#5: Someone STABBED Our Dog All Over!! - HURRY the F**K UP!! - Sad Story of a Dog Trainer

WARNING. You May Get Teary and Feel that Lump in Your Throat on This One. A Side of Zeddicus You Never Saw Coming. 
This episode is about heartache of losing my first German Shepherd, Sharp, to a vicious attack and the childhood memory of our family dog profound journey of a dog trainer. 
Turning tragedies into triumph: stories that I never thought I'd share. Yet, here I am, opening up about these profound experiences that have deeply shaped my passion for dog training—a calling that to me, means so much more than any financial reward. It's about turning personal tragedy into a lifelong mission to connect with and understand our canine comrades.
From grief to guidance in this episode, we unravel the complex tapestry of dog training, its emotional highs and lows, and the often underappreciated role women play in this field.  
From heartache to healing, I'll share a chilling encounter with an aggressive Chow Chow, emphasizing the patience required to rehabilitate troubled dogs, and explore the stigmas attached to certain breeds like pit bulls. Encouraging a shift in perspective, we highlight the importance of compassion for our aging four-legged friends and the profound bonds that transcend their lifespan. As we reflect on these narratives, we hope to inspire a deeper appreciation for the loyalty and love our dogs bring into our lives. 

To Hire Zeddicus for Phone/Zoom Consultation, In-Home Lessons or His Doggie Boot Camp in Los Angeles, Paw at: https://DogSecrets.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Dog Secrets. Dog Secrets Brought to you by Zedekis the Dog, pranage King, the Dog Psychology Podcast without the whispering. Hi everyone, thank you so much for being with me. Thank you for all the love and support. As usual, in this episode, guys, I will be a deep, emotional one, a tear-jerker. Those of you who are a little bit emotional or sensitive and I'm one of those guys Not everyone knows that really, I mean people you know see me as a big dude with tattoos and all that, but I'm probably one of the most misunderstood people you've met in your life, or you'll know, in your life. Not all of you guys will get to meet me right. So these are the things, guys, the incidents that happened to me that made me who I am today with dogs. A lot of one incident, two incidents made me almost quit dog training for good, and now one inspired me. The childhood tragedy actually inspired me. So you'll see how I turn tragedy into triumph and why I do what I do and why it's more than it's more than just the money for me. I really, really love what I do, even though I've been doing this now three decades now. I can't believe it. Alright, so I'm gonna start with. I don't know how I should start this because it's very, it's very emotional for me. Even me thinking about it right now makes me emotional. So, alright, I'm gonna start with.

Speaker 1: 2:17

I get a call from my ex. This was at En Sacramento. This is, you know, her name is Kreena. She's the mother of my kids. We had four dogs together and this is about my oldest dog, who's a nine year old shepherd. Nine year old shepherd my first dog, my very, very first dog of my own. He was like my son. So I get a call from her. I'm finishing up right from an appointment and it's raining and she said someone stabbed our dog all over. You need to hurry up. Someone stabbed our dog all over. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It's like what do you mean? And she kept crying and her voice was shaky too and she said I don't know, someone stabbed our dog all over. You need to hurry the fuck up and come home. Guys, I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Like, who would do that to a dog? This is a nine year old shepherd, and why would they do that? How can they get in close to my dog like that? How? I have four shepherds, you know, two of them were pure and two of them were mixed shepherds who would have the balls to come in our yard and stab our dog.

Speaker 1: 3:47

I'm driving, I'm crying and it's raining, and when it's raining you can barely see how it is. And when you're crying, you know it doesn't make it any better. You can barely see. So I'm going to leave it at that. I'm going to get back to this. I'm going to get back to this because it's kind of too emotional.

Speaker 1: 4:07

So I'm going to mention two other things, two other stories, and I'll finish it with Sharp. His name was Sharp, my German Shepherd was my first son, he was my boy. I didn't even have any kids or anything before him. So I'm going to start with how I got involved with dogs. It's a touching personal story.

Speaker 1: 4:37

So this happened in Afghanistan. I'm from Afghanistan and this was probably when I was maybe seven, not even seven, probably, maybe I was five, five years old, five, six years old, and we had like a lab mix and third world countries guys, dogs stay outside. You know, it's totally okay, it's totally normal, expected. So we had to leave town. We have to leave town and this dog's name was we named it 1010, you know from the movie 1010. But we were kids we couldn't remember 1010. So we would call him 1010. And 1010 was a typical lab very hyper, happy, although looking back he looked more like this breed called Akbosh. Akbosh is kind of like a lab, but it's not a lab, but looked very similar to a yellow lab.

Speaker 1: 5:38

So we had to leave town and we asked one of our neighbors my dad asked one of my neighbors to look out for the dog, to feed him, and all that. And this dog was just happy, hyper, always jumping on people, and I remember when he would get out he would go after people, would jump on him, he would try to bite him, chase him. It was crazy, it was very crazy and to us that was expected. Like that's a dog, guess what they do. So the neighbor agreed to feed our dog and this wasn't in winter and I don't know how I should continue this. So the dog was jumping on him.

Speaker 1: 6:24

He came in with his kit in our backyard. The dog was jumping on him, getting him dirty, getting him knocked down, knocking him down, about to knock him down, and he got our shovel from the side of our yard and he hit the dog outside his head, like our dog. It was such a crazy blow that the dog just went blind from that. The dog went blind. So we came back eventually after three days or two days it was probably two days, not even three days and then we noticed like the dog was, you see, the paw prints of the dog all the way started from half of the yard and then the rest of it was dragging. You could see the snow marker was all like as if you dragged something to the door and we couldn't really open the door and we saw the dog dead outside the door. Guys, the dog was dead and the neighbor said that your dog was crying, howling, and we could see was he went blind because he was bumping to things, he wasn't walking right, he was hitting himself. I had to the walls and all that tripping. The dog waited on us and died by our door, our front door. That's the first time I saw my dad cry. That's the first time I saw my dad cry.

Speaker 1: 7:54

So ever since then, guys, the dog had like special place in my heart. I mean, I always was reading a lot of books from Jack London. I don't know any of you guys read Jack London. There's a lot of it about dogs and wolves and all that, and part of it is because he was homeless for a while, so he lived with dogs under bridges. He really really knew dogs and he explained that, you know, and in a story is really really well you can tell that. You know this guy knows dogs. So ever since then I was always really drawn into dogs. I was always, you know, wanted to rescue dogs. I was always involved with training, you know, shelters organization, walking dogs, helping people with their dogs. One time I remember my uncle had a dog and that dog was also like a yellow lab. You know I went to my uncle's house and they weren't home and then the dog was greeting me in the yard and I was playing with it and then they found me inside the dog house, you know, playing with their dog. Like I was like totally like laying with the dog inside the dog house. It was a huge dog house that they built from.

Speaker 1: 9:08

So if you really Pay attention, anybody that does something. Guys, if they have something that happened to them, it's personal for them or they make a difference. You know they love that cause. Those people are in it for the long haul and they do a better job. You see the passion, you hear it in their voice, you see it in their demeanor, because it's not just the money. You know, if someone gets a woman, gets assaulted, gets raped, right, and then they help out and this organization, they help women who are victims of such incidents, they do a better job. You know, it's personal for them. It's one of those things that a lot of people don't pay attention. But the ones that really have a personal story, those dogs, those people really do, you know, a better, amazing job they really do.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Alright, so the next incident that made me almost quit dog training, it just I had a profound effect on me. So you guys are listening to this. You probably have more than one dog, some of you. You probably know someone who has more than one dog, right, one thing I want you to do is don't ignore your first dog. Don't put aside your first dog. Don't like okay, this dog is puppy, you know. So this is what happened.

Speaker 1: 10:36

This was one of my clients. Okay, they get a chow and the chow was the first dog. Okay, the chow was the first dog and chows are so cute. They're very, very fluffy and they look like a stuffed animal and you want to play with them, you know. But they're very tough. Dog chows are one of the toughest dogs to train. You know, they're very tough. They're very tough, they're very stubborn. So they hired me because chow was going after you know, their new dog, the puppy. So I'm sitting down and getting history.

Speaker 1: 11:14

I always get a full history about the dog, like exactly what happened, how long they've had the dog, the daily routine. So they told me this dog was their baby, the chow was their baby. The dog was always inside, it was always on the bed, it was always on the couch. It was their baby, that's it. It was just the main thing. Then they get a puppy and then the puppy gets all the attention and they put this poor old dog in the backyard. They put them they ignore them the time to a tree, you know, to a chain, and you know this dog would always watch. You know like, oh, wow, you know like I was number one. And then now they get all and they didn't even know about this, they didn't think about it, they just were doing it like well, yeah, the dog, you know it's older, it's okay, you know this is a new dog, it's a puppy needs attention. Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1: 12:04

Well, this chow-chow was kept holding a grudge, kept holding a grudge, kept holding a grudge, and then when he had the opportunity, he would go after him. And the last incident it was really bad, like he would not want to let go, you know. So they hired me, they dog loved me, like he loved me, and you know, we of course had to use the put the collar on him, the shock collar, because an incident like this this is probably a story from maybe 24 years ago yeah, 24 years ago. So I told him like, guys, we gotta make sure that we were able to use the shock collar and stop him dead in the track, like one of he does that again. And they're like yeah, no, you're right. So again I told him like you weren't really kind, this is very unkind of you to do this where you put this dog, you know now in a chain and the new dog got all the attention, just moved in, and you know. And they're like no, you're right, you're right, we messed up, but we don't want to fix it. So remember, guys, dogs don't all of them, not all dogs do this, but some of them hold the grudge.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Oh, before I finish, finish with this story, there was another client. Then, in late, just like a year ago, they hired me and this was a yellow lab ironically, a lot of stories with labs huh, and it was a Yorkie. They was getting all the attention, all the attention. Why? Because he's small, he's cute, you know, they're like that's a big. So the lab, you know, was just brushing it off, brushing it off, and then he went after that Yorkie because the Yorkie kept barking at it and the lab was just tied, you know, in the kitchen, all isolated. In the kitchen they had like a doggy door and the Yorkie was running the show and the lab was the first dog. The lab was the first dog, was the older dog. So all of a sudden this lab went after this Yorkie and it kept shaking him like a rag dog, broke his jaw, broke his jaw where he ended up in an emergency room. They saved him.

Speaker 1: 14:10

But that's when they hired me and I told him like well, you know why, right, like you kept pushing this dog away. It was your first dog, it was your baby. And then you're doing this, you know, like you totally had the small dog takeover because he's new, new dog, you know branch, new, you know puppy, and gets all the attention. And they agreed, they agreed like, okay, how are we gonna fix this? So I helped them, we fixed the problem. You know, now they're fine. They were doing a lot of things wrong, a lot of things. So back to the chow-chow. So I'm, you know, working with them and as I go, okay, now I'm testing the chow-chow, it's working, it's getting his attention, everything.

Speaker 1: 14:54

And this guy, the boyfriend, didn't want to work with me. He kept saying it's hopeless, it won't work. You know, it's like well, let's give it a shot. You know, like I'm gonna get rid of this dog. And I said, well, you gotta get rid of the problem, not the dog. You know, we gotta fix the problem, tackle the issue. And the boyfriend, just like it was very like whatever. You know, it's like I'm gonna shoot that dog. I'm gonna shoot that dog if he goes after this dog again. I kept telling him, like what went wrong? Like you keep ignoring this poor chow. And now he wants revenge. And the guy kind of didn't care. He's like, whatever. You know, that's how it is what it is.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Guys, if it weren't for women, I wouldn't be in business. Guys always think men think they know it all, they think they're like master dog trainers. They think, and they ironically get bit a lot too. Oh, I know he won't bite me, I know about dogs and they put their hand out and then, bam, they get bit. So women are usually more kind, they're more passionate, they want to make sure they don't give up on the dog. They want to not break the dog spirit. They don't want to. They want to do it really in a way that's like they're comfortable and they see result and the dog has his personality. All that. And that's the goal, guys. That's the idea, right?

Speaker 1: 16:13

So we finally put the chow together with that dog. You know and again, this is years ago, guys, I don't know how exactly happened the chow goes after the dog and hangs onto its neck. It doesn't let go, guys. It does not let go. I'm shocking them. We're screaming. You know everyone's. You know pulling on the dog. You know the woman's pulling on the dog. I'm pulling on the dog, I'm hitting the dog, my hand hurts. I'm keeping it. Nothing, nothing like, it's like nothing. I'm shocking the dog. I'm shocking so much, all the way to the maximum. The chow call button goes inside, like I never seen that happen because I was pressing down on it. He was taking the chow, everything like nothing, like it wasn't.

Speaker 1: 17:02

So all sudden, I see the boyfriend come out with a shotgun in his head, like whoa, whoa, whoa. It's like, what do you? And he gets a shotgun. It's like, oh my God, is he gonna shoot the dog, is he gonna shoot me, like you know? And then he keeps hitting the dog with the shotgun or the back of its in his head. He keeps hitting it, hitting it, hitting it, and finally the chow, let's go. So the chow let's go. And he drags it.

Speaker 1: 17:25

And they were living in a country area. He drags it, you know, outside, you know like, and he's like now I'm gonna shoot him. I'm gonna shoot him like don't do that, please don't do that. You know I was so shaken, guys, I want to shock, I want to shock. So of course, you know I left and I said I'm begging you don't do this. Do it more humanely, find this dog and I'm home. He's not a bad dog. You just can't have him living together.

Speaker 1: 17:55

And they did that. They got rid of the dog. I think they put him down. And the moral story is, guys, this poor dog just wanted to be loved again. He wanted to be accepted. Poor dog wanted to be part of the family and they didn't even see that, they didn't even care. So don't do that, guys. If you, you know, have multiple dogs, be fair, be fair, don't let your older dog get bullied either.

Speaker 1: 18:25

So now I went to another appointment just last week really nice people, they're actually listening to this podcast too and they have a small dog, you know, also unpredictable, and they have a pit bull, pit mix, or it looks like a pit bull, and this dog is like over 10 years old, you know, and really sweet dog, you know. And pit bulls, guys, la is like the animal. The spirit animal of Los Angeles is pit bulls. There's a lot of pit bulls. My logo, as you can see, is a pit bull. There's a lot of pit mixes, a lot of them. Like, you can go blindfolded, put your head on a dog in Los Angeles. 80% of the time it will be a pit bull. You can go to daycare, you can go to doggy, to dog park. It will be pit or pit mix. Yeah, there's a lot of them. I was shocked. And Sacramento was a lot of shepherds, shepherds and shepherd mixes and LA's more pits.

Speaker 1: 19:31

So we did the walking. This dog was going after me, the small dog, you know, and the pit bull you know. So I corrected it. I taught him how to walk the dog. How to, you know, they had a muzzle on that dog, everything. So then I said let's walk the older dog too. Like no, he's fine. He's fine, you know, he's old, he won't last, you know that long. It's okay, he just can walk only 5-10 minutes. He's old. I'm sure he doesn't want to walk. And I didn't say that thing. Like that's not true. The poor dog's thinking like this Like I'm old, I know I can walk, but I want to be there, I want to see what's going on, I want to be there, even if I last 5-10 minutes. It's not his fault that he got old, right, and very sweet dog.

Speaker 1: 20:14

So after after lesson, you know, I give both of them some treats. Leave them good notes. And that's how I use treats, guys, I use treats smartly, smartly. You want to make sure you don't give the dog treats, just you know, nonstop for every stupid thing. And I told him I like okay, this dog, even though it's a pit. Well, he never won. I asked him if he never went after a dog or person. The sweetest dog, sweetest dog ever. And I I've noticed, guys, if you pay attention, a lot of pit stories in the news that really went wrong are pits or pit mixes where someone got really hurt. Someone's dog got attacked. Just look it up. It's all pit or pit mixes Almost every time. You can just Google it. You can hit social media, dog attack. It's a lot of pit and pit mixes. So I'll go. I'll get into that why I'm saying this.

Speaker 1: 21:13

I also met a pit bull like he would not hurt a fly. It was one of the dogs I trained in my home in Sacramento. I was doing it from my home and all these dogs were picking on him and he would not really fight back. I was watching this dog. I ended up watching him for like a few months. His name was Judah really sweet dog. He never would start a fight but he would always finish it Once. He would just go at it. He would just go crazy, would lose it.

Speaker 1: 21:44

Pits are famous for that, guys. It's not like it's been bred out of them, it's not. No, it's still a gladiator breed. They were meant and bred, you know, to fight. It is what it is right. It hasn't been bred out of them. No, it's not Any of you that disagrees. You haven't trained over 300 pit bulls. I have over 300 pit bulls and pit mixes. That's how many I've trained. I've done this guys for decades. That's a very common breed. Alright, so back to my own personal story.

Speaker 1: 22:22

So she's like you need to hurry the fuck up Kevin. You know, in Sacramento I won't ask Kevin because I was close my birth name is Kovion and Kovion and Kevin were kind of similar when I came to LA and there's three more Kevin's training dogs. I didn't want to mix them up or have people mix us up. There's one even Kevin the dog trainercom. You know he's in Los Angeles. So I went by Zedekis. I was like that name you know.

Speaker 1: 22:53

So she's like hurry, hurry up. You know you need to hurry up Kevin, the dog you know is gonna die. Like I go in there and I see my shepherd. You know, like his back it's all stabbed, like all. Like his back is like there's at least, and it's raining and it's muddy and he has a long hair and I'm moving all the thing and I see so many. You know it's like oh, my god, this is not fresh. This like happened, you know, a few days ago. Like this is not fresh and she's like I know. So we rushed the dog to the vet and they shave his back and they said that no, these are not stab wounds, these are bite, like what they're like. Yeah, they're bite marks and I never seen bite marks like that, because they look like they latched on and then they pulled and pulled. So now I got, I got it. So I was working with this kind of mine.

Speaker 1: 23:52

Really nice woman, very nice lady. She had two dogs. She found this pit bull on the street with a lot of marks all over it. You know, like her name. I forgot her name right now. This again was like 20, so my son is 22. My son was probably a year old when this happened, so yeah, 21 years ago.

Speaker 1: 24:19

So this woman said, look, I don't want to hold, keep this dog. She already hired me, she already paid me. Like, can you find a donor for this dog now? Either she said that because this dog was too much for her, or she saw the dog do something I don't know. So I was like, okay, I felt bad, they paid me, you know, the money for trading, like we don't want to refund, just if you can find the dog for this. So I said fine, so I got her and she lived with us few months, no problem, no problem whatsoever. So we put two and two together and we noticed this pit bull went after poor sharp and he, she just would not let go and kept pulling, pulling, pulling on his back and probably put he was pulling and you know the dog was pulling and it looked like a stab mark.

Speaker 1: 25:10

Guys, I was destroyed. I was so heartbroken, I could not believe it. I could not believe. Like, how can I miss this? Like this dog was obviously used for fighting, the mark, you know, all over his body, give it. Maybe she got in a fight, really bad, nasty fight. Those were from dad.

Speaker 1: 25:28

I was like how can I miss this? I'm doing this for living, I'm the expert. How the fuck did I miss this? That dog was like my son, guys. So you know they gave it on a biotics and all that and in the dog died. Like two days later, you know, my boy died. He couldn't make it, he couldn't recover. It was really bad. The infection, you know, went all the way to his heart and he was nine years old. He never, you know, stood a chance. So that toy broke me, guys. Of course, you know I let the dog go, I, I let the pit bull go. I should have taken it to the pound, I should have, but I was like I just didn't want to kill that dog with my bare hands. So here I am, the expert. I do this for living and they're living together.

Speaker 1: 26:22

You know, for months like how, I didn't see that. And you know, I know some of you will say, well, how can you not see this? This is your dog. You mean, you never pet your dog, you never saw him, you never paid attention. I should have done a better job. I had four dogs. I was always busy with people's dogs. You come home, you shut down, you don't want to deal with dog, no more. This was in the winter. You know dogs are always muddy and rainy and all that. But in any event, I should have seen it, I should have known I. You know it's, it's not. It's not fair. It's not fair really to put it all on on on the dog and the weather and all that. So, yeah, that really really affected me. Guys, I almost quit dog training there, like it. It just broke my heart, man, it really did so.

Speaker 1: 27:17

Sharp, you know, like he was so attached to me, like we did a dog training class, me and my ex and the dog, the whole six or eight weeks he would always looking at me and the trainer hated that. It, like, you know, he needs to not look at you, needs to focus on your ex, like, hey, I'm not holding it. At least we had two dogs. I was working with our dog and she was working with Sharp. That dog loved me, man loved me. It was like my son. Even my own son don't care about me. He doesn't even call text, he doesn't even give a fuck about me. Like he forgot he has a dad. That's why I always say stick with pets. Kids will disappoint you. Kids are not as role loyal as as pets, right? So Again, you know, I'm just trying to tell you guys, like whenever, if you have a dog that's, you know, your older dog give it attention.

Speaker 1: 28:17

Even experts make mistakes, like what kind of mistake I made? It cost my, you know, dog's life. Mistake was one is the dog is a pit bull. You know, I should have really known better. It's a fighting breed. My second mistake was ignoring all the red flag, like all those marks all over her, and I called that owner I was bawling, you know, and I left her message. Like your dog killed my baby, your dog killed my baby. And she called right back and she didn't leave a message. I'm sure she was very disrupt because she was so nice. This person like who does that, like you know here, you know here's almost two grand or whatever. I forgot, but I charge usually two grand or more and don't worry about the money, don't worry about refund, just find this dog a good home. And I was always like I was like I'm going to get this dog really socialized and trained and then I'm going to, you know, find it at home. And that's what happened. This happened like after like three or four months. So that was one of the incidents that it really really left a. It destroyed me, man, I'm still scarred.

Speaker 1: 29:29

You know German Shepherds is my favorite breed. You know I love that dog. They're like dogs of dogs, like they're very, very good looking, very tough, very loyal, stubborn, you know, very versatile. You can do anything with a shepherd. It's really the only thing you can do with a shepherd is hunting, but everything else you can, yeah, from you know, search and rescue to attack training or protection training, avalanche rescue. You can't do that with a Doberman or broad water or pit bull. They'll be shivering in the snow.

Speaker 1: 30:06

So, yeah, I just wanted to, I wanted to go a little bit, you know, deeper here and I feel that lump in my throat but, yeah, I let my own dog down again. You know, you live and learn, but that really really affected me, like, and the dog died peacefully, you know, to be fair, he just we give him a bath. You know, we took him to grooming. He looked nice, he smelled nice, he smelled amazing, and he just died in his sleep. He was just, his eyes were open. You know, just, yeah, I just could not believe that I messed up like that.

Speaker 1: 30:48

All right, thank you guys, thank you for listening, thank you for tuning in, thank you for, you know, sharing the podcast, subscribing and sharing it with your friends, relatives, neighbors, whoever can use and benefit from it. Right, I'm sorry if you got emotional too, but you know that's dogs, right, they're, they're, they hold a special place in our heart A lot of times, guys at the pound, if you pay attention and animal shelters, a lot of them are like that. The dog was the baby and then I started going after the new dog and then they got rid of the dog. See how fucked up that is. That was your first dog, your first baby, and you got rid of an old dog that could barely nobody would adopt it. Not many people would adopt an old dog guys. Not many people adopt a predictable dog. There's so many nicer dog you know kinder dog, younger dogs at the, at the pound, so think about that, be fair. Be fair, be kind. All right, love and light to everyone. More info on my website dogsecretscom.