Sergi Barrios: "Every day someone comes who is afraid of their dog"

The image may look like it was made with artificial intelligence, but it is his own hand, Sergi Barrios's, making the shape of a dog. He has liked them for as long as he can remember. He says that when he was little they were like a magnet, he had to go and touch them, but he never thought that could become a profession. He actually studied industrial engineering and spent some time working with renewable energy. Meanwhile, he was taking canine training courses that helped him, for example, to understand a dog's psychology. And jobs started to appear, and people started having more and more dogs. Today, that hand making the shape of a dog that he has on his WhatsApp is the logo of his own company where he works with companion dogs and also detection dogs that find things as diverse as truffles, explosives, or bed bugs.

How do you take good care of a dog?

— Being clear that it is a dog. It seems obvious, right?

The truth? Quite.

— Well, what I see is that many people try to compensate for emotional shortcomings. A classic case: children leave home, you have no one to take care of, and you get a dog. And there is an overdose of love and an absence of limits.

Give an example.

— I met a dog in Teruel, they couldn't take care of him and I took him. He was a very good, submissive, easy dog. A girl who lived alone ended up keeping him, and she ended up calling me a few months later. The dog had started by climbing onto the sofa, then by not letting her climb up, to the point of wanting to sleep on the bed himself and showing his teeth so she wouldn't go there. And I told her that that dog had to be reset and if necessary, he had to go on a leash inside the house, because that way she would have an element of control. It is very important that the dog never bites, the more times he does it, the more he perfects the technique.

Do many people bring you their dog saying that it is afraid of it?

— Every day. 

And what are you doing?

— I go to the house, observe, and gather information about the routines they have. I focus above all on three things about the animal: sociability with people, with other dogs, and what fears it has. And then I can look at the limits in the house. That is to say: not entering rooms, not getting on the sofa, wearing a leash if we go out for a walk... There are serious cases. A lot is said about euthanasia due to illness, but there are dogs that die euthanized due to behavioral problems.

It must be very hard to kill your own dog...

— I remember a terrible case. They asked me to go to a house where the dog had bitten the man of the couple several times, who had become very afraid of it. To the point that he had managed to climb onto the kitchen counter. And the woman, on the other hand, was laughing. She didn't give it any importance. And I was very quickly clear that it was a very difficult case. I told her they had to make changes, that they had a dangerous dog and that we had to address it quickly because it could get out of control. I had the feeling that she found me to be an exaggerator. 10 days later she was admitted to the hospital with I don't know how many bites. And they anesthetized him.

Are there good and bad races?

— There are predispositions, and you have to know which one your dog has. And there are also specific breeds that breeders have been breeding for a long time with a market objective. I know that buying a dog is frowned upon here, but you pay for the work that is behind it. And if you adopt, you have to know that there is always baggage. I do not see anything wrong with buying an animal.

What does a dog need?

— Eating and moving. You have to feed him and take him for walks. But we will never be able to give him all the physical exercise they would need: it is not feasible, because we work. And the dog has to learn that.

Learn what?

— To get bored. To get frustrated.  

How is it done?

— I work a lot with something called an educational dog crate. It still comes as a surprise here, but the English and Americans have been clear about it for a long time and use it. You work on it so that it learns that the crate is a safe place, where it must be calm and alone. And it is important that it knows how to do this, because a companion dog will spend many hours waiting for its owner at home. And it must learn this so it doesn't break things, and also for its own sake, for safety.

What do you mean?

— The dog can find a blister pack of pills, or rat poison. And then....it has an ulcer and you have to rush. It has also happened to me, with people who have a pool, who leave the body in the garden without being aware that they are like small children.

But they don't know how to swim?

— When they are small it is very difficult for them, and if they do not know the pool they can spend a long time trying to climb out where they fell...until from exhaustion, they cannot do more, and they drown. They must be taught how to enter and exit.

You have 5 dogs.

— All very well cared for, fed and dewormed.

And they are for detection. What does that mean?

— Let them search for things. Some bedbugs, others truffles... they learn it through play, it is about channeling their primitive instincts.

I'm amazed they find bedbugs...

— They are between 3 and 5 millimeters, and they know how to find them by smell. Sometimes there are hotels or nursing homes with people who have complained and who have doubts about whether there are any. I love it because it's like finding a needle in a haystack. It has happened to me that the dog marks a spot and I search for it with a headlamp and don't see it. And it marks it again and I end up dismantling the slat and finding two bedbugs there. It is incredible because the dog is always right. It still blows my mind when I see what they are capable of smelling.

And is it true that with narcotics they become addicted and then they look for drugs desperately?

— It is a lie. What is done is to associate, through play, a scent. And then when they find it in training there is a reward. They look for it like a game. And dogs associate very quickly. It is their virtue. They can quickly associate a thing with a scent.

Are you enjoying it?

— I love seeing the progression and when the dog tells me: I've understood you now. But I speak dog to them, that is the secret. People speak baby talk to them.

I'm amazed they can smell so much?

— They have a sense 50 times more powerful than ours. Not twice or three times, no. 50 times more. Imagine what it can be used for. In France, they have even been trained to detect breast cancer.

How?

— Tumors have a kind of "signature" with their smell. And attempts have been made to teach dogs to identify it, it was done through gauze pads that were impregnated with the smell. The dogs identified it in many cases, but it is still not precise enough to be used as a test. But look at the uses it can have!

What do you like about dogs?

— That they do not lie. If you see a dog that looks sad it is because it is sad. And when you see a dog that looks scared it is because it is scared. We, for whatever reason, put on a mask. That is something the dog does not have. I like this simple, basic, transparent part. And I like that they are collaborative, not loyal. Most dogs collaborate with humans because we have selected them for that. And they end up being loyal.