Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Ivan Petersel's Journey from Dog Walker to Autism Advocate

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Send us a text Unlock the secrets of autism service dog training with our special guest, Ivan Petersel, a certified professional dog trainer with a fascinating backstory. From his beginnings with a psychology degree and work in developmental disabilities to running a successful dog walking business in Manhattan, Ivan's journey is anything but ordinary. Tune in as we explore his experiences, including dealing with aggressive dogs and unraveling a scam that left him determined to become an expert in autism service dog training. Ivan shares the criteria for selecting the right service dogs and the importance of matching temperament with family needs, offering insights into the 12 to 24-month training process that transforms these dogs into life-changing companions. Discover the intricacies of training dogs for individuals with autism, with a focus on personalizing approaches to fit unique needs. Ivan sheds light on the spectrum of autism, highlighting the different interaction and training requirements for verbal and nonverbal individuals. Learn about the therapeutic roles these dogs can play, from deep pressure therapy to interrupting meltdowns, and the vital role of collaboration with families and ABA therapists. We also discuss the challenges in finding specialized trainers and the inspiring organic growth of Ivan's service, fueled by word-of-mouth and a burgeoning online presence. Join us for a compelling conversation that celebrates the transformative power of service dogs in enhancing the lives of those with autism. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mayator. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World.

Have you ever considered the process involved in training a service dog who assist individuals with autism? Well, look no further. Today we're joined by Ivan Peterson, a certified professional dog trainer from dog wizardry.com, specializing in autism assistant dogs. Thanks for coming on. Hey, how are you? Doing great. I appreciate you having me.

I really do. Oh, it's my pleasure. I think along with my listeners, we're fascinated on how service dogs actually get trained. What led you to get into dog training? I'll try to make like a long story short, but it is kind of an unconventional story, and I think you're going to like it. Yeah, sure. Which is that I went to school for psychology initially, okay?

When I got out, I worked with people of various ages with development. mental disabilities. And then in some of the jobs, the people were also chemically addicted. And there was just so much that went on. But I always knew that that field was kind of not for me. Sure. I always knew I wanted to do something with dogs. There's a whole long story behind this, but basically I started a dog walking business in the Wall Street area of Manhattan. Wow. It was dog walking. It was weight pulling, which I also do. It was a special type of biking with dogs. What type of dogs were you working with at that point in time? All of the dogs, or almost all of them were aggressive or lunging.

The type of dogs nobody else wanted to walk. From that, I got super into dog psychology and dog training and taking in all kinds of reference points. And I did that for a long time. And then I was like, you know what? I want to immerse myself. I want to learn way more about dogs. Learn something that I don't know anything about. And I saw an ad basically traveling the country.

where you'd be living out of a hotel, visiting people with various disabilities. And I was like, all right, I want to do that because you basically go to every state and I wanted to learn everything I could about dogs. That sounds great. How did that work out? Long story short with that is it turned out to be kind of a scam.

Wow, that's too bad. They were actually ripping off parents that had children with autism. I was kind of naive to it. And there's so much more to this story, including me documenting it and giving it to lawyers and like, there's really, they're out of business now, but there's just so much more to the story. Well, at least you learned from it.

Just to kind of come full circle, you know, like when I saw the title of your show, you know, I was just kind of thinking, why not me? You know, like if these people could do it, yeah, there's a lot more to the story. But I mean, but part of the story is that I also paid people to be my tutors that were also in the field and I started going to conferences. There's a lot more to it. Well, the main thing is that you got out of a bad situation and turned it into good. So what do you have to do to learn how to train dogs?

Well, initially, keeping in mind how I even got into it initially, I learned everything trial by fire and wrong. I learned all of the wrong ways to do it. And the way that I learned to do it is because it turned out that these people were famous for this. I had no idea. So I got in contact with the most famous people. I'm not going to name names, but like in the service dog training world, like the woman

that invented that did the first diabetic alert dog, people that are considered serious in their field. Unfortunately, the best way to learn is from your mistakes and, of course, learning from others. So it's probably fairly well known that not every dog can be a service dog. What criteria is it that you look at and say, okay, this dog has a possibility? Well, first of all, I always like to hear the owner's top goals, or like their top two or three goals. And I say, if I could wave a magic wand, this dog could ultimately do anything, what would you want it to do?

And when they tell me those goals, if they don't have the dog yet, then I can deal with the breeder and we could kind of find a right dog that probably has the right temperament and drive for that kid. But like the thing is also, I say probably because there's certain known unknowns. And then on top of all that,

there's physical things. You know, you have to take the dog to a cardiologist and check their hips and bones and joints and make sure that they're even going to be able to do this work for a long time, you know? Sure, that makes perfect sense. So what's the time frame from the point where you find the dog, find the family, connect them, start working with the dog, training the dog, working with the family so they understand

what you're doing to train the dog. How long is that process before that family and the dog become connected? I would say a realistic time frame is 12 to 24 months. With that being said, I've seen eight months of serious work and people could get really, really far. But I would say typically 12 months, 14 months, 16 months, something like that. Yeah, that's what I've heard. Anywhere it's from 12 to 24 months is normal. What type of dog is best suited to be a service dog?

Is there any type of breed that just stands out? Yeah, I mean, labs, goldens, those are the most common and mixes between those are very common. But I've seen all types of dogs be service dogs. Just this week, I worked with a corgi that's a service dog. Okay, that's really interesting. So what is the most unique dog that at first you didn't think would work out that could? But then after a little training, it worked out better than you thought. Well, there's a dog I'm working with right now, but it's not an autism service dog.

It's for a military vet. This dog in particular is just very kind of all over the place. It's a Czech Shepherd and it was bred to do border patrol on the Czechoslovakian border. Its mind is all over the place. But I knew that we would ultimately get the dog focus and be able to work it out without crushing his soul. I don't want to diminish a dog's personality or their spirit either. Yeah, I think that's pretty awesome, actually, because every dog has a personality just like people. So when you have an autistic family that comes to you, they may or may not have a dog.

what's the first steps that you need to do to find a dog that would fit them so they can work together because as you know autistic kids can be all over the place because that's why there's a spectrum and you need to find the ones that would work well with them so keep in mind for me the best path is always to work with their ABA therapist all right um because they're always amazed at how the tiny little steps that I the increments that it takes for dogs to learn is very similar for their client, the autistic client. And we often collaborate in various ways. It could even be like, if some of the goals have to do it, speech, we could work together where it's like, I teach the dog a command and he has to verbalize that command. I'm not sure if that answers your question.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a great path. I never would have thought an ABA therapist would have come in on dog training. So that's absolutely fine. So have you had an instance where you've met with the ABA therapist, the people, the family, and you kind of thought, man, this isn't going to work, but then all of a sudden it did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing is, so when I worked for that company that was completely crazy, and by the way, they did train me.

They didn't really train me, but they took me out for a few months on the road. The lady that was running the whole thing just didn't know anything. But yeah, in that situation, I saw families that, in my view, if I were running that company, I would not even even given them a service dog. On every level, even by their own accounts, they were not like a good fit. These are people that were turned down by every legitimate place.

This place was like, oh yeah, I'll take your $25,000. The owner's skill set did not match up with where the dog was at. Ultimately, yeah, there were lots of happy endings, but also it wasn't always like that. Yeah, but at least it was a silver lining in that for you. You say that it takes any one, with between eight months and 24 months to train a dog. What are some of the things that you do

to train that dog? And of course, while you're working with a dog, you have to be working with the family because they have to understand what they have to do to relate to that dog that you're training. So what type of things go back and forth between you and the family so they understand the dog when it's ready? It's a really good question. So keep in mind that engagement is the foundation to basic obedience. And without engagement, you have nothing. This is a step that a lot of dog owners miss, and you can't miss it with service dog. People confuse socialization with engagement and exposure training. Basically, you're asking why does it take that long? Is that what you're asking? No, not necessarily the time, just the process that it takes for the engagement of you and the dog

and the family. What happens, yeah. Okay, so think about this order. There, I mean, there's a lot of other things. But here's like some of the basics that have to happen. Engagement, which is the foundation to basic obedience. Basic obedience is the foundation to intermediate. That's the foundation to advanced obedience. And the tasks that dogs learn are kind of like the cherry on top of the cake. Although you don't want to, I don't want to make it sound like you have to wait till all of those other things are done. You can work on different goals at the same time. To really answer your question, what happens during that time is it's actually not that kind of amazing. And one of the things I like to do is demystify what dog training really is.

A lot of what it is is increasing the distance duration and distractions over time. So, for example, if your dog could sit in the kitchen, that does not mean that your dog could sit in the middle of Times Square. If we work on all of the baby steps getting to that point, most likely your dog can sit in Times Square. So a lot of what's happening is building on what you already have at the beginning, building it up in big increments of distance duration and distractions. I'll give you a simple example of distractions. And I do this with kids with autism all the time. It's like, we'll have their dog in a down stay. Me or the kids or somebody will be like throwing paper towels off of the shelves in the supermarket and things like that. And does that

distraction make the dog break its down? If it does, then we have to go back a step. So basically every dog and every family is different. So if one or the other has a problem in cohesiveness within that unit, then the best way is to take it back, create that structure, and move forward to get to that point again. Absolutely. And then also there's so many other things. You know, there's enrichment for the dog. In a lot of ways, the dog is my client. The dog is more my client in a way than, like, you know what I'm saying? Sure. I get it. I always want to make sure that the dog feels, fulfilled because every dog urns for physical and psychological challenges and a sense of a fulfillment and accomplishment. Just on a small level, I think you might just find it interesting.

If I had it, I would show it to you. I have this dog piano that you fill with treats and the dog plays piano. Yeah, I like that. That's just a simple example of dog enrichment. Yeah. So once you get the dog trained and then you get the human element of it trained and they're starting to function as a unit now. What kind of tweaks have you found that might be needed afterwards because maybe they weren't fully prepared or the dog wasn't fully prepared, which causes a little regression? So when that happens, what's your next step to correct it? Well, me personally, and I actually have an app coming out for dog trainers to actually fix this whole thing. There's kind of a blind spot, not just for me, but for a lot of trainers of what's going on in between sessions. So,

even today I had a session. I always make people semi-videoes of the good, the bad, and the ugly. So whatever is happening, we can fine-tune it. But usually it's just, usually what's going on is the owner is off on their timing, maybe the timing of when they give a reward, or maybe their timing for something else. It's usually that simple. I wouldn't say that there's a most common thing. Okay. Well, that makes sense because everyone is different. I saw on your website where you train a variety of dogs. You've got PTSD, you've got diabetics, service dogs, and so many different things. How does that change the way that you train the dogs for each different scenario like that? Well, for like a diabetic alert dog, for example, you want a very high drive dog that's going to

nudge you or bark or whatever you teach that the alert is. There is a lot of overlap, you know, and public access training is kind of the same for all of those different things. things. Yeah, that makes sense. With PTSD, diabetics, those type of things, that's a fairly focused situation where I would think everything's pretty common. But with autism, there's such a wide spectrum of personalities that you'll always have to deal with. Right. So how do you deal with the autistic spectrum when you have to train that dog to work with that autistic child or the autistic adult? Yeah. And that spectrum can be so diverse. Right. That's a lot. that's a very nuanced thing. Typically, I take people higher up on the spectrum. Okay. If I do take

somebody, I have worked with people that are lower on the spectrum or nonverbal. In those situations, I definitely have to work with the ABA therapist. Do you see a huge difference between some of the nonverbal autistic children compared to those that are verbal but may still have a lot of challenges they have to deal with? Do you see a difference in the way they treat the dogs or are they still fairly comfortable either way, no matter how it works out, verbal or nonverbal? I have seen differences, but I wouldn't attribute it to the verbal, nonverbal thing. It's more just in general, I've just noticed a lot differences. I've been in situations where there was like a child with autism that was putting the dog in danger, and it was not a great situation for the

dog, and I had to advocate for the dog. Sure, I've heard situations like that. even with the ABA therapist where they've had to leave because they felt unsafe. So I would think that in that particular case, they would be in jeopardy of losing the dog and have to do something because you're, again, siding on the favor of the dog's health. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times the parents, they know what's best. And yeah, I've seen situations like that. What have you seen for a response from either the autistic child or the autistic adult,

From the time they started working with the dog to the times they started being with the dog and just really having that consistent interaction with each other and bond hopefully starting to grow. Would it help if I explain some of the things that I have trained service dogs to do for people with autism? Yeah, sure. There's a big range, okay? But like down in motion, which I can explain, that helps with elopement, barking or alerting for certain things. It has to be something that's reproducible. Like, for example, let's say the kid is like flailing his arms and he always flails his arms.

That would be a visual cue that I could tell the dog to do this or that. Deep pressure therapy, interrupting various behaviors, balancing coordination. I can go on and on, stimming. So each of these things the dog is trained for, that causes them to react a certain way, which should help according to. to what everybody thinks, the autistic person to calm down or forget about what caused them to have whatever issue they were having at that time. Right. Oftentimes, I hate to put it like this, but oftentimes for the autistic person, their worst moments are kind of like the best moments for the

dog. You know, like for diabetic alert dogs, for example, their bad moments. They're having like a low or a high. For the dog, it means something very good, like some sort of a high value your reward is going to happen. But yeah, we pair those things together. If you want, I could even on a small level just demystify how you even teach some of these things. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. I think that's, I think that's interesting.

Okay, I knew you'd like that. Let me think of a good example. Okay. Let's just use the flail. And there's multiple ways to teach all of these things. I'm just going to give you one simple way. Sure. There's a concept in dog training of transferring a cue.

I like demystifying this for people. Transferring a cue. So, like, at one point, for example, the cue might be one thing, but now, like, now it's something else. So, like, for example, let's just say I teach the dog to bark. The dog is solid on bark. And when I say solid, I mean, he's doing it 85% of the time. Then we have the person flailing their arms while I'm giving the old cue for bark.

Maybe it was speak. And I'm saying speak while the person is doing this. And then over time, I phase out the verbal cue and this becomes the new cue. Yeah, that makes sense. So now you've worked with the family. You've worked with the ABA therapist. You've worked with the autistic person. You've worked with the dog.

You must be able to now sit back, look at all your work that's been accomplished and just know that it's working properly and just take a huge comfort in that. Oh, yeah, for sure. And it must be a deep satisfaction. The dog is trained and is working well and it's just a success story. Oh, for sure. And it's tough to say, honestly, when a dog is trained. It's something like I've thought a lot about, you know, it's like there's always something

to learn. And like I go to conferences every few years and I'm always reading books and going to lectures and different things. Yeah, I mean, like that dog piano was a recent purchase, you know. So it's hard to say like, but yeah. I could look at a certain level of success and step back and be like, whoa, that was like a big transition. Yeah, for sure. So how many people or how many dogs do you find yourself working at any single point in time? The most I would ever work with would be 12 a month, but that's not 12 service dogs.

There's not an exact number, but I would definitely, I don't really try to work with more than, let's say, three service dogs in that month. because I really, I customize things for each dog and I really give each dog a lot of attention. Yeah, for sure. I can just imagine. So is it just you in the business or do you have others that are helping you as well? I have other people that help me, including if somebody wants it, I have a police, this is for scent detection work for elopement specifically. If a kid runs away or something like that. I have a retired police dog trainer that was a trainer of police dog hands. You know, like he trained police dog trainers. So if somebody wants that, then yeah, he's who handles that.

That's great. Now, I saw on your website that you even mentioned cats. Oh, yeah. How does that enter into the scenario that we're talking about now? I'm so glad you're asking me about this. Have you ever owned a cat? Oh, yeah. Oh, you have?

Yeah. So I'm super into cats right now. And actually, so I hired a certified feline behaviorist. Really? She handles all of my cat calls. But me, myself, I mean, she and I have very deep talks about cats. And I don't want to say I'm more into cats than I am dogs right now, but I definitely have more cats than I have dogs right now.

Wow. And I have, including a colony of cats that I take care of, I'm really into cat enrichment. Like, for example, there's this channel called Kittysaurus. If you love cats, you would love this YouTube channel. She creates all kinds of mazes and puzzles for cats. But to kind of answer your question, I think that cats are very misunderstood. And actually, they were very misunderstood by me for a very long time. And when I had so many cats coming around the house, I approach all animals differently.

I listen to animals. I don't know if you saw that on my website, you know, but like I, a lot of trainers are obsessed with like, sit down, come. like training the dog. Communication goes both ways. And if you don't know how to listen to a dog or listen to a cat, it's a big deal. You know, you're missing out. And I listened to them. I learned a lot and just observing how they interacted with each other.

It's a whole long story. But really long story short, I saw a cat not too far from my house. And I was like, we just had like this moment. And I started walking backwards. I never had a moment. I'm a dog guy. I've never had a moment like this with a cat in my life. I just walked backwards and it just followed me and like it's been here ever since. Yeah, there's just a lot I can say. I mean, I've gone camping with cats. Okay, that's cool. So are you actually training cats kind of like you were dogs? How does that work with cats versus dogs?

There's a couple of different things. So first of all, there's something in dog training and also cat training, it may have a different name in cat training, but in dog training, it's called capturing. So like if you're using a clicker, for example, and a dog sits, and you're like, click, you're like, good sit, you know, for a choice that he made. So cats are the same way where you could capture certain things, but like, there's a lot of dogs that are kind of out of balance, you could say, and there's cats that are out of balance. I mean, at least the people that are calling me, this is what they would say. Cats need in. They don't always need training.

Like a lot of cats are bored and they're not physically and psychologically challenged enough. And a lot of times like when cats have the enrichment and the vertical spaces and all the things that they need to feel safe and fulfilled, a lot of their problems kind of fix themselves. So do you work with cats and the autistic people as well? No. I've never done that. Okay, that's what kind of piqued my interest because cats can have that warm and loving feeling for humans as well. So that made me interested to see how that would work within the autistic community. Yeah, I mean, there's been homes that also had cats, but we didn't even really, isn't a focus.

By working with the cats, do you get into working with the cats with any other special needs purposes? No. Okay, so it's just mainly dogs then? No, the certified feline behaviors does do things like that. And we've worked with cats to become therapy cats for certain situations. But that's not, I wouldn't say that that is something I've done, but it's not a main focus. Yeah, I get that because dogs and cats and animals in general can have a calming effect on many different people. Oh, yeah.

And also, this is a whole topic in and of itself. but when I say that I'm majorly in it for the dog, there are ways to release kind of like relaxing chemicals in the dog's brain. I'm not sure the right way to put it, but there are certain activities for dogs that create endorphins and are relaxing for dogs. So like if I take a dog, for example, to a mall where it might be nervous, we might use like a licky mat with peanut butter or something like that on it,

because just the act of licking itself releases like relaxing hormones in the dog's brain. Wow, that's very interesting. So, how do people find you? A couple of ways. Well, dogwisurgery.com is the main way. And then Instagram, dog wizardry, Facebook dog wizardry, or just my phone number. Yeah, that's great. And that's on your website, so that shouldn't be a problem for him to find you.

Yeah. How do you get your business? Do you get referrals? Do you do ads? Do you go out and talk with people? What's your main way that you've found that people find you and give you a call and say they need you help? It's a really good question because it's all organic. I don't really spend hardly any money. I haven't spent money on advertising in a really long time. It's really just service dog trainer in my area or whatever. And I pop up and they read my reviews or they talk to people. that have used me in the past. But yeah, a lot of it is, it's both of those things. It's mouth to mouth. That happens all the time.

And then people finding me on search engines. Yeah, I think that's great that you are organic and people are finding you. I've talked with several different people and they all tell me that to find someone that does what you do is a very difficult thing to find. Yeah, I'll just tell you one thing real quick. You know, like let's just say, let's say I'm working with a child with autism. that social situations make them nervous or social situations where they want to be more sociable.

The dog could help in either of those situations. Like, for example, if a social situation makes him nervous where he wants to get out of there, he could give the dog a physical cue or some sort of a cue that will tell the dog to nudge him and then he'll say, oh, I have to take him out to the bathroom. Yeah, I think that's great. I've had that told to me a couple of times. I think that dog therapy is just outstanding. And I just see where autistic people working with dogs is just so helpful. Oh, for sure. Yeah, deep pressure therapy. There's so many different ways that we work with this type of dog. One thing that we didn't touch on that I like to go over real quick is what happens when a service dog comes in contact with an autistic child that may be having a meltdown.

How do you train it for that? Okay. So that goes back to what I was saying before. When I say to somebody, if you could wave a magic wand, what would be the top two or three things you want this dog to do? And that's often at the top of the list. Can the dog interrupt meltdowns? You have to have kind of a high-drive dog that will be persistent to interrupt persistent meltdowns. But yeah, we could teach the dog to nudge, pop.

bark or you could think of new things. You know, like, we could always customize something to whatever the person's goals are. You know, that's why I like to ask them when there is a meltdown. If the dog could do anything in the world, what would you like to see it do? Yeah, that totally makes sense. Well, I really appreciate this. This has been a great conversation. And I know we've missed a lot of things.

And I'm probably going to have to have you come back on so that we can just continue this and enlighten others on the many other things that you can do to train dogs. to help their autistic child. Yeah, that would be amazing. Well, again, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. It's been great. All right, thank you so much.

It's been my pleasure. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com.

Contact, then they can call. give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell everyone everywhere about why not me the world, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone, everywhere that you are not alone in this world.