Bad vegans, coercion & canine immortality: What sociopaths can teach us about dog training

How To Train Your Dog With Love + Science - Dog Training with Annie Grossman + Anamarie Johnson PhD

The Netflix docu-series Bad Vegan is about the owner of a raw food restaurant (which happened to be located on Annie's street) who was conned out of millions of dollars by a narcissistic sociopath who claimed he could make her dog immortal. The story leads Annie to think aloud about how genius manipulators use coercion, punishment and classical conditioning in order to get the behaviors they want from their victims.

While many of their techniques do not constitute “good” dog training, we can draw parallels between how they create positive associations in others to make themselves appear trustworthy. Can we do the same to build our dogs’ confidence? Also: Should we trust our pets to be good judges of character in potential partners? Annie offers her answer.

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Bad Vegan on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/81470938

Inventing Anna on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/81008305

Related Podcast Episodes:

Episode 84 | Sociopaths as dog trainers, Negative Reinforcement at NXIVM & how to train humans to wear masks

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Episode 104 | Dog training with Mary Poppins, Professor Harold Hill and Little Orphan Annie

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Episode 123 | A conversation with Terra Newell (former groomer, owner of a mini Aussie) about killing her stepfather… and dogs

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Partial Transcript:

Annie:

So I just watched the Netflix docu-series ‘Bad Vegan,’ which is about the downfall of a restaurant called Pure Food and Wine. And this story, I thought, well, this is a show I have to watch for a couple reasons. One, Pure Food and Wine is on my block. Like it's just around the corner from me. I could get there without crossing a street.

And I never dined there very much or went to its outpost, which was called One Lucky Duck, because it was very expensive. And I always sort of thought one day when I make a lot more money, I will eat here all the time. But then it closed. They specialized in this really interesting and tasty, raw vegan food, like gourmet vegan food, but not just vegan, but uncooked. And the couple times I did go, it was pretty fabulous.

I was also interested cause the story is specifically about the owner Sarma Melngailis. I actually interviewed her and her former business and romantic partner, Matthew Kenney, 15 or so years ago when I was writing about restaurants for the New York Post.

Full Transcript at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Podcast

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