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The key to being a successful dog trainer

is consistency.

Practice with him everyday for the next 34 days.

You do that, you'll have a trained dog.

You don't do that, all in the word you're gonna

have is a dog.

Let's make a circle just a little larger if you would.

I think that if you're gonna train a dog

it helps you to understand how he learns.

Everything that is known about training dogs

can be reduced to two sentences.

First sentence says that as he does something,

something good happens to him,

he'll continue to do that thing.

It's called positive reinforcement.

Second sentence is the opposite of the first.

As he does something, something bad happens to him,

he will tend to quit doing that thing.

It's called punishment.

There's a lot more to understand about punishment

than simply punching his lights out.

Let me borrow your pup sir.

And you go to these classes and there's

50 people there.

You know, every dog of every size, shape, that you can

imagine and every walks of life.

Practically every person that came in the house

if they ever happen to mention that they had a dog,

they all had their dogs trained by Dick Russell.

I'm gonna tell y'all things about teaching

sit stay that no other dog trainer

on the face of this earth will tell you

and I've got to admit it breaks my heart,

it breaks my heart to tell you that

all the other dog trainers in the world are wrong.

He taught at one point I wanna say in the 80's

at four or five different parking lots

throughout Baton Rouge.

Not just at our pet store, for numerous pet stores.

I told y'all last week, you're not gonna

have to go through life with a pocketful

of chopped up hot dogs, did I tell y'all that?

Even when he fussed at ya', you never got upset at him.

You know, you're just thinkin',

he's just a crazy old man.

One thing he would do in class that I love,

he'll get the littlest dog and I'm talking teacup poodle

size and he would hold it up like this and walk around

that big parking lot with it and he goes,

"This is a wolf."

Looking at a genuine timber wolf.

And whoever the person was would kinda be freaking out

because there Dick was calling their dog a wolf.

He used to say he's not dog training,

he's people training.

And that's really the truth.

He trains people how to train their dogs

and once you get the people training down,

they can train their dogs and they can continue it.

We kept a carb box ye big with 1,000 referral cards

for Dick, he was wonderful helping people

with their basic pet obedience.

But over and over again, it was Dick's relationship

with people that I thought really stood out more.

He's interested in the animals being the best

that they can be.

And he seems more interested in their

well being and their well functioning than he is

at making any money.

The things we're gonna teach these puppies tonight

are going to be in short term memory.

In the morning when he says to you,

"Mom I have no idea what you're talking about"

he's not lying to you, he has forgotten.

Don't beat him up.

Don't tell him he's as stupid as you ever thought he was.

Just train him all over again.

What you're gonna find...

A lot of people didn't understand about Dick Russell

'cause he was a country boy and talked like a country boy,

and he talked about dogs and he cussed

and he chased women, he did all that kinda stuff,

but he was an incredibly intelligent guy.

He really, really, really was.

I'm gonna hold the treat right in his mouth,

bring it slowly up and back, he followed it with his head.

His head reached a point it couldn't go back any further

without his behind going down.

So I use Charlie's head to put his behind on the ground,

let's look at this again.

Good Charlie, good Charlie.

That was the idea that he worked on,

was the concept that animals want so badly,

especially dogs, to make us happy, to please us.

And that if we can cash in on that and use

that as a method of training them

and it doesn't just take food,

food was only the introduction.

Once you began to pet the dog for doing stuff,

I got a golden retriever at home that

is just nuts for anybody to ask it to do anything.

And it's been four years

since she went through his class.

Won his title, it's probably yeah.

Right here, won his obedience title.

We don't give her treats anymore, we just pet her.

Let me make you all a solemn vow right now.

The end of this six weeks, if you don't wanna be

using food treats you don't have to be.

Y'all notice that I have not given Charlie a word yet.

Just wanted to get the motion first.

Now we're gonna start giving a command,

we're gonna give that a name.

And the name is going to be sit.

Charlie sit, good Charlie.

Good Charlie, sit.

Good Charlie, let's see if Charlie's learning anything.

Sit, ta-da!

Never thought I would own a pit bull.

Every time you heard of a dog bite it was pit bulls.

And then we met Toot.

And I called Mr. Dick one day and he says,

"Well I just started that class, but y'all come on,

"come early, I'll catch y'all up on what you missed."

He says, "Leave your checkbook at home,

"I'll get your daddy to pay for it."

And I said well that's not why I told you who I was.

He says, "I said leave your checkbook at home,

"your dad's place is where I get my horse manure

"from for my garden, leave your checkbook at home."

At the age of I think nine months old,

she was already like 70 pounds.

We knew we had to get some proper training for this dog.

So we went to Dick Russell, but whenever we got there

it was a little bit different story.

You know, he was like, "That's a big powerful dog."

Dick was not one that took over and trained

your dog for you, he trained you to train your dog.

It's not only about the lessons, but it's also about the

bonding time with the dogs.

And Toot has just really turned out to be

an ambassador for her breed.

We had the dog, the classic dog that pulled

us down the street.

And the first night of class, you know when he asks,

"Anybody have a dog that pulls?"

Maria and I raised our hand and then as it turned out,

Maria's mom who was big into the obedience scene

here in Baton Rouge was a contemporary of Dick's

back when Maria was a little girl.

He knew my mom had passed.

My mom had passed two years before I took his class.

So I went up to him and I said hey.

I said I know you're not gonna know who I am,

I said but I just wanted to tell you you know,

I'm Linda Limaglio's daughter

And he was like, "Oh my gosh!"

And he was so excited, he's like,

"You're not paying anything."

When we first started a class,

Schatzi was the dog that nobody wanted to be around.

We adopted her on Tuesday, took her to class on Thursday.

She had been with us for 48 hours

and she was neurotic as it was.

We took her to class, she stood on her hind legs

and she barked and growled the entire hour.

This probably went on for the first three weeks.

He took Schatzi and it wasn't even two minutes later,

even though he had a bowl full of hot dogs

sitting out there open, it took less than two minutes

for him to get that dog just to follow him

around on a leash and not go one direction and pull.

And after the first class, I was a believer.

Everybody kept saying Dick Russell's group class

is one of the best in the country.

And I said, well I gotta see it then.

Called him and said, Dick I'd like to come

to your group class.

He goes, "What night?"

I said every night.

You know all classes.

He said, "Well come on then."

And so I'd leave Houston about one o'clock

in the afternoon.

I would usually get there right about

the time class was supposed to start.

I watched him teach two classes.

There was a little hamburger joint right

in the parking lot where he taught class,

we'd go have a hamburger.

And then I'd leave about 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock at night,

drive home, go home, you know one or two in the morning.

And I did that every week for six weeks.

In my classes I like to have three good things

happen to them when they do what we ask.

First is we tell him, "You're a good puppy."

Second is we pet him.

Third is early on he gets food treated.

Never a problem saying to your puppy,

"Rosco you done good."

Ain't much of a problem to reach out and pet him.

My name is Babette Haggerty.

I train dogs, I grew up in a large dog training family.

My dad was Captain Haggerty.

And he knew Dick Russell for years.

You know, there's no room for political correctness

in dog training as far as I'm concerned,

when you have a dog's life on the line.

And Dick knew that.

He knew how to work with dogs,

he knew how to communicate with the owners.

Owners love dogs, they have a dog because

they want it to bring joy to their life.

When dog trainers neglect to make things easier

for the new dog owner, they're actually cheating

the dog and the dog owner.

Dick knew he had to keep things simple for the owner,

he also knew he had to give them fast results.

So Candice will get a hot dog.

You know Dick always trained using hot dogs.

And since we are in New York City,

the most appropriate thing in the world

is to have a hot dog with our dogs.

I use these by the pick up truck load.

Then I went through a step by step process...

As youngsters we had dogs,

but he basically started training his own dogs,

you know, young dogs.

It went along well and through the years you know,

we've all had dogs.

We both worked part time you know,

at AMP store and stuff like that paperhouse.

Whatever it took to make a buck.

Times wasn't easy.

And when I got outta the army in '62

you couldn't buy a job in Baton Rouge,

Dick was struggling, he was working.

So he finally got a job at Ethyl here

'til they shut it down.

He swears that was the best thing that happened to him.

Got outta that plant and allowed him to do

what he wanted to do you know.

He put a lot of time in those dogs.

Lot of time.

And really he just didn't, I don't think had

the courage to quit a good job and go into it.

He wouldn't have done that.

Well when it failed you know, him and wife talked,

she said go train them dogs that what's you

wanna do anyway.

So that's what he did.

Hello, I'm Dick Russell, this is Basic Obedience.

What you're about to watch is the same course

which we have used to teach several thousand

south Louisiana pet owners how to turn their dogs,

one more time from the top.

Get the son of a bitch right.

Hello.

Think in '83 that he actually began

the obedience stuff.

This class they did over here at Grecos.

It's packed for years and years and years.

I mean he would have 100 people every six weeks

that would be showing up for those classes.

And he guaranteed the class and if you paid

your $100 and you made it to two classes

and for whatever reason you couldn't make it back

after that, you could bring the dog back until whenever.

Kids Club is at the LSU Veterinary School.

We're with Dick Russell who is an area dog trainer.

Tell us why we need to train our dogs.

If your dog is gonna be a member of your family

he needs to understand the rules of your family.

Training makes them much more pleasant to live with

and it gives them some structure in their life

so that they know what to do.

What happens if you don't train your dog?

Dogs that are not trained usually become

obnoxious pests that are left out in the backyard,

do not get to enjoy the family.

Many of them wind up at animal control

where they're euthanized.

Dick so how long have you been training Lachia?

We started I guess a week, let's say a week.

Uh-huh.

And he's learnin' real quick he is a cat,

so we have to train him a little different

than we would a dog.

Dogs you can use some force, with a cat you can't

use any force.

So we'll show you some of the tricks.

Sit, good little man.

He's good, he's better than the dogs we had last show.

Down, all the way, that's a good man.

Dick was a quiet easy non-assuming man

who knew what he was doing, if you met him for the first

time you'd never guess he knew what he was doing.

It wasn't until you watched him with a dog

and any dog, any dog that he was around

would come to him and sit down and be by him.

It's unusual when men can become old

and still be at the top of their heap so to speak.

And that's basically what he was.

He was at the top of the heap.

Dick had probably maybe a dozen sheep, he went and bought

a ram from somewhere that he paid a good bit of money for.

And he got him basically to work his border collies.

Weee!

She will circle clockwise, which command come by

counter clockwise, which is a command, away to me.

I don't know where the Scots got it,

but the Scots got it.

He had a small herd of sheep and about five acres.

He patiently and willingly allowed my dog

to chase his sheep all around the pasture.

My dog, a cardigan welsch corgi, can't really hurt

sheep and there was no harm done,

and that was just part of the learning curve.

At one time, I admired a beautiful Shepard's crook

that was custom carved for him.

And jokingly, only half jokingly said,

Dick when I have an advanced title on this dog

I sure would like you to make me a crook

that looked just like that.

Dick had custom carved this crook.

When CarCar got her AKC American Kennel Club

Advanced Herding Title.

Being a veterinarian, I'm around dogs all the time.

I know a thing or two about training dogs.

Wembly, roll over.

Good girl.

But the dog I trained with Dick Russell's influence

is the best behaved one that I've ever had.

We tell him stay.

We back up, we watch him a while.

If he's doing it okay we tell him, "Come here old partner."

And we pet the daylights out of him.

That's the dumbest thing I have ever been

taught to do in my life.

When was the dog getting rewarded?

When he quits staying.

There's no fluff to Dick Russell,

there's just this works and this doesn't.

And I know it because I saw it over and over

and over again.

The easy way to teach your dog to come to you

is to teach him to run away from you.

This gentleman right here is wondering

if he can get his money back 'cause that

man has gone crazy.

Okay, watch.

And stay.

Take the paper plate out.

Put it on the ground, put a treat on it.

Go back to my dog, I send her and away.

And come.

She left me because there was a treat on the plate,

she came back 'cause there was a treat in my hand.

When the treat training became real popular,

a lot of trainers jumped on the bandwagon,

the results went down.

People were happy, they loved to train their dogs,

the dogs were happy.

But they weren't getting the reliability.

They weren't getting dogs that they could call off leash.

And Dick found a way to modify

that paper plate recall game is a modified retrieve.

It's a retrieve for dogs that don't retrieve.

If you watch any good dog trainer

they're doing the same thing, but they're throwing bumpers,

sending the dog and bringing them back.

Well Dick saw that, said hey I can take this concept

and apply it to my pet dogs here.

We have a lot of clients who don't have dogs

who won't retrieve, but they will all go get treats.

Now as we pass this plate, I'm gonna put a treat on it.

I'm gonna take one more step, turn and say,

and away and come.

Went one step, came back one step,

she went and she came.

This time I'm gonna take two steps.

He realized the value of that exercise

and that was the genius of Dick,

was he could take something that someone else was doing

and go, "I know how to make this work."

And then I wanna spread out and play

this game a little bit.

Back when I was a kid, if you had a dog what that meant

was you put food out for him in the evening.

Rest of the time he roamed the neighborhood,

playin' with all the kids,

carousing with all the other dogs.

None of us kids ever managed to get bit

and you hardly saw a dog fight.

Times have changed, the law has changed.

Now if you have a dog you got to keep him shut up

in solitary confinement.

And dog fights and dog bites are an epidemic.

We're gonna overcome that.

Every Saturday morning at eight o'clock

and every Sunday morning at eight o'clock

my home out Greenwood Springs Road,

we do a large field socialization class.

If six dogs show up or if 60 dogs show up,

doesn't matter to me, we turn 'em all loose

in about five and a half acres of pasture.

So it's something that I encourage you all

to participate in.

It's something I invite you all to participate in.

Did I think it was crazy?

Well...

We let them spend an hour boogying.

They run, they shoulder bump.

They jump over one another, they scoot under one another.

They all discover the big mudhole

and might go swimming.

Even though I live out in the country,

we have the modern conveniences.

One of which is called a garden hose.

And we wash 'em off before we take 'em home.

He just turned everybody loose and you know

that was something we had never heard of and we

just thought oh gosh you know?

But come to find out, when people have their dogs

on a leash holding 'em back that's what

causes a lot of dog fights and aggression and everything.

I went out several times with the new dogs

and it was great, it was the thing to do with your dog.

The space and movement is what causes it to work.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, well when the people

stop the dogs stop.

Yeah.

Ohhh, we don't want that.

This whip is not for dogs when they get in fights,

it's for people who stop walking 'em.

I'm here to see Dick's method for socialization.

I also was able to have a client dog

that could truly benefit from it.

And so we brought her along.

Dick Russell's large field socialization

is supposed to transform dogs and I have to say

I saw that in the dog that Carol brought today.

I very much saw that.

You can take them out here and you can transform

that dog into a calm family pet.

It's practically miraculous really.

Tell you what we're gonna do about it.

Turn him loose.

Dog aggression is usually not, "I'm big, I'm bad, I'm mean."

It's "I'm scared to death."

Turn him loose.

He belongs to Larry now.

And when we get out here where they've got

room to move in and out, so if they don't get scared.

Pop Gus, pop gus, pop gus right now.

Come on.

Go the other way Gus.

This is about reading body language

at the intro and you put outro.

Let's walk, let's move so that Lilly has to move.

Come on Lilly.

Come on Lilly!

Come on Lilly.

If you don't let 'em get in trouble

and figure out how to get out,

then they're not gonna learn how to get out.

And that's what this is about.

I let them have their mixups, they learn from their mixups.

I do not teach socialization class, I conduct it,

the dogs teach it.

Basically the gun dog people do it all the time.

I used to run classes in England and there'd be 20

people come out with their dogs.

And there'd be Woodland there and everything else like that.

The dogs would all wander around and I'd say,

okay get your dogs together.

They'd go in, we'd go out and we'd train and come back.

And after we'd finished said, okay you can let 'em loose.

And the dogs would all run together.

And they'd all kind of go along the grounds

and be around and any dog that basically came up

a little bit sporty maybe which was rare,

another dog would come in between and it was just

what I call normal to me.

I didn't see dogs fighting in England,

but always afraid of putting dogs together.

And you know as soon as you get afraid

of putting dogs together the dog senses it and says,

oh you're afraid of this dog, I'll sort him out for you.

It goes go down the leash or it goes from

that invisible signal that you give.

But what Dick said was look, if we let the dogs

run free they will actually begin to sort out

from their own body languages.

Dick understood that dogs are innately social,

but that they have been denied the opportunity to socialize.

I really never heard of a guy before Dick Russell

in this country running free classes,

completely free to the entire community where they could

bring their dog out and just let them run free

with other dogs on a large parcel of land.

At that time I was working with a little Jack Russell

Terrier who was, well he exactly the sorta dog

that socialization was designed for.

So I tried to be polite and say,

Mr. Russell here's what I'm working with, what do you think?

He keeps telling me this large field socialization

and the whole time I'm thinking this man's crazy.

I said I can't let this dog go with other dogs,

you don't realize the intensity.

I don't know what kinda dogs you're looking at

in Baton Rouge, but this dog means it you know?

And he would, line of sight if he can see a dog

400/300 yards it doesn't matter,

he's hitting the end of the leash airborne

going after 'em.

And he goes, I don't know how far Webster is

from Baton Rouge, but won't you come down and see.

And I saw that value that was happening.

Like it hit me, I was like oh my gosh this is amazing,

this needs to be done.

The next class I had and there were two german sheperds

in the class that came from the same family

and they just drove me crazy, just started barking

at all the other dogs.

Ra-ra-ra-ra all night long.

So I said, could I get you guys to stay

after class for me?

And I know they thought I was gonna kick 'em out of class.

Came over lookin' all nervous and stuff.

And I said, here's what I wanna do.

I said I wanna bring my two dogs out

I'm gonna take 'em off the leash,

I want you to take your dogs off the leash

and I wanna see what happens.

"Are you sure?"

No.

But let's try it anyway.

Of course I asked him can I do this indoors

'cause I had an indoor facility.

He said no you can't, I don't think it will work.

I said why not.

And he said, "Dog trainers belong in the country."

I said okay, but what if you're not in the country?

He said, "Save your pennies and get there."

Alright everybody ready?

Leashes off and get to walking.

I really believe he just felt that's the way it should be,

it's not an urban profession.

It's a craft and it needs nature around it

to be done correctly.

And to some extent I agree with him,

but it's nice to have an indoor place

when the weather doesn't permit you to be outdoors.

Bridge, you know I heard about it.

And I heard he was doing it, but I didn't wanna do it

myself until I saw it in front of me.

I went up and watched Dick six or seven,

about seven years ago I guess.

And this is something that Dick taught Chad

and Chad Macken taught me.

He was like man you gotta meet this guy,

you gotta talk to him about dog aggression.

You know sitting down with Dick and talking about

dog aggression is the greatest thing in the, you know.

I mean I would've never put this many dogs together

unless I saw him do it first.

Alright turn your dogs loose.

When you have an aggressive dog what you do is you focus

on taking the stress out of their life.

And the socialization takes more stress out of a dog's life

than anything you can do.

I use the exact same waiver that Dick used.

When I was having lunch with Dick one day

he said it was impenetrable.

That a plane could fall out of the sky

and land on the whole class and no one could be sued,

so it mentions the word death about 15 times

through the whole thing, so we're covered man,

it's good stuff.

The the biggest stress reliever for any shelter dog

is socialization.

Saturday morning's like Christmas for those guys.

You know, dogs have been gettin' along

for thousands of years.

You know their species would have never progressed

to where it was as far as you know canus lupus wolves

unless they knew how to get along.

That's how they prosper.

You know that's how they succeed.

And all you gotta do is give 'em a chance

for the dogs to have their natural instincts to come out.

And most of 'em do fine.

The dogs in animal control only get out about

once a day, so they needed a lot of socialization

if they weren't being fostered.

So we would take a few to his socialization class

on Saturday and we saw just a real difference in these dogs

and I was just amazed the first class I went to

'cause I was a little concerned.

I got out of the car, there were about 75 dogs

and I went, I don't understand this at all

and then he told us about walking and not stopping,

and the pack mentality.

I think he impressed that philosophy on a lot of people.

So I was working with a little Sheltie mix

that had been found on the street

that was very dog and kid aggressive.

And I worked with him for about two years

doing all these approaches and I wasn't

making any progress.

And then the smith that owned him called me one day,

he says, "I just can't take it anymore."

She says, "I'ma go ahead and have him euthanized."

I said well Dana, I said, probably ain't gonna work,

but if we're gonna kill him anyway, one more thing

I wanna try so we tried this.

And for 30 minutes he was out, he was a good dog.

He changed his personality.

Now we had to do it several times.

One trip is not gonna do it.

You know, a dozen, two dozen trips will do it.

This saved that dog's life and it saved a lot of

dogs' lives since.

Dick said you need to bring that dog to

my house on Saturday.

And I at least, wherever it came from,

I knew that it was gonna be just as much about me

letting go of my dog as it was anything else.

And I kept telling him, Dick what if he runs off?

Because it's my responsibility.

Dick what if somebody hurts her?

It's my responsibility.

Dick what if she hurts somebody else?

It's my responsibility.

So we show up that Saturday, I'm a nervous wreck,

my heart's pounding out of my chest

and we're the last ones to go into the field.

He was yelling at me, "Let go of that dog."

And I wouldn't do it.

"Let go of that dog."

The second I finally let go of her she found the one

handicap dog, the one blind dog in the field,

and attacked it.

Jumped on top of it, was really going after her.

Dick was right there with the trisage whip.

Popped her two or three times.

And that was that.

For you listeners, I stole this idea from

the guy named David Klein.

Sometimes known as David the Dog Man.

You are the first person in the western

hemisphere to offer socialization where you know,

you let the dogs all work together.

Do you find this more important or not so important?

And when people come along.

You know your listeners might be interested

to know I spent about four years telling you

David, this will not work.

This is dangerous, you're gonna get people bit

and dogs killed.

Well buddy you were right, I was wrong.

I'll say that to the entire world.

And it is the most important thing I'm doing.

Dick was telling me one time when he was

younger and he was doing the gun dogs,

he was apprentice with somebody.

And back in the day before they had remote collars

one of the tactics that they would use

to teach a dog not to stray off when he was going

after a retrieve was they'd actually hide people

in the bushes to shoo the dog back into the space.

And Dick was one of the shooers who's on the side.

The gentleman he was apprentice under said,

"Dick, chase her back to center."

And Dick looks, the dog's running straight down

the line that it's supposed to run down.

And Dick thinks the guys crazy, the dog's not,

and all of a sudden the dog cuts towards Dick.

Dick shoos the dog back to center.

And at the end of the day of training

he went up to the guy and said,

"How'd you know that dog was gonna break towards me?"

He goes, "Well she told me."

And Dick always at the end of the story, he says,

"Now 50 years later they're telling me."

That's a dog man right there.

When they're telling you what they're gonna do

and you know it before they know it,

you're a dog man.

I can tell you I have a 11 year old German Shepard

named Baron that is the best dog one could ever hope for

and a lot of it is because of the training

that Mr. Russell...

Taught you and your dog.

Exactly how to...

When he had prostate cancer the first time

I knew about it at that point,

we had mutual friends that had told me about it.

He talked about his treatment at that time.

And I remember seeing him looking bad

while he was going through, think he went through radiation.

And then started to get better and did quite well

for quite a while before it relapsed.

Cancer when the word is first applied to you

or to somebody that you love,

is probably the scariest word in the english language.

It's such a scary word that it just takes over

your life for a while.

And the bad thing about cancer is the people

who love you don't know what to say to you.

There's a kid I grew up with, Charlie Lacoste,

he and I hunted and fished together.

We had double dated together in high school.

We rodeo'd together.

I mean we were best friends.

And Charlie was diagnosed with it.

I guess I should've gone and visited him more than I did.

We would go there and just

really didn't know what to say to my friend.

I mean it's...

I didn't know how to handle it.

And I wasn't as good a friend as I should've been.

And that's just the way it was.

And so I can understand how it effects people

when they hear that you've got cancer.

The way he helped me and my son when my son had cancer,

when he heard about that there wasn't another word spoken,

he just showed up at my house that day.

Took my animals that needed care.

Herded them up with his dogs, loaded them in a trailer,

took them on.

Had what needed to be done, done.

Brought them back, with not a word.

And it'd had been five years since

I had last spoken to Dick.

Dick was in the middle of teaching a class

and his thought process just left him.

But I think he knew at that point his cancer

was coming back.

And that it was urgent that he pass on his information.

And he says, "I've been having my eye on you

"and you seem to be very enthusiastic

"about what we're doing to dogs.

"Working with people who own the dogs."

And I said yes sir I am.

Then he asked me, "Would you be willing to be my partner?"

You know it was something that I couldn't ever dream of,

I never dreamed that I would ever be offered

such a wonderful opportunity.

And ever since then I've been his general on the field

out there doing the dog socialization.

After one afternoon or one evening with Dick

in a parking lot we started spending three hours

a week with him religiously.

And I think through the course of that time

we got to spend with him, he's told me that he was

impressed with the progress that we were able

to make with our dog.

The challenges that we were able to overcome

and the dedication we displayed in trying

to make her the best dog possible.

To where one day after socialization class

he pulled me aside on the porch and just asked,

"Are you interested in becoming a dog trainer?"

We kinda' knew some situations with Dick's health.

And I was immediately concerned that without

Dick what would happen with dog training in Baton Rouge?

Who is gonna be able to continue this?

And starting then, instead of spending three hours a week

with Dick attending my own class and going

to socialization, I started apprenticing with him.

Couple guys I wanna introduce to y'all.

Y'all come out here.

This is Mike and Larry, these are my trainers in training,

they're doing an apprenticeship with me.

If they come and help ya', it's just about as good

as if I come and help ya'.

Those are nearly impossible shoes to fill.

And to think that you can walk into 'em

and be Dick Russell is a misconception.

There's 30 years behind that.

It may be Larry and Mike that's actually

physically there, oh they're not gonna be solo believe me.

He's a phone call away.

The way dog trainers learn to not get bit

is by gettin' bit.

So you know, this is I guess a result

from our class last night.

But all is good, the adrenaline really kept it

from hurting and it's just kind of what

comes with the territory.

Dick got to laughing the other day and says,

"Larry's gonna be a better dog trainer than me."

And I'm looking at him going, how you figure?

And he says, "I did so much wrong before I got it right,

"Larry's gettin' it handed to him correctly."

But even Holly said, "You know y'all might make it."

Yeah it works, I think we compliment each other really well.

We're a good ying and yang.

Two dogs on the line, two dogs any two.

I don't care which two.

Any two will do.

Two dogs, any two, any two will do, I don't care what two.

Just make it two.

Two dogs any two, any two will do.

You done got me confused now.

They're gonna get it right, I'ma hammer it into 'em

until they get it right.

They're gonna get there.

They're gonna be real good following in my footsteps.

I've gotten really close to Dick.

He needed that extra helping hand.

And when things got worse, I would pick him up

and drive him to class so that he could still go.

What's this puppy's name?

Sofie.

Come here Sofie, sit.

I know that was a big relief to him,

to know that were was somebody there that

could help through this time.

I just feel like Dick has so much more.

I met Dick Russell at a dog training class.

I had initially started out with a golden retriever

that was wild and she was beautiful dog,

but she was crazy and I had taken her to another

dog obedience class and learned nothing, but chaos.

And so Dick was the next class I went to.

He was early then, what year was that Vicki.

1987.

When I was younger I was very shy.

I mean I communicated better with animals than I did people.

And going into the obedience arena with

a terrified feeling, my dog was so smart

and that class she was a star.

He used her as an example for everything.

He would even put bad dogs beside her

because she would help train help them.

But when I would get in the show ring,

she would cower behind me and she wouldn't

do her tricks, she wouldn't follow her commands.

So Dick pulled me off to the side, he said,

"Vicki, your dog thinks there's a gorilla

"in the ring with you,

"because you're so scared."

Said, "Your dog will never perform if you can't

"get over your fear."

So it helped me look at myself and say you know

he's right, I mean why should I be afraid?

And I started working on that and from that point on,

she got her CD.

In two years, so it was something that,

that was just another lesson that Dick taught me,

that you can lie to your husband,

you can lie to your mother, you can't lie to your dog.

'Cause they always know.

I mean dogs, animals, are instinctively

sense your fears, your sadness.

And Dick, you know, he knew that.

He understood that.

He taught us all.

I remember there was a couple with a dog

that had some aggression issues.

And I quoted them a price on training.

I could tell from the look they exchanged each other

that they couldn't afford what I was charging.

It wasn't an exorbitant price, it wasn't you know huge,

but I could tell they couldn't afford it.

And I started thinking back to what the people

on the email list had said.

And basically if they can't afford a reasonable

training fee then they probably don't need to have a dog

sort of thing, they probably can't afford the vet care

and the upkeep for the dog.

And you know, you're not necessarily doing them

favors by helping 'em out.

And so I didn't offer them a discount,

which I would've done kinda channeling

some of the things that I read from some

of these other professionals.

And that was right before I went

and saw Dick for the first time.

He goes, "I never want cost to be a reason

"somebody doesn't get their dog trained."

He said, "If somebody can't afford to pay me.

"They say I can't afford what you're asking.

"I always say the same thing, well pay me what you can

"and if at some point later you can,

"send me a check, if you can't forget about it,

"'cause I'm going to."

He said it's never hurt him to do that.

And he told us some stories about how it's come

back to help him.

And he had a saying, he said you can't give away

with a generous heart fast enough to go broke.

And I feel bad to this day that I didn't help that dog,

I didn't help them.

It didn't feel right at the time, I was doing what

I thought was you know, supposed to be good

for the industry or whatever.

And I was wrong and it was wrong for me to not

help that dog and I'll never be able to help

that dog 'cause I can't reach them.

But I tell you this much,

me not helping that dog has made sure

I was sure to help a lot of other dogs that needed it.

And that's all Dick, you know,

he gave me permission to be generous.

Which is not the business model that you know,

well anybody's taught.

He got the cheapest tobacco that there was.

So he got somethin' that was around two dollars.

Every morning he grumbled 'cause it went up

to $2.19 one morning, he was so upset.

He got in his truck and he had a little dog in the truck

and he put it in reverse and I guess he was

so upset about the 19 cents that he just

kept driving backwards toward the gas pumps

never looking, there was a big eight inch piece

of pipe there and he hit so hard his head jerked back,

he just threw it in drive and you could see his lips

going, he was grumbling about it and kept on going.

And as he made a circle and going,

the bumper was dragging hitting the ground,

kept on going.

We didn't ask him about until he come back

and he said, yeah I tore my bumper up.

He called us a few weeks before Christmas

and asked if we were ready.

I mean I don't know if you can be ready

for 14 sheep, but sure I said, you know,

whatever you need Dick, whatever you need.

And he said, "You ready, you ready?"

And I said yeah I'm ready.

I said I got a crew with me.

And I said hey do you wanna ride in the truck?

And come on ride in the truck.

You know, you look tired.

And "No, no, I'm good, I'm good."

And he at the time did not sound really bad,

I didn't realize he had gotten so ill.

'Cause I hadn't seen him in a few months.

We talked occasionally on the phone.

And he made me smile, he always did.

Every time I'd come and see him he would say,

"Beautiful as ever."

And umm...

Sorry.

Annette and Grace and I out of the blue

decided that we would teach our dogs how to track,

find missing persons, so our first

instinct was to call Dick and we

didn't know that there was a 15% pass rate.

Because 10 weeks later when we finished,

it was the first time LCCAC had 100% pass rate.

That really did Dick's heart a lot of good.

I would say I can't imagine why he

invested that votive confidence in me.

Except I imagine that he invested that same

in the other thousands and thousands of people.

Dick used to hang out at Shoney's with people

from his training classes and his friends,

and it was before Christmas.

And he called the waitress that they had gotten to know

and gave her a $100 tip.

And I don't know if you've ever waitressed

at Shoney's, but you don't get a lot of $100 tips.

And he did it because he wanted her to have money

to buy presents for her kids at Christmas.

I miss Dick.

I didn't want him to die.

It's a big hole right here.

This past Thursday and he was at the lake.

And I swear the whole time he was breathing

down my neck.

Worried about that dog.

I thank y'all for puttin' up with my ramblings

and feelings, glad to see a lot of people down here.

Larry Benoit.

Michael Davis.

Nice to meet you.

We need to check in.

We wanted to create an organization which would

network across all the professionals

and also provide balance, because at that time there was

a big movement towards what we might call

total positive, something that Dick

didn't believe was correct.

I will admit neither did the rest of us.

And we wanted to have versatility,

wanted to have variety.

We wanted to be able to balance out with a dog

the kind of approaches we used because

every dog is different.

I didn't know Dick was as well known

as what I learned when I went to the IACP Conference.

I thought his popularity was primarily

Louisiana, maybe the southern region.

I was stunned to find out that people all over

the world knew him.

For years Dick offered a special award

to members that was called the Dick Russell Wow Award.

And it was for the member who did the most to wow

the dog training community during that year.

And Dick did this at his own volition,

his own idea with his own money.

Designed and bought the trophy.

I mean this was a guy who was, you know,

not only in love with dogs, but in love with dog trainers,

in love with education.

He went through his whole class.

He stood up in front us, no dogs, no dogs at all,

went through his entire class.

It was amazing.

He has it that memorized, he's that good at it.

But I love paper plate recalls.

And when I teach that I always tell 'em about Dick.

When he came and talked about his life time guarantee

and his commitment was for life so once they went

through a class, come on back, do it again.

Still don't have it, come back, do it again.

That was pretty neat and we learned from that.

Dick was demonstrating his large field socialization

and Dick at probably 70 years old

goes barrelling across the field and tripped and fell.

And I mean really kinda crashed.

I hope I have that much gumption at that age.

Dick brought Anne in standing heat,

he comes over, he's fixing coffee said hey baby,

tell me the jokes and all.

What are we gonna do today?

Said yeah, so where's Anne?

He says, "Oh she's over there by a riff."

I said she's what?

He said, "Riff is a girl."

I said no he's not.

His eyes got as big as saucers and he swings around

and looks and they're both laying there

side by side hadn't moved an inch.

He would say, "I am the best dog trainer

"in the United States.

"Cyndy is the second best dog trainer in the United States."

He would tell everybody that he was the best

dog trainer in the world, everybody.

You know, but he knew he wasn't.

But every time he was done, he got an applaud

like they just saw the Dick Russell Show.

It was the dog training class, but he was just so

entertaining that people would clap.

Remember him writin' to me and say

Martin you're a good friend.

You've always been a friend.

I admire and respect you.

But it's time for you to stand down.

And he said it as he thought it.

He said it without really concern for you

as to whether it might really hurt.

His words were to me, "What happens,

"what if something happens to you tomorrow Martin?

"Who's gonna take over?"

I don't know Dick.

"Well there should be, there should be

"somebody to take over, none of us are indispensable.

"Look at me."

And this was when he knew he had cancer

and it was the final kinda year.

And he was right, you know, you don't always think

that you are going to be somewhere else.

You don't know that you might be hunting dogs

in a different ground in a different world.

And you always think basically that you're indispensable.

And no one should be indispensable.

And Dick made me realize that.

He was a guy that I trusted in.

In fact he said in that same letter,

"Remember Martin I still love you.

"I gave you my shirt off my back."

And that's Dick's shirt.

Alright that's Dick's shirt.

That's the shirt he gave me off his back that day.

He took it off in the awards

and gave it me and presented it to me.

And I've kept it ever since and in fact

for about three years following

or four years following, I actually wore this shirt

at the awards ceremony every year.

When Dick passed on I didn't do it again.

It wasn't the same without Dick.

Beginning this year, Martin Dealey,

the beloved Martin Dealey stepped down as director.

He guided this organization through a lot of hard times.

He's done an amazing job.

There are some that are well known

throughout the world and there are some

who are just the world in their own area.

Gentleman in Baton Rouge, he was a man

of the country and his country could not be without dogs.

For as he was concerned, dogs was his life.

Dick Russell was a real dog man.

You couldn't help but love the guy,

I mean he was just such a character,

but there was just something so warm about him

and so charismatic.

He tried to help people not because he thought

he would get something out of it,

but simply because he thought that that's what

he should try to do.

Knowing animals and having worked at

a pet store 27 years and then knowing Dick,

yeah if there was ever such a thing as a dog whisperer,

he fits the description to the tee.

Dick was ahead of his time in so many ways

with his dog training skills, his knowledge of people.

It's like I still go back and read his

manifesto that he made up for all of us

and it all makes so much sense.

A dog man is a very rare thing.

You're not just dog trainers, people will understand dogs

and that makes them able to train dogs,

but it's a lot more than that.

Dick wasn't just training the dogs to live together,

he was training the owners to be different people.

There's not many Dick Russell's in this world.

Maybe we all get to characters like that,

but he was a special character.

There are people that dedicate their lives

to single purposes, that do many, many many things

unselfishly and touched the lives of so many

different people, they become legendary.

You take care.

Look around ya'.

Everything out here is actin' like it's got good sense.

Magic has been woke with these puppies.

I didn't work a bit of that magic.

You guys work the magic.

And you work that magic by practicing day

after day after day after day.