E232: 개의 공격성

I'm Mike Chikascio, and I am the founder of AggressiveDog.com and the co-partner in the Aggression in Dogs Conference with Joanne Rectines. So excited to be here talking about the conference a little bit and aggression in general, because that's my passion. I got into working with dogs because I wanted to, like everybody else, help the dogs in need. And I found that most of the dogs I was working with in the foster environment were being surrendered to rescues and shelters because of behavior issues. And so I wanted to learn how to help dogs as much as possible. So I started dabbling and training and learning some bad things and learning some good things at the same time when I first started out. And like Emily was doing stuff early on, and that didn't quite match with what I was trying to actually accomplish in the long run. So I kept seeking out good trainers and advice. And I also wanted to help others learn and help the dogs at the same time. So I kind of started to, on this journey to help as many dogs as possible, was to go at a much bigger scale than just, you know, training on my own. And that blossomed into, of course, teaching other trainers and going and doing workshops with Trish and having incredible webinars with Melanie and Emily and all these other avenues to educate not only trainers, but the general public about working with aggression. So that's where it is now. And so excited to do this podcast. Doing big things, man. What about you, Melanie? I am Melanie Cerrone, and I am a psychologist and a board-certified behavior analyst, as well as a certified professional dog trainer. And I have two dogs. One is Wyatt, who's a mini Labradoodle. And then Teddy, who is a 16-pound terrier mix, who is just an amalgamation of about every behavioral issue involving aggression that you can think of. So it's been a lot of fun. Yeah. I trained dogs as a hobby all of my adult life. And even when I was a kid, I've been sort of obsessed with dogs since childhood and then trained as a hobby as, you know, through my adulthood and was working as a behavioral psychologist with people and tended to work with individuals that had pretty significant challenging behaviors. So I've worked with a lot of individuals who've had issues with aggression themselves. Or I've also worked with individuals who have committed sexual offenses. I've worked in the prison system. So I really enjoyed my passion as working with challenging behavioral issues. And having been trained behaviorally, clearly that was hugely helpful. And after 30-some years, I decided to see about applying my clinical skills to help animals,

to help dogs who had challenging behavioral issues. So my practice focuses primarily on aggression, as well as separation-related problem behaviors. Excellent. And Trish? Hi, I am Trish McMillan. I own Macmillan Animal Behavior in North Carolina. And I currently share my life with 20 animals. But you only asked about the dogs. So I will tell you about, I have a pit bull from a dog fighting bust named Theodore. And I have a sato from the beaches of Puerto Rico named Aleli. And I have a new little scruffy mutt named Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And they are all awesome dogs who helped me in my behavior consulting business. I am a certified professional dog trainer, a certified dog behavior consultant, an associate certified cat behavior consultant. And I have a master's degree in animal behavior. And I kind of focus mostly on the shelter world these days. I do take private clients, some of them aggression. But I balance it out with like puppies and normal stuff because I can't do aggression all day like some of you guys. And I do a lot of shelter consulting. So I teach shelter people how to do defensive handling. I teach a shelter dog behavior mentorship where we go through everything from intake to capacity for care to post-adoption support and everything in between. And that's been taking up a lot of my pandemic time. And I love it. I love coaching. There's really no training program when you go into the shelter world as a shelter trainer. We're all coming from different backgrounds. And suddenly we've got dogs with no owners attached. And it's a whole different kettle of fish. So that's where I'm coming from. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it from that angle before. But that certainly makes sense, right? Just you've really got a different picture there. Yeah, yeah. It's a whole different world. And a lot of us are unprepared for it. We're used to coaching the owner who's attached to the dog. And now we have a dog that we need to make appealing to an owner. And it's a conundrum for sure. Yeah. So since everybody here is presenting for the Aggression Dogs Conference, I thought we'd kind of kick things off by having you each share a little on what your topic will be during the conference. And maybe give us a takeaway or a key point that you hope folks will kind of learn from your talk. Mike, do you want to start this one off? Sure. Yeah. I'm really excited for my talk because it kind of rounds out why I wanted to do this conference in the first place. And it's going to take us through a journey of the work that's been going on with aggression cases and aggression in dogs over the last several decades.

So I'm going to go back in history and look at how we first started, talk about some of the developments that have happened over the years, but also really focus on what we can look forward to. So some of the developments in the industry and with some of the science and the research that's coming out now, it's all really exciting because it's just coming in. And it's such a high volume now with the way information spreads, not only through channels like social media, but with the research that's available and the information that's out there. So it's an exciting time to help dogs with behavior issues because we're learning so much more about things like emotions and the cognitive abilities and things like that with dogs and enrichment and so many other different topics that are coming to the forefront rather than, you know, it's all obedience training and all that stuff. So, yeah, I'm excited. And that was the goal of the conference is to bring in a lot of different lenses or sciences, not just one or one viewpoint, but to bring in a multifaceted, multi-view point of how to help dogs with aggression issues. So that'll be my talk and hopefully it goes well. Do you have like a kind of a takeaway or something that you want folks to kind of walk away with? Yeah, I think I just want us as an industry to be, you know, hopefully to be more open to other sciences, to other ideas, to cross pollinate what ideas we have now. And especially some of the newer things that are coming out with neuroscience and a lot of the other sciences that are putting forth some really exciting things. So that's the goal. Hopefully it's just that it continues this this dive into to learning about other things, other sciences, the theology and all the all the things that we can bring together as an industry to help each other learn. So that's the hopefully the big takeaway. Awesome. Melanie. Great. Thank you. So what I love about doing this work is that and particularly with working with aggression cases is that I get to work both with people and with dogs. And so aggression being, you know, a particularly challenging behavior, I think there's a lot of emotion that comes along with that with the guardians who have dogs that have aggressive behaviors in whatever form they may take. And so I love the fact that I get to work with both the people and help the people have a better quality of life as well as help the dog have a better quality of life.

And I know that it can be challenging for consultants coming into the work to realize that, oh, unlike maybe doing some of the shelter work that Trish does, where, yes, it's you and the dog and you're focusing on training the dog to have them be more appealing for an adopter, that you're actually working more specifically with the people and that in order to help the dogs, you have to connect with the people. You must have that relationship with them if we're going to make any headway at all with the animal to help them. And that's not always easy. And, you know, people sometimes have unrealistic expectations of us or what we can do there. They can be very emotional. And sometimes we walk into a home, into a situation, and there's family conflict going on. Perhaps the family members aren't in agreement with even what the behavior is or the way that they want to work on that behavior. So it can be super challenging for consultants because we're navigating a lot of the human dynamics along with trying to address whatever the challenging behavioral issue is. So my talk for the conference is When People Attack, Defensive Handling Skills for Humans. And I took my title from Trish and Mike's Defensive Handling course, which I've attended, and it's fantastic. And if you haven't taken it, please do. I highly recommend it to everybody. Even if you're not working specifically with aggression cases, there's so much good stuff there. But, you know, they talk about, okay, what do we need to have? You know, what tools do we need to have in our toolkit? Like physical tools. Like you want to have your gloves and your treats. You want to have your slip leads and your brake sticks. And, you know, it goes on and on. And so we also need to have a toolkit for our skills in working with the people, particularly when things get a little bit heated or contentious or there's some conflict. And that can really be challenging for a consultant. So when I, you know, look at some of the posts on social media, a lot of it is, oh, my gosh, you know, what do I do when the family's arguing? Or, you know, the kids start fighting and here I am and mom and dad are dealing with the kids and I'm here with the dog and the dog's aggressive. Or what if the couple doesn't agree on, you know, how we're going to proceed with training or one person wants to use aversives and the other doesn't. And those issues can get really contentious. So a part of what a big part of my topic is helping consultants handle those situations, having the tools in our toolkit to identify when, you know,

there's some early warning signs that, oh, maybe there's going to be some conflict in this situation. We're going to talk about essential communication skills for how to navigate difficult, challenging conversations with our clients. We're also going to be looking at some strategies for managing emotions and not just our clients emotions, but it can be pretty emotional for us. Sometimes we can find ourselves feeling pretty frustrated or angry in a in a consultation and how we manage that. And then we're also going to go through some specific, you know, phrases and questions and ways to actually manage different conflict situations. And then I'll also provide a, you know, kind of little toolkit of written resources for consultants where we have some scripted responses that they can use in these challenging situations. That sounds awesome. That sounds like such a needed topic for so many of the trainers that I've I've talked to. Yeah, it can be tough. And like I said, I know aggression issues are, you know, you can walk in and frequently there's a pretty high level. People are anxious, they're upset, they're frustrated, they're worried. And all of that can get intensified, you know, in an aggression case and can come out, you know, directed at the trainer when it's really not about, you know, maybe the consultant or the trainer. Yeah, it's not just the dog who has big feelings in those cases. Yeah, yeah. And so I think my big takeaway that I would like people to get from the talk is that these are skills that we can develop. They're behavioral skills. Sometimes we think of empathy as something that's an internal trait that you have or you don't have. But we can cultivate our empathy and we can cultivate these, you know, our active listening skills and our relationship skills. That's so important. And we can learn those things. So that's what I'm really super excited about helping clients to or helping consultants to be able to help their clients, which then helps the dogs. What about you, Trish? I have a fun topic. I'm looking forward to the people wrangling one, though. That sounds awesome. I want to hear it right now. Yeah, my topic is called Sitting in the U-Bend, talking about behavioral euthanasia. And I seem to have accidentally started a grief support group for people who have euthanized their animals for behavior. It's called Losing Lulu. I run it with Sue Alexander. And we thought we'd get, you know, a couple dozen people who wanted to talk about it. And we are now at over 12,000 members. And it's only been around for two and a half years. So there's a real need for this.

A lot of people have euthanized their animals and kept it under wraps and lied to people about it for years. And they're just stewing on it. So I think as consultants who work with aggression, it's really important to know when and how to navigate these really crucial conversations. Because I don't care how good a dog trainer you are, you will have some dogs that you can't fix. And we don't talk about that. We're just like, here's all the successful cases. I don't want to talk to you about the one that the aggression escalated despite everything we were throwing at it. And it's such an important topic. And nobody really wants to talk about it. So sitting in the U-Bend comes from the fact that our moderation team, which is 19 amazing people, some of the best people I've met in my life are on the moderation team for losing Lulu. We have a lot of Harry Potter fans. So sitting in the U-Bend is a reference to a ghost who sits in the U-Bend of the toilet and thinks about death. So that's what we do when we're talking among one another and the Aurors is just like I'm sitting in the U-Bend today and here's what's on my mind. And that's my topic. And what I'd like people to take away is it's okay. Like sometimes the ethical answer is behavioral euthanasia, whether it's with a shelter dog, whether it's with a client's dog, whether it's with your own dog. Like the relief of suffering for the human, for the other animals in the household and for the dog itself is it's part of our job. And I think it's important to just open a dialogue on it. Yeah, it certainly doesn't get talked about nearly enough. No, no. And it's it's not a I'm quite sure how I well, I had Lulu herself. She was my foster dog. And when I euthanized her, I got bullied quite a bit on the Internet. And I've got a tough shell. I've been in sheltering 25 years. You can't really. But I've been called things after euthanizing Lulu that I've never been called anywhere else. And it's just brought out a lot of aggression in humans, which is why I'm looking forward to Dr. Soren's talk. And my my friend, it's hard enough to go through a behavioral euthanasia, but then to be attacked by your peers, be attacked by people who mostly have never been in your shoes. I really think it's something it's hard for people to understand if they haven't been through it. So it's a super, super important topic. And I am happy to be invited to bum you guys out a little bit, but we need to we need to discuss this stuff. And it's OK. You know, sometimes that is that is the best solution for the entire dog, human, other animals in the household community.

There's a lot of things we need to keep in mind when we're making these decisions. Yeah, we have to balance everybody's rights. What's best for everybody. Yeah, it's kind of a hard topic, but certainly an important one. All right, Emily, you want to share yours? Yes, we are going to be talking about enrichment and what it is, what it means, how to do it. And I think the big take home point that we hope people walk away with is that enrichment is not just objects or activities. It is an entire framework for assessing and addressing physical, behavioral and emotional health. So so really enrichment is a welfare framework. And and and then above and beyond that, we hope to touch on how to do that. Obviously, getting in and learning how to approach behavior through an enrichment framework is a deeper topic than we can, you know, fully address in a conference presentation. But we hope that people come away from our presentation with a clear picture of next steps for how they can learn those skills and move through the process of approaching behavior through the lens of enrichment. And what that looks like and how that differs from a traditional approach to animal training. And I will just echo Dr. Dr. Saron's entire talk just now and say that a huge part of the enrichment framework means meeting the needs of all of the learners in our care, which includes the human learners. And so an enrichment framework also means protecting and nurturing our our clients' behavioral and emotional health. We don't have as much control over their physical health, but we can certainly take better care of their behavioral and emotional health. So that is what we're really hoping that people take away from it. That that's that is how we promote an approach to behavior change and a clear picture of what the next steps are to accomplishing that in their practice. I'm always amazed. I'm always amazed. And I've had this conversation numerous times with numerous professionals, how much sometimes improving the overall wellness picture and meeting the dog's other needs can help make reactivity training and aggression training more successful or even, you know, significantly decrease the kind of symptoms that we're seeing in everyday life. Right. The number of reactions, the frequency, the frequency, the duration, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And in fact, I have had many, many cases across species, not just dogs, where when we take care of meeting the needs, we don't even ever need to train.

Like we don't even get to training because just meeting needs alleviated the pressures that were eliciting the undesirable behaviors. And so obviously, that's not always the case. And I want to say I have I am not anti-training. There has been some misinterpretation of what I've been saying. So I want to be clear. I'm not anti-training. But my point is, if we're looking at behavior from through the lens of enrichment, we're starting with meeting needs. And then if training is a part of those, if training helps us get there to meet the needs, we do that. But in many cases, we don't even need to use training as a tool in our toolbox. And training is amazing and it's wonderful. And we're all here because we love training. But it's by no means the only tool in our toolbox. And it isn't always the one that we need to reach for. So, yeah. Awesome. Sounds fantastic. All right. Since we are primarily here to talk about aggression, I figured it made sense to just make sure we're all kind of working from the same description, definition. Mike, do you mind kind of giving us a rough definition here, what we're talking about? Sure. I'm going to try my best because coming in from all of these different sciences and different lenses, there's actually going to be different definitions depending on which lens or science you're looking at and who you're talking to within that discipline. And you'll hear during, you know, over my many years of trying to research this one definition, nobody's already agreeing, you know, so even in the same sciences. So I've been trying to simplify it as much as possible for discussions like this or just in general when I'm talking about aggression. And I've kind of just narrowed it down to it's, you know, it's aggression is a label, right? It's a construct that that that word itself. So I've been trying to steer by towards talking about aggressive behaviors. So the observable behaviors that we can see that we might label as aggressive or have the function of, you know, increasing distance. So really, I boil it down to just that one factor is increasing distance from a provocative stimulus is about as simple as the definition that you can get. And then we can layer in other aspects depending on which science we're looking at. So if we want to talk about it through a neuroscience aspect or a ethology aspect, we can layer in other ancillary definitions and things we need to talk about. So if we're looking at the ethology lens, we might start talking about like the predatory motor sequence and aspects of that that would apply to the term aggression.

But it's in this most simplest aspect, it's behavior used to increase distance from a provocative stimulus. And then we might also layer in, you know, keeping access to something that the dog finds a value or resource. But that's about as simple as it can get. And that's the one I've been sticking with lately because it works. Most people get it and I've been on doing interviews and podcasts and stuff and it seems to resonate with the listeners and people that are kind of commenting in because it makes the most sense for them. And then we can complicate it later on. So that's what we'll do at the conference. We'll start adding in all kinds of other ideas and thoughts, but we'll wait for the conference for that. Yeah. Yeah. Does anybody have anything they'd want to kind of add to that or that you described differently or that you think it's important that we kind of layer in there now? Night of your talks? I, you know, I know it's, you know, aggression is kind of a catch all this big label. And so when I'm approaching cases, really, I define it based on what the presentation is, you know, what that animal is doing in that situation, in that context, in that home. So, you know, it can be obviously different depending on what the context is. But yeah, so, you know, kind of looking at it, that big framework of, yes, here's aggression, but it can be something very different. And I, too, try to use aggressive behavior rather than aggression and then define that even more specifically based on the individual animal. Yeah. Yeah. I'd imagine kind of, especially coming from your lens that what the general populace might label as aggression is probably very different than what fellow trainers and colleagues may label as aggression, which is then even more different than some of the, you know, the, yeah, the other labels of experts. Yeah. When you split it down to like predation is something we, a lot of us see as aggression because the dog is trying to grab and shake and kill something, but that is not trying to increase distance. It's trying to decrease distance. And I don't consider it about, I don't consider it aggression. It's mostly about food. But if you are living in the house where your large dog is predating upon your small dog, that is absolutely within the scope of me as a shelter consultant, me as a behavior consultant, it is still a great concern to the people. So it gets lumped in there with aggression, but it doesn't fit in with a lot of the conventional definitions. So, yeah, we could, we could do a whole conference on just defining all of this stuff.

It's concerning to the other dog too. Yes. All right. So I know this can be a super hard topic. I think one of you kind of mentioned when you were talking about what you're going to be talking about the conference, it can be really hard to know what it is you don't know until you're in the middle of it. Right. I think a lot of trainers maybe get their first aggression case and then realize a little bit too late they're in a little bit over their head. Right. But it's still always better, I think, to maybe learn from somebody else's experience who can help us maybe not end up quite as far over our heads. So I'd love to kind of start there. If you could each maybe just share a lesson you've learned, either you've learned it the hard way or, you know, maybe you just got lucky and you kind of had a great resource going in that ties back to your experience working with, aggression and aggressive behaviors now that we've delineated that in there. There you go. Well, I had a really big lesson. My first the first dog of my own that I euthanized was a behavioral euthanasia. And it was a huge lesson to me because I was a baby trainer. I was a year into my apprenticeship and I was told you need to foster shelter dogs as part of your of your apprenticeship. And so I fostered 24 dogs in 24 months because that's how I do things. And one of those dogs was the one that I had to euthanize. And when I went into this, I thought I can fix everything. The first few dogs I pulled from the shelter to foster, I turned them around and some of them were complicated. And I found them homes and I was it's kind of like the Dunning-Kruger curve. I was like at the peak of my perceived abilities. And then the universe sent me Chinook and he was one of a litter that I fostered. And his mom was starved. His parents were probably siblings. His mom spent the first month of her pregnancy severely malnourished and the second month of her pregnancy severely stressed in the shelter. And I pulled them when they were two days old. Mom was almost feral in her behavior. And I thought, well, it's all in how you raise them. I'm going to fix these puppies and they're going to be the best puppies. And I was on the news talking about how well socialized these puppies were. And they were they know how to sit and lie down and shake a paw. And they'd been in the car and they'd met my neighbor's cats and they'd had kids over. And Chinook was growling at me at three weeks of age when I was doing puppy handling. I remember the first time I just rolled him over to tickle his belly.

And this three week old puppy who's just opened his eyes is like. And, you know, do people think, well, probably he was abused. Well, I had him from birth. Like this dog maybe had a maybe he missed dinner. You know, maybe dinner was an hour late one time, like nothing bad happened to him. He was trained with positive reinforcement. He was socialized. He got early neurological stimulation because that was a new thing. And I'm like, these puppies are getting that. And by four months of age, he was coming up from under the bed and attacking you. If you walk by something he had by six months of age, it took five of us to hold him down for a blood draw so we could put him on Prozac. And by 18 months of age, after many, many, many attacks, which really improved my defensive handling skills. A lot of the stuff I'm teaching you is lessons learned from Chinook. Because he would attack me and my boyfriend and sometimes our other dogs up to 10 times a day. He would either threaten or attack us. And it was like a switch flipping. It was just like, in the morning, he's happy Chinook. And after nine o'clock, he had better be in a crate because anything could happen. So it was really humbling for me as a baby trainer to go through that. It was, you know, it took the Dunning-Kruger effect onto a steep nosedive into the valley of despair where I thought I know nothing. And it did spark me to get a master's degree in animal behavior. I think everything I've done since 1997 has been, like, trying to figure out if I could have done anything with Chinook differently. And I can tell you I would have put him on meds sooner. And I probably would have euthanized him sooner if I had him today as opposed to, you know, when I had him in the 90s. I still don't have the answer for dogs like him where the wires are just that seriously crossed. So that was a big lesson. And I'm glad I got it as early on as I did. And it has shaped everything I've done since then. Man, first of all, bravo to you for doing 24 dogs in 24 months. That's heckin' impressive. And then, you know, wow, what a story. And what a kind of way to kick off your training career. I mean. I could have gone either way from there, honestly. I could have been like, I'm scared of dogs now. I'm going to train, go back to training horses. They're a lot easier. And I think a lot of people would have gone that direction, right? They would have dealt with that and then thrown out their hands and been like, all right, I'm not going to stick in this world. But props to you. It was hard. It was years before I could even talk about him. It was not a fun thing to go through.

Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing with us. Emily, do you want to go next? Yeah. I think the biggest lesson that I learned, which sort of led me to, or I think I was exposed to the concept of enrichment pretty early on in my career, just because I was working with exotics. And so, you know, that's kind of where the concept of enrichment comes from. But the sort of lesson that made me realize how to generalize this concept across species was realizing that I can have the best training plan in the world that would be super effective if I were the one implementing it. And it is absolutely useless if I'm not meeting my clients' needs, if I'm not addressing their pain points as soon as possible, if I'm not framing their expectations, if I'm not establishing a relationship based on empathetic listening, and if I'm not splitting up the steps into small enough approximations that it feels sustainable and comfortable for them, it doesn't matter how good the training plan is. I'm not going to be successful at reaching our mutual goals until I start meeting my clients' needs in that way. And that was a huge lesson for me because I started, when I started, I was working with, I ran a foster and kind of information resource organization in Austin called Austin Parrot Society. I was working with horses at a stable where the stable owner required people to get behavioral care for their horses if they wanted to continue boarding them there. And I was working in aviary and wildlife rehab where we're working directly with the animals. And so my start in my career was clients who were captive audiences, right? Or the clients just weren't even involved. Like, you know, like Tricia was talking about in shelters, like you're just working with the dogs to help them become more appealing. Or you're just working in wildlife rehab, there are no clients because we're hopefully we're going to re-release these animals. And so I went from that background to a sanctuary where, again, we have captive audiences and people who are highly motivated to work with us. If they're willing to drive across the country to adopt an animal from the sanctuary, then they're going to be more prone to listening to the people from that sanctuary, right? And so the first eight years of my career as a behavior consultant, I had this huge selection bias of like only working with clients who sort of had to succeed, right? And then it wasn't until I moved to Salt Lake five and a half years ago that I really entered the real world where clients are kind of free agents and they come and go as they please.

And on top of that, the communication culture here is very interesting. And so, you know, I had to learn how to work with all types of communication styles. And that was where it was a really painful lesson. There was like a two and a half year period where I was really discouraged because the strategies that had been successful for me my whole career suddenly weren't working. And the lesson that I had to learn was, oh yeah, every experience I've had up to this point are people who sort of had to work with me until the end if they wanted the animal or if they wanted to continue boarding their horses or whatever. And now I'm at a place where if I want to keep clients and I want to help them to succeed, I have to focus on meeting their needs. It's not just about meeting the animal's needs. It's also about meeting the client's needs. And that was a game changer for me because I had been taught well by my mentors how to write good training plans and how to implement them and be successful and be a creative problem solver. But I had to learn from the real world how to apply the concept of enrichment to the humans who are also in my care. And that was the doozy for me. A couple of pieces in there. First of all, props to that barn owner, man. Yeah, I don't get the sense that that's common. She was unique in that she was a liberty method trainer, which is as close to, you know, Lima training as at the time you would find. But also she worked a lot with horse rescue. So she got a lot of horses with maladaptive behaviors. And so it was kind of in order to keep the stable, peaceful and functional, she had to, you know, have some pretty strict rules in place about. Yeah. Yeah. So major props to her for doing that and for requiring that and for investing in that or requiring people to invest in that. And I think kind of similar to what we're talking about with Trish, right, where a lot of people might have thrown up their hands and been like, I don't want to learn this. This is too hard. Or I don't know how to handle this. So I'm going to give up. Like you chose to push through and learn those skills. And I think that ties back to what Melanie was saying, right, about they are learnable and they are things that are valuable and kind of worth learning. Because look at the difference you're making now, right? I mean, I think that's a great thing to kind of remind folks of. Thank you. I mean, all credit to my mentors who I constantly am asking questions and bugging and crying to. Right. Yeah. I had to think about this. I was listening to you guys talk about your experiences and I was like, what is mine?

So it was actually, it took me, I always think back to one moment and like people like, what mistakes have you made? Or what resonates in your mind of something that has really changed maybe from one incident or a combination of incidents? And one time I was working with this Bernese Mountain Dog and it had handling issues. So like didn't like nail trims, would bite the owners for any kind of husbandry, like ear cleanings, that kind of stuff. And I'm sorry. And I'd done a lot of cases. I was working a lot of aggression cases at the time and I was working mostly through the framework of desensitization and counter conditioning. And mostly dogs, you know, dogs with leash reactivity issues or dogs that may be resource guards. So stuff at a distance, right? With these dogs. A lot of, I wasn't doing a whole lot of husbandry handling at that time. And I'd done some, but it was always just, again, the D slash CC framework. You know, you go in, you can D slash CC anything. You know, you can make dogs love everything with D slash CC. That's all stuck on at the time. But the big thing that was missing out of that was the choice and control in that conversation with the animal. And so, yeah, I can be as, you know, rainbows and unicorns and flowers as possible with this dog. But even doing that, you're still being, you can still be coercive without realizing it. And so, that's what I was doing with this. I was sitting there with a client. I'm like, yeah, I know what I'm doing. This is great. I got hot dogs. I'm going to be showing the dog the nail trimmer and giving a hot dog. Next thing your dog, everything you read in books, the dog's going to love this, right? But it wasn't, the dog was like not part of the conversation, right? And I learned very quickly that it's a very bad idea to enter into a conversation with a dog that's not ready for it. And especially one that weighs, you know, over 100 pounds and that I was not using any protective contact with. And I was sitting on the floor with stupidly. And the dog was like, you know what? I don't think I'm, I don't think I'm cool with this anymore. And he, he lunged and snapped in my face. And fortunately, I had very, very exquisite bite inhibition. Didn't make contact. But literally, I could, he left some spit on my face and just, but no marks, thankfully. And that was a big game changer for me because not only was it startling, I'm like, whoa, this literally almost bit my face off. And I did some stupid moves here. Even though I thought I could do this DNCC really well, dog wasn't entering that conversation.

So I've learned a lot over the years to make, make sure I'm, I'm reading dogs in the sense that they're entering in the conversation. They actually want to be part of the process. And there's ways to do that, of course, like start button behaviors and the communication you're getting from the dog. But so important because you can, we do that. We throw these magical plans that look good on paper, but we forget sometimes that the dog has to be part of that conversation. So that was the, the big, you know, thing that really helped to shift how I was approaching a lot of my cases, especially when we're working up close with the dogs with limited options for protected contact. And now I also put in layers of protected contact in those handling cases as well. So that was kind of the big moment for me in my career that says, thank you for, for letting me know to the dogs, you know. I mean, what a good thing that that dog had that much bite inhibition because that could have, it could have been really bad. I could think of a number of dogs that could have went really badly with, and you know, bravado and not just not knowing enough at the time is what can happen. Yeah. We all make mistakes and we're dealing with aggressive dogs. Those mistakes can have some serious consequences. Yes. Yeah. So you mentioned you would do it a little bit differently today. Do you want to give folks a sneak peek into maybe? Totally. Yeah. It'd be all about consent exercise, you know, getting something from the dog, a star bond behavior or some indication that the dog is an active participant in the exercise. So maybe taking a step back and see if the dog approaches and then this whole nail trimming, the flash CC type of thing or installing a star bond behavior, like a chin rest or something else. Looking at the food ball, the Chirag Patel's pocket game. Shout out to him. As far as like something that the dog says, you know, I want to continue on or I want to move forward with what's happening here. This is this looks like a fun game. I can do it. But dogs got to say they're okay with it or else, again, we're just, you know, hoping that the dog's okay with it. And that's not always the case. Oh, well, one of the things that I think about when I was making this transition into helping people with their dogs and a part of it is, you know, my learning history and what I brought, you know, from my previous work. And you would think that having this background in psychology and in behavior analysis that I would have used those skills. And unfortunately, it just all didn't transfer.

There was, you know, there wasn't the natural generalization. We talk about generalization, you know, animals not being good generalizers. Well, guess what? We aren't good generalizers either, our species. So, one of the things that I did that was not particularly helpful and then it sort of hit me like a ton of bricks and really changed how I have worked with my clients is, you know, I would come in, do my consultation, come in with a lot of resources. I would want to dump the kitchen sink at this problem and onto my clients of, you know, here's everything I know, everything you can do. You know, here's articles, here's links, here's blogs, here's videos, you know, here's the training plan. Here's what you need to do for management. Here's some enrichment ideas. And then guess what happens? Gee, the next week comes and they haven't done anything. And I think that we as consultants can see that as, you know, if these people cared enough about their dog, if they were, you know, really invested, they would do what we say. And they have this aggressive dog and they're still not doing anything. Well, this really, I realized was, whoa, wait a minute. This was my problem. I was not breaking it down on something Emily said earlier. I was not breaking it down for my clients. It was dumping too much information on my clients with this expectation that you have to do everything. I wasn't breaking, I wasn't shaping their behavior. And so I have really changed how I work. The first things I want to do, just like if I were working with people and doing behavior analysis with people, is that I would want to set them up for success. I'd want to get the, you know, environment enriched, get their, you know, Emily, you talked about, you know, their wellness, make sure everything's in place. So let's get some, you know, let's just make sure some of the basic needs, the dog's getting enough, exercise, enrichment, their health is, they're in good health. Have some of these things in place as well as, and I stopped calling it management. I'll say kind of our first line training strategies because some people will say, oh, no, no, I don't want to do that management stuff. That's kind of the appetizer. And I don't want an appetizer. I want to get right to the training, which is the main course. When really we know that those antecedent things, so make things like maybe, you know, let's not take our dog out walking in the neighborhood where they're going to encounter all kinds of people and dogs that, you know, they're already firing off and they're very reactive with.

Or let's, you know, when you have guests come to your house, you're going to have your dog in another room so they're not, you know, bombarded with people, you know, right from the get-go. That those aren't optional. That these are really antecedent interventions. And that they're interventions that we need to kind of get up and running and in place first before we can move on to the main course. And shaping those behaviors in our clients. If they're not doing our great big giant training plan, Emily said, yes, I could have the best training plan in the world. Yeah, but if I haven't broken it down and I dump that on my clients and they are feeling like, oh my gosh, I am so overwhelmed. I don't even know where to begin. That's not serving anybody. So it's really changed how I give people information where I really look at, you know, where are they in this situation with this dog? What is going to help them right now? What do they need to have maybe for the next, you know, in the next day or two, in the next, you know, week? And then dripping that information, communicating maybe more frequently with them and guiding them, helping them with baby steps. So that they stay in the process, you know, and making it more manageable so that it's something they can do. So once I realized, wow, and made that shift, I think it's been a game changer. And I think more helpful for my clients. And I've been able to be more effective. I think a lot of trainers find client compliance is hard to get, right? And that's kind of what you're getting at, right? Is like, how do you actually get the client to do the things? Yes. That was my talk at the Lemonade Conference too. A piece of that was, you know, client compliance. And why aren't our clients doing, they would just do what we tell them to do or do what we want them to do. So, and a lot of that is, okay, how can I meet my clients where they are? How can I figure out where they are at in this moment? And how can I shape their behaviors, have them contact reinforcement so they keep going with it and breaking it down for them? Yeah. I think we hear the analogy all the time of, you know, you don't take your car to the mechanic and expect them to teach you how to fix it. You want them just to fix it. But also, it's not a perfect analogy, right? Because with dog training, we actually do need the client to do some of the work. Absolutely. So, yeah, again, it's the dog in that context, in that context with those people in that environment. And it's making them working with their dog. So, you know, as a psychologist and behavior analyst, I worked in residential.

And we would take kids and have them maybe in our residential program for a year or two. And then what we would do is they would go back home. And although they'd made tons of progress in residential treatment, they went home to their home environment. And those behaviors didn't generalize. Well, they're context-handed. And we weren't doing a good job of teaching their parents how to implement those interventions in their natural environment. And so now in psychology and behavior analysis, there's, you know, much more focused on thinking about generalization from the get-go. And it's the same way with our dog clients. We have... So much carryover there. Oh, it is. It's, yes. It's all, yeah. It's all the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. It's very important stuff. It's very important lessons here, guys. Kind of to build on that a little bit, you know, I'm on lots of, probably more than I should admit, Facebook groups and lists and communities for dog trainers. And on one of them the other day, we had a, you know, slightly more novice trainer ask a question about a case and she kind of got piled on, right? Like people were like, you should just refer this out or you should just, you know, you shouldn't be handling this. This is clearly over your head. But we can't really learn if we don't start with asking questions. So I think it's super important to find safe places where you can learn and where you can ask questions and kind of how to handle all of that. So I'd love to have you each kind of talk a little bit about where you turn if you have a tricky case and how, you know, you work to continue to grow your own skills and learn. Maybe with a little bit of advice so that folks know where they can go. I'm going to have, it's kind of a multi-pronged question. So you're going to get a multi-pronged answer. Yeah. Excellent. I'm good at that. So first of all, I have, as I've mentioned before, a bunch of mentors and I kind of joke, this is as much as I talk about consent with clients and their pets. I don't, I haven't given as much agency to my mentors. I kind of joke that I stray kittens them home. Like when I meet somebody that I feel like, oh my gosh, I have a lot to learn from you and I feel safe learning from you. I kind of latch on and I'm like, congratulations. You now have a lifetime of me asking you questions. I mean, of course they can always like say no, but I do, I do joke that I stray kitten people home.

So, um, I feel like that is something that, uh, doesn't happen enough in this field because people are afraid to bother other people, um, or because they don't even know that that's an option. But, uh, the reason I have been able to overcome as many obstacles in my career as I have is because I have a team of people that I go to. And I ask multiple people, the same question, even people who aren't my mentors, because I have found it enormously helpful to hear how answers are the same and how they differ. And that gives me some information about what are sort of kind of fundamentally agreed upon things within across disciplines and where individual people are bringing their own perspective and opinions to the table, which is enormously helpful. Um, because as much as we all honor academia and think it's really important, uh, there is a little bit of, um, a pattern of people answering confidently as if it's a fact when really it's their personal opinion. Right. And so getting, get asking the same people, different, the same, I mean, no different people, the same question, um, has helped me to sort of filter through what does everybody in this field agree on? And what is personal opinion or what is still a debate within that field? Right. Um, so I think that those have been both enormously helpful for me. And also it's a little bit easier than asking the internet because you're speaking with somebody where there's safety, right? Um, there's a level of trust between you and that person, um, that you don't get from asking Facebook. So that is my go-to for information gathering. I don't ask the internet questions very often. I almost always speak to my mentors or I just ask, I'm like, you're an expert in this field. Let me ask you this question. Right. That said, I do think, uh, social media support groups can be really helpful and important. I want to give a shout out to animal training Academy because Ryan and his team do an exceptional job of protecting the emotional health of their members and creating a culture of safety and support, um, which is rare in social media. So big shout out to ATA. The, the only caveat to that is that they, I don't see as much discussion about aggression and maladaptive behaviors in that group because it's a more training focused group. And so, um, I totally love what they're doing, but for the, the topics that we're talking about, we just don't get a lot of that in ATA.

So, um, so Allie and I created our own group with that same mindset of support and safety and protecting the emotional health of them, of the members, um, called Lima animal trainers and behavior consultants. Where we can talk about some of the more difficult topics and people can ask questions and discuss things. Um, and the, the, just kind of group agreement is that we treat each other with care and support. We, we assume the best about people instead of assuming the worst. And we do weekly Facebook lives, which has been an exercise in, um, processing emotions for me because in the Facebook lives, we talk about difficult topics. That I find really stressful because I have a history of being attacked, um, for these topics, but we speak about them in a way that is, um, as, as balanced and kind of looking at all sides as possible. Nobody is free from the affect heuristic. We all perceive and learn things based on our emotions and our learning history, but as much as possible, we try to discuss things, um, looking at. Just the facts of, of what's happening. Um, and so even though that has been a difficult exercise for me emotionally, um, we've gotten a lot of feedback that that's really helpful to people because it's really hard to bring up certain topics without big emotions from every side. Um, so we, we created what we couldn't find, which was a safe space to talk about hard topics in our profession. Um, and so far, knock on wood, it's a pretty new group, but so far we've had a pretty good experience with people honoring the culture of the group. We haven't had to intervene anywhere yet. Um, so I'm sure nothing is perfect, but. We, we are trying our best to, to create that space that we hadn't yet found for this specific topic. You want to mention the name again, one more time. Yes. Lima, L I M a animal trainers and behavior consultants. And, um, and so just to recap, cause I feel like I rambled, I apologize. Um, but to recap first, don't ask the internet, find mentors, ask questions of us experts, ask the same question to multiple people to see what is the same and what is different. And then second, find, uh, safe groups to ask stuff. I love animal training Academy. I highly recommend them. And then our group Lima animal trainers and behavior consultants, hopefully is also a place that will be helpful. So for me, um, I, I, I just want, I just want to give a shout out to my students as well that the, the aggression and dogs master course, uh, students are really kind to each other in the Facebook group and community.

In fact, I don't have any moderators because they do such a good job of self-moderation and being kind to each other. So shout out to them. That's impressive. Um, it is, it is impressive. It's been amazing. Uh, that, uh, and it's, it's grown to a pretty large size group and there's still, you know, only very rarely do I have to, you know, kind of step in, but it's not even moderation. It's just a matter of just commenting. It's during the conversation. So it's great. Um, so for me, it's, I'm fortunate in the, in the sense that I have a lot of mentors similar to Emily. And in the sense, not in the traditional mentor mentee sense, but just a whole ton of awesome people that I can reach out to with questions and all of the different sciences and academics. But I am, I will say I'm very lucky. It's because of just the work I do in the, all the organizing, organizing of conferences and workshops and just podcasts and everything like that. So I'm, uh, I have a very big network of, uh, people that are in the know, so to speak. And so I'm very fortunate. I'm very lucky in that regard. So I think my viewpoint is a little skewed and a little different than, um, what others might experience. Um, that being said, if you're, if you're a new trainer, you're looking for those mentors or people to talk to, they're out there. And the best thing you can do is reach out to them and do it in a way that is professional, uh, but also respects their time. So from that aspect, you know, I have a lot of people that reach out to me and through all the different forms, it's hard to keep track of all those messages as you guys know. It's, uh, but the ones that you really pay attention is when it's a, it's a, got some information about the person and they're kind and they're, you can tell they're open to learning. Um, versus a two or three sentence like message, you know, it's just, that's not being professional or, you know, showing you anything about what you're interested in or what you want to learn about. So, uh, it's better from that standpoint, because there's plenty of trainers and people that can be really surprised that they will be open to at least answering your questions or maybe taking you on as a mentee. Uh, there's, there's plenty of those kind folks out there. You just got to look, um, and be prepared for a little discouragement. Sometimes you might not hear from somebody, maybe they're busy, maybe they don't see your message that can happen or, or, um, you know, maybe they're just not, uh, at the moment where they can take on any mentees.

Uh, but there's, but don't get discouraged because it's nothing personal. It's just a matter of reaching out and find those people. And there's plenty, plenty of good people out there that are willing to do that. So, um, go out and find those people that way. You have some, some people to bounce ideas off of and, um, making sure that, uh, you know, what you're doing, it's being sort of having the checks and balances put into place by somebody that has more experience in what you're doing. And that's, uh, that's what I've done over the years. And I, and I, like I said, I've been very, very lucky. So I want to give a shout out to all of the people, many, many more than I can mention in one podcast that have been helpful to me over the years. I know you said you've been lucky, but I think you're also pretty good at being intentional, uh, about building relationships and making sure that you're giving as well as getting right. That's what it's all about. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's easy to, to just take and take information, but you got to give back what, however it looks, whether it's, you know, you're going to have them on your podcast or write a blog post or share their links or whatever it is, or, uh, on, on another level, you know, you might, um, consider, um, working for that person or hiring that person in a consultant basis. Or, you know, so there's lots of ways to make those connections, but it is important that it's, that you are giving back or providing something, uh, to that person because we're all also working and busy in our own lives. And so it is important to have that connection, to build that relationship. That's, that's actually the key word. There's the relationship aspect. Yeah. At an absolute minimum. Um, if you're going to reach out to somebody, you should have read something they wrote or watch something they presented on. Yes, I'm sure. Trish and Emily and Emily can agree too. It's like, there's nothing worse than getting like an email for, from somebody that they, they so excited to have you on or so excited to talk to you. And like, can you tell me about what you do? You know, it's like, like, are you a dog trainer? Yeah. Do find me. And please bother to learn their name. Like get their name right. I don't know what it is, but people misname Allie all the time. Like, dear Amy and Emily, we're the hugest fans of your work. And I'm like, are you though? Cause her name is Allie, not Amy. So get their name right. Do that much labor. Bare minimum, right? Oh, I echo very much. Um, what Emily and Mike said about, um, mentors.

And I knew again, I'll speak to my kind of trying to transition into this field and that question of how do I become a behavior consultant? And there's really, it's kind of like the wild west and coming from, you know, psychology where there's a very clear path. You go to school for this number of years, you do this number of practicum, you do this type of internship, and then you get so many supervision hours after you graduate. And then you get licensed and there's a very clear path. Same way for behavior analysis to be a board certified behavior analyst, very clear path. And we don't really have that, um, in this area. And I can remember reaching out early on, um, to somebody, um, and, and they said to me, oh, well, we really don't do that, um, in this field. And I was really shocked. I had asked for some supervision or mentoring, particularly on aggression cases. And I was really kind of sad because I thought, well, it's not being done, but it. I think should be done. And, and I think that's changing and that shift has been occurring since I asked that question, you know, many years ago. Um, so I'm really happy about that, but I agree very much having, um, good mentors, um, and, and, or, you know, somebody who, you know, supervises your work early on, um, who's willing to help you on a regular basis. And then maybe that gets into a more informal mentorship, always look for people. Um, there's always somebody out there who knows more and is more experienced. And I have found people thankfully who were very, um, helpful and generous. And I too have, um, a great network of, uh, of mentors now. And, um, just everything that you said, that's so important. We never know it all. And the more I've learned, the more I realized I don't know. And how much more I need to learn. So I, you know, I'm always open to, um, you know, to feedback and, um, you know, hearing, you know, hearing from other people who, uh, you know, have more expertise than I do. More knowledge about a subject. And I'm also very, um, also want to be able to give back to trainers who are, you know, kind of new in the field and looking for that. And that's something, um, that's important to me as well, that giving back piece. So. Yeah. I think a lot of people overlook the fact that other people actually want the opportunity to give back. Right. And so a lot of times they're afraid to even ask. Mm-hmm. So I think it's good to, that you kind of mentioned that because sometimes people just need that little push, you know, where it's actually, it's okay to ask. And when, you know, and thankfully I asked again.

So after that initial, you know, well, no, we really don't do this in, in this field. I, you know, I continue to ask and pursue and look and consult and, um, and, uh, and offer to compensate people for their time because that can be, um, an issue. And I value, um, supervision and mentorship enough that, um, I, I paid for it in the field of psychology and in behavior analysis and, um, and in, in the training behavior consulting space as well. So it's that important to me, yeah. But yeah, keep asking, find those people. Heck yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's just so many paths to learning in this field. And I don't think any one of us would follow the exact path of any of the rest of us. So I favor getting people's hands on animals first and figure out if you like the work and the best place to get your hands on animals is in a shelter. You get a lot of, I mean, if they're getting no training and they get some training from you, it's probably going to be better. And I've had some amazing mentors in my career, but the entity I have learned the most from is hands down shelter dogs. Like those 24 dogs I brought home and looked into their little eyeballs as they're guarding a pile of vomit in my kitchen. And I have to figure out how to get into my kitchen again. Um, there's really no substitute for that. So I think get your hands on animals. And the really cool thing is in the field of animal training and behavior, there's always going to be somebody who knows more than some more than you about something else. Like all I've been doing for the last 25 years and 12 years with horses before that was, um, find people who know more than I do download as much as I can from their brains, take what's useful to me, toss what's not useful to me. Sometimes that comes back later and you're like, Oh, that was actually useful. And continue going to conferences like this one. And when we did in-person conferences, I found a lot of the synthesis for me happened in the bar after the conference or in the lunchroom in between sessions or just in the hallway. Hey, did you hear that? What Patricia McConnell said about that case she worked with? And we just sit there and talk it through. The other thing that I would really urge people, particularly in my field of sheltering, is to follow the evidence. Like, I am such a nerd. Like, go learn how to use Google Scholar. Learn how to read a scientific paper. Even if you just get through the abstract and look up the words you don't understand. There's so much changing. There's so much in flux just in the decades I've been training animals.

And there's new stuff to learn all the time. So if I ever stop learning, that's when it's time to quit. And the other thing that's happening now that I'm teaching newer trainers, newer behavior consultants, newer shelter people, is I learn from them all the time. I'm like, there is always somebody in my mentorship who's doing something super cool that I've never heard of. I'm like, can I steal your video of that to put into that next mentorship? Because that is super cool. And also by teaching, you sort of synthesize your own brain's knowledge in a way that you understand it better. Every time I teach, you know, aggression, defensive handling with Mike, I learn something from the students. And I learn how to say things a little better in ways that people are going to understand. So just keep on learning. And there's so many little paths to go down. I believe that it's really good to put your own dogs up to peer review. Like I train for agility. I train for rally. I really want someone to move here who does nose work. I've had the FENZ nose work module sitting in my inbox for about two years now because I packed up the kit and it's in my storage locker somewhere. And when I find it, I'm going to hope that course is still there or download it again. But there's so much that even if you study it all day, every day, there is still so much to learn. So I think stay excited about learning. Find people who know more than you do. Download everything you can from their brains and rinse and repeat. That's how I've learned, how I continue to learn. And I'm excited to be part of this conference and hang out with all of you after the actual broadcast and pick your brains on all of the cool things that you've been talking about here. One of the advantages, right, of presenting is going to talk to the other presenters. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I want to shift gears a little bit because we've talked quite a bit about consultants and other professionals. And I think some of the folks listening, especially with our audience, may actually be the handlers, the owners who have dogs who are struggling with some of these behavioral challenges. So for those out there who maybe are struggling with a dog who has been labeled aggressive or who they tend to think of as aggressive, I just love to have you each maybe offer a few words of advice or encouragement, just kind of your thoughts or what you'd want them to kind of hear. Melanie, you want to start us out for this one? Sure. Take care of yourselves. It is challenging. It is difficult. I have had a dog and not Teddy, not my little dog right now.

I had years ago, my German shepherd who was my heart dog and had many had issues. And it was eventually I did opt for behavioral euthanasia. So I know how stressful that can be to try to take care of a dog, keep everybody safe, keep your family safe, keep the community safe and balance all of those things, how difficult that can be. I had an infant at the time and a 15 month old and my elderly mother in my home and this very aggressive German shepherd and a chow mix. And so my hair was kind of standing on end every day. And if I got through the day without anybody bleeding out, it was a good day. And I had a consultant come in who wasn't very sensitive to everything that was going on and made some recommendations that were just, you know, unrealistic in light of everything. And so it can be super challenging and super overwhelming, but get support, talk to, you know, find somebody to talk with, take care of yourselves. And if you reach out to a behavior professional and you don't feel that they are a good fit, they are not listening to you. You don't feel like you can communicate with them. You feel overwhelmed, which was how I felt with my consultant. But I didn't feel like I could express like, oh, this is so much. Do you see what's going on in my house? I'm just trying to keep everybody, you know, everything under control. There's somebody else out there who will help you. So, you know, reach out, continue to look. Don't give up and say, I tried a trainer and it didn't work. Please, there are good consultants out there who can help you. There is help available. Yeah, I mean, I think that most behavior can be improved. And what can be really helpful is writing down exactly what is going on and tracking whether things are getting better or worse or staying the same. And it can be as simple as putting a happy face or a neutral face or a frowny face on your calendar and just see if you're having more good days than bad days. And the other thing that I tell all of my clients is, I'm going to give you a behavior plan. These are sort of general things that tend to work in situations that are similar to yours. But all dogs are individuals. All situations are different. If anything I'm telling you is making your dog worse, stop immediately. Contact me immediately. There are many different ways to approach problems. And, you know, if we can make it 1% better every day and those frowny faces start turning into neutral faces, start turning into happy faces, that's what we're aiming for. But on the flip side, not everything can be fixed. And I believe a lot of aggression has its roots in pain.

A lot of it has its roots in biochemistry that may be getting worse as the world continues for that dog. And I keep thinking back to Chinook. I had a boyfriend who was really like, we cannot euthanize this dog until we've tried everything. And we had this actual list on the fridge of all the things we should try and all the medications and all of the behavior modification and the medical tests. And every time I got near the bottom of the list, he would find one more thing. He's like, we haven't looked for a sanctuary yet. We haven't. There's a new medication that we haven't tried. So I think you don't have to try everything. You just need to try everything that's reasonable for you. And if you're a household with toddlers and other animals and a life and you've got to be away from home eight hours a day, what you can do with your dog may be different from what a professional trainer could do with who doesn't have a toddler. And so I think it's not the end of the world to send the dog back to the shelter if they're not a good match, if they are absolutely intent on killing your cat and you have tried a reasonable number of things for you, it's okay to call it at a certain point, whether it's behavioral euthanasia, whether it's rehoming, whether it's sending the animal back to their source. But yeah, keep track. I think that was the most important lesson I got with Chinook was looking at how many times a day he was going off and looking at. That helped me tell which treatments were helping. It also helped me tell which treatments were not working. And it helped me see that over weeks and months, his behavior was deteriorating no matter what I threw at it. So calendar, smiley face. Give it a try. Yeah, I think that's super, it gives you the data, right? It gives you the data to feel like you're making a decision based on information instead of instinct. And on the flip side, when things are actually getting better, sometimes it's still possible to have a really bad day where suddenly it feels like things aren't getting better. And it gives you data to look back on and realize, actually, we've come out. When you're in the situation with a dog every day, it can feel like it's not changing. But if you look like, wow, a month ago, he was exploding three times a day. And this week, it's like every second day, like at least we're heading in the right direction. You know what you're doing is working. I would say you're not alone, first of all. You're by no means the only person who is going through this. So there's nothing wrong with you or your household.

And even if you regret things that you've tried in the past, remember that everybody is doing the best they can with the information resources they have at the time, including you. And so playing the shoulda, coulda, woulda game never does anybody any good. So learn how to just be in the moment and look at where you are in this moment and give yourself some grace with how things happened in the past. Because you could not have done better than you did with the information and resources you had at the time. And I will echo the sentiments of both Trish and Melanie and say, data collection is your friend because training is never a linear process. You never just get better and better and better every day. I tell clients all the time that progress is like climate change, where we have these spikes and dips. And what we're looking at is a general shift in direction, not just this linear progression upwards. And so data collection helps you to see what that shift in behavior actually looks like. And like Trish said, data collection doesn't have to be scary or rigorous or intensive. We have very simple ways of helping our clients track data. It sounds like Trish has a really simple system as well. So find a consultant who can teach you how to do really simple, sustainable, easy data collection that will help you to see with your eyes, with tangible evidence, how things are actually shifting over time, as opposed to just sort of winging it and thinking that you're doing the best. Because as I mentioned before, nobody can escape the affect heuristic. We're all perceiving and learning things based on our emotions at the time and our physiological reality, how tired and cranky and frustrated we are. And we can't not see through that lens because we exist in human bodies. And so we have to have a way to navigate around our own affect heuristic. And the best way to do that is really simple and sustainable data collection. For me, I think focusing on normalizing aggressive behavior for clients, because it can be very offensive for a dog to display any kind of aggressive behavior in the eyes of some clients. And so we have to normalize that. Aggressive behavior is normal behavior. It's a normal survival mechanism for all species or else we wouldn't be here. We didn't display aggression in some context. So the same thing for dogs. Sometimes I'm helping clients just normalize those things and help them understand what their dog is going through and why their dog is displaying that particular behavior. Keeping in mind that person's unique cultural aspects,

what they've learned about dogs and how they should behave, I'm putting up big air quotes there, behave in our world. And that's normal sometimes. And that most cases of examples or cases of aggression, it's just normal behavior. There's, of course, abnormalities and extremes, but most of the time it's very, very straightforward in explaining what's happening. So for me, the big focus in this regard for this question is to just help clients understand what's going on and to help them normalize that, you know, when their dog gets, you know, growls or bites or whatever, the aggressive behavior, just a normal response sometimes to a perceived threat or something they're scared of or anxious about or stressed about. Yeah. Dogs have limited communication tools. They certainly are far fewer than we do. Yes. And well, the interesting thing is dogs are so good at reading our communications in some ways that we're just really bad at reading theirs sometimes. So I think there's some arguments towards that, that we as humans also have a lot to learn about dogs and what they're saying. I know we're running long, guys. I do have two more questions, but I'm hoping maybe we can work through this next one kind of quickly so that we can get to the last one. So I wanted to just ask you guys, I know there are so many myths out there, especially when it relates to aggression and aggressive behaviors and what we see in dogs. And I just want to give everybody a chance to maybe debunk their favorite myth. So if we could run through those, you can tell us kind of what myth you've heard and maybe why it's not true or kind of what is true in that instance. And Trish, I think you get to start this one off. All right. I've already touched on it, but my favorite myth to debunk and something I've spoken on at conferences is, it's all how they're raised. I think a lot of us blame ourselves for our dog's aggressive behavior. We're like, what did I do wrong with this one? I want to get a new dog. And how do I make sure that I don't screw this dog up? And it is, there's so much that affects behavior. It's kind of, it's a lot of hubris in humans to assume that everything the dog does is because of something we did or because of something. I see this in the shelter world. Well, he must've been abused. There's lots of men wearing hats who go around beating eight-week-old puppies in the mythology of the shelter world. And I would just say, there's so much else. There's prenatal effects. There's genetics are a thing. There's chemistry bodies, chemistry that's going on, brain chemistry that's going on.

There's pain is such a big part of aggression cases. So it's not all, it's, don't blame yourself. Like, just give yourself a break. It's, and it's really unusual. Like on losing Lulu, we have people who are like, I had to euthanize this dog. I want to make sure this never happens to me again. Like, Lulu's are really rare. Like, it's really unlikely that the next dog is going to have the same problems. It's probably not you. So take a deep breath, alleviate yourself of the guilt, and go forth with your next dog with some faith that it wasn't you. If your last dog had issues, it's probably, there was a lot of, it's usually a perfect storm of a lot of different things. I think the myth that I would most like to debunk is that just because you can get a behavior to temporarily stop through some method that seems to be really quick and effective, doesn't mean that you've actually addressed the underlying causes of the behavior. And that doesn't mean that that behavior problem has been fixed, and you can just move on with life. Behavior is not a light switch. You can't turn it on and off. So, you know, a lot of the discussion that happens in the shelter world and also in the pet world is, why wouldn't I use this method when I can fix the behavior in three days? And the answer is, you didn't fix the behavior. You just temporarily stopped it. And that's not the same thing. And temporarily stopping a behavior for the entire lifetime of an animal isn't meeting the animal's needs. And it's also not fair to the owner, because then that's a lifetime of constantly suppressing a behavior. So don't fall for the quick fix is the myth I want to debunk. I will say the myth is do not comfort a dog that is fearful or don't give treats to a dog that is showing fear. That's the big one for me. So it's absolutely okay to comfort or give treats to a dog that's displaying fear or aggression that's based out of fear because we want to change how the dog feels, not if you change how the dog feels, it's going to change how the dog's behaving in that moment. So short and sweet. We can't reinforce fear. Corollary to Emily, we can't cure, quote unquote, aggression. As Mike said earlier, it's aggression is an adaptive behavior for animals. There is no, quote unquote, cure. Stopping a behavior or suppressing a behavior is not curing that behavior. And, you know, risk, you know, a risk of an aggressive episode or another aggressive incident is going to, you know, risk is fluid and changes with the context, what's happening with the animal.

As Trish said, you know, if they're in pain, if there's something going on with them physiologically. So risk is fluid. There is no cure. So I'll piggyback on Emily and don't fall for that quick cure or fix. So our last question here to kind of round out our conversation, I wanted to give you each a chance to maybe drill down all the, I mean, we've covered so much ground, so much ground in this conversation. But to give you each kind of a chance to maybe pull out one takeaway or one piece of information you really want people to walk away from the conversation with. Remember, you know, kind of the last thought. So I think we're back around to Mike to start this one off. So my big takeaway is for everybody to go to the Aggression and Dogs Conference and learn more about aggression. Noted, noted. Yeah, so, you know, there's been a lot of great conversation in this podcast. And yeah, it's, for me, you know, I think it's, and all of the, we've talked a lot about the people. And that's why I love having Melanie here too, because she's going to be focusing on the people side of things. And one of the big takeaways when I'm talking to a lot of professionals, we always get back to the people and helping the people in these cases understand what's going on and why we have to focus on the humans so much in aggression cases. So for anybody that's taking on aggression cases or thinking about working aggression cases, I always remind them that, you know, you really, I mean, you got to like people to work with dogs anyways, but you got to really like people and consulting with people if you're going to be working aggression cases. Because most of the time, that's all you're going to be working with is the people. You hardly work with the dogs in these cases as much, because if you do, it's this, you know, the behavior plans for dogs really aren't that challenging all the time. It's working with the people that's going to be challenging. So hopefully we'll continue to see that conversation evolve as well in our work. And again, I'm glad we have people like Melanie and others that are bringing in this conversation and the expertise and the degrees and the letters after their name that can actually speak intelligently and are qualified to talk about this topic as well. So great, again, great example of cross-pollination of different sciences and disciplines and how it all boils down to, again, helping the dogs. Yeah, thank you, Mike. And you, I have to say, shout out to you for really being so open to bringing in different perspectives

and for welcoming me into this and to really valuing and looking at the mental health issues, not just in considerations with working with people, but also the mental health issues of consultants and trainers. And so you are a big champion of that, of taking care of yourselves as consultants and providing resources for consultants who need that help. So shout out to you for that. But yeah, so for, you know, for consultants to really, you know, meet your clients where they are, look at them and their circumstances, as Trish and I think Emily was saying as well, you know, people have finite resources in terms of, you know, money and time, emotional bandwidth. And that's going to vary from family to family to family. And not everybody is going to be able to do what we would do if that dog were ours. And so respecting what that client can do, helping them to the best of their ability. And for people looking for consultants, for clients looking for consultants to, you know, hopefully find somebody who's, who you connect with, that you feel comfortable talking with, and that you can have a conversation about, you know, what your limits are and what you're comfortable with, and to advocate for yourself as well. If you think that what you're, the consultant is asking you to do is too much or something that you're not comfortable with. Yeah, I think come to the conference, even if you do not have an aggressive dog, even if you do not currently work with aggressive dogs, I think just doing obedience training, you sometimes find yourself in the middle of an aggression case without knowing you're in the middle of an aggression case. Mike posted an amazing video on his mentorship page with a groomer who was being attacked, and she was not expecting that to happen when she came to work. So knowing all you can about aggression, if you work with dogs who have teeth, the possibility for aggression is always there. So I would encourage everybody to come and learn, and it's about people as well as about dogs. It sounds like we're going to have a really wide variety of different looks at this really big and important topic. I think my takeaway is that when people are first kind of presented with this notion of approaching behavioral health through the lens of enrichment or through the enrichment framework, they feel overwhelmed and like it's a really hard way to approach training. But what I want people to know is that once you learn how to do it, there is enormous freedom in taking a systematic approach. Because when you have these parameters to work with, it gives you very clear guidelines.

So you don't feel like you're just grasping at straws or throwing everything that the kitchen sink at a problem. It gives you a very clear plan of action. And that is enormously freeing both for a client and for the consultant. So even if something new sounds scary and overwhelming, I would encourage you to dive in and learn more about it because you might find that it's the most liberating experience you've ever had. Thank you all so much for coming on the podcast today. I think this has been a fantastic conversation. I super appreciate you all taking the time. Thank you. Thanks so much for having us on and promoting the conference. It's been great. Do you want to just mention the URL or the website address, Mike, where folks can go? Sure. They can go to thelooseleashacademy.com. It's on Joanne's webpage there. And you can find all about the conference, the speakers, the topics, the times, and register for it there. So hope to see some of the listeners there. And it's going to be a great time. We're going to be live streaming from Chicago. So it's not going to be just streaming from a Zoom screen behind somebody's computer. We're all going to be hanging out in a TV studio there. So it's going to be a lot of fun. Awesome. All right. Thank you to all of you again. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We will be back next week. We'll be here to talk about pressure in training, how trainers may be using it more than they think, how to train for kind of the inevitable pressures of the ring, and just kind of looking at pressure in all its various formats. If you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. They have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

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