How do you get a Border Collie to play hide and seek and other games when he would rather crawl into your lap? Angharad Yeo, of "Queens of the Drone Age" (and much more) shares stories and tips on how she gets her lazy Border Collie off the couch.
As a tech expert, she also gives her perspective on what pet tech can actually be helpful for you and your pup.
Follow Rad and Boatmeal on Instagram
Angharad Yeo
Boatmeal
Queens of the Drone Age podcast
Products Mentioned
Dog TV
Furbo
Aussie Chook
Kong Wobbler
Starmart Bob-A-Lot
Don't forget to subscribe or leave us a review. I'd love to hear from you.
Drop me a line at hello@wildheartpets.com.au.
How do you get a Border Collie to play hide and seek and other games when he would rather crawl into your lap? Angharad Yeo, of "Queens of the Drone Age" (and much more) shares stories and tips on how she gets her lazy Border Collie off the couch.
As a tech expert, she also gives her perspective on what pet tech can actually be helpful for you and your pup.
Follow Rad and Boatmeal on Instagram
Angharad Yeo
Boatmeal
Queens of the Drone Age podcast
Products Mentioned
Dog TV
Furbo
Aussie Chook
Kong Wobbler
Starmart Bob-A-Lot
Don't forget to subscribe or leave us a review. I'd love to hear from you.
Drop me a line at hello@wildheartpets.com.au.
Enrichment and pet tech with Angharad Yeo
[00:00:00] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: today's extra special guest is an Angharad Yeo, aka Rad, who's an award-winning STEM journalist, documentary maker TV and radio presenter, an extreme dog, enthusiast, which is why she's talking to me today. She's made children's TV with a good game Spawn Point. Done music radio with Double J.
[00:00:22] Given her expert opinion on The Project, The Feed, The Today Show and more. She loves arts and culture and has worked at the museum of contemporary art. Queensland Museum and Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art Rad has an almost obsessive eye for detail and an interest in optimizing as much of life as possible, including raising a happy, healthy dog.
[00:00:47] Now, I discovered RAD through Queens of the Drone Age podcast, and if you don't know what Queens of the drone age is, if you ever wanted four friends who as gorgeous as they are, clever to. About [00:01:00] all the latest going on in tech, science and games. Well, Queens of the Drone Age is just that. It's a fun, informative, and informal conversation about text triumphs and tribulations and highlights how tech is for everyone.
[00:01:14] And they're queens for a reason, with almost 40 years combined experience with some of the biggest publications in the game. So these girls know their stuff big, big welcome, Rad. That's a really diverse background. You have,
[00:01:29] Rad Yeo: you know what?
[00:01:30] Uh, when you say it out loud, it really does make me think, gosh, when do I get time for myself?
[00:01:39] No, I love it. I love what I do and it's such a pleasure to be here chatting with you.
[00:01:43] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I'm really looking forward to having a chat, and we'll get into your, your dog soon, but you told me you have a menagerie at home, so can you just tell us who's who in the zoo?
[00:01:54] Rad Yeo: Yeah, so we'll start with the dog because he is my firstborn.
[00:01:58] My love, he is the [00:02:00] light of my life. I have a border collie named BoatMeal, and he is an absolute delight. Just such a sweet boy and probably the laziest Border Collie that you'll ever meet.
[00:02:12] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I'd love to hear more about that.
[00:02:15] Rad Yeo: I certainly got a Border Collie slash working dog cuz I was very much like, you know, I wanna go hiking with my dog.
[00:02:22] Um, that's something that, you know, I do for myself and it'd be great to take a dog along with me. I'm a really kind of, I guess, Obsessive and active-minded person. I'm not necessarily super active in body, but I was like, Hey, a dog could help me with that too. But I love, you know, doing things that stretch my own mind, including dog training.
[00:02:43] So I thought, you know, a clever border colly that can pick things up really quickly will be perfect for that, but I swear this boy just wants to lie down in air conditioning and get cuddles. That's it. And sometimes I almost feel guilty thinking that I'm not taking him for enough exercise, like [00:03:00] I'm denying him something.
[00:03:01] But then I'll try it. I've ever driven two and a half hours away down to the state forest to take him on a real long hike. And after about 20 minutes of, you know, excitedly sniffing stuff, he is dragging his feet behind me trying to walk in my shadow. Cause he doesn't wanna do it anymore.
[00:03:17] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: So, I've got a cocker spaniel who's the same.
[00:03:20] They're supposed to be a gun dog, but he's just as happy to be on the couch having cuddles as well. He's super flexible. That's what's great about him.
[00:03:28] Rad Yeo: I think that's something that's great about dogs in general. If you get the right dog, For your lifestyle. Yeah. They really adapt to your lifestyle as well.
[00:03:36] But we'll talk more about dogs in a second. So I've also got a cat named Pelican. And then I sort of inherited two snakes.
[00:03:46] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: How do you inherit a snake or two?
[00:03:50] Rad Yeo: I started dating someone who had two snakes, and then she moved in and obviously the snakes came with her. So, we have Bagel and Mango.
[00:03:59] Mango [00:04:00] is an albino Darwin carpet, python, and bagel is a Murray Darling carpet python. Bagel is getting quite enormous. Her body is probably thicker than my wrist at this stage and we haven't been able to measure her, but we hypothesize that she's about two meters long. And she's really lovely.
[00:04:17] And then Mango is the demon child. She kind of sucks.
[00:04:22] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: And is there, is there a theme running through this where like all your animals are named after food of some kind. Apart from Pelican
[00:04:31] Rad Yeo: look. Anything's a food if you're brave enough. Honestly, I didn't name Bagel and Mango, so I would have to ask my partner Teja about that.
[00:04:38] But with Boatmeal, I certainly wanted a food name cuz I, I think it's fun how you can name animals, whatever, and they don't really care. Um, so when we were brainstorming names for him, we were kind of thinking about food ones and the brainstorming session kinda went oatmeal, oats, boats, boat meal.
[00:04:56] And we just thought he looked like a Boatmeal. So it stuck[00:05:00] .
[00:05:00] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: What do you call him for short?
[00:05:02] Rad Yeo: Oh, he has a thousand nicknames, as I'm sure most people's dogs do.. So we call him Butter Buddy Boats, sausage Princes, uh, sweet Pea, the Boat Boy. Yeah, there's so many.
[00:05:15] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I know. I think Ben's, you know, my dog is a very straightforward name, Ben, but I think his nicknames are on rotation every fortnight.
[00:05:24] I seem to be using a different type of name, depending on what I'm watching half the time as well.
[00:05:31] Rad Yeo: Yeah, I've ever been at the park and I, you know, call him Buddy and someone else will refer to him as Buddy. And I'm like, oh no, that's not his name, that's not his given Christian name.
[00:05:41] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Now he's not a standard black and white border Collie, is he?
[00:05:44] From the photographs that I've seen.
[00:05:46] Rad Yeo: No, he is a blonde Border Collie, or they sometimes call it Australian red. Because it's apparently a colouring that is most predominant in Australia and New Zealand. So, if you imagine, it's kind of like a strawberry blonde. [00:06:00] with maybe a little bit more orange in it, but he has the classic Border Collie markings, so he's got that white strip down the middle that goes all the way to the back of his head in the cute strawberry ears.
[00:06:12] Yeah,
[00:06:13] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: he's very pretty.
[00:06:14] Rad Yeo: Oh, thank you. I do him kindness. In the photos that I take and post, sometimes he can look crazy. Sometimes I feel like he looks like Albert Einstein with his hair. All amuck.
[00:06:24] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: So did you get Boatmeal as a, a pedigree, a rescue? Like how did you get him?
[00:06:30] Yeah, he was pedigree.
[00:06:31] So he's actually my first dog that I've ever had. I really badly wanted a dog all my life growing up and my parents were always like, no, you're not getting a dog, cuz we'll end up having to take care of it and we don't want to. And to be fair to them, it's probably true for, you know, most of my childhood and teenager life.
[00:06:49] Um, but then, you know, I was getting older. and more capable of taking care of things. And one day I was watching the news actually and there was a story about some dog that had [00:07:00] saved someone's life or something. And I was sitting there and I kind of wistfully side and I said, dogs are so good. They really, they're just so good
[00:07:09] And my mom turns around from her computer cuz she's sitting there doing her own thing and she goes, “Okay, well, I guess if you really promise to take care of it and properly train it, then you can get a dog.” And I was like, oh my gosh. I didn't actually even ask for one in that moment, but she said, yes, it's happening, it's happening.
[00:07:30] There's no take backsies. So, I knew I wanted a working dog, and I, I'd always kind of had a soft spot for Border Collies. Fell in love with them because of a friend's Border Collie that I spent some time with when I was kind of, I guess late teens, early twenties. Uh, so I was looking around for breeders and also looking at rescues, but had my heart broken a couple of times by rescues, by dogs that I was like, they look perfect, and I inquire and they're already gone.
[00:07:56] So, yeah, I think was just trying to find the [00:08:00] right fit. Met a couple of rescue puppies as well that weren't Border Collies, and I was like, I just don't have that thing in my heart. That immediately feels connected, and I think that's really important. I always say that. More important than getting a rescue is getting the dog that's right for you.
[00:08:16] Yeah. Because you always hear stories about people that get really, you know, dogs from really difficult backgrounds, but if you're not prepared and you dunno how to train a dog, build its confidence, take care of it, you are both just gonna have a really miserable life. So whether you rescue, which is great, or whether you get a dog from a breeder, a responsible breeder, which is also great, just make sure you don't get the dog that's right for you, which I absolutely did with Boatmeal.
[00:08:43] Ended up finding a breeder down on the border of, New South Wales and Victoria. So for context, I live up in Sydney and my family drove down to like Albury Wodonga. Basically, they're, and back in one day. So we couldn't meet this [00:09:00] puppy for the first time and, like, choose one from the litter
[00:09:03] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: and then you had to go and pick it up, or they've crated it?
[00:09:07] Rad Yeo: We went and picked it up, thankfully around the time that they were old enough and like we were ready to take him. They happened to be traveling a little further north, so we only had to drive like two, three hours, to pick him up that time. But yeah, I think, you know, showed a real dedication off the bat to how right he felt for us.
[00:09:27] Yeah, because I had also asked my parents about other breeders that I had seen that may be more at that like two, three-hour mark out of Sydney, and they were like, oh, you know, that's pretty far. I don't think so, but then, then our breeder posted photos of this litter, and they were just the cutest things.
[00:09:46] They looked like little toasted marshmallows and won all of our hearts over. So had to do it.
[00:09:52] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I tell this story all the time, probably to every guest I've had, but when I was looking for Ben, I was looking for a female. black and white [00:10:00] Cocker spaniel, puppy. And this breeder that I'd been speaking to, who was the puppy coordinator for the Cocker Spaniel Society of New South Wales, she rang me up out of the blue after we've had a few chats and she said, you know, I don't know whether this will interest you or not, but I have an 18-month-old male black Cocker.
[00:10:17] Would you be interested? And it was like you said, I just. This feels like the right dog for me. And he, he absolutely has been. So that connection is so true. So true.
[00:10:30] Rad Yeo: And why did you pick Cocker Spaniels?
[00:10:33] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: A bit like you. I had, when I was living and working in England, I met a woman who, who actually, we were on a rural property and they had horses there and she looked after the horses and she had a black Cocker.
[00:10:46] And from that moment on, I was just obsessed with Cocker Spaniels. I worked in another house that had Cocker Spaniels cuz it was also in England. And they kind of used them for shooting and stuff and the dog, that was the gun dog [00:11:00] for the husband. The gun dog was beautiful. Her name was Penny, and they had two Fox terriers that were like the house dogs.
[00:11:09] And I was working in the house, and I could not stand these Fox Terriers, and the Cocker Spaniel was the sweetest dog ever. And yeah, from that on, it's all been Cocker Spaniels for me; they're, they're a great size for an inside dog. They're happy, they're merry like Boatmeal. They're adaptable. He'll sit on the couch, he'll go for a walk.
[00:11:29] You know, like they're just great companion animals. Anyway, we're not here to talk about Ben. Could bore you all day.
[00:11:37] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: So, one of the things we talked about when we were getting ready for this podcast was the fact that you have this real passion for enrichment activities, which I do too because as much as they love lying on the couch, there's so much more we can give to them.
[00:11:52] So I'm just interested to learn all the things that you tried with boat meal and what's worked and what hasn't worked, and what do you do [00:12:00] on a regular basis that you find easy to integrate into your busy lifestyle.
[00:12:06] Rad Yeo: Actually, one of my favourite things, to do with Boats, especially indoors. And this was a little bit of a lifesaver, during those early lockdowns where not only were you not really allowed to go outside very much, but it also felt really scary.
[00:12:20] Just being around other people felt sort of terrifying. So, we did stay inside quite a bit, and obviously that means cutting down on walks that you normally would've done. But something that we would do is play hide and seek. Actually, surprisingly easy to teach your dog and a whole bunch of fun.
[00:12:37] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Do you wanna tell me how you taught him?
[00:12:38] Rad Yeo: So really all you need is basically a sit, stay command and then the ability to call your dog from wherever you are in the house. So essentially, I would get him to sit and stay in one room.
[00:12:49] I would go hide somewhere else in the house and then just call for him. And he would run around the house like mad looking for me. It did take him a little while to figure out that it was a game and we hadn't managed to [00:13:00] thin air and we would be coming back. It's OK. But that one's a whole lot of fun because it also taught him.
[00:13:08] To sniff properly because he didn't really sniff to find things previously. He would for treats, but not for us. And there would be times where, you know, he's just running around visually looking, and it would take him ages, but once he clocked onto sniffing, now we need new hiding spots, because he could find us so, so quickly,
[00:13:28] Rad Yeo: But it's a common saying with training dogs that you kind of want to. Build things up in terms of distance, distraction, duration. So first of all, teaching that sit, stay, having you still stay close by them and it be a really short duration.
[00:13:45] Then slowly adding more time and then slowly walking away from them a little bit. and then slowly adding distractions, like maybe squeaking a toy or throwing something. And that can really help you build that strong sit stay to allow you to be able to do things like [00:14:00] play, hide and seek, but also, it's just, it's just good for life, right?
[00:14:04] Having those, um, things trained into your dog really strong, just give them freedom because you can trust them.
[00:14:10] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: And is he very food motivated?
[00:14:13] Rad Yeo: Um, I would say. He's food motivated, but he, as I've mentioned, is lazy. According to other people, and I kind of probably have a slightly skewed perspective on this because he is my first dog.
[00:14:26] But according to a lot of friends that I have, they think that he is extremely well trained. They will be like, I've never spent time with a dog that is this well-trained. He's so good, blah, blah, blah. To me, he's like scraping by. Bare minimum. He is out here getting season fees. Um, I think he's pretty good, but what, you know, in getting a Border Collie
[00:14:47] I had these lofty dreams of a dog that would be on the mark. You know, you see those dogs doing like Frisbee sports and things like that, for example, I wanted to do that with my dog. But he [00:15:00] isn't motivated to figure things out. Yeah, he's motivated to get the treat, but if it takes longer than like one or two tries to figure something out, he doesn't wanna do it anymore.
[00:15:10] And that can make it difficult to teach him stuff. It's been a bit slow going. Teaching him what he does know, I think he is pretty good, but he does take quite a while to respond. So you kind of, you do have to be very patient.
[00:15:27] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Is there anything that you've found that he just doesn't enjoy doing?
[00:15:30] Like he doesn't respond to? Like, I've tried Ben on agility a couple of times and we've done a mini course once and then we'll go around again and he just look at me, and goes, why are we doing this again?
[00:15:40] Rad Yeo: He, he doesn't love any. Super high energy stuff. So even just playing fetch if it's, you know, even a little bit warm, which I kind of understand.
[00:15:51] He's a big dog; he's very, very fluffy. But about six times is the max that he wants to chase a ball, and then he'll drop it and lie down on top of it and not let [00:16:00] you get to it. Cause he doesn't wanna it anymore.
[00:16:01] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Have you tried things with him, like, puzzles? Have you tried any of the little, like puzzle games? How does he go with those?
[00:16:08] Rad Yeo: Oh my gosh. Again, he gives up so easy. So, I actually exclusively feed him in puzzle toys.
[00:16:15] So, I've got, I've got a couple of ones from Kong. I can't remember what they're all called. One of them is the Gyro, which kind of looks like a planet with a ring around it and it moves around. I've got another one that spins. I've got a Snuffle mat for him. I have one of the Starmart, I think they're called Bob-A-Lot.
[00:16:33] And I also have some feelings about the BobAlot versus a Kong Wobbler, if you want to know. So quick on that, the StarMark BobALot was supposed to, kind of, according to all the stuff I read, the better option because you can adjust the difficulty of it with the sliders. So, it's got a bottom hole, and it's got a top hole, and you can close them off or close them off partially.
[00:16:53] So I actually got a Kong Wobbler first and then switched to the BobALot and gave the Kong Wobbler away. [00:17:00] But oh boy, the BobAlot is really hard to fill. It's super annoying, you have to dribble the kibble in via one of the holes that it also comes out of. Whereas the Kong Wobbler, you can just unscrew it. So you just have the big container, and then you screw the bottom back on, and you're done. So I miss that wobbler every day.
[00:17:21] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Because cleaning's the other thing, right? Not only filling those treats but cleaning them. If I can't put it, all the bits in the dishwasher, then I'm not, you know, not keen.
[00:17:30] Yeah. It's a no-go for me.
[00:17:32] Rad Yeo: Do you have a
[00:17:32] Wobbler?
[00:17:33] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I don't have a Wobbler. I've tried things like a Buster Cube where you fill it with treats. It's like a big cube. I have the Nina Ottoson Brick puzzle, which has all these little containers in it.
[00:17:46] I use a lick mat a lot. Have you ever tried to lick mat?
[00:17:49] Rad Yeo: I love the lick mat! Also another little tidbit of advice from me. If you're gonna get a lick mat, pay the extra couple of dollars and get the tough one. That's like rigid plastic. Is the pure [00:18:00] silicon one. It just warps immediately.
[00:18:02] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Yep. I did exactly the same. Yes. I had the regular one, which is almost the original one, but it is a flimsy piece of rubber and it does break down pretty quickly, but the tough one's like Awesome. It's not going anywhere. Yeah. And I've tried the little dish one as well.
[00:18:19] Rad Yeo: How was that?
[00:18:20] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Yeah, well, he seems to deal with it okay. Like, it's not any extra degree of difficulty from the flat one at all.
[00:18:27] Rad Yeo: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:28] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I remember giving him the Nina Ottoson Brick one, which has all little flips, flip lids, and little things that you pull out. and I felt so sad for him the first time I gave it to him. He just looked at it.
[00:18:41] He could smell though his food in it. And then he just looked at me as if to say, what, what do I do? And he went back like I had to show him how to get these things up, but once he cottoned on, he was great. So I'm a bit like you. I think feeding is a really easy enrichment activity [00:19:00] to do. Like you can scatter, feed kibble in the lawn or in the house. People talk about putting them in little matchboxes or little bits of cardboard and they can go looking for them. So I think enrichment feeding is a, is a number one for me.
[00:19:13] Rad Yeo: Oh, absolutely. Also, another hot tip. If you get packages, like for example, when I got a new vacuum and they come with all the like little cardboard boxes around all the accessories, you shove a bunch of kibble in that box and let them go ham and it's tons of fun to watch them as well.
[00:19:29] On that, when I give him his food in toys, he'll always leave about a quarter of the food left in the toy. When it stops being easy, he just checks out and bless his cotton socks. I love him so much, but come on, dude,
[00:19:45] They tell you to teach your dog that nothing comes for free. And that if they want anything, they need to work for it. I don't think he truly got the message.
[00:19:54] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Have you heard of this game called, I think it's called a box game. I'm not really sure what the name of [00:20:00] it is. So the idea is you're supposed to get any cardboard box and you're supposed to get the dog to interact with the box in some way. And when they interact with the box, you give them a treat, or you treat them and then use a clicker if you do clicker training, but they have to do something different with the box every time. Have you heard about this one?
Rad Yeo: I don't think it, I don't think it's for Boatmeal.
[00:20:23] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: No, I don't think it is, because I have tried it with Ben a few times, and he's just like, you could almost see him go, this is really not something that's fun for me because he is quite food motivated, so the food keeps him in the game, but he's not super creative about what else he has to do with the box. So, they can look in the box, you treat them, they can touch the box, you treat them, they can step in the box, you treat them. So every time they interact with the box, it's supposed to get more creative, more difficult, and all the rest of it. I've seen some dogs, like [00:21:00] some Border Collies, they love it. But Ben, not so much. So, it is a horses for courses thing, isn't it?
[00:21:07] Rad Yeo: Absolutely. And I think that that has been a really big learning journey for me in owning a dog that you read all of this stuff about the right way to raise your dog, about the right things to be doing, how much, you know, stimulation that they need. But at the end of the day, you really need to adapt everything that you hear for your particular dog, cuz you are gonna know them best, and you really do get a sense of what they do and don't enjoy.
[00:21:33] And I really had to learn to forgive myself for not taking Boatmeal on, like, two one-hour long walks every day, which is something that I would constantly hear other Border Collie, owners saying that they did, but he just never seemed to be enjoying it. And also, when, you know, my partner moved in with me, and we started walking the dog together and stuff, she would be like, yeah, he's really not that keen on walks like he likes them, but you can just tell that there [00:22:00] are a hundred other things that he would rather be doing and he's really interested in enrichment activities. He loves using his snuffle mat. He loves if we hide treats around the house and get him to find them. Things like that he really enjoys, but as far as like long walks go or just pure physical activity and really heavy kind of puzzle games, he's not that keen. He likes a light puzzle.
[00:22:28] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I have a friend who has a poodle schnauzer cross that can fetch balls all day long. But Ben, I've done it. I don't, do I really need to go and get this again?
[00:22:40] Rad Yeo: You can almost feel that they're fed up with you.
[00:22:43] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Yes.
[00:22:44] Rad Yeo: And then you start to feel bad. You're like, I'm sorry, I was doing this for you.
[00:22:47] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Does he entertain himself with toys, plush toys …
[00:22:50] Rad Yeo: He loves toys, but he won't really play with them by himself.
[00:22:53] But he'll play with us. He loves a game of take every toy out and bring it to you, drop it on the floor, then get another [00:23:00] one. Um, but we have taught him how to clean up his toys, which we'll do of an evening, which is really great.
Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Oh, that's so cute.
Rad Yeo: Yeah, that was a, that was a really good one to teach him because it was just difficult enough, but there was enough motivation to do it that it wasn't too difficult, you know? The only toy that he'll really play with independently is one of the squeakers that's fallen out of another toy. And I know that you've gotta be really careful because some dogs will swallow them. Thankfully, he's never, ever had an issue with swallowing anything.
[00:23:34] So I feel pretty safe, but we always supervise him. But, Pretty much the only thing, and he will just kind of bat it around.
[00:23:39] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Same with Ben. He's just not a big toy player. Sometimes I look at his bed and all it is is a receptacle for all his plush toys that he doesn't play with
[00:23:48] Rad Yeo: Honestly, though, it's cheaper to not have a dog that rips all the stuffing out of every time they get immediately.
[00:23:53] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: That's true. That's so true. So any other tips and tricks that you have for bonding [00:24:00] time that you wanna share?
[00:24:02] Rad Yeo: Absolutely. I think a couple really key areas to remember are make everything a game if you can because that's so much more fun for a dog, and it's more fun for you.
[00:24:12] For example, the way that I curb trained Boatmeal so that he doesn't step onto the road without permission was just to turn it into a game. I went to a quiet street, at the time I was living at the end of a cul-de-sac, so it made it really easy and I'd basically be running around, you know, really excited with him, blah, blah, blah.
[00:24:28] And then I would run onto the. and if he stepped foot on the road, I was like, no, game over. I'm no longer fun guy. I'm real serious. I'm like, Uhuh, get back up. Once he gets back up, I walk up as well. I give him a pat and then we start the game again and I'm running around and everything's crazy. And eventually he learned that, you know, if I go into the curb, but he stays on the curb, the game continues.
[00:24:52] I'm still excited. I run back to him. Lots of praise. And we keep playing and I found that like that took maybe [00:25:00] three or four times playing that game with him, for him to really get it. And now he almost doesn't go onto the curb by himself sometimes when it's like those sort of funny areas where I can understand how to a dog brain, it doesn't look like a curb.
[00:25:13] Or if there's like something really blocking the sidewalk, he might. But for the most part he's really good and it's really helped me feel super safe about him being around roads.
[00:25:24] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: That's such a good tip. Turning it into a game because a lot of dogs respond to that really, like I think most dogs now, that's the current thinking to the more positive reinforcement than just the really rigid discipline type stuff.
[00:25:37] Rad Yeo: Absolutely. And I see, you know, people with dogs who. Almost forget to have the patience sometimes. And I, I totally get it. It's understandable. It takes a lot of patience to not yell at your dog when they're doing something crazy.
[00:25:54] But I think really recognising and trying to get into. A dog head space, [00:26:00] essentially of understanding that your dog's not ever trying to do something naughty. Yeah. They're just bored, or they're just hungry, or they're just scared, you know? I find that so, so helpful, and I've seen quite a lot of success, both for myself and time I've spent with other people's dogs in just keeping that mindset of being able to get the dog to do things that other people are.
[00:26:25] They never do that. And I'm like, you just have to think like a dog. Another great one actually is, substituting one thing for another, which kind of goes back to this idea of like thinking like a dog. So when I first got Boatmeal, he's a puppy, he's chewing everything. He used to chew on like the legs of chairs, and we couldn't seem to get him to stop.
[00:26:45] You do your classic, like trying to redirect to a soft toy or whatever. Trying to get them to chew something else that's there.
[00:26:51] But I found that he would never really go for it, and it wasn't until one day I just had a crazy idea of maybe he wants to chew wood. So, I [00:27:00] went and got him a little like soft offcut piece of pine and gave him that instead. And oh boy, he loved it. He was obsessed with it, and that made it really easy to get him off the chair.
[00:27:10] Yeah. So I think, yeah, sometimes kind of thinking, well, what is it that the dog is actually trying to achieve? Is it a texture? Is it a smell? And kind of working from there can be super handy.
[00:27:21] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Yeah, that's great too.
[00:27:22] And have you ever tried any, like, organized stuff? I mentioned agility earlier, but I know there's scent trials that you can do and all those sorts of things.
[00:27:30] I know Boatmeal's a bit on the lazy side … not on the lazy side he's chill, but have you tried any of those more organized kind of activities?
[00:27:40] Rad Yeo: No
[00:27:40] I haven't, I had intended to when I got him, but I sort of quickly realised that it wasn't really his bag. He also doesn't care for other dogs. He just doesn't really want much to do with them. He's not one to play with them, really. So I was kind of like, It's not an environment that he really wants to be in, so that's fine.
[00:27:58] There's tons of stuff [00:28:00] that we can do that he'll really enjoy and he can be a grumpy old man with puppies. He is the dog that will pin down a puppy and be like, stop jumping. Get my face. And that's always a little bit stressful as an owner. You don't want the other owner to freak out and think their dog is being attacked.
[00:28:16] So yeah, I always just try to usher him away from puppies.
[00:28:21] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I saw this nerdy thing about socialisation of dogs, and it was a bell curve. So on one end, you have the dogs that are like super aggressive, and then on the other end of the bell, you have the dogs that are highly social, you know, love every dog, blah, blah, blah.
[00:28:36] But in the middle, in the biggest part of the bell curve, there's the dogs like my dog and your dog that are selective about who they like and who they want to interact with and their level of tolerance to things like puppies. So I think that's something that people forget is that not everybody's dog is friendly.
[00:28:54] Your dog doesn't necessarily want to be friends with everybody. So yeah, it's interesting that you [00:29:00] mentioned that cuz that's exactly my experience as well.
[00:29:02] Rad Yeo: That's such a great point and such a great way of looking at it because I think you're right that a lot of people just categorize dogs as either being super friendly or aggressive.
[00:29:14] And if they're dogs in that bell curve, they can often think, oh, my dog is actually super friendly. And that can also lead to owners allowing their dog to go up to other dogs in, you know, a situation like dog would say, friendly. And I'm like, that's great, but my dog is gonna pin your dog down because he's in enclosed space.
[00:29:34] Yeah. And your dog is way too hyperactive. He's, yeah, jumping all over the shop. Like, my dog is not gonna be down with that. And that could be difficult to navigate, and people can get a little bit upset when you're like, sorry, could you please just get your dog away? I think it is a really great conversation to be having and to continue to chat as a community of dog owners, that you've gotta really be very aware of [00:30:00] individual circumstances that will influence how your dog's gonna behave and how other people's dogs will behave.
[00:30:06] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: And I think everybody wants to think their dog is friendly. Right? It's like they, everybody runs up, oh, my dog's friendly. It's like, well, he's really sorry, but mine's not. Like he's selective about who he wants to say hello to. I think people have gotta just learn. I think it's just a learning journey, really.
[00:30:26] Rad Yeo: Yeah, and I think selective is a great word to use because again, people will go friendly or not friendly. And it's not as, you know, black and white as that. Boatmeal's very, very friendly, but he doesn't want that prolonged kind of intense contact with a dog where he can't get away. He doesn't want a dog that's barking or jumping and carrying on.
[00:30:47] But if it's just a dog that's trotting along, they have a sniff of each other. They go their separate ways. He's completely fine.
[00:30:53] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: And Ben's entire, so I'm always very careful if there's maybe another male dog particularly, maybe a younger [00:31:00] dog or dog that's not neutered, is that sometimes there's just that clash of like, well, who's the alpha dog?
[00:31:05] So I'm very conscious of that as well. And larger dogs, he doesn't like dogs that are larger than he is. And so puppies in his face all the time, he doesn't like that at all. But he'll normally just bark as a warning, and then that's fine.
[00:31:21] Rad Yeo: Boatmeal doesn't like dogs that are same size as him.
[00:31:24] He likes small dogs, He's, I think he thinks he's a lot smaller than he is. Like he's a 27-kilo dog. He's very big for a Border Collie. And he'll sit in my lap, he'll try and jump up on chairs that are far too small for him. I think he thinks he's a little guy.
[00:31:41] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Oh, that's so cute. One of the things I would love to get your perspective on being not only the pet queen but also a tech queen is your experience with pet tech. One of the reasons why I'm interested is there's actually a proliferation of pet tech.
[00:31:57] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: There's everything from tracking tech, [00:32:00] monitoring tech, toy tech, feeding tech and whatever else. I was sort of gonna go on this journey myself and just have a look at all those different things. But I'd love to get your take on what your experience has been.
[00:32:12] Rad Yeo: Absolutely. Mate, this is my wheelhouse.
[00:32:15] Rad Yeo: I am an over-loving dog parent who is also obsessed with tech. It may surprise you that, while I research quite a lot of it because I'm like, oh, should I get this? Maybe Boatmeal will like it. I've actually not used a lot of it, and I'll, I'll go through why for quite a few of them. So one that I have used and I actually do really like and probably recommend is a dog camera.
[00:32:38] Now, these differ from kind of more general home security cameras and alot of them you can throw treats, which honestly isn't a feature that I use that often. It can be handy, but it's a little bit whatever for me and my dog. And, you also don't wanna forget to not clear them out after a time
[00:32:57] But also dog cameras will [00:33:00] often have a two-way kind of communication system. So, if your dog's barking, you can, you know, use your phone microphone to be like, “Hey buddy, it's okay”. You can calm down. And I've genuinely found that that works really well. I don't think Boatmeal necessarily knows that it's me because he doesn't seem to hear, like, speakers or see screens in the same way that he interacts with the real world. And the speaker on my one is a little bit crummy. But at the same time, it does stop barking. It does seem to calm him down. He sort of stops what he is doing, looks at the camera, lies down and chills out a little bit more.
[00:33:39] So I've found that really handy in my day-to-day life. And I've got the Furbo, and that also gives you a notification of a barking alert, which super duper handy when we go out. I don't have to be worried that he's annoying the neighbours. And there's been multiple times where he started barking for whatever reason.
He doesn't usually [00:34:00] do it, but sometimes he does. Where you can just check in on him and have a chat to him, and he calms down, and everything's better.
[00:34:06] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Have you just got one camera in one room? Or have you got a couple of cameras set up in different places where he might be?
[00:34:13] Rad Yeo: I have one camera because if we're out, he is almost guaranteed to be lying in front of the door or on his bed.
[00:34:20] He doesn't go anywhere else. Again, I'm very, very blessed that, I have an extremely well-behaved dog. I've never had to deal with him kind of tearing stuff up. I know that, Rae, one of my other queens, bless her baby girl Mia, but the stories about that dog, especially when she was a puppy of just how clever that dog is and how bored she would get sound nightmarish.
[00:34:44] She would, like, unscrew the drain cover of the shower. and just pull out gunk from the shower drain.
[00:34:54] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: What kinda, what kinda dog is it?
[00:34:56] Rad Yeo: She's a Border Collie, cross Staffy.
[00:34:59] Yeah. High [00:35:00] energy. Super duper clever, very strong. She learned how to open doors and would, you know, get into anything and everything and just play with it.
[00:35:09] Whereas I've never really had to deal with that too much with Boatmeal. And I think that's also because when I first got him, I had six weeks off work, so I literally just sat and watched the pupp. So anytime he was doing anything he wasn't supposed to, there was a very quick response to it.
[00:35:26] So he never, um, really had the opportunity to develop any of those behaviours. And if you are ever in a position to do that with a new puppy, oh boy, I think it really makes your life a lot easier.
[00:35:39]
[00:35:39] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Is there any other kind of pet tech that you have tried?
[00:35:43] Rad Yeo: I've also tried Dog TV, which is a TV channel subscription kind of thing that you can get to put on while you're out for your dog. I watched quite a bit of it myself. It's weird. It's sort of like, you know, images of [00:36:00] people like laughing and playing and they'll be dogs and then they'll have some shots from like a dog's perspective of like walking around and then like looking at grass or looking at a fire hydrant.
[00:36:10] And there'll be this weird music playing that also has happy dog barks peppered throughout. It's a strange experience for a human to watch. Like apparently, there's some science behind it, but, uh, yeah, not the programming for me personally, but again, Boatmeal doesn't really watch screens or seem to recognise sounds coming out of his speaker. So, I do TV. Uh, that's a part of my job. He never notices if I'm on TV, even in things that I've shot where I'm like talking to the camera going, “hi, Boatmeal, I hope you well” or whatever. Doesn't know it's me. Can't see it.
[00:36:45] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Ben's the same; the only program he used to look was Muster Dogs?
[00:36:50] Have you seen Muster Dogs?
[00:36:52] Rad Yeo: Yes, it's fantastic.
[00:36:53] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: It's great. And that's the only one he ever paid any attention to. My sister's cats watch TV [00:37:00] more often than Ben does, but Muster Dogs was the one thing, and I just love that show.
[00:37:04] Rad Yeo: I don't think Boats has ever paid attention to a screen.
[00:37:08] But in my journey of, are these things that I need for my dog, will they improve his life because I want to give him anything and everything.
[00:37:16] Rad Yeo: I think GPS trackers are a pretty big one that a lot of people look at. So, I actually had a friend who had a GPS tracker for their dog, cuz he was a farm dog. They live in America, for context. They seem to fairly like it, but it also didn't really achieve. the things that they wanted it to, so it didn't kind of properly notify them with the geofencing, which made me a little bit wary of these GPS trackers.
[00:37:41] Now, very sadly, this, unfortunately, led to the dog having an accident, which is absolutely horrible. And it was kind of the exact reason that they got a GPS tracker. But I have looked into what's available within Australia, and I would say at this stage, [00:38:00] unfortunately, these things all seem barely fit for purpose.
[00:38:04] They sound like a really great idea. You know, you can get a notification if your dog runs away. You can track it in real-time so you can find your dog. Again, it's that security that we all want as pet owners, to know that our baby is safe and that they'll come home to us if, god forbid, anything were to happen.
[00:38:22] But most of these things only have a battery life of a couple of days at best. Other than the air tag, which I'll talk about in a second, you need to pay a monthly subscription most of the time for it to have the connectivity that you need. Sometimes this can get pretty expensive. And a lot of people say that the ones that they've used aren't rugged enough, and they come off the collar easily, or, like we said, the geofencing is a little bit shoddy.
[00:38:48] So I've looked at like the Nuttag, and I hate that name, by the way. Nuttag. Yes. And the TrackActive, which seem to be the two biggest players, in the [00:39:00] Australian market. And both of them only have a waterproof rating of I P X seven and no dust rating. So, for context, that's kind of like submerged in less than a meter of water for 30 minutes.
[00:39:14] If you wanna take your dog swimming and you forget to take it off, that can mean that the unit's done, so that's a lot of money to spend on something, you know, you could kind of potentially easily break and on only has a battery life of a couple of days. If you forget to charge it, it's not working anyway.
[00:39:31] So in my opinion, from what I've seen and heard, GPS trackers for your pet aren't quite there yet and having a properly enclosed yard. You know, making sure that all your fences are adequate and at the height that they need to be for however high your dog can jump. And, you know, training your dog to have good recall and all those kinds of things, I think are actually a much safer bet for making sure that your baby stays with you.
[00:39:58] Of course, that doesn't take away the [00:40:00] fear of someone stealing your dog. I totally understand that, but at the same time, if you are gonna get one of these units, I think you really need to be aware of their limitations. And, of course, remember to charge it.
[00:40:11] Rad Yeo: Now, I know a lot of people use air tags to track their dogs.
[00:40:14] I've seen them on a lot of dogs at the park, and air tags are quite limited for tracking a dog because that's not what they're made for. They're not made for an object really that can move on its own. It's more made to find your keys if you leave them on a bench somewhere. So, the way that air tags actually work is an iPhone needs to be nearby it, for it to ping the GPS signal and it'll, you know, then tell your own phone. So, if your dog is somewhere where there's no iPhones about, it's not gonna get tracked whatsoever.
[00:40:48] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, because I was wondering about exactly what you're talking about.
[00:40:53] Rad Yeo: I thought you might be cuz a lot of people do, I reckon
[00:40:56] Um, so yeah, it needs to be near an iPhone and [00:41:00] also it's, quick enough in sending and receiving the signal. Like how often it pings the GPS satellite, basically to give you a really good overview of when an object is moving. So even if an iPhone was near it, it's not necessarily gonna give you that like, second by second live update that you sort of need to be able to find a dog that has run away.
[00:41:23] For example, you can't use geofencing with it. So, if your dog leaves your house, you won't necessarily know. It pretty much can only tell you if the air tag is or isn't near you. And obviously it's also not waterproof or dustproof in the same way that you would have on the more, dedicated GPS trackers.
[00:41:42] So it's water resistant, but that's basically like if it gets rained on a little bit, it'll be fine.
[00:41:48] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: And it's interesting that you raised that because it was gonna be the question I was gonna ask you. So I'm glad you jumped in because we're on five acres here and I thought, oh, I wonder if an air tag would be good when [00:42:00] I let him off the leash, and I don’t know where he is. But everything that you said points to the fact that it's probably not really gonna do what I want it to do.
[00:42:09] Rad Yeo: No, I don't think it will. And I think a lot of people. Don't necessarily know that.
[00:42:14] I think a lot of people think like, oh great, air tag's super easy. I can track my object. But yeah, because of the way that it works, you really do have limited ability to find something like a dog. And you can, of course, if you are close enough to it; it does have a Bluetooth kind of connection way of finding the exact spot that the air tag is.
[00:42:34] But at the same time, that's really quite limited. So, if you, you know, in an area that you could probably scan by walking back and forth it, you might be able to use it, but I wouldn't say that it's a safe bet for keeping track of your baby.
[00:42:50] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: That's really interesting and that's really good to know.
[00:42:53] And also just on the subject of pet tech, cuz I, I had a look at all the different options available and apart from GPS [00:43:00] tracking, I'm thinking, do I really want a water fountain? Like, do I really? Do I really? I take him everywhere with me anyway, because, you know, he just prefers to be with us, so I don't really need a camera so much for that.
[00:43:15] Do I need any kind of feeding tech, I don't really know. So is, like you said, is, is it enhancing your dog's life and your life, by just the fact that it's clever and it's new?
[00:43:27] Rad Yeo: Honestly. No. There's very, very little dog tech that I would recommend to people, and I think that often we pick these things up because we have an idea of what we want to provide for our dog, and we get excited about it.
[00:43:44] So we hope that they'll get excited about it. But time and time again, I see that my dog doesn't really care if something is a purpose-built dog toy. What he really cares about is something that's new, that's interesting that he can interact with that does something [00:44:00] different. And absolutely, by all means try stuff out, but don't waste your hard-earned money unless you see it truly fixing a problem that you have, and that can't be fixed in another way. So, for example, you know, I've seen things like those automatic, dog throwing toys, like the ball throwing toys where the dog can pick up a ball, drop it in the machine, and it'll throw the ball for them.
[00:44:26] That, that's kind of cool. And it, you know, it's something for the dog to play with, et cetera, but at the same time, it's an expensive electrical solution to a problem that can probably be fixed in a lower-tech way or by you playing with the dog. And when you are using electronics and stuff, they do break down, you know, a rope on a bungee, like the Aussie dog, chook, bungees that are pretty cool that you can hang up and the dog can kind of pull and play with them.
[00:44:54] That's probably gonna last longer than something that, uh, is electronic. And if your dog spills [00:45:00] water on it or knocks it over, will probably break. Also just on that, actually, iFetch, which is kind of the biggest brand that does these types of toys, they need like proprietary tennis balls.
[00:45:11] Yeah. I believe it's a 1.5 inch and a 2.5 inch tennis ball. They're not regular tennis ball size , so I believe you have to go buy their special tennis balls. If you were to lose them …
[00:45:22] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: I think at the end of the day, what you said about the disconnect between having the tech and your dog is that all those things, like throwing the ball, playing toys, they're all bonding time with the dog.
[00:45:33] So why are you putting a device in between you and the dog and breaking that, that connection, right?
[00:45:40] Rad Yeo: Absolutely. I a hundred percent agree, and I think the more time you spend bonding with your dog, the more you understand what it needs and how to provide that as well. And there's no need to put all of these kinds of, barriers between you and your dog, really.
[00:45:57] And I understand people are busy. We [00:46:00] don't always have time to do all the things that we want to do and we'd love to do for our animals. But. even as simple as like if you feed your dog kibble, sit on the couch while you're watching TV and throw the kibble a piece at the, at a time towards the dog, so they kind of have to catch it and sniff for it or run down the hall and get it.
[00:46:19] Dogs actually love that, and it ties them out quite quickly. Yeah, and it's low effort on your part. You can always find things.
[00:46:26] Suellen - Host of the DogPod: Yeah. Perfect. Well I think that's great. Well, on that note, I wanna say a big, big thank you for making the time today, Rad. It's been a great talk. I've really enjoyed talking about enrichment and dog tech.
[00:46:38] It's been awesome. So thank you so much, and we'll say bye for now.
[00:46:43] Rad Yeo: Bye. This is sick. I love talking about my dog. So thank you for having me.