediating marital conflict. Well, you're never home and how can the dog listen to you. I mean, like it wasn't even a big part of the arguing had nothing to do with the dog. And so there's a lot of times we come into homes like that that the family is so at odds with what their expectations are or there's a whole nother set of conflicts, whether it's financial or whatever. It has nothing to do with the dog. So, yeah, there's definitely times where we're more counselors and therapists, not psychologists.

[00:12:10] And the dogs are very intuitive. They're in tune with what's going on. So if you're a crazy nut case, the dog picks that.

[00:12:18] Oh, my gosh. And this this dog feeds on the wife's anxiety and all this stuff. And she she feels powerful and loved because this dog guards her. And it's. And I ended up having to go into the home a couple days later. And I told her, I said, this is not a healthy relationship. This is a co-dependent, you know, like you have an addict for your significant other that's threatening to kill himself if you leave. I'm like, this is not healthy. So forget about your husband for a second. Let's talk about your relationship with this hundred and twenty pound dog that is just really unstable. I mean, he went after Steph the day that he came. And again, we we had this dog for a month. This dog should know us intimately. But because she was there and she's reinforced subconsciously, she's not like, oh, good boy. But the rest of her non-verbal language is reinforcing this dogs behavior. And the dog went after Steph the moment his back was turned. And then the dog came after me when I walked in the door. And I'm like, this is not a healthy relationship between you and your dog. You know, never never mind the relationship you got going on with your husband. I'm not even going to touch on that. We talked about you and your dog here and how it's beating up your kids and stuff.

[00:13:28] You should make that part of the training package, you know, for an extra thousand will bring a marriage counselling.

[00:13:35] Right. Right. Right. We'll sit down and we'll do marriage counselling for an hour after your dog's lesson, we'll sit down and discuss your problems for an hour. You know, totally. And people do that in private lessons where they've had an older couple. This was many years ago. Did pet dog training. You know, I took a break from it when we moved down here, but back in northern Virginia, I had an older lady who is just really lonely and she bought a 10 lesson package. We might to train her dog. The first lesson, no lie. The other 9 lessons she gave me the family tree that dates back three hundred years. So I went over these pictures of me and how she has a family member in every major war in the US. And she she adored me. I got pregnant. I got pregnant when I first when I when I was doing her and she gave me baby shower gifts and she was so sweet and her dogs were still untrained. When I left, because that's all, she was lonely. I just wanted a friend. So we've definitely been in situations where, you know, we think we're coming in to train the dog. And in the end, were some sort of emotional support for the family more than anything, you know.

[00:14:39] So tell us a little bit more about the business of dog training so they pay for a package. Now, what happens if at the end of the week the dog, such a nutcase wants them usually minimum board and train.

[00:14:52] Three weeks. We always we always do what we tell them. It's a three week package. We have had situations where the dog is not done in three weeks. Typically, that's very young puppies. And we will take puppies, you know, younger than some of our competitors. We're not working out of a large kennel. It's just our home. So there's a lot less risk, I think, with contagious diseases and stuff. So we'll take puppies pretty young. And it's a lot of times I don't want to put a whole lot of pressure on puppies. So sometimes we'll keep a puppy for an extra week or two. Our packages are all inclusive, so we don't charge you for the timeframe. We're charging you for the results. So we don't mind taking that extra week the same way if we have an extreme behavioral case. I did a Rottweiler over the summer. You met him. You and him got a little intimate there. He ended up staying for five weeks because I was really trying hard to get him to be a little bit more social. And I really felt bad for his owner, who had done so much for him in the first year of his life. And he she just it was a series of unfortunate events that left the dog very, very edgy. So so, Max, I think we've taken this five weeks, not often that we have to do. Most dogs are in and out in three weeks, and that gives us plenty of time to get everything done on an off leash and out in public and socialize and things like that. So that's our most common package.

[00:16:14] And I know you've done a lot with rescue also. You're kind of a softy to the dogs. And I contend there wouldn't be any need for rescue or shelters if owners weren't jerks or I mean, if they die, that's one thing. But most of them are just it's not the dog's fault, usually.

[00:16:36] Well, sometimes you get mismatches. I'm working with a family now through private lessons whose dog was surrendered at a year old about January of last year. Their dog is really headstrong, very possessive, very territorial. Just a very innately dominant dog. A unique temperament for being a pit bull. And the dog is dangerous. You know, it just we had done really well. We've done lessons for three months now. And I've never personally had a massive incident, this dog, until this past Thursday. The dog attack dog in the home and went after the wife and then went on then to attack me. And thankfully, the dog was in a muzzle. We've been doing a lot of muzzle work with this dog. So it was able to keep us safe. But this is not a situation where this dog's behavior was learned because of a poor environment. The dog innately has a very possessive, controlling kind of temperament. And we're doing, you know, management of this. And unfortunately, her first home was obvious. The dog's been through training before. The lady I'm working with got her. But they gave the dog up because they had a baby on the way. And the dog is really dangerous. You know, so there's some dogs that just are not going to work for the average pet home. You know, with small children or you know what I mean?

[00:17:47] Right. So the so the dog is not doomed at that point. It just needs to be matched with the right handler, with the right expectations and and somebody who can have a firm hand dealing with a dog. You can't you can't have a dog like this in a home with somebody who's really soft, you know.

[00:18:07] Yes. Yeah. And that's what the alpha dog thing, right?

[00:18:10] Yeah. This particular dog totally controls the teenage daughter. Like she's just not a strong enough person. She walks on eggshells around the dog and things like that, you know, and the family is OK with a lot of this work. I mean, as far as the daughter kind of just staying out of it and whatnot, but the dog as a liability, you know, and you have to be very careful when you're dealing with dogs like that. Of course, I do think there's sometimes mismatches in temperament between the dog and the owner. And we can do better. You know, we can find our owner this more capable and find a dog that's more suitable for that personality, if that makes sense.

[00:18:44] Right now, not everybody is able to do board and trains. Everybody can afford it and they they need to take a little longer, so you do have to do either private lessons. But this thing with Skype and Zoom is is really cool.

[00:19:00] Yeah, and that's definitely a more affordable way to do things because again, I can do it for my living room. I don't have a lot of overhead here, though. That's part of when people hear how much we charge. You know, I had this one lady who just acted like, you know, everything I charge is just, you know, vacation money. And they don't really comprehend what goes into my travel expenses, things like that. So being able to do things via video, I have to see the dog. It's really hard to troubleshoot things. I get so many people that call me or email me and they say, well, this is the problem. This is what the dog is doing. And this is why and most of the time when I come in, I say, well, that's not exactly what's going on. So I really need to see what's going on. But the beauty of the video is I can troubleshoot things and give some feedback. You know, for simpler things, obviously, severe behavioral cases would really require hands on. But there's a lot of things that can be covered in video, you know, with with much less cost.

[00:19:53] And I know, you know, I've been around it for five, six years now or maybe more. And it's just a lot of little new nuance that a professional will see. Like, I mean, you were telling me Tuck was limping and I just could not see it. He's right in front of me. And you say, look, he's got a limp and is this little thing in the. And darned if he didn't. So the average person is not really in this is going to miss a lot of things or think one thing is happening when it's really something else.

[00:20:25] Absolutely. I teach a class for our We homeschool our kids and I teach a class for our co-op, which is a group of homeschoolers and parents. They get together and share our expertise in classes for these kids. And I will have these kids watch these videos or look at these pictures and I'll say analyze it for me. And very rarely are they even remotely correct because people have a tendency to look at one element of behavior. Oh, the tails wagging or oh, the ears are back or oh, the tails tucked. And they don't realize there's all these micro-expressions going on. And they all go together to give the total picture of what the dog is feeling with the dog's intentions are. And I think that that's what is really lost when you see people trying to do dog training over the Internet. Oh, that just drives me up the wall to go into Facebook groups like, oh, well, this is all you need to do. And I'm just I'm writing there. Can you send me a video? If you can send me a video, I can tell. But all these people that are trying to diagnose and treat your problem just here on this thread are doing you a disservice. You're never gonna get the results you need by just saying writing a paragraph and hoping that all the Internet dog trainers out there are going to able to help with your problems.

[00:21:32] So anything bizarre, crazy ever happen?

[00:21:36] Oh, man. Bizarre and crazy. Let's see. Well, we've we've had competition wise talk about crazy. So we always joke in the competition world that, you know, when you never expect it to happen. Right. You say always he's never done that before. That's famous last words to things competitively that are the kiss of death. You have. Let's do this one more time. We try this one more time. You're doing repetitions with your dog. Well, it's going really good. One more time. Kiss of death. Never do one more time. The second thing is you're in competition. Yeah, well, he's never done that before. And I hadn't had a lot of those moments, so I was sure do for one. And I was working with my male Malinois and doing a bike sport and he's supposed to only bite the upper left hand bicep. Right. And so I'm in the competition. I'm winning. I'm winning this national event. We have the top scores so far. We are the last scenario. All he has to do is let go of the bad guy, do a bark and hold and I heal him away. He lets go of the bad guy. He's doing his bark and hold where he sits right in front of him, barking as I walk up to heal him away. He takes a cheap shot in this guy's crotch on never, never been trained to bite there. He's never bitten anywhere but the upper body. And so I you know, I tried three tries to make him let go and come with me before I'm disqualified. Long story short, I couldn't get him off of it and couldn't get him out. I had to turn to the judge and say, what do you want me to do? Because at a national event, you know, you got to be careful because you got bystanders, all that stuff. And she goes, well, just hang him off. I had to take my leash, hang the dog off. And I walked off the field going, well, never done that before. And the crowd just uproar of laughter, you know. So I disqualified a national event because my guy took a cheap shot, you know. So that was probably my most embarrassing and humbling moment competing. It was funny. You know, I laughed it off as their dogs. And they're not robots, you know, at a consultation when talk about a crazy, crazy story with pet dogs. I had a lady who had a German shepherd that was very, very reactive. And I was looking at her coming in and I thought, oh, jeez, this dog is gonna get away from her. Right. And sure enough, as I bring Kay my German shepherd out to do a little bit of a demo and just see what's up with her dog, her dog gives a good lunge and knocks her off the little picnic bench. She's sitting on she held the leash, though, and she's on the floor, on the ground with the dog. I call Kay back over to me and. I have Kay's collar.

[00:24:01] This is the dog's owners got got knocked over.

[00:24:03] Yeah, she was holding the leash and as soon as the dog saw my dog get out of the car, the dog lunged to go after us. The dog was already trying to go after me lunges to go after both me and my dog and knocks her off the bench. She's on the ground. I call my dog back thinking her dog is. It's a big German shepherd, 90 pound shepherd. My dog's maybe sixty five pounds. So I have my dog by the collar you alright mame? Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay. I said you got him? Yeah. Yeah, I got him. Just as she says that her dog lunges forward and rips the leash right out of her hands. I'm like here we go. You know, my dog is about to get eaten by this giant dog. The dog comes charging us and I yell at him. NO! GIT! He freezes about three feet away. So I'm like, oh thank goodness, you know. So then he kind of slinks around behind us. Well, he's going to he's gonna try to bite us from the butt. Right. That's what dogs that are not really committed do. Me and Kay, my dog. We turn around and we face them. And before I can say anything, Kay looks right at him and just gives a low growl and her dog no lie, tucked his tail and just walk right back over to her and it was done and it was like, oh, my gosh. So we had some close calls like that, you know, with the pet dogs and things and.

[00:25:21] Oh, yeah, I understand. I lost the shirt over it recently.

[00:25:26] They're just not robots. You can't you can't always, you know, fully anticipate how things are gonna go, you know. So you just do your best to improvise.

[00:25:36] Okay. So back to the business of this. So. So you do Google ads, right?

[00:25:43] Yes. That is right now. That's our primary source of leads. And I will say Facebook is proving to work out as well. And that's Facebook I control and Google ads. I have a guy who went to the same dog training school. I did. It was also a dog trainer.

[00:25:57] And he's been on here. Adam Katz he manages.

[00:26:01] Yeah. Yes. Yes. And so he does my Google ads account and does a very good job with that.

[00:26:06] So people call you and then usually you meet them for consultation is that how it works?

[00:26:11] Yes. So on my I have a landing page through him and they can either fill out a form that said excuse me, that sends me an email and then I will, you know, usually call them back and they don't answer because they screen their calls and I text them and then they'll call me back or they call me directly through a forwarding service. And I usually try to set them up with the consultation, a Face-To-Face consultation. That's I feel stronger in a sales element of things, Face-To-Face. I do it. Some people that do sign directly over the phone and have preferred been referred to us or they just know they just know exactly what they want and they're calling because they're ready to sign. But I would say that's maybe one out of ten, one out of 15 people. Most people we sit down and do a face to face consultation with them.

[00:26:56] Yeah. Usually you demo you have Kay with your right to do and show them what could be right.

[00:27:03] Yes. Yes. So I I usually I sit down and we have a questionnaire we fill out and that was a sales technique that I learned when I was a teenager, teens and early 20s. I worked all kinds of odd sales jobs because I was really scared of talking to people. So to help overcome that, I I sold timeshares. So I've sold meat, you know, those meat trucks. So I worked all these really weird sales jobs and the timeshare resort, they would have like a really pro sales person come out several times a week to teach us technique. And one of their techniques was to have a questionnaire and it's to build rapport. And that way you're not like, would I ask? Now, you already have this pre and it has worked so well for me. Plus, I always have a reference point. I always go back and say, I can't remember if they said this happened to this dog and I have this consult sheet. So we sit down, we have a questionnaire, we fill out and then they bring out their dog and I can kind of see what's going on with their dog. And then I bring my dog out and I do a little bit of a demo just so they can see, you know, that my dog is trained. My dog does all this stuff on an off leash. Most people I think what they're most fascinated by is that my dog stares at me the entire time. My dog is watching me in focus and that just blows them away. That the dog is not worried about everything, especially if their dog is going nuts and barking and carrying on. And my dog barely. Maybe she'll glance over there, but she's really focused. And I think that's for me, it feels like it's a big selling point, you know, because anybody can say they're a dog trainer. There's all kinds of weird certifications that people can claim or letters at the end of their name, or they could read a book and go off. So I'm like, here, let me show you what I am capable of doing in person. Things like that, you know. So that's that's a big part of our selling point right there. And then we go to our packages and stuff.

[00:28:56] Yeah. You've had a really high closing. Ratio. Right?

[00:29:00] Yes. Yeah. Typically, you know, depending on the season, I'll give you there's a little bit of that, but usually seven out of 10 I can sign sometimes. And when I had when I worked out of a kennel, I would sell nine out of ten, nine out of ten every time and again doesn't really. I have set I've learned the hard way about not offering too many packages. Because that gets confusing. You know, so I just you have two things. Board and train and private lessons. That's all. That's all you got. You know, I don't offer a whole bunch of private lesson packages because I really tried to push the board and train. And I said things that most of the time we got like a seven, eight out of ten sales rate.

[00:29:34] And the board and train. Like I said if people were willing to give up their dog, whether that always scares a lot of people, they're just totally in love with the dog. But if they really want the results, that's that's kind of the way to go.

[00:29:47] Yes. And I will say that a big part of I think what negates a lot of that, at least this past year, which is something I've never done in the past, and it's not something you see a lot of trainers do. But I tell people they can come visit their dog. And a lot of people don't want to let you come visit their dog. And they'll say that it's going to impede the training process and that. And, you know, it probably does when you're only running a 10 or 14 day or training program. But I think we found a sweet spot with the three weeks because that first 7 days, we take things really slow. You know, we're just doing some simple foodstuff and getting to know your dog. So usually after those seven days, if you come and visit for 30 minutes, they get excited to see you. But when you leave, they're not panicking. It's all like when you drop your dog off of the groomer, the vet or the boarding kennel was like, oh, you know, they just turn around and come back in with us.

[00:30:35] Because good stuff has been happening, you know?

[00:30:37] Yeah. Exactly. There's no there's no real conflict between us and their dog. And I don't know of anybody. And I could be wrong, but I don't know of anybody in our area that allows people to come and visit their dog. Now, it's not something you get to do daily and needs to be by appointment only. We really try hard to restrict it to 30 minutes, maybe forty five. This is not a lesson. They don't come to get a lesson. They come to see their dog and fall into a black hole of neglect or abuse.

[00:31:01] It was in the news not too long ago. Some somebody starved a dog.

[00:31:06] Yes. Yes. So there's there's been a lot of horror stories recently in the news with boarding and training. And it's a red flag when you've got a trainer that is constantly asking for extensions and extension every now and then. Absolutely. Not all dogs are created equal. Some have more baggage than others. So it's not totally a red flag, just cause you need an extra week or a couple extra days. But when you got something that's extending week after week after week, you get something that's going six, seven, eight, twelve weeks. There's something wrong, you know, especially if they're not gonna let you come out and see the dog in between. Something's wrong. And a lot of those situations in the news are those situations where they're really extended boarding, you know, times.

[00:31:45] Yeah. And that's from pet things. Not that you wouldn't have a 12 week training thing for like a protection dog, which high level stuff.

[00:31:54] Right. Right. Yeah. For advanced competition stuff. Absolutely. But you should if your dog is staying with a trainer for that amount of time and you do want to come out and see the dog, that should not be a problem if that's going to set the dog back that much. I think it kind of it questions the temperamental stability of the dog. But I think it more questions the relationship your trainer has with your dog. You know, the dog shouldn't be so excited to get away from the trainer that the trainer can't have you come out and visit for, like, you know, 30 minutes after eight or twelve weeks, you know that the trainer should be bonded with your dog by now and the dog should be cool with both you guys coming over for sure.

[00:32:30] Okay. So we've got to take a brief sponsor break and we come back. We're going to ask Nicole. I'm afraid to hear this one since she lived here for nine months. What a typical day looks like for her house these days. These days motivated.

[00:32:45] Well, folks really want to tell you about the Internet Marketing Training Center, Virginia, because it's a distance learning school. We actually produced a webinar based on a lot of high level educational people that, I mean, to kind of make you mad when you watch it because it's showing you what all these colleges and universities are doing by raising their tuitions for no reason. And they still get all this federal money and they're inflating the grade point averages to make it look like they're doing a better job of teaching when the testing shows that all the students are dumber. So it's a it's a I don't know if I'd want to mortgage my house to pay for that. And they came out and showed that the average student, over two thousand students over a bunch of universities, they did a study that the average student was spending eight hours total per week studying and preparing for class. The rest of the time was partying, eating and shopping. Like I said, I don't know if I'd want to mortgage my house to pay for that kind of activity when they can have a highly in-demand skill. If they're mostly tech savvy anyway, they just need to learn how to market online. So I have the only licensed dedicated Internet marketing school in the country. You have no book cost. Yeah. And speaking of outrageous costs for books, no book costs, no travel, no food, no Extra expenses you can do at any time of day or night and have a marketable skill in about six months. And I say that conservatively, because we have a young lady, 22 years old within a month. She was making eleven hundred dollars a month on the side. In two months she was making three thousand. And I just talked to her last week and she making thirty four hundred dollars a month. And her dad had spent $80000 on her education. And she has had a menial job. So she's quitting that job and opening her own Internet marketing agency. So so, yeah, this is very powerful. It's IMTCVA.org. We give big scholarships to military, law enforcement and first responders, both active duty and veterans and their immediate family. So check it out at the show notes IMTCVA.org.

[00:35:03] All right, let's get back to the main event. Nicole Hubert's here, longtime dog trainer. She's married to a lifelong dog trainer who was actually on the cover of one of the major dog magazines. So a very talented couple here. So Nicole, with the babies and the kids and the dogs and everything else. So what's a typical day look like for you? What time you get up? Do you work out? How does it work?

[00:35:28] It's chaos. Chaos? Yeah. Yeah. We try to control it. You know, usually I'm up by 7:00. My husband gets up at 5:00. He starts breaking the board and trains and our personal dogs around 5:00. I'm up at 7:00 with the kids getting breakfast. Like I said, we homeschool our kids. So we you know, we do breakfast and things like that. I have a full time trainer on staff. She did an apprenticeship with me. Now she's pretty independent. So she comes in usually around 9:00 to start training. Any clearing, cleaning up that needs to be done. You know, you have to poop scoop. Are you couple of times a day. So usually she'll finish up helping with breaks and bags around 9:00. Typically the two of them Steph, my husband and my trainer. They start doing the basic rounds with the board and trains between 9 and noon. Well, I school the kids and then starting around noon, one o'clock, we get ready to branch off and do private lessons if there are any. They said we do do some some clients that are just private lessons. We do take homes in the afternoon. So boarding trains that are ready to go home, they have a one hour lesson or field trips, you know. And so we'll pair off again for that. So you do field trips are always done in pairs, whether it's, say, me and Ryan, my my other trainer or Steph and Ryan. We always do pairs so that we can video it. So usually afternoons are dedicated to things like that. Things start winding down.

[00:36:53] So you mean by field trips, getting dogs acclimated to other environments, you mean?

[00:36:57] Yes. We load up, we have a van. And so we'll load up the van with board and trains that have been with us, you know, 10 to 14 days. And they go to parks and different businesses, Lowes, Home Depot, sometimes PetSmart, Petco and Carolla. We've gotten the boot from a couple of PetSmarts lately. That's a recent thing back when I trained in northern Virginia. I had a Petco and a PetSmart. You know, where I lived. And the managers were totally cool with us, you know, doing some private lessons or some board and trained dogs in their place because they didn't feel like our training was competitive for them. We don't do group classes. You know, we're I'm happy to do purely positive training, but that is not the bulk of my business. So we will use tools that PetSmart and Petco are not going to use. So we don't feel like we're directly competing against Petco or PetSmart. But we have in this area, we have been kicked out of two of the I think six PetSmart in the last month or so. So I'm not totally sure if there's changes in management or whatever. But Lowe's loves us. There are several Lowe's that are you guys are back in. Who is this? And they'll come and interact with the dogs with us. So we use it for socialization and proofing the dogs, you know, making sure that they're going to perform in all environments with all the all kinds of distractions.

[00:38:13] You know, you got parking lots and all kinds of things that can happen other dogs.

[00:38:17] Yeah. And we go to dog parks, but we don't go inside the dog park. We will use the chaos of the dog saying, oh, there's a strange dog in the dog park. Dogs charge the fence and all that. And we will work our board and trains, you know, to make sure that they can stay focused.

[00:38:32] I got to jump in here. I haven't gone to a dog park in the last 10 years since I heard about some crazies throwing cheese balls and stuff in there with nails in them and things just, you know, really low scumbags trying to hurt the dogs.

[00:38:48] Yeah. We don't ever go inside the park. And that risk aside. I don't trust other people's dogs or their control with their dogs. Perfect example, I had a client that came to me with an Akita who already had a little reactivity with other dogs, rescue dog, and so to socialize it. I don't know where we got this idea from, but he took the dog to dog parks and thought this would be a good way to help the dog overcome its anxiety and stuff around other dogs. And for him. He said it was working for a couple weeks and then as he was in the dog park, his dogs having a good old time. One hundred twenty pound dog, you know. And a lady came in with a pit bull, and that pitbull took one look at the Akita and said game on and attacked his dog and totally set the dog back. So in situations like that that I don't I don't go inside dog park. So I'll use the outskirts of it as a distraction as the dogs inside the fence are barking. But I don't ever personally whether it's my personal dogs or my client's dogs. I don't take the risk of going inside dog parks or doing things that are, you know, out of control kind of settings. I don't do that. Just like I don't let strange dogs approach, like just to greet my personal dogs or my clients dogs, because again, it just falls into that high risk category. We do a lot of stuff at the beach with both of our personal dogs and our clients dogs. And we're always leery, you know, making sure because all there's a lot of dogs off leash on the beach. So we again, we always go out in groups. We never there's never a single trainer that goes by themselves. So we go out with either two at a time or all three of us will go. And that way somebody can go and do a pre check. When we go on the beach to make sure it's not total uncontrolled chaos and we always have more than one person. So again, one person is handling that dog and there is an off leash dog that approaches, whether it's with an owner or not. Somebody else is there to assist and make sure that everything is under control, then under control and say, all right, I usually do those in the afternoon. Sometimes we have lessons, you know, later in the evening or take homes on the evening. But then we it for finishing out the day. It's it's nighttime routines, it's dinner and last breaks and all that good stuff. We do do some grooming. We usually give our dogs board and trains, a complimentary bath, blow out nail trim and ear cleaning before they go home. So that's usually done first thing in the morning. Yeah, but that's pretty much our day. Some days it's long. You know, some days it's, you know, working from especially if on the longer like in the summer when the daylight is longer, I mean we'll be out until seven, eight o'clock at night, you know, working the dogs, it's a little tougher in the winter, but we just do more indoor work.

[00:41:23] Yeah, it's not a business that lends itself to a lot of vacations. Dogs gotta eat, pee and poop.

[00:41:29] And trusting somebody to handle all that while you're gone is a daunting task, you know. So now we don't really we don't take vacations.

[00:41:40] Okay, so. Right. So thanks so much for taking the time to take people in the dog world. So so how did they get a hold of you.

[00:41:49] So they can either visit one of our two Web sites. One is dogtrainervirginiabeach.com. Or the opposite, which would be virginiabeachdogtrainer.com.

[00:42:07] We'll have those in the show notes so you can just click on them and any other ways they reach you?

[00:42:15] Yeah. My cell phone number is 571 525 0034 or my email. You can e-mail me directly at nicolemhubert@gmail.com. All of those are really easy, fast ways to get hold of us.

[00:42:29] And then you can schedule Zoom meetings or Skype if you have questions or read some questions might be handled on the phone. But if you want to see their dog, it would be a way to do it. Then the other thing is they would send you a video, right?

[00:42:43] Yes, absolutely. You can pre-record video of people that do that, or they'll take a video and upload to YouTube and send it to me, especially if we're looking to catch behavior problems that say in a 30 minute or 60 minute video consult. We won't we're not going to be guaranteed to catch. Also, those might be things like, oh, my dog is laying down and all of sudden he got aggressive. Somebody walk past, you know, or catching them doing something wrong and you telling them, no, I had a lady who did that, that she caught that where her dog stiffens up and postures. And it was something that on on, you know, live video. We just weren't able to catch the dog doing it. So if you can catch those behaviors, record them, upload them or send them to me. Definitely gives me a better idea of what you got going on.

[00:43:22] Awesome. Well, thanks so much for for coming on. I know you got to go to a lessons all day today. Right. So. So, folks, this is episode two hundred and twenty one with Nicole Ηubert. So you go to screwthecommute.com/221 and you'll see all the show notes there to click over and check out all the stuff she has available for dog days. Thanks Nicole for coming on. All right. We'll catch everybody on the next episode. See you later.

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