Episode #134 Shelter & Rescue Dogs with Jonathan from Mutt Dog

About the Mutt Dog : The Mutt Dog is a lifestyle brand, but at our core, we are dog lovers. The Mutt Dog community was created to help get more dogs rescued & provide support to shelters across the world. Whether your pup is mutt or purebred, stories of rescue and newfound family remind us to hold our dogs closer and be grateful for their health, happiness, and unwavering love. The Mutt Dog allows us to pay forward some of that pure and true love they give to us to our rescue and shelter partners.

5% of every purchase goes straight to The Mutt Dog Impact Fund, which supports shelters, rescue organizations, and other essential non-profits serving dogs. We use our platform to highlight rescues doing amazing work to help dogs, adoptable pups in search of loving homes, and dogs in need of medical support to get them to their happily ever afters.

About Jonathan + Neptune (the dog behind it all) :

Jonathan says it best - find his short article here. When asked about Neptune and his training journey, Jonathan says "Neptune is perfect, he doesn't need training"! But, his wife Abby argues that the counter surfing is getting a little old now that Neptune is 7 and they have 3 young children who love to leave their plates unattended. In our conversation we address the ever present question, "is it ever too late to train your dog?

Transcript

Amy: 0:00

This is the puppy training Podcast, episode 134 shelter and rescue dogs with Jonathan from Mad Dog. This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the puppy training podcast. And I'm your host, Amy Jensen. Hey, everybody, welcome to the puppy training podcast. Thanks for being here today. Whether you're new or you've been here for a while, we appreciate you listening. today. We have Jonathan here from mutt dog. And I'm excited to have a conversation with him and get to know a little bit about mutt dog and what it is and how he got started. So welcome, Jonathan. Thank you for having me. Great to meet you. Nice to meet you as well. Will you go ahead and introduce yourself and explain to us what it is you do and how my dog came to be?

Jonathan (Mutt Dog): 0:57

Yeah, so my name is Jonathan, one of the founders of my dog. My background, I've been an entrepreneur most of my life, mostly in the consumer space. And mutt was a brand that was inspired by my rescue dog. We got a rescue right before I had kids and my wife had gotten me I have my dog's name on it for Father's Day. And I was wearing the hat on vacation and someone stopped stop me asking where I got the hat and light bulb ideal and off because in New England, there's a very popular brand called Black Dog. And I said, Well, there's a brand that represents that dog. Why don't we start one called my dog. And that was watchbird. My dog turned into something much different over the following years. And my dog has really evolved to this community that support rescue and shelter dogs anchored around lifestyle products and media. So partnering with creators partnering with amazing entrepreneurs and greater steps yourself and partners in the ecosystem to share your stories and let people know how they can support rescuing children, dogs through awareness and lifestyle products.

Amy: 1:59

That's awesome. Tell us a little bit about your rescue dog.

Unknown: 2:01

what's your what's Yeah, so my rescue dog we got when he was a puppy. He was 10 weeks old. And I've been a huge dog person my whole life. I grew up with dogs. And we grew up with rescue labs as a child. And then my dog we we got from a local shelter here in Boston, the shelter that my aunt volunteered at. And she had called me when a litter of puppies had just come in and said you gotta come check them out. And I picked the one that was in my mind was they all come up running up to you. And if you see a litter of puppies or shelter, they'll come running up to you. And then the demand that they have for more attention will vary based on the puppy. And dogs like humans have certain dispositions naturally. And the one I chose was one that came up to me was very cool and friendly and had a lot of love, but then just kind of went back to his bed and chilled out. So actually have a picture of him where he's just sleeping and not when he was in So engage with me. So I picked him based on that. And he also had a really cool heart shaped nose and just a really nice color to him. So yeah, he's was my first child, my first four leg we surely have three more kit human kids later in life. But he's my he's my most well behaved child. So yeah, he's been a big part of our family. And I don't know what life would be like without him.

Amy: 3:23

Yeah, dogs do add a lot to a home, I find that my kids will come home from school and Baxter's right there to say, Hello, first the greeting, right? So excited to see him when they come home. They just feel His love. They're ever having a bad day. He can sense it. He goes over and sits by him. Probably similar at your house, I would imagine.

Unknown: 3:40

Yeah, very similar. It varies on the kid I think which kid is more into, it's kind of fun to see. Because, you know, I grew up with three siblings, and we all love dogs. But I probably gravitated the most of my brother and sister to really loving dogs and wanting to be part of my life. And my kids, my my daughter is obsessed with the dog and has to bring them as food for breakfast and cuddles with them and pets him. And then you know, the twins are a little different depending on you know, which one but one will be very, will not be as engaging with the dog and the other ones will be so it's fun to watch.

Amy: 4:20

Yeah, it's interesting. We explain a little bit more about the mission you have at mutt dog and how our listeners could possibly get involved.

Unknown: 4:27

Yeah, so you know our mission. We are a for profit entity and we're starting our own foundation as well to support the rescue and shelter community. The brand although the story I just told you was inspired by my rescue dog and, you know, my appetite to build things as an entrepreneur is not about me and my dog. You know, one of the cool things I've been fortunate to experience getting the spaces meet so many amazing people in this community. So our brand is really about all the amazing entrepreneurs, operators, creators, whatever you might do in this space. the trainer's you know, you name it, we really want to share their stories build a community where people can come to meet other rescue lovers and dog lovers. So that's really what our mission is. And obviously, also to support the Rescue Committee as much as possible. So we really want to be a vehicle for change that goes through, you know, the foundation that we'll set up, and then the proceeds of the sales of products that we sell as well. And, you know, we're still learning as we go. But we, we are working with a lot of different shelters and figuring out the best way to support them, whether that's dollars for flights, whether that's spay neuter clinics, those are all things that we're trying to get a better grasp on and understand how we can be a force for change in the space.

Amy: 5:44

Yeah, I know, as a trainer, personally, I would love to get more involved in this space. And I see a lot of dogs with great potential great opportunity, and it's just helping families see that same potential in them. Do you feel like it's ever too late to train a dog?

Unknown: 5:59

No, I don't think so. I feel like again, back to the human element. I feel like dogs are just like people and the love, you give them the care, you give them the training you give them that comes back. It's not always gonna happen right away. But you know, if you support them and give them what they need with the right resources, and that change can come at any time.

Amy: 6:19

Yeah, I agree. 100%. As a trainer, it's fun to just teach a dog how to, you know, learn and think and once you teach them how to do that they can learn anything. And it's never too late, right? At any age, you can teach a dog anything at any age, I would say if they have some habits, it might take some time to undo some of those habits. But they can absolutely learn and change just like you mentioned, you know, we have that same expectation of us as humans. It's never too late to change behavior or go in a different direction. So

Unknown: 6:46

yeah, no, I totally agree with that. And my wife would say that our dog Neptune needs training. But I don't know if I mean, he probably does. But he's very, he's a very, very smart dog, with young kids who knows food around, so he's knows where to go knows where to navigate. But

Amy: 7:07

I coach a lot of clients on that point, you know, they come to our program, we have a very comprehensive training program. And I'm basically teaching people how we train our service dogs. So I like to let them know, you don't have to do this level of training, you know, if you're not going to use the training, your dog doesn't need to be trained to do that. So it sounds like at your house, I mean, if you have a goal for your dog, or behavior you want to train or change, then yeah, we could possibly add in some training. But if Neptune's you know, good to go with what your expectations are, and that life's going well for you and your family and him. You don't need more training. So I think that's a good thing for families to realize, too, is you don't have to spend all this time training a two hour downstate. If you're never going to use a two hour downstate, you know,

Unknown: 7:49

yeah, yeah, I think it's all a bit to to your point. It's all dependent on what you need. And, you know, kind of the disposition of the dog and what they need.

Amy: 7:59

Yeah, absolutely. In working with shelter dogs, what kind of training do you see would be most helpful for these types of dogs? How can we help more dogs get adopted? What's something that I could do as a trainer to maybe go in and help some of these dogs do so that more families see them as adoptable?

Unknown: 8:14

Yeah, I mean, my gut, is that all shelter dogs come from different stories, some are puppies and have no, you know, No, there's nothing that happened in their life that makes them who they are, they're coming to this world, and they're willing to give their love like they can, if they were, you know, from anywhere else. And then there's some dogs, obviously, a very challenging backgrounds and their abandonment issues, whatever it might be, or no home. So those dogs that need that support, I mean, helping those dogs as much as possible to be well positioned to come into the right home to because not every home is the right home for that dog. So I think, you know, understanding that and making sure that those resources out there for the people that rescue the dogs, as well as the shelters that want to give the dogs the best chance of getting home.

Amy: 9:06

Yeah, I find that our local shelter here it has lots of opportunities for people to go out and volunteer. We find opportunities for you know, just simple things like doing their laundry on a weekly basis or going in and feeding the dogs changing, you know, walking them from one kennel to the outside. So they get some playtime outside, cleaning their kennels, making toys for them we've done. I've known you know, they have a need for people to make, you know, interactive toys and games for these dogs, going in, taking the dog out on a walk for a day and then bringing them back. And there's so many different ways I feel like we as community members can get out and help and serve in these shelters. Past, you know, post COVID We've seen the shelters were empty during COVID. Now they're starting to fill back up again, which is unfortunate but true. And you know, I think there's ways that if you're interested in your community to get out and help and so Ervin and help these dogs who need to find a home.

Unknown: 10:03

Yeah, 100%. And you know, my mom's volunteer locally here to shelter my aunt saw the same thing. So that's how I got into this world inspired by them and my own dog, but there's always need for support at the shelter. To your point, I mean, helping with walks, open the food, whatever that might be.

Amy: 10:24

Yeah, are there products that you have? I'm curious that we could support

Unknown: 10:29

Yeah, so if you go to our site, now we have some, you know, we are in this very exciting time of investing a lot of resources to build this brand. So the brand is going to be changing dramatically over the next 12 months. So the product has been so fun products on there, we have some leashes, we have some bracelets, we do have some hats, and those all, you know, 5% of sales all go directly to shelters in our network. But you know, to support us, you know, we just want to continue to build the biggest community as possible. So give us a follow if you have an awesome shelter story to tell. If you are building something great in this space, we want to share your story and let people know who you are. Because to my point earlier, you know this business, this what we're building is about the broader community coming together support rescue and shelter got dogs. You can follow us. We're at the dog on Instagram.

Amy: 11:21

Awesome. Thank you so much, Jonathan, for hanging out with us today spending some time on the podcast for educating us on mutt dog and your mission. And hopefully we'll get you know this word out to more and more people that we can join forces with you and support the shelter dogs.

Unknown: 11:38

That's awesome. Thank you so much for your time. Congrats on everything you're building and excited to see how we can support each other. Yeah,

Amy: 11:44

thank you. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other Puppy Training question, visit my site Baxter & bella.com to contact me