Lisa is joined by Lisa J. Edwards, the author of A Dog Named Boo: How One Dog and One Woman Rescued Each Other―and the Lives They Transformed Along the Way.
Lisa J. Edwards is a full-time professional dog trainer and behavioral consultant and the owner-operator of Three Dogs Training. (www.threedogstraining.com)
She has been a registered Delta Society Pet Partner with three of her dogs and has made more than 400 visits with her pets to hospitals, schools, nursing homes and residential care facilities.
In 2008, Boo was honored as one of five finalists for the Delta Society's national Beyond Limits Award for his therapy work with Lisa.
On October 14, 2012 A Dog Named Boo entered the Sunday Times Top Ten Paperback Bestseller list!
When Lisa Edwards came across this puppy Boo while on her way to buy Halloween candy, she immediately noticed that this puppy wasn't like the others. He was bumping into things, was very mellow, and was something special. She got Boo and had a very hard time training him, especially when it came to potty training (took over a year.) As a dog trainer, she knew there was something going on with her sweet Boo. Turns out her has something called Cerebellum Hyperplasia. With patience, persistence, and letting go of perfection, Boo became an incredible therapy dog and changed the lives of so many people.
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The International Bestseller
The 'feel good' book of the season… Boo’s story reminds all of us that life is full of possibilities and that hope often arrives wagging a tail. —Best Friends magazine
The dunce of obedience class with poor eyesight and a clumsy gait, Boo was the least likely of heroes. Yet with his unflappable spirit and boundless love, Boo has changed countless lives through his work as a therapy dog: inspiring a six-year-old boy to speak for the first time in his life, coaxing movement from a paralyzed girl and stirring life in a ninety-four-year-old nun with Alzheimer’s disease. But perhaps Boo’s greatest miracle is the way he transformed Lisa Edwards’s life, giving her the best gift of all: faith in herself.
This is the inspiring true story of how one woman and one dog rescued each other, a moving tribute to hope, resilience and the transformative power of unconditional love.
Lisa is joined by Lisa J. Edwards, the author of A Dog Named Boo: How One Dog and One Woman Rescued Each Other―and the Lives They Transformed Along the Way.
Lisa J. Edwards is a full-time professional dog trainer and behavioral consultant and the owner-operator of Three Dogs Training. (www.threedogstraining.com)
She has been a registered Delta Society Pet Partner with three of her dogs and has made more than 400 visits with her pets to hospitals, schools, nursing homes and residential care facilities.
In 2008, Boo was honored as one of five finalists for the Delta Society's national Beyond Limits Award for his therapy work with Lisa.
On October 14, 2012 A Dog Named Boo entered the Sunday Times Top Ten Paperback Bestseller list!
When Lisa Edwards came across this puppy Boo while on her way to buy Halloween candy, she immediately noticed that this puppy wasn't like the others. He was bumping into things, was very mellow, and was something special. She got Boo and had a very hard time training him, especially when it came to potty training (took over a year.) As a dog trainer, she knew there was something going on with her sweet Boo. Turns out her has something called Cerebellum Hyperplasia. With patience, persistence, and letting go of perfection, Boo became an incredible therapy dog and changed the lives of so many people.
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The International Bestseller
The 'feel good' book of the season… Boo’s story reminds all of us that life is full of possibilities and that hope often arrives wagging a tail. —Best Friends magazine
The dunce of obedience class with poor eyesight and a clumsy gait, Boo was the least likely of heroes. Yet with his unflappable spirit and boundless love, Boo has changed countless lives through his work as a therapy dog: inspiring a six-year-old boy to speak for the first time in his life, coaxing movement from a paralyzed girl and stirring life in a ninety-four-year-old nun with Alzheimer’s disease. But perhaps Boo’s greatest miracle is the way he transformed Lisa Edwards’s life, giving her the best gift of all: faith in herself.
This is the inspiring true story of how one woman and one dog rescued each other, a moving tribute to hope, resilience and the transformative power of unconditional love.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dog , boo , dante , lisa , give , book , wanted , scooby doo , funny , training , visit , nose , classroom , love , easier , little bit , child , tennis ball , hyperplasia , amorphous
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Lisa D.
0:55
Does your dog do well today answering this question is a fantastic Lisa J Edwards I fell madly in love with her book, an international best seller No surprise there a dog named boo, one dog and one woman rescued each other in the lives they transformed along the way. Lisa J. Edwards is a full time professional dog trainer and behavioral consultant. She has been a registered pet partner with three of her dogs and has made more than 400 visits with her pets to hospitals, schools, nursing homes and residential care facilities in 2008, bu was honored as one of five finalists for the Delta society's national beyond limits award for his therapy work with Lisa. Okay, Lisa, tell us something that one of your many dogs does or did do.
Lisa E.
1:46
That's a hard one. But I have to go with the most recent and she has a habit. When you're greeting her. She's a big fan of the bud scratch. And she goes face down, sideways to the floor, her butt up in the air. And she just dances around while you scratch her butt and and it is so funny. We continuously try to get it filmed. The minute someone touches their camera, she gets up and she walks away like she just knows she's like, No, you're not putting that online. She says I know what you people are up to.
Lisa D.
2:24
Oh my gosh, what is her name?
Lisa E.
2:25
Her name is paxi pa X apostrophe. We were hoping our last dog's name was pinball. And we got what we named wild and crazy dog. So we hoped that perhaps if we went with packs for peace, we might get a really peaceful dog. She's not really peaceful. But she's a very good egg. And she's very tolerant. And she's a but she's not. So
Lisa D.
2:50
oh, she sounds adorable. I know I dog seem to know, blue or Benji will be doing something so funny and so cute. And so fillable and then the second I turn off, I bring my camera like blue does that thing where he takes a long time to settle on a couch or a bed or a big pillow and he'll do all the digging and like he'll go at it like really hard. It's so funny. And as soon as I pull out my camera or my phone, which he knows, he'll just turn and look at me and he'll just stop and plop down like dark blue
Lisa E.
3:19
jays almost like you could you could use that to make them stop. Right?
Lisa D.
3:24
It's a great idea. Okay, so Lisa, when did your love of dogs began?
Lisa E.
3:28
So it was kind of, I want to say forced upon me. But I had a boyfriend slash roommate. And he wanted to do dog. And I was a cat person. And I said, you know, all right, get a dog. But here are the rules. This is your dog. And there's no dogs in the furniture. And I'm a cat person. Within a month, maybe the dog was sleeping in the bed with me. And by the time maybe six months later we broke up I got custody of the dog and that was that.
Lisa D.
3:58
Oh my gosh, that's such a great story.
Lisa E.
4:02
I really view it as the universe kind of saying you know, we're kind of tired waiting for you to figure out that you need dogs in your life. So we're just going to arrange this here's the dog now do what you need to do.
Lisa D.
4:14
You know at least I knew right from the dedication that this was the kind of book for me and you right in the end Boo in the book about boo has to be dedicated to any one man, woman, child, dog, etc. Who has ever felt alone abandoned or outcast. There is a place for all of us. We just have to keep looking for it. I thought that was so beautiful. And I also love the story of how you got Bill. You're supposed to be buying Halloween candy and I love this you write quote no I thought to my legs not puppies. KitKats my legs ignored me. So take us back tell us a little bit about that first encounter.
Lisa E.
4:50
We as you said we had no Halloween candy we lived on a isolated in the woods kind of scary log house kind of thing and expected no trick or treaters but I figured if I didn't have any candy, they would come. So I was passing by this hole in the wall kind of pet store and a sign said puppies, you know, 4995, something like that. And that's almost to the word, the same sign that my boyfriend saw. When he picked up that first dog, Atticus, well, I have to go, Look, how can I that's the same. It's the same sign in, I went down, I said, you know, I'll just play with the puppies for a little bit and I go get my candy Boo was not like the other puppies. He was not robust. He was not running and playing, he was bumping and thumping and falling and it was the smallest, he was so uncoordinated. And just something just told me that I couldn't leave. So I couldn't. And I called my husband and said, you really have to either come stop me or come agree to this. Because otherwise, one way or another? Have to figure this out. Yeah. And, you know, he picked up the other two dogs came and met me. And I let each dog sniff boo and either give me a yes or no. And they were like, Yeah, sure, whatever.
Lisa D
6:10
And Lauren's got on board eventually. But it took a while. And one of the issues was that is it took so long for boo to get potty trained. And I don't wanna give too much away. But at the time, he didn't know there was more going on with him.
Lisa E.
6:23
You know, I think I say this with complete love training, who sometimes was like trying to train a two by four, where it was just information was not going in. Or if it was going in what should have been coming out on the backside of it was muddled.
Lisa D.
6:42
Yeah, it's interesting, too, because you figured out later that he had something called hyperplasia, cerebral hyperplasia. Yeah. Or cerebellum. Tell us a little bit about that. Because I hadn't heard of that.
Lisa E.
6:53
It's pretty rare. It happens mostly to cats, you see it more in cats. What the veterinarian who diagnose this surmised was that during gestation, Mama dog was sick. And so the way his cerebellum was developed was not appropriate. And so essentially, the back of the brain, were motor skills, and a lot of natural walking, and partying and all these normal things. Or I should say basic things, not normal things, basic things kind of sit and are computed. If we look at this, like a computer, just were not appropriately formed, or didn't have the right infrastructure in the brain to sit properly. And so for BU, he had an unusual game, it was a funny trot that he always had, it was a hop and a trot. And, you know, it's would be easy if nothing else was going on. It's just say, Okay, it's a little quirky, you know. But then the difficulty he had focusing on training, learning, and especially the potty train issue was just so difficult for him. At the time, it was really easy for me to say, Oh, well, I must be doing something wrong. But I had plenty of other dogs that I had no trouble with. And I had plenty of clients as a dog trainer, where I could guide them through this without any issue. And yet, it wasn't until I said, Alright, let's just step back, who's gonna be who's gonna be and we're not going to demand anything boo that boo. Can't do as boo, right? It just kind of said, you know, he is who he is. And I cannot beat myself up for not making a perfect dog. He's happy. He's loving. He's sweet. So yeah, once once Lawrence kind of came around and said, I guess he is who he is. We did eventually get a potty training, but it was a long haul.
Lisa D.
8:48
I think the reason that book moved me so much as well is that I love when people can weave in their own stories with the story of their dog, and then how they were able to help each other and you had a very abusive childhood growing up. In the younger years, it sounds like and you also had undiagnosed dyslexia, you didn't get diagnosed. So you're 19 you write about having this perceived image. And your parents wanted things to be picture perfect. You've been talking about them cutting pictures, family pictures, and putting them together to make it seem perfect. So having a daughter with a learning disability doesn't fit that and just how lonely and difficult that must have been for you. What was it like to share that?
Lisa E.
9:33
It makes more sense to share that, from my perspective, in trying to explain boo and trying to build empathy for boo to say to my husband, listen, you know, I'm not going to treat him the way we were treated. You know, I'm going to accept him for who he is. I'm not going to belittle him because he can think the way the other dogs can or he can't eat can calculate The process of training the way other dogs can, when I started dog training, one of the worst names you could call a trainer. Or the worst slur you could give a trainer was to tell them that they were anthropomorphizing. I think I even write in the book that I just embrace. I just said, You know what? Screw it, I'm going to embrace that. Because if we don't, what are we saying? We are saying that we are animals, unlike any other animal on this planet? If we do, what it's saying is we're empathic in that we are, and we understand the fact that animals are animals, and we all have an internal emotional life. Absolutely. And understanding one understands the other. So So go back to your question, explaining or divulging or revealing whatever my history made perfect sense in the story of boo, if I just kind of read the story about, you know, Lisa kind of would have been like, you know, or done that, you know, but it was the ability to see patterns, and upon seeing patterns adjust in a manner that had not been adjusted in the earlier pattern.
Lisa D.
10:59
You right, this is so powerful. And Lawrence is your husband, you write quote, laurenson are excellent examples of the fallout of punishment and abuse. He's a dog who will fight back when being hung from a choke chain or shocked, I'm like the dog who simply shuts down and curls up hoping to go unnoticed,
Lisa E.
11:16
whether it's dog training or child rearing. There is always the debate between, you know, positive reinforcement, reinforcing good behaviors, the token economy, in parenting, things like that, versus, you know, you just make them do it, you know, my son is also has special needs. And I'm sure there are times when he's having a meltdown, and I'm just standing there, and letting him run through it, that people walking by or muttering, you know, what is wrong? Why isn't he? What is he, you know, on and on, you punish that child? And that's not going to help much more likely to make things worse?
Lisa D.
Oh, absolutely.
Lisa E.
11:57
You know, so many of my clients are come from the land of special education, or social workers and things like that, because they will gravitate towards the positive reinforcement training, right. And so many times, you know, they will say things like, oh, let's just just like get to sit. Yeah, pretty much, except most kids don't work for treats, per se. Perhaps
Lisa D.
12:22
I want to talk a little bit about Porthos.. I think this is really important to remember that there was something that happened with port dos, and that he got really scared by the woman, and it kind of changed him.
Lisa E.
12:33
You know, I have mobility issues of my own. And I thought, well, you know, maybe Porthos could help me out. So I went to a colleague of mine who did a lot of service dog training at the time, and she was kind of giving me some tips and Porthos did not like going under things just didn't like it. She said, well, we'd have to make them do it. I said, I really don't think he wants to do this. She put a choke collar on him. She dragged him under a table. She held him there. And he was an 85 pound dog. So she was wrestling with this dog. And he was putting up a fight of a lifetime and screaming and I'm just standing there like I should have jacked, but she had seen you already. He was panicked, just panicked. spent the whole day the whole ride back which was not a short ride just never stopped panting He plucked his tail I believe it was the next day all the fur out of his tail, which is a you know, he usually we see birds doing that for dogs can do it too. And he was a very sensitive dog with a lot of physical and emotional problems and that I'm not gonna say that caused it but it's certainly exacerbated, exacerbated a lot of what was lying in wait for him.
Lisa D.
13:48
Yeah, mine's gonna throw in a child who doesn't know how to swim in a pool? Yeah, just don't do that crap. Yeah, it's abusive.
Lisa E.
13:55
Yeah, especially when they're screaming. I mean, yes. And we know better now, which is, you know, I've been doing this for a long, long time. And I that is no longer a slur by a good judge. And we we have a much better handle on the emotional motivations. fear and stress and anxiety play a key role in how we treat and how we train a dog.
Lisa D.
14:18
Speaking of training, you had wanted to train Boo to assist your brother Chuck had ALS. And again, you kind of you discovered that this isn't going to happen. But yet, bu went on to do incredible things. And I don't want to give too much away. But just tell us some of the things that you were able to do with Bill. And I am very sorry about your brother, by the way.
Lisa E.
14:40
Oh, thank you. It's kind of again without revealing too much. A simple sip from Bo. Was it almost excruciating to watch him try to think through this. And I finally realized that he could not follow a hand signal because part of this urban hyperplasia is his is a visual input, almost, if you will, it's and I'm not saying that this is like dyslexia or anything, it's just the way that the image comes in. His ability to translate it appropriately, was difficult. And you could just see him much like a person trying to unscramble letters, and I needed additional physical prompts for him. Like when I wanted to teach him to lay down, very often I would just lower dog treat to nose, let their nose follow the lower, bring the Lord down, and he could follow the Lord to save his blood. So I had to, if I move the lore too quickly from his nose, he would just kind of lose it and walk away. So I would take a fistful of stink because the more strength the easier it is for the dog to stay with it. Kind of like using a larger magnet, if you're playing with, you know, magnets, right, right. So I would literally have to take my fist full of stink and knock on his nose. So he would feel that tactile input, and then slowly, so slowly, and again, because of his dis coordination, he wouldn't like many dogs just kind of go down. And then he would kind of go, boom, boom, boom, and go. And, you know, I would, yeah, you did it on the streets, and you could see him laying there. Like, I really don't know what I did. But here I am. And now I do I get up kind of thing. So just the simple sits and downs for boo. And when we started to do testing, to be a partner to do animal assisted interventions, the evaluators are colleagues of mine, I evaluate, they evaluate, you can't evaluate yourself. So you go to another evaluator and the first part of the evaluation is skills so it sits and downs and states and walks and skills. Right second part of the evaluation is the the aptitude portion does the dog want to do this? Does the dog want to go see these strangers does the dog want to get petted, be hunt, be snuggled be scratched on these things, and I don't test well period. And they had to stop me a couple of times just to remind me to breathe. And so that was helpful, but I could see in their faces as they're watching me struggle to get this dog to just follow a simple command. And at one point when the down exercise came, I sat down once I gave them the little knock on the nose and the whole bit. And then I just held my breath. And everyone in the room held their breath important boost, like, Oh, this is weird. Looking around and breathing. What's going on? Finally, he did his little Eat, eat, eat, eat and, uh, and evolved over and you know, the room just erupted because everyone was really rooting for him. And, you know, my colleagues kind of pulled me aside and they said, Are you sure that you want to go on with this? I said, I know what you're saying I do. But just let's get through this if he if he passes the skills portion legitimately. And we get to the aptitude you're gonna see. And he did he passed by the herons, chinny chin chin kind of thing. And we got to the absolute portion. And it was it was like a butterfly coming out of chrysalis. And he was just snuggling and happy. And just just that's what he wanted. He wanted to be you know, snuggled and scratched. He wanted that input on the on these tests. What typically happens is in that skills portion, very often we get really well trained dogs. So the highest score is two. So you'll get tu tu tu tu tu tu tu and then we get into the skills portion. And very often we get a mixture of twos and ones. But rarely, I think boozy, oh man I've ever known who's gotten like 1111111. And then two is across the board. And they were it was a long haul training him to do this. But he made it very clear to me that this was what he wanted to do. And I again, at the risk of giving too much away. But when he found those two little girls in the pet store, and he just trotted right up to them stood there and let them pet him and poke him and all the rest of it. And he was just picking poop. And I was it was just so clear that that's what he needed. And that's what he wanted.
Lisa D.
19:18
And he did a very special thing called SNEZ. Lean tell us about snoezelen.
Lisa E.
19:25
So, it's sort of a snuggle right where you kind of get in there and you snuggle up but boo would take his nose and kind of dig it into you and then kind of flop over on you because again, he doesn't have that grace or he didn't have that grace to kind of come in you like my current dog is extremely agile and very graceful and she will come in and she will just fold herself right up next to you just ballet EQ right boom. He kind of squirrel in there with his nose and then go and then he would just kind of snuggle up with his nose and every now and then he would give you the pokey Vapnik As he was always rigid in his feet, his legs were always rigid. So again, it wasn't this curled up snuggle it was the I want to be in here, but everything's kind of go in caddywhompus in all the wrong directions.
Lisa D.
20:11
If you did the bug a boo, and his four legs are like straight out,
Lisa E.
20:15
and it's funny now having a dog that I can put on my lap, much like that, but watching the dramatic difference because FUBU his legs were like, they were stiff, like boards sticking straight out. When I put pecs in my lap now she's like, ragdoll everything just flops and that's what should happen, but his body just didn't work that way. Well, it
Lisa D.
20:35
was interesting to to read about Dante and Atticus and that they also did training and Dante would go into a classroom he would do like Scooby Doo kind of thing. Yeah. About that. But But boo had his own different but you know, unique talent. Yes.
Lisa E.
20:49
Yeah. And this is what I tell students all the time is that you may have one plan for your dog, and then your dogs can tell you something else. I was hoping boo could work for my brother. He said no, no, that's not going to work for me and but but I can do this thing over here. And I'd like to do this thing is fine kids, kids it is I had never thought we're going to go visit kids with special needs, but that's where boo fit in. Dante. On the other hand, I thought, Okay, we're gonna go see seniors. Right? Well, right. It was a 95 pound Shepherd Doberman mix, who had a heart of gold and was as goofy as you could be. But he was big and crazy. And I, you know, one fell swoop and he would take a senior down and we'd be in trouble. You know, not any intentional harm, but, and that's why we developed the Scooby Doo thing because he loved to jump. And he would jump straight up and he was so big, that a six foot plus man, Dante would jump on him and be face to face. So instead of punishing Dante for this kind of joy, I said, Alright, here's the compromise, son, you could go up that you got to just hover there.
Lisa D.
21:54
Just of just like Scooby Doo.
Lisa E.
21:56
Yeah he would do it, you'd be like, it was ridiculous looking. And so that was just such a great greeting, because he would go up and he would just kind of balance there for a moment, and everyone would laugh, and he would get what he needed, and everyone would get what they needed. And it was beautiful. But he was, you know, I think my favorite Dante visit story is I love doing classroom visits. And this was a mainstream classroom. And it was all about husbandry and learning about dogs and training and things like this. And we frequently had two teams, so two different dogs, and we would show the differences. We'd love things. So the end of the year came and we had this wonderful sort of, almost like, you know, they have field day schools have field that we we had our own end of the year visit. So we're gonna play games and we'll have two teams and so Dante is best girlfriend, Olympia, she was a released guide dog, very well behaved dog. I mean, she was perfect. Just you know, she's like the Lisa Simpson of dogs. She's just and Dante was, well, Bart, you know, and so the game we're playing was the kids would carry a tennis ball on a spoon while they held the end of the dog's leash. And the handler was in between so the kid wasn't walking, but there was this impression, it was easy for the tennis ball to go flying. And it was even easier for the tennis ball that my kids had because Dante was constantly knocking the tennis ball off of the spoon so he could chase it, whereas Olympia was walking perfectly. And you know, the tenant in limpias, tennis ball never went anywhere. And you know, Olympia is team finished, we weren't even halfway done. We were still chasing balls all over the classroom. But my team had a great time. We lost horribly, but they were just hooting and hollering, watching Dante chase all over the classroom to try and get this tennis ball.
Lisa D.
23:39
There's so many amazing moments in the book with boo and the children. I love the second grade class because my daughter was in a regular Elementary School Public School and was pulled out all the time. And so everyone's like, Oh, she's different. And they just treat her like, no, no, she had some kind of disease or something. I love that you talked like everyone loved boo. And you're like, you know, Boo has learning disabilities. Can you tell? I can tell? Oh, do you still care about boo? Yes, we do. I love what you wrote it too. Yeah. All the kids? Yes. Is he still a good dog? Yes, you know, and I wish there was something like that, it doesn't mean that the kids aren't going to still be jerks at times, right? The neurotypical kids, but it would have been really lovely for them to at least be like, Oh, maybe I can't be nice to that girl, even though she's different, you know, or learns differently.
Lisa E.
24:26
Yeah. Because it's, again, you know, it's often easier to embrace the differences in something that's cuddly and fuzzy. And yeah, and then when you kind of get shifted over to so what about people? It makes that transition so much easier to go. Oh, yeah.
Lisa D.
24:48
Yeah, I thought that was incredible. You know, I do want to share one story of boo visiting a little girl in a hospital. I mean, this was so moving.
Lisa E.
24:57
So I think you're talking about the girl who was on the Ernie. Yes, yeah, so this is a children's hospital where a lot of the kids have various degrees of mobility limitations, and sometimes there'll be in prone standards where they're, it's a stand up kind of wheelchair. So this particular little girl was flat on a on a gurney, I, you know, we never know because of HIPAA, and just privacy and you don't get told, you know what's going on, we get told this child can do this, this child can't do that. And she was on her stomach had turned towards boo, her arms were kind of as if you were laying with your fists under your shoulders, you could see her just staring at BU, and you could see her face is kind of lighting up. And I can only imagine the effort that it took for her to just kind of reach probably what was about nine inches, because I managed to scoot boo up all the way to the edge of the gurney. And she just reached out. And she was able to dig her fingers into his very, very thick fur. And she was just over the moon. And I don't know these children. So I don't know, what's a big deal or not what I know is what the caregivers do in response. So when the caregivers are going, Oh my God, that's great. You never like oh, okay, so that was a big deal. You know, because you could look at this and say, okay, she moved her hand six inches. I mean, apparently, it was a lot of work for her and a lot of joy for her just that little moment.
Lisa D.
26:26
Yeah, and Boo had a lot of moments in the book that are just miracles. I mean, some, you know, some unlucky, I want people to read it again, a dog named boo, one dog and one woman rescued each other and the lives they transformed along the way, I want to read a little bit from towards the end of the book, who didn't just teach me about dogs. He also taught me about life, he taught me to be patient with others to understand that we all work within our own limitations. And more important, he taught me to be patient with myself, he taught me that different doesn't automatically mean bad. And that the parts of myself, I've always seen as disabilities might actually, in some circumstances be advantages about that was so beautiful, and it's so true. And it's such an important message to get out.
Lisa E.
27:12
We all have strengths and weaknesses, and we can fight them, or we can bend to them and say, Okay, how does this how can I make this work for me?
Lisa D.
27:21
Yeah, it's so true. Lisa, tell us a little bit about three dogs training, how's that going?
Lisa E.
27:28
You know, I continue working. And I continue teaching and doing a lot of private work, I do probably a lot more complicated behavior work now as a certified behavior consultant. And I have a lot of number of rescue groups that call me in to kind of, if a dog is on the edge of being relinquished back to the rescue, they'll frequently call me in and second you step in can we see what we could do here, others will call me in ahead of time and dogs having trouble and they're having trouble replacing the dog. So we try to get the dog to a point where they are adoptable. It's funny, because in that setting, just a week ago, I was dealing with a dog who massive, massive phobias I just just almost like a constant panic attack. And so we were just working on getting the dog to walk happily in the park, take treats in the park that in and of itself was massive. And the woman said, When do we get to work on sit down and recall? And I said, we can't even begin to work on that until the dog trusts us until the dog says it's valuable for me, and it's safe for me to do what you just asked me to do.
Lisa D.
28:34
Right? And that's where we have to pay attention and listen, not just you know, push our agenda. I have been telling everybody this book I just over the moon it's so good. And it's just teaches you so many great lessons. And I just Oh boo is so just special and adorable and wonderful. Is there anything you wanted to add today? Other than where we can find you and all that good stuff?
Lisa E.
28:57
No, I think we've covered a lot and I don't want to spoil, you know, the the big reveal. And I think that's one thing I would say is you know, there is a really great big reveal that goes on. And yes, I guess the one thing I will say is that what gets hidden in the big reveal is there was one little boy in the steppingstones classroom who was kind of overlooked very often. And again, I don't get diagnoses, but knowing what I know now looking back on it, I'm pretty sure he had some pretty severe ADHD. I would bring in pictures of boo that we'd Photoshop like Boo sitting in front of the pyramids with a pith helmet. Silly. And then I would say these kids Oh, do you know where Boo is? And this little boy would say Egypt and the teachers would look at each other and go How does he know? How do you know that? And then I would show little pictures of oh look what a big blue pickup here and he name it and then teachers like oh my god, and it just broke my heart. That here was this little boy who was far smarter and had picked up all sorts of information on his own. But nobody either knew how to or had the time to sit with him and say, so what do you know? And and by the end of our visits to that classroom, he was being mainstreamed.
Lisa D.
30:17
Oh my god,
Lisa E.
30:18
he had he Bo had given him focus because in between our visits, they would write about Bo, they would draw about boo. And the teachers were able to then see oh my gosh, he knows way more than and he was able to be mainstreamed, and hopefully, move on from there. But you know, he's not the big reveal. But to me, he's the he's the one that gets overlooked. That makes me sad, because I'm sure there's a tremendous number of kids who get overlooked like that. Oh, absolutely.
Lisa D.
30:45
His brain was able to pay attention because it was something that really interested him. And that is, right. Yeah, that is a beautiful thing. Well, speaking of beautiful, international bestseller a dog named boo how one dog and one woman rescued each other and the lives they transformed along the way. Lisa J. Edwards, tell us all the ways we can find you your three dog training and especially this incredible book.
Lisa E.
31:09
So the best way is my general website which is three dogs training.com Everything's all spelled out. Boo has his own little website, but mostly it gets you redirected back to I have enough trouble keeping one website up and running. And then there is the please don't bite the baby, which is the sequel to The boobook
Lisa D.
31:27
Well, I'm going to have you back for that. By the way. I hope you'll come back because I think that's really important, isn't it? Please don't bite the baby and please don't
Lisa E.
31:34
chase the dog.
Lisa D.
31:35
Yeah.
Lisa E.
31:36
Yeah, and that one's you know, boost still in that one for a while. So
Lisa D.
31:40
good. Yes. Okay. Well, I hope you'll come back. Oh, I'd be happy to is great fun. Oh, so wonderfully. So while people want to check out my good boys past and present, follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok at Lisa Davis. mph keep them back to dogear rate review and subscribe. And while you're here, go ahead and check out our thanks so much.