Mark Vette - Animal trainer

Published Nov 10, 2024, 7:12 AM

Mark Vette is an internationally renowned animal psychologist, zoologist, and founder of Dog Zen, an online dog training program. With over 40 years of experience, he has trained animals for iconic New Zealand commercials, Hollywood films like The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, and TV series such as Purina Pound Pups to Dog Stars and Dogs Might Fly. Mark is famous for teaching dogs to drive and fly a small plane.

A passionate advocate for rescue dogs, Mark has appeared in global campaigns promoting adoption. His training philosophy focuses on understanding dog behaviour to build loving, problem-free relationships between pets and their families.

Through his decades of work, Mark has helped thousands of dogs and their owners, continuously learning from the animals he works with and deepening his bond with them.

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GOODAVI. This is real life and I'm John Cowen. I love my dogs. They are my fitness equipment, my fury valium, and they are my mates. And I have an instant affinity with other dog lovers. And I have a huge admiration for my guest tonight, who has devoted his life to enhancing the animal to human bond. Mark Vetti.

Welcome, Mark, Hey, you give it John.

I'm doing well. Now. I'm just going to help out those people who are scrambling to place the name. Mark has been on dozens of shows talking about dogs and dog training and other animals, and written books on the subject. He's trained dogs for Lord of the Rings and Samurai and the Narnia films and others, and trained dogs to drive cars, fly planes, train the Toyota Dog, the Pookackos, and the on the Genesis ads, and starred in three TV series and a whole lot. More So, Mark, you're probably the best known animal trainer in our part of the world, and you've probably known pretty well around the world too.

Yeah, well, we did have the good fortune to get around about one hundred and twenty countries. But the two of the TV series or three of the TV series actually, so yeah, that was we have jumped around and I have done work around the world. But yeah, it's really Kiwi country that I most love. And yeah, and it's great to have been a contributed to the welfare of dogs and cats and another species in the zeale and even a bit of other stuff as well.

Good on you. So what do you what do you call your role when you're doing things for add some movies and things.

Is it a wrangler or is it a watch what we call an animal wranglers animal trainers? Yeah, it's that that's kind of that later role animal behavior, spinster bean zoologist, but that that all came later, and so your animal wrangler in that context a animal trainer in film.

Okay, Now, with computers getting smarter and smarter, are you is that a bit of a threat to your business? I guess. I mean, you trained a real ball to walk around a china shop, But I don't know whether a competitor do that.

Yeah, well that's right. I remember when we did the Genesis Pooky Goes. You know, they came to us at that time for to do it CGI, but we decided to go with the real thing, and it always makes for a better production. I think you can't beat the real and but you're right CGI and computer Assistant graphics and stuff that I really used more and more. I think Nanny was the first big one that we hit with a major contributions with c g I. But yeah, and still, I mean there's always a collaboration, almost invariably with some of the animals, you know, even when you're using c g I, like Nannya. We all the wolves were real, but the but a number of the animals, including the line and so on, where c g I. So you know, there's a mix of the two, and some of them are totally CGI, but no real thing.

I guess it would have been a little challenging training the line to talk.

Exactly. Well, I mean that had one. There was the mice on the ropes, you know, through the road. Yeah that was live mice, but about fifty or sixty of them, and yeah, that was a job and r but that was all fun. And but luckily the line wasn't alive and we didn't have to work without.

The wolves that you've you know, you've used in a couple of moves. Were they real wolves?

Yeah? They were. Yeah. We brought the wolves over from the States. We had a zoo at that stage and Bombay Hells, and so we we bought eight wolves in from the States and a big job to get them in. It was a huge job because we didn't have wolves in the zoos even at that stage, so that was a big job. But yeah, pretty after kind of doing my original master's research on wolf behavior when I was in the States way back then. Really i'm pretty good instead to be able to work with those ones here.

I sometimes try and tell my dogs that they are wolves, and you know, as sleeping on my bed or wanted some sort of dainty food or other, your wolves, Heaven's sake. But it's amazing how I also remind my dogs that every one of their ancestors for perhaps the last fifteen thousand years has had a relationship with humans. That's amazing at that whole track of how humans dogs have come.

Togear, well, it's fifteen to forty thousand. We think it's as long as forty thousand years that they co evolved with us. And you know, when you think about it, it's it's a pretty amazing collaboration. Having worked directly with wolves and realizing that they're not really dogs. I mean, yes, they are the ancestor of the dog, undoubtedly, but theyre one hundred percent the ancestors to the dog. But at the same time, you know that forty thousand years of co evolution have turned the dog into something somewhat different. There's still very much wolf based, you know, there's still got all the wolf kind of infrastructure, so to speak. They're but of course we've select them for friending us, or they selected us actually and gathered around us and became our companions. And then over the latter kind of any in the last two undred years, we've actually selected them into four hundred different breeds. But yeah, so it's a collaboration between us and then mister there's some that say that that collaboration back when we were hunting gather has actually saved us from extinction, you know, because they were very successful predator at the time in Eurasia and we were a faltering predator. But at the same time, once we gathered forces and managed to work away in a world that was pretty pretty ferocious and you know, giant hyaenas and saber tooth tigers and all the different things that we were up against them, and we were very lucky to have a wolf companions at our side to help survive through that time.

Well, I'm very glad I've got my too many schnauss to protect me from saber tooth tigers.

Then it what we've done to change them to some degree, I remember doing it computer cats anyway.

Yeah, I remember doing psychology and we're working with laborats and they're about the only four legged and fury animals that I can't really get very attached to. But we were warned about anthropomorphism projecting onto animal behavior human characteristics, but it's so darn easy with dogs. They seem to have human shaped emotions.

Well it is, And I mean back in those days, I don't know how long are you your degrees, but in those days when I was doing in behavior at university and found that there certainly was very much that kind of stigma about, you know, kind of calling human emotions on dogs and other animals. But as we've actually got deeper into you know, the science, the neuroscience and the science and cognitive sciences of dogs and other species that we do know that they do have the same feelings that we have, and maybe not exactly the same, but you know, they're a mammal. We've got all the same basic neurological you know, and neurochemical basis too, you know, all of their emotions.

So when we're looking.

It's certainly something that we're now starting to realize they're much closer to us in that sense than we even begin to think. You know.

So when we're looking gouiy eyed at the puppy, I don't mean with conjunctivitis, I mean, you know that soppy emotion that puppies bring out in this and they're looking back at us. Is it really love or is it just some instinct that's been hijacked.

No, it's well, it's that we now know from the research at the same levels of oxytocin that and that's the that's the bonding hormone, the love hormone, and and don't mean that stimulated through then another urochemicals. But basically the oxytocin is about the same level as we have towards our children and our family members. And similarly, the dogs have the same level of oxytocin back. So you know, that's that's probably what we qualify as as the main measure of what we call love and and so no, they and they are highly social species, you know, And and so they're attachment. We call it attachment relationship and science you know that. And so that attachment relationship is very similar and some and my dog's in books and puppies in books. I talked very deeply about that relationship and those hormones and how they play a big part. And when you consider that that not only do those hormones, you know, stimulate that love response or that companionship response we have, has incredibly valuable effects on our on our health as well, you know, and not just that, but I don't mean and the various other euro chemicals that are stimulated, and you know, and of course the attachment that we have and therefore the relationship that we have is very very kin to you our relationship. There's there's surrogate kids really in many ways they're not kids, but they're very close to it.

Yeah, yeah, well, I don't think we'll make comparisons on on air when my own kids could be listening about which which are better. But they will get a surprise when they read. But will But anyhow, I'd love to know what drew you into the hairy world of dogs that you mentioned doing. Yeah, well, wolf research and that.

Yeah, well that's right. I I mean I go back to probably six when I know and those I have read my memoirs zan Hart. You know, you'll see back when I was six that I had a German shepherd and and cat and and so that was the start of my It was probably a nightmare of that state because he was killing cats and we were doing all different stuff. It set me off on the path. I'm going to work out how this dog dog's mind works, because I would love to be able to solve this issue. I had a good fortune and my grandfather who was a dog trainer in the war, so I but yeah, I went on to to do my you know, work with dogs, to farming and various other ways all through my life. And then yeah, ago engaged in the zoology university and then went on to into the States and study wolves and become animal behaviorist and and do my master's and complete Yeah, that that's kind of where I began in that sense, and that led to my clinical work treating behavior problems and dogs and cats, you know, and then moved into film as well. And yeah, in other areas that I work and you know, in terms of welfare and teaching and verse stuff. Yeah, well, you.

Will immersed immersed into the world of animals. But I know that you have a very huge human side as well, and I look forward to talking about that after the break. You've already mentioned how the zen is in the title of that memoir that you're right, but you've incorporated in the title of the number of books, and I want to talk about how your philosophies and attitudes to life impact not just your work of animals, but with the whole of your life as well. I'm talking with Mark Vetti, animal trainer and animal with movies and helping people with their all sorts of difficulties with their animals, and we'll be talking with them, coming.

Up intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news talks.

Be fun.

It is arms she fell as.

He welcome back to real life. Every week we ask our guests to pick a song which has some meeting or significance to them. My guest tonight is animal trainer Mark Vetti, and he's pecked fields of gold by sting. Has that got some significance to you.

Mart, Yes, it's got a lot of significance. Ex See. Then some people might remember the Herald one one day on the front page came out with bugger across a big black page with bugger on it, and we lost hercules the bugger dog, the toy, the bugger Dog. It was my probably my greatest dog of what's certainly one of them. You maybe that they were Driving Dog and the Flying Dog, those would probably be the top ones, but he was. He was one. He was one of the first ones and very special. And the day died, we the TV and Z Steve did a piece on him and on his life, and yeah, they played that song and of course it still brings tears, Tomies. It was such a great dog. He was, you know, one hundred and fifty commands, if could do anything. It was just one of those very special dogs that did many, many, many movies and many ads. And yeah, he was he was amazing.

Yeah, that's absolutely the worst thing about owning a dog is that you you know that you love them, and then they go and die. And I'm probably embarrassed to say that I've probably shed more tears over pets dying than over my parents, but it's probably true.

Yeah, well I lost three last year and it was a he just you know, a real real knocks knocks the hell out of be done that. But yeah, they're short, short lived, but they come in with a bang and go out with a bang, and they're every special.

Short bright lives. Now in your books and you refer to puppy zen dog zen zen hearts, and I'm not too sure that I know what.

The words coming up.

I'm not even too sure that I know what zen means.

Yeah, zen in that context, I mean, in the first two books, Dogs In and Puppies In, the focus was more on the way I trained dogs, you know, which is about getting them into a copaar of sympathetic arousal or learning state, which is the same as the meditation state. To be honest, we're a mindful of state. And so using techniques that I've learned over the years. You know, something for example called dog's in down, where you put your dog in it down and then you get it to roll it step over. I use clicker training for that, and it rolls itself over and it activates the vagas nerve, which switches on parasympathetic, you know, puts them into a calm learning state. And I learned that by studying wolves and watching them. When they're sitting up on their brisket, they're at and pumped and sympathetic arousal the opposite. Then when they light then when the hip rolls over and they relax, you see them go into their body tone changes. Well, that's what you're after as a trainer. You always after getting the dog capit or whatever you're working with in the learning state. And so that's and we call it as the end state as well.

And so you see the mixing up your understanding of science with your understanding of our Buddhism. And on your website you mentioned that you learned a lot from a famous Buddhist teacher. I can't see in my notes. I went, I really need to bring up ye.

Yes, yes, he was my teacher. He is my teacher, and I mean he's died just in the last a few years, but he's he was. You know, I spent I went and ordained with him in the ninety four and yeah, I've been practicing about fifteen years in practice Buddhist practice by then, but we've do over to his traditions in tradition, and he had the good fortune to actually train directly under him for different reasons. And he was he was probably, you know, the greatest, probably is the greatest, the master of our time.

And I see that Martin Luther King nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Right, that's right.

And I read that he was very emphatic that his teaching wasn't religious dogma, but rather practical living skills and therefore compatible with other religion, saying, no religion exactly.

Yeah, it is, it is, it's a it's a it's you know, I mean, obviously the budder was a man and and and the ancestral buddher and so it's and it's it's very much you know, the dal a Lama calls, you know, the science of the mind, and and it's very much So it doesn't require you to have you know, any kind of uh, you know, kind of beliefs and something that's not there. It's it's about to be honest, and Buddhism is very much about compassion and kindness and and and living in the present moment. How does it impact your life evenly? You know, I've been in practice and since I was twenty three, I think, and it's yeah, it's what it gives you know. And I mean because I work with animals, you're working with beings that are very much in the present moment. You know, as you'll know with your dogs and people know, the cats and various other species that if you work with any species, you know they're very present and very and whilst the humans aspire to that, you know, it's one of our aspirations. Obviously, Zen practitioners are live fully in the present moment. You know, invariably we live you know, in the future in the past a good amount of the time. And it's really once you sit for yourself and watch through meditation or mindfleness practice, you know that you have to do exactly that. I put a.

Challenge to you. I mean, you deal with dogs that you are an advocate of rescue dogs, and some of these have been traumatized. Their past comes with them when they come into your home. They are they may have been abused or chained up, or beaten or whatever, and and you say they'd live in the moment, but those dogs are also living with a very horrible past, and so how do you bring them back into the loving present that they might be living in now in your home.

Yeah, no, no, you're right. They doesn't doesn't mean they don't suffer, you know, And I mean we call it Buddhism the second arrow. The first arrow is the pain that you suffer from something like that, you know, and the second arrow is we impose upon ourselves, which is the dwelling on the you know, we're not dwelling, but you know, sitting with the suffering for maybe years afterwards. And and of course that's pretty true dog. But dogs, although it can affect the behavior significantly, of course it can. They're very able then to really be rehabilitated and brought back, you know, with with love and care, you know. But it's yeah, I think it's it's it's about that the state of mind that you know when you're working with a dog or an animal, and the same with the person on your dog. We done hospice work and very other different things through my life too, So it doesn't matter whether it's a human or a dog or you know, we all, we all have the same emotions, we all have the same desire to want to have a good, happy life, and you know, have our needs, Matt and so on, and so dog needs that as well, so does a cat, and so it's yeah, it's a matter of bringing those same skills really, of being truly present from them, being able to be with them to the degree that you can actually deeply understand them and see what's going on for them. Hopefully then have some skills to transform them, which is the next of course. Then you've got to cultivate those, which is it's all possible. And you have transformed some pretty tough cases over time, and it's it's a very rewarding thing to do, and you get a lot feedback from the dog. Yeah definitely.

Now you've learned a lot obviously from taking at Hahn. But have dogs taught you anything? Have dogs taught you about life? Yeah?

Definitely definitely. And I call them my dogs in masters, you know, and yeah, every day, yeah, every day. I mean, I've got a lovely dog. It's my it's a Golden Retriever, rested Golden Retriever that he said, just eighty months forty months of me and every day. You know that you get that little microdos and you don't mean when he makes you laugh and when he does something silly, and but at the same time, you know they're very present for you. You know, unconditional love. You know that's what's something for humans. You know that we you know that we really you know, not maybe not crave for, but really like to have as is. They're one of those species, one of those animals that really does give you unconditional love.

It's hard that the people that are cat people listening to this haven't got a clue what we're talking about.

I've got to be kid writing at the moment.

Oh you're writing cats in Okay? Maybe okay, maybe there.

Yeah, don't under is to make cats either. There. Although they've their ancestry of solitary species, they've adapted to humans beautifully. But we do say dogs, they've owners get their start, that's right.

What do people get wrong most often when it comes to training their dogs and trying to shape them into their family life?

Yeah, I mean absolutely fun. The reason I wrote Puppies in was after fifty forty five fifty years of clinical work working with dogs in a serious cases, lots of aggression casts of different problems, and I worked with a good fortune when I was in America. One stage, I worked with John Paul Scott, which is the father of critical period theory and dogs critical period of socialization, and that three to sixteen week period is their formative period. That's when the wolf grows up with its pack and then by four months old they head out hunting. So that window in there is the socialization window. And so one of the most critical things that people should understand with the dog is that formative period can't be changed. And if, of course it's time to getting vaccinated as well, so oftentimes you know you'll get advice to not take them out till that's all finished, and that can be at four months, which is too late. So that formative period. If I was to say, what's the most important thing, you need to socialize your dog with people, other dogs, and other species through the formative period to make sure that that dog is going to fit into our communities and our lives.

Mark, I could be talking with you for hours, but unfortunately we're crashing into the end of the hour. Mark Vetti has been my guest tonight. I do check out his website which is dogzend dot com. You can even book sessions with Mark or other maybe some other trainer, I'm not too sure, but lots and lots of advice and interesting stuff on dogsen dot com. Check out his books too. Mark has been an absolute provilegehould talk to you. We'll go out on another song that you picked. Witches.

Yeah. So we've got all us yesternight and we am blake majoric woman. Great.

Thanks Jo, Thank you so much for taking time to be with us. My pleasure, Jesus Real life on News Talks b I John Cow I'm looking forward to being back with you again next Sunday night.

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