Episode 6 - Joe Ortiz - Dog Trainer

Today, Rashelle is diving into the world of wagging tails and well-behaved pups with local dog trainer Joe Ortiz! With over 15 years of experience, certification through the American Kennel Club, and his home base at PetSmart in Tualatin, Joe brings real-world insights, compassion, and practical strategies for dog owners at every stage. 

We cover a ton in this episode, whether your dog is brand new or getting up there in years, Joe wants you to know it’s never too late to start training. He explains that dogs don’t reach full maturity until the ages of 3 to 5, and why even senior pups can benefit from learning. You’ll hear about common missteps owners make, how to evaluate a training program, and the kind of behavior both trainers and dogs need to pass the Canine Good Citizen test. Spoiler: it’s not just about the dog; trainers are also watching how you handle situations.

Joe also shares valuable advice on dog nutrition, including what ingredients to look for (and avoid), and why many major dog food brands are more similar than they seem. His tips will help you navigate the sometimes confusing world of kibble with confidence.

Whether you're prepping for a training course, trying to troubleshoot behavior at home, or just want to understand your furry friend better, this episode is full of practical gems and a few industry secrets you won’t want to miss.

Thank you for listening! Connect and collaborate with Realtor Rashelle on any of her social media platform pages > https://linktr.ee/RealtorRashelle

Transcript

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Welcome to the Realtor Who Wines podcast. I'm Rashelle Newmyer, your hostess with the most as a student of life, a connector, a passionate wine enthusiast, and your local favorite guide. Join me as we explore the vibrant Pacific Northwest. Savor the finest wines and champion the spirit of entrepreneurship. Each episode, I'll sit down with inspiring guests, supporting business ownership and uncovering the stories that make this community unique. So grab a glass of wine, settle in, and let's embark on a journey of discovery and connection together. Cheers. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the realtor who lines I am Rashelle Newmeyer. Thank you for listening. Today I have with me is Joe Ortiz. I cannot wait for him to give you tips and tricks for your fur babies. Joe is a dog trainer here in the area and I have tons of questions for him. So before we get started, I'd like to toast you. Cheers, Joe. Thanks for being on. I appreciate you. In case anyone's wondering what we're having today, we are drinking, a bottle of wine from Cathedral Ridge. It's, Cabernet Sauvignon blanc, Savion lang color. Do I know wine? This is a Cabernet sauvignon. There's no blanc. You guys know Blanc. But, if you're not familiar with Cathedral Ridge, they have a tasting room and dandy, organ. But then they also have a room and hood River, so definitely lots of great reds. If you're a red drinker. Cathedral Ridge is a really good spot for you. But I want to talk all about you, Joe, how about you give us a brief introduction to you and a little bit about your background? I'm, my name is Joe. Dog trainer, at, PetSmart, toilette. And is actually, my main location. I'm also licensed through American Kennel Society. I've been in this industry for about, 15 years now. It's probably even more than that. I think about it and, yeah, I've, I've just been, an animal lover, dog enthusiast, in general, for, for as long as I can remember, and, and about 15 years ago, I was given the opportunity to get into the industry, and, I've been in it and loved it ever since. That's great. I'm sure you probably get asked this question all the time, but I am very curious. What breed has been the hardest to train for you? Yes. Like on the spot. Oh, you're at interval. Like you can take a stab at interview questions that I get a lot of. Yeah. It's I've seen the best in the worst every very good. There is a funny, meme that goes around that, that, basically is like the top ten most, aggressive breeds. And then it goes something like, you can't judge a dog by by their breed. And then like, the number ten is like Chihuahua, which I can say that I have a choice. Yeah, yeah. Easier. But, it's really depends on the temperament. Some of the, the more high energy breeds, labs black. Yellow has these, sometimes it's not even about the energy. It's just about, their behavior. I know, like, German Shepherds can be fairly, neurotic at times. But so can poodles. Yeah. So it really just depends on, on, where the dog is kind of coming from. So. Yeah. Has there been a certain breed? I mean, I know you love travels, obviously, but is there a certain breed that you really enjoy working with or when, like someone signs up and they have that breed and you're like, yes, I love a Maltese, sir. You know, like, is there anything that speaks to you? I always like to see a dog that, that I've had. The first song I ever have was a boxer. I don't get a lot of boxes in class, or at least not in my area. I am in to the, it's Walton Lake Oswego area. It's, jokingly I've been called the Doodle Capital of the world. That's true. There are a lot of doodles I hill out of doodle. So when I get, when I get a different kind of breed, it's always a little bit exciting, but, Yeah. And while we're at showin, am like, just looks like my dog. Yeah, yeah. Hey, what, made you. I know that you said you're a dog lover, but what was like. And what was the opportunity that you got that got you into the industry or what made you be like, you know what? This is actually a really good fit for me. I actually started, started a couple other pet companies, and, I didn't think that it was going to be a career path that I was just going to pursue. It wasn't until, I started to, get to know, people in the pet industry, get to know people in local community. When I finally was like, you know what? I think I really like this started getting more knowledgeable of it. And then, before I knew what I was, learning more about dog behaviors and, watching a lot of training videos on my on my own looks. Yeah, go into dog shows. So, has started to fully immerse myself and then, and then I've worked for a few other companies since, but, yeah. Currently, PetSmart. Well, yeah. That is actually how we met. He trains my dog and he is doing very well. Most of the time he doesn't like the floor at, PetSmart that much. Like, any time we have to do anything, like, sit down on the floor or lay down on the floor, he looks at me like I'm nuts. It's pretty common. Sometimes dogs are not a fan of him. Yeah, it reminds him of that office. Or, if they have a lot of, if they don't have a lot of traction on their paws, they slip around. It makes them feel like they're on baseline ice. Oh, sure. So it makes them really uncomfortable. So, like, I did a class, yesterday, and, we were working on our suits and our downs and how our small dogs in. They're small dogs only like to lay on that linoleum. Yeah, they're already like, you know, when I'm, like, two inches off the ground. Yeah. This is good enough. This is good. Just give me that treat. I'm already time you. Yeah. Just give me three. Can you just. Can we just wrap this up? Go home? Then, it's funny, I had three, three small dogs, and I have a one very large dog, a lion burger, and it's complete opposite that. It's a big dog. And it's really hard for them to stay up on the linoleum. So the moment they stop moving, the is immediately want to lay down. So that's funny. Yeah. Linoleum can be tricky. What is one thing that you see dog owners do that's actually like counter intuitive to your training? You can say it here because even if it's neat, it's fine. Give me the advice. It's it's not realizing that that a lot of what they're teaching their dogs, on their own, is inadvertent. They don't realize that, that what they're doing is undoing the training that they think they're doing. A good example of that is, people coming and going. The most common thing people do when they leave is get real excited. Hey, I'm going to miss you so much. I love you so much. And when you start getting that excited and leave, you're just letting your dog know, hey, I'm about to leave you for a really long time. And then what do we do when we get home? I missed you so much. So you roll in on the ground with them, and you build that anxiety when you leave, and then they're already thinking that when you get home like, oh my goodness, I thought I'd never see you again. So, a pretty common problem is people are like, well, how do I get my dog to stop jumping all over me when I come home? Yeah, I did, I sat with my dog, get super excited, which is funny because he actually gets to come to work with me a lot. So it's only like one day a week that he has to stay home by himself. Yeah, and that one day a week he acts like I thought, you're never coming back. And we coming back. Yeah, yeah. So, something is simple is, even when you go grab your car keys, that jingling of the keys could actually signal your dog that you're about to leave for a really long time. I always let people know. Hey. Well, when you go, when you go check the mail or take the garbage out, do you make a big deal about. Or did you just go? And people are like, well, I just go do it. And I'm like, that's that's it. You should just treat the you're coming and going the same all the way through. But, like you were asking, it's just a, thing that people just don't really think about. So yeah, no, it's really good advice. And since we talked about it, I do. I have them even now, like, come with me to go like hell, just like, come out with me if I'm just going to the garbage, like, do so because otherwise he's like, are we leaving? Are we leaving? Are we leaving? I'm like, no, because I did grab the keys to go to the mailbox. I am going outside. So he thinks are leaving and now he's just used to like going in and out. Yeah. Without us. Leave it. Yeah. You you essentially desensitize the idea. And again, you're trying not to undo all the hard work that you're putting into training because when when people are training, they don't realize, how much time they're spending doing training versus how much time they're undoing things without even thinking about it. So, so, so you just need to be a little bit more self-aware of of what you're doing versus what your, think you're doing. Yeah. So, absolutely, if someone was thinking about putting their dog in training, is there any advice like, I know some people hesitate, like when my dogs are 35, like, why would I put them in training? Yeah. But obviously like maybe their dog needs training. Like is there some advice you give them on age of the dog? Doesn't matter how old a dog is, I always tell people to not worry too much about the age of their dog. Dogs don't really hit full maturity until about 3 to 5 years old. The first year of a dog's life is actually accelerated. It's not it's not necessarily. One year equals seven years until they get a little bit older. First. Your dog's life is about 13 or 15 years. Second year young teens, the young 20s. Yeah, 3 to 5 years old. So in some ways, like I got a five year old and I'm like, they're barely in that range of full maturity. So don't just think you should give up. Right. I had somebody just recently sign up that their dog was 13, so they're becoming a senior or they are a senior. Still don't don't give up in in exactly. And in your training, they're they're still fairly young. If, if you're lucky. You know, dogs live longer these days. They live, 15 to 20 years, if you're lucky. So. So, yeah. You got a little bit older, dog. Don't give up hope. Sure. Yeah. So you can teach a dog? An old dog. New tricks? Yes. Just might take a little bit longer because they're really set in their ways. Yeah. What about if someone was researching, like, they're like, okay, I need to put my dog in training. What is something they should look for when they're researching where to put their dog in training? Like what kind of questions should they ask a training program or make sure a training program has, when it comes to looking at training, I would always, tell people, you know, when do you research? A lot of these places have reviews online. You could actually get a really good idea of how that training class would go. Depending on other people's feedback. Depending on the facility and what you're wanting, it will all determine on what your decision should be, because, for example, location is a big one. I need to find something that's close. So it's not a you don't want to be driving an hour gets a doctor, and then you're always going to be missing a lot of classes. But you also want to, look at these facilities that are known as, like, boot camp facilities where you're dropping your dog off for two weeks. Three weeks a month. You really need to be looking at, looking into how they're actually going to be training your dog. So. And the follow up you need to follow. Yeah. Because you and I talked about that, like when you drop a dog off at boot camp, they're great. But if you're not doing what they're doing, a boot camp like, is a race. Yeah. And, and even, when, when, you were in week number one of, your class, I always half and, halfway jokingly say, if you realize that I cannot magically fix your dog for you in an hour, what do you mean? And then you have to go home and actually do homework. Yeah. That then. Oh. Oh, yeah. That was that was a close one, folks. I almost dropped my wine. Yeah. There's definitely there needs to be consistency. And if there's not, if you don't find that there's consistency at home, I usually encourage people to sign for more more than, more training. Maybe instead of just doing class one day a week, maybe do, some training camps, where, it's called, they're called board and trains. You don't have time to train your dog, drop you dog off at doggie day camp. I will, let your dog play with all these other dogs for for a good portion of the day, but then I will pull them out of camp. I will work with them, for at least 30 minutes, and then, I'll go ahead and put them back in camp. So then you you have your dog getting playtime, train time and playtime on top of that other hour that you actually have class. So now your dog's getting at least two days where they're getting a lot of mental stimulation. Yeah, well, that's really great advice. How long should someone keep their dog in training? Like, so there's, like, puppy class or intermediate class. You can do intermediate a couple of times. Like how many times you had your dog be in training until you're like, is my dog okay? It's one of those things where it depends on the dog. Sure, training should just continue for as long as you feel like your dog needs it. And unfortunately, I find a lot of people will just give up a lot, way too quickly on it. I know training could be expensive. I know as far as what we do. At our location, and Walton and PetSmart as a company, training classes are actually fairly inexpensive, even though I would agree. Yeah, people do often like. Well, do often say, you know, I may I feel like this is just a little much. Like if you went to a private trainer, they're going to charge you thousands of dollars. Yeah. But some dogs just need constant training. We were talking about breed's earlier. Good example. German Shepherds are working. Dogs allowed to work? Working dogs? Shelters? Yeah. You had these dogs that they're not going to at any point. Maybe when maybe when they're seniors just get it right. It might take a little bit longer, You got to hit that 3 to 5 year mark to figure out what kind of dog they're really going to become. And then maybe by the time they get to there and start to become, senior dogs. Yeah. I mean, maybe you should start slow, not down on training because they're actually slowing down. Yeah, that those particular breeds. Do you think that some dogs could do like maybe the puppy class, a couple intermediates and then maybe just do like a couple one on ones with you, like if training's going good at home. Yeah. The main, the main goal for everybody that I talk about in class is not just to get through. Getting through puppy, intermediate or advanced class is already a pretty big goal. But the the biggest milestone that I hope people could at least reach is getting their canine good citizen certification, which is the first I was going to say. Yeah. For anybody that doesn't know what that is, will you explain all that? So it's through is through American Kennel Society. Okay. It's it's a registry to to show that your dog does actually have, form some formal training, usually when it starts to come, if you're one in your dog to get into, like, therapy or service dog or any other specialty thing, a lot of these places, especially if they're, if they're, thinking, a little bit bigger, their company, legitimized, a lot of these places will actually wants to see your canine good citizen, at the very least. And then you could start working towards, all these other certifications, get start trying to get your, your service dog and, and everything else, past that. But yeah, that would be the at least the, the bare minimum. And what is like, what does it take to get that certification? It's a pretty, it's pretty simple test. Your dog, needs to, be able to follow, at least, at least, ten different, ten different things, exercises, and be able to listen to you without using any sort of special harness or without using, any treats, which is usually the big thing for a lot of people. Yeah, they make them a little, little leery about getting their dog to pass. But yeah, if you can get your dog to listen to you for 20, 30 minutes without having any major freak outs or potty accidents or anything else, you're probably pass your your canine good citizen. But, it's not so much even that I'm when I'm when I'm doing these tests, it's not even just that I'm watching how the dog is doing. I'm also watching to see how the owner is doing, because I also don't want to see an owner getting frustrated or excessively pulling on their dog, or getting angry, or raising their voice of their dog, that that's not really that's not really training, that's just getting upset at your dog. Right? I sure hope, hope hoping that they get scared enough to actually listen to you and that that's not what we want to see. Yeah. Well, and I think that probably happens a lot too at the little dogs because you can just get frustrated and pick them up. You know, you're like fine if you're not going to come, I'm just going to grab it. We gotta go. Okay. Now I don't I don't pick you up. I don't have time for this. Let's go. What is some advice you would give to somebody that's trying to kennel trained and hasn't kennel trained before? Kennel training? Yeah. It can be a tricky thing. I want to make it. It's something that there's a little bit more fun to a dog. Like any other. Anything else that you're training your dog to do? You don't want to make them feel like they're forced to do it. For a dog. You have to reach this point where they start showing a willingness to do it because then they're actually, learning, instead of, again, being force. You're throwing a dog just sports and a dog in a kennel, shutting the door and just walking away. They have no idea what's going on. But have you work with the kennel? Leave. Leave the kennel door open? Randomly just throw treats in there. What was it you mentioned that we just you were doing that but the mayor just likes to go in and he was like just up first. Now I'll actually go in there and grab it and let them out of it. But at first we were putting them in. It was almost like he was trying not to get his feet in there. So like, you lean in as much as they could, he's just stretching his neck out to see if we can get that treatment. Yeah, and then get out. Like you're not tricking me. And there's a reason today. Yeah, you just kind of make it a fun thing. So obvious. So it is working. I and for a lot of people, they did. They need to get to that point. They need to work on that so they don't, again, make their dog start to feel like it's a punishment. Right. Well, that's where we were like, so I have, a Yorkie mix for anybody that doesn't know, but he, he wasn't hating his kennel, but he would be, like, depressed. And, like, when we leave me be like, you're leaving me in this all day, like, even though we weren't, we're like, it's been an hour. You're fine. Like, it has not been that long. Or a car is another big one. Yeah. And people like. Well, my dogs, my dog is so afraid of the car. What am I supposed to do? And and, same thing you have to at start warming your dog up to the idea that it's not a big scary thing. Yeah, they don't know what the difference is. The the thing about these, younger dogs or even a rescue that spent maybe the first few years alone, on the street with, with no sort of structure. They've probably never even been in a car. They've probably learned to stay away from cars. Yeah, because they're driving by fast in order to hit. But even with with like, a puppy, they, they've nursed. They never even seen a car before. Yeah. So instead of getting just throwing your dog in the car and then having them be afraid and then taking a long drive across town, you could do something as simple as when you're going on a walk. Circle around the car, don't don't even fully get in the car. Maybe open up the car door, throw a couple treats in there later, dog jump in. Get the treats. Get out. Start making them think, oh, this isn't that bad. Yeah, this. This is just another place where I could relax and maybe even get a treat. Yeah. Obviously you guys carry multiple brands at PetSmart, but as someone's, again, dog food, I won't ask you to name brands, but what are some ingredients that they should be paying attention to and dog safe. So with different brands, everybody wants to know what the best brand is. Sure. A pet pet food industry or just some random knowledge for you, is actually 80% of the industry is actually owned by Mars and Nestlé. So when it comes to like the bigger the bigger brands or the companies that own the most, you'll find a lot of the same ingredients. So trying to find a food that's not going to upset your dog's stomach is, is essentially going to be the food that's going to be right for you right now when it comes to like, my dog, her food, and her age has changed. We have to do, like, a limited ingredient. No. No chicken. A lot of dogs can have chicken. No fowls. She used to love dogs. She can't have it anymore. But finding that right. Food. When people ask, I'm always letting them know. Start off with whatever based food either the breeder recommends or the kennel. The, the rescue recommends. Start off there, and if you want to start shopping for, a different food with better ingredients, something limited, something with not a lot of byproducts, dyes, fillers, something that that's going to be a little bit easier on the stomach. Then then you can start trying to branch off from that one based spoon. But if you take to a brand like a grocery brand, like, for example, like Bennifer, you can pretty much find it anywhere. It's fairly on a more inexpensive side. If that's all you could eat, you know what, you might want to stick with that. Yeah. And then start to break some things better than nothing if they're not going to eat the other food. Yeah, I, I've met all I met people where they're dogs. They could barely eat steamed chicken, boiled chicken and steamed rice. And that's all their stomach can handle. And then, I mean, other people with their dogs have an iron stomach and they'll basically eat. Oh, my gosh, I had a dog once, a soda can, and I, like, walked in and the half like it was a mountain dew can and half the can was gone. And I go after one bite. Why wouldn't you stop? Like, what about this can you're like, yes, I need to eat more of this. I was like, I panicked, I called the vet, I was like, this is going to terrible stomach. What happens when it comes out? Like, is he just like, cut because it's aluminum? I'm like, is this going to cut him up the whole way? And then that was like, we'll see. Yep. It's like your dog is part go. Yeah. Yeah. He could just he was fine. It was like a demon phase. No big deal. I've, heard. So over the years I, I've heard so many different stories and examples of dogs that will just they, they get a whiff of just something, and it makes them sick. And then and then on the other side of that spectrum, you got people they'll their dogs will eat an entire, like, leftover, like leftover, like ham or a chicken out of the trash can, and they're just fine there. Yeah. Happiest dogs. Yeah. We're all so crazy. That same the pop canned dog. Also a 2 pounds of raw hamburger. Me like we were getting the grill ready. And so we had it up on the counter and like, we walked outside again. We're college kids too, so we weren't, like, as focused on the dog as we should have been. But we walked out to the grill. We came back any and, a Jack Russell was also there and they were just, like, devouring this hamburger meat. And then also when you're in college, you're like, no, we can't afford more hamburger meat. Like, what do you do? So then we were like, bummed for two reasons. The weather was warming up. So the the thing I'm getting a lot of right now is how do I get my dog to stop eating rocks or. Yeah, or grass or grow? What is the obsession with grass? So something about the scent. Sometimes grass could, sell their stomach. Usually when it comes to dogs eating a lot of grass, you could actually just get, cat grass. But is cat grass so cat grass, because cats will do the same thing. They either they have cat grass or wheat grass cats. They they like the texture. They like the way it makes it. So cats don't really have a whole lot of taste buds, so they'll choose their food from, more from, scent, from texture and how it makes them feel afterwards. They, their tongues are barbed so they don't got a lot of taste buds. So when they're eating grass, they just they like the scent of it. They like the way it makes them feel. And, and yeah, they can like the texture of it. Dogs. Same thing. They just like the way that it kind of feels in their mouth. Dogs will will just wander around the yard. Or even if you ever take them to, like, a park or, or lake or a river creek something. All they want to do is pick up rocks and hold them in their mouths. They just love the texture of them. So, there are actually companies that make, rubber rocks. Oh, my gosh, that's so hilarious. So. So if you're ever dog has an obsession with rocks. Yeah. You could just buy rubber rocks and hopefully they'll focus on that versus anything else. That's we actually, they just came out of the, bunch of new toys that are just, shaped like, different things that you would find around the yards. There's even rubber toys that look like giant pinecone toys that crinkle. And it's like, oh, my gosh, I was just like, okay, well, obviously there's dogs that are obsessed with pinecones. Yeah. So I always thought, like, I tried to like any dog I've ever had. My whole life, I have never gotten him anything that looks like shoes or clothes or the now that I, O'Brien, like kids toys, I try to make sure it's like clear this is a dog toy. This is a kid's toy. But I hate snakes, so I always buy anything that looks like a snake because I hope that, like the snake ever gets in the house, the dog will go crazy. Yeah. It's funny, they gave me, somebody, brought back a, an electronic snake toy. You turn it on, and it has a sensor and it'll just go across the ground. And, they were going to get rid of that and I so I was like, can I just, you can I have this and so I can just use it in class. Yeah. I think this will be a really good distraction for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That that's hilarious. Well, as you can see and hear, Joe knows a ton. So if you need help with your dog, Joe is definitely one of your go to people to reach out to. And if you're in our area, definitely pop into PetSmart and say hi to him. Maybe talk to him about classes. How can people engage with you outside if you're not at PetSmart? Like, can they follow you on Instagram? How do they get in touch with you? Yeah. Trainer Joe Dot PDX. The, easiest way to find me on Instagram. And, I, don't see myself going, leaving the company anytime soon, so. Yeah. So you'll be there. You could always Google search, just waltz and pet smarts on your smartphone or, on computer. And, you'll actually even in the review section, you'll see the hundreds and hundreds of dogs and, comments and, people's feedback on, what their experience is, working with me. Yeah. Well, I know that we've loved it for sure. Like we've done puppy class and our intermediate class, and our dog is definitely grown and changed, so. And to your point about pricing, I thought PetSmart was price super fair for the time. And it's multiple classes and it's like a fee for like six weeks or whatever. But I think it's very reasonable compared to I did shop around, I did Google a bunch of stuff, and I did think it was like really reasonable. So yeah, I often do, look around there, there are so many different train facilities. And one of the other things, when people are like, well, what do I again, what should I look for when it comes to training? Whether it's videos, books or anything else, try to get as much information as possible. The biggest red flag that I tell anybody to look out for is the trainers out there that claim that they specifically have all the answers. For sure. I've never claimed that I do have a lot of knowledge, and no two dogs are going to be the same. But, you always, trainers should always want to do what's best for, the dog and for the pet parents, so. Well, thank you. Wise words. I'd like to toast you. Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Cheers. And thank you for listening. We hope to see you next week. Bye.