Original subtitles

Here!

How's it going?

- How you doing? - I'm good.

Growing up in Oakland, my mom always believed in two things.

You should not only be book smart, be street smart.

Pick up those feet, get a little more speed.

There you go.

Good.

What we did, we just tapped into that prey drive.

My mom, she was a hard-working woman, but she was by herself.

I watched her hustle, you know,

skin care products out of her trunk, starting from nothing.

Nice.

Break and play. Good.

Oakland's like one of those places

where you know if you can make it through Oakland,

you can make it anywhere.

Work on that recall to make sure it's absolute.

Okay, for example, using German commands.

Platz!

Good. Hier!

You see what I mean? So, down.

Good. Hier! Her recall…

Fuss!

Heel. And then be able to walk with you.

My main thing was to keep hustling and that's been my whole goal every day.

I wake up every morning having to go get it. It's on my mind, you know?

And for me, it's bigger than just training dogs.

You got a pack animal,

you gotta establish pack leadership, got it?

-Good work today. -Thanks, Jas.

You're welcome. Right, young man.

-Thank you. -You're very welcome.

Oakland is one of them cities. It keeps you humble, you know?

And these streets, you know, it…

You know, everybody doesn't make it out. It's crazy out here.

As a kid, I was a troublemaker.

When you don't have that father figure in your house, you don't have that example.

I have a best friend I consider my brother.

He's a Muslim brother, so he's a brother in faith,

but, you know, his name is Charles.

We met in fifth grade. He always looked out for me.

He taught me these streets.

Survival skills in this environment will keep you alive.

With my best friend, this street life got the best of him.

When he was 16,

he committed a pretty bad crime and was tried as an adult.

They convicted him as an adult and gave him 31 years to life.

So, you see that Black and brown men are disproportionately incarcerated.

You don't want to be part of that trap.

So, for me, I've chosen to redirect my hustle,

and any street game that I, you know, have acquired growing up in this city

since 1985 and applying it to Cali K9.

Right, so we're on our way to East Oakland,

where we're going to meet Tashia and Mike.

Tashia and Mike have an overexcited German Shepherd-husky mix

that's giving 'em hell.

Let's take him for a walk. Come.

-Down! -Get off the car.

-Diesel, relax. Down! -Diesel, stop running. Stop.

He's doing… Down! Better. I was gonna give you a compliment.

-Come on. -Diesel, where are you going, man?

Walk. Just walk.

Walk. Walk.

Sit. Sit down. Oh, my God.

-Sit! Sit! -Gonna get hit by a car.

We adopted Diesel when he was a puppy.

Who couldn't fall in love with a cute puppy?

We just knew right away when we saw him.

We didn't talk about it, we were like, we're taking him with us.

At our last place, we couldn't have pets. Come, Diesel.

Um… so, we just wanted another member of the family.

-Uh… I wanted a small dog. -Come on.

-But Mike had a different preference. -Come on.

I felt like he'd be protection if Tashia goes outside

or, you know, home protection.

That was the idea around it.

But now he's huge. He ain't listening.

He feels like this is his home, not ours.

- Diesel. -Diesel, come. Diesel, come.

He licked my lens.

-He licked the lens? - Sorry.

Diesel, come!

He just doesn't listen.

Come!

-When you see him in action-- - It's really bad.

- He's darting all over the place. -Down.

He smells everybody's crotch like it's just the thing to do.

Really? This is what we're doing? It hurts.

This is like a workout.

-It's like he has endless energy. -Like ADHD.

In the meanwhile, we're suffering… And I think he's suffering too.

He's like, "You guys are always telling me no."

-"To stop, to get down." -"I can't do anything."

"Everything I wanna do, you tell me not to do."

Stop it. Sit. Diesel!

Diesel!

Walk. I don't understand. What's the problem? Just walk.

Don't pull it tight, you'll choke him.

Stop. Stop.

You're adding high levels of stress.

This is why it's hard to walk him.

So, when you're talking to him, you're like "Heel! Sit! Stop!"

-You don't have to be aggressive. -He's not listening.

He can hear you, your tone of voice, that you're upset.

It's almost like he's being disrespectful by not listening,

and so I get mad, and I start yelling at him,

you know, and just because he won't stop.

You're like, "Go," and you're yanking him. You gotta give him the chance to go.

-I'm not yanking. -Yes, you are.

I'm the problem?

It's frustrating.

I'm sorry.

-I don't know what to do. -But that doesn't mean yell.

But if we just keep saying, "Stop, stop…"

We gotta communicate on his level.

We just gotta be a little more patient.

I'm trying to be patient, to be calm.

He keeps pulling, running, darting in the street.

But it's triggering me, big time.

To where I'm like, forget it. I don't even want to try anymore. Um…

All right.

Come on.

Come on, Diesel. No pulling.

We recently got married,

and we just wanted to have a family with a dog.

He's such a sweetheart, I love that about him.

- Mm-hmm. -Um… You know, and he's like our baby.

How do we make it work?

-Sit. -Can it work?

-Hey. Hey.

All right.

We'll work it out.

We're desperate to get this sorted immediately.

It causes tension between us.

Um… unfortunately if it does not work out, we have to figure out what's best.

Putting him in a home where he'd be happy and successful.

It doesn't make sense for him to suffer here and for us to suffer as well.

-Exactly. -So…

-Diesel. -Sit.

Hey, don't pop, don't do that.

-You got him? -Sit! Yeah.

- Sit. -What's going on?

-How you doing? -Jas.

-Mike. -Nice to meet you.

-My wife Tashia. -Hi, Tashia.

-Sorry. -Our dog, Diesel.

-What's going on with y'all? -Good.

-This is Diesel? -This is Diesel.

He's active, so he will jump.

Let me close this door, so he doesn't go nowhere. What's up, boy?

You know the boss is in town? You know I'm here?

- Oh, down! - All right, so…

- Diesel, down. - Okay.

Down, Diesel.

- All right. - Diesel, down.

-Diesel, down. -All up on me, yeah, okay.

- Sorry. -What's up, boy?

Hey. All right.

So, how old is Diesel now?

-A year and a half. -Year and a half?

What kind of behaviors are you struggling with?

He is, like, amped up.

-He'd be going nuts. - Yeah.

He will not listen.

And earlier, we went out on a walk, and I'm sore.

He takes it as a personal challenge,

like, I'm gonna pull this rope as hard as I can.

Like he's oblivious to what's going on.

Yeah. And he is.

All I'm seeing here is,

y'all got an excited puppy who thinks he's somebody.

So, it's so important that he gets the pack leadership that he needs,

or he'll take it upon himself to create that leadership.

A lot of times, these kind of dogs get people mad and frustrated.

'Cause you don't know.

There are no bad dogs, just uninformed people.

If he can get to the point where he can just stay somewhere,

that would be a huge step for us.

-Grab me his leash and some food. -Okay.

Throw me that whole bag.

Yeah.

What you got, boy?

I'm doing a bit of frustration around him.

-Get him motivated. - Okay.

Yeah.

And the whole thing is we wanna tap into that dopamine, you know?

Him chasing this food down, and really, it starts with you

and you understanding every little move on what makes your dog tick.

What gets his attention.

A lot of times people have dogs,

the dog might be just running them over, you know,

maybe they're not getting that dog motivated enough

to get that dog engaged to want to stay focused

on you versus the distraction or whatever there is.

So, once you have a dog engaged, then you have him.

Good. Sit. Good.

See how I got that one command going? Most people repeat commands.

Now he stays in the sit. Good sit.

I'm gonna reinforce it while he's doing it.

Good sit. All right?

I'm not worried about him-- See how he offered me that sit?

-Yeah. -So boom, good sit.

See what I mean? This is how we teach to stay.

He knows what gets him paid. He'll keep doing it.

He's smart. Break!

Okay, now start releasing that command of that break, that's the release command.

Let's see if he offers another sit without me saying anything.

There's that intelligence gonna kick in.

Good sit.

Good. Down.

-Does he know how to down? -No.

Good boy.

Good down.

So, the same way he's gonna see value in sitting,

he'll see the value in downing.

Until he gets here and he's… Elbows down, good down.

You just let him do it.

I'm just being patient, and helping him, motivating him.

What I'm seeing is, see his learning rate?

See how fast he's picking this up?

-Right, yes. -Good.

He's never done that.

First you gotta have that focus.

Break! And now it's a stay.

So, see, we were able to teach break, focus, sit,

and down… in that short amount of time.

Oh, I get it.

Focus is what? Him waiting…

It's him paying attention to you. Like talking to somebody.

I'm either focused, or you're talking and I'm over here.

See? Am I really receiving your information?

This is really impressive,

'cause right before you got here, he was acting a fool.

He was all over the place, he wasn't listening.

And it's like, I know you have a presence, you walk in

and you're almost whispering.

And it's like, and he's just, like, totally at ease and totally disarmed.

This is one of those things that dogs know.

When they have a pack leader in their presence, dogs recognize that.

You know, he's got to have a certain order around your presence.

That's pretty much what we'll teach you how to do, too.

-It's encouraging to see it's possible. - Sounds good.

Let's go and take him outside.

I want to see how he walks for you in the streets.

And let's go ahead and kinda go from there.

Nope. No. No pull. There he is, rowing the boat.

Come on. Nope. Get off the car.

Walk with me. Come on.

-He's starting to get stronger. Stop. -Down.

- You say "down" when he jumps off. - Yeah.

Earlier, in the house, we used "down" to have him lay down.

-Oh, okay. -See how that would be inconsistent?

Yeah.

What I'm seeing is he's basically walking you.

You know, walking has to be a behavior.

It's gotta be something that he's creating a habit doing.

He's gotta know he's gotta be in a particular place

when you give the heel command.

"Come" means "come right here," "heel" means "walk right here."

Oh, okay.

When you get to where you're going, you can give him freedom to run,

other than that, he'll take you on one.

Yeah.

- Can I see treats? -Uh-huh.

Diesel.

Another thing is there's all the motivations out here.

You gotta get him motivated to stay close.

This is where you want him to walk, here.

Good.

Now you see… The party's right here.

-Yeah. - Yeah.

It's not out there.

So, we're gonna initially just walk in short distance

with him motivated, not jumping all over you.

Keeping this leash nice and short is keeping the dog from running all wild.

So, he's gotta learn that, hey, you can't pull, okay?

We won't allow him. He pulls, we stop.

- Okay. - Good. Now shorten that leash first.

I'll walk with you a bit. Let's walk.

Good.

Good, now do sit.

Sit. Good sit.

-Reward that. -Okay. Here.

Let's have you switch off.

He knows she has the treats. Make him know you have goodies.

Let him nibble as you walk.

What I want you to do for homework is start hand-feeding all of the meals.

What that's gonna do is keep your dog's eyes on you.

- Okay. - Heel.

Heel.

One more reward and we'll head inside.

So, I just had a question about tone.

Mike, he has a firmer tone than I do,

and I wanted to know if my tone had to mirror his

to be as effective.

The timing at which you make a correction is more important than the tone.

So, if you're administrating a behavior,

you wanna reward it in two seconds and correct it in two seconds.

The tone at which you do it doesn't matter.

It's marking it at the proper time.

All this time I spent, like, yelling, trying to get him to listen,

it's causing undue stress for all of us in the house.

I did grow up in, like, an emotionally abusive home.

We couldn't have much of a voice.

You know, you gotta stay in a child's place.

So, it can be very difficult,

the yelling, and them going back and forth with Diesel barking and Mike being upset.

There's instances when it gets really bad with them.

I'm like, don't do that, he's part of our family.

But then he gets mad at me. Like, he'll come and be all, "Rah, rah, rah."

Then I'm like, "Can you talk to me, so I can help you with Diesel?"

He's mad at me and I'm like, "I didn't do nothing."

"I'm trying to figure this out just like you."

Right.

It's frustrating 'cause I'm like, "Dude, you wanted the dog."

I wanted a little dog. But you my husband, I'm gonna rock with you,

I'll ride with you and we'll figure it out.

But it just creates frustration,

'cause I'm just… We communicate well any other time,

you know, but with Diesel, it's, like, no patience.

For me, I'm like, we have a dog now, and eventually, you know, I want kids.

-Looking at how he'll run the kids. -Exactly.

When I see him talk to Diesel,

how will you treat our kids when you're upset,

'cause they throw something, or things don't go your way?

Is that how you'll talk to our kids?

And I don't feel good with that, that's not okay.

Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely conscious of the fact that

we just got married, we're gonna want to have a family,

and I ask myself that question, too.

I'm like, okay, if I can't even, like, be patient with my dog,

how will I be patient with kids?

-I gotta figure this out. -Yeah.

For me, I'm so frustrated.

I come from… I made a lot of mistakes in my life.

-I've had to pay for those mistakes. -Right.

So, I've come from this level of, like, hey, this is a respect thing.

Nobody disrespects at all.

-Nobody's allowed to. -Right.

- When-- -You sat out for a minute?

-Yeah. -Yeah, for like a couple.

So, I spent a couple years in a minimum federal prison camp over in Taft.

Okay.

Um… and you lose your freedom.

-All you have is respect. - Right.

Um… and so when Diesel, like, you know, has these moments, it triggers me.

And it really causes me to kind of… Um… it's kind of like a defense mechanism.

It's like, okay, whether it's him, whether it's a person--

It's all respect.

Like…

Just hearing him say that, you know, um… Diesel not respecting him triggers him,

now I know.

You know, before I was just lost, and then I was left to assume,

and, you know, all these things, so just communicating, you know.

And now I feel better. Now I'm able to assist in that area, so, yeah.

Y'all don't know about my background.

My best friend was incarcerated for 20 years.

Know what I mean? Like you said, it's about respect.

That's what will give you that assertiveness.

If you tell the dog to do something,

make sure you can back up what you're saying.

But the other part is the compassion.

From what you understand, from what you came, the abuse,

the things you experienced, you know there's a better way.

It's taking all the experience in life game that you got,

and be able to say boom, now we can train this dog.

I didn't know this was gonna impact on my relationship.

I didn't look at it like that, I was like, this dog needs to get trained.

Like, I don't want to say he could make or break us, but it's the reality.

So, our whole goal is to make sure you guys are empowered.

That's what we're trying to do.

-Yeah. Thank you. -I appreciate that. Yeah, thank you.

If you have a mother and a father

who can't see eye to eye on their parenting style,

a lot of times, that inconsistency is noticed by the child.

Dogs do the exact same thing.

If everyone's not on the same sheet of music,

it won't create harmony in the house.

I wanna see that you guys have a successful marriage

and that you have a successful dog in your family.

-All right? -Thanks. Appreciate it.

Good work. Y'all take care, all right?

All right. I'll see you next week for some more training.

I met Tashia differently than I met any other woman in my life.

You know, I was just doing my job, trying to work,

and um… all of a sudden, somebody behind me was like, "Excuse me."

I turned around and it was Tashia.

And she had, like, this just, soft, subtle, just calm presence about her.

She's just a… Just a different kind of vibe with her.

I ended up reaching out to her via e-mail.

'Cause I didn't want to hear the "no."

But I reached out and asked her out on a date, and she said yeah.

I found the woman of my dreams when I found Tashia.

-Hey, what's up, y'all? -Hey, how you doing?

-All right, good to see you. -Nope. No. No.

-What's up, boy? -No. Sit.

All right. Don't let him trip. Good job. Make him sit. Make him keep it.

Come on. Sit.

- Good. Praise that. Good sit. -Good sit.

How'd it work out from the tools from last time?

-Seems like he's getting it faster? -Working on it.

-Building up. -Cool. Now we'll take it to the box.

We'll work on that stay command we was talking about.

That box will teach him how to stay in a place for a short amount of time.

We'll build up duration as we go along.

I'll grab the box out of my car. We'll get started.

Sounds good.

The box is huge in just establishing that initial behavior,

which is to go out and get on something and stay until they're released.

It's our first step in establishing the pack leadership

that's necessary to control a dog like this.

We have a lot of distraction, we try to keep the distraction down a bit.

But again, y'all livin' in this kind of busy environment,

it'll take some more engagement from you.

Now, let me see what you got going on.

I know he's just trying to play around.

Good. So, kind of keeping it available the whole time.

Keeping him hopeful that he's gonna get one.

And then we're gonna just kind of guide him up to here,

guide him up to the box.

When he gets on the box, break!

Good, right? We gonna mark it immediately, right?

So, that's a short… That's a one-second stay.

We'll build it up to where it could be five minutes.

It's gonna go up, you know, bit by bit.

One thing about the domesticated animal is, you know,

they've been domesticated to follow humans.

You can take a dog out the pack, but not the pack out of the dog.

My system's all about making sure that the dog is looking

for the pack leadership from their handler.

So, I'm gonna pass it to you guys,

and you'll work on guiding him up here to the box.

Since we got so much going on, get the treats out, get him engaged,

-and get him focused on you. -Okay.

Dogs need to have respect, but they also need to have trust for their pack leader.

Come on. Break.

Keep him eating the whole time.

I see y'all been practicing, and that's perfect.

-Take him up there. - Right. Come on.

-Box. Break. Um… Sit. - Sit.

Say what you mean, mean what you say.

-Focus. Focus. - Focus.

-Good focus. - Break and play.

- Break. - There.

Perfect, Mike. Man, that's perfect. Reload. Where your treats at?

Any second that he's off doing something else, you lost him.

You won't need as many treats, but initially,

especially with distractions, have as many as possible.

- Break. - Nice job.

All right, good. Let's switch it. We gonna work on the down.

Take him in the box, put him in a down.

- Wanna do it? - All right.

Good. Get them treats out. Next command, box.

-Box. -Down him.

Down. Sit. All right. Down.

Bring the treat in the box, not outside. He'll follow that.

There, good. Stand straight up.

You don't have to down with him. He's gotta down.

There you go, drop them in like that. That's perfect.

All right.

Be patient. This is where you teach him to stay.

It's just a good down. A down is a down until you give him a break.

- Okay. - Right?

The stay and stuff is not necessary. Down means down until you release him.

-All right. - Break and play.

- Break! -Good. That was at least a 30-second stay.

-Yeah. -Let's switch handlers.

Good. Back in the box. Get back in there.

Box, sit.

-There you go. Focus. -Focus.

Good. Drop the leash.

Walk around my van.

-Oh. Okay.

We're in a public area, I'll step on it though I'm not part of it.

-Keep him engaged the whole time. -Good sit.

-Keep talking. Good sit. -Good sit.

-No! -No! No!

-No! - It's okay, he's staying.

Good. Walk around.

-Good sit. - Good sit, boy.

- All right, Diesel. Good boy. - Good sit. Good sit.

- Good sit. - Good sit. Come back to him.

Oh! Who's the pack leader now? Break and play.

-Break. - Nice job!

- All right!

-Good job. -That's awesome!

Let's go. Y'all been practicing. That's good.

-Let's go! Let's go!

-Here, in the East. - Right!

It's awesome to see him, like, actually doing new things

he hasn't done before that seemed unimaginable.

I have to say I'm really proud of you guys, you know?

Y'all been doing a real good job, I mean, I like what I see.

This is like a huge difference in such a short time.

- No! - See the other dog?

-No. Sit.

- It's the dogs. -Make that correction.

Nope. Sit. And get him engaged.

- Nope. - Good.

The fact we got him back engaged, got him to sit, is all we're looking for.

We're not trying to do it all in a day.

-Consistency is gonna win. -Yeah.

Get the reps in. Remember, more reps and always training.

You know, keep those in your head. More reps, always training.

As long as you stick by that, you're not gonna fail.

Allāhu akbar.

As a Muslim, I give all praise to God because, you know, at the end of the day,

you know, that's my pack leader.

I have to be obedient to a certain degree,

just like a dog's gotta be obedient to me.

I gotta practice what I preach.

If I'm telling people to put their dogs in a certain balanced lifestyle,

that means I gotta practice that lifestyle.

That's what it's all about, you know, as a human being,

creating that balance and discipline for yourself,

figuring out your motivations, what keeps you fired up in the morning.

'Cause it's a crazy world.

Hey. What's up, y'all?

-What's up? -How's it going? Good to see you.

-What's up? How you doin'? -How you doing? Good to see you.

All right.

-I see he's still pretty excited.

- Yeah. - Pull him out.

Let's see where he's at based on, you know, where we started off.

Good sit.

Open it, make sure he stays till you let him out.

Okay. Heel.

- Good. -Down.

Happy boy. All right, now let's go ahead and let him greet me. Let him go free.

Okay. Break.

Hey, boy. How's it going? How's it going, boy?

How's it going?

Yeah, a lot more manners, huh?

Good. Call him back and just have him lay down for you.

Diesel.

Down.

No.

-Down. -Good.

Since you guys have the communication down,

has this been helping you guys out

in just being able to have more peace in the house?

Oh, my God. It's like learning the psyche of the dog,

of our dog, has really been helpful.

It's the main thing. Every dog's not the same.

-Exactly.

So, what we're gonna do is we'll just check him out at close proximity,

I wanna walk around the neighborhood and see how he's doing.

- Sounds good. -Let's do it.

-Right, heel. - Heel.

All right. Nope.

All right, let's hit it.

I wanna see loose leash.

-Oh, okay. -Yeah.

Sit.

-Good. All right, forward. - All right. Heel.

Even that's too far. Keep him right at that leg.

-Right there. -Good boy.

Good boy, Diesel.

-Nice job. -Good boy.

I never thought we'd walk down the street with Diesel,

having him on our side, paying attention to everything we're doing.

That's huge for us.

-There you go. Good. -Good.

-Good boy. -See, now that's a walk.

-Yes. -Yeah.

-That's a walk right here.

Instead of pulling, and…

Yes, good boy. Boy, look at you.

It's a work in progress, but it's not anywhere near like what it was.

He's not anywhere near like who he was.

-Sis, you jump in the driver's seat. -All right.

We definitely never could have imagined that,

you know, Diesel being so calm, like right now.

Yeah. Before, it was, "I'll do whatever I want to do."

"You guys are just here."

All right, I like what I'm seeing.

This is a far cry from him jumping all over cars

and pulling y'all down the street.

Yeah. Exactly.

-Yeah, this is nice.

- Good boy. - He was darting all over the place.

A lot of times, people forget how far they've come.

Yeah, and it was just stressful between us,

you know, we both are trying to tell him one thing, and…

We had different ways of telling him. Mine was more aggressive.

And, you know, it was a trigger for Tashia.

And I think, for me, it was a trigger for me, too,

'cause, you know, I felt disrespected.

For me, I didn't know that.

I didn't know you was reacting because you felt disrespected.

I just thought you was just being mean.

Right, and he's looking at this dog

like he's testing his boundaries every day, so I feel you.

Looking back on it, I don't think he was intentional

about trying to be disrespectful.

It was just, like, kind of us not understanding, you know?

And for me, now I feel totally respected,

I feel like I'm understanding why he's behaving the way he is.

And I didn't before.

Don't y'all feel empowered?

-Yes. -Yeah.

Y'all feel like this ain't even a problem no more.

You can say, "We used to have a dog problem."

Let's get a recall in before going inside.

-Have him sit. - All right. Sit. Down.

Good. All right, go all the way down to where the gate is.

All right.

Good boy. Good down, Diesel.

Good boy, Diesel. Good down.

Good boy.

Good boy, Diesel.

When you're ready.

- Diesel, come. - Come.

Come on, boy! Good boy!

Good boy! Sit!

Beautiful.

-Sit. Good boy. -Now break and play.

Break.

Who'd have thought we'd be doing that on the street like this?

- Thanks. - Major improvement.

We don't have to worry about him darting out in the street.

-Yeah, really.

That's what's up, man.

We just want to say thank you.

Seeing his transformation has then in effect transformed my whole home.

And it's like, it's not even just about, like, it's just training a dog.

No, this is like a life-changing thing.

-Yeah. -Know what I mean?

And it's like, we had no idea.

One of the best things that could happen to us.

-Yeah, definitely. - Beautiful, man.

This is, for me, it's deeper than dogs.

When I can improve lives,

that's really the feedback that really keeps me going.

I appreciate y'all giving me that feedback,

'cause again, this is where I feed on

to continue on to help more people like you guys.

Jas is as real as it gets. I mean, he is authentic. I love that.

With Jas's program and Cali K9,

it's like, you look at a holistic approach to how you train the dog,

and it's almost like you could apply that to your life.

-All right, man. -Thank you so much.

-Appreciate it.

-All right, sis. -Thank you. Diesel's jealous.

All right, Diesel, I'll give you some love too.

-I know. Yeah, boy.

All right, y'all. Have a good one. Take care, I'll check in on y'all soon.

Sounds good.

It gives us more confidence to become future parents.

We can tackle things together and it doesn't have to be one-sided.

Taking that team effort.

-And patience. Yeah. -And patience, that's huge.

Now it's like, okay, now we have a clear path.

You know, it's reachable.

As long as we're consistent, we'll be okay, we'll definitely be okay.